Beyond the Wolf - Sins of the Father

January 2068. Raquel Rosen - a woman nobody seems to know who seems to be connected with Cyphr's past. Two men hunting her. A story going back to the time Cyphr's father died. A story that will get its conclusion now, in one way or another. Letting the ghosts in her past rest.

“Raquel… Rosen?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Lejl shook her head, her eyes turning into slits, her pupils shifting shape. That was the weirdest way to wake up – a stranger knocking at her door asking about a name she had never heard. She blinked a couple times, squaring the newcomer from head to toe. Moderately tall, with unruly hair that once had to be black. Pale complexion, grey irises, a scar running horizontally through his nose. A peculiar man, one she would have probably forgotten in a minute or two, in usual circumstances. Wrong gender (a man), wrong age (too old), wrong first impression. Yet, somehow, the image of the stranger got burned into her retinas. On his side, the man didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by the sight of a short girl clad in a semi-transparent white dress (and nothing else underneath) with tattoos looking like burn marks splattered all over her body. He simply stared at her, without a hitch in his expression, without ever breaking eye contact. His voice slithered once more out of his lips, bathed in a thick East European accent.

“I know she lives in this building, but I can’t find her name on the post box.”

Lejl gazed at him a little longer, at that shallow scar crossing his nose, making his skin tone jump between two gradations for just a little bump. She tapped her cheek twice, before gazing at the stranger once more.

“Well, she isn’t here.”

“Are you sure?”

“If I had a second babe in my flat, trust me, I’d have already noticed her. But there’s just the two of us.”

She shrugged, pointed her finger at the plate at the right of her door.

“Wolfchild-Kaleidos. See? I’m Kaleidos, Wolfchild is my flatmate. There’s no Rosen here. Sorry, but your Raquel is in another castle.”

The man didn’t react. He simply blinked. Once. Then, he spoke. Just one word. Over and over.

“Wolfchild. Wolf. Child. Wolfchild.”

That sounded like a weird mantra to Lejl, what a trained parrot would have said after hearing one word from his master. She decided to be gentle and not point out how creepy it sounded, when pronounced in that man’s monotone low voice.

“Yes, Wolfchild. She’s out at the moment. Maybe she knows this elusive ‘Raquel Rosen’ of yours.”

“She might.”

His hand went for his pocket, took out a crumpled card.

“Give her this, when she comes back. Ask her about Raquel Rosen.”

Lejl grabbed it, before letting out a long yawn, barely covering her mouth with her free hand.

“… it’s waaaaay too early for me…”

The man gazed at his wristwatch, blinked once. Eleven thirty in the morning. Lejl noticed his gaze, his apparent confusion, thus decided to anticipate his question.

“I work night shifts and take my pet noctiphage out for a walk every evening. Wanna see him? Mr. Kramers loves strangers.”

“No, thanks.”

He turned around, his long coat following his steps. Lejl tapped her foot on the doormat, raised her voice.

“Wait, mister! What’s your name?”

“It’s written on the card.”

Then, without even turning, he kept on climbing down the stairs, in perfect silence, under the curious, ever-shifting gaze of a now intrigued short girl.

**

“Raquel Rosen?”

“Yes.”

Jackson stared at the glass he was cleaning. Morning hours weren’t very busy, but, close to noon, customers started to flock inside his cafe for the usual aperitivo. Turning that dumb Italian tradition into business had been a winning move – his pre-lunch and pre-dinner revenue had skyrocketed the moment he decided to go for it. Yet, the massive black guy sitting at his counter didn’t ask for a Crodino or a Sanbittèr. He asked for a name. Jackson tipped his hat, almost covering his eyes in the process, grumbled something under his breath, before answering the question in his own way.

“Do I look like an information desk to you?”

The man stared at him, first with his biological eye, then with his mechanical one, moving independently from the first in an unsettlingly asymmetric pattern.

“No. You look like…”

Like what, exactly? The man wasn’t able to complete his sentence, staring puzzled at the weird bartender filling wine glasses in front of him. A singular individual, wearing a red pullover over a white shirt and a neon purple fedora. Inside the cafe. His face was interesting, for a lack of a better word – a blurry black mess dotted by two white windows, without any other defining traits. Classifying that person, or even discerning his complexion, felt like an exercise in futility.

“… whatever. I’m just asking nicely. I’ve got a Queen Vivian with your name on, if you’d happen to know anything.”

“Fifty pounds ain’t gonna buy me, pal.”

Jackson filled a couple glasses, before returning his attention to the stranger.

“But I can tell you something for free: I’ve never heard of any Raquel Rosen – or any woman named Rosen in general – unless you’re looking for a relatively manly shark man with too many aliases. In that case, he might have gone by the name Raquel, Rosen or any combinations of them at some point in his life, but – trust me – finding an identity that guy didn’t use is harder than winning the lottery twice in a row.”

“She’s no fish. Pretty sure of this.”

“Then, second verse same as the first: I don’t know her, this is my cafe and you’re wasting my time with your idle chatter. Which means, either you order a drink or that’s the door, yankee.”

“How do you…”

“Your accent is a dead giveaway. Brooklyn?”

“Not even close. Illinois.”

“Chicago?”

“Huh-uh.”

“My condolences.”

“Thanks, much appreciated.”

The massive guy gazed at the drink list plastered on the wall, under an oil painting of the place and of its elusive owner – albeit dressed in a yellow suit. His artificial eye moved up and down the list in a couple seconds, before landing on a name that sounded promising.

“I’ll have a Heaven Denied.”

“Now we’re talking the same language.”

Jackson pulled out his cocktail tools, shaking and mixing the liquor in front of the stranger, before serving it in a fashionably pear-shaped glass. The stranger nodded, brought the glass to his nose, sniffed its content a couple times, glanced at Jackson. Then, downed it in one go, in the span of five interminable seconds, under Jackson’s curious gaze.

“AH! Good stuff! I needed this.”

His finger tapped on the payment system, the transaction going through under Jackson’s puzzled gaze. The man stood up, massaged his goatee, as his eyes pointed in two different directions.

“I’ve left an extra, in case Raquel shows up. Tell her I paid a drink for her.”

“If she shows up.”

“When she shows up.”

Jackson’s eyes met with the artificial iris of the strange customer, with the endless void of the dead glass surrounding it. Then, the spell broke, as the massive man moved out of the way, leaving the counter behind. Jackson followed him with his gaze, until his massive shape disappeared around the corner. He counted first to ten, then to twenty, up to sixty. Looked again. No signs of the weird visitor anywhere around the venue. Jackson tipped his hat down, shook his head.

“Moron. Even that Renzo kid is a better private eye than you by a dozen miles.”

A sigh escaped his invisible lips. One person asking for a phantom once in a day was already quite an event, but two? There had to be a connection – he stopped believing in coincidences long before. However, tipping that American about the East European guy that went around fishing for the same woman was a courtesy he wasn’t inclined to bestow. Those gumshoes were paid to hunt information, after all, and making their lives easier wasn’t part of his job description. So, he went back to tending to his bar, shrugging that unusual happenstance off. Yet, something ate at him. The mystery. The weirdness behind that unlikely combination of events. A groan. He knew what that meant – his curiosity wasn’t going to be quenched just like that. He picked up his phone, clumsily unlocked it, before opening his contact list, highlighting a name and pressing the green button.

One ring. Two rings. Three…

“What’s up, Vince? Miss me already?”

“I’ve got a puzzle for you. Two guys asked for the same woman, this morning – in the span of few hours. A name I’ve never heard of.”

“That sounds like my jam.”

“That’s what I thought too. So, wanna know more?”

“Of course, Vince. Spill the beans.”

Jackson smirked, even if his shift in expression was almost impossible to notice. If there were anyone in the world that could help him uncover the identity of a phantom, that was Jenn Husler.

**

The pictures on the holographic display jolted and switched at breakneck pace. Black silhouettes on white backgrounds. White silhouettes on black backgrounds. A frantic rhythm, as the shapes mingled with each other, turning apples into people into people into dolls into umbrellas into drops of liquor. As the video clip kept running with musicians on what looked to be the moon, a shower of arrows blipped and buzzed to life in a never ending column, only to explode in colorful stars and a PERFECT! pop up every time. Five, ten steps per second, as Cyphr’s feet moved on the mat with surgical precision, hitting the colored squares without even thinking. An acquired automatism, something that made her move with the rhythm, become one with it, accruing a longer and longer PERFECT! streak. The score on the display was rising higher and higher, with no signs of slowing down. If anything, now the multiplier just hit fifty. As Cyphr pirouetted on the last set of notes in the refrain, she hit the next sequence of seven steps flawlessly, finding time to perform a short curtsy too. All while her opponent was even struggling to keep the FAILURE ZONE at bay, cursing like a longshorewoman at every missed note.

“Oi! OIIII! That’s illegal, Sif! Stop it!”

“In your dreams, du blöde kuh! You challenged me at Doki Doki Dead Dance Dream, or? Now, pay the consequences!”

Curious looks landed on the two girls, for two opposite reasons. The left one was wearing artificial arms, before taking them off to jump on the dance pad and looked a bit like a cyborg, with prominent data bands running down her cheeks. The other seemed more ordinary, except her rusty peace locket felt extremely out of place (and in need of urgent maintenance). Their scores couldn’t be more distant – it wasn’t even a competition. Peace-Locket-Girl had a certain grace but was extremely clumsy on the mat, while Armless was literally flying, swinging around as if her body had memorized the whole song. A small crowd of onlookers had formed around them, cheering for or the other, some even trying to give some hope to Peace-Locket-Girl, for an extremely unlikely remuntada.

When the final scene of the videoclip played, with an apple falling down again in a monochrome chaos, the music stopped, the scores were tallied. On the left holographic display, the words SUPREME! towered in golden characters, with fireworks and stardust everywhere. On the right display, a DISASTER rank, with letters shaped like broken blocks of cracked concrete, told a whole different story. One that almost led Peace-Locket-Girl to bring her hand to her eyes, brushing on what looked like contact lenses, before drawing a deep breath and seemingly giving up on what she originally intended to do. Instead, she grabbed the artificial arms from the ground where Cyphr left them and started installing them back in their owner’s sockets, slowly, with care.

“Sif? Never again. It was soul-crushing.”

“Hey, at least you’re better than Lalli. She can’t even complete the intro.”

“It’s not that she can’t, it’s that she’s too distracted by your body moving like hell, you know? That gremlin has just one thing in her mind and – spoiler – it’s another type of dance.”

Cyphr chuckled, shook her head, before staring back at the inquiring gaze of Chai Constantine.

“She’s way more than just that and you know it.”

“Oi, sure I know it. It was just a joke, I love that klutz too. She’s, like, so charmingly weird and so much into urban legends kind of stuff that it feels unreal. Listen to her and you’ll believe every lamppost in New Langdon is out to eat ya.”

Following Cyphr’s crushing victory, the crowd started to thin down. Some people were still staring at the high score in disbelief, while a couple guys moved to the dance pads, ready to start their performance. In their hearts, they knew they couldn’t compete with the show offered by that tall, armless girl just minutes before, but that wasn’t a reason not to try. As even the last set of curious eyes left them alone, Chai slipped a small scrap of paper to Cyphr, covering it with her other hand.

“Here, the intel you asked for. Veck was more than happy to help, says she owes us a lot more. But she sucks at Doki Doki Dance and doesn’t want to be seen getting steamrolled by a handicapped gal half her age.”

‘Half her age’ was a little bit of a stretch – Veckert was ‘just’ a decade older – but probably that was enough for her to feel annoyed and dejected. Cyphr cracked a smile, patted on Chai’s hair.

“Why’s that a problem? You suck too.”

“But she sucks more. I’ve seen her playing with Rika, last Saturday. Guess who got a FAILURE rate in the first half a minute and almost kicked the cab?”

“That’s something Veck and Lalli have in common, then.”

“Oi, I swear, if you and Rika weren’t around, I’d have shipped them together.”

“Chainsmoker voice aside.”

“Yep, chainsmoker voice aside.”

Cyphr grabbed the folded sheet, tucked it in her pocket. Paper was very old tech, but easier to handle when one wanted to leave no digital evidence. The net was vast and infinite, as were the chances to end tangled in a mess greater than her. So, good old paper it was, delivered through a trusted (if eccentric) mutual acquaintance.

“Alright, I’ll write to Veck later. Thanks, Chai.”

“Eh, it was nothing. I love talking with the gal, she’s such a treat. Plus, gossiping ‘bout Dan’s newest affair with her is so precious.”

Cyphr had no idea of who that Dan was, but she felt pity for them anyway. Being under fire from Chai’s wild speculations was something she wouldn’t have wished to her worst enemy. Cyphr closed her hand around the piece of paper, crumpled it a little under her mechanical joints. She nodded in the direction of Chai, cracked a smile.

