Chapter 3
The nights in New Detroit were forever starved of starlight, illuminated only by the cold neon piercing through the toxic smog.
On the ninety-eighth floor of my cloud-tier penthouse, I leaned back in my soft leather chair, watching the live feeds from the undercity broadcasted across the holographic array.
On the screens, the acid rain of District 4, Block 13, was pouring down in thick sheets.
Sylvia was soaked to the bone. Her absurdly expensive photosensitive fiber dress was now caked in putrid black sludge, clinging to her body like a wrung-out dirty rag.
She was struggling to drag the half-dead Christian toward a rusted basement door.
By the door stood a thug from one of District 4's loan-shark gangs.
Biting her pale lips, Sylvia pressed her trembling finger against an electronic contract that throbbed with a blood-red light.
Just to rent this leaky tin-shack for fifty credits a month, the former CEO’s wife—who used to drop a hundred grand on a single bottle of wine—had just signed the slums' most notorious "Organ-Mortgage Loan."
She had put up her own corneas as collateral.
After signing the contract, as if drained of her last ounce of strength, she dragged Christian inside and collapsed onto a moldy mattress.
On the feed, the early stages of the Genetic Aberration Syndrome had covered Christian’s skin with dense, sickening red rashes. He squirmed on the bed like a maggot, unable to suppress his low groans of agony.
Sylvia, however, lay motionless, as if already dead.
The neural interface on my retina gave a faint pulse. The face of the black-market boss, Zack, patched directly into a picture-in-picture stream. "Mr. Vance, we’ve guided the 'waste' into signing the loan and moving in, exactly to your specifications. Shall we initiate the next phase of punishment immediately?"
"No." I took a sip of synthetic liquor from my glass. Watching the hollowed-out, dead-eyed Sylvia on the screen, a cruel arc curled the corner of my lips. "The pain of falling from the tower numbs over time. Punishing them now won't touch their souls."
"Let them rot for a month. I want the acid rain and the starvation of the undercity to grind her arrogance into dust, bit by bit. Let her adapt to the suffering until she deludes herself into thinking she can take root and bloom in the mud."
"Finally, just when she sees a glimmer of hope... that is when we pull the net."
"I get it, boss. Make 'em wish they were dead." Zack flashed a sinister grin and cut the feed.
One month later.
This was Sylvia’s thirty-first day in the undercity.
Those hands—once nourished with exotic essential oils, meant only for playing classical piano—were now covered in rough, yellow calluses and dark-red chilblains.
Over this past month, to protect Christian and pay off the snowballing loan-shark debt, Sylvia had endured torments beyond ordinary imagination.
She worked three jobs a day: sorting toxic waste at a heavy-metal salvage yard at dawn, washing blood-stained gang uniforms at a black-market laundromat in the afternoon, and playing a serving girl at "Neon Rust"—the most chaotic bar in District 4—at night.
Yet, despite it all, she believed that as long as they could survive, as long as she could redeem Christian’s lost manhood, there was hope.
Right now, the heavy metal music inside Neon Rust was deafening.
"Pour the damn drink! Are you blind, you stupid bitch?!"
An undercity mercenary with titanium teeth kicked Sylvia sharply in the calf, throwing her entirely off balance. She crashed hard into an iron table slick with vomit and engine oil.
Cheap vodka shattered all over the floor, jagged glass digging deep into her palms.
"I'm sorry... Sir, I'll clean it up right now..." Sylvia didn't fight back. She didn't even scream.
A month ago, she would have felt utterly humiliated. But now, she simply picked herself up with numb familiarity, forced an apologetic smile, and swallowed the blood pooling in her mouth.
"Piss off! You ruined the mood!" The mercenary hawked a thick glob of spit right onto her face and threw a few greasy credit chips at her head.
Trembling, Sylvia knelt on the floor, gathering the credits against her chest like a beaten dog.
Five hundred credits. Today’s quota was met.
She calculated silently in her head: Just save for another half month, and we can go to the underground cyber-clinic in Sector 7 to buy Christian a second-hand pneumatic bionic unit.
It would be cheap junk, but at least it would make him a man again. Then, they could lean on each other and survive the rest of their lives together, just like countless other tragic lovers in the slums.
At the thought of this, a flash of sickly, delusional hope and vigor actually sparked in her eyes.
At that exact moment, in the underground apartment of Block 13.
Dark green moss crept along the walls.
Christian sat at a broken table, using a metal file to scrape rust off a pile of mechanical gears.
Over the past month, thanks to the cheap nutrient pastes Sylvia had worked herself half to death to buy, his mutation syndrome had been barely suppressed at the rash stage. He was even stable enough to take on some bottom-barrel manual labor.
