THERE’S ONLY ONE PLACE my gunslinging sensei would skip the last train of the night to visit. Wedged between two darkened holoexperience arcades and crushed beneath a second-story martial arts dojo in the heart of the Vector Seven streets, the 1313 is an all-wood tavern in a world of rebar and concrete. Its décor was ripped from a fantasy novel’s pirate ship, the kind of boat that could sail the seas of some faraway Section. Its oldTech lamps still burn gas instead of electricity. And the neon sign by the stained-glass windows out front would suggest that we’re about to be shot for entering after hours. I can’t exactly remember the last time a sign ever stopped me from doing something.

Audio from an overcity pro-league fight stream hits our ears as Sarah shoulders open the door. Further in, a large projector screen continues the fight on the back wall of the cramped main floor. Empty booths and tables stand between us and the action. Wooden stools rest upside down on tables above a freshly mopped floor. Homely lantern light draws us in from the dark street. Fake firewood crackles deeper in the building, eating away at the chill brought on by being closer to the Abyss beneath the Vents.

Two heavyset men watch the stream from a booth near the bar. Eyes fixed on the screen, one man scratching at his beard as they watch the fight draw towards its climax. Fists clenched. There’s money on the line. Cards are strewn across the table in front of them. Physical credit chits assembled in small stacks beneath a tiny lamp. Half-eaten bowls of takeout from a hole-in-the-wall two blocks away cover the rest of the table between mugs of beer. The larger man, smooth faced, boisterous, distracted voice, calls out over his shoulder.

“Oi. Can’t you read? We’re closed tonight.”

“Good business strategy, closing before midnight,” Sarah drawls. “It’s a wonder this shitbucket stays open.”

The second man, grizzled, weathered skin, grey-shot beard trimmed to ruler-straight lines, doesn’t glance away for a moment. Though he does smile. “Poker night, love. Every Wednesday.”

“I thought that was bowling night?”

“You would! You’ve missed the last two months. It’s poker now.” The louder one laughs, shifting his gut behind the booth to look at Sarah. His skin is dotted by moles and stretched by fat, teeth awry like an old fence, but his eyes shine with welcoming humor. “What was I sayin’ about being closed? Pour yourself a drink and get over here. Actually, Krey,” he snaps his fingers at a dark-skinned boy leaning over the bar from the inside, “get the missus a lemon vodka. Double, on ice.”

And with that, nearly half of the undercity’s scattered, unofficial leadership is gathered under one roof. The mood couldn’t be more casual. You’d never guess the greying men and woman in front of me lead three of the Vents’ eight most powerful gangs; Dynasty excluded. Though Sarah’s more of a solo operator these days, only acting as a figurehead who keeps tabs on local neighborhood watches. Her reputation, like the others’, keeps her streets running smoothly.

The teenager behind the bar, eighteen like me, flips his palms to the roof. “You think I’m some sorta barkeep now, old man? She got hands.”

Sarah taps two fingers against the counter as she swaggers past. “Be a dear, kid.”

Krey covers his sudden flush with teenage bravado, acting as aloof as possible as he fixes the drink in record time. “‘Course, Miss Morninghawk.”

Still holding the bottle, he splashes two more shot glasses, ignoring the drops that miss and soak into the stained wood. I take the second and bump fists with him before downing it in one go. He’s already got a flash of something cinnamon-flavored out for a second round. Takes the little ceramic cup and fills it without looking, an interested look for me on his face. “Cheers, right? Looks like your job went well.”

“Well enough.” I down this one faster than the first, grimacing as the fire works its way towards my stomach. “Sarah chewed my ass out for using a taser round.”

Krey glances to his own rifle, leaning near the bottles. JOYs have eighteen classes of armaments and abilities they can provide at the touch of a key, though the tech only lets you keep three at a time- and you have to be damn good to use three without constantly tripping over your own abilities. Most people just stick to one. Safer, you know, when you’re dealing with tech that can empower a single human with enough power to level an entire city and no one knows how the hell it really works. We just know the rules. And it’s not like the Creators left a sticky note for the historians before they vanished a couple centuries ago.

Krey is a Gunslinger just like me, but his preferred weapon is the polar opposite of mine: a bolt-action marksman rifle that stands as tall as he does. Each bullet the size of my fist. No taking prisoners with that kind of firepower. The daily rigor of carrying it lends extra definition to his arms. He’s got his sleeves rolled up to the shoulders now; everything shades of dark evergreen forests. Front-facing dreadhawk that hangs above his eyes, artistically shaved on the sides. Whoever does his hair is a saint with a stylus.

“Carto Bask is a bastard,” Krey shrugs. “Shoulda popped him when you had the chance. I would’ve.”

My fingers drum against the bar. “Don’t be dull, man. Killing one gangster doesn’t fix anything. There’s two people drooling to take his spot, and four more waiting to take theirs. Same for any Dynasty mook.”

I say it with confidence. But still. Even I know he deserved worse.

There’s a sour taste in my mouth as I head over to where Sarah’s sliding in, bookending the men on the good side of the booth. I hop up and sit between two overturned stools on a table beside them. A thousandfold roar crackles out of the stream screen as one of the two young fighters executes a stunning midair kick faster than the camera can keep pace. Groans follow when his opponent sidesteps with unbelievable ease and fires back with a perfectly-placed riposte from a rapier.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The largest man at the table, smooth-faced Dax, spits a curse in the old language of the rustic villages outside the capital’s domain. He’s already forking a credit chit over to his bearded companion. “Fuckin’ hell. It’s like watching a textbook pulverize a golden retriever.”

Sarah throws her feet up on the table with a laugh. “Your mistake for betting on uni first-years.”

