Despite the leaps in technology, there are simply things that aren’t possible. Take magic as an example. Genuine magic, not the ‘science we don’t understand’ shit. Impossibilities made reality based on will and ritual? Just a figment of the imagination, a fanciful subject to beguile gullible children. Spells aren’t real, the tooth fairy isn’t real, and the real Santa died centuries ago.

  So how does she explain this then?

  Alex lies breathless next to an infant who is enthusiastically slapping her face; sweating a river down on synthetic wood. Miriam is a tenacious gremlin, capable of surpassing Alex in her stair climbing. Alex pushed herself to the limit and she couldn’t even match an infant, all her fourteen years amounting to nothing in the face of eleven months.

  She pants hard, staring at the ceiling with tears streaming down her face and a smile so wide that it hurts.

  She pushed herself to the limit, and that limit was farther than it should be.

  She knows her body, intimately. Comes with the territory of being a waif. She has to know her limits, has to measure her stride. It’s not so dramatic as every step being a calculation, but the rhythm and intensity have to be managed closely.

  So she knows that she can only manage six rounds of going up and down the stairs. For the past two weeks that’s been changing, slowly rising until today she managed ten.

  She’s getting better, that shouldn’t be possible.

  Her dystrophy puts her just a few steps away from needing a wheelchair. Which isn’t the worst possible outcome but it leans in that direction. There’s a decent number that can live normally if they just exercise regularly. She isn’t one of those, she fights to push a boulder up a mountain. Futility in its purest form.

  She doesn’t get stronger. She doesn’t get to pursue dreams of athleticism or careers of a physical persuasion. She doesn’t get to be normal.

  She was okay with that.

  The thing with being dealt a shit hand is that you either learn to live with it or you go down a spiral of depression. Motion isn’t the only measure of a good life, and Alex has pushed to earn any amount of joy she could find.

  She has friends, she has hobbies, she gets good grades, and she has a loving family.

  She’s proud of all those things.

  Look at her, making something out of herself despite her condition. She’s weak of body but not of spirit, and she’s held unto that like an oyster to their pearls. But what if she were strong in both?

  She should be questioning a lot right now. Like reality, and how some game interface virus thing could possibly affect it. Religions are a big one too, there are those who worship a god, but they’re the minority. Most of the religious worship the body.

  Perhaps she should be afraid of whatever this thing is doing to her. What would’ve happened if she picked mind? Or sense? The ethereal does not escape your grasp? What does that mean?

  All these things should be sending her into a spiral of existentialism. She thinks that would be reasonable. Instead she has the interface open in front of her with the skill staring back at her like a blessing from the divine.

  Maybe it is, maybe she was caught in the eyes of something wonderful and it felt pity. She wishes they would have given her a name, she’s feeling like making a prayer. Maybe they’ll accept one without a name.

  Alex clasps her hands and shuts her eyes as Miriam continues to slap her face.

  “Thank you.”

  -

  Alex looks over the tetra-rixi.

  It’s a decently sized handgun, the slide painted a crimson red to market to the local gang. Alex racks it back, pushing down on the slide lock to check if it’s loaded. It’s not, obviously, but it’s always better to be safe. She takes a magazine and feeds it into the gun, leaving it to slide into place to let the bullet make its way to the chamber. She flips the safety and takes a deep breath, aiming at the target in front of her, preparing for the recoil that’ll follow. She places her finger on the trigger and squeezes.

  She doesn’t fight the kickback; she isn’t strong enough to do that painlessly. Instead she kind of lets it wash over her like a wave, moving with the motion. In a real gunfight that would make her vulnerable for too long, but she doesn’t get into those. Not that she’s always had the choice, being the victim of gunfire is practically a rite of passage in this city, it’s just that no one really has a purpose targeting her specifically.

  She takes another breath and lines up her next shot. She hit center mass, since she’s just warming up. She’ll start going for headshots once she’s got a couple down range.

  She’s not a sharpshooter, but she’s closer than most would be. Shame for her physicality and cyberware tolerance, she might’ve made for a half decent merc. Who knows though, depending on how potent her self-improvement-system is she might still have a chance at the excitement.

