The heat radiating from the walls had reached a critical mass. It manifested as a vibrating, sour ache in Mike’s teeth that tasted faintly of battery acid. Ensconced within the hollow insulation of the shack, a dozen roaches convulsed in the throes of a forced evolution, their blood boiling and their bellies glowing with the volatile chemical slurry he had poured his willpower into. They were no longer mere animals but biological grenades shivering with the desperate need to rupture.

  All he had to do was push. A single mental shove, a release of the psychic tension holding them together, and the entire front wall of the shop would dissolve in a spray of bone shards and corrosive bile. Riggs would melt into a puddle of unrecognizable gore. The squad would burn. The noise would finally end.

  Do it, the instinct screamed. It was not a thought but a hunger, a dark and predatory pulse at the base of his skull serving as the voice of the System and the predator he was becoming. Prey is close. Kill. Consume. Survive.

  His hand, buried deep in the dirt, tightened into a claw. In the absolute dark his eyes glowed with a faint, toxic green luminescence as they locked onto the slats of the ventilation grate. He needed to see the target. He needed to ensure Riggs was firmly within the blast zone. Shifting forward, he let the dirt scrape against his chest and peered through the rusted metal slits.

  He did not see Riggs.

  Instead, the form of Jory lay less than three feet from the grate, his face pressed sideways into the grime. One eye was swollen shut into a purple ruin of a bruise, but the other remained open. It was wet, terrified, and focused directly on the darkness of the crawlspace.

  He saw the glow.

  Jory did not gasp. He did not scream to alert the guards. He stared right into the green radioactive fire of Mike’s eyes and he understood. He saw the monster Mike was about to unleash. Time seemed to stutter, the roar of bloodlust in Mike’s ears quieting to be replaced by the ragged sound of the old man’s breathing.

  The hand of the shopkeeper trembled, caked with street dust as it moved. It was not a plea for help. He did not reach out. He pushed his palm flat against the dirt in a subtle and frantic gesture.

  Stop.

  Mike froze as the calculation hit him harder than any physical blow. The blast radius. The roaches were positioned in the walls directly behind Jory. If they detonated now, the structural supports would shear and the roof would collapse. The bio-acid did not discriminate between friend and foe, and it would splash outward in a superheated wave. He could kill Riggs. He could win. But Jory would be reduced to a puddle of screaming meat.

  He looked into the eye of Jory. There was no judgment there, only a desperate and pleading fear. It was not for himself, but for Mike. Do not do this, the look seemed to say. Do not become this.

  Mike’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. The rage was a physical weight, a coiled spring demanding release. To let it go and power down felt like swallowing broken glass. It went against every cell in his mutated body. It went against the very nature of the Heap.

  But he was not a rat. Not yet.

  Mike closed his eyes. Shoving the scream back down his throat, he reached out with his mind to grab the psychic tethers of the roaches in the walls and squeezed. Not to detonate, but to smother.

  Cool down. Sleep. Dormant.

  The feedback was agonizing. The backlash snapped through his nerves like a whip, the roaches squealing in confusion as the heat was ripped from their bodies and the glowing bile inerted back into toxic sludge. The power faded. The green light in his eyes flickered and died, leaving him in the dark once more. He was empty. He was weak. He was just a boy in a hole.

  Mike let out a shuddering breath. Before he could change his mind or let the fear paralyze him, he lashed out with his boot. The grate flew off its rusted hinges and skittered across the street with a noise that sounded like a gunshot in the tense silence.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Outside, the violence stopped instantly.

  "Contact!" a soldier shouted.

  "Hold fire!" The voice of Riggs cut through the air, sharp and commanding.

  Mike did not wait to be dragged out. He clawed his way forward, fingernails scraping against the lip of the vent, and hauled himself out of the earth, coughing as the fresh air hit his lungs. He stumbled as his legs shook from the energy burnout, but he stood. He looked terrible, covered in cobwebs and black crawlspace slime, his clothes little more than rags. But he stood.

  He did not look at the soldiers. He did not look at the rifles leveled at his chest. He looked at Riggs, and then down at Jory.

  "Let him go," Mike rasped. His voice was thin and ruined by dust, but it held steady. "It is me you want."

