Your second card is: The Tower, Upright.
Abrupt ruin. How fitting, am I right? For us who fight against the tides of reality, we’re surrounded by death and destruction seemingly constantly. Yet, this card means far more to you, no? A lost home cannot be pleasant to go through. I must, however, tell you that while it might be hard to reconcile after what you went through, the Tower, as are all catastrophes, is not something that can be considered truly bad.
For in ruin’s wake comes needed change.
* Morgan ‘Sanctum’ Brandt, in a three card reading for ???, December 2056
***
On-off-on. On-off-on.
Light, then darkness, followed by light once again, and repeat.
Sitting in a daze upon the cracked street corner beneath the flickering streetlight, I keep track of the patterns from behind my eyelids as my muscles and lungs scream at me for my insolence. The familiar smell of salt and rust, the New Houston signature, is marred by foreign vestiges, a sickening metallic scent I will likely never get used to.
Blood.
My head throbs as I choke a sob, my brain unable to grasp the reality of the situation. There’s a dull pain in my right eye, which is in stark contrast to the flames trailing down my skin from the left, zigzagging in a line all the way to just beneath my ear. Chest heaving, I hug myself tightly as I try and fail to calm myself down.
On. Walking through the street while gathering points with Dad and Pop.
Off. A sudden clattering from below.
On. Pop, the world becomes the sun.
A faint electronic hum drones from the fixture, melding with the faint ringing in my ears in order to form a background track to the devastation of all I’ve ever known.
Light. Total disorientation, garbled voices I don't recognize mixing into the chaos in my ears.
Dark. Someone grabs my hair and yanks me back.
Light. I scream as cold steel pierces into my left eye.
My fingers dig into the skin of my upper arms as I begin to feel weightless, the interval between my breaths coming sooner and sooner with each one I manage to complete.
White. I feel the blade begin to pull out.
Black. Jerking myself around, I rip myself away, but my left eye stays with them as their knife cuts across my face.
White. Leaving my parents behind, I run.
LISSA! If you can hear me, take slow, deep breaths!
I gasp at Raya’s panicked voice, which pulls me back enough that I can take one tiny step into reality. Trembling, I manage to follow her directions, breathing in, then out. In, then out. Slowly but surely, the world once again solidifies, my senses regaining their substance.
“S-Sorry… Raya…”
You’re welcome. Regardless, we don’t have any more time to sit around here. Is there anywhere near here that you know you can hide away until you get your bearings back?
I tilt my head as I run through where I was when it all went down, how long I ran and what turns I made, then mutter, “We’re on… thirty-five thirty-two, right?”
How in the…? Do you have the block numbers memorized or something?
I shakily stand, then begin to walk without actually giving an answer in response. To be fair, I haven’t actually memorized all the blocks on the fourth.
Just the ones in the sections I actually go to.
Still, thanks to that, despite my lack of vision at the moment I don’t need to see here.
Ignoring the small differences between them, mainly the minuscule individuality that the residents manage to create for themselves, the Fourth is nothing but a single destitute city block copy-pasted above, below, and beside itself until there was no more room on the floor plate for even a single concrete brick more. Still, from the stories Dad sometimes tells, I know we have it better than the Fifth through Ninth, since they hadn’t gotten the formula for it exactly right yet while doing ours.
Well, not better for navigating if you don’t know your way beforehand, but certainly quite a bit easier to lose someone within.
Walking down the street without being able to see is strange, to say the least, especially in the state the city is in at the moment. Even just yesterday this place was lively, and I probably wouldn’t be able to move through it without bumping into someone. Now, it’s deathly quiet, and as far as I can tell, nobody around for me to run into either. The zombies are sort of a missing anomaly, but that had been a sort of consistent thing tonight, they just don’t seem to show up where you’d expect them to be.
So where exactly are you going?
“Erm, well…” I hesitate, then sigh as I explain, “They’re going to have knowledge of the normal places we’d be in right?”
Assuming this wasn’t a random assault, yes.
“So, I sorta only have one place I think they wouldn’t possibly know about.” I hit my foot against a random solid surface and stumble, but manage to catch myself. “It’s a hideout my sister and her ex would use whenever they got a chance. I’m really not supposed to know about it, but at this point I’m thankful I do.”
I’m guessing you followed them?
I nervously wring my hands as I reach the end of the block. “It’s uh, a little sister’s right?”
Pff, more like an older sibling’s woes.
I quietly sigh, then turn down a street before I duck into an alleyway. Then, running my hand along the wall to help myself navigate, I take a left turn, lumber under a sheet of metal, take another left followed immediately by a right, then climb over a half wall to drop a few feet into an abandoned building’s small yard. I rush over to the stairs, and thankfully find the entrance is unlocked. I clumsily lock the door behind me after stepping inside, then turn around to find… I have a small problem.
“Raya,” I hiss, “I know the building layout cause it’s always the fucking same but I have no clue which room they used.”
