Chapter Text
The world held its breath, or maybe it was her.
She sat on the remains of a ruin, all broken structure with its open sky. Concrete split years ago, the edges now blooming with tar. Out at the skirt, figures drifted.
BTs.
She always thought they moved like puppets with their strings cut. Handprints materialized on the ground where they passed, but the marks always faded. That part hurt the most—to leave a trace and have even that erased. Her cables still twitched at the sight.
Thunder rattled the loose concrete around her boots. She hated that sound, the way memory came to haunt her. Once upon a time, there’d been light and chiral fire all at once. She woke up afterward half-dead and half-changed: one eye gone, and veins blooming with gold.
Storms were never just weather to her. They were reminders.
Her fingers hurt inside the glove, so she flexed them against the leather, trying to rub circulation back. The ache only sharpened. Something caught wrong in her throat with a metallic taste, like biting down on aluminum. She told herself it was nothing, but the golden mist of her breath told another story. She angled her face away so she didn’t have to see it.
Sometimes she wondered if the BTs could smell her. If the sickness inside had a scent that wasn't blood but corrosion. If they drifted here because some part of her already matched their nature.
Glint. What a joke of a name. A shine. A quick light. A flash you almost see.
Naming is a curse. Someone said it once and it stuck with her ever since. She’d been a spark before the strike, but now that brightness showed up on her breath. Now light meant warning. They say hunters look for glints.
She’d come out here because patterns were, at least, honest with themselves. The BTs made one around the ruins without meaning to, and she sat inside it the way a target sits inside a scope. An experiment, she’d said to herself. Hold, or let go? She was here. And the BTs were here. And the tar below seemed to wait.
Breathe in, breathe out. Count to four, count to eight.
She let herself imagine, just for a small moment, what might follow with a single step forward. The ordinary absence of a body’s obligations. Her nature still looked for reasons to stay, though. One was stubbornness. It had gotten her this far, which was admittedly nowhere. The second was meaner: curiosity. The same thing that kept her in labs, so the question arrived without much fanfare: what happens next?
She stayed with that question, rolling it through her mind. It worked until a new pressure entered the field. Glint didn’t flinch. She’d seen these tricks before. When you live with bad odds and worse side effects, powers like that start to feel meaningless. Her DOOMS didn’t open doors anyway. She got the noise instead.
“Well now,” he said, muffled under the mask but unmistakable. “Ain’t you a sight.”
Her stomach dropped before her brain could name it. She knew him. Everyone did. The man in the golden mask—terrorist, zealot, self-proclaimed herald of the end.
Higgs.
Of all people, it had to be him. She almost laughed. The universe had a real talent for timing. She couldn’t even die quietly without someone turning it into a fucking show.
“If you’re trying to impress me,” she said, still not turning, “you’ll have to do better than cheap theatrics.”
He laughed as he stepped closer. “Oh, I don’t do cheap. You’ll know when I’m showin’ off.”
“Can’t wait,” she replied, still watching the BTs drift. Her tone was pure ice.
The sky flashed again, her cables recoiling instinctively. She hoped he didn’t notice.
“Look at that,” he said, lazy but laced with curiosity. “Flinchin’ at a little light. Now that’s interestin’.”
“Keep guessing.”
“Guessin’?” He laughed again, shaking his head. “No baby, I don’t do guess. I read. And you’re an open book at that—just one that’s been left out in the rain far too long.” He circled closer. “But don’t worry. I’ve always had a soft spot for damaged goods.”
She kept her gaze on the BTs. One swipe of his gloved hand and the whole field got erased. Her chest tightened not in fear, but calculation. He can move them.
He turned his palm up, admiring the empty space he’d made. “Neat trick, huh? Death and I—we got a bit of an arrangement.”
She forced her voice out. “Didn’t need your help.”
“Course you didn’t.” He stepped closer again. “You weren’t gonna ask for it either. Too proud for that. I like it. But pride’s just another word for lonely, ain’t it? I’d know.”
She shifted her glove against her thigh. Her cables twitched once restless, but she forced them down. He was too close for comfort and he knew it. Seemed to revel in the knowledge.
