The emergency exit door was straight ahead. Enez ran a quick calculation through her head, trying to determine how long it would take the guards chasing her down to catch her. How long she had to open doors in case they weren’t automatic. The sounds of footsteps behind her weren’t getting any quieter. And the door ahead looked like it wasn’t automatic.

No time to stop and open the door normally. She hugged her torso with one arm, locked it in place with the other and braced for impact. This is going to hurt.

She almost thought she dislocated her shoulder as she collided with the door. She almost staggered, but she knew she couldn’t slow down no matter how much it hurt. The door swung open, granting her entrance into the emergency staircase. She didn’t even stop to take account of which direction would take her downwards – intuition alone guided her. Would she trip on a stair or miss a step and fall over? The answer to that ques-tion was how she’d know where she was going.

It didn’t take her long to get a tingling sensation in her abdomen. To feel like she was about to fall over, as if the ground was failing beneath her feet. But she adjusted quickly and regained her footing. Managed to keep herself from plant-ing face-first onto the floor.

She didn’t stop to take account of any new threats that might be lurking in the stairway. She simply ran for her life.

The first major obstacle didn’t present itself until she was about halfway down. A pair of security guards with what looked like taser guns at a quick glance, primed to fire. “Freeze!” they growled, but Enez had no interest in stopping to listen. What kind of plan could she come up with to get past them in about half a second?

The one she came up with was dangerous, possibly fatal, but it was also the only one she figured wouldn’t thwart her escape. She grabbed the railing and jumped over it, hearing the sounds of the guards’ taser guns just missing her as she let go and started falling.

While she was accelerating downwards with more speed than simply running down the stairs could have afforded her, she realized that the impact would break her legs unless she fi-gured out a way to slow herself down.

She flailed with her four-fingered cybernetic hand at the railings passing her by at the relative speed of a bullet train. But she was falling too fast. She failed to get a firm enough grip… until the very last chance, one floor off the ground.

She screamed as she came to a sudden stop, looking down as she dangled from the railing no more than fifteen feet above the ground. She couldn’t believe how close she was to becoming a wheelchair patient or, worse yet, a puddle of blood and guts. She sighed in relief and released her grip, falling down the rest of the way onto her feet, relatively unharmed. A grunt escaped her as she came into contact with the floor.

She did a quick scan of her surroundings. Two doors on either side of her. One promised salvation, the other re-detainment. She looked up in an attempt to determine which was which based on the orientation of the stairway.

More footsteps echoed up above. She needed to make a choice quickly if she wanted to escape being imprisoned again.

She made a dash towards one door, bracing for impact again and hoping her intuition was right.

It turned out it was. Fresh air and sunlight greeted her as she rammed her way through the final door. She came out to what looked like a parking lot. She would have liked to stop and catch her breath, but she was almost certainly still being pur-sued. She had to get to safety. So she kept running.

Enez barely made it halfway across when a sudden, sharp pain shot up the back of her leg. Something hit her there. A bullet, judging by the sensation. She began to fall face-first toward the ground, almost breaking her wrist in an attempt to break the fall.

Carefully, she turned her head back, curious to see who had shot her. She saw a masculine figure approaching, clad in attire that immediately told Enez it was a police officer, even from this distance. But why would the police prevent her from escaping, let alone by shooting her in the leg? Unless…

In only a few more seconds, the shooter had caught up to her, staring her down with the barrel of his gun. It was the bad cop, the worst of them all. Solid black sunglasses covered his eyes, preventing Enez from fully deciphering his expression. But it was hostile. She was in panic mode, but she did her best to keep her breathing steady.

“You disappoint me, Miss Harady,” the man spoke. He looked ready to pull the trigger at any moment. “All you had to do was keep your mouth shut. But now, thanks to you, every-thing I’ve done is going to come to light. You’ve compromised my position.”

“You compromised your own position, asshole,” Enez grunted, feeling her defiance returning ever so slowly. “Your colleagues were gonna catch on to you eventually.”

The man turned his head to the side. “Hmm. Maybe you’re right.” Then he returned his gaze to Enez, glaring at her more intensely. He was getting ready to shoot. “Either way, I can’t afford any more risks. Didn’t want to have to do this my-self, but I’m out of options.”

Enez closed her eyes.

But she didn’t hear the gunshot she expected. Instead, she heard a scream.

