Ash.

  My whole world was ash. It always had been. I should have known death would be just another layer of the stuff we’re all made of.

  Ashborn. Into an ashen death.

  But it didn’t feel like death…

  It was warm, clinging to me; swirling, swallowing me as my face pressed into the ground.

  The ground?

  The afterlife felt way more real than I could ever imagine. There was a familiarity… I had been here before.

  The ash blanketed half my legs as I tried to push myself off the ground. My arms buckled, knocking the wind from my chest as I thudded back to the ground face-first.

  I stayed there for a moment, hands buried in ash, breathing it in the way I’ve done my whole life. In life. As I was sitting up, my heartbeat rattled around inside my chest like a trapped animal.

  But then it happened…

  My HUD flickered to life:

  [REBOOT COMPLETE]

  Location: Ashfield - Sector 9

  Status: Alive

  Class: Ashborn (FLAGGED: ANOMALOUS)

  Level: 1

  HP: 63%

  Heat Output: LOW (Unstable)

  Objective: Don’t die again

  Reboot Complete.

  “Well, shit…” I think I said it out loud, or maybe I thought it so hard it just sounded like it to me.

  I sat up, slowly. Careful. Pretending I wasn’t confused.

  Back in Ashfield. Rebooted.

  How? Why?

  This was a reboot zone.

  Nobody in the Ash could afford one.

  The air tasted like burnt hair, bad wiring, with something sweet rotting underneath…like the Ash was trying to hang on to life and failing.

  I looked at my hands. No burns. No blisters. No char.

  But my left wrist…

  The Order brand had split open.

  The perfect iron circle was now cracked, glowing a warm orange inside the fracture. Beneath it, something was breathing.

  Wind hissed between the mostly abandoned walls of Sector 9, carrying shouts, metal groans, and the wet hack of someone in an alley coughing hard enough to vomit.

  When I regained my bearings, I tried to stand again, realizing only then that I was completely and utterly…

  …naked. Of course I was.

  A fresh reboot, in the only place no one would ever look for a miracle…no techs, no medics, just whatever junkie was huffing the latest synthetic in the dark.

  Figures. Naked and alone. Just another day in the Ashes.

  Neon smeared across the sky like bruises – red, green, purple, sick colors leaking down cracked buildings.

  Far off, the Vein glittered around the middle of the city like a crown someone stole from a forgotten god. High above that, the towers scraped the clouds, bright, beautiful, and untouchable.

  A voice slid into my skull: female, soft, layered like static over a heartbeat.

  “Good,” she murmured. “You printed the way you were meant to.”

  My HUD spiked:

  [UNREGISTERED VOICE SIGNAL]

  Source: INTERNAL

  Trace: 0%

  Directive: Unknown

  I spun hard, failing. Ash swirling as my hands swung through nothing.

  “Ok, who – who the fuck said that?” I said aloud, scanning the shadows, throat raw from burning.

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  I muttered under my breath, “And why am I not an ash smear back in White Pyre Plaza?”

  The words came easier, but I could still feel the burning from using this body, my body, for the first time.

  Silence. A warm pressure was fading from behind my eyes.

  “Great. Add ‘mysterious schizophrenia’ to today’s trauma list.”

  My HUD pinged, again:

  [CONTACT: 3]

  Distance: 14 ft

  Intent: HOSTILE

  Threat Level: MODERATE → HIGH

  I turned to find three locals emerging from a dark alley.

  Their apparent leader sneered through a scar splitting his lip. His nose had been broken sideways, fixed multiple times from the look of it. He wore tattered jacket, held together with tape, and back alley attitude. One of his pupils was slit like a cat’s eye and tiny scales rippled across his jaw every time he breathed. Bad modjob.

  The other two lingered behind him a little. The tall one jittered like his bones were arguing. Jaw grinding at nothing. A thick second ridge of muscle writhed under his forearm skin like it wanted out. He kept glitching a half-second off reality.

  The third one was young…twitchy. He didn’t belong here. Thin pale tentacles curled up his arms, wiggling independently like they each had their own personality.

  The leader’s slit-eye dragged over me, my cracked brand, no weapons, no escort… naked body caked with ash over the good bits.

  I could only imagine the classic one-liners he was formulating as he approached, something in the realm of “looky here boys...”

  Ashfield alley scum at its finest.

  “A fresh boot,” he said. “Didn’t think anyone down this far could afford one…are you cold, boot? Would you like to borrow my jacket?”

  Chivalrous Ashfield alley scum?

  “Or I could warm you up some other way,” his cat-eye winked.

  There it is.

  “You sure she’s a reboot?” Jitterboy asked. “She ain’t screaming.”

  “Give it a second,” Scar said. “Sometimes they glitch before the pain hits.”

  He stepped closer, assuming I’d recoil, but I held my ground.

  “While I do appreciate the offer of that fine outerwear,” my voice came out almost steady. “I prefer something a little less…pungent.”

  Jitterboy snorted. Tentacle Kid stifled a laugh.

  Scar’s grin stayed stitched in place as he clicked his tongue, nodding.

  “Got jokes, I see. Cute. What you ain’t got is weapons. Ain’t got no guards. Ain’t. Got. Shit.”

  He flicked his wrist.

  An injector slid out of his sleeve, street-made, scratched, dirty.

  My HUD highlighted it instantly:

  ITEM: Street Injector v3

  Contents: UNKNOWN REACTIVE COMPOUND

  Risk: EXTREME

  Effect on Ashborn Cell Stability: LIKELY FATAL

  “That what we’re doing now?” I said, pulse picking up. “Random alley extractions?”

