I exit the elevator and look down the street, three miles of debauchery lay before me.

This spot is at ground level and out in the open. A crush of tall buildings surrounds it, completely blocking the horizon. Lights from thousands of windows are visible on every single skyscraper. The city’s ambient light drowns out the cosmos, starlight has been denied to us. We only get the long trails of illumination from the skyways, which are broken up by the occasional cloud.

I am at one end of the street, I can hear the rush of water as the canal disappears under one of the buildings. This place is one of the few areas where it runs out in the open, and one of the few spots that is both at ground level and under the open sky.

The smell of liquor and perfume mix with that of fresh vomit. The walkways are covered with people, their voices merge into a den that is often interrupted by a loud drunken shout. Lights of every color dance on the surface of the water.

There are wide walkways on either side of the canal, streetlamps and safety rails line the edges, the occasional foot bridge allows pedestrians to cross. The walkways are flanked by solid rows of store fronts. Shop after shop after shop, all along the length of the canal.

There are shops that sell high tech sex toys. There are shops that sell robots designed for fucking, on top, on bottom, or both. There are shops that sell designer drugs, or good old-fashioned alcohol. Most importantly, there are shops that do medical work.

Mechanical body parts can do things that the original members or organs can only dream of. Biological matter can be grown into a lot of different shapes. Cybernetic and organic modifications can be mixed and matched to make all kinds of things, wonderful things, and horrifying things.

And let’s not forget the clubs. The Dungeon is a truly wicked place, a place where pain and pleasure mix and mingle. Don’t even get me started on what goes on inside The Slime Pit, the same goes for The Barnyard.

The Demon’s Den is a flashy joint, all fire and promises of apex sin. There is a clean-cut man in an Alpha Prime made suit standing in front of the place. He is preaching, much to the amusement of the nearby pedestrians, “This place is an insult to the People of the Book!” he called out above the commotion of the crowd. The funny thing is that he is actually completely right. From top to bottom that club was meticulously designed to offend their sensibilities, which is what makes it so appealing to everyone else.

But it is more than the businesses, it is the people that make this place so amazing.

They are out in droves, some in tight groups of friends, some going alone, and a few large processions mixed in. They laugh and howl and shriek; they crack jokes and tell stories and make rude comments. Some appear more human than others.

A woman is loudly and rapidly talking about how eager she is to try out her new body, which is athletic and features external reinforcements in the form of gleaming metal. A man is peacocking, his hair has been replaced with a rainbow stream of fiberoptic cable that hangs down to his beltline. Another woman catches my eye, she is voluptuous and long-legged; her eyes are bright purple and seem to be radiating light.

What is clearly a group of off-duty soldiers are heading toward the elevator, they are regaling each other with tales of how hard they had partied. I could tell that they are in the military because of their short haircuts, general attitude, and heavily modified bodies. They looked like they could carry a two hundred-pound rucksack five hundred miles and still be ready to fight.

A group of teenage girls are giggling, they are dressed like Japanese schoolgirls and several have adorable little dogs with them. They look and act young, but they all probably have great grandchildren.

Not all of the people are humanoid. It moves on four legs, its head is attached to the end of a long, spindly neck; this head is bizarre, having both organic and mechanical sense organs. Its body is a hard metal casing, organic tentacles are mounted to this shell, along with a set of robotic arms that look powerful.

There are people with animalistic features, even insectoid parts. The worst is the mammalian faces. For some reason, my mind has never been quite able to cope with the mixture of human and canine, or human and feline.

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Yes, canal street is a hell of a thing. Angelic splendor and surreal horror stroll to and fro. It is a menagerie of the beautiful and the grotesque, all of it intentional, all of it viewed according to how I see the world. Because someone has to view these creatures as pleasing, otherwise, what would be the point? Unless the point of it is to be repulsive, or maybe to be intimidating.

They all had two things in common, hidden somewhere inside of their bodies there is a human brain; along with some means of feeding oxygen, nutrients, and sense data to it. And they all have Internal Computers, or I.C.s, which are personal assistants that wirelessly connect them to the network.

