"You—"
Sasha's mind fractured, the logic of her sacrifice dissolving into the heat of a human embrace. She stared blankly at Jax as he adjusted his grip, pulling her flush against his chest.
Mission Updated: Rescue Sasha Yakovleva.
Danger Level: Medium.
Reward: 0.1 Random Attribute, Random Skill.
Jax didn't waste a heartbeat on the logistics. He looked down at the dazed girl, her cat-eared helmet askew. "Hold on. You fall, we both end up as pavement art."
He hoisted her onto his shoulder, his massive hand clamping around her waist to anchor her. His other hand drew the Lizzie. He didn't need a tactical overlay; his muscles remembered the rhythm of violence better than any chip. He pushed off, his organic tendons snapping like tensioned cables, launching them four meters across the office in a single, explosive burst.
The security bots tracked him, their firing lines intersecting where he should have been. Jax was faster. He anticipated the lead, weaving through the spray of bullets before sliding into a crouch and leveling the pink pistol.
Crack-crack-crack.
The Lizzie barked in its overcharged shotgun mode. At this range, it didn't just dent the bots—it shredded their internal cooling and sparked their batteries. Oil sprayed the walls like black blood, and two of the units collapsed into heaps of sparking slag.
"Jump! There's a bomb!" Sasha shrieked, her voice finally finding its edge.
"What?" Jax grunted, pivoting.
"My bag! I rigged a thermal charge to burn the servers! We can't use the door—it's about to be ground zero!"
Sasha's fingers were white-knuckled, buried in the fabric of Jax's jacket. The realization hit her with the force of a high-speed collision: she wasn't ready to be a martyr. She had her revenge, she had the truth, but suddenly, the idea of breathing tomorrow felt a lot better than being a footnote in a corporate drug report.
"You've got to be kidding me," Jax growled, eyeing the reinforced glass. "So we're doing this the hard way? This is the fourteenth floor!"
"Better than being a charcoal drawing! Just do whatever you did to get up here!"
"Climbing up is physics! Jumping down is suicide!"
He yelled it, but he was already moving. Jax sprinted for the jagged hole in the window, and without a second of hesitation, he threw them into the abyss.
Behind them, the office vanished in a roar of orange flame as the thermal charge detonated, vaporizing the remaining bots. In the freefall, the wind tore Jax's baseball cap away, sending it spiraling into the smog. His black hair whipped wildly, revealing the raw, un-chromed intensity of his face.
Jax holstered the Lizzie and reached for the small of his back. An eight-inch combat dagger appeared in his hand, its silver blade gleaming with a hungry light. He saw the West Gate bridge below—and Maine's car screaming to a halt.
"Hold your breath!" Jax roared.
The muscles in his upper arm swelled, veins rippling like cords under his skin. He slammed the dagger into the building's exterior. The screech of metal on concrete was deafening, a fountain of sparks and debris stinging his face. It wasn't a stop; it was a desperate, friction-heavy deceleration that jerked his shoulder nearly out of its socket.
His pupils pulsed a predatory orange-yellow as he opened the team channel. "Maine! If you're not at the gate in thirty seconds, we're scorched! AVs are coming in hot!"
"Holy shit, kid! You actually jumped?" Maine's voice was a mix of terror and awe. "Hang on, we're burning rubber!"
"Can you walk?"
"It's a shoulder hit, Jax. I'm fine. It doesn't affect my legs."
They were at the base of the West Gate wall. Sasha sat on the asphalt, biting down on a roll of surgical tape to bind her bleeding shoulder. She looked up at the fourteenth floor, where a trail of sparks and a deep gouge marked their descent.
Small black dots—security bots—cluttered the ledge above, peering down into the dark.
"Stupid machines," Sasha muttered, her voice shaky but gaining strength. "They won't follow. Their pathing is too rigid. And Max-Tac won't be here for another three minutes. They're like the Trauma Team—always show up just in time to bag the body."
Jax felt the tension bleed out of his shoulders. If Max-Tac—the city's "Four Choppers"—showed up, they were dead. No amount of organic muscle could out-duel a squad of high-end cyber-psychos in government gear.
They scrambled over the final perimeter wall, reaching the empty access road just as the silence of the night settled back in. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by an awkward, heavy stillness.
Jax stopped, turning to check on her, but he'd forgotten how close she was trailing. Sasha bumped right into his back, letting out a soft "oof" as she clutched her forehead.
"Uh... sorry," Jax said, his hand habitually reaching for the brim of a hat that was no longer there.
Sasha looked at his ruffled hair, then at his face—really looked at it. The "simple" rookie was gone. In his place was the man who had just spat in the eye of gravity.
"Don't worry about the hat," she said, her voice softer than before. She winced as she adjusted her bandage, the white vents on her neck still puffing rhythmic plumes of steam. "I'll get you a better one."
BEEP-BEEP!
A horn shattered the moment. Maine's modified Thrax skidded around the corner in a cloud of burnt tires.
"Don't just stand there posing for the cameras! Get in!" Maine roared from the driver's seat.
The rear door hissed open. Jax stepped toward it, but paused, looking back at the "little cat" behind him.
"Sasha..."
"What?" she asked, looking up. Her blue-pink eyes were serious, searching his. Before he could say anything else, she delivered a sharp kick to his backside, shoving him into the car.
"I said, my name is Sasha," she said, climbing in after him and slamming the door. "Sasha Yakovleva. Don't forget it, rookie."
Jax blinked as the car roared to life, the neon of the highway beginning to smear across the windows in a kaleidoscope of predatory color. Maine let out a sharp, triumphant whistle, his grin visible in the rearview mirror.
In the front seat, Pilar slammed his head against the steering wheel, letting out a theatrical, exaggerated wail. "I knew it! I knew the silent type would swoop in! My heart, it's broken, Maine! Broken!"
Jax just leaned back into the seat, feeling the warmth of Sasha beside him and the weight of the city falling away. The "variable" had survived.