City of Shattered Light, page 1
City of Shattered Light © 2021 by Claire Winn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Edition First Printing, 2021
Book design by Jake Slavik Cover design by Jake Slavik Cover illustration by Sanjay Carlton
Flux, an imprint of North Star Editions, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (pending) 978-1-63583-071-2
Flux North Star Editions, Inc.2297 Waters Drive Mendota Heights, MN 55120 www.fluxnow.com
Printed in the United States of America
To Drew, who believed in me even when I didn’t.
Part I:
The Monster in the Wires
chapter 1
DEADEYE
Riven Hawthorne could never turn down a challenge. As she climbed the rusted ladder, the city whispered of violence—she tasted it in the slow, sinuous thud-thud of a muffled bass rhythm, in the blare of distant sirens, in the satisfying snick as she loaded her revolvers’ cylinders. Scavengers chattered in the hideout across the street, unaware Riven’s crew was about to rob them blind.
Her feet hit the balcony, and an eager tremor buzzed through her. This was a chance to prove herself. Rumors about her would ignite like sparks on the oil-stained streets.
“I don’t trust this, Riv.” Ty peeked over the balcony’s edge. Despite the sweltering heat, the hood of his black-and-yellow vest shadowed his boyish face.
Riven pulled Ty up by his wrist. “Good. I’d be worried your head had come unscrewed otherwise.” Of course it was risky. The matriarchs tested smugglers by throwing them into vipers’ nests.
“I’m serious.” Ty caught his breath against the broken railing. His blue eyes reflected the sunset haze of holoscreen billboards and neon lights. “They’re scouting. Aggressively. As if they’re already looking for us.”
“No way they’ve seen us yet.” Riven thumbed her revolvers on instinct, her trigger fingers itchy. She couldn’t back out now, with a chance to pull her crew off the underworld’s dirty bottom rung.
She needed one job to go right—one night she could rest easy, not worrying whether they could pay rent for their ramshackle hideout. And once she’d made a name for herself in Requiem’s neon-soaked streets, none of the crime syndicates would dare threaten her crew.
Samir was last to reach the top. He grunted as he pulled himself up, weighed down with a tailored armor vest and the rifle slung across his back.
Here, in the shadows between the buildings, not even the merciless sun could see them. Her crew was ready to move.
Riven flipped the scan-glass over her eyes, watching for their target. Any second now, it would be in range. “Think of it as a game of capture the flag, Ty. We rush in, grab it, and run like hell.” If only it’d be that easy. Her vision zoomed onto the scavenger hideout a few floors below, where two scouts patrolled the balcony. Captions scrolled by on her scan-glass, describing the chatter within—no, honestly, I heard he had cybernetic nads installed after that accident in the GravSphere arena—confirming most of the scavs were probably drunk.
“I’ve never played a game of capture the flag where you get shot if the other team nabs you,” Ty whispered. He hit the release on the tether line, unfurling the wicked concrete-piercing barbs. When strung between this balcony and the top floor of the scav hideout, the cable might be enough to hold their weight, one at a time. And a hell of a ride, to boot.
Samir’s vivid yellow eyes flicked over the alleyway. “Nobody’s getting shot if we play our cards right. Security’s only tight because they’re paranoid.” His pupils were vertical like a cat’s, from the dark-vision mods in his eyes—but with over thirty hours of scorching daylight left on this moon, he wouldn’t need them. “I’d be, too, if I were sitting on a bounty that big.”
“Then we’re doing them a favor. Giving them one less thing to worry about,” Riven said. The scav hideout was crawling with security-mechs. A nasty, deadly annoyance. There was one thing in there worth protecting—the rest was probably trash scrounged from the desert outside the city’s atmo-dome.
Then Riven glimpsed what she’d been waiting for. A scout drone flew through the alleyway. “Incoming.” A thrill built in her chest. Her wristlet’s cracked screen flickered on as Galateo booted up. “Start a remote hack, Galateo.”
