THE AUTOCAB’s DOORS swing open, revealing a plush interior of bronzed leather and dim, electric-blue projector screens. A kickback of exhaust blows my now-unbraided hair into a sideways ripple. Inside the cab, late-night news streams prattle on mute about up-and-coming league fighters in the overcity, Shimano Industries’ favorable quarterly reports, another week of surprisingly sparse homicides in the Vents. There’s no driver. Instead, Matthias and Lain slip into the front seats while I face off with a Mecha-classed male of indeterminate age. Fully machine on the outside, his JOY creates the technological shell that covers his human body with carbon fiber plating and joints of reinforced titanium. Oil for blood, circuits for nerves. Everything matte and black with yellow running lights and a hooded, serpentine head. Two cybernetic eyes favor me with slow blinks.

Some Mecha only stick to light augmentation. Those like Nero commit fully to the class, rarely leaving the neural link with their JOY. I’ve heard there’s a few who figured out how to rig the link to stay on even while they sleep. Their human bodies are more a memory than the mechanical reality they present to the world.

A little late, I get why my two saviors were content to wait around with me. They were the hook. I’m the unexpected catch. Sarah’s sole confidant, and a treasure trove of information that could put their boss ahead of the storm that’s about to hit the Vents.

Nero doesn’t keep a single weapon on his person, not even hidden ones inside his shell. Gangsters of his status rarely do. Their preferred tools are invisible and silent: implications and unvoiced threats. This one is no different.

“Emilia Mori.” His virtual voice grates like he eats churned cobblestone for breakfast. “It is not good for a young woman to be walking alone so far from home. Ride with me.”

Like I said- implications.

The doors seal shut behind me with a quiet hiss of air. An electric engine hums as the autocab drifts back into the sparse flow of traffic, slipping in behind a pair of autobikes heading away from the nearest ascension point to the overcity. Nero is already striking up a thick cigarra as I slide into the soft bench across from him. A small flame burns above his fingertip in place of a lighter. After lifting the cigarra to his mouthless metal face in a too-human motion, Nero leans forward and spins it a half-rotation, offering it to me. I accept it and take a slow drag. Dizziness seeps into my head on the heels of the Shatter as I cough lightly and pass the lighter back. “Thanks.”

Alternating grids of shadows and streetlamps slash over his carbon-fiber face while he reclines against the seat. The untouched cigarra burns between his fingers like a demonic third eye. “Business is a bridge built from a thousand bricks. A shared pleasure is a good first to place,” he says. Expensive smoke curls into the air between us. Segmented titanium fingers dance along a holopad on the door, changing a projector screens to a different stream. “What brings you to my streets?”

“I need a place to lie low for a few nights.”

“My contractors tell me you were in the Orange with Sarah Morninghawk, on a job that appeared to have gone quite awry. They took a great deal of risk in helping you escape Dynasty’s enforcers.” The screen he’s fiddling with shifts to a broadNet message from a very particular undercity network that everyone in the Vents likes to pretend doesn’t exist. There’s a few listings on it, each with a mugshot, a description, and a price. My face is at the absolute top of the list. A million-credit bounty, put on market less than an hour ago. Half that number for both Lain and Matthias, though their listings lack names.

“It seems the international dragons were not pleased by your escape.”

I glance out the window, hand drifting towards my gun. “Is that where we’re going?”

“A million credits is a temptation for the mice. Lions do not stir for mere credits.” The stream switches back to a late-night advertisement for a high end brand of footwear. “I would assume that I am speaking to Sarah Morninghawk’s successor, seeing as she isn’t the one sitting across from me.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

I spread my arms across the back of the bench. “You’re looking at her.”

The man behind the metal grins at that. A hidden smirk; partially amused, faintly appreciative of the view. “You are in shit shape.”

“Shooting a way out of the Orange tends to do that to a girl.” I manage all the exhausted confidence I can as I weather his gaze. “You had a working relationship with Sarah. I’d like to pick it up where she left off.”

