I find a bottle of blue vodka in a dumpster, it still has a few sips left. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a couple walking towards me. The man is wearing a suit. His tie has a yellow emblem of a dragon at the bottom. Pharmaceutical. Clouds and Air company. I can tell by the hurriedness of his steps how fat his wallet is. 

I am between them and the road they’re trying to reach. A road well lit. A road that might have someone who can help them. 

Slumping forward like a drunkard and leaning on the dumpster for support, I slog down the few golden sips. I’ll wait until they pass directly behind me. 

He flinches even as he steps in puddles. His shoes are too expensive for the streets he sucks money from. I hear him. “My place is just around the corner. We’ll just hurry through here… excuse me…” he tries to glide past me. 

I smash the bottle on the edge of the dumpster and whirl around, slashing him across the cheek. 

He screams. 

“Don’t scream,” I say, wincing at the shrillness. “Just the wallet. Hurry.” 

The woman steps in front of him. “Don’t you dare!” She shouts, her red, fake fur dress swishing as she moves. 

I kick the side of her leg. 

Crack. 

Oops. 

She cries out, her left leg crumpling under her. 

“My bad.” 

The man bolts, leaving her and sprinting for the road. “Police! Help!” 

I lunge out, tripping him so he face plants to the grime. “If you roll to the left that needle will leave you with a heroin addiction.” I plant my knee on his back and press the cool glass of the bottle to his head. I feel his pants and find the wallet, slipping it into my hoodie. “Thanks.” I stand, turning to walk the other direction. 

He scrambles to his feet, shouting and running for the road. 

The woman whimpers, dragging herself out of my way. 

I stop, looking down at her. Her left leg is twisted outwards in a right angle at the knee. 

“Don’t touch me!” she snarls. 

I stare at her pitiful, furious form. What an ugly dress on such a beautiful woman. Her tits nearly falling from the red fur holding them. 

She’ll die if I leave her here. No, probably worse. 

But if I help her to the road she will one hundred percent snitch. 

Hmm. Too bad. 

I sigh, and walk off down the alley. I check the wallet. “Shit,” I gasp, sifting through the cash. Four hundred and thirty credits. I can get premium service with that. 

I leap up to grab the sign of the mechanic shop I’m next to and swing myself to the roof. Then the next and the next. I scan the skyline. It is a lurching spine covered centipede in my spinning mind. I see the pink neon lady twirling in the distance, and the haze of fumes that distort her perfect figure. 

Haven’t eaten proper in days. Still, I fly across the night. 

The dome in the sky projects its false stars. Cameras, tracking my movement. Skylight drones wizzing around on predetermined routes. I dare them to try and follow. 

Police sirens blare in the distance, stuck in traffic. Criminal probably laughing. Victim probably going to be charged. 

I pass around the Lexon Sky Tower, which juts into the smog like a massive middle finger towards the corporate wall of buildings. There is a light a top Lexon. Strange. It’s been empty for a decade. It’s investors and their families all consumed by the Bansilin epidemic. 

My thoughts clear as I run. My body is in charge, flicking myself over ridges and pipes. My head doesn’t ache, only when I fall through the air. When you are one misstep from being impaled on an antenna, your problems dissolve. You’re pain is insignificant. 

Breath is only breath. Not tight, not labored, not quick. 

Just breath. 

But I’ve reached my destination already. 

Pink’s Links. I knew that rotating neon lady back when she wasn’t splattered with tar, and her legs didn’t lag behind her torso. 

I shimmy down her high heel and land with a splash in a puddle before the entrance. I push through the spinning door and walk in, eagerly inhaling the blast of chemically perfume and dream dust. “Melidsa!” I exclaim, open armed and grinning. 

“Get the fuck out Kallix. We had to put a no begging sign on the front door because of you. Chelsi doesn’t want nothing to do with you, runt,” Melidsa the manager sniggers at me with a cigarette between her teeth. Her lips are stained and her tits sag over the pink ring of a desk around her. 

My grin broadens. I click ten credits on the counter and slide them over. “Get yourself something nice why don’t you. Maybe a lift would do you good.” It feels good to swing weight around. I would make a great corporate fuckhead. 

Her eyes flick down to the credits. She snatches them and shows me a middle finger. “Don’t want to know where you got this from but I don’t care. Just don’t draw anything through that door that’s following your ass. Chelsi’s on pole four. We’ve got her hologram for a quarter price though.” 

I saunter down walkway. Everything pink. Everything fake. I hate it here. Who in world settles on fucking a hologram? 

