“Who is responsible for the creation of the GHOST System, and why was it never released?” Trace asked the nanites somewhat shakily.

- The creation of the system was performed as a shared project by Meredith Koarden and her son Deckard Koarden

- The project was never finished due to the attack that they suffered at their main location

- It was during this attack that Deckard is believed to have been shot and killed by rival corporations' kill squads

He inhaled sharply and jerked back, his eyes finding the braincase on the nightstand.

If only two people were working on the project, then that meant only two people could have had it loaded at the time. The nanites had refused to tell him who it was before, but now they had revealed his identity in a roundabout manner. This was so much worse than he could ever imagine.

The steel goddess was not known as someone who could be reasoned with. If she even caught so much as a whiff that her son might still be alive, this entire region would be razed to the ground in her search for him.

Then again, if her enemies found out about him, then the response would be more or less the same.

Trace kept his eyes on the braincase for several long minutes, his mind scrambling and going in circles. The only saving grace he had at the moment was that Deckard was in a coma still. As soon as he woke up, something would need to be done. However, he could pretend he didn’t know who was inside the braincase until then.

Shaking his head, he cleared the extraneous thoughts from his mind and focused on the menu. After a moment, he selected ‘Build More’, and then special nanites. It seemed like all the other functions needed more special nanites -whatever those were- before they could become active.

With that done, he closed the menu and looked down at his ankles. A quick sniff of his armpit confirmed what he already knew. It was time for a shower.

Gingerly, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and over the next minute, he gradually increased the pressure and weight on his ankles. The bruising and pain from those injuries was still all there. The damage that his ankles and the ligaments had suffered all seemed to be better. Even after he stood and took a couple of steps, they felt fine.

It was the bruising that still hurt, not his ankles. There was some tenderness from the operational scar areas, but that was it.

Trace took a few more careful steps around the bedroom before he was satisfied that the nanites had indeed healed the damage. He took a moment to rifle through the pile of clean clothes and grabbed a pair of pants along with a shirt. The owner of the apartment had been a little bigger than him. It wasn’t too egregious, and Trace was used to buying clothes that were too large for his body.

When money was tight, you bought whatever was cheap and available. Size was mostly secondary, as long as a belt could make it work and the pant legs weren’t too long, then it fit. Compared to some of the clothes he had in his own closet, these clothes were practically made for him.

All they needed was a belt and some boots to be comfortable. The pants were just an inch or two too long at the inseam. As for the shirts, they were just a single size too large. He would be more than happy to steal the entire contents of this fellow's closet when the time came for him to leave.

He threw his dirty clothes in the pile of existing dirty clothes in the corner and headed to the shower.

Thankfully, the shower was actually a sani-spray dispenser and not a water shower. Some of the apartments he had been in before had some of those foul contraptions. It had been near impossible to get the smell and slimy film off his body and out of his hair.

Sani-spray dispenser showers, on the other hand, sprayed a fine mist of sanitizing solution. They might not be as satisfying as a water shower, but the sense of cleanliness you achieved was second to none.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, a few minutes later, he was feeling much better. Being clean again just had a sort of effect on your mental health that couldn’t be properly explained until you experienced its effects firsthand.

Now, he just needed to decide on what his next move was going to be.

While he was thinking about that, Trace grabbed all of the dirty clothes and shoved them down the cleaning chute. Then it was time for another marble, drink, and food. He had eaten more over the last few days than he could ever remember eating.

He had been ignoring the message that had come in from Stick-Point a few hours after Ko had left. Now that he knew he was able to walk around, it was time to face his wrath and confirm the details for the second job.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

‘Just heard back from Sevorah and Devko. The word is that you look like a bag of drek that was left to ferment outside for too long. Let this be a lesson to you on the dangers of taking leaps of faith. Regardless, the contract has been fulfilled, and I handed over everything you included in the data prism. The client was very happy with several of the files you included and has added a hefty bonus as promised. Make sure to delete all the information you gathered from the target’s computer. Never keep that sort of data for longer than you need to.’

After that was a notification for an incoming credit deposit for the amount of thirteen hundred and fifty credits. He nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw the amount. The bonus they had tacked on practically doubled the job’s original promised pay of seven hundred credits.

Another message from Stick-Point was sitting beneath the transfer, that he hadn’t even realized was there. Since he had ignored the first message, it hadn’t notified him of the subsequent messages, either.

