Beatrix’s voice cut sharp across the twenty-two Minos thugs.

  "Hey," she said. "I told you to stay away from her."

  A horde of thugs turned to look at her. Chrome Teeth's face split into a savage smile. He grabbed the sledgehammer with both hands and walked toward her with the calm confidence of someone who had numbers and violence on his side.

  "Scav." The marks of their last fight still decorated his face, the bruising around his jaw, the split lip that hadn't quite healed. "Had a feeling we'd meet again."

  He was tall. Beatrix had to look up as he stopped one step in front of her. The rest of the gang enclosed her in a circle of neon, chrome, and muscle. Twenty-two against one. The math was simple.

  "You brought twenty-one friends because last time your teeth were braver than you," Beatrix said, tilting her head to meet his eyes. Close enough to see the old crack she'd put in his smile.

  Chrome Teeth raised the sledgehammer, metal catching the corridor's flickering lights. "You know what I'm gonna do with this?"

  "You know what happens when you hit a registered fighter?"

  The question stopped him. Just for a second. Just long enough for Beatrix to let her sleeve slip up, revealing the fresh black ink on her forearm.

  The barcodes gleamed in the light, still slightly inflamed from the subcutaneous tattooing. Fighter designation. Contract number. Stygia Clan seal.

  "Stygia posts an automatic fifty-thousand-credit bounty on your face," she said, watching his expression shift from confidence to calculation. "Instantly. Broadcast to every Humanware unit in range."

  She looked past him at the twenty-one other thugs surrounding them. At Twitchy, whose hand was trembling near his gun. At the older enforcer with dead eyes who was already doing his own math.

  "Think about it," Beatrix said, her voice cutting through the sudden silence. "Chrome Teeth swings that hammer. The system tags him as hostile. A fifty-thousand-credit bounty appears over his head, visible to everyone's Humanware."

  She smiled, cold and sharp. "Which one of you takes the shot first? Who wants to be rich tonight?"

  The reaction was immediate. Not fear. Hunger.

  Twitchy's eyes flicked from Beatrix to the back of Chrome Teeth's head. The older enforcer shifted his weight, rifle barrel drifting a fraction of an inch, no longer pointing at her, but at his boss's kidney.

  The air in the corridor changed. It wasn't twenty-two against one anymore. It was twenty-one hunters staring at a walking lottery ticket with a sledgehammer.

  Chrome Teeth felt it. The hair on his neck rose. He didn't lower the hammer because of the law. He lowered it because he heard a safety click off behind him.

  The sledgehammer hovered inches from her face, then slowly descended to rest against his shoulder. His eyes tracked the reflections in the shop window, watching his own crew position themselves with the casual hunger of people calculating odds.

  "Your girl in there isn't protected," Chrome Teeth tried, voice tight.

  "Team registration window's open," Beatrix said, stone-flat. "Clause fourteen point two. I file her name, she's my tech. Touch her, you breach contract, and Stygia eats your accounts before you touch ground."

  Silence. The kind that came when legal code trumped street violence.

  "Bullshit," someone said from the back. "She hasn't signed anything."

  "Go ahead, then," Beatrix said, "Try it."

  All true. All legal. All meaningless if they decided to test it.

  But fifty thousand was a lot of money. And the Stygia Contract didn't negotiate. It just executed.

  Chrome Teeth stood there for three heartbeats, sledgehammer against his shoulder, processing the reversal. Then something shifted in his expression. The rage didn't leave, it crystallized into something colder. More patient.

  He lowered the hammer completely, deliberately, letting the head rest against the deck plating. "Clever," he said, and for the first time since she'd known him, he actually smiled. Not the snarl she'd seen before, but something genuine and infinitely worse. "Using the law against us. Very clever."

  He took a step back, giving her room to pass. The gesture was theatrical, mocking, a king allowing a condemned prisoner to walk to their execution.

  "This isn't over," Twitchy screamed, but Chrome Teeth raised a hand, silencing him.

  "No, no. Let her go." His voice carried over the crowd, performative now. "She found the loophole. The only escape from Minos." He spread his arms wide, addressing his crew like an entertainer. "Through the meat grinder!"

  The laughter started with him, deliberate and infectious, spreading through the twenty-two until it became a chorus. Not angry laughter. Delighted. Like they'd just heard the best joke in the world.

  Beatrix started walking toward Kivi's door, keeping her pace steady, refusing to rush.

  "Dead woman walking!" Chrome Teeth called out, still laughing. "You hear that, boys? We don't have to kill her. The Grind will do it for us!"

  More laughter. Someone threw something that clattered against the wall. The crowd parted, not far, not fast, but enough.

  "And when it does," Chrome Teeth's voice followed her, no longer laughing, "your little friend becomes ours again. Clause fourteen-whatever doesn't protect corpses."

  The spit came as she reached for the door handle, perfectly timed, landing just in front of her feet. She didn't break stride.

