Ash grit scratched his tongue.
His ports hummed like cold bees.
Ren stood ahead like a shield.
Anger rose to meet it.
The radio hissed.
"Squad One, move two grids.
Lane reads clear."
Nothing down here was ever clear.
He rose from the crouch.
Debt holograms blinked on broken walls.
Subscription overdue.
Penalty pending.
His jaw clenched hard.
He saw himself in those numbers.
Shame coiled under the heat.
His HUD twitched like a wounded eye.
The lane tilted, then snapped level.
White bars stung his sight.
"Advance, Rivenweld," Ren said.
No shout.
Only weight.
"Copy," Jax said.
"On your mark."
He stepped past the plasteel edge.
Every step felt wrong out of the gate.
The implants tried to steer him.
A mag-lev moaned overhead.
Ash curled in slow rivers across the lane.
"Status check," Ren asked quietly.
"Green enough," Jax said.
"HUD drift corrected?"
"Negative.
It keeps sliding."
"Lock to my pace," Ren said.
"I'm on you," Jax said.
He remembered yard walks before the graft.
Boots on steel, weight his own.
No code telling nerves where to land.
"It hurts to remember," he breathed.
Grief sat hot in his chest.
"Staggered line," Ren said over the net.
"Eyes up-rail.
Soft-fire ready."
Ren's slight nod put him at point.
Old reflexes rose like armor.
He took the lead because duty demanded it.
Keep them moving.
Keep them alive.
Break first if it falls apart.
His foot hit empty air.
He slammed into cracked plating.
Pain shot up his ankle.
The ports surged to fix his balance.
He spasmed once, then held.
Shame burned through his skin.
"Status?"
Ren's voice cut sharp.
"Glitch?"
"I'm steady," Jax said.
"Then trust your eyes," Ren said.
"And if they're wrong?"
"Then we share the mistake."
He hated the ports more in that second.
They had given him air and stolen his edge.
They had written it a lease.
Plasma flashed ahead through the smog.
A dull concussion rolled under the ash.
A thin scream fractured and died.
Skirmish ahead.
Debts collecting in real time.
"Contact at three grids," the radio said.
"Unknown number.
Plasma mixed with small arms."
Ren lifted two fingers.
The squad slid lower without a word.
Jax hugged a beam and held.
His implants lagged like stubborn machinery.
Ghost markers jittered across his overlay.
He wanted to shut it off and see.
"Hold," Ren said.
"Let them burn each other down."
It still twisted something inside Jax.
He peered over the beam.
Flashes licked the wrecks like lightning.
Shadows darted between fallen facades.
He could not see tags.
"You got anything useful?"
Ren asked.
"Static and lies," Jax said.
"HUD's chasing ghosts."
"Then trust your eyes," Ren replied.
"Not the leash."
The word hit bone.
Leash.
His ports hummed like chains tightening.
Sora Minora's small kitchen swam into view.
Light, quiet, fear in her jaw.
He had sold more than his body to breathe again.
Anger and shame tangled.
Another flash tore a figure from a ledge.
The body slapped the lane.
Silence crouched on the ruin.
"Unknown squad neutralised," a flat voice said on the net.
"Left channel opening," Ren said low.
"Skirmish pulling right.
We ghost their blind."
He pointed with two fingers, sure and quiet.
Jax traced the route with his eyes.
A narrow cut between collapsed fronts.
Clogged, but passable.
His HUD drew a tremoring glow through it.
For once the code agreed with the man.
Dependence tasted weak.
"On you," Ren said.
Trust landed heavy across Jax's shoulders.
He closed his hand around his rifle grip.
He willed the tremor down his fingers.
He moved anyway.
He slid into the cut.
Brittle conduit cracked under his boot.
The air smelled like burnt fabric and old iron.
The walls closed like jaws.
His skin felt raw and watched.
Skirmish icons dimmed to embers behind them.
New markers blinked soft ahead.
Stress points.
Trip edges.
He let his eyes choose first.
He let the overlay confirm second.
He split the difference.
The ports hummed warmer when he obeyed.
Rage sparked sharp and clean.
A plate shimmered wrong beneath dust.
HUD flashed its warning a blink ahead.
His eyes saw the wrongness the same breath.
He shifted weight hard to his heel.
The plate slid and clanged into a trench.
His pulse punched his ribs.
"That one was me," he said under breath.
Not the code.
Not the contract.
Pride rose small and bright.
He grabbed it tight.
The cut spat them back to the main lane.
The fight bled out behind and to the right.
Only a few shots popped like tired fireworks.
Ahead, the corridor bent away from the last light.
A dead checkpoint sprawled across the bend.
Turrets drooped useless, gutted long ago.
Ren raised a fist.
The squad stopped in the checkpoint's shadow.
Jax felt their breath like heat at his back.
"Good route," Ren said.
It landed like a hand on bone.
His HUD chose the worst second to fail.
Neon shards shattered the world apart.
For a heartbeat, a single clean line cut through the chaos:
[UNREGISTERED KERNEL: HOLD.]
Then the whole overlay blew out.
He squeezed his eyes shut hard.
"Not now," he said through his teeth.
A sharp tone sliced through his skull—higher than any HUD glitch.
