Beneath the Veil
The terminal's sickly glow stabs my eyes as I stare at the message from 0_0. Forty-six hours since they dangled 50,000 Zen in front of me—a ticket out of the Academy's noose. Richard Hayashi's death still stains my head. His tired eyes haunt me, a ghost I can't shake. The smell of copper and fear lingers in my nostrils, mixing with the stale air of my 5-square-meter hole above a fake sushi bar. This city chews up nobodies like us, and I'm no different. Just another Class C, one missed payment from a harvesting table. But 50,000 Zen. Freedom. A chance to be more than prey.
The weight of that number presses against my chest like a blade. I've done dirty work before—collections, intimidation, the occasional disappearance—but never anything this clean, this profitable. My hands shake as I light a cigarette, the flame dancing in the terminal's blue glow. The nicotine burns my lungs, a familiar comfort in this concrete tomb I call home. Outside, Sector 12's neon buzzes like angry wasps, drones whining their eternal patrol over the city's corpse.
I type: I'm in.
The response is immediate, cold as a blade.
> Chat Log Start
>
> 0_0: Knew you'd bite, Kairo. Check your account.
A ping. My Downwork balance spikes—12,400 Zen, my overdue debt, wiped clean. My chest unclenches for the first time in months, but the relief sours fast. This isn't a gift. It's a leash. 0_0 didn't just pay my debt; they bought my soul.
> 0_0: Debt's gone. You're welcome. From now on, call me Blank—0_0 doesn't roll off the tongue when you're bleeding out in an alley. You'll meet someone tonight. Name's Asphalt. Sector 7, 22:00. She'll show you the ropes for what's coming.
>
> Me: Show me what ropes? I handled the last job clean.
>
> Blank: Clean, yeah. But this isn't Academy territory anymore. You're swimming with sharks now, and they smell blood from miles away. Asphalt's been in the game longer than you've been breathing. She knows the players, the rules, the ways to die.
>
> Me: What kind of job needs a babysitter?
>
> Blank: The kind that pays 50,000 Zen. The kind that makes your little executive hit look like pocket change. You think that biotech suit was worth eight grand just for being in the wrong place? Think again. That job had strings attached—strings that lead to bigger fish.
>
> Me: What kind of strings?
>
> Blank: The kind that strangle. Your boy Hayashi wasn't just some corporate drone. He was connected, had his fingers in pockets that run deep. The hit was clean, but the ripples? They're still spreading. Someone wanted him quiet, and they paid premium for it.
>
> Me: Who?
>
> Blank: That's what we're going to find out. But first, you survive tonight. Asphalt will make sure you're ready for what's coming. Don't disappoint me, Kairo. I've got a lot riding on you.
The screen goes black, leaving me in the dark with the taste of copper and fear in my mouth. Hayashi's job felt off from the start—too clean, too pricey for a routine hit. Now I know why. I'm not just a killer anymore. I'm a thread in someone else's web, and they're pulling me deeper into the darkness.
The Academy of Acquisition hides behind a veil, a shadow cast over the city's ignorant masses. To civilians, it's H3althy World, a saintly organ bank peddling hope—kidneys, livers, blood for the dying. Billboards glow with smiling faces, promising salvation. But the truth lies beyond a hidden threshold, a labyrinth of steel and secrets accessible only to those with the right codes, blood-oaths, or curses. A retinal scan, a whispered passphrase, or a syndicate's mark opens the gates to a world of blood and debt, where lives are carved apart and sold under the guise of charity. The veil is impenetrable, a lie woven so tight that no outsider suspects the screams echoing within. Only the damned—students, graduates, or prey—know the Academy's true face: a machine that feeds on flesh.
Sector 7's alleys reek of decay—spoiled synth-meat, spilled oil, and the sour tang of despair. The air's thick with ozone, neon signs flickering like dying stars against the perpetual smog. I reach the meet point—a gutted data kiosk by a drone repair shop—at 21:55. My jaw stings from a quick morph, mimicking a courier's slouch to blend in. The pain's sharp but bearable, a burn in my bones like acid in my veins. Morphogenesis—flesh memory, the ability to become anyone I've studied—comes at a cost. Every shift hurts, every change a needle in my nerves. I keep it hidden. Always have. Except from Blank.
The shadows shift, and I tense, hand moving instinctively to the blade at my hip. Then a figure steps into the kiosk's dying light. A girl, barely twenty, with soft brown curls and wide, guileless eyes. Her plain jacket and scuffed boots scream ordinary—the kind of ordinary that makes you invisible in a crowd. But her stare cuts like glass, and there's something in the way she moves that sets my teeth on edge.
