3423rd cycle after the Ascension.

Thirty-eight days after the imperial ambassador’s murder.

Macreen set her empty glass onto the table. She disgustedly eyed the spillage of whatever swill the cyborg had acquired a taste for recently, shuffling away from the drying stain on the sofa. Her clothes were already drenched with the stench of smoke; they didn’t need this addition as well.

She leaned back into her seat, turning her head to the left, the gaps in the perforated metal section of the wall offering her a view of the departing figures of Raid and Bale. A tingle of excitement tugged at the corner of her lips. It had been years since she had had someone to compete against. The highborn weren’t targets she could practice on, and adepts in the undersurface were too few and severely lacking in learning resources. It had taken her only several years to catch up to them, and then several more to leave them in the dust.

Watching the two round a corner leading to the upstairs bar, she felt a flash of disappointment. While his method had been crude, Bale had managed to provide a challenge for her. A refreshing change. A few more minutes would have been perfect.

A plume of smoke veiled her sight of the corner, snapping her back to attention. She’d not yet finished her deal with Zyke. “So, when are you going to move?” she asked.

“Think I will?”

“No matter how deranged you are, this isn’t something you can ignore.”

He tapped on his cigarette, flicking ash into the ashtray. “Not much to lose up north. Besides, Senten’s been testing my patience lately. A loss will knock him down proper. Might be bearable after.”

“You really think Night will want to work with you once they cross the border?” Her nails sunk into her thigh. “They won’t. They already have Kay—”

“Don’t speak his name. Never speak his name in front of me.” He ground his cigarette into the ashtray.

Macreen brought her face closer to his. “Then do something about this.”

“For a price.”

“You void-forsaken—”

“Ah-ah. Never work for free. You know this. Your offer?”

She gritted her teeth, seething. How could anyone be so infuriating? The wretched man stood to lose just as much as she, then when Night gained full control of that part of West Island, they’d spread like a disease and Zyke would lose even more. For all his faults, the man wasn’t ignorant or stupid. He had to know as much. Yet, he was still doing this to her, aiming to profit in some way. Either his greed truly had no bounds, or he was playing her. Worst part? She couldn’t even guess. The void-crawler’s way too careful.

The cybernetic implants on Zyke’s head scanned his brain activity constantly. Any influence she might exert on him would be detected and then… Well, you could never tell with the wretched cyborg. A fight breaking out was one outcome. She could kill him, but then she’d have to get past all the mercs. This was his bar after all.

No, the Gift was out of the question.

An offer, she thought. Owing him a favour was the simplest solution, but Zyke would never agree to it. Too vague. He preferred more concrete things. Even if he did accept, the vagueness worked against her as well. There was the danger of him asking for repayment – something big – before she managed to exact her plan.

He grinned at her.

Accursed wretch, she thought; her hands clenched into fists. Was it really impossible to work this out without him? Garn had been certain, he wouldn’t have even suggested this if that wasn’t the case. She exhaled slowly. No, she’d already had this train of thought. She needed Zyke’s influence.

That only leaves the job with those two. She’d not been paying much attention to Zyke and Raid’s conversation, but she’d heard enough. The Gambling House. No sane man would pick a fight directly with a fixer. If she did, there would be no turning back from that. Regardless of her past affiliation with Zyke, moving to North Island was still possible and she’d eventually have the same position there – that would solve most of her problems – but it would mean leaving much of her crew behind. Many of them had bounties on their heads. I won’t cast them aside.

Zyke’s grin grew so large it almost split his face.

“The Gambling House,” Macreen said grudgingly. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“You the arrangements. Told Raid, didn't I?”

She gritted her teeth. “Why? Why go that far?”

“Been thinking. You’re always nagging at me cause of it. Place was looking more and more… delectable. That the word the highborn like to use?” He waved dismissively. She frowned but kept her mouth shut. The damnable man had been growing more insufferable as of late, with his attempts to mimic the highborn. “The rules are clear – it’s fine if there’re at least two fixers,” he said. “Nothing says our turfs must be equal. Good enough?”

“You’re just painting a target on your back. That greed will get you iced one of these days.”

“A good thing for you, no?”

“What exactly do you want from me?” Zyke’s no fool, she thought. Despite his bitterness for Kay, he wouldn’t have even considered this job if it were just for revenge. No. He wanted something else from those two, something requiring them to be kept close. “This isn’t just about the gig.”

“In this game, you gotta know exactly what cards you have. Find out what Raid’s group is doing. I smell profit in that.”

“Raid’s a retired merc. The other man, Bale, he’s just an adept. Skilled, but he’s not better than me. Why care?”

