《Upgrade》 1.1 The Easy Part The Easy Part ¡°Bullying bastards and beating on beats, sounds like a day at the beach. PREACH.¡± -"Legend Has It" by Run the Jewelz. ¡°Good Mornings are overrated, skip the greetings,¡± a voice far too curated in it¡¯s tone to be natural snapped at an otherwise empty room. Standing atop a pillar whose stairs rose a few stories up in the air, the man stood in near cave darkness, the sort of dark where you¡¯d wave your hands in your own face and see nothing. If he weren¡¯t the type of person who spent a significant chunk of his time in this type of dark already, it would be suffocating. Ever present no matter where you look. With a snap of his fingers, several monitors floating about the cavernous room all activated at once. On each screen a different person, some silhouetted, some almost inhuman in how much of their bodies had been changed from human to something else, came into view. Unnatural eye colors, metal teeth, chrome where skin should be¡­ some were just for aesthetics, some medical, and some because why not? Any reason to transcend their humanity was enough. ¡°I¡¯ll start,¡± one of the men, his eyes compounded like an mantis, boomed in an unnatural voice. ¡°The Wastes remain a hotbed of activity as usual, between the Scrap Pack, the US government, and our competitors. I¡¯ve sunk another small nation¡¯s worth in money into shoring up our testing sites and the compounds housing the less stable experiments.¡± Overlaying the black space on the wall behind his monitor, a map of the south and southwest of the United States flickered into view with several red dots representing various threats scattered amidst large swaths of color denoting the different spheres of influence that belong to the bigger players in the least stable stretch of the United States. ¡°So business as usual,¡± the man in the center of it all confirmed boredly. ¡°Biz is good,¡± compound eyes grinned with enough devious glee to scare away a grizzly bear. ¡°As for the west coast, things are quiet but thanks to Halogen, the White Spiders have been smuggling people and weapons into the country,¡± one of the dark silhouettes said all the more meek for the normal voice he spoke with. ¡°Not to worry, senator,¡± a woman responded. ¡°I¡¯ve got it in hand.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± the man in the middle spoke into the dark, waving a hand, which made the various displays shrink so Halogen could take center stage. The mocha skinned, curly haired woman smiled, a flash of yellow through her otherwise human eyes betraying that she was anything but normal. ¡°How fares the defense of Kento?¡± ¡°Safe and sound in a compound in the heart of New Detroit,¡± she spoke and the computer changed the map on display behind the floating display to show Detroit. A red dot in the center of downtown marked the location in question. ¡°This is a building that used to be called One Campus Martius before the FORGE acquired it to turn into a tech firm specializing in biomedical and biomechanical research. I saw to it, personally, that the building would be safe enough to house it.¡± The man in the middle eyed her, ever wary of the loose cannon he himself had loaded, oiled and pointed at the world nearly 3 decades prior. She hadn¡¯t aged much past the second one. ¡°Is that so?¡± yet another voice answered. This one, a blonde woman with red lipstick painting far too perfectly curved lips offered. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine it¡¯s any safer than, say, the bottom of the Atlantic, but it¡¯ll do.¡± ¡°We need Kento,¡± the man in the middle cut in as Halogen¡¯s gaze shifted to where the woman¡¯s display would be in relation to her own face and he saw the tell that, behind the calm facade, a hurricane was fixing to unleash itself. ¡°Just until we find a way to extract the data,¡± compound eyes almost hungrily boomed. ¡°Are you sure we can¡¯t house it in one of the safehouses in The Wastes? Hell, even a tower high up in New York has to be better than New Detroit. It¡¯s still in developmental hell, and we don¡¯t have anywhere near as much-¡± ¡°Control?¡± Halogen spoke. ¡°Like you control the Wastes? Ha, the Scrappers would hear word of us putting something in, and there¡¯s no way someone wouldn¡¯t see or hear something no matter how we do it, and then the heat would turn up on everything down there. New York might as well already be a beacon for a hundred mercenaries to take up residence. Stop second guessin¡¯ me, lil nigga, before I start taking offense. Don¡¯t forget what happened last time one of you thought yourselves my better.¡± And there went the room. ¡°Keep your thug on a leash, Amnesia,¡± the Blonde woman cut in addressing the middle-man by name, who didn¡¯t even flinch. ¡°One of you is going to be dead by the end of the week if this doesn¡¯t stop,¡± a different silhouette chimed in. ¡°Let¡¯s cut back before someone says something they don¡¯t think they can let slide.¡± ¡°Agreed, I apologize if offense was given, Halogen. All for the better future,¡± compound eyes spoke, though he didn¡¯t sound the least bit contrite. ¡°Accepted, and I apologize for my aggression,¡± she replied, and the lie never quite reached her expression. The blonde woman accepted a chalice with red liquid inside too thick to be wine and took a sip before handing it off and replying. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have spoken to you in such a manner. I¡¯ll endeavor to do better.¡± Amnesia, waving his hands to reduce Halogen¡¯s screen, noted that one, two or perhaps even three spots on the Board of Directors in the FORGE was about to be open in the coming months now that the gauntlet had been so obviously thrown on the ground. He sighed, nigh inaudible, and addressed the room. Time to pick it back up and refocus. ¡°With Kento dead, we are halting a few areas of research and development, but the rest will be business as usual. Halogen, see to it that he remains safe while we work out either a suitable storage unit or means of extraction.¡± She offered only a nod, and a quirk of the lips that lasted only a split second told him more than a million words. He addressed the dozen or so others, most whom wouldn¡¯t need to speak. ¡°We will be moving forward with Operation Umbra in the next 2 years. Prepare your assets, batten down the hatches, or whatever else it is you need to have handled in the coming months. Halogen¡¯s eyes narrowed, and the Blonde woman wore a look of shock. Immediately, only after he¡¯d had a few seconds for Amnesia to nod, compound eyes disconnected as was expected with such a bomb dropped on him. ¡°Karlton, status of our European assets?¡± The man, shrouded like so many others, gave his report. ¡°Camelot is go, at your command.¡± ¡°Remain on standby.¡± ¡°Aye, sir.¡± ¡°Emilio, the Americas?¡± ¡°Rebellions are sparking up again across the whole of Latin and South America. I¡¯m not sure what¡¯s galvanizing them, but I can handle it.¡± ¡°Be swift and brutal. We can hardly afford distractions at this juncture. I don¡¯t want further unrest. Throw concern of optics to the wind. Tighten up on them.¡± ¡°Thought you¡¯d never ask, mijo¡­¡± the older man trailed off, and then his screen went dark. ¡°As for the rest of you, as I said. Start tying off loose ends. The hour of reckoning is upon us.¡± He closed the call, darkening the room a bit, and allowed his eyes to focus on the full map of the US. Many things were in motion that would end up needing attending to, but with Halogen cranking up her antics, and more importantly him not knowing exactly why she was doing it now¡­ he was reminded of a day nigh on 5 years ago when he made a risky call that cost him nothing, but irrevocably changed the course of the lives of five others. He wondered, to himself, if it had, perhaps, been a mistake to entrust Halogen with Kento, but it occurred to him that, just maybe, this would end up turning itself into an advantage. In chaos, there is always calculation, after all, and if the particularly nasty error he¡¯d once made was going to come back, then perhaps he should let it handle his problems for him. To that end, he focused the map with a wave of his hands. Detroit. In bright red, an overlay appeared, giving him more information to work with in the darkness of the room where he stood, alone atop his pillar. KNOWN ELEMENTS: DAYWALKERS HALOGEN ASSASSIN 67, ESCAPED EXPERIMENT 42, ¡°MARAUDER,¡± AND ¡°UPGRADE¡± He ¡°touched '''' Upgrade''s name in his minds eye, and a blurry image, older than the technology used to display it, was the only visual aid he had of what the boy looked like. Unknown age, unknown base of operations, and only one motivation marked: anti-FORGE interests. Amnesia knew his real name was Kendrick Carter, that he was something of a mechanical and computer engineering savant and that he was the ward of an unfortunate traitor-turned-casualty. He also, at one time, had needed that particular child for an experiment due to his potent psionic ability¡­ but he was in the wind now, and an antagonist of his designs. Importantly, he was exactly the kind of element that Halogen was apt to underestimate, and that meant that things were about to blow, whether he wanted them to or not. He could intervene, but he wouldn¡¯t. He could straight up stop Halogen from pulling at whatever strings she was tying into her webs and schemes, but he wouldn¡¯t. He could, if it came down to it, make this entire mess disappear. But he wouldn¡¯t. There was no point. One way or another, after all, the House always wins.
¡°How long?¡± an impatient woman¡¯s voice buzzes in my ear through a communicator so small it¡¯s a wonder it doesn¡¯t get lost in my ear canal. Simultaneously, I hear her right next to me too, and then I look at my watch, and tap my foot unconsciously. The question isn¡¯t directed at me, but nonetheless it¡¯s important for this whole thing to work that I know the answer too. Beside me, the woman, Hyobin ¡°Prodigy¡± Park, maintains a staunch poker face, steely eyes on target but the rest of her body language relaxed. We were, functionally, on opposite sides of that spectrum. ¡°Give me two minutes and I¡¯ll be set up and ready,¡± comes the response, this time a man¡¯s voice. I took my cue from that, flickering my eyes up to the streetlight holding me up from crossing the street. Busy-ass Woodward avenue stops for no man or heist, not even in New Detroit. Well, maybe for one. A minor task, accessing the city''s traffic mainframe. ¡°Impenetrable¡± was how it had been advertised when the idea to bring every single streetlight, crossing signal and traffic cam in the city onto a single, ¡°secure¡± network was pitched. For me it was childsplay to pierce the various firewalls. Invading something this redundant and simple, even operating across an entire city, doesn¡¯t take me more than a few seconds. This system wasn¡¯t designed with technopathy as a factor, though, so I¡¯ll give them a bit of a pass. The smallest bit of prodding from my mental command, and a green light flickers to yellow, then red. Prodigy walks forward a step ahead of me, eager to get going as always, but it¡¯s clear in how she steps that the oversized outfit isn¡¯t the most comfortable thing. 1:59 before Marauder was ready. I had precious little time to get in position, and the walk from the opposite side of the street into one of the most easily recognizable buildings in the whole city would only take about a minute. Precision didn¡¯t matter as much as I had pretended it would when I laid out this plan to my team. Still, no need to lolligag. The contacts in my eyes were itchy and uncomfortable, but going undercover required that I wear them to hide the black sclera and bright green irises. As soon as I was in, I could throw them away and get to work; the same went for the jumpsuit over my gear and toolbox in my hands. All the more reason to get going. The front of the building was made to look appealing, to match the New Detroit aesthetic; abstract art spilling water into a pool where it was infinitely recycled, massive glass walls surrounding huge revolving doors styled so sharp I wasn¡¯t sure it wasn¡¯t, itself, a massive weapon. Tacky. Overly showy. Superficial. A lie, just like the organization it served as a satellite for. Once inside the revolving doors, a quick scan of the lobby gave me a veritable information overload. ¡°Upgrade, Prodigy, I got eyes on you,¡± a second woman¡¯s voice came over clearly, even though she whispered it. That would be Shift, Sileena McArthur, teasing us from¡­ wherever she happened to be. ¡°Upstairs bathrooms are all clear, and from what I can tell the guard schedule here is on a tight loop. Also, I¡¯m suuuuuper pleased that part one of this heist is going so well, but man those jumpers are ugly.