Hybrid by K. T. Hanna Read Free Book Online Page A

pass through the city virtually unseen, even while jogging slowly. It takes a few false starts to acclimate to the chill in the city, so different to the outside world where the adrium seems more at home.
    Concrete walls begin to crumble less the further he moves toward the center. The dirt affixed to every pore of the buildings in the poorer sections is far less visible, as if someone remembers to half-heartedly blast the grime off every few years. If you peer close you can see where it was blasted back, overlaid with more, then cleaned again. Eerie patterns, reminiscent of cave paintings.
    Central looms above him, its windows bigger than the living quarters at the peak of the other buildings close to it. Large and luminous, looking out as if watching the whole city. It rises towers above, precisely in the center of the city. Perhaps not the most original reason to call it Central.
    Dom watches the people coming in and out of the building with one swipe of their wrist, and he frowns. They pass in bulk, a few of them here and there, rarely a straggler by themselves. The night shift’s leaving to let new staff in. He knows everything about the building from the inside, but he’s never had to gain access covertly before.
    Watching the people and their fluid movements, Dom waits. Nothing is easier than blending with shadows—it’s like they want to be used, twisted and bloated to accommodate anyone willing to traverse them. Timing is everything.
    He knows he can’t go through the main doors. Even if the cameras don’t see him, the sensor will register something and the alarms will go off. Not being seen is always an advantage, except when it’s not. He slips around to the alley and waits until no one is due to pass. Going in through the sewers isn’t his first choice, but it’ll work best.
    There are a plethora of tunnels crossing under Central and the rest of the city, from the time when it was still Kansas City, back before the Great Disasters of the twenty-second century. Some of the catacombs are falling apart, rubble barring the ways from the earthquake tremors that have long since stilled. At least he doesn’t have to go that far in today.
    He bends down swiftly, fingers morphing into knife-like sharpness, and jimmies dirt-caked seals on the grates. Once loose, he raises the huge set of metal bars that would otherwise take several men and drops himself down, closing it behind him with a louder than he intended clang.
    For a few moments he waits, crouched low, taking on the dark hues of dirt and grime that litter the bottom of the sewer entrance. Perhaps the noise was only loud to his current hypersensitivity.
    Thoughts nag at him from all different corners of his brain. Most questioning what he plans to do to those who caused this, who hurt not only the dominos, but caused Sai’s situation as well. But one of those thoughts rings louder than the others, beckoning him, encouraging him, cajoling him.
    He likes that avenue best. There’s a sinuous strength, a righteousness about evening the score, about standing up for himself with the strength Mathur gave him. A need to reach out and take that energy from where it is wasted. That...electricity.
    So many dominos affected by the ignorant actions of people who presumed. Davis, Selwyn... If it weren’t for them, Dom wouldn’t have had the communication channel forced into being. The rainbow strobing would never have happened, and Sai would still be whole. She’d still look at him with all that trust from their shared missions, that friendly way no one else but Bastian did.
    Dom clenches his fists, bricking them hard for a moment before relaxing. He resets his body to default. The gunmetal grey shimmer surrounds him, his sleek surface back to its more androgynous form. But even as he moves, it leaks back to his own preference, to himself. He lets it, clinging to the parts of him that are still whole as he traverses the tricky twists and turns beneath the