The job Trace had just gotten from Stick-Point was different from the last two he had gotten. This one wasn’t geared toward making him prove himself. Instead, it was a proper wraith job. One that would test his abilities, but was also something that he should still be able to accomplish.

It felt good to finally be a player on the board and not some scrub in the background. Sure, he was the most minor pawn on the board, but he was there. It was a huge step, in his opinion.

This job had him going up against two gangs, in any manner he saw fit, as long as it resulted in a loss of life on both sides. He could stimulate a gang war if he wanted to or assassinate them all himself. A more trained edger or wraith might even be able to take control of their NetConnects and induce hallucinations or other effects. Depending on how auged out they were, it might have been possible to even take control of portions of their body, theoretically anyway.

That was far beyond Trace’s ability and likely would be for a long time to come, possibly always.

All that seemed to matter for the first part of the job was a thinning of the herd on both sides of the field. The second part of the job had him going into the bases of both gangs and stealing information on their supply routes, informants, dealers, anything and everything that made them viable.

That was it. For all intents and purposes, he was opening the path for a new gang to completely take over both territories. Which might be what he was actually doing, or he could be working for the Denver PD.

Trace had to chuckle at that thought. The pigs rode around in their armored vehicles but never did anything. The true law enforcement these days came from the security groups belonging to each corporation. Each corporation patrolled around their holdings, and that was it. If a crime was committed outside those areas, well, that was where personal protection came into play.

He glanced at all the guns hanging on the office wall and rhythmically tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair while he reclined at the desk. It had been weeks since he found the apartment, and there had been no word from the owner. It was beginning to truly look like the man had actually died after escaping capture.

At this point, he was mostly fine with the thought of using the other man’s guns.

That said, he needed to decide how he wanted to actually approach this job. The pay was good. Really good. Commensurate with the danger, he would be put in at certain points of the gig. Both gangs were relatively low-level enforcer types with less than two-hundred members. That was probably why Stick-Point had given it to him. It was a good gig that would push him, but not one that was utterly impossible.

At the same time, there was going to be plenty of opportunity for him to pick up extra items. He wouldn’t scavenge the people this time. That had left a bad taste in his mouth, but everything else was on the table. Data-prisms, guns, knives, vehicles, computers, ink-sheets, any and all tech he could find.

He would need a place to store it all, along with some way to move it around. The crates had been nice, but they were large and rather unwieldy.

Trace was hoping that he would be able to pick up a van from one of the gang members, or some other kind of vehicle he could use. Of course, even if he did manage all of that, he still had no idea where to store everything. He had never gone looking for a warehouse or something along those lines before.

So, he turned to Ko, who, in turn, turned to Sevorah.

The mender knew a few people and promised to ask around while he got started on the job.

A job that he still hadn’t decided on how he wanted to go about doing. Did he want to drop a few bodies from each gang on the other side’s doorstep? Nah, that felt a little too forced.

He sat there for over an hour before deciding that the first thing he was going to do was simply sneak into one of their bases. There was nothing saying that he couldn’t try to get the information first, right?

Trace nodded once and began gathering the equipment he thought he would need. He had replaced his old courier bag with one that had more pockets and was larger. It also had the benefit of a few extra straps he could use to hold extra weapons on the outside.

Honestly, it probably made more sense to simply go with a large backpack like most edgers did. He was used to the courier bag though, and found it comfortable. Maybe in the future, he would switch, but not just yet.

The compressed duffel bag was in one of the pockets, just waiting to be used. He wasn’t making that mistake again.

The scout rifle and its suppressor were strapped onto the bag, while the revolver went inside in case he needed the extra firepower. The semi-auto Colter Deen 10 or CD-10 was in the holster on his thigh, with its own dedicated suppressor now that worked much better since it fit properly.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He added a length of rope and the ever-useful system breaching module, along with plenty of ammo for each of the guns. He wasn’t planning on getting into a firefight, but you never knew. The last item he grabbed was a kukri from the previous owner’s stash of blades. He had done the training on knives, enough times that he felt somewhat confident in his knowledge of handling it. At least, that was the case in a training environment.

With everything packed, he grabbed his bag and locked the apartment behind him. Strictly speaking, if he was carrying this much hardware then he was supposed to broadcast his edger ID for everyone to see. That way, they understood that he wasn’t simply some random person packing extra weapons. In practice though, it hardly mattered. Everyone carried weapons these days, so no one paid attention to a little extra firepower.

