ACE 81 — Bloom - World of Ace and Mai

## Chapter 1 — The First Bloom The body on the stainless steel table had stopped twitching twenty minutes ago. Nobody in the room trusted that yet. County Emergency Overflow sat three floors beneath street level in Watson, buried under leaking pipes, mold-stained concrete, and the constant mechanical vibration of Night City moving overhead. Cheap fluorescent panels hummed weakly behind protective cages, washing the autopsy room in exhausted white light that made everybody look half-dead already. Two municipal med-techs stood near the far wall pretending not to stare. The older coroner didn’t bother pretending. “What gang?” “Valentinos,” one of the techs answered. The coroner grunted softly. “Third one?” “Fourth.” That made the room quieter. The corpse barely resembled a person anymore. The dead Valentino’s chest had swollen grotesquely beneath shredded red fabric. Muscle tissue — or something pretending to be muscle tissue — had layered itself unevenly around visible chrome implants, forcing metal partially out through ruptured skin. Bone structures beneath the jaw had overgrown violently enough to split the cheeks open from inside. Worst part: the growth looked purposeful. Not random cancer. Not decay. Adaptation. Wrong adaptation. The coroner slowly circled the table. “Still no toxin match?” “Nothin’ clean,” the younger tech muttered. “System keeps flagging corrupted samples.” The coroner leaned closer toward the corpse’s shoulder. “There.” Tiny puncture wound. Barely visible beneath stretched tissue. The older man frowned. “That did all this?” Nobody answered. The room smelled like antiseptic trying and failing to overpower cooked meat. One of the refrigeration units rattled loudly somewhere behind the walls. Then the corpse made a sound. Wet. Small. Everybody froze instantly. The younger tech actually whispered: “No no no no—” The dead Valentino’s right hand jerked once against the restraints. Tendons flexed under swollen skin. Then the body settled again. The coroner stared at it for several long seconds. “…brain stem residue,” he muttered finally. Nobody believed him. --- Rain rolled across Watson in silver sheets thick enough to smear the city into reflections and moving light. Ace stood beneath a broken noodle-shop awning watching people cross the street faster than usual. Nobody looked upward anymore. That was new. A pair of Tyger Claws hurried past with jackets zipped high despite the humidity, tattoos hidden beneath collars. Across the intersection two Valentinos pretended very hard not to notice them. Nobody flashed colors. Nobody shouted territory. The street felt compressed. Like the city was waiting for something it couldn’t see yet. Ace lit an herbal cigarette one-handed without taking her eyes off the crowd. “You feel it too,” Mai said beside her. Not a question. Ace exhaled smoke slowly. “Yeah.” Mai stood half under the awning glow, silver hair catching neon reflections from passing traffic. Her agent projected muted forensic overlays across one lens as she scrolled silently through stolen clinic records. Three deaths. Four if the county morgue leak was real. Different gangs. Different districts. Same symptoms. Shammy stood nearest the curb, tall frame motionless while rain hissed softly against her coat sleeves. Tiny static pops flickered occasionally against nearby metal railing whenever passing headlights reflected across wet pavement. People unconsciously walked around her without realizing they were doing it. “Atmosphere changed overnight,” Shammy murmured. Ace nodded once. Night City always carried pressure. Violence. Noise. Paranoia. Predatory momentum. But this felt different. Quieter. The kind of quiet that happened right before retaliation started multiplying faster than information. A siren wailed somewhere far south. Nobody nearby reacted. Mai finally lowered the agent slightly. “Municipal pathology tagged all four bodies with unknown tissue expansion.” “Meaning?” Ace asked. Mai’s expression tightened faintly. “Meaning the bodies tried to become something else before systemic collapse.” “That’s comforting.” “It should be impossible.” Ace snorted softly. “That stopped meaning anything around here years ago.” A group of Maelstrom passed across the opposite sidewalk. Even they looked nervous. One kept scanning rooftops every few seconds. Another had partially spray-painted over visible gang chrome markings. Shammy watched them go. “They’re scared.” “Good,” Ace muttered automatically. But she didn’t really mean it this time. --- The call came forty minutes later. Not from Rogue herself. Rogue never called personally unless somebody extremely important was already dying. The message appeared on Mai’s agent in clean white text. AFTERLIFE. TONIGHT. COME QUIET. No signature. Didn’t need one. Ace looked toward the rain-soaked skyline beyond Watson’s broken towers. Far away, somewhere deeper in the city, another siren started screaming. Then another. And another. --- The ride to Afterlife took longer than usual. Not because traffic was bad. Because nobody trusted intersections anymore. Ace watched Night City slide past the Quadra’s rain-streaked windows in fractured neon smears — red brake lights bleeding across wet asphalt, storefront holo-ads flickering against puddles thick with oil and chemical runoff. Normally the city moved like an argument. Tonight it moved like people were listening for something. A 6th Street patrol truck rolled through a junction near Kabuki with weapons already visible through open side windows. Two blocks later a group of Valentinos stood outside a liquor store pretending not to stare at a passing Maelstrom convoy. No shouting. No threats. That was worse. Mai noticed it too. “Retaliation posture,” she murmured quietly from the passenger seat. Ace kept one elbow against the door. “Too early.” “Exactly.” That was the problem. Night City understood violence. Violence had rules. You shot somebody: people knew who shot back. But this? Nobody understood what this was yet. Which meant everybody would start inventing answers. Shammy sat stretched across the rear seat, eyes fixed on the passing skyline. Reflections crawled faintly across her silver-white hair each time lightning flickered somewhere beyond the city core. “The pressure’s wrong,” she said softly. Ace glanced at her in the mirror. “How wrong?” Shammy took a moment before answering. “…contained.” That landed strangely hard. Because she was right. Night City usually felt chaotic. Violence exploded outward constantly. But this fear was folding inward instead. People were shrinking. Watching. Waiting. The city wasn’t panicking yet. It was holding its breath. --- Afterlife pulsed beneath the city like a buried reactor. Bass rolled through concrete floors in slow heavy waves as Ace, Mai, and Shammy crossed the entrance threshold beneath red ambient lighting and layered holographic