1.3
I have to say, the fact that I got accepted into this team is relieving. I thought for sure that I wouldn’t have been able to beat any of the members’ scores, much less Raze’s. My reflexes and precision felt so alien, as if I was being controlled by a separate intelligence. How is it that part of my past self still exists if I can’t remember learning any of these skills? Shooting? Using the mantisblade? Understanding details about the city that anyone with a wiped brain would surely forget? It’s like my memory’s been split in two, and the primary aspects of what make me resemble my former self have been filtered out with little remnants dripping through the crevices.
That’s the only way I can explain it. Everything is painfully confusing.
The first few hours following my acceptance into Fingers’ team are spent introducing me to the layout of the headquarters. It’s not large by any means—in fact it’s about the size of a call-centre floor, only without the chairs and corporate ringtones. It’s divided into several rooms, each designed for a specific purpose. The main foyer, the one I saw as I came in, is poorly lit with red sofa chairs, flags of visor-wearing skulls, which I presume must be a clan symbol of some sort, low-hanging ceilings, and thick crates surrounded by copper bits scattered across the floor. One room houses comfortable massage chairs facing up towards a ceiling of monitors tuned to white noise. Fingers tells me it’s a security outpost, and when you jack your neural wire into the terminal, provided you have the right opticwear, you’ll be able to sift through all the cameras in the building.
The other facilities are mostly for technology: testing areas for bots, specialised suits, weapons, and so on, but one room a little farther down is for chemical reactions. Apparently, it’s also known as ‘Dance’s spot’, because he’s the team’s only chemical expert, modifying existing compounds to enhance mental focus, strength, recovery, stamina, so on. He’s supposedly one smart cookie. Interesting how he wound up in a place like this.
I can see how this place was at one point a mill, only I’m not quite sure what they used to manufacture here, and frankly, I don’t care enough to ask. I do, however, care enough to ask about the job tonight. After all, I probably won’t be of much use if I don’t know anything about what we’re supposed to do before we get there. I probably won’t be of much use even with prior knowledge, but it certainly reduces the risk of messing up.
When I do, she tells me to wait in the red room. She heads off into the foyer and comes back a couple minutes later with a small external chip. She hands it to me, telling me to insert it into my neural port. Curious, I comply, and soon a video file pops up on my neural display, in my internal storage. I select it, and a new window in which a video play button sits at the centre pops up, taking up my entire view. I select that, as well, and the video starts playing. It’s drone footage of a tall, black-and-orange building into which an elevated viaduct leads. Flashy billboards promoting various products surround the neighbouring industrial complexes, which are intricate networks of elevators, aerial walkways, and cargo lifts, each embedded with a heavy-duty conveyor system. Near the top of the black-and-orange building is a giant 07 glowing in neon white.
I’m unsure as to what I’m looking at, but Fingers promptly explains. It’s a Tech Facility operated by the company Techstrum. I remember that name. I saw it on the billboard not too long ago. They’re one of the leading software, AI, and cybersecurity development corporations in not only Neo Arcadia but the entire state. This is just one of their outlets, and it contains valuable proprietary algorithms, source code, and research data.
At least, according to Quillon Bennett, a fixer who’s been making the rounds for the better half of a decade now. He’s known for requiring highly specific schematics, blueprints, and sometimes tech samples that he can use to develop high-tier weaponry to sell on the black market. Sometimes to the same crews who got the material for him.
For this job, all he’s looking for is a data chip containing information about Techstrum’s upcoming advancements so he can develop them first and perhaps even improve or change aspects of their design, all in the name of profit, great profit.
I ponder, wondering why she would bring me along on such a big job for my first time, but it turns out that’s not what she wants us to do tonight. Hell, it might be a while yet before they get around to that sort of business. This is their end-goal, their big money-maker, so to speak. There are a lot of small jobs they must get done before they even think about taking on something like this, starting with securing enough assets.
“Assets?” I say.
Fingers notices my expression, one of utmost confusion, and chuckles. It’s the sort of chuckle you’d expect to hear after saying something very foolish.
