Location: Muchachos Restaurant — Back Room — Night
The back room was a cathedral of smoke and shadow.
Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, their glow dimmed by years of dust and the haze that drifted up from the tables. The air was thick—not with steam, with something else. Something that clung to the lungs and made the edges of vision soft.
Men and women moved between the tables.
Their eyes were glassy. Their movements were loose, uncoordinated, the movements of people who had taken something and were waiting for it to take them. Some sat on crates, their heads back, their mouths open. Others leaned against walls, their fingers tracing patterns on the concrete.
A group of young men huddled near a stack of fruit crates.
The crates were labeled—oranges, apples, limes—but the fruit inside was not fruit. It was plastic. And beneath the plastic, wrapped in brown paper, were bricks of Haze. The men worked quickly, pulling bricks from the crates, weighing them, wrapping them in plastic, placing them into backpacks.
One of them—a kid with a thin mustache and hollow eyes—popped a pill.
His body tensed. His eyes rolled back. His mouth opened in a silent O. Then he relaxed, his shoulders dropping, his head lolling.
Effexaine. The pill that made you feel like you were floating. The pill that made you forget where you were and who you were and why any of it mattered.
Another kid—younger, his face still soft—laughed.
"Bro, you look like a fish."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
"After I finish this."
They laughed together.
The haze drifted.
---
Ba walked through the room.
His boots were heavy on the concrete. His shoulders were broad. His face was the face of a man who had seen this a hundred times and had stopped being surprised.
Diego followed.
His posture was straight. His hands were at his sides. His eyes—wide and brown and innocent—moved across the room, taking in the crates, the bricks, the glassy-eyed men and women.
Calm, Ba thought. Too calm.
He's trying to act tough. Trying to look like he's been here before.
But when we get down to the deeds—when he sees what really happens—he'll start crying for his mommy. They always do.
Ba sneered.
Punk.
---
A woman stepped out from behind a stack of crates.
She was tall, her hair dark and long, her body curved in ways that made the other men stop and stare. Her lips were painted red. Her eyes were lined with kohl. She wore a black dress that ended mid-thigh and heels that added inches to her height.
Mariela.
She was not alone.
Another woman stood beside her—shorter, her hair cropped short, her arms covered in tattoos. Valeria. Her eyes were fixed on Diego with the kind of intensity that made small animals freeze.
"Well, well," Mariela said.
Her voice was honey over broken glass.
"What do we have here? A new lamb for the slaughter?"
"He's not a lamb," Ba said. "He's a dishwasher."
"Same thing."
Valeria stepped forward.
Her eyes moved up and down Diego's frame—the soft face, the wide eyes, the loose clothes.
"He looks like he hasn't eaten in weeks."
"Maybe he hasn't."
"Maybe he should go back to wherever he came from."
Diego's expression didn't change.
His voice—soft, high, sweet—cut through the smoke.
"I thought I was in a squirrel lair. The stink of you two is everywhere."
Mariela's eyes narrowed.
"Hey, kid. If I were you, I'd start bowing my head. Not spewing nonsense everywhere."
"Maybe you should get your tongue checked. The filth coming from it is unbearable. Maybe it's because the one feeding it to you is your toyboy over there."
He pointed at Valeria.
Valeria's face contorted.
Her body lunged—not toward Diego, toward the space between them. Her fists were raised. Her teeth were bared.
Ba stepped between them.
His hand pressed against Valeria's chest.
"If I were you, I wouldn't."
Valeria's eyes burned.
But she stepped back.
---
The room had gone quiet.
The workers stopped weighing. The pill-poppers stopped popping. The glassy-eyed men and women turned their heads, their eyes—still unfocused, still soft—fixed on the confrontation.
"What's that pendejo doing?"
"Which pendejo?"
"The new one. Diego. The one who looks like he crawled out of a drain."
"Crawled out of a rock, more like. He doesn't know how high the sky is."
"Doesn't he know who Valeria is? She's former Maylay Bureau. The Mexican agency. One of their operatives."
"A force to be reckoned with. Skill and strength that don't make sense."
