Chapter — 9

"I don't like this. You have to be careful, Imouto. And don't hesitate to call on us." Ichiro's silent text message said as it displayed itself in the corner of Rei's vision.

"None of us does, Ichiro. And Rei, do as your Onii-san says, alright?" Miyo interjected in their three-person chat window.

"I will. Don't you worry about that," Rei subvocalized, the text typing itself into the chat after her siblings' messages. She wished her reassurance wasn't utter falsehood, but she knew better.

"You three done saying goodbyes?" The burliest and meanest goon queried, an eyebrow lifted as his synthetic lips curled into a sneer on the side of his face that wasn't exposed chrome.

Ah, right. People can see the silver swirling in our eyes while we use our agents. Miyo said something about being able to turn it off, but it is considered polite to have it on so that any present company in the real world knows when to engage and when not to. It can create some awkward situations like this one, though.

"This isn't goodbyes, Dennis. We'll see our Imouto again soon enough," Miyo's voice held deep resentment toward the escort who'd spoken.

"Yeah?" Dennis sounded unconvinced and not especially interested.

"That's right!" Miyo reiterated with all the confidence she could muster.

Dennis's other eyebrow raised, and he looked at one of his friends. The heavily augmented woman with a veritable cannon instead of a right forearm shrugged in response. "Hell, if I know what this is all about. We're just here to escort the wayward apprentice back to her master, as far as I'm concerned." Her voice was raspy and monotone. The fingers on her one and only hand twitched in their chrome articulations intermittently as if she longed to lash out.

Is she one of those 'Vergewalkers' I've read about? Apathy and twitchy nerves are two of the most common symptoms of those on the verge of cyberpsychosis.

It baffled Rei to some extent that a Verger would escort her. Vergers were sometimes as dangerous to their own team as to their enemies. Having an ally whose sanity was balanced on a knife's edge wasn't conducive to longevity, after all.

Ichiro apparently had the same thought as he wrote in the chat, "Be careful of that woman, Rei. She's one of the more stable Vergers working beneath Wolf-sama, but I've seen her snap once when someone jokingly insulted her."

"What happened?" Miyo asked.

"I don't think he knew she was present as she'd just arrived. No one would insult a Verger without being prepared for any potential backlash. He wasn't. She ripped his spine out from behind before vaporizing the extricated parts with her cannon."

A fatality, ey? At least she has some style.

"I'll keep that in mind. Anything about the other guard?"

Like Dennis, except for the heavy and visible chrome, he looked rather plain. His eyes were sharp, though, scrutinizing all three siblings' movements.

"Nah, George is good people, if a bit reserved. Not like Dennis..."

It sounded to Rei as if Dennis had some history with both of her siblings, but she had no time to question them as the female guard suddenly grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her toward the elevators. "We're going," She said simply.

Rei, taking her brother's warning to heart, didn't protest, even though the treatment rankled her. The woman's movements had been so smooth and quick that she'd barely seen her move before being grabbed.

Something told her it had been a casual movement on the verger's part and nowhere near her max speed. Being on the verge of cyberpsychosis seemed worth it to some if it meant they were absolute monsters in combat.

"I'm sure you'll come back soon! Stay strong, Rei!" Miyo shouted behind them in the corridor as they disappeared behind a corner.

"Goodbye for now," Rei responded in their chat before closing the window.

She wasn't sure when they'd see each other again or if she'd be allowed to communicate with her siblings once they arrived at wherever they were taking her. She thought she would be allowed at least that kindness, as total isolation from her loved ones would just be pointlessly cruel.

***

The three escorts moved Rei up through the complex before pushing her into the backseat of a heavily armored futuristic car. Like all other cars she'd seen, it lacked windows from the outside but had screens mimicking their function on the inside.

It took to the skyway by one of the ramps going out of the building, and they were off.

All three of her escorts were quiet on the way, their eyes swirling silver as they engaged the feeds or texted their contacts. Rei didn't feel like talking to them either, so she did her best to ignore their presence while looking out the window. It was her second time outside in this new life of hers, and unlike the first evening ambiance, the cityscape was now painted in pink and orange hues as the morning sun rose.

There sure is a dystopian beauty to it; All those pillars of steel and glass reflecting the polluted air's morning god rays and holographic adverts.

It didn't take them more than five minutes on the skyway before the autonomous car veered off onto a downward ramp toward ground level.

Rei couldn't take her eyes off the window as she saw the neon-streaked streets up close for the first time. The skyways and tall buildings cast the world beneath in dark shadows, only the occasional glimpse of morning sunlight blossoming in patches here and there.

Rei saw people of all types crowd these patches of sun, their otherwise brisk and purpose-filled strides slowing as they basked in the temporary warmth before neon-lit shadows once again covered their forms.

