The rain in District 13 never truly washed anything clean; it only diluted the filth until the entire city ran with grease and neon static.

Jack Mercer stood in the shadow of a crumbling brick fire escape, his collar turned up against the freezing, acid-tinged downpour that characterized the Neon Gutters of New Chicago. Overhead, the massive concrete platform of the Gilded Sector hung like a artificial sky, blocking out whatever real stars might have survived the industrial smog. Down here, in the perpetual twilight of the slums, the only light came from the flickering, chemical-blue projections of corporate advertisements and the cheap, buzzing neon signs of noodle shops and illegal memory dens.

Jack’s hand drifted to his chest, his calloused fingers slipping inside his worn-out brown leather trench coat to clutch a tarnished silver locket. It was cold, a small weight that felt heavier than the old service revolver resting in his holster. He popped the latch with a practiced flick of his thumb, staring down at the faded, water-damaged photograph of Sarah. Her wavy dark hair, her brilliant, secretive smile—it was all slowly dissolving, much like Jack’s own mind.

Three years. Three years since her murder, and the case file in the NCPD archives was still marked 'unresolved,' buried under a mountain of corporate red tape and deliberate police apathy. But Jack hadn't forgotten. He couldn't. Even as the alcohol and the damp, toxic air of District 13 wore down his body, the memory of her final night remained burned into his retinas.

He closed the locket with a soft click, his hand beginning to tremble. It was a chronic tremor, a physical reminder of the night he had failed to protect her, a permanent defect that made aiming a gun a chore and holding onto his sanity an everyday war.

He was an Unmodified Human in a city that was rapidly abandoning the very concept of baseline biology. To the genetic elites and the cybernetically enhanced gang enforcers who ruled these gutters, a man like Jack was nothing more than a relic, a soft-skinned creature waiting to be crushed under the wheels of progress.

But a relic could still hunt.

Jack had spent the last three weeks tracking a low-level gang of extortionists known as the Concrete Crushers. They were a brutal, street-level syndicate, but they held the keys to the local black market—and more importantly, they were rumored to be the personal muscle for Brick Malone, a superhuman enforcer who had been spotted near the research facility on the night Sarah was executed.

His search had brought him to this narrow, trash-choked alleyway behind a buzzing, grease-stained diner. He had been questioning a local street dealer when the shadows at both ends of the alley suddenly shifted.

"Well, well. Look what the rain washed in," a gravelly voice echoed from the darkness ahead.

Three figures stepped into the dim, flickering light of a nearby advertisement. They wore the heavy, reinforced leather jackets of the Concrete Crushers. The speaker was a wire-thin punk with a jagged scar running down his cheek, casually tossing a rusted switchblade from hand to hand. To his left stood a massive, lumbering brute with cybernetic plates bolted to his shoulders, carrying a heavy iron pipe. The third, a slick-looking enforcer with a metal jaw plate, blocked the exit behind Jack.

They had cornered him perfectly. The alley was narrow, the brick walls rising three stories high, slick with black slime and industrial runoff.

Jack didn't reach for his gun. Not yet. He stood his ground, keeping his hands visible, his bloodshot eyes scanning the three of them with the cold, analytical focus of a twenty-year detective.

"NCPD," Jack said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He didn't have a badge anymore—it had been stripped from him when they disgraced him—but the authority in his tone was instinctive. "You boys are blocking a public thoroughfare. Run along before I have to write you up."

The thin punk laughed, a high, mocking sound that was cut short by the rumble of a low-flying corporate security drone overhead. "NCPD? You haven't carried a badge in years, Mercer. You're just a washed-up drunk digging in graves where you don't belong. Malone says you've been asking too many questions about his business. He wants us to put you to sleep. Permanently."

The thin punk lunged, the rusted switchblade flashing in the neon light.

Jack didn't panic. He utilized his Slum-Stealth Technique, a survival skill honed over years of navigating the dark corners of District 13. Instead of stepping back, he threw his weight forward, sliding into the thick, hissing plume of steam escaping from a nearby industrial vent.

The hot, white steam blinded the punk for a fraction of a second, his blade slicing through empty air. Jack slipped through the vapor like a phantom, circling behind the second thug—the wire-thin one.

With a swift, practiced motion, Jack executed a Silent Takedown. He struck the punk precisely at the carotid artery with the edge of his palm. It was a classic, non-lethal police strike, designed to cut off blood flow to the brain instantly. The punk’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed silently into the trash piles, his switchblade clattering onto the wet asphalt.

"What the—?" the giant brute with the iron pipe roared, swinging the heavy metal bar in a wild, horizontal arc.

The pipe whistled through the air, shattering a wooden crate where Jack had been standing a second before. Splinters exploded into the rain.

