I come back twenty minutes later drenched in sweat and roaring applause. The sound chases me all the way back to the streets, deafening and overwhelming. A familiar call that I haven’t heard in years. It doesn’t lift my mood to hear it now… but it does take the edges off.
I’d almost forgotten what it felt like, that little surge when the crowd explodes to their feet and your heart leaps with them. There’s no feeling like it.
No one notices me slipping out in the tumult. They’re too caught up in staring at the projector screens blaring instant replays in the lobby and out on the towerside, listening to the local shoutcaster try to weave some coherent storyline out of the fact that a nameless nobody just walked up and wiped the bloody floor with the best fighter of the night. Much less a martial artist. I hear no shortage of doubt in the people I pass. Fingers on lips, hands on hips, narrowed eyes rewatching clips of the moment my black aether painfully ignited and the single-digit seconds after that my opponent, a tech-armored Gunslinger with two extra arms and two extra pulse pistols, managed to survive.
Outside, the loan shark is already being swarmed by fresh marks; moths drawn to the explosive echoes of support for my performance. I can see the opening combo mirrored in a projector screen floating above his table. Still fired up from the brief exertion, I don’t even notice the biting cold. Nor do I care how people stare as I stride up and toss a bag stuffed to the seams with credit chits down on the table.
“Take your six, greaser.”
His eyebrows raise under his cap. Whistling a high-low tone, he starts counting out his cut. “I shoulda known you were trouble.”
I flick one of the thousand-credit chits off his forehead.
“-ow! What the fuck was that for?”
“Poker,” I snort. “Find me another fight if you want more. Someone better than the trash they had on the main card here. Low-profile.”
That gets a chuckle out of the greaser. A silvered metal chit tumbles through his thick fingers like a used-up lighter. More dexterous than he looks on the surface. Ex-fighter quick. “Met a couple salties in my time, Blanco, but ain’t none had attitude like you.”
“It’s hereditary. Blame my dad.”
He motions for my JOY. I toss it over the table and let him tap the shell against his JOY, exchanging contact info. It slaps back into my palm with a reassuring weight.
“Aight. Something discrete it is. Where you holed up at?”
I lug the bag of credits over my shoulder. “None of your business.”
“You were rock bottom and borrowing money you didn’t have twenty minutes ago.” My eyes flash. He huffs out another cloud of smoke. “I ain’t that dull, chica. You don’t have a place. Do you?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I’m sure I can find one just fine on my own.”
“And I’m offering to make that a little less painful, unless you enjoy getting swindled by the landlords down here. Vents ain’t like where you came from. Different rules.”
“And there’s always a catch,” I growl.
“Lucky for you I have a thing about helping strays.”
“I’m not a stray.”
“Uh huh.” Not believing in the slightest, he fishes an oldTech keychain from his pocket. “If you feel so inclined, you can give me a bigger cut of your winnings, which I have a feeling are going to be very substantial. In exchange? A whole pad for you. Lowsector. Away from the lights.”
Greed. Greed is the catch.
“I’ve got a friend too,” I say, snatching the key.
“A whole pad for you and your friend. Sure. Ain’t my business.” Easing out of the chair, the greaser nods to some street kid and says something to him in a language I don’t understand. A hundred-credit chit changes hands. The kid nods and slides into the chair. Then the greaser sidles his not-inconsiderable bulk out of the stand and motions for me to follow.
I adjust my grip on the credits and fall in beside him, faking confidence despite the staggering pain that comes with every forced step. Teetering in a fugue. But I can’t collapse yet. Being trapped in the Vents doesn’t change the reality of my world. It just changes the consequences.
This guy might talk smooth, but that only makes me trust him less. Fortunately, I don’t have to trust him at all. Just the gleam in his eye when he saw my credits hit the table.
We leave the surface-connected districts and head back towards the deeper layer I left Cal in. Worse part of the Vents, further from the lights and crowds, darkened streets and quiet, windy towersides. Can feel the wary eyes watching us, even though I can’t always see them. Doesn’t seem to bother my new companion. He just tugs his cap lower and keeps smoking.
Twenty minutes later, we veer under a neon sign marking the street where I left Cal. Just ahead, a tattered awning shields the rickety stools lined along a streetside noodle bar. All but one of the stools are empty in the late hour. A girl with familiar black hair occupies the last. She’s stripped down to a black singlet, the remains of her dress shirt immobilizing her shattered shoulder in a jury-rigged sling- not an easy feat with one arm.
My temper cools as I watch Cal chatting up the young cook and digging into a bowl of udon like she didn’t just pay a brutal toll to save me yet again. And the long wound throbbing down my forearm is proof that she could have easily paid worse.
Where Thane betrayed my father and left me to die, Cal betrayed her only family to keep me alive, even though she must have known I would never trust her. I don’t want to keep questioning her reasons. I’m tired of the lies. I want to believe her. The why of her help doesn’t matter to me. The fact that she’s here now does. She’s being more than her family. More than an assassin. And she’s choosing to be broken and waiting for me in a slum alley in the middle of the undercity, despite everything it’s cost her. That’s good enough.
The greaser tosses me a small JOY-compatible dataslip, still eyeing Cal. “You keep some dangerous company.”
I snatch the wafer from the air. “You know her?”
“Don’t take a snake charmer to recognize those colors,” he grunts, departing with a two-finger salute. “Follow that to a shooting range in the lower layers. Place is yours, Blanco.” He nods at the noodle bar. “And make sure Feint doesn’t wander. There’s longer grudges and shorter trigger fingers than mine down here.”