HighHold casts the darkest shadows when the sun is highest.

It was about noon when my paramilitary escort deposited me at the state shelter. Being in a downtown district, the street outside was dark and puddled with the near-constant rain from the overcity's artificial cloud bed.

The shelter itself looked to be in the basement of a mid-tier apartment building. Underground, out of sight. It even had its own lift entrance from a side alley. That was to make sure that — God forbid — the dregs living there didn't collide with the building's legitimate residents.

After parking along the curb, Officer Yamato and her unnamed HMPD counterpart accompanied me all the way down the alley, into the lift, and to the shelter's admin desk. After signing me over to the state, they both departed without so much as giving me the finger.

Once I was safely contained inside the shelter's locked doors, I was no longer the police department's problem.

"When can I get my stuff?" I asked the pixel-pusher on the other side of the admin window.

He looked pale and weak. The thick glasses meant he was probably full organic since he didn't even have the scrip to fix his eyesight. Not like my eyes — Fuji-Zeiss collab editions — which could see fleas on a cat's ass from a hundred feet. Currently, they were locked on my red backpack, now leaned in a chair behind his bulletproof window.

"When you're discharged," he replied without looking up from his terminal, "unless you have prescription meds in there. Prescription only. No street chems."

I shook my head. I wasn't on meds, but my slate was set up for my favorite brand of self-medication: com-rooting. One of the sweet tricks I'd picked up in the UI lab thanks to unlimited access to neurocom development kits.

I'd been able to gain root access to my own neurocom and code an app for tweaking my neurotransmitters on the fly. Developing my own scripts had been a long trial-and-error process, but once I figured out the combinations that felt euphoric or erased tension, I'd hit a good-times goldmine.

I was also smart enough to know that it'd be too easy to jump on board the transcon train to addiction. I needed to incorporate safeguards if I didn't want to be found dead a few days later in a puddle of seratonin and drool.

The first safeguard was simple. By keeping the control software on a slate at home rather than building a pleasure button right into my NUI, I couldn't just fire off a blast of neurotransmitters whenever I wanted. That could turn stupid real fast.

The second bit of forced willpower was a time lock that I'd built into the control app to avoid overuse.

Both had kept me from getting addicted to the sensations, but I still had urges. Waiting for the Consortium admin to process me into the shelter, I hadn't com-rooted in two days. That meant the time lock was completely open, and I could fire off any script I wanted.

And boy, did I need that mind-numbing euphoria.

"Can I at least get my slate?" I asked, keeping it polite while fighting back a strong desire to claw through the wall. "I have some books on there that I wanna read."

The nobody sighed, glancing up at me through his stupid glasses for the first time since I walked in. "Absolutely no outside tech. The shelter has a library. Approved religious texts are allowed in hardcopy form."

Dickhead.

I smirked back, but that was a conditioned response. Something I did when my face started to heat up with rage.

"Are you as miserable as you look?" I asked as calmly as I could manage. "Because you look pretty fuckin' miserable. I'll bet it gets you off, telling me I can't have my stuff."

I put both my hands against the window separating me from the shit-heel terminal jockey so he could see the labels printed on the palms. BioDyne Savage Archangels. Top-shelf wetgear arms, worth more than this nobody probably made in a decade. I flexed, and the little bit of pressure made his little safety shield creak in its mounts.

The nobody flinched and aimed his miserable face my way. He was either frowning or scowling. It was hard to tell because the expression was so close to his default setting. Without taking his eyes off me, he set a mid-caliber automatic on the desk in front of him. A SevenArms Dingo. Common weapon issued to state lackeys working for the Consortium of Hope.

My eyes twitched back up to his, and I made sure my pissed-off smile was still dialed in.

The nobody narrowed his eyes. "As a matter of fact, I do enjoy seeing self-absorbed corpo-rats getting kicked off their ladders. Shame it doesn't happen much. Most people aren't stupid enough to screw up their employ status. How'd you manage?" He chuckled. "Man, I hope you paid off those arms before you got canned."

The heat in my face boiled until tears welled in my eyes. My limited-edition Archangels were fully paid for — thank God — but that wasn't the problem. What was pissing me off was this complete breakdown of the social dynamic. He was a human scab in a basement. I was an academy top grad and a tier-six employ at the ZLC who manufactures 80% of the vehicles on the road.

Was. Fuck. This was not a change I felt like getting used to.

Fighting back the urge to rip through the window would have been a hell of a lot easier with my slate. All I needed was a quick hit of dopamine to calm down and take the edge off. And the more I thought about how my fix was only a few feet away, the more it pissed me off.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I closed my eyes and counted my breaths. The nobody went back to tapping away on his terminal.

"We almost done here?" I asked.

A small compartment slid open beside the admin window. Inside was a towel and a few small bottles of soap.

"You're in Ward A," the nobody said, slipping the handgun back under the desk. "Collect your hygiene supplies and take the lift down. When you exit, take a sleeping mat and blanket from the pile and find an empty rack."

I grabbed the towel and soaps from the compartment.

"Then get comfortable," he added, grinning. "You're going to be here a while."

***

Ward A was basically a warehouse for the mega's homeless. Not a prison, but it definitely took its decorating cues from one.

The entire sub-basement was completely open and packed with sleeping units. The nobody had called them 'racks', same thing we called beds in GreySec, but these weren't bunks or cots. They were five-tiered shelves with narrow ladders where hundreds of people could be stacked and stowed like cars in an Autopark garage.