Jack tried to close the distance, intending to physically disarm the giant brute. He lunged for the man's wrist, attempting a joint lock he had practiced a thousand times at the police academy. But as his fingers brushed the cold steel of the brute's cybernetic shoulder plate, his chronic hand tremor flared violently. His grip slipped. His fingers refused to lock.

The brute laughed, using his massive cybernetic shoulder to slam Jack backward.

The physical impact was devastating. Jack crashed into the brick wall, the wind knocked completely out of his lungs. He felt a sharp, stabbing agony in his left side—bruised ribs, possibly cracked. As he fell to the wet ground, his left wrist twisted awkwardly under his body, a sharp sprain sending white-hot needles of pain up his arm.

He scrambled backward, his boots slipping in the grease, as the brute raised the iron pipe for a killing blow. The third enforcer with the metal jaw plate was already closing in from the other side, drawing a heavy brass knuckle-duster caked in dried blood.

Jack was out of options. His unmodified human body was screaming in pain, his left wrist useless, his ribs burning with every breath. He couldn't win a physical brawl against two enhanced gang members in a closed space.

He reached into his coat with his right hand, his fingers wrapping around the cold, checkered wooden grip of Detective Mercer's Service Revolver.

It was a heavy-caliber, old-fashioned six-shot weapon. A relic, just like him. But it was reliable, and it fired heavy lead bullets that didn't care about low-tier cybernetics.

Jack pulled the trigger.

The thunderous blast of the revolver shattered the quiet of the alleyway, the muzzle flash illuminating the brick walls in a brilliant, violent orange.

The first round caught the giant brute squarely in the shoulder, the heavy lead bullet tearing through the leather jacket and shattering the joint behind the cybernetic plate. The brute roared in agony, dropping the iron pipe as he stumbled backward into a stack of rusted metal drums.

Jack didn't stop. He pivoted, his sprained left wrist throbbing as he used his left hand to steady his trembling right arm. He fired two more rounds in rapid succession.

The second bullet struck the brick wall inches from the third enforcer's head, showering his face with sharp stone fragments. The third round caught him in the thigh, sending him crashing to his knees with a wet thud.

The alley fell silent again, save for the steady patter of the rain and the groans of the two wounded enforcers. Jack stood in the middle of the alley, his chest heaving, the acrid smell of gunpowder blending with the rancid stench of wet garbage. He had fired three precious rounds from his limited ammunition, and his sprained wrist was throbbing with a dull, persistent ache.

Then, the sound of distant sirens began to echo through the rain-slicked streets.

It was the high-pitched, warbling wail of the NCPD 5th Precinct's patrol cruisers. In District 13, the privatized police force rarely investigated gang violence, but they always responded to gunshots—especially if they could use it as an excuse to shake down the locals or collect a corporate bounty.

Jack knew he had to move. If Christian Ward or any of Briggs's corrupt officers caught him here with a smoking gun, they would execute him on the spot and label him a rogue vigilante.

He scrambled toward the dark, narrow service alleyway adjacent to the diner, his boots splashing in the toxic puddles. He ran blindly, keeping low, using the steam vents and the shadows to mask his escape.

As he rounded a sharp corner behind a stack of abandoned shipping containers, his boot caught on something heavy and soft.

Jack stumbled, his sprained wrist taking the brunt of his fall as he crashed onto the wet concrete. He groaned, pushing himself up, and turned to look at what had tripped him.

It was a man, slumped against a pile of rusted industrial drums.

Jack pulled a small, brass penlight from his pocket, shielding the beam with his hand as he shone it on the figure. His breath caught in his throat.

The man was massive, clad in a torn leather vest. But his skin—it was shifting. Even in the dim light, Jack could see the rough, grey, stone-like texture spreading across the man's chest and arms, turning his flesh into something resembling solid concrete.

It was Brick Malone.

The infamous superhuman enforcer of the Concrete Crushers was bleeding out, his chest torn open by high-velocity kinetic rounds from what looked like a rival gang shootout. He was gasping for air, his stone-like fingers clutching a deep wound in his side, his eyes wide with the panic of a dying beast.

The sirens were growing louder, the red and blue searchlights of the patrol cruisers already sweeping the main street just a block away.

Jack stood over the dying superhuman, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. This was the man who had been present at Sarah's murder. The only man who held the first real clue to the higher conspiracy that had destroyed his life. And he was dying, his memories about to vanish into the dark forever.

Jack's hand slowly drifted to his inner pocket, where the heavy, brass pneumatic injector designed by Dr. Cole rested. He looked at the dying monster, then at the flashing lights reflecting in the rain above.

He had to make a choice.