We left Claire’s Gym and headed back to the slums. Sam never really kept a base. Not one we could find at least. Any time we met him, it was in his car.

It rested in the slums next to Sam’s favorite food stall, a Korean/Mexican fusion place. His car was a hover one. Nobody knew how the guy could afford it or the rare as hell licenses that let the megarich fly through the sky. As far as I knew, only the top Corpo folk could afford it. The people who counted their money in stacks taller than me, who owned more land than some countries.

Sam was rich, but not that rich.

Still, it was cool, and I was kinda bouncing as we approached it. It was sweet looking. Silver and red, shining in the light, made to look like one of those ancient cars from the days when TVs were used. His bodyguard stood next to the door, watching as we approached. I stepped up with a grin.

“Hey, Cherie.”

“Layla,” Sam’s bodyguard grinned back at me.

Cherie was awesome. She was wearing her usual studded leather suit and chainmail, looking like a lady knight out of medieval fantasy, right down to the two swords at her hip and the small knives across her body.

The tall lady's black hair was cut short, making it easy to see her cat-like eyes and the two claw scars across her right eyebrow and the bigger one slicing across her left cheek and part of her nose. She was so badass.

“He’s waiting for you,” Cherie said casually, her British-accented voice calm. “Don’t need to repeat the rules, do I?”

“We don’t carry weapons anyways,” Yun joked.

“Except for these,” I lifted my fists with a grin. Yun groaned, but Cherie smirked.

“Go on in there you brat,” she stepped aside while opening the car door and I cheerfully hopped in. Yun followed, then Cherie. The car lifted into the air on jets of fire. But I was more focused on the inside.

It was plush. All soft and nice looking. I bounced on the seat a bit, enjoying the feel of gravity pulling at me and finding nothing.

Cherie took a seat on one side, next to a weaselly and sweaty-looking guy I didn’t recognize. Yun sat next to me. And in the middle, at the seat of honor, sat Sam.

He was a fit guy, with long hair slicked back from his face, a square jaw, and eyes the color of old money. He looked between Yun and me. When he spoke, it was in the same British accent as Cherie. “So. Based on the fact I haven't gotten my money, I can assume good old Daniel was disinclined to pay me back.”

“He was,” Yun said. “We beat him-”

“You beat him,” Sam said to Yun, but he was looking at me. “Layla here helped you catch him, but not beat him.”

I didn’t ask how he knew that. But I kept from glaring at him as best as I could. I love fighting. Fighting. Not beating up someone who didn’t deserve it.

“Still, you did as I asked,” Sam snapped his fingers. Yun’s watch shone at the same time that my HUD gave me a notification that funds had been transferred to me. I felt some relief. The cash would be enough for more Pneuma for my implants, for some rent, food, enough to keep us afloat a bit longer-

“What the hell is this?” I snapped when I saw just how much we’d gotten. Or how little.

“Your payment,” Sam said while baring his teeth.

“We did the job,” Yun said. “We did it exactly like you asked.”

“I asked for you both to beat him if he didn’t pay. Only one of you did. You should feel lucky I paid you at all for now following the rules of your contract to the letter.”

Like hell! That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t how people did things in the city. We’d done our part and he was cheaping us out on a technicality! The amount was what, half the rent?

I almost got up, but barely kept in my seat. Cherie eyed me, then looked over at Sam. The skinny guy next to her gulped.

“...Fine,” Yun snapped out. “Then drop us off here.”

“In a moment. I wanted to reach out to you with a proposal anyways, so this is a good chance for it.”

A proposal… this bastard. He cheaped out to force this on us.

Sam didn’t flinch at the look I gave him. Just kept his teeth bared, his eyes flashing blue beneath the green from whatever chrome he had in his head.

“It’s a good job. Better paying than the one you had last time actually. Isn’t that nice? Works out for all of us.”

Yun and I shared a look. Yun nodded for me to speak.

“No deal,” I said immediately. “Drop us off please.”

“If you want to leave, you can,” he gestured outside. To the tops of buildings were flashing past as we flew dozens of stories through the air.

I think, on some level, he thought that was supposed to scare me. I shrugged, rising up out of my chair. It might be too high to risk magnet-lining for some people, but I could-

Shit. Yun didn’t have his line. It was still being fixed.