The car — leaving the ramp — started moving through the lanes of traffic with a deftness that spoke of superb programming, quickly navigating the reckless speeding of motorcycles and what had to be inebriated driving of non-autonomous cars of all shapes and sizes.

The sidewalks were packed with people in work clothes, gang outfits, and skimpy clothing — most flashing with neon highlights that glowed in tandem with the endless holographic adverts blooming like rainbow weeds. People were also walking around in armor in broad daylight, their melee and ranged weapons on open display as their confident strides parted the crowds.

The people in armor without any gang tags must be the so-called operators I've read about, and they'll work for anyone who has credits.

Amongst the populace's colorful synthetic hair and clothes, Rei saw how well-equipped many operators were. Most had expensive-looking armor and equally impressive chrome to match.

Working as an operator might be a path I should consider after getting away from the Cyber Fangs. I'll need to rake in credits somehow, and a Meshmagi has to be worth hiring for operator work, right?

Those were thoughts for later, though, and Rei threw them on the back burner as she just took her time to appreciate the futuristic atmosphere all around.

It took a couple more minutes of swerving through the streets of Zone 8 before their car suddenly turned and moved into a building. To Rei, the building seemed like any other. Its sides were lined with shops, and the levels above were filled with offices and apartments.

Two doors opened automatically upon the car's approach, and they entered an underground parking space. The vehicles stationed there made it evident that it wasn't Cyber Fang headquarters. The few people she saw looked more like office drones than anything.

Rei wanted to ask where they were going but thought better of it.

The car parked in one of the darker innermost corners of the underground chamber, and she was forced out of the vehicle by her three escorts.

"Come on, we shouldn't linger here," Dennis said as their ride backed out of its parking spot and drove away.

"Where-"

"Shut up and follow." Dennis interrupted Rei as he began to move to an innocuous concrete wall.

I knew I shouldn't have asked, Rei thought bitterly.

Their treatment wasn't unexpected but still made her boil with silent, indignant fury.

Dennis stopped before the wall and looked to the third and most pleasant of their trio — meaning the so far silent one. "George?"

George's eyes swirled silver for a half-second before he nodded, "All clear."

Dennis nodded back before moving toward the wall, pulling out a cable from his left forearm and jacking into a tiny hole Rei hadn't even noticed before that moment.

A data port? Is it perhaps a lock of some kind?

The verger holding onto Rei's arm started to twitch more and more as the seconds dragged by with nothing happening. After nearly twenty seconds, Rei was growing concerned that the woman would snap and start painting the parking lot with her entrails. There was an unsettling feeling surrounding the vergewalker that Rei couldn't explain.

Rei breathed a silent breath of relief as Dennis suddenly retracted the cable, and the woman holding her arm in a vice-like grip stilled her twitching. The cement wall had retracted inward before moving sideways silently, the previously invisible seams of the secret door opening into a dimly lit corridor.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

With Dennis in the lead, the verger and Rei in the middle, and George taking up the rear, they moved into the corridor, the secret door closing silently behind them.

This can't be the official route to Cyber Fang HQ, can it? It's a large gang, and we're the only ones here, not to mention the secretive nature of this path.

The secret passageway was a uniform gray with dim white lights lighting the way forward. They hadn't moved even a fourth of its length before they suddenly stopped, turning to face the right wall. After standing still for what Rei thought to be exactly ten seconds, a new hidden door opened.

They moved through, and as the door closed behind them, Rei found herself trapped inside a uniform cube of brushed dark metal with the other three. The cube was no more than four-by-four meters in dimension, but before she could start sweating by being seemingly trapped with an obviously unstable cyborg and two gang enforcers, the whole cube lurched.

The sudden acceleration would have made Rei fall on her ass and bang her head against the wall, but the mentally unstable woman gripping her arm was as physically stable as a rock, her posture unchanging as if magnetically attached to the floor.

She might be, for all I know...

The other two enforcers had wobbled a little but otherwise remained stable, and the same repeated itself as the cube forcefully decelerated after a minute of steady acceleration. Rei was once again saved from hurting herself by the verger's steady figure, and she couldn't help but feel a spark of gratitude toward the woman for it.

As the mystery cube came to a sudden halt, the front they had been facing slid aside and opened into yet another corridor. It wasn't empty this time, though.

Rei gaped at the hulking, bipedal mass of destruction. Its square, red eyes had already turned to the party of four as the door opened.

"What is that?" Rei breathed, but no one answered her quiet question. In fact, the only answer was a tightening of the female escort's grip on her arm, telling Rei silently to shut up.

Having spent some of her time reading up on various technological advancements, Rei already knew what it was: a robot, otherwise known as a bot.

The glossy black metal's general shape resembled that of a minotaur, but the set of each angle made the construct feel somewhat insect-like. To Rei, the union made it uncanny.