  The gun clicks empty and Alex lets out a slow breath, relaxing her aching arms and flipping the safety back on. She turns around and exits the range, reaching two figures waiting for her as she removes her ear protection.

  “How are you so good with a gun?” Omar scowls. “When do you even get the time to practice?!”

  “She’s a regular,” the dealer provides.

  Alex just nods to Ray, the woman is well built. Though both her arms are chromed. Expensive shit too, she’s got the newer kind that mimics anatomical musculature. Put some synthetic skin atop it and you wouldn’t be able to tell at first glance that she’s got any chrome. She likes to show off though so the obsidian steel is on full display.

  “What happened to your fulcrum anyway? I went through a lot of trouble getting you that piece,” Ray asks.

  Alex hands the gun back to the woman as they head over to the front. “I got mugged by a pair of gangoons, snuck up on me with a bat of all things.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “A bat, really?”

  “Yeah it’s pretty pathetic isn’t it?” Omar says.

  “Up yours Omar.”

  “Oh lookie here, the cripples got bite.”

  Ray chuckles as she takes walks to the back of the counter, grabbing boxes of ammunition and magazines before ringing it all up and putting them in a bag. Seven hundred creds in all, almost enough to match her patch up at that stupid ass maestro clinic. Alex transfers the creds and the woman just nods before-

  So much noise.

  Something shatters through the bulletproof glass in front of them, punching off the top portion of Ray’s skull. Alex’s eyes widen and every muscle in her body freezes in shock as the corpse falls to the ground.

  “Ooooh no, nonono. Mmmm, she wasn’t supposed to…shame.” Says a voice that carries an auto tuned bass-like quality from behind her.

  Alex and Omar glance at each other, and in solidarity turn to witness a man missing half his face. It’s replaced by steel, coloured teal and staring into her soul. His right arm is chromed, and it’s carrying a fucking tengu. Half his shirt is torn on the right side, revealing how far the cybernetics are digging through his pectoral.

  “Children?” the man blinks at them, artificial pupils contracting and dilating as he takes in their faces.

  Both of them don’t respond, how could they in the face of a railgun resting so casually in his grip? That shit isn’t street level weaponry, not at all. He blinks again, resetting himself, then lets out a slight chuckle.

  “You two are so skinny, need to eat more, need to…exercise? It’s good for you, I think. I don’t know, I don’t know a lot. But that’s okay, not knowing is just part of knowing is also the process of discovering.Mmmm…am I making sense? It’s hard to tell with all this metal.”

  “You’re making perfect sense, understood every word,” Omar nods with the enthusiasm of someone who likes being alive.

  The man lets loose a wild smile, his teeth are an unnatural white and slightly tipped with fangs. “Good! Good…explaining things can get weird. Thoughts just float away, one moment it’s there then the next…gone. Hard to think, really hard. Hey we should check on our lady friend, she’s probably not okay.”

  “Right,” Alex nods, not at all expecting Ray to be alive. “Let me go do that alright? You can just stay here and relax.”

  “You’re so kind! Thank you.”

  Alex nods again and walks slow to the counter doors, pushing them open. Ray always liked it old school, designed the whole store to mimic the twenty first century aesthetic. Sure enough Alex finds the body, and sure enough the woman is very dead.

  “She’s alright, just knocked out,” she says instead.

  The man’s smile grows wider. “That’s great! I…would hate to kill someone, that’d be rude and I’m not a rude person. Just got a bit…twitchy.”

  “Of course big guy, it’s all good. You’re a real cool gangoon,” Omar says.

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  Alex walks next to Omar and grabs him by the arm. “So we’ve uhm…got to go. Baba’ll be worried, nice to meet you?”

  “It is!” the man breaks out into laughter. “Would you mind if I joined you? just for a little bit. I don’t…get to talk often.”

  Alex takes a deep breath as her blood freezes.

  “Sure.”

  -

  Walking next to a cyber-psycho has to be one of the most nerve wracking experiences of her life. It’s not as though they're rare, a cursory look at the streets and you’ll find more than a few. Dumbass bitches that either thought they could power through the insanity or didn’t get a tolerance check before chroming. Harmless cautionary tales littering the city, spouting nonsense or hiding in unfounded paranoia.

