CHAPTER one : A circular door

  Staring into the glass of his drink, he didn't know what he was staring at.

  Seeing the past in his black robotic hand and the future in the other, the human one.

  A yelling voice pulled him from his thoughts

  “What a night, yesterday!” then he added, “it's the match of the 22nd century.” asking the driptender

  Saying “next round on me, give everyone a skull red drip.”

  Then he turns back to the black hand, “even in your last night in gigs hunt, you still lost in thoughts, “and pointing his fingers to the quiet empty place, “living on the east side of D-city always feels like living close to the shadow of death, but is still living.”

  Raising his glass, “for my friend who can’t chill out and for the end of Jack the black hand era, “and then Jack replied to him, “calling my name in the same place I pulled the trigger to the mangler's leader, hmmm, sounds like a really good idea to relax. “

  “But there is no one, me and you and driptender machine and me again, four people for the end of the night… for the endo of the nighto, the eieieied of the nigheeaat. “

  “Yeah, of course you will start sinning and dancing, see ya, Mike. “

  As Jack left the place and stepped into the hallway, waiting for the elevator.

  Just as the soft chime of its arrival echoed, that’s when his fixer called.

  “A gig arrived. Are you up for it?” Her voice was brisk; no time for pleasantries

  “Weird, did I not tell you I'm off the grid for good?” Jack asked.

  She continued, "I think you can handle it. All I know is it’s about accompanying someone somewhere. They didn’t give me many details, but they offered a lot, you know, the kind of payout that comes once in a lifetime, like a bonus from heaven. Anyway, I'll send you the gig data on your way."

  As the elevator doors slid open, Jack replied, "Okay, a delivery boy gig and a lot of credit sound suspicious, hmmm, is it a trap? “She replied to him, “If it’s a trap and you somehow completed the gig and died during it, yeah, it’s a sad ending for you, so I can take all the credit, right?” she asked him.

  And he replies, “Just give it to Mike. “

  “So, if he somehow dies to? “She asked again.

  As he stepped into the elevator, he replied, "That idiot cannot be killed; he is like a cat, you just watch it die and come back to life like nothing happened."

  “You look like describing yourself,” she comments.

  “Anyway, the delivery boy gig, I'm on it now, “Jack said after he entered the building’s old lobby, and when he pushed open the circular door, the air changed as thick, black clouds swallowed the remaining sunlight.

  Without slowing down, Jack moved toward the parking lot. It was just the remains of that ancient building that welcomed thousands of people before there were thousands of Others. Cars used to line up here like soldiers. Now, it was dead quiet. Except for one.

  His car stood alone, surrounded by faded parking lines. He got in and started the engine. The sound of it matched the sky; thunder and lightning breaking loose.

  And he just drove through the streets of the east side of D-city

  People stay locked inside, hidden within the walls of old buildings and unfinished skyscrapers

  Gunshots play like music for the mad and the addicts of the (DI), or some call it a dream eye; an emulator-generated memory.

  When Jack drove, he passed a guy who ran from the sound of the gunshots to witness a gang carrying weapons inside a truck, and then they shot him. And then one of the members of that gang takes advantage and loads one of those weapons and re-aims it at his gang and begins to shoot heavily, like the intensity of the rain that drew their blood to turn the streets red.

  The mad ones danced in it, high on DI, thinking it was part of it.

  It looked like a scene out of some twisted gangster’s paradise, driven by nothing but endless ambition.

  And close by, Jack has arrived at an old residential complex, patched with metal plates and forgotten wires.

  Then he got out of the car. The rain had barely stopped, but the city was like streets of glass. The sidewalks glistened with a golden glow from the broken signs above. Like another sun, shining instead of the one hidden behind the thick clouds.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  And he headed to one of the elevators, and the rusty doors opened, he got in, and the moment he adjusted his third eye implant, the elevator stopped, and Jack said to himself: the shortcut in any old shit is another long way.

  Then he placed the lens on his left eye to connect to the emulator and use it without diving fully into the network.

  He sees less, but he has seen less.

  Amid darkness and silence, an echoing sound, almost trembling.

  A baby is screaming, and the elevator comes back working again.

  And the doors open to the hallway, which looked different. Plants were hanging with a scent of roses in the air.

  His third eye scanned the hallway.

  There was leftover data, or what the network emulators called a shadow of data, that was showing people gathered around the door at the end of the hall, speaking different languages. It looked like they were either amazed or scared. He tried to collect the recorded through the web-linked system, but they were strongly encrypted.

  He took a breath, let the scan fade, and approached the door.

  Before he could raise his hand to knock, he heard it again.

  A sound, almost trembling. A baby is screaming.

  And then the door opened. Slowly.