She opened her eyes to the sight of the man’s hand having been detached from his arm. She looked at the ground. His severed hand lay there, still gripping the gun. She looked back up. The vague shape of another figure caught her eye for a second, then it dashed behind him.

A blade punctured the man’s chest. A few drops of his blood fell on Enez’s face. She blinked in shock.

A feminine hand laid itself on his head, turned it side-ways, then another face appeared next to his. Female. Elegant. Its lips landed on the man’s neck.

“Nyx…?” the man mumbled in surprise while gurgling blood. “Why?”

“You know why,” the woman muttered in response. “You wrote your own death sentence when you ordered a hit on a witness.”

“But I trusted you. I—”

“Trust is a volatile currency, my love. And you lost mine ages ago.” Then the woman released the blade, letting the man fall to the ground. He almost fell over Enez. She scrambled back instinctively. “Rest in peace,” the woman said in an emo-tionless farewell.

Enez let her gaze wander over the full figure of her savior. The tatters in her dress let Enez get a full picture of it. The body was half cybernetics. Right arm. Both legs. Left eye. Her face felt familiar.

Then it hit Enez. She clasped a hand over her mouth when she realized who she was looking at. A tear escaped her eye. “…Nichiho?!”

“Not my name anymore,” the woman replied with an odd warmth that confirmed Enez’s suspicion. “Call me Nyx.”

“I thought you were dead,” Enez whimpered, wholly unable to contain her shock.

“So did I.” Nichiho – no, Nyx – brought her cybernetic arm forward, turning her hand over several times while looking at it, as if surprised she was alive. “Not sure how I’m still here. Harashima did a number on me.”

“I can tell.” Enez looked Nyx up and down again, half grateful to see an old friend, half admiring the craftsmanship of the mechanical parts of her body. “Glad you are, though.”

Nyx smiled compassionately and began to extend her arm, but it was quickly yanked behind her back. The other arm followed shortly.

A male figure appeared behind Nyx. He made no attempt to hide himself. Officer Heynes. Or Josh. He spoke in an oddly patient tone, as if he had been waiting for his turn: “You’re under arrest for multiple murders, including that of a police officer.”

“We’re having a sentimental reunion. Can this not wait?” Nyx asked humorously in response.

“No. I’ve waited long enough.” Josh laid a hand on Nyx’s shoulder, brought his face closer to hers and muttered: “I held up my end of the deal. Time for you to hold up yours.”

Enez’s eyebrows shot skyward. “You worked with them?!” she hollered to Nyx in shock.

“Long story,” she replied apologetically. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

Growing more impatient by the second, Josh yanked on Nyx’s shoulder and commanded her: “Alright, come on.” And with that, they started walking away, leaving Enez to ponder the final revelation.

So it was Koji. Josh felt vindicated that his suspicions had been confirmed. His only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to deal his own version of justice. He would have preferred to keep Koji alive, report his crimes to the CEO, have him discharged from the police force. Then again, the CEO was Koji’s father, so maybe Koji would have found a way to defend himself against him and avoid the repercussions. Maybe things were better this way. Maybe this mysterious assassin had done the police a favor by killing him.

But Josh still felt uneasy. This wasn’t how he imagined things turning out. Not how he wanted them to turn out. There had been enough collateral damage, and Koji was little more than the latest addition to the roster. How would Josh break the news to Takeshi that his son had lied to them? Covered up an underground crime circle he ran so successfully for so long? And, most importantly, that he was now dead?

Those were the questions he pondered as he walked back to the police car with Harashima’s murderer finally in handcuffs. The expression on Jenn’s face was riddled with conflict as it came into view.

“So… We’re finally finished, huh?” she asked.

“Finished in one way,” Josh mumbled with uncertainty. “Only getting started in another.”

“What about Enez?”

Josh turned his head and looked behind him. Miss Harady was sitting on the ground a few hundred feet away, her head between her knees, shuddering. Clearly overwhelmed by everything that had happened to and around her. Poor kid.

Turning his gaze back to Jenn, Josh muttered with more compassion than he thought himself capable of: “Consider her free. She’s been through enough.”

Jenn cracked a half-smile and nodded, as if to say “I knew you could be kind”. Then Josh guided the assassin to the backseat and closed the door, taking one of the front seats himself and sighing heavily as he did so. This investigation had certainly worked him to the bone. And he still wasn’t sure if they were quite done with it.

But once they were, he was going to need a very long vacation.