Yellow Jacket

The rain didn't stop it never really did. But it had softened.

For the first time in days, it fell as mist instead of war, lifting in slow coils off the broken pavement and peeling back from the rooftops in long, silvery threads. Water still clung to everything, gutters, wires, tarp stalls, but it no longer punished. It breathed.

And the Bazaar came alive.

Smells hit first. Boiled rootfat over burner fire. Oil-seared fungus patties with salt-ash crisping at the edges. The damp sting of rusted wire being cut open and rewound. Powdered ginger smoked in a ceramic dish, slow-burning for calm. A streak of burned insulation where a patch-tech had misjudged polarity and cooked his own gloves. Meat boiled dry inside sealed vats. Wet copper. The sharp tang of fresh solder. And beneath it all, the cloying sweet-rot of something fermenting on purpose.

The clatter followed. Cart wheels over grating. Barkers hollering about their goods in the only language this city had left. The muted thud of barter packs tossed carelessly into crates. Gears spun on manual crank winches. A child yelled for a lost sibling. Somewhere, a dog barked. Hacked music from a speaker looped a glitched beat through a static-blasted anthem someone claimed was from before the Collapse. The noise layered, not chaotic, just loud enough to drown memories.

Warren and Wren moved through it like runoff. Not themselves. Not visibly.

Warren wore a dark coat with no cut to it. No warning in the stitching. His hood stayed low, his boots quiet. No yellow. No shine. No silhouette to recognize. He limped. Just another body moving between market paths.

Wren looked nothing like the sharp girl who'd once dared the Red Zone. She wore a patch-coat four sizes too big, soaked enough to cling in places and billow in others. Layers of padded cloth and stitched tarp cinched tight at the wrists made her look shapeless, hunched, like someone trying to fold into herself. Her hood drooped forward, rain-matted hair spilling across her face like moss from a wall. She kept her head down. Her steps were slow, irregular. Not limping, just off. Just wrong enough to be actively ignored.

In one hand, half-hidden beneath the ragged hem of her coat, she held Stick, blacked, silent, mistaken easily for a walking brace. It wasn't. But let them think it was.

Every few steps, a twitch ran through her shoulder. A shift. Not hers.

Styll moved under the coat.

The little creature had wedged herself deep beneath Wren's layers, snug between warmth and threat. She didn't surface. Didn't peek. But every so often she shifted, scurried from one side of Wren's body to the other, her claws scraping faintly against the synth lining. Wren's arm would jolt, reflexive. She'd exhale, barely, and roll her shoulder to hide it.

It was working. No one noticed.

Except Warren.

He didn't look at her. Didn't speak. But every time Styll moved, his head tilted half a degree. A predator's calibration.

They passed the outer fringe stalls, cheap junk, rotmetal, fishhooks tied as earrings, and slid into the arterial walk where the real trading happened. Tarp roofs drooped with moisture. Smoke curled from heating vents. The crowd thickened.

People bumped into them. Some barely noticed. Others snarled reflexively at the intrusion, until they got a good look.

At Warren, they sneered. Saw a limping scav in wet layers and dismissed him with a curl of the lip or a shoulder check. Just another gutter-crawler pretending he had business here.

But Wren?

They took one glance and flinched.

One man tripped over his own boots trying to get away. A pair of traders muttered curses under their breath and crossed themselves without knowing why. A child pointed, then cried when their mother yanked them back. No one could see her face, not fully, but the hunched posture, the drooping hood, the long hair slicked across her features made her look like something old, something wrong, something that might whisper a name and make the bloodline forget how to sleep.

She didn't speak. She didn't need to.

They looked at her and saw the curse they'd been afraid of since childhood. The one they half-believed in until now.

And they knew: if they stared too long, whatever happened next, they'd only have themselves to blame.

Warren's hand hovered close to his side. Not on a weapon. On instinct.

Somewhere ahead, past the stacks of salvage crates and bone-charm cords, past the layered smells and the blinding noise, Car's stall waited.

And if the whisper Warren had heard in the ruins was true, Lucas wasn't far behind.

