“Which one are you here for? Tanaka? Velus Quantrin or is it Belavro Pekrin?” I asked, planting my feet in a defensive stance. I watched as the man and woman converged on me blocking my left and right side, whilst Mr Black stood there, unmoving like a wall.

“Here for? Neither. Loved the work by the way. Especially the way you had Tanaka die from white snakeroot. Tell me, how did you get it done?” Mr Black said, slipping a cigar into his mouth.

I didn’t answer but continued my attempt to rebuke the slowly converted man and woman.

“We aren’t here for something as simple as revenge, Cypher. We’re here because we require your special skill set,” Mr Black finished.

The man and woman halted immediately after Mr Black raised his hand, “See? No foil. They simply are quite territorial.”

“I have one arm and dead metal stitched into my upper body, what trouble could I possibly give you?”

“Now now now…Cypher…let's not downplay your abilities. We know who you are, but, yes, you have no chance against Stryme or Eltessa…but I guess the life you’ve lived has made you consider certain choices in the lifestyle you’ve assimilated.”

“What?”

“He’s saying that regardless of the choices you’ve made to change your life, you're still a killer at heart,” Stryme said, tapping his elbow as he crossed them.

“I’ve never shied away from who I am, or what I’ve done to keep the Federation safe, but I’m good with my choices and sleep quite well. If that was your way of getting me to join your little troupe here, you're sadly mistaken.”

Mr Black stepped forward and lit his cigar, he took a long whiff and puffed a snake of smoke that trailed from his lips. He tucked his hands into his tiger fur coat and flashed me a picture.

What? How? What? Those were the only words that manifested in my mind as my heart sank into my stomach for a mere second. I felt hopeless, a failure and most of all a fool.

“You BASTARD!” I growled.

Fury. That’s what I felt next.

“This isn’t a threat, Kaiden,” Eltessa interjected. “As good as you are, we’re better,” The woman said, tone icy.

“Tessa…” Mr Black said sternly as if it were a warning.

The man bellowed a long sigh, which was followed by a trail of smoke that smelt of synthetic cedar with a hint of red peppers woven in. “I’m offering you a job, Cypher.” Mr Black said.

“By threatening me?” I snarled.

“It wasn’t a threat, I assure you…”

“Then why show me?” I hissed.

“To allow you the knowledge of who I am and what I can do.”

“That was the threat.”

“Yes…it was.”

Asshole.

I didn’t know what to think. I figured I’d done a good job of covering my tracks, but it was clear I didn’t. What have I put myself in? This is not what I needed. Not now. NOT NOW!

“Alright…since the gears of mine are churning. I have an offer.”

“Offer?”

Mr Black turned to Eltessa, and the woman stepped towards me with her arms up. I didn’t notice it at first, but after a few seconds, a small shiny object was dangling from her right hand. She tossed it at me, and luckily I was present to catch it. “Consider that an offering of goodwill,” Mr Black said.

I eyed the data and noticed how peculiar it was. It was navy blue and had silver vector lines written all over it. Encrypted? I thumbed the smooth lines across the data chip. Overall, it was oval in design and about an inch long and roughly a few centimetres in width.

“Offering? This is an encrypted data chip…” I scoffed.

“Don’t worry, I'll send the encryption key…in time. You can trust me on that.”

Bullshit, never trust someone who says ‘you can trust me two minutes into the meeting. “I’ll consider it,” I answered.

“Sure…” Mr Black answered, stuffing his cigar back in his mouth and flashing a wry smile as he chewed down on it.

“Alright, Cypher.” Mr Black said, “I have a job for you in ten months.”

“Ten months.”

“Yes. I need you to confirm yourself in three months, or we’ll wipe your bank account clean. I get it. You need money, you love the low tax rate…blah…blah…blah. I don't care. I never thought I’d persuade you tonight, especially with all the bullshit you’ve been through. Running around Underwent, skirmishes in Old City, battling Reavers on top of cabbies then killing Reavers on an ELT. On top of that offending, The Mangol talking about clones. Are you crazy? Don't you know that clones are an abomination to her kin?”

“I figured it out afterwards.”

“Yeah…and because of figuring it out afterwards I had to TRADE one of my best paintings to her, for you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“EXACTLY…do you get it now, Cypher?”

