“Got a job for you, X-18.”

Commissioner Gregor’s voice was crisp and tight as ever through the comm line. I ignored it for the moment. It wasn’t a live message. Just a pre-recorded briefing for the next assignment he had prepared for me. Got a job for you, X-18 is basically a ringtone.

Right now, I needed to focus. The only reason I’m still able to insert Arclight drives into my arm was because, over the years, I had learned that you have to concentrate when doing it.

Otherwise, Arclight had a tendency of blowing up whatever it’s inserted into.

I held out my arm. A patch of skin turned into neatly fitted hexagons, each of which glowed before disappearing to reveal an illuminated pocket.

Next, I pulled out the old, thumb-sized Arclight drive. It’s worn out. The cuboid was slightly overheated and smudged with wear. I placed it carefully in the separate trash. Can’t let Arclight contaminate anything else. That’s a shortcut to getting it in a system it doesn’t belong in.

Mutton pad-clanked towards the bin.

“No, boy,” I muttered, securing the trash bin’s lid. “You know that’s not for you.”

He gave me the saddest puppy eyes known to dog-kind. We’ve been through this routine. Mutton will pretend to be interested in everything he’s not supposed to be interested in and then look tragically devastated until I reluctantly make him happy.

With treats, of course.

Sighing, I got up and retrieved a bone-shaped treat with my still-functional hand. “Here you go, little guy. Happy now?”

Mutton was indeed happy. He took the treat graciously from my hand, yipped in delight, then wagged his tail hard as he pad-clanked away.

“Stop wagging your tail,” I called after him. “Or you’ll generate too much power and won’t be able to sleep again. Dumb dog,” I muttered as Mutton disappears.

With that furry distraction gone, I finished plugging in the sleek little Arclight drive into the pocket of my right arm. The hexagonal patches reappeared and sealed it in.

I poked through the Interface. The holographic screen in front of my eyes ran through some diagnostics and ensured everything was linked correctly before finally approving the connection. Then the Arclight flooded into my system.

Describing the feeling of Arclight would be akin to describing the sensation of sunlight on the skin. Or articulating what it’s like coming home after a long day.

It felt like it belonged. Like I was missing a piece of me that I always failed to appreciate before it slotted in place, like I was always at 98% without Arclight pulsing through me and when it was, I rocketed to 110%.

Almost sounded wholesome when put that way. But that’s what made Arclight so dangerous, so carefully regulated.

So expensive.

If this new drive didn’t last me for the next three weeks, I’d be shit out of luck. Which brought me back to the briefing I’d received from the Commissioner.

At the same time, Mutton pad-clanked back to the dingy dining room.

“You wanna listen in too, boy?” I asked.

Mutton yipped.

“Alright, settle down then.”

I navigated back to my Interface, then looked at my recent comm lines. Commissioner Gregor’s was at the top. I selected it.

“Got a job for you, X-18…”

----------------------------------------

“This everything you needed, Mister?” the girl at my door asked.

I wasn’t going to unpack my delivery in front of some unsuspecting delivery worker. Especially not someone so young. “Shouldn’t you be in school or something, kijo?”

The girl huffed. A lock of her silver hair, some of which looked like literal steel implants, fluttered. “I’m not a kid, Mister. In fact.” She thumped her chest. There was a small clink. Not on her chest, but on her fist instead. She had knuckle implants. Wild choice, honestly. “I’m saving up for the Academy.”

“Oh, yeah?” I lifted the heavily wrapped package to take it deeper into my apartment. “Don’t tell me that’s why you’re doing this delivery.”

She didn’t bat an eye. Well, not the one I could see at least. Couldn’t say for the one hidden behind the ocular implant. “Richter’s shitting pricey, so. But I got a bit of a scholarship, and with this money…” She hesitated for a second, then brightened again. “I can make it!”

I whistled under my breath, though it was a little hard. My jaw wasn’t exactly normal anymore. “Richter Academy’s on Level 3, isn’t it? That’s damn impressive.”

The girl beamed.

She waited while I pulled the package into my dining room. Mutton sniffed around at it.

“Not for you again, boy,” I said.

The puppy eyes routine followed, as did me throwing a treat at the little bugger. I returned to my front door with payment. Mutton pad-clanked along behind me, now curious.

“Ooohhh!” The girl fell to her haunches, completely ignoring the little payment chip I was offering her. “A doggo! He’s so cute.”

Mutton, seeing that he had just found a new friend, woofed and got in close. The delivery girl eagerly reached forward and rubbed a hand on his husky head.

“What’s this cutie pie’s name?” she asked.

“Mutton,” I said.

Mutton yipped and leaned into delivery girl’s touch.

