The rain in Neo-Babel didn't wash things clean; it just made the grime slicker.
Ren pulled the collar of his synthetic leather jacket up, trying to shield his neck from the acidic drizzle. It was a losing battle. The jacket, much like Ren's career, his bank account, and his life expectancy, was falling apart at the seams.
"Access denied. Insufficient credits," the vending machine chirped cheerfully.
Ren sighed, staring at the glowing red text reflecting off his dark eyes. He gave the machine a practiced, technical kick to the lower chassis—right where the cooling unit met the logic board. The machine whirred, sputtered, and reluctantly spat out a lukewarm can of Soy-Caf.
"Maintenance override successful," Ren muttered to himself, cracking the tab. "See? I've still got the touch."
He took a sip and grimaced. It tasted like burnt battery acid and despair. Perfect. It was the flavor of a Monday in Sector 4.
Ren was twenty-four years old, unaugmented, and aggressively average. In a city where people had hydraulic arms, optical camouflage, and neural links that let them download kung-fu directly into their brains, Ren's only skill was that he was good at fixing things other people broke. He was a Fixer—not the cool kind that arranged assassinations, but the kind that delivered packages and repaired toaster ovens for grandmas who didn't trust drones.
Today, his job was simple: deliver a data shard to a chop-shop in the Lower Decks. The pay was fifty credits. Enough for rent, if his landlord was feeling generous.
He navigated the labyrinth of neon-lit alleyways, stepping over puddles that shimmered with oil rainbows. The Lower Decks were dangerous. The gangs here didn't ask questions; they just harvested your organs and sold them by the pound.
Ren checked his wrist-comp. Distance to target: 200 meters.
He turned a corner into a dead-end alleyway, shortcutting through the maintenance sector.
"Well, well. Look at this unprocessed meat."
Ren froze.
Three figures stepped out from behind a pile of rusted trash compactors. They were augmented, heavily. The leader had a jaw made of chrome and eyes that glowed a menacing red. The other two had hydraulic claws for hands. These weren't low-level punks; they were The Rust Jackals.
"Wrong turn, buddy," Chrome-Jaw sneered, stepping closer. The servos in his legs whined with mechanical menace.
Ren raised his hands, the can of Soy-Caf trembling slightly. "Look, guys. I've got nothing. No chrome, no credits. I'm just a courier. You harvest me, you'll get maybe five credits worth of calcium and a lot of disappointment."
"We're bored," the leader grinned, drawing a serrated knife that hummed with vibration. "We don't need the credits. We just want the fun."
Ren backed up until his spine hit the cold, wet brick of the wall. This is it, he thought. This is how I go out. Stabbed in an alley over a delivery worth fifty bucks. I didn't even clear my browser history.
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Please, just make it quick."
The leader lunged.
THWIP.
A sound like a whisper cutting through silk echoed in the alley.
Then, a wet, heavy thud.
Ren flinched, waiting for the pain. It didn't come. He waited another second. Still nothing. Slowly, he peeled one eye open.
Chrome-Jaw was face down in a puddle. There was no blood, no wound—he was just… off. As if someone had pulled his power cord.
"Boss?" one of the lackeys grunted, confused. He reached down to check on him.
ZZZT.
A spark erupted from a junction box high above on the wall. A loose cable, seemingly dislodged by the wind, swung down like a pendulum. It slapped the second lackey right on the exposed neural port at the base of his neck.
The lackey convulsed, eyes rolling back, and collapsed instantly into a twitching heap.
The third guy stared at his two fallen comrades, then at the sparking wire, and finally at Ren. His mechanical claws clicked nervously.
"You… you're a Net-Runner?" the thug stammered, terror flooding his voice. "You fried their chips with your mind?"
Ren blinked. "What? No, I—"
"Monster!" the thug shrieked. He turned and scrambled up the fire escape, slipping on the wet metal in his haste to get away from the terrifying, unaugmented boy standing in the rain.
Ren stood alone in the alley. He looked at the unconscious leader. He looked at the sparking wire swinging innocently in the breeze.
"Faulty wiring," Ren whispered, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Man, the infrastructure in this city is going to hell. That guy's surge protector must have been garbage."
He stepped gingerly over the bodies. As he passed the leader, he noticed something shiny sticking out of the guy's pocket. A cred-stick.
Ren hesitated. It was stealing. But then again, they tried to kill him. And it was sticking right there.
He plucked it. Checked the balance.
5,000 Credits.
Ren's eyes bulged. "Holy… that's six months of rent."
He looked up at the smog-choked sky, rain plastering his hair to his forehead. "Maybe my luck is finally turning around. Thanks, universe!"
He shoved the credits into his pocket and sprinted out of the alley before the thugs rebooted, whistling a cheerful tune.
[Rooftop, 400 meters away]
The rain didn't touch her. An invisible thermal field evaporated the droplets inches before they hit her suit.
She lowered the Barret-Arasaka MK-V sniper rifle. It was a weapon designed to punch through tank armor, but she had modified it to fire non-lethal, high-frequency EMP needles. The shot she had taken to neutralize the gang leader was impossible for a human—through three venting ducts, ricocheting off a satellite dish, and landing precisely in the shut-down node of the thug's cortex.
Viper exhaled, her breath hitching in her throat.
She watched Ren through her scope. She watched him check the bodies, watched him steal the money (a small smile tugged at her lips), and watched him run away safe.
Her hand, usually steady enough to perform surgery, was shaking.
"I found you," she whispered, her voice cracking.
She pulled a locket from under her tactical vest. Inside was an old, faded holographic photo from a timeline that no longer existed. It showed a younger Viper, bloody and beaten, being bandaged up by a smiling, unaugmented Ren.
'You don't have to be strong to save people, Vi,' the Ren in her memory said. 'You just have to be there.'
He had died three days after that photo was taken. He took a rail-gun round meant for her. She had conquered the world, killed the Demon King, and rewritten the laws of physics, but she had never been able to bring him back.
Until now.
Viper keyed her comms.
"Target secured," she said, her voice turning cold as ice. "Sector 4 is compromised. The Rust Jackals dared to draw a weapon on him."
A male voice crackled in her ear. It was Kael, the Cyber-Samurai. "Did you kill them?"
"No. Ren doesn't like killing. He thinks it's messy." Viper stood up, holstering her rifle. "But I'm going to pay them a visit in the hospital. I need to explain the new rules of this city."
"And the rules are?"
Viper looked down at the tiny figure of Ren disappearing into the neon mist.
"Rule Number One," she said possessively. "Nobody touches the Support."