Rain stood closest, tablet tucked under his arm, trying to look casual and failing. Kivi's hair had settled into worried yellow-green. Bodhi leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching her with that too-knowing expression.
"So," Rain said carefully. "How'd it go?"
Beatrix tried to answer. Opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
Her legs gave out.
Rain caught her. Kivi was there half a second later. They lowered her to the floor carefully, like she was something fragile that might break further.
"I forced the payment," she said. Voice distant. Someone else's voice. "Called the medical center. Authorized it. He'll show up tomorrow and they'll treat him and he won't know it's my money until it's already in his system."
Silence.
"B…" Rain started.
"He'll hate me for it. He should. I just..." She stared at her hands. Still shaking. "I couldn't let him die to save my soul. That's not… I can't…"
The words tangled. Wouldn't come out right.
"Okay." Rain sat down next to her. Just sat. "Okay. You did what you had to do."
Beatrix looked at him. Kivi crouched on her other side, pulled out her diagnostic tablet. "Your core temperature is spiking again. Stress response triggering Rage Mode crash symptoms. You need…"
"I don't need rest," Beatrix said. "I need to be ready for the fight."
Bodhi pushed off the wall. Sat down across from her, ignoring the medical floor's dust. "Why?"
"What?"
"Your brother refused the money. You are sure you have the will to fight?" His eyes were steady. Hard. "The will to win?"
"Yes..." She tried to find the words. "Because I don't know how to stop."
"The contract," Kivi said quietly. "If you withdraw…"
"The Stygia Contract kills me. Yeah." Beatrix laughed without humor. "Show up and fight or die."
"So you're fighting because you have to," Rain said.
"No." She shook her head. "I'm fighting because... because I want to."
The truth of it sat heavy.
"I… Dante was my excuse." She looked at her team. "But I liked it. The cages, the arena. Mom always knew it."
The admission tasted like blood. "I’m… I feel bad about it. But it’s true. I liked it. No one could touch me. No one could make me small."
Bodhi nodded slowly. "There it is."
"So what now?" Rain asked.
"I keep fighting because stopping means dying. But also..." She met his eyes. "For Kivi. For Dante. And for me. That matters."
Rain's workspace was organized chaos. Three screens showing different code streams, hardware components scattered across the workbench, half-empty stimulant drinks forming a graveyard near his elbow.
Beatrix sat on a stool, arm extended, while Kivi ran diagnostics through the port at her wrist.
"Core temperature is still elevated," Kivi said. "Rage Mode recovery at ninety-one percent but the baseline stress load is preventing full resolution."
"Can you work with it?" Beatrix asked Rain.
"Can I? Yes. Should I? Different question." He didn't look up from his code. "I can... look, what I'm building is..." He stopped, frustrated. "It's a pressure valve. For your nervous system. Banks the stress hormones so they don't hit all at once."
"Perfect…"
"I'm not finished." He finally looked at her. "It doesn't make the stress go away. It just... delays it. Banks it. All that accumulated damage, all the psychological load, all the physical strain, it all comes due eventually."
"Eventually works."
"B, we're talking about your body cannibalizing itself to maintain function. This isn't enhancement. It's controlled breakdown."
"Then control it well."
He stared at her for a long moment. "This is exactly what I didn't want to build. Ever. For anyone."
"But you'll build it."
Beatrix looked at Rain. "I'm going to fight either way. With your app, I have a chance. Without it, I'm walking in damaged. Choose."
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Rain exhaled slowly. "Fine. But we do this my way. Safety limiters. Automatic shutdown protocols. Monitoring systems so Kivi and I can track what it's doing to you in real-time."
"Agreed."
"And after this fight, you take three days minimum recovery. No arguments."
"If I can."
"Not 'if you can.' That's the deal. I build this thing, you accept the recovery time." His jaw set. "I won't build you suicide machines. This keeps you functional for one fight. After that, we reassess."
Beatrix nodded. "Deal."
Rain worked. Kivi fed him data. Beatrix sat still, watching code she didn't understand flow across screens.
Hours passed. Rain's movements got sharper, more precise. Kivi's hair cycled through focused blue to concerned yellow and back again.
"This is delicate work," Rain muttered. "I'm basically building a pressure valve for your nervous system. Too much control and your body doesn't respond to actual danger. Too little and the crash hits mid-fight."
"You'll get it right."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're Rain. You don't do things halfway."
He glanced at her. Something in his expression softened. Then he went back to work.
Virgil reported.
"How do you feel?" Kivi asked.
Beatrix stood. The shaking in her legs was gone. The constant low-level nausea from Rage Mode crash had faded.
"Functional," she said.
"That's not the same as good," Rain said quietly.
"No. But it's enough."
"B." Rain caught her arm as she moved to leave. "This app, it's not magic. It's borrowed time. Everything it's suppressing, every stress response it's managing, that all builds up. The longer you use it, the worse the eventual crash."
"I understand."
"Do you? Because what I'm telling you is this thing could be dangerous. Not just to your body. To your judgment. You won't feel the damage you're taking. Won't know when to stop."