She looked up at me in surprise. “You named this adorable floof Mutton?”

I sighed. “It’s… it’s a pun.”

She blinked at me. “Mutton. Mut ton.” She looked down at where Mutton’s fur ended and his prosthetic portion began. “He’s not actually a ton, is he?”

I snorted. “He’s a ton of fucking work, is what he is.”

Mutton yipped happily.

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With the Commissioner’s briefing still ringing in my ear and the package secured at the end of my bike, I got on my sleek racer.

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Mutton woofed a farewell from the balcony. I held up my lips to him for silence. It was late. Night had fallen a while ago on Silver City. I didn’t need to wake up to complaints from my neighbours that my dog was ruining their beauty sleep.

It being late meant the streets were mostly empty as I drove to my target destination.

X-18: On my way to the target.

I sent the message to the Commissioner. Protocol was that I at least send one message at the start of a mission, and one at the end to confirm that it was completed. Occasionally, Gregor was interested enough in the details to request a report. More often though, he’d just ask me directly. He was rarely a stickler for the rules, was Commissioner Gregor.

The Interface popped up. I blinked in surprise. The Commissioner was calling.

I accepted the call. “Commissioner?”

“X-18,” he said. There was a laxness to his voice, but it wasn’t abnormal. His briefings were tight, but actual conversation with him was a lot more natural. “Was the briefing sufficient?”

“You really called to ask that, Commissioner?”

He was silent. The Underlevel of Silver City passed me by. Dank, featureless buildings. Streets slowly devolving into dirt tracks. Clothes hanging on lines bridging the gap between apartment buildings that allowed a patter of rain to slink onto the dirty roads.

“No,” the Commissioner said. “Not really. What I actually wanted was to mark an occasion.”

I turned a corner and got onto a darker street, where the meagre light of the streetlamps didn’t reach as far. “Occasion?”

“You’re forgetting, X-18. This will be your twentieth job. For me.”

“Huh. I hadn’t kept count.”

“It’s an important milestone. We’ve been at this for almost a year now, X-18.” His short laugh transmitted through the comm line pretty clearly. “A whole year and not a single hitch. Really impressive when you stop to think about it, considering the state I found you in.”

I was silent for a while as I parked my bike in the darkest corner possible and started preparing for the assignment. The silence was nice. Comfortable. The Commissioner was patient. Always. I’d never known him to rush.

“You’re failing to consider one thing, Commissioner,” I said. “I wasn’t working in the Underlevel when you found me.”

Another short laugh. “True enough. This work is no doubt beneath someone of your capabilities. I’ve known that for a while. And I’ve never questioned why a man of your talents would accept these meaningless and inconsequential little missions I offered. But that’s because I always suspected…”

He left it hanging. I didn’t speak up until I’d opened the package. Bullets. Arclight-forged. Just the three of them. “What did you suspect, Commissioner? That a man with particular inclinations such as yours needs someone with particular capabilities like myself?”

It was the Commissioner’s turn to answer with silence. As hexagonal patches opened up on my left arm, I loaded my ammo.

I wasn’t kidding. If Commissioner Gregor sent me three bullets, then I was supposed to use all three bullets. No more and no less. Although, I wasn’t supposed to kill my target with any of them. Only to test if he was still alive or not. Like I said, particular.

That was one of his tamer directives, to be honest.

A few weeks back, I’d suffocated a thief to death, injecting Arclight straight into his lungs. It really didn’t belong inside a body. Not in parts without cybernetics, at least. He’d needed a few bullets to make sure he was dead.

More than a month back, I’d slipped some Arclight in an extortionist’s drink. She hadn’t lasted the night. A bullet to the brain made sure she really wasn’t harming anyone again.

The strangest one, and probably my longest act yet, was me just scaring the life out of one hapless Arcpill dealer. You don’t make a profit off of drugs in Underlevel without getting people hooked for life. But that also means you’re now scared one of your destitute druggies will be coming for your conniving ass.

No big deal to take advantage of that innate fear and make the asshole jump off a rooftop in fright. Of course, I needed to contaminate one of his own pills with rogue Arclight first. Plus, needed a couple of bullets to make sure he was no longer causing misery.

Yes. Everybody got one or more bullets.

“It’s not about inclinations and capabilities,” Commissioner Gregor finally said. “It’s really about our goals. Not the surface level ones. It’s the motivation in our heart of hearts. What I suspected, X-18, is that our ideals align.”

I paused, considering how to answer that. But a small beep on my Interface brought up the alert I’d set before the mission. The target was in position.

“Looks like we’re going to have to cut this short, Commissioner,” I said.

“So it would seem.” The Commissioner sounded slightly wistful it was time to call our little chat quits. “Finish the job, X-18.”

