Bitstream

1.3

I didn't expect to be accepted.

Hell, I thought I'd screw up the second I picked up a gun. I figured Raze would laugh me out of the room, maybe shove me on my ass for wasting their time. But I passed. Not just passed: beat his score. Watched his eyes narrow when the numbers came through. Watched Fingers raise her brows and nod, just once, like she'd seen what she needed to see.

Relief doesn't come easy. Not after everything. But it's there, under the surface.

The part that bothers me is how it felt: too smooth, too instinctive. Like someone else had taken over. My hand moved and my aim locked in before I knew I was even reaching. Nothing about it felt learned. It felt programmed.

So what's left of me? What kind of past self still stays when the memories are gone? Who trained these reflexes into me? Who built the part of me that pulls the trigger without hesitation? I can't answer any of it. All I know is that something remains, some sliver wedged between the cracks. Enough to move, but not enough to know why.

The hours after the test blur. Fingers walks me through the headquarters, laying out the bones of the place. It's small. Not cramped, but not spacious either. A square chunk of concrete and metal with wires in its walls and dust in its corners. She says it used to be a mill. What it milled, she doesn't say. I don't ask. Doesn't matter.

The foyer is a low-ceilinged pit dressed in red light and old furniture. Sofa chairs that bleed stuffing at the seams. Flags pinned to the walls: skulls with visors, grinning things, teeth of sharks. Probably their clan symbol, though no one's confirmed it. Copper parts and broken crates litter the corners like someone started cleaning a decade ago and gave up halfway through. One of the rooms is wired for surveillance. Massage chairs bolted to the floor, pointed up at a ceiling full of silent monitors. They show static now, all of them, white noise pouring down. Fingers says with the right opticwear, you can plug into the feed, scan the whole building from one place. I wonder who watches, and what they're hoping to catch, if anything; it might just be a security feature, I suppose, something that gives them access to the happenings of the entire complex. Creepy, in a way.

The rest is for tech. Weapon racks. Prototype suits. Most of it's quiet now.

Then there's the chemical lab, shoved into the back corner, past two steel doors and a set of lockers. Fingers calls it 'Dance's spot'. Apparently he's the group's resident alchemist: modifies compounds, whips up formulas when needed. Supposedly brilliant. Nobody explains how someone like that ends up here, crouched in the shadows of a city built on rot. Maybe they don't need to.

At some point, I start thinking about the job tonight. The reason I'm here at all. I ask what we're doing, what the target is. I ask because I want to help, but also because I don't want to get anyone killed. I've got no illusions about being an asset. Not yet. Maybe never. But walking in blind gets people hurt. Or worse.

Fingers tells me to wait in the red room. She leaves, returns a few minutes later, a small chip in her palm. She hands it off and tells me to plug in. So I do, and the moment it clicks into my port, a file appears: video format. Stored internally, marked with a timestamp and nothing else. I open it. The video fills my vision. Drone footage. High-res. No sound. A black-and-orange tower rises in the centre of the frame, sharp lines, pulsing lights. A viaduct leads straight to it, suspended in the air, guarded on all sides by motion detectors and mounted cams. Neon billboards dance around it: ads for stimulants, augmentations, weapons, jobs. All of them loud, bright, and insincere.

Conveyor systems snake across the roofs, shifting materials from one end to the other in endless loops. Near the top of the tower, numbers glow through the smog: 07. White. Massive. It wants to be seen from orbit.

I don't know what I'm looking at. Fingers tells me.

It's a Techstrum facility: big player in AI, software, and cybersecurity. I recognise the name from a billboard downtown. This site's just one of many, but it holds sensitive material: proprietary code, research, the kind of data people kill for. That's according to Quillon Bennett, a fixer with ten years in the game. He deals in schematics, blueprints, raw tech, anything he can twist into black-market weaponry. Half the time, he sells it right back to the crews who stole it for him.

For this job, Bennett wants a data chip: confidential plans for Techstrum's next-gen tech. If he gets it early, he can build it first, maybe tweak the design, maybe sell a better version. Profit, plain and simple. Big profit.

I start to ask why Fingers would bring me along on something this heavy for my first time out. Turns out, she wouldn't. Not yet.

This isn't tonight's job. Might not be for a long time. This is the prize at the end. The payday. First, there are smaller gigs. Setup work. They need assets.

"Assets?" I ask.

Fingers catches my look—confused, maybe even a little stupid—and lets out a low chuckle. The kind you hear when you've missed something obvious.