Did I?
“You can’t have been out of the game for that long, can you?” she says, slightly hunched. “Everything on you is an asset. Your guns. Your optics. Those bloody clothes that you for some reason thought were appropriated for an application.”
“So, in other words, you’re talking cyberware?” I say.
She’d clearly been expecting that response. I know by the smirk. “Not just cyberware,” she starts. “Know, cyberware can only get you so far when it comes to pulling off successful jobs. Sure, might help in a street fight or shoot-off but eventually the scale tips the iceberg, and you end up fighting against big dragons, the real decked-out dudes, the ones that work for corporate powerhouses. Not even the NACP can match what the government has.
“Best asset is intelligence. The more intelligence we have, the more successful the job will go. If gatherin’ intelligence means gatherin’ pieces like netcrawlers, spoofers, the lot, then that’s what we gotta do.”
I nod, although not fully understanding the explanation. Surely, at some point, strong enough cyberware would overwrite the use of intelligence.... Right?
The video shuts off and the data chip pops out of my neural port like a burnt piece of toast. Fingers takes it and lays it on a nearby desk, among clutter. Seems she doesn’t care much about losing potentially vital items, or maybe she already has all the information downloaded onto that big blue head of hers.
She tells me that tonight’s job is simple, something to really test my ability to perform. “Your shooting is good, downright impressive, I give you that, but I’m more interested in seeing how you deal with people. Not everything is gung-ho. ’Fact it ain’t much to what we do at all. We’re gonna negotiate a deal with a netrunner. He has some spoofers. ’Member what I said about assets?”
“That the only true asset is intelligence?” I say, almost sarcastically.
She nods curtly. “You catch on quick, don’t you, Mono?”
Now I’m really confused. “Mono?”
“Because of the arm.” She points. “One-armed killer.”
“Maybe if I had one arm, but I still have both, so it doesn’t really work. Wish I could just chop it off.”
Her facial muscles sag into something like curiosity, and in an almost (but not quite) grandmotherly way, wrinkles crease at the sides of her eyes, bearing the weight of years she has yet to live. If I had to guess, I’d put her age somewhere in the thirty-to-forty bracket. It’s nearly impossible to tell with all the anti-aging treatments readily available at any counter. There are countless ads throughout the city advertising the same. But I’d like to think that she’s wiser than she looks. How else would she have gotten here, running a team of criminals?
“Point is,” Fingers says, “the person we’re going to meet is one of the only private dealers in the city that has access to military-grade hardware. For affordable prices, too, sometimes trades.”
“So, you want me to help negotiate a price?” I say, fiddling with the sleeve covering my broken arm. I don’t think I’m much for talking. The whole show I managed to pull off in the shooting range was a fluke, something even I didn’t expect. There was no control. It was instinctual. Talking, negotiating.... That’s different.
She shakes her head, stuffing her hands in her pockets and leaning on the desk. The red fluorescent bulb overhead casts shifting shadows across her face, obscuring the upper portion and making her feelings difficult to discern. “Since this is your first day and I still gotta warm up to you a little, I’ll let you come along, watch, see how we do things. It’s important you learn for yourself how to negotiate deals because nine times out of ten we won’t be with you. We all gotta do our part and, unless it’s big money we’re talking, you’ll be doing it alone.”
That’s relieving.
“That said,” she adds, almost as if there’s a caveat to the whole thing, “you’re not gonna be a stray dog either. Things get hectic, you and that sister-assassin arm will have to draw blood. It’s rare, but some sellers don’t intend to give you anything once the creds are transferred. Business for you.”
Although the prospect of things getting violent isn’t something I or any person in the right mind would want, emphasis on the right mind, I’m sure I can handle myself, provided the last encounter wasn’t just luck.
Later, Fingers asks all sorts of questions about what I can and can’t remember. Dr. Maelstrom mentioned nothing about it to her, possibly because she would have denied me right away.
She even grabs me a glass of water. Nice of her.
