Flux: Chapter 3, 4, 5 (Patreon)

3: Roen

The three-story house perched on the residential edge of the corpo-capital of Sirrej was, by all standards, truly enviable. It represented an idyllic setting for raising a family; strategically close enough to the bustling cityscape for children to seamlessly integrate into the fast-paced modern society, yet far enough removed to allow them to appreciate the tranquility and serenity that mother nature generously bestowed upon humanity as the very foundations of civilization.

Or at least it had been that way, once upon a time.

Roen listened to the water boiling not a meter away from him, savoring the rich aroma of his tea as he took another sip. The electric kettle abruptly shut off, the gentle murmur of the bubbling water gradually lowering to a simmer before ultimately fading into silence.

He did not feel the need to rush, calmly finishing off his first cup before setting about preparing a second one. His gaze flicked momentarily toward his data pad resting on the dinner table, but he shook off the thought and bent down to retrieve his shoes instead. They had dried. Mostly.

A wet sheen coated the streets as he walked down the narrow one-way road that led toward the heart of the city. Only a handful of people dotted the sidewalks, caught in that curious time of day when the majority had already departed for work, yet the air still carried that crisp, frigid scent of early morning. Languid. Peaceful. His late schedule was one of the rare victories he had managed to wrestle away for himself amidst the chaos of life.

By the time he stepped onto the meticulously maintained lawn surrounding Derilect-Helix Co-Opt University, he had polished off his drink and tossed the plastic cup into a recycling bin, the familiar sound of the machine whirring to life as it ground the flimsy material into a fine paste.

He paused at the entrance, allowing the cameras to scan his face before a confirming beep sounded, and the automatic doors slid open with a soft whoosh. The lobby's warmth, infused with temp-controlled air, enveloped him like a comforting embrace. Still, he couldn’t shake the melancholic pang that settled in his chest.

“You’re early,” Quintin remarked from his position behind the metallic barrier of his desk. “He’s going to be in E7, with twenty-five minutes left.”

“Thanks. Um, could you disable the sensor, please?”

Quintin raised his eyebrows, the lowest part of his face visible above the desk. “You’re sitting in?”

“If you disable the sensor. Please.”

“Mhm, sure. The professor does hate to be interrupted.”

With his hands tucked in his pockets, Roen made his way up the gracefully curved staircase leading toward the East wing of the university. The artificial wooden floor gleamed with a flawless polish, its surface reflecting the notice boards and glass display cases that lined the walls. L-shaped couches occupied every corner, and Roen gave them a wide berth to avoid any wayward foot that might impede his progress.

When he reached the door, it was habit more than anything else that compelled him to gently open the door, quietly duck inside, and swiftly navigate along the wall to the back of the lecture hall. This time, he took a moment to glance around as he moved. A few students turned their heads in his direction, but without the deep buzz of the sensor, his entrance went largely unnoticed.

“...not to be confused with acetyl, in this case. Well, standardized nomenclature notwithstanding,” Professor Newrock was saying.

The professor tapped the pointer against the massive screen that dominated the wall behind him. Roen didn’t claim to be well-versed in chemistry, but he did know that the screen itself was specifically designed to endure the constant assault of the stick.

He found a nice, isolated spot in the furthest row back, a small smile creeping onto his face as he surveyed the sea of students spread out below him. There. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Maybe he could make this a more regular occurrence.

As the lecture drew to a close, students began to pack up their notes, streaming out the door in lively clusters. Although Roen would have preferred to wait a moment longer, he instead shouldered past the throngs of students and approached the long desk at the front.

“Hi, Professor.”

Professor Newrock glanced up at him from behind his half-framed glasses. “Hm? Yes, good morning. Did you, by any chance, misplace a Berzelius beaker yesterday? We’re short of one.”

“No. I brought it back to the lab, as usual,” Roen replied, his voice steady enough.

Professor Newrock frowned down at his stack of papers, aligning them meticulously before making them disappear into his bag. “Well. Someone misplaced it.”

“When do you need it?” Roen asked.

