NANITE

Ray's voice was barely above a whisper. "What do you think?"

Alyna's gaze dropped to the rent displayed at the bottom of the listing, the number stark and intimidating. "Eleven thousand a month?"

Ray nodded, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Yeah. It's a lot. But I managed to sell some salvaged tech. The owner's already got us lined up. If we want it, we move tomorrow."

Lina stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking in slow, even circles, her eyes never leaving her son."That's a lot of money."

Alyna caught Lina's eye, then looked at Ray, worry etched into the line of her brow. The truth about the money—where it really came from—weighed heavily in the air between them. Alyna felt like a liar just sitting there, a silent co-conspirator, her guilt as thick as the city's smog.

A silent message scrolled across Ray's HUD, a direct feed from Alyna's own interface.

Alyna: You should tell her the truth, Ray. At least some of it. She knows you're hiding something.This isn't protecting her; it's just building a wall between you and her.

Ray's face remained a blank mask as he scrolled through more photos of the apartment, his shoulders rigid.

She's stronger than you think she is, Ray, Alyna thought, watching him.She deserves more than comforting lies.

The room felt colder then, the silence stretching, each of them chewing on their own private thoughts more than the bland, synthetic food.

Just as Ray finished his meal, a new message, accompanied by a cascade of obnoxious emojis, flashed through his interface:

Arty_MechaManiac_01: Yo! 🌞 Rise and grind, cyber-samurai! 🤖 City's awake, and every street's a rerun of Blade Walker out there. What's your status? What's good? 🗡️

Ray: Just finished breakfast. What's up?

Arty_MechaManiac_01: Hear me out! 🚨 Lower Bastion's tech fair today! Not your grandpa's dusty junk swap. Think bleeding-edge black-market prototypes, bootleg combat AIs, underground drone fights, and mods that would make a corpo blush. You, me, and the holy spirit of cybernetic nostalgia. 💀⚡ You in, or are you gonna leave me hanging? 🤔

Ray paused, considering the idea.

Arty, sensing his hesitation, sent another rapid-fire message.

Arty_MechaManiac_01: Don't ghost me, man! 👻 If you're worried about trouble, you can relax. I checked the feeds. Les Fantômes are running security for the event. No Red Obsidian drama—heard they have a temporary truce. No blade-faces, no ritual masks. I promise: nobody gets shot before noon. (I make no promises about after noon, though. 😜)

His mind raced through everything he'd heard about Les Fantômes. They were based in the Drowned Core—a no-go zone ruled by no one. All members were netstriders and smugglers.
And, true to their name, the identities of their members were unknown. Digital ghosts.

Ray: Any chance of real black market gear? Cyberdecks?

Arty_MechaManiac_01: You know it! 🔥 Last year, some lunatic sold a whole-ass stolen security mech out of the back of a sanitation truck. Today? Prototypes, hacked military drones, restricted neural chips, illegal synthskin grafts, the works. If you blink, some corp vulture 🦅 in a fancy suit is gonna grab all the good stuff first.

Ray mulled over Arty's words. High-end tech, especially mods and a cyberdeck… this was an opportunity he couldn't afford to miss.

Ray: When did you want to go?

Arty_MechaManiac_01: Bro, I'm practically at your door already. 🚪 Don't leave me hanging, or I'll start singing old-school anime theme songs until your neighbors riot. 🎤😈

As if on cue, a burst of tinny static rasped through the apartment's ancient intercom, followed by Arty's voice, cheerful and chaotic: "Let's roll, hero! I can sense your existential crisis from here! The cure is more tech!"

Ray pushed back from the table and moved to the door. He unlocked it, and there he was. Arty. Even in the dim, flickering light of the hallway, he seemed to glow with a manic, irrepressible energy.

"Good morning!" he said, offering an energetic smile and a wide wave to the room.

Alyna nodded in greeting, and Lina offered a small, tired wave in return. Arty's gaze flicked between the two women. "So, this must be the family! That gorgeous woman must be your mother; you've got her eyes. But this one…" He rubbed his chin, playing a guessing game with himself.

"Cousin?" he asked, pointing a playful finger at Alyna.

"Girlfriend," Ray said flatly, trying very hard not to roll his eyes.

"You?" Arty said, looking genuinely surprised.He then leaned past Ray and shouted to Alyna, "Hey! Are you really his girlfriend?"

Alyna chuckled, a genuine, musical sound that seemed to surprise even herself. She stood from the table and walked to the door, extending a hand for Arty, who took it enthusiastically. She winced almost imperceptibly at his greasy grip.

"Alyna," she said.

