RATATATATATA! RATATATATATATA!
Gunfire chewed the concrete to powder.
Chunks of the loading bay wall exploded outward in sharp bursts as automatic fire stitched across the surface, each impact cracking like thunder in a confined sky. Dust filled the air, turning the morning light into something dull and grainy, like the Hollow had already started bleeding into reality.
Cael didn't move. Only coughing to the dust being sprayed from the walls.
'The smells of dead air…'
He stayed crouched behind a collapsed cargo divider, shoulder pressed to cold metal, head tilted just enough to avoid the spray. Bullets snapped overhead, tore past the edges of his cover, sparked against rusted steel.
In his ears, a violin carried a slow, deliberate melody.
It was Calm, measured and precise.
Something from the old civilization. It was clean, structured, untouched by Hollows or the people who lived around them.
He exhaled once, steady.
Then he opened the cylinder of his revolver.
Empty.
"Fuck…"
He reloaded without looking.
One round.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The music swelled slightly, strings rising in quiet tension.
Across the loading bay, someone shouted.
"Push him! He's pinned! MOVE!"
Boots against concrete. Fast. Closing.
Cael snapped the cylinder shut with a soft click.
He didn't rush.
He never rushed.
His other hand reached down, pulling the modified pump-action shotgun closer. The weapon was compact, reinforced along the barrel, worn in the places that mattered. He checked the chamber out of habit.
Loaded.
Good.
Another burst of gunfire hammered his cover, closer this time. One round punched clean through the divider above his shoulder, close enough that he felt the heat of it. But Cael didn't flinch, the rest of the ammo came crashing through which gave him a small massage to the back.
He leaned his head back against the metal for half a second.
The music carried on, Cael hummed to the rhythm of the beat.
He hadn't planned on ending up here.
Not like this.
There had been other options. Not many. Not good ones. But they'd existed.
He could have stayed inside the city. Taken something stable. Processing work. Logistics. The kind of job where the worst thing that happened in a day was someone else's mistake on a form.
Didn't pay much.
Didn't matter much.
Didn't get you shot at.
A bullet clipped the edge of his cover again, snapping him back to the present.
Closer now.
They were advancing.
He adjusted his grip on the revolver.
He'd tried something like normal once.
Didn't last.
NEPS had been an option.
New Eridu Public Security paid better than most legal work. Structured. Controlled. You knew who the enemy was. You knew where the line was.
He hadn't liked the line.
Too many rules about where you could go.
Too many rules about where you couldn't.
Another voice cut through the gunfire:
"Left side! He's still there! Flush him out!"
Footsteps split. Two angles now.
They were trying to box him.
"Amateurs…"
He rolled his shoulders once, loosening them.
The violin dipped, then rose again, the tempo tightening.
The Defense Force had come up too.
Cleaner work. Better gear. Fewer questions.
Also fewer choices.
You went where they told you.
You stopped where they told you.
You didn't look too closely at what happened outside the official reports.
He preferred seeing things for himself.
Even when he didn't like what he saw.
A shadow crossed the edge of his cover.
Too close.
He moved.
Not forward. Not yet.
Just enough to shift his angle.
One of them stepped into view, a hollow raider in patchwork gear, weapon raised, scanning the edge of the divider.
He hadn't seen Cael yet.
That was fine. He put on his respirator and lowers his goggles over his hazel blue eyes and adjusted his hat.
Cael's hand dipped into his coat and came back with something small and matte.
He thumbed the pin loose.
Held it.
Waited.
Debt had been the real reason, not his but his father's.
It usually was.
You didn't end up in the outer ring doing this kind of work because it was your first choice.
You ended up here because everything else stopped being one.
The second raider came into position, opposite side. They were trying to collapse the angle, push him out into the open.
Good coordination.
Bad timing.
Cael stood.Not fully. Just enough.
And tossed the grenade.
It hit the ground between them with a dull clink.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then—
BANG!
A sharp, concussive crack split the air.
White light flooded the space. Sound collapsed into a ringing void. Both raiders staggered, weapons dipping, bodies reacting before their minds could catch up.
The music in Cael's ears didn't change.
He stepped out from cover.
Revolver first.
BANG! BANG!
Two shots.
Clean.
Controlled.
The first raider dropped before he hit the ground.
The second tried to recover, turning blind, weapon swinging wide—
The shotgun came up.
One step forward.
A single blast.
The recoil kicked back into his shoulder, solid and familiar.
Silence followed.
The rest of the loading bay hesitated.
Gunfire stopped.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Cael lowered the shotgun slightly, listening.Counting then repositioning.
Three more. Maybe four. Further back.
Not rushing anymore.
Good.
They were thinking.
He exhaled.
The violin eased into a softer passage, the tension resolving into something almost peaceful.
He checked his revolver.
Four rounds left.
Shotgun…enough.
There were easier ways to make a living.
Safer ones.
Quieter ones.
He could have taken them.
Might have even lasted longer.
He stepped forward, out from the broken cover and into the open space of the loading bay, boots crunching lightly over debris.
Across from him, the remaining raiders shifted, uncertain now.
Good.
