The Weeping Canyons got their name from the wind. It whipped through the tight, jagged corridors of razor-stone, wailing like an army of dying beasts.
Vance Kensington pressed himself to the cold, damp rock, chest heaving. Every breath burned. Gravity here in the Fracture was about ten percent heavier than on Earth—which isn't much if you're an enhanced Siphon. For a Tier-0 initiate, though? It's hell. His nineteen-year-old muscles flooded with lactic acid. His combat boots felt like blocks of lead.
I used to fly over these ravines without breaking a sweat, he thought, wiping greasy sweat from his brow. Now just walking three miles feels like I'm dragging a corpse behind me.
He glanced at his hand. The government-issued survival knife looked pathetic—seven inches of stamped carbon steel. Once, even his weakest Echo could split a tank. Now he had a glorified butter knife for hunting monsters.
His instincts told him daylight was running out—two hours, tops, before the Canyons froze and the nocturnal nightmares crawled out.
He wasn't going to find the Vesper-Lynx tonight. He needed a kill. If his fractured Astral Engine didn't get a Core before midnight, the parasitic Aethelgard Watcher would eat his own cells to keep itself going.
Vance knelt in the crimson dirt and studied a set of tracks—deep, three-toed, spaced wide. Copper-Maw Jackal. Tier-1.
Normally, a squad of five initiates, armored up, would surround one, pound it with rifle fire, and let the richest kid finish it off. Vance was alone, wearing nothing but a canvas trench coat.
He didn't chase the beast. He let it hunt him.
He found a choke point just five feet wide in the ravine. With his knife, he spent precious, agonizing minutes digging a trench, burying his duffel bag under loose stones—setting up a pathetic tripwire. Physics was his only friend.
Then he sliced his left palm with the blade.
The steel bit deep. Warm blood welled up, dripping onto the razor rocks. He smeared it on a boulder at chest height, letting the metallic smell drift on the wind.
Vance climbed three feet up into a narrow crevice above the choke, wedged his boots in tight, and waited.
Cold seeped into his bones. Ten minutes crawled by, then twenty. His wounded hand throbbed with his heartbeat. The clockwork scar over his chest pulsed under his shirt—a burning reminder: time was running out.
The wind dropped. And then—
Scrape. Click. Scrape.
A shadow peeled itself out of the fog. The Copper-Maw Jackal dwarfed a wolf; no fur, just leathery, mottled gray skin stretched over muscle. The lower jaw was massive, a shovel-like underbite the color of old pennies.
It sniffed the air, eyeless yellow orbs landing on the blood smear. Saliva hissed as it hit the dirt—its stomach acid could melt through anything. Even scavengers wouldn't touch its pelt.
Vance held his breath. His grip on the knife made his hand ache. Just a bit closer.
The Jackal stepped forward, drawn by the blood. Its three-toed foot hit the duffel bag.
It stumbled, jaw scraping gravel.
Vance dropped from the crevice.
He didn't bother for the skull—would shatter the knife. He crashed onto the beast's back, drove his knees into its spine, and jammed the knife behind its left ear—right into the soft spot.
The Jackal let out a gurgling scream and bucked like mad.
Vance went flying. He slammed into the canyon wall, lungs exploding in pain. His ribs lit up—bruised, maybe worse.
The Jackal spun, knife still buried in its neck. Viscous blood sprayed everywhere. It wasn't dead—its survival kicked in. Yellow eyes locked onto Vance. It unhinged its rusted jaw and lunged.
Vance was weaponless, unarmored. He barely had seconds.
When the beast tackled him, jaws snapping inches from his face, Vance shoved his bleeding left arm straight into its mouth.
Its calcified teeth crunched into his flesh. He screamed, then bit it back—the acid saliva burned like battery acid. He nearly blacked out.
Don't pass out. If you pass out, you're dead.
With the jaws locked on his arm, Vance reached up with his right hand, grabbed the knife's hilt. Didn't pull—he twisted, hard, ripping the blade down to sever the spine.
CRACK.
The Jackal went rigid. Eyes rolled back. Its weight collapsed onto Vance, pinning him down.
For a minute, only ragged, gasping breaths filled the canyon.
He shoved the corpse aside and rolled over. His left arm was mangled, bleeding fast, bite marks sizzling from the acid.
"Tier-0," he spat, coughing dust. He forced himself upright, vision thick with dark spots. "I hate being Tier-0."
Ignoring the pain, he knelt by the dead Jackal, yanked the knife out, wiped it clean, and plunged his hand into the chest cavity. He fished through rubbery muscle until his fingers closed around something solid and warm.
He pulled it free—a crystalline sphere, golf ball sized, glowing muddy-brown. A Tier-1 Scavenger Core.
The moment his skin touched it, his chest scar ignited—blinding, golden heat.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The world vanished. He dropped into the swirling nebula of his Inner Stratum.
Above him loomed the broken body of the Aethelgard Watcher. A stream of golden light shot down, hit the Core in his hand, and dissolved it. Energy vanished into the gears.
[Tier-1 Core Absorbed. Genetic material processed.]
[Astral Engine Stabilization: 1/100.]
[Residue applied to Host.]
Vance snapped back to the physical world, gasping.
Adrenaline pumped through him. The pain in his arm dulled, became bearable. He watched—morbidly fascinated—as the acid burns stopped bleeding and the flesh knit itself together, millimeter by millimeter. His lungs cleared. Muscles tightened, shedding weakness.
Still human. Still frail. But just a bit stronger than he'd been five minutes ago.
He looked at his blood-soaked hands. Then back at the darkening, foggy sky overhead. A grim, predatory smile cut across his lips.
"One down," he whispered to the wind. "Ninety-nine to go."
The silence barely lasted a second—then came the crack of a silver cane slamming against the red-stained stones, close enough that he could feel it in his bones.
Julian Thorne drifted out of the mist, lips curled into a narrow smile, his voice soft enough to make your skin crawl. "Not bad
for someone from the outer sectors," he murmured. "How about you show me that trick one more time?"