17 June, 2039 — Windy
The system is still a circus—magic flung for applause, rules bent for novelty. Eight years before the countdown hits zero, and they're wasting it on party tricks.
The pen stopped mid-sentence.
Three knocks at the door. Not loud—persistent.
I leaned back in my chair until my spine popped, then slid to the peephole.
Hoodie. Doorbell pressed under his thumb like he was trying to wear a groove in it.
I cracked the door an inch, hissing while biting the back of my teeth.
"It's broken. Keep pressing if you like, though. I enjoy the sound of nothing."
He said nothing, just reached into his pocket and pulled out a lockpick kit.
"Really?" I raised a brow. "You break into houses as foreplay?"
He rolled his eyes. "Job offer."
"No thanks. My anime's airing tonight."
His mouth twitched. "Seventy thousand."
That earned him half a second of silence before I crossed my arms. "Details."
He crouched, set a manila folder neatly on the floor like it was a dead rat, and walked away. The sound of his boots on the concrete hallway faded.
I opened the door, hooked the file with two fingers, and scanned the front page.
Mission 617 — Kill the Head of Norse
Location: Unknown
Commission: $70,000
"That's it?" My voice was flat. "Where's the rest of it?"
I kicked the wall to release the irritation. Bad idea. My toes pulsed in protest.
I whined and rolled myself onto the bed in pain.
"Alright, sweeties," I said to the anime countdown clock on the wall with a sigh, "We're on pause."
I reset it to 5:59:59.
I unlatched the leather case from under my desk. The hinges gave with a soft click, and faint light spilled out, brushing my fingers as they found the weapon inside.
Glass, shimmering like crystals— but not. Stronger than steel, warmer than stone. The spiral frame shimmered under my touch, colors sliding over its surface like oil on water. One second, it caught the room in a flash of cold silver; the next, it melted into the shadows as if it had never been there.
I twisted the grip. The embedded sensors stirred awake with a low hum, flooding my vision with overlays — thermal signatures glowing like ghosts, heartbeats pulsing in the dark, energy traces weaving through the streets below.
In my hands, it was whatever I needed it to be — sniper's eye, unbreakable shield, or a sunbeam honed to a razor's edge, sharp enough to cut the quiet in half.
The perfection of works in armories.
I slung it across my back. The rain outside had thickened into a steady curtain, cold already creeping into my collar. I stepped into it anyway.
Tonight, the city was humming. Wind cut across alleyways, carrying the sharp tang of wet concrete and exhaust. Neon signs flickered in puddles, fractured into shards of color that danced beneath hurried feet. Steam curled from street-stall vents, carrying the scent of grilled meat, soy, and something sharp—ginger, maybe.
People moved in small clusters, heads ducked, voices low. This street used to be dead quiet after the coup, nothing but hollow footsteps and the rustle of rats in the gutters. Now… life was trickling back. A dangerous kind of comfort.
Three blocks down, a street mage was throwing sparks for a crowd, wasting mana like it was candy. His hands jittered, sloppy circles drawn mid-air — no stabilizing glyphs, no feedback loop. Each burst sputtered against the rain, barely holding shape. The crowd cheered anyway.
This was the problem with the system: inefficiency masquerading as brilliance. The mana lattice could hold ten times that output if people bothered to learn control, but no one did.
I caught the echo of footsteps too steady to be random. A tail.
I let my pace quicken, drifting into an alley lit by a single buzzing lamp. Left turn. Right turn. Pause in front of a noodle stall.
"One wine noodle," I told the shopkeeper.
The shadow closed in.
"Make it two," I added, "extra wine."
The man behind the counter gave me a nod and vanished into the steam.
I turned.
Hoodie again.
"Why the hell were you walking so fast, idiot?"
"Because you were following me. Rookie mistake."
We scoffed at each other across the hiss of boiling broth.
His hands fidgeted. Mine didn't. I can't blame him much since his count to join in missions is merely more than ten fingers.
