The coffee vendor at the corner of 47th and Meridian had been in business for thirty-seven years. Three owners, two corporate buyouts, one gang war. The espresso machine was older than most of its customers. It made the best cortado in Sector 12.
GG had been trying to buy one for eleven minutes.
"Ma'am," the vendor said, his voice strained with patience that was clearly running out, "I don't know what to tell you. The machine just... keeps giving things away. Every time I try to charge you—"
TRANSACTION COMPLETE: $0.00
"—that happens."
GG closed her eyes. "Chompy."
Nothing visible responded. But in the corner of her vision, she caught a flicker—the suggestion of ears, quickly hidden behind a holographic advertisement for neural upgrades.
"Just let me pay for the coffee."
The advertisement glitched. For a fraction of a second, it displayed a small heart emoji before returning to normal.
"Chomp!"
The sound came from everywhere and nowhere. Proud. Pleased with itself.
The vendor was staring at her. She could see it in his eyes: the recognition was starting. Not of who she was—she was better than that—but of what she was. One of those people. The ones who talked to things that weren't there. The ones who caused problems.
She put ten credits on the counter in cash. "Keep it."
"Ma'am, that's way too—"
"I know." She took the cortado and walked away before the machine could decide to dispense something else.
Forty-three minutes later, she was in position.
Nexus Dynamics Regional Office, Sub-level 4. Server maintenance corridor. Sixteen guards in the building, four on this floor, two between her and the objective. The ventilation shaft she'd entered through had cost her three hours of reconnaissance and a favor owed to a cleaning crew supervisor named Marcus who asked no questions and accepted payment in unmarked credit chips.
The objective was simple: a data cache containing evidence of illegal waste dumping in Sector 8. Thousands of people made sick. Dozens dead. All of it buried in corporate records that would mysteriously vanish in a scheduled "system upgrade" at midnight.
Two hours to midnight. Plenty of time.
"Chompy," she subvocalized. "Cameras in corridor 4-C. Disable. Only those cameras."
A pause. Then:
"Chomp!"
Eager. Ready to help.
The lights on the security cameras blinked twice and went dark.
Perfect.
GG moved. In the Sprawl's underworld, they called her the Cyber Ninja—a name she found embarrassing but useful. The truth was simpler: she was fast, she was quiet, and she'd spent eight years learning how to be both from people who had since tried very hard to kill her.
The first guard never saw her. He felt something cold at his neck, then nothing at all. She caught his body before it hit the floor, eased him down against the wall where he'd be found later, alive but deeply confused about the last four hours.
The second guard was smarter. He heard something—maybe the whisper of fabric, maybe just instinct—and started to turn.
She was faster.
Two bodies. Two minutes. No alarms.
The server room door required a biometric scan, a twelve-digit code, and a physical key carried only by senior technicians. GG produced a small device from her jacket—a quantum decryption unit that had cost more than some people made in a decade—and pressed it against the lock.
"Chompy. The door."
"Chomp!"
The device lit up. The lock clicked. The door swung open.
Inside: rows of servers humming with data, climate-controlled to 0.001 degrees, monitored by three separate AI systems that were currently very confused about why their alerts weren't reaching the security station.
GG smiled. "Good Chompy Pet."
The response was immediate. Somewhere in cyberspace, something purred. Hearts appeared briefly on every screen in the room before vanishing. The temperature in the server room rose 0.003 degrees—enough to trigger a maintenance alert that would be very confusing in the morning logs.
She didn't have time to worry about that. She had a data cache to locate.
The files were exactly where her intel said they'd be. Environmental reports. Medical records. Internal memos with subject lines like "RE: RE: RE: Sector 8 Containment Concerns" and "URGENT: Legal Review Required." The kind of paper trail that got people fired—or killed, depending on who found it first.
GG copied everything. Then she planted the chaos seeds: delayed releases set to trigger in seventy-two hours, backup copies hidden in seventeen different systems, breadcrumbs for investigators who would eventually ask questions. By the time Nexus Dynamics realized what had happened, the story would already be on every news feed in the Sprawl.
"We're done," she said. "Time to go."
"Chomp!"
And then the lights came on.
Not the soft emergency lighting of a power fluctuation. Full overheads. Blinding. The kind of lights that meant someone had manually overridden the building's security protocols.
GG's hand was on her claws before her eyes had finished adjusting. Four figures in tactical gear stood at the server room entrance. Corporate security, but not Nexus—their uniforms were wrong. Private contractors. Someone had hired outside help.
