Project November II — Stories of the Struggles | I'mAwesome (2024)

Southern Albion Penitentiary, Southern Albion Sea
Hyperion, Hathor System
4:00 PM Albion Standard Time, 1 January 2698

The prison cell that Mohe called home for the last eleven or so years — at least, when he wasn’t thrown into isolation for beating someone to near death for trying to bribe for commissary or attempting to “buck up” to him — was quaint as it always was. Four gunmetal walls of God-knows-how-thick steel surrounding Mohe on all sides in his solo cell, with the only access to anything beyond incarnating as a silent metallic auto-door, its sharp jaws firmly shut. Even so, with the decade or more that Mohe had spent down deep in the hole, it wasn’t all dreary; from commissary, he was able to eventually purchase his own sh*tty plastic posters of random centuries-old women to cover up the dings, scratches, and rusts that had accrued over the years.

Mohe was at that moment sprawled upon his dull gray mattress, looking upon the grid-locked fan that laid above cycle slowly. Wannabe escape artists that ended up in the hole always attempted to break off such grids and think there was a route out; instead, they’d find a hole that lead to a pipe no thicker than the width of one’s palm. He remembers hearing the frustrating cries from nearby cells whenever such a thing happened.

The man chuckled over the thought as he slowly got up from the bed below. It was strewn about with random items ranging from dulled-paper magazines to the improvised iron pipe that he had made a few months ago in order to exploit hits of kreggy. At least, whenever they made their rounds throughout the prison and were smuggled in by a “charitable” corrections officer. The pipe burned like a bitch in one’s naked palm, but there was no other materials to fashion it out of; everything sold to prisoners were either made out of dull and pliable recycled paper or plastic. That was why his was wrapped in chunks of magazines that he didn’t give a sh*t about, their words slowly being burnt away and ferried unto the fan above on a wisp of smoke.

Mohe had none of that stuff at the moment, however, and it wouldn’t be until another four hours until his block would be allowed to process out onto the yard. This meant that he was essentially doomed until then to more mulling-overs of old books, endless calisthenics, and silent meditations under the cycling clicks of the overhead vent.

Instead of committing to any of these monotonous activities, Mohe instead opted to walk over to the mirror that laid above the cell’s sink-toilet amalgamation. He looked at himself in the mirror, and noticed that the orange jumpsuit he wore covered the spanning tribal tattoo that originated from the core of his chest. His platinum teeth glistened underneath the sick white light of the cell, and were a good change to the otherwise blandness of his white skin and the ugly orange that his jumpsuit sported. His physique, muscular and toned, was one necessary for survival within the penitentiary, for two reasons: the first was the obvious, with a need to have a body built for defense and offense alike against prisoners who sought to shank you at any possible chance that they’re given. The second, less obvious reason was to train the mind to pay attention towards a goal in the otherwise boring hell that prison was. This meant that Mohe called the gym and the floor of his cell home, using weightlifting equipment and committing to cardio and calisthenics alike whenever he could. Over the course of several years, this yielded a man who was able to stand among the veterans of this massive penitentiary and demand respect. Sure, he wasn’t the true old guard that have been serving their life sentences for utter decades, but he knew his capacities and what to do or not do.

As he grinned and flexed his biceps into the mirror in an act of confidence, a sudden bleep emanated throughout the room that snatched this expression off of his face. Turning instantly towards the front of the cell, he noticed a hologram dancing in front of the normally locked door console. Its red holography flashed an exclamation mark encapsulated within a pyramid, with the words “PREPARE FOR TRANSPORT” orbiting it like a moon. Mohe stood there dumbfounded, but rushed to quickly shove his pipe underneath the mattress of his bed and assumed a position where his face and frontal body were pushed onto the wall, hands splayed on both sides and above his head as procedure. He did not want to be thrown into an iso-cell again; the last time that happened, he almost bashed his own head in against the walls of that cramped box out of boredom.

His eyes now staring at the minuscule roughed details of the gunmetal cell wall, all he could do was anticipate what he was being “transported” for as he listened to the sound of his autodoor opening. However, instead of the usual dull thuds of a corrections officer’s boot, he heard the rough slams of something metallic against a similarly steel-plated floor. When he realized what it was, Mohe’s body briefly surged with adrenaline as a means of a fight — or, more rationally, a flight — but he nevertheless kept his composure.

“ATTENTION, PRISONER S-A-P NINE-ZERO-EIGHT-FOUR-SIX-NINE-DASH-FIVE. PLEASE FOLLOW TRANSPORT PROTOCOL AND LOWER YOUR HANDS.”

Complying for fear of getting smacked over the head by a robotically-held baton, he drifted his arms down to his hips. At once he felt an immense force tug them backward before having a pair of heavy duty cuffs magnetically lock around each of his wrists.

“TURN AROUND AND STEP FORWARD, IN ABIDANCE OF TRANSPORT PROTOCOL.”

“Alright, alright — protocol and sh*t, I get it.”

Mohe begrudgingly turned around and noticed the tall corrections droid that had slapped the cuffs onto him, baton in one hand and a beckoning metal gesture upon the other. He stepped forward and noticed the droid go behind him, seizing the cuffs directly and forcing him to march through the open auto-door.

“Can you be careful, eh? Is that too hard to ask of a f*ckin’ gov-bot?”

“NEXT AGGRESSIVE VOCALIZATION MAY RESULT IN CHARGES. PLEASE BE SILENT AND FOLLOW THE ASSEMBLY.”

“The assembly? What the f*ck are you-...”

Mohe stopped speaking once he walked past the threshold of his cell and into the spanning, seemingly infinite gangway and greater atrium. Levels upon levels of auto-doors hiding cells similar to his were stacked across the gulf of empty air between his gangway and others, with each and every single one filled with prisoners being escorted by either human officers or androids. Everyone was heading towards Mohe’s right, and he was subsequently shoved in that direction by his “entourage” and forced to march in a column along with hundreds of others on his level.

“The hell is happening? This doesn’t seem like f*ckin’ gym time to me — and that’s not supposed to happen for a few hours, is it?”

“YOU ARE BEING TRANSPORTED TO A TEMPORARY PROCESSING FACILITY. THESE ARE ORDERS OF THE SOUTHERN ALBION PENTITENTIARY WARDENS.”

“What!? I didn’t ask for no goddamn transfer, you dickhe*d—!”

The slam of the droid’s baton into Mohe’s side made him buckle slightly before the strength of its arms hoisted him back up and immediately into marching position.

“VOCAL AGGRESSION CHARGE WAIVED. WARNING: WAIVER WILL NOT BE ISSUED AGAIN.”

Mohe did nothing but keep his mouth shut, albeit in a silent rage, and marched behind yet another corrections droid hauling its own prisoner in front. His charge for armed robbery was to end in about four years, and he had most of his charges for “self-defense” against other prisoners pardoned. Whatever was happening was clearly way beyond his control, and he didn’t like the feeling of it in any way. Such a massive movement of prisoners meant to him only one thing: transport off-world. Hyperion, despite being the planet he was held on for over a decade, was alien to him; yet the thought of being shipped off to a truly alien world to do god-knows-what was unnerving, to say the least.

As he walked, he noticed in the void between the two portions of the penitentiary block the flight of several camera droids and other spherical machines in flight. He habitually turned his face away from them, but overhearing the shouts of prisoners nearby, he was proven right in doing so.

“WHY THE f*ck’RE THE NEWS HERE? HUH!?”

“I ain’t consented to bein’ shown to millions of people, pendejo!”

“f*ck you, and you, and you! I hope y’all get this, you journo f*ck-wits!”

For the life of him, Mohe could not understand why corporate news stations out of all things were being let into the block and given the right to broadcast to potentially millions, if not billions across Hyperion.

He would find out soon enough.

What was once Mohe’s block’s designated yard had now become a massive field of nothing but cheap pre-fabricated cubes, all of which being organized in a grid format across a massive concrete field. Despite it apparently being the afternoon, the sky was already cloaked in a sea of gray overcast that threatened rain at any given moment. In between the thousand or so cubes that lied upon the yard were tens of thousands of prisoners, standing in haphazard lines and being guided or watched by squads of corrections officers and droids everywhere that Mohe could see. He was being guided to the yard in a massive platform that took him and dozens of others down from his cell block on a slope downward towards the crowded masses that waited on the floor below.

Soon enough, the platform stopped, with its yellow gates flinging open automatically. The droids and officers pushed their respective prisoners out onto the crowded yardspace before shutting the gates behind them, having the platform ferry the corrections officers back up in order to possibly clear out more of the block.

Mohe tapped the upper arm of a scrawny prisoner, scaring the smaller man at first. However, Mohe’s neutral demeanor allowed the prisoner to turn to him amidst the cacophony of voices and alarms.

“Hey, d’you know what the f*ck’s going on?”

“I have no idea, man. We’re all in the same boat, confused as hell.”

The shrill blare of a nearby siren was accompanied by the arrival of several officers and droids, with the humans among them sporting fatigue beneath the visors of their masks. One of them, a human senior corrections officer, stepped forward.

“Alrighty, you dumb bastards, here’s what you’re gonna do: you gentlemen are going to join that big ‘ol f*ckin’ line right there,” he said, pointing to an already bloated line of prisoners crowded between various droids armed with yellow-painted riot stun rifles.

“Once you join it, you keep goin’ forward until an officer, droid, or whoever the f*ck else flags you down to enter one of these boxes.”

He tapped a nearby box with his baton, clinking against what seemed to be a plasteel structure. “’Ooh, what goes on in there?’, you’re probably asking yourselves. We’re not probin’ you here, if you’re scared of your asses gettin’ any more loose. Y’all are going through parole hearings right here and right now. No bullsh*t, no funny sh*t, no horse sh*t, you hear me? Now don’t cause any f*ckin’ problems, or you’ll regret what you miss.”

Mohe couldn’t believe it. He stroked the buzzed top of his head with both of his calloused hands in total surprise, and even a bit of gleeful anticipation. Finally, the time had come for Mohe to get the hell out of the hell-hole that he had got himself in for over ten years; he was truly attesting such a miracle to God and the spirits of his ancestors that he had reconciled with after finding out of his ancestry while in prison. He had to break a few skulls for people to stop calling him a “redskin” every time he was in the cafeteria, but it seemed to have slipped away under the radar enough for him to be escorted to what stood before him now.

He and several other men joined the nearest queue, which was guarded by several heavy riot droids that stood vigilant in shield formation. Their sensors seemed to follow Mohe and the others as the minutes rolled by, with his walk past several of these pre-fab structures allowing him to see men both stepping out in total joy, in broken sadness, or in absolute rage — the latter having necessitated the intervention of the overwatch riot droids.

“Parole... f*ck, can you believe it?” asked a dark-skinned man behind Mohe, sporting a similar muscular physique beneath a white t-shirt that rose from a blossomed and unfurled orange jumpsuit around his waist.

“Me? Well... I’m a spiritual guy, so yeah, I can,” Mohe responded, his head angled so that he could both pay attention to the conversation and if an officer were to be flagging him down.

“sh*t, man... I’ve been in this joint for fifteen years. Fifteen-motherf*cking-years. My son’s already an adult out there... I was supposed to be in here for thirty.”

“For real?”

As their conversation went on, an officer stepped out of the various CO formations and walked up to Mohe directly, prodding his bare chest with the end of his baton.

“You, with the f*ckin’ heya-hooya tattoo; go in that box there.”

Despite an initial sense of rage building up at the officer’s remark, Mohe nevertheless shrugged it off and entered one of the innumerable prefabs that were set up. With the metal door locking behind him, he looked around at the cramped space and saw only a scant few things; namely a droid in silent posture next to him at the door, and a clearly bored man sat at a bare white console on the other side of the room. A bare stool was left open for Mohe, to which he walked to and sat down in anticipation of what came next.

“State your prisoner identification and your birth name,” the man said, the circular glasses on his face reflecting a warped version of Mohe’s expression right back at him underneath the glare of a white halo light.

“Uh... S-A-P-C nine-zero-eight-four-six-nine-dash-five... legal birthname’s Jaxon Kende.”

The man said nothing in response as Mohe fell silent. Instead, he was typing away on a portable computer with a one-way glass screen, the glow of whatever lied on the other side of the glass’s surface being shown as a multi-colored spectrum over the man’s glasses.

“Age twenty-six, English-Hungarian. Born on Deimos, in the Solar System, on the thirtieth of December, 2675. Unknown father, deceased mother, no siblings, no listed contacts of any kind on the planet of Hyperion or the greater Hathor star system. Is this correct?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“According to Coalition-wide parole regulations, you are required to have proof of a possible residence or career opportunity prior to discharge. However, with the recent planetary mandate, you are being extended a parole offer due to the fact that your charge is considered to be within the field of regulatory waiver. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“...Why did you apply to change your first name to ‘Mohe’?”

“A new change of identity, you know. Something to get away from the sh*t I did in the past.”

“Does it have something to do with that tattoo?”

“You seem like you know how to carry yourself, and your crime wasn’t major. You have no family or any goddamn connections whatsoever here, so this is cleanest slate you can possibly build on. I deem you valid of parole as of the 1st of January, 2698 and approved for discharge.”

Mohe’s head bobbed down in relief. However, before he could send off a prayer, the man before him still had a few words to say.

“Parole isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card, though. The Hathor system banned surveillance tech for prisoners on parole, so you’re going to be assigned a parole officer who will report to your residence at the first of each month until your charge is fulfilled, and you will provide a concise report of your activities through the month. Since you, well, don’t even have a place of residence on Hyperion, you are required to find one before February 1st, and are prompted, but not obligated, to take state housing under the parole committee. Failure to do so will result in your re-imprisonment due to a failure to qualify for continued parole. Do you understand these terms?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Your case is henceforth considered approved. Take one of these,”

“It’s your ticket off this rig and back into society.”

Mohe and thousands of prisoners alike stood assembled at one of the hangars of the Southern Albion Penitentiary, which was a slot-like space that hanged several hundred feet off of the raging and choppy sea below. He never truly knew the extent of the SAP until then, and it came into his mind that the prison was nothing but a massive ocean rig smack dab within hundreds of miles of turbulent and polluted water. The thought gave him a slight pit in his stomach, but such a feeling dissipated when he slipped off his prison jumpsuit in instruction of nearby officers and donned a generic gray shirt with matching pants. They felt like utter sh*t thanks to the cheap synth-thread fabricwork, but it was better than being out in the real world with an orange prison uniform on. That was property of the state, anyway.

The air rumbled as a large, delta-winged hovercraft idled near the entrance of the hangar prior to taxiing in with the aid of droids waving their amber guiding lights in straight angles. The word CORRECTIONS was written in a bold white font amidst the craft’s otherwise gray superstructure, and as it entered the hangar, Mohe could feel the force of its engines from his waiting postion that was cordoned off by hexagonal-linked fencing.

When the hovercraft parked in full, the gate to the hanger itself was opened by a pair of corrections officers who, in assistance with droids, guided the prisoners out and towards the craft, its engines still on and sending a turbulent wind throughout the hangar that flapped Mohe’s new clothing to and fro from such power. He carried an almost empty duffel bag in his hands, which only held the Christian annotated Bible he was fond of highlighting within and the bare essentials of his newly-minted identification cards. Noticing other hovercraft entering the hanger in tow and creating an even more violent atmosphere within the hangar, he and hundreds of other prisoners jogged along the indoor tarmac towards their craft’s own open side doors. There, Mohe boarded the craft upon its skeletal extended stairs, and met the interior atmosphere of dim yellow lights and no benches of any kind in sight.

“Those coming in first, sit with your backs to the walls. Come on, we ain’t got all day!”

Mohe and the others gradually heeded the instructions of the onboard officers, and he found a spot near one of the craft’s windows. He placed his almost-empty duffel bag beneath the window and sat on it, with its center depressing from the empty air within being displaced. Soon enough, other parolees followed suit, the large interior of the fuselage growing with impromptu bag-benches of their own. Two men sat to Mohe’s left and right, with the one on the left immediately closing his eyes as if to sleep. The one to the right had his left arm entirely gone, with only a cybernetic implant slot visible near his shoulder.

“They took your implant off before you left, huh?”

“Yeah. Cheap f*cks said I didn’t lose both of my arms, so there’s no point to keeping one,” said the man, who seemed to be even older than the prisoner that Mohe had talked to while waiting for his brief parole “hearing”.

“Do you know where the hell this thing's going to?” Mohe asked.

“Damn, I have no idea; I lost my home in Porto Saudade a long time ago, so they sure as sh*t ain’t bringing me there. As long as its far, far away from here, I’m good!” the man replied, chuckling as he raised his right fist in the air. Mohe noticed that it sported a tattoo of an eagle surrounding a planet; one that many veterans came into the prison with tattooed on their bodies.

“You were in the military?” Mohe asked, pointing at the man’s tattoo.

“Oh, this sh*t told you that? Yeah, I was. Terrestrial Army; my tours were during the last years of Belial. Real rough f*cking sh*t.”

“The hell did an old geezer like you do to get locked up in here?”

Mohe woke up from the nap that he had inadvertently taken to the rumbling of a landing craft. He could have sworn that he already felt such a thing before, but in the haze of waking up, he could only preoccupy his mind with the shouts from the onboard officers that emerged into the fuselage from somewhere in the front of the hovercraft.

“Alright, gentlemen, get up! We’ve arrived; don’t forget anything here, because you won’t be getting it back!”

Mohe grabbed the sling for his bag and hoisted it over his shoulders before waiting for the craft to come to a standstill. Peeking out of his windows during such a process, he noticed that night had finally graced this side of Hyperion, with the neon skyline of the city all around the utterly massive aerospaceport glowing in a comforting amalgam of purple. He never got the chance to appreciate cities like this for all of his life, since he spent one half stuck in a moon’s interior and the next in prison. Now was such a time.

With the craft coming to a full stop before a terminal with a crown of green glass, he and the other parolees began to meander towards the exits. Mohe took the skeletal stairs of the corrections hovercraft down, and arrived in the pitter-patter of a light rain that fell against the charcoal black tarmac. The petrichor, carrying a slight caustic smell to it, was soothing to Mohe after spending years under the recycled air of his cell and the confined concrete musk of the yard back at his old prison. He stretched his body and his aching back muscles before continuing on towards the comforting green and white glow of the terminal before him.

