Page 7

Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, then settling on me without recognition. “?Quién eres?” she asked, voice reedy and uncertain.

“Soy yo, Mamá. Lucita.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away.

“No, no. Mi Lucita es pequena.” She frowned, looking around the room with growing agitation. “?Dónde está mi bebé?”

I swallowed hard, the familiar pain rising. Sometimes, in her mind, I was still just a child. This was one of her bad days.

I remembered my thirteenth birthday, when she'd taken me to the rooftop garden of our old megabuilding.

It had taken us nearly two hours to climb through the labyrinth of that part of the Magenta District to reach the sky.

It had been a rare clear day, the constant rain giving us a reprieve.

She'd brought a small cake with a single candle and watched with unbridled delight as tiny sparks danced from my fingertips when I got excited trying to blow it out.

“?Mira!” she'd exclaimed, eyes wide with wonder rather than fear. “My Lucita, special since the day you were born.”

We’d journeyed home, and as she had tucked me into bed, she’d whispered, “This is a gift. Never let anyone tell you different.”

Now, her eyes narrowed with suspicion as that same electricity flickered unconsciously between my fingers.

“?Demonio!” she hissed, shrinking away. “?Aléjate de mí!”

“Mamá, please.” I moved closer, trying to take her hand again. “It's me.”

She began to wail, a high keening sound that tore at my heart. “?Ayuda! ?Ayuda! ?Un demonio!”

The monitor beside her bed began flashing, her heart rate spiking dangerously. I backed away, hands raised placatingly, my own pulse thundering in my ears.

“E, security is responding to the alert,” DITA warned in my ear. “Forty seconds.”

“Mamá, I'm sorry.” Tears burned my eyes. “I'll come back. I'll get the money. I promise.”

For a moment, clarity seemed to return to her gaze. “?Lucita?” she whispered.

“Yes, Mamá. It's me.”

Her hand reached out, trembling, and touched my face. “Mi corazón.” Then the moment passed, her eyes clouding once more. “?Quién eres? ?Qué haces en mi casa?”

I pressed my lips to her forehead, inhaling the institutional shampoo that had replaced her familiar floral scent. “I love you, Mamá. I'll fix this.”

“E, you need to move. Now.” DITA's voice was urgent.

I slipped past as the night nurse rushed in, my mother's confused cries following me down the corridor. Each step away felt like betrayal, but what choice did I have? The system had made it clear—pay or she'd be "processed." I couldn't let that happen.

Outside in the rain-slick streets, I pulled my hood up against the endless downpour, the neon lights blurring through my tears.

“I need a job, DITA. Whatever it takes.”

“E...” DITA's voice was soft with concern.

“Whatever. It. Takes.” I wiped my face, hardening myself against the memory of my mother's fear. "Find me something. Anything.”

I pushed through the crowd again, heading home.

The religious fanatics had thrown up one of their holographic angels, his wings reflecting in the puddles on the concrete walkway as people tried to avoid eye contact.

I stepped under the awning of a street vendor serving grilled meat that smelled more like rat than anything else, just watching the angel as his polychromic wings spun over the crowd.

I looked up at the sky, hazy with fog and smoke from the grilled meat. “Don’t suppose you have a miracle for me, do you?”

There was no response. There never was.

I leaned my head back against the steel wall and let the tears fall.

I’d done everything right. I’d gotten clean, gotten out of the club, gone straight. Why did it feel like that was the worst choice I’d ever made?

“A call for you, E. From Taos…should I decline?” DITA’s voice was low, most likely sensing my distress from the heart rate monitor in my Vysor.

“No, it’s all right. Put her through.”

“You sure, E? Last time you said—”

“It’s all right,” I repeated.

A wink and Taos’ avatar popped up on my screen, her face just as beautiful as I remembered, with far less war paint than usual.

“Been a while, Taos.”

“E, I need your help.” Straight to the point. “I’ve got a job coming up. A big one.”

My heart leapt. I looked back at that glowing angel, not appreciating his sense of humor.

“You need a cyberrunner?”

I saw her tiny avatar bite its lip. “We don’t need you on the tech side. We’ve got an issue. I was hoping to rely on your…other skills.”

My stomach dropped. Of course. I flipped the angel off.

Very fucking funny.

Taos kept speaking. “The job…got leaked, but we can’t call it off now. POM Security has caught wind of it. We think…they will send their kaijin . ”

I felt my palms sweat.

