The rain stopped sometime before dawn.
For the first time in hours, the city went quiet — no sirens, no static, no hum of the towers. Just the whisper of wind through broken glass.
Stitch woke to the flicker of dying monitors and the metallic taste of sleep. His shoulders ached from the night's run; his hands were cut, his nails blackened with grime.
He stared at the ceiling — rust eating through the steel — and thought about how long it had been since he'd seen the sky without wires in it.
He'd been running since he was twelve.
First from debt collectors. Then from the syndicates. Then from himself.
Names never lasted long out here — people called him Stitch because he could fix anything broken. Locks, circuits, bones. The name stuck because everything in him was a patchwork too.
⸻
He dragged himself to the window and looked down.
From the height, the city looked alive — a sprawling carcass pulsing with light.
Drones traced routes between towers like veins. The markets below shimmered with heat haze and holographic signs, selling everything from fake citizenships to recycled memories.
He pressed his hand against the glass.
Cold.
The surface thrummed faintly, alive with the vibration of a thousand invisible systems running beneath it all.
He'd always imagined Echelon-5 as a kind of creature — metal skin, data nerves, power lines for arteries. And people like him were just… parasites, feeding on the edges where the light didn't reach.
He wasn't wrong.
⸻
Breakfast was a protein slab, half stale.
He ate without tasting it, eyes fixed on the cube on the table.
It hadn't lit up since last night. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling it was watching him.
He told himself it was paranoia.
The city did that to you — made you see patterns in every flicker, meanings in every shadow.
Still… something about the cube's pulse had felt organic.
Like it wanted to be found.
⸻
He went through his gear, counting what was left.
Two lock-picks.
One blade.
A half-charged comm.
No med-packs.
No backup.
He'd need to fence the cube soon if he wanted to eat through the week. But something in his gut told him to wait.
⸻
By noon, the haze began to lift.
Light filtered through the broken blinds, slicing the room into ribbons. Dust floated in the air like frozen rain.
He found himself thinking about the world beyond Tier Nine.
About the people who didn't need to climb or steal or hide to stay alive.
He'd seen them once — through the glass walls of a sky tram. Clean skin, straight posture, the smell of synthetic perfume instead of rust and smoke. They looked untouchable. Perfect.
He hated that he'd stared.
He told himself he didn't envy them.
But the truth was, he wanted what they had — not the safety, not the food.
The silence.
The ability to exist without constantly listening for footsteps behind you.
⸻
There had been others once.
A group of kids who called themselves The Skinners — runners, thieves, wanderers who scavenged through derelict towers for salvage tech.
They shared food, stories, warmth.
Until one night, a corp patrol raided their sector.
He remembered the lights — blue and white and blinding.
He remembered running.
He remembered not looking back.
He didn't know who made it out.
Didn't ask.
You learn early: survival means forgetting.
⸻
The sound of footsteps snapped him out of it.
Soft. Slow. Above.
He froze, knife half-drawn.
Listened.
The steps stopped. Then — a faint metallic creak from the ceiling.
He looked up, heart steady but heavy.
Nothing.
Only a single drop of rainwater fell through a crack in the roof, landing beside the cube.
It pulsed once.
Just once.
⸻
He stared at it for a long time, breath tight.
Then he reached out, hand trembling slightly, and placed his palm flat on its surface.
For a moment, nothing. Then a flicker — light spilling from beneath his fingers, rippling like a heartbeat.
And a voice — faint, mechanical, almost human — whispered through the static:
"They're coming."
The light went out.
⸻
He sat there in the silence, every muscle coiled.
Somewhere far below, the sirens started again.
Not the police kind — the industrial ones, warning of a lockdown.
He didn't know who "they" were.
But he knew one thing — the cube had just become something worth killing for.