"Arthur, but you can call me Arty," he replied, beaming. "So, seriously, not his cousin?"

Ray's eyes rolled heavenward with a faint smile on his lips.

"No, Arty. Not his cousin."

"Just checking!" Arty said with a shrug.

"I knew this guy once who was dating his older cousin, and to stop people from making fun of him, he just told everyone she was his girlfriend. Thank the Mechatronic gods they broke up. Imagine the kind of mutants they would have bred! Am I right?"

Alyna offered a polite, if slightly bewildered, chuckle. "Yeah. Right." She gestured towards the table. "Come on in, Arty. Have a seat."

Arty followed her inside, bowing his head respectfully to Lina as he passed. He took a seat at the small table, his posture relaxed, confident. He looked around the small, cramped apartment.

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"Nice place, by the way. Cozy. Way better than my old squat—the landlord conveniently forgot to mention I'd be sharing the apartment with a few large, and very territorial, rat families. But hey, at least they were friendly, most days. They even brought me a small, broken drone once. Not a good one, mind you. Just a rusted-out delivery model from, like, 2038."

He laughed, a loud, infectious sound.

Alyna snorted, covering her mouth to hide her smile. Lina, too, chuckled softly, her tired face brightening. Arty's chaotic, positive energy was already working its strange magic.

Lina extended a frail, trembling hand towards him. Arty took it with a surprising, almost reverent gentleness, his gaze softening as he noted the atrophied muscles and the involuntary tremors.

"Lina," she said, her voice soft but clear. "Ray's mother."

"Arty," he replied, his charming smile genuine. "A pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" she asked, the consummate hostess even in her frailty.

"No, no, I'm good, ma'am. I just had some… breakfast pizza not even half an hour ago."

Alyna sent a private message to Ray's HUD.

Alyna: He's… a lot. But a colorful dude.

"Oh, and I'm so sorry again for the scare I gave you with my drone crashing through your window," Arty said, turning back to Lina.

"There's no problem. At least my Ray got himself a friend out of the situation," Lina said, her words causing a strange pang in Ray's chest.

"Oh, yeah!" Arty turned to Ray, his eyes alight with a new, brilliant idea. "I was thinking of a name for our dynamic duo! What do you think about… 'The Ray-Artyculated'?! Get it? Ray… Arty… articulated? Like a robot?"

"It's… interesting," Ray offered, his tone deadpan.

"So, how is my son with his tinkering?" Lina asked, her curiosity piqued. "He didn't seem very interested in tech until just recently."

"Oh, he's a natural! Seems really capable," Arty said with genuine enthusiasm. "He even helped me figure out what was wrong with that drone that crashed. And don't you worry, ma'am. With me as his master, his tech-sensei, he'll get the gist of things in no time!" He stood up and cleared his throat theatrically. "I would love to stay and chat more, ladies, but there is a glorious tech fair that is waiting for us, and it calls to. my. very. soul!"

"How long is the tech fair open?" Ray asked, standing as well. "Can we go tomorrow instead? I need to pack— we're moving out in the morning."

Arty's face fell. "Nah, man, it's a one-day thing! Today is the only shot. After tomorrow, all the good stuff'll be gone."

His shoulders slumped forward, the sudden shift in his energy palpable, as if he were a machine that had just lost power.

"Don't worry about the packing, Ray," Alyna said, her voice firm, her gaze meeting his. "I'll do it. Just… go have some fun, okay? You deserve it."

Ray opened his mouth to protest, to argue. He needed to remain here to protect them.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

The sudden, sharp, insistent sound on their apartment door shattered the moment. Ray's gaze snapped towards it, every muscle in his body instantly tensing, his mind flashing with a dozen worst-case scenarios.

Arty, oblivious, moved to open the door, but Ray, moving with a speed that was not quite human, grabbed his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. He glanced at Alyna and his mother, his eyes hard, his voice a low, urgent whisper.

"Go into my room. Now."

Another series of sharp, impatient knocks echoed through the small apartment. Everyone in the room seemed to pale. Ray grabbed his pistol from the hidden holster under his coat he'd taken from Red's weapon stash. Not the most subtle of his options, but from up close, it would be more than enough.

Alyna, her own face a mask of fear and dawning understanding, moved quickly, pushing Lina's wheelchair towards Ray's small, windowless room. Arty remained frozen for a second, his usual manic energy replaced by a wide-eyed confusion.

"Go!" Ray whispered again, his voice sharp with an authority Arty had never heard before. Arty nodded dumbly and followed the two women into Ray's room. Ray moved silently to the side of the apartment door, his pistol drawn.

