Masamune’s thread was pinned at the top of my display.

  ANY VISION ARTIFACTS?

  I left it there and kept the shipping pad on the counter.

  The new hand did not forgive correction. Flesh would let a bad line wander and find its way back. The chrome wanted the stroke decided before it began. I wrote Jax, saw the x go rigid, tore the square off, and pushed it under the sink with the others.

  I pulled another sheet free.

  The fridge came on behind me. A few seconds later the pipes answered somewhere in the wall. Light had started getting through the blinds. It found the damp patch by the plaster and left it there.

  The next one made it through the J. The loop opened too wide on the a and the x came off stiff.

  NO QUARTER was still in its sleeve beside the sink. I had left it there before bed and had managed, so far, not to pick it up. The scratch across the plastic had lifted a fine edge. My thumb found it once and caught there.

  Tomorrow sat on the calendar tile.

  14:00.

  The puncture in my thigh barely showed anymore, but it still hurt when I pressed it. I had a stim pack receipt from a scop three blocks away and two sent messages I did not remember writing. That was all. The rest was me in a kitchen, trying to get my own name to stop looking counterfeit.

  I went to the landlord keypad and woke the screen with my thumb. It waited. So did I. Then it went dark under my hand and I stayed there long enough for the arm to start trembling from holding still.

  I took my hand off the glass.

  I checked the usual pockets twice, once with both hands and once by feel alone: wallet, keys, iron, spare mag, tourniquet, sealant strip for the forearm seam. Then I locked the door, checked it again, and went downstairs.

  The garage light was still flickering over the bay.

  The Quadra sat under it with the paint swallowing most of what came down from above. I got in, shut the door, and gave the cabin a second to stop feeling borrowed. Then I started the engine and took it up the ramp without letting it bark.

  Kabuki was awake in patches. One food cart was already steaming. The stall across from it still had the shutters down. Somebody was working over a cab driver at the corner and the driver was shouting back without once looking at the meter. Glass, puddles, trim, one woman’s plated jaw at a crosswalk—anything that could throw me back at myself did.

  Masamune’s pin sat in the corner of the map. No note. Just the route.

  Under the highways the storefronts gave out. Fence lines and yard walls took their place, then parked machinery, then long stretches with nothing open and nobody on foot.

  The warehouse row looked shut from the street. One security light buzzed over a side entrance. No guard post. No one outside.

  I parked nose out and watched the door for a bit. Nothing moved. I got out and crossed the broken asphalt.

  The lock released on the first knock.

  The magnetic seal let go with a small clean sound. Masamune stood just inside with his hood up and a filter mask over the lower half of his face. His gaze went to the seam in my forearm first, then to the right optic.

  “Name.”

  “Jax Morrow.”

  “Look at me.”

  I did.

  He watched the eye work. Not long, but long enough.

  “Any visual disturbance.”

  “No.”

  He left the silence there.

  “No flicker,” I said. “No doubling.”

  He gave me a courier pad and a pen with tape around the barrel. Same cheap type as before.

  “Sign.”

  The J tried to get away from me. I slowed it, forced the curve, and got through the name clean enough to pass.

  “You sent messages last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember doing it.”

  “No.”

  “What do you remember, then.”

  “Before. After. A scop machine. Stim pack.”

  He let that sit. Then he came in from the side instead of asking again.

  “Anything in your head that isn’t acting right.”

  “Nothing talking.”

  “That answer was ready.”

  “I’ve had the question already.”

  “Not from me.”

  He folded the pad once under his thumb. “You are going to a scav location running XBD harvest. You are retrieving one shard. Buyer list only. You are not there to inspect their bookkeeping. You are not there to solve your blackout. You are not there to indulge yourself because the room offends you.”

  That last one bought him a look.

  He didn’t care.

  “How fresh.”

  “Fresh enough.”

  “If it’s burned when I get there.”

  “Leave.”

  “If badges show.”

  “Leave before they put you in the report.”

  “And if the shard isn’t there.”

  “Then the trip cost you gas.”

  The pin dropped onto my map.

  I glanced at it, then back at him. “If the eye starts doing tricks.”

  His gaze shifted once to the optic and back. “Then don’t act brave for me. Delta.”

  Flat. Not kind. Close enough to city speech to sound deliberate.

  “Bring me the shard unopened,” he said.

  He stepped back and the seal caught before I reached the car.

  The second stretch of road was meaner than the first. Fewer lights. Longer walls. Patched fencing. Blind corners. I kept the speed down and checked the magazine by touch at the next red light, then again later because my hand had moved before I’d decided to do it.

  The yard sat behind chain and sheet metal with the gate high enough to take a truck. I left the Quadra two blocks back, cut in behind stacked pallets, and took the count from cover.

  Eight outside.

  Two by the gate. One smoking. One chewing at the inside of his cheek and watching the road in lazy bursts. One rover moving between a truck and crate stacks. Two up high with rifles, catwalk and roofline. One by the side door under the light. The last two only showed in pieces when they crossed the open stretch near the truck.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  It looked easy. I let that stand for a second too long.

  I moved when the catwalk man turned his head.

