Tony leaned on the concrete railing, watching Addie walk toward Bert’s. She had her hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat, and her path was more of an amble than a hurried beeline toward home. Was she drunk, or was she just enjoying the air? The night had gone differently than he’d expected. He’d thought she’d be freaked out about the throwdown at Royal Breeze, but she’d hardly mentioned it. Honestly, she’d been sweet, and if Tony were honest, he’d admit he was feeling pretty damn sweet on her. “She deserves a lot nicer guy than you, though, buddy boy.”
“I’m assuming you’re not speaking to me, right, Tony?” Nora asked tentatively.
“No.” He chuckled, squeezing the dregs of his beer into his mouth. He was just gulping it down when he noticed a sleek, black van, riding dark, coming around the corner onto their street. “The hell do we have here?” It was silent—the hum of its electric motor inaudible against the background noise of the city—and the windows were blacked out. Tony didn’t hesitate; he turned toward Addie, now crossing the street, and shouted, “Addie! Look out!”
He'd barely gotten the words out before the van surged forward and then screeched to a halt near her. Tony didn’t know who they were, but he recognized ill intent when he saw it. He charged into the apartment, slamming his shoulder against the sliding door in his haste, nearly knocking it off the track. He threw the table aside, refusing to change his trajectory to go around it, then snatched up the pistol he’d put on the counter, racking the slide. For half a second, he vacillated—charge down the stairs and out the door or—
His body made the decision for him. He whirled back to the balcony and, in three long strides and a jump, sailed over the railing. As he descended, he looked toward the van, dismayed to see the doors closing and the tires smoking as the high-torque motor was engaged. He lifted the pistol, silently thankful that Nora had activated his link with it, and trained the crosshairs on the left-rear tire. He squeezed the trigger just as he hit the concrete, and something popped in his knee.
The gun thundered, and Tony rolled, gasping in pain. He tried to stand, but his knee wouldn’t hold him, and he fell to his stomach, still trying to bring the gun to bear on the fleeing van. If he’d hit the tire, it hadn’t been enough to stop it. It was nearly a block away, but he still fired off his last round, desperately hoping for a miracle shot. His optics were good, and the assisted aiming software in the weapon was perfectly calibrated, but he still saw the bullet spark on the pavement, narrowly missing the moving van.
As he furiously forced himself to his feet, hopping on one foot to avoid his knee collapsing again, he watched the van hang a right, and then it was gone. Addie was gone. He looked at his mini-map. The only dot was his. “Nora, did Addie stop sharing her location?”
“If so, her PAI purposefully blocked the automatic disengagement notice.”
“She wouldn’t do that. When did it go dark?”
“Twenty-nine seconds ago.”
“Shit! They either yanked her PAI or put a jammer on her.” Tony lifted his head toward the dark, hazy sky and shouted, “Shit!”
Someone a few buildings down yelled, “Shut up!”
“Nora, direct the nanites to my knee. All of them.”
“Is it your right knee? I just received a preliminary injury report from your nanite battery.”
“Yeah. Give me a report as soon as they’ve diagnosed it.” Tony’s mind was racing, going in a dozen directions. Who would have grabbed Addie? Who could he ask for help? How was he going to find her? Where would they take her? Was it Boxer? Was it one of the gangs? Should he tell Bert? “Shit!”
He was about to hobble over to Bert’s, if not to tell him what happened, then to at least get some more ammo, but then he had an idea. Who had Addie gone to for help getting him out of a jam? Who’d been willing to bend the banger rules of engagement for her? “Beef,” he grunted, turning toward the alley where the big man and his boys usually hung out. He started forward, hopping, mostly dragging his right leg because even the lightest pressure produced pain that felt like someone was jamming hot nails into the joint. Worse, his knee was swelling to the point that his jean fabric was straining to contain it, making it nearly impossible to bend.
Even so, Tony was determined. He hopped to the corner and, leaning on the building, peered around it. To his relief, Beef and two of his boys were there, listening to a music cube and passing around a bottle. A green light flared, and Tony saw that one of them was sucking on a chemstick. “Beef!” he hollered, hobbling into the alley. The trio paused their carousing to look his way, but the music continued to blare. Tony waved his empty pistol in the air and hobbled a little closer. “Beef!”
Finally, Beef handed his large jug of alcohol—Tony was assuming—to one of his boys and started toward him. When the taller, slender one with the chrome eyes moved to follow him, he waved him back. Tony continued hopping forward, and now that he realized it was mostly numb, he gingerly put a little weight on his messed-up leg. “That you, corpo-rat?”
