In the end, Sevorah had decided that the best move was simply to bring him back to her clinic.

So, Trace had finished packing up his stuff and wheeled both crates out into the elevator. He had made sure to reactivate Pushman’s account in the apartment first, of course. Then they had all ridden down to his new-to-him truck together.

The drive to Sevorah’s clinic was mostly quiet, as each of them was absorbed in their own thoughts.

Trace helped them bring Pushman inside, only to stand uncertainly to the side afterward. He no longer had a place to live, and no idea what he should do next.

Sevorah solved that particular problem for him when she sent a message to him with an address. “Go there and make sure it will fit your needs. The price was decent, but you’ll have to do a fair bit of remodeling yourself, I imagine as a result. The photos I saw showed a lot of promise, but also a lot of problem areas. With your budget though…” She shrugged. “Make sure you get whatever agreement and contract you make signed as ironclad as possible if you plan on fixing the place up. You don’t want to get kicked out after putting in all that work.”

“I appreciate it. Let me know how things turn out with him.” He pointed his chin at Pushman. “Ko, call me later so we can talk, yeah?”

She nodded, busy gathering up the supplies they were going to use on the man.

Back out in the truck, he pulled up Sevorah’s message and retrieved the address and contact for the owner. The price listed was still higher than he really wanted to pay. However, the size of the place more than made up for any hesitation he might have felt.

When he had asked them to find a warehouse to store his eventual piles of loot, they had taken the request seriously. The building really was an old warehouse, and its age showed, even in the rather well-taken photos. Rust was everywhere, and walkways that had once run the length of the walls, and hung from the ceiling, now sagged dangerously, or had completely fallen to the ground.

It had potential, and plenty of room. From the photos, that was all he was willing to say about the place at the moment.

At least it was reasonably close to Sevorah’s clinic.

A few minutes later, he pulled past the old chain-link fence with the sagging gate, and stopped directly in front of the doors to wait. He almost climbed out to start inspecting the place, but managed to stop himself at the last moment. This was not his normal neighborhood, not yet at least. There was no telling what sort of people made this area their home, or worse, their hunting grounds.

Trace spent his time wisely while he waited for the owner. His eyes flicked through their different magnifications as he searched for any gang tags or signs of people. He even tried to search for thermal signatures, only to find it completely useless in the heat of the day. The sun on the pavement, metal, and glass that was all around him had raised the temperature to minor oven temperatures.

Either way, he didn’t find anything that set off any warning bells at the moment.

The owner arrived as he opened his door, deciding at last that it was safe.

“Have you gone in yet?” The short, lopsided man asked.

He was short, to begin with, and his condition had been made even worse with a cyberware leg that was a couple of inches shorter than his fleshware leg was. Either he had gotten a bad deal, or more likely, he had possessed the augment since he was younger and still growing. Despite its ill-fitting nature, the man likely saw it as part of himself now and didn’t want to risk complications with dysmorphia and the possible risk of going cyberpsycho by having it replaced.

“Not yet. I was busy checking out the area for signs of gang activity, trying to find out who else was around here first.” Trace replied.

“Smart, smart,” The man said as he turned to lead him inside the warehouse, saying nothing more on the matter. He had an odd loping stride that accommodated his shorter leg.

The inside of the warehouse was just as the photos had shown, except worse. It was a dive.

There were holes in the ceiling where it had been rusted through and rusty rainwater had gotten in and begun collecting all over the floor.

Despite the terrible condition of the place, Trace followed along behind the man as he went through the tour. It had an office in the back with a rather questionable bathroom. The water that it used to flush the bowl was rusty and smelled worse than anything Trace could ever hope to release, even on his worst day. However, it worked.

There was an open-air sani-spray shower in the corner meant to spray the workers down after their shift was over. It had been disconnected from the system, but Georgie, the owner, said he would work on getting it reconnected if Trace rented the place.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

All-in-all, the place was an absolute disaster, and he wanted way too many credits for it.

Then he showed Trace what made the place so special. It had a decently hidden underground floor. The elevator that took them down was one of two entrances. A pair of stairs hidden behind a door in the office space, and a large loading elevator with seams that had been designed to match the rest of the floor. Of course, he couldn’t actually see what was down there, as it was partially flooded at the moment.

From what he could see though, it ran the entire length of the building, and possibly even a little beyond. There were plenty of braces and struts to ensure both floors were secure and in no danger of collapsing. The only issue was all of the water that made its way down through the many cracks over the years.

He would be pumping it out for weeks and then drying the place out for several more.

