Shooting up from the blankets, Conor grabbed hold of the neck of whoever was jostling him awake, his cybernetic arm whirring while activating. Suddenly touching someone asleep was a stupid idea to do to anyone from Heavalun. Any sentient from this city was on edge most of the time and was usually particularly ornery when waking up.
He was especially prickly after years of contract killing and near-nonstop battles. While most people from Heavalun Mass City were used to fighting or having to keep an eye over their shoulder, watching for gangers, junkies, pickpockets, or the local police, his experience working and living here made him like a rubber band, ready to snap. Be that a neck, arm, leg, or whatever the poor sod he was fighting had.
“Who the fuck do you think you are,” Conor snarled his natural and cybernetic eye narrowing and focusing in the wan light of his drab bedroom.
In an action built into him like an instinct, he willed his cybernetic eye to switch to see in infrared thermal sight, letting him get a good look at whoever this was while his natural eye adjusted to the lighting.
In bright orange, reds, and whites, Jurilra's face came into focus. She was a Jurintik, a werewolf-like species, while he was human through and through. She had dull brown fur, long, dirty blonde hair, and a gaunt face and frame. The Jurintik was an alien species widespread throughout the galaxy, be it in the GU(galactic Union), Freespace, or here deep in the COS (concord of systems); you can’t swing a pipe without hitting at least two of them.
“Conor—let—-go,” Julitra gagged, clutching at Conor’s cybernetic forearm, her claws scratching roughly at the overlapping metal plates. “It’s me.”
Realizing who it was, Conor let her neck go, and she fell to the ground. He had only lifted her several centimeters off the floor, but doing that when half your torso, including your shoulders, one arm, and most of your organs were non-organic, or at least cybernetically enhanced, was a simple task, and he had done so out of sheer reflex.
“What were you thinking waking me up like that? You’re lucky I didn’t just dust you with my hand cannon,” Conor said, gesturing to the massive handgun sitting on the bedside table. “What in the stars are you doing here anyway?”
Taking a moment to rub at her neck and gag for a moment, Conor pieced together what likely happened. Considering that Julitra was naked, save for a thong, he must have hired her last night to blow off some steam—it wouldn’t be the first time he had done that when drunk.
“You didn’t pay me for last night,” Julitra said, standing up and nervously scratching her furry forearms and looking deeper into the shithole of an apartment toward the room where Conor stored all his weapons, money, and other precious items for barter or fencing purposes.
Conor sighed and scratched behind his still intact ear, the other having been halfway taken off by a frag grenade a few local years ago. After taking a moment to swing his legs out of bed, flexing his sore muscles, and rubbing his palms on his thighs, he looked up at her, having deactivated the thermal vision in his eye. “Fine; in the room, top drawer on the right, you will find some bags of Murt and Syntrit. Take one of each.”
“Alright,” Julitra said, turning around and sashaying in that direction, clearly doing her best to move suavely and gracefully.
But Conor knew that was a load of Kret shit; She was little more than a strung-out junkie who just managed to keep herself on another fix fast enough by either guy like himself paying her for a quick lay or by managing not to get taken advantage of by one of the dealers on a street corner.
At least if she was selling herself for the night, she wasn’t going to end up in some slave market in the lower sections of the city or crammed into a skiff bound for a star on the far side of the galaxy. Julitra did have some kids to take care of, after all.
Not that it mattered to Conor if she went missing; there would be another skag he could bring in here. He just preferred her because she never tried to steal from him nor kill him in his sleep—finding another girl that he could trust would not be easy, especially in this shithole of a mass city. That well over a billion sentients were nestled in it did not matter; finding another piece of ass would be a pain.
“And only take one. I know how much product I have,” Conor grumbled, standing and heading toward the kitchenette. The dirty, blood-stained carpet was uncomfortable under bare feet.
God he hated going around with bare feet. It paid to have good boots to keep your feet safe from glass, nails, and other debris. That was especially important when operating in urban areas.
When he was out in the countryside or the house, he would forgo wearing them and switch to sneakers, but being barefoot still sucked.
