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“I’ve missed you, you know…” You admitted carelessly, in the way only someone unafraid could manage.
The air in this No-Man’s-Land tasted like pennies and rot; it felt thick enough to chew. Even through the filter of your mask, every breath burned, slow, deliberate, and was always rationed.
Above you was a sickly bruise of smoke and drifting ash, the kind that never settled because The Ground refused to be still.
“No, no, you haven’t.” Enjin cooed, hand resting on his jinki. It made his posture casual and his tone bored, but his mask looked at you straight on; black crosses for eyes. Beneath the filter, a stitched smile.
You shifted your weight, just enough to acknowledge him. Somewhere nearby, scrap groaned as it settled under its own decay.
“You’ve been following me.” Your voice came out warped through the mask, stripped of warmth and flattened into something almost mechanical. “Should I be flattered?”
“If you’re into that.” He teased, already working his way toward a question.
“Spit it out, Enjin.” You said. The wind shifted. Chemical grit scraped along metal husks half-buried in the ground, old buildings that had given up pretending they were anything else. “You didn’t cross into a No-Man’s-Land just for me.”
“There’s been noise.” Enjin’s attention on you settled more heavily. His boots shifted, slow and deliberate, closing the distance by half a step. Not a threat and definitely not a retreat. Rather, a negotiation. “About something that fell from The Sphere.”
“Lots of things fall.” You replied. “You’re chasing rumors; you Cleaners always do.”
“And you always hear them first.” His mask was unreadable, but his posture had changed, weight forward now, attention narrowing quickly to the point. “Where’s the Sphereite?”
The word scraped the air raw.
“You say that like I’m holding them in my pocket.” You laughed in a short, breathy way through the filter. A reflex, the kind meant to keep things from getting too close to the bone. “Sphereites don’t last long down here, you know that.”
You turned slightly, angling your body away, not retreating, but guarding something unseen. The Ground shifted underfoot, unstable as ever, as if it listened.
“You tell me where they are,” Enjin spoke, voice lower now, stripped of teasing. “I can offer protection, see if the survivin’ was worth it.”
The filters hummed louder, breath brushing plastic, presence undeniable.
“From what?” You stepped closer this time with one measured pace. “The Ground?”
“…from becoming something worse.”
You tilted your head. “You mean like the rest of us?”
The Ground shuddered.
Not a collapse, not yet, but a warning tremor that ran through the soles of your boots and up through each vertebrae. The kind that came before decisions were made for you.
The air thickened, pressure building low and wrong. Scrap shifted in the hollow ahead of you, metal sliding against metal in a sound too intentional to be settling. Something pulled inward, debris obeying a gravity that hadn’t existed seconds ago.
Then, movement. Fast. Scrambling. Human.
A figure broke into view at the far end of the basin, skidding down loose trash and catching himself on instinct alone. He was too small to be a Raider, too unsteady to be Syndicate; he moved like someone still learning the rules of gravity.
The Sphereite.
Trash screamed as it tore itself free. Rusted beams wrenched upward, plastic and wire knitting together into a shape that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Limbs formed and broke apart, reforming with wet, grinding sounds as a Trash Beast hauled itself upright.
Enjin’s hand went instantly to his jinki.
The Trash Beast roared, air tearing through a throat it hadn’t finished building, and surged forward. Rudo stumbled, barely keeping his footing as The Ground slid beneath him, refusing stability.
Enjin stepped forward, attack planned, but you raised your hand. It was unhurried, as if this were the plan all along.
“Don’t.” You murmured. “Not yet.”
“He’ll die.” Although Enjin kept his calmness, you knew your advice threw him.
“Or he won’t.” You showed true indifference. “It’s The Ground. You survive, or you don’t.”
The Sphereite rolled as the Trash Beast slammed into the space where he’d been standing, trash exploding outward. He came up coughing, blood on his lip, eyes wide, but burning.
Enjin watched him, and you watched Enjin watching him.
“He doesn’t know how to fight.”
“No.” You agreed, nodding. “But he knows how to refuse.”
As if on cue, Rudo grabbed a jagged length of scrap and swung, not clean, not trained, but undeniably furious. The blow glanced off the Beast’s limb, tearing free a chunk of metal that immediately tried to crawl back. The Trash Beast bucked again, reacting.
“You brought me here…” Enjin realized it slowly; you led him straight to what he sought you for. “Why?”
“Even if he survives this…” You started bluntly, “...the kid won’t survive what comes next. Not without you.”
Enjin hesitated, just a breath, just long enough for the Trash Beast to rear back, gathering itself for another charge. Something in Enjin’s posture changed. His grip tightened on the jinki, then loosened.
