I'm so mad at you right now

I can't even find the words

And you're on the way down

I can't wait to see you burn.

Revenge is Sweeter (Than You Ever Were)

The Veronicas

Z

The pale morning light shone past the mansions rising on their hoverstruts across the city as the sun just started to show. There was complete silence over the city except for the occasional song of a bird as it started to wake up. Overall, it was a completely peaceful morning.

I wished that I could have enjoyed it more, but unfortunately the early spring morning had a chill that my dorm jacket just couldn't keep out. There was also no way to get comfortable sitting on my hoverboard without sending shockwaves of pain through my sore shoulders that had almost been yanked out of place by my crash bracelets; a hazard of night riding in the forest at top speed.

Watching the sun rise was one of my favorite things. If I snuck out to practice hover boarding, which I did a lot, then I almost always made myself stay out long enough to see it. I liked the peace of the early morning before the extras got up to start their day and right after the famous people crashed to sleep off the buzz from the bash the night before.

Just as the sun came up completely over the horizon, I got the ping to wake up. I flexed my fingers to silence the alarm and hauled myself to my feet. The hoverboard dipped as my weight shifted crazily, but it soon leveled out to where it was as steady as a diving board.

Okay. One more round around the trees before class. I got this. I told myself.

"Follow me through." I ordered the hovercam that was floating beside me. It get used to kick a lot of stories, but it was very useful when it came to practicing hover boarding. I learned a lot about what I was doing wrong from watching the footage my practice runs.

I leaned forward, and responding to my weight, the hoverboard shot forward. I had managed to take off every safety minder and install a few mods to boost the power even further. With the speed of my now tricked out hoverboard, every spill threatened to dislocate my shoulders when the crash bracelets kicked in.

The first tree came up fast and I leaned my weight to the right to fly past it before leaning back to the left to pass the next tree. I continued to weave through them until I got to the turn at the end of the tree line. I hadn't been paying attention, so I missed the turn and shot straight. Instead of using the whole area of the park I had flown into to turn, I panicked and banked entirely too hard and was almost thrown off.

I managed to spin myself to dispel some of the momentum, but I lost my balance and toppled off my board. The first few seconds were terrifying as I waited for the bone snapping jerking that was going to pull at my shoulders. The breath was knocked out of my lungs from the pain that came when my wrists were finally snapped over my head. The crash bracelets spun me mercilessly and I collided with something solid before they dropped me to the ground.

I struggled to regain my breath as I laid on the ground. Well, at least I thought it was the ground.

I quickly realized I was laying against a guy's strong chest when he wrapped his arms around my waist and tried to sit us up. I hissed in protest and started to swat at his arm until he let me go. I was too mad about missing the turn to be embarrassed about taking out some random guy in the park. Besides, it was five thirty in the morning; who walks through the park at five thirty in the morning? He shouldn't have been on the sidewalk.

"You know you eventually have to get off of me?" He asked in a smooth, amused voice.

"Yeah, I will when I get my breath back." I responded shortly.

"How fast is that hoverboard?" He asked conversationally.

I grit my teeth together and tried to sit up. The guy put his hands on my rib cage to steady me. I winced as I rolled my shoulders and tried to see if they were dislocated. They weren't, but they were still incredibly sore.

"No safety minders and a few mods to add a bit of kick to it." I replied through my teeth as a massaged one shoulder.

"With that speed, you have to make every movement slow and smooth. You had it between the trees." He suggested lightly. His big hands slid up to tenderly press against my shoulder blades.

"Ow." I whined. I jerked around to snap at him when I met the pretty face of Han Lue. I stiffened a little bit when I recognized him.

He was one of the most famous guys in the city, mostly because he shattered Nana Love's heart, not to mention a few other girls. He also ran with some of the most famous people it the city in a very exclusive clique. It was basically the remnant of one of the most exclusive clique from back in the pretty time. It was Hayate's clique.

"You should put some med spray on that. There's no cut to put back together, but it may help with muscle damage." He stated plainly as he pulled his hand off my shoulders.

