Karla sat in the expensive-looking aircar beside Delta, both dressed far different than Karla was accustomed to. She wore simple, baggy pants over her legs and a long, baggy jacket that covered her body, not leaving a bit of her shape visible. Harnesses and other battle-gear were banned from the city, yet Delta, for some reason, had on body armor and a helmet. Both of his pistols were prominently displayed at his waist, and a pair of heatblade daggers sat horizontally across his lower back.

“Delta…” Karla began in her multi-toned synthetic voice. Delta jumped.

“Sorry! I’m still not used to your new voice.”

Karla frowned internally. She still didn’t have lips to frown. Her face was covered with an opaque metal plate with several sensors embedded into its surface. Olivia had said ‘Should block a stray bullet or two, but nothing too big so don’t stick your face into a gunfight.’ when she fitted it. Karla had chalked it up to the woman’s idiosyncrasies. Now, however, she looked at Delta with worry.

“Why do you look like you’re headed to a war zone?”

“Huh?” He looked over himself. “I’m not wearing a harness or bringing any real firepower though?”

“You’re carrying heatblade daggers.”

“Self defense!”

“And a pair of machine pistols. And you have body armor on.”

“Well… yeah. Haven’t you been to a city before?”

Karla wanted to say she had lived in City West, so long ago, but that probably meant little at this point. She remembered the tall apartment blocks that dominated the northern neighborhoods. They sat right under the a massive mountain range that had raised like a guardian’s shield during the Upheaval. The mountains had provided a good barrier between the millions of residents that fled to the large city and the beasts that wandered the deserts to the east, but housing so many people had become a real issue back then. The aircar dipped lower as it approached those same mountains, though the view felt off.

Above the tall mountains was a jumble of architecture, all greater than the biggest mountain that stood before it.

“Delta, are those… buildings?”

He nodded. “Micro Habs. They hold everything a city would need, but all situated under a single roof. I’ve heard that some people are born, live, work, and die all in the same hab. There’s no reason to leave if you really don’t want to.”

The car passed over a particularly large building. Stepped sides like a pyramid, and a golden eagle at its peak, it was obviously inspired by Aztec pyramids, but on a massive scale. On one side was a group of hundreds of thin towers, each barely large enough to contain an apartment. They all fought for what little sunlight was available even at higher floors. The skyline was so packed, so busy with architecture that even hundreds of floors up, it was difficult to get a constant stream of sunlight during a day. She could hardly believe these buildings were real if thay weren’t right in front of her. She glanced down into the dark depths below and shuddered. What had happened to this city?

The aircar dipped between a pair of tall white structures. They were larger than old skyscrapers, and yet they were mere spires on an even larger white building that felt like it could hold a mountain inside. On long, waving banners, a very familiar symbol fluttered. An open eye, pointed and symmetrical, a long teardrop falling from the center. She had seen something similar on the robes of those she had woken up next to. Corpses clothed in black.

“Delta, whose symbol is that?”

He shrugged. “The Church.”

“And what are we doing here? then” She moved to stand, but didn’t have anywhere to go in the cramped vehicle. There was plenty of headroom, but this vehicle was tiny for the four-hour trip into the city.

“Relax. Olivia’s forged documents will see us through no problem. The Church mostly takes taxes and enforces some regulations, but the city is left to fend for itself for the most part. Land of the free… you know?”

Karla huffed. She had planned on keeping far away from the Church if she could. “You could have warned me.”

“Well, you’ll encounter them in the larger cities, they’re a bit unavoidable.”

“But what about this white clan?”

“Digital Snow.”

“Yeah, that. How are they in the city if the Church is hunting them down?” Karla sensed the gravity lessen as the aircar filtered into one of many small slits in the side of a tall, white tower. These slits were massive, large enough to fit several vehicles side by side, and dozens atop one-another. A truck ahead revealed why. The size of an apartment block, but only as wide as a three-lane highway, the strange vehicle fit nicely in the long tunnel that cut through the tower. On either side were soldiers, scanning equipment, and landing pads where some passing vehicles were parked and their occupants questioned.

Delta leaned back as the aircar arced through an automatic procedure into the tunnel. “The Church doesn’t usually mess with the Clans unless one gets too powerful. There were once more, but each time a Clan took out a rival, grew in power, the Church would bomb their headquarters from orbit. The Clans have learned to keep to themselves. It was only recently that the Church had been acting weird. First it was the Black Night Clan suddenly attacked. Then it was the Lightning God Clan. Once all of the heads realized the Church was out for blood, they banded together to stop their assault on our northern branches. It was a worry when Stoke showed up personally. Everyone thought this was some kind of trap. But his troops just rushed in, fighting to the last without any kind of strategy. In fact, at the end they split up their most powerful units, the Inner Circle. Practically handed the victory to the Clans.”

