MARCH 2ND, 2135

Trix held the cigarette between her lips

and took a long drag.

Then she adjusted the sniper rifle against the ground.

The scope was locked on him—

direct, inescapable.

The man’s forehead sat dead center in the crosshairs

as he chatted with that guy—

the right-hand man.

Obvious.

Because he smiled.

And he only smiled with that fucker.

Only with him.

No one else.

She dragged too hard.

Coughed.

Pulled her hands from the rifle to grab the cigarette.

Fuck.

She sent the command to the nanites in her implanted eyes.

In an instant, the scope projected in the holoscreen ahead.

She paced back and forth,

her eyes glued to every move he made.

The rifle responded instantly,

mirroring each tilt of his head,

every gesture,

as if it could see on its own.

They made sure she’d never miss a target.

Her eyes would see everything—

and everyone.

And her bullets would pierce them all.

Trix and the weapon were one;

the only one that never failed her.

Never missed a shot.

I See You, her name.

Would that shit ever end?

The thought crept in—relentless.

She always pushed it away.

Not that she hated this life.

There was pleasure in hunting down her millionaire targets in Zenith,

whose public lives were built on her back.

But now and then, she wondered:

What would it be like to be in their place?

Sometimes, living in the shadows got old.

Did their papa fuck them over too?

Her vision zoomed in on the man seated at the table—

her father.

Papers scattered around.

He held a financial statement from the Bratva.

Trix zoomed in on the documents.

She didn’t give a shit about any of it.

Never had.

What pissed her off

was hearing him repeat, over and over,

that she’d be the next leader of the Russian mafia—

that she had to obey.

She obeyed.

He lied.

They hurt her.

Trix took another drag,

closed her eyes,

let the memories flood in.

She felt every scar etched inside her.

She wanted to make sure

that the last drop of his damned blood would spill.

And with it,

every pain he ever carved into her.

And it would.

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FEBRUARY 15TH, 2129

Akilina,

nineteen,

lay on the bed,

fingers tangled in the soft hair of the girl beside her.

Blue eyes.

Name forgotten.

Didn’t matter.

Akilina opened the holoscreen

and reread, for the thousandth time,

the message from her mamochka,

Darya Orlov,

begging

her not to move in with her father.

But she’d do whatever she wanted.

She loved her mother,

sure.

But she was tired.

Tired of spending days in brothels,

watching Darya strut between clients,

tired of sitting at the bar alone,

drowning her glass.

Since discovering alcohol,

everything felt just a little less awful.

She grew up

and learned how to defend her mother from the bastards who mistreated her,

from deadbeats,

from drunk assholes who crossed the line.

Not that it took much to piss her off.

Darya chose that life.

The least Akilina could do was protect her.

Should’ve been the other way around.

Well, fuck it.

She opened the chat with her father.

The address was there.

She reread it.

Searched for Khalmer-Yu again.

Nothing.

No results.

Fuck.

Not a surprise.

As head of the Russian mafia,

her father had enough power to erase any digital trace.

Whatever.

The girl beside her shifted.

Looked up,

whispered something.

Spell broken.

Akilina just wanted to get out of there.

Get in the car

and fly six hours from Ulyanovsk to Syktyvkar,

where a Bratva goon would be waiting to take her to Khalmer-Yu.

They said she wasn’t ready

to know the way to Bratva HQ.

She shrugged.

She’d leave the car in any parking lot.

If she wanted to return,

she wouldn’t depend on those idiots.

“What’re you thinking about?”

the girl asked, adjusting a loose wire on her secondhand implant.

The wrist locked up.

Akilina looked away.

She never liked that kind of crap.

The thought of something robotic inside her creeped her out.

The nanites from her biochip were fine, though.

They tickled.

She liked the feeling when she sent commands,

or slid her fingers across the bioscreen’s pixels.

Let everyone else use whatever the fuck they wanted.

Some were cool.

“Nothing.”

She stood up.

Set her biochip to heat her body.

Pulled on her heavy black coat.

Outside: minus thirty.

The girl got dressed too.

For a second, Akilina thought about asking her name.

No.

She’d be joining the Bratva soon.

Didn’t want to get attached.

Names mattered.

She’d only remember the ones that did.

And there weren’t many.

“Alright… I’m heading out,”

the girl murmured, head down.

Akilina didn’t respond.

The pixels danced in front of her as she plotted the route to Ulyanovsk.

Sent the command to Ksava, her car.

The girl left in silence.

Blue neon flickered in the room.

Too violet.

And suddenly, she was alone.

Fine.

Didn’t matter.

That was never going to work anyway.

She finished packing.

Shoved some clothes and a photo of her and her mother into her bag.

Left.

The car landed in front of her.

The wind from the hover fans messed up her hair.

She’d forgotten to braid it.

Threw it up into a bun.

The driver’s door rose.

“Good evening, Akilina,” Ksava greeted.

She liked the AI’s voice.

