Chapter 97: Morning After Darkness

## Chapter 24: Morning After Darkness

The exoskeleton's hydraulics hissed as Kasper worked, gun oil mixing with antiseptic in the medical bay's pre-dawn air. His hands moved through the maintenance ritual without conscious thought - field strip, clean, reassemble. The servos whined with each adjustment, a counterpoint to the tremors he couldn't quite control.

"Warning: Enhancement core malfunction detected." The medical display's alert cut through his focus. "Neural pathway degradation accelerating. Immediate attention required."

He ignored it, attacking a blood stain on the exoskeleton's joint. His empty ports burned along his spine, phantom signals from hardware that no longer existed. The blood flaked away beneath his fingers, revealing scratched brass beneath.

A security alert flashed red across the wall. Third dock family targeted in the harbor district. His muscles tensed, combat instincts screaming to move. The cleaning rag tore in his clenched fist.

"Your cortisol's spiking again." Chen materialized in the doorway, her own enhancement ports powered down - a gesture that had become ritual since she'd started finding him here before dawn. "That's the fourth medical alert you've ignored."

"I'm maintaining essential equipment." His fingers traced patterns in dried blood that wouldn't come clean.

"For thirty minutes?" Her war rhythm tapped against her thigh as she moved closer. "The same joint. While dock workers die."

The pneumatic tube network chimed. His mother's message capsule rattled through brass fittings, her handwriting visible through water damage: "The international papers say the harbor's burning. Please, hijo. Just let us know you're alive. That you're still..."

The rest blurred away, but he knew the word. Still human.

"Enhancement core failure imminent," the medical display pulsed. Red light painted Chen's frown as she read his vitals. 

"Your body's rejecting even the basic stabilizers now," she said. "Keep pushing, and you'll lose baseline function."

Another security alert flashed. Fourth family targeted. The exoskeleton's servos whined as his grip tightened on the frame. "They need protection."

The doors hissed open. Santos stepped in, blood staining his tactical gear - type AB negative, Elena's cousin's blood type, his sensors noted automatically. "Two more families hit. Elena's closest relatives." The blood on Santos's sleeve was still wet. Fresh. Personal.

Kasper's fingers flew across the startup panel. The exoskeleton hummed to life, promising clean efficiency unburdened by human weakness.

"Stop." Chen's command cracked like a gunshot. "Look at what you're becoming."

"I'm becoming what they need."

"Are you?" She grabbed his wrist. "Close your eyes. Tell me what you see when you try to rest."

"Tactical assessments. Entry points. Kill-"

"And Elena? Miguel? The people you swore to protect?"

His hands stilled on the machinery. He tried to picture Miguel's weathered smile, Elena's quiet strength. Instead, his mind calculated kill zones with mechanical precision. Clean. Efficient. Inhuman.

A fresh explosion rattled the windows. Third Precinct, from the sound. The tremors in his hands intensified.

"Sistema critico," the medical display flashed. "Neural degradation reaching terminal threshold."

The radio at his belt crackled. "Kasper?" Maria's voice carried raw worry beneath its professional edge. "Your readings... Dios mío, what are you doing to yourself?"

The exoskeleton beckoned - clean lines of steel and hydraulics that asked nothing but obedience. The radio promised connection, but connection meant feeling. Meant remembering he was still human enough to break.

Protection or connection. Machine or man. The choice burned like acid in his empty ports.

The St. Michael medallion pressed against his chest where Elena had pressed it into his palm, her hands still bloody from tending his wounds. Its weight marked every life he'd taken. Every choice between necessary violence and remaining human.

The tremors in his hands stilled for the first time since dawn as he reached for the radio. Sean answered instantly, forced cheer barely masking concern: "The chrome-hunting hermit lives! About time - Maria's threatening to sedate you into next week."

Something tight in his chest loosened. Just a fraction. Just enough.

Kasper set down the rag, let the dried blood stay where it was. Some stains needed to remain visible. Some machines needed blood to work. But they all needed humanity to guide them.

"Left servo's acting up." The words came easier than expected. "Compensation's off-"

"Because you're telegraphing your strikes, pendejo." Lucas cut in through café noise. "I told you the bearing needed-"

"Both of you shut up." Maria's voice carried medical authority beneath the banter. "Kasper, either you sleep, or I'm bringing enough tranqs to drop a steam carriage."

Chen watched the tension ease from his shoulders as familiar voices filled the room. Her fingers found that old scar at her throat - a habit from hunting worse monsters than cartel soldiers. "They help anchor you. When the mission tries to steal your humanity piece by piece."

Morning sun caught enhancement ports across the city, making them glow like dying stars. Above it all, church bells began to toll - marking another day balanced between salvation and damnation.

Kasper closed the exoskeleton's maintenance panel but left the power on. Violence would come again. The city demanded its price in blood. But some prices had to be paid by men, not machines.

Through the radio, his friends' voices continued - a lifeline to who he'd been. To who he might still be, if he remembered to carry both darkness and light.

His hands found purpose in the machinery. Time to earn the medallion's weight in blood.

But first, he needed to remember why that weight mattered.