A bag is pulled over my head and tied so tight around my neck that I choke. The man lifts me up by the back of my shirt and sets me upright. The rifle barrel presses into my back. “Walk.” 

I walk. 

“Must’ve been a nice conversation you had with your brother. I hate to interrupt a reunion, but its hard to see a policeman without killing them. You must understand.” 

“Zorikan?” I ask, to no answer. One of his underlings, surely.  

I hear him lift something heavy that grinds on the ground. I get shoved forward, knocking against a metal pole. “Hold it. Slide down.” 

I grab it and lean forward. The ground vanishes and I’m sliding. My hands burn with friction. Suddenly, I’m underwater splashing. The bag over my head suffocating me. 

There’s another splash, then I’m hauled from the water and back onto concrete. “Up,” he commands. 

I splutter, the water logged back pressing against my face. I try to speak but I can’t. 

“Can’t breathe? Hold your breath.” 

He pushes me forward. I walk for a few steps, frantically shaking my head. The wet fabric clings to my mouth  and nose. I cough violently but it doesn’t budge. 

He kicks my knees from behind, making me fall onto my back. He rolls me over into something like a tube in the ground, and places a set of cuffs around my hands. He latches something to the link of the cuffs. “Hold on,” he says. 

I’m yanked forward, ripping across the ground horizontally, being pulled by my hands. I’m being pulled so fast I can feel my back and arms burning. I try to scream but I can’t. 

I don’t know how long I’m being dragged, but it stops as suddenly as it started, launching me forward as I hear the cuff link unclip. I crash into an iron pole. No, somebody’s shins. 

Squirming onto my knees, I convulse. I hitch, bucking up, trying to let some air into my mouth. Fuck. It’s not moving. I try to stand but I’m kicked back down. 

I can feel my muscles failing. My lungs scream, trying to force breath that does not exist. 

My blacked out vision begins to turn white. There is a tunnel. It’s warm and soft. 

Hello, Hungry Dark Deity. 

Is it time? 

I’m tired. 

Let me in? 

It sucks over here. 

The bag is ripped from my head, and air gushes in. 

I gasp so hard my lungs nearly pop. And then again. I wretch, water burping out of my gut. I shift to my knees, keeling over and trying to puke, but there’s nothing to expel. Water and spit dribble down my chin. 

“Not so fun when you’re the one choking,” Zorikan says. He’s sat on a wooden crate, facing me.

I regain the feeling of consciousness. Slowly. Did he just say what I think he did? 

“What happened? Shark’s got your tongue?” His skin is dark chocolate. His eyes are pale grey, like the sun behind the clouds. There is a metal ring in his left ear. 

A kick rockets into my side, hurling me to the other side of the room. I crash into a stack of wooden boxes, stacked with jars of gruel. “You’ll speak when you’re spoken to.” A bald, burly, mustached man towers over me. 

“Pick him up, Ursa.” 

The bear man picks me up by the shoulders and plops me back. 

“Good. Now, are you ready to discuss?” 

My breathing feels like its unable to steady. This guy may have fractured my diaphragm.  I try to speak but words don’t come out. A faint, strangled vowel is all that escapes. 

“Fantastic.” Zorikan stands, and pulls back a white curtain behind him. 

There he is. My dad. Bound by his wrists, dangling on his tip toes. His head is hung, black hair covering his sunken face. Cracked lips. Ribs sharp. He’s a scarecrow reconfiguration of what he once looked like. 

Zorikan pulls a metal case from his pocket. A strange smile flashes his bright teeth. His eyes seem lost in the past as he stares at the case. I don’t recognize the emblem carved into it. 

He slides the top back and something crawls out. My neck hair lifts. 

It scuttles up his arm, twisting and wreathing around his bicep and up to his shoulder. It’s metal limbs click in succession, creating an unnerving rhythm. “Have you ever heard of the Seperatists of Skyon?” 

Vaguely. An ancient political movement, however many hundreds of years ago. “The what?” I ask, training my eyes to look dead and unfazed.

“Some politicians had differences with the oligarchs.  Skyonites wanted to run things in a way that society wouldn’t churn our land into dust. Oligarchs wouldn’t have that, so the Skyonites tried to form an independent state.” The metal centipede glides around his neck. “They couldn’t do that in here, so they left the dome to create civilization out there. They went extinct of course. The oligarchs had lied about the extent of the destruction. There was less than nothing left, out in the Dunes. But they still tried. Anything better than living as an entity of profit. But regardless of their demise, the ruins they left behind are incredible. A painting of an alternate timeline of how things could have been. A graveyard of that future.” His eyes drift to mine. 

I try to hold his blank gaze. 

“And lots of technology they left behind.” He extends his arm as the centipede crawls down to his hand, and then on to my dad’s shoulder. “Wake up, Kastin,” Zorikan strikes him in the gut. 

I hear a rib crack and my dad’s eyes fly open as he gasps. He looks around wildly. “Ka…Kallix. Kallix what is happening? Are you alright? Who… is this man?” 

Zorikan clears his throat. “The Skyonites used these devices as scribes. Their hundreds of legs could carve written word into stone, metal or anything you need, a million times faster than a human can type. Impossible to hack. Etched in eternity.” The centipede crawls up my dad’s face. “But I’ve found a different use for it.” 

