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[indent]Selene didn’t blend into Esille the way she did in Khia. Here, the air smelled of ionized sterility and overpriced citrus simulacra. Dominion’s sky arched above, a holographic cerulean so flawless it felt otherworldly as if she’d actually done it. Made it to the land Above, that is. Except neon script cascaded down building facades in liquid waves, advertising nano-spa treatments and cognitive uplifts, their hues calibrated to soothe, to sedate. Just a purr of light that made her eyes ache if she looked for too long. 

The case hugged her ribs, its lock a cold, mocking eye. Three nights she’d hunched over it in her squat—a crumbling prefab unit masquerading as “artisan housing”—probing its seams with picks and decoders. Nothing. Not a tremor. Whoever had commissioned this job hadn’t just wanted discretion; they’d built a damn sarcophagus. Middleman. Courier. [i]Mule[/i]. That’s all she was, the terms hissing in her skull like the devil’s snake around her shoulder. She’d swallowed worse labels for less pay, sure, but this… this felt like being handed a grenade with the pin already gone.

What in the hell was in this thing that was so important? There was probably no point in wondering, yet still, it needled her. The not-knowing.  She hadn’t admitted it out loud, not even to herself, but part of her had hoped it wouldn’t be this sealed. That she might, maybe, get a peek. That whoever this buyer was—some slick-spoken contact working out of a clinic deep in Esille’s legal district—might be late or fall through, and she'd be stuck with it long enough to justify a deeper dig. She passed rows of glowing ads—perfume behind reinforced glass, luxury augments promising longer legs and sharper smiles, synthetic chocolates made from a hundred unnamed compounds—and wondered what kind of person wanted something this locked up bad enough to risk a Grey Market buy during a Council crackdown. 

And why they’d specifically asked for her to get it. 

Selene veered left, feigning interest in a vending kiosk draped in bioluminescent ferns. Their fronds rippled on loop, a perfect mimicry of the breeze. No soil. No roots. Just another illusion. But blending in Esille meant pretending to have a purpose, and that meant loitering with intent. Acting like someone on the cusp of a date. Or a transaction. So she stood in the soft, purple glow of the plant aisle and scanned the area. 

And, despite her vigilance, she didn’t notice the shift at first. Just a subtle hush, a tremor in the air like static before a storm. The sort of silence that wasn’t natural in a city like this, especially not in Esille. A silence that pulled the breath from your lungs and said, [i]Run[/i].

Selene didn’t turn her head at first. She knew better than to move too fast in a place where eyes watched from more than just storefronts. But something primal stirred in her chest, and a wet thud fractured the stillness.

A scream rang out somewhere deeper in the plaza. Someone shouted a word she hadn’t heard in years outside of whispers:

[b]“Duskhounds!”[/b]

She didn’t freeze. But her spine sure did.

That word cracked through her like a bone snap. Not because she believed the scream, but because of the [i]way[/i] it hit. Panicked. Like it hadn’t been meant for the crowd at all, but for the person shouting it. A warning to themselves that came far too late.

Selene shifted her weight and casually stepped back from the kiosk. No rush. No sudden moves. The case remained tucked tight under her arm, ribs-to-metal, as if proximity could protect her from whatever was coming. Her eyes flicked up, past the soft glow of the aisle, past the dazzle of ads and consumer gloss, and locked on a shadow that was moving [i]wrong[/i].

Too low to be human. Too fast to be safe.

Another scream now. Closer. Cut off halfway through.

The crowd was still in that half-stutter between [i]did we hear that right?[/i] and [i]we should be running[/i].

Selene didn’t wait.

She turned, boots striking slick tile, and cut through a row of shoppers who hadn’t yet realized the world had shifted. She needed verticality. Noise cover. Anywhere the hounds’ senses wouldn’t reign.

And, most importantly, she needed to ditch this package.

[i]No way they’re after this.[/i] Probably not. Hopefully not. Then again, this wasn’t exactly the first time a job had gone sideways in ways she hadn’t predicted.

Either way, there was bound to be a stampede in minutes, and she refused to be among the trampled. [/indent]
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