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CY

“ C heck this surveillance package.”

I tapped the side of my Vysor, sending the vid I had pulled up over to my partner's screen. The windowless ground-van we hunched in suddenly filled with the obscene ragged breathing of a woman mixed with whispered confessions about security systems and corporate access points.

My partner, Maddox, didn't react. That unflappable composure was his defining trait, and it only made me want to fuck with him more.

He occupied twice as much space in the vehicle as I did, leaning back against the small bench, the light from the vid screen playing across his dark skin and the glossy surface of his darkened Vysor.

His drop fade transitioned into twisted dreads, the tips dyed a confrontational red—the one rebellion in his otherwise regulation appearance.

He'd built his reputation in the Neo Stellaris Police Department's surveillance division before POM scouted him. Now he was stuck with me.

“One of your 'enhanced interrogations'?” he asked, voice deliberately flat.

As if answering his question, my recorded voice emerged from the vid: “You're nasty, huh? You love being on camera. Now tell me about those access codes again." The informant's breathless response was unmistakable.

She'd spilled everything after that—access routes, security rotations, the whole package. Amazing what people reveal when pleasure overrides caution.

Maddox responded with a resigned grunt that communicated volumes about our partnership without wasting words.

“Information retrieval takes many forms, man,” I said, teeth gleaming in the screen light. “You think our intel comes from asking nicely?”

“I don't ask about your methods,” he mumbled.

“You just did.” Most POM Security assets maintained rigid professional boundaries with informants. I found blurring those lines yielded better intelligence. "Look, she revealed the data we needed."

“POM has protocols for asset handling,” he reminded me, switching the display to the building schematics. Conversation closed.

I shrugged. “Protocols get you protocol-level results.”

He grunted again. “Your unorthodox methods got Cheng killed last month.”

The comment landed hard—precisely as he'd intended. “Cheng killed Cheng. He didn't follow instructions.”

Maddox only let out a grunt in response.

I leaned forward, electromagnetic Flux crackling beneath my skin. “I improvise when necessary. Sometimes that means quick decisions in the field.”

“And sometimes your improvisation puts the mission at risk." He tapped the side of his Vysor, bringing up our mission parameters. "Alpha assets don't exist on record, Cy. That doesn't mean we're expendable.”

“Speak for yourself.” I pulled out my VaPurr, the end glowing green as I took a drag. “Besides, Tex handpicked both of us because we get results. He doesn't care how.”

“Tex handpicked us because we have complementary skill sets. You talk. I plan. We both execute.” Maddox scrolled through the target's file again. “And when this goes sideways—which it will if we follow your 'improvisation'—I'm the one who has to clean it up.”

I propped my feet up on the small desk running along one side of the car. “You love it. Admit it.”

Maddox didn't respond directly, but the slight shift in his posture told me everything.

For all his complaints, our success rate was unmatched.

With Cheng dead, we were currently POM's only alpha assets.

Tex kept pairing us because it worked—my willingness to bend rules balanced by Maddox's precision.

“Besides, isn't she a…” Maddox trailed off.

“What? Shofu? Yeah, what does that matter?” There were worse ways to spend POM's operational budget than cultivating relationships with the city's most informed population, and no one heard more than a working girl.

“I just don't think I could get comfortable with someone like that.” He waved at the vid screen where I had zoomed in on the woman's flushed face, but then switched the display off.

“Aww, we were just getting to the good part.”

I liked pushing him—it kept him sharp.

“We're working, Cy.”

“That was work!” I retorted.

With my vid closed, the image of an older woman’s face popped up again. Professor Tanaka of Elysium University. Her personnel file showed a distinguished record spanning nearly four decades.

I propped my feet up on the small desk running one side of the car and leaned back, hands behind my head.

“Why are we even out here for some old lady, anyway?” I quipped, pulling out my VaPurr, the end glowing green as I took a drag.

“Didn’t you read the mission briefing?” Maddox asked, waving the smoke out of his face.

“Only the important parts,” I muttered.

“Surveillance found communications between her lab and known rebel-frequented nodes. The shield tech leak originated from her department,” he explained, fixing me with a displeased look.

“No shit, this old bird?”

