The Rust Veil was worse in daylight. If you could call it daylight. What filtered through the smog was an orange haze and oppressive heat.

  Kass “Riot” Vex pushed through the crowd, past vendors shouting over hacked speakers and a kid hustling fake IDs out of a hollowed-out transistor box. People gave her space—not much, but enough. The studded jacket, the glare, the whisper of stories behind her name—it bought silence. And fear. Useful currencies.

  Without Velira Nocturne at her side, it all felt thinner, less certain. That seemed odd to her. She found herself missing the weight of Velira’s presence—the calm inevitability that came with walking beside something unkillable.

  Day made everything look honest—every stain on the tarps, every crack in the ferrocrete—but it also left her alone with thoughts she’d rather avoid.

  She lit a cigarette, squinting against the harsh light.

  She found Skiv hunched over a steaming bowl of synth-noodles in the same rust-stained corner of the market, the light catching the twitchy glint of his cybernetic eye. The glitching tattoo on his arm seemed stuck on the generic skull for the moment.

  “You look like shit,” Kass said by way of greeting.

  Skiv flinched, slurping his noodles. “You’re one to talk. Where’s your friend?”

  “Sleeping.”

  He eyed her with suspicion. “Any trouble getting the datacore?”

  “Standard smash and grab. Your intel was solid, I’m here to finish it. Know where I can find Tark?”

  Skiv wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked around nervously before leaning in. “Tark runs protection every week. Shows up, makes his rounds through the lower sector. Threatens everyone, collects his cut, breaks a few bones if anyone objects. He always hits Lita’s stall.”

  Kass’s jaw tightened. “And you’re just sitting here, stuffing your face?”

  “I told you,” he hissed. “If I get near him, the Vipers come down on me. I lent her some creds to get her through, hopefully it’s enough.”

  “You say he’s headed to Lita’s? When?”

  “Soon,” Skiv nodded. “Any minute.”

  “That’s all I need.” Kass turned and flicked her cigarette butt as she walked away.

  ———

  The streets thinned as she descended toward the east block. Few places were more destitute than the Rust Veil, but the lower sector was. Poor even by Undercity standards. From her perch atop a skeletal walkway, Kass spotted him—Tark. Six-foot-something, armored vest, VantaCorp-grade chrome on his left arm. Face like a busted knuckleduster and eyes that scanned every crowd like he expected payment in blood or credits. Probably both.

  She followed at a distance, watching him strut down the causeway all the way to Lita’s stall.

  He leaned in close to Lita, his voice low. His hand gripped the edge of her stall like he owned it. Lita flinched, but her jaw clenched defiantly. That made Kass burn hotter.

  When Tark finally walked away, laughing to himself, she fell into step half a block behind. The old transit station came into view—a scar across the city’s skin—graffitied walls, shattered glass, reinforced barricades. A drone buzzed overhead, scanning. She ducked beneath an awning, watching Tark disappear inside.

  Home sweet hellhole.

  Kass found a position behind a crumbling statue of some long-forgotten civic hero and settled in to watch. Counting sentries. Cameras. Patterns. Boring as hell, but necessary. Best to just sit and watch. The problem with surveillance was it gave her brain time to wander, and wandering thoughts led to places she didn’t want to go.

  She forced her mind to focus on something else—to the datacore they had just acquired. Weapons cache, location, keycodes to retrieve it. Assault rifles and armor-piercing rounds—serious hardware. Just the thing a mid-level manager would sell to street thugs when he was way up in the Spires and the blood would be spilled beneath his notice.

  Movement snapped her attention back to the task at hand. Two guards at the main entrance. Side entrance looked promising, but probably alarmed. She was more than capable of taking them down herself, but something felt…off.

  She’d learned to trust her instincts the hard way.

  She tapped her comm once, even though she knew Velira would be sleeping.

  “Found our guy,” she whispered. “He’s holed up deep. Real fortress vibes. Might need your stilettos for this one, fangs.”

  Static. Then silence.

  “Sleep tight. I’ll wake you when it’s time to make some noise.”

  ———

  Night draped the depot in neon and shadow, the orange haze replaced by flickering holo-ads that cast jagged reflections on graffitied walls. Kass crouched behind the crumbling statue, cigarette long burned out, shock boots humming faintly.

