I sat in Marchand’s living room, a three apartment wide living room at that. Usually I just moved through here without issue and now I was sitting on a three seater sofa made out of faux-wood and a quite rich, brown pleather that felt nice.
The whole place was just an old lady apartment gone mad, lots of faux-wood and little glass decorations and small clay sculptures, most of which seemed to be holding or alongside a tiny mirror as part of the design. Likely a theme. Lots of animals and children and other little models.
Only thing I found odd apart from the old lady vibe of the place was the lack of food preparation area. While most people didn’t cook at home these days, especially in poor areas like the water district where decent ingredients just didn’t exist, it was still normal to have a fridge and a little counter area to chop things up for mixing together or just a microwave to warm up some street food.
There weren’t any rooms off this extended open plan room, no doors, apart from Marchand’s parlor door. I connected to the IR cluster on the ceiling and almost started browsing the local grid for properties before realizing I was using Marchand’s home as a connection point and she’d likely see my traffic, so I just checked some prices on local cyberware for sale instead.
A lot of the cyberware was medical grade and no real use to me, Sanctum could apparently regrow large parts of me given enough time and food so I needed combat graded cyberware. The only publicly listed items were gangers selling old gear for upgrades and a lot of them were damaged somehow with the worst being a cyberarm without a hand. I sat there and sighed, there might be some items of worth at some point if I sat there are watched the listing all the time but I’d be better off going to a local night market meet up.
The Night markets were organized by fixers and local gangs to sell high value items, bulk illicit goods and maintain connections on neutral ground. The water district didn’t hold many night markets because there were too many small gangs around. Night markets were always dangerous, there was always the chance the whole thing could dissolve into violence when someone shot someone else for some insult with so many enemies in close quarters, that combined with hostile gangs coming in to cause trouble or a police raid for bounties or some sort of corp raid to recover a stolen item.
Night markets could be fine, or they could kill you instantly. The water district’s fractured gang state meant they were especially risky. Too many small time gangs looking to spoil the event for the reputation or just to hurt the local big gang. The only gangs big enough to hold them were the ever present Rust Heart Runners and the more north side of the district gang the Benedikt Blades named for their dead gang founder.
I could head topside and look around another district but it’d be a longer journey back with whatever goods I picked up, I’d want some actual support along for the ride if I was going to do that. Someone a bit bigger and more dangerous than Ears at least. Not to mention I’d have to get into the good books with the fixers or the gangs involved to get in to the market or maybe throw
Marchand’s name around, but that was a bit weak.
“Come on in Mal, I’m done now.” Marchand called out from the parlor, the door had opened a little without me noticing.
I headed over and paused for a moment in the doorway.
“I’d say I don’t bite like when we first met Mal, but you’re well aware that I don’t need to resort to that now. Just set your fear aside, you’re safe in here with me.” She said from inside the room.
Pushing into the room I noticed right away that it had been restored to it’s previous clean appearance, no sign of my blood and viscera, the chair I usually sat on wasn’t damaged and even the inside of the door wasn’t marked.
Even Marchand herself was back to her old appearance, same rheumy eyes, same posture, no knife wounds of pouring aspire. I could only hope it was a sign of her opinion of me and my actions returning to some previous level but I knew she was watching me carefully now, this was Marchand after all. I sat down in my normal chair, the smaller thin single seater sofa that had been knocked down before.
“So it should be first things first I suppose. You should be informed that we are secure in this room at the moment, no recording, no listeners. So we can discuss your friend in confidence, but you should get used to talking about it less directly for future reference.” She said, reaching for her cig but being far more casual than I expected. “Secondly, the whole incident from earlier needs to be discussed.”
“Yeah, I figured that was what we were here for today. Either that or you were going to kill me.” I said with a joking shrug and awkward grin.
“Oh is that an option? I suppose I should finish then job then.” Marchand said, leaning back and shaking her right knee back and forth a little. She had a grin of her own as she said this.
“I’d rather you didn’t Mrs. March…” I began to say before Marchand raised her cig at me.
“Ah.” She said.
“Anna. Sorry. I’d rather you didn’t kill me Anna. I’m a little scared and I’ve got plans that being dead would really interfere with.”
“Alright then we’ll move on from me killing you. The previous incident where I stabbed you was a test of sorts for both you and the nanite swarm. Many AIs have befriended and worked with humans only for an emergency to make the AI cut away it’s human companions in an instant and destroy the area to erase their presence from the scene.” She said, smoking. “At the same time I was curious what the AI had done to you, some of them have historically had bizarre abilities that reach or exceed transneptunian capabilities and have allowed their human partners or hosts to perform dangerous feats. Another reason AIs are so hunted even to this day.”
“Oh, well Sanct… Sam…? Yeah, well Sam has so far given me the ability to mostly hurt myself and work on a car. Actually that’s bit mean but it’s mostly helped by filling in gaps with stuff I already know mostly, along with some instinctual stuff that’d take a while to learn to do.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Nonetheless I’d advise keeping a very close eye on… Sam’s instructions to you, while it may be symbiotic that doesn’t mean it’s without goals. If they begin to counter your own then you may find yourself at war with your own body. And you can be sure that Sam would have the control there, it has likely personally managed the regeneration of every cell in you by now.”
“Yeah, I’ve been just rolling with that so far. It’s a bit too scary to think about deeply and it doesn’t change much at the human level as far as I can tell.”
“A… questionable mindset. But if it’s working for you so far then fine. As for the test. You both passed fine enough, Sam kept to it’s behavior as a symbiotic life form and not taking control. You defended yourself first by stabbing me, fine work by the way there but a little less impressive now I know that Sam helped with that. Then you used a quick hack and a daemon at that. Totally unexpected and messed up all my plans, I haven’t been caught by surprise that badly in decades. It really opened my eyes to my sloppiness in recent years.”
