Val woke up with a dull throbbing pain in the back of her head. She sat up with a groan, the movement eliciting another stab of discomfort as she slowly opened her eyes. She found herself huddled up in the corner of a dark room. A sliver of light shone through under the steel door in the far wall, illuminating a small cot, a sink and toilet, and not much else.

Leaning her head back against the wall, she winced in pain again. The metal surface of the wall felt cool on her scalp, making her realize that she was no longer in her exosuit. Her bare feet shifted across the smooth ground as she tried to get more comfortable. The memories came rushing back in then. The direwolf tracks in the city. Noir’s discovery that she was the one being stalked. The surprise attack. Kriven’s betrayal. And finally, getting tossed around like a ragdoll and forcibly dragged out of the city.

Val didn’t need Noir to tell her this was a much worse situation that they were expecting. She’d never heard of humans taming or working with Enhanced beasts, but something was certainly going on here. Wolves didn’t put their prey into cells, and she didn’t believe for a second that Kriven just happened to be aiming his rifle at her at the exact moment that rogue beast attacked her.

First things first: deal with this damned headache. Val sent a mental command to trigger her limited regeneration subroutine. Or at least, she tried to. A wave of panic rose up in her as the subroutine failed to trigger. Turning her senses inwards, she could sense the nano in her body slowly circulating in a natural, passive pattern. But something seemed to be blocking any active commands being sent to her nanosystem.

She instantly felt much more vulnerable. This was even worse than when she realized she was without her suit. She spent plenty of time training with and without the exosuit, but it had been nearly a decade since she had not been able to use her own nano. A sinking feeling settled in her stomach. Has my core been even further compromised? Am I truly a Defect now?

Struggling to push aside the rising anxiety, she desperately reached out across her neural link to Noir. For several long seconds, she got no response from the Daemon. Just before she became overwhelmed by panic, Noir responded.

You may have noticed there is a virus interfering with your nanosystem. I’m currently devoting the majority of my processing power to neutralizing it.

A virus? I thought our nanosystems made humans more or less immune from most pathogens.

Not a biological virus, a digital one. Specifically this one is designed to isolate both User and Daemon from the User’s nanosystem. I… have some familiarity with adversarial subroutines like these, but this one is particularly insidious. I suspect it will be several more hours before I can make any breakthroughs.

Some familiarity? Do you use something like this?

Not quite. Any anti-User techniques will necessarily target either the nanosystem or the neural link, greatly limiting the ways the User can fight back. So while my techniques also attack the same interfaces, the mechanism is very different. My abilities are more similar to your trick against the first direwolf you fought – direct damage via intruding with external nano. This virus is different in that it does no physical damage but intercepts all the signals into your nanosystem. Rare and very nasty to deal with.

But you can deal with it, right?

Eventually. I’ll be faster if you stop distracting me.

Val slumped back against the wall, lapsing into silence. On one hand, this was the most Noir had spoken about their abilities. It did seem like she and the Daemon used compatible techniques, although of course that was no accident. Surely that was a big factor in why the Guildmasters and Daemon collective had allowed their partnership in the first place.

On the other hand, it meant Val and Noir were up against someone with anti-User techniques. Maybe even a small group, since she doubted the same person who used this virus was responsible for the tamed or controlled Enhanced direwolf. Although maybe a version of this virus could be used for some form of mind control. It seemed unlikely given that she could still think freely, but she shuddered at the prospect.

After spending another ten minutes sorting through a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, Val decided that she needed a distraction before she sank back into despair. Standing up, she moved to the center of the small cell and slowly ran through some stretches, taking stock of her condition.

Aside from her headache, she actually felt relatively fine. The cuts on her left arm were small and had stopped bleeding on their own. She had some bruising on her torso where the wolf’s jaws had clamped down on her, as well as various small bruises on her limbs that she assumed was from being dragged along through the forest. But overall, it seemed her exosuit had protected her from the worst.

Now that she was up and active, she took better stock of the small room. Clearly designed as a holding cell, there were no additional features other than the bed, sink, and toilet that she had seen at first. There were no obvious light fixtures or other control interfaces, and the door and walls were completely smooth. It seemed unlikely she was getting out of the room by herself.

After several hours of painstakingly checking every portion of the wall, Val was satisfied that she hadn’t missed anything in the room. Val sat down on the edge of the cot when she felt a shift in her nanosystem. A rush of negative thoughts entered her head first – Did the virus do something else? Any change to my core? – but they were quickly swept away as a reassuring wave of power pulsed through her nanosystem. She sighed in relief as the familiar feeling of the regenerative subroutine kicked in, slowly soothing her headache.

