NANITE

The proprietor—known in the underworld only as The Hoarder—sat behind a heavy, steel-mesh counter, backlit by a large, unmissable, hand-painted sign that read:

EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE. NO REFUNDS. NO JUDGMENT. NO QUESTIONS.

He was rail-thin, almost skeletal, wrapped in a flamboyant, peacock-blue synth-silk jacket, his long, delicate nose ringed with an array of tiny, glinting gold studs. He was engrossed in a battered, ancient paper book, its pages yellowed and worn, reading by the soft, warm glow of an old-fashioned, oil-burning lantern. As Ray approached, the Hoarder looked up, and his heavily augmented irises, patterned in shimmering, concentric spirals of gold and silver, spun and refocused with a hypnotic, mechanical whir.

Ray stepped up to the counter, the sheer, overwhelming sensory press of the shop crowding in on him. Silently, he reached inside his coat, his movements slow and deliberate, and drew out the eleven gold cylinders, the size of fingers—ten harvested from Rex's cybernetic arm, one from the custom pistol. He set them down on the counter, the soft, solid clink of the dense metal impossibly loud in the cluttered, humming silence.

The Hoarder's hands, long and unnaturally slender, were steady and sure. He took each cylinder in turn, placing it carefully in a small, humming, high-tech analyzer. The ritual repeated eleven times—a soft hum, a flash of green light from the machine, a satisfied, almost imperceptible nod from the proprietor. Ray tried not to fidget, his own hands curling into tight fists at his sides, remembering every risk, every drop of blood, every terrifying moment that had led him here, to this exchange.

Finally, the Hoarder spoke, his voice a dry, reedy whisper. "Very impressive. Very high purity gold. I'd wager. I can offer you 5,454 NEX per cylinder. That is my final offer."

Ray did the math in his head, the calculation instantaneous—sixty thousand NEX. More money than he had ever seen and held, in his entire life. A dizzying wave of relief and a profound, surreal disbelief warred in his gut, but he managed a single, curt nod, keeping his face impassive and his expression unreadable.

The Hoarder flashed a grin, his teeth stained an unnatural, iridescent purple. He slid a single, unmarked data shard across the counter, its smooth, black surface reflecting the riotous neon of the shop. Ray took it, his hand, despite his best efforts, trembling almost imperceptibly.

He turned, forcing himself not to look back, and climbed the steep, narrow stairs, the immense, life-altering weight of the new possibility pressing in on him. Only when he reached the street, the cold, wet, familiar air of the city washing over him, did he let out a long, shuddering breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The pawn shop's lurid, enticing lights faded behind him, swallowed by the grimy alley. In the cold, indifferent night air, a tiny, fragile spark of hope flickered to life within him. Sharp, dangerous, and intoxicatingly, terrifyingly alive.

He slotted the shard into his interface. A moment later, his HUD confirmed the transaction. Sixty thousand credits had appeared in his private, untraceable account.

As Ray walked out of the alley, a lone figure, previously hidden in the deepest shadows, stirred and began to follow him, a silent, unseen predator in the neon jungle.

Eel's heart pounded a frantic, synth-coke-fueled rhythm against his ribs as he tailed his mark through Slickrow's neon-drenched underbelly. The drug burned behind his eyes, leaving his nerves raw and jittery, a gnawing hunger for his next hit eclipsing every rational thought. Credits. He needed credits, and the only thing standing between him and sweet, chemical relief was whoever was unlucky enough to cross his path tonight.

He kept to the shadows, a predator in his element, flexing his cybernetic arms—gleaming chrome and matte carbon fiber, the joints pocked with glowing blue nodes and artfully exposed wires, hidden beneath the sleeves of his coat. When the itch for violence came, he could, with a thought, feel the charge whine to life. A low, satisfying hum that vibrated deep in his bones.

He'd spotted the guy—hood up, moving with a quiet, efficient purpose—slipping out of the Hoarder's shop. Nobody left that den of thieves empty-handed, not unless they'd just pawned their last chance at tomorrow. Eel's mind buzzed with possibilities: a fresh cred-shard, a cache of valuable data, maybe even a rare pre-Collapse relic. Something he could fence, fast. Tonight, whatever the mark had, it was his.

