Neon Rush {M/M} ❀

Ch. 6.1 Hot Piece of Terminator Ass

What Gray didn't tell Zef about the old, eastside industrial quarter where they planned to meet? It's abandoned.

The shells of factories stand watch with windows like countless eyes. Like modern day Biblical angels. The quarter is a museum to the corporations absorbed, lost or destroyed in the cap wars. NanoSoft, Nutrifun, Ares. Whether they sold tech, food, or even guns, none were safe. The old signage, now removed, left behind imprints in the grime of the buildings in the shape of their names and logos. Like footprints. Like archeology for corporate historians to pick apart.

Zef's every step crunches. Sometimes with broken glass, sometimes garbage. Though few cars drive past, the place still hums, but in a different way from the city centre. Here, the homeless and downtrodden hole up in the derelict buildings. The place is an anthill. Shelled holes in the walls and ceilings, tarped over or left open to the elements. Tents everywhere.

He'd followed Gray's advice and worn shorts, a button-up, and his runners. The runners are the nicest article of clothing he owns. Found them at a used clothing store, barely worn, vintage, still in the box from 2102.

Zef follows his nav to the postcode Gray gave him that morning. Out here in the crumbling ruins of failed industry, net coverage fritzes out like a dying light bulb. The red line overlaying his vision flickers with it. Not bad enough to be more than a nuisance, but it really sticks in Zef's craw that Gray chose a place so remote. It ups his anxiety a notch or six.

Gray waits outside an encampment of tents, leaning against a telephone pole, still leather-clad and covered from neck to foot in clothes like it isn't a hundred and twenty degrees. He looks rougher than usual. Smudges under his eyes bruised dark. Hair a mess. Still unfortunately hot. He talks to a woman sipping on a green smoothie, her hair shaved with a lightning bolt pattern at her temples and long twists bouncing in her eyes. She's tall and angular, making Gray look like he's built in miniature. She also comes up suspiciously blank on Zef's HUD. Only her pronouns are there. No name, no date of birth, no indication of gild, if she has any.

Probably, she's Gray's contact. The one who can get the repair parts for Matthias's legs. It's weird for someone working in tech to opt out of wearing any. Like a scrawny chef or a tattoo artist with no ink. Hard to trust.

Gray sees Zef coming and gives him the nod. "Here he is."

The woman turns and gives Zef a once over. It is the most piercingly casual up-and-down Zef has ever experienced. She clicks her tongue and says in a voice like velvet and an accent so mixed it globe trots from word to word, "Well fuck me sideways. Gray left out that you're one of ours."

Zef blanks. "Ours?"

"A filthy gender radical. Pussy princes and pecker princesses."

"Uh," says Zef intelligently.

Gray waves a hand at her. "Zef, this is—"

"Dee," says the woman, her tone cut finely between friendly and mistrustful. Whether Dee is her real name? Doubtful.

Gray introduces them. "Dee, meet Zef. He's looking for that BCi500 series CPU."

"And a fan, if you've got one," Zef adds.

"And a fan."

Dee hums. "Practically an antique, that series. Not that I can complain, seeing as I'm an antique myself."

Dee looks no older than Gray or Zef, though her clothes are from a bygone century. Block patterns in monochromes and splashes of neon. Popular a hundred years ago.

Zef chooses a tactful answer. "Well, you don't look a day over twenty-five."

"Flattery?" She turns to Gray. "I'm keeping him if you don't."