The incandescent bulb above Jack's workbench flickered as the old man's hands stilled on the disassembled revolver.
The sudden silence felt heavier than the Bazaar's constant hum of illicit commerce.
"It's Sable, isn't it?" Jack's voice was dry as desert bones, the question hanging between them like a tripwire.
His scarred fingers resumed their work, reassembling the firearm with mechanical precision.
"Who else are you hunting in here besides me?" A spent cartridge clinked against steel. "Obvious choice would be Sable."
Karen's lips quirked at the old man's bluntness. "As expected of you, gramps."
Her prosthetic hand flexed, the joints whispering with barely-contained energy. "Though if you were the mole, we'd all be dead already."
Jack's chuckle turned into a wet cough, the sound of a man who'd smoked too many synth-cigarettes in zero-filter environments.
When he looked up, his eyes were the same flat gray as the pre-Incident steel he cherished.
"Need help purging?" He asked it like offering to fix a jammed firing pin.
Mags' fingers tightened around the new tantō's sheath.
The leather creaked.
Karen exhaled through her nose, catching the familiar scents of gun oil and Jack's cheap antiseptic.
"Tempting. But this needs to be clean." Her gaze drifted to the general direction of Sable's stall. "Quietly."
Jack followed her look and grunted.
He reached beneath the counter, producing a compact case that hissed as it depressurized.
Inside lay three syringes of milky fluid, their labels handwritten in Gristle's spidery script.
"Neurotoxin. Slows the nervous system just enough to..." He made a vague gesture. "Encourage truthfulness."
Mags tilted her head, studying the vials with professional interest.
"Expired six months ago," Jack admitted, "but that just means it hurts more before it works."
He snapped the case shut and pushed it forward. "No extra charge."
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting their shadows against the wall of confiscated weapons.
For a moment, all three figures stood frozen in the stark illumination—a tableau of impending violence momentarily suspended.
Then Karen pocketed the case. "We'll return what's left."
Jack was already turning back to his workbench. "Don't bother." The slide of his revolver clicked home. "I know what a full dose looks like."
The hum of the Bazaar's neon lights flickered as Karen straightened, her fingers brushing the case of neurotoxin tucked into her jacket.
"I think enough time has passed," she said, voice low. "We'll go back to Sable."
Mags turned to leave, but not before raising her hand in a small, almost hesitant wave toward Jack.
It was a rare gesture—something unguarded, something human.
And then, for the briefest moment, Jack's face did something unexpected.
The hard lines of his expression softened, just slightly.
His mouth, usually set in a permanent grimace of disapproval or indifference, twitched—not quite a smile, but something close.
Something almost like regret.
His eyes, sharp and unreadable a second ago, lingered on Mags with a weight that hadn't been there before.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
His usual scowl returned, and he gave a gruff nod before turning back to his workbench, as if the moment had never happened.
***
The usual bustle of Sable's shop had died to an eerie quiet.
The glow of empty display cases cast long shadows across the floor, their contents long since sold off to twitchy buyers and desperate addicts.
Sable was wiping down the counter when they entered, her movements brisk and efficient as she stacked empty vials into a crate.
She didn't look up immediately, but Karen saw the way her shoulders tensed—just for a second—before she forced a smile.
"I'm free now, Boss," Sable said, tossing a rag aside. "What do you want to talk about?"
Karen's gaze flicked to the corners of the shop, where the ever-present hum of surveillance glyphs buzzed faintly in the air.
Too many ears here.
Too many eyes.
"Let's go outside," Karen said, voice low. "Hard to talk in this place."
Sable hesitated, her fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against the countertop. Then, with a shrug that didn't quite hide the tension in her frame, she stepped out from behind the stall.
They moved through the Bazaar's shifting crowds—Karen in front, Sable beside her, Mags a silent shadow behind them.
The neon lights painted their path in jagged streaks of color, the air thick with the scent of aether and sweat.
Around them, deals were struck in hushed tones, weapons changed hands, and somewhere in the distance, a rawcaster's failed glyph sent up a spray of sparks.
Sable shoved her hands into her pockets, her posture casual, but her eyes never stopped moving. "So?" she prompted. "What's so important it can't wait?"
Karen didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she led them toward the edge of the Bazaar, where the crowds thinned and the hum of illicit commerce faded into the ever-present drone of the city beyond.
A better place to talk.
A better place for answers.
The neon haze of the Bazaar pulsed around them as Karen cut straight to the point.
