Chapter-3: Tarek;

  The scent of rust and ozone clung to the market square like smoke on old fabric. Sunlight bled through the fractured dome shielding Cinderrest, casting broken halos over carts of scrap, open circuit boards, and wire coils so tangled they looked alive. The air buzzed—not with life, but static. Always static.

  Kai sidestepped a sputtering vendor drone, nearly tripping over a stack of hollow-battery shells.

  "Make way!" a voice barked ahead—loud, theatrical, and far too confident for someone not wearing body armor.

  Kai sighed.

  There, standing on an upturned crate, arms wide like some prophet of sparks, was Tarek.

  "Step right up!" Tarek shouted to a pair of disinterested SGA enforcers in faded green exosuits.

  “I present to you the very last Mark-VI Plasma Torch this side of Neo-Terra. Cuts through steel like it’s rice paper—assuming you remember what rice is!”

  Kai winced. “Oh no.”

  The guards paused, eyeing the cylindrical object Tarek held like it was both alien and possibly illegal. One nudged it with the barrel of his rifle.

  “This looks like a broken fuel injector.”

  “That’s because you lack vision,” Tarek grinned, spinning it like a magician revealing a card. “It’s been converted. I call it ‘The Dragon’s Breath.’ Used by off-world welders during the Titan Forge boom. Or so I heard.”

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  One guard scowled. “And if I activate it?”

  “Well,” Tarek leaned closer, lowering his voice, “you’ll either open a hole in reality… or, you know, just get a spark. Fifty-fifty.”

  The guard raised his rifle.

  “Alright, alright! Thirty scrap chips and I’ll throw in a free solar patch!” Tarek grinned, backing down with both hands raised.

  Kai strode forward, grabbing him by the collar. “Sorry, officer—malfunctioning vendor unit. Needs a reboot.” He yanked Tarek back into the crowd before a plasma bolt became part of the negotiation.

  “Ah, Kai!” Tarek laughed, tossing the fake torch into a garbage chute. “Always saving me from my own brilliance.”

  “You’re going to get incinerated one day,” Kai muttered. “And I’m not patching you together after that.”

  “Noted. But imagine the headlines: Local Genius’s Best Friend Becomes Plasma Ghost. Shocked Scientists Demand Explanation.”

  They slipped through the crowd, past a trader selling ancient vinyls and a drone barking random words in a corrupted language pack.

  “How’d the water regulator fix go?” Tarek asked, tossing a micro-sat component between his hands like a coin.

  Kai shrugged. “Done. It’s working, but I had to reroute half the circuit logic through a mining interface.”

  “Of course you did,” Tarek smirked. “Because you’re a freak.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, seriously.” Tarek stopped and looked at him. “Most of us stare at a power coupler and see a broken thing. You stare at it and see… music or ghosts or whatever it is you see.”

  Kai hesitated, eyes flicking toward the street.

  “I don’t see ghosts,” he said. “It’s more like… the machine hums to me. Like a rhythm. And I just… follow it.”

  Tarek gave him a sideways look. “See? Total freak.”

  They both laughed.

  Their laughter died as the overhead speakers crackled to life. The rusted pole near the center of the square pulsed blue, then white.

  “Notice to all sectors.” The voice was cold, flat, too even to be human. “By order of the Sector Guild Authority, unauthorized technology and unlicensed data cores are punishable by erasure or exile.”

  Kai’s gut tightened.

  “This includes altered drones, synthetic AI routines, and fabrication beyond public-grade certification.”

  Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

  Tarek leaned in. “Guess they’re feeling twitchy again.”

  Kai didn’t answer. He was staring up at the broken speaker, brows drawn.

  Tarek gave him a nudge. “Hey. You okay?”

  Kai nodded slowly. “Yeah. Just... I wonder how many rules it takes before people forget how to build anything.”

  Tarek grinned. “That’s why we’re here, right? You build it. I sell it. Maybe even survive long enough to enjoy the profits.”

  “Right,” Kai said, eyes still distant. “Real change doesn’t come from rules. It comes from sparks.”

  Tarek clapped him on the back. “Well then, Mr. Sparks. Let’s go find your next miracle.”

  They disappeared into the alleyways of Cinderrest, where smoke whispered through vents and ancient circuits pulsed like dying stars—waiting to be born again.