Chapter Text
“I think there are questions we humans simply hate to die without an answer to.”
Vi spat blood and pushed herself up from the ground. Rubble grated against the synthetic skin that cloaked her arms, wearing away the flesh coloration. Darkness coiled around her, painted gray with kicked up dust as the broadcast played in her ears, a bandage to the silence in her head that couldn't be salved even with the explosion.
“A lot of people think that one of those questions is, ‘what is the meaning of life?’
“Hey, asshole,” she called. Her voice was rough, dry and quiet in a way that begged her not to speak. But these could be her last words, and Vi wasn't going to lose them to discomfort.
“But, really, that's an easy one to answer.”
An orange eye glowered at her from the darkness, cold with hatred.
“The question that sets us apart in the end, what we never stop asking ourselves…”
“You would have done better to stay dead.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
Vi rolled her shoulder, feeling it pop as her ears rang and roared with blood-fuelled echoes. Her body ached; cracks where it was metal and bruises where it was flesh.
“But I got a promise I need to keep.”
The orange brightened, allowing Vi to see dark wires that ran through the pale, sickly flesh it was attached to.
“Needs do not entitle you to success.”
“What makes life worth living?”
“Nah,” Vi said, “but having someone worth fighting for does.”
There are three things Vi is certain of in her life.
God is dead, the sky is black, and she needs to get her hands on half a million creds.
If she felt like adding a fourth thing, then she’d say that standing here, breathing in copper-scented dust and waiting to tend bar, isn't going to get her any closer to those creds.
The Last Drop is a dying place, and not just because their customers have been drying up. The wooden aesthetic, despite being cleverly painted vinyl, is worn to the point it resembles rot, the taps only work after a strong smack, and the lights— orange, a rarity underground— are dull as they flicker beneath clouded glass, making the bar look like it’s lit by dying embers. Even the sound system, rigged to seem like it’s playing from a spinning record in the corner, sputters out the words of a Topside channel like any of them will be its last.
“You’re listening to the Piltover Future Hour Broadcast. I’m your host, Skye Young, and joining me today is Jayce Talis.”
Given the chance to add a fifth certainty, Vi would say that she hates the talkshow her brothers insist on playing when it’s slow, which is always.
There was a time, somewhere in the smog of Vi’s childhood, when the Last Drop was as packed as could be. Fixers, Runners, Punks; everyone was drawn by the promise of a fair payout and a place to unwind. They played music, then, beats crafted in clapped palms and flawed voices that sang of brighter times as if they could come again.
Vi knows better, but on nights like tonight she can’t help but want to see if there’s any hope left in those songs.
The bell behind the door chimes, shaking Vi from her memories and drawing her attention to the severe-looking woman that enters. Silver metal cuts through tan, weathered cheeks, tarnished to match the gray storm in the woman’s eyes. Her navy suit resembles armor more than it does fashion, reflecting the dim light off bronze accents around her shoulders while slim black tubes hang at her waist— collapsible weapons, most likely.
Vi reaches one hand beneath the bar and rests the other on the countertop. Her right hand curls around the metal handle of a spiked bat as she plasters on a smile and flicks her eyes downwards, conjuring red numbers in the left corner of her vision. 15:50.
Mylo must've unlocked the door early. Again.
“Serving doesn't start for another ten,” Vi says.
“I know,” the woman says. Her voice is like pixels being ground to dust, low and raspy with a flicker of an accent. She approaches the bar, but doesn’t pull out a stool to sit. “I’m not here for the drinks. I'm here for Vander.”
Vi drops any pretense of a smile. Terror sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth, her body locked down like there's thousands of tiny shocks bursting in her veins as the broadcast re-enters her ears.
“—It's only in the past decade that we have any record of these cases of cyberpsychosis.”
“I see. Do you think this is a case of introducing new technology too quickly?”
“No, not at all. The history of humans looking to augment themselves dates back centuries. We’ve always—”
“What do you want with him?” Vi asks.
“I have a job for him.” The woman unclips one of the tubes from her belt and sets it on the counter with a heavy clink. A contract, not a weapon.
She must be dealing with a Fixer, then. Vi exhales, alarm subsiding to a reserved sense of caution.
“He’s retired,” Vi says. She doesn’t move for the tube.
“But surely, you must agree the scale to which we do it now has never before been achieved. Is there no possibility that this sort of effect was overlooked?”
“Oh, don't misunderstand me. There's a lot we don't know about augmentation.”
