As the day went on, one thing became certain. These kids were NOT gangers. Wannabe or otherwise. They seemed more like the trust fund, frat and sorority type of crowd. They didn't seem to be bothering anyone. Hell, they didn't even bother me. I was an obviously out of place poor guy, with a shitty car. They had left me alone when they'd made a supply run earlier. Sure, I was armed and armored but when has that ever stopped people with this level of wealth.

What the hell was this? I had a bad feeling about this.

I sent a text to Carver. Targets observed, no gang behavior or activity. Upper crust. Verify job parameters. I sent along a few pics of the kids. I started to put together ideas about what might be going on.

Half an hour later, I got the reply. Confirmed, eliminate all targets. Other factors irrelevant. Yeah, that was about what I expected.

"Shit." I whispered to myself. Why would they want me to kill a bunch of rich kids, that weren't causing any trouble? Sure, I got why they wanted ME to do it. I was a nobody, an unknown. That made me an excellent cutout. If I did this, someone will kill me for it, one way or another. Whether it would be Carver to tie up loose ends, or the kids' parents for revenge. The who didn't matter from my perspective, I wasn't getting out of this easy.

Turn it around, who benefitted? Another Corp maybe, rivals of the kids' parents? Or was one of the kids a wunderkind that was feared for what they could do. I kept mulling it over, really thinking how I felt about this, and how I could get out of this myself.

I had kind of just went with the flow and tried to do things the way people here did them. Now I could that wasn't going to work, everything here was designed to chew you up. No, I needed another way. Yeah, I wasn't going to be played like this. I certainly wasn't going to zero a bunch of college aged kids, for unknown reasons.

Getting involved with fixers had been a mistake. Or at least trying to work with Carver was. Thankfully, I'd left Sinnamin's name out of it. So, I could just walk away. Go back to base, come back with a small army. Dig Carver up and put him down for messing with me. Then maybe the next fixer wouldn't try to fuck with me.

But first, I was going to throw a monkey wrench into the works of this job. I stalked over to the Mansion with Fix and Scuff flanking me. Dusk was falling and their party was just getting started. I looked around to see if I was being watched. If I was, I couldn't spot them. But it's not like I had any training for these things. Probably best to assume somebody was going to know what was about to happen.

The Probes were already in stealth mode. Already scanning the area for danger.

At the mansion's gates, I saw a vid screen so I pushed the button. A second later, a well put together young guy with a huge smile appeared on the screen. "Hey you here for the...No, I guess you aren't." His smile faded, he took in my grim face and my gear and started making some calculations. Smarter than I would have guessed, or more intuitive.

"I'd like to speak with the head of the house, please." Best to keep this simple and straight forward.

"I'm him, at least for now." A more stern expression was creasing his features. He didn't like the way I looked and he was trying to figure out what to do about it.

"I'd like your contact info. I have some detes that are vital to your safety and I don't want to stick around any longer than I have to." Come on, just say yes kid.

"That doesn't sound like a good idea. In fact, I think you should leave." He was frowning now. He was signaling someone offscreen. I noticed some of the bots were headed this way. a few of the nearby turrets turn to track me. Fuck.

"Alright, I tried to help you. My conscience is clear. Have a good life. However, short it's going to be." I spun on my heels and jogged back to the Galena. I hopped in, and felt the Probes thunk into the roof a second later. I took off. I got back to the main street as fast as I could. Soon enough, I'd left New Town with a bitter taste in my mouth. The next person they send, isn't likely to care as much as I did. It was going to be a big fucking mess.

Nope, I put it away, it wasn't my problem anymore.

When I got to the Northside Industrial District I headed south, staying on the eastern most side of the city. I blazed through Japantown and Charter Hills. I turned eastward and headed for the Valley. Time to lay low for a while.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, I decided to stop at the Sunset Motel. It was busy, and maybe not the smartest idea to stop right now, but I wanted to call my van out here. Maybe have a drink, and think for a while.

I left the Probes to wander around near the vehicles. I spent a moment to check out some of the sweet rides. All of them were dirty sure, but well maintained, and heavily modded. These people loved their cars, which meant we had something in common. So maybe they wouldn't be major assholes. Or they'd be my kind of asshole.

I saw some folks outside lounging around with drinks and laughing. I got a few nods as I came through, and I returned them. So far, so good. Even if trouble was right on my tail, they probably wouldn't start shit off with all the iron I saw around here.

In the barroom, it was a party. With loud, almost country, music blaring away. People dancing and playing cards. Just having a good time. Lively without being overwhelming. I saw Greg behind the counter and another smaller guy, ah... probably Noah, I think Greg said that was the guy he worked for.

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Greg caught sight of me, "Heya Ryan, ya picked a good night to drop by. Whatcha havin'?" He pointed at a seat at the bar that was unoccupied. I paused for a moment before sitting down, making sure to turn enough to kept an eye on the door.

"A whiskey, neat. How's biz, Greg?" Smiling a bit. It's nice to be remembered.

"Biz is nova! Two Clans just had a good haul, made some connections. These guys were on the way back to their camp and decided to have some fun. How'd NC treat you?" He leaned forward a bit, "I can already see you got chipped. Must be a story to that."

It was a dumb idea, but I gave him the rundown, anyway. At least I made sure to keep names out of it. He laughed when I told him about Lizzie's, "Yeah them Mox girls are something, huh?" He got me a refill as I got to how I earned enough for my chrome. "Yeah, Strom left their human parts behind, and Scavs are pure scum. Ya did good." I was starting to loosen up, as I came to why I was heading home for a while. He sighed, "That's the city for ya, a never endin' game of who can backstab who the most."

