“StrataTech empowers every citizen to exceed their limitations, provided those limitations are properly reported, licensed, and billable.”

  — StrataTech Public Relations Handbook, Rev. 4.2

  The mall looked almost untouched.

  A few cracks in the tiles, smears of blue ichor already oxidizing to black, scorch marks where my shots had landed. Some dented or damaged steel, but nothing catastrophic.

  Nothing that would hurt Palistra’s bottom line.

  The incursor corpses lay sprawled across the floor like discarded props. I picked my way around them, boots crunching over… something, and froze mid-step.

  That pillar where I’d fought my incursor.

  My eyes traced the spiderweb fractures radiating from the impact site. Deep gouges from the axe. Plasma burns from my overcharged rifle. “Please don’t have cameras,” I muttered, already calculating the repair fine. Palistra would charge me for breathing wrong if they could prove it.

  Overhead, the automated jazz kicked back in, smooth and soulless, like the building itself had decided the attempted alien invasion was just an awkward moment best forgotten.

  I limped toward Eddy’s shop, each step sending a dull clank through my battered armor. The chest plate felt heavier now, whether from the glancing hits or the weight of knowing it had been the only thing between me and a very permanent retirement, I couldn’t say.

  The motion sensors in my left knee joint wheezed. The shoulder pauldron rattled with every movement. One of the shock absorbers was leaking gel in a slow, pathetic drip down my hip plate.

  Still held together, though.

  The chime above Eddy’s door let out its familiar tired beep as I stepped inside, and Eddy looked up from behind the counter, monocle HUD flickering.

  His eyes scanned me once, head to toe, landing on the scorched rifle barrel, the fresh dent in my left shoulder, the crack splitting my helmet’s visor like a lightning bolt. His gaze lingered on the shoulder joint that clunked sadly with every breath I took.

  “Lad…” Eddy said slowly, squinting. “Don’t tell me you stayed.”

  I gave a tired nod and dropped the rifle on the counter with a heavy clunk. The scorched barrel left a faint black smudge on the glass. “Wasn’t the armor’s fault,” I said. “My cheap-ass AI didn’t warn me in time. Everything hit before I could run.”

  Eddy leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose with grease-stained fingers. His expression cycled through concern, exasperation, and finally settled on weary resignation.

  “Well. Shit.”

  “But—” I pulled out the credit chip the IC mage had given me, holding it up like a trophy. “I got paid for the fight. Maybe enough to fix my gear properly this time? Eighty isn’t much, but, you know, enough for parts that aren’t held together by will alone?”

  Eddy didn’t speak right away. Just stared at me with that baffled look he reserved for customers who kept coming back despite every warning, the same expression he wore right before selling someone a cracked power cell at half price because he knew they’d be back next week anyway.

  Finally, he shook his head and let out a long breath through his teeth.

  “You’re too damn stubborn for your own good, kid.” He pushed off the counter and jabbed a thumb toward the back. “Go on. StrataTech’s Big Bobby is in the workshop. He’ll get you sorted with actual working parts.” A pause with a totally serious face. “For the right price, obviously.”

  I grinned. “Thanks, Eddy.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank your wallet.” He waved me off with a dismissive flick of his wrist, already turning back to whatever he’d been tinkering with before I’d limped in. “And try not to get killed before you pay off that loan.”

  The back room smelled like whatever Eddy had nuked in the corner microwave; something vaguely protein-based and aggressively synthetic. The overhead lights buzzed in their dying rhythm, flickering just enough to make you question your life choices.

  Big Bobby stood at the far end of the room.

  Not a person; a machine.

  Big Bobby was a behemoth of a vending unit: six feet tall, two wide, and probably two tons of a hardened alloy that had seen better decades. Its outer casing was dented as if it had survived an incursion of its own, half-painted over with faded graffiti tags and peeling sticker residue that might’ve been corporate logos or might’ve been someone’s idea of art.

