In its beginnings, the Captown movement was little more than a collection of frustrated university students, their heads in the clouds and their hearts full of a spirit which had long since departed the world. It was at Princeton University in 2066 when the fathers of the movement began to lay their schemes – of which I would later be a part. Andre Nix and Alan Grimes, the two met at a philosophical presentation by a guest lecturer, whose name neither of them seem to remember, and each man found himself, suddenly, no longer alone behind enemy lines.

Their friendship was fast and their ambitions broad and sweeping. Nix – a student of economics – had dreams of a world free from the corrupt incompetence of the mainland, and Grimes – a student of engineering – sought to provide that plan in feasible fashion. Thus, they began drawing up the first plans for what would later become Captown Sowell.

From: A History of the Captowns by Hans Laurenz Gerstner

Chapter 1

The van came to a stop in the dirt clearing. With a tap to the control interface, the electric motor powered down, stopping the gentle whirring. After a few moments, the van’s computer switched to auxiliary power, and the lights inside flicked on.

Roy Jansen was the only one in sight. As far as he was aware, there was no one else to witness his sudden appearance in the rundown parking lot.

Silence and stealth were the two words which he now lived by. He couldn’t afford to be seen by anyone, not when he was an enemy of the state no matter where he went. It was a tremendous fall from grace, considering that once upon a time he had been the world’s richest man. He certainly wasn’t anymore.

Roy clambered into the back of his van, gathering the four light bending conduits. Each conduit was roughly nine feet tall when fully extended, bearing a small cylinder of white light an inch or so from the sturdy cap on top. They were silver in color, not that anyone would notice when they were activated.

The purpose of the conduits was, as the name suggested, to bend photons of light from their course. Through disrupting the path of light particles, any object within the boundaries of the conduits – along with the conduits themselves – would appear invisible from any angle. Thanks to an advanced power storage system, there was no concern of a power outage.

Roy dropped to the dirt below and began the process of assembling his veil. It wasn’t terribly complicated. He had designed the objects himself and linked them to his Animachip, ensuring that he was in constant control of the conduits.

Once extended, the conduits stood above the height of his van. Each was placed about three feet from the corners of the vehicle, creating a square with an area slightly larger than the size of Roy’s vehicle, which also served as a mobile home.

Merely thinking, Roy was able to activate the conduits thanks to the connection through his Animachip. He stood outside the prism of reflected light to ensure proper function of the system, and like a ghost, his van disappeared from sight as if it had never been in the dirt lot at all.

Roy smirked with pleasure at his own creation. The system was not yet perfected, though these days he did not have much time to spend building new versions of his conduits any longer. These ones he had now were the prototypes still in development three years ago.

As Roy passed into the zone hidden by the conduit pillars, the world went dark. The only light visible to him came from the interior of his van, one of the many bugs in the system Roy still had to work out.

Because the conduits reflected photons from their usual paths, no light actually reached the inside of the space, thus leaving it shrouded in darkness. Furthermore, there was no chance of using solar power to recharge the batteries of his van or for any other necessary materials. Once again though, the incredible storage system he developed came to his rescue, allowing him to go days on end without recharging the van, and that was if the van ran constantly at maximum power output.

Roy returned to the van, removing the next piece of his security measures. Those were the energy shield walls.

Designed even longer ago than the light bending conduits, the energy shields performed a task evident from their name. They used a nearly infinite power source, once again based around the power storage system that worked in his van and in the light bending conduits, to create a nearly impregnable barrier.

Setting up the shields was not particularly difficult either. Built into his van was a system designed to create a rectangular prism extending just beyond the walls of the vehicle. It was translucent, only becoming visible when contacted by other energy-based objects.

That was the problem with shields, they were excellent at stopping rounds from plasma rifles and other such energy-based weaponry, but when faced with traditional bullets, the shield simply allowed the projectile to pass through. Roy wished he had more time to improve the shield design as well, but it seemed that wasn’t an option available to him either.

