Titan Tech’s top-tier dical facility was located at the heart of Eastern Babel.
The building, constructed from glass and steel, housed the most advanced dical technology Babel had to offer.
Most of the patients were either Titan Tech’s high-ranking executives or special agents, though occasionally, key personnel from other gacorps would receive treatnt here through secret agreents.
Of course, only if they could afford the price tag.
Riley was receiving treatnt in one of these ultra-luxury rooms.
Fresh flowers were arranged throughout the room, and the soft lighting gently brightened the interior.
Most of all, the window overlooking a park full of cherry blossoms helped soothe her heart.
Then ca a knock, followed by the door opening—Dominic Krylov walked in.
The Director of Developnt at Titan Tech looked different than usual. The usual cold expression was still there, but today, it was laced with clear exhaustion.
Dark circles clung beneath his eyes, and his usually well-grood hair was slightly disheveled.
“Riley. You look like you’re holding up.”
Riley sat up in bed and greeted him with a quiet voice.
“Director... You ca here yourself...?”
Dominic walked slowly over and sat down on the chair next to her bed.
His eyes carefully scanned her condition.
“You’re the only researcher who survived the lab incident. Coming here in person is the least I can do.”
Riley absentmindedly fidgeted with the Whitey plush doll resting on her bed.
“You’ve probably been asked this a lot already, but... can you tell what happened that day?”
Dominic asked.
Riley looked up at the ceiling for a mont.
Even now, the mories ca flooding back vividly.
“The AI Fra alarm went off.”
She began to speak slowly.
“Markus rushed in, yelling that we had to get out, and we all ran into the hallway.”
“But... it was already too late. The corridor was packed with ard rcenaries... gunfire was everywhere. I could hear people falling, screaming... everyone was running like crazy.”
Dominic listened in silence.
“And then I got shot. Or, I only realized it after the fact.”
Riley pointed to her abdon.
“Here. I think the bullet went straight through. I collapsed to the floor... and saw blood pouring out.”
Up to this point, her story matched the reports Dominic had received from his subordinates.
He leaned forward, locking eyes with her.
“Even a blurry mory is fine. Do you rember anything else?”
Riley closed her eyes for a mont.
That day’s mories blurred the line between reality and hallucination.
“I was bleeding so much... I think I saw sothing strange while I was fading in and out. I don’t rember it clearly, but...”
“What was it?”
“A cat. No, a human... with cat ears.”
Riley said.
“Dark skin... and I think I saw them running around, glowing blue.”
Dominic fell silent.
To anyone else, her words would’ve sounded like a clear hallucination, but he nodded with a serious expression.
****
Dominic returned to his office at the top floor of the Titan Tech Eastern Branch.
Beyond the window, Eastern Babel’s glittering nightscape spread out in all directions.
But the beauty didn’t register in his eyes.
Dominic, exhausted, slumped into his chair.
Unread ssages were still blinking on his AR interface.
“Maybe I pushed too hard.”
He muttered to himself.
There had been a brief mont—a flicker of blue deep within Riley’s pupils. Or at least, he thought he saw it.
But it couldn’t have been real. Riley didn’t have a single implant. There was no reason her eyes would glow.
It had to be a trick of the light.
Dominic used his AR interface to organize the data related to Riley.
As he docunted the report, a swirl of questions lingered in his mind.
How had Riley survived such a fatal wound?
Why did the Erosion Zone disappear?
And who—what—was that “human with cat ears”?
To shake off the fatigue, Dominic opened a drawer and pulled out a small vial.
A stimulant, engineered to forcibly boost alertness.
He hadn’t gotten a full hour of sleep since the incident began.
The drug had kept him awake so far, but he was nearing his limit.
“Just need to wrap it up.”
Dominic walked over to the window and looked up at the night sky over Babel.
The Erosion Zone incident was almost closed.
The lab would be rebuilt. Additional security would be implented.
All that remained was to track down the bastard who filled Golden Murdock’s head with delusions.
Just as he was about to close the AR interface, a report he’d seen recently popped into his head.
It was written by Rufus Bolt, the lead engineer.
He was sure... there had been a record of a cyborg with cat ears in it—!
Dominic stood up from his seat and headed for the archive room.
****
Blake from the Babel Police Departnt’s Investigations Division was driving toward the city’s outskirts.
A sudden sandstorm slamd against the windows, rattling them like mad.
The car’s wipers thrashed back and forth nonstop, but it didn’t help much. Visibility was still zero.
Slumped in the driver’s seat, Blake stared out at the storm.
“Burning Duct...”
His objective was simple.
Find the infamous rcenary known as “A.”
There was no hope left for support from the top, so his only option was to turn to a rc.
“A rc with a 100% success rate lives out here? Seriously?”
Blake muttered.
The elite rcs he knew lived under Eastern Babel’s bright neon lights, drowning in luxury.
Outfitted with high-grade implants, they partied at places like Neuron Nectar—until it was blown to hell recently.
The idea that soone like A would be living in the outer ruins was ridiculous.
Unless she was hooked on gambling, drugs, or burning through absurd amounts of luxury goods, there was no reason to live out here.
“Hard to believe, no matter how I look at it...”
He double-checked the address he’d gotten from his informant.
Outskirts of Babel, Burning Duct, Sector A-7—aka the Sandstorm Ruins.
One of the most warped zones from the Great Fusion era.
Now, just a wasteland full of rubble.
Who the hell would be living in a place like that?
