"Fucking hell," Nova spat, eyes widening as the titan filled the doorway.
But Smasher’s optics weren’t tracking him. They were locked onto Ivan, glowing with a cold, predatory hunger.
"So, you're the rat scurrying behind the Cyber-Skeleton," Smasher rumbled, his voice like tectonic plates grinding together. "Look at you—a mid-level suit with delusions of corporate grandeur. You think you’re actually making moves? You're trash, Ivan. And I’m just here to take out the garbage."
Ivan glared back, his hatred bottled behind a thin veneer of terror. He didn’t have the chrome or the fire-power to scrap with Smasher—not yet. Lucy was still mid-code, and the Skeleton was still not in his hands, he thought he could use Lucy as bait for the edgerunners to take him the skeleton, but he didn't expect Smasher to step in. He was backed into a corner, and he could feel the cold hand of death on his shoulder.
"Cyber-Skeleton? What the hell are you talking about?" Ivan stammered, scrambling backward. "Those edgerunners—they’re the ones who boosted it!"
Smasher didn’t even glance at him. He pivoted, his gaze sweeping over Dorio, Maine, David, and Nova. He’d already written them off as dead weight.
"Doesn't matter," Smasher growled. "Order is to take the cyber-skeleton and dispose the trash"
He opened fire. The room erupted into a symphony of carnage; the crew scrambled, dancing through a hail of lead. Rina, hardwired to Ivan’s commands, launched herself at the beast, a desperate attempt to create a window for her master to vanish. She was fast, moving with a lethal, spider-like grace, trying to bind the titan in a web of cyber-cords. Smasher didn’t even bother to dodge. He simply tanked the hits, snatched one of her monowires out of the air, and tossed her aside like a discarded toy.
Smasher’s sensors tracked Ivan retreating behind the desks. He leveled his heavy cannons, but his targeting reticle crossed the cryo-chamber where Lucy sat, threaded into a million lines of code and coolant. David didn’t need a degree in netrunning to see the horror unfolding; if those rounds hit that chamber, Lucy’s brain would be scrambled chrome.
"LUCY!" David roared, triggering his Sandevistan. The world fractured into a blur. He slammed into Smasher, shoving the cannon barrel aside as the blast ripped through the air. He lunged for a grapple, slamming his pistol against the monster's faceplate and pulling the trigger point-blank.
Clang.
The bullet flattened against the chrome like wet tin. Smasher didn’t even blink. He swatted David aside with terrifying force, slamming a fist into his gut before hoisting him up by the throat.
"Martinez," Smasher rasped, staring into David’s fading vision. "The corpos look at you and see a 'specimen.' I look at you and see a pile of disposable meat."
David’s lights were starting to flicker, but he was saved by the thundering impact of Maine and Dorio. They tackled the giant with everything they had. They barely budged the chrome-god, but it was enough to make his grip falter. Nova, fueled by his Sandevistan, blurred in and dragged David out of the kill zone, hauling him behind the cover of the machinery.
"David, look at me!" Nova barked, his voice sharp with adrenaline. "I need you to buy me time! I can’t rip her out of that chamber without frying her, and I need a buffer. Draw the heat, take the fight to the outside. Coordinate with Maine and Dorio—link up with Rebecca and Pilar if you can. Do not go solo. If you play hero alone, you’re just a corpse waiting to happen. Can you do it?"
David’s face was a mask of pure, boiling rage, but he nodded. He knew the priority.
"Yeah," David spat, his voice hollow. "I’m on it."
Nova didn't wait. He threw himself at the terminals, doing what he did best. His scanner hummed, his Sandevistan flickering to push his processing speed to the absolute limit. He was tearing through the code, a surgeon working on a patient in a war zone, but didn't notice the shadow emerging from behind, pointing a gun waiting for the perfect moment.
Nova didn't cut the Sandevistan for a single millisecond. It was surreal—an impossible burn rate of adrenaline and neural load that would’ve flatlined a lesser runner. Ivan’s desperation curdled into pure fear. He realized Nova wasn't going to blink. He couldn't wait for a clean shot.
Ivan pulled the trigger. The first round slammed into Nova’s back, tearing through synthetic mesh and muscle. Nova didn't flinch. He was locked into the architecture of the code, a man possessed. He felt the fire in his spine, the bones grinding under the kinetic impact, but he shoved the pain into a dark corner of his mind. He was a human clock, counting down the seconds they didn't have. He’d take the lead; he’d take the trauma, as long as the vitals held.
Ivan’s jaw hit the floor. He kept squeezing the trigger, desperation turning his aim into a spray-and-pray mess. He couldn't hit the head, and Nova—despite being riddled with holes, his back a ruin of blood and shredded bones, his hands beginning to numb from the massive blood loss—didn't stop. His fingers flew across the terminal with a rhythmic, dying grace.
Then, the final sequence closed. Enter.
