03 — The Squid

April 17, 8:44 PM (D7)

The Squid didn’t have walls. It had membranes—translucent sheets of biofilm stretched on frames that sweated neon. Bass didn’t just pound; it stalked. Light didn’t illuminate; it swam, bending bodies into shapes that looked borrowed from dreams or nightmares, depending on the drink in your hand.

Leila pushed through it like she carried a private map. She didn’t dance—she negotiated space. She didn’t smile—she mirrored enough expressions to pass. The pouch pressing the drive into her ribs pulsed with a heat that wasn’t temperature but consequence.

On the mezzanine, two men leaned against a rail of biosteel polished to a mirror shine. They didn’t move with music; they moved against it, and that alone marked them. Pedro chewed gum with violent patience, like each snap was owed to him. Big L didn’t chew anything. His stillness was heavier than most men’s violence.

“That her?” Pedro’s lips barely moved.

Big L didn’t blink. His voice was a warm slab of concrete. “Left side. Buzzcut. Boots.”

Leila caught them in the reflection of a chrome pillar, and the reflection told her more than their bodies did: they weren’t afraid of being seen. Confidence that raw was its own kind of weapon.

She didn’t bolt. Not yet. Running too early marked you as prey.

Instead she cut toward the service stairs, past a bartender she’d once played poker with for fake IDs. The key she’d copied from his belt two summers ago slid smooth into the sublevel lock.

The bass dulled to a phantom heartbeat. The hallway stank of bleach, old beer, wet plastic. Condensation bled down walls lined with forgotten crates.

She crouched, pulled a panel loose with her ring blade, and pushed the drive deep into the knot of dead cabling behind it. The space had hidden contraband before—drugs, debt, knives. Tonight it would hide something heavier than all of them.

Footsteps entered the stairwell.

Not hurried. Not sloppy. Patient. Like they knew she was counting them.

“Leeeiila,” Pedro sang, his voice curling through the corridor like a lullaby sharpened with knives. “You always gotta run? Makes me feel unwanted.”

Big L added, voice like stone dragging: “You know what we want. You know we’ll get it.”

Her instincts screamed hide. Her spine remembered who taught her to hide, and how it ended—with someone else’s hands making her choices.

She stepped into the jaundiced light. Empty hands. Steady eyes.

“You came for the wrong girl,” she said.

Pedro grinned, gum snapping. “That’s my favorite kind.”

He moved first, cocky. Most people who win don’t. She dropped low, cut across his centerline, drove her elbow up into the hinge of his jaw. His teeth clicked shut with a copper crack. She saw him register the surprise like a timestamp.

Big L swung an arm thick as rebar. She slid under, palms burning against concrete, came up with her pocket prod hot in her fist. She slammed it into his ribs—fizz, crackle—only to feel the fizz die against plated armor. His hand swept back, a casual backhand, and pain shot white behind her eyes.

She spun with it, made the impact her momentum, shoved herself sideways to clear space, get line of sight on the stairwell.

“Fun,” Pedro said, rubbing his jaw. “Now do it again.”

She didn’t.

She bolted. The stairwell was narrow, its second step warped and treacherous. She jumped it without looking. Pedro cursed as his boot stuck. Big L tore free and followed.

At the door, she didn’t bother with the code. Her blade kissed the hinge. Metal screamed, gave, and the door burst out into a rain alley.

Neon hissed down wet walls, scrubbing club-stink from her lungs.

“Chez,” she breathed into her sleeve mic.

“Already moving,” he said. Sirens ghosted faint in his channel. “You plant it?”

“It’s planted,” she said. She pressed her hand against the rib where the drive had been, feeling phantom heat. “But something got planted back.”

Pedro’s voice shouted faint through the alley mouth, too far to reach, too close to forget.

“Yeah,” Chez whispered, voice small for once. “Yeah.”

Leila didn’t look back. She kept moving, because prey looked back. Predators didn’t.