Chapter 2

Charity pushed her entire body weight against the heavy iron door at the bottom of the apartment building. It groaned open, revealing the ruined, cyberpunk lower district.

The sky above was a sickly, bruised lead-gray. The air was thick with the sharp, chemical stench of industrial smog.

Suddenly, heavy drops of rain began to fall. A single drop hit the exposed skin on the back of Charity's hand.

It hissed.

A sharp, burning sensation bit into her flesh. Charity flinched, realizing instantly that this was the highly corrosive acid rain unique to the lower sectors.

She quickly pulled the oversized hood of her coat over her head, shielding her face and neck, and desperately scanned the street for an awning.

The metal shutters of the shops lining the street were slammed shut. Only a few dying neon signs provided any light in the gloom.

Charity hugged the walls, walking as fast as her heavy, poisoned body would allow. Her chest heaved, and her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

As she limped past the opening of a pitch-black dead-end alley, a sharp prickle of instinct made her freeze in her tracks.

From deep within the shadows, a wet, sickening crunching sound echoed. It was the sound of bones being snapped and flesh being chewed.

Two massive, glowing green pupils slowly opened in the darkness. They locked onto Charity.

A mutated rat beast, the size of a fully grown leopard, crawled out of the shadows. Strips of unidentified, bloody meat hung from its jagged jaws.

The beast let out a high-pitched, ear-piercing shriek. Its powerful hind legs coiled, and it launched itself through the rain, a dark blur aiming straight for Charity's throat.

Charity's pupils shrank to pinpricks. Her bloated body was too slow, too heavy. She couldn't move.

Through the heavy rain, the faint, rhythmic splash of heavy military boots echoed from the adjacent street, though Charity was too paralyzed by the beast's approach to notice.

Just as the beast's razor-sharp claws were inches from tearing her throat open, a deafening gunshot ripped through the heavy rain.

An armor-piercing bullet, trailing a blinding blue arc of plasma from the rail friction, punched directly through the mutated rat's skull.

The beast's massive body crashed into the mud right at Charity's feet, carried by its own momentum. Thick, black blood splashed across her coat and boots.

Charity collapsed backward into the acidic mud, her chest heaving as she gasped for air, her whole body trembling from the near-death adrenaline.

The heavy, rhythmic thud of military boots splashing through the puddles approached from the other end of the street.

A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped out of the rain-soaked fog. He wore a black, tactical trench coat that repelled the acid rain.

Braden Dickson held a heavy electromagnetic rifle. The barrel was still smoking. His eyes were colder than the acid rain pouring down around them.

He stood over Charity, looking down at her collapsed form. Pure, undisguised disgust twisted his sharp features.

"If you want to die," Braden said, his voice a flat, cutting blade, "go die somewhere else. Don't dirty my patrol sector."

Charity's newly acquired memories supplied his name. This was Braden. Another one of her forced genetic partners. The cold, ruthless military officer stationed in this district.

Faced with his brutal insult, Charity didn't scream. She didn't throw a hysterical tantrum like the original owner would have.

She remained completely silent. She raised her sleeve and calmly wiped the black monster blood and acidic mud from her cheek.

She didn't even look up at him. She placed her hands flat on the wet wall and forced her heavy, aching body to stand.

Braden's brow furrowed. He stared at her unnatural silence. A brief flicker of genuine confusion crossed his cold eyes.

Charity dragged her exhausted body forward. She carefully stepped around the massive, bleeding rat corpse and limped away, heading toward another ruined safe house she remembered from the memories.

Braden stood perfectly still in the rain. He watched her bloated, silent figure disappear into the fog. He let out a cold scoff, turned on his heel, and vanished back into the shadows.

Charity finally reached a slightly sturdier abandoned concrete building. She pressed her thumb to the rusted biometric scanner, and the heavy iron door clicked open.