STATIC RUN-1

THE DRONE CRASH

The rain hammered Raven Garage like it had a personal grudge.

Ripley didn’t mind. Rain meant most people stayed inside. Rain meant fewer questions. Rain meant she could work in peace with nothing but the sound of water on metal and the quiet hum of her tools.

She knelt beside Raven, her motorcycle, one hand resting on the bike’s frame while the other adjusted the torque on a bolt she’d replaced three times already. Not because it needed replacing. Because she needed the work. Needed the focus. Needed something to do with her hands that wasn’t breaking into corporate facilities or dodging surveillance drones.

Click. Turn. Tighten.

The rhythm was meditative.

Her cybernetic left arm moved with precision—servo motors whispering beneath synthetic skin, fingers that could crush steel or thread a needle depending on what she asked of them. She’d built this arm herself. Rebuilt it, really. The original had been JinTech standard issue, back when she’d believed their promises about enhancement and opportunity.

She knew better now.

Click. Turn. Tighten.

Raven gleamed under the garage’s flickering overhead lights. Midnight purple paint job. Chrome exhaust. Custom suspension that could handle the Lower Spiral’s broken streets without rattling her spine apart. Ripley had found the bike in a scrapyard five years ago—rusted, stripped, abandoned. Most people would’ve seen trash.

She’d seen potential.

That was her problem, really. She saw broken things and wanted to fix them. Machines. Drones. Motorcycles. People.

Especially people.

The garage smelled like engine oil and ozone, with an undercurrent of rain-soaked concrete drifting in through the gaps in the walls. Raven Garage wasn’t much—corrugated metal walls, a concrete floor stained with years of grease and hydraulic fluid, workbenches covered in tools and spare parts. But it was hers. The crew’s headquarters. Home base. The one place in Helix City where she didn’t have to watch her back.

She wiped her hands on a rag and sat back on her heels, studying Raven with the critical eye of someone who’d spent half her life elbow-deep in machinery.

Good. Clean. Ready.

Her com chip flickered in her peripheral vision—a notification she dismissed without reading. Probably another ad. Her chip was old, held together by her own modifications and sheer stubbornness. It told her SYSTEM ERROR at least twice a day. She ignored it every time.

Outside, the rain intensified. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, echoing through the Lower Spiral’s narrow streets. Ripley stood, stretching muscles that had been locked in the same position for too long. Her back protested. Her knees protested. She ignored them both.

Thirty-two years old and already falling apart.

She grabbed a bottle of water from the workbench and took a long drink, her gaze drifting to the wall where she’d pinned photos, schematics, and a few hand-drawn sketches. The crew. Briggs, massive and steady. Nyx, grinning with electric-blue hair and one cybernetic eye. Declan in a stolen corporate suit, looking far too pleased with himself.

And Dex.

Youngest of them all. Twenty-three and still optimistic enough to believe they could actually change things. He had a smile that could disarm corporate security and a talent for getting into systems he had no business accessing.

Ripley’s chest tightened.

She hadn’t heard from him in four weeks.

That wasn’t unusual. Dex went dark sometimes when he was chasing a lead. But something felt wrong this time. A tension in her gut that she couldn’t name. The kind of instinct you learned to trust when you’d survived as long as she had in the Lower Spiral.

He’s fine. He’s always fine.

She didn’t believe it.

Ripley turned back to Raven, reaching for a diagnostic scanner. Routine maintenance. That’s all this was. Check the fuel lines. Test the ignition. Make sure everything—

The window exploded.

Glass shattered inward in a spray of glittering shards. Ripley threw herself sideways on instinct, her cybernetic arm coming up to shield her face. Something metallic crashed into the concrete floor with a sound like a car accident—grinding, screeching, wrong.

She hit the ground hard, rolled, came up in a crouch with a wrench in her hand because it was the closest thing to a weapon.

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

Rain poured through the broken window, turning the garage floor into a minefield of glass and water. And there, in the center of the chaos, a drone lay smoking on the concrete.

Not one of hers.

Ripley’s mind cataloged details automatically: Civilian model. Heavily damaged. Scorch marks along the chassis. One rotor completely sheared off. The casing was cracked, exposing wiring that sparked and hissed in the rain.

It shouldn’t be flying. It definitely shouldn’t have made it through her window.

She approached slowly, wrench still raised, every muscle coiled tight.

The drone’s remaining lights flickered—red, then amber, then a sickly green. Its core housing was dented, but intact. And there, barely visible through the damage, she saw it.

A holo projector.

Still functional.

Ripley’s breath caught.

She knelt beside the drone, her cybernetic fingers moving carefully over the casing. She found the activation panel, hesitated for half a heartbeat, then pressed it.

The projector sputtered to life.

Blue light spilled across the garage floor, coalescing into a figure. Translucent. Flickering. But unmistakable.

Dex.

He looked terrible. His face was bruised, one eye swollen. Blood—or something that looked like blood—streaked his temple. His usual cocky grin was gone, replaced by something Ripley had never seen on him before.

Fear.

“Rip.” His voice crackled with static, but it was him. Definitely him. “If you’re seeing this, I’m—” He glanced over his shoulder at something outside the projection’s frame. “I’m in trouble. Delta-level trouble.”

Ripley’s hand tightened on the wrench.

“I found something,” Dex continued, words tumbling out fast. “Something JinTech doesn’t want anyone to know about. I can’t—” Static consumed his voice for a moment. When it cleared, his expression had shifted to something desperate. “They’re coming. I don’t have much time. Rip, I need you. I need the crew. Please.”

He reached toward the camera, and Ripley saw his hand shaking.

“Help me, Rip.”

The projection cut out.

The garage fell silent except for the rain and the dying hiss of the drone’s damaged systems.

Ripley stared at the empty space where Dex’s image had been, her mind racing. She pulled the drone closer, flipping it over to access the data core. Her fingers found the port, and she jacked a cable directly from her cybernetic arm into the drone’s memory.

Data flooded her vision—corrupted files, fragmented code, layers of encryption she recognized immediately.

Dex’s signature.

He’d built this encryption himself. Taught her the pattern two years ago during a job that had gone sideways. Nobody else knew it. Nobody else could fake it.

This was real.

Dex was in trouble. Real trouble. The kind that involved JinTech and messages sent via dying drones and the look in his eyes that said he didn’t think he was getting out.

Ripley disconnected the cable and sat back on her heels, staring at the broken drone.

The rain poured through the shattered window.

Thunder rolled overhead.

And somewhere in Helix City, the youngest member of her crew—the kid she’d promised to keep safe, the one who still believed they could make a difference—was calling for help.

Ripley stood slowly, her jaw set.

She pulled her com chip’s interface into focus and started composing messages.

Briggs. Nyx. Declan.

Raven Garage. Now.

We’ve got work to do.

The wrench was still in her hand. She set it down carefully on the workbench, her gaze fixed on the broken window and the rain beyond.

Peace was over.

The hunt had begun.

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