“Perhaps he can find someone able, then.”
“O-of course. What do you think is the cause of these episodes, then?”
“If he was in a state to do that, you’d be talking to him.”
“What we do know is those that undergo cyberpsychosis tend to have numerous augments, and often don't have them done professionally. Improperly installed and maintained cyberware can damage the nervous system and—”
“A shame.” The woman’s lips twitch. “The fee is quite a handsome one. For Fixer and Runner both.”
Vi blinks slowly, so as to not give away the hope catching in her throat.
She's sure the tension pinching every muscle in her body does anyways.
“What’s the gig?”
“A simple delivery. The pay is for the short notice.”
“Simple is hard to come by these days,” Vi says, pulling the tube towards her. “You get no promises.”
“If someone suspects someone is undergoing cyberpsychosis, what steps should they take?”
The woman nods. She starts towards the door, pausing as she reaches for the handle.
“Well, the first thing anyone can do, the safest thing anyone can do—”
“There is no need to contact me to accept,” the woman says. “I will know.”
“—is to report them to the Enforcers.”
“This is suicide, Vi!”
Vi sighs as Mylo kicks her door, making a dent outside to match the numerous ones she’s left on the faded walls inside.
“It’s a job, Mylo,” Vi grunts. She flexes her arms, watching the brass colored plates that range from her fingers to her elbows split to reveal black wires and tiny flickers of red light. Finding no trace of damages, Vi lets the plates fall back together to reform her arms, wincing at the soft screech of metal on metal. She’ll have to adjust them later, for whatever good that will do.
If there will even be a later, given what she's about to do.
“I’m f*cking serious, Vi!” Mylo shouts and bangs on her door again.
“So am I!” She yells back, hoping the volume will account for the lack of heat as she wraps her arms in off-white cloth and shrugs on a red synthetic leather jacket. It's a bright look, the kind that will make her stand out like a tongue of flame when she hits the streets. In the left corner of her vision, the timer mutates into the image of a crimdon hourglass as it slides from 23:59 to 0:00.
Dawn of a new day, she thinks, and feels dread sink in her stomach like sand.
It's been years since she's run alone. She's out of practice, and Mylo’s right; for a job with as many zeroes as this, that's as good as throwing her life away.
If there's a chance a fraction of that money makes it to her family, though…
“Mylo,” she says, soft between the thuds he attacks her door with. “He’s not going to just get better. I have to do something.”
Her brother pauses, a shadow growing darker in the hallway. His silence is oppressive, filled with the doubts Vi feels but can’t voice.
“We know,” he says, strangled and quiet. “We just… we can't lose you, too.”
Vi swallows. She wishes she could say something confident, like “you won’t,” or, “as if you could get rid of me,”. Instead, Vi looks at her mirror, splintered a long time ago, at the wounded walls, and then at the black curtain that cuts her space in half to hide her from what they've already lost, what she's already lost, and opens the door without another word.
Mylo flails, caught in the motion of aiming another kick. Vi shoulders past him, taking advantage of his unbalanced state to storm down the stairs.
“Vi!” He shouts after her. “Let’s talk about this a second!”
Vi reaches the bottom of the stairs and grinds to a halt when she sees their other brother, Claggor, sitting at the bar. He stands the moment he notices her, a red bandanna tied around his neck and his goggles pushed up to rest on his forehead.
Red. The color of someone on a mission.
Vi grinds her teeth, a bitter memory on the back of her tongue at how familiar this feels.
She can't do this. Not tonight, not when time is falling through her fingers and taking with it every promise of love she's held.
“You’re not going either,” she growls.
“He’s our father too, Vi.” Claggor says. At his full height, he towers over her, a pillar of muscle that would be intimidating if he wasn't the gentlest person Vi knows. “You don't have to do this alone.”
“Actually, I do. It's in the contract.”
Lie. But they don't know that, and never will if she can help it.
Mylo stops behind Vi, lingering on the last step with accusing eyes that burn against the back of her skull. Claggor’s shoulders slump, but he doesn't try to stop her when she continues on to the door.
“At least tell us where you're going.” Claggor pleads.
“No. I don't want either of you trying to follow me.” Vi snaps, then tempers her voice into something gentler. “I wouldn't do this if I didn't care, alright?”
“We know,” Mylo grumbles. “We just want to help.”
Ice pierces Vi’s heart, frigid and taunting as it echoes his words in a voice she struggles to remember.
