Page 51

CY

I hadn’t dreamed about it in years. Had tried not to think about it at all.

After my talk with Eon today, it was inevitable.

We’d gotten out from under Magenta, and I’d crashed as soon as I got home.

As I drifted off, I felt the cold eddies of memory twining between thoughts and dreams, that deep void pulling me over the event horizon—with no chance of escape.

Wet and dark. It was always wet and dark in the underground, where over a century of pipes and sewers leaked from every surface, marred by time and the weight of the human civilization that sprawled above.

It’s where I’d grown up—below the buildings of Magenta, where even the slum rats above thought themselves better than us.

The stench of the slums hit me like a gut punch as I wound through the narrow, trash-strewn alleys. I kept my head down, ignoring the jeers and catcalls from the other residents. This was home—though it was the last place I ever wanted to be.

I reached the dilapidated sector that barely passed as residential and shoved through the rusted door. The stairs groaned under my weight as I climbed to the third floor. I heard the usual soundtrack—crying babies, arguing neighbors, the occasional crash of something breaking.

I stopped in front of the door marked 8G, took a deep breath, and knocked.

No answer. I knocked again, harder this time.

Finally, the door swung open. There she was—my mother.

Her once-beautiful face was lined with stress and exhaustion, her hair a tangled mess.

A cigarette hung from her lips, smoke curling around her head like a toxic halo.

“Took you long enough,” she snapped, her eyes narrowing as she took me in.

“Nice to see you too, Mom,” I muttered, pushing past her into the cramped apartment.

The place was a disaster, as usual. Empty bottles, dirty clothes, and half-eaten food littered the floor.

Three kids sprawled on the couch, blankly watching a flickering holoscreen.

The youngest—a baby barely a year old—wailed in a crib shoved against the wall.

My mother’s version of high-quality babysitting she did for hardcreds.

I walked past the kitchen, filthy, as always—except for a small pocket of cleanliness at the end of the counter, where a plate of cut fruit had been laid out.

There was always cut fruit after I got back from a job.

This one had been especially dangerous, so the orange bastard child of an apple was on the menu today. My mother’s favorite.

I was about to shove one of the sweet wedges into my mouth when I got tackled from behind.

“Onii-chan! You have time to play UltraVengence with me today?” It was Ishi, my fourteen-year-old sister. We probably had the same dad, judging by how much we looked alike, but I didn’t know the yarou and Mom never said.

“Get off. Go play with one of the other brats.” I shoved the little creature away, though not too hard.

She pouted. “They’re all babies. They suck. You’re the only one actually good at it.”

“I don’t got time for games like that.” I hated the way her eyes looked at me—with admiration, almost adoration.

I wasn’t good. Didn’t want to be. Ishi still had a chance.

She was smart and could read people. I’d watched her scam more poor fucks out of creds than any other street kid I knew.

Maybe she could be the one to break out of this wretched place. Not if she followed me.

“Come on! You just finished a job—”

“I said no, Ishi. Now get.” I grabbed her by the back of her jacket, one that used to be mine.

As I shoved her away, I slipped a roll of FructoPops into her pocket—her favorite.

She was smart enough not to argue with me again, and instead surreptitiously walked to the most secluded corner of the room to eat it where the others couldn’t see.

My mother dropped a pot in the sink, and I turned back to the derelict kitchen.

“I brought you some money,” I said, reaching into my pocket and tossing a wad of hardcreds onto the cluttered counter. It looked out of place amid the chaos.

She snatched it up and counted quickly. Her face twisted in anger. “This is it? This all you brought?”

“It’s all I could get,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’ve got my own expenses, you know.”

“Your own expenses?” She scoffed. “You think you’re too good for us now? Out there playing gokudo while your family starves?”

“I’m trying to help!” I snapped, my frustration boiling over. “But it’s never enough for you, is it? No matter what I do, it’s never enough!”

I saw the signs and dodged just in time as the teapot she was holding came flying at my head, smashing into a cabinet. The baby wailed louder.

“Onshirazu no kuso yarō! You ungrateful little shit! After everything I’ve done for you!”

