“You’re the new guy, right?” the bouncer said as the silver strips etched across her face glistened from the sunlight above. Every spoken word revealed a mouth full of sharpened metal teeth, agitating Damien greatly. Something about this body augment disturbed him a little too much, but he simply nodded to her, and she stepped aside, granting him access to Club Starlight.

The public transportation of Neopolis had let Damien down yet again, making him late to the meeting. Still, he found good humor in the situation. Just after taking down a mass murdering human trafficker, he had to resort to riding a slow, unreliable monorail alongside the regular citizens.

So lame…, he told himself. But that’ll change very shortly. The arrangements for my ride should be done soon.

He entered the main floor of the club, finding barely any people inside. Working hours said that it was closed this time of day, but it was kept open for off-the-record meetings. Even so, club music played faintly in the background as a few workers shuffled around, cleaning up and preparing for opening hours in the late evening.

Across the floor, a large man was entertaining two woman near the bar, his actions and facial expressions wildly animated. Once he spotted Damien, he brushed the girls off and walked towards him, his cheery disposition visible even under the dim club lighting.

Looks like Marcus is back to his old self, Damien noted, happy to see his new friend in high spirits once again.

“Hard at work, I see,” Damien teased, greeting his fellow pirate with a fist bump.

“You know how it goes, Dame. Trying to get laid is a full time job,” Marcus said with a wide smile. “And speaking of jobs, how’d that job for what’s her face go?”

Damien shrugged. “Bit of a hassle, but it was worth it in the end. Got a good chunk of funds from the whole thing.”

“I gotta say, man, you lucked out on such a sweet gig. Having no official records or memories is turning out to have some perks.”

“One of a few, I guess. So where’s Kat?”

Marcus nodded toward the private area, then signaled for Damien to follow along. “This way. Booth 8.” The two pirates entered into the unguarded private hallway, the numbers on each booth increasing as they went further down. “To be honest with you, the real reason I was at the bar is because the brat actually showed up.”

Damien raised a questioning eyebrow. “The brat?”

The door with the number 8 slid open, revealing a soundproof booth surrounded by black padding. Kat sat with her legs crossed and one arm resting along the backrest, her dark clothing almost blending in with the lushly-padded seats.

Beside her, a petite female figure laid her entire torso on the glass table at the center of the booth, her outstretched hands fiddling impatiently with the tablet in her hand. Long strands of glowing orange hair flowed out from under the hood that covered her head.

Unlike the metal shark teeth, the bright, color-changing hair was one of the cooler augments, and Damien immediately recognized that it belonged to the ace hacker, Lana.

“About time,” Lana said, her eyes flashing with pulses of bright blue. “Why do you always keep me waiting, you oaf?”

Damien interjected, knowing the comment was directed at Marcus. “That was my fault. Had a job that ran a little late.”

Marcus let out an annoyed grumble as the two young men joined their counterparts on the luxurious furniture. The door slid closed behind them, drowning out the feint club music entirely, and leaving them with a certainty that their conversation would remain private.

“I wasn’t expecting you to join us in person, Lana,” Damien said, genuinely surprised that the hermit had left her house. Even she would admit that it was a rare event.

“A place like this certainly isn’t my style,” Lana said.“But even I have to get out once in a while. At least once every three months is what I aim for, though I expect to be out at least once more in a few days.” The pulsing in her eyes stopped, revealing the natural bright-green color underneath.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“We can get to that later,” Kat said. “Why don’t you fill us in on what you found in the remaining Archangel files.”

Lana stretched her arms then reclined against the back rest, her over-sized hoodie creeping down and almost covering her eyes. “First of all, I found the remaining list of victims. There were 15 more names related to test subjects in the final batch of files, bringing the total up to 148. Strangely enough, Damien’s name wasn’t on the list.”

Damien let out a frustrated sigh. He’d really hoped that they could find something pointing specifically to him.

“But that’s not all,” Lana continued, turning her gaze toward him. “I do have some good news for you. Remember those two things you asked about? The S.S. Core and the T-Deck? Well I found references to both within that last batch.”

