Page 23 of Neon Flux

The night was a blur of synthetic beats and willing bodies, but I remembered the bartender—some kid with new tech piercings, bio-responsive that shifted colors when he got excited. He'd been fascinated by the sparks dancing beneath my skin, the little Flux chaser. He kept buying me drinks just to watch my Flux respond. One thing led to another, and he’d come in his pants when I’d shocked the shit out him as he sucked my dick in an alley.

After that, I'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep. I could feel the Vector still working itself out of my system, and the gammas hadn't made me coffee this morning. I was not doing well.

“Reports indicate that rumors of a possible DDoS attack on the Green District data center have legitimacy. We have no information at this time of when such an attack will occur, butit's important that we remain vigilant…” Tex, my manager, wasstillreviewing the daily items, and the beta and gamma leaders hadn't even given their updates yet. Fuck, I was going to die in this conference room.

I slouched down further in my chair, groaning and rubbing my eyes when Maddox elbowed me. He didn't look much better than me—dark circles under his eyes, that thousand-yard stare he got when something was eating at him. Knowing him, after last night he'd stayed up late working on one of his robot projects, trying to keep his mind off what had happened with Tanaka. By the look of him, it hadn't worked.

“You look like shit,” I whispered.

“At least I wasn't broadcasting my location to half the district,” he muttered back, not taking his eyes off Tex. “Your electromagnetic signature was pinging surveillance networks all night. I had to do a bunch of counter—”

“Relax, I kept it low-key.” I stretched, joints popping. “Just needed to decompress after our academic consultation.”

Maddox's jaw tightened. “That what you're calling it?”

The guilt was eating at him—I could practically see it in the way he held his shoulders, the careful distance he maintained from everyone in the room.

“You need to get laid,” I whispered.

“Fuck off, Cy.”

“I’m serious. All that tension's gonna give you an aneurysm.” I leaned closer. “I know this place in Magenta—”

“I said fuck off.”

I shrugged, settling back into my chair. Maddox would work through it eventually. He always did. That's why we made a good team—I handled the immediate aftermath, he handled the long-term processing. Different coping mechanisms, same result.

“…isn’t that right, Cyanos?”

My full name caught me off guard, and I turned to see Tex looking at me expectantly. His dark eyes were framed by shapely eyebrows, a delicate feature compared to his aquiline nose.

“That’s right.”

The corner of his mouth flicked in a grin. “Excellent. Then I’ll be having the betas bring their weekly reports to you for review from now on.”

Fucker. He knew I hadn’t been listening.

Goddamnit, the seven circles of hell were better than this. Maddox stood up and started giving his presentation on proper weapons maintenance. I had to hand it to him—he looked terrible, but he gave the presentation flawlessly.

He was diving into the need for monthly check-ins at POM’s bio-compatible hardware clinic when one of the gammas whose name I couldn’t be bothered to remember interrupted.

“I thought we got top of the line bioHardware as a perk of being POM Security. Why do we have to do monthly checks?”

I noticed the kid wasn’t wearing a Vysor. Not something I normally gave a shit about, but then I saw one of his pupils flash. A new ocular implant, still in R&D last I’d heard. Didn’t know it was possible for my opinion of the little shit to drop even lower.

Maddox twisted his lips, but before he could respond, Tex answered in his calm manner. “As you know, POM is a data company, first and foremost. The check-ins are for your safety, but they are also to help our researchers collect data on this prototype hardware.”

“So we’re like guinea pigs?” the gamma asked, really starting to piss me off.

“All hardware disseminated by the company has been tested to the highest standards and is completely safe,” Tex responded, maintaining a cool I could never manage. The gamma sat back at that, mercifully silent.

I zoned out, thinking about the alley behind the club, when I heard my name again. This time I had enough sense not to answer automatically.

“Cy, can you demonstrate a rapid field check of your sidearm?” Maddox asked me slowly.

I groaned, but pressed myself out of the office chair—just in time for that young fucker to speak up again.

“Why do we even bother bringing guns with us? Now with shield technology available to the masses—”