Neron Wars

Illegal transactions should never occur this early in the morning.

I shove my feet into my boots, not bothering to lace them up, because that requires brainpower, and I don’t have enough of that when the sun hasn’t even begun to think about touching the tips of the elite towers. But I do have to think about walking quietly. Dad is still sleeping, and considering what I’m heading to do, I need him to stay that way.

The thick smog hits my lungs as soon as I step out of our tiny cube of a home. It’s one of thousands in the Stacks, the low-income corner of this city we call home. I cough, my lungs trying to adjust to all the pollution in the air, and I set down the weaving walkway that zigzags down past the same neighbors I’ve had for my entire life, before connecting to the skywalk that aims me toward the south end of town.

My connect-link beeps and I hold up my wrist, illuminating a screen against my forearm. A message from “The Mole” displays. You’re late.

I speak to my wrist and the words appear on the screen. That’s what you get for scheduling this so early.

Her response displays as an expletive and a searing strike of electricity in my wrist.

Despite the pain, I smirk and shake my head.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, knobhead!”

Someone yells the words at me as I bump shoulders with another individual on the skywalk. I turn, making eye contact, glaring and daring them to cause even more of a scene.

“Share the walkway, you cack!” I yell back.

I turn and blend back into the crowd of people walking to and from work.

There are so many bodies I can hardly breathe without taking in the scent of an unwashed worker, or the potent perfume of the next space hog. I’m jostled and bumped into, and no one, except for the cack back there, seems to notice or mind.

It’s just a part of life here on Korpillion.

When you’re just one of twenty-eight point one billion people, you learn to share the road.

I aim for the alley coming up, but I don’t even cast my eyes toward it. I shift to that side of the skywalk and raise my left hand a little.

Just as I pass it, another hand reaches out from the alley, and hooks the straps of a bag over my fingers. A quick and seamless handoff.

It’s the reason I pay Crag. I give him the credits he needs to buy his drugs and swill, he hides certain packages around the underbelly of the city until I am ready for them—no one knows the dark and hidden places of Korpillion better than him.

Being a homeless addict on this planet will eat you alive, body and soul, but he gets the job done.

I slip a few blocks further down the skywalk and then duck down a side street, dropping down five flights of stairs until my feet touch the concrete ground of terra level. I slip past dingy, solid steel buildings, tucking around corners.