They ducked behind a stacked display of coiled filament and old-world rebar clamps while a bartering scream rose from the next stall over. Wren muttered something under her breath and tried, for the fifth time, to catch the creature nesting in her chest.

"You know," Warren said, voice low, "I think we may need to incorporate this look into future plans. The hair. The shape. That face you make when you're ready to curse someone's ancestors. Very effective."

Wren snorted. Sweat had soaked through her undershirt and was pooling in the curve of her spine. Her breath fogged the inside of her hood. She was three degrees from heatstroke and two from murder.

"I'm not acting."

Styll squirmed under her coat again. Wren grabbed at her with one hand and missed. She hissed softly. "I swear, if she gets tangled in the inner wrap, I'm going to feed her my boot."

Warren tilted his head, watching the movement under Wren's coat like a slow hunt. "You look like you're giving birth to a demon."

"It feels like it."

Ahead, Car was finishing with a hunched trader in layered wraps and a visored hood. The man handed over a cloth-bound packet. Car grunted, nodded once, and turned away to stash it inside his stall's locked shelving.

Warren waited, eyes scanning the crowd. Wren shifted beside him, pretending to examine the items on a nearby crate. Salvage pieces. Mixed scrap. A handful of new additions.

"That's a water filter mod casing," she said quietly, nudging a wireframe bracket with her finger. That's a clean weld, though. Car must've done it himself."

Warren picked up a small curved blade with no edge and a fracture line down its middle. "Not for cutting. For channeling. A conductivity mod. Possibly pre-System."

"You think he's prepping for someone like us?"

"I think he already knew we were coming."

Then the crowd shifted.

A new voice entered the space. Smooth. Loud enough to cut through the Bazaar's natural noise without needing to shout. Confident.

"We're looking for good men. People who aren't afraid of standing tall. People willing to protect the Yellow from the kind of threat that is a here to destroy the peace we have built."

Wren went still.

Warren didn't move his head, but his eyes tracked the source as Lucas and his entourage passed within spitting distance. Their gear was immaculate. Cloaks that caught the light just right. Capes, actual capes, hung off modified armor shoulders. Their boots gleamed with fresh sealant. Their chestplates and bracers looked like cast-off Green Zone enforcer gear, maybe reworked, maybe stolen, but still intimidating in the way only something shiny and symmetrical can be. They looked like heroes printed on a System propaganda poster.

But Warren saw it for what it was.

The armor was mostly show. The mods were flash-welded and poorly tuned. Tactical in theory, inefficient in application. Every piece screamed performative strength. Parade gear. Not battlefield kit.

He and Wren, disguised in threadbare salvage and layered patch-coats, wore outfits just as useful. Maybe more. Rain-proofed. Movement-rated. Muffled and balanced. No capes.

Real scavs, mostly. But dressed for theatre, not survival.

Lucas raised a hand as he stepped up onto a stack of crates. His voice rang out like a promise dressed in armor.

"Some of you have heard the rumors. That's fine. Rumors mean people are listening. But here's what matters: a monster walks among us. A killer. A shadow wearing a coat. You've heard what happened to those good men and women who went looking near Sector C. Torn apart. Silenced. One by one.

That was a declaration of war on the peace we've bled to protect. They didn't threaten him. They didn't trick him. They went to speak, to talk. Diplomacy, plain and simple. Unarmed. Unprepared.

And you know what he did with that kindness? That gesture of trust? He butchered it! Cut them down in the dark, tore them apart like they were nothing. Took their eyes. Took what made them people. Left their bodies in pieces like warnings. Like trash.

The Yellow Jacket. That's what they're calling him. Like he's some kind of ghost. But ghosts don't crush spines. Ghosts don't slit throats in the dark and leave bodies folded like offerings.

He's not a specter. He's not justice. He's a disease. And diseases get burned out!

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

And I, out of the kindness of my heart, yes, kindness, say enough. I say no more.

We're looking for brave souls. Real men. Real women. People who care about this city. People who aren't afraid to get dirty. Who don't hide when it's time to protect what matters!

I need people who will stand tall. Who will chase this coward into the hole he crawled out of and bring him to the light.

