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CY

T he fucker’s blood sprayed across my face as I beat him to a pulp.

Three men had been robbing a Vysor store—NSPD called it in. I cornered them trying to slip out through an alley. They’d shown the same overconfidence in numbers typical of the untrained.

They were below my pay grade, but I needed this.

The last one was still conscious—barely. My knuckles ached where they’d connected with his jaw, and the implant in my left shoulder burned from the exertion. I hit him again. And again. I could leave him here—dead—and it wouldn’t fucking matter. No consequences. None that mattered, anyway.

“You’re making a mess, Cy.” Maddox’s voice crackled through my earpiece. He’d stayed in the building, monitoring from a distance. Always the professional.

I spat blood onto the concrete. Not mine. “Just cleaning up the streets. Isn’t this what you did in the NSPD?” He didn’t respond.

I let the man drop to the ground, the back of his head landing with a wet smack against the pavement.

Leaning against the alley wall, I fished for my VaPurr—when my Vysor let out a horrible screech.

Visual artifacts fractured across my field of vision, the overlay flickering as security protocols engaged—too late.

A small digital avatar glitched into view, hovering in the air before me. A female form, stylized in purple and blue, wearing a tight, low-cut dress. I recognized her immediately—Eon’s AI assistant.

“The fuck you want?” I wiped blood from my face. This kind of intrusion shouldn’t be possible through POM’s security layers.

“I need your help.” Her voice modulated strangely, laced with digital artifacts that suggested she was operating well beyond her intended parameters.

“Eon know you’re talking to me?” I rolled my shoulder, the implant grating against bone. The pain helped focus my anger.

She bit her lip, a surprisingly human gesture for an AI. “No.”

“Doesn’t that violate one of your AI laws or some shit?”

“No. Because I can’t let any harm come to E.” The avatar flickered, stabilizing with visible effort. “My primary directive is to protect her well-being. Sometimes that requires…interpretation.”

That made me pause, but I didn’t respond immediately. Personal AIs weren’t supposed to have this kind of autonomy. Someone—obviously Eon—had modified this one extensively.

“E’s back on Vector,” the AI continued, her voice dropping like she was afraid someone might overhear. “She’s not thinking straight. If you don’t do something, she’s going to get herself killed.”

“Not my problem.” I smeared more blood across my cheek. “Can’t you call her little doctor friend, or that yarou Hiromi? Why come to me?”

“I’ve calculated all possible interventions.” Her expression shifted to something that looked disconcertingly like desperation. “You’re the only one who can stop her.”

“What? From doing Vector?” I laughed, the sound harsh even to my own ears. “Not exactly the best role model, toots.”

She shook her head, pixels briefly scattering before reforming. “No.”

She paused, glitching—warping and distorting like she was fighting her very programming. Lines of code flickered briefly as her avatar struggled to maintain cohesion.

“She’s headed to the Magenta data center.”

That stopped me cold. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“I really fucking don’t.” I started walking again, trying to outrun the uncomfortable tightness building in my chest. “Also don’t care.”

She glared at me, her pixelated eyes narrowing. “Humans are so stupid.”

“And AIs are overrated pieces of shit that should mind their own business.” I reached the end of the alley and stepped into the perpetual rain. “We done here?”

“She’s back with that anarchist group.” The avatar’s voice dropped an octave, distortion worsening. “I don’t trust Taos.”

My Flux surged at her words, a jolt of electricity shooting down my left arm, leaving my fingertips tingling.

“Taos will get her killed.” The words were out before I could stop them.

“Yes." Her form stabilized slightly. “Taos doesn’t understand the full implications of what she’s planning.”

“How’d she get mixed up in this shit again?”

“After your encounter, she—” The avatar flickered violently, lines of code streaming through her form. “I cannot provide details without violating core protocols. But she’s in significant psychological distress.”

Because of me. The thought settled uncomfortably in my stomach. I shouldn’t care. People came. People went. You moved on.

No one like her, though. No one who looked at me and saw a man, not a monster. At least…I thought she had.

“If I wanted to find her?” The question emerged despite my better judgment.

The avatar’s expression shifted to something like hope. “I can provide her most likely course over the next twenty-four hours.”

My earpiece crackled. “Cy, what’s going on?” Maddox asked. “Your Vysor’s showing some kind of interference pattern.”

“Just cleaning up here,” I replied. “Be back at HQ in twenty.”

I turned my attention back to the AI. “Upload her projected route to my secure channel. And disable any tracking she might have on you—if she finds out you came to me, she’ll just change her plans.”

“Already done.” The avatar smiled, her expression eerily similar to Eon’s. “She’ll never know.”

“You’d better be right about this. If I go chasing after her for nothing—”

“You’ll what?” The avatar’s voice carried a challenge. “You can’t threaten me. I’m not alive. All that big talk about showing E something she’d never seen before, and here you are, pouting like a heartbroken teen.”

The words hit harder than they should’ve. “You’re pretty mouthy for a personal assistant.”

“And you’re emotionally stunted for someone with such advanced neural architecture.” DITA’s avatar began to fade. “You don’t have much time.”

A pause. I thought she was gone. Then—

“You know why she ran, right?”

“Because she finally got smart and was scared of me.”

A negative buzzer sounded in my ear, DITA’s avatar looking annoyed.

Something I thought I’d lost a long time ago fluttered in my chest. “Because she was scared that what we had was real—and I’d choose POM over her anyway.”

DITA nodded. “Show her she was wrong.”

“I didn’t say I was going to—”

“You were never going to say it.” The avatar was almost gone now, her voice fading. “But we both know you will.”

As DITA vanished completely, my Vysor returned to normal function, tactical overlays reengaging. In the corner of my display, a small notification indicated a new encrypted file had been received. Route information, just as she’d promised.

“Cy?” Maddox again, sounding concerned now. “You went offline for a minute there.”

I exited the alley, looking up at the towering spires of the Tech District that loomed over Magenta’s decaying infrastructure. Rain plastered my blue hair to my forehead, washing away the blood from my knuckles.

I was opening myself up to more than just pain. I could lose everything I’d spent my whole life building. Stability, safety, control. But that fragile control I’d clung to shattered the moment she’d found me at The Blackout.

DITA was right. Humans were stupid—especially this one. Because if she was the light at the end of the tunnel, I’d follow her anywhere. Straight into hell.

She’d given me a taste, and there was no going back.

I’m coming for you, doll.

As I made my way back to HQ, DITA’s warning echoed in my head. An attack on the Magenta data center wouldn’t be like Green. It would cause catastrophic damage to the district that had been built on top of it.

This was the kind of data I’d normally report right away, but for now, I was going to hold those cards close.

The sleek corporate tower loomed ahead, its Stellarium pipes pulsing with pure white light—so different from the corrupt neon chaos of Magenta. Two worlds, separated by more than just distance.

I’d bridged that gap once, dragged from one reality into another.

It was time to fall from heaven.

And the crash could be catastrophic.