I watched the lunch crowd, made up of more aliens than humans, and took my first bite of pierogi. It tasted much better, more pronounced, than I’d expected. The onions were spicier. The cheese creamer. The meat juicer. I hunched deeper into my seat. Were the conversations in here louder? My nostrils twitched. The smells more potent?
The realisation hit me hard as a slug round. The stormtech was still sharpening my senses, letting me hear the hushed conversation about chainship schematics two Torven were having in the back of the restaurant, letting me see the individual feathers on birds wheeling around the domes outside. Every clatter of utensils, every hiss of steam, every breath. I felt it all. I clenched my fist and felt the stormtech instantly swirl under my skin. This was how I’d felt when I came home from the war. The heightened effects of the stormtech slowly dissolving, while still desperately searching for something to hang onto, a way to keep itself active.
As long as I let it dissolve and didn’t give it anything it could work with, I’d be fine.
I’d be fine.
I leaned into my wooden seat, gazing through the flexiscreen porthole that showed chainships, frigates and cargoships ducking in and out of various glowing dockyards honeycombed in the lower regions of the asteroid. I watched the stream of ships, unable to help wondering if any had New Vladivostok on their course schedule. I hadn’t been home in years now. Couldn’t say I sorely missed it, but there’s a sense of comfort in the familiar, in a space that’s shaped and nurtured you. Kuraishiguro, New Vladi’s largest settlement, was big enough to get lost in, but small enough that you could learn every street, roadway and mountain pass.
It was ironic I’d been drawn here. Kasia and I had always wanted to escape Kuraishiguro. Take Artyom and our mother and escape our father for good. But we knew he’d hunt us down and kill us if we did. He’d said as much, usually while delivering one of his thrashings. Just try it, Vakov. I’ll find you. See if I don’t. He had connections with every criminal enterprise he’d worked for. People he’d use to find us, the same people who protected him whenever we reported his violence. But we were planning to risk it anyway. Only then Kasia had been taken from us. I’d held Artyom tight against my chest as he sobbed and sobbed for hours, while I held back my own tears because I was the oldest now, and I had to be stable and strong for him. More than ever. Our mother couldn’t protect us – she was too afraid of my father to do anything but jump to obey when he barked at her. She never had the guts Kasia did. Never raised us like our sister had.
I’d thought bringing justice to our sister’s killer would bring us some sort of peace. It only made me angry. Angry with the people who allowed it to happen. Angry with the people who’d sighed and shaken their heads and muttered appropriate things and forgotten about her the next day. Angry with the whole planet. I don’t know how many nights I spent on the streets, full of too much booze and too little sense, sniffing out a fight. Didn’t know what to do with myself, except get into trouble.
When I was about sixteen, one of the few hotel highrises on the planet hosted a soiree for businessmen and entrepreneurs. On New Vladi, that meant organised crime families. Me and Artyom had explored all the underground bars and seedy vidgame dens, and we wanted a bigger adventure. So we’d walked into the marbled lobby, pretending to be related to one of the smaller families. Somehow, we got access to the opulent penthouse bar, where hundreds of the most dangerous and violent people on the planet had gathered to talk business. Swirling, intricate tattoos of animals and bones indicated their ranks. They didn’t suspect a thing as we mingled among them, enjoying free food and drink that’d have cost us half a year’s wages. I still remember sipping a silver-dusted vodka sour, leaning against the balustrade and taking in the sprawling view. Overlooking the dark wilderness of the silent forests and brooding black mountains on one side, the concrete cityscape on the other. Lonely highways winding through mountain passes like black veins through to hinterlands populated with dormant volcanoes and glaciers. Neon signs ten storeys tall plastered across brutalist buildings, blinking through the fog. I’d never seen my city like that before. Never realised how small it was. How isolated. Or how many stars there were in the sky, glinting like neon dust. I’d glanced up to see the green concentric lights of a chainship lifting off from its shuttle pad and sailing into the dark skies, disappearing into the infinite ocean of stars and galaxies. I wondered where else I could go. What places in the universe that offered escape from the poverty and violence I’d known all my life.
As the night had worn on, the arriving guests became more and more notorious. We’d glance at each other across the lounge, both wondering if we should slip out now or risk staying longer. Giddy with the rush of adrenaline and expensive vodka, we’d kept pushing it. Ordering crazier and crazier drinks from the bar, trying the most expensive dishes while we could get away with it. It was only around 2am, when the older members had begun to bleed out of the venue, that people noticed us. Including men with irezumi tattoos.
I saw them approaching before Artyom did. They’d made a mistake in waiting for the superior families to leave. We made our escape down a side stairwell, our footsteps echoing as we raced through the hotel corridors. My head foggy with booze, I’d pushed us into