  A woman stood there, holding a baby in her arms. She looked calm, like she had been waiting for him. No fear. No questions

  “You're early,” she said to Jack

  And he came in, glanced at the baby, and then at her.

  “No one informed me a kid was in it,” he growled.

  “I hate children.”

  “So… you hate miracles?” she said to him.

  He breathed in, turned away, and stared out of the window. “Miracles come in all shapes now,” Jack told her. "I've lost count."

  Across the street, he spotted his car.

  Some guys were hanging out around it, too close, too interested.

  He didn’t say a word. Just tapped the screen on his wrist.

  The car responded instantly. Weapons popped out from the top, red lights flared, and the whole thing let out a low warning hum. They scattered.

  He turned back to her.” They’re paying a lot for this delivery boy gig,” he said.” But if I’m babysitting, they’re paying double.”

  She laughed softly, “Sometimes you speak like a poet, “

  And then she said. “Other times, like a comedian.”

  Jack took a moment to pause, looking at her, and then said to her,

  “The rain stopped a while ago, and that does not happen frequently around here. Let’s go.”

  They headed out and, in the elevator, as she adjusted the blanket around the kid, saying, “One week since he came into my life and changed everything for me.”

  Jack looked at him and the way he moved, the way his eyes scanned the world. It’s too aware for his age; he looked more like a one-year-old.

  Jack didn’t say a word. Just kept watching the kid

  Then they reached the ground floor, stepped outside, and Jack's car rolled up on its own. And they got in.

  Snow began to fall. She leaned against the window, hand out into the chill. “I like snow,” she said. “Cover up the filth. Makes even these crumbling buildings look like they belong in a dream.”

  Jack glanced at her. “Dreams don't last long in this city.” And then he adds, “Neither does snow,” saying to her

  And somehow, a bluebird landed on her fingertips outside the window, looking at the baby. As the baby stared at it, it flew off, up ahead of the hovering lights in the sky, coming from the center behind the wall like an energy field swirling in colors and ads.

  As they got closer to the wall, the lights disappeared behind it, and next to the ruins of an old church, three black vehicles waited.

  Engines running. Headlights reflected on the snow.

  Jack slowed the car to a stop. One by one, their doors opened. Six stepped out, all in suits, and then the seventh: an old man. Gray coat, glowing faintly, a red dragon tattoo curling up his throat.

  One eye real, the other is pulsing in red.

  Jack stepped out.

  She moved to follow, but Jack told her, “Stay in. Be ready.”

  The old man’s voice cut through the silence.

  “Here we are... the final act of the waiting Aura.”

  “So what now?” Jack asked him. “You people taking the mother and her kid to the Center?” As Jack spoke, he had activated the third Eye to connect to the emulator.

  “You can leave now. You’ve earned your reward,” the old man spoke in a calm tone to Jack.

  And through the Third Eye… Jack knew the old man wasn’t lying. No hidden commands. No ambush forming. The credits were queued, ready to be transferred the second he turned his back.

  But in sudden Jack started to understand why this delivery boy job had been reloaded. Why was the pay too good for a simple handoff? Somehow, some data started leaking out through the emulator, and to Jack's eye, it showed:

  Fragments. Warnings. Truths no one paid for

  So, he took a step back and prepared his left arm shield.

  “In the country I came from,” Suddenly,

  The old Man started talking, “A dragon circled a town for years. People feared never knowing when it would decide to burn everything to the ground. So, they hired a dragon hunter, and when he reached the dragon’s nest, the dragon offered to let him climb on its back. The hunter believed he could understand the beast. But the dragon only wanted to give him a better view.”

  He paused and stared at Jack, adjusted his tone, and continued,

  “A better view of his choices, and then the dragon soared above the town... and let the hunter watch it burn everything beneath him. Helpless. Regretful. Understanding too late. “

  After that fairy tale, a calm falls over the air, the kind of calm that feels as if time has stopped, and time has come to make the fastest decisions.

  They know Jack moves through the shadow data, and so does he.

  So, Jack's first move in Shadows of Chess was activating the car's combat mode. The bullets started falling on them, just for a few moments, until Jack reached the car’s right door. They were able to breach the vehicle and target the main defense systems and disabling its response.

  So, with Jack's left hand, he removed the door next to her and the child, and screaming at the two of them, “Take cover.”

  Then it was their turn to shoot heavily.

  With the many calculations, Jack's eyes started to get lost inside the emulator, seeing the data leaked by ghostly AI, Jack feels as if

  demons were whispering in his mind. Every step towards the stairs, towards the church entrance,

  Jack was able to anticipate their actions.

  And on the first step inside, Jack realized that he was counting six instead of seven. The old man had fired a modified bullet that was hovering above them without calculation.

  Jack was able to dodge it at the entrance,

  But it hit the mother on her head and fell to the ground dead.