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CY

“ S o, are we going to do a realistic sim?”

Maddox tilted his head at me in annoyance. “You think I’m wasting my personal minutes on a realistic sim?”

xVR had been developed for military training—weapons, combat, and the like.

Fully immersive virtual reality, where you could feel, smell, and see everything.

Of course, it had been immediately ripped for porn, but most people could only stand a few real-life minutes at the dilated timescale, and that market was still developing.

Also, even with direct Stellarium hookups, the power draw was insane.

POM and a few of the other big corps were the only ones who could run it effectively.

Luckily, Maddox and I’s Flux let us go longer, dive deeper.

“What do you think—pain at twenty percent?” Maddox asked.

“Yeah, gotta have something or it’s no fun at all. You cranking your Flux?”

Maddox didn’t respond, and I sensed his shoulders tense with what I knew was shame. I slapped him on the back. “Go for it, my man. We gotta get our minutes’ worth. Just don’t leave me in the dust, okay?”

At that, he cracked a smile again and finished inputting the sim’s parameters with a final click.

Two neuropods popped open with a pneumatic hiss, the glass tubes lit with soft, warm light to distract from the fact they looked almost exactly like coffins.

I stepped inside; the door shut behind me without a sound, and I placed my back against the cushioned wall.

The entire pod slowly tilted back just a few degrees, and snake-like robotic arms secured my body.

The neurocradle came down over my eyes, and I felt the soft sting of microneedles in the back of my neck.

White light flared in my vision before it was rebuilt pixel by pixel.

The world around me assembled in rectangular sections, snapping together.

As the visuals came into focus, a cold wind whipped at my neck, sending the hair on top of my head flying.

I pushed it out of my eyes, but the world was still obscured by thick mist. Slowly, the concrete of a heliport appeared beneath my feet, and I knew above me was nothing but endless sky.

Massive Stellarium posts rose on either side of me, pulsing with the heartbeat of the city.

The mist swirled and caught on the fifty-foot-tall POM logo that floated between the posts.

I should’ve known—this was Maddox’s favorite location.

The top of Neo Stellaris, the roof of POM Enterprises.

The glowing blue-green logo flashed above my head as an air transport flew through it, the side door popping open dramatically in midair.

My hair whipped into my face as the vehicle’s turbines thrust downward. I pushed it away again.

“Enough with the dramatics. Get down here and fight me!” I yelled.

Maddox popped his head out of the transport, red dreads blowing in the wind, a grin I rarely saw plastered on his face. His Vysor was gone, and those glowing eyes were on full display.

“Who said I’m coming down?”

He stepped out of the door like it wasn’t thirty feet in the air, but before he could fall more than a few feet, the air wrapped around him and he shot off into the sky.

“Show off!” I yelled after him, grinning too.

Since the emergence, only seven people had ever been able to fly—but it was every aeroteknik’s dream.

The power and control it took to propel through the air without annihilating everything around you—or yourself—was out of almost everyone’s reach.

In the real world, Maddox could barely pull up a stiff breeze.

He wasn’t an alpha-level asset because of his Flux.

Hell, despite his size, he wasn’t much for real-world fighting either. But in here, he was goddamn Superman.

He flew around the top of the tower, the mist swirling behind him.

I spun to watch, letting him have his moment.

These were his minutes, after all. But not for much longer.

I wasn’t about to throw this fight, and Maddox knew that.

I flexed my bad shoulder reflexively—but in here, it didn’t hurt at all.

Maddox might have cranked his Flux, but I was always at max output.

When he finally got behind me, he darted in so fast I could barely track him.

He slammed into me from behind, and even with pain turned down, it knocked the wind from my lungs as he lifted me off my feet.

We flew across the heliport. I rammed my fingers into his ribcage and didn’t hold back as electricity surged out of me.

We flew apart, both of us skidding across the concrete surface.

“That all you’ve got, MegaBoy?” I sneered.

He didn’t respond—just shot upward. His outline blurred against the simulated clouds.

I charged more electricity between my hands as he came barreling down again, a current of air propelling him at full speed.

I dove sideways as he hit the ground, the impact sending a shockwave that rattled the rooftop.

Spinning, I launched my charged bolt—blue lightning arcing toward him. Maddox twisted midair, summoning a wall of wind to deflect the worst of the surge. Still, the edge caught him, making him flinch.

He recovered fast, sweeping his arms upward. The wind funneled into a storm aimed right at me, knocking me back. I braced, narrowing my eyes as I pushed forward, cutting through the cyclone with arcs of electricity that cracked against his defenses.

For a moment, we were deadlocked. His wind met my electricity, the storm lighting up the air between us in a violent clash. God, it felt fucking good to go all out. I laughed—and through the storm, I could see Maddox grin, even as his stance strained. Sweat traced down his brow, mirroring my own.

Then I noticed it: a subtle stutter in his form, just barely visible, like a flicker in the pixels. His image wavered, and he clenched his jaw, holding his stance tighter, like sheer will alone could keep him steady.

“Maddox,” I called. “You’re glitching.”

He shook his head, brushing it off, his face tight with determination.

“I’m good,” he muttered, pushing forward with another burst of air that forced me back a step.

But his movements had lost their precision, and as he spun to dodge another arc of lightning, his figure flickered again—this time more pronounced.

I stopped mid-attack. “You need to drop out. Now.” Stay in xVR too long, and your brain would melt right out of your nostrils.

He ignored me, aiming another blast of wind at my feet that knocked me back.

I slid until I hit the edge of the roof, swinging a hand out to catch the railing.

He stalked toward me, but his form flickered erratically now, his outline stretching and blurring as he staggered, trying to pull more power.

My grip tightened on the rail. When we’d first been partnered, we’d had our pissing contests—until we found reasons to respect each other. This wasn’t that. Maddox wasn’t trying to prove something to me. He was trying to prove it to himself. That was way more dangerous.

He dropped to one knee, his face twisted in concentration, breathing shallow as his figure blinked in and out.

“Maddox, enough,” I said firmly, sitting up. “You’re going to burn yourself out.”

He glared up at me, struggling to his feet, but it was clear he was losing control. “I’m…fine,” he forced out, his voice fractured, distorted by the malfunction.

“Enough of this bullshit.” I sent a charge through the railing, as much as the sim would let me.

It snaked across the roof until it hit the nearest Stellarium post. The pure energy inside overloaded, the raw power shifting the normally stable structure—and the whole thing exploded like the Fourth of July.

The simulation glitched, unable to keep up with the dilated time scene rendering. Emergency protocols kicked in, and our false reality shattered, crumbling around us.

A moment later, I was back in that softly glowing pod, the pain in my shoulder somehow worse after the reprieve. I twitched as the xVR microneedles withdrew from the back of my neck.

I swung my pod door open at the same time Maddox did his. He didn’t look at me as he climbed out.

“I was fine,” he said, his jaw tight.

“Of course you were, compa. Just couldn’t beat me—no shame in that.” I hooked my arm around his neck and hung off him.

He grunted, but that tension in his jaw eased. “Doesn’t count as you winning if you blow us both up.”

I watched him wipe the blood trickling from his nose with his sleeve before I replied. “In the field, last resort is always just blowing everything up. Just following the POM handbook.”