“I know,” Julitra replied from the room, “can I use your shower?”
“Whatever,” Conor replied flippantly, pulling down dried stulk leaves and tossing a pot of water on the stove.
So long as she didn't cause any issues with him getting started for the day, he honestly could not care less. All he needed to start the day was a pipping hot cup of stulk, and his stims. On that subject, the datapad built into his artificial arm chimed and reminded him of just that.
He frowned while retrieving the volatile cocktail of stimulants from the cupboard. He was almost out and only had enough for three days. Inside were six small autoinjectors about 20 centimeters long, marked with several warnings indicating that they should only be used in dire combat situations. But he was a particularly unique case and needed them just to survive.
After having a solid forty percent of his body replaced with cybernetics, from a metallic jaw, fake eye, a few replaced organs, torso, numerous enhanced joints, and even a few bits of wire running through his brain, the stims kept him working.
Without his friend Stich’s unique stimulant blend twice a day, Conor would start to fall apart. First would come the tremors, then body lockup, followed by seizures and eventually death. He had never made it that far in relapse; it was just easier to keep his organic parts cranked up to keep pace with his enhanced parts, and the video Stich showed him of sentients who relapsed was a good dissuasion.
Those poor sods were mangled wrecks, limbs at unnatural angles, blood, hydraulic fluid, and bone everywhere. And they were at most twenty percent wired up—what he could end up like was something he would rather not learn.
Dutifully and like clockwork, Conor ripped the cap off an auto-injector and shoved it into his thigh; a dull hiss sounded out as the brackish fluid flowed into his muscles. Just as he tossed the now empty injector into the trashcan, the sounds of Julitra starting the shower and humming flowed into the joint living and bedroom.
While Julitra was showering, Conor's friend and coworker Brakul sent him a message.
Brakul: Hey, Conor, what are you doing tonight? I think I might have a contract for us to pick up.
Conor: No plans at this point. I just gotta get Julitra out of my safe house.
Brakul: Are you still fucking that scag? You know that won’t end well.
Conor: Yeah, gotta get my dick wet somehow. Besides, aren’t you still plowing that Kurilta we worked with a few months back—the one with the red hair?
Brakul: Yeah, I am. I like the crazy little woman. Plus, she is only a meter tall and makes me feel massive. But are you in or not?
Conor: Yeah, I'm in. When, where, and who is the client?
Brakul: Perfect. Meet me at Zyntle’s at around 2100. If all goes well, we got a contract for some new upstart to the north out of town. He is looking to hire some muscle for a few months. Don't worry about the contract's legitimacy; Norla sent this man my way to arrange half a dozen bodies. I just want you there in case something goes down.
Conor: So, bring a few extra solutions?
Brakul: if you would, and keep ‘em quiet, no shotguns. We will be in Zynie's place and need to keep things civil.
Conor: Afirm, see you then.
After switching off the arm-mounted datapad, Julitra stepped back into the room, redressed in her clothes from the previous night. They weren't anything fancy by any stretch of the imagination. Just a simple lowcut dress, showing off a shallow valley of furry cleavage, and cut to give ample view up her thighs and see the thong barely covering her womanhood.
For a hooker, it was good enough.
“Want to have some stulk?” Conor questioned, pouring himself a glass.
“Sure,” Julitra replied, going and lounging at the dingy table in the corner of the room.
They were quiet while eating their meager breakfast; neither had much in common or to talk about as is. The only things Julitra knew about Conor were: he killed people for money, sold stolen goods, and could give her a mean dick down. Whereas Conor knew damn near everything about her, acquired through basic profiling of her actions, attire, and mannerisms or from some of the intelligence brokers he dealt with regularly.
Some friends called him paranoid for keeping such tight tabs on anyone he dealt with; at least Brakul and Stich did. But Conor knew that knowledge was power and was needed if you wanted to always end up with your opponent dusted and not you. Conor knew better than anyone that you don’t survive like he has without a bit of paranoia. Hell, he was more persistent than a Hureclian beetle seeking water.
