By the time I found a way out, it was late at night, and even by Artem standards, it was quiet, it being a few hours before dawn.

I was on the outskirts of an industrial zone. I’d spent several hours stumbling around in the dark, expecting at any second to be jumped or to walk into another specter nest, only to eventually find a steady stream of rainwater pouring in from an old drainage pipe.

Another hour of climbing the pipe, my back braced against one side, feet against the other, the package on my stomach, and a knife in hand, used frequently to clear away the various horrible fucking spiders and worse that called the drain home.

Eventually, though, I dragged myself out into the neon-lit night, staring around in shock at the steady banging, clattering, and screams of the city. Discarded packaging crates, plastic sheeting, and stolen metal surrounded me, making it clear I’d found another of the tens of thousands of homeless camps around the city.

The drain’s grate had been damaged at some point, and cut away, probably to dump a body or something. But when I’d seen it above me, eventually, I’d almost given up.

Reaching it, almost falling as I tested it? Finding it was open? I’d almost wept with relief. Dragging myself up and out? It’d been harder than I could believe. The number of times I’d slipped and fallen, bracing myself and forcing my way back up? Un-fucking-believable.

I’d pushed the package out ahead of me. Only a minute later, I’d dragged myself out as well, catching two local bums arguing over whose it all was, knives drawn as they tried to take it.

My appearance was missed at first, until I raised the handgun and fired a slug into the air. The crack of the round made them flinch and drop low.

“Fuck off, or I’ll kill you both,” I growled.

One backed away immediately, plastering a fake smile across his face. The other licked her lips, glancing from the collection of obviously valuable mods, to the gun, and to her knife, then back again.

I counted to three, and just as I was about to shoot her in the knee, figuring she’d had her chance. She took a step back, then another. I lowered the gun, only to hear a non-too-stealthy footfall to my right.

A handful of seconds later, the man who’d backed away before crept out between two old packing crates, knife held low and ready…only to find the barrel of my gun roughly jammed into his eye socket.

He babbled out an apology, before turning and running, and I cursed him and the others peering around the various debris piles.

I grabbed the package, dragging it along the ground, gun ready, until I hit a main street, and the last of those who had been following me dropped away.

I sagged, bracing myself against the wall, before cursing as I realized two things. First, I’d been planning on calling a cab when I got to the ground level. I had the credit-chip, after all. It’d not been in use when I’d set the EMP off, so it had been fine, but I didn’t have any way to actually call the fucking cab!

My mods were all down, even my goddamn Aug-World access. I gritted my teeth. A wave of frustration rolled through me as I tried to process everything.

I couldn’t, physically or mentally, drag this load through the streets to my apartment. Hell, I didn’t know where the fuck my apartment was from here!

Any enforcers who passed me—filthy, heavily armed, and dragging what was obviously half a fucking body—would arrest me on the spot. If I was lucky, anyway.

Most likely they’d look at it all, see it was expensive gear, and shoot me for resisting arrest or some bullshit, then take it themselves.

Any “honest” citizen—like there were any of them here—would probably report me as well.

I sagged, letting my back slide down the wall, slumping to the ground next to my loot, and stared at the neon lights overhead, thinking.

I needed to get my Aug-World access up. With that? I could do anything else I needed to, but how the hell could I do that here? I hissed in frustration, dismissing the people who staggered past, most of them steaming drunk. I kept thinking, until suddenly I blinked, actually seeing the advert I’d been blankly staring at for ages.

A datadeck. I’d not used one for literally years, and there the latest corpo-pushed model was in all its glory, a hundred meters high flashing as they advertised it. Some skinny dipshit jacked into it, hacking a firewall, then was showered with credits, knee-deep in hot men and women who clearly wanted to fuck them.

Typical corpo advert: buy this, get rich, get laid, yadda, yadda. I ignored all of that. The latest model that they were selling? Thousands of credits. And even if I had that to waste, I didn’t need that shit.

What I needed, though, was a basic deck. The kind that kids learned to use while they were starting to unlock their cyberspace mod. Even these days, nobody was going to let a five-year-old loose on Aug-World.

They got their mods and they learned to use them, gradually getting more and more unlocked until they were adults.

In the meantime, they learned to manipulate their mods with basic decks, like those weirdos who hated mods did, and when they needed a new one? They sold the old ones to a merchant.

I forced myself to my feet, then started to search, staggering up and down three streets until I found one. A shitty buy-and-barter shop had its windows covered in grates, the door reinforced, and totally unsubtle cameras all around it, letting the staff watch out for dodgy fucks.

Clearly, I qualified. I tried the door of the twenty-four-hour shop, only to find it locked. An intercom came to life after a few seconds.

“What do you want?” a rough female voice husked.

“I need a deck,” I replied flatly, dumping my burden by the door and rolling my shoulders, my left arm a dead weight. I snorted and stripped the home-made torch free, tossing it aside as I shook my head in bemusement.

