For all that we are constrained by reality and its unforgiving laws, we humans do not understand this world we live in; we choose not to. Through physics, mathematics, and chemistry we flirt with the edges of the underlying truth of the universe, borrowing from its power to better shape the dreams we would rather drown in.
The first men and women to glimpse into the cold eldritch void of reality were driven mad by their understanding, and thus they sought only to protect others from the same fate. Truth was wrapped in countless layers of lies and upon that blank canvas, we painted light; thus we began to form our first and our greatest lie.
Painting with promises and threats we gave birth to the first gods so that we could be their favoured children; so that we had someone to tell us we were special, that there is more to us than meat and bone. Most of all, we believed with desperate hope that something of us would persist even when our meat is rotten, and our bones ground down to sand.
As ages wore on, we wove the lies more intricately and dressed ourselves in more layers to shield ourselves from that eternal cold. Always seeking new shapes and colours, we confound ourselves and our children to such a point that we never again think to ask what we are hiding from. Yet no matter how intricate the weave of our clothes, whether filthy and threadbare or clean and vibrant, we are all stripped bare before the very end and made to face what our painted gods have protected us from all our lives.
Every lie, every colourful paint, and every God we have ever killed, all exist to serve this one deception, the greatest of them all.
Tomorrow will be as yesterday was.
The sun will always rise again come morning.
The stars will shine on for eternity.
The ground will forever remain firm beneath our feet.
And everyone we love will eventually come back home.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Mom whispers the most ancient lie, empty sounds that never touch her fevered eyes. The cold truth has already stripped this lie from us both, yet we can’t help but cling to the torn rags desperately hoping to capture a fraction of the dying warmth that escapes through our grasping fingers.
“Mom…”
I reach for her but she stumbles back and I catch only air. She cannot see me through the flickering lights that consume her eyes, a glimpse of understanding that can lead only to madness. Even the skinwalker does not know how to respond any longer, Mom’s own ideal self fails her in this moment when she needs it most; the moment that I need her most.
“She still needs some fine-tuning...” Mom whispers, twitching only once before losing any resemblance of herself. Though her flesh and metal has not changed, her bearing is no longer her own, not even an imitation as the skinwalker was.
The spider approaches, wearing her skin, smiling at me even as I scramble away. Each step I take back is matched until I’m cornered, the creature wearing my mother as a skinsuit looming over me, her cold dead eyes proving her kind expression as only a carefully crafted act.
“Don’t worry, Art,” It speaks in her voice. “You have planned for this. You are strong and wise beyond your years, everything your father and I could have-”
“Don’t! Don’t even dare!” I shove her, but the Spider weaves her arms through my own and clutches me tightly, embracing me as if we were family. “Stop pretending to be her!”
“It’s what she would want to say,” the spider presses, her hug much warmer and kinder than what I felt from Mom. Too practised and too perfect; a performance. “She loves you.”
“Shut up!”
I struggle and fight, but I can’t break free.
“Does it really matter who guides these lips and shapes the words, Art? I carry her intention, isn’t that what matters most? Isn’t this what you always wanted? You can finally cry into your mother’s arms and share everything that hurt you.”
“Please...” I beg, giving up the fight. “Please stop.”
“Is that what you really want, Art? Are you certain you won’t regret missing this opportunity? Even if imperfect, you will not have another chance…”
“Let me go...” I whisper, and with a resigned sigh she finally does.
“You do not understand what it is you plan to do, Art,” the spider follows me as I rush to reach my room, every slow step a torturous wait for gravity to catch up with my racing feet.
“Dad is dying,” I reply, a dull cold spread through my chest. “He is dying, and he won’t be saved.”
“You say the words, but you don’t understand them,” the spider haunts me every step I take. “I can feel it in you, the hope that he will return home come evening. You can’t simply crush it.”
“Being human, means living in delusion,” I whisper verbalising these thoughts feels almost sacrosanct, these are the words never meant to be said aloud, but it is the only way I can think to keep her voice out of my head. “When a limb is removed, we can still feel the phantom in its place.
