FEBRUARY 15TH, 2129

Akilina,

nineteen,

lay on the bed,

fingers tangled in the soft hair of the girl beside her.

Blue eyes.

Name forgotten.

Didn’t matter.

Akilina opened the holoscreen

and reread, for the thousandth time,

the message from her mamochka,

Darya Orlov,

begging

her not to move in with her father.

But she’d do whatever she wanted.

She loved her mother,

sure.

But she was tired.

Tired of spending days in brothels,

watching Darya strut between clients,

tired of sitting at the bar alone,

drowning her glass.

Since discovering alcohol,

everything felt just a little less awful.

She grew up

and learned how to defend her mother from the bastards who mistreated her,

from deadbeats,

from drunk assholes who crossed the line.

Not that it took much to piss her off.

Darya chose that life.

The least Akilina could do was protect her.

Should’ve been the other way around.

Well, fuck it.

She opened the chat with her father.

The address was there.

She reread it.

Searched for Khalmer-Yu again.

Nothing.

No results.

Fuck.

Not a surprise.

As head of the Russian mafia,

her father had enough power to erase any digital trace.

Whatever.

The girl beside her shifted.

Looked up,

whispered something.

Spell broken.

Akilina just wanted to get out of there.

Get in the car

and fly six hours from Ulyanovsk to Syktyvkar,

where a Bratva goon would be waiting to take her to Khalmer-Yu.

They said she wasn’t ready

to know the way to Bratva HQ.

She shrugged.

She’d leave the car in any parking lot.

If she wanted to return,

she wouldn’t depend on those idiots.

“What’re you thinking about?”

the girl asked, adjusting a loose wire on her secondhand implant.

The wrist locked up.

Akilina looked away.

She never liked that kind of crap.

The thought of something robotic inside her creeped her out.

The nanites from her biochip were fine, though.

They tickled.

She liked the feeling when she sent commands,

or slid her fingers across the bioscreen’s pixels.

Let everyone else use whatever the fuck they wanted.

Some were cool.

“Nothing.”

She stood up.

Set her biochip to heat her body.

Pulled on her heavy black coat.

Outside: minus thirty.

The girl got dressed too.

For a second, Akilina thought about asking her name.

No.

She’d be joining the Bratva soon.

Didn’t want to get attached.

Names mattered.

She’d only remember the ones that did.

And there weren’t many.

“Alright… I’m heading out,”

the girl murmured, head down.

Akilina didn’t respond.

The pixels danced in front of her as she plotted the route to Ulyanovsk.

Sent the command to Ksava, her car.

The girl left in silence.

Blue neon flickered in the room.

Too violet.

And suddenly, she was alone.

Fine.

Didn’t matter.

That was never going to work anyway.

She finished packing.

Shoved some clothes and a photo of her and her mother into her bag.

Left.

The car landed in front of her.

The wind from the hover fans messed up her hair.

She’d forgotten to braid it.

Threw it up into a bun.

The driver’s door rose.

“Good evening, Akilina,” Ksava greeted.

She liked the AI’s voice.

Just hated when it asked unnecessary shit.

Most times, she didn’t answer.

“We’ll arrive in four hours.

One hour longer than expected—

a snowstorm near Ulyanovsk.”

“Fuck.”

“Are you upset?”

She rolled her eyes.

Annoying.

Good thing her mother never synced her with an android.

She’d hate to share her half with another being—

especially a machine.

Didn’t change the fact that the car knew how she felt.

She leaned her head against the window.

The frosted glass warped the view.

Ksava rambled on about some political bullshit.

Akilina was already asleep.