The elevator ascends several sectors. One of the panels had been torn to shreds, wires spilling like intestines. A person sits beside me, clutching their knees and peering up at me nervously. I desperately avoid their eye contact.

ding

I unclasp my revolver and count my rounds again.

In a room with five people, I can’t rely on five rounds. One spent on the unsuspecting. A second on the shocked. The third and fourth for the armed retaliating one. The last for… a leg? An attempt at a headshot?

Recalling all known combat encounters, an estimation of around 76% of spent rounds hit their intended marks. While incredibly accurate and far above the league of most humans, a Replika designed for accuracy will hit 100% of the shots that they make, assuming they are shooting at humans. With other Replikas, those percentages vary.

ding

Since I was designed to fulfill a consumer’s personal needs, rather than their protective or financial ones, I may as well be a human in all references to speed and strength. Sure, generally above a given human’s ability, but nowhere near the metrics that Enforcer Replikas or Specialist Replikas can output.

Back in the room with five people, they are all humans — the bullets might destroy their bodies, but it might reflect off a Replika’s and wound only the superficial steel.

ding!

The silvered doors slide apart. The main skybridge splits into a dozen or so offshoots, spanning such a distance that its obscured by the condensation that is especially dense at this particular altitude; to offset the visibility issues, yellow lanterns are erected along the skybridge, piercing the darkening fog like a dozen candlelights that slope ever slightly downward. A few of the skyneedles peak in the center of this district, creating a berth wide enough for a few automa-driven autocarriages to streak through, clouds curling in their wake.

Walking out of the elevator, abandoning the squatting person, my receptors are hit with an overwhelming aroma. I pocket my revolver in my oversized coat. Here, the residents share a local community. Maybe a few thousand years ago, their heirs were immigrants to this part of the city. Of course, this sector is not high enough in Atsalipoleis for those heritages to be traced in a meaningful way, not in the studied family trees that the corpo-royalty have. Ever since the Resource Wars of a couple dozen years ago, there hasn’t been any immigrants — or emigrants, unless the executed are to be counted.

Moving forward, I contemplate my next decision. I could go to Randy’s Reliquary, as I originally decided, but I could retrieve some of my backup gear from Zil’s. I left three rounds in a coat there, and some cassettes for my Cyberdeck. And I could let Zil know that it might be a while before I return. Spinning the signet ring on my left ring finger, thousands of calculations run through my head.

Whoever shot at me is either a shit tracker and a shit shot, or they’re taunting me.

Giuseppe called Illaise a “dark prince” before shutting me out of his shop. My databank reads that the mark for Illaise was within the USCorp’s Database for at least eight months. Considering my other marks were registered and fulfilled within the week, it does suggest an anomaly. Reconfiguring his lover’s face in my head, I match it to the thousands of billboards and projections I have seen. He was pretty, unnaturally pretty.

I catch my fingers metering polyrhythms within my coat pockets, and I seize them.

Recalling the other marks I’ve fulfilled in the past couple of weeks, none of them really suggested a threat. Men and women that were shot in the back of the head, or sometimes through the forehead. None of them had guards.

Illaise didn’t either.

All-in-all, this supposed dark prince was banal; after locating him in his favorite pub and watching him for a couple of days, I discerned when he would be most vulnerable. He always looked sad, but most of my marks did.

Dark eyes, glazed over with drugs or alcohol. Slouched postures. The distraught clothing.

They knew they were marked for death. Most of the time, the crimes they’re charged with are boring things — embezzlement, fraud, The more interesting ones had Unsanctimonious Activities as their charge, but most had the disturbingly simple “Relinquished” tag, whatever that means.

Illaise was Relinquished.

Abruptly, the makeshift skybridge that connected Zil’s tenement with the bridge market came before me. Its sheet metal jitters from a stiff breeze that slaps it. I unpocket my revolver and unclasp the barrel before reclicking it in place. Pocketing my revolver, I mantle the carbon-steel fencing and land upon the makeshift skybridge. Crossing into an empty apartment that’s been made into another entrance, the cacophony of the outside softened to a rumble. In the hallway, I keep my eyes squarely upon the yellowed carpet. Maybe it was white, or the dye had all but drained into this overpoweringly mildewed coloration. Either way, the stench of everything warded further contemplation of the matter.

Descending a few crumbling stairs and over more than a few holes that peer into lower hallways or people’s shithouse apartments, I knock on the only painted door in the whole hall.

The woman inside answers: “Who is it?”

“Me.”

A few moments later, the door opens to Zil somewhat leaning down and peering at me. “Last time you were here, you seemed pissed. How’re you doing?”