"Do you know anything about the missing credits?"
Sable jerked like she'd been slapped, her hand flying to the hidden holster at her hip before she caught herself.
"Missing credits?" Her voice cracked, just slightly.
The glow from a nearby sign painted her face in sickly violet, highlighting the sweat beading at her temples.
Karen didn't blink. "No need to feign ignorance, Sable."
A whisper of steel.
Mags had drawn her newly acquired tantō, the blade resting flat against her forearm—hidden from casual observers but positioned for a killing strike.
In the Bazaar's unspoken code, guns brought Reclamation Units down on everyone.
But a knife?
A knife was polite.
Sable's eyes darted to Mags, then back to Karen. "Look, if this is about the east tunnel drops—"
"It's about the Myriad liaison you've been meeting," Karen interrupted.
The case of neurotoxin weighed heavy in her pocket. "The one who paid you in corporate scrip instead of cred chips."
Around them, the Bazaar's chaos continued—vendors hawking wares, addicts chasing their next fix, blissfully unaware of the silent war unfolding in their midst.
Sable's fingers twitched toward her comm unit.
Mags shifted her grip on the tantō.
The tantō flashed—a single, precise motion—and Sable's wrist opened like a seam.
No hesitation.
No dramatics.
Just Mags' blade parting flesh and tendon with surgical efficiency.
Sable didn't even scream.
Not at first.
She stared at her own hand, still clutching the comm unit, as it tumbled toward the ground—only for Karen's prosthetic to snatch it mid-air.
The fingers whirred, adjusting their grip with mechanical precision.
"What is this, Sable?" Karen's voice was dangerously calm.
Around them, the Bazaar's noise dimmed—not from shock, but from practiced indifference.
No one interfered.
No one even turned their heads.
Violence here was as common as neon.
Sable clutched her bleeding wrist to her chest, her breath coming in ragged bursts.
Her lips peeled back from her teeth. "Insurance."
Karen's fist cracked against Sable's temple before she could react—the kind of clean knockout blow perfected in a hundred back-alley brawls.
Sable folded like a broken marionette, blood from her severed wrist splattering the pavement in vivid arcs under the neon lights.
"We'll drag her back," Karen grunted, kneeling to heave the unconscious woman over her shoulder. "Let the squad leaders decide—"
Mags moved.
Her tantō flashed sideways—not to kill, but to slice through Sable's jacket sleeve.
The expensive Nimbrix armor weave peeled away like rotten fruit skin, revealing bare forearm beneath.
No three parallel scars.
Just the red dog paw tattoo above the wrist—fresh ink still raised and inflamed.
Karen froze.
The Bazaar's noise faded into static.
Mags' blade hovered, her obsidian eyes locking onto Karen's.
The truth hit like a backfired glyph:
Wrong traitor.
And somewhere in the Talon's ranks, the hidden blade was still waiting.
***
The smog-choked alleys of Sector 19 swallowed Jessa and Tink whole, their small frames weaving through the skeletal remains of gutted mag-lev engines and shattered drone husks.
The air reeked of burnt plastic and leaking coolant, but the kids moved with practiced ease—Tink's too-big boots kicking up rust flakes, Jessa's sharp eyes scanning for anything salvageable.
Their pockets were already half-full: a cracked Aether regulator, three copper coils still intact, a Aetherion-branded capacitor that might fetch a decent trade.
Not enough to pay Lucent for another lesson, but close.
Tink's stomach growled loud enough to startle a glow-rat nesting in a nearby pipe.
He ignored it, fingers tightening around the capacitor in his palm. "What d'you think they'll teach us next? That shield thing? Or maybe the one that makes stuff jump?" His voice was too loud, too hopeful—the way it always got when hunger gnawed at his ribs for too long.
Jessa didn't answer right away.
She was too busy prying open the casing of a dead surveillance drone with her knife, her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration.
The blade slipped, nicking her thumb.
She sucked at the blood absently before tossing the drone aside—useless. "We're not going there to play, Tink," she muttered. "Lessons cost. And we ain't got shit to bargain with except scrap."
A shadow moved at the edge of the junkyard.
Jessa stiffened, her hand darting to Tink's sleeve.
Too late.
Three older kids stepped out from behind a gutted server tower, their jackets patched with Red Dog colors.
The tallest—a girl with a scar splitting her lip—smiled as she kicked aside a rusted panel, blocking their exit. "Look at this. Sector rats doing corpo work for free."
