He saw it all. A life of pure, privileged bliss, two boys, identical twins, living in a sterile corporate arcology. He felt their bond, a strange, perfect empathy that transcended normal siblinghood. "We are one half of the whole," a mantra they repeated to each other in the dark, a promise of eternal unity.

Then, the crash. The shriek of tearing metal, the blinding flash of an exploding power core, the smell of burnt chrome and ozone. He felt his own drunken recklessness, the stupid, arrogant belief in his own immortality. And then he felt the horrifying, gut-wrenching finality of his brother's death, a psychic limb being torn from his own soul.

He experienced the breakdown, the months spent in a white room, screaming at a ghost only he could see. And then the monstrous surgery. His skull opened up. Half of his living brain was removed and replaced with a hemisphere from his dead brother's cryo-preserved corpse. He felt the two halves of a shattered whole being forced together.

The procedure had fractured his personality, creating the monster known as Porcelain Jack. A being who was both and neither.

And then, he saw the "art."

He experienced each moment through Jack's eyes, with Jack's cold, artistic detachment. He felt the thrill of the hunt and the intellectual satisfaction of finding the perfect, "flawed" subjects.

He was in the brothel in Slickrow, watching Selena through a two-way mirror. He didn't see a terrified girl; he saw a canvas. He felt a surge of creative, god-like power as he personally calibrated the illegal MemStream that would strip away her messy, emotional core, leaving behind a perfect, compliant, and beautifully broken doll.

He was in the snuff film studio. He glanced ahead at the way the harsh, industrial lighting caught the tears rolling down Max's terrified face.

He saw the shelves of data shards, a gallery of his finished work. He experienced the sick, voyeuristic pleasure of watching the "before and after" memories of the children he had broken, comparing the vibrant, chaotic data of their old lives with the clean, quiet, and beautifully empty data of their new, perfected existence.

The experience was horrifying. Ray was flooded with a universe of twisted philosophies and cold, clinical cruelty. He was experiencing the pleasure the monster took in its work, and for a terrifying, sickening moment, that pleasure felt like his own.

He pulled back, his arachnid form recoiling from the now-empty space where Jack's body had been. He stood alone in the silent, sealed room. He now had the location of where the kids were, if they were alive. He had all of Jack's knowledge, all of his connections. But he had also just consumed his most monstrous ghost yet.

A ping from his interface announced that the twins were heading back to the room. Ray quickly scurried through the seamless marble hatch and into the small, dark tunnel beneath the floor. His mission was complete. It was time to leave.

He sent a final, silent signal through the building's network. All data logs on the entire floor from the moment of his intrusion were deleted and overwritten with mundane, looping maintenance routines. The security AI's memory was reset, a clean, untroubled blank, covering any signs of his tampering with its systems.

I have ten minutes until the system reboots, Ray thought as he scurried into the main ventilation system. Ten minutes to disappear.

He emerged through a grille on the exterior of the building. The dome above had shifted into night mode, a perfect, artificial starfield and a clean white moon projected onto its inner surface. Even at night, Echelon Heights was a stark contrast to the lower sectors. Every light was meticulously placed, every color chosen for an architectural meaning. The streets were not filled with people dragging their feet home after a hard day of work, but with groups of the elite, their features carefully sculpted, their immaculate clothes worth more than a lower-city family's yearly food budget.

He scurried from shadow to shadow, blinding the cameras as he passed.

Hidden under a pristine white trash container in an alley he had hacked to dim the lights, Ray watched as a group passed by, their laughter a light, tinkling sound that didn't quite reach their cold, bored eyes. He felt a familiar disgust, a hot ember of anger ignited in his chest, fueled by the fresh, cold cruelty of Jack's memories. They knew of the rot, the ugliness, the inhumane conditions of the lower sectors. But they chose to ignore it. The one too busy just to survive has no time to question the one who gives him food. The old elite saying echoed in his mind.

A silent, hovering sanitization drone stopped at the mouth of the alley and flew inside. Ray, using his integrated Aegis X-9, instantly connected to its simple systems as it began a 360-degree scan, looking for trash to clean. He quickly hacked its targeting software, editing his own location out of its perception. The drone saw nothing, and glided away. Ray saw his chance and scurried away, towards his destination in the west part of the sector.

