4.1
It’s one of those quiet days. No line of chromeheads milling about in the alley, no one slouched in the foyer. I guess it makes sense. Dr. Maelstrom likely spaces out his appointments to allow each client enough time for the procedure and recovery. Practical, if nothing else.
Only one person ahead of me. They’re in and out within ten minutes of my arrival. No fuss, no fanfare. Then Dr. Maelstrom steps into the waiting room, gives me a curt nod, and motions for me to follow. Through the low-hanging beads again, down the steps, and around the corner. The surgical bed waits in the centre, laid flat this time. I shrug off my jacket, strip down to my T-shirt and jeans, and climb onto the bed, staring up at the grid of dark ceiling tiles. Wordlessly, he reaches for the anaesthesia mask hanging from a hook above the cot, draws the hose into place, and straps it over my face. Cool, synthetic air rushes in, and the edges of the world dissolve into a blur.
Lights out in seconds.
When I wake up, my skin feels clammy, sweat sticking to every inch of me. My hair is matted against my forehead, damp and uncomfortable. My eyes are slow to open, and my head feels weighty, but it’s over—just like that.
I reach up, peeling the mask off, gulping down thick, brackish air. The room presses in around me, dense and heavy. I can’t smell anything, but I don’t need to; the stench is easy to imagine: antiseptic, burnt circuits, unwashed bodies. It sticks to the back of my throat. Disgusting. How many people have passed through this place in the last week, the last year? And how often does a clinic like this even get cleaned? Not often enough, I’d bet.
Best not to dwell on it.
I stretch my neck, trying to work out the knots, and glance down at my side. My right arm—it’s gone, finally. In its place is a snaggy stub. The cut isn’t clean, but it’ll do.
“Was wonderin’ when you’d come around,” a voice drawls. Dr. Maelstrom, of course. He’s at his computer, faced away. He spins round on his swivel, wiping his hands with a microfibre cloth, lips as neutral as ever.
I sit up. “How long was I out?”
He stands, takes a deep breath, and slaps the wet cloth on the arm of his chair. “An hour. Longer than most.”
That’s a surprise. Concerning, really. “How long are people normally out for?”
“Post-surgery? Fifteen minutes. Had to reschedule a few appointments.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, feeling guilty. “Didn’t mean to disrupt your business. I can pay you back if you want.”
He breathes out a half-assed chuckle. “I’m messin’ with you. Finished up five minutes ago. And be careful. Shouldn’t believe everything you hear without some sort of back-up.”
A laugh flies out my nose as I step off the surgical bed. “I admit you did a good job.”
“How’s it feel?” Dr. Maelstrom walks over to the bedside trolley, wheeling it aside.
“Different,” I say, stretching my limbs. “Strange, but in a good way. Feel twenty pounds lighter, though that might just be the gas escaping.”
He bends over and picks up a couple tools. “It wasn’t easy. Whoever installed that mechanical arm used some kind of reinforced alloy and buried the connections deep into your nerve clusters. Cutting through it was a nightmare.”
“It take long?”
He stands up straight again, placing the tools on the trolley. “’Bout forty-five minutes, which is longer than average.” He scratches his beard. It’s quiet for a moment, and then he asks, “You find out anything else about that picture, or are you still waiting?”
I presume he’s referring to the promise I made Fingers, about sticking around until we complete that infiltration mission together. Which reminds me. “No, nothing yet, but can I ask you something?”
He starts wheeling the trolley away but stops halfway around the corner. “Depends on what it is.” He’s probably messing with me again.
“Sorry,” I say. “But Fingers mentioned something to me. Just curious if you know about it.”
He turns, eyes focused now, leaning on the trolley with one arm. “Go on.”
“She mentioned the NACP partnering with Techstrum to create a device that would control people,” I say, trying to remember the exact words. “You know anything about that, seeing as, you know, you seem to have access to a lot of info on the dark net?”
He chuckles, turning. “You’re out of the grave three days and you’re already talkin’ about that conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy?”
He pushes the trolley out of view, then steps in front of me again. “It’s an old story, made worse a decade ’n’ a half ago, after a leaked government document made the news. The Seraph Device. Turned out the wording confused people. Thought it was referring to human specimens, controlling their thoughts, emotions, so on. There’s been a couple different iterations. Put it simply: people thought it meant controlling southsiders, when it actually meant controlling AI.”
