The plan was to circle the block, wait for the tower’s pulse to tick over, then slip in through the ventilation shaft. Simon stuck to the plan—until the message hit his HUD like a migraine.

  Jensen-23’s biometric spiked, a sharp blue needle climbing into the danger zone. Simon stopped under a rusted arcade sign, watching the overlay stutter, resolve, then spit out a warning:

  Subject: Jensen-23. Status: Compromised. ERROR: Behavior loop breach. ACTION: Immediate intervention recommended.

  He grimaced. If Chop’s people caught a breach this close to the tower, they’d wipe the whole waste crew—no questions, no aftermath, just a clean slate of blue goo and sterilized air. He considered letting it burn. But the flicker he’d seen in Jensen’s eyes—real pain, not corporate simulation—kept needling at him.

  Simon doubled back, sticking to the shadows, keeping the air recycler at his back. The alley was colder now. The rain had slackened to a greasy mist, but the puddles still stank of sweet rot and heavy metal.

  Jensen was on his knees, hands clutching the sides of his head. The two drones stood over him, posture all wrong: instead of the bored efficiency of trash detail, they looked ready to rip him limb from limb.

  Simon watched the standoff play out in real time. Jensen’s voice came out in overlapping layers, corporate monotone fighting with something ragged and desperate.

  “—division protocol violation—requesting—oh god, make it stop—comply, comply—my daughter needs me, please—” The last words came out raw, Jensen’s voice stripped bare, no filters, just the naked animal panic of a man who’d lost everything and still clung to the ghost of a reason.

  The first drone leaned in, face blank, hands moving to the small of its back. Simon’s HUD caught the faintest glint of metal—there, under the jumpsuit, a concealed spike baton, city-standard.

  The other drone’s eyes went wide, as if they’d never seen a man break down before. But Simon knew the look—NeuroComp loop cycling, no directive for what came next.

  He slipped closer, silent. The drone with the baton began to draw, slowly and deliberately. That was the tell—security override. Any slower and the man would’ve collapsed; any faster and the drone would’ve finished the job.

  Simon’s HUD flashed a choice window, floating just inside his peripheral vision:

  INTERVENE: Physical / Digital

  Below each, a countdown bar, ticking away in sickly red.

  He flexed his left hand, felt the microtendons whine. Time to pick a side.

  Physical meant violence. Simon hated violence, but he was very, very good at it.

  He stepped into the light, boots splashing. The drones clocked him instantly: threat vector reassessed. The baton drone raised the weapon, slow but implacable.

  “Hold,” Simon said, hands up. “He’s not a threat. Just a bad firmware update.”

  The drone’s eyes didn’t even flicker. It advanced, baton raised, ready to shatter bone and end the error.

  Simon let it get close. The trick was to time it—not too soon, or the override would trigger a second wave of muscle memory, not too late, or you’d take the hit in the meat. He waited for the drone’s arm to pass the halfway mark, then stepped inside, twisted his body, and locked its elbow against his ribcage.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  The baton whiffed the air where his skull had been. Simon rammed his forearm into the drone’s throat. The drone’s system registered the threat, panicked, and tried to reroute blood flow. In that split second, it dropped the baton. Simon caught it, reversed grip, and brought it down against the drone’s temple—just hard enough to scramble the interface, not kill the host.

  The drone dropped, twitching.

  The second drone hesitated, running the calculus. Simon saw the raw code behind its eyes: escalate or retreat —neither option fit the scenario. He took the decision away, feinted left, then swept the drone’s legs. It went down hard, skull cracking against the concrete. Simon kicked the base of its skull, disabling the neural collar.

  Both drones out, minimum fuss. Simon’s pulse barely rose.

  He turned to Jensen, who was still on his knees, hands shaking.

  “You okay?” Simon asked.

  Jensen blinked, uncomprehending. Then the words made sense, and the man tried to stand. His legs failed him.

  “I—” Jensen stammered. “What did you do?”

  Simon crouched. “Gave you about sixty seconds before the watchdogs send a kill order down the line. You want to die on your knees, or you want to go out fighting?”

  Jensen’s face twisted, the corporate mask shattered. “They’ll come for you, too. You know that?”

  Simon nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Jensen’s hands flexed, trying to remember how to function as hands. “I remember now,” he whispered. “I used to have—” He choked on the word. “A life.”

  Simon wanted to say something —anything —but there was no script for this. He defaulted to business.

  “I need to get inside the tower,” he said. “You can help, or you can run. Either way, those things—” He gestured at the downed drones, already convulsing as the failsafe tried to reboot their systems. “—are about to get company.”

  Jensen’s eyes snapped into focus. For a second, he looked almost lucid. “Service shaft. Use my badge. It’s not on the main grid yet—I cloned it yesterday, in case I needed to—” His voice broke, but he pressed on. “There’s a bypass under the drainage pipe. Manual lock. If you can cut the feed, you can walk right in.”

  Simon reached into Jensen’s jumpsuit, carefully, and retrieved a thin polycarbonate ID card. It had the man’s real name on it, and a photo from at least three years and a thousand heartbreaks ago.

  He tucked the card away. “Thanks.”

  Jensen got to his feet. “When you find her—the woman you’re looking for—what then?”

  Simon started to answer, but the words caught in his throat. He didn’t know. He’d never let himself think that far.

  Jensen nodded, as if he understood. “Tell her I tried,” he said, and turned away, melting into the dark like a man with nothing left to lose.

  Simon straightened. The drones on the ground began to twitch, one hand reaching for the baton, the other clawing at the gutter. In less than a minute, they’d be up again, maybe a little slower, but twice as violent.

  He walked out, past the twitching bodies, never looking back.