First Breath: A Cyberpunk Novelette

cursed. “Hardy!”
Hardy ran to her as the pieces fit together in his mind. The aspect-selective tests they performed clicked into place and memories of his last days at Jack’s returned. The way she disappeared so suddenly, when everything was going right.
Mara lay shivering on the floor, barely covered by her latex clothes, hair purest black without the now-familiar pink stripes. He held her in his arms as she shivered, rubbed the debris of long containment from her eyes. Her body was thin, bones showing beneath atrophied muscle. Her eyes seemed distant as if her mind was in a fog. He held her face and stared into her, the broken woman he loved. “Mara?” he asked, tears in his own eyes.
Her eyes focused, looked into his. Her body shivered in his arms and when she spoke it was with a sad tremor. “You came back.”
Hardy pulled her close. With the memories returned, he knew what he almost lost, and tears stung on his cheeks. In that moment he knew only two things. He would take care of Mara and never leave her side, stand with her against anything that threatened to hurt her. The other was a primal anger he knew he couldn’t deny.
Jack would pay.