  Riggs stood frozen for a second, his boot hovering inches from Jory’s ribs. Then a slow and terrifying smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a gambler who had just called a bluff and won the pot.

  "Well," Riggs said as he lowered his foot. He smoothed his coat and looked Mike up and down with a mix of disgust and delight. "The rat crawls out of the trap." He flicked his fingers at his squad in a casual and dismissive gesture. "Bag him."

  FIGHT, the voice roared in the back of his mind.

  Two soldiers slammed into him. The impact knocked the wind out of him, Mike hitting the dirt hard as his face ground into the gravel. Heavy knees pinned his spine. Arms were wrenched behind his back until the shoulders popped.

  No, Mike thought as he bit his lip until copper filled his mouth. He forced his muscles to go limp. He stared sideways along the ground to lock eyes with Jory one last time. I am here. I stopped.

  He let them crush him into the dirt. He let them zip-tie his wrists. He surrendered to the boot on his neck and drowned out the digital scream of a System that could not understand why its host chose to lose. The silence that followed the surrender was heavy. It was not the silence of respect or relief. It was the silence of a transaction being completed.

  But nobody moved. Riggs did not look at Mike. He looked down at Jory.

  "Standard condition," Riggs said. His voice was devoid of the threat it held moments ago, sounding as if he were reading an invoice. "A few bruises on the casing but the internal hardware seems intact. Good work."

  Mike blinked as the sweat stung his eyes. He opened his mouth to demand they let the old man go, but the words died in his throat. Jory did not run. He did not scramble away from the tyrant who had just beaten him. Instead, the old shopkeeper slowly pushed himself up to his knees. He wiped a smear of blood from his lip, but he did not look at Mike. He stared resolutely at the polished toe of Riggs’s boot. His hands were clasped together and trembling. He said nothing. He just waited.

  Riggs chuckled. It was a dry, snapping sound like dead wood breaking. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small data-chit before flicking it onto the dirt in front of the kneeling man.

  "Sector 6 checkpoint," Riggs said to the old man. "She has been processed. No labor camp. Just relocation. Assuming you do not give me any reason to recall the transport."

  Jory grabbed the chit with frantic hands, clutching it to his chest like a holy relic. He finally looked up, but not at the soldiers. He looked at Mike. The shame in the eyes of the old man was absolute. It was a physical thing, more grotesque than the bruises Riggs had inflicted.

  The realization hit Mike colder than the crawlspace damp. It froze the blood in his veins and locked his muscles in place.

  The hand signal. The palm pressed against the dirt in the moment before Mike was about to detonate the rats. Mike had thought Jory was pleading for his soul. Do not become a monster. Do not kill.

  He was wrong.

  Mike felt a sensation in his chest that had nothing to do with mutations. It was a snapping of something vital. The loyalty, the shared struggle of the Heap, and the idea that they were in this together against the corporate boot all dissolved. He had not surrendered to save a friend. He had surrendered to complete a sale.

  Riggs looked at Mike with an expression that was almost pitying. "Loyalty is a luxury, boy," Riggs said. "It is a depreciating asset. You should have learned that by now."

  Mike looked at Jory. This was the man who had taught him how to fix circuits and who had given him water when the filters failed. This was the man who had just sold him into a cage to save his own blood. The betrayal hurt more than the burnout. It hurt more than the hunger. It was a precise and surgical removal of hope.

  Mike could not speak. He could not move. He stood paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the lie.

  Riggs nodded to the soldier standing behind Mike. "Bag him."

  Mike stared at Jory. The shock held him rigid. He did not raise his hands to defend himself and he did not reach for the rats. There was a shift in the air behind him. A shadow moved.

  Pain exploded at the base of his skull. The heavy butt of a rifle slammed into the vertebrae of his neck with calculated force. There was a flash of white light, and the disconnect of his nervous system was instant. His knees buckled. The ground rushed up to meet him.

  He hit the dirt hard. Darkness swarmed the edges of his vision and closed in fast. The last thing he saw before the blackness took him completely was Jory still on his knees, weeping over a piece of plastic while the boots of the Cleaners stepped over him to collect their prize.

  Now it’s time to ease back into my intended release schedule.