I was yanked sideways into a narrow gap between two market stalls selling data chips and used blasters. I had no time to react, and the sharp scent of burnt wiring and ozone hit my nose as I tried to reach for my weapon, but I was far too slow. It was moments like this when I wished I still had that implant; my reaction time would have been much faster.

  "Don't," a voice warned, low and sharp.

  Its tone was infused with a metallic reverb and a subtle echo delay, creating the impression that it was emanating from deep within a cavern.

  I froze.

  The face in front of me was half-lit by a malfunctioning neon sign, likely flickering due to a poor connection. The fleeting glimpses I could catch from the intermittent light revealed a weathered, battered face that had never had the chance to heal properly. The glow that managed to cut across his features in jagged intervals unveiled deep lines. A crooked brow that never quite settled, and a jaw that looked as if it had encountered the wrong end of a steel boot one too many times. His eyes darted to the crowd, giving the impression that he was searching for someone worse than me.

  Milo.

  I recognized the face immediately. We were well acquainted.

  A Flux Jackal had no reason to be here unless there was a possibility I was already dead, and no one had bothered to tell me. His coat was as worn as ever: high-collared, built for running, with a lightweight combat vest underneath.

  Surprisingly, it remained in decent condition, considering the amount of abuse it likely endured regularly. His gloved hands flickered with embedded interface nodes, ready to break through any system at a moment's notice.

  This guy was a ghost on the grid; every street was wired directly into his veins. He'd been in one too many close calls and burned one too many escape routes, and his face showed it. One day, he was going to see his last. That could be today, and maybe he knew it.

  Milo leaned in and urgently said, "I know you have the fragment. It was never meant to exist."

  I tore my arm free from his grip. "The Hel are you talking about, Milo? It's just data."

  "That ain't just data. That's a loaded gun ready to be fired, and it'll destroy a lot more than you think," he said, exhaling heavily.

  I said nothing. The moment you start talking, you start losing.

  With my charisma depleted, I wasn't steering this conversation; I was merely surviving it. Say too much, and Milo would uncover the cracks, deny it, and I would appear guilty and ask the wrong question. Not only could I learn more than I wanted to know, but it would most likely be information that could be dangerous to have. I sensed I had no choice but to find out more.

  Milo's jaw clenched. "You think the Flux Jackals or Cybercobras are your biggest problem? You think anyone on the Grid gives a shit? They don't know a damn thing about this fragment. No one does." He let out a dry, bitter laugh. "It's alive, and it's waking up. And when it does, you ain't gonna be around to spend the payday. No one will."

  Alive?

  My stomach twisted. The data fragment was coming to life. What the hell did that even mean? Years of running data for the Flux Jackals, handling every kind of encrypted payload, black-market prototype, and stolen corporate secret—nothing ever felt like this. Data was just data: cold, unfeeling, numbers and code.

  But this… this was different.

  I couldn't bring myself to pull it from my inventory, not now. Just holding it the first time had sent a pulse through my hand, like static crawling under my skin. I didn't want to feel that again. Not here. Not with eyes on me. Whatever was inside that fragment, I wasn't ready for it.

  A cold weight settled in my stomach. Not paranoia. Fear.

  The kind I'd tasted for the first time at eighteen, hands slick with someone else's blood. My first Flux Jackal job.

  They told me it'd be easy. Simple. It's a clean run.

  However, the Valken Guard ensured it wasn't.

  They weren't cops, not in the official sense. They were zealots. Hardline purists preaching flesh over steel and order over chaos. Their insignia was a red sigil of an iron-winged bird clutching circuitry stamped against a black background.

  Strength Through Order.

  No arrests. Just purges.

  The holo-train car had been a kill box: blaster fire, bodies, the stench of burnt flesh.

  But the shootout isn't what lingered with me.

  It was the final one to perish.

  Fifteen. Maybe younger. Too young for the blaster. Too young for the war. Too young to die like that.

  When the ammo ran dry, we fought with just our fists. No skill, no precision. It was just raw panic. When we hit the ground, my hands locked around his throat as his nails clawed at my face. It was clear he was desperate not to die. The fear in his eyes mirrored my own as I squeezed harder. His breath rattled as he struggled, fingers digging into my arms as life drained from him.