Just hated when it asked unnecessary shit.

Most times, she didn’t answer.

“We’ll arrive in four hours.

One hour longer than expected—

a snowstorm near Ulyanovsk.”

“Fuck.”

“Are you upset?”

She rolled her eyes.

Annoying.

Good thing her mother never synced her with an android.

She’d hate to share her half with another being—

especially a machine.

Didn’t change the fact that the car knew how she felt.

She leaned her head against the window.

The frosted glass warped the view.

Ksava rambled on about some political bullshit.

Akilina was already asleep.

When she opened her eyes,

snow gusts swirled around Ksava,

fighting to stay in the air,

clinging to unstable nanoelectromagnetic waves.

Relentless weather.

The car flew toward a skyway and parked on the shoulder.

“We here?”

“Yes,”

the AI replied.

Before Ksava could ask a follow-up,

Akilina opened the door

and stepped out.

She sent a command for Ksava to find the nearest parking zone—

he obeyed.

White swallowed everything.

She squinted,

but couldn’t see a damn thing ahead.

Each year, winters got harsher,

summers more deadly.

The last Russian summer had hit over forty-five degrees.

This year was promising over fifty.

Winters in Moscow easily dropped to minus twenty-five—

and kept falling.

Akilina grew up hearing the same story:

factories devouring the green,

fucking tech companies profiting off scarcity.

Pure oxygen for the rich.

Semi-pure for those crawling in the underworld.

Breathing shouldn’t be a privilege.

But it was.

And maybe that’s why it pissed her off so much.

Her mother got sick from that shit.

Respiratory problems.

Choking cough.

Almost coughed her organs out.

One day, she’d kill the bastard who sold it to Darya.

Even so,

her mother still had breath left to send all those messages,

make all those calls.

The thirty-fourth call from Mamochka flashed on the holoscreen.

Akilina closed the projection.

What was she expecting?

A hand clamped over her mouth.

Her nose pinched.

Yanked backward.

Her head slammed into something.

When she opened her eyes, a guy was smiling.

She rubbed the back of her neck, furrowed her brow,

and shot him a glare of pure disgust.

“Gotta learn to defend yourself, svoloch.”

The tone cracked like a whip.

Blue eyes. Small. Almond-shaped.

The kind of dog eyes that’d do anything for their master.

Rurik.

Her father’s right-hand man.

Ex-Russian Army.

He lit a cigarette

and blew the smoke in her face.

“Answer me, brat.

Don’t give me that shit-eater look.”

His car hovered nearby.

The AI kept it stable without breaking a sweat.

Obviously a Duo or Una model—

top of the market.

Ksava was good,

but factories no longer made Ninth-Gen AIs.

Especially not her Ciotto’s model—

a 2120 classic.

Now, a collectible.

How many assholes at the bar had tried to convince her?

Trade Ksava for implants?

For disgusting prosthetics?

She remembered Yegor’s boozy breath,

asking if she’d sell that “beauty” for half a million ninrublos.

She turned them all down.

“Fuck off, asshole.”

Akilina drank more vodka.

The man laughed

and left.

Some woman sat in his place.

Always someone different.

She shook off the thoughts.

Stared at Rurik.

“What the fuck was that, dumbass?

Almost snapped my neck.”

“You know how to swear?

Pretty fucking weak,

but you’ll get there.”

More smoke in her face.

A smug grin.

She rolled her eyes.

Didn’t flinch.

“Your implant’s shit.”

She meant the metal half of his face.

Skin stitched with cables,

hair short and shaved at the sides,

framing a square jaw.

“Getting better with that filthy mouth, huh?”

Fuck, would he ever stop smiling?

She turned away,

chose silence for the rest of the ride.

Rurik didn’t mind.

The hours dragged.

Akilina grew impatient.

Rurik noticed her fingers twitching

and offered her a cigarette.

“What the fuck is this?”

She frowned.

Tobacco. Rolled by his fingers.

“You smoke this crap?”

“Crap is those synthetic neural drugs

you kids shove up your asses.”

He spun the cig in his fingers.

“This? This is the good shit.

Natural Cuban herb.

I roll mine by hand.

Feel honored I’m giving you one.”

Akilina imagined the taste.

She liked sniffing nanodrugs,

setting her biochip so the effects lasted an hour.

That way, no addiction.

But this—

this was something else.

Natural drugs were addictive.

No biochip sync. No regulation.

What kind of high would this trash give?

She toyed with the cig between her fingers.

He offered her a lighter.

This guy was definitely weird.

A lighter?

Who the hell used those anymore?

She lit it.

Inhaled.

Smoke scorched her throat.

Coughed hard.

Rurik waited patiently,

hiding sarcasm behind that grin.

She tried again.

And again.

No effect.

She knew that shit wouldn’t work.

Finished smoking.

The car’s black interior filled with haze.

She leaned forward.

The world spun.

Blood pressure dropped.

