Small Mercies

Another December night at the NeoSyn bar. Holographic advertisements flickered through the smoky air. Their promises of pharmaceutical enlightenment and digital salvation broke apart. This happened as they passed through the dense cloud of synthetic tobacco and vaporized ethanol.

Maddox hunched over the bar counter. His weathered fingers wrapped around a glass of amber liquid. The drink cost more than most people’s daily wage. The chrome vertebrae visible through the torn fabric at his neck caught the light as he swallowed. He was early, as always. Punctuality – the last relic of the world before.

When Chiba pushed through the crowd, his youthful face betrayed by old eyes, Maddox barely nodded. Thirty years separated them. They both carried the same haunted expression. It was the mark of anyone still capable of remembering what it had been like before the corporations won.

“You look like shit,” Chiba said, sliding onto the stool beside him.

“End of year pleasantries to you too,” Maddox replied, his voice gravel crushed beneath steel wheels. He signaled the bartender. She was half-human, maybe less. She poured another drink without looking up from the bioscreen implanted in her wrist.

They sat in silence, two islands in a sea of noise. The annual tradition. December in a world that no longer experienced winter.

“So?” Chiba finally asked.

Maddox’s augmented pupil contracted, the mechanical iris adjusting to memories rather than light. “Bad year. Real bad.”

“Worse than when they privatized oxygen?”

A hollow laugh escaped Maddox’s lips. “Different kind of bad. Personal.”

Chiba waited. He watched the news ticker that crawled across the bottom of his vision. There was another food riot in Sector 7. Corporate mercenaries were deployed. Casualties were estimated in the hundreds. The usual.

“Cass died.” Maddox’s words fell between them like spent bullet casings. “Ex-wife. Sudden. Neural interface rejection. Her body revolted against its ‘upgrades.’ Ironic, considering how she always resisted them.”

“Shit.” Chiba’s face twitched – an authentic response in a world of manufactured emotions. “The girls?”

“Devastated. They’re with me now. Full custody, courtesy of a system that only values children as future consumers.” Maddox’s artificial knuckles whitened around his glass. “Leyna’s sixteen – old enough to understand. Trin’s only nine. Keeps asking when mom’s coming home, like death is just another corporate relocation.”

“I’m sorry,” Chiba said, the words ancient and inadequate.

“Don’t be. Sorry doesn’t mean anything anymore. They mass-produce sympathy nowadays, sell it in skin patches and inhalants.”

The bartender slid another drink toward them. Her eyes never left the stock market fluctuations scrolling across her field of vision.

“Remember when people used to say ‘it is what it is’?” Maddox continued. “Now it isn’t even what it is. Reality’s negotiable if you’ve got the credit line.”

Chiba nodded, his throat tight with emotions his employer-mandated mood regulators couldn’t quite suppress. “Anything good? Anything at all?”

A faint smile cracked Maddox’s face. “The Razors won the North American Championship.”

“You’re shitting me.” Chiba’s enhanced eyes widened. “First time in what – twenty years?”

“Twenty-three.” For a moment, Maddox seemed younger, the weight lifting. “Watched every game with the girls. Taught them the rules, the history. Something real in all this…” He gestured vaguely at the world around them.

“To the Razors, then,” Chiba said, raising his glass.

“To small mercies in unmerciful times,” Maddox replied.

They drank as outside, acid rain began to fall, dissolving the dreams of those who couldn’t afford shelter. Above them, corporate arcologies gleamed like false stars. Surveillance drones recorded everything. They fed data to algorithms that had long since decided their fates.

In the corner, an ancient television – a relic from the pre-interface days – showed highlights from the championship game. Maddox watched. His eyes reflected not just the game but a moment of connection with his daughters. It was a fragile thread of humanity in a world intent on unraveling what remained of their souls.