“That will be...” Professor Newrock paused for a moment, his lips hidden beneath his bushy mustache silently counting off the seconds. “Third class. Er, just a light demonstration for the new students. But if we don’t have–”

With a grin, Roen raised the tall glass container from within his pack. “Don’t worry, I brought an extra of each.”

“Pah!” Professor Newrock shook his head, rising from his chair. “What on earth do you carry those around for?” He shot another frown down at his desk before turning to leave.

“What else am I going to carry? It’s not like I’m a student here anymore,” Roen said, a hint of sarcasm lacing his voice. “Also, Professor...”

“Mh, yes?” Newrock replied, pausing mid-step.

Roen picked up the pointer from the desk, pushing it together before handing it over.

The professor hurried out of the lecture hall, his bag clasped tightly beneath one arm.

In short order, Roen cleared everything from the desk and tucked it away inside the drawers. He wiped down the surface—just a dry clean—and picked up the name tag reading ‘Dr. Bernard Newrock’ to replace it with a blank one. Two minutes, all that.

Roen emerged into a hallway bustling with people, their animated passage disrupting the sunlight that poured in through the windows. He stepped close to the wall, out of their way, and unlocked his phone to review today’s schedule. He had it memorized, yet a double-check never hurt.

“No lab today...” he muttered to himself, and a small weight lifted from his chest. No lab meant no access, and no access meant he had an excuse to avoid delivering the quota for his brother. Or at least, an excuse to have it significantly reduced.

He started walking and was just about to turn the corner when a voice called out, “Hey, Roen! Is that you?”

It was the blond young man from the couch, now standing to intercept him. Roen hesitated for just a second too long, costing him the opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

“I haven’t seen you in ages,” the smile on his face was probably genuine. Nathan, he recalled. His name was Nathan. They often sat next to each other in Production & Industrial Management class. “What’s up, how are things?”

“Ah, Nathan, hey,” Roen said. He shrugged, adjusting the strap across his shoulder. “Yeah, good. You know, just… yeah.”

Nathan smiled at him still, eyes steady and hanging on him and waiting for him to continue.

That expectant look. Always that heavy, soul crushing expectant look. Why did it always make him freeze up?

Nathan glanced to the side, at his friends watching from the couch, then back. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “So, um, you stopped coming. Right? I always wondered what happened with you. It was in the middle of the semester as well.”

Roen forced out a little laugh. “Right. I, uh… kinda just, dropped out.”

“Well, obviously. But why? You were leagues better than me, otherwise I wouldn’t have needed to copy your sheets on a monthly basis,” Nathan said wistfully. “You remember when you made that retort on Prof Hampton’s theory?”

He did not remember that.

“Yeah,” Roen said, glancing at the floor. Eye-contact, he reminded himself, staring at the floor. Always try to keep eye-contact. “Look, sorry, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Need to set up in South wing before next class.”

Nathan rocked back and forth on his feet, hands in pockets. “Yeah, yeah, sure. That’s cool,” he said. “So, like, are you taking up your studies again, ooor…”

“Um, no. I do assistant work. For Professor Newrock.”

“Like, experiments and all that?”

“Just, um, preparing his desk, cleaning. Those kinds of things.”

“Mhm. How’s the pay?”

“It’s volunteer work.”

It was not volunteer work. Not in a true sense, anyways.

“‘Scuse me,” said someone from behind him. 

Roen flinched, stepping out of the way. “Sorry,” he whispered.

By the time Nathan opened his mouth to speak, Roen was already backing away. “Sorry! I really gotta run.” 

“Hey, we should exchange numbers! How about you–

He should do no such thing. How much risk he would expose anyone with such a simple gesture. How little he actually controlled within his own life. His knowledge, his ‘job’, even his home - all firmly under his brother’s thumb.

And tonight, he knew he would be forced to kill again.

How much easier things would be if he simply turned invisible.

His throat dry, Roen sped into a hurried walk and disappeared within the rushing tide of humanity.

4: Flux

Flux tapped her feet impatiently, watching the requisitions assistant behind the glass swipe through the database.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but I can’t find your name anywhere.”

“Check again?”

