The acid rain of 2025 tasted like pennies and old battery acid.
Jake huddled against the rusted corrugated steel of a shipping container. The automated cargo barge glided smoothly through the sprawling aerial traffic lanes of the city. Below him, the streets were a dizzying drop into a canyon of neon light and perpetual shadow.
He was freezing. The black trench coat kept the worst of the wind off, but he was still soaking wet from the rain and shivering violently.
"Core temperature critical," Yuri's voice vibrated against Jake's jawbone. "Hypothermia risk at 82%. We need shelter, Father."
"I know," Jake grunted, holding his bleeding right shoulder.
The shrapnel wound was shallow, but the blood loss was making him lightheaded. He looked around the flat roof of the barge. There was no cover, just rows of identical blue containers stamped with the logo of a mega-corporation called 'Omni-Corp.'
"Where is this barge heading?" Jake asked, his breath misting in the cold air.
"Scanning local navigational beacons," Yuri replied. "Destination: Sector 4 Industrial Processing. It is a lower-tier zone. High poverty density. Low security presence."
"Perfect," Jake muttered. "The slums."
He peaked over the edge of the barge.
The sleek, flying cars of the corporate executives were far above them, zipping between glass penthouses. Down here, the traffic was slower, dirtier. Garbage trucks and automated delivery drones buzzed through the smog.
The barge began a slow, groaning descent. It angled toward a massive, sprawling district of dilapidated concrete high-rises that looked like they hadn't been washed in a decade.
"Approaching Sector 4 docking array," Yuri warned. "Automated crane systems are active. We cannot stay on the roof."
Jake stood up, his legs shaking.
The barge slid into a massive, open-air docking bay attached to the side of a decaying skyscraper. The noise was deafening—the screech of metal on metal, the hiss of hydraulics, and the shouting of dockworkers.
Jake didn't wait for the barge to stop fully.
He ran to the edge of the container roof and jumped.
It was a ten-foot drop to the metal catwalk that ran along the side of the docking bay. He hit the grating hard, his boots slipping on the wet steel. His right knee buckled, and he collapsed, biting his lip to keep from crying out.
"Mobility reduced by 15%," Yuri analyzed coldly.
"Shut up," Jake hissed, pulling himself up using the handrail.
He limped down the catwalk, sticking to the shadows. He passed a group of dockworkers unloading crates. They didn't look like the workers of his old 2025. They were dirty, exhausted, and half of them had crude, rusted cybernetics grafted onto their limbs.
They looked like the drones of Neo-Moscow.
Jake kept his head down, hiding his glowing chrome arm under the folds of the trench coat. He found a stairwell marked with a faded exit sign and pushed through the heavy metal door.
He descended into the bowels of Sector 4.
The stairwell smelled of urine and cheap noodles. It was a steep spiral downward, lit by flickering, caged bulbs.
He walked for what felt like hours, his body screaming for rest. The adrenaline from the Orion facility was fading, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.
He finally reached street level and pushed through another door.
He stepped out into an alleyway.
It was narrow, choked with garbage bags and broken crates. Neon signs in languages he couldn't read buzzed aggressively overhead, casting long, unnatural shadows. Rain pooled in the cracked asphalt, reflecting the garish lights.
A rat the size of a cat scurried over his boot. Jake didn't even flinch.
He stumbled down the alley, leaning heavily against the brick wall.
"Father," Yuri's voice was softer now, almost hesitant. "Your vitals are dropping rapidly. If we do not find medical supplies and a heat source, your physical chassis will fail."
"I'm looking," Jake slurred, his vision blurring at the edges.
He reached the end of the alley and peeked around the corner.
The street was crowded. People hurried past under umbrellas that glowed with advertisements. Street vendors shouted from stalls selling synthetic meat on skewers. The noise was a chaotic assault on his senses.
He saw a glowing green cross halfway down the block. A pharmacy. Or the 2025 equivalent of one.
"There," Jake pointed with his human hand.
He stepped out of the alley.
He didn't make it two steps.
Three figures detached themselves from the shadows of a nearby doorway, blocking his path.
