Juliet sat on the edge of the mat, holding a bag of ice to her swollen cheek. Anyone looking at her would know she was sulking. She wasn’t upset that she’d been hit; she’d given better than she got, but she was fuming over the way Charity and Herbert—Berto to his friends—had acted during her assessment. She narrowed her eyes, watching the two of them laughing with their group, still enjoying practice after Sensei had told her to sit out and cool down.
She supposed she deserved some animosity; she’d only been working out at the dojo for a month, and Sensei was apparently breaking some rules by letting her try for her first stripe, or degree, so soon. Still, she’d seen plenty of people take their belt tests and never watched their sparring partners go so hard against them. “It’s fine,” she muttered, “I’ve got things easy enough, anyway.”
“Juliet, you managed to pass the exam despite their best efforts to thwart you.” Angel had been trying to cheer her for the last several minutes.
“Yeah, but I wish people could be happy for me,” Juliet groused.
“Many of the other students were happy for you. Honey gave you a high-five!”
“Sure, Angel, but review the footage; how many people were frowning or shaking their heads?”
“It’s natural for people to feel some animosity when they witness someone mastering so many techniques so rapidly. They feel threatened, or worse, less-than.”
“Right. I get it, don’t worry,” Juliet said, chewing her lower lip and shifting the ice off her numb right cheek and up to her swollen eyebrow. She’d caught a hell of an elbow during the sparring portion of the test. Sensei had approached her several times over the last week, making sure she realized the test she was going to receive would be harder than most white belts working toward their first stripe would expect. He knew the animosity many of the students felt, and he wanted her to showcase how much she deserved to advance.
Technically, according to Honey, she was ready for her blue belt but would need a lot more time in the dojo before anyone let her try for it. Technically was probably the perfect word; she knew all the techniques and could perform them all perfectly individually, but when it came to putting them together in an effortless flow, she was miles away from being ready. One-on-one, at fifty percent intensity, she could hold her own with the real blue belts at the dojo, but when it came to full speed and multiple opponents, she had a long way to go.
“I’m fine with taking my time as long as I keep improving,” Juliet said, partly to herself and partly to Angel. The dojo was plenty loud—she didn’t worry about anyone listening to her corny self-pep talk.
“Speaking of which, I’ve finished compiling your latest physical assessment data; your old values are in parenthesis,” Angel said, and before Juliet could groan in annoyance, she had a new tab glowing on her AUI. She opened it to see what Angel had come up with:
Juliet Corina Bianchi
Physical, Mental, and Social Status Compilation:
Comparative Ranking Percentile (higher is better):
Net worth and assets:
Sol-bits: 69,488
33.45
Neural adaptiveness:
.96342 (scale of 0 - 1)
99.91
Synaptic Responsiveness:
.19 (lower is better)
79.31
Musculoskeletal ranking:
–
33.56 (17.22)
Cardiovascular ranking:
–
57.48 (31.87)
Cybernetic and Bionic augmentation:
Model name and number:
Overall rating of the augmentation (Grades are F, E, D, C, B, A, S, S+):
PAI
WBD Project Angel, Alpha 3.433
S+
Data Port
Jannik Systems, XR-55
C
Data Jack
Bio Network Solutions, 8840
C
Retinal Cybernetic Implant
Hayashi, Crystal Optics 3.2c
C
Auditory Cybernetic Implant
Cork Systems, Lyric Model 4
C
No other augmentation detected.
–
–
“Are you serious? My percentile’s gone up that much?”
“Yes! Do you see what a couple of months of hard work and consistent training can do for a person? If you keep this up for a year or two, I’ll be very surprised if you don’t work your way into the top ten percent.”
“Right,” Juliet said, her eyes lingering on her Sol-bit balance. She’d had nearly eighty k a month ago when they’d finished selling Vikker’s stuff and after she’d covered everyone’s expenses for Ghoul’s rescue operation. She hadn’t worked since, and she supposed it was time to get things going again, especially if she ever wanted to get out of Phoenix, let alone make it off-world. Did she still want to go into space? “Damn right, I do.”
