Kabuki treated New Year’s Eve as a license to sell noise.
Hair ended up under a knit cap. The cap’s tag seam scraped my neck whenever I rotated, and I fixated on it in the petty habit a tired mind had with small defects. In the mirror, green looked out with that wrong catch the optics added in bad light. I packed light. Deck. Cord. Hard case with one shard in it. Burn wallet. No rifle tonight. Downstairs, fryer trash stank near the bins. Somebody had set off a cheap firework in a can earlier; smoke clung in a corner. I moved through it and into the street.
Outside, bodies packed in so tight you could smell strangers. I kept moving. No eye contact. No pauses. Neon reflected in puddles.
A vendor near a ramen hatch had a tub of “fresh filters” stacked on a sheet of metal.
“2-for-1,” he called. “Rollover deal. Two for one. You want it or not?” Lamp oil. Rope. Bombs. My brain was an idiot.
“Price,” I asked.
He threw a number meant for drunks.
I held eye contact and stayed silent.
His cheeks twitched. “Fine. 50%. Stop lookin’ at me like that, choom.”
I paid and shoved the pack into my jacket. The paper felt thin through the sleeve. Torn. I’d bought trash. Great.
A kid slipped through the flow and bumped my hip on purpose. He glanced up, eyes too calm for his age.
“Jax,” he muttered toward a buddy behind him, a warning.
The reply came fast, swallowed by racket. “Delta, idiot—move.”
Fireworks cracked above Watson and flashed white on the underside of the overpass ahead. A pair of badges pushed through the crush. One glance touched my chrome and moved on. The public data term under the overpass looked newer than the concrete around it. Its screen carried a crack across the lower corner. The port edge stuck out by a hair.
A queue formed in front of the kiosk. A couple at the front argued with the payment chute.
“It ate it, I swear.”
“It did not eat it, you shoved it wrong.”
“Do not say that in public.”
“I’ll say it anywhere.”
Their friend cut in from behind them, laughing too hard. “You both are gonna die in the first week of January.”
“Shut up,” they snapped in the same breath, and I almost smiled, then my turn arrived. The payment chute took my disc on the second try.
I aligned the cable and pushed. A dull click. I rotated my bag and used my forearm to hide the plug from easy view. The deck stayed in the bag; the fan climbed into a higher whine and pressed warmth into my side.
I typed Regina’s address in the destination field, then hit confirm and tried my best not to stare at the progress wheel.
A prompt flashed and vanished before it drew fully: AUTHORIZE ASSISTANCE. My jaw tried to clamp. Service wrapper. Compromised kiosk—leech close enough to ride my connection.
A guy 2 slots behind tracked wrists instead of screens.
“Term live?” he asked, casual.
“Yeah,” I answered.
He grinned with scratched caps. “Corp run? Two hundred and I don’t remember you. Deal’s good.”
“Walk,” I told him.
He leaned in anyway.
I yanked the lead out mid-transfer. The kiosk beeped. The bar froze. He stopped moving, grin hanging for one beat too long, then he backed off a short step as if he’d never leaned in.
I reconnected and tapped confirm once more.
00:00:00 hit on the kiosk clock. The mob above us roared. Fireworks burst anew over Watson, and as always, my misfortune partner chose his time to show up.
— SYSTEM UPDATE —
LEVEL: 5
CLASS SEED: IMPERSONATOR -> SOCIAL ENGINEER
PERK ACQUIRED: CO-PILOT(LOCKED)
PERK ACQUIRED: PRETEXT CACHE
PERK ACQUIRED: FAST TALK (ACTIVE)
SKILLS:
RANGE TRAINING: 34/50 (POLICEMAN)
HAGGLING: 28/50 (GARAGIST)
MECHANIC AFFINITY: 38/50 (GARAGIST)
BRAWLER: 20/50 (MURK MAN)
NETRUN: 33/50 (JUNKYARD NETRUNNER)
LEVEL REWARD: PENDING
ATTRIBUTE POINT: 1
PERK POINT: 1
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
A tourist screamed happy new year into an agent call and hugged a stranger who did not want it.
I tried to answer in a normal tone and ended up with “Yeah. Sure,” sounding pissed. A braided woman in the queue glanced at me as if I’d kicked her dog.
The upload bar moved. It paused. It jumped. Heat built in the bag and the fan climbed another notch. I forced my attention off the wheel and onto shoulders and shoes around me.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Warm-jacket shifted once. His gaze locked on my lead. He stepped forward without waiting for his turn.
I yanked the lead a second time. Kiosk beeped. Bar stalled.
He stopped. Blank face. Empty hands.
TRANSFER: COMPLETE.
Cable out. Sleeve wiped along the connector. I stepped off at a regular pace and let the queue surge forward at my heels.
On the overpass steps, my optics flickered once more, smaller and meaner. The system returned.
QUEST REGISTERED: [01]
STATUS: PENDING
The block stayed for a couple breaths and vanished.
My agent chimed as I reached street level.
REGINA: Clean.
REGINA: Bonus. For timing.
CRED // IN: E$4,000
A second chime landed on top of it.
**Masamune**: Stand by.
The quest notice and the geo hook lodged in my skull together and did not merge. Regina paid for a job. Masamune pulled a leash. The system had picked a box and stamped a deadline. My stomach stayed tight. I kept walking.
I walked into the flow instead of planting my feet and thinking.
A vendor pressed plastic flutes into hands and shouted about “holiday glass.” Somebody cheered when a bottle shattered. 2 drunks started yelling at each other and a third person clapped as if it was a show.
A drunk bumped my shoulder and slurred, “New year, choom—have a lighter?”
“No.”
He followed, grin wide. “C’mon. Be human.”