  They parted fully then, their pride restored by her impending death. Some threw more debris at the door. Others pounded the walls with fists and tools, just for the noise. She could feel their eyes tracking her movement, calculating, mocking. The immunity wouldn't last forever. Just until she died in the arena. Then they could do whatever they wanted to whoever was left.

  The door opened. Beatrix stepped inside, feeling twenty-two sets of eyes on her back. The door sealed with a heavy click, cutting off their laughter.

  Inside, Kivi sat at her workbench, hair cycling through rapid stress patterns of yellow and orange and red. She had a pistol in one hand and a jury-rigged motion sensor in the other.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  When she saw Beatrix, the colors shifted to confused purple. "You didn't... you didn't need to..."

  Kivi closed the distance and hugged her. Hard.

  Beatrix's hands came up, the Dreadnought Protocol flooding her with defensive responses, break the hold, dislocate the shoulder, neutralize the threat. Her muscles tensed, ready.

  But they stopped inches from Kivi's back.

  It had been so long since anyone had touched her without malice that her body had forgotten the difference. A dam inside her, one she hadn't known existed, cracked under the gentle pressure. She didn't hug back, but she let herself be held, closing her eyes and just… breathing.

  Kivi stepped back and slid into the chair opposite her. Then her eyes dropped to Beatrix's exposed forearm, to the fresh ink still slightly inflamed. To the barcodes that marked her as property of the Grind.

  "Oh, Beatrix." Kivi's voice came out small. "What did you do?"

  "What I had to do." Three words that held a universe of terrible choices. Beatrix’s legs began to shake as the combat chemicals finished draining from her system, leaving her hollow and trembling. She braced against the workbench.

  Kivi just stared at the tattoos, her hair cycling through colors Beatrix couldn't name, something like grief, something like awe. Then, without a word, she turned to a heavy secure locker, thumbed the biometric lock, and pulled out a matte-black cylinder the size of a human heart.

  The Cyclops Core. It drank the light.

  "Finished it this morning," Kivi said, her voice all business now, a tinker retreating into her craft. She set it on the bench between them with a soft thunk. "Recalibrated the power routing for Dreadnought-level draw. Triple-baffle heat sinks. It'll run your Protocol at full combat load for seventy-two hours before it needs a cooldown cycle."

  Beatrix looked from the core to Kivi's face. She pulled up her credit balance and let the number hang in the air between them, a silent confession.

  > CURRENT FUNDS: ?17,247

  "I sold everything," Beatrix said, the words flat. No energy left for pride, just the bleak arithmetic of survival. "My speeder, my cutter, my backup suit. Dante's suit. This is all I have."

  Kivi stared at the number. Then she started laughing.

  It wasn't cruel. It wasn't mocking. It was the kind of laugh that came when the universe's joke was so perfectly, horribly absurd that your only options were to scream or find the punchline. She shook her head, tears of exhausted hysteria glinting at the corners of her eyes.

  "What?" Beatrix asked, tension coiling tight in her chest.

  "You just signed a death warrant to save me." Kivi wiped her eyes, the laughter fading into something softer, more devastated. "And now you're apologizing to me for being short on cash?"

  She picked up the Cyclops Core. Turned it in her hands. Then she pushed it across the bench until it touched Beatrix's fingers.

  "It's my turn to save you," Kivi said quietly. "It's yours."

  She set the core back down and pushed it across the bench toward Beatrix.

  "The money is fine. Call it a discount for saving my life. Twice."

  “You can’t just…”

  "Watch me." Kivi's hair shifted to a fierce, determined silver, her gaze locking onto Beatrix's. "Besides, if you die tomorrow because you couldn't afford my work, Minos wins. They get your corpse, they get my shop, they get to prove that fighting back is pointless." She leaned forward.

  "But if you live... a Grind fighter with a Dreadnought-class rig and a direct line to a decent tinker is a hell of a person to owe you a favor. Call it a strategic investment. The odds are terrible, but the payoff if you win?" She shrugged, a sharp, cynical motion. "Let's just say I like long shots."

  "Okay," Beatrix said, her hand closing around the cool metal of the core. A promise. "I'll make it worth the investment."

  Kivi nodded.

  "The Grind pays two thousand just for qualifying," Beatrix said slowly. "There are these qualifiers.. The Culling, I think. If I make it, I’ll pay you back the difference."

  "Don't thank me yet." Kivi was already pulling her installation kit from a drawer, medical-grade manipulators, neural sync leads, things that looked too clean and expensive for this rusted corner of the station. "Thank me after you survive having your spine opened while you're awake. The old core has to be disconnected before the new one slots in. There'll be a… gap."

  She laid out the tools with sterile precision. Beatrix, moving on a scavenger's instinct, picked up the bio-sanitizer spray and began methodically cleaning each instrument, wiping them down with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done field surgery in worse places. Kivi watched her for a moment, then gave a faint, approving nod. Partners.