I explain as much as I can, which is very little. She asks me what it was like, being dead. I tell her I don’t know that either. One moment I was alive and the next I wasn’t. As far as I’m aware, my life started there, in that circuitery, as Vance calls it, because everything before that point isn’t just a blur—it’s a black spot. Something cut straight from my brain, leaving only the ring-shaped edge.
My theory is that I’d been shot in the head, but if that’s the case then Vance should have been able to see it, to tell me. The only signs of damage are in my mid to lower abdomen.
It sucks not knowing, really sucks.
“I bet it does,” she says, taking a sip of her Chromanticore energy drink. It’s an abnormally large can for what it contains. She flicks her jackknife in and out, glaring, peering into my soul. Her legs are crossed on the coffee table in the office, showing off her thick, waterproof leather boots. They could use a wash, especially the soles, which are smothered in mud, wet grass, and possibly animal faeces. She waddles them from side to side; the gunk is so old and hard that it holds strong.
“Aside from all... well... this, what do you guys do to kill time?” I ask.
“Not much,” Fingers says, removing her feet from the table and leaning forward. She places the energy drink and jackknife on the table, then pulls out her mobile phone and starts swiping through it. “It’s not often that all of us are here, in this dump. Most of us have apartments in the city. This is just for meetings or prepping for moderate jobs. I’m the one that secures leads with fixers. Though I’m always willing to hear out what my team has to say.” She hesitates for a second but continues. “Only reason we got together today was.... Well, two reasons. Numero uno: We already have job, as you know. So, we were gonna run through the deats. That’s when I got the call from Maelstrom, chewin’ me out about how I owe him a favour.
“So, I let the boys know, and they couldn’t wait to show up and see what the new chromie was all about. They’re used to seeing failures, so you were a sweet surprise, I’d say.”
“That makes sense,” I say, taking a sip from the glass of water. “So, it really is more like a team here than a gang?”
She takes a deep breath and smiles ruefully. “What we do is illegal. By modern societal standards, we’re not good people. We kill when we have to. We steal. We hack into private businesses. It’s not a life any of us particularly opted for, but it’s what we do. Raze doesn’t like to think of as a gang because he sees something good about all of this. But we’re criminals. There’s no changing that.”
I look guiltily at my glass of water and shuffle my feet. I can’t imagine myself being involved in that line of work, but everyone has to survive. With forced gaiety, I say, “I’m sure you’re not bad people. If there’s anything I remember from my past, it’s that this city is overcooked with inequality.” It’s not really something I remember, but in lieu of remaining silent, I find it’s a nice topic to add.
She blows a laugh from her nose, then nods, eyes downcast. She grabs her energy drink, takes another swig, holds the liquid in her mouth, swirls it about, and swallows. She throws the can across the room. It lands gracefully in a lidless trashcan. She stands up, takes her jackknife, and offers me a hand with a slightly deprecatory smile. I take it and stand with her. “We should get movin’, it’s going on six o’clock.” Then, as if suddenly remembering, she adds, “You have a phone? Should’ve asked this earlier but you really need a phone, and a new set of clothes. I can lend you some. It’s no problem.”
I was hoping she would offer something like that. Frankly, these clothes aren’t my style anyway, less the possibility of every known disease in Neo Arcadia being prevalent in this lady’s blood. I secretly hope she’ll offer a phone, too, but that seems unlikely as things stand. “No phone, but I can see about getting one.”
“Should have robbed one off whoever you got those clothes from,” she says, chuckling.
I look down at the blood, embarrassed. “There weren’t any. I think they had everything embedded in their cyberware.”
“Smart,” she says, “until you click on a dodgy link and a virus wipes you out, ’less you can afford to get it removed, which I doubt they would have if they had to scrounge pennies from corpses, as you say.” She goes over to the desk on the far-right side of the room, gets down on one knee, and pulls out a small hard case. She pops it open, revealing plastic coverings encasing clothing sets. “Size are you?”
