A rhythmic metallic scraping broke the dead silence, steady and deliberate, like a clockwork heartbeat echoing from another world. Each shriek of metal on stone seemed to crawl closer, too measured to be random, too alive to be mechanical.
High above, the servo-skull stirred. Its glassy eyes rotated, glowing with a crimson flicker that pulsed in sync with the approaching rhythm. It tilted its skeletal head, jaws clacking open and shut in eerie mimicry of a whispering messenger reporting to an unseen master.
Inside the dim garage, Rebecca and Pilar froze mid-breath. Rebecca's hand trembled slightly as she gripped the pistol she'd scavved earlier, her thumb tapping anxiously on the trigger guard. Pilar's eyes darted toward the ragged hole in the wall, his Adam's apple bobbing once, hard. The air tasted of rust and dust.
The steps outside drew nearer, too precise, too methodical. They didn't just echo; they measured the silence between heartbeats.
Rebecca felt her pulse unconsciously sync with that rhythm, faster, sharper, as though the sound itself was dictating the pace of her fear.
Then came the color, a deep, coagulated red bleeding into view through the dust. Not the dull red of old paint, but the dark sheen of something sacred and terrible.
A massive figure loomed in the doorway, swallowing the light. His robes, cut in strange geometric layers, rippled faintly with his movements, each motion disturbingly smooth, like a ritual performed countless times before.
Beneath the cloth, the faint outline of mechanical limbs flexed and shifted, pistons breathing like steel muscles.
Behind him, a cluster of metal tentacles coiled and uncoiled in lazy, predatory rhythm. Each was tipped with a tool, or a weapon, the kind of hybrid tech that screamed of old Mechanicus craft. They glinted like blades under a forge flame, twitching as if tasting the air.
Rebecca's breath hitched when she saw what dangled from two of them: the limp, broken bodies of three Wraiths gangers, armor crushed inward like tin cans.
Another tentacle carried an industrial battery, humming faintly with stored power, as casually as if it were nothing more than spare scrap.
The stranger's face was obscured by a helmet older than anything Night City had ever manufactured.
Twin lenses burned red, steady and unblinking, scanning the ruin around him. His gaze lingered on the carnage, then pivoted, slow, deliberate, toward the garage. The red glare seemed to pierce the walls, strip away the shadows, and see straight through flesh into fear.
Pilar sucked in a sharp breath. His hand shot out, shielding Rebecca behind him. Sweat dripped from his temple, his voice shaking:
"Wh-what the hell is that thing? Some kind of full-body cyberpsycho? Or Militech's new murder toy?"
Even in panic, the gesture was instinctive, protective. His other hand slipped toward the pistol hidden at his lower back, the motion subtle but desperate. He knew it was pointless, but muscle memory didn't care about odds.
Rebecca swallowed hard, her throat dry as sand. The sight of the towering figure twisted her gut, but her tongue still worked, biting out bravado to cover the fear.
"He... he offed those Wraiths, right? Gotta count for somethin'. Maybe he's some kinda techie badass... just, uh, real *extra* about the robe thing." Her laugh came out brittle, more like a cough.
Outside, the figure moved again. Each step sent a dull vibration through the cracked concrete floor, a slow drumbeat that shook the air.
Osiris, processed a dozen streams of data at once. Thermal readings. Motion scans. Energy signatures. All confirmed: threat minimal. Resources secured. Operation efficiency at 92%.
The servo-skull chimed its confirmation: cleanup complete. Two weak biosigns detected.
His gaze turned fully toward the garage.
Rebecca and Pilar felt it, a pressure, heavy and invisible, like gravity had shifted to center on him. Rebecca's fingers twitched. A wrench rolled from her boot, clattering against the floor with a sound that felt deafening.
The figure halted before the garage. His shadow consumed the doorway. Then, one tentacle lashed forward, so fast it blurred, and pierced a gap in their makeshift barricade.
Metal shrieked as the entire barrier wrenched aside, torn like paper. The crash reverberated through the workshop, followed by a haze of dust.
Sunlight flooded in.
For the first time, they saw him clearly, Osiris in full. Nearly 2.3 meters tall. His robe framed the alloy bulk beneath, the structure of an unholy fusion of man and machine. Faint blue plasma lines pulsed beneath the plating, and his limbs hummed with a cold, mechanical cadence.
The tentacles swayed lazily beside him, each movement deliberate, alive.
When he spoke, his voice came filtered through layers of vox distortion, smooth, flat, almost weary. "Unauthorized intrusion detected. Identify your purpose."
It wasn't a threat. It was an assessment, the tone of an engineer irritated by a sudden system error.
Rebecca flinched but shot back before her brain could stop her. "Hey! Chill, choom! We were gettin' hunted out there, alright? Didn't see a 'Keep Out' sign anywhere!"
She regretted it instantly, the words echoing too loud in the silence. Her hands went clammy. Every servo and lens on the figure seemed to tilt toward her.
Pilar grabbed her arm, pulling her slightly behind him. His voice cracked with urgency: "Sir! Look, we didn't mean to trespass! Just couriers, yeah? The Wraiths hit our ride, and we ran! Didn't touch a thing, promise! We'll bounce right now, no trouble!"
He gestured wildly to their packs, half-empty, scuffed, and harmless, trying to make himself look small, harmless. The desperate act of someone who knew negotiation was his only bullet.
Osiris' optics narrowed slightly, crimson beams sharpening. His sensors parsed the microtwitches in their faces, cataloguing heartbeat variance, tremor frequency, body heat. The data streamed in real time.
"Biological signals: heightened stress. Armament: low-grade. Threat level: minimal." His tone didn't change, but the faint shift in stance suggested his systems had eased, fractionally.
"State identity, origin, and operational purpose. Provide any relevant intelligence on Night City and its environs. The precision of your information will determine subsequent assessment."
A tentacle raised, pointing directly at Pilar, steady, deliberate, a mechanical finger demanding response. The sensor at its tip pulsed, focusing like an unblinking eye.
Rebecca exhaled shakily, muttering under her breath, "We're so fragged..."
Pilar nodded slightly, throat tight, and began to speak.