The first hit landed like a car crash.

The whole damn door shuddered in its frame, metal ringing out sharp enough that Luxy instinctively grabbed Jules's arm. The second strike came before either of them breathed, a bone-deep WHAM that rattled the dishes in the sink.

Jules whispered, barely a hiss, "That's a... Sledgehammer?!"...

"Ah shit. Didn't know dead cybernetics could hurt this much."

The kitchen light was one of those shitty cold-white LEDs someone bought on discount, flickering in a way that made the whole place feel like you were standing inside an overworked fridge. Luxy sat at the table with her wrecked cyberarm propped on a dish towel, the MIKE casing split open by overheating, the inner capacitor housing warped from the microwave discharge she'd forced through it. She looked like hell. Bruised, pale. And her eyes? Red - from more than just exhaustion...

The night settled over the apartment in that lazy, amber way that made everything feel softer than it deserved to. Amy moved like a whisper through the living room, fussing with a cluttered stack of Void's gear on the coffee table. Every time she reached for a cable or data shard, she hesitated first, thinking it might not be a good idea.

Keira watched her from the doorway, arms crossed, smirk slanted. "You know she's gonna lose her shit when she realizes you reorganized her pile of 'important trash.'"

Amy didn't look up, kept sorting. "I'm putting it back the way it was," she murmured. "Just... Cleaner."

"That's what Void calls a threat."...

The whiskey bottle was a dead soldier between them, its final dregs a testament to confessions that hung thicker than the bar's smoke-hazed air. The opening riff of yet another SAMURAI song was vibrating through the floorboards, a low, primal thrum that felt like the soundtrack to their shared unraveling. Luxy's eyes were closed as her head was lolling back against the scarred wood of the booth, a single tear tracing a clean path through the grime and defiance on her cheek. Void watched her, the adrenaline of their raw exchange fading, leaving behind the familiar, leaden exhaustion. The world outside this grimy bubble - Marzena's smear campaign, Amy's fragile hope, Keira's worried gaze - felt like a distant, hostile planet...

Void exhaled like she'd just come through a minor war, as the crooked bed frame stood tall enough to qualify as furniture. She tossed the useless booklet onto the pile of discarded packaging.

"Instructions were cursed anyway. Might as well have been printed in fucking runes."

"You mean they had words you didn't write yourself? That explains everything." Her smirk widened, voice dripping smug. "Void, author of one thousand programs, felled by a cartoon arrow. Put it on your résumé."...