¡± ¡°I did not pick the disguise. Upgrade did,¡± Prodigy comments quietly. ¡°I just beat the guys up so we could steal them. By the way, they do not fit, just like you were worried they wouldn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Well, yeah I¡¯m far from surprised about that. I mean, it would be strange if two random mechanical engineers were as drastically differing in height and size, but exactly the same as you two. Almost comical in how statistically improbable it is.¡± ¡°Almost ready,¡± Marauder cuts incessantly. The sharpness of it gets us all focused again, which I¡¯m thankful for. His was the fun part of this, and while he¡¯d volunteered I imagined being faced with what he had to do might have his anxiety higher than usual. We stepped to the front counter, myself nearly a tower over the 5 ''5 Prodigy, but letting her speak first while I expanded my consciousness a little bit. ¡°We are from United Engineering Corp,¡± she said, and the receptionist looked us over. I barely glanced back, but greeted her with a quick smile. ¡°We were scheduled to work on the internal network today?¡± ¡°Hmm. Right, let¡¯s see,¡± she said, tapping away at the keyboard. All the while, I was looking beyond what normal eyes could see. Something akin to a heads up display lit up my vision, permeating anything sending or receiving signals primarily in bright blue. Anything hardlined was colored in a dulled yellow. Where overlap existed, I could still clearly define the difference. This entire room was linked into the very internal network we were going to be infiltrating today. Unlike the traffic system, however, the room I was clocked into was anything but an easy infiltration. Even with all of the intricacy of a human brain and complexity of my powers, and a cyberdeck is personally built to bridge the gap, I had a limit to how much I could do before an intrusion alert broadcasted and the plan was ruined. That meant cameras could see Hyobin and Sileena, and would pick up Gabe if we weren¡¯t fast in our part of all of this. It also meant a fuck up here would see security, internal and external, swarming us, and that was far from the ideal. Even if I could erase my presence from security systems in the seconds after I was recorded, or sometimes even faster than that, it was much harder to do for others. Limited application of technology was a constant problem for everyone. Everyone but me, anyway. If I had more time to work before this plan was set in motion, I probably could have made something that could project my Shade Tech¡¯s basic applications. As I thought about it, schematics and ideas ran across my sight, somehow unobstructive in the same way your own imagination typically is. Ideas. A lot of them. ¡°Ah,¡± the woman spoke delightedly, interrupting my less than productive stream of consciousness and almost making me jump. ¡°Yes, welcome back. Always a pleasure to have United as a partner to the FORGE. Will you be needing directions?¡± ¡°Nah, we got a good earful at home base about being unobstructive and such. We got directions,¡± I replied so I wouldn¡¯t float off in my own head again. She smiled at me cordially, and handed us a pair of visitor passes. ¡°Thanks. Have a lovely day.¡± With nary another word, we passed the reception desk, a small kiosk compared to the rather massive foyer, always open to the public. With a couple of small business fronts, the building could be busy or empty depending on the time of year, month, week and day. Knowing how insidious the FORGE actually was kept me from actually seeing things here as any less than predatory. ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll be waiting for you guys to get control before I come down,¡± Shift chimed in, and that made me glance upward. Sure enough, with a glowing outline coming from my second-sight due to a bit of tech she was carrying, was Shift. She¡¯d perched comfortably atop a light fixture about 40 feet up, close to the ceiling. Her powers were extremely useful for situations like this one. Where I was a master of technology, she was a technological, and logical, anomaly. The only thing I knew for sure was that she had the power to switch places with things, and otherwise teleport objects to switch their places as well. That, on top of the peculiar ability to move almost supersonic fast with some notable drawbacks. How she got herself up there was beyond me. Still, she was hidden by the light casting its oppressive brightness down and away for now, alongside the black bodysuit and goggles hiding her eyes. Besides the security guards posted near the elevators and patrolling about, she had little to worry about. ¡°Okay. Scarcely a minute and thirty left,¡± I told Prodigy, adjusting the hat that was keeping my dreadlocks together and out of the way. We walked with purpose, which kept most of the people who¡¯d otherwise be in the way out of it. Another fountain inside the foyer, casting a small mist as we passed by and almost- almost- luring me into a somewhat invited feeling. Man it would be nice to just start smashing this whole building up. In due time. For now we had business to handle as quickly and quietly as we could. The visitors passes allowed us access to the elevators, but security stopped us before we could get to them. ¡°Passes?¡± the first of the two asked while the other reached for my toolbox. We flashed the passes, Prodigy a little impatiently since it was around our necks attached to lanyards. ¡°Right,¡± he answered. Inside the toolbox: screw driver, some cables, a couple of wrenches, and some handheld tech somewhere between Gameboy and tablet. He, none the wiser, just shrugged and handed it back with a nod. ¡°What floor are you headed to?¡± ¡°17,¡± Prodigy answered, and he looked at his company issued smartphone like he needed a reminder. A fun application of my power? I could intercept and read the signals within the device, just to see what he was seeing in what I can only describe as my mind¡¯s eye. Sure enough, floor 17 was the floor with both the security center and internal network server rooms within, right at the midpoint of the 34-floor compound. A quick check to another window on the phone was the schedule. There we were, Lamont and Jo. The names of the United engineers currently unconscious in their cars, a little worse for wear after Prodigy had gotten her hands on them, but alive.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Alright. Go straight there and back out the way you went up when you¡¯re finished.¡± ¡°Yep, there and back,¡± Hyobin said, reaching out and pressing the button. The man looked like he wanted to say something, but ¡°Jo¡± simply flashed a smile as we waited ten seconds for the elevator to arrive. Once it did land, I stepped in quickly, hating that it was one of those glass elevators you could see yourself rising in until it reached a certain floor. The second the door closed, I chuckled. ¡°What?¡± she inquired, pushing my shoulder. ¡°Couldn¡¯t help yourself huh?¡± ¡°I only pressed a button.¡± ¡°Right that¡¯s all you did. We¡¯re super lucky we managed to swipe the United Maintenance schedules and get these damn costumes. Don¡¯t push it.¡± ¡°Yes of course , though I cannot help but remember you once telling us a good plan trumps the need for luck, or something approximating this,¡± she brushed me off, trying really hard not to squirm in the uniform, at least a size too big for her. I could tell it was tearing her apart, but she¡¯d have to deal just a little longer. The elevator spit us out on a floor much different in feeling than the others. Narrow hallway, server room one way, and security center the other with two guards at either side. The easy part of this, we knew, would be getting into the security center without raising suspicion. We were doing maintenance on the servers and fixing a latency issue in some of the more delicate systems, as far as anyone knew: we didn¡¯t rightly need to be in the security system for that. I could see two cameras, and my second-sight clued me in to the heat these security guards were packing. Stun batons, tasers on a stick, as well as firearms of a less technical and more ballistic nature. Somewhat frustrating, but accounted for. That would be why Prodigy was with me at all. I walked to the server room, passing several doors on the way that I could sense were storage closets hiding miscellaneous tech. The security here held up a hand, eyed our badges, and then stepped aside. ¡°Thanks,¡± I said, but they didn¡¯t seem interested in speaking.. Sensory overload hit me like a truck as I entered the server room and put down the toolbox. So many signals coming in to each one and being sent out, filtering information, encoding and decoding it at the same time. I focused for half a second and everything fell into place. My brain wasn¡¯t like the average gray matter: I was born a technopath which meant I was, in a way, telepathic. My power was focused on machines, which is where the techno part comes in. It also gave me incredible multitasking skills and the handy ability to split my perception between normal vision and the second-sight seemlessly. In essence, I could process at the speed of a supercomputer. For a brief few seconds I stared blankly, falling on more of the tech oriented side of my mind. Harshly, I made note of how messy everything was from a computer engineering standpoint. Hyobin tapping my shoulder brought me back, aiding in my focus. ¡°Don¡¯t zone out on me now.¡± ¡°Right yeah. Lots of information in this room alone, my bad,¡± I replied, shaking my head. I slid the screwdriver and smallest wrench into the front pocket of the jumper while Hyobin tied up her medium length hair and pretended to look into something. The fake tablet in the toolbox blipped on at a small expression of my power, and I walked to the back of the room while it booted up. On the screen my personal calling card, an Omega symbol flipped upside down to make a stylized U, appeared, and I pressed the button fully aware that the men behind me were peeking in to see what I was doing. Thankfully the distance gave me a bit of cover as I plugged one end of the cables in the toolbox into the bottom of it, and ran the other into one of the server switches. The tablet flickered, and so did my vision of it. Once inside of that, in a few seconds I had what I needed to get into the security center. My vision showed me the same stream of information: reds and yellows, floating packets of data traveling through wires like streams of water. Even for me, it would take time that I didn¡¯t want to risk given everything that was on the line, so I¡¯d prepared something over the week. The tablet was running a program I¡¯d written myself to act as something of a second brain and allow me much finer control over things. It was an old trick I¡¯d picked up. Making a virtual intelligence that could do rudimentary shit like unbarring my mind¡¯s pathway through the noise was easy. That freed me to do what I needed to. I could intercept some of the signals with my power. From there I could stop them in their tracks, repurpose them, or erase them. For this little gamble of ours, I had a better idea. Sending a small signal of my own, I gummed everything up for just a few seconds. I watched everything begin lagging a little bit more than before, and disconnected from the server, holding the tablet which was now displaying a cascade of numbers and letters. This was the kind of sci-fi nonsense that a security guard would believe. I walked out of the room, following the false-fire I¡¯d sent straight to the security center. Once I reached the door, I held the tablet close to the walls, pretending to scan along the hardline connections behind the wall. ¡°Scuse me friend, I think the issue is actually larger than you all thought.¡± ¡°What?