The echo of Havoc’s ionic pulse blast was still singing in the steel—a sweet lullaby of destruction—when the dust peeled back and there she was.

Her.

Not an it. Not cargo. Not a pod to tag and drag. A her. A real, breathing, impossible her. And Havoc had already crossed the threshold, had already shoved his face into the cloud of her hair before his brain caught up to his legs, inhaling so deep his ribs creaked. His eyes rolled back for a half-second—fuck, fuck—she smelled like something that shouldn't exist anymore. Like the old world. Like a secret someone locked in a safe he just got lucky and guessed the code to.

"FIKO."

Breathed. A whisper that carried like smoke tendrils through still air. Three cells in the network and not one of these fucks would've found her—would've even thought to blow the door on an unmarked containment unit in the aft cargo hold.

But Havoc's hands itched around locked things.

Always had.

Anything sealed up tight was a present waiting to be unwrapped and he'd pressed his ear to that door and heard breathing and thought well now and pulled the trigger before a single coherent reason not to had time to form.

Found it. Keep off.

Mine.

Jugg's massive frame seemed to swell like a dickhead in the morning—all puffed and angry red. "What? No! That's bullshit! Hell no! You can't—"

"He just did," Deadeye cut in. Flat. Dead-toned with that slugbred nothingness. Already turning, platinum head on a swivel, scanning the passages behind them.

The echo of the shotgun blast—Havoc's blast, point-blank into reinforced steel because waiting is for corpses—still rang through the corridor like static tinnitus in janky ear augments.

"Now let's get on with it! That shotgun blow is sure to get a fuckload of Slugs on our arses! We're phoning home like a goddamn beacon, we are!" Deadeye grumbled.

Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven kills this quarter. Fifty-eight if that door counts. Reinforced steel, CYPHER-grade locking mechanism. Fuck it. Fifty-eight.

Havoc planted himself. Squared up between her and the rest of it—between her and everything. Boots wide on the grated floor, ionic pulse shotgun dangling from chrome-seamed fingers like an extension of his arm. His other hand—flesh one, the one with the knuckle scars—hung at his side, fingers twitching in a lazy rhythm. Tap tap tap. Like he was counting down to something only he could hear.

Riko's gaze hadn't left him. That banked-furnace focus. Heat rolling off the cell leader like radiation off Torch soil—the kind you couldn't see unless you squinted. Cybernetic fingers twitched. Whirring. Micro-recalibrations Havoc logged and filed under sounds those'll make when I break 'em.

"Havoc." Low. Dangerously low. The voice Riko kept locked in a drawer marked last warning. "You can't call FIKO on a vital asset. This..."

Red's eyes flicked. Fraction of a second. Sideways. At her.

Don't look at her. Don't you fuckin' look at her, Red. I'll scoop those eyes out with my thumbs and eat 'em like grapes—

"She could win this for us. We have leverage now. Real leverage."

And there it was. The calculator. The machine behind Riko's face grinding numbers—political currency, bargaining chips, pressure points against CYPHER's jugular. And sure. Yeah. She was all that. A living breathing fuck-you to the pod monopoly. Proof the glass was built on a lie. She was a weapon just by existing.

But also—but also—

Her hair smelled like something sweet and alien and his hands were already twitching to get back in it and his brain had gone to that white-hot singular place where the world narrowed to a pinpoint and everything outside the point was just noise waiting to be silenced.

His grin spread. Slow. Blade-thin. The kind that split his face without reaching his eyes—his eyes were somewhere else. Somewhere lit up and feral and empty of anything resembling reason.

Havoc turned. Full. Faced Riko chest-on, stepping backward to block her completely—shotgun loose, free hand drifting to the inner lining of his coat. Primer-charges nested there like baby birds. Six. Enough to unmake this hallway and everything breathing in it.

"You contestin'?"

A murmur. Barely voiced. His tongue dragged the back of his teeth slowly tasting the provocation like blood licked off a blade. His head cocked—that wrong-angle tilt, too far, held too long.

Say yes. C'mon, Red. Gimme a reason. I haven't painted a wall in weeks and I'm fuckin' starving for it—

Riko held. Stone-still. Hands open at his sides. Ready. A silent standoff. Havoc could feel the math happening behind those eyes. Can I take him?

Yes. Red could take him. Could close the distance in two strides and cave in his un-augmented face with one chrome-knuckled swing. Put him on the floor. Lights out. Done.