  Velira slipped into place beside her, silent and lethal, pale skin catching the neon glow, eyes gleaming.

  “Something feels off about this place,” Velira murmured. “Too much security for street-level thugs.”

  Her gaze swept the depot’s defenses. “Two guards, rotating patrol pattern, side entrance with motion sensors. Main approach is well covered.”

  “Yeah, I counted the same,” Kass agreed. “What’s your read?”

  “We go quiet. Disable the sentries first. Then we breach through the maintenance access on the east wall. It’s a blind spot in their coverage.”

  “You’re right,” Kass surprised herself.

  Velira gave her a quizzical look. “You don’t want to go in guns blazing?”

  “Of course I do, but I trust your judgement. Quiet it is,” she said, pulling out her combat knife. “After you, fangs.”

  They moved as one unit—Kass’s boots whispering against ferrocrete, Velira a dark blur. The first sentry didn’t see Kass coming. Quick stab to the throat. Muffled grunt. Dragged behind a crate. Velira’s target fell just as fast—stilettos flashed in a silent arc. The Viper slumped without a sound.

  They regrouped at the maintenance access, a rusted hatch barely clinging to its hinges. Kass planted a micro-explosive on the lock—more spark than boom—and triggered it with a soft pop. The hatch groaned open. They slipped inside.

  The depot’s interior was a maze of crates and holo-screens, air thick with mold and iron rot. Laughter echoed from deeper within—coarse and careless, punctuated by the clatter of cred sticks. Kass and Velira crept closer, using crates for cover, until they spotted him.

  Tark lounged at a makeshift table of scrap and junk, chrome arm glinting as he tossed credit sticks into a pile. Two other Vipers sat with him, faces scarred and indistinct, cards splayed between them. Poker, mid-game. The pot—probably their cut of the extortion haul from the lower sector.

  Tark slapped down a card, busted face splitting into a sneer. “Raise, you slags. Who’s got the stones?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I call, fuck-face!” Kass shouted as she burst from cover, Velira moving at the same time. Tark’s sneer froze, making him look stupid. Shitty way to go.

  Her shot took him between the eyes—clean kill, body slumping over the table. The Vipers scrambled, one drawing a blade, the other a pistol, but Velira was faster. Her stilettos flew—one piercing throat, the second embedding in chest. They dropped with dull thuds, cards scattering across ferrocrete.

  “That’s a new record for how long you kept quiet,” Velira said dryly.

  “I meant the infiltration could be quiet.” Kass smiled. “All bets are off when we find the target.”

  She holstered her sidearm, stepping over Tark’s body to scoop up the cred sticks. A petty fortune.

  “Let’s move,” Velira was already heading for the exit.

  They stepped outside, neon haze swallowing them—but the air shifted, heavy with threat.

  A shape dropped from the depot’s roof, slamming into the ferrocrete with a seismic crack that spider-webbed the pavement. What rose to face them was a mass of military engineering—matte-black exo-plate that seemed to drink in the neon light. The helmet was a featureless mask save for a single reinforced optical visor.

  It moved too smoothly under all that weight—each step fluid. This wasn’t some street-modded thug—this was corporate-grade death.

  “Shit,” Kass cursed. “Synth.”

  “Fucking beautiful. Just what I needed tonight.” His helmet tilted as he sized them up, voice coming through a modulator. “Let me guess—heard about some easy Viper creds and thought you’d help yourselves?”

  He sounded more irritated than menacing. “Well, these particular shitheads work for me now. So we’ve got a problem.”

  He raised a heavy pistol—custom, modified, and screaming violence. The weapon looked like it could blast through a tank.

  The first shot punched through Velira’s shoulder.

  She barely flinched, but black blood streamed from the wound.

  “Silver,” she hissed.

  Kass dropped low, returning fire. Her bullets, while graded for armor piercing, sparked off the synth’s plating, useless.

  “Armor’s mil-spec,” she muttered. “Because of course it is.”

  Velira blurred forward, stilettos flashing. The black spikes struck center mass—fast, precise—but skittered off the reinforced plating with sparks.

  The synth caught her with a backhand, and flung her like debris. She twisted midair and landed hard, but on her feet.

