Saturday arrived quickly, the time until then mostly filled with programming, napping, watching movies with Noe as she worked on designs on her interface and talking to Lla on mine so she didn’t go insane from being locked up. I’d asked Marchand to let her go the day after Sanctum’s whole integration advancement thing but apparently “that is a matter to address when you have hands” was the only response of note she’d give me.
So we just sent casual messages back and forth , I’d told her about Marchand only wanting to handle the issue when I was back to full form and she seemed to take it alright. She obviously wasn’t happy with me, Marchand or the situation but she was putting up with it alright. Apparently the little apartment she was in was very nice and Marchand had been giving her whatever news of the outside world she’d requested.
Apparently her brother Rivaan had gotten away from the company tower with his prize along with the other team members but most of them were quickly captured in the following hours as they traveled to safe houses. Rivaan had been sentenced to thirty years in prison but would likely be out in twenty, maybe less if he could pay off the right people. He’d be away a good few years in either case. Lla wasn’t happy about being separated from him but was so happy with him not being dead that she didn’t care about that for now.
Noe was working on her first proper rail project, she preferred cold iron guns but she was running into the same problems that gunsmiths ran into years ago, gas pressure. So she was making her first compact rail pistol which she was hoping I’d make use of to not be shredded by the next borg I met. The design she was working on was as small as she could make it while still packing enough power to “zero at least four borgs per clip”. She’d gone on and on about how she’d optimized the battery shape to fit the overall shape of the gun and how tight she’d managed to get the field warp and how she’d made the rounds triangular and shattered in three stages into separate dense teeth that separated at a forty five degree angle to punch into the target on impact just a little time apart from each shatter stage so the first teeth away broke on impact, then the second a moment later and then the third at he end of the kinetic impact.
It was all highly interesting, to her. I listened as well as I could but I was more about using the guns and bullets to not die than how precision engineered they were as long as they didn’t jam or explode in my hand. It wasn’t like I didn’t know guns and so on by now but she really was in her own world with technical stuff.
Mom had come back and forth with food for me, the doctors and for Noe when she was around. She seemed quieter than I thought was normal but she hadn’t reached out to me yet so I figured I’d give her some space for now. I’d put her through a lot recently and I didn’t want to disrupt her.
Mostly the end of the week was just family and friends time while I lay in the hospital bed or took short trips to the bathroom. My blood tests came back with a bunch of dietary deficiencies so I was on another drip for a day but that went fine.
But then it was Saturday morning and I was dressed to go out, rig over a vest and then a big jacket to hide my armless profile a little. I’d asked mom to put my sleeves in my pockets to add to the effect. I didn’t have my guns or knives, not much use when I can’t hold them. Other than that I just had my empty rucksack slung over my shoulder, ready to carry my cyberware home.
I wasn’t feeling bad as I walked out of the clinic with my mom watching me with a frown, she wasn’t happy with me going out while I was armless but we’d talked about the thing over and over. Allie was going to be there, two of Marchand’s agents nearby as well as promising mom that I’d be running out of there as fast as I could at the first sign of trouble.
Walking out of the street I spotted the masked woman that I’d seen before walking out ahead of me, she turned back and waved a little and gave the same small salute as last time before she turned to the right around the corner and was gone from sight. She was likely one of my tails, I wondered where the other one was. Maybe already at the night market, scouting the location ahead of time. Only Marchand would know for sure.
Getting out of the street and into the surrounding area felt weird knowing I couldn’t really defend myself or do much of anything, it got worse as I made my way quietly to the pickup location and the streets got busier. The gangs seemed to be calming down somewhat from their previous tension but there were still groups of gangers sitting around the junctions watching each other.
I wanted to grab some food from the stalls but I could hold it so I just had to walk past them all in sadness. When I got my new arms I was going to go check out some of the stalls near where we used to live, try and find that fried tofu stuff stall with the weird electric blue sauce that tasted of beef. I’d have to pick some up for mom though or she likely wouldn’t let my come in the apartment until I did, once she found out I’d had some, if I didn’t have some for her.
At least the crowds moving through the streets seemed lively enough, not the scared crowds trying to get where they were going quickly and quietly hoping to avoid some sort of gang fight kicking off. There were kids my age and younger around in groups, teenagers working for the gangers running around or drinking on the balconies, even adults with kids around. People had settled into the gang situation for now at least, even if it seemed it wasn’t quite over.
Before too long, only about half and hour, I arrived at the pedestrian entrance to the parking structure that was built onto the side of the under highway, there were long feed roads from the structure onto the highway to and from both directions with one going over the under highway. The door the parking building was open so I didn’t have to pull any doors open but my fortune didn’t favor me as I headed into the lobby.
There were some people hanging around the lobby on the metal benches or using the vending machine or using the toilets or whatever. There were a couple of gangers among them but they seemed relaxed enough so that wasn’t an issue. The issue was the door to the ground floor parking was broken, just connecting to it and using my interface to activate the console to the side to open the door just made a mechanical noise but didn’t open the door.
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I was being held up by a broken door, the door would still open but the actual machine mechanism was busted. Operator and hacker Mal was stumped by a slight malfunction on a public door. I tried to open it with my foot but it was a pull door with the bar at waist height. I was gearing up for some awkward leg bending handle manipulation when someone opened it from the other side and saw freeze as I was slowly trying to lever my foot under the handle.