  First, I needed to examine the damage: the rifle.

  She was still warm to the touch, heat radiating through the casing like a fever. The overcharge hadn’t been kind to her. I set her down gently and started unscrewing the outer shell.

  The damage underneath made me wince.

  I pulled a sheet of paper from the stack Eddy kept clipped to the workbench and grabbed a grease pencil. Great-grandpa’s journals had taught me to always document the damage before starting repairs.

  ‘You forget things in the heat of repair, miss connections, lose track of what worked.’

  I started writing, the pencil scratching across the page:

  Grip: Melted in two places where plasma feedback cooked through insulation. Plastic fused directly into side wiring, looks like scar tissue. Need full re-wrap.

  Side panel: half-sealed from heat stress. It can’t be opened without a pry tool. Risk snapping internal mounts if forced.

  Overcharge coil: DANGEROUS. Warped, casing cracked (3 locations), bleeding capacitor gel onto bench. A toxic blue puddle formed. REPLACE IMMEDIATELY.

  Thermal regulator: Fried. Black. crispy. The kind of dead where you don’t test it, you just toss it.

  I set the rifle aside and turned to the armor, pulling each piece into the light. More grease pencil scratching:

  Chest plate (left flank): Deep crack, almost through to padding. Needs welding + stress test.

  Shoulder joint (right): Tension pin MISSING. Pauldron mount loose, add reinforcement mesh.

  Shin guard (left): Crescent dent from landing on Palistra bench (thanks assholes). Replace entirely if possible.

  Internal padding: Check all shock gel pads; the right thigh felt squishy. The motion driver strip may need rewiring.

  Network chip: STILL IN LEFT ARMPIT. Move to proper housing. Priority.

  I set the pencil down and stared at both lists.

  Four major rifle failures. Five armor issues. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been me in pieces instead of just my gear taking the hit.

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  I walked to Big Bobby with my shopping list. The front panel flickered with a jittery, half-dead logo:

  

  StrataTech Solutions

  “Precision Parts for a Better Tomorrow.”

  I stared at it.

  Then at the dents.

  Then back at the logo.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Real precise.”

  Below the logo sat a glowing touchscreen display listing item codes and available inventory: arm connectors, rifle coils, visor plates, fusion chamber seals, servo-motors, thermal foam packs… all shipped express from some distant StrataTech mega-warehouse, delivered somehow straight to this grimy back room in a corpo-owned mall.

  My grin crept in unbidden.

  This was probably the only piece of corpo tech in Eddy’s entire shop that he hadn’t stripped for parts, rewired out of spite, or “accidentally” dropped down a mineshaft.

  Because he needed it.

  I could practically see him standing here every time Big Bobby pinged the warehouse network, middle finger raised in spirit, muttering something about “using their own tools against them” while ordering discount servo-motors at 3 AM.

  Beautiful.

  Express (￠50 surcharge): 5 minutes

  Standard: 15 minutes

  Economy (-5% discount): 30 minutes

  I tapped Standard. Not desperate enough to burn extra credits, but not patient enough to wait half an hour either.

  The screen flashed: ORDER CONFIRMED. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 15:00 MINUTES

  [Paid: ￠41]

  Big Bobby’s internal display lit up with a schematic, animated lines tracing the route from some distant StrataTech mega-warehouse, through the underground hyperdrone network that spiderwebbed beneath the terminal. It explained that the parts would shoot through pressurized tubes at speeds that would liquify a human, get routed to the local StrataTech cache two floors down, then ride a pneumatic lift straight to Big Bobby’s storage bay.

  Corpo logistics at its finest. I leaned against the workbench and waited, watching the countdown tick.

  14:32... 14:31... 14:30...

  Somewhere beneath my feet, my order was screaming through the tunnels, and when the timer hit zero, Big Bobby’s conveyors whirred to life with a mechanical growl. Parts dropped into the collection tray below with a satisfying clunk and a hiss of chilled air, like the machine was exhaling after holding its breath.

