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EON

T he angel was watching me. Its glowing, holographic eyes followed me as I walked down the rain-soaked streets of Neo Stellaris.

Every few moments the holostatue would glitch, its neon-blue lights flickering off and its audio track skipping.

It was trying to run an ad for the Church of Divine Light—and failing miserably.

Widespread ad-blocker use on Vysor headsets had prompted a shift back to native advertising.

I ducked under a nearby awning. Even hidden in my small sanctuary, I still felt the angel’s judgmental gaze. I was a sinner, no doubt about it, and it knew I was up to no good.

The concrete-and-steel streets were slick with water that ran down in violent floods from every roof and wall, collecting in unwanted places.

I hated the city in the rain. It gathered the dirt and chemicals and decay that coated the neon Stellarium pipes—our city’s power system—that pulsed from every building and piece of tech.

The streets became slick with chemicals and carbon.

It was always fucking raining in Neo Stellaris.

With a quick stroke on my Vysor’s temple, directions to the meetup lit up my display, the mirrored round lenses projecting augmented reality onto the surrounding streets. Five hundred feet more—that was it. Just five hundred feet more of that angel’s dead stare and this would all be over.

I felt my pinky twitch and bit my lip, searching for that phantom e-cigarette.

Just one more hit. No—I’d already taken too much Vector, my drug of choice.

That’s why I couldn’t shake the angel’s gaze.

My vision flared around every neon intrusion, and the Flux in my blood sang as I leaned against a Stellarium pipe.

The electric field it generated danced with the power that always slept just below the surface of my skin.

It wanted to come out and play; it wanted to be free.

No one knew why some people had developed Flux, in all its different forms. The leading theory was some sort of radiation that leaked out of the new element Stellarium—our world’s savior—but no one had definitive proof yet.

Feeling how the pipe’s power resonated with me, I’d buy it.

About a dozen corporations were racing to find the exact answer as the population born affected slowly increased.

It had shaken the world when children started to manifest the ability to control fire, water, air…

and more. But now, nearly thirty years later, most didn’t bat an eye.

I lay my forehead against the tetraglass surface and wished I could just melt into it. Wished I could become nothing more than electrons guided by a force so large it was beyond comprehension. Soon I would be—but not yet.

My fingers dug into the pocket of my jacket, searching desperately until my VaPurr e-cigarette was in my grasp. I pulled it out, and the fluorescent green liquid inside lit up in the Stellarium glow.

I took a long hit, the flavor like strawberries and burnt plastic.

My vision blurred, but the electricity—the Flux in my blood—smoothed.

No longer a discordant hum, it was a synchronous melody, and I’d never heard anything so beautiful.

No more thoughts, no more guilt, no more pain.

Just that endless void welcoming me with open arms.

Vector—only a few molecular bonds different from the methamphetamine the Japanese government used to give kamikaze pilots.

Designed by POM Enterprises—the city’s biggest corporation—for their private security team, almost all of whom were Flux carriers.

One hit turned even minimal Flux into precision weapons, enhancing power and narrowing focus.

I’d never been an enforcer. No, all anyone saw when they looked at me was another whore, high on the street’s most popular drug.

I shook my head, my long lavender hair spilling over my shoulders, and pushed off the pipe.

The long nails the new girl at the club, Mercy, had convinced me to get clacked against the glass softly, the trendy Stellarium-activated polish glowing.

My Vysor flashed in my vision, and I followed the directions to my destination.

I rapped on a warehouse side door, one among many within Blue District’s dense collection.

I knocked the ridiculous patterned knock Taos had taught me, like this was some old-timey gangster’s hideout.

A few moments later, her face popped onto the vid screen beside the door.

She had pulled her light blonde hair back and marred her pretty face with black paint to hide her features—possibly to look intimidating.

“E, you made it. I wasn’t sure…” Taos trailed off. “Look, I know Professor Tanaka said you should help us, but this mission…it’s going to be dangerous. Really dangerous.” She paused again for dramatic effect.

