09-11-2355 | 21:59
Forty-K Fringe — Old Borax Forge, Service Yard
—
The forge is a dead cube of rusted gantries and busted conveyors, a forgotten corner where miners used to strip ore and feed smelters. A cracked sign still blinks BORAX in a sick loop. Ryn drops in first, barefoot and quick, the rescued guy floating beside him inside a tight skin of water that moves like glass. Dax lands behind, taller by a head, jacket up, pulse pistol low.
"I'm calling it in," Dax says, his voice flat and final. "The show's over. We're done freelancing. Irie, a cage team, the works."
"No you're not," Ryn counters, turning quickly to face him. "You call, and he gets bagged and sliced up for a month. You know the protocol."
"He tried to paste my skull ten minutes ago! We need a clean team for extraction." Dax takes a step, closing the distance.
"He didn't," Ryn snaps back, matching his gaze. "The thing wearing him did. He's a person. He needs heat, not a lab table."
Dax's slate is already half out, thumb hovering over the screen. Ryn's hand flashes out and slaps Dax's wrist, hard enough to sting. Dax pulls back, eyes wide with sudden fury, and shoves the slate back in his pocket. He doesn't touch Ryn back, but he locks his gaze, breathing hard.
Bootsteps hit the gravel outside the chain fence. Two Harbor Enforcers pop into the gap between cargo stacks, jackets cut to look casual, shoulder mics blinking. They scan the yard like it owes them a fine.
Ryn moves without a word. He drags the kid toward a slag hopper and ducks behind the big rusted belly. The water skin turns mirror-bright and throws back broken neon. Ryn pushes a pressure hush over them—sound flattens, breath sits close.
Dax stays visible. He slides the pistol deeper under his jacket and straightens, the change in his posture from enraged Lieutenant to casual civilian immediate and complete.
"Evening," the first enforcer says. "Got a report: structural damage, weird lights. You work here?"
Dax flashes his chip fast like a tap. "Lieutenant Mercer. HARBOR Tactical. Off duty. Just walking."
"Behind a closed industrial site?" the second asks, stepping closer, skepticism sharp in his voice.
"Market path cuts through," Dax says, leaning on his authority. "Unless you're writing me up for loitering, you should try the stalls. You'll get more tips than in a dead yard."
The first tries to look around him. Dax doesn't give an inch, subtly using his height to screen the area behind him. He swallows the truth and commits to the lie, committing fully to being the asshole who covers a mess.
"Everything okay, Lieutenant?" the first asks. "You look spun up."
"Had a long day," Dax says, keeping his hands casual. "You got a complaint, go chase it. This is nothing."
They hold the stare three beats longer than comfort. The enforcers decide they don't love the paperwork it would take to push him. "We'll loop back," the first says, suspicious as hell. They leave.
Ryn lets the hush go. He and the kid resolve out of reflection.
"Thanks," he says, his relief visible only in the way his shoulders drop. "They'll circle back. They always do."
"Yeah," Dax says, walking straight toward the slag hopper. He stops a foot away from Ryn, his frustration radiating heat. "Which is why we make this clean, right now." He gestures to the shivering kid. "We say we chased B-4 to the docks, lost it in fog. We don't mention this yard. We file structural damage as collateral from Dockway Nine. If anyone asks about pulse discharge, I log off-duty training shots at the range. You keep your head down and stay put until I can negotiate with Han."
"No," Ryn says, voice hardening, shaking his head once. "No fake story. I'm not letting you bargain my life into another policy meeting."
"That is not what I'm doing, damn it. I'm giving us cover."
"It is exactly what you're doing." Ryn pushes a fingertip against Dax's chest plate. "You're trying to manage the consequences so you don't get a mark. You're not doing this for him."
The rescued guy's lashes flutter. His lips crack. He makes a sound like a word forgot how to be one. Ryn shifts his palm, warms the water, lowers his voice, breaking eye contact with Dax for the first time.
"Hey. You're okay. You're safe. Can you hear me?"
"Where... is this?" The guy's voice is raw. He looks twenty-two, give or take. Handsome under the shock.
