The Span didn't announce the difference between rehearsal and war.
It hummed exactly the same.
Arden woke to the collar's bite, a single sharp pulse at the base of his skull that said: Up.
He rolled off the bunk, bare feet hitting cold floor. The Veil-slab on his wall was already alive with text.
[Ø7-∆-AR // DEPLOYMENT NOTICE]
[STATUS: LIVE EXERCISE – URBAN CONTAINMENT DRILL]
[REPORT: HANGAR 3A. FULL GEAR. 180 SECONDS.]
"Of course," he muttered. "Mercy runs on a schedule."
Tier One heat brushed his nerves, mild, disapproving. The system didn't appreciate jokes it couldn't monetize.
He dragged on undersuit and armor, fingers moving faster than thought. The gear felt less alien now. Pistol weight at his hip. Harness snug across his ribs. Boots with soles made for rain-slick blood and shattered glass.
The door sighed open as he finished holstering.
Arrows lit beneath his feet, white and impatient.
The tower's intestines spat him into Hangar 3A.
Bigger than yesterday's: high ceiling crossed with gantries, racks of less-lethal toys they wouldn't use, riot drones hanging like sleeping hornets. A transport idled at the center, matte and graceless, Judiciary sigils stripped and replaced with a small, clean glyph—Ø7.
Darius, Seraphine, Kai, and Lyra were already there.
Seraphine lounged against the transport's flank, stretching like a cat in armor. Tight black underlay, jacket unzipped to irritation-level, baton clipped at the small of her back, chain coiled at her hip. She watched Arden as if marking off a checklist labeled salvageable.
"Morning, noose boy," she said. "You're almost on time. Proud of you."
Kai sat in the ramp's shadow, cables threading from his wrist-jacks into an open panel. His eyes buzzed with Veil-light, irises scrolling telemetry. Empty coffee bulbs rolled near his boots.
"You're thirty-two seconds late," Kai said without looking up. "Handler clock counts it. Not a great first impression."
Darius adjusted the strap of his rifle with calm gravity. "He's here," he said. "That's what matters."
Lyra stood near the rear, hands folded, gaze unfixed. The soft, cold glow at her throat pulsed in rhythm with her collar and the faint halo of hardware beneath her skin.
"His pattern's aligning," she murmured. "It hurts, but it's aligning."
Arden snorted. "Stop reading my warranty."
Before the collar could decide if that counted as insolence, Silex stepped into view.
Matte-black armor. No helmet. Eyes like someone had scraped the shine off hope and left the rest.
"This is a controlled live exercise," Silex said. "Words chosen carefully. You'll treat it as real because parts of it are. Questions later, Dog. Load up."
No speech. No blessing. Just a tap to his wrist-console.
Their collars chimed in unison.
[UNIT Ø7 // LINK: 12%]
[HANDLER: SILEX // ONLINE]
[LEASH PROTOCOL: ACTIVE.]
"Move," Darius said, low.
Ø7 obeyed.
Inside, the transport was a steel coffin with benches. No windows—only straps, seams, and the sense of being politely swallowed.
Seraphine slid onto the bench opposite Arden, bracing one boot against his shin, smirking over her mask-harness.
"Nervous?" she asked.
"I've been executed," Arden said. "This is a downgrade."
"Cute," she said. "Save some of that for the drones."
Kai flicked his gaze up, annoyed. "There are no drones in here. Classified op."
Lyra tilted her head. "There are always drones. They're just quieter in church."
The transport lurched. Mag-strips screamed, then steadied.
Silex's voice slid into their skulls through the leash-channel, intimate as breath.
"Scenario: Substrate Tier Forty-Seven. Protest spillover at Helios intake plant seventeen. Official: crowd control exercise co-branded with Span Security. Unofficial: three embedded agitators planning a meltdown spectacle. You neutralize them without turning the crowd into paste. This is your first run. Our partners are watching your numbers."
"Crowd as in civilians," Arden said.
"Yes," Silex said. "You remember those."
"Rules of engagement?" Darius asked.
"No unsanctioned lethal on noncombatants," Silex said. "Minimal visible brutality. Make it clean. We're selling redemption."
Seraphine's mouth curled. "Morality cosplay. Adorable."
"Targets Red-1 through Red-3," Kai recited, already half elsewhere. "We find and remove. Try not to look like the monsters we are."
Lyra's fingers traced a pattern on her knee. "Agitators' heat signatures will spike. Their intent will smell wrong in the noise."