  I gathered my haul, fingers brushing over each piece as I pulled them from the tray. The coils were still cool from storage, cold enough to sting through my gloves.

  Gel packs sealed tight, their contents sloshing faintly when I gave them a test squeeze. Brackets wrapped in a protective film that crinkled under my grip; StrataTech’s paranoid packaging, like they thought someone might try to steal a ￠3 bracket mid-transit.

  The overcharge coil was heavier than I expected. Made from dense, quality metal, not my usual scrap. I turned it over in my hands, checking for defects, running my thumb along the threading.

  Clean, corpo manufacturing had its moments. I carried everything to the workbench, the weight of the parts somehow reassuring.

  Time to get to work.

  I started with the rifle’s coil, bending mounting tabs with pliers until it clicked home. Scraped off the melted grip, re-wrapped it in fresh gel padding. Used a nano-file to shave down the warped side panel, then sealed it with bonding resin and added a support bracket.

  Swapped in a new thermal regulator, pulled from a “discounted” parts box because not everything needed to be fresh off the line. A few scuffs, minor cosmetic damage.

  Newish. Good enough.

  I reconnected the power feed and held my breath. The rifle sat silent for a long moment. Then finally it hummed, and I grinned like an idiot. I pulled up the system interface, half-expecting... something. Anything.

  [Minor System - Status: LIMITED]

  [Personal Trait: Hoqalo]

  The same broken menu as before. No notifications. No progress bars. No “Congratulations! You repaired a weapon!”

  I focused on [Personal Trait: Hoqalo], trying to will it into doing something useful.

  Nothing.

  The description scrolled up again, the same florid text about “brilliance in creation” and “weapons infused with your very essence.” But no instructions or activation prompt. No “press X to tinker better.”

  Just words.

  I dismissed the interface with a mental flick and turned back to the armor. If the system wouldn’t tell me what Hoqalo meant, maybe I’d figure it out the same way I’d figured out everything else.

  I clamped the cracked chest plate into the vise and sealed it with the micro-plasma arc; the metal glowing orange-white before I cooled it fast. Replaced the shoulder pin, added reinforcement mesh where the designers had skimped. Swapped the dented shin guard entirely.

  The internals needed work too: new coupling wire for the motion driver, soldered by hand. The dried-out shock gel pad got dunked in prep solution until it swelled back to life. Even fixed the network chip, pried it from the armpit housing, cleaned the contacts, reinstalled it properly.

  No more missing incursion warnings.

  When I finally finished, I leaned back and let my arms drop, tools clattering into the tray. Sweat dripped onto the bench. My hands ached, knuckles raw.

  But the gear lived.

  I stared at the restored armor laid out before me. There was no system window. No fanfare. No magic chime.

  Just me. Just the work.

  I reached out and ran my fingers along the sealed crack in the chest plate.

  Still mine.

  I walked back to Eddy, who gave my repaired armor a long, theatrical once-over. “Now you look like you actually know what you’re doing!” He burst out laughing, slapping the counter.

  I groaned. “Thanks, Eddy. Really feeling the support.”

  He was still chuckling when I worked up the nerve to ask. “Eddy... do you still have that system compatibility measurer?” The words came out quieter than I had intended. I couldn’t stop biting my lip. Of course, he had one. Black-market tech like that was his bread and butter.

  But asking meant I’d have to face the answer. I’d been avoiding this for months. The official System Prep measurement had clocked me at 17% compatibility. The minimum threshold for manifesting a system was 20%.

  Three percent short of my entire future.

  I’d told myself over and over that the reading had to be wrong. That I was just over the line, that the examiner’s equipment had glitched, that maybe if I tried again... I’d know and the system would magically manifest.

  But actually measuring it with Eddy’s back-alley device?

  What if I really were sub-20? What if seeing the number made it real?