"Out of the way," Ryn says. "You're not in a cage. You're not alone."
Dax takes that opening and finally yanks his slate again. "Enough. I'm not leaving a civilian in a scrapyard because you have some crazy philosophy."
Ryn's hand flicks. The water skin around the guy holds steady; a second ribbon snaps out, whips Dax's slate from his palm before he can dial, and smashes it off a pillar. It hits with a crunch of metal and glass. It shatters in a spray of dead glass and hot components.
"The hell, Ryn!" Dax shouts, truly enraged now. He takes a step forward, towering over Ryn. "That slate is issued! That's a career killer!"
"So is your gun," Ryn says, steady, pushing back against Dax's chest again. "You don't get to call a lab to take him because you're scared of a report. You broke the rules getting here, now live with it."
The kid flinches at the volume and curls in the water as much as the film will let him. "What... happened to me?"
Ryn doesn't look away from Dax, maintaining the standoff. "You got coded. I pulled it. You're okay."
"Am I... am I a monster?" the kid asks.
"No," Ryn says, eyes still locked on Dax. "You're a person. Breathe."
"I'm done," Dax says, turning abruptly toward the gap in the fence. He takes two deliberate steps, his boots grinding gravel. "I'm walking to the street and calling it in. On my own comm."
"Then you're done leading me," Ryn says, the words a clean, cold shot that hits Dax in the back. "And you're done leading anyone Downline ever again."
Dax freezes, his shoulders tight with tension. He knows the weight of that threat.
A tall shadow peels off the old forge doorway like it was painted there. The man smiles too bright for an alley. He steps close, quick, and taps two fingers behind Dax's ear. Dax's world pops white and drops out before he can make a sound.
Ryn catches him by the jacket before he hits the concrete. "You could have warned me, Veil."
The newcomer's voice lands with a lazy southern drawl and a too-cheerful lilt. "Darlin', I figured if I didn't warn you, I'd get less backtalk. Besides, if I'd let him stand there, he was gonna argue himself into a HARBOR holding cell." Veil is tall, cut lean, hands steady. Hair cropped tight on the sides, messy on top. Pupils narrow in the low light. Pretty in a way that is annoying on purpose. A thin tracer line runs from collarbone to ear like a quiet brand.
"You didn't have to drop him that hard," Ryn says, adjusting Dax's weight to prevent a concussion.
"Just a little nap button," Veil says, completely unconcerned. "Saved you a broken jaw from having to explain yourself. You two look like you needed a time-out." He nods at the kid floating in the water skin. Then he looks Dax over and grins. "Ooh, this one is solid. You want me to carry the Lieutenant or are you planning on having an awkward kiss-and-make-up moment when he wakes up?"
"Just carry him," Ryn says, flatly.
"Mmh. Bossy." Veil stoops, lifts Dax one-armed like it's nothing, and slings him over a shoulder. He winks at the kid. "Howdy, sugar. You're safe now. Try not to worry, and please, don't decorate my nice boots."
The boy blinks, confused but calmer because Ryn is calm. Ryn skims a palm over the water skin, seals it, and gestures toward a roll-up door painted shut. He taps a pattern on a half-buried control plate with his ring. Gears think about it and try to cooperate. The door coughs up a handspan, then more. Cold air breathes out: old river, machine oil, clean ozone.
"Let's go," Ryn says.
Veil slides through first with Dax. Ryn brings the kid and the water.
09-11-2355 | 22:16
Downline Commons — Clinic Row
—
It isn't a cave. It's clean. The old mining service tunnels open into a long artery with resin floors and hung lightbars. Wall printers spit replacement parts and label gel packs. Slim vac-bots hum along baseboards and vanish into docks. A custodial drone with mismatched panels turns a corner like it's proud to be useful. People move like they live here—baseline and not. A woman with lensed sclera checks a kid's homework. A guy with dermal plates along one forearm carries a crate of produce grown in stacked light beds. Nobody stares at anyone else.
Calyx meets them halfway down the row without making a scene. He's mid- thirties, lean, in a dark long coat over a practical shirt, a slim console riding his wrist. The faint biolum filaments along his jaw don't try for drama. His eyes are steady and busy. He clocks Dax over Veil's shoulder, the kid in the water, the way Ryn's jaw is set.
