Page 9 of Neon Flux

I heard my mother’s voice in my head. “Chiquita, when I was young, there wasn’t enough rain. People used to pray for it. To worship it, even. We would dance and pray and then sing and cheer when it finally fell.”

Water, the basis of all life, had been free from the sky above. The corporations had fixed that.

Like my thoughts had summoned a curse, a red notification even I couldn’t block lit up my vision.

Medical Payment Overdue: Service will be terminated.

Shit.

I’d found a halfway decent day job at a bioChip shop. Pay was terrible, but I liked the Modder, Dev. I hadn’t been able to get a single cyberrunning job since the data center incident. Deacon had cast me out after only half the crew had survived the job. He’d needed a scapegoat, and I was it.

Ironic, as almost every Vysor around was modified to give the masses Kinetic Shield tech. Death by gun violence had dropped nearly seventy percent in the last six months, but no creds had come my way. At least to Deacon’s credit, he hadn’t gotten any either. He’d made the plans and code open source immediately.

I bumped elbows too hard with an oncomer, and I felt the repulsion as a yellow force field flashed. The shield in action, on the streets—all because of an ex-sex worker who couldn’t find a tech job!

The skin on the back of my neck itched like it always did when an unpleasant thought arrived.

I could always get work at a club again…

No.

I’d had to quit the club, no matter how good the money was. When you worked in the underworld, Vector was everywhere. That life only had one end for me, and it was me high and scrubbed in some dirty back alley. Especially with men like the owner, Rook, all too happy to wave the drug in my face to get what they wanted.

I shook my head. I’d gotten clean, I’d found work…even if it was never enough.

The girls at the club had supported me, helped me get away clean from Rook. Mercy had even let me stay with her while Iwithdrew from Vector. I’d mostly locked myself in her bathroom to throw up and piss myself. But she’d held my long hair back and rubbed my shoulders, and more than once I’d hallucinated she was my mother instead. It had been horrible, but I’d spent my last creds on the detox drug to get me through. I would not waste that.

As if mocking me, the red payment notification went off again.

I was a damn good cyberrunner, but there was nothing locked down tighter than money. One little cyberrunner on their own couldn’t hope to break down that system of redundancies and firewalls.

A new notification popped up. My paycheck from Dev. Measly, but something.

A ping sounded in my ear, and I watched as the creds I just earned got sucked out of my account automatically. The balance hit zero again, and a red warning popped up in my vision.

Warning: Insufficient Funds. Overdraft fee applied.

Fuck!

I needed a real gig, and I needed it now. I’d even applied to corporate jobs, hidden almost every trace of myundesirablelife during the interviews, but the time gap since I had left school with no advanced degree was insurmountable, apparently.

I let the flow of the crowd push me, with no destination, as I wallowed in my self-pity.

My feet carried me where they always did when everything else seemed hopeless.

A dirty red neon cross flickered weakly atop the clinic.

As I approached, three figures moved into my path.

Shimmering white robes draped them, their faces alight with neon halos that made my skin crawl. The Church of Divine Light. They’d been cropping up everywhere lately, the necklaces they wore containing a single, glowing crystal glinting like promises.

One of them, a woman with bright blue eyes and a too-perfect smile, stepped toward me.

“Sister,” she said, her voice lilting and warm. “Stellarium weaves through our city, casting its divine blessing on humanity. The Light welcomes all. Have you considered stepping into its embrace?”

I kept walking. I didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have the patience, either.

A huge meteor’s fall to Earth in 2053 had led to the discovery of Stellarium. This ledsometo call it divine intervention in humanity’s darkest hour. I wasn’t quite so willing to believe that.