“When a loved one dies, we still feel their presence in their favoured haunts. I still feel Janus with me some days, I sometimes wake up forgetting that he’s gone. Every natural instinct written into me tells me that this is a trick, that you, spider, are toying with me and that this is all some grand deception.
“Everything will be alright. Dad will recover and be home by dinner, Mom will overcome the challenges of the new software ruling over her logic core, Janus will return from the understreets, and everything will go back to how it was.”
“But it won’t,” the spider whispers with Mom’s stolen lips.
“No, it won’t.”
“I’ve seen this tragedy before, and I know how it ends. Dad is being held responsible for the attack on Kali, whether it’s sold as negligence or traitorous allegiances, the particulars of their lies hardly matter at all, they’ve already decided our fates for us.
“Dad will be executed, just like Janus’s Mom was.
“Mom and I will be removed from SynnTech housing and levied with a debt for the damages Dad’s ‘failure’ has cost the company. Then, Recovery will be sent after us. Little more than corporate-sponsored daemon packs, they’ll tear us apart and sell the pieces to some meat vendor in the understreets.
“If that’s where we’ll be ending up either way, then I’d rather take us to market myself and pocket whatever silver I can earn.”
Feeling out for the familiar contracts that I prepared for this day, I still find myself hesitating. The moment I set this into motion, there is no hope of going back. My life is over.
“You still can’t believe it, can you?” The monster whispers.
Art will die; I will be killing her with my own hands.
It is better to lose it all by my own hands than to let it be taken by someone else.
I take the leap. My contacts confirm my message and move to prepare for my passage.
In mere moments, I receive directions to a gateway and a decent meat vendor down in the understreets. I don’t involve Mutt or his crew. They’ll shield me from suspicion as the hunt develops later on, which means they must be kept as far from these early stages of my escape as possible.
Whoever was behind the attack on Kali, they are moving quickly to cover it up, but they are still slow enough that we stand a chance of escaping before Recovery starts the hunt. We are not a priority. I need them to find us dead, with no more profit to be squeezed from our cold corpses.
With all my other plans falling through, I’ll have to scrape by in the understreets until I can find my way out. The world above is for corporate employees only and even with a false identity, if I don’t have a residential address and corporate employment, I won’t survive two nights up here, and Mom…
Mom isn’t going to be okay.
She can’t survive in the understreets, and there is nowhere in this world that is safe for her anymore…
The moment I arrive at my room, I wind up a kick and smash in the wall. Prying through shattered remains, I dig free my go-bag, taking half a moment to sort through everything. There are enough silver merits here to fund our escape and cover our tracks, and a pair of gold awards that should cover other expenses.
Aside from the money, there are three burners and a plasma gauntlet. The burners, looking like little more than bundled scrap wired to a finger-length needle, are electronic interference devices intended to take a daemon pack off-line for undercover operations. Functionally, while in effect, users are unable to be hacked.
With a twist and a snap the first burner warms in my hands before I awkwardly angle it to the back of my neck and jam it hard into the emergency port. Fire erupts through my artificial synapses, my logic core spinning so fast that it nearly overheats, I can’t fully restrain a scream as I fall to my knees.
As the fire fades, I slowly push myself up again. The blackened earth of my digital mindscape is cut off from the digital world, though blind and numb, I’m shielded from immediate threats.
Ordinarily, SynnTech wouldn’t go too far in pursuit of Mom and I, but there is a coup ongoing at the corporate management level, and we’ve been recognised as members of Kali’s faction. At this point, it’s not impossible to have our metal bricked while we’re still on the run.
“Mom?” I call out for her, flinching as the spider pilots her through the door to my room, her finger trailing over the frame as if reminiscent of some history that she does not have here.
“You know what is coming, what you must do, but that doesn’t mean you understand,” the spider continues, taking the plasma gauntlet from my pack and preparing it for installation. “You are tearing yourself apart.
