Chapter 16

After I grabbed a dozen AeroMed inhalers and hooked Gary up with one of them, he’d taken off pretty soon thereafter. I’d gotten the twelfth inhaler free due to some sort of promotion they had going, so I was up eleven inhalers and 670c after Gary paid the full grand he’d promised. Sara had crashed back out pretty quick after Gary took off, and was sleeping it off on the sofa. I had to assume that, along with copious drinking, they'd spent a considerable amount of time hooking up, but I had no idea if that was going to be a thing going forward, or if it was just a one night stand or what.

Now that I actually had a working IA again I wasn’t planning on just hanging out around the apartment today. I needed to get to leveling. And that meant murder.

I spent a while getting myself pumped up for a full day, starting by actually using that awesome shower that I’d been denied previously. It cost a full 5c to use it, but was possibly the finest shower I’d ever had in either lifetime. The entire ceiling of the shower was covered in tiny holes that not only sprayed me down with hot water but also had a setting in the app that added in soap for me, and then, when the shower was finally done, hot air blew down and dried my hair and body in less than a minute. It was an entire experience in and of itself. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that clean and found myself smelling lightly of a somewhat floral scent.

I swapped out my dirty clothes for a clean set, including my long sleeved button up tier 1 shirt, and threw my dirty clothes into the washer/drier I found set into the wall by the kitchen. I moved all my guns and my knife to my belt, strapped my Bulldog holster over my shoulders, threw my Sakura pink coat on, and was ready for my day.

Walking briskly to the nearest elevator, I decided to head down to the ground floor to start with. I figured I’d see if The Drunk Kitten was open at this hour of the morning, and if so whether or not the bartender had any merc work I could get.

Walking through the mall-like ground floor and idly looking around at the various holograms on the storefronts, it was the smell that got me not the ads. Breakfast. My stomach rumbled at the delicious odor of fried potatoes, and I nearly immediately turned into a McDonald’s marked by floating holographic fast food items. A cup of coffee, a mcmuffin, and a conveniently handheld hashbrown ran me 30c. Apparently McDonalds was not cheap compared to most of the eateries I’d patronized thus far. But, since it exactly mirrored the taste I was used to in my previous life, it definitely qualified as comfort food.

Feeling much better with a full stomach, I continued on my way to the bar. I idly checked my GEMA stats again as I walked and noticed something new had populated the cyberware list. It was minor, but I was fairly certain it hadn’t been there before. It was a simple exclamation mark behind the Sakura CherryBlossom Alloy tier 3 nanomachine production organ. A moment after focusing on the exclamation point it brought up a new screen I’d never seen before labeled ‘Bioware’, telling me ‘Musculature update in progress 3%, Tendon/Ligament update in progress 5%’. I blinked in surprise. Wait…does that mean that just having that nanomachine thing is straight up upgrading my body? I felt a smile growing on my face. That nanomachine organ I went after just keeps paying crazy dividends. I’d never heard of anything like this happening during the beta either, so it was certainly a pleasant surprise.

I got to the bar, and found that it was not only open, but it was still just as busy as the last time I’d been there. Hell, it was barely past dawn and they still had a live band on stage…albeit an even worse band than last time. I winced at the odd sour note from the band as I went straight for the bar, doing what I could to stay out of the way of the heavily armed clientele.

Upon taking a seat, I found myself waiting for a few minutes as the bartender finished speaking with a group of mercs down at the other end of the bar, he also made various colorful drinks for all four of them. Shortly after finishing with them, he was over in front of me, and in a brief moment of relative quiet in between songs asked me, “The usual, Mr. Reynolds?”

I was kind of impressed that he recognized me with the new hair and clothes, especially since I hadn’t given him my name the first time we met. But his question got a smile out of me and with a nod I sent him 11c. A moment later I found a large mug of ice water placed in front of me. “Anything else?” he asked professionally.

As the band had started back up, I opened up a chat window in my vision with a thought and sent him an invite that he immediately accepted.

Malcolm: I was wondering if you had any merc work that would be available to a newcomer. Preferably something involving killing people.

The Bartender: I don’t typically give out that kind of work to just anyone that walks into the bar, Mr. Reynolds.

Malcolm: Perfectly understandable. You don’t know me, beyond being a friend of Lizzy’s. And she’s not even here to vouch for me, so I can understand your reticence. However, I’m pretty good at killing people, and was hoping to prove myself by taking a job showcasing my talent for your future consideration. I’m totally willing to take a job that nobody else wants. So I guess I’m wondering…do you have any jobs that have been sitting on the shelf for a while that nobody wants to take?

