Vex Steel's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Vex Steel pulled her hood lower and pressed against the alley wall. Two market guards had just chased her from the food stalls again. They never asked her name. One look at her white hair, red eyes, and the black veins under her pale skin was enough. Exiled on sight, like every settlement before this one. She stayed in the shadows for one reason. Somewhere in this city, the scientist who did this to her had kept written notes. Find the notes, find him. Then he would answer for what he took. A rumor had reached her that morning. Two traders whispered about an old research archive that logged past experiments. If her records existed anywhere, they were there. But the traders never said where the archive hid. Vex had spent hours chasing dead ends. She had a lead and no door. "You're looking for the archive." The voice came from above. A boy crouched on a fire ladder, one purple eye fixed on her. A patch covered the other. His jet-black hair fell messy across his face. When he dropped down, his left arm caught the light. Metal fingers, jointed and scarred. A street urchin, the kind guards ignored and doors underestimated. "I've been following you," he said. "You ask loud questions." He grinned. "Name's Axe. I get people into places they shouldn't be. High walls, locked vaults. That's my trade." Vex didn't trust him. She trusted no one. But he had said the word she needed. "You know where the archive is." "Everyone with sense knows," Axe said. "They just can't reach it." He pointed up, past the rooftops, to the tower that ruled the skyline. Its glowing accents burned pink and blue against the dark. A domed crown of glass sat at the top. "The records live up there. In the research dome. Nobody walks in." Vex stared at the tower. Elevated roads circled its base like rings. Guards, sensors, sealed gates. "Then it might as well not exist." "For you, sure." Axe flexed his metal hand. "Not for me. I've cracked worse. But I don't climb for free." "I have nothing." "You have a target." His grin faded. "I want in that dome for my own reasons. You want your notes. We go together, or you rot down here forever." Vex weighed it. Alone, she had no path. With him, she had a break-in artist and a location. She held out her pale hand. Black veins ran under the skin. Axe didn't flinch. He shook it. "Deal," she said. The rumor had a shape now. The archive sat in the tower's crown, guarded and sealed, and she finally knew the way up. The mystery of where had become the problem of how. Vex looked at the neon spire and felt something she hadn't felt in months. A direction.