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As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Rule One: Never deal with lecherous freaks.
Shay Silvermoon smells of ocean decay. That’s the first thought Racter has when he sees his future colleague standing in his workshop.If he shifts his perception to color, the electromagnetic radiation surrounding her appears as an intricate tapestry of emerald hues — like storm-tossed waves under heavy clouds, with silvery sparks shimmering coolly in the depths.In sound, she’s a low, resonant chord, punctuated by quick, high notes — a bright patter, reminiscent of spring drops in Racter’s distant homeland. Unlike Hong Kong, that place knew snow.But it’s her smell that strikes him first. Not her physical scent, no — this is a construct of his brain interpreting her EM waves into something vaguely human. For Shay, it’s a peculiar damp aroma, undeniably tinged with something rotten.The first thing she does is spread her thumb and forefinger into an imaginary frame, squint at him, and scrutinize him with unsettling intensity."Exactly like that," she declares with a sigh."...What?" Racter asks, certain he must have misheard. Not that it’s likely, given the suite of augmentations fine-tuning his senses."Exactly like that," she repeats, as if that clarifies everything.Then, she smiles — a wide grin, her teeth white as rice, a small gap visible between the front ones. "They told me there’s a creepy Russian on my ship. Hello."Her Cantonese is abysmal, so bad that a native Hongkonger wouldn’t understand a word. Yet "on my ship" is delivered with regal indifference.Racter silently lights a cigarette, taking his time to study her in return. This time, in the spectrum visible to human eyes. She doesn’t flinch under his gaze.She’s small — for an elf. Her enormous black eyes, sharp southern features (he’s seen her face before, in surveillance footage) — Italian? Greek, maybe? Her complexion is tanned but fine, the blue veins of her forearms faintly visible. She looks, at most, fourteen.Racter had scoured the Net for her background, finding nothing definitive about her real age. She could be anywhere between those fourteen years and — he calculates quickly — forty-something, starting when the wave of Unexplained Genetic Manifestations had first swept the globe and pointed ears began to appear on newborns. She looks young, impossibly so, but that’s elves for you.His own age, of course, presents its own mysteries to those who meet him. The lack of wrinkles combined with his gray hair often leaves people at a loss. The nanobots preserving his youth are every bit as effective as elven genes."Exactly like that, meaning I’m creepy?" he asks, because it seems like the kind of question she wants him to ask."No," Shay replies, offering no further explanation. "That’s what Gobbet thinks of you.""If you’d be so kind, tell Gobbet the creepiest thing I’ve encountered on this ship is the contents of the pot I saw on her table last night."She snorts. "No one’s cleaned it yet, and now—"Her sentence breaks off, some clever rejoinder clearly dying on her tongue. It’s Cantonese she started with, and Cantonese he used to complain about the pot. Racter has no intention of making her life easier by switching languages. She hesitates, her brow furrowing, her expression both frustrated and amused — a rainbow breaking through rain in the EM spectrum. Finally, she clicks her tongue in annoyance and says:"You’re Dr. Racter. I’m Shay Silvermoon. Shall we speak English instead? You do speak English?"He smirks. "I get by. So, what about the pot? Has it gained sentience?"She twitches her long ear, catching nuances in his pronunciation. Complains, "Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say. You’ve stolen my joke. And you have an accent. Though, admittedly, not as bad as the ones in movies about creepy Russians... Maybe because you spent so much time in Berlin?"She leans into the word accent, her emphasis turning it into an exaggerated victory, as though the simple fact that her English is more polished than his is a triumph. In that moment, Racter could almost believe she really is fourteen.She has two faint laugh lines framing her mouth, as if she smiles often or talks too much. They don’t make her look older, just more alive.Naturally, the fact that she knows so much about his biography doesn’t escape his notice. But that’s exactly what he expected."You’re saying I borrowed half my accent from movies about creepy Germans?" he jokes.She tilts her head thoughtfully, taps her nose with one finger, then, in a sudden shift of seriousness, asks: "What are you doing tonight? There’s a restaurant nearby with amazing oysters.""Yes, I know. I’ve lived on your ship long enough. Tonight, I imagine I’ll be working on some schematics," Racter replies pleasantly.Her brows shoot up in surprise — surprise tinged with the haughty disbelief of someone unaccustomed to refusals."You completely ignored the point of the question. I invited you to have oysters with me.""Fine, let’s get to the point. Let me save us both some time. People invite others to restaurants for one of two reasons: business or romance. In this case, it’s business. Obviously, you’ve done your homework about my skills; I’ve heard some things about you as well. We don’t need oysters to confirm that I’d be happy to work with you.""And why," Shay Silvermoon asks, not removing her finger from her nose, "do you assume this isn’t the second case? Can’t a woman in the 21st century ask a man out to dinner?"Well, then."It would be presumptuous to believe that a young, beautiful woman might be interested in an old Russian with metal legs," Racter replies, and only belatedly realizes his words sound less like a tactful rejection and more like the bleating of a flirtatious pervert. Judging by the way her smile skews into something crooked and unpleasant, Shay has the same thought."I’m older than I look," she says. "Are you sure?" Her gaze sharpens, testing, as she leans her head slightly to one side in what she presumably thinks is a seductive gesture.Her logic must be that seducing a seemingly underage elf without legal consequences is some kind of achievement. True, she’s objectively attractive (elves almost always are), but Hong Kong is full of beautiful, willing women. Especially for a foreigner with enough cash to buy a few glasses of wine or whiskey."Well, I’m older than I look, too," Racter says. "Trust me, I’m truly old. Perhaps I’d have been thrilled by your invitation when I was younger and... more whole. But sex has long since fallen far outside my interests."His accompanying smile is blinding, a deliberate show of teeth. This Italian Lolita appreciates directness — he can manage that.To her credit, Shay neither blushes nor giggles. Her bold, dark eyebrows arch slightly, and her emotions bloom brighter in the EM spectrum: a sharp yellow flare of surprise, followed by a ruddy orange curiosity. Her gaze lingers on the wires trailing from his datajack, disappearing beneath his shirt, then slides lower — over his torso, hips, legs, the concealed mystery of what lies beneath. In an age where magic and implants enable the wildest fantasies, his admission reads as something mad. And the girl’s spectrum belatedly splashes with a dirty-gray wave of caution: how much humanity is left in the body of her possible colleague? And what about the soul?.. (It is at this moment that the interlocutors usually mutter: “Fucking crazy riggers”).Still, there’s another thread in her field, startling in context — a warm salmon-pink... relief?.."You just turned me down," she says, almost laughing. "Good God, you turned me down. And so brutally! I want to work with you."Racter blinks, losing the thread for a moment, before realization strikes. This wasn’t seduction. It was an interview."A test of professionalism?"Shay nods."I don’t want colleagues hitting on me. And unfortunately, most don’t know how to say ‘no.’""I understand. It must be hard to conduct business when you look like a beautiful high schooler."At his words, her spectrum jolts — a sudden, sharp pulse of obsidian black, a discordant spike of something ugly: fear? Anger? Shame? Her blood flow quickens, though her voice remains upbeat."Sometimes it works to my advantage," she says breezily, but her gaze shifts away, her smile uneven again. "But you’re right. I have rules. About oysters. And people. Rule one: never deal with lecherous freaks.""A very sensible rule." Racter’s smile is sharp, almost predatory, yet approving. "Although, I’d point out — there are many kinds of freaks. Trusting everyone who simply has the self-control to decline oysters at dinner might be… unwise."Shay studies him for a long, deliberate moment, then steps closer. Her gaze tilts upward, serious now, almost conspiratorial, as though about to share a secret."Those kinds of freaks," she says softly, "are the ones I fear most. The ones like you. I have other rules for them.""And what are the others?"She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she throws back a seemingly unrelated question:"Is that a human brain in there? Or is it all processors and cerebral accelerators now?""May I ask why you’re so curious?""I could lie," Shay says with a grin that’s equal parts glee and malice. "Tell you that, since we’re going to be working together, I need to know all about your cybernetic upgrades — especially the unconventional ones. But the truth? I just felt like asking something wildly inappropriate.""It’s not a question of appropriateness," Racter replies smoothly, hiding his irritation behind a soft, shark-like smile. "I rarely discuss my modifications with colleagues. No one’s complained yet. This is a matter of my safety, my survival.""Exactly. A matter of safety and survival — but not just yours." Shay’s reply comes quick, pointed.Racter lets the silence stretch between them, his gaze cold and measured. But in just two minutes of this strange exchange, Shay Silvermoon has already hooked him — her mystery a gleaming lure lodged deep beneath his surface. He wants to keep talking to her, keep unraveling her. Perhaps, in time, they’ll discuss plans, share grim jokes after missions where everyone miraculously survives. Perhaps, if he were younger — and more whole, again — he might’ve even entertained the idea of oysters and whatever might follow.But right now, he only wants to know: Who is she?Not the basic intel he’s already unearthed from the Net — he’s past that. There’s something locked inside Shay Silvermoon, something rare and impenetrable, a vault that Racter feels compelled to crack. Racter loves rarities — and he loves breaking locks and safes, too. She is extraordinary, and he needs to understand why.So, he offers her an olive branch:"One day, if I trust you completely, I’ll tell you all about my brain, my processors, and the rest. And in exchange, you’ll tell me about your oyster rules."Shay nods, her expression calm."Fair deal," she says.If Racter weren’t reading her EM field, he might think she was joking — her lips seem perpetually shadowed by the ghost of a smile. But right now, she is entirely serious.She stands close enough that he can make out the wild tangle of her black curls, hair that looks as though it hasn’t seen a comb — or water — since birth. Once again, he catches her strange scent.Shay smells of cold fish scales and the pebbles of a harbor floor. Of torn fishing nets and silky green seaweed clinging to the wooden hulls of old junks. She smells of the damp fog that clings to Victoria Harbour, shrouding sun and moon alike, settling in ghostly wisps on hair and clothes.Even after she leaves, her scent lingers in his workshop.
A little while later, voices drift down from the ship’s deck. The ancient camera mounted on the ceiling above has never worked, not in all the time Racter’s lived aboard. But the rasping, low voice is unmistakable. He can easily picture the face of its owner: rough-edged and shrewd, yet oddly childlike, with tusks jutting out of her mouth. Gobbet, the foul-mouthed orc mage."He’s creepy, right?" Gobbet complains. "How’d it go? Did you two work something out?""We did," Shay’s voice answers."Well, spill it," Gobbet demands. "How much of a cut does he want? Can he crack safes? What happens if there’s security on-site — will he still join the run?""I think," Shay says, pausing slightly, "he won’t refuse. According to the Berlin records, Dr. Racter is very proficient with weapons.""Think? According to?" Gobbet mimics, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Amazing, Shay. Truly genius negotiating skills. Did you even discuss anything? I bet he’s gonna ask for so much cash we’ll be broke.""Doesn’t matter how much he wants," Shay snaps. "We don’t have many options, Gobbet. We need a security specialist. Or are you suggesting we open the locks with our fingers?.. As for his fee — I don’t know. I... got distracted. I was expecting a nerd like Is0bel. But him…""Him what?"Shay is silent. Racter wishes he could see her face in that moment. He makes a mental note to repair all the broken cameras on this ship. Shay’s face is fascinating — alive, fluid, like the ocean."Ohhhh no," Gobbet groans, likely clutching at her dreadlocks. "This is what I was afraid of. You’ve got a crush, haven’t you? Yeah, you do! I can see right through you. It’s obvious now why he agreed to work with us so easily, without even asking if we could afford him—""No, Gobbet, you’ve got it all wrong," Shay interrupts, her voice hurried. "I invited him to a restaurant on purpose. He turned me down.""You invited him where? Oh, Shay. This is worse than I thought.""No, listen — it was a test. And he passed. He’s not like that. He doesn’t want anything from me.""Sure, sure," Gobbet mutters, unconvinced. "Guys like him — those smug cybered-up bastards — don’t give a damn about people like us. Trust me, he wants something. Maybe he thinks an underage elf girlfriend will go nicely with his expensive coat. Look, this is Hong Kong. No one gives you anything for free here.""Enough already. I’m not underage! And not everyone is obsessed with sleeping with someone. Has it really gotten that dull in Hong Kong?""I’m serious, Shay," Gobbet growls, loud enough that Racter would’ve heard her without the ship’s audio systems. "I don’t mind having that brain-modded psycho in the team, but don’t you dare climb into his pants. I know he’s got a pretty face, but his brain leaks worse than this damn boat. He’ll saw your legs off in your sleep, and don’t say I didn’t warn you."Racter chuckles.Hong Kong — that’s what she smells like, he thinks.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rule Two: Never be honest with those who think nothing of you.
On the ship that Racter has previously left unnamed — though Shay had dubbed it the Leaky Tub — there are now four residents: Racter himself, Gobbet, her dwarf friend Is0bel, quite a skilled decker, — and the enigmatic Shay Silvermoon. There is also a fifth presence: Duncan, Shay's "brother" — though he is no real brother of hers. This hulking orc spends all his free time either doing push-ups or meticulously disassembling and cleaning his weapons. However, Duncan refuses to think of himself as a resident. He hasn’t yet accepted that he belongs in shadowy Hong Kong, or with Gobbet, Is0bel, Racter — or especially Kindly Cheng and her Triad. Duncan genuinely believes he'd soon leave this wretched place, as even the tortures of the eighth hell of Avīci eventually end.The trouble is, what comes to Hong Kong stays in Hong Kong. Like Vegas, only worse. Perhaps they are all doomed to remain here forever, stuck on the Leaky Tub, veiled in the eternal rain and mist, tapping ghostly mahjong tiles on the dim-lit kitchen table even after death.Shay Silvermoon — an outsider to this city who couldn’t string together two words in Cantonese — fits Hong Kong like a hand in a glove.Just like Is0bel, Gobbet, and Racter himself.Racter thinks he’s come closer to Shay’s mystery when he learns she’d literally grown up in a dump — specifically, the radioactive wasteland of Seattle’s Redmond Barrens. She’s been a scavenger then, and, in a way, she still is now. Hong Kong is less of a landfill and more of a marketplace, but the difference isn’t all that significant: a churning, teeming mass of metahumans of countless nationalities and cultures, fragments of ancient magic and cutting-edge tech, the detritus of the past colliding with the future, East meeting West. Most of it, frankly, is junk — giving the city its landfill-like essence. Perhaps that’s why Shay feels so at home here.Shay speaks of surviving by picking through abandoned odds and ends as a child. Now, it seems, she collects fragments of other people instead. (Racter doesn’t voice this observation aloud.) She adopts their habits and quirks, their professions and peculiarities, their thoughts and fascinations.Under Is0bel’s guidance, Shay builds her first deck — a modified cheap Renraku model. The fresh datajack is barely visible beneath the cascade of her dark curls. Shay isn’t much of a decker yet, and Racter doubts she ever aspired to be the best. He can’t imagine her cracking Renraku’s or Saeder-Krupp’s top-secret data vaults. Still, she can at least skim a few nuyen from someone’s credstick with the magic of ones and zeroes.It turns out Shay isn’t a stranger to other types of magic either. From Gobbet, Shay borrows not only her love of spicy, unhealthy street food but also a knack for sensing auras, the flow of chi, and the invisible meridians running through the body. Or, as Racter might describe it in his homeland’s terms — witchcraft and devilry.He wonders if she’d try to take something from him. What makes Shay the leader of their small team isn’t her magic or her fledgling decker skills. It is her talent for gathering information, her rare gift for acting, her unpredictability, and… something else. Racter couldn’t quite name it. An inexplicable, mystical sort of luck, perhaps.She really is remarkable. He hopes to unravel her mystery one day.They discuss plans, as he imagined, and go to bars together after successful runs — though only Shay drinks. Racter doesn’t touch alcohol. They talk often, and at length — more and more, just the two of them. Conversations that have nothing to do with work. The strange seaweed scent of her becomes an expected part of his workshop.Racter founds himself telling her more than politeness required. Not that Shay necessarily understands his musings on implants, drones, memory algorithms, or the nature of humanity, let alone agrees with his views. But sincerity, he believes, is the key to building trust — a quality he now knows matters to her.When Racter asks about her past, Shay is seemingly forthcoming — witty, smart, even funny — but her words slip through his grasp like water. There are topics she deftly avoids, leaving gaps and ambiguities in her stories. Who is she? He can’t pin her down. Shay Silvermoon is charming and charismatic, yet separated from everyone by some unseen glass wall of secrecy.Gradually, Racter begins piecing together her omissions.For instance, Shay rarely mentions her childhood or the years before Raymond Black took her and Duncan in.(Correcting himself mentally, Racter thinks: Shay is separated from everyone but Duncan. He knows something I don’t — why she’s so unique. And that, frankly, irritates him.)Gobbet and Is0bel are convinced Racter and Shay are sleeping together practically from day one. Gobbet even spins disgustingly detailed fantasies about riggers and their... peculiarities. Shay merely smirks, never commenting.If only Gobbet knew how far from the truth she was.The truth is, Shay does spend more time with Racter than with anyone else — more than with Is0bel or Duncan, and even more than with Gobbet, with whom she’s grown close. (Not that Racter is counting. His surveillance equipment simply records everything.) He notices how intently Shay listens to him, how she wrinkles her nose, sniffing the scent of his cigarettes — not with disgust, but something else. Without needing to read brainwave emissions, he can tell she likes him. But considering her peculiar “rules” about restaurants and oysters, he isn’t sure what like even means in her book.Does it matter? Yes. It determines how he should act around her. What code to use for this lockbox.Shay avoids physical contact. That matters.Racter knows the look of revulsion toward flesh when he sees it. He shares it, for his own rigging-related reasons. So he quickly notices the black, jagged fear radiating from Shay whenever Duncan clapps her on the shoulder or Gobbet hangs carelessly on her neck.As a result, even with their growing camaraderie, he avoids touching her — deliberately and entirely.Fear of touch. Rules about creeps. Gaps in her past.The picture is coming together. Now she sits on the edge of his workbench, swinging one sun-bronzed leg in a filthy rubber boot — an outrage against the near-sterile order Racter tries to maintain in the workshop. Koschei glares at her from a dark corner, his red optics flashing in protest, tapping the floor irritably with his metal legs. They are talking about magic — something Racter would have laughed at a month ago.“The world’s wrapped in a web of secret symbols,” Shay says, eyes bright. (Why is she telling me this? he wonders. Why not Gobbet?)“You know I can’t see them, no matter how I try. But I’ll take your word for it.”“Too bad you can’t,” she says wistfully. “It’s really beautiful.”Racter weighs his options: should he send his guest away and get back to work, or take this rare chance to learn something new about Shay Silvermoon while she seems in the mood to talk about herself? He chooses the latter.“Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to discover this side of the world. Didn’t you have magic before?” he asks. “It’s a natural trait of your race, isn’t it?”That seemingly simple question throws Shay into a swirling storm of confusion.“No. Not all elves are mages. As for me… You’ll laugh, but I… I was never really sure,” she admits. “Raymond — my adoptive father — once splurged on classes for us. For me and Duncan. We went for a while, but neither of us could manage anything they were teaching. I decided magic just wasn’t for me...”Racter has already formed a rather low opinion of Duncan. The guy probably only managed to finish high school with his sister’s help. Magic? Not a chance. Shay, on the other hand, is a far more intriguing case.“...And so I kept thinking that. All these years. Until Gobbet explained it to me in a way I could actually understand. Now I’m definitely a mage, though not a particularly impressive one. But at the same time, ever since I was a kid…” Shay trails off, lost in thought.“‘At the same time…?” Racter prompts.“Well, ever since I was a kid, there were moments… I don’t know how to explain it. Moments where I felt twice as light, twice as strong as I really was. Like I could do anything. Like I was weightless… Like if a strong wind came, it would carry me off, and I’d just keep flying… flying. It felt like I had so much power in me, like if I waved my hand, sparks would fly off my fingertips…”“Did you try? Do they?” Racter asks, his tone genuinely curious, not mocking.He’s reaching into his pocket for his lighter, a cigarette hanging from his lips, when Shay stops him with a mischievous smile. She touches the tip of his cigarette with her index finger, and it bursts into flame.“Now? Sometimes they do. As you can see.”“Oh. Thank you.” Racter takes a satisfied drag.Whether this counts as a “touch” is a tricky question, but in any case, it’s clear he’s made some progress in closing the distance between them. Shay is far more comfortable with his presence than she is with Gobbet — or even her brother.Shay now sits quite close to him, her wide grin showing her garlic-white teeth as she watches him smoke, like someone admiring a beautiful object. Hm. He doesn’t look away. For two people who’ve never even held hands, it’s indecent to look at each other for so long and with such intensity — but it seems Shay isn’t thinking about that at all right now.Racter offers her a cigarette, and Shay takes it. She lights up and, after her little trick, glows as if she’s just won a school math competition (no, Racter corrects himself, it would’ve been math for him, but for Shay, it’s more like a literature contest). After a pause, she confesses:“Honestly, I can’t even get that little cigarette-lighting trick to work every time. And I’m terrible at summoning spirits, no matter how much Gobbet tries to teach me. I’m such a lousy mage.” She presses a finger to the tip of her nose in her characteristic gesture of embarrassment. “I still can’t quite believe I’m the one doing it. It feels like I’m just… a conduit. A vessel for some kind of power.”“Do you regret getting the datajack? Magic and tech don’t exactly mix well.”“Oh, I know… classic fairy tales: fae and cold iron!” Shay laughs. “But no. I don’t regret it. I haven’t felt like it’s affected anything yet. I barely even notice it when I’m not plugged into the deck.”“Still, maybe it’s worth keeping your focus on magic if spellcasting and energy flows fascinate you more.”Racter’s tone is free of mockery or condescension, but Shay seems to detect something in his advice — whether imagined or not. A faint chill of purple detachment creeps into her aura.“I’m equally interested in both.”“It’s not easy to be both a mage and a decker at the same time, for various reasons. You’re familiar with the concept of Essence loss, right? And, besides, isn’t there one path where you’d like to achieve true mastery?”“Are you saying I’m not good enough at either?” she asks, her tone unreadable, with a faint smile and an edge of black fear pricking at her words. During their runs, Racter has seen how adept Shay Silvermoon is at pretending, at lying — and now he realizes he’s touched on something important, something deeply hidden. Despite her playful tone, his answer seems to matter to her.“If I thought that, I wouldn’t work with you,” he says honestly. “Shay, have I ever given you any reason to doubt how much I respect you? You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.”“Seriously?” she asks, disbelief written all over her face.
