The pawn shop was carefully chosen: Not too grotty to be able to do the deal he had in mind, but also not classy enough to ask too many questions or have rigorous standards.

Kio entered and walked by displays of all sorts of items for utility and entertainment, as well as clothing, but almost half of it was jewellery and other sorts of small decoration. Perfect.

“Good day,” said a voice from above. “Can I help you with something?”

Kio looked up and saw a spherical drone marked for live feed.

“I am working from home,” the female voice continued. “But you have my full attention, I assure you.”

“Could you come d… could you send it down here?” he asked.

The sphere obligingly lowered itself to hover at head height, its main lens aimed at his eyes. It wasn’t quite like a face-to-face meeting, but it would do.

Kio cleared his throat, feeling self-conscious. He’d done his best to clean up in another public toilet stall, but knew he didn’t exactly look like he had money, or anything worth money. At least the drone setup meant she wouldn’t smell him.

“I see you have jewellery,” he said, sweeping a hand across what were surely some of the most expensive items in the shop.

“I do. Are you looking to buy?”

“To sell,” he said. “I own a necklace made of genuine emerum.”

“Emerum you say?”

“Eight stones, about this big,” he said, and indicated. “And one bigger one in the centre. The string itself is a bit old, if I remember correctly, but the stones are in fine condition.”

“I’m hearing that you don’t have the necklace with you,” the woman/drone said.

“I don’t,” he admitted. “I would have to dig it up. I just wanted to see what I can get for it, first.”

He cleared his throat again.

“Look, I know I don’t look like I own something like that, but it is an old heirloom, and I might as well put it to some use.”

“Hmm. Please give me a proper visual.”

A holographic display came to life, the sort that reacted to touch. It was an art pad.

Kio groaned inwardly, but it proved pretty user friendly, and came with a selection of stone shapes for him to choose from. Kio called on his memory and did his best to recreate an object he’d only seen once before. He selected the stones, made slight adjustments to the size, and laid out the length and design of the string.

“That’s it,” Kio finally said. “That’s as close as I can get it.”

“It’s a pretty thing,” the woman told him. “I cannot agree to an exact price without actually having the real thing before me, but assuming good condition we can talk something in the vicinity of 4500 dorandas.”

Kio nodded. That was the sort of figure he’d been hoping for.

“And what about in rils?”

“Rils?”

“I am… thinking of moving offworld. Starting fresh, after all this chaos. I’ll do better with rils. In cash.”

“Cash,” the woman repeated. “Well, I don’t deal much in rils, so getting that much will delay things a bit. But of course, I’ll only get that business started once you actually bring the necklace.”

“But you can and will do it?”

“I can and will do it, once I’ve looked that necklace over.”

Kio nodded.

“Alright. Thank you. I will… start digging.”

He left the store. His steps felt just a little bit lighter. It was good to have a plan of some sort. To eye a possible escape.

Another escape, Kio? Another failure of nerves?

With all that playing out in his head, he didn’t pay the car any heed until it slowed down to match him, and a window opened. The face within was young, but marked by violence.

“Seventeen hours, spot.”

The man gave him an ugly, unfriendly smile.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Seventeen hours!”

The window closed and the car sped off. Kio watched it go.

# # #

He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to.

The door was a simple, ugly thing, ignored and tucked away in a barely-visited backstreet. And he really didn’t want to open it.

His throat was doing that thing again, and the shaking was threatening to kick in. But he did reach out. He did put his hands on the cold metal.

The hidden circuitry accepted his bios, and the door slid open. No light turned on. They’d removed those when the place was selected, so Kio was greeted by a yawning darkness.

You’re weak, Kio. Trembling in fear of a mere place. Of simply putting your foot forward.

He curled his upper lip.

“Well, maybe not.”

He walked. The doorway swallowed him and he reached behind to give the door itself a slight flick. It closed, and the tight confines made a boom out of the event as he fell into absolute darkness. His feet knew the steps well, and led him down even as his mind did very little at all.

The footsteps echoed. They always did. They certainly had when the mentor came down, visiting his followers for the first time after the destruction of the place of power. Even before seeing the man, Kio had detected his anger in the sound of it.

He reached the basement floor. Every old building had a particular smell, he felt, and this place had an identifying aroma of concrete, dust and metal.

“Light.”

The scant lighting that had been left in place activated. Everything was exactly as he’d remembered: Not even ugly, just drab and boring. A nothing place.