I peer back. “Why don’t you let me in and we talk about it?”

She smiles her crudely beautiful smile. “Ah, you’re still pissed. Nothing’s new.”

Finally, Zil admits me in with an overtly sarcastic gesture, and I’m ushered to her couch. A few sticks of incense are burning, complemented by handmade lily candles from a friend of hers.

Zil’s physique is altered, as are most people that can afford the relatively minor costs of carbon alteration. Flesh-fashion mandated constant carbon realterations, with some operations totalling to something akin to a Suprasector Complex. Alterations in the lower sectors were often permanent endeavors; few could afford trend-seeking. Zil’s alterations were in her legs — twice as long as they naturally were, the woman stands at a little over one and a half door frames.

Sitting down on the other side of the couch and resting her legs upon the armrest beside me, she lifts an opaque bong to her lip, delicately balancing the object as she sucked in the Drezlip. After a few moments, she puts the bong on the coffee table and expels a cloud of blood-red gas.

“I must press: how’re doing?”

“Mmm, shit day.”

“Oh? Thought yours would be filled with rainbows and sparkles.”

I chuckle. A gentle hand of mine rests upon Zil’s biomechanical leg — her flesh beats with coursing waves of blood, thrumming down and up the long stalks like what I imagine an ocean feels like. Powerful, recurring, natural. “Fuck,” is all I say.

Suddenly, Zil withdraws her legs and slams her ass next to mine, noticeably closer than average. This time, one of her hands rests upon my thigh. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s not wrong, honestly.”

“C” — that’s all she says, C. My name, for all intents and purposes. The one given by my designer, well, it’s too obvious.

“I dropped off a mark at the USCorp Depository today. On the way to Giuseppe’s, I was shot at” — Zil looks me up and down, scanning for injuries, presumably — “Nothing hit me, but they hit everyone and everything around me. Thinking about it, it was probably deliberate.”

“Why do you say that? Probably a shit shot.”

“Well, Giuseppe recognized the name of the mark. And I got kicked out.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, he freaked out real bad at hearing his name. Told me to leave and never come back.”

Zil’s expression was dreadfully serious, angular and dark. even in my periphery. “What was his name?”

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t get you wrapped in this shit, too.”

“I’m already in this shit. You crash here sometimes. If it’s a serious-as-shit name, they will know. Tell me.”

Giving in, I repeat his name — “Tryst Illaise.”

I turn to Zil, and she’s clearly rolling the name within her brain. After a few moments, she returns the glance with an empty-handed expression.

“Well, in any case,” I start, “I”m mostly here to pick up some gear. Where’d you put my coat?”

“Where it’s always at.”

With a nod, I stand up. Her hand seizes my arm. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, before Giuseppe freaked, he gave me a reference to a guy named Randy. He owns a gunshop in this sector; Giuseppe said he’d loan me a gun.”

“Sounds sketchy.”

“Best I got. I can’t afford a gun right now.”

Zil lets go of my arm, and I retrieve my second coat from her closet. “Thought you had that revolver you stole from that asshole Viktor.”

“Might need something more.”

Putting it over my first, I rummage through the pockets. A pocket lint, three rounds, two cassettes, and a handmade Pulsar Grenade from Viktor— another thing he might be searching for.

“I left three cassettes in this coat. Where’s the third?” I turn to Zil, and she’s counting shotgun shells and loading them into a Tech-9 Shotgun that’s embedded in her left thigh.

“eight, nine, ten, huh? Oh, uhhh, I think Petal took it.”

“To the subject of you coming, no. To you lending my shit to Petal, why?”

“They got into some shit and needed it for somethin’. He’s my girlfriend, y’know how it is.” After a few moments, she adds, “I know you’re glaring. My friend’s in deep shit with some Illaise? Alright, I’ll help my friend.”

“No. I do this alone.”

“Why? Why have friends?”

My mind stirs with calculations.

5-to-8.

3-to-4.

5-to-8.

“I don’t even know the scope of the danger. I could get you killed. Giuseppe called him a ‘dark prince.’”

“Ooooo, scary. You had my back when I fell out with Jale, and that time SecCorp trash shot up Petal’s. I don’t care. I’m helping you.”

“No, you are not.”

She loads the twenty-third shell into her thigh and wills it to load with a satisfying schk-schk. Then, she stands up with hands on hips. “You always do this! You help me or my friends with whatever shit we got going on, but you won’t let us help you with your shit. You’re such a fucking lone-wolf idiot.”

“I don’t need people.”

“Oh, yes” — with few strides, she stands over me — “you do.”

I contemplate shoving her, but I halt the motions before they start.

“What do you have to prove?” The question is laced with venom.

