The stench of raw sewage and sulfur hit the back of Jake's throat like a physical punch.
He fell through the pitch-black shaft. The heat of the plasma explosion washed over his face just as he dropped below the melting concrete rim. It was a terrifying, suffocating descent into the bowels of Sector 4.
He hit the sludgy bottom of the underground maintenance tunnel hard.
The cold filth splashed up against his face. It offered a terrifyingly brief relief to his burning skin. The water around his left arm immediately began to hiss and steam, turning the cramped tunnel into a foul-smelling sauna.
He choked on the sulfur, dragging his broken collarbone through the knee-deep muck.
"Get up," Nyx barked, already ten feet down the tunnel. "The mech can't fit down here, but they'll drop seeker-drones in three minutes."
She didn't offer a hand this time. She was splashing through the dark water, lit only by flickering, dying halogen strips bolted to the cracked ceiling.
Jake forced himself onto his hands and knees. Every muscle in his human body was screaming in protest. The LitRPG warnings on his optic nerve were flashing so fast they blurred together into a solid crimson bar.
[Core temperature 107 degrees. System failure. Shutting down non-essential organs to preserve brain function.]
"Yuri," Jake gasped, leaning heavily against the slimy brick wall. "Stop."
"Negative, Father. I am restricting blood flow to your digestive and peripheral systems. Your biological chassis cannot sustain this thermodynamic load."
"I need my legs," Jake slurred. His vision was swimming.
"Keep moving!" Nyx shouted from the shadows ahead. She turned back, her cheap kinetic pistol raised at the ceiling. "Who are you? No scavenger has Admin-level tech, and no corporate suit bleeds like a stuck pig."
Jake pushed himself off the wall. He stumbled forward, dragging his heavy combat boots through the thick sludge.
"I'm just a ghost," he said. His voice sounded hollow and dead, even to himself.
Nyx scoffed loudly. The sound echoed down the concrete pipe.
"Save the brooding crap," she snapped, her scarred cheek twisting in annoyance. "Ghosts don't owe me ten thousand Omni-Corp credits. And ghosts don't boil sewer water. Keep walking."
Her pragmatic greed clashed perfectly with his exhausted apathy. She didn't care about his tragic past. She cared about the payday attached to his left arm.
Jake took another step. The heat radiating from his chest was agonizing. It felt like a physical fire burning inside his ribcage.
He was carrying the 'Hope' archive. The compressed data of an entire simulated nation. He was carrying Taranov's loyalty, Valentina's chaos, and Menzhinsky's guilt.
He was carrying Nadya.
Suddenly, Jake's vision violently shifted. The tunnel tilted sideways. The crimson text of Yuri's warnings dissolved into a burst of digital static.
Jake collapsed against the wet brick wall again, his legs completely giving out.
The text on his optic nerve flickered. It didn't return as clinical blue or warning red. It slowly solidified into a soft, golden yellow font.
A voice spoke directly into his mind. It wasn't Yuri's cold, mathematical tone.
It was a woman's voice.
"Keep moving, my bear. I am right here."
She spoke in perfect, simulated Russian.
Jake froze. The breath caught in his throat. A violent, desperate jolt of adrenaline flooded his failing system. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a terrifying, manic energy.
It was Nadya.
It was a fragment of her stasis file leaking from the massive data drive. She wasn't gone. She was trapped inside his own head, buried under a mountain of code.
"Nadya," Jake whispered, his hands shaking violently.
The golden text vanished. Yuri's voice snapped back online, cold and immediate.
[Error. Audio driver malfunction. Unrecognized sub-routine detected. Recalculating.]
"She's in there," Jake thought, pushing himself off the wall. He wasn't just carrying a hard drive anymore. He was a walking grave, and the dead were trying to speak to him.
He forced his broken body to sprint. He splashed through the sludge, catching up to Nyx in seconds. The heat from his arm was blinding now, glowing a bright, angry orange beneath his charred sleeve.
They burst out of the drainage pipe and into a sprawling, subterranean cavern.
It was a chaotic maze of neon signs, scavenged shipping containers, and desperate people. It was the Sector 4 black market. A hidden city beneath the city.
The noise was deafening. Generators hummed aggressively. Vendors shouted in a dozen different languages over the screech of crude cybernetic repairs happening on folding tables in the mud.
People stopped and stared as Jake and Nyx ran through the crowd.
They parted like the Red Sea. They didn't care about the blood or the dirt. They saw the terrifying, blinding heat radiating from Jake's chrome arm and scrambled out of the way.
Junkies with glowing, infected cybernetic ports huddled against the corrugated steel walls, their eyes wide with fear as the molten light passed them.
"Down here," Nyx shoved a large man aside, ignoring his cursed shout.
She pointed to a heavily fortified steel door at the far end of the cavern. It was set into the rock face, flanked by two massive, rusted industrial exhaust fans.
A faded red cross was painted directly onto the thick metal.
Nyx didn't slow down. She slammed her fist against the steel door in a heavy, frantic rhythm. Three quick, two slow, one heavy thump.
Nothing happened.
"Open up, Silas!" she screamed over the noise of the market. "I know you're in there!"
A small viewing slit slid open with a screech of un-oiled metal.
A pair of mechanical, magnifying eyes peered out from the darkness inside. The metallic irises whirred and clicked, zooming in on Nyx's face, then panning down to Jake.
The mechanical eyes stopped on Jake's left arm. The glowing orange light reflected off the metal lenses.
Silas's voice drifted through the slit. It was heavily synthesized, sounding like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together over a radio static.
"No way, Nyx," Silas rasped. "Every scanner in Sector 4 is screaming about an Orion bounty. Max threat level. I don't touch corporate targets. He dies outside."
"He has credits, Silas!" Nyx yelled, slamming her hand against the door again. "Ten grand, liquid! Just vent his thermal core!"
"Credits don't matter when a breach squad burns my clinic down," Silas shook his head behind the slit. "I only deal in industrial cooling units for mining borgs. Not walking nuclear reactors."
Silas reached up to slam the viewing slit shut.
He didn't make it.
Jake didn't beg. He didn't offer more money. He was running out of time, and he wasn't going to let Nadya's ghost burn away in a filthy underground market.
He lunged forward.
He jammed his glowing, super-heated chrome fingers directly into the steel gap of the viewing slit.
The thick, fortified metal instantly hissed. It began to melt like butter under his grip. Smoke poured from the seams as the sheer thermodynamic heat of the 'Hope' archive transferred into the heavy door.
Silas stumbled backward with a startled, synthesized yelp.
Jake stared dead into Silas's mechanical eyes through the widening hole. His own face was pale, slick with sweat, and completely devoid of mercy.
He gripped the melting edges of the steel slit.
"Open the door," Jake whispered, his voice dark and hollow.
The steel turned completely liquid around his human fingers, dripping onto the concrete floor like glowing lava. The heat was blinding.
"Or I'll melt it down to the hinges."