Chapter 4 - Kane
When the stranger’s head snaps up, Kane expects anger. Pulaski hated being questioned. Instead, wide, dark eyes meet his. He freezes, taken aback. He pushes any doubt aside. Innocence, after all, can be a convincing mask.
“Answer me!” His grip tightens around the metal. In Kane’s HUD, the stranger’s heart rate spikes.
>ID: UNKNOWN
“I—I’m…”
The bar’s front door swishes open. Heavy boots strike tile, breaking the standoff as Viper storms inside.
“What’s going on here?” he barks, his cybernetic implant whirring and locking on the stranger.
Kane doesn’t answer. He turns to the man, gun steady in his grip. “Who. Are. You?”
The stranger pales. “I…”
Wren rounds the table, hands out defensively. “I picked him up outside the hospital.” Her voice is steady, but rushed. “He’s the target Coda sent.” She shoots a look at the techie across the table.
Coda’s fingers fly through the air. “Dr. Amato. Thirty-one, black curly hair, cyberoptics specialist.” He tips his wristlink, scanning the stranger’s face, then glances up. “This is not him.”
“But—” Wren’s expression crumbles, stumbling toward them. “He matched the description perfectly—was leaving the cybernetics wing, wearing scrubs and a VitaCorp badge. I didn’t have time for a scan with Echo bleeding out.” Her voice rises. “I’m sorry, Baron!”
Kane’s teeth grind together. He should have handled the extraction himself, should’ve—
Movement in his peripheral vision cuts the thought short. Viper swings a rifle off and barrels toward the stranger. “Is this a setup?”
“I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me!” The stranger stumbles into the holotable. “I should’ve told you earlier. This is all a big misunderstanding.”
His jaw tightens. Nothing is adding up here. The hesitancy, the fear. Either this man’s the best liar Kane’s ever met or—
He studies the stranger again. The terror in his expression from before, constant apologies instead of making demands. That isn’t the fear of someone caught in a lie. It’s pure, raw panic.
This man’s completely innocent.
And Kane just threatened to kill him. He exhales and lowers his gun.
Viper doesn’t. His grip hovers over the trigger, ready to execute a civilian from Midtown.
Not on Kane’s watch. He moves between them, shoulder cutting into Viper’s line of fire. “Stand down. He’s not a threat,” Kane orders.
There’s a long pause before Viper eventually reholsters the weapon. “Fine,” he mutters.
Kane doesn’t let the stare-down linger. “We’ll deal with this later. Right now, Echo’s dying.” Turning back to the stranger, he yanks off the ID chip clipped to his scrubs. The stranger flinches but doesn’t resist, letting Kane scan the chip with his wristlink.
A hologram of data flickers to life: Rafael Gutierrez, twenty-seven, male, resident nurse in cybernetics.
“You’re a nurse,” Kane hisses, holding out the chip. He’s not even a doctor.
The stranger—Rafael nods and receives his ID, visibly shaking.
“I didn’t know, Baron!” Wren blurts. “He fit the description!”
“Enough!” The command silences the room. After a glance at Echo’s vitals, Kane turns to her. “I don’t want to hear it, Wren. Echo might die because of your mistake.”
Rafael takes a hesitant step forward. “She didn’t know.” His throat bobs as he swallows. “I should’ve spoken up when she grabbed me, but I was too scared to correct her. Please…don’t blame her.”
Kane’s brow lifts. Why is this nurse defending Wren? If anything, the mistake is hers. He scans the man’s spiking vitals again. Could they be colluding?
No. Wren’s loyalty has never wavered, not since he and Echo pulled her from the streets when she had nowhere else to turn after being blacklisted by Factura.
As for Rafael, he’s either dangerously naive or has a stronger moral compass than most of Kane’s crew.
Neither changes the situation.
“Fault or not, you’re all we’ve got.” Kane jerks his chin toward Echo. “You’re going to try to save her. Understood?”
The nurse’s eyes dart to Echo’s still form. A shaky breath leaves him before he forces out, “I’ll…I’ll do my best.” Moving faster than expected, Rafael spins around to Echo and snatches up the medkit. He pulls on gloves, then reaches for a diagnostic tool, one Kane doesn’t recognize.
