The smell that assailed my nostrils made me gag, Fuchsia looked like she was resisting the urge to throw up and add to the preexisting biohazard before our eyes. It was dark and damp too, which only added to the charm, lovely. I mean, I live in a mobile trailer next to a dumpster for fuck’s sake, but this was too much even for me.

I looked around me to find coils upon coils of electrical cable hanging from the ceiling, a computer with an ancient CRT monitor was on a tattered desk to my left, a messy stack of electronic circuits sat in a corner, and a whole rack of servers with bleeping lights was beyond a hole in the wall to the right. I almost stumbled into a bucket full of blackened soldering irons and assorted tools that was also half-full of soiled brackish water as I stepped in, and there was a sleeping—or possibly dead, according to its missing fur—cat sleeping on top of what I could only describe as a “repurposed bean-bag.” It was dirty, oily, and full of holes… with the beads of stuffing leaking out to the floor to complete the picture.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” the emaciated Mrs. Stone spoke from behind the door. She hadn’t stepped out from behind it fully, and I was kinda scared shitless.

“More like your jumble commode,” I mumbled.

I know, I’m really brilliant when I’m nervous, okay?

“The fuck did you just say?” Mrs. Dana tilted her head, giving me a menacing look as she stepped fully from behind the door. I sensed Fuchsia’s hand grab my arm in a vice-like grip. I couldn’t blame her since my heart nearly stopped as the Grinch herself slowly emerged into the dim light leaking in from the corridor outside. Her whole body came into view, and I really wished it hadn’t.

She was an extreme body modification fanatic, clearly not what I expected to see coming here.

And by “extreme body modification,” I don’t mean the garden variety they had near the onset of this century, no. This was full bionic, next-level shit. I have nothing against body modders, but it becomes a real problem when they outgrow their mods.

You know what? I don’t even want to remember this shit. Fuck it. I won’t even describe what she looked like.

What, you want me to? No way, you sick fuck. I won’t. Besides, it’d be too hard to describe her anyway.

Like, how could I describe her partially missing nostrils, wrinkled with age? How would I describe her displaced cranium? Would you even believe it if I said that her whole god-damned skullcap was upraised by about 3 centimeters from its original position? And that she had a ridge of carved bone visible through that gap? How can I describe her missing left eye with a freaking Tesla-coil-like metal thing protruding out from the socket?

She’s impossible to describe.

And she was old, like really old, how can I describe the folds of wrinkled skin that were almost too big for her frame? Or how her skin seemed glued onto her bones in places? How it seemed more like a leather tarp draped over a skeleton? I’m assuming she was fat at one point in the past, but who knows, right?

How could I describe her right arm, which was apparently a bionic one that was longer than her left by at least four inches and as thick as a slim thin-wall DWV pipe? I mean, how do you describe the fucking grabber attached to that arm that looked like the ones they have in claw machines at arcades?

She simply defies description.

I mean, she even had that… Never mind, I’m done fucking with you.

Anyway, apparently, my unwise and ill-timed spur-of-the-moment joke wasn’t taken too well, and I felt a very painful pinch on my arm in that exact moment, as it appeared that Fuchsia also agreed with my assessment.

“I’m sorry. I misspoke, as I was saying…” I lifted the piece of plastic up to her, “Mr. Arthur told me to bring you this headband.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

My tactic worked. She snorted and gave me the stink eye—quite literally in her case—and took the proffered headband, she squinted at it, and I saw her press her bionic arm to it and do something. I’m not sure what she did exactly, but the display on the headband suddenly came to life. She seemed to be reading something on her HUD, then she sighed.

“Give me your phone,” she commanded.

I handed it over, very reluctantly. “It’s signed-out,” she observed, “and I’m guessing you were signed-out for an unknown reason?” She made air-quotes with her hand and the grabber claw thing on her other arm, which I found somewhat unsettling for some reason.

I nodded.