The shield tech leak had been the biggest loss of corporate IP in recent memory. Now any yarou on the street could have the reverse-kinetic energy shield that had been POM’s biggest tactical advantage. I’d never seen the big bossman more pissed than the day Tex had delivered the news.

And when you committed crimes against POM, there was no trial or judge. Just us.

“She gonna survive the interrogation? She’s seventy-one years old.”

“Analysis concluded her history in rebellion has increased her endurance.”

“And bossman wants her talking, not cold.” I blew smoke toward the ceiling of the van. “Tough old bird.”

Maddox shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning back on the bench.

“She was born pre-emergence. No chance of Flux. One less thing to worry about.”

“So why send two alpha-level assets like us for one old lady?” I mused. “Something doesn’t add up.”

My instincts had kept me alive. I always listened to them—and right now, my shoulder throbbed, a familiar buzz that always preceded trouble.

“Could be overkill,” Maddox offered, “or there’s something we’re not being told.”

I blew a smoke ring. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Maddox nodded in agreement.

The warning lights on my Vysor flashed. A notification from Maddox’s side. Perimeter alert. I checked the feed from our surveillance drone.

Four armored figures disembarked from a darkened vehicle across the street.

“Shit,” Maddox hissed. “Those are Black Legion markings.”

I recognized the modified, piecemeal armor and distinctive black face shields with infrared tech. Mercenaries with POM training.

Most were former POM Security assets who hadn’t lasted or made the cut. They were some of the most ruthless security forces out there—well, besides us, of course.

“What the fuck are they doing here?” I stuffed my VaPurr back in my pocket, already reaching for my sidearm.

“Same as us, probably,” Maddox answered, tapping his Vysor to enhance the feed. “Someone else wants the professor, and they’re not here to ask nicely.”

“Let’s get this over with so I can get home early today.”

Maddox huffed at that.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know how you can be so casual about this,” he said.

“Maddox, how many jobs have we done together at this point? But every time it’s like you’re a blushing virgin, man.”

He said nothing, instead busying himself with the transport’s surveillance controls.

I rolled my eyes at him and opened the vehicle’s side door.

As I crawled out, I heard him murmur, “Maybe that’s how it should be.”

“Your neck ever hurt from that halo you’re always wearing?” I asked.

“I’ll take point,” I added, checking the chamber of my gun to see if there was a bullet in place. “Keep me patched into surveillance. If those fuckers follow me in, I want to know.”

“You sure?” Maddox asked, his voice only slightly deviated from monotone. “Your implants were acting up yesterday—”

“I’m fine,” I snapped.

The pain was already building, a well-worn storm gathering beneath my skin, the familiar burn starting deep below my skin.

My implants—crude, first-generation tech fused directly to my bones—heated as my Flux responded to the surge of adrenaline.

Not the elegant, nearly painless Flux chips most people had these days.

No, I had the junkyard version, and every time I used my powers, I felt it in my marrow.

“Just be ready for extraction. And watch those Black Legion pricks.”

I rolled my shoulder, the one the pain always concentrated in, and slammed the door behind me.

Rain slicked over the featureless mask we wore. My heads-up display sprang to life, illuminating the heat signature of the Black Legion down the street.

“They’re moving to the east entrance.” Maddox’s voice came through my earpiece. “Two minutes out.”

His Air Flux let him manipulate the security drone outside effortlessly, silently.

“Copy,” I replied, slipping toward the building’s service entrance.

I reached out for the knob. The implants under my skin hummed as they focused the Flux flooding my blood and amplified it into something I could control.

I felt the EM field around me shift, and static bolts laced out of my palm and into the lock.

The electronics fried and released, then the door popped open soundlessly.

Pain flared along my arm, and I heard the faint hiss as a capsule of military-grade Vector injected into my thigh automatically.

The lights in my HUD flared as the drug hit my system, and the pain subsided, at least to a manageable level.

The corridors were dimly lit, the smell of piss and chemical cleaners battling for dominance. I moved silently, letting the building’s layout unfold on my Vysor display.

Fourth floor, apartment 496.

“Black Legion entering the building now,” Maddox reported. “East stairwell.”

“Copy,” I murmured, already halfway up the west stairs.

My shoulder still throbbed, but I pushed the pain down where I always did—into that deep reservoir coiled at the base of my spine, hot and ready for a fight.