What a crowd. Fat bellied corporate employees and middle managers who can’t afford the sky suites. Kids rich enough to skip class but not rich enough to skip school altogether. Obnoxious bachelor groups, half too insecure not to throw their cash and half too insecure to want to be here. 

Wait, I recognize that person. I don’t look, but I know that face. She’s obvious against her backdrop. Weapon strapped and bandaged, amidst pink cocktails and stain resistant leather replacement. 

She’s sat in one of the booths, skinny femboy doing acrobatics above her. That face like a stone slab. Missing row of top teeth. Nose like the opera house. 

She’s one of Zorikan’s. A Swifter. High ranking too. She’s making weird shapes with her hands. Signs? Signals? 

I appreciate all of the street gangs for killing policemen, but I have a particular distaste for Swifters specifically. I drop my head and walk forward, avoiding eye contact. Don’t want these cucks to try and recruit me again. 

Chelsi is in a vertical split along the pole of booth four. Never in my wildest dreams will I understand how these soft bodied women can pull off such insane feats of strength. I vault over the edge of the booth, cracking down between a lizard and an old lady. “Sorry lads, this one’s for me.” 

The lizard snarls. His forked tongue flits between his teeth. “Sharp words for a two-bite man.”

“Kallix, you can’t be here,” Chelsi presses, urgently, not pausing her swing. 

I place my hands behind my head. “Today I can. Bought the private room with you.” 

“Not falling for that again, Kallix” 

I dump fifty credits at bottom of the pole, amongst a scatter of singles and decimals. 

“I charge seventy five now.” 

I drop the balance. She stops spinning. 

The old lady sits up, and removes her nose, revealing a metal input port. She sets her nose to the side and reaches under the couch, pulling out a tube. She locks the tube into the port and cranks a dial to the maximum. Blue vapor pours into her head through the tube and trickles out her eyes. She slumps back, sighing for so long it seems like she is deflating. Direct cranial Bansilin rig. Insane. 

The lizard snarls. “That’s it. I was debating on this place, but now its done.” He stands and walks for the door, swishing his tail and knocking the credits to the floor as he leaves. 

I help Chelsi collect them back. She doesn’t look up at me. 

“Hey, aren’t you glad its me and not some lizard dick tearing you up,” I laugh. 

She looks at me, bikini struggling to hold her all in. “You have blood on your face.” 

“Ah, see I don’t have a mirror, could you get that for me? You know how I like it.” 

Her face sours. 

I drop five more credits and lean towards her. 

Tentatively, she tiptoes up to me and licks my cheek. She licks it again and again until the blood is gone. She then pulls a vial from between her tits and sprays it onto her tongue, disinfecting. “Come on, lets be quick,” she says, leading me to the back room. 

I follow her in through the curtain. She turns off the hologram of herself that was playing on loop. “You seen one of Zorikan’s men back there?” I ask. 

She nods. “Hixa. They say she’s his second. Swifter’s have been more frequent here lately.”

“Any idea why?”

“Led Claws have been probing the area, so I think Zorikan wants them to know its his territory.” 

“Dumb ass lizards. Dumb fucking Swifters. Territory like we’re wolves.” I pause to see her reaction. 

There’s a small upturn in her lip. 

Hehe. “I mean, I get why they’re after this place. Melidsa must be wracking in a fat profit.” 

“Yes,” she says, voice cracking. “The hologram replacements have almost tripled the amount of customers. It’s honestly genius. The inventor that came up with the idea must’ve-”

“Corporate shithead. All of them. Fuck the hologram, how have you been?” 

She sighs again, tying up her hair. “You don’t care how I’ve been, Kallix.” 

I do care. The last year of school that I attended, when I was twelve years old and she had been fourteen, it was only bearable because of her. I miss her. I miss how we used to steal soda from the dispenser machines by twisting metal wires up the tube. I miss how we would fall asleep watching her terrible sitcoms about college students. She is the only thing I miss from life before the streets digested me. How much I would pay to have that back again. Before everybody was always so busy all time time. I want to know how she’s doing. I want to ask about her animation side hustle, and if her brother is better…“You’re right,” I say. “Kneel down.” 

She kneels and looks up at me. She opens her mouth and lets her tongue fall out. Her eyes are wide. She’s perfected the innocent, unassuming look. Even when I only fantasized about her as a preteen, and mistook her kindness for lust, she knew exactly how to use that look. 

I unzip my pants, and slap her across the face with my dick. 

She doesn’t even blink. 

I’m already hard as I thrust into her mouth. I grab her ponytail and guide myself to the back of her tongue. I feel like a loaded gun. “Are you ready?” 

She says something incomprehensible around my shaft. 