“Yeah,” Tony panted, “it’s me.”
“The hell happened to you?”
“They got Addie, Beef.” Tony took another hobbling step to a dumpster and leaned most of his weight on it.
“The hell you mean, ‘they got Addie?’ Was that you popping off rounds? Start talking, rat!” Beef growled, stomping close, his ham-sized fist darting out, swiping the gun out of Tony’s hand, sending it clattering to the asphalt.
“She was walking to Bert’s, and some guys snatched her. It’s gotta have something to do with the Royal Breeze—she and I got into it with some bangers there today.”
Beef leaned close, grabbing Tony’s T-shirt in his fist, hauling him up straight, glowering in his face. Tony wasn’t someone who let people manhandle him, but he couldn’t even stand up straight, so he knew he couldn’t fight. Besides, his half-drunk mind was wracked with guilt—deserved or not—over letting Addie get snatched. If Beef wanted to slap him around a little, he might appreciate it. “Start talking, corpo. What kinda ride was it?”
“Black van, sleek—kinda high-end, riding dark and silent. I hit a tire once, but it didn’t blow out—probably running patchers.” While he spoke, Tony started to realize what Beef was probably about to say; these weren’t bangers.
“Don’t sound like bangers to me.” Beef gave his shirt another shake. “Who else could it be? One of your old buddies?”
“No…” Tony shook his head, wracking his brain. Eric wouldn’t, would he? They’d given him his punishment, right? “Boxer, maybe? What we found out today would piss them off, but—”
Beef shook him, growling, “C’mon, corpo! Who?”
“Not the corp. Maybe someone working inside the corp, though. Someone who was trying to make a big score at Royal Breeze.”
Beef nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere. How would taking Addie get them their score?”
Adrenaline and Beef’s less-than-gentle questioning had begun to sober Tony up, and he scowled, straightening up. He held onto the dumpster with his left hand, and with his right, he took hold of Beef’s wrist and pulled it away from him. The big gangster didn’t fight, loosening his grip on Tony’s shirt. “That’s a good point, Beef. Their shot’s blown. They might want to hurt her, but why take her for that? They could just run her over or firebomb Bert’s shop.”
“Torture?”
Tony shook his head. “Nah. Addie’s intel says the shot-caller is a ‘fancy lady.’ Probably an exec. She wouldn’t want to risk exposure just to make Addie suffer.”
“So who, then?” Beef growled again.
Tony wracked his brain, and almost immediately, he thought of the mysterious spark, Zane. He tried to snap his fingers, but his rubber-padded plasteel fingers produced more of a click. “Headhunters.”
Beef scowled, confusion writ large on his face. “What? For the news shit she does?”
“Nope. She’s, uh, finding out she’s got some Dust talent. Some asshole from Boxer was trying to recruit her. She turned him down, and he mentioned a headhunter he knows.”
Beef’s scowl softened, and he smiled, a low chuckle accompanying the expression. “What a bunch of dumbasses!”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“What?” It was Tony’s turn to growl.
“District’s locked down tighter than a corpo-rat’s vibrator drawer, buddy boy. Charmed Foxes raided Boxer corpo-sec holding cells. Let out a bunch of dolls and chrome kings, including that band that got nabbed at Skeleton Park last week. Nobody coming in or going out tonight!” He laughed and turned to his boys, hollering, “Bring me that jug!”
“Tony,” Nora interrupted, “I have a report on your knee.”
Tony ignored her. “Beef, dammit, that doesn’t mean Addie’s safe!”
“Yeah, bud, but we got all night and probably tomorrow to find her. You got a tracker on her?”
“I did, but they're jamming her.”
“You got a visual of the van? Send me the footage. We’ll start spreading the word. Fuckin’ amateurs.” Beef clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, rat. We’re gonna get our girl back.”
###
The first of Addie’s senses to come back to her was sound. She didn’t know it at the time because she was drifting in a sort of dream state, and the noises she heard took on aspects of that reality. A door squeaking open and slamming shut in reality was, to her, an old trunk her dad kept in the back of the shop full of comic books and magazines—artifacts from an age that seemed like a fairy tale to her.
Men’s voices, talking in low, hushed tones, were the sounds of bangers lurking in an alley, deciding if they were okay with taking her and her friend’s lunches or if they’d need to torment them a while longer to see if they could get something more. When her sense of touch joined her hearing, and she felt the tight bond on her wrists and the hard, rough hands under her arms dragging her feet over the ground, she began to realize she wasn’t dreaming, and bits and pieces of her reality started to fill in, like puzzle pieces dropped haphazardly onto a table, some of them miraculously landing where they ought to go.
