The God Of The Rust District

The Scissors of Fate

The masked figure raised the giant pair of scissors high in the air.

The blades were not made of ordinary steel. They shone with a bright, blinding white light that cut right through the dark void of the server room. Every time the scissors opened and closed, a loud snap echoed through the air, and parts of the floating floor beneath my feet simply vanished into thin air.

"Who is that?" I shouted, pointing my glowing hand at the masked person standing across the glass.

"That is the Editor," Aminata said, lowering her crystal gun just an inch. Her voice lost its robotic flat tone for a second, replaced by a trace of genuine fear. "The one who decides which loops survive and which ones get cut forever. You made too much noise, Kofi. You broke the rules of Sector 4."

"I don't care about their rules!" I yelled back, stepping away from the edge as another chunk of the platform dropped into the dark abyss. "I am done running away from fake syndicates and fake sisters!"

Aminata looked at me, her dark eyes narrowing. She raised her pistol again, but she did not aim it at my head this time. She pointed the barrel straight at the control panel beside the massive viewing window.

"If you want the truth so bad, then take it," Aminata said.

Before I could ask what she meant, she pulled the trigger.

The crystal gun fired a burst of bright energy that hit the control panel dead center. Sparks flew in every direction, and the main screen flickered violently. A loud alarm started to blare overhead, flashing red lights across the entire room.

The massive viewing window cracked right down the middle.

The masked Editor lowered the giant scissors and struck the glass from the outside.

CRACK.

The glass shattered into a million pieces. A powerful rush of cold wind swept into the room, pulling papers, cables, and small pieces of equipment out into the empty void. I lost my footing and slid across the smooth floor, catching the edge of a metal console just in time to keep from falling into the dark.

I looked up, coughing as dust filled the air.

The masked figure stepped through the broken window, landing heavily on the platform. The white mask had no eyes, but I could feel a cold, heavy stare fixed entirely on me. The giant scissors gleamed in the red emergency light.

"Kofi Vance," a voice spoke from behind the mask. It didn't sound like one person talking. It sounded like a hundred voices speaking at the exact same time, deep and metallic. "Subject file number seven hundred and twelve. Termination sequence initiated."

"Stay away from him!"

Aminata moved faster than I had ever seen anyone move. She didn't shoot at the Editor. Instead, she sprinted past me, leaped into the air, and tackled the masked figure right around the waist.

Both of them crashed hard onto the metal floor, sliding dangerously close to the edge of the broken platform.

"Aminata, what are you doing?" I shouted, pulling myself up from the floor.

"Saving my own code," she called back, struggling as she tried to wrestle the giant scissors away from the masked figure. The Editor raised a heavy hand and struck Aminata across the face, sending her tumbling backward. She hit the floor hard, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, but she didn't stop. She reached out and grabbed the Editor's ankle, tripping the figure down.

"Kofi, run!" Aminata yelled, gritting her teeth as the Editor brought the heavy scissors down toward her shoulder.

I didn't think. All the fear I had felt since the alley in Sector 4 turned into a hot, burning anger. Those fake memories, the forced loops, the lies about my family- it all boiled up inside my chest.

I raised my right hand. The amber lines glowed brighter than a sun, pulsing with raw, uncontrolled power.

"Leave her alone!" I roared.

I charged forward across the metal floor, my hand outstretched. I aimed straight for the masked Editor. As I closed the distance, the energy in my hand shifted, turning from bright amber into a deep, dark stream of cosmic ink that wrapped around my arm like heavy armor.

The Editor turned its mask toward me just as I threw my fist forward.

My fist slammed directly into the center of the white mask.

A massive shockwave exploded outward, shattering the rest of the viewing windows and blowing out every server console in the room. The Editor let out a strange, mechanical screech as the force of the blow lifted the massive figure off its feet and threw it backward out of the broken window into the endless void.

I stood panting at the edge of the precipice, my arm burning with a strange, heavy heat. The dark ink slowly faded back under my skin, leaving my hand shaking.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the steady beep of the emergency alarms.

I turned around slowly and looked at Aminata. She was pushing herself up off the floor, wiping the blood from her lip. She looked at me with a new expression in her eyes, not cold, not empty, but filled with absolute shock.

"You didn't just break the loop," Aminata whispered, staring at my hand. "You broke the writing tool."

Before I could answer her, the floor beneath us gave a loud, groaning sound.

The entire platform began to tilt downward. The walls around us dissolved into lines of glowing text that spun out of control, swirling together into a massive, blinding vortex.

Aminata let out a sharp gasp as the ground beneath her feet vanished. She dropped backward into the open air, sliding fast toward the edge of the falling platform.

"Kofi!" she screamed, holding out her hand as she fell.

I lunged forward, sliding across the tilting metal plates, and threw my body over the edge. I grabbed her wrist just in time, my fingers locking around hers as the entire world beneath us broke apart into a storm of white pages and falling letters.