Tink clutched the parts tighter.
Jessa didn't bother hiding hers.
She knew how this went.
The boy at the front—thirteen, maybe, with knuckles tattooed in cheap ink—held out his hand. "Hand 'em over. Unless you wanna eat through a straw for a week."
Jessa's fingers twitched toward the knife still in her belt.
The girl noticed.
"Try it," she said, pulling a shock-baton from her waist.
The cheap glyphwork along its length flickered, unstable but deadly enough. "We'll take the parts and your teeth."
A beat of silence.
The distant wail of a Reclamation drone echoed through the sector.
Tink's breath hitched. "J-Jessa—"
The boy moved faster than either of them expected—a flash of tattooed knuckles, the wet crack of bone against flesh.
The punch sent Tink sprawling backward into a pile of shattered conduit parts.
His head struck a jagged metal edge with a sickening thud, and for one terrible second, his body went limp.
Jessa's knife was in her hand before the older boy could take another step.
The blade trembled—not from fear, but from the adrenaline coursing through her wiry frame.
She held it low and ready, the way her brother had taught her years ago.
Never point it unless you mean to use it.
"We'll give them to you," she said, voice steady despite the fire in her chest. "Just stop."
The Red Dog girl with the split lip laughed, twirling her shock-baton. "Ooh, scary. You gonna stab us, little rat?"
She took a step closer, the baton's unstable glyphwork spitting blue sparks. "Try it. I'll fry your fingers off before you get close."
Jessa didn't flinch.
She kept her eyes locked on the boy—the real threat.
His knuckles were still red with Tink's blood.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she crouched and dumped the contents of her pockets onto the rust-stained ground.
The copper coils clinked against scrap metal, the Myriad capacitor rolling to a stop at the boy's boots.
"Smart," he said, bending to scoop up their haul.
His free hand lingered near his waistband—where the outline of a pistol grip bulged under his jacket.
Behind him, Tink groaned, struggling to push himself upright.
A thin trail of blood dripped from his hairline, painting his temple crimson.
The girl with the baton nudged Tink's ribs with her boot. "Aw, baby gonna cry? Maybe your Spire friends'll kiss it better."
Jessa's grip tightened on the knife.
Every instinct screamed to lunge, to bury the blade in the girl's thigh and run.
But she'd seen how this ended before—gutter kids who fought back wound up in the smelter pits, if they were lucky.
So, she stood frozen, knife still raised, as the Red Dogs sauntered away with their hard-won salvage.
The boy paused at the alley's mouth, tossing the capacitor in the air like a trophy.
"Heard you been hanging around that scarred freak and his Spire pet. What's he teaching you? How to lick corpo boots?"
Then they were gone, swallowed by the smog.
Jessa was at Tink's side in an instant, pressing her sleeve to his bleeding scalp.
His pupils were too wide, his breaths too shallow.
"Tink. Tink. Look at me." She slapped his cheek lightly, the way she'd seen medics do in the Bazaar fights. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Tink blinked sluggishly. "Dunno. Three?"
She wasn't holding up any.
Jessa swore under her breath.
The Spire brat—Kai—had shown her a basic healing glyph, part of the rank 1 utilities glyphs, First Aid last week.
She'd mocked him for it at the time.
Now she'd trade every scrap in Sector 19 to remember how it worked.
Tink tried to stand, wobbled, and nearly face-planted into a pile of broken glass.
Jessa caught him by the straps of his overalls.
"We're going back," she said, looping his arm over her shoulders.
Tink's voice was small. "But we don't got the parts—"
"Doesn't matter." Jessa adjusted her grip, her knife still clutched in her free hand.
The hideout was six blocks away.
Six blocks with Tink's blood dripping down her back.
Somewhere above, a Reclamation drone's spotlight swept the rooftops.
She started walking.
***
Lucent's fingers danced across the cracked holoscreen, peeling back layers of encryption on a freshly cracked SpellApp.
The glyphwork pulsed erratically—another half-baked corporate update, sloppy enough to leave exploitable gaps in its security protocols.
He tweaked the failsafe runes, his knuckles aching from hours of repetitive motion.
Too much bloatware, not enough stabilization.
A recipe for backlashes.
Kai hovered near the doorway, his Conduit disassembled across the workbench.
He'd been fidgeting with the same capacitor for twenty minutes, his gaze flicking to the hideout's entrance every thirty seconds.
"They're late," he said finally, the words sharp with forced casualness.