“All right, let me make a call,” she said in a raspy tone, we waited as she stared into nothing and did the weird statue thing that augs do when they’re video-calling someone. It typically looks like they turn into statues that blink in that state. I kinda hated that.

Then Fuchsia realized something and went nuts.

“You have internet?” Fuchsia pounced towards her like a starved lunatic. Despite being disconnected for less than fifteen minutes, she couldn’t control herself.

“She can’t hear you. She’s in a call,” I held Fuchsia back.

“Duh, I know that you doof, but you’re assuming she’s making a call, to begin with,” she freed her arm from my grasp, then huffed and looked at me archly. She pointed towards something in the ceiling before looking at Mrs. Dana, “she’s probably looking at us through that camera right now.”

“Doof? Really?” I blinked and looked towards the camera, which was zooming and panning to inspect us, then towards Mrs. Dana, who decided to open her remaining eye and sighed.

“For the record, I did make that call.” Mrs. Dana said.

“So, you have internet?” Fuchsia asked.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Could you hook me up? What’s your network ID?”

“And why would I do that? That would be an oxymoron,” Mrs. Dana frowned, “that would beat the purpose of this blackout.”

Now, wait a second.

“Are you the one behind this?” Fuchsia screeched.

“Hmm,” Mrs. Dana hummed as she absently started plugging the headband and my phone into a computer at the back of her “workspace,” and at that moment I felt Fuchsia’s hands constrict before she let go of my arm in preparation to pounce towards Mrs. Dana and—I assumed—wreck her shit, but I somehow managed to hold her back.

“Easy, we don’t know what exactly happened here,” I said to Fuchsia before she completely blew her gasket.

“What the FUCK did you do?” Fuchsia glared daggers towards Mrs. Dana, her voice full of venom as she asked for clarification.

Mrs. Dana continued to ignore us as she opened a terminal and started typing commands. Oh great, it’s fucking HACKERMAN or hackerwoman in her case. I had a strong hunch when I first entered this place, especially since she looked the part and all, but seriously? Is my life a cyberpunk novel now?

At least the screen didn’t start scrolling with unintelligible matrix glyphs and flashy shit, and she didn’t try writing a GUI interface in Visual Basic to trace the killer’s IP—browsing through old internet meme archives is one of my hobbies, and one of the few you can do when your only access is an old phone, so don’t judge… you bastards—that would’ve been really fucking over the top. At least she used Linux, but I digress.

She typed some commands and both the screen of my phone and the digital display of the headband lit up and started displaying a loading screen. She started drumming her fingers on her desk—and I’m taking liberties calling it that—then turned her back to face us and deigned to address a fuming Fuchsia's concerns.

“I did nothing. He, however,” she pointed at me, “had no business bringing a streamer pup my way,” she crossed her arms, “care to explain that?”

I scratched my head as Fuchsia spoke before I could, “what’s wrong with streamers?” She asked heatedly.

“Oh, I have nothing against streamers, so long they mind their business and don’t come near my—“ she paused and spread her arms, “—office.”

“So, what did you do?” Fuchsia asked, then her eyes widened, “Is this permanent?” She asked with dread.

“Nope, you just triggered my perimeter defense against snoopy streamers like you,” she pointed towards Fuchsia as she spoke, “every access point has blown a fuse in a radius of a couple of kilometers from here,” Mrs. Dana spoke, “and don’t worry, I’m not an ass. This is a public issue with infrastructure and won’t breach your dear contract,” she said smugly.

That seemed to mollify Fuchsia's concerns for the moment, although I wouldn’t be surprised if her ire was now directed my way.

Mrs. Dana turned to face me before speaking again, “Arthur told me about your situation beforehand,” she said, “and I’ve considered the problem,” this gave me hope, “I could have you sign-in over my secure private network and order your new identification documents right now,” she said, “but that would pose a problem. First, it would expose me, and we can’t have that, and second: who could say that this won’t happen to you again in the future?” She extended her claw to scratch at her chin, and the act made me shiver imperceptibly, “but I have a more… permanent solution.”