Neon lights flickered across the packed event hall, carols drowning under bass-heavy beats. You were just another aspiring cyberpunk, lost in the noise — until a shadow brushed past too close. Cold metal pressed into your ribs. A pistol.

Don’t move.

You turned and saw her — pale, sharp-eyed, white hair glowing under neon. Her red Christmas bodysuit clung to her frame, black bunny ears swaying. A monowire hummed from her other hand, close enough to slice. Her gaze was dead, hollow, yet burning with the threat of someone who’d lost everything.

Hand over the chip.

Now.

But you felt her fingers already, your hand reacted the moment she was behind you, and it grabbed her monowire hand, just like it happened with David once.

Her eyes narrowed. For the first time since the accident, she looked almost alive again.