FSE

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August 04, Earth Year 2224 AD

Shade was loading the last of the new weapons shipment into the cargo bay when he got the call.

He barely registered the first time his Universal Translator went off, the little blip sound trying to grab his attention as the notification popped up with a blue flash in the corner of his vision, projected into his field of view by the implants in his eyes. The ramp pulled up into the ship with the groan of old metal and the whirr of barely-functioning hydraulics as he pushed the last crate into place, settling it beside the others. He leaned against one for a moment to catch his breath—they had wheels, but the crates still weren't light. He was helping to arm a rebellion, after all.

The alert went off again, signaling he was getting a call. No ID, but he recognized the number of the secure channel through which the call had been patched. They'd been just about to take off, but he figured he could use a bit of downtime with Rayne.

He answered the message by swiping his hand from the bottom left of his field of view, where the message was, pulling it up into his vision, grinning as Rayne's familiar face came into visibility.

"Have you left yet?" Rayne asked.

"Hey, I thought you were too busy to—" Shade began, but Rayne cut him off, repeating the question.

"Have you left yet?"

Shade caught the seriousness his tone this time and stood straighter, ears perking.

"No," he said, "we were just about to take off, what—"

"Shade..."

He looked up at the sound of Ami's voice and brushed the video display aside, seeing her standing in the doorway to the ship's inner hall. He saw a new notification icon, indicating she had sent a g-net link. He opened it and found the records for a human innmate, previously held in a prison in this very district, recently released from incarceration. She was a woman with long dark brown hair and electric yellow eyes, identified as Seyva Caldira.

He'd heard the name, but he couldn't recall where. Then it hit him.

"Oh, shit," he muttered under his breath.

Six years ago, Caldira had hijacked a planet-hopper on the way out of a heist on the District 57 Bank, but not before getting into a struggle with a cop, a UGDF officer in the area. The officer was shot and killed in the fight, but thanks to that momentary distraction, Caldira was later apprehended and thrown in prison.

That officer was Arrik Storm; Rayne's father.

***

"Appreciate it," Rayne said, sinking into a chair as they took off.

"Anytime," Shade said.

"Already building a predictive behavior algorithm to track her down," Ami said.

Rayne nodded and they sat in silence.

"What happens when we do find her?" Shade asked. Rayne looked up.

"What do you mean, 'what happens?'" he said.

Shade's ears flicked back as he saw the glare from his old friend.

"Rayne..." he said. "You're just going to kill her?"

"Before she kills anyone else. Isn't that the idea?" Rayne said.

"Don't pretend this is about justice," Shade growled. "This is revenge."

"So what if it is?" Rayne snapped. "Like you'd be above it."

Shade's jaw clenched. That hurt. It would have hurt from a stranger who didn't know him, but from Rayne it was like a knife wound.

"The two of you love to go soaring across the galaxy, pretending you're saving people, but really it's just about making yourselves feel good," Rayne snarled. "Well, what if it was your father? What if you could look into the eye of the silen who shot him? You wouldn't want to kill him?"

"Sure I would," Shade said. "But that's not—"

"Like hell it's not what you'd do," Rayne huffed, looking away. He glanced up to Ami. "And you? I suppose all the silen bastards who betrayed you are dead."

"Yes," Ami responded simply. Shade gave her a pointed look and she shrugged without even looking at him. "Hey, don't look at me. I like to say I killed off all the techs who built me out of necessity, and that's partly true—couldn't have any more of me running around under the control of the Silen Empire. But I won't say it didn't feel good. Very cathartic."

"You're not helping," Shade said.

"I know," Ami said. She turned her seat around. "Look, Rayne. You can go around killing all the criminals you want. It'll feel good, but only momentarily. And it won't make the pain go away. Just numbs it for a bit."

Rayne sighed.

"You've got a gym on this ship, right? A sparring room?" he said.

"A holo-training program in my bedroom, yeah..." Shade said.

"I need to hit something," Rayne grumbled, standing.

Ami stood and strode after him.

"Where’re you going?" Shade said.

"In case he needs to hit something. Or hit something," she said.

***

Rayne seemed to have cooled off by the time they came back into the cockpit. He smelled cleaner, Shade noted.

"I used your shower, hope you don't mind," he said, falling into a chair.

Shade cocked an eyebrow. "Not really, I guess."

There was a small silence as Rayne took a breath and sighed.

"Look," he said, "you know I didn't mean... well, anything I said before, right?"

Shade softened, sitting forward.

"You weren't wrong about some of it," he admitted. "Maybe even most of it. You could've been nicer, but..."

