I stepped out of the roofless Ram-9. My knuckles were white bone. My one good eye was bleeding from the pressure.
The first ten minutes were a ballet. I slid between the masin like a needle through a vein. Red lights were suggestions. Other drivers were obstacles to be predicted three seconds before they became threats. A delivery truck swerved. I downshifted, kissed the barrier, and the masin behind me mirrored the move like a school of killer whales. One hundred masin. Obedient. Hungry.
The story was never about finishing with all one hundred. It was about proving you could move a mountain through a river of glass.
The Ram-9 landed hard, suspension crying, but I kept it straight. Behind me, masin after masin caught air like leaping whales. Some landed wrong. Three flipped. Two exploded. Ninety-five left. Then ninety. Eighty-five. skacat- city car driving 100 masin
The last five minutes were a straight shot down the Fissure Spine. But the Syndicate had one more trick. A hacker. He hit the lead masin's ghost-AI, made it go feral. The giant machine tried to crush me against the tunnel wall.
Lumen's voice came back, quiet. "You lost fifty-three."
I accelerated.
A barricade. Not police. Rivals. The Serpent Syndicate had learned of the shipment. They'd stacked burning wreckage across all five lanes. The masin couldn't stop—their brakes were disabled for speed.
The counter stopped at forty-seven.
I didn't look back. That's the rule of the Gutter. Never mourn until the meter stops. I stepped out of the roofless Ram-9
"They're not lost," I said, lighting a cigarette with a shaking hand. "They're still out there. Wrecked, burning, scattered across forty kilometers of city."
I looked at the data-slate. One hundred masin . Not cars. Not vehicles. Masin. The old word. The heavy word. Military-grade, AI-ghosted, armored transports. Each one a 20-ton beast with a caged demon for an engine. And they wanted me to herd a hundred of them through rush-hour chaos.
