The street smelled of ozone and burnt plastic.
Neon bled across the skyline, flickering between corporate ads and seductive holograms—faces smiling through static as if mocking the chaos below. Rain slid down steel towers like liquid glass, reflecting the chaos in fractured light.
Blair's boots struck the pavement—thud, thud, thud—as he sprinted toward the explosion. His lungs burned. His heart raced. Every breath felt heavier than the last.
People rushed past him in the opposite direction, clutching whatever pieces of their lives they could carry. The air crackled with panic and electricity. Above, holo-screens screamed with emergency alerts.
A broadcast flickered into the corner of his meta-vision—a woman's voice, shaky but trying to sound calm.
"There has been a massive explosion in Harlow Sector-9. A wealthy residential area was infiltrated and terrorized by what officials presume to be the Chrome Reavers."
Blair froze.
His pulse spiked.
Harlow Sector-9… that was his home.
His vision blurred as he forced his chrome to sync—redirecting all remaining power into his neural system. His HUD dissolved into static. The world dimmed until only his heartbeat remained.
He initiated a brain-flash.
Needles of ice pierced behind his eyes. He could feel every blood cell, every pulse of current running through the augments buried in his flesh. Sweat poured down his face, his body trembling as his neurons screamed.
I can do this. I can find them. Just a little more—just a little—
Images flashed through his head like broken panels in a comic strip—his mother's smile, his father's hand on his shoulder, their laughter over morning synth-coffee.
Then: flame. Smoke. Silence.
The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. His nose began to bleed.
Is this the only way? Why… why my family?
I hate them. I hate the bystanders. I hate this pounding in my chest. I hate this—
The surge overloaded. His vision went black.
Blair collapsed.
A voice echoed through the static of his mind.
"This kid… did he seriously flashburn on a whim? What the hell was he thinking? Even top-tier frameware burns out after five flashes, and he's running gutter gear."
The scent of oil and solder brought Blair back. His body felt heavy, like metal soaked in tar. The hum of machines filled the air.
When he opened his eyes, he was staring at a ceiling of flickering neon panels. Tubes and wires ran across his body, feeding into old cyberware diagnostic rigs that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in years.
"I can't even begin to understand how this dumbass is alive," the voice continued. "His brain should be fried. Especially since he's one of them meatfolk."
The man speaking had a blue mohawk, a half-shaved beard lined with steel piercings, and a single red cyber-eye spinning quietly in its socket. His shop was a graveyard of tech—prosthetics, broken chrome, and piles of rusted frameware humming weakly under dull lights.
Leaning against a steel beam nearby was a woman with short violet hair, one leg crossed over the other. Her beauty was surgical—every feature symmetrically perfect, every movement deliberate. Her eyes glowed faintly pink as she smirked.
"Maybe you're just jealous, wirehead," she said, her tone dripping with mockery. "You'd ghost yourself if you even dreamed of a brain-flash."
The man snarled, hand drifting to the holster on his hip.
"What was that, you dirty Synthsiren?"
He unlatched his jackal pistol, the soft hum of its capacitor rising in the air.
"Put the jackal down, metal muncher," the woman said coolly. "Look. He's awake."
Blair groaned, his voice rough. "Where… am I?"
The man turned, stepping closer. "You're in my shop, kid. Nash's Chrome Clinic—Sector-12. You nearly fried your damn head trying to pull a full flashburn."
"Flash… burn?" Blair muttered, wincing as pain spiked behind his right eye. His cybernetic optic flickered, glitching between feeds.
"Don't move," Nash said firmly, pressing him back against the cot. "You're lucky to be breathing. SpecOps soldiers can't handle what you just did—and they've got primeware rigs worth a city block."
Blair's hands trembled. "…My parents. Were they in Harlow Sector-9?"
Nash hesitated. His mechanical iris dimmed.
"Kid… if they were there, then—"
He sighed. "They're gone. No one survives a Reaver raid."
The words didn't hit like bullets. They hit like silence.
Blair stared at the ceiling. The hum of the shop drowned everything else out.
The woman—softening her tone—crossed her arms and spoke quietly.
"C'mon, Nash. Have a little sympathy. The kid just lost his world."
The light above them flickered. For a brief moment, the neon glow painted Blair's face a deep crimson.
And beneath that light, a spark of something cold flickered in his eyes.
Something that didn't die with his family.