Most days Brayden ran for a living, but today he ran for his life. His lackluster performance as a thief slipped from bad to worse after this fiasco. He didn’t care about his horrible reputation, or having cops and mobsters on his tail again. His fellow organic friends depended on him and what scant income he added to their meager existence in the gravity wells. He couldn’t let the cops catch him. These humans and shapeshifters were Brayden’s family. At least, they became one after saving him from the gutters of New Plesto. To him, nothing else mattered.
He whipped past melancholy faces in the crowds, celestial ghosts enslaved to their nine-to-five machines. Vaporous enigmas like the remnants of his life. He recalled little before his rescue from lying face-down in a storm drain four weeks ago. Missing pieces. Missing past. Tires squealed behind him. Brayden’s lungs burned, but he had energy to spare. The last month in the guild taught him a thing or two about professional heists, including cyclic breathing for endurance. His youthful strides couldn’t chew up pavement fast enough.
Brayden’s gray trench coat snapped in the wake of his speedy confidence. The police car’s reflection warped in the glass and chrome of the scrapers in Tylessi’s busiest metropolis. Gun reports and a revving engine rose above the cacophony right on his tail. One of the laser rounds blasted the globe of a streetlamp to bits, blanketing him in shards of glass. People on the sidewalk shrieked and scattered from the mayhem. Brayden shook off the shards. Cops typically gave chase, but this was overkill. Something was different today. Knowing Shay, she sent me on another life lessons job. Bottom rungs often collected the most mud.
Sirens warbled. The cruiser wove through the bustling streets of New Plesto, its loudspeakers ordering people to clear the roadways as they blew through stoplights. Towering skyscrapers sprawled and climbed into the unsettled fading daylight, shading Brayden’s fleeting form.
The world shrank in, a hazy tunnel of gray and melted cityscape. A maroon bumper sent a beam of pain radiating up his leg. Brayden dodged another honking car, bobbling the miniature disk in his hands, and scampered through the wide intersection. A rig driver laid on his horn and offered him a guided escort to fiery eternities. He hopped through the crosswalk and shook away his pain and anxiety. Red and blue lights reduced the gap.
Brayden darted past hologram billboards with news headlines and brands of sodas. Bellies of gray blotted out the sun accompanied by delicate ripples of thunder. Fat raindrops cooled his exposed skin. The scent of fresh rainfall sliced through the urban smog and revived his lungs. He melded among the people covering their heads with glowing umbrellas powered by axonometric technologies or purses on their way home. The cruiser cut through the nebulous crowd in the next intersection, forcing Brayden into a dead-end alley. He skidded across the slick pavement, his black boots hydroplaning him into a brick wall. Multiple thwips from his left. Mushroom clouds of red ejecta popped in a line right in front of him. Car doors slammed. Three of New Plesto’s finest clopped and jingled in hot pursuit. He crouched behind a dumpster at the far end of the alley and appraised his remaining alternatives. The white uniforms skated to a stop halfway down and trained their pistols on the trash cans across from him. Dylan’s right. They do look like seagulls.
A monotone male voice barked from the other side of his hiding place. “Halt!”
Authorities in the Surface Zone were the hardest to outfox. Not that Shay trusted him on jobs up in the floating cities of the Solstice Zone yet, but the more seasoned vets had illuminated him to this fact. Paying more attention to his handler’s advice on disarming the bank’s security walls would have prevented this particular dead end.
One of the cops barked into a wireless handset. His polished gray helmet caught the sunlight. “Caucasian male. Five-ten or eleven. Black hair with a red streak on one side. Blue eyes. Maybe two hundred pounds. Subject is wearing jeans, a white tee, and a gray trench coat with no sleeves.”
“Copy that,” a male voice said on the other side of the handset. “Sending two other units to your location.”
Brayden gave himself a onceover in a puddle at his feet. A thin line of blood congealed over light freckles on his cheek.. Even I know better than to fire into a crowd in broad daylight. He peered around the dumpster’s corner.
“I saw him come this way.” The short gull surveyed the alley. “Might’ve gone in the door over by the cans.”
Brayden ducked farther behind the rusted corner of the trash bin. Processors whirred and chirped. Three cobalt masks cast matching beams on the street, pulling in data and thermal readouts of everything within reach.