“Controlling AI?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Singular questioning. If you want to know specifics, you should be more upfront, otherwise people will play you for a fool.”
He has a point there. Not the first person to mention it either. I glance to the side and see my jacket hanging on a nearby coatrack. I walk over to it, grab it, but don’t put it on. Too warm for that. Instead, I tuck it under my armpit. “Sorry, it’s just I know very little about, well, life today. Know very little about life back then, too. Why would they need to control AI?”
“The Helios Paradox.”
“The Helio—” I almost ask but stop myself. “You know, I wouldn’t be asking so many questions if you didn’t give such abrupt answers.”
He chuckles. “Huge problem that’s been making the rounds for decades. The more advanced AI becomes, the more difficult it becomes to control. From what I do know, which is very little, they’re trying to find a way to streamline AI to lead to a more efficient economy. Using AI to take over everything, from logistics to healthcare to even governance. They claim it’ll optimise every sector, make everything run smoother, faster, more cost-efficient. But the problem is, as AI gets smarter, it starts making decisions that humans can’t even begin to predict. It’s like giving a child a loaded gun: sure, it might be efficient at some point, but at what cost?”
I’m not sure that would be efficient at any point.
“Most famous example was The Velvet Requiem Incident in 2061 when a male stripper bot suddenly became ‘sentient’ and murdered a client in her bed, pretty brutally, too.”
“Jesus,” I say, disturbed. What a way to die.
Still, this all feels like a cover-up. Why would the government try to assassinate Cormac just for accessing supposedly top-secret documents if they didn’t affect the public? Now that the information is out, why would they care what Cormac knows—unless there’s more to the story? Something he hasn’t shared with Fingers. Maybe something he’s deliberately keeping to himself. I guess it’s also possible that this information circulated around the dark net and they might be trying to eliminate anyone with access to government files.
I don’t know, but it’s intriguing to me, nonetheless. It does raise some serious questions, though.
“What about the circuitery?” I ask. “What exactly is going on down there? All those bodies, all that trash? Is it just a dump leading out into the canal?”
“It would seem that way.” He takes a seat on the swivel chair and starts wiping his hands again with the microfibre cloth. “A common misconception people have is that the circuitery is just a graveyard of dead bots and unrecyclable trash, but you know how that old saying goes, about one man’s trash being another man’s treasure.” He sets the cloth on the computer desk and leans back, causing the casters to give out. “People dump whatever they can, ’specially the northfolk. Corrupt cops, failing businessmen who can’t keep up with the bills, and even the government themselves.
“It’s not just junk; it’s evidence, secrets, and assets they’d rather forget about. Those dead androids under the bridge? They’re not there by accident. Some are prototypes, scrapped before they hit the market. Others, failed experiments, or bots with programming too dangerous or unpredictable to let loose. And then there are the ones that knew too much—witnessed something, recorded something, or were programmed to do things that’d make headlines if they ever got out.” He leans forward, eyes narrowing. “But you did get out. And that’s what makes you so interesting. Half woman, half machine, at least according to your biometric readings.”
Literally half. I look at my right side; it’s so peculiar not seeing an arm. “Say, how much does it cost for a replacement? You know, in case I somehow do hit it big.”
“For a mechanical or cybernetic limb, you’re looking at over a hundred grand,” he says.
I let out a low, drawn-out whistle—the universal sound of sticker shock. “Little steep, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but there’s another problem,” he says, pointing to my clipped shoulder. “Your nervous system’s shot there—literally. Fried brachial plexus. Looks like your body’s immune response went haywire, attacking any foreign tech in the area. Even if we install a cybernetic arm, your nervous system won’t recognise it. The limb would just sit there, completely dormant. You’d have a hundred grand’s worth of dead weight strapped to your body.”
His eerie tone throws me off. It takes a moment for my thoughts to settle. Just a little disturbed by the whole situation. “Well that sucks.”
“That’s life for you.” He winks. “But something tells me it won’t hold you back very far.”
Footsteps come clacking from the foyer. It’s Jin, still dressed in her black turtleneck dress, her dark skin boasting a pale glow beneath the honeyed incandescence of the overhead filament, hands behind her back as always, and that smile—that lovely smile.