smoke. Mercs filled booths and standing rails in dense shadows, conversations low and sharp beneath the music. But even here something felt… tighter tonight. People stopped talking when unknown footsteps approached. Too many eyes tracking entrances. Ace noticed three separate weapon checks before they even reached the stairs. Rogue’s message had spread. Not the details. Just the pressure. Claire gave them a short nod from behind the bar while polishing glasses that probably didn’t need polishing. “You’re late,” she said automatically. “We’re alive,” Ace answered. “Low standards.” Tiny smile. Gone immediately. Even Claire looked tense. That alone said enough. Rogue occupied her usual upper booth overlooking the main floor like a queen tolerating gravity. One hand rested beside a half-finished drink. The other tapped slowly against the table in irregular rhythm. She didn’t gesture for them to sit. Didn’t need to. “You’ve seen the bodies,” Rogue said before anyone spoke. Mai slid into the booth first. “Four confirmed.” “Seven.” Ace’s eyes narrowed immediately. Rogue leaned back slightly. “Two Tyger Claws. Two Valentinos. One Maelstrom. One Animal. One 6th Street.” “No Voodoo Boys?” Ace asked. “Not yet.” That _yet_ mattered. Shammy folded carefully into the booth’s outer edge, long legs nearly impossible to fit beneath the table. Rogue continued. “No civilians. No randoms. No collateral.” “So targeted,” Mai said quietly. “Very.” Rogue slid a shard across the table. “Latest victim.” Ace slotted it into the booth reader. Footage appeared immediately. Bad angle. Security cam. Rainy alley near Charter Hill. Three Animals moving through the frame laughing about something. Then one suddenly jerked violently sideways. Tiny impact near the neck. At first nothing happened. One of his friends even laughed. The victim pulled the bolt free himself. Five seconds later he collapsed. The footage glitched from movement and rain interference as the man began convulsing against the pavement. Muscle expansion. Body distortion. Chrome overheating beneath skin. One arm visibly split open from internal pressure while the other Animals backed away screaming. The victim was still trying to crawl when his spine bent the wrong direction. Ace stopped the footage there. Nobody spoke for a moment. Finally: “That’s not infection,” Mai said. “No,” Rogue agreed. Mai replayed several seconds slowly. “The compound reacts almost immediately to stress load.” “English,” Ace muttered. “It’s reading the body and trying to force adaptation.” Shammy’s gaze stayed fixed on the frozen image. “It hurts.” Rogue looked toward her. “You think?” “No.” Shammy shook her head slightly. “I mean it’s designed to.” Silence. That changed the room. Because they all immediately understood what she meant. This wasn’t sloppy biotech. Pain itself was part of the process. Rogue finally drained the rest of her glass. “Here’s the real problem.” She leaned forward slightly. “Gangs are already blaming each other. Smaller crews started shooting shadows two hours ago in Santo Domingo.” Ace grimaced. “There it is.” “Exactly.” Rogue pointed once toward her. “This city survives because violence stays predictable. Somebody just broke the math.” Mai looked down at the shard again. “No manufacturing signatures?” “Nothing official.” “Meaning homemade,” Ace said quietly. Rogue nodded once. “And if some psycho figured out how to cook this garbage in a garage lab, I want them found before half the city starts preemptively murdering each other.” A beat passed. Then Rogue added coldly: “And before somebody important decides to solve the problem permanently.” --- The music downstairs hit harder sometime after midnight. Not louder. Heavier. Like the bass itself had started carrying tension. Ace stood against the upper railing outside Rogue’s booth watching the crowd below shift in restless waves beneath red neon haze. Conversations kept breaking apart too fast. Mercs checked agents mid-sentence. Two separate people near the far bar visibly flinched when somebody dropped a glass. Night City rumor propagation. Fast. Ugly. Uncontrolled. Mai emerged from the booth carrying the shard Rogue had given them, muted forensic overlays reflecting faintly across her eyes. “I hate this already,” Ace muttered. “You hate most things already.” “True.” Shammy stepped out behind Mai, ducking slightly beneath a low overhead light fixture someone taller than average probably should’ve redesigned years ago. The static around her had intensified subtly since arriving. Not dangerous. Just enough to make nearby holograms flicker occasionally. “What do we know?” Ace asked. Mai leaned lightly against the railing. “The compound is partially organic.” “That narrows it down in Night City to only several million possibilities.” Mai ignored her. “It’s carrying adaptive instruction chains.” Ace blinked once. “…English again.” “It isn’t poisoning tissue.” Mai folded her arms. “It’s forcing tissue to reinterpret itself under combat stress.” Shammy frowned faintly. “Like panic evolution.” Mai looked toward her immediately. “…that’s actually disturbingly accurate.” Ace rubbed tiredly at one eye. “Fantastic. Weaponized bad ideas.” Mai expanded another overlay across the shard surface. “There’s more.” “Always is.” “The biological material isn’t stable enough for storage.” Ace’s expression sharpened slightly. “Meaning?” “Meaning whoever’s making this likely produces it locally and in small batches.” Rogue exited the booth behind them at exactly the moment the realization settled. “Now you understand why I’m irritated.” Ace glanced sideways. “You have suspects already.” “Maybe.” Rogue lit a cigarette with practiced indifference. “Three black clinics got hit over the last two months. Quiet jobs. Specific supplies missing.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of supplies?” “Growth medium. Regenerative substrate gel. Wetware stabilizers.” “…biological support systems,” Mai murmured. Rogue nodded once. “Nothing flashy enough to trigger corp response. Too weird for street scavengers. At the time it looked like somebody building illegal biosculpt equipment.” “But now,” Ace said quietly. “Now it looks like somebody stocking a lab.” Below them, shouting suddenly erupted near the entrance. Everybody on the balcony looked down immediately. A Maelstrom ganger had slammed another merc against the wall near the security arch scanners, screaming something half-coherent about hidden colors and rooftop shooters. Three bouncers moved in instantly before weapons cleared leather. Nobody laughed. That was important. Normally Afterlife fed on aggression. Tonight people just looked exhausted. Rogue watched the altercation for several seconds before speaking again. “You see the problem.” Shammy’s gaze stayed fixed on the floor below. “The city’s turning inward.” “Exactly.” Rogue flicked ash over the railing. “Somebody doesn’t need to kill hundreds. They just