The station hung at the edge of Ilion’s development swarm like something the ring had coughed up and forgotten to clean. Two kilometers of repurposed mining infrastructure, officially classified as “Temporary Residential Facility, Integration Pending.” Translation: twelve thousand people crammed into spaces built for three hundred, where official records went to die and unofficial economies flourished in the gaps between. The kind of place where hope was the most expensive luxury on the market.
, she thought, the bitterness coating the inside of her mouth like stale ration paste.
The docking clamps grabbed her speeder with a jarring thunk. Handke, the bay supervisor, gave her a slow once-over, his eyes lingering on the black module secured to her rig. His expression didn’t change, Handke’s face had stopped registering emotion around the same time the station’s life support had started failing, but his gaze held a beat too long. Beatrix didn’t blame him. In Umbra-3, curiosity about other people’s salvage wasn’t just polite conversation; it was a survival instinct. Knowing what your neighbor had was the first step to knowing what they’d miss when it went missing.
She walked the crooked corridors toward Scrap & Suture, the module a cold, insistent weight against her hip. Through grime-streaked viewports, the station’s familiar decay unfolded like a tired story: exposed conduits bleeding rust, flickering lights maintenance had given up on years ago, graffiti marking territory lines that shifted with the weekly clan politics. The air tasted like recycled everything, oxygen, dreams, despair.
But her mind wasn’t on Umbra-3’s particular brand of misery. It was planning what to do next.
, she calculated, the numbers scrolling behind her eyes with desperate clarity.
The module pulsed against her side, a low thrum she felt in her bones.
Scrap & Suture smelled like ozone, rust, and the particular scent of things barely holding together, a familiar cocktail that somehow felt more like home than her own bunk. The shop occupied what had once been a maintenance bay, its walls lined with salvaged parts, jury-rigged tools, and the accumulated debris of thirty years in the repair trade. Bodhi called it organized chaos. Beatrix called it the only place in Umbra-3 where broken things had a chance of working again.
Bodhi sat with his back to the door, grinding a bevel on a knife that had once been scrap cargo rail. A big man gone soft in some places and hard in others, fifty-two years of survival written into the weathered lines of his face and the salt-and-pepper stubble that never quite became a beard. His prosthetic left arm caught the light as he worked, military-grade chrome and carbon fiber, outdated now but still functional. Still a reminder of what The Grind took from the people who survived it.
A glitchy holoscreen at his side played last year’s Grind highlights: chrome armor shattering, fighters grappling in zero-g, crowds screaming for blood in three different languages. He didn’t turn when she entered. He never did.
Still, she felt the subtle ping of his old [Tier 4] Humanware connecting with hers, a veteran’s handshake, data-rich and wordless.
“Kid,” he grunted, not looking up. “If you’re selling organs, I can only afford a kidney today.”
“Don’t be gross.” She set the black module on the workbench beside him with a solid thunk.
Bodhi turned then.
The joke died on his big face.
He set the knife aside with exaggerated care, like he was handling live ordinance. His prosthetic fingers hovered just above the module’s surface, not touching, as if it were a divine relic that might burn through his chrome.
“Where,” he said, his voice dropping to a quiet that felt heavier than a shout, “did you get that?”
“The Fearless. Restricted compartment.” She pushed it closer, the sigil catching the overhead light. “Told you the wreck had juice. What is it?”
His mouth worked silently for three full seconds before finding words. “A mistake. Let’s hope it’s not yours.”
“Humanware?”
“A kind.” He leaned closer, his one good eye studying the etched markings. The prosthetic whirred softly as he traced the air above the code bar. “That’s not tech, kid. That’s a leash.” He finally looked at her, and the fear in his eyes was a cold splash against her skin. “OMEGA-made, with the MAGI’s blessing. I knew a soldier, a good one, who whispered about things like this after too many drinks. You don’t wear this. It wears you.”
Beatrix felt the tiny hairs on her arms lift. Her fingertips brushed the module’s edge almost unconsciously, a habit from checking salvage for heat or vibration.
A sudden, sharp jolt shot up her arm.
It wasn’t electricity. It was data, a torrent of compressed protocols, authentication requests, and a single, clear query flooding her basic [Tier 1] Humanware interface.
