The factory stank of oil and scorched metal.
Ely stood in the shadows, his breathing steady but slow, the weight of the pistol still lingering in his hand. The energized barrel shimmered faintly, cooling down after the two lethal bursts. Janko was a heap on the floor, his monstrous form finally still.
Footsteps approached, light, careful, hesitant. Ely glanced back. It was the same small girl who had been watching from the vents earlier. Her face was pale under the flickering overhead lights, her eyes too big for her thin face.
"You… you really killed him," she whispered, voice almost swallowed by the echoing emptiness.
Ely holstered the pistol. "Where are the hostages?"
She swallowed hard, then pointed to the far end of the hall. "That way. Storage room. They're scared. You have to tell them it's safe now."
Ely nodded and started walking, his boots crunching over broken glass and debris. The girl trailed behind, hugging herself against the chill.
When they reached the room, Ely kicked the rusted door open. Inside were a dozen kids, some barely older than the girl. They huddled together. The air was heavy with fear and dampness.
"It's over," Ely said, stepping in. His tone was low, certain, like a wall they could lean against. "You're safe now. Stay together. Someone will come for you soon."
One of the older boys asked, "Who are you?"
"Doesn't matter. Just get out when it's clear."
He turned back to the girl. "You're going to guide them out of here, right?"
Her chin lifted, shaky but determined. "Yes."
Ely placed a hand briefly on her shoulder, not for comfort, but for affirmation. "Good."
He left them there, the muffled sound of quiet sobbing fading as he walked out into the night air.
Ely swallowed and bowed his head, the motion feeling like a small reprieve. Then he walked out into the alley, where the air was a cold blade.
Outside, the street smelled of soot and wet concrete. Ely kept to the shadows, choosing side alleys and service corridors he knew by memory. Once, at a distant intersection, a patrol from the Human Civilization Army passed, their helmets glossy, boots clean, ranks moving like a single dark animal. They glanced at him, a naked shard of light in the rain and the dark. Ely pulled his hood lower. The patrol rolled on. The city's law existed like a separate river; it didn't reach down here unless someone important asked it to.
He moved fast and kept his head down. The path to the Dawn Rats' depot threaded through the oldest industrial stretch: rusted gantries, collapsed signs, a skeleton of a mag-rail stood like a ribcage against the sky. He sighted the depot long before he reached it, the Rats' sigil spray-painted large and faded across the corrugated iron, a crown being bitten by a rat.
Two sentries at the gate recognized him and cracked a nod. Word moved quick in the Lower Sector. Ely's steps slowed as he walked in. The depot's interior smelled of oil, smoke, and old leather. Men sat around a table patched with solder and booze. Someone dropped a wrench, leather boots thudding in the silence.
Koro was there, of course. The leader of the Dawn Rats. Up close he was a lot less theatrical than the stories. He filled his chair rather than sat in it, a thick shape of arms and old battle scars. His beard was more grey than black now. He looked like someone who'd been around long enough to learn not to waste anger on boys.
He watched Ely come in and gave a slow, measuring clap that sounded like a hinge.
"You look like you got into a thunderstorm and came out on the other side," Koro said. His voice was gravel and smoke. "Don't tell me you went in there with nothing but wit and that pretty little smile."
Ely's jaw went hard. "I did what I had to."
Koro's eyes flicked to the pistol at Ely's hip, to the dried blood on his shirtsleeve. The smirk softened. "You pulled it off."
Ely said, "Does this mean we have a deal?"
The room went quiet. Even the men mending boots looked up. Koro leaned forward, palms flat on the table.
"You told me you were thinking of joining the Army," he said, like a man summing up shoes for a funeral. "That was your reason for the deal, right? Not that you wanted to play war with my neighbors."
Ely met his gaze. He felt the word on his tongue like a stone. "Yes," he said. "It's why I made the deal. I leave, I join, I don't come back for a long while. I needed people on the ground who'd keep Kex, Nora, Slink safe when I'm gone."