Roy quickly activated the shield with his Animachip. Then, judging by the readings flashing through his brain from the shield, he concluded it to be working properly. Setup was complete once again, and Roy was mostly safe from any prying eyes or would be attackers.

Roy sighed as he collapsed back onto his thin cot. The bed provided little extra comfort, but it was better than nothing. Not for the first time, Roy found himself wishing that he had a more advanced van, capable of extending its walls to provide extra room and comfort for the owner. That being said, the current van fulfilled every necessity Roy required it to, plus a few extra amenities.

In his mind, Roy reflected back on the past three years. His journey from world’s richest man to fugitive living out of a van was both fascinating and incredibly frustrating.

The world around him disappeared as Roy activated his Animachip, playing the security footage from that fateful day for what was the nine-hundredth time, according to the counter in his chip. That was quite a milestone.

From the perspective of the office cameras, Roy watched as five heavily armed men dressed entirely in black snuck through a ground floor window. Beneath their clothes, bulges were clearly visible along the length of their arms, legs, and spines. Each man wore an exosuit, designed to enhance physical capabilities like speed and strength.

They looked like trained professionals based on their smooth and silent movements. The guys appeared nondescript, apart from their all-black clothing. Two of them held Delta EV10 plasma rifles, excellent weapons. Roy himself owned one. The other three had more traditional bullet-based rifles, Heimlen C3s, that way they covered against the possibility of his shield protection.

That was telling, as the technology was not available to the general public. Roy worked on his inventions alone, keeping the information top secret, yet somehow, the men who came after him knew of his work.

Now, the incomplete shields were commonplace amongst all sorts of people. They were regularly used by police forces around the globe, and private security firms in the Captowns made use of them as well.

The five men stealthily crept through the halls, making their way upward towards Roy’s office where the assault had taken place. They weren’t even spotted until they were just a few feet from the door. A woman screamed as a black shadow disappeared around a corner, then the shooting started.

The employees on the floor were slaughtered. Desperate calls were made to security, yet no help ever came. Roy drew his own custom Delta I8 plasma pistol and returned fire. On the security cameras, Roy saw his own eyes locked and focused on the task at hand. His suit jacket flapped madly, and his hair lay all askew on top of his head, but the only thing relevant to him was the firefight.

One of the black clad men went down with a hole burnt through his chest, courtesy of Roy’s I8. On the cameras, the time before the more sensible employees drew weapons and returned fire was about eight seconds, but at the time, it seemed like an eternity.

That’s when two of the remaining four men took off in the other direction, searching for an alternative hallway where they could flank the hiding employees and have a better shot at Roy.

Alerted by his vision matrix to the maneuver, Roy warned the others, but too late. In a volley of rounds, many of the employees returning fire went down and Roy was clipped on the thigh.

Appearing quite athletic on the cameras, Roy vaulted over a desk and knocked it to the ground, protecting him slightly from the oncoming shots. Seconds later, a hole was burnt through the wood by a shot from an EV10, narrowly missing Roy’s head.

Knowing that he was in trouble if he didn’t take desperate action, Roy retrieved a dead man’s traditional pistol, a miniature Petroff model. He vaguely remembered feeling annoyed at the time, but the chip couldn’t replicate feelings or thoughts from the event. Roy could only see the happenings themselves.

He jumped up, firing each pistol simultaneously at each of the two groups of men, dashing around a corner towards the board room where an escape solution lay waiting. Roy smacked a button on the wall, and quickly entered a hidden elevator just as the bolts started flying into the room.

Roy descended through the walls of the building, his body hidden from the cameras inside the secret elevator, while the men outside milled about searching for him, but finding no one at all. After his quick escape, he rushed across town with cover from a small team of loyal guards, retreating to a safehouse as he analyzed the situation with what little knowledge he held of the events that transpired.

He waited there for days, listening for any news surrounding the attack. Then, it was reported by CVN that Roy Jansen was a fugitive from justice, found illegally cutting deals with security corporations to attack rival businesses. That obviously wasn’t correct, but according to the report, everyone was looking for him, so Roy had promptly fled to the United States of America, becoming just the fugitive they claimed him to be.