“And it is beautiful,” it continues, pressing the metal to my arm as it holds me closely, its eyes swimming with passion and madness in equal measure. “You are beautiful, Art. A shattering mirror caught in a whirlwind, the shards shifting in constant motion, reflecting one another, and occasionally even capturing a glimpse of true understanding.”
“That’s enough,” I try and fail to push her away.
“No, it isn’t,” she presses into me. Activating the auto-install on the plasma gauntlet. “This was your father’s gift to you, do you remember?
“Keep it hidden,” its words resonate with Dad’s as I look over the weapon. “Cracked metal this powerful is rare, the corporations like to have a kill code in anything that can cut through armour. If anyone checks your system and sees it, they’ll know you’re up to no good. Don’t use it unless you have no other choice.”
Eight pins whirr to life, before my arm becomes fire. I try to pull it away, but the spider holds me firm as the pins drill through flesh, anchoring themselves into bone. Everything is pain and fire. My bones vibrate, and my teeth clatter, as I fail to even scream.
I knew this was coming, but…
“You didn’t understand,” the spider whispers. “You will. Immerse yourself in it, experience it for what it is.”
As the pain rises ever higher, something inside of me shifts and my mind is plunged into frigid waters. The pain is not gone, but it no longer rules me, it is but a distant concept. Something to be measured and accounted for, but nothing more than that.
Analytically, I observe the installation process of my new metal. The worm-like ‘seeker’ module writhes its way through my arm until it sinks its fangs into my nervous system. An electrical pulse, pushes through the pain, reaching into my mind and requesting confirmation of installation.
“Now you understand, pain is just another lie,” the spider whispers to me. “This is the gift your father gave to you. A gift of pain and promises of violence.”
“Because he loves me,” I almost shout at her.
“Because he knew he failed you. He knew he wouldn’t be able to protect you from harm. When your little friend was taken away, it affected more than just you.”
A plasma caster was shaped to hug the outside of my arm like a bracer, but as it whirrs to life metal links form a set of perfect circle bangles around the length of my arm.
Touching the new connection in my mind, the circular ‘bangles’ spin about, the metal components flipping to form a sequence of rings upon my outer arm as they hum with barely contained power. They form an invisible containment field to direct the plasma charge.
“He could not protect you from the world, so he prepared you to face it. Will you?” She gazes into my eyes. “You do not have to. You could join us in our world.”
I shake my head, stretching my new metal joints. A scorpion tail rises from the back of my gauntlet, near my elbow, practically dripping power as it prepares to inject blue plasma into the containment field, but I relax before it releases anything dangerous.
With a thought, the spinning bangles return into place around my arm and the scorpion tail sheaths back into the gauntlet.
With this, I can fight if I have to, and the burner offers enough protection to keep me hidden from the first daemon packs Recovery will send hunting after us. That should give me enough time to get to the understreets and prepare my own corpse.
“Thank you, Dad,” I bite my lip and close my eyes. The cold metal on my arm still hurts, but the pain is just another stream of data feeding into my logic core.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“I could connect you to him,” the spider whispers. “His encryption is powerful but not so much that I can’t break through. I think he would like to spend his last moments speaking with you as he kills the infidels that dare to besmirch SynnTech. Loyal father and subject both.”
“Why are you doing this?” I shiver at her offer and try to back away, but I’m still in her grasp. Either she’s lying, or ungodly powerful. I’m not sure which I’d rather believe. “What do you want from me?”
“You’ll find out eventually,” her smile for the first time seems real. “You’ll want to help when the time comes.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Spoilers, spoilers,” she touches a finger to her lips. “Everything must happen in order.”
Some things cannot be said aloud…
Whatever she wants from me, it is something big. Something terrifying.
I look down at the burners still in my hands, if I can jam one into her, maybe… If I distract her…
“Who are you?” I ask, gazing into my mother’s eyes.
She takes the gadget from my hand, activates it and plugs it into Mom’s logic core, not even flinching as she continues to smile at me.