Panic shoots through Kane as he darts to his side. His fingers clamp around the nurse’s latex-covered wrist. Rafael’s breath catches.
“I want to know every move, every risk. Tell me everything.”
For a beat, neither of them moves. Kane expects him to pull away and argue. Only Rafael steadies his voice and says, “I will.”
Kane releases him but doesn’t step back, still scanning the room. Viper’s stare finds him while the others remain focused on Echo.
“I need to run a diagnostic on her neural lace,” Rafael whispers, drawing Kane’s attention to where he adjusts the tool. “It’ll help me assess the damage.”
A sharp beep echoes through the room as the device powers up, charts and graphs lighting up the display. He hovers the end over the exposed lace at Echo’s head, and the readings pulse red.
“What does it say?” Kane barks. The sooner he knows, the better.
Rafael sucks in a breath. “I—” His voice is shaky. “We don’t have much time.”
Kane’s shoulders tense as memories of Echo threaten to surface, of her sharp laugh during a gladiator match, that cocky smile after intel came through. He forces them down. “Get to work.”
With a nod, Rafael retrieves more medical supplies, but Kane can’t seem to silence the voices of his past. A good leader takes responsibility for his actions. That’s what his uncle always said.
And isn’t this his fault? He ordered Echo to broker a deal near the border and sent Wren into Midtown for a doctor.
He reaches for the gloves in the medkit. Rafael inhales sharply, eyes snapping to Kane.
“I’m helping you. Whether you like it or not,” he insists, sliding on the gloves. “If Echo dies tonight, I want to be the one responsible.” When Rafael says nothing, Kane stares him down. “Explain every step as you go, and how I can help. I can’t read your mind. Understand?”
An emotion flickers across Rafael’s face. Respect or maybe confusion. But focus soon returns as he presses the scanner into Kane’s hand and grabs another tool.
“I’ll reposition the strands of the neural lace to align with the corresponding neural connections,” Rafael explains.
“You can provide real-time feedback on her neural patterns. Then I’ll use an electro-stimulator to send low-level impulses through the lace.
This will confirm responsiveness and hopefully restore a functional connection. ”
Kane’s hands move automatically, following his instructions. The scanner beeps steadily as he tracks the neural patterns.
Rafael holds the electro-stimulator near Echo’s hand, his other slowly adjusting the lace. The care he shows for Echo—a stranger, for Kane despite everything, for Wren earlier—strikes something unexpected. It’s a kind of decency Kane rarely sees from outsiders, and often doesn’t trust.
Nevertheless, there’s something almost admirable about it, even though softness has no place in their world.
As the operation continues, his gaze drops to his wristlink. Not much time left. Kane forces his attention on the readouts as Rafael sends the last pulse through her lace.
With a sigh, he pulls back, shoulders slumping.
Kane sets down the scanner. “What’s next?”
“If the procedure was successful, her neural activity should stabilize soon,” the nurse answers, glancing at the other lieutenants around them. “Patients typically regain consciousness within thirty minutes to an hour, depending on the duration of unconsciousness.”
Too much uncertainty for Kane. He glances at Echo’s vitals in his overlay.
>ID: AYAKA “ECHO” WATANABE
>NRL ACTIV: LOW / STABILIZING
For the first time all night, the data isn’t bleeding red. But who knows how long it’ll last?
“Coda.” Kane eyes the techie hovering near the billiard table. “Sift through Echo’s contacts. Find a doctor nearby we can trust—someone to take over. Maybe permanently.”
“On it.”
While Coda’s fingers move in a blur, Kane watches Rafael pack away the medical kit.
After Natural Order’s sudden attack—and with no medic on hand—he knows what must be done. The thought twists his gut, but hesitation won’t keep his people alive.
“Until then, someone needs to monitor Echo.”
Rafael goes rigid and peers up, color draining from his face.
Kane’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t want this—for him or the nurse—but wanting changes nothing.
The survival of their crew rests on his shoulders. That’s all that matters.