Trace had managed to sort through a portion of the information on the data prism by the time Ko arrived with everything. From the look of the bags in her arms, she had brought more stuff with her than he had asked her to. Not that he was going to complain, she was doing him a favor after all.

There had indeed been a whole host of home movies made by the pervert. He had no desire to watch those and deleted them right away. A simple search pulled up all the documents on the prism, and a few of the titles led to him including them on what he would give to Stick-Point.

He would let the client decide if they were worth a bonus or not. Judging by the titles, they were along the lines of what he was looking for, but he wasn’t going to open them and double-check. A fact that he made sure Stick-Point was aware of and would tell the client. He didn’t want any of this coming back on him later.

Ko entered the apartment and pushed back the chair he was sitting on. “I wasn’t expecting you to be holed up in such a nice place.”

“Yeah, me neither. I think the owner is dead though, so the place is mine for the moment.” That earned him a raised brow. “Come on, I’ll show you what I mean.”

A short walk later, she was standing in the office, studying the wall with the screen on it that had all the information about the Sekmore Snak-Co employees displayed on it.

“I remember hearing about this attack,” She muttered almost reverently. “The medical portion of the clinic used to receive some of their victims every couple of days. Sevorah was so mad they hadn’t managed to do more damage to the corporation in the attack.”

“It looks like their original plan would have done plenty of damage. Then, for whatever reason, he changed it at the last moment.” Trace told her, showing her how much effort, the owner of the apartment had put into planning his revenge, only to throw it all away.

She placed several bags carefully on the desk. “You got lucky finding this place, especially since you injured yourself reaching it. I got everything you asked for in these bags. Now, let me take a look at your ankles.”

Ko kneeled down in front of him and lifted up the ragged edges of his pant leg. “I’m amazed the swelling has already gone down this much. What were you taking?”

“Some pain and anti-inflammatory pills I recovered from the scavs.” He replied sheepishly.

She shook her head in amusement but didn’t say anything. Taking off the backpack she had been wearing, she began pulling out various pieces of medical equipment he didn’t recognize.

“Did you bring an entire emergency kit with you?” He joked.

“Of course. Just because you said you damaged some ligaments doesn’t mean anything. Who says you know what you are talking about? I had to be prepared for every eventuality.” She replied seriously.

Trace groaned. “Ko, you can’t just go carrying around that sort of equipment. Someone is going to try to steal it from you.”

“They’re welcome to try.” A monofilament whip appeared at the tip of several of her fingers. She was ready to dice anyone who got too close.

“Just be careful. People carry guns for a reason, you know? So, they don’t have to get close to scary people like you.”

She grinned at his description of her and set about her task of scanning him. “You have deep bruising all the way to the bone from where you must have hit something. That will be painful for sure, but will heal just fine on its own. The main issue is the torn and damaged ligaments. The major ligaments are only damaged and on their own, they can take several months to heal.

“The torn ligaments, however, will require surgery. To reconnect the ends together, I can do that here though with what I brought with me. It won’t be the best job, but it will get the process started. I would suggest having Sevorah clean it up and remove any scar tissue that forms later.”

He nodded. Anything that helped the nanites heal his body faster was good in his book, and reconnecting the torn ends could only help. “Alright, let’s do it. As long as you’re confident you won’t have me walking weird afterward.”

Ko rolled her eyes and snorted. “If I was the one actually doing the operation, then maybe. All I will be doing is making sure the machine knows which ligament is damaged and is set in the proper location. A program will do the rest.”

She quickly strapped a machine to his leg and adjusted it, so it sat around his ankle. Without waiting for his permission, she inputted the appropriate settings and pushed the start button. A jet-injector pressed against his skin and shot in a local anesthesia. As it pulled away, he got a quick glimpse of the indentation it had created. There was absolutely no splash-back from his blood, or even any visible holes from the compressed air delivery system, at least not at the moment.

The machine gave the anesthesia a few seconds to work before a laser scalpel began cutting into his leg.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Ko reached into her bag as the automated process began its work. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take this back to the clinic?”

The braincase was in her hands.

He nodded. “I’m sure. If those scavs try and retrieve it, I don’t want them going after you. Besides, the poor person is in a coma and totally unresponsive at the moment. All I’m going to be doing is making sure their nutrient mix is topped up and watching to see if they come out of it.”

She rolled her eyes and passed the case to him. “That is a thin excuse, Trace. How would the scavs even know we had it at the clinic in the first place? I’ve already run a scan on it and there aren’t any transmitters of that nature on it.”

“Fine, I have my own reasons for wanting to keep it close right now, and I’m just being cautious. However, the data I found on the prism shards is enough to keep the scavs coming after it for a long time. Once they figure out who stole it all, I will have them coming after me. You were right about that.”

