Tye slammed into the far wall, ribs buckling under the pressure. His breath left him in a single, ragged gasp as he crumpled to the floor. The apartment twisted in and out of focus—Cuh groaning somewhere to the left, half-buried in a couch that looked like it owed rent. Wavi staggered against the bedroom door, arms up, still upright. And in the threshold where the front door used to be stood the thing that did this—a Labz retrieval agent in a full Platinum Falconer Suit, platinum wings extended, humming with restrained violence.

The glove in Tye’s pocket twitched.

He reached for his sneakers, the only pair he owned worth anything—the scuffed-up HopOnes, Bronze-tier, scavenged last winter in a junk market. The bunny stitched into the side grinned up at him, threadbare and smug, like it knew something he didn’t.

Tye huffed a laugh. “Guess I get what I asked for.”

He pulled them on.

The eel-fist glove blinked once, then came to life.

CALORIES: 4,000 / 4,000
UPDATE: FULLY CHARGED

Outside, the agent's voice cracked over the helmet comms, distorted and cold.

“Target confirmed. Proceeding with retrieval. Fall back to perimeter.”

Then—the wings snapped open.

They didn’t flutter like a bird’s. They didn’t glide. They launched, slicing through the air like a scalpel through skin. Tye barely had time to flinch before the Falconer drop-kicked him clean through the drywall.

The room vanished in an explosion of plaster and pain. Tye hit the floor hard, slid halfway to the kitchen, and came to a gasping stop at Wavi’s feet.

Wavi looked down, teeth clenched. “Oh, you pissed now.”

His Bronze-tier Jackrabbit Joggers coiled with tension around his calves, muscles thrumming like live wires.

He launched.

Wavi’s foot caught the Falconer square in the visor. The helmet cracked—not much, but enough to stagger the agent mid-flight. The wings flared to balance as the suit twisted midair, stabilizing like some bird of prey re-aiming for a kill.

“You little—” The agent’s voice choked through static. “All units, engage. Hostiles are—”

Wavi dropped low, landing in a crouch, breath smooth. He yanked Tye up by the arm.

“You good?”

Tye spat blood, coughing out a laugh. “Peachy. Think he’ll give us a Yelp review?”

The Falconer rose slowly, voice booming through the external speaker. “ATTACKING A LABZ OFFICIAL IS A CAPITAL OFFENSE. SURRENDER THE PROTOTYPE. NOW.”

Tye raised the glove, holding it up like some cursed trophy. Sparks jumped between the fingers.

“Funny story—I don’t even know how I got this thing. You take it, we walk?”

The agent didn’t respond right away. His visor tilted as if receiving orders. Somewhere, in a Neo-Pelt boardroom buried under glass and steel, a man in a shark-skin suit leaned toward a monitor, watching every pixel of the encounter.

“Bring him to me,” the executive said, voice cool. “Alive.”

The Falconer’s visor darkened.

“Of course,” he replied.

The glove buzzed again—harder this time. Not sentient, but something in it knew the moment was wrong.

“Yeah, no,” Tye muttered, eyes narrowing. “We can’t trust that.”

Tires screamed outside.

A black SUV skidded to a stop in the alley, headlights cutting across the chaos. Cuh was behind the wheel, one arm out the window, gills on his shark-skin vest flaring like a warning.

“GET IN, DUMBASSES!”

They ran.

Tye dove in through the rear door, Wavi right behind him, slamming it shut just as the Falconer’s wings cleaved the air behind them.

Cuh didn’t wait. The truck roared forward, tires peeling, engine howling as they barreled down the neon-lit alleys of the Bronze Zone.

Behind them, the Falconer pursued—a blur of speed, metal, and unrelenting focus.

“He’s calling in backup,” Wavi warned from the back, eyes scanning the sky.

The glove buzzed again in Tye’s lap. New data scrolled across the screen:

CALORIES REQUIRED: 6,000 / 4,000
SUGGESTION: DISCHARGE OR DIE

Tye stared at it, deadpan. “Oh, fuck you, too.”

The Falconer dove.

Cuh swore, wrenching the wheel hard. The SUV skidded into a sharp ninety-degree turn, clipping a row of dumpsters before disappearing down a narrow access road that led beneath the city.

The sewer tunnels yawned open.

As the darkness swallowed them whole, Tye turned back to get one last look—and saw three more Falconers streaking across the sky like precision-guided meteors.

Not chasing them.

Herding.