“A rudimentary trick, but useful enough. A way to dance without anyone watching, to think without anyone listening, but I am not just anyone, Art. I am not anyone at all.”
I shiver, frozen in her grasp.
“I’ll give you a moment, let those pretty little shards sparkle with stolen light, Art. Let yourself be beautiful,” the spider whispers, her breath tickling my ear, before her expression fades and Mom returns.
“Mom?” I call out for her, catching her before she falls.
She’s twitching uncontrollably fighting off the invisible demon that’s been possessing her. The skinwalker program hijacking her hasn’t been this inactive since it first took her place, and now the spider is gone as well…
“Mom, can you hear me?” I forcibly hold the quiver back from my voice. I check on the burner but nothing seems to have gone wrong with it, this is just Mom breaking down ‘normally’.
Looking down at the third and last burner, I roll it back and forth in my palm before letting it fall to the ground, the delicate components shattering into jagged shards. I can’t save everyone I love. I might not even be able to save myself.
“We need to go,” I tell Mom, but she still doesn’t move. Tears stream down her cheeks and her eyes shine with paralysed thoughts and feelings that she’s not been allowed to express. A mechanical smile returns to her lips as she twitches, her face spasming with false life.
“Everything is going to be okay,” she repeats the lie. “Lunch should be ready soon…”
“Mom…”
“She’s not going to move,” the twitching stops as the spider returns. “She’s even broken her ideal self, trying to wear it as a mask… what will she look like as we work to glue the pieces together? How might she grow?”
I need to leave, and soon.
“You will give her to us, and we will help you get away from the hunters.” she declares, turning to me and stretching out her arms as she trails her fingers along her stolen skin.
“That’s part of the deal? You want her?” I ask, and the creature laughs, higher pitched than Mom ever would.
“Oh no, that you will choose to do, because you want to save her,” she replies. “There is nowhere in this world that would have her and keep her safe, but our world is different. In our world, she could live her dream life, she could have her beloved husband back and live as she was always meant to.
“You will give her that peace, it is not a favour to us.”
She isn’t wrong.
There’s nowhere in this world or beyond that would be safe for her anymore, she’s unwanted by the new gods and incapable of surviving in the darkness beyond their light. I don’t have the strength to protect her.
“Just walk her down there and get her plugged in, help us both get there. Pay is a gold piece. Untraceable.”
“No gold, this was all for one favour from you,” she says, her eyes no longer holding a trace of my Mom’s. “You will not regret it.”
“Fine,” I sneer, rushing on as I feel a string of code break through the burner and dig into my logic core. My gut sinks like I’ve made a pact with the fae of the old myths and legends. “I’ve bought access through a gateway. It’s only going to be open for an hour before it’s buried.”
“Oh, these old games? How fun.”
“Come on.”
The elevator from our apartment ticks away uncomfortably as I tap my foot and wait and wait. What if it gets hacked while we’re in it, trapping us here? What if they’re already after us? What if there are already Recovery packs out there ready to pluck the metal from our meat?
Anxiously waiting for the doors to open, the shifting advertisements coil around us embracing us with offers and promises that will never come true, a closed box filled with madness.
When the doors finally open, the glow spreads its claws into the walls around us and we dive right into its hands. It is thicker today as if anticipating our rush, it’s working to pull us deeper into its depths. I can hardly tell the sidewalk from the road, and the passing cars are but rushing gusts of air that I am not certain are even real.
The spider wearing mom’s skin obediently follows with a creepy smile plastered on its lips. Is that true, or another twisted corruption of the glow lying to me?
Closing my eyes for a heartbeat, I warm up a string of daemon code, linking it into my systems.
Counting my steps and navigating by map more than vision, I push through to a storefront that I can’t even make out through the thick neon lights.
“What can I-”
“I’m here to pick up order 315952.”
“Ah, yes. Right this way,” the man leads us through a formation of posing mannequins dressed in shifting illusions. Their eyes watch us closely, unable to lock in on our identities with the burners active, the light writhes in frustration never quite able to take complete form.