“Small, I think.” I check the collar of the leather jacket to see if there are any dimensions on the tag. Negative. Whatever tag had been attached to the collar is now torn off, replaced by the stencil of a white wolf. Must be an affiliation symbol of some sort. Might keep an eye out for it in future, because something tells me I’ll be seeing that shorter man who took off again, although probably not for another long while yet.
Fingers tosses me the plastic package. I look inside and see it’s a sleek black jacket with puffy, shiny sleeves made of a high-gloss synthetic material. The buttons glow softly with a yellow hue. I like it. Looks snug. Then she tosses me a second package: a pair of crimson jeans, textured with a spiderweb fibre. Then, after a moment, she tosses another, and inside of it is a simple white T-shirt.
“You’ll have to keep the shoes,” she says, “but you can dump the rest in the trash chute outside, just as you leave the building.”
“Where do I change?”
Fingers shuts the hard case and slides it under the desk again. She cocks an eyebrow at me, as if I’m an unexpected visitor. “Something wrong with here?”
I’m not sure what to say. I’m not entirely comfortable getting naked in front of someone I just met. Maybe I’m overthinking. Maybe that’s the least of my worries. “It’s not that. I just thought you wouldn’t want me to—”
“You really think I’ve never seen a woman naked before? Get dressed.” There’s that breathy laugh through the nose again, only this time it’s more amused. I’m sure she’s seen plenty of naked bodies in her time.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
A couple minutes later, I’m out of the scavenger’s get-up and into the jacket, shirt, and jeans. They’re a little tighter than I thought they would be, but for now they’ll do. I grab the bloody clothes off the floor, taking my time to collect them with my single arm, and when I stand upright again, Fingers is waiting in front of me with a dark-blue, oval-shaped bottle in hand. She’s pointing it straight at me and after a moment it shoots, blasting me with water.
I ask her what it is, and she tells me it’s an ocean perfume, to make people think of the Atlantic, but when I tell her I had lost my sense of smell it seems to lose its appeal. Despite that, she explains it’s not for me, but for the private seller. Statistically, there’s more haggle-room if you have a nice scent to you—so she says.
We head through the foyer, catch the elevator up to the ground floor, and head for the exit. The body of the sick man is no longer lying by the washing machine, but his vomit is all along the side; it’s an awful orange colour. Must have undercooked his spaghetti. I make vague reference to this as I dump my clothes into that trash chute near the front, and she tells me he’s just one of the drug addicts from the second floor. Sometimes he wanders the complex. Sometimes he gets into fights. At one point, a group of tenants kicked his ass out the door and dumped him in the alleyway dumpster. She only found out about it because the next morning she went to unload her garbage bag and was surprised to hear the trash ask her for a smoke.
The story makes me laugh. What can I say? Stuff like that hits me right in the funny bone. Hard to feel bad for him, of course. You make your bed, you lie in it, after all. That simple.
I just hope the bed I’m about to make for myself will be rather comfortable.
The night is chilly and starless. I shiver a little as I follow Fingers around the building to the parking lot, where the vehicle waits in desolate silence. It’s a Fragment Roamer: a large, grey jeep with a wheel punched to the rear, over twenty years old but kept in immaculate condition, with more than enough wax and polish to please the eye. There’s still water left over from the early evening rain; the droplets shimmer with the pink-blue iridescence of the city lights.
I make my way around to the passenger side, but Fingers stops me.
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” she says, waving a questioning hand.
“This is your ride, right?” I point, thinking I’ve made a fool of myself.
“It is,” she says, “but I’m not driving. You are.” She opens the driver’s-side door. “C’mon. Inside, now. It’s auto, so don’t worry that aimless little arm about shifting, know?”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
She pulls something small out from her front pocket. A key. “This”—she tosses it straight into my hand—“goes on the centre console. You don’t even have to put it in the ignition. She’ll start right up as soon as you’re in the driver seat.”
I stare. She can’t honestly expect me to drive with one hand. Never mind that; I’m not even sure I remember how to drive. “You’re sure about this?”
