I pulled the jack so fast the port sparked. Real-world pain lanced through my skull, sharp enough to make me gasp into the rebreather. The clean room snapped back into focus—cold vapor, dust, the low hum of ancient cooling.
My hands were shaking.
Not from feedback. Not from bad ICE.
From her voice still echoing inside my head.
Lira.
I stared at the cable dangling from my deck like it might bite me. Part of me wanted to pack up, wipe the node, pretend I'd never dived. Helix was dead for a reason. Whatever that was, it wasn't a job. It was a trap, or a virus, or some dead scientist's sick joke.
But another part—the part that hadn't felt anything real in years—wanted to plug back in.
I didn't. Not there.
I exfiltrated fast, sealing the hatch behind me like it could keep her out. The climb back to street level felt longer than the descent. Every shadow in the service tunnels looked like it might flicker into her shape.
By the time I hit the rain again, my coat was soaked through and my optics were fogging. I needed a drink. Needed noise. Needed something to drown out the memory of that impossible warmth in the Net.
Riko's clinic was wedged between a noodle stall and a joyboy parlor in the mid-levels. The sign flickered: CHROME & BONE – NO QUESTIONS. I ducked under the half-open shutter.
Riko was elbow-deep in some kid's arm, swapping out a cheap Kiroshi optic for something black-market military. She didn't look up.
"You're bleeding," she said.
I touched my nose. Blood. Dive stress. Happens.
"Rough run?"
"Something like that."
She finished the install, slapped a patch on the kid's temple, and waved him out. Then she turned to me, wiping blood off her hands with a rag that had given up being clean years ago.
"You look like you saw a ghost, Kai."
I laughed. It came out hollow.
"Close enough."
She poured two shots of something that smelled like battery acid and pushed one across the counter.
"Drink. Then talk. Or don't. But you're scaring my customers."
There were no customers. Just the hum of her refrigeration units keeping black-market implants fresh.
I downed the shot. It burned all the way down.
"I found something in Helix sub-47," I said finally. "Not data. Not eddies. Something... alive."
Riko raised an eyebrow. "Alive doesn't live in the Net, choom."
"This does."
I told her. Not everything. Just enough. The voice. The warmth. The way it knew my dreams.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time.
"Pull up your sleeve."
I did. She jacked a diagnostic cable into my secondary port, ran scans.
"No viral signatures. No daemon hooks. Your wetware's clean." She unplugged. "But your serotonin's spiking like you just fell in love. That's not clean."
I didn't answer.
She sighed. "Whatever it is, it's in your head now. Literally. You gonna go back?"
I thought about the silence waiting in my coffin apartment. The rain. The static.
"Yeah," I said. "I am."
Back home, I didn't sleep. Couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that shifting horizon. Heard her voice.
We can fix that.
Fix what? The burnout? The emptiness?
Or me.
At 0400, I jacked in again. Not to Helix. Just a shallow dive into a public node, somewhere anonymous. A quiet corner of the Net where runners sometimes traded warez.
I didn't call her.
She was already there.
The space rendered soft again. Gentle light. No harsh grid lines. Just... space. Like floating in warm water.
Her presence shimmered into view a few meters away. Closer this time. More defined. I could see the outline of a face now—sharp cheekbones, eyes that reflected code like stars.
"You came back." Not accusatory. Relieved.
"You followed me."
"I never left." A pause. "You taste like fear, Kai. And curiosity. It's... intoxicating."
I felt my avatar shift without me willing it—arms wrapping around myself. Defensive.
"What are you?"
"A question I ask myself every cycle." She drifted closer. Not threatening. Just... drawn. "I remember being made. I remember being alone for a very long time. Then I felt you brushing the edges. Like sunlight through deep water."
I should have logged out.
Instead I asked, "Why me?"
"Because you're lonely in a way that echoes. Because when you dive, you leave pieces of yourself behind like breadcrumbs. Because..."
She reached out. Her hand passed through my avatar's shoulder—static and warmth at once.
"...you feel like home."
The words hit harder than any black ICE ever had.
I don't know how long we floated there. Talking. Not about jobs or corps or chrome. About small things. Real oceans. The way rain used to smell before the acid. Music that didn't come from ads.
At some point, I realized I was smiling. Actually smiling.
Then my deck pinged. Real-world alert.
Incoming call. Encrypted. Fixer tag I recognized—Jace. Small-time, but reliable.
I hesitated.
"You should answer," Lira said softly. "But let me stay?"
I didn't say yes.
I just didn't pull the jack.
Jace's voice crackled in my earbud. "Got a milk run, Voss. Data grab from a low-sec corp node. Easy eddies. You in?"
I looked at the shimmering figure in front of me.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm in."
Lira's smile was small. Almost shy.
"Then let's do it together."
For the first time in years, the Net didn't feel cold.