He closed his eyes, the image of the smiling children burned into his mind. The logical part of him, the part that had kept him alive so many times, told him to walk away. To forget.

But the ghost of Ralph screamed louder.

Ray finally stood up, his jaw set, his movements stiff with a new, terrible resolve. He wasn't doing this because it's logical. He wasn't doing it for profit or for gain. He was doing it because the ghost of a dead man inside him, a man who had loved his children more than his own life, was screaming at him to save them.

The city's underbelly was a labyrinth of whispers and lies. For three days, Ray moved through it like a ghost, wearing the faces of dead men. One day, he was a wiry goon with a nervous tic, asking for information in low-life bars where the synth-booze was cheap and the patrons were cheaper. He confidently leaned on a fixer's desk the next day, his hair a flickering neon crown. He used Rex and Red's knowledge to locate possible informants.

But the trail was cold. The man known on the street as "Porcelain Jack"—or "Mr. Perfect" by those who feared him—was a ghost of a different kind. He operated through layers of intermediaries and encrypted dead-drops. Even the reaper whose memories Ray had consumed had never met him face-to-face; Jack had contacted them when he heard they had valuable "assets" for sale.

Frustration gnawed at Ray. Every lead turned into a dead end. The street was too tight-lipped, too afraid of a ghost they couldn't see. On the third night, in a reeking back-alley clinic, his patience snapped. A low-level data broker, who claimed to have worked with Jack on multiple occasions, refused to talk, his bodyguard, a hulking brute with cheap, oversized chrome arms, stepping forward with a menacing grin.

"Look, pal," the broker sneered, his voice slick with condescension. "Whatever sob story you're selling, I don't care. They were just a couple of street kids. Assets. Now get lost before my associate here turns you into one."

The word hit Ray like a physical blow. Assets. The same cold, dehumanizing term the doll-faced man had used for Ralph's children. The ghost of Ralph's paternal terror roared in his mind. Time was running out, not for him, but for the kids. It was time for more extreme actions.

The memories of Ripjaw, surfaced, cold and efficient. He saw the broker not as a person, but as an obstacle. He saw the bodyguard not as a threat, but as a collection of weak points.

Easy prey, the ghost of Ripjaw whispered in his mind. Too slow. Over-extended.

Before the bodyguard could even finish his intimidating flex, Ray moved. His arm blurred, and with a soft click, a serrated blade emerged from his forearm. Target the function, not the armor, Ripjaw's logic whispered. A weapon that cannot be wielded is just dead weight. He aimed for the unarmored, fleshy space under the man's armpit, severing the primary power lines and motor controls in a single, brutal, upward thrust. The bodyguard's chrome arm went limp with a pathetic hiss and a shower of sparks. The man stared at his now-useless limb in shock, his mouth open to scream.

He never got the chance. Ray's other hand shot out, grabbing the man's head and slamming it into the concrete wall with a sickening, final crunch.

The data broker stared in horror, his mouth agape, as the massive body of his bodyguard crumpled to the floor. He fumbled for a weapon, a pathetic holdout pistol, but Ray was already on him. He grabbed the man by the throat, lifting him off his feet and pinning him to the wall. The broker's eyes went wide with terror.

Weak, Ripjaw's ghost whispered. With a final, efficient twist, there was a sharp crack, and the broker went limp.

His nanites rushed over them, consuming them, leaving nothing behind. He had added two more stones to the abyss of his memory, and he was no closer to finding the children. This was not working.

He needed to change his tactics. He retreated to the quiet solitude of a dark alley and began to sift through the memories again, not just the reaper's, but all of them, looking for any mention of Porcelain Jack.

He found it. An overheard snippet of a conversation Jack was having with someone else while the transaction for a pair of Siamese twins was being arranged. The words were faint, dismissive. "...I'm in a hurry. I have a meeting with my Modder."

A clue. Ray seized it.

Julia's clinic was an oasis of sterile calm in the city's chaotic heart. She was at her workstation when Ray walked in, the holographic displays reflecting off her smart lenses. She looked up, and her professional demeanor was instantly replaced by a look of sharp, unfiltered disapproval.