Once they had finished scarfing down crackers, canned meat, and the bitter, brackish brew, Julitra quickly took her leave, with Conor locking the door behind her. First, the deadbolts, then the chain, followed by a biometric scanner, and lastly, he kicked a metal wedge underneath the door—it would take a whole breaching team from the local government a solid hour to breach that reinforced metal monstrosity and that was just how Conor liked it.
Unless you were invited into his home, it would behoove you to stay out and not try to get in.
Now that he was alone again, Conor trundled into the room Julitra had gotten her payment from and opened up one of the massive ceiling-high safes lining the walls. Inside was some of his equipment. This specific one contained most of his low-visibility equipment: body armor, weapons, knives, toolkits, and anything else he might need for more subtle operations.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Other tools he might want were in the various safes, but those kits were built for more specific jobs: sniping, heavy assaults, aerial and maritime operations, and anything else he could use in a warzone. Most of that was overkill for tonight.
So Conor pulled out a few items he thought could be helpful and started his preparations in such meticulous detail that it would take him the rest of the day.
—-
The area outside of Zyntle’s nightclub was insanely crowded, even for Heavalun standards. Up and down the street, as far as the eye could see, were nightclubs, bars, and restaurants, catering to whatever vice one could want.
Unlike some of the out portions of the city, areas in the inner and lower regions like here, you could not see the sky. Instead, if one looked up, they would be met with obnoxious neon signs and more buildings arching overhead, choking out any star or sunlight that might be visible.
Aiding in the choking and oppressive atmosphere, Aliens of all shapes and sizes bumped into one another with little grace, care, or concern. Most were decked out head to toe in bright neon colors that melded together in a caleidoscope of shifting brilliance.
At least that gave the usual drab greys, rust reds, and browns of the cityscape some color, even if Conor usually found it more annoying than not. Thankfully, neither Conor, Brakul nor their strange contact could not hear the crowd outside from the second-floor window. Instead, they were being bombarded by something as if not more grating.
The happy tones and idle conversations of the crowd on the dancefloor below them, along with repetitive keyboards, synthetic snapping basslines, and ethereal vocals, filled the air to a near-deafening level. If not for the three of them having wired up to a local chatterbox that Conor brought along, they would not be able to hear one another.
The chatterbox was not fancy; it was just a tiny device Conor had whipped up. It allowed them to speak normally into microphones on their collars and be heard in earpieces. He devised the idea after a few skiff airborne operations, where unless you were jacked into the aircraft comms, you could not talk without screaming.
Now, the chatterbox just doubled as the perfect tool for having conversations you would rather not have others around listen into. Hell, unless you were inches from them, you would not be able to hear them at all.
Brakul and whomever this Farun’se was, a two-meter tall feline-like alien, had been going over the finer details of the contract for the last half hour. Conor had been listening just enough to keep in the loop, but his focus was elsewhere. Namely in the crowds around them, watching for anything he did not want to see: other contractors, a gang war about to erupt, or anything else that caught his eye. People-watching was one of the things Conor enjoyed about setting up jobs; it gave him plenty of time to keep tabs on the ever-shifting city.
He had not spotted anything yet, in regular vision, Thermal, or through tracking, but something was off—he could feel it in his hackles. As such, One of Conor's hands was in his somewhat oversized brown leather jacket, wrapped tightly around the grip of his suppressed handgun. Neither Brakul nor the Client commented on him keeping watch; they both knew he was just filling the role of an enforcer and was backup for them.
“So, what do you think about the contract?” The Farun’se man questioned before taking a sip from his drink.
Whatever that glowing drink was, it was not ethanol-based; the smell was far too sweet. Conor could tell that much even through the skull-like mask covering his face. Not that the flat black ballistic bask he wore to cover his metallic jaw and mangled face covered scents much. It was built much like the other equipment he wore to enhance his senses, not diminish them.
“I think it is perfectly acceptable. But are you certain you only want a ten-man team to provide escort and transport for your client while within the city?” Brakul asked, flipping a palm up. “I am certain I can get more, considering your daily generous payment offer.”
