Ash owes enough to buy half an alley. The lung filter behind his ribs has been whining for a month. Every morning the debt drone reads him a fresh price on his own organs. Neural tissue ships well. Lungs and kidneys don't cover the courier.
He fixes junk in Rust Rain Alley. The boss takes calls about his resale value while he's at the bench.
One night that boss kicks a scorched military case across the floor. A spinal interface core. Burned, cracked. The client wants it confirmed dead before the shell goes for scrap.
It isn't dead.
Under the standard circuitry: another layer. Cuts too fine for any workshop tool, running through the metal-ceramic body. The bench scanner spits red text and quits. Ash touches one of the lines. The probe tip goes black. His left hand closes around the housing and won't open. Every wire in the walls lights up behind his eyes.
The core knows him.
The lines are sigil-work. Pre-Tianheng. Tianheng spent decades scraping it out of records, shop walls, old schematics. They send Quill Shen — enforcer, right eye that kills the current in a room — to put Ash back in a drawer.
Underground, Ash starts building Greyforge. A repair bench in a borrowed basement. Then another. A Conduit Glove that burns his left palm. A handful of people Jiguang already wrote off.
His lung filter is still failing.