“Hey, I still owe you one. It’s not nothing!”

“You can repay me by boosting your sub to my Booner channel to Platinum tier. Extra cash is always welcome, ‘specially when Ange’s so stingy with salaries. Some of the guys are talkin’ about unionizing and stuff, but there ain’t much for PMCs.”

“Oha. Ange is French. He knows what it means if Crossbones strikes.”

“Sure he does.”

Cyphr delicately patted on Chai’s shoulder, her ceramic arms moving with elegance under the latter’s unfazed gaze.

“I’ve got places to go, now. Call me anytime, if you want a rematch.”

“No way in hell I’ll ever play D5 with you again. Next time, I choose the game!”

“Fine with me. You suck at all of them anyway.”

Chai fought against the urge of bursting into laughter at that remark. And lost. Badly. Causing Cyphr to follow suit, the two of them bent in half, in an unstoppable bout of hilarity. Among the small crowd that turned towards them to understand what caused that unusual display of amusement, a wide silhouette stood out – one with a mechanical eye that seemed to move of its own accord. He stared at the two young women for around a dozen seconds, without blinking once. Then, he slowly walked out of the bar, disappearing into the street.

**

Oak Park was pretty infamous around the city – a cursed place of sorts, much like the notorious Witch Tower where the Man with the Hat was rumored to haunt. During the day, it was just a green area where people went jogging, families took children to play and elders enjoyed some quiet. There were, of course, rumors of a certain former biologist using that place as a ‘mating ground’ with her shoiga boyfriend even in the middle of the morning, but it turned out to be fake news spread via an AI-generated picture. However, it was at night that Oak Park gave its worst. New Langdoneers started avoiding it towards the end of 2062, after a hooded figure with a featureless white mask was spotted around its trees, moving and bending branches without touching them. That phenomenon culminated with the first recorded appearance of the so-called Walking Night, incidentally smashing a Yard detective against a tree full force. Since then, even if the Walking Night was never heard of again, many locals wisely decided to avoid the park area. Not everyone believed in that odd story, though: Some people with weird or exotic pets exploited that legend to quietly stroll with their mates in the evening hours. And, of course, teens that wanted to show their courage to their peers infiltrated the venue after midnight, just to be able to say they did that.

Cyphr didn’t belong to either category. She was there because of that visiting card, the one Lejl gave her sooner that day. A card with two names she hadn’t heard in years. One was Raquel Rosen – a relic of her past, one she would have loved to forget about. The other was…

She read the card again, blinking in the low lights of the lampposts. One of them was flickering, quite outside her view – a lonely street lamp that didn’t seem to match the pattern, almost as if it weren’t meant to be there. She shrugged it off, shook her head for a good measure. So much for not being a kid anymore and not believing to Lejl’s horror stories. She would have never admitted it to her girlfriend but, sometimes, after hearing one of the new urban legends her babe fawned over, Cyphr wouldn’t sleep well at night – if at all. The lingering feeling of something creeping through her window or some unseen entities gazing over her made her deeply uncomfortable, to the point of having to chug down a whole jug of chamomile and two melatonin pills to calm down and fall into Morpheus’s arms, hugging Lejl almost like a Teddy bear for maximum emotional comfort. Once, after marathoning a web analog horror series, she ended up staring at the ceiling for eight hours straight, kept awake by every single noise around the isle, be it Lejl’s irregular snoring, Mr. Kramers playing with his toy stuffed mouse, the window shaking because of the wind or a car zooming around the corner. Never again, she said. Never again. Yet, she did it a second time, with another series that Lejl enjoyed a lot – one about flying translucent fish creatures that devour airplane passengers at high altitude. Incidentally, that was the day before Cyphr had to fly to Spain with Tiger for a Delta assignment. Never had a one and a half hours flight lasted longer.

She focused on the visiting card again. Old-fashioned, printed on carton, the colors washed out. The name of its owner sounded East-European, if anything, and if Lejl’s recounting of their meeting was correct, he most likely was. A beep in her artificial ear. The motion sensor activated. She raised her gaze, looking at the deep end of the street close to the park. There stood a silhouette. Relatively tall, only partly bathed by the light of the lampposts. She kept her eyes on that person, unmoving, watching him as he stepped towards her, slowly, with regular and even-spaced steps. Regular. Too regular, even. The kind of precision only someone who was trained to walk that way could achieve. She cleared her throat, shouted in the direction of the stranger.

“Strange place and time for a meeting, or?”

“It was inevitable.”

Three words were enough for her to conclude that – yes – that man’s accent was as thick as bubblegum. She couldn’t place it precisely, but it had to be from around Russia.

Exactly as she remembered it.

She stood silent, waited for him to go forth. Yet, it didn’t happen. The man didn’t say a word, while closing in, finally, down to the last ten meters. Cyphr could now see all of his figure. Quite imposing. Greyed hair that must have been black, at some point. A scar running horizontally through his nose. Yes, that was it. That was the man.

“Life hasn’t been good with you, uncle Ivan.”

“My body is still completely biological. Contrary to yours.”

Well, fuck you. That was what Cyphr wanted to say to the person she just addressed as ‘uncle Ivan’. Yet, she bit her tongue, let it slide. That wasn’t the point of their meeting, the matters at hand were more complex. It was time to start ripping out the answers she needed.

“What was all that buzz about Raquel Rosen? Didn’t you get the memo?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t even know that Lyca was Der Wolf, until last week. It was quite a confidential piece of information, yes? Lyca, surviving just to die in the Black Lightning Disaster? That was something the media should have reported on, but didn’t. I smell conspiracy.”

Cyphr stared at the man, her databands shone red, as symbols moved through the black stripes. Direct, without any respect for feelings and personal space. That was Ivan Yatchko, former agent of the Köln Police Dept. After a short pause, he started talking again – for the first time of the night, unprompted.

“But, yes, I’m here because of that data leak. Raquel Rosen’s location was broadcast on the net, even if not her current name. Der Wolf… was exposed as Lyca Roßmudder. And you, ‘Cyphr Wolfchild’, as her adopted daughter.”

“That last one was already public knowledge.”

“Yes, this is why I didn’t have any interest in you for so long. You were just a crippled child that got patched and took home by a mechanical monster. But this is not what the documents say, right?”

Ivan stared at Cyphr, their sizes almost matched. Cyphr was a couple centimeters taller, though, forcing him to look up when talking to her.

“I was a colleague of Mikail, a friend of Lyca. I was there, the day they were ambushed and killed by the mob. I thought the whole family died in that carnage. And nobody ever thought there were still witnesses around. But there are, apparently, since you’re still alive. So…”

“Let me guess: I’ve got a huge target on my back and you’re here to help me out.”

Ivan stared at her blankly, his expression frozen.

“Smart girl. That’s what I was expecting from Lyca’s daughter…”

It was an instant. A reflection of metal in the flickering lights, in the distance, behind Yatchko. The barrel of a gun, recognized by her augmented vision. A matter of tenths of second. A fraction long enough to kick his legs with all her strength, causing him to fall down.

And the shot to miss both of them completely.

**

“Vincent Jackson here. If you’re calling to sell me something, just give up and spare me the annoyance.”

“Chill, Vince. It’s just me.”

Jenn’s voice came out of the phone. Of course, from a hidden number. That woman had to have half a hundred burner phones on speed dial. Jackson rolled his eyes, tipped down his hat.

“Calling me from your usual number is too much to ask, Jenn?”

“Yes, when it comes to sensitive information. I’ve looked into this Raquel Rosen of yours.”

Jackson glanced at the wall clock. Ten fifteen PM. Jenn got wind of that situation in less than twelve hours. Impressive, but not her best performance. He might have mocked her a little for her ‘declining skills’… but that might have given her more fuel to the fire for calling him a ‘bald old guy in his fifties that plays pretend to be thirty-five at best’. So, he decided not to comment and just listen to what she had to say.

“What have you found on her?”

“Want the long version or the short one?”

Jackson glanced around his cafe. Not many customers, mostly regulars that were known to not make a fuss. Two waiters in line, plus Lejl taking care of the counter in her own way. He ascertained the situation, before going back to the phone and give a clear answer.

“The long version. I’m curious and I have time.”

“Course you have. After the amount of unpaid labor I did to get my hands on this intel, sure as heck you can spare five minutes for me.”

A short pause, the rustling noise of a couple sheets of paper moved around.

“Okay, let’s start with the basics: There isn’t a single Raquel Rosen registered in the whole of UK. I’ve tried different spellings, such as Rachel, Rachael or even Rozen, but no dice. If she’s here, she changed her name, her surname or both. The only full match I got was a fictional character from a century old sci-fi movie – and only by using a spelling variant.”

“… this sounds concerning.”

A person didn’t change their name lightly. Jackson did that because ‘Mystery Johnson’ felt like a cheesy moniker and he wanted to turn over a new leaf. That alone meant that there was more to dig into.

“Not concerning, just annoying. I moved my search to the continent, since I had a couple favors to redeem around good old Europe. That’s when I stumbled upon a birth certificate that was a good partial match. Siska-Philippa Raquel Rosen. Born July 27, 2045 in Heidelberg, Germany. Right name and surname, correct spelling. This girl should be around twenty-two years old now. Except…”

Rustling, other pages turned over.

“… except she was certified ‘dead’ in 2050, when she was only five years old. Killed in a mob shootout together with her parents. I could have left this here, right? Seemed pretty final.”

Jackson waited without saying a word. Jenn was gearing up for her surprise reveal. It was always like that, everything looked normal, but that’s when illumination struck me. Always the thespian. She loved explaining how she got to her Big Intuition. So, he decided to play along, just to playfully stroke her ego a little.

“But…?”

“I’ve checked the girl’s family records, just to be sure. Her father was a nobody cop called Mikail Rosen. So far, nothing strange. But her mother…”

A scenic pause, just before dropping the load.

“… her mother was Lyca Roßmudder. Also marked as ‘dead’, on the same day as her husband and daughter. Except… except this is the same ‘dead’ woman that then became known as Der Wolf.”

“… you’re saying this Raquel is Cyphr’s sister?”

“No, not her sister. Care to check that name again, Vince? You’ll notice something interesting, if you just use the initials.”

Jackson’s brain gears started to turn, the puzzle slowly completing in his brain, the pieces falling in place.

Siska-Philippa Raquel Rosen.

SiPhR Rosen.

Siphr.

Cyphr.

“… no way.”

“Ten seconds. Wow, your brain age is younger than I expected, I’m impressed.”

Another rustling, the sheets of paper turned on the other side of the phone.

“But yes, turns out our sweet sunshine spark was registered in Köln as ‘Cyphr Wolfchild’ only when she was ten years old, right after Der Wolf officially ‘adopted’ her. You know, it kind of makes sense, Vince – I’ve always asked myself what parent in their right mind would name their daughter Cyphr. Well, guess it’s one more mystery solved.”

“Except she’s always referred to herself with that name, as far as Ange told me.”

“Maybe her mommy called her Cyphr when she was a kid too. Siska-Philippa is a mouthful. I’m glad my parents were saner.”

“I don’t find it bad.”

“Come on! You’re going to name your daughter Ann-Kasumi. You’ve lost every right to comment on other kids’ names.”

“I’ll pretend I haven’t heard that.”

One second of silence, as Jackson kept the phone glued to his ear, pondering on what to do with that sudden influx of information. One thing, though was clear as day.

“So… this means trouble, right? Two private eyes looking for Cyphr doesn’t bode well. But why now, of all times?”

“… that’s where things become even more interesting, Vince. Care to spare a couple minutes longer?”

**

Another shot, the bullet piercing the air, a lamp exploding in a shower of plastic and glass. Ivan stood up, grabbed Cyphr’s hand, stared at her for a short instant. Then, ran into the woods, dragging her behind him. A voice in the distance, shouting. Words in English, hard to grasp while moving at high speed among the trees, in the unlit corners of the park. Run, run without asking questions, following the lead of the man she called ‘uncle’. Cyphr breathed heavily, sprinted forward, kept her pacing, as a symphony of broken steps chased them soon after. The assailant cursed, heavy words that couldn’t be translated, which became fainter and fainter as the distance between them and him increased. Ivan raised his finger, pointed at a sports car with its lights on.

“That’s my car, Raquel. Get on it!”

A nod as a response. Cyphr tapped her hand on the door, turned the handle, jumped on the passenger seat, closed the door behind her. Ivan touched the wheel, muttered something that sounded like ‘manual drive’. Then, he grabbed the controls, stepped down on the throttle. The electric engine came to life, the torque exploding, the wheels spinning. The car started moving faster and faster, leaving Oak Park and the unknown shooter behind. Ivan looked into the mirror, saw the lights fading in the distance, turned forward, looking at the street.

