My eyes fluttered open, the familiar post-Rest Function disorientation hitting me like a truck—same as always.

  The room was dim, the lighting inside the apartment already having adjusted itself to the late-evening hues, and somewhere in the apartment, the low hum of the TV drifted through the walls. Judging by the terrible, stilted dialogue I could just barely make out, it had to be Gabe. No way Oliver would willingly subject himself to whatever B-movie garbage was currently assaulting my ears.

  Dragging myself upright with all the grace of a reanimated corpse, I took a deep breath, centering myself.

  My last conscious memory was the agonizingly slow process of hauling my wrecked, dehydrated body from the shower to my bed—thirty minutes of pure, excruciating effort that had felt more like thirty years, but were now difficult to remember.

  Then I had done the only logical thing left: slammed the Rest Function like my life depended on it. And now here I was, blinking blearily at my ceiling, trying to pull myself back into the present.

  ‘Alright… Let’s see.’

  With slow, methodical movements, I started patting myself down, running a full-body diagnostic with my own hands. Top to bottom, making sure the Rest Function had done its job, that everything was in its proper place and nothing felt off.

  A faint haze of dissociation still clung to my brain, that mental fog that made everything feel slightly unreal—but I shoved it aside. I had already done my emotional heavy-lifting for the day, cracked open my own psyche and let everything bleed out.

  No time for another existential crisis, at least not today.

  As my fingers pressed against my chest, prodding experimentally at where my ribcage had been shattered, I braced for any lingering pain.

  Nothing.

  I moved lower, pressing along my abdomen, where the Ripper had quite literally cracked me open like a car hood for maintenance.

  Still nothing. No pain. No residual aches. No tightness.

  No scars.

  I let out a slow breath, a tired, wry smile creeping onto my lips.

  ‘Guess the Ripper wasn’t bluffing about his work being clean,’ I mused. ‘Then again, even if he had left scars, the Rest Function would’ve erased them anyway, so I wouldn’t even know.’

  But what I could tell was his handiwork was effective by the fact that my body felt damn near perfect.

  My strength was back—maybe not at peak-peak levels, but damn close.

  No residual stiffness, no deep-seated soreness, and no bone-deep fatigue weighing me down like a concrete slab. I’d gone from “half-dead and actively bleeding out” to “fully operational” in a single Rest cycle.

  Honestly? That was nothing short of a miracle.

  If the Ripper hadn’t put me back together first, there was no shot the Rest Function would’ve been able to fix me up this well.

  Compared to the Cyberspace Burnout incident, I had been in way worse shape this time around—shattered ribs, internal bleeding, full-body trauma. If I had to guess, it probably would've taken at least three full Rest cycles to get me anywhere close to this on my own.

  That said, I wasn’t completely back to normal.

  The second I started running through some light [Contortion] stretches to check my range of motion, I hit a particular stretch that sent a sharp, electric jolt of pain lancing through my chest and side.

  "Alright… Guess I’ll have to take it easy at Miss K’s later," I muttered, rubbing the spot instinctively.

  I glanced toward the door, the muffled sounds of the TV still filtering in from the living room.

  ‘Should I…?’

  The thought of stepping out, and checking in with Gabe or Oliver, flickered through my mind for all of two seconds before I shut it down.

  I didn’t have time for that. Not right now.

  There was still so much I had to do, and every minute spent on small talk was a minute lost.

  Most pressing was the Quick-Hack I still needed to program, test, and finalize before the upcoming Operator meeting.

  With that in mind, I grabbed my deck, climbed back into bed, and plugged directly into my neck-port, diving headfirst into the dev environment where I’d last left off.

  A long sigh slipped past my lips as the screen loaded, revealing tens of thousands of lines of code just waiting for me to pick up where I’d left off.

  “Haa… No pain, no gain, I guess,” I grumbled, cracking my digital-fingers before immersing myself in the world of [Programming] and [Quick-Hacks] for however many hours I could manage to squeeze out before my next obligation...

  At some point during the night, I vaguely registered the sound of Gabriel turning in for bed, but I barely processed it. My eyes were locked onto the digital-world, laser-focused on the lines of code still waiting to be copied from the original hack and the sections I had already transferred over, now in the process of being edited to fit my specifications.

