The rain hammering against the grimy plexi-steel window wasn’t just water anymore. Sometimes, Jax swore he could see faint, impossible colors refracting within the drops – brief flashes of emerald, violet, and something like burnt orange that didn’t belong in the perpetually overcast, pollution-choked skies of Neo-Veridia Prime Sector 7. Just another glitch in the system, probably. Like the flickering lumen-panels in the corridor outside his rented sleep-coffin, or the way synth-protein paste sometimes tasted faintly of ozone and regret. The whole damn arcology was decaying, running on fumes and Authority propaganda, a Hard Sci-Fi dream curdling into a Dystopian hangover.

  He drained the last of the cheap synth-booze from the flask, the harsh chemical burn a familiar comfort against the damp chill seeping through the poorly sealed window frame. It didn't make the view any better – a vista of crumbling hab-blocks stacked precariously towards the perpetually weeping sky, crisscrossed by rusting transport conduits and flickering holo-ads hawking nutrient paste and compliance. Somewhere up there, lost in the smog and acidic drizzle, were the privileged sectors, the Authority's gilded cage. Down here, in the Grey Levels, life was cheap, survival was optional, and reality itself seemed increasingly… unreliable.

  A cracked data-slate flickered on the stained table beside him, displaying his current credit balance: barely enough for another week’s rent on this glorified morgue drawer and a few packs of stim-chews to keep the shakes at bay. Pathetic. He needed a score, and soon. Preferably one that didn’t involve wading through knee-deep sewage or getting shot at by trigger-happy Authority Enforcers or equally trigger-happy scav-gangs. Options, however, were thin on the ground, much like hope, clean water, or decent Synth-Caf.

  Jax ran a hand over his face, feeling the familiar rasp of stubble. Sleep had been elusive, punctuated by dreams that tasted like static electricity and featured geometry that gave him migraines. Probably the booze. Or maybe it was the ‘Bleed’, as the street called it. The official Authority broadcasts referred to them as ‘Localized Reality Aberrations’ or ‘Contained Extradimensional Incursions’, usually accompanied by soothing assurances that everything was under control, right before another city block vanished or sprouted things with far too many teeth and tentacles. Control was a joke. The Authority couldn’t even keep the damn rain tasting like rain anymore.

  His personal comm unit, a battered piece of scavenged tech grafted onto his forearm, chimed softly – a low-priority, encrypted ping. He sighed. Probably just Fingers, his usual info-broker and general purveyor of bad news and worse opportunities, wanting his cut from that minor data-chip lift Jax had pulled off near the filtration hub last cycle.

  He tapped the activation rune integrated into the comm’s casing – a habit picked up from dealing with tech that was increasingly prone to nonsensical glitches that sometimes responded better to quasi-mystical symbols than actual commands. The irony wasn't lost on him, just filed away under ‘Reasons This World is Fucked’.

  Fingers’s perpetually nervous face materialized in a flickering holo-projection above the comm unit. His eyes darted around as if expecting an Enforcer drone to burst through the wall at any second. “Jax? You there? Good. Good. Listen, got something. Big. Risky, yeah, but the payout…” Fingers licked his thin lips, a bead of sweat tracing a path through the grime on his temple. “…it’s Authority-level creds. Enough to get you out of the Grey for good, maybe.”

  Jax snorted, taking another swig from the now-empty flask before remembering it was empty. He tossed it onto the pile of discarded ration packs in the corner. “‘Out of the Grey for good’ usually means ‘dumped in an incinerator shaft’ when it comes from you, Fingers. What’s the catch? Selling nutrient paste made from recycled citizens again?”

  “Nah, nah, nothing like that this time, honest!” Fingers protested, wringing his hands. “It’s… well, it’s an Anomaly run. Sector 9, near the old Geo-Thermal plant ruins. Fresh Bleed. Real fresh.”

  Jax felt a familiar chill, colder than the synth-booze. Sector 9? That was deep quarantine territory even before the Bleed started getting bad. The Geo-Thermal ruins were notoriously unstable, riddled with structural failures and whispers of dormant Authority tech best left undisturbed. And a ‘fresh Bleed’… that meant maximum unpredictability. Reality there wouldn't just be glitching; it would be actively rewriting itself, likely spawning things that viewed baseline humans as amusingly squishy chew toys.

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  “You’re out of your processor-addled mind, Fingers,” Jax said flatly. “Sector 9 Geo-Plant? That’s not a run; that’s a suicide note with delusions of grandeur. What’s in there that’s worth Authority-level creds?”

