The Armistice gang, colloquially referred to as ARMS, was known for many things. Street justice, contraband, predatory loans, and violent crime being among them. What it wasn't known for was being messy, sloppy, or cruel. The situation Joe found himself in was all of those things, and Joe wanted no part of it.

Violet was tired when they returned from work. His mother, haggard, pulled him down for a peck on the forehead, before wandering to the CleanCloset that acted as the micro-apartment’s shower, washroom, and decontamination unit in one.

Their home was small. Truly a minuscule thing at 55sq meters or 180sq feet. It was an older apartment with a mix of the less durable drywall and metal, though it had been updated for internet and uplink access, as well as outfitted with a CleanCloset, a food printer, and built-in sleeping shelves.

Joe headed to the kitchen and set the processor to create two meals as he mentally prepared himself. Glad that he’d at least been spared from the conversation with his mother about his potentially lethal extracurricular activities. Then he went to his sleeping shelf, and pulled the sliding door to reveal the recessed nook that functioned as his ‘bedroom’. Laying down, and taking a deep breath, he grabbed the VR head rig and waited until he heard the faint whine and click of the rig synchronizing to his implant before slipping on the goggles.

The moment he logged into his Interlink account his attention was pulled to the flashing ‘Link’ notifications indicating he had a number of messages he had yet to check.

The first one he opened was from Emily. It read:

19:04 – Em: Spoke to father about ‘A Guy’. I’m sorry, and you’re welcome.

Joe hated it when she did this, it always meant bad or complicated things for him. Like things weren’t complicated enough without Emily’s narcissist of a father getting involved.

The next messages were equally as expected as they were unwelcome.

19:32 - ARMS: Get here, yesterday.

That was all it said. His AMRS contact had sent it a few minutes ago, which meant they’d been monitoring him. He checked the clock in the corner. It was 19:38pm and his mom wouldn’t be asleep for at least another hour and a half. Just as he was typing out his reply a new message popped into the chat.

19:39 – ARMS: Bring the KIT

The KIT was what Joe called his Go bag for medical and bio-mechanical emergencies. It had all the standard EMT field equipment, and some decidedly non-standard equipment as well.

He had hoped the job they needed him for would have allowed him to wait until his mother was asleep before he snuck out to complete it. She didn’t like him working around, doing jobs for, or being remotely associated with the gang. Joe found her sentiments reasonable, entirely understandable, and yet, almost completely unavoidable for people with their economic background and startling lack of social connections.

She knew he worked with ARMS sometimes, or ‘did them favours’ as she liked to call it. His skillset was specialized enough that he was given an incredible amount of leeway, so long as he continued to do them ‘favours’. For example, he was not officially affiliated with the gang, nor was he pledged to it, or on their payroll. However, Joe and Violet both knew that his freedom was contingent on his continued willingness to help them. Also, there weren’t many other options when it came to off-the-books bio-mechanical medical professionals.

19:42 – Doc: OMW

After an 11 ½ hour shift, the last thing he wanted to do was more work, but needs must.

His mom tapped him on the shoulder then, and they spent a pleasant evening talking about their day and tolerating the slightly medicinally sweet nutrient goop that was their dinner. By the time his mother climbed into her sleeping nook, Joe was ready to head out.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Haste was pertinent to this job, and Joe knew if he took the normal roads, it would take him the shortest amount of time to get to the warehouse. Unfortunately, a series of brief but violent public demonstrations had recently occurred, and curfew was in full effect. That meant taking the backroads if he wanted to avoid being dragged into custody, strapped with a fine he couldn’t afford, then summarily dumped in front of his already skeptical, and disapproving mother. Besides, Joe did Not like tardiness. he found it annoying in others, and untenable in himself. So, when he pulled up a minute later than promised he cursed both protesters and ‘law’ enforcement equally as he approached the warehouse entrance.

In front of the side entrance was what Joe recognized as a guard, though one wouldn’t know from the look of his mussed street clothes and openly carried Ruger-57X with a modified barrel. It told Joe that either this guy was a competent man who was pretending to be inept in order to lull people into a false sense of security, or that he was as ineffectual as he looked, which, considering the butchery he’d made of a great weapon, Joe would bank on the latter. Said gun was now dangling unsafely in his twitchy fingers as Joe approached. An already agitated Joe simply turned to look at the second guard, a tall woman who was leaning against the warehouse side. Joe raised a brow, his features semi-obscured in the dim streetlight that only half illuminated the entrance of the building.

“Head on in,” she said, scanning a chip in her arm on a well-concealed RFID panel, and unlocking the door. Joe nodded in gratitude, ignoring the disheveled thug, while silently paying attention to the conversation.

“Boss said not to open for anyone but the doc!” The man grumbled, still waving around the 57X.

“That was the doc.” The woman said succinctly.

“What? That kid he…” The words trailed off as Joe strode deeper into the building where he could see his contact waiting for him. Joe didn’t know the man’s name, just as the man didn’t know his. Instead, he was called Pinky, and Joe, Doc.

Pinky was standing in front of a group of people who could best be described as a faceless, nameless, generic workforce. All of them were street-level members of the Armistice gang who Joe couldn't be bothered to learn anything about, considering most of these people would be dead within 12 months. That, or they’d try to defect, which is just another way of saying they’d be dead. That, or they would rise up the ranks at which point he might bother learning their faces and names.

The warehouse was large, though not the largest space on the docks of Port Moody’s unregulated warehouse district. Butting up against the Fraser River, the sound of fast-moving water was drowned out by the screams of what sounded like a distressed fox in heat, and an irate gorilla.

Recognizing this as his destination, Joe hitched his KIT higher over his shoulder, tapped his subdermal to do a diagnostic run, and ensure that the custom patches he’d created and integrated were fully functional while he connected to a private data provider through the satellite uplink he'd rigged years ago – sub-rosa of course. He was as prepared as he could be to march through the doors and do the only job ARMS ever asked him to do. Fix lethal accidents… and sometimes on-purposes.

Joe hated the term ‘accident’. It implied something was unpreventable, unintentional, and unavoidable. Often the ‘accidents’ he cleaned up were both entirely preventable, and often intentional. They didn’t pay him to like things though, they paid him well to make sure the accidents were fixed in whichever way they most deemed necessary.

Generally, whatever it was that caused the ‘accident’ was justified. Joe wasn't a saint, but he didn't condone wanton slaughter, or needless cruelty. It was wasteful, unnecessary, and honestly, a truly poor use of his skills. In the same vein, he appreciated that if nothing else, the gang had thus far respected his boundaries. He came in and did his job without feeling like a complete piece of scum. Joe would follow orders like a a good generic gang soldier, or in his case army medic, and leave without getting entangled or having to know more than he should.

That was why Joe was inordinately angry when he walked into an unfamiliar – if fairly large – office space that was occupied by five, standing people, and two injured parties. He was already tense after climbing up two stories of metal stairs and treading gingerly along a walkway with only a thin metal chain at hip height cosplaying as a secure railing. Joe had never understood the term ‘wall of sound’ before this moment, but when he opened the door, it was like entering a new world. What he thought had been loud before, cutting into the gentle susurrations of the river was now overwhelming. Sensory overload nearly had Joe slamming the door shut once more, but his eyes moved faster than his discomfort, his brain firing on all cylinders and taking in as much of the situation as he could deduce, all in a moment. His mind moved faster than instinct, and he stood his ground… barely, because he didn’t like what he’d deduced.

Not one bit.