She walks around to me, opens the passenger-side door, and sits in. “Hurry up.” She shuts the door. The rain’s starting to drizzle down now. I get a move on and make my way around to the driver’s side. Once inside and I feel the seat warm up, I immediately get that familiar sensation again, as if I’ve been behind the wheel far too many times to count. I don’t even have to adjust the seat or mirrors because as soon as I press the “start” button the AI embedded in the vehicle’s software automatically finds the most comfortable seating for my frame. The mirrors change to accommodate this.
Fingers plugs her neural wire into the navigation port on the centre console and half a minute later a destination shows up on screen, along with directions. It’s an alleyway outside a nightclub called Catalyst. Thirty minutes from here. Fair distance.
“I’ll be your driving examiner today, Ms. Monorail Moester. Let’s see how much of your past life you really remember, ay?” Fingers speaks in a squeaky, nagging voice.
Let’s see how much I remember indeed.
I put the jeep into drive and let my foot up off the brake. Off I go, steadily out of the parking lot, avoiding the other cars with ease.
I remember this.
Once I leave the parking lot and join the busy traffic on the main street, I’m flooded with flashing lights: signals, halogen billboards, holograms, kiosks.
I remember this, too.
Pedestrians hop out onto the street, between the cars in the queue—men in kits ranging from fur hats to long coats to neon-coloured kuttes with punkish boots, women with tightly cut hair and form-fitting girl’s-night-out dresses—not a care in the world. It’s all so restless for a night drive, like there’s some special event we’re all lining up for, but Fingers tells me there hasn’t been a single quiet moment in Neo Arcadia since Techstrum started rolling out those new hydrocell engines.
Now everyone’s on the road, and the people on the streets.... Well, they never sleep. No need to. Too much work to be done.
I remember that, too.
It’s all a little overwhelming but I can handle it without too much of a problem. I actually find it a little exciting that I’m able to hold my own. Fingers, on the other hand, doesn’t seem all that impressed, which is likely because driving isn’t as difficult as, say, aiming well, having your wits about you, teamwork, all that jazz. Those are the areas I need to impress her in, and I’ve already achieved one. That stands for me, at least.
Although the navigation system details a thirty-minute journey from the Old Mill, it takes forty-five, fifty with the traffic. And with my slow, one-handed driving. Eventually, among the blazing storefront lights, traffic signals, and flashing road-mark holograms, I see a long line barriered by velvet stanchions, leading up to wide steel door guarded by two, freakishly muscled bouncers. A sign, crisp and sharp and dazzling, reads, in graffitied characters, CATALYST.
Fingers directs me to the parking lot around the corner. I turn in, finding it to be much quieter. Most of the parking bays are full but thankfully there are a couple spaces down the path, next to some amber-blinking bollards. I pull in smoothly, then shift the jeep into park before switching the ignition off with a push of the start/stop button.
Fingers is grinning broadly. She opens the door, letting the rain pass in, then steps out, shutting it behind her. I soon follow, nearly forgetting to grab the key on the way out, and lock. The jeep doesn’t beep as I had expected to; instead, the sidemirrors fold inwards, like the ears of a dog who realises through its limited understanding of human emotion that it shouldn’t have defecated over the kitchen floor. I stuff the key in my front jean pocket, making sure to zip it tight, just in case it manages to slip, and approach Fingers. She still has that broad smile on her face. She pulls out a mobile phone, swipes through a list of contacts, and starts texting.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, kid?” she says, not taking her eyes off the screen.
I shrug, stuffing my hand in my pocket. It's getting real cold out. “They supposed to meet us here?”
“Who’s they?”
“This person, this seller.”
She puts the phone back in her pocket and stares at me dumbly. “In this rain? No, it’s around the corner.” She points over my shoulder, and when I turn, I expect to see an alley veering off to the side, next to the nightclub, similar to Dr. Maelstrom’s medical unit, but I’m surprised, not scared, to see a large shadow of man standing over me. It’s Raze—I can make out that resting bitchface even through his upturned hood. He has another cigar in his mouth. He’s hunched so the rain doesn’t quench it.