Those words were music to Damien’s ears. Finally some hope. “What did they say?”

“The wording was somewhat cryptic, and they were only spoken of by reference, never directly, so I’ll give you the gist of it. There were notes confirming that the development of the T-Deck had been successful but they were struggling to integrate the S.S. Core with it, and they were losing a lot of test subjects as a result. Unfortunately, there was no word about what those two things actually are, or what they do.”

That was massive news, and Damien felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “It’s not a full explanation, but at least there’s a match. Honestly, just confirming that TrillTech is behind it is a big boost. Thanks, Lana.”

“It’s what I do,” she said. “So that’s everything I found. We’ve confirmed that TrillTech are conducting illegal experiments on human subjects, and that Jay was one of those subjects. Damien seems to have been a test subject too, what with the whole S.S. Core and T-Deck stuff, but there were no official documentation for him or those two things within the Archangel files.”

“I feel bad about all this,” Marcus said. “Kat and I got the info we wanted, but Dame is still mostly out in the cold.” He turned to Damien, a sympathetic look on his face. “I know there’s some saving grace in all this, but I’m sorry we couldn’t find the full extent of what you wanted.”

“That may be true, but we did get a major clue,” Lana said. “We know that the Archangel files didn’t hold the entirety of the data on their illegal experiments which means that there’s probably more detailed information out there somewhere. I’d wager that there’s higher level info being hidden somewhere even more secure. You guys are on the right track, all you’re missing is a lead.”

“Well, we still have one lead,” Kat said as she brushed her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “Zero. He’s the one who told us about the research facility and set us up with the opportunity to get the files in the first place. He might know more.”

“Uggh,” Marcus said with a disgusted grunt. “Still think we can trust that Inkeye? I told you how he gives me the creeps.”

Kat continued, her face cold as always. “Remember our original agreement with him. He was supposed to tell us what’s inside the files after we secured them for him. We went behind his back by getting Lana to decrypt the files, too.”

“For good reason,” Marcus added softly.

“Right. He made good on his end of the deal and sent me the contents of everything he found within the files one hour ago, and they match Lana’s findings entirely. He left nothing out and he didn’t add anything extra. It’s scary to think that he has someone as skilled as Lana to decrypt them just as quickly, but his full honesty suggests we can trust him for now. At least with things relating to TrillTech.”

“I guess,” Marcus said with a shrug before turning to Damien. “What do you think, Dame? Should we keep working with him?”

The answer to that question came quickly. The fact that he’d made progress towards his goal filled Damien with a deep determination to continue the pursuit, regardless of who they’d be working with. “In the end, not much has changed for me,” he said. “I still want to find out what happened to me and retrieve my memories, so I’ll continue pursuing TrillTech some more, even if it means working with Zero.”

“Well you won’t be alone on that,” Marcus said. “Kat and I spoke about this earlier, and we agreed that we’re gonna get revenge for Jay. Those bastards are gonna pay for whatever it is that they did to our friend.”

“Then we’re all on the same page,” Kat said. “Zero seems to have inside information on TrillTech, so I’ll get in touch with him to set up another meeting. He did say his goal was to destroy TrillTech entirely, after all, so I’m sure he already has something planned. Taking down an entire corporation is a crazy objective, but we’ll work with him on that goal while also helping Damien get to the bottom of this T-Deck and S.S. Core business.”

Damien nodded, grateful for the camaraderie.

“Great,” Lana said. “So that’s pretty much it for this meeting. I guess I’ll get going now.” Her eyes lingered on Damien, and a few seconds passed without her getting up to leave.

A silence filled the booth as everyone seemed to stop moving for a moment, and Damien wasn’t sure if he was just imagining a sudden awkwardness fill the air.

Kat narrowed her eyes, shooting him a prodding look. “Aren’t you forgetting something important?”

“Huh? Am I…?” Damien looked around the room, noting the strange expression on Kat’s normally icy-cold face. Marcus shook his head and smiled sheepishly.

Finally he looked Lana, who’s eyebrows furrowed at him, and he groaned internally when the realizations hit him.

Oh crap… I forgot about that…