I thrust in, forcing her throat open and sliding down the back. I hold her there for a moment, then begin pumping. “Do you miss those days? Back when we were in school. Fed three meals a day. Taught to sit and stay like dogs.” 

She gags on me. 

I thrust harder. “Yeah, me neither. I love these streets. I get to drink whenever, fuck whoever, fight whatever.” 

She puts her hands on my thighs as support. Her eyes are starting to water from the effort. Exactly. It’s perfect. 

I move fast and ferocious. Her throat is used to me. I want to push her past that. I want her to struggle. “Do you still use it? Bansilin that is. Always hated that shit. Honestly I can’t believe you ever started it. I told you not to. It’s probably why you’re so different now.” 

She gags again. This time, its not the cute little hiccup, but an unintentional burp and twitch. Her back bends as she tries to pull away for air. 

I don’t let her. “All the gangs that pedal that shit can kill themselves. Led Claws included. Yeah I hope that lizard fuck can hear me. Kill yourself, dumbass.” 

She pushes at my thighs, trying to breath. I fuck her throat harder. You don’t get to breathe. Not now. Not while I’m inside you. 

“My brother too. All policemen should kill themselves. My parents probably already have so go meet them, Kaloaan. You love them so much anyway, you should be with them.”

Chelsi is smacking at my thighs frantically. Her eyes, are huge, tears smearing her mascara, terrified expression on her face as she looks up at me desperately. 

I force her down deeper, holding her there, both hands gripping the base of her skull. She convulses but I won’t stop. I won’t let her up. Gag. Spasm. You can’t even scream. 

Her eyes twinkle with tears. 

But they’re not Tauren’s eyes. 

So there’s nothing for me here. 

I pull out of her, stepping back. 

She coughs and gasps, breath hitching. 

“You ok?” 

She holds up a hand and pauses for a moment. Then, she retches once, and pukes, straight onto her chest. 

I stare at her. My canvas. 

She is mortified. Quivering. 

The door of Pink’s Links is kicked open and gunshots rip through the air. “Alright fuckers, this is all we’ve been waiting for.” I can’t see them from in the back room, but that’s the same voice. The same damn lizard. 

More gunshots spray, followed by screams. 

I shove Chelsi to the ground as bullets rip through the wall and sofa. 

“Stay here,” I whisper to her as I crawl towards the curtain. I stick my head out from under. Bullets are firing from two sides. I count three lizards at the entrance, but someone is shooting back. 

It’s Hixa. The Swifter. 

I roll back in. “It’s a turf war, fuck this shit.” I scan for escape routes. The private room has one window near the ceiling with blurred glass. It has no latch or handle. 

Chelsi is still stunned, breath raspy, staring at her mess, blinking with every gunshot. 

“Give me your heel,” I order. 

She looks blankly at me. “Why would you do that to me?” she asks, softly. 

I grab her leg, untying her heel and slipping it off. She watches me like a ghost. I spring up, smashing her heel into the window and shattering it. “Come on, we gotta go.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” 

“Fine, stay here and die,” I hiss. I pull myself out of the window and into the alley. I brush broken glass bits from my forearms as I land in a puddle. 

A tall, skinny man with dark ginger hair whirls around, looking at me. He reaches for a gun at his side. 

I raise my hands. “I’m unarmed.” I spot the bomb charge at his feet. 

His t-shirt betrays his upper arm tattoo as he pulls out the pistol. 

“You one of Zorikan’s? Why you blowing up a brothel that’s under his protection tax?” 

“Contingency,” he says, pointing the gun at me. Even in the depths of the night I can see his hand shaking. Zorikan will recruit fucking anybody these days. “Contingency that you can’t know about.” 

“Hey, I’m not gonna tell anybody. I’m just a customer here, I’ve got no stakes. But Zorikan wanted to talk to me. If you kill me, he’ll be damn mad.” 

“Liar.” 

“My name is Kallix Rane. He’s been trying to contact me for some time. You tell him you killed me and see what he does.” 

“You’re… you? You’re brother is…” 

“Yes, now I’m going to walk away, and you’re gonna tell Zorikan you ran into me and we had a good, productive discussion. Tell him my disposition has changed since we last spoke and I’m willing to talk. Ok? What’s your name?” 

“Varan.” 

“Good to meet you Varan. I’ll mention your bravery to him when I see the man.” With that I turn, and walk away. 

The sound of the gunfight develops behind me. Who is winning? Who gives a fuck. 

Chelsi will be fine. 

They’re fighting over dominion, not serial killing. No point killing your income. 

The gunshots fade as I run. The city is loud. No gun can compete with a billion cars.