“Delov-to, moy pauchok.”

The words poured into his ear like a poisoned whisper. Mercury thick and dulcified but for the clicks that followed. Each syllable surrendered itself in a way that reminded him of dying soldiers sharing their regrets, too young to have escaped the war. Too old to call for their mothers.

He didn’t have those apologies in him, but he’d often heard something say them in his mind. He’d written code to hunt it down. Programs to root it out and kill it.

Now those programs felt in the way.

Niko heard the words, as the meaning slip through his thoughts smoothly.

He told himself whatever the medic had given him made him simple, heavy, and docile.

There was no accounting for the past.

Nothing to it, he repeated the words, my little spider.

The last syllables turned into a hum in his ears.

Seconds in the real world.

Forever in digital, as something got tangled in his mind. Whatever it was forced him to close his overlay and digital suite.

As soonas he did, he heard the words.

“Are you with me?”

He wanted to reply yes, but his mouth was so dry his tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of his roof.

The room was dim and cold, but Niko felt warm light shining on his cheek. He couldn’t quite open his eyes, but there were sensations he still recognized. The sound of sizzling incandescence. The red hue of sin inside his eyelids. The weight of organic consciousness sinking down to the uneasy hollow in his stomach. All of it was uncomfortable, just like the pressure on the back of his head.

Slow air slid through his throat like a breathing tube.

He was still alive.

Even if only just barely. A little spider caught in someone else’s web.

He heard clicking at his side.

“I’ve wiped the old data and imaged the new loop. Ported over your credentials. Serial numbers. Warranties. Every conversation and clip you’ve ever saved. Everything that made you you has been preserved.”

The medic removed her heavy arm from the top of his shoulder and used her free hand to grab the corners of his mouth and squeeze.

The pressure lacked affection.

“Still with me?”

Niko had seen picts and holos of fish gasping for air.

He would have given anything for a cup of water.

More than that, he wanted to get away from her.

A finger landed on his eyelid and lifted the skin back toward his skull. He watched the world return through a blur of lipid emulsion, but he didn’t see the fluid atomizer in the tip of her second finger. He only felt the cold fluid spray him straight in his pupil.

Instinctively, Niko twitched and pulled back his head. He barely noticed his sudden reaction.

“There you are.” She tried to shush him back into docility, but her words sounded nasally. “Tishe, pauchok. I have you strapped down so you don’t fall. You’ll be back to normal in a moment. I’m almost done.”

He jerked against his restraints, and he thought he heard the woman snicker at him as her eyes dropped back to his side.

Niko shook his head.

A frigid sensation crawled through his face like a colony of roaches, each leg bristling with hundreds of tiny hairs. Hungry for fluids, they swarmed at the back of his head.

He dug his fingernails into the sides of the chair and realized he couldn’t feel most of his right arm. Where there should have been pain, there was only pressure.

“What— did you do?”

She looked up from her work and leaned in to press on parts of his arm.

“This was an implant fracture. And here, hemorrhaging. A clean break. A level-two puncture. I drained your arm. I—” She made a short sequence of clicks and then huffed without finishing her sentence. “They told me to save it. You refused to sit still.”

She sat down again and snapped the strap around his shoulders.

“Do you like it?”

“What?” he asked slowly.

She grinned and let out another string of clicks. “The anesthesia. Do you like it?”

He didn’t answer.

He watched her push back from his side and felt the heavy frame of his chair flex. She was much stronger than she looked, but all Niko could do was stare.

He tried to access the new implant to make sure everything worked. He wanted to see his credentials and make sure nothing was missing from his wallet. He needed to know if she’d missed anything. Or changed something.

“I can’t— I don’t feel anything. I’m still in the dark.”

She noticed him squirming and heard his questions, but she didn’t seem to care. She simply walked to the nearby sink, ignoring him as easily as she ignored the rifles aimed at her back.

“Are you sure you— did it right?”