“You still mad?” Honey asked, coming over to check on her while the class waited for Sensei’s next instruction.
“Mad? What makes you say that?” Juliet half-grinned, winking her unswollen eye at Honey.
“Right! If looks could kill, Berto would be in a body bag!”
“Well, he didn’t have to go at a hundred percent. Jesus, I’m getting my first stripe here, not my brown belt!”
“Eh, you took it just fine, and when you threw him, it was the cat’s meow,” Honey giggled, making an actual *meow* sound.
“Are you trying to say something?” Juliet laughed, “You saying I was being catty?”
“Hey, if the little pink collar fits,” Honey laughed, turning to hurry back to her group as Sensei called for the students’ attention.
Juliet listened as Sensei reviewed everything they’d learned, and when he dismissed the class, he walked over to Juliet, palms resting on his rotund belly and a big smile on his face. “I told you it would be a good challenge.”
“Yes, Sensei,” Juliet said, having a hard time not returning the smile.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Charity thought you took Berto’s hit well, and he swears it was an accident,” he dug a thick round finger under the belt of his gi and pulled out a thin black strip of fabric. “Sew this onto your belt before practice tomorrow, hmm?”
Juliet jumped up and bowed, smiling as she took the strip of cloth. “Thank you, Sensei!”
“I’m proud of you, Juliet. If you keep working at it, we’ll get all your white belt degrees within the year, and then you can start working toward blue. People will grow to respect you as you continue to improve; have you given any thought to my suggestion? Competitions are going to be very important to your further advancement.”
“Yes,” Juliet nodded, “It sounds fun, and I agree; I could use the practice at full speed.”
“Exactly so.” Sensei reached out, squeezed her shoulder, and added, “Go on, now. I see Honey waiting for you outside.”
“Thank you, Sensei. See you tomorrow,” Juliet said, performing another bow. As Sensei turned away, she hurried over to the chairs near the side of the mat and slipped into her sandals; she’d stopped bringing a change of clothes to the dojo after a week or so. It wasn’t like she ever went anywhere after practice, and she liked to shower back home before putting on clean clothes. Juliet smiled at the thought of a shower—she’d dropped three thousand bits on a bathroom renovation of her trailer, to Mr. Howell’s delight.
Sandals on and belt pack with her pistol and personal items slung over her shoulder, she stepped outside into the beautiful Arizona fall weather. It was almost eighty degrees out, and sometimes Juliet wished it could be cooler, but right there, in the shade with the blue sky in the distance and a hint of mesquite smoke in the air, she couldn’t complain. She took a deep breath and savored the lovely weather.
“Hungry?” Honey asked.
“I am.” Juliet said, and the two of them started walking toward Benji’s diner. “I think I need to get back to work,” Juliet said by way of conversation as they walked along. Honey also wore her gi, and Juliet had a funny little tickle of pride, thinking she’d influenced her more experienced friend’s behavior.
“Yeah? Time to get back on the horse?”
“Yeah. I’ve got things I want to buy and places I want to go; I don’t want to keep burning through my savings.”
“Well, it’s about damn time, girl,” Honey laughed. They were only half a block from the dojo when another voice called out behind them. Flinty with a nasal overtone, it was easy for Juliet to recognize it as belonging to Charity, even without hearing the words.
“Proud to cheat your way into a stripe?” The words stung, not because they were rude and sharp, but because they were right—she knew, deep down, that she was cheating. No one else had a PAI like Angel helping them. She’d been over her decision to keep learning and using Angel a million times, and, despite the guilt, she couldn’t imagine giving her up.
So she had an advantage; was she the only one? How about people born with millions of bits in their trust funds? How about people with brothers and sisters or parents who pushed them to learn skills at an early age. She knew it wasn’t the same, but the comparisons made her feel better about having Angel in her corner. She didn’t have a chance to reply before Honey jumped to her defense.
“What about you, Charity? Are you cheating with that reflex job you got last summer?”
“Gotta swoop in to save your little girlfriend, Honey?”