Did I?

"You haven't been out of the game that long, have you?" she says, hunched a little. "Everything on you's an asset. Your guns. Your optics. Even those ridiculous clothes you thought were mission-ready."

"So, you mean cyberware?" I ask.

She was waiting for that. The smirk gives it away.

"Not just cyberware," she says. "That'll only get you so far. Good for a shootout, maybe a street job. But sooner or later, you're up against the real monsters: the corp soldiers, the ones built from the ground up with black-budget tech. Even the NACP can't touch what the government's hiding. Best asset's intel. Pure and simple. The more we know, the cleaner the job. And if getting that intel means scooping up netcrawlers, spoofers, whatever the hell else, then that's what we do."

I nod, though I'm not sure I get it. Sooner or later, cyberware's gotta outweigh intel… right?

The video cuts. The data chip ejects from my neural port. Fingers snatches it, drops it on a cluttered desk without a second thought. Either she's got backups, or that big blue head of hers already knows everything worth knowing.

She says tonight's job is simple. A test. "Your shooting's solid—hell, impressive. But I wanna see how you handle people. This isn't all guns-blazing. Barely is, most of the time. We're meeting a netrunner. He's got spoofers. You remember what I said about assets?"

"That the only true asset is intelligence?" I say, a little too dry.

She nods. "You catch on quick, don't you, Mono?"

That throws me. "Mono?"

She points at my arm. "One-armed killer."

"Maybe if I had one arm, but I still have both, so it doesn't really work. Wish I could just chop it off."

Her facial muscles sag into something like curiosity, and in an almost (but not quite) grandmotherly way, wrinkles crease at the sides of her eyes, bearing the weight of years she has yet to live. If I had to guess, she's somewhere between thirty and forty. Hard to tell. Anti-aging's a common thing now: booths on every block, ads screaming eternal youth. But I think she's older than she looks. Wiser. You'd have to be, running a crew this... well, this.

"Point is," Fingers says, "we're meeting one of the few private dealers with access to military-grade gear. Real stuff. Sometimes cheap, sometimes trade."

"So, you want me to help negotiate a price?" I say, fiddling with the sleeve covering my broken arm. I don't think I'm much for talking. The whole show I managed to pull off in the shooting range was a fluke, something even I didn't expect. There was no control. It was instinctual. Talking, negotiating.... That's different.

She shakes her head, hands in her pockets, leaning into the desk. The red fluorescent bulb overhead flickers, throwing shadows across her face. Hard to read her expression. "Since it's your first day, and I'm still warming up to you, you can tag along. Watch. See how we do things. You need to learn to handle deals on your own, because most times, you will be. We only show up for the big-ticket stuff. The rest? That's on you."

I exhale. That's a relief.

"But," she adds, "you're not some stray we're tossing into traffic. If things go sideways, you and that sister-assassin arm better draw blood. Doesn't happen often, but some sellers take the creds and bolt. Business, right?"

Violence isn't what I'm looking for. Not really. No one in their right mind is. Emphasis on right mind. Still... if last time wasn't just luck, I think I can handle it.

Later, Fingers runs me through a list of what I can and can't remember. Dr. Maelstrom didn't mention anything to her. Probably knew she'd have shut the door on me.

She even gets me a glass of water. Nice of her.

I tell her what I can, which isn't much. She asks what it was like—being dead. I say I don't know. One second I was alive. The next, gone. As far as I can tell, my life started there, in that circuitery. Everything before? Not a blur. A hole. Black, clean-cut. Something scooped it out and left only the edge.

My guess? Headshot. But if that were true, Maelstrom would've seen the damage, told me. Only wounds he found were in my lower gut.

Not knowing, really not knowing, sucks.

"I bet it does," she says, sipping from an oversized Chromanticore can. She flicks her jackknife open and shut, staring through me. Her boots are up on the coffee table—thick leather, waterproof, crusted in dried muck. Mud, grass, maybe worse. She rocks them side to side. The filth doesn't even flake. It's fossilised.

"Aside from all… this, what do you guys do to kill time?" I ask.