Koro's expression shifted. Not to suspicion but to something like rough approval Koro had tried to recruit him. Everyone in the depot remembered that or pretended to forget, depending on how it suited them. Now, the request folded into the air between them, small and heavy.
"So you're going into the Army," Koro said after a long beat. "That's not a whim. That's not a kid's brag. That's solemn work. You sure you're ready to be one of those people?"
Ely's voice was quiet but steady. "I don't have another way."
Koro studied him. "You've got guts. You've got cunning. Men like you get noticed. Maybe you'll rise. Maybe you'll get clean hands and polished boots. Maybe you'll come back and buy us out of this hole."
Ely let out something that was half laugh, half sob. "I don't want to come back with anything but a uniform," he said. "Maybe a rank. Enough to make a difference."
Koro barked a laugh that turned unexpectedly warm. He reached under the table and pulled out a small leather coin-pouch. It thudded as he set it before Ely. "Your Zentels," he said. "All of them. Keep that kind of coin for the future, not for me."
Ely's fingers closed on the pouch like he would lose it if he didn't. The coins were familiar, the same clink that had once meant bread. He had expected Koro to accept payment, he had expected to trade the Zentels for his friends protection in the beginning.
"I'm not asking you to make a donation," Koro added before Ely could speak. "I'm returning them because you came through. Because you risked your neck for people you hardly had to risk anything for. That means something in this place."
A murmur circled among the Rats. Some spat under their breath, skeptical or jealous. Koro waved them off with one hand.
"And the other part?" Ely prompted. He didn't want favors. He wanted a promise, a contract he could sign with thought and oath.
Koro's face darkened. "I'll keep them safe. Free." He said the word as if testing the shape of it. "Free. No charge. No rackets, no payback. You mark my word, while you're gone, your friends have shelter, food, protection. Not because I like doing saints' work. Because I know what it costs to have someone watching your back. I owe you for removing a thorn that bothered us all."
Ely wanted to ask for guarantees and paper and stamps and signatures that meant more than the mouths that spoke them. But in the Lower Sector, promises were blood, not paper. He nodded instead.
Koro rose then and came around the table. Up close, he smelled of tobacco and iron. He placed a heavy hand on Ely's shoulder, not in dominance but in a gesture that might as well have been a benediction.
"You're going to be something," Koro said, low and rough. "Don't let them mess you up. If you ever need any help in the future do not hesitate to contact me"
Ely's throat closed. "You don't owe me anything."
"You don't owe me. You owe your friends and the hostages you rescued" Koro nodded at the memory of how the Lower Sector bled. "But I'll take your debt. For now."
There was a small pause, then Koro added with a crooked grin, "And kid? When you put on that uniform, don't forget where your boots came from. People with clean hands and bad memories make the worst officers."
Ely managed a small, tired smile.
They spoke for a long time after that. Koro asking practical questions about the Army, about which barracks the kid might aim for, about who in this part of the city might notice and who might try to interfere. Ely answered as honestly as he could, giving nothing away he didn't have to. There were offers of small favors, a man at the docks who could get him on a shuttle for a cheaper rate, a forger who could help certificates if he needed to falsify a background but Koro refused anything illegal. He'd never been the kind to burn bridges that could be useful later. He was pragmatic in a way that felt almost paternal.
When Ely stood to leave, Koro pulled him close and rapped him on the shoulder one last time. "Bring that headhome clean, kid. And if you ever come back and tell me the Army's turned you into someone who looks down on trash, I'll make sure the Rats remind you of the gutters."
Ely stepped out into the night and felt, for the first time in a long while, the shape of a plan in his pocket: the coin pouch heavy, the trust of a gang unexpectedly given, and a name, the Human Civilization Army. Like a distant star he intended to climb toward.
He had taken a life. He carried the memory like a stone in his chest. But beneath the stone, something else had settled, a thin, trembling thread of purpose. He had a path. He had a guard for his friends. He had, for the first time, a direction he could walk into without looking back.
He moved away from the depot into the cold and the glow of the city, feeling the weight of a promise that was not only his to keep.