Since then, Roy had to be careful who saw him or heard of his presence, thus the nomadic life he lived. For now though, Roy’s focus was on the security footage of the day he was attacked, as it was seemingly every day. There had to be some connection between the black clad attackers and a sponsoring organization. Men like that didn’t work alone. They were hired muscle for someone else. The problem was figuring out who it was that hired them.

Based on the weaponry they used, it could have been Ridge Protection, a security company based out of west Rothbard. Their standard issue was Delta plasma rifles and Heimlen traditionals, fitting the profile of the attackers. That theory failed to explain the purpose of the attack. There needed to be some form of motive for the event, but Roy still couldn’t find one, not in any of his theories.

Something told him that this attack had to do with a suspicious bearded figure waiting in the lobby. After reviewing the tapes, Roy found that the man sat in the same chair all morning, then left twenty minutes before the attackers entered through the first-floor window. The question was, who was he and why was he there?

Very little about the man was familiar, though that could’ve been because he kept his face hidden from the cameras and wore red tinted sunglasses. Roy checked through every facial recognition database but found nothing. For all intents and purposes, the man was a ghost.

That fact only added to Roy’s suspicions about the mysterious man. Coincidences were rare in life, and a man wouldn’t intentionally hide his face so abrasively unless there was something going on.

The footage became even stranger when the man reentered the Viratech building shortly after the shooting. He snuck through the same shattered window, unbeknownst to the private investigators on the property. The man with the red sunglasses travelled up the stairs and directly into Roy’s office, still unseen by the investigators.

He removed a hidden panel in the wall and pressed in a code known only to Roy, seven-nine-six-one-one-five. It was six digits long, meaning one-million combinations. No one could just guess that code. The man hadn’t hacked into the panel either. He entered the code. Thus, he knew the hidden room was there before even entering.

Inside that room was a top-secret project known only to Roy, or so he thought before the man entered. There, Roy worked on body modification technology through means of biology, not technology. Already, human capabilities could be enhanced through exosuits, but Roy knew there was a safer and more effective way to perform the same process. Nano technology seemed to be the solution, but he hadn’t quite figured it out by the time he was attacked.

The man, once again using information known only to Roy, entered the password into the banks of computers. He stole every bit of data from the small laboratory. It would have been easier for him to hack into the room and then into Roy’s computers, but he didn’t. Roy set up his system to immediately wipe if any sign of forced entry was detected. The only way to enter was with knowledge of the password, and this man knew the password.

He disappeared without a trace, never appearing on any security footage Roy had seen since. What he wanted with the nanotech, Roy had no clue, and how he had gotten the necessary information to steal it was an equal mystery.

As the man left though, he left a slight clue. It wasn’t anything which revealed his identity, but it was information, and any information leaked through the dam could cause a flood to burst forth.

The man walked strangely, as though he couldn’t really tell what was happening around him. He knew where all the cameras were, but his steps wobbled back and forth drunkenly. The more Roy thought about, the more he realized that the man replicated nearly perfectly, the appearance of a man walking with his Animachip visually engaged.

Once again, Roy could not draw even the slightest conclusion from that epiphany. It didn’t tell him anything about the man with the sunglasses.

He drew back his mind from the security footage, thinking hard. Of all the problems affecting Roy, this was the one that vexed him most deeply. Somehow, this man appeared like a ghost, snuck through Viratech security and legions of private investigators, entered Roy’s lab knowing all the information inside it, and swiped up the nanotech Roy had spent years developing.

Roy groaned, wondering how to solve this problem, but still there were no obvious answers. He had already searched everywhere for traces of the man’s existence, yet no data existed. Roy even tried to track the purchase of those odd red sunglasses but found no evidence that they had ever been made. They were brandless but appeared high quality.

Are we still on for tomorrow?: Gable

The message interrupted his train of thought completely. It took Roy only a moment before he realized what the purpose of the message was.

