The pale blue glow of Glitch’s cell phone lit only a half-dozen paces of the tunnel ahead of her, but she rushed forward into the darkness at a half-run, stumbling on uneven gravel patches and discarded glass bottles. Every thirty seconds or so, she checked the time. The next maglev wasn’t due for another two minutes but sometimes, rarely, they ran a minute early. She spotted the next maintenance cross-passage ahead of her and ducked inside the opening. No sign of the maglev yet, but with how today was going she wasn’t taking any-

The maglev was on her almost as soon as her ears registered the sound. There was a single, guttural warning, the briefest burst of light from ahead, and then a steady roar of steel cars passing at a rate a little over 200 miles an hour. The light from the windows strobed wildly across the walls of her hiding place, and her hand, still clutching her phone, seemed to tremble at its passing in the flicker. A flyer for Three Dogs Records Studio (“Sound Bites for Everyone!”) whipped up into the air and plastered itself against the wall opposite her. Glitch stared at it until, just as suddenly as it had come, the maglev was gone. The poster drifted back to ground as the noise receded behind her . Glitch released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It echoed oddly in the stillness of the tunnel.

Almost there.

She set off again into the darkness at a jog. Another light appeared ahead of her, and Glitch’s heart skipped a beat, then hammered furiously to make up the difference. Another maglev wasn’t due for ten minutes, but the light was too high up to be another improvised flashlight. A high hum, like a microwave, disturbed the stillness of the tunnel. Drone. It must have dropped in from the station ahead of her after the train passed. Somewhere in Neosaka an accountant was eyeing a departmental emergency requisition fund and grabbing for heartburn meds. That probably meant there was another drone coming in behind her.

Glitch took a deep breath and sprinted towards the rusting, metal service door just ahead. It had a dripping red anarchy symbol spray painted across it, like old blood. Glitch shouldered it open and slipped through before the drone spotted her.

By the sputtering light of a dying exit sign and the pale glow of her phone’s lock screen, she vaguely made out a maintenance staircase coiling downwards. Her feet hammered down steel steps and the metallic echo rebounded up and down the walls all around her. The enclosed air stank of stale urine and vomit. The door to the Night Market waited at the bottom, nondescript, unassuming. Glitch slid her phone into her back pocket, then thought better of it and tucked it into her hoodie pouch alongside Wingz’ watch. She needed to call Handle back, and while a pickpocket would experience the heat death of the universe before they cracked her encryption, customizing a new phone and transferring her data over would be a hassle. Glitch leaned against the door and pushed.

The door swung open a scant foot from a wiry man missing both his front teeth and most of his hair, muttering a stream of obscenities to himself. He looked up and locked eyes with her without breaking off his prosaic self-reflections. Glitch dropped her eyes, stepped around him, and hurried past.

The crowded scene Glitch plunged into was the stuff of legal nightmares and underworld legend. Coupled-together subway cars crawled a few feet a minute through a throng of society’s misfits and castoffs: beggars, thieves, gang bangers, and more. The press of their unwashed bodies together filled the air with a sour smell that clung to everything. Lights of every kind hung from twisted bits of wire on each car: floods stolen from construction sites, decorative paper lanterns sporting brand logos, and plain, naked bulbs on worn-out cords. Together they lit the false, cement sky of the Night Market.

The way Glitch had heard the story, Arterix had wanted to build a sort of super-subway that spanned the entire city. In theory it was to service VIPs and other business types who absolutely had to be a dozen miles away right the fuck now. In practice, the rich and powerful bought choppers that got them where they wanted to go with more comfort and less face time with people on whose backs they had built their fortunes. Company policy still mandated that middle management get to know their employees by taking the much cheaper morning subway with them and the Arterix super-subway ended in failure. Like all of society’s discards, the street life of Neosakka immediately put the tunnels to use and so the Night Market was born.

Glitch ducked around blankets and tables spread with car parts, power tools, broken radios, and anything else scavengers thought someone might be willing to trade for. Close quarters forced her quick walk into a slow push forward through the mess of would-be patrons. She kept away from the wall to avoid stepping on the hands and feet of those crouched beside it - others were less courteous. She traveled the length of a dozen cars before she stopped to take her bearings.

The actual subway cars of the Night Market were reserved for the highest income businesses - those that could afford the muscle to hold their place in the line. Among them were weapons dealers, drug pushers, a couple of bars, and even a cyberware installation clinic of dubious quality. Some had even set up stores on top of the cars. The low ceiling space kept customers on the ground below, but sellers still barked their wares from on high and then bellied down to dole out merchandise into customer’s upraised hands.

Glitch headed for the first car with the smell of food coming from it, an establishment named “Madam Lucky”. Its flickering sign was cobbled together from a butchered “Madam Fuji’s” franchise sign and a “Lucky” in another font Glitch didn’t recognize. Every now and again it threw sparks from the place where the wires from the two had been fused together. Someone had added the word “Bar” beneath it in white spray paint, and some other budding auteur had added “-e Ass” to the end of it in red.

The doors had been removed, but Glitch still had to pull herself up a step to get inside the subway carriage. A fat, white bouncer with a tattoo of a twirled mustache across his upper lip eyed her as she climbed aboard, but waved her through. Across his knees rested an oversized nightstick with an on-off switch.