‘I got the system-breacher module back. Good work on this job. Send me a message when you can so we can talk about the second job. I can hold it for a bit if you want, but not for long. Let me know.’

Trace walked into the office and looked over the rifles that were hanging on the wall. They were all certainly in better condition than the ones he had back at his own apartment. Did he really want to use someone else’s weapons though? That felt like going a step too far for some reason. Wearing their clothes, using their teaching modules, all of that was fine.

Weapons though… Those were personal, and without confirmation that the man was dead, he just didn’t know.

For the moment, he decided to just leave them all alone. Maybe later he would come back for them. Right now, though, it just didn’t feel right.

Trace headed over to the drawer with all of the modules and pulled out a few. There was a spare system’s breaching module that he snagged along with several teaching modules. He was heading back to his apartment and wouldn’t be back at this one for a few days, at least. It made sense to grab everything he needed now.

Trace replaced the two teaching modules he had already stored in his system and then closed the drawer. Gathering up his bags, he stuffed as many of the more durable-looking clothes as he could into one of them, along with the braincase. In another went all the remaining food, drinks, and titanium. The duffel bag he left alone; all the various modules he had grabbed would go in his courier bag.

In other words, he looked absolutely ridiculous, but what else was new?

The final item was simply making sure that the place was firmly locked up behind him as he left. Then he calmly walked out and headed for the elevators.

Trace kept his eyes wide open and constantly scanning until he had left the building behind. It had taken him several days, far more than he initially intended, but he had gotten away clean.

Back at his apartment, Trace pushed open a partially destroyed door to an utter mess. The electronics he had taken apart and then stored for disposal in the crate were strewn all over the front section. Farther in, he saw that things only got worse. The table had been reduced to kindling, and his lumpy couch had more holes than pieces of stuffing left in it.

The door to the fridge had been ripped off, and the contents stolen.

The inside of his room was an absolute mess, and it only then occurred to him how it must have looked to Ko. He had been trying to hide the braincase by piling everything on the bed. But she wouldn’t have known that.

Now, all those items had been flung everywhere, without a care for their condition. Pushing the bed to the side, he found the original hiding spot for the braincase. Ko had found it readily enough. Apparently, it was too good of a hiding spot for the scavs. All of the data prisms he had taken from them were still hidden in the hole.

Really, they hadn’t taken much. A lot had been destroyed, but that was it. All of the items he had stolen from them were still here. Either they had been interrupted, which considering how low the rent for this place was, he doubted. Or, they had been solely focused on retrieving a singular item. The question was what was it? The data prisms, or the braincase?

All he knew was that he wouldn’t be staying at this apartment any longer. He had meant to find a new place to live after the job with the scavs. Now that need had just crept to the top of his list. He would use the other apartment in the meantime. The place was comfortable.

With that decided, he began ferrying trash out of the apartment and down to the chute, one armload at a time. He repaired the crate and every time he found something that he was going to keep; it went inside the crate. The weapons and loose ammunition were first, followed by the first-aid kits. A couple of his better tools went next, followed by the data prisms and his undergarments. That was really it, outside of a few knickknacks.

His entire life in the apartment filled just over half the crate. All his clothes were in terrible condition, so he was just going to keep wearing the other fellows. The tech was all getting thrown out. He had nothing else.

With a strange sense of hollowness, he broke the rental agreement and called for a van to come and pick him up.

He had known, or at least strongly suspected, his apartment would be targeted by the scavs. The fact that it had wasn’t surprising, but how violating it felt to be targeted in this manner. He had been robbed before, and his apartment had been broken into several times before. Those were simply a fact of life when you lived in this part of Denver.

Trace had never been targeted by a specific group before, especially not one that had followed through on their threats. It left him feeling less than stellar.

He thumbed the button for the elevator; the doors grinding as they opened right away. It was already on his floor, likely from when he had used it last, considering how often the fracking thing broke down. Pushing the crate inside, he pushed the button for the ground floor.

The doors squealed as they slowly ground closed, and then nothing happened.

With a grunt of annoyance, he kicked the wall just beneath the buttons. With a shudder, the elevator began to go down.

It figures that he would finally figure out how to get the stupid thing to work after it had been stuck right as he was moving. Isn’t that just the way life works?

The van was already sitting there waiting for him when he rolled the crate out and a minute later he was on his way back to what he now considered his apartment.