It came from Kirk Gable, a local crime lord of sorts. He couldn’t really be called a lord, considering that he was far from the most powerful man in the city, but Gable was an efficient and effective gun runner. Also, Gable was Roy’s regular supplier of weaponry.

Roy’s previous EV10 plasma rifle took a serious blow from New York City cops. The rifle practically exploded in his hands during a firefight when he’d nearly been caught. That was two months ago, and Roy hadn’t been willing to show his face out of concern that he would be located.

His caution left him under armed and lacking his favorite weapon. All Roy had to defend himself currently was the very I8 pistol that saved him during the attack at the Viratech headquarters three years ago.

I have the product, plus a little bonus.: Gable

A bonus? That was somewhat intriguing, but also concerning. Roy was hesitant to trust anything he didn’t know currently, as there was always the chance things could go awry. After all, there was a substantial reward for his head, not entirely monetary, as the reward’s additional offer across the mainland was the opportunity to be known as a hero of the state, which undoubtedly would come with even further benefits, but those weren’t obvious or discussed.

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It was the independent contractors from the Captowns that Roy was more worried about. First, they were better trained and equipped, thus more threatening. Second, they had greater access to technology. Third, they were more familiar with Roy, thanks to whatever information the mysterious man in the red sunglasses provided them with.

What bonus?: Roy

It’s a surprise, but you’ll enjoy it.: Gable

Tell me, or I won’t show.: Roy

Don’t ruin the fun.: Gable

Roy neglected to respond, holding his peace over the mental link. The text held its place in his mind, not corporeal in any sense, but certainly a distinct image within his conscience. He would wait until Gable responded, but he couldn’t wait too long. Roy desperately needed a rifle.

Come on, you know you want to.: Gable

Internally, Roy deliberated whether or not he should respond. Considering the pros and cons, Roy did not want to think what would happen if Gable called him on his bluff. The downsides were tremendous, but then again, Gable had been a trustworthy man so far.

You need this merchandise. Might as well show up.: Gable

Gable promptly disconnected from the chat.

Now the options before him were limited. He could either go to the meeting with Gable, hoping that the surprise was beneficial to him, or he could skip and find someone else to get him a rifle. Frankly, Roy didn’t like either option.

He considered for a moment the fact that Gable wouldn’t announce his intentions to turn on Roy. That was an obvious fact. If Gable truly wanted to collect the reward that came from apprehending Roy, then he wouldn’t speak about a surprise. He was aware of Roy’s rules, and one of those was no surprises. He knew Roy wanted complete information about everything he involved himself in.

Thoughts of betrayal and subterfuge lingered in Roy’s mind, hovering over him like a dark cloud as he slowly drifted off to sleep still fully clothed.

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

It was fortunate he wasn’t meeting Gable in the city. About New York City was a large electronic checkpoint with hundreds of armed guards. They checked every ID and every purpose for entering the city, watching with scrutinous eyes.

Roy was not exactly fond of the city, nor was he particularly interested in entering it. New York City was a dump, but it was slightly nicer than the surrounding areas. Roy simply hated the people.

In the surrounding slums, at least there were no pretenses of trust or normality. People were realistic in their understanding of the world, while in the city there was still some degree of blindness, a naïve belief that they could fix all the world’s problems in one fell swoop.

Roy knew better. The system which created this situation was, and always would be, untenable.

The roads were ill maintained and full of potholes. Roy’s van bounced up and down as he steered his way down the winding narrow street. He stomped on the breaks suddenly as a group of five boys, eight or nine years old, dashed across the street chasing after a ball.

Over the next few minutes, Roy managed to avoid the various obstacles in his path, quickly dodging around the holes in the road before he finally reached his destination. It was a dilapidated parking lot, in similarly poor condition to the one he’d used last night. However, this lot provided parking for a large dingy warehouse. The building was constructed of metal sheets built on a concrete foundation left openly exposed to the air.

Two dirty windows lay on opposite sides of an old wooden door. Beside the wooden door was a much larger padlocked metal door used for loading and unloading.