This wasn't helped by the wolf's head and predatory red eyes, the scythe-like blades replacing the arms, or the bristling guns pointing out of each shoulder.

"Identify yourselves." Its voice was a synthetic growl filled with menace.

Dennis' eyes swirled silver, and in response, holographic beams of red shot out of the security bot's. The beams swept over Rei and the trio, and she would have jumped in surprise if it wasn't for the hand holding her steady.

"Identity verified." The bot said as the beams subsided.

With grace unfitting a hulking monstrosity of destruction, it stepped aside and powered down, its red, glowing eyes fading to black. At least it appeared to power down, but Rei wouldn't bet on it.

The secretive nature of the path and this obvious threat placed openly to intimidate anyone who passed made Rei sure that plenty of yet-to-be-seen traps were hiding in the walls and floor.

The whole corridor may be rigged to blow in case something happens.

Moving past the chimeric construct, they soon came to another blank wall with a barely noticeable data port for Dennis to jack into. He did so, and before the verger's twitching could reach previous levels, the wall slid sideways to allow them passage.

Who greeted them on the other side was none other than WolfMosh himself.

"You made it! How wonderful," He said, his disposition taking Rei aback for a moment before realizing that the whole charade might just be for the three people next to her.

"Do you need us to escort her further or...?" Dennis queried.

"No need. I'll take it from here. Welcome home, my apprentice. Oh, and Dennis, make sure to not draw attention on your way out. You know the drill."

"Yes, boss," Dennis said, his two companions following his lead, bowing to WolfMosh before they backed away. Turning with military precision, they walked toward an elevator Rei only noticed then.

Rei and WolfMosh stayed silent as the trio left. Her boss — as Rei flatly refused to think of him as her master — scrutinized every centimeter of her while Rei stared defiantly back. Acting subservient and remorseful might have been the best tactic, but Rei wouldn't stoop so low. He would get what he wanted either way, as there was nothing she could do to stop him.

"You've recovered faster than I expected. It is almost as curious as your new hair color."

Rei felt a chill down her spine at the apathetic and clinical tone, but she did her best not to show any of her feelings.

In the end, WolfMosh stopped looking her over and turned, leaving Rei to breathe a silent sigh of relief. His gaze hadn't been unprofessional, yet it had still left her feeling exposed and uncomfortable. She felt that he could see more than she knew with those cybernetic eyes of his.

"Follow me, my wayward apprentice."

***

They walked in silence for a few minutes through the underground facility. Rei saw locked doors leading to rooms with contents unknown and open passageways leading to data terminals and other futuristic tech. Horizontal bars of crimson luminescence sat atop every entryway.

Everything not bathed in crimson was illumined with yellow-white light from fixtures above, making the otherwise clinically clean corridors feel warmer than they would have with the matte-gray metallic walls with gleaming black outlines.

Rei had no idea where this facility was, but she guessed it was somewhere below the Cyber Fangs' headquarters.

Me going through some secret tunnel on the way here must mean he doesn't want the rest of the gang knowing I'm back. But why? Should I ask? It seems pertinent, but...

Rei decided not to ask, mainly because WolfMosh spoke up at that moment.

"How much do you remember? I've talked a bit with your brother, but he never knew much about the work you or the rest of us did here, only general outlines that we allow the rest of the gang to know."

Rei stayed silent for a few seconds and thought. The corridors they walked through felt somewhat familiar, and she felt some static in her mind when she first saw them.

"Not much, to be honest. I remember that we mostly dived the mesh from here, but not what we did while in the mesh. It's not hard to figure out it had to do with retrieving data from various servers to sell, either to corporations or private customers. Other than that... I don't know. Sorry, master."

He hummed a bit before nodding, still not turning to look back at her. "Well, that's the gist of it, if crudely put. This memory loss of yours would have made you worthless in my eyes if I didn't know how brilliant you were as a Magi."

Well, that's blunt.

"However," he continued, "I'm counting on you swiftly getting back to your previous competence after a bit of familiarizing yourself with the mesh once more. It's been difficult for your brother and sisters to pick up the slack these two years without you."

He didn't need to explicitly say what would happen if Rei didn't reach her previous competence as a Magi in swift order. She didn't think he'd kill her, but reassigning her to work on something unpleasant wasn't out of the question. In his eyes, if Rei's value decreased, he'd have her work for longer to clear the debt and balance the "investment."

Not like that matters. Well, me not working as a support Meshmagi would severely hamper my chances of escaping his clutches, but the time of servitude doesn't. I won't just stay under his control for longer than I have to.

WolfMosh stayed silent for the rest of the way, and soon, they came upon a heavily fortified door that opened before them. Inside was a haven of advanced tech, but Rei's eyes didn't have time to explore before her gaze moved to a corner of the room that resembled a rest area. There, four people waited, heads turned to watch their arrival.

