S-2873 • L9 Fluxluna • D25 Alonli
"Fluxluna runs in a thread of living water.Alonli stretches the curve of return.The tide draws silver in quiet clarity.The story moves whole, in low light."
Akilina, 19, lay on the bed, her fingers running through the soft hair of the girl beside her.
Blue eyes.
A forgotten name.
It didn't matter.
Akilina opened the holoscreen and reread, for the thousandth time, the message from her mamochka, Darya Orlov, begging her to abandon the idea of going to live with her father.
Still, she would do whatever she wanted.
She loved her mother—but she was tired.
Tired of spending her days in brothels, sitting alone at the bar, filling her glass, watching her parade between clients.
Ever since she discovered alcohol, everything felt slightly less unbearable.
And when she sang karaoke.
Music had always been company.
"Your daughter has a good voice. Like the Witch of Love."
Darya—known by that name in the bar's golden days—leaned against a pillar, watching Akilina slumped over a table, barely holding the microphone, yet singing with a delicious, velvety voice.
"She does."
Akilina grew up learning to defend her mother from the bastards who mistreated her—from freeloaders and drunk men who went too far.
Idiots irritated her easily.
If Darya had chosen that life, the least Akilina could do was protect her.
It should have been the other way around.
Well—fuck it.
When she opened the conversation with her father, the address was there.
She reread it.
Searched Khalmer-Yu again.
Nothing.
No results.
Fuck.
But that was expected.
Her father was the head of a Russian criminal organization—he had enough power to erase any digital trace.
Whatever.
The girl beside her stirred.
She lifted her eyes and whispered something.
Spell broken.
Akilina just wanted to leave.
Get in the car and fly six hours from Ulyanovsk to Syktyvkar, where a henchman would be waiting to take her to Khalmer-Yu.
They said she was still unfit to know the path to the headquarters of the Vorovskoy mir.
She shrugged.
She'd leave the car in any parking lot.
If she ever wanted to come back, she'd depend only on herself.
"What are you thinking about?" the girl asked, while Akilina helped adjusted a loose wire in the second-hand implant on her arm—the joint locked.
Akilina looked away.
She never liked that kind of thing.
Thinking about something robotic inside her felt wrong.
Still, she accepted the nanites in her biochip—they tingled—and she liked the sensation when she sent commands or slid her fingers across the pixels of the bioscreen.
The rest could use whatever they wanted.
Some were fine.
"Nothing."
She stood up.
Set the biochip to warm her body.
Pulled on her heavy black coat.
Outside: minus thirty degrees.
The girl dressed too.
For a second, Akilina considered asking her name.
No.
Soon she would join the Vorovskoy mir.
Detachment mattered.
Names mattered.
She would only remember those who were important—
and those were few.
"Alright… I'm heading out," the girl murmured, eyes downcast.
Akilina remained silent.
Pixels danced before her as she traced the route to Ulyanovsk.
She sent the command to Ksava—her car.
Faced with silence, the girl left.
Blue neon flickered in the room.
Too violet.
When she realized it, she was alone.
Good.
It would never work anyway.
Once ready, she filled her backpack with a few clothes and a photo of her and her mother.
She stepped outside.
The beige car descended in front of her.
The wind from the hyperventilators tangled her hair—she had forgotten to braid it—and she tied it into a bun.
The driver's door lifted.
"Good evening, Akilina," Ksava said.
She liked the voice of the Technological Essence (TE).
She just hated when it asked unnecessary questions.
Most of the time, she let it drift in its own curiosity.
"We will arrive in four hours.
One hour longer than expected.
A snowstorm around Ulyanovsk."
"Fuck."
"Are you upset?"
She rolled her eyes.
Annoying.
Good thing her mother had never connected her to an android—she would hate sharing her half with another being;
worse, with a machine.
Still, it was a fact—the car knew how she felt.
She leaned her head against the window.
The frosted glass distorted the view.
While Ksava spoke enthusiastically about some political nonsense, Akilina was already asleep.
Her Crone dissolved into silence—
to be born again.