“Bypassing security feed,” her AI companion chirped in his pompous offworld accent. “Alarm triggering soon—”
Riven crouched beneath the balcony railing. Ty bit his lip and ducked next to her as the drone whizzed toward them. Its eye-beam scanned the overfilled trash bins in the alley below.
Galateo clicked, beginning the hack.
“Please tell me you at least have an exit strategy,” Ty said.
Riven shot him a grin she hoped was reassuring. “Bet you twenty denar Samir and I can wreck their mechs before the idiots know what hit them.” She gave Verdugo, her right-hand revolver, a spin on her index finger. Protecting Ty was her responsibility. Even if the job went south.
“My lady,” Galateo said from Riven’s wristlet, “your current account balance is only fourteen denar.”
She made at face at her wristlet’s camera lens. “Hush. I’ll have it when we finish this job.”
That earned a small smile from Ty. “If I’m not patching you up instead.” He crossed his arms over his slender frame, peering through the railing bars. “Look, I know getting on Matriarch Sokolov’s good side means a lot to you. But . . . be careful, Riv. Please.”
I can’t lose you, too was left unspoken.
Riven nodded. She wouldn’t lose him either—the day Ty’s brother had died, she’d made a promise. And she certainly didn’t intend to break it today.
“Connection formed,” Galateo said. “Triggering alarm in six seconds . . .”
“Heads up,” Samir said.
Riven tore her gaze away from Ty and steadied her breaths, heart rate revving, waiting for the cue. Her old-tech revolvers waited in their holsters—her executioner and her wildcard. Blackjack carried her stun-rounds and disruptors, and Verdugo would come out to play if things got messy.
The matriarchs’ Code listed nasty punishments for murder between syndicates. Since rumors whispered these scavengers had ties to the Boneshiver syndicate matriarch, Riven wasn’t allowed to break their skulls. But their mechs were a different story.
The security-drone’s eye lit red. “Time to go!” Samir said as alarms blared across the street.
Galateo picked up voices in the hideout, echoing in her earpiece. “Dammit!” one of the scouts yelled.
“Breach. Lower level!” barked a scavenger with a trio of green mech-eyes on his forehead. “All of you, get down there!”
As planned, the scavs rushed toward the elevators, except two who lingered on the balcony. Their backs were turned. The path to their vault was wide open.
Idiots.
Riven peered down Blackjack’s ironsights and fired across the alley. Two stun-rounds, two clean shots. The scavengers crumpled to the concrete, convulsing.
Ty latched the tether to the balcony and fired it. It anchored itself to the concrete on the other side, forming a crude zipline. Samir grabbed a carabiner, jumped, and slid across.
Her turn. Riven grabbed the second carabiner and leapt off the edge.
Her stomach plunged as the cable dipped under her weight. Then, it bounced until her glide evened out. Sparks flew from the carabiner, and she stole a glance at her boots as they dangled over the ridges of broken Etri crystal lining the street. Hot wind rushed across her face.
She hit the scavs’ balcony running.
She vaulted over the tattered couches, skidding into a crouch behind the bar. By her knees, shards of glass caught the kitschy palm tree neon lights.
Beside her, Samir was already in place. “So. I hear you have twenty denar on us destroying these mechs?”
She smirked. “Unless you’re planning on slowing me down.”
Spidery mechs crawled the walls, a patchwork variety of stolen tech. In five seconds, they’d send out more scan-beams—and bullets would follow.
Four.
In a single breath, Riven was ready. Time to come out and play.
Her revolvers slid out of their holsters. This was her favorite part—the pulse, the rhythm, the firecrackers at her fingertips.
Three.
She spun Verdugo and Blackjack until their barrels were trained on the mechs. Their pull-back hammers clicked into place. The guns were unhackable old tech—no wires, no circuit boards. Guided by her hands, not some AI.