All of them had been gathered that night, waiting for the mentor. Including Manda. Kio’s eyes drifted slowly to that one pillar in the centre of the room, then his head flinched away as if he’d been slapped.

Weak, Kio. You-

“No,” he said out loud, and the word echoed.

He stared at the floor for a few seconds, gathering his strength, then faced the pillar. It meant facing the memories, but there was no escaping them anyway. No matter how hard he’d tried, for weeks now, they were always there, nibbling away at him.

This was where Manda had died. She had died crying, shamed for her failure, and with the chanting voices of her fellow students in her ears.

The only sin is weakness! The only sin is weakness! The only sin is weakness!

That had been the mentor’s core lesson, drilled into them like a prayer. A prayer they were to recite in unison whenever he demanded. Obedience to his will and his teachings, and nothing else: That had been the core of it all. Complete control, including over their thoughts.

It had been like a current, sweeping each and every one of them along, including him. He, too, had chanted as Manda died. He realised now, with the awful clarity that had forced its way into his mind ever since Ciinto Res, that a voice had been within him, even then, telling him that all of this was wrong. He’d denied it, smothered it, desperately hidden it from himself, his fellows, and most critically the mentor. Because to do otherwise might have cost him his life.

Kio thought of how awful her final moments had been. If things had played out a bit differently, it might have been him on this cold, dull floor, with a busted leg and the mentor’s wrath on his hands. They would have chanted just the same, Manda included. Perhaps a little voice, much like his own, would have been protesting weakly on the inside. Perhaps all of them had carried that voice, to some degree. But all of them had been under the mentor’s sway, and none of them had dared reveal doubt, for fear of being the only one.

Kio inhaled deeply, breathing in this boring room and its boring scents.

“Fear.”

It had all been about fear. From the very start, built on the fears that had followed him through childhood in a concrete jungle. He had always been guided by fear, even as he tried to be strong. Especially when he tried to be strong.

Kio looked down at his blackened hand and clenched it. It might have been his imagination, but he thought it had slightly more sensation than the day before. He forced another deep breath down, through the invisible grip around his throat.

You know what you are, Kio.

He opened the hand and clenched it again.

“I do, actually,” he said, and was slightly pleasantly surprised to find a bit of steel in his voice.

He did know. He did know that he’d kidded himself about who he was, and what he could be. And he knew what he needed to do.

“Let’s do it,” he whispered.

# # #

He’d meant to use the first public comm setup he came across, but that one proved to be right by a gathering of people who were having some sort of celebration. It wasn’t the ambiance he wanted for this, and so he walked further until he found a more isolated one.

Kio stood before it for a short while, getting his breath under control, bringing him into the right sort of mindset. Then, his course set and locked in, he got started. He didn’t know the number for the Ten-Ten by heart, but finding it in the city database was as easy as drinking water. He selected Voiced Message instead of Direct Call, and started talking.

“Hello, Grim,” Kio said in a dark, steady voice. “How is your chest doing? How is your kidney, and your skull, and your pride? Has word spread about what happened? You know there’s no stopping a rumour once it’s out. Those boys who saw me beat your ass… do they look at you differently now?”

Kio left a two-second beat to let the recipient absorb all this.

“I know you have me on a timer. I know you’re having the streets watched. Don’t bother. I’m coming over, Grim. And I’m bringing Hell.”

He brought his voice lower, as low as it would go.

“I want you to be ready for me, Grim. I do. I want you to dig up that arsenal you bragged about. Be ready with your guns, big and small, and whatever else you have. Arm your boys and tell them to be ready. Do it, Grim. Because I’m going to show you and everyone else just how weird and spooky I am. I’m going to show you what I can really do.”

Kio wasn’t in a laughing mood, but he forced a dark chuckle out through his lips.

“I don’t care how many of your boys I need to break to reach you. I’ll fight floor by floor if I have to. I’ll break bones and heads until I have my mitts on you. And then, Grim, I am going to kill you with my bare hands. In front of an audience. And you know I can do it. You wouldn’t have drawn a gun like a coward if you didn’t.”

He let another little beat pass.

“And when I’m done, no one’s going to tell me I can’t be in charge. I’m taking over your operation, Grim. Over your dead body.”

Kio checked the time display on the setup.

“Midnight. I’ll show up at midnight, sharp. You were right, Grim. There are going to be new rules on the streets. A new game. And I’m going to be running it, because I have something better than just size on my side.”

He put his mouth right up against the receiver.

“Prepare, Grim.”

He ended the recording, then hit Send.