The wrong phrase came out of me. “Eat.”
His grin fell apart. He drifted off fast, eyes flicking to my arm as if it might bite. Awkwardness hung on me for a second, then thinned out in bodies and noise. It cost seconds and left my skin tight.
I cut into a side lane where the air thinned. The torn filter pack in my jacket pocket scratched my knuckles through fabric, a little reminder of earlier stupidity. I wanted to throw it into a gutter.
A laundromat sign flickered under an apartment block: CLEAN CLOTHES, 2 bulbs dead.
The room hit me with detergent sting, chemical clean that did not belong outside. Machines hummed in a steady rhythm. The light was flat. A woman perched behind a plastic counter watching a tiny screen, chewing gum. Hair shaved on one side, dyed a color that wasn’t trying to be natural.
Her stare landed on my shoulder strap, then my face.
“Coins,” she grunted.
“Change.”
She pointed with her chin. “It takes tens. Gives quarters. And don’t stand there crying when it jams.”
I fed it a bill. The machine grumbled and spat coins.
The woman laughed once, not friendly. “First visit?”
“First rent to a washer.”
“That’s life,” she replied, then softened into something almost kind. “Pick a unit near the door. Folks steal. Folks touch. Folks get curious.”
I tossed the cap into a drum and followed the tag seam through the glass while it spun. My brain latched on hard, the way it did to the wrong ticket in a queue when the big outage went unacknowledged. I knew the seam did not matter.
A drunk couple stumbled in, laughing at their feet. He swung his arms and nearly clipped my shoulder.
“Sorry, boss,” he slurred. “We celebrating.”
His partner leaned close and studied my eyes. “Ooooh. You have the glimmer.”
“Do not,” I said.
“Do not what?” she asked, grinning wider.
I ran out of smart. I kept it blunt. “Do not touch me.”
The man lifted his palms. “We not touching, choom. We just talkin’.”
The partner poked his ribs and giggled. “He serious, babe.”
The clerk snapped her gum. “You running from a person?”
“Washing cloth.”
She snorted. “Okay. Washing cloth. Sure.”
I stood there watching the drum spin and tried to file the quest notice into a mental drawer.
“You mad at a hat,” she asked.
“It’s winning.”
“Rip it out,” she advised. “Life too short for itch.”
I dug a cheap blade out of my pocket and cut the tag seam free. The thread tore with a loud little snap.
The clerk pointed at her trash bin without looking up. “There. New neck.”
I dropped it in and put the cap on. The itch was gone. That was all.
Outside, street racket rushed in and filled my ears too hard. I walked toward the garage without thinking about the route, which was a mistake.
A stranger stepped out from a doorway and lifted his chin at me.
“Yo, Jax.”
His tone carried hunger. I did not recognize him. That meant he knew a version of me that did not exist.
“Busy,” I shot back, and did not slow.
He started to speak more, was cut off by his friend from the doorway—“Nah, leave him, dude, he’s wired”—and they argued in broken words while I kept moving.
The Galena waited in the garage under a strip light that flickered at the worst moments. The engine started on the first turn, which raised suspicion. I drove with the heater off and the window cracked, cold air cutting sweat into gooseflesh.
In the stairwell, fryer stink hit. Someone’s agent show yelled through a wall. My door reader flashed amber, then green.
In the unit, I dumped the bag on the table and peeled the mask off. Water slid down in a few pulls. It held. I dropped onto the cot and stared at nothing for a minute.
The torn filter pack fell out of my jacket when I stood.
I picked it up and shoved it into a drawer with other useless things.
I set 2 alarms for the next day and stopped myself from adding more. The quest hung in my head anyway, stamped there by a system that did not care what I wanted.
A knock rattled the panel at 01:17. My spine tightened. I checked the peephole and saw an old woman in slippers, cardigan open over a tank top, face shiny from sweat and anger. She glared at the lock as if it had insulted her.
She noticed the peephole shift and barked, “You alive in there? I need help. My keycard pad is flashing amber and I have meds getting warm.”
I opened the chain a finger-width. “I’m not maintenance.”
“Yeah, and I’m not paying rent,” she snapped. “Look. I have a card. It reads green, it lies. You do the tech stuff, right? Everybody says you do the tech stuff.”
That last line annoyed me in a childish way, and I said the wrong thing. “Everybody says a lot.”
Her lips twisted. “You helping or what? My meds are cooking.”
I should have shut the panel and ignored her. Instead I grabbed my kit, realized my kit was mostly gun oil and tape, and walked into the hall with a cheap screwdriver borrowed from my sink drawer.
Her pad sat crooked in the frame. The bottom screw had fresh chew marks and the housing flexed when I pressed it. Somebody had been curious. She hovered too close, watching my hand as if the movement itself promised a fix.
“Do not break it,” she said, voice small now.
The screwdriver slipped. The bit skated, scratched the faceplate, and my stomach dropped. I cursed under my breath.
I reseated the housing, tightened the screw with patience instead of force, and the amber blink shifted to green. The latch clicked. Her shoulders sank.
“Thanks,” she muttered. Then she squinted at my eyes and added, too loud, “You carry that glimmer. You okay?”
“I was fine,” came out of me, and it was a lie I hated hearing.
She let herself in and the door shut. I stood in the corridor staring at the scratch I had added, pissed at the lock, pissed at her, mostly pissed at myself for caring about a cosmetic mark on a rental I did not possess.
Back in my unit, I washed my hands and tried to settle. The wall felt thin. Every bang in the building sounded pointed for a second until my pulse dropped.
An old line surfaced from nowhere, like it had been waiting for the room to go quiet.
“What will it be like, I wonder, to go to sleep and never wake up?”