“Yeah? You got credits?”

“Yeah,” I replied, glaring at a lens through the reinforced glass, itself on the other side of the shutters. “How much for the deck?”

“How much you got?”

“Ten creds,” I said grimly, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. But if I said more? Whatever price I quoted, I’d be ripped off.

“Fuck off. You’re wasting my time!” she snapped.

“Ten credits and this.” I held the shitty handgun up to the lens.

“Put it in the drawer,” she ordered. A drawer slid open before me, ready for me to deposit the gun.

“Get fucked. What’s to stop you just taking it?”

“You want a deal? I need to examine the gun.”

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“You can see it just fine from there.” I held it up and angled it from side to side.

“How do I know it works?”

“You want me to shoot your window?”

“Do it, and I’ll come out and shoot you myself.”

I smiled and waved the gun once more, before pocketing it and drawing the shotgun from over my shoulder.

“You try that, and I’ll kill you and anyone in there.” I showed the shotgun and its clearly heavy-duty build. “Your shitty security won’t stop this, and we both know it. Ten credits, and the handgun for a basic deck, charged, and a connection jack.”

“That’s a lot you’re asking for…” she muttered.

I snorted, staring at the lens, making it clear I knew that was bullshit.

It was a hell of a deal, and it wasn’t me, as she was implying, getting the better out of this bargain. Even a shitty handgun she’d be able to sell for a hundred—more with ammo. And an old deck? If I’d been searching cyberspace for one, it’d have been twenty credits, maybe thirty, delivered.

Ten seconds of silence, and then a rifle barrel slid out of a port across from me, leveled at my stomach.

“Put the gun in the drawer, and the credit on the pad, then take the deck, no funny business,” I was warned, and I grunted, tapping the credit-chip to the pad and checking the amount that showed up.

Fifteen credits.

“Want to try again?” I glared. “Military mods.” I thrust my chin out, bluffing. “You shoot me, all it’s gonna do is piss me off.”

There was a long pause. The screen shifted to show ten credits. I released the payment, then put away the chip, and took the handgun out of my other pocket. I made the point of emptying the gun, daring them to say something, before putting it in the drawer, pocketing the bullets, the cable, and the datadeck and backing up with my gear.

The drawer slammed shut and the gun withdrew, making it clear the deal was done.

I dragged everything around the corner, sitting on the armor in the rain, ignoring the looks I was getting as the constant hammering washed the filth away…as well as a stream of old blood from my “seat.”

I plugged the cable into the deck. My stomach dropped as the screen remained blank, before plugging the other end into the jack at the base of my neck.

It took a few seconds; then, mercifully, the screen lit. The old deck barely booted, but it was working.

Five minutes later, an automated cab pulled up, the trip back to my apartment already paid for.

I sat back, eyes flickering as the city outside streamed past, lost in a digital world as I assessed the damage. The pulse had been strong enough to wipe unshielded tech, but whatever calibration the grenade used, it’d barely gotten through my skin. I vaguely remembered being told that the human body was a shitty electrical conductor.

Fuck knows really, but what I did know was that my Keystone hadn’t been totally fucked beyond redemption.

That was a relief.

No.

That was an understatement: everything that was me was on that fucker. Starting with my personal ident, which would have taken weeks, if not longer, as well as far too many credits to get a new one issued, to personal memories, recordings of my friends and me in battle and parties, to my fucking favorite porn.

Everything I’d done digitally for the last twenty-five years was on that thing, and it wasn’t until I saw it flicker to life that I dared consider what I could have lost.

As it was? A new external connection—the jack doubled as a decent broadcast point, after all—and I would be back in business.

My RI was intact, but the brain mod was trashed. My left arm was utterly unresponsive, but that was expected. And the spinal reinforcement was down to sixty percent durability now.

Essentially, the hardware was good still, but the digital and connective parts were fucked.

I opened my eyes at a chime from the taxi sometime later, blinking and realizing I’d drifted off to sleep. Looking out, I saw the entrance to my apartment block through the driving rain to my right, and a flashing warning that the auto cab wouldn’t release the door locks until I paid the additional thirty credit “fouling fee.”

Glancing down and seeing the literal dried shit clinging to my clothes? I sighed and authorized the transfer, imagining the cab giving me a prissy little sniff of complaint as I dragged myself out, grabbing my bundle and slowly slogging across the sidewalk.

The foyer was the same as ever, in that it smelled like someone had died in there, and the crazy lady was laid in a chair she’d dragged in from somewhere, head thrown back, snoring loudly.

The trip up to my floor seemed to take forever. Three people got into the lift with me, before staring in disgust as they realized the awful smell was me.

One of them went to say something, only to be grabbed by another and quickly shushed.