need everybody scared enough to do the work themselves.” The fight downstairs ended quickly. The Maelstrom ganger got thrown into the rain outside hard enough to bounce off wet pavement. No retaliation followed. That silence bothered Ace more than the fight had. Mai suddenly tilted her head slightly, eyes focusing somewhere distant through incoming data. “Another hit.” Rogue’s expression flattened instantly. “Where.” “Japantown.” Ace was already moving before Mai finished speaking. --- The alley behind the pachinko hall smelled like rain, blood, and overheated electronics. NCPD hadn’t arrived yet. Smart move. A small crowd had gathered at the street entrance but nobody wanted to step closer than necessary. Neon signs flickered overhead in pink and blue reflections across soaked pavement while distant music from nearby clubs bled weakly through concrete walls. In the center of the alley a Tyger Claw lay against a dumpster convulsing violently. Still alive. Barely. Two terrified gang members stood several meters away aiming pistols at their own friend without enough courage to pull the trigger. The victim’s body spasmed again. Bone structures pushed visibly beneath skin along the throat and ribs. Chrome ports around the jawline had swollen outward through inflamed tissue, leaking blood mixed with translucent fluid onto rain-slick concrete. And the sound— Wet cracking. Internal. Continuous. Ace moved first. “Back up.” The Tyger Claws obeyed instantly without argument. Fear overrode pride tonight. Mai dropped beside the victim carefully, scanner already active. “Arrow wound confirmed,” she said sharply. Tiny puncture near the shoulder. Almost invisible. The victim suddenly grabbed Mai’s wrist hard enough to make the scanner shake. Eyes wide. Conscious. Terrified. “Please—” His spine jerked violently. The scream that followed barely sounded human. Muscle tissue erupted unevenly across the left side of his torso, stretching skin to translucency. One cybernetic implant overloaded with a shower of sparks beneath expanding flesh. Mai tore free immediately. “It’s accelerating.” Ace crouched beside the victim. For one horrible second the man’s breathing stabilized. Then new teeth started forcing themselves through the inside of his cheeks. Not predator teeth. Not monster fangs. Just random human dental structures growing wherever biological instructions found available space. The victim started choking on blood immediately. Shammy looked away first. Not from fear. From understanding exactly how much pain this was causing. Ace saw it too. The Tyger Claw’s eyes locked onto hers desperately. Still conscious. Still there. That made the decision easy. One fast motion. Clean. Precise. The alley went silent except for rain. Nobody moved afterward. One of the Tyger Claws near the entrance whispered something in Japanese Ace didn’t catch entirely. But she understood one word. Curse. Mai stared down at the corpse several seconds longer than necessary. Then quietly: “This was targeted.” Ace wiped blood from the blade edge onto the pavement. “No shit.” Mai looked up sharply. “No. I mean specifically targeted.” She pointed toward the victim’s visible chrome. “Minimal combat augmentation. Moderate biosculpt history. Artificial hormone balancing. The compound adapted too efficiently.” Ace frowned. “You’re saying the body composition mattered.” “Yes.” Shammy turned slowly back toward them. “…it picked him.” And somewhere high above the alley rooftops, invisible behind rain and neon haze, something metallic reflected light for less than half a second before disappearing again. --- Nobody saw the reflection except Ace. And even she wasn’t completely sure she’d seen it. A rooftop vent. Rain. Scope lens. Water on metal. Could’ve been anything. But her eyes stayed fixed upward several seconds too long anyway. The alley had gone very still behind her. Not peaceful. Careful. One Tyger Claw finally lowered his pistol with shaking hands. “…what the fuck was that?” Nobody answered him. Because nobody had an answer yet. Mai remained crouched beside the corpse, scanner projecting soft blue diagnostic bands across tissue that still occasionally twitched beneath ruined skin. “Cellular aggression hasn’t stopped.” Ace looked back down. “He’s dead.” “The tissue isn’t.” That landed badly. The swollen growth around the victim’s neck shifted faintly beneath the scanner light, almost like slow breathing. Not alive in any meaningful sense anymore. Just biological momentum continuing after the body had already lost. Mai’s expression darkened slightly. “It’s still trying to adapt.” “To what?” one of the Tyger Claws whispered. Mai didn’t answer immediately. Because she didn’t know. And that silence frightened everybody in the alley more than any explanation would have. --- NCPD sirens echoed somewhere nearby now. Still distant. Still deciding whether this district was worth the paperwork. Ace stepped away from the body and lit another herbal cigarette under the dripping fire escape ladder overhead. Smoke curled upward into rain before vanishing almost instantly. The surviving Tyger Claws kept staring at their dead friend. Not grief. Not entirely. Fear. One finally spoke quietly. “He was clean.” Ace glanced sideways. “Clean?” “No black lace. No berserk. No scav shit.” The ganger swallowed hard. “Riku barely even chromed.” Mai looked up immediately. “How much biosculpt?” The ganger blinked. “What?” “Cosmetic modifications. Hormone tuning. Muscle shaping. Anything biological.” “…some.” Mai stood slowly. Ace saw the pieces connecting behind her eyes already. “That matters,” Mai murmured. The second Tyger Claw backed another step away from the corpse. “You saying this thing chooses?” “No,” Mai answered automatically. Then paused. “…maybe.” That word poisoned the air instantly. Because everybody there understood the implication. If the compound reacted differently depending on the target— then somebody might be designing the kills. Not just causing them. Tailoring them. --- A burst of gunfire erupted somewhere three blocks east. Everybody in the alley flinched. Another burst answered it seconds later. The Tyger Claws looked toward the sound immediately. “See?” one hissed. “This is already starting.” Ace hated that he was right. One dead ganger used to stay one dead ganger. Now every body looked like a message. --- Shammy suddenly tilted her head slightly toward the alley entrance. Static danced faintly across nearby wet metal. “Someone’s coming.” Not police. The footsteps were too controlled. A thin man in a dark municipal coat emerged carefully from the rain carrying a cheap forensic case against his chest. Mid-thirties maybe. Exhausted eyes. Municipal pathology badge hanging crooked near the collar. He stopped dead when he saw the body. “…Jesus.” Nobody corrected him this time. The coroner crouched carefully several feet away without getting too close. His face drained of