“Boo,” he says, his voice deep and imposing.
I back away, wondering how he’d managed to creep up on me without making a single sound. Someone that big and heavy, and with the sort of boots that make resounding thumps with each step, would surely be hard to miss.
Fingers’ grin finally cracks open into wheezy laughter. She’d been holding it all along. “Like a tiger, isn’t he?”
I nod. “Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“She’s shittin’ herself, Fingers.” Raze chuffs out smoke and stubs the tip on his jacket before flicking it on the ground. He tries to blow the smoke into my face, but a breeze passes it off. “We haven’t even started, girly.”
For the first time I realise he has a slightly foreign undertone to his speech, possibly Mexican. The way he pronounces his ‘e’s’ as ‘eh’s’ makes me think so, and the way he rolls his tongue at the end of his sentences sometimes. It’s odd.
Another voice comes from behind him. It’s Cormac, calling with an overly loud “Hello!”, and Vander, who comes strapped with a small fanny pack.
So he’s that sort of guy.
His lips are done up with robin’s-egg-blue lipstick, and he’s dressed smart casual, save for the raincoat. His slacks won’t hold up, not in this weather. “Wasn’t expectin’ you to actually er go through with bringin’ der new chromie.” His voice is side-cheeked, coming from one side of his mouth only.
“I wasn’t either,” says Fingers.
“Suppose she’s shern herself then?”
“She’s shown nothing yet,” says Raze, in an even lower tone.
“Right,” says Vander.
Cormac steeples his lengthy steel fingers and makes subtle tapping sounds with the tips. He turns towards me, and with a butleresque salaam, offers me a handshake. His fingers splay out like the legs of a spider. “I’m glad to have you on board,” he says politely, and with a most genuine smile.
I accept the handshake, feeling his icy grip. Part of me thinks he’s playing a joke, and in a moment I’ll feel a bolt of electricity shoot through my body, but to my relief he lets go and stands up straight again.
There’s an uneasiness about his presence that I can’t quite explain. I’m sure it’s my brain playing tricks on me. It had been in hibernation for the last forty-odd years, after all. I have some adjusting to do.
“Where’s this prick want to meet anyway?” asks Raze, focusing his attention on Fingers.
“According to his texts, right around the corner,” she says, “back the way you came. Just up there. See it?” She’s pointing again, in the same direction as before. This time when I look back, I see, beyond the flashing bollards, sure enough, an alleyway to the side of the nightclub. The wall on the other side looks to be a series of side-shops, kiosks, and milk-market joints. There are quite a few people heading in and out, some drunk and others gushing with sweeping heaps of moronic laughter. Just a typical night out, nothing more, nothing less.
Fingers leads us towards the alleyway; it’s protected by a long tarpaulin stretching the whole way down to the other end, and some way off to the side, where I imagine the series continues. The kiosks offer food, clothing, drinks, freshly cut meat, the likes of which hang from rusty hooks, skinned to fleshy white. A busker plays gentle guitar music a little farther down, and passersby toss coins into his case. As we pass, I see it’s fairly sparce. It’s not hard to understand why. He can’t sing—he sounds like a dying horse, to be perfectly honest—but his mechanical fingers do the guitar justice, possibly a musical augment he installed manually, possibly developed skill. Maybe both.
Surprisingly, Raze tosses him a coin, but adds: “Install a better voice box next time.”
The busker ignores him and continues singing in his dying-horse falsetto.
We turn left at the side alleyway, and it leads to a quieter area which splits off into two directions. Fingers leads us to the right, where the tarpaulin cuts off, and the alleyway spaces out into a secluded area full of chairs, parasols, and cityfolk drinking lager. I can tell by the foam-crested tops of each of their pint glasses. It’s a restaurant, because farther ahead is a sign which reads ‘Quick Bites’. The neon sign flickers intermittently, casting an eerie, pinkish glow over the courtyard. The thrum of its electrical circuits mingles with the voices of the patrons, which are gravelly and joyful. The walls surrounding this open-air nook are plastered with layers of old posters, their edges curling and colours faded. Pictures advertising concerts from five years ago; staff mustn’t have been bothered taking them down.
