The Night Market was housed inside a vast abandoned hangar that once served as a cargo airship docking bay — a colossal metallic cavern where heavy freight dirigibles of the Corporation used to unload their cargo. Now, it was controlled chaos.
The air was thick and suffocating, packed with hundreds of bodies overloading generators and constant electrical discharge. It carried a dense, almost tangible stench of ozone, cheap synthetic ale, seared metal, and sweat. Neon signs flickered and cracked, casting sickly, shifting colors across the faces of traders and buyers. Somewhere deep inside the hangar, heavy industrial music thumped, blending with shouting and laughter.
"Stay close," Lira whispered, pulling her hood lower over her face. Her voice barely cut through the noise. "There's only one law here: if you can pay, you live. If you can't, you're merchandise. Don't stop. Don't stare at anyone or anything too long. Especially you, Astra."
Astra walked between Lira and Kai, head lowered, hands hidden inside her coat pockets. Her hood concealed most of her face, but she still felt the market on her skin. Every glance, every scan, every whisper.
She saw cyborgs whose limbs had been replaced with heavy construction manipulators — massive claws and hydraulic hammers stained with dried blood and machine oil. Traders sold "stolen memories" — small black capsules promising "real emotions from the upper levels." Hackers sat directly on the ground in circles of clients, injecting chips into open neural ports at the base of their necks. Some buyers convulsed violently as new memories flooded their minds.
But something was strange.
Tanatos inside her was unusually quiet.
No whispers. No urges. No suggestions of slaughter. Only tension — a coiled spring waiting to snap at any moment. Astra could feel it in every cell of her body. The violet threads beneath her shoulder pulsed faintly, synchronized with the distant rhythm of the market.
"See those two near the VIP entrance?" Lira nodded subtly toward the far end of the hangar.
There, beside a reinforced armored door guarded by two hulking enforcers, stood a pair of figures. They stood out sharply from the rest of the scum around them. Clean, streamlined dark-gray armor with no Corporation insignias. Their movements were too precise, too synchronized — as if two bodies were controlled by a single mind. Smooth visor masks hid their faces, reflecting neon light in cold fragments.
"Glitch Hunters," Lira said quietly without turning her head. "Private contractors. They don't serve the Corporation directly. They serve 'The Balance' — a shadow organization that ensures reality doesn't warp too far out of control. They hunt anything that deviates too far from the code. Anomalies. Things like you."
Astra felt one of the hunters slowly, deliberately turn its head toward them. Its visor flared with a soft yellow pulse — a scanning signal. It didn't see her face under the hood. It wasn't supposed to see her at all.
But it definitely sensed the "void."
That same glitch Lira had described. A place where a human should be… but instead there was nothing. Cold, perfect absence.
Astra felt Tanatos stir inside her. Not violently. Curiously. Like a predator noticing another predator on its territory.
"He's looking at me," she said quietly, barely moving her lips. Her voice was calm, but the faint dual resonance had already returned. "Not with eyes. Something deeper."
Lira tensed but kept walking at a steady pace.
"Don't react. If he realizes you've noticed him, it gets worse. They don't kill immediately. They study first. And then… they take you for 'correction.'"
Kai subtly moved closer to Astra, his hand resting near a makeshift pistol under his coat.
"Maybe we should avoid the VIP zone?" he suggested tensely.
Astra didn't answer immediately.
She kept walking, feeling the yellow gaze of the hunter sliding across her, trying to latch onto the void and understand what it was. The violet threads under her skin began to glow faintly in response.
The scent of ozone sharpened in the air.
The market kept roaring, trading, living its filthy, hungry life.
But somewhere inside that noise, a thin crack had already formed.
And Astra could feel Tanatos ready to widen it.
At any moment.