Page 131 of Neon Flux

The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable—not just ideological, but deeply personal. Resentment born from gifts she’d never been given. Her hand moved to adjust the neural optimizer behind her ear, the kind reserved for Sky District elites.

“What did you do to my code, Taos?”

“You’re so smart—figure it out.” She stood abruptly, her chair toppling backward with an expensive-soundingthud. People were staring now, but she didn’t seem to care—used to being the center of attention. Maybe the old me wouldn’t have done it. Maybe I’d been spending too much time around Cy. But I saw the judgment in her eyes, and I wanted to twist the knife.

“You know what I think? I think you’re scared. All this talk against the corps, but I’ve never seen you plan a job against yourmom’s pharmaceutical company. That’d be easy for you, with your insider access. Guess we’re both cowards.”

Her hand twitched toward her side, and for a second I thought she might draw her gun. Wouldn’t do her much good, not with the new tech shielding me. Tech I’d recovered while she nearly blew the entire mission.

“You think you’re so fucking cool,” she spat. “So above it all. But the truth is, you’re just another gear in their machine, Eon. You talk about survival like it’s noble, but really? You’re just rationalizing compliance. They’ve already won with you.”

“Better than dying for nothing.”

“Nothing?” Her laugh was sharp and bitter. “I might die for this, but at least I’ll die believing in something. What will you die for? A paycheck? A slightly more comfortable cage?”

She turned and walked away, each step perfectly measured despite her obvious anger. The spa attendants stepped aside without a word—trained to recognize the posture of the privileged, even when cloaked in rebellion.

“Taos.” She paused but didn’t turn. “I hope it’s worth it. I hope your revolution gives you what you’re looking for.”

“It will,” she said quietly. “It has to.”

As she disappeared into the spa’s pristine corridor, I noticed the subtle technologies embedded in her clothing—fashion blended with high-end medical monitoring systems. Her rebellion was accessorized with the very privilege she claimed to reject, a contradiction she either couldn’t see or chose not to question.

Taos wasn’t bad. But I wasn’t good, and I needed this. I needed the paycheck—something she would never understand. She could always go back. She had a safety net.

I texted Cy:

Me: Got our way in.

A few moments later:

Cy: Atta girl.

CHAPTER 47

EON

“Idon’t see why I can’t go by myself. We know they’re targeting vulnerable, Flux-capable people,” I said, crossing my arms.

“After what happened last time? No fucking way,” Cy replied. I was back at his apartment—he’d gotten the window fixed. “I practically had to force you to even arm yourself.”

He’d given me a gun. I hated it. He said it was safe, registered to only fire with my fingerprints. I’d unloaded it when he wasn’t looking.

He turned from his terminal screen, that smug grin spreading across his face. “I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you.”

He wasn’t wrong. “It’s a church, not some crime syndicate.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he said with a small shrug. “DITA, what did you find on their physical security?”

DITA’s avatar popped up on a holoprojector next to Cy. I didn’t remember giving her permission to do that.

“Unlike your apartment,” DITA drawled, giving the mentioned space a judgmental once-over, “the Church actually has an updated security system. It would likely take severalcyberrunners and several days to crack their systems—and even then, it would trigger enough alarms to initiate an auto-delete sequence that would corrupt the data significantly.”

“I said theirphysicalsecurity. Not digital.”

Now it was DITA’s turn to shrug. “Digital, physical, all the same to me. It looks like they’ve got POM’s biometric security system in their Neo Stellaris cathedral.”

“Seems like overkill for a bunch of pew-sitters,” I muttered.