7. DarkMarket
DarkMarket
Playlist: Concrete Jungle - Bad Omens
Lyra
Ads flicker across the wet streets as I leave VikkCorp for the evening, another day in paradise.
My main priority is to find tonight’s DarkMarket and have my DreamBand looked at. I cross the street to my favorite LoFiCafe. I can already feel the warmth of its golden glow, smell the coffee steam wafting out onto the street, drawing me in.
I love this place. Dim, warm lighting with a mix of paper lanterns that flicker softly with retro holograms. I’ve read about places like this in Eli’s ebooks, cafés that look like a glitch in time, part-1920s speakeasy, part-2020s tech den.
Old-school vinyl players sit next to streaming decks, the music always a mix of mellow lo-fi beats with occasional corporate news overlays drifting through static.
Patrons sip neon-tinted coffees and glowing herbal teas that display little ads in the steam until magic laden U21 baristas wipe them clean.
People come here to trade information, rumors, and coordinates for places like the DarkMarket or unauthorized gatherings, and it always smells like coffee and rebellion.
Inside feels cozy and safe. My boots drip rainwater on the cracked tile floor as I walk up to the barista to order something warm just to feel my hands again.
I pull back my hood and shove the sleeve of my jacket up to show my DreamNet band, cold and quiet on my wrist. It’s a sort of U21 greeting to the cute girl behind the counter.
She’s all tattoos and piercings and half-smiles, wearing a corporate-issued apron like a joke.
The VikkCorp logo crossed out with an overlaying anarchy sign.
Her digital nametag reads “DIA” though the letters flicker as if they don’t want to stay in place.
“What’ll it be?” She glances at the band then back up to me, scanning me, analyzing me, sizing up the risk.
“Something hot. A dark blend with lots of caffeine.” I fish out my personal chipped food card from my jacket pocket, the kind the underground establishments take, so your credits don’t leave a trail. She immediately understands the subtle code-word reference.
While Dia brews, the wall screens shift and blur like my nerves are warping the signals.
The paper-thin holo-screens on the lanterns sway overhead, each cycling through slow, dreamlike watercolors: a storm breaking over dark mountain peaks, rain soaking pink cherry blossoms, sunlight splintering through fog, a black dragon flying through clouds.
The realization hits me immediately. The images aren’t random. They’re pulsing in time with my nervous heartbeat.
No...not again. Exactly what I need, an entire room reacting to my anxiety.
Of course I’m nervous. It’s not every day you willingly walk into a café to get directions to an underground market packed with smugglers, hackers, and the kind of people who won’t hesitate to beat you senseless when a deal goes sideways.
The kind of people who look at someone like me and smell desperation and profit.
I’m clearly emotional and extremely angry that my DreamNet band has once again failed me.
Blink slowly...breathe deeply. The projected mountain images briefly catch fire before a calm breeze soothes the angry flames.
I scan the room, no one else seems to notice.
Dia slides the steaming paper cup across the counter. The drink’s surface glimmers with a tiny holographic ad for some corporate energy drink, standard programming, but Dia casually stirs it with a sparkling spoon and the image vanishes.
Her eyes dart left to right and she leans in. “You’re looking for something, right?”
My breath catches. “Maybe?” My voice cracks. I jiggle the DreamBand casually while laying down a vintage coin, the imprint scratched off and scuffed, a silent U21 request for information.
Dia smiles knowingly and clutches my wrist. “What a beautiful bracelet!” she covers loudly, followed by a low whisper, “DarkMarket?”
I only nod and stare blankly.
“Follow the broken sidewalk. Two alleys down. Knock twice on the metal gate that looks like the alley is a dead end.” She nonchalantly moves to the customer in back of me leaving the directions hanging like smoke in the air.
I take a slow sip of today’s special: TurboTea, a scalding and sweet, chemically enhanced shot of energy and herbs.
Something small flutters in my peripheral vision as I lower the cup. A single cherry blossom petal drifts down from the top of the cup’s lid, landing weightlessly on the black leather of my glove.
I still.
A blossom? Here?
