The basement stairs creaked under Steve's boots—old wood, warped from decades of damp and neglect. Each step echoed louder than it should have in the tight space, like the building itself was holding its breath.
Robin moved ahead, silent and efficient, her pistol held low but ready. Jax followed close behind her, deck clutched to her chest like a shield. Steve brought up the rear, bat in hand, vibro-spikes humming at the lowest setting—just enough to feel alive without giving away their position.
The drone hum outside had grown into a steady, mechanical heartbeat. Not one drone anymore. At least three. Arasaka didn't send singles when they smelled something valuable.
At the bottom landing, Robin paused, ear cocked toward the ceiling.
"Still spoofing?" she whispered back to Jax.
Jax nodded, fingers dancing over the deck's haptic keys without looking.
"Got their scan bouncing between five ghost signals. They'll think we're a whole netrunner cell. But it won't hold forever."
Steve's ocular HUD flickered: thermal signatures moving on the street level—four heat blooms, humanoid, armored. Closing fast.
He tapped Robin's shoulder.
"Back exit?"
"Sealed years ago. Only way out is through the service tunnel under the old loading dock. Smells like death, but it's clear."
"Better than getting flatlined here."
They moved again—through a narrow corridor lined with rusted lockers that once held employee jackets and forgotten mixtapes. The air grew thicker, colder. Somewhere ahead, water dripped in slow, deliberate plinks.
Jax's voice, small:
"You guys do this a lot? Run from corps?"
Robin gave a dry laugh.
"More than I'd like. Less than we used to."
Steve didn't answer. He was listening to something else—
A faint, rhythmic tick.
Not the drones.
Not dripping water.
A clock.
Soft, distant, but unmistakable.
He stopped dead.
Robin noticed immediately. Turned.
"Steve?"
He shook his head once.
"Nothing. Keep moving."
But it wasn't nothing.
That sound lived in his skull like scar tissue. Vecna's clock. The same one that had counted down Nancy's friends, Max's life, his own near-misses.
The System had buried it for years.
Or so he'd thought.
They reached the tunnel entrance—a rusted grate half-pried open, big enough to crawl through single-file. Robin went first, then Jax, then Steve—squeezing his broader shoulders through with a grunt.
Inside, the tunnel was pitch black except for the faint glow of Jax's deck screen and the blue rings in Robin's eyes.
They crawled in silence for what felt like minutes but was probably only thirty seconds.
Then Jax whispered, urgent:
"Signal spike. They're jamming the spoof. We've got maybe five minutes before they lock our real trail."
Robin cursed under her breath.
"Faster."
The tunnel sloped downward, then leveled out. The smell shifted—mold, old oil, something metallic and wrong.
Steve's HUD pinged again.
Not a threat alert.
A private, encrypted message.
No sender tag. Just a single line:
"Still swinging that bat, big boy?
His heart slammed against his ribs.
He knew that phrasing.
Knew it like muscle memory.
Eddie.
But Eddie had died in the Upside Down.
Steve had carried his body out himself—cold, heavy, blood-soaked.
Buried what was left in a quiet corner of the old cemetery before the corps turned it into a data vault.
No one had seen Eddie Munson since 1986.
Not alive.
Steve's fingers tightened on the bat until the grip creaked.
Robin's voice ahead:
"Exit's close. I can see street light."
They emerged into an alley behind a derelict noodle bar—rain still falling, but slower now, almost gentle. Neon from the next block painted everything pink and green.
Jax collapsed against the wall, breathing hard.
"I need a safe jack-point. Somewhere with clean bandwidth. I can't keep spoofing on battery."
Robin scanned the alley.
"There's a dead drop spot two blocks east. Old resistance cache. Should have a shielded terminal."
Steve wasn't listening.
His eyes were on the shadows at the alley's mouth.
A figure stepped into the light—slow, deliberate.
Long hair, dark and damp, tied back loosely.
Black leather jacket patched with old band logos and newer circuit embroidery.
A glint of chrome at the neck—neural port cover shaped like a bat silhouette.
The face was older—lines around the eyes, a faint scar cutting through one eyebrow—but unmistakable.
Eddie Munson smiled, crooked and familiar.
"Hey, Harrington."
Steve's bat lowered an inch.
Then another.
Robin spun, pistol up.
"What the fu—"
Eddie raised both hands, slow.
"Easy, Buckley. I come in peace. Mostly."
Jax stared, wide-eyed.
"Who the hell is that?"
Steve's voice came out rough.
"Someone who's supposed to be dead."
Eddie's smile didn't falter, but his eyes were careful.
"Yeah. About that… it's a long story. And we don't have long before your corp friends turn this alley into a shooting gallery."
He nodded toward Jax's deck.
"That Protocol you're carrying? It pinged me too. Same quest. Same warning."
Steve took one step forward.
"You're not a ghost."
"Not anymore." Eddie tapped the side of his neck.
"Black-market resurrection rig. Took years. A lot of favors. A lot of pain. But here I am."
Robin lowered her pistol fractionally.
"Prove it."
Eddie reached into his jacket—slowly—and pulled out a small, battered object.
A cassette tape.
The label hand-written in faded Sharpie:
**"For Steve – Don't Stop Believin' mix, '85"**
Steve stared at it.
He'd made that tape for Nancy.
Eddie had stolen it from her car the night before the mall burned down.
Teased him about it for weeks.
Steve's throat tightened.
"You kept it."
"Kept a lot of things," Eddie said quietly.
"Figured I'd return it someday."
The distant drone whine grew louder—closer.
Eddie jerked his head toward the street.
"We can do the reunion tour later. Right now, we need to move. I've got a safehouse three sectors over. Faraday cage, clean power, no corp eyes."
Steve looked at Robin.
She looked back—eyebrows raised in that way that said *your call, Dingus*.
Steve exhaled.
"Lead the way."
Eddie's grin returned, softer this time.
"Follow me, kids. Try not to die before the good part."
He turned and melted back into the rain-soaked neon.
Steve watched him go for a second—heart hammering, old grief and new confusion twisting together.
Then he started walking.
Some ghosts, it turned out, came back swinging..
**End of Chapter 2**