Chapter Twenty-Eight

The screens flickered to life, sections of the original coding flickering across the screen too fast to read, even as the gentle hum of the fusion cell grew, test firing as it readied for a deployment.

Systems flashed to life as the suit powered, and then, I felt the fucking clang as an integration needle hit my spine. A spine that was neither equipped with a port, nor ready for it.

I hissed in pain, the ports the integration needle was searching for now covered by synth-skin, and the pain faithfully replicated just as it would have been, was that my own.

I flicked the retraction lever as quick as I could, and the suit, finding no matching link in me, and no technicians override in place?

It powered back down, locking me back out.

My heart fell, my stomach clenching as I stared at my reflection, knowing the refusal of the system for the first time in my life, and feeling the panic that raced through me at the thought that maybe this would be permanent.

Maybe, just maybe, the spinal mods I’d get wouldn’t be enough. They wouldn’t help me to integrate the way I always had.

There’d been serious damage, when I’d thrown myself off that goddamn cliff, I’d taken real damage to my spine, as well as my arm.

Could that have…

I stopped that thought right there.

The use of an APS was like the use of your arms or leg. We were fully integrated into the suit, and I’d seen someone once that had a serious accident, and could no longer operate the suit.

The medics swore blind he could, and every single test said he could, but he just couldn’t.

A seriously good operator had lost his career over what they later put down to him subconsciously believing he couldn’t do it any more. It was stupid, genuinely it was, and yet it’d put the fear of chrome and blood into us.

If you could have a dream where you couldn’t operate the suit any more, and then wake up to find it was true?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Instead, I flicked the final switches, approved the locks, and clambered out of the suit, gathering the gear on the way out and down, before standing by the base of the unit and ordering the full lock.

As the suit slowly retracted, the sides of the container sealing up again and locking down, I watched the suit vanish, determination flooding me as I moved back to the nearest bench, and the two mods that were laid atop it.

The spinal tap and the harvesting arm.

It was time to get shit done.

I gathered them up and walked up the stairs, heading to the main kitchen and towards the low buzz of voices, finding the others were all awake, and the coffee was all gone.

I forced myself to not let that get me down, and I made a fresh pot, ignoring the way the vultures all swooped and tried to steal it from me before I’d even poured my own.

“What’s the plan then boss?” Reign asked, smiling at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

“We’ve two choices,” I said to the group, noting the way that silence fell as I spoke. “First and foremost, we need to earn more creds…”

“You guys have a gambling problem or something?” Todds asked, shaking his head. “Seriously, I’ve got kids and a house to run, and—”

“And a baby-sitter,” Luna coughed into the back of her hand.

“—And I’m good for cash for weeks, maybe a month from now,” he finished, glaring at her.

“We have more expenses than we’ve been letting on, and frankly, it’s a story that none of you know. So, we might as well get this out in the open, as you already know most of it, Todds, but the rest of the team need to hear all of it anyway.”

“So, to understand this, I guess I need to tell you all about my old team.” I sat on the edge of the table, facing them, as I started, and I felt every wound as if fresh made, as I described them.

Fergie, Scott, Barnes, Richie and Sync lived and breathed again for a few brief minutes as I described them, their style, their personalities.

I told them about Fergie and Scott’s band, and Richie’s tech genius. I told them of Sync, and the quiet way she watched over us all, alternating between shy around Richie, and exasperated as a mother-hen as we all did stupid stuff.

I described Barnes, the bravery he’d shown in running in and locking to Fergie, offering up his fusion plant to form the ‘Heavy-Soldier’ symbiote unit, and the way the Shark drone had blown him to shit.

I described the cold of the fingers, and the joy of finding Richie and Sync, of the fear of hiding them, and then the sheer stupidity of throwing myself off a cliff to make sure I couldn’t lead anyone to them.

I talked about the major, and the bean counting fucking corpo asshat that saddled me with shitty mods.

I spoke about Lucky, and about Gunther, I told them about the APS unit, and the potential of it, as well as the reasons they were ‘locked’ to a single user, as well as the ways that I thought the corpo black ops teams were getting around that.

