The rain, a ceaseless, metallic drizzle, had been the only eulogy for Jorn. Vesna, hunched under a salvaged sheet of plasteel propped against a skeletal rebar frame, found its monotonous drumming far more soothing than the choked sobs of the half-dozen other mourners. Her eyelids felt like lead. She’d tried to sleep through most of it, a skill honed over six years of living in the Mire, but the cold, wet ground seeped into her bones, refusing true oblivion. Jorn, her only friend, was being lowered into a shallow, mud-slicked grave. A finality she almost envied. No more fixing broken automatons, no more scavenging for forgotten tech, no more huddling for warmth in a collapsing hovel. Just dirt, and then nothing. Vesna almost smiled. Almost. A shadow fell over the makeshift funeral, deeper than the perpetual overcast sky. The mournful shuffling ceased. The mourners shrank back into the drizzle. Vesna reluctantly cracked an eye. A hulking guard, clad in polished obsidian-and-chrome plating, stood at the edge of the pit. Rain slicked his visor, reflecting the grey expanse of the Mire, but his stance was rigid, uncompromising. Beside him, a woman in an impractical, mud-splattered silk gown sneered. Nadya Rostova. Vesna’s estranged step-sister, a bitter taste in her mouth. Nadya’s presence here, in this forgotten corner of the city, was a declaration of war. Or, more likely, a declaration of amusement at Vesna’s expense. “Vesna Dalca,” the guard’s voice boomed, amplified by an internal modulator, slicing through the rain’s hiss. “By the authority of the Orosz Academy of Applied Sciences, I present this summons.” He held out a thick, official-looking document, sealed with the Orosz cog-and-lightning sigil. Vesna didn’t move. Her heart, a sluggish, uncooperative organ, gave a faint thump. A summons. For her? She hadn’t touched a wrench professionally in years, not since… well, not since everything. Her hands were for patching up Slag, for turning over forgotten circuit boards in the scrap heaps, for holding Ilya. “Oh, don’t play coy, sister dearest,” Nadya’s voice, a sickly sweet venom, dripped into the air. She stepped closer, her expensive boots sinking into the mud. “It’s not for you, unless they have decided to recruit lethargic, disgraced tinkerers. It’s for your… *anomaly*.” She stressed the word, making it sound like a disease. Vesna’s eyes, dull moments before, sharpened. Ilya. Her six-year-old son, a walking, talking enigma of circuits and gears. He’d dismantled and rebuilt their ancient comm-link last week, just because he was bored. Fingers curled tight against her damp palm. “The subject, Ilya Dalca,” the guard continued, oblivious to the simmering tension, “has been identified through preliminary aptitude scans. His conscription into preliminary engineering programs is mandatory. Immediate effect. Resistance will be met with force.” He took a step forward, extending the document further. A draft notice. For Ilya. Her son, barely out of infancy, pulled toward the brutalist foundry that chewed through gifted minds to feed oligarch production lines. A growl rumbled, low and guttural, from the shadows beneath Vesna’s plasteel lean-to. Slag, her mechanical mastiff, a hulking mass of scavenged plating and whirring hydraulics, shifted. His photoreceptors, usually a dull amber, glowed a dangerous crimson. He had been a silent, rusted sentinel, blending into the junk, until Nadya’s words, until the threat to Ilya. Nadya, emboldened by the guard's bulk, sneered again. “Imagine. A street rat like you, with a prodigy for a son. What a waste. He’ll be far better off serving the Rostova consortium, once we acquire his contract, of course. Unlike his mother, he might actually amount to something.” She deliberately flicked a droplet of mud onto Vesna’s worn tunic. It was the flick of mud, the casual dismissal, the implied ownership of her son’s future, that snapped something inside Vesna. Not a flare of temper, but a cold weight that finally outweighed her desire for uninterrupted slumber. She was tired of being stepped on, tired of the Mire, tired of Nadya’s existence. Slag moved. Not with the ponderous lumbering of a heavy automaton, but with a terrifying, coiled speed. A blur of rusting metal and grinding servomotors. Before Nadya could react, the iron beast was on her. His heavy, segmented body slammed into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs with a wet thud. She crumpled into the mud, a high-pitched shriek caught in her throat. Slag didn’t hesitate. One massive, clawed paw pinned her shoulder deep into the mire. His articulated head, a jumble of exposed wiring and thick plasteel, lowered. The intricate, snapping jaws, designed for crushing industrial waste, opened inches from Nadya’s trembling throat. A low, grating drone emanated from his chest core, a dry snarl that promised swift execution. The guard, startled by the dog's sudden charge, raised his heavy shock-rifle. “Stand down, unit! I will disable you!” Vesna, however, had already moved. She ignored Nadya’s frantic choking and the guard's raised rifle, snatching the draft paper cleanly from his gauntlet. It was slick with rain, but she held it tight, crinkling the expensive parchment. She fixed him with an unblinking stare. “He’s my son,” she said, her voice a low growl, devoid of its usual lethargy. “And you’re not touching him.” She didn’t look at Slag. She didn’t need to. Her silent command was understood. Slag held Nadya pinned, his optics still burning crimson, a silent promise of oblivion if anyone dared to try and take Ilya. The guard hesitated, his boots shifting in the muck. Standing orders forbade wanton collateral damage, and blasting apart a high-torque scrap guardian was outside his remit. “This is mandatory, Dalca,” he repeated, his tone wavering. “The Academy’s authority is absolute.” Vesna merely stared him down, the damp paper clutched in her hand. “Find a loophole,” she muttered to herself, her eyes scanning the official seal, the densely packed legalese. She’d find a way to get rid of this, to send it back, to continue her quiet, undisturbed, utterly lazy life. She would not let them take Ilya. She needed to get back to her hovel, to the dim light of her single lamp, to pore over this wretched document and find the escape clause. Her son understood circuits, yes, but he was *hers*, not theirs. With a flat glance at Nadya, still whimpering under Slag’s iron weight, Vesna turned her back on the funeral, on the guard, on the Mire. She just needed a quiet corner, a mug of stale synth-brew, and a few hours to unravel this latest problem. She flipped the damp paper over, seeking the finer print, the obscure clauses, the hidden escape. Her fingers brushed against the reverse side, slick with rain, and she froze. Right in the center, stark against the thick, grey pulp of the paper, was a distinct, raised watermark: a stylized, predatory vulture clutching a gear. And beneath it, scrawled in an elegant hand, was the crisp ink signature of the man ruling the city's factories: Korvan Vance.

The Draft Notice