"I'll be careful."
Rain uploaded the app without meeting her eyes.
"This is the last time I build something like this. After this fight, we talk about limits. Real ones. Or I'm done."
She wanted to argue. Saw in his face that he meant it. "Okay," she said.
But they both knew she was lying.
Virgil reported.
"What does that mean?"
[BRACKET ANNOUNCEMENT CONFIRMED | 32 FIGHTERS REMAINING]
[MALATESTA - MINOS CLAN VS BEATRIX ALIGER - UNALIGNED]
[COUNTDOWN: 11:59 HOURS]
"I don't like this." Kivi's hair had been stuck on anxious yellow for the past ten minutes.
Bodhi already had combat footage running. Malatesta, impossibly tall, chrome humanware plating covering his arms and torso in the same metallic aesthetic as Chromed Teeth and his gang. The ones who'd cornered Kivi in Umbra-3's lower markets. The ones who'd wanted to drag her back to Minos "workshops."
Beatrix felt her skin crawl watching him move. Not just because he was big. Because something about his movements felt... synchronized. Like he was dancing to music only he could hear.
"Pressure fighter," Bodhi said, freezing the footage. "Works the body. Breaks you down. Wants you to quit before he has to finish you."
"Another Rauk," Beatrix muttered.
"No." Bodhi's expression was grave. "Listen, kid. When you fight a Minos enforcer, you're not fighting one person. You're fighting the entire clan."
Rain looked up from his tablet. "What does that mean?"
"Love." Kivi's voice was quiet. Flat. "He means Love."
Everyone turned to look at her. Her hair had shifted to dark blue, grief or fear, Beatrix couldn't tell.
"Every Minos operative is a Love junkie," Bodhi confirmed. "Some more integrated than others, but they all run it."
"What's Love?" Beatrix asked.
Bodhi pulled up medical scans, neural imaging showing interconnected pathways lighting up across multiple subjects simultaneously, all synchronized to a central node that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Love is a drugware," he said. "Distributed by Minos Clan. It hijacks your baseline humanware, the tech everyone has in their bodies, and generates neurochemical cascades that feel like being loved. Being in love. Euphoria, connection, purpose, belonging. All at once."
"Sounds nice," Rain said carefully.
"It is nice. That's the problem." Bodhi zoomed in on the neural scans. "It's instantly addictive. One dose and your brain wants more. Needs more. Users describe it as the best feeling they've ever experienced."
"What are these? Why so… uniform?" Beatrix asked, seeing the synchronized patterns.
"Love doesn't just make you feel loved. It connects you to everyone else running Love. Shared information network. Collective consciousness. At the center is Ariadne, the pop singer. She's the nexus. The queen bee."
"The Ariadne?" Rain's eyes widened. "The one who does those concerts in Elysium sector? She's got like fifty million followers, "
"She's got fifty million ADDICTS," Bodhi corrected. "Most don't know it. They think they're just fans. Loyal supporters. But they're all running Love at some level. All connected to her network. All sharing data."
He pulled up footage of Malatesta fighting.
"When Malatesta steps into that arena, he's not just pulling from his own combat experience. He's pulling from every Minos fighter who's ever used Love. Every technique they've learned, every pattern they've recognized, every counter they've developed, he can access it all."
Beatrix watched the footage. Saw Malatesta respond to a feint he shouldn't have been able to predict. Counter a combination he'd never seen before. Move like he'd fought this specific opponent a hundred times when it was clearly their first encounter.
"How many people are in the network?" she asked.
"Active combat operatives? Maybe ten thousand. Total Love users across all sectors?" Bodhi shrugged. "Millions. Most are low-level addicts. Casual users who think it's just good tech. Don't even realize they're part of something bigger."
"And if he infects me?"
Bodhi's expression hardened. "Then you become part of it too."
Kivi stood abruptly. Walked to the window, stared out at Limbo's sands.
"Kivi…" Beatrix started.
"My sister runs Love." Kivi's voice was still flat. Emotionless. "She's part of the network. Has been for three years."
Silence.
"You said she was dead," Beatrix said carefully.
"She is. The person she was is dead." Kivi turned, and her hair was cycling rapidly through colors, blue, red, yellow, purple, back to blue. "Mara was brilliant. Best hardware engineer I've ever seen. Minos recruited her, told her she could change the world, build tech that connected people."
Kivi's jaw tightened.
"She started using Love to 'understand the network better.' Just small doses. Research purposes. Six months later she was fully integrated. She doesn't recognize me anymore. Doesn't recognize our parents. She only recognizes other Love users. Only cares about serving Ariadne. Serving Minos."
"I'm sorry," Beatrix said.
"Don't be sorry. Be careful." Kivi looked at her directly. "Because that's what they'll use against you. Malatesta knows about Mara. The network knows everything about my family. And they'll use it. They'll tell you things, about my sister, about my parents, about things I've never told anyone, because someone in the network knows it. And if you hesitate for even two seconds..."
She didn't finish.