There are holes in my vision. Huge blots that expand and contract with the street lights rolling by. My neck and shoulder scream. Dull ache throbbing, gripping, pulling. I want to carve my muscles out. They won’t hurt if they’re lying in a bloody pile on the floor. Zorikan still has my fucking pills. 

Zorikan can wait. I need a break. I need a drink. 

There is a bearded man, wrapped in a torn, stained cloak. He has a bottle in his hand. Half full. Clear, probably off-brand vodka. I squat down in front of him, looking him in the eyes. He looks around me, eyes pointing different directions. “Give me the bottle.” 

“Rain? Rain is coming…” he mutters. 

I grab the bottle, but his grip is frozen. I pull but it doesn’t move. 

“Rain’s coming.” 

“Give me the fucking bottle.” 

He mutters something incoherent, slumping forward. 

I slam my hand into his neck, cracking him against the concrete wall behind him and forcing the bottle free. 

He grunts. “Stoodio was looking for you. Raven Lord flies. His wings are made of blood and flesh. We chemical bodies…” 

I chug the bottle. Vodka is vodka, even when it’s laden with bearded backwash. Even the weird floating bits. I drink it all. “Stoodio?” I ask. “You know him?” 

He grunts in agreement. “I did. Raven Lord got him. Doesn’t want anymore rain.” 

“Sure man.” I drop the bottle and it shatters next to him. I keep walking. 

Out of the alley, I hear shouting on a megaphone. Others are looking up from their phones and heading towards the sound. A crowd is building around the corner on the left. This is a trades sector. What the fuck are tradesmen rallying a crowd for. 

The megaphone blares. “The corporate expansion is unprecedented. Our democracy is no longer in danger, it will be swallowed whole.” Hmm. I follow the crowd, rounding the corner. On the hood of a car with a microphone stands a strange man. He is small, with a back pressed forehead and receding hairline. His hair is greying and his mustache curtains his lip. His glasses are tiny, but so are his eyes. “We cannot allow this anymore. We cannot sit and watch as they expand jurisdiction outside of the power of the judicial system. If this merger goes through, chemical pleasure will be branded and sold for your salary.” His voice creaks and fluctuates in an abrasive way. 

He wears an obnoxious red jacket with gold epilates, tight white pants. Gold shoulders means he’s got gold blood. I squint. He has a name plate. Duke Wesleyas. 

Duke fucking Wesleyas. The weasel guy. 

Tauren’s fiancé. There is no fucking way. This dweeb? 

“I am telling you all this as a harbinger for what is to come. Cloud and Air will engulf Bansilin production into the corporate landscape. It will be bottled and pilled and sold to you like your inhalers and pain killers. This will be the end of independence. This will be the end of mental sovereignty.” 

I pick up a beer bottle from the ground and hurl it at him. It smashes against the windscreen of the car, missing him by an inch. “Loser!” I holler. “Don’t listen to this nerd.” 

The crowd shout back. An soda can connects harmlessly with my head, splashing corporate gruel juice into my hair. One guy shoves me. 

I shout again. “Kill yourself!” Then I vanish towards an alley. 

Weird night. 

How the fuck is that the guy Tauren is settling with? For her whole life? Nah. You’d have to cut through his mustache just to kiss him. Also his hair is almost grey! How old is that motherfucker. Twice her age at least. Disgusting. 

I don’t notice that I’m running. 

Flying actually. 

Spiderwebs of pain chase me, clinging to my left shoulder. It taunts me. 

Be real. She would never stay with a creature like you, Kallix. Vile shit. You know why you keep going back to her. She’s learnt. She’s learnt her own value. As she deserves. You’re disgusting. You haven’t even showered in weeks. You probably smell like puke. Disgusting. Vile. And you’re hating on this man you don’t even know. Maybe he’s good for Her. 

Maybe if I impaled myself on a pole she would come to my funeral. 

