Page 19 of GlitchBorn Heart

Above, a cluster of black-shelled En4ce drones tear through the mist like wasps, corporate logos pulsing red across their sides. Their lenses buzz, scanning the crowd in jerking sweeps.

“Corporate sweep.” Ash stands to full height, his grin returning, wild and reckless, as if someone has just challenged him to a duel. “Guess ’ol Vikk finally noticed he wasn’t invited to our party.”

The first drone fires a stun-burst at a fleeing vendor, splintering a nearby sign in a spray of sparks. Smoke and more screams fill my senses as people bolt left and right.

“Go, Lyra! NOW!” he shouts over the madness and shoves my DreamBand at me.

I panic as well. I can literally feel my heart rising into my throat, my magic flaring like an instinct, bleeding into every device around me. Screens all over the market flicker as my emotions tangle with the circuits, glitch-flames blooming across every digital surface, including the drone screen. It ripples like water, the VikkCorp logo stretching into an unidentifiable shape, then, with a sound like gnats screaming, it simply bursts into a cloud of glowing, razor-sharp confetti.

“Cool trick, Lyra.” Ash is stunned, watching the lights spike. “Can you zap my street racing debt too, or are we only exploding expensive corporate property today?”

Another stun-burst sizzles past my head. The nearest drone swings toward us, lenses whirring. I curse and duck, throwing my hands up in front of us. The drone screams, and every piece of tech in the market explodes with rays of red, gold, and pink light.

Ash quickly hurls a shiny disc from his jacket, sparks flying midair. The drone explodes in a shower of blue fire, shards of metal falling to the pavement.

Ash turns to me. “Oh, I like you.” He cocks his head, as if he’s already figured me out. “Please tell me you didn’t just short-circuit a drone with your mind. My insurance doesn’t cover ‘Unexplained Sparkly Events.’ ”

With the threat squashed, the mood of the alley shifts. The noise of fear fades, and the DarkMarket vendors return to their stalls as if nothing happened. The crowd fills back in as they realize we’ve just taken out two corporate drones side by side. Their metal remains lie smoking in the gutter, circuitry sparking and spitting.

My magic is still buzzing under my skin, the aftershocks still vibrating through random pieces of tech all around us. Beside me, Ash throws his head back and laughs, a feral, glorious laugh that says he was born for this shit.

People look at us as they pass by, eyes wide, as if we’re some superhero duet from one of the latest movies being played on DataLINKs. Our combined U21 magic just leveled a corporate threat in under thirty seconds.

Ash turns to me, his eyes flaring bright, glowing with a rush of adrenaline only rebels seem to share. “Not bad,” he says. “We should do crimes together more often.”

He grabs me by the shoulders with urgency. “Now go...Kael will be here any minute. I’m sure we just lit up the anomaly grid like a flashbomb, and as much as I’m sure you’d like to see him again, he’ll be here for business, not pleasure.”

“Wait...what? Why would Kael...” But Ash is already cleaning up the mess around his table, packing up the evidence. I shove the DreamBand in my jacket pocket and run down the alley, afraid to look back.

8

Anomaly

Playlist: Victorious (RAC Mix) - Panic At The Disco!

Kael

When I arrive at the DarkMarket, the air is still crackling with magic. I can faintly feel its hum and smell its lingering scent. The crowd is jittery, whispering, eyes darting toward the sky, expecting the CIC to show up at any moment to collect the downed drones and investigate.

I lift my hoodie higher to conceal my face from the masses mulling about the market. My assistant, Dr. Ember Vosse, yes the same Vosse as Vikktor, corporate CEO and head of bullshit, moves beside me like a shadow. Her VeilCaster magic thins the air and cloaks us as we walk through the smoke and haze of the alley. Thanks to her power, anyone looking straight at us will feel their gaze slide off, unfocused.

We aren’t here for spectacle. We’re here because the anomaly grid exploded like a bomb a few minutes ago. A flare so bright and sudden we’re both convinced it’s either a budding U21 going nuclear...or someone powerful enough to normally mask their signature, finally slipped up.

Ember scans with her handheld. “Heat spikes, power signatures, air fractures—all in this small area. Someone fried the perimeter sensors and the drones it released.” She points to the two mutilated drones lying in the wet gutter. “That doesn’t happen accidentally.”

I grunt in agreement. “And the grid marked two signatures?”

“Two,” she confirms. “Dual anomalies. That’ll really make Father piss himself.”

Our purpose tonight is two-fold: corporate job obligations and personal necessity.

One: Obviously we need to investigate the anomaly blip before Vikktor sends in extraction teams.

Two: I need to secure a few pieces of black-market hardware that I need for my...“unofficial” cybernetics work in the lab. The kind of parts you can’t request without Vikktor asking questions. The kind of parts that help me build a few things off record.

We were already halfway here when the alarms went off. Perfect timing.

Ember nudges me, chin lifting toward the wall ahead. “Look.”