I knew his type—messenger. Different breed from mercenaries like me. They carry contracts, not weapons. Most of them grew up without a last name, which makes them perfect for a job that requires no one to care when you disappear. Organisations hire them to distribute jobs to inactive mercs. Most are orphans. No attachments, no questions asked.
But things changed when the system came in; he had to fight for his life as more mercs died in frenzy or hid in the shadows. Jobs are running out of people to complete them.
He followed my gaze to the street mage. "Not bad."
"He's a disaster."
"Yeah, but the crowd's happy."
"That's not the point."
"Maybe not to you," Kael shrugged, and when the bowls landed, he ate like a man with a deadline, chopsticks clicking. "But you don't win people by making them better. You win them by making them look better."
I didn't answer. The mage's third burst fizzled into nothing, the crowd groaning. Both our appetites bent over our bowls, shouldering aside talk, coins clinking into the owner's tip jar as empty hearts were fed.
The steam from the kitchen and night rain fogged the air between us.
Kael didn't even bother with chopsticks — just tipped the bowl to his mouth and dragged the noodles down in long, unapologetic pulls.
"You're dripping broth on your gun," I said without looking up from my datapad.
"You're dripping suspicion on everyone around us," he shot back, mouth still half-full.
The ward map filled my screen — alleys, rooftops, choke points marked in neat, color-coded lines. A single red dot pulsed three streets away.
"Target's here. Ten minutes before they move again. We circle two blocks north, cut through—"
He stood up.
"We could also just… go."
"No," I said. "We map first. Movement now risks exposure. If you—"
But he was already gone, boots splashing into the dark beyond the awning. With my bowl of noodles emptied by him as well.
I closed my eyes in a deep sigh. Counted to three. Calculated chaos, I reminded myself. Only tonight, it felt more like an idiotic suicide.
I followed, weaving through the dripping crowd until the smell of rain-sharpened metal filled my nose. Kael moved ahead of me with the casual confidence of someone who either knew the terrain or didn't care if it killed him.
The target came into view — heavy coat, two guards with eyes that swept like scanners. Kael didn't slow. He veered into a street magician's crowd, let the press of bodies swallow him, and then popped out right in front of the guards.
"Evening," he said, smiling like a man selling knives door-to-door.
The nearest guard's hand twitched toward his weapon —
—and then the magician's finale went off. Not part of Kael's plan, but timed like it was: a burst of multicolored fire split the air, sparks raining down like molten confetti. The crowd gasped and surged, bodies pressing tighter.
I moved with them. Slipped through the chaos, my sensors locking on the target. A quick brush of my wrist against his coat seam — tracker placed — and I was gone before he even turned his head.
By the time the guards cleared the crush of people, Kael was leaning against a wall, finishing the last bite of my noodles.
"You ruined my plan," I said flatly.
"Yeah," he said, licking broth from his thumb. "But hey — it worked."
[Chaos Scoreboard: 1] flickered in my HUD. I hated that the system even tracked it.
The rain thinned to a mist by the time we reached the safehouse — a squat concrete block with a rusted shutter and the sour smell of damp cloth inside. I set my rifle case on the table and flicked the latch. Kael leaned against the wall, leaving wet crescents on the floor while he wiped his gun with his jacket.
The lights flickered twice before my comm buzzed.
"Signal check," came a voice.
Low. Warm. Almost lazy, but with that edge that said the speaker knew far too much.
"Amaya," I said.
"In the flesh," she replied, though she never was. "Well, not here. Not where you can see. You two stirred up quite a light show in Ward Seven."
"That was him," I glared at Kael.
"I was adapting to the moment," he whistled, all mock offense.
Amaya chuckled in my ear. "Vyn, you ever notice how 'adapting' sounds a lot like 'winging it'?"
"I noticed," I said, checking the tracker. The red dot blinked steady on my wrist display. "Target's marked. He's heading for the northern docks."
"Mhm. And here's the fun part — he's got a mage escort. Coffee type."
My eyes narrowed. "The drink?"