color almost immediately. “This is the fourth one I’ve seen tonight.” Ace frowned. “Tonight?” The man nodded once numbly. “Two more hit in Santo Domingo. Another in Heywood.” He looked toward the corpse again. “They’re escalating.” Mai stepped closer immediately. “You worked the previous bodies?” “County overflow.” He rubbed one hand shakily across his mouth. “Nobody knows what they’re looking at yet.” “Arrow wounds consistent?” “Mostly.” That word hit hard too. Ace noticed it first. “Mostly?” The coroner hesitated. Rain hammered the alley harder around them. Then finally: “One body didn’t have a bolt.” Silence. Mai’s eyes narrowed instantly. “What did it have?” The coroner looked like he regretted answering already. “…puncture marks.” Ace felt the pressure in the alley change immediately. Not because of the words themselves. Because everybody there understood what they implied. Somebody had started experimenting. And somewhere above the city, hidden beyond rain, glass, and neon haze— someone else might still be watching. --- The municipal coroner left five minutes before NCPD finally arrived. Not because he was ordered to. Because he clearly wanted distance between himself and whatever this had become. Ace watched his unmarked city sedan disappear through rain and neon while uniformed officers slowly sealed the alley behind portable barricades. Nobody from MaxTac. Nobody from Biotechnica. No corp response teams descending from armored AVs. Not yet. That worried her more. Night City only stayed quiet this long when somebody bigger was still thinking. --- The drive out of Japantown felt worse. Not louder. Just… thinner. Like the city’s nerves had stretched too tight. Mai sat in silence most of the ride, agent open across her lap while stolen autopsy files and forensic snapshots scrolled endlessly across the display. Shammy watched the streets. Ace watched the rooftops. Three separate times she caught movement above traffic lines — silhouettes crossing maintenance bridges, figures near water towers, reflections vanishing behind rooftop machinery. Could’ve been scavengers. Could’ve been lookouts. Could’ve been nothing. But instinct kept scraping at the back of her skull. The shooter stayed elevated. Patient. Observing. --- Kabuki Market should have been loud. Instead it sounded restrained. Vendors still shouted. Music still blasted from cheap speakers. Steam still rolled from food stalls beneath burning neon advertisements. But conversations stopped when strangers walked too close. People kept checking behind themselves. A pair of Valentinos passed through the crowd wearing blank jackets with their colors stripped off completely. One had tried to scrape gang tattoos raw with a knife. Ace saw the blood through the bandages. “Jesus,” she muttered quietly. Shammy looked toward the crowd moving around them in uneasy currents. “They think hiding will help.” “Sometimes it does,” Ace answered. Mai finally spoke without looking up from the agent. “No.” Both Ace and Shammy turned immediately. Mai zoomed one of the forensic images larger. “The body selection isn’t random.” Ace frowned. “You already said that.” “I was wrong.” That got her attention. Mai rarely admitted error mid-analysis. She rotated a biological scan across the display. “Not gang affiliation.” Ace leaned closer. “Then what?” Mai highlighted several overlapping medical markers. “Hormonal modification history. Biosculpt residue. Combat-adaptation therapies. Even the Maelstrom victim had partial endocrine tuning beneath the chrome.” Shammy’s expression shifted slightly. “He’s choosing altered bodies.” “Yes.” Rain rolled across the Quadra windshield outside in silver streaks while the realization settled heavily between them. Night City suddenly felt much larger. And much more vulnerable. Because altered bodies described almost half the damn city. --- Ace’s agent chimed once. Encrypted. Rogue. Simple text: COME SEE THIS. No location needed. Afterlife again. Ace sighed. “That was fast.” “Means something changed,” Mai said immediately. “Or something got worse,” Shammy murmured. Nobody disagreed. --- This time Afterlife felt dangerous before they even entered. Two mercs argued violently near the entrance scanners while security watched with hands already near weapons. Across the parking area somebody had spray-painted over visible gang symbols on a parked bike. The red neon skull above the entrance flickered once through heavy rain. Inside, the atmosphere had shifted from tension into active suspicion. People looked at each other too long. Merc crews clustered tighter together. Even the music sounded sharper somehow. Claire intercepted them halfway to the stairs. “You hear about Santo?” Ace stopped immediately. “What happened?” “Convoy ambush.” Claire wiped down a glass hard enough to squeak. “Animals opened fire on a Tyger transport after somebody thought they saw a crossbow on a rooftop.” “…how many dead?” Claire’s expression flattened. “Too many.” There it was. The thing Rogue feared. Not the killings. The chain reaction. --- Rogue waited upstairs with a holo-map already active across the table. Multiple districts blinked amber across the projection. Watson. Japantown. Santo Domingo. Heywood. Pressure points. “Sit,” Rogue said immediately. That alone meant the situation had escalated. Ace dropped into the booth. “How bad?” Rogue expanded the map. “Bad enough that fixers started freezing contracts in affected sectors.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. “That never happens.” “No shit.” Rogue zoomed the projection tighter. Small icons spread across the districts like infection markers. But not random. Clustered. Purposeful. Shammy stared at the map several seconds. “…he’s shaping movement.” Rogue pointed toward her instantly. “Exactly.” Ace leaned forward slowly. The routes suddenly became visible once you stopped looking at the bodies. Certain streets emptied after attacks. Certain gang routes collapsed. Certain territories started overlapping from avoidance behavior. The shooter wasn’t just killing people. He was rearranging the city. Mai looked genuinely unsettled now. “This is planned.” “Very,” Rogue answered. Then she tossed a thin datachip onto the table. “Former employee records. One name keeps resurfacing around stolen biotech inventory.” Ace picked up the chip. “Who?” Rogue’s expression hardened slightly. “Dr. Elias Rainer.” Mai immediately searched the name. “Biological systems engineer,” she read quietly. “Adaptive tissue recovery research… accelerated trauma restructuring…” Ace blinked once. “That sounds expensive.” “It was.” Rogue lit another cigarette. “Until the project got buried after human trials started eating themselves alive.” Silence. Rain battered the windows behind the booth hard enough to sound almost like distant applause. Then Rogue added quietly: “Rainer disappeared eight months ago.” And somewhere deep in Ace’s instincts, something