The hooded figure cut sharply through the indifferent crowd, purpose in every stride. Eel melted after him, a ghost drifting through the glare of holographic advertisements, his eyes narrowed, his mouth dry with anticipation. He caught up just as the guy darted into a narrow, unlit alley—a dead end. Perfect. A small, cautious voice nagged in the back of his mind—too easy—but he viciously pushed it away. Hunger trumped caution, always.

Eel grinned, a rictus of predatory glee. He could feel the electricity buzzing at his fingertips, the very air around him seeming to thicken with ozone. His implants whined as he primed the capacitors, the static building in his chrome knuckles, a familiar and intoxicating prelude to violence. All he had to do was touch skin and—

He slipped into the alley, the chaotic noise of Slickrow fading into a sudden, unnerving silence. A bum, huddled in a pile of filthy rags, was slumped against the far wall—face hidden, body too thin, skin a sickly, pale gray, hair a wild, matted tangle. Not his mark. Eel's eyes darted around the confined space, suspicion prickling up his spine like a thousand tiny needles. Something didn't fit. This wasn't right.

He took a cautious step forward. The bum didn't even stir. The only sound was the slow, rhythmic drip of polluted water from a rusted pipe and Eel's own ragged, drug-fueled breath, magnified by the oppressive silence. The alley felt too still, too empty, a stage set for a play he hadn't realized he was in. He hesitated, his hand twitching, the faint blue glow from his cybernetic arm painting the damp brick wall in ethereal, shifting patterns.

Then a voice—calm, cold, and directly behind him—echoed in the small space:

"Hello, Eel."

His street name, spoken with such quiet and absolute certainty, sent a jolt of pure, undiluted panic through his overcharged system. He spun, trying to trigger his capacitors, to unleash the stored electrical fury in his arms, but a presence was already there, a blur of motion in the dark.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Before Eel could fully process the impossibility—a sickening crunch, a flash of white-hot agony, and the alley tilted sideways. Sparks snapped across Eel's vision, and his knees buckled, the electric fire in his arms sputtering and dying with a pathetic whimper. He hit the ground, the world dissolving into a meaningless smear of darkness.

He holstered a silenced pistol, face hidden behind a visor, already forgotten. Without a word, it vanished, melting into the city's veins.

High above, a maglev train thundered by on its elevated track, its passage briefly illuminating the alley in a flickering cascade of holographic advertisements. No one looked down. No one ever did.

Ray, his disguise rippling and dissolving back into his own form, knelt over the fresh corpse. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He remembered the faint buzz of Eel's primitive cybernetics he'd picked up on his enhanced hearing—the subtle warning that had made him careful and made him set this simple trap. Now, with the alley empty and silent once more, he dragged the body deeper into the shadows, his steps muffled by the city's endless, indifferent hum.

As he placed his hand on the cooling flesh and metal, the absorption process was smoother than it had been with Rex. No fractured, agonizing memories. No psychic backlash that felt like his head was splitting in two. Just a cold, efficient, almost sterile clarity. Chrome and carbon fiber rippled beneath Ray's skin, faint blue-white arcs of captured electricity sparking between his now-reinforced fingers. The sensation was sharp, exhilarating—a raw taste of new power, of controlled static. For a fleeting heartbeat, Ray caught a final, fading echo from the dying mind—a wave of primal fear, a pang of desperate, insatiable hunger for the next high—and then it was gone, subsumed into the quiet, steady awareness of his own consciousness.

He flexed his new hands, the stolen electricity crackling over his chrome-laced knuckles before he willed the current to die. Quietly, Ray rose, melting back into the neon-drenched night—just another ghost in the sprawling, violent machine of Virelia, but stronger now and haunted by a terrifying hunger all his own.

Ray arrived at the apartment long after midnight. He slipped through the door, the lock clicking shut behind him with a soft, final sound, blinking as his eyes adjusted from the relentless neon glare of the city to the softer, more forgiving shadows of home.

Lina was asleep on the couch, her hand curled loosely around the edge of her worn blanket, her mouth parted in the soft, gentle breaths of an exhausted, dreamless sleep. The quiet here felt almost sacred—fragile, a world away from the electric violence, the brutal necessities, of the streets outside. Ray's steps slowed. He took a moment to just listen, to breathe in the familiar, comforting scent.

He glanced around the small, cluttered room. Alyna was nowhere in sight. There was only one other place she could be. He moved silently to the door of his own small room and stepped inside.

