April 17, 11:02 AM (District D3)

The vending unit had a mean streak. It ate coins and spit out insults. Leila knelt with a cracked driver and a prayer, half inside its service slot while the city’s damp breath pooled around her ankles. The kiosk’s guts were older than she was—green boards, corrosion like frostbite. She bridged two contacts with the end of a cassette tape’s metal leader, and the compressor coughed, surrendered, and rattled awake.

The machine blinked: FREE DISPENSE – STAFF TEST.

“Bless you,” she said, deadpan, catching the ramen cup like a magician palming a card.

Her player—a chrome knockoff that had seen better decades—swallowed the cassette again. The sticker that once read WALKMAN had been scoured down to WAK AN, like the city itself had given up on finishing words. The tape warbled to life, and Depeche Mode bled out, synth thin as a vein in bad weather.

Across from her, a security cam watched through cracked plex. She watched it back. No red LED—dead or lying. In D3, either could get you killed.

She ate standing, chopsticks moving with a thief’s economy. The broth tasted like salt and battery acid—comfort, in its own way. The alley pressed damp on her, mildew and ozone layered over frying oil from a cart two blocks away. Cables sagged between buildings like tired jump ropes, humming when the wind plucked them.

This was home.

Mildew in the vents. Neon puddles that no longer remembered sky. The bass hum of generators keeping a million lies alive.

Her wristband buzzed.

CHEZ:
you upright?

LEILA:
define

CHEZ:
got a thing. small. harmless. don’t hate me.

She sighed. Chez only used harmless when the opposite was true.

A pin dropped. Old relay substation, D3’s bowels. She killed the tape, pocketed the noodles, and slid into motion. She stuck to shadow seams, places where sightlines broke. Kids had tagged a wall with fluorescent squid—ten tentacles and a grin like a cut. The ink fluoresced when she passed, glowing like it knew her.

The substation door stuck, then gave with a shudder. Inside: stale cold, ozone, and the faint buzz of borrowed electricity. Chez wasn’t here—never risked meat when wire would do—but his rig was. Patchwork terminals stitched together with prayer and stolen parts. On the table: a drive no bigger than her thumbnail. Thin. Black. Dangerous by design.

Chez’s face ghosted onto a cracked monitor: wide eyes, sleep-deprived grin, bomber jacket patched with old logos—Mario, Contra, something half-peeled that might’ve been Pac-Man. He looked like history had chewed him up and spit him into a basement.

“Hey, killer.”

“You look like expired milk,” she said.

“Compliments land harder when you’ve seen heaven.” He nodded at the drive. “Courier run. Slide this into the relay at The Squid. That’s it. In-out.”

“You want me to die lit,” she said, flat.

“You’re faster than death.”

“That’s what death always says.”

They grinned anyway. The grin of debt and history. He’d pulled her out of a raid once with a floor plan he shouldn’t have had. She’d broken his nose after, because he hadn’t warned her sooner. Friendship was ratios.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Think of it as a key that knows every lock,” he said. “And maybe a mirror you don’t want to look into.”

“Harmless,” she said.

He winced. “I lied.”

She taped the drive inside her bra elastic. The edge carved its groove into her skin immediately, claiming territory.

On the stairs back up, she thumbed play again. The synthline stuttered, then held. With music under it, the city felt less random. Like someone had overlaid a grid.

On the roof, wind freed her curls from sweat and dried them into salt. She sat on the ledge, one boot braced, and finished the noodles, cardboard cup warm against her palms. Out there, Eidolon Tower split the skyline—a blade stabbed into cloud. The top floors pulsed the slow blue of god rehearsal.

She framed a photo: drive against tower. Sent it.

LEILA:
you stole a dream. or a problem.

CHEZ:
both. 7:41 ping window. go early. don’t stay.

The ventline exhaled a cool breath. The tape clicked, flipped sides.

For a moment, with synth in her ear and noodles in her hand, she could almost believe in days that weren’t about survival.

Then the hatch banged below. Not wind. Boots on metal, rhythm deliberate. Testing the echo.

She slid into shadow, breath shallow, back pressed to rust. The hatch didn’t open. The steps retreated. A test, not a hit. She stayed still anyway. Stillness kept you alive longer than courage.

Finally, she stood. The drive tapped her rib like a second heartbeat.

“Okay,” she told the skyline, Eidolon’s cold pulse staring back. “Let’s go break something that deserves it.”