finally clicked into place. Not a gang war. Not terrorism. A field test. And suddenly the city felt much colder. --- The rain stopped sometime around three in the morning. Night City immediately felt worse without it. Water still dripped from elevated rails and broken signage across Watson, but now the city sounded exposed — distant engines, muffled sirens, scattered gunfire carrying farther through damp air than it should have. Ace hated quiet nights. Quiet nights meant people were thinking. And people thinking in Night City usually led to bodies. --- The old med-data attached to Elias Rainer filled the Quadra’s dashboard projection while Mai scrolled through archived corporate records. Most of the files were corrupted intentionally. Not deleted. Buried. Which usually meant somebody important once cared enough to hide them properly. “Adaptive trauma restructuring,” Mai read quietly. “Original intent was accelerated battlefield recovery.” Ace kept her eyes on the road. “Meaning?” “Combat tissue capable of reorganizing around damage.” “That sounds like cyberpsychosis with extra paperwork.” “Essentially.” Shammy leaned slightly forward from the rear seat. “What caused the shutdown?” Mai’s expression tightened. “Instability.” Several clinical photographs rotated slowly across the display. Failed tissue grafts. Calcified muscle masses. Bone growth spreading through vascular systems. Human bodies trying to survive too aggressively. Ace grimaced. “Yeah, that’ll do it.” Mai enlarged another section. “Wait.” The image sharpened. Internal notes. Trial commentary. One sentence highlighted in yellow. SUBJECTS WITH PRIOR BIOLOGICAL MODIFICATION SHOWED SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER ADAPTIVE RESPONSE. Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Ace muttered: “So he figured out how to weaponize compatibility.” “Yes.” Mai zoomed further. “And refine target selection.” --- The greenhouse contracts led them toward the industrial edge of Santo Domingo. Not active agricultural sectors. Old hydroponics infrastructure. Dead projects. Bankrupt food initiatives abandoned decades ago when synthetic protein became cheaper than real growth cycles. Night City still carried the skeletons of failed optimism everywhere if you knew where to look. Tall glass structures appeared occasionally between factory blocks and power substations — enormous black silhouettes against distant neon haze, most long shattered or overtaken by rust. But one contract stayed active. Quietly renewed every two months through shell companies that barely existed. ACE GREEN BIOLOGICAL MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS. Ace stared at the file. “…subtle.” “It’s fake,” Mai answered automatically. “I know.” Still stupid. Which somehow made it more believable. --- The greenhouse complex sat beyond a flooded cargo district near the southern industrial canals. Huge glass structures rose against the skyline like dark cathedral ribs, barely visible through ground fog and chemical haze drifting off stagnant water. From a distance, faint green light glowed behind condensation-covered panels. Alive. The closer they got, the stranger the place felt. Not threatening. Maintained. Somebody cared for this place. That was the unsettling part. Ace parked beneath the rusted remains of an elevated magrail line overlooking the complex. No guards. No drones. No visible defenses. Shammy stepped out first. The air shifted immediately around her. Humid. Warm. Heavy with plant growth. And underneath it— something organic. Mai noticed too. “…protein cultures.” Ace checked the rooftops automatically. Nothing. Still, instinct kept pulling upward. Watching angles. Sightlines. Water towers. Maintenance catwalks. The feeling hadn’t left since Japantown. Somewhere out there, somebody else knew this place existed already. --- The main greenhouse door stood partially open. No electronic lock. Just old reinforced glass and manual steel framing slick with condensation. Ace pushed it inward slowly. Warm air rolled over them immediately. Not rotten. Not diseased. Growing. Rows of hydroponic towers stretched into the distance beneath soft green grow lights. Thick vines crawled along support beams overhead while water circulated quietly through transparent nutrient tubes lining the walls. Flowers bloomed between bioculture tanks. Real flowers. Shammy stopped briefly beside one growing tray. “…he kept them alive.” Mai’s gaze swept across nearby equipment. Not military hardware. Scientific. Carefully organized. Glassware cleaned. Tools maintained. Culture tanks monitored obsessively. This wasn’t a psycho’s slaughter den. It was a workspace. That realization disturbed Ace more than gore would have. Then she noticed the photographs. Pinned carefully beside one workstation. Street images. Gang members. Animals. Tyger Claws. Valentinos. Maelstrom. Observation shots. Some from rooftops. Some from crowds. Some clearly taken days before the attacks. Mai stepped closer slowly. “He studied them.” Not targets. Subjects. --- A voice spoke calmly somewhere deeper in the greenhouse. “You came faster than I expected.” Nobody flinched. The voice didn’t carry threat. Just exhaustion. Dr. Elias Rainer emerged between rows of hanging vegetation wearing stained work clothes beneath an old thermal jacket. Mid-fifties maybe. Thin. Slightly unshaven. Tired eyes behind cracked lenses. Entirely ordinary. That was the worst part. No madness in his face. No theatricality. No cult-leader charisma. Just a man who looked like he hadn’t slept properly in months. His gaze moved across Triad quietly. Then settled briefly on Ace’s visible blades. “…efficient,” he murmured. Ace didn’t lower her stance. “You’ve killed a lot of people.” Rainer tilted his head slightly. “Compared to Night City?” Silence. Water pumps hummed softly somewhere overhead. The greenhouse lights reflected off condensation drifting slowly through warm air. And outside, far beyond the glass structures and fog-covered industrial canals— something metallic shifted almost invisibly into position. --- Nobody moved. The greenhouse seemed to absorb sound strangely, humidity flattening echoes into soft dull pressure beneath the grow lights overhead. Water trickled somewhere deep inside the irrigation system in slow rhythmic pulses. Rainer stayed exactly where he was. No weapon visible. No panic. No attempt to escape. That alone made Ace more cautious. People who didn’t run usually believed they were right. Mai’s gaze drifted slowly across the workstations surrounding him. Culture tanks. Growth medium trays. Handwritten notes. Microscopic tissue samples suspended in nutrient gel. An entire ecosystem of controlled biological violence. And flowers everywhere. White lilies. Blue orchids. Even small roses climbing one support frame beneath the lights. Shammy looked at them quietly. “You built a garden.” Rainer’s tired expression shifted