It was a hour later and I was on my fourth whiskey, "Shhoo, unlesh youu know a good fixher tha I can shell shome lumber ta, I got almosht nuthin' outa thish." He understood me perfectly. Which made sense, he was used to dealing with inebriated people.

"Well maybe, I could help ya out. Put in a word for ya with some folk I know. They ain't friendly but they won't screw ya without reason." Connections, it was all about cultivating connections.

"Y-your a prrretty goood duude, Greg." Then I ordered a coffee, I had to bring myself back to even. But hey, it had been good to vent.

Another coffee almost put me back to a fully functional state. Greg had returned to serving other customers, my need to yammer on sated for now. I watched the folks having fun, and it brought a smile to my face. I would have liked to join them, especially for a dance with one of the very fine women. But I didn't know them, and they didn't know me. I knew better than to stick my nose into other's business.

I thought I did anyway. A few minutes later, Gunshots rang out. From the hollering I could make out that it was some kind of raid. The folks who just a moment before where all smiles and fun, turned hard real quick. They rushed out to help the folks in the parking lot.

I heard terms like, "Raffen" and "Wraiths" neither of which meant anything to me. Maybe a different gang? I figured it be best to stay out of the way. Like I said they didn't know me.

Greg nodded at me, telling me I made the right call. "Best stay out of it. They'll shoot anyone they don't know right now."

Yeah, that's me I'm a mind my own business guy. The shooting was over pretty quick. Then I overheard the after fight chatter, "Sally's been hit. We gotta get her to a doc." A guy's voice, he sounded pissed off and scared.

"Camp's too far she'll never make it." A gal's voice struggling for calm.

Fuck. The scene of them dancing just before was running through my head. I closed my eyes as I stood up. Internally calling myself every word for dumbass I could think of as I stepped outside. I sighed and called out, "I can help, maybe." I was going to regret this.

"What? Who the fuck are you?" I felt a barrel pressed to my forehead. This was the panicked guy's voice. Right now, all I could see was his pistol. Not a great way to start a relationship.

"I. The. Fuck. Can. Help." I spat out clenching my teeth. I gave a slight headshake to the Probes as they suddenly set asshole here to a priority one target.

"Lynx, calm down." This was the gal's voice from earlier. I'd love to look over at her, but my world was full of iron. The gun slowly receded. I could see a short scruffy guy on the other end of that gun. His brown eyes spoke of all kinds of assholishness. I didn't like him for some reason. Next to him was a woman, tough as nails said her gray eyes. She was older, maybe the leader.

"Can you really help?" She asked, you could tell she was holding back hope. A solid head on this one.

"I'll have to look at her first, but I should be able to do something." I nodded. There was no reason Regrowth should be able to help someone that was still breathing.

"Alright, see what you can do." They both moved aside. Sally turned out to have been one of the ladies I had my eye on earlier. A fine dancer. Let's see if she would dance again. Right now, she was bleeding out, from a few chest wounds. Buckshot, maybe. even from here, I could tell her breathing was shallow and sounded way off. I'd need to check her lungs first.

I moved as fast as I could, kneeling down next to her. I shaped a regrowth and channeled it while holding her head. I heard startled exclamations but tuned them out. I was already closing my eyes, and had no time to deal with it. Once the spell connected, I could feel the damage to her body. Her right lung was shredded, and collapsed. Fortunately her heart hadn't been touched.

There were dead zones, that I couldn't feel, mostly her bones and her arms. Some parts of her major muscle groups. I figured out that these were cyberware and tried to work around them. The spell sunk deep into her, I directed the mana to wrap around her lung. Slowing putting it back together and even more slowly reflating it. Once it seemed fine, I checked over other areas. I found her stomach had been pierced and went to work on it.

The best part of my Regrowth spell was that it was intuitive. I didn't have to know anything about medicine for it to work. I just had to have enough mana, and enough concentration. When I finished her stomach, my mana ran out. I pried open my eyes. Sally was looking at me. Her blue eyes are quite pretty, don't you think?

"Hold still. I'm not sure that you don't have more injures. Give me a moment to rest and I'll check you over again." She nodded. Her eyes were wide, but not for the reason I first thought.

"What was that? You some kind of Witch?" That was Lynx. I could hear him and his pistol behind me.

"I don't know anything about witches. This is just something I can do." Yeah not going to get into it with you, fuckwad. I have more important things to worry about. Like a pair of cornflower blue eyes.

"Lynx, shut up. Leave him alone. He helped. We all saw it, and that buys him at least some peace. If not goodwill." I was starting to like this lady. I looked around to see a group of well traveled folks staring at me. Expressions ranged from fear to awe. But most seemed relieved that Sally was out for under the worst of it.

"How long was that?" Blinking and rubbing my eyes. Oh, they don't really dry out anymore do they? Chrome eyes for the win.

"Well, stranger that was about an hour, but shouldn't you know that?" She said while tapping by her right eye with her index finger. It took a second for me the realize what she meant. I could call up the time when ever I wanted.

"Ah, yeah. My interface is new, and I'm not use to it yet. I'm Ryan by the way."

"Well Ryan, I'm Amanda. You've helped us out and we Aldecaldos don't forget that." She turned to her people, "Alright shows over, let's get some rest. We can move Sally to her room, if we can get Ryan to stop petting her for a few minutes." Her voice carried notes of humor.

"Huh?" I realized I'd never taken my hand off of Sally's head. Worse I had unconsciously been stroking her hair just like I would a cat. I sputtered and then turned to look at Sally who was smiling at me. She looked over at Amanda.

"Aww, does he have to? He's really good at it." She croaked out. Yeah, I still had some work to do on her.

They say laughter is the best medicine. I wouldn't know, I was too busy trying to get the blood to stop rushing to my face.