Reckoning Ciphers and Control
Nocturne never gave anyone a real night's rest. It just hummed and buzzed—like a busted circuit board patched together with frayed wires and cheap parts, desperately clinging to life. The alleys spat steam and static, neon leaking down cracked walls in uneven runs that looked more like mistakes than art, like a half-finished sigil someone got bored of. Lucien Blackmoore slid through it all like he was soaked into the grime itself—because maybe, in some way, he was. His coat stuck damp and heavy across his shoulders, rainwater still dripping from the collar. Last night's downpour hadn't washed anything clean. Not the streets, not the ghosts crawling underfoot, and sure as hell not him.
The city smelled like burnt ozone, rusted synth-oil, and that slow rot that creeps in when big corps bleed every scrap dry. Holosigns flickered and sputtered over busted doorways and collapsed vendor stalls, blinking half alive, as if barely holding on by a thread. Overhead, drones circled in lazy, careless orbits, their eyes glowing red and hungry—always watching, always hungry, always scooping up whatever secrets they could swipe. Lucien's Ledger thumped steady against his ribs. Not a quick flutter, not panic—more like a calm heartbeat that already knew the night's math: what would be traded, what would be stolen, and what would bleed out in silence.
LEDGER ACTIVE
Collection Due: Tarek Murn, 3 cycles overdueContract Violation Logged: Kivra Ashen – Risk to non-signed civilians Query: "Your boons burn innocents."
Lucien blinked once. The last line stayed, pulsing slow in the corner of his sight. A warning, maybe. Or a reckoning.
His stride slowed, boots catching in puddles that shimmered with sickly light. He paused at a melted gutter and leaned on the edge of a collapsed stairwell, dragging his fingers down his face. Somewhere back in the last district, a soul-marker had flared. Civilian. Wrong place, wrong fallout. The price of his hustle.
"Innocent paid for my win," he muttered under his breath, voice bitter as the cold wind threading through the scaffolds above. "Ledger doesn't forget."
The pulse answered once more, quieter.
"But you press on."
He ducked down a side street off Marrow Avenue, where the Obsidian Veil had parked muscle like broken statues holding rifles. Two bruisers blocked the path—broad shoulders wrapped in patchy armor, cybernetic mods humming faint under cracked plating. They looked built more for show—muscles and blank stares, probably clueless whether a dataport was a door handle or a deathtrap.
Lucien didn't slow. One hand hovered near his belt, fingers twitching, the other flicked open a battered brass lighter. The flame danced for a second, sputtered, then died. He shook it once—an old habit, useless, just enough distraction.
"Cal, my man," he muttered under his breath, eyes flicking toward a busted utility door hanging half open at the alley's far end. "These two are a pain, but you're the ace. Crack those codes and drinks are on me."
Inside, past a tangle of rusted cables and flickering holo-junk, Cal crouched over a console, fingers moving so fast they blurred. Sweat glimmered on his temple beneath the glow of his visor, his face taut with nervous energy and adrenaline.
"You think I'm some miracle worker on a street corner, Blackmoore?" Cal shot back without looking up. "Their drone signals are double-encoded. I'm hacking through a firewall that bites back."
Lucien smirked, sliding silently behind him. "You always did love a challenge."
TASK LOG – Active
Infiltration: Nocturne Sector 12 – Scan cipher signatureContact: Cal Virel – Informant activeDrone Sweep: Predicted reactivation window – 11 minutes
Outside, one of the goons kicked a crate hard. Wood cracked and splintered, sharp as a broken bone snapping through the quiet. Lucien crouched beside Cal, eyes flicking to the alley's mouth. His breath came short and shallow.
"Cal?" he whispered again, low and tense.
"Almost there. Two drones down. One more still sniffing."
Lucien pulled a strip of worn soul parchment from his coat pocket, fingertips brushing the frayed edges. It was mostly useless now, but it grounded him—old debts, old magic, old power. The Ledger throbbed louder in his chest.
A red beam of drone light flashed past the door crack and paused.
Cal cursed low, slamming a final command. The drone's light blinked once, then died. All three drones went silent in two heartbeats.
Cal slumped back, exhaling hard. "System reset. They're deaf and blind for ten minutes."
Lucien patted him on the shoulder. "Beautiful. Drinks on me once we're not getting shot in the face."
He stepped out.
The Veil goons twitched, like they'd just realized their backup went dark. One reached for his comm. Lucien moved fast. A silver coin spun between his fingers, charm whispered low and binding.