“Okay, I can see the appeal of this place. However, the fact remains. The basement floor is unusable at the moment, and everything on the main floor needs a lot of work.” Trace told him with a shake of his head. “What you’re asking for rent is an absolute joke. Unless, of course, you’re the one paying to have the place fixed up and all that water drained.”

Georgie scratched his chin. “Fine, I’ll take twenty-five hundred off the rent.” He finally acquiesced after they had been going back and forth on the price for a while.

That was still higher than Trace really wanted to pay, but that was mainly just the poor-person in him peeking out. Realistically, he knew there wasn’t another warehouse like this for the price. That didn’t stop him from hesitating.

“Fine,” He told the smaller man at last. “I’ll take it, draw up the rental agreement. One with no funny business in it. If I’m the one paying for all the fixes to this place, then we are going to have a nice secure contract between us.”

The owner swallowed but nodded emphatically. “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

As soon as Georgie was gone, Trace brought his truck inside the warehouse and parked it next to the office.

This was not what he’d had in mind when he originally thought about renting a warehouse. Circumstances had forced his hand, and credits were still a very real concern. Paying for this place was expensive!

It was far cheaper than other warehouses, but it was still more expensive than just renting an apartment would have been. Trace dropped his head against the steering wheel, wondering if he had made a mistake. Was he moving too fast?

Things hadn’t exactly been going to plan lately. What if that trend continued in the future?

He let himself wallow for a few minutes before hopping out and beginning to get to work by unloading everything. The office, which for the moment, was going to become his apartment, wasn’t going to clean itself. Nor were his crates and other belongings going to move themselves in without his input.

Trace worked late into the evening, to finally get it into a somewhat livable condition. There was no bed, so he would either be sleeping on the floor with the bugs -no- or on top of the desk. The second option was uncomfortable, but vastly preferable.

The place only looked clean, but that didn’t mean it actually was. Who knew what lived behind the walls or within the tiny gaps that he had gradually exposed throughout the day? Either he needed to completely remodel the place, which he didn’t have the skills or experience for. Or he could buy a few industrial-grade, bug, and rodent smoke bombs. The kind where one was meant to be enough for the entire warehouse.

Put two of those in the office/apartment space while he was out on a job after making sure all the gaps on the outside were sealed. Yeah, that otta work. Afterward, he could use some sort of sealant to fill all the gaps inside to prevent future bug and rodent infestations.

Trace sighed and sent off several messages. He needed more work and a lot of it. At least he finally had a way to get around and some decent weapons. The best of which he stored on the rear seat of his truck for the moment. The others he kept in the duffel bag to sell when he got a chance.

He also took a moment to swap his battered scout rifle for one of the new ones after deciding to keep them both. The thrashed one he would sell.

The two crates he wheeled around to behind the office/apartment structure where they would be out of sight for the moment. There wasn’t much room back there, but there were the remains of a covered shed that sat between the wall of the warehouse and the structure.

A job broker he had worked with a few times by the name of Revlock wanted to meet with him about a possible job opportunity.

He would take the time while he was out to run a few errands. He needed to sell some guns and get those smoke bombs if possible. It might be one of those things that was ultra-regulated, and he would need to pay someone else to set up and do it.

A while later and a decent amount of credits richer, he was sitting across from Revlock and the client. In-person client visits like this were rare at his level, but as you moved up the edger tiers, they became more common. Those jobs generally required more discretion, and the client wanted to meet the edger they were hiring to vet the proverbial talent themselves.

As a tier one edger, meeting the client was pretty rare. It still happened, obviously, just not often.

Revlock had his normal brand-new unlit cigar sticking out the side of his mouth. Trace had never seen the man smoke one of them. Personally, he thought Revlock just liked chewing on them. He had a nice suit vest on, with a normal long-sleeve shirt on underneath. As for pants, well, those weren’t dress pants either, they were tactical pants, along with heavy-duty boots.

Revlock was a job broker, but he was also an edger, just one not allowed to take jobs from himself.

The client had been staring at Trace ever since they arrived. Her eyes boring into him uncomfortably.

“So, are you going to tell me what the job is already?” He asked, beginning to grow uncomfortable under her penetrating gaze. “She’s been staring at me like I’m her next meal for the last few minutes. It’s starting to get a tad weird at this point.”

Revlock laughed and nodded to the client. “Yeah, she’s an odd one alright, but she wanted to meet you specifically.”

“Me? Why?”

“She heard you had a recent run-in with an android and decided you fit the needs of her job.” Revlock’s smile vanished as a gun appeared in his hand. The barrel was pressed against the client’s head. “Interestingly enough, that was something I only just heard about. So, I would love to hear how some outsider heard the details about a private gig?” He demanded, his voice hard and uncompromising.