"Not much," Fingers says, pulling her boots off the table. She leans forward, sets the jackknife and energy drink down, then pulls out her phone and starts swiping. "Most of us have our own places in the city. This dump's just for meetings, prep work, or the occasional regroup. I'm the one who secures leads with fixers. Though I'm always open to what the crew has to say." She pauses, just for a breath, then keeps going. "Reason we're all here today? Well, two things. One, the job. You already know that. We were gonna go over the details. Then I got the call from Maelstrom, chewing me out, reminding me I owed him a favour." She flicks her eyes up at me. "So, I told the boys, and they couldn't wait to meet the new chromie. They've seen too many failures. You? You were a nice surprise."

"That makes sense," I say, taking a sip of water. "So it's really more of a team than a gang then?"

She exhales and gives a crooked smile. "What we do's illegal. By any standard, we're not good people. We kill when we have to. We steal. None of us really chose this life—it's just where we landed. Raze likes to think we're more than a gang. That there's something good in it. But truth is, we're criminals. That doesn't change."

I look guiltily at my glass of water and shuffle my feet. I can't imagine myself being involved in that line of work, but everyone has to survive. With forced gaiety, I say, "I'm sure you're not bad people. If there's anything I remember from my past, it's that this city is overcooked with inequality." It's not really something I remember, but in lieu of remaining silent, I find it's a nice topic to add.

She blows a laugh from her nose, then nods, eyes downcast. She grabs her energy drink, takes another swig, holds the liquid in her mouth, swirls it about, and swallows. She throws the can across the room. It lands gracefully in a lidless trashcan. She stands up, takes her jackknife, and offers me a hand with a slightly deprecatory smile. I take it and stand with her. "We should get movin', it's going on six o'clock." Then, as if suddenly remembering, she adds, "You have a phone? Should've asked this earlier but you really need a phone, and a new set of clothes. I can lend you some. It's no problem."

I was hoping she would offer something like that. Frankly, these clothes aren't my style anyway, less the possibility of every known disease in Neo Arcadia being prevalent in this lady's blood. I hope she'll offer a phone, too, but that seems unlikely as things stand. "No phone, but I can see about getting one."

"Should have robbed one off whoever you got those clothes from," she says, chuckling.

I look down at the blood, embarrassed. "There weren't any. I think they had everything embedded in their cyberware."

"Smart," she says, "until you click on a dodgy link and a virus wipes you out, 'less you can afford to get it removed, which I doubt they could if they had to scrounge pennies from corpses, as you say." She goes over to the desk on the far-right side of the room, gets down on one knee, and pulls out a small hard case. She pops it open, revealing plastic coverings encasing clothing sets. "Size are you?"

"Small, I think." I check the collar of the leather jacket to see if there are any dimensions on the tag. Negative. Whatever tag had been attached to the collar is now torn off, replaced by the stencil of a white wolf. Must be an affiliation symbol of some sort. Might keep an eye out for it in future, because something tells me I'll be seeing that shorter man who took off again, although probably not for another long while yet.

Fingers tosses me the plastic package. I look inside and see it's a sleek black jacket with puffy, shiny sleeves made of a high-gloss synthetic material. The buttons glow softly with a yellow hue. I like it. Looks snug. Then she tosses me a second package: a pair of crimson jeans, textured with a spiderweb fibre. Then, after a moment, she tosses another, and inside of it is a simple white T-shirt.

"You'll have to keep the shoes," she says, "but you can dump the rest in the trash chute outside, just as you leave the building."

"Where do I change?"

Fingers shuts the hard case and slides it under the desk again. She cocks an eyebrow at me, as if I'm an unexpected visitor. "Something wrong with here?"

I'm not sure what to say. I'm not entirely comfortable getting naked in front of someone I just met. Maybe I'm overthinking. Maybe that's the least of my worries. "It's not that. I just thought you wouldn't want me to—"

"You really think I've never seen a woman naked before? Get dressed." There's that breathy laugh through the nose again, only this time it's more amused. I'm sure she's seen plenty of naked bodies in her time.

A couple minutes later, I'm out of the scavenger's get-up and into the jacket, shirt, and jeans. They're a little tighter than I thought they would be, but for now they'll do. I grab the bloody clothes off the floor, taking my time to collect them with my single arm, and when I stand upright again, Fingers is waiting in front of me with a dark-blue, oval-shaped bottle in hand. She's pointing it straight at me and after a moment it shoots, blasting me with water.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I ask her what it is, and she tells me it's an ocean perfume, to make people think of the Atlantic, but when I tell her I had lost my sense of smell it seems to lose its appeal. Despite that, she explains it's not for me, but for the private seller. Statistically, there's more haggle-room if you have a nice scent to you—so she says. She's actually surprised that I don't smell too terrible for someone that's supposedly been in a dumpster for all those years, as am I. It makes me think: Have I really been down there that long?