“We’re safe, for now. But not for long.”

He glanced at his left, at the passenger seating near him. Finding two shining eyes, staring at him with a mix of contrasting emotions. Eyes that wanted answers. Cyphr cleared her throat, breathed a couple times.

“So, Alter, what’s happening? What is this supposed to mean?”

The answer was a fast, sudden motion of his left hand, grabbing Cyphr’s hearing device, ripping it off in one fell swoop. Cyphr recoiled, gasped, as the ripped wires smacked on her cheek, as her databands showed showers of errors. She bit her tongue, as something akin to pain moved through her nerves, through the connections that interfaced that prosthetic ear to her brain.

“What the fu…!”

“That device of yours is traceable. We can use it as a diversion.”

Ivan opened his window, just enough to let an arm go through it. Then, threw the small device away, making it crash on the roadside. The window went up again, sealing the sports car once more. He tapped the dashboard, pushed a couple holographic buttons appearing on his windshield. After that, he relaxed. For the first time since that evening, he allowed himself to sigh a breath of relief.

“We’re like a ghost now. No signals out. The shielding stops every communication device from inside here. Nobody can find us.”

Cyphr ignored the lingering pain to grab her phone, look at its display. No signal. Completely insulated – just a useless brick with a touch display. She ran a scan on her additional sensors, shutting down the connection to her missing ear and stop the unending log of error messages. Everything was online – her artificial lung, her mechanical kidney, the bionic part of her liver, her arms, her databands – but none of the devices could communicate with the outside world, not even with the canary server she had setup at home as a backup. She gritted her teeth, before letting out a sigh.

“Okay, uncle Ivan, I get it. Now, can you PLEASE explain to me why I’m chased by a hitman or two?”

“It’s simple, Raquel. You have data.”

“To hell with Raquel. Call me Cyphr. That’s my name.”

Ivan blinked slowly, without even turning towards her.

“Your father loved that, though.”

“But I didn’t, and neither did mom. I’ve always been Cyphr. Now, on paper too.”

Ivan didn’t react, kept looking forward, while taming the horse power of the electric engine to do his bidding.

“No can do, Raquel. I’ve made a promise to Mikail, not to Lyca. He was a good cop.”

“Fine, call me as you wish, Herr Yatchko.”

She glanced out of the window, trying to grasp details in the surrounding darkness. A recharge station zoomed faster than she could blink, followed by a couple motels. The car was running fast, almost too fast. Cyphr estimated that their speed could have been around two hundred kilometers per hour, completely disregarding the limits. Such hurry was pretty telling of the gravity of the situation. As the pain for her phantom ear subsided, she gazed at Ivan again, her words bathed in sharp resentment.

“Where are we going?”

“To a safe house, courtesy of the New Langdon Police Dept. I’ll explain more there.”

“No, you’re explaining more now. Otherwise, I’ll kick this door down and jump out.”

“At one hundred twenty miles per hour?”

“Don’t try me, uncle Ivan.”

Ivan let out a rare chuckle, breaking his mask of coldness.

“Now, now, that’s your mother’s side. Real gangster talk.”

“Mom wasn’t a gangster!”

“But her father was. And that’s why you are in this situation.”

Cyphr growled under her breath. Of course, of course it was grandpa Granney’s fault. All of her life woes could be traced back to him, including her missing organs, her armless life and inability to bear children. Even now that he was dead and buried, he managed to make her life a living hell.

“Screw my gramps! What did he do this time?”

“The construction data of the sonic cannon, the ones your biological safe contained… were just part of the picture.”

Ivan pointed her finger at her forehead, without averting his gaze from the road ahead.

“There’s much more, saved inside your brain. A whole database hidden in a biochip installed between your hemispheres.”

**

“Bummer…”

A large hand closed around a broken down artificial ear, the antenna ripped in half by the impact with the ground. The owner of that hand, a massive man with dark complexion and curly black hair, groaned in annoyance. His mechanical eye scanned the small device, while his biological one pointed at the road ahead, at the taxi driver waiting for him inside his black cab. He turned towards the road, towards the fork ahead. Left or right? That was the question, a question for which no clear answer seemed to exist. He brought the poor rests of the prosthetic close to his face, looked at it once more.

“Left or right? Where did he take Raquel?”

Yet, a broken ear couldn’t reply to his inquiry. Just stare at him, with its eyeless gaze, in the cold wind of the night. The man turned around again, once more, scanning his surrounding. His artificial eye twitched, from one side of the street to the other and back, till it stopped on the tarmac. He blinked once, with a precise timing, one he rehearsed many times. A flash of light, his mechanical eye illuminating the tarmac. He squatted down, gazed at the pavement, angled his eye left and right, moving the beam accordingly. He looked up again. A fork. A sharp right turn versus a straight strip of asphalt. Yet, no skid marks at all, of any kind. Turning right at that speed would have surely left something. So, left it was. He stood up, walked back to the taxi, took place in the rear seat. His voice boomed in the cab, causing the driver to jolt.

“Rev up the engine and go straight ahead till I say stop.”

“But the fare…”

“Money is the last of my problems. I’ll pay you a nice bonus too, if you slam that throttle. And screw the speed limits, go ham.”

“Screw you! I don’t want to get my license rescinded.”

“No worries ‘bout that. It won’t happen.”

The taxi driver turned to face that enigmatic passenger, adjusted his sight glasses. A sarcastic grin opened up on his face.

“… oh, really now? Sorry, sir, I didn’t know you were a big wig, I must have missed that! But even if you were, say, Queen Vivian’s neko lover, rules are rules – one close encounter with the road police and I’m in big trouble!”

“Nah, you ain’t.”

The passenger took out a plastic card from his trench coat, showed it to the driver with a slow, annoyed gesture, tapping on the holographic symbols under a name.

“See? Detective Julius Immanuel Grant, working for the New Langdon Police Dept…”

Then, he groaned, as his artificial eye rolled in its socket.

“… and, before you ask, I’ve got a witness to protect, yes? So, fire up the engine and step on that pedal yesterday, fella.”

**

Jackson stood silent for a second or two, waiting for Jenn to go on. She was always like that, leaving him hanging before dropping a bombshell or two. He tapped his fingers on the wooden counter, trying to put together a semblance of a rhythm – largely in vain. Then, finally, Jenn returned from the void, her voice assaulting his ears from the receiver.

“So, first a quick recap: the identity of Der Wolf as Lyca Roßmudder wasn’t public knowledge. Yes, we both knew about that, but it’s because we have the right connections. So, not many people were aware that Cyphr was her actual daughter, okay? Public knowledge stopped at that scary merc adopted a crippled girl. Even those that heard our friend referring to herself as the daughter of Der Wolf took it as ‘she adopted me’.”

Jackson nodded. Indeed, the truth about Cyphr’s parentage had been quite a surprise. He didn’t know Der Wolf was a human woman, under that terrifying armor and complex mass of cybernetic implants. Whatever was left of Lyca Roßmudder, was just an upper torso with a neck and a head attached. The rest of her body was a mechanical construct, but that wasn’t a problem for his French mercenary pal, who happened to live together with her. Ange proudly showed him some pictures of how she looked like without the helmet. He kept saying her smile was priceless. Yet, yes, the number of people who knew who Der Wolf really was could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Jenn’s voice interrupted his train of thoughts, thundered though the phone.

“Come two weeks ago and – guess what? – sensitive data from the witness protection agency were leaked all over the net by an unknown actor. The leak contained several files on Raquel Rosen and where she was living, though not on her current name, together with…”

A pause. Classic Jenn’s ‘Scenic Reveal Time’. Jackson frowned, his fingers tapping even faster. His patience wasn’t infinite and she had abused already enough of it.

“With?”

“… come on, Vince, you could wait two seconds longer, surely? But okay, have it your way: the files came with some extra sauce. Did you know that Cyphr’s lower abdomen used to be a genetic safe that could only be operated by a relative of hers? When she was a kid, her gramps used it to store stolen components of an experimental weapon.”

“And?”

“Her brain contains something too – a chip loaded with sensitive files, right in the middle of it, between her hemispheres. That’s what the leak was about.”

Silence. Jackson waited without saying a word, his fingers stopped tapping. Then, he almost shouted in the phone, his words almost turning into a roar.

“Why didn’t you say that immediately?! I’ll call Veckert right now, Cyphr might be in danger!”

“Vince.”

One single word. Calm. Dry. Vince’s heartbeat slowed down, his free hand kept on his chest, feeling his own pulse changing in real time.

“Vince, do you think I’m that dense? Of course I pinged our friendly ladykiller detective first. She’s got a whole report on her desk. No need to go ballistic, I’ve already done it, first thing first.”

A sigh of relief escaped his lips. Yeah, Jenn wasn’t stupid. If she smelled smoke, she’d call the firefighters immediately. It was dumb to expect the opposite. Yet, he felt something weird – the striking sensation of being observed. He turned around, only to meet two amber eyes, their pupils shaped like that of a cat, staring at him – almost shining in the low lights of the cafe. Then, the voice. Lejl’s voice.

“Cyphy… might be in danger?”

Jackson tipped his hat, till it covered his forehead almost completely. Of all people. Of all people who could have overheard him, of course Lejl. Of course. He cursed under his breath, before pushing the speaker button on his phone. Whatever he thought about that situation, that short, clumsy and sometimes unreliable girl standing in front of him had all the rights to know what was happening.

**

Ivan switched the lights off, the engine went quiet. He looked in the mirrors, checked the display on the car’s dashboard. The camera feed was crystal clear – no vehicles in sight, no passersby, no nothing. They were alone. His face didn’t change expression. Much like a robot of old, his mouth didn’t arc in satisfaction, his eyes didn’t react to the good news. Instead, he simply turned the handle and left the car, signaling to Cyphr to do the same.

“We’ve arrived. This is the safe house.”

Cyphr squinted her eyes, gazed in the direction Ivan pointed to. What looked like a cube of concrete peeked out of some low trees. Cracks were flowing through its outer structure, through its small rectangular windows. Shattered glass, planks bolted to the walls. A door so rusty that just looking at it could transmit tetanus. After a cursory inspection, she would have described that house as everything but safe. Her hand went to her missing ear, still aching from the phantom pain. Her implants were directly connected to her nerves, in one way or another, so having one ripped out without observing the safety procedures felt like being stabbed in the abdomen – something she also had experience of. A quick gaze at her phone, at the status of the signal. Nothing. Empty. There was no EM shielding there, so that could only mean that that specific area was outside of the operator’s coverage. Obviously, uncle Ivan had to know it. It wasn’t coincidental. It was a safe house in the sense that nobody could find them there, without already knowing where the house was. Cyphr bit her lower lip. Being cut out of the network was unsettling. No way to call Lalli, no way to call Tiger, Ange or Vince. She was alone with a man who claimed to be a friend of her father. That part checked out in her memory, at least. Ivan Yatchko was always around, when she was four or five years old. Her papa’s best friend, or something. But this uncle Ivan and that uncle Ivan felt like two different people. Present Ivan was a hazy reflection of the man that was, almost devoid of emotions.

“Raquel? Follow me, please.”

Raquel. Cyphr didn’t like that name. Siska-Philippa was already a mouthful, but it was of course the combination of names of her grandmas. Adding Raquel at the end was the cherry on the top. Siska-Philippa Raquel. Nobody ever called her like that. She had vague memories of her father calling her just Raquel. Her mother, though, always shortened her whole name to Siphr, which would later turn into Cyphr. Cyphr. She loved the sound of that word. It felt like how the protagonist of a science-fiction flick would be called. She liked it so much that she begged her mom to register her with that name, when they finally reunited. Cyphr Wolfchild. No Siska, no Philippa, no Raquel and no Rosen. Her past left behind, a new, stronger being been born. Seen how she left so many of her body parts in the past, it was almost like her grandpa carved the Siska, the Philippa, the Raquel and the Rosen out of her, leaving only Cyphr. Exactly what she wanted to be now, that human girl whose body was full of implants that kept her functioning despite missing vital organs. Now, though, that girl had grown up and was ready to rip – no matter who her opponent was.

“So, who’s tailing us, uncle Ivan?”

“Grant’s the name. He’s a maverick, someone I used to know back in Germany. We were both foreigners, you see, and that crazy American was friendly enough – much like your father. Now I regret it. I regret having anything to do with him. It was a mistake, and it’s biting my neck. I’m not safe.”

“Are you that scared of him?”

Ivan stopped in his tracks, turned around slowly.

“I’m not scared of him. He’s good at finding people and he can shoot well, that’s it. Perfect aim and such, with that artificial eye. No, I’m more scared of who sent him to get you.”

