531

Two

The Skylines, with their clear, clean lines were Chan Yi's least favorite place to visit. His hideaway was an apartment well above the mess and stench of the city. Clean, but sterile, without character or emotion. It reminded him of the labs and a part of his life that was best left behind him. There was only one good thing that had come of those days, and it had been seven years since his death.

He walked quickly through forgotten corridors with a practical army of cleaning droids dogging his steps. He had a private lift to his apartment, and he was grateful at that moment. It was why he had orchestrated the entire place to begin with. This was his haven, and he rarely made the journey more than once a month, no matter how often the thought of cleanliness filled his mind. Covered in mud and who knew what else, he needed this now.

The place was spacious even for a Skyliner. The windows of the front room looked out over a cloud-filled afternoon and hid the grim reality of the world beneath. Once, Yi had believed that those under the clouds had earned that darkness. He'd learned. The blood on his hands had shown him that the ivory towers he defended were bathed in far worse than the muck of the Piles.

He stripped out of his clothes and tossed them into the sanitizer before he headed into the bathroom for a shower. He scrubbed the nastiness of the Piles from his skin and let the steam of truly hot water relax him. Even at his apartment in the Builds, hot water was a rare luxury. He leaned against the back wall and thought of the job, but his mind drifted to the days when he had lived among the clouds. When he hadn't been alone.

He heard the whisper of his name in his ear, soft hands, and gentle caresses as they watched the sun rise through the windows of a different high rise. Nights entwined together. Other memories wrapped with those though. Blood. Death. The truth of what they had done.

He opened his eyes and pushed away from the wall. He hated the Skylines. He hated what they represented, what they had taken from him, and what they had created in him from the beginning.

"You have always been death," Dr. Hasun assured them. "You were made to serve man, to protect him."

"Who protects us?" another voice asked.

Yi hadn't known back then. It was before he emerged.

Now, he knew the answer, but it no longer mattered.

He stepped out of the shower and dried quickly. He still had work to do, and the day wasn't Builds to trackgetting shorter.

Instead of heading back to his office, he decided to work from the apartment. His data links were untraceable; tech stolen from the government before they'd even known it was completed. At least they'd trained him well for that.

He dressed casually in case he had to go back to the Piles, but the clothes he wore were of fine fabric and tailored cut. He pulled a tee-shirt on and a clean hoodie over it. It was a far cry from the days of suits and fancy outings, but Yi liked it best like this. Comfortable. Movable. Warm.

He opened the compartment in his arm and pulled out the device hidden there. He flipped open his ports and connected to the data device. There were properties listed on the device, but it all seemed on the up and up. He set the information aside and pulled up what he knew of the people that Fulmer was doing business with. The man obviously had some contacts to get the good tech to the Builds, but it wasn't normal contracts. Places like Mariner Tech and Augalife didn't bring their wares to small-time dealers like Fulmer. There was a go-between somewhere.

It was a dead-end though. Nothing in the files that Fulmer kept indicated anything of the sort. But Yi knew that was wrong. Which meant the man had someone working dirty for him, or he had separate books for that sort of thing.