¡± the guard responded, looking at the tablet completely confused. It turned red as soon as he looked, which was a cute little trick that I used as an excuse. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m following the wires, seeing the problem we came to fix literally traveling down towards the security center.¡± ¡°So, what, you need to go there to fix¡­ whatever you¡¯re here to fix? United never has had to go in there before today¡­¡± he trailed off. If he wanted to be that way I could make this more believable. ¡°It¡¯ll be on you if the lights start flickering,¡± I said just before intruding on the system via that small bit of data I¡¯d infected the network with and causing the hallway lights to immediately flicker. For good measure, I jumped, and Prodigy shook her head in the doorway behind me. ¡°See, it¡¯s a damn good thing I¡¯m here.¡± The two guards relented a little, speaking into walkie talkies mounted to their shoulders. I kept walking, holding up the tablet, all the while until I was at the security room door. ¡°What are you going to need?¡± one of the next two golems asked me, and I held up the wires. ¡°Just plugging into one of the terminals and getting a readout on the system¡¯s latency, and then I¡¯ll run a noninvasive diagnostic. Take in some readings, process some data, bit of troubleshooting...¡± I kept going until it looked like I lost him. ¡°God, they¡¯re all idiots huh?¡± Marauder said in my ear. ¡°Waiting for your go. It¡¯s cold, man, get a move on.¡± I almost snickered a little. ¡°Alright alright, go ahead, just¡­ hurry it up and come right out,¡± he ushered, letting me pass him by stepping out of the way. With resolve, I made a B line for the back wall, opposite a collection of screens, terminals and a few guards with their feet kicked up watching the goings on with little interest. A few regarded me, 3 of the 4 men inside the room in fact, but they all got back to work when I showed them my visitor pass. ¡°Just gonna work quietly, don¡¯t mind me,¡± I said, plugging the tablet into a terminal at the back wall. Advantage of pretending you work somewhere? Even security scarcely bats an eye at you as long as you look like you''re working. The very second the tablet was plugged in, I felt that pull away at my consciousness that always came whenever I was using my powers with all my focus. I had precious little time before the intrusion-detection software on the network realized what I was doing, and under normal circumstances it¡¯d take me too long to perform what could only be described as a hostile takeover of the security system. The tablet helped: I¡¯d written several programs with my own hands for this purpose. I could take control of computer systems at a rudimentary level with a bit of time and effort. Usually it took anywhere from a literal half a second to a minute depending on the complexity of the system and how well defended it was. Even closed networks weren¡¯t safe when you acted as a living computer, with the human brain itself working as your processor. And a few upgrades therein. But countermeasures existed against intrusion, and I was far from a native to this network. Still, far be it from me to be stopped that easily. The tablet software acted as a second mind, and once it was plugged into a network it was as if two of me were working together. I also reached into my mind palace and grabbed an access key I¡¯d swiped from the HBIC of the FORGE interests in the region. That unlocked quite a lot of doors, but they¡¯d been smart and rotated some of the more delicate systems. With the tablet active, though, I broadcasted twice the data at twice the speed, I could read information and break through firewalls twice as efficiently, all the while covering my tracks. In my second sight, red alerts continually popped up, permeating the room around me, and as they did they were either shattered, or slowly faded to green. Slowly, relative to how quickly this was happening. Scarcely 5 seconds of dedicatedly fighting against the system, and it was mine. I Unplugged the tablet, and closed my eyes. All at once I was aware of every camera in the network, seeing with dozens of eyes, hearing with dozens of ears. A thought left my mind, and all the footage gathered of Hyobin was erased entirely. Another, and the system was isolated from the FORGE¡¯s greater security network. Quietly, the building became a security dark zone, which itself would gather attention had I not been so careful about it. Quietly cutting off outside signals, and redirecting the inbound ones to other buildings virtually networked in would only work so long, but more than long enough, if my guess was right. ¡°Marauder, you¡¯re good to go,¡± I told him, turning around and reaching for the screwdriver I¡¯d pocketed. One of the four men watching the cameras turned his head at the sound of my footsteps, but he didn¡¯t have the wherewithal to stop me as I slammed the butt end of it into his skull. On impact, a jolt of electricity rammed through his entire body, and he made a sound between a grunt and gag as he fell over in his seat. I stepped over his terminal quickly, aiming the other end of the weapon at the farthest of the security guards. I pressed a button that fired off a second payload of electricity right into his chest. He wasn¡¯t even done convulsing before my knee, padded under the jumpsuit, collided with the skull of the third man and drove his face into the screen in front of him. I wasn¡¯t as graceful as I wanted to be on the landing, but I rolled with my momentum over the last row and grabbed the wrench from my suit. No technology hiding in this one, just hard metal swung into the arm, and then jaw of the last one who was just seconds from grabbing his gun. All the while, via cameras all over the floor, I watched Prodigy pull her trigger the moment I said I was good. Where I lacked in style she made up for in the dozens. Precision was key for her, with the fist of a martial arts master driving into the skull of one guard, and the same arm¡¯s elbow kicking back into the temple of the other. She was moving again before either of them fell, unzipping the oversized costume and sliding out of it in a flourish she couldn¡¯t possibly have practiced, and yet. The poor idiots at the other end had turned to see what the commotion was in the security room, and she¡¯d ran them down before either of them knew she was there. She slid low, taking their legs out from under them. She was up again in a heartbeat, ferocious as she descended upon them, one deft punch to either of their chins to put them to sleep. ¡°Not bad,¡± I complimented looking through the collection of camera displays now. ¡°Not bad? What you did was not bad, I was flawless. Did you find it?¡± she asked me just as I located our prize. A little black box, no bigger than a suitcase, in the centermost room 10 floors above us. A heavily guarded secret, one they didn¡¯t even trust to be carried around by the highest of FORGE operators. Inside was something out of a scifi horror film, and I was going to be leaving with it. Easier said than done however. It was behind a vault door with a security system far more complicated than the one this building was ¡°protected¡± by. Automated defenses, inside and out, emp shielding, I even heard these paranoid dickheads had invested in some sort of supernatural protection with metahuman powers in mind too. Worst to worst the entire room could detonate, taking us and the secret all at once. All things I¡¯d gleaned from taking a dive through their network. This building had been chosen specifically because laying siege to it would be nigh impossible without a swarm of cops and other law enforcement being alerted, and also because once you¡¯ve made your way there, where exactly would you go? Out to the river? On a chase through downtown Detroit? The city was easy to lock down. Combine a naturally well suited location with advanced tech and security systems? It¡¯d be damn hard to crack this one open for anyone else. Related, I¡¯ve been underestimated my entire life. From one of the perimeter cameras, a man with a backpack and two large duffle bags was in view. Erasing his pesence from the footage was as easy as an afterthought. First thing first, he had to setup his gear across the street, in this case a grappling hook launched from a small cannon he¡¯d made himself. I¡¯d offered to make it better, but time constrained us a bit so he had to be a few floors above us and fire down. The hook drilled into the wall, and rooted further in from there the very second he hit it. All that was left was to drop the rather large gun. Once he¡¯d done so, the proverbial cannon screwed into the floor, rooting reliably in place. Marauder wasn¡¯t the most meticulous or patient anyway, so at this point it was do or die for him. With one less duffle bag and the backpack on his back, he got a running start and flung himself off the roof, grabbing the wire last second and sliding across it faster than I was comfortable with. I had to ping another camera to get a better angle, but he evidently hit the wall harder than he meant to. The black sunglasses on his face fell, but nonetheless he was against the wall. No window above or below, no real visible access point, but this wasn¡¯t just a random spot. The digits poking through fingerless gloves glowed, and he pressed them against the wall. Quickly the wall dissolved, starting with the concrete making up the outer walls breaking apart into something like sand, and then everything between him and the open space started to come apart. It went from a steady pace to rapid, and he removed his hands once he could swing himself in. And of course, his power went off the rails and caused the hook holding him suspended in the air to break free. If he didn¡¯t recover, well, it was a hell of a fall, and he was no more sturdy even if he did have super powers. ¡°Mierda!¡± he breathed, catching himself on the floor with nary an inch between him and pancake-land. ¡°Man, not our best work, Upgrade,¡± he told me, walking past all the server towers and down the hall. In that time I¡¯d disrobed the disguise, now in just a black, longsleeved shirt and matching pants. Marauder opted for track pants. We met him halfway, and he tossed me the backpack as soon as he could get it off. I stuffed the tablet inside while Hyobin took the duffle off his shoulders. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll remember to account for your unstable ass powers next time,¡± I jabbed at him. He ran his hands through his hair a few times, getting the matte black more into place, after his near-death experience. He was of a rare breed indeed. Marauder - Gabriel dos Santos. Between him and Shift I wasn¡¯t sure which of them was more strange. He wasn¡¯t a chemical accident or the result of a radiation exposure that could kill a man; his powers were natural insofar as I had ever been able to tell. And they were wildly inconsistent. With some focus he could restrict it to just his hands so as not to destroy his clothing. Occasionally however he¡¯d fuck that up entirely. Practice helped, but it didn¡¯t do much for the fact that the results were never the same either. For example, he may break down a wooden table into smaller splinters of wood, knock the screws out of it and separate each individual board, or sometimes atomize the whole thing. The only thing he DID have control over was when it activated. Nevertheless, invaluable, a little vulgar, highly competitive, and my best friend. Certainly one of the most dangerous men in the world. I ruffled through the stuff in the bag, grabbing out all the things I knew for a fact I¡¯d be needing to get us into that vault and out of the building. All of it was stuff I could hardly justify bringing in to clean up a network. ¡°Okay. So the easy part is getting in, right?