Her amber eye cut sideways. “You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t I?” he said, far too quick. “You stink of the same thing I do. Stubborn as a goddamn mule.”
The tone undercut the words—familiar, almost fond. It nagged somewhere deep in her memory.
“Funny,” she said. “From here, you just stink of arrogance.”
His laugh rolled out easily. “Oh, now you’re just flatterin’ me.”
“Wouldn’t waste the effort.”
Her contamination clawed at her throat again with a sour taste. She swallowed it back, wouldn't let it show.
He tilted his head. “Not gonna run?”
No reply.
“Not gonna beg either, I’m guessin’.”
“No point.”
Higgs laughed then, short and sharp. “No point. Ouch. Cold as they said.”
She stayed silent, but something turned in her stomach. He shouldn’t have known her tone, and yet—
Higgs stood there like death’s favorite son. The BTs had their rhythm, timefall its hunger, the tar its patience. He was something else entirely: the host who welcomed it all in with a fake smile. He was beautiful in the way cauterization is beautiful—necessary to someone, fatal to someone else.
His voice broke her line of thought. “Y’know, I did a little reading. Dug around the bones of BRIDGES.”
Her cables twitched, but she kept her gaze forward.
“Found a name,” he went on. “Whole shiny résumé. Big deal, big fall. Cute picture too. Before the patch.”
For a moment, the air between them turned strange. He looked at her too long, like he was trying to place her in an old photograph. Not the one he’d mentioned. Something else.
“Still hate ‘em?” he asked finally. “The ones that used you up and tossed what was left? You still cry about it, or did the guilt dry up with the eye?”
The word came clipped. “No.”
“That right? File must be wrong, then. Had you pegged for a little tragic. All that talent—then poof. Real tearjerker.”
“I really don’t care what you think.”
He made a little noise, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Oh, you do. I can smell it. All that righteous little fury tucked up neat under the science-talk.”
She reminded herself he was just background noise. That his opinion, his stare, or his words meant nothing. Yet her skin prickled where the scar met patch, as if her body hadn’t gotten the memo. She’d been called far worse: half-gone, freak. But there was something about the way he said things—so casual and so sure—that crawled under her composure.
She straightened, voice clinical. “Better a freak than pathetic.”
That earned her a grin she couldn't see. “You wound me, Glint. You call this pathetic? Look around you. I’m the only thing left that’s still enjoyin’ the show.”
“You mean performing.”
He chuckled. “Same thing, isn’t it? Difference is, I know when I’m doin’ it.”
Her voice stayed even. “Then you must be exhausted.”
“There it is. The ice. The famous BRIDGES composure. Still playin’ scientist while the world crumbles.” His head tilted, gold mask glinting as lightning flashed again. “But you don’t fool me. I think you like this version of yourself more.”
“And what version is that?”
“The broken one,” he said simply. “The old you was pretty, sure. But this?” He gestured vaguely at her. “You wear it better.”
She blinked, thrown off by the shift in tone. “You’ve got a strange way of complimenting people.”
“Who said it was a compliment?” he asked, almost amused. “You were a knife once, y’know. Good ol’ BRIDGES loved that. Me? I like what happens after the blade goes dull.”
The sound of rain filled the remaining space between them.
He looked at her, something a bit too honest showing under the smugness. “And now look at us. Couple of broken tools, still tryin’ to make somethin’ sharp outta each other.”
He’d lost his rhythm for a moment, now aware of the symmetry between them. She felt it, and filed it away again. The act fell back into place with a melodic laugh. “That’s what I like about you, Glint. You pretend you’re above it. But deep down?” He paused, savoring the next line. “You’re just like me. You hate bein’ small.”
Her jaw tightened so hard it ached. Another thing to the list. “What do you want from me?”
That made him laugh again, back on familiar ground. “Straight to business! Knew that brain would show up eventually.” He played with the hem of his glove. “Just want that pretty little trick of yours, Glint. That’s all.”
She flinched almost imperceptible, but he—always the observant hunter—caught it. “Ah! There it is. You don’t like compliments, huh? Makes the skin itch?” He circled her slowly, voice turning sing-song. “You think I don’t know what you can do? Lock the signal, stitch the seams together. Aaall tidy.”