The Bartender:...There are two jobs that haven’t been completed for longer than I would like. Both pay rather badly for the level of risk involved, and as such no one wants them. The first is an open bounty on scavs, and as such is always ‘on the shelf’, so to speak. Scavs are known to have effectively taken over the 13th level of the megabuilding, and that is the highest local concentration you’re likely to find, though if you have proof a kill made elsewhere is a scav the bounty will be paid. The job pays 100c per head. As those animals are typically heavily borged out, the level of danger involved in killing them on their own turf is substantial. The second job involves clearing out sub basement 10 of all living persons. As it is a job for the megabuilding’s owner, it pays fairly well at 200,000c. Completion of the job requires video proof of kill for more than half of the total squatters as well as complete removal or death of all persons illegally residing there. This is particularly dangerous due to the sheer number of individuals down on that level. The main issue most of my mercs seem to have with the job stems from the fact that these targets are almost entirely children. I believe it’s primarily some sort of moral hang up preventing anyone from completing the job. However, rumor has it there may be more than 10,000 of them down there, and as such it doesn’t pay very well on a kill by kill basis either.

The bartender gave a shrug and simply stared at me, as if daring me to tell him I was going to take one of the perilous jobs he’d just offered up. I took a sip of my water as I considered my options. Honestly, I’d already considered both of these spots as top contenders for earning myself XP, so the only surprising thing was that he’d mentioned both of them and nothing else. I’d kind of been hoping for something I hadn’t previously considered, but getting paid for killing people I’d already been planning to kill anyway had its upsides. Ultimately I decided against going after the scavs… for now. I was pretty sure I couldn’t use my Bulldog yet, even with my new bones, and I’d want something with some punch to take out those chromed out whack jobs.

Malcolm: I’ll look into clearing out sub basement 10 for you then. I don’t have the iron I’d need to handle that many scavs just yet.

The bartender seemed to search my face for a moment to see if I was serious. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him and he gave me a simple nod.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The Bartender: Make sure you get that vid proof or you won’t get paid.

With that he exited our chat and headed over to another solo merc that had wandered up to the bar while we were chatting. I sat and sipped at my water a bit as I considered the gig I’d just offered to take on. It wasn’t a small job. But, having already thought it through previously, I was pretty sure I knew how I wanted to handle this…But where am I going to get that much poison? And how the hell am I going to get it into those little bastards?

==

I spent a good hour wandering aimlessly around the ground floor looking at the myriad holograms trying to find some inspiration. Nothing jumped out at me, and eventually I decided to head back up to 150 to see if the higher end stores’ holograms there would point me in the right direction.

As I slowly rode up the large densely packed elevator I remembered that I still needed to pay Lizzy back for my guitar, so I gave her a call. She answered after a single ring, “Hey, Malcolm, looks like you got that IA working huh?” I could hear the amusement in her voice.

“Yup, working like a charm today. I was just heading up to 150 and figured I should get you those creds I owed you. Oh…unrelated, but you wouldn’t happen to know where a guy could buy a bunch of poison by any chance would you?”

“Poison?” She sounded curious. “ChemCo would probably be your best bet. What do you need poison for?”

“Oh, took a gig from The Bartender down at The Kitten. Poison seemed the way to go. ChemCo, huh?” I pulled up my map and discovered that ChemCo had a lot of real estate on 150. There were no fewer than three storefronts, and there were even a couple of large labs labeled on my map a ways off from the business areas. The labs were actually quite near my apartment. Hmm, guess that makes sense. If Lizzy’s mom worked for them she’d have wanted to live close to where she worked. “Wanna just meet me at this ChemCo store then?” I asked, dropping her a pin at the nearest store to our apartments.

“Uh…not that one. I may have gone in there and made a scene once or twice after Mom died. Let’s meet at this one,” I received a pin for the store in the middle of the megabuilding.

“Sure,” I checked my clock and estimated how long it’d take me to get there at the rate the elevator was moving. “20 minutes?” I asked.

“Sounds good, see ya in a bit,” the call dropped and I rode up in silence as people continued to move in and out of the elevator.

My guess was good and 19 minutes later I walked into the ChemCo store marked with various ads. Weight loss seemed to be a prevalent theme on this particular shop. It had the feel of a medium sized pharmacy, and I quickly found Lizzy browsing a section of stimulants. My eyebrows raised when I noticed a sizable selection of different types of amphetamines available for over the counter purchase.

“Hey,” said Lizzy as she noticed me, putting down a box of something in bright red packaging with a manic smiley face on the label.

“Hey,” I returned, sending her 5500c. At her raised eyebrow at the overpayment I added, “Figured I’d throw you a little extra for helping me out in my time of need. Also, you can give 225c of that to Abby for my first six lessons.”

She snorted in amusement, “Alright. So what do you need the poison for?” she asked as she led me over to a small section in the corner that had a variety of nasty liquids and powders that purported to kill folks in various disturbing ways.