The man glanced down at his screen, then back again. “I cannot find any of the relevant info under your name. No prints, no personalized trigger-locks, and certainly no corp assigned optics for accuracy assistance.“

“I just joined.”

The assistant gave a ‘what-can-you-do’ sort of smile at that, already going back to his earlier activities, tapping something on his screen.

“From the new division.”

Tap. Tap.

“Net security. Specialist.”

“I’m afraid you’re not cleared to carry a gun,” the assistant said. “But feel free to bring this to Director Marlock. Since this is all newly treaded ground, maybe there’s some concessions to be made.” He clicked some more. “Though I doubt it, Miss.”

“Hmph. Thanks.”

The elevator was still there, so at least she was spared the time waiting for it. She hit the button for the top floor and leaned her shoulder against the wall, arms folded. Her pixie-juice was running a bit low, but she was aware of the camera in the upper right corner, so she didn’t conjure up any. Humans weren’t supposed to know just how pixies maintained their large form.

They thought it was random, bless their moronic little hearts.

The elevator doors dinged open on the third floor, a man getting in, quickly followed by a woman with data pad in hand. Flux shifted back to give them space, but remained unmoving otherwise.

“You going all the way up?” the man asked, glancing back at her.

“Mhm.”

The man’s finger hovered over the buttons for a moment before he hit the seventh. He scratched at his stubble as the door closed, then turned toward her and offered his hand. “Klint, DO. I work relations with the police.”

“Flux,” she drawled, giving a little finger-wave. The hand she ignored. “NSS.”

“I heard about that. A new sub-branch inside net security? I wasn’t filled in on the details, though, so…” He phrased it as a question.

“My contract includes field-work,” Flux said, eyes half-lidded. She made a zapping sound, one hand lazily miming to plug something into an invisible socket. “Hacking into the mainframe and shit.”

The elevator arrived on the seventh floor, and Flux watched the man step out with a parting nod. The woman was still absorbed with her data pad.

Thirteen floors high the building went, constructed as a joint base of operations in Sirrej; part Helix offices, part NullCorp. Truth be told, eight of those floors were filled with servers and databases, but the result was the same. A shiny box of steel and concrete with important people doing important things.

The door was already open when she arrived at the office. Flux knocked regardless, poking her head in to see Marlock leaning over his desk, arms braced as he read through a thick folder of documents.

“Come in,” he called. He looked up and blinked when he saw her. “Yes, Flux?”

The director of Sirrej’s security corporation was a heavyset man, short in stature but making up for it with the width of his shoulders. A streak of missing hair adorned his closely shaved head, like the rim of a one-sided crown. “Are you settling in well?”

“Yup,” Flux said, eyeing the empty chair at the front of the desk. She stopped behind it, folding her arms. “Can I get a gun?”

Marlock raised his brows. “You can, so long as you pass all the requirements for it, then maintain them. However I find myself wondering why a non-human whose primary job is behind a desk even wants to be armed.”

“To defend myself. Duh.”

Marlock went back to reading his documents. “I have it on good authority that pixies, in their large form, possess more than enough body strength to overpower all humans and most non-humans.” He flipped a page. “Your mother was very insistent on explaining this when she handed over your application.”

Flux’s wings twitched and she closed her eyes, clamping down on her irritation. Why did Mom have to interfere with everything she did? She’d earned this job, damn it. “She, uh… she didn’t cause any trouble, did she?”

“Not really. She asked me to tell you that, once you come back to your senses and return home, you will find the mansion key to the front door behind the tail of the mermaid statue. I told her I was not a babysitter and respectfully suggested she handle her own private matters like an adult. But her donation was a welcome bonus, regardless.”

Flux winced inwardly. “Sorry about that.” So fucking embarrassing. “How about a taser?”

“A taser?”

“From the armory. Just so I have something to–”

The words cut off sharply as her magic uncoiled within her chest - and with an audible puff, like confetti going off, Flux shrunk back to her original form.

“Fuck!” She flew up in the air with an annoyed huff, her one-foot-nothing body rising to hover above the empty chair. Even her voice came out as a high-pitched whine. “Why does it always happen in public?” she sulked.

