Page 57 of Neon Flux

She nodded, relief evident. “Just for a minute.”

I turned toward the door but paused. “Taos? Whatever your reasons…the shield tech helped a lot of people. That counts for something.”

Her expression softened. “It’s a start. But we’ve got bigger things coming, E. Things that could change everything.” She glanced at the code still displayed on the screen. “Just need the right catalyst.” As she said it, she toyed with that glowing necklace she always wore.

I left her with her secrets and what I suspected were higher-grade pharmaceutical stimulants than any rebel should be able to afford, stepping back into the chaotic main room. The rebels were arguing about their next target, voices rising with misplaced revolutionary fervor. They saw the system as something to tear down, not understanding how many lives were tangled in its architecture.

Vex cornered me before I could reach the exit, his earlier antagonism replaced with a sly grin.

“Must be nice, getting special treatment,” he said, leaning against the wall to block my path.

“I wouldn’t call a trip to the back room special treatment.”

He snorted. “No? I know she’s hot, but you should watch your back with her. She’s the one who convinced Deacon to blacklist you after the server job. Said you were too unreliable—might sell us out.”

My expression must have betrayed my surprise, because his grin widened.

“Oh, you didn’t know that? Yeah, she was real convincing—talking about how you’re too erratic. Turned right around and kept you on speed dial for her special projects, though.”

I kept my face neutral, though my Flux spiked beneath my skin. “Interesting story.”

“Not a story. I was there.” He shrugged, stepping aside. “Just thought you might want to know who your friends really are.”

“And that’s you?”

He got an ugly look in his eye. “I could be.”

I shoved past him, leaving with a knot of suspicion I couldn’t untangle. I glanced back toward the command center, where Taos was now hunched over her terminal, focused intensely on the flawed code architecture she couldn’t quite make work.

Taos was different from the others. I’d glimpsed something in her that went beyond simple rebellion. For her, this was personal. Desperate. That made her dangerous. She wasn’t just fighting the system.

She was looking for salvation from it.

And apparently, she needed me to find it—while ensuring I remained dependent on her goodwill.

CHAPTER 20

EON

After another day, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to go back to work at Dev’s—just to get out of that damn basement, at least for a few hours. My identity wasn’t tied to the shop in any way, digital or otherwise, so unless Cy decided to walk through the front door looking for some chip tuning, I was safe.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite anti-corps terrorist.”

“Shut up, Dev! Ugh, I should have never told you anything.”

“I’m your boss—don’t I have the right to know everything you do at all times?” He grinned as I flopped down on the couch in the back room of the shop.

I groaned, throwing an arm over my face. “My boss. My enabler. And my therapist, apparently.”

“Therapist? Please. I charge way more for that.” He spun around in his chair, his tools scattered across the workbench in front of him. “Besides, you’d be a nightmare client. Too much baggage.”

“Says the guy who still has a holo of his ex on the wall,” I shot back, peeking out from under my arm.

Dev’s grin didn’t waver. “That’s not baggage. That’s a warning label.”

I rolled my eyes and sat up, grabbing a half-empty bottle of energy soda from the table. It was warm, but I took a swig anyway. “You never told me how you ended up in this hellhole?”

He laughed. “Oldest story in the book. I followed a guy here. He wasn’t any good for me, but this city was, so I stayed.”