Machine With A Diary (eBook)

Draken34 (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
450 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
9780001108516 (ISBN)

Infos

Your power is a curse that destroys your soul. In a sprawling, high-tech metropolis, a boy trapped as the shameful secret of a powerful dynasty discovers his only weapon is this curse. To fight the predators in his own home, he must wield the very force that is hollowing him out from the inside.

Textauszug

Chapter 2:- Neo Kyoto

He stood before the mirror, adjusting his collar, then leaned in to smooth the faint stubble on his cheeks, the kind of self-check ritual every fresh guy knows too well. His reflection smiled back: brown eyes, fair skin that caught the light just right, and short, soft curls of brown hair that refused to stay perfectly in place.

“Not bad,” he murmured to himself, lips curving in approval.

Then he noticed the small, black cat perched beside the sink, mimicking his every move. It tilted its head toward the mirror, then back at him with an expression that practically said, Well? Aren’t I handsome too?

He laughed, ruffling the cat’s fur affectionately.

“Yeah, yeah, you win, Miso,” he said, scooping the feline up and settling it on his shoulder. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”

With a soft hum, the door of the PSU slid open.

The moment he stepped outside, Neo-Kyoto greeted him, a living, breathing storm of sound and motion. Hovercars streaked overhead in smooth lines of color; the air buzzed with chatter, engines, and faint digital tones from street displays. He drew in a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of city air and smiling.

“Neo-Kyoto,” he said under his breath, like a man greeting an old friend.

A quick tap on his wristwatch, and a sleek hoverboard shimmered into existence with a white frame and crimson stripes glowing along the edges. It hovered eagerly a few inches above the pavement.

“Alright, Miso,” he grinned, setting one foot on the board. “Better hold on.”

The cat, mid-lick, barely had time to react before they shot forward. “Mrrreeeow!” Miso yowled in protest, claws clutching his shoulder.

The boy just laughed, wind whipping through his curls as the city blurred around them, the kind of laugh that could only belong to someone alive in the moment.

As he cruised through Neo-Kyoto on the hoverboard with the everyday life buzzing around him it felt like a wild mix of the familiar and the fantastical, dialed up to eleven.

The city was alive, a pulsing organism of tech, culture, and chaos, and he's slicing through its veins at a smooth 20 kph, wind whipping past him.

He gilded down a bustling mag-lev boulevard, the surface beneath his hoverboard humming with electromagnetic energy, keeping him afloat.

The streets were packed with pedestrians: humans in sleek, self-cleaning jumpsuits with embedded holo-displays on their sleeves, checking notifications or streaming vids directly into their neural feeds.

Cyborgs with polished chrome limbs wove through the crowd, their mechanical parts clicking faintly.

Vendors from different cultures haggle loudly in their own guttural tongue at a street stall selling sizzling, lab-grown protein skewers that smell like spicy barbecue with a synthetic tang, their translators translating what they were saying.

A kid nearby, no older than ten, zips past on a mini-hoverboard, laughing as their AR goggles flash with some immersive game, dodging him with a skill that screams daily practice but miso didn't seem to appreciate as it hissed at the kids back.

Overhead, the sky’s a lattice of hovercar traffic, their sleek, pod-like bodies reflecting the city’s glow as they follow invisible skyways governed by AI traffic systems.

A delivery drone the size of a backpack buzzes past his ear, its holo-label advertising “Instant Noodle Synth—Delivered in 60 Seconds!” He caught a glimpse of its destination: a high rise apartment with glowing windows, where a resident leans out to grab the package from a balcony landing pad.

"Yo!" he yells out to the person and says, “Order from Hyper grub, not the robots, we bring your food hot and with a soul!”

The man ignored him. Zane shrugged and zoomed off on the hoverboard. These high-rises are everywhere, their surfaces a mix of smart-glass that shifts opacity and vertical gardens dripping with bioluminescent vines, giving the city a faint, otherworldly green hue at night. Some buildings project massive, looping holo-ads, a 50-meter-tall influencer pitching neural sleep enhancers or a new VR rave club: “Experience Infinity Tonight!”

The boy swerved left, narrowly avoiding a group of protesters who had gathered in front of a building, banners waving like they carried the weight of the city’s frustrations.

“NO AWAKENERS IN OUR BLOCKS!”

“SAFETY OVER SUPREMACY!”

“AWAKENERS OUT, HUMANS FIRST!”

The boy slowed just enough to see the scene clearly. A line of P.A.D officers in black futuristic combat armor, red visors glowing ominously, blocked the building’s entrance. Their stance was sharp and unyielding, humans trained to enforce order in a world where awakeners existed.

