Chapter 17

The Sprawl, The following day

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‎ Jon picked up Rebecca at eight in the morning sharp. She emerged from the front door of her private residence, a rarity in today’s age as the corporations bulldozed smaller homes over to make rooms for the residential towers. She opened the door and slipped into his car, looking far more comfortable about doing so now than she did a week ago. He programmed Roth Industries’ DC corporate tower into the GPS, and the car rolled forward on autopilot.

“So,” she said, cracking the brief silence at her entrance. “What were you looking at doing in terms of additions? Weapons of some type, I presume?”

He grimaced at how she guessed his motives with such ease. “Yes. And some other options. Raven mentioned something to help with hacking?”

“Ah, the newest ICE package? Interesting pick.”

He gave her a wounded look. She held her hands up innocently. “What? I had you pegged as the type to fix all of his problems with gratuitous violence.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Perhaps that’s just what you’d like others to believe about you. Lull them into some misconceptions about you so you have programed lanes of attack. How am I doing so far?”

He reached out and turned the radio on. This conversation began treading dangerously close to uncomfortable for him. “Sorry, I sometimes forget that my teasing might appear hyper aggressive. Problem solving and analysis are some of my favorite pursuits. Doesn’t earn me many friends, though.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t. My old line of work didn’t afford me many friends either,” he said. A frown creasing his features.

“Why not? No one ever gets to know the real you?”

He shook his head. “A few, but the work was too dangerous. I’ve lost a lot of them to it because I was careless and got them involved. Besides, these days I’m not even sure who the real me even is anymore.”

He couldn’t help it when his gaze fell to his hands.

“Yes, I rather suspect if my research was dangerous to others, the few friends I do have would be even fewer. You have my sympathy,” she said.

He could only nod at that, unsure of what to say before just going with his gut. “Don’t. Only have myself to blame.”

Rebecca folded her arms and thought for a moment. “This sounds almost confessional,” she paused contemplatively, “Perhaps. But without them, do you think you’d still be where you are today?”

He shook his head. Sam and Polanco had given him some very vital information and a firm shove square into the middle of this mess. If Sam hadn’t messaged him requesting an emergency extraction, his life would look drastically different. He would have continued on passively accepting the world while disliking its continual downslide into the mess it languished in. The only silver lining he could find was that at least now he was taking shots at the system that ground anyone but corpo goons into the dirt.

“No. They helped give me the push I needed to act on how I felt.”

Rebecca tilted her head, her curiosity getting the best of her. “Oh? That requires quantification.”

He paused, thinking of how to respond first. “Well, I joined the Army and then the Agency to protect the people. But the Corporations have been making it clear in recent decades that they don’t care too much about the people. All the people, I mean, not just their own.”

“Roth was very against the Corporate war act. Largely because we designed our business to repair and enhancing the human body. We felt that for the combat contractor companies to take the stance they did implied they only cared about manufacturing war on any and every front they could,” she said.

“Wouldn’t that be good for business for Roth?”

Rebecca shook her head, “Not long term, no. As you can see, the corporations have tied a noose around augmented civilians. The restriction of mil-spec augmentations makes it so that few if any could stand in clear opposition of the corporations as they wage their private battles in our streets, forcing the populace to depend more and more on what little scraps of security from the local authorities.” She canted her head to the side as a tangential thought occurred to her, “Incidentally it has grown itself a unique niche market of mercenaries and fixers who take and supply jobs to the mercs acting as agents for them.”

He shifted in the seat uncomfortably; the leather creaking under his weight. She gave him a knowing smile.

Rebecca fell silent for a moment, studying him as the car drove them along. “I have a hypothesis about you. Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said. Rebecca paused a moment to allow him a chance to protest. He didn’t take it and allowed her to continue.

“My theory is thus: The attacks on your friends, and subsequently yourself, have placed you in a position to act upon your feelings against the companies on top of whatever overall tactical information you may have gained from these actions. Is this close?” As she finished, she gave his arm an appraising look. The outer plating was retail new except for the shoulder plate where the Desperados logo was laser etched, its surface weathered and faded.

“Yea. Sounds about right.”