You help me take him down, and you'll be part of restoring order to the Yellow. You'll be heroes. You'll be the ones who stood between chaos and your families. And I will make damn sure you're rewarded for it."

A roar went up from the crowd, cheers, shouts, fists in the air. People clapped. Some stepped forward without even reading the table signs. Lucas had them. He didn't need truth. He had performance."

A few cheers. A few fists raised. Some nodded. Some didn't. But more than a few stepped forward.

"Sign up today, and you'll be part of the solution. You'll help protect our people. Our streets. Our peace."

Warren drifted closer to one of the tables where recruitment forms were laid out. No guards stopped him. No one recognized him.

He picked up one of the contracts and scanned it.

He snorted.

Wren glanced over. "What?"

He handed her the form.

Small print. Twisted language. Not a single line guaranteed payment unless the so-called "stolen hoard" was returned intact. And nowhere did it name what was taken. Or who took it.

Warren whispered, "He's not paying anyone. Not unless someone drags me in with a hoard I supposedly stole. And when that doesn't happen, he'll say they botched the job. Say they are keeping it for themselves. Say their greed got to them. Maybe he'll just make them disappear and claim he took care of me himself. A full con with no payout, no risk, and all the credit."

Wren's lip curled. "And they'll still thank him."

Warren smiled to himself, folding the contract once, then again, and tucking it into his coat.

"Let's see if Car's free."

Behind them, a fresh batch of desperate recruits lined up to sign their names into failure.

Car was still finishing the trade.

What Warren had assumed was a basic barter, some parts, a nod, a packet exchange, wasn't. The hunched trader from earlier was still there, standing straighter now, discussing something with slow deliberation and too little expression. His voice never rose. His hands never gestured. He wasn't haggling. He was dictating terms.

Warren narrowed his eyes.

There was something wrong. The way the trader's boots didn't track mud. The way he never blinked. The faint hum of something active beneath his coat. Warren tilted his head, gaze locking onto the curve of a concealed device just beneath the shoulder seam. Not corporate tech. Not System-tagged. Something older.

"What can I do for you kids?"

Warren blinked. Car had stepped in from the side stall flap, wiping grease off his hands with a rag blackened from use. The trader was gone. No footsteps. No trace. Just the whisper of movement, now vanished.

Warren glanced at Wren, who still looked like a damp hag trying to shake off a spinal parasite, and then down at himself, a drab coat, mud-dark boots, no silhouette. He still looked like a boy someone the world had never bothered to notice.

Car grinned. "Well, you might be wearing something different, but I'd never forget my favorite customers."

Car gestured loosely. "So, what's with the costumes? You both trying to get cast in a sewer drama or just avoiding attention?"

Warren didn't answer. He just reached into his coat, pulled out the folded contract, and laid it flat on the workbench.

Car raised an eyebrow. "Oh? That's new."

He picked it up, scanning the lines, and within seconds, let out a sharp guffaw.

"It says here you killed a caravan of orphan puppies. Now this is some legendary horse shit. Who wrote this, a donkey with its head up its own ass?"

Warren thumbed over his shoulder toward the recruiting table.

Car leaned sideways just enough to see. He spotted the sign, the forms, the line of would-be mercs.

Then he stepped outside.

"Oi!"

His voice dropped like an anvil. The nearby crowd froze.

Car pointed one thick, grease-stained finger at the recruiter's table.

"You see this stretch? This line of crates? These hooks on the wall? This is my zone. You're in it. You don't get to be in it. Get the fuck off my land."

One of the recruiters scoffed. "This isn't your land. It's the people's. You don't get to choose who trades here."

Another chimed in, louder. "You think yelling and grease on your sleeves makes you king of this street? You're just a vendor, same as the rest of us."

A third, voice sharp with false confidence, added, "Lucas is bringing order. Real order. He's offering pay. Protection. You're just jealous of a real hero like him."

A woman near the back raised a fist. "We're not afraid of you! The Bazaar's shifting, and when it does, you'll be begging to rent a table from Lucas."

Someone else yelled, "You don't own this area. The Bazaar belongs to everyone."

Another voice barked from deeper in the crowd, "He thinks the grease under his nails gives him power. Wait till Lucas cleans this rot out."

