The city didn’t sleep. It watched.From shattered balconies and neon-lit alleys, from cracked windows and hidden cams, eyes followed Raymond as he limped through the undercity’s veins. Whispers spread faster than sirens.Ascendant. Monster. Savior. Weapon.Lira kept close, one hand hovering near her pistol, the other near Raymond’s elbow, ready to catch him if his legs gave out again.“You’re bleeding,” she said quietly.“I know.”“Not healing.”“I know.”They ducked into a derelict clinic wedged between two collapsed data towers. The sign above the door flickered: FREE MEDCARE — NO QUESTIONS. The irony didn’t escape him.Inside, dust-coated cots lined the walls. Old surgical drones hung dead from ceiling rails like metallic bats. Lira sealed the door behind them and dropped a signal jammer on the counter.Silence fell, heavy, brittle.Raymond sank onto a cot, breath ragged. He stared at his hands. They were steady now. Too steady.“Host stability at risk,” the Core murmured. “You sup

The silence after the light was worse than the alarms.Raymond dropped to one knee inside the Neonatal Vault, breath tearing out of him in ragged pulls. His hands trembled violently, skin flushed and burning, veins lit faintly as if the light had not fully left him yet.The infants were stable.Monitors glowed green. Heartbeats steady. Breath synchronized.Saved.But the world inside his skull felt cracked.Connection severed, the System whispered, its voice faint, distorted. Manual override sustained. Host condition unstable.Raymond wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand and pushed himself upright.Across the chamber, the Prime Scalpel stood very still.For the first time since Raymond had known of his existence, the man looked uncertain.“You cut yourself off,” the Prime Scalpel said quietly. “Do you understand what you just did?”Raymond forced his legs to steady. “I chose.”The Prime Scalpel’s gaze sharpened. “You chose weakness.”“I chose people,” Raymond replied.T

The city did not wait for Raymond to recover. It never did.Sirens howled across Zenith’s spine as Helix gunships swept low over the undercity, floodlights carving through smoke and neon haze. Checkpoints appeared overnight. Streets that once belonged to gangs and scavengers now bristled with armored troops and scanning towers.Raymond felt it before he saw it.A pressure behind his eyes. A pull in his chest. The city’s fear brushing against his nerves like static.They moved through a maintenance corridor beneath the hospital, guided by Mercer’s codes. The walls vibrated with distant engines. Dust rained from the ceiling.Lira kept close, her grip firmil, alert, weapon ready.“You still standing,” she muttered.“Define standing,” Raymond replied, breath shallow.Mercer glanced back. “You should not be conscious.”Raymond managed a faint smile. “I have a habit of disappointing experts.”Mercer did not smile back.They emerged into an abandoned transit hub. Broken rails. Flickering ads

The first clinic burned twelve hours later. Raymond did not see the flames. He felt them.A sudden spike behind his eyes. A tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with injury. Somewhere in the city, hands he had just trusted were scrambling through smoke and panic.Lira noticed immediately.“You felt that,” she said.Raymond nodded slowly. “They found one.”Mercer checked the portable scanner, jaw tight. “Eastern sector. Helix marked it as a narcotics den.”“Were there survivors,” Raymond asked.Mercer hesitated.“That bad,” Raymond said quietly.The room they occupied was smaller than the last. A forgotten utility chamber wrapped in humming cables. Emergency lighting cast long shadows across the walls.Lira paced. “They are not even pretending anymore.”“No,” Raymond replied. “They are teaching.”Mercer looked up. “Teaching what happens when people disobey.”The Core stirred, its presence heavier than before.Predictive outcome confirmed, it whispered. Decentralized nodes are

“They are calling you a contagion again.”Raymond did not look up.He was tightening the wrap around his forearm, fingers steady despite the tremor in his muscles. The tunnel safehouse hummed with low power. Bare bulbs. Old city bones.“Helix needs language that makes killing easier,” he said. “Contagion works.”Mercer leaned against a console, holo-feed flickering over his scarred face. “This one is different. They are not just hunting you. They are baiting you.”Lira snorted softly. “Of course they are.”Raymond finished the wrap and flexed his hand. Pain flared, then settled.“How,” he asked.Mercer expanded the feed. A district map bloomed in the air, glowing red in several nodes.“Three clinics,” Mercer said. “All independent. All previously ignored. Helix just sealed them under emergency protocol.”Raymond’s jaw tightened. “How many inside.”“Unknown,” Mercer replied. “But the message is public. Loud. They are daring you to show.”Lira crossed her arms. “If you go, they close th