He yanked the override. Lucy’s eyes snapped open inside the cryo-chamber. She clawed her way out, gasping, her senses flooding back as she took in the carnage of the room. At her feet, Nova slumped against the console, pale as a ghost, while Ivan stood over him, trembling, pistol leveled at the runner's skull.
"You goddamn son of a bitch!" Ivan shrieked, the reality of his failure breaking him.
He pulled the trigger. Click.
Empty. The slide locked back.
Nova looked up, a bloody, jagged grin spreading across his face. He let out a primal battle cry, forcing every last drop of his shattered adrenal system to dump into his muscles.
"OOOOOOOOOOHHHHH"
He lunged. In a blur of movement, he stripped the pistol from Ivan’s hand and turned the man into a punching bag. Gut. Face. Ribs. Liver. Jaw. The sound was sickening—the wet crack of bone, the dull thud of fist on meat. Nova didn't stop until he channeled all his exhaustion into one final, explosive strike that sent Ivan flying across the room, crumpling against the concrete wall.
Nova, gasping for air, lunged for a discarded weapon on the floor to finish the job. But before his fingers could brush the cold steel, a cyberwire whipped out of the gloom, wrapping around his wrist like a constrictor snake.
He was yanked back, followed by a boot to the face that sent him reeling. Rina stood between him and Ivan. Her eyes were blank, her body a weapon of pure, uncompromising loyalty. Nova staggered up, his legs shaking, assuming a defensive stance. He knew he was running on fumes—he couldn't win this.
Rina moved. It was pure hand-to-hand violence. She threw a right hook that whistled past his ear, followed by a gravity-defying kick that Nova barely ducked. She pivoted toward a weapon on the floor, but Nova didn't give her the room. He slammed a heavy, salvaged computer tower into her spine and drop-kicked the pistol across the room. He followed up with a desperate, crushing blow to her temple, hoping to put her down for the count.
Rina hit the deck, but even down, she was lethal. She scissored her legs around Nova’s waist, flipping him over and pinning him to the floor. She drew a combat knife, the blade glinting in the neon flicker. She raised it for the kill, her movements cold and mechanical.
Suddenly, her body seized. A massive, high-voltage electric surge crackled through her frame, locking her limbs in place.
Nova gasped, rolling away, and looked up. Lucy stood by the terminal, her eyes glowing with the fierce, flickering light of pure, unadulterated code. She had overridden the system. She had saved him.
"What the hell is going on? Where are we?" Lucy stammered, her voice trembling as she scanned the wreckage. The room was a graveyard of broken tech and blood.
"Long story short," Nova panted, leaning heavily against a jagged terminal, "you got boosted, turned into a human processor for Arasaka’s Cyber-Skeleton. And yeah—we’ve got a massive pile of shit still waiting for us."
Before she could process it, the air was torn apart. A silhouette smashed through the reinforced outer wall, tumbling across the room in a spray of sparks and debris. David skidded to a halt, armored plating cracked, leaking coolant and blood.
"Agh! Lucy? Man, talk about lucky—you’re in one piece," David wheezed.
Nova narrowed his eyes at the word 'lucky,' a dry, ragged laugh escaping his lips. "Luck? Fuck you, choom."
David smirked through the pain, then softened. "I'm kidding. Seriously, Nova… thanks. But we’ve got a massive problem. Stopping Smasher? It’s not happening. He already took the Skeleton."
"Shit," Nova cursed, the weight of the loss hitting him like a physical blow. "Is everyone still kicking?"
"Barely," David replied, his voice heavy. "NCPD is already swarming outside. Maine and Dorio are shredded—I don't know why Smasher even let us walk. He just… stopped."
Nova’s mind raced. He connected the dots. Smasher wasn't hunting them; he was hunting the prototype. It was Arasaka’s crown jewel—the biggest leverage they had. Making a scene, turning a messy extraction into a full-scale corporate massacre? That wasn't in the profit margins. Arasaka wanted the tech back, not a PR nightmare.
"And Kiwi?" Nova asked, though he already knew the gut-punch answer.
David’s face hardened. "No where to be seen."
Nova pushed himself off the wall, she has betrayed them. "We need to be careful. Finish off Ivan. But… leave Rina. Please.Just tie her down, I'll deal with her later."
Nova limped toward the exit to regroup with the crew, leaving David and Lucy to approach the broken man huddled against the wall. Ivan was a wreck, barely clinging to his final gasps of consciousness.
Lucy stood over him, her gaze cold enough to freeze chrome. "You’re nothing but scum, Ivan."
"You deserve a hell of a lot worse than dying," David added, his voice devoid of any warmth. He leveled his piece at Ivan’s head. "But in this city? Sometimes it’s just better if you stop existing."
Without a flicker of hesitation, David pulled the trigger. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Four rounds turned Ivan’s face into a hollow memory. He made sure. He made it permanent.