“Front’s all ready to go,” she says.
“Righto.” Dr. Maelstrom slaps his knees and stands up with a groan. He’s just tired, I’m sure. “Come back to me whenever you tally enough scratch for the procedure, and remember what I said: not feeling pain ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
----------------------------------------
Later, Fingers picks me up from surgery, and we head back to the Old Mill to go over the details of the job. I’ve learned it’s a habit of hers—digging into every angle. Turns out she’s done her homework on the loading bay and the off-screen areas. While there isn’t much security in the immediate vicinity, there’s a market nearby that wraps around, meaning there’s a good chance of people watching from within the crowd.
Not that it matters. If these suits are even half as good as Fingers says they are, then there should be nothing stopping us from bypassing the security cameras during the day, hacking into a storage container, and hiding inside until that large crane device hauls us off to the cargo ship.
But she makes a point, one I hadn’t considered beforehand: weapons. In case things go wrong—and they often do—we need to be armed. She has the perfect idea: two pistols, compact enough to fit snugly into the suit's leg pouches and designed to remain flush with the nanomaterial without causing any awkward bulges or disruptions. She tells me a lot about them. Both pistols are equipped with integrated smartlink systems, allowing for a ‘neural interface’ with targeting overlays fed directly into the suit’s HUD. They have polymer-ceramic casings, making them lightweight, nearly undetectable to standard scans, and resistant to heat and EMP bursts. The barrels are designed with monomolecular rifling, which, according to Fingers, means you don’t have to concentrate as hard to land a shot. Each is fitted with micro-compensators to counteract recoil. That’s all fascinating, but the main point, the one which I find most satisfying, is that they include built-in suppressors with a heat-dissipation matrix to reduce thermal signatures.
I suppose it’s an added feature in case the infrared cameras were to pick up on standard material. Even if they’re less effective during the day and our suits could slip by, a normal pistol might get sniffed out; with these, there’s no chance. Too small, too compact, and too sneaky.
As if that isn’t enough, they each have a subtle chameleon coating on the exterior that allows them to blend into the suit’s configuration.
Wicked.
“Where did you get these?” I ask, twirling the gun around. I place it on the table beneath the red light, next to Raze’s ashtray, press the sides, and pull the magazine out. Packed to the brim with subsonic ammunition. I’d expected something of the like.
“Bought them off a black-market dealer while you were gone gettin’ your arm chopped.” She spins it around on her forefinger, grasps it firmly by the handle, and aims it at the dartboard, making a playful poof. “Pretty cool, eh?”
I nod. “How much did they cost you?”
“Five bags. Each.”
That same whistling sound from earlier. “I’m not the only one who lost an arm then.”
“Speaking of,” Fingers says, placing the gun on the counter. She steps away for a moment, disappearing briefly before returning with a sleek case bearing the v-Technica logo. Gently, she clicks it open and tosses me one of the anti-fibre suits.
I catch it, the airlocked plastic crinkling beneath my thumb, almost ready to pop. It’s cold to the touch, like it’s been pulled straight from a freezer or left by an open window on a wintry night. Placing the bag between my knees, I unzip the seal and pull the suit free. It slides out effortlessly, almost unfolding itself.
The material feels... nice, strangely. It’s hard to describe: smooth yet tactile, soft but with an edge of durability. One of those textures that keeps you running your fingers over it without quite understanding why.
It’s weaved together from a nanofibre mesh, so dark it seems to absorb light itself. Midnight black, yet there’s a subtle shimmer to it, like liquid shadows shifting along the wires, though it’s probably just a reflection of the light. A jumpsuit of sorts, one that you can stand into and zip up, only this doesn’t just stop at the neck; it climbs over the head and clicks. I can tell by the ribbed design. Seems everything is fairly secure, but what about the pouches?
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“Throw it on,” Fingers says. “I’ll show you how it works.”
Shrugging, I begin taking off all my clothes. I’m still a trifle shy about getting naked—who wouldn’t be with someone watching?—but I push through the discomfort, avoiding eye contact. A couple minutes later, I step into the legs of the jumpsuit, finding the holes to be wider than I’d anticipated. I slide my arm into the left sleeve and shoulder it up until it lies across my neck, the right side dangling. I put my back to the wall, tug the hanging sleeve around my notched shoulder, and zip the suit up to the top of my head. Sure enough, it clicks tight.
