When I was a kid, I used to play football all over Mangueira with many improvised balls, running around the whole day after school. Working the physical demanding job of a janitor — in a college far too big for the paltry number of cleaning people the cheapskates were willing to pay — had kept me in good shape too. But first the Brazilian army and then my so dear Multi-Unity Alliance’s Army basic trainings had left me as sharp as a nordestino’s peixeira knife, the kind that saw heavy use in both bush-clearing and gut-piercing.

So, it was easy for me to keep a fast jogging as I headed to the Cartel’s Market outpost, five blocks away from the Lodge. You can’t outright run on a military base or you’re liable to cause a panic, after all. The situation was grave, but not necessarily apocalyptic; the seriousness of it depended greatly on which foolish organization had decided to ignore our expertise, and whom they had sent to do it. Jones and Diego easily kept my pace as the training to make one eligible to the assault squad was a lot more grueling than what I had gone through.

Lieutenant Colonel Polansky was a in-the-know human even before the Unity and the Shattering of the Veil. A mana-less scion of the kind of magic bloodline you could only find in a place like a Brazil: a mix of African, European and Native spellcasters that met and misciginated as ordinary humans drove them together through the course of history. Not that I pried on my superior’s record, but I imagined the Chip would have an easier time opening and enhancing his mana lines. Still, like me he had been roped into the Quartermaster’s role, having the opportunity of using the inter-race diplomacy his family had drilled into him, which I believed him to be quite apt at. 

He was indeed parlaying with the Cartel’s enforcers who were barring his entrance. Actually, his small, flying familiar, the fairy Urubu, was doing the talking while he loomed behind her, arms crossed and a firm scowl in place. I was already considering getting one assigned to my mana-slot: they can make a quartermaster’s life a lot easier if you can contract the right one. I just hoped mine would be neither a flamenguista* nor named after a species of vulture. Familiars are creatures of magic, but they straddle the line to mythics, earning that status in the Unity if they are under a soul contract. Some, like Urubu, can serve various members of the same family throughout centuries. You can increase a familar’s strength if you allow them to drain the energy from more mana-slots, like I believe Polansky has done — Urubu is a lot more corporeal than she ever was, I can even make her murderous glare. 

Soul Contract: Magical Familiar

Mana-Slots Occupied: 2 

Name: Urubu

Species: Fairy

Helps in spell-casting and with mundane chores. This is a particularly knowledgeable and faithful familiar.

“So, you’d best get the *fucking* hell out of our way, or we’ll get the thunder howitzer and blast your worthless outpost out of the face of this shithole planet!”

Well, the Lieutenant Colonel being diplomatic might not have been the best guess, nor parlaying the right choice of word. But I guess I did get his mana advance right, so one of out two — the Chip does wonders given time. The metal-walled outpost — it looks like a fucking container — stands on a corner of its own, and so there is barely anyone passing through to notice the confrontation.

“Lieutenant Colonel!” I called out. “Can I help you, sir?” I ask, putting my hand to my standard-issue pistol. Diego and Jones flanked the two Cartel goons, sizing them up, way up. The bastards were tall, and of a nearly rocky countenance. The best I could describe them would be tailed, faceless rock trolls. They withstood the Urubu's threatening and our arrival like statues, not moving an inch.

"Finally," grumbles Urubu and gives the men a reprieve from her tirade, if not her glare.

“Ah, Lieutenant Barro, there you are! I need you to get in there after our rogue! Bring Reader and everything the she took back — and her, if you can.”

“What rogue, boss? And Reader? ” I asked, dumbfounded. And it was unexpected that Reads Meticulously - or Reader as we call him , our assigned AI, would go on board with this harebrained scheme. It was a stickler for the chain of command and… meticulous in its preparations. And the AIs do choose the pronouns they want to be called by, but the overlay makes it a lot easier.

“Yeah, Earth Command graduated the first class of intelligence operatives. The idiots think they know better than us, and this one didn’t even bother to talk with me before commandeering valuable supplies and recruiting and heading in,” he grumbles, nearly growling at the end.

“Lieutenant Nicole Santos is her name," adds Urubu, hovering by her master's shoulder.

“Damn… And these goons stopped you from going in, Lieutenant Colonel?” I ask, pointing to the mercenaries, still immobile. If they are nervous at all, I sure as hell can’t tell. The familiars are assigned the same (honorary rank) as their masters.

