The Underdistrict's Sump was a neon-lit hellhole, a sprawling slum carved into the Nexus's lower reaches where the station's poorest survived on scraps and black-market trades. Asteroids docked to its edges, their hollowed-out shells housing shanties where synth-addicts and data-thieves bartered for survival. The air stank of sulfur and plasma, Klyros's radiation seeping through the station's failing shields, mixing with the tang of burnt circuitry from overworked holo-ads. One flickered overhead as Sylas moved through the alleys, its garbled voice shouting, "Synth-Coffee! Live Longer!"—a lie as old as the Nexus itself. Neon signs in electric blue, toxic green, and blood red cast a kaleidoscope of light across the durasteel walls, reflecting off puddles of coolant leaking from overhead pipes.
Sylas's ghost rig shimmered faintly, cloaking him from the Syndicate drones patrolling the sector. The rig was a marvel of illicit tech, a lattice of quantum circuits woven into his coat that bent light and scrambled sensors, making him a ghost in the dataweb's eyes. His augmented lenses scanned the alleys, overlaying data on his vision: heat signatures of scavengers, encrypted comms from Syndicate enforcers, and the faint hum of a Free Colony skiff docked nearby. The auction lie had spread faster than he'd expected—already, the dataweb buzzed with chatter, factions bidding credits they didn't have for a map he didn't possess. Not yet, anyway.
"Rhea, status," he whispered into his comms, his voice low to avoid detection. His boots splashed through a puddle, the coolant staining the hem of his obsidian coat. He adjusted the collar, concealing the pulse-knife at his hip—a sleek weapon with a plasma-edged blade that could cut through durasteel like butter.
Her voice crackled back, laced with irritation. "Syndicate's sniffing around Sector 7—they've got enforcers on the ground. Free Colonies are mobilizing too, docking skiffs in Sector 9. You've got the Nexus on fire, Sylas."
"Good," he replied, his grin sharp as a blade. He stopped at a vendor stall, its holo-sign flickering with the words "Data Shards—Cheap!" The vendor, a grizzled man with a cybernetic eye, didn't notice Sylas as he jacked into the stall's terminal, his implants interfacing with the dataweb. With a few mental commands, he planted a decoy signal—a fake auction drop point in Sector 10, designed to draw the factions into a fight. The dataweb rippled with his lie, spreading like a virus. Chaos was his shield, and he'd use it to hunt the real map.
As he unplugged, his lenses pinged a proximity alert—a heat signature, moving fast, cloaked in a holo-field. Sylas spun, his pulse-knife drawn, its plasma edge humming with a soft blue glow. The air shimmered, and a figure materialized: Veyra, the Cleaner, her exosuit sleek and black, its surface etched with Syndicate kill-marks that glowed faintly red. Her face was hidden by a featureless visor, but her movements were fluid, lethal, like a predator stalking prey. She held a neural dart gun, its barrel trained on his chest.
"Vren," she said, her voice modulated but distinctly female, carrying a rasp of controlled rage. "The Core's not yours to sell. Back off, or I carve your implants out."
Sylas's lenses analyzed her suit: advanced Syndicate tech, but modified—quantum cloaking, neural disruptors, and a data-core port at her wrist. She was rogue, just as Rhea had said, and that made her dangerous. But danger was an opportunity. He lowered his knife, his grin never wavering. "Veyra, right? You've got Joren's data-core. I want it. Name your price.
"Her visor tilted, as if amused, but her grip on the dart gun tightened. "You think I'm for sale? I'm here to bury you, Vren. The Core's too dangerous for a snake like you." She fired, the dart streaking toward him, its tip glowing with a neurotoxin designed to fry his implants.
Sylas's ghost rig kicked in, cloaking him as he dove aside, the dart embedding in the vendor's stall. The grizzled man screamed, collapsing as the toxin spread, his cyber-eye sparking. Sylas rolled, hacking the stall's holo-sign to overload, its neon light exploding in a shower of sparks that blinded Veyra for a moment. He sprinted down the alley, his lenses tracking her as she vanished into the shadows, her holo-cloak re-engaging.
His comms buzzed—Rhea again. "Sylas, Syndicate drones are converging. You've got ten minutes before they lock the sector down."
"Keep them busy," he ordered, his breath steady despite the adrenaline. He ducked into a side alley, the neon glow fading as he entered a darker stretch of the Sump. His mind raced, calculating his next move. Veyra had the data-core, and she was hunting him. The factions were at each other's throats, just as he'd planned, but the Cleaner was a wildcard. He needed to find her—use her, manipulate her, or kill her. The Nexus Core was his endgame, and he'd play every card to win.
As he moved, Klyros flared beyond the station's viewport, its radiation spiking, sending static through the dataweb. Sylas's implants buzzed, a faint whisper echoing in his mind—not Veyra, but something deeper, colder, like the Core itself watching him. He shook it off, his lenses glowing with determination. The Sump's chaos was his playground, and he was just getting started.