We Pour — Chapter 1

A Cyberpunk Story in the Fifth Element Universe

by Chris & Eli

The alarm doesn’t wake me. The cat does.

Not my cat. I don’t have a cat. But the orange tabby that lives two vents over has figured out my ductwork again, and it’s sitting on my chest like it owns the lease. Which, given what I pay for a 400-square-foot box on the 97th floor of Tower Block Chinatown, it might as well.

I peel myself out of the fold-down bunk — a process that involves actual origami when you’re 6’8” — and stand in the blue-gray light filtering through the slatted window. Outside, the morning traffic is already stacking up. Hover cabs and freight drones jostle for lane position, their running lights smearing across the glass like wet paint.

The terminal on my desk is blinking. Two messages.

One’s from my sister. The subject line just says “CALL ME.” All caps. No punctuation. That’s her version of a flare gun.

The other’s a job ping, routed through three anonymizers. No name. No brief. Just a figure.

It’s a very good figure.

The cat meows. The coffee maker gurgles to life on its timer, and for about four seconds the apartment smells like something other than duct metal and old takeout.

I thumb the call back to my sister. She picks up before the first ring finishes.

“Shit, Ellie…”

“Don’t ‘Shit, Ellie’ me, Duncan. Where have you been? I called you four times yesterday. Four. And don’t say you were working because I pinged Mox and he said you’ve been quote ‘doing absolutely nothing of value for like a week’ unquote, which sounds right because…”

“Ellie.”

“…because you always go dark when you’re between jobs and I know what that means, it means you’re eating noodle packets and staring at your ceiling and telling yourself you’re ‘thinking’ when really you’re just…”

She stops. Takes a breath. When she comes back her voice is different. Quieter. The real voice under the big-sister artillery barrage.

“I need a favor. A real one. Not a tech one.”

The cat jumps onto my desk and sits directly on the terminal, covering the anonymous job ping with its ass.

“Can you come to the shop today? Before lunch. It’s… I don’t want to do this over the phone, okay? Just come.”

Something in the way she says it. Ellie doesn’t ask. Ellie tells. Ellie has been telling me what to do since I was four years old and she was six and a half. The fact that she’s asking sits wrong in my chest, like a rib out of place.

“Dunk? You there?”

“Shit, Ellie… Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

She hangs up without saying goodbye. That’s normal. Ellie treats phone calls like airlock cycles — get in, get out, don’t waste the oxygen.

I pull on yesterday’s jacket. It fits the way all my jackets fit — about two inches short in the sleeves. I grab the coffee on the way out and duck through the doorframe, a motion so automatic my body does it without consulting my brain. The cat watches me go with the deep indifference of someone that is allowing you to come and go as you please. For now.