Impossible. There hasn’t been a real tree inside Oneiro City in years. Nothing grows under this much neon and metal. Nothing survives long enough to drop delicate pink petals onto anyone’s fingers. Especially ones that appeared in your dreams the night before.
A bad omen?
I shove my hood back up, warmth from the tea fading as I step back out into the rain and toward the nightly market.
I follow the barista’s directions exactly, until I end up in a rain-slicked alley where half-dim streetlights buzz like dying fireflies.
I knock twice.
The sound echoes off the wet steel, my fingerless glove sliding down the condensation, as I scan the alley.
A massive U21 tag glows fluorescent green across the wall, glow-paint still dripping.
Rebellion sigils scatter the ground, painted in strokes of silver metallic paint.
The rebellion always uses sigils instead of words.
Rumor is they’re alive in some way, charged by the magic of a single underground leader who can use them to pull power through them.
The Corporation dismisses it as magical superstition.
Personally, whenever I stand near one, I can feel it. A faint hum under the skin, like the sigils are alive.
Propaganda posters litter the sides of the two overflowing dumpsters, stamped with a symbol of a clenched fist around a circuit. A steel door hides between them. Metal scrapes metal on the other side, and a narrow slot cracks open.
A single, bloodshot eye peeks through suspiciously. “Business or trouble?” the voice growls impatiently.
I hold my breath. “Business,” I say, trying to sound like I belong here.
The door groans open, revealing a staircase spiraling down into an old lower roadway pulsing neon light and the growl of bass-heavy music.
Below Oneiro is an iconic, multi-layered road system that runs beneath the main streets, once used to ease downtown traffic congestion, before we had bullet trains and air taxis.
Tonight, they’re being used for the pandemonium of the DarkMarket.
Street corridors are lined with flickering holo-screens selling illegal “specialized” DreamBands like my own, hacked AIs, bootleg tech, and contraband memories in slim, black micro drives.
Someone peddles digital pets that look like tiny furry devils chirping in static.
A girl with chrome implants sells glowing chips that can be inserted under the skin to enhance sensation.
U21s are everywhere, browsing, dancing, kissing, groping; I definitely need to make a mental note to come back to that groping booth.
I try not to stare, not to look as out of place as I feel.
I shove through the crowd, clutching my DreamNet band tight.
Above me, pipes emerge from walls, swollen with steam, hissing, dripping on a young girl selling t-shirts with tags like:
CORP SEES YOU
UNDER21 RISE
RESIST
“Over here, beautiful!” A hunched man in mirrored goggles is trying to show me “soul-filters”—software to hide your emotions from corporate surveillance. If only that worked for me.
I dodge him by pushing through a group of bodies crammed together, dancing and sharing EarLINKs that blare hypnotizing beats. A flash, a whiff of ozone, and that’s when I spot him. “Of course...” I murmur.
Ash is sitting behind a cluttered table, wearing a drab denim jacket, guitar strap cutting right through that gorgeous chest, guitar hanging in back of him.
His table is covered in half-built tech: DreamBand mods, signal-scramblers, warped metal that looks suspiciously like a weapon but disguised as a guitar pedal.
He obviously just blew something up. Fuck around and find out, I guess.
He wears the same cocky grin from his band posters plastered around the district, his eyes glowing blue like he is permanently wired into some private frequency.
“Well, well,” Ash says, looking up as I approach.
“Somebody’s DreamBand shorted out, yeah?
” He extends a hand for me to come to him.
“Let me guess,” he purrs, voice full of mischief.
“You burned this thing out in one of the RedRooms in DreamNet? Happens all the time...people get real creative with their body parts in there.” He winks.
I open my mouth, shocked by his question. Around me, tech flickers pink and red, colors that match my heightened pulse.
I hand him the defunct DreamBand. “Can you fix it?” My heart skips as his fingers touch mine. Damn this beautiful man and his ability to manipulate feelings.
Ash grins wider. “I can fix anything, but this”—he closes his other hand over the device—“this thing feels...alive, like it’s been listening to you.”
I lean in closer. “I think my magic is somehow interfering with my dreaming. Like glitching, warping, breaking into the code somehow,” I whisper, hoping I can trust him with the information.