According to his instruments, Shay's heartbeat quickens slightly after his words. Racter sees fuchsia-pink ripples of embarrassment, mixed with the warm yellow glow of something like joy — a field of buttercups — and a vast, genuine astonishment: deep blues and greens, the hues of peacock feathers.
For a moment, Racter marvels at the shimmer of these colors invisible to the human eye. He realizes he enjoys surprising her. Enjoys making her blush.
"Dead serious. They're already telling legends about our runs."
"Maybe we've just been lucky," Shay replies, and she seems to mean it. Then she quickly adds, flustered, "I know I’m not the best decker yet, but I’m getting better... I—thank you. I guess I got too honest there for a moment and then started thinking you were mocking me, and I got mad. Remember, I told you I have a few rules..."
"Of course I remember. You mentioned them during our first meeting. Your oyster rules," Racter says with a faint smile.
"Well... The second rule is about people who don’t respect you. It’s not as absolute as the first one. With those people, you can work. But you shouldn’t try to be honest with them. Only a fool spills their soul to people who look down on them. Who think you’re just..." — her voice tightens as she half-smiles — "what was it you said when we met? 'A pretty high schooler.'"
"So, does that mean you want to spill your soul to me?" Racter ventures.
"I do. And I have. Far too often, as you’ve probably noticed," she snaps, blushing fiercely. "And about that whole 'you can’t be both a mage and a decker' thing... I really want you to understand. No, not just understand — you. I think you’re the one who will. I honestly can’t choose. Everything interests me. I’ve never dreamed of being just one thing — a doctor, an archaeologist. Or, well, I did, but the next day I’d want to be an artist. Or a financier. I still believe that a person is more than just one function. But... no one seems to agree with me. Too many people have told me I’m just useless. Or tried to ‘fix’ me. Turn me into a copy of themselves. Tell me honestly — does it bother you that I don’t take after you at all?"
Bother him?
Koshchei’s delicate limbs click faintly in the background.
"I was actually just thinking about how you seem to take pieces of your friends’ personalities, like souvenirs. I’d imagine you could learn a thing or two from me," Racter replies with deliberate vagueness. (Rationality. Advanced mathematics. Medicine. The art of constructing the most lethal drones imaginable. Or any number of ways to kill a man instantly.) "But I think copies are dull. You’re you, Shay. And you’re remarkable. The lifespan of an elf is long; you can afford to try to be everything. Do you know what Einstein said about that? 'I have no special talent. I am just passionately curious.'"
Her lips move as she whispers the quote under her breath, committing it to memory.
Then, like a child offering a treasured gift in return for a toy — trading a dragonfly wing for a stone with a hole in it — she says:
"I like this one: 'I want to live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.' That’s Sylvia Plath."
By now, Racter knows she attended university, studying liberal arts and humanities. He also knows she’s spent a few years in prison. (She’s definitely not fourteen.)
"...So, I guess," Shay continues, "it might sound strange, but you could say I want to be everything. Do you understand? No, of course you do. You’re the same. You do it more literally, though — taking pieces of others and improving Koshchei. Or yourself."
Racter nods.
He really does understand her. Perhaps better than she realizes. Maybe that’s why, despite their obvious differences — character, interests, education, age — he finds her so interesting. In some odd way, they’re very much alike.
"I think a lot of people share that dream. Who wouldn’t want to master multiple fields, experience multiple lives?" he says. "The problem is, no one lives forever."
But I will.
Of course, he doesn’t say that out loud.
He flinches slightly when Shay, in a completely serious tone, echoes the thought like an eerie mirror of his own mind:
"I want to live forever."
Then, after a moment’s pause for thought, she adds, "Well, I haven’t decided yet. Nobody really knows how long elves can live, right? But I love being alive. At least, for now... Ugh, that sounds so trite, doesn’t it? People don’t usually think about death, right?"
"Some people think about nothing else," Racter muses silently. But he doesn’t say that, either.
When he doesn’t answer, Shay sets her jaw, almost defiantly.
"I mean... I’m not dead yet. So that makes me immortal. Doesn’t it?"
Racter doesn’t have a response ready, nor does he know what she wants to hear. He manages only a neutral, empty smile.
"So that’s why you collect pieces of others," he says lightly. "You’re building your immortality while you’re still alive. Logical. Sounds like something Hindu philosophers would say."
Shay nods eagerly.
"Yes, yes, I thought about that too... Becoming the ‘higher self,’ but not losing the small, familiar self in the process."
She looks up at him again, her gaze soft and lingering. There’s a radiant, sunny warmth in her electromagnetic signature, like a field of summer flowers. And beneath it — what is that? That deep, indecently dark shade of rose, like flushed lips? Oh, come on.
Then Shay blurts out:
"You know what I’d like to take from you, if I could? Your smile, Dr. Racter. You smile like you know exactly when the world is going to end — and you plan to survive it."
Racter doesn’t rush his reply. He takes a drag from his new cigarette, savoring it as he turns her words and her expression over in his mind. Does she even realize what’s happening here? How she’s behaving? What she’s saying?
Either she likes him... or he’s blind. And all his instruments are worthless.
If she doesn’t realize it yet — it’ll be far more intriguing when she does.
"Bit late for flirting, Shay," he says with mock indifference. "You know who you’re dealing with. I thought I’d already passed all your restaurant tests."
Shay recoils sharply, as if suddenly becoming aware of how close they are — how intimate the conversation has become.
That familiar sharp, black fear — it’s like shattered glass.
"This isn’t a test. I... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to flirt. And I’m asking you not to, either. We’ve become close friends, and we talk about a lot of things openly, but... let’s not flirt. Even as a joke. Okay?"
"Okay," Racter says, smiling. "That said, I have to admit — I also like your smile. No flirting."
And yet, somehow, no matter how you look at it, there’s a thread of flirtation running through every exchange they’ve ever had, ever since the moment they met. Like two spies from rival superpowers trying to extract secrets, steps, moves — smiling and feigning charm. And genuinely liking each other. But every wrong word could be their undoing. Something like that.
It seems Shay is thinking along the same lines now — Racter can see the tension in her.
But apart from the EM waves, she betrays nothing, offering only a neutral, polite smile:
"Good to know... So, tell me, is there anything you’d like to take from me? Or do you already have everything you need... or will eventually?"
Racter recalls Gobbet’s words: “Trust me, he wants something from you. This is Hong Kong, no one gives you anything for free here.”
And it seems Shay remembers them too, because her gaze sharpens, as if she’s back on a dangerous run, poised at the moment of decision.
Gobbet’s wiser than she looks.
Racter does want something from Shay Silvermoon. There’s no doubt about that. Why else would he waste time on these conversations, sacrificing work and efficiency? The real question is: does he even know what that something is?
He studies the woman in front of him — this girl with the raven’s nest for hair, wearing her absurdly layered clothes, her legs bare above rubber boots. This girl who’s never sought leadership, yet somehow naturally became the glue that holds their mismatched team of humans and metahumans together.
This girl who’s a mediocre shot, worse in hand-to-hand combat, a decker barely good enough for small jobs, and a mage whose spells are little more than party tricks. And yet, she keeps pulling off impossible runs, saving her team again and again without a drop of bloodshed — thanks, it seems, to sheer luck and a silver tongue.
This girl who didn’t hesitate to join him in the Ares Asia facility to retrieve Koshchei’s self-repair schematics. Who, in a relatively short time, has come to understand him better than anyone else ever has, becoming not only his best business partner but also — perhaps — something more.
Right now, she’s smiling at him, but her smile seems a little sad.
He doesn’t know the answer. He doesn’t know what answer she wants, so he jokes:
"I’m not sure what I’d take from you. Maybe just your trick for lighting cigarettes with a snap of your fingers?"
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rule Three: Stay away from those who cannot or will not return your affection.
“You want your future read through the Book of Changes? What nonsense. I can predict our future right now,” Duncan says with biting sarcasm. “We’re going to starve to death if Kindly Cheng doesn’t give us another job soon.”Shay raises an eyebrow.“We got a mountain of credits after that Wuxing run.”Duncan scratches his head, visibly thrown.“Well, you didn’t warn me I needed to save it...”“And you didn’t warn me you needed a bookkeeper,” Shay retorts dryly. “Tell me, have you already spent all of it? How is that even possible? Do you eat credsticks for breakfast?”They’re in the cramped cabin with the computer, a makeshift conference room and dining area all in one. Racter, perched at the table, is slicing a puck of pu-erh tea with a slim, needle-like knife. He can’t stand soykaf — it makes his brain sluggish. He watches, out of the corner of his eye, as the siblings argue. Of course, he has no intention of intervening.“Shay, you know weapons and ammo don’t come cheap. And, well... I might’ve spent a little... just a little... in the mahjong parlor. What’s the big deal, anyway?”“Oh, of course,” Shay snaps, her voice razor-sharp. “Money’s such a trivial thing.”Racter senses the invisible wall of tension between Shay and Duncan. It’s thick, almost tangible, like air frozen solid and splintering into shards of ice.Her brother. It would sound absurd, even if Shay weren’t an elf and Duncan an orc. They couldn’t be more different. Racter knows they’ve been together since childhood — friends even before Raymond Black took them in. He’s often wondered what brought them together. What usually binds the weak and the desperate? Necessity.But Shay hasn’t been weak for a very long time.And it dawns on him, with cold clarity, that the way she looks at Duncan now is the same way she looks at beggars, addicts, and drunks — the kind of people that clutter the streets of Hong Kong. There’s no malice in her gaze, but there’s no warmth either.Catching herself, perhaps remembering they’re not alone in the room, Shay runs a hand across her forehead as if brushing away a veil. Her voice softens, tinged with weariness.“Alright, Duncan. It’s fine. You’re right — we need to plan our runs and budget together as a team. I’m sorry for snapping at you. I’ll figure something out for the money. And no, I won’t drag you to a fortune-teller if you’re not interested.”“Well, actually, I wouldn’t say I’m totally against it—” Duncan starts, but Shay has already slipped out of the room, either not hearing or pretending not to.Duncan mutters under his breath in Cantonese, “The Book of Changes... What’s next? Horoscopes?”“Palm readings?” Racter suggests helpfully, his voice a cold drawl. “Tarot? Runes?”“Exactly. Utter nonsense. You agree, right?” Duncan turns to Racter, clearly fishing for validation.Racter pauses, observing Duncan with his frosty, pale gaze. He can see the orc is rattled — not by Shay’s interest in mysticism, but by her painfully clear insinuation that he’s a burden.This is, Racter realizes, the first time he and Duncan have spoken one-on-one. Shay’s brother intrigues him as little as Gobbet does, though at least Gobbet is amusing. Over time, she’s even grown marginally more tolerant of him, despite his status as a cyber-brained bastard. (Gobbet, it seems, treats everyone and everything with the same detached selfishness, except for Is0bel, and for that, Racter is quietly grateful.) Duncan, however, has always made his disapproval of Racter clear. He tries to hide it, but it seeps through in his blunt speech and awkward silences.Under Racter’s scrutiny, Duncan falters, his face twitching with discomfort as he realizes who he’s talking to.Racter’s lips curl into something resembling a friendly grin.“I don’t have a strong opinion on divination,” he says lightly. “The Awakening changed the world. Your sister can light a cigarette with her finger — why shouldn’t fortune-telling work too?”Duncan looks even more unsettled.“Well... Shay’s Shay. She’s special. She can do anything. I mean... you know that. If she decided to learn fortune-telling herself, I wouldn’t doubt it’d work.” Despite his earlier frustration, there’s a raw, almost endearing faith in his voice when he talks about Shay.“I’m not sure I follow,” Racter replies, testing the knife’s edge with a fingertip. A bead of blood wells up, and he flicks it away. (Duncan’s face practically screams “Fragging lunatic riggers.”) “You don’t doubt the existence of magic, do you? Just the other day, in Wuxing, we encountered spirits and mages — an overabundance of them, I’d say. And you’ve seen Gobbet cast spells with your own eyes...”“Well, yeah. I know magic’s real. Fireballs, lightning bolts, summoning spirits — that stuff’s legit. But you know what I mean!” Duncan grumbles. “Proper magic is one thing. But these con artists in ridiculous tents? C’mon. How can anyone believe in something you can’t see or measure?”“It sometimes saddens me that everything in the world can be seen and measured,” Racter muses.“You? Saddened? With all that chrome replacing your brain?” Duncan snaps, his frustration finally finding an outlet. “And if you’re so into magic, why don’t you learn it yourself?”“I’m afraid I’m too full of chrome for that,” Racter replies with a touch of irony.Duncan stares, baffled. Racter sighs and elaborates.“Any cybernetic enhancements chip away at one’s Essence.”Duncan’s confusion deepens. Racter continues, undeterred.“Essence. It’s... a unique substance. Present in the living, absent in the dead.”“Like a soul?” Duncan asks.“Call it what you like. It’s what allows one to wield magic.”“Ah. So, if you replace your limbs with metal, no more magic. Got it. But my sister didn’t lose her abilities when she got that, uh, datajack installed...”“Not yet. But I warned Shay not to go further. There’s a limit.”“Hmm... Makes sense, I guess. But still...” Duncan is clearly determined to win the argument. “Didn’t you just say that before the Awakening, a lot of things seemed impossible? Maybe you should try it. This magic stuff.”Racter smiles patiently, his voice calm, though his drone, Koschei, scratches the floor irritably with its limbs.“You can’t be a mage and a rigger. That’s simply a fact.”“But you’ve never even tried to use magic, have you?” Duncan presses.“I...”Racter cuts himself off.The very idea is absurd. Duncan doesn’t understand magic, technology, or the concept of Essence. He just learned the word today and is arguing out of sheer stubbornness. And yet...The thought lingers.Koschei’s self-repair systems run on magic, after all. And Koschei is undeniably part of Racter.“You’re right,” Racter says softly, almost warmly. The grin Duncan flashes in response is as smug as it is triumphant. “Inertia of thought. Who’s to say magic and technology can’t coexist? Thank you. You’ve given me a new perspective.”As he descends into the hold, Koschei clicking after him, Racter considers the theory.Cybernetics reduce Essence, that much is known. But Racter has never had Essence — not before the implants, not ever. You can’t lose what you never had.Perhaps magic isn’t incompatible with a lack of Essence but with the act of losing it. Or maybe some things simply aren’t meant to be understood.One of his earliest memories surfaces: as a child, dissecting a chicken to uncover the miracle that made it breathe, move, live. He’d been amazed — how could such a crude, clumsy, poorly constructed mechanism function?Even now, after combing through countless medical texts, he understands how — on a technical level. But the wonder remains.And then, not long after, the Fifth World ended, and the Sixth began. Magic returned — or, as some claimed, simply became more visible.But not for him. Never for him.One way or another, Racter decides that visiting the fortune-teller who divines the future using the Book of Changes might not be such a bad idea after all.Duncan, despite his earlier objections, comes along too.Shay and Gobbet are enthusiastic. Is0bel and Duncan remain skeptical.Racter is intrigued. Genuinely intrigued. The name of the temple is obscured by the relentless downpour and the thick plumes of incense smoke. Bright red lantern garlands shimmer in the wet asphalt. The wind pelts them with handfuls of rain, almost gleefully, as if it had planned this ambush. Stooped figures of locals dart through the gray veil of the storm under vivid umbrellas or cut through puddles on motorbikes and bicycles wrapped in raincoats — a portrait of Hong Kong as quintessential as the iconic junk with red sails.Near the temple stands the fortune-teller's tent, embroidered with yin-yang symbols and an octagon marked with the eight trigrams of the Bagua, representing the fundamental principles of existence. Inside, there’s a table with a censer and a few chairs.The fortune-teller herself bears an uncanny resemblance to Shay and Gobbet — or perhaps to all urban mystics. Dressed in ragged, layered furs, her ageless face is smeared with heavy, clumsy eyeliner.But what truly catches Racter’s interest is the woman’s aura. Her emotions, like her age, are unreadable. Her presence isn’t smooth and reflective like a mirror, but chaotic, a tangle of jumbled colors and textures — a heap of storm-felled branches, confusing and impenetrable.She carefully retrieves her tools: the Book of Changes, wrapped in silk, and a bundle of dried yarrow stalks. Methodically, she spreads the silk on the table, lights the censer, kneels facing south, and bows low three times. With the stalks clasped in her right hand, she passes them through the smoke in slow, clockwise circles three times.Finally, she lifts her head, her black, bird-like eyes sweeping over the group. Businesslike, she says,"One hundred nuyen."Gobbet, who had undoubtedly noticed the sign outside listing the price, immediately feigns outrage."One hundred?! That’s daylight robbery!"Almost in unison, Shay interjects slyly,"Is that a hundred for all of us?"Racter, watching this, reflects that sometimes Shay and Gobbet seem eerily alike. Or perhaps it’s just Hong Kong itself, molding everyone into the same shape. Here, anyone — whether orc or elf, mage or rigger — learns the art of haggling sooner or later.The fortune-teller, as if reading his thoughts, smirks and says,"Hong Kong’s a big marketplace, isn’t it? If you don’t haggle, you don’t eat, eh? So, what’s your question?""Our question?" Shay falters for a moment. "Well… the usual one, I guess. We want to know our future.""And tell me, pointed-ears," the fortune-teller says with a teasing edge, "do you think all of you share the same future?""Well… probably not," Shay admits."Exactly," the fortune-teller nods with satisfaction. "So why ask stupid questions you already know the answer to? One hundred nuyen each, sweethearts. Who’s first?"Gobbet, naturally, is the first to sit at the table — having the most experience in such matters.The fortune-teller divides the bundle of yarrow stalks on the table into two parts, symbolizing Yin and Yang. The Great Ultimate gives rise to two modes. Two modes give rise to four forms. Four forms give rise to eight trigrams. Eight trigrams determine fortune and misfortune. Fortune and misfortune give rise to the Great Enterprise.From the right-hand pile, the fortune-teller picks a single stalk and holds it delicately between her fingers. Then she performs a series of cryptic actions with the left-hand pile, moving back to the right, repeating the process in what appears to Racter as a completely meaningless ritual. Gobbet, however, watches with rapt attention, her lips moving silently as she calculates the meaning of each subsequent line.“Now then, let’s see,” the fortune-teller murmurs after finishing the last line. “Xiao Chu—‘Nurturing Through Smallness.’ Be content with what you have. Live in the moment. Don’t waste your energy on regrets for the past or dreams of the unattainable. Pay attention to life’s small details; they can bring clarity and open the way to joy, helping you avoid mistakes. Things are difficult for you right now, but soon they’ll get better. The most important thing is to believe.”“What a load of nonsense,” Duncan mutters under his breath. “It’s that — what’s it called? I’ve read about it… Some kind of psychological trick. The kind of thing anyone would believe because it’s vague enough to apply to anyone.”“The Barnum Effect,” Racter whispers, helpfully.Duncan gives him a skeptical glance. “Aren’t you supposed to be the one on magic’s side?”“I told you,” Racter replies calmly, “I’m on no one’s side here.”The fortune-teller, meanwhile, is still gazing at Gobbet as if reading her like a book. “You’re also imbalanced in your elements,” she says matter-of-factly. “Stop eating so much spicy food — you’re already too full of Fire. And no more pu-erh tea. Stick to teas with a cooling nature. And stop wasting your money on frivolities.” She leans in conspiratorially, her tone laden with the typical Chinese disregard for personal boundaries. “And, for heaven’s sake, stop sleeping around so much. You’re throwing away your precious energy.”“Nobody asked you,” Gobbet huffs indignantly, but after a pause, she admits with a sheepish nod, “Actually, you might have a point, granny. Just yesterday, I was thinking about how many spirits I couldn’t summon because I didn’t have the strength… Thanks. Here’s your hundred nuyen.”