We follow Fingers into the front entrance of the interior, hands stuffed in our pockets like teenage hoodlums, catching glances from everyone, glances of suspicion and curiosity.
It’s a busy spot. Looks like something you might see from early eighties 20th century. Chequered floors, mahogany walls, a long marble counter with round red stools. Sure makes you feel like you’re back in time, save for the flashy cyberware scattered across the patrons’ bodies. That and the fact that things are far more colourful than they once were.
The sallow lady behind the counter, whose hair is shaved all the way to the scalp, sees us coming and lifts the swing gate at the end of the counter, beckoning us through. A patron laughs at this, saying we look nothing like cooks.
Nothing like crooks either.
The sallow bald lady leads us through the back, past the kitchen and stock room, and along a corridor that leads to a door with a pass code dial to the side. It’s already open, light creeps from underneath, and voices come from inside. She tips it open, causing the hinges to squeak. We all follow.
“Sir,” says the lady.
“Send them in,” a male voice says.
She walks away, hurries actually, low-heel dress shoes tapping and clocking back to the front of house.
We follow Fingers inside and Raze shuts the door. It’s a relatively small room, with bookshelves to the side and a row of lightstrips coasting across the ceiling, with that popular rainbow-colour changing effect. At the centre end, a man with wrinkly skin and grey hair sits on a desk, legs sprawled. His tight-lidded eyes give me the impression that he’s of Japanese descent, although it’s quite possible his roots could stem from anywhere in the Asian region. He wears a white button-up shirt, slacks, and suspenders, though he’s got the sort of skinny-fat where only a belt would suffice.
Around him are four bodyguards who all look identical. They’re wearing black suits with red shirts, hands entirely cybernetic, eyes and mouths hidden by three-piece visors that start from their chins. They’re sort of like masks in a way, with the bottom part securing the chin to the ears while the eye-cover bulges out across their skulls in elongated rectangles. No guns, no blades. Just their presence alone tells me they’re not to be messed with.
“Well,” the old man says curtly, “what have you for me? You no do any chaffering here. Listed price only. Four and a half thousand.” His accent shoots closer to China than anywhere else. Then, as if suddenly realising, he adds, “You bring whole gang? Why?”
“Same reason you have four punks who look like they just came out of a failed audition for the Men in Black remake,” says Raze coldly.
I thought the man would scowl at this, but he doesn’t. A smile creeps at the corner of his lips. “You funny man,” he says, pointing. “I like you. But we are here for serious discussion. You have credits for these items or are you wasting time?”
Fingers looks at him blankly, then as if there’s a bad taste in her mouth. “Have the creds,” she says, pulling out a chip from the side of her neural port. “Can I see it first?”
The man hums for a moment, then taps the table twice. One of the bodyguards heads over to the rightmost bookshelf and pulls a book back. It locks in place, but the bottom of the shelf slides out. A hidden drawer. Inside of it is a thick metal hard case with leather handles. He hoists it up easily, though I can tell by the way he sways his arm that it’s got some weight to it. He sets it on the desk as the old man moves out of the way. The old man places his palm on a hand-recognition scanner at the centre of the case and watches as two buckles pop up. Quickly, he stands to the side so that we can all see and pulls the case open.
Inside the case, sandwiched in foam cutouts, are sleek, handheld devices that look like a cross between a high-end smartphone and a piece of advanced military tech. The screens glow faintly, cycling through lines of code and encryption patterns. Each is equipped with a compact antenna, reminiscent of an old-school radio. The metal casings are matte black, adorned with small, precise engravings—serial numbers or perhaps calibration marks. Alongside them, there are tiny, flexible circuits and microchips.
The man rubs at his right cheek, as if testing for beard-stubble. The white of his left eye suddenly turns black while the iris turns red. He must be scanning us, checking our identities.