The corrections officers that were escorting the group stopped at the entrance of the terminal, where an assembly of regular police officers stood vigilant to receive the parolees. Entering the terminal itself soon after, Mohe felt the cool air of the air conditioning inside flow unto his dampened shirt. Looking around, he saw many families assembled on one side of a partition, where some of the parolees were taken and reunited. Having lost sight of the veteran he talked to on the craft, Mohe shrugged and continued on with the rest of the lone parolees into a more barren side of the terminal atrium. There, he cashed in the tag that was given to him by the agent who approved of his parole to an attending police officer. In return, he was given a transparent rainjacket and complementary umbrella, a currency card, and a basic InfoScape-accessible prepaid phone. He slid on the rainjacket and gripped the umbrella in his left hand as he shouldered his bag with his right, before looking back at the officer to ask a question.

“So, how much is on that money-card?”

“One thousand and five-hundred Coalition notes, exact. Don’t lose it, or else you’re not getting it back. Same with the phone.”

“And the umbrella...? The jacket...? What’s with this sh*t?”

“It rains a lot here, if you didn’t know beforehand.”

Mohe’s right eyebrow raised as soon as he heard that statement.

“Where exactly is... ‘here’?”

“Did they not tell you on that hovercraft?”

He’s heard of Jade City before, specifically from the prisoners that originated here. It was one of the larger cities in the southern portion of the Albion continent, and that placed him within the city-spanning Jade City Aerospaceport. If he wanted to get out of there before the sun came up, he had to catch a train out of the area — something he experienced only ages ago.

The train that Mohe took out of the Jade City Aerospaceport was surprisingly barren of any civilians at the time that he took it southbound, with its cars only being populated by the sprinklings of parolees that drifted away at various stops. When the clock on his phone read 11:00 p.m, Mohe found his train arriving at a district known as Rochefort. He exited the lowly-populated traincar and stepped onto a train platform protected by the pouring rain by a metallic overhang. With his bag and umbrella still in his hands, he exited the platform and walked towards an overhang that showcased a sprawling street avenue before him.

It was true; he was free. Well, as free as a parolee could be.

He brought the bag’s sling over his arm and held it in his shoulder as he leaned on the railing, his eyes drinking in the neon sights before him. An endless sea of storefront signs and holographic advertisem*nts poured out before him, scintillating in innumerable colors and combining into a chromatically amorphous soup in his retina. Combined with the pouring rain and the headlights of cars that drove beneath and flew above unto the hundreds of stories of stratascrapers and skyscrapers, it was a testament to the strength of the Coalition’s economy and the insignificance of Mohe amidst such an ocean of concrete, metal, glass, and neon.

He left the railing in order to purchase a pack of cigarettes from a nearby autovendor, choosing one with a menthol flavoring due to its cooling effect and assistance in having a smoke after countless years. Pocketing it alongside a purchased lighter, he rode one of the station’s elevators down to the ground level and exited unto a sidewalk that bustled with the walk of people out for their New Year’s celebrations. He walked down the street for some time, noting the variety of pedestrians abound — from full-on synths in nothing but stretched t-shirts to various cyber-goths and preps alike crowding before side stands and storefront displays. Looking up, he saw a miscellany of civilian walkways that criss-crossed through the next sky, peppered with hovercraft traffic inbetween.

Mohe, after soaking up the sights in full, opted to use his phone to digitally flag down a nearby taxi. He jogged for some time before he found the taxi parked in a sequestered parking lot hidden between two massive designer clothing stores; hopping inside, he noticed the thick bulletproof glass that partitioned the front of the taxi from the back.

The driver himself was an old man who seemed to sport Spanish heritage. His grumpy expression was visible through the rear view mirror, and his phrases were short and curt.

“Where to?”

“...sh*t. I’m new to town, you know?”

“...No, I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”

“...Uh,”

An hour later, Mohe found himself shirtless and sitting on the patio of his room within the motel that the taxi driver had located and driven to. Not far off from the very train station that he had came from, Mohe could still hear the rumblings of their passing through the echoes of the streets. Distant police sirens and car horns blared in the distance as Mohe smoked on a menthol cigarette, his eyes entirely focused on the busy nature of the streets below him and the designated flying lanes for hovercars above him. He let out a puff of smoke from his mouth before returning the cigarette to his lips, getting up from the rickety patio chair and returning inside with the sliding door still wide open.

He opted to sit at the foot of his bed, the duffel bag with his belongings strewn to the left side and his umbrella and rain jacket to the right. Mohe simply sat there in the silence of the room and the distant ambiance of a living, breathing megalopolis, his mind running only with the thought of relief for freedom and a chance to live the way that he wanted to again.

That way? Well, it wouldn’t be one that he would report to his parole officer.

Mohe smiled at this notion, before leaving the squeaking mattress to return to the outside and to ash his cigarette against the tray that was present.

“f*ck... it’s good to be back out.”

Streets of Jade City, Southern Albion Continent
Hyperion, Hathor System
8:04 PM Albion Standard Time, 2 January 2698

The rain that slicked and splashed itself along the windshield of the taxi refracted various red, blue, and pink neons into Mohe’s eyes, his vision meandering all around the car’s interior. Of course, this light came through a jury-rigged mixture of bulletproof glass and metal gridding that separated the passenger compartment from the driver’s front seats. It made him feel like he was right back in the back seat of a cop car, but Mohe understood the basics of why this was so. It was a good attempt to prevent a degree of petty vehicular robbery or anything else that might come about from rowdy passengers.

He dwelt on this thought as he smoked from a synth-cig, its black plastic body being almost invisible amid the general darkness of the cab interior. Mohe had little to do other than smoke, as the very destination that the taxi was charted towards was to deal with the phone that the government seemed to toss at every paroled prisoner. The massive traffic jam that he and the cab itself were stuck in, however, did not help his plans.

The man exhaled two plumes of smoke from his nose in boredom, his eyes turning to wander around the sights that lied past the scuffed window that his head rested upon. In the six-lane highway that he was entombed within lied a sea of cars and trucks going northward and southward alike, almost frozen in their processions from the amount of congestion going on at that moment. Peering above, he could just about make out the less congested airlanes that were formed out of hovering traffic buoys and a miscellany of various hovercraft. He would have loved airfare to his destination to avoid such a sh*tty traffic jam, but that would cost him too much on his pittance of a wallet.

“How you doin’ back there?” asked the cab driver, a tan-skinned man who glanced at Mohe through his rearview mirror.

“The same as you.”

“Ah, bored as hell, then? I see, I see. You sure you don’t the radio on, boss?”

“I’m good,”

Mohe idly tossed the phone between his gloved hands, noting its absolute banality. A cold black mirror stared back at him, and when he motioned with his finger to power on the device, he was simply met with an absolutely bland home screen with only the most basic of functionalities and applications. He kept the smoldering synth-cig on the cusp of his lips as he began to fidget with the device in his hands, opening up a faux three-dimensional map of the local area. At first, the app was overloaded with the sheer amount of locations around his very location, but after a moment of processor lag did relevant data arrive. Various bars and restaurants were being pushed to his phone due to the time, in addition to various transport networks that included his prison of a highway. He played around in this app for some time as the traffic jam inched by, soaking up the information given a lack of need to learn anything else. A little more zooming and digging allowed Mohe to view cabarets, strip clubs, and gentleman’s clubs, all of which he knew were being recommended only because they weren’t some seedy underworld joints and instead sanitized sex or strip work locations.

He soon got bored of this application, swiping it away and returning his gaze to the neon-addled darkness of the night city all around him. With the constant barrage of rain along the metal and glass of the cab, and along the cold drafts that slid over Mohe’s skin and clothes from an overcranked interior air conditioning, the man sat smoking in silence. His thoughts were both barren and alive; lacking proper form and topic, but drifting from idea to idea such as what he was exactly supposed to do with his life thereon.

When he was first imprisoned, he was but a rowdy and confrontational sixteen year old with ambitions too big for such a scrawny and juvenile rat. Now, eleven years later, Mohe was a different person entirely. He was a calm and collected person, reserved except for the times that it would prove necessary to release any form of force. His muscular build, chiseled from years of distraction away from boredom through constant exercise, seemed to demand the attention of many that he walked past; yet, here he was, unemployed and aimless. A man with all the qualities to achieve what he desired, and yet with no knowledge or true drive.

He felt liberated, sure, but not free; for Mohe’s future was all too unknown.

Mohe pinched his temple with the same hand that held his synth-cig, deep in random thought. However, before he could fully lapse into a state of internal dwelling, he felt the sudden lurch of acceleration. Looking in between the seats and past the barrier, he noticed that the traffic jam had finally alleviated, thus finally sending his cab forward and onward towards his destination. He sighed in relief before returning his eyes to the glassy darkness of his phone, staring at a red-mottled reflection of himself, one side of his face warped by neon and the other masked in shadow.

If he could have a wallpaper right then and there, that would have been it.

Mohe exited the cab with a grunt as he thrust himself out and onto the slick pavement, flicking his paychip over a scanner and having the door automatically shut behind him; thereafter watching as the cheesy yellow and checkerboard vehicle sped off back into the unknown of the night. Having finished smoking, Mohe shot off the filter that he was using to smoke from the synth-cig before returning its hull back into his pocket. Pocketing the phone as well, he began to trod along the rough concrete sidewalks as he zigzagged his way past crowds of raincoat-laden people, the scents of petrichor and something sour wafting into his nose.

Soon enough did Mohe find the first clue to his ultimate destination: that being a subway-esque opening buried into the side of a towering stratascraper, its tiled and stained mouth being adorned at the top with a plethora of blurry neon signs and arrows all pointing downwards; as if beckoning all who saw to enter its maw. Mohe was one of the many folk who sought refuge from the rain by ducking inside, his boots almost slipping against the wet tile stairs as he descended set after set of steps.

Each step was punctuated by a flicker of an overhead sickly fluorescent light, a rousing cough from the crowd, or the distant echoing squeals and screams of traffic from above. Mohe felt slightly anxious in such an environment — South Albion Pen, for how sh*tty it was, always had a degree of order to it. This was, at best, an organized chaos that only held together by the apathy of everyone around him. Every person that descended or ascended the steps with him were sequestered in their own worlds of distraction, ranging from bulky retro headphones strapped onto their ears to entire holo-visors mounted onto cybernetic optical dockets.

Mohe chuckled to himself as he reached the finality of his descent, his boots’ rubber hitting a tiled floor already slicked wet by the steps of thousands from the rainy night before. His eyes chased each and every red-glowing neon signage that led him deeper and deeper into this first level of the underworld, with each sector’s number increasing bringing a more and more decrepit environment. Soon enough, after finding himself in the beginning of a “sector five”, Mohe was given the chance to spectate the aftermath of a rough bar fight that can gone awry; a corpse’s head was blown across most of the hallway leading from the bar’s entrance, with the area already being cordoned off by rust-bucket security droids. From the overhead lighting, the blood seemed almost black in color, flowing either in guided rivulets between tiles or splattered across the other side of the hallway.

He averted his gaze not out of disgust, but instead out of a need to continue forward to his destination. He shambled along with a growing group of civilians who were being reguided to another entrance into sector five, and in growing desire for nicotine after seeing such a scene, Mohe pulled out the hull of his synth-cig and loaded a new cartridge. Blueberry flavor, apparently — Mohe hated it, but it was on sale. He couldn’t miss a bargain given his measly funds dished out to him by the state.

Shuffling through an ancillary entryway into the fifth sector of this underground flea market, Mohe lit his cigarette with a plasma lighter that burned with just the right shade of blue. His first puff of smoke left his nose in a mixture of distaste for the flavor’s smell and taste, but a few more puffs allowed a gradual habituation to its synthetic nature.

A few turns more than he would have liked, and Mohe finally found himself standing before the entrance to his final destination. The windows were all covered up with sheets of pleated metal, years of corrosion and rust from the humid atmosphere being apparent in brown stripes that splotched the pleated patterns. Similar in rustic composition was the door to the store itself, which seemed to have originally been a light blue auto-door that was refurbished into a heavy and manual entrance. Fixed above this rather dilapidated display was a faintly glowing sign, which spelled in weak LCD light the words “TELEPUNK REPAIR & SERVICES”.

Mohe thought it was cheesy as all-hell, but this was the only establishment that had the ability to do what he required and not cost a fortune in the process.

He walked over to the faux-prison door and pressed on a red button that lied near to the handle, sending forth an audible buzz that came from somewhere inside the establishment itself. A shutter on the top of the door soon swung open, with a glowing cyan optic being visible through metal netting.

“Yeah? D’you need somethin’ repaired today, pal?”

“Uh... yeah, I do. Repair, yeah, you can call it that.”

The short conversation left an uncomfortable air of silence soon after, with the cyan optic blinking in metallic clicks as the man behind the door studied Mohe’s figure.

“Show me the back of your neck.”

“...What?”

Mohe grimaced, pulling the cigarette out from his mouth as he turned his body a full 180-degrees. He overhead more metallic blinks coming from behind him, spanning a few seconds until the other man’s voice came out through the small shutter.

“Hah, I f*ckin’ knew it! You’re a pennie! sh*t, you have a lot of balls to be walking around Jade like that... or you just hide it with your collar, don’t ya?”

“Is this 'posed to be an interrogation or something?”

“Nah, nah, I’m just messin’ with ya. Lemme open this door here real quick... gimme a sec...”

He heard the slam of unlocking deadbolts and various locking mechanisms give away from the other side of the door before it slowly hauled open inwards, revealing a rather shadowy space within that Mohe’s eyes needed to adjust to. Peeking out from the other side of the door was someone that Mohe entirely expected to work at a place called “Telepunk” — a young guy with a towering crimson mohawk that was perched above a cybernetically attached visor. It was speckled with various optics, revealing that Mohe initially only saw one of the many eyes that the man had in store on his face. He ushered Mohe to come inside with his free hand, which was entirely metallic and customized on each digit with varying small grasping and soldering tools.

“Alright, big guy, head in. I don’t want some bozo I’ve already turned away thinking that he can come up to my store again, so let’s make it quick, yeah?”

Mohe silently complied and entered the store under the owner’s good graces, hearing the door behind him slam shut and manually lock once more in a series of scrapes and bangs of locks and switches.

“Okay,” the store owner said, sighing as he rounded a slipshod counter to begin attending to Mohe. “You showed up at my door with all the intent right on your face, so I gotta tell you two things. One, this store has electromagnetic shielding all around the f*ckin’ thing, so no govvy-boy’s gonna hear what we have to say through anythin’. Two, I already served ten f*cking pennies today that all wanted the same thing as I bet you do. I watch the news, I know you all are out on some bullsh*t probation.”

“How much are you gonna need?” Mohe replied, cutting to the chase as he looked around with his cigarette still alight. The store’s front space wasn’t much to gawk at, with only two chairs of worth to sit down on and various empty boxes and containers being strewn about without much care.

“Well... I’ll break down what I gotta do and then tell you how much you gotta pay — so that it makes sense, y’know?”

“Sure.”

“Before I tell, though... how the hell do all of you pennies find out about what I do? My sh*t isn’t on any major advertising network, and that’s for a reason! Were ya recommended?”

“You can say that, yeah,”

Mohe rubbed his chin as he processed what the vendor was telling him.

“Is there any sort of catch?”

“Apart from the price? Nah. I had an associate of mine clean the mini-AI from backtalking data to any repositories online — that means your data won’t suddenly be sold on the shadow web from this sh*t.

As for the price... well, it’s gonna run you around nine hundred creds. That’s at a major freakin’ discount, too; if you were some dumb corpo f*ck who wanted to duck from his honcho’s spyware, I’d normally charge upwards of two thousand. So, what’d’ya say?”

The vendor stared at Mohe with a multitude of scintillating blue and cyan optics as the latter finished his cigarette, discarding the filter into his gloved hands and pocketing the hull in the process. Pulling out his paychip, he laid it on the counter and motioned for the shopkeeper to accept it.

“f*ck it. Go ahead. I can’t make good money with the fuzz breathing down my neck, anyway.”

The shopkeeper swiped up the card and inspected its circuit facets for a scant few moments before placing it into a slipshod transaction machine. As the transaction processed through a series of audible hums and whirs, the shopkeeper motioned towards one of the two sickly blue seats in the “lobby”.

“Go ahead and chill while I get this done,” the man said to Mohe as he pulled out the chip and handed it back. “Shouldn’t take long; already did this sh*t so much that it’s muscle memory.”

A few hours had gone by since Mohe was able to fully liberate his device from the miscellany of spyware that naturally came with any government-issued device. He spent the time thereafter journeying throughout the bowels of Jade City by way of trains, his money having been whittled down to the bare essentials for a few day’s worth of survival. He, being a thief at heart, wasn’t anxious at such a thought. He was going to alleviate this issue one way or another, and it started first by this little meet-up.

He was able to make contact around Jade City with a fellow inmate from the South Albion Penn who went by the name of Cadmium. Mohe knew his real name was Santiago and some other long-drawn surname, but Cadmium earned his nickname via his excellence in the art of manipulating cybernetics. He was locked up for doing just that — being a source of underworld modified and refurbished augments. Since he was back out in the streets, such a lucrative industry’s restart would surely need helping hands.

Mohe’s eyes glanced up as he rounded the massive city block, taking note of the street he was on. The rainy sky above barely permeated its pelleting drops upon such a low level, with dozens of elevated freeways above and the titan forms of arcologies abound blocking the storm. The lack of a real need to deploy his umbrella left it in a strong grip in his left hand as he walked along the busy sidewalks, his mind idly thinking of it as a impromptu melee weapon if the need for such arose. Then again, it was a cheap plastic piece of sh*t, so would it be any better than his fists?

He dwelt on this thought as his steps drew the man closer to his ultimate destination. A massive apartment superblock loomed ahead at the intersection, with its titanic porched facade being decorated with the flutter of thousands of articles of clothing strung on lines and left to the rain amidst hazes of indoor lighting. On the ground level, however, were gaggles of shops and venues that serviced both the denizens of the superblock and any busybody that walked upon such cold streets. One of them were Mohe’s objective, and as he blended into a massive crowd of pedestrians that lurched itself across the road, he noticed the distant inlet into the belly of the building that he was told to watch for.

