Caleb stepped out of the scrapyard gates, trading the tang of oxidized iron for the suffocating stench of the residential district: fermenting waste spiked with chemical spice.
The acid rain had ceased, leaving a low-hanging mist of bruised violet that turned Sector 13 into a static-filled dreamscape.
He dragged his feet across the fractured pavement. Rictus's backhand hadn't just split his lip; it had rattled his ribcage. A hairline fracture, likely. He didn't dare slow down. In a place where dogs ate stones, showing weakness was an invitation to be stripped clean.
He clamped an arm against his side, shielding the object in his inner pocket. The black cube sat there, dense and unnaturally cold, pressing against his ribs like a block of unmelting ice.
Around him, the sector woke up. Shipping containers stacked in defiance of gravity leaned over the street. Illegal power lines webbed overhead, spitting sparks into the puddles.
"Synthetic meat! Fresh shipment!" "Kidney transplant! Cash only!"
The cacophony battered his eardrums, but Caleb's mind was adrift.
Room 404. Lyra.
He was coming home empty-handed. The circuit board—the currency for her medicine—was gone.
Caleb looked at his own hands. They were stained permanently black by grease, the fingers long and dexterous.
His mind, as always, began to disassemble the world. He looked at the heavy mag-lock on a pawn shop door; he knew he could bypass the solenoid in twelve seconds with a hairpin. He looked at the sparking power lines; he knew how to siphon enough energy to heat their room for a month.
He understood the architecture of the entire city. But understanding didn't generate credits. His genius was a grand engine with no fuel, trapped inside a malnourished body that couldn't even block a clumsy swing from an overseer.
He clenched his fist. The bones popped.
Useless.
Finally, "home" loomed out of the mist.
Block 4. A monolith of crumbling concrete. In the darkness, patches of mutated moss clung to the fissures in the walls, pulsing with a toxic, neon-green luminescence. The building breathed like a dying beast.
Caleb exhaled, fogging the air. He smoothed back his wet hair. He couldn't let Lyra see the fear. He needed a mask.
He pushed the door open.
The lobby smelled of cheap bleach masking old rot. Above, a ceiling fan sliced the stagnant air with a rhythmic creak-thump.
"Late again, brat?"
Granny Martha sat in her fortified security booth, a boulder of a woman under flickering fluorescent lights. She was running an oily rag over the twin barrels of a vintage "Black Widow" shotgun.
"Evening, Martha," Caleb mumbled, heading for the stairs. He kept his head down, hiding the dried blood on his lip.
"Hold it."
The clack of the shotgun snapping shut was sharp, final as a gavel.
Caleb froze. His hand tightened over the cold cube against his chest.
"Where is this month's rent?" Martha's voice filled the cramped space. "I gave you a two-week extension, Caleb. I don't run a charity."
Caleb turned. He swallowed copper and dust. "I... There was an issue at the yard. Rictus..."
"He docked you again?" Martha cut him off. Her eyes narrowed, tracing the fresh bruise on his cheekbone.
Caleb went silent. He nodded once. He braced for the eviction.
Instead, Martha let out a heavy sigh. She set the shotgun down.
Thud.
Her rough hand disappeared under the desk.
Whoosh.
She tossed a small, oil-paper package through the air. Caleb caught it. It was warm.
"Bread. High-grade protein," she grumbled, picking up her rag. " The neighbor's bulldog turned its nose up at it. You might as well finish it."
Caleb held the package. She hated the neighbor's dog. And the bread had been heated.
"Martha..."
"Don't stand there whining," she snapped. "Eat it. I'm giving you three more days. If you don't have the credits by then, don't blame me."
She paused, her voice losing its edge.
"Get upstairs. Quick. I heard Lyra coughing earlier. It didn't sound good."
Caleb squeezed the warm bread, the heat seeping into his frozen fingers.
"Thank you," he whispered, before sprinting up the dark stairwell.
Caleb jammed the key into the lock. The iron door groaned open.
The room was a graveyard of scavenged tech—frayed cables and charred motherboards littering the floor. But in the corner lay a mattress covered with a clean white sheet.
"Lyra? I'm home."
