He could decline. The script allowed it. Three taps, and the haul would recycle to another runner. But his debt to the Hub wasn’t measured in credits anymore—it was measured in favors . And favors at Komaru Hub had teeth.
The script pulsed. Then a new line appeared at the bottom, in a smaller font—the kind of text that gets overlooked until it’s too late.
A new message appeared:
He sat back in the pilot’s cradle. The hub’s ambient noise—the clatter of other runners, the distant thrum of ships cycling locks—faded into a dull roar. He pulled up the raw code of the Risky Haul script. Most runners never looked past the interface. But Jax had once patched security protocols for a living. Komaru Hub Risky Haul Script
He didn’t dump the container. He didn’t run.
Jax unstrapped from the cradle and walked out. Behind him, the cargo bay timer stopped at 00:01 and never reached zero.
Route D: Abort the cargo. Dump the container into Komaru Hub’s own intake vent. He could decline
The screen flickered. The familiar Komaru Hub interface resolved into something sharper, more jagged—the signature crimson prompt of a Risky Haul script. It wasn't supposed to activate until the official handshake. But someone had pre-seeded it. Which meant someone wanted him dead.
Immediately, the script branched. Three possible routes appeared, overlaid on the sector map like nerve endings. Route A: fast, exposed, through the Magellan debris field. Route B: slow, hidden, through the old comms tunnels—but those tunnels had collapsed last monsoon. Route C: a straight burn through the Torus gate, which required bribing a gatekeeper who had already blacklisted him.
There. Tucked inside the probability module: a fourth route. Not displayed. Not suggested. Hidden behind a conditional loop that only triggered if the runner manually overrode the navigation lock. But his debt to the Hub wasn’t measured
“CARGO: Unverified. Source: Black Ice Container.” “RISK LEVEL: AMBER — Intercept Probability 67%.”
Three percent. That was the trap. Everyone at Komaru Hub knew: a cargo integrity failure meant the container’s black ice wasn’t insulation—it was instability . If it failed, the entire haul would go critical. No escape pod would survive the blast radius.
But his backup, Dials, was three cycles late, and the cargo bay timer was already blinking red.