SchizoNomad

SchizoNomad jolted upright in his chair, the jack still humming faintly as he yanked it free from the port at the base of his skull. His breathing was shallow, his hands trembling as he reached for the half-empty beer on the sticky table in front of him. The dim glow of neon illuminated the open dive bar in Amaretto, bathing the room in flickering blue, gold and green. The hum of the district outside—voices, music, the occasional crackle of malfunctioning street tech—felt oppressively alive compared to the golden static of the Court.

He took a long swig of the beer, its bitterness grounding him, though the sensation of blood dripping from nowhere still lingered in his mind. The King’s command echoed, an insistent pulse buried deep in his thoughts. A girl and a duck. A rupture in the grid (whatever that meant?!?). The absurdity of it all grated against his usual clarity, but the weight of the encounter made it impossible to dismiss.

A bark of laughter erupted from a table nearby, where a group of workers played cards, oblivious to the fractured man at the corner table. SchizoNomad stared into his glass, the surface rippling like the Court's golden haze. He whispered to himself, “What the hell am I getting into?”

SchizoNomad downed the last of his beer, the bitter tang doing little to calm the storm churning in his mind. The dim hum of the bar wrapped around him, neon reflections rippling across the scratched metal counter like the static of his thoughts. He set the empty glass down and pulled his battered deck from his satchel, the edges of the device worn smooth from years of overuse.

With a flick of his wrist, he powered it up. The screen sputtered, a faint crackle of interference crawling across the interface. Lines of code blinked to life, jagged and fragmented, like whispers of a grid barely holding itself together.

He slipped the jack into the port behind his ear, the connection sparking with a brief jolt that made his vision blur for a second. The room dimmed as the net began to pull him in, but something was wrong. He could feel it in the sluggish response of the system, in the way the usual hum of data felt off, like static clinging to the edges of his consciousness.

BBS Start Screen
“Welcome to Carcosa Sectors BBS! Engage the grid. Unravel the chaos.”

    SYSOP: //Le_Roi_en_Jaune\  
    Login: [SchizoNomad]  
    Password: ********  

Connection Attempting...
...
...Connection Established. WARNING: Data integrity compromised.

<<< Mainframe echoes >>>
System Log: Node fractures detected. Unauthorized access pinged from subnet [Unlisted].

Uploading file: “Rupture.Log_Amaretto_Sector.txt”

>> Parsing... Parsing... Error. Corrupted packet detected.  
>> File integrity at 72%. Visual artifacts present.  
>> Reconstructing grid data... Incomplete.  

[SchizoNomad]: "Damn it. The signal’s ghosted. This rig’s going to burn me alive at this rate."

<<< SYSOP Override Message Incoming >>>
“SchizoNomad... the rupture watches you back.”

[SchizoNomad]: "...What the—"

Warning: Latency spike detected. Network bleed imminent.
Emergency Shutdown Initiated.

SchizoNomad ripped the jack out with a frustrated grunt, the faint hum of the failed connection still buzzing in his skull. The deck in his hands sputtered, a flicker of sparks trailing along its edge. It was on its last legs, and he knew it. If he was going to survive the grid or the King’s demands, this scrapheap wouldn’t cut it.

Natalie

Sliding the deck back into his bag, he threw a few credits on the counter and slipped out of the bar into the choking neon haze of District Amaretto. The streets were alive with the usual chaos—street hawkers yelling, rogue bots skittering along walls, and the buzz of electric vehicles zipping overhead. SchizoNomad moved through it all with a single destination in mind: Nat’s workshop.

She was the only one in this mess of a district who could rebuild a rig like his. A half-cyborg with military-grade creds, Nat’s skills weren’t just legendary—they were necessary. And if anyone could pull him out of the mess his gear was in, it was her.

The workshop door hissed open, and there she was, her cybernetic arm glinting under the flicker of a half-dead light. “Back already?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “What’d you break this time?”

At the back, a figure loomed—a half-cyborg with a military-grade cybernetic arm gleaming under the flickering light. She leaned over a workbench, her mechanical hand steady as she calibrated a deck that pulsed faintly with energy.

“I need an upgrade, Nat,” he said, leaning on the counter. “I’m tracking someone. A girl. And a duck. And I need my deck to beam them without frying me.”

She snorted, finally looking up. A deep scar ran across her cheek, a reminder of battles fought and lost, but her expression remained sharp and calculating. “A girl and a duck? You always find the weird ones, don’t you?” She set her tools down, her cybernetic fingers clicking softly, and looked at him laughing.

She leaned in closer, her tone soft. "No one just ‘upgrades’ to hunt a girl and a duck. What’s out there, Nomad? And why do you look like you’ve already been to hell and back?”

He didn’t answer right away, and the silence spoke volumes. Finally, he muttered, “It’s bigger than you think. Bigger than me.”