  Like a damn cat, Kass thought.

  He trained his pistol on Velira.

  Kass came in low, boots buzzing with a high-pitched, angry sputter, interrupting the armored synth before he could get the shot off.

  She fired two rounds that bounced harmlessly off—then dodged away as the synth swung his pistol towards her, silver-tipped rounds impacting where she’d been just a moment before.

  The synth turned, tracking her movement—

  Velira reappeared behind him in a blink. She jammed a stiletto into the armor seam at the upper back, where the neck guard met the shoulder plate. She pried hard and tore the plate free, exposing the vulnerable flex joints beneath.

  The synth spun around, armored arm sweeping to crush her, but she danced away.

  Kass came in from behind, engaging shock boots.

  “Welcome to Boom-town, asshole!”

  She jumped on his back, boots buzzing madly, and slapped a magnetic charge into the exposed gap then shoved off. Her boots sputtered, only giving her half the distance she wanted.

  The synth swung his pistol around.

  He fired, a bullet grazed Kass’s leg.

  Then…

  Detonation—a sharp crack, followed by a wet burst like an overripe watermelon. The inside of the reinforced visor splattered with black blood and synth brain matter. The helmet itself held—bulletproof, bombproof—but the synth’s head had exploded inside his own shell.

  The body stood frozen for half a second, then toppled forward. Still armored. Still intact. Very dead.

  Velira sighed, blood dripping from her shoulder. “Subtle, as always.”

  Kass stepped over the body. “Got the job done.”

  She pried the synth’s pistol from his locked grip. It was sleek, brutal, and now hers.

  “Nice,” she mused, also claiming a jackpot of spare mags. “We’ll call it a bonus.”

  Velira raised an eyebrow. “You’re looting corpses now?”

  “What? He doesn’t need it anymore.”

  “Reinforcements will be here soon,” Velira scanned the shadows. “Let’s move.”

  They slipped into the alley, blood trailing behind them, shock boots humming under the noise of the city.

  “Successful mission,” Kass said, her voice cheery.

  “By your standards.”

  ———

  The Socket was a haze of neon and noise, tucked beneath rusted pipes in the Rust Veil’s underbelly. Synth-beats pulsed through smoke-thick air, mixing with the clink of glasses and the low hum of deals struck in shadowed booths. Kass pushed through the crowd, Velira close, both scanning for threats.

  They found Skiv and Lita at a corner table, hunched over their drinks, whispering like conspirators. Lita—wiry and sharp-eyed—kept glancing toward the entrance, her shoulders tight with tension. Skiv’s cybernetic eye flickered erratically as they approached.

  “Shit, Kass,” he swore, half-rising from his seat as he looked at Velira. “Is…is she bleeding? What happened?”

  They had patched themselves up before coming to the bar, but Velira’s shoulder wound was seeping through a little. Silver wounds didn’t heal as fast as normal for her.

  “It happens,” Velira’s voice was neutral.

  Kass dropped into a chair, wincing.

  “Tark’s done. Plus a few other Vipers.” She pulled the cred sticks from her pocket and dumped them on the table. Then she slid several to Lita without ceremony. “For your stall. Should cover what they took from you and then some.”

  A couple more went to Skiv. “That should cover the creds you lent her.”

  Both siblings stared at the credits like they were snakes, coiled and ready to strike. Lita’s hand trembled as she reached for them, stopping just short. “This… this is real?”

  “Nobody just gives away credits,” Skiv whispered, suspicion bleeding through. “Not down here. Not without wanting something back. What’s the catch?”

  Kass took a long pull of her drink, letting the burn chase away unwanted thoughts and feelings.

  “No catch,” she said finally. “Maybe I’m just tired of seeing people get ground down by shitheads.”

  “People don’t just give in the Undercity,” Skiv pressed. “They take.”

  Kass lit a cigarette, exhaling slowly. “Maybe we’re not people.”

  Velira leaned against the wall. “You’re a modern-day Robin Hood.”

  “What the fuck is a Robin Hood?”

  “Folklore is a lost art,” Velira sighed.

  Kass turned back to Skiv, noting how his shoulders had relaxed slightly, how his sister was finally touching the credits like they might not bite her.