Arden leaned back against the cold wall. Four other heartbeats ghosted along his nerves via the low-link: Darius steady, Seraphine restless, Kai a jitter of code, Lyra a layered, eerie calm.
"Hey," Seraphine said softly, nudging his boot. "Don't petrify, martyr. First run's just a leash-length test."
"And if we choke someone with it?" Arden asked.
"Then we learn how far it stretches," she said. Her eyes didn't match her smile.
"Thirty seconds," Silex said. "Masks."
Respirator-plates hissed from the ceiling, clamping over their mouths and noses: matte muzzles shaped to look almost elegant. Arden felt his collar sync with the seal—breath and control on the same circuit.
The ramp slammed down.
Noise hit like a fist.
Substrate Tier Forty-Seven was a canyon of towerblocks and scaffold, bruise-purple under the dome. Greasy rain blurred neon. Holo-ads screamed HELIOS FEEDS YOU / TRUST THE FLAME. The street choked with bodies: workers in stained grey, teenagers on railings, analogists waving cardboard, patched jackets, faces painted in flickering sigils. Anger, boredom, fear—packed shoulder to shoulder.
Riot drones hung overhead, lenses red. Span Security in blue armor held a thin line, shields out, batons ready for their choreography.
Then Ø7 stepped down.
Collars pulsed together. Four seasoned glows; one fresh gold. The effect was religious.
"Chain Dogs," someone hissed.
"Didn't think they were real."
"Monsters."
"Heroes," a voice trembled. "They saved Twelve."
"That was edited," another muttered. "Everything's edited."
The muzzle-mask stank of rubber and copper. Arden felt the look of them sink into him like hooks.
Silex: "You're not here for their faith. You're here to work. Kai."
Kai jacked his fingers deep into a hovering support-drone. His pupils flared with streams.
"Pulling Underlayer chatter, Veil tags, Helios diagnostics," he said. "Red-1: male, grey coat, backpack seeded with micro-reactor failcode. Red-2: non-binary, shaved head, loudmouth on a crate west side. Red-3: unknown, buried among Helios plant security. Nasty triangulation."
"Both sides," Lyra said. "Of course."
"Seraphine, you're with me," Darius said. "Red-1."
"I'm nobody's with," she said, already moving. "But sure, keep talking in that voice."
"Kai, Lyra," Silex said. "Hunt Red-3. Arden—"
"Yeah."
"Red-2 is yours," Silex said. "No theatrics."
They broke like they'd done it a hundred times.
The low-level neural link fed Arden glimpses as he pushed into the crowd: Seraphine slipping up scaffolds and balcony rails, Darius bulldozing a straight line with shielded calm, Lyra's perception painting heat blooms and stress-graphs, Kai tearing through code with obscene efficiency.
Arden shouldered bodies aside.
"Back," he snapped. "Judiciary exercise. Behind the line."
"Eat shit, dog," a woman spat, rain and bile on his armor. "Leashed fuck."
He didn't blame her. He didn't like the thing she was spitting on either.
Red-2 stood where Kai had flagged them: on a crate, mic in hand, voice cut raw.
They weren't armored. Grey workcoat, shaved head beaded with rain, throat bare. A cheap speaker at their feet fought the city's noise.
"HELlOS DRAINS YOU," they shouted. "JUDICIARY HANGS YOU WITH THEIR BRANDING. CHAIN DOGS AREN'T SAVIORS, THEY'RE FUCKING ADVERTS!"
The crowd roared. Some raised fists. Others just recorded, hungry for a clip.
The words landed sharper than the rocks.
Red-2's gaze caught Arden's as he pushed close.
"Look at that," they said into the mic. "Fresh collar. You got a name under there, Dog?"
"Step down," Arden said, voice low.
"Do you?" Red-2 pressed. "Or did they strip that for parts too?"
The collar warmed.
[PARAMETER: PUBLIC CONTRADICTION. CAUTION.]
Silex: "Asset Ø7-∆-AR. Neutralize target. No spectacle."
"Come down," Arden said. "We walk quiet. Or they black-bag you. I'm being generous."
"You look tired," Red-2 said. "Like you can taste their hand up your spine."
Their eyes were too clear. No bomb-shiver. No twitch around a trigger. Just conviction.
"Lyra," Arden muttered on-link.
Her answer brushed his thoughts like cool static. "No explosives. No hot metal. They're signal. Not fuse."
"Then why the tag?" he snapped.
"Pattern risk," Kai said. "They motivate. System hates that."