She turned to settle back into the seat with an amused smile. “It’s rather romantic, in a way. A lone man standing against the monolith of corporate greed. Do you see yourself winning?”

He shook his head grimly after a long silence, “No. Not realistically, but I can make them hurt for as long as I can. Be annoying and expensive as hell.”

“You have been through a lot. So, what is your plan now?”

“Well, you’re it. I got involved with working with you to distract me from going off half cocked against Haltech. The last gig I almost vaporized myself with a solar transmission blast.”

“I’m an idle distraction, then?” she said with amusement, a wry smirk at the edge of her lips.

“I guess so. Sure.”

He watched as several police cruisers raced around them in the high-speed lane to the left. “That was a cordon team. There must be another fire fight going on in the city.”

“How could you tell?”

She nodded to the trail vehicle, pulling off well into the distance ahead of them. “Did you note they were all large SUV cruisers? I’d guess they were all packed with either personnel or security mechs to establish a perimeter and hold it.”

Jon rewound the footage his implant had recorded and looped it back. Sure enough, the SUV’s all had full passenger loads. “The trucks look loaded up in half and half. Half humans, half mechs.”

“Very observant. Though you may not have been able to make such an observation without those retinal implants and your upgraded neural implant,” she said.

“Thanks.” Reflecting on her comment, no, he wouldn’t have been able to make that snap observation in the past. Before scrolling footage with implants, everything was see it or miss it. Hindsight was 20/20 now.

“Oh, no need to thank me. Raven asked me to save your life, and I did merely that. I only regret that I didn’t have the resources to fabricate cloned limbs to replace the damaged ones. We were fortunate to have only enough for your internal organs, which were a total loss. I had little time to work with.”

He glanced down at the black carbon fiber hands. They’re not dermally coated because they were the military variants. Designed to absorb electrical signals and emissions, affording him a level of stealth. That was an option if he wanted it. Naturally, he did, but it only helped to remind him of his inhumanity. Getting flesh colored plating for his arms and legs just felt like a waste of time and a poorly conceived lie. He knew he no longer had flesh and blood arms, so why try to pass them off? There wouldn’t be any pleasing his vanity, his soul maimed as bad as it was. He knew he was being contrary to it, and even though he knew it was a lie, sometimes it would be nice to believe the lie. That he still had flesh and bone instead of wires and steel. He had a hard time embracing the dichotomy of his wires and flesh.

He turned back to Rebecca. “Did you have a choice when you were fitting me?” He held his hands up, gesticulating his meaning.

“Somewhat. Raven gave some parameters she felt you might find acceptable given time to digest the change. She felt if you could overcome your initial issues with augmentations that you might favor prosthetics that provided you with the most flexibility and enhancements, and something that had adaptability and plenty of slots for aftermarket components. The hope was that it may help you avoid a similar demise in the future. Cosmetic considerations were absolute last.”

He sighed and nodded. “Well, she was right. Thank you.”

“For?” Rebecca asked, uncertain of where his sudden appreciation was coming from.

“For the work you did, keeping me in the fight. For the augmentations. For being ok with doing it. I’m sure she told you I was going to be pissed about it.”

She gave him an understanding smile, patting his arm. “It was nothing. Just one soldier saving another, right?” She winked.

“Yea. So about those parts. What are my options?”

“Right.” Rebecca pulled up a display overlay and shared it with him, then went through the options available to him. He felt a little overwhelmed in the beginning and almost backpedaled out of it, but Rebecca pressed him, keeping engaged and unable to withdraw. Eventually, she helped him narrow down some options. He wanted a set of deployable personal defense blades, the ICE package, and a Projected Energy Propulsion System cannon.

Each arm would get a blade, and the right arm would get the cannon. The ICE would go directly into his implant, and that gave him pause for a moment. But Rebecca was very reassuring about the fact that it was the most robust firewall available to the military industrial networks. The firewall subroutines on it prevented anything from going back to him. Outbound traffic only.

It ran like an AI and used the brain’s own computational powers to run. This unfortunately had a side effect, in that any hacking attempt would cause him to lose focus and stop what he was doing while his mind dealt with the intrusion. Brain safe, body exposed. Noted.