Everything is dark. Pitch-black, even. Then, the interior fabric digitises, revealing the outside world.
But there’s a problem.
The suit is too big, drops down over my body like a ghostly rag.
My heart bumps. Shit.
Fingers steps over, grabs the empty right sleeve, and waggles it. Then, with a quick press of her thumb against my lower left side, the fabric ripples. A vertical seam shifts open, revealing a hidden side pouch. She pulls the sleeve around my body, tucking it into the pouch, and presses the area again. The suit responds immediately. With a soft whir, the fabric contracts, tightening, squeezing. The once-loose sleeve shrinks and flattens against my torso, securely held in place as the suit moulds to my body. Within moments, it’s nearly skintight, the sleeve barely noticeable, its excess material absorbed into the pouch. The fit is perfect.
“How did you know that would work?” I ask, laughing.
“I’ve had my hands on a few of these prototypes. They’re designed for flexibility. You just need to know where the pressure points are.” She gives the suit a once-over. “Figured you’d need a little help with the fit, but I wasn’t about to let you wander around like a walking tent.”
“Was worried for a second there. I was thinkin’, The damn size, Fingers! The size!” I take a couple steps, finding the movement smooth and comfortable, then stretch out my limbs in a three-quarter X, thinking I look something of a hip-hop dancer.
She laughs, folding her arms. “Feels like paper, don’t it?”
Strangely, it does; it’s so thin and seamless it’s as if I’m wearing nothing at all, which may or may not be a good thing. Only time will tell.
I break the pose. “What about the spoofer? Where does that go?”
She reaches into her jacket pocket, pulls out the spoofer, and presses it against my upper left shoulder. This time, things are clearer. The nanomaterial on my skin warps, sinking inward before pulling apart, revealing a pouch underneath, slightly different in design. A small rectangular incline, about an inch deep. She slips the spoofer inside and it locks. Immediately the antifibre skin along my left arm splits open, exposing my bare forearm, bicep, and shoulder. Slowly, the fabric around my upper left temple begins to peel away. Fingers gestures to the exposed area, and I whisk out my neural cord. She takes it from me and bungs it into the spoofer. My vision flickers with digital smear, but after a moment, it sharpens, and the quick-hacks reappear on my neural display, exactly as before.
Manual Override, Server Locator, Data Blocker, and, of course, Short-circuit.
Fingers presses the wire down against my skin.
“Stabilising,” the voice in my head says.
The suit vibrates lightly, its nanofibres creeping over the wire, securing it in place. Fingers releases the tension and watches as the fibres merge back together, seamlessly covering me and keeping the wire safely tucked underneath.
Neat.
Fingers begins undressing in front me, not a hint of shame in her lithe yet muscular body, steps into the suit, and zips it over her head. Like before, it's too big for her, but after pressing the side of her ribcage, the suit begins sucking in, tightening around her skin. The antifibre flexes and moves on its own accord, no doubt controlled by advanced artificial intelligence, perhaps nanobots embedded in the material. Once it fits, she presses just above her sternum, revealing a miniature button underneath; she taps it, causing the fabric to warp and almost vibrate, slowly losing colour and texture. The black surface of the suit shifts, first to a translucent shimmer, then into a distorted blur, like rippling air above hot asphalt. Within seconds, Fingers is gone, not just hidden but utterly invisible.
Well, sort of.
I can see the outline, just barely, along with the subtle distortion of light around it. Not that something like this would matter at night; it would be next to impossible to notice, especially for the untrained eye.
We spend a bit of time discussing the capabilities of the suit, what it can and cannot do, but the main points are centred around stealth. It is possible to disrupt the material if something sharp prods the antifibre, so she says, and it will also completely switch off if it comes into contact with heavy water for too long, or any liquid really.
Good thing the rain has been fairly light recently, although a bit misty for my tastes.
After a while, Fingers decides to pack the suits away and take me to the seaside by which the shipyard is located. It's an hour’s drive from the Old Mill even though the satnav indicates a twenty-minute journey; those damn machines never account for traffic or aimless pedestrians breaking our green lights.
