Ace 88.4 — No Reply - World of Ace and Mai

## Chapter 1 — Normal Silence Night City had a way of teaching people the wrong lessons. One of them was simple: If someone vanished for a day, you ignored it. If they vanished for two days, you minded your own business. If they vanished for three days, you started checking whether their apartment had been emptied. Anything beyond that usually became somebody else's problem. The city ran on that logic. It had to. Otherwise nobody would ever sleep. The evening rain had arrived late and lazy, turning the windows of the apartment into blurred rivers of reflected neon. Traffic moved somewhere below, distant and restless. Sirens rose and fell. Music leaked from an apartment two floors down. Someone was arguing outside in three different languages. Normal Night City noise. Normal Night City life. Ace sat on the couch with one boot off and the other still stubbornly attached. Her agent rested face-down beside her. She picked it up. Checked it. Put it back down. Nothing. A few seconds later she picked it up again. Still nothing. Mai looked up from her tablet. "You know checking it more often won't make the message arrive faster." Ace didn't look away from the screen. "I wasn't checking." "No?" "No." Mai returned to whatever she had been reading. Three seconds passed. Then: "You checked it twice in less than a minute." "I was looking at something else." "On the message screen?" "Maybe." "Hm." Ace glared. Mai didn't even bother hiding the smile. Across the room Shammy was stretched across an armchair in a position that looked physically impossible. One leg hung over an armrest. A book rested upside down on her stomach. Her eyes were closed. She was not asleep. Shammy almost never slept when people assumed she was sleeping. Static crackled softly somewhere in her hair. "You're waiting for Reyes," she said without opening her eyes. Ace immediately frowned. "I'm not." "You are." "I'm not." "You checked your agent four times." Mai raised a finger. "Five." Ace pointed at both of them. "I hate living with analysts." "Technically I'm not analyzing," Shammy said. "You literally are." "No. Analyzing would involve effort." That earned a laugh from Mai. Ace hated that too. The message itself wasn't important. That was the irritating part. It had started with something completely insignificant. A photograph. Nothing more. Ace had been walking through Japantown earlier that afternoon and spotted a market stall selling a collection of truly terrible imitation katanas. Plastic handles. Fake steel. One of them had glowing LEDs embedded into the blade. The thing looked like a crime against swordsmanship. So naturally she had taken a picture and sent it to Reyes. The message beneath it contained exactly three words. _Found your replacement._ That had been six hours ago. No answer. Which normally wouldn't mean anything. Reyes wasn't attached to her agent twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes she was driving. Sometimes working. Sometimes asleep. Sometimes deliberately ignoring people. Particularly Ace. The last one happened more than either of them admitted. The problem was that Reyes usually replied eventually. With an insult. A complaint. A threat. A joke. Something. There was always something. Ace looked at the screen again. Nothing. Rain rattled softly against the glass. Shammy finally opened one eye. "She's probably working." "That's what I said." "You didn't say anything." "I thought it." Mai looked up again. "That's not how conversation works." "It should be." "Conveniently for you." "Exactly." The room settled into a comfortable silence. Shammy returned to her book. Mai returned to her tablet. Ace returned to pretending she wasn't waiting. Outside, Night City continued being Night City. Traffic. Rain. Noise. Distance. The familiar pulse of a city too large to care about any individual life. Eventually Mai stood and headed toward the kitchen. "Tea?" "Sure." "Yes." "No." Mai looked over her shoulder. "Ace." "No." "You always drink tea." "I don't always drink tea." "You drank tea yesterday." "That proves nothing." "It proves yesterday existed." Shammy snorted. Ace considered throwing a cushion at both of them. Before she could decide, her agent vibrated. Instantly. Her hand moved before she consciously thought about it. Screen. Unlock. Message. Not Reyes. A routine Night City alert about a road closure in Watson. Ace stared at it. Closed it. Put the agent down. Very carefully. Mai watched from the kitchen doorway. "That wasn't Reyes." "No." "Disappointed?" "No." "Liar." Ace glared again. Mai smiled and disappeared into the kitchen. The apartment filled with the scent of boiling water a few minutes later. Rain intensified outside. The city lights became long smears of color across the windows. Time passed. Normal time. Unremarkable time. The kind of time nobody remembers afterward. The kind of time that only becomes important later. Ace didn't know that yet. None of them did. A little after midnight, another message finally arrived. Ace checked immediately. Again, not Reyes. Kiro. The message contained a blurry image of what appeared to be a cooling fan mounted upside down inside a server rack. Beneath it: _GOOD NEWS_ _I FOUND THE PROBLEM_ A second message followed immediately. _BAD NEWS_ _THERE ARE NOW FOUR MORE PROBLEMS_ Ace stared at the screen. Then typed: _Congratulations._ Kiro responded almost instantly. _THAT DOESN'T SOUND SINCERE_ _It isn't._ _Fair._ The exchange ended there. Still nothing from Reyes. Ace placed the agent on the table and stood. "I'm going to bed." Mai emerged from the kitchen carrying three mugs. "You've been saying that for twenty minutes." "I'm serious this time." "Hm." Ace stopped near the hallway. Something felt strange. Not wrong. Not dangerous. Just... Incomplete. Like a conversation that should have happened but hadn't. Like a chair slightly out of place. Like a note missing from a song. The feeling irritated her more than it worried her. She glanced at the agent one last time. No new messages. Nothing unusual. Nothing alarming. Nothing worth thinking about. Reyes was probably busy. Working. Driving. Sleeping. Ignoring people. Night City was full of reasonable explanations. Ace turned off the hallway light and disappeared toward the bedroom. Behind her, rain continued to fall against the windows. Somewhere across the city, neon reflected from wet pavement. Traffic lights changed. Engines growled. People lived. People lied. People disappeared. And for the first time in a very long while, Reyes didn't answer. --- ## Chapter 2 — Pattern Break The third message went unanswered. At that point, it became annoying. Not worrying. Not alarming. Just annoying. Ace stared at the screen. _You alive?_ Sent. Delivered. Unread. She put the agent down. Picked it up again. Put it down again. The process was beginning to resemble a ritual. Across the breakfast table, Mai lowered her coffee mug. "You know, at some point, this stops being Reyes ignoring you and starts being performance art." Ace looked up. "I don't care." "Hm." "I don't." "Hm." "Stop doing that." "Doing what?" "That." Mai smiled into her coffee. Outside, Night City was bright, loud, and completely indifferent to personal concerns. The rain from the previous night had vanished. Steam rose from pavement. Traffic moved like an irritated river through the streets below. Normal. Everything looked normal. That was part of the problem. Shammy wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later wearing an oversized shirt that might once have belonged to someone else and carrying a half-finished book under one arm. Without asking, she opened the refrigerator. Looked inside. Closed it. Opened it again. Looked inside again. Closed it. "There is still no better food than the first time I checked." Mai nodded. "That remains how refrigerators work." Shammy sighed dramatically. "A cruel system." Ace's agent remained silent. That irritated her too. "Has Reyes answered yet?" Shammy asked. "No." The answer came too quickly. Both Mai and Shammy noticed. Neither commented immediately. Which was somehow worse. A few moments later, Mai stood and moved toward the living room. "Actually..." That word alone made Ace suspicious. Mai disappeared into her workspace corner and returned carrying a tablet. "What?" Mai sat back down. "Nothing." "You looked up something." "I did." "What?" Mai tapped the screen once. Then again. Then looked directly at Ace. "Do you know how often Reyes normally responds?" Ace frowned. "No." "You do." "No." "You absolutely do." "I don't count." Mai rotated the tablet. A simple message log timeline filled the screen. Communication records. Nothing invasive. Nothing private. Only timestamps. Dates. Patterns. The sort of thing Mai collected automatically because Mai collected everything automatically. Shammy leaned over her shoulder. "Oh." Ace immediately disliked the expression. "What?" Mai zoomed out. Weeks appeared. Then months. Small clusters of communication. Work messages. Operational updates. Random conversations. Arguments. Insults. The occasional photograph. A surprisingly large number of complaints about food. Reyes apparently had opinions about food. Many opinions. Most of them negative. Ace ignored that part. "What am I looking at?" Mai tapped one section. "Average response delay." Ace stared. Mai continued. "Longest delay in the last four months: nineteen hours." "Okay." "Second longest: fourteen." "Okay." "Current delay: fifty-three." Silence. The apartment suddenly felt a little smaller. Not much. Just enough. Ace looked away first. "Maybe she's busy." Mai didn't argue. Which immediately made Ace more uncomfortable. Because Mai only stopped arguing when she started thinking. And Mai was definitely thinking. Shammy sat down across from them. The static around her hair had vanished. That wasn't a good sign either. "That's unusual," she said quietly. Ace hated hearing that phrase. "Unusual isn't dangerous." "No," Shammy agreed. "It isn't." The pause that followed was tiny. Barely noticeable. Still there. Mai set the tablet aside. "What was the last thing she sent you?" Ace unlocked her agent. Scrolled. Found the conversation. The photograph of the terrible katana. The joke. No response. Nothing after it. Mai read it. Shammy read it. Then Shammy started laughing. "What?" "That sword is awful." "It is." "No, seriously. That's offensive." "Exactly." Shammy nodded. "Okay, that's fair." Ace almost smiled. Almost. The moment passed. The apartment settled into silence again. Not a bad silence. Not yet. Just a silence with edges. A little later, Kiro called. Not messaged. Called. Which automatically meant something was wrong. Kiro hated calling. The projection appeared above the table. Silver-blonde hair. Dark circles under her eyes. At least three cables hanging from somewhere they shouldn't have been. She was holding an energy drink that looked chemically unstable. "Good morning." "It's two in the afternoon." "Good morning." Nobody argued. Kiro looked around. Something in her expression shifted. "Oh." Mai noticed immediately. "What?" Kiro pointed. "Why does everyone look weird?" "We don't." "You do." "We don't." "You absolutely do." Ace pinched the bridge of her nose. Kiro squinted. Then her eyes widened slightly. "Wait." "No." "Oh." "No." "Oh." "Kiro." "Has Reyes disappeared again?" The apartment became very quiet. Kiro immediately winced. "...that wasn't supposed to sound that bad." "Again?" Ace asked. "Not disappeared-disappeared." "Kiro." "Okay, that made it worse." "Much worse." "Sorry." Kiro lowered the energy drink. The humor vanished from her face. "Actually..." Mai straightened. The shift was instant. Professional now. "What?" Kiro checked another screen. "I thought it was nothing." "What?" "I haven't seen Reyes on any of the usual channels." Ace frowned. "What channels?" "The boring ones." "That doesn't answer the question." "The channels normal people use when they don't want netrunners looking." "Which means?" Kiro pointed at herself. "Me." Mai exchanged a glance with Ace. Small. Quick. Meaningful. Kiro noticed. "Oh." The second oh was worse than the first. "When was the last time?" Kiro checked. Her expression changed. Then changed again. Then she stopped smiling entirely. "Three days." Nobody spoke. Traffic hummed outside. A distant siren echoed somewhere beyond the apartment block. The city continued moving. Uncaring. Unaware. Three days. Ace looked at her agent. Still no message. Still unread. Still silent. For the first time since this started, annoyance stopped being the dominant emotion. Something colder took its place. Not fear. Not yet. Just a quiet realization. This wasn't normal. And everybody in the room knew it. --- ## Chapter 3 — She Didn't Leave The apartment building sat exactly where it had yesterday. And the day before. And every day before that. A narrow concrete stack of rented privacy wedged between two larger buildings in Watson. The kind of place people lived in when they wanted enough comfort to sleep indoors but not enough permanence to call it home. Very Reyes. Ace stood across the street and looked up at the fourth-floor window. Dark. No movement. No television glow. Nothing. Traffic rolled past. A delivery drone buzzed overhead. The city carried on. She hated that. The world should have looked different. Something should have been visibly wrong. There should have been smoke. Broken glass. Police tape. A giant flashing sign saying: _Something happened here._ Instead it was just another building. Another street. Another afternoon. Normal. Mai stepped beside her. "You don't have to convince me." "I know." "Good." "You coming?" "Yes." Shammy emerged from behind them carrying two paper cups of coffee. "One for me." "You already have one." "One for future me." "That's not how coffee works." "It is if you're optimistic." Ace ignored both of them and crossed the street. The front entrance accepted the copied access code Kiro had acquired through methods Mai had very deliberately chosen not to ask about. The door buzzed. Unlocked. Opened. The stairwell smelled faintly of old cleaning chemicals and somebody's failed attempt at cooking fish. Reyes would hate it. The thought arrived automatically. And stayed. Fourth floor. Apartment 407. Ace stopped outside the door. The hallway felt quiet. Not suspicious. Just empty. She stared at the lock. Then knocked. Once. Twice. Nothing. No footsteps. No movement. No annoyed voice asking who the hell was banging on the door. Nothing. Mai checked the frame. No damage. No forced entry visible. Shammy tilted her head slightly. Listening. The air around her stilled. "No one inside." Ace already knew. Still. Hearing it said aloud felt worse. She entered the access override. The lock clicked. The door opened. The apartment beyond looked exactly like Reyes. And exactly unlike Reyes. That realization hit almost immediately. The place wasn't large. Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. A practical box occupied by a practical person. No decorations. No wasted space. No sentimental clutter. Everything served a purpose. A weapons cleaning kit sat neatly on a side table. A jacket hung over the back of a chair. Two empty bottles rested beside the sink. Nothing unusual. Nothing dramatic. Nothing broken. Ace stepped farther inside. The silence felt wrong. Not because the apartment was empty. Because it looked interrupted. Like someone had stood up in the middle of doing something and never returned. Mai moved through the kitchen. Shammy drifted toward the bedroom. Ace remained where she was. Looking. The details started appearing one at a time. A mug on the counter. Half full. Dry residue around the edge. Old. A datachip resting beside an unopened bill. A pair of boots near the door. Reyes only owned one pair of boots she actually liked. Those were them. Which meant she hadn't left wearing them. Ace's eyes narrowed. "Mai." "I see it." The silver-haired woman was already studying the same thing. "The boots." "Yes." "She wouldn't leave without them." "No." Shammy's voice drifted from the bedroom. "Ace." Something in the tone made her move immediately. The bedroom was small. Bed. Closet. Nightstand. One narrow window overlooking an alley. Nothing unusual. At first. Then Ace followed Shammy's gaze. A pistol rested on the nightstand. Reyes's backup sidearm. Not her primary. Not the weapon she carried every day. But still. A weapon. Left behind. Ace stared. Mai entered behind them. The room became very quiet. "That's wrong," Shammy said softly. "Yes." Reyes carried weapons the way normal people carried wallets. Not because she was paranoid. Because she was Reyes. The sidearm shouldn't be here. The boots shouldn't be here. The apartment shouldn't be empty. Three separate facts. One conclusion. Nobody said it. Not yet. Ace moved closer. The pistol remained untouched. Magazine inserted. Loaded. Ready. Exactly where Reyes would keep it. Exactly where Reyes would never leave it if she intended to be gone for several days. Something cold settled in Ace's stomach. Not panic. Not yet. Something worse. Certainty. Mai crouched beside the bed. Her eyes tracked slowly across the floor. Across the frame. Across the edge of the mattress. Then she stopped. "Ace." Ace looked down. A small scratch marked the floorboards. Barely visible. Fresh. Furniture dragged suddenly. Not far. Not enough to matter under normal circumstances. Enough to matter now. Ace crouched. Looked closer. There. Another mark. And another. Tiny. Subtle. Almost invisible. The sort of thing nobody noticed. The sort of thing Reyes would notice instantly. Which meant Reyes would never have ignored them. Unless she hadn't been able to. The apartment suddenly felt much smaller. The walls closer. The air heavier. Nobody spoke for several seconds. Outside, somewhere far below, a horn blared. A motorcycle accelerated through traffic. Life continued. Ace hated that too. Finally Mai stood. Slowly. Carefully. As though the movement itself mattered. "We need to assume she didn't leave voluntarily." The sentence landed like concrete. Shammy closed her eyes briefly. Not surprise. Confirmation. Ace looked around the room one more time. The pistol. The boots. The scratches. The unfinished life paused halfway through an ordinary day. A week ago she would have laughed at the idea of Reyes being taken. Reyes was dangerous. Experienced. Paranoid in all the useful ways. The sort of person who survived Night City because she expected the city to cheat. But survival wasn't certainty. Night City proved that every day. Ace stepped back toward the doorway. The Shadow Aura shifted. Just slightly. The bedroom light flickered. Once. Then stabilized. Nobody mentioned it. Mai saw. Shammy saw. Ace didn't. She was staring at the apartment. Trying to find a different answer. A better answer. There wasn't one. The room had already told them the truth. Reyes hadn't walked away. Reyes hadn't gone off-grid. Reyes hadn't decided she needed space. She hadn't left. Ace looked at the empty apartment one final time. Then spoke the thought none of them could avoid anymore. "She didn't leave." --- ## Chapter 4 — Wrong Answers Night City was generous with information. That was the problem. It produced too much of it. Too many witnesses. Too many cameras. Too many rumors. Too many people willing to tell you exactly what happened. Especially when they had absolutely no idea what happened. Three days after entering Reyes's apartment, Ace had acquired forty-seven possible leads. Forty-six of them were worthless. The forty-seventh was probably worthless too. The problem was figuring out which one. The safehouse had become a war room. Not literally. There were no maps pinned to walls. No dramatic planning boards. No red strings. Just too many screens. Too many notes. Too many names. Kiro sat cross-legged on a chair she wasn't actually using correctly. Three different data windows floated around her. One energy drink rested on the desk. Another sat empty nearby. A third appeared to be under construction. Mai was studying a city map. Shammy occupied a couch and watched everyone else slowly lose their minds. Ace paced. The pacing had been happening for almost an hour. Nobody mentioned it. "Again," Mai said. Kiro groaned. "No." "Again." "I already checked those." "Check them again." Kiro collapsed backward dramatically. "This is cyberbullying." "It is investigation." "It's the same thing with better branding." Mai ignored her. "Again." Kiro sighed. Then started typing. The room filled with the sound of data being abused. Ace stopped pacing. "Anything?" "No." Five seconds later: "Still no." Ten seconds later: "Nope." Twenty seconds later: "Huh." Everyone looked up. Kiro immediately regretted making the noise. "What?" Ace asked. "Maybe nothing." "Kiro." "Probably nothing." "Kiro." "Fine." Several windows expanded. A parking structure appeared. Traffic footage. Poor quality. Bad angle. Rain. Headlights. Static. A grainy figure crossing the frame. Then disappearing. "That's Reyes." Ace stepped closer. "You're sure?" "No." "Kiro." "Eighty-three percent." Mai looked over her shoulder. "Why eighty-three?" "Because the camera quality is insulting." The footage played again. The figure moved through the frame. Red hair. Dark jacket. Similar height. Similar build. Then vanished behind a support pillar. The recording ended. Ace stared. "Where?" "South Watson." "Date?" Kiro checked. Her expression changed. Not much. Enough. "Six days ago." The room became quiet. Six days. Not seven. Six. Close enough. Recent enough. Real enough. Mai zoomed the map. A location marker appeared. Several blocks from Reyes's apartment. Several blocks from anywhere useful. Several blocks from anything. "Can we track where she went next?" Kiro shook her head. "No camera coverage." "Of course." "Welcome to Night City." Ace looked away from the screen. Thinking. The timeline finally had a shape. Not a complete one. A shape. Which was more than they had yesterday. Shammy sat forward slightly. "The direction." Mai glanced up. "What about it?" "The direction she was walking." Kiro replayed the footage. Again. Again. Again. Then froze the image. "Huh." This time it was Mai who said it. "What?" Mai pointed. "She's not walking home." Ace frowned. The route appeared. A line. Simple. Direct. Wrong. Reyes's apartment sat in the opposite direction. Several blocks away. The figure had been moving away from home. Not toward it. Not returning. Leaving. A small detail. A useful detail. The first useful detail in days. Kiro immediately began searching adjacent systems. Transit. Parking. Street monitoring. Payment logs. Anything. Most of it came back empty. Some came back corrupted. A few came back interesting. One result stayed on screen longer than the others. Kiro frowned. Then leaned closer. Then frowned harder. "Oh, I hate this." Nobody liked that sentence. "What?" Mai asked. Kiro highlighted a transaction. Tiny. Forgettable. Cheap food. Cheap coffee. Cheap fuel. The kind of purchases nobody ever noticed. The kind Reyes made constantly. The last confirmed purchase occurred twelve minutes before the camera footage. A small diner. Ace looked at the receipt. Looked at the address. Then looked back at Kiro. "You sure?" "Ninety-seven percent." "That's an oddly specific jump." "I found the payment authorization." Good enough. Mai was already standing. "So." "So." The room shifted. Not emotionally. Operationally. For the first time since Reyes vanished, they had something physical. Something real. A place. A direction. A timeline. Not enough. But more. Much more. Ace grabbed her jacket. Shammy rose from the couch. Mai shut down half the displays. Kiro pointed a finger at all of them. "Wait." They stopped. "What?" Kiro hesitated. For once. That alone was unusual. Then she looked directly at Ace. "Don't do the thing." Ace frowned. "What thing?" "The thing where you stop sleeping and start becoming terrifying." Silence. Mai looked away. Shammy looked away. That told Ace everything. "I am sleeping." "No." "I am." "No." "I slept." "When?" Ace opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Kiro pointed triumphantly. "See?" "That's not evidence." "It absolutely is." Ace considered arguing. Then didn't. Because the argument would take time. And Reyes was still missing. The realization hit harder than she expected. Everything took time. Every wrong lead. Every empty camera. Every dead end. Every hour. Every hour was another hour Reyes spent somewhere unknown. The thought settled under her ribs. Cold. Heavy. Unwelcome. Mai noticed immediately. Of course she did. "One lead," she said quietly. Ace looked at her. "That's all this is." "I know." "Not a conclusion." "I know." "One lead." Ace nodded once. The movement felt mechanical. Controlled. Necessary. Inside, however, something else was happening. For three days she had been searching for answers. Now she had direction. And direction was dangerous. Because direction created hope. Hope created expectations. And expectations got people hurt. Still. When they left the safehouse an hour later, nobody drove toward Reyes's apartment. Nobody checked the message logs again. Nobody stared at unread messages. For the first time since this began, they were moving toward something. The diner sat three districts away. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was another dead end. Maybe it would waste another day. But it was real. And right now, real was enough. For the first time in nearly a week, Ace felt like she was finally following Reyes instead of chasing her shadow. --- ## Chapter 5 — Last Known Movement The diner was called **Rosie's**. Which immediately made Ace suspicious. Not because of anything criminal. Because places with friendly names were usually disasters. The building sat between an auto shop and a convenience store that appeared to have lost a fight with time sometime around 2049. A flickering sign buzzed above the entrance. One letter no longer worked. The place smelled like old coffee, hot grease, and stubborn survival. Reyes would have liked it. That thought appeared automatically now. Ace was beginning to hate how often that happened. They entered. The lunch rush had already passed. Only a handful of customers remained. A truck driver. Two construction workers. Someone asleep in a corner booth. The woman behind the counter glanced up. Mid-fifties. Gray hair. Sharp eyes. The kind of face that had seen everything and trusted none of it. "Pick a booth." Ace walked directly to the counter. The woman sighed. "Or don't." Mai stepped up beside her. "We need information." The woman sighed harder. "Of course you do." Ace produced the image Kiro had extracted from the parking structure. The woman studied it. Once. Then twice. Then a third time. Something changed. Tiny. Almost invisible. But it changed. Ace saw it. Mai saw it. The woman realized they had seen it. "Damn." "She was here," Ace said. Not a question. The woman looked at her for several seconds. Evaluating. Measuring. Judging. Then finally nodded. "Yeah." The word hit harder than Ace expected. Not because it answered anything. Because it made Reyes real again. Not an absence. Not a missing signal. A person. A real person standing in a real place six days ago. "When?" "Morning." "Alone?" The woman hesitated. Again. Another bad sign. "No." Everything in Ace went still. "Who?" "I don't know." "Liar." Mai shot Ace a look. The woman folded her arms. "I don't know their names." Better. Not a lie. Not the whole truth either. "How many?" "Three." The answer arrived immediately. Too immediately. The woman remembered. That meant the meeting had stood out. "6th Street?" The woman's expression soured. That was answer enough. "Damn idiots come in here all the time." "These ones?" "These ones." Ace leaned forward slightly. "Tell me." The woman stared back. Not intimidated. Not impressed. Just tired. "You want coffee first?" "No." "You should." "We don't have time." The woman pointed at a booth. "Sit." Nobody moved. The woman pointed again. "Sit." Something about her tone reminded Ace unpleasantly of Mai. Three minutes later they were sitting. Coffee appeared. Nobody had ordered it. Nobody complained. The woman slid into the opposite side of the booth. "I know her." She pointed at the image. "Not well." "But enough." Ace waited. "Comes through every few weeks." The woman shrugged. "Eats." "Complains." "Tips badly." Mai raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like Reyes." "It is Reyes." A tiny smile threatened the edge of Ace's mouth. Then disappeared. The woman continued. "Three men came in." "6th Street." "Young." "Stupid." "Trying very hard to look dangerous." "Did it work?" "No." That sounded right too. "What happened?" The woman looked out the window briefly. Remembering. "One of them recognized her." Ace felt something tighten. There. The first real thread. "He knew her?" "Apparently." "How?" "No idea." "But he got angry." The woman tapped the table. "He wasn't scared." "He wasn't bluffing." "He got angry." Mai exchanged a glance with Ace. The distinction mattered. A lot. Fear produced caution. Anger produced mistakes. And obsession. "What did he say?" The woman frowned. Trying to remember. "'You remember me?'" "'Look at me.'" "'You don't remember me?'" Something cold moved through Ace's chest. The words sounded pathetic. Which made them dangerous. People like that never wanted justice. They wanted validation. "What did Reyes do?" For the first time the woman smiled. Actually smiled. "She looked at him." "And?" "'Should I?'" Shammy closed her eyes. Ace almost laughed. Almost. The woman shook her head. "I thought the idiot was going to explode." "Maybe he should have." Mai kicked Ace lightly under the table. The woman continued. "They argued." "Not long." "Then Reyes left." "Alone?" "Yes." "Followed?" The woman hesitated. Again. That hesitation was becoming a pattern. "Yes." Ace's jaw tightened. "How long after?" "Maybe thirty seconds." The answer arrived immediately. No uncertainty. She remembered. That meant she had noticed. Which meant it had looked wrong. "Why didn't you call anyone?" The question slipped out before Ace could stop it. The woman stared at her. Long. Hard. Then laughed once. Without humor. "Honey." The word carried decades of exhaustion. "I run a diner." "Not a superhero agency." Silence. Nobody argued. Because nobody could. Night City had trained people not to interfere. Interference got you killed. The woman looked down at her coffee. Then back at Ace. "For what it's worth..." Ace waited. "I almost did." The admission surprised everyone. Including the woman herself. "I don't know why." "Something felt wrong." The booth