By the time some light started to register in her eyes, Addie remembered that she’d been taken. She blinked and inhaled sharply, careful not to exclaim or give her rousing consciousness away. She couldn’t see much, and the presence of cloth against her face helped her to figure out that she had a hood over her head. The hands dragging her along were rough, and she knew her arms would be bruised from the way they were handling her. Even so, she didn’t speak and didn’t take any of her weight on her numb legs.
Before long, a voice on her right—deep, masculine, and somehow…cultured—said, “Put the code in. She’ll be all right in there. You have another shrink-cord?”
“Of course, love,” said a decidedly feminine voice on her left. Addie would never have guessed that the large, rough hand under that arm belonged to a woman.
“Don’t sweet-talk me, darling.”
“Still mad?” Her tone was mocking.
“Furious! You and Fox were in charge of transpo, and that includes the damn checkpoints!”
The woman didn’t answer, but she let go of Addie’s arm with a click of her tongue, and the man on her right tightened his grip, taking up all of her weight. The pain got to Addie, and she used her feet to relieve the pressure. “She’s waking up,” he said, jostling her.
Some beeps and the click of a lock disengaging preceded the woman’s voice as she replied, “I can dose her again—up to four times a day without risking too much.”
“Nah, we’ll bind her in here. Nobody will hear her if she screams.” He shook Addie’s arm, squeezing cruelly. “Hear that? Don’t bother giving yourself a headache.” When Addie didn’t respond, he tugged her forward, and then the woman was back, grabbing her other arm as they spun her around and pushed her back until her knees hit the edge of something, and Addie fell onto her butt. Thankfully, she landed on something soft, and it squeaked with the sound of metallic springs.
“Hook her up to that pipe.” Rough hands grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms back a little farther, straining her shoulders until Addie gasped with the pain. “Easy, Q; she’s worth more in one piece,” the man said.
“Relax. She’s just a softie.” Something clicked, and then Addie felt her wrists pulled snugly against a large, warm pipe. The woman’s heavy hand grasped her shoulder surprisingly gently, and she spoke right into Addie’s ear. “Just don’t fight, love, and this’ll go smooth as sailing.”
“C-can you take the hood off?” Addie asked, finding it very easy to make her voice meek.
The woman gave her shoulder another gentle squeeze. “Not just yet. We’ll have one of the locals bring you some food and take it off. No sense showing you our pretty mugs, is there?”
“Enough of that, Q. Get out,” the man barked.
“Oh? Ain’t you forgetting something, Mr. Genius?”
“Ah, shit.” Addie heard the man shift, and something clicked. “Here, stick it on the wall there, away from her hands but not too far from her.” Again, the sound of a click came to her, but this time, it was on her right and behind her. “She can’t kick it there, can she?”
“Not unless she’s a world-class contortionist who can dislocate her shoulders and hips on demand.” She nudged Addie’s shoulder. “That you, love?”
“No.” Addie could feel the two figures receding, and sudden panic gripped her like a cold lump in the pit of her stomach. “Why do you have me? What’s this about?”
No one answered her, but the man said, “I hate this kind—prefer the mean ones.” The woman grunted in acknowledgment, and then steps signaled their departure—one set heavy and shuffling, the other crisp with hard heels. Before Addie could think of another angle to play on their mercy, the door closed with a solid thud. She heard a lock sliding home, and then she was left in silence.
She strained her senses, trying to get a clue about where she might be. The room smelled a little musty, but she couldn’t be sure. The bag over her head was cloth, and who knew what kind or how old or where it had been stored before being pulled over her head? She could hear the distant sounds of machinery humming and maybe some traffic, but she couldn’t be sure, and that wouldn’t mean anything anyway; there were a million places in the Blast with sounds like that.
Addie bounced on her seat a little, trying to determine if it was a cot or an old couch. The fact that her heels didn’t hit anything when she pulled them back told her it was probably a cot. She tried to slide her wrists further along the pipe, but the shrink-cord bound to the pipe was tight and wouldn’t budge. “JJ,” she tried, knowing it was a fruitless hope, “do I have a net connection?”
“I’m sorry, Addie, but this area has heavy interference. If you move to a different room, I can try again.”
“I figured.” No doubt the object the woman had reminded the man about was a jammer. Another idea struck her. “JJ, did they pull the data chip out of my port?”