“What? Seriously?” Duncan hisses. “There’s no way this scam artist is getting my hundred.”Is0bel shakes her head disapprovingly, too. “Unbelievable. Gobbet handing over money for this garbage? She might as well have just thrown those nuyen into the trash.”Strangely, Shay remains full of enthusiasm. “I want to try.”She takes Gobbet’s seat across from the fortune-teller. The ritual begins anew: three bows, yarrow stalks passed through the incense smoke, the meticulous sorting of stalks between the two piles.When it’s over, the fortune-teller frowns, staring down at the yarrow stalks as if puzzled. Time stretches, her silence pressing down on the tent like a thick, suffocating fog. She doesn’t even look at Shay.“Well?” Duncan grumbles impatiently. “Go on, tell her. ‘Live in the moment. Everything will be fine. Don’t eat spicy food.’”“No,” Gobbet whispers. “This is something else. Something serious.”“A bad hexagram?” Racter murmurs quietly to Gobbet, hoping she’s been following the process.“Ming Yi,” she mutters. “‘Darkening of the Light.’ Bad doesn’t even begin to cover it.”“Don’t be foolish, rat-girl,” the fortune-teller suddenly says, her voice sharp and cutting through the tent like a blade. She shouldn’t have been able to hear them whispering, nor, supposedly, understand English. “You don’t know what’s good or evil. Neither does anyone else. For the universe, there is no such thing. It is too vast for us to harm.”“Well, I’m not that vast,” Shay interjects. “What matters to me is whether my future brings good luck or bad. What did you see? Tell me.”The fortune-teller shakes her head. “There is no good luck or bad luck. You can’t tell one from the other until you’ve lived through it. Both push you forward in the end.”“Then what is there?” Shay snaps, her frustration with the vague platitudes beginning to show.“There is life. There is death. There is power. And you, my dear, are strong. Very, very strong. You are omnipotent as long as your strength stays within you.”“Pff!” Duncan scoffs, loudly enough for everyone to hear.“I’m sorry?” Shay says, leaning forward. “‘I’m strong as long as my strength is with me’? My Cantonese isn’t great — I must be misunderstanding something.”“Strength,” the fortune-teller repeats with deliberate emphasis. “There is emptiness, and there is fullness. The nature of strength is to flow from one vessel to another, like the ocean, when the balance shifts. To be strong is to rely on yourself. The strong embrace and bless their solitude. The weak flee from it.”“So, to be strong, I have to be lonely? To not let anyone close?” Shay tilts her head, birdlike, confusion etched across her face.“No. To be strong is to stand on your own. What you’re talking about — hoarding yourself like a treasure — is greed. Greed is the mark of emptiness. Generosity is the mark of fullness. A lamp doesn’t burn dimmer for lighting another. But remember, this strength is yours. Don’t give it away.”Shay tries to press for more, but the fortune-teller offers no further explanation.“If I weren’t born and raised here in Kowloon, I’d think my Cantonese was broken too,” Gobbet says, bewildered.“Well, I suppose it’s my turn,” Racter says, his tone carefully neutral.The ritual is repeated a third time. The incense, the stalks, the rhythmic sorting of piles. The fortune-teller’s gnarled fingers move in a steady rhythm that might lull the unwary into a trance, but Racter’s augmented eyes and mind are sharp, taking note of every detail. He realizes, with a flicker of unease, that the exact same hexagram is taking shape as before. Solid line, broken, solid, and then three broken lines. Out of sixty-four possibilities, two identical readings in a row.“What’s the result?” Shay asks.The fortune-teller’s expression darkens further. Her gaze rises to meet Racter’s, shadowed and wary. Then, quietly, she leans closer and says, so only he can hear, “I have nothing to tell you. Leave. Magic is not for people like you.”“I see,” Racter replies just as quietly, rising from his seat. “I understand your perspective.”“Wait, you both got the same hexagram?” Gobbet blurts out, oblivious to the exchange but clearly tracking the pattern.Racter and Shay lock eyes. For a moment, it feels as if the world outside the tent has fallen away, leaving only the two of them suspended in its dim, incense-thickened air. Shay’s wide, fearful eyes dominate her face, her emotions an open book: surprise, anxiety, and something deeper, more primal. Out of sixty-four hexagrams, they had drawn Ming Yi, the darkest omen, Darkening of the Light.Racter doesn’t hesitate. He takes Shay’s hand and smiles, his voice light, almost playful. “A shared future — how romantic. I’m glad we’ll face whatever comes together.”Shay, to her credit, catches on immediately. She smiles back, her expression radiant and natural. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”It’s the first time Racter has ever touched her. Her hand is warm and light, dry in the way Southerners’ skin often is. Not the damp, jelly-like sensation that had once nauseated him when he first transitioned to his cybernetic enhancements. Of course, living flesh is inferior to cyber skin in one way or another — all those pores, hairs, pimples, blood vessels... But Shay is different. Even her odd, briny scent — something he’s long since grown accustomed to — only makes her seem more distinct, more alive. He doesn't mind this touch.And she doesn't seem to mind, despite her confusion.He slides a ring off his finger and places it on hers, a gleaming platinum band against her dark skin. Then, with an almost imperceptible bow, he brushes his lips lightly over her hand. The ring is a wedding band — a relic from a distant life, from a time when he was far more human than machine.Shay’s dark eyes flicker with a kaleidoscope of emotions: surprise, confusion, curiosity—so many at once it’s hard to track them all. But there’s no anger, and she doesn’t pull her hand away, though her fingers tremble slightly. Racter hopes the moment looks as romantic to the others as it is supposed to be.“Oh, for crying out loud,” Gobbet groans, her voice thick with disgust.“Not that I’m surprised,” Is0bel sighs. “You two cling to each other like rom-com protagonists.”“Thanks for the support, guys,” Shay quips. “It’s great to know my personal life is so entertaining for everyone.”“Thanks for reminding some of us we don’t have a personal life,” Is0bel retorts with her usual dry wit.Racter arches an amused brow at the rom-com remark, though there’s truth in Is0bel’s observation. By now, he knows it’s pointless to deny that he often prioritizes Shay — her plans, her whims, even this little adventure in divination — over his own needs or logic.Because she’s always interesting. Because…
“Shay is Shay. She’s special.”
Duncan seems to be the only one in the room caught off guard by the scene unfolding. His eyes are glazed over, his face streaks with blotches of red and white like a poorly mixed strawberry milkshake. Doesn’t sit well, does it, kid? The idea of your sister sleeping with some unhinged rigger? Racter thinks, his detachment absolute. It doesn’t matter if the rumors are true or not — what matters was that everyone believe them, and have for some time.It looked like he’d played his cards right: in an instant, all interest in the shared hexagram he and Shay had supposedly divided between them — like wedding bands — was forgotten. Perfect. Whispering and stifled laughter were far better than the stormy, oppressive silence that had hung over the group following the previous fortune.But Racter remembers that silence, and he is sure Shay hasn’t forgotten it either. Strength flows from one vessel to another, like the ocean when the balance shifts. The strong embrace their solitude. The weak flee from it.Shay’s trembling hand still rests in his as she manages a final, barbed bit of negotiation:“So let me get this straight, granny. We’re saving a hundred shiny nuyen on the shared future forecast?”The fortune teller purses her lips in disapproval but nods curtly.“Yes. The last reading is free.” *** They walk back to The Leaky Tub on foot, despite the rain showing no signs of letting up.Racter and Shay share an umbrella. The others have tactfully gone ahead, leaving them to talk in private.“Clever move,” Shay says distantly.“Apologies. I realize it was tactless—”“What? No. Not at all. Everyone already assumed the worst about us.”“True enough. I just didn’t want them worrying over nothing. Especially Gobbet — she’d turn a trivial fortune into some catastrophic omen, you know how she is.”“Or something not trivial — that’s what worries me…”“All the more reason,” Racter said, voice measured. “Do you think the fortune ties into what’s happening in Hong Kong? To this… Qian Ya?”(Shay has come to his workshop late at night more than once, unable to sleep. Like the rest of the city, she is plagued by strange dreams — teeth falling out, nails splintering.One night, Shay has asked if he ever sleeps.“Well, sometimes you need to run defrags and virus and error checks,” he’s said, but her expression has made him hastily explain it was a joke. Yes, he sleeps.But no, he never dreams. Not of anything. Not ever.)“I’m certain of it,” Shay says finally. She falls silent for a moment, then adds, “You know, at first, I thought you didn’t understand people at all. Like one of those genius scientist clichés.” She gives him a sidelong glance. “But for someone who doesn’t feel emotions, you’re frighteningly good at manipulating them.”“Well,” Racter replies with a small smile, “some things are easier to see from the outside. ‘When face to face, we cannot see the face,’ as one Russian poet wrote.”“A poet? Which one?” Her smile was faint but curious.He is about to answer when his attention shifts, focusing instead on the swirl of emotions radiating from her mind. The storm has settled, but what remains isn’t quite what he’s expected.His suggestion that they play the part of a couple shouldn’t have angered or even embarrassed her — after all, the others already assumed they were involved. Yet beneath her calm smile, he sees crimson streaks of shame, growing scarlet bands of anger, and the same old familiar fear. But there is something else, too — blue ripples of sadness, soft and inexplicable, like raindrops disturbing a puddle’s surface.Racter still holds her hand. The skin beyond her wrist is chilled from the rain, goosebumps rising along its length. But her palm is warm — warmer than usual, though her pulse always runs a little faster than average, her body temperature slightly higher, like a cat’s.He stops abruptly, squeezing her fingers gently to halt her as well.“Shay,” he begins carefully, “you’re an excellent liar. But don’t you think it’s time to talk honestly? I can see that you’re angry. That wasn’t my intention. Your friendship is important to me.”“Angry?” She blinks at him, feigning confusion. “I’m not angry at all.”“Remember when we first met? You asked me about my brain — how it works. Well, my brain is biological. Its neural connections are reinforced with synthetic proteins, but at its core, it’s not so different from yours. No cerebral accelerators, and I rarely use pain blockers — they interfere with focus and body awareness. But…”He hesitates, the barest flicker of doubt crossing his expression. Is Shay’s friendship worth revealing secrets that could one day be used against him? Would the truth make things better or worse?In the end, he decides.“But?” Shay prompts.“You know riggers have a special connection to their machines,” he says slowly. “But most people don’t think about how it works. My friend, I live in a very different world than you do. Humans perceive less than one ten-trillionth of what surrounds them. Right now, X-rays and gamma rays are passing through your body, along with microwaves, radio waves, phone calls, and television broadcasts. You have no idea any of it’s there. My perception is far less limited by human biology. So… I know quite a bit about you. I know you’re cold and stressed right now. Would you like my coat?”“I don’t want your coat,” she snaps. “And I’m not cold.”“You’re shivering. Your temperature is rising. There’s a soreness in your throat — it might be the beginning of an infection. Your back aches. And there’s a bruise on your elbow.”Shay jerks her hand away, retreating a step as though trying to shield herself. Her cheeks flush, either with embarrassment or the anger she was finally allowing herself to show.“God, I’m such an idiot… I should have guessed. You’re packed with tech from head to toe. What else do you know? The color of my underwear?”“Shay, you’re being childish,” he says calmly. “I know even the shape of your liver, if that helps put things in perspective.”“You can see pain?” she repeats, the realization dawning slowly. “Even mine?”Racter nods.“I see it as a cellular process and as electromagnetic signals from your brain. And I know you’ve been upset, not just now, but for some time.”Wrapping her arms around herself, Shay shivers more visibly now, no longer bothering to deny it.“Wonderful. My emotions are an open book for you to flip through whenever you like. Just fantastic.”“Not whenever I like,” he corrects gently. “I can see what you feel, but I often don’t understand why.”“Oh, you’d like to know that too, wouldn’t you?” she asks sharply.“Are you worried that I know things about others that feel inappropriate? I don’t think in those terms.”“Well, I do!” she shuts back, her voice raw with frustration. “You want to know why I’m angry? Fine. Here’s some honesty for you in return, another of my rules, a very important one: to stay away from those who cannot or will not return your affection. Got that? Still not clear? I like you. Get it? You don’t need to see the world as waves and particles to figure that out — everyone on my ship sees it. And you know what? I liked that you didn’t seem to notice the effect you had on me. I loved it. You treated me like a colleague, like a friend, not like…” She falters, unable to finish.(Like a pretty schoolgirl. His own words, echoing in his mind. He should have kept quiet then. Or should he? For once, they aren’t dancing around things. This is honest — raw, like a fight.)“…But now I see you understand perfectly,” Shay continues grimly. “And you enjoy it. That bruise didn’t even cross my mind, but you — what you did? That hurt. And it would hurt any woman to have a ring slipped on her finger like that — as part of some joke, some ploy, just to distract people. Because she’d want it to mean something. For it to be real.”“Why are you so certain I will not return your affection?” Racter asks quietly, his tone uncharacteristically serious.Shay looks away.“I… I’m not optimistic enough to believe someone like you could ever love me. A psycho…” She catches herself. “I’m sorry, but you practically boasted about your diagnosis. And what you just told me… No. I don’t want scraps from some übermensch who sees me as colorful waves and organs lit up under an X-ray.”Racter rubs his temple wearily with one hand, though the other remains steady, holding an umbrella over Shay’s head. The rain shows no signs of letting up.
“My friend,” he begins, his voice calm but pointed. “I see a significant contradiction in your reasoning…”
“Oh, and why don’t you tell me where the contradiction lies in my feelings!” Shay snaps back, her voice heated, her words trembling with anger.
“I’m not telling you—I’m offering to discuss it,” Racter replies evenly. “Right now, you’re saying you want mutual affection. But just a moment ago, you said something very different: that you liked how I don’t look at you the way other men do. By the way, how is it they look at you? Like a pretty schoolgirl? It seems many men find that appealing, though society officially frowns upon it as crass.” His tone remains dispassionate. “Theoretically, I could reprogram my brain to release certain hormones, if you’d prefer that kind of attention. If you’re sure that’s what you want — to have me trembling with lust over a delicate, innocent, helpless little girl, blushing at the slightest provocation—”
“Shut up.” Her voice is sharp, cutting through his words like a blade. “Every word out of your mouth is like a toad.”
“—a girl who would obey your every whim, who you could humiliate, dress up as a schoolgirl or a maid, hit, degrade—”
“Stop it!”
The sound of a slap slices through the air, nearly drowning out the whistling slash of Koshchei’s blades as they carve through the space between them. Shay’s movement was so quick, Racter barely had time to shove her aside and step forward, shielding her from Koshchei, who had, naturally, attempted to protect his master. Racter was only a fraction too slow in mentally commanding the machine to halt; two of the blades still managed to graze his arm. The slash left long, crisscrossing tears in his shirt and deep cuts in his skin, which instantly bloomed red like spider lily petals.
Shay stares at his arm, wide-eyed with horror, fully aware that it should have been her standing there, and that two wounds would not have been the end of it.
“You… Let me tie a tourniquet, we have to—”
“No need. The artery’s intact; the bleeding will stop soon.” He pauses, and for a moment they just look at each other, a fragile thread of shared fear — both for themselves and for each other — stretching taut between them. “Please don’t do that again in Koshchei’s presence,” Racter adds quietly. “He’s extremely dangerous, and I don’t fully control him.”
Koshchei now crouches on the ground between them, a strange amalgam of machine and wounded animal, disoriented and uncertain whom to defend.
Shay nods mutely. Her gaze drifts from the blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt to his face, where the imprint of her slap still burns.
“I’m sorry,” Racter says. “I went too far.”
She shakes her head. “You never go too far. You only say what you’ve carefully chosen to say. I’m certain of that now.” After a pause, she adds quietly, “You were right about the contradiction. I don’t want that kind of affection.” Her voice lowers to a whisper. “But what you said was cruel. If you really understood what you were talking about, you wouldn’t have said it.”
Racter considers this in silence. Blood drips from his forearm, carried away by the rain, pooling faintly red at his feet. The wounds are a small price to pay for what, to him, feels like indirect confirmation of something he had long suspected: Shay is at war with herself. She craves love but dreads intimacy, caught in the push and pull of a healthy body and a mind haunted by unspoken memories.
He speaks carefully. “Let’s imagine I’m a stereotypical absent-minded scientist — someone clueless about relationships, asking you to explain. It’s obvious we’re comfortable together; everybody at the Leaky Tub can see that. I trust you enough to stake my financial well-being — even my life — on your decisions. I will never fall in love with you in the conventional sense, but you are, without question, the most important person in my life, Shay. I’ve shared with you things I’ve told no one else, invited you to shape my future alongside me. If this were anyone but me, what would you call those feelings?” He gestures lightly to the ring on her finger. “I think this symbolizes everything it needs to. And I’ll be glad if you truly accept it.”
For a moment, Shay blinks in confusion, struggling to meet his gaze before finally looking away. Her anger has melted, or nearly so, leaving her unsettled.
It’s strange how naked honesty can hold more power over someone than any lie.
“We agreed not to flirt,” she says, her tone tinged with exasperation. “And this… If this isn’t flirting, it’s the worst attempt at not flirting I’ve ever seen. Don’t say things like that again — it’s too weird, hearing them from you.”
Her fingers toy absently with the ring, turning it back and forth, as though its touch burns.
“All I meant,” Racter replies calmly, “is that it’s a privilege to care for you, not an obligation. You mean more to me than you realize.”
“You really could reprogram your brain, couldn’t you?” she says suddenly. “Reprogram it to...” Her voice strains as she replays his earlier words in her mind. Trembling with lust over a delicate, helpless girl…
“...To fall in love?” Racter smirks faintly. “In theory, yes. The biochemistry of brain isn’t all that complicated. But no, I won’t touch my mind — I like it as it is.” After a pause, he adds with a teasing smile, “Though I could do anything to my body your imagination can conjure, if you’d like.”
“Anything my— Oh.” She flushes, and it’s almost amusing that she’s still capable of embarrassment after everything.
“Or I could drop the subject entirely. Think about what you really want. Sex won’t change much between us, and it’s easy enough to arrange.”
“I… No. You’re wrong — it wouldn’t be easy. Not for me.” Her voice trembles. “Can I not answer for now? I need time.”
“I know,” he says simply. “Take as much as you need. Now, what were we talking about before this?”
“You were listing all the invasive ways you monitor me,” she mutters, frowning. “My body temperature, my blood type, my pulse, how I toss and turn when I dream about nightmares — everything I consider deeply personal.”
After a brief silence, Racter advises, “Try not to think too much about how I perceive the world. It might destroy you.”
“No chance,” she replies. “Now I can’t not think about it. What’s it like, really? You said your brain isn’t all that different from mine, but then there’s all of… this. Tell me.”
Her gaze is both challenging and hesitant, daring him to bare something deeply personal since the usual boundaries don’t seem to apply to him.
For a moment, Racter hesitates. Then he relents. “I told you the truth — my brain is human. Unfortunately, the human brain is riddled with limitations. It ignores any input it can’t process. You know how animals have varying numbers of cone cells to perceive color?”
She nods.
“My senses are enhanced, but I’ll never experience the reality of, say, a mantis shrimp, which has sixteen types of cones instead of three.”
“You’ve probably done the same to Koshchei,” she guesses. It’s clear she knows him too well. Racter smiles.
“Sixteen cones? I’d love to, but there’s no point — such perception is far beyond the human umwelt.”
“The what?”
“German term. Umwelt. The slice of reality a species can perceive. Snakes live in a world of infrared waves, bats in compressed air and echolocation—”
“And dogs in scents. Got it.”
“Exactly. For riggers, the umwelt is still largely the same as yours — or any metahuman’s. It’s narrow, impoverished, really. But over time, a rigger’s brain begins to form new connections, enough to recognize patterns in data beyond human limits. It interprets signals from machines as colors, sounds, smells, or tactile sensations. So no, I don’t literally see X-rays or infrared, because my brain can’t. But with the right technology, I experience a proxy — an association, almost like synesthesia. For example, your brother Duncan — hope he doesn’t mind me saying this — I mostly perceive as red.”