  “Oh, that crap?” Eddy said, oblivious to the knot tightening in my chest. He tapped his monocle HUD, scanning inventory. “Sure thing. For you? Only ￠100.” He glanced up and jerked a finger toward the shop. “Third aisle back, second shelf from the bottom.”

  I found it wedged between a box of corroded sensor nodes and something that might’ve been a toaster.

  The compatibility measurer was about the size of a large multi-tool, with a dull metallic ball at one end for skin contact. The casing was scuffed gray plastic, and a small cracked display sat beneath a single button. At the base was an empty power slot.

  I pulled it free and immediately noticed the problem.

  No power cell.

  “Got it,” I called back, walking to the counter. “But Eddy, it’s useless without a cell.” I set the measurer down with a dull clunk.

  Eddy was already holding up an Aurelius Powerframe Level 3 cell between two fingers, grinning like a merchant who’d just closed a deal. “Kid, for you? Only ￠50.”

  [Paid: ￠150]

  I shook my head but paid anyway. “One day, Eddy. One day you’ll give me a real discount.”

  “And one day you’ll have a system,” he shot back, still grinning. “But not today.” His expression shifted, just slightly more serious. “Watch out with that thing, though. It’s not precise. Can give you wild results… up to 10% margin of error. So don’t get your hopes up or crushed. Get measured properly if you want the truth.”

  A flutter kicked up in my stomach.

  I already had a system. Sort of. A broken, half-functional system that couldn’t even track experience. But Eddy didn’t need to know that.

  He waved me off. “Bye, kid. And hey… come back next week. Big liquidation sale of a small corpo. I’ll set aside something you’ll like.”

  “Thanks, Eddy,” I mumbled, and left the shop.

  I found my favorite bench just outside the terminal entrance. Up here, Palistra hadn’t bothered installing the retractable spikes, those were reserved for the ground-floor dining peasants.

  I sat down, pulled the measurer from my pack, and stared at it. The power cell slotted in with a soft click, and a tiny indicator light blinked red, then shifted to green. The device hummed faintly, charging up.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “Now or never.”

  I opened armor, exposing my forearm. Pressed the dull metal ball against my skin. The contact was cold.

  Then I pressed the button.

  The machine whirred to life with a low, vibrating buzz, the same sensation I remembered from the official examiner back at System Prep. A brief, tingling pressure spreading through my arm like static electricity crawling under my skin.

  The display flickered.

  Numbers scrolled past too fast to read.

  Then it settled.

  COMPATIBILITY: 85%

  ? ERROR: FLUCTUATION DETECTED

  VARIANCE: -66%

  I stared at the screen. Eddy’s words echoed: “Up to a 10% margin of error.” The math clicked into place. 85% minus 66%... that’s 19%. Close enough to the 17% they’d measured at Prep, accounting for the machine’s 10% margin of error.

  Second reading:

  COMPATIBILITY: 80%

  ? ERROR: FLUCTUATION DETECTED

  VARIANCE: -64%

  16%. Still in range. The drain was fluctuating, but the result stayed consistent; someone was actively stealing around 66% of my compatibility.

  My breath caught.

  Eighty percent.

  That wasn’t broken. That was... that was higher than any system users I’d known at Prep. Higher than Ricky. Higher than all the people who’d manifested systems and left me behind.

  I should have a system, and I should have had one six months ago.

  The variance scrolled again: -65%. Negative. No measurement error. Subtraction. That meant… something was taking it. Not a malfunction, or incompatibility.

  Theft.

  My hands shook as I stared at the device. The emergency system’s words echoed in my head: [System-Drain detected].

  Whoever did this to me hadn’t just locked the door. They’d stolen the key and kept draining me to make sure I’d never find it.

  And they were still doing it.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, the word tight in my throat. Not anger this time, but something colder. Something that settled in my chest like a stone.

  Someone owed me six months of my life.

  And I was going to find out who.

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