Page 29 of Neon Flux

“God, I really sound ancient right now, don’t I? But you and your generation, you’re the future. You and all the other kids with Flux—I have to believe it means something. That you’ll fix this world.”

“I didn’t take you for a believer, Professor.”

At that, her face twisted. “Not in the way so many are. But yes…I believe—in something, at least.” A long pause. “You’re electroteknik. I’ve never met anyone else with that Flux. You can use it in cyberspace, can’t you? That’s why you’ve always been so good at this.” It wasn’t a question. As such, I didn’t answer.

She swirled the liquid in her mug, her eyes distant again. I knew that look. It was the look of someone staring at something broken and trying to decide if it was worth saving, or already too far gone.

“The problem isn’t technology, you know,” she said after a moment. “It’s people. We’ve always been our own worst enemy. The Stellarium didn’t change that—it just made the knives sharper and the walls higher.”

“Sounds like something that needs to be broken, rather than fixed.”

To my surprise, Tanaka laughed softly, though there wasn’t much humor in it. “Sometimes breaking things is the first step to building something better.” She took another long sip from her mug. “I want you out of that club.”

“I didn’t really come here for a lecture on modesty. If you’re looking for a model citizen, I’m not it. I’m not good at all.”

She interrupted me. “It’s not about that. I couldn’t care less who you share your body with. It’s more about…” Her gaze drifted to my fingers again. “Your mother isn’t doing better, is she?”

At that, I closed off, ready for whatever little heart-to-heart she thought this was to be over. I turned back to the screen and stream of data flickering across it. Then warmth spread through my shoulder as her frail, wrinkled hand came to rest there.

I looked back at her, and the Vector in my system let me catch every single micro expression, every twitch of her face. I watched as she decided I was too broken to fix.

“I’m going to ask you to do something. Something I can no longer do—hell, maybe something I never could have done. But you can. And you say you’re not good, but I know you’ll say yes.”

“Is it legal?” I asked.

“No.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Very.”

They’d just told me there was nothing they could do to help my mom. My debt was insurmountable. And now I didn’t even have this job to scrape some semblance of meaning from. All I had was the void—and it was waiting with open arms.

Fuck it. Might as well go out with a bang.

“I’ll do it.”

That was the last time I’d seen her. She’d connected me with Taos, another former student of hers. It had been obvious immediately why she’d sent me. Taos wasn’t completely incompetent, but she was far from capable. I’d been ready to die, ready to let the lights and electrons carry me away.

Until he nearly killed me.

Until I realized death wasn’t the answer.

I’d felt every cell in my body fight back, and it had felt right—like waking up after months of sleepwalking.

It wasn’t about him. It was about me.

I’d felt something beyond the numb haze of Vector and the empty echo of flesh sold by the hour. I’d felt alive, even as Inearly died. The synchronization of our Flux had just been the catalyst that jolted me back into my own skin.

I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that feeling. I’d spent the last six months chasing it, learning everything I could about him. Waiting for my chance to get revenge for all those lives taken—while still craving the feeling of his hand around my throat…

I shook my head and looked at the girl I once was looking back at me in the mirror. Top of her class. Poster child for the university’s diversity campaigns in cyber engineering. An outlander girl, daughter of an agricultural worker, who’d climbed her way to the best university on the West Coast.

That was until she’d needed help. Until the floor had fallen out from under her.

Grades slipped. Probation. Scholarships retracted. Dismissal. Not because she wasn’t capable—but because she was drowning in medical bills, working full time, and trying to keep up with an academic load designed for someone with no outside responsibilities.

They’d wanted me when I was shining. And when I faltered, they reminded me who I really was under all that shiny chrome exterior. Street trash. Not worth the effort.