NANITE

Ray stepped forward, into the center of the room, his spine straight, his gaze unwavering. "Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, Johnny," he said, his tone firm but not confrontational, addressing his boss but aware that everyone was listening. "I planned to explain everything after we got the package back. I didn't expect Monica to get pulled into this particular op." His words hung in the air—quiet, restrained, but heavy with unspoken implications. He could feel their judgment, their disbelief, their rapid, critical reassessment of who they thought he was. They'd seen him deliver packages, keep his head down, stay quiet, be invisible. But he wasn't that guy anymore. Not after Red. Not after the alley. Not after everything.

Johnny looked at him for a long, silent moment, his expression unreadable. Not angry. Not uncertain. Just… studying and analyzing.

And Monica, from behind her usual hard, impenetrable exterior, gave him the faintest, almost imperceptible nod. The kind of silent acknowledgment that said, clear as any words: You better prove them all wrong.

Ray didn't flinch from their collective stares. Let them look. Let them doubt. He wasn't here to be recognized, or accepted. He was here to do a job.

The night hung heavy and suffocating over Lower Bastion, thick with an oppressive humidity that promised rain but refused to deliver. The distant, almost subliminal hum of overworked city gridlines buzzed in the background, a soundtrack of frayed nerves perpetually on the verge of snapping.

A black, unmarked van, its engine a low, guttural rumble, crept through the filth-slicked streets, a phantom in the urban decay. Inside, the air was tight, charged with a palpable anticipation and the faint, lingering aroma of gun oil.

Five individuals. One mission.

Johnny sat up front, his face a grim, unreadable mask in the dim light of the dashboard, his eyes, one human, one cold chrome, scanning every shadow, every darkened doorway, like a machine parsing threat vectors. Dalen, heavyset and preternaturally quiet, his broad, scarred frame filling the driver's seat, navigated the treacherous streets with a practiced, steady hand, his knuckles white as they gripped the worn steering wheel.

Rikk, lounging in the back with a deceptive casualness, was wiry and sharp-eyed, a crooked, almost predatory grin curling beneath his scruffy stubble as he field-stripped his compact SMG with smooth, mechanical confidence. Cleaning it wasn't about need—the weapon was already immaculate. It was about control, a ritual to focus the mind before the storm. Monica sat beside him, her elbows resting on her knees, her molten gold eyes, enhanced and glowing faintly in the dark, staring into nothing, her expression unreadable. She was probably reviewing tactical overlays, mission parameters, her mind a cool, efficient processor.

And Ray, seated beside her, stared out the reinforced window, his reflection a distorted, shifting ghost flickering between the passing, lurid neon lights. He didn't look like the same man, the same scared guy, from four days ago. The transformation was more than skin deep. It was in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, in the very way he held himself. He was… something else now.

No one spoke. The silence in the van was a living thing, coiling tighter with each passing block.

The van rolled to a stop, its tires barely whispering on the wet pavement. Johnny leaned forward, peering through the tinted windshield at their target. The warehouse stood like a rusted, decaying corpse against the bruised, polluted sky, its flickering, unreliable floodlights casting long, skeletal shadows across its corrugated, graffiti-scarred surface. Decay clung to the structure like a second, leprous skin. He gave a silent signal—a slow, deliberate wave of his hand. The van crept a little farther, then turned sharply into a dark, narrow alleyway, its engine dying with a tired, metallic sigh.

Johnny and Dalen stepped out into the oppressive night, their heavy boots hitting the cracked pavement with the familiar weight of long-practiced ritual. Rikk opened the van's back door and followed, stretching his neck with a loud pop that echoed with unnerving clarity in the sudden stillness.

"Ready?" Johnny asked, his voice low, a gravelly rumble that nonetheless carried an undeniable weight of command.

No one answered. They didn't need to. The tension in the air was enough. One by one, each team member, with a series of practiced mental commands, took their neural interfaces off the public grid, severing their connection to the city's vast, omnipresent network. If the Red Obsidian had a netstrider, waiting to breach their minds, to turn their own tech against them, they'd find nothing.

Then they split, melting into the shadows like wraiths. Johnny led Dalen and Rikk north, towards the warehouse's main loading docks. Monica nudged Ray with her elbow, a silent command, and the two of them veered northeast, sticking to the darkest edges of the alley—slipping like water between broken, derelict vehicles and teetering piles of twisted, industrial debris.

"I like this guy, Johnny," Monica murmured, her voice a barely audible whisper in Ray's enhanced hearing. "Tough. Firm. Professional. Knows his shit."

Ray, crouched beside her behind the rusted, skeletal carcass of an old service truck, said nothing. He was calm. Focused and ready. Across the alley, a shadow detached itself from a deeper darkness—Johnny. He raised two fingers and tapped his wrist twice. Go time.

They moved. Barely any sound. Shadows within shadows.

