ZiliChoco

He realized that he was getting distracted so he quickly looked back to the watch to read the time.

His watch read 7:00 pm

“Alright, one shot to do this. No pressure” he thought as he took a small moth-looking device from his pocket and coded it to fly over and override the security barrier. The moth flew straight into the barrier and released a strange type of electricity which ended up short-circuiting it and both the moth and the barrier were disabled. 

Once that was taken care of he pulled up his mask and used the cloaking feature to slip past the Cydex guards while they scrambled in confusion.

“Guess that’s what you get for putting your new toys on the front lines of security oh ‘Most Technically Advanced City” He stuck his tongue out at the bots. 

With the biggest obstacle out of the way all that was left to do was simply walk to the seemingly bare stand that had glass encasing it. But that was only for show, a decoy for what was really being protected.

Reece got onto his knees and started feeling around on the checkered floorboard until he heard a beep. When he tapped on the same square he saw a white keypad illuminate on it. 

He looked at his watch, 7:03, he only had two minutes left to do this. 

“I’m guessing the code isn’t 1-2-3-4” Reece chuckled before using his watch’s other function. 

“Ness, decode this would ya?” he pointed his arm towards the square. 

The watch worked as fast as it could but time wasn’t on Reece’s side right now. 7:04

Finally, the decoding finished and the square slid open which revealed the true prize, the hard drive. 

As “luck” would have it, as soon as he picked up the drive, it was 7:05. His cloaking turned off to recharge.

Even better, the Cydex bots recalibrated and looked directly at him.

”Hey guys, I’m just gonna take this and go” Reece threw down a smoke bomb and took off.

—

Marcel made the mistake of thinking he was going to have a normal day.

 The sun was starting to set which would usually make an orange and lilac sky but it was raining so instead it was a dull grey that would eventually fade to black by the time Marcel got home. It was a monotone detail to what had been a monotonous day. 

He held onto his umbrella tightly as he ran across the crosswalk to beat the timer that was already down to 10. As he ran he could see the reflections of multicolored neon lights off of a large puddle that was waiting for him on the other side. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t avoid it. 

“Green, Pink, Yellow…” Marcel started listing the colors he had seen in the puddle as he sat on a bus stop bench and dried off his legs with the end of the hoodie he had taken off. Talking about colors made him feel calm. As an artist, colors were everything.

A small thing was that now that his hoodie was off, the pred marking on his arm was visible. But sometimes big changes only needed small sparks.

“I think it was more of an emerald than a chartreuse,” Marcel said as if he were talking to someone else.

Of course, he wasn’t. He didn’t have friends. At least, not anymore.

Once he had finished drying off he got back up. “I need to get home quickly so I can at least get a few hours of sleep” Marcel muttered. 

Currently, the fastest route would be to cut through Raygate Street and take the eerie-looking alleyways that winded all around the city.  Marcel hated going through those alleyways, but considering he only had four hours before his next job, he didn’t have a choice.

With a twirl of his umbrella to watch the colored light reflect off the droplets, he started to make his way across Raygate

Meanwhile, located on the other side of the town, a short man didn’t care at all about the puddles that were making his socks soggy. He was busy running from enforcer bots as he carried something small in his left hand.

-

Reece loved the night. The vibrant atmosphere made him feel like anything was possible. Or at least, whatever fate had planned.

 He came upon two alleyways as he ran. With his right hand, he quickly pulled out a coin, an old kc cent from a time long before the world had switched solely to digital currency, and flipped it. 

“Heads for left tails for right” he stated in his mind.  He trusted the world, more specifically this coin, would give him the right choice.

The coin landed on tails. He darted to the right and barely missed being hit by a T.A.Z.E dart. “Phew that was close” If there was something that Reece hated, it was being tased by those things.

“Cease resistance immediately,” a Cydex bot said.

”No” Reece looked back at the bot and winked before he went and knocked over a loose pipe to slow the guards down

Though he could evade these bots for hours, he needed to find a way to lose them. 

That’s when he remembered the unpleasant alleyways near Raygate. They were a lot less safe than the ones he was going through here since they were in the lower-class area but he knew them well enough to get by.

”Is it worth testing my luck?” Reece flipped his coin in the air again

 “Heads for yes tails for no” He called as the shiny piece of metal spun.

It landed and ‘the world’ gave him his answer. 

—

Marcel wondered why the world was so cruel. 

He tried to keep his eyes off of the unfortunate souls who were sitting in the alleyway with nothing more than cardboard and some clothes to their names. 

If it hadn't been for his first employer, he probably would have been one of those people.

”I hope the nightclub isn’t too busy tonight I’ve dealt with enough drunk men for one day.” Marcel sighed as he thought about the encounter he had earlier that day.

It wasn’t his fault that he had a more feminine look but it was that guy’s fault for harassing him.

He tried to get his mind off of those thoughts by thinking about how he would see that beautiful woman who performed almost every night. The way her dark curly hair covered her eyes made her mysterious and enchanting. 

Plus, her singing. There was a reason why she was nicknamed ‘The Nightingale’. Marcel would love to talk with her one day if he ever got enough courage.

He probably never would.