The Last Drop

Elena pressed her back against the cold concrete of the waterfront building, rain slicking her hair against her cheeks. Three years as a corporate spy and she'd never felt this exposed. The orange safety light from the construction site next door cast everything in an apocalyptic glow.

She checked her phone again. Still nothing from Marcus.

"You're going to get yourself killed,," she whispered.

A cat meowed somewhere in the alley—skinny, scared, the kind that survived on scraps and indifference. It reminded her of herself before Marcus had found her, recruited her, promised her a way out of the debt that had been drowning her since her husband's medical bills had buried them both.

Now she was a different kind of drowning.

The water lapping against the pier below sounded like breathing. In-out. In-out. She thought about what Chen had told her yesterday: *Marcus isn't who he says he is. He's playing both sides.*

Her phone buzzed. *Roof. Now.*

Elena climbed the service stairs, her legs heavy, her body moving on autopilot. The corporate world had turned her into something else—some zombie version of herself, waking up at noon, sleeping at dawn, eating takeout in fluorescent-lit rooms while gathering intel on people she'd never meet. She was thirty-four and felt ancient.

Marcus was waiting on the roof, overlooking the city lights spreading like a virus below.

"Chen approached you," he said without turning.

"He says you're selling us out."

Marcus laughed, short and sharp. "Chen's been dead for six months, Elena."

The words hit her like water to the lungs. Her phone buzzed again. A message from an unknown number: *Chen's office. Seventh drawer. File marked 'zombie protocol.'*

She looked at Marcus—really looked at him. For the first time in three years, she saw the exhaustion in his posture, the way his hands shook slightly at his sides.

"Are you real?" she asked.

He turned finally, and his eyes were hollow. "None of us are anymore."

The orange light flickered beyond them. Below, somewhere in the alley, the cat cried out. Elena reached for the gun at her back and realized she'd never decided which side she was on.

Maybe it was time to stop being anyone's weapon at all.