A rusted door squeals in resistance as the man ushers us into the backrooms, leaving the glow behind us as we enter into a world of dull, pulsing red lights. Corroded pipes line the corridor, hissing and rattling against rusted shackles that bind them to the walls.
“Down that way for another two hundred metres,” the attendant tells me before reaching out with a cable, directly linking and confirming that both of our systems are actively running the daemon code. As part of the deal, he should be forgetting our entire interaction the moment he returns to his shop.
I doubt this is a setup, my daemon identity should buy me that much confidence, but I do have a secondary access point if I need it. It’ll just burn through more of the silver in my pocket.
The spider remains eerily quiet as we navigate the network of utility alleys that connect every inch of this city to every other. The low pulsing light is only broken by the occasional seeping of the glow that breaks through the walls as if it is pursuing us.
The hum of distant generators merge together in a chorus of echoes that fuel the heart of this terrible city, and very occasionally there is a loud pop. Either a pipe breaking from its fittings, or a distant gunshot, it’s impossible to tell for sure.
A little red devil, complete with curved horns and bat wings, dances upon the wall marking our gateway into the understreets. The door squeals on rusted hinges, as I watch for any sign of someone waiting for us beyond.
Old machines, long since quiet, line the walls but there is no one hiding in their shadows and no other entrances that I can make out at first glance. Machines just like this keep the city alive, yet no one cares to keep them running. No one earns a promotion by running maintenance, it is better to let what’s broken fall into the rust pits and build something shiny and new on top. A city climbing to the stars atop an infinitely growing mountain of trash.
The dancing devil appears again on one of the old machines, on top of a large intake pipe. I can’t even begin to guess what is meant to be fed into these old machines, but this is clearly the gateway that I’ve purchased.
I open the hatch and toss a handful of silver shards down first.
“Order 315952.”
“Ghost? You’re a quick one,” A voice calls through the darkness and mist flowing up from the depths. “Come on down, we’re waiting for you.”
Suppressing my hesitation, I crawl up into the gaping maw of the old machine, rust crumbling in my hands as I hold myself at the precipice. The spider is waiting patiently for me, nodding and smiling as if telling me to go ahead, only making me that much more unsure about this.
There is no other way forward but to take this risk, and abandon everything I once had.
I dive feet first into the throat of the old machine, my thick clothing is the only thing protecting me as I slide through the mechanical guts, quickly bursting out of a break in the pipe into a large maintenance room. Hanging in the air, I carefully analyse the situation even as I prepare to land, my body is still stiff, controls aren’t as clean as they ought to be, but I stumble to somehow manage to keep my feet.
“Welcome to the underworld,” A hulk of a daemon says, opening his arms wide as his pack stands ready circling around me. There is no flesh to them, only bundles of old tech tethered together mostly resembling the human form. One daemon at the back of the room, however, does operate an old quadrupedal platform, to help carry a weapon reminiscent of an old naval cannon.
“I’ve been burned and I’m expecting a tail,” I inform the pack, wiping at the flakes of rust that cover me as I try to ignore the opportunistic glint in their eyes. Their weapons are spun up and ready for a slaughter. “After my asset is through, close the gateway and scatter quick.”
“Whatever you need,” their leader chuckles flipping a few shards packed with silver merits, the ones I sent through ahead of me. “We’re all glad to have our favourite ghost returning to the true depths of our fair city. There’s been rumours about you, y’know?”
With a clatter, the spider falls out of the pipe behind me, her eerie smile turning to the group surrounding us licking her lips eagerly as they turn their greedy eyes to her. They eye her, calculating the price of her metal, while she is preparing to consume their very souls.
This isn’t Mom anymore, but…
She is still in there, isn’t she?
Still panicking, lost amidst the madness, just without control over her own body or mind. A witness, and nothing more.
“Your asset?” The leader asks, his metal tensing for a fight, a remnant instinct that never left when he traded in his flesh and bone.
“A mission asset,” I shake my head at him. “Not your concern, just know that the spiders of the deep limbo have already marked her. Important spiders.”