  “Market pays good for fresh DNA,” Scar said. “We juice you, see what you are. Reboot means your cells do somethin’ special. Maybe you Spiral. Maybe you twitch a bit. Either way, we get paid.”

  “Pass,” I said.

  He grabbed for my arm.

  I stepped sideways faster than I thought possible, his hand closing on air.

  My HUD blinked, surprised:

  [REFLEX SPIKE]

  Speed Output: +22% (Untrained)

  Expression Influence: POSSIBLE

  We both froze.

  He recovered, then lunged.

  My hand shot out and caught his wrist. No thought, only instinct.

  His skin was cold and grimy. I twisted hard, the wrong way.

  CRACK.

  The injector dropped.

  It rolled. Warm. Humming faintly. I picked it up.

  “No,” Tentacles whispered. “Don’t –”

  I jammed it into Scar’s neck and slammed my thumb down.

  He choked, falling to his knees.

  His veins turned pitch-black under his skin…

  …fast. Too fast. I had never seen a reaction that quick.

  My HUD screamed:

  [FOREIGN AGENT DETECTED]

  Host Reaction: NECROTIC BLOOM

  Time to Collapse: 3… 2…

  I’d seen a Bloom once before, liquification – truly horrifying.

  “Shitshitshit,” Tentacles stammered, stumbling backward. “He’s Bloomin –”

  Jitterboy moved, faster than lightning. A knife flashed.

  My instincts took over again.

  I ducked under the swing, came up inside his reach, and slammed my palm into his chest.

  Heat erupted through me – violent, primal, hungry.

  My HUD exploded with warnings:

  [EXPRESSION SURGE]

  Thermal Output: CRITICAL

  Control: 3%

  Stability: DANGEROUS

  New Trait Registered: FIRELINE (PROTO)

  Fireline?

  Before I could process what my HUD was showing, his jacket lit from the inside.

  Red first.

  Then bright.

  Then fire streamed from his mouth.

  He hit the ash screaming.

  [BIO-LOG UPDATE]

  Specimen: Twitchspur Hybrid (♂) — Lvl 3

  Outcome: Termination

  Catalyst: Thermal Overload

  EXP: +34

  Scar was spasming now, skin bubbling, bones softening.

  I stepped toward him and pressed my palm over his heart.

  Heat ripped through him in a single silent flash.

  He went still.

  [BIO-LOG UPDATE]

  Specimen: Shutterscale Variant (♂) — Lvl 2

  Outcome: Termination

  Catalyst: Necrotic Bloom

  EXP: +28

  [LEVEL STATUS]

  Lexi Leigh — Ashborn (Anomalous)

  Level: 1

  EXP to Next: 62/200

  Traits Updated: Reflex Spike (Proto)

  Tentacles had bolted the moment he ignited.

  The alley went quiet.

  That’s when I heard it, a familiar mechanical whine.

  I looked up.

  White-shell drone.

  Highborn crest stamped boldly.

  Cold blue lens staring straight into the scene.

  My HUD flickered with terror:

  [TOWER DRONE: ACTIVE]

  Scan Mode: ON

  Targeting: UNKNOWN

  Advice: DO. NOT. MOVE.

  “Of course,” I whispered.

  It was nice being alive again for a minute…

  It dipped lower, scanning bodies, ash outlines, scorch marks.

  I backed away quickly, pressing myself into the darkest corner, barely breathing..

  The lens swept past me…once, twice… then flicked away.

  It rose back into the smog.

  Scene stamped:

  ASH CONFLICT — 3 DEAD — NO ANOMALY DETECTED

  CASE CLOSED

  I let out the breath I’d been strangling.

  Good.

  Let them think I stayed dead.

  I stepped back out and scavenged what tattered rags I could from Scar’s and Jitterboy’s bodies. A bit charred, but enough to keep the eyes off me in a crowd.

  Ashfield opened before me like a wound.

  Shanty stalls sagged under neon. Vendors screamed prices for noodles boiled in brown water, knockoff mods, “safe” RNA in chipped vials. A woman with translucent skin haggled over stabilizer pills.

  Brinefolk kids tore through the gutter streams, gills flashing. They laughed in water toxic enough to kill anyone without their DNA.

  An older Brinefolk man sat on a crate watching them. He shook a can, sprayed a rag, lifted it to his face, and inhaled deep. His pupils flared, rolled back, a thin transparent lens sliding over them. One cheap hit to keep the world away a little longer.

  Life. Ugly. Stubborn. Relentless. Ash.

  But watching those kids splashing through poison like it was clean rain… yeah, sometimes it was beautiful too.

  My HUD pinged:

  [BROADNET NOTICE]

  ANOMALOUS REBOOT – FEMALE, LATE TEENS–EARLY 20s

  SECTOR 9

  REWARD: 1,000 VEIN CREDITS + RNA VOUCHER

  AUTHORIZED: ORDER / VEIN CONTRACTORS

  A thousand Vein credits.

  People in the Vein wouldn’t lose any sleep killing blood relatives for half that.

  Boots clanged ahead.

  Six sets. A familiar rhythm - null-staves humming that void-death sound that made my teeth ache.

  I ducked between stalls, down a narrow service gap. Pressed to the wall.

  A shadow moved behind me. Fast.

  A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me deeper into the dark.

  I almost lit the entire corridor on fire.

  “Easy,” a voice murmured in my ear. “Unless you’re ready to stand on a second pyre.”