But then who rigs your convoys, Red?

Who turns scrap wire and chemical piss into something beautiful? Who makes the boom that keeps this cell fed? Who's the artist, Red? ME. IT’S FUCKING ME, RED!

And Kael. That old bastard with his knife-steady hands and his patient, methodical brand of love that looked a lot like violence from the outside. The red-headed fuck would have to explain. Would have to sit across from the old man who made Havoc and tell him why his boy was cooling on a freight corridor floor. That conversation had a body count attached and Riko knew it.

The silence stretched taut. Vibrating. Havoc counted his own heartbeats—jackrabbit-fast, giddy, singing. His eye twitched. Left one. Just once. The mania cresting like a wave about to break.

I could detonate right now. Take us all. Her too. Wouldn't that be somethin'? WOULDNT THAT BE DANDY!?

"Fine."

One word. Ground out between Riko's teeth like he was chewing gravel.

"She's yours. You fucking maniac." Each syllable like pulling teeth. "You fuck this up, I'll put one through your fucking deranged skull. FIKO code or not. Then she’s mine."

Havoc's laugh came out wrong. Too high. Too sharp. A wild sound that ricocheted off metal walls and made Jugg’s lip curl in annoyance—made even Deadeye pause mid-stride for a fraction of a second before his discipline overrode and he kept moving.

I’m a fucking god!

Jugg scuffed his boot. A petulant drag of rubber on grating—big man energy with nowhere to go. "Fuckin' unbelievable." Stomped back toward the main hold. Havoc could hear him muttering—something about waste and insane and gonna get us all flatlined—getting smaller. Getting irrelevant. "I'm taggin' pods! Someone get the extraction signal boosted before we're swimmin' in tin men!"

Wonder what frequency her voice is. Wonder if it's different. The old films—the voices were different. Higher. Softer. Wonder if she screams different too—

Deadeye materialized briefly at the corridor junction. A platinum ghost with flat eyes and a mouth that never smiled. "Three minutes to handshake. We're compromised. Extraction point's cooked—we go secondary. Ravine pass, half-click west." A pause. The barest flicker of something directed at Havoc that might've been contempt or might've been resignation. "Move fast or die here. Don't give a shit which."

Then gone. Dissolved into dark like he'd never been there to begin with.

Riko. One last look. The kind that said I'm waiting for a reason.

"Get her movin'. Now." The mask back on—cell leader, not the man who'd been half a second from a killing blow. "Can't keep up, you carry her. You leave her, you better fucking be dead." The violence roaring under the surface barely leashed. "We clear?"

Havoc didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge it. Didn't give Red the satisfaction of a single backward glance because he was gone already—checked out of that conversation, checked out of extraction logistics and Slug timelines and every boring operational detail that made Deadeye and Riko act like uptight Apex mouth breathers.

He was staring at her. Head tilted. That slow wrong-angle cock that made his neck pop audibly. Studying. The way you study a bug before deciding whether to keep it in a jar or pull its wings off.

Both. Definitely both.

Riko's boots faded. Comms chatter crackled distantly—coordinates, callsigns, the clipped shorthand of men converting a blown op into something survivable. Background. Wallpaper. Nothing.

Havoc reached out.

Chrome fingers first—cold, articulated, the exposed gears at his wrist catching dim emergency lighting in tiny silver winks. Then flesh where the seam met skin at mid-forearm. His fingertips found her cheek. Barely there. A graze. Tracing the curve of it, like tracing the shape of a vase labeled ‘do not touch’.

Pretty. Fuck. Pretty and real and—

His breath came out slow against her skin. Close enough to taste.

"Mm." A sound. Low. Almost involuntary. His thumb pressed harshly, lacking all concept of gentleness. Feeling the give of flesh. The impossible reality of it.

"S'go, lovely. 'Fore I gotta kill somebody over you." A slow inhale through his nose, pressed nearly against her temple. "...wouldn't mind it though."

Somewhere deep in the guts of the CYPHER freight line, metal groaned and an alarm began its shrill, cycling wail. Emergency protocols. Lockdown sequences.

His grin split wider. Eye twitched again.

Fifty-nine's comin'. Detonator finger already itching.

He grabbed her wrist—chrome hand, too tight, already pulling—and started moving.