"So, you ran away," she said, her voice flat. It wasn't a question.

"It's complicated," Ray replied, his voice tired.

"It always is with you men who think you're protecting the women in your life by abandoning them," she countered, cutting through his excuses. "Lina called me. She's worried sick. Alyna is… furious. And heartbroken. And to be honest, I am too. Applying some twisted logic to feelings is never the right choice. It always hurts both parties."

Ray flinched at the cold, analytical truth of her words. "I'm doing what I think is right."

"Are you?" she challenged, her gaze unwavering. "Or are you just doing what your father did? Taking the lonely, 'noble' path because you're too afraid to let anyone in, to let anyone help carry the weight?"

Ray had no answer for that. He just looked down at his hands.

Julia sighed, the anger in her expression softening into a familiar, weary concern. "What do you want, Ray?"

He pulled out a data-shard. She took it and slotted it into her station, then projected a holographic image into the air between them. It was a composite sketch of the doll-faced man, created from all his memories. Perfect, unblemished skin. Unnaturally symmetrical features. Dead, black optics for eyes.

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"I need to find this man," Ray said. "He bought two children from a reaper crew. I'm going to get them back."

Julia leaned forward, her professional curiosity overriding her personal frustration. She moved the image to one of her monitors and studied it, her lips pressed into a thin line. "This isn't standard body sculpting," she murmured. "The skin is flawless, yes, but the underlying structure, the symmetry… it's too perfect. There are no micro-imperfections. This isn't the work of a back-alley ripperdoc. This is high-end work."

She zoomed in on the image, her own smart lenses cross-referencing the facial structure with a private, encrypted database of high-end body modification clinics. "There's only one Modder in Virelia who can do this kind of seamless, 'perfected' work without leaving any trace of the original… He's a legend in the underworld, a bodysculptor who caters exclusively to top-tier clients who want to erase their past and become someone new."

She tapped a final command, and a single address flashed on the screen. It was a private, discreet medical facility in the heart of the Midspire Hub.

"That's his clinic," Julia said, her voice grim. "But be careful, Ray. The kind of people who can afford this man's services have armies to protect them."

Ray thanked her and turned to leave but stopped in his tracks when he heard Julia's words.

"Ray," she said, her voice sharp, analytical. "Even if your logic seems sound to you, Isolating yourself from the people you care is the most fucking stupid thing I can imagine. Stop trying to be a tragic hero from one of your mother's old books and start using your head, not your robot head, your human head."

She was pissed. Really pissed. Ray offered a nod and then walked away. He had a lead.

The private medical facility was a sterile, white-and-chrome fortress in the heart of the Midspire Hub. Its polished surfaces reflected the city's neon glow, but its core was cold, silent, and impenetrable. Ray observed it from a distance for an hour, his OptiRange optics analyzing the patrol routes of the elite corporate security guards, their movements as precise and predictable as the lines of code that governed them.

He found his entrance: a squat, bulky cleaning bot with four robotic legs trundling towards a rear service door. It was a Sanitech Model-7 "Scrubber"—an older, purely utilitarian model designed for industrial and medical environments. Its chassis was made of a durable but heavily scuffed, sanitation-blue polymer, its once-bright color now faded and stained from years of chemical exposure. A single, wide, Cyclopean optical sensor, glowing with a dim, yellow light, was mounted on the front, constantly sweeping back and forth. A series of articulated, multi-jointed cleaning arms, tipped with rotary brushes, spray nozzles, and microfiber pads, were tucked neatly into its sides. It was a slow, clunky, and utterly unthreatening piece of machinery. Perfect.

He waited until it was out of sight of the main cameras, then moved. He consumed it in a silent, flowing wave of nanites. The schematics, maintenance logs, security protocols, and the simple, looping directive: 'Clean, sanitize, repeat,' flowed into his memory. Its low-level security clearance and a basic blueprint of the building's public areas were instantly integrated into his own systems.