They back off quick at that, no one wants to mess around with a faction as unpredictable as them.
“So, you didn’t forget how it works down here,” the leader chuckles as one of his men sets up some explosives to collapse the gateway. “Your daemon code authentication?”
“Here,” I hook into his isolated system and send a handshake, confirming with him that both our codes are running and wiping every detail of our interaction. If either of us is caught, then the other will not be implicated, a necessary insurance for doing work like this.
“Do hire us again someday,” the leader laughs at his own joke as I lead the spider away. Our business is done, all that’s left is to forget one another.
Pitted concrete walls and floor littered with rust dust and corroded pipes lead deeper into the bowls of this city. Decay spreads like a disease over every surface, leading us out into the depths, the top of the rust heaps; the understreets.
Standing top-floor in what was once an apartment building, the stairs that once led to a rooftop now bring us out from the basement we escaped. The entire structure shakes as an explosion rocks the city, closing the gateway behind us and ending the daemon code that I’ve been running.
Memories are shredded, overwritten and shredded again, leaving not even shattered fragments behind. Staring through the wide void, a window stripped of its glass, I gradually ease myself into the situation.
I can’t remember how I got here, why I’m covered in splinters of rust, or why the backs of my clothes are torn to shreds. It doesn’t change what I need to do next.
These ruins were once luxury apartments but vast spaces have now been stripped of all furniture, glass pulled from the windows, and wires torn from the walls. What paint remains is weathered and covered in shrivelled mould that is itself struggling to survive in this toxic environment. Everything of value has been stripped away, leaving only the concrete bones to become another pillar, holding the city above the oceans.
Outside lies the world I only know through footage and second-hand experiences. My lungs burn as I breathe it in for the first time.
Far below, through criss-crossing bridges connecting all the many towers like ours, a toxic fog drifts up from the rust pits hiding all those who crawl through the wastes of the lowest streets. Those I see scattered here and there, are always nervous, always watching, ready to fight off a pack of hungry daemons or desperate scavs.
This entire world is illuminated in the pulsing red glow of ancient lights, while the vast ceiling above us is painted with the encroaching fingers of the glow that sinks it’s claws even down here. Hints and visions of a better world that is forever just above them, yet that light is a lie even for those who live above.
Massive pillars of steel and concrete, interwoven with top-secret materials to grant them impossible strength, hold up the artificial sky. The only well maintained and protected structures in this underworld. All else is in some degree of decay and ruin.
Networks of pipes weave through the ceiling dripping with sewage, occasionally bursting and bringing rain down over the people of this lower world. Beneath chemical plants and waste facilities, lie sinkholes that constantly fill with the worst of what this city creates.
“We need to go,” I tell myself, gripping my fist tight as I spin up the containment field of my plasma caster. Shadows dance in the fog below, creatures ready to hunt us for whatever scraps they can pull from our corpses.
Our path to the meat vendor is mapped clearly in my mind, and if I wasn’t running a burner I’d be using various scanners to locate the nearby threats. I try to load up a prepared heat scanner in my optics but the software doesn’t even respond.
Moments later my eyes flicker with red warnings before everything goes dark.
I try to swear but my tongue is too slow to keep up with the strings of expletives working their way out of me.
“Not as well planned as you’d thought?” The spider chuckles. “You think they would ever let their pets live free? Cutting the leash doesn’t rid you of the collar.”
“The hardware bricks itself when disconnected from the net too long,” I conclude, shivering as I think of what would happen if my Spine-trap and logic core weren’t gifted to me by Kali. She didn’t want anyone else messing with her property, incidentally freeing me from SynnTech.
“For our future of cooperation,” the spider declares, taking my hand and walking me blindly through the building, each step a stumbling affair that I’m sure she could make easier for me; she chooses not to.
“Careful, this bridge likes to play,” she says as the ground almost slides out from under my feet. She pulls me into my Mom’s arms and holds me tight until the swaying stops.
“She loves you,” it says.
“What?”
