Chapter Thirty-Three

It took us twenty minutes to cross a good section of the city by air-cab to find a testing station, and when we did find it, we arrived just as some idiots were testing theirs.

They’d apparently bought a batch from a seller that was ‘going out of business and needed the money, so offered a deal of a lifetime’.

They’d bought a hundred medikits for ten thousand credits. Ten thousand credits that they’d borrowed from a gang, and now owed interest on, and considering that the medikits were filled with what looked like red jam paste?

I wasn’t hopeful for their chances.

After twenty minutes of us waiting as they argued over whose fault it was and fed in the same medikit over and over, Gessh, being the soul of subtly started kicking them and their shite out of the way, then drew her sword when they complained.

“Fuck about on your own time, dickheads!” She snarled at the pair, before sniffing the ‘medikit’ that she pulled out of the machine.

“Egonberry,” she snapped, shaking it. “It’s an egonberry mix, looks like shit, smells like shit, and its gonna do fuck all for a wound except infect it! Go hunt the fucks down that sold you this or fuck off but…”

“Now there’s a point,” Luna virtually purred, putting her hand on her sister’s shoulder and drawing her back from the terrified youngsters. “They had to get the empty kits from somewhere, and we could do with them…”

I ignored them all, Reign standing by my side, Todds watching our back as we fed in the first of the medikits, and waited.

Authenticity: Failed, no registered tag attached

Charge : Full

Purity : 97%

“Ninety-seven,” I muttered. “Is that good?”

“Oh yeah.” Reign snorted. “Seriously, usually they’re in the eighties. Some ‘filler’ being used is the best guess, padding them out when they sell the mass to the chop-shops, and then they probably add a bit as well.”

“Pessimistic much?” Todds said, grinning over his shoulder.

“Am I wrong?” Reign countered.

“No, just, well, you know.” He laughed.

“Right, let’s check the others,” I said, checking through the bag full we had, over the next few minutes, before packing them all away and stepping over to where Gessh was still arguing with the idiots.

“… just so you can make a killing!” one of them was saying.

“What’s this?” I asked the group at large.

“They don’t want to tell us who their supplier is, as they think the medikits are real, and that we’re somehow pulling a fast one on them now. They think they can contact the seller and get more, but they want to charge us more than the filled medikits are worth, that’s about it.”

“Look, we’re not afraid of you…” One of the youths sneered, their body language giving the lie to the statement, as they both stood shoulder to shoulder, shaking like shitting dogs under Gessh’s glare.

“Happy for you,” I said unsympathetically. “We need to speak to your supplier, so give us their details, and we’ll stop their little scam. If you’re honest and we catch them in time, maybe we’ll give you your credits back. If you lie? Gessh here gets to beat the truth out of you.”

“Wait… no you can’t!” The one on the left, wearing a hand-me-down suit and a Mohican cried. “We’ve not done nuffin!”

“You’re trying to rip off my companion,” I said clearly. “One of you test your medikits in the machine, right now. Pick one at random.”

The one on the right pulled one out, the red liquid inside swirling slowly, lumps clear in it as he moved gingerly around us, and pressed it into the injection port of the machine.

A tiny sample was taken, and the screen lit up.

Authenticity : Failed, no registered tag attached

Charge : Empty

Purity : 0%

“Right, now try this.” I ordered, passing him one of ours.

The difference was clear, for a start ours was filled with the quicksilver of active nanites, and his… well.

Jam that had gone off a few years ago was the nicest comparison.

They tested it, saw the difference, then insisted on testing theirs again… then tried to switch them over and hand back theirs instead of ours, at which point Gessh drew her sword and levelled it at them.

“Give me the fuckin’ contact details for the shitbag that ripped you off, or I start cutting bits off you that you don’t need. Like your balls, because there’s no way you two should be allowed to breed!”

Ten minutes later and a quick call, and we were on our way to meet the salesman, his shop was apparently shutting down due to ‘gang activity’, and he just needed to get back ‘something to cover his losses’.

We’d been assured we would get the ‘deal of the century’ as well.

