Glitch’s eyes opened and her head came up. Her palm slammed against the booth table to catch herself from falling into the wolf’s maw. The other hand fumbled for her gun. She had it drawn, barrel wobbling crazily, before she remembered where she was. Glitch looked around. The entire bar stared at her. A few of the closer patrons watched her with their hands near their waistbands. Glitch looked down at the gun in her hand. Her skin was pale around the knuckles and she couldn’t quite get the shaking under control. Sweat cooled along her back and sent a shiver down her spine.

Time to get moving.

Glitch holstered the beretta, pulled up her hood, and left. Out on the track, she wove her way around clusters of men at a brisk pace until her heart rate settled back down. Several heads turned to track her. Hard to tell who was watching her, and who was just watching their own back.

Sooner or later, she was going to reach the end of the train, and then what? Double back? Whatever else her unintended nap had done, her brain was working in high gear again, and hiding out in the Night Market until sunset looked significantly less optimal now. Its denizens would eventually notice she wasn’t here to buy or sell, and they might start wondering what she was hiding from.

Glitch paused at the next cross-tunnel she came to, where two stretches of track intersected. She shoved both hands in her hoodie pocket as she considered it as an option. While the Night Market was technically neutral territory, the tunnels it crept through were hotly contested gang turf. The gangs labeled the tunnels in sprawling graffiti, like comments on a piece of code whose language she didn’t know. Still, if she could find a way to navigate them safely, they were the simplest route to disappearing back into the city. Her other option was to sit tight until the Night Market ponderously made its way to the next station and hope the corp didn’t hire someone to come looking for her here in the meantime. She didn’t like either option.

A pair of men - lanky enough that they still might be teenagers - straightened from where they’d been leaning against the wall just inside the tunnel. They wore black, synthetic leathers styled after martial arts gis with high collars. Mirrored motorcycle helmets hid their faces. Each helmet had an animal’s features painted on it in thick, white strokes of glow in the dark paint. The one looked like a snarling wolf, the other a roaring lion.

Glitch tried to match their description with piecemeal gossip she’d overheard about gangs through the years. They weren’t Shocks - not enough LEDs - or Crucibles - not enough gold… The animal faces sounded familiar... Warelords? If so, they were one of the larger gangs and dealt in high end machines: cars, motorcycles, and second hand cyberware. She’d never met any herself, but she’d known someone who bought gear off them.

“Hey!” one of them hailed her. “Chica! Wait a second, I want to talk with you.”

Fuck.

Glitch put her head down and kept walking. She heard the crunch of the gravel along the tracks. Drek, they were following her. She ducked around the next subway car and scrambled over the connecting cables, gritting her teeth against the pain in her back. She walked the length of another car before she risked a glance back. The pair were still coming, not closing with her, but keeping her in sight. Their painted faces leered at her in the underground light.

Glitch gave up the pretense and ran. She dove between the next pair of cars, but instead of crossing between them, went up and along the top, muscles protesting. Adrenaline took the edge off the pain. There was no space to stand up here so she hurried along at a shuffling crouch, her rubber soles skidding and catching on the worn metal.

She heard yelling in Korean behind her, but didn’t turn to figure out if it was dismay or the baying of the chase. She wasn’t alone up here. Shopkeepers turned to curse her and a few made half-hearted swings at her as she passed. A security thug two cars ahead raised a rifle covered in glowing LEDs in her direction. Glitch quit the roof in a scramble and landed mostly on her feet. Her back twisted in a useless, stupid attempt to protect itself from the shock of impact, and she overbalanced, fetching up against the side of the car. People around her startled like crows, giving up her location, and the Warelords spotted her again. Gravel flew beneath her shoes. The Night Market conspired against her - people were getting out of the way for the Warelords faster than they were for her. Glitch spotted a connecting maintenance tunnel ahead of her and bolted down it, trusting luck that it wasn’t a dead end.

She gained speed in the open space and then another Warelord with an armored tank on at least one side of his family tree stepped out in front of her. Glitch slammed into him full-force and bounced back. A clunky, outdated cyberarm reached out and caught her before she fell. Her teeth snapped together to bite off a scream and she tasted blood. The Warelord’s faceplate loomed above her with the features of a bear painted across it. Glitch twisted and kicked as hard as she could for center mass. The Warelord grunted and swung her at the tunnel wall with a flick of the pistons in his wrist and elbow. Glitch’s feet left the ground. She heard herself cry out from the pain of impact before she felt it. Her world shrank down to the agony in her back and the grip he had on her arm. For a second time, she lashed out and her foot connected with something soft. The big man released her with a grunt. She started to scramble away again, but the bear-man backhanded her. The chrome hand might as well have been a club - Glitch hit the ground and stayed there.

Two more sets of shoes - thick-soled like the ones skaters wore - skidded to a halt by her head, flinging gravel in her face. The two Warelords who had driven her from the Night Market hauled her up to her knees between them. One of them said something to the other in excited Korean. He seized the back of her hood and a handful of her ponytail and yanked hard enough to make her head snap back and her hood fall loose. Rough hands pushed aside her hair and fingered the jack-in cable at the base of her neck. Glitch’s whole body jerked violently.

“Don’t touch that,” she snarled.

“It’s her,” one of the Warelords said, in English this time.

They patted her down roughly, found the gun, and then threw a bag smelling of iron and oil over her head. Glitch’s hands were bound behind her back with zip ties and they dragged her off down the tunnel between them.