We head through the foyer, catch the elevator up to the ground floor, and head for the exit. The body of the sick man is no longer lying by the washing machine, but his vomit is all along the side; it's an awful orange colour. Must have undercooked his spaghetti. I make vague reference to this as I dump my clothes into that trash chute near the front, and she tells me he's just one of the drug addicts from the second floor. Sometimes he wanders the complex. Sometimes he gets into fights. At one point, a group of tenants kicked his ass out the door and dumped him in the alleyway dumpster. She only discovered what had happened the next morning when, while taking out the trash, she was startled to hear the garbage ask her for a smoke.

The story makes me laugh. What can I say? Stuff like that hits me right in the funny bone. Hard to feel bad for him, of course. You make your bed, you lie in it, after all. That simple.

I just hope the bed I'm about to make for myself will be rather comfortable.

The night is chilly and starless. I shiver a little as I follow Fingers around the building to the parking lot, where the vehicle waits in desolate silence. It's a Fragment Roamer: a large, grey jeep with a wheel punched to the rear, over twenty years old but kept in immaculate condition, with more than enough wax and polish to please the eye. There's still water left over from the early evening rain; the droplets shimmer with the pink-blue iridescence of the city lights.

I make my way around to the passenger side, but Fingers stops me.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" she says, waving a questioning hand.

"This is your ride, right?" I point, thinking I've made a fool of myself.

"It is," she says, "but I'm not driving. You are." She opens the driver's-side door. "C'mon. Inside, now. It's auto, so don't worry that aimless little arm about shifting, know?"

"I don't understand," I say.

She pulls something small out from her front pocket. A key. "This"—she tosses it straight into my hand—"goes on the centre console. You don't even have to put it in the ignition. She'll start right up as soon as you're in the driver seat."

I stare. She can't honestly expect me to drive with one hand. Never mind that; I'm not even sure I remember how to drive. "You're sure about this?"

She walks around to me, opens the passenger-side door, and sits in. "Hurry up." She shuts the door. The rain's starting to drizzle down now. I get a move on and make my way around to the driver's side. Once inside and I feel the seat warm up, I immediately get that familiar sensation again, as if I've been behind the wheel far too many times to count. I don't even have to adjust the seat or mirrors because as soon as I press the "start" button the AI embedded in the vehicle's software automatically finds the most comfortable seating for my frame. The mirrors change to accommodate this.

Fingers plugs her neural wire into the navigation port on the centre console and half a minute later a destination shows up on screen, along with directions. It's an alleyway outside a nightclub called Catalyst. Thirty minutes from here. Fair distance.

"I'll be your driving examiner today, Ms. Monorail Moester. Let's see how much of your past life you really remember, ay?" Fingers speaks in a squeaky, nagging voice.

Let's see how much I remember indeed.

I put the jeep into drive and let my foot up off the brake. Off I go, steadily out of the parking lot, avoiding the other cars with ease.

I remember this.

Once I leave the parking lot and join the busy traffic on the main street, I'm flooded with flashing lights: signals, halogen billboards, holograms, kiosks.

I remember this, too.

Pedestrians hop out onto the street, between the cars in the queue—men in kits ranging from fur hats to long coats to neon-coloured kuttes with punkish boots, women with tightly cut hair and form-fitting girl's-night-out dresses—not a care in the world. It's all so restless for a night drive, but Fingers tells me there hasn't been a single quiet moment in Neo Arcadia for fifteen years, not since Techstrum took over.

Everyone's on the road, and the people on the streets.... Well, they never sleep. No need to. Too much work to be done.

I remember that, too.

It's all a little overwhelming but I can handle it without too much of a problem. I actually find it a little exciting that I'm able to hold my own. Fingers, on the other hand, doesn't seem all that impressed, which is likely because driving isn't as difficult as, say, aiming well, having your wits about you, teamwork, all that jazz. Those are the areas I need to impress her in, and I've already achieved one. That stands for me, at least.

Although the navigation system details a thirty-minute journey from the Old Mill, it takes forty-five, fifty with the traffic. And with my slow, one-handed driving. Eventually, among the blazing storefront lights, traffic signals, and flashing road-mark holograms, I see a long line barriered by velvet stanchions, leading up to a wide steel door guarded by a freakishly muscled bouncer. A sign, crisp and sharp and dazzling, reads, in graffitied characters, CATALYST.