Silex: "Reik. Remove them."
"Clarify remove," Arden said.
Heat jumped—Tier One skirting Tier Two.
"Comply," Silex said. "Now."
Red-2 watched him with something like pity. "They're going to make you hurt me so the feed knows who you belong to."
"I'm supposed to drag you in," Arden said. "You vanish. It tests well."
"You going to?" they asked.
The crowd leaned in. Span Security shifted. Riot drones pivoted, tasting escalation.
The leash thrummed a promise of pain.
Arden moved.
He grabbed Red-2's coat and hauled them off the crate. Boots scraped plastic. The crowd hissed.
"You're under custody," Arden said, loud enough for the nearest lenses. "Incitement, interference with Judiciary operation."
"For telling the truth?" Red-2 spat. "Fuck your leash."
The collar punched hot down his spine.
[NONCOMPLIANT TONE // CORRECTION PENDING.]
His knee stuttered. Lyra's voice threaded through.
"Arden. Inhale. Exhale. Don't give it everything."
He dragged Red-2 toward the transport lane. Cameras drank every angle: the righteous Chain Dog removing the agitator. Narrative restored.
Behind his eyes, link-bleed: Darius and Seraphine converging on Red-1.
Through Kai's relay he caught flashes: a wiry man with a corpse's smile edging through the press, clutching his backpack like a sacrament.
"Got you," Seraphine purred as she dropped from a scaffold, baton cracking down. Bone popped in Red-1's wrist; the trigger-device spun free.
Darius's boot pinned hardware. Two shots to Red-1's legs—meaty, efficient, blood spraying the wet pavement in a fan. Red-1 hit on his side, howling.
"Stay the fuck down," Darius growled.
Red-1 grinned through the pain. "Too late."
Lyra: "Secondary heat. In the pack."
Kai: "Yeah, I see it."
At street level, the Helios intake stacks whined. A low-frequency hum rolled under the shouting, wrong and rising.
"Kai," Silex snapped.
"I am literally elbow-deep in their sanctified garbage code," Kai snarled. "They rigged a cascade in the plant controls. Hold your goddamn horses."
The hum climbed. People clapped hands over their ears. Some dropped to their knees.
Red-2 twisted in Arden's grip.
"This is what it takes," they gasped. "Something they can't trim in post."
"They'll trim your corpse," Arden said. "And edit my leash into a halo."
Logic said keep hold. Let the Protocol torch him for obedience points.
Instead, he shoved Red-2 hard toward the gap between two shields.
"Run," he said.
For one stunned heartbeat they stared at him.
Then they bolted, vanishing into bodies and rain.
Tier Two hit.
The collar exploded along his spine, a white-hot filament punched into bone. His muscles locked; teeth slammed together; vision shattered into strobing frames.
"Noncompliance," the internal voice said, satisfied. [CORRECTION.]
He went down on one knee, fingers clawing at air.
"Arden," Lyra whispered. "Anchor. You're not just nerves."
Darius's anger hit the link like a thunderclap. "Silex. Enough. He's still standing."
"Barely," Silex said.
Seraphine's voice, sharp: "If you cook him now, who does your pretty PR tackles?"
Kai barked over all of it, words a jagged line. "Shut up, I am trying to stop all of you from dying in a Helios brand orgasm."
The intake roar reached a needle scream.
Then, sudden cut.
Kai sagged against the transport's side, sweat haloing his hairline.
"Cascade neutralized," he said, breathless. "Their failsafe code was a fucking poem. I rewrote the ending."
"Language," Seraphine said lightly.
"Eat me," Kai muttered.
The drones' threat-lights cooled from red to amber. Span Security lines eased. The crowd, denied fire, broke into scattered outrage.
"No boom," someone near Arden said. "So this was all theater."
"It's always theater," another answered.
Arden forced his body upright. The collar's agony receded to an angry throb. He tasted blood; realized he'd bitten his tongue open.
"Asset Ø7-∆-AR," Silex said in his head. Calm as a knife on a tray. "You released a tagged agitator."
"He wasn't wired," Arden rasped. "Just loud."
"You were ordered to remove him," Silex said.
"I did," Arden said. "From an explosion you're welcome we stopped."
Tier One flared; Tier Two hovered.
Darius stepped into Silex's line of sight, broad and unyielding.
"Problem?" Darius asked.
"Yes," Silex said. "Our new Dog thinks he edits parameters."