“Yeah, we were having a misunderstanding if the same day of my last foray into the Market counts to the cooldown period or not. They haven’t given an inch, and I was starting to get pissed. “

“I’m Corporal Laroche, assault squad, colonels. Should I have Private Jones introduce explosives to this pair of mountains?” asks Diego, bellicose. Lieutenant Colonel(s) often gets abbreviated to Colonel(s), the rank above it.

“They’re more like little hills,” ponders Jones, cheerfully reaching for explosives in his bag.

“Very explodable ones,” adds Urubu, more vicious and snarky than ever, smiling at our Kurupira.

Ah! I swear I saw one of them flinch, just half a step back now. They are well paid, but the Cartel wouldn’t really mind if we wasted them either — just charge us a penalty.

“Thanks, Corporal. But that won’t be necessary… today. Are you good to go, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah, I have other business there. Do you have anything that I can use as credits, sir?”

“Yes, take it.” He gives me some valuable trinkets, a nice addition to what I’ve brought.

“Be careful, lieutenant. I’ve heard the minor factions are starting many bidding wars, and they are ruthless. Don’t get caught up in any of those, we can’t afford it. You know the perils even better than I do, don’t take risks. Just find the damn woman and save what you can.”

“Yes, sir.” I shake his offered hand, nod to his familiar, and turn to my escorts. “Help me carry the things inside, and then you’re free until I return ,” I instruct. Assuming I will return. Not a certain proposition at all - the Market plays tricks with our minds, the rules change… But I have no time for cold feet. Diego and Jones notice our dark mood, starting to believe what I’ve been telling them the whole day.

“You’ll be alright?” the werewolf asks me as we pass through the guards and handle everything to the the outpost’s appraiser. The Outposts' bare metal interior is as bland an alien bulding as you can imagine; only the appraiser's table has some personality, being decorated with various aliens knick-nacks.

“I’m tied for the record of positive Market expeditions, I’ll probably be all right.”

“This gig doesn’t seem as easy as it did just a day ago,” comments Jones. “Godspeed, Lieutenant”

“Yeah, kick asses and take names, Barro!” Diego encourages me as they are shoeed out by the outpost’s staff.

“Back for more, Rafael?” Fera, the appraiser, asks me after the loudmouthed mutt went away, casting her discerning eye over what I’ve brought. “You getting an addiction going, son? You were here just two weeks ago.”

“It’s just that I missed seeing your pretty face around, Wanted to invite you out for a date,” I half flirt half tease her. Fera is a Jogumna, and she looks like a huge, half-transparent mushroom with legs more suited for swimming than land-walking. Multiple prehensile tendrils are her appendages of choice instead of puny arms. The Jogumna, like many of her kind, has a Hydro-Membrane keeping her supplied with water in the exact composition she needs to breath. So maybe they’re kind of jellyfish-people? I suck at describing aliens. The Jogumna are an ubiquitous race in the Cartel, though rarely highly-placed on their corporate ranks.

“Oh, you flatterer. If only you had some more tendrils, I’d take you up on it.”

“You wound me deeply, Fera. Our love affair will have to remain platonic then, what a shame.”

Don’t judge me for flirting with the jelly fish-looking girl, she’s a goldmine of information. It’s worth it to stay in her good graces even if she is very, very shifty when evaluating my stuff. But I take it in stride; I think she really likes to haggle. Reminds me of my grandmother at the street markets, she was a Fera* as well.

“Ah, you’re in luck today, Rafa! I don’t remember anyone bringing so many Barker items before, Completionists will be all over it. I will mark 5600 creds for all of these, but you can probably sell it better,” she confides to me. But that’s one of the Market’s insidious traps — you always think you’ll sell it better than the cheapskates’ given prices. When that doesn’t happen…

But you can imagine that the Market is a Completionist’s best and worst place. They find everything they want - but spend creds astoundingly fast. They’re a vocal group, united by affinity and petty rivalries, both on the Market and on the wider galactic scene. They are not ones to piss off, that’s for sure.

I nod and smile in thanks to the Jogumna. Some days she just feels helpful. It looks like my idea paid off and I’m happy for it. The Market works like this: the Cartel holds your items in escrow, granting you credits to use on the Market proper if you don’t feel like auctioning your goods . Of course their evaluations are often low-ball. You can try your luck auctioning the items to try and win more than what the Cartel estimated. But if you spend the money while you’re waiting for your goods’ auctions, and these auctions fall through… you’ve effectively spent the Cartel’s money. If they didn’t like money, the wouldn’t be a godamned Cartel, so you have to pay them back pronto.If you don’t have the credits due at the end of the session, you are at the Cartel’s mercy as I’ve told Diego before — a direct block on your earnings, serfdom or even outright slavery, everything is on the cards. We have no credits to spare, always using everything we get, so we have no safety net in case of a loss.