Dad’s face twists in horror as the metal creature stops at his eyelid, then begins pulling it out. 

I don’t close my eyes. I watch. 

His screams are ghosts flying past me. The centipede begins forcing itself under his eye. It rolls his eye up, and then squeezes a space underneath, climbing inside. His eye rolls back. 

Zorikan shows me the case. “When I press this button and activate it, it will begin carving everything I say into the inside of your father’s skull. It won’t kill him. The bleeding is minimal, and we have drugs that can suppress it. Eventually, after days and days, the pressure will build up. When that happens it will reach a breaking point and burst out his eyes. 

My dad is crying, saying unintelligible words. 

“So?” I ask. 

Zorikan stares at me. 

“What do you want me to do with this information? I dropped school so I wouldn’t have to listen to lectures this fucking boring.” 

Zorikan nods, and activates it. 

I don’t flinch as my dad begins tearing his vocal chords with shrill, guttural howling. He squirms and lashes, but he only flails about like a fish on a line. 

I clear my throat. “I don’t think you understand the relationship I have with this man.” I feel heavy in my gut. The rage weighs me down, charging my breath. But I keep it constant. Dad is no innocent man, but he has done nothing to Zorikan. I don’t care if dad dies, but Zorikan’s death should be worse. I’ll give that to him. Not out of revenge but out of distaste. 

“Let’s start talking, how about that.” 

I nod. “Works for me. Kind of hard to hear you over all that noise.” 

Zorikan stops the device. Dad hangs limp. “You’re going to go on a run for me. Tonight. It’s not a difficult robbery but it is delicate.” 

I burst out laughing. “You kill my brother and torture my dad to get me to go on a run? You’ve got to be bored as hell to come up with this bullshit. Have you considered getting a hobby? Being a dick doesn’t count.” 

“You’re brother’s not dead. At least he shouldn’t be if his corporate healthcare is any good. I shot his liver. Though, I hear he doesn’t drink, so that shouldn’t be a problem for him. I want Kaloaan out of my hair for a moment, but I need him to keep that position in the long run. I prefer the predictable fool than gamble on his successor. That deputy of his is… suspect.” 

Kaloaan is alive. 

My headache rages. Ow. He’d given me some of my pills. Do I still have them in my pocket? Can’t check right now. 

Zorikan continues. “The reason is unimportant. You don’t get to ask questions. The best outcome for you involves learning no details.” 

“What’s the run?” 

“Textile Bread Growers.” 

I can’t contain my laugh. “Are you guy’s really starving out here? Go to a fucking convenience store fucking hell. I will bring you a hotdog next time.” 

“Again. You don’t need to know the details.” 

“Yeah sure, I’ll do it. What then, you let my dad go?” 

Zorikan nods. 

I shake my head. “Nah, you should keep him. Kill him actually so you can stop holding this over my head.” Like I’m going to kill you, Zorikan. Half-brained, ego driven lunatic. These theatrics are probably because I rejected his offer last year. He wants to think he can own me. His mistake. 

Zorikan stands. “Time to go. You’re team will find you and give you the location.” 

“Do I get a gun?” 

“No.” 

“Good, I don’t want one.” Maybe I can keep working for him and build his trust. Then as soon as he gives me a gun I’ll shoot him in the head. “I saw you’re second… Hixa? At the Pink’s Link, ladyboy on her lap. You that worried about the lizards? Doesn’t seem like you.” 

Ursa towers behind me as if smelling my thoughts. “Time to go,” he grunts. 

The window is open. Zorikan is further away from it than me. I’ll take my chances on the height.  I explode to the other side of the room where there window is. Rather, it’s an empty square in the concrete. I look out, and Zorikan doesn’t stop me. Seventh floor. Far out, don’t know which sector. One of those fringe areas. The corporate arc is just a lump on the horizon. 

“Seven floors shouldn’t be a problem for you.” 

“Nope.” I vault out the window. 

In the split second mid air I calculate. It’s smooth, very smooth. But the fact that the building never finished construction gives unfinished bits that I can reach. A beam still sticking out. A notch cut in, meant to be filled. 

I’m on the next roof before I breath in. 

He didn’t try to stop me. This fucker is going to chase me or something. Try to prove his superiority. This is his territory, but he still has the issue of me being Kallix Rane. I vault over a guard rail, grab hold the gutter of the opposite building and swing myself up, bolting to the right. 

I have to figure out who the mole is. Which cop was crazy enough to go under cover with this sociopath? If Kaloaan could’ve told me their fucking name. 

Kaloaan is not dead. 

My brother is alive. 

That’s good. 

He’s the only way I can get more of my pills. 

I just need to tell the mole where dad is. Then the police will eviscerate them. Zorikan thinks he’s a god. He must love the idea of being a puppet master. He would probably want a movie about himself, ha. Actually, I could just go to Kaloaan right now. It’s not like any of his runts would be able to catch me. Not when they’re robbing corporates for fake bread. I bet-

I’m tripped. I smash into a pile of industrial spare parts. 

“That’s him?” 

“Fits the description the Shark said.” 

Ow. Fuck me. My head is shaking. Ringing from the collision with the metal. “What the fuck,” I groan. 

“You. You the fuck,” says a girl. She’s crouching down in front of me, track pants and a dark grey hoodie, zipped to her chin. “Are you fit for the run? Hope you can keep up.”