“And now?”

He shrugged. “I heard some of the bishops are fighting to take on the mantle of ‘The Supreme.’ Lots of deaths, lots of intrigue that I don’t care about as long as they leave us alone.”

An orange glow passed over the car. A scan. Karla tensed, but a small beep popped up on the dash.

“See?” Delta inputed their destination, and the aircar lifted out of the thin tunnel after the large truck. Below, the world dropped away. Buildings still loomed overhead, yet the ground was so far below she couldn’t see the streets. “First, we’ll get a room in the Bronze Eagle. Once we’ve parked the car, and dropped off luggage, we’ll head over to one of the streets in the market district.”

“What are we getting?”

“I have to drop something off, but Olivia wanted me to show you the city.” He shrugged as he pulled up the papers. “Oh! We’re married!” He handed her a passport.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Her name was Charlene Lucine, apparently. She was currently twenty two, and apparently a wife to ‘Donald Lucine.’

She looked over at him. “Charlene and Donald?”

Delta shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve learned to just let master do as she pleases. Last time my name was Jovanovich and I kept forgetting it.”

“Jovanavich?” Karla laughed.

“Yeah… Just be sure to call me Donald. The Church might be hands off, but they have sensors and informants all over the place. I hope the struggle in the leadership makes it easier for us, but no point in making our stay more hectic than needed.”

Karla nodded as the aircar slipped into a landing bay midway up a tall gray tower. The vehicle halted near an elevator, the doors opening for them. Delta hopped out and held out a hand. “Shall we?”

Karla smacked his hand away and stood up on her own. He sheepishly rubbed his hand and moved to the back to grab their luggage. Karla looked him over. He really needed to get out more. He acted like a boy who had been homeschooled and finally met a girl, doing awkward shit and performing useless gestures like holding open doors and trying to help her up. Even now he was grabbing both of their luggage without her asking. She looked herself over. Her body kind of looked feminine, but she definitely didn’t have a face that inspired any thoughts of Karla being a human, much less a male or female. Somewhere in the years trapped in a murderbot, she had kind of lost any feeling of herself being anything more than a single, powerful thought.

“Kill William Stoke.” She muttered. That’s all she had been reduced to, and now she didn’t even have that.

The aircar hovered away, searching out a parking spot on its own. The elevator opened and the pair headed to their room.

Dropping off their luggage, Delta took only a single package, a backpack filled with several ingots of various metals and fibers. He struggled with the weight.

“You need help?”

“Uh, no. I got this—”

Karla grabbed it from him, easily throwing it over her shoulder. “You’re a bit weak without the harness. You should lift some weights.”

He frowned. “I’m a technician. I don’t need to be overly strong. Besides, I can just install some muscle enhancements later.”

The pair stepped into an elevator and descended. The sound of a vacuum seal hissed as the air was pulled from the elevator shaft. Karla waited for movement, but the feeling of movement never came. Outside, the floors were passing faster and faster, with Delta turning a faint green at the drop.

Karla could still tell there was movement through sensors and visual clues, but that feeling of her stomach climbing into her chest when on an elevator would probably never happen again. And at the speed they were traveling, she had no doubt her stomach would be in her nose by now.

“Do the elevators always move this fast?”

“Yes!” Delta shouted, his eyes pinched close. “A lot… of floors!”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine!” He gripped the handrail harder.

Karla laughed and looked out. The walls were transparent, giving an excellent view out into the city. A morning sun lit up the upper floors, a glittering forest of metal and glass. It was dazzling as she looked over the city. The landscape had changed so much, and so quickly. She couldn’t see an end to the forest of buildings to the south no matter how hard she looked. As the elevator lowered, the light dimmed and faded, till there was nothing but a half-night darkness engulfing the lower half.

The first signs of light were holograms. Faint lines marked out aircar designs, the newest prosthetics, the nearest brothel. Below that, electronic billboards proclaimed the newest drinks and services. Guns. So many signs for guns and ammo. Religious signs from the Church, but surprisingly also from fringe groups that called for judgment day, the end of times, a new dawn, and everything in between. The signs were seemingly aimed at traffic that passed by. Aircars, rough and dirty from use in the city flew past at surprising speeds.