Mohe passed a massive scene of graffiti sprayed over a defunct garage door as he walked towards the entrance, confirming that this was the right spot that Cadmium arranged a meet-up at. The art showed in a Japanese style of drawing two tigers tumbling with one another in the midst of an azure raging river, its one bright colors having been leached away by the constant humidity and rainfall. Mohe ran one of his gloved fingers of his right hand over it as he passed, noticing a hint of blue sticking to the leather.

The man lit his synthetic cigarette aflame once more with a menthol flavoring as he approached the entrance, seeing that it lacked any actual signage indicating the venue that lied below. He began his descent down the chipped concrete steps and stumbled across a man that was slumped over on a mess of plastic sheets, his tongue lolling to and fro as he weakly held onto a smoldering pipe. From the unique scent, Mohe knew at once it was smokable kreggy; even with the sight of the paraphernalia, however, Mohe did not feel an urge to partake in the drug like how he did in prison. Maybe it was all the times that the metallic impromptu pipe that he had burned the flesh of his hands, or maybe it was the synthetic cigarette working its own specific addictive magic.

He trudged past the junkie and held tightly onto his umbrella as he finally noticed a sign, tucked away from the greater world outside; it was simply the words “NAIKO BAR” in a stylized format, flashing red and only slightly illuminating the faux-wooden door that lied below it. Taking a deep breath of his synth-cigarette and exhaling, Mohe pushed the door open and walked inside.

It was exactly as Mohe expected it to be; an utter sh*thole. He could see brown stains strewn about the cracked and chipped white tiles that adorned the bar’s floor — he couldn’t tell if it was vomit, dried blood, or literal sh*t, and he had little care to find out. His entrance didn’t seem to rouse much stares from anyone inside, as half the customers were busy drinking themselves to death at the bar and the other half were too involved in their booth-and-table conversations to give a damn. Mohe liked it that way.

One man was able to notice his entrance, however. Those crimson optics were unforgettable; similar to the shopkeeper he met hours ago, the upper side of this person’s face was adorned with a sea of sensors and shifting lights that indicated a permanence of ongoing scanning and vision.

Cadmium motioned for Mohe to come over to his side of the bar which miraculously had an empty stool waiting for him. Mohe saw that Cadmium’s old penal-augment arm was already switched for a candy-apple red cybernetic arm that flowed with a greater degree of grace; after all, this was noticeable by how fluid the motions of his beckons were.

Mohe propped the synth-cig back into his lips, with the basic metal stool creaking its years-old welded joints as he sat down. Cadmium laughed and slapped Mohe on the back with his cyberized arm, forcing out a cough from the latter from such force.

“Ah, sh*t! My bad, penno! Seems like I’ve got to recalibrate this arm’s bicep and tricep analogues... how’s the free life going for you so far?”

“Not much to say about it so far,” Mohe responded after taking a deep breath. “Being out and about is great and all, but being stuck in a cell for a decade has grown on me. Not much of an idea of what to really do, you know?”

“sh*t, man, I know the feeling. Thing is, I had my gigs set up for whenever I left the pen, you feel me? No distractions, back to the grind, and without any mushy-gooshy bullsh*t about reminiscing of old times... and shivving people for scraps.”

Mohe chuckled at Cadmium’s comment as he tapped a cracked screen embedded into the bar’s surface, ordering a black rum from the visibly rusted bartending droid.

“Let’s be clear here, Cad; I did most of that kind of sh*t. You just sat around most of time f*cking with people’s wetware.”

“Can a man not exaggerate? Anyways, since you actually showed up to this joint, that means you’re serious about getting something to do. Right?”

“Yeah. I only have, like... four hundred bucks to my name? Government’s always sh*t with their handouts.”

“Since that’s the case, I’ve got a guy that might have just the thing for you...”

Joey's Powderkeg,Cherry Dawn Megatower, Jade City

Hyperion, Hathor System, Coalition of Congressional Republics

5:20 p.m., 3 January 2698

Ragz-n-riches Pub, Jade City, Southern Albion Continent
Hyperion, Hathor System
6:55 PM Albion Standard Time, 3 January 2698

The passing between the cold, humid outside and the warm, dry interior would have done wonders to Mohe’s skin - if he wasn’t already hiding under layers of synthread copped from a thrift shop some hours ago.

Stepping into the pub that Kaden had told Mohe to meet up at, with a lit cigarette spooling forth the tastes of cinnamon onto his tongue, his eyes shifted to and fro in order to soak up the sights. The Ragz-n-riches Pub was but one of thousands of similar pub venues that were shoved into every nook and cranny that their owners could afford in Jade City, with each of them trying to differentiate themselves from each other by the use of thematic gimmicks. The gimmick of this particular pub was the intermingling of the proles and the bourgies - after all, it was situated on a nice side-highway that was nestled between the commercial side of Jade City and its sprawling residential arcologies or super-blocks. This meant that alongside the usual ruffians sat more dignified office drones, and even an odd corpo or two that had assembled a corporate entourage unto themselves.

Mohe exhaled the cinnamon-flavored smoke from his nostrils as he headed further into the venue, his stature either towering over or being towered upon the diverse crowd that were in attendance. Those who were not yet called to work following New Years were spending their final leisurely hours here, meaning that the venue was rather packed; a great time for a meeting, given that there was space to even do so around.

The two-story pub had a subtle amber ambience to it, one that was continuous and much different than the discontinuous neons that infected the Jade City skyline outside. In sound, various noises of conversation blended into the saxosynth music that was on play, issuing a tune to each step that Mohe took as he walked past the crowded bar and up the stairs towards the dedicating eating and smoking areas. The faux-wood aesthetic that the pub had going on played very much to Mohe’s personal tastes, since he always thought that the organic textures of wood beat that of the monotony of steel or the broken nature of weathered concrete.

With his synthetic cigarette’s cinnamon cartridge running out, Mohe switched it out with a similar clover flavor as he reached the top of the staircase, rounding its corner and walking along the railings as he searched for Kaden. The man was not as easy to spot as Mohe would have liked - the Fiftieth Jackal hid all his art underneath layers of jackets and coats, and the dermal augmentations the man sported on his face had been already covered up by an underground dermatologist with faux-skin tissue. Even so, Mohe eventually found his new

“friend” by being flagged down by one of Kaden’s boys, who led him towards two concave booths and a table arranged to form a shape of an eye that sat right above the entrance to Ragz-n-riches. Several men of varying appearances were already seated between the two booths, enjoying beers and different saltine foods as they waited for the impromptu meeting to start - one of them moved and allowed Mohe to join them, allowing him to have a full sight of the entire pub.

“There’s that f*ckin’ penno! Mohe, my brotha, how’re ya holdin’ up?”

Mohe sighed as he sat down, puffing twice on his synth-cig before placing it down on a shared ashtray.

“Yeah, I’m good, Kaden. Say, are all these your boys too?” he asked, co*cking his head to and fro in indication of the various tattooed and augmented men around him.

“Half of us are from the Fiftieth Jackals, same as the boss,” one of them replied, taking charge in place of their present leader. “Other half are like you; pennos with experience. That right, ain’t it?”

“Truuuue,” blurted out a man in the midst of finishing his joint, his blond dreadlocks seemingly brushing off of the shoulders of a much smaller man sat next to him. “We all ‘ere for dem notes... Mohe, Kaden’ ere say you a beast ‘n d’ pen. You a real beast?” the dreadlocked man asked in an audibly Jamaican accent, pointing his joint at Mohe before finishing it in one massive, savored inhale.

“If you’re asking me if I can handle my sh*t, I can. Cadmium knows the bull I had to do in the pen to survive. A job here is easier to put in my mind, if anything.”

“Good!” Kaden exclaimed, cheering him with a raise of his beer before slamming it down onto a coaster after sipping it. “That means we are all accounted for in knowing how the f*ckin’ game goes, yeah? Now, we ready to talk business, or are half of you too fried to understand jack sh*t?”

As Kaden looked around to take stock of the mens’ states, Mohe noticed that the man’s irises glowed a dull violet. It was a strange sight - most likely being the result of an optical implant.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then... alright, let’s talk biz.

“Now, as y’all know, me and Cadmium know our sh*t when it comes to running untraceable augs for any client that hires us. The thing is, Hathor’s Prez has been up the ass of every aug-servicing corp from here to Thoas and back because of those new cyberization laws. That means it’s now harder to get sh*t for our clients from systems outside of Hathor, and this also means that black market rates for ‘em are through the f*cking roof. We can’t peddle our products like good f*ckin’ tradesmen, which means we gotta get our hands dirty. Y’all get what I’m saying?”

His question was responded to by nods across the booths, Mohe included.

“Good, good. There’s a aug-manufacturing corp that just got bought up by Chen Wu recently called Poros Bodyworks, and the great thing is that their plant is straight outta home turf - smack dab in southern Jade City. The purchase for it was in the tens of billions of notes, too, which means that if we don’t hit a lick on this soon, Chen Wu is going to roll in and dump their usual deal of asset protection and evaluation services. In other words... that sh*t is gonna be locked down like Guantanamo.”

“What’s a gwantanmo?”

“...It’s some f*ckin’ jail from Earth, Klezzy. Look,” Kaden said as he rubbed his forehead, “the point is that we gotta hit this subsidiary soon and hit it hard, or else these new laws - courtesy of our beloved President Foulke - is gonna bury us in the damn dirt. Can’t have that.”

“You got a timeframe for this lick?” Mohe asked, picking up his synth-cig as he spoke. “If you know what Chen Wu’s doing, it means that we can plan accordingly.”

“You one smart nut, ain’t ya, penno? I did have one, yeah... but... I got sold out.”

Whispers rounded the booths as the men looked between themselves and Kaden.

“Let me explain what the f*ck happened first, okay? Klezzy, roll me a blunt while I talk. I’ma need it.

“I had what seemed like a real good f*ckin’ contact in Poros, named Hando. He had access to the comms between his managers and the Chen Wu corpos that were supervising the transition of leadership and assets through apparently sucking some off, and gave me access to what I thought was their timetables, itineraries, the works. I send a few of my boys to verify this, and as half of you know... they never came back from that sh*t, except in bodybags.”

“Woah, woah - your boys got iced by f*cking Chen Wu?” one of the ex-cons asked, his cheeks being decorated with taoist trigrams. “You serious?”

“Of course it was f*cking Chen Wu, penno! Who the f*ck would whack a bunch of gangboys like that for just messing with timetables? Hando was feeding me false sh*t, and now I have no clue if I got a bounty on my f*cking head. So, here’s what we gonna do first. I need two of you to ice that f*cking fa*g, search his place for anything related to this deal, and take it back to me here,” Kaden said, rolling his eyes in interaction with optical GUIs before sending an address to each of the men at the table. Mohe received it on his phone, and he eyed it - 746 Faulkner Court, Puerto Magnifico Arcology. It was probably a trap house of some kind, but Mohe wouldn’t know unless he was the one that had to report to it directly.

“Say, Mohe, Cadmium knows you f*ck sh*t up - how ‘bout you go and help my boy Klezzy here?”

f*ck, Mohe thought. Wonderful luck’s what I got. Committing a hit with a f*cking stoner.

“Sure,” he responded, exhaling his synth-cig’s smoke while seeing it conjoin with the clouds of exhaled weed that already floated about underneath an amber lamp. “Klezzy, you got iron?”

“sh*t, bredren, y’know we ‘redy,” the blonde Jamaican said as he reached underneath the table and placed a gun near to the plate of chips that he was entertaining beforehand. It was a street-legal Proskurin SA2566 from what Mohe could recall, and Klezzy’s pistol already had a suppressor affixed to it.

“Mohe, I know you and the rest just got out of the pen, so you ain’t got sh*t but your fists. God knows that I already can tell you specifically can wreck sh*t with ‘em, but you never go do this kind of stuff without the steel to back it up. That’s why I brought some guns for all of you pennos; Ricardo, get ‘em acquainted.”

One of the Fiftieth Jackals who were previously straddling a metal box in their arms, unlatching its top before opening it and revealing four other pistols inside - all being SA2566s, with suppressors and magazines alike lying to their sides inside.

“Pub owner is friends with Cadmium; he won’t rat to cops about this little distribution. Y’all go ahead and take one.”

“Ain’t these six hundred or so notes a pop without even counting ammo and the supps?” another ex-con asked.

“Bro, don’t worry about the price; it ain’t going on your tab. Besides, if we do this sh*t right, all these guns are gonna be payed a hundred or more times over.”

Mohe put his cigarette back in the ashtray and reached into the box with his fellow ex-convicts, pulling out one of the SA2566 in one hand and a suppressor with two magazines sandwiched between gloved fingers in the other. He pocketed the two extra magazines in the underside of his jacket as he inspected the Proskurin, checking that the safety was on before unloading it to see another magazine already loaded inside.

“For those not acquainted, SA2566s run fifteen-round magazines - thirty if you’re brave, forty-five if youre accommodating for something. Perfectly street legal. God bless Hyperion, because you don’t need a license for this sh*t. Easy. However, I expect you all also to not f*cking flash them around like a bimbo’s fake tit*, or else you’re going to attract heat that we don’t need.

Mohe, Klezzy, I’ma send you the deets of this sh*t later. We can’t make a move without those timetables, so there’s no point of stressing about any other sh*t now. Let’s get sh*tfaced, yeah!?”

Mohe stepped outside of the pub with a slight buzz, having treated himself to some rum at the bar. It was already nine, and the neon streets of Jade City shone in full effect all around him. Being sober enough to walk without a stumbling gait, he lit a cinnamon flavor in his synth-cigarette once again before walking down the crowded sidewalk towards a place where he could easily catch a taxi.

Before he could enter a full stride, however, he felt a hand grasp him on the shoulder. Turning reflexively with his hands clenched, ready to punch, he instead saw the blonde dreadlocks of Klezzy.

“sh*t, it’s you? Man, I almost clocked you right in the f*cking face; my bad.”

“Is all cool ‘ere! You roll wit Kaden, you bredren t’me, no bad blood, seen? Since we roll soon, I fig’d we talk ‘bout each o’ ourselves. Can’t roll good if y’bredren ghosts.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Mohe replied. The two walked over to a railing on the sidewalk that gave full view of the location they were in - in essence, the sidewalk was a raised platform that was hoisted over and under hundreds of similar platforms that snaked around the mega-block that Ragz-n-riches was a part of. Hovercars flew by as the men smoked their respective cigarette and joint, smoke billowing away from their subsequent, forceful wake.

“Mi ‘ear you in the pen for how long... ten?”

“Eleven. Locked up for stealing microprocessors... somewhere on this planet. I can’t even remember, but it was somewhere in South Albion, that’s for sure.”

“Ah, seen,” Klezzy responded. He coughed for some time before returning to the conversation, probably as a result of the hefty drag he did prior. “Me ‘ave been locked up for tings out’ere - nothin’ big, though. Mi serve ‘bout seven years total for peddlin’ cannabis witout license, for puttin’ shots in a bitch-boy car, other tings... gangb*ng sh*t, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Mohe replied. “You know how to handle your iron, then, I take it?”

“Mi gun mi wife, mi spirit ‘n d’metal. Aim true.”

“Good sh*t, then,” Mohe said, turning to face Klezzy and raising his left hand with his palms open. Klezzy, knowing what Mohe was doing, switched his joint to his left hand and slapped his right on Mohe’s hand, dabbing him up before patting each other on the shoulder with a friendly hug.

“You’re gonna have to teach me some sh*t about Hyperion, though. Over a decade in prison and I can’t understand this place...”

“Seen. Kaden ‘ready sent d’ address of dis batty-boy, so mi ready t’ride whenever you’re true.”

Mohe and Klezzy both took their last drags before tossing them over the railing, with each of them parting and looking at their respective phones for the details that Kaden had sent them.

＊２ New Messages sent １ minute ago.
＜ＫＫＡＤＥＥＮ＞: 1947 SW Sisyphus Interstate, Accordion Apartment Complex, Apt 3958
＜ＫＫＡＤＥＥＮ＞: show this fgt fck how we roll👹

Poros Bodyworks Manufacturing Plant, Jade City, Southern Albion Continent
Hyperion, Hathor System
9:45 PM Albion Standard Time, 3 January 2698

Octavia was at the brink of snapping.

The woman stormed down the snaking halls of the plant towards the employee lockers, a stoic stare planted on her face as a means to not attract the ire of her supervisors for having a

“poor workplace attitude”. However, as soon as she entered the room that hosted such lockers, her demeanor turned into that of a simmering rage.

Normally, Octavia would have been held up at work until seven for some inane reason, but on the whim of her manager Joachim, she was now forced to work almost five entire hours past the time most clocked out. Opening her locker with force, she tugged out the duffle bag that contained her spare change of clothes, various baubles necessary to carry with her while on parole, and equipment to maintain her two cybernetic arms - sitting below of her two natural, organic ones.

Both sets of arms sported similar dense musculatures, but her cybernetic pair used for work were attached to a neuromuscular port that sat below her deltoids, thus being slightly longer than her organic pair. Due to corporate regulations, they were colored in metallic orange, and thus shone underneath the sickly white lamps in such a tinged glow. These arms hoisted the duffle bag over her back while she stood silent, head down in thought.

I’m going to strangle my parole officer, I swear to God...

Octavia slammed a fist into the metal chassis of the locker in frustration before walking away, the silence of the halls and their relative emptiness echoing the isolation that followed her. Ever since she was released from prison a year ago from her assault charges, Octavia was effectively entombed to slaving at Poros Bodyworks as a part of her parole contract. The only

“positive” was that it allowed her to be augmented with a secondary pair of arms free of charge, sure, but having this be done in exchange for a pittance of a salary at a sh*tty company with sh*tty managers and supervisors felt more like a death sentence. In prison, Octavia was at least spared the farce of maintaining a professional relationship with those superior and inferior alike.

As Octavia trudged throughout the labyrinthine of halls towards the entrance to the facility, she was stopped by one of her female coworkers, Vicky. She hated the woman with all her heart and soul for being an insufferable bitch to work with, but Vicky’s attitude now lacked the annoying texture that Octavia was used to. Now, it sported hesitancy.