When we arrive, the sky's already folding into darkness, but that's no surprise. Late autumn has a way of turning the afternoon sun into a cranky old man, punching out early and mumbling, ‘That’s enough for one day.’
It’s a busy enough market, stretching about the length of a football field, though it feels even bigger under the weight of the twilight. The dying sun slips its last lustre over the rows of stalls and rusted steel awnings, giving everything a tarnished gold sheen that doesn’t quite hide the grit. Children laugh through the crowd, scampering, while patrons nearly stumble over one another. It’s not difficult to understand why; everything is so compact, and the signs—those glitzy wooden slabs—combine to create a disturbing kaleidoscope. It’s dazzling, sure, but in a way that makes your eyes ache or head swim. There’s all just a little too much going on.
Some of the children here look quite poor. I notice on the far-right side, shouldered up under a makeshift metal awning cobbled together from scrap sheets and bent rods, a mother and child, who must be no older than ten, eleven years old tops. The other children, while happy and playing and chatting with some of the folk at the market, are wearing fairly thin clothes for the weather: drawstring trousers and those cheap-looking hooded sweatshirts that hang off their frames like hand-me-downs from siblings twice their size. Their shoes are mismatched or falling apart, worn soles slapping against the ground as they dart between stalls.
It’s a distraction. While some of them talk to the merchants, another sneaks around the back, pilfering eddies. I have to admit; they’re fast. They might have a career ahead of them, if they manage to make it through this coming winter.
They ought to be careful, though. After what I’d experienced, I know exactly how bad some merchants can get if you try to swindle. How deadly, even.
Nonetheless, Fingers leads me up a rickety set of metal stairs bolted against the side of a crumbling red-brick apartment complex. The docks stretch across the horizon, an industrial landscape of rusted steel and cargo ships moored in rows. Old piers line the north side while smaller honky-tonk marinas dot the edge, their sleek vessels dwarfed by the massive ships tethered further out. It’s the southern stretch that gets my attention. The cranes tower overhead, their long arms extending like skeletal claws, lifting cargo containers into the belly of monstrous freighters. The whir of hydraulics and the harsh neon glow from the towering shipping cranes reflect off the slick, rain-soaked concrete; it’s so lucid you can see the refraction splayed out across the terminal.
There are still hundreds of cargo units propped up along the shipyard. Interesting. This looks nearly the same as the drone footage, with some slight differences. The primary cargo ship, the one which contains that snake-symbolled storage crate, is much lighter along the dock; most units seem to have been relocated into the interior, and it’s so utterly huge, way larger than it appeared from an aerial view. They all are. Their hulls are easily more than four hundred metres long, and they must be more than a hundred metres above the waterline. It’s a little scary, honestly. I didn’t expect to see something this large, but now that I have, I’m wondering if finding that crate will be easier said than done.
Fingers hands me the spoofer and, without instruction, I lay it on a small HVAC unit, jacking in. I carry it around to the edge of the rooftop, looking out at the shipyard again. This time my vision is obscured by bluish haze, and the containers are highlighted in yellow. When I zoom in with my optics, the data cube shifts and populates. The crates seem to be generic enough, carrying sheet metal, furniture, and even vehicles. Simple things, supposedly.
But how do I determine which one is a fake?
I can try looking out for any duplicate tags and.... Well, no, that won’t do. What if I monitor those closest to the smuggle ship?
Suddenly, I see the crane of the smuggle ship swoop down by an unoccupied sideloader, sucking up a crate with, I presume, a large magnet of some sort, the forks squaring under and keeping it secure. It goes up and up, locks in, and then slowly conveys along the rail. Information about the unit pops up on the data cube.
Container ID: WAT-93F-RD88
Owner: Meridian Transport Co.
Contents: Unclassified (Priority X)
Destination: Off-world Sector A2B, Watson, China
Weight: 18.7 tons
Security Level: High (Authentication Required)
“‘93-F,’” I tell Fingers. “Remember that, will you?”
I try to scan one of the units sitting on the dock itself but they’re all out of range, so I focus on the ones near the safety rails instead. One by one, I observe the centre tags, seeing everything from L23, Z41, T88. They’re always three characters long while the figures to either end vary. The first few characters seem to indicate the location, the middle set is a code for the ship, and the last is a generic cargo label.
