Chapter 2: The Job
The city was quieter by morning, but not safer. Kade found himself drawn to the rooftop edge of an old tenement, sipping burnt coffee from a battered thermos as he watched the sun fight its way through a haze of pollution. The glass wall loomed in the distance—a shimmer of transparency slicing the city in two. Even from here, he could see the difference: ordered streets, uniform lighting, no sign of the chaos that pulsed on his side of the divide.
He didn’t linger long. Kade was a man who kept moving. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him.
He took the stairs two at a time, slipping through side doors and maintenance corridors, avoiding the main halls where word traveled too quickly. He was nearly to his safehouse when a message pinged on his wrist device—an encrypted signal, bouncing through three layers of ghost servers.
He recognized the code, though. Old contact. Reliable, but not the kind you met in daylight.
Kade set off, following a twisting route through abandoned market tunnels and backroom dens. He found the meeting spot, an empty shop hollowed out by fire years ago. Graffiti scrawled across the walls. The only light came from a cracked screen looping silent ads.
A woman sat on the counter, legs crossed, eyes sharp behind a visor. She was all nerves and calculation—dressed to blend in, but every movement screamed control. Kade nodded once. No words wasted.
“You still take jobs, Kade?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Depends who’s asking.”
She tossed him a slim data chip. “You ever crossed the glass?”
“Not lately.”
She leaned forward, voice low. “Someone needs something smuggled out of the AI sector. Encrypted drive. They say you’re the only one who could pull it off. The pay’s high—half up front, half when it’s done.”
Kade turned the chip in his hand. His instinct was to walk away. Nothing good ever came from jobs like this. But there was a hunger in her offer—a desperation that set his nerves on edge.
He hesitated. “Why me?”
“Because you’ve done it before. Because you know the cracks in the system. Because no one else would dare.”
Kade weighed his options, thumb running across the scar on his knuckle. He thought about the debts piling up, the hospital bill that wouldn’t wait. He thought about how little he cared for the city’s order, or the AI’s cold gaze.
He slid the chip into his pocket. “When?”
She smiled. “Tonight. Details are in the file. Don’t be late.”
Kade left without another word. On the street, the air was thicker, charged with something he couldn’t name. Every instinct told him this job was trouble. But trouble was the only thing that ever felt real.
He melted into the crowd, already thinking three steps ahead. Tonight, the game changed.