On the mattress, a bundle of thin blankets stirred.
Lyra sat up. Under the sickly yellow bulb, she looked like a flower made of spun glass. She was fifteen, but the sickness made her look twelve. Her cheekbones protruded dangerously against translucent skin; her eyes were dark hollows of obsidian.
"Caleb..." Her voice was a draft whistling through a crack. "You're late..."
Caleb rushed to her side, placing the bread on the pillow. He touched her forehead. Burning.
"I'm sorry. Overtime," he lied. His eyes drifted to her right arm.
It was deleting.
From the elbow down, the flesh was gone. In its place was a blur of motion, flickering like a corrupted file. Occasionally, the texture failed completely, revealing the cold, blue wireframe mesh beneath.
"It climbed higher," Lyra whispered, staring at her own limb. "I can't feel my thumb. It's just... static."
Caleb pulled her sleeve down to cover the glitch. He unwrapped the bread.
"Eat. It's warm."
Lyra took the crust. She looked at his swollen knuckles. Her eyes welled up.
"I'm sorry, Caleb. If it wasn't for me... you could have left this place. You could be an engineer in the Core. I'm just an anchor."
"Stop it." Caleb pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her hair. "Without you, I'm just a stray dog. You understand?"
He pulled back, forcing a brittle smile.
"Just hold on. I'm close to the target amount."
He began to weave the lie. The nightly ritual.
"We're moving to the Core. The 80th floor. Above the smog. Nothing but sunlight."
Lyra blinked, leaning into the fantasy. "Does it... does it have automatic windows?"
"Floor-to-ceiling. You'll wake up to the sunrise. And breakfast won't be dry bread. It'll be steak. Real beef, dripping with black pepper sauce."
"And strawberry ice cream?" Lyra's eyelids drooped.
"A whole freezer full."
Lyra nodded. She took a small bite, closing her eyes. Moments later, her breathing evened out, the taste of imaginary steak on her tongue.
Caleb's smile died the second she fell asleep.
He stood up, his thin shadow stretching across the cold floor like a fracture. The warmth of the fairytale about the "80th floor" evaporated, replaced by the bone-chilling cold of reality.
He walked to his workbench—a plank of wood balanced on stacks of rotting books. He grabbed the vial labeled Stabilizer.
He turned it upside down.
Empty.
"Damn it."
He dug into his pockets, pulling out a handful of crumpled credits. He counted them three times, praying for a miracle, praying that the numbers would somehow multiply.
But math didn't lie.
Total assets: 50 credits.Cost of one dose: 500 credits.
The dream of steak and sunlight shattered. Tomorrow, there would be no miracle. There would only be Lyra's arm dissolving up to the shoulder. Then the neck. Then the heart.
Caleb slumped over the desk, burying his hands in his greasy hair. Helplessness tightened around his throat like a noose.
In the silence, his gaze drifted across the clutter and landed on the object he had brought home.
The Black Cube.
It sat there under the sickly yellow lamp. Silent. Cold.
There was no blue glow. No pulse.
He reached out and touched it, hoping to feel something—a hum, a vibration, anything. But it was just a block of smooth, dead metal. Inert.
"What are you?" Caleb whispered, his voice raspy. "Trash? Are you just useless trash like me?"
He wanted to throw it against the wall, but he stopped himself. He couldn't even sell it. Unknown tech in the black market was a death sentence. Gary would talk; Rictus would kill him for it.
It was dead weight.
He needed credits. He needed them tomorrow.
Caleb raised his head, looking out the grime-streaked window toward the far horizon, where the acid storm clouds were thickest. There, beyond the safety perimeters of Sector 13, lay The Edge.
The graveyard of ancient war machines. A hellscape of feral mechanical hounds and unexploded ordnance. They said for every ten scavengers who went in, only one came out.
But the salvage there was Grade A.
Caleb opened his drawer. He pulled out a makeshift shiv, ground from a file until it was razor-sharp. The cold steel reflected in his ash-grey eyes—eyes that no longer held dreams, only the terrifying resolve of a cornered animal.
He looked at Lyra, sleeping soundly. He looked at the knife.
"Alright," he whispered to the darkness. "Rich or dead."