The sky over Sector 9 was never truly dark; it was a permanent, suffocating haze of bruised copper and chemical grey. Acid rain—the "Ash-Salt" as the locals called it—had started to fall again, hissing as it ate away at the rusted hulls of the shipping containers that served as the city's outermost walls.
Kael adjusted the tattered filter of his respirator. The air inside the mag-lev train was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and cheap synthetic tobacco. Across from him, a mother held a damp rag over her infant's mouth, her eyes hollow, staring at nothing.
Welcome home, Kael thought, his hand instinctively brushing the hard shape of the combat knife tucked into his boot.
Three years. Three years of dodging artillery fire in the Northern Wastes only to return to a place that felt more like a tomb than a city. He was a "Returnee"—a ghost coming back to haunt a graveyard.
The train groaned to a halt at the Lower Dock platform. The doors hissed open, and the humidity hit him like a physical blow. Kael stepped out, his boots crunching on layers of discarded ration packets and jagged scrap metal.
"Hey! Soldier Boy!"
A familiar, gravelly voice cut through the rhythmic thrum of the city's ventilation fans. Standing by a flickering neon sign that read 'BREATHE SAFE – 5 CREDITS' was a man built like a brick wall. His face was a map of scars, dominated by a jagged line that ran from his temple to his jaw.
Silas. His cousin. The only man in this hellhole Kael could trust with his back.
"You look like you've been chewed up and spat out by a death-claw," Silas grinned, wrapping Kael in a crushing embrace. Silas smelled of diesel and stale beer—the scent of survival in Sector 9.
"I missed you too, Silas," Kael muttered, pulling back to scan the area. His military training didn't just turn off. He noticed the two men in grey utility jackets leaning against a pillar fifty yards away. Their hands were tucked into oversized pockets. Enforcers.
Silas noticed his gaze. "Ignore them. Just Syndicate vultures looking for an easy mark. They won't touch a Returnee... not yet, anyway."
"How's the family?" Kael asked as they began walking toward the sprawling maze of the Gutter.
Silas's smile didn't reach his eyes this time. He spat a glob of dark phlegm onto the tracks. "My old man's lungs are failing. The Sanitation Union hiked the 'Med-Tax' again. If we don't pay the new premium by Friday, they cut off his oxygen supply. It's not just us, Kael. The whole block is drowning."
They turned into an alleyway so narrow the sky disappeared entirely. Steam hissed from overhead pipes, and the neon lights of the brothels above cast long, bloody shadows on the wet pavement.
"I didn't come back to watch Uncle Joe die in a dark room," Kael said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous frequency.
"I know," Silas said, stopping in front of a heavy iron door. He turned to Kael, his expression deadly serious. "There's a shipment coming into Pier 4 tonight. Industrial-grade filters and concentrated antibiotics. The Syndicate didn't register it. It's a 'Ghost Cargo.' We hit it, we live like kings for a year. We fail, and we're just more fertilizer for the Ash-Salt."
Kael looked at his cousin. He saw the desperation, the quiet rage, and the flickers of the same fire that used to burn in his own chest.
"What's the play?" Kael asked.
Silas handed him a rusted, heavy-duty crowbar and a burner phone. "We meet at midnight. Bring the knife. Tonight, we stop being victims."
Kael gripped the cold iron of the crowbar. The city roared around them, a hungry beast waiting to be fed.
"Tonight," Kael echoed, "we eat."