Generous was one way to put it. The politician the Farun’se represented offered a whopping 15 thousand crit a day for well-experienced mercs. It was enough to get Conor's tail wagging; Most jobs barely pay that out, and this contract was supposed to be ten days long. You could almost buy a house outside the city for that kind of crit. If they were actually paid it out and not betrayed by their employer, at the end of the day, Conor likely would do just that; then, he would have a place to live without the threat of death around every corner.
Each of his jobs over the last few years was a means to that end—escaping this shithole. But getting out of the city was difficult, even for guys like him with opportunities to leave and a reasonably regular income.
“Well, we can work that out via messaging, but for now, I am just offering what I am allowed to,” The client said. “Anything more than that, and I won't be able to pay you half upfront.”
At least they are offering half the credits upfront. Conor must have missed that part during their long-winded discussion about what type of experience each mercenary needed, what weapons they would be allowed, and the specifics of the contract.
All they would have to do was finalize details of the team when Brakul had assembled another eight bodies, but they could do that in a few weeks.
“If that’s the case, then I think we should be good for now,” Brakul said, standing and extending a hand for the client.
“Perfect, expect to hear from me in a few days. Please have your team prepared by the end of the week,” The client replied, shaking Brakul’s hand.
After removing his earpiece and microphone, the client nodded to Conor and disappeared into the crowd looming around the stairs leading to the ground floor.
“So you like the sounds of that?” Brakul asked, sitting back down and sipping at his drink.
Keeping his sight on the crowd below, Conor tracked the client as he struggled to weave through the jostling dancers. The Feline was clearly out of his element in the mass city crowds. Based on how quickly he was recoiling from each touch by the intoxicated patrons, he was uncomfortable with all the physical contact forced onto him.
The sight was almost comedic, but Conor was used to dealing with people like the client's representative. If you had enough crit to hire ten mercs, you came from one of two walks of life: you were an influential underground leader who could afford the extra muscle, or you were a sheltered individual with no real business in Heavalun Mass City but decided you wanted to make some friends in low places and needed locals who would be loyal to the almighty crit.
But all of that was neither here nor there for the time being; Brakul would handle any issues with the contract. He was far better at being a politician than Conor was.
“So, any issues with what he wants?” Brakul smirked, knowing that it had been several months since Conor's last contract and that he needed the money.
Conor passively waved at his friend; he did not need to comment. Conor would take any contract that came his way so long as the pay was solid enough. In the past, he had taken contracts Brakul refused for moral reasons.
This contract of defending some high-born trader was in no way out of the ordinary and was relatively tame by Conor’s standards. His last contract was far more low-brow enough that he had almost said no. But for the low, low cost of 100 thousand crits and the fancy nanotech armor he was wearing under his tank top, he was more than willing to blow up the wing of a hospital with a firebomb—insurance paid to fix the building and burry anyone caught up when he killed a lowborn noble or some distant planet.
“I’m more interested in what's going on down below,” Conor said, pointing to a group gathering near the club's back entrance.
Below, barely visible through the flashing strobe lights and low haze of fog machines, seven Kyrail lingered at the back doors. One of the amphibian-like bipeds was giving instructions to the others. It was a shame the music was so loud; if not, Conor and Brakul could easily hear them, but even without sound, it was easy to see what they were doing. They were scouting a mark.
“What do you think, Voodals gang?” Conor posed, scanning the crowd for whomever the lead croaker was trying to target.
Voodal is a leader of one of the area's crime families and merc groups. They had been competitors of Conor and Brakul and their usual hiring groups for a long time. While Brakul and Conor did not have beef with them, one of their usual employers, the Farklut clan, had generations of bad blood.
That rivalry was nasty, to the point anyone who was a direct member of either family would dust the other on sight. Both had been caught up in that rivalry several times and had a negative opinion of the Voodal family and any of their ilk.
“Likely. This is part of a contested city, after all,” Brakul replied, sipping his drink.
“I wonder what they are doing here?” Conor said, still not having located whatever it was they were doing, but he had seen them pull out a particularly nasty drug, giving him an idea of precisely what they planned on doing—abduction.
