8. Anomaly
Anomaly
Playlist: Victorious (RAC Mix) - Panic At The Disco!
Kael
When I arrive at the DarkMarket, the air is still crackling with magic. I can faintly feel its hum and smell its lingering scent. The crowd is jittery, whispering, eyes darting toward the sky, expecting the CIC to show up at any moment to collect the downed drones and investigate.
I lift my hoodie higher to conceal my face from the masses mulling about the market.
My assistant, Dr. Ember Vosse, yes the same Vosse as Vikktor, corporate CEO and head of bullshit, moves beside me like a shadow.
Her VeilCaster magic thins the air and cloaks us as we walk through the smoke and haze of the alley.
Thanks to her power, anyone looking straight at us will feel their gaze slide off, unfocused.
We aren’t here for spectacle. We’re here because the anomaly grid exploded like a bomb a few minutes ago. A flare so bright and sudden we’re both convinced it’s either a budding U21 going nuclear...or someone powerful enough to normally mask their signature, finally slipped up.
Ember scans with her handheld. “Heat spikes, power signatures, air fractures—all in this small area. Someone fried the perimeter sensors and the drones it released.” She points to the two mutilated drones lying in the wet gutter. “That doesn’t happen accidentally.”
I grunt in agreement. “And the grid marked two signatures?”
“Two,” she confirms. “Dual anomalies. That’ll really make Father piss himself.”
Our purpose tonight is two-fold: corporate job obligations and personal necessity.
One: Obviously we need to investigate the anomaly blip before Vikktor sends in extraction teams.
Two: I need to secure a few pieces of black-market hardware that I need for my...“unofficial” cybernetics work in the lab. The kind of parts you can’t request without Vikktor asking questions. The kind of parts that help me build a few things off record.
We were already halfway here when the alarms went off. Perfect timing.
Ember nudges me, chin lifting toward the wall ahead. “Look.”
Monitors and screens are shimmering, threads of glitch-light twitching across them. Someone didn’t just fight back. This was a pretty powerful U21 anomaly that attacked.
It wasn’t random, more like intentional power and precision.
Interesting. I swallow.
Whoever did this, I need to find them before Vikktor does. They’ll need to be thoroughly studied.
Ember’s scanner pings, and my stomach sinks when I see why.
Fuck...of course
Ash is leaning against a table casually, like he didn’t just light up the corporate anomaly grid like a damn fireworks show.
His guitar case hangs from one hand; he’s packing up his stall with the calm of a man folding laundry, not someone who just set off half the corporate alarms in the city.
He’s grinning at me, wicked and wild, the look he gets when he knows he’s done something reckless and is painfully proud of it.
I run a hand down my face. “I knew it.”
Ash spots us and whistles low. “Well, well, if it isn’t Daddy Vikk’s favorite lapdog! Oh, wait.” He puts up his free hand. “Not anymore after tonight, huh?”
“Really?” I sigh.
Ember huffs a small laugh. “You always know when it’s him.” Like all the other women in this city, she’s way too happy to see him. “You two know each other so well.”
I groan, rubbing my temples. “Since we were kids. He’s...complicated.” We walk closer to the booth. “I always suspect that he’s involved the second the grid spikes.” I gesture to the ruined drones. “This has Ash written all over it: loud, messy, and entirely unnecessary.”
Ash smiles wider, glancing over at Ember. “Complicated? Maybe. But definitely entertaining. And you, Red, look beautiful tonight. “ His piercing blue eyes scan her from head to toe. ”Don’t worry, love! I’m on your side...mostly.”
He looks straight at me and gives me another shit-eating grin as he tosses a small device onto the ground. It buzzes, projecting a holographic map of the corrupted network. “Welcome to my playground, brother.”
I whisper-yell, as I scan the market for anyone who may be looking. “Ash! Put that away!”
He doesn’t even flinch.
It hums to life projecting a 3D holographic map of the city grid, glitching and pulsing where the anomaly flashes collided with the drones.
He throws up both hands like I’ve offended him. “Relax, Kaze. I was helping.” The old nickname he used to call me when we both were under the care of Master Kenji—also the one he uses when he’s being especially insufferable. “I got this. You can thank me later.”
Ember groans softly under her breath. “He’s going to get himself killed...and us.”
“Helping?” I snap. “You sent up an anomaly flare bright enough to wake LINK from a coma.”
Ash snorts. “If ‘LINK’ ”—he air quotes with his fingers dramatically—“your wretched AI girlfriend can’t handle two broken drones, then she deserves to malfunction. Right Red?”
“Haha, very funny...and,” I add darkly, “there were two signatures.”
