The light, dimmed by the city's smog, gently woke Sam from his slumber among the rubbish of New

Berlin's city centre. Sam was a 24-year-old Latino whose family moved to the city almost half a

decade ago. Shortly after the move, both parents died in a hover car accident and Sam was left

without access to the family's finances after his uncle quickly snatched up the family's property. Sam

knew he would have to live like a slave under his uncle and decided to seek his fortune on the

streets. Better to be free and poor than a slave. He had now been living on his own for 4 years and 3

months. He was not as poor as most homeless people, thanks to the Augs he received on his 18th

birthday. His eyes helped him navigate the city without accidentally bumping into gangs, his artificial

lungs allowed him to run from the police without getting caught and the massive modifications to

his brain allowed him to hack into cameras and security systems, as well as manipulate unprotected

Augs. Of course, Sam could easily lead a good life with his abilities, but he was sure that he would be

found by his uncle if he lived openly in the city, even under a false name. Sam didn't want to live in

constant fear and had become very accustomed to his life on the streets of the Mega City. There

was something liberating about knowing that you didn't have to abide by a single rule in the world.

Sam got up from his favourite spot, hidden between two large mountains of scrap metal, stretched

and enjoyed the smell of the city. He was in the EEI district, which was run solely by the Mega Corp

East European Industries and had been trying for years to become its own city within New Berlin.

The district was hardly any different from the other Corpo-related neighbourhoods, with gigantic

mega-buildings for the workers, beautiful houses for the high-ranking employees and huge roads

designed to get as many goods out into the world as possible. Sam was in the western part of the

city, where EEI's production facilities were located, which meant that there were many places with

hardly any people, as the days of human production labour were long gone. Only a few supervisors

and mechanics were regularly to be found here. But that's exactly why this place was so popular

with underground groups who needed space for their business.

Nothing is better than a decadesold abandoned warehouse surrounded by even more decades-old abandoned factories if you

wanted to carry out your activities undisturbed. Sam was drawn south, deep into the former

industrial area. He wasn't sure which of the warehouses he would find his next business partner in,

but sooner or later he would come across a group of up-and-coming cyberpunks who would make a good

platform for testing his latest daemons. As soon as the tests were all successfully completed, Sam

would be able to sell the programmes on the black market for good money. What was done with the

programmes afterwards was not his problem.

If he were to worry about that, his conscience would be so burdened that it would have the mass of

one of the huge rubbish dumps outside the city. Sam was well aware of what was being done with

daemons that could eat deep into people's cyberware to perform various pre-programmed actions.

For example, stopping the nerve connections between the brain and any external influences, such

as seeing, hearing, sensing and the like. Provided the victim had cyberware that could access these

senses, understandably. After passing 8 warehouses and still not finding a hidden operation, Sam

was getting impatient and annoyed. He had never had much patience, but since he had enhanced

his body with cyberware and cybermancing equipment it had become even worse. He could do

many digital tasks at the same time and in just a few seconds, he had got used to it by now and

when reality took forever to arrive, it felt like an infinity of idleness to Sam. After another 3 buildings

he got tired of wandering around and decided to tackle the matter in a different way. Usually this

method would take longer than simply looking for occupied buildings, but as he had no luck with

the former, Sam hoped to have more success with this one.

Sam retreated to a secluded corner behind a dumpster, out of sight from the street, and crouched

down. He switched his eyes from enhanced vision to scan and looked around for datatubes that ran

throughout the city and were the spine of the city network. It didn't take long to find one, as a main

datatube ran right underneath the street. This surprised Sam a little. Why wasn't this tube rerouted

now that no one needed access in this area of the city? Only the city's surveillance cameras needed

a data connection, but that would require a smaller one.

Tube would be enough. But Sam put these considerations to one side and concentrated instead on

using the hacking device that was built into his brain stem to read out the access data for this

datatube connection and then hack into the administration network. It was much better secured

than expected and again the questions arose as to why such a Datatube was being used here. After

almost 13 minutes, Sam had finally managed it and was now looking for all forms of surveillance in

the hope of detecting suspicious activity. It was then that Sam realised why this datatube was being

used and why it was so well secured. It wasn't a New Berlin tube, not even an officially existing one.

The subnet being used was that of the notorious Aizutachi organisation, a Europe-wide hacker

conglomerate that had apparently set up a new headquarters here in EEI.