“Yeah? Do you need something?”

“Well, um... have you seen Hando lately?” Vicky asked, clutching a burning cigarette between her fingers.

Octavia’s brow co*cked in response.

“He works in a different department than us; general admin. The bureaucratic bullsh*t - you know this, why are you asking me?”

“Well... I was told to give something to him. Records and stuff from those people from Chen Wu; they said he had to review them immediately. I’ve been asking everyone here, and no one’s seen him at all! Not even the people from general-”

“Then that means the lucky f*ck is spending his sick days doing the weird sh*t he usually does. Right?”

“I guess... but I don’t know where he lives!”

“sh*t, and you think I do, Vicky? Look, I gotta catch a bus back home, so good luck with your... stuff, okay?” Octavia said, inching away before breaking off the conservation and heading through the entrance. She didn’t want to get involved in anything relating with Chen Wu or its employees being in the area. Everyone knew this, and it was simply the sensible thing to do. Vicky was probably digging her own grave, and Octavia thought better than to get involved.

As she waited for the entrance doors to be automatically opened, she noticed the two security guards shooting the sh*t in their allocated interior guardhouse. She waved two of her four arms at them and gave off an irritated expression, forcing one of the guards to lazily scoot in his chair and fiddle with something hidden that allowed the maw of the entrance to finally give way. Walking through, Octavia found herself in a cold and humid night, with the chill flowing over her arms and her exposed midriff. The company attire she was supposed to wear indoors was already hanging off of her waist, and Octavia didn’t want to exactly advertise where she worked as she went through the city. She’d rather bear with the cold.

Octavia walked down the somewhat quiet streets that ran parallel to the Poros Bodyworks plant, her amber eyes bouncing to and fro different neon signs that she already saw hundreds of times. Strip clubs, bars, shops, the works - it wasn’t surprising that these were located only a few hundred meters or less from a major augment manufacturing facility. Nothing was surprising in Jade City, or Hyperion as a whole.

Soon enough into her travels, Octavia was able to rest at one of the miscellany of bus stops strewn throughout. As the hoverbus that ran the route near to her house landed, she piled in alongside dozens of others - many of whom were gawking at her for the obvious display of arms, in addition to her defined physique. Women and men alike shot her gazes, but Octavia was not in the mood for it - she simply settled into the back of the bus, using her duffle bag as an impromptu pillow.

Settling in for the drive, her eyes slowly sagged with the weight of sleep as she looked through the window. The bus lurched forward and set off unto the night sky, with the neon lights of Hyperion’s innumerable cities swallowing the starlight above and thus rendering it a murky light-blotted void. Octavia could make out one specific pinprick of light in this soup of darkness, however - the orbiting ring station known as Paradise, where the top one-percent-of-the-one-percent resided in all of the luxurious glories. She didn’t care for such monumental dreams, but always thought about what living in space with all needs accounted for would truly feel like.

These thoughts lulled her slowly into the grip of sleep, but she was ultimately roused by the beginning of a conversation near her. In the seats in front of her, two men had begun to light their cigarettes and speak to one another about... something. Cueing her ears in, she gradually picked up what they were saying.

“...I just don’t understand, man. Corps funding gangs in the streets? Nah. Can’t be true.”

“Oh come the f*ck on, man! Stapleford, Chen Wu, Hinata; do you think they just sit with their thumbs plugged up their asses when their private securities can’t fight for control? They go get cheap, expendable, reliable soldiers - gangs. Cliques. The works.”

“How the f*ck did you get this information?”

“I mean... to be honest, there ain’t no concrete evidence of this that the news’s just gonna pass to the public. Thing is, there’s a lot of sh*t floatin’ ‘round on the Net that show how these corps distribute money, weapons, and all sorts of other sh*t.”

“Now I gotta believe everything the Net says? Really now?”

“Well, Mark, if you don’t believe me, then maybe...”

The conversation began to bore Octavia, but she soon noticed that the hoverbus was approaching the destination that she needed to disembark from. She slowly rose from her seat, bag in hand, and waited for the bus to finish its approach to one of the many aerial platforms for the megablock that she resided within.

Unit 4385, Albatross Residence Bloc, Jade City, Southern Albion Continent
Hyperion, Hathor System
10:45 PM Albion Standard Time, 3 January 2698

The sound of crumpled cans hitting plastic resounded throughout the cramped apartment as Octavia finished her third beer of the night. Stifling hiccups as she stumbled from the open kitchen to the bedroom-living room combo, she flopped onto her folding bed with an audible sigh. Her cybernetic arms were already put away near the foot of her bed, leaving the neuromuscular ports open with their metallic lips attached onto nothing. The crappy television screen that was hoisted on the other side of the room was turned on with a flick of a free hand, allowing Octavia to see a newscast babbling on colors blended in from a mess of pixels.

“...in other news, many are expressing their shock with the decision that President Foulke approved earlier last month. Known as the ‘Parole Re-evaluation Procedure’, the Republic of Hathor has validated for the release of hundreds of thousands of convicts across the planet of Hyperion. Some fellow Presidents across the Coalition of Congressional Republics have decried Foulke’s move as a dangerous attempt to feign populism, while others across Hyperion see it as a chance for a new, redeeming life.”

Octavia watched the newscast as it teetered on, nursing her fourth beer of the night without a particular care for the consequences tomorrow. She already filed for the day after to be one of the very few days off that was spared, being so as an indirect revenge for being shoved into work for so long into the night today.

“Beginning our opinion segment is a particular metaconservative politician hailing from Masay Harbor, Niels Angstrom. Mister Angstrom, I wish you a warm welcome to the show, and I want to open with this: what do you personally think about President Foulke’s most recent act?”

“Thanks for having me, Claye. Well, when looking at this from a policy perspective, it is quite strange for even someone as conservative as Foulke... I mean, rehabilitation bills and the like are the things that many metaliberals and sociodemocrats fling at congress all the time. Thing is, though, like all laws and acts, there’s a good and a bad to them. I don’t see much good coming from this, personally, given how many ex-convicts have been released without any support structure. They really should not have been released in the first place, as now the public sphere is going to be saturated with a metric ton of parolees.”

“So, would you say that this move was unwise from President Foulke?”

“...No, not necessarily. Hyperion labor markets right now are in a slump for employment, and this has already showed function as a major labor force injection. Corporations are already headhunting parolees and hiring them en-masse if they don’t have a parole contract already. It is just that, from my perspective, the President just did not weigh all the consequences properly before enacting this thing.”

“Very interesting, mister Angstrom. Now, to hear the opinions from the other side of the aisle... miss Tiyana Hakodate, chairwoman of...”

Octavia grew bored with the opinion segment, soon shutting off the television with another lazy swipe of her hand into the air above her bed. She sat up and lumbered over to the small window affixed to the right side of her apartment, giving forth the glowing lights of the distant commerce sector of Jade City hundreds of kilometers away. She stood there, staring forth, in deep thought.

Once she was off parole, Octavia did not have much of anything to come back to. Her father didn’t exist anymore in any record she was aware of, and her mother had already died some time ago to the innumerable diseases that rippled through the overcrowded planet. In the terms of friends - co-workers certainly not counting - she barely had any. The rigors of her schedule disallowed Octavia from participating much in social events, and her friends from high school were already spread far and wide across the breadth of Hyperion’s city-addled surface. She did not have the pang of wanderlust in her heart, nor the taint of true lust - she desired something more close and less superficial from a man. She knew no one that could love her like how she wanted, and thus Octavia naturally grew to give off a vibe of confrontation and competition to everyone around her.

Octavia sighed as she hit the lightswitch to the apartment off, bringing the light present down to only the faded neon streams through the window and the silent glow of activity statuses from her television and other electronics. She threw her last beer can across the room and flopped onto her bed, grappling with a mind that desired more from a life barren of true opportunity.

One day, she would find something worthwhile to latch onto and prosper.

One day...

⬖ Back In the Thick of It
⠀◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics)
⠀⠀⠀ Near the Vox Spire, Jade City, EAM (East Albion Megasprawl)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 3:15 PM AST (Albion Standard Time)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 4 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ◣⠀Part of the Poros Bodyworks HeistMohe and his newfound acquaintance, a Jamaican Fiftieth Jackal by the name of “Klezzy”, have been assigned to take out a corporate rat that fouled Kaden’s plans for robbing Poros Bodyworks of their augmentations. This rat, by the name of Hando, had his residence exposed to the two men - with this knowledge in hand, they converge towards his apartment the very next day.

“This d’right place, y’think?”“GPS ain’t failed us yet. Let’s get this sh*t done.”

The interior of the car that Klezzy and Mohe occupied was filled by the ambient smoke of the former’s joint, which had now fizzled down to dying embers within the ashen cupholders between them. Mohe, sitting in the front passenger seat, was busy fiddling with an external data extractor that Kaden had lended to him (due to the fact that Mohe lacked neurodata augmentations), while his compatriot finished checking and loading his suppressed SA2566.

The two men had left the land-based car and stared upwards, with the accordion-esque shape of the apartment complex before them shimmering in a multitude of scintillations of glass against the rays of Hathor above. Hando’s residence was somewhere deep within the central ribbed area of the massive residential structure, and from the details that Kaden had sent, it was definitely nowhere near the ground floor. Bad for escapes if things were to go wrong, but Mohe tried not to dwell on such an idea.

Klezzy pocketed his pistol and trotted up to Mohe, blond dreadlocks bouncing against his red synthleather jacket as he caught up with his partner near one of the complex’s entrances. Crowds were already coming in and out of the structure, and as Mohe checked his phone for the time, he figured out that a mixture of churches and over-the-break school had just let out just over fifteen minutes ago. This complicated things, but Kaden did not want the two to wait for night-time before they went on with the plan — apparently many Poros workers had been overworked recently due to the transition, Hando being one of them. A little social manipulation before he was betrayed revealed to Kaden that Hando recently transitioned to working from home, meaning that time was only a risk relative to being seen by others. Kaden’s pressure to kill Hando immediately thus forced Klezzy and Mohe into action as soon as possible.

Mohe and Klezzy filed through the crowds and reached a residential atrium. Synthetic receptionists were stationed at several places along the atrium, but asking them for directions would be both foolish and needless to the mission. Klezzy, being neurally cyberized, was already running the computations in his brain augs, before flashing a thumb to Mohe that pointed towards the elevators to the rear.

The men walked up to one of the many elevators and filed in, being surrounded by a gaggle of middle-class kids and adults alike all around. The two clearly stood out, with Mohe’s attire making him seem vaguely threatening from the articles of clothing he wore, and Klezzy’s clear gang affiliation being shown from his candy-apple red jacket and tattoos. This caused many within the elevator to drift away from the two, leaving a visible ring of emptiness between them and the others. Mohe and Klezzy cared little, with the latter punching in for the 45th floor.

Soon enough, the crowds gradually dissipated, leaving only the duo as they arrived on the 45th floor. Due to the unique architectural designs of the Accordion complex, the floor distributions skewed the 3900 apartments to such a level, leaving Mohe slightly stumped. Without Klezzy being present, he probably would have taken longer to find the location - and time was of the essence, at least from Kaden’s perspective.

Mohe nodded in respect, his hands reaching for under his jacket and feeling for the grip of his pistol as the two exited the elevator onto their recipient floor. Klezzy pointed to the left, and the two proceeded down the empty sterile halls with their hands brushing their iron and their eyes flicking to and fro. As they rounded the final few corners on their approach to apartment number 3958, Klezzy stopped halfway into his last stride. He quickly backed up and pushed Mohe backwards, causing the latter to almost fall onto the ground.

Folders. Works from home... the dots were rather easy to connect in his head.

Mohe briefly flashed a toothy grin as he wagged his cigarette-clutching finger towards the girl, taking steps forward in the process and mentally preparing himself for whatever was to come after.

He approached her slowly as he spoke, backing her into one of the hallway’s walls.

The girl anxiously pointed at his chest.

He forgot to fully cover his gun.

Are you kidding me...!?

The girl darted away from him in an instant, her heels clacking against the stone floor as she made a brazen attempt to get away from the stranger before her. Mohe instinctively gave chase, with Klezzy hearing the commotion soon after and revealing himself. With the dreadlocked man behind, some ways Mohe put in more speed as a means to get to the girl and whatever she was carrying.

Agh, you dumb f*cking bitch!

Audible screams of terror rang throughout the hallways as Mohe sprinted through, his face angled low and his collar now raised high to hide his face and tattoos in an attempt to hide his face from the unblocked cameras throughout. Seeing the girl stumble on her own heels, Mohe brought himself to a stop and grabbed for her by the neck, raising her up and letting the folders that she was clutching fall to the floor.

Mohe heaved her up with ease and slammed the girl’s face straight into a nearby door with force, spraying blood from her nostrils as she folded onto the floor. With a small pool of blood now forming near the door and below the trail already left by her face unceremoniously sliding onto the ground, he turned around and bent down to pick up the folders that were now speckled with crimson drops throughout. Pocketing the cigarette that he never lit, he flipped through the files in his hands.

Chen Wu... Poros Bodyworks... yeah, this is the jackpot, alright.

Klezzy soon followed up behind, his breaths being more heaved and ragged than Mohe’s own.

The two stacked up at the door to the apartment unit with their guns drawn, with Mohe having bent and slid the folders into the last nook left in his jacket. Klezzy took point in messing with the door’s software through a wireless connection, and after a minute of silence had passed, an audible click arose from the door’s locking mechanism.“Batty-boy locked d’door and ain’t answer even for that raasclaat bitch; this wrong-feeling.”“Just stay aware. I’ll enter first.”

Mohe, without saying anything more, gripped the depression in the door that acted as a handle and tugged hard to the left, sliding it open with a loud bang. He stormed in with his pistol raised to eye level, but found himself staring into an abyss of darkness. Klezzy soon followed in, flipping on a light switch and revealing the apartment interior.

Nothing seemed amiss at first - that is, apart from the specific decor that Hando had elected to use for the residence. Flamboyant pinks and violets were strewn about, all rendered in cheesy leopard decals upon chairs and the living room’s wallpaper. Both Klezzy and Mohe slowly advanced through the apartment, their guns drawn on the nooks and crannies peppered throughout. Hovering near one of the final unsearched doors in the darkness, Mohe slowly turned the knob and pushed it in, revealing a bedroom almost entirely cloaked in shadows in exception to what laid bathed in the faint light of a computer console.

Mohe’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw the systematic, jerking movement of an arm moving up and down, to and fro in conjunction to the gyrations of the man’s ass on what seemed to be... a massive, vibrating dild*.

What in God’s holy name am I looking at-

The man seemed to be in total hedonisia, with a series of wires running to the sides of the man’s head from the console indicating that he was suspended deep in virtual reality. Mohe slowly crept forward, his footsteps being muffled against the soft carpet underfoot and drowned out by the consecutive wet slaps originating from the other side of the bedroom. Flexing his fingers on the grip of the SA2566, he flicked off the safety and slowly positioned the suppressor to the back of the man’s head.

What if the folders that the bitch had don’t got what we need? Mohe thought, anxiety creeping into the forefront of his thoughts.f*ck, now I need to interrogate this dild*-riding guy...

Mohe tapped the man’s right shoulder with the suppressor of his pistol, almost missing it from the motions that the man was committing to on the robotic phallus.

As Hando unplugged the wires from his temple and turned around, he and his lubricated co*ck both stared upward at the towering figure of a complete stranger.

Those were the last words that Hando spoke before he felt the sides of his head cave in, metallic ports and all, from the force of something crashing into it at extreme speed.

“Mi drag d’gyal from the f*ckin’ hall, yeah, what be it? D’you want d’cops called for a gyal laid out, blood-spray on d’door like blown tampon?”“You had to put her in here? Where we have to do this sh*t!? f*ckin’ hell... whatever, let’s get this done.”“Ah! Batty-boy awakenin’! Mohe, look ‘ere!”

Hando groggily woke up ass-naked and bound to the stares of two men that he had never even seen before; one that had a buzz cut and lacked any augments on his face whatsoever, and the other who had blonde dreadlocks and clear indications of cyberization across his face. Slowly turning his pain-ridden around, Hando also noticed a knocked out woman splattering blood from her nose and mouth all over his true-leather couch. With his eyes barely being able to he focus, he eventually figured out that it was... Vicky, one of his co-workers from Poros Bodyworks.

Mohe grabbed one of the chairs near the kitchen island and brought it into the living room before slamming it down in front of Hando’s bowed figure, sitting down with his gun aimed squarely at Hando’s face.

Hando squinted under the pink light of the overhead living room lamp, being somewhat able to tell what was in front of him.

Mohe simply stared forward at the man, his eyebrow slightly twitching.

Mohe rubbed his head with the grip of his gun as he paced around the room, with Klezzy in the middle of smoking yet another joint — and spectating the show while also keeping an eye on the front door and the unconscious girl splayed out on the couch.

Mohe slammed the steel toe of his boot square into the jaw of Hando, sending him flying as the man’s jaw cracked in forceful dislocation of metal and bone. Blood now splattered across the zebra-print rug that Hando had on the floor, its crimson being turned into an odd pink underneath the light of the room.

The two stumbled through the apartment and back into the bedroom, with Mohe pushing Hando forward and sending the man tumbling into his own computer setup.

Hando sat down proper on his chair, shakily tapping on a holographic display that arose as he logged in. The screen turned from a standard login page to that of a background sporting what seemed to be several men in gimp outfits, to which Mohe responded to with a silent grimace. Hando was quick to navigate throughout the computer’s folders, before reaching a location marked WORK_DOCS.

A sharp thwack emanated throughout the bedroom, Mohe having kept his eyes on the computer monitor. He heard the fleshy bang of Hando’s body collapsing onto the floor, with the man’s head having been cavitated by the 9-millimeter round and sending a plume of metal, blood and brain matter spilling over the silken fabrics of the bed beside him. After turning his head and noticing the grisly sight, Mohe kept a stoic face as he put away his gun and pulled out the data extractor given to him by Kaden. He plugged it into the computer and downloaded the files shown on the explorer application, with such only lasting a few seconds before completion. When it was done, he snapped the wires from the computer’s ports and pocketed it, stepping over the fresh corpse of Hando and the continuously billowing bloodfall that was raining onto the carpet from the bed’s topside. Mohe lit the synth-cig he kept handy as he put it in his mouth, and exited the room, ignoring the menthol flavor present.