“Help?” Vi snarls, rounding on him. Rage boils in her chest as Mylo flinches, because he knows, knows, who said those words first, and just because she's gone doesn't mean he gets to use them now.
“Vi, I—”
“You want to f*cking help?” Vi’s fingers rattle in her palms, the metal shaking as her body urges her to do something to kill the guilt that makes her flesh colder than the steel.
Before she can, Mylo shrinks away, Claggor wedging himself between them. Vi stares at them, a breath of stale air enough to twist her rage into shame.
“Stay here and make sure he doesn't get worse.”
The door slams behind her with enough force that when Vi closes her eyes and leans back, she can imagine the entire building crumbling down.
Walking through the Lanes feels like sprinting through an earthquake.
The streets pulse with rhythm, shaking through doors edged in lilac halos to make the fractured ground beneath Vi's feet rumble like aftershocks. Vi can't remember a time the pavement wasn't shot through with cracks, but they seem deeper these days, little cuts into the abyss summoned by electric bass loud enough to bury her feelings in.
The world of the future, where everything that isn't the need to survive is automated.
Sex, food, death. That's where all the human is at.
Well, there, and the streets between those things.
Violet light shines from atop twisted poles that spring from the cracks like tall graves. More than providing sight amongst perpetual darkness, the streetlights charge to cybernetics that get close.
To newer augments, at least. Older augments like Vi’s operate off the same energy the rest of her body does; calories and adrenaline.
Clustered underneath the lights are groups of people dressed to look like shadows. Smoke curls from their lips in a rainbow of colors, and where it doesn't, liquid in an equal variety slides into their mouths and stains their skin.
There’s a poison out there for everyone.
Shoving her way through a group of gaunt teenagers, Vi throws a lazy middle finger behind her. They've got the mark of hopelessness about them; talking too loudly, moving too slowly, and flashing too much chrome on their faces.
“f*cking hell, man,” she hears behind her, “city’s gone to the f*cking dogs.”
“Hear that, bitch? f*cking dog.”
“Yeah, scurry away, little tail between the legs.”
“Wouldn’t mind some of that tail myself.”
They snicker like a pack of hyenas.
Vi has more respect for the animal than the humans. At least they would have a bite for her turned back, and not just a cowering bark.
But she doesn’t have time to go picking fights, even if winning one would calm her nerves. So she turns down a side street made of the same darkness as the bitter sky and searches.
There weren't details in the contract about who she's looking for, but after twenty-six minutes Vi knows she's found the person in question when she sees a red poncho leaned against a gray-bricked alley.
Their face is blurry, obscured by anti-recognition augments Vi doesn't have the creds or tech to override. It’s a rare sight to see, and not just because Vi won't be able to remember a single detail once she walks away.
Vi’s used to fame being a stronger shield than invisibility. Unease slithers in her blood, a ghostly touch that rearranges her thoughts into half-formed warnings against simple and too good to be true.
But Vander can't afford for her to back out, so Vi steels herself to commit to whatever hell she's walking towards.
“You’re not the Hound,” Vi’s contact says in a garble of robotic sounds that make her wince.
“Vander sent me. Too short notice for him to come.”
“Hm.”
“They didn't give me a password for this part,” Vi says, crossing her arms. “We either do this or we don't.”
There's a part of her hoping to be turned away, some clawing instinct that drags her heart down into her stomach and gnaws fearfully at her ribs, howling that she should be backing away.
Instead, she watches her contact reach into a pocket on the inside of their poncho and produce a small black box. They hold it out to Vi, who narrows her eyes as red words creep over her vision, indicating she’s been sent something.
“You’re going to take this pass and get on the rail towards Magonia. Look for car 516.”
“I got it.”
Vi grabs the black box. Her contact doesn't let go.
“That cargo is worth more than every life in this city. Remember that.”
Vi rolls her eyes.
“Sure,” she drawls.
“That’s a warning, not a threat.”
“Thought this was a simple job,” Vi grunts, finally wrestling the box away. It tucks neatly into her palm, and then her jacket.
“Simple. Not safe.”
“There a difference?” Vi asks.
She knows better than anyone that there is.
“Don’t screw this up, and you won't have to find out.”
The rail is a magnetized, automated train system that spirals up through all three levels of the underground to the city above. It's the largest public transit system in the world, stretching out beyond the City of Progress to not just other cities, but other countries.
Of course, those tracks are too expensive for anyone underground to ever think of riding, unless it's as a stowaway. Vi remembers a time when she and her siblings considered it, considered leaving everything behind and starting over new.