> OMEGA-CLASS INTERFACE DETECTED.
> REQUESTING SYNC. [Y/N]?
She snatched her hand back as if burned, her heart hammering against her ribs. The query vanished from her corneal display, leaving only the phantom ache of an overloaded connection in her temples.
It’s awake.
“Sounds like stories to scare kids,” she managed, keeping her voice flat.
“Sounds like why my arm’s not attached anymore.” He held up the prosthetic, the joint clicking softly. “Look. Everyone’s got [Tier 1] Humanware. Keeps your heart beating, tells you when you’re dying. Basic life support. This?” He finally tapped the module with a metal finger, a light tink that echoed in the sudden quiet. “This is [Tier 5] stuff. Experimental. The kind of tech they test on soldiers who won’t be missed.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Sounds useful.”
“It is.” His gaze locked onto hers. “It also eats you alive. Rewires your nervous system, integrates with your fight-or-flight until you can’t tell where you end and it begins. It wants you to become a monster so efficient you forget you were ever human.” He set the module down carefully, like it might detonate. “Sell it. Two hundred grand, easy. Maybe two-fifty if you find the right buyer with more credits than sense.”
Before she could answer, a priority ping flashed in the corner of her vision, Dante’s icon, pulsing urgent red.
Her breath hitched. Not now.
Bodhi saw her expression freeze. “Kid?”
“Hold on.” She accepted the call, audio-only. “Dante? Everything okay?”
Her brother’s voice was thin, strained through a poor connection. “Bea. Hey. Don’t… don’t panic.”
Always a great start. “What’s wrong?”
“The clinic. They, uh… they did another scan. The neuro-drip’s efficacy is dropping faster than projected.” He took a shaky breath. “Dr. Velsen says we can’t wait the full cycle. The next treatment window just got moved up. Way up.”
A cold knot tightened in her stomach. “How far up?”
“They will tell us in the meeting. But Bea… it’s going to be expensive.” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying.”
The news detonated in her mind. The scaving plan, slow, careful, reliant on finding a crew and a buyer, dissolved into ash. The math was no longer ugly. It was impossible.
“Okay,” she said, the word automatic, hollow. “Okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. Just… rest. I’ll see you in the meeting.”
“Bea…”
“I’ll solve it, Dante. Promise.” She severed the connection. The silence in the shop was suddenly deafening, filled only by the soft whir of Bodhi’s prosthetic and the canned roar of the Grind highlights.
Bodhi was just watching her, all his earlier intensity softened into something worse: understanding.
“I’m thinking about it,” Beatrix whispered, the lie tasting like dust. Two-fifty grand in ten days through a clean broker? Not a chance.
“Mmhhmm.” He fixed her with a look that had probably intimidated tougher people than her back in his fighting days. “I know a broker in Sector Three. Clean deal, no questions, credits in your account by tomorrow. Then you forget you ever found this thing.” But his voice was less firm than a minute ago.
Tomorrow. The word was a mockery. Even if she sold it tomorrow, the deposit was only half the problem. The full treatment cost would be triple that. The broker’s money was a stopgap, not a solution. It was a down payment on a longer, slower failure.
“I don’t need people, Bodhi.” She reached for the module, her fingers closing around cold metal. This time, she felt only a low, patient hum. Waiting. “I need money. Fast.”
His hand closed over hers before she could pull it back. Not hard, Bodhi had never been hard with her, not even when she’d deserved it, but firm enough to make her stop.
“Listen to me.” His voice dropped, the shop’s usual background hum suddenly loud in the silence. “You know the saying: The Grind chews up lone wolves.” His eyes found hers, and she saw something in them she didn’t want to name, pity, maybe, or worse, recognition. “All the augmentation in the world doesn’t mean squat if you step into the arena alone. You hearing me?”
“I’m not fighting.” The words came out automatic, worn smooth by years of repetition. A mantra that felt thinner every time she said it. “I’m surviving. There’s a difference.”
“That’s what you’re calling it now?” His gaze dropped to her hands. To the knuckles that bore faded, silvery scars, old breaks, badly set. Marks of the cages. The kind you got when you blocked a punch with your fists instead of proper form. “I know what those are.”
