Trace rolled off his bed with a groan. Everything hurt. He swore his bones felt sensitive, and his back utterly ached. You were supposed to wake up feeling better, not worse.

It took several stretches, and body-cracking positions for him to start feeling better.

He had managed to force down most of the pile of metal the night before, along with more food than he normally ate. His stomach had protested at being overly full, along with the small shards of metal he had carefully eaten.

Now, he was regretting giving the little fracking robots so much material to work with.

Just as expected, a new message was waiting for him in the corner of his vision when he looked for it.

- Construction of additional nanites has begun (non-medical grade titanium found mixed with aluminum, steel, bronze, and other trace metals)

- Repairs to skeletal bones have recommenced

- Time Until Completion: Unknown – Time Model to be exchanged for a more efficient percentage-based model

- Skeletal System Repair (Percent Completed): 11%

- Muscular System Repair (Percent Completed): 00%

- Repairs have paused due to lack of required materials

- More nutritious matter will be needed to perform the needed repairs.

- Provide the various matter resources through the stomach receptacle as soon as possible

He took in that percentage and cursed. Just how messed up were his bones? They had been working on him for two nights and only gotten to eleven percent! Was that a lot or a little? It felt like a small amount, but for all he knew, it could actually be an incredibly large amount.

Shaking his head at his own ignorance, he retrieved the braincase from under his bed and set it on the table. It was time to refill the nutrient mix.

“Any signs of your host waking up yet?”

- …Negative

- Effects from sustained, long-term coma are unexplored

- Waking must be done in careful, controlled stages

“Right,” He sighed and went back to the task of filling the port full of nutrient mix. “Alright, well, I’m going to hide the braincase again and get back to doing my own thing. Let me know if your host wakes early or something.”

The marker in the corner of his vision blinked a couple of times in acknowledgment and then faded from view.

Trace managed to stuff a few more pieces of metal down his throat during breakfast. A can of soda provided copious amounts of lubrication as he forced it all down with a burrito.

After that, he finished going through the various items in his apartment and tearing them apart. Just like before, he continued to gather useful components, while the rest of it went into the crate by the door. Unfortunately, these latest items didn’t have any titanium in them, as he had already grabbed all of those pieces earlier.

The box he was using to store the various components he was collecting was nowhere near full, but the bottom was now covered, at least.

It was nearing lunchtime when he finished the last item. His apartment was looking much less cluttered with all the old tech removed and now in the crate waiting disposal. That would make it easier when he found a new place to move to. Which would hopefully be in the near future.

With that goal in mind, he called Stick-Point, who answered right away.

“It took you long enough to call me boy! I was expecting this call the other night after you finished up with Sevorah.” Trace winced and turned down the volume on the call.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn’t exactly feeling myself for most of the night. Then yesterday I had to run a bunch of errands and talk to Jonas the Slick. You know how it goes.”

“Humph, I told you not to take any jobs from that loser, and now look what has happened. He doesn’t even properly have someone watching out for his own clients.”

Trace felt his eyes narrow. “How do you know he didn’t have someone on overwatch, Stick?” He growled. “Are you the reason he looked so rough yesterday morning? Did you go and talk to him before I had a chance to?”

“Yes. Got a problem with it?”

He gnashed his teeth in anger before finally finding something to say. “You crossed a line Stick-Point! That could cost me respect with the other edgers if he talks in the coming days.”

The other man guffawed. “If anything, it would increase your respect to have someone like me being willing to step in like that for you. It doesn’t matter, he won’t talk. He never does. How do you think he stays in business? All of us know his secrets, and we keep warning you all away from him. Still, the desperate ones can’t stay away.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“That’s why I never see anyone respectable working with him,” He muttered after a moment. “Wait, what does that mean about the job I did then? Is the client not interested in going after all the scav dens in the cell?”

“I doubt it. They probably just wanted the location information to sell it themselves. It was more than likely a job from an information broker looking to work on the cheap. It happens all the time.”

“Huh, well, that is slightly disappointing.” He stared up at the ceiling for a few moments in silence, simply processing what he had learned. “Anyway, I called for two reasons. One was just to let you know I was still alive, and two to see if you had any work for me. I got some new gear from the scav den, and cyberware from Sevorah. I figure I might finally meet your requirements.”

“Hah, I know. She already sent me a message telling me what augments you got. Those eyes are quality pieces of work. The NetConnect is nothing special, but it’ll get you started at least. I’ll send you some details later, for a place to check out. I know you have been wanting to start programming. This place will have the modules you need at a reasonable price. Now let’s see what jobs are available at the moment…”

While the old man was making him wait, Trace began taking apart and cleaning each of the guns he had decided to keep. The revolver and the semi-auto on his hip were the only clean ones in the bunch.