Lucent didn't look up.
He knew exactly who Kai meant.
The gutter rats—Jessa and Tink—had been turning up like clockwork the past few days, their pockets full of scavenged parts, their eyes too bright with the thrill of learning something that might keep them alive.
"Hmm." Lucent adjusted the holoscreen's contrast, squinting at a corrupted sub-glyph. "Maybe they finally figured out they're getting ripped off."
Kai bristled. "We're teaching them real glyphwork. That's worth more than a few busted capacitors."
"Tell that to their empty stomachs." Lucent's voice was flat.
He'd seen the way Tink's hands shook when he handed over parts yesterday—the kid was running on fumes.
But that was the Junkyard's first lesson: nothing's free.
Not food, not shelter, and sure as hell not knowledge.
Kai opened his mouth to argue—
The proximity alarm shrieked, a jagged burst of static through the hideout's speakers.
Lucent's knife was in his hand before the first echo faded.
The holoscreen flickered, switching to the exterior feed: grainy footage of the alley outside, where two small figures staggered into view.
Jessa was supporting Tink, her arm hooked under his shoulders.
The boy's face was streaked with dirt and something darker—blood, maybe, or soot.
Their pockets hung empty.
Kai was already moving, but Lucent caught his wrist. "Wait."
The camera feed showed Jessa glancing over her shoulder, her free hand clenched around something in her belt—a knife, probably.
Her lips moved, saying something to Tink too low for the mic to pick up.
The boy nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Then they stepped forward, into the camera's blind spot.
A beat later, the hideout's door creaked open.
Jessa stood framed in the doorway, her breath coming too fast. Tink slumped against her, his left eye swelling shut.
"We got jumped," Jessa said, her voice raw. "Lost the parts."
Kai surged forward, but Lucent stayed seated, his fingers steepled under his chin.
"And?" he asked, quiet.
Jessa's jaw tightened. She reached into her pocket and tossed a single object onto the table—a Myriad security chip, its edges still smoldering from what looked like a failed glyph burn.
"Took this off one of them," she said. "It's fried, but… maybe you can crack it."
Lucent picked up the chip, turning it over in his fingers. The burn pattern was deliberate—someone had tried to erase its data in a hurry.
Across the room, Tink coughed, a wet, rattling sound.
Kai was already rummaging through their meager med supplies, but Lucent's eyes stayed locked on Jessa.
"Who jumped you?"
Jessa met his gaze, unflinching. "Red Dogs. Said we were scavenging in their territory." A pause. "They knew we were coming here."
The unspoken accusation hung in the air like smog—thick, choking, impossible to ignore.
Lucent remembered the message Raker had sent him.
Someone had talked.
The hideout's air grew thick with the acrid tang of burnt circuitry and blood.
The unspoken accusation coiled between them like a live wire—someone had talked.
The Red Dogs hadn't just stumbled upon Jessa and Tink; they'd been waiting.
Kai's fingers twitched toward his Conduit, glyphs flickering across its cracked screen as he pieced together the memory. "Wait... didn't Karen say the Steel Talons got hit by Red Dogs last week?"
His voice was too loud in the cramped space. "Same pattern. They knew exactly where to strike."
Lucent didn't look up from the scorched Myriad chip in his palm.
His thumb traced the glyph-burn patterns—too precise for gutter gang work. "Isn't that interesting," he murmured, the words dripping with quiet venom.
He pocketed the chip and grabbed his jacket, the one lined with conductive thread to dampen Aether scans. "Let's ask Karen."
Jessa stiffened. "Ask her what?"
"Where their intel's coming from," Lucent said, checking the blade at his belt. "Gangs don't change tactics overnight."
Kai opened his mouth to protest—but Tink coughed wetly, blood speckling his sleeve.
The decision crystallized: Lucent would go alone.
"Patch him up," Lucent ordered, nodding at Tink's swollen face. "And Kai?" He paused at the door, the dim light carving shadows into his scars. "If I'm not back by dawn tomorrow, torch the east server stack."
The implication hung heavy—burn the evidence, burn the hideout, burn every thread linking them together.
Outside, the smog swallowed Lucent whole.
Jessa pressed a rag to Tink's head wound, her hands steady but her voice raw. "Red Dogs didn't just find us," she muttered. "They knew we'd be there."
Kai stared at the door, his Conduit humming in his palm.
Somewhere in the Junkyard's belly, a war was brewing—and they'd just stepped into the crossfire.