  As it turned out, writing my own Quick-Hack—even with an existing framework to work off—was still a shit-ton of work. Who would’ve guessed?

  Thankfully, [Programming Maestro] ensured I never hit a brick wall.

  I wasn’t sure if I would’ve been able to power through some of the recurring issues otherwise. Every time I tried to integrate my own ideas—or worse, incorporate the more arcane, borderline esoteric elements provided by [Spiritus Machina]—the code fought me tooth and nail.

  It was a mess. A fascinating mess, sure, but a mess all the same.

  By the time I heard Gabriel leave the apartment the next morning, I finally snapped out of my code-fueled haze, realizing that I’d been at this for the past ten hours straight.

  Probably should’ve taken a break at some point.

  Dragging myself out of bed was a complete and utter ordeal.

  My body hated me; and I couldn’t blame it either.

  Every muscle protested the way I had basically curled up in the same position for the entire night, leaving me with stiff joints, a sore back, and a deep, existential regret about my terrible posture.

  Cursing under my breath and drawing sharp breaths through clenched teeth as I unfurled my body, I somehow managed to drag myself into the living room to start my morning workout routine.

  Going through the motions, I took the opportunity to plan out the rest of my day.

  ‘I still need another… 15, maybe 20 hours to finish this hack at the very least. And I’ve only got about 26 left until the Operator meeting tomorrow…’

  Yeah. This was going to be tight.

  ‘If only I hadn’t wasted so much damn time yesterday with that whole dying business…’

  Shifting into some deeper stretching and [Contortion] training, I pushed my body as far as it would go, trying to regain some of the flexibility I’d lost from being out of commission.

  A solid ten minutes of sharp, electric jolts of pain, muffled cursing, and panting through clenched teeth later, I had managed to loosen up—barely.

  It wasn’t going to be enough.

  Even after all that, I was still nowhere near ready for whatever fresh hell Miss K was going to put me through at the dojo later today.

  ‘I could cancel…’ The thought crossed my mind, but I shut it down immediately. ‘No, I really can’t.’

  I still needed to talk to Miss K about the [Martial Arts] Perk, and that conversation needed to happen before the Operator meeting. Not that I expected to get into a fight or anything, but… yesterday had made one thing painfully clear: I had been thoroughly underprepared.

  If something did go sideways, I wanted every possible edge I could get.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Before heading out for my usual morning run, I grabbed my knife—something I normally didn’t bother with. My floor was a restricted-access zone, and I had never felt unsafe here before.

  Today, though?

  Today was different.

  I didn’t even bother unpacking that feeling further. No point in digging too deep into my own psyche right now. It wouldn’t change anything, and I wouldn’t come to any grand revelations.

  It was just… a thing.

  Something to deal with for now, until I had some time to get therapy—or do self-therapy, at the very least. As I started jogging, I mentally ran through my schedule again, and the main problem immediately became obvious.

  ‘With Mr. Shori’s work, the dojo, and all the programming I still have to finish, I won’t have a single second to breathe…’

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

  ‘Sucks, but I’ll probably have to cancel the noodle shop today...’

  It made the most sense. Out of everything on my plate, it took up the most time while giving me the least immediate benefit for the Operator meeting. Sure, working with Mr. Shori helped with knife Skills, [Negotiation], and a bunch of other useful little Skills—but none of those were critical right now. I needed to prioritize.

  And right now, getting my Quick-Hack finished and making myself somewhat presentable took priority over everything else.

  That meant picking out my Perks, making sure I actually understood them, getting the hack done and tested, and figuring out an actual game plan for when I met the Operator.

  None of that was going to happen at Mr. Shori’s.

  As much as I hated flaking on him, it was the only logical move.

  By the time I got back from my run and hopped into the shower for a quick rinse, my mind was set.

  No more debating. No second-guessing. I had shit to do.

  But the second I pulled up my contacts for the first time in what felt like forever, I was immediately hit with a pending confirmation request—Liliana’s.

  I froze.

  Right. She had given me her contact info during that whole mess.