I heard a snippet of conversation, muttered directions to Look at what he’s carrying…Is that a body…Part of one…Shut up! Just smile…

The one who’d started to speak reached out and hammered the button for the next floor, despite them having requested one higher than mine before, and all three hurried off as soon as the doors opened.

I looked out, dully curious, and saw a much cleaner floor, with working lights, and I shook my head in disgust at my luck. The rest of the journey was alone. When the door opened onto my floor, the gang was there, music blaring, a good dozen dancing between me and my corridor.

I stepped out, getting a disgusted look from a figure that was wearing high heels and a hat, and that was it. They pointed at me, seeing the dirt, the filth, and that I was dragging something that left a mark on the ground, where she was trying to dance, and she opened her mouth.

Before she could get a word out, one of her friends—one I dimly recognized as the one who’d been draped across Lucky’s lap and who’d confirmed the quality of the drugs—slapped a hand across her mouth and made room for me.

“Do you, like, need anything…?” she asked me.

I paused. Now that the gang “knew” me, the way they treated me had changed massively.

“A shower,” I said, then sighed. “Then tell Lucky I need that introduction to his friend. I need repairs, and upgrades, as well as to sell some shit.”

“Drugs?” another of the gang asked, one of the guys who’d been there earlier.

I snorted, nodding downward.

A handful of lights turned on and shone at my prize, before squeals of horror—obviously feigned, considering they were either gangbangers or there as dates with them—and questions rang out.

“Mil-spec, full chest and internals,” I said as Lucky stomped up out of the crowd, looking from me to the pile in question.

“Do I want to know where you got it?” he asked, and I snorted. “I mean was it anyone I know?” he corrected. “You were registering with a merc outfit, weren’t you? Shouldn’t you be selling this there?”

“I’ll be judging them all soon,” I said flatly.

“I…” He paused, then snorted and shook his head. “Normally when someone says something like that about a merc outfit, we get ready to pick up their pieces.”

“You want to try it?” I made it clear I knew what he was thinking. I was there, obviously wounded, surrounded by his people and with valuable loot. I was a hell of a temptation for him, like a goat wandering into a dragon’s lair and head-butting it. “Seriously, you’ll never get a better chance,” I promised, my voice low and hard.

“I think…” he said slowly, “not.”

“Good choice.” I smiled. “I’ve had a bad day…I’d have taken it personally.”

“What’s he saying?” one of the dancers whispered, shocked, to a friend. “Does he know who he’s talking to?” She was quickly shushed, while Lucky nodded to my gear.

“Need a hand?” he asked, and I hesitated, desperate to say yes. But showing weakness here would be terminal.

“I’ll be fine, but I’ll need to see that orc…”

“Oshbob.” He nodded. “I’ll reach out to him, see if he’ll see you. When do you want to go?”

“What time is it?” I asked.

The silence deepened as everyone considered that I didn’t have access to my systems.

“Just after five in the morning,” he said eventually.

“Send someone to wake me around fourteen hundred hours,” I said after a few seconds. “They can take me to see this Oshbob.”

“I’ll see to it.” He vanished back into the crowd, as I started moving again.

Ten minutes later, I was in my room, the deck having helped to get me in my damn room, and I stood under the water in my shower, glorying in the steady warm trickle.

I’d once stayed in a corpo-style place, years ago, fresh to the army. I’d been seeing a girl and wanted to make a good impression. I’d paid for the full package, taking her away for the weekend, and damn had I got it, both from her and the hotel. Almost a year’s wages on a single weekend, and although she’d not stayed once I couldn’t spend like that regularly, the memories had.

Now, the water from my shower a steady trickle in place of the thunderous roar of that shower? I still loved every damn second.

That my left arm was utterly dead was annoying the shit out of me right now, but at least I had cleaning gel, and I was getting the shit off me.

The condition of the water when it’d first started had been disgusting, and by the time I finally crawled out of the shower, laying naked across the sheet on my small bed, I’d exhausted at least a month’s worth of personal water allocation.

Thank fuck Lucky had been as good as his word.

I laid there, struggling to keep my eyes open, as I thought about everything that had happened, and I nodded slowly to myself.

I’d walked into the merc den as innocent as could be, and what had happened, had happened. I was a bastard at times, but I was straightforward and honest, mostly.

I gave everyone a chance, and then, when they betrayed my trust? I fucked them up. And that was the mistake I was making.

I was giving them a chance. You had to, it was drilled into us, in the APS. If they weren’t armed? If they weren’t a threat, and not a confirmed target, you let them be until they were.

Richie and Sync were where they were because of the choices of others, and I was here, fucked up for the same reason. If I didn’t change the way I was acting and soon?

Next time I’d not survive, and then my friends were as good as dead. No, I wasn’t risking them, not like this.

It was time to stop being such a pushover. It was time to make them all fucking bleed, before they did it to me.