At the warehouse's eastern flank, a less fortified access point, Monica reached a heavy-duty side maintenance panel and pulled a thin wire from underneath her sleeve. It gleamed faintly in the dim, ambient light like a strand of spun silver. She expertly connected it to the panel's control interface. A soft hiss. A brief, blue spark. The outer perimeter alarm system died with a silent, digital sigh. Click. The reinforced door slid open, revealing a dark, cavernous interior.

They entered, the warehouse swallowing them whole.

Inside, it was a mausoleum of forgotten commerce. Stagnant, metallic-smelling air hung heavy and still. Shafts of faint, sickly light, filtered through skylights caked with years of grime and pollution, cut through the oppressive darkness, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the dead air. Rows upon rows of towering, industrial-grade shelves, laden with sealed, anonymous crates, stretched away into the gloom like the ribs of some colossal, dead beast.

Ray switched his optics. OptiRange Mk-IV Scope Eyes. Red's prized possession. He'd paid dearly for them—variable zoom, multi-spectrum night and thermal overlays, integrated target tagging, a built-in rangefinder. High-end tech, designed for snipers, for assassins. And now, thanks to his nanites, Ray had them, seamlessly integrated into his own visual cortex. The darkness peeled away, replaced by a world of enhanced, terrifying clarity. Overlay reticles blinked to life. HUD data, crisp and precise, flickered along the edges of his vision.

Stolen novel; please report.

He knew power when he saw it. And this was power.

"Cams ahead," he whispered, his voice preternaturally calm, his new eyes easily picking out the active surveillance units. "Two on the left gantry, one covering the central aisle."

"Keep it tight. Two-by-two. Watch your sectors," Johnny's voice crackled back, equally low, equally controlled.

They slipped between the towering rows of crates like wraiths, their movements fluid and precise, avoiding the sweeping gaze of the cameras, blending with the stark, utilitarian architecture of the warehouse. They stopped in front of a steel door at the far end of the main storage area. Muffled voices echoed faintly through the thick metal—Red Obsidian guards, blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to hit them. Johnny glanced at each member of the team, his gaze lingering on Ray for a fraction of a second longer, then nodded once.

Monica eyes glowed once and the door hissed open.

Johnny stepped forward. From his right arm, a compact, articulated ballistic shield unfurled with a sharp, metallic snap. He stormed ahead, his weapon already up, barking short, controlled bursts of fire into the room beyond.

The inside of the chamber lit up in a chaotic strobe of muzzle flashes. Red Obsidian guards, alerted by the sudden violence, poured out from behind heavy crates and industrial lift machinery. They were marked by the familiar, stylized feathered tattoos curling across their necks and shoulders, and one or two wore the grotesque, glowing LED ritual masks that were their gruesome trademark.

Gunfire exploded, the confined space amplifying the deafening roar to a physical concussion. Monica dove right, rolling behind a stack of containers, her VEX-12 already spitting fire. Dalen and Rikk dropped behind a heavy scaffolding beam, laying down a withering field of suppressive fire. Ray slid into cover behind a tall, metal storage rack, rounds pinging and ricocheting off the metal just inches above his head.

Johnny's voice cut through the chaos. "Push forward! Don't let them regroup! Rikk, suppress that heavy on the left!"

Then the floor trembled, a deep, resonant vibration that Ray felt in his bones. A low, ominous groan echoed from the far end of the vast warehouse. Ray turned, his enhanced senses screaming a new, more potent threat. Hydraulics hissed, loud and powerful. Sparks, bright and angry, rained down its frame.

A silhouette emerged from the deepest shadows—massive. Imposing. Terrifying. Four meters tall.

"A motherfucking Minotaur," Ray whispered, his voice a mixture of awe and dawning horror. He froze. Not in fear—his nanites seemed to have dampened that particular human response—but in a strange, detached fascination.

The thing was a weaponized nightmare. That particular model was often used by the VPD's heavy urban pacification units to patrol the most dangerous, lawless zones of the city. Its sheer firepower was enough to make even the most foolhardy, stim-crazed ganger think twice before trying to engage it. And now it was hunting them.

The Minotaur stepped into full view, its heavy, articulated legs shaking the very foundations of the warehouse. Twin rotary cannons, devastatingly powerful, were mounted on each of its broad shoulders, flexing with a lethal, terrifying precision. Their heavy ammo feeds coiled into armored housings on its back like a nest of metallic serpents. Its matte-black, ablative plating, thick and battle-scarred, peeled at the edges, revealing glimpses of the scorched titanium understructure, crisscrossed with countless impact scars and energy weapon burns. Old, faded VPD serial codes blinked erratically beneath layers of soot and grime, forgotten by time, but not by the machine's core programming. Its wedge-shaped, heavily armored torso flexed with a low groan of stressed metal. Piston-driven legs, ending in massive, clawed stabilizers, crushed debris and buckled ferroconcrete beneath its immense weight. A single, glowing red optical sensor, like the eye of some cyclopean god of war, stared out from its headless, brutally functional chassis. Despite the obvious, extensive damage—deep fractures in its armor, gaping gashes leaking hydraulic fluid, live sparks arcing from exposed conduits—it moved with an unnatural, terrifying fluidity. Like it didn't know it was dying. Or perhaps, it simply didn't care.