Deadly calm came over her. All the gun training she’d done since Emmett’s death had built to this.
Two.
Somewhere beyond the pulsing adrenaline was Samir shouting to Quit showing off, Riv!
Her fingers twitched.
One by one, her bullets exploded through the metal shells. The mechs burst into showers of sparks and shattered metal. Steel spider legs fell from ceilings. Her silver-blonde braid whipped over her shoulder as she ducked beneath a salvo of bullets from a turret.
Between the rhythm of recoil and the snaps of gunpowder, she felt alive. She let the rhythm suck her under, losing herself in the merciless pull of the triggers.
“Get down!”
At Samir’s warning, she dipped into a shoulder roll. She spun backward as a wolf-shaped mech lunged at her face—and one of Samir’s disruptor rounds tore through its head.
Samir reloaded his rifle as the mech crashed to the floor with a sparking hole through its skull. “You got cocky, as usual.”
“That’s why I keep you around.”
“To keep your ego from suffocating us all?” Samir mimed a gagging motion and then grinned. He’d kept her ego in check ever since he’d been her senior-year mentor at a military academy on Earth. And, well, he was good backup in a gunfight.
“Please. My ego isn’t half as bad as your nagging.” Now no red lights winked in the dark. It was clear. Riven stood up, reloading Blackjack. “What’d I tell you, Ty? They barely even saw us.”
Ty didn’t answer. She glanced around the room—at the slouching couches, the static on the holoscreens. Where was he? Ty was good at staying hidden, but he usually kept close. Maybe he’d gone ahead.
“Ty?” Beyond the blaring alarms, the speakers hummed an irritatingly upbeat pop song. Riven tasted raw, acrid gunpowder at the back of her throat, and something darker with it. Why had he left her side?
“Ty, where are you? We need to move,” Samir said into his wristlet comm. He was right. Any second now, the scavs would realize they’d been duped.
Finally, Ty’s voice came through, punching Riven with fleeting relief. “Guys. Come up the stairs. There’s something you should see.”
Riven rushed to the stairwell, cramming bullets into Verdugo’s chambers. As soon as the door slid open, she found Ty crouched over a corpse.
A deep slice through the dead scavenger’s bulletproof vest revealed cybernetic ribs. Blood darkened the ratty carpet, dribbling down the steps.
Samir swore, lifting his rifle.
“This definitely wasn’t one of your bullets.” Ty leaned in to inspect the wounds.
A warning shrieked in the back of Riven’s mind, louder and angrier than the hideout alarms.
Someone else is here.
She tried not to imagine what failure would bring—the rumors of what Matriarch Sokolov did to accomplices who disappointed her. Smugglers thrown like bait into the mech-fighting pits; thieves broken down for parts, both metal and flesh.
It wasn’t happening to her crew. This trespasser wasn’t getting away.
“Stay close, Ty. Change of plans.”
“Maybe we should turn back.” Ty’s eyes were wide, and for a second, they were his older brother’s eyes—fearful, pained, pleading to Riven even though she couldn’t save him.
She shook away the memory. “We can’t. We’re seeing this job through.” They were in too deep. Whoever was here, she’d teach them nobody interfered with one of Riven Hawthorne’s jobs. “I’m going to greet our intruder. Samir, check the vault.”
“On it.” He headed up the steps past Ty.
Ty pulled out his switchblades. “I’m with you, Riv.”
She frowned. Though Ty was too squeamish to touch a gun, he still tried to protect her. “Just stay behind me.”
The corridor split—Samir headed toward the vault, and Riven scouted the other hallway. A few telltale spots of blood on the carpet meant someone had fled. Maybe they’d been chased. Riven ignored the gnawing in her gut.
Within seconds, Samir’s voice came over the comm. “Vault’s empty. Seems our visitor got there first.”
She swore. Someone had taken advantage of their distraction. “We need to cut them off.”
