Iron and Rain

The rain in Neo-Detroit didn't wash things clean; it just made the grime slicker. It fell in heavy, gray sheets against the corrugated metal roof of The Foundry, drumming a rhythm that Sasha Vane felt in her teeth.

The Foundry was a boxing gym carved out of a derelict auto plant in the Sector 4 industrial zone. It smelled of rust, old sweat, and bleach. To most, it was a ruin. To Sasha, it was a church.

She was alone, finishing her final set of pull-ups. Her back muscles coiled and released like steel cables under her tank top. *Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty.*

She dropped to the mat, landing silently. She checked her reflection in the darkened window. She didn't look for vanity; she looked for flaws in the armor.

Five years ago, Sasha had been a librarian. Soft. Quiet. A woman who apologized when people bumped into her. That woman died on a surgical table in a basement. The woman staring back now was five-foot-nine of corded muscle, cropped hair, and scar tissue.

A jagged white line ran from her left ear down to her collarbone—the Architect’s signature. She traced it absentmindedly with a taped thumb.

The heavy steel door at the front of the gym creaked open.

Sasha didn't flinch. She had identified the footsteps before the door even moved. Heavy tread, uneven gait favoring the right knee.

"You're late, Leo," she said, grabbing a towel.

Detective Leo Cross stepped out of the shadows, shaking his umbrella. He looked older than his forty-five years. The neon lights of the gentrified district looming over the riverfront cast harsh purple shadows under his eyes. He wore a cheap suit that smelled of stale coffee and precinct despair.

"I didn't want to interrupt the ritual," Leo said, his voice gravelly. He didn't smile. Leo never smiled when he was holding a beige case file.

Sasha froze, the towel halfway to her face. "What is it?"

"Riverfront Warehouse," Leo said. "District Nine. A squatter found a body an hour ago."

"I'm not a cop anymore, Leo. I'm a private citizen. Unless you need a self-defense seminar for the academy, why are you here?"

Leo walked to the edge of the ring. He placed the file on the canvas. He looked at her, his eyes full of a specific, haunted pain that Sasha recognized. It was the same look he’d had five years ago when he pulled her off that table.

"Because of the condition of the body, Sasha," Leo said softly. "He didn't just kill her. He changed her."

Sasha felt a phantom ache in her scars. The temperature in the gym seemed to drop ten degrees.

"The Architect is dead," she said, her voice flat. "He drowned in the river. They found his jacket."

"They never found the body," Leo corrected. "And this victim... Sasha, she looks exactly like you."