She's glad they didn't. Too many kids die that way, and nobody has the energy to rage with their grief for it to matter.
The station at Entresol is empty, unless Vi counts the plastic litter strewn across the ground and the blurry circles of black gunk that dot every surface leading up to the blue lasers that separate the entrance to the platform. There’s no charging lights inside the station, so the building is as good as worthless.
There are cheaper ways above, anyways.
Vi raises a hand, her brain supplementing a holographic image of her ticket. She whistles to herself as she looks at what she's been afforded.
An A-Z all day pass. Costs more than Vi can pocket in a week at the Last Drop, good for getting her through all levels of the city, even the Sundome.
Not that she'd make it inside without being arrested for breathing, but the implication of freedom makes her head spin.
For the next twenty-four hours, she can go anywhere she wants, all because she's carrying a little black box.
There's something wrong in that, a tiny injustice that would make Vi gnash her teeth if she could do more than worry about making it back home.
Nothing about freedom is free.
Vi reaches a hand through the turnstile field, half expecting the blue light to turn into lightning and fry her. When it doesn’t, she steps through in a single motion, shivering when she reaches the other side, feeling like she's stepped into a new dimension.
Blue bounces from clean silver floor to white ceiling, an effect that makes Vi’s hair stand on edge with the sense of exposure. The air is sterile, clinical in the way it’s devoid of dust and sweet puffs of smoke. Shining benches rest behind a golden line, but Vi can’t bring herself to sit while she waits for the train. Instead, she lingers behind one, looking down the tracks for a sign of motion while tapping her boot against the floor.
She wishes she could shut her eyes and wake up in the future.
Eventually, a bright blue light comes into view, the herald of a sleek train that bolts from the black like a comet. It settles before Vi with a soft rumble, quieter than she expected.
Almost too quiet. As Vi pulls herself up silver steps and slips from car to car, she debates tuning into the broadcast again, just so she doesn't have to hear herself sound like a stampede. More blue lights guide her along, illuminating car numbers until she finds the one she's looking for.
There's nothing special about car 516. It's as empty as the others, lined by dull gray benches and silver handrails that curve like snakes. Long strips of glass return her reflection as she settles onto the barely cushioned seats, so Vi leans her forehead against the cold window to stare past the frightened, exhausted girl she sees.
Vi knows she's been on the rails before, but the memory is distant, more a recollection of having done it than a specific experience.
She was young, and there were more people alive in the world when it happened. That's what she remembers.
It doesn't stop the loneliness from insisting there should be someone else here with her.
Vi jolts awake when she hears the sound of doors hissing open, the signal that she's not alone anymore. Panic pushes her into action, the return to the waking world feeling like a new dream when her eyes open to the sight of blurred buildings beneath a gray sky. Quickly, she checks she still has the box, then the time.
01:22.
Not even half an hour. Vi leans back and sighs. From the corner of her eye, she observes the woman that entered the car.
She’s tall, with dark blue hair that reaches beneath her shoulders in a neat curtain. A black visor covers the top half of her face, three blue dots mirrored on either side where her eyes should be. Vi doesn't need augments to know there's heat beneath the dark trenchcoat she's wearing, and Vi definitely doesn't need augments to know she's out of her league in more ways than one.
The woman walks towards Vi with perfect posture, like her feet aren't even touching the ground— a gait Vi would appreciate a lot more if her nerves weren't alight with anxiety.
“Cupcake,” The woman says.
“Vi,” Vi grins with a nonchalance she doesn't feel as she offers the box up. “Nice to meet you, Cupcake.”
Cupcake snatches the box from Vi’s hand, instantly lifting a weight from her. Pinching the sides, Cupcake sighs as the lid of the box opens.
“Good,” she says, closing the lid with a long, manicured finger. “You—”
The car lurches to a stop, burying Cupcake’s next words beneath a metallic screech while Vi is thrown roughly from her seat. The lights above flicker and plunge them into darkness. Neon red flows through the floor and ceiling in thin stripes, signaling the activation of the emergency system.
Picking herself off the floor, dread dominates Vi, flooding her with every fear she's entertained since she dared to accept hope. She wants to run, scream.
Instead, she throws her arms up, ready to defend herself or die trying.
Cupcake holds a hand up to her as the other slips beneath her coat and withdraws a sleek pistol with a glowing blue ring that spins in the air beyond the muzzle. Vi’s eyes widen.