“Everything you’ve done?” I laughed bitterly. “You mean abandoning me to raise myself while you screwed around with every guy who looked your way? Yeah, thanks for that.”

She slapped me hard across the face. The sting was nothing compared to the anger burning inside me. “Get out!” she hissed. “Get out and go die on those streets like all the other boys.”

I stared her down, my jaw clenched. A notification popped up on my cracked Vysor lens:

Everyone needed at the port. Unknown disturbance.

“Fine,” I hissed. “I’ll go. But I’m not coming back. One day, you’ll realize what you lost.”

I charged for the door, ignoring the high-pitched cry of my name from the far corner.

I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. The sounds of the slums swallowed me whole—but this time, I welcomed them.

Code Red at the port.

I started running, though I wasn’t sure if I was headed toward something or away from it. I weaved through the underground, diving deeper into the abyss. Code Red meant enemy activity in our territory. No restraint required—and I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in blood.

I made it to the port. A hole had been blasted through the side of the old subway tunnel we used for smuggling beneath the city, and I was greeted by the sharp, metallic scent of blood.

My entire crew was dead, riddled with bullet holes.

Blood mixed with the water and sewage that leaked from every pipe.

If Magenta was lawless, then the underbelly was hell itself.

The Kitsune had carved out their domain down here, claimed it as our kingdom.

The war to stake that claim had been brutal—more than one bridge burned, both metaphorically and literally—but we’d won.

We held almost all the power in the Magenta underworld.

So who the fuck dared to mess with us now?

The goddamn Cielos? No fucking way. At eighteen, I would’ve killed a puppy that looked at me the wrong way.

Every beat of my heart craved a fight—especially one I might not walk away from.

They’d turned me into the perfect weapon: over-drugged and over-sexed.

Not that I was much different now. But back then, barely out of puberty, it was rawer, more powerful—and my Flux echoed that.

I heard a cough from beside me. One of my boys, Yuri, was clutching his stomach, blood leaking from holes in both his gut and mouth.

“What the fuck happened here?”

“A-a…fuckin’…suit…”

“One? One goddamn corpo took all of you out?” I grabbed Yuri roughly, and he cried out, coughing again. I shook him. “Tell me more, yarou.”

“—teknik” Yuri went quiet after that, and I wasn’t sure if he’d passed out or died. I didn’t care. I needed to find this asshole.

I dropped him, letting his head smash into the ground, and ran down the corridor, following the trail of bodies.

The underworld was always disgusting and damp, but whatever had gone down here had wrecked the pipes.

Teknik, Yuri had said. There were scorch marks everywhere, but I had to assume those were from my guys.

I hadn’t felt any EM fields, so not that either.

Air Flux, maybe? Unless it was some pre-burnout geoteknik kid…

and if that was the case, we were all dead.

Sparks flew from busted lights and exposed conduits as I kept moving, my steps silent.

I climbed a set of stairs leading to a raised walkway when I heard a shout, followed by consecutive gunshots.

I froze, listening, and everything went quiet again.

Then I heard them—soft but steady footsteps crossing the grated metal, moving away from me.

I flew up the stairs without a sound. The walkway led down a tunnel lined with pipes and wires.

The corridor opened up at the end, and the light from beyond caught the man in harsh silhouette.

The suit he wore was flawless—not a drop of blood or grime on him.

He heard me and turned, his profile sharp in the light, his strong aquiline nose prominent.

I fired five shots before I even took a breath.

They all stopped, suspended midair, caught in some kind of force field around him. A shield. Tech like that had been rumored, but I’d never seen it in person.

No problem. I had other weapons at my disposal.

The tattoos on my arms glowed as lightning coiled around my arm. “Shinjimae . ”

A bolt cracked through the air, bright enough to leave streaks in my vision. It surged toward him, white-hot—when suddenly the energy dispersed in a shimmer of blue light, just inches from his skin, like it had been swallowed whole.

I heard the wrench of pipes and the unmistakable splash as the wall of water he’d summoned slammed down to the ground.