I told them everything, including that my friends were in cryosleep, buried in the mountains, and that Julius knew about it, and was going to arrange the transport.

I told them about the need for Bowdoin, and the fake registration. I told them all of it, and I apologized for not doing it sooner, explaining why I’d told Julius, before them, and the grip that gave us over the guild, and finally?

The opportunity that offered.

I explained that the suits could—I believed—be bonded to people other than those originally intended. That we could get my suit working, that we could rescue Sync and Richie, and that as soon as the Major found out, there would, without a doubt, be consequences.

That he’d send his tame APS black ops after us.

Then I told them that if we pulled this off right? We’d have APS suits. Damaged ones, sure, but we’d have them, and given some time, and some credits? We could repair them, then I could train them to be operators.

From that point, they knew exactly what I was offering. We already had a guild, one that we liked, more to the point, and a guild master we trusted. Add in a team of possibly eight APS operators? The guild would be catapulted almost overnight from a low to mid ranks, to right up near the top.

Once we were there? We’d be able to set our prices. If we wanted to do specter clearance still—unlikely but hey, maybe—then we’d be rounding up great masses of them and slaughtering them wholesale.

There’d always been the rumor of banshees, but aside from the ghouls? We’d never had any solid evidence of a sentient class.

For all we knew they were the equivalent of the corporals and sergeants in the specters ranks, and there were everything from sergeant-majors to fucking captains, generals and more buried under the city.

Hell, for all we knew they were building a massive army, and Tuesday was the end of the world for us all.

Or maybe there was nothing above the banshees, and there’d only been two of them. One was now getting experimented on, and one was off harvesting for shits and giggles.

Who fucking knew.

The point was though, that after all of this shit was finally out in the open, the rest of the group had a chance to really understand the stakes we were playing for, and to decide if they wanted to stay ‘in’.

When Luna asked the carefully casual question that ‘would we get the same shares in kills’ I knew I had them.

“We’ll share everything equally,” I said. “We’ll probably have to set up a formal fund for shit, like ammo and repairs, and channel a set amount from each of us into that, but beyond that, I’ve no problem sharing the take equally.”

“No,” Todds said, and we all turned to look at him in surprise. “Not ‘no’ to the deal, fuck yes to the deal, and yeah, okay, I totally want to be an APS operator, if your pet hacker can sort out fake IDs that get us registered? Fuck yeah. No, what I’m saying ‘no’ to is the equal shares bit.”

“You think you deserve more than an APS…” Gessh asked, confused.

“No,” he said, glaring round. “So how about you listen for a second, alright?” He waited, getting nods from us all before going on. “So, we go and we kill what you tell us to boss, you come up with the overall strategic plan, and let’s face it, on top of actually leading the group and negotiating all this shit, you’re going to be the one training us, and basically being out on point.

“When the job’s done, and we’re all cracking open a cold one—”

“Or a hot babysitter.” Luna coughed into her hand again, getting a grin from most of the team.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“—Then you’re still working doing AARs and shit,” he finished glaring at Luna. “All I’m saying is that for the next year or two, we’re going to be carried by you and your friends, right? You’re going to be training us, teaching us, basically taking us by the hand and making sure we don’t crap in the suit, as well as teaching us how to clean the fuckers and maintain them. While yeah, I want the credits? I think the boss should be on at least ten percent more than the grunts.”

“I agree,” Reign said. “And not just for the obvious reasons. We’re also celebrating, spending our credits on the shit we want… you’re repairing your suit and getting the upgrades you need to carry out the plan aren’t you?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Okay, then I suggest this,” Reign said as the others looked at each other. “For now, until the other APS are here and pulling their weight, we pool our upcoming earnings. We each get ten percent of the overall pot, I know it feels like we’re handing over our creds, but seriously? I didn’t expect to pay my debt off this side of ten years. In a week of working with Kabutt I’ve earned more than I ever thought possible.

“So we pool our earnings from this point on, what we’ve already got? That’s ours. When it comes into the pot, we each take ten percent, that’s four of us, so forty percent…”

“We can do basic math,” Gessh groaned.