The contamination raged along with her pulse.
His gloved hand dragged along a broken beam as he spoke, pacing a half-circle around her. “See, the Network’s comin’ back together, and the whole continent’s hummin’ to the same song right now. Hope, connection, all that sentimental garbage.” He flicked his fingers outward, casting light into the rain. “You really buy into that? I know you’re smarter than that. It’s all a performance. It just needs a better director.” He stopped right behind her. “You could do that. I’ve read what’s left of your files. The woman who could twist raw chiral into a bridge that wouldn’t collapse? Hell, that’s somethin’ else.”
Her golden eye narrowed.
Higgs lowered his voice. “I’m the one makin’ introductions these days, between this side and the next. The living and their pretty ghosts. You—” he lifted a hand, hovering just short of touching her jaw “—you make those introductions stick. That’s the part I like.”
“I could use that,” he went on. “Not to break it. To bend it. To make the Network hum the tune we choose. All that power… routed through one steady hand. Yours or mine, sweetheart. I ain’t picky about the order.”
Water streamed off his hood in rivulets. “Question is—do you wanna stay the little ghost hidin’ in the dark?”
Her hands curled inside her gloves. “You don’t know me.”
“Oh, please.” He rolled his shoulders with an exaggerated sigh. “You’re not that mysterious. I’ve read enough to know you’re not as good as you want the world to think.” As he leaned in, the air thickened. “You’re a real piece of work. Don’t know if I wanna gut you or keep you.”
Glint could feel her nose wrinkling. “Try either. See how it ends.”
He laughed with a sound that crawled under her skin. “Oh, baby. You’d like me to try, wouldn’t you?”
His gloved hand came up, slow enough for her to see it coming. Cold fabric met skin as he caught her jaw between his fingers with a rough grip—a reminder she had a face. Her breath stuttered as something deep inside crawled up with it. It had been so long since anyone had touched her.
He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “Ain’t here to hurt you. Not unless you ask real nice.” His thumb pressed lightly against the underside of her jaw, enough to make her throat tighten. “You just caught my attention, and that don't happen often.”
She resisted the urge to strike.
“You got bite,” he murmured. “Under all that cold act. God, that’s cute. Makes me wonder how long you’ve been sittin’ here, waitin’ to be seen. Days? Weeks?”
She forced the words past the choke of his hand. “And you? Are you always this chatty with people you plan to manipulate, or am I just lucky?”
He hummed, amused. “Baby, if you were any colder I’d get frostbite. Careful, though—people might start thinkin’ you’ve got composure.”
“Occupational habit.”
“Sure it is,” he said, leaning closer until his mask nearly touched her cheek. “Maybe you need time to think. Figure out if you’d rather die alone in your little hole, or do something productive while the world comes crashin’ down.”
His fingers dug harder into her jaw before he released her, like letting go was its own kind of dominance. She staggered, catching herself before he could see it.
“Professional courtesy,” he said, brushing his gloves against each other as if to rid them of her. “Not many get that from me. You’ve got four days. Then I come back.” He tilted his head, as if admiring her silence. “Say yes, and maybe I make this fun. Say no, and I take what I want anyway. Either way, I win. That’s the beauty of me.”
The faintest smirk ghosted over her mouth. “Consider this a polite decline.”
At the ruin’s edge, he glanced over his shoulder one last time. “Four days, Glint. You’ll change your mind. Everyone does when they realize how boring survival really is.”
He flickered out in a smear of gold, a twist in the air. Gone.
Glint lifted a gloved hand to her jaw where his fingers had pressed. She pressed harder, trying to rub the feel of him out. It didn’t go away.
Four days.
He hadn’t looked at her like the others did—curiosity filled with pity, concern dressed as distance. He had no mercy in him. It startled something she’d kept sedated. Biology, proximity. Plenty of animals run toward the light that kills them. That’s all it is, she told herself. But part of her—the part that loathed pity—counted what he’d offered, even wrapped in threat.
So four days.
Glint adjusted her gloves and stood, like standing was a choice she still had control over.