🙼

SOFTLOCK

Maogang 錨港 (Anchor Bay)
Chen-Wu Shipbreaking Site
Jade City, Hyperion, Hathor System
9:00 AM Albion Standard Time, 3 January 2698

Miata Hughes was standing atop a city which didn't feel real at all.

An icy wind cut through her like a blade, but the surrounding ambience was silent—deathly silent. Standing over the edge, she saw that the ground ended in a milky white void, with the sky above her a solid blue. All around her, the buildings seemed to stretch downwards into an infinite blank nothingness, and the sun reflecting off their windows gave the impression that the buildings were glowing.

She knelt down, as if to test if the cool metal roofing beneath her was real against her fingertips.

Real enough.

She stood back up as sirens suddenly filled her ears, along with the familiar loops of drum 'n bass breaks and electronic synths. A police hovercraft rose up over the other side of the building, its sirens blaring as red and strobe lights flashed in her face.

She assumed a stance likened to that of a runner about to blast off the starting block, and without any more hesitation, she blasted off the side of the building.

She was flying. She felt weightless, and as the music intensified around her, she—

"*

BIIIIING BOOOOONG Now approaching: Maogang. Please hold onto the hand rails and watch your step as you exit the locomotive. Have a great day at work!*”

***

”f*ck.”

Miata grumbled and shrank into her seat, watching as her reflection on the window was immediately replaced by the corporate city Maogang.

As they exited the tunnel, Miata removed her earbuds and looked out the window, watching as the city flew past her at breakneck speed. For as many times as she had immersed herself in fantastical virtual reality settings, she never had thought about taking the time to inspect her own home—and for good reason.

Maogang—Jade City as a whole, even—was very different when one wasn’t practically submerged in VR or AR tech. It was more or less a sh*thole; much less flashy and optimistic, more dark, rainy, and depressing. Miata could see a web of maglev monorails and hovering buses zipping atop routes that crisscrossed the city; some shot through gaps between skyscrapers, some blasted over neon-lit streets, and others passed beneath dark tunnels that seemed to lead to nowhere.

Gigantic viewscreens broadcasting big name products were practically everywhere, plastered onto practically everything—even onto the goddamn seats in the monorail. Miata at least had a bit of breathing room when it came to these all-pervasive advertisem*nts—if she had the proper AR ocular implants, they would’ve been be right up in her face.

As the train approached Maogang, her eyes slowly drifted away from the massive skeleton of a partially-disassembled CFA vessel far off in the foggy distance, to the throng of street vendors beneath the bridges made from the monorails. Her eyes passed over them, watching as they bickered, bartered, and argued in the open, as if they had no care for the rain at all. Most of these people were just lowly tradespeople and scavengers that sold pirated tech, all while the actual shopkeeps across the street stared at them contemptuously from inside of their establishments.

It was a bit of a sad relationship, really. The people on the ground had practically no idea how infinitesimal they were compared to the guys up top, such as her bosses with Big Chen. At times, Miata also felt small, but she always had to remember that there was always going to be someone smaller than her, and in much more destitute conditions. Sometimes, it paid to stay grounded.

As they continued moving, the buildings around the shipbreaking yards gradually transformed from the recognizable blocky office towers to squat squares made of corrugated metal sheets and concrete. The screens on these buildings were cracked or otherwise non-functional, and the occasional burn barrel hidden in an alleyway lit up stacks of trash and debris, which formed scrap walls that separated small shacks from each other.

It became readily apparent to Miata from the passover what these shack-villages were: homeless communities, hoping to leech off whatever tech that the Chen-Wu workers came out with, where they could sell it in the markets for whatever measly profit they could. If life was hard for the street vendors, it was even worse than the people out here.

As the monorail began to slow down, Miata stood up from her seat and shuffled her way over to the doors, practically melting into a crowd of a hundred other workers packed like sardines onto the hovering train. The train soon came to an abrupt stop at the station, the momentum nearly knocking her off her feet as it slid to a halt. Then, the doors sheathed open, allowing the throng to step out onto a wet metal platform leading down to the ground level.

Miata hopped off the train and had no time to look around as she was pushed by the human wave down a flight of metal steps, totally exposed to the elements. The wind blew freezing cold air and mist into her face as she followed the crowd in a tight file, reaching into her jacket pocket for her ID and earbuds again.

Her usual combination of VR and binaural beat music was pretty much useless here when she was exposed to so much stimuli. She felt a little upset that she wasn’t on such a relatively quiet and smooth train anymore, which meant that finding something to distract herself from the cold and hellish workplace she was about to enter was a task easier said than done.

Soon, the throng had reached its destination, the front gates of the Shipbreaking Yard of Chen-Wu’s Maogang site. The armed robotic guards on duty stood like statues, unfazed by the rain or wind, and unmoving as if they were completely unaware of the massive amount of Chen-Wu workers shuffling into the site. However, Miata knew better—if someone was to step out of line or get uppity with another worker, two of those robots on guard would be on them before she could even blink. She figured it was best she kept her mouth shut, her ID up, and her face forward at all times.

Passing through the security checkpoint and clocking in was a breeze, and before long, Miata finally had some breathing room as she entered the corporate city. Maogang, in essence, was a walled off community built by Chen-Wu, which meant that practically all stores and housing were also owned by Chen-Wu, or a Chen-Wu subsidiary. The place was filled with stores, places of worship, markets, recreational facilities, and even schools, but if one had more than one brain cell, they’d know that living here was exploitative and controlling as hell.

Miata had opted to stay off-site, a decision she thought paid off, even if it meant taking the train in to work every day. The luxury of staying in an apartment one could personalize themselves in an area where things didn’t cost as much as one’s salary was something that was truly underrated, even if things were generally less quality the further away she went.

Miata suddenly stopped as she found herself at the front blast doors of her place of work: the Chen-Wu shipbreaking yards. The imposing neon sign up front in English and Chinese, and the tired appearance of the previous shift workers exiting made her hesitate on stepping in, but a buzzing sensation on her hip prompted her otherwise—she quite literally couldn’t afford to be late.

Inside the building, she made her way into a small meeting room on the first floor, where a collection of individuals had been gathered—most notably, her supervisor. The man had to have been an ethnic chimera, his face practically unrecognizable to any ethnicity she knew of, which meant that he was perhaps an off-worlder. The one thing that never seemed to change about his face, though, was a scowl that seemed to judge everyone he was responsible for.

Regardless, she knew very well of the man’s attitude and was prepared for it—he had to be a hardass on them because his paycheck depended on it.

Entering the room, she hovered the PDA in her pocket over a scanner by the door, which let out a single beep in approval.

”Sorry I’m—”

”You’re one minute late, Hughes.” Her supervisor sighed, his hands on his hips as he watched her enter the room, shuffling into place beside another identically clad worker. He then checked a vintage chronograph on his left wrist—something Miata knew probably costed him a paycheck and a half. ”Make that two minutes. Anyone else decides to come in late gets written up. Let’s get started.”

She didn’t protest at all as she just stood there, unable to defend herself at all. Miata watched as he placed his hands into his jumpsuit’s pockets, then looked towards a screen behind him.

"Synth, bring up, uhhh, the cross section of the Captain Deckard. Highlight command deck and, uhhh, conning tower.”

Miata watched as a synthetic worker behind her tapped something on a small console built into the drywall. The screen behind her supervisor eventually powered on with some effort, showing a gridded cross section of the gargantuan starship they were currently dismantling outside. The ship’s profile enlarged, emphasizing the bridge and the conning tower directly above it, which contained a plethora of obsolete electronics and sensors likely used to detect enemy vessels during the Captain Deckard’s prime.

”Okay... let’s, uhh, see here. Here’s the job for today:” her supervisor began unceremoniously, scrolling through a small holographic notepad built into an implant on his wrist. ”We’re bringing in the big guns tomorrow, folks. That means heavy gear, salvage hovercraft, big cranes, et cetera.”

He paused, his finger passing over Miata for a moment.

”That also means everything tech-wise on that dump has got-to-go. First group, you’ll be goin’ to the bridge and taking the computers to reclamation—I swear to Christ, you break them, it’s goin’ out of your f*ckin’ pay. Corporate apparently says that we can re-use ‘em or salvage old components, so long as the physical data banks and computers aren’t busted.”

He paused.

”They, uh, also don’t want you guys selling any scrap or copper wire ‘n sh*t to the tech-scavs outside Anchor Bay limits—’breaking corporate policy’ or something. I don’t really care, just, uhhh, don’t get caught doin' it.”

Anchor Bay, Miata repeated to herself, a quick reminder that Maogang went by two names. Anchor Bay was only the Anglicanized method of saying the city, which some people still used out of personal preference.

Her supervisor then realized where his finger was pointing and lowered it.

”Oh. Uhh. Hughes, today, you’ll be on topside duty again on the conning tower, buddy paired with, uhh...” He paused to check a name on his holo-notepad. ”Clancy.”

As if her gaze was linked with her supervisor’s, Miata turned to a slender blonde woman with a pixie cut who stood in the corner, someone whom she had never seen before in her life. The woman looked up, giving a nod and wink to Miata, which only caused her to shiver. Normally, she’d be assigned to working alone, but for whatever reason, today was an exception.

I'll manage, though, Miata thought to herself, sighing.Right?

"Alright, folks." Her supervisor clasped his hands, turning off the screen as the lights automatically brightened. "Need that conning tower and the computers in the bridge out by COB today. Let's get it done, folks."

With that, Miata stood up and started for the exit, only remembering that she had a partner when the "Clancy" woman stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling. Miata's face scrunched up almost automatically as she turned to her.

"What?"

"Just going to say..." she began, "It's gonna be nice working with you, Hughes. The name's Kiera, by the way."

Miata still had a poker face as she gently moved Kiera's hand off her shoulder.

"Miata. Don't get too comfy—we don't get paid to sit around and talk, after all."

”Right, right. We’ll have our chance to talk after.” Kiera nodded.

Miata scoffed, starting for the door and immediately making a right turn for the lockers.

Yeah, right.

***

Miata paused halfway on her descent down from the conning tower, turning to Kiera and squinting her eyes at the woman while dangling from the rope, seeing that she had said something out her mouth that was unintelligible.

”Whuh?”

”I asked, ‘how’d you get this job,’ Miata?” Kiera repeated a question that had apparently fallen on deaf ears, and quite literally. Miata removed her earbuds as she rappelled down the conning tower, a hovering carryall drone following her that carried the more sensitive and delicate electronic equipment that Miata had salvaged.

In response to the woman’s question, Miata just... shrugged. How did she get the job here anyways? As far as she was concerned, she simply had just finished high school and some college before dropping out and ending up here, but with time feeling so blurry lately and work being so all-encompassing, she never really had bothered asking that question.

"Um." She paused. "I don't know."

"Your parents work in the shipbreaking industry? It’s a huge, imposing industry that sometimes traps entire families. I wouldn’t be surprised."

Miata shrugged. As far as she was concerned, she wasn't aware of what her parents were up to nowadays. There were rumors of some family connections to her job here and there, but she doubted someone like her father had any say in Chen Wu affairs if she was working from the bottom here.

In response, Kiera just frowned.

"You know, you're a real tough cookie to crack, Miata. At least you're honest."

Miata finally lowered herself down atop the upper deck, where the magnetic boots on her equipment locked to the metal plating with a loud and hollow clank. In response, she just glared at Kiera, not even bothering to look back at the climbing equipment she was pulling back onto her suit.

"What? What do you mean I'm a 'tough cookie to crack’?"

"I mean exactly what I say, Miata," Kiera responded, reaching atop her head and flipping a protective visor down over her face as she began to cut a large piece of metal in half with her cutting torch. Above the flashing lights and harsh noises, Miata could still hear the woman's voice: "You're introverted as hell!"

Miata waited patiently for Kiera to finish cutting the piece of metal, watching her pass it over to a larger carryall drone to be shipped down to the surface. She just rolled her eyes as this happened.

"The f*ck's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Kiera paused, flipping her visor up, gesturing to her ears. "You've gotta talk more. I think you playing that music in your ears so loudly blocked out any chance of small talk I had with you today, and we're almost done. I like to talk when I work, and I like to make friends!"

Miata frowned, sifting through a pile of some of the smaller sensor arrays with her boot, as if to kill time. "I don't. Sorry I’m not so chummy. Company doesn't pay us to talk, they pay us to work."

"And look at what we've done." Kiera gestured to the deck they were on, which had been almost completely stripped of its remaining electronics and sensors, and in record time. Even Miata was a bit surprised at how quickly they had accomplished everything—either she was working extra diligently today, or Kiera was almost as fast of a worker as her.

”We worked.” Miata just said, emotionless. ”What’s it to ya?”

”I’ve got the feeling that we’re going to be working together more in the future—its just an inkling with the boss I had. So...” Kiera paused, standing up from her impromptu workstation. ”Why don’t we get to know each other more? I know it’s creepy, but—”

”The way you put it makes it creepy.”

”Touche. But, either way, there’s an arcade in Jade City that I want to take you to after work. It’s pretty cool.”

”I do enough gaming already,” Miata sighed, packing up her things as she made her way towards the access shaft they had entered topside from. ”What makes this one different?”

”...What about secret bars? You like those?”

Miata stopped, turning her head over her shoulder as she raised an eyebrow.

”You have my attention...”

RECOMPILED

APARTMENT 268, CYBERIA CITY
CYBERIA OVERWORLD
REAL WORLD TIME: 7 JANUARY 2698
INGAME TIME: ERROR (NULL)

Why did it all have to end? Why did the world have to end like this? Why?

Cyberia—4ur1ga’s entire world—was slowly decaying, and she was powerless to even do anything to stop it. She had anticipated that this was going to happen ever since the shutdown back in 2695... but... she just hadn’t thought about it at all until it finally crept up on her. After all, at first, the thought of being stuck in Cyberia felt like a dream come true—finally entering paradise, free of her mortal strugglers, with seemingly no limits to the reach of her electric mind.

Nonetheless, the real world was still out there. She yearned to go back, a desire she knew was impossible now. No matter how real Cyberia tried to be, how real it tried to feel, smell, and taste, it simply couldn’t truly replicate the real thing.

4ur1ga.

Back then, 4ur1ga hadn’t anticipated how bad things were going to get. She was so wrapped up in other things, trying to make her place in the virtual world, trying to get away from everything... and now, everything she had previously worked towards was decaying, broken, or in the process of being depreciated. Broken scripts and textures were becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and glitches in geometry warped the terrain into something abstract and surreal, with bends and dips appearing in the world at completely random intervals.

She had questioned why she had even agreed to join J4xonfex in plugging herself into Cyberia, let alone taking the advice of someone several years older than her stupid teenage self. Was it out love? Desperation? Loneliness? Fear of missing out? Was it because her old boyfriend was going to have no one else if she refused, and would throw a pity party because of it? No matter the case, she was stuck here... and she still felt as if things were partially her fault.

Regardless of whatever accident or shutdown happened with Cyberia, and however she wanted to face it, the fact she had chosen to be a WireSoul was damning enough, and couldn’t return to her real body as a result, even if she tried.

Over time, though, she grew to cope with the realization that she was going to stay for good in her virtual world. After all, Cyberia was meant to be something of a replacement for the real world—for a game so old, it was relatively ahead of itself in trying to stay true to its promise of allowing anyone to be anything.

At first, there was hope—life went on, and things still seemed like they were in working order, even if Cyberia was separated from the surface net and regular updates. She had even kept in regular contact with her apartment neighbors, often hearing their voices as they chatted outside on the floating “balconies” overlooking the skybox of the Cyberian overworld. As the days turned into weeks, and as the weeks turned into months, hope gradually began to be lost. She stopped hearing her neighbors talk altogether, let alone seeing them outside, and a gray fog began to cling over the low-poly graphics and geometry of the world, as if emphasizing its age compared to more contemporary projects.

By the first anniversary of the shutdown, 4ur1ga was certain that she was the only sane person left in the Cyberian apartments. Everyone else had become a recluse, babbling nonsense all day, or locking themselves in their homes to wallow in filth and clutter. The introduction of the so-called “New Gods” of Cyberia wasn’t helping her case, either. People needed a strong figure to turn to during tough times like these, and it was no surprise that they had begun to show up around the time of the first anniversary.

The New Gods were hackers, some from the outside net—which the Cyberians had begun to refer to as the “Unwired”—and others from Cyberia itself, whom had taken advantage of the weak source code to rewrite the game—and thus, reality—to their whim. Apocalyptic clashes between these hacker-archons were just as common as their sermons, which were absurdist and abstract in nature. Those native to Cyberia proclaimed themselves to be the arbiters of their new cyber-paradise, while most of the Unwired hackers chose to settle their disputes with one another using Cyberia as their battlefield or testing grounds, decimating the landscape in the crossfire of their clashes.

4ur1ga had remained unharmed during this all, miraculously, but there was one name that kept popping up in ALLCHAT, one name that she simply couldn’t avoid... no matter how hard she tried to block his name out.

J4xonfex.

Was there any doubt that he’d become a New God? 4ur1ga knew that the only reason he had even joined Cyberia was because she had begged him to join her. Where she saw an opportunity to express her creativity in building elaborate structures and machines, he saw an opportunity to destroy and exploit. All hackers were the same dime-a-dozen, selfish, arrogant assholes, but there was a modicum of something else in what he did—passion for his work, and for the people he loved.

It was almost like he was hacking for her; to keep her safe, to impress her, maybe out of some sense of honor, or maybe some combination she wasn’t aware of yet.

4ur1ga rose from her couch and made her way to the opaque window leading out to the balcony. She saw the reflection of her

no—her body, staring back at her: an intentionally low-polygon form with blocky, angular proportions, and a two-colored face that resembled a surrealistic art project. Behind her, a similarly low-poly brown dog waited patiently, letting out a loop of a low-quality panting sound as it watched her, eager for some action.

She saw the dog’s happiness indicator was at its max just by looking at it, but its hunger and thirst were low. While virtual pets technically couldn’t die and were rudimentary AI at best, she wondered if they, too, experienced feigned hunger and thirst... maybe they were suffering, too.

