The cybernetic samurai with a fetish for black long coats walked up to my table. I’d seen his type before during my time in corporate life. Grizzled stubble, mechanical left arm, and worst of all: sunglasses at night. 

“Do you have the package?” I mustered a polite smile, trying not to wince at the smell of gunpowder and cigarettes that infiltrated the glitzy night club we were in. Trust a paranoid loner to propose one of the loudest, most public venues possible to do a clandestine meeting in. It was almost brilliant. Neon lights flashed all over my peripheral vision as drunken dancers flailed about to the sound of synthwave. 

“Yeah,” he said, his gravelly voice echoing a lifetime of chain-smoking. Terrible for the lungs. Didn’t matter so long as you had the money to replace them, but livers were a lot cheaper. That’s why I stuck to the wine glass in my hands, nursing it slowly with a hint of impatience. 

He sat down with a glare, slamming a steel briefcase on the table. It also happened to be handcuffed to his metallic left hand. I raised my eyebrow. A measure of how much he distrusted me, I supposed, which wasn’t unreasonable. A couple of bouncers watched us silently, their jackets filled with bulging muscles and concealed handguns. They were probably thinking about the money I’d uploaded to their bank accounts. 

Sure, I was wearing a ballistic vest over my black suit and red shirt, but some extra firepower reassured me even more. I idly checked my reflection in the wine glass, hoping that my black-haired bob was in good shape. Professionalism was key. Without it, I wasn’t much better than a thug.

The young security officer sitting next to me was shaking. A blonde ponytail poked out of her baseball cap and shook ever so silently. She was tightly gripping a machine pistol at her waist. Weapons weren’t explicitly allowed in this nightclub, but then again, neither were posthuman cyborgs who could benchpress a car. It was reasonable to be nervous.

I gave her a warning nudge and her body stiffened. Good. It wasn’t the time to be shooting first.

“Want anything?” I said, waving my hand at the holographic menu that appeared by the side of the table. “Hardboiled mercs like you always have a vice, right? When you’re not busy scaring my poor bodyguard, that is.”

He scowled. “My money.”

The strong silent type, then. I could work with that. His handle on the Net was just ‘Savage’. Not exactly the kind of guy most people met up with for a friendly chat. Samurai were loners, cybernetic freelancers that made a living off completing missions that were either too expensive or too risky for a squad of mercenaries. That kind of specialisation wasn't suited for a scavenging expedition, but they made excellent infiltrators. 

I crossed my arms. “Sure, let me wire you a hundred thousand just like that. Open it up first.”

He nodded curtly. His fingers broke open the clasp and rotated the briefcase to face me. There was a vial of liquid gold inside of it. It wasn’t gold. More like yellow cordial, really, but the vacuum-sealed stopper and the insignia of Parasyne Medical on the side was enough to convince me that it was the real deal.

I gave him a satisfied smile. “Good stuff. I’m glad I picked the right guy for the job. Your money.” 

My hand dug into one of my suit’s inside pockets and withdrew a credit chit that contained exactly a hundred thousand dollars. I had no idea why the samurai wanted everything in a standalone wallet. Frankly, I didn’t want to. My hand beckoned him over.

“The briefcase, please and thanks,” I drawled. Finally. I hated having to work overtime, but everyone wanted to make deals at night. Why couldn't we just talk it over lunch? At least I could credit it to my hours worked for the week.

“Not yet,” he said, waving off my generous payment. I frowned, my armed escort glancing down at her weapon. It likely could have bought him a new set of vat-grown lungs. Or a cybernetic replacement, if he wanted to cut costs. “What’s going to be done with the vaccine?”

I smirked. “Grown a heart, samurai? Marstech’s going to sell it, of course. At affordable prices,” I said. “We’ll be able to undercut Parasyne before they can let the disease ramp up and take their entire market share for a while. As I think you’ve realised, its quarantine measures were a little too timely to be natural.”

He shook his head. “I want free treatment for the afflicted who can’t afford it.”

“You know that’s not something I can promise.”

“I don’t care. You tell me you’ll do your best to help them, and we’ll be square. No payment necessary.”

I frowned. Helping someone for free? It wasn’t as if people were going to thank him on the streets. But I joined the corporations because we had the power to make things work. Stepping on people for no reason wasn’t in my purview. There'd been enough of that in the century that followed after the Collapse.

“Fine. Deal. I’ll do what I can,” I said, grabbing his unaugmented right hand and shaking it. Going to his metal hand sounded like a recipe for getting my bones crushed.

His lips formed a tight line. He uncuffed the briefcase.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

That was when a whole squad of amped-up men and women strode into the place. I questioned the efficacy of the club’s security, but then I noticed the assault rifles they were packing. Big heat for a bunch of tattooed punks whose gang tags I didn’t recognise. Once you spent enough time in the city, you got a feel for who you needed to take seriously. These were the ones too small-time for the big gangs and not desperate enough to be a raider.

“What is up, chummers?” the mohawked leader said, a twitchy grin on his face and a bright red cybernetic eye. “One of my boys spotted a corpo rat coming into my territory. And I don’t like corporate scum at all. Show yourself or we start lighting this place up!” 