  “Relic,” Fingers whispered, leaning closer to his holo-emitter, his voice dropping. “Pre-Collapse tech. Not just standard Aethelian junk, either. Something… different. Energy signature went off the charts before the Authority slapped the full quarantine field around the zone. My contact – reliable, Jax, reliable – says it’s resonating with the Bleed itself. Like it’s attracting it, or using it. They want it retrieved before the Authority manages to sterilize the whole damn zone, or before whatever’s inside fully… uh… manifests.”

  Jax leaned back, running a hand through his short, unkempt hair. Pre-Collapse tech resonating with the Bleed. That sounded less like Hard Sci-Fi and more like the ramblings of a chem-fried cultist chanting prayers to a rogue server stack. But the payout… Authority-level credits could buy a clean bio-ID, passage to an orbital station, or at least enough high-grade stims and synth-booze to make forgetting the Grey Levels a temporary reality.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” Jax asked, suspicion heavy in his voice.

  “Client prefers anonymity. You know the drill. High risk, high reward, no questions asked beyond target acquisition and delivery coordinates,” Fingers recited nervously. “Creds are escrowed. Half on successful entry past the primary quarantine cordon, half on retrieval and extraction.”

  It smelled like a setup. Or at best, a job where the client fully expected the operative to end up as a smear on the pavement or part of some extradimensional entity’s digestive tract. Standard operating procedure, really. The dark humor of it all, the sheer absurdity of risking dismemberment by things not covered in any zoology text for digital currency to escape a world actively trying to erase itself, brought a humorless smirk to Jax’s face.

  “Alright, Fingers,” he said, the smirk fading as quickly as it appeared. “Send me the coordinates for the entry point and the target signature profile. Tell your anonymous client their disposable asset is inbound. If this goes sideways because your ‘reliable contact’ was sniffing too much coolant fluid, I’m coming back to personally use your fingers for lockpicks.”

  Fingers swallowed hard but managed a shaky grin. “Understood, Jax. Perfectly. Data packet incoming. And uh… try not to get… assimilated? Or whatever the hell happens in those zones.” The holo-projection winked out.

  Jax stared at the spot where Fingers’s face had been, the silence broken only by the drumming rain and the distant wail of an Authority siren. Sector 9. Geo-Thermal ruins. A fresh Bleed. Pre-Collapse tech playing footsie with extradimensional horrors. What could possibly go wrong?

  He pushed himself to his feet, the familiar aches momentarily forgotten, replaced by the cold focus that preceded high-risk idiocy. He checked the charge on his kinetic pulse pistol – scavenged, unreliable, but better than harsh language. He strapped on his worn combat vest, checking the trauma patches and the emergency stim injector. He pulled on sturdy boots designed for navigating rubble. Ready as he’d ever be.

  Stepping out of his coffin-sized apartment into the grimy corridor, the flickering lumen-panels cast long, dancing shadows. He ignored the stench of stale synth-nutrients and desperation that permeated the Grey Levels. He headed for the nearest transit tube, dodging shambling figures huddled in doorways – addicts lost in cheap VR fantasies or just broken by the sheer weight of existence in Neo-Veridia Prime.

  The journey to the edge of Sector 9 was grimly efficient. Authority checkpoints were bypassed using knowledge of crumbling service tunnels. A greasy bribe convinced a low-level transit controller to reroute a cargo shuttle closer to the quarantine cordon. Standard anti-hero stuff – pragmatic, morally grey, focused solely on the objective.

  Standing before the shimmering, semi-translucent barrier of the Authority quarantine field felt like standing on the shore of an alien ocean. Warning signs plastered nearby depicted graphic representations of reality failure, mutation, and swift, brutal Authority ‘sterilization protocols’. Beyond the shimmering field, the air itself seemed distorted, the familiar lines of the Geo-Thermal plant ruins twisting subtly, colors shifting in unnatural ways. It was quiet, too quiet, lacking even the usual ambient hum of the city.

  Jax checked the data packet from Fingers. Entry point: a recently collapsed sewer conduit that intersected the quarantine field’s weakest point. Target: an energy signature designated ‘Object Rho’, located deep within the primary reactor building according to pre-Bleed schematics. Simple. Except for the part where everything inside was likely trying to kill, eat, or unravel him on a molecular level.

  He popped a stim-chew, the bitter chemical tang flooding his mouth, sharpening his senses, pushing back the exhaustion. With a final, cynical glance back at the oppressive grey ‘normalcy’ of Neo-Veridia Prime, Jax located the sewer entrance, pried open the corroded grate, and descended into the darkness, heading towards the shimmering edge of the Anomalous Zone. Time to see what fresh hell the universe, or whatever lazy cosmic programmer wrote this reality, had cooked up this time.