He re-formed as the bot, now a squat, utilitarian machine, his movements a slow, deliberate whir of servos. He trundled through the service entrance, and the initial security scanners registered him as nothing more than a piece of automated janitorial hardware, granting him access.

He moved through the pristine, white corridors, the hum of his cleaning unit a perfect camouflage. A heavily armed corporate security guard, his face a mask of bored indifference, stopped him.

"Hey," the guard said.

Ray's processors flared. He ran a quick analysis of the guard's bio-signature—heart rate normal, no signs of suspicion. Just boredom.

The guard pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "You missed a spot."

He swiveled his new, clunky body. Using the bot's built-in cleaning arms, he meticulously scrubbed the indicated spot on the polished floor, perfectly mimicking the bot's pre-programmed cleaning patterns until the surface gleamed. He had made sure not to consume the robot parts that could rotate, saving them for occasions like this.

The guard grunted in satisfaction and moved on.

Once Ray reached the restricted surgical wing, he found a secluded maintenance closet and abandoned the bot form, his nanites dissolving the blue polymer shell. Then, his form shifted again. Drawing on the schematics he had absorbed from Ripjaw, his nanites reconfigured, flowing over his body. A layer of thick, black combat armor, its surface a non-reflective matte, grew over his skin. His head was covered by a sleek, black helmet with a V-shaped visor that was a more aggressive, modified version of the one he had unconsciously absorbed at the tech fair. He was a black specter, a predator ready for the hunt.

The guards here were a different breed. Better weapons, better gear. These were elite, alert, their weapons hidden but their bodies coiled with the tension of trained killers.

He used the combat instincts he had absorbed from Ripjaw to neutralize them one by one. He would wait for a guard to pass a dark doorway, then strike. A quick burst from his Zapper Arm would short-circuit their neural links, sending them into unconsciousness before they could even raise an alarm. He would then drag their bodies into the shadows, copying their security data from their interface before moving on to the next checkpoint.

He found the bodysculptor's private surgical lab at the end of a long, sterile hallway. The room was a stark, white cube, dominated by a state-of-the-art modding chair and holographic displays showing complex anatomical models.

The sculptor himself was a man so intentionally average he was almost invisible. Nondescript features, plain grey overalls, a face designed to be forgotten the moment you looked away. He was meticulously working on a client in the chair, a figure whose body was a strange, androgynous mix of male and female physiology.

Ray glanced at the main lab's computer. He placed his hand on the wall, and his nanites flowed into the building's data conduits. He accessed the main computer. Its defenses were useless when its own body was under Ray's control. He found detailed files on every client—except Porcelain Jack. The man's records had been wiped clean.

Plan B, Ray thought as his priorities shifted.

He hid behind a large server rack as the client rose from the chair.

"Perfection is not about choosing one form over another, doctor," the client said, their voice a strange, harmonious mix of male and female tones. "It is about transcending the limitations of both."

The sculptor replied, his voice a dry whisper. "Indeed. The ultimate luxury is not to own things, but to own yourself. To become a blank canvas upon which any identity can be painted."

They walked away, leaving the sculptor to clean his workplace.

As the sculptor turned to sterilize his tools, Ray made his move. He sent a targeted pulse of nanites through the room's power grid, causing the cameras to momentarily freeze, projecting a looped image of an empty room. In that split second, he was on him.

He grabbed the sculptor from behind, one hand covering his mouth, the other pressing against the man's interface port. The sculptor's eyes went wide.

He plunged his consciousness into the sculptor's system. All data stored inside was ready for him to access—the faces of a thousand clients, the precise anatomical measurements for a hundred different procedures, credit transfers and encrypted messages. He pushed past the noise, searching for a single name, a single face. And then he found it: a protected, encrypted file labeled "The Looking Glass." He tore it open, ripping the data out..

He found it. A location, and a recurring, encrypted private appointment in three days' time at a high-end, discreet location, under that same cryptic client ID.

Just as Ray removed his hand from the bodysculptor interface, the bodysculptor inexplicably triggered an alarm, independent of his interface, alerting the entire facility. The lab was instantly plunged into a screaming red light as the lockdown protocols engaged.

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