The curly haired woman gave me a look of confusion before sweeping past me and heading on her way. I sheepishly caught the door with my foot to keep it open and shouldered my way through into the parking area. Most of the cars were pretty run down but this wasn’t the best neighborhood. I headed along until I got near the back wall where there were a line of ganger marked cars all grouped together in the premium parking spots. There were only a few left over premium spots and one of them was taken up by a white sedan style car.
I wasn’t the best with cars, my knowledge started and ended with basic car shapes and what little knowledge Sanctum had managed to get into my head but even I could tell this car wasn’t cheap. Tinted windows weren’t unusual but the obvious things that stuck out was the obviously armored tires, hubcaps and what looked like a reinforced bumper.
More important was old Allie leaning on the side of the car dressed in what I could only describe as punk office clothing, basically office cut clothing with thin gold filigree along where you’d see stitches and a couple of old rock group pin badges on her lapel and white baseball cap. Her jewelery was different too, a mixture of silver and gold spiked jewelery. I wasn’t the most fashion minded though, maybe this was the season’s look among upper class types.
As I approached she noticed me and turned her focus from something on her interface to me.
“Hey Mal! You’re just about on time. I assume you’ve got all you’ll be needing? Don’t need anything along the route?” She asked as she stood up from the car and straightened her clothes.
“Hey Allie, nah I’m good. Where is the old woman who sat outside in the hallway in a vest and jacket and jeans watching KAN and scaring gangers? You look preem as hell.” I said as I walked up to the car.
“Oi. Easy on the old there baby boy. Just because I’ve been around a few years doesn’t make me old. I was on standby, you can’t just drag my cyberware out of it’s chair after so long of inactivity you know? You need to spool up, get stuff updated, swapped out, cleaned. I’m not even half way to my operating strength yet and it’s been weeks. Soon enough you won’t be calling my old anymore when I’m back to my usual youthful combat ready state.” She said defensively, crossing her arms as she looked down at me.
“Woah, hey. I said you look good as is, I didn’t mean anything about saying old. Everyone is old to me.” I responded quickly.
“Hm. Well let’s get going. My old driver Kaiser apparently passed away a few years ago but I managed to pull his grandson into my employ so just hop in the back with me and we’ll go over the event and the overall rules seeing as it’s your first time at a night market.” She said, pulling open the door and swinging herself into the car with oddly graceful movements for a wrinkled old woman.
I poked my head into the car and saw a huge giant of a man in the driver seat, tanned skin and bald head with a smooth reflective plate instead of a face from the top lip up to the scalp. The face plate didn’t have eyes or a nose and was folded in the middle to warp around the whole face with the only non steel parts being a thin line of black material near the skin.
The driver noticed my looking and turned his head to the side a little and nodded.
Climbing into the back seat and was impressed when the seatbelt moved and fixed itself automatically with a little mechanical buzz, I looked over at Allie and she was rummaging through a handbag thing on her lap. I decided to introduce myself to this new person to move the atmosphere along.
“Hey there. Not met you before, my name is Mal.” I offered.
“Hello. My name is Kaiser, I’ll be your driver this evening.” He responded from the front seat in a very robotic synthesized voice.
“Allie said your grandpa used to work for her back in the day. Do you guys run a family business?” I asked as I saw Allie still rummaging and checking little boxes from her bag along with her interface.
“No. I was previously a corporate orbital fighter pilot, mistress Alison bought my tenure from my previous employer. I am trained a wide variety of transportation, including combat with all vehicles under my proficiency. You will be quite safe during your transit.” He offered in response. I felt like I was talking to Sanctum here.
“Wait, so she knew your grandpa and then needed a driver and just looked you up and bought your employment wholesale? Not even a contract gig or anything? Is that an actual thing?” I asked, settling into my seat.
“Once you reach a high level of training value in corporate employment you become too valuable to be allowed to simply leave to find new employment without being a potential leak for technical methodologies and even military secrets. I choose to become a corporate property six years ago, this allowed a better lifestyle for me and access to more restricted training and technologies. My grandfather and father were both operators, although my father pivoted to a officer role within my previous employer after losing several key contacts that made his work possible. Mistress Allison found me and negotiated my purchase for an unknown amount and now I am here.” He answered, his mostly steel face turning to the mirror to look back at me. I could see myself in his face through another mirror.
“Isn’t that literally slavery? That’s real rough choom.” I said with a frown.
“No Mr Mal. I have my wage and my hours, I have my days off and so on. My children, should I ever have any, are not part of the contract. I just can’t choose my employer or my work. Outside of that I am as free as any other, and the loss of agency is well compensated. I can even quit if I were to pay the monetary penalty clause, not that I am inclined to. Does that put your mind at ease, Mr Mal?”
“It’s just Mal. But yeah, I suppose. Still seems weird to me though. Maybe it’s just I didn’t grow up with corporation stuff being a major presence in my life.” I answered nervously.
“It’s fine. Mistress Allie mentioned that if you talked to me and asked after my employment that a simple explanation would be warranted. I don’t know the details myself but according to Mistress you have entered into a somewhat similar arrangement to mine and would appreciate another perspective, if only as a reference.”
“And you’re fine with it? Not being able to just do whatever you want?”
“Very. I could find other work but this work is rewarding, challenging and the tempo suits me just as well as my previous work. I would likely seek this role even if I had the choice.” He responded with a pearly white smile. He might not have a top lip but he did have good teeth.