Rain hammered the megacity like it had a grudge.
Raze moved through it without breaking stride. Black hoodie plastered to his back, fingerless gloves gripping wet concrete, sneakers slapping across a rooftop that hadn't seen maintenance in twenty years. Forty stories above the streets no one talked about, the skyline was his highway. Neon bled across every surface, pink, cyan, violent green, reflecting off puddles that turned the world into a shattered mirror.
He didn't run.
He flowed.
A ten-meter gap yawned between two arcology towers. Raze planted one foot on the ledge, pushed, and the city tilted. Air rushed past his face. For half a heartbeat he was weightless, then his leading hand caught the far railing. Muscle memory did the rest: vault, roll, sprint. The package strapped to his chest stayed perfectly still. One more delivery. One more paycheck. One more night of pretending the world wasn't closing in.
His earpiece crackled once. Low-band static. Corporate chatter he wasn't supposed to hear.
".... Patient Zero sighted in Sector Nine. Repeat: Patient Zero. All units.... "
Raze didn't slow down. Didn't even twitch. But his jaw tightened a fraction.
Patient Zero.
They still called him that after two years.
He cut left along a narrow catwalk lined with humming power relays. Below, the street grid glowed like circuitry. Above, holographic billboards screamed Ascendant's slogan in thirty-foot letters: ASCEND OR FALL. The rain made the words bleed.
Another gap. This one narrower, easier. He took it at full speed, boots skidding on the wet ledge before he launched. Landed clean on the opposite roof, knees absorbing the impact without a sound. The package shifted once against his ribs, something small, something expensive, something that wasn't his business. Couriers who asked questions didn't last long.
He was twenty meters from the drop point when the first drone appeared.
It rose over the far edge like a black wasp, red running lights cutting through the downpour. Standard Ascendant patrol model. No reason to be here. Not at this hour. Not on his route.
Raze kept moving. Hood low, shoulders loose. Just another shadow in the rain.
The drone's scan beam swept the rooftop. Once. Twice. On the third pass it locked.
A flat mechanical voice barked across the open channel, loud enough for half the district to hear:
"Unregistered rooftop transit. Present ident or be detained. Ascendant Systems protocol."
Raze didn't answer. He never did.
Instead he broke left, boots pounding. The drone followed, thrusters whining as it accelerated. A second one rose behind it. Then a third.
Routine sweep, my ass.
He hit the next gap at full sprint, fifteen meters this time, wind screaming in his ears. No flip. No flair. Just raw, economical movement. He cleared it, landed hard, and kept running. The drones opened fire. Non-lethal pulse rounds. They still wanted him alive.
Concrete exploded behind his heels. A billboard to his right shattered in a shower of sparks, the Ascendant logo flickering out mid-sentence.
Raze slid under a rusted maintenance gantry, came up running, and cut sharp toward a forest of ventilation stacks. The drones tried to follow. One clipped a guy-wire and spun wildly. The other two adapted, splitting to flank him.
His breath stayed even. Heart rate up, but controlled. He'd done this a thousand times without the chip. Pure skill. Pure refusal to die on corporate property.
The drop point was a derelict water tower two roofs over. Faded graffiti on the side read YUI in glowing pink. He didn't smile. He never did. But the sight gave him the last burst of speed he needed.
He vaulted a low wall, dropped six feet onto the tower's catwalk, and skidded to a stop beside the access hatch. The package came off his chest in one smooth motion. He slapped it into the dead-drop chute, heard the pneumatic hiss as it disappeared inside.
Done.
The drones were twenty meters out and closing.
Raze turned, eyes flat, and looked straight at them. Rain streamed down his face. For the first time tonight his lips moved, barely a whisper, more habit than words.
"Three minutes to midnight."
Then he ran again.
Not away.
Through.
He sprinted straight at the edge of the tower, planted, and launched himself into open air. The nearest drone tried to intercept. He twisted mid-leap, shoulder-checked it hard enough to send it tumbling, and caught a hanging power line with both gloved hands. Momentum swung him like a pendulum. He released at the apex, sailed across the next gap, and hit the far roof in a roll that carried him straight into the shadow of a massive cooling unit.
Behind him the drones opened up again. Pulse fire stitched the rooftop where he'd been half a second earlier.
Raze didn't look back. He melted into the maze of ductwork and antennae, breath steady, pulse already slowing. The net was tightening, he could feel it in the extra drones, the sharper scan patterns, the way the corporate chatter had used his old file name like it was fresh.
But he was still faster.
Still free.
For tonight, anyway.
He dropped down a fire escape that hadn't been used in decades, landed in a crouch on a lower rooftop, and finally allowed himself one slow exhale. Rain drummed on his hood. Neon reflected in the puddles around his boots.
Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed. Another billboard flickered on, blasting Ascendant's slogan again.
Raze stared at it for three full seconds.
Then he pulled the hood lower, turned his back on the lights, and disappeared between the towers like he'd never been there at all.
Patient Zero was still in the wind.
And the clock was already running.