When they got to Roth Industries, Rebecca walked him into the corporate tower’s personal chop shop. This isn’t the same spot he came to during the incident in the courtyard. Clean white metallic walls and cool blue fluorescent lighting gave the room a crisp clean sterile feeling. It had a top end aesthetic to it that was oddly comforting. In the center of the room sat one of the most advanced MedBed’s he used to date. The one he woke up on in Germany looked like a black market after thought compared to this one. It even had the Roth corporate logo embossed in gold leaf on the side. Rebecca keyed in several commands in an overlay interface he couldn’t see, but a few beats later, a panel on the wall slid open and the mods he requested all slid out on a belt one at a time coming to a rest on a table near the bed within reach of most medical grade robot arms.

“Ok, take off your jacket and shirt and lay down on the bed when you’re ready,” Rebecca told him.

He glanced around, feeling his anxiety spike a bit, when he noticed it was just the two of them. “Shouldn’t there be more people?”

“For what?” she asked.

He shrugged, servos whirring, “The operation?”

Rebecca smiled, “Relax Jon. The Bed can handle all the heavy lifting on its own. I simply guide and instruct.”

He sighed. If this was the only way, then so be it. He shrugged the jacket off and hung it on a hook in the small patient welcome area of the shop. Shrugging out of his shirt, he inspected the scar tissue at the edge of his chest.

The cold, black, unfeeling composite alloys of his prosthetic arms reached out like fingers, clawing into his flesh. The inhumane marriage of metal and meat. No longer was the scar tissue an angry red, but more of a muted pink now, barely discernable from his regular skin tone. The stark contrast never ceased to unsettle and make his stomach twinge.

He ran a finger over the scars, then onto the prosthetic. While the haptic feedback sensors gave him the input, it still didn’t feel like he was touching the scars and metal. The soft tickling tease of skin on skin was absent. Only the cool, gliding kiss of the cold metal fingertip against the skin on his chest, near the union between his collarbone and the prosthetic shoulder joint. A constant reminder that he was more ghost than man. He used to dread the chrome, the cold absence of warmth that came with it. That kind of dread could cripple a man, and it forced him to reach down and find his resolve.

He hesitated in the welcome area, feeling like some unseen force was pulling him away from the MedBed. Did he need to do this? Yes, if he wanted to make the best use of his abilities and his body, this was necessary. The idea made his skin crawl. To have to hack his body up even more to do this. His only consolation came in knowing that this time he’s not cutting up his flesh anymore. It was the unfeeling alloys and wires of his arms. He wrapped himself in the safety blanket of knowledge that he would not feel this, or be even less than he was.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, shaking his hands a few times to rattle his nerves loose. “Right. Ok. Let’s get started. Before I change my mind.” He approached the MedBed and laid down. He expected it to be cold, but smiled when the warm, cushioned surface soothed the scarred skin on his back like a steamed towel in a sauna. “It’s not cold?” he asked nervously and felt like a fool as soon as the words left his lips.

Rebecca nodded and smiled. “I preheated it, wanting to make you as comfortable as possible for the process. Let me know when you’re settled. A quick heads up. The system will sedate you shortly, but the bed will deploy a harness system to hold you in place as it goes to work. This is just to prevent anything from falling out of alignment as it’s working. That will ensure the precision work flows. But you’ll be safe, ok?”

He nodded, and Rebecca keyed the system, and the harness clamps deployed. Warmth wrapped around him and felt like he was being held in a hug. He tried to root himself desperately in that idea and not let his anxiety and fear override his logic brain. He willed himself to relax into this and felt the tension hesitantly ease out of his torso. It only took the bed a few moments, and the bed anchored him. When he was ready, he turned to Rebecca, giving her an approving nod. It was now or never.

“Ok, now comes the anesthetic. Small prick in the neck here. And there. I deployed the sedatives. You’ll feel yourself drifting off now, so just count down from 100 to 0.”

He made it to 88 and fell into a drug induced sleep.

#

He awoke on the MedBed groggy, and with a taste like metal in his mouth. It’s not blood. He tasted that far too often to confuse it for anything else. No, this was like something tinny in his mouth, some kind of odd after taste at a guess. The lingering aftereffects of the anesthetic. He squinted as light pressed in against his eyelids and he cracked them open as slow as he could. He looked down across his chest and saw a sheet draped over him.