Beatrix bit her lip. “That was a long time ago.”
“Not long enough that I don’t remember your mother showing up here with you and Dante in tow, asking me to talk sense into you.” He leaned back, his chair creaking in protest. The prosthetic whirred softly, a constant reminder of the cost of things. “She was scared, Beatrix. Not angry. Scared. Said you’d found the underground cages, said you were good at it, said you wouldn’t stop no matter how many bones you broke.”
“I stopped.”
“We’ll see.” He gestured at the module, a sharp, chrome flash of motion. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re thinking about starting again. Just with better equipment this time.”
The silence stretched between them, thick with things unsaid. On the holoscreen, a fighter took a hit that should have killed anyone without military-grade enhancements. The crowd roared. The winner raised chrome-plated fists, and the camera zoomed in on his face, ecstatic, empty, a perfect weapon wearing human skin.
“I promised her,” Beatrix said quietly, the words tasting like ash. “Before she died. I promised I wouldn’t go back to the cages.”
“And?”
“And I’m not. I’m scaving. There’s a difference.”
Bodhi’s expression softened, which somehow made it worse. Gentleness from him felt like a diagnosis. “Kid...”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then sighed. Without a word, he reached below the workbench with his good hand and pulled out a vacuum-sealed nutrient bar, the cheap, gritty kind stocked in emergency kits. He pushed it across the scarred metal toward her. The gesture was so simple, so utterly Bodhi. No platitudes. No hug. Just eat something, kid.
Her throat tightened. She took the bar, the wrapper crinkling in her fist. “Thanks.”
She grabbed the module before he could stop her, shoving it into her pack with more force than necessary. The clasps snapped shut with finality. “I have a call with Dante in an hour. A real one.”
“Beatrix.”
She stopped at the door, but didn’t turn.
“Whatever you’re planning,” he said, and she heard the chair creak as he leaned forward, “it’s not worth losing yourself over. Some debts can’t be paid back. Trying just bankrupts you in ways credits can’t fix.”
She pushed through the door, the buzzer announcing her exit with a cheerful bleat that felt like mockery.
“This one can,” she said to the empty corridor, her breath fogging in the station’s perpetually chilly air. “This one has to be.”
The module throbbed against her back, a slow, steady pulse.
Like a second heartbeat.
Her pod was a four-meter rectangle of molded composite that smelled of recycled air and her own exhaustion. She tossed the nutrient bar onto her bunk and shrugged off her pack, the module’s weight seeming to grow heavier with each step.
Bodhi’s warning echoed. A leash. It eats you.
But Dante’s voice was louder. It’s going to be expensive.
She stared at the pack. The broker was a dead end for the real problem. But the module… it was power. Forbidden, dangerous power. The kind that won fights. The kind that won tournaments with prize pools that could buy a dozen treatments.
Her fingers itched. That sync request hadn’t felt like a leash. It had felt like a handshake. An introduction.
“Screw it.”
She pulled the module out, setting it on her tiny work desk beside her jury-rigged diagnostic scanner, a salvaged med-scanner she’d modified for tech analysis. She plugged in the leads, her hands steady now with a different kind of tension: not fear, but grim resolve.
The scanner hummed to life, its pale blue light washing over the black metal. For a second, nothing.
Then her corneal display fizzed with static.
> UNAUTHORIZED SCAN DETECTED.
> OMEGA-CLASS ASSET: NEURAL INTERLINK.
> COUNTERMEASURES ENGAGED.
“Oh, shi…”
The scanner’s screen flashed a violent, eye-searing white. A data spike screamed through the connection, overwhelming her filters. It wasn’t a sync request this time. It was a broadcast.
A stark, crimson system notification burned itself into the center of her vision, bypassing all her privacy settings. The text was simple, brutal, and glowed with the undeniable authority of something that answered to a higher paygrade.
> SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY ANALYSIS | 100%
> Initiate Installation [ Y/N ]
Beatrix stared, her blood running cold. The module hadn’t just tried to sync with her. It had identified her. It had scanned her Humanware and it had decided to bond with her.
She felt cold fear in her neck. Her hand trembled as she reached out. Not for the module.
For the [N].
Announced Virgil.