¡± He asked me. Between the shoulder-holsters and my utility belt, for lack of a better name for it, I was ready to get to work. Prodigy pulled a mask, white and featureless, over her face, and twirled a kama, something between an ice pick, axe and dagger, in one hand. A peer through the cameras showed me Shift was already making her way up, shifting with objects along the way as quickly as she could to avoid being noticed in a way that would make her hard to track if I couldn¡¯t see it all at once. As for us, we ran up ten flights of stairs, and the moment the doors opened we each sprang into action. Prodigy flung herself through the doors as soon as she could fit with a bit of direction from me as to where anyone was, shuriken knocking weapons out of hands, and a flurry of movement setting her up to dispatch them. Marauder and I were less methodical, popping out in the scarce moments following. All I had on me to help with was a set of shock pistols that we¡¯d fiddled with the night before. Hoping it wouldn¡¯t just blow up, I pulled the trigger on one at the pair of men at the far side of the hallway, and a dense ball of electricity flung itself free like a bullet, striking one of them and imparting a high voltage, mid level amperage shock that chained to the two dudes near him. They all dropped, and I tossed the one of 4 back into the toolbox. ¡°Alright, that one clearly worked,¡± I exhaled, turning around as Marauder finished beating down the two men he¡¯d run down with the shock value we¡¯d given him cover with. Prodigy had 6 men downed without a hair out of place on her head. ¡°Still at the easy part?¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s certainly still the easy part,¡± I told her as we approached the door. The security system it operated on was isolated from the rest, which meant I¡¯d need to break through it¡¯s firewall and take control of it as well. Otherwise the rifles mounted on either side of the thick steel would open fire once we got too close. I held up a finger, already focusing on the task at hand once we were at the proverbial line in the sand. The guns came to life as soon as my mind accessed it¡¯s firewall. The whole room turned red, and I bit my lip. Basically, as soon as I had intruded on it I snapped a tripwire. The guns aimed at us, head on, and it was all I could do to hold the ¡°fire¡± command from coming down the line. Marauder took cover behind me, which would have been funny if it weren¡¯t ME, and before I could slip up again, Hyo hand thrown a knife at one, and her Kama at the other, striking both at angles that would render them useless. A few seconds later, I¡¯d turned off the emergency kill order and the normal lighting returned. ¡°The hell Kendrick,¡± Marauder lauded, punching my shoulder, harder than was comfortable. ¡°Don¡¯t even, you almost fell how many stories to your death a few minutes ago?¡± I teased back. Hyobin recovered the Kama and shuriken as he placed a hand on the door, presumably to try and deconstruct it. ¡°Hermano, you just almost killed all three of us with your dumb brain magic,¡± he replied. ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t have the proper credentials, accessing the security system puts it on Code Red. It¡¯s a failsafe against intrusion. Since I hop past any sort of login screens when I do my thing, it triggered. Clever, and annoying.¡± ¡°Right, well, maybe give us warning that something like that can happen?¡± he poked again. When I didn¡¯t immediately respond, he got back on track. ¡°Yeah, not sure what the deal is, but I can¡¯t break open this material. It feels like my powers are being neutralized by it.¡± ¡°Fuck, okay. So we do this the harder way,¡± I almost complained, crossing the space and closing my eyes. In my mind¡¯s eye, I could work much better. Intruding on the system meant I¡¯d have a hell of a fight on my hands, and any distractions might cause me to falter, visual especially. It was like standing in a black room, completely empty and infinite. The second I started trying to breach it again, it was like a million piece puzzle sprawled out in front of me. It wasn¡¯t about trying to solve everything, either. It was more about putting all the pieces together just enough that I had a pathway. That said, a million pieces is a lot of pieces, so a few cheats could help. Creating a false intrusion to stretch out the security, and several thousand distractions and walls go away. A show of brute force through sheer willpower could smash another several hundred pieces into nonexistence. More of the latter than the former, usually, but it would take a bit of effort in this case. Several cascading piles of ¡°puzzle pieces¡± all around me, each one needing attention. The issue here was the longer I fought, the better the chance that I would end up overwhelmed. As if. I could tell this was an expensive and more importantly a tailored, and anti-technopathic, measure for sure. The amount of resistance I was encountering made me wish I¡¯d brought out the tablet. Nothing I couldn¡¯t handle, but it was far from easy goings. Vaguely, I felt creepting annoyance in the back of my mind that they¡¯d thought this would be enough when they had every reason to believe I¡¯d be coming for them. It felt like hours, but in truth it only took a few minutes for me to get the door itself electronically unlocked, and the weapons on the inside shut down. Following that, I- ¡°Fuck,¡± I exhaled opening my eyes, blinking away a bit of stars from over working myself a bit. ¡°Alright, power dampening is down, but that¡¯s only half the battle.¡± ¡°Right, the rest is what you need us for?¡± Shift spoke as Maurader put his fingertips on the door again. First, the vault¡¯s crank fell to the floor with a loud clatter, and then several sounds inside the door itself echoed inside of it before it started to turn red. ¡°Yeah, might wanna back up,¡± he warned us as the energy building up started to make the door rattle and groan. We took cautious steps away, Shift fiddling with one of the downed guard¡¯s weapons behind us at about a safe distance. Marauder grunted and pushed, and the door fell in on itself, reduced to a pile of rapidly cooling metals less in the shape of a door, and more in the shape of several shards of metal. And, it was fucking loud. Louder than we¡¯d accounted for, but that was an issue for later. ¡°Keep watch, Hyo.¡± ¡°These things don¡¯t really have a ¡®set phasors to stun¡¯ setting,¡± Shift commented as if she had expected the door to crash like it did. I could imagine a few uses for the weapon, but now wasn¡¯t the time for that. We climbed in over the safely cooled metal, with me taking point thanks to my second sight. Inside, the guns were turned off, and any kinds of invisible lasers or tripmines weren¡¯t immediately pinging in my vision. It was cold and dark, with another layer of glass planes surrounding a podium. ¡°That black box is the target,¡± I spoke, stating the obvious. ¡°That glass is probably not gonna serve to be an issue, but I¡¯d rather not deal with the likelihood it falls on Maurauder¡¯s head. He¡¯d never let me hear the end of it.¡± He pushed my shoulder, but looked at Shift nonetheless. She, chuckling all the while, stepped forward and held the gun in her hand out with her eyes focused on the box. It was almost like watching a computer glitch out for a second, but overlaid over real life. She audibly gritted her teeth, straining as her body, the box, and the gun all blurred, flickered and snapped in and out of place. As quick as it started it stopped, and the gun was gone, replaced by a cube no bigger than a coffee cup. Inside of the glass, the gun had taken it¡¯s place. ¡°That easy,¡± she spoke. ¡°Well, not easy. This vault has some weird tech that makes it tough to translocate things.¡± She shrugged, climbing out of the vault and stopping when she saw Hyobin staring down the hallway at the opposite end of the room. Before I could ask Shift what she meant, or before Hyobin could answer I felt a sudden spike in my awareness, like something in my subconscious barreled it¡¯s way to the front. Something else in the security system? Something I¡¯d missed¡­ or something that had only just now made itself aware. ¡°Fuck,¡± was all I could say as I realized a failsafe had been built in. The very moment I started sending false positives to keep the building safely isolated I¡¯d tripped a wire. ¡°Que tal?¡± Marauder asked as we approached Hyo and I could see her grip on her Kama was tight. ¡°What was the exit plan again?¡± she asked without taking her eyes off of whatever she was staring at like a hawk. Slowly, I made my way over, a pit born of irritation forming in my belly. ¡°Rappel out to the building across the street, break through the window and sneak out?¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t going to work, I think.¡± We crowded around her, and I almost faceplamed as I saw straight ahead through a window in the hall. Marauder actually did. Shutters were closing over the window, and something told me just having Marauder melt his way through it wasn¡¯t going to work. Just like with Shift and the translocation issue. ¡°Okay, this is fine,¡± I began. The plan to rappel back out was wishful thinking, especially after the week we¡¯d had. ¡°It¡¯s just the hard part now.¡± 1.2 Dossier Dossier ¡°Occasionally, when I¡¯m looking back on when shit started going left¡­ I pick the day I met that crazy man who could talk to computers.¡± -Marauder, reflecting on when times were simpler. A week prior. I woke up after scarcely 4 hours of sleep mostly recharged mentally, even if my body would need a bit of a pick me up. The smells of gunsmoke, oil, and coffee greeted my nose immediately, and my eyes, both organic and cybernetic, were greeted with the exceptionally bright fluorescent lights overhead. I rolled off the hammock that I haphazardly strung up with chains, blindly catching myself just below while I waited for the splotch of searing white to clear from my biological optic center. Thankfully, the other needed just a few milliseconds to adjust, so I didn¡¯t land on any nails below me. My room in our little hideout was the biggest, for sure, but that was only because I slept in the workshop. The Garage, as we called it, was a warehouse, all the way out in the middle of nowhere just south of the ¡°palm¡± of Michigan. I¡¯d scouted it, and made sure it wasn¡¯t connected to anyone, anything, and just far enough out of the way that our chances of being found accidentally would be exceedingly low. A few hours of scrubbing it off of any maps online and erasing its address from global databases and registries had been a hell of a tedious job, especially by myself, but I had to be meticulous about it. That day of working while the others were renovating and having a bit of time to bond with each other (read: argue, bitch and moan,) had been the inspiration behind the Tablet, actually. When all was said and done, I claimed the workspace as my room, with everyone¡¯s respective spaces within it falling under my watch. Hyobin and Sileena claimed the second floor, and Gabriel took the basement. It so happened that the place was huge enough that we¡¯d been perpetually in the process of making it a proper headquarters for the month and half we¡¯d been operating out of it. Each floor had a working kitchen and bathroom, yet somehow, they always gravitated to me. Didn¡¯t matter much, I had plenty of space and I slept like a rock. First thing I heard, guitar strings. Gabriel started most days treating us to some damn racket, and whenever it was the guitar, I found it least irritating. The other options were: him and the punching bag in the corner, him slamming together things that don¡¯t fit together in a show of ¡°ingenuity¡± or him dropping pots and pans so he could cook. ¡°Maria?