The neon glow of the commercial district didn't reach the Stacks.
Here, the light was the color of bruised skin—flickering sodium lamps and the dull, persistent gray of recycling vents.
Kai walked with his head down, the duffel bag heavy against his shoulder, taking the long way home through alleys and steam tunnels to shake any drones that might have been curious about a cleaner walking with a purpose.
He had stopped at a "black pharmacy"—a hole-in-the-wall vending counter that sold everything from bandages to counterfeit inhalers—and spent his last medical credits on a rusted stabilization clamp and a vial of industrial-grade ether.
It wasn't a lab. It was barely a first-aid kit. But it was all he could afford.
He reached his building, a concrete monolith that smelled of mildew and hot plastic. A broken sign above the entrance read: STACKS 4. The "4" had been spray-painted over the original number.
He lived on the 42nd floor. The elevator had been broken since he moved in.
Kai climbed the stairs.
Forty-two flights of silence. Forty-two flights to think about the two vials burning a hole in his pocket.
"You're breathing too loud," Mentor's voice murmured. "And your rhythm is erratic. Are you scared of the stairs, or what's at the top?"
"I'm tired," Kai whispered.
He reached his door—unit 4209. The lock was a cheap magnetic pad that he'd bypassed and rewired himself.
He reached for the keypad.
Then he stopped.
The dust on the doorframe had been disturbed. A hairline fracture in the paint, invisible to anyone else, screamed at him.
Someone was inside.
Kai didn't move.
Mentor's voice sharpened. "Three heartbeats."
Kai listened.
Three, yes—
And a fourth presence that wasn't breathing like the others. Too steady. Too quiet.
Kai's hand slid toward the duffel bag strap. Not the scalpel. Not yet.
He keyed the lock with the gentlest pressure and pushed the door open an inch.
The door slid open.
His apartment was a single room, barely wider than a hallway. A mattress, a wobbly table, a stack of disassembled electronics, and a single window that looked out onto a brick wall.
Three men sat on his mattress.
A fourth figure lingered by the doorframe, hood up, one hand steadying a small gimbal-cam.
The red tally light was on. Someone wanted proof of this visit—clean, timestamped, and admissible.
They wore suits that cost more than Kai's life earnings. The fabric was matte-black, light-absorbing, designed to look intimidating. It worked.
The man in the center looked up. He had a datapad in his hand and a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Kai," the man said. "We were beginning to think you'd skipped town."
"I live here," Kai said, stepping inside and letting the door slide shut. He didn't put the duffel bag down. "Who are you?"
"Case Management," the man said. He tapped the pad. "Your debt just triggered a Level 3 flag. 'High Risk of Default.' That authorizes a house call."
He angled the datapad toward Kai. The document on-screen was immaculate—white margins, black text, the kind of cruelty that came in a corporate font.
[NOTICE OF SERVICE]
Debt Enforcement: INITIATED
Balance: 5,420,000 CREDITS
Time Remaining: 70:00:00
Auto-Enforcement: ENABLED
Failure to comply will result in asset seizure and bodily lien execution.
The hooded cameraman shifted to frame Kai's face and the screen in the same shot.
Under Kai's new sight, the words weren't just words—thin, invisible sutures tugging at his chest every time the timer ticked.
[DETECTED: BINDING CLAUSE]
Type: Financial Contract (Reinforced)
Medium: Legal Text + Metastructure
Note: Not purely legal.
He stood up. He was big, blocking the meager light from the hallway.
"I have seventy hours," Kai said. His voice was steady, though his pulse hammered. "The notice said seventy-two. That was two hours ago."
"Algorithm updated," the man said smoothly. "Your credit score dropped. The interest rate adjusted. You're currently in negative equity."
He took a step forward. The other two men stood up, flanking him. One of them cracked his knuckles. It was a wet, heavy sound.
"We're here to appraise the collateral," the lead agent said. He looked around the empty room, sneering at the workbench. "Not much here. Except..."
His eyes landed on Kai.
"Biological assets," the agent said. "Kidneys are fetching a good rate this quarter. We could take a down payment right now. Save you the interest."
Kai took a half-step back.
The overlay in his vision flickered to life.
[THREAT DETECTED]
Entities: 3 (Human)
Threat Level: Low (Physical)
Threat Level: Critical (Financial)
The red bar at the bottom of his vision pulsed.
WARNING: Contamination Load Rising.
Current Load: 34%
The stress. The fear. It was feeding the contamination. It was all connected.
Kai swallowed. "You can't—"
"We can," the agent said. "We have the paperwork."
The cameraman's lens tracked the motion of Kai's throat as he swallowed. Tight. Clinical. Like filming an animal for a compliance report.
Mentor's voice whispered: "See? The city doesn't kill you with claws. It kills you with signatures."
