The commercial strip of Acedia’s 8th Tier was a sensory barrage that made the silent, creeping dread of the research station feel like a distant dream. Where there had been the smell of rust and decay, here was the overwhelming perfume of sizzling street food, pungent incense coils burning in vendor stalls, and the sharp, clean scent of ozone from illicit energy weapon dealers. Where there had been the crunch of glass underfoot, now there was the constant shuffle-clatter of thousands of feet, the babble of haggling in a dozen dialects, and the thumping backbeat of competing music streams bleeding from open doorways.

  Rhaene inhaled deeply, expanding her lungs with the foul, vibrant air. A slow, familiar grin spread across her face. “Now this is more like it. Can’t say I hated the fresh air though.”

  They moved through the crowd, slowly easing up. Sloughing off the tension of leaving Aren behind. Arbor was an island, his optics performing rapid scans of every stall they passed, his path a perfect, efficient, straight line. Rhaene on the other hand, was a wrecking ball of impulse, swerving towards anything shiny, loud, or edible.

  “We require durable, easily cleanable fabrics in a size approximating the child’s skeletal frame,” Arbor stated, dodging a cart piled high with blinking scrap. “Thermal regulation is a primary concern. Prioritize functionality over aesthetics.”

  “Uh huh,” Rhaene said, already veering off. She stopped at a stall hung with hundreds of garish, holographic belt buckles. “Ooh. Shiny.” She held up one that projected a tiny, shimmering scorpion. “Aren would love this.”

  “A belt buckle is not clothing. It is a pointless accessory that would only draw more attention and could be used as a projectile or swallowed.”

  “You’re no fun.” She put it back, but the act of browsing, of looking at something with no purpose other than momentary amusement, seemed to loosen something in her shoulders. The tense, protective hunch she’d carried since the station began to melt away.

  They found a stall selling practical work-wear. Rhaene immediately gravitated towards a tiny, black leather jacket studded with chrome spikes. “This. This is the look. Miniature wasteland marauder.”

  Arbor picked up a simple, grey tunic and tough canvas trousers. “This has a 87% higher durability rating, is less likely to snag on debris, and lacks hazardous protrusions.”

  “It’s boring.”

  “It is practical.”

  “He’s a kid, not a soldier.”

  The vendor, a tired-looking imp, watched them argue over his merchandise with detached boredom.

  In the end, they bought both. And two more tunics. And socks that Arbor insisted were a non-negotiable purchase. And a pair of sturdy black, lace-up boots that Rhaene declared imperative.

  As Arbor meticulously arranged the purchases into a compact bundle, Rhaene wandered to the next stall, which sold an array of cured meats on hooks. She bought two sticks of something jerky-like and wandered back, chewing on one.

  “See? This isn’t so hard,” she said around a mouthful, offering the other stick to Arbor out of habit before remembering. She shrugged and ate that one too. “Get stuff. Don’t overthink it. You used to be better at not overthinking, Tinman.”

  “My processing capacity has been rerouted to compensate for your increased unpredictability,” he said, securing the bundle to a strap on his back. “It is a drain on my resources.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” But she was smiling. It was her old smile, the sharp, teasing one that didn’t reach her eyes with any warmth. The weight of immediate, mortal danger was gone. The weight of a small, watching presence was temporarily lifted. She was back in her element.

  They passed a noisy arena bar, the sounds of shouting and clashing metal spilling into the street. Rhaene’s head turned, her fighter’s instinct piqued. “Five minutes? See if there’s a good brawl going?”

  “Our mission is procurement, not entertainment. The child is with an unstable chemical enthusiast. Time is a factor.”

  “Spoilsport.” But she kept walking, her pace a loose-limbed swagger. “Y’know, for a second back there, I was turning into my mom.”

  Arbor’s head rotated towards her. “Your maternal unit’s data is not in my files.”

  “Lucky you. She was a worrier. Always fretting about everything. ‘Rhaene, don’t climb that, you’ll break your horns. Rhaene, don’t eat that, it’s probably poisonous. Rhaene, don’t pick fights with things twice your size.’” She mimicked a high, nagging voice. “Drove me nuts. Looking at Aren, thinking about socks and… and nutrition… I could feel myself starting to sound like her. All the fun just getting sucked out.”

  “Concern for the well-being of a dependent is a logical survival trait, not a personality flaw,” Arbor offered.

  “It’s a buzzkill,” Rhaene countered, kicking a discarded can. It clattered brilliantly across the pavement. “Worrying doesn’t stop bad things from happening. It just makes you tense while you wait for them. My mom worried every day. Didn’t stop the roof from caving in.” Her voice was flippant, but the words hung with a sudden, hollow finality.

