Freezing wind bit into bare skin.

Caleb pushed his face off the rough grit of a tar-sealed rooftop. The crushing exhaustion from the containment bay disaster was completely gone. The deep, grinding ache in his right shoulder had vanished.

He pressed his hands flat against the freezing roof and pushed himself up to his knees.

He wore nothing. The surplus armor, the dark-gray undersuit, the heavy combat boots, the medical tape wrapping his knuckles—all of it was gone.

He ran his bare fingers over his collarbone. The jagged, fatal slash was erased. Smooth, unbroken skin stretched over dense, unfamiliar muscle. The constant, hollow starvation gnawing at his stomach for the last week was entirely quiet. A heavy, terrifying furnace burned in its place, anchoring his center of gravity.

The damaged thing inside his chest had stopped asking for fuel. It had finished its work while he slept.

Standing up, Caleb braced himself against the wind. He did not recognize the air. It lacked the heavy sulfur and rotting blood of the disposal yards. It tasted clean, filtered, and thin.

He walked to the edge of the roof and looked down.

A sprawling canyon of polished glass and steel dropped hundreds of stories below his bare feet. Hovering transit rails hummed silently through the gaps between pristine corporate spires. It did not look like the brutalist concrete blocks of the military sectors. Holographic koi fish swam through the open air, weaving between massive digital billboards advertising synthetic wines and cybernetic limbs in glowing, stylized lettering. Narrow alleys far below glowed with the warm amber light of paper lanterns and dense clusters of street-level noodle stands. Plumes of white steam vented from the grates, catching the neon runoff. It was a vertically labyrinth of extreme wealth directly over dense, claustrophobic culture.

He was in the absolute center of the Upper Sectors.

Caleb stared at the dizzying drop. The military strictly prohibited lower-sector recruits from entering the commercial core without an armed escort. He had gone to sleep in a medical bay. The anomaly had cocooned him, altered his physical architecture, and sleepwalked him across the city to the highest elevation it could find.

He stepped back from the ledge. The wind cut across his bare chest. He needed a comms line.

A heavy steel maintenance door sat recessed into a concrete bulkhead near the center of the roof.

Caleb walked over the tar paper. He grabbed the thick iron handle with his right hand. He braced his feet, expecting the familiar, dead weight of his unaugmented muscles to fight the rusted hinges. He pulled.

The iron handle crushed inward like wet paper.

The heavy steel locking mechanism sheared completely off the doorframe with a deafening screech. The entire metal slab ripped backward off its hinges, flying out of Caleb’s grip. It crashed onto the tar roofing ten feet away, leaving a gaping, jagged hole in the concrete bulkhead.

Caleb froze.

He stared at his bare hand. The metal handle remained crumpled perfectly inside his fist, molded to the exact shape of his fingers.

He dropped the crushed iron. It hit the roof with a heavy clatter.

The military scanners had graded him at a marginal output. The surplus armor used to drag against his joints. Now, standing completely naked in the freezing wind, his baseline physical density.

He stepped through the ruined doorway into the stairwell.

The interior was stark white and immaculately clean. Soft, motion-sensor LED lights clicked on sequentially as he descended the concrete steps. The smooth tile was freezing against the soles of his bare feet. He navigated four flights of stairs in absolute silence, listening for automated security drones or corporate guard patrols. The maintenance levels remained deserted.

The stairwell ended in a sterile, glass-walled utility lobby.

A row of pristine vending machines hummed against the far wall. Next to them, a brushed-steel public communications terminal glowed with a faint blue standby screen.

Caleb walked across the lobby. He stood naked in front of the glass terminal. He lacked a burner chip, a datapad, and his military ID. He tapped the touchscreen to bring up the manual dial pad.

He punched in Kikaru’s private military frequency. She held the corporate mandate to monitor his metrics. If anyone could authorize an emergency extraction without alerting the military police, it was the heiress.

The line clicked. It rang four times.

"This is a restricted First Division routing number," an automated voice spoke through the speaker. "The asset is currently unavailable. Log your clearance code."

Caleb cut the call. She was probably stuck in the medical bay undergoing the toxicity screens her father’s PR team demanded.

He cleared the screen and typed Hiro’s civilian frequency. The teenager lived on his datapad. He monitored the squad threads obsessively.

The terminal chimed twice.

"The user you are trying to reach is currently in an active training simulation. Please try again."

Caleb tapped the screen dead. He rested his forehead against the cold glass of the terminal. The absurdity of standing bare-skinned in an upper-sector utility lobby, carrying enough undocumented physical power to rip a blast door off its hinges, ground against his exhausted patience.

He punched in the sequence for his mother’s lower-sector apartment.

The screen flashed a bright, hostile yellow.

[OUT-OF-NETWORK CONNECTION. PLEASE INSERT TWO CREDITS TO INITIATE LOWER-SECTOR ROUTING.]

He stared at the coin slot. He didn’t even have pockets.

Caleb backed away from the terminal. He ran his hand through his hair. He had one option left. He had to dial the First Division command desk, punch through the automated routing tree, and get Elara on the line. The commander would scream at him for thirty minutes, but she would bring a transport truck and a blanket.

He reached for the glass screen to enter the military override code. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The terminal rang.

Caleb stopped with his hand hovering an inch over the glass. Public transit terminals did not accept incoming civilian calls. They were outgoing data points only.

The screen turned a vibrant, pulsing purple.

The caller ID block was completely empty.

Caleb stared at the ringing machine. He looked over his shoulder, scanning the empty, sterile lobby. The motion-sensor lights buzzed quietly. He turned back to the terminal and tapped the glowing purple accept button.

The audio connected with a faint hum of static.

"You look cold."

He recognized the intimate, dangerous purr instantly. It was the woman who owned his stream.