The pain in his spine had subsided to a memory, but the ghost of it remained, a low-grade static that hummed in time with the city. He kept to the most crowded arteries of the lower sectors, trying to lose himself in the river of bodies. The goal was simple: disappear. Become another face in the rain, another anonymous figure hunched against the perpetual acid drizzle that slicked the ferrocrete and made the neon signs bleed down the walls. He was using the chaos of the city as cover, a tactic learned long ago.
He moved through the market canyon known as the Sump, a chasm of commerce carved between hab-blocks. The air was a thick soup of smells: ozone from failing signage, the sharp tang of grilling protein skewers from a vendor’s cart, the damp rot of overflowing refuse chutes. He kept his head down, his gaze fixed on the cracked pavement, letting the momentum of the crowd carry him. Every face was a potential observer, every security drone a potential judge. His performance of invisibility had to be flawless.
A shadow detached itself from the flow. It was just a flicker in his peripheral vision, a disruption in the pattern of the crowd, but it was enough. Kaito’s head came up slowly. The figure was tall, dressed in a form-fitting suit of dark, non-reflective fabric that seemed to drink the ambient light. It moved with a liquid efficiency that was utterly alien to the shuffling gait of the market-goers. Kaito’s blood went cold.
He knew the man. Or what was left of him. Heath Taggart. The face was a sharp, emotionless mask, the head bald and seamless. One eye was a flat, pale grey. The other was a black cybernetic lens, its center glowing with a small, predatory red light. Kaito hadn't seen him in five years, not since his own time as a corporate enforcer, but Taggart was not a man you forgot. He was OmniCore’s scalpel, the tool they used for problems that required surgical removal.
The recognition was a physical shock, a jolt that made the phantom pain in his spine flare for a half-second. He knew with absolute certainty that Taggart was not here for the protein skewers. The hunt had gone physical. The digital hounds had been called off, and the wolf had been released. There was no debate, no calculation. His body decided before his mind did.
Kaito turned and ran.
He didn't shove, didn't shout. He melted back into the thickest part of the crowd, using the mass of bodies as a shield. He was a fish returning to the school, desperate to lose his shape. Behind him, he heard no pursuit, no heavy footfalls. That was Taggart’s way. He was a ghost until he was at your throat. Kaito risked a glance over his shoulder. Taggart was coming. He wasn't weaving or dodging. He was moving in a straight, implacable line, the crowd parting before him like water before the prow of a ship.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up Kaito’s throat. He shoved it down. He needed to break the line of sight, create chaos. Ahead, a food stall selling fried synth-noodles blocked a narrow side alley. The vendor was shouting his prices into the din. Kaito didn't slow. He put a hand on the stall’s greasy counter and vaulted over it, landing in a clatter of discarded food containers.
— Hey! My product! — the vendor screamed, his face a mask of indignation.
Kaito ignored him, scrambling for the alley. He heard a sound that was not a vault. It was a wet, percussive crunch. He looked back. Taggart hadn't gone over the stall. He had gone through it. A hole the size of a man had been punched through the flimsy structure of polymer and chrome. The vendor stared, his mouth open, as synth-noodles and hot oil dripped onto the ground. Taggart stepped through the wreckage without breaking stride, his expression unchanged. The sheer, brutal force of the act was a message. Obstacles were not problems to be solved; they were matter to be displaced.
Kaito pushed himself harder, his lungs starting to burn. The alley opened onto a wider thoroughfare where mag-lev carts, floating cargo platforms, hummed along a designated channel. They moved at a steady clip, about a meter off the ground. One was approaching, laden with crates of raw synthetics. It was a high-risk maneuver, the kind that got you smeared across the pavement. He didn't have a choice.
He timed it, his mind a cold, fast-moving calculator. He slid, the wet ground slick beneath his worn boots. For a terrifying second, the humming underbelly of the mag-lev cart filled his vision, the dark metal just centimeters from his face. Then he was through, rolling to his feet on the other side. He had gained a few precious meters. He risked another look back.
Taggart didn't slide. He didn't even pause. As the cart passed, he leaped, his body a study in perfect, coiled motion. He cleared the entire platform, landing on the other side with the silence of a predator. The gap Kaito had risked his life to create was gone in an instant. The enforcer’s cybernetics weren't just an advantage; they were a different physics. Taggart was operating on a level of performance Kaito couldn't hope to match.
The chase was no longer about escape. It was about survival, second by second. Kaito’s mind raced, scanning the environment, looking for another out, another piece of urban chaos to use as a shield. The rain was coming down harder now, blurring the neon signs into a smear of toxic color. The crowd was thinner here, the buildings taller, the shadows deeper. He was being herded.
Then he saw it. To his left, set into the base of a massive ferrocrete support pillar, was a small, rusted metal door. A maintenance shaft. An access tunnel for the city’s guts. It was a dark hole, an unknown, but it was a chance. He changed his vector, sprinting toward the pillar, his boots splashing through grimy puddles. He could feel Taggart closing the distance, a cold pressure at his back.
He reached the door, his fingers fumbling with the recessed handle. It was stiff with rust and disuse. He put his shoulder into it, the impact jarring his already aching frame. The lock groaned, then gave way. He threw himself into the darkness beyond, the smell of damp metal and stale air hitting him like a wall. He slammed the heavy door shut. The lock clicked into place, a sound of final, temporary safety.
He leaned his back against the cold metal of the door, his lungs on fire, his heart hammering against his ribs. He listened. There was no sound of Taggart trying the handle, no impact against the door. There was only the dripping of water somewhere in the darkness of the shaft and the ragged sound of his own breathing. He had broken the line of sight. He had escaped.
For now.
He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the grimy floor, the last of his strength gone. His stamina was shot. He was a known fugitive, flushed from the cover of the city and hunted by a relentless, cybernetic ghost from his own past. The game had changed. This wasn't about a case anymore. It was about a monster.
The air in the shaft was cool and still. The distant hum of the city was a muffled drone.
Hunted and outmatched, he needed help.