Enjin exhaled slowly through his mask, understanding what it cost you to lead him to The Sphereite. You hadn’t brought him here because it was safe. You’d brought him here because it was expensive.
For you.
If word got out that you’d guided a Cleaner straight to a Sphereite, alive and uncontained, you’d be burned from half the Raider routes you relied on. Syndicates wouldn’t touch you. Fixers would go quiet. The ears and eyes you’d cultivated so carefully would shutter themselves out of self-preservation.
Neutrality was a currency. And you’d just spent it.
Enjin looked back at The Sphereite, at the boy trying to steady his breathing, staring at his own hands as they’d betrayed him. So Enjin listened to your silent plea, jinki flaring to life as he finally chose to close the distance, his eyes never leaving Rudo.
Yours hadn’t either. However, you turned away before either of them could look at you too closely. Because believing someone could be good down here was dangerous.
When Enjin finally looked back for you, after arguing with Rudo about silence, you were gone. You hadn’t stayed to be thanked. You hadn’t stayed to negotiate. You hadn’t even stayed to see if Enjin would keep his word.
That was the part that unsettled him most; you’d trusted him without asking for proof.
Not blindly, never that, but deliberately. You’d put him in a position where the only way forward was to live up to what you believed he could be. And you’d done it knowing it would cost you something you could never reclaim.
—
“You were right…”
Enjin wasn’t smug about it, but just certain in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. He even stole your tone from a few days back; flat, unceremonious, like truth didn’t need dressing up to make a point.
“The kid’s a natural…” He continued. “Doesn’t know where to put all of it yet, but with the right hand on him…”
He trailed off, gaze drifting somewhere past you, past the walls, past The Ground, like he was still watching a body fall through smoke. You’d known the moment the Sphereite hit dirt.
Not because he survived, but because the Ground had noticed. Bent toward him. Listened. Fallen things didn’t always rot. Some of them landed unfinished.
Angels fell like that, too, once. Not monsters. Not saints. Just untended.
Enjin was still learning what that meant, how close guidance sat to control, how easily salvation curdled into something cruel when it was forced.
You didn’t spell it out for him. Especially since you’d learned the hard way that belief was only useful when someone chose it. And down here, that choice made all the difference between grace and the devil people made when they were afraid.
“That so?” You barely knew the rules to your own game, but you knew better than to push past teasing. If you did it again, you were afraid to fall. “You owe me.”
Enjin raised two fingers to the bartender in a more celebratory mood than you expected.
The bartender slid two glasses across the counter without question. That alone said enough about the place.
The bar squatted in the ribs of an old, collapsed structure where the ceiling had buckled inward like a lung that had forgotten how to breathe. A rusted support beam leaned crooked behind the counter, wrapped in yellow tape that had long since stopped meaning warning. Someone had carved tally marks into the metal beside it—hundreds of them. No one had bothered finishing the count.
You watched the drinks arrive without touching yours. Enjin, of course, picked his up immediately.
His umbrella rested against the stool beside him, hooked over the counter edge as it belonged there. It always did that; it stood out and became impossible to ignore even in a room full of people who specialized in not seeing things.
A beacon to some. A target to others, depending on who you’d ask.
“You said I owe you,” Enjin said, rolling the glass slowly between his fingers.
The cheap liquor inside clung to the sides before sliding back down again. His voice had settled into its usual lazy rhythm, but there was something steadier beneath it now. Something deliberate.
“You disagree?”
“Didn’t say that.” He took a sip.
Enjin studied you beside him—not the way people usually did when they were trying to figure out what you were hiding, but the way someone looked at a door they’d been knocking on for years. Waiting for the hinge to give.
He was patient. Annoyingly patient.
Across the bar, a man coughed wetly into his sleeve. Someone laughed too loud. The whole structure groaned under the slow settling weight of rust and bad decisions.
When you finally lifted your own glass, you let it hover near your mouth before committing to it. Sharp enough to strip paint and comforting in its familiarity.
Enjin watched you closely as if he’d just confirmed a theory and wanted to remember it for as long as possible.
“You’re in a good mood,” you said flatly.
“Am I?”
“You bought me a drink.”
“That’s rare now?”
“You’re usually more subtle when you’re about to ask for something.” A quiet beat passed. Then Enjin chuckled into his glass. “You’re becoming predictable, Enjin.”
He didn’t deny it.
Instead, he leaned his elbow against the counter. The movement nudged the umbrella resting beside his stool; the hooked handle knocked softly against the wood.
A small sound, but noticeable. It always was.