  She shook her head, as if physically dispelling the thought. “Anyway. Point is, we got the stuff. The kid’s safe-ish. We’re not dead. And I’m not gonna spend this life turning into my mother. Deal?”

  “I do not agree with your premise, but I acknowledge your return to baseline operational parameters,” Arbor said. “Your normal levels of recklessness are at least a predictable variable.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  They reached a stall selling sundries. Rhaene, on a whim, bought a small, soft-bristled brush. “For the kid’s hair,” she said, defensively, at Arbor’s silent look. “It’s a nest. It’s unsanitary.”

  “I did not object. It is a practical purchase.”

  “Damn right it is.”

  As they turned to head back towards the Marrows, their path took them through a less crowded side-alley. The noise of the market faded to a murmur. For a moment, it was just the two of them again, walking through ruins of a different kind, piles of discarded packaging, stained walls, the quiet hum of a malfunctioning light-strip.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  It was a mirror of the station’s courtyard, but alive, dripping with the messy vitality Acedia offered instead of silent death.

  Rhaene didn’t look as worried as she used to be. In Arbor’s eyes, she had started to look like herself again, a demon walking through the ruins of the world, finding a bitter, bright kind of fun in the sheer act of persistence. And Arbor, though he would never admit it, found the return of her irritating, illogical energy preferable to the alternative. A predictable variable was, after all, the cornerstone of any good logic. Even a glitched one.

  As Rhaene and Arbor returned to Cid's domicile, not much had changed.

  The air in Cid’s apartment still tasted of acid and ozone, but now held a new layer of… peanut butter? Aren sat exactly where they’d left him, cross-legged on the floor. In front of him was a shallow petri dish filled with a dollop of beige paste and a single, pristine safety pin.

  “He was eyeing the hydrofluoric bath,” Cid explained, not looking up from a spectrometer. “I needed a non-lethal distraction. The paste has adhesive and plasticizing properties under certain conditions. The pin is… shiny. It’s been forty minutes. He hasn’t eaten either. Surprisingly.”

  Aren looked up as they entered. He didn’t smile, but his posture relaxed a fraction. He pointed at the peanut butter, then at the pin, then made a small, inquisitive head tilt.

  “See? Surprising,” Cid muttered.

  “You gave a child a potentially edible sharp object,” Arbor stated, his optic lenses zooming on the pin.

  “And he didn’t stab me or himself. That’s a positive behavioral marker. You’re welcome.” Cid finally looked at Rhaene. “He’s weirdly clean for a child thing. Licked himself like a cat for a solid ten minutes."

  Rhaene ignored her, striding over to Aren. “Alright, science experiment’s over. Time for a makeover. Let's get you out of that filthy gown” She hoisted him up. “Bathroom. Now. And you,” she pointed at Arbor, “clothes.”

  Ten minutes later, a minor miracle had occurred. Aren, scrubbed pink and wearing the simple grey tunic and canvas trousers, looked almost… ordinary. The clothes were a little big, making him seem smaller, but definitely cleaner. His damp, blond hair was neatly, if awkwardly, brushed by Rhaene’s new purchase. He stood patiently as Arbor knelt to lace up the sturdy boots.

  Cid watched from her workbench, a faint smirk on her face. “Huh. Looks almost like a real person. What’s the plan? Gonna get him a little briefcase?”

  “We're leaving him with you and headed to the Guild Hall,” Rhaene said, stuffing the leather jacket and spare clothes into a bag. “Need work. Can’t live off one salvage job forever. We'll pay you a small bit later for your help.”

  Cid’s smirk faded into something more calculated. “The Guild Hall. Right. We'll be fine here, but you two be careful in there. Lots of new players. Real ambitious types.” Her acidic green eyes flicked to the door, as if someone might be listening in the corridor. “The wind’s shifting in Acedia. Smells like greed and cheap stimulants.”

  Arbor’s head tilted slightly, a motion only Rhaene recognized as his high-alert scan. “Noted,” was all he said.

  The Acedia Mercenary Guild Hall wasn’t just a hall; it was a fortress. It occupied the gutted shell of an old financial tower, its lower floors a frenzy of noise and motion, its upper floors shrouded in the private dealings of major contractors. The air inside was a familiar stew of sweat, oil, cheap synth-alcohol, and tension.

  As they pushed through the heavy blast doors, the din hit them, a roar of shouted conversations, clinking glasses, and the constant electronic chirp of job postings updating on massive overhead boards. Demons of every size and subtype milled around, examining contracts, haggling with clerks behind thick plexiglass, or nursing wounds and drinks in corner booths.