  There are those who experience cyber-psychosis and are functional of course, but Alex doesn’t know how to quantify that number since she’s never researched the subject. If she were honest she’d say she doesn’t really care. They lit their pyre, now they get to burn in it.

  They’re generally left alone, if they can’t interact with society then they should at least have the decency not to be a bother. Most of the time life moves on without them.

  But then there are cyber-psychos that’re dangerous.

  Those are put down, with prejudice. It doesn’t matter which entity of the city does it, all are in agreement that they have no place among the living. They’re just too dangerous, if her Baba went psycho, how much damage could he do if he had no limits?

  It’s why bionics even have a market, despite being a much more expensive alternative. It doesn’t have a chance at breaking your mind.

  So, she’s walking next to a bomb, hoping that it leaves her alone before it explodes. She doesn’t dare ping her father, not if this monster has an interceptor installed.

  “There’s…so many. All the time really, they’re everywhere. Just watching, documenting, judging. But they never come out to play, content with being a witness, isn’t that sad?” the insane man says.

  “Yeah that sounds fucked,” Omar says as casually as Alex imagines he possibly can. “Why be ok with just being an observer, feel me?”

  “Exactly! There are so many…changes they could make. Society is weird, they could make it not weird. Because they know everything and in their perfect vision we become absolute. We don’t need to be these…mmmmmm…”

  The two of them don’t respond, walking down the concrete streets as people avoid them, slowly getting closer to her home. She’s had to increase her pace for fear of angering the man, he doesn’t seem angry but it’s not like he’s stable enough to be predictable.

  The man starts humming, as though he lost the train of thought entirely and is just enjoying the walk. His tengu is still in his grip, Alex glances at it every few seconds.

  “So,” Omar says. “What’s your name?”

  Alex whirls on him and glares at his monumental stupidity. What is he doing addressing the man?! It’s speak until spoken to and nothing else.

  The man keeps humming, and for a blessed moment Alex thinks he didn’t hear him. “Zack…my name is Zack. Terington.”

  “Okay Zack, do you know what’s going on right now?” Omar continues, and if Alex could strangle the boy, she would.

  “I do,” he says with a gentle smile. “I’m…walking. Walking with you.”

  “Right, and what were you doing before?”

  “I was…mmmmm…fighting? Yes, idiots didn’t know what they were doing. Got…what?”

  “Zack?”

  “Hm?”

  “What did they get?”

  “What did who…oh. Them. I killed them, killed them good because they deserved to die. Now I’m here, walking. What about you? What were you doing?”

  “Just helping my friend there with picking out a gun, say, you wouldn’t mind slowing down a bit would you? She’s barely managing to follow us.”

  The man blinks at Omar, then turns to Alex and looks her over. “You look tired…why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Didn’t want to be annoying,” Alex says a few octaves higher than is her normal.

  “Oh. That’s polite. But don’t worry, I don’t find it annoying…mmmmm…you’re not going to hurt my family are you?”

  “No!”

  “Good, that would…change things. I’d have to hurt you like I hurt them.”

  “Who is them?” Omar prods.

  “The Road,” he spits out with a vitriol that makes Alex pale. “They…they were just supposed to be visiting. We didn’t do anything…but they wanted to hurt so they did.”

  “What did they do?”

  “I…don’t know,” He laughs. “I was out.”

  “Ok, but you said you killed them.”

  “I did, popped their heads with my little bird.”

  “So how did you know it was them?”

  “I was there…no, I was out? No, I saw. Everything. I saw everything.” Tears start streaming down his face and he stops walking beside them.

  “Zack?” Omar says, and Alex truly does have to wonder if the boy is suicidal.

  “They’re gone,” he chokes out a sob. “All gone.”

  Zack racks with grief, and for a moment Alex feels for him.

  It’s fleeting. Because in the next he presses the tengu to his chin, finger resting on the trigger.

  “Zack!” Omar yells. “You don’t wan-”

  He’s interrupted by so much noise.