He placed his hand on the rusted handle, turned it with ease. The door opened smoothly, without a sound, contrary to all of Cyphr’s expectations. Ivan looked inside, scanned the interior for almost a full minute. Then, he nodded in her direction, signaling her to go forward. Cyphr gazed at the entrance, looked around to spot any known landmarks. If uncle Ivan closed her inside the house, she could definitely kick the door down, with enough patience. Unfortunately her battle boots were at home, but that door didn’t look solid enough to resist to too many hits. So, whatever happened, she had a way out. A short breath, before moving forward, crossing the threshold under the gaze of that cop who said to have worked with her father. It was then that she talked again, asking the question that was left unanswered.

“And who sent him, uncle Ivan? You didn’t tell me that.”

Ivan looked at her, his eyes meeting with those of a young woman slightly taller than him, forcing him to angle his face up slightly. Then, he spoke.

“Have you ever heard of an organization called Die Fledermaus, Raquel?”

Die Fledermaus. A German name that translated to ‘the bat’, the flying rodent that slept upside down in the darkness of its cave. Cyphr frowned at that word. She had heard of it, of course. After all, it was on everyone’s mouth, after the beginning of the Boost trial for the murder of Dr. Zojimbo. The connections between the former general and that weird paramilitary association bursted out in full after Corporal Sionn Byle, one of Boost’s aides, spilled out the beans on that and the whole ‘Hell Dimension Dive’ project. Parts of it were still under military secret, but Delta Team had clearance for many of the most intriguing details – stuff that Tiger couldn’t keep for himself in his nights at The Lighthouse or Jackson’s. Tiger was scared by the Shadow Gallery – its existence constantly reminded him of his choice, a choice contributing to condemn a whole world to die – so, every time something connected to that unsettling place, the ‘original world layer’, came to his attention, he sort of needed to blurt it out to someone else, be it Amy, Vince or Cyphr. He didn’t even care that they weren’t supposed to know more, he just needed them to listen. And, among that torrent of word, he mentioned Die Fledermaus pretty often. Thus, she had heard all and every bit of information that graced Delta Team, despite being on a sabbatical leave to foster her art career.

“I had. I know of it.”

“Your gramps was in cahoots with them. But he was clever, yes? He got a lot of intel on them, stuff that shouldn’t have seen the light of the day…”

He pointed his finger at her forehead, pushed it gently.

“… and he stored it in his safest safe, to be able to blackmail them in case of need.”

He took his finger down, still staring at Cyphr without ever blinking.

“That’s what was leaked, at least. Nobody knows what exactly is stored in that chip, but you can imagine that what’s left of Die Fledermaus is going to try its best to avoid it going public.”

“I thought Corporal Byle already spilled everything to the press.”

Ivan’s voice became louder, his tone more aggressive, if only for an instant.

“There’s a lot more than what that mutt believed to know.”

Only for an instant, before turning back to his usual cold demeanor.

“Now, please, get in. We still have a lot to talk about, till reinforcements come. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

Cyphr stood still for a second, an interminable second, longer. Then, she slowly walked through the door, losing herself in the unlit darkness of that supposedly safe house. Ivan followed her immediately after. He glanced around, looked down the only road connected to that place. Once he was satisfied that nobody was inside, he closed the door behind him, with a loud thud.

If he had waited just a couple minutes longer, he would have seen lights in the distance.

The lights of a black taxi, slowly circling around their position.

**

“And… what’s in that… chip, anyway, Vince?”

“Hell if I know.”

Jackson was sitting at the counter, a glass of chamomile in his hands. Lejl had one too, sipping it at irregular intervals. They were alone, nobody else around, as the moody jazz from the jukebox filled the emptiness of the cafe. Jackson had taken the hard decision of closing his venue prematurely, sending out his customers as soon as they finished their drinks and the personnel soon after, until only Lejl and he remained. He needed a quiet place. They needed a quiet place. Lejl’s hand was shaking around the glass, her breath heavy. She let out a long sigh, started talking again.

“I can’t feel her. She’s out of my reach.”

“Feel her?”

She gulped down a little bit more of her chamomile, her eyes oscillating between a circular and a cat-like pupil every few seconds.

“See, living in an artificial body created by the Shadow Gallery has its perks, even if they are overshadowed by the… let’s call it ‘the rest of the package’. One of the perks is that my senses are sharper. I can… almost interact with what that guy Sanderbach calls the ‘reality matrix’. Fascinating concept, he’s closer to the truth than he thinks.”

“I don’t follow.”

“This is why you should watch Traveller more.”

Jackson rolled his eyes.

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

That pseudoscience show was dead last in his reliability index. He just happened to follow it with Jake and Hiro because they were very interested in cryptids, supernatural apparitions, and ROPES, but he despised both Res Vertighel and his theatrical antics. Whenever that other crank Sanderbach made an appearance to try to add some credibility to Vertighel’s consummate lies, the show turned boring and more annoying, prompting his kids to ask him to switch channel or tune on the wrestling stream, freeing him from that torture.

“Okay, then I’ll have to explain it to you, I guess.”

Lejl put her glass down, resting her chin on the back of her hand, looked at Jackson with her ever-shifting eyes.

“The gist of it is that we live in a projected universe that is managed by a huuuuge invisible grid filled with numbers. Alter the numbers, the information and you alter our reality. Of course I can’t go that far – not anymore at least – but I can still… access more of this matrix than a normal human can. Usually, this is how my sixth sense works. I have an intuitive grasp on stuff I should have no idea of.”

“If that’s so, how come you are a total klutz, when it comes to common sense?”

“Hey, gimme a break! I’m still learning! Like, do you have any ideas on what it feels to move from ‘splinter of Aylin’s fractured mind’ to ‘human being with her own physical body’?”

Jackson frowned. According to the rumors, said ‘physical body’ had been heavily put to test by Cyphr, sometimes together with Chai and even one of his female employees, in what Lejl used to call her ‘sharing is caring’ routine. He kept that thought for himself, though – that wasn’t the main point of their conversation. He cleared his throat, gulped down some chamomile too.

“I don’t get it, but that’s fine. So, about this ‘out of reach’ thing?”

“Usually, I can sense where the people I know are, within a radius of around one mile. For example, the dumb shark is close to his home, right now, while Tiger and Aylin are together… somewhere in a nearby city block. It’s just a feeling, it’s not sharp enough to pinpoint where they really are, but at least I get a vague idea of how my friends are doing. It works only with people with which I shared a lot of time together, and not even with all of them. In a way, I think it’s because my information got tangled with theirs more often. It’s waaay stronger with the gals I bedded, if you get what I mean – maybe because our information was tangled even deeper.”

“So, long story short, Cyphr isn’t inside the borders of New Langdon.”

“Yes. That’s the point. She’s either out of the city bounds or far away in the hinterland. Not something I’d expect her to do willingly, this late at night. Her phone is offline too, can’t get a hold of her in any way. I’ve also tried to ping her hearing device, since she gets calls on that too, but the connection fails. She’s… just gone.”

Her hand shook again, her breathing accelerated.

“I’m scared, Vince! I… I don’t want to… she’s my… she’s my only anchor of sanity, Vince. If I lost her… if I lost her…”

Jackson patted her hair, slowly.

“She’s strong, have faith. We’ve also unleashed the hound, right? Veckert will find her, wherever she is. That bloody detective is that good, yes?”

“Yeah…”

A long sigh, as Lejl gulped down the last of her chamomile. Jackson mimicked her, finished is drink too. He needed to keep talking, keep talking to stop Lejl from going full destructive mode with her thought. Her frailty was having the best of her, something he couldn’t allow to happen. So, inquisitive mode it was. He didn’t give her any time to enter a destructive spiral, not on his watch. He had to keep the conversation going.

“You think this Ivan Yatchko is involved?”

Lejl growled, her eyes now stable in their catlike shape.

“Sure is. That guy reeked of lies. There was something amiss.”

“Your sixth sense again?”

“Just a hunch. I’ve never met him before this morning. But I can tell you this much: He didn’t tell the whole truth.”

Jackson looked at the wall clock. Eleven twenty-two. Pretty late for someone to become basically untraceable all of a sudden, without a good explanation. He could understand why Lejl was worried. Yet, that wasn’t the reason he was staring at the minute hand. Someone had promised to show up at eleven twenty sharp, and that someone was usually on time. It appeared she had overestimated her own punctuality…

A chiming sound at the door, a door supposed to be closed, now opening without a itch, as if it was never locked in the first place. Jackson turned around, only to catch a familiar shape, clad in what looked like a heavy trench coat worn over an elegant party dress. The silhouette at the door chuckled, shrugged at his, at their surprised gaze.

“Vince, Vince… you really couldn’t let me rest, could you?”

Lejl’s face got some of its color back, as she realized who the purple-haired woman with that beauty mark on her cheek was. Under the gaze of the two occupants of Jackson’s, stood none other than the striking figure of Jenn Husler.

**

That house looked everything except safe. Yet, there was no mistake. That sports car parked in front of it was one hundred percent the same that escaped him back in New Langdon. Grant tapped on his temple, turning the HUD of his artificial eye on. No signal. Not a chance to contact anyone without a satellite phone. The perfect place to hide. In hindsight, Yatchko was cleverer than he thought. Grant turned around, back to the cab, to the driver impatiently waiting for him with the lights still on.

“Alright, pal. This is the place, thanks.”

The driver tapped on the dashboard, watched the numbers lighting up on his display.

“The total is…”

“I don’t care. Add fifty pounds more as a bonus. You drove well.”

The driver stared at Grant, at his out-of-sync eyes looking in two different directions. Then, he took out the payment device. The huge man in front of him tapped his finger on it, causing the transaction to be approved. Grant produced something akin to a smile, before turning around towards the house.

“Feel free to go back, I’ll manage it from now on. Have a safe trip.”

The cab driver glanced at the man a little longer, before closing the door and switching on the engine again. Then, the car went back down the road it came from, disappearing in the woods. Grant mentally counted up. One, two, three… until he got to thirty. Then, watched again, noticing the lights being far enough in the night for him not to care anymore. He resumed counting. Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, up to sixty, then scanned his surroundings once more. Nobody in sight, no sounds except the wind and the insects, maybe some owl. He was alone, as he wanted. He glanced back a the house. The car that got him there was a pretty loud model. The occupants of the building might have heard him approaching. There was a concrete chance they were preparing to ambush him. Yet, the thought didn’t scare him in the slightest. Whatever the odds, he would win. He took the gun out of his holster, checked the genetic lock. Still active, worked as intended. No chance someone else could use his weapon against him. For a good measure, he checked the magazine too. Almost full. He added more bullets, until the led display turned green. Two shots. He missed two shots, back at Oak Park, neither hitting the target. Such a waste, when every bullet counted. Yet, now the situation was perfect. The target was in an isolated place, with no way to communicate with the outside world, barricaded inside a building that might have been older than him. No way out, one way in. Yes, perfect, under every point of view.

With that knowledge arming him, Immanuel Grant slowly walked to the rusted door. He had never felt more in control.

**

Right as Jenn entered the cafe, Jackson tipped his hat, addressing the newcomer directly.

“That door was supposed to be locked.”

“Nothing a good polymorphic key can’t mimic. You should add a fingerprint scanner instead.”

“Because you aren’t equipped to fool that too, right?”

“Guilty as charged.”

Jenn let the trench coat fall to the ground, sat on a table close to the entrance, her fingertips rubbing the wood.

“So, Vince… about your emergency. You called me because of Cyphr, didn’t you?”

Jackson nodded without saying a word, at first. The reason why he asked her to come was to tranquillize Lejl until Rainer worked her magic, more than anything else. It was unlikely for a ragtag bunch of civilians like him and the sorry mess of a girl currently sprayed on the counter to be able to solve that predicament on their own. True, Jenn was an on-and-off member of Delta Team and had extensive military training, but she wasn’t a one-woman-army. Yet, having her around felt like it could do wonders for their morale. Lejl gazed at her, at the body of the woman she had so seldom seen around while feeling her presence so often. Jenn was a ghost, a phantom that observed without being seen, someone always two steps ahead of everyone else. She had as many aliases as Shaz too, making it hard to know whether Husler was even her real surname at all. Cloverfield, Spear, Grail, Ashburnt, Kusanagi, Avalon, Excalibur, Lancelot, Gawain. Some were clearly fake – Jennifer Excalibur really sounded like a name from a comic book – but some less so. She was fascinating, for lack of a better term. Lejl admired her figure and felt that there was much more under her disguise. A vague hint of grief. Pain. Loss. Feelings she was keeping under control with incredible mastery, but that slipped through her flirtatious expression as subtle changes in the flow of her body. If it was true that Lejl’s recognition of emotions based on grimaces was still faulty, her side channels allowed her to gain access to information that was sometimes hidden. It didn’t always work and sometimes she couldn’t feel anything. Yet, that time it was clear as day – or as starry as night, as she liked to say. Lejl’s fascination with that enigmatic figure, though, was cut short by more pressing matters – learning more about her Cyphy’s whereabouts. So, she almost ran to the newcomer, without waiting a second longer, grabbing her by the shoulders in no time.

