Ten years in Neo-Detroit's underbelly taught Jorge Reed one immutable truth: this city didn't kill you. It consumed you. Slowly. Grinding bone and hope into the gray paste that coated its rain-slicked streets.
He moved through the canyon-like alleys of Old Downtown like a shadow—a wiry sixteen-year-old in a patched synth-leather jacket two sizes too big. Above him, the chrome spires of Veridian Dynamics and Shogunatech pierced the perpetual smog, their holographic sigils staining the twilight: a predatory chrome V, a crimson samurai mask dripping digital blood. Below, in the concrete gulfs where sunlight never reached, the Gutter Kings ruled.
The air reeked of wet concrete, ozone from leaking mana conduits, and the greasy tang of fried synth-rice from Mama Lo's stall—a scent that usually meant temporary sanctuary. Not tonight.
Three figures materialized from the gloom, blocking the alley mouth. Bulkier than Jorge, augmented with grimy cybernetics that whined with neglect. Chrome knuckledusters glinted on their fists, tiny plasma coils sparking between the fingers. Their leader, a brute with scar-tissue welding his left eye shut and a mouthful of filed metal teeth, grinned. "Wallet. Cyber-eyes. That jacket looks warm, Mundie."
Mundie. The slur for the magic-deficient. Jorge's carefully cultivated disguise. His cage.
His soldier's mind snapped into the cold calculus of Fallujah. Assets: Overflowing dumpster (cover, potential projectile). Hissing mana conduit leaking violet vapor (environmental hazard/trap). Dead-end alley (funnel, but also kill box). Threats: Plasma-knuckles (close-range stun/shock). Unknown augments (strength? speed?).
"Please," Jorge rasped, letting his voice tremble with teenage fear while his eyes scanned exits. He edged backward toward the leaking conduit, hands raised. "I got nothing. Just heading to Mama Lo's—"
"Shoulda thought of that before wanderin' King turf after dark, pretty boy," Chrome-Teeth sneered, stepping closer. The plasma coils on his fists flared brighter, casting flickering light on the grime-streaked walls.
Ambush parameters set.
Chrome-Teeth lunged, a predictable haymaker aimed at Jorge's face. Jorge didn't flinch. He dropped low, pivoting on the ball of his worn boot. The whistling fist passed over his head. Jorge's own movement was pure economy—a sidestep, a raised forearm deflecting the follow-up swing, his free hand snaking out to slam the rusted valve wheel on the conduit beside him.
HISSSSS!
A pressurized jet of violet mana, thick as oil and smelling of burnt copper and ozone, erupted. It struck Chrome-Teeth full in the face. Flesh sizzled like bacon on a griddle. A strangled gurgle escaped his metal teeth as his skin blistered and blackened, eyes boiling in their sockets. He collapsed, twitching, steam rising from his ruined face.
Ambush sprung. Target neutralized.
The other two Kings roared, shock turning to rage. They charged simultaneously. Jorge flowed into the violence—a dance choreographed in blood and sand a lifetime ago. A twist to the left, fingers finding the pressure point beneath a thug's jaw. A sickening crunch as nerves short-circuited. The man dropped, gagging. Jorge didn't stop. He spun, using the momentum to drive his elbow into the third King's solar plexus. Air exploded from the man's lungs. A knee snapped up, connecting with his chin. Bone cracked. He crumpled against the brick wall, sliding down into unconsciousness.
Silence, broken only by the hiss of the conduit and Jorge's own ragged breaths. He stared at his hands—a teenager's hands, calloused but unscarred. They trembled slightly. These hands just killed a man. The clinical detachment of the soldier warred with the visceral horror of the child's body he inhabited. The smell of cooked meat—human meat—filled his nostrils. Bile rose in his throat.
A wet, rattling cough came from the shadows. The second thug Jorge had nerve-struck was stirring, fumbling inside his grimy coat. Jorge's spatial sense—that phantom limb he barely understood—itched. Danger.
The thug pulled out a weapon—a blocky, industrial pistol with a cracked green crystal glowing sickly in its housing. He leveled it, eyes wide with pain and hate. "Blackwood... sends his regards... freak!"
The pistol hummed, the crystal flaring. Jorge didn't think. He willed himself down, picturing the wet concrete rushing up to meet him.
The world blurred. Not movement. Displacement. A gut-churning lurch, colder than the Detroit rain.
FZZZ-CRACK!
A bolt of viridian energy seared the air where his chest had been a microsecond before, vaporizing raindrops and scorching the brick wall behind him into bubbling slag. The smell of ionized air and melted stone stung Jorge's nostrils.
He reappeared crouched six inches lower, heart hammering against his ribs. The thug stared, slack-jawed, at the empty space. "How the f—?"
Jorge was already moving. Two strides closed the distance. His hands, acting on muscle memory older than this body, found the man's head. A sharp twist. A brittle snap. The body slumped, joining its comrades on the greasy concrete.
Silence descended again, heavier now. The rain fell harder, washing diluted streams of violet mana and blood into the gutter.
Then—Beep. Beep. Beep.
A rhythmic, electronic pulse from the dead thug's chest. Jorge knelt, peeling back the sodden jacket. Embedded beneath the sternum was a small, blinking device—a kill-switch implant. Veridian tech.
No time.
Jorge threw himself backward, scrambling for the dubious cover of the dumpster.
KA-WHAM!
The corpse erupted in a fireball of superheated gore and shrapnel. Jorge felt the searing heat, the concussive thump against his chest. Shrapnel tore through his jacket sleeve, biting deep into the muscle of his left shoulder. Pain, white-hot and immediate, lanced through him. He hit the ground hard, skidding through muck and debris, ears ringing, vision swimming.
He spat blood and filthy water, pushing himself up on trembling arms. Smoke and the stench of charred meat filled the alley. Above the swirling haze, a sleek, disc-shaped drone hovered silently. A single red optic lens glowed beneath its Veridian V insignia. It had watched everything.
A synthesized voice, devoid of emotion, echoed down the alleyway:
"Subject J-Reed. Locational Anomaly Confirmed. Spatial Affinity Verified. Threat Assessment: Alpha. Initiate Retrieval Protocol."
Red targeting lasers snapped on, painting dancing dots on Jorge's chest and forehead.
Someone powerful wanted him.
His second life—a fragile, hidden thing—was already over.