He activated his Z-Dragger, not for movement, but for perception and thought. Time seemed to stretch. He could almost hear the steady, rhythmic beating of the heart of the person on the other side.

Then, the door, its cheap lock no match for whatever tool was being used, burst open. Three silent, suppressed thuds.Ray felt the bullets pierce his chest, the impacts like brutal, staggering hammer blows. Lethal for a normal human, but in his case just some material for his nanites to consume.

He locked eyes with his attacker—a man with dark, unkempt hair and sharp Mexican features, his face hardened by a life on the edge.

Without hesitating, Ray drove his fist, now reinforced with a layer of hardened carbon and steel, directly into the man's face.

Ray felt the crunch of bone and cartilage under his knuckles. The man's head snapped back, a choked scream escaping as he stumbled, weapon clattering to the floor. Ray glanced down the empty, flickering hallway.

No witnesses. Good.

He lunged, pinning the attacker to the floor, his hand clamping over the man's mouth—skull grinding painfully between Ray's grip and the cold, pitted concrete. The man thrashed, terror wild in his eyes.

Ray's right arm rippled, metal flowing like mercury, reshaping itself into a gleaming, razor-edged blade. Without hesitation, he drove it through the man's chest. The thug's eyes bulged, mouth frozen in a silent scream as blood spread in a sudden, dark bloom. The nanites surged forward, crawling from Ray's arm into the dying man—cold, silver-black tendrils writhing beneath the skin, consuming everything in their path.

The man convulsed, heels drumming feebly against the ground, each shudder weaker than the last. The nanites worked with horrifying efficiency, draining away blood, flesh, and finally the last spark of life. In seconds, there was nothing left—no blood, no body.

Ray knelt there, chest tight, the metallic tang of ozone and copper thick in the air. He pressed his palm to the floor to steady himself as the memories flowed into him—another life.

A flash of cheap alchool on his tongue. Rain stinging his face. The sick rush of greed. A pale corporate contact with anxious eyes and an expensive watch shoving a burner chip into the thug's hand.

"You understand? Get the woman—black hair, blue eyes, young. Kill the others. Clean. Bring her to the drop. No witnesses. Full payment on proof."

Ray's awareness dug deeper. The dead man's last desperate thoughts—the panic, the regret, the fading wish he'd never taken this job. All the data from the man's interface—the contact info, route, drop location—flooded Ray's mind, cold and sharp. The destination wasn't West Line, but still somewhere in the city.

Ray staggered upright, hand flexing as his blade melted away. His body trembled slightly—a pulse of someone else's fear still lingering under his skin. Rage twisted in his gut.

Andrew would never stop. He'd never let her go. Until he makes him.

He glanced one last time at the empty patch on the floor—violence devouring violence, a silent erasure. His own reflection stared back from a shard of metal near the baseboard, warped and alien. He repaired the door with a pulse of nanites, sealing the wound in the apartment. But the only real wound was inside him, festering as he turned toward his room.

"You can come out now," Ray said, his voice strained but steady. He could hear Arty whispering frantically on the other side.

"Don't open it, ladies! That's how they always die in the horror vids! Whatever's on the other side, it must have modulated Ray's voice! It's a classic trap!"

Ray sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion, and sent a quick, secure message to Alyna's interface. A moment later, the door creaked open.

The three of them emerged, their faces pale, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Lina's hands were shaking, and Alyna had a protective arm wrapped around her shoulders. Arty, for the second time since Ray had met him, was utterly speechless.

"What was that? What was with the knocks?" Lina asked.

"Just a junky," Ray lied, the falsehood tasting like acid in his mouth, any trace of the violent altercation already cleaned from his clothes by his nanites.

"He was desperate, looking for a score. I gave him a few credits and persuaded him to leave."

Ray heard Arty let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"Dude! You need to chill! The way you reacted, telling us to hide in your room, I thought it was some high-level corporate assassin on the other side, or some shit!"

"Sorry," Ray offered, forcing a sheepish, apologetic look to keep the lie alive.

"Never mind," Arty said, his usual manic energy already returning, a desperate attempt to fill the tense silence with noise. "If you're truly sorry, let's not waste any more precious moments and head to that glorious tech fair!"

He was already moving towards the main door, eager to escape the heavy atmosphere of the small apartment.

Ray glanced one last time at his mother, at Alyna, their faces still etched with a lingering fear and concern. "Bye," he said, the word feeling inadequate, and turned to follow Arty.

"Goodbye, Mrs. Lina! Goodbye, Alyna!" Arty said with a big, enthusiastic wave.

"It was a pleasure to meet you both!" And with that, he was gone, his cheerful voice echoing briefly in the dim, oppressive hallway.