Commissioned Artwork by @PTGHO (Paz The Great Horned One)

  Every city has a heart. A bustling nexus through which its citizens can accomplish their day-to-day. For New Warren City, the Stoneroot district was that heart. Beating at the center of the city—a massive trunk of ancient stone, its hollowed granite veins thrumming with footsteps, headlines, and half-whispered deals. From its roots rose the offices that kept the city breathing: the Lawyer's Guild, Treasury Lodge and the Department of Environment Expansion and Processing. DEEP's industrial factories chugged along around the outset of the district. The haze they exhaled drifted upward until the Skywall drank it in—an arching web of fungus along the city ceiling that pulsed like faint starlight as it scrubbed the air clean.

  On the marble steps of New Warren City Hall, a distressed wasp fought to steady a press scrum already foaming with questions.

  "What about the blackouts?"

  "Is the grid in danger of collapse?"

  "Has Aethercorp announced anything?"

  "What about Hexogrant? Or the WCC?"

  Mayor Bumble's stinger quivered as he spotted a cockatiel in a dark vest, white shirt, and spotted tie. "Krouri Kukri. Crier Dispatch. Do the power outages have anything to do with the pirate radio station and its ability to broadcast wherever they want, whenever they want?"

  His face didn’t change but his buzz slowed to a deliberate hum as he chose his words carefully. "No," he answered slowly. "Because there is no pirate radio station. Every attempt to pinpoint their broadcast has failed, therefore it must be static or feedback from the Unthereal network. It’s the only logical explanation."

  Before anyone could retort, Bumble ended the briefing and retreated into City Hall flanked by his bodyguards. The crowd erupted with questions once more, but Krouri had her answer. She tugged her press hat low and slipped free of the knot of reporters. Her dark-spotted wings caught an updraft and lifted her up off the street.

  Stoneroot’s lamp-lit avenues rushed away beneath her, the colors blurring together across a darkened canvas until the Crier Dispatch roof came into view. Her home away from home. Inside, the familiar smell of ink and hot paper met her. Colleagues greeted her in passing, some requesting her approval on their prose. As she got closer to her own office, muffled voices made her stomach drop.

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  "Are you trying to cause a panic?!"

  "I'm trying to prevent one!"

  Her parents were fighting again. The pirate radio station Lighthouse Beacon Radio had beaten them to the punch on every major news story over the last month and no one could find where it was coming from. The station didn’t exist on any frequency. Tensions were sharp enough for a nasty papercut.

  "You always do this!"

  "Because you don't listen!"

  Their voices beyond the door were sharp, snapping—like a typewriter slamming out a bold new headline. Krouri pressed her forehead to the cool wall, puffing her feathers out. Her temples throbbed in time with each raised syllable. It was a wonder her parents tolerated each other long enough to lay her egg, let alone hatch her. They had divorced when she was still a fledgling but the paper kept them together. It belonged to her father, passed down from his father and was one of the oldest businesses in New Warren.

  Her mother, Akri—unyielding and fiercely protective of the public’s "need to know", possessed a powerful spirit that was hard to ignore. Her father Simon was a brilliant businessman and a champion of open information, even if it cut close to the bone. The two of them worked really well together, when they could agree. Krouri often found herself caught in the middle of their disputes.

  A door slammed shut out in the hall. The fight was over, for now. She exhaled, sat at her desk, and pulled up her files on the city's three main power plants: Aethercorp, Hexogrant and the Warren City Collective. The amount of power required to broadcast city-wide had to be coming from somewhere. Follow the source, her grandfather used to say. She glanced at his photo on her desk, his eyes still sharp behind old wire rims. Her grandfather had taught her a lot about being a good reporter. She missed him dearly.

  An alert sounded from her SlateTop computer. She'd installed a program to catch keywords across the major social media sites. People were buzzing about the Crimson Lotus again. Half the city considered them a dangerous arsonist while the other half rose to their defense, calling them the ‘cleansing fire’ this city needed.

  Krouri didn't know what to think. The fires were destructive but always self-contained. Never any reports of injuries or casualties. Pictures she'd seen of the arson sites were beautiful, in a way. The latest site was a bakery whose charred remains looked, in her mind, like a cherry danish. Whether artistry or madness, this Crimson Lotus had a certain flair.

  There was a soft knock at her door from her raven intern and protege Illani. She wiggled a cell phone with a hopeful look on her face. "I just got a text from that friend I told you about. The photographer? She's got dirt on Don Pazienza she's looking to sell."

  Krouri’s beak tipped into a half-smile. The Don was yet another problem in this city. One she'd been quietly gathering info about in hopes of taking him down for good one day. The lizard's legit businesses in insurance and realty firms were a facade that covered half the city’s back channels. Many suspected he even had a scaly ear in Mayor Bumble’s office.

  "Tell her to meet us for lunch tomorrow at Grenda's," Krouri replied. "Grab Tobias and remind him to bring the checkbook this time." Their groundhog editor-in-chief hadn’t been himself lately. Her kindest descriptor had been ‘scatterbrained’. After Illani was gone, she turned to the window. The Skywall shimmered faintly over the rooftops, working overtime to drink in the district’s smog. Just like her. She made a broken promise to herself to get an early night.