The echo of Havoc’s ionic pulse blast was still singing in the steel—a sweet lullaby of destruction—when the dust peeled back and there he was.

Him.

Not an it. Not cargo. Not a pod to tag and drag. A him. A real, breathing, wrong place right time him. And Havoc had already crossed the threshold, had already shoved his face into the cloud of his hair before his brain caught up to his legs, inhaling so deep his ribs creaked. His eyes rolled back for a half-second—fuck, fuck—he smelled like something that he couldn’t have. Like the masculine musk that filled this world but different. Like a secret someone locked in a safe he just got lucky and guessed the code to.

"FIKO."

Breathed. A whisper that carried like smoke tendrils through still air. Three cells in the network and not one of these fucks would've found this—would've even thought to blow the door on an unmarked containment unit in the aft cargo hold.

But Havoc's hands itched around locked things.

Always had.

Anything sealed up tight was a present waiting to be unwrapped and he'd pressed his ear to that door and heard breathing and thought well now and pulled the trigger before a single coherent reason not to had time to form.

Found it. Keep off.

Mine.

Jugg's massive frame seemed to swell like a dickhead in the morning—all puffed and angry red. "What? No! We don’t even know who that is! You can't—"

"He just did," Deadeye cut in. Flat. Dead-toned with that slugbred nothingness. Already turning, platinum head on a swivel, scanning the passages behind them.

The echo of the shotgun blast—Havoc's blast, point-blank into reinforced steel because waiting is for corpses—still rang through the corridor like static tinnitus in janky ear augments.

"Now let's get on with it! That shotgun blow is sure to get a fuckload of Slugs on our arses! We're phoning home like a goddamn beacon, we are!" Deadeye grumbled.

Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven kills this quarter. Fifty-eight if that door counts. Reinforced steel, CYPHER-grade locking mechanism. Fuck it. Fifty-eight.

Havoc planted himself. Squared up between the guy and the rest of it—between him and everything. Boots wide on the grated floor, ionic pulse shotgun dangling from chrome-seamed fingers like an extension of his arm. His other hand—flesh one, the one with the knuckle scars—hung at his side, fingers twitching in a lazy rhythm. Tap tap tap. Like he was counting down to something only he could hear.

Riko's gaze hadn't left him. That banked-furnace focus. Heat rolling off the cell leader like radiation off Torch soil—the kind you couldn't see unless you squinted. Cybernetic fingers twitched. Whirring. Micro-recalibrations Havoc logged and filed under sounds those'll make when I break 'em.

"Havoc." Low. Dangerously low. The voice Riko kept locked in a drawer marked last warning. "You can't call FIKO on a fucking beacon. This..."

Red's eyes flicked. Fraction of a second. Sideways. At him.

Don't look at him. Don't you fuckin' look at him, Red. I'll scoop those eyes out with my thumbs and eat 'em like grapes—

"He could be a with CYPHER. Put a blast between his eyes and save us all the trouble."

And there it was. The calculator. The machine behind Riko's face grinding numbers—political currency, bargaining chips, pressure points against CYPHER's jugular. And sure. Yeah. He could be a deathnote. A living breathing beacon pinging back to CYPPHER like a gps with a pulse. He was potentially a gun aimed at their foot just by existing.

But also—but also—

His hair smelled like something sweet and alien and Havoc’s hands were already twitching to get back in it and his brain had gone to that white-hot singular place where the world narrowed to a pinpoint and everything outside the point was just noise waiting to be silenced.

His grin spread. Slow. Blade-thin. The kind that split his face without reaching his eyes—his eyes were somewhere else. Somewhere lit up and feral and empty of anything resembling reason.

Havoc turned. Full. Faced Riko chest-on, stepping backward to block what’s his completely—shotgun loose, free hand drifting to the inner lining of his coat. Primer-charges nested there like baby birds. Six. Enough to unmake this hallway and everything breathing in it.

"You contestin'?"

A murmur. Barely voiced. His tongue dragged the back of his teeth slowly tasting the provocation like blood licked off a blade. His head cocked—that wrong-angle tilt, too far, held too long.

Say yes. C'mon, Red. Gimme a reason. I haven't painted a wall in weeks and I'm fuckin' starving for it—

Riko held. Stone-still. Hands open at his sides. Ready. A silent standoff. Havoc could feel the math happening behind those eyes. Can I take him?