“I don’t have anything to prove! I just don’t want to get you killed.”

She crosses her arms, now. “It’s because you’re a Ceri, isn’t it?”

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My motorics completely still. “Don’t call me that.”

“A Ceri? Oh, get over it. It’s what you are. I’m an altered woman. You’re a Ceri. Simple as that.”

My hands move forward before I can think, shoving her over. She lands awkwardly on the coffee table, knocking aside the bong and a few of the books that were laying on it. A shocked gasp escapes her mouth as she begins to stand up. Before she can verbally retaliate, I round the couch and move for the door.

God, I’ve been around humans too much. Their spastic reactivity, their decisions-before-feelings, they’re all bleeding into me. Infecting me with their ignorant decisiveness. Maybe I shouldn’t have grown so close.

As I unclick the door, Zil grabs hold of my shoulder. As I move to defer her hand, she says, “Check the inside breast pocket.”

Looking up at her, a desperation contours her beautiful face. Her hand remains on my shoulder; I reach into the pocket — a cassette, shiny and sleek. Unlike my other cassettes, which usually sport a handwritten name on its cheap plastic, this one is solid black and accented with gold. For a name, a triangle is subdivided several times into a Sierpinski triangle, each removed subdivision a blood-red triangle flanked by black.

“What is this?”

“Petal found it on some corpse in an alley. Said it was practically eviscerated, save for the hand that clutched this cassette. She wasn’t able to test it, but thought you might want it.”

“That’s absolutely absurd. What?”

“Yeah.” Obviously, her mind is elsewhere: she looks down at the carpet for a moment before returning to my eyes. “Look, I get whatever you’re going through. I do. If you won’t let me help you, promise me you’ll come back.”

I roll my shoulder, and she releases it. “Can’t promise that. Y”know how it is.”

“I like you. A lot.”

I nod everslowly.

“Thought you might feel the same, even if you’re a Replika.”

The words stir something within me, something real. Some concoction of pain and butterflies, felt across skin — my imitation of blood sours with the stuff. Then, something fake: a designer’s touch: gut-wrenching desire. I shake it off. “You have Petal.”

“I love Petal. I can love you, too.”

“I know you can.”

Her shoulders suddenly shudder with the weight of it — tears roll off those angular cheeks, falling upon the rugs she’s put over the mildewed carpet. “Fuck. Please, don’t leave.”

“They are going to continue hunting me.”

“Fine, leave. Do what you always do.”

“Okay.” Skin’s numb, cold like frost.

I step through the door, and Zil slams the door shut behind me. Fishing out my revolver, I unclasp the barrel; I slot the sixth round and spin it. The alloy’s defined circular pattern smudges into lines and grays. Behind me, an intimate howl is muffled by a pillow. The rounds spin, round and round, ad nauseam.

With a swing, it clicks into place, stopping instantly.

I pull up my hood and pocket the revolver. With a turn, I brush past a squatter and up the stairs, through the empty apartment. A violent storm has started to whip up the city, sucking the air into the sky with violent surges. Visibility’s gone to shit, and my hearing receptors struggle to filter out the hailing pitter-patters of fat rain droplets, their directions criss-crossing into a hash of acid. Occasionally, blue-tinged lightning arcs between skyneedles, the voltage dispersing across miles of lightning-catching silver fringe.

5’s against 9’s, a waterfall of discordance.

4’s against 5’s, a slight distendence of time.

Briefly, I wish to slot my fingers into my FreshMemory ports, twist them into place, and wipe the past three minutes. To eradicate the numbness, the crescendoing pain of daggers through soft skin. Instead, I stand here uselessly before the rickety, shitty bridge, metering out something of a mimicry of humanity. Why hold on? There’s hundreds of me.

4’s against 5’s.

“You’re beautiful,” phantom fingers grazing my chin.

5’s against 9’s.

The skin around my chest aches where holes were once punched in.

“You will never know their cause.”

An autocarriage speeds through the sky, its sleek edges navigating violent winds with noticeable aptitude. Its dark shape is barely perceptible against the continually darkening backdrop, but an arc of lightening abruptly brightens its red-on-black logo.

Valetica Inquisitions.

As quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared into the growing storm.

Only a Replika could’ve heard the ever-slightest clink of metal landing on metal somewhere besides me.

“Fuck.”

Already knowing I’m compromised, I take out my revolver and Cyberdeck, attaching the latter to my arm and quickly rummaging through my cassettes — Initiate, De-fence/der, and the Sierpinski. Petal had taken my CTechAttack cassette, which shut down most electronics — Replika or not. The thing that landed near has been perfectly — eerily — silent.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Bounding down the stairs and through the hall, I slam my fist repeatedly on Zil’s door. Alarmed, Zil opens the door, lines of cried-in white mascara trace down her cheeks. “What? Thought we just broke up.”