Once below traffic, the buildings again faded into darkness and dense fog. The glass outside beaded with water, but otherwise the world was hidden in the thick haze. Karla thought about asking Delta how long this would take, but then she saw it. A glow. Like veins of gold, the streets below shone with a warm light. Signs of neon scattered above ground level, but along the street itself was where most of the lighting came from. Large lamps shone over the pathways, a warm golden color that gave the streets a feeling of sunset. Signs of brilliant reds and blues and greens and yellows drew her attention to shops, service stations for mechanics.

And rain.

A constant drizzle seemed to drift down from the eternal layer of fog above them, keeping the lower city slick and wet. At the base of the habs was a very unexpected sight. Buildings. Old buildings. The massive habs had been built over top of entire neighborhoods with long, sweeping arms reaching from the street up into the impossible towers that loomed overhead. The fringes of neighborhoods caught some light from the ambient overcast above and the golden lamps at street level, but further in, under the belly of the habs was an area covered in a deep, eternal night.

“Why are there still buildings down here?” she asked. “Why not just demolish them?”

“I think there was some argument, where people refused to sell their homes to be replaced with habs, so the corporations just bought the air above. Then they supported it from the street, and now it’s like you see.”

“So the habs just sit over several city blocks? Isn’t that dangerous?”

He shrugged. “Keeps the rain out. If you don’t live in a hab, it can be a pain to get medical care or certain services, but people on the ground typically prefer to live out of the way. Away from authority. For that reason, I’d keep out of the mazes. Lots of nasty people in there, and it gets worse the further you go in. We’ll stick to the main streets for now, then visit a few good habs that have some good food.”

Karla looked at him. “I can’t eat.”

“Oh yeah…”

As the elevator finally reached ground level, she got her first glances of normal people. Some were extremely tall, or with body proportions that defied expectations, but most were of a normal shape, just with the odd robotic limbs and sensors embedded into their skin.

What was constant was their weaponry. Everyone carried firearms and armor. No one carried rifles or explosives, at least not openly. But everything up to pistols was carried, but what was even more prominent were the swords.

“Eh? Swords?” Delta stepped onto the street and stretched as if he hadn’t been clutching the elevator for dear life. “Yeah. Very common. Good for self-defense.”

“You keep saying self-defense this, self-defense that. What are you defending against?”

As Karla asked, an altercation erupted outside. A man with the longest neck she’d seen towered over a portly man who looked entirely unmodified. He wore a thick coat and a transparent plastic rain jacket, but could easily be mistaken for an old polish uncle. He didn’t look threatening at all. The long-necked man seemed to think so too, prodding the man with a clawed hand. There was an exchange of words as the neck guy attempted to grab something from the man, then pulled out a pistol when the man smacked away his hands. Before the pistol was even properly aimed, the hand fell with the pistol still in its grasp as a curved saber cut upwards. Another quick move and the long neck was in two.

“That.” Delta said. “And sometimes monsters and beasts that live in the sewers. I hear they’ll eat you if you fall asleep outside.”

Karla ignored him as the two arcs burned into her mind. It looked so simple, yet so fast. She didn’t think she’d be able to react if that was swung at her. The man just moved his wrist and suddenly the cyborg was dead. The sword grew dim and was sheathed, the man casually strolling away as if this was just another Tuesday.

What was surprising to Karla was the lack of reaction from those on the street. Pedestrians gave a wide berth to the conflict, but otherwise didn’t even pay much attention to the action. Some even jeered and laughed as the man was cut down. After a few moments, a pair of men, both in dark browns and blacks slunk out from under the tower across the street. They looked dirty and jumbled, as if every article of machinery and clothing was from a different corpse.

“Scavenger guild. You’ll see them from time to time.” Delta spoke up.

“So if I was killed on the street, those scavengers would chop me up and use me for parts?”

He nodded. “But if you have nicer gear, you could get targeted by some of the larger gangs. That’s why everyone always carries weaponry of some kind.”

“What about me?” She looked down at her baggy coat, she doubted it would stop bullets.

“Well, Olivia doesn’t trust you with weapons yet, but the baggy clothes should make people think twice about messing with you. You could have anything on under there.”

She pulled open her jacket and flashed him the bare steel and nanofibers. “Or nothing. I should at least have some armor.”

He blushed and snapped his head away.

Karla rolled her eyes. “I’m a brain in a jar, Delta. This body was made by your master, you even watched her put it together!”

“Yeah, but still…”

Karla shook her head. What a prude. Her body was vaguely feminine, but she didn’t have breasts, or fucking skin. She did up her jacket, but still felt naked without any kind of armor or weapons now. If her end found her on the streets of City West, she would haunt Olivia till the old bat croaked.