A singular dizziness.

Earthy taste flooded her mouth.

The numbness was worth it.

“Was I supposed to feel that?”

Akilina braced her hands on the seat.

Blinking slowly,

as if reality needed rearranging.

“Feels good, huh?”

Rurik dragged again.

“Shut up. Gimme another.”

He raised a brow.

“Hedeon said you were like this.”

Handed her another.

“We don’t treat our own like shit.

Watch your tongue, svoloch.”

“Right. You guys nearly break each other’s necks for fun?”

Rurik smirked.

“You’re not one of us yet.”

She snatched the cig from his hand,

pocketed it.

Two more hours on the road.

Four cigarettes.

Across the solar cycles that followed,

she’d realize the Colombian herbs Denden smuggled in were better.

Her fingers would never leave a cigarette again.

She’d be smoking three packs a day.

And honestly—

who wouldn’t, in that kind of life?

Rurik parked.

The Bratva’s walls loomed like a fortress carved from ice,

near historic sites buried beneath snow

and dead vines.

Akilina followed,

pushing against the freezing gusts that shoved her backward.

Above, guards blurred by the snowy mist

aimed down their rifles.

This was real.

No turning back.

Two guards—one human, one android—blocked the path.

Rurik didn’t slow down.

When they recognized him, their faces turned pale with shame.

The second most powerful figure in the global Bratva.

If he walked into any mafia branch,

the local Pakhan had to bow his head.

Akilina looked around.

Huge warehouses.

Each a different destination.

She avoided thinking about what happened inside.

If they trained her to replace her father,

she’d have to swallow her morals.

That was the price of being here.

All she wanted was to be near him.

She could tolerate the rest.

They passed the nanometal-clad warehouses.

Ahead, Khalmer-Yu’s small castle.

Poisonous weeds clung to the gray concrete like living traps.

Hidden micro-blades lined the walls—

able to fly a hundred meters to slit throats.

They’d slice anyone not in the nanosystem.

The fortress was run by Una,

Bratva’s most advanced AI.

Its database updated daily.

Hacked motherboards from the world’s ruling corps.

The shit.

The world.

Her father.

Their fates tangled.

Soon, hers would be too.

The wind sliced like razors,

whipping her skin,

stealing her breath.

This place was a prelude

to the cruelty of that world.

Would she live here?

If that was the price of being near him…

Maybe she could take the cuts.

The gate opened automatically for Rurik.

They crossed a frozen garden.

Dry shrubs.

Trees petrified by cold.

Fallen leaves shimmered under the dim,

heavy-cloud light.

Winter days barely existed.

Here, even less.

Akilina would get used to it.

Inside, heat blasted against her skin.

She stripped off her coat,

wrapped it in her arms.

A robotic coat rack leaned toward her.

“May I take your coat, Akilina?”

Too polite for this place.

She handed it over

and followed Rurik.

He walked ahead without looking back.

The hallway was long.

Lined with doors.

He stopped at the last one.

Knocked twice.

A voice, sharp like a bullet splitting air,

granted entry.

Akilina stepped in.

A gold frame—monumental—surrounded a portrait of two elders.

Her grandparents?

The wall shimmered with shelves stacked full of paper books.

She knew those still existed.

Didn’t expect her father to keep a collection.

Soon she’d learn—

paper might be the deadliest weapon

in this nanotronic planet.

The world’s rats—those who held everyone’s data—

had no data on the Bratva.

The Russian mafia drowned in cybercrimes.

They hacked corporations,

blackmailed them for billions—trillions.

If they didn’t pay,

the info was sold to the black market or the press,

crashing stocks.

Usually, it was the Russian monarchy that bought it,

using it as leverage over other governments.

Paper became the safest place to hide secrets.

After all—paper can’t be hacked.

Hedeon looked up from his papers.

The gray chip in his cheek glowed faintly.

Every Pakhan had one.

The texture of his skin—pale, like hers.

His green eyes—like hers—

landed coldly on them both.

He sighed, impatient.

Set the documents down,

ran fingers through his dark brown hair.

Also like hers.

Truth was—

she’d only seen him once,

in a photo her mother showed her.

Never more than voice calls.

His severe features were exactly as imagined.

“Took you long enough, Rurik.”

He walked in,

leaned against an empty desk,

arms crossed.

“The little brat here was an hour late.”

Finally, he looked at his daughter.

“Trix, welcome.”

Trix?

How long since she’d heard that name?

Didn’t even remember who gave it to her.

Her mother was the only one who called her that.

Trix.

She repeated it to herself.

Akilina Orlov Volkov would have to vanish in this life.

She walked to the center of the room.

Dragged her feet across the black carpet.

Missed having pockets in her coat.

Not knowing what to do with her hands,

she crossed her arms.

“So?”

Her father raised his eyebrows.

“Your mother taught you to talk like that?”

He turned to Rurik.

“All set?”

The man nodded.

Left them alone.