The Blackout

I crouched in darkness, fingers tense on the cold grip of my pistol. The glow of neon signs had just flickered out, plunging the undercity into heavy gloom.

Blackout. The word hissed through my mind with a mix of annoyance and unease. In the bowels of Ironbound City, darkness could be deadly. A chorus of distant shouts and breaking glass echoed through the labyrinth of alleys. When the lights died, the predators of the undercity came out to play.

I pressed my back against a graffiti-scarred wall, trying to slow my breathing. My cybernetic eye adjusted, painting the alley in faint thermal outlines. A stray cleaning drone past my boots. Even the machines seemed nervous tonight.

"Just my damn luck," I muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm. I'd ventured out for a quick supply run, not expecting the whole sector to plunge into chaos. Now I was stuck miles from my hideout with only two mags of ammo and a rapidly draining battery on my arm augment.

Stay calm, I told myself. Think.

I wasn't truly alone. At my feet, my sleek mechanical cat named Gizmo uncoiled from standby mode. Gizmo's eyes glowed soft blue in the dark, and his metal-plated tail swished silently.

"Good boy, Gizmo," I whispered, placing a hand on my creation's head. Gizmo was one of my beastcrafts, small, swift, and smart. The cat's pointed ears twitched as he scanned for danger, his sensors far keener than mine.

A sudden burst of gunfire crackled from a street over. Muzzle flashes lit the alley mouth briefly. I flinched, peeking out to see silhouettes darting amid sparks. The gangs were already making the most of the blackout, settling scores or looting. I felt an urge to intervene but bit it down. I wasn't a hero patrolling these streets; I was just trying to survive them.

Gizmo nudged my leg, drawing my attention to a service ladder leading up the side of a decaying hab-block. Good idea. Gaining higher ground might let me bypass the worst of the chaos. With a nod to my companion, I holstered my pistol and started climbing, Gizmo clambering effortlessly beside me with magnetized paws.

We ascended three stories to a rooftop cluttered with old satellite dishes and water tanks. From here, I had a grim view of Sector 11 below: usually bathed in neon pink and holo-ads, now just angular shadows cut by sporadic gunfire and the orange glow of trash-can fires. A few blocks north, I spotted a column of smoke, a building was burning already.

I scanned for any hint of what caused the blackout. Ironbound's undercity power grid was resilient even when the corp-run uptown cut corners. An outage of this scale felt deliberate. Sabotage? A cyberattack? My jaw tightened. I'd seen something like this before in warzones out on the frontier, a tactic to sow confusion.

Gizmo let out a quiet whir, transmitting a ping to my neural link. He'd picked up an anomaly: an active signal amidst the radio static of the blackout. I focused, accessing the feed. Amid the normal emergency chatter, one frequency pulsed oddly... like a carrier signal broadcasting something across the undercity. I boosted the gain and caught a snippet: a distorted voice looping through digital static, "…awaken…Ironbound…children of cinder…"

The message was broken, but my blood ran cold. What the hell was this broadcast?

Before I could listen further, Gizmo hissed, a surprisingly organic sound from a metal cat. Movement on the far end of the roof. I killed the audio feed and drew my pistol. Through my night-vision, I saw a figure pulling itself onto the roof ledge. The figure was silhouetted against the faint glow of the burning block beyond.

I almost sighed in relief, recognizing the slender, athletic frame. "Nyra!" I called out softly. Nyra was a friend, one of the few people I trusted in this hellhole. She must have had the same idea to take to the roofs.

But Nyra didn't respond. She stood oddly rigid, head tilted as if listening to something far away.

I approached slowly, Gizmo at my side, engine humming with caution. "Nyra, you alright?" I asked, lowering my pistol slightly.

At the sound of my voice, Nyra whipped around. In the dim light, I glimpsed Nyra's face, eyes unfocused, pupils dilated, sweat beading on her brow. Nyra's neck twitched as she regarded me. Something was deeply wrong.

Without warning, Nyra lunged, a guttural snarl ripping from her throat. I barely jerked back as Nyra's fist smashed into the spot where my head had been, cracking concrete. I stumbled, shocked. Nyra was augmented, sure she had a reinforced cyberarm from a factory accident but I'd never seen her move so fast, so violently.

"Nyra! Stand down!" I barked, heart pounding. Her only response was a ragged hiss.

Before Nyra could recover, Gizmo leapt forward with a metallic snarl, clamping his jaws onto Nyra's calf. Nyra howled, a sound more mechanical screech than human pain. With unnatural strength, she kicked out. Gizmo yelped as he was flung aside, slamming into a rusted air conditioner.

I seized the moment. I toggled my pistol to stun rounds and fired twice. The electrified slugs hit Nyra center mass with crackling bursts of energy. Nyra convulsed and dropped to one knee.

For a moment, her eyes cleared. "Ri…ven…?" Nyra croaked, voice strained and full of confusion.

I stepped forward cautiously, pistol still trained. "I'm here," I said. "Snap out of it. Tell me what's happening."

Nyra trembled. "HIVE... They… inside… my h-head," she managed, each word a struggle. "Ru…run, Riven… th-they sent..."

Nyra's voice distorted suddenly. In a harsh, inhuman tone, she rasped, "HIVE… must… kill… everyone…"

My blood froze. Nyra lunged abruptly toward the roof's edge.

"No!" I sprinted after her, hand outstretched. Gizmo, dragged himself after me with a high-pitched whine. Nyra didn't even turn back. With a final tortured look on her face, she hurled herself off the rooftop into the smoky darkness below without a sound. I skidded to a halt at the edge, heart lodged painfully in my throat. Far below, through the gloom, I heard a sickening thud.

"Nyra!" I screamed into the void, my voice cracking. There was no response, only the distant chaos of the rioting undercity. "Shit, shit, shit..." My curse was half sob, half snarl. I pounded a fist on the ledge in frustration and grief. My closest friend had just tried to murder me, then plunged to her death, all under someone else's control.

Gizmo limped to my side, his chassis dented, one ear hanging loosely by sparking wires. He nuzzled weakly against my leg. I knelt and placed a trembling hand on my companion, anger and sorrow etched on my face. "I've got you, pal," I murmured, gently scooping Gizmo into my arms.

"I'll find who did this," I whispered, voice tinged with grief and fury. It was a promise.