“First time is it?” she asked as she reached into the basin and wrapped her hands around something Niko couldn’t see from his chair.

“What? No. I mean—”

The expression on her face soured.

Whether out of annoyance or the mechanics of the thing itself, she turned her elbows outward and pulled hard on whatever she was holding on to. Niko was horrified to see each of her arms come out of the sink without their hands.

She held her arms up so he could get a good look.

Niko caught the glint of fiber optic signals at the end of each stump.

“A child accepts anything one calls a toy.”

Niko raised his eyebrow. “I’m not a child.”

“To the others you are.” She simply stood at the other end of the room, barely moving. The silence was awkward.

“Have you been to Heihe, the square where the Ten-Rin submitted?”

Niko shook his head, curious about the change in subject.

“No one builds over the place where the VKA melted them down. None go there anymore. No light falls upon it.”

He tested the other side of his restraints.

“Do you know why?” She seemed annoyed at having to ask.

“I have no idea.”

She cocked her head, looked at the guards, and clicked.

“Fear, moy pauchok. Men build their power by subduing the weak.”

He didn’t understand her point. “Okay. So the Ten-Rin are dead. The VKA dominate everyone they can. They’re a corporation. Nothing surprising.”

“Nine were melted down. The last of the Rin guards the site from the shadows. She cannot leave.”

“Why are you telling me this? Who cares?”

One of the guards awakened from its stillness, its helmet turning just slightly. Niko would have missed it except he caught one of the dim lights streak across its surface.

He looked back at her.

Her frown deepened.

“One hundred and fifteen years. She can leave whenever she wants and yet she stays while the VKA hunt her.”

“Then why do it? Why not leave? She could get her revenge.”

The medic clicked.

“Such a child. Hold your breath.”

Niko looked at her puzzled.

“As you wish.” She took a step back.

An automated voice spoke plainly, “Autoclave.”

Hot chemical jets clouded the far end of the room. Strapped to the chair, Niko felt the cold air turn away. Moisture he didn’t want in his implants spun above him. Caustic fumes swirled in the steam.

He took a deep breath.

The two soldiers, still tracking the woman with their guns, wore masks which must have filtered out the chemicals. Neither so much as flinched, and Niko wondered what the medic had done to be so distrusted.

He leaned away from the cloud and felt the straps across his legs and chest tighten. His breath burst from his mouth, as he tried not to inhale.

He could taste the chemicals now. Already, his tongue tasted bitter.

“Autoclave off,” the voice chimed.

The jets stopped and somewhere behind him a hidden exhaust fan activated. Instantly, Niko could feel the cold night air pull back into the room. A fine dew settled on his right arm, the chair, and the rest of the items that’d been caught inside the cloud.

He stared at the organic skin on his arm and barely noticed as the woman returned to the sink, reconnected her hands, and pulled a thin polyslate from the folds of her apron.

“Still a child. You think you know pain. Just wait til you reconnect. The universe is filled with more than Corexis, the VKA, and the Ikari.”

Niko fought the restraints. “Let me up.”

She pushed down on his chest and pinned him to the chair.

“I’ve had other augmentations. I’ve been connected.”

“Your cheap alloys are not the same.”

“Liar! You’re just trying to get into my head. Let me up.”

She pressed his head back with her other hand.

“I’ve already been in your head.”

She let go.

“Who are you?” asked Niko.

She grasped one of her wrists.

“When you’re ready, put a finger here and here. Give it a squeeze. Like so. Understand?”

He watched and then looked down at his own wrist.

She looked over her shoulder at the two soldiers and turned back toward Niko.

“The universe will come for you, child. The Ghost will not allow you to heal.”

He blinked.

The two guards appeared at her shoulder.

“Are you sure you don’t want those new eyes? They’re quite nice.” Her frown vanished, replaced by a sinister expression.

Niko barely heard the words as the first restraint unlocked.

“Then they shall go to one of the dogs of Heihe.”

