Chapter 2: Morning

Red light pulsed behind Apricot Signa’s eyelids, warm and steady with her heartbeat. She drifted inside it. Safe.

Buzz… buzz…

The sound pulled her loose. Her eyelids parted, vision swimming in a soft wash of color. The glow blinked in gentle rhythm against the walls, almost soothing, until her gaze found the cheap digital clock by her bed.

8:23 a.m.

“Eight twenty-three!” Her voice broke as she shot upright. She smacked the snooze button hard enough to rattle the plastic, the alarm dying mid-cry.

She flung the blanket aside and made for the closet at a dead run. The room tilted as she wrenched the sliding door aside. Her uniform waited on the bronze curtain rod, green and white with yellow trim, pressed smooth the night before. She hauled it down.

She hopped, tripped, wrestled with the skirt and sailor top. Buttons clicked shut in frantic sequence, muscle memory doing the work her panicked brain could not.

The mirror caught her mid-motion. Chestnut hair tangled into a storm, pillow lines pressed into her cheek, eyes puffed and raw with sleep. She winced. She looked wrecked.

Her makeup kit sat on the dresser. Normally she would not set foot outside without eyeliner, at least a sweep of gloss to fake composure. Her hand moved toward the pencil, hesitated, then dropped. No time.

Apricot slung her book bag over one shoulder and barreled out of her room. The hallway blurred past, her parents’ door shut, Jasper’s at the far end. She clattered down the stairs, hand skating the rail, and swung through the front hall toward the kitchen.

The house was already alive. Television chatter carried from the living room, its glow shifting across the floor. The air was thick with breakfast grease and burnt toast. Apricot nearly ran into Jasper at the table, his eyes welded to the screen.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” he smirked without looking away.

She pulled the fridge open hard, hinges groaning. Cold light fell across stacked plastic plates, Dad’s forgotten dinners, sealed and untouched. Each one marked another night claimed by the company. He drove himself past breaking just to prove his worth to men blind to his Castor blood. Okabe valued his mind, but they wrung it dry, left him hollow-eyed at the table if he made it home at all.

Her stomach clenched. She tipped the milk carton back and drank straight from the spout, daring Jasper to say something. The carton hit the shelf with a dull clap. She grabbed an egg, a stick of butter, just enough for an omelet if she moved fast.

“You know,” she muttered, “you could help your big sister for once, Jazz.”

Jasper snorted. “Your alarm’s been going off all week.” His eyes never left the screen. Then he gasped. “Whoa. Look at that. Blood everywhere.”

Her step faltered. Onscreen, a street lay butchered. Limbs sprawled, red flooding the pavement. The image threw her back to a wet curb outside the Castor Clinic, her father’s hand clamping tight around hers so she would not ask questions about the body bag.

“Jasper Signa!” she snapped, anger flaring from fear. “You’re not supposed to watch this.”

“It’s the news,” he growled. “And Mom’s not here, so stop acting like her.”

Apricot bit her tongue until their father’s voice arrived, heavy as a verdict. “What is this?” His hand landed firm on Jasper’s back.

Satisfaction flickered through her chest, quick and guilty.

Jasper scrambled, pointing at the gore as if evidence might shield him. “It’s the news, Dad. Some robber downtown. They even had to call the SDP!” He jabbed a finger at the screen. The camera panned, catching the twisted arm of a mech at the edge of the frame. His voice swelled. “That’s a Sachiban Model 4. See?”

Apricot went still. Special Defense Police. Mechs in the street. Casualties climbing. This was not a routine dispatch. This was the kind of story she had imagined chasing since the day she entered the journalism program.

“Jasper. Off. Now.” Harlan lifted the remote. The screen went black. “Your mother would lose her mind.”

“But Dad—” Jasper started, then shrank under the glare. He slouched out of the kitchen, stealing one last longing glance at the blank glass.

“And you?” Harlan turned on her, eyebrow arched. “Think you’ve got time for breakfast when you’re already late?”