“Jig’s up.” The taller gull unholstered an Annihilator laser pistol. “Nowhere to run, kid.”
The short one pulled his snub-nose Eradicator. “Got a heater over there.” He wagged a finger at the dumpster.
A gray tunnel returned in Brayden’s peripheral vision, warping the dumpster into a swirl of stench. A couple of deep breaths. Heights! Why couldn’t there be a manhole close by? I’d take snakes in the sewers, or those spiders the size of my face to this. Footsteps closed on his sanctuary. He looked into the lattice network above. One high-stakes option left. He dropped the mini-disk into an overcoat pocket and jumped. Elevated places. Outstanding. Sweaty hands grabbed hold of a rung on a ladder above. Short cop’s head snapped to his location. Brayden swung his lean frame onto the lowest platform. The cops took aim and pinched off searing rounds into the steel at his side.
“There!” Shorty hustled to the wall. “He’s heading for the top.”
Brayden ducked more sizzling shots and bounded up the network of ladders and balconies toward the roof. Atop the ten-story building, little of the sun penetrated the reeling storms.
The tall cop yelled into his mask. “We need aerial assistance.”
Brayden sprinted toward the far edge of the roof. A light rumble churned across the darkening heavens. Swelling thunderheads blotted out airborne landmasses in the Solstice Zone.
Novel gargantuan super-scrapers that stretched into the storms overshadowed and buried the older buildings like the one upon which Brayden found himself. Their sleek structures sprawled for half a square mile, covering multiple city blocks. Brayden propped a silver-buckled boot on the lip of the roof and peered over its edge. A Vertical Transport train climbed the adjacent side of the super-scraper en route to its summit. If I lead the police to them, I’m a dead man. Distant sirens raised in pitch as they drew nearer to him. “Backup’s slow today, boys.”
A pair of midnight blue cars hovered into view over the far lip of the roof. Flashers spun. Wipers thumped. Brayden’s head and heart empathized.
“Halt, citizen!” Another gull in a sleek uniform piloted the hovercar. “There’s no place left to run.”
Fog high above swallowed the V.T. into its monochromatic folds. Far below, taillights paraded down the avenue on their way into the suburbs. Neither hovercar surrendered its position. Got way too much time and effort tied up in this contract to become the laughingstock of the Faction.
Powerful latches near the base of the building unhinged. Yellow lights blinked into existence and pulsed up the sides of the train’s trench in the scraper’s surface. Breaths came in fast, shallow bursts. A glimpse at the cops, then the train. Gods. I must be nuts.
The weapons on the police cruisers whirred to life. “This is your final warning. On your knees with your hands laced behind your head.”
A shaking right hand lowered to his belt and removed a slender device. A V.T. emerged from its tunnel into the street. Its whine intensified as the train spun up its engines. Brayden readied himself for a date with disaster in the wash of its headlights.
“Don’t do it!” The officer’s tone warped into worry.
Not for my sake. Brayden inched to the roof’s edge. More for his piles of paperwork.
“We can work this out.”
The desperate young man flung his body out into the void over the northwestern side of the city. A wash of tingles raced from his heels to his head. Brayden thought he would pass out in midair. Windowpanes rushed past. Instantaneous portraits of residents frozen in their evening routines. Brayden fired his grappling hook into the mists toward the V. T.; space between him and the traffic jam below shrank at an alarming rate. Please grab hold. The train’s momentum yanked him from his freefall and sent his body swinging in wild oscillations into the fog bank. Raindrops stung his face. The train’s roof whipped past, missing him by inches. He latched the grappler to his belt and held on tight. One of the aerial cop cars plunged to street level and patrolled the scene.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Good riddance.” Brayden’s bangs matted to his face as the angular train barreled through downpours. Tunnel vision returned with a vengeance as the streets shrank beneath him. Propulsors hissed along its magnetic rails. Brayden depressed a button on the side of the grappler. The slippery, thin wire retracted toward the hook and the front of the V.T. as his body steadied in line with the train’s roof. A girl, no older than five by his guess, waved from her spot aboard the V.T. Brayden returned the gesture and smiled in the storm’s turbulent winds. Enormous metallic claws snapped down, securing the gray train into place hundreds of stories off the ground. He opened the emergency hatch on the top of the train and swung into the huddling throng of suits, tourists, and locals.