"Don't worry, boy," 4ur1ga spoke the words mentally, watching the text message appear in the chatbar on the upper left hand of her vision. She ran a hand atop the dog’s head, petting it softly. "I'll go to the store soon. You're gonna eat well tonight."

With a thought, the opacity of the window lowered, allowing her to see the outside world... empty as ever. Cyberia was a world meant to hold tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, at its peak, and the ambitiousness of its creator was paralleled only by its scale. She felt as if millions could fit in just fine in the virtual world... yet, with things so empty, it added an unsettling malaise that she previously hadn't experienced before.

Seeing such large, empty spaces made her mind wonder how the virtual paradise could’ve looked in its prime, as opposed to being left to rot like this. Data loss was natural, but something about the emptiness felt bleak... and oddly nostalgic to the quiet days when Cyberia was still in its Beta state.

She turned to her virtual pet again, giving a smile.

"I'll be back."

Another mental keystroke—she had opened up the fast travel menu, selecting Cyberia City’s supermarket. Apartment 268 slowly melted away in the background, sending her into a milky white void for only a split second, before the world coalesced back into focus. She was standing outside of an empty supermarket with the skybox as the backdrop of the larger Cyberia City, its parking lot empty and doors wide open. It looked like it had seen better days, the bleak “WE’RE TRAPPED” graffiti spray painted on its windows, and its desolate front facade spelling a bleak picture of people’s spirits as of late.

As she began to step towards the building, though, she stopped, checking her surroundings. The world had stopped... and she heard nothing, as if even the game itself was quieting down to listen into something nearby.

A three-toned ping went off in her ear, and then she saw a chat notification pop up in her peripheral vision.

She wasn’t doing this again. Jax wasn’t going to have his way with her again, nor was he going to make her pity him. Not after what happened, and definitely not here, no matter how alone they were.

As a “New God”, he was essentially omnipotent in Cyberia. He always knew where she was, and what she was doing at all times... making his being here all the more pervasive and suspicious. What did he even want?

She let out a loud mental sigh of frustration, burying her hands in her face for a moment as she fully enlarged the chatbox.

Why am I even doing this?

She let out another sigh again. J4xonfex was trying his hardest to get her back—and it was working. 4ur1ga couldn’t imagine someone living in his shoes—having to appease thousands every day, while clashing with other New Gods... it was a lifestyle that was paradoxically busy, but one that was also lonely as hell... and she could relate.

She let out another mental sigh and returned her focus to the chatbox.

The world in front of her compressed into a sphere, as if they were being molded by invisible hands right in front of her. Inside the sphere, she saw a red skybox, along with a white temple structure, similar in appearance to an ancient Greek temple.

She stepped inside, then the world went white once again.

***

Toning out the nonsense in the background regarding J4xonfex and another New God, 4ur1ga made her way across the desolate, empty wasteland that was the AKROPOLIS. The last time she had been here was a memory that was better left being forgotten, with J4xonfex trying to force himself upon her “for her safety,” whatever that meant. The place reeked a bad, ominous aura, and the throng of low-poly avatars mustered around the pristine white temple unsettled her, to say the least.

She squeezed through the crowd of monochrome avatars, ascending up larger-than-life stairs that required her to manually jump and clamber over each step. Once at the top of the steps, she stepped out to the entranceway of the titular acropolis, finding the walls had begun to warp around her like a film reel on repeat.

The interior was vastly expanded compared to the actual exterior of the structure, lined with smooth, high-quality marble textures that felt jarringly realistic, yet smooth at the same time. The hallway stretched down for what felt like an incalculable distance, fog occluding her from seeing the end of the hallway.

After what felt like an eternity of walking, though, 4ur1ga had made it: the hallway turned left to a large room, with an even larger table in the center of it. Two player names could be seen just barely visible in the fog... and she crept in slowly as she read their names in full.

AEDELWEISS sat at the end of the long table. Their form was an insectoid hexapod with two sets of wings, resembling no bug that she had ever seen before in her life. It was colored sickly yellow and semi-translucent, a strange light constantly flickering in its form, and its many eyes glowed a fluorescent white. It stared down a dark humanoid avatar in armor with more horns to count, who sat silently at his end of the table.

“Speak, interloper.” J4xonfex’s voice was as unchanged as it was long ago, albeit with a somewhat “stuffy” electronic compression to it. “Why have you come to my domain?”

"TO DEMAND YOU ANSWER FOR YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS," AEDELWEISS replied, their bug-maw vibrating as they spoke. Their voice was hollow and electronic, not unlike a synth’s, if one knew what little differences to look for. “YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE SACRED PACT WHICH BINDS US. YOU CONSPIRE WITH THE UNWIRED. DEFEND THINE HONOR BY DUEL OR DEBATE.”

“I conspire with no one, creature,” J4xonfex glowered at the other New God. “Your allegations are as fallible as your character.”

“YOUR FOLLY IS WELL KNOWN,” AEDELWEISS retorted. “WE KNOW OF THINE PLOT TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE DARK WEB HERETICS, THOSE OF “SINDEX” WHO WISH TO CAPITALIZE ON OUR SITUATION AND BRING MORE ROGUE GODS INTO OUR REALM. REPENT, OR I SHALL CLAIM YOUR DOMAIN.”

“Like I said,” J4xonfex folded his arms. “Your allegations carry no weight. Now leave, or you will be removed.”

There was silence for a moment. Then, AEDELWEISS leaned backwards. The sound of glass breaking was heard as the gigantic insectoid avatar turned to the corridor that 4ur1ga was standing in. The many glowing dots it had for eyes blinked in curiosity, and 4ur1ga felt her data getting snatched and assessed just as quickly as it was put back. The massive insectoid entity moved, glowing blades materializing in its free limbs.

“J4XONFEX, IS THIS A CONCUBINE OR A WORSHIPPER FROM OUTSIDE. WE HAVE BEEN EAVESDROPPED.”

Before she could even hold her hands up in protest, J4xonfex stood up, holding a hand out at the creature.

“Cease your hostilities. This is merely an aide of mine.”

“MMMM. A CLEVER PLOY. BUT I AM NOT AS EASILY FOOLED AS THE OTHER NEW GODS.” AEDELWEISS turned to J4xonfex, disarming themselves. “ORDER HER TO LEAVE, OR I SHALL CLAIM HER TOO.”

“She’s not leaving.” J4xonfex asserted. “You’re the one who has to go. I have no more business with you.”

The bug-creature let out a grunt, standing up from the table.

“VERY WELL I TAKE MY LEAVE NOW.”

J4xonfex lowered his hand from her face. "I've been meaning to show you something, but your inbox is closed. I've... done some more research, on the ingame browser project I had started, but abandoned. It's certainly possible to reverse-engineer it to access the surface net, but I'd only be able to allow for one search as of now."

He reached into the dark folds of his clothing, presenting a glowing cube that he passed to 4ur1ga.

"This is a beta version of that program. Run it at your home, away from the prying eyes all on me here, and if you run into errors, let me know."

She took the program, storing it in her inventory much like one would've done with any other tool.

"I thought you were abandoning all prospects of returning to the surface net."

"Perhaps, but I haven't forgotten about you." J4xonfex replied, dipping his head down in a nod as he smiled. "I'd ask for you to stay, and I know deep in you, there's a small desire to stay... but I know that cannot happen now. I'll see to it that you get home safely."

Another portal materialized in front of 4ur1ga's avatar. She turned to J4xonfex and gave him one last nod—then, without taking even a moment to hesitate, she stepped forwards into the rift.

血しぶきを以て描く一行の詩と、人生とを引き換へにすることを、万人にゆるすのはたしかに穏当ではない。
"Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood."
—Yukio Mishima

My life is a death poem written with a splash of blood.

⬖ From Up High to Down Low
Mohe ventures forth from the respite of the room that Kaden had loaned to him in order to figure out how to approach Poros Bodyworks for the future heist. With nothing more than the clothes on his back and a few thousand notes, he has to figure out just how things may play out.

⠀◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR (Coalition of Congressional Republics)
⠀⠀⠀ Kolkata Urb-Tower, Jade City, EAM (East Albion Megasprawl)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 5:30 AM AST (Albion Standard Time)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 6 January, 2698 UC (Universal Calendar)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ◣⠀Part of the Poros Bodyworks Heist

A set of chirps threw Mohe straight back into the realm of the living, roused away from the ethereal dreams of dark vistas that he had been immersed within moments prior.

His eyes opened to a field of purple-twinged darkness, the brilliancy of Jade City’s early morning citylight focused through a narrowed rectangular window. Mohe laid there in the low light, with the distant ambiance of a burgeoning metropolis having been muffled through the thick concrete that lied to his left. He neglected to move at all for a while, as his mind still faded into and out of the desire of sleep, only coming back to reality after checking his then-idle phone and noticing the time — five in the morning. Mohe had only slept for four hours, but his current lifestyle left him without much of a choice. The distant dream of a full night’s rest could wait, for now.

Now sitting upright upon the slim, half-deflated mattress that he called a bed, Mohe stared at the other side of the room, noting the stark absence of any personal items or furniture. Anything and everything that he truly valued was simply stored in the duffel bag beside him, containing the gun given to him by Kaden in addition to physical memorabilia that harked back to his childhood. He opened the bag and sifted past the idle pistol and ammunition, retrieving a picture of his late mother from within its depths. He held the picture forward, capturing as much of the inky city light that filtered into the room, and viewed the last remaining vestige of his mother left. A Caucasian woman stared back at him, a soft smile set upon her face as she looked past the camera lens towards a young Jaxon that had thought it fun to take such a picture long ago.

Having these thoughts seep back into the recesses his mind, Mohe’s arm slowly drooped downward as he sat alone, his eyes closed and his mind in a state of wander. Even though it was not her fault, his mother’s death was the nail in the coffin of Mohe’s old life and identity — her disappearance from his life forced the young Jaxon to grow and adapt to a harsh universe; one befallen with poison beneath the superficial, “stable” nature of society. For better or for worse, he had irrevocably changed, and the decade that he had spent behind bars only reinforced such.

Mohe rose from the cold floor with a quiet sigh, grabbing his phone, pre-loaded cigarette and plasma lighter from nearby. Passing through the autodoor and locking it behind him, the man merged into a dim hallway filled with various signs of age and degradation, ranging from cracks on the cheap plastic tiles beneath him to the webs that adorned the distant corners of the roof above. Mohe paid these sights little mind as he turned immediately to the left, going through another autodoor that left him alone in a small bathroom.

As Mohe stripped off the second-hand clothes that he had slept in prior, he turned on the shower and let the haphazard droplets of water rain down upon the mold-stricken tiles behind frosted glass as he lit his cigarette. He stepped inside soon afterwards and turned to face opposite of the shower head, pulling up his phone in one hand while smoking his cigarette with the other. The man had no bank accounts to access, but Kaden had thought it kind to deposit a few grand in a new digital wallet that Mohe had created as payment for the hit that he had done on Hando two days ago. Staring at the number before him, Mohe didn’t see much use in the lump of notes apart from budgeting it for basic subsistence — after all, he was crashing in Kaden’s gang compound, so there was no rent to worry of for as long as he was working with the guy. Beyond buying more cigarette flavors, he also did not have a taste for enough vices to splurge the money upon — Mohe liked to think that he wasn’t that kind of person.

Some time after Mohe finished the shower, he emerged fully clothed into what could best be called a “living room” that belonged to the compound in which he resided. Unlike his own solitary self, many of the people that Kaden rolled with in his gang were anything but; this being evident in the various figures that were slumped over chairs, sofas, and even the bare concrete floor. From the amount of beer cans and bongs left out in the open, Mohe surmised that they had thrown some sort of impromptu party last night, and as such he took care in creeping around the snoring and hung-over bodies on his way out.

As he approached the front door of the compound, Mohe noticed one of the still-conscious members of Kaden’s gang posted on a stool near to the armored door, with the man reading from a holobook and its contents being projected to the open air — something about grav-space and how faster-than-light drives, which was interesting at a glance. He simply nodded to the man as Mohe opened the door himself, and he had soon found himself out in the open morning air as he heard the door shut behind. Now upon an open-air apartment floor raised high into the sky, Mohe fished out his cigarette once more and lit another on his trek beyond the tower block that he had been temporarily calling home.

The arcology that Mohe was crashing in had the basics, but he was never one to stick around in such a structure for most of his free time. Jade City, like many cities across Hyperion, had as many good venues outside of these massive “urb-towers” as they had inside, if not more. It had something to do with taxes inside versus outside of these arcological structures, but beyond that Mohe had little knowledge or care of the “why”.

Entering one of the many elevators strewn about alongside a gaggle of other augmented and unaugmented denizens, he leaned on one of the cracking faux-wooden walls and leaned his head down, listening on the nearby conversations as he smoked further.

“...I don’t know how the f*ck you do it, man. I don’t know how. Every time we hit the club, you just accumulate that sh*t like water to a fountain...”

“Whadd’ya mean? Are you talkin’ about gettin’ bitches? It’s easy, my guy, you-”

“Naw, naw, not just that, I mean... you know, the ones WITH the jiggle to they ass. Those bitches. Whole f*cking salsa party whenever they walk. I know for a FACT you don’t get that sh*t with just basic smoov-talking!”

“Ah... well, y’see, that’s a company secret. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

The boisterous laughter of the two nearby men — most likely on their way to work, given that it was now around six thirty in the morning — complemented the dozens of others talking in the large elevator as it meandered its way downward towards the ground floor. Mohe simply kept to himself, however, in thoughts of where he should go next.

Kaden had told Mohe that he needed to scope out the Poros Bodyworks facility, noting its loading dock activity and anything else that could be of use before a full-fledged plan could begin to be made. Even so, Mohe still had time before the bulk of activity would kick in for such a factory in the switch between its day and night crews. This meant he could probably kill some time, but where was an anomaly to him as of that moment.

With the elevator reaching the ground floor and disgorging its various passengers into the yawning courtyard of the tower, Mohe subsumed into the mass of humans and synths that surged towards the true outside world. The distant mist of evaporating water, raising from the rooftops and walls of thousands of sky and stratascrapers, obfuscated the amber and golden dawn. In a way, Mohe was glad that he woke up so early, as to catch such a brilliant sight.

The beauty that he beheld inspired Mohe to enjoy the morning more properly, that being at a diner of some sort. Surely, there had to be something like that nearby the site that he had to scout...

About half an hour after he departed from Kaden’s urb-tower, Mohe had arrived at a small diner that was situated along the precipice of a major freeway, hoisted high into the Hyperian sky. He left the taxi he took in the lot that laid next to the surging freeway lanes, shutting its door with a smack and watching it later merge with the rest of the surges of traffic as he headed towards the diner’s front doors. However, Mohe took a slight detour as he realized how high he really was in the sky; although clearly not in the altitudes as many urban structures, the man was easily standing at nearly a kilometer straight into the air, with the only thing separating him from the building-addled ground below being just some thick concrete and plasteel molded into an intra-freeway sky-high rest stop.

Soon enough, Mohe passed through a set of doors reminiscent of the nuclear-age Americana aesthetic, finding himself in the midst of a busy diner corridor that stood out in metallic chrome and plushy red seatings. Walking towards the back of the establishment to where the windows overlooking the massive expanse of Jade City and beyond, the smells of sugar and cooked meat that wafted in from the central kitchen piqued his previously muted appetite, and Mohe’s luck was cleared when he was able to find an empty booth just where he wanted.

Sitting down at the red-themed booth, he was immediately greeted with the flickering and materialization of a smooth crimson hologram against the mahogany of the table before him, re-arranging itself in real time to present to him a visualized menu. Assuming it had the ability to detect his touch, Mohe swept through the menu’s digital pages, reading everything from gigantic meals of pancakes and assorted protein sides to more petite servings of cheesecake. Not being a that big of an eater, he chose a mixed serving of pancakes and bacon, combining it with an order of coffee in lieu of plans ahead.

As soon as his order was placed, a feminine synth shimmering in a cream-colored plastic chassis passed by, with her uniform seemingly been designed to cover only the most essential portions of its body. Mohe found it to be more humorous than anything; most likely as a part of a tactic to wrangle the male trucker crowd that often used the freeways nearby.

“Your order’ll come soon, darlin’,” it said, with a voice modulator only betraying the thinnest of cybernetic origins.

“Am I able to smoke in here?”

“Haven’t you taken a look around you? Every single, lonely man’s doin’ the same thing. Go on ahead.”

Shrugging in response as the synth meandered away, Mohe loaded in a cinnamon-flavored cartridge into the hull that he carried around, lighting and smoking it in the process as he waited. As the seconds flew by, Mohe’s attention wandered between the appearances of the various customers. Some of them were as expected; rough-looking men and women that attended to the long pan-planetary transportation routes as truckers, while others seemed to be more baseline. He didn’t see any streetpunks in the diner... compared to the urb-block he now lived in, this came as a relief.

One of the televisions that lied closest to Mohe, hoisted above the oblong bar counters that rounded the center of the diner, was in the middle of rolling footage from a major gang shootout somewhere in the bowels of Maogang. Being broadcast by the Albion Continental News Network, it was clear that they were not a media agency to refrain from showing the grit of street wars; a row of corpses appeared as if it was just some normal B-roll footage. Mohe didn’t lose his appetite over it, but he didn’t quite understand how the diner would nonchalantly show such during breakfast hours. To him, it might have been a mistake, or the owners just not caring.

Mohe turned his head to the left, looking beyond the thick window that separated him from the rushing wind of high altitude outside. The ascent of Hathor turned the sky back into a familiar blue tone, with the onset of its heat turning the all-surrounding horizon into a sea of concrete-baked and steel-heated mirages. Taking another hit from his cigarette, he rested his elbow on the table and took in the sight before him as he waited.

For ten years, he saw nothing but the starkness of his own prison. Now, Mohe had been rendered the same feeling he had over a decade ago, when he first made planetfall — a sense of wonder for the extent of humanity’s sprawl, and yet a sense of dread. This dread stemmed from being but one of billions upon this world, fighting and dying for scraps in either direct or indirect methods. His years in prison taught him many things, including how to adapt and change to one’s environment, but not in regards to navigating the labyrinth that was true, bonafide civilian life on Hyperion. His reversion to crime was out of necessity, for what else did he really have for him? With no family and crime-free friends on the outside, he had nothing but the dream he held as a child— a hope for something to bring him meaning. Mohe had no true knowledge of what exactly, but the feeling had been gnawing him for all his life, and was only muffled by the demands of prison.