“Oh good, you’re waking up.”

He glanced in the voice’s direction and saw Rebecca waiting with an overlay in her lap. She swiped it aside and stood up to cross the room to his side. “You were out for a few hours. I installed everything problem free.”

“Good,” he half croaked out. His voice felt raspy, like it had some dust to blow out. The haze of anesthetic faded as he fell free of its grasp, plunging fully into awareness. He sat up and noticed his shirt folded up on a shelf the MedBed had placed next to him. Slipping it on, he swept his legs off the bed and stood up, testing his stability, and felt more firm on his feet. Once he felt like he wouldn’t suddenly sway or lose his balance, he put his jacket on.

Rebecca closed the distance in the shop to stand at his side. “Any unusual side effects? Dizziness? Nausea? Homicidal Rage?” At the concerned look he gave her, “You might think I’m joking, but it’s actually a required question,” she said. The look of understanding and empathy she wore did its best to disarm his unease.

He shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” He shivered at the mental image of the rally that went into a rage. And his father. The lingering knowledge that he was dangling on the edge of that cliff face himself. He refused to fall victim to that fate.

“Good, it looks like everything with your implant and your augmentations works nominally. It’s curious that there wasn’t a building of glial cells on your implant, though. You should have noticed some degraded performance with that by now.”

“Is fitness a factor?”

She smiled politely, “No. And not to be offensive, but there isn’t much of you left for fitness to bear.”

He regarded her for a moment, unsure of how to take her response. “Point taken,” he stopped, trying to put the words together before stumbling on a blurted out, “Thank you.”

Rebecca smiled and shook her head. “It is my job, you know. You just get special treatment because of Raven,” she said with a wink.

“What’s the process like for someone else?”

“They often get this done at a chopdoc’s shop in the city. This is mainly for testing and the upper level corporate officers,” she said.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He tried not to shudder at the term. Technically called Augment Fitting Clinics, those who frequented them called them chop shops. Customers replaced arms, or legs, or getting some other chrome installed. Customers gradually nicknamed the clinic’s chop shops because they were chopping off the old appendage. Later on, the shops picked the term up as a badge of sorts. Chop shops supplied 99% of Cap City’s population with chrome additions and replacement needs.

“So you’re able to just use it for whoever whenever you want as long as you bless off on it, huh?”

“Being the lead biocyberneticist gives you a few perks. I can write everything off as research and development. Even you,” she said.

“So I’m just a big tax write off?” The thought made him taste bile in the back of his throat. He didn’t feel copesetic about enabling a corporation to shirk on its taxes, even if he factored in how heavily skewed the tax code is to corporations. He sighed at the thought. The notion he was helping his perceived enemy felt very similar to giving help to an enemy intelligence agent. He flexed his hands into fists a few times. He needed this body, though. Needed the augments to finish the fight. Without the wires, he was just meat. Incomplete and not up to the task.

He rolled his shoulders and flexed his knees and arms as though he were limbering up before a game or mission. Everything felt like it did before he went under the knife. He rolled his neck and glanced at the far wall. It was a poster ad for their new subdermal armor plating. He had a hunch he needed that, and soon, most likely.

He turned back to Rebecca, who’d watched him stretch out observantly. He got the feeling she was looking for anything that might malfunction or something. Scrutinizing her own work, or rather, the MedBed’s work, with her guidance as she said. “Are we good, then? Do I pay you or what?”

She shook her head, “Like I said, I can do what I want as long as the shareholders don’t protest too much, and since I’m their darling that has kept the company competitive and relevant for a decade plus now I doubt you’re going to be bothered.”

A cough at the doorway interrupted her, and when she saw the man in the doorway, Jon detected a near imperceptible jolt in Rebecca’s posture. At a guess, this was someone above her head.

