The dbay wasn’t much of a bay. More like a room that had stopped pretending. Half the ceiling was missing, wiring exposed like nerves. A single surgical lamp buzzed overhead, flickering just enough to irritate, not enough to help. The only clean surface in the room was the table — scrubbed down to a dull sheen, still stained with decades of failed lives.
Aya sat on the edge of it, jaw clenched, breath hissing through her teeth. The alien dic — a scaled Sorrik female with four tal-tipped fingers — dabbed a hissing gel across the burn snaking down Aya’s forearm.
"It will ache like war," the dic rasped, voice like crushed glass. "But no scar."
Aya winced, managing a crooked smile. "Too late."
Hernan leaned silently against the far wall, arms folded. He hadn’t said a word since they arrived. Dust still clung to his coat. The edge of one sleeve was blackened with fire damage. He hadn’t cleaned it. He hadn’t looked at her.
Aya didn’t look at him either. Not yet.
She stared at the fizzing gel instead, watching nerves settle back beneath her skin. The pain was almost comforting now — sothing to focus on that wasn’t him.
The dic finished her work, wiped her tools with a red-stained cloth, and disappeared through a side curtain without a word. Black market healers didn’t linger.
Silence pressed in, heavy.
"Doesn’t hurt as bad now," Aya said, testing her grip. "Still gonna punch you with this arm later, though. Fair warning."
Hernan didn’t respond. His face was unreadable. His eyes unread.
She slid off the table and paced a slow, quiet line across the floor. The weight of the earlier fight still clung to the air — thick with smoke and the taste of doubt.
"I watched you today," she said. "Not just during the fight. Before. The way you scanned the room. Called the trap before Iro even said a word. You’ve done this before. A lot."
"Training sims," Hernan said, too calm. "Advanced ones."
She scoffed. "Bullshit."
He looked up then — not surprised. Just asuring her.
She turned to face him fully now. Arms crossed. Her voice steady.
"You moved like that rogue. Fought like him. Sa pivot, sa breath pattern. That wasn’t reaction. That was replay."
"I study people," he said. "Always have."
"Yeah? You study dying n, too?"
He didn’t answer.
Before the tension could tighten further, the door creaked open and Nico stumbled in, arms full of a half-charred drone. His grin lit the room like a bad flare.
"Guess who found a crispy little survivor near the market’s upper vent node?" he bead. "Still has a working emitter. Might even have visuals. Gim twenty minutes and one strong prayer."
He paused. Looked between them.
"...I walked into sothing, didn’t I?"
No one answered.
Nico raised both hands. "Cool. I’ll just be over here. Touching sensitive electronics with a concussion."
He shuffled to a corner bench, tools already rattling. Sparks popped from the drone’s innards. He cursed, then muttered to it like it owed him money.
Aya didn’t break her stare.
"Where did you learn to move like that?" she asked, quieter now. "Not the excuse. The truth."
Hernan exhaled through his nose. His voice softened. "Old footage. Zodiac training archives. The stuff the Association buries but doesn’t delete. I’ve been watching since I was twelve."
"And the mimicry?"
He tilted his head. "So things just stick when you see them enough."
Not a lie. Not the truth either.
She stared at him another beat. Then gave a dry, humorless laugh.
"Right. Well... remind never to fight you again."
He said nothing.
She walked past him, not brushing his shoulder. Not even close. Nico glanced up, grinning. "Arm fixed? You didn’t die? Great. I win ten creds."
Aya smiled — faint, but real — and let herself be drawn into whatever half-functional conversation Nico was already unraveling.
Hernan stood in the doorway, silent.
Her laugh echoed down the corridor behind him. Not like before.
It had changed.
Not colder.
Just... farther away.
And Hernan, for the first ti in weeks, felt sothing worse than being feared.
He felt irrelevant.
He turned. Left the dbay without a word.
The safehouse reeked of battery acid and dying machines.
No windows. Just a flickering terminal, patched together with scavenged boards and wired into the wall like an infection. Hernan sat in front of it, shoulders hunched, shadow swallowing half his face.
On the table: the rogue’s fractured chest plate. Sliced open. And inside it, still nestled near the clavicle socket — a matchbox-sized black unit. Untouched.
The encrypted combat drive.
It should’ve self-purged. It didn’t. Maybe a misfire. Maybe rcy.
He plugged it in.
The console buzzed, spat static. Then glitched into a Zodiac interface.
Encrypted.
But not immune.
"Dead Echo," he whispered.
He closed his eyes. Slowed his breath. Let mory pull him under like a tide.
The echo rose.
A briefing. Dim room. Five figures. One leaned in, voice robotic.
"He’ll co to you. Let him think it’s a trap. Because it is. But not for him."
The rogue’s voice: "Then who’s it for?"
"Anyone watching. Anyone asking the wrong questions. We need the rats flushed."
A second voice — clipped, female: "Leave the body intact. He’ll search it."
The vision shuttered.
Back in the dark, Hernan opened the final log.
[Route Log: Secondary Site / Sector Nine]Status: ActiveAuthorization Code: SCX-1Z "Scorpio Chain"Access Level: Zodiac Tier ThreeAssignnt: Transit Cache — Prototype Weapons / Class Beta
He stared at the code. Not the location — the signature.
Scorpio.
Zodiac-tier. Real. This wasn’t just theater. The rogue had been carrying verifiable coordinates. The eting had been bait — but it led to sothing real.
A weapons depot. Close. Active.
And Scorpio... wasn’t far.
He morized the string.
Then scrubbed it. Not just from the drive — from the entire safehouse system. One sweep. Total erase.
The LED blinked once, then went dark.
Silence.
He sat there a mont, motionless. Fan ticking like a broken clock. The kind that always ran a little late.
Sowhere far above, Aya was probably still laughing with Nico.
And that was fine.
She needed space.
But Hernan didn’t need space.
He needed a grave.
He stood, shrugged his coat back on, buckled it shut. The blade slid ho into its sheath with a soft click.
The console light dimd behind him.
He stood in shadow.
"So the next one’s real," he murmured. "Good."
He walked to the door.
Outside, the undercity echoed with nightlife — music, noise, vendors shouting prices. But Hernan stepped the other way.
Toward silence. Toward Sector Nine.
And under his breath, he whispered:
"Ti to plan another funeral."
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