almost imperceptibly. “Yes.” Ace kept her hand near one blade hilt. “You built a slaughterhouse.” “No.” Rainer shook his head once. “Night City already had one of those.” That answer landed harder than Ace wanted it to. Because somewhere underneath the horror— there was still a piece of truth inside it. --- Mai approached one workstation slowly. Photos covered the desk surface beneath clipped medical files and district maps. Victim observation logs. Behavioral notes. Chrome profiles. Hormonal adaptation markers. Rainer noticed where she was looking. “I had to understand compatibility thresholds.” Ace stared at him flatly. “They were people.” “They were armed gang affiliates with long histories of violent activity.” “That isn’t what I said.” For the first time, something like irritation flickered briefly across Rainer’s face. “You think Night City distinguishes between people and acceptable casualties?” he asked quietly. “Interesting.” The greenhouse fans hummed softly overhead. Outside, distant thunder rolled across the industrial skyline. Or maybe not thunder. Hard to tell in this city. --- Mai picked up one of the printed reports carefully. “Your compound responds differently depending on prior biological modification.” Rainer nodded once immediately. “Of course it does.” Like she’d asked about weather. “The body already wants to adapt,” he continued calmly. “Hormonal tuning. Combat enhancement. Biosculpting. Synthetic recovery therapies. Night City normalized unstable biological acceleration years ago.” He stepped slowly toward one hydroponic rack, fingers brushing absentmindedly across damp leaves. “I simply removed the safety limitations.” Ace’s expression hardened. “They died screaming.” Rainer looked back toward her. “Yes.” No hesitation. No guilt-performance. No excuses. Just acknowledgment. And somehow that felt worse. --- Shammy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You watched them first.” That made him pause. Only briefly. “I had to be certain.” “Certain of what?” “That they belonged to the system creating the problem.” Ace barked a humorless laugh. “You think this city has clean categories?” “No.” Rainer looked genuinely tired now. “I think this city stopped believing consequences were real.” He moved toward another workstation and activated a wall display. District crime statistics appeared across the greenhouse glass. Declining violence curves. Retaliation heatmaps. Gang movement patterns. Mai stared immediately. “…you tracked behavioral shifts.” “Yes.” Rainer enlarged one district cluster. “After the third incident, visible gang presence dropped twenty-one percent in several sectors.” He switched to another graph. “Drive-by shootings declined. Open territorial aggression decreased. Civilian collateral incidents dropped with them.” Ace felt cold pressure settling slowly in her stomach. Because the numbers were real. Not fabricated. Not manipulated. Real. Rainer watched their reactions carefully. “For the first time in years,” he said quietly, “children crossed blocks in Santo Domingo without hearing automatic gunfire every night.” Nobody answered him. The greenhouse suddenly felt oppressively warm. --- Mai finally lowered the data pad slowly. “You engineered fear as behavioral correction.” “Yes.” “You used torture to do it.” Rainer closed his eyes briefly. “When exactly did this city become morally offended by suffering?” Silence. That one hit all three of them differently. Ace because she knew he was twisting truth into justification. Mai because part of her understood the structural logic anyway. Shammy because she could feel how completely he’d stopped seeing individuals. Only systems remained now. Pressure points. Statistical movement. Behavioral outcomes. Not names. Never names. --- A soft metallic sound echoed somewhere outside the greenhouse. Tiny. Almost inaudible beneath the fans. Ace’s head turned immediately toward the distant glass panels lining the eastern wall. Instinct again. That same scraping pressure at the back of her skull. Watching angles. Sightlines. Rainer noticed her movement. “You’ve been feeling it too.” Ace’s eyes snapped back toward him. “What?” “The observation.” The room became very still. Rainer gave a faint exhausted smile that never reached his eyes. “I wondered how long it would take before someone else noticed.” Mai’s voice sharpened instantly. “You’re being monitored.” “Of course I am.” No fear in the answer. Only resignation. Rainer walked slowly toward the nearest condensation-covered glass wall overlooking the foggy industrial canals beyond the greenhouse. “I was allowed to continue because the outcomes were useful.” Ace took one slow step forward. “Useful to who.” Rainer looked out into the night. And for the first time since they arrived— he hesitated. Not because he didn’t know. Because he did. --- Nobody spoke. Even the greenhouse machinery seemed quieter now, soft pumps and circulating water fading beneath the sudden weight pressing into the room. Ace watched Rainer carefully. Not his hands. His eyes. People lied with words all the time. Eyes usually told the truth a second earlier. And right now? Rainer looked tired. Not frightened. Not desperate. Tired like a man who’d already accepted the ending and was only waiting for it to arrive. That realization tightened something cold beneath Ace’s ribs. --- Mai stepped closer first. “Who funded the original project?” Rainer gave a small humorless smile. “You already know the answer to that.” “Corp military?” “Several.” “Who buried it?” “Several.” Mai’s jaw tightened slightly. Of course. Night City never created monsters cleanly. Too many hands always touched the knife first. Shammy moved quietly beside one of the hydroponic racks, fingertips brushing damp leaves while static whispered softly across nearby support beams. “They let you continue.” Rainer nodded once. “Yes.” “Why?” “Field data.” The answer came instantly. Too instantly. Ace felt her stomach turn a little. Rainer continued before anyone interrupted. “The first incidents caused concern.” His gaze drifted toward the glowing district maps still floating across the greenhouse wall. “The next incidents caused measurable behavioral suppression.” “Suppression,” Ace repeated flatly. “Reduced visible gang aggression. Reduced civilian exposure. Reduced territorial escalation.” “You’re talking about torture like urban planning.” For the first time, actual anger flickered behind Rainer’s exhaustion. “No.” His voice sharpened slightly. “I’m talking about consequences finally becoming frightening again.” The greenhouse fans hummed overhead. Warm condensation rolled slowly down the interior glass walls behind him like sweat. “You know what Night City normalized?” Rainer asked quietly. “Children learning caliber recognition before they learn mathematics. Street clinics treating dismemberment as routine maintenance. Entire districts adapting psychologically to