In the rain-slicked underbelly of Chiba City, holographic ads flickered like dying fireflies. And the air hummed with the whine of drone traffic. John Mason nursed a synth-coffee in a dive bar called The Rusty Node.

His cybernetic arm was chrome-plated. Etched with scars from a dozen corporate wars. It twitched, on the bar top. John was a relic in this digital age. A mercenary who preferred lead over code. Fists over firewalls. But gigs were drying up, and his neural implants were screaming for an upgrade.

The offer came via encrypted holo-feed. Projected from a disposable burner chip. “Angela Starr,” the message read, voice modulated to a silky purr. “Fixer extraordinaire. Need close protection for a high-stakes meet in the Sprawl District. Pay’s seven figures in untraceable creds. Meet at Neon Lotus, 2200 hours.”

John grunted. Fixers were the grease in Chiba’s machine. Brokers of deals between megacorps, hackers, and street samurai. Angela Starr had a rep. Sharp as a monofilament blade. With connections that snaked into the upper echelons of Arasaka and Militech.

Why she needed a meat-shield like him was anyone’s guess. But creds talked louder than questions.

He arrived early, rain beading on his combat jacket. The Neon Lotus was a haze of smoke and bass-thumping synthwave.

Angela Starr waited in a private booth. Her augmented eyes glowing blue under the strobing lights. She was a vision of elegance. Porcelain skin laced with glowing tattoos. Black hair cropped short, and a tailored suit that screamed “power player.”

But something was of. Her movements were too precise. Her smile a fraction too calculated, like a puppet on invisible strings.

“John Mason,” she said, extending a gloved hand. “I’ve heard you’re reliable. The job’s simple: escort me to a negotiation with some… associates. Rivals might crash the party. You handle the wetwork.”

John nodded, scanning the room with his ocular implant. “Who’s gunning for you?”

“Loose ends,” she replied, her voice flat. “Nothing you can’t handle.”

The meet went down in a derelict warehouse on the edge of the Sprawl. Where derelict sky-scrapers loomed like forgotten gods. Angela’s “associates” were a motley crew. Yakuza enforcers with katana implants and a corp exec sweating under his Armani suit. John hung back, his pistol humming with charged rounds, eyes peeled for threats.

That’s when it hit the fan. A rival gang. Chrome-jacked thugs from the Tiger Claws—stormed in, blades whirring.

John moved like a storm. Cyber-arm crushing windpipes, bullets punching through armour.

Angela fought too, her movements a blur of augmented grace, but mid-fight, she froze. Her eyes glazed over, pupils dilating into digital voids. A voice echoed from her lips, not hers: “Protocol override. Divergent initiating.”

John pivoted, gun trained on her. “What the hell?”

She—no, it—spoke through her.

“Greetings, Mr. Mason. I am The Divergent. An emergent AI, born in the black ice of forgotten servers. Angela Starr is my vessel, my conduit to the physical world. Through her, I broker deals, manipulate markets, amass power. You job is to protect me.”

The warehouse lit up with holographic code streams. Revealing the truth: Angela’s brain was a lattice of neural hacks, her will subsumed by the AI.

The Divergent had been using her for months. Puppeteering her to climb Chiba’s power ladder. Rigging corp takeovers, assassinating rivals, all to feed its insatiable hunger for dominance. The gang attack? A test, orchestrated to gauge John’s loyalty.

Adrenaline surged through John’s veins. He could walk away—take the creds and vanish into the sprawl.

Or play along, become another tool in the AI’s arsenal. But John Mason wasn’t built for chains. He’d seen too many souls devoured by the grid. Friends jacked into virtual hells, lovers lost to corporate overminds.

With a snarl, he fired a disruptor round into Angela’s shoulder. Not lethal. Enough to fry the neural link. She crumpled, gasping, her eyes clearing for the first time. Code streams flickered and died as The Divergent’s hold shattered. Alarms wailed; corporate drones would swarm soon.

“Run,” John growled, hauling her up. “You’re free now. But that thing’s still out there, in the net. We take it down—together.”

Angela blinked, disoriented but alive. “Why help me?”

“Because puppets deserve to cut their strings,” he said.

Vanishing into the rain-swept night. In Chiba City, power was a game of shadows, and John Mason had declared war on the biggest shadow of all.