Stryme, who was on the left, gave a loud chuckle, drawing my attention. It wasn’t the laugh that caught my attention, it was the way he moved his shoulders when he did.

“I know you,” I said, finally realising who Stryme was. “You’re the asshole that bumped into me two days ago.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“I’ve been made, Boss,” Stryme said sarcastically.

“Wait a minute, you’ve been following me?!”

“Yes…”

“WHY? WHAT FOR?”

“The job, Cypher, the job.” Mr Black said, puffing smoke from his cigar.

“Wait…you want me to take a job, that you won’t tell me what it is, which takes place in ten months, but you’re giving me three months to make a choice.”

“You’re right, Sir, he did catch on pretty fast,” Eltessa said.

I stood there, dumbfounded and confused. Two days ago, an asshole bumped me on my way to Creative Foods and it was this asshole. Stryme. Underling for Mr Black, a man who wants to recruit me for a job that takes place in ten months. Oh, and I have three months to decide or he’ll wipe my bank account clean. That was a verbal threat and had nothing to do with the threat he flashed in the form of a picture earlier.

“I’ll consider it,” I answered.

“Good!” Mr Black celebrated, clapping his hands together. “Now, Let’s get started.”

Eltessa approached me, removing a long stick that was attached to her back. “Sit, Cypher, this won’t take long,” she said.

I didn’t have much choice in the matter, the weight of my cybernetic arm was pretty much bringing me down, so I planted my ass on the ground and watched as her medi-scanner light turned orange.

She hovered the device over my body, hunting for something, which only made me roll my eyes. Our eyes met, and hers, brown, scowled at mine.

“No bugs, Sir,” Eltessa called out.

“Good.”

“Did you really give her that painting?” She asked, turning to Mr Black.

“I did.”

“We could’ve sold that for a few million creds, Boss!” Stryme interjected.

“Cut it, Stryme…we have guests, we can’t show the miscreant our behaviour...yet”

“Fine.”

“El, patch him up. Stryme, get Rook down here so we can get his arm back up and running. He has a case to finish.”

Do they know about my case?

Stryme disappeared whilst Eltessa dragged a briefcase out of nowhere. She snapped it and bore witness to the goodies found within. It was full of anaesthetic patches, bandages, Insulin and Penicillin shots, bottles of painstims, bloodstims and antibiotics. Hell, I even spotted a jar of nanites, neatly tucked away in the left-side corner of the case.

Eltessa removed my stained jacket and shirt and began checking my bruises, lacerations and whatever contusions she could find. I’m sure there were a few.

She applied a soothing cream that made me shiver instantly. It felt like ice slowly crawling down my back. After that, she applied an anaesthetic patch, and the pain dissipated in a few seconds. Gotta love those…if only they could work for headaches. I thought bitterly.

The soothing cream was a blessing, though. It loosens the stiffness of the anaesthetic. She then handed me four painstim tablets, and I downed them two at a time. “Those should kick in within twenty minutes.”

“More like five minutes…I have neural hemicrania”

“Your SMB isn’t activated right now, so you’ll be fine.”

“Oh…”

“Eltessa stuck out her nose and began sniffing my left side. “What’s that smell?” she asked. “Dead flesh? “She electrocuted you?”

“Slightly.”

“Bismuth exo-skeleton laced into ingots around your neck and into your SMB as well?” Eltessa asked, tone indicating her curiosity.

“Yep, that’s correct, the bismuth nullifies whatever outside electricity tries to fry my Cybernetics and also my SMB. You know your way around an SMB.” I answered, impressed.

“Barely” She answered, with sternness returning to her voice. So much for the conversation.

Stryme returned with some kid who wore khaki overalls, and a utility belt with a harness strapped around his waist, shoulders and legs. Weird get up.

“Rookie, get his arm up and running,” Mr Black said. “I’ll time you. I need sub-15 minutes from you, if not. You’re gone. Following?”

“Following, Sir,” Rook said, bowing gently.

“Good.”

Rook unstrapped his utility belt, placing all of his tools on the ground, then knelt beside them. He unslung my cybernetic arm and straightened it out, easier for him to manoeuvre.

He yanked the drill free and began testing its horsepower with a mean buzz. Rook drilled out the screws with pristine precision, knocking them in a small cup that was attached to his utility belt.

