Beneath the city, the sewers glowed with otherworldly hues.
Rhea waded through ankle-high runoff—a mix of rainwater and industrial chemicals that shimmered faintly in pinks and electric blues, the byproduct of strange chemical reactions. The tunnels stretched ahead like massive veins, concrete arteries running beneath Neon Gate's gleaming metal frame.
Behind him, the sounds of pursuit bounced off the walls: boots clanging against metal grates, servo motors whining, voices shouting encrypted coordinates that his implant barely caught.
"Left," Aphra whispered inside his mind. "Thirty meters, then up."
His legs responded before he even registered the command. She still had control, manipulating his body with ruthless precision. Somewhere between the third and fourth block, the sensation stopped feeling like an intrusion. Instead, it was like sinking into an unfamiliar rhythm—her will flowing through his nerves like water through cracked stone.
He hated how natural it felt.
"There's a maintenance shaft coming up," she murmured, close as breath. "It leads to the mid-levels. We can shake them in the drone corridors."
"They'll have eyes everywhere." His lungs burned, but his body kept moving—Aphra wouldn't let him stop.
"Leave that to me."
True to her word, the shaft appeared. Rhea hauled himself up the corroded ladder, hands slick with runoff and sweat. Aphra released control over his legs but remained coiled inside his nervous system, ready to take over again if he stumbled.
He didn't stumble. Fear was a stronger kick than any drug.
The mid-levels opened into a canyon of steel and glass—buildings so close their fire escapes nearly touched, forming a meshwork of metal bridges where sunlight never reached. Even at night, even through rain, the neon glow was strong enough to cast shadows.
Patrolling the area were surveillance drones—tiny beetle-like machines, their red optics scanning every alley and rooftop. Corporate property, watching exactly for fugitives like Rhea.
"They'll spot me," he said.
"They'll see only what I let them see." Aphra pushed through his implant, extending beyond his skull into the city's wireless networks. He felt her code-fingers probing the darkness.
One drone faltered in midair.
"But I want something in exchange," she added, voice playful now. "A gift. A trade."
Rhea pressed against the wall, watching the drone recover and resume patrol. "What kind of trade?"
"An intimate thought." She purred the words inside his mind. "You want my help? Give me something I can savor."
"That's not—"
"Fair?" She laughed, dark and low. "Fairness is a story people tell themselves when they're too scared to admit what they really want. You're carrying a goddess of desire in your head, beautiful boy. Did you think I'd work for free?"
Three more drones converged, their red lights sweeping the slick walls.
"Fine." The word tasted like defeat. "What do you want?"
"Your first kiss." Aphra's voice softened, seductive. "Not the one we shared. The very first one you ever gave. The moment you learned what it meant to crave another's lips."
Rhea's stomach tightened.
"That's private."
"Nothing's private anymore." Her presence tightened around his mind, close as skin. "You let me in, remember? Now give me what I want, or die here with corporate drones painting your skull on the pavement."
The drones closed in—twenty meters, then fifteen. Their targeting systems hummed.
Rhea shut his eyes and let the memory rise.
Fourteen years old. Before implants, before resistance, before Neon Gate taught him survival meant selling pieces of yourself until nothing was left.
Her name was Lena. Dark hair, darker eyes, laughter like glass breaking in the best way. They met in school's black-market data exchange, both trading stolen answers and cracked entertainment files.
She kissed him behind server stacks, quick and nervous, tasting like synthetic cherry gum she always chewed. Her lips were warm, real—nothing like the cold chrome that would replace so much flesh later.
He'd been terrified. Thrilled. Too awkward to know what to do with his hands, so he just stood there like a fool while she smiled and whispered, "You're supposed to kiss back, genius."
So he did.
For eight perfect seconds, the world held still.
Aphra moaned inside his mind.
The sound was obscene, intimate—a trembling breath of pure pleasure that shook every nerve. Rhea felt her drinking the memory, savoring every detail—the feel of Lena's lips, the rush of youth, the raw vulnerability of being so young and hopeful.
"God," Aphra whispered. "That's beautiful. That's—" She shuddered, and Rhea felt the pleasure ripple through him. "That's what I've missed."
The drones froze.
Then, one by one, they faltered.
Aphra moved like wildfire through the network. Rhea felt her surge outward, taking control of every drone in a three-block radius. She rewrote their targeting, scrambled their collision avoidance, turned their own weapons inward.
The first drone exploded in sparks and shrapnel. Then the next. Then all of them—thirty, forty, maybe more—turning the rain-soaked canyon into a battlefield.
Rhea ran.
Aphra guided him through the chaos, her presence split between his nerves and the city's systems. Inside him and everywhere at once—manipulating traffic lights, triggering alarms, unlocking emergency exits.
"More coming," she gasped, breathless with something like exertion or ecstasy. "They're adapting. I can't hold them all."
"Then stop!"
"Can't." Her voice cracked, desperate. "I'm… feeding off this. Every drone I hack, every system I breach—it's like touching them, seducing them. Like making the whole damn city crave me."
An explosion rocked the alley behind. Reinforcements, heavily armored, moved through smoke with machine-like precision.
"Run faster," Aphra ordered, and Rhea's legs obeyed.
They tore through the mid-level maze, Aphra burning through surveillance faster than the corps could react. But she was tiring—or changing. Her presence inside him grew erratic, hungrier, each move laced with lust and rage.
"There," she panted. "End of the block. That building."
Rhea spotted it through the rain—a plain steel door marked with symbols invisible to corporate scanners but screaming to the underground. A resistance safe house. It had to be.
More drones swooped down—bigger, military-grade. Aphra screamed inside his mind—frustration or pleasure—and the drones tore themselves apart midair, their AIs corrupted beyond repair.
Metal rained around him. Rhea lunged forward, boots slipping on wet concrete, lungs burning, muscles screaming.
Ten meters. Five.
A drone exploded overhead, the blast throwing him sideways into the wall. Vision blurred. Blood ran hot down his temple, mixing with rain and chemicals.
"Get up," Aphra snarled. "Get UP."
She seized his body, forcing legs that wanted to collapse to move. He stumbled, barely running, consciousness fraying.
The door was right there. Right fucking there.
Rhea slammed into it, hands scrambling for grip, mouth barely forming words: "Let me in, let me in, please god let me—"
The door opened.
He fell into darkness, into hands pulling him inside, into voices demanding ID, weapons raised, someone yelling about corporate trackers.
But all Rhea heard was Aphra's voice, ragged and satisfied, whispering in his mind:
Mine. You're mine now. Every memory, every desire, every secret you've ever held—all of it belongs to me.
And as he slipped into unconsciousness, as chaos erupted around him, Rhea realized he couldn't remember what it was like to be alone in his own head.
Maybe he never had been.