"Bay Three," he says, already turning. "Nyra's up."
They slide into the clinic. It's small, bright, and organized like someone who hates chaos won over budget and luck. Two ceiling rails carry med-drones. A wall unit prints clear IV gel packs with mineral labels. A keening scrub-bot zips to a scuff, eliminates it, beeps happy, and docks.
Nyra moves in from the other side of the room without preamble. She's compact, hair braided tight, sleeves rolled, diagnostic wand already in her hand. NYRA is burned into a sideways tag on her vest. "Put him on one," she tells Veil. "Not my clean sheets."
"Yes, ma'am," Veil chirps, not mocking it. He lays Dax on a cot like he's made of expensive glass.
Nyra scans Dax's pupils, nods once. "He'll be pissed. Good sign." She turns to the kid. "You're the pull?" She checks his respirations, presses a heat strip to his sternum, slides a gel pack into the crook of his arm. "Okay. Salt and warmth. That's your life for the next hour. Don't try to sit up."
The kid swallows. "What... where is this?"
"A safe place," Nyra says. "No needles you don't need. Breathe."
Calyx taps his wrist console, sends a quiet ping down the hall, then looks at Ryn. "We talk. Now."
Ryn glances at the kid. He's holding together. Veil is already hovering where he's most annoying and most useful at once. Ryn joins Calyx in a short side hall lined with a maintenance schematic and a rack of labeled tool trays.
Calyx keeps it low and tight. "You brought a HARBOR lieutenant through my side door without warning. We've run five years because no one upstairs knew what to look for. If this blows, I've got two hundred people who can't ride a tram or buy noodles topside without a badge coming down on them. What the hell were you thinking?"
"He was about to call it in," Ryn says. "He needed to see this before he decided what we are. He won't talk."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"And if you're wrong?"
"I'll move the door and half the corridor before he wakes up the second time," Ryn says. "I've done worse."
Calyx exhales, somewhere between anger and respect. "You're not the boss down here."
"I know," Ryn says.
"You act like one," Calyx says. "People follow you even when you don't want them to."
Ryn opens his mouth to snap back; a monitor in the bay flatlines in a way that isn't a heart. The sound spikes thin and ugly.
Nyra: "Ryn. He's... shaking."
They both move. The kid on the cot is shaking hard, not cold now, wrong. His eyes roll like a code storm is behind them. The gel pack lights flicker. The med-drone above him chirps a red triangle. It isn't tachycardia: his pulse is there: but the RELIC residue in his nerves is trying to reboot him.
"I've got him," Ryn says. He puts both palms over the kid's chest, not touching skin, hovering a centimeter above the heat strip. The silver ring warms. The water skin he left on the floor lifts in ribbons and wraps the kid again, thin, like a second shirt. Ryn sets his breath and drags: not straight, not a yank. A crooked, off-beat pull like he's untying a knot sideways.
The kid gasps. The tremor spikes, then breaks. His eyes glaze and slide to a blank wall inside his head. He goes limp.
Nyra keeps her tone even. "He's out. It's protective. Don't shake him. He'll wake when his head stops acting like a shorted panel." She slaps a sensor patch on his temple and mutters to the med-drone. "Monitor for rebound. Alert me if the pattern climbs."
Veil leans back on his heels, impressed despite himself. "Neat trick."
"Not a trick," Ryn says. "He's not a lab."
"Didn't say he was," Veil says, drawl easy but eyes sharp. "Said it was neat."
Calyx points at the hall with his chin. "We're not finished."
"We are for tonight," Ryn says. "You can read me the rules in the morning."
Calyx holds the stare, then lets it go. "Fine. Sit with him. I'll deal with the other fires."
Veil tips two fingers. "Boss, I'll walk the row."
"Walk it," Calyx says, and goes.
Nyra checks Dax again, sticks an anti-nausea patch on his wrist and a warming strip on his chest. "He'll wake pissed," she says to Ryn. "That's baseline."
—