An elderly woman turned to him and smiled. Her furry gray brows piqued. “Tough day?” She cursed the younger generation for their laziness and hobbled into Sector Six’s entertainment district.
An entire town resided on this floor alone. Signs of various sizes and colors advertised their wares. Shops, restaurants, clubs, and residential apartments lined its hollow belly. Birds fluttered from their perches to the skylights high above. City parks sporting picturesque glades shimmered in the sunlight. Brayden’s gawking led him into a solid mass.
“Watch your step, human.” A scowling man straightened his shirt. Thin lines of electric blue moved in silent hexagonal patterns beneath the pale flesh of the Gensys Tron’s forearms.
Brayden shuffled away from the perturbed member of the master cyborg race. “My mistake.”
The salt-and-pepper haired businessman scoffed and walked away. Thank the gods he wasn’t a Second Gen. Last thing I need is a techromancer on me. Brayden continued down the southern terrace alongside businesspeople locked in important phone conversations en route to their homes and families. Its perfect atmosphere and fresh air cleared the stench of the alley off him and quelled what remained of the fire in his chest. Three gulls emerged from the crowd. The big one motioned to the others to spread out.
“Great. I’m dead.” Brayden shuffled behind a group of women pushing their strollers. It’ll be a tiny funeral. Family? No recollection of them. No friends except Syris.
A pair of giggling Sprytan girls floated on their translucent cybernetic wings around rows of clear elevator tubes at the scraper’s core. The golden-haired Sprytan’s lavender irises found him for a fleeting moment before she landed beside her friend. The teens muttered in their native speech and trotted into a boutique of the latest imported fashions from the best Solstice design firms.
His stare followed their swaying skirts into the store. Not now. The delivery first, and then if there’s time. His blonde admirer tossed him a flirtatious smile and retracted her wings into her back.
He jogged past the front windows of a deli and an ice cream parlor. Brewing coffee and churning hot fudge coaxed a gurgle from his belly. His three sputniks were still on him. “Not the sharpest-looking bunch. Let’s try this.”
Brayden wove between another group of descending Sprytans and dipped into a narrow breezeway between shopping plazas. He maneuvered around a couple of odoriferous heaps of garbage and located the entrance to his destination. The long arms struggled to solve his disappearing act. The two lanky cops rumbled into the fashion boutique for a look around and questioned its salespeople.
“Golan’s Gentleman’s Club.” He pried the narrow glass door ajar.
Thick smoke hung in the air near the rings of suspended light. Most of the tables closest to the stage remained vacant, save a pair of First Gen Trons at the nearest one ogling at the redhead on stage. Tattoos and patches on worn leather vests? Cargo runners. The shorter brown-haired cyborg knocked back a swig of his brew; fleeting green lines pulsed in his muscular forearms. They pontificated on the superiority of synthetic dancers up in Tarsys City to the likes of the human writhing under the lights.
An athletic female twirled through the smoky beams. The sparkles painted onto her breasts twinkled in the changing cones of light: red, yellow, then blue. She stopped with her back to the audience. She swung her red curls over a shoulder and peered at Brayden. The dancer ran her hands over her red sequin undies and slapped her rump before returning to her routine.
Brayden passed behind the cargo runners and plunked down in a dark corner. “Maybe a little nip will settle the nerves.” He put in an order for his favorite, a liquor tonic. Once his green concoction appeared, he flopped back into his chair in the shadows and downed a gulp. “Ah, that’ll take the edge off anything.”
“Sure about that?” A middle-aged man sporting short, white curls leaned into the ring of blue light over the table. A small pair of reflective black circles concealed his eyes.
Brayden fell back into his seat. “Dylan.”
His words had the grit of a life dedicated to his craft. “Will that stuff tame Shay’s fury, I wonder?” Dylan set his elbows on the table. His fingertips converged before his haggard guise and three-day-old stubble.
After her dance, the redhead sauntered from the stage to their conversation. “Dylan.” She pecked him on the lips. “Got some sugar for me?” Her green eyes shifted to Brayden. “Welcome back.”
