Ace 12 – The Hollow Liturgy Chapter 1: Fractured Neon Night City didn’t sleep. It shifted, it twitched, it hummed in its own broken rhythm—like a dying neon tube refusing to go dark. Even at the edges of Watson, where rain collected in clogged gutters and most billboards had burned out to half-legible promises, the city never stopped breathing. Mai watched the light drip down glass like melted circuitry. The smell was all oil-slick and ozone, rain running over rust and trash fires. She leaned against a balcony rail three floors above an alley where a noodle vendor’s cart steamed in the dark. The man below never looked up; in Night City, you didn’t look up. You kept your head low and prayed the predators had already eaten. Ace sat cross-legged on the edge of the balcony, as casual as if gravity were a rumor. Her katanas rested across her lap, sheathed, but the faint green pulse beneath the lacquer gave them away—like coiled snakes with open eyes. She let her legs dangle over the void, boots dripping rain. “Feels like the whole city’s waiting for something,” Mai murmured, her voice soft enough to blend with the rain. Ace’s eyes, violet and restless, scanned the horizon. The towers loomed like jagged teeth, holo-ads flickering across their faces—half the slogans corrupted, half swallowed by static. “It’s not waiting,” she said. “It’s listening. And I don’t like what it’s hearing.” Mai tilted her head, watching the crowd shift at the intersection below—hundreds of strangers brushing past each other, each one wired into their own desperate survival. “Then we blend. Just two more faces in the neon.” Ace chuckled under her breath. “Yeah. Two faces every merc in the city would sell their lungs to put a bullet through.” It had been three days since the bounty dropped. No preamble, no warning—just their faces on half the city’s darknet boards, framed by the kind of reward that made even friends start to wonder how many eddies loyalty was worth. The contract hadn’t named who wanted them erased. It didn’t matter. In Night City, you didn’t need a reason. The first wave had been sloppy. Amateurs with chipped pistols and borrowed cyberware, thinking fame was only one corpse away. Ace and Mai cut through them in alleys and underpasses, leaving whispers behind like blood trails. But each night the hunters got better. Better gear, better intel. Tonight, the rain felt heavy enough to drag the whole city down with it. Mai pulled her disruptor, checked the runes etched into the matte-black barrel. The sigils pulsed faint blue, alive, as if sensing her unease. She holstered it again, sliding the coat over the grip. “How long before someone serious takes the contract?” Ace didn’t answer right away. She tilted her head, listening to a sound that wasn’t sound—something vibrating just beneath the rain’s rhythm. Then she looked at Mai and grinned, teeth white against the dark. “I think they already did.” As if on cue, the vendor’s radio below hissed, cut off mid-jingle. The crowd thinned unnaturally fast, like the tide pulling back before a wave. Neon blinked once, twice, then held steady—too steady. Mai’s hand hovered over her holster. “Talk to me.” Ace slid from the balcony rail, landing soundless on her feet. The katanas whispered against their sheaths. “Battery’s got eyes in this sector. Not here, not now—but close. The city’s script just changed.” Mai’s pulse quickened, but her face remained calm, almost cold. She’d learned that from Ace—never show the world more than it could use against you. She leaned close, silver hair brushing Ace’s shoulder. “Then we write our own line before they write us out.” Far above them, a holo-ad sputtered to life, across a tower wall fifteen stories high. Not an ad. A feed. Static framing a half-face—masked, cybernetic, impossible to pin down. The vox cracked, a chorus of glitched syllables layered into one: AUTHORS MUST BE ERASED. The rain seemed to hold its breath. Ace smiled without warmth. “Guess that’s our introduction.” Mai drew her pistol, runes glowing brighter against the dark. “Then let’s make sure it’s memorable.” ---