Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

Before he could do anything more than send a quick message to Monroe, a jammer had been placed in his NetConnect. With that taken care of, he was securely bound, his guns were taken from him, and then tossed in the back of a vehicle. They hadn't bothered to search him, so he still had his knife, not that it did him much good under the circumstances.

He cursed himself for forgetting to wear his mask earlier that morning. It hadn't even occurred to him that he had forgotten it at any point in time, and now he was paying for the slip-up. At least he could take solace in the fact that Ko and the others were safe. Unlike what had occurred to Hannah, menders, and other healers were almost never touched.

Everyone needed healing or some form of work done at some point, so it was verboten to hurt them. Otherwise, you might just find that you were unable to get the help you needed at the worst possible time.

All that meant was that he needed to depend on himself to get out of this situation. Monroe might come through; however, it would take some time for him to track Trace down and even more to put a plan together in order to rescue him. That was even assuming that the man had gotten his message right then. He could have been sleeping, or out on a mission outside the city. There were plenty of variables that he couldn't even begin to account for.

Muffled voices could be heard through the cushions of the backseat. From his place in the trunk, they were too dim to make out clearly outside of a few words here and there.

The gangsters who had captured him were arguing. It sounded as though one of them wanted to pressure the corpo for more credits. They had left his warehouse so fast that they hadn't even bothered to try searching it.

The doors to the warehouse had locked behind him once the jammer had been stuck in his neck. Once that had happened, they had lost the opportunity.

Straining his ears, he tried to make out every muffled word in the conversation.

From what he could gather, they were going to attempt to collect on that bounty that G1gl3Myte had placed on him. Something that he had already figured out from what they had said when he was first captured. The news that they were going to try for more credits was interesting, and incredibly stupid, in his opinion.

Even without knowing how dangerous G1gl3Myte was, he still would have thought it was a stupid idea. You didn't mess around with corpo's, not the kind that had the sort of credits listed on his bounty anyway. Those were the sort of corpo's that either walked around with full security teams or had somehow managed to get so fully auged-out that they were a security team unto themselves.

No matter which of these options it was, attempting to blackmail a corpo executive was a fast track to a painful death. These gonks may have been smart enough to follow him back to the warehouse and wait for an opportunity, but that was as far as their brains went. As far as he could tell, they hadn't even alerted the rest of their gang that they had found him. They were attempting to keep the massive bounty all to themselves and still had the balls to ask for more.

He wondered which mender had done that particular replacement surgery. Somehow, he couldn't quite see Sevorah replacing someone's berry sack with a steel equivalent.

Shaking off the random thoughts, he flexed his arm against the cable, only to wince in pain as it bit into his other arm and chest. He might be able to snap it, eventually. In the meantime, he would lose his still natural arm and part of his chest. It was the same for trying to loosen it. Yes, it was possible, but it was a matter of how much he felt like bleeding and possibly losing in the process.

Not exactly worth it when he would still be trapped in the trunk of the car.

All he could do was be ready to act when an opening presented itself, and hope that one actually did present itself before he died.

They had been on the highway for nearly forty minutes when he felt the car begin to slow as it took an off-ramp. A few minutes of annoying stop-and-go traffic later, he felt the telltale sign of them entering an underground parking garage as they turned sharply while going down.

After what must have been several levels, the car parked and the front doors slammed. The trunk lid above him popped open and Trace was pulled roughly from inside and thrown onto the ground. The side of his face hit the rough concrete and gouged out a portion of his cheek.

"What the shizz was that for you skazzy shazbot?" He spat out angrily, blood leaking from the side of his face.

The one who had tossed him whipped out Trace's CD-10 pistol and pointed it at his head. "Give me a reason to pull the trigger, you mouthy piece of drek!"

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Trace reeled back at the pure hate in the man's voice. "You won't get paid if I'm dead. Besides, what did I ever do to you? This bounty is between me and someone else. It has nothing to do with you."

"I would like to know that as well." A shadowy form stepped out from beneath the darkness of a nearby pillar, startling them all.

The idiot with Trace's gun reacted poorly and swung his arm around rapidly while squeezing off a few rounds into the ceiling. The man was entirely too jumpy for his own good.

With a sigh of annoyance, the shadowy figure threw a knife through the air, embedding it in the man's throat before he could finish bringing his arm all the way around. The entire process took less than two seconds from beginning to end, and then it was finished.

