The God Of The Rust District

The Broken World

The trigger clicked.

I pulled my arms forward with every ounce of strength I had left, throwing my whole weight against the heavy magnetic clamps. The metal bit deep into my skin, but terror made me stronger. I jerked my body to the side just as Aminata squeezed the crystal weapon all the way down.

A blinding bolt of white light shot out from the barrel.

It missed my head by less than an inch, striking the white wall behind the chair. The entire room shook like an earthquake. The smooth white panels cracked down the middle, splintering apart into pieces of gray static that floated up into the air like ash.

Aminata lowered the gun, her face just as blank and calm as before. She did not look shocked that I had moved. She did not look angry that she missed. She only watched me with those cold, empty eyes, as if she were checking numbers on a screen.

"You missed," I panted, gasping for air as sweat rolled down my face. My wrists were bleeding where the clamps held me, but I didn't care. "Why did you try to shoot me, Aminata? I am your brother!"

"You are not my brother," Aminata said, her voice completely flat. She stepped closer to the broken wall, where the sky of Sector 4 was bleeding through the static. "You are the center of the loop. If you stay awake, the whole program crashes. Every time you wake up, millions of people vanish because the server cannot handle your real power."

"I don't care about the server!" I shouted, pulling hard against the chair again. "I care about my life! You lied to me about everything. You told me you died in a transport crash three years ago!"

"I was never born," Aminata answered, turning to look at me with total indifference. "I am a security program. My job is to keep you inside Sector 4, running from syndicates, hiding in the dirt, and believing you are just a scared kid from the slums. The sister you remember was just a file the system uploaded into your brain to make you care about this place."

The words hit me harder than any punch Chibuzo could throw. My chest felt hollow, like someone had reached inside and pulled out my heart. All those memories of growing up together, sharing stale bread in the rain, and laughing when we had nothing left, they were all fake. Lines of code written by a machine.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "That's a lie. I remember it. I remember you."

"Your memory is just a loop," Chibuzo said, stepping up behind Aminata. The giant enforcer crossed his massive arms over his chest, his chrome plating catching the harsh red light pouring in through the broken ceiling. "Every time you reach the edge of Sector 4, your brain resets. We catch you, we wipe your past, and we put you back at the start of the alley. We have done it a thousand times."

"A thousand times?" My voice cracked.

"More than that," Aminata said, raising her crystal gun again and pointing it straight at my chest. This time, her hand did not shake at all. "And every time the loop runs, the world gets weaker. The red eye in the sky is running out of time. If I don't reset you right now, the entire universe outside this simulation will find us. And they will delete everything."

"Let them delete it!" I yelled, anger finally taking over the fear.

The amber lines beneath the skin of my right hand flared up again, burning hotter than before. The pain was sharp, but I welcomed it. I gripped the magnetic clamps on the arms of the chair and squeezed.

Energy surged from my palm. The amber light raced up my arm and slammed directly into the metal clamps.

BZZZZT!

The heavy magnets sparked and popped, shorting out in a shower of blue electrical fire. The locks snapped open. I didn't wait. I threw myself out of the chair, rolling hard across the floor just as another blast from Aminata's crystal gun blew the metal chair into a pile of twisted scrap metal.

I scrambled to my feet, my legs shaking. I looked around the room. The white walls were completely gone now, replaced by a massive, open space filled with floating screens, endless rows of blinking servers, and towering mechanical pillars that stretched up into a dark, endless void.

This was the truth. Not Sector 4. Not the rainy slums. We were inside a massive computer system, trapped like animals in a cage.

"Stop him," Chibuzo ordered, charging forward with a heavy thud that shook the floor.

The giant enforcer threw a punch aimed right at my face. His chrome knuckles moved fast, but my mind was sharper than it had been a minute ago. The fog in my head was gone. I ducked under his massive arm, spun around behind him, and slammed my glowing right hand directly into his back.

A massive wave of amber electricity ripped through his chrome plating. Chibuzo roared as the shockwave threw him ten feet across the room, crashing hard into a bank of servers and sending glass and sparks flying everywhere. He hit the floor and didn't move.

I turned around, breathing hard, and looked straight at Aminata.

She stood alone in the center of the room, her pistol aimed right between my eyes. Her face was still completely calm, but for a split second, I saw her hand tremble.

"You can't win, Kofi," Aminata said, her voice dropping lower. "Even if you beat me, you can't leave this room. Look behind you."

I turned slowly and looked out past the edge of the broken platform.

My breath caught in my throat. Standing at the edge of the void, staring right at us through a massive viewing window, was a figure in a long black coat. Their face was completely hidden behind a glowing white mask with no eyes and no mouth.

And in their hand, they held a giant, glowing pair of scissors.