“You know Dr. Preston, sometimes you’re a little too candid. But then, I always appreciated your candor,” the man said as he stepped into the clinic area. He was wearing a stylish black suit with a white shirt under it, and no tie. Jon noticed he, too, sported a black prosthetic hand. As he observed it, his Retinal Implant conducted a quick scan, revealing the forearm was artificial to the elbow joint. The man followed his gaze down and then flexed the hand and smiled. “Yea. I’m a customer too, but also the CEO and founder of Roth. Car accident. The dashboard and steering wheel crushed my arm. I was lucky.”

Rebecca cleared her throat, shrinking a little in the presence of the other man as she gestured to him, “This is Tyler Roth, the founder of Roth Industries.”

Tyler extended a hand to shake. “We rarely get guests in here, and rarer still that I see Rebecca speaking to anyone for any stretch of time. I figured someone this special warranted a personal introduction. I hope you don’t mind?”

Jon reached out and shook his hand. “Not at all.”

“I, uh, didn’t catch your name,” Tyler said.

“Didn’t give it.”

Tyler glanced at Rebecca with an amused smirk. “An accurate statement. May I then ask for it officially?”

Jon looked at Rebecca, who appeared uncomfortable. It was clear she intended for his augmentation to go unnoticed, but the situation had changed beyond her control. Jon sympathized with that. No stranger to adaption on the fly, he offered Mr. Roth a tight smile, nodding to the request.

“Jay Knight. Everyone just calls me Knight.”

Tyler’s eyes glowed blue immediately as he accessed the building’s network to run a search query, but ran into a dead end and smiled.

“It would seem you keep very private company, Miss Preston,” Tyler said diplomatically.

“Yes, Knight keeps a rather small social circle. I just count myself fortunate to be a member.”

Tyler turned to Jon. Scrutinizing him. “You’re sporting quite a handful of augmentations. Many of them military grade. Are you military? contractor? Or agent? I can see your licence but it’s a peculiar one.”

Jon shifted feet. “Neither and both. It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Complicated. I like complicated. It often means interesting.”

“Or dangerous,” Jon added in a hushed tone.

“Or dangerous. Speaking of, I’m sure Rebecca has explained the situation we’ve been finding ourselves in?”

“Mr. Roth, I’m not sure Knight’s the person for this kind of conversation,” Rebecca interjected.

Jon’s brow furrowed. Now he was curious. What was all this? “No, it’s ok. I’m listening?”

Tyler nodded with an appreciative smile. “My company has come under an unusually enormous amount of scrutiny of late. While augmentation has always been a well embraced element in our culture, there were always fringe elements that hated us. It would seem that in the past few years, the military industrial complex counts itself among that list as combat mechs appear to be phasing out augmented wounded warriors.”

“Your company is being targeted by another one?”

“That or an entire industry. We represent a solution to a problem the MIC is no longer willing to accept,” Tyler said.

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a threat, so they’re pushing you out by force.”

Tyler smiled. “A Complicated, but true assessment. That’s always to be appreciated. Anyhow, yes. A rival company BioPharm has stepped up its hostilities with us. It began as petty corporate competition and espionage, but we’ve been in the game for a while, so we knew how to deal with them. But passaging that corporate warfare bill turned everything on its head. Now they got serious backing and are pointing some big guns at us.”

“Can’t your company’s security deal with it?”

Roth’s smile compressed into a thin line. He didn’t think they were up to the task. “I’m confident they’ll do their best. If that’ll be enough, I can’t say. Which is where you come in?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How?”

Tyler smiled. “You’re packing some serious hardware, but if you use it how I think you’re going to, I’m willing to bet you’re going to need someone to help you out with repairs and replacements.”

“What are you pitching?”

“A solution. Logistics related. You help me deal with BioPharm, and I help you stay in the fight. Like Dr. Preston said, she can do whatever she wants as long as the shareholders don’t buck too much. She doesn’t realize just how much I actually keep her wheel greased.”

He gave her a sideways glance, but Jon didn’t see any malice in it. Uncertain if he wanted to hate this guy or not. So far he was leaning on for not.

“I can ensure they stay complacent and allow us to do what needs to be done.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. On one hand, he understood what Roth was offering him. Unlimited logistical support related to his augmentations for taking the fight to BioPharm, and by extension. Even on his own, he was looking at a long downtime between missions to recover credits through minor jobs to resupply and repair damages from missions. On paper, it was a win. But it’s not quite that simple. He wanted to do this on his own with no strings attached, and now Roth was looking to string him up like Pinocchio.