“Red?” Shay interrupts. “That makes sense. There’s a lot of red in him. He’s difficult, but there’s gold, too. Lots of it.”
Racter looks surprised. “Yes. Red and gold. You call it an aura?” He pauses thoughtfully. “I forgot — you have your own umwelt.”
She brightens. “You’re curious, aren’t you? About my reality…”
“Deeply,” Racter admits. “I suppress it, though. You know why — a rigger can’t also be a mage. Still, I wonder how you see me. Or anything else.”
Shay smiles, her excitement sparking. “This is the best part. I don’t see you at all on that plane of reality. You’re like a black well. I’ve never encountered anything like it — not even with other riggers.”
That explains why she hadn’t seemed especially shocked when he revealed his lack of Essence. Her abilities must register something else entirely.
Apparently, she has the same thought. “It’s like we’re both looking at a larger reality, but from opposite sides, isn’t it?”
“Classic yin and yang,” Racter quips. “Eat less spicy food, skip the pu-erh…”
She laughs.
“I can have pu-erh,” she protests. “It’s Gobbet and Duncan who can’t.” A pause, and her tone softens. “Thank you for telling me. I mean that.”
Then, as though emboldened by his openness, she asks with an almost unconscious coquettishness, “That woman you worked with in Berlin… Lucky Strike. Did you tell her about your mind?”
“Some things,” Racter admits honestly.
A faint cloud of gray frustration stirs around Shay, tinged with the amber light of jealous curiosity. Racter can tell she’s on the verge of asking a question she doesn’t really want the answer to, so he spares her. “But I never gave her a ring.”
To his surprise, Shay reaches out suddenly and closes her damp fingers over his pale, cold ones.
“I’ll take that coat you offered,” she says. “I’m freezing.”
When they catch up with the others, three curious gazes snap to their intertwined hands. Racter hesitates — rain has long since washed the blood from his cuts, and he’s rolled up his sleeve — what are they staring at? Then he realizes: they’ve never seen him and Shay hold hands.
For that matter, they’ve never done it at all. Not until now. But that’s none of the others’ business.
Shay smiles, eyes sparkling with mischief, as if they now share some secret. They are and aren’t a couple — an ambiguity she might even find amusing for the moment.
But Racter has a sinking feeling that now, with everything laid bare, their relationship will only grow more complicated.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rule Four: Don’t sleep with someone you could fall in love with.
They are both a couple and not a couple. They have long, often uncomfortably personal conversations. Yet they still try not to touch each other — except for the occasional brush of hands.For a time, Racter and Shay manage to maintain the unspoken boundaries they’ve set between them.The first time they falter is during a kiss, unsteady and desperate, in the face of Qian Ya, the Queen With a Thousand Teeth.Her face, by the way, has nothing remotely human about it. Her voice thunders like a cart full of gravel crashing downhill, and yet, in some strange way, Qian Ya resembles the hexagram fortune-teller from that gray, rainy day.“You know, people say Hong Kong is just one big market…” the demon queen sneers, looking down at Shay. “How about this deal, pointed-ear: I take this city, and in return, you get fourteen years of luck? Maybe, just maybe, your poor little eye will even heal.”It’s bad. Really bad. Shay Silvermoon’s team isn’t made for this — they aren’t soldiers. Lately, they’ve been everything but: diplomats, spies, bodyguards, traders, actors. But in an open fight against the Queen With a Thousand Teeth, they don’t last long. They’re out of Doc Wagons. Gobbet is trying — and failing — to patch herself up in a corner where the energy flow is wrong and her magic depleted. Is0bel and Raymond, Shay’s adoptive father, lie motionless on the ground like bloodied rag dolls. Even Duncan, the sturdiest of them all, is barely breathing — his entire left side torn open, his arm dangling like it’s hanging by a thread.Shay’s face is a mess of blood, her right eye swollen shut. Scanning it does no good — it’s impossible to tell if it’s still intact. And Racter, from the outside, probably looks no better. For the first time in many battles, he’s been forced to rely on painkillers.And they’re not helping much.Detached, Racter thinks: This seems to be the end. Not for me, of course. At least, not entirely. Some fragment of him will survive in Koshchei. Even the worst outcome will be a fascinating experiment. He’ll simply transform — from caterpillar to butterfly, shedding the rags of his human body, transcending the limitations of this pathetic electrochemical brain. Personality, after all, isn’t the body, nor the brain, nor umwelt, nor Essence — it’s memory. Information.And yet, he can’t shake the feeling that whoever wakes up in his place will be someone else entirely.An ordinary man would say it simply: he’s afraid.Afraid to die.Strangely, deep down, Racter still believes they’ll make it out. That he’ll remain himself. That he’ll survive, in the most basic sense. Shay always has a plan — absurd, illogical, convoluted, but still…
“Shay is Shay. She can do anything.”
“Fourteen years of luck,” Shay repeats slowly. “That’s a good deal, isn’t it?”She glances around at the others, her gaze finally settling on Racter.He speaks softly:“Is it a good deal? There are no fair bargains in Hong Kong. If you use that time wisely, you could change the world for the better. But you know what you’ll lose if you agree.”They both know. At the very least, she’ll lose everyone she cares about. Duncan, the moral core of their team, would never forgive such a deal. Raymond, despite causing all this chaos, wouldn’t either. And while Gobbet and Is0bel have grown attached to Shay, they’d never accept her sacrificing their home — the city they were born and raised in — to the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. It’s fortunate they’re unconscious or too far away to hear this conversation, or they’d hate Shay even for considering it.Fourteen years that begin with your friends’ deaths? Hardly lucky.“But you…” Shay says half-questioningly, looking into Racter’s face. “I won’t lose you.”“Me? No. I’m not the kind of man to judge you. And you’re more important to me than Hong Kong.”“Fourteen years of luck,” she whispers, “for me — and for you…”Qian Ya stretches her thousand teeth into a victorious grin.Racter reaches out to touch Shay’s hair in a comforting gesture. His hand is sticky with blood, but her hair is already matted with it — there’s no telling whose is whose anymore.“Do you remember,” Shay suddenly says, her voice barely more than a whisper, “when we first met, you asked what I meant by ‘exactly like that’... I meant you — just as I imagined you. Long before I ever knew you, before we ever met… I’ve been waiting for someone like you my entire life. Every day, since I was a child.”She doesn’t take her eye off him — the one eye that isn’t drowned in blood. It’s alive with an inferno of emotions, and at its core burns fearlessness — not of death, nor of Qian Ya. These feelings, which Shay no longer bothers to hide or temper, are laid bare now. She knows that Racter can see everything about her, and in this moment, her gaze is an open door to her soul. Here I am, it says. This is what I feel for you. I’m an open book.Her fearlessness, her vulnerability, her desire, the strange power he holds over Shay — all of it hits Racter like a thunderclap. It stuns him, just for a second. And then he does the only thing a man can do in such a moment — he leans in and kisses her.(A wave of nausea rises in his throat. The last time he kissed a woman, human skin hadn’t yet reminded him of waxy cheese. The blood on Shay’s face and her wounded eye don’t trouble him. What turns his stomach is something else — the thought of damp, slimy membranes, of saliva, of the grotesque sight of blue veins crisscrossing the underside of a human tongue. It’s a good thing Shay can’t read his mind. To silence these thoughts, he focuses instead on her presence, perceiving it as a sound. Strangely, it isn’t cacophony — Shay emanates something pure and harmonious, even if tinged with worry. A clean kind of music.)Despite his revulsion, he does everything to make it good for her. Gently brushing back a stray wave of hair from her forehead, his fingers trace the curve of her cheek, careful not to touch the bloodied eye. His lips meet hers briefly, tenderly. His tongue grazes her upper lip — there’s the taste of blood, the taste of despair — and that’s it. He pulls away. Not a kiss, not really. Only the ghost of one. Shay stands frozen, her eye closed, as if listening to the echoes of her own sensations.A few seconds pass before she exhales softly, as though fighting an internal battle, and murmurs, “I’m sorry. For… giving in like a child, for confessing, and… also for the fact that we all might die right now.”She straightens, her voice growing louder as she turns to Qian Ya.“No, you old hag, I don’t want your luck. A wise woman once told me there’s no such thing as luck — good or bad. But I do have a counter proposal.”Qian Ya lets out a deep, thunderous laugh, every syllable dripping with menace.“And what could a little brat like you offer me?”“Your life,” Shay says, small and defiant, like Alice facing the Red Queen. “I know how to open a gate between our worlds. And once I do, the other kings of Yama will come here. I know what you do to each other. You’re always hungry. Two of your kind can’t coexist in this world. Only one will survive.”For a moment, Qian Ya seems struck silent, her massive form looming like a stone monolith.“You won’t have time,” the demon queen snarls, but her voice wavers, uncertainty creeping in. Racter can almost feel the waves of hatred radiating off her, mingling with the faint but unmistakable tremors of desperation...Who would’ve thought it?Shay Silvermoon, a scavenger from Seattle, outmaneuvering the Queen With a Thousand Teeth.Well — “outmaneuvering” might be a stretch. No surgeon, no healer, no master of acupuncture could say with certainty whether her eye would ever see again.But they’re alive. All of them. Racter, Gobbet, Is0bel, Duncan, and even the unlucky Raymond Black — whose real name is Edward Tsang, the man who started this whole mess.And Hong Kong is still standing.Shay has always been a puzzle, pieced together from discarded scraps. It’s nearly impossible to pin down who she is; she’s like the ocean, ever-shifting. She’s not a shooter, nor a decker. Racter’s seen her impersonate a wealthy heiress, a cybernetics specialist, a writer, a waitress, a shaman, and a medic — all with equal ease. He’d call her clever, but she often acts absurdly, childishly, seemingly without reason. He’d call her lucky, except her “luck” is always the result of careful manipulation of probabilities. No matter how much he talks to her, she remains a mystery — except for one thing. Shay Silvermoon loves life. Truly, fiercely, loves it.And she never stops surprising him.Her encounter with Qian Ya is proof enough of both.Shay tricked the Queen With a Thousand Teeth — and doesn’t even seem to realize how extraordinary it was. The Savior of Hong Kong. Silver Moon. Lune d’Argent. Lua Prata. Gin-no Tsuki. Her name now rings out in dozens of languages, carried by millions of voices. Babies are named after her.Luckily, only a handful of people connect the name to the girl with the crow’s nest of hair and the odd clothes. Otherwise, her career as a shadowrunner would be over.
Right now, the living legend of Hong Kong sits alone in Kindly Cheng’s mahjong parlor, nursing a mug of Asahi beer. You don’t have to see the world as a tangle of waves and particles to understand one thing — Shay is sad.
For a few days after the battle with Qian Ya, she mostly stayed in bed, recovering from her wounds, her right eye hidden beneath a crude patch of bandages.
“Thinking of becoming a pirate? One-Eyed Shay Silver?” Racter teased her once. Shay snorted in reply, though no one could see better than him how much pain and fear she was in. How afraid she was of losing her eye. He wondered how many times during those days — when one doctor, then another, and yet another, failed to offer hope — she thought back to Qian Ya’s promise: the return of her sight and fourteen years of good fortune, the offer she’d turned down.
Now, her eye has begun to heal, though as far as he knows, it still doesn’t see. Tonight, instead of wearing a patch, Shay has simply brushed her regrowing curls over that side of her face.
When she catches him looking, she unconsciously turns her head slightly, her bangs falling over the ruined eye — a nervous, vulnerable gesture. If Racter were a more sentimental man, it might have twisted his heart.
“Will you have a drink with me?” she asks hesitantly.
“If this place can manage a decent cup of tea, then gladly,” he replies, stopping by her table.
“You’re shattering every Russian stereotype.”
“And you’re shattering every one about heroes. Aren’t you supposed to be feasting and celebrating with your friends after defeating a demon?”
“Friends…” Shay repeats bitterly. Her emotional resonance feels like a pale gray cloud, swollen with rain that refuses to fall. “They’re all on The Leaky Tub. It’s like… it’s like they’re afraid of me now.”
Racter says nothing — what could he possibly say to that?
“Or at least… avoiding me,” she adds, uncertain. “But maybe I’m just in a foul mood today and imagining things…”
She looks at him questioningly, her expression searching.
“Would you look at that,” Racter says, as if to deflect. “Kindly Cheng has a surprisingly decent selection of Wuyi oolongs.”
“Don’t dodge the question!” Shay snaps, unable to hold back. “I’m not imagining it, am I? They’ve pulled away from me. And they always will, won’t they?”
“I couldn’t say for sure,” Racter replies after a moment. “But I suspect everyone needs time to process the fact that you’re… well, in a very different league now.”
“What league?” Shay presses her palms to her temples. “I haven’t changed at all. I’m completely ordinary. I’ll never shoot or fight like Duncan, I’m not half the mage Gobbet is, and when it comes to tech, I can’t hold a candle to you or Is0bel. All I did was outsmart her… All I did was ask questions, dig through books… I just got lucky.”
“Shay, you defeated the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. I can believe that right now you want nothing more than to believe you’re the same as everyone else. But you’re not. Power is a lonely feeling.”
Shay falls silent, looking crushed. Then Racter asks, quietly:
“If Qian Ya offered you the same choice again — fourteen years of luck, or saving everyone — what would you choose?”
“Saving them,” Shay says quickly.
“Even knowing you’ve gotten rejection instead of gratitude?”
“That doesn’t matter,” she replies. “Because some things are… well, they’re just the right thing to do.”
But her lips tremble as she says it.
Suddenly, she raises her head, brushing aside the strands of hair to reveal her still-healing eye — pink scars etched into dark skin, the unmoving pupil dilated, as if under ecstasy. She looks directly at him, her gaze tense and unyielding.
“Do you… are you afraid of me now too?”
Her voice is taut, like a string stretched too tight. What is she searching for in his expression? Fear? Disgust? It’s clear she’s forgotten for a moment about his ability to “see” emotions; otherwise, she wouldn’t think her damaged eye could change how he sees her.
But the question isn’t a simple one, and Racter takes a moment to consider how honest he should be.
“I think it’s more accurate to say I’ve always known there’s something unique about you. Something that could be dangerous.”
His tone is almost clinical, cold. But he softens it with a gesture — he reaches out and brushes her hair behind her ear, fully exposing her face, her eye.
“Don’t look,” she whispers, barely audible. “It’s awful.”
As always, she’s a bundle of contradictions, raw emotion spilling out of her every word.
“Is it?” he asks, leaning his cheek on his hand, smiling faintly. “All I see is the same remarkable girl I saw before.”
Racter is almost certain she’s thinking back to that moment with Qian Ya, when he kissed her — and she froze in his arms, fragile as glass, as though she might shatter into a thousand pieces.
Her embarrassment grows, her emotions flaring brighter.
“I’ve been thinking,” she begins hesitantly, “about your question… about… sex. About what I want…”
“And?”
“I still don’t know. But first… I want to tell you something about myself. About my past. If that’s okay.”
Racter nods silently.
“Something personal and… not very pleasant.”
She hesitates again, as if waiting for reassurance. He nods once more. Shay tries to smile, but her voice shakes.
“Remember my oyster rules? You know, I actually once seriously considered… sleeping with Duncan.”
Shay’s explanation is like following Baba Yaga’s enchanted thread — it twists and turns unexpectedly, far from the straight highway of logic.
“Hmm. Should I be jealous? Or…?”
“No. Besides, Duncan’s gay. I didn’t know that at the time. But let me finish. Back then, I’d just… become this really pretty high schooler,” she says, her lips curling into a bitter smile. “And I didn’t have a cent to my name. No brains, no talents, no courage to earn a living any other way than… well, you get it.” She exhales sharply through clenched teeth. “I sold myself. I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now, haven’t you?”
“I suspected.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure I could survive without Duncan, and I thought… I thought maybe I could tie him to me forever if I started sleeping with him. Girls think that about guys sometimes. I’ll just say it wasn’t necessary — he’s always loved me like a sister. But that’s not the point. I was willing to do it because I knew it’d be safe — I could never fall in love with Duncan. Love always seemed to me like… like a blade to the throat. One quick slice, and that’s it. You’re no longer your own master. You know?” She pauses, studying his face. “Though I guess you don’t. That’s why I’m telling you this. Every time bedding with someone, I…”
She covers her face with her hand, her voice muffled.
“Not that there was usually a bed involved. It was usually a car. Or a bathroom.”
Racter touches her other hand, the one resting on the table.
“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”
Shay’s fingers tremble, but under his touch, they slowly begin to relax. Her tone softens as she speaks:
“Every time I had to sleep with someone, I measured how safe it would be. Not just in terms of survival but… emotionally too. But neither Duncan nor the ones I actually had to sleep with were… They weren’t the kind of people you could fall in love with. Thugs, drug dealers, greasy old perverts who haven’t washed in months, spoiled rich boys looking for cheap thrills…”
Racter nods. He can imagine well enough what kind of people would pay for a destitute teenage girl.
“I see. Don’t sleep with someone you could fall in love with. A rule that sounds very much like you.”
Shay looks away, avoiding his gaze, but keeps speaking, even though it clearly costs her:
“And now… I’m obviously in love with you, and you know it. You’re the first person this rule should apply to. But… it’s different now. You kissed me, and it felt… so good. I don’t know… terrifying… unlike anything else,” she says, almost angrily.
She covers her face with her hands again, but she’s watching his reaction through her fingers.
She looks uncertain, almost as if she wants him to convince her otherwise.
“Shay, I have to ask you a rather insensitive question.”
Shay stiffens but nods.
“Have you ever enjoyed intimacy? Truly?”
Shay flushes but seems to grasp the point of the question.
“Y… yes. Sometimes. But…”
She falls silent, and shame and guilt ripple through her electromagnetic field like jagged static. The ghost of emotions that always accompanied any fleeting pleasure she ever felt — if it could even be called that. The bitter aftertaste of betraying yourself when your body refuses to hate the person it should.
“…It’s usually easier if I’m on cram or drunk,” she finally admits.
Easier to pretend there’s only the physical pleasure, without the baggage of shame and guilt? Easier to numb yourself and feel nothing at all? Racter wonders.
To hell with it, he’s no psychologist. Why is he even prying into this?
Because he’s still drawn to locks and safes.
A thought occurs to him: perhaps her secret — the thing that makes her extraordinary — is her pain and the humiliation she’s endured? Yes, but not just that…
And then, as if hearing the click of a puzzle piece sliding into place, he understands.
What allowed Shay to endure, to survive all of it — that’s what’s locked inside this safe. Strength.
The same strength that helped her defeat Qian Ya.
The strength he needs.
The nature of strength is to flow from one vessel to another, like the ocean when the balance shifts…
“Shay, you’re incredibly precious to me… our conversations, the time we spend together…”
She nods.
“Yes, and you to me… You’re the only person I’ve ever told this to.”
“And after what you’ve shared with me, I must take back my proposal. I see now how cruel and thoughtless it was to suggest… sex. Let’s just stay friends.”
“What?”
A flash of surprise. Shay had clearly expected something else. She thought he would insist, push, try to persuade her.
But perhaps her life has already had too many men who insisted on sex. If even someone whose lower half is made of steel, plastic, and synthetic skin started pressing her, it would cross the line into absurdity.
And yet, maybe she was hoping for it a little. Racter watches her emotions closely: her shock begins to mix with offense and anger. Because now, in a way, he has rejected her. Still, among the kaleidoscope of feelings, he also detects a hint of relief.
A strange combination, but exactly what he’d expected.
And he presses on, speaking with as much sincerity as he can muster:
“My friend, I don’t know if our relationship would survive if we… Your entire experience of intimacy has been nothing but trauma, forgive my bluntness. If we became lovers, I fear that after everything you’ve endured, you might come to hate me. And that’s the last thing I want. I’m terrified of losing you, Shay.”
She listens intently, the boiling resentment in her electromagnetic field gradually subsiding. She seems a little lost, but calmer now. She likes his words. They sound reasonable, don’t they, Shay? Reassuring?
“…So I suggest we pretend these conversations never happened. At all. Let’s forget that kiss and… your feelings. Because I’d like to think our relationship is above such a mundane game of hormones. Wouldn’t you agree? In time, you’ll put this little whim behind you.”
People have an apt phrase for this: utter nonsense. And Racter is fully aware that everything he is saying right now is just that.
"…I know it’s hard, but let’s try, shall we? The last thing I want is to create distance between us — I value nothing more than your trust, the fact that you share with me what you wouldn’t tell anyone else. I’m only suggesting that we steer clear of these slippery topics, avoid flirting — you were the one who brought that up, remember? And I’ve come to realize it’s quite sensible. I think, for your peace of mind, it’s the best course of action."
What a joke. Every one of their conversations is one long flirtation. Every discussion inevitably loop back to feelings or sex. How has it come to this? A woman who has never allowed herself to fall in love and a man who has long abandoned interest in that realm — yet from their very first meeting, it was all they ever seemed to talk about.
