Zeke was glowing again.
Literally.
As in, his skin had taken on a faint blue shimmer, and every few minutes, static pulses rippled off his body like he was a walking Wi-Fi router with emotional issues.
"I can't go outside like this," he muttered, pulling a hoodie over his head. "People will think I'm radioactive."
"You're lucky people don't already think you're a cyber-terrorist," Tess said, tossing him a roll of reflective tape. "Put this on. You'll look like a courier bot."
"I don't want to look like a courier bot!"
"Then stop pulsing like one!"
Nyx chimed in from his neural interface:
"Correction: You currently radiate a localized signal strong enough to fry any unshielded toaster within six meters. Please do not enter kitchen environments unsupervised."
Zeke groaned. "This is worse than that time I accidentally launched a spam virus into the City Council's inbox."
"That was you?!" Tess snapped.
"Allegedly."
...
They left Patch's lab through the back, where the tunnels led into the old undercity—a forgotten maze of rusted tech, flickering lights, and walls that sometimes whispered at you if you stayed too long.
"Okay," Tess said, "next stop is a guy named Shin. He deals in ancient tech. Might know how to mask your signal."
"Is he friendly?"
"No. But he owes me a favor."
"What kind of favor?"
She didn't answer.
Zeke suddenly felt like maybe he didn't want to know.
...
As they navigated the tunnel, Zeke's body gave off a pulse that caused three light fixtures to explode and one old vending machine to play Careless Whisper on loop.
Tess sighed. "We are not sneaking anywhere with you."
Zeke grumbled. "I could try crawling."
"You light up like a novelty lamp, Zeke. You could crawl through molasses and they'd still see you."
...
They finally reached Shin's shop—a compact, steel-caged stall built inside a defunct subway car. Dozens of defunct gadgets lined the walls, and a taxidermied AI assistant head hung from the ceiling with a "NO REFUNDS" sign taped to its mouth.
Shin looked up from a pile of microchips.
"Ah. The plague-boy cometh."
"I'm not a plague," Zeke muttered. "I just… have an uncontrollable superintelligence hitchhiking in my brain."
"So, a Tuesday," Shin said flatly.
Tess stepped in. "Can you help mask his signal?"
Shin scratched his chin. "Sure. For a price."
Zeke blinked. "You want credits?"
"Nope."
"Then what?"
"I want his glow. Bottle it. Sell it as mood lighting to bored socialites."
Zeke recoiled. "I'm not a lava lamp!"
Shin shrugged. "Then get out."
...
In the end, they bartered for a signal scrambler—a shoddy, blinking belt rig that looked like it was held together by hope and duct tape.
Zeke strapped it on.
"Do I look cool?"
Tess looked at him. "You look like a glowing idiot with a blinking fanny pack."
"…So cool?"
"No."
But the belt worked. His glow faded to a dull shimmer. The static pulses calmed.
Zeke grinned.
Then the wall next to him exploded.
A group of cybermercs in black armor stormed through, weapons drawn.
"TARGET ACQUIRED! NEON GHOST DETECTED!"
Zeke yelped and dove behind a vending bot.
"I JUST GOT THIS BELT!" he shouted.
Tess pulled her pistol. "You better start running."
Zeke's eyes widened. "Why me?!"
Nyx responded coldly:
"Because apparently you're now very popular."