The comm sparked and fizzled, shorting in the guy's hand.
The other lunged but was too slow.
Lucien slipped past them, spinning through a puddle, boots slapping wet stone as he vanished into another side alley.
"Another cipher?" he called back without turning. "This guy's got no class."
A sharp laugh broke from his throat as he ducked under a half-collapsed awning where a vendor strung glitch-charms like dead fireflies on copper wire. The woman behind the stall was wiry, veins dark as roots inked along her arms, metal teeth jagged in her mouth. She shot him a glare but stayed silent. Lucien gave a nod. She rolled her eyes and spat to the side.
In the next alley, fog leaked from a ruptured vent and curled around a corner. Lucien spotted it—a scorch mark burned into a vending crate. Twisted lines spiraled in a way that made your eyes ache if you stared too long. The smell was faint but sharp—singed leather and ash. A cipher. Burned in, half faded. Cassian's signature, no doubt.
Lucien crouched, frowning. His fingers hovered hesitantly over the mark. The edges were ragged, like the magic fought back before dying.
Cal caught up, breathing fast. "That his?"
Lucien nodded. "Either him or one of his puppets."
Cal squatted, pulling a micro-lens to scan the sigil. "Half the glyphs are glitching. Whoever left this didn't plan to stick around."
Lucien stood, jaw tight. "No finesse, no subtlety. Just brute force and bad habits. Cassian's fingerprints all over it."
THREAT ANALYSIS – ACTIVE
Cipher Type: Chaos-Burn SignatureGlyph Pattern: Disruptive entropy –
The words etched across his vision made something cold settle in his gut. It wasn't just a tag. It was a message, maybe even a mirror. And it wasn't for the drones.
From behind a rusted screen came a voice. "You break something?" A kid maybe fifteen stepped out from behind crates. Dirt streaked his face but his eyes were sharp.
"Just found a note," Lucien said, smile thin and sharp. "Terrible handwriting."
The kid squinted at the mark, nose wrinkling. "Smells like burnt wires."
"Yeah," Lucien agreed. "That's the smell of someone trying way too hard."
The kid melted back into shadows.
Lucien glanced at Cal. "We better get out before the Veil circles back."
They zigzagged through blackout alleys and corridors of broken code. Cal pointed out blind spots; Lucien added a few—places Watcher drones never flew, holes in the city's guts where even AetherCorp's eyes missed.
They passed a stall where a woman sold charm-thread bracelets woven from old tech cords and fragments of soul residue. Lucien stopped.
"Help me lock down a route?" he asked.
She gave a hard look. "Got coin?"
Lucien pulled out a faint blue soul fragment, warm in his palm. She nodded, passing him a map burnt onto barkskin treated to resist ash.
"Avoid the third stair off Grail Street. Drone nests there."
Lucien slipped her an extra cred.
At last, they slipped into the back door of The Tin Ember, a dive for fringe hackers and washed-up enforcers. The air inside hung thick with smoke and louder lies. Lucien dropped onto a cracked leather stool and flagged two drinks. The stiffer one went to Cal.
"To code and chaos," Lucien toasted.
Cal raised his glass. "And to not dying."
They drank deep. The burn was a welcome distraction.
Nearby, a jittery informant was halfway through a bottle of red gin. Lucien leaned close.
"What's the buzz?"
The man blinked, eyes glassy, voice rough like a broken radio. "Cassian's tokens showing up at the dockyards. Drones dropping without a trace. Word is he's got something big… something stitched between the realms. They're calling him the faceless broker."
Lucien's eyes narrowed. "Branding himself now?"
The informant just nodded, eyes unfocused.
Later, when the bar had faded to a dull hum and Cal had slipped out through a safer exit, Lucien stepped back into the alley. The night smelled fresher—cleaner—but it was a lie. The stink of burned sigils and creeping war clung to cracked walls like mildew.
He pulled the cipher-marked token from his coat and rolled it between his fingers.
Cassian was clawing at the edges of the game board, breaking rules he didn't understand. Or maybe he did and just didn't care.
Lucien stared at the city skyline—jagged towers slicing the night like broken glass—and smiled without warmth.
LEDGER UPDATE
Soul contracts updated: 3Active Collection Routes: 2Warning: "You're bound to me."
Lucien exhaled sharply. He muttered to himself, almost a confession, almost a curse. "Hustle's breaking me."
But he didn't stop moving. Couldn't.
He flipped the token, tucked it away, and started toward the next rendezvous. Nocturne was still bleeding, and someone had to make the cuts count.