I decide it’s best to observe the crane’s behavior for a while and see how it operates. About ten minutes after depositing the previous container, I notice it slowly making its way back to the terminal. I watch as it descends, latches onto another unit, and lifts it. Once again, the tag reads "93F," with the weight listed as 18.6 tonnes.
Interesting. That’s what I need to keep an eye out for.
It takes a long time sifting through each individual container—there are just so many—but eventually, among the stacked piles, I see that same tag: 93F, and the weight: 14.4 tonnes.
The selection order might be determined by weight, with the heaviest items handled first and the lightest ones last. The crane must set the heavy ones along the dock then reorganise the selection by placing them into the giant centre hold, the lightest being at the top so they don’t get crushed underneath. That means, in theory, if we want to not be wedged in tight, we should opt for the lightest so that we’re placed at the top, but how do I find out which is the lightest?
“Remember the hacks Rico gave you,” Fingers says. “Maybe those can help.”
Of course. Rico uploaded these specific options for a reason. One of them seems to fit perfectly. I zoom in on one of the 93F crates and select "Server Locator." An upload bar appears, creeping upward until it finally hits 100%. When it does, a large red dot lights up in the centre of the crate, with branching red lines radiating outward in a precise, mechanical web. The lines connect to other marked dots on nearby crates, all converging on the smuggle ship—likely where the control system resides, some kind of central computer. Now I know which crates to focus on. A hundred, maybe more, all marked with the same identifier: 93F. I scan each one carefully, checking their weights, narrowing my search to the lightest option.
Takes a hell of a long time, but eventually I find it.
It’s a small crate, only about the size of a commercial van, clocking in at a little under five tonnes. That’s where we should hide.
“‘NGT-93F-7X2842,’” I tell Fingers, but I have to repeat it slowly for her to jot it down in her phone.
I explain the logic behind why that would be the most efficient choice, and she smirks, placing a hand on the shoulder of my clipped arm. The sleeve of my jacket’s been turned inside out, so as to not have it hang about. Plus, in her own words, I won’t look like a circus tent.
“Knew you had some brains in that thick chrome dome of yours,” she says. “I think I’ll like you, Rhea. Might have to hang on to you after all this is said and done.”
“You think?” I laugh, disconnecting the spoofer and tossing it back at her. “Tellin’ you, once we’re done with that Techstrum job or whatever you wanna call it, that big league, I’m packin’ my pockets and takin’ off towards the sunset like in those old westerns. Gonna take my pretty chrome dome for a test run in the scrubland.”
She stuffs the spoofer in the pocket of her hoodie, brushing a stray of cyan hair from her eye. “You get your own money, you can do whatever you like, Mono, but until then you’re stuck with me and Raze’s shitty attitude.”
I chuckle, wiping sweat from my brow. It isn’t hot, just intense. I was honestly nervous about messing things up, but the quick-hacks.... They’re efficient, to say the least. “A nice apartment, a nice bath, and one of those sexy male strippers Dr. Maelstrom told me about. Can you imagine that? Big, buff hunky-dunk?”
“You didn’t peg me as a lady who was into men.” She stares at me, half-quizzical, half-smiling, one thin eyebrow cocked. “That hairstyle, although a little wild.... Yeah, I thought you were into women, believe it or not. Just the general vibe I got from you.”
“I don’t mind women,” I say coolly, rather surprised at how nonchalant she is. It’s one of those statements you don’t hear every day. Then again, she barely knows me. “Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure what I like. I’ve only been here three days. It’s difficult to remember what my interests were, but I have an inkling I’m a two-way street. You?”
“Men,” she says.
“Simple, straight to the point, I take it?”
“Who? Men? I mean, I suppose so. I had a boyfriend once, didn’t really like him much, but damn did he have a nice ass.”
I ahh. “So, you’re an ass chick? Makes sense.”
“More or less,” she says. “You think you have loved ones waiting out there for you?”
It’s an excellent question. I had considered the possibility before, but 2056 is such a long time ago. Anyone I would have known back then, especially from the scrubland, would have likely moved on and kissed Neo Arcadia goodbye. “I don’t know,” I say mildly. “That’s sort of what I’m worried about. If I supposedly came from a parched wasteland that degraded into, in Maelstrom’s words, ‘cyberjunkies’, then maybe that says something about my past, who I was with.”