Even if some miracle managed to strip away all of that, they wouldn’t just become “friends.” No, the only thing left would be to walk away forever, strangers to one another. But knowing Shay, she’d never approve of that.
In short: utter nonsense, through and through.
And yet, Shay nods. She looks moved.
"…And one more thing," Racter continues, "as a friend, I think you should find someone. Someone who’ll want to make you feel good. You’re a young woman with certain… needs. You might be surprised at what sex can feel like when your partner’s focused on giving instead of taking." For a brief moment, he allowed himself that smile. The one Shay had once described as the expression of a man who intended to survive the end of the world. Subtle, self-assured, faintly predatory. A smile that… sparked thoughts. But just as quickly, he wiped it from his face, replacing it with a look of earnest concern. "But I don’t want to be that person. I’ve already explained why — if things go wrong, you’ll end up hating me."
The truth is, he’s only recently realized that he does want to be that someone. Because it is part of the path to what lay locked in her safe. But cracking the code so the lock opened on its own — that is an entirely different thing from fumbling with impatient tools. This requires time.
"Does that even happen?" Shay says softly, shaking her head in disbelief. "Someone wanting to make it good for the other person… I don’t think I believe it."
"Well, in Hong Kong, it’s true, not much comes for free," Racter chuckles.
She doesn’t respond to the familiar joke. She just stares into the distance, her expression distant and bitter. Racter is certain he knows what she is thinking: people are like that everywhere, not just in Hong Kong. The rest of the world is no better.
"Thank you for saying that," she says at last. Her voice is quiet but steady. "Your words… they’ve grounded me, in a way. Yes. Let’s do that. Stay friends and close that door. It’s the right thing to do."
After a brief silence, she adds, even quieter, "After speaking with the Queen With a Thousand Teeth, I feel like… like a rickety fence. And I’m not sure whether it’s her words or yours — or that… that thing we agreed not to mention. I don’t know how to explain it. Fourteen years of luck… it felt so easy, just reaching out and taking it. It shouldn’t be that easy. It makes me angry. Deals like that always have a catch. And I think the catch is that if I say yes, I won’t be me anymore."
"A fence?" Racter tilts his head. "What do you mean by that?"
"It’s like everything I used to believe in feels so unstable, like the slightest gust of wind could knock it down. Like the fence of a hundred-year-old farmer. Don’t you ever feel that way? Like you’ve lost track of who you are? Like you’re not sure if you’re the person you want to be… or if you even want to be? Or maybe it’s just what other people want you to be. And they’re not even grateful… not even—" Her voice brakes into a whisper. "A rickety fence. That’s when I can’t shake the thought that the people I try to care about — they’re just strangers, washed up by the tide. Strangers I never chose, who don’t know me, don’t want to know me. And I… I don’t care about them either. They don’t interest me, they don’t matter to me. They’ve got nothing to give me, and I’ve got nothing to give them. And I… I don’t even matter to myself. And then… then none of it makes sense. What’s the point of a life like that?"
She runs a hand across her forehead, as though shaking off a dream. Then she gives her head a quick, decisive shake.
"No, no. Don’t listen to me. It’s nonsense. The main thing is, Hong Kong is safe, and everyone’s alive."
"Right. A proper movie ending," Racter says with a wry smile, raising his tea cup to clink it against Shay’s beer mug.
She laughs, takes a sip, then holds the glass up, studying the sunset’s golden light through the liquid.
"Look at that. Isn’t it beautiful?"
Her emotional wavelength has shifted. There is no trace left of bitterness, anger, or doubt. Only joy.
"Yeah. Beautiful light. Photographer’s golden hour."
"There’s so much wonder in the world. Even in little things like this." Her voice has a quiet reverence to it. "Sometimes I notice something so small, and I think I’ll never get tired of being alive. There’s just so much joy in living. Just being. Every step, every breath… Life will never lose its meaning. And that damned Qian Ya almost took it all away."
Racter watches the sunlight cast a golden halo around her hair. In that moment, he glimpses another small piece of her mystery: the realization that there is something profoundly otherworldly about Shay. Not because she is an elf — that explains little. No, it is something else.
Shay Silvermoon, as always, is wearing layers upon layers of clothing, absurdly heavy for Hong Kong’s warmth — a shirt over another shirt, a jacket, a fur-lined cloak — like someone who’s bought out a thrift shop and couldn’t choose just one thing, so she wears it all. But her legs are bare, goosebumped, and wet with rain from the eternal drizzle outside. It is the sort of outfit you’d expect from a creature that only appears human but lives outside the rules of this world. Like some higher-dimensional being playing at physical form, indulging the human custom of clothes with the detached amusement of an adult humoring a child’s game.
Even her movements have that uncanny mix of grace and awkwardness, sharp and unexpected. Perhaps that’s how dragons move. Not that Racter has ever met one — not even Lofwyr.
Fae and iron, she’s once said.
The word "fae" suits her. Shay Silvermoon is no queen of noble elves out of fantasy novels. No, Racter could almost believe she belongs to the wild, mischievous, cruel, and selfish faerie folk of old myths. The kind humans once called the Good People to avoid their wrath, offering milk and bread to appease them, blaming them for stolen babies and broken lives.
And probably, they’ve been right to.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if Shay, like those faeries, feared iron — but just as the thought crosses his mind, she reaches out to stroke Koshchei. She does it so naturally, as if the drone were a pet. Worse, as if it were hers.
"It’s like a blade to the throat. One quick slice, and that’s it. You’re no longer your own master."
Back off, he orders the drone, but Koshchei doesn’t respond. It just sit there, basking under her touch like a traitor.
For the first time in years, Racter feels something uncomfortably close to what humans might call unease. A strange, unfamiliar discord prickling at the edges of his mind like a needle in the heart. (He has steel for most of his body, but his heart is still flesh.)
Shay seems to sense it. Her eyes meet his.
"What are you thinking?" she asks.
He is thinking of his childhood, of the Fifth World he has just barely glimpsed, and of how, after the Awakening, people’s eyes seem more lifeless than ever. Once, humanity dreamed of elves, dragons, and unicorns as glimpses of heaven, beautiful and unattainable, like a half-forgotten dream. But now, dragons run corporations and host talk shows.
When humanity was granted miracles, it lost its ability to see them.
But Shay — Shay still seems to come from a time when magic was magic. She carries with her something untouchable, something rare and sacred, like a burning bush or a sea parting for a nation. Something Racter has never found back then, as a child, among the steaming entrails of that chicken — among the skeins of thin, gray intestines, and bones, and fat, and feathers stained with mucus and blood.
Something radiant.
"Magic," he says at last. "I’m thinking about magic."
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rule Five: Never get attached to those who are useless.
When Racter told Shay he wasn’t interested in the kinds of personal facts most people would find outrageously intimate, he wasn’t entirely honest.For instance, he listens with great interest and observes Shay’s conversations with her adoptive father, Raymond, whose real name is Edward Tsang. It isn’t hard to do, given that the cameras in Shay’s cabin are working just fine.Shay is rummaging through her things. The old Chinese man sits on the bunk across from hers, awkwardly clutching a blanket in his hands. He looks embarrassed, as one does after causing a monumental mess.“Are you sure... I’m not intruding here?” he asks hesitantly.“It’s fine, Raymond. I don’t feel like sleeping in this cabin anyway. Too many nightmares here.” Her laugh rings false, like counterfeit designer clothes in the Mong Kok markets. “I’m thinking of spending the next couple of nights in a bar or a club. Maybe Wan Chai... Strobe lights, loud music, some not-too-ugly strangers, an ocean of soju and cram — and no dreams about teeth falling out.”“‘I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves...’” Raymond suddenly quotes. Shay looks up in surprise.“What?”“It’s from the Song of Songs.”“If you’re trying to call me a coked-up whore, you can skip the euphemisms. And yes, I recognized the quote, thanks,” Shay replies, her voice sharp.“Of course, you would. You’re the educated one...” Raymond mutters. “I could recommend a few places like that. With loud music. And cram.” His tone is bitter, almost sorrowful.“Oh, please. The clubs you used to frequent are probably long gone,” Shay says with a laugh.“They’ve just changed names. The places where the hurt go to forget and others leech their strength like vampires? They’ve never left. They’ll still be around a hundred years from now, two hundred. Even when the Sixth World crumbles, and a new age begins.”Shay stops pacing and stands in front of him.“Your insights are far too inconsistent to be fatherly advice…”Her mocking tone is devoid of anger now, but the look on Raymond Black’s face suggests she might as well have slapped him.“Shay,” he says hoarsely, “we’ve always danced around the sharp edges, like water flowing around rocks. But let’s be honest for once. Why do you keep me around? Edward Tsang is dead. I have no money, no power, no name. I’m just a useless old man.”“Edward Tsang might be dead, but Raymond Black is still alive.”“Even knowing what I’ve done, you saved me from Qian Ya...”“I didn’t save you,” Shay interrupts. “I just… saved everyone.”“Even knowing what drove me to take care of you and your brother,” Raymond presses on stubbornly, “you didn’t spit in my face. You brought me onto this ship — your little… ‘Tub.’ Why?”Shay crosses her arms and wraps her hands around her shoulders, as if she’s cold.“Raymond... I’m not Duncan. He believes love and care just fall from the sky, like a gift. I’ve always known that your care for us was… I’m not even sure if the word ‘not selfless’ applies here.”“I think the best way to put it is this: caring for you was how I tried to silence my own demons,” Raymond says, not breaking eye contact.“Either way, even before I knew about Kowloon, Qian Ya, and the Fortune Engine, I suspected you had your reasons. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Whatever drove you, you were a good father. Without you, I’d have been dead in a ditch years ago — or drunk, or strung out, or stealing cheap watches and selling my pussy.”“I just taught you that brains sell for more than pussies,” Raymond says bitterly.“Honestly, that depends entirely on the buyer,” Shay replies with a dark smile. Raymond chuckles dryly and nods.“At least you learned not to undersell yourself.”“See? We’ve always spoken the same language. It’s almost strange I’m not your biological daughter,” Shay smirks. Her laughter is once again like fake shoes with a misspelled brand name.“No, Shay, that’s not true… You know,” Raymond says, surprising even himself, “you’re nothing like me, if only because I’d never have had the courage to defy the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. And I’d be proud if you were my daughter.”“Oh, stop it. No need for poetry. If you’re trying to apologize for not loving me, don’t bother. I never asked for your love. But I do owe you a debt, and now I’m repaying it.”Raymond Black sits silent, looking more defeated than ever.“I still… don’t want to be a burden to you,” he says at last, staring off to the side. “I think I’d be better off staying in Duncan’s cabin. Maybe you could talk to him? He doesn’t want to see me. I think he’s very angry.”“No, Raymond,” Shay says with a kind of cheerful desperation. “I’m not going to talk to Duncan for you. If you want to make amends, do it yourself. It won’t be easy. He loved you deeply, and for him to learn your care wasn’t genuine? That was betrayal. But if you try, he’ll forgive you. You know he will.”Raymond smiles, a tender, hidden warmth in his expression.“Yes. Duncan cools as quickly as he flares. He’s kind.”“And you won’t have to apologize to him for fake love,” Shay says distantly, “because with him, it wasn’t fake. Even when you fought, you cared for him. Don’t argue; don’t deny it. You loved Duncan because he’s nothing like us — kind, brave, honest, passionate… someone who doesn’t avoid sharp edges. So make peace with him, please. You both need it. You don’t have to do it right away. As I said, I’m heading to a club tonight, so the cabin is yours…”Shay waves a hand in farewell and leaves, leaving Raymond alone.He sits slumped on the bunk, looking very old. Shay dressed as if she truly intended to go out — a dress, though not particularly fashionable or fancy, just a simple white satin slip that glimmered faintly in the dim corridors. Yet, after leaving her cabin, she doesn’t head toward the exit of the Leaky Tub. Instead, she makes her way to the computer room — the conference area that doubled as a dining room. She sits down in front of the monitor, tapping at the keys to check her email, then props her head in her hands as if her eyes or head ache. For a while, she just sits there, motionless.
I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves... I sought him, but I did not find him…
Eventually, she rises, walks to the staircase leading down to Racter’s workshop in the hold, and begins her descent. Midway — on a small metal landing between decks — she stops, hesitating. Racter watches with quiet curiosity, wondering what she would do, but minutes pass, and Shay remains there, unmoving, her bare, dusky back leaning against the cold wall.At last, he opens the bulkhead to his workshop. Looking up at her from below, he asks:"Did you need something, dear friend?""Oh, I knew it," Shay says with grim satisfaction. "You’re spying on me. You’re like Big Brother.""I thought we’d already clarified that matter," he replies, spreading his hands. "Next time you plan a private conversation, simply ask me in advance to disable the electronics in the hold. They’re synchronized with my neural interface.""I’ll keep that in mind," she says, injecting as much venom into her voice as she could muster."And I presume you’ve mistaken the door," he continues. "I don’t happen to have a strobe light, colored disco balls, or cram — nor, surprisingly enough, even vodka.""You’re just an awful person," Shay snaps in frustration. "I... um... Actually, at first, I really was going to head out for a drink. But then I changed my mind. Can I just sit in your workshop and watch you work? Sorry, it’s stupid. I promise I won’t bother you.""Have I ever prohibited you from being in my workshop?"Racter extends a hand in his work glove, and she descends into the hold. Settling herself on the floor by the wall, she hugs her knees to her chest. Koschei emerges from the shadows, its metallic limbs clicking softly on the floor, nudging Shay’s elbow like a dog before settling beside her."If you don’t want to sleep in the same cabin as your foster father," Racter offers, taking pity on her, "I have a futon in the storage room behind that bulkhead. There’s enough space, though the hum of the machines might bother you."Shay shakes her head.As he works with schematics and tools, Racter monitors her pulse — highly elevated when she first came down, but gradually calming. She truly seems content just sitting there, resting one hand tenderly on Koschei’s “head,” silently watching Racter at work."What are you working on?" she asks."Enhancing response feedback generators.""For someone who claims to lack emotions, you seem oddly preoccupied with them," she remarks with sharp insight."It depends on what you call emotions," he replies, pulling a protective mask over his eyes to solder two components together. "Most of them are quite simple. Fear stems from a basic need for safety. Curiosity arises from the desire to improve one’s quality of life. Friendship and other social bonds serve the same purpose. All of this is familiar to me. So, it’s inaccurate to say I lack emotions — I simply analyze them meticulously.""And what about more complex feelings? Grief? Shame?" She hesitates, then cut herself off. "Well, even those can be explained evolutionarily, I suppose. But what about joy? What do you make of joy?"Racter answers honestly:"I wouldn’t know. I spoke with a psychiatrist about this once, as a child. Together, we concluded there’s no objective measure of joy. You can quantify serotonin levels, but you can’t enter another’s mind to compare what they feel to what you experience. So you make do with what you have.""Your psychiatrist was an idiot, honestly," Shay counters. "Joy is unmistakable. You just know it when you feel it." She pauses, her expression softening in a way Racter finds strange — it took him a moment to realize he was seeing the faintest trace of pity on her face for the first time. "So, something’s still missing for you after all…""You’ve joked about this before," he says. "A soul.""That’s right." Shay smirks. "You know all those stories about people selling their souls? Maybe you could buy one instead." She winks. "It’d make a great story — buying a soul... No, wait. I don’t think a soul can be bought. Only given freely. A gift.""A gift — certainly not in Hong Kong," Racter replied with a wry smile. "Here, souls are cut up on the fly, like cheap soles."They laugh together."Am I bothering you too much? Maybe I could..." She trails off, realizing how foolish it would be if she said help. "I don’t know... Cheer you up somehow? At least make you some tea? I know how you like it."Unconsciously or not, Shay has come seeking comfort and connection. Yet her pride keeps her from looking vulnerable. She wants to be needed. But she can’t fathom how she might be useful to him."Is there anything you’d like to take from me? Or do you already have everything you need ?""...Or maybe I could cook something," she offers helplessly.Racter nearly dismisses her, but at the last moment, changes his mind."Actually, I am hungry. And I imagine you are too...""Yes," she admits. "I’m starving.""Tell you what — tea sounds lovely. Make some. And as for food..." He pauses, setting down his tools. "How about dinner in Sham Shui Po a little later? I’ll be done soon."Having finished what needed to be done as quickly as possible, Racter glances at the clock — a habitual human gesture meant to reassure others, though he himself, thanks to his neural interface, knows perfectly well that forty minutes has passed since Shay’s arrival. Setting his tools aside, he turns to her and suggests:"I need to pick up a few parts in Sham Shui Po. There’s a café nearby that serves decent dim sum. I think they even have soju or something similar. Care to join me?""Apliu Street, right?" Shay’s eyes light up. "The one run by that tiny, hunchbacked Korean lady who’s at least a hundred years old? They only make dim sum there. I’d love to!"The evening goes surprisingly well. Racter manages to find almost all the electronic components he needs at the Sham Shui Po market, except for a few truly rare parts that, as he suspects, are better sought online.Shay wanders around the cyberdeck stalls for a long time before turning to Racter with hesitation."Which one’s the best? This... Highlander?""I imagine Is0bel would say yes. But given your decking style, I’d recommend the NovaTech 10.""What’s wrong with my style?" she asks, a little defensive. That eternal fear of being mocked again."Nothing at all. You’re every bit as good a decker as Is0bel, but your approach is completely different."It isn’t flattery. A lot has changed since the days when Shay first picked up her basic Renraku deck. She nods thoughtfully, perhaps recalling the times she and Is0bel have worked together, slowly realizing she can do everything the dwarf can — and much more — thanks to her boldness, unconventional thinking, and that strange, inexplicable luck she carried like a talisman."I’m completely ordinary. I’ll never shoot or fight like Duncan, I’m not half the mage Gobbet is, and when it comes to tech, I can’t hold a candle to you or Is0bel. I just got lucky…" Racter remembers her saying once.And another time: "I’d just become this pretty high schooler — no brains, no talent, no courage…"The elderly Chinese vendor packed up the NovaTech, chuckling to himself as he speaks in Mandarin:"Finally found a girlfriend to match you, eh?""It’s not what it looks like," Racter replies calmly."Sure, sure. Say what you want, but even someone like you can’t stay alone forever. You make a handsome couple."After that, they go to eat dim sum. Shay, dipping hers into soy sauce, somehow manages to chat animatedly with the old Korean lady who alternates between broken Cantonese and equally halting English. Curiously, Shay drinks nothing but water and soykaf.When the owner hints it is time to close — the hour already far past midnight — Racter takes Shay by the arm. Instead of heading down to the subway station, he turnes off the main avenues and leads her into narrow, dark alleys, heading southeast. Shay, as he suspected, has never been to this part of the city and curiously glances around."Where are you taking me?" she asks."Well, maybe I’m planning to find an especially dark, deserted courtyard and kill you," Racter replies in a mock-grave tone. "Then dismember your body, pickle your pretty head, and study your brain to create an AI that could keep me company on lonely evenings."(Not that he hasn’t considered it once or twice.)"Fine by me," Shay says indifferently, following along.It is late, and the drowsy district is surprisingly dark and quiet for a city that almost never sleeps. The silence is broken only by the chirping of cicadas, their footsteps, and the metallic tapping of Koschei’s limbs on the cobblestones. The air carries the usual nighttime scents of Hong Kong: rain — it almost always smells of rain — wet leaves and soil, herbal bitterness wafting from apothecary stalls, faint traces of food — fried fish, spices, and rancid oil.But then another aroma begins to thread through the familiar smells. They are nearing the flower market. During the day, the scent there is so overwhelming it could make your head spin. At night, though, the market is closed, and only remnants remain — the fallen, bruised, or forgotten blooms. The floral aroma is delicate now, its notes distinct and clear. In the dark, the flowers on the ground seem to faintly glow beneath their feet, like scattered stars. They walk across a fragile carpet of camellias and plumerias, spider lilies and carnivorous pitcher plants, noble peonies and opulent orchids, cascades of violet wisteria, and lush rhododendrons."It’s beautiful!" Shay laughs — a laugh so rare and genuine, without her usual irony or bitterness, that Racter immediately recognizes it.She stops, murmuring something he can’t make out, her free hand tracing shapes in the air. The hand he holds in his own sends a faint electric tingle through him — something that pierces him with an unfamiliar sensation. No, not just a sensation. Joy. For the first time, Racter experiences magic up close, feels how it moves through him — not the hollow, meaningless euphoria of cram, borrowed and fleeting, but a true, piercing joy. It is sharper, purer, like lightning striking directly at his serotonin receptors. For a moment, his body feels weightless, the constant hum of his synthetic enhancements and medical nanobots fading. He doesn’t feel the ceaseless decay of flesh, the churn of dying cells. All that remains is thought. And light.Then, a warm gust of wind stirs his hair and the hem of his black coat. The breeze lifts the flowers from the ground, swirling them around in a vibrant dance — mostly around Shay, of course — and he notices how her white dress seems to glow faintly from within. The flowers, too, shimmer with an otherworldly luminescence.Shay laughs, raising their joined hands, takes a step forward, then to the side — and Racter follows, mirroring her movements. Recognizing the pattern of a waltz, he places his other hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, directly over her heart. One-two-three, one-two-three; they take a few slow turns over the flower-strewn carpet. The hem of her dress floats as if weightless. Fragile petals, as if made of crystal or silver, swirl around their heads and shoulders like oversized snowflakes, tangling in Shay’s dark curls and clinging to her warm, dusky skin.Their eyes meet, and for one long, suspended moment, she looks at him so strangely — what is she seeing, he wonders?He knows, though. She sees a gray-haired man in a black coat, smiling like he knows exactly when the world is going to end. The very kind of figure that haunted her sweetest and darkest molasses-like dreams in childhood — before Raymond Black hammered into her the idea that everything in the world could be bought or sold; back when she still believed love was something radiant and immense, something eternal, rather than the greasy strangers with leering fingers on her child’s chin.