“What did Veckert say?”

As a response, Jenn patted Lejl’s head, with an affectionate, delicate gesture.

“That she was expecting it.”

Jackson frowned, freed his sight from the tip of the hat.

“Expecting… it?”

Only to be met with a shrug.

“Yep, our friendly neighborhood hound was cursing like hell, when I told her about the whole caboodle. She said something like I swear, last time I help that girl. Apparently, good ol’ Vicky contacted our little wolf cub twice – once two weeks ago and once this morning – through a common friend, to give her a copy of a couple documents from the Boost trial – documents that were meant to be published next week. They were about Der Wolf, by the way. Veckert considered it a courtesy to her daughter to give her a sneak peek at them before they were released in the wild. So, Yard stored the docs into a sheet-like data drive that could only be accessed using Cyphr’s neural interface. Veckert told me more about what was written inside the files, but…”

Jenn left Lejl’s grasp, only to seat again on the empty table.

“… it was very underwhelming, at first. Just the list of all the cops that worked with Cyphr’s father and of those that were tasked to protect her family from a possible mob retaliation. Something that happened with or without them around, mind me.”

She made a pause, a scenic pause as usual, as if they weren’t in any hurry. That felt bizarre to Jackson. Jenn wasn’t one to play with a friend’s feelings and Lejl was in an evident state of distress. He signaled his displeasure by mimicking two scissors with his fingers, as if to say ‘cut it down, get to the meat’. Jenn answered with a smirk that could only be interpreted as ‘not now’, ‘trust me’ or ‘fuck you’ – one of the three. Or all of them, at the same time. Yet, after that Mona Lisa answer, she started talking again, still keeping Lejl’s hand in hers.

“At first. That’s the keyword. Because here’s the catch: among the profiles of the cops that were supposed to protect Cyphr and her family… I found a perfect match with the weirdos that asked about Raquel Rosen this morning. Well, at least according to your description of them, Vince.”

Jackson stared at her, squinted his eyes.

“Which of the two?”

Jenn chuckled, crossed her legs on the table, while still keeping Lejl’s hand in hers.

“Both.”

**

Ivan held his breath. The car, the sound of steps, just outside of the building. It was him. Of course, it was him. Julius Immanuel Grant, with that unsettling fake eye of his. Of course he was going to get in. That was fine, though. One way in, one way out. It was the perfect place for an ambush. Everything was going as planned. A cul-de-sac, isolated, without any chance to communicate with the outside world. Nobody would find a corpse there for days, weeks even. It was two versus one. No matter the physical proficiency or the number of implants, even if everyone involved had the same training, it was a question of raw numbers. And those numbers were in Ivan’s favor.

“Raquel, get as far as possible from the door! Now!”

Cyphr, though, didn’t seem fazed at all. She slowly walked back, without a shred of worry. Her expression was hard to read, somewhat floating between annoyance and thrill. She stood back as instructed, raised her knee in what looked like a guard stance, before moving her feet down to the ground again. Ivan’s heart was pumping. Soon, everything would be over. He mentally counted up. One, two, three. At five, his fingers grabbed the handle of the door. At seven, they pulled it down. At ten, the door opened. And two guns met.

Ivan Yatchko. Julius Immanuel Grant. Both pointing their weapons at each other. Both silent, without saying a word. Grant’s artificial eye moved left and right, completely desynced from his biological one. A light came out from the pupil, illuminating Ivan’s face, his cold, emotionless expression.

“You’ve got some guts acting as a private eye on duty, Ivan.”

“Same with you, Jules.”

“Well, at least I look like a detective.”

“With that eye of yours? Idiot.”

“Better than your scarred hide.”

Cyphr couldn’t make heads or tails of that exchange. If anything, it was friendly. Too friendly, even. She kept watching without saying a word, ready to jolt in action, to hit the trespasser with all her might.

Before Ivan made way for Grant to enter, without opposing any resistance.

Cyphr let out a gasp, as the imposing stature of Grant entered her field of vision, as his mechanical eye stopped on her, the light shining on her face.

“So, this is what’s left of Raquel? She was such a pretty child…”

Ivan shrugged, before turning towards Cyphr too.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Then, Grant raised his gun, aiming at her head.

“Let’s finish this.”

**

Jenn cleared her throat, stared back at Jackson.

“Julius Immanuel Grant and Ivan Yatchko. They were colleagues of Cyphr’s father and they were both assigned to the protection of her family. During the shootout that killed Mikail Rosen and gravely injured Lyca Roßmudder, their team was away, apparently being recalled due to an unexpected emergency. The whole team except Grant and Yatchko, that is. That’s also how Grant lost his eye.”

Jenn touched her own eye, her finger mimicking a bullet.

“Bang! Right through his socket, brain damage and everything. Yatchko got away his nose. He replaced it with a very convincing prosthetic, but the operation left a visible scar too. A very small price to pay for surviving that carnage.”

Jackson crossed his arms, stared down, started tapping his finger on the counter.

“I don’t follow. Cyphr knew both of them?”

“At least tangentially, yes. Yatchko was a household figure, when her parents were alive.”

“But then… why didn’t she contact him, after Lyca died? If they were so close, I mean.”

Jenn tapped her finger on her cheek, closed her eyes, turned her head up, almost as if she wanted to stare at the ceiling.

“… good question. I don’t have an answer, Vince. But maybe there’s a connection with the second document Veckert sent to Cyphr, the one she got this morning.”

Lejl shivered, forced herself to react, to ask the question.

“W… what was that document about?”

“It was just confirmation that both Yatchko and Grant were in New Langdon now. Nothing more. But that was what Cyphr asked her to send. Their faces, their whereabouts, their location. That’s it. Nothing less, nothing more.”

Lejl searched Jackson’s stare. Jackson locked his eyes with hers, before both turned in unison towards Jenn, in an evident state of confusion. Jenn savored it, let that taste last a little longer, as she prepared for the dessert, the grand finale.

“Now, about that leak that started this manhunt… there’s something odd about it. Something that doesn’t make sense…”

She rubbed her finger against the wood, once more, her varnished nail drawing spirals on the table.

“… or that only makes sense in the hypothesis that the leaker targeted those two ex-cops specifically.”

**

One shot, blasting from the barrel with a deafening bang. Cyphr’s senses were sharper, though. She ducked as low as possible, right before Grant even pulled the trigger, just as he showed the intention to do it. The bullet delved into the concrete, lost its momentum. It was aimed at her chest, aimed to kill. Avoided thanks to her implants, to her enhanced sight, to her training. She rolled on the ground, hid behind a pillar before the attacker could aim a second time. Their uninvited guest, that Grant that popped out of nowhere, kept is gun aimed at her, readied to fire again. Yet, he stopped. That pillar covered his line of sight, despite his mechanical eye. That was less than optimal for him. Cyphr breathed, slowly. A professional. Shoot first, ask questions later. That wasn’t good. She had to make him talk, if she wanted to have a chance. That way, Ivan might have had the time to hit him, stop him before it was too late. But nothing happened. She heard no commotion, no sound of anything. So, she peeked out of her hiding place, ready to get back at the first sign of retaliation. She stared at Grant, at the barrels of his gun pointed straight at her. Yet, she didn’t move. She simply waited. One, two, three. Nothing. The gun was still aimed but not shooting, no intention of doing so. Either he was surprised she avoided their first salvo or he decided to change strategy too. But Ivan didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even try to tackle the assailant. Ivan Yatchko was just staring at her with something akin to annoyance. She growled, her voice echoed in the coffin of broken concrete surrounding them.

“Uncle Ivan?! What does this mean?”

Ivan’s answer was a veil of silence, as he slowly raised his gun too. And Cyphr found herself staring at two barrels, two fully loaded revolvers. Her gaze flew left and right, from Ivan to Grant, from Grant to Ivan.

“… I see. You were working together.”

Ivan didn’t blink – he simply nodded. That was it, the last moment of life of Raquel Rosen. The last trigger to pull to let his past die and rot. He couldn’t help but let a smirk take hold of his face. Aside from that little, unexpected late stunt, everything worked like clockwork. Everything. The two competing private eyes, the fake New Langdon Police affiliation, the staged attack at Oak Park to make her trust him, even setting up a trail for Grant to pick up, to tell him to which safe house he was brining the girl without having to communicate directly. They had setup three of them, with two ready to use if the first was deemed unsafe. Fortunately, it wasn’t the case, but it was better to be overcautious. Everything they went through had a single, simple goal: take Raquel to a place nobody would find her till the end of the Boost trial. And let her rot there. Sure, it required careful planning. When that leak got online, Grant and he felt lost. Raquel, still alive? The kid who witnessed the murder of her parents, less dead than she should have been. Now adult and ready to be a pain in the ass, if her word got out and was believed. His life as a private eye would have died sooner than it started, if she was questioned about that day. About his role in the tragedy. So, he had to understand how much she knew. To his delight, she seemed to be completely oblivious to that event, to the point of calling him ‘uncle Ivan’, as if nothing truly happened. That was proof he didn’t need to worry too much – but what if the suppressed memories came out? What if the chip in her brain exposed him for what he was? That was a risk that he couldn’t take, not when he was so close to being safe. Same for Grant. Birds of a feather, Ivan and he. Now, though, it was time to pull the trigger and silence the girl in front of them forever.

That’s when Cyphr talked, when her voice echoed on the cracked walls once again.

“Hey, Jules… you know who shot you in the eye that day, or?”

Grant shot again, missing her by mere centimeters. She retracted in time, before peeking out one more time. Ivan glanced at her, glanced at the pillar of cracked concrete. Total cover. Not good without moving around it. Grant had to know it and, yet, shot anyway. Maybe it was a spontaneous reflex, or an automatism. Or, maybe, those words struck a chord they shouldn’t have. Ivan’s finger rested on the trigger, his gaze moved to his companion, scanning his reaction to that question. Only to find Grant’s mechanical eye pointing at him, doing the same. Shoot first, ask questions later. That was what they agreed on. Yet, he couldn’t. Not without keeping his associate under watch. What if Grant gunned him down after he gunned her down? That was an angle he didn’t consider, but there was indeed a possibility. Pull the trigger, then Grant pulls his trigger on him. A small chance, maybe, but still a chance. He looked back at the girl, then at Jules, then back at the girl. Fine, he thought, I’ll play your game. Ivan started moving, ready to circle around her hideout, in order to keep her at gun point. A pincher attack, something she was giving them time to set up. Amateur. So, he talked too, to keep her from noticing his slow yet steady approach.

“That’s a pretty lame strategy, Raquel. I expected better from Mikail’s daughter.”

“If you have such an admiration for my dad… why did you sell him and left him for dead, uncle Ivan?”

Ivan took another look at Grant. Impassible, emotionless, his mechanical eye still aimed at him. How much did Raquel really know? Suddenly, Grant’s voice boomed in the room.

“We… we didn’t kill Mikail! That wasn’t the agreement we had! It was your grandpa who pulled the trigger. We were just… ‘asked’ to send the rest of the team away and call it a day. But that bastard shot us too. Not well enough to kill us, though. That was why we’re still here!”

Ivan’s eyes popped out, as he turned towards Grant. That reaction was unexpected. Grant, the ever so bored Grant, showing something like regret? That made him wonder. Made him wonder whether he could trust him. That’s when Ivan made a mistake. Absorbed by his thoughts on Grant, he lowered his gun, took his eyes off Cyphr, even if just for a second.

But a second was enough for her to burst out of her hideout, for her kick to reach him, slam into his temple, make his head turn, right as Grant’s aiming eye was still focused on him. Ivan’s gun flew in the air, fell onto the ground with a loud thud. Ivan’s body followed suit, nape first, as his back kissed the concrete. Before Grant’s eye could turn to frame Cyphr again, his gun went flying too. A roundhouse kick to his wrist, almost smashing it in the impact, the weapon falling, hitting the floor. Grant lost his balance, fell on his knee, as his hand started sending pain pulses to all of his body, pain flaring up like mad after just one, single hit. Right as Cyphr towered over him, her right leg raised up like a flamingo’s, her eyes shining in the darkness of the safe house, her data bands flickering red and black, slowly, continuously. Her right leg extended up, almost completely straight. Before falling like an axe, a guillotine, on Grant’s shooting hand. The weight of her attack took him by surprise, as his fingers screamed, as his bones broke down. Grant’s artificial eye rolled in his socket, turned to look for his gun. With a primal yell, he stood up, hit Cyphr with a shoulder charge, sending her back a few meters, forcing her to adjust her balance. Ivan took that time to adjust his stance, regain his composure, while his head was still spinning. He reached for Grant’s gun, grabbed it with both hands, aimed it at the girl in front of him, pulled the trigger without even thinking.

