The acid rain had thinned to a corrosive mist, transforming West Lock Docks into a smeared watercolor of neon and shadow. Ryn Varrik flexed his fingers—the right one still stiff from where a reactor conduit had burned him last week—and watched his breath fog against the fractured visor of his scavenger's mask. The filtration counter in his ocular implant ticked down relentlessly: 11% remaining. Another hour in this toxic soup and his lungs would start dissolving.
A proximity alert flashed across his vision as Old Maro materialized from between two corroded cargo containers, the junk dealer's stolen Conclave ocular implant whirring as it adjusted to the gloom.
"Still sucking down poison like a gutter rat, Varrik?" Maro rasped, his voice filtered through a vox-unit grafted to his throat. The device made every word sound like grinding glass.
Ryn tapped his mask. "Better than smelling like infected graft sites and synth-gin." He activated his wrist display, the holographic interface sputtering as acid interference distorted the projection. "Where's the package?"
Maro produced a sleek med-pod from within his tattered coat. The device was clearly dynastic tech—its surface etched with flowing Veydran script that rearranged itself as Ryn watched. "Lifted this from a Conclave med-evac skiff. Had to grease three dock sergeants to get it here."
Ryn transferred the payment with a finger gesture, watching the crimson numbers flash across his neural interface. The transaction left his account nearly empty. "You're robbing me blind, old man."
Maro's grin revealed teeth filed to needle points. "And you'll pay double next time." His ocular implant focused suddenly over Ryn's shoulder. "Speaking of robbery..."
The air itself seemed to vibrate as a distortion wave rippled through the mist. Ryn's Scrap Sense screamed a warning half a second before the Veydran skiff decloaked directly above them, its gravity drives emitting a subsonic whine that set Ryn's molars vibrating. The gangplank dissolved into a cascade of nanites, forming perfect stairs that gleamed like freshly forged steel.
Cassia Veydran descended like royalty stepping onto a conquered world.
Her gown was a masterpiece of dynastic engineering—liquid metal silk woven with fractal patterns that told the history of her bloodline. The high collar of articulated nano-plates framed her face like a living portrait, shifting between opalescent white and deepest black as she moved. Energy danced along the embroidered hem, forming brief constellations before dissipating.
"You're late," Ryn said, wiping acid residue from his visor.
Cassia's smile could have flash-frozen a plasma core. "And you look like you lost a fight with an industrial recycler." She flicked her wrist, and a holographic contract materialized between them, its clauses written in flowing High Veydran that Ryn's implant struggled to parse.
"Twenty thousand now," Cassia said, the numbers burning gold in the hologram. "Eighty upon completion."
Ryn's Scrap Sense tingled along his spine as he spotted the nearly invisible sub-clause about "biological hazard containment." The text shimmered unnaturally, as if trying to hide from his view. "What exactly am I delivering?"
Cassia's gown shimmered as she turned, the nanites rearranging to project a tactical map across her back. The Godspike's coordinates pulsed crimson. "It's moved three hundred meters since last scan." Her gloved hand traced an arc through the hologram. "Like something dug it up."
Ryn opened his mouth to respond when his ocular implant screamed a priority alert—
—just as the first hyper-velocity round shattered the air between them.
THE RUST ANGELS' GAMBIT
The ambush erupted from the mist like a nightmare given form.
Jax, their leader, emerged first—a mountain of augmetic muscle and scar tissue. His right arm had been replaced with a Conclave plasma gauntlet prototype, the weapon's cooling vents glowing cherry-red as it superheated the humid air into crackling lances of ionized death. His mechanical eye whirred as it locked onto Cassia, the targeting laser painting a trembling red dot between her shoulder blades.
Liss moved in blurred bursts, her piston-enhanced legs hissing with each impossible leap. The twin vibro-knives stolen from a dead Conclave officer shimmered in her grip, their edges oscillating at ultrasonic frequencies that made the very air around them distort.
Five more Rust Angels fanned out with gravity disruptors—jury-rigged nightmares that warped spacetime in nauseating pockets. The devices whined like dying animals as they powered up, making light bend unnaturally around their wielders.
"Subtle as ever, Jax!" Ryn shouted, diving behind a cargo container reinforced with molecular bonding. His Scrap Sense highlighted stress fractures in the nanite welds—weak points already failing under the acid corrosion.
Jax's laughter boomed through his vox-grille. "Rich bitch shouldn't parade around dressed like a floating credit chip!" His gauntlet whined as it reached full charge, the air around it shimmering with heat distortion.
Cassia's gown transformed in a ripple of liquid metal, nanites flowing into interlocking plates that sealed around her with a sound like ringing crystal. Her gloves flared to life, projecting a shimmering energy shield that intercepted the plasma blast. The impact sent fractal patterns of dissipating energy crawling across the shield's surface.
Ryn's ocular implant tagged weaknesses in real-time:
[OVERLOAD WARNING] Jax's gauntlet capacitor at 92% stress
[COOLANT LEAK] Liss's left leg augmentation spraying fluid
[HARMONIC CONVERGENCE] Gravity disruptors creating interference patterns
He drew his pulse pistol, the weapon cycling up with a rising whine—
—when Cassia's voice cut through his neural link in an unauthorized intrusion that spiked pain through his temples:
"Don't! Energy weapons agitate the—"
Too late.
Ryn fired.
The pulse round struck Jax's gauntlet at the exact moment of its recharge cycle. The resulting cascade failure sent a shockwave through the docks. Reinforced containers crumpled like wet paper, their molecular bonds failing catastrophically. Liss was thrown backward, her leg augmentation sparking violently as it short-circuited.
As the smoke cleared, Cassia stood amid the devastation, her battlesuit's fractal patterns pulsing like a living thing. The fallen Rust Angels twitched unnaturally—the black veins of Godrot spreading across their skin at visible speed, throbbing in time with the distant hum of the Maw.
"Fascinating," Cassia murmured, her helmet's vocal modulator flattening her tone into something inhuman. She nudged Jax's corpse with her boot. The Godrot had transformed his flesh into something resembling cracked obsidian in mere seconds.
Ryn's belt vibrated violently. The black liquid in its containment case slammed against the alloy walls, drawn toward him with terrifying insistence.
DESCENT INTO HELL
The storm generators failed as they reached the Maw's edge, and true acid rain began to fall—thick, syrupy droplets that sizzled against Ryn's scav coat like grease on a hot griddle. Cassia's battlesuit shed the corrosive downpour effortlessly, its surface beading the deadly rain like quicksilver.
Before them, the Maw yawned open—a wound in the world that defied all attempts at measurement. The Godspike stood at its heart, a jagged shard of black crystal that pulsed with a rhythm that made Ryn's teeth ache. Strange shadows moved at the periphery of vision, always disappearing when looked at directly, leaving only the impression of something vast and hungry shifting just out of sight.
Cassia deactivated her helmet with a thought, letting the acidic rain slick her pale hair to her skull. The droplets should have burned her flawless skin, but the protective field of her nano-gown shimmered faintly as it deflected them.
"Last chance to back out, scavenger." Her breath fogged in the suddenly frigid air at the Maw's threshold.
Ryn adjusted the case at his belt, feeling its contents stir with unnatural hunger. "Wouldn't dream of it."
As they began their descent, the whispers started—voices that had no right to exist, speaking in languages no human throat should replicate. The black liquid in its containment case thrummed in response, its vibrations matching the Godspike's distant pulse.
And deep below, in the lightless heart of the Maw, something answered.