Cold rain hammered the slanted tin roofs of Sector Four.

Caleb moved through the flooded street with his shoulders tucked against the downpour. Gray water sprayed over the toes of his boots each time they struck the cracked pavement. The dark canvas Break-Tab Harness sat over his undersuit, its straps pulled tight enough to bite whenever his ribs expanded too far.

Inside his cracked visor, the military HUD registered a 1.2 percent kinetic sync rate.

At that level, the harness offered little help and plenty of resistance. Every few steps, the synthetic fibers pulled against his joints as if the gear had forgotten which side it was supposed to support.

Kikaru kept pace a half-step behind him.

Her white combat armor drew immediate looks from the salvage crews huddled under rusted awnings. The grime, runoff, and stripped wiring piles all belonged to a world that did not match her clean plates or academy posture. She kept her chin angled high and her plasma rifle secured against her chest plate, refusing to give the staring workers anything to read.

"The dispatch logs do not list a military objective in this grid," Kikaru noted.

"There is no objective," Caleb said. "Vance called me."

The chain-link gate to Bay Four rattled open beneath his hand.

Beyond it, a massive processing trench cut through the center of the yard. Heavy floodlights burned through the rain and threw hard shadows across the wet concrete. The air carried industrial bleach, hot metal, and the dry grit of pulverized bone.

They descended the metal stairs.

A Class-4 Siege-breaker carcass filled the center of the bay. Thick steel chains suspended the mangled gray bulk above a wide drainage grate. One industrial bone saw had buried itself deep in the creature’s thoracic ridge, its smoking motor shuddering around the trapped blade.

Vance stood near the main control console with an unlit cigarette tucked between his teeth.

A corporate Guild overseer in a slick yellow raincoat argued in front of him, tapping a gloved finger against a digital clipboard hard enough to make the screen flicker.

"The core cools in twenty minutes," the overseer said over the grinding noise from the adjacent bays. "Cut the ridge or I void the extraction contract."

"The saws are binding," Vance shot back. "If we force the cut, the hydrostatic pressure bursts the core. You lose the entire payout."

Caleb stepped off the last stair, boots splashing against the concrete as he approached the console.

The overseer turned. His eyes swept over the canvas harness, the cracked visor, and the silver military insignia pinned near Caleb’s collar.

"You called a recruit?" The overseer pointed his clipboard at Vance. "We need hydraulic spreaders. Get this kid out of my bay."

Caleb passed him without slowing.

Vance pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth and let out a slow breath.

"The blade caught on the thoracic ridge," Vance said. "The meat clamped down on the metal. Same exact spot as your incident last month."

Jax waited near the blood-slicked base of the creature. His faded disposal uniform had dark streaks across the knees and waist, and a gray medical sling held his left arm tight against his ribs.

"Good to see you standing, Caleb," Jax called out.

His attention shifted toward Kikaru.

"You brought a corporate monitor to a scrap heap."

Kikaru stepped toward the lower processing conveyor. Her white boot landed in a patch of coagulated black fluid, and the tread lost purchase. She slipped, caught herself hard against a rusted iron handrail, and the carbon-fiber brace on her leg clicked against the metal grating.

"The grating is coated in digestive runoff," Caleb said. He kept his focus on the carcass. "Step on the exposed bone fragments. Bone gives you traction."

Kikaru looked down at the sludge coating her boot.

After a beat, she shifted her weight and placed her right heel onto a shattered rib section jutting from the mud. Her stance steadied. The adjustment cost her some dignity, but she accepted the correction with a tight nod.

Caleb waded through the deeper runoff toward the suspended beast. The harness tightened across his chest with each step. The 1.2 percent sync rate fought him in small, irritating pulls, dragging against his knees and shoulders while the mud tried to keep his boots.

The thing behind his sternum pushed back.

It supplied the raw, undocumented muscle density needed to move through the sludge, but the strength came hungry. His body had not eaten enough to pay for it.

Caleb climbed into the open wound of the carcass, using torn cartilage and cracked bone as footholds. The industrial saw trembled beside him, still smoking where the blade had disappeared into swollen gray tissue.

The flesh had folded over the steel teeth like a clenched hand.

Caleb crouched beside it and studied the ridge.

The tissue contracted in tight pulses around the blade.

"It’s not rigor mortis," Caleb called down to Vance. "The nervous system is still firing. It’s trying to heal."