Well, she knew why - she just had a tendency to forget. Pixies have kept the effects of their dust a secret for millenia, and it was starting to get real fucking annoying with cameras everywhere. No species wanted to end up like the cyclops.

“And that’s another reason why you’re not getting access to the armory,” Marlock said pointedly. “A quick draw doesn’t count when it’s the gun drawing you.”

“Hmph. The gun would shrink with me, thank you very much.”

“And the rounds, too, I wager. My point stands.” Marlock paused, seemingly distracted by the buzzing of her wings. He scratched his chin. “Was that all?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Flux muttered. “I’ll see myself out.”

Making one quick circuit around the room, Flux flew up to the small awning window and pushed on the handle until she had enough room to slip out through the gap.

The world stretched out below her, the people of Sirrej reduced to nothing more than ants from this high up. Wind buffeted her translucent wings as she hovered in place, looking past the flashing skyscrapers, past the accelerated highway of Mega-Nex and beyond. She had only left the city by the Nex a single time, and that had been more than enough. Her return trip was by wings.

The apartment she rented was some ten minutes’ flight away, a fairly cheap place she found near Vinny’s. She didn’t linger for long, though; she just flew through her open window, dropped off her things - they would return to normal size eventually - and quickly checked the notifs on her laptop. After pocketing a tiny vial of pixie-dust, she left the way she came. Little nooks she could leave open were so much more convenient to use than doors.

Zipping above street-level, she debated whether to snort up a line of pixie-dust, but in the end decided against it. Her normal form rendered her practically invisible. Between that and the boosted strength of being juiced up, the former would be more valuable.

Her destination was one that she had discovered the day before. She had tailed that fucker who hit her Roen… only for the guy to walk back home. None of the crime-fuckery she expected him to get up to. No opportunity to bust him. But Flux wouldn’t let it go that easily.

No. No matter how long it took, she would get her revenge and make sure he got what he deserved.

She hoped something would happen tonight. Because she’d be right there when it did.

5: Roen

The silver coupé came to a quiet halt, both wheels perfectly aligned with the sidewalk. Locks engaged with a series of clicks behind him as the house sensors detected Roen leaving the porch. When he reached the car, the front door slowly opened with an electric hum. He got inside without a word, shifted his bag to rest on his lap, and fastened his seatbelt. Two seconds later, they were rolling down the road.

Roen watched neatly shorn gardens pass through the dark-tinted windows, rows of streetlights attempting to scatter the veil of night. If he squinted enough, he could just make out the occasional pedestrian moving from one pocket of light to the next.

“It won’t rain,” Arlo said. “The stations confirmed the next fall to happen in,” his voice trailed off, likely checking his watch. “Twenty-one hours and three minutes from now. Plus minus two hours, as variance of human error.”

They turned down South, past an empty bus station. An elderly lady waited underneath the awning, using her umbrella as a walking stick.

“You’ve heard about the Dervin Mag scandal? The succubae on their marketing team are drawing fire for ‘unethical practices’. Half the investors have pulled out, and the other half will follow if the public backlash gets strong enough. They held their cards too far from the chest. I suspected they would.”

Traffic was picking up as they drew deeper into the city, but nothing like the bustle of rush-hours. The deep thrum of a distant club entered the tapestry of sounds.

“Roen?”

Roen reluctantly dropped his gaze from the window, and turned toward his brother.

The man behind the wheel was not one that people would be afraid to invite into their lives; his blue business suit immaculate, his dark hair gathered in an artful tail, and his hand adorned with a pair of flat jade-inscribed gunmetal rings as he gripped the wheel with easy authority.

Rich, yet low-profile. Tasteful, but with subtlety.

“You know I didn’t.”

Arlo shrugged. “You never know. That Business Outsider subscription on your account has a feature that offers all kinds of interesting tidbits for newer entrepreneurs.”

“Mmh,” Roen breathed, leaning back against the headrest. “Not my world. Malcolm might be interested, though.”

“Hah!” Arlo glanced in the rearview mirror. “You hear that, Bull? Little Roen is trying to spread my wealth like it’s cheap wine.”