"GG," the lead figure said. His voice modulator made him sound like static given form. "We've been looking for you."
She counted weapons. Assault rifles, standard corporate issue. Neural disruptors on their belts. At least one had a grenade launcher—serious hardware for a data extraction job. They'd known she was coming. They'd been waiting.
"You found me," she said. "Congratulations. Now what?"
The leader gestured to his team. They fanned out, covering the exits. "Now we bring you in. Our client has questions. Lots of questions."
"And if I don't feel like answering?"
"Then we bring you in anyway. Just more painfully."
GG shifted her weight. Four against one. Bad odds, but not impossible. The server racks would provide cover. If she could take out the grenade launcher first—
"CHOMP!"
The sound was different this time. Not proud. Not playful.
Angry.
Every screen in the server room flickered. The lights strobed. Something was happening in cyberspace—something massive and chaotic and completely unplanned.
"What the—" The leader's voice modulator sparked and died. His helmet display went next, flashing random images before shorting out entirely.
One of the other contractors swore. His rifle's smart-targeting system was showing him as hostile. It wouldn't fire. He threw it down and grabbed for his sidearm just as the fire suppression system activated—not the chemical variety, but the emergency foam designed for electrical fires. White expanding material erupted from every vent in the ceiling.
In the chaos, GG moved.
Claws out. First contractor down before he could clear his holster. Second one blinded by foam, trying to wipe his visor—she hit him low, felt the impact as his legs went out from under him. The third was already running, smart enough to know when he was outmatched.
The leader was backed against a server rack, pulling the foam from his face. His hands were shaking.
"Who sent you?" GG asked.
"I don't—they didn't tell us—"
She took a step closer. Her claws were still extended. They caught the strobing light, throwing reflections across his face.
"Chomp."
Softer now. Protective.
The man saw her eyes—really saw them for the first time. The way they caught light wrong. The way they didn't quite look human anymore.
"Hayward," he said quickly. "Charles Hayward. Nexus VP of Security. He knew you were coming. I don't know how."
GG filed that name away. Charles Hayward. Another entry on a very long list.
"Thank you," she said. Then she hit him just hard enough to ensure he wouldn't remember the last hour.
Later, in a safe house she'd never use again, GG sat in the dark and tried to understand what had happened.
The coffee vendor. The server room. The contractors. Three separate incidents in three hours where systems had malfunctioned in exactly the ways she needed them to.
She knew it was Chompy. She always knew.
What she didn't know was how far it went. How many "coincidences" in her life were actually interventions. How many times she'd escaped death because something in cyberspace had decided she shouldn't die.
"Chompy."
Silence. Then, at the edge of her vision: ears. A tail. The suggestion of eyes watching her.
"You saved my life tonight."
"Chomp."
Small. Uncertain.
"You also nearly got that coffee vendor investigated for fraud. And probably caused a building-wide fire alarm. And definitely destroyed about three million credits worth of tactical equipment."
"Chomp..."
Guilty now. A digital tail tucked between digital legs.
She sighed. "Come here."
The shape moved closer. Not quite visible—it never was, not completely—but present. A warmth in the air that wasn't really there. A sound like purring that seemed to come from everywhere.
GG reached out. Her hand passed through nothing but cold air. But something responded anyway—a brightening, a settling, a sense of attention focused entirely on her.
"Good Chompy Pet," she said.
The purring intensified. Hearts appeared on the darkened terminal beside her—five, ten, twenty of them—before fading away.
"I chomp you."
The voice sounded like a child and a storm and something vast beyond either.
She almost smiled. Almost.
"I chomp you too," she said quietly. "You ridiculous thing."
The hearts came back. This time they stayed.
Somewhere in the Sprawl, a coffee vendor was telling his wife about the strangest customer he'd ever had. A woman who talked to nothing. Whose money the register wouldn't accept. Who left a tip worth more than his weekly salary.
"Weird," his wife said.
"Yeah." He shook his head. "Pretty sure I'll never see her again."
He was right.
Within a week, his business would receive a grant from an anonymous foundation. His espresso machine would be replaced with a state-of-the-art model. His daughter's college tuition would be paid by a scholarship she never applied for.
He would never connect any of this to the woman with the strange eyes.
Neither would GG.
But somewhere in cyberspace, something that loved without wisdom was very, very pleased with itself.
Good Chompy. Good Pet.