Enabling his vision matrix, Roy found a few older, likely homemade security cameras attached to the walls, with their attention focused on the doors. Inside, Roy could tell there were many more cameras and a few cybernetically capable men. They appeared to be some sort of hired muscle.

He brushed lightly against the coding of the security cameras, ensuring he would not be discovered if someone was monitoring the programs around the warehouse. With a discrete pulse, Roy disabled the cameras just as he pulled into the parking lot. He didn’t want his van to be recognizable, or to be recognized himself.

Roy withdrew and armed himself with a heavy combat knife and his Delta I8. He pulled his dark jacket around his arms, knowing that he was severely unprepared for this situation. His primary means of defense, in the event that things went sideways, were his own cybernetic implements and his skill for disappearing.

He wished, in that moment, that he had better designed the light bending conduits. If they were easier to set up, then he would be able to hide his van from sight and quickly disappear. In a situation where Roy had to run, he didn’t want to leave his conduits behind. They were his first line of defense against prying eyes.

Reluctantly, Roy left the van behind, still containing most of his supplies. Wearing dark tinted sunglasses and a gray ballcap, he was somewhat disguised, but not as much as he would have liked.

Roy spotted only two people around the warehouse. Neither appeared threatening to him. There was an old lady with sagging skin and white hair. She sat on a porch in a rickety plastic chair smoking an e cigarette and eyeing the street suspiciously. The other person was a young girl with a skinny frame. There was barely any muscle to her body at all. She leaned back against the wall of a brick building on the opposite side of the street.

Something about the girl didn’t seem right. Yet, Roy couldn’t determine what was wrong with her. He didn’t know if she even had an Animachip. There were no detectable cybernetics in her control, leaving her shrouded in mystery to him.

The girl raised her eyes to meet his. Roy held her gaze unflinchingly, unwilling to turn his eyes from her. Her eyes were a bright green, hidden under a veil of thick black hair. There was a hard expression there, revealing nothing. Roy continued towards the door, then turning his eyes from the girl indifferently. These times of trouble bred discontent and misanthropy. The girl was no different from the others who appeared just the same.

He fiddled with the handle of the door, finding it to be bolted shut. It was an old-fashioned lock, requiring a key to enter. Roy sighed in frustration, then pounded on the door, waiting a few seconds before anyone appeared at the door.

“What do you want?” A gruff voice asked from the other side.

“It’s me,” Roy replied. “I’m here to meet Gable.”

Silence returned from the other side of the door. Roy reached out with his cybernetics again, finding that the man behind the door was in fact armed with cybernetics. He had basic capability to control tech, but nothing terribly advanced.

The door cracked open, revealing a sliver of a face. The man on the other side had a thick beard and dark skin, with his eyes also shrouded by dark sunglasses.

“You just going to stand there and look at me?” Roy asked somewhat provocatively.

“Who are you?” The big guy returned equally combatively.

“The guy who’s meeting Gable.”

“That answer’s not good enough. Who are you?”

Roy said nothing, thinking over his options. He could quickly overwhelm the big man’s cybernetics, causing him temporary nerve damage, enough to move him away from the door. That was more chaos than Roy was willing to engage in for the moment.

He sent a quick message to Gable using his Animachip.

I’m here. One of your boys is giving me a hard time at the door. Tell him to let me in.: Roy

“Answer me,” The big guy ordered. “Or you don’t come in.”

“I just messaged your boss,” Roy replied. “I don’t think he’ll be too happy when he finds that you’re heckling me at the door.”

Behind the sunglasses, Roy could tell the man was attempting to determine whether Roy was deceiving him or not. Then, suddenly, the man’s facial expression changed completely. He appeared suddenly fearful.

“Word from the boss?” Roy questioned patronizingly.

The big guy grumbled, then opened the door to allow Roy’s entrance. Roy sent a confident smirk in his direction, asserting himself over the man with only a simple gesture.