“You do throw it around like cheap wine,” Bull rumbled from the back. He sat directly behind me, the iron loop hanging from his tauric nose, metallic glint catching the streetlights on occasion.

“Only for people who deserve it. And my dear brother, he deserves it.”

Arlo drummed his fingers on the wheel, silent for a minute.

“How about a new TV? There’s this air-projection series with a new touch feature, still in the production line. I could probably get a hold of it.”

“I don’t know. Sure.”

“A new data pad? Your old one is probably slowing down by now.”

“It’s working fine.”

Arlo’s lips curved slightly. He stretched out his palm on top of the steering wheel, then gripped it again. He stopped asking.

The car ride passed in the quiet noises of urban nightlife. In a haze of headlights and neon signs they went, across wide boulevards, across blinking crosswalks that signaled pedestrian passage upon the wet asphalt. Gradually, the lights faded and a deeper night took its place as they closed in on a more industrial part of the city.

They came to a stop in the mouth of a chain-fenced alley. The gate hung open, padlock broken on the ground.

“This is your stop,” Arlo said. He pointed past Roen and down the alleyway. “The others should be there already. You still got the note? Good, just follow the route detailed there.”

“How will I get back?” Roen asked.

Instead of answering, Arlo got out his wallet - a compact little dark-green thing - and drew a stack of fifty-dollar bills. Roen took it, then got out of the car. His foot barely touched the pavement when the engine of the silver coupé gave its quiet huff, and left him alone under the flat-roofed factory complex.

Roen braced himself against the nearest wall, taking deep breaths. Eyes shut. In, and out. Slowly, all too slowly, hand trailing along the rough texture, he pushed open the fence with his shoulder and began to walk down the alley.

The instructions on the yellow paper led him down a series of turns, leading to the edge of the factory complex where it connected with the rest of the city. He found the railroad, and stepping past the ‘out of commission’ sign, he followed its upward trajectory that rose into a curving bridge, joining an interchange of such bridges. Like a concrete spiderweb woven into the sky, the railroad led him above the industrial buildings but below the roads that curved back into the city proper.

Light barely reached this far out, and so Roen only spotted them when he was less than a dozen feet away from the pair of dark figures.

Hank was the bigger of the two; a tall, lean man with a sleeveless shirt and a restless disposition as he bounced his knee braced atop the parapet at the edge of the narrow concrete pathway. He didn’t seem to have noticed Roen yet.

Between the rails, kneeling with a massive sniper rifle in her grasp, the end of her cigarette darkly simmering between her lips, was Jezau Dawnkill, the most recent addition to their operations. Arlo was always on the lookout for up-and-coming mercenaries - those who showed promise but yet too small to make waves. The gray-skinned non-human fell firmly within that category.

She gave Roen a dark look, puffed out another plume of smoke, then resumed screwing the suppressor on the threaded barrel of her rifle.

“Fucking hell,” Hank said, spotting him. He stepped away from the parapet, paced across the railway to the other end, and set his feet in a similar fashion there instead. “Sneaky little cunt.”

Roen walked to the edge, peering down into the void below. “It’s dark.” Keeping Dawnkill between him and the bruiser, he sat on the low concrete wall. 

He hesitated for a moment before asking. “What is the… cargo going to be?”

Hank looked at him. “Frank is bringing the fireworks.” He grinned, a flash of white teeth. “I always wondered; do you even bother to keep count? Between the four of us, I think you lead the bodycount by a fair mile or two.”

Roen’s jaw clenched as he watched the tip of his shoe. “No. I’m not a sadistic fuck like you,” he said quietly.

Hank grunted, beady little eyes jumping between Roen and the keres between them, the gears in his head working out the risks and rewards of stepping closer to the death spirit. After a moment, he spit past the drop. “I bet, on nights like this, you wish you were.”

Silence, then, only the faintest murmur of distant traffic echoing out from the city.

