Jace Varn’s breath fogged in the chilly New Cascadia night, the slums’ neon glow casting jagged shadows across the street. His jacket was zipped tight, the data stick from the Docks job and the credits from Taz’s lookout gig weighing heavy in his pockets. Riko was still dodging his calls, and the player talked—first from the squat, then Milo, now Taz’s buyer—was piling up like trash in an alley. Those glitches, those flickers of code in the air, were messing with his head too. He needed to keep moving, keep hustling. Sitting still in this city, I was asking to get caught.
He’d picked up a new job to stay afloat: data runner for a crew called the Wire Rats. They were a scrappy bunch, hacking at low-level corp systems and selling the scraps to whoever paid. The gig was straightforward—grab