“Ugh, this rifle is disgusting,” He muttered to himself as he was forced to use a pick to clear away some of the grime before he could even take it apart. “Seriously, who lets blood get caked on that thick in the first place?”

He was suddenly second-guessing each of the guns he had chosen to keep. Had all the rest been this bad, or was he just unlucky? He had thought he had been picking the guns in the best condition. Which, if that was actually true, he might want to avoid that gun shop for a while. That man would not be happy with him.

“You still thinking of becoming a wraith?” Stick-Point asked suddenly.

“Yeah, why? What’s up?”

“Nothing, just wondering. I have a couple of jobs here that require a more delicate touch than my current crop of edgers can manage. The ones I would give these to are all on other assignments already, or out of touch. So, what do you say, want to try one?”

Trace licked his suddenly dry lips, the rifle he had been cleaning forgotten on the table. “Absolutely. Just tell me what the job is, and the preferred method, if any.”

Wraiths were different from reapers and the other specializations that existed at the top echelons of edgers. He had always felt as though they had more freedom than the others in how they went about their work. Whether or not that was true, he didn’t know, but it was what had originally drawn him to them.

A wraith was a shadow, someone who snuck in and out of places while being virtually undetectable. Yet, that wasn’t all they were. Yes, they were sneaks, but they were also assassins if the job called for it, thieves, information gathers, and even the occasional system breacher. They did a little bit of everything when the job called for it. The only stipulation was that it had to be done silently.

“I have two I think you can manage with your current augs. One is similar to what you just did, or at least the original job. You’d be sneaking in and stealing some information from their computer. I would give you a special system breaching module you can use for the job. Extra credits could be earned by retrieving additional information or documents you find at the location. Use your own discretion on the matter. The other job is icework. You can choose the method on that one, as long as it’s silent, and the target is put on ice, permanently.”

Trace looked down at the rifle he had been working on, his fingers continuing to slowly pick at the grime. “What’s the pay like?”

“It’s a seven hundred for the first job, but the target location is somewhat nice. The icework job is fifteen hundred flat; no sticky fingers.”

He had nothing against icing someone. It was simply the way the world worked. If you got on someone’s bad side, then this was the way it ended. It didn’t matter if you were a corpo rat or a simple suit living their lives. No one these days valued lives, only credits. Humanity had lost the right to value their lives when they had attacked the goddess’ child years before.

“Either is fine… How about both, as long as the deadlines aren’t too close together?” He said after a few moments of thought.

“That’s doable. I would suggest doing the retrieval job first. Use the credits to outfit yourself for the second one and don’t forget to save what you can. Sevorah told me how much you owed on those eyes.” He whistled in mock appreciation.

“She did give you a good price on them, but boy, did you ever let her take you for a ride. She has been trying to stick those things in someone for a while. Mil-spec-rated cyberware is different from your run-of-the-mill stuff. It needs special augments and tuning for it all to work properly. Or someone who still has all the plasticity in their connections. In other words, a young person like yourself, but it has to be someone who has never exchanged their cyberware.”

“Wait, so you mean, she experimented on me?” Trace asked, starting to get a little mad.

“No, not at all. She knew it would work. I’m just saying, you happened to be the perfect subject for her to… confirm what she already knew.”

“So what, these eyes wouldn’t have worked normally for other people?”

“Not without the additional tuning and special augments to control everything, no. Just be careful with them. They are powerful and usually controlled by more than just the brain.”

“Hmm, sounds like I should make her pay me then. Ugh, whatever, I’ll be careful. Send me the information on both jobs and a location on where to pick up the module. I have to get back to cleaning these guns. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yup, already done.” The line went dead, and a second later, he received a message with all the details on both jobs.

He looked over the specifics while he finished cleaning the guns. Giving each of them a good scrubbing, followed by oil on the needed parts.

For him, these two jobs paid a lot. However, in reality, they were bottom of the barrel in regard to pay for both. That meant Stick-Point was hopefully starting him out on some easy jobs. He would need to think about how he wanted to ice the target. Did he want to get up close and personal, or try his hand at a long-range shot?

Shooting would be best, but his accuracy was terrible. Then again, his new eyes were capable of integrating with the sights of a gun. He didn’t know how much that would help, but it was something worth exploring.

Right now, he needed to concentrate on how he was going to sneak into the apartment for the retrieval job. Stick-Point hadn’t been kidding when he said the location was somewhat nice. Although, in his opinion, you could remove the ‘somewhat’ entirely.

The apartment was on the ninth floor of a thirty-floor building. With the lower twenty floors all dedicated to housing, and the upper ten to various businesses. That meant it was a pretty nice place to live. The businesses operating out of the building would ensure that was the case. After all, they had an image to maintain, and dirty apartments that anyone could afford just wouldn’t do them any favors.