  For a moment, I just stood there, letting the hot water pound against my back, staring blankly at the request as memories of the last twenty-four hours flooded in.

  ‘How the hell do I feel about her…?’

  She was with the Golden Phoenix, that much was obvious. And while she had been openly antagonistic toward Valir, that didn’t mean jackshit when it came to trust. I had no idea what her angle was, or whether she had some ulterior motive I hadn’t even begun to piece together yet.

  And yet… She had gotten Valir to back off.

  Along with Citrina, sure, but Liliana had been the one to lay down the final word.

  And yeah, Citrina had been the one with the gun, but would that really have mattered against a freaking monster like Valir? I had no clue. What I did know was that Liliana had backed me, Jade, and Citrina—not Valir—when the shit hit the fan.

  So… not trust, exactly. But maybe worth hearing out?

  Worst case, I could always delete her contact later. And I really didn’t have time to agonize over something as simple as a contact request; there was literally no harm in it.

  ‘Fine. Let’s see where this goes…’

  I confirmed the request.

  Before I could even finish reading the damn message, another window abruptly slammed into my vision, overlaying the first.

  I blinked, my mind short-circuiting for a solid few seconds.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘What the fuck?!’

  I stared at the message, half-expecting it to disappear like some kind of glitch or fever dream. But no—it was still there, sitting in my interface like it belonged.

  ‘What fresh hell is this now…? A second, completely hidden contact request piggybacking off Liliana’s? I didn’t even know that was possible…!’

  As far as I knew, the system for exchanging contact requests was locked down tight—there wasn’t supposed to be any way to slip malicious code into one, let alone hijack it like this.

  Yet, here I was, looking at a message from someone who had done exactly that.

  And the worst part? I had no idea who the hell they even were.

  They obviously knew Liliana—probably well, considering the casual “Lil” nickname—but outside of that? Nothing.

  No name, no context, no reason for why they were reaching out to me.

  And then there was the whole “I was also watching” bit.

  That part made my stomach twist.

  Did that mean they’d been watching the fight with Valir? Had they been there, right alongside Liliana? If so… why the fuck hadn’t they stepped in? If they were so interested in working with me, why let me and Jade nearly die before doing anything?

  Or was I overthinking it?

  Maybe they hadn’t been there for the entire fight, like Citrina. Maybe they’d only started watching later, after Liliana had already gotten involved. But even if that was the case, the fact that they had somehow hijacked a contact request was unsettling as hell.

  Whoever “H” was, they were leagues ahead of me in quick-hacks and netrunning.

  No contest.

  I wasn’t taking any chances.

  With a few mental commands, I threw both contacts into their own isolated partitions—quarantined, just in case.

  Not that it would do much if there was something nasty lurking in the code. If they were skilled enough to slip a hidden contact request past me, then they were definitely skilled enough to inject something subtle into my interface without me noticing.

  If that was the case, then I was already screwed.

  Still, throwing them into their own isolated partitions made me feel safer, and at this stage, that was probably the best I could realistically hope for.

  I filed this whole mess under "problems for future Sera to deal with” and forced myself to move on. I already had too much on my plate to start spiraling over inter-gang politics and whatever game this H person was playing.

  Stepping out of the shower, I dried off and slid back into my fresh set of clothes before slipping into the comforting, familiar void of my development environment. The lines of code blurred together for a few minutes as I lost myself in the work, clicking back into focus—only for my stomach to drop when I realized something.

  I still hadn’t sent that message to Mr. Shori.

  The entire reason I had opened my contacts in the first place.

  Cursing under my breath, I quickly rectified my mistake:

  I barely had time to close out of the interface before a reply came in almost instantly, pulling a small, tired smile onto my face.

  Simple. Short. But somehow… comforting.

  I exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand down my face before leaning back in my chair.

  ‘I really need to spend more time with that old man and figure out what his deal is.’

  But that was a problem for another future Sera.

  For now? Focus.

  Get the Quick-Hack finished. Get the rest of the prep done for the Operator meeting.

  I could worry about deep-diving into people’s personal lives after I had my shit together.