  The one at the gate caught motion early and started to swing around. My hand sealed over his mouth. The knife went up under the ear and hit badly, scraping before it found purchase. He drove backward hard enough to ring my shoulder off the fence and the sound went wider than I wanted.

  The smoker turned with his iron already coming up.

  I shot him through the chest.

  The rover fired at the spark off the fence instead of at me. Pellets tore sheet metal where my head had been. I crossed while he was still correcting, trapped his wrist in the chrome hand, and smashed it down on the rail. Once didn’t do it. Twice did. His weapon dropped. He sucked air to scream. I hit him in the mouth with the hilt, put the knife in, and kept moving.

  Above me, the roofline shooter understood the problem first. He went to one knee and settled in.

  Something flashed at the edge of my right eye.

  I fired and missed him.

  His round chewed concrete close enough to sting my ankle with grit. I dropped behind the pallet stack, moved left on my knees, came up by a crate, and put the next shot through his thigh. He lurched sideways and clutched at it. The second took him high in the throat. He hung on the edge for a second with one boot snagged, working his hands at nothing, then slipped out of sight.

  The catwalk rifle was still hunting when I hit him twice through the body. He folded over the rail and the weapon clattered down after him.

  The man by the side door went for his radio.

  My knife snagged on the sheath on the way out. Cheap clip, cheap cloth. He got the first sound of a word out before I hit him. His face struck the frame. My palm covered his mouth. The blade went up under the chin, caught on bone, and had to be turned there before he stopped fighting.

  When I let him drop, another man stepped out from behind the truck.

  He had not been in my count.

  Hands up. No iron visible. No move to help anyone. He backed toward the gap in the gate without taking his eyes off me and slipped through it.

  I waited.

  No alarm. No rush of feet. Just the buzz of the light and a laugh from inside the building, thin through the wall and wrong for where it came from.

  I went in.

  The hall smelled of sweat set into concrete, bleach spread over it, hot wiring somewhere behind the wall, and the sweet chemical trace that came with XBD work. A camera dome hung over the first junction at a crooked angle. I tore it down and stamped it flat.

  Voices carried from deeper in. Men working. Men settled.

  The first room was staging.

  Mattresses on the floor. Plastic tubs against the wall. A rail with cuffs hanging from it, the metal polished where hands had worried it. A folding table with the capture rig. The paused screen gave me skin and timecode and enough blur to tell me what it was without looking longer.

  Six in the room.

  One at the tubs. One crouched by the rig. Two on crates with a bottle between them. One by the rail. One near the far door already half turned because the yard had gone too quiet.

  The first shot took the man at the tubs through the back of the head. The second went through the throat of the one at the rig before his hand reached the controls. The man near the door dropped when I shot his calf out from under him and kept dragging himself with both elbows until I put a round into the back of his head.

  The one at the rail got his pistol halfway clear.

  I was on him before the rest of the motion happened. The knife went under the ribs and stuck. He folded around it and kept trying to get words out through a mouth that no longer had any use. His hands found my jacket, slipped, grabbed again. I drove him backward into the wall and let his own weight force the blade deeper.

  One of the men with the bottle stood too late. I hit him in the mouth with the pistol hard enough to splash teeth onto the floor, then shot him as he was folding. The other got tangled under him, kicked free, and tried to crawl. I stamped on the back of his knee, heard something go, and shot him there.

  The last man almost reached the door.

  I fired and got a dead trigger.

  The slide jammed.

  He half turned on the sound. That gave him a second and he wasted it. The round hit his chest instead of his head. He slapped into the wall and tried to say something through the blood in his throat. I was close enough already. The knife was quicker than clearing space for another shot.

  The cuff on the rail swung when I brushed past and struck the mounting bolt twice.

  That brought the hall running.

  Three men hit the doorway too close together to use it right. Pistol. Machete. Scattergun.

  I shot the pistol man first and he dropped into the frame.

  The machete came high. I caught the wrist, turned until the joint failed, and drove his face into the frame. I felt something give in his mouth. He dropped to one knee with the ruined arm hanging wrong and I left him there while I dealt with the scattergun.

  The blast from that shredded the wall and rang the shoulder plate hard enough to numb the hand. I stepped inside the muzzle, shoved it down with the chrome hand, and drove the butt of the pistol into his mouth. He reeled. I hit him again across the nose, kneed him into the wall, tore the weapon away, and shot him low through the belly.

  He stayed up.

  I hit him again, higher this time, and he slid down the wall trying to hold himself together with both hands.

  The machete man was still trying to stand. I kicked his knee sideways and that finished the question.

  The next footsteps were slower. More careful.

  I chose wrong first and found a maintenance closet that stank of mop water and rot. Back out. Left instead. Blue light spilled from the next room.

  They had cleaned the room up for work.

  Chair centered. Cable runs neat. Surfaces wiped. The floor gave it away before anything else did. Drag marks. Dry flakes underfoot. Fresh shoe prints over older stains. A curtain hanging wrong where one side had come loose.

  Behind it, three bodies were cuffed and taped together on the concrete.

  One moved.