Kai's fingers twitched. Not toward the scalpel.
Toward the air.
Toward the invisible suture tugging at his chest.
He could feel the contract like a tight stitch. A line pulled too hard.
He could almost see where to cut.
Almost.
Then his vision blurred. A spike of nausea.
His precision wasn't there yet. His hands weren't steady enough for this kind of surgery.
Not with his contamination rising.
"I can pay," Kai lied.
The agent's smile widened. "Of course you can. That's why you still have both kidneys."
He leaned in. "We're generous. We offer solutions."
He tapped his datapad again. The timer on-screen flickered.
"Seventy hours," he said. "You have seventy hours to make a meaningful payment. Not a token. Not a gesture. Meaningful."
"And if I don't?" Kai asked.
The agent glanced at the duffel bag. At the tools. At the scalpel handle peeking from the edge of the zipper.
His eyes sharpened.
"Then we begin with what you think you own," the agent said. "Oxygen allotment. Work license. Medical access."
He paused, enjoying the shape of the words.
"And then," he added softly, "we move to meat."
The knuckle-cracker smiled.
Kai's heartbeat thudded loud enough that he felt it in his teeth.
Mentor's voice was almost kind now. "You want to live? Don't fight the chain. Learn it. Learn where it's weakest."
Kai forced his breathing down.
He looked at the agent's datapad one more time. The document. The corporate font. The timer.
Thin sutures pulling at his chest.
"I'm not paying you with organs," Kai said.
The agent shrugged. "Then pay us with money."
"I don't have it."
"Then earn it," the agent said. "You have a job. Clean."
Kai's jaw clenched.
Clean. As if any of this was clean.
The agent stepped back. "We'll be watching your compliance," he said.
The cameraman's red tally light stayed on.
The agent gestured toward the door like a gentleman leaving a restaurant.
"Enjoy your seventy hours."
They filed out.
The cameraman was last. He didn't speak. He just let the lens linger on Kai's hands for one extra second, as if trying to memorize the tremor.
The door slid shut.
Kai stood in the silence for three long breaths.
Then he exhaled hard, like he'd been holding his lungs hostage.
The overlay remained.
WARNING: Contamination Load Rising.
Current Load: 34% -> 35%
Kai stared at the number until it stopped being a number and became a sentence.
You are not stable.
You are not safe.
You are on a timer.
He dropped the duffel bag on the table and unzipped it.
Tools. Gauze. Ether. The clamp.
A scalpel blade in a sterile packet.
Mentor's voice purred. "Now you understand. Your debt isn't money. It's leverage."
Kai's hands trembled.
Then he gripped the table edge until they stopped.
"I can't pay this debt by cleaning up," Kai said. His voice hardened. The tremor in his hands stopped. "I need to cut deeper."
[SYSTEM ACKNOWLEDGMENT]
User Role Updated.
Role: Sanity Cleaner -> [Anatomy Surgeon]
Objective: Evolution.
Kai picked up the scalpel.
He didn't use it.
Not yet.
He just held it until his heartbeat matched his grip.
Mentor's voice leaned close. "Good. Make 'survival' your profession."
Kai looked at the clamp and ether. A pathetic kit for a pathetic room.
He'd build better.
He'd build a table that didn't wobble. Lights that didn't flicker.
He'd build a clinic in the dark, because the city wouldn't give him one in the light.
He would take what he needed from the only places that had it:
Monsters. Rich people. And the seams in their contracts.
His phone buzzed.
A new cleanup assignment.
He tapped it open.
CLEANUP REQUEST: PRIORITY
Location: Vermilion Family Estate (Sector 4)
Description: Biological Waste (Nonstandard)
Notes: Restricted access. Discretion required.
Kai stared at the address.
Sector 4.
The rich district.
The same family that sponsored the Hunter who had made the mess in Chapter 1.
The location wasn't a battlefield. It was a garden.
Why would there be biological waste in a garden?
Kai grabbed his duffel bag. He looked at the stabilization setup on his table.
"We do the surgery later," Kai said. "First, we see what the rich people are hiding."
"Careful, Kai," Mentor warned, though his tone suggested he hoped Kai wouldn't be. "The seams in Sector 4 are harder to see. They hide their rot behind silk."
Kai opened the door. The hallway air smelled stale, but for the first time, it didn't smell like a cage.
It smelled like a hunting ground.
Three floors away, Case Management replayed his tremor, frame by frame. A box flipped on: AUTO-ENFORCEMENT. Another: SECTOR 4 ROUTE. The system stamped him: ANATOMY SURGEON.
[DEBT ENFORCEMENT CLOCK]
Time Remaining: 69:58:00
Auto-Enforcement: ENABLED
Next Phase: Asset Seizure → Bodily Lien Execution
Kai stepped out.
He wasn't counting time anymore.
He was counting cuts.