Apricot froze, whisk dangling. The half-cooked egg hissed in the pan, bitter and sharp, and suddenly she was seven again, balanced on a stool too tall for her, trying to make pancakes the morning Mom didn’t come home. Smoke had filled the kitchen before Dad yanked the pan away. His silence had been heavier than scolding. He was right. He was always right.

She killed the burner and scraped the runny mess into the sink.

“Didn’t think so,” Harlan muttered, his voice softening.

Apricot snatched a piece of toast and kissed his cheek. “Sorry. Gotta run.”

“Be safe. Don’t go looking for trouble.”

~

The streets surged with movement the moment she stepped outside, a restless stream of workers and students moving between the towers. Apricot plunged into it. Miss Akagi’s voice was already in her head, sharp as chalk on the board. A journalist meets her deadlines. Discipline is part of the craft.

She rounded onto Ginzu’s Market Street and stopped short.

Bright holotape stretched across the road, yellow against the morning light. Beyond it, police and medics clustered together, radios chattering beneath the idle of an ambulance. Jasper’s report had not been an exaggeration. This was the standoff from last night, now closed off behind barricades.

A guard spotted her and lifted a hand. “This area’s closed. Go around.”

She rose onto her toes and caught sight past him. White sheets sagged over broken outlines. Medics zipped black bags closed. No one hurried. A dark stain marred the concrete where something had been dragged.

So it was true, then. People had died here.

“Can’t you let me through? I’m late for class.”

“Turn around!” His thumb stabbed toward the detour.

Her body folded before her mind caught up, chin dipping, shoulders drawing in for a quick bow. The gesture was not hers. She remembered being twelve, awkward in Okabe, classmates scolding her with singsong voices. No bow? How rude! She had practiced in the mirror at night until it became automatic. Six years later, it came out even in front of a stranger who did not care.

She spun on her heel and pushed into the detour crowd. Two blocks. Three. Office workers grumbled about delays. Mothers hustled children away from the barricade. Thrill seekers craned for gossip. Apricot shoved through every gap, running on the same urgency that had once pulled her through crowded Okabe markets, her father’s hand tight around her wrist, urging her to keep pace. Back then, she had apologized with bows each time they bumped a stranger. Now she clipped an old man’s arm without looking back.

The station clock tower rose above the human tide. The silver tram waited on the platform, doors still open, engine idling.

She sprinted. A businessman lurched into her path. She swerved, barely missed him. “Sorry!” The word jumped out of her, but no bow this time.

9:29.

The warning chime went off as her boots slapped the platform. The doors began sliding toward each other.

Something jammed them. An arm. A hand thrust through the gap, muscles straining.

She did not pause to look. She lunged. For a sick instant she grasped nothing. Then rough fingers closed around hers and hauled her clean off her feet. The platform dropped away. The train took her in, doors slamming shut behind her.

Momentum drove her into a hard chest. They nearly tumbled, but a hand caught her arm and steadied her. She stumbled to the nearest pole and held on while the car pulled into motion.

Only when her footing returned did she hear it. A low chuckle, close enough to feel.

“Hey there,” the stranger said. “You almost missed your train.”

“I… yeah.” The words came out between hard breaths. “Thanks to you I didn’t.” She brushed a damp strand behind her ear and lifted her gaze.

Her rescuer looked only a few years older. Early twenties. Tan skin, black hair jutting up in careless spikes. Earbuds dangled against his chest, cheap cologne hanging off him. His smile curled too sharp, wolfish. Her heel inched back before she realized she had moved.

The car jolted. Commuters swayed as one, packed tight inside the rattling shell. Apricot found herself wedged between a woman loaded with grocery bags and the stranger, who leaned in casual, one hand hooked around the rail above her head. The grin stayed.

She looked down at the scuffed floor.

“You got caught in the detour, huh?” His voice rose over the clatter of the car. Easy tone. His eyes flicked across her anyway, too quick, too thorough. A bruise shadowed his cheek. Ink ghosted the edge of his collar.

He’s sizing me up. Apricot edged closer to the woman with the bags, letting her bulk serve as a wall.

“Yeah,” she said, careful. “Total chaos over there this morning.”

“They shut the whole Ginzu line after last night’s mess.” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “Everyone’s piling onto this route instead. Lucky me. Wouldn’t have had the chance to play hero otherwise.”