random gunfire.” Mai didn’t interrupt. Neither did Ace. Because the worst part remained the same: none of that was false. Rainer looked toward the flower rows beside the culture tanks. “I tried softer solutions first.” That line changed everything. Ace saw it hit Mai too. Not because it justified anything. Because suddenly this wasn’t a sadist. This was somebody who had failed gradually. Research grants. Community outreach. Violence studies. Public health intervention models. All buried. Ignored. Defunded. Until eventually the city produced this version of him instead. That was the real horror sitting in the greenhouse. --- A distant metallic click echoed outside. Closer this time. Ace’s head snapped immediately toward the eastern glass wall. There. High above the canal line. A tiny flicker. Scope reflection. Gone instantly. Her hand moved toward her blade. Rainer noticed. And sighed softly. “…there it is.” Mai turned sharply. “How long?” Rainer gave a tiny shrug. “Three weeks? Maybe four.” “You knew someone was tracking you.” “I assumed.” “You stayed anyway?” That earned Mai the first genuinely confused look Rainer had shown since they arrived. “Where exactly was I supposed to go?” Silence again. Heavy this time. Because that answer was painfully Night City. --- Shammy suddenly straightened slightly. The atmosphere changed. Tiny static arcs snapped across nearby metal trays hard enough to make Mai look up immediately. Pressure drop. Instinct screamed through the room a fraction of a second before the sound arrived. Ace moved first. “DOWN—” The rifle crack hit the greenhouse like God slamming a steel beam across concrete. Not deafening. Massive. A high-caliber impact thundered through the humid air— —and less than a heartbeat later Elias Rainer’s head disappeared. Glass exploded outward behind him in a violent spray of blood, condensation, and shattered greenhouse panels. The body collapsed instantly against the hydroponic railings, twitching once before crashing sideways into flowering growth trays that overturned across the wet floor. Silence followed. Absolute. No second shot. No movement outside. Only falling glass. Mai stared at the corpse in shock so brief it barely registered before analysis took over. “Distance—” “Far,” Ace snapped immediately, already moving toward the shattered wall. She reached the broken greenhouse panels and looked out across the industrial canal system beyond the fog. Nothing. Just distant refinery lights. Rust towers. Rainwater steaming faintly from warm concrete rooftops. Professional shot. Very professional. The angle alone meant: - elevated position - prepared sightline - prior surveillance - exact timing They hadn’t interrupted an assassination. They’d triggered a cleanup. --- Shammy looked down at the dead bioengineer. Blood spread slowly through spilled nutrient water and crushed flowers across the greenhouse floor. The static around her faded almost immediately. “…pressure’s gone,” she murmured quietly. And that was the worst part. She was right. The room suddenly felt empty. Like something had completed itself. Mai crouched beside the body automatically, though both of them already knew there was nothing left to examine. “Instant cranial destruction,” she said numbly. Ace kept scanning rooftops through the shattered greenhouse opening. Nobody. Not even a retreat silhouette. Whoever pulled the trigger had already vanished before the echo finished dying. --- Then Mai stopped moving entirely. Ace looked back. Mai was staring at one of the still-active wall displays beside the corpse. Behavioral graphs still glowed softly across the greenhouse glass. Violence curves. Territory shifts. Suppression patterns. Live updates still processing. One district line had already started dropping again. As if the city itself was calming in real time. Mai’s expression darkened slightly. “He was right about one thing.” Ace didn’t answer immediately. Because she already knew which thing. Outside, somewhere deep in Night City, distant gunfire echoed once across the industrial skyline. Then stopped again almost immediately. And the greenhouse remained warm, humid, and full of flowers growing quietly beside the dead. --- Nobody touched the body for almost a full minute. Not out of respect. Out of instinct. The shot had rewritten the entire room too fast for human reactions to keep up. Ace finally stepped back from the shattered greenhouse wall, rain-cooled air rolling through the opening behind her while distant industrial lights flickered weakly beyond the canals. “Professional,” she said quietly. Mai looked up from the corpse. “Yes.” “No hesitation.” “No follow-up.” “No confirmation shot.” Shammy’s gaze drifted toward the darkness outside. “He knew it worked.” Ace nodded once. Exactly. Whoever pulled that trigger: - knew the rifle - knew the distance - knew the timing - knew where Rainer would stand Which meant one thing above all others: This had been prepared long before Triad arrived. --- Water dripped steadily through broken greenhouse panels now, mixing with blood and spilled nutrient solution across the floor. Crushed flowers floated slowly through red-tinted puddles beneath overturned growth trays. Rainer’s body looked strangely small without the conversation still attached to it. Just a tired old man in stained work clothes. Mai removed her gloves carefully. “No data extraction hardware.” Ace frowned. “What?” “He wasn’t backing up his work remotely.” Mai gestured toward the surrounding systems. “Everything important stayed local.” That mattered immediately. Because suddenly the greenhouse itself became dangerous. Not biologically. Politically. --- Ace moved toward the nearest workstation. Files. Research logs. Adaptive modeling. Target compatibility analysis. Enough data here to restart the entire process. Maybe improve it. Her expression hardened instantly. “No.” Mai looked toward her. “No what?” Ace stared at the glowing monitors. “This doesn’t leave the building.” A beat of silence. Then Shammy nodded immediately. Mai hesitated longer. Not because she disagreed. Because she understood the implications. Destroying data mattered. Destroying knowledge mattered more. Especially in Night City. --- Another distant rifle crack rolled faintly somewhere across the industrial sectors. Far away. Not aimed at them. Maybe unrelated. Maybe not. Nobody liked the timing. Ace’s hand rested automatically near one blade again. “They might send cleanup.” Mai glanced toward the shattered glass wall. “If they wanted us dead, we’d already be dead.” That landed cold and hard. Because she was right too. The sniper had ignored them completely. Only Rainer mattered. Only the problem. --- Shammy crouched slowly beside one of the overturned flower trays. White lilies lay scattered through blood-streaked water beneath the greenhouse lights. “He still kept these alive,” she murmured quietly. Ace exhaled slowly through her