In front of the officers stood a tall man, striking and dangerous in his own way with black leather sleeveless jacket that showed off a blue glowing double-band tattoo snaking around his left arm, a mark that instantly labeled him as an awakener. His sharp eyes assessed the crowd, calculating, and bored, despite being the object of their ire.

Awakeners weren’t all the same. They came in six classes, Beast Warriors, Psychics, Elementalist, Aetherist, Variants, Transmuters

Miso hissed softly from his shoulder at the sudden stop. "Yeah yeah your highness, but don't get comfortable we've reached our destination" He said with a roll of his eyes before weaving through the crowd, eyes flicking between the, armored guards, and the protesters’ angry faces.

He surged forward, cutting through the tension like water through a river, Miso clutching him tightly, wind whipping past

 

The HyperGrub building wasn’t much to look at. It was a squat, boxy structure sandwiched between gleaming holo-skyscrapers and neon-drenched storefronts. Its faded red and white sign buzzed faintly, flickering like it had weathered a thousand city storms. Large, clear panels let the morning light spill into the kitchen, revealing rows of neatly stacked food containers and the perpetual hum of preparation. Steam rose from the ovens inside, carrying the rich, warm scent of noodles, fried rice, and sizzling proteins into the street. A small, automated delivery chute jutted from the front, blinking patiently as if counting down to the next order.

Inside, the air was thick with the smell of cooking oil and soy sauce, mixed with the faint tang of disinfectant. The counter gleamed, and behind it stood Gus, a portly man with a bellied frame and thin glasses perched on his squeezed face.

The boy stopped at the counter.

“Morning, Gus. What do you have for me?”

Gus didn’t answer, eyes and mind fixed on the shouting protesters outside the S.A.M.T building. Dane waved a hand in front of his face.

“Yo, Gus, you still in there?!”

“Wha… wha? Dane?”

“Finally. Keep staring at those protesters and I’ll think you want to join them yourself.”

Gus snorted. “I damn well would if it’ll keep these damn awakeners off my shop. This is the third time they’ve robbed me.”

“Awakeners robbing you when the S.A.M.T building is right there?! Damn, Gus, you must have some imagination. Ain’t no way an awakener is that stupid. Besides, they’ve got it hard enough as it is.”

“They have it hard?!”

“Yeah, they do,” Dane said with a shrug. “They have to get tagged like an animal when they awaken at age eighteen by the S.A.M.T. And then you have some people protesting against them even staying in society.”

“Not society Dane, just us normal humans,” Gus interrupted.

“Same thing,” Dane shrugged.

Gus laughed. “Talking like a kid who’s never seen just how powerful an awakener is. Even a Grade 1 is strong enough to rip apart a skilled group of P.A.D officers. And there are seven grades higher than Seven! What are we supposed to do against that?”

“You don’t,” Dane said, shrugging. “That’s what the C.P.D is for.”

“Yeah, right. Trust awakeners to solve awakener problems? How do we know they’re not just working together?”

“Because the C.P.D is literally still part of the S.A.M.T, just a different division, same as the P.A.D. Duh.”

“Bah, go do your delivery!”

“Haha, you know when you’re losing an argument, old man. How many do you have for me today?”

Gus brought out a stack of food boxes. “Fifteen,” he said.

“Alright then,” Dane said, carrying the boxes in hand.

“And no detours,” Gus warned.

“Got it. Hahaha.” Dane mounted his hoverboard, glancing down at the cat resting comfortably on his shoulders. “You ready, Miso?”

The cat meowed in acknowledgment.

“Haha, good. Let’s make some money.”

With that, Dane shot out the door, hoverboard humming beneath him as Neo-Kyoto’s streets blurred into streaks of neon, wind whipping past. Miso clutched him tightly, tail flicking in excitement.

 

The hoverboard hummed beneath Dane as he shot out of HyperGrub, the city immediately swallowing him in a blur of neon and chrome. Wind tugged at his curls and Miso’s fur, and the smell of sizzling street food mixed with exhaust and ozone.

“Hold on, Miso!” he called, weaving through the crowd. Pedestrians yelped and jumped aside, some glaring, others too absorbed in their phones to notice a blur of white and crimson dart past. Hovercars streaked overhead in perfect lanes, but he had no intention of following them, weaving below, above, and between was far more fun.

First stop: a rooftop garden apartment on the fifth level. Dane angled the board upward, the anti-gravity thrusters responding instantly. He...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9780001108516 / 9780001108516