  That was enough to bring something old and mean up in me.

  It wasn’t rage. Rage burns and this sat lower than that.

  A scav came through the side door with a short scattergun and a grin he lost as soon as he saw me. He fired before he planted his feet. Pellets slapped the shoulder plate again and tore the wall behind me. My right arm dipped without asking permission.

  I got hold of the barrel and drove him backward into the rack. Steel hit spine. He clawed at the chrome hand, then at my face. I hit him once in the mouth with the pistol, then again with the knife guard when he kept moving. I shot him through the knee. He dropped and tried to rise on the other leg. I put the muzzle under his cheekbone and fired.

  The monitor fizzed.

  Another man came from deeper inside with a machete raised and too much faith in momentum. I let him close, took the wrist, and drove him face-first into the BD chair. He bounced off it and I hit him again. He was still moving when I jammed the knife into the side of his neck and rode him down with it.

  Two more came after him and they had better habits. One stayed low with a pistol and aimed for legs. The other had a cut street sign strapped to his forearm and a pipe in the other hand.

  The pistol man nearly had me.

  Something pale jerked across the edge of the right optic and I shifted for it before I knew I was moving. His shot clipped plaster where my knee had been. I corrected, hit his hand first, then his chest. He went down on his back and kept kicking hard enough to scuff the concrete.

  The one with the sign was already on me. The pipe clipped the shoulder and slid off. I got both hands on the shield edge, yanked him into me, and drove a knee up under it. He folded, but not enough. I hooked his leg with mine, turned, and dumped him onto the floor. The sign came loose from his forearm. He grabbed for the knife hand and got my wrist instead. He held harder than I expected and had no idea what to do with it. I smashed his hand against the concrete until it let go and drove the blade in where the neck met the shoulder because that was what he had given me. He kept moving under me, boots scraping on the floor. I had to stay on him.

  The operator in the back booth had both hands up before I reached him.

  “Listen, I can open—”

  The right optic flashed again. Not words. Not a voice. Just a pale hook at the edge.

  He saw my hand close harder and changed his tone too late.

  “I can get you names, I can get you buyer chains, I can—”

  I dragged him out by the collar and slammed him against the wall beside the console. His teeth came together hard enough that I heard one crack. He pawed at my wrist, then the forearm seam, then the fingers. I pulled the shard from the slot with my free hand and shoved it into my jacket.

  When he looked up again, he wasn’t begging. He was studying my face, trying to guess where the hesitation lived.

  I hit him across the temple with the hilt and his legs went. He tried to keep talking on the way down. I dragged him out of the booth, got my forearm across his throat, and leaned until he stopped moving.

  The rack kept humming.

  I started tearing the place apart.

  Screens first. Then cables. Then the rack. The chair went over on its side and kept humming until I stamped the housing flat. The cuffs on the wall knocked together when I hit the rail. I hit it again because I wanted that sound gone.

  Somebody farther down the hall started firing blind around a corner.

  I took the distance away from them.

  The first man got his elbow broken against the wall and the knife in his belly before he could bring the muzzle around. The second slipped on blood trying to backpedal and I shot him on the floor. The third lost his iron, crawled for a frame, and I dragged him back by the ankle. He twisted onto his back in time to see me. I brought the pistol down across his mouth. Teeth went. He tried to turn away and I hit him again.

  By then the shoulder had gone half numb. The chrome fingers still answered, but there was lag in them if I paid attention. I flexed once, made sure the hand still closed, and left before I found another reason to stay.

  The yard was empty when I came back out.

  Trash moved in little circles across the concrete. Something far off cried out once and stopped. I got back to the Quadra with the shard in my pocket and someone else’s blood drying under one cuff.

  The drive back took longer because I kept it slow. Window cracked. Heat off. Cold air enough to flatten the smell.

  Masamune opened on the first knock.

  His gaze went to the shoulder, then the hand, then the face.

  “Any visual disturbance.”

  “No.”

  He waited.

  “Nothing I trusted,” I said.

  That bought a pause.

  “Show me.”

  I handed him the shard.

  He checked the casing, turned it once, and tucked it away without opening it in front of me.

  “You weren’t followed.”

  “No.”

  He looked at me another second. “Good.”

  That was the first extra word I’d had out of him all day.

  “Clean exit?” he said.

  “Enough.”

  He let that sit.

  Then, “Don’t go back.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He left it there. I left it alone.

  “Tomorrow stands,” he said, and shut the door.

  Back in the Quadra, I sat with the engine off and listened to the metal tick as it cooled. The shaking had gone out of my hands somewhere on the drive. I still didn’t trust that.

  Upstairs, the unit looked exactly the way I had left it. Paper on the counter. Pen on its side. Empty sleeve by the sink. One signature on top that was close enough to pass.

  I washed until the water ran clear and then kept going. The knife took longer. Something had caught near the guard. I worked it loose with the corner of one of the paper squares and dropped it into the bin.

  When the pistol went down on the counter, there was open space beside it.

  I stood there with my hand over the strip of laminate and looked at the knife without touching it.

  Not a bigger knife.

  A sword.