“No time. Valetica’s tracking me.”

Her integrated Tech-9 Shotgun is already in her hands, wiring connecting to her thigh and pads connecting to her hands. It hums to life. “Where?”

As if on queue, a figure cuts through a nearby door, absolutely shredding the already rotten wood with violent intensity. Worse than I could’ve imagined, it’s an Assassin Replika. Its sleek black nano-carbon-steel has the bare essentials of a body, outfitted with thousands of needles and unfolding limbs to outmaneuver any foe in any terrain.

It’s barely half my height, possibly a fourth of Zil’s, and, curiously, its face has a chilling smile, like a jester’s mask.

VRR-BRAM!

A wave of electrified bullets sparkles in a brief flash before drawing on its face, compounding into a singular blow — like a pendulum’s swing, the back of its head slams through the empty door frame and straight through the ground.

I jump back, replacing my revolver with the handmade Pulsar Grenade, slipping it into the crook of my arm.

The assassin’s feet remained firmly planted into the ground before deliberately unhooking, descending the floor. The squatters that drifted about the hallway had started to vacate.

“What do we do, C?”

“I’m thinking.”

Somewhere below, a hefty bwam indicates something being roughly knocked over. The sound’s followed by a synthetic cackling noise, horribly screechy.

“Think faster!”

With a head gesture, I bound down the hallway, Zil tracing my path. “Do you have any idea what Petal’s cassette does?”

“Its film suggested it might be a stronger variant of your CTechAttack, but he didn’t know.”

“Fuck it.” Reaching the staircase column, I peer over the railing — barely lit hallways trace forever downward, so far that it blackens into an abyss-like hell. I slot the Sierpenski cassette into place and press the READ button. Little gears whir into motion.

A large, shambling dresser suddenly hurls through the floor and arcs towards Zil’s back. She steps to the side — over to the head of the stairs, nearly losing her feet before I take hold of her hand. The wooden mass smashes through the railing and crumbles into dozens of pieces; the assassin trails the arc and elegantly lands on its stalks. Where the bullets hit, a scuffed dent remains.

Letting go of Zil’s hand and reaching to the still-crooked Pulsar Grenade, I twist the pill-like contraption and a ramping zzzzzzz begins. The assassin laughs it horrible laugh.

“Oh, wonderful. I love the feeling of these!”

I chuck the bomb at its feet and throw Zil and I both over the edge of the rail.

zzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrwow, the device rings in a thousand overlapping frequencies before it emits a small electro-magnetic pulse that short-circuits and burns lower-level tech while causing minor resets to anything with sentience. Hopefully, this thing can be reset at all. Or just simply keels over. Zil clings to my waist for a moment as we twirl through the air. Calculating our arc, I reach for a part of the staircase and pendulum-swing to a lower level. We passed eight floors. Recalculating our position within Atsalipoleis, I take hold of Zil’s hand and pull her up.

“Follow.”

Descending one more flight of stairs, we bound through the hall and turn down another. Eventually, we find another empty was-apartment that’s been turned into a makeshift entrance. The rain’s become full fucking sleet at this point, but it’s all we got.

Without a second lost, our trudging boots slam against the sheet metal. Through the sleet fall, my receptors pick up a sound like glass shattering. Looking up, the needle-like assassin is descending like hell upon earth.

“JUMP!”

Zil barely registers the command before it crashes through the flimsy metal — the bridge collapses instantly, completely lacking any support. Our feet lose contact with ground, and we enter free fall. Zil’s screaming. Below, a skybridge is quickly approaching. Lightning arcs, and I register its demented smile, an apparently maddening joy that doesn’t reach its eyes.

A few seconds before we reach cobblestone, I turn to the Cyberdeck attached to my wrist — the red LED is on, indicating that its ready. The assassin extends its reflective arms, priming to catch me, cackling all the while.

“FUCK IT!” I smash the EXECUTE button and direct the electromagnetic output towards the Replika. Without the ability to unfold my Cyberdeck and read the instructions, I’m forced to hinge my entire life on a guess that the cassette will emit something. I hear its whirring, the film scrolling within the shitty machine, and suddenly I feel compelled to pray.

Zil hits the cobblestone skybridge like a ton of bricks, wind knocked out of her lungs, but the Replika entirely ignores her — instead, our eyes stare within each other. It makes some playful gesture before suddenly extending its blade-like arm and crossing the air before me.

No, not before me — through me.