Thanks, Noir.

I only did what was necessary to increase our chances of survival. The virus had locked me out of the nanosystem as well.

Well, I still appreciate it. Any ideas on how to get out of here?

No. Since we are still alive, presumably someone will come interact with us eventually. We should bide our time, see what we can learn about our enemies, and then plan an escape. I shall spend the remaining downtime analyzing the remains of this virus and coming up with a suite of countermeasures.

Noir dove back into the recesses of her mind, leaving Val by herself again. She sat in thought for several minutes, but eventually shook her head and stood up. Taking her place in the center of the room again, she started running through some more vigorous exercises. The stiffness of her light injuries was starting to set in, and if she was going to follow Noir’s suggestion and wait for an opportunity to escape, she would need to be ready to act on a moment’s notice.

It was several more hours before Val’s first chance to learn more about her captors came. She sat with her back against the wall directly opposite the main door, the cot nearly brushing her right shoulder. Suddenly, there was a click in the door’s locking mechanism. Val scrambled to her feet as the door slid open, revealing a figure in the hallway outside the cell.

Val blinked once before her perception subroutine kicked in, helping her eyes adjust to the sudden influx of light. Her jaw almost dropped as she took in the details of her jailor. The man was massive. She had seen her fair share of large, muscular Users in the past few days between Hav at the final User Selection and Zavis with the Defects. But both would have been dwarfed by the man standing before her.

He stood over seven feet tall, head ducking slightly as he took one heavy step into the cell. The floor shuddered with the impact of his foot. In a world of nano-enhanced humans, even the strongest body enhancers avoided bulking up unnecessarily, but this giant had clearly missed that memo. Thick bands of muscles rippled in his arms and legs with every movement. The man gave off a sense of danger and uncontestable physical might.

Her apparent jailor took one more step, fully entering the room, before stopping and gazing down at her. His small beady eyes took in her defensive position, but he gave no indication that he was worried about an incoming attack at all. Not that Val blamed him. Even with access to her nano, she knew she was no match for him.

Val flinched as the man suddenly extended one arm towards her. There, nestled in his large hand, was a small tray of food consisting of some sort of root vegetable puree and unidentified meat stew. Val’s eyes flicked up to the man’s impassive face and back to the tray, but he made no additional motion.

Stepping forward gently, Val reached out and grasped the tray. She immediately jumped away as the man moved again, but he was merely stepping back out into the hallway.

“Awake. Eat.” The man’s gruff voice surprised Val. He nodded his head once slowly, seemingly satisfied with his two-word speech. He reached up to the wall and pressed several buttons, causing the door to start sliding closed. Val took one step towards the door.

“Wait–”

The door finished closing before she could get out another word, clicking with finality as the locking mechanism reengaged. Her perception subroutine kicked in again, allowing Val to see in the near darkness once more. With a sigh, she sat back down and started investigating the food.

You think this is poisoned, Noir?

I detect no traces of compounds that could impair you.

Handy. Val realized there were no utensils on the tray before shrugging and digging in with her hands. She scooped up some of the puree several times before grinning to herself despite the situation. Look, I’m really handy now.

There was a long pause before the Daemon responded. I’m going to ignore that and any future puns.

Her grin fell slightly as she went over the interaction in her head again. Well, that could have gone worse. He clearly could have squashed me without a problem, but instead I’m alive and have some food. Too bad we didn’t learn anything useful.

That’s not true. I recognize him.

Val froze, hand midway to her face with another scoop of food. What do you mean you recognize him?

I’ve never encountered him before, but his physical characteristics and speech patterns – or lack thereof – match a long-standing bounty that my past Users have been briefed about.

The Daemon paused, but Val could sense they had more to say. A drop of sweat rolled down her neck as the silence stretched on. It almost seemed like the Daemon was hesitant to give her any more information. What is it, Noir?

The bounty is not only for this single User, but for a group of rogue Users. Perhaps the most successful group of rogue Users in the past decade or two.

Well, that’s not good, but we already knew there was likely more than one. At the very least, knowing who we’re up against should make it easier to escape, right?

The group is so successful because there has never been any hard evidence on their abilities. Every attempt at infiltration, scouting, or assassination of any member has failed. Another pause. Val, without any good data, each member has been designated a Class A danger. As a group… they are collectively ranked S.

The glob of puree fell off Val’s hand and onto her leg. She stared glumly down at the food. Her chances of escaping just fell from slim to none. She scooped the fallen bite of food back up and continued eating dejectedly. Her mind raced, trying to find something positive to cling on to, but every way she turned, she only saw failure.

Well, shit.