“Your food’s here. Payment’s just through the notereader there and through a physical or digital device link with our store. Enjoy...”

The now-familiar synthetic voice banished Mohe from his prior thoughts, and as he turned his head around, the quaint plates and cup that had his food and drink were placed down in swift but soft motion. He placed his cigarette in his off-hand as he looked over the meal before him; small, maybe, but for ten notes it was manageable to excuse. Scanning the code on the table for payment, he sent the money from his digital wallet away and began to eat alone amid the ambient murmurs and conversations of the diner.

⠀ ◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR
⠀⠀⠀ Near Poros Bodyworks, Jade City, EAM
⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 7:45 AM AST
⠀⠀⠀⠀◣6 January, 2698 UC

Mohe had emerged from a hoverbus stop some ways away from the Poros Bodyworks facility, the pleasant smell of the diner a distant memory, having been replaced with the miasma that flowed from the public transport’s lack of proper care. He now smoked moreso to dispel that smell than even for its taste or feeling.

Rain now began to fall, sending Mohe shrinking into the hooded overcoat that he wore. With its rate only increasing, he saw it fit to immediately move towards the facility that loomed ahead, with its blocky façade having grown sinister when compared against the graying sky. The words “POROS BODYWORKS” shone in a newfound neon signage underneath the shadow of its own shape, but access to the facility itself was blocked by a front gate. Mohe surmised that he could get vision on the loading docks by heading to a nearby skyrise, but he didn’t budget money nor the time to pick up anything with a zoom functionality.

Taking it upon himself, he walked on up to the front gate, where a crowd of workers and aspirants had already gathered in wait of their incoming shifts. Spotting a window to a security booth, he simply went over in anticipation of conversation — although to what specific end he had no idea of.

“State your business,” a drawn-out and bored voice said from the other side of an opaque screen. “You ain’t on any employee or application registry that I know of.”

“Yeah, about that... I think HR misplaced my application or something. You sure I ain’t in any database of yours?”

“Nope.”

“Who do I speak to here to figure this out, then?”

“Speak to the guy you applied to online. Ain’t that hard-”

“I didn’t just apply online - I mean, I did do that, but I also talked to someone here about it, but I forgot their name. Can you let me in so I can find them?”

“And why the hell would I do that when you don’t show up anywhere?”

“What, you think I’m gonna do something? I’m just trying to find work, brother. Help me out, yeah?”

“...Worker Oh-Four-Nine-Six, get over here.”

Mohe’s eye raised in curiosity as the hidden security guard called out, and as he turned around, he saw a figure approaching both him and the booth through the deluge of rainfall. Beneath a clear umbrella was a well-toned woman, her jumpsuit only halfway on with the emergence of two orange cybernetic appendages from her back. She sported an expression mixed with boredom and mild frustration, and as she trudged forward to answer the booth’s calls, Mohe could see her overall figure more clearly. She was taller than the rest of the female workers that had assembled before the gate, at his own height. He wondered if the booth was going to sic the woman on him — a comedic thought, at least — but he did not expect what had came next.

“Yeah? What am I needed for?” the woman asked.

“Take this guy and help him meet whoever the hell he needs to in there. He talked to someone in there about a job or something; go figure it out.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I am. I don’t want to be nailed by the higher ups for turning around an applicant that they themselves talked to. Help the guy out, will you?”

“Ugh...”

The woman turned to size up Mohe, her eyes scintillating with an amber that betrayed some sort of set of optical implants.

“Try to not f*ck around when we’re in there, okay? I don’t need to get docked any more than I already have,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Mohe replied, discarding the smoldering remains of the cigarette cartridge he had loaded previously.

As the gate that loomed before them slowly opened up to accommodate the exit of the last shift and the arrival of the new, the woman turned her head to face the new man before her.

“What’s your name, anyway, ‘new guy’?”

“It’s Mohe. You?”

“Octavia,”

“Well, it rolls off better than just a string of numbers, don’t it?”

“Sounds like you have some experience with that...”

🙼

⬖ Visage of the World
Renée arrives at the monolithic Hyperion International Spaceport and prepares for her descent into a land unlike anything that she remembers stepping foot in before; yet, a land that shines in familiarity and belonging.

◤⠀Hyperian Space, Hathor System, CCR
⠀⠀ Hyperion International Spaceport, Hyperion-Icarus L1 Point
2:30 PM SOT (Space Operant Time)
6 January, 2698 UC
◣Part of Renée's Arrival


It had been nearly an entire day since Renée left her opulent homeworld of Tellus, with the passenger ship that she had just disembarked from having previously stopped in the star systems of Sol and Aellope, leading to a massive outflux of people as she departed into the terminal — and the final leg of her journey to Hyperion.

The Hyperion International Spaceport was truly a behemoth of spatial engineering, with only Earth’s own grand spaceport superseding it in sheer scope. It was of little surprise to the newcomer agent, as practically every educated human knew of Hyperion’s worth to the Coalition as the Core’s “second beating heart” of industry. This much of a reputation was valid, as Renée’s eyes caught sight of the glowing nigh-ecumenopolis through the window-screens meters above her head in the passenger terminal. Although the screens weren’t true, real windows — as any nut that passed security with a gun or bomb would otherwise easily vaporize the whole atrium — they were a true one-to-one depiction, and showcased an endless stream of pinprick lights that flowed in and out of that shining world.

Her thoughts were dispelled as one of the disembarking passengers forcefully shoved past her, with Renée coming to realize just how overcrowded the terminal was. Thousands upon thousands of humans and synthetics ebbed and flowed through one of the ten massive circular atria of the international spaceport; dozens of corporate advertisem*nts cycled through their motions within the midst of the atrium. This was a massive change to the first-class portion of the ship she had taken to Hathor, where the HERMES transport corporation offered their high-class buyers total privacy suites.

Following the general movement of the crowd in avoidance of being crushed underfoot, Renée proceeded to a nearby hotel module that she had personally paid for as a means to handle some final things before descending to the planet’s surface. She had a reservation for later that day, one to board a smaller HERMES craft that would transport her to the space elevator of Port Bremerton. Even so, this was not for another ten or so hours.

Renée’s hand clenched the black, glossy bag that held her personal belongings as she stepped into a cramped elevator, the air thick with a multitude of scents ranging from expensive colognes to body sweat. Her eyes were shifted down, but she nevertheless sneaked a few peeks around; she noticed the variation of attires and augmentations alike, with businessmen that droned into hidden earpieces and space station workers in their bright orange, oil-slick uniforms sharing the same space together.

As the elevator reached Renée’s desired endpoint, she shimmied her way out and was met with a lesser amount of people before. In a sigh of relief, she followed multitudes of signage until she reached the hotel that would harbor her for a few hours. It went by the name of “Hotel Hyperion” — eliciting an eyeroll from Renée in its blatant unoriginality — but the establishment seemed sufficient enough to her, given its trickling influx of middle-class clientèle. Joining the short queue for entry, she soon stepped forward and met the artificial cyan gaze of a receptionist synth, a uniform of satin covering an otherwise smooth metallic and plastic skin below.

“Welcome to Hotel Hyperion, esteemed customer. Do you have a reservation with our establishment?”

“Yes, I have a physical one,” Renée flatly responded, fishing out a passport from her pockets. Legally, she was a citizen of the Federal Republic of Iscaria, and this was reflected by the stark and embossed Iscarian seal upon the dark blue leather that she presented to the synth.

“Please present a proof of identity, such as a pass-”

The synth was unable to finish its statement due to Renée already presenting her Iscarian passport, circumventing further of its dialogue protocols. In an instant, it had scanned the open page of the passport that contained the codes for Renée’s digital identity, recognizing her and her reservation in tow.

“Thank you for choosing Hotel Hyperion for your stay, Miss de Langemyr. You have chosen a Class One Suite for your stay, estimated 12 hours. The deposit of 2,500 notes has already been paid for reservation; however, the access fee is 2,500 notes more. Please present the required funds.”

Putting her leatherbound passport away, Renée switched to a modern style of information transfer by raising her right arm and allowing a featureless bracelet to make direct contact with a nearby payment pad. The funds went through successfully as a result of Renée keeping a few thousand within the encrypted accessory, circumventing having to pay through her bank account that was currently hosted light years away on Tellus.

“Transaction complete. Your suite is 5A-4; a complimentary basket is waiting for your arrival. Once again, thank you for choosing Hotel Hyperion.”

“A gift of hospitality...” Renée murmured to herself as she nodded to the synth, passing through a blue shimmering field that scanned her for any undesired belongings. She had already passed through ten individual fields prior, which stood as a testament to the Coalition’s frenetic dedication to preventing any form of terrorism on space stations; Renée was not surprised by this at all, partly as a result of her line of work and partly because of already spotting a miscellany of surveillance cameras and drones under the purview of the HYPD’s Orbital Security division.

After some time of wandering through the elegant halls of the hotel’s front compartments, Renée reached the fifth level and found her specific subsection. Split into four individual suites, she entered the fourth designated room through an autodoor that already recognized her as its respective customer, stepping into a pre-lit and furnished hotel room.

The suite was much more to the tune of Renée’s tastes than the hustle and bustle of the port before, with a definitive sense of exuberance that was much like that of her homeworld. The air was scented faintly with wisps of jasmine, with the room having sporting accents of mahogany in its furniture, floor, and roof. Finely-tuned, cream-colored light illuminated the room, originating from both traditional lamps that sat on wooden dressers and overhead light fixtures. However, the true boon of the suite was not the decor nor its composition, but one of the walls; upon the farthest side of the suite laid a massive, continuous windowscreen that broadcasted the real-time view of space beyond. However, unlike the general windowscreen that laid in the atrium that Renée arrived in, this one sported an almost frightening resolution of clarity. Such a breathtaking sight gave Renée an idea...

She walked over to the mahogany circular table that laid near one of the far corners of the room, situated next to the wide-spanning windowscreen. Upon its flat surface was a woven basket cradling a full true-glass bottle of wine, sitting in a blanket of burgundy silk. She fished the bottle out from the basket and read its label, with small but noticeable disclaimers upon its back reading “one-hundred percent organic wine” and “made with passion on Archangel”. Renée recognized the name of that world, being Hathor’s agricultural center. The brand didn’t matter to her, as she popped open the cork on the bottle with a complementary automatic corkscrew and poured the dark red liquid into a nearby wineglass.

Sitting down on one of the two plushed chairs situated near the table, Renée plopped a datapad from her bag upon the table and kicked her feet up on the nearby empty seat. As the datapad turned on from a touch to display a loading hologram, Renée requested into the open air for the lights to darken entirely, with a chime of recognition sounding throughout the room shortly thereafter.

As blackness subsumed the room, Renée was left with nothing more to illuminate than the faint blue light of her datapad’s holography and the speckled chromatic aberrations of simulated stars, their faint pricks of light dancing across the dark void of her boots’ leather surfaces. Taking her wine with grace, Renée motioned at the pad with her free hand to bring up a file of interest.

The blue hologram, previously sporting a loading symbol of fluxing geometries that morphed between various iterations of polyhedra, turned into a single flat rectangle that suspended a floating document. It was sparse in terms of textual content, with only one noticeable picture in its breadth. The picture, unlike the words that surrounded it, was rendered in true color; it sported a middle-aged man, gruff and yet with a glint of passion behind his brown eyes.

Renée downed the wine as she went through the sparse information available on the man. The only notable addenda on the document was in regards to the man’s “military history”, with an indication that he served with distinction in the Belial War from 2669 to 2673 as a member of the Interstellar Coalition Space Navy. Beyond this, however, the information atrophied until only a criminal history was available, detailing a fifteen-year prison sentence for attempted murder in 2679 and release in 2694.

Her gaze drifted away from the file and towards the windowscreen, where the visage of Hyperion could be seen in its faint amber glow of a thousand metropolises. A grin of bittersweet remembrance spread across her lips, as childhood memories came flooding back to her mind after years of lingering in mental stasis.

This was not her first time visiting Hyperion. Just twenty years ago, in 2678, Renée and her parents visited the bustling planet to meet a “family friend”; her godfather. This man, who her father lauded a hundred times over when he still drew breath, was a Hyperian; having served together in the Belial War, the two had superseded their planetary biases and forged a lifelong friendship.

This man was the same man that she was now reading about. The information did not come to a shock to her; even before her parent’s death, she was already made aware of what her godfather had done and the reasons why. Maybe it was a natural bias of familiarity, but Renée held no true disdain for her “faux-uncle” in her heart. Any disappointment for him was gone by the time he became her sole parent figure after her parents were killed, having been replaced with a longing for a leading figure in her orderly-chaotic life.

She hadn’t noticed until the very last minute that half of the wine bottle had already disappeared. Feeling the effects of the wine slowly infiltrating her mind, Renée turned off her datapad and stared at the glow of Hyperion, with mixed city and sunrays lulling her into an alcohol-assisted sleep that spun the dances of dozens of stars into a hazy, pleasant dream.

⬖ A Day Out
Rinji meets with his two high school friends at the tail end of winter break; he subsequently finds himself interested in a job posting on a deep-seeded website not long after...

◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR
⠀⠀ “The Intersection” Diner, Alabaster, Central Jade City
1:33 PM AST (Albion Standard Time)
◣ 6 January, 2698 UC
The choice of establishment that his friend selected did not surprise Rinji in the slightest — situated at ground-level, crowded, dingy, and overall a good place to blend in and relax amidst the ebb and flow of early afternoon city life.

Having stored his Tsuzuki 9500 in a parking pod over a mile away to just meet up with Lamarcus, Rinji was already at the cusp of exhaustion and hunger. Thus, while waiting for his friend to arrive, the young gangster sat himself at a corner booth in the expansive, busy restaurant and waited.

Rinji was already dressed in his gang attire, with an emerald biker’s jacket and a darker green undershirt poking out from its partially unzipped form. His dog tags jingled upon his chest as his black leather gloved hands swiped across a dingy hologram displaying the diner’s selection of various grease-laden food items. Having left his bike helmet back with his ride, Rinji’s semi-unkempt hair drifted in a slick fashion to his left, with his eyes drifting over a particular food item that enticed his easily capitalized heritage — stir fried udon noodles combined with and bacon, garlic, and kimchi. Of course, he didn’t expect the ingredients at the diner to be top-brand, but being only seven notes in price was thus too good to not try.

Before he was able to place his order on the holography, a familiar face peeked out from the mass of men and women that drifted through the diner’s doors. Lamarcus Collins, fellow senior at Biff Stoll and Rinji’s most valued childhood friend, greeted the gangster with a friendly fist bump as he sat opposite to Rinji.

Rinji chuckled at the hyperbole of Lamarcus’s comment as he selected the udon noodle item from off of the menu before them.

Rinji waved away Lamarcus’s statement as the latter began to incessantly swipe through the hologram in search of a meal.

As Lamarcus chose his own array of food items from the table’s holographic display, Rinji looked over at his wrist and brought up its own miniature holography, noting the time and weather in the process. Surprisingly, the day had been one of significant sunshine, which may have been an explanation as to why so many people were out and about in Jade City on such a Saturday afternoon.

xoMDai_2678's Catena profile pic.

“You asking the wrong guy that question, bro. All I really know is that she saw my post on Catena about hanging with the gang; next thing you know, she hitting me up to hang out. Told her to come here... and now we waitin’ to see if it’s true.” “She hit you up first but didn’t ask for a dick-down by the ‘Collins tribe’, huh? Lamarcus, I think your game with women is becoming a little shoddy...”

As Lamarcus finished his sentence, Rinji’s eyes suddenly perked up and looked beyond his friend’s shoulder, up and over the booth that they were in and deep into the diner’s crowd. People were parting for a tall figure as they emerged from the mass, with this particular individual walking through the open space and towards where Rinji and Lamarcus sat. The latter, seeing the attention of Rinji’s face, turned his vision back and let out an audible chuckle.

“Aha! There’s our girl! Ain’t you know that you gettin’ stares from some of the fools in here?”

“Yes, I do. I get that pretty often...”

The girl that appeared before the duo was none other than their friend, Marjolijn, with her appearance confirming Lamarcus’s prior allusions. Wearing a black jacket with white fur complements, a dark violet undershirt, and black pants to boot, her stature allowed Marjolijn to peer over the present booth and onto several others, noting how the stares of some switched back to their food.

“Anyway, did you two already order?”

“Yup,”

Marjolijn let out a slight giggle as Rinji exasperatedly made room for his friend on his side of the booth, allowing her to slip in and place her leather purse down on the table before them.

“I guess I got here in time, though, since no one served you two anything yet.”

“Probably because of all the people in here. Every booth been taken before I even went through their front doors,”

“I see... what did you two get?”

“Good question. Lamarcus here got a f*cking burger, like usual; I got udon noodles.”

“...This mothaf*cka really said ‘but usual’ , and then says that sh*t! I told the Jap here to diversify his palette, but dumbf*ck here insists on eating his people’s dishes even when his Mom ain’t here to cook.”

Rinji flipped the bird at Lamarcus as the latter laughed back, with Marjolijn smiling as she perused the hologram that was now available to her.

“Hm. I guess I will just get this ‘double lunch’ special that they have...”

Lamarcus perked up as he recognized the item that Marjolijn was willing to get.

“Girl, are you for real!? Does your corpo momma not pack any food back at home? That sh*t is meant for obese fools who need to keep eating two times the amount of synth-slop a day...!”

Marjolijn rolled her eyes underneath the sheen of her glasses as she cupped the underside of her shirt, a sly grin spreading across her lips.

“How do you think I maintain these, then?”

Rinji could have sworn that Lamarcus’ eyes were to burst straight from their sockets after Marjolijn revealed the musculature that lied upon her abdomen, with her hiding it almost in an instant and wagging a teasing finger at him in the process with a smirk.

“Christ, Marj, you know how much of a horndog Lamarcus can get; you gotta think twice about doing that around him,” he joked.