  "While we are here," Kivi said, calibrating a micro-scalpel, "you should know what you've bought a ticket to. The Culling isn't just a qualifier. It's the trash compactor. Starts tomorrow at noon."

  Beatrix froze, the sanitizer hissing in her hand. "Tomorrow?"

  "Mm. They herd hundreds of desperate sign-ups into an arena. Then they run across hazards, traps, and each other. The first ones move on to the actual First Circle." Kivi’s voice was clinical, dispassionate. "Criminal efficiency. Lets the clans weed out the weak without wasting good production value on them. Mortality rate's usually sixty, seventy percent."

  Beatrix had known it would be bad. She hadn't known it would be tomorrow.

  "Seems I got the core just in time," she said, her voice drier than the station's recycled air.

  "Lie down," Kivi instructed, patting the reinforced workbench. "Face down. And bite this." She offered a leather-wrapped bite block.

  It hurt.

  Kivi worked with grim efficiency, but replacing a power core wasn't a swap. It was neurosurgery. Beatrix felt the probe at the base of her skull, the click of the latch releasing her dying civilian core. The world immediately began to gray out.

  > WARNING: POWER CORE DISCONNECTION DETECTED.

  > WARNING: NEURAL CASCADE IN 30... 29... 28...

  "Almost there," Kivi muttered. "Just need to... got it."

  The Cyclops Core clicked home.

  For one endless, silent second, nothing. Beatrix hung in a void, feeling her enhanced senses wink out one by one. The HUD died. The Protocol's constant hum fell silent. She was just a woman, dying on a table.

  Then, ignition.

  > CYCLOPS CORE: ONLINE.

  > Power output: 847 of baseline.

  > All systems: Optimal

  Power surged.

  Not the strained, gasping flow she was used to, but a torrent. A floodgate opening.

  Her HUD blazed to life, sharper, faster, layering data with impossible clarity. The nanite swarms in her blood shivered awake, initiating deep-system repairs that had been dormant for days. The pain in her ribs from the fight vanished under a wave of cellular regeneration. Even her thoughts clicked into a new, frightening sharpness.

  > NEURAL CASCADE AVERTED.

  > Extensive cellular damage from power insufficiency detected.

  > Initiating repair protocols.

  > Estimated full recovery: 18:32 hours.

  Beatrix pushed herself up on trembling arms, then to her feet. She felt… solid. For the first time since the installation, the machinery in her body wasn't fighting itself. It was a single, terrifying instrument.

  "How do you feel?" Kivi asked, watching her like an engineer evaluating a test run.

  "Like I've been trying to breathe through a straw and someone just gave me an oxygen tank." Beatrix flexed her hands, marveling at the absence of the constant, low-level ache. "The systems aren't starving anymore."

  "Good. You're going to need everything at a hundred percent." Kivi began packing her tools away. "You should get some rest. But you're not going back to your pod."

  Beatrix raised an eyebrow.

  "Minos knows where you live," Kivi said, her voice flat. "The immunity stops them from touching you, not from making your life a living hell. They'll pound on the walls all night. Cut your power. Poison your air scrubber. They'll make sure you walk into the Culling exhausted."

  She gestured to a narrow doorway behind a hanging tarp. "I have a couch in the back. It's not much, but the door has a biometric lock I can key to you. They're already here making noise; a little more won't matter. At least you'll be safe."

  Beatrix looked at her, this pragmatic, fierce woman who charged a thousand credits less than she should have and was now offering shelter. Not out of debt, but because sometimes the only way to survive a storm was to share the same piece of cover.

  She thought of her empty, cold pod. Of the laughter still echoing in the corridor.

  "Okay," Beatrix said.

  Kivi's hair flickered with a soft, surprised blue-green, like deep, calm water. She led Beatrix through the tarp into a room barely larger than a storage closet. A narrow couch. A workbench littered with half-gutted electronics. A single grimy viewport showing the eternal artificial twilight.

  She programmed the lock, her fingers brushing the scanner to add Beatrix's biometric signature. "They're not getting through that without shaped charges."

  Beatrix sank onto the couch. The cushions smelled like solder, synth-coffee, and safety. Her body, finally allowed to acknowledge its limits, felt like it was melting into the frame.

  "The Culling starts at noon," she murmured, her eyes already heavy.

  "You'll make it," Kivi said, pulling a thin blanket from a crate. "You have to. I just bet my entire business on you, remember?"

  It should have sounded like pressure. Instead, it sounded like a pact.

  Beatrix was asleep before the blanket settled over her. In the last hazy second before darkness took her, she heard Kivi's whisper, so quiet it might have been the station's own sigh:

  "Besides. You're the first person in years who made fighting back look like something other than suicide."

  The fresh tattoos on Beatrix's arms pulsed gently with the rhythm of her sleep, a stark reminder of the gauntlet awaiting her at noon. Outside, the Minos thugs kept their watch, and Umbra-3 ground on, indifferent.

  Inside, for one night, two women who should have been alone weren't.