I glanced at my negotiation partner. “Savage. You know what’s at stake inside this briefcase. I won’t force your hand, but I’ll leave the money here on this table.” 

The cyborg gave me a flat look. He nodded.

Then the man pulled out an honest to God vibrokatana from the inside of his artificial arm, activating nearly three feet of high-frequency humming metal. Its song pierced through the din of the music. Savage must have paid top-dollar for its creation or looted it. Swords that cut through tank armour didn’t come cheap.

“I’ll handle it. You get going,” he said to us, the briefcase left on the desk. I quickly scooped it up and looked to my lone guard. The bouncers ran off as some of the punks started firing their weapons into the roof. So much for money well spent.

“What do we do, Miss Cassandra?” she said, unholstering her weapon with surprising calm. The red shield logo of Marstech gleamed menacingly on its side. Club goers started screaming, flooding the emergency exits whilst some of them were being shot at by laughing gangers. They weren’t truly here for me. Just the power trip.

“Shoot anyone that aims for us, just buy me some time.”

“Got it.” 

I kept my head down and scanned the exits. There wasn’t any point yet in trying to join the crush of bodies leaving the club. Unless I wanted to risk being trampled by scared half-naked clubgoers. My internal commlink patched into the Marstech security team that I had waiting in the wings.

“Get the driver to bring the car by the back entrance.”

The answering voice had a hint of radio-like static. “Copy that.”

“In the meantime, we’re getting behind the bar and killing any ganger who gets close to this,” I said to my guard, grabbing the briefcase and sliding out of my chair. “This thing’s worth more than we are.”

“Doesn’t your grandfather own the company? You’d be pretty valuable.” 

I shrugged it off. “He’s got a lot of kids.”

The two of us got down low and made for the bar counter. Half of the drinks were leaking their alcoholic contents everywhere, making the floor sticky. My shoes were going to be ruined. I grabbed an intact bottle of spiced rum before it could get shattered and stuffed it in my jacket as a trophy. The club owner had bigger things to worry about.

Our resident samurai was dashing about with his katana, cutting down punks who’d started spreading out and spraying bullets at him. With so much lead in his vicinity, some of it shredded straight through his torso. Skin tore off to reveal metal plating. Subdermal armour was no joke, even if I couldn’t ever see myself going over the threshold. I liked most of me staying organic.

A man screamed bloody murder as he was thrown into a pile of glasses. The remaining gangers started looking backwards. Even the blurry haze of low-grade drugs wasn’t enough to make getting stabbed by a grizzled middle-aged man enjoyable. 

“Back off the chromer, he’s mine! ” the leader shouted, revealing an electrified baton alongside the shotgun he carried. His first frenzied hit shocked the samurai and sent him reeling, only to have his shotgun slashed in half. He started laughing hysterically.

The two of them exchanged furious blows, most of the punks either bleeding out or retreating. A couple of the gangers were sprinting away from Max’s path of destruction and towards our position. They were shooting at the last few civilians with crazed whoops, the vast majority of their bullets shattering glasses and knocking out lights. I gritted my teeth. It only took one to kill someone.

“I don’t want to file another report,” I said to my companion as I pulled out my autopistol and flicked off the safety.  “But sometimes it happens. You take the one on the left.”

“Got it!” she said, a small grin on her face. I was mildly concerned. I knew how to shoot someone, but I didn’t relish it. Troopers in the megacorps and gangers on the street tended to have a different opinion.

My pistol barked out three shots, thudding against my grip. Two in the chest, the ganger shuddered as he tanked the hits. Too stimmed-up to care. One more in the head and he dropped to the ground. His friend joined him in a spray of automatic fire.

“Ride’s here. They’ll keep an eye out for any surprises,” the security officer said.

“Lovely. Let’s get going.” The two of us ducked back under the bar counter and made our way for the kitchen side exit. Gunfire started to drop off as the samurai charged through the front like the madman he was. 

I was tense at first, but it turned into relief as I saw the sleek profile of an armoured hovercraft sitting in an empty moonlit parking lot. Megacorps had some of the best equipment around, which included bulletproof flying vehicles. Perks of the job.

A trooper in black combat armour and dark red fatigues saluted me, rifle in hand as he kept a watch on the perimeter. His similarly armoured companion was waiting by the open door, a low hiss emanating from the thrusters. We were surrounded by old stone tenements and skyscrapers with stuttering neon signs. Hooded beggars glared at us from fire barrels. Men and women with bulky cybernetics walked into shady hotels. 

“Welcome back, ma’am.”

“Thank you. Good work, everyone.”

We all piled in and the hovercraft began to take off. Sirens shrieked in the distance. With a thought, I dialled my manager and eyed the stream of blue notifications coming in and out of my view. Most of it wasn't work-related, considering it was midnight, but it paid to keep an eye on events.

"It’s Cassandra. I’ve got the package. I was thinking about how we could get some goodwill by giving the vaccine gratis to the poor. Our PR hasn’t been too good since the incident with the assassin bot..."

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Your Father

We need to talk.