I legitimately don’t see why that matters.
“What if there are zombies or something in one of the rooms?”
It’s an abandoned building Lissa, there’s going to be a chance for that in any of the rooms.
I reluctantly agree, then after a slight moment of hesitation, I cautiously slide over to the first apartment, and twist the doorknob. It opens, but I don’t immediately head inside. Instead, I wait a moment to listen for any movement. When nothing happens after a few seconds, I slip inside, keeping my back to the door as I shut it behind me.
I take a moment, my heart slamming while waiting for the seemingly inevitable attack, then blink as I murmur.
“In hindsight, I probably should have just bought a fucking camera, so you could be my eyes.”
That was indeed an option. To be honest, I was expecting you to do just that when your remaining eye didn't show any sign of recovering from the flash-bang.
I groan as I slide my back down the door, my legs slowly giving out beneath me. I pull them up to my chest as I hit the ground, taking deep breaths to calm my raging heart. I lean my head back against the door, then ask:
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“How many points do I have again?”
Four-hundred thirty-two.
I gingerly reach up to my face, flinching at the small sting I feel when my finger brushes against my cut. “What would you recommend I do about… my wounds?”
Well, the bleeding has stopped thankfully, so you actually have options about what you could choose. My personal recommendation is the Class-I Bio Adaptive Cyberware Catalog, which runs for one hundred points.
“C-Cyberware? Not meds?”
It’s more prudent for the situation at hand. Simply repairing your eyes would just leave them vulnerable to the same methods of attack that damaged them like this in the first place. This catalog’s items are designed to adapt to the state of your body in addition to being able to be installed without surgery.
I groan but nod as I mutter, “Fine, what are my options?”
Depends on what you want.
“I want to see, Raya.”
If I could roll my eyes, I would.
“Ditto!” I respond, then begin a list before Raya can quip back. “Can’t be gouged out, can’t be flashbanged, better vision range, thermal sight for if they use smoke, maybe something that will make me invisible to cameras? Am I missing anything?”
Visible color range? Emp resistance?
“Neither seems particularly necessary, so just the stuff I talked about.”
Okay, it will be one hundred points for an eye with all of the things you want, mostly because of the stealth thing, so two hundred points in total. You could repair both, but that would leave you somewhat lacking on points for getting items that would allow you to combat a trained combat squad.
“I’m fine with one for now, best case I can get an even better upgrade for the other.”
Sounds good, which eye do you want it for?
I raise an eyebrow as I gesture upwards to my empty eye socket.
Figures.
Class-I Bio Adaptive Cyberware Unlocked!
Points reduced to: 332
New Purchase: PHNT-Assisted Sight Matrix
Points reduced to: 232
As my new eye drops into my palm, I mutter, “Hearing you say that in my ear is weird.”
Put your new toy in, and I can give you a table next time.
“Touche.” I roll the machinery around in my palm, and unsurprisingly it’s a sphere. “So what, I just hold it up to here?”
The eye shifts, growing what I assume are legs before it leaps up onto my face. “Wait, shouldn’t I take anesthesia for-”
You’ll be fine.
I don’t get a chance to retort as the machine slips itself in through my eyelid, then begins to grow. A million tiny needles stab into me concerningly deep into my skull, digging themselves in deeper every moment, but I don’t scream; at least, until the eye decides the zigzagging cut on my face is part of my eye socket, sending a tendril of needles down the trail, the cavalcade of needles causing enough pain that I pass out for a moment.
When my consciousness flickers back in, I have sight again.
The small apartment I’m in is utterly empty, beside a single flipped over chair right beside the unit’s small bathroom. I sort of doubt this place was ever actually used as a living space, since most of the time people at minimum put some wallpaper on to cover up the horrendous grey. Not here, though, there isn’t even a speck of a sign that this place is inhabited beyond that chair.
I push myself up off the ground, releasing a quiet, “Bwuh…”
There are better places to take a nap than the ground, you know.
“Oh, fuck you.”
You wish you could.
Understanding the futility of attempting to argue, I stick out my tongue, then hobble over to the bathroom, finding to my slight delight that there is actually a mirror, though it’s absolutely covered in dust. I approach it, then reach over and press the button on the side, which flicks the holo-screen on.
Unsurprisingly, I look like utter shit.
My typically thick curly hair, that I had bleached to match my sister’s shade a while ago then never redyed, making it almost look like flan with burnt caramel, is just an utter matted mess that makes me want to cry. My face is covered in blood and dirt, my natural dark blue eye is a bit unfocused, but those just serve to highlight the two major things that have truly changed about my facial profile. Namely, the literally glowing electric blue cyber-eye, and the long jagged metal scar illuminated in that same blue within its center stretching to just below my ear.
I reach up, running my fingers along the scar’s length, feeling the touch as if it were my own skin. “Raya, this…”
I’ll admit, I didn’t expect it either. At least it won’t get infected now.