It was only when you were really strapped for war that you needed to worry about those details. Besides, you didn’t typically want to broadcast that you were on a job to everyone. That had a bad habit of coming back to bite people in the butt.

The two gangs for this particular job were on the far south side of Denver. They had each taken over a few buildings in one of the old deserted attached cities that existed over there. Most everyone who had once lived in those sorts of places had moved into proper cities after the last World War. That was when the government had collapsed, and the corporations took over running everything.

The buildings still stood, for the most part. It had been long enough now that many of them were falling down and being retaken by the environment.

Of course, a few stubborn people still lived out there, refusing to give into the whims of the corporations. Trace applauded their efforts, even if the parents or grandparents who had taught them what freedom truly meant had long since died. It took a different sort of hardy folk to live out there, away from the comfort of modern society.

They were known as wastelanders by most, and were typically honest folk, as long as you treated them right. They lived hard lives and wouldn’t hesitate to put you down. At least, that was what he had heard.

Trace had never been out of Denver proper before. This would be his first time interacting with them.

The bus ride to the outskirts of the city took longer than he had been expecting, with its constant stops. The sun was starting to set by the time he reached the end of the bus-line. From there on, he would either need to walk or take a cab, something that he should have done to begin with. If he had, he would have been there hours ago. But now, he had wanted to save on credits…

Well, now he saw how that was working out for him.

Trace hailed a taxi and gave the computer the address, only for it to be denied. That was outside of its operating zone. He could take the taxi a few miles outside of the city and get closer, but no matter what, he would be walking into the night to get to his destination.

Mentally cursing at Stick-Point, and himself, for not doing his homework better, he settled in for the short ride. This was going to suck.

***

His boots clomped along the cracked and worn pavement as night fully settled in. The moon was full, giving off plenty of silvery light, as behind him the Denver skyline washed out any hope he had of seeing stars. This close to the city, the lights were still bright enough to give him a shadow.

He had miles ahead of him to walk yet. The taxi hadn’t even taken him as close as it was supposed to.

Behind him, he heard the quiet whir of an electric engine and cursed. If the engine was close enough for him to hear, then whoever was driving it had already spotted him. Since he was on the main road, he held out a small hope it was someone decent. In the pit of his chest though, he knew the truth he was about to be set upon by a ganger or raider.

Neither of which was a particularly welcoming thought.

Plenty of horror stories abounded about what they did to people they came across in the night. None of them were the sort of thing that he was interested in experiencing first-hand or having the opportunity to potentially live through.

Unfortunately, with how close the truck now was, he didn’t have a chance to even try and vanish. All he could do was discreetly loosen the clasps on his CD-10 and the knife while he waited.

No matter what, he was not going to go quietly into the night.

Four different goons, each packing large cyberware arms, and fully automatic assault rifles, hopped out of the back of the truck as it drew close.

Against those sorts of odds, Trace didn’t even bother attempting to draw his weapons. He was training to be a wraith. A mostly unseen threat. He wasn’t a reaper, a mobile fortress(MF), or any of the other defense or killing specialized edger subsets.

He wasn’t really anything, not yet at least.

“What’s a peach-like you doing out here at this time o’night?” The driver drawled, putting his cyberarm on the roof of the tall truck as he sat on the edge of the open window.

It took Trace a moment to remember that peach was slang for anyone who was still mostly visible fleshware.

“I’m heading out to one of the old scarpo towns.” Scarpo was a portmanteau of the words, screw-corpo’s. It was the identity the wastelanders towns that were still somehow surviving had adopted. “I have an uncle who said he would help me with a problem.”

One of the goons grabbed his privates. “I’ll be your uncle for a night.” The muscle head closest to him smacked the back of his head.

“Didn’t you just come back from a visit to the pleasure dolls?”

“What can I say? Synthetic flesh just doesn’t feel quite the same.” His companions all took a step away from him in disgust.

Only those who were too far gone in certain unhealthy pursuits ever said something like that. Synthetic skin literally felt almost exactly the same. True perverts and connoisseurs of the flesh were the only ones who could tell the difference. Neither were looked kindly upon by most normal gangs.

“Uh, no thanks, I think I’ll skip taking you up on that offer,” Trace shook his head while feeling his insides clench.

“Yeah, you don’t have to worry about Belcher. The others will keep him in line. Why don’t you get in the truck though? We’ll give you a ride.”

“You never asked which scarpo town I was headed to.” He said, while reluctantly walking toward the truck.

“It doesn’t much matter. Now, does it? You’re coming with us either way. It really just depends on how much of you we leave uninjured.”