He smirked. “Raid wouldn’t stay around some run-of-the-mill adept. They’re hiding something big. Understand?”

Wretch of a cyborg, she thought. If he thought she’d just be roped into his plans, he had another thing coming. She’d use him just as he was using her; he’d never even suspect it. “Fine. I’ll act the part of your hunting dog, but I want my issue solved.”

“We have a deal.”

***

Forty days after the imperial ambassador’s murder.

As night descended on all above the crevasse, the undersurface lay aglow in the thickening gloom. An iridescent jumble of neon signs, light beams, and holograms. At the outskirts, diaphanous sheets of mist draped over the slums, creeping their way towards the centre of the city.

Here, at the north of West Island, at Crook’s Funnel, the streets thronged with the desperate and greedy alike. The former headed towards bars to drink their problems away; the latter, pickpockets all, prowled the alleys, mingling with shadows, and only joining the bustle when they spotted an unsuspecting victim.

Macreen swivelled her head to look at Garn, who had fallen behind and was staring at her wide-eyed. A stunned silence hung heavily between them. If this continued, there’d be no point to the dome she had conjured to keep their conversation from being overheard.

“You’re insane,” Garn said, increasing his pace to catch up to her. He had almost stumbled when she’d filled him in on the details of the plan.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve already explained everything to you. Go and get started. We only have a short window of opportunity.”

“This – this isn’t something to attempt! We do this and you bet the cloud-smokers will make mincemeat of us. Maybe not even that will be left!”

By the void, what did the man find so difficult about tracking a highborn? Probably the part where we’re going to kill one, she thought. “Garn. We have one chance at this. One. And that’s only if we act now. We ice a highborn and the others will rush to fill the power vacuum. And they’ll fill it with corpses of other highborn and their adept subordinates.”

“That ain’t making things any better! Do you actually believe this is going to work like you planned? A fake stray shot? Really?”

“It needs to look like an accident. Snipers would have been ideal, but we can’t have it all.”

“We should call this off.”

Her steps came to a halt, and she rounded on him. “Then do you want to keep living like this? In this rotted pit? When the war starts the highborn will be too busy, and after it ends the Emperor won’t allow conflict. It’s now or never.”

“But to do this—”

“Void take you! How much longer do we have to live under their heel? Yes, we can’t fight them ourselves; yes, half of Radaar will be burned to the ground in their fighting; yes, I realise how insane this is. But it’s here. In front of us! Mannock was one of the two strongest. The ripples of his death are still spreading. Olmeen is the fifth. We get him and it might just tip them off the ledge.”

“I still think this a bad idea. Too much can go wrong.”

“Think what you will. Curse me forever – whatever gets you through the day – but track that man for me.”

He sighed. “I’ll get the cans out.” At least he was taking this seriously.

“And Zyke?”

“I’ll bounce the signal and add enough noise that they won’t discover the channel. Zyke won’t find a thing.”

She nodded. “Maintain comms. If anything happens, I can’t lose him in the chaos. Go,” she said, and he obeyed, striding off towards one of their hideouts at a brisk pace.

Pulling down her hood so her features were masked in shadow, she dove into the throng.

There were only so many places the highborn would go to in the undersurface: a fixer, the Gambling House, and perhaps one of the fighting arenas. Maybe a sex club. Maybe. So, what Olmeen was doing here, where there was essentially nothing, was beyond her. Not that it was important. Not if he died before it became important.

Despite the oddness of the situation, it was a good thing he’d headed towards the pass between West and North Island. Crook’s Funnel was exactly as the name suggested – a funnel; the place where the wide crevasse of West Island tapered to a narrow passageway. Continuing along the main street, she’d eventually find him.

She turned her head slightly to the right, watching from the corner of her eye as a man spray-painted a symbol on the wall of a storefront – a fist framed by a circle. Night’s symbol. Sun’s stood right beside it, crossed with red paint.

Zyke that void-crawler, she thought. The man should have been begging her to help him. He’d complained about Kay stealing his contracts before, and now the other man had a free pass into West Island. A fixer’s turf was the hardest to change, owing to the sheer number of mercenaries they had at their disposal. Kay would never let go of this catch.

Her comm buzzed. She tapped it, and Garn’s voice came through, “Cans are surveying the area. Don’t worry, I upgraded their stealth protocols, no one will see a thing.”

“You won’t be found?”

He laughed. “You getting forgetful on me? Already told you I’m bouncing—”

“No, Garn. You. Are you safe?”

