HOVE – LOCATION UNKNOWN – DISTRICT III
HOVE used to be a decommissioned facility for Manuals—long obsolete. Now, it was a fortified hive of illegal operations, transformed into a major base for Havery and his gang.
The place was locked down tight: walls reinforced, patrolled by Metheon Automatics, and packed with heavily armed scoundrels. Hackers, modders, scavengers, dealers—everyone came here to sell mecha parts, stolen software, black-market drugs, and corpo IDs, sometimes even back to the corpos themselves.
Shakes was allowed in. He knew every inch of this place. He'd worked here for six years—before Havery, before Bridget, before everything had turned to rot. This used to be home. And then it was gone—lost to greed, chaos, and blood. He'd run, barely survived. The guilt clung to him like static. But maybe... just maybe, this was a shot at redemption.
"Well, look at him. He's back," Havery laughed, stepping out of the shadows.
Shakes didn't waste time. "Where is it? You said you found one. Where is it?"
"That's why I like you," Havery said, amused. "All business, no fun. Gets the job done quick and clean. Come on."
He and Bridget led Shakes through the compound: past production lines, hacker dens, tech pits, and salvage bazaars. Eventually, they reached the Vault—where only the rarest and most dangerous things were kept.
With a signal from Havery, two men dragged something into the light.
It was a Manual—erratic, rusted, twitching. An old, almost broken thing with jagged sockets and corrupted circuits. It thrashed like a feral animal.
More men joined to hold the chains steady as Havery pulled out a remote. One press, and the bot slammed against a powerful magnet off the ground, suspended and squirming. Even restrained, it looked murderous - it was murderous, many would die if it found a way off those restraints.
It was infected. Truly infected. The Horde Virus was still intact.
Shakes took a step forward, stunned. "How did you—?"
"Find it?" Havery grinned. "I told you I'd get one. I got it. Now extract the virus and get the hell off my turf. I've got real business to handle."
He turned, then paused. "And no games this time. Last time you tried that, I took a kidney. This time? I might take something with balls."
The gang laughed.
Shakes kept his expression still, but inside, he burned. He remembered the day Havery killed Petro—his old boss—and took the gang by force. Everyone loyal to Petro had been wiped out.
Shakes had to work for Havery, his skills were exceptional as a hacker and Havery knew this but when he couldn't take it any longer he walked but barely with his life.
Cindy had found him, helped him recover. He'd left the Rifters then, but not without a price—an artificial kidney and a scar to prove it. No one left Havery clean.
He looked at the Manual again.
This was the first live infection he'd seen in years. The Horde Virus had supposedly been wiped out—cleansed in Bineth's massive purge operations.
But here it was, atleast some piece of the original viral code was still pulsing and twitching inside a degraded shell. The knowledge buried in that code... it was priceless.
Dangerous. And Shakes knew—Havery didn't want knowledge. He wanted profit.
The highest bidder would pay millions.
But maybe... if Shakes extracted the virus, maybe this was his way out. His last job. A final act to right some of the wrongs, to balance the years lost to violence and betrayal.
He had been scared for most of his life, who was he really kidding, though without chains, he was never free, Havery never let go of anyone who was of importance to him and those he let go, never saw the light of another day.
He thought of Cindy. Of Rolo. Of the others.
They'd be okay. Cindy was strong. Rolo had always looked out for them.
He smiled—tired, grim.
Now it was time.
One last job.