  With that in mind, I cracked my knuckles, rolled my shoulders, and dove headfirst back into the code…

  Six hours later, my body was wrecked.

  Stiffness locked up my joints the second I tried to move, a sharp reminder that coding marathons weren’t exactly the healthiest way to spend my time—especially when I was still technically recovering from almost dying.

  Still, despite the aches and groans, I had made some serious progress on the hack, so I wasn’t nearly as stressed as I had been that morning. My mind, however, was still firmly in programming mode.

  Not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it helped me keep a clear, logical outlook on everything—something I realized I desperately needed when it hit me that I still had a few loose ends to tie up before heading to the dojo session with Miss K.

  First on the list? System Notifications.

  I had been pushing them off, trying to avoid getting distracted while working, but if I was about to meet with an Operator in less than 20 hours from now, I needed to be fully up to speed on everything my System had been doing under the hood.

  With a quick, practiced flick of that all-too-familiar mental lever, I let the backlog pour in, bracing myself for the inevitable flood of updates, pings, and whatever other surprises the System had in store for me.

  ‘Huh…’

  The biggest shock of the morning? That there wasn’t one.

  No unexpected level-ups. No cryptic System messages. No surprise notifications from mysterious figures watching me from the shadows. Just… the exact experience gains I had expected from my usual routine and the coding marathon.

  Honestly, it felt a little off.

  After the past twenty-four hours of absolute chaos, I had almost expected something ridiculous to pop up—another hidden contact request, a new ability randomly unlocking, maybe even a warning that I’d tripped some kind of invisible wire in the universe.

  But nope.

  Just cold, hard, predictable numbers.

  ‘Guess sometimes the biggest surprise is when there’s no surprise at all…’

  Second order of business: Finally letting my Intuition and Ego upgrades go through.

  The System had held them back when I was bleeding out, prioritizing my survival over stat boosts—fair enough—but now that I was in slightly less immediate danger, it was time to cash in.

  Intuition was going to be crucial when dealing with the Operator.

  The more I could read between the lines, the better. It would help me catch nuances in the conversation, sense traps before I stepped into them, and just generally keep me from getting played like a damn fiddle—hopefully.

  Ego, on the other hand? That was more of a necessary evil. It would be a massive help in keeping my nerves in check, keeping me sharp and composed, but… I wasn’t exactly on good terms with it right now.

  It had done its job, sure. But I still couldn’t shake the memory of that one intrusive thought—the one where it had suggested, without hesitation, that killing Jade was the most efficient way to keep my secrets.

  Yeah. Still not over that one.

  "I’m not done with you yet, Ego. You better fucking watch yourself."

  But at the end of the day, I knew I needed it. Whether it was leveling my Skills, keeping my composure, or bailing me out of another impossible situation, I had no doubt that Ego was going to be necessary.

  And I’d rather deal with it on my own terms before it forced my hand in a more critical moment.

  With a deep breath, I gave the mental signal to the System.

  Upgrade Intuition. Upgrade Ego.

  The changes weren’t immediate, but I felt them settle in, subtle but undeniable.

  Intuition came first—like a quiet shift in the way my mind processed information.

  A sense of rightness as connections clicked faster, patterns became more obvious, and stray thoughts that would normally drift away suddenly felt sharper, more relevant. My thoughts moved more fluidly, weaving between past experiences and present knowledge with an ease that hadn’t been there before.

  Definitely an upgrade, if a minor one. But it was probably hard to quantify without anyone around to actually use it on; so full judgement on the upgrade would have to wait until later.

  Then came Ego—and that was more like stepping into the driver’s seat of my own mind with both hands on the wheel.

  My emotions, still raw and frayed from everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours, didn’t vanish, but they felt more… manageable.

  Like they still had tremendous weight, but not control.

  I could focus, really focus, without getting dragged down into spiraling thoughts or overanalyzing every little thing, at least for now. The self-doubt, the lingering exhaustion, the aftershocks of my breakdown in the shower—still there, but held at arm’s length, as if wrapped in thick insulation.

  It wasn’t overwhelming, wasn’t dramatic. Just… adjustments.