Ha. As if I would have a funeral. I want to be ground to a pulp, poisoned, and made into chicken nuggets that are sold as premium meat to rich kids. 

I find myself back at Zorikan’s fortress. 

The building is a tower in the darkness. It pierces out against the shallow bath of flickering night light. Fringe sectors were all areas that couldn’t be seen from the windows of corporate offices, even as high up in the sky as they are. I’m used to trash, but in this place, the shit pile of an eroding economy litters the streets. You would think all this stuff would’ve been salvaged, with the stocks tumbling and hunger spreading. But they buy too much junk during their time in profit. As their bank accounts dissipate, they left all this stuff that was still useless, even then. You can’t eat your handbags. Your kids will starve and die clutching their plastic toys. 

This place was probably a sector of an automotive industry that was outpaced. Wheels replaced with hovering pads or something of the like. It’s full of machinery Zorikan could salvage. The sewer of the corporate world is perfect for a rat.

What am I supposed to do to even find him? Just walk in and not get shot? How am I supposed to find this fucker now. 

“He’s out.” 

I spin. 

Rieka is perched atop a metal awning, opposite to the entrance of the building. “He’s on a job. He said I should wait for you here, since we’ve moved to a new location. I told him you weren’t going to come.” She swings her legs back and forth. 

I leap up a trash can and swing from a sign post, landing beside her. The metal clangs and dents. 

“Graceful.” 

“Moved already? You think I went and ratted to my bro immediately?” I laugh, sitting down. 

“You did. I mean, not to him, but his deputy.” 

“They practically kidnapped me and blasted a star into my brain.” 

“It’s called white bursting. A classic torture method that Zorikan trains us all to withstand.” 

“All of you are kinky ass masochists, you know. Zorikan torture me, daddy,” I moan. 

Rieka stares at me, dead eyed. Blue and grey. Sharp, like they were deciding how to cut into you. Freckles around them that I just noticed. She lets a small, muffled laugh slip. “Come ‘on, let’s go. Zorikan said I had to bring you.” She stands. 

“For what? Your preemptive torture sessions?” I like the way her track pants swish as she moves. 

“Yeah, get ready. Tonight is actually preparing for ball crushing torture, one of the police’s favorite.” She leaps up, climbing onto the ledge that outlines the second floor. 

Now I laugh. “Deqar enjoys that for sure. What’s the point of you being there then?” I climb after her. 

“I’m the one’s doing the crushing.” She takes off. 

I’m after her. Now I can chase her without those idiots around. I’ll finally get to show her. She doesn’t stand a chance. My speed unfurls like a flower in the spring. I explode forward. 

But she’s already stopped. 

I nearly knock her off the roof, ramming into her but grabbing a fire pole. I grip her around the waist, pulling her back up. “At your service,” I say with a bow, setting her down. 

“You knocked me off.” 

“But I haven’t yet knocked you up.” 

“You are the cartoon character in kids movies that is used to teach kids how not to interact with other people.” 

“If they’re casting, pass me their number.” 

“They denied. Said you were too scary for the kids to look at.” 

“That’s fair enough. I wouldn’t want to look at me either. Good thing I don’t own a mirror.”

“You don’t own anything.”

“Nope.”  

“I think that’s part of why he trusts you.” 

“What? Zorikan?” 

“Yeah.” 

I hold that thought in my mind for a moment. 

Rieka slides down the fire pole and lifts a manhole. Music bumps out into the graveyard street. By the time I’m down, she’s already gone in. I climb in after her, pulling the manhole closed above me. These fuckers hadn’t even moved. They were just underground for some time. You’ve got to be kidding me. If Kaloaan sent a raid here and they found this place it would’ve worked. They could’ve gotten Dad back.

I didn’t even think to say anything. 

I just had to tell Kaloaan. 

This bullshit would’ve been over that easy. 

Now I’ve got to navigate the Shark’s sewer. Fantastic. 

Might as well enjoy myself while I do it.