Seraphine curled her chain, metal whispering. "Our new Dog proved he can think while the leash is chewing his spine. That's value."
Lyra's eyes lifted to the high glass where Veil lenses glittered like insects.
"Optics show Ø7 preventing catastrophe," she said. "They'll cut around his…discretion. They prefer a neat story."
Kai wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I mirrored local feeds," he added. "Recorded all of it. Including you overcooking him for not kidnapping a speech. That file's very fragile. Might slip if someone gets too twitchy."
Silex's expression cooled further, which Arden wouldn't have sworn was possible.
"This your idea of solidarity?" he asked.
"It's our idea of keeping the asset you decided to keep," Seraphine said. "You're welcome for the free consultancy."
Arden listened to them barter his nerve endings.
The collar settled into a low, considering buzz.
"Back in the transport," Silex said finally. "Debrief at tower. Discipline where the walls are loyal."
Darius's hand closed once on Arden's shoulder, heavy, grounding, not gentle.
"You stood up," Darius said quietly. "And you're still here."
"I let him go," Arden murmured. "Red-2."
"I saw," Darius said. "So did the system."
"Was it stupid?"
"Yes," Darius said. "And correct. Those get confused down here."
Seraphine fell in at Arden's other side, casual swing back in her walk, armor and chain and smeared eyeliner.
She bumped his hip. "For the record," she said, low, "that was hot."
He gave a short, torn laugh. "You've got fucked-up taste."
"Obviously," she said. "Look at who I'm leashed with."
Lyra walked behind them, expression distant, like listening to rain through walls.
"Arden," she said.
He glanced back.
"They flagged your collar," she said. "Sensitivity increased. But they also logged you as crucial to outcome. They like their monsters complicated."
"Red-1?" Arden asked.
"In custody," Lyra said. "Bleeding, alive. He'll get the cage you were meant for."
"And Red-3?" Arden said.
Kai answered with a thin, wolfish smile. "Helios plant supervisor. Loyal boy. Tried to lock out my override. I left teeth in his systems. He'll wish I'd shot him instead."
The ramp lifted, sealing the outside world away in a slice of dirty light that vanished.
Inside: dim hum, steel, five synced collars.
Silex stood braced at the front.
"First Run summary," he said. "Result: meltdown prevented. Civilian fatalities: zero. Visible excessive force: limited. Red-1: captured. Red-3: compromised and in internal audit. Red-2: escaped due to Asset Ø7-∆-AR's unauthorized mercy impulse."
He let the last two words hang.
"You're welcome," Arden said, because giving ground now felt worse than the shocks.
The collar sparked; Tier One.
Darius shifted. "Handler."
Silex raised a hand.
"This is simple," Silex said, looking only at Arden. "You don't choose which mouths live. You're a weapon, not a jury. I point, you end. That's the contract you signed with your neck."
"I didn't sign shit," Arden said. "You dragged me off a rope. You bought what you got. If you wanted clean code, you should've printed it instead of collaring people who remember having a spine."
The air thinned. Kai stopped fidgeting. Seraphine's smirk faltered; she watched Silex, not Arden now. Lyra's fingers hovered near her leash, knuckles pale.
"Careful," she whispered.
Silex studied Arden like a new gun that might explode in his hand.
Then he laughed once, harsh, genuine.
"There it is," he said. "Why your file reads high-potential, high-risk."
He stepped closer until Arden could taste his breath filtered through synthmint.
"You get one," Silex said, voice soft enough the mics might miss it. "One open defiance on a day the footage favors you. You spent it on a loudmouth with a mic. Next time, the Protocol goes to bone. Understand?"
Every instinct screamed to push.
Arden's jaw locked. "Understood."
"Good," Silex said, stepping back. He raised his voice to fill the transport. "You're not heroes. You are containment solutions. Today, containment worked. The Span will sleep easier not knowing how close it came."
He rapped the bulkhead twice. "Welcome to the job, Dogs of Ø7."
As the transport sank back into the tower's throat, Arden felt them all braided faintly into him via the link: Darius's steady iron, Seraphine's jagged amusement with a vein of anger, Kai's crackling curiosity, Lyra's quiet grief.
The collar pulsed, cataloguing.
They called it a first run.
To Arden, it felt like the moment the leash stopped being theoretical and became a vein.
He closed his eyes against the engine's hum.
We bite, he thought.
The collar warmed, listening.
And one day, he added, an outlaw whisper under all the contracts, we bite up.
No immediate pain.
Just the machine's steady, patient breath.
For now.