Memento Mori

1.1 - NEON DREAMS

FAR BELOW the neon alleys and famous arenas of the Electric Town, deep beneath the crust of a metal metropolis of fifteen million people, I blow the smoke from my gun and swing out of the Dynasty syndicate's local branch. Then, tugging an old headset over my ears, I dive headfirst into the smoggy air of the undercity. The Vents. The dead-end bottom of my Section's capital, clinging to the underside of the metropolis like a debaucherous forest where the trees are metal towers and they're pointed at hell, not heaven.

My home.

A jungle of data transfer cables makes a canopy of vines over my head. High above, layers of cubicle apartments rise like temple pillars before ramming into the flattened bottom of the overcity almost half a mile up. There, almost out of sight through a lattice of interconnected towers, bridges, and city blocks, an endless plane of metal punctured by smog dumpers and rain drains divides us Venters from the surface world. Only a few ways up and down through the city crust. Mass transport tubes for cargo, some seams and scars in the surface that let rare sunlight cut down into the stacked layers of the Vents. Those are the most popular descension points for overcity tourists, dogwatched by local gangs and hounded by illicit businesses that thrive in the lawless undercity. Everywhere else is dark as a blindfold, sunlight just a dream.

Blinking neon signs paint bleary advertisements for sex pills and steroid supplements on the grease-sheened flank of my skinsuit. NeoPop beats against my eardrums inside the headset. Vibrantly colored crowds smash into me on every side as I reenter a jam-packed block of tourist-attracting flytraps. Streetwear and flashy weapons dangle brazenly from shoulders and hips. Blades, guns, spell tomes, even a few Elementals passing fingertip fireballs back and forth across the alley from a strip club that sloughs drunken electronic music into the cracked streets. JOYs, palm-sized metal spheres that give humans access to those supernatural weapons and powers in real life, hover in plain sight alongside their users. I couldn't explain how one of the machines worked if you put a gun to my head, but they sure make it easy to tell the natives from the overcity tourists.

Since as far back as humanity can remember, we've always had our JOYs and always been using them. There's no reason not to. The tech is a Pandoran box that turns humans into living weapons at the touch of a holographic key, and the only limits are the classes of powers you choose. Between the eighteen classes, anyone from the lowest street rat to the pro-league superstars of the Metro Blockhouse can summon any weapon imaginable, manipulate the primal elements, soar on wings of aether, or use magic straight out of a spellbook. You'll see huge Mecha riders walking side-by-side with Tamer pets and Martial Artists out for their daily runs. Up in the overcity, at least. Combat is a religion to them. Everything, even the champion-king of our Section, is decided in their arenas. They fight for sport. Fly for sport. Carve and craft and cruise for sport. It's a gladiocracy: the strongest set the rules, and everyone else either sucks it up or fights for the right to change how things are.

In the Vents, JOYs are a tool. We use their powers to survive. Keep the lights on, keep the water running, keep the streets cleaner than the hell they'd otherwise be. Takes some creativity, because the tech was only meant to be used for combat. That doesn't stop us from using our JOYs anywhere and everywhere we can. An electric arc is an electric arc, even if it's coming from your finger instead of a welding torch. And no Venter brandishes their JOYs like the university studs hamming it up with their girlfriends on a mid-week daredevil trip to the undercity.

My eyes almost roll out of my head before I leave the small pack of college fighters behind. The only thrill they'll find in a block this close to the surface is a bad pickpocket. One of the guys whistles an old low-high tone as I pass, eyes lingering on my hips. I flip him off and cut towards a less bright, more-trafficked part of the block where an underground fighting ring is siphoning patrons from the street.

Labmeat sizzles to my left and right in alleyside carts. Desperate techies hawk biosplicing augments, promising fractional increases to reaction times. Yelling, shouting, shattering bottles, blaring stream screens back it all. Shockers slum in the darker alleys on cardboard mattresses. A smoggy shine coats every surface, even my tongue. An ever-present trickle of corrosive runoff drips down from the overcity. Oilslicked puddles of rainwater bloom from gaps in the concrete. I shatter the upside-down reflections without care.

Dirty halogens outside Dynasty's offices, colored the syndicate's trademark orange, fade to electric ambiance when I turn my third corner. Finally relenting to the urge to stretch my shoulders, I slip the 6-Teba into a thigh holster and push on for another block, passing a line of open-sided bars filled with blown-out speakers blaring weeknight fights from the overcity before I finally duck into a chopshop corner mart with boarded-over windows. My own reflection blinks back at me from a dozen shattered pieces of glass. Red-orange hair. Green eyes, heart-shaped face, dot nose, eighteen years' worth of hard edges. Then she's gone and I'm ducking inside, slipping through an unlocked door near the washrooms while the owner nervously eyes a trio of sword saints lingering near the fridges of energy drinks.

Later, some contracted Innovator- the JOY class for tech-savvy powers- will be jacking security tapes from the entire block for Dynasty, tracing my path from its beginning in their hideout to its end in this store. Dynasty is the newest, most dangerous gang playing realtor in the Vents. An offshoot branch of a global syndicate that's been worming its way into my home for years. But even with the resources of an international organization at their disposal, their reach only goes so far.

Past the mops and racks of cleaning solution in the storage closet, up the ladder in the back. Through the loose panel in the ceiling, into a thin passagewith peeling grey paint that tunnels right through the superstructure of the tower. A street rat's secret. Ancient wear marks from small feet dull the metal underfoot. Darkness looms ahead; pale LEDs glowing through gaps in the tiled ceiling underfoot. Peering into the dark, I pull out my JOY and send it forward with a single tap to its metal shell, commanding it to spread a thin sheet of electric-blue light over the tunnel. I follow a few steps behind. Losing the hood, hobbling out of my skinsuit, dumping them in a chute headed for the deep undercity, only keeping my sneakers.

A minute further in, I drop back out of the tunnel and into an empty locker room of the underground arena I saw earlier. Sweat sticks to the air, the wooden benches, the rusted cabinets. Large shadows of larger feet wander back and forth in front of the distant door. Holding the 6-Teba in my mouth by the trigger guard, I finger over the lockers and find a set of women's clothing two sizes too large- rare to find anything that isn't- skip the bra, tighten the shirt with a knot, jog the leggings up to my stomach, wind my hair back to its usual wide braid, wink at a mirror hanging from the door, and drop a borrowed pair of rose-tinted glasses over the bridge of my nose before climbing back up and out. A quick nudge of my foot returns the ceiling grate to its rightful place.

At the end of the tunnel, blue lights bleed through the gaps of a thin panel of sheet metal in an alley between a greasy spoon and a run-down residential tower. Silhouetted in the glow, a cavalier woman sits on an overturned bucket smoking a knockoff-brand lighter. Battered revolver in her lap, a late-night smirk on her face.

"Good shooting, Mori." She flicks a pair of credit chits into my hand with a gambler's grace. "Let's get some grub."