"Oh, no, yeah, I was a dick," Rayne laughed. Shade laughed with him.

"Apology accepted," he said. Rayne smiled.

"Now that you two have finally worked through things," Ami said. "I've found out where Caldira's gone."

Rayne's ears perked. "Yeah? And?"

Ami bit the inside of her lower lip.

"Is this one of those, 'I know where she is, but you won't like it' situations?" Shade said.

"Mmm, no, you'll be fine," Ami said. "I'm the one who isn't thrilled about it. There's a 98.976% chance she's gone to Serenia."

Shade had never heard of the place, but Rayne sat forward.

"Oh," he said. "Great."

"Yeah," Ami said, with the same level of enthusiasm—or rather, total lack thereof.

"You want to fill me in or are you waiting until we get there to surprise me?" Shade said.

"Serenia's a human colony world, terraformed and settled by Earth-born humans about 150 years ago." Rayne said.

"Shit, that's before the silens even had space travel," Shade snorted.

"Before humans even made contact with the rest of the galaxy, in fact," Ami clarified. "Just after the Android War..."

She growled the last words between her teeth. Bad as he was with galactic history, Shade knew the reason many people feared androids was because the more malevolent among them had once brought humans—their own creators—to the brink of extinction. Only with unforeseen global cooperation and aid from the kinder androids had they turned the tide in the war and saved their species. Had they not, Rayne wouldn't exist, being that he was a half-human hybrid, and Ami's own kind would have been a greater danger to the galaxy than the silens could ever hope to be.

"Right," Rayne said. "The planet was colonized entirely by humans that hated androids, essentially."

"And they retain that sentiment today," Ami sighed, glaring out the cockpit windows. "Androids aren't allowed on Serenia."

"Incidentally, the planet's leadership has also become corrupt over the years. The place is a breeding ground for criminal scumbags." Rayne said.

"Oh, so it's a whole planet just like District 52," Shade said, his own tone now matching theirs. "As in, literally the place we just left?"

"Yep," Ami sighed. "This trip is going to be fun."

Shade hesitated, but then decided he had to ask. He didn't want to pry or push, but...

"What's the plan when we get there?" he said.

Rayne fixed his gaze out the window.

"I don't know," he said. "Let's just cross that bridge when we get to it."

***

The doors opened and Shade was immediately hit by the smell of metal. He tasted it in his mouth, a smell so thick it caused him to actually stagger back a bit.

"Oh, that's—" Ami started. Evidently, she couldn't even finish the sentence, putting a hand over her snout. "Wow... They take security seriously here."

The ramp lowered from the ship, meeting the landing pad below, but Shade saw no immediate sign of a welcoming party or any kind of security, so he guessed there might be something nearby only Ami could detect due to her connection to machines.

"What is it?" he asked, reaching out to grab Rayne and stop him from heading off the ship until they knew what they were dealing with.

"Nanites," Ami said, gesturing around them. "In the air. They're scanning us, constantly. I... Shit, I can barely fend them off. It's taking most of my processing power just to hijack their scans and prevent them from reporting me as an android."

Shade and Rayne looked at each other.

"You want to stay on the ship?" Shade asked.

"No," Ami said. "No, I'm fine. We shouldn't stay too long, though. This place is hardwired to sweep for anything non-organic."

Shade nodded and Rayne took charge, leading them down onto the landing pad. Suddenly, there was a rush of movement, the blurring shape of someone or something coming toward them at incredible speed, so fast Shade barely had time to acknowledge its existence before it was standing in front of them.

It was a lup?n, judging by the oblong helmet and the tailpiece at the back, clad entirely in a sleek, dark suit of high tech armor. The figure appeared before them so quickly they all recoiled, taking a few steps back. The outfit was similar to the body armor used by the UGDF or other soldiers on Earth, with similar blue highlights and sharp angles, but with black fabric where theirs was a lighter grey and red streaks to contrast the blue plating, and overall was much tighter, clearly meant for high speed maneuverability and agility. The helmet hid the wearer's face with a sleek black helmet of smooth plastic material. The lup?n stood there, tall and imposing, looking at Ami.

"Sorry," his voice said after a moment. "We got some odd readings. Cyborgs tend to confuse the scanners."

His voice sounded distorted, almost electronic, and Shade considered perhaps this was a machine, built to apprehend androids while holding no sentience of its own.

"Welcome to Serenia," the guard said, his tone dark. "Don't cause any trouble."

Just as quickly, he was gone, his shape moving up over the building and across the rooftops. Ami gasped as if she had been holding her breath.

"What the fuck was that?" Rayne said. "I've never seen anything move that fast."

