Tye's fridge buzzed when he opened it—empty again. He ignored the flickering light and reached for a foil packet of cold noodles. As he slumped onto his couch, fork in one hand, his other twitched involuntarily.
The eel-fist glove was still fused to his left hand, the surface twitching with faint pulses of blue current. Static danced at the corner of his vision. His eye kept glitching, every blink overlaying a faint heads-up display:
CALORIC DEFICIT: 40 / 4,000
He slurped down the noodles anyway.
A text pinged on his cracked holo.
WAVI: Labz goons just tossed my dojo. Asking 'bout unregistered GEAR. You good?
Tye wiped soy sauce off his chin with his sleeve and tapped back:
>> Get out smooth. Don't lead 'em here.
Cuh paced near the window, watching the neon blur of patrol lights outside. His shark-skin vest bristled every time a sound came too close. In the glow of Tye's laptop, he scrolled through the coordinates he'd find from the heat-reactive drawing.
"Eclipse Hide. Sub-Level 7," he muttered. "That's not some chop-shop, bro. That's a mainline vault. Labz hides their bad ideas there."
He looked up. "Why the hell would they send you this?"
Tye's terminal screen scrolled with error messages. No data. No registry. No match. The glove's serial didn't exist.
Until he dug deeper—old archives, flagged and buried under deletion protocols. One file survived. Fuzzy. Corrupted.
"Dr. Zugun's First Prototype Stolen in Lab Explosion"
A photo—grainy and black-and-white—showed a young Dr. Zugun holding a rough-looking rabbit-fur sneaker. Not mass-produced. Handmade.
"Button," Tye breathed.
Cuh blinked. "The hell you mean, 'Button'?"
Tye leaned back, remembering the drawing that came with the glove. The stitched rabbit, the crude smile.
"The first GEAR ever made," he said. "That drawing wasn't just nostalgia. It's a message. And it's telling me to find Zugun."
Before Cuh could respond, a soft knock hit the door—three taps, their childhood rhythm.
Wavi slipped inside, wearing a sweat-drenched taekwondo gi crusted with flakes of restraint foam.
"They're sweeping every Bronze-level rat-hole," he said, peeling the gunk off his arm. "Your glove's a relic, bro. You need help."
"Faction help?" Cuh scoffed. "Man, screw the Factions."
But Wavi was already pacing. "Not them directly, but you gotta know who's in play now."
He ticked them off with his fingers:
The Harbinger Flock – Wild zealots chasing 'ascension.' They become GEAR. Or they try to. Stage 3 Overweave.
The Last Pack – Think wolves, real organized. Neural-linked ambush squads that tear labs apart one howl at a time.
The Unraveled – Tech healers. They reverse GEAR addiction without killing the host. Mostly.
Mandark – No agenda. Just gear smugglers with high-end tech and low morals.
"I know someone in Mandark," Wavi added. "They'll—"
The door exploded.
A blast of heat and carbonized wood shoved them backward. The shockwave flattened everything not nailed down.
Through the haze stepped a figure encased in Platinum Falconer armor, visor red and unblinking. The exosuit gleamed like wet chrome, seamless, humming with quiet malice.
"Signature confirmed," the suit intoned. "Surrender the prototype."
Tye's glove pulsed once—hot. Then twice—frantic. His vision glitched hard, sparks leaping from the seams. The glove wasn't sentient. But it knew.
Run.
The lights died with a loud pop. The power grid overloaded. Cuh drew his stun baton and cursed under his breath.
In the dark, Wavi whispered:
"Window. Now."
The three of them bolted. Behind them, the Falconer's magnetic boots crunched glass like bone.