“Thanks man,” Roy said, with only a slight hint of condescension in his voice.

Anger practically radiated from the big man, but he held back, allowing Roy to pass without incident.

Inside the warehouse it was far nicer than on the outside. There were a few different rooms inside the warehouse and a small corridor connecting them all together. Obviously, the structures were added to the inside of the warehouse long after its construction.

Roy wandered forward and entered the final door on the left, determining, with help from his Animachip, that Gable was waiting for him inside.

The room was fairly well furbished for a building in the slums. There were three different couches and two armchairs all made of worn-out leather. There were multiple men in the room, but one in particular drew Roy’s attention.

He was tall and wiry, bearing a few scars and tattoos across his arms. His hair was dark and greasy, and his eyes were sunken pits. They were blue in color, but now dark and dead looking. The man was Kirk Gable.

Gable sat in the center of a large couch with a female companion at each side, both women snuggled up underneath his arms. They were relatively pretty but appeared fake to Roy’s eyes. Each woman quite evidently had a great deal of plastic surgery performed on her body.

Behind the couch were other gangsters armed to the teeth with guns. Many of them wore sunglasses, displayed tattoos, and went shirtless. A few of them possessed cybernetics, and surprisingly, the two women had sophisticated systems.

“Roy Jansen,” Gable greeted somewhat dramatically. “How the hell are you?”

Gable’s voice quite obviously betrayed his habit of chain smoking. He leaned back in the couch casually while the two women doted on him. Roy stared at Gable with narrowed eyes behind his sunglasses.

“Let’s make this quick,” Roy said. “What’ve you got?”

“Woah, you don’t have any time to talk to an old friend Roy?” Gable asked with faux sadness.

“I don’t like to stay out in the open. You know that.”

Gable stood from the couch and stalked straight towards Roy. The girls on the couch looked displeased to see him go, but their displeasure seemed as fake as Gable’s sadness.

“Now Roy,” Gable said. “We’ve been working together for quite a while. Don’t you have time to chat?”

Gable rested a hand on Roy’s shoulder, gesturing friendliness, yet there was nothing friendly about his mannerisms. Roy removed his sunglasses and stared at Gable with hard eyes.

The arms dealer shrunk back slightly at the dangerous glance. He shuffled away a few feet, seeming concerned for his own safety. Roy displayed pure predatory confidence, his eyes still boring into Gable’s.

“Right, okay,” Gable raised his hands awkwardly. “I just figured you’d want to talk a little bit.”

“I just want my guns,” Roy said. “Show me what you have.”

Gable gestured for Roy to follow him across the hall. Roy did so, with one of the gangsters trailing behind, a rifle cradled in his arms. Roy sent him a withering glance, but the gangster followed along anyway.

Inside the new room were walls covered in guns. There were rifles, pistols, and shotguns, along with various other more specific types of weapons.

Roy’s vision matrix was quickly able to label each weapon, its manufacturer, its ammunition, and its general capabilities. There were both plasma and traditional weapons, but it seemed the majority were plasma based.

“I’ve got everything you could ever want,” Gable said, his hand sweeping around the room. “And you’ve got all the money I could ever want. We make a good match I’d say.”

Roy nodded slightly, still looking around the room. He neglected to mention that his vast stores of money were depleted. Most of his assets were invested in Viratech and were now taken from him. Sufficient funds to provide for himself were stored away in his own secure online vaults, but the magnitude of those was a far cry from that of the assets he once held.

The weaponry appeared reasonably functioning, but not in top condition as Roy had come to expect from Gable’s wares. He noticed that many of the plasma rifles in particular were not in working order. Power units were broken and set in place as if Gable was attempting to disguise the fact that his supply was also depleted. The question was: why was he lacking operational weaponry?

“You’re a Delta man if I remember correctly,” Gable said as he removed an EV12 model from the wall. “You might appreciate this one.”