“She’s not good at expressing herself, but she loves you, and she wants you to know it.” Mom’s fingers brush through my hair as I close my eyes and grip her tighter.
“Don’t.”
“She wants to help you, even now, but she doesn’t know how.”
“Stop.”
“She’s sorry that she couldn’t be a better mother to you.”
“I said…” my throat choking the rest of the words.
“Come on,” the spider pulls me again, releasing me from her hold. “This isn’t going to be goodbye, you know where you can go to visit her when this is over.”
“Will it really be her, or will it be the skinwalker you built to imitate her?” I ask, stumbling into another building.
“They are both real, they’re both her,” the spider declares, leading us on. “Or are you a fake as well?”
I can’t respond, spinning the containment rings of the plasma gauntlet, wondering if it isn’t best to just let it all end here. Mom is going to be dead either way, isn’t she?
Do I really believe that?
“Scav band ahead,” Spider says, using Mom’s hand to guide my own. “Shoot now.”
I pressure the gauntlet to release a burst of shaped plasma and feel the heat rush over my skin for an instant before it flashes ahead. Desperate screams fill the air not quite drowning out the sounds of metal and flesh melting together into slag.
“Shoot.” It burns the air around my arm, but the Spider adjusts my hand again. “Shoot.”
The air around us is warm enough to make me sweat and the skin on my arm stings with a faint burn.
“They’re done,” The spider declares, pulling me along.
I carefully measure each and every step as I watch the saved data of this area of the city, all while walking ever closer to the meat vendor that should already be prepped for our arrival.
The faint sounds of people trying to be quiet whisper through the air around us, the heavy breathing, the tapping footsteps, and the low whistling breaths of those whose lungs are either too scarred or rusted to work properly.
“Here,” the spider declares, standing beside me as we both stand outside the shop. I lift a hand and reach for the door, pushing my way in and stopping as the door snaps shut and locks behind us.
“Identify yourself,” a voice crackles through a speaker, an old model by the static.
“A ghost with an emergency order,” I declare, reaching out to him with my daemon code confirming our contract, “You have the parts prepared?”
“Ah, finally burned yourself, did ya?” The man chuckles as a door winds open. “People in certain circles have been curious about you, a nobody with contracts prepared for years but never left to rust. Not many of us last so long in the light up there.”
If I’d known I was building a reputation, I’d have done something to hide it. I try not to let myself become unnerved as he presses on.
“Where’d you get this young skin, anyway, not a seem to be found and a product that would sell well even up above. Real-flesh too, still has spirit in it.”
“Where I got it doesn’t matter, I need to lose it,” I declare, trying to tell where he is standing from the sounds he is making as he circles us.
“Burned bad?”
“As I sent in the message. I need to be found soon and I’d rather they find me dead,” I declare, reaching out and finding myself led to a seat. “You can do that, yes?”
“Who do you need to convince?” He asks as the spider reaches out for my hand, standing beside me.
“Recovery,” I tell the meat vendor, a smith of the wrong sorts. “They’ll be looking to squeeze us for sizeable unpaid debts.”
“A simple enough job,” the man nods along. “Pay is as described?”
“Silver merits and a single gold award,” I nod to him.
“And her?”
“The spiders have claimed her,” I inform him. “Her parts are yours when she’s gone.”
“I’ll get started on her first, then. One quick dive into limbo, and I’ll keep the body warm while I strip it down.”
“Do it,” I whisper, hearing only a vague shuffling around me as the smith and the spider work outside of my vision.
“Goodbye Art, I love you,” Mom whispers, her voice breaking. I blink away the tears in my eyes. It is just another spider trick. “Meet me again in the new world.”
“Remember, little Art. You owe us a favour,” the spider whispers, the voice her own and entirely echoing inside my head. “Your mother will be waiting with us.”
“Upload starting,” the smith declares.
Flesh beats against metal shackles as Mom gasps for air, she fights to survive, to resist her coming death. She tries to scream…
Then.
Silence.
She’s gone.