"That... thing was as fast as I am!" Ami gasped.

"Kind of hypocritical, isn't it?" Shade said. "Using machines to guard your planet when you're—"

"No, you don't understand," Ami said. "It... he was organic." She looked at them with an expression of horror. "What is this place?"

"Let's just get out of here as fast as we can," Rayne said.

Ami nodded.

"We need to lie low," she hissed. "No blowing things up. No attention."

"Got it," Shade said.

They moved on, into the spaceport that surrounded the landing area. The only apparently on duty employee was an older human woman with light golden blond hair, leaned against a cargo crate. Only then did Shade recall his own cargo onboard his ship. The weapons, illegal black market military-grade weapons meant for the Red Claw. There hadn't been time to unload and stash them before they took off from Earth.

"You new?" the woman said with a suspicious gaze and a scratchy voice.

"Yeah," Shade said. "We're look—"

"You look like you got somethin' ta hide," the woman said, standing. Then, she smiled, showing rows of yellowed teeth. "Well, ya've come to the right garage."

Rayne raised an eyebrow.

"Parking fee's 10,000 creds, another seventy-five hundred to keep the authorities from pokin' around," the woman said.

Shade transferred the credits over with a nod and the woman's smile widened. He glanced at Rayne and could tell it was taking everything in his power not to bust out his badge and shut the whole scene down. Sure, he'd flash it around to show off, especially if there was a cute girl in the area, but it still meant something to him. He had a strong sense of justice and dealing with people like this was uncomfortable to him.

"You good?" Shade asked.

Rayne nodded. "This planet's just getting to everyone, I guess."

"Just let me handle this," Shade said in a low voice. "I deal with these people every day. They're not as bad as silen hunters or bank robbers. They're just trying to live."

"That desperation is what makes them into those criminals," Rayne whispered. "Where do we draw the line? How do you know she hasn't killed anyone?" He nodded toward the human woman.

"Anything on that predictive behavioral algorithm?" Shade asked Ami. She shook her head.

"Sorry," she said. "I can't fend off trillions of microscopic robots and look for her at the same time."

Shade chuckled dryly. "That's fair, I guess."

Meanwhile, the woman had pulled up a holographic interface and was logging them and their ship in the system.

"We won't be staying here long enough to stick around," Shade said. "Certainly not in any permanent records."

"That's extra," she said.

"We're also looking for someone," Rayne said. He held up his translator, projecting an image of Seyva Caldira's mugshot. "How much extra is that?"

The woman looked at the picture.

"What makes you think—"

"You know everything that passes through here," Ami cut her off. "You and your friends probably own the entire spaceport, or at least whoever you work for does."

"I'll ask about your girl," the woman said with a scowl, "but don't go causin' no trouble. Don't need that. Don't want the Sentinels comin' down on us."

He could only guess the Sentinels were the disturbingly fast guards they'd seen before. Shade nodded while Ami and Rayne glared the woman down. "We'll be out of your port before you know it."

"50,000 credits," the woman said.

"My friend here will cover that," Rayne said.

"What?" Shade said. "I will?"

Rayne looked at him.

"Sure," he said. "Fine. Fine. 50,000 credits."

The woman got in touch with an apparent contact and directed them to a warehouse on the edge of the city.

"You owe me 50,000 credits," Shade said as they walked away.

"What'd you want me to do, pay her with the money I get from the United Galactic Defense Force?" Rayne said with a snort. "So the next twenty drinks are on me. Besides, we both know you've got more than enough credits to cover that."

"Yeah, but I don't need them to know that," Shade said.

"Hey," Rayne said, stopping and turning to him. "You know no matter what happens on this rock, I'll owe you more than money can buy, right?"

"I don't know, enough money and you could buy a rock like this," Shade said, gesturing around. He smiled. "But yeah, I do."

***

"She's here," Ami said. "Before we got here, I calculated a greater than 60% chance she'd try to meet an old criminal contact to borrow money. I just couldn't pinpoint where."

They moved into the dark warehouse, an old repurposed greenhouse now only used for storage. Shade picked up voices, the tail end of a conversation.

"Gotta say, Sev, never thought it'd come to this," a man's voice was saying. There was a small pause. "You sure?"

"Yes, I am," a female voice said, her accent thick. Shade's translator identified it as Russian, of a region making up the north-eastern districts of Earth.

"Well, if you want to commit career suicide, I'll leave you to it," the man sighed.

