Rick fidgeted the entire train ride to Hector’s warehouse. He and Hector had been set to collide from the start, especially after Rick devised a way around the reCon, but Hector outgunned him in about every way possible, short of an in-game Ruckus Online fight. That was great for prize-money, but as uncaged as he’d become in the game world, that wouldn’t solve his problem this time.

Manuel’s eyes flashed wide with surprise at first, but the Latino man covered it quickly. Not quickly enough, though. Rick ignored him and climbed the steps confidently, though he didn’t simply barge in. There was no reason to be on his back foot from jump, though he’d likely end up there by the end. He knocked.

“Holy shit, Rick. That you?” Hector’s voice was muffled by the door.

“Yup.”

“Come in. Been worried about you.”

Rick entered the office and stood before the desk, his eyes narrowed. He wore no smile, but neither did he try to appear hostile. Hector’s shock seemed feigned, like so many of Hector’s less menacing expressions, overwrought, with all the markings of polished practice. “You can sit if you want,” the older man said.

“I don’t know know if I’ll be here that long.”

Hector narrowed his eyes, too, but his next question made it seem more curiosity than skepticism. “You left the game. We assumed it was an unplanned disconnect, but the UPS should have saved you. When you didn’t—”

“Stop. Just stop.” Rick said nothing, waiting for his boss instead.

“Did you manually—”

“I’m gonna tell you what I know, and when I’m done, we’ll see where we’re at.”

Hector sat back. His joviality was gone. He nodded.

“The wheresit cheat was designed to be detected. I want you to know that I figured that out from the start, so you understand that the next part—the part that might upset you? With the resources I have access to, that was only difficult.”

He waited, but Hector merely watched him, though it seemed the older man’s attention to Rick was total.

“I want a storage solution for what you’ve got that’s mine. It’s bought and paid for, and I’d get storage myself, but I don’t wanna be under your thumb even an instant longer than I gotta be. You hearing me?”

Hector steepled his fingers beneath his chin, a power move Rick ignored. “Or what?” the older man asked.

“One click and the Ruckus Online anti-cheat bot knows the origin of your other player’s cheat software.” Rick held up a finger to stop his boss from talking. “And the rest of your tricky shit they haven’t been able to source back to you.”

Hector frowned. “It wasn’t pers—”

“Enough!”

The older man’s eyes were wide now, and though it was always impossible to tell with men like Hector, fear and rage were emotions primal enough to fit within even a reptile like Rick’s boss. Had he to bet on it, Rick would have guessed that what he saw now was genuine fear on the middle-aged Greek man’s face.

The next emotion that flashed on Hector’s face was rage. “Or I kill you.”

“Dead-man’s switch on that, and a damned smart one. Smartest thing to do is give me what I want and find someone else to discredit Proscus.” Rick shook his head. “You’da made more money betting on me and setting up someone else, y’know.”

Hector smiled. “You don’t wanna take those jobs, remember?”

Rick nodded.

The older man leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk. “Just so happens a space opened up on the shadier side of all this if you’re interested.”

“Right. Z got banned.”

Hector blinked. “Yup, banned.”

Rick paused at that last part, but then said, “I don’t trust you. Think I’m better off on my own for a while.”

The other man frowned, then leaned back. “You’d have been gone after you were banned anyway, so no real loss.”

Rick rolled his eyes. I just want this done. “Equipment and the…”

“Merchandise,” the Greek man completed for him. When Rick kept looking at Hector, he added, “Gonna be a day. I don’t have it here. You think I keep illegally acquired goods here?”

He hadn’t thought about it, but after a moment, Rick nodded his assent. “Tomorrow? You delivering?”

Hector smiled. “Sure. Now get outta my office. Employees only.”

Rick left, and his knees were wobbly on the way down the metal stairs. He sighed to clear away the nerves. Manuel kept his eyes on him the whole time, but it was too difficult for Rick to read much in the other man’s face. Just get out. Get on the train.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He pushed the door open and the sunlight that hit his face meant he was free.

******************************

As soon as Rick opened the door to his apartment, Kristina was on him, thrusting hands, trying to punch him.

“You son of a bitch!” she shrieked.

He dodged, and the dizziness began to take him. He hadn’t had time to prepare. She tagged his cheek, and sent him back toward the wall. She followed it up with a slap. “How could you do that?”

The empty mind took over, so when she struck out at him again, he caught her arm, then her other one, and held both at her sides. She tried to knee him, then to bite.

“Hector told you?”

“Oh, Hector’s not the bastard here, honey. How did you think you had the right—”

“Enough!” He didn’t care if the neighbors heard. “You! You knew before you tried to kill yourself that third time what it meant.”

“It was my decision!”

“It was impulsive, like it always is.” He pushed her away roughly. “You don’t get to ruin our future over something you always regret doing.”

She gritted her teeth, as if by saying the truth aloud, he’d struck her. Her eyes were glassy.