became very quiet. Ace understood immediately. The woman had seen it. The same thing Ace had started seeing. The difference between a normal confrontation and something uglier. She'd recognized it. And then done what most people did. Nothing. Not because she didn't care. Because she was human. The realization took some of the anger away. Not all. Never all. Enough. "What happened next?" Mai asked. The woman shook her head. "Nothing." "Nothing?" "They left." "All four." Ace frowned. "No vehicle?" "No." "No destination?" "No." The woman spread her hands. "I watched them disappear down the block." "That's it." Dead end. The word arrived instantly. Dead end. Another one. Ace felt the disappointment immediately. The woman saw it too. "Wait." Everyone stopped. "What?" The woman pointed toward the back office. "I might have something." Hope was dangerous. Ace knew that. Hope got people hurt. Hope created mistakes. Still. When the woman disappeared into the office, every person at the table leaned forward anyway. Thirty seconds later she returned carrying an old security tablet. Ancient. Slow. Covered in scratches. She placed it on the table. "Camera faces the parking lot." Ace's pulse jumped once. Only once. Controlled. The woman tapped the screen. A recording appeared. Bad quality. Bad angle. But usable. Rosie's parking lot. Morning light. Reyes leaving the diner. Three men following. Not immediately. Not openly. But following. The footage continued. One minute. Two. Three. Then Reyes stopped. Turned. Looked directly behind her. Even through the terrible resolution, Ace recognized the posture instantly. Reyes had spotted them. Of course she had. The men stopped. A conversation followed. No audio. Only movement. Body language. The three men spread slightly. Not enough to surround. Enough to suggest intention. Reyes stood perfectly still. Then one of the men stepped forward. The largest one. The one from inside the diner. The obsessed one. Even through a grainy security feed, Ace could see it. The man's movements were wrong. Too intense. Too personal. Too emotional. The footage lasted another twenty seconds. Then Reyes did something. Something so perfectly Reyes that even the diner owner laughed. "What?" The woman pointed. On-screen, Reyes very clearly flipped the man off. Shammy snorted. Mai rubbed her forehead. Ace looked away briefly. Because for the first time in days, she could almost hear Reyes's voice. Then the footage ended. Not because the confrontation ended. Because they walked out of camera range. The screen froze. Silence returned. Nobody spoke for several seconds. Finally Mai looked at the diner owner. "Can we copy this?" "Already did." The answer came from Kiro. Her voice crackled through the comm. Nobody had realized she was listening. "Hi." Ace blinked. "Kiro." "I've been listening for ten minutes." "That's creepy." "Thank you." Mai pinched the bridge of her nose. "Kiro." "Already processing the footage." A pause. Then: "Oh." The room froze. Everybody had learned to fear that word. "What?" Ace asked. Kiro's voice lost every trace of humor. "I think I know who that guy is." The diner suddenly felt much colder. "Tell me." Silence. Keyboard clicks. Data windows. Processing. Then Kiro spoke again. Slowly. Carefully. Like someone handling something explosive. "I don't think Reyes disappeared because she was convenient." Nobody spoke. Kiro continued. "I think she disappeared because somebody couldn't let something go." And suddenly the missing week started looking a lot less random. --- ## Chapter 6 — The Name Nobody spoke during the drive back. Not because there was nothing to say. Because there was too much. The city rolled past outside the windows. Concrete. Neon. Advertisements. Crowds. Life. The normal pulse of Night City. Ace hated all of it right now. Kiro remained connected through the comm. Typing. Searching. Muttering to herself. Occasionally making noises that nobody liked. The worst one happened fifteen minutes into the drive. "...oh no." Mai immediately sat forward. "What?" "No." "Kiro." "No." "Kiro." "I don't want to be right." Nobody liked that answer either. The safehouse came into view. The vehicle stopped. Everybody moved inside. Nobody wasted time. Screens came alive. Maps expanded. Databases opened. Kiro occupied three monitors within thirty seconds. Possibly four. Nobody understood how. "Okay." The netrunner took a deep breath. "Let's start with the good news." "There is good news?" Shammy asked. "No." "Oh." "I just wanted to pretend for a second." That earned absolutely no reaction. Kiro sighed. "Fair." She enlarged a personnel file. A photograph appeared. Male. Mid-thirties. 6th Street colors. Bad haircut. The kind of face that immediately suggested poor decision-making. Ace stared. Nothing. No recognition. Mai leaned closer. "Who is he?" Kiro enlarged another window. "Former 6th Street." "Former?" "Technically." "Meaning?" "Nobody has seen him operating with them for almost a year." The file expanded again. Arrests. Street incidents. Hospital records. Known associates. The sort of life trajectory that usually ended in a shallow grave. Then one line caught Mai's attention. She pointed. "What happened here?" Kiro followed her finger. "Oh." Silence. Nobody liked that particular "oh" anymore. "What?" Kiro pulled up another report. Older. Much older. Months old. A blurry after-action note. A street altercation. Minor. Unimportant. Forgotten. Except it hadn't been forgotten. Not by everyone. The report contained one familiar name. Reyes. Ace felt something settle into place. Not comfortably. Like a lock clicking shut. "What happened?" Kiro skimmed. Then laughed once. Without humor. "Seriously?" "What?" "He picked a fight." "With Reyes." Shammy closed her eyes. "That's not a long report." "It wasn't." Kiro enlarged the attached medical record. Three broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured jaw. Concussion. Two missing teeth. The room became very quiet. "Reyes did that?" Kiro pointed at the document. "Apparently in under a minute." Mai rubbed her forehead. "That sounds accurate." Ace looked away. That sounded extremely accurate. "What started it?" Kiro continued reading. Then winced. "Oh." "What now?" "He was drunk." Nobody looked surprised. "He tried intimidating the wrong person." Nobody looked surprised. "Reyes warned him." Still nobody looked surprised. "He didn't listen." Now everybody looked exactly as surprised as they should have been. Meaning: Not at all. Kiro closed the report. The room remained silent. Because everyone had arrived at the same conclusion. The man from Rosie's diner wasn't a gang operation. He wasn't revenge. He wasn't strategy. He wasn't business. He was humiliation. Months-old humiliation. Left to rot. Left to grow. Left to become obsession. Mai said it first. "This wasn't planned." "No." "This wasn't organized." "No." "This was personal." Kiro nodded slowly. "Very." The word lingered. Personal. Personal crimes were the worst kind. Not because they were larger. Because they were irrational. Rational people could be predicted. Obsessive people could not. Ace looked at the photograph again. The face. The eyes. The posture. Nothing special. Nothing memorable. Exactly the sort of person who disappeared into the background. Until they didn't. "What happened after the fight?" Kiro opened another file. Then another. Then another. A pattern began emerging. Small. Ugly. Consistent. The man's life had collapsed. Not entirely. Just enough. Expelled from his unit. Lost status. Lost standing. Lost credibility. Everywhere the same story repeated. The guy from the Reyes incident. The idiot who got destroyed by a woman half his size. The punchline. The joke. The humiliation that wouldn't die. Ace stared at the screen. She already knew where this was going. The rest of the room was arriving there too. Mai reached it first. "He blamed her." Kiro nodded. "Looks like it." "Not himself." "No." "Her." "Yes." Nobody looked surprised. People rarely blamed themselves. Especially stupid people. Especially angry people. Especially stupid angry people. The file continued. Hospital. Rehab. Alcohol violations. Violence complaints. Eventually the paper trail vanished. The official records stopped. The unofficial records began. Street chatter. Rumors. Sightings. The sort of information that existed everywhere and nowhere. Then Kiro froze. For real this time. Not joking. Not performing. Frozen. "Kiro." No response. "Kiro." Still nothing. The netrunner looked at a screen nobody else could see. Then slowly sat back. The room suddenly felt colder. "What did you find?" Kiro swallowed. Once. Twice. Then rotated the monitor. The image quality was awful. Security footage again. Different camera. Different district. Different day. The same man. Three other people. And behind them— Ace stopped breathing. Not literally. Close enough. The vehicle. Reyes's vehicle. A grainy frame. Bad lighting. No context. Just enough to hurt. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. Because suddenly they weren't looking at theory anymore. They were looking at proof. The man had Reyes's vehicle. Which meant he had Reyes. Or had. The distinction mattered. Too much. Mai's voice remained calm. Professionally calm. Dangerously calm. "When?" Kiro checked. Then looked up. "Five days ago." The room went silent again. Five days. Five days since that frame. Five days since that vehicle. Five days since anyone had seen Reyes. Ace stared at the image. Long enough for the room to disappear. Long enough for the city to disappear. Long enough for everything except the photograph to disappear. The Shadow Aura shifted. A lamp flickered. Then another. Nobody mentioned it. Again. Mai noticed. Shammy noticed. Kiro definitely noticed. Ace didn't. Her attention remained locked on the screen. Five days. Still alive. Maybe. Still moving. Maybe. Still recoverable. Maybe. The uncertainty was becoming unbearable. Finally Mai broke the silence. "What next?" Kiro looked at the data. The vehicle. The timestamp. The district. The route. Then she started typing again. Fast. Focused. Determined. "We find out where they went." Ace looked at the photograph one final time. Then stood. The chair scraped against the floor. The room looked up. "What are you doing?" Mai asked. Ace grabbed her jacket. "Preparing." "For what?" The answer came instantly. Without hesitation. Without doubt. Without uncertainty. "For when we stop finding wrong answers." --- ## Chapter 7 — Shadow Aura The first person to notice was Kiro. Not because she was especially observant. Because she spent most of her life staring at screens. Screens reacted poorly to anomalies. Especially Ace. The monitor flickered. Once. Kiro frowned. The image stabilized. Then another display glitched. Then a third. Not enough to break. Just enough to annoy. Which, in Kiro's professional opinion, was somehow worse. She leaned back in her chair. Looked at the screens. Looked at Ace. Looked back at the screens. Then at Ace again. "Oh." Nobody liked that word anymore. "What?" Mai asked. Kiro pointed. "Her." Ace didn't even look up. "What about me?" "The screens." "What screens?" "The ones you're breaking." "I'm not breaking anything." A display behind her immediately flickered. Nobody said anything. The timing spoke for itself. Ace finally looked up. The screen stabilized. Kiro pointed dramatically. "There." "There what?" "That." "That's not a sentence." "It's evidence." Mai hid a smile. Shammy didn't. The static around her hair crackled softly. "She's not entirely wrong." Ace stared. Shammy raised both hands. "I'm not helping." "No." "You really aren't." The room settled again. Work resumed. Maps. Routes. Traffic records. Known associates. Former associates. Anyone connected to the man from the diner. Anyone who had spoken to him. Anyone who had disappeared around him. The list grew. Then shrank. Then grew again. Night City information was like that. A thousand pieces. Nine hundred and ninety-nine of them useless. The challenge was identifying the last one. Hours passed. Nobody left. Nobody rested. Nobody admitted they should. Eventually Marco arrived. The Valentino took one look at the room and immediately sighed. "Well." Nobody looked up. "That's usually a bad sign." "It is." Marco nodded. "How long has this been going on?" "Depends." "On?" "Which disaster you're asking about." Marco considered that. Then pointed at Ace. "That one." The room became quiet. Ace looked up. "What?" Marco folded his arms. "You look terrible." "I look fine." "No." "I do." "No." "Everyone keeps saying that." Marco nodded. "Because it's true." Ace seriously considered throwing something at him. The impulse passed. Barely. Marco walked over to the table. Looked at the photographs. The maps. The notes. The increasingly ugly collection of information. His expression hardened. Not dramatically. Just enough. "Any luck?" "Some." "Enough?" "No." That answer came from Mai. Marco nodded once. The kind of nod people gave when they already knew the answer. Nobody spoke for a while. The room returned to work. Then Marco quietly moved beside Ace. Not close enough to crowd her. Close enough to talk. "She's alive." Ace didn't answer. Marco continued anyway. "That's what you're thinking." The silence stretched. Then: "Maybe." Marco looked at her. "Not maybe." Ace finally met his gaze. The Valentino didn't look away. "You're building a coffin in your head." The sentence landed harder than it should have. Ace looked away first. Which told Marco everything. "Stop." "Easy for you to say." "Yeah." "It is." The honesty surprised her. Marco shrugged. "Still true." Neither spoke again. The conversation ended there. Not because it was finished. Because there wasn't anything else to say. Across the room, Kiro suddenly sat upright. Every head turned. The movement was that abrupt. "What?" Kiro stared at the monitor. Then zoomed in. Then zoomed in again. Then again. The image quality became atrocious. Nobody cared. "What?" Kiro pointed. A map. Industrial district. Southern edge of the city. Old warehouses. Storage facilities. Machine shops. The sort of area people forgot existed until they needed somewhere unpleasant to happen. "What am I looking at?" Ace asked. Kiro enlarged a route. Then another. Then another. Three separate sightings. Three separate days. Three separate vehicles. All connected to the same cluster of buildings. Mai stood immediately. "Why didn't we see this before?" "Because it's buried." Kiro expanded another layer. And another. And another. The pattern slowly emerged. Ugly. Subtle. Hidden. Real. The same names kept appearing. The same vehicles. The same people. The same neighborhood. Not enough for certainty. Enough for suspicion. The dangerous kind. Nobody spoke. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. The word hung over the room. Kiro leaned back slowly. "I don't have proof." Nobody liked hearing that. "But?" The netrunner looked directly at Ace. "But if I needed to hide someone..." Silence. "If I needed nobody to find them..." More silence. "If I were stupid enough to think I could keep getting away with it..." The room had gone completely still. Kiro pointed at the cluster of warehouses. "There." Nobody moved. Not yet. Hope was dangerous. Everybody knew that. Especially now. Then Mai spoke. Calm. Measured. Controlled. "Let's verify." Nobody argued. Not even Ace. That alone worried everyone. Because normally Ace would already be moving. Already halfway out the door. Already heading toward the target. Instead she just stared at the map. The warehouses. The industrial district. The possibility. The maybe. And that frightened Mai more than almost anything else. Because Ace wasn't getting calmer. She was getting quieter. And quiet Ace was far more dangerous than angry Ace. Across the room, Shammy noticed the same thing. Their eyes met briefly. No words. None needed. The Shadow Aura shifted again. This time every light in the room dimmed for a fraction of a second. Then returned. Nobody commented. Nobody had to. Because for the first time since Reyes disappeared, the hunt no longer felt directionless. It felt close. And close was terrifying. Because close meant they might finally discover whether hope had been justified. Or whether it had only been another wrong answer. --- ## Chapter 8 — Wrong Warehouse The warehouse was empty. Not abandoned. Not forgotten. Empty. Which was somehow worse. Ace stood in the middle of a concrete floor covered in dust, old tire tracks, and exactly zero missing mercenaries. The industrial district outside had looked promising. Too promising. That should have been the warning. Three separate vehicles. Repeated traffic. Known associates. A location cluster. The sort of pattern that usually meant something. Instead they had found: Nothing. No Reyes. No captors. No answers. Just a warehouse full of old machine parts and disappointment. Kiro's voice crackled through comms. "...I hate everything." Nobody argued. Mai crouched beside a workbench. Examining. Cataloging. Eliminating possibilities. The way she always did. "Not nothing." Ace looked over. "What?" Mai pointed. Fresh cigarette ash. Fresh footprints. Fresh vehicle residue. "Someone was here." "Not recently enough." "No." That single word felt like a punch. Not recently enough. Again. Too late. Again. Wrong place. Again. Ace walked farther into the building. The Shadow Aura moved with her. Subtle. Almost invisible. Light bent incorrectly at the edges of old metal shelves. Reflections arrived half a second late. A hanging chain swayed despite perfectly still air. Nobody mentioned it. Not yet. Shammy watched anyway. The warehouse felt dead. Not physically. Emotionally. Like a place people used and abandoned repeatedly. Temporary. Disposable. Forgettable. A place nobody would remember later. Exactly the sort of location an obsessive idiot would choose. Which made the emptiness sting even more. The theory had made sense. The evidence had made sense. The location had made sense. And still— Nothing. Ace stopped beside a rusted support pillar. Closed her eyes. Counted once. Twice. Three times. The anger remained. No surprise there. "Anything?" she asked. Mai looked up. "No." Shammy shook her head. "No." The answer echoed through the warehouse. No. No. No. No. Every lead eventually became that word. The city seemed to enjoy it. Across the room, Marco was examining a side office. The door hung half-open. Dust coated everything. Old paperwork. Broken monitors. Rotting furniture. Nothing useful. Then: "Hold up." Everybody turned. Marco crouched. Looked closer. Then motioned Ace over. She crossed the room immediately. "What?" Marco pointed. The floor. At first she didn't see it. Then she did. A small piece of fabric. Barely larger than a fingernail. Dark red. Caught beneath a broken cabinet. Ace stared. Marco picked it up carefully. "Could be anything." "Yes." "Could be old." "Yes." "Could be unrelated." "Yes." Neither of them believed that. Mai arrived a moment later. The silver-haired woman accepted the fragment. Studied it. Turned it over. Examined the stitching. Then her expression changed. Tiny. Dangerously tiny. "What?" Mai didn't answer immediately. The silence was answer enough. "Ace." "What?" "I've seen this before." Everything stopped. The room. The air. The city. Everything. "Where?" Mai looked up. Directly at her. "Reyes's jacket." Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Nobody spoke. The little fragment suddenly felt heavier than steel. Ace took it. The fabric rested in her palm. Tiny. Meaningless. Everything. A memory surfaced immediately. Red hair. Dark jacket. A diner. A grainy camera feed. The fragment matched. Or looked like it matched. Or maybe Ace wanted it to match. That was the problem. Hope. Hope poisoned observation. Mai seemed to realize the same thing. "We verify." The sentence arrived instantly. Professional. Necessary. Cruel. Ace hated it. Which meant Mai was right. Again. "We verify." The words tasted terrible. But she said them anyway. Shammy stepped closer. Her gaze remained fixed on the fabric. "She was here." Not certainty. Not speculation. Something in between. The way Shammy often spoke when atmosphere told her things logic hadn't proven yet. Mai glanced toward her. "You know that?" "No." "Then?" Shammy looked around the warehouse. At the empty floor. The old machinery. The dead silence. Then back at the fragment. "I feel it." Nobody pressed further. Because nobody knew exactly what that meant. Including Shammy. Another hour passed. They searched everything. Every office. Every room. Every storage space. Nothing else appeared. No blood. No restraints. No obvious signs of violence. Nothing. The fragment remained the only thing. One tiny piece of cloth. One tiny confirmation. One tiny victory. The kind that hurt. Eventually they regrouped outside. The sun had begun sinking. Industrial shadows stretched across cracked pavement. The city skyline glowed in the distance. Beautiful. Ugly. Night City. Marco leaned against the vehicle. Mai reviewed notes. Shammy watched the horizon. Ace stared at the fragment. Still. Again. And again. Kiro's voice returned through comms. Quiet this time. Not excited. Not hopeful. Just thinking. "Ace." "What?" A pause. Long enough to matter. "I don't think they stayed there." "No." "I think it was a transfer point." The words landed immediately. Because they fit. Too well. The warehouse wasn't a prison. It was a waypoint. A place people passed through. Nothing more. Ace closed her hand around the fragment. The cloth disappeared into her fist. A tiny thing. A stupid thing. A nearly worthless thing. And somehow it was the most important thing she had touched all week. Because it proved something. Not where Reyes was. Not how to find her. Not how long she had left. Just one simple fact. She had been real. She had been there. They were no longer searching for a ghost. And for the first time in days, that was enough to keep Ace moving. For now. --- ## Chapter 9 — No Sleep The fabric stayed in Ace's pocket. Not because it was useful. Because she couldn't make herself put it down. The fragment weighed almost nothing. The thought behind it weighed considerably more. The safehouse had grown quieter over the last twenty-four hours. Not calmer. Quieter. There was a difference. People spoke less. Moved more carefully. Checked on each other without admitting they were doing it. The atmosphere had shifted. Everyone felt it. Nobody mentioned it. Ace sat alone at the main table. A city map glowed beneath scattered notes and route projections. The industrial warehouse remained marked in red. Dozens of other locations surrounded it. Potential contacts. Potential routes. Potential mistakes. The list seemed endless. She stared at it. Nothing moved. Nothing changed. Nothing helped. The digital clock on the wall read 03:17. She hated clocks now. Every number felt personal. Every hour felt stolen. A soft sound behind her. Footsteps. Mai. Of course. Ace didn't look up. "Go back to sleep." "No." The answer came immediately. Ace almost smiled. Almost. Mai sat across from her. Neither spoke. The silence lingered comfortably for a minute. Then two. Then three. Finally: "You haven't slept." Ace kept studying the map. "I did." "No." "I closed my eyes." "That isn't sleep." Ace didn't answer. Mai didn't push. Not immediately. Instead she reached across the table and moved a route marker slightly. Ace frowned. "Why did you do that?" "It was wrong." "It wasn't." "It was." Ace checked. The marker actually was wrong. That annoyed her. Mai noticed. Of course she did. "You're tired." "No." "Ace." "No." Mai folded her arms. "Fine." The surrender was so immediate that Ace finally looked up. "What?" "What what?" "You're agreeing too fast." "Because arguing won't help." That answer felt suspicious. Mai rarely stopped at one sentence when she was right. Which meant she was building toward something. Ace waited. There it was. "Ace." "What?" "When was the last time you slept?" Silence. The dangerous kind. The kind that answers questions all by itself. Mai sighed. "That's what I thought." Across the room, a floorboard creaked. Shammy sat in the doorway. Not entering. Not leaving. Just existing. A blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Static occasionally crackling through loose strands of white hair. "You know," she said quietly, "you're becoming very difficult to be around." Ace blinked. "What?" Shammy pointed. "The pressure." "What pressure?" "The pressure." Helpful. Very helpful. Mai pinched the bridge of her nose. Shammy continued. "The room changes when you enter." Ace stared. Shammy stared back. Neither moved. Neither blinked. Finally: "No it doesn't." Shammy's expression remained perfectly neutral. A lamp behind Ace flickered. Once. Twice. Then stabilized. Nobody said anything. The lamp had already spoken. Ace looked away first. Again. A worrying habit. The silence returned. Outside, Night City hummed. Distant traffic. Distant voices. Distant life. The city never slept. Tonight Ace understood why. Sleep required trust. Trust required certainty. And she had neither. A comm notification interrupted the room. Everyone looked up. Kiro. Again. The connection opened immediately. The netrunner looked exhausted. Even by Kiro standards. Which was impressive. "I found something." Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. Kiro noticed. "...wow." "What?" "You all looked way too intense." "Kiro." "Right." Three windows appeared behind her. Maps. Vehicle records. Traffic routes. Data trails. A web. A very ugly web. "I think our warehouse was a relay." Ace sat up straighter. "We know." "Yeah." Kiro nodded. "Now I know where it relayed." The room went completely silent. Every person present understood what that sentence meant. Not certainty. Not yet. But movement. Progress. A direction. Kiro enlarged a route. Then another. Then another. Three independent paths. Different days. Different vehicles. Different drivers. One destination. A point near the edge of the city. Industrial. Forgotten. Sparse. The sort of place Night City forgot until somebody needed to disappear. Ace stared. The map stared back. A small cluster of structures. Nothing special. Nothing memorable. Exactly the sort of place that became important. "Confidence?" Mai asked. Kiro didn't answer immediately. Bad sign. Then: "Seventy-two percent." Nobody celebrated. Nobody relaxed. Everybody had learned better. Still. Seventy-two was higher than thirty. Higher than twenty. Higher than maybe. Ace looked at the location. Again. And again. And again. The familiar feeling returned. Direction. Hope. Danger. The three always traveled together. Kiro noticed her expression. The netrunner hesitated. Then spoke carefully. "Ace." "What?" "If this is wrong..." The sentence hung unfinished. It didn't need an ending. Everybody understood it. If this was wrong, another day disappeared. Another lead vanished. Another twenty-four hours belonged to someone else. Ace looked back at the map. The structures. The roads. The route. Then stood. Not abruptly. Not violently. Deliberately. The difference mattered. "What are you doing?" Mai asked. Ace grabbed her jacket. "Preparing." Again. The same answer. The same certainty. The same quiet inevitability. Shammy watched her for several seconds. Then quietly stood too. The blanket slipped from her shoulders. Static danced briefly across the room. Outside, somewhere beyond the walls of the safehouse, dawn was beginning to push against the horizon. A new day. Another one. Ace hated that. Because every sunrise felt like proof she was still late. And she was rapidly running out of patience with being late. --- ## Chapter 10 — Another Day Late The location looked promising. Which should have been the warning. Night City had developed a habit of rewarding optimism with disappointment. Ace was beginning to take it personally. The structure sat near the edge of an old freight district. Too far from the city center. Too close to nothing. A rusted maintenance compound surrounded by chain-link fencing and forgotten infrastructure. Perfect. At least on paper. Reality disagreed. Again. The compound had been occupied recently. That much was obvious. Fresh tracks. Fresh trash. Fresh signs of human life. The problem was that all of the humans had apparently decided to leave before anyone arrived. Ace stood beside an open loading bay. The building beyond was empty. Not abandoned. Cleared. The distinction mattered. Someone had left deliberately. And recently. Very recently. Mai emerged from a side office carrying a data slate. "Nothing." The answer felt familiar. Too familiar. Ace looked toward the center of the compound. Three vehicles. Gone. Several people. Gone. A possible holding area. Gone. Everything. Gone. Again. The feeling arrived before the thought. Not anger. Not frustration. Exhaustion. The emotional kind. The kind that settled into bones. Shammy stepped into the loading bay. The wind moved strangely around her. Tiny currents. Invisible pressure shifts. She studied the room for several seconds. Then frowned. "What?" The question came from Ace immediately. Shammy pointed toward a wall. "Something was here." Ace stared. "Helpful." "No." Shammy shook her head. "Not like that." She crossed the room slowly. Following something nobody else could see. Or feel. The atmosphere around her changed. The air grew still. Even the loose plastic hanging from the ceiling stopped moving. "Ace." That tone again. The serious one. Ace walked over. The wall looked ordinary. Concrete. Paint. Dust. Nothing. Then she saw it. A mark. Small. Easy to miss. A shallow scratch. No. Several scratches. Close together. Too low to be accidental. Too high to be machinery. Mai joined them. Looked. Then crouched. The silver-haired woman studied the concrete for nearly a minute. Finally: "Restraints." The room became silent. Ace stared. The scratches suddenly looked different. Not random. Not meaningless. Repeated. Predictable. Mechanical. Something had been attached there. For a long time. Long enough to scar concrete. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. Because everyone had arrived at the same conclusion. Someone had been held here. Recently. Ace looked away first. The wall suddenly felt impossible to look at. Across the compound, Marco appeared from another building. His expression answered the question before he spoke. "No people." The words landed heavily. "Nothing useful." Silence. Then: "Actually." Everybody looked up. Marco held something in one hand. Small. Metallic. Damaged. "What?" Marco crossed the yard. Stopped. Held it out. Ace accepted it. A dog tag. Old. Scratched. Bent. Military surplus. The sort of thing 6th Street loved collecting. Not because it meant anything. Because they thought it looked intimidating. Ace turned it over. An identifier. A partial serial. Nothing more. Not enough. Never enough. Mai examined it. Then handed it back. "Another breadcrumb." Ace hated breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs implied progress. Progress implied distance. And she was tired of distance. Very tired. The comm suddenly crackled. Kiro. Again. Breathing heavily. Which was never reassuring. "I have good news." Nobody reacted. That hurt her feelings immediately. "You all suck." "Kiro." "Right." Typing. Rapid. Focused. Then: "I found where they got warned." The compound froze. Every person present stopped moving. "What?" Kiro enlarged a communications map. Nodes. Contacts. Traffic bursts. Message chains. A web of connections spreading through half the city. One node flashed. Then another. Then another. The pattern became obvious immediately. Someone had warned them. Not hours earlier. Not even that morning. Minutes. A handful of minutes before Triad arrived. The realization felt ugly. Personal. Intimate. Like somebody breathing down the back of your neck. Mai stared at the display. "They knew." "Yeah." "They knew we were coming." "Yeah." "How?" Kiro looked embarrassed. That was worse. Much worse. "I think..." A pause. Another. Then: "I think we're loud." Nobody understood. "What?" Kiro winced. "Not physically." "Operationally." Ace's eyes narrowed. Kiro continued. "People are talking." "What people?" "Everyone." That answer landed badly. Because it made sense. Too much sense. A missing merc. Triad searching openly. Questions being asked. Doors being kicked in. Contacts being pressured. Rumors spreading. At some point, secrecy had stopped existing. And somebody had listened. Marco cursed quietly. Mai looked at the map again. Calculating. Rebuilding. Adjusting. The way she always did. Shammy remained silent. Which worried Ace. Because Shammy usually spoke when others stopped. Now she was watching the compound. Watching the wall. Watching the marks left behind. The atmospheric pressure around her dipped slightly. A storm building far away. Finally she spoke. Softly. Almost too softly to hear. "We're close." Nobody answered. Not because they disagreed. Because they were afraid she might be right. Close was dangerous. Close meant hope. Hope meant loss. The city had taught them that lesson repeatedly. Ace looked at the restraint marks one final time. Then at the empty compound. Then at the rising sun beyond the industrial skyline. Another day. Another lead. Another place Reyes had been. Another place she wasn't anymore. The pattern should have felt hopeless. Instead it felt different. Because for the first time, the people they were hunting had run. And people only ran when they were afraid. That realization settled somewhere deep inside Ace. Cold. Sharp. Useful. For the first time in a week, the hunters weren't the only ones being hunted. And somewhere in Night City, an obsessive idiot had started realizing exactly who was looking for him. --- ## Chapter 11 — Missing Week Reyes woke to darkness. Again. The darkness itself wasn't the problem anymore. The problem was that she couldn't remember whether she'd slept. Or passed out. Or simply lost time. Those had become three different things. Somewhere nearby, water dripped. Slowly. Steadily. A rhythm. The same rhythm she'd been listening to for— Days? Maybe. Longer? Hard to tell. Time had become slippery. The room smelled like damp concrete, stale air, old cigarettes, and human failure. She hated all of it. A dull ache occupied most of her body. Nothing dramatic. Nothing cinematic. Just the accumulated result of too many days in too small a space. The kind of pain that stopped being pain and became weather. Reyes shifted slightly. Bad idea. Everything immediately complained. She ignored it. Professional habit. Across the room, a chair scraped. The sound made her look up. Him. Again. The same man. The same fixation. The same idiot. He sat down opposite her. Holding a cup of coffee. Steam rose from it. The smell reached her immediately. Fresh. Hot. Cruel. The man watched her. She watched him back. Neither spoke. Eventually he broke first. They always did. "You know what your problem is?" Reyes considered several answers. Most of them impolite. Some of them anatomically impossible. Instead she remained silent. The man sighed. "You don't remember." There it was again. That obsession. That need. Not revenge. Recognition. Validation. Reyes was beginning to understand something unfortunate. The man didn't actually want her dead. If he had, she'd already be dead. What he wanted was much stupider. He wanted significance. He wanted the story to matter. He wanted to stop being a footnote in someone else's life. The realization almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. "Nothing?" The man smiled weakly. "No response?" Still nothing. The smile faded. That happened a lot. Reyes had started measuring time by how quickly his expressions collapsed. Usually less than a minute. Today seemed similar. "You broke my jaw." There it was. Again. Reyes stared. The man leaned forward. Anger building. Frustration building. Need building. The same cycle. Every conversation. Every day. Every time. "You remember that?" Silence. The man's jaw tightened. "You remember." No. Actually, she didn't. That was the funny part. Night City produced dozens of idiots every month. Violent drunks. Wannabe tough guys. Gang members with something to prove. Mercenaries looking for the wrong fight. They blurred together eventually. Not because Reyes was careless. Because surviving required triage. You remembered threats. You forgot noise. Apparently he'd been noise. The realization would have been hilarious under different circumstances. The man stood abruptly. The chair nearly toppled. "Look at me." Reyes looked. The command seemed important to him. So she complied. His face twisted. For one brief second she almost saw it. The thing underneath. The truth. Not rage. Not revenge. Humiliation. Months. Maybe a year. An entire year built around a single bad day. A single fight. A single defeat. The realization was almost sad. Almost. Then the moment vanished. The man became angry again. Much easier emotion. Much safer emotion. He preferred it. Most people did. "You're not even listening." Still silence. His hands clenched. Unclenched. Clenched again. The coffee cup trembled slightly. Then: "You know what?" The question hung unanswered. The man laughed once. Short. Sharp. Broken. "I bet somebody's looking for you." That got her attention. Not visibly. Never visibly. Inside. A small shift. Nothing more. The man noticed anyway. Of course he did. Obsession made people observant. "There." He pointed. "That." The smile returned. Ugly this time. "See?" Reyes looked away. The smile disappeared immediately. Again. Every time. Pathetic. The man stood. Grabbed the chair. Moved it back. The legs scraped loudly across concrete. The sound echoed through the room. Then he stopped at the doorway. Without turning. Without looking back. "You know what the best part is?" Silence. The man laughed again. "The longer it takes..." The sentence hung unfinished. He liked unfinished sentences. Liked implications. Liked imagination doing work for him. Coward. The door opened. Then: "The longer it takes, the worse they're going to imagine it." The door closed. The lock clicked. Silence returned. The room became empty again. Reyes sat motionless. Listening. Counting. Breathing. The old survival routines. The boring ones. The useful ones. Eventually she closed her eyes. Not to sleep. Just to think. The idiot had made a mistake. A small one. But a mistake. Because he'd mentioned them. Not directly. Not by name. But enough. Enough to confirm what she'd already suspected. Someone was looking. Maybe not close. Maybe not fast enough. Maybe not in time. But looking. And suddenly, for the first time in days, the room felt slightly different. Not safer. Not hopeful. Just different. A tiny crack in the certainty. A tiny fracture in the walls. A tiny possibility. Reyes opened her eyes again. Looked toward the door. And despite everything— Despite the exhaustion. Despite the pain. Despite the uncertainty. Despite the week. A small, deeply unreasonable thought appeared. _Ace is going to be absolutely insufferable if she finds me._ The corner of her mouth twitched. Barely. The closest thing to a smile she'd managed all week. Then the expression vanished. But the thought remained. And for the first time since this began, she wasn't entirely alone in the room anymore. --- ## Chapter 12 — The Breakthrough The breakthrough arrived at 04:12 in the morning. Naturally. Because Night City had a cruel sense of humor. Kiro had been awake for twenty-three hours. Mai for almost twenty. Ace for something approaching thirty. Nobody was keeping accurate count anymore. The safehouse looked like a battlefield fought entirely with caffeine and stubbornness. Three empty coffee mugs sat beside Kiro. A fourth appeared to be considering retirement. The netrunner was staring at six monitors simultaneously. Which should have been impossible. Yet somehow wasn't. Then— She froze. Not the normal kind. Not the joking kind. Not the dramatic kind. Actually froze. Every muscle. Every expression. Every thought. The room noticed instantly. "Kiro." No answer. "Kiro." Still nothing. Then: "Oh." Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Nobody liked that word. Kiro slowly leaned forward. Her eyes narrowing. Then widening. Then narrowing again. "No." Mai stood immediately. "What?" "No." "Kiro." "No." "Kiro." The netrunner pointed. At a monitor. A single monitor. One tiny piece of data buried beneath nearly a week of searching. A maintenance invoice. The room stared. Nobody understood. Except Kiro. Which was normal. "Talk." Ace's voice had become frighteningly quiet. Kiro swallowed. Then enlarged the document. Industrial refrigeration repair. Routine maintenance. Unimportant. Meaningless. Except for one detail. The location. Mai saw it first. Then Marco. Then Shammy. Then Ace. The room became silent. Very silent. The address. The same address. Again. And again. And again. Different dates. Different contractors. Different companies. Different records. Same location. Hidden. Buried. Repeated. "Why?" Mai asked. Kiro was already typing. More records appeared. Power consumption. Water consumption. Waste removal. Maintenance requests. The building kept appearing. Over. And over. And over. A forgotten structure in an industrial zone that supposedly contained almost nothing. And yet consumed resources like a facility ten times its size. The room stared. The pattern assembled itself. Slowly. Inevitably. The way truth often did. Kiro looked up. Pale. Tired. Certain. "Because somebody is living there." Nobody spoke. Kiro continued. "A lot of somebodies." More silence. Then: "And somebody has been working very hard to make sure nobody notices." The map expanded. A satellite image appeared. Old industrial refrigeration plant. Closed years ago. Officially abandoned. Officially empty. Officially irrelevant. Unofficially— Something else. Ace moved closer. The building filled the screen. Large. Ugly. Perfect. A place nobody cared about. A place nobody visited. A place nobody remembered. Exactly the sort of place an obsessive idiot would choose. Because people like him always confused isolation with security. The room remained still. Nobody wanted to say it. Because saying it made it real. Finally Marco did it. "This is it." Nobody corrected him. Nobody argued. Nobody offered alternatives. Mai continued studying the data. Searching for flaws. Searching for traps. Searching for reasons not to believe. She found none. That worried her. "Kiro." "What?" "Confidence." The netrunner looked back at the screen. Then at the room. Then back at the screen. "Ninety-two." Silence. Ninety-two. Not certainty. Close enough to taste. Close enough to hurt. Ace stared at the building. The image stared back. One week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Every wrong lead. Every empty room. Every dead end. All of it narrowing into one ugly rectangle of concrete and rust. The realization hit hard. Not emotionally. Operationally. The hunt was ending. One way or another. Mai noticed the shift immediately. Of course she did. "Ace." No response. "Ace." Still nothing. The third time: "Ace." Finally. "What?" Mai held her gaze. Long. Steady. Meaningful. "You're thinking about going alone." The room froze. Ace didn't answer. Which was answer enough. Marco sighed. Shammy closed her eyes. Kiro swore. Mai looked entirely unsurprised. "No." Ace finally spoke. The lie arrived smoothly. Effortlessly. Professionally. Nobody believed it. Not even Ace. The room waited. The silence stretched. Then Shammy spoke. Softly. Calmly. Dangerously. "If you go alone." Ace looked over. The white-haired woman met her eyes. "You'll find Reyes." The room remained silent. Shammy continued. "And then we'll have to find both of you." Nobody laughed. Because nobody thought she was joking. A long moment passed. Then another. Finally Ace looked back at the monitor. At the building. At the destination. At the end of the hunt. And for the first time in a week, she allowed herself to think it. Not hope. Not certainty. Just the possibility. _She's there._ The thought landed heavily. Dangerously. The room seemed smaller. The air seemed thinner. Everything seemed closer. Because if Reyes was there— Then this was the last sunrise before everything changed. Nobody slept after that. There wasn't any point. By 05:30, weapons were being checked. By 05:45, routes were being planned. By 06:00, the safehouse had transformed from an investigation center into something else entirely. An extraction team. A rescue mission. A promise. And somewhere across Night City, inside a forgotten refrigeration plant that officially didn't matter— An obsessive idiot was about to discover the single worst mistake of his entire life. --- ## Chapter 13 — Confirmation The refrigeration plant looked dead. That was the first problem. The second problem was that it looked exactly as dead as Kiro's data suggested it should. Abandoned. Forgotten. Worthless. A rusting monument to industrial failure sitting on the edge of Night City. Concrete walls. Broken windows. Corroded pipework. Faded warning signs. The sort of place people drove past without seeing. The sort of place people stopped noticing years ago. Perfect. Ace hated perfect. The team watched from half a kilometer away. An abandoned office building overlooking the facility. Dust coated everything. The windows were cracked. The roof leaked. Nobody cared. Their attention remained fixed on the plant. Waiting. Watching. Looking for movement. Looking for proof. Looking for anything. At first there was nothing. Then Kiro spoke. "There." A monitor zoomed. The image sharpened. A side entrance. One man. Civilian clothing. Tool case. Maintenance badge. The man approached a door. Entered a code. Disappeared inside. The door closed. Silence. Nobody reacted. Then another image appeared. Different camera. Different angle. Same man. Except— The timestamps didn't match. Mai frowned immediately. "Again." Kiro replayed it. The footage rolled. Then rolled again. The problem became obvious. The man entered. Never exited. Yet appeared elsewhere. Inside the facility. Minutes later. No visible route. No visible transition. The building was larger than official blueprints suggested. A lot larger. Marco folded his arms. "Hidden access." "Yes." Mai was already studying architectural plans. The blueprints looked wrong. Not incomplete. Wrong. Like somebody had deliberately removed pieces. Rooms ended abruptly. Hallways disappeared. Entire sections no longer connected logically. Kiro enlarged another layer. Then another. Then another. The truth emerged. Slowly. Ugly. Familiar. "Somebody modified the records." Nobody looked surprised. Night City practically charged rent for that service. The netrunner highlighted an area. Eastern section. Sub-level access. Officially nonexistent. Unofficially— Very real. The room grew quieter. Not hopeful. Focused. The difference mattered. Ace remained near the window. Watching. The plant sat motionless beneath the morning sky. Still. Silent. Patient. Like it knew they were coming. A comm notification interrupted the silence. One of Marco's contacts. Street-level surveillance. Low confidence. Normally useless. Today— Maybe not. Marco answered. Listened. Said almost nothing. Then disconnected. His expression changed. Tiny. Enough. "What?" Marco looked toward Ace. "Vehicle." Everyone straightened. "What vehicle?" The Valentino enlarged the image sent by his contact. Poor quality. Long distance. Enough. The room froze. Ace stopped breathing. Not because of the vehicle. Because of the damage. Reyes's vehicle. The same vehicle from the earlier footage. Same registration. Same modifications. Same bodywork. Different condition. The front quarter panel had been crushed. One headlight missing. Paint scraped. A deep impact scar running along one side. The kind of damage created by urgency. Or violence. Or both. The image timestamp flashed. Thirty-seven minutes old. The room became very still. "Thirty-seven?" Marco nodded. "Thirty-seven." Not five days. Not three. Not yesterday. Thirty-seven minutes. Recent. Current. Real. The vehicle was here. Now. Today. Ace stared at the photograph. Something inside her finally stopped arguing. Stopped doubting. Stopped questioning. The endless chain of maybe collapsed. The uncertainty died. Not completely. Enough. Reyes had been here. Recently. Very recently. Maybe still. Mai noticed immediately. Of course she did. "Ace." No answer. "Ace." Still no answer. Because Ace wasn't looking at the photograph anymore. She was looking at the building. The actual building. The actual location. The actual end of the hunt. And for the first time in a week— She felt it. Not hope. Not relief. Fear. Real fear. The kind nobody talked about. The kind nobody admitted. Because for seven days the unknown had protected her. As long as Reyes was missing, anything remained possible. Now? Now reality was approaching. Reality had teeth. Shammy appeared beside her. Quietly. As always. The white-haired woman looked out the same window. Toward the same facility. Toward the same future. Then she said something that surprised everyone. Including herself. "She's alive." The room turned. Mai. Marco. Even Kiro over comms. Nobody spoke. Shammy continued staring through the glass. The static around her hair had vanished completely. The air felt strange. Still. Heavy. Charged. "How do you know?" The question came from Ace. Soft. Almost fragile. Shammy remained silent for several seconds. Then: "I don't." A pause. Long. Meaningful. "But if she wasn't..." Her gaze remained fixed on the refrigeration plant. "...you would already know." Nobody had an answer to that. Because deep down, every person in the room understood exactly what she meant. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. If the worst had already happened— Something would have broken. Some thread. Some instinct. Some certainty. Yet here they were. Still moving. Still searching. Still finding signs. The room remained silent. Then Kiro's voice cut through the comm. Sharp. Focused. Professional. "Movement." Every head snapped toward the monitors. A loading door. Western side. The image zoomed. Two men emerged. 6th Street. No question. No doubt. No ambiguity. One carried supplies. The other carried a rifle. Neither looked relaxed. Neither looked confident. Both scanned the area repeatedly. Nervous. Alert. Expecting something. The image froze. The room stared. Then Kiro enlarged another frame. And another. And another. Until one face filled the screen. The obsessive idiot. The man from Rosie's. The man from the reports. The man from Reyes's week. Alive. Present. Inside. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. Because the hunt was over. Not almost over. Over. The target had just looked directly into a camera. Ace stood. The chair behind her remained untouched. Nobody remembered seeing her move. The room felt different immediately. Sharper. Dangerous. Final. Mai looked up. "That's him." "Yes." The answer came instantly. No hesitation. No uncertainty. No doubt. For the first time in a week, Ace knew exactly where she needed to go. And somewhere inside the refrigeration plant, completely unaware that his face had just appeared on half a dozen screens— A man who desperately wanted to matter had finally succeeded. For the next few hours, he would become the most important person in Night City. Right before becoming the least important. --- ## Chapter 14 — The Approach Nobody said "let's go." That only happened in bad movies. Real operations started with silence. Weapons checked. Routes confirmed. Contingencies reviewed. Communications tested. Nobody needed motivation. Not anymore. The refrigeration plant sat beneath a gray afternoon sky. Cloud cover had rolled in from the coast. The sunlight felt distant. Muted. Cold. Appropriate. Ace watched through magnified optics from a neighboring rooftop. The facility filled her field of view. Every entrance. Every roof access point. Every possible escape route. Every place Reyes might be. Every place she might not. The second possibility was becoming harder to tolerate. Kiro's voice remained in everyone's ear. Constant. Focused. Tracking cameras. Tracking signals. Tracking movement. "North side clear." A pause. "Still clear." Another pause. "I hate this place." Nobody argued. The facility was wrong. Not visually. Operationally. Too many blind spots. Too many modified systems. Too many things that shouldn't exist. Somebody had invested serious effort into disappearing. That alone made Ace want to break something. Mai lay prone beside her. Studying a schematic overlay. The silver-haired analyst had spent the last three hours rebuilding a floor plan from corrupted records, maintenance routes, thermal leaks, utility consumption, and educated guesswork. The result looked horrifying. Not because it was incomplete. Because it was probably accurate. "Three sub-levels." Ace nodded. "Maybe four." "Maybe." Neither liked maybes anymore. Below them, a truck entered the facility. Kiro immediately tagged it. "Supply run." "Routine." "Same company as last week." The gate opened. The vehicle disappeared inside. The gate closed. The facility returned to stillness. Again. Everything about the place felt temporary. Improvised. Fragile. Like something held together by lies and bad decisions. Which fit their suspect perfectly. A soft click sounded beside Ace. Marco checking his pistol. The Valentino looked toward the facility. Then toward Ace. Then back again. "You know." Nobody answered. Marco continued anyway. "This guy really should've left town." The statement lingered. Because everyone agreed. A smarter man would have vanished. A smarter man would have crossed a border. Changed identities. Disappeared. Instead— He stayed. Obsessive people always stayed. They needed to see the ending. That was the problem. And the weakness. Shammy sat near the rooftop access door. Legs crossed. Eyes closed. Listening. Not to sounds. To something else. Nobody asked. Nobody interrupted. Finally she opened her eyes. Slowly. "Ace." The tone immediately drew attention. "What?" Shammy looked toward the facility. The refrigeration plant. The ugly concrete monster squatting at the edge of the city. Then: "She's there." Nobody moved. The sentence landed heavily. Not because it was proof. Because of who said it. Mai watched her carefully. "You're certain?" "No." The answer arrived instantly. Honest. As always. "No." A pause. Then: "But I keep feeling the same thing." "What?" Shammy looked directly at Ace. "Pressure." The word hung in the air. Ace frowned. "What does that mean?" Shammy considered. Searching for language. Eventually: "It feels like someone refusing to fall." Silence. Nobody spoke. Nobody joked. Nobody challenged it. Because suddenly everybody could imagine Reyes doing exactly that. Refusing. Out of spite if necessary. Out of stubbornness if necessary. Out of pure Reyes-ness if necessary. The rooftop fell quiet again. Then Kiro interrupted. Sharp. Urgent. "Movement." Instantly. Everyone focused. Monitors expanded. Feeds enlarged. Markers appeared. The western loading area. Three men. Then four. Then six. Armed. Alert. Patrolling. Not relaxed. Not routine. Looking. Watching. Expecting. Mai sat upright immediately. "They know." "Yeah." Kiro sounded unhappy. "They definitely know." "How?" "No idea." That answer wasn't reassuring. Nothing was reassuring anymore. The patrol pattern repeated. Again. Again. Again. Too many guards. Too much nervous energy. Too much movement. The facility had shifted. The people inside knew something was wrong. Not what. Just wrong. Ace watched one guard scan the perimeter for the third time in four minutes. Fear. The man was afraid. Good. A strange calm settled over her. Not relief. Not satisfaction. Focus. Pure focus. The endless uncertainty had finally burned away. Only one thing remained. Distance. And distance could be crossed. Mai noticed the change. Of course she did. "Ace." "What?" "Remember the objective." The answer arrived immediately. "Reyes." "Exactly." A pause. Then: "Not revenge." Ace looked at her. The silver-haired woman held her gaze steadily. No accusation. No distrust. Just a reminder. A necessary one. Because both of them knew exactly how this could go wrong. Ace looked back toward the refrigeration plant. Toward the place that had stolen a week. Toward the place holding the answer. Then nodded once. "Reyes first." Mai relaxed slightly. Only slightly. Because everyone knew something else. Finding Reyes would be easy. Compared to what came after. The sun dipped lower. Shadows stretched. The city shifted toward evening. And finally— After hours of watching— Kiro spoke the words everyone had been waiting for. "Found it." The rooftop froze. "What?" "The entrance." A map appeared instantly. Highlighted. Blinking. A maintenance access tunnel hidden beneath an external service structure. Small. Forgotten. Unwatched. Exactly the sort of thing an overconfident idiot would overlook. The route glowed red. Straight into the lower levels. Straight beneath the facility. Straight toward the place Reyes was most likely being held. Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. The planning phase was over. The waiting phase was over. The hunt was over. The rescue had begun. And for the first time in seven days— Ace started moving. --- ## Chapter 15 — Below Ground Nobody said anything when the maintenance hatch finally opened. There wasn't much left to say. Seven days. Seven days of bad leads. Seven days of wrong buildings. Seven days of arriving after everyone else had already left. At some point words stopped helping. Ace dropped into the darkness first. The access shaft descended beneath the refrigeration plant at a shallow angle, disappearing into old industrial infrastructure that should have been abandoned decades ago. Should have. Night City loved that phrase. The tunnel smelled of rust, stagnant water, and machinery that refused to die. Behind her, Mai landed lightly. Marco followed. Then Shammy. The hatch closed above them. The outside world vanished. No traffic. No wind. No city. Only concrete. Only darkness. Only the hunt. --- "A hundred meters." Kiro's voice crackled softly through comms. "Maybe a hundred and twenty." "Maybe?" Marco asked. "Blueprints are garbage." "Useful." "Thank you." The tunnel curved. Then curved again. At first glance it looked ancient. At second glance it looked maintained. Fresh conduit. Recently replaced junction boxes. Power lines newer than the surrounding structure. Someone had spent money down here. Enough money to matter. Mai noticed it too. "This isn't improvised." "No," Ace agreed. "It isn't." The realization bothered her. The obsessive idiot from the diner wasn't smart enough to build this. Meaning someone had helped. Or sold him help. In Night City the distinction barely mattered. --- The first camera appeared twenty minutes later. Tiny. Hidden inside a ventilation grate. The sort of thing most people would never notice. Mai spotted it first. A raised hand. Everyone froze. Kiro's sigh echoed through comms. "Seriously?" "What?" "Whoever installed that should be fired." A pause. Several rapid keystrokes. Then: "Okay." The camera feed died. The little red status light vanished. The corridor became blind again. "I love my job." "You love crimes." "I prefer the term creative networking." --- They continued deeper. The facility above slowly revealed itself through indirect evidence. Footsteps overhead. Machinery vibration. Doors opening and closing somewhere beyond the concrete. People. More people than Ace expected. Not dozens. Enough. This wasn't one idiot and a few drinking buddies. Someone had built an operation. Small. Hidden. Functional. The sort of thing Night City produced whenever enough money met enough desperation. --- The first guard appeared unexpectedly. Not because he was good. Because he was bored. The man rounded a corner carrying a paper cup and talking to someone through an earpiece. He never finished the sentence. Three seconds later he was unconscious behind a maintenance cabinet. His coffee continued rolling across the floor. Marco stared at it. Then at Ace. Then back at the coffee. "That looked unpleasant." Ace kept moving. The paper cup eventually tipped over behind them. Nobody looked back. --- The lower they descended, the more active the facility became. The sounds changed. Voices. Footsteps. Generators. Air circulation. Life. Nothing visible. Everything audible. Like listening to a building breathe. The refrigeration plant wasn't abandoned. It was pretending. --- "Ace." Mai's voice. Quiet. Immediate. Ace stopped. Everyone stopped. The silver-haired analyst pointed toward a concrete wall. Not at the wall itself. At the floor. Tracks. Recent. Heavy. Repeated. Not vehicle tracks. Equipment. Something moved regularly through this section. Something large enough to leave patterns. Ace crouched. Examined them. Fresh. Very fresh. Hours. Not days. Hours. The realization settled heavily. They weren't finding ghosts anymore. They were finding activity. Current activity. --- The tunnel eventually widened into a maintenance intersection. Three directions. Three possibilities. Ace looked toward Mai. Mai looked toward Kiro's latest schematic. The schematic looked like it had been assembled by an alcoholic architect during a nervous breakdown. Half-complete corridors. Missing sections. Contradictory dimensions. Night City documentation at its finest. "Left." Kiro sounded surprisingly certain. "Why left?" "Because right makes no sense." Marco frowned. "That's your reason?" "Every time something doesn't make sense in Night City, somebody is hiding something." Fair. Disturbingly fair. --- They took the left corridor. Ten minutes later, Kiro swore. Immediately. Passionately. Creatively. "What?" "I hate being right." The corridor ahead narrowed. Then opened. Then revealed a section that did not exist on any official blueprint. Additional rooms. Additional wiring. Additional reinforced doors. Everything newer than the surrounding structure. Everything hidden. Everything deliberate. The team exchanged glances. No words. No need. This was it. Not necessarily Reyes. But something. Something important enough to erase from records. Something important enough to hide. --- The atmosphere changed. Not metaphorically. Literally. The air felt colder. Still. Dense. Even Marco noticed. "You feel that?" Nobody answered immediately. Because everyone did. Shammy's eyes narrowed slightly. Not certainty. Not revelation. Just attention. The same way she listened to storms. Something about this section felt wrong. Not supernatural. Human. The kind of wrong people built themselves. The kind that lingered afterward. --- Another corridor. Another turn. Another security door. The facility seemed determined to keep secrets. Ace hated secrets. She hated them even more after seven days. Ahead, a faint strip of light appeared beneath a reinforced steel door. The first visible sign of occupied space. Everyone stopped. Instinctively. No command required. No discussion needed. The door sat at the end of the corridor. Ordinary. Heavy. Locked. Nothing special. And somehow every nerve in Ace's body focused on it. Not because she knew what was behind it. Because she didn't. The unknown had carried her through an entire week. Now it stood twenty meters away. Waiting. --- Mai stepped beside her. Neither spoke for several seconds. Finally: "We don't know." Ace nodded. She understood exactly what Mai meant. They didn't know. Not yet. Not until they opened the door. Not until they crossed the final distance. Not until reality replaced imagination. The thought should have made things easier. It didn't. --- Behind them, Marco quietly checked his weapon. Shammy stood silent. Kiro's breathing was audible through comms. Nobody moved. For the first time since entering the facility, they had reached something that mattered. Not a route. Not a clue. Not evidence. An answer. Maybe. And that single word suddenly felt heavier than the entire week behind them. Ace looked at the steel door. Then took one step forward. The hunt was over. Whatever came next wasn't hunting anymore. --- ## Chapter 16 — The Door Nobody rushed. That surprised Ace. A week ago she would have rushed. Three days ago she would have kicked the door off its hinges. Now? Now she stood perfectly still. Looking. Listening. Thinking. The steel door sat at the end of the corridor. Silent. Ordinary. Terrifying. Because for seven days every possibility had existed simultaneously. Reyes alive. Reyes dead. Reyes injured. Reyes escaped. Reyes somewhere else entirely. The unknown was brutal. But it was also safe. The moment the door opened, the unknown died. Reality took its place. And reality was rarely kind. --- Mai stepped forward. Hand scanner. Lock assembly. Access panel. The security system looked expensive. Which immediately made her suspicious. "That's annoying." Marco glanced over. "Can you open it?" "Probably." "Probably?" Mai frowned. "I hate this city." A pause. Then: "Yes." The panel came apart beneath practiced fingers. The internal wiring appeared. Additional modifications. Additional security layers. Additional reasons for Mai to become annoyed. Five minutes later the lock surrendered. Not because it wanted to. Because Mai existed. A quiet click echoed through the corridor. Nobody moved. Not yet. --- Kiro's voice arrived through comms. "Careful." Ace blinked. "You think?" "No." A pause. Then: "I'm serious." That got everyone's attention. Kiro rarely sounded frightened. Exasperated. Constantly. Frightened? Rare. "What did you find?" Several seconds passed. Keyboard sounds. Searching. Verifying. Then: "This section wasn't built to keep people out." The corridor became silent. Very silent. "What?" Kiro swallowed audibly. "It was built to keep people in." Nobody liked that answer. Not one bit. --- Ace looked at the door again. The simple steel surface suddenly felt much heavier. Much older. Much uglier. Not because of what it was. Because of what it implied. The refrigeration plant. The hidden levels. The erased records. The reinforced infrastructure. The false walls. The concealed routes. Everything pointed in the same direction. Someone hadn't built a hideout. Someone had built a cage. --- The lock disengaged fully. The door opened five centimeters. Nothing happened. No alarms. No gunfire. No dramatic ambush. Just silence. The worst kind. Ace pushed gently. The door drifted inward. Darkness waited beyond. A hallway. Another one. Narrow. Poorly lit. Concrete walls. Metal doors. Several of them. Cells. The realization arrived instantly. Nobody said it. Nobody needed to. The architecture spoke for itself. --- Marco cursed softly. Nobody blamed him. Ace moved first. The corridor swallowed her. The others followed. One door. Empty. Two doors. Storage. Three doors. Maintenance supplies. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The pattern became unbearable. Every empty room increased the pressure. Every wrong door sharpened the fear. Every second stretched longer than it should. Ace hated all of it. --- The fourth door stood slightly different from the others. Not visually. Operationally. Additional lock. Additional reinforcement. Additional wear. People used this door. Frequently. Recently. Mai saw it immediately. "So did I." Ace hadn't realized she spoke aloud. The silver-haired woman stepped aside. No discussion. No debate. No need. This one. Everybody knew it. --- The lock mechanism surrendered quickly. Compared to the previous door, this one was simple. Almost crude. As though whoever built the system cared more about the outer perimeter than the inner rooms. A mistake. One of many. The final latch released. The room beyond remained dark. Silent. Still. Ace stared. One heartbeat. Two. Three. Then pushed the door open. --- The room smelled wrong. Not blood. Not death. Something worse. Stale air. Exhaustion. Too much time spent in too little space. The smell of a life interrupted. A single lamp illuminated part of the room. Nothing else. No windows. No decoration. No comfort. Just concrete. Steel. Silence. And— Movement. Small. Barely visible. Human. The world stopped. Not metaphorically. Actually stopped. Every sound vanished. Every thought vanished. Everything narrowed into one point. One person. One shape. One impossible reality. --- Reyes. Alive. --- The relief hit first. Violently. Unexpectedly. A physical thing. A force. A shockwave. So powerful it almost hurt. Alive. Alive. Alive. The word repeated endlessly. Over and over. Drowning everything else. For one brief moment, nothing mattered except that single fact. Alive. --- Then reality caught up. And Ace finally saw her. Actually saw her. Not a memory. Not a photograph. Not a thermal signature. Not a possibility. Her. The relief died immediately. Not because Reyes was dead. Because she wasn't. Because she was alive. And because seven days had happened. --- Reyes looked up slowly. The movement seemed to take effort. The room remained silent. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody knew where to begin. A week of fear. A week of searching. A week of imagining. None of it prepared Ace for the reality sitting in front of her. None of it. --- For several seconds nobody moved. Not Ace. Not Mai. Not Marco. Not Shammy. Not even Reyes. The universe seemed determined to hold its breath. Then Reyes blinked once. Looked directly at Ace. And somehow— Somehow— Found enough energy for exactly one sentence. Her voice was rough. Dry. Exhausted. Completely, unmistakably Reyes. "Took you long enough." Silence. Absolute silence. Then something inside Ace finally broke. Not anger. Not control. Tension. Seven days of tension. Seven days of fear. Seven days of refusing to imagine the worst. Gone. Just gone. --- Ace crossed the room. Fast. Not running. Not walking. Something in between. And for the first time since this entire nightmare began— She dropped to one knee beside Reyes. Close enough to see. Close enough to know. Close enough to stop imagining. --- "I'm here." Two words. Nothing more. Nothing less. Reyes stared at her. For a moment it looked like she wanted to answer. Maybe she did. Maybe she couldn't. The distinction no longer mattered. Because her eyes finally closed. Not from fear. Not from surrender. From exhaustion. The kind that arrived only after the danger was over. --- And for the first time in seven days— Ace stopped searching. --- ## Chapter 17 — Extraction The problem with finding someone alive was that they remained alive afterward. Movies skipped that part. Reality didn't. "Ace." Mai's voice cut through the room. Professional. Focused. Necessary. The tone she used when emotions became operational hazards. Ace looked up immediately. "What?" "We need to move." The sentence landed hard. Because it was true. Because she hated it. Because after seven days of searching, the last thing she wanted to do was leave. Reyes remained where she was. Eyes closed. Breathing. Alive. The word still echoed through Ace's head. Alive. Everything else felt secondary. The refrigeration plant disagreed. The refrigeration plant was full of armed idiots. Armed idiots had a tendency to investigate missing guards. Eventually. --- Marco appeared at the doorway. "Pace is changing." Nobody needed clarification. More movement. More voices. More activity. The facility had started noticing things. The clock was running. Again. Always. --- Mai crouched beside Reyes. Careful. Deliberate. The examination lasted less than thirty seconds. The conclusion took even less. "We move now." Ace nodded immediately. No argument. That alone worried Mai. Normally she'd argue. Normally she'd push. Normally she'd refuse. Instead she simply nodded. Like someone afraid reality might disappear if she blinked too long. --- Reyes opened one eye. Slowly. Painfully. "What?" "We're leaving." The redhead stared at the ceiling. Thinking. Processing. Then: "Took your time." Marco barked out a laugh. Actually laughed. The sound surprised everyone. Including Marco. Reyes looked vaguely pleased with herself. Which was absurd. And reassuring. And heartbreaking. All at the same time. --- "Ace." The little hunter looked down immediately. "What?" A pause. Long. Then: "You kill him?" The room froze. Not dramatically. Just enough. Ace understood instantly who _him_ meant. The obsessive idiot. The man from the diner. The architect of the last seven days. "No." Reyes studied her face. Silence. Then: "Good." That answer surprised everyone. Most of all Ace. Reyes closed her eye again. The effort seemed expensive. "Means you're still thinking." The sentence lingered. Nobody knew what to do with it. Least of all Ace. --- The extraction itself was ugly. Not cinematic. Not graceful. Just difficult. The kind of difficult nobody talked about afterward. Reyes could stand. Technically. For approximately six seconds. The seventh became negotiable. The eighth became fiction. The ninth became comedy. After that everyone stopped pretending. --- "I can walk." "No." "I can." "No." "Ace." "No." The argument lasted exactly twelve steps. Then Reyes nearly collapsed. The discussion ended. Not because either woman admitted defeat. Because gravity won. --- The facility felt different on the way out. Smaller. Faster. More dangerous. Word had started spreading. Doors opened. Voices carried. People moved. Not enough. Not yet. But enough. The illusion of safety was gone. --- Kiro's voice exploded through comms. "Guys." Everybody immediately hated the tone. "What?" "Company." "How much company?" A pause. Then: "I'd describe it as an unfortunate amount." Marco sighed. "Numbers." "Eight." A second pause. "Maybe ten." Another pause. "Possibly twelve." "Those are different numbers." "Night City is a land of possibilities." Nobody appreciated the joke. --- The corridor ahead echoed. Voices. Footsteps. Anger. Confusion. Questions. The facility had finally realized something was wrong. Took them long enough. --- Mai looked toward Ace. Ace looked toward the approaching sounds. Then toward Reyes. Then back toward the approaching sounds. The calculation took less than a second. Reyes came first. Everything else came second. For once, the answer was easy. --- The first two men rounded the corner. Weapons ready. Expressions confused. The confusion lasted approximately half a heartbeat. Then they saw the group. Then they saw Reyes. Then they understood. Unfortunately for them. --- The encounter was brief. Violent. One-sided. Not because Ace was angry. That would've been dangerous. This was worse. Ace was focused. Focused Ace frightened Mai considerably more than angry Ace ever had. Anger made mistakes. Focus removed them. --- Three corridors later, another group appeared. Then another. Then another. The facility had become a living thing. Trying desperately to stop bleeding. Trying desperately to close a wound. Too late. Much too late. --- The maintenance tunnel finally appeared ahead. The same route they'd entered through. The same route leading out. The same route leading home. The word felt strange. Home. Safehouse. Somewhere with windows. Somewhere with light. Somewhere Reyes could actually sleep. The thought felt unreal. --- "Ace." The voice came quietly. Almost lost beneath footsteps and distant shouting. Ace looked down immediately. Reyes had opened her eyes again. Barely. "What?" Several seconds passed. Then: "You look terrible." Silence. Absolute silence. Marco laughed first. Then Shammy. Then even Mai lost the fight. The sound echoed through the tunnel. Sharp. Unexpected. Human. For one brief moment the entire nightmare cracked. Just enough. Just long enough. For everyone to remember who Reyes was. --- Ace stared. Then shook her head. "You disappeared for a week." Reyes considered that. Then: "Fair." The single word somehow made everything worse. And better. At the same time. --- The tunnel stretched ahead. Long. Dark. Leading away from the refrigeration plant. Leading away from the nightmare. Leading toward the next problem. Because everybody understood something now. The rescue was over. The hard part was about to begin. And none of them were ready for it. Least of all Reyes. --- ## Chapter 18 — Safehouse The ripperdoc took one look at Reyes and immediately pointed at the door. "Out." Ace blinked. "What?" "Out." "I'm staying." "No." The answer arrived instantly. Professionally. Automatically. The kind of answer given by someone who had repeated it thousands of times before. The ripperdoc pointed again. "Ace." "What?" "You are currently standing three centimeters from my patient." Ace looked down. The doctor wasn't exaggerating. Much. She took half a step backward. The ripperdoc remained unimpressed. "Further." Another step. "Further." "Ace." "What?" "Out." The little hunter stared. The doctor stared back. Neither moved. Finally Mai placed a hand on Ace's shoulder. "Ace." The tone did it. Not the argument. Not the order. The tone. Reluctantly, Ace stepped toward the hallway. The ripperdoc nodded once. "See?" "I don't like you." "Nobody ever does." The door closed. --- The hallway suddenly felt enormous. Too much space. Too much silence. Too much waiting. Ace hated waiting. She had spent a week waiting. Waiting for messages. Waiting for clues. Waiting for proof. Waiting for answers. Now she was waiting again. The difference was that Reyes sat on the other side of the wall. Alive. The fact should have helped. Somehow it didn't. --- Mai sat beside her. Not speaking. Not analyzing. Just sitting. A few minutes later Shammy joined them. Then Marco. Nobody discussed it. The hallway simply accumulated people. The way families did during medical emergencies. The realization irritated Ace immediately. She ignored it. --- The door eventually opened. The ripperdoc emerged carrying a tablet. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The man looked at the group. Then looked specifically at Ace. "Oh good." "What?" "You're still here." Ace frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?" "It means I was taking bets." The ripperdoc checked something on the tablet. "Good news." The hallway straightened collectively. "She's alive." Marco pinched the bridge of his nose. Mai sighed. Even Shammy looked offended. Ace simply stared. The ripperdoc finally smirked. "A little humor." "That wasn't humor." "It was to me." --- The smirk vanished. Professional mode returned. "She's exhausted." Nobody looked surprised. "Dehydrated." Still no surprise. "Malnourished." Again. Expected. The doctor scrolled further. Then stopped. His expression tightened slightly. Not dramatically. Just enough. Ace noticed. Immediately. Of course she did. "What?" The ripperdoc looked up. Carefully. Choosing words. "The physical injuries will heal." Silence. "But?" The question escaped before Ace realized she'd spoken. The doctor sighed. "But the physical injuries aren't the problem." Nobody spoke. Nobody needed clarification. The hallway suddenly felt colder. --- The doctor continued. "She's going to try acting normal." Marco laughed once. Without humor. "That sounds familiar." "It should." The ripperdoc nodded. "She's the type." The tablet disappeared beneath one arm. The doctor's gaze settled on Ace again. "You." "What?" "Do not let her convince you she's fine." The hallway became very quiet. Ace stared. The doctor stared back. Then: "She already tried." That actually earned a laugh. A small one. A tired one. Still a laugh. --- "Can we see her?" The question came from Mai. The ripperdoc considered. Then nodded. "One at a time." Ace was already moving. The doctor pointed. "No." The little hunter froze. "What?" "Not you." The hallway blinked. Collectively. The ripperdoc sighed. "You are the exact reason I'm saying not you." "I haven't done anything." "You spent the last ten minutes staring at the door like you intended to personally fight medical science." Marco laughed loudly enough to attract attention from three rooms away. Ace considered homicide. Briefly. --- "Five minutes." The doctor pointed at Mai. "You first." --- Mai entered. The door closed. The hallway returned. Ace immediately hated every second of it. --- Five minutes became eight. Then ten. Then twelve. Ace nearly stood up three separate times. Shammy physically grabbed her sleeve during the second attempt. The third attempt required Marco. Neither seemed particularly sorry. --- Eventually the door opened. Mai emerged. Calm. Composed. Thinking. The way she always looked when something important had happened. Ace stood immediately. "How is she?" Mai hesitated. The hesitation alone answered half the question. "Mai." The silver-haired woman met her eyes. "She's Reyes." That wasn't an answer. Which unfortunately made it a perfect answer. --- "What happened?" Mai exhaled slowly. Then: "She asked where her weapons were." Marco groaned. Shammy covered her face. Ace closed her eyes. Of course she did. Of course. --- "And?" Mai's expression became very strange. A mixture of disbelief and exhaustion. "And then she asked if somebody had fed her car." Silence. Absolute silence. Then Marco doubled over laughing. Shammy joined him. Even Ace lost the fight. The laugh escaped before she could stop it. Because it was so perfectly, unbelievably Reyes. A week in hell. And her second concern was her vehicle. --- The laughter faded. The reality didn't. Mai's smile disappeared first. "She's trying." The hallway quieted. Nobody misunderstood. Trying. Not recovering. Not healing. Trying. A much smaller word. A much harder one. --- Ace looked toward the door again. The same door. The same room. The same reality. Only now something felt different. The fear hadn't vanished. The anger hadn't vanished. The guilt definitely hadn't vanished. But something else had appeared. Something simpler. Something more difficult. Reyes was here. Not tomorrow. Not eventually. Not after the next lead. Not after the next clue. Here. Now. And for the first time since the nightmare began, Ace no longer had a target. She had a person. The realization landed harder than any fight. --- The ripperdoc eventually returned. Looked directly at Ace. Then pointed toward the room. "All right." Ace stood immediately. "You get five minutes." The doctor paused. Then added: "Try not to break anything." Ace headed for the door. Behind her, Marco's voice echoed down the hallway. "No promises." The little hunter didn't even bother turning around. For the first time in seven days, she pushed open a door without fearing what waited on the other side. And somehow that felt even harder. --- ## Chapter 19 — Fine The room was quiet. Not hospital quiet. Not peaceful quiet. The sort of quiet created when two stubborn people occupied the same space and neither wanted to begin the conversation. Ace closed the door behind her. The click seemed louder than it should have. Reyes looked up from the bed. Immediately. Automatically. Like she'd been watching the door. The realization lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable. Neither acknowledged it. --- For several seconds they simply stared at each other. A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. And somehow neither knew where to start. The absurdity of it almost made Ace laugh. Almost. --- Finally: "You look terrible." Reyes didn't miss a beat. "You said that already." "It was true then." "It's true now." Fair. Unfortunately. --- The room settled again. Ace moved toward a chair. Stopped. Changed her mind. Then sat anyway. The chair remained beside the bed. Close. Not too close. Neither woman commented on the distance. Both noticed it. --- "How's the car?" The question escaped before Ace could stop it. Reyes immediately closed her eyes. Not from pain. From embarrassment. Actual embarrassment. A rare species. "I was drugged." "You asked about the car." "I was drugged." "You asked if somebody fed it." "I was very drugged." Ace stared. Reyes stared back. The silence lasted approximately two seconds. Then both lost the fight. The laughter hurt. For completely different reasons. --- The moment faded. Reality returned. It always did. --- Reyes looked toward the ceiling. The expression vanished. The amusement vanished. Everything softened into something quieter. More tired. "I'm guessing you found the place." Ace nodded. "Eventually." A pause. Then: "Took longer than I wanted." The statement sounded casual. Almost. Reyes heard the truth underneath immediately. Of course she did. --- "You found me." The sentence was simple. Nothing dramatic. Nothing emotional. Just fact. Ace looked down briefly. Then back up. "Yeah." Another pause. Longer this time. --- Reyes studied her face. Actually studied it. The dark circles. The exhaustion. The tension. The strain. Everything. The week hadn't happened to only one person. The realization arrived slowly. Reluctantly. Like most uncomfortable truths. --- "You didn't sleep." Not a question. Ace shrugged. Wrong answer. Both knew it. --- "Ace." "What?" "You look like shit." The sentence carried absolutely no sympathy. Which somehow made it comforting. Ace nodded. "Fair." --- Silence returned. This one lingered longer. Neither seemed eager to break it. Because eventually the conversation would arrive. The real one. The one waiting underneath everything else. Neither wanted to be first. --- Reyes won. Technically. Mostly because exhaustion made resistance difficult. --- "What happened after?" Ace blinked. "After what?" "After I disappeared." The room became still. The question felt heavier than it should have. Ace leaned back slightly. Thinking. Trying to summarize seven days without reliving them. An impossible task. --- "Kiro became terrifying." A blink. "What?" "She stopped sleeping." Reyes frowned. "That sounds unhealthy." "It was." Another pause. Then: "Marco threatened three people." "Only three?" "Known three." "Okay." That sounded more realistic. --- A tiny smile appeared. Then vanished. Again. Everything felt temporary today. Even expressions. --- "And you?" The question arrived quietly. Almost casually. Not casual at all. Ace knew it. Reyes knew it. Neither acknowledged it. --- "What about me?" Reyes stared. The look alone answered the question. --- Ace sighed. Looked toward the floor. Then toward the wall. Anywhere except directly at Reyes. --- "I searched." "Yeah." "I searched a lot." "Yeah." The conversation should have ended there. It didn't. --- Ace remained silent. Too silent. Long enough for Reyes to notice. Long enough for Reyes to wait. Long enough for the truth to start leaking through the cracks. --- Finally: "I thought I was late." The room froze. Not dramatically. Just enough. --- Ace looked away. Still not meeting Reyes's eyes. --- "Every warehouse." A pause. "Every lead." Another pause. "Every day." The words came slowly. Like she was pulling them from somewhere she normally kept locked. --- "I kept arriving after." The sentence hung there. Heavy. Ugly. Honest. --- Reyes didn't answer immediately. For once. No joke. No sarcasm. No deflection. Just listening. --- Ace laughed once. Without humor. "I started hating clocks." The admission sounded ridiculous. And yet it wasn't. Not really. --- "The whole city became clocks." Another small laugh. Another failed one. "Every hour felt personal." --- The room remained silent. Because Reyes finally understood. Not intellectually. Personally. --- Seven days. She'd lived one version of them. Ace had lived another. Neither had been pleasant. --- For several seconds nobody spoke. Then Reyes finally looked toward the ceiling again. Thinking. Slowly. Carefully. --- "You know what I spent most of the week doing?" Ace frowned. "What?" --- "Listening to an idiot talk." The answer arrived instantly. Dry. Flat. Perfectly Reyes. --- The laugh escaped before Ace could stop it. Real this time. Small. Real. --- "Sounds terrible." "It was." --- Silence again. Softer now. Less hostile. Less fragile. Still careful. But different. --- Then Reyes said something unexpected. Something so quiet Ace almost missed it. --- "I knew somebody was looking." Ace looked up immediately. For the first time since entering the room. Directly. --- Reyes met her eyes. Held them. --- "The idiot got sloppy." A pause. "He kept talking." Another. --- "And eventually..." The redhead shrugged weakly. --- "I figured it was probably you." The room suddenly felt much smaller. --- Ace didn't know what to say. Which was unfortunate. Because Reyes seemed to be waiting. Not for an answer. Just for honesty. --- The problem was that honesty had become surprisingly difficult. --- So instead she settled for the truth. The simplest version. The one she couldn't hide. --- "Yeah." A pause. Then: "It was me." --- Reyes nodded once. Like she'd already known. Like she'd known for days. Maybe she had. --- The room fell quiet again. But for the first time since Ace entered, it no longer felt like a room containing two survivors. It felt like a room containing two people who were finally running out of excuses to avoid what had happened. And both of them knew the harder conversation was still waiting. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. Very soon. --- ## Chapter 20 — Stay Away The conversation lasted another fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. Neither woman would have been able to say afterward. The details blurred. The silences didn't. Those remained. The spaces between words. The pauses. The moments where one of them almost said something important and then chose not to. Those stayed. --- Eventually the ripperdoc returned. Pointed at the door. Again. "You." Ace looked up. "What?" "Out." The doctor didn't even slow down. "Patient needs sleep." Reyes immediately pointed at Ace. "Tell her." The ripperdoc blinked. "What?" "She needs sleep." The room froze. The doctor stared. Ace stared. Then the ripperdoc laughed. Actually laughed. "You deserve each other." Neither woman appreciated that statement. --- Five minutes later Ace found herself outside. Again. The hallway looked exactly the same. She hated it exactly as much. --- The safehouse had settled into evening by the time she finally stopped pretending she wasn't exhausted. People moved more quietly now. The urgency was gone. Not the concern. Just the urgency. The difference mattered. --- Kiro was asleep. Technically. She had fallen asleep in a chair. One hand still resting on a keyboard. Three monitors remained active around her. The netrunner had apparently reached the limit of what caffeine and spite could accomplish. --- Marco had disappeared. Probably food. Possibly violence. With Marco the distinction occasionally blurred. --- Shammy sat near one of the windows. Watching rain. The weather had returned. Night City seemed determined to make everything cinematic. --- Ace lowered herself onto the couch. The same couch. The same room. The same safehouse. Everything should have felt normal again. Instead it felt unfamiliar. Like somebody had moved all the furniture three centimeters to the left. --- The realization arrived slowly. She wasn't waiting anymore. For a week she'd existed inside a single objective. Find Reyes. Everything else became secondary. Food. Sleep. Work. Conversations. Normal life. All of it. Gone. Replaced by one task. One direction. One purpose. --- Now the purpose was gone. And the emotional bill had finally arrived. --- "Ace." She looked up. Mai. Of course. --- The silver-haired woman sat opposite her. Neither spoke immediately. The rain filled the silence. Soft. Steady. Constant. --- "How is she?" The question felt strange coming from Mai. Not because she didn't care. Because she already knew half the answer. --- "Alive." Mai nodded. "Yes." A pause. Then: "And?" --- Ace looked away. Toward the window. Toward the rain. Toward literally anything except Mai. --- "She's Reyes." The answer arrived automatically. The same answer Mai had given earlier. --- Mai almost smiled. Almost. Then the expression vanished. --- "Ace." The warning tone. The dangerous one. The one that meant Mai already knew something. --- "What?" --- "You're doing it." The sentence landed immediately. Because Ace knew exactly what she meant. --- "No." --- "Yes." --- "No." --- "Ace." --- The room became quiet. Again. Far too quiet. --- Finally Mai sighed. --- "You found her." --- "Yeah." --- "You got her out." --- "Yeah." --- "She's alive." --- "Yeah." --- Mai leaned forward slightly. Not aggressively. Not confrontationally. Just enough. --- "So why do you look guilty?" --- The question hit harder than any fight had. Hard enough that Ace didn't answer. Hard enough that she couldn't. --- Because the problem wasn't that Mai was wrong. The problem was that Mai was right. --- A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. --- Every warehouse. Every dead end. Every wrong lead. Every empty room. Every hour. --- Too late. Too late. Too late. Too late. --- The phrase had embedded itself somewhere deep. Somewhere ugly. --- "I should've found her sooner." The words escaped before she could stop them. --- There. Finally. The truth. --- Mai closed her eyes briefly. Not frustration. Recognition. --- Because she'd expected exactly that answer. --- "Ace." --- "No." The interruption came immediately. Sharp. Defensive. Automatic. --- "I know." --- "Ace—" --- "I know." --- The little hunter stood abruptly. The couch shifted. The room shifted. Everything shifted. --- "I know what you're going to say." --- Mai remained seated. Watching. Listening. Waiting. --- "It doesn't matter." --- "Ace." --- "It doesn't." --- The anger wasn't directed at Mai. That was the problem. It wasn't directed at anybody. --- It had nowhere to go. --- "I found her." A pause. Then: "After seven days." --- Rain struck the windows harder. The room darkened slightly. The city beyond became a smear of neon and water. --- Mai finally stood. Slowly. Carefully. --- Then crossed the room. --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- The answer arrived harsher than intended. Neither acknowledged it. --- Mai stopped beside her. Close enough. Not crowding. Not pushing. Just there. --- "You found her." --- The same sentence. Again. --- Ace looked away. --- Mai continued. --- "Not somebody else." --- Silence. --- "Not MaxTac." --- Another pause. --- "Not Trauma." --- Another. --- "Not a body recovery crew." --- The room went still. --- Because suddenly the alternative existed. Fully. Clearly. Brutally. --- The thing nobody had wanted to say aloud. --- The thing everybody had thought. --- The thing Ace had spent seven days refusing to imagine. --- Mai's voice softened. Only slightly. --- "You found her." --- This time the sentence meant something different. --- Not success. Not failure. Not timing. --- Outcome. --- Alive. --- Ace closed her eyes. --- For a moment the guilt wavered. Just slightly. Not enough to disappear. Enough to crack. --- Then a voice drifted from the hallway. Weak. Raspy. Annoyed. Entirely familiar. --- "Ace." --- Every head turned. Immediately. --- Reyes stood in the doorway. Or rather attempted to. The wall appeared to be doing approximately forty percent of the work. --- The ripperdoc stood several meters behind her. Already furious. --- "I told you to stay in bed." --- "I am in bed." --- "That's a hallway." --- "Temporary bed." --- The ripperdoc made a sound normally associated with industrial machinery failure. --- Ace stared. --- "What are you doing?" --- Reyes looked at her. Directly. --- Then said the single most Reyes thing possible. --- "Making sure you don't do anything stupid." --- Silence. Absolute silence. --- Then Shammy laughed first. From somewhere near the window. --- Then Marco, returning with food. --- Then Kiro woke up long enough to laugh before immediately falling asleep again. --- And for the first time since the nightmare began— Reyes looked almost embarrassed. Which was remarkable. Because Ace suddenly realized something. Something everyone else in the safehouse had already figured out. --- The person most worried about Reyes wasn't Reyes. --- And the person currently worried about Ace wasn't Mai. --- It was Reyes. --- The realization landed quietly. Softly. Dangerously. --- Neither of them said a word about it. Which only made it more obvious. --- ## Chapter 21 — Not Sleeping The safehouse grew quieter after midnight. Not silent. Just quieter. The sort of quiet that appeared after a crisis ended and people finally remembered they were exhausted. Marco had fallen asleep on a couch. Kiro had somehow migrated from one chair to another without becoming any more awake. Mai remained in the kitchen with a tablet and a mug of coffee she had forgotten to drink. Reyes had finally been convinced to stay in bed. The ripperdoc had required language not normally accepted in professional medical journals. But it had worked. Eventually. Mostly. --- Shammy stood alone in the hallway. One shoulder against the wall. Phone pressed lightly against one ear. The call had arrived only a few minutes earlier. Lena. --- "How is she?" Relief and concern competed for space in Lena's voice. Shammy smiled faintly. "Alive." A long exhale answered from the other end. "Good." For a moment neither woman spoke. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. Just tired. --- "How bad was it?" Shammy looked toward Reyes's closed door. Thought carefully. Then: "Bad." A pause. "Worse than bad." Another pause. "I think everyone forgot how quiet Ace can get." --- Lena sighed. "That bad?" --- Shammy laughed softly. No humor. Just recognition. --- "She stopped sleeping." Silence. Then: "Oh." --- "Yeah." --- The hallway lights hummed softly overhead. Rain tapped against distant windows somewhere deeper inside the building. The city continued existing beyond the walls. For once nobody cared. --- "And Reyes?" Lena asked. --- "Still Reyes." The answer arrived instantly. --- Lena laughed. Actually laughed. --- "Okay." --- "She asked about her car." --- The laughter became louder. --- "Of course she did." --- "Apparently that was a priority." --- "Sounds about right." --- The laughter faded. The concern remained. --- Then Lena asked something unexpected. --- "And Ace?" --- Shammy blinked. --- "That wasn't your first question." --- "No." --- "Why?" --- A small pause. Long enough to matter. --- Because Lena knew Reyes. Very well. Maybe better than most people. --- Finally: "Because Reyes survives." --- The sentence hung there. Simple. Certain. Uncomfortable. --- "She's stubborn enough to survive almost anything." --- Shammy looked toward the closed bedroom door again. Then nodded. Even though Lena couldn't see it. --- "Fair." --- Another pause. Then Lena laughed quietly. --- "You know what's funny?" --- "No." --- "Reyes almost never talks about people." --- The statement surprised neither of them. --- "She talks about jobs." --- "Cars." --- "Weapons." --- "Problems." --- "Targets." --- "People are usually somewhere near the bottom of the list." --- Shammy smiled. --- "True." --- Lena's voice softened slightly. --- "But every time Ace comes up..." --- The sentence drifted. Incomplete. --- Shammy waited. --- "She talks longer." --- Silence. --- Because Shammy had noticed the same thing. --- Not once. Not twice. Repeatedly. For months. --- Lena sighed. --- "I don't think she realizes she's doing it." --- "No." Shammy looked down the hallway. Toward the room where Reyes was supposedly resting. Toward the room Ace had checked on three times in the last hour. --- "I don't think Ace realizes half the things she does either." --- That earned another laugh. Smaller this time. Warmer. --- "The funny part?" Lena asked. --- "What?" --- "I don't think either of them knows." --- Shammy looked toward the closed door again. Then toward the living room. Then toward the kitchen. The entire safehouse. Everyone in it. --- "No." A small smile appeared. --- "I think everybody else does." --- The hallway became quiet again. Comfortably quiet. The kind of silence shared between people observing something obvious. Something inevitable. Something neither participant had figured out yet. --- A few minutes later the call ended. Shammy slipped the phone away. Pushed herself off the wall. And headed back toward the living room. --- Inside Reyes's room, a lamp still glowed beneath the door. And somewhere inside that room, two of the most stubborn people Shammy had ever met were still trying to convince themselves that none of this meant anything. Which would have been a lot more convincing if either of them had actually slept. --- ## Chapter 22 — Not Fine Ace woke up because something felt wrong. For several seconds she couldn't identify what. The safehouse remained dark. Quiet. Still. Rain tapped softly against distant windows. Everything looked normal. Then she noticed the time. 03:41. And immediately understood. The room across the hallway was empty. --- The realization arrived before conscious thought. Ace was already standing. Already moving. Already opening the door. The hallway greeted her. Empty. Silent. Wrong. --- The kitchen light was on. A faint glow spilling into the corridor. Ace headed toward it. Without hurry. Without panic. Because panic implied uncertainty. And somehow she already knew exactly who she'd find. --- Reyes sat alone at the kitchen table. One mug. Untouched. One lamp. Dim. One window. Rain. --- She wasn't drinking. Wasn't reading. Wasn't watching anything. Just sitting. Staring through the glass into the darkness beyond. --- Ace stopped in the doorway. Neither woman spoke immediately. The silence stretched. Comfortable wasn't the right word. Familiar was closer. --- Finally: "You know doctors usually mean it when they say rest." --- Reyes didn't turn around. --- "You know people usually mean it when they say sleep." --- Fair. --- Ace crossed the room. Sat down opposite her. The table felt much smaller than it should have. --- For several moments neither woman looked directly at the other. Rain filled the gaps. --- "You should be in bed." --- "You should be unconscious." --- "Fair." --- "Fair." --- Silence returned. --- The city beyond the glass had dissolved into reflections. Neon smears. Water. Light. Night City looking almost beautiful from a distance. The trick worked every time. --- Reyes finally spoke. Quietly. --- "I hate nights." --- Ace blinked. The admission felt unexpected. Not because it was dramatic. Because it was honest. --- "Nights?" --- "Too much thinking." --- That answer sounded very Reyes. Which somehow made it worse. --- Ace leaned back slightly. --- "I thought you hated mornings." --- "I do." --- "Afternoons?" --- "Also terrible." --- "Evenings?" --- "Suspicious." --- A tiny smile appeared. Then vanished. --- The effort had clearly cost something. --- The room settled again. Neither seemed eager to force conversation. Neither seemed willing to leave. --- Eventually Ace noticed something. --- Reyes hadn't touched the mug. Not once. --- "Cold?" --- "What?" --- "The coffee." --- Reyes looked down. As though noticing it for the first time. --- "Oh." --- The answer alone told Ace everything. --- "You forgot it was there." --- Silence. --- Reyes didn't deny it. --- That worried Ace far more than she expected. --- Because Reyes noticed things. Always. Tiny details. Tiny changes. Tiny problems. That was who she was. --- The woman sitting across from her looked like somebody trying very hard to remember how to be herself. --- The realization landed quietly. And stayed. --- "Ace." --- The voice interrupted the thought. --- "What?" --- For several seconds Reyes said nothing. Just watched rain slide down the glass. --- Then: "Can I ask something?" --- The question alone felt strange. Reyes usually demanded. Requested. Complained. Threatened. Asked? Rare species. --- "Sure." --- Another silence. Another hesitation. --- Then: "How much did Mai tell you?" --- The room became still. Not tense. Just still. --- Ace understood immediately. --- The question wasn't really about Mai. --- It was about the missing week. --- The gap. --- The thing sitting between them. --- "Not much." --- True. Mostly. --- "Good." --- The answer arrived too quickly. Far too quickly. --- Ace noticed. Of course she did. --- "So." A pause. --- "You don't want to talk about it." --- "No." --- The answer was immediate. Absolute. Uncompromising. --- No hesitation. No uncertainty. No negotiation. --- Just no. --- The kitchen became very quiet. --- Rain. Electricity. Breathing. Nothing else. --- Ace looked down briefly. Then back up. --- "Okay." --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "Okay." --- The redhead frowned. --- "That's it?" --- "What did you expect?" --- "I don't know." --- That was probably the most honest answer she'd given all night. --- Ace studied her for several seconds. --- Then: "When you want to talk about it." A pause. --- "If you want to talk about it." Another pause. --- "I'm here." --- The words landed heavily. Much heavier than intended. --- Reyes looked away immediately. Toward the rain. Toward the darkness. Toward anything else. --- The reaction told Ace more than any answer would have. --- Several seconds passed. --- Then a minute. --- Then two. --- Neither woman moved. --- Finally Reyes spoke. So quietly Ace almost missed it. --- "I know." --- The words hung in the air. Simple. Small. Dangerous. --- Because they were true. --- For the first time all night, neither woman had anything to add. Nothing useful. Nothing necessary. --- So they sat. Rain against the windows. Coffee growing colder. Night City glowing beyond the glass. --- Two stubborn people. Neither sleeping. Neither fine. Both pretending otherwise. --- And somewhere between the silence and the rain, the first real step of recovery finally began. Not with answers. Not with confessions. Not with healing. --- With trust. The quiet kind. The kind that stayed even when nobody knew what to say. --- ## Chapter 23 — Routine Recovery turned out to be disappointingly boring. Which was fortunate. Nobody wanted excitement anymore. Especially Reyes. Though she would never admit it. --- Three days passed. Then four. Then five. The safehouse slowly returned to something resembling normal life. Not normal. Close enough. --- The ripperdoc continued appearing at inconvenient hours. Demanding things. Forbidding things. Threatening things. Most of those things were directed at Reyes. The remainder were directed at Ace. --- "Stop hovering." --- "I'm not hovering." --- "You are literally standing in the doorway." --- "That's not hovering." --- "It is if you've been there for ten minutes." --- The argument ended exactly where all their arguments ended. With the ripperdoc threatening both of them. --- Mai had started keeping score. Nobody knew whether she was joking. --- The kitchen whiteboard currently read: **Doctor: 14** **Reyes: 3** **Ace: 0** --- Ace remained deeply offended by this. --- "You don't even participate." --- "I participate." --- "No." Mai pointed at the board. --- "You glower." --- "That's participation." --- "It isn't." --- "It absolutely is." --- Reyes nearly choked on coffee. --- "Okay, that one was funny." --- Ace looked betrayed. --- The betrayal only made it funnier. --- For a little while things almost felt normal. --- Then reality would return unexpectedly. Without warning. Without permission. --- The first time happened when Marco accidentally dropped a metal tray. --- The crash echoed through the safehouse. Sharp. Sudden. Loud. --- Everyone flinched. --- Reyes froze. --- Not dramatically. Not visibly to most people. --- But Ace saw it. --- The tiny lock-up. The fraction of a second. The brief moment where Reyes wasn't in the safehouse anymore. --- Then it vanished. --- Just like that. --- Reyes reached for her coffee. --- Continued the conversation. --- Acted completely normal. --- Nobody mentioned it. --- Not then. --- Later that evening Ace found herself staring out a window. Again. A habit she'd developed recently. --- Night City stretched below. Neon. Traffic. Noise. Life. --- The city looked exactly the same. --- That annoyed her. --- The world should have changed. Something should have changed. --- Instead the city continued existing exactly as before. --- "Ace." --- She turned. --- Shammy stood nearby. Watching. As always. --- "What?" --- For several seconds the white-haired woman didn't answer. --- Then: "You're doing it again." --- That immediately narrowed the possibilities. --- "What am I doing?" --- "Worrying." --- "I'm not worrying." --- Shammy stared. --- Ace stared back. --- The silence lasted several seconds. --- Eventually: "That only works on Marco." --- Fair. --- "A little." --- "A lot." --- Ace sighed. --- The city blurred beyond the window. --- "She's acting normal." --- The words escaped before she intended them to. --- Shammy nodded. --- "Yes." --- "Too normal." --- Another nod. --- "Yes." --- The answer annoyed Ace. --- Because it confirmed exactly what she already knew. --- People noticed. Everyone noticed. --- Nobody wanted to be the first person to say it aloud. --- Not because it was difficult. Because it was obvious. --- Reyes was working very hard. --- Very. Very hard. --- And every time somebody works that hard to look normal— They usually aren't. --- The realization lingered. --- Then a voice drifted from the living room. --- "Ace." --- Reyes. --- "What?" --- A pause. --- Then: "Your turn." --- Ace frowned. --- "My turn for what?" --- "Movie." --- The word arrived with such seriousness that it almost sounded like an operational briefing. --- Shammy immediately began smiling. --- Dangerous. --- "What movie?" --- "The terrible one." --- Ace blinked. --- "There are hundreds of terrible movies." --- "Exactly." --- That wasn't an answer. --- Inside the living room, Marco pointed dramatically toward the television. --- "She picked the shark one." --- "Oh no." --- "Oh yes." --- Mai looked genuinely resigned. --- Kiro looked awake. Which was perhaps the strongest indicator of disaster. --- Reyes sat on the couch. Blanket over her legs. Coffee in hand. Expression completely neutral. --- "The shark has six heads." --- Ace stared. --- "The shark should not have six heads." --- "Correct." --- "That is too many heads." --- "Also correct." --- Reyes nodded seriously. --- "Which is why we must watch it." --- The logic was flawless. Unfortunately. --- For a moment— Just a moment— The room looked normal. --- Not healed. Not fixed. Not recovered. --- Normal. --- The kind of normal people fought for. --- The kind of normal people missed only after it disappeared. --- Ace sat down beside the couch. --- The movie began. Immediately. Terribly. --- Nobody survived the first five minutes. Not the characters. Not the script. Not the laws of physics. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Reyes laughed. --- Actually laughed. --- Not a polite one. Not a forced one. A real one. --- The sound caught Ace completely off guard. --- For half a second she forgot to breathe. --- Then she realized something. --- Everybody else had noticed too. --- Marco smiled. --- Kiro smiled. --- Mai looked away suspiciously fast. --- Even Shammy relaxed slightly. --- Because for the first time since Reyes came home— Something genuine had slipped through. --- Not the mask. Not the effort. Not the performance. --- Her. --- And nobody in the room dared interrupt it. --- ## Chapter 24 — The Doorway The problem with progress was that it rarely looked like progress. People expected breakthroughs. Revelations. Emotional speeches. Some dramatic moment where everything suddenly became better. Reality preferred doorways. Small things. Easy things. The kind people almost missed. --- A week after the rescue, Reyes made it from her room to the kitchen without anybody noticing. --- That was the achievement. --- No announcement. No applause. No witnesses. Just one woman carrying a mug of coffee from one room to another. --- The fact that nobody noticed made it important. --- Because for the first time since returning to the safehouse, nobody felt the need to watch her every movement. --- Reyes noticed immediately. --- And hated how much she liked it. --- The kitchen sat empty. Morning light spilled through the windows. Gray clouds drifted above the city. Rain threatened. Again. Night City remained committed to consistency. --- Reyes stood by the counter. Coffee. Silence. Normal. --- The word still felt strange. --- She took a sip. Looked out the window. And for approximately twenty-seven seconds everything felt almost ordinary. --- Then a door slammed somewhere downstairs. --- The sound wasn't even particularly loud. --- Reyes dropped the mug. --- The crash echoed through the kitchen. Coffee exploded across the floor. Ceramic shattered. Silence followed. --- Absolute silence. --- The realization arrived immediately. --- Not the noise. Not the mug. Not the broken pieces. --- The reaction. --- That was the problem. --- Reyes stared at the floor. Hands clenched. Jaw tight. Breathing carefully. Very carefully. --- A week ago she would've laughed it off. --- Today— --- Today she knew exactly what had happened. --- And she hated it. --- More than the noise. More than the memories. More than the week itself. --- She hated the fact that something had gotten inside. --- That was the unacceptable part. --- A sound. Just a sound. --- And suddenly— --- No. --- The thought stopped there. Refused to continue. --- A voice interrupted from the doorway. --- "That's one way to avoid washing dishes." --- Reyes closed her eyes. --- Of course. --- Ace. --- The little hunter stood in the entrance. Hair still slightly messy from sleep. One hand resting against the frame. --- She wasn't smiling. --- The joke had been deliberate. A lifeline. Not humor. Cover. --- Reyes recognized it instantly. --- Neither mentioned the mug. --- Neither mentioned the reaction. --- Neither mentioned anything that actually mattered. --- Instead: --- "That was my favorite cup." --- "It said _World's Okayest Mercenary._" --- "It had sentimental value." --- "It had spelling mistakes." --- "It had character." --- "It had several grammatical crimes." --- For a second— A tiny second— The tension wavered. --- Not gone. Never gone. --- Just weaker. --- Ace crossed the room. Collected the larger ceramic fragments. Dropped them into a waste container. --- Simple. Ordinary. Normal. --- Neither woman looked directly at the other. --- Then Ace quietly said: --- "It was just a door." --- The room froze. --- Not because of the words. Because of the gentleness. --- No accusation. No concern. No pity. --- Just a statement. --- It was just a door. --- And both of them knew it hadn't been. --- Reyes looked out the window again. Toward the city. Toward the rain. Toward anything else. --- "I know." --- The answer sounded tired. --- Very tired. --- Ace nodded. --- No lecture. No discussion. No analysis. --- Just acceptance. --- The silence returned. --- Eventually Reyes spoke again. Quietly. --- "I hate this." --- The admission seemed to cost something. --- Ace understood immediately. --- Not the mug. Not the sound. Not even the memories. --- This. --- The loss of certainty. The loss of control. The realization that surviving something and being finished with it were different things. --- "I know." --- The answer arrived softly. --- Reyes laughed once. Without humor. --- "No." A pause. --- "I don't think you do." --- The sentence hung there. Dangerous. Honest. --- For the first time all morning, Ace didn't answer immediately. --- Because Reyes was right. --- She didn't know. --- Not really. --- She knew fear. She knew guilt. She knew helplessness. She knew the week from the outside. --- But she didn't know what Reyes carried home with her. --- Nobody did. --- The realization settled heavily between them. --- Then, unexpectedly— --- Ace nodded. --- "You're right." --- That got Reyes's attention. Immediately. --- "What?" --- "You're right." --- The little hunter dropped another piece of broken ceramic into the bin. --- "I don't." --- Silence. --- Because Reyes had expected resistance. An argument. A correction. --- Not agreement. --- Ace looked up. Met her eyes. Held them. --- "But I don't need to." --- The kitchen became very still. --- Rain finally began tapping against the windows. Soft. Steady. Persistent. --- Ace shrugged once. --- "You can tell me." A pause. --- "Or not." --- Another. --- "Either way." --- The sentence remained unfinished. --- It didn't need an ending. --- Reyes understood it anyway. --- The realization landed unexpectedly hard. --- Because suddenly there was no pressure. No demand. No expectation. --- Just a choice. --- And after a week of having choices taken away— That mattered more than either of them realized. --- Several minutes later they were still standing in the kitchen. Coffee cleaned. Ceramic gone. Rain falling. --- Neither had solved anything. --- Neither had fixed anything. --- But when Reyes finally walked back toward her room, she paused briefly in the doorway. --- Just briefly. --- Long enough to look back. --- Long enough to find Ace still standing there. --- Long enough to say: --- "Thanks." --- One word. Nothing more. --- Then she disappeared into the hallway. --- Ace remained in the kitchen. Watching the empty doorway. Thinking. --- Because that single word had sounded more exhausted than anything Reyes had said since coming home. --- And for the first time, Ace began understanding something difficult. --- Finding Reyes had been the easy part. Learning how to help her afterward was going to be much harder. --- ## Chapter 25 — Stay The next bad night arrived without warning. Which, Ace was learning, seemed to be how bad nights worked. They didn't announce themselves. They simply appeared. --- It was raining again. Naturally. Night City seemed determined to recycle weather until morale improved. The strategy wasn't working. --- Ace sat alone in the living room. A book rested open in her lap. She had been reading the same page for almost fifteen minutes. The page remained undefeated. --- A soft sound drifted down the hallway. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just enough. --- Ace looked up. Listened. Nothing. --- Then another sound. --- A door. --- The little hunter closed the book. --- A moment later Reyes emerged from the hallway. Barefoot. Tired. Trying very hard not to look tired. --- The effort wasn't convincing. --- Neither woman seemed surprised to see the other awake. --- That probably should have been concerning. --- "You too?" --- The question came from Reyes. --- Ace nodded. --- "You too." --- Fair. --- The exchange should have ended there. Instead Reyes wandered into the kitchen. Returned a minute later carrying coffee. Stopped. Looked at the cup. Thought about something. Then returned to the kitchen. --- When she came back the coffee was gone. --- Progress. --- Tiny. Actual. Progress. --- Reyes settled onto the opposite couch. The room filled with rain and silence. --- Several minutes passed. --- Then: --- "Movie?" --- Ace blinked. --- "What?" --- "Movie." --- "At three in the morning?" --- Reyes looked around. --- "I don't see any sleeping." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- Ace considered. Then nodded. --- Five minutes later the television illuminated half the room. --- The movie was terrible. --- Not charmingly terrible. Not entertainingly terrible. Just terrible. --- The budget had clearly lost a fight. The script had apparently never existed. And the monster looked like it had been assembled from spare household appliances. --- Perfect. --- Neither woman paid attention to the plot. --- That wasn't the point. --- The point was noise. Movement. Something occupying the space between thoughts. --- Half an hour passed. --- Then an hour. --- At some point Reyes fell asleep. --- Neither of them noticed immediately. --- The realization arrived slowly. --- The movie continued. The rain continued. The city continued. --- Reyes didn't. --- Ace looked over. --- The redhead had slumped slightly sideways against the couch. One arm folded awkwardly. Breathing slow. Even. Peaceful. --- Actually asleep. --- The sight hit harder than expected. --- Because Reyes hadn't looked peaceful since the rescue. --- Not really. --- Not completely. --- Until now. --- The television flickered quietly across her face. Shadows moved. Light shifted. The room remained still. --- Ace lowered the volume slightly. --- Then stopped. --- Because moving felt dangerous. --- Like any sudden motion might break something fragile. --- The realization annoyed her immediately. --- Which was unfortunate. Because it was true. --- For several minutes she simply sat there. Watching the movie. Not watching the movie. Thinking. Not thinking. --- The rain intensified outside. --- A flash of distant lightning illuminated the room. --- Reyes didn't wake up. --- That mattered. --- More than it should have. --- A small sound came from the hallway. --- Shammy. --- The white-haired woman paused. Took one look at the scene. Then immediately began backing away. --- Ace narrowed her eyes. --- "What?" --- Shammy pointed. --- At Reyes. --- Then at Ace. --- Then slowly raised both hands. --- "I wasn't here." --- The statement made absolutely no sense. --- Which meant Shammy thought it made perfect sense. --- Ace looked unimpressed. --- Shammy retreated another step. --- "Good night." --- "It's three in the morning." --- "Good morning." --- Then she vanished. --- Coward. --- The living room settled once more. --- The movie finally ended. Nobody cared. --- The credits rolled. The monster lost. Or won. Or exploded. The plot remained unclear. --- Ace reached for the remote. Paused. Looked over again. --- Still asleep. --- The realization returned. --- Not because Reyes was sleeping. Because she had fallen asleep here. --- Not alone. --- Not behind a locked door. --- Not while watching every exit. --- Just here. --- On a couch. Watching a terrible movie. --- Trust. --- The word appeared unexpectedly. --- Ace frowned at it immediately. --- The word remained anyway. --- Eventually she stood. Carefully. Quietly. --- Found a blanket draped over the back of a chair. Returned. --- For several seconds she stared at the blanket. --- Then at Reyes. --- Then at the blanket again. --- This was ridiculous. --- Completely ridiculous. --- She draped it over her anyway. --- Reyes shifted slightly. Nothing more. --- Didn't wake. --- Didn't tense. --- Didn't reach for a weapon. --- Just slept. --- Ace sat back down. The room remained quiet. The rain continued. The city continued. The night continued. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Neither of them was fighting it. --- One asleep. One keeping watch. Neither acknowledging that fact. --- Exactly the way both of them preferred it. --- ## Chapter 26 — The First Job Two weeks later, Reyes announced she was returning to work. Naturally. --- "No." The answer arrived from three different people simultaneously. --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "No." Mai. --- "No." Marco. --- "No." Ace. --- The synchronization was impressive. --- Also annoying. --- Reyes looked offended. --- "I'm sitting right here." --- "We know." --- "Then stop talking about me like I'm not." --- "No." --- That answer came from Ace. --- Reyes stared. --- Ace stared back. --- The room became quiet. --- Then Kiro raised a hand. --- "Technically my vote is also no." --- "Nobody asked." --- "I'm very participatory." --- "You are many things." --- "Thank you." --- That wasn't what Reyes meant. Nobody corrected Kiro. --- The safehouse settled into one of those familiar arguments that wasn't actually an argument. Everybody knew where it would end. Including Reyes. --- Unfortunately. --- "I'm not broken." --- Silence. --- The sentence landed badly. Immediately. --- Because nobody had said she was. --- Reyes realized it a fraction of a second later. The realization irritated her instantly. --- Ace noticed. Of course she did. --- The little hunter looked away first. Not because she was uncomfortable. Because she was choosing her next words carefully. --- A dangerous sign. --- Finally: --- "I know." --- The answer surprised everyone. Including Reyes. --- No argument. No correction. No lecture. --- Just: --- "I know." --- The room became still. --- Then Ace continued. --- "You're also not ready." --- There it was. --- The actual argument. --- Reyes folded her arms. --- "You don't know that." --- "No." --- Ace nodded. --- "I don't." --- Another surprise. --- The second one in under a minute. A new record. --- The room watched carefully. Nobody interrupted. --- Because this wasn't really about work. --- It hadn't been about work from the beginning. --- Finally Reyes sighed. --- "What if I need normal?" --- The sentence escaped before she could stop it. --- The room froze. --- Not because it was dramatic. Because it was honest. --- Painfully honest. --- For several seconds nobody spoke. --- Then Mai quietly lowered her tablet. --- Marco stopped pretending to look at messages. --- Even Kiro looked up. --- Because suddenly everybody understood. --- Work wasn't the goal. --- Normal was. --- The realization changed the entire conversation. --- Ace understood it too. --- Which somehow made things harder. --- Not easier. --- "What kind of job?" --- The question arrived unexpectedly. --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "What kind?" --- The redhead hesitated. --- Then: --- "Courier." --- Silence. --- Marco immediately pointed. --- "Absolutely not." --- "Why?" --- "Because every time somebody says 'simple courier job' in Night City, three people die and a building catches fire." --- Fair. --- Disturbingly fair. --- Reyes rolled her eyes. --- "It really is a courier job." --- Nobody looked convinced. --- Especially not Ace. --- The little hunter leaned back. Thinking. --- The room waited. --- Then: --- "I'll go with you." --- Silence. Absolute silence. --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "I'll go with you." --- "Why?" --- The answer arrived instantly. --- "Because then if the courier job becomes a disaster, I get to say I told you so." --- The room stared. --- Reyes stared. --- Then Marco pointed dramatically. --- "That is not why." --- "No." --- "It absolutely isn't." --- "No." --- "You're terrible at lying." --- Ace looked offended. --- Which made Marco's point considerably stronger. --- Across the room, Shammy quietly smiled into her tea. --- Dangerous. --- Very dangerous. --- Reyes looked away. Toward the window. Toward the city. Toward literally anything except Ace. --- For some reason that reaction interested everyone. --- Especially Mai. --- The silver-haired woman immediately buried her face behind a tablet. --- A tactical retreat. --- The safest option available. --- Eventually Reyes sighed. Long. Slow. Defeated. --- "Fine." --- Ace nodded. --- "Fine." --- The conversation should have ended there. --- It didn't. --- Because something unexpected happened. --- Something tiny. --- Something stupid. --- Something important. --- Reyes relaxed. --- Just slightly. --- Not much. Barely noticeable. --- But everybody in the room saw it. --- Every single person. --- Because the tension she'd carried for weeks loosened the moment she knew she wouldn't be going alone. --- The realization landed quietly. --- Nobody commented. --- Nobody teased. --- Nobody joked. --- For once. --- Because some observations were too obvious. --- Too important. --- Too honest. --- Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows. Night City stretched beneath gray clouds. The same city. The same dangers. The same chaos. --- The courier job would probably be boring. --- It would probably be simple. --- It would probably involve nothing more dangerous than traffic. --- Nobody believed that for a second. --- But for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Reyes was planning something beyond tomorrow. --- And for now— That was enough. --- # Ace 88.4 — No Reply ## Chapter 27 — Normal The courier job was supposed to be boring. That should have been the warning. --- The package occupied approximately twenty centimeters of space. --- Nobody knew what was inside. --- Nobody cared. --- The client cared. The payment cared. The delivery schedule cared. --- That was enough. --- Ace stared at the container resting on the passenger seat. --- "What's inside?" --- Reyes kept her eyes on the road. --- "Package." --- "That's not an answer." --- "It literally is." --- The little hunter looked unimpressed. --- The city drifted past outside. Morning traffic. Rain. Advertisements. Pedestrians. The usual chaos. --- For once it felt normal. --- Not fake normal. Not forced normal. Just normal. --- The realization felt surprisingly fragile. --- Like a soap bubble floating through a battlefield. --- Neither woman wanted to be the one who popped it. --- "So." --- Reyes immediately narrowed her eyes. --- "So?" --- "You slept." --- The reaction arrived instantly. --- "Oh no." --- Ace smiled. --- Tiny. Dangerous. --- "Oh yes." --- "No." --- "You slept." --- "No." --- "You did." --- The redhead pointed at the road. --- "Watch traffic." --- "I'm not driving." --- "Exactly." --- That wasn't helping. --- Unfortunately. --- The smile refused to leave Ace's face. --- Which only made the situation worse. --- "You fell asleep during the movie." --- "It was tactical unconsciousness." --- "It was snoring." --- "It was not." --- "It absolutely was." --- The argument lasted two intersections. --- Then Reyes gave up. --- Not because she lost. Because she recognized the trap. --- A rare survival instinct. --- The city opened around them. Watson giving way to broader roads. Longer sightlines. Less congestion. --- The package remained ignored. --- The route remained uneventful. --- The morning remained suspiciously pleasant. --- Ace didn't trust it. --- Neither did Reyes. --- Which probably explained why both of them noticed the black sedan at exactly the same moment. --- The vehicle appeared in the mirror. Stayed there. Stayed there some more. --- Then stayed there even longer. --- The atmosphere inside the car changed immediately. --- Not panic. Not concern. Professional attention. --- Reyes glanced at the mirror. --- Again. --- Then: --- "You seeing that?" --- "Yep." --- "Maybe nothing." --- "Yep." --- The answer surprised Reyes. --- "What?" --- Ace looked out the side window. --- Then back toward the mirror. --- Then shrugged. --- "If it's something, we'll deal with it." --- Silence. --- The response wasn't wrong. --- It was just different. --- A month ago Ace would've already been planning contingencies. Escape routes. Ambush points. Alternative options. --- Now— --- Now she sounded calm. --- Actually calm. --- The realization hit Reyes unexpectedly. --- Not because Ace had changed. --- Because she'd started changing back. --- The hunter sitting beside her looked more like herself than she had in weeks. --- That mattered. --- More than Reyes wanted to admit. --- The black sedan eventually turned away. --- Another vehicle. Another street. Another nothing. --- The tension vanished. --- Almost. --- Reyes kept driving. --- The package kept existing. --- The city kept being ridiculous. --- Everything remained exactly as it should. --- Then Ace said something. --- Quietly. --- Without looking up. --- "You know." --- Reyes immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- "You don't even know what I'm going to say." --- "I know enough." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- Ace looked toward the rain-streaked windshield. --- Then: --- "When you disappeared..." --- The car became very quiet. --- Traffic noise continued. The engine continued. The city continued. --- Everything else stopped. --- Reyes kept her eyes on the road. --- Neither interrupted. --- Because neither knew where the sentence was going. --- Least of all Ace. --- Finally: --- "I kept thinking about the call." --- "What call?" --- "The one I didn't make." --- The answer landed heavily. --- Reyes didn't speak. --- Ace continued. --- "I kept thinking." A pause. --- "Maybe if I'd called." --- Another pause. --- "Maybe if I'd checked earlier." --- Another. --- "Maybe if—" --- "No." --- The interruption arrived immediately. Sharply. Absolutely. --- Ace looked over. --- Reyes still hadn't taken her eyes off the road. --- The grip on the steering wheel had tightened slightly. --- Nothing more. --- "No." --- The second time came quieter. --- But just as certain. --- For several seconds nobody spoke. --- Then Reyes sighed. --- Long. Slow. Tired. --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- The redhead finally looked over. Just briefly. --- One glance. --- One moment. --- Enough. --- "You found me." --- The same sentence. Again. --- The sentence that refused to die. --- Ace looked away. --- Reyes continued. --- "You found me." --- Another pause. --- "Stop trying to rewrite the week." --- The words landed harder than intended. --- Not cruel. --- True. --- The worst kind. --- Rain slid across the windshield. The city blurred. Traffic flowed. Life continued. --- Ace sat quietly. Thinking. --- For once Reyes let her. --- No jokes. No sarcasm. No escape route. --- Just silence. --- Eventually the delivery point appeared ahead. A warehouse. Because of course it was. --- Both women stared at it. --- Then simultaneously groaned. --- "Warehouse." --- "Warehouse." --- The synchronized reaction finally broke the tension. --- For the first time all morning Reyes laughed. --- Not because anything was funny. --- Because sometimes survival required laughing at the universe before it laughed at you. --- The car rolled toward the destination. The package remained mysterious. The job remained simple. --- And somewhere between the rain, the conversation, and the terrible sense of humor shared by both women— The first genuinely normal day began trying to exist again. --- Neither trusted it. --- But for the first time— Both were willing to let it try. --- ## Chapter 28 — Not Yet The warehouse turned out to be a warehouse. For once. --- No cult. No anomaly. No illegal biotech lab. No hidden bunker. No eldritch horror. No secret corporate conspiracy. --- Just a warehouse. --- The package changed hands. Credits transferred. Receipts exchanged. Everyone went home. --- The experience felt deeply suspicious. --- Reyes remained convinced something would explode. --- Nothing exploded. --- Ace remained convinced somebody would betray somebody. --- Nobody did. --- The entire job lasted forty-three minutes. --- When they returned to the car, both women sat in silence for several seconds. --- Then: --- "That's it?" --- Reyes looked at the building. Then at the payment confirmation. Then back at the building. --- "Apparently." --- The suspicion remained. --- "Something feels wrong." --- "Yeah." --- "What?" --- "I don't know." --- "Same." --- The mutual distrust of simple outcomes was becoming a problem. --- Eventually Reyes started the engine. --- The city swallowed them again. --- Traffic. Rain. Noise. Life. --- Normal. --- The word still felt strange. --- But less strange than before. --- That mattered. --- The drive home took almost an hour. --- Halfway through it happened. --- Not a panic attack. Not a nightmare. Not a breakdown. --- Something smaller. --- Which somehow made it worse. --- A motorcycle backfired somewhere behind them. --- Just a sound. --- Nothing more. --- Reyes flinched. --- Tiny. Instant. Automatic. --- Gone a second later. --- Ace saw it. --- Of course she did. --- The little hunter said nothing. --- That made Reyes more uncomfortable than if she'd commented. --- The silence stretched. --- Then stretched longer. --- Eventually: --- "You can say it." --- Ace looked over. --- "Say what?" --- "The thing." --- "What thing?" --- "The thing you're not saying." --- Ace considered. --- Then: --- "No." --- Reyes frowned. --- "No?" --- "No." --- The answer arrived calmly. Simply. --- "No." --- The rain continued sliding across the windshield. --- The city rolled past. --- Neither woman looked at the other. --- Then Ace quietly added: --- "You already know." --- The sentence landed immediately. --- Because it was true. --- Reyes knew. --- That was the problem. --- The flinch. The mug. The sleep. The nights. The silence. --- All of it. --- Nobody needed to point it out. --- Reyes already carried it everywhere. --- The realization settled heavily inside the vehicle. --- Then something unexpected happened. --- For once— Reyes didn't argue. --- Didn't deflect. Didn't joke. Didn't redirect. --- Just drove. --- And after almost a full minute: --- "Yeah." --- One word. --- Nothing more. --- The admission felt bigger than it should have. --- Because it wasn't for Ace. --- It was for herself. --- The first time she'd stopped pretending not to notice. --- The first time she'd stopped treating every symptom like an inconvenience. --- The first time she'd admitted the obvious. --- Not aloud. Not completely. --- Enough. --- The city blurred beyond the windshield. --- The road continued. --- The rain continued. --- Life continued. --- Then Ace said something so unexpected that Reyes almost missed it. --- "That's okay." --- The redhead looked over. Immediately. --- "What?" --- Ace shrugged. --- "Not being okay." A pause. --- "That's okay." --- The words hung in the air. --- Simple. --- Stupid. --- Dangerously sincere. --- Reyes looked away first. --- Toward the road. Toward the traffic. Toward literally anything else. --- Because suddenly the inside of the car felt very small. --- And because for reasons she didn't entirely understand— That sentence hurt. --- Not in a bad way. --- In the way truth sometimes hurt. --- The safehouse eventually appeared ahead. Lights glowing through rain. Windows bright against the gray afternoon. --- Home. --- The word still felt unfamiliar. --- But not impossible anymore. --- Reyes parked. Turned off the engine. Sat quietly for a moment. --- Neither moved. --- Neither seemed eager to break the moment. --- Finally: --- "You know." --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- "I hate when you're right." --- The little hunter blinked. --- Then smiled. Tiny. Victorious. --- "A lot of people do." --- "You're insufferable." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived far too quickly. --- For the first time all day, Reyes laughed. Real laughter. Brief. Actual. --- Then both women climbed out into the rain. --- The safehouse door opened before they reached it. --- Marco. --- "Good." --- "What?" --- "You survived the courier job." --- "Marco." --- "I'm proud of you." --- The door immediately closed. --- Silence. --- Then: --- "We can still leave." --- "We should." --- Neither moved. --- Because despite everything— Despite the week. Despite the nightmares. Despite the guilt. Despite the things neither of them had said yet— The safehouse lights looked warm. --- And for the first time since Reyes disappeared— Coming back didn't feel difficult. --- It felt natural. --- Not healed. Not fixed. Not finished. --- But real. --- And for now— That was enough. --- ## Chapter 29 — Rooftop Weather The roof had become a habit. Not a good habit. Not a bad one. Just a habit. The sort people acquired when they spent too much time thinking and not enough time sleeping. Night City stretched endlessly beneath the safehouse. Rain clouds drifted overhead. The city glowed through them. Millions of lights. Millions of people. Millions of stories. Most of them terrible. --- Reyes leaned against the safety railing. Arms folded. Jacket zipped halfway against the wind. The evening air felt cold. She welcomed it. Cold was simple. Cold made sense. --- The city didn't. People didn't. The last month definitely didn't. --- A door opened somewhere behind her. The sound barely registered. --- She already knew. --- "You know." Ace's voice drifted across the rooftop. --- "What?" --- "I think you like this roof." --- Reyes snorted. --- "I think you stalk people." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived immediately. Which ruined the joke. --- Ace moved beside her. Not too close. Never too close. The distance between them had developed its own strange language lately. --- Neither mentioned it. --- The city stretched below. Traffic drifted through distant streets. A siren wailed somewhere far away. The sound disappeared almost immediately. Swallowed by distance. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- The silence wasn't awkward. That should have worried somebody. --- Eventually: --- "The range helped." --- Ace glanced over. --- "Yeah?" --- "Yeah." --- The answer sounded reluctant. Like Reyes hated admitting it. --- Which probably meant it was true. --- "The first day sucked." --- Ace laughed once. --- "You missed one shot." --- "I know." --- "You looked personally offended." --- "I was." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- The wind shifted. Carried rain scent from somewhere across the city. Not here yet. Soon. --- Night City always got around to rain eventually. --- Reyes watched headlights move along a distant freeway. Tiny streams of white and red. People going somewhere. People coming home. People running from something. --- Night City traffic was basically philosophy with engines. --- The thought made her grimace. --- That sounded like something Mai would say. --- A month ago she'd have blamed the concussion. --- Now she wasn't sure. --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- For a moment Reyes almost didn't continue. --- Almost. --- Then: --- "Did you ever stop?" --- The little hunter frowned. --- "What?" --- "Looking." --- The rooftop became very quiet. --- Ace understood immediately. --- The week. --- The warehouses. The dead ends. The endless searching. --- "No." --- The answer arrived instantly. --- No hesitation. No thought. No uncertainty. --- Just no. --- Reyes looked away. Toward the city. Toward the horizon. Toward anywhere except Ace. --- The answer landed harder than expected. --- Because she'd already known. --- Of course she had. --- Still. Hearing it mattered. --- A dangerous amount. --- Several seconds passed. --- Then: --- "I figured." --- The admission sounded smaller than intended. --- The city hummed below them. Life continued. Indifferent. --- For a while neither spoke. --- Then Reyes laughed quietly. Without humor. --- "The funny part?" --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer came so fast that Reyes almost smiled. Almost. --- "The first couple of days I kept trying to think of ways out." --- The smile disappeared. --- "Bad plans." --- "Obviously." --- "Terrible plans." --- "More believable." --- A tiny snort escaped Reyes. --- Then faded. --- The rooftop settled again. --- "The thing is..." --- The words slowed. --- Like they weren't entirely sure they wanted to exist. --- "I eventually stopped planning." --- Ace looked over. Immediately. --- That wasn't something Reyes did. Ever. --- "What changed?" --- The question arrived softly. --- Reyes stared at the city. --- The answer took longer. --- Because she knew exactly what changed. --- And because saying it aloud felt strangely dangerous. --- Finally: --- "I got tired." --- A pause. --- "Then angry." --- Another. --- "Then tired again." --- The honesty surprised even her. --- Ace didn't interrupt. --- Didn't push. --- Didn't help. --- Which helped. --- Then Reyes shook her head once. --- "And after that..." --- The sentence drifted. --- The city lights blurred slightly beyond the railing. --- Not because of tears. Not because of emotion. --- Because she was remembering. --- The room. The waiting. The uncertainty. The endless hours. --- And one stupid thought that refused to leave. --- A thought she'd spent weeks trying not to examine too closely. --- "I kept thinking." --- The rooftop became silent. --- "If I can just hold out a little longer." --- A pause. --- "Another day." --- Another. --- "Maybe two." --- The words came quietly now. --- Almost lost beneath the wind. --- Then: --- "Ace will get here eventually." --- The sentence left. --- And immediately became real. --- Neither woman moved. --- Neither spoke. --- The city seemed very far away. --- The silence stretched. Long. Heavy. Honest. --- Finally Ace looked down at the rooftop surface. --- Not at Reyes. Not at the city. The concrete. --- Because somehow that felt easier. --- Several seconds passed. --- Then: --- "You had a lot of faith in me." --- The answer wasn't what Reyes expected. --- Not at all. --- She looked over. --- Ace still wasn't looking at her. --- The little hunter's expression had become strangely complicated. --- Not proud. Not pleased. Not comfortable. --- Just honest. --- Reyes laughed once. --- A real laugh this time. Small. Tired. --- "That's the part you got from that?" --- "Maybe." --- "You're weird." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Which finally earned an actual smile. --- A small one. A real one. --- The wind shifted again. Colder this time. --- Rain approaching. --- Eventually Reyes pushed away from the railing. --- "Come on." --- Ace blinked. --- "What?" --- "It's going to rain." --- "Night City." --- "Fair." --- They headed toward the rooftop door. --- Halfway there Reyes slowed slightly. Not enough to stop. Not enough to turn around. --- Just enough. --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- For a second it looked like she might say something important. --- Something dangerous. --- Something honest. --- Instead: --- "Thanks." --- One word. --- Nothing more. --- Ace looked at her. --- The redhead was already moving again. Already heading for the door. Already pretending the word hadn't cost anything. --- It had. --- Both of them knew it. --- The rooftop door opened. Warm light spilled onto concrete. --- The city remained behind them. The rain finally began to fall. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Neither of them felt the need to run from the silence. --- ## Chapter 30 — Coffee Run The next morning started with coffee. Like most recoveries. Like most bad decisions. Like most things in Night City. --- Rain hammered against the safehouse windows. Hard enough to rattle glass. Hard enough to convince sensible people to stay indoors. --- Unfortunately. --- Reyes was not a sensible person. --- "I need coffee." --- Ace looked up from the kitchen table. --- "There is coffee." --- "There is safehouse coffee." --- The distinction apparently mattered. --- Ace frowned. --- "It is literally coffee." --- "No." --- Reyes pointed toward the machine. --- "That is punishment." --- Fair. --- Not entirely fair. --- A little fair. --- Five minutes later they were walking through rain. --- The city looked miserable. --- Pedestrians hurried beneath umbrellas. Vehicles sprayed water across streets. Neon reflected from every surface. --- Night City had become one giant puddle. --- Reyes seemed pleased about it. --- Which was suspicious. --- "You like this weather." --- The accusation came from Ace. --- Reyes looked offended. --- "I don't like this weather." --- "You smiled." --- "I was thinking about coffee." --- That explanation somehow sounded legitimate. --- The café sat three blocks from the safehouse. Small. Independent. Stubbornly surviving despite the city around it. --- The sort of place Night City forgot to destroy. --- A bell chimed as they entered. Warm air immediately hit them. Coffee. Fresh bread. Human conversation. --- Normal. --- The realization still caught both women off guard. --- Not because cafés were unusual. --- Because ordinary life had felt very far away recently. --- They ordered. Sat. Waited. --- Neither spoke much. --- The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It rarely was anymore. --- People came and went. Rain continued outside. The city carried on. --- Then the front door slammed open. --- The sound wasn't especially loud. --- The reaction was. --- Reyes froze. --- Tiny. Instant. Gone. --- The same thing as the mug. The same thing as the range. The same thing as the backfire. --- A fraction of a second. --- Then normal returned. --- Except Ace had seen it. --- Again. --- The coffee arrived. --- Neither reached for it immediately. --- For a moment both women simply sat there. --- Watching rain crawl down the windows. --- Finally: --- "I hate that." --- The words came from Reyes. Unexpectedly. --- Ace looked over. --- "What?" --- Reyes stared into her cup. --- "The waiting." --- A pause. --- "For it." --- The explanation wasn't complete. --- It didn't need to be. --- Ace understood. --- The sounds. The reactions. The moments. --- The uncertainty. --- Wondering when the next one would happen. --- Wondering what would trigger it. --- Wondering whether other people noticed. --- Wondering if it would ever stop. --- The coffee shop became very quiet. At least for them. --- Then Ace asked a question. --- A careful one. --- "Do you want me to stop noticing?" --- The words surprised Reyes. --- Because she hadn't expected that option. --- Several seconds passed. --- Then: --- "No." --- The answer arrived honestly. Immediately. --- "No." --- Another pause. --- "I think I'd hate that more." --- The admission lingered. --- Dangerous. --- Because it contained something neither woman usually talked about. --- Trust. --- Again. --- Always somehow returning to the same place. --- Ace nodded once. --- "Okay." --- No promise. No speech. No advice. --- Just okay. --- The coffee finally cooled enough to drink. --- Outside, rain continued falling. Inside, life continued moving. People laughed. Talked. Complained. Ordered pastries. --- Normal. --- For the first time all morning, Reyes allowed herself to relax slightly. --- Not because the reactions had stopped. --- Not because she felt better. --- Because she suddenly realized something. --- She wasn't carrying them alone. --- The thought arrived quietly. Unexpectedly. --- And for once— She didn't immediately push it away. --- ## Chapter 31 — The Long Way Home The trip back should have taken ten minutes. Maybe twelve. Night City disagreed. --- Traffic had collapsed somewhere downtown. Nobody knew why. Nobody seemed particularly interested in finding out. --- The navigation system estimated: **11 minutes.** Then: **18 minutes.** Then: **27 minutes.** Then it appeared to give up entirely. --- Reyes stared at the display. --- "The machine is having a crisis." --- Ace looked over. --- "It lives in Night City." --- Fair. --- The car crawled forward another three meters. --- Then stopped. --- Again. --- Rain slid across the windshield. Neon reflected off wet asphalt. The city looked like somebody had spilled paint across reality. --- For several minutes neither woman spoke. --- The radio quietly muttered in the background. Traffic reports. Advertisements. Corporate propaganda. The usual. --- Then a news report drifted through the speakers. --- A robbery. Somewhere in Heywood. --- Nobody cared. --- Then another story. --- A building fire. --- Then another. --- A missing person. --- The words hit unexpectedly hard. --- Not because of the report. Because of the silence that followed it. --- Ace looked out the passenger window. --- Reyes looked straight ahead. --- Neither said anything. --- The radio continued talking. Unaware. --- Eventually Reyes reached over and turned it off. --- The cabin immediately became quieter. --- Not better. Just quieter. --- The traffic remained stationary. --- Night City continued being Night City. --- Finally: --- "I hate those." --- The words came from Reyes. --- Ace didn't need clarification. --- The reports. The notices. The statistics. --- The people who became stories. --- The people who became numbers. --- The people nobody found. --- The conversation sat between them for several seconds. --- Then Ace quietly asked: --- "Did you think about that?" --- The answer took longer than expected. --- Because Reyes knew exactly what she meant. --- The week. --- The possibility. --- The alternative ending. --- Eventually: --- "Yeah." --- One word. Nothing more. --- The windshield wipers continued their endless battle against physics. --- Back. Forth. Back. Forth. --- The city blurred. --- "I hated it." --- The second admission arrived unexpectedly. --- Ace remained silent. Listening. --- "Not because I thought it would happen." --- A pause. --- "Because I knew people would keep looking." --- The words hung there. --- Heavy. --- Honest. --- Reyes laughed once. Without humor. --- "That's the stupid part." --- "What is?" --- The redhead shook her head. --- "I wasn't worried about me." --- Silence. --- Traffic finally moved a few meters. Then stopped again. --- Ace looked over. --- For a second it looked like she might argue. --- She didn't. --- Because she understood exactly what Reyes meant. --- The people left behind. The people waiting. The people searching. --- The week had happened to more than one person. --- The realization still hurt. --- Eventually the traffic began moving again. Slowly. Painfully. --- The city reluctantly released them. --- The safehouse remained twenty minutes away. --- Then fifteen. Then ten. --- The rain softened. --- The skyline changed. --- Familiar streets appeared. --- Home getting closer. --- For a while neither woman spoke. --- Then Reyes suddenly said: --- "You know what annoys me?" --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer came automatically. --- "You're getting predictable." --- "Fair." --- Reyes shook her head. --- "What annoys me is that everyone keeps acting like this is some huge thing." --- The statement immediately caught Ace's attention. --- "What?" --- The redhead gestured vaguely. --- "The week." --- A pause. --- "The recovery." --- Another. --- "Everything." --- The city rolled past outside. --- Then Reyes sighed. --- Because halfway through the sentence she'd already realized the problem. --- Ace waited. --- Eventually: --- "Okay." --- A pause. --- "Maybe it is." --- The admission sounded deeply irritating to her. --- Which was probably why it was true. --- Ace looked out the windshield. --- Then quietly said: --- "Maybe." --- No argument. No victory. No lecture. --- Just maybe. --- The safehouse finally appeared at the end of the street. Lights glowing through rain. Warm against the gray afternoon. --- Reyes parked. Killed the engine. Sat quietly for a second. --- Then: --- "I still hate being wrong." --- Ace nodded. --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived immediately. --- The redhead looked over. --- For a brief moment both women simply sat there. --- The city around them. The rain. The safehouse. The silence. --- Then Reyes shook her head. --- "You know that's not what I meant." --- A tiny smile appeared on Ace's face. --- Tiny. Dangerous. --- "Yeah." --- The smile lingered. Just slightly. --- "Fair anyway." --- The look Reyes gave her could have stripped paint. --- It lasted almost three entire seconds. --- Then both women climbed out into the rain. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— The future felt longer than a week. --- Not fixed. Not healed. Not solved. --- Just longer. --- For now, that was enough. --- ## Chapter 32 — Tuesday Tuesday arrived. Nobody trusted it. --- Nothing bad had happened in nearly three weeks. --- That alone felt suspicious. --- Night City operated on a simple principle: If everything looked calm, you had probably missed something. --- Ace sat on the safehouse balcony. Coffee in one hand. Book in the other. Actually reading this time. A rare achievement. --- The morning air felt cool. The rain had finally stopped. For now. --- Below, traffic drifted through the streets. People heading to work. People heading home. People heading nowhere in particular. --- Normal. --- The word still felt unfamiliar. --- But it no longer felt impossible. --- That mattered. --- A balcony door opened behind her. --- Ace didn't look up. --- "You know." --- Reyes. Of course. --- "What?" --- "I think you've had that page open for ten minutes." --- Ace glanced down. --- The same page. Again. --- Fair. --- "Maybe." --- The redhead sat down beside her. Carrying coffee. Naturally. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- The city handled the conversation for them. --- Distant engines. Distant voices. Distant life. --- Then: --- "Lena called." --- Ace looked over. --- "Oh?" --- "Apparently she's offended." --- The little hunter blinked. --- "Why?" --- "Because she says I only answer messages now." --- Silence. --- Then: --- "Do you?" --- "Maybe." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- The conversation drifted. --- Coffee. Weather. A terrible action movie Marco had forced everyone to watch. --- Nothing important. --- The sort of conversation people only appreciated after spending too much time discussing important things. --- Then Reyes went quiet. --- Not suddenly. Gradually. --- Ace noticed. Of course she did. --- The redhead stared out over the city. Thinking. --- The expression looked familiar. --- Not because Ace had seen it before. Because she'd seen it often lately. --- A person standing in front of a thought. Trying to decide whether to open the door. --- Eventually: --- "Can I ask something?" --- The question immediately raised alarms. --- "No." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Reyes laughed. Actually laughed. --- "One day that's going to backfire." --- "Fair." --- The smile lingered briefly. Then faded. --- The question remained. --- Finally: --- "How bad was it?" --- The balcony became quiet. --- Ace didn't answer immediately. --- Not because she didn't understand. --- Because she did. --- Perfectly. --- The week. --- The search. --- The part Reyes had never actually seen. --- The city stretched endlessly below them. --- Neither looked at the other. --- Eventually: --- "Bad." --- One word. --- Nothing more. --- Reyes waited. --- Ace sighed. --- Then closed the book. --- That alone was an answer. --- "I stopped doing everything else." --- The confession arrived quietly. --- "Jobs." --- A pause. --- "Sleep." --- Another. --- "Food." --- A third. --- "Everything." --- The city noise seemed very far away. --- "I kept telling myself I'd eat after the next lead." --- A pause. --- "Sleep after the next lead." --- Another. --- "Think after the next lead." --- The words sounded stupid now. --- At the time they hadn't. --- Reyes looked down at her coffee. --- Not speaking. --- Just listening. --- "I wasn't looking for you anymore." --- The sentence surprised even Ace. --- Because she'd never said it aloud before. --- "I was looking for an answer." --- The balcony fell silent. --- The distinction mattered. --- A lot. --- Ace stared at the skyline. --- "I think that's when it got bad." --- The admission lingered. --- Because it was true. --- At some point the search had stopped being a rescue. --- It had become desperation. --- The need to know. --- Any answer. --- Even the wrong one. --- Several seconds passed. --- Then Reyes quietly asked: --- "Why didn't you stop?" --- The question arrived without accusation. Without judgment. --- Just curiosity. --- Honest curiosity. --- Ace opened her mouth. Then closed it. --- Because the answer seemed obvious. --- And because saying it felt strangely difficult. --- Finally: --- "Because it was you." --- Silence. --- Absolute silence. --- No dramatic music. No revelation. No clever line afterward. --- Just truth. --- Simple. Direct. Uncomplicated. --- Because it was you. --- The city continued moving below them. Unaware. --- Reyes looked away first. Immediately. --- Toward the traffic. Toward the horizon. Toward literally anything else. --- Because suddenly the coffee had become extremely interesting. --- The balcony remained quiet. --- Then: --- "That's stupid." --- The protest sounded weak. --- Very weak. --- Ace nodded. --- "Probably." --- "Very stupid." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- That finally earned a smile. --- A real one. Small. Tired. Real. --- Neither woman said anything for a while after that. --- There wasn't much left to say. --- The city stretched endlessly around them. The morning slowly becoming afternoon. The coffee slowly becoming cold. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— They were no longer talking around the week. --- Little by little. Sentence by sentence. --- They were finally talking about it. --- ## Chapter 33 — The Part After The strange thing about difficult conversations was that they rarely ended when people expected. --- The balcony conversation ended because the coffee got cold. --- That was it. --- Not a breakthrough. Not a revelation. Not some dramatic emotional climax. --- Cold coffee. --- Reyes remained deeply offended by that fact. --- The afternoon drifted onward. The city continued existing. The safehouse continued existing. Life stubbornly refused to pause for character development. --- Which was rude. --- A few hours later Reyes found herself alone in the garage. --- Not because she needed anything. --- Because she always ended up there eventually. --- The familiar smell greeted her immediately. Oil. Metal. Rubber. Machine parts. --- Comfort. --- Simple things. Predictable things. --- Things that either worked or didn't. --- Cars were refreshingly honest. --- The vehicle sat exactly where she'd left it. --- A little dusty. A little neglected. A little annoyed. --- Reyes ran a hand across the hood. --- "You look terrible." --- The car remained silent. --- Typical. --- A faint laugh escaped her. --- The sound surprised her. --- Not because laughter was unusual. --- Because it happened naturally. --- No effort. No pretending. --- Just there. --- The realization lingered. --- Then footsteps echoed from the garage entrance. --- Reyes didn't turn around. --- "You know." --- Ace. --- Of course. --- "You really do stalk people." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived immediately. --- The redhead shook her head. --- "You need a new hobby." --- "I have hobbies." --- "No." --- "I do." --- "No." --- Ace looked mildly offended. --- Which improved Reyes's mood slightly. --- Only slightly. --- The little hunter wandered closer. Studied the vehicle. Then studied Reyes. --- Neither mentioned the balcony. --- Not yet. --- The garage settled into comfortable silence. --- Eventually: --- "How's the shoulder?" --- The question arrived casually. Too casually. --- Reyes noticed. --- "Fine." --- Ace stared. --- The little hunter had developed a very specific look lately. --- A look that meant: --- _I know you're lying._ --- Reyes hated that look. --- Mostly because it worked. --- "A little stiff." --- "There it is." --- "I liked you better when you were sleep deprived." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived with absolutely no shame. --- The garage door rattled softly as wind pushed against it. --- Outside, clouds were gathering again. --- Naturally. --- Night City remained committed to branding. --- For a while neither spoke. --- Then Reyes sat down on a nearby tool chest. --- The movement felt heavier than it should have. --- Ace noticed. --- Again. --- That was becoming a theme. --- The little hunter remained standing. Arms folded. Watching. --- Not judging. --- Just watching. --- Eventually Reyes sighed. --- Long. Slow. Tired. --- "I'm getting really tired of this." --- Ace tilted her head slightly. --- "What?" --- "The calculations." --- Silence. --- Because that wasn't the answer Ace expected. --- Reyes stared at the floor. Searching for words. --- "I keep measuring everything." --- A pause. --- "How long I sleep." --- Another. --- "How long before I react to something." --- Another. --- "How many times a day I think about it." --- The garage became very quiet. --- Ace listened. --- Didn't interrupt. --- Didn't help. --- Just listened. --- "I keep checking." --- The words came more easily now. --- "Like I'm waiting for some moment where everything goes back to normal." --- The confession hung in the air. --- Honest. Ugly. Real. --- Ace leaned against a nearby workbench. --- Thinking. --- For once it was her turn to search for words. --- Eventually: --- "I don't think normal works like that." --- Reyes laughed once. --- "There you go." --- "What?" --- "The annoying wisdom thing." --- "I'm not doing wisdom." --- "You absolutely are." --- The redhead pointed accusingly. --- "It's very suspicious." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- Ace ignored the accusation. --- Mostly. --- "I think..." --- The sentence stopped. Restarted. --- "I think maybe you're treating recovery like a job." --- Silence. --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- Ace shrugged. --- "You keep trying to finish it." --- The garage became still. --- Because suddenly the statement made an uncomfortable amount of sense. --- Reyes looked away immediately. --- Toward the car. Toward the tools. Toward anything else. --- Which was answer enough. --- "Damn it." --- The realization arrived visibly. --- And she hated it. --- Which meant Ace was probably right. --- Again. --- A terrible trend. --- The garage settled into silence once more. --- Not heavy. Not awkward. --- Just thoughtful. --- Eventually Reyes stood. Walked over to the car. Rested one hand against the roof. --- Then glanced back toward Ace. --- "You know." --- The little hunter immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived on reflex. --- This time Reyes actually laughed. --- A real laugh. --- "You really need a better response." --- "Fair." --- The rain finally began outside. Soft at first. Then harder. --- The sound echoed across the garage roof. --- Comforting. --- Familiar. --- For a moment neither moved. --- Then Reyes quietly said: --- "I think I would've hated doing this alone." --- The words arrived so casually they almost slipped past unnoticed. --- Almost. --- Ace looked up immediately. --- The redhead was already looking away. Already pretending she'd been talking about something else. --- The car. The garage. The weather. Anything. --- It didn't work. --- Neither of them was that lucky. --- The silence stretched. --- Then Ace answered. Simply. --- "Good." --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- Ace shrugged. --- "Good." A pause. --- "You didn't have to." --- The rain continued drumming against the roof. The city carried on outside. The garage remained warm. --- For several seconds neither woman spoke. --- Then Reyes looked away again. --- Because for some reason that answer hit harder than expected. --- And because she was rapidly running out of ways to pretend it didn't. --- ## Chapter 34 — Not Alone The rain stayed. For three days. --- Not constant. Not dramatic. Just present. --- A gray curtain hanging over Night City. The sort of weather that made people walk faster and think slower. --- The safehouse settled into its usual rhythm. People came and went. Jobs happened. Calls happened. Life happened. --- Which was probably why Reyes didn't notice the problem immediately. --- The nightmare returned on a Thursday. --- Not the first nightmare. Not even the worst one. --- Just the first one that followed her into the morning. --- She woke before sunrise. Heart racing. Breathing wrong. The room dark. The ceiling unfamiliar for one terrible second. --- Then reality returned. --- Safehouse. Bedroom. Rain. --- Now. --- Not then. --- The panic faded quickly. The exhaustion didn't. --- Reyes sat on the edge of the bed. Hands folded. Waiting for her pulse to stop acting like an idiot. --- The clock read 05:12. --- She hated clocks now. --- That realization irritated her immediately. --- Because it sounded suspiciously familiar. --- A week earlier somebody else had said almost the same thing. --- The thought lingered. --- Then refused to leave. --- Which was how Reyes found herself walking through the safehouse while everyone else still slept. --- Or should have been sleeping. --- The balcony door stood slightly open. --- Of course. --- The morning air felt cold. Rain drifted lazily from low clouds. The city beyond remained half asleep. --- Ace sat alone near the railing. Coffee. Book. Blanket. --- The complete survival kit. --- The little hunter looked up. --- For exactly half a second. --- Then: --- "Nightmare?" --- Reyes stopped. --- "That's creepy." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Neither mentioned how quickly Ace had guessed. --- Because both of them knew. --- The rooftop settled into silence. --- Then Ace shifted slightly. Making room beside her. --- No invitation. No gesture. Just space. --- Reyes hated how much she appreciated that. --- She sat down. --- The city stretched endlessly beneath them. Gray. Wet. Quiet. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- The rain handled that responsibility. --- Eventually: --- "You know." --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived on reflex. --- Reyes rolled her eyes. --- "One day I'm not going to start with something dangerous." --- "I'll believe it when I see it." --- Fair. --- The conversation faded again. --- Then Reyes stared out across the city. And quietly said: --- "I dreamed I was still there." --- The admission hung in the air. --- No jokes. No deflection. No escape route. --- Just truth. --- Ace closed her book. --- Not dramatically. Not urgently. --- Just closed it. --- Giving the conversation her full attention. --- The gesture mattered. --- More than words would've. --- For a while Reyes simply watched rain drift through distant neon. --- Then: --- "The stupid part is..." --- A pause. --- "It felt real until I woke up." --- The words sounded frustrated. --- Not frightened. --- Frustrated. --- Like her own brain had violated some agreement. --- Ace understood. --- At least enough. --- The little hunter looked toward the horizon. Thinking. --- Then: --- "I still dream about Jakarta sometimes." --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- The answer caught her completely off guard. --- Ace shrugged. --- "Not often." --- A pause. --- "Still happens." --- The city hummed quietly below. --- For several seconds Reyes didn't know what to do with that information. --- Because she'd never considered it. --- Never asked. --- Never thought about the fact that Ace carried things too. --- The realization landed unexpectedly hard. --- Not because it was dramatic. --- Because it was obvious. --- Eventually: --- "That sucks." --- Ace laughed. Small. Real. --- "Yeah." --- The answer arrived immediately. --- "Little bit." --- The rain softened. --- The city brightened slightly as dawn approached. --- A pale gray glow slowly spreading across rooftops. --- For a while neither spoke. --- Then Reyes quietly asked: --- "How long?" --- Ace knew exactly what she meant. --- The nightmares. The memories. The echoes. --- The things that stayed. --- The little hunter thought for a moment. --- Then: --- "Wrong question." --- Reyes frowned. --- "What?" --- Ace looked down at her coffee. --- Then back toward the city. --- "They don't leave." --- Silence. --- The words sounded harsh. --- Honest. --- Not hopeless. --- Just honest. --- Ace continued. --- "They get smaller." --- A pause. --- "They stop deciding things." --- Another. --- "They stop being the loudest thing in the room." --- The city continued waking beneath them. --- Lights turning off. Traffic increasing. Life returning. --- Reyes sat quietly. Listening. --- For the first time she wasn't hearing advice. Or comfort. Or encouragement. --- Just experience. --- Simple. Direct. Unpolished. --- The kind she trusted. --- Several minutes passed. --- Then: --- "That's still annoying." --- The complaint arrived automatically. --- Ace nodded. --- "Fair." --- The answer came so quickly that Reyes laughed. Actually laughed. --- The sound surprised both of them. --- The city looked different now. --- Not because anything had changed. --- Because dawn had finally arrived. --- The rain continued. The traffic continued. The world continued. --- And sitting there on a rooftop in the middle of a wet Night City morning, Reyes realized something. --- The nightmare had followed her into the day. --- But she hadn't followed it. --- For the first time, that felt like progress. --- Small. Annoying. Unimpressive. --- Real. --- And for now— That was enough. --- ## Chapter 35 — Good Days The first genuinely good day arrived without permission. --- Nobody announced it. Nobody noticed it immediately. Nobody put a label on it. --- It simply happened. --- The morning started normally. --- Coffee. Rain. Less rain. More coffee. --- Night City remained committed to consistency. --- Reyes woke up before her alarm. --- That alone felt suspicious. --- The nightmares hadn't vanished. They probably wouldn't. --- But for the first time in weeks she woke up and immediately knew where she was. --- Safehouse. Bedroom. Morning. Now. --- No confusion. No panic. No transition period. --- Just reality. --- The realization lingered. --- Then she ignored it. --- Naturally. --- The kitchen sat mostly empty when she arrived. --- Mai had already disappeared into whatever terrifying project currently occupied her attention. --- Shammy remained a mystery. --- Some things never changed. --- Reyes poured coffee. Turned. Stopped. --- Ace sat near the window. Reading. Actually reading. --- The same book from yesterday. --- A promising sign. --- "You know." --- The little hunter looked up. --- "What?" --- "I checked." --- Immediate suspicion. --- "No." --- The answer arrived on instinct. --- Reyes laughed. --- "I checked." --- "What?" --- "The page number." --- Ace blinked. --- "What?" --- "The page number." --- A pause. --- "When I went to bed." --- Another. --- "When I woke up." --- The realization arrived. --- Slowly. Painfully. --- Reyes smiled. Dangerously. --- "You read eight pages." --- Silence. --- Then: --- "That's more than last time." --- The answer sounded entirely too defensive. --- Which made everything worse. --- Reyes laughed into her coffee. --- For some reason that felt good. --- Very good. --- The realization caught her off guard. --- Not the joke. --- The laughter. --- Because it had happened naturally. Again. --- Without effort. Without pretending. Without checking. --- Just there. --- The thought stayed with her throughout the day. --- Not because it was important. --- Because it wasn't. --- A tiny thing. --- One of dozens. --- Maybe hundreds. --- The sort of thing people stopped noticing when life became normal. --- Which was exactly why she noticed it now. --- Later that afternoon she found herself walking through a small market district several blocks from the safehouse. --- No mission. No objective. No deadline. --- Just walking. --- The experience felt deeply unnatural. --- Night City citizens hurried around her. Street vendors shouted. Music drifted through the air. --- Life. --- Messy. Loud. Ordinary. --- A child ran past carrying some brightly colored toy. --- Two people argued over food prices. --- A delivery drone nearly collided with a lamp post. --- The city continued being ridiculous. --- Reyes stopped near a small food stand. Ordered something. Immediately regretted it. --- The food looked questionable. --- The vendor looked offended. --- Fair. --- A little fair. --- The first bite was surprisingly good. --- The second was suspiciously good. --- The third suggested several health regulations had been violated. --- Worth it. --- Completely worth it. --- "You are going to die." --- Reyes nearly dropped the food. --- Ace stood nearby. Coffee in hand. --- Looking entirely too pleased with herself. --- "What is wrong with you?" --- "A lot of things." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- The little hunter looked at the food. Then at Reyes. Then back at the food. --- "That came from a cart." --- "Yes." --- "The cart has no visible licenses." --- "Correct." --- "The owner may be committing crimes." --- "Almost certainly." --- Ace nodded. --- "Fair." --- Then took a bite. --- Reyes stared. --- "What happened to all that concern?" --- Ace chewed thoughtfully. --- Then: --- "It tastes good." --- The betrayal was immediate. --- And complete. --- The two women continued walking afterward. --- No destination. No schedule. --- Just movement. --- The city stretching around them. --- At some point they ended up sitting on a low concrete wall overlooking one of Night City's endless traffic arteries. --- Vehicles streamed beneath them. Thousands. Endlessly. --- The sun briefly appeared through the clouds. --- A rare event. --- Both women stared at it suspiciously. --- "It's trying something." --- "What?" --- "I don't know." --- "Fair." --- The sunlight vanished again. --- Problem solved. --- For a while neither spoke. --- Then Reyes suddenly realized something. --- An entire afternoon had passed. --- No reactions. No calculations. No checking. No counting. --- The realization stopped her cold. --- Because she hadn't even noticed. --- For several seconds she simply watched traffic. --- Thinking. --- Then: --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Reyes hesitated. --- Because the thing she wanted to say felt absurd. --- Small. --- Embarrassingly small. --- Finally: --- "I forgot." --- The little hunter frowned. --- "What?" --- The city roared below them. --- Traffic. Noise. Life. --- Reyes looked toward the horizon. --- Then quietly said: --- "For a few hours." --- Silence. --- Ace understood immediately. --- The week. --- The memories. --- The constant measuring. --- All of it. --- For a few hours. Gone. --- Not erased. Not solved. --- Just absent. --- The little hunter looked out over the city. --- Then nodded once. --- "Good." --- Simple. --- Nothing more. --- The answer should have felt inadequate. --- Instead it felt exactly right. --- The sun disappeared completely. The clouds returned. The city kept moving. --- And sitting above a river of traffic in the middle of Night City, Reyes realized something she hadn't expected. --- Maybe recovery wasn't a finish line. Maybe Ace had been right. --- Maybe it was just this. --- One good day. Then another. Then another. --- Not dramatic. Not heroic. Not clean. --- Just life. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— That possibility didn't scare her. --- ## Chapter 36 — The Bad Day The universe apparently noticed. --- Because two good days later— A bad one arrived. --- Not catastrophic. Not dramatic. Not world-ending. --- Just bad. --- The sort of day that began wrong and remained committed to the decision. --- The morning started with rain. Naturally. --- Then Reyes dropped a mug. --- Not because of a noise. Not because of a memory. --- Because she simply dropped it. --- The ceramic shattered across the kitchen floor. --- Coffee went everywhere. --- The mug died instantly. --- Reyes stared at the wreckage. --- Then: --- "Oh, come on." --- The frustration surprised her. --- The reaction surprised her even more. --- Because suddenly she was angry. --- Not at the mug. --- At everything. --- The week. The nightmares. The recovery. The counting. The progress. The lack of progress. --- Everything. --- The emotion arrived so quickly it caught her completely off guard. --- A broom appeared from nowhere. --- Ace. --- Of course. --- The little hunter handed it over. --- Neither spoke. --- Reyes accepted it. --- The cleanup began. --- The irritation remained. --- Unfortunately. --- The rest of the day followed the same pattern. --- Nothing major. --- Just enough. --- A comm call arrived at the wrong moment. --- A delivery got delayed. --- A pistol maintenance kit disappeared. --- Marco denied responsibility. --- Nobody believed him. --- Including Marco. --- The rain became heavier. --- Traffic became worse. --- Everything became slightly more annoying than necessary. --- By evening Reyes was exhausted. --- Not physically. --- Emotionally. --- Which was somehow worse. --- She ended up on the balcony again. --- Not because she wanted solitude. --- Because she wanted distance. --- The city stretched beyond the railing. Gray. Wet. Loud. --- Night City looked exactly like she felt. --- The realization annoyed her immediately. --- That sounded suspiciously poetic. --- And therefore unacceptable. --- A balcony door opened behind her. --- Reyes didn't even bother turning around. --- "You know." --- Ace. --- "What?" --- "I am beginning to think you don't actually live inside the safehouse." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- The little hunter stepped beside her. --- The rain remained light. More mist than weather. --- For a while neither spoke. --- Then: --- "Bad day?" --- The question sounded simple. --- Because it was. --- No hidden meaning. No psychological trap. --- Just a question. --- Reyes considered lying. --- Briefly. --- Then: --- "Yeah." --- The answer surprised both of them. --- Mostly because it was immediate. --- No hesitation. No performance. --- Just yes. --- The city hummed below. --- Ace waited. --- Not pushing. Not helping. --- Waiting. --- Eventually: --- "I thought this part would be over by now." --- The confession slipped out before Reyes could stop it. --- The balcony became quiet. --- Because that was the real frustration. --- Not the mug. Not the rain. Not the day. --- The expectation. --- The belief that she'd eventually wake up and discover she'd crossed some invisible line. --- Recovered. Finished. Done. --- Instead— --- Some days were good. Some weren't. --- The inconsistency irritated her. --- A lot. --- Ace listened. --- The city listened. --- The rain listened. --- Nobody interrupted. --- Then the little hunter quietly asked: --- "Do you remember the market?" --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "The food cart." --- The answer made no sense. --- At least initially. --- Then the memory appeared. --- The illegal food. The sunlight. The traffic. The conversation. --- The good day. --- "Oh." --- Ace nodded. --- "You forgot." --- A pause. --- "For hours." --- Another. --- "You were happy." --- The word landed awkwardly. --- Because neither of them used it much. --- Still. --- It remained true. --- Reyes stared out at the city. --- Thinking. --- Then sighed. --- Long. Slow. Tired. --- "Yeah." --- The answer arrived reluctantly. --- "Yeah." --- The rain drifted through the balcony lights. --- Tiny silver streaks. --- Ace folded her arms. --- Then: --- "Bad days don't cancel good ones." --- Silence. --- The sentence wasn't wisdom. --- It wasn't philosophy. --- It wasn't some profound observation. --- Just fact. --- Simple. --- Uncomfortable. --- True. --- Reyes hated how much sense it made. --- Which unfortunately happened more often lately. --- A dangerous trend. --- The balcony settled into silence again. --- The city continued existing. The rain continued falling. The night continued moving. --- Eventually Reyes laughed. Small. Tired. --- "What?" --- Ace looked over. --- "I think that's the first optimistic thing you've said in months." --- The little hunter immediately looked suspicious. --- "I wasn't being optimistic." --- "You absolutely were." --- "No." --- "Yes." --- "No." --- The argument lasted approximately thirty seconds. --- Then both women gave up. --- Not because either lost. --- Because neither cared enough to continue. --- The rain softened. --- The city lights blurred beyond the balcony. --- And somewhere during the conversation— Without either of them noticing— The bad day stopped being quite so bad. --- Not fixed. Not erased. Not solved. --- Just smaller. --- For now— That was enough. --- ## Chapter 37 — The Part She Didn't Say The bad day passed. Then another. Then another. --- Life continued. --- That was the strange thing. --- No matter how catastrophic something felt while it happened— Life eventually expected you to continue. --- Wake up. Drink coffee. Answer messages. Exist. --- The universe was remarkably inconsiderate that way. --- Reyes sat alone on the roof. Again. --- The habit had survived. --- Night City stretched beneath her. Clouds drifted overhead. The rain had finally taken a day off. --- For once. --- The city lights glittered against dark concrete and glass. Millions of people. Millions of stories. Millions of disasters. --- Most of them invisible from up here. --- A rooftop door opened behind her. --- Reyes laughed immediately. --- The sound surprised even her. --- "What?" Ace's voice drifted across the rooftop. --- "I didn't even have to turn around." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived instantly. --- The little hunter joined her at the railing. --- Neither spoke for a while. --- The city handled that responsibility. --- Distant sirens. Distant traffic. Distant life. --- Eventually: --- "You know." --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived on instinct. --- This time Reyes actually smiled. --- Small. Real. --- Then it faded. --- Because the thing she wanted to say wasn't funny. --- Not remotely. --- For several seconds she stared at the city. Trying to decide whether to continue. --- Then: --- "I lied." --- The rooftop became quiet. --- Ace didn't react immediately. --- "What about?" --- The answer took longer. --- Because Reyes hated it. --- Because she'd been avoiding it for weeks. --- Because once it existed outside her head— It became real. --- Finally: --- "The rooftop conversation." --- Ace frowned. --- "Which part?" --- The city lights blurred beneath them. --- Reyes folded her arms. --- "The part where I said I kept making plans." --- Silence. --- The little hunter waited. --- Reyes continued staring at the skyline. --- "I did." --- A pause. --- "For a while." --- Another. --- "Then I stopped." --- The sentence landed heavily. --- Because suddenly Ace understood. --- Not the words. --- The gap between them. --- The thing Reyes hadn't said. --- For several seconds neither spoke. --- The city continued humming below. --- Then: --- "How long?" --- The question arrived quietly. --- No judgment. No panic. --- Just a question. --- Reyes thought about lying again. --- Briefly. --- Then gave up. --- "Three days." --- The answer disappeared into the night air. --- Three days. --- Not one. Not an hour. Not a moment of weakness. --- Three days. --- The realization sat between them. --- Heavy. --- Honest. --- Ugly. --- "I was tired." --- The explanation sounded pathetic. --- She hated it immediately. --- "I know." --- The answer came from Ace. --- Simple. --- No argument. --- No correction. --- Just: --- I know. --- For some reason that almost made it worse. --- Reyes laughed once. Without humor. --- "I don't think you do." --- Then she shook her head. --- "No." --- A pause. --- "That's not fair." --- The correction surprised both of them. --- Because she'd never corrected herself before. --- Not like this. --- The city glowed below. --- Finally: --- "I wasn't tired." --- The words came slowly now. --- Carefully. --- "I was done." --- The rooftop became silent. --- Absolutely silent. --- Because there was a difference. --- And both of them knew it. --- Reyes stared at the skyline. Refusing to look away. Refusing to look at Ace. --- "I stopped thinking about getting out." --- A pause. --- "I stopped thinking about plans." --- Another. --- "I stopped thinking about tomorrow." --- The words felt wrong. --- Like they belonged to somebody else. --- Some stranger she'd met once. --- Not her. --- Never her. --- Yet there they were. --- True. --- For the first time since the rescue— Completely true. --- Then: --- "And that's when I got scared." --- The confession escaped before she could stop it. --- The city vanished. --- The rooftop vanished. --- For a moment only the sentence remained. --- Because that had been the real turning point. --- Not the room. Not the pain. Not the waiting. --- The realization. --- The moment she'd stopped fighting. --- The moment she'd noticed it. --- The moment she'd realized she was becoming somebody she didn't recognize. --- Somebody willing to let go. --- The memory still terrified her. --- Even now. --- Ace remained silent. --- Listening. --- Just listening. --- For once that was enough. --- Eventually Reyes looked down. --- At the concrete. --- At the railing. --- Anywhere except Ace. --- Then quietly said: --- "And then I started thinking about stupid things." --- The statement sounded absurd. --- "What stupid things?" --- The answer arrived immediately. --- "Coffee." --- Ace blinked. --- "What?" --- "Coffee." --- A pause. --- "My car." --- Another. --- "The safehouse." --- Another. --- "Marco being an idiot." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- A tiny laugh escaped Ace. --- Reyes continued. --- "Kiro yelling at monitors." --- Another. --- "Shammy stealing blankets." --- The smile faded. --- Then: --- "You." --- The final word landed differently. --- Heavier. --- Honest. --- Because unlike the others— She didn't try to hide it. --- For several seconds neither spoke. --- Then Reyes shrugged. --- Small. Helpless. --- "I got angry." --- A pause. --- "Because I wasn't ready for those things to be over." --- The city stretched endlessly below. --- The night air moved softly around them. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Ace finally understood exactly how close Reyes had come. --- Not physically. --- Emotionally. --- Existentially. --- Dangerously. --- And suddenly the search felt even more important than it already had. --- The silence lingered. Long. Heavy. Necessary. --- Then Reyes laughed once. --- Tiny. Embarrassed. --- "See?" --- "What?" --- "I told you it was stupid." --- Ace looked out across the city. --- Thinking. --- Then: --- "No." --- The answer arrived quietly. --- Simple. --- Certain. --- "No." --- And for the first time all evening— Reyes didn't argue. --- ## Chapter 38 — The Other Side Neither of them moved. --- The city stretched endlessly beneath the rooftop. Lights. Traffic. Rain clouds gathering somewhere beyond the skyline. --- Night City. --- Unchanged. --- The conversation wasn't. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- Not because there was nothing left to say. --- Because there was too much. --- Reyes leaned against the railing. Arms folded. Eyes fixed somewhere far beyond the city. --- The confession sat between them. --- Not the words. --- The meaning. --- The part she had spent weeks refusing to examine. --- The part she had finally said aloud. --- Eventually: --- "You know what's really annoying?" --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Reyes almost smiled. Almost. --- "The fact that I'm talking about this at all." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- The rooftop settled into silence again. --- Then Ace laughed. --- A small sound. Barely there. --- "What?" --- The little hunter looked out across the city. --- "I was thinking the same thing." --- That caught Reyes completely off guard. --- "What?" --- Ace shrugged. --- "About me." --- For a moment Reyes genuinely didn't understand. --- Then she did. --- The realization landed immediately. --- The search. --- The week. --- The rooftop. --- The coffee shop. --- Everything they'd been circling around. --- The things Ace almost never talked about. --- The things Ace definitely never talked about voluntarily. --- "Oh." --- The city hummed below. --- A siren drifted somewhere through the distance. --- Then faded. --- Ace remained staring at the skyline. --- Thinking. --- Searching for words. --- A dangerous sign. --- Finally: --- "When I found the plant..." --- The rooftop became very still. --- Reyes said nothing. --- The sentence already hurt. --- Ace continued. --- "I thought I was ready." --- A pause. --- "I thought I'd prepared myself." --- Another. --- "For every possibility." --- The city lights reflected faintly in her eyes. --- "I spent a week doing that." --- The words came slowly. --- Carefully. --- Like she was examining them while speaking. --- "Every warehouse." --- A pause. --- "Every dead end." --- Another. --- "Every wrong lead." --- The memory lingered. --- Ugly. --- Sharp. --- Real. --- "I kept telling myself..." --- The sentence stopped. --- Restarted. --- Then: --- "If she's alive, I'll get her out." --- A pause. --- "If she isn't..." --- The words almost didn't come. --- Almost. --- Then: --- "I'll deal with that too." --- The rooftop disappeared for a second. --- Not literally. --- Just emotionally. --- Because Reyes suddenly understood something. --- Ace hadn't been searching for one answer. --- She'd been preparing for two. --- The realization hit hard. --- Harder than expected. --- The little hunter looked down at the concrete. --- Then quietly laughed. Without humor. --- "The funny part?" --- Reyes already hated the phrase. --- "What?" --- Ace shook her head. --- "I lied too." --- Silence. --- The city continued moving. --- The night continued breathing. --- Everything else stopped. --- "What do you mean?" --- The answer arrived immediately. --- "I wasn't ready." --- Simple. --- Direct. --- Honest. --- The sentence landed harder than anything else she'd said. --- Because Reyes had never heard Ace admit that. --- Not once. --- Not ever. --- The little hunter folded her arms. --- Suddenly looking much younger than usual. --- Smaller. --- Human. --- "When I opened that door..." --- A pause. --- "When I saw you..." --- The sentence drifted. --- Searching. --- Failing. --- Trying again. --- Finally: --- "I thought I was too late." --- The words left. --- And stayed. --- No dramatic flourish. --- No speech. --- Just truth. --- Raw. --- Uncomfortable. --- Complete. --- For several seconds neither woman moved. --- Then Reyes looked away. Immediately. --- Toward the city. Toward the horizon. Toward literally anything else. --- Because suddenly her throat felt tight. --- Which was unacceptable. --- Entirely unacceptable. --- The city lights blurred slightly. --- She blamed the wind. --- The excuse convinced nobody. --- Least of all herself. --- For a while the rooftop remained silent. --- Then Reyes quietly asked: --- "What happened?" --- Ace frowned. --- "What?" --- "When you realized I was alive." --- The question sounded simple. --- It wasn't. --- The little hunter thought about it. --- Longer than expected. --- Then: --- "I got angry." --- The answer arrived immediately. --- Honest. --- Automatic. --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- Ace shrugged. --- "You scared me." --- The rooftop became silent again. --- Because there it was. --- Not guilt. Not heroics. Not sacrifice. --- Fear. --- Simple. Human. --- Fear. --- The city continued glowing beneath them. --- For the first time all evening neither had anything clever to say. --- No jokes. No deflections. No escape routes. --- Just two people standing on a rooftop. --- Finally Reyes laughed once. --- Small. Embarrassed. --- "Fair." --- The word sounded different now. --- Softer. --- Ace nodded. --- "Fair." --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— They were finally talking about the same week. --- ## Chapter 39 — No More Circles The rooftop conversation should have been the difficult one. --- It wasn't. --- The difficult one arrived three nights later. Without warning. Without preparation. Without permission. --- Which seemed appropriate. --- The safehouse slept. Or pretended to. --- Rain tapped softly against windows. The city beyond remained awake. Night City rarely did anything else. --- Ace sat alone in the kitchen. --- Coffee. --- Of course. --- A half-finished report rested nearby. Unread. Ignored. --- The numbers blurred together. The words meant nothing. --- For once her thoughts were elsewhere. --- A chair moved. --- Ace looked up. --- Reyes. --- The redhead carried her own mug. Looked tired. Not exhausted. Not broken. Just tired. --- Progress. --- The realization arrived automatically. --- "You know." --- "What?" --- "It's three in the morning." --- Reyes glanced at a wall clock. --- "Technically." --- Fair. --- Dangerously fair. --- Neither mentioned the fact that they were both awake. Again. --- The safehouse remained quiet around them. --- No Marco. No Kiro. No interruptions. --- Just rain. Coffee. And the city. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- Then Reyes looked down into her mug. --- "Ace." --- The little hunter immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- For the first time in days Reyes laughed. Actually laughed. --- A real one. --- "You really need new material." --- "Fair." --- The smile lingered. Then faded. --- Because the question remained. --- The kitchen settled. Waiting. --- Finally: --- "Why didn't you stop?" --- Ace frowned. --- "What?" --- "You had a week." --- The city hummed quietly outside. --- "You had every reason." --- A pause. --- "Every excuse." --- Another. --- "Every opportunity." --- The words sounded careful now. --- Deliberate. --- Honest. --- "You could've handed it to somebody else." --- A pause. --- "Mai." --- Another. --- "Fixers." --- Another. --- "Anybody." --- The rain softened against the windows. --- "You didn't." --- The question finally arrived. --- Why? --- The kitchen became very still. --- Ace stared into her coffee. --- Thinking. --- Because the answer felt obvious. --- And because somehow that made it harder. --- Finally: --- "I never considered it." --- Silence. --- Absolute silence. --- The answer hit Reyes harder than expected. --- Because there wasn't a speech attached. --- No dramatic declaration. --- No grand explanation. --- Just truth. --- Simple. Immediate. --- I never considered it. --- The redhead looked away first. --- Toward the rain. Toward the darkness. Toward anything else. --- Because suddenly the room felt very small. --- For several seconds neither spoke. --- Then Ace quietly added: --- "You would've done the same." --- The answer arrived before Reyes could stop it. --- "Yeah." --- Immediate. Automatic. --- Certain. --- The realization landed between them. --- Both of them heard it. --- Neither tried to take it back. --- The rain continued. --- The city continued. --- The kitchen remained silent. --- Then Reyes laughed once. --- Small. Embarrassed. --- "We're idiots." --- "Fair." --- The answer came instantly. --- That finally earned a shake of the head. --- Because of course it did. --- Several minutes passed. --- Then Reyes stared at the table. At her coffee. At nothing. --- Thinking. --- The thought had been there for weeks. --- Waiting. --- Growing. --- Demanding. --- She'd avoided it. Dodged it. Ignored it. --- The strategy had failed. --- Spectacularly. --- Finally: --- "You know what I hate most?" --- Ace looked up. --- "What?" --- The answer took longer. --- Because saying it aloud felt dangerous. --- Not frightening. --- Permanent. --- Finally: --- "I owe you." --- The sentence landed like a grenade. --- Ace blinked. --- Then immediately: --- "No." --- The response arrived so fast it almost overlapped. --- "No." --- The second one came even faster. --- Reyes stared. --- "Ace—" --- "No." --- The interruption arrived instantly. --- Firm. --- Absolute. --- For a moment neither moved. --- Then Ace set the mug down. --- The sound echoed softly across the kitchen. --- "You don't." --- "Ace." --- "You don't." --- The certainty in her voice stopped the argument cold. --- Because she meant it. --- Completely. --- The room became very quiet. --- Then Reyes looked away. --- Because suddenly she understood something. --- The argument she'd been preparing for didn't exist. --- Ace wasn't waiting for gratitude. --- Wasn't keeping score. --- Wasn't collecting debts. --- Had never thought that way. --- The realization hit surprisingly hard. --- Then Ace quietly said: --- "You'd already paid me back." --- The kitchen froze. --- "What?" --- The little hunter shrugged. --- Small. Awkward. --- Honest. --- "A long time ago." --- Reyes stared. --- Because suddenly she had absolutely no idea what Ace meant. --- And for the first time in weeks— The conversation wasn't about the week. --- It was about everything before it. --- Everything that had built the trust that made the week matter. --- And neither of them were ready for that realization. --- Not yet. --- ## Chapter 40 — Statistics Neither of them spoke for a while. --- The kitchen felt smaller now. --- Not physically. --- Just emotionally. --- Because the conversation had wandered into dangerous territory. --- Not the week. --- Not the kidnapping. --- Not recovery. --- Something older. --- Something much harder to define. --- Reyes stared into her coffee. --- "You are being weird." --- Ace blinked. --- "What?" --- "Weird." --- The accusation sounded completely serious. --- "You said I'd paid you back." --- A pause. --- "What does that even mean?" --- The rain tapped softly against the windows. --- The city glowed beyond the glass. --- The little hunter looked away. --- Toward the darkness outside. --- Thinking. --- Searching for words. --- Again. --- A dangerous habit lately. --- Finally: --- "It means..." --- The sentence stalled. --- Restarted. --- Then: --- "You were there." --- The answer landed awkwardly. --- Incomplete. --- Frustrating. --- Reyes immediately frowned. --- "That doesn't explain anything." --- "Fair." --- "It explains nothing." --- "Also fair." --- The redhead stared. --- The little hunter stared back. --- The silence stretched. --- Eventually Ace sighed. --- Long. Slow. Resigned. --- Then: --- "Jakarta." --- The word stopped Reyes cold. --- Because suddenly she understood. --- Not everything. --- Enough. --- The old missions. The old disasters. The old scars. --- Everything before Night City. --- Everything before the safehouse. --- Everything before any of this. --- The years. --- The realization arrived quietly. --- "You mean all of it." --- The answer came immediately. --- "Yeah." --- Simple. --- Direct. --- Honest. --- The kitchen settled into silence again. --- Because suddenly the week felt different. --- Smaller. --- Not unimportant. --- Just part of something larger. --- A much larger thing. --- Years. --- Not days. --- Trust built one disaster at a time. --- One mission at a time. --- One terrible decision at a time. --- The realization sat heavily between them. --- Then Reyes laughed. --- Small. --- Disbelieving. --- "You really don't keep score." --- Ace frowned. --- "Why would I?" --- The answer arrived so naturally that Reyes actually looked away. --- Because there wasn't any performance in it. --- No heroics. No sacrifice. No selflessness. --- Just confusion. --- As if the idea itself made no sense. --- The city hummed quietly outside. --- Then Reyes suddenly shook her head. --- "Ace." --- "What?" --- For several seconds she didn't continue. --- Because there was still one thing left. --- The thing she'd been carrying since the rescue. --- The thing she'd been circling around for twenty chapters. --- The thing she hated. --- Absolutely hated. --- Because saying it aloud made it real. --- And because once it existed— It couldn't be unsaid. --- Finally: --- "Without you..." --- The words arrived quietly. --- Too quietly. --- Ace looked up immediately. --- The kitchen became still. --- Rain. Electricity. Breathing. --- Nothing else. --- Reyes stared at the table. --- Not at Ace. --- The sentence fought her every step. --- Then: --- "Without you..." --- A pause. --- "...I'd probably be a statistic." --- Silence. --- Absolute silence. --- No dramatic music. No revelation. No speech. --- Just truth. --- Simple. Ugly. Honest. --- The sentence settled into the room. --- And stayed. --- Because both of them knew exactly what it meant. --- Not maybe. Not potentially. Not theoretically. --- A statistic. --- A name on a report. A case file. A number. --- Gone. --- The city continued glowing outside. Unaware. --- For several seconds neither moved. --- Then Reyes laughed once. --- A small sound. --- Embarrassed. --- "I hate that sentence." --- Ace almost smiled. --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Which somehow made everything easier. --- Just a little. --- The tension cracked. --- Not completely. --- Enough. --- Then Ace quietly asked: --- "Do you regret it?" --- Reyes blinked. --- "What?" --- "The call." --- The kitchen became still again. --- Because suddenly they were back on the rooftop. Back in the room. Back in the week. --- The opportunity. --- The thirty seconds. --- The moment she'd almost called. --- Reyes thought about it. --- Actually thought about it. --- For the first time. --- Then slowly shook her head. --- "No." --- The answer surprised her. --- Because it was true. --- "I should have." --- A pause. --- "But I don't regret it." --- Another. --- "Because I knew." --- The city lights reflected faintly in the window. --- "I knew you'd come." --- The sentence arrived without hesitation. --- No embarrassment. No apology. No retreat. --- Just certainty. --- The kind built over years. --- The kind impossible to fake. --- The kitchen became silent once more. --- And this time neither of them looked away. --- Not immediately. --- Not for a few seconds. --- Not until the truth finally settled between them. --- Complete. --- At last. --- No more circles. --- No more avoidance. --- No more pretending the week hadn't changed anything. --- Because now both of them had finally said the thing that mattered. --- And somehow— The world hadn't ended. --- ## Chapter 41 — Enough The conversation should have ended there. --- Most people would've let it. --- Most people would've recognized the moment. The ending. The resolution. The thing they'd spent weeks moving toward. --- Unfortunately. --- Neither Ace nor Reyes had ever been most people. --- The kitchen remained quiet. --- Rain against glass. Distant traffic. The hum of the safehouse. --- Life continuing. --- As always. --- Reyes stared into her coffee. --- The mug had gone cold again. --- That seemed to be happening a lot lately. --- For several minutes neither spoke. --- The difficult part was over. --- At least it should have been. --- Then Reyes laughed. --- Small. Disbelieving. --- "What?" Ace asked. --- The redhead shook her head. --- "Nothing." --- A pause. --- "Just thinking." --- "Dangerous." --- "Fair." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- That earned the first genuine smile of the evening. --- Small. --- Real. --- The kind that appeared before a person realized it. --- Then faded. --- Not completely. --- Enough remained. --- The city glowed beyond the windows. --- A thousand lights. A thousand stories. --- Somewhere out there people were still running. Still fighting. Still surviving. --- The realization felt distant now. --- Not because it didn't matter. --- Because for the first time in a long while— Neither of them were. --- Not tonight. --- Tonight there was only coffee. Rain. Silence. --- And a strange feeling neither quite knew how to describe. --- Relief came closest. --- Not perfectly. --- Close enough. --- Eventually Reyes stood. --- The chair scraped softly against the floor. --- Ace looked up. --- "What?" --- The redhead hesitated. --- A rare event. --- Then: --- "Come here." --- The sentence arrived so unexpectedly that Ace actually blinked. --- "What?" --- "Come here." --- The repetition didn't help. --- For several seconds the little hunter simply stared. --- Suspicious. --- Deeply suspicious. --- Reyes rolled her eyes. --- "Oh my God." --- "What?" --- "I'm trying to do something." --- The accusation sounded genuinely annoyed. --- Which somehow made it worse. --- Ace slowly stood. --- The kitchen suddenly felt much smaller. --- The distance disappeared. --- Neither seemed entirely comfortable with that. --- For a moment they simply stood there. --- The rain continued outside. --- The city continued glowing. --- The world continued existing. --- Then Reyes shook her head once. --- A tiny motion. --- As though frustrated with herself. --- As though frustrated with the universe. --- As though frustrated with how difficult this had become. --- Finally: --- "Thank you." --- The words landed quietly. --- No speech attached. No dramatic explanation. --- No grand declaration. --- Just thank you. --- Simple. --- Honest. --- Complete. --- The kind that couldn't be improved by adding more words. --- For a second neither moved. --- Then Reyes leaned forward. --- Just enough. --- A brief kiss. --- Soft. --- Quick. --- Not passion. Not desperation. --- Not romance trying to redefine something. --- Something older. --- Trust. --- Gratitude. --- Relief. --- The acknowledgement of a truth both of them had finally stopped running from. --- Then it was over. --- Reyes stepped back immediately. --- Looked vaguely horrified by her own decision. --- Which was deeply satisfying. --- Ace stared. --- Blinking. --- Once. --- Twice. --- Processing failure appeared imminent. --- Finally: --- "Fair." --- The answer escaped automatically. --- Reyes immediately covered her face. --- "No." --- "Fair." --- "No." --- "It was." --- "It absolutely wasn't." --- The argument began instantly. --- Which somehow made everything easier. --- The tension shattered. --- Not the important kind. --- The awkward kind. --- The human kind. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Both of them laughed. --- Actually laughed. --- Not because the week was gone. Not because the scars were healed. Not because everything was fixed. --- None of those things were true. --- The week would always exist. The memories would always exist. The fear would always exist. --- But they no longer stood between them. --- That was the difference. --- That was enough. --- Outside, Night City continued glowing beneath rain-soaked clouds. --- Inside the safehouse, two stubborn idiots finally stopped running in circles. --- And somewhere, for the first time in a very long while— The future felt like it belonged to them again. --- # Epilogue — Home The first thing Mai noticed was that the silences had changed. --- Most people paid attention to words. Mai never had. Words were easy. Words could lie. Words could hide. Words could distract. --- Silence was harder. --- Silence revealed habits. Comfort. Distance. Trust. --- And the silences between Ace and Reyes had changed. --- Not dramatically. --- That was the interesting part. --- Neither woman had suddenly become more talkative. Neither had become more emotional. Neither had started acting differently enough for outsiders to notice. --- Most outsiders. --- Mai wasn't most outsiders. --- The difference appeared in small things. --- A glance. A pause. The complete lack of concern when one disappeared for an hour. The complete certainty the other would return. --- The certainty interested her most. --- One evening she sat alone in the kitchen reviewing reports when Shammy wandered in carrying tea. --- Naturally. --- Shammy always seemed to appear carrying tea. --- Mai had never figured out where the tea came from. --- She was beginning to suspect the answer was "everywhere." --- The white-haired woman settled into a nearby chair. --- Neither spoke immediately. --- Comfortable silence. --- Then: --- "They look different." --- Mai didn't need clarification. --- "No." --- Shammy blinked. --- "No?" --- Mai returned to her tablet. --- "They don't." --- A pause. --- "They stopped pretending." --- The answer earned a smile. --- Because Shammy immediately understood. --- "Ah." --- The kitchen settled. --- The rain tapped softly against the windows. --- Night City remained committed to atmosphere. --- As always. --- Shammy cradled her tea. --- "You were worried." --- Not a question. --- Mai considered denying it. --- Briefly. --- Then decided honesty was simpler. --- "Yes." --- The answer lingered. --- Because she had been. --- Not only about Reyes. --- About Ace. --- The distinction mattered. --- People always worried about the victim. --- Much fewer noticed the people left searching. --- The people left waiting. --- The people left wondering. --- Mai had watched Ace for seven days. --- She had no desire to repeat the experience. --- Ever. --- Shammy nodded. --- "I know." --- The answer arrived quietly. --- Because she'd watched too. --- The kitchen settled into silence once more. --- Then the white-haired woman smiled. Small. Warm. --- "They're going to be okay." --- Mai looked up. --- Toward the hallway. --- Toward the safehouse. --- Toward the lives slowly reassembling themselves inside it. --- Then: --- "Yes." --- A pause. --- "I think they are." --- And for once— Neither woman felt the need to analyze it further. --- Some conclusions spoke for themselves. --- --- Three days later Reyes began packing. --- Not dramatically. --- Not secretly. --- Just packing. --- A jacket. A bag. A few personal items she'd accumulated in the safehouse. --- The process attracted exactly the amount of attention she wanted. --- None. --- At least initially. --- Then Marco noticed. --- Which ruined everything. --- "What are you doing?" --- Reyes continued packing. --- "What does it look like?" --- Marco stared. --- Then stared harder. --- Then: --- "Oh." --- The realization spread through the safehouse with alarming speed. --- Nobody panicked. --- Nobody objected. --- Nobody tried to stop her. --- Because that wasn't what this was. --- It wasn't leaving. --- Not really. --- It was going home. --- There was a difference. --- A very important one. --- The final box wasn't actually a box. --- Just a bag. --- The symbolism annoyed Reyes. --- She ignored it. --- Naturally. --- The afternoon sky hung gray above the city. --- A familiar vehicle waited outside. --- Also familiar. --- Because Ace was leaning against it. --- Of course. --- The little hunter looked up as Reyes approached. --- "Need a ride?" --- The question was ridiculous. --- Reyes lived fifteen minutes away. --- Maybe twenty with traffic. --- The answer arrived immediately. --- "Yes." --- Neither acknowledged how ridiculous the situation was. --- The drive felt strangely familiar. --- Rain. Traffic. Night City. --- The usual. --- Neither spoke much. --- Neither needed to. --- The city rolled past outside. --- Eventually the apartment building appeared. --- Home. --- The real one. --- The old one. --- The one that had waited. --- The vehicle stopped. --- The engine died. --- Silence settled. --- For several seconds neither moved. --- Then Reyes looked out the windshield. --- At the building. --- At the familiar entrance. --- At normal life. --- Waiting. --- Finally: --- "You know." --- Ace immediately became suspicious. --- "No." --- The answer arrived automatically. --- Perfectly. --- Predictably. --- Reyes laughed. --- Actually laughed. --- The sound filled the car. --- Warm. Easy. Real. --- Then she opened the door. Stopped. --- Looked back. --- Just briefly. --- Then: --- "See you tomorrow." --- Not goodbye. --- Never goodbye. --- Just tomorrow. --- Simple. Certain. --- The way some promises should sound. --- Ace nodded once. --- "Tomorrow." --- Reyes stepped out into the afternoon rain. --- The apartment building stood ahead. --- The safehouse waited behind. --- And for the first time since the refrigeration plant— Neither place felt like an escape. --- They both felt like home. --- The car remained parked for another minute after Reyes disappeared inside. --- Just one minute. --- Then Ace started the engine. Turned toward the city. And headed back toward the safehouse. --- Tomorrow wasn't very far away anymore. --- And somehow— That felt pretty good. **END**