"I'll keep that in mind." I answered. I wasn't sure why, but my voice carried a sarcastic and rude tone.

"Just trying to help, kid." He replied mildly as he pulled himself up to his feet and helped me up too.

"Don't call me kid and I don't need any help." I shot back angrily. He just pointed back up to the tree line with a blank expression. I narrowed my eyes at him.

Whether it was because of his fame or because of his arrogance, I wasn't sure, but it didn't matter because either way I hated him. I had met him once before and he just completely rubbed me the wrong way, and I never could figure out why.

"Sure you don't need any help?" He asked.

"Positive." I snapped back.

"All you need is to-" He began.

"Look, you don't know a damn thing about hover boards." I told him firmly as I stepped back wards onto my board that had been waiting patiently at ankle height.

"I don't, do I?" He asked sarcastically.

"No." I answered as I snapped to make the hoverboard rise until I was eye level with him.

"Kind of hard to tell that about a person when you've known them for five minutes." He shot back arrogantly. I could tell by his expression he was getting seriously annoyed at this point. This was the first time I ever remembered him looking something other than stoic.

"I-" I opened my mouth to reply when I got a ping. "Hang on; ping."

I let my eye screen overlay my vision and block Han out for a second. It was extremely rude to do that while talking to someone, but I didn't care. I quickly found a ping from my oldest brother Kaede. It told me to skip class and meet at Hayate's to check out a new mod.

I chewed my lip as I tried to decide if skipping class and missing the merits was really worth it, but then I realized that I probably wouldn't get to see both of my brothers together for a while. Decision made, I flexed my fingers to turn off my eye screen.

Han's pretty face was staring back at me with raised eyebrows. His surge seemed so natural on him, that you didn't really think about him having the surge. He had the full lips of a pretty along with the symmetrical features and high cheekbones, but his jaw seemed to be a lot wider than most people went for. It didn't really matter though; he could pull it off.

"I have to go." I told him flatly.

"Important business." He supplied.

"Oh, very." I replied sarcastically.

"Deals to discuss. Plots to plan." He continued sarcastically.

"Absolutely." I responded. His lips turned up in a smirk.

"Watch for pedestrians." He joked.

"Pedestrians shouldn't be in the park at sunrise." I stated flatly.

"You're right; It was my fault for walking home." He replied as he shook his head.

"Should've hover boarded." I yelled to him as I took off with my hovercam in tow.

Z

"That was a colossal waste of my morning." I deadpanned to Hayate who was laid back in his favorite chair.

"Why does he get so exited about every little thing?" Hayate asked me.

"I don't know, but it's annoying." I replied as I attempted to make myself comfortable on the couch.

"Maybe we just don't see it, because 'everything but the worthless gossip that comes across the feeds is above us'." Hayate quoted sarcastically. I chuckled.

Kaede had come up with a mod for a hovercam that failed to impress either of us. Obviously disappointed by the lack of response, he launched into a tirade at us. When we refused to react to that with something besides sarcasm, he let in a huff.

"Why is he messing around with hover cams anyway?" I asked Hayate. "He usually sticks to more important stuff."

"He's trying to get an invite to a huge tech head bash coming up in a week. Invites go to people with high face ranks; the non boring people with high face ranks, at least." He replied lazily.

"And he's one of the boring ones." I supplied. Hayate nodded.

"No one wants to listen to him blabber on about mathematical equations. The people there are all my kind of tech-head." He told me bluntly as he sat up in his chair.

I loved Kaede, but I had to agree that he was a pain to be around. He was one of those people that had no idea he was boring everyone within earshot. I was a lot more like Hayate; I knew a thing or two about circuits and wiring, but I didn't obsess over them.

"Room, display the top Crims." He commanded lazily to the room. His large wall screen pulled up the members of his clique.

It was named after the clique Tally Youngblood was in as a pretty before the mindrain. Almost every one in it was a tech head , but they didn't flaunt it like Kaede did. Second from the top of the list I noticed Han's picture; Hayate was fourth.

"Why do you obsess over this so much?" I asked Hayate hesitantly. He always checked his spot in the clique every morning. He looked at me like I was crazy.