Johnny retracted his shield with a sharp, metallic clang.

He dove, rolling behind a stack of heavy cargo containers, just as the Minotaur's cannons opened up.

The first blast, a deafening roar of high-caliber rounds, tore through a nearby crate wall as if it were wet cardboard, sending splinters and shrapnel flying.

The second hit Rikk's cover. Plastic melted. Metal screamed.

Rikk barely managed to roll free, his face pale, his eyes wide.

The Minotaur advanced, its cannons swiveling, tracking, relentless. Lead rained down from the remaining Red Obsidian fighters, who had regrouped and were now firing with a renewed, desperate ferocity.

Monica, moving with her characteristic lethal grace, sprang to an upper gantry platform. Her VEX-12 cracked, sharp and precise. One Obsidian guard down, clutching his throat. Then another, a neat hole appeared in his forehead.

They ducked low, clearly afraid to expose themselves to her deadly accuracy.

The Minotaur's cannons, sensing the new threat, turned, swiveling upwards. Monica was in sight.

It fired.

She dropped, twisting in midair with impossible agility, a line of high-caliber explosive rounds shredding the metal platform just above her.

She landed hard, rolling, and ducked behind a heavy-duty forklift, momentarily pinned down.

Johnny's cybernetic arm moved—a blur, an arc of motion. A high-explosive grenade hissed through the smoke-filled air.

Boom.

It hit the Minotaur dead center in its chest plate. The massive war machine staggered, its chest plate sparking, glowing cherry red. Blue coolant mist hissed from a newly cracked hydraulic line. Still, it stood. Still, it fought.

Dalen's jaw clenched, the old burn scar on his neck pulsing.

He didn't flinch—but Ray, his senses preternaturally sharp, saw his breathing hitch, a tiny tell in the face of overwhelming firepower.

The Minotaur's remaining cannon barked again, a short, angry burst. Johnny vanished behind a collapsed industrial loader as the wall behind him erupted in a shower of flame and shrapnel.

Monica popped up from cover, her VEX-12 spitting fire, and fired three precise, armor-piercing rounds. The Minotaur reeled, its movements becoming more erratic.

Sparks burst from its left knee joint—already weakened, Ray noted, from previous engagements.

"Target its damaged joints!" Johnny roared, his voice strained but resolute. "Focus fire! Bring it down, now!"

Ray heard frantic shouting from the remaining Red Obsidian guards—sharp, panicked calls laced with confusion and growing terror.

Then came the familiar, unwelcome clink of metal on concrete. A grenade. It landed near him, rolling once before stopping, its activation light blinking a malevolent red.

The Z-Dragger surged, unbidden. Time stretched, became thick, viscous. He dashed to the side, a blur of motion, vaulting acrobatically behind a fallen support beam just as the explosion erupted behind him, turning his previous cover into a maelstrom of burning, twisted fragments. He sprinted forward, weaving with inhuman speed and agility between the storage racks and piles of debris, ducking low beneath a hail of flying shrapnel. His pistols that he'd taken from Red's stash, came up and he fired, both guns blazing.

Each bullet struck true, guided by an instinct that wasn't entirely his own. Thanks to the combat memories, the ingrained muscle reflexes, stolen from Red's dying mind, every shot felt automatic, precise. Weak points on the Minotaur's damaged chassis, invisible to the naked eye, lit up in his enhanced vision like blinking, inviting targets.

The Minotaur shuddered under the concentrated assault, listing slightly to one side, its massive frame sparking and groaning, its internal systems struggling, failing, to compensate for the mounting, catastrophic damage. Another explosion rocked the floor. Grenades. Again. Ray didn't need to check to know who'd thrown them.

Through the acrid smoke, he spotted Rikk and Dalen, flanking the crippled machine, their SMGs roaring, hammering bullets relentlessly into its weakened joints, one armor-piercing clip at a time. Monica's final, perfectly aimed burst from her VEX-12 ripped through the exposed, sparking servos at the Minotaur's heavily damaged left knee. With a seismic, rending crack, the joint gave out. The Minotaur, the once-invincible war machine, collapsed like a felled titan, crashing into the ferroconcrete floor with a deafening, earth-shattering boom. The floor split and buckled beneath its immense weight, sparks and flames trailing from its ruptured core. It tried to turn, to bring its remaining weapon to bear—its movements slow, unstable, collapsing in on itself. Its cannon aimed sluggishly, erratically, toward Rikk. Too late. Rikk, with a final, defiant burst of fire, dashed away, vanishing into the swirling haze of smoke and dust.