“Nine minutes,” Dawnkill said, voice hoarse. She crushed the stub of her spent cigarette and replaced it with a new one. The flame of her lighter illuminated her ghoulish claws for a flash. “Drone will be arriving three levels above, taking a cross to that westward lane just below. Once I have a clear shot, the EMP round will down it for one hour, tops. Muscle, be ready to catch it when it tumbles from the air. Engineer, work fast.”

They all knew the plan, but nobody ever dared to complain when Dawnkill summarized the details. Roen had yet to hear a word out of her mouth that wasn’t related to the job.

You know you’re in bad company when the person you mind the least is the creature that feasts on the spirits of the dying for dinner.

“Evening, partners!” came a shout from down the railroad. Franklin’s wide frame was making its way toward them, waving a suitcase.

”Hank - taking the widest possible path around Dawnkill - hurried to Franklin and gingerly extracted the suitcase from his meaty grasp. “Careful with that, Frank. Damn it.” The thing within was not armed. Not yet. Roen’s hands began to sweat.

“A large, happy family,” Franklin stopped next to Roen, looking around with hands on his hips. “Anyone brought some beer? I forgot the six-pack in my garage, you know. Gonna be left fiddling my thumbs for the rest of the evening at this rate.” He sniffed. Glanced down at Dawnkill. “Dawnkill. Toss me a smoke, would ya?”

Dawnkill pulled back the bolt, checking the chamber. The connector on her wrist gave an electric pulse, flashing green, giving the all-clear on the inside workings of the rifle. She didn’t speak save for another puff of smoke through her nose.

“Package… seems to be all accounted for,” Hank said. He had the suitcase open on the ground, cautiously peering at the jumble of bricks and wires. He then held out his phone and quickly tapped out a message, confirming to Malcolm that all preparations went off with a success. His phone dinged with the return message not five seconds after. “The client has locked in the payment,” he said. “We’re good to swap.”

“Three minutes,” Dawnkill said, putting out another spent stump. She didn’t light up again, but instead propped her elbow on her knee and took aim with her rifle above. She tested her scope. Adjusted the magnification.

Hank put his phone away and began to look for a good place to grab the explosive.  “Come on, Roen, help me take this thing out.”

Roen watched the bruiser leaning above the suitcase, searching for a handhold. He wiped his hands on his trousers, and almost made to stand. But then… “No,” he said.

“Uh, what?” Hank said, blinking up at him. “The fireworks, I’m not sure where to grab ‘em. Give me a hand.”

“I’m not going to… not going to do this.”

Roen’s body went taut with tension when Franklin’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, the man lowering himself to look him in the eye. “Looksie here, Roen. I like working with you, I really do. You’re one tenacious bugger. But… I like your brother’s money more.” He gestured back at Hank. “So come on and quit being a child, eh? We’re all counting on you.” 

Roen wiped his hands again. 

Franklin’s grip on his shoulder became just a touch tighter. “Come, move that pretty-boy face of yours.”

Roen took a deep breath, and stood from the parapet. His fist came up with the motion, putting the strength of his feet behind the punch that landed squarely on Franklin’s face.

Franklin bellowed out a curse, stumbling back two steps and almost tripping on the rails. His left cheek was split open, a thin line of blood dripping down his jaw visible even in the dark. “Oh no, oh no-no-no,” Franklin said, raising a hand to his cheek.

“Fuck off,” Roen said. His heart was beating a triple-tempo, his breaths had a ragged quality to them. But for once in his life, somehow - he wasn’t afraid. The part of him that cared, that thought, that rationalized, it was buried beneath a surge of adrenaline that made him feel almost painfully alive.

“Drone imminent,” Dawnkill said, raising her sniper rifle toward the bridges above.

“Get the fuck over there,” Franklin said, drawing his gun and aiming it at Roen’s head.

There, standing at the precipice of the evening sky and staring down the barrel of a gun, Roen heard a shrill scream as a blur of light barreled into Franklin’s outstretched hand.

---------

It looks like things are heating up! Keep in mind that this is an unedited version and there will be some changes 'n stuff for the final release.

(Also hmm, I wonder who Flux reminds me of... :)

Thanks for reading this early chapter. If you haven't yet, please leave a review for the first book in the series (Zevara)!