My Flux pulsed at the memory of a hand around my neck and unlimited current flowing through me. Kaijin—most people’s term for POM Security’s alpha assets. The ghosts who hunted those who disobeyed the corps in the night.

Taos’ face mimicked my nervousness. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but you have experience in social engineering. They’ve got their lead assets on this. We’ve seen it on their internal Net. We need you to distract them.”

I remained silent.

Social engineering was a delightful way of saying she needed me to fuck a few assets to keep them occupied.

“Please, Eon, I really need your help here,” she pleaded.

“You know I can’t. Ever since the shield job, I’ve been on Deacon’s shit list. He would never agree—”

The tiny blue Taos that hovered in front of my eyes perked up. “Deacon approved this! He says he’ll get you off the blacklist if you do this for us. The pay is good too, really good!”

“Taos…”

“Please, E! I don’t know how the information got leaked, but this could jeopardize everything. You know how dangerous kaijin can be.”

Of that, I certainly did.

My hand instinctively went to the long scar that wrapped around my ribcage.

A reminder of brutality.

Deacon was desperate again, which meant people would get hurt. The image of Lock’s face exploding with gore replayed in my mind.

If I could help prevent that…

“Un alma sensible,” Mercy had called me. Tonto was more accurate.

I glanced beyond the call displayed on the Vysor screen before turning my gaze back to the passing crowd.

The neon display muted everything outside, making it gray, dull, and wet.

Only the occasional flash of a Vysor, people condensed down to nothing more than data, a consumer profile in POM’s data center.

“Please, E…” Taos pleaded again. The red payment warning flickered behind her avatar, a demon lurking in the dark.

“And how do you expect I will distract them?” I wanted her to say it. I wanted her hands as dirty as mine were.

It was Taos’ turn to stay silent—until: “You should just do what you do best.”

I sighed.

Taos would never say it. Like so many of Neo Stellaris’ citizens, she still looked down on sex work, even if she didn’t realize how very close she came every day to depending on it for survival. Even if here she was, paying me to do just that.

“What’s the pay?” I asked.

“One hundred thousand creds.”

Shit. With money like that, I could make at least three months of payments, give myself enough time to build up my reserves again.

That red light kept flashing, and I knew there were no miracles. Not for someone like me.

“I’ll do it. But I need half the payment now.”

I heard Taos squeal through the comm. “Thank you, Eon! You’re the best. You know I wouldn’t ask if we had any other choice. I’ll send you the creds and data right away.”

“Thanks,” I replied, ending the call without letting her respond.

The truth was, I probably didn’t need the data. Ever since the data center, I’d been collecting everything I could find on the man with Flux that harmonized with mine.

Another high to chase.

The rain had died back to nothing but an annoying drizzle.

I kicked myself off the wall to continue my walk home, when one last enormous drop from the balcony above found its way directly into my cleavage. I shivered, pulling my hood up over my hair. It was already frizzy, but at least I didn’t have to be soaking wet.

I scrolled through the data Taos sent, a plan quickly forming in my head. The only hiccup was I would need a partner, but I knew just the girl.

I flicked my fingers to scroll through the contacts on my Vysor. It rang three times before I heard: “E? What up, girl?”

“Hey Mercy, you have time for a job in two nights?”

“A job? E, I thought you got out of the life. What’s going on?”

“This one’s special. Not just a pair of regular johns. A pair of assets.”

“I see you are still knee-deep in shit. You never learn, do you?” Even though her avatar didn’t show it, I knew she was crossing her arms at me in that matronly way she favored. It didn’t hurt that it also pushed her tits ups.

I gave her an innocent smile. “You know me, always some bleeding heart cause I need to help.” She didn’t have to know that this time the bleeding heart was mine.

She continued to glare at me, and I continued to smile until she sighed and gave in.

“Fine! Only for you, though. Someone has to keep you out of trouble. Pay’s good, right?”

“Pay’s fair, Mercy.”

Now she laughed. “Where’s your bleeding heart when I need it?”

“You wouldn’t respect me if I was a pushover, now would you?”

“Right you are. So what’s the job?” she asked.

“The less you know, the better. I’ll tell you then. Just meet me at The Blackout in the Magenta District. Dress cute.”

“Always do, chica.”

“Oh, and Mercy, I know this one is just your type.”

“Now that’s more like it.” She giggled and hung up.