The storm intensified. The vehicle began to groan under the pressure.
Not even this specially-equipped investigation vehicle could push through?
Blake pulled behind a stable-looking wall and parked.
With the car out of commission, he’d have to walk from here.
“Goddamn it...”
He flipped up his coat collar to block the sand.
In his hand was a standard-issue BPD pistol.
He had it drawn because this area was known to be dangerous.
Burning Duct was a lawless zone.
Out here, strength was the only law.
After walking for about ten minutes,
Blake finally spotted a crumbling building.
Unlike Babel’s usual skyscrapers, this one had barely three floors left.
The rest had collapsed into scattered debris.
“A rc living in this dump is supposed to be top-tier...?”
Doubt crept in as Blake approached the stairs.
Shattered glass and broken chunks of concrete littered the floor in a chaotic heap.
Blake checked his AR interface and climbed the stairs slowly.
His destination was at the top—third floor.
He stayed alert the whole way up.
These kinds of ruins often hid gangs or squatters.
But strangely, the building felt completely empty.
No sound. No presence. Nothing.
When he finally reached the third floor, he saw a steel door that looked oddly intact compared to the rest of the structure.
A definite sign that soone lived here.
He stood in front of the door, hesitating for a mont.
Should he knock, or just bust in?
In the end, he decided to show so manners.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound of knocking echoed through the hallway, and Blake held his breath, waiting for a response.
Before long, light footsteps approached from inside.
And the door opened.
Standing in the doorway was, to his surprise, a little girl.
No—more accurately, it was a full-body cyborg that looked like a young girl.
Blue circuit patterns glowed faintly across her synthetic body, and her white hair frad her small face.
Blake was caught off guard.
This was not what he’d expected the rcenary to look like.
Did that pickpocket feed him bad intel?
No way soone like that was “A.”
Blake had dealt with countless rcenaries over the years. His gut told him this wasn’t it.
He made a ntal note to punch that street rat the next ti he saw him.
Then her eyes lit up—cold and electric.
Suddenly, blue lightning crackled through the air, and a suffocating, violent presence radiated out from her.
The atmosphere snapped cold, like the air had frozen solid.
Blake’s instincts scread at him.
A chill ran down his spine.
He °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° stepped back without realizing it.
In his ten-plus years working with the Babel Police Departnt, Blake had dealt with more criminals and rcenaries than he could count.
Is this... the one with the 100% success rate?
But he had never felt pressure like this before.
****
When the door opened, the first thing I saw was a massive man.
A black coat hung from his shoulders, the letters "BPD" printed in bold across the back—Babel Police Departnt.
“!”
Maybe it was the mories from a past life, but the second I saw the BPD insignia, my body instinctively tensed.
I could feel the Hexa Core Ring in my chest begin to spin on reflex.
And then ca the flood—every illegal op I’d run since becoming a rc: demolition jobs, gang exterminations, corporate data theft...
Too many to count.
The cop’s stiff, unreadable expression only made more uneasy.
What if he attacks?
Would I be okay as long as I don’t kill him?
Or should I jump into the shadows and bail? Toss Agwi to buy ti?
A dozen scenarios raced through my head.
My heart spun faster as the tension rose.
But then, sothing strange happened.
The cop’s stern face shifted in an instant.
Like the curtain falling after a stage play, the pressure vanished, replaced by a respectful deanor.
“My na is Blake. Investigations Division, Babel Police Departnt.”
He gave a slight bow, speaking politely.
His sudden change in behavior left confused.
What the hell is this?
****
I let the polite Blake into my studio apartnt and asked calmly,
“Detective from BPD. What exactly do you want with ?”
He was distracted for a mont, watching Kiwis and Agwi tearing around the place like maniacs, then cleared his throat.
That earlier, overbearing vibe was completely gone. Now, he looked more like soone desperate for help.
“Miss A. I need your assistance.”
A cop asking a rc for help—that didn’t happen every day.
?
I tilted my head, and Blake quickly added an explanation.
“Under normal circumstances, the BPD’s internal tactical teams would’ve handled it. But...”
He sighed deeply.
“HQ ordered a total shutdown on further investigation.”
Now I understood why he was in a position where he had to find a rc.
I opened my mouth.
“Then what exactly do you want to do? And how much are you paying?”
The two most important questions: job objective and pay.
Blake tensed slightly before answering.
“The job is to prove my partner William’s innocence.”
He hesitated, then stated the paynt.
“The reward is 1,187 credits.”
An unclear objective that might take a long ti to resolve—and way too little pay for the effort.
“No.”
I shut it down imdiately.
Then Blake suddenly stood up and placed a hologram projector on the floor.
“Please, just look at this once. This really matters to Babel.”
Before I could say anything, the hologram lit up and filled the studio.
The footage was about a mysterious group.
A hidden organization operating in Babel without anyone knowing.
They killed, deceived, stole...
To , it all sounded like so urban legend.
The hologram detailed how dangerous the group was—what Blake was chasing.
Blake was a strange guy.
Why would a cop show a rcenary how terrifying and brutal his enemy was?
Was he hoping I’d turn him down?
I was going to say no, obviously—
But the mont I saw that in the footage, my mouth opened on its own.
“I’ll do it.”
It was one of the symbols Blake said belonged to the organization.
Most of them looked like random junk carved into stone, but this one was different.
I recognized it instantly.
It was the logo of Songpa Connect, a subsidiary of MK Corp.
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