Not system drift.
Not memory bleed.
Something aimed.
A red command flashed across his inner vision:
[COMPLIANCE SPIKE: INITIATED]
Pain punched straight down his spine. His knees buckled.
His breath locked.
His vision tunneled.
A cold hand crushed his heart from the inside.
The world tilted sideways.
He tasted metal and fear.
"Jax!" Ren grabbed his vest, yanking him upright before he collapsed into the ash.
The spike climbed—white, blinding, merciless.
Asset disobedience detected.
Correction in progress.
His muscles seized so hard his teeth cracked together.
Then—
A second signal cut across the first like a blade.
Sharp. Precise. Not Helix.
[UNREGISTERED KERNEL: OVERRIDE]
[HOLD. LEVELING SIGNAL.]
The pain snapped off.
Jax sagged against Ren's grip, shaking.
Ren's eyes were wide—scared, though he hid it fast.
"What the hell was that?" Ren breathed.
Jax swallowed the sour taste in his mouth.
"That wasn't me," he said.
"That wasn't even Helix."
Deep in his skull, something exhaled once.
Not a glitch.
Not an echo.
Something awake.
Pain stabbed the base of his skull.
Ozone crawled up his nose.
The slab flashed under hard light.
His hands twitched against restraints that were not there.
The storm broke.
Gray and ruin returned like a slap.
The checkpoint hunched in front of him again.
Only a few shots drifted from the far blocks.
His HUD settled into a dim, steady sulk.
"You still with me?"
Ren asked.
Concern leaked through the seam.
"I'm here," Jax said.
"Glitch cleared."
He forced his gaze past Ren's shoulder.
The lane beyond looked like a throat closing.
Smog thickened; light thinned into knives.
Fewer debt ghosts, brighter warnings.
The underlevels waited like a mouth.
So did the next med review.
Every step fed that ledger with numbers and heat.
Vitals, drift, response to stress.
Someone behind a desk would weigh it and cut.
They could trim memories to fit.
The thought curdled his breath.
He watched the straight line of Ren's spine.
The man had stood between soldiers and orders before.
Jax trusted that stubborn line more than any code.
The shame of that trust cut him.
He should be enough for himself.
He had been once, in simpler fights.
Scrap engines, bent axles, bad bosses.
Hands fixed what eyes saw.
No ledger moved in his blood.
The corridor did not care about that pride.
The corps cared about uptime and returns.
They cared about assets that breathed on time.
They cared about balances and penalties.
Not about his name.
Anger burned clean behind his ribs.
He took a breath full of ash and let it sting.
The implants trimmed the breath without asking.
He felt the smooth little theft.
"Fine," he told the hum.
"Steal air.
I choose the route."
Ren chopped his hand once.
"Checkpoint clear," he said on the channel.
"Next alcove ahead.
We move and hold."
Replies came tight but there.
Jax rolled his shoulders under the ash.
His ports vibrated like a wire about to sing.
Ren looked back once to meet his eyes.
"Your lead stands," he said.
"Path is yours until I change it."
Jax let the words hold.
For a moment the hum went quiet.
Only his pulse filled his head.
"I'll take it," he said.
"Glitches or not."
They slid past the dead checkpoint into thicker gray.
Smog closed around them like cold water.
Debt ghosts watched without mercy.
Jax kept the overlay small at the edge of sight.
He chose each step and let the code follow.
The fight behind them cooled to ash.
New sound crept in from below the noise.
A transport rumble, or something meaner.
"Hold here," Ren said after fifty paces.
An alcove opened like a torn pocket.
The squad folded in around rusted ribs.
Jax leaned against a girder.
His ports throbbed with a dying generator.
Ash clung to sweat on his neck.
Debt War gouges clawed the wall.
Hologram numerals ghosted through the dust.
Pact compliance.
Payment faith.
Holy words.
"Pact keeps you alive," Ren said low.
"Glitches pass with sync."
"Passes?"
Jax said.
"Feels like chains."
"Chains beat graves," Ren said.
"It feels like surrender," Jax said.
"Then we choose," Ren said.
Jax adjusted a port with two careful fingers.
Pain bit, then eased.
His mind flickered to Sora Minora's cramped rooms.
Safe food, quiet doors, bright eyes calculating risk.
He wanted her shield to hold when he was gone.
He wanted more than leases and mercy.
He wanted choice to outlast code.
Pride stirred under the anger and stood tall.
"Review incoming," the net breathed.
"Hold for med transfer."
Engines growled closer through the bones of the lane.
"Dangers mount," Ren said.
"Review checks the hold."
Jax met his gaze and set his jaw.
"Holds break on my watch," he said.
Ren nodded once and stepped aside.
Numbers on the wall pulsed and faded.
The haze trembled, then stilled again.
The alcove's scars kept their old silence.
Jax pushed off the girder and stood straight.
His ports dropped to a low, obedient hum.
"Stay sharp," Ren said.
"Review's no mercy."
"Mercy or not, I hold," Jax said.
He shouldered his gear and stepped back to the lane.
Smog lifted and fell like breath around his head.
The corridor waited with open teeth.
He would walk where he chose.
He would own the weight on his bones.
Review or not, he claimed this fate—one tether at a time.