The slick, obsidian tide crept up the cracked plasteel of Fremont Street, reflecting the fractured neon of a dying city. Rain wasn’t water anymore, not here. It was data – corrupted, fragmented, *wrong* – leaching from the ruptured servers beneath Neon Vegas. The smell, if you could call it that, tasted like burnt silicon and regret.
I adjusted the filter on my respirator, the hiss a counterpoint to the static crackling from the broken holo-ads. Each pulse of light revealed a street drowning in digital refuse, vehicles half-submerged, their interiors glowing with ghostly error messages.
A figure materialized from the gloom, lean and sharp-angled, chrome glinting under the corrupted lights. Jax. He didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Status.”
I ran a diagnostic, the readout scrolling across my retina. “Memblock integrity patched. Corvus Tech protocols engaged. Residual fragmentation high. They paid well.”
Jax’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look at me, instead focused on a half-submerged speeder, its chassis spitting arcs of blue electricity.
“The fixers?”
I tapped my temple, accessing the secure archive. “Transferred credits. Data wiped. Standard procedure.”
“Standard doesn’t keep the ghosts quiet.”
I ignored the barb. The rain intensified, each drop a cold sting. A flickering holographic geisha, her face dissolving into static, watched us with vacant eyes.
“The vaults are collapsing, Jax. Legacy debts piling up. Everyone owes someone.”
He finally looked at me, his gaze flat, assessing. A thin scar bisected his left eyebrow, a souvenir from some forgotten skirmish.
“You always were good at cleaning up messes.”
I shifted, the weight of the damp synth-leather of my coat a discomfort.
“Did I remember you as good?” The question slipped out, a chipped shard of something I hadn’t meant to say. A ghost of a hope I shouldn’t have entertained.
Jax’s lips curled, not quite a smile. “Memory’s a fragile thing in this city. Especially when people are paying to forget.” He turned, his silhouette swallowed by the black tide. “Let’s move. We have more messes to clean.”
I followed, the corrupted rain washing over me, the taste of burnt silicon lingering on my tongue. The city bled code, but shadows remained. And some debts, I suspected, could never be erased.