Fingers directs me to the parking lot around the corner. I turn in, finding it to be much quieter. Most of the parking bays are full but thankfully there are a couple spaces down the path, next to some amber-blinking bollards. I pull in smoothly, then shift the jeep into park before switching the ignition off with a push of the start/stop button.

Fingers is grinning broadly. She opens the door, letting the rain pass in, then steps out, shutting it behind her. I soon follow, nearly forgetting to grab the key on the way out. I lock the doors, but the jeep doesn't beep as I had expected it to; instead, the sidemirrors fold inwards, like the ears of a dog who realises through its limited understanding of human emotion that it shouldn't have defecated over the kitchen floor. I stuff the key in my front jean pocket, making sure to zip it tight, just in case it manages to slip, approaching Fingers. She still has that broad smile on her face. She pulls out a mobile phone, swipes through a list of contacts, and starts texting.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you, kid?" she says, not taking her eyes off the screen.

I shrug, stuffing my hand in my pocket. It's getting real cold out. "They supposed to meet us here?"

"Who's they?"

"This person, this seller."

She puts the phone back in her pocket and stares at me dumbly. "In this rain? No, it's around the corner." She points over my shoulder, and when I turn, I expect to see an alley veering off to the side, next to the nightclub, similar to Dr. Maelstrom's medical unit, but I'm surprised, not scared, to see a large shadow of man standing over me. It's Raze—I can make out that resting bitchface even through his upturned hood. He has another cigar in his mouth. He's hunched so the rain doesn't quench it.

"Boo," he says, his voice deep and imposing.

I back away, wondering how he'd managed to creep up on me without making a single sound. Someone that big and heavy, with the sort of boots that make resounding thumps, would surely be hard to miss.

Fingers' grin finally cracks open into wheezy laughter. She's been holding it all along. "Like a tiger, isn't he?"

I nod. "Yeah. I mean, I wasn't expecting that."

"She's shittin' herself, Fingers." Raze chuffs out smoke and stubs the tip on his jacket before flicking it on the ground. He tries to blow the smoke into my face, but a breeze passes it off. "We haven't even started, girly."

For the first time I realise he has a slightly foreign undertone to his speech, possibly Mexican. The way he pronounces his 'e's' as 'eh's' makes me think so, and the way he rolls his tongue at the end of his sentences sometimes. It's odd.

Another voice comes from behind him. It's Cormac, calling with an overly loud "Hello!", and Vander, who comes strapped with a small fanny pack.

So he's that sort of guy.

His lips are done up with robin's-egg-blue lipstick, and he's dressed smart casual, save for the raincoat. His slacks won't hold up, not in this weather. "Wasn't expectin' you to actually er go through with bringin' der new chromie." His voice is side-cheeked, coming from one side of his mouth only.

"I wasn't either," says Fingers.

"Suppose she's shern herself then?"

"She's shown nothing yet," says Raze, in an even lower tone.

"Right," says Vander.

Cormac steeples his lengthy steel fingers and makes subtle tapping sounds with the tips. He turns towards me, and with a butleresque salaam, offers me a handshake. His fingers splay out like the legs of a spider. "I'm glad to have you on board," he says politely, and with a most genuine smile.

I accept the handshake, feeling his icy grip. Part of me thinks he's playing a joke, and in a moment I'll feel a bolt of electricity shoot through my body, but to my relief he lets go and stands up straight again.

There's an uneasiness about his presence that I can't quite explain. I'm sure it's my brain playing tricks on me. It had been in hibernation for the last forty-odd years, after all. I have some adjusting to do.

"Where's this prick want to meet anyway?" asks Raze, focusing his attention on Fingers.

"According to his texts, right around the corner," she says, "back the way you came. Just up there. See it?" She's pointing again, in the same direction as before. This time when I look back, I see, beyond the flashing bollards, sure enough, an alleyway to the side of the nightclub. The wall on the other side looks to be a series of side-shops, kiosks, and milk-market joints. There are quite a few people heading in and out, some drunk and others gushing with sweeping heaps of moronic laughter. Just a typical night out, nothing more, nothing less.

