The conversation with Sara lingered in Mike’s mind, a heavy but grounding weight against the copper tang of the smog that blanketed Hope’s End. He stood by her stall for a moment longer than necessary, adjusting the straps of his pack until the leather dug into his shoulder. He could feel the distinct, heavy clink of the chemical jars against his spine. Arsenic, mercury, and industrial-grade acid. To anyone else, it was a suicide kit, but to Mike, they were the essential ingredients for a defense mechanism. For the first time in weeks, the weight did not feel like a burden dragging him down into the mud. Instead, it felt like a mission. It felt like control.

  "Thanks, Sara," Mike said, keeping his voice low and pitched carefully to sound rougher and more tired than he actually was. He offered her a genuine, weary smile that reached his eyes, which was a rare crack in his armor. "This helps. More than you know."

  "Just stay safe, Mike," she replied, wiping her grease-stained hands on a rag. Her eyes darted nervously to the busy street behind him, scanning the faces of the passersby with a look of practiced paranoia. "The sector has been on edge all week. Rigg’s boys are tearing the place apart looking for... well, you know what they are looking for."

  "I will keep my head down," Mike promised, forcing a slouch into his posture. "I am just a ghost, Sara. Nobody notices ghosts."

  He turned from the counter and prepared to disappear into the flow of Hope’s End. The market was at its absolute peak, a chaotic organism of commerce and desperation. The narrow thoroughfare was a crushing river of bodies where scavengers in patchwork rags pushed past traders shouting over static-filled vox-boxes. Chemically-scarred laborers trudged home while refugees shoved through the dense, yellow smog. The noise was a physical wall, composed of the deafening roar of unauthorized generators, the shouting of hawkers selling filtered water, and the rhythmic thumping of the sector’s failing ventilation shafts.

  In this ocean of misery, anonymity was the only currency that mattered. To the crowd, Mike was just another hunchbacked figure in a stained coat, another piece of debris floating in the gutter of the city. He kept his gait shuffling and uneven, practicing the Sifter Walk. It was a conscious and painful performance. Every instinct in his mutated body screamed at him to straighten his spine and move with the fluid, predatory stride of an Hunter. His muscles wanted to coil and snap, but an Hunter attracted challengers. A Sifter attracted only pity or total indifference.

  He had taken perhaps ten steps when the flow of the crowd suddenly stopped. It did not slow down gradually, but rippled backward violently like a wave hitting a concrete wall. A heavy, amplified voice cut through the din, the bass vibrating deep in Mike’s chest.

  "Clear the lane! Sector Patrol!"

  Mike froze as his eyes snapped to the exits. He stood trapped by the press of the crowd. To his left, a wall of rusted shipping crates stood three high, welded together by years of acid rain. To his right was a solid mass of frightened people pressing back against the shuttered storefronts. Three men shoved their way through the throng, moving with the heavy, clanking arrogance of men who knew no consequences. Rigg’s enforcers did not care who they shoved. One armored shoulder sent an old woman stumbling into the mud, but she did not dare complain. She only scrambled on her hands and knees to retrieve her basket of scrap wire before it was trampled into the filth.

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  Mike lowered his head and pulled his hood forward until it cast a deep shadow over his face. He told himself to be small. He had to be nothing more than another rat in the pile.

  The leader of the patrol stopped in the middle of the intersection. He was a brute of a man, wide as a blast door and wearing the patchwork armor of Rigg’s elite. Boiled leather was stitched with rebar, and heavy magnetic boots churned the mud with every step. A full-face filtration mask hid his humanity entirely. He raised a small, disc-shaped device high in the air and clicked a switch. A cone of flickering, pale light erupted from the device, coalescing into a rotating hologram about six feet in the air.

  It was a face.

  Mike’s breath hitched in his throat as his heart slammed against his ribs. The image was grainy and constructed from low-resolution security feeds, but the features were undeniable. It was him. He looked younger and dirtier, with a look of terrified desperation he had not felt in weeks, but it was him.

  "Bounty active," the enforcer shouted, spinning in a slow circle to address the crowd. "Priority Four. Rigg wants the Rat-King. Alive if he breathes, dead if he does not. Five hundred credits for the tip. Five thousand for the head."

  A ripple of murmuring went through the onlookers as the atmosphere in the market shifted instantly. The exhaustion and apathy vanished, replaced by a sharp and electric tension. Five thousand credits was a fortune in Hope's End. It was enough to buy a ticket off-world or a new life in the upper sectors. Mike felt hundreds of eyes darting around. The air grew heavy with suspicion and greed, a chemical cocktail that his heightened senses could practically taste on his tongue. It was metallic and sour.

  The enforcer turned, and his scanner let out a high, piercing chirp. The device pointed straight at the cluster of people where Mike stood.

  "You," the enforcer barked. "In the gray coat. Step out."

  Mike’s heart hammered against his ribs, but he feared exposure more than death. If he ran, he would have to plow through innocent people. If he fought, he would reveal the monster within him, and the bounty would surely double.

  "Who, me, boss?" Mike squeaked, pitching his voice high and trembling. He raised his hands and ensured his long sleeves covered his wrists completely. He hunched lower, trying to look frail. "I did not do anything. I was just buying filters."

  "Step out!" The enforcer unclipped a heavy shock-baton from his belt. The arc-generator at the tip crackled with angry blue electricity. The two flankers unslung their rifles, which were ugly kinetic slug-throwers capable of tearing a man in half. People scrambled back to get away from the line of fire, and in seconds, a small and terrified circle of empty space formed around Mike.

  "Check him," the leader ordered. "And check the bag. If he has contraband, we take it."

  As the two flankers advanced with their boots squelching in the mud, Mike calculated the variables. He could not fight them with so many witnesses. He had to fight like a human. He had to be a desperate, cornered, and clumsy human.

  "Please," Mike stammered, backing up until his boots hit a deep puddle of oily water. "I do not want trouble."

  "Shut up, rat," the first flanker growled. He reached out and grabbed Mike’s coat collar with a rough, gloved hand.

  Mike reacted. He let the man grab him, but as the flanker pulled, Mike threw his weight forward to feign a stumble.

  "Get off me!" Mike screamed, injecting pure panic into his voice. He jammed his hand into his pocket and ripped out a rusted revolver.

  "He has a gun!" the leader roared.