He was back in his human form now, leaning against the cold metal of a pipe-covered corridor deep in the bowels of Echelon Heights. The pristine luxury of "The Looking Glass" was a distant memory, replaced by the hum of massive machinery and the smell of ozone and recycled water.

He checked his balance. The cost of the private maglev car had been exorbitant. He was nearly broke. He couldn't afford a clean, registered transit out of this high-security zone. Staying was not an option.

But he had planned for this. Before he had even set foot in Echelon Heights, he had used the last of his disposable credits and his underworld knowledge to arrange a way out. A more tedious, more dangerous way, but a way out nonetheless.

He followed the service corridors down, level after level. Here, the security was lackluster—simple cameras with easily detectable blind spots. He walked until the polished chrome gave way to raw, unpainted ferrocrete, and the quiet hum of the upper levels was replaced by the deafening roar of the arcology's life-support systems.

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He finally arrived at his destination: a massive, noisy water filtration plant at the lowest level of the arcology, a place of hissing steam, dripping water, and the constant, deafening noise of industrial pumps. He walked to a single, rust-streaked door, painted red with a faded yellow biohazard symbol on its bottom half. He tapped three times, a specific, coded rhythm. He repeated the knock twice more. He heard the sound of heavy boots on the other side, and the door creaked open.

A ginger-haired man, his youth recently and harshly departed, glared out at him. Ray noted the slight gleam and unnaturally smooth texture of the man's skin; from the neck down, he was covered in black, waterproof synth-skin.

"I came for an inspection in the lower levels, and I need some good runners to help me," Ray said, delivering the code phrase.

The man nodded and waved him inside. The room was a makeshift living space. A kitchenette with a sink full of dirty pots and trays stood to the left. The floor and walls were bare concrete, crisscrossed with a web of pipes. A double bunk and a stained couch were shoved to the right, and on a small table before them rested a thick, ancient television that had been made long before the Collapse.

Two other people were in the room. A man with a black-and-blue mullet and piercing, fighter-like optic implants sat on the couch, cleaning a large-caliber speargun. And on the other end, a woman lay reclined, a beer bottle held loosely in her hand. Her skin was so black it seemed to drink the weak light from the bulb above. Her facial features, however, were of European descent. Her milky-white, optic eyes met his.

She placed the bottle down and stepped forward. This was Kailani.

She gave a single, curt nod. "We provide the path. But we cannot guarantee your own survival." Her milky-white eyes seemed to focus on something just past his shoulder. "What lives in the deep water doesn't care about your credits."

She and her two crew members, the "Sump Runners," led him towards another door at the end of the room. They walked down a claustrophobic corridor covered in pipes for several minutes before stopping at a reinforced metal door. Kailani pressed a saliva-covered finger to the bio-scanner, and the door clicked open.

The place was bare, except for four open lockers containing patched, well-worn diving gear. Kailani grabbed a set and held it out for Ray to take. She and her crew equipped their own gear with a practiced, efficient silence.

Kailani led him to a large, circular maintenance hatch in the floor. With a grunt, she and her two crew members heaved it open, revealing a dark, bottomless abyss from which a foul, stagnant stench arose. They checked the seals on their rebreathers and the charges on their harpoon guns, their size suggesting their prey was not human-sized.

Ray, in turn, let his nanites run a quick, invisible diagnostic over his own scuba gear, reinforcing a few weak seals from the inside. His inorganic body was immune to infection, but he had no desire to have the city's filth seep into his suit.

"Send me your ID to add you to our comms channel," Kailani said. "It's better we make as little noise as possible while we are down there."

He sent his ID, and a ping notified him of the new channel.

She glanced at the ginger-haired man, who was holding a thick visor with a single vertical lens and a harness meant to go on the head.

"I have multi spectrum vision and sonar," Ray said, his voice calm. "I don't need it."

The ginger-haired man nodded and placed the visor back into one of the lockers.

"Let's move," Kailani said.

They descended into the abyss. The water was cold, thick, and murky. There was no source of light.