Fingers leads us towards the alleyway; it's protected by a long tarpaulin stretching the whole way down to the other end, and some way off to the side, where I imagine the series continues. The kiosks offer food, clothing, drinks, freshly cut meat, the likes of which hang from rusty hooks, skinned to fleshy white. A busker plays gentle guitar music a little farther down, and passersby toss coins into his case. As we pass, I see it's fairly sparce. It's not hard to understand why. He can't sing—he sounds like a dying horse, to be perfectly honest—but his mechanical fingers do the guitar justice, possibly a musical augment he installed manually, possibly developed skill. Maybe both.

Surprisingly, Raze tosses him a coin, but adds: "Install a better voice box next time."

The busker ignores him and continues singing in his dying-horse falsetto.

We turn left at the side alleyway, and it leads to a quieter area which splits off into two directions. Fingers leads us to the right, where the tarpaulin cuts off, and the alleyway spaces out into a secluded area full of chairs, parasols, and cityfolk drinking lager. I can tell by the foam-crested tops of each of their pint glasses. It's a restaurant, because farther ahead is a sign which reads 'Quick Bites'. The neon sign flickers intermittently, casting an eerie, pinkish glow over the courtyard. The thrum of its electrical circuits mingles with the voices of the patrons, which are gravelly and joyful. The walls surrounding this open-air nook are plastered with layers of old posters, their edges curling and colours faded. Pictures advertising concerts from five years ago; staff mustn't have been bothered taking them down.

We follow Fingers into the front entrance of the interior, hands stuffed in our pockets like teenage hoodlums, catching glances from everyone, glances of suspicion and curiosity.

It's a busy spot. Looks like something you might see from early eighties 20th century. Chequered floors, mahogany walls, a long marble counter with round red stools. Sure makes you feel like you're back in time, save for the flashy cyberware scattered across the patrons' bodies. That and the fact that things are far more colourful than they once were.

The sallow lady behind the counter, whose hair is shaved all the way to the scalp, sees us coming and lifts the swing gate, beckoning us through. A patron laughs at this, saying we look nothing like cooks.

Nothing like crooks either.

The sallow bald lady leads us through the back, past the kitchen and stock room, and along a corridor that leads to a door with a pass code dial to the side. It's already open, light creeps from underneath, and voices come from inside. She tips it open, causing the hinges to squeak. We all follow.

"Sir," says the lady.

"Send them in," a male voice says.

She walks away, hurries actually, low-heel dress shoes tapping and clocking back to the front of house.

We follow Fingers inside and Raze shuts the door. It's a relatively small room, with bookshelves to the side and a row of lightstrips coasting across the ceiling, with that popular rainbow-colour changing effect. At the centre end, a man with wrinkly skin and grey hair sits on a desk, legs sprawled. His tight-lidded eyes give me the impression that he's of Japanese descent, although it's quite possible his roots could stem from anywhere in the Asian region. He wears a white button-up shirt, slacks, and suspenders, though he's got the sort of skinny-fat where only a belt would suffice.

Around him are four bodyguards who all look identical. They're wearing black suits with red shirts, hands entirely cybernetic, eyes and mouths hidden by three-piece visors that start from their chins. They're sort of like masks, with the bottom part securing the chin to the ears while the eye-cover bulges out across their skulls in elongated rectangles. No guns, no blades. Just their presence alone tells me they're not to be messed with.

"Well," the old man says curtly, "what have you for me? You no do any chaffering here. Listed price only. Four and a half thousand." His accent shoots closer to China than anywhere else. Then, as if suddenly realising, he adds, "You bring whole gang? Why?"

"Same reason you have four punks who look like they just came out of a failed audition for the Men in Black remake," says Raze coldly.

I thought the man would scowl at this, but he doesn't. A smile creeps at the corner of his lips. "You funny man," he says, pointing. "I like you. But we are here for serious discussion. You have credits for these items or are you wasting time?"

Fingers looks at him blankly, then as if there's a bad taste in her mouth. "Have the creds," she says, pulling out a chip from the side of her neural port. "Can I see it first?"

The man hums for a moment, then taps the table twice. One of the bodyguards heads over to the rightmost bookshelf and pulls a book back. It locks in place, but the bottom of the shelf slides out. A hidden drawer. Inside of it is a thick metal hard case with leather handles. He hoists it up easily, though I can tell by the way he sways his arm that it's got some weight to it. He sets it on the desk as the old man moves out of the way. The old man places his palm on a hand-recognition scanner at the centre of the case and watches as two buckles pop up. Quickly, he stands to the side so that we can all see and pulls the case open.