But nothing happened.

The trigger clicked, but the gun didn’t fire. The LCD turned red, blinked furiously. A genetic lock. Only Grant could use that weapon. Only Grant could fire it. Before he could even begin to realize it, before he could swear, another kick hit him under his chin, making him fall back, till he crumpled on the floor. He coughed, breathed fast, then slow, then fast again. His heart was aching, pumping like hell, the adrenaline flowing. As his eyes stopped on Cyphr, the woman that once was a small crybaby called Raquel, he felt his soul sinking. The rumors were true. She was a monster, exactly like her mother. This Cyphr is a good close range fighter. Better than both of you, without ifs or buts. She ranked very high at the entrance exam for Delta Team, beating down people twice your size, Ivan. Be careful. The plan, matter-of-fact words of his informant echoed in his brain, words he didn’t want to hear. That was the reason for that convoluted setup, for that pincher maneuver. Shooting her in the car was unthinkable – she never stopped gazing at him for the whole trip and wouldn’t have given him any time to draw his weapon or to drug her. Her senses were too sharp. Even at Oak Park, even if Grant missed his shots willingly, she reacted way too quickly at the sight of his gun. Ivan knew it, knew it would have been hard to tackle her, as soon as he learned that Raquel Rosen and Cyphr Wolfchild were the same person. He slowly stood up, as Grant did the same, with his shattered hand completely unusable, his left hand still intact but unarmed. Cyphr stared at both of them, shook her head.

“I hoped you weren’t out to kill me, but seems like I was wrong. You really are scumbags…”

She lifted her mechanical hand, her fingers pointed towards the battered duo.

“… especially you, uncle Ivan.”

Grant bit his lip, his eye looking for the gun on the ground. He found it, fifteen, maybe twenty feet away from his position. His left hand was worse at shooting than his right one, but he could still do it. She was unarmed – if he landed even just one shot, he could turn the tables in his favor. Yet, something stopped him. Something that Raquel said before.

“Hey, Jules… you know who shot you in the eye that day, or?”

That felt too specific for being a off-hand remark. Grant could only remember scattered fragments of that day. The bullet who pierced his eye damaged his brain too, messing up his short term memory for the events that surrounded the death of Mikail. The days before were clear as ever, with Granney Roßmudder paying him and Ivan a hefty sum to send the security away at a specific moment. The days afterwards, a blurry mess. Ivan and he were of course sent to the hospital, framed as victims too. That was a convenient cover story, one that worked out wondrously.

Except… Raquel’s words…

In front of him, Ivan hit the ground again, a knee attack smashing his chin in an instant. Cyphr was utterly dominating him, without ever losing eye contact with Grant too. Grant’s artificial eye was still fixated on the gun. His gun. There was a chance Ivan’s had a genetic lock too, getting it was out of the question. But his own weapon was almost in reach. Almost. But Cyphr was between him and his gun, in a position where she could stop him if he even thought about trying to get it back. That was going completely off-rails. He breathed heavily, trying to figure out what went wrong and how. On paper, there was no way things could develop like that. There had to be an explanation.

Then, while Ivan was still trying to get on all four after the last blow, Cyphr started speaking.

“Jules. Uncle Ivan. When I found your names on the list of Fledermaus operatives that came out of the Boost trial, I couldn’t believe it at first. But, deep inside, I knew it had to be true. Since when have you worked for them?”

Grant breathed, breathed. That’s right. Both of them, both of them stopped being cops the day after Mikail’s death. Both of them left. Grant did it for shame. He didn’t expect Roßmudder to murder his daughter. He didn’t expect things to become that bloody. He retired, was recruited by Vassili der Fledermaus himself. Same with Ivan, he guessed. Both of them couldn’t stand the blood on their hands, but couldn’t expose the whole ordeal without being sent to jail. That was it. Their shared secret. Their shared guilt. Yet, that was an occasion. Keep her talking. Keep her busy. Distract her so that you can take your gun back. Breath in, breath out. Grant crafted a new plan. It was time to put it in motion.

“Raquel… no, Cyphr. I’m… sorry. We didn’t want Mikail and Lyca to die. We didn’t think your gramps would use such… drastic measures. See, being affiliated with Die Fledermaus is a minor crime, one I’m totally fine paying for. But being associated to the Rosen murder? Thanks to the information in your brain chip? I… I don’t want to spend the next twenty years of my life in jail, Cyphr. I want to pay, but not like that! Not like that!”

“So, you want to silence me instead, Jules? How very honorable.”

He could feel the sarcasm in her voice. Grant bit his lips, those words piercing his pride. A glance at Ivan, who was slowly managing to stand up, spitting saliva on the concrete, his balance still compromised. Before he could retort, though, Cyphr started talking again.

“My brain was damaged too, that day. For a long time, I’ve only remembered gunshots and blurry shapes. Around one, maybe two months ago, things became clearer. It was right after the plant apocalypse. The shock triggered something in me. Now, I remember. I remember what I saw.”

Grant froze. His plan too. There was something solemn in her posture, in her words. Spite. Pure spite. Grant couldn’t move. He had to listen. He wanted to listen.

“The person who shot dad and then shot you, Jules…”

Her eyes shone in the dark, words spat out with tranquil fury.

“… was your pal, Ivan Yatchko.”

**

It was like a hazy dream, back then, the day after Mikail died. Voices and blurry silhouettes, the white of the ceiling of the walls. A hospital of sorts, with all what entailed, absence of colors included. The anesthetic didn’t make it easy for him to grasp the outside world as well as he would have liked to. Yet, there were two facts that, somehow, his brain had to accept. First fact: he survived. Second fact: one of his eyes didn’t. So, there he was, sprayed on a hospital cot, trying to piece together a puzzle he couldn’t completely grasp. When did it start? Well, that was easy: when Granney Roßmudder paid them big bucks to leave Mikail and his family vulnerable, if only for fifteen minutes. Yes, that was clear as day. But what happened later? He couldn’t make it up. Only nondescript figures. And pain. Absolute pain. He turned his head towards the cot on his left, every movement delayed by the medicines, his reality shifting slowly around him, following him with a slight delay. It was then that he met his gaze. Ivan’s gaze. A bandage run through his face, from ear to ear, but, aside from that, he didn’t look in too much of a bad shape.

But something didn’t add up.

Grant’s memories had a hole. There was a before the mob attack and after the mob attack, but all events in the middle were gone. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He just knew that something happened and that there were casualties, but who and how… that wasn’t something he could figure out. Yet, Ivan was okay. His partner in crime seemed in better shape than him, having only lost his nose. Maybe he had other wounds in his body, like Grant surely had. Those mafia mutts had turned on them too – so much for a mutually beneficial agreement. They were gunned down like pigs, or at least that’s how it looked like. Grant couldn’t remember. Of course, he couldn’t. The doctors were clear: a bullet pierced his eye and blasted through his brain. It was a miracle that it didn’t damage anything important. Still, his memories of that day were lost, maybe for the better.

But why were they still there, in the world of the living? Was it Roßmudder’s way of thanking them for their cooperation? Maiming them but keeping them alive to tell the tale? He couldn’t make head or tails of that either. It simply didn’t make sense. Or, rather, it did, in a roundabout way. They were marked. Roßmudder knew that. If they came clean, he could have drowned their reputations in mud and killed their careers. A shiver went down his spine, as the painkillers kept him in a precarious state of consciousness. That gangster had them at his feet. No matter what they did, he would always win. Their lives were over, unless they did his bidding.

We sold our souls to the devil.

For money, so much money that it felt unreal. Money that was already almost completely gone due to the emergency room treatment, no less, together with part of their flesh. Ivan’s nose. His eye. Marks of their failure as cops. Marks of their failure as friends.

Yet, coming clean, making things right about their mistake, meant serving jail time. And he didn’t want to. Spending ten years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. That wasn’t fair. That was twisted. It was his excuse, the convenient truth where he took refuge.

I don’t deserve to go to prison for a gun I didn’t shoot.

So, silence it was. And empty repentance.

He was sure Ivan would be okay with it, as they were similar, after all. Despite their differences, that was something both could agree on. They had already paid in full for their sin with their bodies. There was no reason to pay with their freedom too.

**

Grant’s voice echoed among the cracked walls, a tip of incredulity after hearing what Cyph just said. His lips moved in slow motion, until the first syllables finally took shape.

“Come again? Ivan?!”

“Yes, Jules. Ivan killed my dad, then shot you in the eye before you could react. Before being shot himself by one of gramps’s henchmen, that is. No honor among thieves, huh? That’s how both of you got clean. Victims my ass. You got lucky and cheated death. But dad? Dad didn’t. And mom… you’ve read what was left of her, didn’t you?”

Ivan glanced at the woman, at the woman she saw as a kid more than a decade before, at the woman he saw as a toddler in her mother’s arms. That woman was standing tall, despite her body being crippled, massacred, ripped to pieces by a grandpa that used her as spare parts. That woman was now looking at him in the eyes, turning every word into a sharp blade. He stared to his left, to Grant, the man he worked with from the beginning. Only to meet his foul, artificial eye, pointed at him, unmoving. Cold. Impersonal. The gaze of a camera, of a lens that replaced what once was an iris. Ivan swallowed a lump of saliva. That gaze was making him uncomfortable. Emotionless as it was, it exuded suspicion. That wasn’t good. He snickered, spat to the ground.

“You aren’t believing this fairytale, are you?”

Grant didn’t reply. He stood staring both of the people around him, his eyes pointing in two different directions. Ivan saw him doing it often, always asking himself how that man’s brain could withstand watching two completely different images and combine them. Yet, this time that thought didn’t cross his mind. All he could focus on was whether Grant was still trusting him or not. Then, the giant thundered.

“Cyphr, can you prove it?!”

“The chip inside my brain. Everything is stored there, right? If I have to guess, gramps saved a copy of the footage taken by his men to blackmail you two later.”

Ivan gritted his teeth, glanced at his downed gun. Too far, too far to even consider making a run for it. He looked back at Grant, still motionless. His weapon was closer, but the darn genetic lock would only allow its owner to shoot. Only Grant himself could disable it, so it was less than ideal. A long breath, his usual coldness coming back with a thunder. He could still do it. They could still do it. It was just a matter of his partner not bending under pressure. All words. Yes, those were all words. She had no proof. Raquel was alone, in a place outside any route, with no network coverage. If she died here, nobody would find her for days. The perfect plan to come clean out of that mess. Finally, that unnatural eye moved away, leaving Ivan and his soul at peace. And that’s when Ivan spoke.

“How convenient, Raquel. To get the chip, we must kill you first, so we have no way to check its content before disposing of you. You’re claiming that I shot Jules so that he doesn’t shoot you. Nice try, but this can’t work. We cast away our scruples long ago.”

As Cyphr’s gaze was affixed to Ivan, Grant understood. It was the opening. The opening he waited for to get his gun. He moved subtly, started stepping towards his weapon, while Ivan kept talking, his voice lowered as a whisper, seeping through the air like a snake tongue.

“What’s your goal, make him feel bad? Oh, no, if I kill her and she was right, I’m done. That’s what you want to get at, right? But you’re missing the point – we don’t care about the facts. What we care about is that we don’t end up in jail. As simple as that. Facts are overrated and written by those who live to tell the tale. If we both live today, the fact is that none of use killed Mikail Rosen. If you live, we are the criminals. Isn’t it clear, Raquel?”

“I just want to know why you did that, uncle Ivan. Why did you betray them?!”

“You won’t get any confession out of me. God only knows what kind of implants you have installed in that head of yours. Maybe you are even recording this whole conversation, who knows? Better safe than sorry.”

Still, something switched on inside Ivan. He saw that Grant was eyeing his gun. He needed an opening. So, talking it was. Talking to let him get the weapon. Distract Raquel. At that point, teasing her and mixing a bit of reality into it was probably the best way forward.

“But let’s entertain the thought I did. Purely hypothetically, yes? The truth is simple, Raquel: either you are a corrupted cop or you are a dead cop. There’s no in-between. Those stuck up bastards at Yard don’t count, they have everything served on a silver platter. It’s we working ants that get the short hand of the stick. If I ever did what you say I did – again, hypothetically – I did it to save my own hide.”

Cyphr interrupted him, her voice almost thundering in the small compound.

“And where does shooting Jules fit into this?”

