The System Hunter

Chapter 4: Level One Is Not Enough

For three seconds, Elias heard nothing except the hiss of his wounded shoulder.

“Replaced you with who?” he asked.

“Another technician using my badge. She has my access code, my faceprint, and my signature. They’re filing things under my name.” Mara’s voice was low, as if she were speaking from inside a cupboard. “I pulled an allocation file before the System locked me out. It lists people with tomorrow’s death times. Elias, the list was made last month.”

A countdown that pretended to be an emergency had been planned before the emergency existed.

Tessa inspected the reinforced back exit. “We have thirty seconds before the drones clear the front. We can escape through the drainage shaft, but not with three people moving at full speed.”

Hollen had blood in his mouth. He tried to sit up and collapsed against the washer. Elias could leave him. The current contract would reward a death even if the drones accomplished it. Four hours lost in exchange for six gained. He knew exactly what the System hoped he would do.

“Can you walk?” he asked Hollen.

“If I tell them I surrendered, will that help?”

“Not unless they can still hear you.” Elias hauled him upright. “Move.”

They reached a wall hatch marked FLOOD CONTROL. Tessa entered a service code, and the floor released with a hydraulic groan. Steam rose from the dark maintenance channel. The drones fired two restraint rounds through the shattered front window. One struck a pipe; the other clipped Elias’s boot.

Tessa dropped down first, guiding Hollen’s feet. Elias followed and kicked the hatch shut. A metal bolt snapped home just as the first drone struck it. The System announced FAILURE: ELIMINATION OBJECTIVE INCOMPLETE. It deducted a one-minute penalty from Hollen’s pursuit credit; Elias’s balance remained above three hours, but the loss proved the next contract could tax him for doing the right thing.

“You accepted that interception?” Tessa asked.

“No.”

“Then it shouldn’t have deducted anything.”

Elias checked the record. FORCED PARTICIPATION—AUTHORIZED HUNTER. Tessa stared at it until the line disappeared. “They have changed the rules without publishing a new version,” she said.

In the tunnel, they found an old municipal battery cart and used it to reach North Ward’s service perimeter. Hollen rested under a thermal blanket, still cuffed to a rail. Elias asked the one question he had been holding back. “What did Mara see?”

“Allocation pools.” Tessa spoke as though the phrase tasted poisonous. “The city stores earned time in reserve before assigning payouts. It was meant to prevent double claims. If a record lists scheduled expirations, somebody is making the pool grow by killing the people who own it.”

Elias could picture each red timer as a line on a spreadsheet. The thought made him sick.

His new level unlocked a profile panel.

LEVEL 1 HUNTER.

PHYSICAL CONDITION: IMPAIRED.

AVAILABLE SKILL: TRAJECTORY ASSIST.

EFFECT: 0.8-SECOND MOTION PREDICTION.

ACTIVATION COST: 00:00:06.

“Six seconds for a fraction of a second?” Elias asked.

“Useful if someone is shooting at you.”

“Expensive if they aren’t.”

Mara sent him a location pin from beneath the hospital’s laundry transfer ramp. She had escaped the security office but could not pass the biometric gate. Elias steered the cart through a service entrance while Tessa monitored the building’s inspection cycle. They reached the ramp with eleven minutes until Mara’s scheduled collection.

A girl in hospital scrubs stood beneath the loading floodlight, waving with both hands. The shape of her face and the stubborn angle of her shoulders were familiar enough to make Elias’s throat tighten. Mara ran toward him.

“Stop,” Tessa said.

Elias braked. The woman stopped moving. She was wearing Mara’s badge, with Mara’s name above the photograph. But she had no red countdown over her head.

The absence felt worse than any number.

“System officer,” Tessa whispered. “Private-class account. No public timer.”

The false Mara smiled. “Elias Venn, please surrender the courier and accept the family verification request.”

On his interface appeared a button labeled CONSENT TO DEPENDENT TRANSFER.

Underneath, in smaller text: AVAILABLE LIFE BALANCE—03:17:04.

She was not asking him to identify his sister. She was asking him to sign away the rest of his life.