Four? Weren't there three other apprentices? Who's the second dude?

Rei's mind blanked out with static for a second as she stared at three of the four people, and she recognized all of them.

Seated to the left-most side of the table — a drink to her lips and green eyes narrowed, the gaze practically oozing venom — was a stunning black woman who looked to be in her late twenties. She had long, black-purplish hair that faded to a poisonous green at the tips. Some strands flashed neon-green sporadically beneath the black. Her arms and legs were silvery cybernetics with only patches covered in synthetic skin.

Rei had to admit that she liked the look.

Her name was Mikaela, and she was the second-most senior apprentice.

The most senior apprentice sat to her right: a bald, tanned, somewhat handsome older man with half his skull seemingly replaced with cyberware with absolutely no effort used to cover it with synth skin. His eyes were pupil-less squares of the same crimson shade as WolfMosh's but without the black sclera. His sclera was instead a kaleidoscope of yellow hues, constantly moving but speeding up and slowing down intermittently.

He seemed to scrutinize Rei with the same intensity as Mikaela, and his name came quickly to her with another jolt of static: Selvix.

Seated opposite Selvix was an unfamiliar white man. He had short black hair and a thick white beard knotted into dreadlocks — tiny glowing metal discs attached to each end. Rei found this a curious sight, but it was not the strangest fashion choice she had seen in the crowds walking Zone 8's streets.

His hands were white and semi-transparent — green fluid moving in circuits inside. Each finger was intricate to an absurd degree, and through their translucent material, Rei could see various implements hidden inside each digit.

He had merely glanced at Rei as she'd entered — his creepy pupilless white eyes taking her in before they started swirling with silver — then returned to whatever he'd been doing.

The last of the bunch sitting to the creepy man's left was a gorgeous woman with some Asian features who, if appearances were to be believed, couldn't be much older than Mikaela.

Her hair was sky-blue with white fading, reminiscent of a slightly cloudy summer sky. Her eyes were equally striking, with the same azure sclera and glowing white irises that dimmed and brightened like a window into a moving cloud. Her only visible cyberware other than the neural link was a seam that ran along her forearm, hiding something within.

Her brilliant smile made her name come easily to Rei, as Wilma had been taken in as an apprentice just a year or so before Rei. She'd taken it upon herself to be somewhat of an older sister to the newcomer. She was always patient, kind, and happy to spend time with her junior.

All three of her fellow assistants wore tight, form-fitting suits in black with red highlights, leaving little to the imagination. From what she'd read, Rei reckoned these were so-called Mesh-diving Suits with internal cooling systems — a necessity for more intense work.

The unfamiliar man wore what she could only describe as a stylish surgeon's outfit — white coat and everything.

Wilma was the last to garner Rei's attention but the first to move as she squealed in delight before rushing over and embracing her in a tight hug.

"Rei!" she said enthusiastically, "Thank the mesh you're okay. We were all so worried when we heard what had happened!"

Rei could only stand there, stunned, as Wilma continued to gush with her high tenor voice. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, but either the information overload or the sudden physical contact made Rei tense up as static blurred her thoughts.

"Alright, ease of there, Wilma. You're overloading your poor junior. Remember that her memories are scrambled."

WolfMosh's synthetic voice was stern, and Wilma practically jumped away from Rei, apologizing profusely yet still as energetically as before.

"Are reintroductions necessary, Rei? Or do you still remember your fellow apprentices?" He questioned.

Rei took a moment to breathe before answering. "Yes, Mikaela, Selvix and Wilma. I remember at least that much," she said, receiving a more fearsome glare from Mikaela when she nodded to each of them. "I don't remember him, though."

The unfamiliar man in question didn't stop whatever he was doing as his eyes continued to swirl with silver. Still, he deigned to answer with a curt, "Franklin," his surprisingly deep voice carrying unnaturally well in the room.

"Ah, that is no surprise," WolfMosh said, "He was hired after you went into a coma, as our old ripperdoc had an... accident. Anyway, Franklin's our resident cyberware expert and doctor, and also who'll install your new cyberware today."

"T-Today?" Rei couldn't help but stammer, suddenly nervous and excited in equal measure.

WolfMosh merely nodded in response.

Franklin stood and stretched before walking toward the exit where they'd come from. "Let's get started."

Rei, dumbfounded, moved to follow after another quick glance at her fellow apprentices. Wilma was still smiling but with a sympathetic tilt to her lips, while Selvix frowned at her and Mikaela scowled openly.

Mikaela doesn't seem keen on me for some reason. Selvix might just be a person who frowns a lot, as far as I know. At least one of my peers seems to genuinely like me.

She didn't bother to decipher WolfMosh's expression, or the lack thereof, as what he thought of her was irrelevant. Rei would get her revenge somehow; she just needed to bide her time.

Alright... next up: my first step to transcending human limitations.