A pause. “Hey, hey. You can’t just make a guy turn red like that.” Void, the man really couldn’t pick a time for his jokes. Swallowing her frustration, she waited for the silence to stretch into awkwardness. He continued, “I’m good. Lowered the signal range just to be certain, but I’m not picking up any attempt to scan for my location.”

“Just find our mark,” she said, trying and failing to keep the annoyance from her voice.

Several minutes later. “Found him! He’s at your eight. Four streets down.”

“Got it. Heading there now.”

“Macreen… There’s a ton of patrols there.”

“I’ll deal with them. Keep me posted.”

She careened into a side street on her left, pulling her hood lower over her face, the dark grey of her coat melding with the shadowed alley. Channelling the Gift, she formed a net around her, covering several nearby alleys, the threads picking up surface thoughts from everyone caught inside. Greed. Desperation. Anxiety. The order was quite fitting for a place infamous for thievery.

She turned a corner, then another. The edge of her net picked up a different set of emotions, veiled behind a strong mental defence. Olmeen. Almost there, she thought.

A spike of greed to her left – two feet away – had her snapping her head towards the source. Her pupils shook as her eyes settled on the pickpocket’s face. No more than thirty cycles of age; hunger-sunken cheeks; a rat-like, pinched face; cowardly eyes – the man looked exactly like… The ethereal scream in her mind blared with such intensity that she almost stumbled, a chorus of a thousand voices filled with rage and terror.

The Gift flaring within her, she grabbed the man’s head and slammed it into the wall of the building. With a sickening crunch, his skull caved in from the back, the bone fragments shredding through grey brain matter. His head burst like a grape, his body slumping to the ground along the wall, leaving a wet, bloody trail. Above, rays of crimson splatter, like the portrayal of the setting sun, spread from the point of impact, where a dent now stood.

She panted. Garn’s voice came from the comm in her ear, but she couldn’t understand a single word from the buzzing in her head. The memories came in a deluge. Her first touch of the Gift.

Dread had made the power come out. Anger shaped it; anger at her fate when a thief tried taking the last few things she had called her own. The Gift whispered in her ear, sang to her its seductive melody, all the things she could do to the man, all she could do if she embraced the flow. Desire overcame fear, a wish so strong that every cell in her body screamed it out. Feelings and thoughts roiled in her head: the unfairness of the world, the bad luck that seemed to follow her everywhere, how she hated the man, and how she was afraid of him. The song of the Gift became stronger, louder in her head, so many images of what could happen to him flashed by in an instant, and she almost let herself go. It was only a sliver of her will, something that said she would lose whatever it was that made her her, that created a fork in the path and stopped her. Instead of surrendering, she flung it all out. Her feelings, her screams, and the Gift. That was when she fainted.

When she awoke, there were no traces of the man except scorched ground where he had stood. His face and the sound of her scream had stayed with her ever since. A scar on her mind.

“—een. Macreen! Can you hear me?”

“I’m fine…” she said, taking laboured breaths. Why did he have to have the same face? she thought. “What about the mark?”

“Still going towards the pass, but… I think he noticed. Night’s patrols also seem more alert. There’s—Void! A three-man squad is coming your way. One street away. Eleven o’clock.”

She bit back a curse. The net she had conjured had dispersed at some point, leaving her blind to everything happening around her. She channelled once more. The screaming in her mind was louder this time, but she couldn’t falter at this stage. Too much was riding on her success.

The patrol rounded the corner, and her power pierced their minds. No time for subtlety. They’d have a splitting headache later, but she’d be long gone by then.

A shudder passed through the three. Their gazes swept the alley, searching, but their eyes slipped off her and the bloody corpse. Then they strode on along another path. They won’t be the last patrol, she thought bitterly.

Letting the spell wane and once more conjuring the net – smaller this time – she hurried towards the corner and the alley they had come from. The pass to North Island was only minutes away from her location and Olmeen had gained some distance on her. There was no time to waste.

“Patrol at your nine,” Garn said.

She masked her figure in the shadows, slipping past the passageway they were watching.

“Turn left here – Stop!” he said. She waited. The sound of footsteps disappeared. “Go now. Next turn, go right.”

The instructions continued, bringing her closer and closer to the pass, but her anxiety grew as well. It was slow. Too slow.

“Go up the building to your left.”

She climbed onto a dumpster and jumped, grabbed the lip of the roof, and pulled herself up. The building was low, most of the roof visible from the street below, but the amount of clutter and a large water tank kept her hidden. The building to her right was just close enough for her to get to it. She crouched and ran, the Gift muffling the noise she was making. She leapt off the ledge towards a drainpipe. Digging the tips of her boots into the hollows in the brick wall, she clutched the metal. She glanced around, searching for anyone that might have noticed her. No one did. The shadows kept her hidden.

