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"Jackie, you and Rebecca take Lucy and get to the third floor, fast!"
"Damn it, what about you guys? There are dozens of them!"
"Don't you dare worry about us, prioritize helping Jax! I brought him into this world, I can't let anything happen to him!"
On the first floor of the abandoned factory, Maine grabbed Jackie's arm and shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire. With two pistols in hand, Jackie gritted his teeth and looked at Rebecca.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Rebecca snapped. If Dorio hadn't been holding her back by the waist, she would have already sprinted for the stairs.
Rebecca was afraid of many things, but death wasn't one of them. People called her naive, called her foolish, but she felt like the only one who truly understood the score. In this life, if you kill enough people, you eventually get killed back. It was the only destination for those living on the edge.
Lucy, however, hesitated. She had done her part. Risking more? For what? She didn't have a deep bond with Maine's crew yet, and Jax... he was a variable she still couldn't control.
"I'll add another fifty thousand for you!" Maine roared, sensing her hesitation.
Lucy looked at Jackie, her gaze hardening. Fifty thousand eddies. It was a reason. She was tired of running, tired of the wandering. If she died here, at least it would be a break from the cycle.
"Damn it, Maine, stay alive!"
"Rest easy, I've seen worse on the battlefield!" Maine grinned. He lunged from behind cover, raising his hand cannon and firing into the crowd. Bullets sparked off his armored arm as he strode forward like a juggernaut.
Jackie didn't wait any longer. He flipped over the cover, firing a precise shot that zeroed a sniper on the second floor before he even hit the ground. He rolled, showing a speed that belied his massive frame.
"Quick!"
Jackie led the charge, with Rebecca and Lucy sprinting behind him.
"Exciting, this is so damn exciting!" Jackie laughed heartily amidst the hail of bullets. The adrenaline had washed away his fear, leaving only a wild, joyful focus.
"We weren't even a crew two years ago, shut up and run!" Rebecca cursed, her short legs moving like pistons as she laid down suppressing fire with her submachine gun.
Lucy trailed at the back, her monowire glowing as she meticulously scanned and hacked any Nightwalker that got too close. She didn't want to die—not today.
"This way!" Jackie shouted, veering toward the third-floor stairwell.
In the executive office, a clash of cyberware and raw biological will was reaching its bloody conclusion.
"Ah!"
Krisfen shrieked as Jax's Katana bit deep into his side. If not for his alloy kidneys and dermal plating, he would have been severed in two. But Jax didn't stop. He was a flicker of red and black light, striking dozens of times in the space between heartbeats.
Jax's world was a high-speed still-frame. He kicked Boett away, the Nightwalker's Mantis Blades whistling through the air where Jax's head had been a millisecond before. To the bosses, Jax wasn't running—he was teleporting.
Fear finally took root in Boett's clear, inhibitor-boosted mind. How? How can a natural possess this power? The legends of Morgan Blackhand suddenly felt very real—and very terrifying.
Seeing Krisfen's head cleaved open by a vertical strike, Boett's nerve finally snapped. He turned to flee, but a faint click echoed in his head.
His Sandevistan had stalled.
"Damn you! Not now—!"
"Looks like my luck is pretty good," a cold voice whispered behind him.
Without the time-dilation, Boett couldn't even turn his head before Jax's blade found its mark. The remaining half of the Katana pierced through Boett's skull.
It was over.
Jax stumbled, his muscles screaming as the Potential Burst ended. He slumped backward, sitting among the corpses. He fumbled for a fallen MaxDoc inhaler, taking a deep breath. The itching, stinging sensation of accelerated healing began to knit his bruised ribs.
He looked at his shattered Katana with a trace of heartache. It was a good tool, but it wasn't meant for this level of carnage.
Footsteps echoed from the hallway. Jax forced himself up, drawing his Omaha pistol, but relaxed the moment he recognized the silhouettes.
"Jax! Jax!"
Jackie kicked the door open, his black jacket soaked with blood from a shoulder wound. Rebecca followed, clutching a bleeding abdomen, her face pale until she saw Jax was upright. Lucy stood in the doorway, her pupils constricting as she took in the scene.
The room was a disaster area. It looked worse than the war zone downstairs. Two leaders—one headless, one split to the waist—lay in a pool of cooling fluids and blood.
And there sat Jax, leaning back on his hands, gasping for air and laughing.
"You guys are damn late, you know?!"
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