They were gangers. Or scavengers. They wore mismatched armor plating over cheap, synthetic leather jackets. Their faces were painted with luminescent gang tags.
The largest one, a mountain of muscle with a crude, hydraulic metal jaw, stepped forward. He held a heavy, stun-baton that crackled with blue electricity.
"Look what the rain washed in," the big man rumbled, his metal jaw clanking with every word. "Nice coat, corporate."
Jake stopped. He swayed slightly on his feet.
"Move," Jake said. His voice was a whisper, but it carried the weight of a man who had killed gods.
The gangers laughed. A harsh, jagged sound.
"He's bleeding," the smallest ganger, a woman with glowing red cyber-eyes, pointed at the puddle forming by Jake's boot. "And he smells like ozone. He's an escapee from the Upper Tiers."
"Take the coat," the big man stepped closer, raising the stun-baton. "Take the boots. Leave the meat."
Jake looked at the big man. He didn't see a threat. He saw an obstacle.
"Yuri," Jake said silently in his mind. "I need an edge."
"Your physical state is compromised," Yuri replied instantly. "Engaging in melee combat has a 94% probability of fatal trauma."
"I don't need to fight him," Jake thought. "I just need to break his toys."
Jake didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even raise his fists.
He stepped into the swing of the stun-baton.
The heavy stick slammed into his right shoulder—the wounded one. The pain was blinding, a white-hot flash of agony that dropped him to his knees. The electricity arced across his wet coat.
"Got him," the big man grunted, preparing for a downward strike to the head.
Jake looked up, blood dripping from his chin.
He threw his left arm up, catching the descending baton with his chrome palm.
CRACK.
The baton didn't shock the chrome. The Admin arm absorbed the electrical current instantly, drawing it into the synthetic nerves. The blue light in Jake's arm flared into a blinding, electrical white.
The big man's eyes went wide. He tried to pull the baton away, but Jake's grip was a vice.
"My turn," Jake whispered.
He pushed the absorbed electricity back out.
Not as a shock, but as a directed EMP burst.
The pulse blasted from Jake's palm. It hit the big man point-blank.
The ganger's hydraulic jaw sparked violently. The servos in his crude armor whined and seized. He convulsed once, his eyes rolling back in his head, and collapsed onto the wet asphalt like a dropped puppet.
The other two gangers froze, staring at their fallen leader.
Jake slowly stood up. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, but his left arm hummed with raw, hungry power. The chrome was visible now, the coat sleeve pushed back.
He looked at the woman with the red cyber-eyes.
"Run," Jake said.
She didn't hesitate. She turned and sprinted down the street, her partner right behind her.
Jake didn't watch them go. He let the ruined stun-baton clatter to the ground.
He swayed again, the EMP burst draining the last reserves of his adrenaline. The world tilted sideways.
The neon lights of the pharmacy sign spun. The sound of the rain faded into a dull roar.
He hit the ground.
His face pressed against the cold, wet asphalt. He couldn't move his legs. The darkness closed in.
"Father!" Yuri's voice was panicked now, an alarm bell ringing in an empty house. "Cardiac arrhythmia detected! You are losing consciousness!"
"I'm tired, Yuri," Jake thought, his mind drifting away from the pain. "Just... give me a minute."
"You do not have a minute!"
Footsteps splashed in the puddles near his head.
Jake couldn't look up. He saw a pair of heavy, worn combat boots stop inches from his face.
"Well, well," a voice said. It was a woman's voice. Rough, sarcastic, and smoking a cheap cigarette. "You look like garbage, buddy."
Jake tried to speak, but only a bloody cough came out.
"Chrome arm," the woman noted, her boots shifting. "Upper Tier tech, but you're bleeding out in a Sector 4 gutter. You've had a bad day."
Jake felt hands grab him by the collar of his trench coat. They were strong hands.
He was dragged out of the puddle.
The last thing Jake saw before the darkness fully took him was the glowing green cross of the pharmacy fading away, replaced by the flickering, static-filled face of a woman he didn't know.
"System critical," Yuri's voice faded. "Initiating emergency sleep mode."
Jake closed his eyes.
And for the first time since 1924, he actually slept.