“Does the light turn off? Actually, can I change the color?”
Yes and yes. The eye’s brightness is just increased at the moment because of the lack of light to make it easier to see, and the color can be set to anything.
“Wild… Not being able to see out of my other eye sucks, we need to fix that soon.”
Let’s make a plan on what to do first, Lissa.
I sigh, then exit the bathroom, propping up the plastic chair for me to slump down into. I’m already utterly exhausted after just an hour or two of this, and now I need to go save Dad and Pop? It’s times like this I get jealous of Emme’s limitless energy.
“Haa…” I lean back in the chair, reaching up to touch the metal scar. “I hope Emme got out before this all happened…”
A sudden infuriating voice from the other side of the room makes me jerk up in my chair.
“Unfortunately, she’s probably dead.”
Huh. Didn’t see this coming either.
Clenching my fists hard I jump up to my feet, glaring as if my life depended on it at the utter bitch of a woman standing with her arms crossed in the doorway.
“Freesia Bayden. How the fuck are you here?”
“It’s a real pleasure to see you Lissa, welcome to my building.” The woman smirks as she holds up a set of keys, before she tilts her head a bit to the side, causing her curly black ponytail to bounce a bit in tandem. “You look positively atrocious tonight, whatever happened to your eye?”
“Someone cut it out, thanks for asking,” I growl, holding myself back from just running over to slam my fist into the whore’s face, “What do you mean that my sister is probably dead?”
Freesia cups her chin in her hand. “Well, my ex-boyfriend, god rest his soul, informed me that he saw her going down to the Twelfth before we went clubbing on the second floor. I also happened to overhear the admin talking about how that floor depressurized two or so hours ago.”
I take a step forward as I bark, “She definitely got out, and besides, what reason do I have to trust your word?!”
“Well, Miss Samurai, I have information you might want. Namely the location of your parents.” Freesia sneers, then points at me. “All you need to do to obtain it, is ensure that I get out of this hell alive.”
My eye twitches as I take another step forward. “If you-”
“If YoU So MuCh As HuRt ThEm,” Freesia interrupts with a mocking tone, “Ugh, you know how annoyingly cliché that line is?”
The woman sighs, losing the amused look that she had been carrying this entire conversation. “I’m not the one who took them, Lissa, I just know who did.”
I stop in place, then cross my arms. “Actually, how did you know I was here? To add to that, how do you know I won’t just use you to get to them?”
“Lucky guess.” Freesia shrugs, putting a palm up in indifference. “And I know your type, you and your family are all the same. You wouldn’t go back on your word.”
I take a deep breath, then spit:
“Fine. If you hunker down in the dredge bell station, once I get my parents and enough points, we’ll dip.”
“Ha! Hey, AI, do you hear that?” Freesia shakes her head, disbelief on her face. “Your samurai is a bit of an idiot. No, I’m going with you. The. Entire. Way.”
She sort of has a point.
“Not now,” I hiss under my breath, before I hatefully utter words I despise through gritted teeth, “Fine. You can come with us, Freesia.”
The woman in question claps her hands together then rests her cheek against them. “Delightful! I’m pleased to be working with you, Lissa.”
I turn away, then mouth, ‘I’m going to murder her, and it’s going to feel so, so good.’
Wait, until she gives you the info at least.
I blink. ‘I sort of forgot you told me I don’t need to actually talk.’
Like I said, she had a point.
I pause, then grin and roll my eyes.
Tou-fucking-che.
Suddenly, Freesia’s face is right beside me and I have to actively hold myself back from pushing her away. “You two are talking right? Actually, Lissa, what’s your AI’s name?”
I raise an eyebrow as I respond. “I’m not going to give you that info.”
The woman pouts, clicking her tongue as she begins to walk away. “I’d make a joke about you not wanting to save your parents, but we both know how’d that go. I’d really prefer you just tell me instead of beating around the bush, so I don’t have to refer to them as AI all the time. That’ll get really old.”
I sigh, then begin to walk to the door. “Let’s just get this over with, I’m already exhausted as it is.”
I pause in the doorframe, turning to see a grinning Freesia looking right at me. “By the way, her name is Raya.”
Freesia blinks. “Sounds familiar, can’t place why. Regardless, a lovely name.”
Say thank you for me?
“She says you can go suck a dick.”
Freesia gives us an extremely genuine smile. “You’re welcome, Raya. I look forward to working with you.”
Flip her off, I wanna see what she says.
Taken a bit aback, I do as Raya asks, to which Freesia chuckles and says, “Oh, Raya, thank you for being cordial, unlike your brat of a Samurai.”
I snort, then step out of the room and gesture to the exterior door. “You can be annoying while guiding us to the place my parents might be dying at.”
Freesia chuckles as walks past me and then outside. I take a single look back, a sludge of anxiety beginning to build up within my chest, before I reluctantly follow the devil I made a deal with.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t bite me in the ass.