“No, Addie, the Longview Biodynamics Corporate Institute training manual is still in your port.”
“Okay, display the table of contents on my Lexium app.” Addie watched as her app opened and the table of contents for the training manual appeared. She scanned it briefly, then said, “Open Chapter Seven.” When the window expanded with the chapter contents, Addie began to read:
Chapter 7: Mastering the Art of “Fading”
Introduction
“Fading” is a colloquial term that has begun to gain traction among Dust practitioners and researchers alike. While its exact nature remains the subject of much debate, it is theorized to involve “stepping” into the space between dimensions—a phenomenon that defies traditional scientific understanding. Fading is both a marvel and a mystery, deeply rooted in the interplay between Dust energy and the natural resonance of human consciousness. This chapter seeks to outline foundational techniques for those who sense a potential to fade and wish to explore this elusive ability.
Understanding the Liminal Space
The liminal space, often referred to as “the veil,” is neither part of our reality nor entirely separate. It can be visualized as a connective tissue that binds dimensions together. To enter this space, one gifted with the proper Dust affinity must first abandon the notion of physicality. Fading is not about disappearing but rather shifting—momentarily stepping into a corridor outside ordinary perception.
Key Concepts:
- The Veil is Fluid: It responds to intent and emotional resonance.
- Fear Creates Resistance: Anxiety about fading increases one’s tether to the physical realm.
- Dust as a Bridge: Your accumulated Dust acts as the medium through which this transition occurs.
Addie was just about to ask JJ to scroll to the next section when the door clicked and opened. Heavy boots on a hard surface approached, and someone grabbed the top of her hood and yanked. Unfortunately, the hood was tied around her neck, and all that happened was the person pulling the hood jerked Addie’s head forward, and she almost bit her tongue as her teeth clicked together. “Hey! Ouch!”
“Quiet!” a new voice rumbled, and then something buzzed like a hornet beside her ear, and she felt the drawstring at the bottom of the hood loosen. The man had cut it with a vibroblade! The buzzing receded, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The hand grabbed the hood, catching some of her hair, and yanked again. Tears filled Addie’s eyes as more than a few strands of hair were pulled from her scalp, but she stayed quiet as light flooded into her eyes.
A man stood before her, overweight, dirty, and clad in leather and denim that reeked of sweat and smoke. His gang colors were proudly displayed on his vest—a dancing skeleton with Xs for eyes. Addie knew exactly what it meant: Dead Boys. They were a gang that operated at the center of the district, near the NGT tower. He threw the hood on the floor and peeled back the wrapper of a protein bar. “Open.”
Addie shook her head. “Not hungry.”
He stared at her through a cheap, rust-tech visor that flickered with red LEDs moving in a wave pattern. After a few seconds, he shrugged and chomped half the bar in a single bite, chewing noisily. He reached into his leather vest and pulled out a juice pouch. “Thirsty?” he asked around his mouthful.
Addie saw the pouch was equipped with a straw nozzle, much like the beers she and Tony had been drinking earlier, and she nodded. The guy used his thick, grease-stained fingers to pull the straw out, popping the seal, and then he held it to her lips. “Drink quick.”
Addie took a few gulps, and then her mind ran to places she’d rather it didn’t. Would this man watch over her if she had to go to the bathroom? She pulled away from the pouch. “Thanks, that’s all.”
He grunted and turned toward the door. Addie looked around for the first time. She was in a small room—nondescript save for scuff marks on the unpainted drywall and a three-dimensional poster of a scantily clad woman with chrome legs near the door. A bare LED bulb occupied the ceiling, providing sterile, white light. As the man approached the door, Addie hurriedly asked, “Where am I? Why do they have me?”
He looked at her and shrugged. “Beats me. I’m just hired muscle.” He stepped out and slammed the door shut.
At first, Addie had thought she was being taken to whoever had been trying to make a move on the Royal Breeze Apartments. She didn’t think so anymore. Why would they hire Dead Boys for muscle? Who were the other people who’d captured her? If she were guessing, they were pros—operators. “What the heck is going on, JJ?”
“I still don’t have access to the local or city nets, Addie. I’m sorry.” The PAI’s attempt to answer her vague question reminded her of something, and she looked over her shoulder to see a small black triangle stuck to the vertical pipe behind her. Just as the woman had promised, Addie was sure she wouldn’t be able to reach it with a foot, even if she contorted herself into an impossible position.
“Okay, we gotta figure this out, JJ. Open up my Lexium app again.” Mentally, Addie got ready to study like she’d never done before.