She walked away clicking.

For a moment, he thought he was listening to Woojin again.

“Ah, yes. The Colonel asked me to tell you.”

If he heard the words, he lost them immediately. A phrase he had learned but would never remember.

The numbness in his hand enveloped his whole body faster than he could close off his mind. Niko’s thoughts folded back onto themselves. Just as busy and directional as they were before but smaller. A note that’d been folded, unfolded, and then creased.

He searched the geometry for the facet that held his vision, the same way he’d dove through Corexis’ security system. Falling through ever smaller windows, some above, some below. Each as clear as glass.

A few thousand quick lines of code spilled across another plane of his consciousness.

A few more folds.

He could see, but everything shrank. His digital mind could enlarge the images of what he saw, but each fold caused him to start from a smaller piece of the puzzle.

Standing.

Moving.

Standing again.

The images were so dark.

He tried to take back control but the anesthetic still coursed through his system. Too slow. Top-heavy. Instinctively, he knew, even at his best and despite all his upgrades, the takeover was out of reach.

I can’t give up. Not now.

He still needed to try.

Tymir’s conditioning worked, because it’d been kind and it’d been cruel. Those words had led to his death so many times before—half the time he’d volunteered. He’d been a fool to think he could outrun them.

He didn’t know her name, but he knew he’d seen the last of the Ikari medic. In a week Baranov would trade a trio of new corpse units for her replacement.

The folds tightened before they began to loosen.

Niko suspected there was more to Woojin’s transaction than he knew.

He felt his body come back to him and found himself watching Colonel Baranov speaking to one of his subordinates. Their red overcoats, decorated with dithered gray shoulders, faded into the cold night air.

“You must understand.”

He wasn’t sure if the Colonel was talking to him or the other man.

Niko’s hands slid down the back of his head, then down the side of his implant. He wasn’t sure if it still worked or if the weight of half-death was just an old burden that’d been reproduced.

His hand fell to his side.

Baranov had the same implants.

The other man, an officer, did too.

So did every soldier around them.

“Nikolai.”

“Colonel,” he said, and found himself back in control.

“This is Gan Shenbei. He knows about your time on the Ikari Line. Now, he needs you to do the same for him.”

Niko’s eyes dropped for less than a second.

“What’s in it for me?” The words jumped from Niko’s lips, an old habit picked up from doing quick hacks on Halcyon.

He immediately regretted it, and before he could walk the words back, he found himself the focus of too much of Baranov’s attention.

Niko watched the old man’s affability drain away. The guile went with it, replaced by a calculating stare.

Gan stared over Niko’s shoulder as he explained that his team had been unable to locate someone inside the facility.

“Our scans don’t work. We need you to go back in. Locate him. Bring him out,” said Gan.

“How do you know there’s anyone else left inside?”

“Mm.” Shenbei paused and clasped his hands behind his back.

Niko suspected he wasn’t used to questions.

“We’re sure,” said Baranov, answering for his subordinate. “If you do this for me, I will make sure you receive a promotion. New upgrades. A new contract. Perhaps you’ll find yourself standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Gan here. How does that sound?”

The junior officer flushed at the idea of Niko becoming his equal. The Colonel’s use of Shenbei’s family name had been calculated.

So this is damage control.

“Who’s this person? How do I know when I’ve found them?”

Shenbei, still staring off into the distance, said, “There’s only one left inside.”

Niko didn’t say anything.

Gan was only slightly taller than him, too thin but structurally handsome. He looked like someone born into rank, but Niko knew there’d been two sides to Heihe’s past.

He knew the red beasts of Koschei loved their trophies, just like he knew Shenbei’s back was covered with the scars of conditioning and industrialized authority.

“Officer, then?” Niko adjusted his shoulders.

Baranov and Gan looked directly at Niko and nodded.

Niko balled up his right hand and squeezed.

Still numb.

“I’ll do it.”