Chapter 2: Mercenary A (1)
Inside the windowless building, the air was thick with the damp stench of mold, mixed with the burnt scent of overheated electronics.
A man held his breath, pressing a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound of his ragged breathing.
"An AI? This isn't how the job was supposed to go!"
Cursing under his breath, he squeezed himself deeper into the shadows, his eyes darting around the darkened room.
A faint glow flickered from his left arm—a cybernetic prosthetic—betraying his presence.
He yanked his tattered jacket over it, desperate to muffle the light.
This place was supposed to be the hideout of a small-time gang called "Needle Brain"—just another bunch of lowlifes who got their name from their habit of jabbing cybernetic needles into their skulls.
A half-collapsed concrete building in one of the city's abandoned districts.
A place forgotten by most of the world.
The job had seemed simple: retrieve an antique data cube from the gang’s stash.
But now?
It felt like he had walked straight into a horror movie starring a rogue AI.