¡± I asked him with a deep yawn, recognizing the melody. ¡°Yeah. Felt like a Santana kinda day,¡± he replied across the Garage. With a nod I pulled on the chain that lowered and raised my hammock-blanket-sleeping situation to get it out of the way, and lurched towards the bathroom. On the way, I tapped my cell phone, immediately connecting to the wifi once my fingers connected with it, and flipped through emails without needing to touch it anymore at all. Oh, yeah I served as our internet connection: little trick I picked up in college, and something that came in handy to keep us from being tracked via cell service. I¡¯d figured it out around the same time that I invented the Shade Program, which was the handy bit of always-on technology that kept me from being tracked and detected on almost any network in the world. It was a matter of a few dense lines of code compounded together, and then offloaded into my subconscious with a singular use. Put extremely simply: when I am observed by anything that isn¡¯t analog, a signal is sent that erases me. The trick was making it fast and automatic, which is why I buried it so deep in my own mind it broke into the subconscious and is something I have to focus to stop. That way, it turned on fast, on the order of attoseconds, and autonomous. Applied to my ability to read signals, and I just need to be within a few dozen miles of a cell tower, give or take, and I can serve as a wifi connection. Now, lucky for us, the Warehouse is off the beaten path enough not to be easily stumbled on, but not within dense enough forestry that it blocks me from connecting. An encrypted email was the target of my attention, but I¡¯d reread that in a minute. First thing first: starting my day off properly. I looked in my own eyes, completely black instead of white with a glowing green in the center of the sclera. That was both eyes, including my fake one. Easily my most recognizable feature. Shower, quick trim and brush for my beard, toothbrush, and oil for my locs. Took me all of 30 minutes, which was far more efficient than usual. I usually took my time, but I knew the day would be long. Six am, and the whole team was already awake. Once I came out of the bathroom, I cleared my throat. Sileena was on the old couch in the corner already, still in her pajamas with her hair pinned up in the messiest bun I¡¯d seen of late. Hyobin was in a sports bra and yoga pants, finishing up her morning workout. She¡¯d likely slept even less than me last night, due to needing less time to do so. She was in the rinky-dink old loveseat I smuggled in along with the rest of our shitty furniture. Gabe sprawled out on the other side of the couch from Sileena, just a tank top and joggers, looked like he¡¯d slept well at least. Mostly, they all looked like they were ready for the meeting. ¡°Gimme like 10 minutes guys,¡± I requested, and Gabe went back to playing Sileena groaned immediately. ¡°Come on Kendrick, we could¡¯ve slept that teeny bit longer. Why¡¯s everyone up before you, and you¡¯re the last one ready?¡± I rolled my eyes. ¡°Stop staying up all night, and you won¡¯t be tired all the time,¡± I snapped back once I reached the kitchen. ¡°I know how long you were on your laptop scrolling through Reddit. I¡¯ll start cutting the wifi if you can¡¯t get yourself up in the morning.¡± ¡°Be reasonable,¡± Sileena pressed forward, falling over on the couch, stretching her legs over it¡¯s arm and closing her eyes as Gabe, legs folded, snickered away. ¡°I can¡¯t just fall asleep, you¡¯d be cosigning me to an oblivion of darkness for the same amount of time, and that¡¯s just fucking cruel.¡± That first sip of coffee was almost worth hearing their mouths while I threw a breakfast burrito from the fridge in the microwave. While it warmed up, and the team lamented me a bit more, I meandered to the ACTUAL workshop and snatched up the tasers that would later be turned into shockingly useful pistols for the job. With them all dropped off on the wooden table between the team, my coffee and burrito there too, I finally took to de-encrypting that email mentally. ¡°Alright, bums, we¡¯re up early because last night I got an email from an old friend from college.¡± ¡°Yeah?¡± Sileena asked, sitting up, now looking just a little bit more chipper, holding the pot of coffee and mug, pouring herself a cup. I blinked and the pot was replaced with an empty flower pot. ¡°Who¡¯s this friend Kendrick?¡± Wait, when did she¡­ ah right. ¡°Shifting¡± as we liked to call it. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Anyway, I¡¯m decrypting it now, but the last time we spoke, she said she¡¯d have something actionable for us to work off of.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s a girl,¡± Gabriel chimed in with a chuckle. ¡°Sorry, keep goin jefe.¡± ¡°God I hate you guys. Okay, so this friend of mine is no friend of the FORGE, like at all. Back then, we were just a group of hacktivists with a pen, some paper, a dinky ass tablet, a laptop that was falling apart, and a mission to expose everyone, the FORGE included and especially. Each of us had a bone to pick with the kind of people who run the FORGE and other corpos like Haven. Even so, we kinda fell apart when we graduated and went our separate ways. Most of us kind of got out of the business and went legit.¡± ¡°And you ended up taking the fight right to those assholes,¡± Gabe cut in. ¡°Yeah, and the person who got me this info has been working at bringing them down since as far back as I can remember her.¡± ¡°How do you know she can be trusted?¡± Hyobin pierced right through anything else I had to say. ¡°For one thing, according to her at least, they killed her mother when she was a little girl. A whole big cover up she swore she¡¯d expose one day. Sounded like run of the mill fanatical bullshit to the rest of the group, but her zealous intentions were welcome. After what happened to my dad, and the people in Venezuela?¡± Gabe made a sound below a grunt and a scoff. ¡°I trust her, that¡¯s all I¡¯m saying.¡± The email opened on my phone, and I blinked twice to get my eye¡¯s inner mechanisms working. It projected the email¡¯s contents directly from my brain onto the wall ahead of the seat I always took at the ¡°head¡± of the group. Dear ¡°Upgrade,¡± Man, I gotta say that name really does suit you, doesn¡¯t it? Two years have gone, and I¡¯m still not used to typing it and connecting it to the little boy I met in college. Anyway, like I told you, I found something. I don¡¯t know the particulars, but I¡¯ve got schematics for a certain building in New Detroit, which to my knowledge is what rich old men are calling Downtown Detroit now? God I really hate these guys. It¡¯s taking a lot not to get on my soapbox here so I¡¯ll be concise. This place is a FORGE building. Some kind of engineering firm? One of their fronts, of course. See that black spot near the center-ish? Yeah that¡¯s a vault and security system that has NO business being used for anything other than exclusively to protect the damn president. Whatever¡¯s inside just got there about a week ago, and it¡¯s presence has a lot of voices buzzing. Here¡¯s the thing, though Upgrade, when I say voices I mean the kind who move mountains. Everyone who knows shit about anything is learning about this one way or the other. I got an invite to a sit down I will not be attending, unsurprisingly given that I left my calling card after I stole the schematics and wiped the hard drive, but I was also told to spread the word to anyone who fits in. Helps to have connections one way or the other, so here¡¯s yours. Halogen is holding a ¡°banquet¡± in the Playground. I¡¯ll assume you¡¯re familiar with both names since you live there, but in case you¡¯ve lost touch I¡¯ve got dossiers attached. San the Mountain, Jericho, Sway, and at least two other FORGE affiliates will be there too. You get to show up with no more than two, but I¡¯d recommend against more than one. Shows of force will inevitably put you on the backfoot if you overreach. Sunday best, Upgrade. Try no to make yet another mess on my dime. At least not one that can be tracked back to me. Warm Regards, HiJack <3 ¡°Wait, you¡¯re little friend is Hijack?¡± Gabriel asked incredulously. ¡°Yeah, you heard of her?¡± ¡°She¡¯s kind of well known in a few circles I used to be in online. Legendary for being right about everything. Hell, she¡¯s exactly like you think you are. I¡¯m kinda jealous,¡± he admitted. ¡°Damn, crushing already? You haven¡¯t even seen her yet,¡± Sileena teased in a way that came out a little bit mean. Gabe stopped playing long enough to flip her off and she quieted a bit. My eyes flickered to Hyo, and it took only a second to recognize the smoldering in her eyes and what had caused it. San the Mountain was a sore spot for Hyo. One of the main reasons she¡¯d joined up with me in the first place. She didn¡¯t meet mine, instead crossing her arms and holding back on whatever she wanted to say. ¡°The schematics we¡¯re looking at are for a tech firm which specializes in both consulting and engineering for neural interfaces,¡± I explained, drawing attention to the schematics on the projector.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Oh, like brain tech?¡± Sileena asked, crossing her arms and trying to tune in as best she could while still groggy. ¡°Yep. That and the whole central nervous system. If I remember correctly this one is all about aiding people with memory problems. Everything from head trauma to Alzheimers - they¡¯re working to fix it all.¡± The room was so silent it was almost deafening for a few moments before Gabe chimed in. ¡°I wish that could inspire some kind of¡­ hope I guess. Knowing these assholes, this whole building is dedicated to something insidious.¡± I took a second to study his expression, keeping the left eye fixed in place so the projection never moved. His brow furrowed, lips wrinkled into something akin to disgust. More than most here, he hated them. Almost more than me, and that was saying a lot. He was also right, there was no way that everything was on the Up and Up. The FORGE was nothing if not an absolute lie. ¡°Forging a better future¡± is how they advertised their¡­ businesses in the modern day, but their origin was far less virtuous. They¡¯d started out as a conglomerate of expensive defense contractors sometime in the late seventies operating worldwide. Even back then, speaking technologically, they were leagues ahead of most of the world. At some point, they started expanding into the tech sector properly, offering more than guns for hire, offering to share what they produced and the know-how for a price. It isn¡¯t a surprise they''ve intertwined themselves in all the BRIC nations, in the governments of every world superpower, in every military on the planet in some way shape or form. It was subtle, and it took a long time to do it, but they¡¯ve become known as altruistic to the public at large, with their military ties and less legal ventures going the way of every corporate entity with limitless reach and money. A lot of those less legal ventures involved experimenting on the poor or otherwise destitute. People going missing. People ending up dead and their families hit with litigation so airtight and powerful that you didn¡¯t have much choice outside of taking the money and being quiet forever. Way too many of their targets were people of color, and far too often law enforcement at every level turned a blind eye to it. What else is new, right? ¡°Exactly, that¡¯s why whatever they¡¯ve got hidden away in there is, probably, something they¡¯d be hurt by us stealing. It¡¯ll deal a blow to their bottom line, at the very least, if someone manages to infiltrate and steal from them,¡± I went on, getting out of my head. ¡°In fairness we do not need much of a reason to go after them,¡± Hyobin agreed venomously. ¡°Knocking them off balance, even a little bit, is good enough for me. As a start.¡± ¡°Cool. So, that leaves us with this little meeting to discuss.¡± At that, I blinked again and the Dossier for every single name she¡¯d listed and then some appeared on screen. First thing first, Halogen. Mocha skin, curly hair, and eyes that looked to be at least six colors that blended only enough to be solid while still individual and distinct. Her lips pulled up into a grin, like she was aware she was being photographed while a red streak ran down her cheek. Blood red. ¡°Halogen,¡± I began, ¡°lesser known as Samantha Sims. Enigmatic, something of a visionary and in deep with the FORGE. She¡¯s been a top dog in the underground since before it was as wide reaching as it is now. She made a small fortune on her art and broke into the drug game HARD with the money, according to the rumors. When the FORGE started expanding their influence through major cities coast to coast, she was one of the first people to sign on back in the early days of their foray into the underworld. Through her, they fought a proxy war against the police, the most established criminals, and any other competitors trying to do the same. Her hands are more bloody than some of the board members of the FORGE itself. Halogen, both the drug she synthesizes and her moniker as both Artist, Kingpin and Head Bitch in Charge, has destroyed as much as she claims it has helped build, and to top it off the drug is made from her own blood.