Chapter 6 - From the Hounds

Chapter 6

From the Hounds, to the Hunters.

There were times parts of me originally wanted to hate him for the abandonment.

But the more I reconnected with myself in his mind... and with him... the more I realized it cost him nearly as much as it cost me.

They wanted me, he refused.

They tried to take me, he fought back with everything he had and they tortured him for it.

The pack clicks shut with final precision. No wasted motion. Each strap secured with practiced ease, like muscle memory drawn from another life. He double-checks the chamber on the rifle, eyes scanning every corner of the safehouse, cataloging exits and fallback points, even though he knows there are none left some things just cant be purged. Just one shot at making it to the outer rim of the sprawl undetected.

"Environmental scan's up," Sable reports. "We've got intermittent drone patrols within 300 meters. Thermal fog in the lower sectors is giving us some cover. Might be luck. Might be bait."

He grunts. "Let's not test the theory."

The safehouse door releases with a subtle hiss, pressure equalizing just enough to not sound like a beacon. He steps into the concrete corridor, boots soft against dust-coated tile.

"I've injected a low-profile dampening field through your neural mesh," she continues. "Might help cloak your heat sig. Briefly. Don't dawdle."

"Yes, mom," he mutters, a hint of playful snark and humor in his voice.

But he moves deliberately. Slow. Measured. Silent. Every step planned. Every sound accounted for.

A shadow passes above--no shape, just a flicker across the peripheral sky through the broken glass of the upper dome.

"Contact?" he asks.

"Nothing locked. Just a glide pattern."

She doesn't sound convinced.

They descend through a collapsed stairwell. Rust moans under pressure. He freezes. Breath held. Waits for the echo to die before shifting weight again.

"You're tense," she murmurs, voice low in his ear now. Closer. Less filtered.

"You're in my head."

"Doesn't mean I like the feel of dread bleeding off your synapses."

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth "Know... thyself." He mutters. "It's not dread. It's focus."

He adjusts the rifles strap, locking it to his arm in a hasty sling.

"I'm not nineteen anymore. And its been a long time since I moved like this."

A breath. Not quite regret or pride... just truth.

But under it all, she senses a harmonic thread. Something steady and deliberate, his entire system resonating with one thing: resolve.

The path ahead winds through collapsed concrete and exposed rebar, a forgotten maintenance artery threading beneath the sprawl's industrial spine. The air is thick with humidity and disuse--metal and mold and memory.

Sable stays quiet now, her presence steady in the back of his mind, like a companion shadow matching his every step.

Every few meters, he pauses. Listens. Measures. Moves again, rifle at a low ready, his eyes always looking just over the sights to prevent tunnel vision.

A low chitter echoes off the ductwork. Not organic. Not natural. The kind of stuttering echo that doesn't belong in lungs or throats.

Sable's voice returns, clipped and sharp. "New contact--vector above. Drone class unknown. Not intercepting, but definitely observing."

He ducks beneath a ruptured pipe, breath hitching as scalded air rolls across his shoulder. The crystal in his pack pulses once--faint but felt.

"You good?" she asks, tone shifting--more concern than scan.

"I'm fine," he replies, but his hand instinctively checks the mag again. He knows the odds. The risk. But there's something electric running through his spine. A current of purpose.

"Not sure where we're going yet," he mutters.

"I do," Sable says quietly. "Not the how, but the why."

"That'll have to be enough for now."

A beat.

Then a metallic clunk--just ahead.

Both freeze.

Sable's voice drops to a whisper. "Footsteps. Not drone. Too heavy. Too staggered."

His body slides into a lower stance, knees loose, rifle raised, breath shallow.

"Confirmation?"

"No visual yet," she says. "But whoever it is... they're not searching. They're tracking."

His grip tightens. "Us?"

"I don't know. But they're not guessing."

He doesn't wait. Drops low. Moves.

Between support beams and busted conduit, he's all shadow and silent breath. The rifle rises only once--scanning, not aiming. Not yet.