  Then—nothing.

  When the holo-train finally screeched to a stop, I was the only one left breathing. My hands were still wrapped around the boy's throat.

  That was fear. Not of dying but of coming to terms with what I had lost.

  I shifted my stance, trying to keep my voice neutral. "What else do you know about this?"

  Milo's fingers twitched. His gaze swept past me, scanning the crowd again, observing something I couldn't see.

  Then, barely above a whisper, he said, "I don't know what the Hel this is in detail, but I've seen what happens when people get too close to it. They don't walk away cleanly. If they walk away at all. And now, of all the people that could have it, you do."

  The words seemed off. Too final.

  His hand shot out again, gripping my wrist tighter this time. "You need to lose it and get out of Helstalgia."

  I yanked free, shoving him back. "Not happening. I can't. The mission won't let me just dump it."

  "Forget the mission. There are other ways," Milo replied.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I barely registered Milo's words. Something else had taken hold of my attention—a lightweight tug at my wrist. Milo had placed a matte black bracelet on me. I examined it.

  "No Last Words" (Wrist - Light Armour)

  ITEM CLASS: Legendary

  DESCRIPTION: For those who end conversations with a pull of the trigger.

  STATS:

  +20 Dexterity

  +15% Accuracy

  +6 Recoil Stability

  SKILLS:

  +2 Dead Men Don't Shoot Back

  I had never heard of this skill before.

  SKILL: Dead Men Don't Shoot Back

  DESCRIPTION: A steady hand and a cool head are the best ways to enhance your aim and hit your target.

  +8 to precision when aiming at weakened targets (below 25% health)

  Headshots and finishing blows gain bonus 7% accuracy for 2 seconds (can be stacked 3 times)

  5% aim assist (add 1% more with each headshot stack)

  10-second duration

  30-second cooldown

  Buffs decrease by 1% every second for 15 seconds.

  This skill didn't merely level the playing field; it provided me with a distinct advantage. The stats and skill boost offered just enough for me to survive. Not to win, not to dominate, just to survive. That was all I needed—I wasn't made for combat, only for making it out alive.

  "Thanks, I hope I don't ever have to use this," I said.

  In return, I shared my mission log. Milo's eyes darted over the text, his lips parting as he read. His expression conveyed everything before he even spoke; this was worse than he had thought. For the first time, his face twisted, not in anger but to something worse: resignation.

  He took a step back, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter who gets the fragment now. We're all dead anyway." There was a pause before he continued.

  A DM chat window sprang to life in the corner of my HUD, logging our exchange. It was an old chat from a few weeks back when we last interacted. I resized it out of habit so that it didn't take up too much of my vision.

  Milo: "Fortunately, I can help. This is the only way to talk while moving, and we need to go now."

  Milo didn't wait. He just shoved past, grabbed my upper arm, and yanked me straight into the flow of the market. I kept my head down, my eyes locked on the back of his coat—frayed edges, stiff with rain and whatever bad decisions brought us here.

  The crowd swallowed us whole.

  He moved ahead, cutting through as if it was second nature, as though he didn't feel a thing. I stayed close. Quiet. Not making eye contact with anyone. Just another shadow trying to vanish into the noise.

  A voice cut through the sharp, artificial noise crackling from a holoscreen mounted outside a grimy bar.

  It sliced through the crowd's murmur as if someone had just turned up the volume, causing a few locals to look up and pay attention to the segment. It was the kind of well-timed broadcast that didn't just report the news; it dictated it.

  The screen fizzed with static, its neon glow casting jagged reflections across the dirty pavement.

  "This is Jessa Quell from GNN. Breaking the Grid, breaking the news." The reporter stood rigid against the rain, her expression fixed in the calm urgency that only newscasters can pull off.

  "I'm coming to you live from outside the Meat.me in East Helstalgia, where yet another 'glitch event' has been reported." Her voice was overdramatic as she gestured behind her at a locally owned fast-food joint.

  A few nearby market patrons turned their heads in interest at the news report. "Witnesses claim the entire structure vanished for over five seconds. No walls or floors. They say it was just raw static and bleeding neon standing in its place."

