Four days. Four fucking days since her last hit. By now she was desperate, asking strangers and following symbols drawn on the walls. The cramps and confusion had given way to cold sweats and raw fear. She visibly twitched as she walked, drawing eyes from the night market. Sometimes a ganger peeled off from his boss, just to shove her aside.

The last one would hit like a ton of bricks. Nozomi's eyes saw a suit, but her feline ears caught the subsonic whine of a high-grade cyberarm. The kind draped in synthskin melanized for its owner. It swung into her gut in the blink of an eye, sent her straight to the stained concrete.

Her vision was a blur of tears and agony. With every turn of her head, neon signs lazed across her narrow gaze, like streaks of paint across fuschia-brown. Familiar ideograms stuck out to her. 'Hope', 'Heaven', 'Love'. Nozomi got up, limped for the nearest alleyway, till all of it was behind her.

Just as her senses began to return, a familiar scent stirred her. Like most transgenic people, her nose was sharp. Sharp enough to smell her neighbor through an apartment HVAC.

It was faint. Perhaps far. But she knew the smell of Sand like the back of her hand.

Nozomi took off running down the dark alley, gun drawn just in case. She'd scramble over garbage, bound over holes, turn the next corner - and the scent was gone. Caught in frenzy, she flitted eyes all around, only to find some drunks by a taco stall.

Waste of time. Waste of fucking time! Her hand clenched around the rusty nine-mill, but a flash of their iron knocked some sense back into her. Without a word, she leapt back in the alley, and found the scent yet again.

She concentrated. Spent a moment testing the wind across her feline ears, and set out down a dark, dead-end court. Suddenly she was real happy to have a cat's eyes.

There he was. Between a dumpster a dumpster and a pallet of cinderblocks. She steadied her gun, made herself known.

"All right, ya fuckin' baghead. Now, I've had a bad fuckin' time this past week, and I ain't in the mood to play games. Gimme the Red and maybe I don't ice your ass."

No response. But the man's legs moved, so she stomped his knee and swung her pistol 'round the corner. Damn near dropped it a second later.

He didn't look good. Rusted chrome, sagging skin, shaggy silver beard. A decrepit uniform marked him as an old soldier, though Nozomi couldn't pick out the service. But his eyes alarmed her more than anything. Glazed, half-open. He hadn't even reacted to her breaking his knee, instead let his gaze droop into his lap. A quiet, raspy voice beckoned in some strange tongue. She'd swear she caught a woman's name.

"Fuuck me, man..." she sighed, crouching down.

A triple-tap of his wrist brought up a translucent medi-diagnostics panel in hyperreality. His name was encrypted, but the vitals were visible. His temp was was sky-high, and his heart was tearing itself apart. Nozomi reckoned he was seein' his life flash before his eyes.

Feeling the wind blown from her sails, she sat down across from him in the narrow alley, wondered what he'd see in his dying moments. She'd always imagined she'd go out the same way, OD in a cheap coffin once she'd grown sick of it all. She'd imagined such a sight would bring her peace. Instead, she felt herself sweat as the man bobbed about, groaning and writhing as he lurched over, till the last signs of life left his eyes, and his breath ceased.

Nozomi stared at him for a long minute, huddled her face against her knees. Distant gunshots and drunken laughter muffled her crying.