Ivan blinked, quietly glanced at Grant. Why was he still there? Why didn’t he get the gun while she was distracted by his words. He couldn’t understand, but could go forward. He made a sign with his fingers, hoping Grant would get it. Yet, his unmoving eye didn’t seem to interested into it. It was still aiming at him, at his face, in all its static glory. Well, that meant he had to improvise a little longer.

“Not to leave any witness alive, of course. Our little secret would have remained between me and the boss. Even one more person knowing would have been a liability. Now, what about…”

Grant growled. A sudden sprint, all strength poured into his legs. He leapt forward, grabbed his firearm with his surviving hand, his index on the trigger, the barrel aimed without regrets.

But not at Cyphr.

At Ivan.

“Jules…?”

Ivan gasped for air, his normal composure shattered. Grant. Grant was aiming his gun at him. He looked around, scanned for his firearm. But it was too far. Too far to even think about evading Grant’s perfectly aimed shots. Even by losing his dominant hand, he was no slouch.

“Let’s say she’s right, Ivan.”

Grant’s voice trickled like a slow, cold winter rain, entrancing Ivan, forcing him to listen.

“Let’s entertain the thought, hypothetically. If she’s saying the truth, what prevents you from shooting me the moment we access what’s stored in the chip? If that’s the truth, you almost killed me once already. You could do that a second time without regrets not to leave any witness alive.”

Ivan’s jaw fell open as he weighed those words. A full hypothetical, of course, but one that, from Grant’s perspective, made sense in one too many ways. If Ivan didn’t kill Mikail and Lyca, the worst that could happen was that Cyphr survived and went public with the information. If that were the case, the two of them would have been jailed for ten years. But, if Ivan killed her parents, a more dangerous scenario was possible. In this scenario, Ivan would prevent him from accessing the data at all costs and would probably dispose of both Grant and the chip immediately after getting his hands on it. A prisoner’s dilemma, one that had death on one side and prison time on the other. In hindsight, the answer was simple. Yet, Ivan didn’t see it. Didn’t believe that to be even an option. So, he didn’t move, he didn’t try to sway Grant. In his mind, in his brain, there was no need to do this.

Yet, Grant pulled the trigger.

And Ivan’s head exploded in a shower of gore.

**

Jenn grabbed a glass, filled it with lemonade, sipped a little of it. After talking that long, she needed a well deserved break. Yet, the biggest reveal was yet to come.

“So, about the leak… I’ve read the documents, all of them – on Delta Team time, so please don’t tell it to Commander Furry or he’ll dock my pay. Anyway, there weren’t that many of them to go through, but most seemed tampered with or downright fake. First off, of the seventeen names leaked, only Raquel Rosen exists in any shape or form. All other names on that report are fake as a three pounds note. Same for their addresses – the only one that was connected with a real place was that of Raquel, even though it was just a partial match.”

A second of pause, enough for Jenn to savor the expressions (or lack thereof) of her small audience, waiting for her to go on.

“Secondly, the leak explicitly mentioned the Rosen murder. Now, that’s just a blip in history: the assassination of a family of three – wife, husband and daughter – at the hands of the local mob. There were rumors on some police agents being involved, but no evidence backing them. So, the case made the news only in Germany and was forgotten two weeks later. The leak was very underwhelming, if you ask me – Raquel Rosen is alive, lives in New Langdon and has a chip in her brain with data on the Fledermaus and on who killed her family, but she can’t access them. That was it. Pretty useless, right? Except…”

She took a sip of lemonade, delaying the reveal by a couple seconds. She loved to keep the tension high, and short breaks like those contributed to the gravitas of her words. A consummate tactics to seize the attention of her listener, longing for a resolution.

“… well, except if you were the cops rumored to be involved in that murder and lived scot-free till today.”

Lejl was the first to connect the dots. Her pupils shifted from cat-like to round, right as her scars, her full body burns that resembled faded tattoos, shone for an imperceptible, infinitesimal instant. Whether that actually happened or not, nobody could say, but both Jenn and Jackson felt like her marks changed color, even just for the duration of a blink. Lejl started muttering something, before finally letting it out, letting out the suspicion that was brewing inside her from the beginning. Call it an intuition, her residual connection with the reality matrix. In the moment she voiced her doubt, she was sure it was a rhetorical question, even if she didn’t know why. Even if she didn’t know how.

“Jenn… is it possible… is it possible that the data were leaked… by Cyphy?”

Jenn’s grin was the only possible answer. She stared amused at the golden-eyed girl in front of her, her lipstick turning her slight change in expression in an alluring ghost of cruel satisfaction.

“Yes. She did it. Your babe’s a nasty piece of work.”

Then, she chuckled, gulping down the rest of her lemonade.

“Remind me never to get on her bad side, will you?”

**

Cyphr didn’t blink. Didn’t react. She just took note that the man called Ivan Yatchko had stopped his functions. Robots could live on without a head. Men couldn’t. That was what separated them from artificial creatures. Heads were where the difference was. No matter if a human lost three quarters of their body – as long as the head survived, it was possible to save them. Her mother, for example. A torso with a head attached. Turned into a cyborg. Saved by a man that answered to the name of Jakall – who was more machine than human too. But without head? That was game over. Ivan Yatchko, the living being responding to that name, ceased existing the moment his brain was destroyed. In that moment, only two humans remained. Both part machine. Both connected to the Ivan Yatchko that only a moment before was still talking, interacting with the world around him. Now, all what was left was his residual information and his body, traces of his last instants recorded in the reality matrix of that place, subtle ghosts entrenched deep into the dilapidated walls of the warehouse. But that didn’t change the simple fact that the individual once known as Ivan Yatchko was no more.

Grant was breathing heavily, his hands shaking. Julius Immanuel Grant. Had just killed a man. A man who was his ally, up to less than one minute before. He started counting. One, two, three. Counting calmed him down, usually. Four, five, six. Counting up. Up to twenty. Sixty. One hundred. Simply counting. Counting was what kept him from losing his sanity. He killed him. He killed Ivan Yatchko. Because he was scared. Scared that Cyphr told the truth. But did it make any difference? He murdered a man. Ivan was dead. By his hand. Through a detonating bullet that pierced his skull, made short work of whatever his cranium contained.

His eye, his biological eye, met Cyphr’s, in a weird connection that felt everything except easy to grasp. Maybe it wasn’t over. Maybe there was room for negotiation, now. Or, maybe, he could do what he elected to, and kill her as well. If anything, though, he wasn’t sure he could. His dominant hand was injured, his morale shattered. Negotiating felt like a better option. The woman in front of him seemed to think the same, as she nodded even so imperceptibly.

“He did it, right? He was the one who shot Mikail and Lyca.”

“Even if he didn’t, he’s dead, Jules. It doesn’t matter.”

Yes. It didn’t matter anymore. He lowered his gun, slowly turning towards the door. Only for her voice to reach him.

“Where are you going? This isn’t over yet.”

Pause. Jules stopped, stopped before he could grab the door’s handle, turned around to meet Cyphr’s piercing gaze again. The girl continued, her words drenched in resentment.

“Uncle Ivan was the gun, but you were the one who convinced him to betray dad. You were the first ring of the chain to fail. Isn’t it, Jules? Grandpa Granney bought you first. You betrayed all of them.”

A wry smile formed on Grant’s face.

“Even if I did, they’re all dead, Cyphr. It doesn’t matter.”

His mechanical eye zeroed on her, as his healthy hand tried to ascertain the state of his broken fingers. He didn’t even blink, something akin to serenity behind his pupils.

“What if we settle it like this? I saved you, yes? You can repay me by forgetting about my past. We’re even. I’ve never been here, you’ve never been here and that chip in your head never existed. What about it? What if we forget about each other and about… about today?”

Cyphr pondered, if even for a second. Besting Grant in a mano-a-mano fight would have been annoying but definitely possible. One hand down, while her body was still perfectly functional. So, he had to still have some tricks up his sleeve to ask for a truce. It sounded like the desperate last offer of a prisoner on the death row… even if he didn’t seem like that. He didn’t look like that. There was something very much alive behind his eyes. Hope. Hope that she was a better person than him. He cleared his throat with unnatural calm, resumed his speech.

“If I’m indicted, you’ll be called as a witness in court. Your head will be split open like a watermelon to extract the chip. If you survive the operation, you’ll have to relive your past. Is it what you want? Mikail is dead. Lyca is dead. Ivan is dead. Even your gramps is dead. We are what’s left, Cyphr. It ain’t worth it to make things more complex than they are. So, what about it? What about accepting my offer?”

Cyphr never broke eye contact, kept looking at him, silently. Then, she spoke.

“Like hell I’m forgiving you, but you make a good point.”

She waved her mechanical hand, pointed her finger at the only exit.

“Go away. Never come back. Burn your gun. I’ll never forget, but I’m not one for pointless revenge.”

She clenched her fist, let out a long breath.

“Revenge doesn’t bring anything. What I can do is avoiding the same thing happening in the future. Just know that the moment you cross me again, Jules, you’ll pray I arrested you today.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

After saying so, he pushed the door open, walking out of it, leaving Cyphr back alone with Ivan’s corpse. Cyphr followed him with her gaze, till his figure turned into a distant dot, too far for recognition. She counted. One, two, three. Up to ten. Before letting herself slump down.

She did what she had to do.

The truth about his dad’s death, finally unveiled. The culprit punished.

But the story wasn’t over yet. She was sure that, sooner or later, Jules Grant would come back to haunt her. It was the natural consequence of their meeting.

Yes, that ending was a meager consolation, nothing more than a fake conclusion.

As fake as that brain chip that never existed in the first place.

**

“There’s just one thing that I can’t understand.”

Lejl rested her chin on her joined hands, shaking her legs over and over, as anxiety piled up. Jenn took not of it, before gulping down what was left of her lemonade. She waited, though, as Lejl wasn’t even remotely finished. She was going to go on, with or without a follow-up question. But, as usual, Jackson wasn’t that considerate of rhetoric, effectively wasting her effort of leaving the burden of the conversation to the golden-eyed girl.

“Only one? That’s surprising.”

“Thanks, Vince. Always the charmer.”

Jackson shrugged, put Jenn’s now empty glass in the sink.

“I do what I can.”

Lejl groaned, before turning back to Jenn and to her annoyed (annoying?) boss.

“Cyphy completely sucks at planning. Well, sometimes not, but only under extreme pressure, such as when facing a human killing machine on a highway that is massacring her boss. I’m always the one having to choose dinner and where to go in the evening! Her planning ability is limited to three days in the future, if at all!”

Jackson tipped his hat, now curious about hearing the conclusion.

“Your point being?”

“Are you seriously telling me that Cyphy put together a set of leaked data that looked so believable on the surface in order to lure two corrupt cops that might have killed her father… and did all of this alone? My Cyphy?! This doesn’t check out. I can’t… see her doing this! She might be good with computers and such, but she is a klutz just like me! Stuff this complex would require a Veckert or two! And we know she didn’t help her, right? So, who or what…”

Jenn started chuckling. No, not chuckling. Downright laughing. Laughing from the bottom of her heart, laughing her lungs off. She slammed her fist on the wood, grinned. Before bursting into laughter again. Jackson blinked. Twice. Slowly. Lejl’s eyes shifted from round to cat-like, to round again, before finally setting for round. But Jenn didn’t stop laughing. Couldn’t stop. That begged the question. And Jackson, of course, had no trouble asking it.

“What’s so funny, Jenn?”

“Oh boy, so that was it? This is rich, this is so rich!”

Jackson frowned (almost visibly), in a way that even Lejl could almost make out. That bout of hilarity felt completely out of place. And, yet, she didn’t seem able to stop. She was really going all out with that and that felt completely un-Jenn-y. So, he waited. Waited for her to regain her composure. There had to be more to that. There had to be.

“Vince,” she finally managed to say, “if you think about it, there’s just one possible answer.”

**

Grant stumbled down the hill, his broken fingers pulsating like hell. Ivan. Ivan was the one who shot him. Ivan was the one who forced him to become a cyborg of sorts. Or, at least, that was his truth. The truth he believed into right now. No matter if that was the real truth or not. For him, what was important was that that was a truth, something to believe in. Letting Raquel live, though, might have been a mistake. Of course, a mistake he could fix later, after his hand healed. Raquel… no, Cyphr, was young and stubborn. She might have caused a ruckus and still gone public with the data. For the moment, it was okay to leave things hanging. Just till his hand improved, at least. That was the meaning of a truce, after all. No real conclusion, a temporary setback. The air of the night felt cold, unforgiving, despite his heavy trench coat. It was January, after all – dead of winter. As he walked down the hill, in the dark of the woods, he switched his eye lamp on, to mark his way through the dead trees. Yet, despite the cone of light showing him a path, he felt oddly nervous. No sounds. The owls, the insects that were supposed to make themselves heard, were oddly quiet. Grant didn’t like it, but it’s not that he had better choices. Taking Ivan’s car would have been too much. He didn’t want to be connected to his death more than he already was. No, walking down the woods was the sanest choice, till the road. Then, taxi it was. He took a mental note of tracking down the driver who brought him there in the first place. As soon as Ivan’s corpse was found, they would have surely interrogated him. He had to strike first, to be sure nobody could connect him to the death of Yatchko. Nobody except Cyphr, that is. So, here it was. Walk down the hill, get to a crowded road and call a taxi. Half an hour, maybe one hour on foot, but that was okay. He could do it.

