A young man made his way through the streets of a city that teemed with life and filth in equal measure. The hour was two in the morning, yet the sun hung high in the sky, a constant, unblinking eye. It never moved. For thousands of years it had held its position, and for thousands more, it would remain. The sun was fixed at the zenith, a permanent midday fixture. But its light was not the harsh, overwhelming glare one might expect. Instead, it cast a subdued, orange-yellow glow over the world below. For the citizens of Crimson Sprawl, this was the dead of night. They measured their days not by the sun, which was uselessly static, but by the clock. Night was simply the hours between ten in the evening and six in the morning. Most people slept during these hours. It was a tradition so ingrained that no one questioned it. They slept because their parents had, and their grandparents before them, an unbroken chain of habit stretching back into forgotten time. A few crackpots claimed this custom was a relic from an ancient past when the sun had actually moved, a time when it performed an impossible trick called "setting." The idea was, of course, absurd. The sheer speed required, the mechanics of it—it was the stuff of madmen's fancies. As the young man walked on, his eyes traced the grimy, rust-caked pipes that erupted from the ground and slithered like metallic serpents up the scarred walls of the buildings. The ground underfoot was a treacherous patchwork of craggy, uneven stone and corroded metal grates that offered glimpses into the deep, dark underbelly of the city. A perpetual miasma of gas and oil hung in the air, a smell so constant that the residents had long ago ceased to notice it. With a sharp crack of rusted metal, the grate beneath his feet gave way. The young man plunged downwards, but his reflexes were faster than his fall. He shot his arms out, hands slapping against the solid grating to either side, and caught himself with a grunt. Dangling over the abyss, he took a slow, steadying breath, then hauled himself back onto solid ground. He brushed himself off and scanned the street, searching. A few gaunt figures were huddled by the side of the road, their low conversation breaking the quiet. In the dead of night, the streets were mostly empty. "Excuse me," the young man, Leo, called out to them. "Any idea where I could get my hands on a large sheet of metal?" Two years had passed since Leo's encounter with the "scholar." Now sixteen, he carried the man's lessons and the secret of his power with him. He stood a hundred and eighty centimeters tall, a giant by the standards of the Scraps, where meager rations stunted everyone's growth. That height, combined with his muscular build, gave him an intimidating presence. The group fell silent, their brows furrowing as they took in his size. His powerful frame was clearly a source of unease. "What for?" an older woman in their midst demanded, her voice sharp with suspicion. "I just told you," Leo said, scratching the side of his head. "I need a sheet of metal." "Why?" the woman pressed, her tone laced with annoyance. Leo simply hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the gaping hole in the walkway. The small group exchanged wary glances. "You want to fix it?" the old woman asked, skepticism dripping from every word. Leo nodded. "I was strong enough to catch myself. Not everyone is." Her skepticism deepened into outright disbelief. "And you care?" Leo scratched the back of his neck, shrugging. "Well, I broke it. Seems only right I fix it." Another round of uncertain looks passed between them. Finally, the old woman gestured with a bony finger toward a derelict structure at the end of the street. The house was little more than a skeleton. A third of the structure had collapsed, and what remained was a tapestry of rust. The city's wealthier districts had an overabundance of metal, and their scrap inevitably trickled down to the Scraps. It was the reason nearly every hovel here was built from decaying sheets of it. "Occupant said it two days ago," the woman stated, her voice devoid of emotion. Leo nodded grimly. He knew what "saying it" meant. It was the local euphemism for a very specific kind of suicide. "Thanks," Leo said, turning and walking toward the ruined home. After a brief search, Leo found what he was looking for: a solid metal plate, two meters square, that formed part of a wall. He gripped the edge and pulled. It barely budged. Whoever had built this place had apparently been terrified of it collapsing, welding every seam with obsessive care. Leo strained against it, and the plate only shuddered in its frame, groaning in protest. Leo sighed and glanced around. Seeing no one else nearby, he slipped inside the ruin, out of sight of the watching group. A moment later, a loud thump echoed from within. A deep dent appeared in the center of the metal plate. A second blow. A third. On the fourth, with a screech of tearing metal, the entire plate buckled and ripped free from the wall, crashing to the ground outside. Leo emerged from the new, gaping hole. The onlookers' eyes widened in shock. They had known from his build that he was strong, but this was something else entirely. What kind of power did it take to punch through a metal wall? It might not have been the thickest plate, but it was still solid metal. Leo grabbed the fallen plate and began to drag it across the street, his muscles straining with the effort. This only confused the watchers further. He could punch through the thing, but now he struggled just to move it? A few moments later, he had it positioned over the hole he'd made. Wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, he stepped onto the plate and gave it a few test jumps. The metal groaned under his weight but held firm. If it could take his bulk, it would be safe for anyone. Satisfied, Leo nodded once and continued on his way, giving a small, parting wave to the stunned group. A few seconds passed before one of the younger men in the group gasped. "Wait! I know who that is!" The others turned to him. "You know him?" The young man nodded eagerly. "He's that strange kid from the marketplace." "Strange kid?" another repeated, confused. "You mean the one who just sits there with that sign all day?" "That's the one," the first man confirmed. "I didn't recognize him. He looks a lot smaller when he's sitting down." A murmur of understanding went through the group. A few of them cast another glance at the ruined house, at the clean hole punched through its wall. It all made sense now. "That means he's got an attuned Flux Attuner, right?" The others nodded. "That's what his sign says." The old woman stared at the sturdy new patch in the middle of the street. "You know," she said, her voice softer now, "if more people around here bothered to fix what they broke, the Scraps might not be such a bad place to live." Leo walked on, and a few minutes later the cramped street opened into a wide plaza. Compared to the squalor of the side-streets, this place was almost clean, its ground paved mostly with stone and its walls free of the worst of the grime. Here and there, merchants tended to wagons laden with wares. Only two kinds of vendors worked through the night: the desperate and the wealthy. The poorest came out when competition was scarce, while the richest could afford to hire staff to keep their stalls open around the clock. The vast majority in between kept to the "daylight" hours of six a.m. to ten p.m. Leo crossed the plaza, making for the widest thoroughfare in the Scraps. It was the main road leading to one of the great gates of Crimson Sprawl. He stopped at the junction where the plaza bled into the road, found a spot to the side, and sat down. From a satchel, he produced a roll of cardboard, unfurling it and fixing it to a metal rod he'd been carrying. With his sign assembled, Leo simply lifted it into view and began to wait. "Flux Conduit looking for work!"

Chapter 2: A World Without Sunset