Chapter-2: Mira

  The door to Kai’s rustbox home groaned open on its failing hinge, screeching just loud enough to announce his arrival.

  “Kai!” a voice barked from inside. “Don’t you dare track that dust in here!”

  He froze mid-step, one boot half-hovering above a grimy doormat. Not that the mat was clean—it hadn’t been in years—but Mira still insisted on the gesture.

  He grunted and kicked off the worst of the grit before stepping in.

  The room was a cramped mess of salvaged parts and jury-rigged machines, but somehow Mira kept it livable. She was perched on the edge of the bunk, still in her tech-runner vest, dust streaking her cheeks and static burn marks fresh on her gloves.

  She was exhausted, but her eyes were sharp. Watching.

  “You’re late,” she said.

  “Got held up near the west lot,” Kai replied, dropping his satchel onto his workbench. “Found a drone. Mostly intact.”

  Mira arched a brow. “Mostly?”

  “Fifty percent casing. Burned-out sensor. But the power cell was salvageable.”

  She scowled. “You were near the vaults again, weren’t you?”

  Kai didn’t answer.

  “I told you—SGA’s been scanning that sector. You get caught, they won’t ask questions.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “I wasn’t near the vaults,” he lied, then added with a smirk, “Just the shadow of their shadow.”

  Mira stood, fatigue forgotten. “This isn’t funny, Kai. Two boys were dragged out yesterday for messing around in old military zones. One of them—Aril—his dad came to the pit screaming. Said they wiped his memory.”

  Kai looked away. “I’m not Aril.”

  “No. You’re worse. You’re smart enough to know better.”

  ---

  A long silence passed between them, thick with heat and regret. Mira finally sat back down and pulled a protein bar from the shelf, tearing it open with her teeth.

  “You remember what happened to Mom and Dad?”

  Kai flinched.

  She only ever brought that up when she was scared.

  ---

  Five years ago, their parents were working overtime in the fusion core zone—stabilizing failing subsystems no one else could fix. Certified engineers from the EarthNet era. Legends in Cinderrest.

  And then the tremor hit.

  No alarm. No warning.

  Just light. Bright, blue-white light. Like a sun born in the wrong place.

  Kai remembered the pressure. The ringing silence. Mira’s hands yanking him out of the hallway while the reactor doors slammed shut behind their parents.

  Sealed.

  Sacrificed.

  He was ten. She was thirteen. And they had survived, somehow.

  ---

  “I’m not going to end up like them,” Kai said softly, now sitting at his bench. “I don’t rush in blind. I calculate. I read the systems. I… I feel them.”

  Mira’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the part that scares me most. You fix things no one else can even identify, and you don’t know how.”

  Kai picked up the drone’s burned chip. His fingers rotated it carefully, inspecting the fractured microgrid.

  “Because I don’t need schematics,” he muttered. “I just know what’s missing. Like hearing a song with the wrong notes.”

  She stared at him for a long time. Then tossed a scrap chip his way.

  “You want to tinker, fine. Just promise me you won’t go near military tech again.”

  Kai hesitated. “I promise.”

  ---

  That night, when the air cooled and Mira was fast asleep, Kai crept out through the side panel, power cell tucked in his satchel.

  ---

  The trade pit was half-lit, half-buried in fog and static smoke. Illegal traders whispered behind tarp walls. Scanners flickered like dying fireflies.

  Kai found the old collector at the usual spot, beneath the rusted monorail.

  The man extended a gloved hand.

  “Payment?”

  Kai offered the rebuilt battery. “Fully charged. Modded to reroute spikes through dual gates.”

  The collector tested it, eyes scanning the modwork.

  “This isn’t standard circuit design,” he said. “Where’d you learn this?”

  Kai gave him a thin smile. “Nowhere.”

  The man grunted and handed over a handful of data shards. Kai scanned them, selecting two clean code-cores and a third filled with fragmentary junk.

  “Scrap,” the collector warned.

  “I like scrap,” Kai replied, already planning how to reconstruct it.

  ---

  Back at home, in the quiet dark of his workbench, he slid the core onto his custom reader. Lines of broken code shimmered across the screen.

  Most would call it useless.

  But Kai saw patterns. Echoes. Possibilities.

  He rolled up his sleeves, tools in hand.

  This wasn’t magic.

  This was talent.

  And he was just getting started.