  “We had unexpected company tonight. Big synth, Corpo-grade armor, probably Obsidite plate. Silver-tipped bullets. Know anything about that?”

  Skiv’s good eye widened. “Silver bullets? Fuck. What’d this thing look like?”

  “Seven feet of nightmare. Matte-black exo-armor. Custom pistol, Red Memory tags on the slide. Professional—not some street muscle.”

  “Druj,” Skiv breathed, his face going pale. The cybernetic eye whirred faster, reflecting his rising panic. “That’s Red Druj. Red Memory’s top enforcer. When they need a rival synth taken down permanently, they send him.”

  He glanced around the bar nervously, voice dropping to a whisper. “He’s a fucking legend. Killed more synths than some corporate clean-up crews. What the hell was he doing with Iron Vipers?”

  “You tell me.”

  Skiv shook his head rapidly. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Red Memory doesn’t waste Druj on small-time hits. If he was there…”

  His tattoo glitched as his brain worked. “Shit. Something big might be coming. I heard Red Memory and the Blood Syndicate were gearing up for war. Maybe he was recruiting.”

  “Makes sense,” Velira interjected, her voice cutting through Skiv’s panic. “Wrong place, wrong time. He did say they worked for him now.”

  Skiv nodded slowly. “That… that makes sense. Both syndicates have been buying up silver, preparing for the fight, I’m guessing. Hard to find it now even on the black market.”

  He looked back at Kass. “You really killed Druj? The Red Druj?”

  “Blew his head clean off,” Kass took another drink. “Turns out even legends can’t think without brains.”

  ———

  The safehouse air tasted of sulfur and old smoke. Kass sat cross-legged on a supply crate, the few remaining cred sticks stacked neatly on the table. But her real prize was in her hands.

  Red Druj’s modified pistol was a masterpiece of violent engineering. High-caliber, silver-capable, custom grip. It was heavy—if she ran out of bullets, she could club someone to death with it. Red Memory sigils were etched into the slide like promises of blood, and the custom frame had been milled for perfect balance.

  “This thing’s a beast,” she said, turning it over in her hands. “Could punch through Spire exo-plating without breaking a sweat.”

  She spun it on her finger, wincing as the movement jarred her injured leg. “I’m calling it Drujment.”

  Velira’s eyebrow arched from where she sat cleaning her stilettos. “Drujment?”

  “Like judgment, but with that Red Druj kick. Fucking perfect, right?”

  “That’s… absurdly theatrical. Did you spend all night thinking that up?”

  Kass’s grin didn’t waver. She holstered the pistol with a flourish. “Come on, fangs. It’s got style! Druj’s dead, and I’m keeping his gun’s legacy with a name that hits hard. Admit it—it’s catchy.”

  “It’s ridiculous.” Velira crossed her arms with elegant disdain. “You sound like a street punk naming their first blade. What’s wrong with just calling it ‘the pistol’?”

  “Boring. This isn’t just any gun, V. It’s a trophy. Took it off Red Memory’s top enforcer after he tried to turn us into paste.” She patted the holster. “Drujment’s got that Undercity edge.”

  “You’re impossible.” She stepped closer, voice dropping low. “If you must name your toys, at least pick something that doesn’t sound like a cheap holo-drama villain. You’re embarrassing us both.”

  “Embarrassing?” Kass laughed, rough and loud. “Please. Nocturne? What is that—straight out of a midnight holo-mance with too much skin and not enough plot.”

  “At least my name doesn’t sound like I’m trying to hawk weapons at a black market stall.”

  Kass pulled Drujment from its holster, pain forgotten. “You’re just jealous you didn’t snag this beauty first.”

  She looked down the sights with one eye. “This thing’s gonna save our asses one day. Mark my words.”

  “If it saves us, it won’t be because you gave it a silly name. Call it what it is—a weapon. Not a pet.”

  “Weapon, pet, same difference. Drujment’s mine now. Deal with it, fangs.”

  Velira sighed and turned toward her room. “You’re incorrigible. Let’s hope your aim’s better than your naming sense.”

  “Don’t need aim when you’ve got explosives. Just ask Red Druj.”

  “Can’t,” Velira called back. “He’s dead.”

  “Exactly my fucking point.”