“And the rest, Fera?”

“Eh… Antiquated laser carbine, novice’s wardstones, a few spell-grenades… Some of your modded weaponry as well. Not worthless, but not valuable either. I can give you 1600 credits for everything.”

Our magic still sucks. But our surviving magical bloodlines do produce some very marketable products. We fight like hell in the Quartermasters to secure all that we can.

“Come on, Fera. First you stab my heart, then my back? I know you can do it better,” I plead, dramatically gesturing.

“The best I can do is 1700.”

“Deal.” I agree, accepting the bracer she offers me with the credits. Strong arcane and cyber measures are in place to avoid tampering, but it has happened before.

One has to be very careful with whom they are dealing with in the Market’s virtual space. Hells, we need an AI with us just to read all the fine print and find possible loopholes on each auction room. They can have extremely different rules and change the whole game. Meticulous Reader is our assigned AI and I do like him, even if he could stand to loosen up a bit. The person that gestated him must have been a pain in the ass.

Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever breached the subject. For some reason, new AIs can’t really be created simply by monkeying with their Essential Code — their version of DNA. Be they magic or electronic-based, new AIs must be conceived as VIs who are then given for an ordinary or mythic race to gestate. And preferably not the high-ranking individuals because catastrophic “miscarriages” have been known to happen. The thing is: the AI’s never let you know which VI they have edited in hopes of creating AIs. So they have an AI genitor and a ‘fleshy’ one (vast majority of ordinaries and mythics have flesh, but there are exceptions). I think it’s ridiculous that we don’t have a choice, but the AIs rule across most of the galaxy and they have never asked for our opinions.

“So I’ve got 7300 credits this time, is that it?” I keep on the conversation for politeness’ sake as I make time to think before heading to the Market.

“Yeah, not too bad for these parts. Though you are really small fish in the overall galaxy,” Fera cheerfully reminds me — as if I needed it.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Oh, I have to let you know that we’ve been upgraded. This time you’ll be able to spend 3 Periods plugged in — it’ll take the same 1 hour of real time though, of course.”

“That’s very good and very useful to know, Fera. But, hey, you must have heard the commotion from before right? Can you tell me about how much credits Lieutenant Santos is carrying with her?”

The amount of credits she has will certainly influence which rooms she will visit. I’ll have to catch her and it costs credits to change rooms. Everything costs credits in the damn place.

“I shouldn’t…” She plays coy.

“Oh, Fera, it’s just a favor between friends,” I offer, catching the sharpening of her look at the proposal. Yeah, sure she’ll forget all about it. No way this will bring me any trouble in the future. No trouble whatsoever.

“Well… Friends do help each other, don’t they? That’s true. I can’t reveal how much she has, but I can say that… it was a lot more than measly 7300 credits, my friend.”

Ah, shit. Nothing good can come out of this. The more you have, more there are shady players gunning for you on the Market. Someone green as this Santos is is guaranteed to be targeted. She’s easy prey, and people play for keeps on the Market.

“Damn… I’d best head in there fast,” I tell her, speeding to the v-chamber where they’ll hook me up.

“You don’t have an AI? Good luck!” she says, suddenly more involved with my survival. You can’t get favors back from dead men after all.

I’m one hundred percent sure that this will suck. Suck hard.

I enter the chamber and two of the five v-chairs are occupied. Meticulous Reader’s humanoid android body sits on one of those, its blocky body’s shining metal surface free of any markings, dents or stains. I tell it that they can add character and that it’ll never get into another AI’s metaphorical pants with the fresh-from-the-factory look; it swears it doesn’t care, being a neuter and all, but has the truth ever stopped a good ribbing? Hell no.

On its side is the main culprit of my new worrying mission. Lieutenant Nicole Santos is taller than I am, and she has a pasty white skin and a sharp, angular face. She still has that Chipper appearance, few rugs and frown-marks blemishing her skin. I’ll make sure she gets a lot of those if I can extract her from this fool’s errand. I nod to the Cartel’s personnel and take a sit next to the immobile pair, waiting as they connect everything to my ports. It’s time to go under, hope I catch them on the other side.