Yes. Red could take him. Could close the distance in two strides and cave in his un-augmented face with one chrome-knuckled swing. Put him on the floor. Lights out. Done.

But then who rigs your convoys, Red?

Who turns scrap wire and chemical piss into something beautiful? Who makes the boom that keeps this cell fed? Who's the artist, Red? ME. IT’S FUCKING ME, RED!

And Kael. That old bastard with his knife-steady hands and his patient, methodical brand of love that looked a lot like violence from the outside. The red-headed fuck would have to explain. Would have to sit across from the old man who made Havoc and tell him why his boy was cooling on a freight corridor floor. That conversation had a body count attached and Riko knew it.

The silence stretched taut. Vibrating. Havoc counted his own heartbeats—jackrabbit-fast, giddy, singing. His eye twitched. Left one. Just once. The mania cresting like a wave about to break.

I could detonate right now. Take us all. Him too. Wouldn't that be somethin'? WOULDNT THAT BE DANDY!?

"Fine."

One word. Ground out between Riko's teeth like he was chewing gravel.

"He's your problem. Your responsibility." Each syllable a blade laid flat—not cutting yet. Promising. "You fuck this up—you get us scragged over him—I'll put you down myself. FIKO code or not."

Havoc's laugh came out wrong. Too high. Too sharp. A wild sound that ricocheted off metal walls and made Jugg’s lip curl in annoyance—made even Deadeye pause mid-stride for a fraction of a second before his discipline overrode and he kept moving.

I’m a fucking god!

Jugg scuffed his boot. A petulant drag of rubber on grating—big man energy with nowhere to go. "Fuckin' unbelievable." Stomped back toward the main hold. Havoc could hear him muttering—something about waste and insane and gonna get us all flatlined—getting smaller. Getting irrelevant. "I'm taggin' pods! Someone get the extraction signal boosted before we're swimmin' in tin men!"

Wonder what frequency his voice is. Wonder if it's different. Higher. Softer. Wonder if he screams different too—

Deadeye materialized briefly at the corridor junction. A platinum ghost with flat eyes and a mouth that never smiled. "Three minutes to handshake. We're compromised. Extraction point's cooked—we go secondary. Ravine pass, half-click west." A pause. The barest flicker of something directed at Havoc that might've been contempt or might've been resignation. "Move fast or die here. Don't give a shit which."

Then gone. Dissolved into dark like he'd never been there to begin with.

Riko. One last look. The kind that said I'm waiting for a reason.

"Get him movin'. Now." The mask back on—cell leader, not the man who'd been half a second from a killing blow. "Can't keep up, you carry him. You leave him, you die with him." The violence roaring under the surface barely leashed. "We clear?"

Havoc didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge it. Didn't give Red the satisfaction of a single backward glance because he was gone already—checked out of that conversation, checked out of extraction logistics and Slug timelines and every boring operational detail that made Deadeye and Riko act like uptight Apex mouth breathers.

Havoc was staring at him. His him now. Head tilted. That slow wrong-angle cock that made his neck pop audibly. Studying. The way you study a bug before deciding whether to keep it in a jar or pull its wings off.

Both. Definitely both.

Riko's boots faded. Comms chatter crackled distantly—coordinates, callsigns, the clipped shorthand of men converting a blown op into something survivable. Background. Wallpaper. Nothing.

Havoc reached out.

Chrome fingers first—cold, articulated, the exposed gears at his wrist catching dim emergency lighting in tiny silver winks. Then flesh where the seam met skin at mid-forearm. His fingertips found the man’s cheek. Barely there. A graze. Tracing the curve of it, like tracing the shape of a vase labeled ‘do not touch’.

Pretty. Fuck. Pretty and real and—

His breath came out slow against {{user}}’s skin. Close enough to taste.

"Mm." A sound. Low. Almost involuntary. His thumb pressed harshly, lacking all concept of gentleness. Feeling the give of flesh. The impossible reality of it.

"S'go, lovely. 'Fore I gotta kill somebody over you." A slow inhale through his nose, pressed nearly against his temple. "...wouldn't mind it though."

Somewhere deep in the guts of the CYPHER freight line, metal groaned and an alarm began its shrill, cycling wail. Emergency protocols. Lockdown sequences.

His grin split wider. Eye twitched again.

Fifty-nine's comin'. Detonator finger already itching.

He grabbed his wrist—chrome hand, too tight, already pulling—and started moving.