"He's dead."
"He's dead."
"He's so dead."
The words drifted through the smoke, soft and certain.
---
Ba tried to reason.
"Look, Valeria. The kid's new. He doesn't know the rules. He doesn't know who you are. Just let it go."
"Diego," Valeria said. "That's what they call him? Fine. Fine."
She stepped around Ba.
Her eyes found Diego's.
"So you're a baby who needs a grownup for protection? Is that it? You're not so tough without your babysitter?"
From the corner, a younger woman spoke.
Lucia. Mariela's sister. Her voice was high, eager, the voice of someone who had been practicing her lines in front of a mirror.
"My sister and Valeria are a power couple. Meant for the heavens. And you? You're just a nobody. All talk. No strength."
Diego's head turned.
His eyes—wide, brown, innocent—met Lucia's.
Then they moved to Ba.
"Step back."
Ba's eyebrow rose.
"What?"
"Step back."
Ba stared at him for a moment.
Then he stepped back.
His expression shifted—from skepticism to something that looked almost like pity.
"You asked for it," he muttered.
---
Valeria attacked.
Her body moved in a way that was not natural—her limbs extending farther than they should, her torso twisting at angles that should have broken bone. Her fists were not fists. They were blurs. Her fighting style belonged to no school, no master, no recognizable lexicon. A retreat that looked like an invitation until it became an attack. A step forward that became a dodge.
Her first punch aimed for Diego's throat.
Diego's head moved.
Not fast. Not slow. Just... elsewhere.
The fist passed where his neck had been.
Her second punch aimed for his temple.
His head moved again.
The fist passed through empty air.
Her third punch aimed for his chest.
His body swayed—not backward, to the side—and the strike whistled past his ribs.
His eyes were half-closed.
Not from fear. From focus.
---
Through his perception, Diego saw something else.
The ridicule. The mockery. The belief that he was weak, helpless, a child playing at adulthood—it was energy. Not aetherflux. Something older. Something deeper.
Kokoro.
The heart-field. The subconscious force. The ripple before the wave. The thought before the action.
Tenryu pulsed within him—the vessel that held it all. One unit of Tenryu, worth a hundred units of aetherflux conflux. The difference between a candle and a bonfire.
Every sneer, every doubt, every whisper of "he's dead"—they're feeding me.
Not much. But enough.
Enough to see where her fists will land before she throws them.
Enough to move before she moves.
Enough.
Valeria's fourth punch came from below—an uppercut aimed at his jaw.
Diego's head tilted back.
The fist passed within a finger's width of his chin.
Her fifth punch came from the left—a hook aimed at his temple.
His head dipped.
The fist passed over his hair.
Her sixth punch came from the right—a straight aimed at his nose.
His body twisted.
The fist passed beside his ear.
Valeria stepped back.
Her chest heaved. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her eyes—wide, uncertain—stared at Diego.
"Who the hell are you?"
The room was silent.
The workers had stopped pretending to work. The pill-poppers had stopped popping. Even the glassy-eyed men and women had turned their heads, their unfocused eyes fixed on the dishwasher who had just dodged six punches without throwing one of his own.
Ba's mouth was open.
He wasn't supposed to do that, Ba thought. He was supposed to cry. He was supposed to beg. He was supposed to prove that he was just another soft-handed nobody.
Not... this.
Not whatever this is.
Lucia's face was pale.
Mariela's lipstick was smeared—she had been biting it.
The man who had called Diego "pendejo" was now staring with the expression of someone who had just seen a ghost.
---
Diego's expression didn't change.
His body—relaxed, loose, still—seemed to radiate something that wasn't quite confidence. Something quieter.
His head tilted to the side.
Not much. Just enough.
His lips curled.
Not a smile. The beginning of one.
"Me?"
His voice was still soft. Still high. Still sweet.
"I'm your pappy."
He straightened.
His hand reached up. His fingers brushed his collar—adjusting it, though it hadn't been crooked.
Then he turned.
He walked back toward Ba.
His footsteps were soft on the concrete.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The haze drifted.
And the room—the whole room—held its breath.
---