A crooked smirk crawls over the second man’s face. He’s got a father’s heavy, muscular build. A father’s care in his eyes. A gentle way of sitting. All potential energy, a silvered lion that rarely shows its claws these days. The sort of man that you want to like you from the moment you meet him. A violent man, a man of the gangs, a good man. Better than most who rise in the Vents.

Ulysses, salt-and-pepper, white antibac tape stretched over his heavy knuckles, leans into the smirk as he catches my eye. Though he keeps talking to Sarah. “His mistake for betting on the Showmaker, really. Kid’s got a losing record a mile long.”

“Hell if he can’t fight though,” Dax grunts. He jolts up when the red-haired fistfighter on the stream executes some martial alchemy my eyes can’t even track. “Look at that! He pulls moves like those without breaking a sweat. Fights like a bloody legend when the wind blows right. Ain’t seen a ki fighter like him in years. Better than Champion Fang in his heyday, I tell. And then he bungles it up the second you look away.”

“He’s a showboat.” Ulysses is actually grinning now. I can’t stop the matching smile that sneaks onto my face. “All flash, no substance. Missing cool combos doesn’t win fights, Dax.”

“Sue me and half the Vents for betting on him, then. People like an underdog.”

One of Sarah’s eyebrows hooks into an arch. “He’s a looker.”

Dax takes another drink. “So says the silver fox.”

She punches his shoulder. A thick layer of fat disperses the force of the blow in a rippling wave, Dax doesn’t even notice. Sighing when the fight takes a decided turn for the worse, its outcome clear, he reaches for his JOY to swap the projection to a different stream.

“Why are you watching uni mooks?” I ask, attention drifting between three lords of the undercity and the screen they watch. “There’s pro fights on tonight.”

“There’s pro fights every night, Emilia.” Dax uses my first name, talking to me like I’m Krey, or another one of the kids in his crew. “Most of them don’t mean much. These ones, the people are just like you and me. Common folk. Even if they’re uptowners.” He hefts his JOY at Sarah, then up at the fizzling, blue-edged screen. “Stop following my fine friend here on her vigilante runs, get some time in the rings, and you could be pointing a gun at one of those boys in no time. You and Krey both. The arenas only care if you can fight- they don’t care where you come from.”

I snort quietly. “Like I would ever go to some cushy, gold toilet combat school in the overcity. They don’t do Venters up there.”

Ulysses nudges Dax’s shoulder. “Lay off ‘em, old boy. Their lives are their own.”

“They got talent,” Dax growls. “All our kids do, just as much as any protein junkie from the Electric Town. I know you two aren’t keen on it, but getting famous in the arenas ain’t the same thing as folding to the corporations…” His indignation trails away when he sees the look in both Ulysses and Sarah’s eyes. “…Better they have a real life up there than fight for scraps and sparks down here, is all I say. The Vents isn’t our home. It’s not anyone’s. It’s a prison.”

The casual, friendly atmosphere of the bar withers as his words fade. We all feel the chill of the Abyss yawning far below our feet. See the dark streets outside, painted in neon hues and darkness, as they always will be. Hear the echoes of gunshots and blade scratches that marred the alleys in years past. The reality of the surface world is a fairy tale to people like me, who can’t even remember the last time we bothered sneaking up to see the sun.

Slowly, Sarah unwinds from her curled position, returning her feet to the floor. One of the binders I stole from the Dynasty safehouse finds its way onto the table, covering a stack of chips and two hands of cards. An overturned ace peeks out from behind the binder as she flips it open and pushes it towards the men.

“That’s why this summit is so important,” she says, quieter to match the dour silence in the bar. “Scraps and sparks is all the overcity has ever given us. Champion Fang- he couldn’t care less about what happens under the surface. The corporations dump their filth on us, use us for their labor, exploit the bodies of our children, and he just lets it happen. But only because we’ve never come together as one.” A credit chit rolls back and forth between her fingers like pirate gold. “The only thing that matters to our glorious ruler is strength. That’s what put him on the throne in the first place. We, the Vents, are not strong. We are divided. Dynasty eats at us from the outside. Our own people cannibalize their neighbors from within.” Somehow, the credit chit multiplies, becoming two silvers rolling back and forth in mirrored paths. “But if we came together? If the Eight formed a united front? We’d have bargaining power to rival Shimano Heavy Industries itself. We could stop the overcity from exploiting us. Lobby for relief, representation, relocation. And if they refuse to help, we would be able to completely cut off their access to the undercity. Let them clean up their own messes. Let them see if they like dealing with brothels in the Electric Town.”

“I’ve said it’s bold before,” Ulysses sighs, taking the binder onto his lap. “If the corporations suspected that we’re planning to form the biggest union in the capital, they’d crack every skull they need to stop it from happening. It’ll be bloody.”

“They won’t risk open war,” Sarah counters.

“That is an opinion, Sarah. Not a fact.”

I watch the exchange in silence. The men protest, of course. But they wouldn’t have agreed to meet Sarah here if they didn’t believe her vision had a chance of becoming reality. A unified Vents- it almost sounds too good to be true. Our streets are built on clawmarks. Every person standing on their feet has torn someone else down to make space. Only the hardest, toughest, and luckiest survive for long.

Daxeyes the binder with careful optimism.

“I already spread word to the Eight,” he says. The Eight- leaders of the Vents’ other powerhouse gangs, the movers and pushers of the undercity. “They’ll be there. Saturday, the Lighthouse, at midnight. Whether or not they’ll listen is another matter entirely.” He strokes his chin as he sits back. “Whatever you bring to prove your idea can work will have to be big. Very big. And it won’t make Dynasty very happy. Uniting the Vents means cutting them out of the game.”

Sarah flashes them a fanged smile. “It’ll be big, alright. Have no fear of that.”