That’s when he felt it. The air turned colder. The sounds disappeared. His hair almost straightened up. Tension. There was something ahead. Something blocking his path.

And then he saw it. It was but a flicker first, a purple flicker in the night. A flicker turning into a spark, then a flame, then a wildfire. In the absolute silence strangling the woods, a figure, a silhouette stood before him.

The beam of light reflected over a white armored plate, with an odd shape, much like a skeleton. That peculiar sight made him recoil, his eye lamp moving up all of a sudden.

Highlighting something akin to a skull mask.

“What the hell…?”

Grant uttered a couple swear words, as he tumbled back. There was no mistake. A man clad in a gruesome suit of armor was standing before him. A man that, in the darkness of the night, looked more like a demon.

“Hell. That’s a good word.”

The demon spoke. His English was marred by a strong French accent, which, to Grant’s ears, made his voice even more ominous. Grant’s instinct blared, tried to warn him. His healthy hand went to his holster, to the safety of his gun. It was there. It was still there. Bullets that could gouge a man in no time. But was that enough to face a devil? A breath. Another breath. Slowly, his brain started to work again. That insignia. He had seen that already. That was no devil. That was but a human being, a member of what amounted to little more than a private military company. Crossbones. Yes, that was it. That had to be one of the Crossbones mercs. But why now? Why there?

A switch in his brain clicked.

Der Wolf. Der Wolf had a relationship with a man.

Ange Skallen.

Skeleton.

Grant’s danger instincts flared up.

Ange Skallen. There. After what they tried to do to Cyphr. That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? His hand gripped around the gun even more firmly. If he wanted, he could shoot. He should have already, probably. If only his dominant hand weren’t wounded, he would have. But he needed more time to aim, more time to compensate for his lack of dexterity. A short breath, a longer breath, the weapon slowly drawn, in a continuous motion. Then, suddenly, he aimed, ready to pull the trigger. Only to feel pressure on his head – the abominable pressure of a hand, thrashing his forehead with inhuman strength, slamming it to the ground without losing nor relenting its grip. Grant’s biological eye bursted wide open, as his nape delved into the soil, as his shoulders hit the exposed roots of a tree.

A flicker. A purple flicker around the hand, the fingers grabbing his face. First faint, then brighter, brighter, brighter. The light enveloped the glove completely, leaking out of it, sparking into the air.

Grant felt warmth, the temperature rising, faster, faster, faster.

It burned.

It burned.

That hand burned.

His skin.

His hair.

Felt like on fire.

He flailed his arms, his legs, trying to escape the grip, attempting to force it open.

Then, he heard the demon’s voice, once again.

“Yes, hell is the right word.”

The light became unbearable, the synthetic eye acting up, its sight shutting down, as the hand started leaving its imprint on his face, as his mouth couldn’t move, as his lips felt the fire searing through them.

“Say hi to Lucifer for me, will ya?”

A purple blast illuminated the night sky, turned it into a twisted mockery of a dawn, a eldritch aurora blazing out of the woods. Then, darkness fell, once again. The stars shone again. Sounds came back, breaking the silence.

And the fingers once grasping a human head, were now closed around a charred skull.

A skull with a molten, flickering artificial eye.

**

Cyphr let out a sigh, kept her knees close to her chest, as she lazily started playing with the safety belt lock. Ange’s car was serviceable, sure, but nothing compared to uncle Ivan’s stallion. For starters, her adoptive father’s vehicle wasn’t a sports car. It was an anonymous light blue Kramers Quebec, a sedan with five seats that looked older than dirt despite being a semi-recent model. At least, it had an autonomous driving system. Except, Ange wasn’t the guy to delegate driving to an AI, being always paranoid that someone could hijack the car under his nose. That unpleasant situation had also a significant perk: seeing him drive it while clad in his full Crossbones suit of armor was another one of those scenes she couldn’t easily forget. He even pulled his safety belt above his skull insignia, despite the absolute discomfort that had to cause him. His mask was still on too, hiding his face behind the complex system of lenses that helped him with his prosopagnosia. Not that he needed that with Cyphr, but that mask was like a safety net to him, hiding his emotions when he didn’t want to be read like a book. Cyphr let out a chuckle, patted his head with her mechanical hand.

“You sure took your sweet time.”

“Always complaining, huh. Must be your mother’s side.”

“Surely is.”

“See? I’m always right.”

He kept both hands on the wheel, as the electric engine did the rest, responding to the gentle pressure of his foot on the pedal. A couple cars in the opposite direction, lazily moving in the night, with their glasses darkened. That was an optional Ange really appreciated too, paid an extra to have his cheap car have it. He took one of his hands off the steering wheel, patted Cyphr’s hair in turn.

“Good job placing that marker outside of Yatchko’s car. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have found the place that easily. Those mofos setup three safe houses and decided where to go at the last moment.”

She nodded. That had to be the reason why uncle Ivan threw away her ear implant at that specific place, that crossing. It was a hint for Grant, without spelling it out. That boosted the idea that the two were acting independently. Plans upon plans upon plans. Layers upon layers of contingencies, all with the goal of eliminating their last obstacle. Raquel Rosen. The daughter of Mikail and Lyca. Not knowing they were falling right into a trap. The hunters were the preys and didn’t realize it till the very end.

Cyphr looked outside of the window. The familiar lamplights of the periphery of New Langdon, the profile of the old Radstrom Heavy Industry complex, forgotten by time, Old Ben’s skylight in the distance. In one word, home.

“I let him go, Ange. I mean, Jules. I didn’t… I didn’t feel like killing him.”

“That’s fine. Kill once and you get desensitized. If you can, never take a human life, Cyphr.”

“I couldn’t do anything to stop him from shooting uncle Ivan.”

“That’s right, you couldn’t – ergo, it’s not your fault. But you don’t seem that fazed.”

Cyphr looked down. Of course she wasn’t fazed. She had seen already too many people die violently. Her father. Her grandpa. Many lowlifes that were gunned down by Delta Team. Der Wolf was an assassin. Chai was an assassin. Lejl had been one too. Ange buried more bodies six feet under than a whole police precinct did in two decades. Death followed her wherever she went, thus she welcomed death as a long time companion. Yet, she still had to take a life. A human life, at least. Because she had a victim, a victim of her reckless revenge. A victim she couldn’t feel any pity for.

“You know, I killed once already. I terminated a sentient robot… but I can’t feel guilty.”

“That’s like feeling guilty for switching off a toaster. Robots have no entrails and can be fixed for cheap, most times. If that mofo had a self-wiping device, well, sucks to be him.”

Ange pushed a button on his right temple The skull mask opened up, slid back into its black neck case, finally leaving his brown hair, his brown skin, his reddish eyes under the watchful gaze of the Moon. He looked serene, as if that night had no effects on him. He touched the controls of the on board radio, tuned it with a couple gestures. A shower of notes hit Cyphr’s only functioning ear, overshadowed by a rough voice, rhyming words on the fly in a language that wasn’t English or German. Cyphr rolled her eyes, cursed under her breath.

“Alter, what’s this crap?”

“Rob-Ez Pierre. Most influential rapper of the last twenty years.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Look, Banlieu Bâtonis simply the best album of French rap that ever existed, yes?”

“Yes, sure, blah blah baguette – that’s all I can understand.”

“You should study French instead of frenching.”

“Frenching Lejl at least is fun.”

“… sure is.”

Lejl. Cyphr’s mind turned to her Lalli, waiting for her at home, most likely, wondering why she can’t be reached. Could she ever forgive her? She didn’t want to put her in danger, that wasn’t the plan. When she told her that Ivan went to her first, her blood froze. True, the chances that Ivan did anything to her in a place with too many witnesses was unlikely… but that left her completely uneasy. She had to come clean with her, as soon as possible. Gift her something as a sign of repentance – maybe new strings for her electric bass, a new book about urban legends or a model garage kit of the Flickering Lamppost. Maybe cuddle her too, or let her take the initiative. She deserved it. After Lejl opened up about her being a Dreamer, keeping anything from her felt like betraying her trust. Yet, Ivan was gone. But Jules? Could Jules hit her in retaliation? That thought made her feel sick.

“… mind if I call Lalli?”

“Do you you have to do it now that my favorite song is playing?”

“… I want to be sure she’s safe.”

“She is.”

Cyphr blinked, unable to read the man in front of her.

“What if Grant…”

“He won’t.”

Without even turning towards her, Ange put his hand into the side pocket at his door, grabbed something, threw it to her. Cyphr grasped it before it fell, opened her hand to take a look at the mysterious shape. She audibly gulped, as she recognized it. A charred metallic orb, with a cracked lens and a molten ring. An orb the size of a golf ball or smaller. An orb that once was a prosthetic eye.

“Ange! When…”

“Listen: you promised them not to kill them, and that’s fine. You didn’t want revenge. I did, though. Never made such a promise.”

Cyphr gazed at the eye, at the severed connection, at the burn marks. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of heat it had to withstand, before melting like that. She felt a knot in her stomach, blood leaving her face. Julius Immanuel Grant.

Much like Ivan Yatchko.

Was no more.

“… he’s dead because of me.”

“Nah, he’s dead because of himself and what he did to your mom. I would have killed him anyway, as soon as I read that document during the trial. You know that I’m no good person, right?”

“You’re still mom’s last boyfriend.”

“That doesn’t make me good. Just a little better and more moral than others, but not good. Your mom was a bad mofo too.”

“I know.”

“But you aren’t.”

“Huh?”

Ange slowly patted on her shoulder, turning slightly to cross her gaze.

“You should cheer your innocence, Cyphr. Killing… makes your life hollow. Do it only as a last resort, okay? Leave it to bad motherfuckers on Satan’s watch list like me. We’re too far gone and, yeah, we’re kinda fine with it. That’s the name of the game. A game you don’t need to play.”

Then, he turned up the music, letting the guttural voice of Rob-Ez Pierre fill the car, angry bars about police violent action in the low-income enclaves of Paris, on an even angrier tune, till settling for ‘plus le pistolet est gros, plus petit est leur zizi’, repeated several times in a row. Ange tapped on the steering wheel on the rhythm, whistling in tune with the refrain, till the song faded out, letting silence settle. He turned towards Cyphr, with something akin to a smile.

“If you really want it, call your gal now, come on. She’s gonna be mad worried, you’re right.”

“Sure it isn’t a problem?”

“Come on, do it! Where will you find another girl that can stand you like her? Don’t let her wait.”

He peeked out of the window, noticed a huge, golden insignia, shining in the night at the side of the road. His stomach grumbled at that sight, causing him to smirk and address Cyphr once again, before she even pulled up her girlfriend’s number.

“Hey, wanna grab a bite after the call? That burger looks like your jam.”

“… with big fries and unicola?”

“Huh, huh. But no Wonderbox. You’re no kiddie.”

“W… wait, Ange! This month they’ve got the Magical Unicorn Friends collection! I want that Sunshine Spark plushie!”

Cyphr didn’t realize what she said until it was too late, sealing her mouth with both hands at the last possible second. Yet, that embarrassing confession was already out. Ange bursted into laughter, his head pushed against the steering wheel. He inserted the automatic drive, slowly stopping his car close to the fast food restaurant, while he was still laughing his lungs out. Cyphr turned as red as a traffic light, delving in the seat, while nervously fidgeting with her phone.

“I’ll… I’ll call Lalli while you park.”

“Take your time, Sunshine Spark!”

Ange wiped his tears, almost complimenting himself for the impromptu rhyme, then he playfully slapped Cyphr neck, while her face turned redder and redder every second. As she finally pushed the call button, bringing her phone to her only sane ear, Ange let himself slump on the driver’s seat. Lyca would have been happy to know her daughter was still thinking about her. She would have also been happy of her being so merciful.

“You’ve raised her well, Lyly.”

With a sigh of relief, he started browsing the restaurant’s menu through the car’s holographic display, trying to guess what Cyphr would have fancied, Wonderbox aside.

After a day like that, she had the right to be as hungry as a wild wolf.