The streets are always busy in Newhaven. Parents going to work, kids taken to school, homeless people begging for food and then there's me. No life nor future. An adult still living with her parent. No job whatsoever. Even the homeless are better than me.
I sit on a dumpster looking for my next target for the day. I have been eyeing this woman for days. The deep-blue sapphires cascading down to a pear-shaped diamond at the center, its swaying whenever the woman moves trapping me in its enhancement, calling my name.
The woman is on a holographic call with her daughter. It seems like she's waiting for someone. Her hair is covering the back of the necklace and I can't just yank it because she'll feel it, leading to commotion.
An old woman shrieks, "THIEF!" as a man in a black hoodie and a mask runs away with her purse, bumping and pushing against the crowd.
I see the commotion and recognize it as an opportunity. The crowd is distracted, and chaos is my ally. My eyes revert back to the woman. Now her attention grabbed by the chaos unfolding.
I approach her from behind, moving swiftly and silently. As I get close, I time my move, ensuring it coincides with the chaos of the crowd. I deliberately bump into her, my shoulder hitting hers with enough force to make her stumble. I catch her, my body pressing against hers to break her fall.
In that split second, my hand moves to her neck, deftly unbuckling her necklace. I tuck it into my pocket, my actions smooth and unnoticed. As she regains her balance, I step back, a look of feigned concern on my face.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, ma'am," I say, my voice laced with false sincerity. "I didn't see you there. Are you alright?"
She mutters something in response, her attention already drifting back to the thief, unaware of the theft that just occurred. I melt back into the crowd, my prize securely hidden, another successful heist completed.
"He disappeared." The crowd shouts.
"Another delinquent that can't use their powers for good. Stealing instead of helping, pathetic." A man blurts out as I walk past.
The beautiful shops and crowds start to lessen as I walk further away from the beautiful part of Newhaven entering the outskirts of Newhaven.
Rusting monorail tracks cut through half-abandoned towers with empty windows. The air reeks of burnt plastics and data exhaust. Drones hum overhead, corporate logos mixed with hacked cyber-collective tags. Graffiti morphs on walls, displaying encrypted messages or pulsing algorithms.
Holographic ads pool on wet asphalt, projecting luxury goods to no one. Shadow figures deal black-market implants or VR dream-walls. Buildings wear AR skins, faux-opulence over crumbling facades. Geofences warn of corporate DMZs protecting biotech experiments. Subdermal ID chips ping city sensors – everyone here's data, nodes on Newhaven's networks. Breakdown and breakthrough coexist in neon-shadowed tension.
I start nearing the fimiliar place where I sell most of the things I've stolen or built using junk found everywhere.
I push open the creaking door, and the pawn shop's dim interior swallows me like a gritty analogue mouth. The sign above the entrance – Elba's BITS & BODES – flickers with cheap LED letters that stutter like a dying pulse. Inside, shelves sag under eclectic piles of cyberware salvaged from street clinics, pirated neurosoftware boxed in crude Faraday cages, and retro-tech junkyard relics festooned with warning stickers.
The air's thick with smells of solder, stale smoke, and the sweet tang of black-market cryo-gels. A holographic inventory lattice hovers above the counter, projecting bargain-basement prices for "GRADE-C implants" and "OFFLINE VR skulltops" alongside lurid warnings about "KNOWN BUGS & BACKDOORS". Papa Elba himself leans back in a chair hacked-together from drone parts, eyes narrowed like he's scanning me for exploitable vectors.
Behind him, a wall display showcases dubiously-sourced military-grade comms gear mingling with glittering piles of street-cast-off smart jewelry – some pieces still broadcasting faded owner's personas or encrypted owner's-only messages. An old-school CRT monitor burps static in the corner, cycling through feeds of underground cyber-markets, pirate AI-generated art auctions, and cryptic want-ads for "flesh-interface specialists".
A wiry cat with pixel-patterned fur pads silently down a shelf lined with disembodied AR contact lenses in jewel cases – each lens promising gateways to illicit overlay worlds or biometric data-skewing "perception hacks". The pawn shop's clientele blend in like shadows – swathed in identity-masking VR cloaks; all looking for deals on the dark fringe of Newhaven tech underworld.
Uncle Elba speaks without looking up, voice like corroded wire. "What you wanna trade? Got chips, got codes... got broken dreams in silicon. What's your currency?"
"Uncle Elba?" He looks up at me and his face brightens as he recognizes me.
"Evie, what brings you here today? I hope you have something good for me." Uncle E enthusiastically questions as he gets up. I reach into my pocket, taking out the necklace.
"A diamond necklace, found it near the dumpster." We both chuckle at my sarcastic remark. He takes a look at it and examines it.
"6000 credits." He states his price, shocking me at how low it is.
"But uncle Elba, this diamond necklace, rarely found in this day and age. Can't you go a bit higher?" Now desperate.
"Rates have gone high kid... 6100 credits, that's as far as I can go." Contemplating, I have no choice but to accept the price. He's the only person in the city that buys from us.
"Fine..." Money transferred to Ev*****e The robotic voice states.
"By the way kid, how's your mother? Is she available by any-" I cut him off knowing where this is going.
"No Uncle, mother is never available." I turn to leave. Mom is probably not home as always. Ever since Dad died, she hasn't taken any break from work but, she has been sick these days and she promised to stay home today.
I push out into the littered streets again. As I take the usual street to go home. Something seem different. The further I walk, the clearer things becomes.
Ash, dust and smoke fill the air and the streets. The deeper I walk down the street, the darker the smoke becomes, dust becomes heavier and the ash becomes stronger.
The once familiar street I always take to go home, not familiar anymore. The buildings, houses and homes now turned to ash.
Fathers, mothers, children and relatives, watching the horror displaying in front of them. I begin to run, as screams around me start to sound distant. The only thing I can hear is my prayer that at least my home is spared but we all know, it too turned to ash.
"Move!" I run, as I push through the forming crowd. Running to my home, now praying that at least my mother wasn't home.
"Get out of my way." I run further down the now unfamiliar street. Memory muscle now at work as tears stream down my face. I start having difficulty to breathe due to the thick smoke and running but nothing is going to stop me until I reach my destination.
The fire is too big like Satan has returned to take the Earth. The screams now turned into murmurs indicating how deep I have gone into the blaze. I cover my head with my hoddie as I use my arm as my mask. My speed slowing down as I jog deeper into the inferno.
"KID! Get out of there!" A man shouts from behind me. Hearing his footsteps coming closer but I ignore him, picking up my pace again. I know its stupid of me to run in a raging fire but, what if my mother is at home, burning because of me...
Shit, I should've let her gone to work. I hope her stubbornness was greater than my begging today just like any other day. I can hear the man footsteps getting nearer and nearer. I can see my home but its engulfed in flames. Tears and ugly sobs as well as my difficulty breathing become more intense.
"KID!" That's the last thing I hear before an explosion pushes us back. The fire burning, as flying debris cutts my skin. I instinctively close my eyes. Everything happens in slow motion as I hit the asphalt hard as further debris falls on top of me, immediately taking me out.