The clinic lights buzzed like dying insects, their sickly yellow glow pooling in the hollows of Lucent's collarbone as he sat rigid on the examination table. The air tasted of iodine and something older, something metallic that clung to the back of the throat—the scent of a place where people came to be put back together, not healed. Not really.

Rena's mechanical fingers moved with methodical precision, the steel joints whirring softly as she cleaned the gash along Lucent's ribs. The antiseptic burned cold where it touched raw flesh, the pain sharp enough to make his breath hitch despite himself. He focused on the water stains spreading across the ceiling tiles instead, their edges blurred like old memories.

"Three years," Rena said, her voice as toneless as the hum of the autoclave in the corner. She dropped a bloodied swab into a steel tray with a wet plink. "You vanish like smoke. Then you drag your sorry ass back here with an outsider in tow." The forceps in her hand glinted as she turned them over, inspecting the edges. "Got a death wish or just nostalgic for my bedside manner?"

Lucent kept his gaze on the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster branched like lightning, like glyphwork gone wrong. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" he asked, ignoring the question.

The silence stretched just long enough to be pointed before Rena reached for the suture thread. The spool rattled as she pulled it free, the nylon gleaming pale as bone under the lights.

"The Red Dogs faction controls the west stacks now," she said, threading the needle with practiced ease. "Glow prices tripled after Myriad raided the synth-labs by the old tunnels. The number of people in Sector 12 started decreasing fast last winter—no one knows why." The needle bit into Lucent's skin, pulling the wound shut stitch by careful stitch. "Your sister's plot in the scrapfields is still standing. No one's touched it."

Lucent's fingers twitched against the table's edge. The metal was cold under his palms, the surface pitted with decades of use. He could feel the old anger rising in his chest, thick and choking as the Junkyard smog.

"Don't," he said, the word rough as rusted metal.

Rena didn't flinch. The needle kept moving, in and out, in and out, the thread pulling tight each time. "Wasn't offering comfort," she said flatly. "Just facts."

Across the room, Kai shifted on his makeshift bed, the thin mattress crackling under his weight. The kid's eyes darted between them, wide and uncertain, his stitched lip pulling tight when he frowned. His fingers worried at the edge of his ruined jacket, the fabric still smeared with Junkyard grime.

Lucent exhaled through his nose. "We're staying the night," he said. "Just until we figure out our next move."

The needle paused mid-stitch. Rena's augmetic eye whirred as it focused on him, the lens clicking softly. "This isn't your house, Argyr."

"Didn't ask."

The forceps clattered against the tray as Rena dropped them. For a moment, Lucent thought she might throw him out then and there—he'd seen her do it before, to people who owed her more than they could pay. But she just wiped her hands on a rag streaked with old blood and turned toward the cabinets lining the far wall.

"A day," she said, her voice like a blade dragged across stone. "Not a second later. And if you bleed on my sheets, I'm taking it out of the kid's hide."

Lucent nodded. "Fair."

The clinic settled around them, the quiet punctuated by the distant groan of the Junkyard outside—metal shifting, pipes rattling, the ever-present hum of the Aethernet's distant pulse bleeding through the cracks in the world.

Kai's voice was barely audible over the noise. "She your friend or something?"

Lucent didn't answer. The needle's bite still throbbed in his side, each pulse a reminder of debts unpaid and promises broken.

Rena had never been his friend.

But in the Junkyard, that didn't mean what it did anywhere else.

Lucent shifted on the makeshift bed, the stitches in his side pulling tight with the movement. The clinic's air hung thick with the scent of antiseptic and old blood, the dim glow of the clinic's lights casting long shadows across Kai's face.

The kid sat hunched on the opposite of the bed, his fingers picking at the frayed edge of his ruined jacket, his gaze darting to the clinic's door every few seconds like he expected Nex's crew to come crashing through at any moment.

Lucent studied him for a long moment before speaking.

"So," he said, his voice rough. "What's your plan?"

Kai blinked, his fingers stilling. "What?"

"Your plan," Lucent repeated, slower this time. "You think you can just walk back into your Spire life after this? Pretend none of this happened?"