Kikaru raised her plasma rifle. "The asset has been dead for twelve hours. Cellular regeneration is biologically impossible."

"It’s the infection," Caleb said.

His eyes stayed on the swollen tissue.

The same strain that had hollowed out his chest had threaded itself through the beast’s spine. The host had died twelve hours ago, but the infection was still trying to protect the core.

A trapped pocket of gas burst from the severed cartilage. Yellow vapor sprayed upward and steamed against the cold rain.

The carcass twitched.

The severed spine arched, shifting the suspended weight across the chains. Steel links groaned against the overhead winches, and one of the support cables drew tight enough to shave rust from the pulley.

"The center of gravity is moving," Caleb warned. His head tilted toward the cables. "Lock the secondary winches. Back up."

One overhead cable snapped.

A jagged forelimb tore free from its binding and swung down like a massive pendulum.

Jax stood directly in its path.

Caleb launched from the crest of the carcass.

The drop pulled him down fast. His boots hit concrete, his shoulder slammed into Jax, and the impact drove the older worker sideways out of the crush zone.

The gray forelimb smashed into the concrete wall.

Rock fragments burst outward through the rain and mud.

Caleb hit the ground and rolled across the sludge. The ceramic plates of the Break-Tab Harness took the shockwave, but a sharp pop cracked near his collarbone.

One white ceramic tab split down the center.

The Power Isolation Shunt clicked against his ribs.

Heat crawled beneath his sternum, sharp and hungry. His body wanted fuel he had not given it. The cramp dug inward, pulling at the hollow place under his ribs until his breath nearly caught.

Caleb locked his jaw and pulled air through his nose.

He kept the pain off his face until the spike settled into a dull ache.

The carcass slid deeper into the mud and settled onto the drainage grate. The remaining chains held, creaking under the shifted mass.

Kikaru tracked the beast through her optic sight. Black fluid streaked her white armor now. Her barrel remained leveled at the severed spine, but her stance had changed. Her braced leg no longer fought the ground. She had anchored it against a broken piece of bone.

Caleb forced himself upright through the sludge, caught Jax by the uniform, and dragged him back onto his feet.

"The muscle tension is building," Caleb said. He looked at Kikaru. "Primary spinal ganglion. Third vertebra down from the ridge."

Kikaru narrowed her eyes. "My mandate is threat elimination. I am not a surgical tool."

"Shooting the core risks the payout and the crew," Caleb said. "Hit the nerve cluster. The localized tissue goes slack, and the muscle releases the blade."

Kikaru looked from him to the mangled gray meat.

For once, doctrine did not come out of her mouth first.

She adjusted her stance, settled her brace against the shattered bone in the mud, and lowered her cheek to the stock of her rifle.

She fired a single plasma round.

The blue streak hit the center of the third vertebra.

The surrounding gray flesh loosened at once. The industrial bone saw dropped free from the thoracic cavity and crashed onto the metal grating below.

The Guild overseer lowered his digital clipboard.

His jaw slackened as he stared at the shattered concrete wall where Jax had been standing seconds earlier.

Vance spat his cigarette into the mud.

"Bring the hydraulic spreaders," he said. "We cut the core out manually."

He crossed to the impact crater, then looked from Caleb to the crewman gripping the handrail beside him.

"You just saved my crewman," Vance said. "And the core is accessible. I’ll authorize a payout."

"Send it to Jax," Caleb said. "He took a hit to his prosthetic sling when he fell."

Jax shook his head and gripped his bad arm. "You earned it, Caleb."

"I draw a military salary now," Caleb replied. "Keep the credits."

Purple code bled into the bottom corner of Caleb’s visor, overriding the low sync-rate warning.

[??? : They treat you like a mechanic. You should not be crawling in the mud for these people. Let me buy this entire yard and burn it to the ground.]

Caleb thumbed the manual override on his gauntlet until the message cut out.

Kikaru lowered her rifle and approached the group. Mud caked her pristine boots. Black fluid streaked her shin plates. Her gaze moved from the carcass to the freed saw resting on the grate, then to the broken cable swinging overhead.

"You knew the cable would snap before the weight fully shifted," Kikaru noted.

Caleb picked up his canvas duffel bag from the dry concrete near the stairs.

"Dead things always move wrong," Caleb said. "You just have to know where the pressure builds."