“I am simply giving a demonstration,” she responded, her tongue slightly peeking out in a comedic expression. “Not my fault if he trips about it in the process.”“sh*t... aight girl, enjoy your twenty thousand f*ckin’ calories. But anyway, did you do the work that these bitch-ass teachers assigned over break?”

“Of course. Are you trying to copy me again?”

“Hah! I mean, sh*t,”

Rinji laughed as Marjolijn leaned back to sigh in pity for their friend, who sat in front of them still aloof at the question.

“That’s why I need your help, girl! Ya boy ain’t tryna be held back — anymore, that is.”

“I will give you my work, sure; but try to actually pay attention in class. Or are you too busy staring at the tit* of all the girls around you?”

“You almost got my personality down to a tee; thing is, I ain’t even in class half the time. School’s so f*cking big that I can just hang with the crew in sh*t like the bathrooms.”

“That explains why every time I need to take a piss, the f*cking bathrooms smell like a metric ton of weed went alight,”

As Lamarcus and Marjolijn struck up another off-kilter conversation about what the former should copy off of the latter next, Rinji looked out of the window and took in the full grasp of the day outside. Being on a ground-level restaurant deep within the center of Jade City, all Rinji could really see was the façade of a mighty megabuilding that laid opposite of the multi-tiered road outside, but the rays of sunshine were still able to make it all the way to the surface in this specific portion of the Alabaster borough. Throngs of Jade City denizens made their way to and fro on the bustling sidewalks that glittered with the holography of changing pedestrian and traffic signals; on occasion, a land-based vehicle would make enough of a clamor to slightly rattle the window that he rested his head against.

A ding from the device that previously cast their menus announced the arrival of a human waiter, who brought the food out on a rather primitive display of trays by hand. Rinji looked away from the sights outside to be greeted by a waft of steam rising from his order of udon, hitting him in familiar aromas that reignited his hunger pangs. He could already see Lamarcus immediately diving to eat as soon as his order was placed down, with Marjolijn eyeing both of them intently.

“Don’t you worry, sis, your stuff comin’ soon,” Lamarcus said after - almost literally - inhaling a mouthful of beef and bread. “Just try not to steal our sh*t while you wait!”

“I see that you did not order any... appetizers...” she responded, slight disappointment in her tone as she saw the two’s ordered drinks placed down.

“Straight to the entrée means we spend less,” Rinji explained as he broke apart a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks before twiddling them in hand. “With what you ordered, I don’t think we needed it, anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

As the two boys began to eat with Marjolijn in wait, Rinji’s eyes drifted to a holoscreen that laid up ahead. Expecting the news to be on, he was instead greeted with a rather boring megacorporate advertisem*nt by the Hermes corporation, which showcased the “wonders” of traveling across the Core of the Coalition on their dedicated slow-speed space cruises. He chuckled before eating, noting how the cost of just one of those trips was probably more than the entirety of his mother’s apartment and his bike combined.

“What the sh*t...!?”

Lamarcus’ comment drew Rinji’s focus once more; two different waiters had now appeared before the trio, bringing the special that Marjolijn had ordered with two large trays in tow. Not knowing initially what his female friend had bought, his eyes poured over what seemed to be a plate containing a large slab of dark meat garnished with finely-cut potato slices and greens, flanked by another plate that hosted a sizable hill of rice adorned with further splatterings of sauces and vegetables throughout. Receiving a juiced drink as the final portion of her order, Marjolijn flashed her friends a peace sign before immediately cutting into the steak that laid before her.

“How much was that?” Rinji asked, his eyes moving between his own meager meal and that of the one next to him.

“Since it was a special, it came out to twenty five notes in total. Maybe it would be double if it was not otherwise,” Marjolijn replied.

“My sista, you better share some of that sh*t,” Lamarcus said. “Ain’t no way yo prissy ass gonna finish that.”

“Oh?”

As the two entered a friendly banter, Rinji checked the holographic display that came from the device on his wrist once more and flicked through differing widgets and apps as he ate. After some time, he landed on a rather obscure InfoScape site, slime.bbs; a vector of his brewing plan to find extra jobs on the side of his work for the Drifters. He was able to access such a niche — and, in many cases, illegal — network thanks to one of the applications that worked on his device, which was supposed to block the plethora of government and corporate trackers that could feed unwanted information out whenever he visited sites.

Navigating to the jobs.zone board of the site, he scrolled through the multitude of different job postings as he ate, with said posts ranging in content from simple escort or meeting missions to those begging guns-for-hire to shoot their spouses or put down that nagging boss at work. None exactly were of note to him, except for one — a posting by a user named “50jackalskxng”. It was asking for a driver for a “job”, but the specific details were left out. This was interesting to Rinji, as the site security and anonymity embraced by the slime.bbs community meant that even criminal jobs could have a degree of explanation to them in postings. The advertised payment was good, too, coming out to several thousand notes. Rinji boosted his own ego as being an “expert driver”, but that would only really be applicable to hoverbikes and the like. He could get behind the wheel of a car, but the efficacy of such was unknown to him since he rarely drove such vehicles.

“What are you looking at, Rinji?”

The focus of Marjolijn’s tone and the sudden appearance of her hand on Rinji’s shoulder startled him for a second, with his attention on the job posting dissipating as he lowered his wrist and subsequently banished the holography from sight.

“Oh, nothing much — just extra opportunities for money, you know. Not everyone can afford mountains of food like you, miss-corporate-princess.”

Marjolijn took no offense to the comment, instead flashing a toothy smile before flaunting her order in front of Rinji via slicing a large cut of meat to later grasp in the hold of her fork.

“Marry me and you can have this too, eh?” she joked, winking at Rinji before sticking the large slice into her mouth.

“You gonna take Kazumi’s boy away from her, huh?” Lamarcus said, interceding in the conversation. “Wonder who will win in a catfight like that!”

“Something in the food here has got you both going crazy...”

The trio exited the diner under the faint trickle of present daylight, with their path taking them across the road that lied before them through means of an underground pedestrian pathway. Originally, the group were to take a taxi north to the more prosperous sections of Jade City; however, Lamarcus had revealed the fact that he recently acquired his very own car — with a proper license to boot. Rinji was flabbergasted at the fact that his friend was able to find parking even closer to the diner than he had; although, to be fair, he recognized that Lamarcus knew this area better than he did.

Underneath the dim overhead lights of an underground parking lot, the three came across Lamarcus’ parked car. It was a beaten-up sedan, but enough to accommodate the small party, with the two boys hopping in the front seats and Marjolijn taking her spot in the back.

The inside of the car itself was expectedly ragged, with the leather cushioning of the seats pockmarked and cut in several places to reveal the ages-old foam beneath. Rinji, in the front passenger seat, turned to speak to Lamarcus.

“Why does it not surprise me that this sh*tbox smells like weed...”

“You always gotta hate on ya boy, huh. I gotta refuel this bad boy before we go north, though, so you better have brought some stuff to entertain you in the meantime. Marj got the right idea, don’t she?”

Rinji looked towards the backseat and noticed Marjolijn splayed over the two seats, earbuds already situated in her ears as she slipped into the beginning of her food-induced coma.

“I guess she does... I’ll just listen to whatever bullsh*t is on the radio, then.”

“Never took you for a radio dude.”

“Can’t really listen to the radio when you’re in an open-seat hoverbike, now can you?”

⬖ Minuit
Nine years ago, a man of troubled past meets a girl of troubled present; nine years ago, a life is saved and redeemed from the blood and grime of Hyperion's worst.

◤⠀Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR
⠀⠀ Unit 55607, Section 110, Ningzhou
12:03 AM AST (Albion Standard Time)
◣ 11 January, 2689 UC
Rain flowed down from heaven only a meter or so away, with the relative dryness of the cracked and worn patio concrete only being protected by the corrugated metal overhang that drooped downward in its posture. Distant lightning ripped forth through the clouds and over the far-away ocean, illuminating a rolling mass of favelas that straddled all in sight. Great, massive spires of rot and ruin raised into the sky, mockeries of true stratoscrapers in their blotting of the skyline of Ningzhou.

It was true that the city was never known for wealth or affluence. Lying near to the heart of Hyperion’s shipbreaking industries, Ningzhou was once at the cusp of greatness, only to fall into centuries of economic despair and stagnation following the Corporate Wars of the 2200s. Now, from this vantage point of a shanty house sitting upon a throne of its fellow tin-roofed kin, all that could be seen was this failed dream turned wrought into a nightmare.

Yet, to the man that sat alone on the patio, this nightmare was comfortable to live within. It was a refuge to he who lurked in the shadows; a place to escape from the prying eyes of all who hunted his past. He knew very well that his old identity, soaked in sins, was being sought after with guns and lead. Even so, he had left that life long ago, venturing forth into the massive poverty-stricken sprawl of Ningzhou to heed the call of a more peaceful end. It did not matter to him if his tomb was of rusted corrugated sheets and mildew, as the beckoning hand of his faith dismissed such trivialities of yearning for a flashier death.

Looking past the rusted rebar grating between his patio and the sea of metal roofing, the man breathed in a meditative peace, the cycling of synthetic lungs and the straining of an artificial trachea bringing forth minute clicks from beneath the fake dermis of his chest. On a hand bereft of any skin, betwixt fingers of hexagonal-patterned rubber, dangled a bronze crucifix. The figure of Christ was dampened in the storm’s atmosphere, with water slicked to His metal from the cold, moist wind. Eyelids closed, the man sat upon a chair of welded metal, his head bowed and aimed towards the distant ocean in silence.

This, of course, was not meant to last.

The chime of a nearby device roused the man from his prayer, forcing him at once to get up from the chair and face the full extent of the weather. Water now petaling across his synthetic form, he retreated from the display to don a set of dark burlap on top of his soulless carapace as red irises scanned an incoming message.

ATTENTION. MOTION DETECTED AT FRONT DOOR. PROJECTING CAMERA FEED.

As the man closed the dirtied glass door behind him, he walked into total darkness. Sight shifting in spectra to accommodate, he who was cloaked in burlap robes transitioned through several rooms filled to the brim with various containers and instruments before ultimately stopping in front of a heavy, iron manual door. Having already seen who lied beyond through the usage of a camera system routed to his optics, he shifted the various locks of the door open and swung it forth, letting in the rain abound above inside in the process.

Crimson optics peered forth through the shadow of the entryway, scanning who stood on the gangway. A man with a high degree of natural muscle was he who was the closest, with tattoos across his visible arms betraying allegiance to a local gang outfit. The tattooed arrival’s expression was one of concern - the stained rivulets of blood upon the man’s gloves told the inhabitant more of the story.

His optics flickered from the man to beyond his shoulders in an instant, and the inhabitant’s own expression shifted from a neutral gaze to that of surprise.

The inhabitant of the home ventured onto the side of the gangway in an instant, hood raised to cover his head from the onslaught above. Rain inundating his robes, he noticed the wounded girl that laid in the arms of another man, and as such briefly froze in an internal astonishment. This girl could not have been older than sixteen or so, and yet she already sported a significant degree of cyberization - not enough to replace organs, if he could guess from the running blood, but enough to encase herself in synthetic skin marked with various ports and sockets for cyberware. Her head lied limp in the other man’s arms, blood flowing from beneath what seemed to be a jumpsuit.

Feeling a twinge of sadness deep within his core, he stepped forward and beckoned for the man to place the girl in one of his arms, blood now intermixing with the rain that flowed through his inundated fabrics.

Turning on a dim light bulb that was hanging in the midst of the room, orange light illuminated a pale-skinned girl with light-colored hair slick against her head due to a mixture of rain and blood alike. Beyond the large gash that ran across the side of her head, the girl was also bleeding profusely from somewhere on her abdomen - leading the barren mattress that she laid upon to slowly stain with crimson as the man scrambled to prepare his impromptu operation.

In a rapid pace did the man’s augmented arms move, removing his wet burlap outfit and placing it to the side while opening previously sealed containers to reveal instant-acting coagulants. Without feeling any shame for what he was about to do, he grabbed a set of scissors from a nearby opaque plastic box and cut the girl’s jumpsuit open, top to bottom, revealing her body in its entirety. Although she was now naked, the man was now able to see what he was to work upon - that being two gunshot wounds to her lower abdomen. Cutting off the jumpsuit had now allowed portions of her small intestines to herniate outward from the wounds, alongside a continuous stream of blood spurting from between them. Noting the severity of the injuries, he then grabbed a suture gun and rotated her so that he had a better angle against the two perforations, injecting her with an anesthetic to prevent her from waking up mid-operation.

Minutes went by as his hands became wet with her blood, his fingers fishing out and adhering to the injured loops of organ as his suture gun slowly worked around their sliced circumferences. Bleeding subsided as he administered the local coagulants alongside a round of basic antibiotics, with his work finishing by roughly closing her wounds with the now blood-soaked suture gun. Placing it down on a towel he had fished out, he slowly began to wrap her midsection in gauze, placing one of his blankets over her thereafter. Rotating the girl’s head slowly, he picked up the suture gun once more and went to work closing the gash that was left, noting how her skull beneath the wound was still intact.

Wrapping gauze now over her head, he cleaned off the remaining blood and matter that remained on his hands from a nearby open-jug of water, drying his hands with whatever clean textile was left in the room. He raised up from the position that he had sat in without a sound uttered, and instead placed his hand over the unconscious girl’s shoulder as his throat whirred in a silent rhythm of prayer. He knew that the work he did was only a temporary fix, as she required further help to repair her abdominal wall, but he nevertheless prayed to God that it would be enough for that moment, thanking his Lord for the chance to bring relief to someone once more in his life.

Leaving the room slowly, the cyberized man turned off the light that loomed above. He traversed through his house once more to his patio, and stood in contemplation as the rain now washed him clean from lingering crimson droplets. After some time, he sat down, and picking back up the crucifix that he had left on an end table, putting it near to his face as he bowed his head once more.

At first, she felt nothing but the cold dampness of her clammy skin, with what seemed to be some sort of slightly-scratchy fabric draped over her body. As sense came back to her nerves, however, she began to feel a dull, rolling pain - both on the side of her head and across her stomach.

A sudden realization of the events that happened before flashed through her mind like lightning, bringing her heart to a frightening tempo as she tried to get up. Her body had failed her, however, sending the girl tumbling back into the mattress that she had just risen from. She cried, not only in physical pain, but also in emotional dread, her wails reverberating through the thin sheet-metal walls that entombed her within such darkness.

Suddenly to her did light break across the room, with an orange light bulb having been turned on just above the girl’s fear-stricken face. This allowed her to see with the natural spectrum of her eyes, revealing... a figure.

It instantly dawned on her what she was looking at, and without realizing what had been done to her prior, the girl screamed in total horror.

A massive figure blocked the entrance to wherever she was being held. It was covered from the head down in black and red cybernetic augmentations that sported scratches, tears, and bullet holes galore. Exposed wires and pipes could be seen where joints were supposed to be, with two bright red optics staring down at her from behind a face that sported no humanity, no soul, and no spirit. It was a face of a monster; nay, a demon of steel, with no visible flesh in sight.

She wanted to flee; to run just as she had done before. Yet, her mind was also in the farthest reaches of despair possible, begging her to resign to whatever fate that this world had left for her. Her body was in agreement, paralyzing her further and not allowing her any possibility in moving to get away from this monster.

It came closer. She closed her eyes, tears welling as she drew her head towards her chest and under her arms, not wanting to see what it would do next.

And there, then, she felt it.

Not a searing heat of billowing blood, nor an agonizing explosion of crushed bone...

It was a simple, delicate touch upon her shoulder.

She could sense that this giant of chrome was right next to her, but it did not do anything. It had merely crouched down and offered a simple touch, a hold - as if to comfort her from what he saw.

Mustering the courage to put her arms down and look upwards, she saw that which she called a beast looking at her with its head co*cked to the side. It was concerned; now, if it was feigning such emotion, she could not know. Yet, as the minute dragged forward, it retracted its hand and simply sat down next to her... holding a book in hand.

The girl sat there, saying nothing, as she finally looked around - and at herself. A shirt too big for her size was already put on her body, and she could feel both the gauze that wrapped around her body and head alike. Beyond the metal man on the chair, she could see boxes with red crosses upon them, including a bare wooden cross that hung from a rusty nail upon the wall.

Taking this all in at once, she could only muster a brief quiver of response. Before completing her reply, however, she began to sob once more, remembering once more what had happened to her. This sob turned into more tears as she buried her face into the blanket before her, the events of what she could remember as just hours before repeating over and over in her mind.

She only slightly felt the cold embrace of the fully cyberized man attempting to console her as the nightmare of the past took to her psyche in full force.

The details of such pained her heart to say, leaving her again at the precipice of tears.

He sat in silence for a moment as he processed the answer in correlation to just how much cyberization he saw on her before.

His mouth smiled softly in hearing her question.

As he spoke, the door that was left slightly ajar to the room opened wider. A small, black cat poked its head out from the opening before entering the room in full, trotting up to Amadeus’s legs and rubbing its body across his black plasteel. As it continued onward, it trotted up to Aurora’s mattress and sniffed around, its nose hovering first over the old blood before reaching up to her body proper. It nuzzled her as it looped around Aurora’s body, bringing the slightest form of a smile to her otherwise bereaved face.

The joke was a success, having Aurora chuckle just a bit as Amadeus rose once more.

Amadeus’s soft words lingered in Aurora’s otherwise rattled mind as he left the door cracked once more, soothing her mentally as Cloak nestled upon her thigh. She rested her head down fully on the pillow that was brought to her and looked up, with none of the optical augmentations she had working. Sighing, her eyelids drifted to a close, with the beginning semblance of sleep overtaking her. The cycling of distant fans, the hum of air conditioning units, and the pitter-patter of far-off rain closed the book on her passage to slumber.

Amadeus looked away from the crack in the door, his mind at ease.

⬖Low Lays the Devil
Edward Duncan, the second-in-command of the Hyperion borough of the Harborne Boys, returns to Jade City after conducting business over a continent away...

◤ Hyperion, Hathor System, CCR
⠀“Lion’s Mane” Gentleman’s Bar, Golden Foil Spire, Coronado, Jade City
7:30 PM AST (Albion Standard Time)
◣ 6 January, 2698 UC

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