Roth gave him an appraising look, no doubt trying to read his mood, gauge his expressions and body language to get a sense of what his response might be. It felt like selling out. But he could recognize that was his inner critic speaking. Depending on just himself would at least double the time to prosecute his fight against Haltech since would have to back himself financially with merc jobs. Roth had allowed Rebecca to install thousands of credits’ worth of mods. In the seven-digit range, to take a guess. That was a generous gift to let him walk away with, even one time. Never mind that the initial limb and implant set ups had to cost two to three times that. He was close to being Roth property, so close he felt better off with a damn hood ornament weld on. He didn’t belong to anyone.

He glanced up, a frown on his face. Roth relaxed into a reluctant nod, knowing Jon’s words before he spoke them. “Sorry, it’s tempting, but I think I’ll pass.”

Tyler Roth nodded, “I understand. You strike me as an untrusting type. At least at first blush. Take your time. My offer will stay on the table. No expiration date, ok?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. That kind of generosity often came at a steep price. That’d been his own experience, at least. After some hesitation, he nodded. “Ok. Thanks for the help, Doctor.” With that, he excused himself from the clinic, leaving the Dr. and Mr. Roth to themselves quickly. He had little skin left, but what little he had was practically crawling all over. He couldn’t extract himself fast enough from the building.

Outside the tower in the corporate square, he exhaled deeply, releasing the held tension from his body. The freedom and relative safety outside the corporate tower wrapping its arms around him. He brought himself back to his full height and glanced around. Several blocks away, he could hear the clatter of small arms fire as two smaller corporations traded shots with each other’s combat mechs.

Something in him couldn’t let go of the urge to go investigate. He couldn’t let go of the thought of all the innocent people caught out in the open, having to deal with the chaos. No one looked out for people these days. City’s just ground them up and spat them out. Spent husks shuffling through meaningless existences until the city came back to claim their lives after taking everything else from them, too.

These aren’t the highest end models and employed basic tactics. The fire fight unfolded in the center of a street three blocks away, with CCPD cordoning off a block in every cardinal direction from its epicenter. A quick check confirmed his hunch that they didn’t have as heavy a presence in the alleyways.

The dark musty shadows welcomed him as he slipped into the nearest opening. As he did, the smell of musk and piss punched its way into his nostrils and forced itself into his brain, searing itself there. He sighed at himself. He was trying to distract himself from Roth’s deal.

As he jogged at a smooth pace, he noted just how untaxing this was for him. Physically, he couldn’t tell the difference between running and standing around idly. If not for the environment racing by him and the slight up and down bob from his gait, he could convince himself he’s not running. It’s because his mind was still trying to think of running like he was still made of meat, not steel and wires.

Sliding to a halt, the treads of his boot shoved a small puddle of water forward like a micro-tsunami. In the street, several Mk. II combat mechs from two companies he didn’t recognize traded fire. Two heavy mech carrier VTOL crafts sat on opposite ends of the intersection. Jon recognized a pattern in these kinds of fights. They used the craft as bullet shields or barriers as the mechs stood opposite each other and riddled each other with rounds.

He scoffed at their weak attempt at protecting the populace while they engaged each other in the open like this. He didn’t have any weapons on him except what he just got installed. No better time than the present for a field test. He sent the command and felt the blade snap out of his left arm, and the right arm telescoped back into the cannon.

He mapped his attack route. Engaging from the weakest flank at close quarters using the blade, and he attacked the opposite side with the cannon. It’s not a very detailed plan; he knew. But then, complexity invited room for disaster. By keeping it simple, he allowed himself to adapt and adjust to the situation as it unfolded.

At the end of a three count, he surged out into the streets. The nearest VTOL craft was a standard armored model. A large boxy frame with the rectangular exhaust jets at each corner. In its idle state, a steady flow of hot air blew from them, ready to ramp up for an emergency dust off in a moment’s notice. The thick sliding crew door sat shut, which meant the crew served weapon stowed inside wouldn’t be in use. The small nav camera and driver windows sat at the front of the craft, reminding him of the driver’s window of an old gen tank.