"It’s like a blade to the throat. One quick slice, and that’s it. You’re no longer your own master."
She shudders, pulling her hand from his and breaking eye contact. The wind subsides, the storm of silvery petals calms, and the flowers settle back onto the ground—still faintly aglow. She takes a few steps back.“Shay! Are you all right?”She turns to him, her face calm and softened by a faint smile, but he remembers the turmoil he just saw in her eyes: fear. An old companion of his. He would recognize it anywhere.
“It’s people like you I fear most
.”
“I’m fine,” she replies at last, her tone dry, almost sheepish. “It was just… beautiful. And you were so… This is all wrong. We agreed — no flirting.”“What? Flirting?” Racter says brightly. “Not at all. Just two friends sharing a bite to eat and a walk through the city at night.”“Y-yeah. That’s all, I guess.”He can hear her heart racing, hot and unsteady — not in step with reason.He raises a hand to his hair, intending to brush off the petals, but changes his mind.“When you use your magic,” he says softly, “it’s such a curious sensation, so… ”“Pleasant?” Shay asks.“It felt… so good. I don’t know… terrifying… unlike anything else.” That words echo in his mind, and he says it aloud:“It’s unlike anything else.”To be honest, no, he wouldn’t call it pleasant. When the magical storm had settled, and its light faded, he had felt… well, probably what people mean when they talk about bitterness. As if something vital had been plucked from the world. As if everything was emptier now.He’s unsettled by the sudden realization that without Shay, without her magic — and no, he wouldn’t be able to preserve or replicate it in some AI — the entire world would seem just as hollow. But that’s not something he’s ready to admit.A sharp jab of fear. Yes, he feels it now, clear as day.(Death in the needle, the needle in the egg, the egg in the duck…)(He’s beginning to understand something about oysters and peril.)Racter leads her forward and says, “But that’s not what I brought you here to see.”They cross the flower carpet and stop before a wall built in traditional Chinese style, its roof tiled and curved, with a circular doorway at its center. The air still carries the faint scent of flowers, but now it’s joined by a soft chorus of chirps and warbles — tentative and subdued, nothing like the cacophony it must be during the day.“Many say Hong Kong is nothing but one giant market,” Racter says, fiddling with the electronic lock on the door, “and for the most part, I think that’s true. It’s not a bad thing in itself… but this market has its secrets and its hidden corners of beauty, for those who care to look.”Finally, the door creaks open, and Shay gasps. Before them are dozens of birdcages of every shape and size. By day, there would be hundreds, thousands more — the bird market, like the flower market, doesn’t operate at night — but some sellers are too careless or lazy to take their stock home. There’s a cage with a flock of budgerigars, another with a handful of canaries, a solemn African grey parrot, and even a slumbering toucan.“Nǐ hǎo,” comes a clear voice from nearby.Shay startles, clutching his arm hard enough to hurt before realizing it’s just a black myna in an old-fashioned semicircular cage. The bird tilts its yellow-beaked head to one side, its sharp black eyes fixed on them, and demands again:“Nǐ hǎo!”“Néi hóu,” Shay responds hesitantly. The myna falls silent, as if perplexed.“Am I really that bad at Cantonese?” Shay turns to him, mock-indignant.“How would you like me to answer — politely or honestly?” Racter teases. “Just kidding. I think the problem is its owner probably speaks Mandarin, not Cantonese. Nǐ hǎo ma?” he asks the bird. The myna clicks its beak happily and responds:“Wǒ hěn hǎo!”Shay giggles softly, clapping her hands.“Maybe it’s worth learning Mandarin after all,” she says. “Although if I cram another Chinese dialect into my brain, I might lose my mind. When I was a teenager, we… Uh, Raymond had one of these. But it didn’t really talk, just mimicked phrases.”Racter notes how she avoids the word we when talking about her family.“…One day, that nasty little monster almost bit my finger off,” she adds.She glances at his coat.“You don’t happen to have any crumbs or snacks in your pockets, do you?”Before he can answer, she impulsively plunges her hands into his coat pockets. She freezes almost immediately. He sees the flush of embarrassment as it dawns on her how close they’ve suddenly become — how her hands are on his hips. Surely this is a completely normal thing for friends to do?“No, I don’t have any crumbs,” Racter says slowly, watching her with mild amusement.Shay blushes slightly and steps away.“Well, never mind. I’m sure it gets plenty of fat crickets to eat.”Racter does his best to make it sound as though nothing unusual had just happened.For a moment, Shay’s embarrassment simmers under the surface, but soon she switches gears, her face brightening with a playful grin.“I’ve got a better idea,” she says. “Are there cameras here?”Racter knows the cameras and scanners of Hong Kong better than anyone — it’s part of his work.“There are cameras, but it’s purely coincidental that I happen to know they don’t record anything. Otherwise, I wouldn’t break in so openly.”“Knew it!” she exclaims.
Shay unlatches the door of the cage.
"Fly. Go on! You’re free, silly bird. Fly wherever you want!"
But the myna just shrinks back into the corner of her perch, looking not only confused now, but frightened.
“These are mostly domesticated birds, Shay,” Racter says, watching her. “They don’t dream of flying. Are you willing to kill a bird for the sake of good luck?”
“Good luck?”
“There’s a belief. Releasing caged birds brings fortune. Some people buy them by the dozen just to open their cages and let them go.”
“I didn’t know that. No, I don’t believe in luck. You remember — I gave up fourteen years of it! But I do think everyone should have the choice. To fly away or stay. Some don’t dream of freedom, sure, but some might. I think it’s… fair.”
She moves down the rows of cages, systematically snapping open latches.
Racter, watching her, reflects that when their paths inevitably diverge — or when she dies — it’s her sheer self-assurance he’ll remember most. Not the crow’s nest of hair, not the gap-toothed smile, not even her considerable intellect or the petals that swirl around her like some enchanted blizzard. Those are secondary to the calm, steady glow of her conviction — soft, unassuming, but unshakable as the moon itself. Shay always knows what’s right (whatever “right” is), and she always believes she can fix this imperfect world.
At least, in those moments when she doesn’t look like a rickety fence built by an old farmer.
And maybe she really can fix it. After all, she defeated the Queen With a Thousand Teeth…
Still, he tries to reason with her.
“Shay, Shay… Many of them won’t survive in the wild, and you know that as well as I do.”
She frowns but doesn’t stop. Only when every last cage is open does she finally turn to him, her expression dark.
“You knew I’d do this, didn’t you? Why did you bring me here? You wanted to talk about Raymond? Or Duncan? Is this supposed to be some lesson about ‘being responsible for what you tame’?”
“You think too much about metaphors. I brought you here to distract you, that’s all. To remind you of life’s joys. Who am I to lecture you about family?”
Racter truly doesn’t want to talk about Duncan. He’s seen that story play out in countless faces, countless variations, and he knows he’ll see it again: the overly loyal boy, the overly clever girl, and if they’re lucky, no one dies in the end.
“To remind me of life’s joys?” she repeats skeptically. “I’m amazed something so romant… uh, so non-utilitarian occurred to you. Flowers and birds. You know, there’s a genre in Chinese painting with that name — ‘flowers and birds.’ I loved my art history electives.”
“You’ll tell me about them on the way home?”
She laughs, nods — and then, without hesitation, reaches into his coat pocket. She pulls out his cigarettes and awkwardly lights one.
They stand together, exhaling smoke into a light, untroubling rain. The floral scent from the neighboring market lingers, mixing with the tobacco, while the chirping and fluttering behind them grows louder and more frantic. Occasionally, a bird dares to leave its cage.
After a moment, Shay speaks, her tone sudden, as if out of place:
“There’s another rule about oysters. Never get attached to those who are useless. I made that one up ages ago — when I was a kid.”
Racter is surprised, even ready to feign offense, until he realizes she’s not talking about him.
“I like running in the shadows,” she continues, voice quieter now. “Because here, at least, everything’s honest. Nobody preaches about family values or heroism, or self-sacrifice, or eternal friendship and great love. Like everyone says, Hong Kong’s a giant market. Someone’s selling, someone’s buying…”
“Or stealing, or taking, or begging…”
“Right,” she agrees, spreading her hands. “But where do you see fair trades at a market? The whole world — it's all barter. That’s just how it is. But when someone can only give you what you already have, they start to weigh you down. Is that bad? Should I feel guilty for that?”
“You’re asking me?” Racter says, a faint smile on his lips. “As if you don’t already know what I’d say.”
“Yes... I know.” She sighs. “The problem is, I tell myself the same thing. I’d have died without Raymond back then, when I was a kid. Same with Duncan. He was my weapon, and I was his. But then I grew up. I learned to survive on my own. Raymond understands what it means to settle a debt and part ways for good, but Duncan…”
She trails off, frowning, pressing her fingers to her temple as though her head aches. Then, almost hesitantly, she asks:
“And if I did ask your advice? About my family?”
“Emotions aren’t exactly my area of expertise,” Racter replies. “But I’d say, if something causes pain, it’s best to cut it out.”
Shay nods slowly but says nothing. Her eyes are in shadow, her expression unreadable. The aura she gives off, though, is metallic-gray — uneasy, melancholic.
Later, as they walk, she tells him about Chinese “flowers and birds” paintings — huaniao. In turn, he recounts the tale of Koschei the Deathless. (“Why does Marya Morevna keep Koschei chained in her basement? There’s clearly a missing part of that story. Maybe Ivan should’ve stayed out of it altogether,” Shay giggles.)
They don’t mention Duncan even once as they make their way through the bright, noisy streets of Mong Kok, past the bars and the drunken revelers — on their way home.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rule Six: Never love those you’ll have to let go.
The next time Duncan’s ghost starts to haunt Racter, it’s after the Ares incident.Duncan himself barely sets foot on the ship anymore, but his presence lingers in Shay’s emotions — an oppressive weight, like the heavy, stifling air before a storm. Racter waits patiently for the thunder to break.The evening on the Leaky Tub feels utterly ordinary. The click of mahjong tiles on the table, casual chatter, laughter, the faint scent of beer and the crispy crab chips everyone keeps stealing from the big bowl in the center. The four of them — Shay, Racter, Gobbet, and Is0bel — sit around the table in the “conference room,” which doubles as a dining area. They’re playing mahjong, a habit inherited from Kindly Cheng.Cheng had probably introduced the game as an excuse to spend more time with Duncan, who had clearly caught her eye. But Duncan, naturally, had been avoiding both Cheng and gambling lately — understandably, given the trouble those two things had already caused him.Tonight, he’s absent again, and not just because of his aversion to mahjong.Is0bel places her tiles on the table in a flawless winning hand, and the others groan in unison. Even without tallying the points, it’s obvious she’s won."Nothing less from a decker," Racter remarks with a nod of respect. "My compliments.""I just practice more," Is0bel says, a little flustered."You like mahjong?" Shay asks, surprised. Shay herself plays terribly, but Racter suspects the game isn’t what interests her. She studies her companions instead — their emotions and reactions, what they openly reveal and what they try to hide — observing them like a birdwatcher with a field notebook."Not really," Is0bel admits. "I mean, I like playing with you guys, but… I meant that I deal with a lot of numbers. A lot." She hesitates, then turns to Racter. "Maybe you could explain it better?""It’s about calculating tile values," Racter says. "Each tile can be assigned a specific numerical weight, positive or negative, depending on its suit. By adding up the values of the tiles in your hand, and tracking which ones have been discarded, you can mathematically predict the likelihood of completing a winning hand. But mahjong has far more tiles than, say, a deck of poker cards, so it requires a much greater capacity for mental arithmetic. Deckers tend to excel at that.""Luck," Is0bel adds modestly, "is just the result of a lot of variables working together.""That’s cheating!" Gobbet exclaims, scandalized. The idea that math could be used to win at a game seems to have shaken her to her core."Where there’s money on the table, it’s definitely considered cheating," Racter says, amused. "But really, in any game, we rely on memory and observation. Drawing a line between strategy and cheating can be tricky.""Actually," Is0bel muses, "no game is ever truly fair or random... It always comes down to who can count better.""I’m never playing with you cyberbrain freaks again," Gobbet mutters, though there’s no malice in her voice. "No offense."But consistency has never been Gobbet’s strong suit. After another pint of beer, she insists they teach her the math behind the strategy. They start another round, and Gobbet leans in, moving her lips silently as she tries to track the tiles. She looks like the fortune-teller counting yarrow stalks in her tent.The door opens. Duncan stands on the threshold.Racter knows about the deal with the SINs — the one the woman from the police offered Shay. And he has a pretty good guess about what Shay chose, given how little joy she ever found in her law-abiding life. The fact that she didn’t take Duncan with her on the Ares run — didn’t want to owe him — was telling enough. If Racter were in her place, he would’ve done the same.And they must have already talked, he figures, because Duncan looks sullen but oddly calm. Did he agree with her decision?Duncan steps inside and, without a word, picks up a beer bottle from the table.“We were just about to play a round,” Gobbet says cheerfully. “Mahjong requires four, and honestly, I’m sick of getting my ass handed to me, so you can take my place if you want.”“I…” Duncan starts, but he won’t look at Shay. It’s like he’s erased her from his vision, drawn a thick, black line through her existence. And Shay, though she’s smiling, is looking away. “No, I’ll pass.”“Are we out of chips?” Shay asks.At the sound of her voice, Duncan flinches, like he’s been struck.“Think I ate the last five or so,” Gobbet confesses, utterly unashamed. She digs through her pockets and pulls out a crumpled bag.“But look what I’ve got!”The bag is full of fried cockroaches. She hands a handful to Shay with the casual generosity of a sibling. Racter watches as the insects spill into Shay’s cupped palms, but his attention is also on Duncan — his EM waves shift with revulsion and fear, a reaction Racter finds deeply fascinating.Shay tosses a few into her mouth. They crunch between her teeth. Then, laughing, she turns to her brother and holds out her hands. Duncan jerks back as if she’s holding something repulsive. Well. She is.“How can you eat that crap?” he spits.Shay’s smile dims.“As you can see,” she says, drawing back her hands, “I can. And you used to be able to, too.”“That’s bullshit! I never—” Duncan cuts himself off. His face flushes, more with anger than embarrassment.“No?” Shay’s voice is all feigned innocence. “The kids who caught and ate roaches, pigeons, rats, who dug through garbage piles and slept in basements — was that not us?”The room falls so silent they can hear each other breathing. In that quiet, Shay deliberately bites down on another cockroach, letting the crunch ring out like a gunshot.Duncan’s hands clench into fists.“Why?” he demands. “Why bring that up? Are you proud of it? And why — why say it in front of everyone?”“Say what? The way I was happy to find a skirt someone had thrown away, the one with the embroidered flowers and leaves — so pretty, it only needed a little mending?” Shay’s voice is soft, steady. “Or how I was paid a couple of nuyen for the first time in my life, just for washing someone’s dishes? Because these are my friends. And maybe they’d find my life interesting.”“Oh, and maybe you should tell them how you trembled the first time you stole a credstick off some university kid,” Duncan snaps, his voice sharp with anger. “And how furious you were when it had barely any money on it? Or how your face swelled up like a goddamn balloon when those smug elven pricks found out you took their amulets and beat you half to death?”“But I hid the amulets first,” Shay says, trying to smile, though her lips tremble. “And they turned out to be worth a lot.”“Listen, man,” Gobbet growls, her orcish rasp edged with warning. “None of us were born with a silver spoon. We’ve all been through shit.”“But that’s not something to be proud of!” Duncan shouts. “Wasn’t that the whole point? We wanted to get away from it! To be normal! And now we’re stealing and begging, lying and killing, selling ourselves, and eating these damn roaches all over again! They gave us a chance to give the SINs back and live normal lives, and you chose this?! To keep running in the shadows?! To stay in the filth?! Wasn’t prison for a few years enough?!”“No, Duncan,” Shay says evenly. “There is no ‘we.’ I steal and beg. I lie, kill, sell myself, and eat roaches. What you do is up to you. I’m not your master.”She looks calm. But Racter can hear how fast her heart is racing.Duncan opens and closes his mouth a few times, like a fish gasping on dry land. Or, perhaps, more like a dog that’s just been kicked.Right now, the best thing he could do — the easiest way out — would be to turn around and leave without a word.
That’s probably what Shay is hoping for.
But Duncan isn’t that kind of person.
Instead, he slams his heavy fist down on the table. One of the glasses tips over, spilling beer across the scattered tiles — winds and dragons, seasons and flowers, now swimming in the amber liquid.
“Got it,” Duncan growls. “You’ve traded me — your family — for these so-called friends. Friends who won’t lift a damn finger for you the moment you stop being useful. They’ll toss you out into the sea like garbage. Just like that asshole who thought it’d be funny to run you over with his bike when you refused to ‘service’ him. Remember that? Hard to forget. I sat by your side for a day, thinking you weren’t gonna make it. Another charming childhood memory, huh? Maybe you should tell that story, too. Or how about the one where I buried your useless excuse of a mother after she drank herself to death?”
“I sat by your side plenty of times after your fights, Duncan,” Shay replies quietly. “And I did everything you ever asked me to.”
“Jesus Christ… That’s not the point!” Duncan shouts, throwing up his hands. “This isn’t some kind of barter system! That’s always pissed me off about you — you’re constantly running numbers in your head, like you’ve got a goddamn calculator in there!”
“Without my calculator, we’d have starved to death a long time ago,” Shay says evenly.
“Oh, your calculator’s great. Fantastic, even. Since you’re so eager to share stories with your friends — or what do you call them? Business partners? — why don’t you tell them how you learned to balance the books? Or was it just some innate talent of yours to look at someone’s expensive suit and slicked-back hair and decide whether it was worth letting them slap your ass, call you ‘sweetheart,’ and—”
Is it worth punching a young, big orc who’s at least twenty kilos heavier and stronger than you, even with your cybernetic upgrades? Racter decides the answer is yes.
“Excuse me,” he interrupts calmly, “but I’m afraid I can’t listen to this anymore.”
The punch doesn’t knock Duncan out — it only makes him stagger — but that’s enough for Koschei, sneaking up from behind, to sweep his legs out with a sharp blow to the knees. Not with the bladed edge, of course. Duncan crashes to the floor, rattling the table as he falls. If Racter had wanted him dead, Koschei could’ve finished the job with a single precise strike. Duncan wouldn’t even have seen it coming.
“Oh, we’ve got ourselves a gentleman here,” Duncan mutters, not trying to stand as he wipes blood from his split nose with the back of his hand. “What a lovely couple you two make — a Russian psychopath obsessed with machines and my sister, the thief, whore, and murderer. Just the Prince Charming this Cinderella needs. Tell me, isn’t it fun to hear all about how your sweetheart made her living?”
“Actually, I find it fascinating,” Racter replies honestly. “The credstick, the skirt with the flowers — I’d love to hear all of it. But I’d prefer to hear it from Shay herself.”
Throughout this grotesque scene, Shay remains frozen on the couch, pale and still, like Lot’s wife turned to salt. Though in her case, not salt, but ash — her complexion making the comparison far more fitting. Gobbet, as if sensing the weight of the moment, sweeps the cursed cockroaches Shay is still inexplicably holding into her pocket and brushes off her hands. Shay doesn’t resist. She allows it all to happen silently.
Then, like a robot suddenly powered back on, she smiles, stands up, and speaks in a clear voice:
“How about we go play the next round at Auntie Cheng’s? I don’t feel like picking all these tiles up off the floor.”
“Good call. And we should grab more beer and chips on the way. Auntie’ll charge us for every crumb,” Gobbet remarks with the practical air of a housekeeper.