Grabbing my blue sleeping mat and rough blanket, I scoped a row of shower and bathroom entrances along the front wall. And as I made my way between shelves looking for an empty spot.

The shelter was packed, and some peeps were already set up on the floor, so my chances didn't look good.

Before long, the holdover anger from the desk jerk gave way to concern for my own safety. I caught a lot of looks because of my high-tier clothes and wetgear. Either way, I was suddenly grateful that I'd decided against the version of my arms with the red ceramic finish. Only a bit garish in the shop display, but they would have made me a target for sure down here.

I picked my way through the aisles carefully. No words, no eye contact. I just wanted an empty shelf so I could at least calm down and think about what to do next.

After ten minutes of scouting, I nearly tripped over a ragtag old man laying halfway in the aisle.

"Watch it, corpo," he grumbled, his breath blasting me with tangy notes of biofuel all the way from the floor.

I stopped short, fully intent on debriefing the bastard on his manners, but found myself distracted by the empty shelf beside him.

"Hey, old timer," I said, shaking off the irritation. "Why you sleeping on the floor with an empty rack right there?"

The bum coughed, then looked at the empty shelf like he'd never seen it before.

"Oh," he muttered, falling back into his pile of blankets. "Pissed in it."

Seems he was too buzzed on butanol to realize the shelves were made from expanded metal grating. Even if he had pissed in it, there was nowhere for a puddle to hang on.

"I'm taking it," I said, throwing my blue sleeping pad into the open space. "Whole place smells like a backed-up toilet anyway."

The bum shrugged without bothering to open his eyes.

I climbed over him and settled in on my blue pad, being sure to stash my little shampoos and soaps under my blanket. The divider between shelves gave me something to sit back against, though it was far from ergonomic.

Sorting through my thoughts was a hell of an exercise at that point. I needed to put a plan together, but images of the bum waking up and shanking me with a sharpened toothbrush kept creeping in. And he was only the closest threat. I'd drawn plenty of appraising looks on the walk in, and from far more dangerous types than an old man with a hundred-octane liver.

The stink of danger shook loose memories of the GreySec Recruit Training Depot at Tenkiller Lake. I'd been marched into a barracks full of wide-eyed morons there, too, and come lights-out, I likewise retreated to a rack and wondered how I was gonna survive.

Maybe the answer would be the same. Aboard Tenkiller, I made friends with a squad mate named Murphy. Not that we had any time to joke around, but having an ally made the thirteen weeks bearable.

I leaned over the edge of the rack, narrowing my eyes at the bum. "Hey. You."

His glazed eyes popped open like some kind of horrid, leprous doll, but he didn't speak.

"Got any friends in this shithole?" I asked.

He barely shook his head enough to displace the greasy clumps of hair laying over his face.

"Good. Now you do," I said. "You watch my back, and I'll watch yours. Got it?"

The bum nodded, then it looked like he passed out. Or died.

If not for his position on the floor, he'd have made a piss-poor sentry. At least someone would have to trip over him to get to me, and that was a step in the right direction.

"Look at you," I mumbled to myself. "Laying out strategies like you're back in GreySec."

"Wha..?" a grumble came from the bum's pile of blankets. "Hol' up."

The haggard old man grabbed the shelving with a wrinkled hand and pulled himself off the floor. Once on his knees, he leaned closer to me.

I leaned back. His breath reminded me of being tear gassed in recruit training.

"You a vet?" he whispered, eyes darting around the shelter.

"Yeah," I said, keeping my sense organs pointed away from him. "So what?"

The bum flashed a grin that lit up his face, despite the high count of missing teeth. "So? So, he says? I can trust you, that's so. Military man gots honor, not like these ganger hoods and druggo dregs."

I chuckled. "Throwing stones right through your own glass house, aren't you?"

"Bah!" he blew a raspberry through weeks of overgrown beard. "Glass, stones? I got neither. Got a plan to get out, though."

Well, damn. It seemed like this guy might turn out to be as funny as old Murphy after all.

"You look like someone with big plans," I said, sitting back against the shelf supports. "Let's hear it."

The bum stood, scanning around the aisle. I peeked out, too, seeing nothing but more human flotsam engaged in varying levels of leaning, sitting, and sleeping.

"Not now," he said. "Tomorrow. For sure, tomorrow."

My eyes narrowed. "Why not right now?"

"Why not? Can't! I just told you."

I held up my hands. "Fine! You're still gonna watch my back, right? You can do that?"

He laughed. "'Course! I need you to get out. You need me to get out. Like a unit, now, right?"

"Sure," I said, nodding. "We're obviously an elite unit. We'd give H-TAC and Rapid Force nightmares."

In more ways than one.

"So, what's your name?" I asked him.

The bum snapped to attention — still wobbling — and pulled his hand up to his forehead. I gave it even odds that he was either failing to salute me or successfully dumping his pants.

"No names," he said, holding the salute. "Covert ops, right, captain?"

"Oh, yeah," I said, ducking low on my sleeping mat. "We need code names. How 'bout I call you 'Bum'?"

He snapped his hand down to his side and nodded. "What's yers?"

"We'll use my favorite code name," I said, voice low. "'Jakob'."

"Jakob," he repeated. "Aye aye. Tomorrow then, we start the mission."

I rendered a hand salute and gave the same authoritative nod that I'd gotten from so many GreySec NCOs.

Bum responded by sinking into his pile of blankets and ripping a loud fart.

I stretched out in my rack, shaking my head. GreySec drill instructors had nothing on me.