“Looks about right,” says Fingers. She cocks an eyebrow at him. “How do we know they work?”
The man chuckles, then picks up one of the devices, holding it like a phone. He pulls the neural wire out of his neck and plugs it into the side of the device. Now his irises turn blue.
Seconds later, my neural display begins acting up, shaking and darting across my vision. My vitals shake into a digital blur and my ability to coast through my storage is gone.
“Hits you right in the eyes,” says Vander. “Dare a good distance on it?”
He unplugs his wire from the device and places it back in the case. “It take out whole building. Five hundred metres. No problem. Signal can punch through most materials: concrete, steel, carbon padding. Disruption field scrambles any RFID chip, block signals and overwrites, takes out bad data.” He utters something in Mandarin, perhaps to himself. “Best for high-security infiltration. You want in? You take these. Military-grade scramblers imported and crafted by the best hands in China.”
So, it’s a spoofing device of some sort, if I’m understanding that clipped accent correctly. Sounds interesting, although I’m not entirely sure I understand the function behind it or how it applies to Fingers’ goal of snatching data from Techstrum.
“I take it you’re Chinese yourself?” says Cormac, smiling.
The man draws back, shuts the case, startled. “My name’s Li Wei. What you think? You trying to be funny? You’re not so funny. Now you pay or get out.”
“How much you askin’ again?” asks Raze, pointing at the case.
“Four and half thousand,” says Li Wei.
There’s no question about it. This man doesn’t seem willing to negotiate in the slightest.
Raze chuckles. “No leeway, Li Wei?” Again, there’s that cold voice, but I suspect the older gentleman isn’t fazed. He probably deals with people like us all the time.
His face flushes brightly—the colour goes all the way down to his bullish neck. He isn’t nervous. I know that much. “Hand me the credits or get out,” he says, louder than before. “No credits, no business.”
Fingers steps forward. “Now listen,” she starts, “I’m—we are—very interested in purchasing your product, Mr. Wei. And we understand you’re a very busy busy man, so I want to make this quick. So.” She whips the cred chip out like a magician’s hidden ace. I nearly expect her to ask him if it’s his card. “Four and a half thousand, just as agreed, all in this chip.”
Li Wei’s iris turns red again, scanning the chip. He doesn’t reach for it yet. After a moment, he says, “Very good.” He turns to grab the case, then hands it over to her. Fingers slides him the chip, locking the transaction with a firm handshake. “Thank you for business. The code to the door is 0-9-0-9. Goodbye.”
Raze reaches for the dial pad and starts inputting the code.
After three dings, Li Wei raises his arm and shouts, “You stop!”
I look back, confused.
“You try to cheat me?” His red eyes segue into that same shade of blue from earlier.
“What is it?” I say, realising this isn’t really my place to speak. My heart pounds with adrenaline. I get the feeling things aren’t going to go so smoothly.
“This is two thousand.” Li Wei tosses the credit chip and snatches a pistol from his desk.
As if connected in an air-bound hivemind, each of the bodyguards raise their pistols, too, and so do Raze, Cormac, and Fingers. I’m the only one standing out in the draw; I didn’t expect any of this.
“You try to scam me? You fuckers. You make big mistake!” He’s screaming now.
Fingers scoffs. “What are you talking about? You saw the chip. It’s good.”
“I re-scanned it, you bastard,” Li Wei says, pointing the gun at her now. “You swapped chips when I wasn’t looking. You fast, I give you that, but you fucked with the wrong merchant.”
Suddenly another voice joins the scene; it’s the distant call of the lady from behind the counter. I can hear those heels clocking and thumping down the hallway again.
“Sir, sir!” she calls.
Li Wei glances over my shoulder upon her approach. When she comes through the door, she says, in a panic, “Company out front. They’re looking for the green-haired girl.”
Li Wei shoots her a perplexed glare.
“What?” both he and I say at the same time.
The sallow lady points at me. “You,” she says coldly. “They’re looking for you. And they don't sound too happy.”