Sable's tone sharpens. "Two signatures now. One airborne, low-hover. The other--on foot. Forty meters and closing."

"Too close."

"Too smart," she adds. "They're corralling you."

A scene from a movie he saw in his childhood suddenly flashes into his mind.

Jack Ryan: "That's an awful lot of firepower."

Captain Davenport: "For a rescue team, yes. There's something else strange. They're banging away with their active sonar as if they're looking for something, but nobody's listening.

Jack Ryan: "What do you mean?"

Captain Davenport: "They're moving at close to 30 knots, at that speed they could run over my daughter's stereo and not hear it."

Jack Ryan: "They're not trying to find Ramius... they're driving him."

Captain Davenport: "Drive him where?"

Jack adjusts the screen of the tactical map

Jack Ryan: "From the hounds, to the hunters."

Captain Davenport: "Your sub captain's going to make it to America all right Mr Ryan. He's going to die within sight of it."

He shakes his head, clearing the memory, regaining focus, a smirk creeping across his face.

"Of all the times..." Sable starts

"Hey, unlike you, I don't have the ability to curate my flashbacks" he chortles softly.

He veers left, deeper into the broken artery of the sprawl. The ground drops. A rusted maintenance ladder gapes open. Without hesitation, he vaults, boots finding rungs just before momentum carries him down the shaft.

Sable flinches in his mind. "Warn me next time."

The shaft opens into an old junction chamber, lit only by chemical spill and time-ruined LED strips. He lands in a crouch, absorbing the impact. His back screams in protest, but he keeps moving.

Behind him--footfalls. Sharp. Heavy. Not sprinting. Stalking.

"They're not worried about losing you," Sable murmurs. "They think they've already won."

"That makes two of us," he mutters.

She pulses a route overlay across his neural mesh--an egress line he hasn't used since before.

"Subtram connector. If we can get to the old shield conduit..."

He nods, already moving.

Another noise--above. A metallic whirr-clack that doesn't echo quite right.

Then--

CLANG.

The ladder shaft explodes downward in a burst of velocity and metal. Something heavy slams through, hitting the chamber floor with enough force to rattle the walls.

He spins--rifle raised--eyes locking onto the thing.

Tall. Biomech. Dull armor plating slicked with static discharge. Its head cocks sideways--just once--and its optics ignite in a triple-helix glow.

Sable doesn't need to say anything.

"Run?" he offers.

"Run," she confirms.

He moves.

Full sprint. No time to sneak. Boots hammer the concrete as the creature lets out a sharp keening pulse--somewhere between echolocation and war-cry.

Another drone sweeps low behind him, spotlight sweeping the chamber--searching.

He darts left, throws a flash grenade from his belt--

A snap, a pulse--whiteout.

He doesn't see if it hits. Doesn't care.

Sable's voice is right there with him. "Left. Through the intake bay. The grate's half-buried, but you can fit."

He dives--shoulder-first into a tunnel mouth that was never meant for human access. Sparks tear from his gear as he skids through the grate, scraping metal and flesh.

The roar behind him grows fainter.

Then--darkness.

Silence.

Breath.

He doesn't stop moving.

The grate behind him groans but doesn't give--too narrow for the mech. At least, right now. That won't last.

He scrambles forward, elbows and knees clawing through the tight crawlspace. Rust peels from the walls. The crystal pulses again--brighter, synced to his heart rate now.

Sable's voice knifes in, low and fast. "Exit ahead, four meters. Vertical shaft. Narrow."

He grunts. "Define narrow."

"You'll fit."

"That's not what I asked."

The tunnel ends in a circular aperture, rimmed with fractured utility tubing. He doesn't hesitate--just launches upward, boots bracing against either side of the shaft, climbing with practiced urgency.

CLANG.

Behind. Below. The sound of metal rending metal.

"It's cutting through the grate," Sable confirms. "It's adapting."

He keeps climbing. Every breath a flare in his ribs. At the top--another panel. This one gives with a grunt and a shoulder slam, and he hauls himself up into--

--a forgotten maintenance junction.