“You wanna go there with me?” Honey bristled, turning to face the other woman, her knuckles whitening where they held her scabbarded sword.
“What? You gonna cut my head off for being a bitch?” Charity smirked, and Juliet hated how pretty she was while she did it. She had long, dark chestnut hair, and she’d let it out of her practice bun, so it hung down behind her slender figure, a figure accentuated by a tailored, custom gi. She had pale skin, light brown eyes, and lips that were either a gift from nature or a very expensive purchase.
“No,” Honey replied, some humor in her voice, “I guess it’s not a capital offense.”
“Anyway,” Charity said, dragging the word out and turning her gaze back on Juliet, “If you wanna earn some respect, there are fights you could be getting into. I mean competitions; last man, er, woman standing.”
“You know those aren’t official or sanctioned,” Honey replied.
“Quit swooping to protect the little baby,” Charity sighed, staring at Honey. “She’s a big girl; let her make her own decisions.”
“Sensei said I should do some competitions,” Juliet said, raising an eyebrow at Honey.
“Yeah, in dojo matches, against people at your level!”
“Yeah, well,” Charity said, turning back toward the dojo. Over her shoulder, she added, “I just wanted to throw it out there. I’ll shoot you the info to the next one I’m going to if you’re interested, Juliet.” She took a couple of steps, then turned, and, with squinting eyes and a big smile, she added, “There’s prize money.”
“All right,” Juliet said. Most of the regulars at the dojo had shared contact information, so it wasn’t a surprise that Charity’s message popped up on her AUI immediately. She shrugged at Honey, then turned back toward the diner and kept walking.
“You can get hurt in those things,” Honey sighed.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a pretty good edge on other students; maybe it’ll do me some good to get a little beat up and feel some real intensity. I mean, that’s my biggest weakness—using the right move at the right time—and you and Sensei both have told me that it only comes with real sparring experience.”
“Well, please talk to me before you go to one of them. Let me at least come along.”
“Of course, sis!” Juliet laughed, jostling her as they walked.
“Sis, now, hmm? Alright, alright, I can dig it,” Honey laughed, jostling her back. “So, we need a new job, hmm? I happen to have a pretty nice offer from Temo that I was trying to decide how to present to you.”
“Oh really?” Juliet grinned. “Why’s that?”
“Because you’ve been so . . . reluctant to do anything since, you know, since Ghoul.” Honey looked at her from the side, and Juliet knew she was trying to gauge her reaction to hearing Ghoul’s name. It didn’t bother her anymore; she’d come to terms with Ghoul’s—Cassie’s—betrayal. She really didn’t harbor any anger about it. If anything, she felt more hurt that Cassie had taken off and blocked her comms without talking to her, without giving Juliet a chance to forgive her.
“It’s cool, Honey. I think, well, I think I need to get into some action; I need to do some jobs with people like you and the others.” Juliet knew Honey would know what she meant by the others—Mags, Pit, and Hot Mustard. People she’d decided she could trust, though she wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that with anyone other than Honey.
Pit and Mags had definitely been more worried about earning salvage than helping Ghoul, but they’d done a good job and been reliable on short notice. They’d also done a good job of keeping quiet about the whole thing, which earned them major points in Juliet’s book. She’d had Angel keeping a very close watch for news about the job they’d done at Vikker’s old compound, and nothing had slipped about her or any of her crew’s involvement.
Hot Mustard was another story; he hadn’t bothered them about his cut of the salvage, patiently waiting for Pit to fence everything, and had even sent some rather sweet messages to Juliet to make sure she was all right after she’d gone home to convalesce without meeting the team again. He’d asked after Ghoul, too, and been disappointed not to be able to talk to her but happy that she’d been all right.
“Yeah,” she reiterated, “I’d like to get into a job with you and the others. Or just you; we can do something small to get back into the swing of things.”
“Well, this one seems really good, and Temo sent me the card for the ‘hacker’ role. Honestly, he’s been bugging me to get you back to work for weeks now, but I didn’t want to pressure you. Do you want to see it? The pay for you is twice what I’ll get as muscle, by the way!”