“I uh… I’m sorry about that whole thing.”
“Don’t apologize for defending your own life Mal, but you did nearly get yourself killed. You left me totally disabled on the floor and didn’t finish me off, very disappointing Mal. You should have at least attempted a confirmation stab before leaving, never mind. But in knocking me out you also stopped me from being able to treat your wounds with my emergency medical nanite serum, a lovely little spacer grade reusable kit that I picked up years ago. Instead you dragged your rapidly dying body downstairs to the clinic.”
“Oh, I thought the spacer medical thing was a fake thing you invented for Dr. Wood to hide Sam.”
“Well it became that, but I do actually have such things. Makes it easier to lie about things that are mostly true, as you well know. I’m not some old spinster living alone among her knick knacks of no real value as I rattle around waiting for the grave.”
I looked around the room a little.
“Okay, not just some old spinster. And that look was very rude young man.” She said, blowing smoke at me.
“Sorry Anna, I’ve gotten in trouble with an older woman that used to live in my apartment complex before. I should know better really by now.” I said apologetically.
“Don’t talk to me about that witch, we broke up decades ago and she still won’t give me back my earrings or say sorry for what she did. The dry husk can rot away over there for all I care.”
What the hell is happening. I don’t need Marchand’s love history in my life.
“So what are we doing going forward? Do I still work with you or am I too hot for you to handle?” I asked, trying to put the slowly coalescing images of old ladies kissing from my mind before they could properly form. Of all the functions it has why couldn’t Sam stop that from happening?
“I’ve dealt with more obviously dangerous operators before, and far more actively wanted operatives. But I’ve never had an operator like yourself, such a huge unknown threat with such potential gain while still being young and moldable.” Marchand said, swinging her cig around as she talked.
“I don’t like being molded to be honest. It sounds painful and weird, like I’m a commodity. Or a pet.”
“We’re all commodities in this city Mal, and you are a dangerous one to hold onto. But you’re also too potentially valuable to sell. That leaves locking you away but that wouldn’t give me an immediate return and ruin a lot of your value. Not to mention I’ve got some sentimental attachment as I do with most of my younger agents.”
“So I go back to work? Earn you your immediate return in exchange for not being sold off?”
“You make it sound so hostile Mal, I wouldn’t sell you off anyway. I’d just keep you for future returns. A nice little doll amongst my belongings with a dangerous prize kept inside, hidden from prying eyes and grabbing hands. You could even live with your mother in a compound in total security and secrecy, the option is open to you whenever you want that sort of life, you’d be surprised by how many would take it.”
“I’d rather hold my own leash if that’s alright. Make my own choices.”
“Oh, we’re a long way from you being personally powerful, connected or wealthy enough for you to hold your own leash, not unless your going to go live in the blast zones or leave Earth to live in the belt. Everywhere else, this city included, you can only hope your leash holder doesn’t pull too hard. And many of the children who’s leash I hold, you included, have found me to be a rather gentle master even if I do get sharp at times.”
“Sharp, yeah. As long as you’re holding my leash then, what kind of relationship are we looking at here? Am I a generic operator kid again? An indentured servant? A trusted agent?”
Marchand licked her lips among the cloud of smoke around her. She appeared to consider the question.
“For the foreseeable future I will have you under surveillance by trusted agents of mine, they will know nothing of your friend or abilities, merely being told I am grooming a new right hand who I’ve already had augmented.” She said after a long pause, “With that in place you will carry out a number of job for me for the standard rates, they will start as netrunning support for other operators and then you will perform the larger job I alluded to a while back.”
“I think I remember, you didn’t give any details though. I thought it would have timed out by now, the windows for a lot of jobs don’t stay open long.” I said.
“It’s a more long term arrangement, waiting for the right talent and impetus. As for you, you will learn netrunning on the job as I had planned before Sam’s introduction and hopefully improve enough to carry out the large job. If you pull that job off without significant error then I will give you the choice of either going into a more closed path where I prepare you to be my right hand in the future and further your abilities with advanced cyberware, cutting edge training and set you up with the contacts throughout the city you’ll need to act in the future when you’re a bit older.”
“What’s the other option? Don’t get me wrong Anna, I like working with you but I also like my freedom like everyone else. Being stuck in a training room for however many years while I spend my nights getting chipped into a borg so I can be your manservant forever isn’t the most promising future I’ve heard.”
“Mal, most kids your age would take that offer even if it killed everyone they knew. It is a free ride through most of your youth and a solid future in adulthood in exchange for nothing more than loyalty and hard work.”
“I know. It just doesn’t sit well with me, in my head. If I did it all under my own choice and power. If I earned the training and the chrome from doing jobs for you, I’d likely make the same choices you’d have lined up anyway but had to have put in more effort. But it’s just the ball and chain aspect that grates right against me. Maybe I’m just crazy.”
“The other option would be me cutting you loose as a sort of mid-level agent that I keep closer than I usually would. Unless you’re planning on heading out into the solar system at large, I’d suggest staying in close contact with me until you have a stronger backing or you become your own backing. I don’t personally see a ten year old who’s a bit quick with a knife as a strong backing on it’s own. You’ll be carved up on a corpo morgue table before next month without somebody with actual resources to cover for you and your friend’s eccentricities.”
“I suppose you’re right in a lot of ways, I only brought the truth to you because Sam has some effects that are obvious in the net. Look where that ended up. That was with someone I knew and worked with.”
She really was right, I needed a support system and a backer was a great way to get one. If I was pulling in huge amount of cash, I might be able to get some basics of a support network in place, but right now the only reason I wasn’t close to broke just keeping myself combat capable was with Noe’s help.
I’d need to stay with Marchand for now at least.