  The screen flickered for a fraction of a second, her face contorting into digital noise before snapping back to reality. I felt a knot form in my stomach as we passed the screen. Five seconds was a long time to be absent.

  Five seconds.

  Long enough to pull a trigger. Long enough to bleed out. Long enough for the world to forget you ever existed. I've had fights that lasted less and resulted in deaths that took even less than the fights.

  Five seconds become a glitch in time, a crack in the metaverse where things don't simply disappear. Sometimes, they return altered.

  I continued moving, but the thought lingered.

  What does a man perceive in those five seconds? Or worse, what perceives him?

  Milo slowed down, barely glancing up as we approached a narrow alleyway choked with neon haze and dim buzzing lights. In the end, a storefront flickered in and out of existence, glitching like a poor signal.

  This was a normal occurrence.

  It was the 404 Bazaar.

  A market that wasn't on any map had no address, and it certainly didn't welcome tourists. If you found it, it was because someone wanted you to. Known as a ghost market, it shifted locations every night, never landing in the same place twice. Entry wasn't just a matter of knowing where to look; you had to be invited by someone who already had access.

  I wouldn't get through the door unless Milo had been here, which I assume he had.

  Inside, it was a different world. High-end weapons, armour, cybernetics, neural mods, and anything too dangerous or illegal to sell openly in the Undernet lined the shops here.

  If someone wanted it badly enough and had the Neon to pay, they'd find it waiting for them in the ghost market.

  Milo: "This way."

  My mission log remained silent. No ping and no update. Typically, it marked the exact location when I was near, but this time it did not. Was this where the deal was made, or was it something else? Something Flux Jackal created? Ever since he grabbed my arm, my senses sharpened and tightened. Notably more so than when I entered the market.

  One question started to gnaw at me, and I can't believe it has only just occurred to me now:

  How the Hel did he even know I was here?

  Milo turned abruptly toward a dirty steel door. He entered a code into a keypad beside it, and it slid open. Old oil and city grime clung to his fingernails, buried deep in the creases of his skin. He opened the door, and the neon light spilled onto the alley's slick pavement. The gears groaned with a low, rusty metallic whine. It seemed as if it was actively refusing to obey his command.

  He looked over his shoulder briefly, then moved aside.

  Milo: "You're up. Get in."

  I recognized the invitation for what it was and stepped through the open doorway.

  A searing blast cracked through the air before my HUD registered the threat. It was a clean shot, straight through Milo's neck.

  Instinct took over. I dove into the 404 Bazaar, hitting the ground hard as I crossed the threshold. My shoulder slammed onto the hard floor, pain sparking through me like a live wire.

  Milo staggered back with a garbled choke rattling from his throat, hands clamping over the wound like he could block life from leaving him. His breath came wet and bubbling. Each exhalation drags more blood up from his lungs.

  Then, the real bleeding began.

  The first thick trickle spilled between his fingers, then came the flood. A Dark, arterial red poured down his arms in pulsing waves, soaking his coat and splattering onto the pavement floor. The smell hit me next—hot iron, thick and raw, permeating the air like rusted steel.

  His eyes found mine. Wide. Searching. Panicked. I'd seen this look before, and it never stopped haunting me. Just like before, I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

  His fingers twitched violently, spasming against his own throat like his body was trying to fight, still trying to force breath through the ruin of his neck. His legs buckled. He collapsed to the floor. The wet slap of his body against the pavement, the dead weight of him, was final.

  That shot was intended for me.

  My hand reached back through the open doorway, fingers fumbling over his gear. There was no time for grief. No time for hesitation. No time to think. I opened his inventory and just hit 'LOOT ALL.' A corpse doesn't need gear, and I wasn't planning on joining him.

  A series of notifications filled my screen, but I wasn't paying attention to them. The door slid shut behind me, eliminating the chance that whoever fired the shot wasn't welcome inside. A deathly silence followed.

  His body lay cooling outside. Blood seeped into the cracks of the pavement.

  I owed him a drink, but he took a bullet for me instead.

  Follow to stay in Helstalgia.