You murdered him

“You murdered him?”

George refused to meet Sela’s gaze. He stared out the singular, grimy porthole of their apartment, watching the endless stream of traffic blur past in streaks of red and white light. Why was he always so secretive?

He rolled his bionic shoulder, a heavy, grinding motion. His mechanical fingers twitched where they rested near his neck.

“That is why you should just let me help,” Sela pressed, her voice tight in the stale air of the room. The apartment was a suffocating box—peeling beige paint, a single flickering light strip buzzing overhead, and the lingering scent of heated circuitry and cheap, rehydrated noodles. “That arm of yours is not getting any better. I wasn't paid for the job, but I can still help.”

“By doing what?” George turned, though his focus seemed to drift through her, unfocused and distant. “Small talk? Erase camera proof? I did a clean job!”

Sela stood from the sagging synth-leather chair and sat next to him on the sofa. The cushion wheezed under her weight. She reached out, rolling up his sleeve before he could pull away. The smell of ozone and sickness hit her nose immediately. The corruption where metal met flesh had spread; angry black veins crawled up toward his neck, pulsing with a faint, unnatural heat. Amputation or removal now would likely kill him.

“Did you show Angel the arm?” She brushed her fingertips against the blackened skin. The metal felt cold; the flesh felt like fire.

He jerked his shoulder away, the servos whining in protest.

“Angel can’t and won’t do anything until we pay our debt. So why show her if she won’t work on it?” His eyes, usually soft, were now hard with a mixture of anger and deep regret.

Guilt knotted in Sela’s stomach. She was the anchor dragging him into the abyss. He had only accepted the bionic graft because some underground techie wanted a guinea pig for a new blade prototype, costing George his birth arm. She had thought George was her ticket to a better life, but instead, she had pulled him down into the mud with her.

“But she might help us and we can repay later, please.”

George stood abruptly, pacing to the window. He pressed both palms against the reinforced glass. Outside, the smog of New Amsterdam hung heavy and yellow, illuminated by the neon sprawl below. In the distance, far beyond the grime of their sector, a white pillar of smoke pierced the sky—a shuttle launch. The bright flare of its thrusters was a cruel reminder of the world above them, a place of escape they would never afford.

“I get healed and get a better arm, how much more dangerous will the jobs become?” he muttered, watching the rocket disappear into the clouds. “Our relationship is already going downhill with our current lifestyle.”

Sela stood, the floor vibrating slightly under her boots from the city’s hum. She placed a hand on his good shoulder, the one that was still warm and human. “We will find a…”

A heavy shadow blocked the light from outside.

A battered hover-van had drifted silently up to their fourth-floor window. The side door slid open with a mechanical hiss, revealing the rotating barrels of a minigun.

George spun, his eyes wide. He shoved Sela backward with mechanical force.

“Get down!”

The glass shattered inward, exploding like diamond dust.

George flipped the heavy sofa, shoving it between Sela and the window just as the roar of the gun tore the air apart. Hundreds of rounds screamed into the apartment, shredding the drywall, punching through the furniture, and obliterating their meager possessions. The noise was a physical blow, a deafening thunder that shook Sela’s bones.

Then, absolute, ringing silence.

Sela looked up, coughing in the plaster dust. Through the ruined window, she saw the van banking away, its thrusters flaring. On the back doors, painted in jagged red spray, was the symbol of the Fangs.

She looked over the ruined barricade. George was lying in a spreading pool of crimson blood and black hydraulic oil. The smell of iron and grease was overwhelming.

“Call Angel,” she whispered to her comms link, her voice trembling.

She vaulted over the shredded remains of the sofa and skidded to her knees beside him. She pressed her fingers to his neck. Nothing. No pulse.

“Heey Sela, how are you girl?” The casual voice in her ear was jarring.

“Please come fast, George is down.”

“One minute.”

The connection clicked off. Sela scrambled up, panic seizing her chest. “Where did he put those?”

She tore open the kitchen drawers, sending cheap cutlery clattering across the linoleum. There. The green vial glowed faintly in the dim light. The auto-injector was right next to it. Her hands shook as she jammed the vial into the chamber and sprinted back to George.

She dropped down, jabbed the needle directly into his chest, and slammed the button. The hiss of pneumatic pressure released the fluid in a second.

She waited, breathless.

Thump.

It was faint, but it was there. A heartbeat.

A loud bang echoed from the hallway. The front door flew open, splintering the frame. Angel rushed in, her long coat trailing behind her like a shadow.

“It was the Fangs,” Sela choked out, a hot tear cutting a track through the dust on her cheek. “Can you save him?”

Angel didn’t answer. She went to work with terrifying efficiency, her hands moving over the body, checking the gunshot wounds in his chest, the oil leaking from the arm, and finally, his head.

Angel paused. She brushed a lock of hair away from George’s forehead.

There was a small, clean bullet hole, straight through the skull.

“I can’t save a damaged brain, sorry girl.”

The air left Sela’s lungs. More tears spilled over, hot and stinging. She had brought this to their doorstep.

“Oh, and the arm is fucked, so you will still need to pay that.”

Angel stood up, wiping a mixture of blood and oil onto a rag. The debt hadn’t died with George; it had just doubled in weight, chaining Sela even tighter to the dark underbelly of New Amsterdam.

Angel walked to the ruined door, stepping over the debris. She stopped at the threshold, looking back at Sela and the body on the floor.

“You murdered him.”