Alyna stood by his battered old laptop, its aging screen throwing shifting lines of green and blue code across her focused face, her nimble fingers flying across the keyboard. The ethereal light made her look older, almost severe, but there was a softness in the way she frowned in concentration at the lines of data scrolling past. The low, insistent hum of the machine's overworked fan blended with the distant, muted thrum of the city—the wail of sirens, a deep bassline from some unseen nightclub, all of it softened by the thick, indifferent walls of their megabuilding. Like his mother, Alyna's passion was the digital language—quick, clever, confident and wordless. She tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear, all focus and fire, and for a second, Ray felt a familiar, aching gratitude just to see her there, safe and real.

She sensed his presence at last. Her fingers froze above the keyboard. She turned, a single eyebrow arched in that way he remembered so well, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a wary, knowing half-smile. "What's with the goofy grin, Ray?"

He caught himself, the unconscious smile fading, and shrugged, rubbing his thumb nervously over the back of his hand. "Nothing. I'm just… glad to see you." His voice was softer than he'd intended, more vulnerable.

She studied him for a long heartbeat, a complex mixture of suspicion and affection mingling in her intelligent, sapphire eyes. "Did you have fun on your 'errand' with Arty?" she asked, her tone teasing, but not quite light, an underlying question in her voice.

Ray's gaze dropped to the scuffed, worn floor. "Yeah," he said, then hesitated, the silence blooming between them, heavy with everything he couldn't, wouldn't, say. He heard the wheezing hum of the laptop fan and the faint, rhythmic pattern of rain against the windowpane.

Alyna waited, her gaze patient, reading the tension in his hunched shoulders, in the way he wouldn't meet her eyes. "Is that a good 'yeah' or a bad 'yeah'?" she finally asked, her voice quiet and careful, inviting him to share a burden she could sense but couldn't see.

He finally looked at her then, searching her face for judgment, for recrimination, and finding only a gentle, unwavering patience. "I… It's complicated," he said, the words coming out in a rush, a confession. "We, uh… we found a body at the landfill. Dead a while. Looked like a professional hit." He paused, then pushed on, needing to tell her at least part of the truth. "It had a gold-plated cyberarm and some expensive-looking jewelry. I… I sold the gold from the arm. For sixty thousand NEX. I kept the jewelry—just in case we need some quick cash later." His words felt heavy, clumsy, brutal, but they were true.

Alyna's eyes widened, then narrowed, a flicker of worry quickly overshadowed by a dawning, practical relief. "Sixty thousand…" she breathed, the number hanging in the air between them. "That's… that's almost my dad's yearly salary." She looked at him then, her gaze sharp, concerned. "Are you okay, Ray?"

Ray managed a small, crooked, tired smile. "I'm fine. Just… tired. And I just want to get us somewhere better than this. Somewhere safe."

He walked to the cot and sat down.

She crossed the small space between them in two silent steps and perched on the edge, beside him. Their knees touched, a small point of contact, of warmth, in the cool, dim room. She rested her hand lightly on his, her touch a silent offering of comfort. The room felt warmer, suddenly, the cold blue glow of the computer screen and the closeness of another soul holding the city's darkness at bay.

"Any particular place in mind?" Alyna asked, her head tilted, her voice soft. She traced idle, soothing circles on his knuckles with her thumb, her question gentle, but her eyes searching for any sign that he might leave her behind again, that this new, fragile reality might also shatter.

Ray shook his head. "Not really. Just… somewhere safe. Somewhere clean. " He hesitated, then met her gaze, his own eyes filled with a raw, unfamiliar sincerity. "Wherever I go, Alyna, I want you to be there."

Alyna's smile broke through then, bright and real and utterly beautiful. "That's all I want, too, Ray." She squeezed his hand, their fingers lacing together, a perfect, easy fit.

For a while, they just sat like that—hands joined in a gentle, healing silence. The shifting patterns of code from the laptop painted their fingers in ethereal, digital starlight, holding back the city's endless roar, if only for a moment, outside the fragile walls of the small room.

The laptop's cool blue and green light washed over the cramped, cluttered space, tracing shifting constellations across Alyna's face. She was close, her leg pressed against Ray's, simple warmth grounding him. Her dark hair, a silken shadow playing over the lines of code that danced and flickered on the screen.

The quiet lingered, safe and suspended, until Alyna leaned in, her voice soft and searching, colored with hope and a familiar vulnerability.
"You know… we're finally alone."