"Fame is everything." He shot back.

"Fame is everything? Really? It's wonderful and all, but there's a lot more to life than that." I remarked. He laughed sarcastically.

"Rin, the only reason you say that is because you're face ranks hovering around 350,000 right now." He sneered back. Fury spread through me like a Rusty wildfire.

"No, it's not. How many people are in the top thousand because everyone hates them? All they have is their face rank; no friends and no one to talk to." I snapped back.

"They're still sitting in their big mansions with their disposable clothes from the hole in the wall," He gestured to my dorm uniform. "watching their face rank climb."

"That's nice, but it doesn't change the fact they're miserable." I reminded.

"You'll never understand this; you're an extra after all." He spat.

"Oh, I'm not the city's source of gossip, so I can't understand the world of the rich and famous." I snapped sarcastically. "You're so shallow, you only see people as a number."

"If I was shallow, then I wouldn't be talking to someone like you." He retorted

"Someone like me." I repeated.

"Extra." He filled in.

"So that's why you don't speak to me in public; you don't want to be seen with an extra. Even if she is your own sister! Shallow bastard." I shrieked back.

"You wouldn't fit in with my people. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable." He tried to recover.

"You're people?" I scoffed. "If I really wanted to, I could have an invite to the same bashes you do." I yelled as I stood up off the couch to leave.

"You know there's a way to prove it?" He said slyly. I knew I shouldn't have taken the bait, but I was so angry I wasn't about to back down from his challenge.

"Enlighten me." I snapped as I stomped over to the door.

"The tech head bash a week from today. You get into that, I'll never say another word to you about this again." He said smugly. I turned to leae "Oh, and Rin." I paused. " When I say get in, I mean invited and not crashing."

"I'll be there." I shouted without looking back as the door slid shut behind me.

Once I was in the elevator, angry tears started to slip. I was absolutely furious.

I was also completely screwed. The bash was labeled as tech-head, but it was really more Crim. Getting in with the Crims involved a lot more than a high face rank; they were famous for being tricky as uglies and handfuls for the city to deal with as pretties.

There were several ways to get famous- new mods, kicking an attention grabbing story, slamming someone famous in a way that got a lot of attention-, but none of them would get me in as a Crim. I had to do something totally outrageous.

When the doors slid open at the bottom, as I stormed out and nearly slammed into Han. Again.

"We have to stop bumping into each other." He joked lightly.

"Yeah. Sorry about." I answered quietly. I was lying because I really didn't care about him, but I couldn't have a Crim on my bad side right now. "Goodbye." I muttered before he could reply.

I thought I heard him say something back, but I was way too distracted. I had to think of a way to get into the Crims.

Z

When I got back to my tiny dorm room, the numbers at the bottom of my wall screen announcing my face rank still held the same dismal number: 349, 172.

I sighed. There was no way I was getting into the bash unless it was at least 50,000, and even then I had to spark their interest; Kaede was a tech-head with a face rank hovering at 9,000 and he didn't have a prayer.

I spent the entire day laying on my bed staring at the ceiling trying to think of a fool proof way in. By the time the sun was starting to set, I still had nothing.

"Well, since sitting here isn't working, there's only one thing to do now." I thought out loud. "Time to go out and let the ideas come to me."

I rolled off my bed and pulled a bag out from underneath it. A river of gray silk spilled out on the bed when I turned the bag upside down. It was a reputation bomber's robe that I stole a long time ago. It was the perfect way into any bash; the hood hid your face, you were one of many there, and no one ever paid attention to you.

I scanned the feeds while I waited for it to get late enough to sneak out the window. I quickly found a tech head bash that a lot of fairly big face people would be attending. I wasn't sure exactly what I would do to get their attention, but these were the people to get noticed by.

"Good night, room." I said as I pulled the robe on and made myself comfortable on my pillows to wait.

"Good night." It responded automatically.

I was going to get invited to that bash and rub it in Hayate's face if it was the last thing I ever did.

AN: I'm going to work on this while Consequences is on hold. This should be done in seven chapters tops.