2026-09-06 12:36:41
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Chapter 86
"I expect nothing from you, Mei Ling," Vance said, his voice raspy as he raised his empty hands slightly to prove his compliance. "I’m just telling you how the math works out. You want to pull the trigger? Go ahead. But while you’re standing here debating my sincerity, your little data-courier is finishing up the upload."Mei Ling didn't blink, her posture remaining tense and rigid against the driving wind. "The uplink requires a clean handshake. If the strike team at the base of the crane has already jammed the local relays, the packet won't clear.""They haven't jammed anything yet," Kian gasped, his knees buckling slightly as a fresh tremor of pain shot up his spine. He leaned heavily against the rusted winch housing, his vision flashing with harsh, jagged bursts of white light. "I can feel the local node... it's pulling bandwidth from every terminal in the sector. The network is wide open.""Too wide open," Mei Ling muttered, her gaze darting briefly toward the horizon where the d
Chapter 85
The wind howled through the skeletal framework of the rusted cargo crane, carrying with it the bitter, briny scent of the river and the distant, rhythmic thrum of approaching corporate patrol skiffs."I don't have a pension waiting, Mei Ling," Vance repeated, his voice barely audible over the gale as he stared down at the dark, churning water below. "I have a mandatory retirement memo sitting on my desk that goes into effect the moment this sector is cleared. They don't promote veterans who let targets walk. They retire them permanently—either with a desk job pushing paper in the basement or a quiet accident in a transit tunnel."Mei Ling’s finger remained crooked tightly around the trigger, her eyes narrowing as she searched his weathered face for any sign of a tactical feint. "You expect me to feel sorry for you? You've spent the last week turning our lives into a living hell, blockading streets, deploying drones, and hunting us down like stray dogs.""I expect nothing from you," Va
Chapter 84
"Maybe I should have picked a different career path entirely," Vance muttered, his voice dropping an octave as a sudden, violent gust of wind whipped across the high crane platform, sending a cascade of rusted flakes spinning out into the dark, churning waters of the river below. "Twenty-two years in corporate security. Twenty-two years of cleaning up municipal messes, managing union riots, and burying men who thought they were heroes. And how do they reward me? They hand me a broken-down kid with a scrambled motherboard and tell me to erase him before the regional board finds out they funded the whole damn experiment."Mei Ling didn't lower her weapon, her arm remaining rock-solid despite the freezing gale. "Then do your job, Vance. Pull your sidearm. Let’s see if your corporate masters are still going to hand you a pension when you’re bleeding out on an industrial rust-trap.""I don't have a pension waiting, Mei Ling," Vance replied, his shoulders slumping as if an invisible, crushi
Chapter 83
"You're not doing this for justice, Mei Ling," Vance said, his voice cutting through the whistling gale as he took one slow, deliberate step forward onto the narrow platform. "You're doing it because the bureau chewed you up, spat you out, and you want to prove you're still holding the leash. Drop the piece.""Don't listen to him, Mei Ling!" Kian wheezed, his fingers clawing desperately at the rusted winch housing as a fresh wave of white static tore across his vision. "He's buying time. The strike team is already locking down the base of the tower!""Shut up, kid," Vance snapped, his tired eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp edge of genuine fury. "You think I want to be up here freezing my ass off in the middle of a river gale? My superiors are screaming in my ear every thirty seconds demanding your head on a platter because your little stunt with the municipal ledger just cost the regional board four million credits in blocked assets!""Then maybe you should have picked a better empl
Chapter 82
"Put the gun down, Mei Ling," Vance said, his voice flat, exhausted, and devoid of any tactical posturing. He didn't unholster his own sidearm; instead, he rested his heavy leather-gloved hands loosely against his tactical belt, staring straight down the barrel of her pistol with a terrifying indifference. "If you shoot me, the perimeter sweepers forty feet below will hear the crack, and they won't bother negotiating terms before they level this crane with a plasma charge.""Let them try," Mei Ling snapped, her finger tightening against the trigger guard, her knuckles turning bone-white. "You've been tracking us across three districts, Vance. You backed us into a corner with nowhere left to run. Why should I give you the courtesy of a clean death?""It’s not about courtesy," Vance sighed, shifting his weight against the swaying iron girder as a sudden gust of river wind howled past them. He tilted his chin toward Kian, whose shoulders were visibly trembling as he fought against the bl
Chapter 81
"They're moving up the structural ladder," Mei Ling whispered, her hand dropping to the heavy grip of her sidearm as the rhythmic, heavy thud of combat boots echoed up the hollow interior of the crane's primary support column. "Three seconds, maybe four, before they clear the hatch."Kian forced himself upright, his legs shaking violently against the vibrating deck plates. "Let them come. If I try to run another step down this catwalk, my internal regulators are going to flatline.""You don't have the luxury of flatlining, kid," Vance’s voice cut sharply through the howling river wind.The corporate enforcer hauled himself over the final lip of the girder, his tactical harness clinking with spare magazines, his breath pluming white in the freezing air. He wasn't wearing his helmet; his graying hair was plastered to his forehead by sweat and mist, his tired eyes locked directly onto Kian with a dull, absolute finality."Vance," Mei Ling snarled, raising her pistol, her finger tightenin
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