Glitch looked around as she shuffled past the seats repurposed into booths towards the counter along the back wall of the car. There were no other women here, and she’d only noticed a couple in the surrounding tunnel on her way in. Not a good, long-term hiding solution. She made it to the bar. The frame of the counter was polished chrome, and the surface a green, crushed casino velvet. Madam Lucky wasn’t in, or the beer-bellied man behind the counter was using the name ironically. There was no menu.

“What’ll it be?” the barkeep asked her.

“Whatever you have to eat around here,” Glitch replied.

The barkeep’s eyes drifted down her length. “You looking for work?” he asked.

Glitch waited for the silence to stretch long enough that he looked up.

“Just the food,” she told him.

He grunted and handed her something wrapped in tin foil from under the counter.

Glitch paid and retreated to an unoccupied booth as far away from him as possible where she could keep an eye on the door. Her meal was chunks of something that probably wasn’t real meat and rice. Still warm though.

Exhaustion settled on her like a heavy blanket. She let her head rest on one hand and tried to figure out how many hours it had been since she last slept. She kept losing count and her thoughts drifted.

The train picked up speed and plunged through the darkened tunnels toward another stop. Glitch watched idly as moths, drawn to the florescent lights overhead, batted themselves against the window. Wingz’ watch buzzed again in her hoodie pocket. Stargirl was calling again. Glitch pulled it out, studied the cracked faceplate, and set it down on the table. She looked around but no one cared. She left it there and went to grab a drink before heading out. Time to find a Fixer and get a job. Time to move on.

At the bar, someone tapped her on the shoulder. Glitch swung around and came face to face with a man wearing her favorite FightStreet12 t-shirt, the same shirt he’d given her two years ago. Her favorite character from the game, Takeo King, the kickboxing rabbit, kicked the logo toward the viewer.

Glitch stared at him, open-mouthed. “What are you doing here?”

PatchNotes grinned at her. “Look who’s asking.”

She wasn’t aware of hugging him, only that in the next breath, his arms were wrapped around her and she was safe. He pushed her back after a moment and held Wingz’ watch between them.

“What happened?” he asked.

Glitch found she couldn’t meet his eye. She let her gaze wander across the train car. Nanobytes was two booths down talking to Jones, and Knick-Knack, that guy from the gun-and-run job that had gone poorly was asleep with his feet propped up on the table. There were a few others, but only the bouncer, eyes narrowed beneath the skull tattoo across his face, paid them any attention. Wingz’ jaw clenched and he folded his arms. Glitch’s heart began battering at her ribcage. She didn’t know what to tell him, or how to apologize to any of them. She tore her eyes away and fixed them instead on Takeo King’s red jacket and fistwraps.

“Everything went wrong,” she told PatchNotes. “There was another team in the building and a frag went off. Everyone died.”

PatchNotes nodded. “Yeah, it’s like that. Everyone does. Here, you forgot this.”

He held out the watch. On its lock screen, she saw the photo of the whole MALf(x) crew - PatchNotes, Axiom, 8Bit, Arc, and herself - the last time they won a tournament together. She spotted Ashley waving from the edge of the picture, even though she’d left long before that tournament. Glitch’s eyes stung. She shook her head and took a step back.

“I didn’t forget it,” she said. “I can’t take it...it’s slowing me down.”

“You’ll get lost out there without it,” PatchNotes insisted. He tried to press it into her hand.

“Don’t. Please,” Glitch felt her eyes welling up. She drank in his face, trying to save every detail, but she kept looking back at the shirt he had given her.

PatchNotes’ face set, and he jerked a thumb at Takeo King. “The last time you left something behind Axiom ended up with it.” He pushed the watch into her chest, hard enough to make her stumble back a pace. “You need this. Take it.”

Denial and apology were on her lips when a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. Wingz pulled her away and spun her around.

“You haven’t paid, so get out,” he told her, and started hauling her toward the door.

The train car rocked wildly to one side, as though some titanic being had tried to shoulder it aside. Glitch stumbled, and lost her footing. Wingz grabbed her by the hood and dragged her toward the exit.

“This is your stop,” he shouted over the groan of metal bending and tearing. PatchNotes closed behind to hold out the watch again, but Wingz shook his head and shoved it away. “She doesn’t want it. She’ll lie and say she does but leave it behind next chance she gets. Fuck off, dead man.”

Glitch fought him. She grabbed at a bolted down chair and hung on desperately. Giant claws raked against the windows and the metal ceiling crumpled down toward the passengers. None of them looked up. An electric jolt of realization ran through her.

“You can’t send me out there!” she screamed at PatchNotes. “It’s Axiom! He’ll find me!”

PatchNotes dove forward. He dropped to his knees beside her and seized her arm. The strength of Wingz’ grip on her loosened a little. Glitch pressed her head into PatchNotes’ chest.

“Please don’t,” she sobbed. “Please. Don’t leave me again.”

“You were always better than him,” PatchNotes whispered in her ear. “Now go get the bastards.”

He pried her fingers off the chair and pressed the watch into her hand. He squeezed her fingers closed over it and then kissed her forehead. Her face pressed into his shirt one last time.

“No!” Glitch begged. “Don’t! Please don’t! Please!”

He let go.

Wingz’ grip redoubled. He dragged her to the door and shoved it open. Darkness whirled past outside and the rushing wind screamed with the high-pitched keening sound of a helicopter tearing across a dead sky toward disaster. Axiom’s horned-wolf avatar clung to the back of the train, claws sunk into the steel, jaws ready. Her last cries were swallowed up in the noise. Wingz flung her out.