He tilted his head slightly, listening to the music.
Then looked up.
"Could've done something else," he said, almost to himself.
His grip tightened on the revolver.
"NEPS. Defense Force. Desk job."
A faint pause.
Another step forward.
"Something normal."
The raiders raised their weapons again.
The music reached its quiet peak.
Cael moved.
A blur of motion—angle, timing, precision.
Gunfire erupted again, but it was already too late.
And somewhere between one shot and the next, between movement and stillness, between the order of the music and the chaos of the world around him—
the thought crossed his mind, brief and fleeting.
Where's the thrill in that?
Cael shifted left, not fast just enough.
A burst of rounds tore through where his chest had been half a second ago.
Late.
Always late.
He raised the revolver.
BANG!
One raider dropped mid-stride, momentum carrying him forward into the concrete.
BANG!
Second—shoulder shot. Not lethal. Didn't need to be. The man spun, weapon flying from his grip.
Cael didn't look at him again.
He was already moving.
The violin in his ears tightened—strings pulling, tempo rising. He stepped into it, matching the beat like it was timing his body for him.
A third raider fired wildly, panic setting in.
"Where the hell is he—?!"
Cael answered.
BANG!
Clean through the throat.
The man collapsed, choking on whatever he had left to say.
"Three left," Cael muttered.
"Status?" a voice crackled in his ear.
Calm. Filtered. Familiar.
"Busy!"
Cael didn't stop moving.
"Bit late on the update, dear." the muffled female voice said dryly. "I managed to finish off another client's job and yet here you are gunning like old civ outlaw."
"The delay is on your end," Cael replied smoothly. "You insist on operating in signal-dead zones. It's very inconvenient."
The Fixer.
Of course she chose this time to call, she never does call but it seems she's got bored.
He pivoted, shotgun up.
A raider rushed him from the right, desperate, too close.
Wrong move.
Cael didn't fire.
He stepped in.
Close.
The shotgun came up under the man's guard—
BOOM!
Point-blank.
The body hit the ground before the echo finished bouncing off the walls.
"One," Cael said.
"I have that," the Fixer replied. "And for the record, your efficiency today is slightly above your average."
"High praise."
"I don't give praise."
"Could've fooled me."
The last raider broke.
Turned and ran.
Smartest decision anyone here had made.
Didn't matter.
Cael exhaled slowly, adjusting his stance.
The music softened again—strings easing into something almost gentle.
He raised the revolver.
Tracked.
Waited half a second for the rhythm.
BANG!
The runner dropped face-first into the dust.
Still.
Silence settled over the loading bay.
Real silence this time.
No gunfire. No shouting. Just the faint ringing aftermath and the distant hum of the boundary markers outside.
Cael stood there for a moment, unmoving.
Listening.
Counting.
Nothing else.
"Are you clear?" the Fixer asked.
"Yeah..."
"Then why are you still standing there?"
Cael glanced down at one of the bodies. The Fixer watched his perspective from the goggle's video transmission.
"Enjoying the view."
A pause.
"…You're looking at a corpse."
"I've seen worse views."
Another pause.
"…I'm choosing not to unpack that."
He holstered the revolver with a smooth, practiced motion and pumped the shotgun once, ejecting a spent shell. It clinked against the concrete, rolling lazily before settling.
"Job's done," he said.
"Not quite," the Fixer replied. "You still need to confirm the target."
Cael crouched, pulling a data module from the inside pocket of one of the raiders' jackets. He turned it over in his hand, checking the seal.
"Confirmed."
"Good. Bounty completed. That's your payment secured."
"Was starting to wonder."
"You always say that," she noted. "And yet you keep taking my jobs."
"Your jobs pay."
"My jobs also get you shot at, dear. Pays your debt too…"
He glanced around at the bodies.
"Occupational hazard."
There was a faint shift in her tone then. Subtle. Almost buried under the distortion.
"You could take easier work."
There it was again.
That suggestion.
He smirked slightly, though no one could see it behind the respirator.
"Heard that one before."
"NEPS is recruiting."
"Not interested."
"The Defense Force—"
"Less interested."
A pause.
"And ordinary work?" she asked.
He stood, adjusting his coat, eyes scanning the empty loading bay one last time.
"Processing. Logistics. Nine-to-five."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Cael reached up and tapped his headset, lowering the volume of the music slightly—but not turning it off.
"Tell me something," he said.
"Yes?"
"You ever sit behind that screen of yours and think about doing something normal?"
The Fixer didn't answer immediately.
When she did, her voice was as controlled as ever.
"I deal in information. 'Normal' is a relative concept."
"Right."
He stepped over a fallen weapon, heading toward the exit.
"You're alive," she added.
"Usually am."
"That's not a guarantee."
"No," he agreed. "It's a pattern."
He pushed open the rusted loading door.
Light spilled in—dull, amber, filtered through the ever-present haze of the Outer Ring.
"Next job?" he asked.
A small pause.
Then:
"I might have something."
Of course she did.
Cael stepped out into the open, the boundary markers blinking steadily in the distance.
The music swelled again in his ears.
The soft calm, measured melodies.