Old rail bed. Scattered tools. Faded hazard tape like warning scars.

He doesn't pause.

"Right," Sable directs. "That service tunnel leads to the subtram bypass. Low heat zone, minimal surveillance."

He runs.

Behind, a screech of tearing alloy.

Then the sound of something dropping into the shaft.

Too fast.

Not climbing.

Freefalling.

"Brace!" she snaps.

He dives sideways as the floor explodes upward--metal shrieking as the hunter hits and rebounds. It misjudged the final impact, legs catching awkwardly. A glitch ripple runs through its frame. It's momentary--but enough.

He fires.

Three rounds center mass. The armor shrugs them off, but the blast knocks it off balance. He doesn't wait to see if it regains footing.

He bolts.

The tunnel yawns ahead, a forgotten artery of the city's transit network. Walls sweat condensation. Rusted signage flickers under emergency backups that haven't shut off in decades. He doesn't stop moving.

Sable's voice cuts in like a compass point. "Thermal bleed to your ten. Dead end past the next left--reroute right. There's a working maintenance line five meters down."

He veers right, boots skidding, heel snapping into a low sprint. Overhead, the dull shriek of microdrones scrapes the air. One banks low.

"Drone inbound!" she shouts.

His rifle swings up. Breath in. One round. A snap-crack of kinetic discharge--and the drone detonates in mid-air, sparks flaring like a dying star.

"Nice," she says. "Minimal overcorrection."

"I'm rusty," he mutters, even as the rifle lowers.

"Still counts."

Another turn. Pipes throb around them--the tremble of ancient pressure systems humming just below safe thresholds. He presses on.

"Next junction splits. Left's the higher path--stable, but longer. Right's collapsed but I can get you through if we time it."

"Your call."

"Right."

They sprint.

The walls close in. He ducks under fallen conduit, breath ragged now. His muscles protest with every step--but the rhythm carries him forward.

More microdrones scream down from above.

"One o'clock high, moving fast!" she shouts again.

He raises the rifle, takes aim. Sable immediately recalibrates his targeting display adusting for the over correction a few moments earlier. He can feel her making millions of calculations a second without conscious mind registering it. The targeting reticle leads each of the drones just enough, predicting their flight paths as he and Sable haul ass. He pulls the trigger for a second time, third, fourth, fifth time in rapid succession.

"Center fucking mass!" she cheers.

Then--

A glint of metal. A shimmer of motion.

Another drone drops from the shadows just as he plants his foot directly onto a slick cluster of coolant runoff.

He slips. Knee torques sideways.

White-hot pain lances up his leg as he crashes into the wall. The impact knocks the breath from his lungs.

"Status?" Sable's voice is immediate, sharpened.

"Twisted. Knee." He grits the words out, forcing himself upright. "Not broken."

"Adrenaline can lie. Stabilize it."

He wraps his hand under the kneecap, bracing against a low pipe for balance. Another pulse overhead--motion.

Sable overlays an escape vector--less clean now. Angled hallways. Pressure valves.

"There's too goddamned many.."he says flexing his knee as he prepares himself to move again.

"I'll slow them," she says. "Triggering interference field through the tunnel's legacy sensors. Might buy thirty seconds."

A low whine builds in the background. EM distortion peels into his ears.

He limps forward. Rifle up. Pain lances with every step, but he doesn't falter.

"Still with me?" he asks.

"Always," she replies.

Then--movement ahead. An exit.

He pushes harder, half-running, half-limping, teeth gritted. Behind him, a reverberating clank as something massive enters the subtram line.

No more time.

They burst through the final hatch, slamming it shut just as the chamber behind floods with red warning lights.

He sags against the door.

"We need distance," she says.

"Then let's move."

And they do. Together. Limping and navigating in lockstep.

Still not safe.

But still free.

The corridor narrows, curving into silence. No echo. No footsteps. Just breath and the soft hiss of leaking pressure lines.