Roy took the extended rifle from Gable’s hands. The Delta EV12 was not Roy’s preferred choice of firearm. The barrel was too short and the accuracy too imperfect for his taste. The EV10 rifle, Roy’s favorite weapon, was an all-purpose, go-anywhere kind of gun. An EV10 performed reasonably well in all areas, quick firefights, long-distance, tactical missions. The EV12 was more limited, only capable of combat at closer ranges. It was best for sweeping through buildings, and Roy doubted he’d be doing that anytime soon.

Currently, with his situation, Roy favored adaptability and reliability above all else. This EV12 would doubtless fail both criteria, as it was not capable of much else other than firing into crowds – even then it might struggle to land a single shot – and its power unit was broken.

Gable had simply handed him a malfunctioning weapon. Roy knew that Gable was not above scamming customers, but after repeated deals with the skinny man, they had reached a mutual respect. Or, maybe it was more accurate to say that Gable wasn’t willing to screw with Roy because he wanted Roy’s money.

Roy’s mind again returned to the question of why. Why were so many of Gable’s weapons improperly maintained?

Roy mimed appreciation, looking at the EV12. He wanted to see if Gable would show his hand any further, assuming that Roy believed the EV12 to be functioning.

“It’s a good piece,” Gable spoke with the natural tone of a salesman. “Perfect for close-quarters combat. I heard you had a recent run-in where this thing would’ve been mighty helpful.”

Gable patted the gun knowingly while Roy narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Roy’s face remained largely expressionless, attempting to reason out how Gable found out about the encounter with the police. It didn’t make sense that he would have heard about that from some kid on the street. Roy was cornered in a completely abandoned office building in upstate New York. There was no one around when the police had found him. Yet, Gable knew about the encounter.

“How’d you know I ran into the cops?” Roy questioned pointedly.

Gable’s face blanched, but only momentarily. Less than a second later, Gable regained his composure, smiling nonchalantly.

“Heard about it through the grapevine,” Gable answered vaguely. “Word gets around, you know?”

“Yeah…”

Something about this was too strange. Roy had never seen Gable act like this before. He was deliberately avoiding Roy’s questions in his traditional nonsensical way, but there was something else at play here. Then, there was still the matter of the surprise Gable mentioned in his message to Roy last night.

“I’m not really an EV12 guy,” Roy spoke on the rifle finally. “I want something more adaptable. What about an EV10?”

“Sure my amigo,” Gable replied casually swiping the EV12 from Roy’s hands and replacing it on the wall.

Gable took an EV10 from the wall and handed it over to Roy.

The familiar weight settled into his arms comfortably, but there was still something wrong. First, the rifle wasn’t set to Roy’s preferred configurations. It was armed with a Delta scope which functioned quite poorly in comparison to more specialized brands like KIT. Secondly though, the power unit of the EV10 was also broken.

Red flags flew up in Roy’s mind. Gable had handed him two ineffective rifles now. Suspicion grew tremendously, but still Roy kept his concerns to himself.

“Can I pick out my own gun?” Roy asked curiously. “I don’t particularly like the feel of this one.”

Gable looked at Roy in confusion for a moment, then simply waved his hand in acquiescence.

With the eyes of Gable and his backup muscle locked on Roy, he stepped up to face the wall of guns. He eyed each one individually, searching for an EV10 that didn’t have a broken power unit. There were only two, which was suspicious in itself. Gable’s customers expected the best product, and they would not continue providing their money in return for his guns if the product was subpar.

Roy reached out for one of the two EV10s. It was a dark color, not exactly Roy’s preference, but the color wasn’t relevant to the performance of the rifle.

“Easy there,” Gable said. “That one’s not for sale.”

Roy stopped, totally frozen in thought. Glancing over his shoulder surreptitiously, he noticed that the gangster next to Gable had flipped the safety off on his rifle.

He extended his hand towards the second rifle. It was white, and the blue glow of the power unit cast a gentle light against the wall behind.

“That one’s off limits too.”

It seemed too convenient that the only two working EV10s were not for sale…

A hypothesis formed in Roy’s head, and he crossed the room towards a Heimlen TT traditional long rifle. Roy’s cybernetics x-rayed the gun, determining it to be fully functional, unlike most of the other weapons in the room.