"The system," Amaya corrected. "Reality-bending nonsense. Turns beans into bullets or flower arrangements. Incredibly inefficient."
Kael grinned. "Inefficient for you, maybe. For me, that's a challenge."
I ignored him, pulling up the dock map. "We'll need a choke point, suppressive cover, and—"
"No time," Amaya cut in, her tone sharpening. "He's moving faster than expected. Five minutes before he's on a boat. If you want him, you run."
Kael was already at the door. "I like her style."
"You would," I muttered, slinging my rifle and following.
The docks reeked of rust and tide. Cargo cranes rose into the mist, sodium lights turning the wet planks into sheets of dull gold. The tracker's pulse quickened — Pier 14.
Kael jogged beside me, rifle slung loose. "You ever notice how piers all look the same?"
"I notice how you talk when you should be quiet."
He grinned. "Just keeping morale up."
Before I could answer, the smell hit me — sharp, bitter, rich.
From behind a stack of crates, a figure stepped out, twirling a faintly glowing coffee bean. He flicked it into the air. It swelled into a steaming mug, which shattered mid-flight into molten droplets that screamed toward us. The System was recording efficiency, chaos score, reaction time. Every detail mattered.
I ducked behind a container. The metal pinged and hissed.
"That," I said through clenched teeth, "is the stupidest use of matter transformation I've ever seen."
"Yeah," Kael called, vaulting the crate, "but look how fast it is!"
He charged straight into the splash zone. The mage faltered just long enough for me to tag the target's leg with a stun round. A red dot pulsed in my HUD—Pier 14 mission data uploading to the System, recording success.
Kael tackled the mage, the two of them skidding across slick planks into a pile of netting.
Kael leaned down, shaking the mage roughly. "Talk. What are you carrying? Where's the access point?"
The mage gurgled gibberish, words spitting out like scrambled code. Kael's fists hesitated—then the mage went limp, knocked out before he could surrender.
By the time I reached them, Kael was laughing. "See? Worked out."
"You got lucky," I said, hauling the stunned target upright.
"Sometimes lucky is just fast planning."
"Fast planning doesn't exist."
"It does if you don't tell anyone the plan."
The corner of my mouth twitched as my eyes rolled. I hated that. Almost as much as I hated that his recklessness had worked.
We dragged the target out. Kael leaned close. "Maybe we're not so different."
"You think I'd admit that?"
"Didn't say in writing."
The mist swallowed our footsteps.
We made it back to the safehouse just before dawn, still damp with sea spray. The building was five stories of peeling paint and mismatched window panels. Inside, the hallways smelled like mold and instant noodles.
Kael dumped the unconscious mage in a reinforced chair and wandered to the kitchen. I locked the door and set my rifle on the table, stripping it down piece by piece.
"You know," Kael said, "you didn't have to go for the leg. Could've been cleaner."
"It was clean."
"Clean's relative. We could've just knocked him overboard."
I paused. "And waste a perfectly good data trace?"
He tilted his head. "You actually believe in this 'contribution' thing, don't you?"
"Eight years left. The system runs the world. You fight it, you die with nothing. You work inside it, maybe you push humanity's odds a little higher."
He laughed once, pulled a black matte card from his jacket — shimmering faintly like heat haze.
"That's cute," he said. "I've got a different plan."
I eyed it. "What is that?"
"A ticket," he said. "Let's you into the system's backend. Only works once. You don't contribute with this — you rewrite."
"Rewrite? How?"
"Don't know," he admitted with a shrug. "Coffee mage said it's the key. Could be code, could be rules, could be reality itself. Nobody's tested it. Not fully. Not safely."
"And you trust it?" I asked, voice sharper than I meant.
"I trust the idea," he said. "If the game's rigged, flipping the table's the only way to even see the pieces. Maybe it works, maybe it explodes. Either way, it changes things."
I wanted to dismantle the idea, pull it apart until nothing was left. But the way he said it—reckless, certain—made me think of molten coffee turned to shrapnel, and how absurdity had somehow worked.
And that bothered me more than I cared to admit.