Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Old mate, this place is crazy, it’s like if Blade Runner and Cyberpunk had a baby.

[System: And that’s a problem, how? I don’t see the problem you put.]

I can smell food, old mate! real food! Maybe I dunno what they eat 100 years in the future...

A food cart, an actual food cart, wheels and everything and it’s selling something that might be meat skewers or might be something that used to be alive in the tunnels. The vendor, a troll with a hairnet, is not answering questions.

[System: Welcome to the Twawi, mate. Illegal trading hub for all walks of life. oni girls, phoenix girls, human men, the occasional demon if they’re feeling sociable. Everyone comes here to trade, sell, buy whatever they want, no questions asked, no receipts provided. It’s like eBay if eBay were a physical location and also a crime.]

I’m pressed flat against the wall where the pipe empties out, trying to process the scale of it. The junction is massive, three old subway lines converging into an open platform area the size of a basketball court, with vendor stalls crammed into every available inch. Tunnels branch off in every direction, some lit, some dark, some with sounds coming from them that I choose not to investigate.

Above, through gaps in the ceiling infrastructure, I can catch glimpses of the city proper, the underside of a hover-car lane, vehicles silently gliding through the night sky, their running lights painting streaks of white and red across the darkness. Up there, it’s 2126. Down here, it’s whatever year the concrete stopped caring.

A group of teenagers, elf and human mixed, are gathered around a portable screen watching what looks like a livestreamed soccer game, but the ball is flying, some Harry Potter-type shit, I guess. One of them cheers. Another throws a chip at the screen.

This is where I’m supposed to steal food from teenagers?

I am a glass straw snake in a market full of people who could crush me with a misplaced boot.

[System: Yeah, nah, don’t overthink it. Just find a pocket, find something edible, and drag it somewhere dark. You’re invisible to thermal scanners, remember? That’s your one advantage. Use it before someone with actual eyes spots the shimmer and decides to collect you for their exotic pet collection.]

Right. Thermal scanners. I focus on the crowd, trying to read the heat signatures through the haze of neon and body warmth. Orange and white blobs moving through the space, clustering around stalls, forming lines, breaking apart. I’m in the absence. The snake-shaped nothing.

I need to match the ambient temperature. Blend in. Become part of the thermal wallpaper. Slithering down the wall and into the crowd, staying close to the baseboards where the shadows are thickest. A boot passes inches from my head, steel-toed, industrial, attached to a dwarf who smells like forge smoke and cheap perfume. I freeze. The boot keeps moving.

I am totally fine, this is fine, I’m part of this indulgence system, I need to take risks, do whatever I want, I’m rank, what? E? Now that’s pretty good.

Three humans in matching jackets, some kind of gang, maybe, or a crew, lean against a wall and watch the crowd with the bored vigilance of security.

[System: Fucker, remember the quest, this isn’t a sightseeing activity day you booked. Oh shit, a brick forgot to tell ya. Three items. Bonus IP if you nick more than that. Don’t be stingy.]

Three items.

[System: Three items. Food. Not bugs. You made that abundantly clear, mate. You’re getting there. Slowly. Like watching paint dry, but with more existential dread.]

Thanks.

Then I see it.

The back pocket of a human guy, mid-thirties maybe, wearing one of those puffer jackets with the reflective strips. He’s got a black, collapsible umbrella, the kind with the curved handle, leaning against his hip like a cane he doesn’t need. And tucked into the back pocket of his jeans was a clear plastic bag. Inside the bag, individually wrapped slices of something. Something that smells like.

Oh.

Oh, that’s prosciutto, oh my god.

[System: Yes?]

Shut up.

My tongue flicks out before I can stop it, tasting the air. Salt. Fat. The unmistakable funk of cured pork, layered with something herbal, rosemary maybe, and underneath it all that deep, meaty sweetness that hits the back of my throat like a memory I don’t have anymore. My mouth floods. My stomach, which has been subsisting on capybara blood and beetle guts for what feels like a hundred years, clenches so hard I think I hear it make a sound.

[System: You’re drooling, mate. Literally. There’s venom pooling on the concrete. Get it together.]

I wipe my face against the wall. Fine. Okay. New plan.

I slither along the baseboard, following the scent trail like a compass needle swinging north. The guy’s talking to someone else, a shorter human with a goatee, and they’re both looking at something on a phone screen. Distracted. Perfect.

The umbrella is maybe eight inches from my position. Black shaft, matte finish, leaning at a forty-five-degree angle against the man’s hip. I study the geometry of it. The curve of the handle. The gap between the fabric and the ground where the ribs meet the shaft. If I can get up there without the umbrella shifting, without the guy feeling the weight.

I should have specced into something light. Some featherweight passive, some gravity-defying bullshit. the evolution menu I’ve gotten, I’ve picked the safe option. Not once did I think.

Hey, maybe being able to weigh less than a feather would be useful.

No. I picked the bite-harder button like a moron.

Too late now.

I coil at the base of the umbrella and press my belly against the shaft. The metal is cool, slightly damp from condensation. I start the climb.

I stop. Hold every muscle still. Wait. The guy shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The umbrella sways. I sway with it, pressed flat, playing dead, which is not hard because I am genuinely considering dying of anxiety right now.

It’s not difficult. Dying sounds fantastic right now.