They all step around the overturned table, the puddle of spilled beer, and Duncan sitting on the floor. As if he isn’t there at all.
“About counting the tiles,” Is0bel says in her usual tone as they leave the cabin, picking up their earlier conversation as if nothing happened. “Gobbet, you won’t be able to do it in your head right away. Even I couldn’t. Try jotting the values down in a notebook…”
And the evening continues almost as it had before, only now in Kindly Cheng’s mahjong parlor: the clatter of tiles on the table, idle chatter, laughter, and the familiar smell of beer. No one mentions Duncan. The situation is already bad enough without adding attempts at consolation or explanations.
After all, mahjong really does require four players. A fifth is always one too many.
Toward the end of the night, Gobbet, thoroughly drunk, blurts out:
“Shay, no matter what anyone says, you’re amazing. Like, just in case you didn’t know. Not that it’s a secret or anything; all of Hong Kong knows it. But yeah, I love you. Like, a lot.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Shay replies with a faint smile. Then, more softly, “Hey, guys, I need to have a quick word with Cheng about some upcoming runs, so why don’t you head over to The Leaky Tub? It’s getting late.”
She holds herself together well, and if Racter were relying solely on his human eyes, he’d never suspect how much she dreads going back to the ship.
The others seem to believe she really has business with Kindly Cheng and leave. Racter pretends to head toward The Leaky Tub, but after stepping out of the mahjong parlor, he lingers. Through Koschei’s thermal and infrared sensors, he sees Shay sitting alone at a dimly lit corner table instead of talking to Cheng.
One of the staff brings her a green bottle filled with clear liquid — not the weak five-percent beer from earlier, but strong soju. Shay drinks one glass after another with grim, almost scientific curiosity. Occasionally, one of Cheng’s guests approaches her table and tries to start a conversation, but they all leave quickly, realizing there’s nothing to gain.
Eventually, she rises to her feet, unsteady, and heads toward the door. Stumbling over the threshold, she nearly collapses face-first onto the pavement — Racter barely manages to catch her by the shoulders.
"I knew it," she slurs, her words tangling. "I told you... to just go... back to the ship. Leave me... alone. Let me go…"
"Go where?"
"Somewhere. Maybe Wan Chai. Where it's noisy, where there are crowds, where I can just… not think. About anything."
"Ah, yes. 'So long as ruin and dishonour reign, to bear nought, to feel nought, is my great gain.' Go wherever you like, but first hand over your credstick."
"What…?"
"Your credstick. Judging by the interest at least one person in Auntie Cheng's mahjong parlor had in your drinking spree, you’re not likely to make it to Wan Chai with a single nuyen left in your pocket."
Racter can tell she’s in no state to make it even a block, but that only worsens the situation. Wan Chai is a decent neighborhood. The streets around Kindly Cheng’s? Not so much.
"That’s nonsense," she replies, drunkenly indignant. "I… I can take care of myself. There’s… there’s protection. Retinal scan."
"Which means you’ll lose not just your money but your eyeball."
She shakes her head stubbornly.
"No. There’s… two-factor… au…thenfi…ti…cation… Complicated word…"
"Very complicated, yes. The thief won’t be able to access your funds — that’s very thoughtful of you. But they don’t know that yet. And as someone with some surgical expertise, I can tell you it’s far easier to remove an eye from a corpse than from someone alive. And I’d prefer not to find you lifeless in some alley."
She flinches, her body stiffening in his grip. Then, reaching into her pocket, she obediently hands him the credstick. As she does, she finally raises her head, and Racter sees the tears tracing her cheeks. Her dark eyes meet his pale ones. Without looking away, she whispers, soft and helpless:
"I want to go home."
Home. Obviously not to the Leaky Tub, where an overturned table and beer-stained tiles still mark the spot of the latest argument. Where every corner is a reminder of the fractures in her strange family — Duncan, Raymond, and herself — splits that started long ago and only deepened with time, until they were as vast as the Mariana Trench.
"Seattle?" Racter asks skeptically. Shay shakes her head vehemently.
"No, no. Home, like… well… If I had a home…"
Finally giving up on explaining, she suddenly buries her face — nearly collapses — into the collar of his coat. He expects the familiar scent of sea, but tonight she reeks mostly of cheap Korean soju.
She cries, and cries, and cries; Racter strokes the thick crown of her hair.
When her shoulders finally stop shaking, she mutters into his collar:
"The first… rule of oysters… never love those... you’ll have to… let go. Those who’ll… leave you. Those who’ll change. But everything in the world… changes. Everything’s as unsteady as… quick… quicksand. That’s why you can’t get… attached…"
"I see you're upset about your brother leaving," he remarks.
"I provoked him," she says, her voice trembling. "I… I wanted him to leave. Just didn’t realize it would feel so… so awful."
"You were both exhausted with each other. If you hadn’t split, you’d have torn each other apart." He wipes her tears with a handkerchief.
"Do you think he’ll be okay?" she asks hopelessly.
It’s a complicated question. Truthfully, without SINs, his sister’s support, or any knack for avoiding trouble, Duncan likely wouldn’t last long in the predatory shadows of Hong Kong.
Racter offers a noncommittal response:
"I must be terrible at guessing the age of orcs… I thought Duncan was old enough to take care of himself."
She sniffles.
"Yeah, you’re right… You’re always right. Thank you. You always say the right things."
In reality, he usually says what she wants to hear. But he has no intention of arguing the point.
Shay settles into his arms, surprisingly comfortable there.
"No, I’m not upset," she mutters. "And I’m not angry… He shouldn’t have said… those things. It’s disgusting that you… and Gobbet, and Is0bel — but especially you… had to hear all that. But I know it hurt Duncan more than it hurt me… I just keep thinking about all those times he lost his temper — he has anger issues, you know? — and he was weak, and lonely, and helpless… Not about what might happen to him now. Just these little moments from the past… He’s probably forgotten all of them, but I still remember… And I wish I could rewind time and… protect him. Even if it meant making sure all those terrible things happened to me instead of him, because between the two of us, I was always stronger…"
Racter smiles faintly. He’s finally certain: the magical circle she’s drawn around herself is just chalk on the floor, fragile and easy to breach. She may not be fourteen anymore, but she still believes, desperately, in heroism, self-sacrifice, eternal friendship, and great love.
"Shh. You know you’ll be better off without him. You feel guilty, but you have nothing to feel guilty for."
"I know," Shay whispers. "It’s just… I just want him to be okay. More than anything, I want the people I love to never let me down, never leave, never get sick, never die. I want to never hurt them. I want us to always be free of one another, like the ocean is free of the stars it reflects. Isn’t that possible?"
No, my friend, Racter would have said if he were honest. To love is to lose — or at least to face the certainty of losing. It’s the porcupine’s dilemma Schopenhauer wrote about: humans are social creatures, but the closer they come to one another, the more they hurt. The cold of isolation or the pain of the quills — those are the only options.
But this is not the moment for honesty.
"Let’s go back to the Leaky Tub, and you can sleep."
"I don’t want… the others… to see me like this…"
"I’ll make sure no one notices us."
She’s barely crying anymore, just sniffles occasionally. He gently brushes the back of his fingers against her dusky cheek, his touch barely there.
"I’ll help you walk, if you’ll let me," he says softly.
She nods, staring at him for a long moment as though mesmerized. Then, suddenly, she confesses, "You know… I always feel like everything inside me flips upside down when I look at you… but now… it’s especially…"
She doesn’t finish the sentence before doubling over with a retch. Racter had, frankly, anticipated this. He holds her steady while she empties the contents of her stomach — the vile mix of everything she’d drunk that evening. He even manages to pull her hair back in time to keep it from getting dirty. From a medical standpoint, this is a much better outcome than her body trying to process it all, only for her to wake up with a pounding headache the next morning. She, however, clearly doesn’t see it that way. Straightening up, she awkwardly tries to wipe her mouth with her sleeve, her face burning with shame.
Without a word, he offers her a handkerchief, then slips an arm around her waist and leads her forward. When they reach a vending machine selling cold drinks, he buys a bottle of green tea and hands it to her.
Still flushed, she focuses on wiping her mouth with the handkerchief, her motions slow and deliberate. Silent. Her trembling fingers unscrew the cap. She rinses her mouth, spits, then takes a careful sip.
"Why are you so kind... to me?" she asks at last, her voice small. "I acted foolish... and pathetic. And don’t tell me... I didn’t. You should be angry with me. If I hadn’t gotten drunk… you wouldn’t have to deal with me right now. You’d be working on your blueprints."
"Everyone acts foolishly sometimes," he says, shrugging. "You just happen to be bad at drinking."
"No one likes you... when you’re foolish and pathetic," she insists stubbornly. "I figured that out... a long time ago. If someone likes you... it’s because they want something... from you. But when you’re in pain… when you’re weak and ugly… you’re just a burden to everyone. If someone takes care of you... in those moments, it’s only out of duty… or out of propriety. Reluctantly. When you need... a helping hand the most… no one reaches out."
"People are naturally selfish," he agrees mildly. "It’s human nature."
"But you…" She falters. "You’re the first person who doesn’t seem to want anything from me. And at the same time, I can’t understand… why you put up with me… if you don’t."
“Is there anything you’d like to take from me? Or do you already have everything you need?” The memory flickers through his mind.
"…And now… given your… utilitarian outlook on everything… you must be absolutely… beside yourself right now…"
"We’re never going to make it to the Tub at this rate," he interrupts her. "If you don’t stop philosophizing, I’ll have to carry you."
She makes a muffled noise, more anticipatory than outraged. Is she serious? Without another word, he lifts her into his arms: sharp shoulders, delicate shoulder blades, surprisingly light.
"Put me down! I weigh fifty kilo—"
"Forty-eight, at most," he counters.
She buries her face in his neck and falls silent.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is strong as death…
After a while, he speaks again: "You’re not a burden, and I’m not angry with you. Yes, I could be working right now, but I’m glad to take care of you instead. I’m not doing this out of duty or, heaven forbid, propriety," he says, pausing to catch his breath. Talking is hard when carrying someone. "I’ve told you before: you’re the most important person in my life. Sure, I like seeing you strong and beautiful, but I also like feeling needed. Supporting each other in our weaker moments doesn’t make either of us lesser. On the contrary, the faster you recover, the stronger you’ll be."
Is he telling the truth? And what is truth, anyway? Everything Racter says could be true, in a different time, under different circumstances. But right now, the truth would sound different: that she did act foolishly and pathetically — yes, exactly as she herself knows. That she put not just herself but their entire team at risk. After all, the thieves might’ve been after more than just money. Shay’s retinal scan plus access to her cyberdeck could wreak far more havoc than a handful of nuyen.
The truth would be saying she leads their little team because she’s strong enough to be their anchor. But the drunken wreck sobbing on his shoulder? That’s no commander.
"You are omnipotent as long as your strength stays within you. The nature of strength is to flow from one vessel to another, like the ocean, when the balance shifts. The strong embrace and bless their solitude. The weak flee from it …"
"And one more thing," he says finally. "Thinking that everything in the world comes down to barter — that you must give something to gain something — that’s caveman logic. Trading roots for a mammoth leg. We’re living in the 21st century. I much prefer to think of relationships as a cartel — an alliance, mutually beneficial to all parties involved."
A quiet laugh tickles his neck. "Cartel… Raymond would’ve liked that."
"And maybe," he continues, "I’m wrong, but I think you want me to refute your theories. Your oyster rules. You want me to tell you that I’m not Duncan, not Raymond, not any of those parasites who either used you or clung to you like a lifeboat."
"I… don’t…" Her hand rises as if to object but falls limply.
"And I will tell you. I won’t say I love you — coming from me, that would sound ridiculous, at best. But I am yours. I’ll care for you if you’re sick, protect you if you need it. Shay, there’s nothing wrong with needing me because I need you just as much. How can I explain that I belong to you entirely? I swear it on everything I believe in. You deserve happiness more than anyone else I’ve known, and I think I could make you happy. I wouldn’t fall apart without you, and you wouldn’t hurt me by letting me go. And yet, I need you unbearably, and no one could take your place. By my own will, I will never leave you. And I will never die — especially now that I know how afraid you are of losing those you love. I’ll always be here, if you let me. Always."
She lies so still in his arms that he might think she’s fallen asleep. But no, she’s awake. She listens intently, her wide eyes fixed on him as if, until now, they’d been wandering in the dark, separated by some dim glass. And only now does she truly see him.
"Always-always?" she whispers, childlike.
By the time they reach the Tub, she has dozed off, her head tucked into the hollow of his collarbone. But when he lays her down on her bunk, she stirs, mumbling, "I need to undress. It’s all… filthy…"
She sits up, wobbling slightly, yawning, and fumbles with the buttons on her jacket. It’s a losing battle.
"Why… so many buttons?" she grumbles.
"Not as many as it feels like to you right now," he notes dryly, but helps her nonetheless.
Shay freezes as she belatedly realizes what’s happening. One by one, like peeling cabbage leaves, he slips the layers of fabric from her shoulders. Beneath the mountain of clothes is a small chest with dark nipples. Reflexively, she tries to cover herself with her hands but remembers — it’s useless ("All the invasive ways you monitor me... My body temperature, my blood type, my pulse…") — or perhaps recalls how much more vulnerable she’d been in front of him earlier that evening. Her hands fall away, her lip caught between her teeth in a mix of embarrassment and frustration.
She gasps quietly when he kneels before her bunk, sliding her pants off her hips.
Racter folds her clothes neatly on a chair, then turns toward the door.
"Sweet dreams, Shay."
A hand, invisible in the dark, catches his wrist.
"What? You’re just going to leave? After undressing me and… saying all that, which still has my ears burning?"
"Seems that way."
“Oh, Racter… I want you so much it makes my legs weak. You’re all I’ve been able to think about since the moment I first set foot in the hold of this cursed ship. At least kiss me.”
“After our last kiss, you said you felt like a rickety fence,” Racter replies, amused.
“Why do you even remember nonsense like that? Oh…” Her face flushes, almost childlike in its sincerity. “You don’t want to because I probably stink, don’t I?”
“Mm… no, that’s not it. I couldn’t care less how you smell. I just don’t want you waking up tomorrow and regretting your decision.”
“I see,” she says seriously, nodding, though her hand still holds onto his. “Alright. But you promised… you wouldn’t leave. At least… stay here with me.”
He nods, settling beside her and pulling a thin blanket over her shoulders. Once her head finds the pillow, he leans down and brushes a light kiss against her cheek, tasting the faint salt trail left by dried tears.
Shay’s hand keeps his firmly in place, then slowly tugs it closer to her face, resting it on the pillow next to her own. She presses her cheek, her nose, even her lips to the back of his hand, her eyes closed. Her fingers tremble slightly as they trace his, tentative, exploratory. The touch feels almost innocent, but it’s different tonight—an unspoken shift between them. The careful wall Shay had built ever since she realized her feelings for Racter has finally crumbled. The intricate, self-imposed rules about oysters and boundaries — those too are gone, erased at last.
Koschei, claws clicking softly against the floor, jumps onto the bed with a weighty thud, like a fat, lazy cat, and sprawls out near her feet.
“Now that Duncan’s gone…” Shay murmurs suddenly, “there’s nothing tying me down. I don’t answer to anyone. I don’t care about anyone else’s judgment, their anger, or disappointment. I can say whatever I want to anyone, do whatever I want, live wherever I want…”
“I suppose that’s true. So… what do you plan to do?”
“I’ll go back to Seattle. Not right away, but eventually, I’ll have to.”
“So ‘home’ is Seattle, after all,” he says, half-questioning.
“No. It’s just… Raymond loves Seattle. I want to take him there. I think he’ll do better there than with me.”
“Or rather, you’ll do better without him? Don’t lie to me.”
“Well… that too. I’ll make sure he’s settled, and then… Honestly, I have no idea what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll come back to Hong Kong. Or maybe I’ll go somewhere else. I could herd goats in Indonesia if I wanted to. Or become a star. Or smuggle drugs across borders. Or run a corporation. Or a country… The world is huge, and there’s so much to do, so much to see. I could be anything, do anything, once…”
She trails off mid-sentence, but Racter knows what she means. The world is huge, and she could be anything, do anything — once she no longer has to drag around the dead weight of the people she once loved, hated, cared for, loathed. All those pathetic, cherished, nauseating ties to those she had always looked after out of obligation, giving pieces of herself away, drop by drop, like some reluctant, self-made martyr.
After a pause, she asks, “What about you? What are you planning to do?”
“If Hong Kong loses its charm? I’ve been thinking about Africa. There’s a lot of opportunity there right now. Could be interesting. What do you think of Africa?”
“And what about the UCAS?”
“Neo-Tokyo?”
“Yakutia?”
To an outsider, their conversation would likely sound completely nonsensical. But what does it matter? They could have the entire world — that’s what they’re really saying.
“And you… you’ll stay with me? Always?”
“I already told you. Always.”
She exhales in satisfaction, like a child hearing a bedtime story’s happy ending. “We’re like the king and queen of Earth.”
Not long after, her voice grows softer, drowsier. “I still don’t really like your dreams of robotic post-humanity.”
“If you come up with better ones, I’m open to suggestions,” Racter offers generously.
“I’ll… think about it…”
Her breathing evens out, steady and slow. Just when he starts to think she’s finally fallen asleep, her voice comes again, faint and wistful.
“When we were kids, Duncan used to say that when we grew up, we’d sail to a magical country. Like a promised land. And it’d be home. Everything would be good and right and beautiful there… because where we grew up, there wasn’t much of anything beautiful.”
“Like elven Tir Tairngire?”
“Like Tir Tairngire. But without the fascism.”
“And instead, you ended up in Hong Kong. Is it anything like the promised land?”
“Well… It’s probably better than Tir Tairngire. But that doesn’t mean that land isn’t real. I think… now I think the whole world could be that promised land. It’s not a place. It’s something… inside me. You probably don’t understand what I’m talking about, but that’s okay.” She presses her cheek against his hand and closes her eyes again. “Just… don’t… leave…”
Racter stays where he is, quietly watching as she drifts off. Once he’s sure she can’t hear him anymore, he murmurs softly,
“I think I understand perfectly well.”
She doesn’t change her mind the next morning when she wakes up sober.
Racter, already awake and tinkering in his workshop below, watches her stir on the upper floor. He observes the shift in her breathing, the way she turns over lazily, the slow flutter of her eyelids, her body stretching languidly — and then, as if struck by a sudden memory (of him), she jolts upright. Tension visibly courses through her as she sits straight, bracing herself as if for a fight. And then, speaking into the empty room as though addressing the air itself, she says:
“Can you hear me? … I know you can.”
Down in the hold, Racter lifts his head, listening.
“I’m not drunk anymore, and I haven’t changed my mind,” she continues, her voice laced with a strange, defiant cheerfulness. “I’m not afraid anymore. I can’t live without you. No one could ever replace you. I want to be with you. Always. And I want… everything. I don’t want anyone else, only you. I… I love you.” She exhales deeply, then repeats, louder and steadier, “I love you. I’ve loved you every day and every hour of my life. There, I said it. That wasn’t so hard.”
She laughs nervously, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face with trembling fingers. “Will you come have breakfast?”
By the time Shay makes her way to the kitchen, Racter has already arrived, timing his entrance perfectly. He knows exactly how long it takes her to wash up and dress. He’s just finishing her breakfast: a large soykaf with milk and scrambled eggs made just the way she likes them — two eggs, a splash of milk, a generous knob of butter, and a pinch of pepper.
When Shay steps into the doorway and sees him standing there, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, carefully plating her food, she freezes mid-step, as if suddenly caught off balance. The air between them hums, heavy with the unspoken, charged with the inevitability of what’s about to happen.
It’s his move now. She’s already made hers, laying everything bare in her confession. And besides, he’s the man, isn’t he?
Racter closes the distance in two strides.
This time, the kiss isn’t careful, like the one in the midst of battle with Qian Ya — hesitant, as though afraid she might shatter. No, this one is deep, certain, claiming the right he now knows he’s earned. And Shay… likes it. A lot, if her electromagnetic readings are anything to go by — or the way she shivers, trembling in his arms.
A real first kiss shouldn’t be about staring down your fears in front of the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. It should be about passion. About the hot, breathless weakness that makes your legs buckle and your heart race somewhere between your chest and your throat. And Racter… Racter wants this for her, more than anything.
Judging by the way she melts into him, it seems he’s succeeded.
The kiss stretches on and on. Shay’s skin begins to emit a faint, silvery glow, much like it did that night at the flower market. Magic pours from her like moonlight, and the kiss tastes electric — like Sichuan peppercorns or the tang of a live battery. Racter feels it spark against his tongue when it brushes her teeth.
She grips his shoulders tightly as he backs her up against the kitchen counter, releasing a soft, half-moan, half-sigh as his lips trail to the curve of her neck.