¡± ¡°It¡¯s WHAT?¡± Sileena cut in. ¡°Muy sinestro, yeah. She¡¯s one of us,¡± Gabe explained. I gave him the floor willingly. ¡°She¡¯s capable of making chemicals in her body at will. Apparently they affect her too, makes her a little loco. Back home we steered clear of Halogen and her ¡®brabaje de bruja¡¯. Witch¡¯s Brew, we called that shit before she named it after herself.¡± ¡°After she bloodied the streets with gang wars and hallucinogens enough to absorb most of the crime and more vulnerable crews into her service, she was moved from place to place, pushing her art and drugs and special brand of violence. She maintains the Playground in Detroit to humor guests and treats it like a seat of power. It¡¯s been a long decade and a half of tyranny, insofar as I understand it, but now she¡¯s content to do less of the dirty work herself and oversee while people die by her word, or live under her foot.¡± ¡°Well said,¡± Sileena teased, ever the traitorous little troll. ¡°She¡¯s got a lot of power. Basically untouchable. No one wants the FORGE¡¯s top girl coming down on their head.¡± I blinked to swap the display to the next. A white man, this one, with a clean shaven face, eyes bright like stars, and short cut wavy brown hair. ¡°This one¡¯s Sway, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re all familiar.¡± Sileena, expectedly, looked blank, so I explained for her benefit. ¡°Timothy White. He¡¯s a radio personality, runs Sway¡¯s Waves. Everyone who listens to podcasts, cares about music and art, is on social media, or even just listens to the radio like a dinosaur knows about Sway. People trust him and his word, and he¡¯s got a finger on the pulse of every thinkable underground venture by virtue of the former as much as because he started out as a journalist exposing all measure of war crimes, political incidents and major scandals, and getting away with the shit under a myriad of pseudonyms that eventually caught up with him.¡± ¡°And he¡¯s still alive?¡± She asked me confused. ¡°Yep, and he gets a seat at the table with the kind of monsters that used to make the news. Give you one guess as to why.¡± ¡°FORGE,¡± she said and it wasn¡¯t a question, but she wasn¡¯t all the way right. ¡°Yeah, a different group of disenfranchised crime lords came for his head, and he made a deal with the right people to come out of it. The second group was the FORGE.¡± ¡°Yeah, but how does this translate to him sitting at a table with the snakes?¡± Gabe asked, intrigued. ¡°For a little while, we heard talk about him being behind some of the news escaping Venezuela into the rest of the world. He goes from having integrity to the FORGE? Never added up.¡± In fairness, he did have a good point. ¡°In his defense, his hands are still clean, somewhat. He doesn¡¯t do anything too morally reprehensible, besides keeping public opinion about the FORGE high and running damage control. He goes to these events as a known quantity, and protected by the strongest folks in the game, Gabe. Better to have him on your side than to have his next bit of calculated, weaponized journalism on you. I¡¯m glad HiJack got his name in our ear, because that man¡¯s got the pull to make life hell for the rest of the people at that table. ¡°Damn, public opinion is powerful shit, huh?¡± he said irreverently. ¡°Too bad he sold out.¡± ¡°And if anyone doesn¡¯t like what he has to say,¡± I started. ¡°They go through people like Halogen,¡± Hyo finished. ¡°And guess which two of these folks in these dossiers are thick as thieves? Sway and Halogen go back far enough to be on a first name basis.¡± Everyone got the unspoken in that: those two would be a package deal if we went after either of them. Which we would be. A blink, and an old Korean man with skin like leather and an ornate blade at his side. He was identifiably tall, almost dwarfing the shorter of his companions, and without a shirt on, a traditional korean tattoo body sleeve with the image of a white spider emblazoned in the center in bright red across his chest was the most striking thing about him. Notably, it matched a much smaller tattoo on the back of Hyobin¡¯s neck. She visibly stilled, and we all knew better than to speak before she cooled down. Surprisingly, she spoke first. ¡°San the Mountain. A stupid name. ¡°San¡± is already mountain in Korean. He has to be close to 80 by now, and yet he still lives.¡± She shook her head in what looked like disappointment before continuing. ¡°San is the head of the White Spider Clan. Organized criminals of a kind that keeps to the old ways as much as is possible, and have been both allied with and enemy to the FORGE under his leadership. He got his start during what your people call The Forgotten War, gathering survivors from both the North and South, and creating a family of rebels who were displaced or forgotten. The family he made followed him dutifully, and it grew from the small few to a united clan taking people from across all sides. He¡¯s done well for himself, overseeing it through 3, maybe now 4 attempts at overthrowing. One of which involved me, two of which had to do with the FORGE.¡± ¡°Wait¡­ aren¡¯t you like¡­ 20?¡± Sileena asked and I was too slow to stop her. Hyo went on without expanding on that thought. ¡°They turned to crime early on, in the late 60s. After a few short wars with Triads, Yakuza, and several groups you wouldn¡¯t have ever heard of, he managed to cement their presence in the world. Among the names so far, San is the most dangerous, overtly. He makes no qualms about murder, mass or personal. He has resources, he has loyalty, and the world¡¯s foremost high profile assassin, Geomi, is his son.¡± ¡°According to the buzz I¡¯ve been listening to, it¡¯s thought that he¡¯s entirely opposed to the FORGE¡­ but considering Halogen saw fit to invite him openly that might mean less than we would hope,¡± I finished. Hyobin released her tightened fist as I blinked away the image. This man had dreadlocks twice as long as mine, and one of his own eyes was scarred over. The picture had him in a damn nice green suit, and I couldn¡¯t help but admire the style involved in wearing a suit like that with ivory-white sneakers. He was surrounded by equally well dressed men of various shades of black, and all of them had on black round framed glasses. Cartiers. ¡°Jericho Winters, leader of the Daywalkers,¡± I breathed out. ¡°I will disavow you of the idea, immediately, that anyone in this image isn¡¯t armed to the teeth. Each and every single one of them is a living weapon, or is armed with something dangerous enough to warrant FBI or CIA intervention in them simply being present together like this, and Jericho himself is probably not even the worst of them when it comes to threat level. He¡¯s been living in Detroit since before the first time Halogen ever set foot there, or Sway ever reported on his parents and their gang affiliations. They¡¯re an offshoot of the Black Panthers, but nobody knows how or when that split happened. All we do know is when the rest of the midwest started crumbling under the mounting weight of the FORGE and Halogen, he pushed back hard. He himself is one of the gifted, and a particularly dangerous one at that. His brother Miles, and his sister Millie, the Twins, are just as strong. Jericho has a two fold power. First, he¡¯s capable of seeing the weakness in things, according to word of mouth, and in my only hostile interaction with the guy, he picked apart my power better than anyone else in the world. Secondly, and I like to believe that the first power feeds into this, he¡¯s capable of opening portals like holes in reality.¡± ¡°When did you meet him?¡± Sileena asked. ¡°Before I met you,¡± was my reply, and she raised an eyebrow. ¡°Another time. Anyway, the dangerous thing is that his younger siblings are witches.¡± I gave it a second to set in before I went on. ¡°Yes, like double bubble toil and trouble, witches. They specialize in defense, offense and augury, and that¡¯s all I need to say about them, frankly. The likelihood that they haven¡¯t found more people capable of doing magic is low, but considering all things I¡¯d say this: more than 80% of their group is capable of the supernatural, be it magic, biological, or technological kind. The rest are dangerous in more normal ways.¡± ¡°Magic¡¯s supposed to be rare. I still think it¡¯s a myth,¡± Gabe spoke, but Hyo just chuckled to herself in response. ¡°Your powers are perfectly explainable,¡± I commented in fairness. ¡°I have trouble reconciling magic though.¡± ¡°Sure, Upgrade,¡± she dismissed me. Sileena cleared her throat. ¡°More importantly than her mysticism, why would Halogen invite him? Or HiJack, or San for that matter?¡± ¡°The answer to that is why me and Gabe are going,¡± I responded flatly. There was a whole ten seconds of palpable silence. ¡°Fuck no,¡± Sileena swore. ¡°Are you kidding me?¡± Hyobin asked surprisingly lucid given her boiling rage a few minutes ago. ¡°Dope,¡± Gabe responded. All of that, at once. ¡°I¡¯m dead serious about this, yes. I know, it¡¯s possibly a trap, but I¡¯ve got some ideas about that. First and foremost,¡± I began cutting off the projection and letting my eyes resync their positions in my head behind closed eyes. ¡°Halogen wouldn¡¯t be bringing Sway somewhere like the Playground if there was a chance this could get bad. He¡¯s a regular guy. Barely ever had to fight in his life, probably. Secondly, this thing at the FORGE front in New Detroit seems like the kinda thing that brings people from all over the world to come through the city. More likely than not, it¡¯s a sit down to draw lines, set the rules of engagement. Otherwise, the whole city could get razed to the ground which would be bad for all of us except maybe San.¡± ¡°And you want to walk into that den of thieves and killers willingly, knowing full well you¡¯re almost the least dangerous one?¡± Sileena asked incredulous and slow, enunciating every word. I grinned, and it was a sort of smile I¡¯d been told made me look almost as scary as I thought I was by Gabe on more than one occasion. ¡°I absolutely do.¡± ¡°And why would you do something so pointedly ridiculous?¡± ¡°Easy,¡± I responded, ¡°Because each and every person we just went over will probably discuss how dangerous I am to them as well, the second folks know I¡¯m going.¡± 1.3 The Outline of a Plan The Outline of a Plan ¡°I did, at one point, really think he couldn¡¯t be that dumb. But I was consistently one upped in my expectations.¡± ¡°Okay that was all cool and shit, but it¡¯s not an answer,¡± Sileena said. The smirk betrayed that she did, in fact, enjoy the dramatic way I said it. ¡°More importantly than that,¡± Gabe cut in before I dug a deeper hole, ¡°With the caliber of people invited, there¡¯s bound to be a greater call here than just laying down boundaries and posturing for Halogen. It¡¯s a bigger risk to her to have so many hot heads, us included, present.¡± Ever the insightful right hand man, he had hit the nail on the head. ¡°And that means that whatever is being built up is probably big enough that we shouldn¡¯t squander our chance to have a seat. And besides, who knows what sort of connections I might make,¡± I said, still grinning. ¡°You¡¯ve got a plan already,¡± Hyo gleaned. ¡°Well of course I have a plan,¡± I agreed. ¡°Well. The outline of a plan. Gabe¡¯s comin with me, that¡¯s part one. He¡¯s threatening enough that people won¡¯t test him lightly, which is good for me. Whatever is going down in the Forge HQ here, I want parts of it if only because it¡¯s the sort of thing that warrants all of this attention.¡± That was a problem, in of itself, because I had no idea what it was and at least one other person did. Wars were won on information, and I was starkly lacking. Between that and a lack of friends I could lean on actually present¡­ and without a lot of firepower to begin since we were just starting and I understood the concern¡­ or excitement in Gabes case. Still, they treated me as the defacto leader for a reason or two. Not the least of which being how good I was at working under stress. ¡°So that said, I¡¯m going to need to make a few calls and get some things ready. For now, everyone¡¯s got a job,¡± I commented as my eye stopped being a projector and I blinked away a bit of stars from my vision. ¡°Hyo, can you do some digging into the current layout of the White Spiders, and what the Daywalkers have been up to? I wanna know who¡¯s likely to be coming with them, recent moves made. Be discreet.