nose. “That’s the part bothering you?” Shammy looked up. “He stopped seeing people individually.” Her eyes drifted toward the corpse. “But he still cared for living things.” Nobody answered. Because that contradiction explained almost the entire tragedy sitting in the room. --- Mai finally stood. “We need to wipe everything.” Ace nodded once immediately. No argument. No debate. This wasn’t evidence anymore. It was bait. The kind of research Night City would happily resurrect six months later under another project name if even fragments escaped. Mai moved quickly between terminals while Ace manually destroyed storage hardware with brutal efficiency. One blade strike through processor cores. Another through wetware arrays. Hydroponic control systems sparked violently as data architecture collapsed beneath precision cuts. Not rage. Surgery. Shammy walked the greenhouse perimeter silently, pressure changes whispering softly through broken glass and hanging vines while she listened to the night outside. Still nobody coming. That felt intentional too. --- The first fire started accidentally. One shattered power relay beneath a nutrient tank overloaded after Ace destroyed the adjacent server stack. Sparks hit chemical growth solution leaking across the floor. Blue flame rolled upward instantly. Mai looked over sharply. “That spreads fast.” “No kidding.” Within seconds fire crawled along irrigation tubing and plastic support structures beneath the greenhouse canopy. Humidity slowed it slightly, but old polymer growth trays caught quickly once the heat built high enough. Orange light spread through the greenhouse rows in flickering waves. Flowers. Research notes. Growth cultures. Data shards. All disappearing together. Ace looked once toward Rainer’s body. Then away again. --- By the time they exited the greenhouse complex, smoke had already begun pushing through shattered roof panels into the night sky above the industrial canals. No alarms. No emergency response. Night City industrial sectors burned too often for anyone to care quickly. The three of them stopped briefly beside the Quadra while distant flames reflected dimly across wet pavement behind them. Shammy looked back toward the glowing greenhouse silhouette. “It almost looked peaceful from outside.” Mai watched smoke rise through neon haze. “Maybe that was the point.” Ace opened the driver-side door halfway. Then paused. Far across the canal district, on the rooftop of a rusted freight processing tower nearly impossible to distinguish through darkness and steam— a tiny red cigarette ember glowed once. Watching. Gone a second later. Ace stared at the empty rooftop several moments longer than necessary. Mai noticed immediately. “What.” Ace slid into the driver seat slowly. “…nothing.” But the pressure at the back of her skull stayed there all the way home. --- The next morning, Night City moved on. Like it always did. Newsfeeds briefly mentioned: - an industrial fire in Santo Domingo - reduced overnight gang activity across several districts - multiple unexplained disappearances linked to ongoing gang violence No mention of mutations. No mention of biological attacks. No mention of Elias Rainer. By afternoon another corpo scandal had already replaced the story cycle entirely. Night City forgot fast. It had to. But three districts away, beneath a half-broken metro station in Watson, somebody carefully opened a small refrigerated case hidden inside a maintenance locker. Inside rested a single intact black crossbow bolt suspended in coolant gel. Untouched. Waiting. --- ## Epilogue / Final Chapter ### Same Night The apartment safehouse felt strangely loud after the greenhouse. Not because anybody was talking. Because ordinary sounds had returned. Ventilation hum. Distant traffic. Water pipes knocking softly somewhere inside the walls. Alive sounds. Ace sat on the kitchen counter still wearing her jacket, herbal cigarette burning slowly between two fingers while the city glowed through rain-streaked windows behind her. Nobody had touched the lights. The room remained lit mostly by neon bleeding in from outside. Mai stood near the sink scrolling silently through fragmented newsfeeds on her agent. Already buried. Industrial fire. Possible gang violence. Municipal casualties. Nothing connected. Nothing real. Night City’s memory was editing itself in real time. Shammy stood barefoot near the balcony door listening to distant thunder rolling somewhere over Pacifica. Or artillery. Or construction collapse. Impossible to tell anymore. --- Ace finally broke the silence. “He knew.” Mai looked up immediately. Ace stared smoke into the dark apartment air. “He knew they’d kill him eventually.” “Yes,” Mai answered quietly. Not debate. Not analysis. Just fact. Shammy’s gaze stayed outside. “That wasn’t fear in the greenhouse.” “No,” Ace murmured. Resignation. That was the word none of them wanted to say aloud. --- Mai slowly lowered the agent onto the counter. “The shot timing mattered.” Ace glanced sideways. “You mean waiting for us.” “Yes.” Mai folded her arms tightly. “They could have killed him days ago.” She looked toward the dark window reflections. “Weeks ago.” “But they waited,” Ace finished. “Until somebody else confirmed the location.” “Until the work was complete enough.” “Until the panic curves stabilized.” Shammy finally turned back toward them. “And until someone morally acceptable arrived.” That one sat heavily in the room. Because again: she was right. Triad finding Rainer changed the story. Now: - the murderer was confirmed dead - the lab was destroyed - the violence stopped - witnesses existed The city could close the file neatly. --- Ace crushed the cigarette out harder than necessary. “He wasn’t innocent.” “No,” Mai said immediately. Another silence. Then quieter: “But he also wasn’t entirely wrong.” That hurt to hear aloud. Not because it justified anything. Because part of Night City truly had become calmer almost immediately. No colors on streets. Fewer open guns. Less random shooting. Fear worked. That was the poison underneath the whole thing. --- Shammy moved slowly toward the kitchen table. “The worst part,” she said softly, “is that someone bigger than him learned the same lesson.” Nobody answered. Nobody needed to. Because somewhere out there: someone had watched the experiment succeed. And then erased the scientist. --- A notification chimed once on Mai’s agent. Encrypted. Rogue. Only three words: GOOD WORK. DON’T DIG. Ace barked a short exhausted laugh. “Yeah.” “Figured.” Mai deleted the message immediately. Smart. --- Outside, Night City pulsed endlessly beneath neon haze and distant sirens. Alive. Hungry. Forgetful. And somewhere under Watson, inside a refrigeration locker no larger than a toolbox— one untouched black bolt remained sleeping quietly in coolant gel. Waiting for somebody curious enough to believe they could control it better next time. Fade out.