A tall man shouted, "Lucas keeps his promises. What have you done lately but swing your fists and sell scrap?"

Someone near the front muttered loudly enough to be heard, "I heard Car's days are numbered anyway. Once the system pulse hits, they'll clear all this out."

The crowd murmured louder now, swelling with half-belief, half-fury. But no one stepped closer.

Car snorted. "I very much do, you donks."

He nodded once. The guards posted near the perimeter, Bazaar standard but loyal to Car, stepped forward without a word. One grabbed the table. The other kicked its legs out. The whole thing collapsed, scattering forms and ink into the mud.

Car didn't even look down.

"You set that shit up again, you're banned. That goes for any of you fucks working for that snake. You want to carry Lucas's flag? Do it somewhere else. Not here."

The recruiter stepped forward, face red. "Things'll change when Lucas runs this place. You'll be the one banned. You'll be...."

Car punched him in the face.

No hesitation. Just one clean strike. The man folded backward over a crate and didn't get up.

Car turned to the guards. "Lifetime ban. Get him out."

They dragged the man off, groaning and bleeding.

Warren watched all of it in silence.

Wren raised her eyebrows. "Remind me never to set up a cook stand."

Car walked back in, wiping his knuckles off on the same rag as before.

"Now," he said, cheerful again, "what are we really here for?"

Warren didn't wait. As soon as the flap closed and the crowd's noise muffled, he turned.

"I need to know. No more waiting. No more sidestepping. Why did you save me that first time? Who are you really, to her?"

Car leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. The amusement in his face faded a touch. He looked down at Warren for a moment, like he was trying to gauge how much truth the kid actually wanted.

"That's a long story," he said, finally. "But fine. Let's keep it simple. That coat you always wear, it was hers. Mara's. And let's just say I owed her more than one. So when I saw some stray kid wearing it, dragging the weight like it meant something... I knew she wasn't coming around anymore. That's why I pulled you out. That's also why I let you take the fragment."

Warren's eyes widened. "You saw that?"

Car chuckled. "Of course I saw, kid. I basically put it out in front of you. You think I just left it there by accident?"

Warren blinked. "But I... I put two in your crates the next time I came back. How did you know?"

Car smirked. "I got eyes in the back of my head."

Wren raised an eyebrow. "No, seriously. How'd you see that?"

Car turned around without a word and shoved aside the thick curtain of his bushy hair. Beneath it, set into the skin at the base of his skull, were two cybernetic implants. They blinked once, then tracked Wren automatically.

"Told you."

Wren stepped forward, staring. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it's a damn good way to catch thieves."

Warren was still processing when he asked, quietly, "If you knew Mara... did you know me?"

Car nodded. "Kinda. She only brought you around once. You were about yay high." He gestured to his knee. "Didn't really stop by to chat."

Warren hesitated. "Do you know the Six Lines? The ones the Cult of Iron says came from her?"

Car's face went still. Then he nodded, slowly. "A lie that saves is still a lie. Don't trade in it."

Warren's mouth opened slightly. "So it is talking about you."

Car nodded. "Also about the rest of the crew. Back when we used to run together."

Warren's voice dropped. "Her crew?"

"She never told you, huh." Car leaned forward on the counter, his voice softer now. "She might've meant to. But if she got herself killed before the rest came out, well... I can believe that. She held on to a lot. Didn't like digging things up unless they were needed."

Warren stood still.

Car continued, "We didn't all run together all at once. I was a soldier when the Empire fell. Corpos were rounding us up, executing anyone who didn't play nice. Mara showed up and saved my ass. That's how I met my wife. Her sister."

Warren's head tilted. "Sister?"

"Yeah. Didn't know, huh? She never mentioned her?"

Warren shook his head, slow.

Car whistled. "Well then. If Mara's basically your ma, and I'm married to her sister... that makes me your uncle."

Warren froze.

Car grinned. "Uncle Car. Who woulda guessed? Shit, Florence is gonna kill me. If I let our favorite nephew and his lady friend find all this out by accident, I don't know what kind of hell that woman would unleash. And I can't afford another strike."