"You must be Kairo," she says, voice bright as broken glass. "I'm Asphalt."
I blink, thrown. This is what Blank sent? This kid who looks like she should be serving coffee in some upscale cafe? "Expected someone… different."
She laughs, a sound like silver bells in a graveyard. "What? Someone with scars and tattoos? Someone who looks like they eat bullets for breakfast?" She steps closer, circling me like a predator sizing up prey. "The innocent ones are the deadliest, rookie. We're the ones nobody sees coming."
My skin prickles. She's right. That soft face hides something sharp, something that could gut me before I blink. "Blank said you're here to show me the ropes."
"Did he now?" She tilts her head, studying me with those unsettling eyes. "Tell me, Kairo—how long have you been working the streets?"
"Two years. Give or take."
"Bodies?"
"Enough."
"Collections?"
"More than I can count."
She nods, a slow smile spreading across her face. "And you're still breathing. Still walking. Still thinking." She reaches out suddenly, her hand landing on my shoulder like a striking snake. I flinch, but she just grins wider. "You know what that tells me?"
"What?"
"That you don't need a babysitter." She jumps back, spinning on her heel with the grace of a dancer. "Blank thinks you need guidance, but I've seen your work. Clean kills, no traces, no heat. You're already better than half the trigger-pullers in this city."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because," she says, hopping onto the kiosk's edge like it's a playground, "sometimes the best lessons come from realizing you don't need to be taught. You've got instincts, Kairo. Good ones. Trust them."
I stare at her, confusion mixing with something that might be relief. "That's it? That's the test?"
"That's part of it." She hops down, landing cat-like on her feet. "The other part is this—when was the last time you ate something that wasn't synth-paste or recycled protein?"
The question catches me off guard. "I… what?"
"Food, Kairo. Real food. When?" She's already walking, gesturing for me to follow. "Come on. I know a place. You can't work on an empty stomach, and what's coming next is going to take everything you've got."
Against my better judgment, I follow. There's something about her—this strange mix of deadly and playful—that draws me in. Maybe it's the way she moves, like she owns the streets. Maybe it's the way she talks, like she knows secrets I'm dying to learn.
"What is coming next?" I ask, falling into step beside her.
"The real work," she says, that silver-bell laugh echoing off the alley walls. "The kind that separates the survivors from the corpses. But first—food. You look like you haven't had a decent meal in weeks."
She's not wrong. The Academy's rations were barely enough to keep me alive, and since then, I've been living on whatever I could scrounge. My stomach growls as if on cue, and Asphalt grins.
"See? Your body knows what it needs. Now come on. The night's young, and we've got work to do."
In a sterile office high above Sector 7, the new supervisor stands before a shadowed figure, the city's neon glow bleeding through the glass walls like infected blood. The superior's face is hidden in darkness, voice a low rasp, unmodulated, raw as a wound. "Subject 42-C. Cleared 12,400 Zen in one go. A Class C. Explain."
The supervisor's hands tremble, the scalpel-fumbler's nerves laid bare. Sweat beads on his forehead despite the room's chill. "He… survived a year. No organs lost. Paid his debt today, full transfer. No Class C's done that before."
The superior leans forward, eyes unseen but heavy as gravestones. "Why do you think we give Class C IDs that are different? No year marker, unlike A or B. And not even keep proper records of them. Why?"
The supervisor falters, words sticking in his throat like broken glass. "They're… expected to die within a year. No one invests in them. No family, no backing, no hope. 42-C's an anomaly."
"An anomaly," the superior repeats, voice like gravel in a meat grinder. "You missed it. Others did too. That puts you in the red, boy. You let a Class C slip through the cracks, and now he's drawing eyes. Drawing questions. Many will pay for that mistake."
The supervisor pales, sweat now streaming down his face. "I'll—"
"Get out," the superior cuts in, voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carries more menace than a shout. "Your job's cutting, not thinking. Send me his file. Everything. Downwork records, movements, associates. Everything."
The supervisor stumbles out, the door hissing shut behind him like a coffin sealing. The superior stares at the city below, its lights cold and unyielding as the eyes of the dead. "42-C, aliased Kairo," he murmurs, the name rolling off his tongue like a curse. "Who's backing you? Who's playing puppet master?"
The order echoes in the silence: a thorough investigation, a shadow cast over one nobody who survived too long. In the city's web of blood and money, anomalies don't last. They get corrected.
Or they get eliminated.