Every augmented freelancer in the GLMZ faces the same recurring crisis: the SNT maintenance cycle.

Every 8-12 years, the bonding layer degrades. The chrome starts to feel wrong. Performance drops. Pain increases. The clock is ticking. You need SNT replacement surgery, and you need it from someone good enough not to kill you, with material good enough not to reject.

For corpo employees, this is a benefits package line item. For freelancers, it is the most expensive, most dangerous, and most personal crisis of their operational life.

The economics are brutal. A freelancer with two augmented limbs and a BCI needs approximately 500 cm² of SNT replacement. At premium ripper rates (Φ600-900/cm²), that's Φ300,000-450,000 plus surgical fees. At licensed clinic rates, it's over Φ1 million. A freelancer earning Φ50,000-200,000 per contract needs to run 3-10 jobs just to pay for the privilege of keeping their body functional.

This creates the Maintenance Run: the contract a freelancer takes specifically to fund their SNT replacement. It is always the most dangerous job they accept, because desperation raises the acceptable risk threshold. A runner who needs Φ400,000 in the next three months will take contracts they would normally decline.

Fixers know this. Clients know this. The shadow economy has an informal calendar — experienced fixers can estimate when a runner's SNT cycle is coming due and time their most dangerous contract offers accordingly. 'Their Saint is getting thin' is fixer slang for 'they'll take the job.'

The maintenance cycle is the leash that the augmentation industry didn't intend to create but will never remove. A runner can ghost their enemies, fade across jurisdictional lines, and disappear from every database in the GLMZ. They cannot ghost their own bonding layer. Every 10 years, the Saint calls them back.