When our aircab landed in the dilapidated market area, the locals started moving instantly.

Anyone stupid enough to come to such an area, especially with credit chips, as he’d asked Gessh to have the creds loaded onto? Well, they were clearly too dumb to live.

When the door opened and we all climbed out, heavily armed, locked and loaded and clearly ready to shoot first and ask questions never?

Well. The jerky movements as the incoming thugs decided that they’d really always wanted to examine this stall, or grab a bite from that one? It was comical.

We were clearly not in the mood to be fucked with, and the locator ping that had been guiding us to the market to do the deal suddenly blinked off, as an elf saw us through the window and panicked.

He tried to close, and then lock the front door, Luna kicked it inwards. He then tried sprinting for the back of the building, only to find as he made it out of the door, that Gessh was a fuck load faster than he was, and could leap incredible distances.

She’d jumped up to the first floor, grabbed a windowsill and kicked off, made it to the fire escape, up and onto the roof of the small two story building, then across and leapt off, all before he managed to get from the front, through the backroom and out into the alley behind.

He ran into her, bounced off, landed on his arse, and then tripped up the two that were running behind him.

Luna was there then as well, and the pair dragged the three back inside, while Reign, Todds and I did a quick inventory of their goods.

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“A hundred and forty-seven medikits,” I said nodding at how hard they’d clearly worked to collect them all. “Plus a giant fucking container of red gloop and a syphon. You’ve been busy, lads.”

“There’s no law against collecting old medikits, nor having a red… liquid?” the elf tried, forcing a smile, his eyes darting from side to side as he tried to figure out an escape route, before relaxing noticeably.

That he’d done it at the same time as the other three?

He just got a message from his boss, be ready for a gang or enforcers arriving soon.

I sent the message to the others, while maintaining eye contact with the now much more relaxed figure before me.

“Now, there’s three reasons we’re here, and one of them, well, we’ll get to that last, as frankly, it kind of changes the tone of the conversation,” I said with a smile. “So, first! You’ve been selling medikits to idiots as a get rich scheme.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, feigning innocence and looking shocked. “We found this building empty, and came to have a look inside, that you ran at us the way you did? Well, you scared us, that’s all, that’s why we ran.”

“So they’re not yours?” I asked, nodding to the medikits sitting in a series of boxes off to one side.

“No, certainly not.”

“You just said you were collecting them,” I pointed out.

“I said there was no law against collecting them, not that we had been,” he corrected quickly smiling apologetically as he spread his hands.

“Ah, well that’s fortunate then.” I smiled as well. “Because we own them.”

“You own what?”

“The medikits,” I said firmly. “They’re ours.”

“No they’re not.”

“You said they weren’t yours. There’s only two groups here, and you admitted you didn’t know who owned them, so its fortunate that we’re here now isn’t it! We don’t have to shoot you in the face for trying to steal from us.”

At that unsubtle point, Gessh stepped forward, her shotgun in hand and smiled at them.

“Of course…” the elf said after a few seconds of silence. “And you’d be able to prove you own them, no doubt?”

“Of course,” I agreed, pulling a bullet out of one of the magazines and tossing it to him. “You’ll find that provides all the proof you need.”

“I… don’t understand,” he said after a few seconds, handing it back.

“My point is that this bullet, when I return it to you, fired from the barrel of this rifle, will stop any such stupid fucking questions being asked again,” I said, dropping all pretenses. “That’s point two, by the way.”

“Ah…”

“So, let’s be fucking clear here. You’re running a scam, ripping off idiots, selling them medikits full of red gloop and laughing your arse off. I am an APS operator, do you know what our primary job outside of the city is?”

“To protect…?” he started, eyes darting again and I shook my head.

“To protect the city? I suppose that’s one interpretation, but no, not really. We’re the only form of law out there. If I say you’re guilty of committing a crime? I don’t need to bring you in for processing. In fact, I’m fairly sure that if I tried that, the regular legal pukes wouldn’t know what to fucking do about it. The only people I’ve ever had to hand over, were always those who surrendered to military justice.” I leant forwards, shaking my head slightly from side to side as I dropped my voice.