“I imagine you would. Yet you have nothing to offer that she did. It took Sarah decades to build her reputation. Her blocks are already being swarmed by Dynasty. Her legacy dissolved in real time. In a week, those people will forget the years she protected them. Nor will they remember you. One small girl cannot fight back the syndicate on her own.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I reply. “I know I can’t hold her streets on my own. I’m…” I wave at my injuries, then run a hand through my hair, “…obviously not in a great spot. But the last time she talked to you, all of you,” the Eight, I mean, “she had a plan for something big. And I can see that through.”

Nero lifts the lighter to his cybernetic, serpentine head. Another curled finger of smoke drifts up. “A summit of the Eight.”

“No one else knows she’s gone.” I blink twice and skip over the lie; he doesn’t notice. “You want Dynasty out of the Vents as much as she did, as much as any of the Eight do. I can take her place at that summit. She was going to bring a message that would put everyone on the same side. There’s no better catalyst than the truth of who killed her.” My chest spasms from a cough. Aching veins claw at my heart, the pain continuously intensifying. Like an iron band being tightened further and further around my torso. My heels jitter restlessly against the floorboards. I keep going.

“Dynasty is a parasite. My story can guarantee an alliance between the gangs until they’re gone. All I need is someone who can keep the syndicate off my back till it blows over.” Mentally, I whisper an apology to Ulysses for using his kindness as a bargaining chip. “It’s your choice if you want me at your side as insurance for the aftermath. Ulysses and Dax won’t attack you if I’m on your side. That’s two potential threats gone.”

The gang boss takes a long drag, weighing my offer on a scale he’s spent his entire life calibrating. “An interesting proposition,” he mutters. “Perhaps I was wrong. You have her ambition. This offer you make is sizeable. Though perhaps too much so.” Again the screen shifts, this time to a shot of the midlayer Vents captured by some flier. At first, it looks like any other block. But then I recognize the metro station, the dried-out park, the alley leading to the 1313. And then the pixelated fires burning through the Vector Seven streets slowly sharpen into high definition, and I’m given an uninterrupted view of the molten wreckage consuming the entire block. Bodies of Dax’s neighborhood watch litter the ground in lumpy silhouettes where they were cut down, left for the fires to dispose of.

A horrible anger ignites in me while I watch the buildings burn. Now I know why Krey never responded. My teeth sink into my lower lip as I bite down, hard enough to draw blood. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. Not until I see it with my own two eyes.

Nero calmly shakes his head. “Dynasty has already given their response for Sarah Morninghawk’s attempt on their Executor. Dax, I believe, will no longer be in attendance. That does not affect the integrity of your proposition. Having Ulysses off my back is enough of an incentive. I have already confirmed my intentions with the rest of the Eight- I will still be attending. Your presence, however, will remain a surprise.”

Once more, he passes the cigarra across the aisle.

“In exchange, my shelter and resources are yours until the completion of the summit.” He eyes the gun at my hip. “In times of peace, lone wolves are often the first to starve. Should you desire further employment after Dynasty’s expungement, I believe there may be room on my payroll for a gunslinger of Sarah Morninghawk’s caliber.”

Mind racing between rabid plans to go after Krey and the bargaining at hand, I shunt all those thoughts to the side, returning to the conversation in front of me. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

The sleeping undercity drifts past the windows of the cab like a languid river. So at odds with the storm coming over us all. Such a lie compared to the frayed nerves that twist and knot inside me. I should be out there right now looking for Krey. But I can feel the Shatter’s tenuous grip unspooling in real time, letting jagged splinters of agony through the haze. I’m still running on borrowed time.

Just a little longer, I beg it. Just hold out a few minutes longer. The lighter’s fragrant narcotics promise a distraction from the insanity that’s about to explode inside, the nauseating maelstrom of memory fragments roiling in my skull, straining at the seams.

Eyes wide open, I breathe deep and tilt my head back to let it out in a ghostly whisper, sealing our deal with lungful of smoke.