“Okay, well, Kabutt gets twenty, he’s the boss, right?”

A round of agreement for that, and I nodded my thanks.

“So, that leaves forty percent. Forty percent to pay for this place, to restock the ammo cabinets, to go towards buying the parts we need on the black market for the suit, and to repair the others. It’d be to pay for upgrades to this place, and for the security we’re going to need, unless you think us leaving suits here all alone will be safe?”

“Not in the fucking slightest,” I agreed. “My suit has been safe so far because no fucker knows about it. Once they do? We’ll need a perimeter defense and turrets at the least, probably military grade.”

“So, we split the credits, as an investment?” Reign repeated, looking around the room and waiting to see what everyone thought. “Honestly? In the long term, its massively worth it, as is probably buying this place from Oshbob, before we do all the work on securing it.”

“If he’ll sell it,” I pointed out.

“Oh I think he will, if we go to him with a good enough deal. It was a derelict warehouse in a slum industrial zone, its only value at the minute is that we want it. If we offer to buy it, or we’re moving and buying somewhere else?” Reign shrugged. “Remember, he’s a crime lord, as much as he’s a big bad fish around here, and even if he'd never admit it, he’ll have enemies and some of them will be a lot bigger than him. Having a team of allied APS operators that live next door?” She shrugged, then grinned. “I think we can persuade him to see the advantage of that.”

“That’s one for you to sort then,” I said. “If you’re to be second in command of our little enterprise, then you’re also quartermaster. You’ll have control of the funds…” I saw the alarmed look that Luna and Gessh gave each other at that suggestion, well aware I was suggesting giving an ex drug addict access to what would hopefully be massive funds. “… but , you’d need oversight.”

“You do strategic, I’ll do local level.” She nodded. “Okay, who would have oversight over the funds? I’m not offended people, I agree that I made some horrific mistakes in the past.”

“I could, if you want?” Todds offered. “Maybe make it a two person release for company funds? So either the boss or I have to approve any larger expenditure for the pot, and anything under say, a thousand we don’t? That covers all the usual day-to-day stuff like food and bills, ammo and air-cabs and shit, but for things like heavy weapons, turrets and so on? We’d need two to approve?”

“That works,” Luna agreed, as Gessh nodded. “Sorry Reign, we trust you but…”

“But I fucked up in the past,” she agreed. “Massively so.” She nodded, smiling sadly. “Believe me, I know, and I’ll always be paying for it as part of life. It’s fine.”

“So…” I said after a few seconds. “Lion.”

“What about him?” Gessh asked. “I mean, he’s cute and he’s skilled, but you know, Dondo is…”

“That’s between you and Dondo!” I cut her off, shaking my head at her grin. “Fuck’s sake, I mean he’s helped to fix up the harvester arm, and we need him to keep his goddamn mouth shut. Do we recruit him, or keep him as a contractor, or what?”

“As a contractor there was no contract or anything to keep him quiet about what we’ve got was there?” Reign asked, and I shook my head. “Dammit.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Limited time, and to make it all work, we involved him too deep, too fast. Now we’re left with a mess to clean up. Hence do we recruit him, or boot him.”

“Would he want to be recruited?” Gessh asked. “I mean, he’s all about helping his local community, right?”

“True, but he might see selling that tech and the location of the arm as the best way to do that,” I countered. “If he can see real credits coming in, and in the short term? He’ll probably shut up.”

“What about his shop? And what does he bring to the team?” Reign said musingly. “I mean, having our own pet carver would be great, especially as he’s good mechanically, between him and Todds…”

“We’ve got the start of a good tech team,” I agreed. “As APS Operators we’re taught to maintain and repair our suits, but honestly, we don’t do it, we have engineering teams for that, armory squads who specialize in it, rather than understanding that if we pull this lever, that happens.”

“So we’d need him anyway, further down the line…” Luna said. “What if we gave him the gist of what’s happening…?”

“Not about Richie and Sync, not yet,” I said. “I’m not risking them.”