PULSE weapons are rare above and below ground for good reason.
The connecting doors creak and part. White smoke pours inside the car, mixing with the emergency lights to create a pink cloud like vaporized blood. Vi holds her breath as it swirls before her eyes, warping the darkness beyond into the shapes of people.
“Go!” Cupcake hisses, shoving something small and cold into her hands. “I’ll find you!”
Any other day, Vi wouldn't listen. She'd put her pride into her fists and fight.
Today, she gives into the sense this is her last day on earth and runs.
Behind her, the sharp whistle of PULSE enhanced shots echo through metal corridors. With each one, Vi’s heart thuds faster in her chest, hot blood crashing through her veins as she shoves her way through heavy gray doors and stumbles out into unfamiliar streets. Invisible eyes bore into her, premonitions of burning wounds.
There's no time for a destination. Only distance.
The world brushes past Vi in a smear of towering buildings and empty black roads. Desperation yanks her feet down alleys at random, guiding her past green dumpsters and silver fire escapes until the only place to go is into a two-story wall of brown bricks and boarded up windows.
Or over it.
Scrabbling at the wall, Vi’s muscles spasm, unable to keep up with the force of her augments as they launch her up the side. The pain makes her snarl as her fingers latch onto the lip of a windowsill, somewhere above the halfway point. She dangles for a moment, helpless and paralyzed as seconds wither like her chances of survival.
This is it. This is the moment they spot her, and the next will be her last. Vi strains against her useless limbs, desperate to cling to life.
It must be a miracle that bullets don't come before her ability to move.
Leaping up, Vi climbs her way to the roof. Sprinting away from the edge, Vi tucks herself against the blue-lit access so she's behind the door. Anything to feel like she has time.
Vi hunches over, making herself small. Breaths come in short bursts that leave her throat raw and her lips cased in salt. Terror keeps them from evening, the speed of her pulse as much a consequence of emotion as it is movement.
“f*ck,” she hisses, straightening up. “sh*t!”
Vi glances at her palm. A small pink chip catches the blue glow of the light above the door, making it appear iridescent. She curls her fingers back over it and sighs, knocking her head against the cold exterior of the access.
She could get rid of it. Cast it into the street and walk the other way, hope the ignorance she feigns will protect her life. Whatever's in this chip belongs to a different world, one filled with PULSE rifles and sabotaged rail cars and passes to anywhere in the city.
“What the f*ck am I supposed to do anyways?” She groans, burying her head in her hands as she slumps down.
She should keep running, Vi knows. But where would she even go? Topside, she doesn’t know the streets, the ways to disappear.
She’d be tying her own noose, for all she knows.
“Hands up, rat.”
Vi looks through her fingers and feels her heart stop.
Should’ve kept running, she thinks. Too late.
She's always been too late.
“Hey,” she rasps, pointing the way she came, “think the person you're looking for went thataway.”
She hadn’t even heard herself be followed.
Vi pushes herself back to her feet, swaying as vertigo almost drops her again. Mirrored visors shift behind glowing weapons and white gloves, laced with an impression of nervousness Vi doesn't understand and might be imagining.
They haven't shot her yet, but they will. It's too late for Vi to get out of this alive, but it's not too late to make her death mean something.
Vi slowly raises her hands as a slot opens on the side of her neck, a cradle of metal carved from flesh that melds nerves and wires. It’s one of two augments everyone has, meant to allow the human to grow around a machine.
Or for a machine to grow the human. Same difference, one that's not about to matter.
Vi reaches her hands up, pretending to stretch as she slips the chip inside. Her heart pounds as she feels it click into place and the slot close. She thinks of her brothers, waiting for her return, and her heart splinters from shame.
She’ll just have to hope that Cupcake will find the chip on her body, and that Vander will get some kind of posthumous payout. That’ll be enough.
“What’d you do with it, rat?”
“Do with what?” Vi asks. Her shoulders begin to shake as the contents of the chip begin transmitting to the server integrated with her brain— the second augment everyone has—, making her dizzy as it floods her vision with lines of Code and sends her falling through the floor and into the cracks in the Lanes.
She looks up, hoping to see something for the first and last time. 01:31 displays in red over the black sky.
If nothing else, the journey to hell was quick.
The numbers vanish, replaced by two words as static seeks to steal the rest of Vi’s vision. Bright blue outlined in hot pink flashes, blinking like afterimages left from staring at a light too long.
Get Jinxed!