“Oh, I’m sure.” The neon-blue streaks highlighting his tousled hair glow with his excitement.
“Five minutes...and be sure to take this.” He hands me a small guitar pick, thin, iridescent with the NeonGods logo and a small hole at the top.
He threads a piece of silver string through it, but before he places it in my hand, he hums and taps out a beat across it.
“Wear this glitch token at all times. It won’t help you when you’re not in DreamNet, but it should return your dreams to normal... unless, of course, I’m in them.”
“Oh, you’re a dream alright,” I say softly to myself as he walks away to a side table.
“VibroKinetics.” He looks over his shoulder and smiles.
“I can manipulate sound and vibration waves, anything from subtle resonance to sonic bursts.” He bends over to dig through a box of parts.
“The ability to feel someone’s frequency...
oh, and I can hear whispered conversations from across a loud club... or just from here.”
Damn.
I feel my face flush.
“Drones!” someone screams. A crowd of frantic bodies starts scattering everywhere. A low, mechanical hum cuts through the alley as panic erupts.
Ash freezes. “Ah, hell,” he mutters calmly, like it’s just another day at the office.
Above, a cluster of black-shelled En4ce drones tear through the mist like wasps, corporate logos pulsing red across their sides. Their lenses buzz, scanning the crowd in jerking sweeps.
“Corporate sweep.” Ash stands to full height, his grin returning, wild and reckless, as if someone has just challenged him to a duel. “Guess ’ol Vikk finally noticed he wasn’t invited to our party.”
The first drone fires a stun-burst at a fleeing vendor, splintering a nearby sign in a spray of sparks. Smoke and more screams fill my senses as people bolt left and right.
“Go, Lyra! NOW!” he shouts over the madness and shoves my DreamBand at me.
I panic as well. I can literally feel my heart rising into my throat, my magic flaring like an instinct, bleeding into every device around me.
Screens all over the market flicker as my emotions tangle with the circuits, glitch-flames blooming across every digital surface, including the drone screen.
It ripples like water, the VikkCorp logo stretching into an unidentifiable shape, then, with a sound like gnats screaming, it simply bursts into a cloud of glowing, razor-sharp confetti.
“Cool trick, Lyra.” Ash is stunned, watching the lights spike. “Can you zap my street racing debt too, or are we only exploding expensive corporate property today?”
Another stun-burst sizzles past my head. The nearest drone swings toward us, lenses whirring. I curse and duck, throwing my hands up in front of us. The drone screams, and every piece of tech in the market explodes with rays of red, gold, and pink light.
Ash quickly hurls a shiny disc from his jacket, sparks flying midair. The drone explodes in a shower of blue fire, shards of metal falling to the pavement.
Ash turns to me. “Oh, I like you.” He cocks his head, as if he’s already figured me out. “Please tell me you didn’t just short-circuit a drone with your mind. My insurance doesn’t cover ‘Unexplained Sparkly Events.’ ”
With the threat squashed, the mood of the alley shifts.
The noise of fear fades, and the DarkMarket vendors return to their stalls as if nothing happened.
The crowd fills back in as they realize we’ve just taken out two corporate drones side by side.
Their metal remains lie smoking in the gutter, circuitry sparking and spitting.
My magic is still buzzing under my skin, the aftershocks still vibrating through random pieces of tech all around us. Beside me, Ash throws his head back and laughs, a feral, glorious laugh that says he was born for this shit.
People look at us as they pass by, eyes wide, as if we’re some superhero duet from one of the latest movies being played on DataLINKs. Our combined U21 magic just leveled a corporate threat in under thirty seconds.
Ash turns to me, his eyes flaring bright, glowing with a rush of adrenaline only rebels seem to share. “Not bad,” he says. “We should do crimes together more often.”
He grabs me by the shoulders with urgency. “Now go...Kael will be here any minute. I’m sure we just lit up the anomaly grid like a flashbomb, and as much as I’m sure you’d like to see him again, he’ll be here for business, not pleasure.”
“Wait...what? Why would Kael...” But Ash is already cleaning up the mess around his table, packing up the evidence. I shove the DreamBand in my jacket pocket and run down the alley, afraid to look back.