Juliet took another big sniff of the fresh air, so happy that she was out on the edge of the ABZ with Honey instead of downtown with all the traffic and people. She wanted to see more, wanted to experience life in different cities and places, but right then, she was glad to be in a familiar setting. “Are you trying to guilt me into sharing a cut of my payday?” she asked, throwing an arm over Honey’s shoulders. “Sure, send me the card.”
Honey laughed and said, “Okay, done. Have your little Angel show it to you; we can talk over brunch.”
“Angel?” Juliet said aloud, and then the card was on her AUI:
Posting# F233
Requested Role: Network Security Bypass
Rep level: E-S+
Job Description: Gain access, with support, to a secure location in a major Phoenix-based corporation’s headquarters. Bypass network security and install provided files.
Compensation: 18,000 Sol-bits
Scavenge Rights: Tiered
Location: Phoenix Central
Date: October 22, 2107
“Uh, I’m not at rep level E yet,” Juliet said immediately.
“Perks of knowing the fixer,” Honey grinned. “How about that payday, though?”
“Well, it’s nice, for sure, but are we really ready to gain access to a major corp’s HQ? That sounds a little radioactive . . .”
“Temo wouldn’t offer it to me if he didn’t know the rest of the team and think it was chill—all icing, as he’d say.” Honey bumped her with her hip, knocking her over the little curb into the parking lot of Benji’s diner, and Juliet laughed, stumbling away from her.
“So, just us? We don’t know the other operators?”
“Temo does, but yeah, new to us.”
“All right. I’m in. It sounds exciting, and I’ve been working on a new daemon with Angel; I want to try it out on a security panel. I hope there’ll be some security panels to bypass, not just some boring server hack!” Juliet was serious, despite Honey’s laughter—Angel had been trying to teach her about some of the things she did, trying to help her be, if not less reliant on her, less clueless about what she did.
They’d built a new attack daemon based on Angel’s experiences bypassing doors owned by Helios in Tucson, and while she’d coded it, she’d walked Juliet through the process step by step. It had been fascinating, and Juliet knew there was little chance she could repeat the process on her own—not yet. Still, she felt she understood a lot more, which made her feel a little better about having a cheat code riding around in her brain.
“Wanna go shopping before the job? We’ve got two days.” Honey opened the door, they stepped into the diner, and the smells brought saliva to Juliet’s mouth.
“Yes! I need new clothes.” She laughed and added, “I mean, yeah, I need new clothes for everyday stuff, but also for jobs.”
“You ain’t lying,” Honey laughed, giving her a sidelong glance, then bolted for the far side of their usual booth before Juliet could retaliate physically for her verbal assault.
“You’re mean! I had to leave almost all my clothes in Tucson, and, well, you know, I’ve been busy.” She slid into her side of the booth and smiled as one of the regular waitresses walked toward them. “Hey, Carmen.”
“Hey, ladies. Breakfast or lunch? Some of both?”
“You know us too well,” Honey laughed. “Coffee, pancakes, and a side of overnight tomatoes for me.”
“Hmm,” Juliet said, tapping her chin with her forefinger. “Does he have burgers today?”
“He does.” Carmen smiled. “French fries or . . .”
“French fries!” Juliet said, saving her the trouble of listing any more sides.
“Juliet,” Angel said into her ear, “I’m not sure the oil Benji uses on his fried foods is good for your health.”
“Yep,” Juliet nodded. “Fries.” She couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that came out of her at the thought of Angel’s frustration. Life felt pretty good just then, and when she turned her twinkling eyes away from Carmen to Honey, her friend laughed along with her, and their shared good humor felt like another connection forming between them. Juliet liked the feeling and wished she wouldn’t have to leave Honey behind when she left Phoenix.
As they chatted about where they’d go shopping and about what the job might entail, Juliet put thoughts of leaving to the back of her mind and decided that she’d cross that bridge when she came to it; there were a lot of things to do before then, and who knew what the future might hold. She surely never would have guessed where she’d end up if someone had asked her six months ago what was in store for her.