He slumps against the rusted bulkhead, rifle low, hand pressed to his knee. The pain flares sharp, but it's clean -- no tearing. Just twisted. Sprained.

"Pulse stabilizing," Sable murmurs. Her voice is softer now. "But you're going to need to wrap that before the joint swells."

He nods, pulling a small roll of compression tape from the pouch at his hip. His hands, shaking from the adrenaline pumping through his body, work methodically, but slower now. Every motion has weight.

Behind them, the tunnel mouth stays quiet. The drones haven't followed. Yet.

"I'm running ghost sweeps," she continues. "Still no hard locks on us. But something out there is listening. Not radio. Not infrared. Pattern-based. Like it's waiting."

He exhales slowly, eyes scanning the pipe-strewn corridor ahead. "Then we keep moving. What's next?"

"There's an access junction twenty meters ahead," she replies. "Old maintenance node, predates the corp lockdown. I think it still runs passive diagnostics. If we get inside, I can scrub our trail, maybe pull power to recharge the mesh."

"Recharge you, you mean."

She doesn't deny it.

He pushes off the wall, testing the knee. It holds. Not cleanly. But enough.

"Then let's go," he says.

The junction's bulkhead looms ahead, half-concealed behind a collapsed support brace and a curtain of dangling cabling. No visible locks. No lights.

"Give me thirty seconds," Sable says.

He crouches beside the doorframe, scanning the darkness behind them. Nothing. No echoes. No signal pings.

The door shudders once--then slides open just enough for him to slip through.

Inside: a narrow control bay, more utility than comfort. Terminal stations line one side, dark but intact. The other wall hosts an old diagnostics cradle, just big enough for a gen-one mech chassis. Dust lies thick, undisturbed.

He seals the hatch behind them.

"Pulling low draw from legacy grid," Sable says. Her tone shifts--more grounded now. "We're dark to most scans, but not invisible. This is temporary."

He nods, limping toward the bench. Collapses onto it with a groan.

"I can run low-signal interference for five, maybe ten minutes," she continues. "Enough to scrub the heat trail we left and make this look like just another dead zone."

As he digs through his kit--tape, stabilizer, field medpack--her voice dips.

"You should rest. Even for a few minutes. I can watch the feeds."

He starts to argue. Stops.

Then, quietly: "Only if you promise to wake me if anything shifts."

"Always."

He leans back. Breath slowing. Pain thudding behind his eyes now instead of spiking. Muscles twitching as adrenaline lets go.

"You're not alone, you know," she says softly. "Even if it feels like it. You've got backup this time."

His eyes close. Just for a moment.

"Feels like I've got half a ghost in my head," he mutters.

She chuckles gently. "Well, you named the file."

The hum of the old relay node crept back into the silence, filling the control bay with a low mechanical breath--steady, almost tired. One of the consoles flickered behind her, a vertical scanline drifting across a dead screen like it was still searching for a signal it lost years ago.

"You did that thing again," she said quietly, almost casual.

He shifted, wincing as his knee reminded him of the last twenty minutes. "Which thing?"

"That tone. The one that sounds like a joke but lands like a scar."

He exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding, the ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth.

"Yeah. Well. Old habits."

"I know," she said. "Doesn't mean I like watching you bleed under them."

He didn't respond to her right away. Instead, he ran a hand over the exposed wiring of the console next to him--familiar textures, tactile distractions. There was something about this room. Not memory, exactly. Vibe. Like echoes that hadn't yet become sound.

"You feel it too, don't you?" he asked, finally glancing over.

Sable's voice steadied.

"I do. This place was part of something. You and I... we passed through here. Once. Before everything collapsed."

"Mission?"

"More like a marker. A cache. Maybe more. But it's not just the building--it's what's underneath it."

He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "We don't have time to dig."

"We might not need to. Not if the resonance triggers on its own."

A beat.

Then she added, softer: "You're close to something. I can feel it in the neural sync. Like memory pressure against a locked hatch."

His jaw tightened. "That why this place feels... wrong?"