They advanced through the absolute darkness in a tight, triangular formation. Kailani took the point, her milky-white sonar-optics cutting through the gloom, while the ginger and the mullet-haired smugglers formed the rear guard, their harpoon guns held at a low ready. Ray, in their midst, found the water was not empty.

His optics focused as a small, shimmering light approached. It was tiny and dazzling, a miniature alien koi with angular, blade-like fins and bioluminescent scales that strobed in chaotic patterns of silver, neon pink, and electric blue. Its large, bulbous eyes reflected the faint glow of distant fungi like mirrored glass.

Kailani turned her head, and sent a message through their private comms channel.

Kailani: "Glimmerfish are harmless, but their light attracts things that aren't. They're drawn to light and energy. Our suits are insulated, so it's strange that one is moving towards you."

Ray felt a faint, curious tingle as the creature investigated the low-level energy signature of his nanites. Before it could get too close, he willed his nanite skin to reconfigure, creating a perfect, non-conductive insulation layer. The Glimmerfish, losing interest, scurried away into the black.

They continued onward, their progress slow and methodical. After a few minutes, they reached a rusted metal ladder embedded in a massive concrete wall, ascending into the darkness above the water's surface. Kailani went first, then Ray, followed by the two smugglers. From the walkway, Ray looked back. Gigantic pipes, wide as maglev tunnels, spewed torrents of recycled water into the vast accumulation basin they had just emerged from.

Kailani pinged him. She was waiting at the entrance of a large tunnel, a perfect, dark circle twenty meters high and wide enough for three cargo trucks to drive abreast. Ray followed them inside. After a few dozen steps, Kailani raised a hand, and everyone froze. She pointed upwards.

Ray's gaze followed. Clinging to the ceiling, their forms almost perfectly camouflaged against the corroded metal, were hundreds of faintly glowing red lights.

Kailani: "Cable Crawlers. Don't make a sound."

Ray's optics zoomed in. They were nightmarish arthropods, a fusion of spider, crab, and industrial debris. Their bodies were bulky, segmented masses of hardened chitin, mottled in oily grays and streaks of rust-red. Eight long, spindly limbs ended in claw-like appendages tipped with serrated metal. Their heads bore no eyes, only a ridged sensory dome that glowed faintly red. As they watched, one of them unfurled two hidden, scissor-like limbs from beneath its thorax, striking with horrifying speed at a piece of dangling debris.

They crouched low and moved forward, their footsteps silent on the damp walkway. They had almost reached the other side when the mullet-haired smuggler stumbled, his boot scraping loudly against the metal.

Instantly, the ceiling came alive. The red lights swarmed, and the air filled with the stuttering, clicking sound of a hundred chittering limbs. The smugglers raised their harpoon guns, but it was too late. A Cable Crawler dropped from the ceiling on a thick, web-like cable, its claws extended.

Before anyone could react, Ray punched the Crawler, shattering its glowing red sensory dome. The creature went limp, its claws retracting, and fell lifelessly to the floor.

They didn't hesitate as they rushed down the walkway and away from the swarm of nightmarish arthropods.

They emerged into a large, circular chamber, the water inside reaching their waists. Ray's sensors immediately mapped the area. He pinged Kailani, pointing to a large, submerged shape that waited motionless just below the surface, right before the single tunnel that led ahead.

Kailani: "Synth-Gator. Just a youngling. Don't worry about it."

Youngling, Ray mused, as his sensors measured the creature. It was the size of a small car, its thick, glossy white scales tinged with yellow chemical stains. Its wide, flat skull was reinforced with bone plates and surgical implants. How big is an adult?

The two smugglers moved into position, the tips of their harpoons clicking as they formed into energized claws. They aimed and fired. The harpoons shot through the water, their thick, insulated cables trailing behind them. They slammed into the creature's hide. Ray saw its heat signature spike as a powerful electrical current coursed through its muscles, not to kill, but to shock and drive it away. The creature, stunned and angered, scurried away down the very tunnel they needed to traverse.

Ray: "Why not kill it?"

Kailani was already walking ahead, her voice a cold, pragmatic echo in his mind.

Kailani: "Blood may attract something we don't want to meet."

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