Sam saw countless processes running simultaneously and hundreds of illegal cameras. Before he

could log out of the subnet to leave, an alarm was triggered. The hole in the defence that Sam had

exploited to gain access had apparently just been a trap. Before he cut the connection, his HUD was

flooded with information about himself, appearance, location, cyberware, anything to identify him

had just been uploaded and sent to all the people and machines connected to the Net. Sam cut the

connection and started to run. He had to get out of here as quickly as possible. The Aizutachi were a

splinter group of the Japanese Yakuza who had come to Europe almost 10 years ago to extend the

power of the Yakuza to Europe. Sam had never had anything to do with the yakuza before and he

was damn glad about it. According to the stories, these were not usually pleasant encounters.

However, Sam was travelling on foot and therefore not particularly fast in his escape. While he was

still deep in the former industrial area, he heard vehicles behind him, by the sound of it 4 to 5

motorbikes and 2 cars. He turned into an alley between two buildings to at least get rid of the cars.

From the sound of it, that seemed to work, leaving him only with the problem of the motorbikes

behind him. He heard them approaching fast, so he turned and switched his eyes to scan, so he

could see the connections displayed as Wireless Connections the motherboard in the front rider's

brain. In a split second, he hacked the relatively weak defences and installed one of his daemons.

The rider collapsed on his motorbike and crashed, while the back of his head burst into flames after

his cyberware was brought to a massive overdrive. However, this didn't stop the other three riders

from simply riding past their fallen comrade and continuing on towards Sam. He didn't have time to

hack all three so he hacked the one in front, charged a smaller Daemon that blocked his view and

threw himself to the side into a pile of discarded metal. His left side burned with pain as a sharp

piece dug between his ribs. But Sam tried to ignore the pain.

He pulled his Hamatachi SP45 Tech pistol from his waistband and fired two bullets at the rearmost of

the drivers. The pistol spat out two very small pieces of metal, which were propelled to a very high

speed by electromagnetism. Similar to a railgun, but many times weaker. The lumps of metal pierced

the back of the driver at the rear and caused him to fall. The blind rider at the front of the group lost

control of his bike and hit a rubbish container in the lane at full speed and was thrown many metres

forwards. Only the middle rider was left. Sam got up slowly and agonisedly, the piece of metal in his

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

side turned out to be a bent piece of

aluminium protruding twisted from his ribs. Sam tried to ignore it and take the last opponent to the

finish line, but he found it incredibly difficult to forget the immense pain. He didn't manage to aim

in time and saw the rider jump off his bike and sprint straight towards him. The driver had drawn a

short, flashing knife and was only about 7 metres away from Sam. He focussed and, instead of

trying the gun, which he probably wouldn't be fast enough with, Sam hacked his opponent. He

broke through his defence just as the knife was on the most direct path to Sam's face. At the very

last moment, he charged up a small but very effective daemon. The knife slid towards Sam's eyes

and at the last moment the motorcyclist's arm tensed up and he only caught Sam's ear. At the same

moment, Sam threw himself to the ground and kicked his attacker's leg, but all Sam felt was pain in

his foot as it hit what were probably Cybernetic legs. Landing on his back and gasping in pain, Sam

raised his Hamatachi and fired. But his opponent was quicker than expected. He turned while his

stab missed the target and threw a small knife in Sam's direction with a smooth movement. The

knife and the shot from the pistol hit at the same time. Sam felt the pain in his chest, but it was only

a fraction of the pain in his ribs, so he ignored it and kept firing. After five more hits, his opponent

finally went down. Sam looked at the knife stuck in him and realised what it was. A neurotoxin knife.

Even as Sam cursed, he felt the poison spreading through his body and prayed it would be fatal so

that he wouldn't be interrogated by the Aizutachi during torture. After a few seconds, Sam lost

consciousness.

A stabbing headache woke Sam. Tracking light burned in his eyes and he tried to adjust his vision, but

his cyberware wasn't responding. He looked around and saw himself tied to a chair surrounded by

several people. Most of them equipped with weapons like baseball bats and metal pipes and

presumably performance-enhancing cyberware.

Directly in front of him was a Japanese woman with overly large eyes, each with three pupils.

"Good morning," she purred. The pain in Sam's head got worse. She had probably hacked into

his system and uploaded daemons to cause him pain.

and separate him from his own cyberware. "So, Samuel Alvarez. Why did you tamper with our tech?

What was your goal, who are your clients and how did you know about our system here?" The

woman's voice was cold and intimidating. It was in stark comparison to her small stature and the

childlike look her large eyes gave her. Sam tried to collect himself. The headache was pounding in his

ears, the pain from his chest, ribs and foot didn't help too much and he was still woozy from the

toxin.

