The alley was a wound between two sagging apartment blocks, its walls weeping rust and the sour tang of fried circuitry. A single flickering sign cast jagged shadows—some long-dead ramen shop, its neon kanji bleeding into a dull pink smear. Lucent's boots kicked aside empty stim-canisters as he walked, the sound swallowed by the ever-present hum of the city's Aethernet nodes. He could already taste the ozone-sharp promise of the Neon Bazaar, still six blocks away.

Then concrete scuffed behind him.

He didn't turn. Didn't need to. The footsteps were all wrong—too eager, too unafraid of being heard. Amateurs.

"Hey, fuckface."

Lucent kept walking.

A pebble skittered past his heel, deliberate. "I said hey."

He stopped. Let his shoulders slump in a sigh that wasn't entirely faked. When he turned, three figures crowded the alley mouth, backlit by the distant glow of the Spires. The tallest had a shock-baton dangling from his belt, its corporate glyphs half-scratched off. The girl beside him flexed fingers wrapped in conductive tape, the kind Pit fighters used to ground rogue spells. The third just grinned, rolling something between his knuckles—a bootleg AetherKnuckle, its casing cracked to show the unstable core within.

Lucent's Conduit was already warm in his pocket.

"Wallet. Conduit. Jacket," said the tall one, jerking his chin. "Unless you wanna eat pavement first."

The girl cracked her neck. "He looks like he'd taste like gutter noodles."

Lucent stared at them. Kids, really—eighteen at most, their bravado as thin as the synth-leather of their scavenged gear. He could see the hunger in the way they held themselves, the jittery tension of people who'd been stepped on too many times to care about stepping back.

He almost felt bad.

Almost.

"Silence," he said.

His Conduit flared to life, its cracked screen painting his fingers in jagged blue light. The glyph unfolded between them—not the smooth, corporate-approved geometry of a licensed spell, but something rougher, its edges frayed like torn code. It hung in the air for a heartbeat, pulsing, then detonated.

All sounds died.

Not just their voices—the distant sirens, the drip of condensation from a broken pipe, even the scuff of their shoes on concrete. The alley became a vacuum, a ten-meter bubble of perfect, ringing quiet.

The tall one's mouth moved, shouting nothing. The girl's eyes went wide. The third fumbled with his AetherKnuckle, its glyphs stuttering in the unnatural hush.

Lucent moved.

He caught the girl's wrist as she swung, twisted hard enough to feel the grind of bone, and shoved her into the wall. She bounced off, silent but for the impact shuddering through the brick. The tall one lunged, shock-baton raised—too slow, telegraphing like a rookie. Lucent sidestepped, drove an elbow into his ribs, felt something give in. The baton clattered to the ground, its charge dying in a scatter of sparks.

The third kid got lucky. His wild swing connected, the brass knuckles glowing with aether grazing Lucent's cheekbone. Heat bloomed—not just pain, but the prickling burn of unstable energy chewing at skin. Lucent reeled back, tasted copper, and smiled.

The kid froze.

Big mistake.

Lucent's fist caught him under the jaw, snapping his head back. A follow-up knee to the gut folded him like bad code. He hit the ground, the glowing brass knuckles skittering away, its core spitting erratic glyphs that fizzled against the silence.

The tall one was up again, clutching his ribs. The girl spat blood, bracing against the wall. Lucent wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing red across his knuckles. He could end this now. A glyph to the nervous system, a boot to the throat.

Instead, Lucent exhaled through his nose, the fight still humming in his muscles. He stepped over the groaning kid with the Aether Knuckles and crouched beside the tall one, who was clutching his ribs and glaring up at him through a sheen of sweat. Without a word, Lucent shoved his hand into the kid's jacket pocket, fishing past loose stim-tabs and a cracked data chip until his fingers closed around something solid.

A single crumpled credit.

The kid's eyes widened and opened his mouth, shouting something.

Then Lucent snapped his fingers.

The glyph shattered.

Sound rushed back—the choked gasps of the girl against the wall, the wet cough of the third kid spitting blood onto the concrete, the distant wail of a mag-lev cutting through the lower tiers.

"Get that hands looked at," Lucent said, voice slicing through the quiet like a blade. "Before it melts your face off."

Sound rushed back in a dizzying wave—their gasping breaths, the distant wail of a mag-lev, the wet cough of the kid on the ground. The tall one stared at the credit chip in his hand like he didn't understand what it was.

Lucent didn't wait for gratitude. Didn't expect it. He just turned and walked away, the taste of blood sharp on his tongue.

Behind him, the girl whispered, "What the fuck was that?"

Lucent didn't answer.

The city swallowed the sound of his footsteps whole.