The gaggle’s leader had passed out plastic bags with what looked like Visage clinging to the bags. That drug might as well be chloroform on the strongest combat stim out there. It would put you in a trance and make you forget the next several days until the effects wore off. The perfect drug for slave traffickers and abductors.
The only reason Conor could tell was that he had used the tactic several times to capture targets alive. It was great; you could fish information from them freely, and they wouldn't remember anything beyond where they had been picked up and whenever the drug wore off.
“I see their target,” Brakul muttered, “switch to IR. I will laze her for yah.”
As his friend and partner told him, Conor switched his false eye to IR and watched, and Brakul’s pistols laser pierced the crowd and danced on the back of a red-scaled Kurlatra, dancing happily with some other reptilians of her species. All were woefully ignorant of the Kyrail weaving through the crowd toward them, hands tucked into jackets, likely clutching knives, pistols, and bags of drugs.
“Hmmm, odd, not a lot of Kurlatra on this side of the GU borders,” Conor commented.
“For sure,” Brakul agreed.
Kurlatra were a noble-esc species in the GU and tended to stay in the GU, as opposed to the COS; most here only cared about their nobility for the sake of making money on ransom.
The GU was safe but was overbearing compared to the COS. It had far more laws, restrictions, and limitations on carving out a living. Conor’s chosen profession of being a Mercenary was outlawed in the GU unless you were on the Union congress's payroll, But he was not on that list, despite trying a few times.
“Wanna toss a wrench in their plans?” Brakul questioned.
“How so?” Conor replied, watching the crimson-scaled woman in the center, finding her shifting bust and full hips hypnotic.
Compared to those around her, she was different. Unlike the others who wore simple clothes, she wore a very revealing yellow dress that was low cut in the back and front, showing off her cleavage and the top of her long flowing tail.
Those details made her different, but the sparkling gemstones hanging across her currently held his attention. All the glistening jewelry made her smell of crit.
All those stones and precious metals were likely worth a few hundred thousand crit. That was before you sold her pert ass to some slaver.
“We can go down, nab her after the entourage is dealt with, and be big damn heroes. Then we get an award from that payday of a ruby. If she is not feeling up to it, we could ransom her off to the Voodal; they want her for some reason,” Brakul explained, using his keen eye for diplomacy and deals to guide Conor’s mind to the potential payout.
Conor took a moment to take stock of the situation; he had enough ammo to carve through the Voodal family present and could carry such a Kurlatra if needed. Should this shit go sideways and end up in a firefight, they could just use the crowd and vanish.
“What about the contract we just took,” Conor posed
“We haven't taken one yet,” Brakul reminded, “that rep needs to get back to us with upfront payment. Until then, we are freelance.”
Conor could not deny he was right; no crit had changed hands yet, they were still unemployed, and this bitch might be worth some cash. Before Conor had a chance even to comment one way or the other, Brakul pressed on a nerve he knew would get Conor to act.
“Come on. I got fifty crit that says you can't extract that Kurlatra before the Voodal drug her,” the fellow Jurintik mocked.
The bastard knew how to get to Conor for sure. He was competitive and hated to have his abilities brought into question. Just out of professional pride, Conor could not let that lay.
“Two hundred,” Conor countered.
“One hundred,” Brakul retorted, “oh, look, they already nabbed one of the entourage.”
He was right. One of the Kurlatra heading toward the bathrooms near the back entrance just had a bag of Visage slammed into their mouth and had already gone glassy-eyed. Now, there were only five Kurlatra left, including the clear HVT(High-Value Target)
“One fifty,” Conor snapped, eager to have his friend stop messing with him.
“Deal, I will cover and feed you intel from her. Open channel one,” Brakul sneered.
Without missing a beat, Conor shot up from the table and descended the stairs into the crowd, drawing his suppressed pistol and activating his target tracker to keep sight of the HVT.
Conor did not know it yet, but that little bet, one that was not even worth as much ammo as he was about to expend, would send his life on a journey that would change him forever.