¡± She gave a curt nod. Best I was likely to get from her on the matter. ¡°Gabe, want to work with me on a couple of projects? Weapons and protection. Whatever you got,¡± I asked, to which he clapped his hands together. ¡°Two steps ahead jefe. I have some ideas I¡¯ve been putting to paper. I can accelerate to the planning stage.¡± ¡°Good man. Sileena, you¡¯re on recon for the week.¡± She perked up even more than usual, at that. ¡°Oh, fun, a proper use for my skills at last.¡± ¡°Yeah. I need to know the basic layout of security at the Playground. Security, floor plan, the works.¡± ¡°Done done and done,¡± she agreed. ¡°Should I try to get access codes, ruffle feathers to measure responses?¡± I considered it. ¡°Risky, but if you can manage it without making things difficult, sure.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be in touch,¡± she answered before there was a disturbance like a blink in space and she was gone, replaced by a blanket from across the room. Hyo took that as her que and got up to go to the second level, leaving me and Gabe to tinker while I considered some options. He¡¯d known that the invitation to work wasn¡¯t just that. He and I had a bit of a history with the Daywalkers. Not too long before we setup in the warehouse, and for that matter before I even ran with this specific crew, Gabe and I had actually had a run with Jehricho. Suffice it to say that compared to right after we left, relations there weren¡¯t as openly hostile anymore¡­ At best. ¡°So, you''re finally making the shock pistols?¡± He asked me as I dug into the work. ¡°Yeah,¡± I replied. ¡°It¡¯s been on the list a while, but we¡¯ve had higher priorities. Still don¡¯t think they¡¯ll be worth more than a few shots until I get something better than tasers to cannibalize.¡± He laughed, apparently eager to grab his own projects too. ¡°One of these days we can stop being scavengers and straight up raid a FORGE armory again. What I wouldn¡¯t give to get my hands on some of their weapons. Even the low tech stuff is ridiculous.¡± ¡°You¡¯re tellin me,¡± I said ruefully. By the time he got up and went down the stairs, I¡¯d started flipping through the contacts on my phone for Jericho''s number. While it sat there ready to call, I looked at the two bags Gabe brought from the floor below. Military grade munitions, body armor and even a few explosives all haphazardly dropped into a duffel bag. I flinched when he dropped it, and he plopped down between them. This man was dangerous in so many ways it was hard to count, and that¡¯s why I loved him. Beyond his power, he was one of the most gifted inventors I¡¯d ever met- including myself. Engineering and mechanics were his bread and butter. Between the two of us we made a solid collaboration, but he had an edge in a myriad of ways due to methodology. When I met him, he was already a nationally recognized terrorist in his home country. If it blew up, shot, or otherwise could cause property damage Gabriel dos Santos could make it better. To that end when he placed a silver ball on the table I knew better than to assume it was mundane. ¡°No bombs,¡± I said sternly. ¡°What? Come on hermano,¡± he complained. I shook my head. ¡°Not this time. They¡¯ll probably tolerate some things but bombs are pushing it.¡± He sighed and snatched it, tossing the ball onto the couch to my visible ire, and then he slapped what looked like a slender machete on the table. I picked it up, eyeing the length of it with my second sight to examine tech inside the hilt of the weapon. I locked on as soon as I found the on switch. With an expression of raw will I flicked it on, and the 2 foot blade glowed red with heat. ¡°Ah, yeah that¡¯ll work,¡± I answered with a grin. ¡°Basic shit, but effective. That thing could carve through Kevlar like tissue,¡± he proudly said, reaching down and removing what looked like a submachine gun from the bag with the explosives. ¡°Okay, this is one of my favorites.¡± I recalled that one, stealing it with him was a high point of that month. Versatile little thing, spits out so many types of ammo with the restriction mostly coming down to what we could make with the tools in The Garage, or what we could find and fit into it¡¯s magazines. ¡°That¡¯ll do, I think,¡± I said in assent. ¡°So, you gonna make the call?¡± he asked, eyeing my phone. I sighed. ¡°Come on Kendrick you can¡¯t duck them forever, and I¡¯m pretty sure that as soon as Hijack lets everyone know she was passing your info along Jericho will know to expect contact, or to make it.¡± He was right, and that raised my hackles quite a bit. ¡°Maybe I''ll wait for his call, in that case.¡± ¡°You could, but you and I both know the reason you¡¯re avoiding this call jefe.¡± ¡°Next up on the loadout, please, Gabe.¡± I was thankful that he obliged my request to drop the topic. Next out of the box was a vest, of which I knew he had four hanging around in the chaos of the basement. ¡°Bulletproof, slightly heat proof, and sprayed down with that non conductive resin they¡¯ve been pushing out. Won¡¯t work against a lightning bolt but some shock-tech will be heavily dampened before it reaches the torso. If I could get my hands on a proper shield cell¡­¡± ¡°Nah, this will do I think.¡± ¡°Think the shock pistols will be done in time for the meeting?¡± He asked. I glanced at the pile of tasers and empty casings long enough to figure the time I¡¯d need as the schematics I¡¯d thought up flowed through my mind smoothly. ¡°If you can lend me a hand, sure. Like I said, probably won¡¯t be able to survive more than a few shots each without burning out but that¡¯s the nature of the beast.¡± He looked downright hungry at that. ¡°Let¡¯s get a working prototype together and worry about upgrading after.¡± Man after my own heart. Without needing another word, we both dug in, and as always it felt like music being made between us.
Later that same day, around lunchtime, I found myself taking the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Across the somewhat empty expanse, Hyo and Sileena had made a cross between a Dojo and a dance studio. A long mirror stretched one wall, which should have been a fucking nightmare to get there but Sileena trivialized the hard part of that work. On the far wall, a couple of blocks of distance away, Hyo sat cross legged in her bed with a Laptop in front of her and a 60 pound dumbbell casually being lifted in one hand. ¡°You should knock,¡± she commented as I approached. ¡°What? I was so far away,¡± I protested. ¡°I would have heard.¡± She regarded me with a nod, beckoning me over after the curt response and turned the laptop to me. My heart skipped a bit of a beat when I saw Jehricho, looking older if only because he didn¡¯t have gray hair when I knew him, and his two siblings. They looked like they were in trouble in the still image. With a blink, I played the footage. Miles held up a hand, eyes a Smokey white that was clear even with the shaky camera footage this had been taken from. Incoming gunfire shattered against a translucent wall, and behind him Millie barked something out in a cadence that sounded almost unearthly. A bright light emanated from off screen at the end of her statement as she pointed a finger, and the resulting explosion made the feed temporarily fizzle. When it came back, a hole tore into reality and they slung four bags through the hole. They stepped through, bodies shimmering just before and a small silver ball bounced through. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. That blast destroyed everything, camera included. ¡°Looks like your acquaintances are still up to no good,¡± Hyo explained. ¡°That was from Texas. Raid on a facility fronting as a retail warehouse went downhill. You gasped when you saw those twins. Anything I should know?¡± I blinked, flipping to a picture of a woman about as old as me, much longer locs of hair with several charms mid swing behind her with a dangerous smile and piercing red eyes, came up. I sighed exasperated. ¡°It was more at the portal opening than anything. They don¡¯t usually get those directly in combat from their leader Jericho.¡± She didn¡¯t call me on the lie like I could always count on Gabriel to do. She just stared. She knew me better than him in some ways. That hawk eyed stare almost made me flinch, but the monster in me was too indignant to balk at something like this. ¡°I¡¯m sure it won¡¯t come up when you tap them for backup,¡± she conceded sarcastically. ¡°Insubordination will not be tolerated,¡± I joked, flipping past her to San and his current followers. ¡°Ah yes; time to grill you about your history. Which is what I asked you to look into by the way.¡± She turned the knowing gaze into a forceful glare and that was more than enough to ward me off that line of conversation. ¡°To which I mean, as you no doubt gleaned, we shall now discuss his threat level.¡± No video this time. Just a clear statement of power. No less than 200 officers in hisnever expanding army. I whistled noting that some of them were on international watch lists and some looked to be business men and women. At his right, in a white mask and bodysuit adorned with the White Spider Clan crest, Geomi. World renowned assassin. Dangerous. Lethal. Efficient. ¡°You know you can¡¯t come,¡± I told her when I finally deigned to speak, having a seat on the edge of the bed. She dropped the weight, fingers tapping the bed rhythmically as she took a deep, calming breath. ¡°Stand back up.¡± I was startled a bit at that, and the speed at which she popped up from her seat. ¡°What?¡± ¡°If we are going to have this talk, and you are going to convince me to stay back, I want to have it while we spar.¡± My face dropped, and I had no problem letting her see how wildly unappealing that sounded to me. ¡°Non-negotiable,¡± she added. ¡°I will go easy on you.¡± I sighed. ¡°Alright, fuck it.¡± It had been a bit since I got my ass beat anyway and I didn¡¯t want any rust settling in. I¡¯d been trained my entire life to be capable of doing a lot better than just defending myself, but Hyobin had the code name Prodigy for a reason. The second I stepped on the map we offered each other a bow, which I suppressed the urge to be sarcastic about, and took a ready position. Six feet between us. Didn¡¯t offer a lot of time if she decided to close in and crack my skull open like an egg, but she¡¯d said she was going easy. ¡°So, explain again why I cannot go?¡± She commented, palms open towards me, right foot forward ever so slightly, eyes flickering over my form quickly; spotting weakness. Like a Panther sizing up a mouse. I took initiative, closing in. One step. Two. She was in my jabbing range before my foot touched the ground for a second time, and stepped right between my legs. By the time my hook swung for her chin, one of her hands had parried, striking the elbow and the other rebuffed my advance with a palm strike that destroyed my forward momentum. Reeling, I stepped back with it and pushed down her hand with the one I hadn¡¯t swung with. Precisely, she used the one she¡¯d parried with to effectively shove my wrist aside, crossed in front of my chest, and then pivoted slightly to shoulder-check me. Two exchanges in her favor and I was on my ass. ¡°Hyo, you can¡¯t go because your temper is worse than mine and that¡¯s a huge thing.¡± She backed off with measured steps, never looking away from me with that sharp gaze. I got up, brushing myself off, and his my chagrin. No matter how strong and experienced the opponent, being dismantled by someone half your size hurts the ego a bit. ¡°If Geomi shows up and things go south-¡° I rushed again, and she let me. I feinted, forgetting who I was dealing with, and then backed off. She followed and swung a kick at me. ¡°-you are going to need me.¡± I managed a well timed block that allowed me to jab at her again safely with a step in. Bait. The foot I had blocked recoiled and snapped out, landing in my chest right as my wrist was caught. The impact winded me, and then she rolled back, pulling me with her foot still against my solar plexus, and slammed me into the ground. The strength involved in her jumping with one leg with my body was definitely NOT her going easy, but she twisted my wrist anyway once we landed, dropping a knee against my chest. I tapped immediately, before the lock could start to hurt. ¡°Last time I checked Geomi can be shot,¡± I grunted fighting the urge to go grab a gun right now. ¡°We¡¯re not idiots. We can handle this.