Veyl Lotus - Chapter One

The cyber-arch house stands as a cultural and technological anomaly. The Crimean Neo-Byzantine Administrative District serves as a microcosm of New Byzant’s blend of tradition and futurism, with the Old Italian Sector as a focal point for Kadeon’s fixer skills and the Azov Rift’s scientific influence.

The Neo-Byzantine Empire’s authorities remain largely undefined, ruled by a shadowy Imperial Council based in Constantinople (New Byzant Mega City). This council, inspired by Byzantine emperors and modern technocrats, oversees trade, science (e.g., Azov Rift research), and zone administration (e.g., Crimean Neo-Byzantine Administrative District). They exert overpowering control, taxing Veyl Perfume’s trade and funding rift experiments, but delegate local governance to district councils. In Crimea, the council supports the Italian family’s heritage as a cultural asset, clashing with Russian corporate interests.

20th April 2025, 11pm, Old Italian Sector, Crimea, New Byzant.

The rain fell in sheets, refracting the neon haze of holographic billboards into fractured rainbows on the slick pavement. Kadeon Veyl stood in the street, collar upturned against the chill, staring at the impossible: an old Italian family house, foundations from the 19th century, now perched atop a 25-meter cyber-arch of humming metal and concrete. Shadows clung to its edges like forgotten regrets, while the arch below pulsed with latent energy—prime real estate the Russian Development Company (RDC) coveted for their cyber-sports lounge. This was the fracture Kadeon had come to mend, or exploit.

Opposite loomed the RDC headquarters, a glass monolith etched with flickering ads for augmented brawls, its facade a mirror to the empire's underbelly. The Italians owned the air itself, their plasma shields and 124 LR-16 laser cannons vaporizing intruders in whispers of ash. Mornings often saw a grandmother in traditional black sweeping away the remnants of Russian fools who'd tested the perimeter. People crossed that three-meter line and vanished into the void.

Kadeon adjusted his black leather trench coat, the fabric slick as oil, brushing the antique pistol at his hip—lead rounds, immune to cyber-jams, a relic in a world of energy ghosts. At 35, Byzantine Greek and Slavic roots etched in his sharp features, he was a shadow broker: 20 languages, digital ciphers cracked like brittle bones, fixer for the entangled. Born May 12, 1990, in New Byzant's mega-city sprawl, he'd learned power hid in lingering scents—memories sealed like amphorae in anoxic depths. His family's Veyl Perfume trade? Crippled by the Imperial Council's taxes, funneled into rift experiments. But Kadeon fixed the breaks, deals in neon alleys where councils dared not tread.

The Configuration loomed over it all—a cyclic tyranny of time and light, echoing ancient Byzantine calendars with their Anno Mundi resets and sundial hours, now weaponized in 2025. The Council divided days into Daylight and Night phases, annular cycles syncing human rhythms to their grip. Curfews at dusk, work limits pulsing via empire beacons—agriculture, food, medicine, perfumes all chained to solar edicts. Botanicals? Monopolized, fragile florals decaying in daylight-only logistics, night-bloomers like jasmine hoarded in domes or smuggled from the Persian Saffron Dominion. Essences from abroad trickled through checkpoints, but the Mega Port of Odessa defied it all, its Night Configuration black markets a haven for scent rebels. Kadeon's trade suffocated under these rhythms; he'd turned negotiator to scrape digital credits, bending shadows where light failed.

He crossed the rain-veiled street, The Cerulean Pulse idling nearby, engines a low growl against the storm. The RDC doors hissed open, red scan beams slicing the fog like accusations. The lobby was a sterile tomb, data pads scattered, and anomalously—a printed magazine on the desk: Abyssal Chronicles, April 2025 Edition. Its cover glowed under the hum of overhead strips—a sunken vessel in bioluminescent blue, nets trailing like veins in the abyss. Printed paper? A rarity in this digital haze, likely pilfered from the Italians during an April negotiation gone sour—their archival presses a bastion of tradition amid cyber streams. Kadeon flipped through, the crinkle a forbidden symphony. The Azov Rift article seized him: tectonic fractures pre-10,000 BCE, anoxic preservations, wrecks like The Azov and The Cerulean Star, the Memphis Blue Shard—a cobalt relic from Egypt's Nile, lotus-etched, humming with ancient knowledge. Sulfur plumes, bioluminescent microbes, a "temporal seam" guarded by the deep's song.

Visions flickered—ancestral trades, myrrh-laden holds, a past not his own. The elevator chimed; he marked the pages, leaving the magazine for now. Up to Volkov's suite: a neon-noir lair, holograms casting electric bruises across scarred walls, rain streaking windows like tears on fractured glass. Volkov paced, synthetic cigar smoke curling in ozone-tinged air, his augmented bulk straining a suit, cyber-eye glinting. "Veyl," he growled, accent thick as congealing resin. The RDC hungered for the rift—not science, but black-market relics, chrono-matrix exploits for underground auctions. "The Italians won't budge. Offer them the outer Simferopol sprawl—estates, fortifications. Make it happen, or we play dirty."

Kadeon leaned into the glow, shadows carving his face. "Dirty's your game, Volkov. But heritage runs deeper than your credits. They print paper in a world of implants—steal their magazines, but not their roots." Tension hung thick, holograms fracturing like lies. Volkov turned for a data stick, cabinet shadows swallowing him. Kadeon's mind raced to the magazine below.

They haggled in the flickering dim—threats veiled as bargains, the Configuration's beacons dimming outside, signaling Night's curfew. Finally, a nod: "I'll broker it. But relics bite back." As Kadeon descended, the lobby desk beckoned. With the drone averted, he tore the rift pages—crinkled folds into his coat, a stolen summons to the abyss. The shard called; he'd dive in May, Somali pirates at his side, reclaim it and the amphorae, implant its glow. But first, the deal.