“Is this one for sale?” Roy questioned exasperatedly.

Gable smirked at him, then spoke.

“No.”

Roy’s eyes flicked sharply to Gable. His hypothesis was proven correct.

“What’s going on Gable?” Roy asked coolly.

“What do you mean?”

“Both guns you handed me had malfunctioning power units,” Roy stated. “Then it turned out the ones that were functional weren’t for sale. Why?”

“You can’t possibly be serious Roy,” Gable said. “I wouldn’t try to scam you of all people. You’re my best customer.”

“Tell me why,” Roy ordered stoically.

“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I-”

“Tell me why.”

Gable went silent for a moment, stuttering incomprehensibly. The gangster pulled the rifle closer to his shoulder, staring at Roy with hard eyes.

“Well,” Gable finally managed to get himself together. “Times have been tough. I can’t give away all my good stock. Plus, you’re a mechanically capable guy. You could fix the weapon.”

“I come here expecting to buy top tier stock,” Roy said. “I won’t pay a price I don’t believe the guns to be worth.”

“How did you know anyway?” Gable asked.

“None of your business.”

Gable opened and closed his mouth several times, unsure of what to say. His face betrayed his confusion and slight fear.

“This is a problem Gable,” Roy continued. “If you don’t give me a clean answer about the guns in the next thirty seconds, I’m leaving.”

“Wait just a minute Roy,” Gable said. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Talk.”

“I- I-” Gable stammered. “I already told you. Times are tough. I don’t have the money to fix them.”

“I’ll pay you for a real weapon. Scam someone else.”

“Just hear me out okay? Can’t you offer a guy a little help?”

“No.”

“That’s just cruel.”

“Your time’s running out.”

Gable threw his hands up in frustration. He appeared visibly concerned about something, but Roy couldn’t tell what or why.

It seemed logical that Gable would feel stressed about his low supply – if he was telling the truth. Yet there was more to the expression than stress.

With his vision matrix, Roy noticed, not only was Gable’s heartrate severely elevated, but also that his frontal cortex was functioning at a much higher capacity than average. He was performing some serious mental calculations. What those were, remained unknown.

“Time’s up,” Roy said.

“Just hang on,” Gable replied almost desperately.

Roy ignored Gable and made for the door. The gangster stepped in front of the exit, barring Roy’s path.

“Move,” Roy ordered, his hand falling to his I8.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Using the reflection in the gangster’s sunglasses, Roy saw Gable standing just behind him with a revolver aimed directly at the back of Roy’s head.

“I gave you a chance,” Gable said cryptically. “We have worked together for a while. Seeing as you weren’t willing to take my deal, there’s only one way this can go.”

Roy observed the area with his cybernetics, finding that the other gangsters in the warehouse had assembled on the other side of the door. They awaited his exit, prepared to shoot the second he walked out.

He could launch an overwhelming impulse targeting all the men with cybernetic implants, but, even then, he couldn’t escape, as there were many men who weren’t vulnerable to such attacks including Gable himself.

Hacking into their Animachips wasn’t an option, as there was no backdoor into the software. It was directly implemented into the brain of the user, giving it a unique signature, and also an impenetrable firewall, namely the human consciousness.

There wasn’t much he could do realistically. He would be killed the instant he attacked, whether cybernetically or physically.

Then came the sirens, and it all made sense.

“Kirk Gable, a hero of the state,” Roy mused. “Has a ring to it doesn’t it?”

“I’m an ambitious guy, something you understand,” Gable said. “Small time arms peddler isn’t really enough for me.”

“So you’re giving me up to the cops?” Roy questioned with a smirk. “You think they’ll let someone like you be a hero of the state?”

Gable was silent, only staring down the barrel of his revolver.

“They’ll shoot me, then they’ll thank you, then they’ll shoot you,” Roy said gravely.

“I’ll take my chances,” Gable chuckled.