The man didn't charge.
He lunged, a clumsy, off-balance thrust driven by pain and need. The rebar whistled through the air, a line of rust aimed at Leo's chest.
Leo's body, locked at AGI 1, responded with the speed of cold tar.
He didn't dodge. He flinched, throwing himself sideways. His foot caught on the cracked curb and he went down hard, shoulder impacting the asphalt with a jolt that rattled his teeth.
The rebar slammed into the delivery van's bumper beside his head with a deafening CLANG, punching a dent into the faded yellow metal.
"Ten thousand points!" the man rasped, the words bubbling with spit and desperation. He wrenched the bar free. "Anistia! Just your head, ghost. Just your fucking head!"
He stood over Leo, silhouetted against the bruised sky, breathing in ragged, wet hitches. His leg was a mess below the knee, dark blood soaking the filthy rags.
But his eyes held a terrible, practical light. The math was simple. A broken leg was survivable. Ten thousand points was a future.
Leo scrambled backward on his elbows and heels, a crab-like retreat that ground gravel into his palms. He couldn't outfight. Couldn't outrun. His lungs were already tight bands, burning after the pathetic sprint.
He looked past the man, down the long, corpse-gray street. No shelter. Just open space and the consuming void at the end of it.
Then he saw it.
Not a glitch. A simple, physical break in the urban canyon. A storefront with its wide plate-glass window webbed into a thousand crystalline cracks, a dark mouth behind it.
An old optometrist's shop, its cheerful sign now reading "OP IC " where letters had fallen.
The man raised the rebar for a downward smash.
Leo didn't get to his feet. He rolled, a frantic, graceless tumble over the curb, and then pushed off with his hands, staggering into a shambling run.
Three paces. Five. Each footfall was a labor.
Behind him, a roar of frustration and the scrape-clump of the man giving chase, using the rebar as a crude crutch.
It was a tragic parody of a hunt. The prey, breathless and weak. The predator, hobbled and bleeding.
They moved through the silent street like two broken insects, the only sound their gasps and the uneven percussion of the rebar on asphalt.
Leo reached the shattered window. He didn't slow.
He turned his shoulder and pushed through the gap where the glass had fully given way, stumbling into the gloom beyond. The interior smelled of dust, mildew, and the sharp, coppery scent of old metal. Tiny lenses and frames crunched under his shoes.
The man appeared in the jagged opening, blocking the thin twilight. He leaned against the frame, chest heaving.
"Nowhere to run," he panted, a grim satisfaction in his voice. "They're already coming. The ping… everyone saw it."
He let out a dry, hacking sound that might have been a laugh.
"The Lealists will sweep this block clean in minutes. Better I get you first. Cleaner that way."
He pushed off the frame and stepped inside, his good leg testing the floorboards. The rebar was held low, ready for a gutting swing in the confined space.
Leo backed away, past a overturned display case, his analyst's mind mapping the room with frantic clarity.
Counter on the left. Broken chair. Thick dust. A faded poster of smiling faces in glasses. His glitch-sight showed nothing here—just dead, empty space, too far from the active corruption of the Apagamento.
This was just a ruin.
But ruins had their own weaknesses.
His eyes, adjusted to the dim light, caught a discrepancy in the floorboards near the service counter. A subtle sag. A darker patch in the wood.
Not a System error. Simple rot. Water damage from a leaking roof, years of neglect.
The man advanced, step-drag, step-drag. The tip of the rebar scraped the floor, a promise.
Leo didn't have a plan. He had a hypothesis.
He feinted to the right, toward the solid-looking wall. The man shifted, cutting off the angle.
Leo reversed, his weak legs almost giving out, and threw himself toward the left, toward the counter, toward the dark patch on the floor.
The man snarled and lunged, a clumsy but powerful thrust aimed to pin Leo against the counter.
Leo didn't try to jump.
He dropped.
He hit the floorboards on his side, the impact knocking the air from his lungs, and rolled directly over the suspicious patch.
The man's momentum carried him forward. His leading foot, the good one, came down exactly where Leo's body had just been.
It came down on the rotten wood.
The sound was a wet, splintering crunch, like stepping on a giant insect.
The floorboard didn't just crack. It disintegrated.
The man's leg plunged through up to the knee, the wood snapping and tearing. He screamed, a high, animal sound of pure shock.
The rebar flew from his hand, clattering into the darkness. He pitched forward, his torso hitting the floor, his trapped leg bent at a sick, unnatural angle.
He writhed, screaming and clawing at the floor, trying to pull his leg free. Shards of wood dug into his flesh. The sound was raw, human, and utterly out of place in the sterile horror of the new world.
Leo pushed himself up, wheezing. He stared at the trapped man, at the ruin of his leg.
No glitch. No magic. Just rotten wood and bad weight distribution.
The man's screams subsided into choked sobs. He looked up at Leo, his face a mask of pain and bewildered betrayal.
"You… you bastard," he hissed. "Just a cheap… cheap trick."
Then his eyes went past Leo, toward the street. The fear returned, sharper than the pain.
Leo heard it too.
A new sound, cutting through the man's whimpers. Not a scrape. Not a shuffle.
A crisp, synchronized rhythm. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The sound of boots on broken glass. Many boots. Moving with a disciplined, unhurried cadence.
A light washed over the broken storefront—not the sickly twilight, but a clean, white beam that swept across the interior, illuminating swirling dust motes and the trapped man's terrified face.
A voice echoed from the street. It was amplified, devoid of static or panic. It was calm, professional, and colder than the void outside.
"Lealist Unit Delta, sweep confirmation."
The voice was androgynous, filtered, a perfect System adjunct.
"Target signature confirmed within perimeter. Converge and contain. Standard acquisition protocol. Non-compliant resisters may be pacified."
The trapped man's breath hitched. He looked at Leo, all hatred gone, replaced by a shared, dawning understanding.
They were no longer hunter and prey.
They were debris, and the cleaning crew had arrived.
The beam of light fixed on the storefront, holding steady. Shadows moved across it—tall, organized, and many.
The man with the broken leg looked at his own crude, oil-and-soot mark on his wrist, then at the clean, professional light from the street.
A final, pragmatic despair filled his eyes. He stopped trying to free his leg. He slumped against the floor, waiting.
Leo backed deeper into the darkness of the shop, toward a door marked 'LAB' behind the counter.
His mind was empty of plans, of tricks. The street was sealed. The back room was a mystery.
From the light outside, a new figure stepped into view, framed perfectly in the shattered window.
It wore sleek, dark-grey body armor that wasn't military-issue; it looked corporate, with subtle LED trim tracing the seams. A visored helmet obscured the face.
In its hands was a weapon that wasn't a gun—it was a sleek, white device with a wide, funnel-like aperture.
The visor turned, scanning the interior. It passed over the weeping man on the floor without pause. Then it stopped, locking onto the shadow where Leo crouched.
A soft chime sounded in Leo's head, a direct, targeted notification.
"Anomaly-Zero. You are in violation of System Directive Prime. Lealist Custody is now authorized. Please do not resist. It simplifies the paperwork."
The figure outside raised the white device, and its aperture began to glow with a soft, blue light.