Rounding the corner of the craft, he could feel the gathered warm air from the jet exhausts hanging in the area like a cloud. The mk. II mechs on both sides were sturdy but basic units. They could take a good deal of punishment because they’re slow and predictable. Good for him, bad for them. Dashing in, he reached out and raked the nearest mech free of its feet with his blade. Sparks and fluid splashed into the air as it tumbled to its back. The bottom quarter of its leg tumbled free of its body. He stabbed down into its camera visor before it could retaliate.

Flowing smoothly to his next target, he twisted the blade free, spun for momentum and plunged the blade into the mechs backpack. Blue arcs of electricity lashed out of the mech’s backpack. Burned plastic cooked the air, and the mech went slack. Maintaining his momentum, he stepped around, lowering his arm so the mech slide down the blade. Pivoting at the hips, he slashed horizontally at neck height, removing another unit’s head camera. It clattered to the ground, plastics and glass shattering as it tumbled away from his feet. Before the body could collapse, Jon kicked the headless mech body into the remaining unit, throwing it to the ground.

Now that he cleared the line of targets, the opposite opened fire on him, incapable of registering him as a friendly. He spun, dropping to a knee to avoid incoming fire, and snapped off a shot with his cannon. The blue bolt of plasma sizzled across the intersection. The mech it slammed into exploded in an explosion as the plasma reacted with the compressed lithium ion battery. Shrapnel sprayed the fallen mech’s allies, causing them to stagger.

The barrel of Jon’s cannon tinged with cooling alloys as it the heat dissipated. He debated on getting the modification to use solid shells with the weapon. But he liked the versatility of using energy charges instead, since those charged by natural means. Spearing the fallen mech, he stabbed in the back. He leveraged it up as a shield, taking the fire from across the street while watching the charge meter.

The whine from the weapon as it compressed and then released the second blast from the weapon sizzled at the air leaving a burned ozone smell in its wake as it smashed into another mech, shattering it into pieces and throwing most of the debris into the wall of the VTOL craft behind it. The return fire came less thick, with fewer units in action. Clicks and whirs announced the transformation of his cannon back into his arm. Snatching up a nearby battle rifle on the ground, he aimed down the irons and opened fire on the faceplates of the last few units.

With all the mechs disabled, he dropped his bullet riddled shield and rifle. Giving the mechanical carnage a nod of approval. Then he retreated to the alley, letting the shadows writhe out and reclaim him. The CCPD came to investigate after a brief wait. They wouldn’t poke too deep if someone trashed both units. They just assume some bigger corporation did it. The truth of it was that he was a rogue element. And their little toy war system didn’t account for him. Good for him, bad for them.

He traced a route back and made his way to the loft. He needed to reach out to Raven. The alleyways were still clear, and he whispered a silent prayer of thanks. The blade and his cannon each telescoped back into his arms. He flexed the fingers of his cannon’s hand, unsure of how to feel about it. He wasn’t sure what to make of . Expecting pain or something? The naturalness of it felt unsettling. It should hurt, right?

Perhaps his brain insisted it should hurt because it still longed for the phantom flesh and blood of his hands, instead of wires and steel. He wiggled his fingers, the tiny servos whirring and humming gently in the quiet, musty alleyway. A cat knocked over a dumpster, causing him to turn around. It looked at him with an arched back. A black and brown calico cat. It was a feral stray hunting in a jungle of concrete, steel, and glass.

The two predators locked eyes for a moment and eyed each other. The cat decided it had more interesting things to do somewhere else and casually walked off, leaving Jon certain the cat felt it had won the staring contest. When his heart settled down enough, he returned to his perch overlooking Roth Industries.

“You know, it makes little sense to turn Roth’s deal down if you’re going to wind up doing it anyway,” Raven’s voice said from behind him.

He felt his the corner of his mouth curl upwards. There was a time he could remember when Raven’s little sneak up stunt used to spook him. Now he grew so used to it, it didn’t bother him. “I didn’t want the extra strings.”

She crossed the room and stood next to him, leaning against the window frame, folding her arms. “Rebecca sent me a message. I was on my way to meet you, but didn’t realize Tyler Roth himself would make a pitch to you.”