“Believe me, there’s very little justice, and absolutely zero fucking mercy in that system, so I don’t recommend it.” I sat back and relaxed a little, still waiting for what we all knew was incoming.

“So, as I was saying, I didn’t take people back to be punished, I was generally out there to do a specific job, and when I encountered those guilty of breaking a law, the only sentence was death. Issued from the barrel of my gun.”

“Right…?” He forced a smile, sweat clear on his brow now, as his clearly painted hair—a fad a few years ago—started to smear under the liquid ingress.

“You’ll also note, there’s no room for doubt in the system. There’s no appeal, no concern on my side that maybe there’s a mistrial of justice. There’s also no levels. Guilty equals death. That’s it.” I smiled, then shrugged, settling back in the chair and looking from the elf to his companions.

“You don’t get the death sentence for a lot of things in the city these days, politicians like to speak about how progressive they are, while doing absolutely nothing to stop the corporations doing what they want of course, but I digress. Out of the city, if I say you’re guilty, then you are. That’s it. My judgement? You’re guilty, therefore you deserve death.”

I noted the silence that had fallen as everyone around the room listened with baited breath, my own team finally starting to understand the reason that the APS were so feared wasn’t so much the tech, although that was impressive and terrifying all on its own.

No we were terrifying because we were the final arbitrator. If we said you were guilty, then we were not only within our power to, but were legally required, to dispense justice. And that justice came from the barrel of the gun we held.

“So, you are running a scam, one that preys on the stupid—we won’t say innocent, because they’re too dumb for that—but you’re selling them fake medikits. To sell something that’s the difference between life and death? That I take exception to. That you’re selling them is proven beyond a doubt as far as I’m concerned.” I smiled. “You’re guilty.” I repeated.

“Boss,” Reign said from behind me, looking out of the door. “Looks like his back up is here.”

“How many?” I asked, tensing slightly, but doing my best to hide it.

“Seven, all armed, low level wanna-be gangers it looks like. Minimal body armor, and hell, they’ve only got small arms,” she said, snorting in derision.

“Let them come in, spread out, order them to stand down and surrender or—”

“We know you’re in there!” one of them shouted from outside. “Throw out your guns or we’re coming in.”

“Come on in!” Reign called out to them, smiling and waving at them through the doorway.

I smiled at the elf who sat ever more visibly terrified before me as I spoke to my team. “Disarm them and see what they have to say for themselves.” I ordered Reign, not even turning around.

“And if they refuse to stand down?” she asked, knowing damn well what was coming.

“Execute them,” I said. “They’re guilty.”

“No, you don’t understand…” the elf started to explain, as the gangers walked into the room behind me.

The door, if the building was seen from above, was in the upper, left-most corner, and they filed in through it. They were gangers, used to asserting control over the weak and frightened, and clearly thinking they were in control here.

They sauntered in… and froze.

Reign had taken up position at the top right of the room, her grazer loaded, held in position to be dragged across them all, even as Todds and Luna stood by her side with guns levelled and ready.

Gessh was behind the idiots sitting before me and facing the group that came in, while I didn’t bother to turn around.

“Drop your weapons,” Reign said, the unsubtle hum of the grazer cutting through the air like god’s own buzzsaw. I smiled at the elf before me, saying nothing, and noting the panic on his face as he went from ‘I’m in danger’ to ‘I’m safe’ to ‘oh fuckfuckfuck I’m so much more worse off than I thought’.

It was actually more enjoyable to watch than I thought it’d be, even after all these years of seeing it.

Admittedly, it was usually on the face of some petty slaver, and I was seeing it through my camera as I tore the roof off their transport, but still, seeing it face to face like this?

Yeah. I could live with the change.

“So…” I said to the elf, as Reign opened fire behind me, the single long loud burst filling the air, before cutting off, a short staccato burst of fire echoing from Todds and Luna as Gessh gently rested the barrel of her shotgun against the back of the elf’s head. “...where were we?”

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