The shipping yard sprawled beneath me like a game of Block Builders played by a giant toddler—containers stacked crooked and chaotic. I crouched on a gantry slick with fog, my breath misting in the cold. Another night, another Pandora Corp operation to wreck. This one was a simple cargo hub—plant the scrambler, get out, add it to the list. Easy.

  Handy’s voice crackled in my ear. “Two guards at your eleven o’clock. Pattern’s predictable—they’ll pass in forty-three seconds.”

  “Got it.”

  The yard smelled like rust and diesel. Somewhere below, a foghorn groaned.

  Twenty seconds.

  I shifted my weight, ready to drop and plant the device on the main terminal junction. Easy. In and out. Add another night to my tally of not getting caught.

  Ten seconds.

  A floodlight punched through the dark, so bright and sudden it felt like a physical blow. I flinched, spots bursting behind my eyelids.

  I froze, pupils contracting so fast my eyes watered. White light everywhere, searing through the fog, turning the world into one big overexposed photograph.

  “Well, well.”

  The voice boomed across the yard, amplified and smug. I felt the blood drain from my face, a sudden, icy void where my stomach should be.

  “Getting predictable, wolfe. You are making me bored.”

  Brick Crusher? No. Couldn’t be. Last time I saw him, the tunnel turned him into a pancake. How in the hell did he survive?

  I squinted into the light. A figure stood on the far catwalk, massive and backlit. Same build. Same cocky stance. But something was different—his outline too sharp, too angular, like someone had drawn him in hard edges instead of curves.

  “Surprise,” he said through his grin. “Miss me?”

  My legs were already moving, scrambling along the gantry rail, putting distance between me and the spotlight. The scrambler slipped from my fingers, hit the metal walkway with a pathetic tink.

  Gone. Three days of recon, wasted.

  “Running already?” Crusher’s voice followed me, speakers mounted somewhere in the container rows. “We haven’t even played yet.”

  Something whistled through the air. I ducked, and a net exploded against the gantry behind me—crackling, sparking, edges smoking where the metal conducted the charge. Shock net.

  “Handy, I need an exit. Now.”

  “Working on it. East side has a gap in the—”

  Another whistle. I dove, rolled, came up near a support beam. This time it wasn’t a net. White foam erupted from a canister, spreading across the walkway in seconds, hardening so fast I could hear it crack. The temperature dropped ten degrees in a heartbeat. My next step would’ve landed me ankle-deep in cryogenic sludge.

  Spinning around, I bolted in the opposite direction.

  “East route’s compromised,” Handy said, too calm. “Recommending south, but you’ve got incoming.”

  “Incoming what?”

  Darts. A sudden spray of them, thudding into the gantry and sparking on the steel.

  I yanked the dart from my sleeve. A blinking red light. Tracker. Seriously? This guy’s playbook had one page, and it was getting coffee-stained.

  I threw it over the edge, heard it ping off a container below.

  “You’re slowing down, puppy!” Crusher called. “My toys work better when you hold still.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I wasn’t slowing down—he was speeding up. Another net. Another canister. This time a tripwire laser grid I barely spotted in time, my feet skidding to a halt inches from the beams.

  He was herding me. Every attack pushing me toward the center of the yard, where the containers formed a dead-end maze and the exits shrank to nothing.

  I needed chaos. Something messy and loud and completely off-script.

  My eyes landed on the magnetic crane, idle in the fog. Control box twenty feet away.

  “Handy, can you hot-wire a crane from here?”

  “Technically yes, but—”

  “Do it.”

  I sprinted for the ladder, half-sliding down the rungs. Another dart whizzed past my ear. My feet hit the ground, and I broke for the crane’s base. Behind me, Crusher’s laughter bounced off the steel walls.

  “Cute plan. Won’t work.”

  Oh, yeah? Watch me, dumbass.

  The crane groaned to life. Its electromagnet swung wide, smashing into a stack of containers with a sound like thunder rolling sideways. Metal screamed, a sound like a capsizing ship, all groaning metal and snapping cables.