His eyes dropped to the school crest stitched on her jacket, then came back up. “So what’s the rush? Big exam?”

“Just class. Journalism.” Her chin lifted despite herself. “I’m a journalism student.”

That widened his smile. “Journalism, huh? Somebody’s gotta keep the bastards honest.” His laugh came out low. “So what, photojournalism? You haul a camera around?”

Before she could answer, he was digging into his hoodie pocket. He pulled out a digital camera. Slim. Polished. Only a few scratches on the casing. “Top of the line last year. I’d give you a good price.”

Her guard went up. The thing glinted under the car’s lights, too clean to have traded hands the honest way. Her father’s voice surfaced, a flea market years ago: never buy something that wants to shine too hard.

“That’s nice of you, but I’m not really looking to buy one.”

A lie. She had been saving scraps from tutoring gigs just to afford a decent camera. She had lingered at pawnshop windows more times than she would admit. But not like this. Not from a stranger on a train with a pitch that smooth.

He let it slide off like water. “No worries. Offer’s open if you change your mind. I ride this train most mornings.”

He returned the camera to his pocket in one practiced motion. Then his hand extended, late enough to feel like an afterthought. “Name’s Cortez.”

She hesitated before taking it. His grip was hard, calloused, the knuckles crossed with faint scars. She kept the shake brief.

“Apricot.”

“Apricot. Pretty name.” He drew the name out slow. His teeth showed. His voice dropped just enough to make it feel private. “Well, Apricot, if you ever need anything, and I do mean anything, I’m around.”

A slow tap to his temple. A wink. The kind that was not playful.

Something cold settled in her. She could not read whether it was a come-on or a warning dressed as one, and the not knowing sat worse than either answer.

The train pulled in hard, brakes blasting air across the platform. The doors parted. The crowd poured in, shoulders and bags colliding. Cortez cut through the press of bodies like he belonged there, already angling for the exit.

He turned back once and raised a hand, too familiar. “See you around, okay?”

His voice faded into the noise, then was gone.

A last flash of his jacket, then only strangers.

Her breath went out of her all at once. She had not realized she was holding it.

“What a weirdo,” she whispered.

Too light a word. Too small. He had kept her from missing the train, true. But those eyes. There was something in them that stayed, like afterburn on her vision.

She shook it off. The doors closed. The city pulled her forward.

~

Apricot burst from the subway stairwell into the sprawl of Blue Ash University’s campus. The quadrangle stretched nearly empty, stone and glass with the hush of a place already sealed into its routines. Her shoes screeched on tile as she ran down the covered walkway.

A wall-mounted LCD crackled overhead, the government crest rotating against static. The digits in the corner: 10:04 a.m.

She rounded the last corner and nearly collided with the heavy door to Lecture Room 1403B. The window shade hung low. She bent toward the narrow gap at the bottom and caught only darkness inside, the faint glow of a projector breathing against the walls.

Apricot tried the handle. It refused her.

“No, no, no…” She rattled it harder, as if desperation alone might undo the lock. University rules were iron. No disruptions. No exceptions. The door held with the same indifference as every other locked door she had met in this city, as if the institution itself had decided she was not worth the interruption.

Her forehead came to rest against the cool wood. On the other side, the professor’s voice murmured in a muffled rhythm, calm, steady, oblivious. She laid her palm flat against the door. The voice rolled on without her.

She backed away. The adrenaline that had gotten her this far drained in a rush, leaving her limbs leaden and useless. She had missed the lecture. Maybe the quiz too.

A breath escaped her, almost a sob, but she smothered it. The program had not been built for students who stocked grocery shelves past midnight and ran detours around crime scenes to make the morning train. It had been built for students who arrived on time because nothing in their lives prevented it. The distinction was not talent. It was architecture. And the architecture did not bend.

She turned from the lecture hall, its glass doors giving back her pale outline, a figure shut out. She took the steps down, past the campus gates, into the spill of city streets. Neon bled across the pavement, washing her in sickly pinks and violent blues. Traffic roared past without her. She slipped into the flow, another body swallowed by a city that never waited.