I didn't wake up. I launched.
Usually, waking up in a Sector 4-G Coffin involves a ten-minute negotiation with my spine and a deep, soul-crushing regret that I didn't die in my sleep. But this morning?
I felt like I'd been plugged into a fast-charger.
My eyes snapped open, and for a split second, I just stared at the ceiling. I felt... light. Bubbling. Like I was made of carbonated water instead of tired meat.
"Okay," I whispered, sitting up with a speed that nearly threw me off the mattress. "Best dream ever. I'm going to wake up in five seconds, my back is going to hurt, and I'm going to be late for the worst job in Minato City."
I squeezed my eyes shut and waited.
One. Two. Three.
"If you are waiting for the part where you become pathetic again, I'm afraid you'll be waiting quite a while," a crisp, feminine voice rang in my skull.
My heart did a backflip.
"Eos," I groaned, flopping back down. "So it wasn't a dream. The golden eyes, the shattering desk, the alleyway... that was all real?"
"Unless you've developed a very specific and high-definition form of schizophrenia overnight, yes," she replied. The golden icon flickered in my vision, looking annoyingly bright for three in the morning. "Also, a suggestion: Are you planning on washing that?"
"Washing what?"
"Yourself. Specifically the 'essence of alleyway' you've brought into this tiny box. You smell like ozone, damp duracrete, and failure. It's making my data-processing... unpleasant."
I sniffed my sleeve. She wasn't lying. I smelled like a burnt circuit board dipped in sewer water.
"Fine. I'm going. Don't look."
"Arata, I am literally inside your optic nerve. 'Looking' is my default state. But don't worry, your biology is remarkably uninteresting to me."
The "shower" in a Coffin unit is essentially a vertical coffin inside your horizontal one. It's a metal tube that sprays recycled, lukewarm water that smells faintly of bleach.
I stepped in, expecting the usual shivering misery.
Instead, the water felt like silk. My skin felt... different. Denser.
As the grime washed away, I looked down at my arms. The sallow, gray tint of a lifetime spent in the shadows was gone. My muscles were defined, my skin was clear, and I felt a weird, humming warmth radiating from my chest.
I stepped out and wiped the steam from the tiny, cracked mirror.
I stopped. I didn't even recognize the guy looking back.
"Eos... what did you do to my face?"
"I did nothing. The 1.24 units of Solar Aether simply 'corrected' the cellular damage caused by twenty-four years of malnutrition and bad air. You're welcome."
I leaned in, staring at my eyes. The gold was still there, swirling in my pupils like a slow-motion storm. I looked like a Tier. I looked like one of those people who spent their weekends on private Aether-yachts.
"I can't go to work like this," I hissed. "I look like I just won the genetic lottery. Vance will think I'm on some kind of high-tier enhancers. Or worse, he'll think I'm a thief."
"In this city, health is a confession," Eos purred. "A Zero who doesn't look like he's dying is an anomaly. And the system hates anomalies."
The morning commute was a blur of paranoia.
I had spent twenty minutes smearing soot from my ventilation grate under my eyes to fake a "lack of sleep" look. I slouched my shoulders, wore my grimiest vest, and dragged my feet like they were made of lead.
I was a god wearing a corpse's costume.
The transit platform was crawling with Peacekeeper drones. Their blue wings hummed, sending rhythmic pulses of red light through the crowd.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Usually, I was just background noise to them. Today, every time a scanner washed over me, I felt a prickle of heat.
"I am masking your thermal output," Eos whispered as we boarded the Pod. "But walk heavy, Arata. You have too much spring in your step. You look like a man who actually wants to be alive. Stop it."
"I'm trying," I muttered, gripping a handrail so hard the metal groaned.
I quickly let go before I snapped the damn thing.
The Grand Aether Hotel was a madhouse.
Two Aether Police cruisers—sleek, black wedges with glowing blue sirens—were idling at the curb. Peacekeepers in heavy tactical gear were stationed at the gold-leafed revolving doors.
I ducked through the service entrance, hoping to vanish into the laundry room.
"Arata! Move it!"
Manager Vance appeared from around a corner, his beige suit looking like it had been through a shredder. His 15.5 rating was pulsing a frantic, stressed-out purple.
"Mr. Vance, I'm here, I—"
Vance stopped. He looked me up and down. He squinted at my face through the soot I'd applied.
"Why are you standing so straight?" he barked. "And why is your skin... glowing? Are you on something, Arata? Because if you're using hotel credits for Aether-stims, I will personally throw you off the roof."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
"Alert," Eos whispered. "Adrenaline is spiking resonance. He's going to notice the eyes. Slouch. Now."
I forced a dry, hacking cough and slumped until I felt my spine ache.
"It's a fever, sir," I rasped, making my voice sound like I'd been eating glass. "I think the discharge from the desk yesterday... it did something to my lungs. I feel like I'm burning up."
Vance recoiled, his face twisting in disgust.
"Ugh. Disgusting. Just what I need—a Zero with a viral infection. Stay away from the guests. Go to the sub-lobby and help with the luggage droids. And Arata?"
I paused at the service elevator.
"The Aether Police are doing a full-sweep audit. Sato claims he was 'syphoned.' They think a professional team hit him with a localized dampener."
Vance checked his digital watch, his expression turning grim.
"Standard procedure for a high-tier incident. They're scanning every employee's vessel capacity today. They want to make sure nobody is hiding any 'leaked' units."
My stomach turned to ice.
"Scanning... everyone?"
"Everyone," Vance snapped. "You're scheduled for 10:00 AM. Don't be late. If you miss the scan, the Peacekeepers will flag you as a 'hostile anomaly' and you'll be in a detention cell before lunch."
The elevator doors hissed shut, leaving me alone with the golden icon in my vision.
[ TIME UNTIL SCAN: 1 HOUR 42 MINUTES ]
[ CURRENT CAPACITY: 41.2% ]
[ THRESHOLD FOR 'ZERO' RATING: 0.05% ]
"Eos," I whispered, leaning my head against the cold metal wall. "If they scan me at ten o'clock, they're going to see a 1.24 vessel filled with stolen Solar fire. I'm dead."
"Dead is a bit dramatic," Eos replied, her tone shifting into something dangerously playful. "But you are definitely 'over-leveraged.' If you want to pass that scan, you need to find a place to dump the excess."
"Where? I can't just throw it on the floor!"
"No. But the hotel is currently full of people with very large debts, Arata. High-tier guests with 'dirty' Aether signatures they're trying to hide from the police. If you can't dump the energy... maybe you just need to find a more legitimate way to hide it."
The elevator dinked. Sub-lobby.
"But for now," Eos purred. "I suggest you start looking for someone who looks like they have too much to lose. We have ninety minutes to balance your books."