“Every time, it’s hell for me. Every time, I look back at what I did that made you want to die, or what I could have done to not make you feel that—”

“It’s not your fault, and I’m not a child, Rick! You don’t get to decide something like this for me.” She shook her head. “What if I’d died while you were fucking harvesting my tissue?” She shot him a look of disgust, as if he’d personally rifled through her insides. Instead, it had been the black market proceduralist Hector had somehow gotten to the scene with breathtaking speed.

He let the emotion drain away from his face. “You mean if you’d have died after trying to kill yourself?”

The look in her eyes was one of horror, and he felt it too, like he’d become a monster made of mirrors, like he’d seen the weakest part of her and made her look at it.

“Honey, I’m sorry.”

She wept openly, then turned, leaving Rick where he stood. She receded to the bedroom. He panicked, thinking of what he could do to fix it. Should I follow? If she kills herself…

She returned from the bedroom with a packed suitcase. He stepped in front of the door.

“Don’t make me scream.”

“Please, honey, let me explain.”

But her eyes were dead and tired, and the pain on her face extended into him, making him hate himself. Her head sagged. She wouldn’t look at him. “Let me go, Rick.”

His pulse quickened. This was really happening. “I’m so sorry. I never should have kept it from you.”

She gazed up at him with an incredulous look. “You think not telling me was where you fucked up?” Her jaw was open as she pushed him away. He let her. She opened the door and stopped. “My parents. I’m going to to my parents.”

It was what he’d feared when he saw the suitcase. “Honey, I know this is bad, but please think about what you’re doing.”

She got a strange look on her face, as if she were far away. “Why? Are you afraid I’m being impulsive?”

He didn’t answer her. He could only stand there and feel the pain. She was being impulsive, but he couldn’t blame her. It was why he hadn’t told her. It had been so easy to tell himself she’d come around to the idea that he’d done it for both of them.

The door closed.

******************************

They’d come for the SR array first thing in the morning. He’d been hung over, but before he’d slipped into a drunken, crying mess, he’d had the good sense to ask Ditto how to access the fingerprint panel on the security system Hector had gotten his underling to place. Sure enough, there’d been fingerprint profiles that were neither his nor Kristina-Anne’s.Shoulda looked earlier. Shouldn’t have been such a sucker.

They rattled the door and he smiled. Hector had likely told them they could simply walk in. He imagined his former boss with a pleased smile on his face at the prospect of showing Rick he owned nothing that Hector hadn’t let him own.

He approached the door, and through it, the sound of their complaining, though muffled, gave Rick some small amount of satisfaction.

“Yeah, I tried. Won’t open.” The voice was male, but unrecognizable.

The next voice he knew as Kevin’s. “Hector said—”

“I know what Hector said. It’s not working. You try.”

There was the sound of movement behind the door. “Fuck. Won’t—”

Rick knocked on his own door from the inside. “Something I can help you with?”

“Open up. Gotta give back the toys, Rick,” Kevin said.

“Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

The unknown voice said, “You’re about to possess a broken window if you don’t open the fuckin’ door, smartass.”

Rick opened the door and Kevin stepped through. The other man, a shorter fellow with close-cropped black hair and sunglasses, pushed Rick against the wall. Without thinking, Rick punched the man hard enough that he fell to the floor unconscious. The reCon tried to take hold, but Rick wasn’t afraid of anything. If he died, he died. In that spirit, he kicked the unconscious man in the head, and the man began to bleed on Rick’s carpet.

“Jesus Christ, man! Stop,” Kevin stared at Rick. “We’re just deliverymen.”

Rick pointed at the man on his carpet. “He seems less like a deliveryman than a messenger. I got his message. Now he’s got mine, and so does Hector.”

Kevin frowned. “Yeah, I don’t like him much either.” Kevin leaned in and Rick leaned back, ready for trouble.

“Remember when I told you Hector would have sent someone less professional than me if you were into some bad shit?” Kevin cast a meaningful glance at the prone man. “Sam here needed someone else.”

Rick cocked his head. “Why would you tell me that?”

Kevin shrugged. “Been wanting to punch the fucker myself for years.” He raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t want the blowback.” He glanced at the rig in the back, along with the private internet server. “Thing is, he was supposed to help me move all this shit, y’know?”

Rick shook his head. “I’m not going to help you, but I won’t punch you.”

A few minutes later, while Kevin was dismantling the array, the man Rick had punched—Sam—came to. After a few threats from Sam, Rick found the yellow light. It was so much easier than it had been when he’d had a secret, and what had before been a long process became a much shorter one. He could nearly shift into empty mind at will.

Sam seemed to sense the danger, and he backed off, though the dark-haired man stared daggers at Rick when he thought he wasn’t looking. Rick drank a beer at the kitchen table while they worked, and within an hour, they had everything disassembled. Kevin didn’t bother to pack anything neatly. Instead, he threw the parts in boxes, seemingly at random, then carted the boxes away. In just over an hour, they were done.

He’d gone through three beers and it was only noon. He debated dragging the muni AR unit from the bedroom and connecting it to the muni internet, but instead, he had two more beers. Then, he had four more after that, because he didn’t have a reason not to anymore.

He ended his day on the couch contemplating the peculiar, slanted light of sunset, but he wasn’t awake when it went down.