From the way Sam was smiling, he knew it too. He leaned forward. “Tell you what. Listen to my proposal. And I think you’ll find it very promising.”

“...Well?” Yun said. I sat down again.

“A smash and grab, sonny. Simple as you like. I need a heavy hitter, I need someone with all their organic parts, one more who can bounce like a damn whirling dervish, and someone with cybernetics.”

He pointed at us with his ring finger. “You two kill all of those little dots on my checklist. Nice right? For once, Yun’s idiocy becomes a benefit.”

I wanted to hit him. Yun didn’t even flinch, but that made it worse. People always ragged on him for his refusal to get chromed up in any way. Not even his eyes, or basic stuff like ports.

“So you have us. Who else?” Yun said calmly.

Sam smirked at me before continuing. “Cherie. She’s my lead on this since I can actually trust her to get the job done.”

Cherie crossed her arms, the sound of leather and metal scrapping against each other coming with the motion.

“And good old Poy here! You guys know Poy, right?”

“No,” Yun, Cherie, and I said in unison.

The skinny rat-faced man started. “Wha- I’ve been working for Sam for years! Cherie, we’ve done jobs together!”

“...” Cherie looked over at Sam in confusion. He nodded, though he also seemed like he was going to bust his sides with laughter. “Sorry?”

Poy seemed ready to shout before Sam coughed, bringing the attention back to him. “Poy is my tech expert. He’ll be working on getting you all into the place. As for the actual job…”

He waved a hand. Lights shone from the ceiling, creating a rough holographic image. Very old school. Rich people preferred catoms, the little moving robots, nowadays, since they could actually be interacted with. Guess Sam wasn’t as well off as I’d thought.

The hologram displayed somewhere very industrial looking, a large building with dozens of trucks driving into it.

“Redfield Corp. You slumdogs ever hear of it?” he didn’t stop to hear our answer. “Big up-and-comer. Made by a slumdog actually! Jan Redfield. Really bleeding heart type. We’re breaking into her facility and stealing her stuff.”

“Stuff?” I asked.

“No idea what it is. Just something my client asked me to take from her,” Sam said cheerily.

“We refuse,” Yun said.

That surprised me. Yun usually at least looked at me to check if we were on the same page for these things. Then again… I got why.

“Oh really?” Sam leaned forward. He looked almost haunting for a moment. His green eyes had shifted to a deeper blue. A sign of his cybernetics working overtime? Why? “I haven’t even said how much you’ll be getting.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You want us to rob a corp,” Yun said firmly. He was almost glaring now. “We’re going to our final year of school next year. This isn’t random beatings, it’s not covering store robberies or fighting for turf. We get caught and we go away for life. Or worse, we get spun up in a virtual unit for a thousand years.”

That last one was a rumor. Ever since uploading had been created, people whispered about that idea. That maybe the same tech that could send you to virtual heaven could leave you experiencing centuries of hell in a single moment.

Sometimes you saw people. Walking along the road. Standing on corners. Leaning against walls. Stuck in a world of their own after coming back from prison. Maybe they were on drugs. Hopefully.

Sam looked around. Cherie was calm, but Poy looked freaked out. The British man sighed. “Look mate, I’d be in just as much trouble as the rest of you if you got caught. So believe me on this. I wouldn’t do this job if there was any chance of me catching flak for it.”

A snap of the fingers and the hologram shifted. “Now I know you brats have mostly done low-key faff, so I’m going to hope you’ve watched some heist movies.”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Just listen, you bint. Now, look. Our entrance is an employee door here. One of the ones the workers leave through and enter every day, usually to take smoke and cocaine breaks.”

The hologram displayed the door, the compass on the holo showing it was on the south part of the building, away from where the trucks entered the building.

“You go in, meet our person on the inside.”

“Who?” Cherie asked.

“A small-time accountant I believe. A guy who works on the paperwork and doesn’t get paid enough for it. The right role at the wrong time as it turns out. Always go to those types when you need a traitor. They have just the right amount of permission and get just the right amount of disrespect when you want to pull someone onto your team. Our client did just that.”

No asking who the client was. No fixer worth their salt would ever reveal something like that.

Sam chuckled as the hologram shifted. “From there… well. Things will get interesting. But I can’t exactly explain any of that if you aren’t in.”

Yun didn’t say anything. I took over.

“How much?”

“2.4 mils. Each.”