“I know that, Taos. Let me in.”

“We are going into the heart of POM Enterprises. No guarantee we walk out of this alive. Last chance to walk away.”

Good. I’d almost said it out loud, but instead mumbled, “I’m ready.”

Taos’ face shifted. I had called her bluff. “Thank God, get in here.” I heard the door lock slide open, and I pushed inside. She was waiting and immediately dragged me into the unlit hallway.

I’ve heard it said that everyone with a substance abuse problem is suicidal—they just might not know it yet.

Instead of running to death, we are marching there slowly.

But the end is always the same. Whether the theory was factual, it rang true for me.

Tonight, after everything had come crashing down, I was ready to speed the process up.

The basement was dank, the only light coming from the huge holographic screen on the far wall. Easily hackable. A major security risk to this already ragtag operation—but I said nothing.

“So, we all have our assigned positions.” A gruff-looking, thirty-something white man with sandy hair was standing at the front. Deacon—was that his name? I didn’t care. I was more interested in watching the lights from the screen dance around my vision.

“Once we’ve broken through their outer security layer, we’ll have less than ten minutes to extract the data. Think you can handle that, new girl?”

His heavily browed eyes were assessing, and they did not like what they saw. Too bad for him. They were desperate. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have their entire mission riding on some junkie they barely knew.

“Full spectrum, captain,” I said. Oh, he did not like that.

Taos interrupted. “I’ve got the ICE breaker. Straight from the Macau casino cartel. No security could withstand this. E just has to find the data once we’re inside. She’s got this.”

A lot of confidence from someone I’d met four days ago.

She had told me about the ICE breaker, but I didn’t know it was that cutting-edge.

Something like that would have cost millions of creds.

Looking around at this derelict group, I didn’t know how they pulled that off.

But even that wouldn’t be enough to get them the data they wanted.

They needed a cyberrunner skilled enough to navigate the labyrinth of POM’s internal cyberspace. They needed me.

Deacon seemed satisfied with Taos as my babysitter.

He kept prattling on, and I completely zoned out.

Taos was running her hands through my long lavender hair.

She was braiding it for the mission—that’s what she’d said, anyway.

Each touch and tiny tug was ecstasy, especially under the effects of Vector.

I was enjoying myself a little too much.

“Don’t look so nervous, E.” Taos said, mistaking my aroused twitches for nerves.

She braided her long blonde hair back in tight Viking-style braids.

It showed off the numerous piercings she had in each ear.

They clashed with the glowing crystal pendant she wore around her neck.

The black lines of war paint amplified the whole warrior-princess look she had going on.

She was too pretty to be caught up in all this, but I think she enjoyed being the queen of the eager rebel boys.

“Professor Tanaka told me you were a wiz in cyberspace. After what you showed me yesterday, this should be byte-sized.”

“That’s not all I heard she was good at.” A light-haired man—well, really not much more than a boy—leaned in on my other side. He was cute, his dirty-blonde curls falling onto his pale face, but he was also caught up in all this rebel shit, so I knew he was an idiot.

“Heard you work down at Hellfire. You gonna give me a dance after this is over to celebrate?” he asked.

I eyed him up and down. “You couldn’t afford me.”

He’d been smiling, but his face went blank immediately, refilling with anger. God, start something, please. But before he could move, Taos shoved him away.

“Shut the fuck up, Lock. She’s my co-runner. Show her some respect.”

Lock shrugged and turned away.

Deacon was still droning on. “We’re about to show those corpo bastards they can’t control us—they can’t keep us down.

POM has developed world changing technology and locked it behind paywalls for too long, but no longer!

” Whooping and cheering from the crowd. I rolled my eyes.

Deacon was eating this little speech up.

“Once we have the Kinetic Shield tech, it will completely reshape this city—no, the world! Shield tech will no longer just be in POM’s hands, but anyone’s.

Just think, our citizens, protected from the gun violence that plagues this city.

We will fix the rising death rate the cops and corps have ignored. ”