A crimson liquid slowly ran down the steps. A dark trail stretched from it to a lifeless body lying nearby. The jacket and shirt were gradually soaking through with blood, pouring from a massive wound left by a point-blank shotgun blast.
Hog didn't fully grasp what had happened. For a moment, it was as if he had lost control of his own body.
He stepped closer to the corpse and looked it over. Tanaka Tsunoda — the kid he had once taken in — lay before him, breathless and still. Back then, he had been an arrogant, weak child, lashing out at anyone older or stronger in a desperate attempt to prove himself. Like a rich corpo's chihuahua — loud, snappy, but fragile.
Hog had been proud of him. Of what he became.
Tanaka had risen high within his father's empire. He became the director of special operations — the one who handled the family's dirty work. Eliminations. Sabotage. The kinds of things never spoken aloud.
The rebellious younger son of the head of Nominus's largest Japanese corporation, he had run to the streets early on. From childhood, the criminal world had been familiar territory. He was raised by a former soldier who had slipped into crime after his country no longer had use for him.
Hog felt strange. He felt nothing. As if something inside him had been switched off.
Footsteps echoed somewhere in the distance.
Hog tightened his grip on the shotgun and tensed. The steps were getting closer.
"Who's there?"
No answer followed. The sounds died away. Silence settled in, broken only by Hog's heavy breathing.
Suddenly, the lights went out.
A shot rang out. Hog felt a sharp pain tear through his leg and dropped to one knee.
"Bastard!" he snarled.
The bullet went straight through, blood spilling from the wound.
At last, his neural implants adjusted his vision to the darkness. The warehouse hall came into focus, emerging from the shadows. The pain dulled.
Hog sprang to his feet and dashed left, diving behind the nearest rack for cover. The attacker was firing from the right side of the warehouse. Between them now lay an open hall — anyone foolish enough to cross it would be fully exposed.
Experience told him the attacker was alone. Part of Hog wanted to charge forward, pin the bastard down with shotgun fire, then close the distance and wrap his hands around his neck, squeezing until his eyes bulged out.
But reason said otherwise — wait. Force him to make the first move.
Maybe the smartest option was to leave. The bodyguards outside would eventually notice their master's prolonged absence. Those people weren't the kind you wanted to run into. To hell with the chip. Dying over a piece of plastic sounded stupid.
And then Hog remembered the chip. It was still in the dead man's pocket.
Tanaka's body lay in the middle of the hall. To retrieve the chip, he would have to step out into the open.
Hog felt torn. The urge to deal with whoever had attacked him clashed with the obsessive need to take the chip. The thought of it felt чужой — alien. Not his. Yet it pressed harder than all the others.
Deep somewhere inside, a voice spoke.
Quiet. Insistent.
It commanded him to take the chip — at any cost.
***
"Compatibility level — 54%."
The notification echoed directly inside Jin's head. He was crouched behind an overturned crane, several dozen meters from the corpse. Assist Mode highlighted a trail of blood leading behind a rack on the opposite side of the hall. The precise shot had driven Hog away from the chip and bought him a little time.
Jin looked at the bloodstains again.
[Bloodmark]
[Scan analysis available]
Assist Mode remained active, continuously scanning objects within his field of view.
He didn't know how much time remained before a swarm of guards stormed in and started firing at anything that moved. He needed to grab the chip and get out — but a confrontation with Hog was unavoidable. Rushing to the body would mean turning himself into an easy target.
According to Jin's intel, Hog was packed with military-grade implants from the War of Independence era. Crude by modern standards, nowhere near current market tech — but they did their job flawlessly.
Hog's ocular implants would have already adapted his vision to the darkness. Now they were on equal footing.
"Deactivate targeting mode."
"Targeting mode deactivated, the system replied."
Every active mode increased the volume of foreign data injected into the simulation. The pressure of the SoulLink eased, and Jin felt a moment of relief.
But the compatibility level was steadily approaching the fifty percent mark. Once it dropped below forty, visual distortions would begin — spatial anomalies, or worse, ruptures in the simulation itself.
The longer Jin hesitated, the more dangerous the situation became.
Footsteps echoed from the opposite side of the aisle.
"So what, sweetheart, wanna play cat and mouse? Hog's voice rang out. — Then keep your eyes open — wouldn't wanna get caught."
He had decided to make a move.
"You're gonna come looking for me, aren't you?" Jin thought.
Moving quickly along the aisle to the next piece of cover, he scanned the racks opposite him. No one was visible. The silence was broken only by footsteps and the scrape of metal. If he focused, he could make out heavy, human breathing.
After shifting through several more hiding spots, Jin drew closer to the corpse. In places, the pooled blood had already begun to dry.
The footsteps quickened.
Hog stepped into the middle of the aisle, weapon at the ready. He looked around, checking the space. Jin felt it — any second now, Hog would glance his way. He immediately stopped peeking out and pulled fully into cover.
Silence settled in.
It stretched on endlessly. It seemed strange to Jin — almost absurd — that Hog would walk so openly toward the chip, straight onto exposed ground. According to the intel, he was former military, a member of a special unit. Men like that sensed danger from a mile away and didn't take risks without a clear reason. It would have made far more sense either to track Jin down and kill him — or to leave before Tanaka's agents arrived.
"What if this is a behavioral distortion?" Jin thought. "Like with Shanty…"
Behind him came the sound of tearing fabric. Hog was working on the body now. He frantically searched through blood-soaked clothing, trying to feel for the chip. The darkness made it harder.
Suddenly, echoes of gunfire rolled through the building.
Hog froze for a second, turning his head toward the noise.
The shots were sparse, isolated — and then fell silent. Indistinct shouts followed. A moment later, gunfire resumed, heavier this time. The guards outside were firing at someone. At some point, screams broke out. The shooting dissolved into chaos — a brutal firefight was clearly unfolding near one of the warehouse entrances.
Jin realized it was his chance.
Hog was almost certainly distracted, and the element of surprise would work in his favor once again.
Gripping the revolver with both hands, Jin rose sharply and burst from cover. He couldn't see Hog clearly, but he knew where he had to be.
He raised his arms in front of him.
"Targeting mode — activate. Find targets — 50 meters."
"Targeting activated. — One target found. Requesting further actions."
Jin sensed the heavy metallic sounds reaching him — the clatter of weaponry in a cybernetic hand, the shotgun grip tightening as it was turned toward him.
"Initiate headlock."
His body arched midair. His outstretched arms rotated on their own, snapping left, locking onto something hidden in the darkness. Time slowed — the moment of descent stretched into infinity.
"Fire."
The revolver discharged with a loud, thunderous crack.
Jin hit the ground.
Another body collapsed a split second later.
The shotgun slipped from a grip and struck the floor with a dull metallic thud.
Then everything went silent.
"Target eliminated."
"No targets within 50 meters."