“No, not that, but we tell him about the way we can sort the APS suits that are out in the city and…”

“He’d never bet on us in that fight, much more likely we all end up squashed than winning.”

“If you look at the odds, yeah probably,” I grunted.

“And then the arm is lost,” Reign finished. “What if we agree to sell the tech?”

“What?” I asked, shocked.

“I mean, it’s what he wants right? Or what he will want?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But we agree that it needs to undergo testing, prototyping, fixing the minor details, and then we sell it, and he gets an equal share. We say that we don’t sell it until its ready, and we make sure he knows that’s not going to be tomorrow, but what, six months? That’s do-able? Then it’ll vanish into a lab somewhere, and the corpos make a fortune. We make a nice pile, and we move on with our lives.”

“I…” I didn’t like it, not at all, handing this tech over to have it vanish into a corpo research lab? Hell, they might already have this shit, dozens of such things, all hidden because they needed to keep their finger on the profit margin.

“Realistically, did you see yourself using the arm once the APS units were up and running?” Reign asked me gently, seeing that I was struggling with it. “Would you still be harvesting, or would you be too busy for that?”

“I’d probably be too busy.” I agreed.

“It wouldn’t be worth our time.” She nodded. “Better that we sell the tech, maybe we make a version that’s carriable by a normal team, and we have the goblin clean-up crews carry them?”

“Hell, sell them the drawings, the data and shit, and keep the arm, you don’t have to give that up,” Luna offered, and I paused, before shaking my head.

“They’d want a working prototype.” I sighed. “I hate the corpo scumbags, but…”

“But it’s their world.” Gessh finished for me. “We just live in it, and we can either profit from it, or not. This way Lion isn’t tempted to fuck us over and sell it, and us to the corpos, we can keep him as a contractor, and when we’re ready? We can fold him in if we want.”

“Everyone happy with that?” I asked, getting nods all around. “Fine. In that case we need to get shit moving then, I know Julius has missions he wants us on today, and we need to test the arm, so I’m thinking we split up.”

“Some to restock and reload?” Reign asked, and I nodded.

“We need it, we bought a fuck load of ammo the other day, and we used almost all of it. We need a load of ammo here, for all our weapons. We need the rest of those stealth suits cleaned and repaired, and we need a decent selection of armor for us all, as well as clothes I guess…” I looked down at the only semi-clean clothes I had left, before sighing and shaking my head.

“I need to get that arm in place. I know Julius wants us back out and earning but...”

“But he owes us,” Reign finished for me. “Everyone else happy to spend today on a restock and rearm, fix our gear and so on, start afresh tomorrow?”

Nods all round.

“Then I’ll call him for you, boss, fill him in,” she suggested, as I stood and finished my coffee.

“Thank you, but no… I need to do that one. You sort the rest please, and I’ll go get a new arm…”

“And get that spinal checked out,” Luna suggested, before biting her lip.

“Out with it.” I ordered her, knowing her tells well enough by now.

“Is this a good idea?” she said bluntly. “Not the breakup of jobs and so on, or the future, I mean you going on your own to Lion. That’s putting temptation in his way, when he doesn’t need it.”

“That’s a good point,” Gessh agreed. “Boss, one of us should go with you today, watch over you while that gets done, and make sure you’re not fucked over. No offence, but if Lion’s going to do it? That’d be the time. You’re out cold, or restrained, the tech is all there ready, and we’re not about?”

“And it’s totally not to get out of cleaning and restocking,” Luna said seriously, before ruining it all with a wink. “Honest.”

“Fuck’s sake,” I groaned. “Alright, it’s a fair point, one of you, heavily armed… and no, Luna, there’s even odds you’d be trying to ride him the entire time… Todds?” I suggested.

He grinned. “I’m in, boss.”

“Great.” I nodded my thanks, before looking at Reign, who smiled, knowing me all too well by now.

“Air-cab is incoming,” she said, before sipping the last of her coffee, and offering me the empty cup. “Four minutes out, so be a dear and refill that, would you?”

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