The line went dead.

I left my bike in the shadows and headed to complete my mission.

----------------------------------------

The douche was making the rounds.

He had climbed up the fire escape and was standing at the window of some poor family who had taken a loan from him. It wouldn’t do to take the main stairs like a normal person. No, no, if you really wanted to terrify your targets, you had to appear via unconventional means. Thus, the fire escape.

I waited until he was done making the life of his victims living hell. Waited until he had climbed down the fire escape and reached street level.

Waited until he was cloaked in the darkness of Underlevel.

I sent out a pulse of invisible Arclight. Its heady power washed through me, comforting, familiar, and enlivening.

“Who are you, cobber?” the man asked, noticing me. He paused. “Shit, my comms. Did you jam them?”

Careful man, already pulling out his gun.

“Is that an ST-97C Luger?” My flesh-capped metal palms thudded dully as I clapped in appreciation. “What’s a loan shark doing with a weapon like that?”

“Ah, shit. Not just any old cobber. What’s an Augmented human doing here?”

It was dark, with the streetlights far too distant to reach anywhere close and all the windows blacker than sin. A normal person wouldn’t have been able to see shit, much less the details needed to identify the very specific make and model of a handgun. “Looks like you catch on fast, loan shark.”

He proved that by firing his gun at me. I supposed you didn’t get by in this line of work if your instincts weren’t honed to a razor-sharp edge.

But my instincts—my reactions—were significantly faster.

The bullets stopped about a foot in front of me, seemingly floating on the air on their own, their momentum completely eradicated.

Arclight flowed within me, a delightful dance of power. Tiny rivulets of it ran through dozens of augmented pores on my skin to erupt in a disruptive forcefield in front of me. The heady feeling was there as always. A belief that I could do anything with enough Arclight. I’d gotten used to controlling it, though.

“Fuck,” the shark hissed. “Military-grade mag-shield huh? What else are you hiding, you fucking fleshbot?”

I disabled the mag-shield as I stepped closer. It would be so easy to kill him off with the bullets loaded in my arm. But I’d given specific orders. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. Not for me. Definitely not for my target.

A couple more shots fired in my direction, but they were just as ineffectual. The Arclight mag-shield took care of them.

The loan shark turned and fled.

“You’re trying to run?” I asked. Arclight fired through the augments in my legs. Three steps. That was all it took for me to appear in front of my target. “From me?”

The loan shark stopped short. His face was flushed, his jowls quivering in a mixture of anger and fear. “Why the hell are you after me, fleshbot?”

“Can you truly think of no reason?”

“No!” He shook a little with the conviction he carried. “I’ve done nothing to nobody. I kept up my payments, even after the hag choked on her drink. I made sure the judge had his pockets lined no matter how many cases came up about my business, and when he croaked, I kept sending the payments to the court anyway. I—”

He froze.

“No way,” he whispered. Then he slapped his forehead. “You’re not from any of them. Of course, not. Look at you. Nobody in this dump can afford an Augmented cobber like you. I’m so stupid. They were right. Somebody was coming for everybody. Is coming.”

He didn’t even react when I reached out and placed a hand over his cranium, gripping his skull in a vice. My target had given up. Not record time for me. But close.

“Who’re you with, fleshbot?” he asked. His eyes were wide, curious, determined to dig out what he could before this body of his collapsed. “Who’s the big shot coming down here to Underlevel? Wait, no. All those deaths… the big shot’s been here a while, right? Who is it? How many of them are there? What are they up—”

“Shh,” I said. “You’re a dead man. Dead men don’t talk.”

Needles drove out of my palm, punctured through my target’s skull, and stabbed into his brain.

He jerked in my grip, his body instinctively fighting the pain. Fighting the threat of what was about to happen. “You’re known, fleshbot. You’ll be found. There are hounds after you already. Come tomorrow, you’ll be dead—”

The shot of Arclight injected straight into his grey matter short circuited the asshole I was holding onto by his skull. His body jerked, violently this time, his words turning to gibberish. A second later, his eyeballs melted down his face and his ears and nostrils began steaming and spewing blood.

Limp though the body was, my job wasn’t quite done yet. I raised my left hand and aimed the palm at the loan shark’s chest. Hexagonal patches opened to reveal a handgun nozzle.

Three bullets from my Commissioner. Three shots into the body to confirm he was truly dead.

X-18: Target down. Mission accomplished. Although the target seemed unconcerned about the body’s fate. Unsure if life drive was backed up elsewhere.

Once I’d sent the update to the Commissioner, I carried the body back to my bike. I still needed to dispose of the corpse correctly. But as I hitched the former loan shark to my ride, I could only frown at his last words.

Hounds after you already.