Inside the case, sandwiched in foam cutouts, are sleek, handheld devices that look like a cross between a high-end smartphone and a piece of advanced military tech. The screens glow faintly, cycling through lines of code and encryption patterns. Each is equipped with a compact antenna, reminiscent of an old-school radio. The metal casings are matte black, adorned with small, precise engravings—serial numbers or perhaps calibration marks. Alongside them, there are tiny, flexible circuits and microchips.

The man rubs at his right cheek, as if testing for beard-stubble. The white of his left eye suddenly turns black while the iris turns red. He must be scanning us, checking our identities.

"Looks about right," says Fingers. She cocks an eyebrow at him. "How do we know they work?"

The man chuckles, then picks up one of the devices, holding it like a phone. He pulls the neural wire out of his neck and plugs it into the side of the device. Now his irises turn blue.

Seconds later, my neural display begins acting up, shaking and darting across my vision. My vitals vibrate into a digital blur and my ability to coast through my storage is gone.

"Hits you right in the eyes," says Vander. "Dare a good distance on it?"

He unplugs his wire from the device and places it back in the case. "It take out whole building. Five hundred metres. No problem. Signal can punch through most materials: concrete, steel, carbon padding. Disruption field scrambles any RFID chip, block signals and overwrites, takes out bad data." He utters something in Mandarin, perhaps to himself. "Best for high-security infiltration. You want in? You take these. Military-grade scramblers imported and crafted by the best hands in China."

So, it's a spoofing device of some sort, if I'm understanding that clipped accent correctly. Sounds interesting, although I'm not entirely sure I understand the function behind it or how it applies to Fingers' goal of snatching data from Techstrum.

"I take it you're Chinese yourself?" says Cormac, smiling.

The man draws back, shuts the case, startled. "My name's Li Wei. What you think? You trying to be funny? You're not so funny. Now you pay or get out."

"How much you askin' again?" asks Raze, pointing at the case.

"Four and half thousand," says Li Wei.

There's no question about it. This man doesn't seem willing to negotiate in the slightest.

Raze chuckles. "No leeway, Li Wei?" Again, there's that cold voice, but I suspect the older gentleman isn't fazed. He probably deals with people like us all the time.

His face flushes brightly—the colour goes all the way down to his bullish neck. He isn't nervous. I know that much. "Hand me the credits or get out," he says, louder than before. "No credits, no business."

Fingers steps forward. "Now listen," she starts, "I'm—we are—very interested in purchasing your product, Mr. Wei. And we understand you're a very busy busy man, so I want to make this quick. So." She whips the cred chip out like a magician's hidden ace. I nearly expect her to ask him if it's his card. "Four and a half thousand, just as agreed, all in this chip."

Li Wei's iris turns red again, scanning the chip. He doesn't reach for it yet. After a moment, he says, "Very good." He turns to grab the case, then hands it over to her. Fingers slides him the chip, locking the transaction with a firm handshake. "Thank you for business. The code to the door is 0-9-0-9. Goodbye."

Raze reaches for the dial pad and starts inputting the code.

After three dings, Li Wei raises his arm and shouts, "You stop!"

I look back, confused.

"You try to cheat me?" His red eyes segue into that same shade of blue from earlier.

"What is it?" I say, realising this isn't really my place to speak. My heart pounds with adrenaline. I get the feeling things aren't going to go so smoothly.

"This is two thousand." Li Wei tosses the credit chip and snatches a pistol from his desk.

As if connected in an air-bound hivemind, each of the bodyguards raise their pistols, too, and so do Raze, Vander, and Fingers. I'm the only one standing out in the draw; I didn't expect any of this.

"You try to scam me? You fuckers. You make big mistake!" He's screaming now.

Fingers scoffs. "What are you talking about? You saw the chip. It's good."

"I re-scanned it, you bastard," Li Wei says, pointing the gun at her now. "You swapped chips when I wasn't looking. You fast, I give you that, but you fucked with the wrong merchant."

Suddenly another voice joins the scene; it's the distant call of the lady from behind the counter. I can hear those heels clocking and thumping down the hallway again.

"Sir, sir!" she calls.

Li Wei glances over my shoulder upon her approach. When she comes through the door, she says, in a panic, "Company out front. They're looking for the green-haired girl."

Li Wei shoots her a perplexed glare.

"What?" both he and I say at the same time.

The sallow lady points at me. "You," she says coldly. "They're looking for you. And they don't sound too happy."