Chapter Thirty-Two - The Solonet

Jenny led Alyssa into a doctor's office of a sort at the back of the building. It reminded me a little of the surgery room I'd just been in within the mega building the cult occupied, but this one had more posters of scantily clad women on the walls and LED lighting. It was also, notably, cleaner.

The doctor who came out was shrugging on a pristine white coat as Jenny entered and helped Alyssa onto the surgery bed in the room's centre.

Sharp and I stood back as he asked Jenny some pointed questions and then started to inspect Alyssa.

Jenny stepped away soon after. She gave Sharp a quick tilt of her head, indicating that she should follow her out into the corridor. "Hey, uh, thanks for everything. I've got to talk to some people. I'll arrange a ride back over to the bar for you, if you want. On me."

"Thank you," Sharp said. "I'd appreciate it."

Jenny nodded sharply. "Yeah, no problem. And I was legit about the Solonet thing. Hook me up with your deets."

"Okay," Sharp said.

We stood awkwardly off to the side while Jenny moved on past. Sharp waited for her to be out of sight before she glanced down at me. The curiosity in her eyes was obvious.

I sighed. "The Solonet is a sub-faction of the wider internet," I said. The modern internet was... divided. For safety, and because it was more profitable for some people this way. The city had its own net, as did most major metropolitan cities. There was a country-wide net as well, then dozens of corporate maga-servers. The Solonet was not one of those. Instead it piggie-backed off of the wider internet, a collection of well-hidden yet accessible sites.

"Okay. I think I know what that means," Sharp said. "We had something like that for education stuff."

Right, that made sense. "Well, in this case, the Solonet was designed by some mercenaries. It's both a forum, and information gathering device, and an organisation of sorts. When you create an account to log into the Solonet, you tie it to your mercenary ID. Official or otherwise. That account is used across the Solonet, for access and also as a sort of social-media account."

"I never really got into social media stuff. The orphanage warned us that it was unproductive," she said.

"Fair enough. It mostly is. The only useful thing is that accredited members of the Solonet can tag others for having completed a job. Fixers and info-brokers have more power when it comes to giving someone credit for work accomplished."

It took a moment for the light in Sharp's eyes to brighten. "Is that how edgerunners are made?"

"It's... one of the ways," I said. "Mostly those credits are added up to a score that determines how good a member of the Solonet is at accomplishing certain types of work. Netrunning, hacking, assassination, grunt work, transportation, information gathering. There are categories. An edgerunner is often someone who rises very rapidly through the ranks with little regard for pacing themselves."

"I need an account, then," Sharp said.

Great. Now I had to temper her expectations.

The Solonet had plenty of work available on it. Some of that work was gatekept behind certain levels of capability. It prevented nobody idiots from taking on jobs far beyond their capabilities. But some work? Anything went for those. The pay was trash, and the work dangerous, but it paid and it gave the worker points.

People often became obsessed with seeing numbers go up. It was a stupid part of being a thinking, human being.

The riskier the job, the better the reward in terms of accreditation and expertise rankings. A fresh solo might start off with simple, low-risk gigs, but they often quickly discovered that the best gigs were locked behind higher levels of expert ranking.

To get those levels faster, they could take on riskier work. If they lived, they'd get access to jobs that paid significantly more, as well as more respect on the Solonet and outside of it.

It was a vicious cycle that mulched up unwary and unprepared idiots all the time.

That was how Edgerunners were born. People wanted to be at the top of the rankings now. Not in ten or twenty years, after carefully picking their way up.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I explained all of this to Sharp, though with a hefty dose of warnings and some careful arguments about the dangers of the Solonet and its tendency to make young people turn into young corpses.

"I really want to be at the top of the rankings," she said.

"You haven't even seen the rankings," I said.

Sharp blinked sleepily. "Yeah, and?"

This girl was going to be the death of me. Fortunately, Jenny returned. She checked on Alyssa before saying anything, but she did return with good news. "I got a friend of a friend to agree to give you a ride back to Fenway. He can drop you off on the same block as the Bloody Bat."

"Thanks," Sharp said. "I think the moment I'm home I'll be taking a shower, then it's off to bed. Today was a lot."

"Yeah," Jenny said. She smacked Sharp on the shoulder. "Thanks again. I'll uh, talk with Aly about a decent pay."

"Cool," Sharp said. She took the name of our driver, then headed out with me riding on her shoulder the entire time. We got to the garage, where Jenny's van had been reparked in a more sensible location and where some of the locals gang members were now loitering. One was waiting by a car.

He just nodded and let Sharp in, and then we were off. His ride was one of those little Asian imports, low to the ground, covered in neon paint, and with a sound system worth more than the rest of the car.

The car blasted neonstep until we were in Fenway. I was very much tempted to bite the driver, but that might cause us to crash, and I didn't need that at the moment.

Once we were back in our home turf Sharp and I made it back to the Bloody Bat, slipping in through the rear. Sharp never did get that shower of hers. She crashed onto the bed face first and was instantly out.

I sat on her back, then laid down. She was warm and made for a good bed, even if she did stink a little of sweat and gunpowder. We would have to wash the sheets out.

Then again, we might not be staying here for long.

We had enough money now that continued work for the Bloody Bat felt... somewhat foolhardy. Money was nice, but the amount Sharp earned here was too small to matter.

It would be far more sensible to start moving back to my place.

There were trains from the town I lived in to Boston Two. It was a good three-quarters of an hour ride, and it wasn't cheap, but we could afford it now, and we had the means to cross the city.

Sharp was almost earning enough from her gig work as a courier to afford rent. Almost. With the savings we had, she could ostensibly afford a place for several months in the same building I lived in as long as she was accepted. And if I had access to my place, then she would be.

I nodded to myself as I started to fight off sleep myself. It was a good plan.

Not tomorrow, though. There were a few things we needed to get done first.

The money left sitting under the bed was a bad move. I hadn't thought about it, but with a Solonet account, we would be able to funnel it into a... somewhat secured account. Mercenaries needed discreet ways of moving money around.

I trusted the Solonet as much as I trusted any bank. Less, actually. But for someone like Sharp? Well, it would do for now.

I made a mental list of things to go over:

- Continued training

- Securing our current money

- Obtain some basic gear for Sharp

- Continue courier work

- Get a bead on some better gig work

That all seemed... challenging but doable. As long as we didn't exaggerate anything, we had some good opportunities lined up.

Ah, right, there was the entire kerfuffle with Jenny and Alyssa as well.

Best to find a way to avoid either of them for the foreseeable future. They owed us one, as far as I was concerned. Hopefully, anyone who'd seen me would assume that I was an agent of the Cat Eidolon, or one of their warlocks, and not tied so closely to Sharp.

I... was going to need a disguise as well, at some point, even looking like a cat.

How irritating.

I yawned, then pressed my paws into Sharp's back before spinning around to find a more comfortable way to rest. This girl needed to eat more, she was all skin and bones, and that didn't make for a comfortable bed.

***