illphated
Starward Hustle
The rain came down in neon sheets, turning the Blade Runner skyline into a liquid kaleidoscope. Jax “Red” Mercer—space cowboy, orbital courier, red-bearded dreamer—tilted his green Stetson against the drizzle and let the city’s glow roll off his coat like a promise. Tonight he walked with the calm swagger of someone who knew exactly where destiny was parked: waiting just a few paces ahead, stamping iron hooves on slick pavement.
Red’s armored duster whispered at his boots as he strode down the puddle-lit sidewalk, briefcase swinging in rhythm with his heartbeat. Inside the case lay blueprints for the Solbridge, a zero-gravity cattle drive that would ferry resources from the asteroid belt back to starving colonies. Investors had laughed him out of boardrooms; rival haulers labeled him a daydreamer. Yet here he was, one signature away from turning vaporwave neon into sunrise gold.
His horse, Nebula, stood beneath a humming street sign etched with scrolling kanji. A sleek black mare retrofitted for vacuum saddles, Nebula pawed impatiently, steam curling from carbon-fiber muscles. Her optic bridle pulsed indigo when she recognized her rider. That glow mirrored the spark in Red’s own eyes: a reflection of impossible horizons dragging the future toward him.
He passed a squad of corporate guards—and shot them a sideways grin so cocky it carved the night in half. They muttered about permits and curfews, but nobody dared slow a man who carried resilience like a halo. You can’t arrest momentum.
Red reached Nebula, rested a gloved hand between her ears, and felt the steady thrum of reactor turbines buried beneath techno-flesh. She whinnied, more starship than stallion. In that moment, pavement became launch platform, skyscrapers became canyon walls, and the briefcase felt heavier—not with doubt, but with pure potential.
He glanced back at the city, its vapor-pink clouds swirling above chrome towers, and saw holographic adverts screaming impossible luxuries. They were loud, but his purpose was louder. Somewhere behind those ads, behind the noise and the rainfall, children on Luna were learning to look up again. He’d make sure they had something worth looking up to.
Nebula lowered herself so he could mount. Red slipped into the saddle, feeling the reins click to life around his gauntlet. He released a breath that tasted like rocket fuel and monsoon mist, then tapped the briefcase once, sealing the biometric lock. A lifetime of setbacks and side hustles clicked shut with it.
“Let’s ride, girl,” he whispered. “Time to break orbit.”
Nebula surged forward—hooves clanging, sparks dancing off the tiles—cutting a straight line through violet fog toward the mag-lift ramp. Streetlights blurred into comet tails behind them. Pedestrians turned, transfixed not by the spectacle, but by the feeling: that rush of seeing someone refuse to shrink beneath a skyscraper sky.
As the ramp’s grav-plates flared, Nebula leapt, weightless for half a heartbeat. Red could have sworn he saw tomorrow wink at him from the glow. The briefcase tightened under his arm—heavy with the universe’s next chapter—and he laughed into the rain, a bright and reckless sound.
Above, docking beacons split the clouds, guiding them toward a waiting sky freighter. Neon gave way to starlight; rain became vapor. Red looked down once more at the city buzzing below, thanked it for its doubts, and tipped his green hat.
For every mind that called him naïve, there would be ten souls he’d inspire. That math was good enough for him.
Nebula touched the freighter’s deck, magnetic horseshoes locking them in place. Red dismounted, strode to the airlock, and planted his boots on the threshold between what was and what could be.
A voice crackled over the intercom: “Captain Mercer, ready for launch?”
He lifted the briefcase, thumb hovering over the biometric sensor. “Ready,” he said, smile sharp as moonlight. “Let’s see how far a little grit and a lot of neon can carry us.”
The hatch sealed behind him, engines rumbled awake, and the city’s glow fell away like confetti. Somewhere in that glittering darkness, children pointed at a new star blinking across the void.
They wouldn’t remember his name. They’d remember the feeling—bold, impossible, electric—that one ordinary cowboy with a red beard and a sneaky smile taught them:
The sidewalk ends only where your imagination does. The rest is open sky.