I couldn't stay in that motel room any longer. The walls felt like they were closing in, the paranoia gnawing at the edges of my mind like rust on metal. Sophie was still resting in rest mode on the bed, her breathing perfectly even. Skylar's disappearance was everywhere now — the news feeds, the holographic billboards, the whispers on the street. I needed air. I needed to move.
I slipped out quietly and walked the neon-soaked streets of Skyfall City's outer layers. The night was alive with chaos: flickering red and pink signs advertising cheap sex and black-market augmentations, street vendors shouting over the hum of flying cars overhead, gangs loitering on corners with glowing cybernetic eyes. The air smelled of fried street food, ozone, and desperation.
I turned down a narrow alleyway between two decaying hab-blocks, the ground littered with trash and broken glass. That's when I saw her.
She was leaning against the graffiti-covered wall, thin and small, maybe sixteen or seventeen at most. She didn't look like an adult. Her clothes were torn and dirty — a short skirt that barely covered anything and a cropped top that hung loosely on her frail frame. Her hair was messy and unkempt, her face pale and hollow-cheeked. She had no visible implants, no glowing neural ports, no chrome. Just raw, damaged skin and tired eyes that had seen too much.
She noticed me and pushed off the wall, walking over with a forced sway in her hips that looked practiced but broken.
"Hey, mister," she said, voice raspy and young. "You want to fuck me? I'll do anything you want… but you gotta pay first."
I stopped walking. For a split second, I actually thought about it. The stress, the paranoia, the constant need to feel something — anything — to drown out the noise in my head. But then I took a good look at her.
She was clearly abused. Tormented. Probably raped and drugged more times than she could count. Her arms had faint track marks. Her eyes were dull, haunted, but there was a desperate hunger in them — the kind that came from having no other options. She was selling herself because it was the only thing she had left to sell.
I exhaled slowly. "Follow me."
She hesitated for a second, then nodded and fell into step behind me.
We walked a few blocks to a cheap Burger Queen outlet — one of those 24-hour fast-food places that served synthetic meat and greasy fries to the desperate and the broke. The place was dimly lit, the air thick with the smell of frying oil and old grease. I ordered two burgers, two drinks, and some fries. We sat at a sticky plastic table in the corner. She stared at the food like it was a trap.
"Go on," I said. "Eat."
She was hesitant at first, fingers trembling as she picked up the burger. But after a few minutes, hunger won out. She started eating quickly, almost desperately, like she hadn't had a real meal in days. Crumbs fell onto the table as she chewed, her shoulders hunched like she expected someone to snatch it away at any moment.
I watched her for a moment, then asked, "What's your name?"
She swallowed a bite and answered quietly, "Lecy."
I took a good look at her again. No implants. No chrome. No glowing ports. Just a broken teenage girl trying to survive in a city that chewed people up and spat them out. Her skin was marked with old bruises and faint scars. Her eyes were dull, but there was still a spark of something human left in them — fear, hunger, and a quiet desperation.
"Are you going to use me?" she asked suddenly, voice small. "That's what most guys want."
"No," I said. "At least not right now."
She looked confused but didn't argue.
I finished my food and stood up. "We should head back to my room. It's at a hotel nearby."
She nodded and followed me without question.
When we entered the motel room, Sophie was awake, standing near the window in her tight crop top and short skirt. Her eyes flicked to Lecy, then to me.
"Are you hiring teens to fuck now?" Sophie asked, her tone calm but with a hint of something sharper underneath — jealousy mixed with curiosity.
I shook my head. "No. She needs cleaning up. She's joining this fucked-up situation now."
Sophie didn't argue. She simply took Lecy's hand gently and led her into the tiny bathroom. I heard the sound of running water as Sophie helped her wash up.
While they were in there, I sat on the edge of the bed and checked the news with my ocular implants.
The headlines were worse than I expected.
Skylar Voss Speaks Out: "I Was Held Captive and Raped by a Monster"
The clip loaded. Skylar was in a hospital bed, looking frail but composed, her voice trembling with practiced victimhood as she described her ordeal in graphic detail. She named me. She described Sophie as "the synthetic whore he replaced me with." She painted herself as the ultimate survivor and me as the predator who had destroyed her life.
The comments were a flood of hate:
Execute him.
He deserves the death penalty.
How many more girls has he hurt?
I didn't care.
I stood up, walked to the small cabinet in the corner, and pulled out a bottle of cheap alcohol I had bought earlier. I took a long swig, the burn sliding down my throat as memories of my marriage before the divorce flooded back — the fights, the lies, the way Skylar had smiled at me while planning my ruin.
Sophie emerged from the bathroom with Lecy, both of them clean now. Lecy looked a little less broken, but her eyes were still hollow.
I took another drink, the alcohol warming my chest, and stared at the wall.
The weight of everything was crushing me, but I kept drinking, letting the memories and the fear drown in cheap liquor.