Jon waved the suggestion aside like an invisible fly being shooed away. “He talked smooth. But I’m not interested.”

Raven’s expression softened. “Jon, do you think we’re going to do this without help? This is a gigantic tree you’re looking to chop down. The roots run damn deep. There’s no guarantee this thing won’t fall on top of us. Look at getting some help.”

He frowned and shook his head. “I can’t get anyone else involved.”

She leaned back, nodding slightly. “Ah. This is about Sam and Polanco, isn’t it?”

He glanced back up at her, a stern glare on his face. She was treading thin ice here. “It’s always about them. And everyone else they fucked over.”

She took a seat next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, if you’re looking to assume a burden, then you should probably remove Polanco from that list since Toranaga handled the hit on him. But at some point you’ve got to face down this problem. It won’t help if you stop rushing into fights, only to dig in stubbornly and refuse all help. You’re just trading one debilitating problem for another.”

He sighed through his nose and glanced at her. Concern etched on her features. Was this some kind of residual guilt for the Iraq mission? Damned if it was working, too. Rolling his eyes, he relented with a nod. “Fine. But that doesn’t mean I have to take things at face value. Doing that got me in this situation to start with.”

Raven nodded, her expression soft and understanding. “Agreed. Give me some time to vet Roth and his deal. Get a feel for what he’s after. In the meantime, I’ve got something for you.”

She held a chip out for him; he looked at it with acute curiosity.

“What is it?”

“Your next target.”

He reached out and took the chip, then slotted it into his implant’s socket. “You think this one will put us on track?”

“It’ll give us something to gauge their response on. Right now, we don’t know where to hit them and make it hurt. If we do this, we might figure what’s important to them and then put pressure on that.”

He accessed the files on the chip. Pulling up maps, notes, and overlays. Raven watched him patiently, waiting for him to give it a quick look. A faint smile tugging at her lips. “How’s the new hardware?”

He looked at the overlays projected in his implant from the stick. “Like a dream,” he said.

“Good. So what do you think?”

He was looking at plans to attack BioPharm’s combat mech antenna facility. Hitting that and taking them out would cripple their drone’s abilities to operate in the city. His and Roth’s interests just aligned. He glanced at Raven, unamused. “What?” she asked, doing her best to look innocent. “You were thinking about it too. Be honest. Knowing they might have ties to Haltech made them a tempting target.”

“So why BioPharm?”

“A few reasons,” she said. “First is that it takes heat off of Roth and lowers the tension in the area. Things are heating right now as other companies are rushing to settle disputes so they can get out of BioPharm’s way. Once they come marching for Roth, it’s going to get ugly. Second is that if we can cripple BioPharm, it might force Haltech to more visibly expose its support. At a guess I’d say they’re nothing more than a shell corp being used to strong arm Roth out of the Military contract field. If Haltech can sell their combat mechs and sanitized war here, they’ll have a roadmap for the world. But if we can bloody their nose? Raise some doubt, and show they can’t do it. We might chop their feet out from under them.”

“So it’s as much a PR game as it is a tactical game.”

“Exactly,” she said, shoving on his arm. “Sometimes I think you know this stuff and just like to ask questions you have answers to.”

He shrugged. That reminded him of what Rebecca had said about him, too. “Possibly.”

“Well, I’ve got to get going. I have to keep up appearances to stay out of Wilson’s scrutiny. Hit the antenna and get out fast. BioPharm and Haltech won’t just sit on thier heels waiting for you to leave when they find you kicking over their toys. They’ll come in hot.”

“Yea. Extraction plan?”

“It’s on the drive. Give it a look. And good luck Jon,” she made her way to the door and paused, turning back to regard him for a moment. “You look good, by the way. Like you’re doing better.”

“Thanks. I think,” he said.

She slipped out and shut the door softly behind her, leaving him alone with the mission plan and his thoughts. He leaned back to take in all the information and look it over. He had to be on his best game to pull this off with the narrow time hacks involved. If he were just a few minutes slow on any portion, they’d come down around his head like an angry wasp’s nest. He reached out to make a few tweaks. Bracing himself for the upcoming raid.

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