"I don't suppose you know why he was being particularly aggressive do you?" The figure asked, twirling another blade between his fingers as he stepped into the light. A hood kept his face in shadow. Small sparks could be seen occasionally as the steel blade hit particularly aggressively of his metal fingers. There was no synth skin on either of his arms, leaving the cold metal bared to the elements and to view. An uncommon choice to be sure, though some did like the look.

"No- no, he didn't say. I didn't even know he had anything against the guy until just now." The other gangster said hurriedly, stumbling over his words initially. "He was mad, sure, but I thought that was just because I'd been arguing with him. He wanted to try getting more credits than the bounty promised from you or your boss." The man shook his head fearfully. "I told him that was stupid. You don't mess with corpo's-" He swallowed the rest of what he was going to say and simply stopped talking.

"Yes, you don't mess with us." The knife flicked into the air, creating a lazy arc until it landed in his other, waiting hand. "Remember that and never forget it. Also, never forget that we pay our dues. You came through, so we'll pay the posted bounty, just as requested. You should receive a message with a deposit confirmation in just a second. Please confirm, and then you may leave."

"I-" There was a loud swallow. "I have it."

"Good, then get out of here."

The gangster hopped into his car and sped away without a second to lose.

The man knelt in front of Trace; his knife having vanished at some point. "Remember, boy, we always pay for the services we receive. However, depending on the individual, we might not let them keep the payment. If he is smart, he has already sent those credits to another account, because in a few minutes, a team will be retrieving whatever is left from his crypto-vault."

"What is this all about?" Trace asked the man, finally finding his voice. He wanted to clean away the debris from his cheek, but his arms were still pressed tightly to his side by the cables.

"Do you really not know?"

He shot the man a disbelieving look. "Of course, I know it's about the bounty. The two who grabbed me mentioned it. I meant beyond that. Why does your boss want me? What did I do to them?" At this point, he had decided that it was best to act as oblivious to everything as possible. He wasn't going to make any of this easy on them, if that even mattered. They might have decided that he matched the description closely enough and that there was no point in digging any further.

Sometimes any scapegoat was better than none at all. It didn't matter if you had the correct one in those circumstances.

Trace tried to move back as the man swung his knife, the vibro-blade cutting through cables holding his arms in place. He grabbed his right arm and looked closely at the matte black cyberware.

"How long have you had this?"

"A while. Why?"

"Prove it."

"Uh, how?"

"Show me how well you can use it."

Suddenly, he understood what the man was thinking. As he had experienced when he first got the arm. It took time to adjust to new cyberware. If he was able to use it with even a modicum of proficiency, then that would prove it wasn't new.

With a wince, he pressed his hand against his ravaged cheek and gently brushed away the debris from the raw skin it had gotten embedded in. Using his fingertips and fingernails, he was able to pry out the smaller pieces, though it was most definitely an uncomfortable experience.

The man pulled back and slowly nodded. "Alright, that is rather impressive. Not many people have that sort of fine control. The information we have on the edger we are looking for does not include a cyberware arm. Admittedly, the information is very incomplete. Regardless, I'll be bringing you to meet the boss. He can decide if you're the one he's looking for."

He had succeeded in introducing some doubt; however, it didn't actually seem to matter all that much. Trace was still captured, and he was still being taken to meet G1gl3Myte. The man had never seen him, but something told him that was not going to matter all that much.

"Do you mind gathering up my weapons, just in case?" Trace asked the man. He had little hope of making it out of this situation alive. If there was any chance of that happening though, having his weapons close by would help.

The man plucked his bloody knife from the dead gangster's throat. "And which would those be?"

"The CD-10 he was firing, and the large revolver he has shoved in his pocket."

A whistle of appreciation came from his lips as he pulled out the revolver. "This thing is a beauty. I almost hope you die now."

"Gee, thanks," Trace muttered as he got to his feet, ensuring he made no quick moves. He was under no illusions that he could handle this man, not without some serious distance and a gun. He had continued his knife courses at night, but he still didn't want to depend on those skills against someone who clearly specialized in the weapon.

"Follow me," The shadowy fellow demanded, with a wave of Trace's revolver.

In the center of the floor was the brightly lit elevator, allowing him to finally see the man in his entirety. Up to that point, he had been able to see his arms and general shape, but not his face. Now he could finally see that as well when he pulled his hood back, revealing an utterly plain and forgettable face. There was nothing special about it, even his eyes were a normal brown color. It was almost more memorable because of how normal it was. Except some part of the human mind still remembered how normal those were and automatically forgot them.