The slope had already made it clear about the situation, and that was that the situation belonged exclusively to him, which was the sort of territorial claim terrain makes when it knows it can't be fought against. Proxy had, by now, stopped complaining about the slope as a matter of policy.
He had accepted it in the only way the slope seemed willing to acknowledge, which was by descending sideways. It felt less like a decision and more like inevitability when the roots he had been relying on as handholds withdrew their cooperation and the mud contributed its own interpretation of gravity.
A rough bandage on his left arm worked well, or at least well enough that the adhesive strip had not yet declared its resignation from service. He had arrived at the bottom of a secondary incline he had not planned for, coated in mud in poor fashion.
He was sitting against a root that had made him a favor to support his weight when the sounds above him changed.
He reached inward automatically and found the same technological absence the jungle had been rewarding him with. It had transitioned from disappointment into baseline expectation.
What remained available to him were his ears, and they tracked the movement above with uncertainty.
Nyx descended the slope the way she handled most physical environments, which was to ignore their input entirely. Her speed implants figured out the direction. Her boots located traction that had not previously existed and continued forward without acknowledging the improbability.
She was holding a bloodied arm.
Proxy looked at it, because it was difficult not to.
It was not attached to anyone, which was the most relevant detail. More specifically, he warranted it was the arm of the person who had spent the last hour firing at them.
The identification was supported by the suppressed pistol still strapped to the wrist, now empty as a direct consequence of the arm no longer being attached to its original owner.
He shifted his attention to Nyx.
She met his gaze, her eyes restored to their usual pale coloration. She had a peculiar energy to herself, one that reminded him of a dog bringing back a branch to its owner and waiting for recognition.
He remained seated with the mud, the root, the arm, and the implication of all of it. The pause felt less like hesitation and more like his brain was catching up to reality.
"Good job," he said.
Her expression brightened with precise timing, as though that response had been anticipated and had arrived exactly when expected.
She turned and discarded the arm into the jungle without a care in the world.
Then she was crouching in front of him. Her attention had already redirected to his left shoulder. Her hands located the improvised dressing he had made from adhesive strip and the inner lining of his jacket cuff.
"It's fine," he said.
She did not respond.
She was already peeling back the adhesive strip with the careful focus to not hurt him further.
"I did it myself," he added, because the silence was awkward.
"I know," she said. "I can tell."
He clicked his tongue in awkwardness anyway.
She moved through the pack for the wound sealant with efficiency, treating the task as exactly what it was and nothing more.
The graze was cleaned and sealed in two precise checks that he acknowledged, privately and without enthusiasm, were significantly more effective than his own earlier attempt under less controlled conditions.
She applied the nano-fiber bandage and pressed it flat with her thumb. The motion lingered longer than required.
"There," she said.
He stood and adjusted the pack on his shoulder.
She put herself at his left side and they moved forward. The jungle acknowledge their movement with the indifference of something older than both of them and uninterested in new residents.
She remained silent for approximately thirty seconds.
"There's a flower," she said.
He followed her line of sight. There was, in fact, a flower, small and pale yellow, emerging from a cavity in a root at knee height. It was fully committed to existence despite the surrounding conditions.
"There is," he confirmed.
"It's very resilient. And cute."
"Flowers tend to be," he said. It felt like a safe generalization.
She made a small, satisfied sound and shifted position to half a step behind him. From near his left elbow he felt the familiar two-finger grip secure the back of his sleeve.
"Like me," she said.
"You're more aggressive than a flower."
"You say that like it's a criticism."
He did not respond. She interpreted that as agreement, which in this case was not inaccurate.
They continued walking. The jungle rearranged itself around them with the steady indifference of nature that do not track human outcomes.
The cyberware cycled its passive scan without interruption and returned nothing. Proxy processed that as a developing conclusion, that the resort's network was now far behind them.
Wherever the host had directed the remaining contestants tonight, it had been toward an empty suite, with a locked elevator and a jammer positioned with intent.
It was not ideal, but it was sufficient. Sufficiency was a workable condition, if only time permitted it.
The island's speakers cut through the canopy. The broadcast signal was wide enough to reach the jungle interior, though the voice carried a faint distortion that suggested distance had imposed itself on the transmission.
"Good evening, contestants. The four-hour location update."
A pause followed. It was calibrated with the kind of warmth that tends to be put more to mock than to show care.
"Proxy and Nyx were last confirmed in the Presidential Suite of the Luxury Resort. They are presently confirmed to be in the jungle. The jungle is quite large."
Another pause, this one leaning toward understatement.
"Good luck finding them there."
"Oh," Nyx said indifferently.
"One additional elimination to confirm."
"Contestant Bout — terminated."
"Twenty-nine competitors remain. We look forward to tomorrow. We're watching."
The speakers relinquished the night back to the trees and their occupants.
And to two people moving through it with a two-finger grip and no immediate commentary, which, under the circumstances, felt appropriate.