EIGHTEEN, yawning and blurry-eyed, watching Sarah meander through my apartment like she owns the place. Fake birds and forest sounds play from a shitty speaker in the roof. Fake sunlight coming from somewhere else. Window shuttered to keep out the neon. She leans against it, cavalier lady, always hard, eyes strangely softer today. My apartment, a memory like one she used to have.

We banter to distract from the tension, same old song and dance. Snarky her and snippy me. We’re killing an Executor tonight. Dangerous stuff. Hard to think about anything else. But I can tell there’s something she wants to talk about. It comes out at the end when she hooks an eyebrow at me.

“Walk and talk. You, me, breakfast. I got a special place in mind.”

-

More walking than talking. Going along with the midmorning crowd, hopping a metro to one of the high traffic parts of the Vents. My feet start to tap when we get closer to the big lifts that goes through the crust. Nervous, I guess. Not sure what she has in mind, haven’t been topside in… well, years. That blanket trip.

We get in with like a hundred other people, all going up. I keep my eyes down. They raise again when the lift opens and those bodies spill out in a flood. All I can do is blink at first. Bright, shining, real sunlight pours over an endless city of chrome and glass. Baby blue, not a dark cavern, rules the cloud-speckled sky. Clean wind plays with my braid as I step out into a plaza as big as an entire block of the Vents. There’s so much space, so many people, so much sun. A tree, just growing right there with a couple others by some decorative hedges.

My eyes start tearing, can’t handle the light at first. My heart sticks in my throat. Sarah throws an arm over my shoulder and leads me down a wide sidewalk alongside a street filled with gleaming autobikes . Finds a staircase, we go up to the metro station, hop right on without a care. Everything clean, everything polished, white and chrome and spotlessly shined. Holographic advertisements still selling the same stuff, but out in the sun, they don’t feel like a hammer against the eyes, another part of the city that only exists to beat us down.

The capital glides past us. Districts I’ve seen on the news streams, the Glass and Pavilion and more. People chatting and buzzing throughout the train, strangers talking to strangers while they head out to lunch. All eyes up and sparkling, no heads bowed. Sarah makes small talk with a guy wearing a Metro Blockhouse jumpsuit. I wedge myself in a little corner between the door and a handhold pole, arms crossed, shoulders hunched, looking through the window for a distraction.

The last of the Glass district gives way to a sea of green astride the shore of an artificial lake. Acres of towering forests and stone shrines to the old Champions, people training on the sand and running the miles-long circuit. But my eyes are drawn to something closer. Lazy paddies and sunny gardens filled by plants of every color imaginable. Gentle green hills surround them. Blankets and towels like picnic polkadots. Near the rice paddies, two girls share a secret kiss in the shade of a tree of silver leaves.

We get off at the heart of the Electric Town, two faces in a sea of fifteen million. Around us, every JOY class makes itself known without care. Our guns are just another pair in the crowd. Dead ahead, the Metro Blockhouse strikes out at heaven as if to say, you’re next. The rallying cry of a fighting city.

Sarah’s special place is well away from the Metro Blockhouse. A little yellow-roof joint, quaint and retro, chalk sign with the specials out front, great view of the famed arena. Big glass front to let the sunlight in. We get a table right beside that wall. The glass is warmed, sunbaked. Unrelenting in its love. We have a quiet breakfast for lunch. Bacon, eggs, hashes, biscuits. I stare out at the street the whole time. It’s like a dream, the overcity. I could come here whenever I want, but it feels so wrong to; I don’t belong and I never will. Sarah makes it seem so easy.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She looks out the window too, sipping her black coffee, fond and painful memories in the downward cast of her eyes. This special place, another one of those secrets she’s grown more lax in sharing as of late. The older I get, the more honest she gets, showing more of the cracks in the woman she was and the woman she’s trying to be.

“It’s… funny,” she murmurs, hand under her chin. Wistful eyelids. “You never feel like you’re getting older. And then one day you walk into your girl’s apartment and you look around and you realize, you’re one of those people you used to laugh at as a kid. Complaining about the messes, talking about the old times with the boys, reliving the glory days. Boring that kid with a bunch of stories she doesn’t give a hell about.”

I wait for her to keep going. Her eyes close as she takes another sip.

“I met him right here in this shop, you know.”

My eyes drift to the front door as a tiny bell rings. A pair of uni students swing through the door. Crimson haired twins; the brother with a mane of red hair and a smile that brings in the sunlight, the dour-eyed sister clutching a bundle of notebooks to her chest. Broad-shouldered fistfighter and a pale desk jockey, arguing like an old married couple as one cajoles the other towards the counter. The sound of the brother’s laughter brings Sarah’s smile back; though she still watches the street.

“His tryouts for the minor league were later that day. Dumbass thought coffee would help calm his nerves.” She chuckles and brushes her bangs to the side. “He told me to come and watch if I wanted a show.”

I grin. “That’s one way to ask a girl out.”

“That’s what I told him. But hey, he won. I like to think it’s because he knew I was in the crowd.”

I pick at the eggs.

“I know you’re still angry about yesterday. What I told you on the train.”

“I’m not angry,” I lie.

“Kid, I’m not that old.” She sighs. “What I told you was the truth. There are no heroes in the Vents. But that doesn’t mean things always have to be that way. The nicest thing about our world is that the truth can always change, if someone is brave enough to change it.”

“Brave enough. Not strong enough?”

“Two sides, same coin. Anyone who says guts can’t win a fight has never seen a ki fighter step up to the plate,” she says, jerking a thumb at the red-haired twins. Her voice sobers, more serious. “Tonight is a long shot. Real long shot. Not at all my style. Very much yours. That’s why I don’t want you to back me up. But I can’t stop you from coming, either.”

“You’re not going alone. Rule number six: always have someone watch your back, or the bad guys will do it for you.” I point my fork at her cup. “You taught me that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sarah sheepishly scratches the back of her neck. “You were right to talk to Krey. And Ulysses is right, too. He’s right about a lot of things, that guy.”

“If you’re still worried, why go?”

“Because there’s a price you pay when you hedge your bets; be as patient as Ulysses is. You fix one hole, but another one starts leaking somewhere else. And when it comes to us, to home… at some point you have to bet it all. You have to fix them all, or not at all.”

Up at the counter, the red-haired brother crouches down beside a kid who was tugging on his sleeve. The boy gapes when he holds down a fist to bump. Sarah looks over, homesick nostalgia written on her face. Looking back on the path she made for herself, seeing the endless roads not taken, wondering why she chose the one she did. Imagining herself in another branch, another time. Then her eyes return to me. And for a moment, I know what she sees. Not just me in the sunny booth, a busy city and bustling restaurant. But a frame of her life, all the colors and sounds and emotions captured perfectly in memory, that remind her it’s all been worth.

Blinking quickly, Sarah comes around the booth and slides in beside. She steals a piece of bacon and pops it in her mouth. Just an excuse so she can slip an arm around me and pull me close to her chest, sink back against the cushions, and run a tender hand through my hair. Pretending, if only for a moment.

“It’s your city too, kid.” Her nails gently, gently trace my scalp. The familiar scent of vanilla and gunpowder fills my nostrils as I relax into her chest. “Someday you’ll understand why. And you’re gonna realize that I’m just me, and I’m not perfect.”

Sarah’s gaze rises the clouds.

“But sometimes you gotta do as you do. Not as you say.”