Odin’s beard.

Two point four million? That was… impossible money. That was life-changing. Even back when mom and dad had been working for the big wigs, that was what, two, three years of their salary? No wait, he said each! Between Yun and me, that was going to be huge!

Sam chuckled. “It’s going to be worth your time, right?”

“No amount is worth losing our lives over,” Yun said.

I took a deep breath. “Can I talk to my brother? Privately, please.”

“Boy oh boy. All righty,” Sam turned to Cherie and Poy with a smirk.

Yun and I moved across the car to get further away. Not something that usually gave real privacy, but Yun put some earphones in. I called him through my implants and just like that, we had our privacy.

“We don’t need this,” Yun said immediately.

“We need this. Yun, we won’t just be able to pay for normal things, we’ll be rich! We can buy a place for mom and dad, we can go back to school. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

He stared at me long enough that I started to feel uncomfortable. When he spoke again I wanted to scream at how sad he sounded. “You know we- I, don’t blame you. We would have been in the same situation no matter what. You getting chrome was-”

“Shut up,” I snapped out, louder than I wanted. Cherie, Sam, and Poy looked over at me. Sam was smirking. I ignored them to focus on Yun. “I know it wasn’t my fault. I’m not feeling guilty. But we have to take the chances we get. Keep moving forward.”

Yun leaned forward. I felt nervous. This job… even if Sam cheaped out on us again, it would still be enough money to change our lives. I knew he wasn’t scared. Yun wasn’t scared of anything. But he was worried.

When he finally answered, my leg had been bouncing nervously. I stopped it the instant he spoke.

“Okay. Keep moving forward. You and me.”

“You and me,” I gave him a small smile.

“We’re landing,” Sam said. He looked annoyed, almost impatient. “I need an answer.”

“Yes.”

The British fixer grinned. Cherie smiled a bit. “Fantastic! Well then. I suppose I’ll give the rundown on the ground. You all have your parts. First things first-”

As he broke it down, an indicator on my HUD was always in the corner of my vision. The status of my implants. Including how much Pneuma I had powering them. 98 percent. But always tickling down. Just living was costing my family. With this job, though?

Everything could change.

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

Cherie Brefutan

Cherie watched the kids step out of the car after Sam explained everything to them. For a moment, she was struck by how young they were. It never occurred to her before.

Yun was such a massive kid. He had a year of school left and he was already impressive in height and weight, outmassing a lot of grown adults. His normal stoicism made it even easier to forget he wasn’t out of his teens. Then he’d get a worried look on his face, or he’d smile at his sister, and suddenly the Korean fighter looked his age again.

His sister was easier about that. Cherie liked her. She was a bundle of energy, and fought like a bird, flying about. She was easy to joke around with.

But now, that look of determination on her face as she left behind her brother made Cherie want to-

The door slammed closed behind them. Sam laughed.

“God. Those two… idiots. Honest-to-god idiots.”

Cherie’s face stilled. When Sam noticed, he scoffed. “Oh please. Spare me, Cherie. I don’t have your obsession with strays. Just do the job tomorrow, understand?”

“It’s too short notice,” Cherie pointed out, rather than going over the old argument of Sam’s treatment of people.

“Of course, it’s blooming short notice! But the client gets what the client wants. Poy, how are we on equipment?”

“Uh,” the rat-faced man swallowed when Cherie and Sam looked at him. “I’ll uh, have the right stuff installed. As long as your man-”

“Person,” Sam said immediately. “Anonymity is everything. As far as we know, there is no person on the inside. They have no gender, no race, nothing… long as the check clears.”

Cherie held back from rolling her eyes. What a drama queen.

“Right, person, on the inside. As long as they are telling the truth, we’ll be able to go in.”

“And the exit.”

Something about the way he said that made her frown. There was a weight to it. An insistence.

“Uh… maybe? I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Sam scowled. “Fine. We’ll work with what we’ve got.”

“What the hell are you plotting?” Cherie asked.

He smirked. Money-green eyes flashed with a bit of electric blue. “Don’t worry, Cherie. Gather your bits and bobs. Tomorrow, we’ll all be rich. And if all goes well, we’ll be even more than that.”

Cherie bit her lip. Something about the way he said that. Her hand dropped to one of the knives on her waist, tapping at the hilt. Tomorrow…