He pried the anti-piercing plating off my cybernetic arm within two minutes and dabbed the sweat away from his forehead once he was satisfied. Next up, Emp-Shield plating. That took him longer, a full five minutes, on my estimation, which by the way, was painstakingly horrible. I had to lie at an angle that nudged my anaesthetic patch, but regardless, I gritted my teeth and tried to push the thoughts of pain from my mind.

The EMP-Shielding was removed and the battery core inlay of my cybernetic arm was finally exposed, for a second time in two days. The dead circuitry that flowed throughout was a testament that I sucked at cleaning out my Cybernetics. “You swapped batteries recently?” Rook asked.

“Yesterday.”

“Nice.”

“Not as good as, took me a whole hour to get it done.”

“You self maintain? An hour is a good time, I can only imagine how difficult it is to get to those corners without the right tools.”

“Tell me about it.

Mr Black had sauntered off without my notice and returned with a black briefcase, He snapped it open and tossed an Ecin-Battery at Rook.

“I need three batteries to run my arm, Mr Black.”

“Not with that,'' he said.

Rook spun the Ecin-Battery in his hand and I got a good look at it. It had a traditional circuit board outlay pattern with nodes weaving through vectored lines of both copper and silver lining. It looked fresh. But one? There had to be a catch.

Rook tapped three buttons in a timed sequence and a hiss of compressed air clicked and eight strands of wires crept out of the circuit board from the Ecin-Battery.

The way the strands of wires were extended seemed like weeds growing from sculpted marble. It made me think of pseudo-science that was done during the Pre-Imbibe era called the 21st Century.

The kid rested a modified Ecin-Battery on my shoulder, placing each wire strand onto a vector line and soldered them close. It took him a literal four minutes to get it done, still wasn’t done though.

He hammered the EMP-Shield plating back in place. Then, he drilled back in all the screws and Anti-Piercing plating he took out, one by one. He then raised my Cybernetic arm laterally and I hit the reset button under what used to be an armpit. The near-silent motor of my cybernetic arm spooled up and the liquid coolant from within my arm flowed again, like blood.

“Neural Operating Valency Artificial Assistant…online,” Nova said, and it was like sweet music to my ears. The SMB initialised and clutched my brain as if it were a vice grip.

Neural Hemicrania hadn’t started, but once the painstims started reacting to my SMB, the trudging headache would soon follow.

“Finished,” Rook said.

“Fourteen minutes and forty-eight, Rook, nice job,” Mr Black said, clapping his hand against the kid’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Rest up.”

Rook began his walk but halted and turned back, running towards me. “I almost forgot,'' he started. “This model of the Ecinary-Battery is too strong for an old cybernetic arm model such as this. You need a firmware update if you don’t get one, you’re likely to burn out the processors in your cybernetic arm and eye.”

“Firmware update?” I said. “I’ll remember that”

“Good Work, Revish,” Eltessa said as she eyed me.

Mr Black eyed and circled me, puffing his synthetic cedar wood cigar with a smug smile on his face. What is his game? He saved me from The Mangol, and he just installed a highly modified Ecinary Battery.

“How does it feel?” Mr Black asked.

“What do you mean?” I answered.

“The new battery of course. It hasn’t been released yet, maybe in a year or two.

“Two years?”

“That’s right, it has increased battery efficiency usage. No need for you to swap out batteries every month.”

“How long before the charge dwindles?”

“Four months.”

“I see…”

Mr Black finally stopped circling and approached me. The man was large, his stature alone could put fear into any marine I fought with, cybernetic enhancement, or not. He knelt beside me and stared at me with his cold golden eyes.

“Listen to me, Cypher. This has nothing to do with that double homicide you're working on but listen well. When you solve this case I want you to think long and hard before sending in your investigative report. Think. About. It.” He said, no malice or iron in his voice.

He raised his left hand, “In this hand, you could do the right thing.” Then, he raised his right hand,“…or you could do the smart thing…are you following me, Cypher?”

I don’t know what mask I wore, but I sure as well knew it was a lie. I gave the man what he wanted, a cowering smile and a curt nod, “Yes…Yes, I do.”

“Good,” Mr Black answered, blowing cigar smoke into my face. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”