Ash’s brows lift, but something smug flickers behind his eyes.
Ah...it’s written all over his face...not alone, then.
Ember’s eyes narrow, but she can’t help smirking back at him playfully. “Red? That’s new.” She approaches him, hands still in her long, black tech coat.
Ash raises two fingers toward his head “Flaming copper-red that glints like molten metal,” he sings.
Gods. How does he do it? Sure, Ember’s milk white skin and freckles across her nose make her an attractive lab assistant, but I really didn’t think she would fall for Ash’s charm in this manner.
She leans in toward him. “Where is the other one...Blondie?” she quips back.
Ash takes a slow step backward, grin spreading. “Oh,” he purrs, tilting his head, “she left.”
She?
Ember picks up the device off the ground. It resembles a small round, white ball in her hand. She stares into the map intently taking note of all the blips showing the sites for anomalies around the city.
Ash smirks. “Careful, sweetheart. That thing bites.”
Ember locks eyes with him, tosses her chin-length bob, and pockets it after giving it a toss in the air. “So do I.”
I groan. It’s all I can manage because I’ve had a rough night at the lab, and I already know this is going to be a shitshow. “Dr. Vosse, can you grab the data chips we need for tomorrow’s update? I need a minute here.”
Her smoldering amber eyes are unblinking; she’s still sizing up Ash. “Yes, Dr. Ryudon.” Ember pulls her DataLINK out of the scarf-like tech wrap around her neck. It’s where she hides tiny tools, thumb drives, and self-defense gadgets.
“Must have been a damn good TekkGirlScout!” Ash adds, following her every move.
“Can we focus here please? I’m already going to have to scrub you off yet another one of Vikktor’s watchlists after tonight.” I shake my head, taking my hands out of my pockets.
Ash smirks without looking up. “Nice uniform, Company Boy. You blend right in down here. The hoodie is so gangster.”
I ignore the jab and cross my arms. “You’re on three different watchlists. If you set off any more alarms or anyone spots you with that tech, you’ll be in a van by midnight.”
He goes back to packing up his booth, guitar slung across his back like a weapon, fingers dancing across the exposed circuitry of a stolen comm unit. He stomps on a part of a downed drone, sparks flying up his leg.
“You’re going to fry yourself one of these days,” I comment, standing behind him in his shadow.
“Good thing you’re here then.” He finally glances up, another grin sliding across his face. “I’m sure you’ll just erase me again, or am I just so damn charming that even the Corp can’t keep me locked in their little system?”
I sigh. He really is a pain in my ass. “You think this is a game, but every time I wipe your name, it gets harder to hide it. One day, Ash, I won’t be able to cover you.”
The grin falters for just a second. Then Ash shoves a couple of hacked comms into a duffle bag. “You always say that.” His voice is a bit lighter than it should be. “And yet here I am breathing, playing, not in a corporate jail.”
I can feel my jaw tighten. “You make it sound like I’m the enemy.”
Ash zips the duffle bag, those crazy eyes glowing.
“You wear their fancy suits, their corporate colors. That’s all anyone out here sees.
” He lets the words hang in the thick air, then softens them with a crooked smile.
“But me? I know better. I know you’d vaporize the Corporation if I asked you to.
” He walks toward me, chest-to-chest. “Or if she asked you to...”
I don’t answer right away. Don’t have to. He knows something I don’t...again.
SHE.
The silence between us lingers as my thoughts race. “She who?” I give him a puzzled look. But I know he can sense it, the unhealthy infatuation I have with the girl from STATIK, a perfect puzzle meant for me to decode.
Ash turns back for a moment on his way out. “Your little sun is about to burn out if you don’t do something fast. Arrogant as you are my friend, I still don’t want to see you get fried.”
“Dr. Ryudon,” Ember rejoins me with a small black bag filled with the illegal items we need for the next upgrade of our experimental cybernetics lab. “I have everything, I think we need to get back to the lab and have a look at the anomalies that surged tonight.” She motions to the glowing stairs.
“Can you...?” I twirl my tattooed fingers around in the air “You know...” I’m asking her to cast her illusion veil discreetly.
She lifts her finger up casually as if she’s pointing to the sky, bending the light to create a cloaking field.
“We don’t need anyone recognizing us down here. ” I dash to the side of her.
“Of course, Doctor.” She leads, tapping her implant behind her ear to call her car to the end of the alley.
Before it arrives, out of the corner of my eye a flash of an image breaks into a screen set up for one of the vendors.
A dragon, black and iridescent flying straight into the sun.
It doesn’t stop, doesn’t falter, just continues on its death path then explodes into white light.