Kai's throat worked as he swallowed. "I—I just need to get back to the Aurora District. My father's connections—"

"Won't save you," Lucent cut in. "Not now. Not after what you pulled from that Nimbrix server."

The kid's face paled further, if that was possible. The single light above them flickered, casting distorted shadows across his features.

"You don't understand," Kai said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "My father is—"

"Irrelevant," Lucent snapped. "You think the corporates care who your daddy is? You touched Eclipse. You saw the glyph. That makes you a liability."

Kai's breath hitched, his fingers tightening around the edge of his cot. "Eclipse?" The word came out too loud in the quiet clinic, bouncing off the sterile steel surfaces. His brow furrowed, that familiar Spire-bred arrogance warring with dawning realization. "They just called it experimental glyphware in the files. I thought—"

"You didn't think," Lucent interrupted, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more threat than a shout. "That's the problem." He jabbed a finger at Kai's chest, stopping just short of touching him. "There are things in this world that don't care about your father's connections or your credit balance. Eclipse is one of them."

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Kai's mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled from water, his usual quick retorts dying before they reached his lips. For the first time since they'd met, Lucent saw genuine fear in the kid's eyes—not just the surface-level panic of being in over his head, but the deeper, colder terror of someone realizing they've stepped into a game where the rules were written in blood long before they arrived.

Rena's tools clinked together in their tray as she worked, the sound sharp and deliberate, a reminder they weren't alone. The clinic's lights flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows across Kai's face as the truth settled into his bones.

"What... what exactly did I find?" Kai asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Lucent leaned back, the ghost of his nightmare still clinging to him like smoke. "The kind of thing people disappear over," he said quietly. "The kind of thing that makes corporate's private army burn entire city blocks and call it an electrical fire."

Outside, something metal crashed in the distance, the sound echoing through the Junkyard's skeletal remains. Neither of them flinched. The real danger wasn't out there—it was sitting right here in this room, in the knowledge Kai had unwittingly carried with him from that Nimbrix server.

The words hung in the air between them, heavy and dry.

Kai's fingers clenched into fists, the knuckles whitening. "Then what am I supposed to do?" he demanded, his voice cracking. "I can't just—I don't know how to survive out here!"

Lucent exhaled through his nose, the ache in his ribs flaring. "You don't," he agreed flatly. "But you don't have a choice anymore."

The silence stretched, thick with the weight of what went unspoken.

Kai looked down at his hands, at the dirt crusted under his nails, the fine tremors running through them. The reality of his situation was settling in, slow and inevitable. There was no going back. No pretending.

The corporates didn't forgive.

And they didn't forget.

"So what now?" Kai asked, his voice barely audible.

Lucent leaned back against the clinic's peeling wall, the plaster cool against his skin. "Now," he said, "you learn."

Outside, the Junkyard groaned, its metal bones shifting in the dark. Somewhere in the distance, a mag-lev train screamed on rusted tracks.

Dawn was coming.

Lucent exhaled slowly, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on him like a physical thing. The adrenaline from the fight had long since faded, leaving behind only the dull, persistent ache of his injuries and the bone-deep weariness of too many sleepless nights. The makeshift bed beneath him was thin and lumpy, the mattress barely more than a sheet of worn fabric over metal springs, but at that moment, it felt like the most luxurious bed in Neo-Tokyo.

He glanced at Kai, who still sat rigid on the opposite makeshift bed, his hands clenched into fists in his lap. The kid's face was pale, his eyes darting nervously around the clinic as if expecting an ambush at any second. Lucent almost felt sorry for him—almost. But pity was a luxury neither of them could afford.

"Think about what I said," Lucent muttered, his voice rough with fatigue. "But think quietly. I'm done talking."

He didn't wait for a response. Turning onto his side—careful to avoid putting pressure on his stitched ribs—he closed his eyes and let the darkness pull him under. The clinic's ambient hum, the distant drip of water from a leaking pipe, the faint, Rena's feet as she moved about the room—all of it faded into the background, replaced by the heavy silence of sleep.

But even as he drifted off, a part of him remained alert, coiled tight like a spring. The Junkyard didn't grant peaceful rest, and dawn would come sooner than either of them wanted.

When it did, they'd need to be ready.

Because the corporates weren't the only ones who didn't forgive.