“Instincts like yours could be useful.” His tone was casual enough that someone else might’ve missed the hook in it.
There it was. You snorted quietly into your drink. “Is that what this is?”
“What?”
“Another recruitment speech.”
“Maybe.”
“Subtle.”
“I’m easing into it.”
“You’ve been easing into it for years.”
“You’re still listening, though.” Enjin laughed under his breath.
“That’s because I enjoy watching you try.”
He tilted his head slightly, considering you like a puzzle he hadn’t gotten bored with yet.
“Something’s happening down here,” he said after a moment.
The shift in tone was small, but very much real. You caught it immediately.
“What kind of something?”
“Don’t know yet. I think—”
“Rumors travel fast.” You cut him off.
Your eyes flicked briefly around the bar. A man at the end of the counter pretended to focus very hard on his drink. Someone behind you paused mid-conversation. Ears everywhere. You leaned your shoulder against the counter, angling your body slightly away from Enjin like the conversation meant nothing.
“Make sure you’re confident in this one.” You cautioned.
Enjin tapped the rim of his glass once. A thinking habit. “My gut says this one’s different.”
“You trust your gut now?” You hummed faintly.
“More than I trust the people talkin’.”
Enjin leaned a little closer. Not threatening, just close enough to lower his voice.
“Which brings me back to you.”
You sighed through your nose.
“You’ve got ears in places I don’t.” He continued.
“You’ve got a whole organization.” You countered.
Your gaze flicked briefly toward the umbrella beside him. Cleaners were supposed to be the heroes. The visible ones. But from Enjin’s body language alone, it felt like he couldn’t even place his full trust in them.
“And yet,” he said mildly, “you still hear things first.”
You shrugged. “Perks of not wearing a uniform.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
Enjin studied your face through the dim bar light. “Just consider it.”
“Joining The Cleaners?” you laughed softly. The sound came out thinner than you meant it to. It was always working with them. Never for them. You both knew that was the same thing. “Enjin.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve asked me this before.”
“I know.”
“And I said no.”
“You did.”
“So why are we here again?”
“Because the last time I asked…” He rested his chin lightly on his knuckles. His gaze flicked briefly toward the door, where wind pushed ash through the cracks. “…you hadn’t just handed me a Sphereite.”
Your glass paused halfway to your mouth. “…don’t make that sound noble.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t flinch from the accusation.
“But what’s been circling,” he added quietly, “not even you can escape it.”
You exhaled, setting the drink down. You didn’t respond because there wasn’t a good answer. The bar creaked around you. Wind rattled loose sheet metal somewhere outside.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me,” you said instead, leaning back on the stool.
Humor was always safer than honesty.
Enjin’s uncharacteristic silence struck a chord. He was.
“Enjin.” You warned.
“You move around a lot…” He shrugged.
“That’s the job.”
“And lately—” He said, his eyes watching you now. “—those places have been getting… strange.”
“…so, what?” you asked slowly. “You want to keep me on a leash?”
“You’d chew through it.” He smirked. “I’m not dumb enough to try something like that.”
You frowned. “Yet, you’re dumb enough to ask. Again.”
“Consider it.” He said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
You laughed quietly into your glass before finishing it off. The burn sat warm in your chest. Enjin meant well. Mostly. But the world you saw was different from the one he insisted on believing in. And you were afraid of the day those two things collided hard enough to tilt the balance.
“If it were that simple.” You reminded him.
“You might want to restrategize that philosophy.”
You thought for a moment, eyes bouncing back and forth between his. It wasn’t a soft spot you’d formed for him, but something akin. You didn’t want to know what he held for you.
“The Sphereite—Rudo— changes things.” Enjin held steadfast in the belief. “He has something that won’t stay hidden for long, and the people who helped him survive become very interesting...”
Something about his posture had changed again. Like he’d already decided something and was waiting for the world to catch up.
“Interesting gets people killed.” He finished.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning…” Enjin drew in a slow breath. “Every time something big starts moving down here…” He looked at you intently. “…you’re already circling it.”
It was his way of saying be careful.
You almost listened. Yet, outside, The Ground rumbled faintly, like a restless animal turning in its sleep. Reality was reminding you where you stood.
“You’re wrong about one thing.” You shook your head slowly.
“And what’s that?” Enjin scoffed.
“The Sphereite didn’t change anything.” Your fingers brushed the counter once before you pushed yourself up from the stool. “You just finally noticed the board we’ve been playing on.”
You moved languidly, leaving the spot beside Enjin cold.
He stayed, watching the place where you’d been sitting like he already knew the game had started moving faster than either of you was ready for.