Shimmying up the pipe, she arrived at the roof. Atop it, one of Garn’s “cans” – a round, black drone – was hovering near the ledge, scanning the seething crowd below. Its camera turned towards her briefly, then returned to the street.

“He just passed the food stall,” Garn said.

She almost missed the man due to his black cloak and hood. She didn’t, because the black was still pristine, not yet blemished by grime and ash, nor faded from age.

Channelling, she wove the construct for her spell, a design she’d always considered too intricate for its simple purpose. The Gift flowed through the weave, and a link formed between her and Olmeen. Part of her consciousness appeared in the mind plane, floating before the sphere of roiling shadows shielding his mind.

She sent tendrils of her will through the barrier, careful not to—

The barrier solidified, rending the connection and tossing her out.

Head throbbing from the backlash, she cursed. His mental defence had been heavily fortified with the Gift, more than she’d expected, limiting her actions greatly. If she stuck with subtlety, anything bar slight nudges would be impossible. Another curse sprang from her mouth.

“Macreen?”

She didn’t answer.

Failure. Not a word she was familiar with. Backup plans were present when others were involved, but when it was her doing the job, there was only one outcome. At least, that should have been the case.

War was almost upon them. The highborn might wall themselves in their towers soon, and then there would be no way to reach them. Any attempt on them during the war would be met with the Emperor’s wrath, and not even the bravest and most stupid of the dwellers had the balls to try their luck with that. Not even the highborn would dare try their powerplays.

Olmeen was getting further away.

She could give up. No. No, she could not. Losing this chance now would break any hope of bringing any change to this place. Without that goal, she’d be no different than the rest, who had given up all those cycles ago. Her only purpose would become money and she’d become just another cog in this decrepit mechanism. Maybe someday she might even become like those she disdained so much. No, giving up wasn’t an option. If I up the power, then maybe…

Shaking her head, she dismissed the idea. The control might work, but he’d quickly realise something was wrong and then there’d be no second chances. There weren’t many – or any, really – adepts in the undersurface capable of piercing a highborn’s mental shield aside from her. He’d find her. He and his army.

Targeting a single emotion might work, she thought. Strengthening one emotion would send him towards one of the places he had planned to go to – but the where was out of her control. It would certainly be in North Island, no doubt about that, her powers couldn’t divert him from his general direction. Not unless he was doubting his decisions. He wasn’t, and him going there would spell her crew members’ deaths. They had the advantage here, in West Island, or near the pass. Not up there.

Was the goal worth their sacrifice?

She closed her eyes.

All of them were loyal to her. Even the newest addition to her crew had been there for a decade. That was a lot of time in the undersurface. They were her crew. Her crew. The people who she would take with her once the highborn began their fighting; the people who would stand at the top of the new order once the oversurface was brought down to the dirt. Her crew.

So why, by the void, was the answer ringing so clearly?

Opening her eyes, she said, “Garn, tell teams six and eight to go to North Island. The fighting will go down there.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Silence. “…This isn’t like you. You’d never sacrifice them.”

“You were right,” she said. “If they have to die, then I want them to die guns blazing. They’ll die for the cause. Maybe they’ll survive. But they won’t die under the highborn’s boots.”

His voice subdued, he said, “Got it.”

The Gift coursed through her, the flows of power forming a new shape. She reached out and touched Olmeen’s mind, slipping tendrils of her will past his defences. Greed or boredom might send him to the Gambling House. That wouldn’t do. She dampened those. Anticipation was too difficult to guess. She dampened that one as well. Searching further, she found another one: lust. Strong. Likely some sex club nearby. That would work. Being closer to the West-North pass would also raise the odds of her crew surviving.

A pulse of the Gift, and she inflamed the emotion.

Olmeen picked up the pace.

Now it’s all up to them.

She looked at her watch. It was 7:47pm. Just enough time to reach Raid and Bale’s location. With them scouting the Gambling House, no one would connect the death of a highborn with her. Zyke had given her the perfect alibi.

“What do I tell them?” Garn asked.

She sighed. There was no honour in dying without a cause, but they couldn’t know too much. They deserved more than that though. Much more. She bit her lip.

“Just enough so they know it’ll matter. No more than that. If they survive…” Her words trailed off. She clamped her mouth shut. Leaving her words to disappear in the night, she turned around and headed for the location of the meet, where Raid and Bale would be waiting for her. She’d done everything she could. The rest was out of her hands.