Blade met light.
The flux-knife hit his Deflecto-Barrier and screamed.
Sparks sprayed like a busted welder.
Energy rippled blue across his forearm shield.
My blade skidded off.
Useless.
"Cute toy, runt," he laughed.
Then the fist came.
Pneumatic hiss.
Piston kick.
Vortex Pugilist Mk3 knuckles slammed my ribs like a mining drill with a grudge.
Crack.
Felt two of 'em go.
Air punched out of my lungs.
I skidded back across the rooftop.
Boots shredding gravel.
"Fuck--"
Pain flared white.
Then the overlay blinked.
Rib fracture detected. Regen initiated.
Heat crawled through my side.
Bones grinding.
Knitting.
Like a thousand ants stitching me back together.
The boxer bounced on his heels.
Big bastard.
Neck thick as a coolant pipe.
Vortex tattoo on his jaw.
Shield arm up.
Punch arm cocked.
"Kane wants you breathing," he said.
"Didn't say how many teeth."
"Funny," I wheezed.
"Kane didn't say what your arms are worth either."
Because I was already pricing them.
HydraCorp build.
Mk3 pneumatics.
Barrier emitter in the forearm.
Black market would pay... fuck, a lot.
Enough for passage off-world, maybe.
Enough for a lot of things.
My mouth actually watered.
Weird.
Didn't care.
He came again.
Jab.
Jab.
Hook.
Symbiote flashed.
Time stretched like hot synth-gum.
I saw the jab before his shoulder twitched.
Slipped left.
Slipped right.
The hook clipped my shoulder anyway.
Spun me like a busted rotor.
Precog's great.
Doesn't make you faster than a piston.
I hit the roof edge.
Chasm behind me.
Hab-dome rubble smoking below.
Twenty meters of nope.
Fall that far and regen would have a lot of homework.
"Nowhere to run, short-stack."
"Who's running?"
Sly grin.
Total bluff.
I feinted high with the knife.
He raised the barrier.
Predictable.
I dropped low and slashed his thigh.
Fleshware.
No armor there.
Blade sang.
Meat parted.
Blood sprayed hot across the gravel.
He roared.
Brought the Mk3 down like a hammer.
Straight at my skull.
No dodge.
Too close.
Instinct took over.
Dermal shift.
My forearm flashed up.
Skin rippled.
Black-green scales punched out through it, overlapping, hard as forged plate.
The fist hit.
BOOM.
Pneumatics screamed.
And his knuckles split.
Synth-skin tore like wet paper.
Metal casing cracked.
Under it, his real knuckles burst open on my scales--bone shards poking through the gaps in the chrome like broken teeth.
He howled.
So did I.
Arm felt like it'd been hit by a falling rover.
But the scales held.
Barely.
Blood ran down my wrist.
My blood.
Dripping into his cracked fist.
Into the cuts.
I didn't plan that.
The symbiote did.
He swung again with the shield arm, wild, sloppy.
Then stopped.
Mid-swing.
His elbow locked.
Jaw clenched.
Eyes bulged.
"Wh--what'd you--"
Sporeline-X.
Paralytic venom blood.
Family recipe, upgraded.
His fingers curled into claws.
Veins went dark along his forearm, creeping up past the chrome seam into his neck.
He fell to his knees.
Gravel crunching.
Body seizing in ugly little jerks.
Drool slid down his chin.
I stood over him.
Ribs still knitting.
Arm scales sinking back under skin with a weird itchy slither.
"Told you," I said.
"Gotta start getting better at combat somehow."
He tried to spit at me.
Couldn't even manage that.
I knelt.
Studied him.
Not his face.
His arms.
The chip slot behind his ear.
His belt.
Everything he had was worth something.
He was worth something.
Just not alive.
The flux-knife hummed.
I drove it in under his jaw.
Up.
Through the soft palate.
Into the brain pan.
His eyes rolled white.
Blood fountained out of his mouth in a thick, gurgling sheet, steaming in the cold night air.
His neural port sparked.
Smoke curled out of his ear.
Twitch.
Twitch.
Done.
I yanked the knife free with a wet slurp.
Wiped it on his shirt.
Then I went shopping.
First, the Vortex access chip.
Slotted behind his left ear.
I dug it out with the knife tip.
Gristle and wire tangled on it.
Flicked the gore off.
Pocketed it.
Then his ID tag.
Corporal Dace Mavrin.
Vortex Security, Asset Retrieval Division.
Kane's dog.
Good.
Then the cred stick on his belt.
Four hundred creds.
Cheap bastard.
Took it anyway.
Then his wrist-comm.
Cracked screen.
Took that too.
Then I looked at the arms.
Vortex Pugilist Mk3.
The punching arm was wrecked.
But the Deflecto-Barrier emitter in the shield arm?
Pristine.
Thousands.
Maybe tens of thousands to the right chromehead.
I grabbed his shield arm.
Found the shoulder coupling.
Started cutting.
Flux-knife sizzling through the flesh around the socket.
Meat peeled.
Tendons popped like snapped cables.
Blood pooled black around my boots.
Smelled like copper and burnt wiring.
I didn't gag.
Didn't even blink.
Just kept sawing.
Like I was back on shift, stripping a busted drill for parts.
Except this drill used to have a name.
Then voices.
Below.
Boots on rubble.
"Corporal Mavrin! Sound off!"
"Signal's still up there--roof three!"
"Climb, you lazy fucks!"
Shit.
Halfway through the shoulder.
Bone exposed.
Barrier emitter just sitting there.
Mine.
Almost mine.
I kept cutting.
Faster.
Knife grinding bone.
Ten seconds.
Maybe.
A grappling hook clanged on the roof edge.
Rope went tight.
Another one.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Leave it.
Every hustler instinct I had screamed take it.
Every survival instinct screamed run.
The symbiote yanked my spine like a leash.
Neural pain spiked behind my eyes.
Message received.
I let go of the arm.
It flopped half-attached, dangling by a strip of meat and wiring.
"I'll be back for you, baby," I muttered.
Then I ran.
Grabbed his tossed pulse rifle on the way.
Half a charge.
Still creds.
Rooftop edge.
Leap.
Wind roaring.
Landed on the next dome, rolled, kept moving.
Behind me, a soldier crested the roof.
Then puked.
Loud.
"Holy shit--Mavrin's--his arm's half off!"
"That runt did this?"
"What the fuck is he?"
Good question.
I dropped into an alley.
Shadows swallowed me.
Pulse rifles lit up the roof behind me.
Too late.
I patted my pockets as I ran.
Chip.
ID.
Creds.
Comm.
Rifle.
Knife.
Not the arm.
Still bugged me.
Burned, actually.
Like I'd left creds on the floor.
Funny.
A week ago I'd have been happy just to be alive.
Now alive wasn't enough.
I wanted the arm.
I wanted the ship.
I wanted everything Kane had.
The uprising got hungry here.