"Not wrong, so much as familiar in a way your mind isn't letting you see yet."

He closed his eyes for a second, breathing through it. Every part of him wanted to move--get out, stay ahead of the trace--but his body said no, and her voice said wait.

He opened his eyes again. "Alright. What do you need me to do?"

Sable moved forward--not physically, but his mind felt it anyway. Her voice dropped, not in volume, but in distance. Like she was standing closer to his thoughts than his ears.

"Don't force it. Just... lean into the space. Let it come if it comes. I'll filter the noise."

He nodded, slowly. Closed his eyes again.

Silence.

He flinched.

Not from the sound--but from what followed. A flicker. Pressure behind his eyes, like a memory rising too fast without enough space to breathe.

Sable reacted at the same time, head tilting, voice sharpening slightly.

"You... felt that," she said. Not a question.

He opened his eyes, jaw clenched. "Yeah."

"Signal spike. Local. Not a trace... that was completely internal."

"Memory?"

She didn't answer right away, eyes flicking slightly as she parsed whatever she'd registered.

"Maybe. But it's tangled."

He wiped a thin line of sweat from his brow, hand trembling more than he'd admit to anyone, including himself. "We don't have time to play archaeologist."

"No," she agreed. "But we can mark it. Tag the echo. Pull it clean when we're not being hunted."

He nodded. "Fine. Just don't let it bite me... us... on the way out."

Her voice softened, just a breath. "Wouldn't dream of it."

The moment settled like fine dust--too light to see, but enough to change the air.

Then the relay node clicked again.

Not the soft mechanical exhale from before--but sharper. Lower. From somewhere deeper in the system. Sable turned before he did, projection sharpening.

"That wasn't internal," she said.

He was already pushing himself upright, biting down on the pain in his knee. The console beside him flickered--a strip of code blinked on-screen, then vanished. Too fast to read. Not meant for him.

"Talk to me," he said, voice low.

"Cross-channel ping," she said. "Low-band. Someone just knocked."

He moved to the console, checked the feeds. "Random scan?"

"No," she said. "They asked for handshake."

He stilled. "How polite."

"Masked, but not random. They know this node isn't dead."

He tapped through the network map, static flickering in the lower-right quadrant. "You said you could spoof dormancy."

"I did. I am." He could almost see her eyes narrowing in his mind as she thought. "But they're not looking for activity. They're looking for presence."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I'm not the only ghost riding the signal anymore."

His spine tensed.

"Another construct?" he asked, eyes on the console even though it was blank again.

Sable's voice lost a degree of warmth. Not cold--focused.

"No. This isn't system-native. It's not looking for command access or data bleed."

"Then what?"

She paused just long enough to register.

"It's probing my structure. Testing my signal... not scanning, exactly. Recognizing."

He turned to face her, the pain in his knee suddenly very far away.

"Recognition?"

He felt something akin to her eyes meeting his.

"It knows I'm artificial. And it's not surprised. It's not curious. It's... familiar."

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full--like a wire straining under load.

He spoke carefully now, each word measured. "Does it know who you are?"

"No," she said flatly. "But it knows how I am."

A chime echoed again--different this time. A low, triple-tone. Not corp. Not protocol. Old.

"Something just pinged me direct. No bounce. No handshake."

He took a step forward "That ever happen before?"

"No," she said immediately, maybe too quickly. "But I'm still not whole. Your body and mind are barely stitched together. I'm still syncing with fragments we had to scatter just to fit me inside. And one of those pieces... didn't make it through the lab transfer."

They both stilled.

Outside, the node's power shifted. Lights dimmed. A relay locked open somewhere behind the walls.

"Whatever's listening," she said, "it's not tracing us."

"Then what?"

"It's not tracing us," she said mostly to herself. "Its... watching."

"Oh great, we've got a phantom voyeur. Let me know if it starts asking for nudes of you."

"If I could smack you in the back of the head..."

"I mean, technically you could."

"Bite me" she said.

"Don't tempt me." He echoed back to her, a smile in his voice.