I picked up a small bottle of InstaKill that had as its main feature ‘new NullFlavor flavorlessness to catch your target by surprise!’ “Bartender wants me to clear out sub 10. I’m not about to try shooting thousands of children while they charge me with knives ready to cut me to shreds. Poison seemed like a much safer way to go.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You took the basement job? Damn…that’s a dangerous one. I know…knew a few solos that tried that job and disappeared. See anything there that will do the trick?” she gestured at the shelf I was perusing.

I checked the labels on most of the small selection of poisons, but nothing was really seeming like it’d work. Most of the poisons emphasized the fact that they killed quickly, efficiently, and most importantly permanently, but I needed something slow acting or a few of them would die and none of the others would touch whatever poisoned the first ones. “Unfortunately, no. I need something slow acting and flavorless.” I said with a defeated sigh.

“You should check with the clerk,” said Lizzy, knowingly. “ChemCo will tailor their products for the customer, especially for bulk orders…which I assume this is going to be, considering how many of those little shits live down there. I almost didn’t take that job with you down on sub 9, just because of how close it was to them.” She shivered at the thought.

I took her advice and walked back to the counter near the exit. As I did, I was thinking about the video evidence required for successful completion of the job, and wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to get that using poison, so I just went ahead and started recording my conversation with the clerk. I’d get the vid of the actual purchase of the poison itself, combined with me introducing the poison to the feral kids down on sub 10…hopefully that would count.

“Greetings, valued customer! Did you find everything you were looking for today?” asked the clean cut man, wearing a neat white ChemCo branded suit, behind the counter.

“Greetings…Actually, no, I didn’t. I was hoping to get a flavorless slow acting poison, but your selection, nice as it was, didn’t have what I was after,” I responded.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir. We at ChemCo of course strive to provide the finest poisons available in Noir CIty. As such, we are capable of providing bespoke designs for nearly any need.” He turned to the holographic terminal on the counter. “Can you tell me about your target and your desired effects?” The man practically oozed professionalism. Now that’s what I call customer service.

“Sure, I’m planning to poison a large number of children. I’d been toying around with the idea of poisoning a bunch of candy or some such, and leaving it where they’d find it and eat it. Obviously, in order to poison the greatest number of children possible, it would need to be fairly slow acting, flavorless, as I said previously, and I suppose ideally there’d be a way to keep them from eating a lot of it, both in the interest of not affecting them too soon, and in order to spread the effects to as many of them as possible. Does that seem like something ChemCo could handle?” I asked.

“Hmm, just a moment sir,” the employee didn’t hesitate to tap away at a keyboard as he navigated through various screens, his eyes also lit up indicating he was on a call. Not three minutes later he came back with a response. “I believe we can accommodate you, sir. This product will need to be specially mixed and created just for you, so there will be a bit of a delay while it’s manufactured, but aside from that it doesn’t appear there will be any issues. Our specialists are telling me that we could do a colorful, thin, sugar based wafer infused with a slightly radioactive isotope that will cause death within three to seven days, depending on the amount ingested, where one wafer would guarantee death within about a week. The downside is that it can be cured rather easily during that time for a few thousand creds. As far as minimizing the number of candies ingested, we have recently made some breakthroughs in diet pills that will cause the target to feel full after eating only one wafer, which should help with the spread factor you mentioned. How many units were you interested in purchasing?” he asked, his professional demeanor front as center as the idea of murdering children didn’t seem to phase him in the slightest.

“Well, depending on the size and the price, I was hoping for about 20,000,” I said after a moment’s thought. I probably couldn’t afford that much, but that’s how much I figured would be ideal for who knows how many thousands of kids.

That got a reaction out of him, however slight. The man’s left eyebrow rose a few millimeters before he responded. “The wafers would be approximately 1.5 millimeters thick and 1.5 centimeters in diameter. 20,000 units would net you a bulk discount that would leave you looking at 45,000c.” I felt my own eyebrow raise at the price. That would be most of my cash…but that’s some cheap poison, maybe because it’s so easily cured?

“Sounds perfect. I’m happy to pay up front, of course, but how long would manufacturing take? I was hoping to start my extermination project later today.”

The man clicked a few keys on his terminal. “Upon receiving payment, manufacture would begin immediately and should be finished in approximately six hours. You could pick that up here at that time, or if you prefer we could have it delivered for a nominal fee.”

I sent the man 45,000c, and inwardly winced as the -45,000c flashed over my vision in golden numbers, reducing my nest egg to barely over 5 grand. “I’ll be back in 6 hours then, my good man. And do pass along my compliments to your supervisor on your excellent customer service. Ever so nice to deal with a proper professional.” A genuine smile grew on the man’s face as he gave me a polite nod. A receipt of payment message flashed to my IA complete with a built in timer that informed me when my purchase would be ready.

Lizzy had a somewhat bemused look on her face, and we exited the store together as I said “Now I just need to find a way to kill 6 hours.”