She gave him a deep, penetrating stare. “And what valid reasons could someone have for wanting to keep a comatose braincase?”

He sighed and took it from her hands. “I don’t know how close you looked it over before coming here, but it doesn’t have any identifiers on it. There are no corporation marks, nothing. Then there was the case I found it in, which was completely custom and old. I think this could be some sort of old prototype braincase. I want to find out who made it and how old it really is. I’ve never seen a model like it before. I like tech stuff. It’s one of my hobbies.”

All true, though a little twisted.

She took it back and began closely examining it. “Huh, you’re right. There aren’t any marks on it anywhere to indicate who made it or when. Fine, just be careful. I’ll take a few photos of it as well and see what I can find among the medical community.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He reached into his bag and grabbed the data prism he had prepared for her, along with the system breaching module. “This is the information for the job and the module. Tell Stick-Point thanks for trusting me to get the job done, even if I did kind of screw it up in the end.”

She placed both in a pouch in her bag and then just sat beside him as the machine worked on his ankle. The two talked about everything they could think of, the conversation coming in fits and bursts. It wasn’t awkward per se, but they were still getting to know each other, and both of them were clearly loners by nature.

When it finished on his first ankle, she placed it on his second one and set it up the same way.

“How did you get hooked up with Sevorah, anyway? If you don’t mind me asking?” He inquired as she finished inputting the new directions on the surgical machine.

Her hand touched her throat, the action seeming an unconscious one on her part. “Sekmore isn’t the only corporation that has tried to introduce various brain-altering chemicals into the formulas of their food. Another corporation tried it six years ago, and I’m sure there were others before that one. The effects on those who were addicted to their product were more violent than they anticipated.

“A few of the victims turned to cannibalism when they couldn’t afford it any longer. My own mother did this to me with her teeth in a fit of blind rage. Thankfully, the neighbors heard and called Sevorah. My mother was put into an institution until she recovered, but now she won’t even look at me. Sevorah took me in and fixed my throat. I’ve been learning from her ever since.”

Trace had not been expecting anything like that. “Wow, I’m sorry. No wonder you were so interested in the attack on Sekmore then. What happened to the corporation that did that to you and your mother? Anything?”

She shook her head. “No, unlike Sekmore, they were and are a proper-sized corporation. They paid out a few bribes and medical bills and then made the entire problem go away. They did at least change their formula to cause fewer issues, but they are still around and larger than ever.”

“Did anyone ever try and do anything to them?”

She snorted and swiped at her eyes. “Yeah, right, you saw what happened to the owner of this apartment, and Sekmore is a tiny corporation. On the other hand, Siren’s Rush was creeping into midsize range at the time, something that they are firmly in now. If anyone dared to try anything against them back then, I certainly never heard about it. They would have been efficiently removed and taken care of before word could ever reach the news.” The bitterness in her voice held a distinct edge of helplessness to it.

Trace found himself holding her hand, stroking the back of her fingers in what he hoped was a calming manner. “Well, we have a blueprint right here for attacking a corporation, and I mean the original method, not the one he decided to go with. It would take a lot of training, and luck along with some modifications, but I’m sure we could modify it to fit the Siren’s Rush corporation.”

She looked up at the screen and slowly nodded. “It might be worth looking into. If not with us, then possibly having another team do it. They hurt a lot of people back then.”

“Fair enough. Now how much do I owe you for the food, titanium slivers, delivery, and fixing me up?” He asked with what he hoped was a roguish smile.

“You’re getting a discount on some of the services this time. Sevorah is still using you to get into Stick-Point's good graces.”

He scoffed. “Please, that man is so lonely he would agree to a date with a corpo-rat at this point. She mentioned before that they’ve been friends for years; she just needs to take the plunge. That said, I will gladly take all the discounts I can get.”

A moment later, a bill for four hundred and fifty credits came through. It was a lot, but he could also guarantee that there really had been a hefty discount applied to the services. Still, it was annoying to see his funds drop so severely in one go.

Without a word, he paid it.

Leaning against the wall, the two made small talk for the next few minutes while the surgical machine finished working on his ankle. Her telling him about her past had made everything a little awkward between them. They weren’t close enough to simply brush past it, but they also weren’t distant enough to simply ignore it and each other.

He could tell her about his past, but honestly, there was nothing special there. His story was the same as millions of others. His parents had died when he was a kid, and everything inside the apartment had been confiscated to pay their debts. He had been thrown out on the streets to fend for himself when he was six, nearly seven years old.

Those days had been hard, especially the winters. The winters in Denver were brutal, with the spring season being little better. The rain was always ice cold and could chill you to the bone in seconds.

It was a common story. The only special thing about it was that it was his.

Thankfully, he was kept from sharing the pitiful truth as the machine beeped and disengaged. After saying their farewells, she packed everything up and left with a sigh of relief.