Brayden’s memory was a black hole. When was I here the first time?
“Cindy.” Dylan curled his upturned fingers at him. Brayden slapped the disc in his handler’s palm. He gave her the device, which she tucked into a pocket in the front of her undies. “Make sure Geno gets that.”
Brayden heaved out a lungful of stress at Cindy’s departure. “I’ve never seen this club in my life.”
“She found out about your little snafu with the city.” Dylan drummed his fingers on the table. “How they shot up a hardware store because of you.”
Brayden crossed his arms. “Listen. That banking guy was on the Syndicate’s payroll. I downloaded thousands of laundering accounts onto that thing. Enough to force them off our turf.”
“A simple job. No complications. Still, you drag the cops and our rivals behind you tearing up the city.” Dylan tapped a cigarette from its pack. “Half of New Plesto’s likely heard about it by now.”
Brayden cupped his tumbler. “I can explain. It’s not what you think.”
The Shadow Faction veteran massaged the leathery skin on his cheeks. “I don’t need the explanation, rookie.” He took the tumbler from Brayden and drank. “Shay wants a word with you, pronto.”
***
Dylan rapped three times on the door of the high-rise penthouse. The low hum of the air units broke the silence. Lines of data unfurled in the door’s surface. A holographic camera lens materialized, focusing on the pair. Its gilded surface receded with a hiss. A hulking brute in a black leather jacket consumed the hole.
“She’s expecting us.” Dylan slapped Brayden on an exposed bicep. “When are you gonna get a jacket with proper sleeves?”
Shay’s bodyguard grunted and stood aside. Brayden trailed behind his mentor of sorts as they descended a shallow set of circular steps into the heart of the main room. The penthouse looked and smelled of sterile opulence.
“Wait there.” The brute pointed at the area rug. “I’ll go get her.”
The storm pelted a row of tall windows overlooking the city. Rivulets snaked in and out of distant blinking lights. Shay paced into the main room from behind a towering row of decorative columns. Footsteps bounded off polished marble. Her hair stood from her head like a wispy flame. Fiery red next to the scalp and light orange near the tips.
“Ah,” Shay said in a refined tone. “Thank you, Dylan.”
Her white slacks and matching jacket did little to hide the contours of her older but toned figure. “I can’t say that I’m overly impressed with the outcome of your current contract.”
Brayden forced the knot in his throat back down. “I’m sorry. I know it---”
“Shut up and listen.” The Faction leader poured herself a drink at the wet bar. “Half of New Plesto’s on a manhunt for you. Luther sent Dennis and his Syndicate goons out to bring back your head. They wrecked two cycles and shot up three buildings downtown.” She swirled the contents of her glass. “You’ve walked a razor’s edge on the last few deals.”
Brayden lifted his hands to offer up an excuse, but Shay dismissed it with her tumbler.
“Nevertheless,” she approached him with deliberate strides, “you got the job done.” Shay stopped a few inches from his face and took a nip of her tonic. “I have another contract for you.”
Brayden couldn’t read through her aristocratic accent nor the thin smirk on her freckled face.
“It’s something a tad easier.” Her green stare pierced his soul. “It will give things here time to cool off.”
“More than I can say for that hairdo,” he muttered. Brayden clenched his clammy palms inside his coat pockets. “What’s the job?”
Shay sauntered around him in a calculated orbit. “I want you to recover an artifact from an Empyran temple for me.”
Brayden’s frustration found its way to the surface. “Those guys are washed up has-beens. That’s hardly a---"
“Job worth doing to regain my trust.” Shay raised her glass.
He huffed and turned his eyes out into the twinkling lights and fading storm. “Who wants this old junk?”
Shay glided into a seat on the semi-circular white sofa and sipped her drink. “A private broker who wishes to remain anonymous.” She studied the last ounce of her drink as she spoke. “I want it recovered and delivered to me personally within two days. The temple is out west of the city. It’s a big place. You can’t miss it.”
Dylan cleared his throat. “Let’s hope not.”
Shay tossed back the final swill and wiped her thin red lips with the back of her hand. “And this time no complications.”