Wren, trying to help Warren stay vertical, blinked. "Strike?"

"We don't talk about strike one or two. Trust me."

Warren was still locked in place, like he'd been unplugged.

Car didn't wait. He turned and barked out to one of the nearby guards.

"Emergency just came up. I'm shutting down for the night. Get Grix to cover your patrol. Hold down the fort."

The guard paled. "You want me to get Grix? She's gonna rip my head off if she's mid-nap, sir."

Car dug into a drawer and pulled out a small, palm-sized token. He handed it over with no ceremony.

"Give her this. She'll make sure the Bazaar runs smooth like budda."

The guard looked at the token like it was a cursed object, like it had just whispered his death in his ear. He swallowed hard, face pale, eyes wide with dread. "Y-Yes sir."

Car turned back, scooped Warren up under the arm like a crate of old parts, and nodded to Wren.

"Come on. Let's get him offline somewhere safe. You too, niece-in-law. We got stories to swap."

Wren missed a step. The term hit harder than The Last Kindness ever had. Her face went bright red, even while she was boiling alive under that ridiculous coat she wore.

"We're not married," she muttered, too quiet to be conviction, too sharp to be denial. She tried to recover, but the blush wasn't going anywhere.

The Bazaar faded behind them, swallowed by mist and murmurs. Car walked ahead, shoulders hunched forward, coat stretched by the weight of rain and time. He didn't speak.

Wren walked beside Warren, one hand gently guiding him as if he might forget how feet worked. He didn't fight her. But he didn't speak either.

The rain was thin, constant, brushing their hoods and coats like a reminder. The alleys between market zones narrowed. Trash skittered in shallow puddles. Somewhere nearby, a gutter pumped steam into a cracked alley grate, casting light across their path.

Styll peeked out from Warren's collar, nose twitching. He didn't react.

They passed through an old freight corridor, then across a narrow bridge spanning a flooded loading dock. The concrete underfoot was cracked, metal railings bent and patch-welded to hold. Beyond it stretched the industrial boundary, where the market noise faded and the static hum of abandoned infrastructure took its place.

Car led them deeper, into a district few still mapped. Warehouses stacked like tombs. Service tunnels marked with scav symbols half-scraped away. No color. No street sounds. Just runoff and echoes.

Finally, Car cut a path through a rust-hinged gate, then down a corridor of bent scaffolding and faded wall paint. The route wound tight, deeper into the mid-tier district zones. Older buildings. Less crowd. More forgotten space.

Wren glanced at Warren again. Still silent. Still moving.

"You gonna say anything?" she asked.

Nothing.

She nudged him with her elbow. "Say something. Even if it's ugly."

Warren blinked, then spoke flatly. "I didn't want more."

Wren frowned. "More what?"

"Family. Names. Ties. Anything that makes me mean more than what I built."

She let the silence hang a little longer. Then: "So you're angry?"

"No," he said. "I'm compromised."

Wren pulled her coat tighter. The rain hadn't let up.

"Mara raised me clean. Tight. I was built. Not born. Now someone calls me nephew and I feel like I can't remember how to breathe."

Ahead, Car didn't slow. Didn't look back. But his voice carried easily over the echo of their steps.

"You don't owe anyone a reaction. You just gotta decide if this changes anything that matters."

Warren stopped.

Wren did too.

He didn't look at her. Or at Car. He just stared forward, through the mist and rain.

"It doesn't. Not yet."

He blinked again, then shook his head once, small, controlled.

"Uncle Car. What the hell is that."

Then he turned his head, just slightly, toward her.

"But it might. And that's what scares me."

Car finally stopped at a reinforced steel door halfway sunken into a crumbling brick wall. Above it, a curved iron banister arched out like a forgotten crown, and from it hung vines, leafy runners, draping over the arch in lazy green spirals. The building was big. Wide for this part of the zone. Clean where it shouldn't be. The old tech shop had weight to it. History. It looked tended, lived in, wanted. It didn't belong in this world. That made it feel even more real.

He thumbed a key unit, and the lock clicked open.

"Well," he muttered, half to himself, "let's find out."