Rain gently falls onto the porous concrete sidewalks, set next to streets that inhabit floating cars and motorcycles. All the people that move are of a million different varieties. Some skin pale as snow, some dark as night, some with features like animals and variances in height upwards of one-and-a-half meters. However similar yet different all these people are, they are bound by one system controlled by an external force they've never seen, or could imagine.

  This story is different, however, as the back of a short-haired blonde woman, standing at just under 168 centimeters with a purple tech jacket and thick skirt wades through the crowds of infinite combinations. She has something these people don't; a HI-SPEED NEURO-LINK, installed into the back of her skull, and with probes like metal fibers that analyze and interface data with speeds faster than any other standard coprocessor on the market. She however has to hide this fact with a removable sticker, the same color as her hair, as the Cultists would ridicule her and torture her for the use, let alone the acquisition of this hardware.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  As she turns a corner and enters a restaurant to pick up an order of take out, she receives a message, but does not open her phone. Instead, in her iridescent purple eyes, a window of the same color opens with a line of text, originally in English, but quickly translates itself to Russian. With only a thought command, she replies to the message.

  ur never gonna guess what i found, hana

  what did you find?

  She received an image from the same sender. The image she receives is of a man, lying on his back, and asleep in a neatly made bed. He has bright crimson hair with a strand that points in an odd direction off the top of his head. He is drooling in the photo, and has a strange fantasy-style garb on of the same color as his hair. But his most stand-out feature was one that wasn't so obvious at a first glance.

  look at his neck

  At the base of his neck holds a scar that circles him like a low hanging collar on a dog.

  he's one of us

  why is he here so late then??

  i don't know