  This was the closest thing to law the wasteland had. If the Guild stamped a contract, the action within, theft, extraction, even sanctioned murder, was legal. Its authority was absolute because it was backed by the only force that mattered: Overwhelming economic interest. The Guild kept the sin of Acedia profitable.

  And within this chaotic ecosystem, Arbor and Rhaene had a… particular reputation.

  A path cleared slightly as they moved towards the main board. It wasn’t out of fear, but a kind of wary respect. A hulking bruiser with knuckle-dusters grafted to his hands gave Rhaene a curt nod.

  “Kancu.” A sleek, cyber-eyed scout tracking bounty prices flicked a glance at Arbor and subtly moved her data-slate to hide her screen.

  They were known. Not famous, not legendary, but reliably, dangerously competent. The “Screws”, as the quartermaster sometimes called them, on account of Arbor being a robot and Rhaene definitely missing a few.

  Rhaene soaked it in, her posture expanding, the last of the maternal worry evaporating in the guild’s competitive atmosphere. This was her stage.

  Arbor, meanwhile, was scanning. Not just the job board, but the room. His sensors parsed faces, heat signatures, patterns of movement. He noted a cloaked figure lingering near the notice for vermin extermination in the lower ducts who hadn’t moved in 4.2 minutes. He logged a janitorial drone that completed a circuit past their position twice, its optical sensor pausing minutely each time. Standard guild paranoia? Perhaps.

  *Processing anomaly: Repeating thermal signature, third-floor balcony observation post. Faint. Possibly a cooling vent. Probability: 87%. Suppress alert.*

  He didn’t mention it to Rhaene. Not yet.

  They approached a clerk they knew, a harried imp named Krix whose desk was protected by more scratched plexi than most.

  “Kancu. Arbor,” Krix rasped, not looking up. “Heard you pulled the Theta-7 run. Clean?”

  “Clean enough,” Rhaene said, leaning on the counter. “What’s juicy?”

  Krix tapped his screen. “Usual dreck. Debt collections. Pest control, some kinda armored tunnel weasels breeding in the Hydroponics Vats. A few asset recoveries from the Glitterdelve… high melt risk on those.” He scrolled, then paused. “Got a standing one from Spire Administration. ‘Perimeter Cleanliness Maintenance.’ Keep the squatters and scrap-jackers off the lower Spire support gantries. Boring, but ongoing pay. Fits your… low-profile vibe lately.”

  It was a gentle dig. Guild gossip traveled fast; their sudden acquisition of a child was probably already a topic of speculation in the less reputable corners of the hall.

  “Anything that pays well and doesn’t involve tunnel weasels,” Rhaene said, ignoring the implication.

  As Krix pulled up more listings, Arbor looked upwards, not at the job board, but at a large, digital banner that cycled through the Guild’s most-wanted. A flickering image of a demon with a plasma-scarred face appeared, along with a staggering bounty.

  He looked through his camera logs, searching for any of these faces. They'd definitely be able to turn in any of them for a quick buck. Arbor’s internal log was interrupted by Krix.

  “Here. Warehouse dispute in the Foundry District. Two smuggling crews claiming the same cache. Client wants the cache secured and the dispute ‘simplified.’ Guild authorization for lethal resolution on site if met with resistance.” He slid a token under the plexi. “High yield. Messy.”

  Rhaene took the token, a feral glint in her eyes. “Now you’re talking.” She looked at Arbor, who gave a single, slight nod. The job was within the city, which meant they wouldn’t have to leave Aren for long stretches. It was violent, which was familiar. It paid well.

  As they turned to leave, weaving back through the crowd, Arbor’s sensors pinged again.

  *Secondary observation: Cloaked figure from vermin board has departed. Janitorial drone is now cleaning a stationary stain 15 meters west. Thermal signature on third-floor balcony is gone.*

  But as they pushed the blast doors open, stepping back into Acedia’s grimy embrace, a different sensor triggered, a passive motion detector on Arbor’s rear-facing array. It caught the reflection in a polished brass fitting beside the door: a figure, half-hidden in the shadow of a support column across the plaza, turning away a fraction too slowly.

  The reflection was blurry, indistinct. But the shape was wrong for a typical merc. It was too still, too purposefully obscured. And the head was too... round?

  Anomaly logged. Threat index: low. Profile: observational.

  He said nothing. Arbor didn't want to put Rhaene on high alert. They had a job. They had the kid. And someone, as Cid had hinted, was watching. But somebody was always watching, it didn't particularly matter who.