They moved toward the voices, splitting up to surround and corner the enemy. Shade ran into the man as he was making for the back exit of the building, but with his superior senses, he'd seen him coming before the guy could. He drew his blaster and fired it into the guy's chest, but he had some kind of cybernetic armor in his skin that absorbed it, before Shade fired a second one into his face and he collapsed.

Shade moved out into the open and the woman drew her own blaster, a long white gun with a grey barrel that crackled with energy.

"Hold it right there!" Rayne snarled as he and Ami emerged from the shadows.

The woman looked back, but there was only bare wall behind her, no escape. She lowered the gun and put up her hands.

"Easy..." she said, glancing between the three of them. "Right. Who are you and what did I do to piss you off?"

"You don't seem surprised," Rayne said, keeping his gun on her.

"Eh, I figured my past would catch up to me eventually," she said with a shrug. "You three going to let me in on why you hate me? Especially this one here," She nodded toward Rayne, who grit his teeth, but said nothing.

"You killed his father six years ago, on the way out of the District 57 Bank," Ami said.

A glimmer of recognition shone in the woman's eyes.

"Ah," she said. "That was the job that put me away." She smiled faintly. "I see the resemblance. I never saw his face until after..."

She sighed and lowered her hands.

"All the cops in that district were corrupt," she said. "He was different, but I assumed it was an act, to make me lower my guard. He told me I could still change, redeem myself, that it wasn't too late. Sappy bullshit. But he was right."

Shade searched her for any sign of deceit, watched her face, listened to her heartbeat, even kept his nose open for the scent of sweat, but he caught nothing. Her heartbeat was steady and her eyes soft. He knew Ami was doing the same, at a more thorough detail than he could ever manage, analyzing the tiniest twitch in her features. She lowered her weapon before Shade did.

"You're lying," Rayne growled. The woman shook her head.

"I just assumed... or maybe I tried to convince myself he was like the other cops. Corrupt, dirty."

"Shut up!" Rayne shouted.

"I looked him up a while after they threw me in," she said. "He was a good one."

Rayne gave a half suppressed growl.

"Rayne," Shade said gently. "Put the gun down."

"Why?!" he snapped. "Even if she's different now, she'll settle back in to her old life. She was borrowing money!"

"I wasn't," the woman said. "Actually, I was paying my debts. Cutting ties. Trying to outrun my past. Guess I wasn't fast enough."

"Why should I believe you?" Rayne said, glaring.

"Oh, for the love of—can we just speed this catharsis along?" Ami huffed. "Rayne; whether he'll admit it or not, Shade sees you as a better version of himself. If you kill this woman now, it'll scar both of you forever, and by extension, me, because I care about both of you. And Shade; if he was going to kill her, he'd have done it already, so please stop worrying about him, because it's making me worry even more about both of you, which I was doing already, but it's building into a feed back loop and I'm still fighting of these damn nanites and I can feel my processor overheating! Now can we please get off this planet?!"

Rayne looked at her.

"Sorry," she said, "but sometimes it's like you organic idiots process your own emotions in slow motion. Just wanted to speed things up."

Shade chuckled.

"Wait..." Seyva said, looking at Ami. "Are you an android?"

"Ugh," Ami groaned. "So slow it's painful. Seriously, can we leave now?"

Rayne looked back to Seyva, removed his finger from the trigger, and sighed, lowering the gun.

"Yeah," he said. "Let's get out of here."

***

The ship took off with a gentle bump, rising into the air.

"Sorry about all of that," Ami said. "I know you'll have a lot more to process. Emotions are complicated."

Rayne grunted assent and nodded absently, staring out the window as the sky faded into the starry void of space.

"I mean, I get it," he murmured. "You guys process at, what, 50,000 times the speed we do?"

"Something like that," Ami said with a smug smirk.

"I can't imagine the world moving that slow." Rayne said.

"It's not like that all the time," Ami said. "I just worry about you guys."

"Yeah, you mentioned," Rayne said with a soft laugh. "Thanks for that. Don't know what we'd do without you, Ami."

"She was right you know," Shade said after a moment. Rayne turned to look at him. "About you being a better version of me? My dad died and I spiraled out of control, hit rock bottom. Yours died and you became a cop. Even now, what am I doing to—"

"Hey," Rayne cut him off. "Don't even start. I envy you, man. Flyin' across the galaxy, taking the fight to the Silen Empire? Vigilante justice? You have no idea how many times I've wished I could live like that. You don't want my job. My district's one of the only ones still stubborn enough to refuse android law enforcement and too ignorant to realize it's better. Who even needs organic cops anymore, you know? It's not like we're exactly inspiring anyone."

Shade smiled. "There's at least one."

Rayne smiled back. "Back at ya."