In horror, I watch as a seam appears through my aft arm and its attached Cyberdeck — and both pieces of machinery gradually separate. Sinews and nerves snap in gut wrenching pain. When I realize I’m screaming, I slam into the skybridge.

Fractals of time are lost. Zil yells a war cry before its violently cut short. A loud and dizzying bang fills my head and resounds dozens of times. As if a thousand spears had struck my body, I’m pinned there, uselessly, hopelessly. My limb lies there, motionless, seeping with dark blood. The organism that is my skin screeches a dying sound, something I didn’t even know it was capable of.

The assassin grabs hold of my neck, raising my useless body only halfway. I feel compelled to throw up, as if some fractal of biological memory still lives in me somewhere unknown. I may have even dry heaved, attempting to expel the pain through an esophagus I don’t have, through a mouth I don’t need.

“My, my. You just keep getting better. What’s a sex doll doing in all this mess? Explains how gorgeous you are. Or handsome? Can’t quite tell what you’re going for.” It laughs in a shrill voice. “Or maybe that’s the point! Oh well, such a shame. You know it’s a crime to steal off your mark’s bodies?

“What do you care? Right? Well, we probably wouldn’t have known if you stole a necklace or even his wallet. It’s all burned up anyway. But you stole the one thing that mattered.” A small prod extends off its body, splitting into two thin, circular edges that circle around my left ring finger. Its cold and thin before it slowly clamps onto my skin.

“What joy, a Replika that can feel. Why didn’t you stay with your master, huh? Thought you were better than sex? No one is better than what they’re designed for.” The blades slowly cut deeper into my supple flesh, the frost warmed by my blood. I try to dry heave again. “How does that feel?”

Its demented grin takes on new colors: a glimmering of disgust, eyes intent.

Jealousy.

Something bubbles deep within me, gestating in mere moments into a song that ripples throughout my whole body. Laughter. I begin to laugh at its stupid fucking metal face, the face of a Replika that’s jealous of me. Me!

The incising blades halt, and the assassin simply peers at me. “What? What’s funny?”

I don’t reply. I don’t even think to. I just keep laughing at it. Clearly frustrated with my inappropriate response, it lifts me up before throwing me to the wet ground. Now, instead of the spears of pain, I feel chilling sleet prickling across my body. Its a sobering clarity that would make a human clench their teeth. But it’s just funny.

A blunt leg slams into my abdomen. A human would lose their air there, but the pain is just cutaneous. Well, other than the several vital functions flagging themselves for rapid deterioration. I keep laughing.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t you feel that?”

“Yeah, it fucking hurts!” I finally reply.

“So you speak!”

“Yeah, fucker!”

It simply stands there, motionless. Then, it turns its head a little to the left. I don’t see what it sees, or I just don’t care to. A few moments later, it brings the Sierpenski cassette — miraculously still intact — to my face. “Where did you get this?”

I’m still shimmering with laughter, but I reply nonetheless, “I don’t know, man. Where does anyone get anything?”

It doesn’t reply, instead rotating the miniature cassette in its tiny blades. Curiously, it’s extremely delicate with the piece. “Do you know what it does?”

“No, man!” — I gasp for air, the laughter stealing it all from me — “Just found it.”

A port opens in what could be considered its neck, and the Replika slots it in. It chimes into my song, too, laughing its horribly screechy laugh. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to die, and Zil is probably already dead.

My laughter abruptly halts, the shimmering light darkened instantly.

Zil.

Where is she?

I try to sit up before I realize that my systems have already diagnosed complete motor shutdown and has been attempting to execute MemoryFresh procedures, along with the tracking soft/hardware that have already been removed.

“Hey, fucker, where is Zil?”

It doesn’t reply, simple laughs.

“What did you do to her?” I scream at it, even though its left my vision entirely. “You didn’t do it, right? Please, please, Zil, no, no, no, no.”

The shrill laughter heightens, exalted in the fear suffusing my limp body. Lightning flashes, the assassin’s needle-like shadow shuttering into view: with its legs planted to either side of me, a long, sinuous blade reaches for my neck.

“Oh, you’ll never know.”

The point sinks into my neck, and the pain is blinding. An oppressive, blinding darkness obviates my mental faculties, and my system shuts down. Soon, the darkness cascades into black, and then pure, absolute void.

And the void has stars that twinkle, ever brightly, and jazz playing on a vinyl. And Clara painting while humming to the tune, her stars the jewels of galactic nebulae. She paints an abyss like hell that descends below, descending, descending. Atsalipoleis cradles us, at its peak, and my head lies at Clara’s feet, beholding her glorious, natural beauty.

A Goddess’s child.