The neutral zone was a chaotic riot of neon filth and industrial decay. The air here was a thick soup of cheap synthetic meat, ozone, and the metallic tang of "Glow"—a drug made from distilled wolf-blood that humans used to touch the edges of a power they were never meant to possess. We navigated the winding alleys until we reached The Den, a sub-level bar buried beneath a defunct textile mill.
The music inside was a wall of low-frequency bass designed to vibrate the bones and mask the sound of illegal transactions. The patrons were a collection of the broken and the damned—humans with cybernetic implants that hummed with static and "feral" wolves who had lost their packs and their sanity. Most were too high on the blue vapour of Glow to care who walked through the door.
Killian led u