He began with "I didn't know about you-" but was immediately interrupted by the woman

"Bollocks. Why are you here, who is your employer and how did you find out about our system?" "i

don't know! OK?" shouted Sam, "I was just looking for some

Some insignificant punks to test out a new daemon." The woman raised an eyebrow and Sam hurried

on, "I wanted to access the city's datatube to get into CCTV.

network and thus speed up my search. I didn't know that the Datatube belonged to you and by the

time I realised it, the alarm had already gone off and I cut the

Connection direct." The woman looked at a man standing in the shadows In a complete

Cybermancer Suit, who seemed to scrutinise something for a moment and then nodded. "Hm, seems

like at least part of your story is true. Do you know who we are?" Sam looked around briefly before

answering, "Those meatballs there are probably just goons you use for your dirty work, but you and

that one over there belong to Aizutachi, right?" The woman had to suppress a smile at his words and

replied: "Right. Then you must know what happens to people who step on our toes. Right?" Sam

swallowed and nodded. She pulled back from him and studied him as he sat tied to the chair,

completely helpless. Sam had spent the entire time of the conversation, after his head had cleared,

analysing his system and finding weaknesses in the grip on his cyberware. He tried with all the

strength of his will and the fear he felt to break the daemon. He succeeded, at least in part, and

regained access to his hacking device and eye scans.

As the woman scrutinised him, he looked at the goons and with the last of his remaining strength,

he charged each of them with a Paralysis Daemon. They all collapsed and Sam looked at the

woman. "I know what you do to your victims. But I'm not a victim. I'm the hunter and if you don't

give me the chance to talk to you normally, I'll have to take it by force," Sam groaned. He was

betting that his opponent was so impressed and intimidated by the loosening of the grip on his

cyberware and the elimination of the muscle protuberances that his threat sounded really

dangerous. Though right now he couldn't even upload the smallest of his Daemons without frying

his own brain. The woman merely raised an eyebrow and continued to look at him. Sam held her

gaze and tried to look as intimidating as possible. Whether it worked, he didn't know.

After 20 seconds, the little Japanese girl spoke: "You can't hurt me, your cyberware is completely

overheated. But I'm still impressed. Consider yourself lucky, you won't be tortured to madness or

death. I'll give you a chance to talk to one of our recruiters. Maybe you'll still be useful to us." With

these words, she left the room without even giving the paralysed man a glance. The man in the

shadows stayed, however, and after a little more than a quarter of an hour a tall, lean figure entered

the room.

Sam had almost thought he was going to end up in one of the torture programmes after all, but

when the shackles were removed and all Daemon was pulled out of his head, he dared to hope.

The gaunt figure introduced himself to Sam with the name Kazuto Auburo, he was the recruiter of

the Aizutachi splinter cell here in New Berlin. The woman who had interrogated him earlier turned

out to be Sara MoRa. Commander of the security department.

"So," came from Auburo, "we are quite capable of recognising talent, even if it works against us at

the beginning. Sara sent me a detailed report and I have to say I'm impressed. Not only did you hack

into our datatube, triggering a trap in the process, but you almost managed to elude our squad

afterwards. That sounds to me like an asset that needs to be utilised. I'll give you the choice now.

Become an enforcer under Sara, or meet your end. I don't have time to play games with petty

cyberpunks,

So decide quickly." Sam didn't have to think long and agreed: "Okay, I'll go for

I want to work with you, but first I want to know exactly what that means for me," Auburo looked

Sam in the eye: "You will be given a very special daemon that will become embedded in your

system. If you work against us or run the risk of leaking our secrets, this daemon will flatline you.

But in return you will receive state of the art hardware from us. What exactly is up to Sara. Just like

your tasks." Sam had to think. A daemon that is so deeply embedded is almost impossible to

remove without the person who developed it. But not impossible.

Besides, a possible death in the future was a more pleasant thought than an imminent death in one

of the torture chambers here with the Aizutachi. "Okay," he heard himself say, "I agree." Auburo

smiled, stood up and whispered something to Sara, after which he left the room. Sara looked down

at Sam and focussed on him with her unnaturally large eyes with the three pupils. "Come on then,

let's get you to the doc so he can do some work on you and I can put the daemon in you.

But first, give me a complete list of your augs. Your defence system is good and I'm not quite sure

I've covered everything." Sam stood up and rubbed his

aching chest: "Thanks, I developed the system myself and my parts are a hacking device, neural

accelerator, samatoro eyes with scan function, reflex amplifier and a level 2 neural module to

control my programmes." Sara's eyes widened for a moment, "Level 2, huh? You're going to be

really useful to me later." With these words, she led Sam towards a doctor to take care of him, insert

a more advanced hacking device and create a vulnerability for Sara's Daemon.