  I grabbed onto the cable and let the momentum carry me up, swinging over the tripwire grid, over the shock nets, past the smoking cryo-foam. For one perfect second I was weightless, suspended above the wreckage, the wind tearing at my jacket.

  Crusher fired again. I twisted mid-swing, felt the dart graze my ribs.

  Then I let go.

  Landed hard on a container roof, rolled, kept moving. The crane released its load with a deafening crash, burying half the yard in a cascading pile of cargo. Dust and fog mixed into a soup I could barely see through.

  “South exit, fifty meters!” Handy barked.

  I ran, legs pumping on adrenaline and terror alone. Behind me, Crusher’s voice cut through the chaos, no longer amused.

  “Run, fido! Run! You will not get far from me! I’m Crusher!”

  I hit the fence line, climbed, dropped onto the far side. My jacket caught on the barbed wire, tore free with a sound like ripping paper.

  The spotlight lost me. The yard fell quiet.

  I didn’t stop running until three blocks away, collapsing behind a dumpster in an alley that smelled like rotting produce and regret. My ribs throbbed where the dart grazed me. My hands shook.

  “You okay?” Handy asked.

  “He’s alive.”

  “I noticed.”

  “How is he alive?”

  “Unclear. But my scans caught an unusual energy signature from his outline. A lot of metal and power running through him that wasn’t there before. It is possible Pandora found him and upgraded him after his recovery.”

  I pressed my forehead against the cold brick, replaying the last five minutes. The shock net. The cryo-foam. The laser grid. He hadn’t just been trying to catch me; he’d been herding me. He knew I’d go left, so he blocked it. He knew I’d climb, so he had the high ground. He was learning. And I was just… lucky. Tonight, it was a crane. What about next time? My bag of tricks wasn’t that deep.

  Eventually, he wasn’t just going to catch me. He was going to gift-wrap me for Pandora.

  I made myself take a step. Another. Walked past him without looking down. If I looked down I’d break completely, shatter into pieces too small to put together again.

  The hallway stretched ahead. Empty. Clinical. Like nothing had happened thirty feet away.

  My chest ached. Not from the hits—from something deeper. Something that wouldn’t heal.

  I’d won the fight.

  And lost everything else.

  Handy’s voice, blessedly clear now, cut through the alarm’s relentless shriek. “Nikki. Reinforcements incoming. Fast. You need to vacate the area. Now.”

  “Where,” I managed. My voice was hoarse, a thin, pathetic sound compared to the wolf’s recent roar.

  “The main assembly corridor. Leads to the North Annex. It’s an old robotics production line. Should be decommissioned, probably dusty, but it might give you cover.”

  I ran, but it felt like running through cement. My legs were heavy, disconnected. Every echo of my feet on the polished concrete sounded like a gunshot. The red emergency lights cast the hallway in a nauseating, pulsing glow, matching the frantic rhythm of my heart.

  I burst through a set of double doors labeled “North Annex - Authorized Personnel Only.”

  The air in the new space was still, thick with the smell of mold and old oil. It was vast, colder than the main factory floor, and utterly silent save for the distant, throbbing alarm. Overhead, a forest of metal limbs hung from tracks—dozens of incomplete robotic bodies, frozen mid-assembly. They looked like grotesque metallic ghosts, silent sentinels guarding a forgotten graveyard of automation.

  I dove behind a stack of rusted chassis, sinking down until the cold metal pressed against my feverish skin.

  “You okay, Nikki?” Handy’s tone was hesitant, laced with a pity I couldn’t stand.

  “Just quiet,” I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest. The shadows here were absolute, deep, and final. Safer than the bright, bloody red of the main floor. The alarms still wailed in the distance, a siren call to the people who would find the body I’d left behind.

  I closed my eyes, pressing my face into my purple jacket sleeve, trying to block out the image of Crusher’s eyes.

  The robotics graveyard was cold. Quiet. And for the first time since the blast door sealed, I was truly alone with the monster I’d become. I stayed there, curled tight against the cold metal, waiting for the first sound of incoming sirens and the inevitable tread of boots on the floor. I’d only earned a few minutes’ respite. But I’d take it.