The city didn’t notice the people it changed.

It just kept moving, grinding, humming, feeding, while the ones it broke learned how to survive inside the damage.

Eli Vance stood at the edge of a rain-slick rooftop, looking down at a street that never quite felt solid anymore. Cars drifted like ghosts through neon haze. Voices echoed off wet pavement. Everything felt just a half-second out of sync with reality.

Especially his legs.

They were perfect.

Too perfect.

Polished composite plating wrapped around synthetic muscle bundles, every line engineered for efficiency and power. Hydraulic fibers coiled beneath the surface, twitching subtly as they adjusted to his balance. They could launch him three stories straight up. They could shatter bone with a casual kick.

They didn’t belong to him.

Eli flexed his foot.

The response was instant, sharp, precise, inhuman.

He hated it.

“Still trying to feel something?” a voice called from behind him.

Eli didn’t turn.

“Still hoping you’ll shut up?”

A woman stepped into the glow of a flickering rooftop light. Nyra Kade, half-smile, half-threat. Her coat shimmered with embedded circuitry, shifting colors with the rain. Her eyes were augmented, lenses irising like camera shutters as they focused on him.

“You’re wasting time,” she said. “Those things are top-tier. Military-grade. Blackline crew doesn’t just hand those out.”

“They didn’t hand them out,” Eli said quietly.

Nyra shrugged.

“Same difference.”

Eli finally turned, his gaze cold.

“They took mine.”

Nyra didn’t reply right away.

Because that part… wasn’t business.

That part was personal.

Blackline didn’t advertise.

They didn’t need to.

If you knew where to look, you’d find them, operating out of surgical dens buried beneath the city, places where screams got filtered into white noise and people came out… altered.

Or didn’t come out at all.

Eli remembered the table.

Not clearly.

But enough.

Cold restraints. The smell of sterilized metal. A voice explaining things like it was a transaction, not a violation.

“Your biological limbs are inefficient. We can offer an upgrade. Payment will be deducted accordingly.”

“I didn’t agree..”

“You’re already here.”

Then,

Darkness.

When he woke up, his legs were gone.

Replaced.

Improved.

Stolen.

He’d tried to walk.

The first step shattered the floor tile.

“They’re not keeping your old legs in a locker somewhere,” Nyra said as they moved through a narrow alley that pulsed with stray light and leaking steam. “You know that, right?”

“They are,” Eli said.

She glanced at him.

“You sound pretty sure.”

“I tracked a shipment,” he said. “Biological assets. Preserved. Tagged.”

Nyra raised an eyebrow.

“You tracked your own legs?”

“I tracked what they took from me.”

That shut her up for a second.

Then:

“And you think Blackline’s just gonna let you walk in and take them back?”

Eli stopped.

Looked at her.

“I’m not asking.”

The facility sat beneath an old metro station that hadn’t been used in decades.

Above ground, it was just another dead zone, graffiti, rust, broken signage. But below?

Clean.

Controlled.

Alive in the worst way.

Security drones patrolled the entrance, their optics scanning in tight arcs. The air hummed with low-frequency energy fields designed to disrupt unauthorized implants.

Nyra crouched behind a collapsed pillar, watching the patrol pattern.

“This is where I say we should come back with a plan,” she muttered.

Eli stepped past her.

“This is the plan.”

“Eli...”

Too late.

He moved.

Fast.

His legs compressed, coils tightening, and then released with explosive force. He launched forward, closing distance before the drones could fully register him.

The first one fired.

Eli twisted mid-air, the shot grazing past his shoulder as he came down hard, one foot slamming into the drone’s chassis.

The impact crushed it instantly.

Metal screamed.

The second drone adjusted, targeting recalibrating, but Eli was already moving. A pivot, a kick, too strong, and the machine folded in half, sparks bursting into the dark.

Nyra stared.

“Subtle,” she said under her breath.

Eli didn’t respond.

He was already at the door.

Inside, the world changed.

Bright.

White.

Too clean.

Hallways stretched in sterile lines, lined with glass rooms where bodies lay suspended in fluid, half-finished augmentations, limbs replaced, organs upgraded, humanity dissected into components.

Eli walked through it like a storm contained in skin.

Each step echoed.

Too loud.

Too heavy.

Wrong.

They came for him quickly.

Blackline security, augmented, armed, efficient. Not street-level muscle. Professionals.

“Subject identified,” one of them said. “Asset retrieval protocol...”

Eli moved.

The first guard raised his weapon,

Too slow.

Eli closed the distance in a blink, his hand slamming into the man’s chest with enough force to send him crashing into the wall. The impact cracked reinforced glass.

Another guard fired.

The round hit Eli’s leg.

It didn’t even slow him down.

He turned, his expression empty.

And for a moment, the guards hesitated.

Because what stood in front of them wasn’t just a man anymore.

It was something built for violence.

Something that didn’t belong to itself.

Eli hated that.

He hated how easy it felt.

Nyra caught up as the last guard hit the floor.

“Remind me never to piss you off,” she said, breathing hard.

Eli stood in front of a reinforced door.

“Vault’s behind this,” she added, checking her interface. “Bio-storage.”

Eli stared at it.

Then,

He kicked.

The door didn’t just open.

It exploded inward.

Cold air rushed out.

Inside, rows of preservation units lined the walls, transparent containers filled with faintly glowing fluid. Each one labeled, cataloged, stored like inventory.

Nyra stepped in slowly.

“Jesus…”

Eli moved through the rows, scanning.

Not with tech.

With something else.

Something deeper.

A pull.

And then,

He stopped.

There.

A unit marked with his ID.

Inside,

His legs.

Real.

Scarred.

Human.

He stared at them.

For a long time.

Nyra watched him, unsure what to say.

“You found them,” she said softly.

Eli stepped closer, placing his hand against the glass.

“They’re mine.”

“Yeah,” she said. “They are.”

He didn’t move.

Didn’t break the seal.

Didn’t reach for them.

Nyra frowned.

“What are you doing?”

Eli’s voice was quiet.

“I thought… if I got them back…”

He flexed his artificial leg.

The sound was mechanical.

Sharp.

“I thought it would fix something.”

Nyra didn’t interrupt.

Because she could see it now.

The truth settling in.

“They didn’t just take them,” Eli said. “They replaced me.”

Silence.

The hum of machines.

The faint glow of stolen lives preserved in glass.

Nyra stepped closer.

“You’re still you,” she said.

Eli shook his head slightly.

“I don’t know how to be anymore.”

He looked down at his legs.

Then back at the ones in the tank.

Two versions of himself.

One lost.

One… wrong.

Nyra placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Then don’t try to go back,” she said. “Take them down instead.”

Eli looked at her.

Really looked.

And something shifted.

Not fixed.

But focused.

He turned away from the tank.

“What are you doing?” Nyra asked.

Eli’s gaze hardened.

“Making sure they don’t do this to anyone else.”

He stepped toward the control panel.

“Eli...if you shut this place down...”

“They lose everything,” he said. “Including me.”

Nyra hesitated.

Then:

“Good.”

Eli placed his hand on the system.

Override initiated.

Alarms screamed to life.

Red light flooded the room.

The tanks began to destabilize, systems failing, preservation breaking down.

Eli took one last look at his real legs.

Then turned his back on them.

And walked away.

Not human.

Not machine.

Something in between.

Something angry.

Something free.

Above ground, the city kept moving.

It didn’t notice the explosion beneath it.

Didn’t care.

But somewhere in the noise and the rain,

A man kept walking.

On borrowed legs.

Toward something that finally felt like his own.

Borrowed Legs

Borrowed Legs

Passages

Borrowed Legs