“Oh… Why does it feel so good?” she whispers.
“Because I want it to,” he replies, letting his breath tease the sensitive skin below her ear.
She nods, eyes shut tight. “Yes… it’s because I’m with you.”
She isn’t afraid of touch anymore. She presses herself against him like a cat, her hands roaming over his shoulders and chest with an almost greedy eagerness — as if she’s been longing for this for far too long. One small hand slips under his shirt, venturing lower until her fingers brush the edges of scars and the seams where flesh gives way to steel and chrome. She hesitates only a moment before continuing, exploring.
Racter pulls back, speaking low. “Shay, there’s no rush. I can build you something, anything you desire. I’d be happy just to make your dreams real. But for now, you should drink your soykaf before it gets cold.”
But Shay yanks him back, her hands tangling in his hair with surprising force.
“Not a chance. Touch me, finally. However you want, I don’t care. If you run away from me again today…” Her words trail off into kisses.
“Then what?” Racter asks with genuine interest, stroking her neck and thin dark collarbones.
“If you run away from me, I’ll leave too. I’ll go to Seattle. And you’ll never find me.”
“You think you can escape me?” He smirks. “You’re mine, Shay.”
Once, he would have held back such a statement, worried it might trigger that familiar flicker of fear. But now… now all he sees is the blush of desire flaring pink.
Control is a strange thing, Racter muses. It’s satisfying to wield it, but equally so to relinquish it when the time is right. Shay, he thinks, might have known this her entire life. Perhaps she’s always dreamed of surrendering fully, trusting someone completely to take care of her — for once, to let herself be vulnerable without fear.
He unbuttons both of her shirts, strokes the semicircle of her exposed breast that fits perfectly in his palm — Shay throws her head back, arches, exposing herself.
He hears her breathing quicken. Pushing her legs apart with his knee, he feels how hot and — already — wet it is between them.
With his other hand he frees her from her shirts, trailing his fingers along the curve of her spine. Her body arches into his touch as if pulled by invisible strings, trembling as his hand traces the subtle dips between her vertebrae. When his fingers reach the base of her neck, she shivers so hard it seems she might cry. Eventually he stops between her shoulder blades.
Her strange magic still radiates from her — and grows brighter. He kisses her again, tasting her magic, her divinity, as it flows into him like liquid moonlight. Thin strands of something — silver, ethereal — stretch between them where his lips and hands have touched her skin. It’s not clear which plane of existence this is happening on, but he knows Shay feels it too.
“My Shay,” he whispers against her ear. “I told you. I need you unbearably. And I don’t just mean your body. I need your life. Your soul.”
And Shay, his Shay — so fiercely independent, so determined never to love, never to want — breathes back:
“Yes… it’s all yours.”
He grabs Shay by the hips and sits her on the kitchen table. He kneels in front of her, spreading her brown legs apart. He pulls down her shorts. The white lace panties underneath are soaking wet. They are so thin that they probably wouldn't interfere with anything at all — he tests this by running his tongue over them, Shay gasps helplessly when he presses the tip of his tongue against her clit under the lace — but it's still better to take them off too.
There, in the middle, it certainly smells like the ocean, and tastes like it too.
Shay bites her lip, her eyes are closed. As if in a dream, she puts her hand on his head, setting the rhythm of his movements. Raсter no longer sees her multicolored emotions — all the colors have merged into a silvery glow that pulses around her like breath...
And he drinks this thick, viscous liquid silver until he feels that every bone in his body has absorbed it, every living and every synthetic muscle, every joint of steel and chrome.
Then Gobbet enters the kitchen. Racter hadn't planned for this at all. And the fact that he hears/sees/feels her approach a little earlier doesn't help at all in this situation.
Thank God, she has enough mercy or curiosity to wait on the threshold for those few necessary seconds for Shay to shudder, to arch, to come back down to earth. Only then does Gobbet stride in, her voice dripping with disgusted sarcasm.
“Someone please drill out my eyes with a blender. I get out of bed for milk and oatmeal, and this is what I walk into? Fantastic. Appetite officially ruined.”
Racter wonders, briefly, if Gobbet can see the shimmering silver strands that still weave around him and Shay like a spider’s web. If she does, she doesn’t say anything.
Shay jerks away, scrabbling at her shirt in a futile attempt to cover herself, only now seeming to realize that she is completely naked. She stammers, “We… Sorry, Gobbet…”
Gobbet snorts. “Honestly, I was expecting you to say, ‘Jealous much?’ like usual.”
“Jealous much,” Shay parrots automatically, though her eyes remain locked on Racter.
Her eyes are wild and bright. Her kiss-swollen lips, a deep cherry red.
Later, Shay sits at the kitchen table in hastily thrown-on clothes, her soykaf growing cold in her hands. She doesn’t drink it, though. She just stares at Racter, smiling. And then, without warning, she begins to cry — still smiling, tears spilling silently down her cheeks. And Racter thinks, for the second time, of a rainbow in the rain. He’d forgotten when the comparison had last crossed his mind, though.
He sees her normal EM field again, not that silver light. Now it’s a riot of emotions which is now too tangled to parse. But it seems that he has done everything right.
Even if the soykaf didn’t survive.
Before, he thought that when they became lovers, little would change between them. But in truth, he would discover things he hadn’t even suspected.
For instance, how monstrously, endlessly lonely people are. Even those who seem the strongest. How desperately they crave some denial of the self-evident truth of their solitude, how hungrily they reach out to another, yearning to be heard — irrationally believing that someone might share all the pain, shame, guilt, and fear they've endured. Someone who might tell them it’s over, that it will never hurt again, that there’s nothing left to fear or be ashamed of, that they are forgiven.
And how easy it is to make them believe it. That none of us are truly alone on this Earth. All it takes is to listen, and — in his particular case — to stroke their hair, wipe their tears (sometimes even literally), and call them by tender names.
Racter doesn’t call Shay “my love.” He still feels it would sound strange coming from him. For the most part, he still calls her “my friend.” But when she needs closeness or tenderness, he calls her “my Shay.”
Sometimes, in their most private moments, he’ll say “my joy” or “my sorrow.” And the words don’t ring false, because he’s practiced them in front of a mirror, rehearsing how to make all the silly, sentimental things Shay longs to hear sound just a little less silly and sentimental.
Every night — or sometimes it’s morning, or evening, or midday — those threads of luminous substance, for which he has no name, reach out to him from Shay. And with each time, he feels... different. Fuller.
Even more intimate than the sex, though, are the nights when Shay asks him to stay and sleep beside her in the same bed. In her sleep, she presses her forehead against the space between his shoulder blades, or sometimes, half-dreaming, she brushes her hand across his thigh, as if checking to make sure he’s really there, with her. And she always studies his body intently. Sometimes she frowns, her fingers tracing the metal plates, as if trying to solve some puzzle. Racter knows what she’s thinking in those moments.
"Try not to think too much about how I perceive the world... It’s only fair that each of us has our own... augmented reality."
When he said that, he’d known full well it was like asking someone not to think of a pink elephant.
By now, he understands that Shay’s rules weren’t really about sex. At least, not just about sex.
They were about how a person opens up. Like a locked door, a safe, or the shell of an oyster.
When you strip that shell away, there, in the fragile space between strength and vulnerability, you see their essence — soft and defenseless.
Thick, silvery, glowing substance.
Their essence... Or Essence.
And all it takes is to plant a dark seed of doubt in it, so the silver might envelop it, crystallizing around.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
An unspoken rule: None of this ever truly works.
One day, she shows up with a cyber-implant in place of her left eye.
Shay’s natural eye — eyes, before — was dark and stormy, like a tempestuous sea. Gray as graphite, or maybe dark blue, though under certain lights, they could even appear brown. The implant, however, is a pale, Siamese-cat blue.
“You do realize that any cybernetic interference takes a bit of your Essence, right?” Is0bel asks her matter-of-factly. “I thought you enjoyed reading the flow of qi and summoning spirits. Yesterday you wanted to be a mage; today, you want to be a rigger?”
"I want to be everything," Racter recalls her saying, once.
But for some reason, Shay doesn’t argue with Is0bel now. She only frowns and looks away.
“I don’t want to be anything. Leave me alone.”
Gobbet interjects, “You should’ve spent that money on a cybernetic stomach, girl. With the crap we’ve been eating, I see gastritis in your future. Five months, tops.”
“Me? Gastritis? Ha! I’ll bet you a hundred nuyen you’ll keel over from a gut twist before I do.” Shay laughs, but her laughter is hollow, artificial. Racter notices the flicker of fear beneath it, which is unusual — banter about their terrible diet is a daily ritual.
“A hundred? You’re insane,” Gobbet scoffs, retreating. “But seriously, what’s with the creepy eye? Think it’ll make you a better shot?”
Shay shrugs off the jab.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll hit a solid C-plus now. But no matter how bad I am, you’re still worse.” Again, that false laugh.
She looks like a shadow of herself. Something inside her has broken for good.
And Racter, attuned to the spectrum of her emotions, knows exactly what. What he’d been waiting for all this time, what he’d secretly hoped for, has finally happened.
Shay Silvermoon, scavenger of pieces of her friends’ souls like trinkets, has finally taken something from him.
Death. Shay has taken the knowledge of death from him — and she can’t bear the weight of it.
Lifting her gaze, she finally notices him, standing motionless in the doorway, half-hidden in shadow.
“Next run, we’ll see who’s the better shot,” Gobbet quips. But instead of sparking their usual lively back-and-forth, Shay suddenly goes cold. Her voice cuts like a blade as she speaks — not a request, but an order, directed at both Gobbet and Is0bel.
“Leave me. I need to talk to Racter.”
When they’re alone, Shay stares at Racter for a long time — intensely, searchingly. One eye dark and inscrutable, like the depths of an ancient ocean. The other bright and hollow, like a child’s plastic pool.
He can practically read her thoughts. Does he feel his implants the way she does? Does he see himself — and the world — as a grotesque heap of bones and organs? If so, why didn’t he warn her? Why didn’t he stop her?
He waits, silent, for her to ask outright. She mutters grimly:
“Is it the same for you? This. You know what I mean.”
“I wouldn’t know how it is for you,” he answers calmly.
“Liar.” Her composure snaps. “You’re lying. You read my emotions — don’t pretend you don’t see what’s happening to me. You knew this would happen! You knew!”
And it’s true. He knew everything, and he can see perfectly well what it’s turned into now.
Revulsion. Fear. Rage.
Waves of dark, unfamiliar emotions crash over her, powerful enough to drown her. Shay is good at pretending, but holding herself together right now is costing her dearly.
“I told you, didn’t I? ‘Try not to think about how I perceive the world. It might destroy you.’” His voice is devoid of judgment.
Shay deflates, like a balloon losing air.
“You did,” she whispers. “You warned me. You were honest with me.”
“May I take a closer look at your eye?”
She hesitates, then nods.
When his fingers brush against the cold surface of her new blue eye, she doesn’t flinch or close her lid. The effect is unsettling.
“Got it from Ten-Armed Ambrose, I take it? It’s a good eye. Though it seems a pointless purchase, given your excellent elven vision. Still, it appears functional.”
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “Ambrose doesn’t sell junk...”
Racter cups her cheek, tilting her face up by its sharp chin.
“So, Shay? Did you come here to accuse me? To vent? Or something else entirely?”
“To accuse you and to vent,” she mutters, averting her eyes, her cheek pressing against his palm.
“Then speak.”
Racter pulls her into an embrace. Shay closes her eyes, soaking in the comfort of his arms like something familiar and safe. Then, after a long pause, she begins:
“At first, I was thrilled — this perfect piece of me that looked so flawless, that worked so well. But then… my other eye, my real eye, started to disgust me. Or maybe it wasn’t disgust. Maybe it was… fear. Horror. All those feelings you saw earlier. And now I can’t stop thinking about it. My living body is monstrous. The cornea — it’s always dry, like it’s going bad. And those blood vessels in the whites of my eyes... revolting. And everything else — it’s like seeing my face under a magnifying glass: pores, little hairs, capillaries, wrinkles. I used to feel light, like I could fly… but not anymore. No. My strength is gone. And I can’t even light a cigarette now. I feel every organ in my body, Racter. It’s not just that I know they’re there — I’m aware of them, how they press against each other. My heart pumping blood. My stomach digesting food. I’m a disgusting pile of guts…” She keeps talking, like a dam has burst. “And the worst part is, I can’t stop thinking about how they’ll fail. One by one. You’re right — elves live a long time — but all of this, everything in me, is rotting away, even if I can’t see it. I’m dying, constantly. I’m a ticking bomb. And every metahuman is the same. Will this ever pass?”
“It’ll get easier. But it won’t pass entirely, no. You didn’t think getting an implant was like getting a tattoo, did you? This is why so many become addicted to cyber-mods. It’s hard to stop. You want to keep fixing yourself until there’s nothing left that’s flawed, diseased, mortal.”
Shay shivers and nods. She admits, “I didn’t just come to accuse you or vent. I think… I think I came to ask how to live with this. You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
“For me, it was easier. The implants didn’t change much about how I saw the world. I hadn’t sense electromagnetic waves and infrared radiation, of course. But I already had known about mortality — the thing you were blind to. I could never forget about it.”
She falls silent for a long time. In her silence, Racter detects astonishment, tinged with a kind of unexpected pity — much like the time she came down to his workshop in her white dress, and they spoke of the inability to feel joy.
At last, she says quietly, “I understand your dreams better now. Your obsession with tech and data. But I’m… not like you. I don’t want to become a machine or upload myself to the cloud. I want to stay myself. I want everything to go back to the way it was. But I know it’s too late — even if I tear this stupid, doll-like eye out, I’ll never shake this sense of mortality. God, what have I done? And the worst part is… today I tried to summon a spirit, and nothing happened. I couldn’t even spark a flame. I’m so scared, Racter. Scared I’ll never be able to…”
She breaks off and starts to cry.
“You won’t lose your magic over one small implant. Shay… Shay, look at me.”
She lifts her tear-streaked face, meeting his gaze. In the dark iris of her remaining eye, Racter sees his own reflection. He wonders what she’s thinking — about capillaries and wrinkles, perhaps, or the mess of viscera beneath his skin. But he dares to hope that, amidst the horror, she sees the person she once said she’d been waiting for her entire life.
“Shay, I don’t want to become a machine or upload my consciousness either. Not anymore. Knowing you has shown me that I’m missing something crucial about life,” Racter says honestly. “And I think I’ve found a cure for that crushing sense of mortality you feel now. I realized it the night we walked through the flower market and I saw you casting magic. As cliché as it sounds, you need to remember that people aren’t just guts and bones. Or — no, not remember. You need to believe it again. Truly believe it, with everything you have. Find yourself in a moment where awe and wonder overpower everything else. Love, joy — these aren’t really my areas of expertise, but I think you know what I mean.”
Shay keeps looking at him. Her lips curve into the faintest smile, and her gaze softens, like a drifting cloud. He knows she remembers it now: Mong Kok, the night, the flower market, the warm wind of magic lifting a whirlwind of shimmering silver petals around them...
“And if you believe,” Racter continues, “I’m certain you’ll forget the fear and revulsion you spoke of. For a moment, listening to me, you already did — didn’t you? Soon the sparks will return to your fingertips. You’ll fly again, and nothing will feel impossible. You are extraordinary. The people of Hong Kong even believe you’re a messiah.”
She nods, blushing slightly.
“All right. I’ll try. But only if you’re with me. Deal?”
“Why me?” he deflects.
“I’m scared,” Shay admits. “Scared I’ll fail. Scared to be... alone. Without you, I’m not myself. I lost control because of this implant, spiraled so hard I might as well need therapy, but when I saw you… it felt like everything wasn’t so bad after all. If it’s true I need to find joy in life again, then I won’t manage it without you. My joy, my life — it’s you. Please. You said it yourself — it’s a pleasant feeling, isn’t it? When I cast spells.”
“Very pleasant,” he says. Like a needle jabbed in the heart. Death at the tip of the needle, the needle in an egg, the egg in a duck, the duck in a rabbit. My needle has a crow’s nest of hair, a jagged grin, and a synthetic blue eye, Racter thinks.
“Very well,” he says aloud, forcing a faint smile. He half-jokingly offers her his hand. “Come, Shay. Of course, I won’t leave you now.”
And so, they are walking in the air — just like in that old pop song. Their feet seem cradled by invisible hands.
The girl in white and the man in black glide through the night, hand in hand, above the rooftops of the skyscrapers under a silver moon. Far below, people sleep soundly, oblivious, as dawn is still hours away.
The dark ocean beats steadily against the shore, as though Hong Kong itself is breathing deeply in its slumber, rolling over onto its side.
Shay’s white shirt glows, lit by moonlight — and by magic. Her eyes glimmer too. Her black curls drift through the air as if underwater, blending with the night. She laughs.
“This is so wonderful... Thank you. Thank you for saying those things to me, for coming with me... Look, we’re like birds! I love you so much. With you, I can cast spells, I can fly. I can do anything.”
“You know, Shay,” Racter replies, “it’s not about what you can do with me. It’s about what you can do without me.”
He says it without cruelty, without malice. His tone is completely impassive.
Perhaps it’s this that unnerves Shay — the fact that she can’t read his voice. She blinks, confused.
“What?”
“Unfortunately, you’ve made yourself completely helpless without me.”
The delicate silver music of her emotions is severed by a jarring, grating note. Fear rises — not yet understanding, but the shadow of understanding to come...
Racter loosens his fingers for a brief second, then catches her hand again. But in that fleeting moment of separation, Shay wavers in midair, as if an invisible platform beneath her feet had been pulled away.
He explains patiently, almost as though he were instructing a child:
“You said it yourself: I am your life. Your joy, your strength — they’re all me. And it seems that’s true. You have nothing else left now. Only me. But what will you do, Shay, when I tell you that I don’t need you?”
“But... how?” Her protest sounds absurdly naive, but in this moment, expecting more from her would be unfair. “You said I was special... You called me a messiah…”
She searches his face, and Racter, at last, lets her see the truth. He allows her to see his cold, empty indifference. To see that he could have killed her a hundred different ways—or left her crippled, feeding her with a spoon while reveling in her helplessness. But the reality is far worse: she simply means nothing to him.
He has taken everything he wanted, and now, she’s no longer worth his time.
“I lied. What kind of messiah are you? A foolish, self-absorbed little girl.”
Shay’s breathing turns shallow and ragged. She says nothing. Her words are spent. Her thin, bronze fingers clutch his hand with desperate strength. She’s afraid. She understands now. She’s realized how far the ground is below her — and what lies inside her: entrails. Loops of intestine, networks of veins, endlessly deteriorating, slick, porous, terrifyingly fragile organs...
Entrails and nothing more.
The pulsing silver light radiating from her fades. With each passing second, her body grows heavier, until she dangles from his hand like a weight.
Forty-eight kilograms.
Racter sums it up, his voice clinical, detached:
“You already know, don’t you? When a person turns into a pathetic, whining parasite, they’re discarded. You’ve done the same to others yourself.”
Below, the sea beats steadily, like a tolling bell.
She hangs from his hand, powerless, dark, heavy. Her face is twisted with horror.
They look at each other for a long moment — she from below, he from above. At last, the shifting hues of Shay’s magical aura collapse into one single note of exhaustion. It’s as if all the air has been let out of her. As if, deep down, she always knew it would end like this. Her fingers, which had clung so desperately to his wrist, relax, surrendering to the inevitable.
“I shouldn’t have...” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have doubted Gobbet... And I shouldn’t have asked you what you wanted to take from me...”
“Yes. You shouldn’t have, my friend.”
When he lets go of Shay’s hand, her body plummets into the void like a black stone and vanishes into the darkness. The ocean is so far below that he, of course, hears no splash.
By all known laws of physics, he should fall after her, but instead, he descends slowly and gracefully. Neither muscle nor metal seems to weigh anything at all. The silver-lined hem of his coat spreads out like wings, glowing faintly in the dark.
Epilogue
Hong Kong stirs restlessly in its sleep, letting out heavy sighs like a giant suffering from gout.
A gray-haired man in a black coat stands in the middle of the flower market in Mong Kok, now lulled into a slumbering haze, his drone curling at his feet like a dog. He holds a handful of petals in his hand.
A damp mist hangs over the city, the air still, yet a sudden gust — out of nowhere — whirls around him, showering his hair and shoulders with snowflakes of flowers.
He lights a cigarette — without a lighter, merely touching the tip of the cheap cigarette with his finger. He exhales a cloud of tobacco smoke into the night, and smiles wide, joyfully — like someone not only determined to outlast the end of the world but eager to savor every step, every breath of his eternal life. His immense, cold, solitary happiness.
The moon is hidden, but the petals in his hand glow like shards of silver.