The smell of fried chicken curled through the thick smog as I rounded the corner in Lowtown Market, and rain thundered against the awnings protecting the vendors beneath them. My heavy black boots clipped against the slick pavements, and I nestled deeper under the hood of my jacket. I liked the city the most when it rained, it felt like it was washing away its dirt and sins. The buildings were too tall for hot weather, stealing away any chance of a cool breeze and making it virtually impossible to spend an entire day in the same set of dry clothing. “Kayori, what time is it?” I asked my operating system, and the time glimmered in the right corner of my vision. It was my day off work, and so I’d slept in a little later than expected. My new eye implants were certainly impressive, if not difficult to get used to. Just another perk of my new job. “Lennox, over here.” I followed the direction of the voice to find Bridger waving as he sat perched on a stool outside one of our favourite stops for lunch on this side of the river. He grinned as I pulled the stool out beside him, removing my hood and shaking the water from my fringe. I’d recently dyed my blunt bob a vibrant shade of yellow, and I was grateful the colour hadn’t leached down my face from the downpour. The light from the stall reflected against the quicksilver of his implants that carved from his lid to his brow, an implant much more technologically advanced than mine, assisting him with his work as a programmer and hacker. The vendor smiled, flashing two gold teeth as he placed two cans of Max-ade before us. Lemon for Bridger and cherry for me. “Thanks Terry,” I said, smiling. “The usual for you guys?” We both spoke in unison. “Yes please.” “Coming right up.” Terry turned his back to begin frying off the chicken and I picked up a straw, twirling it between my fingers before cracking open the can and taking a long gulp. “How is corporate life?” Bridger asked as he took a sip from his own can, and I shot him a knowing look. “Exactly how you’d imagine,” I sighed. Our eyes drew to the tv screen above Terry as the news reader reported on an incident from that morning in Slido. Another cyberpsycho had let loose in one of the mega-buildings. “I hear the emergency doors failed. He managed to wipe out the whole ground floor,” Bridger said as his violet eyes watched the cctv footage of the beefed up psycho walking straight into the monstrous block of apartments like no one could stop him. “Damn, did the PD take him out?” He shook his head in response. “No, they brought the SDA in.” Terry placed two trays before us. Fried chicken, lathered in hot sauce with a side of fries. Extra pickles for me. A muscle ticked in my jaw and I rolled up my sleeves. The SDA were not to be messed with. A defence organisation owned by the very company I was now employed by. It’s how everything worked these days, jurisdiction didn’t matter if you had enough money. That’s how the corporates basically owned the city, the country even. I bit into the fried chicken and hot sauce dribbled down my chin. I wiped it with the tattooed back of my hand. “I hope you don’t eat like that in the office, Len,” Bridger mocked and I grinned, displaying to him a mouth full of half chewed chicken. He grimaced. Bridger and I had been friends for as long as I could remember. We’d both grown up in megabuilding 18 and our mothers had got talking in the laundry room. We’d found out we only lived two floors away from one another, and the rest was history. He went to college for programming and computer science, and I joined the ranks of the PD. Back when I thought I could make a lick of difference on this desolate city. I was dishonourably discharged after four years for ignoring direct orders, because I thought I was doing the right thing. I was weeks away from living on the streets with only enough savings to pay one more month of rent, when Bridger reached out to me. He asked me to meet him at the very market stall we sat at eating fried chicken, and asked if I was looking for a job. He told me he worked for an independent non-corporate organisation that had the people’s best interests at heart. I was sceptical, it sounded exactly like the speech I’d received when I first joined the PD, and they all turned out to be low-life corrupt bastards. I’d told him I was interested, but needed to know more. He’d scratched the back of his neck then, his gaze dropping to the floor and I knew in that moment that he wasn’t being completely honest with me. I’d eventually got him to crack of course, and he agreed to introduce me to his boss. The Calvados were recognised as a terrorist group, and every instinct in me had flared hot with fear and worry for Bridger when I realised what he’d gotten himself into. That was until I met them, and they showed me what they were really fighting for. They wanted equality for the people of Celestia once more. A government that could not be swayed by money. A safe city for everyone in it. They channeled money into the most impoverished areas of the city, payed the debts of families who had lost loved ones to cyberpsychosis, the illness caused by malfunctioning cyberware or overuse of implants. Of course, they were the biggest threat to the corporates that owned 97% of Celestia, and so they were tarnished with the brush of traitors, terrorists, murderers. And that’s where I came in. I had been planted smack bang in the centre of the most well-known and dangerous corporate group in the world, working for their CEO and head of the Verables family. “The report came back on your implants by the way,” Bridger said between mouthfuls. “You’re clear, nothing in those tracking or listening to you.” He gestured towards my eyes and I nodded, taking another slurp from my can of Max-ade. I’d never been a huge advocate for cyberware, but when I joined the PD, it had opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It began with a piece of tech in my palm that meant only I could fire from my own gun - a safety mechanism should I ever find myself disarmed. And from there, I had my joints reinforced and my lungs enhanced so I could run faster, longer, have more stamina when in combat. The new eye implants gave me heightened vision, plus a few extra gimicky perks like seeing the time, and being able to use my phone without actually looking at the screen. I sighed with relief at the thought I at least wasn’t being monitored through the mandatory bit of tech that came with my employment. I turned at the sound of a car back-firing, and my eyes drew to the skies as the clouds began to clear. Helo-pods hovered between the skyscrapers, ferrying the elite between their offices and penthouses, and the light of the sign to Lowtown Market flickered like a dying star. “Breaking news.” We turned in unison to the tv screen once more, and even Terry looked up, tucking his spatula into the pocket of his greasy blue apron. “It is with a heavy heart,” the newsreader said as her face grew pale, “that we announce today that the CEO of VK and head of the Verables family has been assassinated in his office in Celestia City by a member of The Calvados terrorist organisation.” I swallowed the lump of chicken hard, my stomach bottoming out as the words turned over and over in my mind. Bridger dropped his fork beside me and I flinched as it clattered against the metal tray, as a photograph of my own face framed in bright yellow hair popped up on the tv screen, the red letters below spelling ‘Wanted… DOA’.