But he hated every second of it.
He hated these greasy gears, he hated the mold in the air, and most of all, he hated looking at Sylvia's face every day—a face that had lost its refined luster and grown rough from grueling labor.
Screech. The rusted iron door was pushed open.
The towering black-market boss, Zack, walked in. He casually tossed a tube of faint-blue, B-grade stabilizing gel and an unmarked cred-chip flashing a high-city crest onto the rusted table.
"You..." Christian flinched.
"This gel will cure those disgusting rashes, and the chip holds fifty thousand credits—enough to buy a shuttle ticket the hell out of New Detroit." Zack cut straight to the chase, staring into Christian’s instantly fixated eyes, laying out my exact terms. "I want the woman. My boss opened an underground flesh-house, and he has a distinct taste for fallen upper-class princesses."
Zack lowered his voice, hissing like a viper. "She’s loaded with organ debt and living worse than a dog. Tomorrow night, you trick her into going to the cyber-clinic in Sector 7 and hand her over to me. Do that, and this money is yours."
Sell Sylvia to become a whore?
Christian's heart hammered against his ribs.
Even though Sylvia had kept him alive this past month, the resentment he harbored for her grew like a cancer every single day.
If this bitch hadn't sought the thrill of cheating, why would the Vance Corporation have ruined me?
Every bit of suffering I endure now is entirely Sylvia’s fault!
Watching her check on him with fake warmth every day only made him sick to his stomach!
There was no internal struggle. Not a single shred of guilt for the wife who had suffered with him.
Faced with fifty thousand credits and the temptation to escape the slums forever, Christian made the choice that perfectly aligned with his true nature.
"Deal." Christian snatched the cred-chip and the gel, his eyes glinting with cold venom. "Delivery tomorrow night. Take her away, and make sure she never bothers me again!"
"Smart choice. I love pure, unadulterated scum like you." Zack smiled with satisfaction, turning and vanishing into the rainy, dark night.
Half an hour later.
The iron door creaked open again.
Sylvia walked in, covered in mud and bootprints.
She had an ugly, purple bruise on her forehead from a thrown shot glass, her plastic uniform was torn to shreds, and one of her wrists was swollen at an unnatural angle.
Yet, cradled carefully in her arms were two boxes of cheap compressed meat-paste and a bottle of low-grade soothing spray she had traded for.
"Chris... I'm home," Sylvia leaned against the wall weakly. Looking at Christian at the table, she forced out a smile filled with deep, lingering attachment.
Dragging her swollen leg, she walked over and set the meat-paste on the table, a faint light shining in her eyes. "Good news—I saved another five hundred credits. Just half a month more, and we can go to Sector 7 and get you that pneumatic bionic unit. Then... you’ll be like a normal man again, and we... we can start over."
Saying this, a trace of almost girlish shyness actually crossed her face.
On the moldy mattress, Christian turned his head.
Looking at the scarred woman whose eyes overflowed with hope, he began to smile—slowly, gently.
"You've worked so hard, Syl," his voice was unusually soft. "Don't worry... Tomorrow, everything is going to be alright."
"We don't have to wait half a month."
Christian suddenly cut her off, his tone disarmingly sweet.
He stood up and gently gripped Sylvia's shoulders.
Sylvia froze. "What do you mean?"
"I landed a massive hacker contract today," Christian looked into her eyes, lying without a twitch of hesitation, his face radiating deep affection. "I helped a District 4 gang crack their rival's firewall. They paid me a huge deposit. We already have enough money."
"Really?!" Sylvia’s eyes widened in utter disbelief as tears instantly spilled over her lashes.
"Of course it's real. I've already made the appointment at the black clinic in Sector 7."
Christian reached out, wiping the grime from her cheek, his eyes so tender they looked ready to melt.
"We’re going tomorrow night. Not only am I getting my bionic unit, but I booked you a deep genetic-detox treatment. You’ve suffered so much in the acid rain this month. After the detox tomorrow, your chemical burns will heal, and we can finally welcome our new life."
Hearing "detox treatment" and "new life," Sylvia paused, then went entirely still.
The grievances, the beatings, the swallowed vomit she had endured over the past month—all of it felt magically rewarded in this single moment.
She suddenly burst into uncontrollable sobs, burying her face deep into Christian's chest, her arms wrapping tightly around the man she had risked her life to protect.
It was all worth it!
She completely failed to notice that in the dark, as Christian stroked her hair, there wasn't a single drop of love in his movements.
His gaze was cold and feverish—like a butcher evaluating a pig that had finally been fattened up, ready to be weighed and sold for a great price tomorrow.