“I’ll be there in a second.”
As they climbed to the upper floor, muffled shouts resounded from behind a battered door with light straining beneath it. Riven put a finger to her lips, and Ty followed. She kicked the door open, raised her guns, and saw their culprit.
Compared to the boarded windows of the scav hideout, the sunlight of the rooftop was blinding. The scents of exhaust and ozone and greasy smoke hit her with an oncoming breeze.
And at the edge of the roof, a small girl crouched over a fresh corpse.
“Oh. Was wondering how long it’d take you to show.” The girl—no, a woman, probably a few years older than Riven—popped a pink gum bubble between her lips.
Her brown curls were swept into buns, her fingernails coated in chipped pink enamel. A stark contrast to her armored vest and the bloody cybernetic blade running along her forearm. An expensive body-mod—the blade was anchored to her bone somewhere, her flesh parted in surgical steel.
The woman pulled the blade from the dead person’s neck, and they seized one last time. “Thanks for the distraction. Thought I’d have to kill a few more of these.” She kicked the corpse with a pink-and-black sneaker. “This little piggy tried to make a break with my cargo.”
Everything about her made Riven’s hackles rise. Riven clicked back Verdugo’s hammer with her thumb. “I don’t know who the hell you are,” Riven said, “but you’ll have a bullet in your skull unless you hand over those fossils.” This woman had killed here, violating the matriarchs’ Code—meaning Riven didn’t need to hold back.
“Here’s what’s going to happen in ten seconds.” The woman flicked blood off her forearm with a skin-crawling grin. “My ship shows up, I leave, you screw off forever, and we all live happily ever after.”
“Not going to happen.” Riven scanned the woman from head to toe. She had their cargo, but where was it? “We know you cleaned out the vault.”
Footsteps approached behind her. “With her reputation,” Samir said, “I don’t think happily ever after is an option.” He emerged beside Riven, his rifle drawn. Even in body armor, he composed himself like a gentleman. “Pleasure to meet you, Morphett Slade.”
The girl—Morphett—cocked her head. “Seems you’re not as stupid as you are pretty.”
Riven tightened her grip on the revolver. Morphett Slade. She’d heard the name and the rumors with it. A bounty hunter who’d taken down an entire Federation platoon to settle a grudge, whose cybernetics alone might be worth half of Requiem. Riven had expected her to be . . . taller, maybe.
“Last chance, Tiny.” Riven’s finger slid onto the trigger. “You have two guns on you now.”
With a low roar, a boomerang-shaped ship rose at the edge of the roof. NEPHILIM was scrawled in black letters on the hull, and the sunlight was bright enough on its chrome-and-onyx paint to silhouette Morphett. The humming thrusters knocked empty bottles across the concrete roof and blew Ty’s hood off, whipping his rust-blond hair.
Morphett held her hands up, and the cybernetic blade folded and retracted into a seam in her forearm. “Fine,” she snarled. “It’s yours.”
Morphett crouched over the corpse and tugged a small canister off their belt. Riven frowned. The cargo—the fossilized Etri bones—should be in a slender black case, but this seemed too small.
It was difficult to see against the gleam of Morphett’s ship, but the object had the size and shape of—
“Grenade!” Samir called.
Samir’s steel-vise hands gripped Riven’s shoulders as she was crushed to the concrete. The ground shook, and everything went impossibly bright. All she saw was the inside of Samir’s elbow and a blinding blast of white.
Her elbows stung, shredded by the concrete. Her ears throbbed, ready to explode. And her hand was empty. Where was Verdugo?
Smears of blue-black dissolved as the world came back into focus. Her pulse roared through her ears. Her shoulder was pressed against a sheet of dented steel—a shipping crate. Samir had pulled her to cover.
And Morphett was getting away.
Samir pushed himself to his knees, heaving. Riven’s ears rang dully. “She found a flashbang,” Samir yelled, but his voice sounded so distant.
