WE ONLY STOP RUNNING when I stop being able to breathe.

One block east of the Kwa-Hon’s outer limits, my lungs finally give, and I’m dragged to rest against derelict workout equipment in a public park. Rust behind my back, dirt under my boots, pale halogens pissing down from above. The bony shadows of a single dead tree splay like cracks across the ground. Alarms and sirens make stray dog howls in distant blocks. Embers like orange snowflakes, drifting in the smoggy air. A discarded energy drink rattles across all four lanes of a completely empty highway. On the undercity horizon, the richest block in the Vents goes up in flames, painting the crust of the surface in wicked firelight.

The city is silent, afraid of what will come next.

Distant thunder from the battle intensifies to a crackling storm as Dynasty makes its move on the casino district. The Eight’s foundering gangs are easy pickings, beheaded of their leadership. No telling how many of them will survive the night. We just barely made it out ourselves, escaping before open warfare ignited in the streets surrounding the Lighthouse. Used the fleeing overcity tourists for cover as they ran to their hovercabs or the neighboring layers or were caught in the crossfire on the bridges. Sheer luck got us through Dynasty’s closing noose without encountering a roving band of enforcers.

Now we’re in a ghost town. The dread weight of the carnage I left behind in that conference room haunts me with every blink, as it haunts us all. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The Eight were supposed to unite to fight Dynasty and I was going to put a bullet between the Armiger’s eyes. We were going to take back the Vents. Take something back from the overcity and the syndicate that has exploited us for so long. But the Eight are dead, except Ulysses. Their lieutenants scramble to pick up the pieces before the syndicate can vacuum them up. Who the hell can stand in Dynasty’s way now? The only thing keeping them in check was competition- competition which is now gone. And anyone who poses a threat to their imminent rise is next on the chopping block.

“We’re fucked,” Lain mutters from the swings. Her heels scrape against the dirt, rusty chains creaking as she rocks back and forth. “So, so fucked.”

Matthias can’t even look at me. Curled on a plastic bench, knees under his chin, he watches a scavenging sparkrat nibble on a data cable with a thousand-yard stare. “What are we going to do, Mori?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I don’t say anything at first. Sitting on the edge of the tilted carousel, I hold the 6-Teba limply in my lap, staring at the growing cracks like they hold the answers to his question. Spoiler alert: they don’t. But I keep numbly staring at them anyways. Can’t even begin to think of doing anything else. Lain’s right. We’re screwed, Sarah’s plan is crashed and burned, Dynasty will be coming for us just as soon as they’ve wrapped up with the other gangs…

“…I don’t know,” I mutter. A wave of dirty reddish hair falls over my face, billowing in the hellish air. “I don’t know.”

Sitting on a curb just within earshot, Ulysses glances up from a call on his JOY to look at me, then goes back to watching the empty street. “Recall everyone. Everyone,” he’s saying. “And I need an autocab at my location, as quickly as you can make it. Room for four.” Waits, nodding at something the other person says. “Good lad. Now…”

“You don’t know,” Lain sighs, palming over her face. “Of course you don’t. You were just following your old lady, and now her grand plan’s finally ran out. What even happened in there?”

I bite my tongue till I taste iron. “Dynasty got to Wishbone beforehand. The Armiger just walked right in,” I snap. “Yelena helped them. Her Psis were running security. She’d already been bought.”

“And Nero?” Matthias asks. His voice wavers when I don’t answer. “Kun Kharsa? The Anvil?”

“Volt?” Lain whispers.

I stare at the dirt. Lain’s mouth wrinkles in a bitter line before she hides it behind a fist, blinking quickly. There’s nothing more to say. No words that can dispel the dread that hangs over us like a guillotine. No one looks to the casino district, but we hear the wailing sirens, feel the trembles that shake the concrete at every explosion, flinch from the embers and smoke that choke the smoggy air. We don’t want to watch because we know it’s just a sign of what’s coming next. The fires won’t stop there. Just like Ulysses warned.

Beneath the flickering neon of a derelict storefront, my reflection looks back at me through cracked glass panes. There’s so little fire left in those evergreen eyes. Just the coals that remain after it’s been stamped out. The rebellious, always pushing boundaries Mori, she got left somewhere behind. I don’t remember when, just like I don’t remember when I started shooting to kill. The Vents took that from me, too.

Lain is right. Without Sarah, I don’t know what to do. But I have nothing else to look up to. No compass without her. She never prepared me for days like these. Always thought I’d have a better hand in life than she did.

All those years, all those lessons; she must never have imagined I’d have it worse.