The chatter and sounds of the gang drifted up the stairway, a chaotic symphony of laughter, arguing, and the pounding beat of punk music blaring from the old sound system. The raw guitar riffs and furious drums acted like a defibrillator on my exhaustion, shocking my tired system back to life. It was 1:00 in the morning, but the sanctum was alive. Most of the gang was here, partying. It was Friday night, and none of us had anywhere else to be, anyone else to be. Other places demanded explanations, required masks, and judged your past. Here, we were accepted. Here, we were family.
We were not of the same blood. Christ, I didn't know the true names or even the gender of most of them. But it didn't matter. We were a tapestry woven from frayed edges and broken threads, and we were there for each other.
We hadn't even gotten halfway down the stairs when Jonna, spotting us, launched a half-empty bottle of vodka through the air in a reckless, spinning arc. Meki, without breaking stride, snatched it one-handed, their reflexes never failing to impress. They screwed the lid off with a sharp twist, took a large, defiant gulp, and then slammed the base of the bottle on the metal railing for attention.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Gutter-sprites and ghosts!" they announced, their voice cutting through the music, which someone quickly turned down. All eyes turned to us. "Meet Nimble! Queen of the Air, destroyer of drones!" They took another long pull from the bottle, the liquid courage or perhaps just the courage of the moment, fuelling their performance. "To Nimble, queen of the air!" Meki raised the bottle high in a mock toast, drank again, and then passed the slick, cold glass into my hands.
The whole room, a sea of grinning, paint-smeared, and scarred faces, said in chorus, "To Nimble!" The sound was a wave of warmth that hit me square in the chest. I drank deeply, the cheap vodka burning a welcome path down my throat. I was never good at crowds, not even here, in this sanctuary. I didn't have the easy, magnetic charm that Meki possessed, the ability to command a room with a laugh. But the alcohol usually helped quiet the static in my head.
As I lowered the bottle, my eyes scanned the room, taking in the familiar faces that made up my world. There was Jonna, our unofficial leader, full of fiery rhetoric for the cause and herself, but the first to throw themself in harm's way for any one of us. Thing, a gentle giant by anyone's standards, whose massive frame housed a soul that would never hurt a fly. Jade and Sona, inseparable, always tangled in each other's arms, a single entity of whispered secrets and soft touches.
Bites, our best harvester and procurer, a genius at finding the unfindable; if Bites couldn't get it, it wasn't worth having.
Banksy, our artist and poet, who was even now adding a fresh splash of colour to the ever-evolving mural on the far wall, a paintbrush in one hand, the vodka bottle in the other.
Only Ant and Star were missing from the core group. Well, except for Mother and Father, who were always elsewhere and those that we had lost.
The thought was a cold stone dropped into the warm pool of the celebration. My eyes, almost of their own accord, rested on the memorial painted on the side of the main support wall.
It was a sprawling, beautiful, and heartbreaking piece of art. There were thirty-seven names written there in elegant, haunting script, many followed by missing dates. I had only known two of them personally: Joy and Finger. Both were lost on the same night six months ago, picked up by the police during a data-siphon run and never heard from again. Their names were still fresh wounds.
The other thirty-five names were from before my time, but they were not strangers. We shared their stories like heirlooms. I saw the cluster, twenty-seven of the names had their missing dates within a single, brutal week of each other. All of them in the first week of September 2031. The Last of the Free Open Riots. The final, bloody gasp of widespread public resistance before the system truly clamped down. They were our martyrs, our foundation. And as the music swelled again and the party lurched back into motion, their silent presence was a reminder of why we fought, and why nights like this, this fragile, beautiful family, were worth everything.
Before my feet had even hit the last worn step of the staircase, I was engulfed. A wave of warm, cheering bodies rushed in, pulling me from the dim stairwell into the vibrant chaos of the ground floor. The air, thick with the scent of unwashed sleeping bags, cheap vodka, and excited humanity, was a palpable force. A dozen voices crashed over me at once, a symphony of excited, drunk, slurred speech. Hands clapped my back, fingers brushed my arms, and faces, flushed with drink and admiration, pressed in close.
"Nimble! Holy shit, we saw the alert!"
"Tell us everything!"
"Are you hurt? You look like you wrestled a concrete mixer!"
The questions came like gunfire, overlapping and incoherent. I opened my mouth, but my mind was a scrambled mess of falling, sparks, and the blinding police light. I felt a familiar panic, the pressure to perform, to put the raw, terrifying experience into neat, heroic words.
Meki's voice, sharp and clear as shattered glass, cut through the din.
"Oi! Let the girl breathe, you pack of rabid dogs!"
They were leaning against the old bar, tipping a bottle of vodka to their lips. A collective, slightly chastened laugh went through the crowd, and the press of bodies eased just enough for me to draw a full breath.
All eyes were on me. I took the bottle someone offered, the glass cool in my sweaty palm.
"Well, I…" I started, my voice sounding small and raspy. I took a swift, burning gulp, hoping the liquor would sand down the rough edges of my nerves. "We got another one… an E.I.T.S.-5."
The effect was instantaneous. A sharp, collective intake of breath sliced through the room. For a split second, there was a vacuum of pure, stunned silence. You could hear the hum of a forgotten power supply from across the room. The Gen 5 wasn't just a drone; it was a myth, a top-tier predator in our urban jungle. Taking one down was the stuff of legends, not Tuesday nights.
Then, the silence shattered. The chatter and questions exploded out with renewed, frantic energy.
"Where?"
"When?"
"How the hell did you even get close?"
"Did the Hounds see you?"
"Did you get the core?"
I tried again, holding up a hand. "I was on the roof, see, and Meki was counting down…" I stuttered, my account already faltering. I restarted, "So, the jump, it was… you know, from about six meters…" The words felt clumsy and inadequate, failing to capture the roaring wind, the gut-lurching fall, the violent impact. I took another desperate swig of vodka, the heat doing little to untangle my tongue. I was butchering it, reducing our epic, terrifying feat into a stumbling, boring report.
Thankfully, Meki slammed the vodka bottle onto the bar with a definitive thud.
"Gods, Nimble, you tell a story like you're reading a motherboard schematic. Move over, hero, let an artist work."