Everyone has an Internal Computer. It is always there, giving you access to a much bigger world. It communicates with you by inducing sensations and placing things into your vision. I have heard it described as, “Controlled schizophrenia,” all I know is that it works.

I direct a thought, my I.C. responds, checking my various bank accounts. In a dream you just kind of know why you are in a bizarre situation; a kind of strange logic takes hold. This is how my I.C. let me know that my finances are hurting. I need more than that, so I have it project the exact numbers into my vision. The computer is causing me to hallucinate a kind of heads up display. I quickly “will” the pathetic numbers away. I had been too enthusiastic about paying off my debts; getting myself to where I am now had been a very expensive process, and the interest payments were brutal. I had also been too keen to celebrate. I had drained my accounts to dangerous levels.

I casually glance backward, a good habit to have. He’s still there, the big man in the duster, the one that I had spotted on the monorail ride from my apartment building. He has to be at least six and a half feet tall. I think I know who grew him that body. It has to be Gorman. The exaggerated, ultra-manly features; the chiseled face with the massive chin and razor-sharp cheek bones, these are all hallmarks of Dr. Gorman.

This guy is custom built to be scary, and if you are into that sort of thing, sexy. He is a Cro-Magnon man come to steal your woman from the camp and impregnate her. He is a super soldier shooting and stabbing his way into your bunker. There is something primal about the emotions his appearance provokes. So why send a colossal brute like him to follow someone? He would be spotted a mile away. Unless the idea is to intimidate the target.

If Gorman made him, that means that Gorman likely owns him, so to speak. The big guy probably owes Gorman quite the debt for designing and growing the body, and then transferring his brain over to the new and no doubt improved vessel. He could very well be one of Gorman’s goons, a very threatening debt collector.

The problem with that theory is that I don’t owe Gorman anything. I paid him for patching me up after I had that unfortunate run-in with a police drone.

God only knows what weapons he is hiding under that big old coat; God only knows what kind of cybernetic enhancements he is hiding under his skin. Is he following me or am I just being paranoid? I am comforted by the weight of my sidearm, which is in a concealed holster.

He stops and stares longingly into a store, the contents of which I can’t quite make out from my angle. I can tell from his body language that he is not allowed to go in, it is a look that I have seen a million times. Technically, he can go in, if he is willing to pay the price.

I can go anywhere, that is what makes me special, that is what makes me valuable. If only I knew the man, if only I could trust him, then I could go into that shop and get him what he wants. For a reasonable fee of course.

He decides that the price is too high, so he keeps on walking. Is it all a ruse? Is it just a show to make it look less like he is following me? Regardless, I have reached my destination.

I am dressed in a “Grey Man,” style. My objective is to blend in, to not get noticed. The only thing that stands out is the symbol on the right side of my shirt, which quickly and easily identifies me as a member of Echo Industries. This keeps people from spending too much time looking at me, they know right away where my loyalties lie. My only fear is that the symbol might be used as a target during a firefight.

I pull my trench coat tight around my chest. Then I use my Internal Computer to will the micro transceiver that is built into my T-shirt to change the logo that was being displayed to the appropriate one. Now my shirt sports the Fleur-de-lis of the Charles Fauré corporation, the owner of the night club that I am about to enter.

A few hundred pounds of synthetic muscle is guarding the door. The cyborg bouncer makes a show out of carefully scanning the crowd. I briefly imagine him getting into an epic slugging match with the big guy in the duster.

A scantily clad woman greets me. She is impossibly beautiful; she has the perfect body. If you have the money the surgeons and their engineer colleagues can make you look like anything, she must have had the money, or at least had the willingness to be indebted to Charles Fauré.

As I eye her body, she informs me that there is a cover charge, fifteen Water Certificates. Not as bad as it could have been, but still a hit. With a directed thought the micro-computer that is grafted to my brain sends a signal over the company’s network. Fifteen Water Certificates are deducted from my Charles Fauré account, plus a few more that automatically go to the Government, who always make sure that they get their piece of the action.