“I think you were part of a gang, aim like that,” Fingers says. “But hey, doesn’t matter who we were, only who we choose to become, ay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “But I’ll be damned if I live my life not knowing what happened. I’m sure someone out there knows something, someone who can help me. Maelstrom says I’m a lost ‘asset’.” I do air-quotes. “Whatever that means.”
“Promising theory,” Fingers says, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I think it’s best you do your own research sometime. Once you have your own place and computer, information is free. Dark net is free, know? Only other option is reaching out to some of the fixers in the city.”
“Fixers?” I say. “Why would I go to them?”
Fingers says, “You know how many gangs interact with some of the big fixers across Neo Arcadia? We’re not the only ones. If you’re runnin’ with the gang theory, best ask around, though be warned, that source of information isn’t free.”
“Think Rico knows something?”
“If we come back in one piece tomorrow night then we’ll find out,” she says. “Till then, tough luck.”
“Thanks, Fingers,” I say sincerely.
“For?”
“Just... thanks.”
She looks at me, perplexed, then pats my shoulder before walking towards the stairway. “C’mon. Gettin’ late.”
She’s right there. The sun’s completely sunk into the horizon, leaving only the starless evening.
We start making our way down the steel-grated stairs again, thinking it’s best to pack things in for the day. Still busy in the market, even though we’ve been up there a while, too long to count, trying to scan all the different crates. Along the way, out towards the parking lot, Fingers tells me I can drive the rest of the way back, as if that’s an award for all my hard work today, but something—someone—catches my attention on the far-left end of the market sprawl. It’s those kids again, but—
“You bastard,” one of the merchants shouts, his voice stretched tight. “You want to lose a fuckin’ arm? Where’s your mother? Your father? Show me!” He’s grasping a machete in one hand, and as we draw closer, I see he’s caught hold of one of the children, the thieves. A little boy.
The boy strains, not saying a word. His friends seem to have taken off.
“The eddies,” he snaps. “Spill ’em, or I’ll chop your arm off. You want that?”
The boy shakes his head.
“Then where are they?”
No response. The boy is either mute or too frightened to speak; it’s sickening, frankly sickening, that people are too cowardly to step up and do anything. Sure, he has cyberware, but do people have no class?
He yanks the boy’s arm forward over the table of his kiosk, and the boy kicks helplessly, punching and scratching to break free. He lays the boy’s arm across a meat chopping board. “You have ten seconds to tell me where you put ’em. That’s my night’s work, and I’ll be damned if I let another rodent—”
An arm flies forward, grips him by the elbow, and yanks the merchant back on his ass. A basketful of oranges and apples tumbles over him.
The arm—cold, strong, and fed up—is my own.
The boy takes off running after his friends, and the man shoves the basket off of his head, looking up at me. He points the blade at me and yells, “You bitch. He stole my money!” He starts to pick himself up off the ground but a leg swoops down and kicks him into the fruitfall, knocking the machete.
Fingers, of course. She quickly snatches the blade.
People gather around, laughing.
“Say another word and I’ll turn this into a toothpick,” Fingers says eerily. “And you’ll be the one I sharpen it on.”
A part of me hopes he’ll say something, try to fight back, just so I can watch Fingers kick his punk ass, but he says nothing, sulking in silence, clearly hurt from the harsh kick. That and, well, he no longer has a weapon to scare people off, and we certainly aren’t poor little kids.
“Yeah, that’s right. Shut your mouth. If I see you threatening anyone around here again, never mind kids, I’ll kill you. Understand me?”
He nods, picking himself up.
Fingers waves the blade at him, as if to say goodbye. “I’ll be keeping this,” she says sternly, walking towards the parking lot.
I follow her, but not before taking a quick step forward. The sudden movement makes the merchant stumble backwards with his ass caught in the basket bunch. He groans deeply. Must have really hurt his spine on the table.
I couldn’t help myself. He’s a damn weasel. People like that make me sick.
When Fingers and I make it back to the Fragment Roamer, I feel good, albeit still nervous. Tomorrow is the big day.
Everything could go right, or many, many things could go wrong.
It’s a lot of money on the line, so I hope we’re in and out, smooth as pie.