  Small recalibrations made everything run just a little smoother, a little sharper.

  Definitely not something I’d complain about.

  Especially since I didn’t have to fully engage my Ego to feel the effects—this was just a passive benefit of upgrading it. A slight sharpening of focus, an easier time managing my thoughts, and a subtle but undeniable boost in keeping my emotions in check.

  But even with that, there was one last thing on my agenda before heading to the Arkion Dojo.

  The one thing I had been actively avoiding, sidestepping, and trying my absolute best to pretend didn’t exist.

  I stared at the notification hovering in my vision, the weight in my stomach growing heavier the longer I looked at it. The dread was still there, but not as paralyzing as I expected—probably thanks to the Ego upgrade.

  Still, that didn’t make the choice any easier.

  My throat tightened.

  ‘I don’t want this.’

  Lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling through the half-transparent interface, I tried to swallow the bitterness creeping up my throat.

  ‘Why does it have to be [Murder] of all things? Why can’t this world just be… less brutal?’

  But there was no point in crying over spilled milk.

  Not after everything that happened yesterday. Not after the shower, after I let every last drop of my emotions crash over me, after I faced the weight of what I had done.

  I had already paid my dues.

  At this point, the System was only giving me a courtesy period before it forced the download on me. There was no avoiding it unless I was willing to throw the entire Skill out—remove it completely and replace it with something else.

  And if I was being honest? That wasn’t an option.

  As much as I hated it, this Skill would become paramount to my entire life in this world.

  So I might as well do it on my terms. In my own space.

  Where I could brace for whatever was about to happen.

  Better here than in the dojo. Better now than in the middle of a fight. Better on my time, rather than the System’s.

  With a deep breath, I clenched my fists and confirmed the download.

  It started slow. Almost imperceptible.

  Then, like a sudden shift in gravity, the weight of the knowledge pressed down on me, folding seamlessly into my mind, as if it had always been there. A series of images, techniques, and methods, all burned into my brain.

  There was no fanfare, no dramatic revelation—just cold, clinical facts embedding themselves into my consciousness like well-worn habits finally returning home.

  I felt it in my muscles first.

  My fingers curled and uncurled instinctively, like they were testing a forgotten dexterity.

  My breathing evened out, my posture adjusted, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that if I stood up right now, I’d move differently. More deliberately. More efficiently.

  And then the knowledge came in full.

  ‘Knife into the kidney—deep and angled upward, they won’t scream. Snap the trachea, crush the windpipe—silent, fast, irreversible. Sever the femoral artery—bleed out in under a minute, faster if panicked. Spinal column at the base of the skull—instant. Twist the blade when pulling out—maximize internal damage, ensure they don’t get back up. Go for the eyes, blind them first, take control before they even know they’re dying.’

  A cold shudder ran through me.

  These weren’t just facts. They were instructions.

  A blueprint to kill, neatly catalogued and ready to be applied the second I needed it.

  Terror crawled up my spine, its claws scraping against my ribs, but beneath it—beneath the horror and the revulsion—was something worse.

  Something darker. Something I had locked away long, long ago.

  It stirred. It welcomed this knowledge. Drank it up like a person in a desert finding an oasis.

  My lips pressed into a thin line, my breath hitching as an eerie calm spread through my chest. It was similar to the feeling I had when my Ego had taken control—when it had made the decision for me, when it had stopped hesitating and done what needed to be done.

  But this wasn’t Ego. This was distinctly me.

  The deep, instinctual part of me that had been waiting. Watching. Patient.

  And now that the floodgates had opened, it drank in the information with a perverse kind of glee; like it cherished the idea of finally getting some new intel to play with. Like all these instructions were mere toys to add to its collection, rather than horrifyingly efficient ways to end someone’s life.

  I felt sick.

  ‘I don’t want this…!’

  And yet, I couldn’t deny the truth: I was better off knowing all of this.

  Better off having it when the time came. Better off accepting that, in this world, knowing how to kill wasn’t a liability—it was survival; as much as I hated it.

  I sucked in a deep breath, my fingers digging into my sheets.

  The download finished. The knowledge was there. And there was no taking it back—ever…

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