¡± She snorted, letting me go and helping me up. ¡°You are getting smarter. At fighting I mean. You are still an idiot otherwise.¡± ¡°Fuck off,¡± I responded gracefully. ¡°When you feint, you try not to put your body into it like you do when you actually swing. It is the kind of tell that is exploitable by anyone with an equal or higher skill level. Boxing did you a disservice in that regard but if you had hit me I¡¯m sure it would have been a really good hit.¡± And there was Hyos most dangerous quality. Beyond the mystical and mysterious connection to a magical energy I knew nothing about, she had also been chosen by the forge to receive an¡­ improvement. Her reflexes were beyond inhuman to pair with supernatural speed. Due to some neuro-implants her mind could slow down the world, allowing her to experience things at a tenth of the speed, sometimes even slower. She was beyond efficient and lethal, even if pushing that advantage came with downsides, like overheating her brain or trapping her in her own mind temporarily. ¡°If you go, San and Geomi might not even play ball, Hyobin.¡± Before she spoke I cut in. ¡°It¡¯s not like you can¡¯t wait nearby. You and Sileena are absolutely going to be coming to the club. You just can¡¯t come inside. That¡¯s all.¡± Her mind turned that around a few times. ¡°Sure. Fine. Whatever.¡± One loss traded for one victory. It was always better for the one coming in with less negotiating power after all. ¡°Anything else you manage to dig up?¡± I asked not quite ready to rise from the floor yet with my not-bruised ego. ¡°Nothing I cannot, quickly brief you on another time. More names, more background information on some people with weight from San¡¯s camp. I do not think it is going to matter. He mostly brought lieutenants he would not mind losing but could trust.¡± ¡°Guys that might be looking for a way up?¡± She shook her head. ¡°The ambition would be equal across the board so it is not an angle we could try to use,¡± she explained while reopening the laptop and flipping to Halogen and Sway at last. Nothing surprising. Her usual cabal, some heavyweights with powers that were good for everything from assassination to demolition but nothing as¡­ esoteric as magic from her side. ¡°That is all I have,¡± she said. ¡°Too many bodyguards, cut throats and purse snatchers under her. Same thing with Sway except it is too few. He just hides in Halogens shadow like an insect. I also have no real method by which to see if anyone else will be there. That being said, Sileena might have intel as well.¡± I took that as the que it was to leave without bugging her anymore, even if kicking me around would have raised her spirits a bit. I had one more person to check with and then a phone call to make anyway.
For Sileena, at least, I actually did need to make a phone call to catch up with her. This, at least, would likely be fast. ¡°Sup,¡± she said as soon as the phone rang twice. ¡°Yo. How goes recon?¡± I asked, making a few final adjustments to the vest I¡¯d be wearing under my shirt to make sure it fit. ¡°It goes indeed. Turns out The Playground has really fucking good food man. I got these little sliders as an appetizer, Mmf to die for. The entree was a ribeye. That shit was fly as FUCK. And a baked sweet potato too. And like 4 orders of fries. The fries, Upgrade, the fries,¡± she all but moaned in my ear. ¡°Sileena,¡± I impatiently growled at her. ¡°Okay right,¡± she said and I could hear her suppressing the laugh. ¡°Yeah so, I ended up eating everything and keeping my eyes open. The staff on the night shift are all people who could probably throw you across a room casually. Even the wait staff. I managed to sneak a peak into the kitchen, and saw a couple of guards watching the door on the fridge. ¡°Lot of people meandered back there inconspicuously and didn¡¯t come out the whole time I was there. After my second steak I figured I¡¯d been ID¡¯d.¡± ¡°People shouldn¡¯t know you by face, you¡¯re too new at this,¡±I said honestly. Meant that some folks might have passed her info around who DID know what she looked like. ¡°Yah and I wasn¡¯t armed or anything. All I had was your wallet. Anyway, no sign of Halogen herself but what tipped me off was a manager came by to check on me since I¡¯d gotten enough food to fill a Lion and he was sorta odd. Had black sunglasses on in a dimly lit restaurant.¡± ¡°What else was odd Shift?¡± ¡°There was a pistol on his hip. Military grade vest under. Oh and he told me if I wasn¡¯t here to visit the Queen Bitch herself I should make myself scarce and that I¡¯m not as sneaky or clever as I thought I was. Don¡¯t know if he knew who I was but he tipped his hand there for sure. I managed to steal his the gun and swapped his wallet with yours.¡± ¡°What, wait a second I like my wallet!¡± I complained. ¡°Also I have like four IDs in there!¡± ¡°I emptied it before I left. This guys name is Danai Charles. Or so it says on his work ID and State ID. From Ohio. Fuck Ohio. Anyway yeah he has like, way too much cash. I looked him up, and turns out this specific alias, unless it¡¯s really him, is probably one of her right hands. He¡¯s probably going to be mad I stole this too, because he keeps an access card in the back. Just in case we need to make a quick entrance or exit, we got it.¡± And that¡¯s why I put up with Sileena. Small mercy she¡¯s half as good a thief as she is at talking my damn ear off. ¡°Good work. Anything else of note.¡± ¡°Yeah, I also got you building plans on the way out. It¡¯s incredible what people keep in eyes view. I swapped a plate with a tablet, you¡¯d have been so proud to see it btdubs, right out of the office. Yeah they didn¡¯t keep close enough eye on me. Turns out I¡¯m sneakier than I thought I was, huh Danai. Anyways¡­ Remember when I said all the staff look like hired goons? They probably are. She¡¯s called her hounds home for this one. And this tablet has everything an out of towner or new hire would need to be aware of to be effective security when everyone in town is possibly dangerous. I got routes, I got emergency access points. I got the roster. I got it all. Made a copy for you, and then sent the tablet back. I¡¯m on my way back.¡± ¡°Good shit Shift,¡± I praised. ¡°Got an ETA?¡± ¡°Be there by midnight. Gotta stop for a bite,¡± she said. ¡°Ring ya if I get into trouble, bye now!¡± Click. Well, that was certainly a worthwhile conversation. One day of recon and she had everything I needed. Even if the access codes changed I could use the card she stole as a base to build on. The floor plans and security roster was an obviously good find. Now it was just a measure of playing the waiting game and making a phone call I¡¯d been trying to avoid. One ring, and an amused voice spoke over the phone. ¡°Miles gave even odds you¡¯d bitch out and not call,¡± a voice chided me the second hit could. ¡°Well, I figured waiting till end of business would keep you on the edge of your seat.¡± ¡°Very funny. To what do I owe the displeasure, Upgrade? Don¡¯t suppose you¡¯re calling looking for an in to the party,¡± he responded. ¡°Nah, got my own. They really are just letting anyone in these days.¡± A moment of quiet. He didn¡¯t expect that. ¡°Alright, so I¡¯ll humor you. What the fuck are you calling for?¡± ¡°I need a favor Jehricho,¡± I said, tense. ¡°You got a lot of nerve, boy,¡± he growled. The already deep voice got even lower. ¡°After all this time, you think you can call me for favors? After last time I did you a solid?¡± ¡°I squared with you before I left, come on don¡¯t play ball like this man.¡± ¡°See that¡¯s the thing. You barely broke even before you cut and run. You didn¡¯t have much then, you ain¡¯t got much now. You¡¯re a little fish in an ocean you can¡¯t even see the deepest part of and you think you got enough pull that I¡¯ll do you a favor?¡± ¡°My nigga, I¡¯m not dumb,¡± I cut in. ¡°This is mutually beneficial. There¡¯s no bad blood with us. I told you when I left that I wasn¡¯t trying to start a feud. I had to go my way and you had yours. It¡¯s in the air of good graces I want to give you something you¡¯ve wanted since before I was born. I just need some assurances and a hand with something. Then you get a real shot at turning the tide.¡± The quiet on the other end meant he had muted his phone. Miles and Millie and probably some others giving some advice. I took initiative again. ¡°How would you like to bring down the biggest hound in the FORGE Jericho? I¡¯m talking about toppling Halogen.¡± ¡°¡­I¡¯m listening, boy.¡± And just like that,the foundation was laid for one hell of a party. 1.4 The Deepend The Deep End A week scooted by without incident, and the four of us piled our way into the Kia Forte I¡¯d managed to help Sileena steal a while back. Hyobin was very specific about driving and always had been, best reflexes and all, which left me riding shotgun and the other two filing into the backseat. With my power, a 2022 car was effectively a living breathing mount: so many sensors to feed me information about the vehicle, enough control via applications on deck to help in a pinch and quite a lot of quality of life controls that I could do hands free. The FORGE had, consistently in all fields of tech and engineering, accelerated the world significantly. War had always been a driving force behind advancement, and the secret corpo war between organizations like them and Haven had driven the world forward at a pace that oftentimes caused more harm than good. There was still good, but not enough of it by a long shot, and most of it came with it¡¯s own negatives. Medicine ramped forward, but so did the power of Big Pharma to squeeze communities for their very lives, figuratively and literally through human testing. The automotive industry made better, faster, stronger and more visually appealing cars but at the cost of environmental annihilation being accelerated. The FORGE was a necessary evil, and a comfortable one, but I was aware my life had been irrevocably altered by the money and power that corps had to throw around, and that played deeply into why I did what I did. It was, in many ways, more personal than just, generally, trying to bring down a big bad corpo. We argued over the radio, keeping my mind busy enough to stay out of my personal existentialism, until we arrived. ¡°Alright, listen up,¡± I cut in, turning off the radio and killing the lights as we stopped a few blocks away from the club. ¡°Remember, once we¡¯re in it¡¯s going to take a lot of background processing in my mind just to keep them from being able to cut our communications outside according to all of what Shift managed to steal.¡± Thanks in no small part to a relatively hefty boom in hackers and technopaths of varying degrees of strength, the world had to evolve ways to fend them off. One of many answers was simply flooding an area with a shit load of garbage signals. Everything in a given network, or in some cases a general area would be flooded with so much virtual noise that getting through it would be impossibly complex and require too much focus. Far more annoying to deal with than your average signal jammers because most modern versions operate on all frequencies at once, while creating sub-frequencies that allow for communications on your own network to be unabated as long as you are keyed in. Most of them wouldn¡¯t work well on someone of my caliber, but I¡¯d encountered, once or twice, the kind that would take up a lot of what I could do without sinking into my own conscious mind to do it. Here, that meant that I would have my Umbra signal going out, and a connection to Prodigy, Shift and Marauder via our earpieces with my own mind as the terminal. ¡°We won¡¯t be far,¡± Prodigy said, keeping her eyes on the low rise buildings all around us. We were just outside New Detroit in what used to be Midtown. Not a whole lot of ways into that part of the city, but a lot of alleyways and scattered buildings of various heights. The Playground was a tall one by those standards, sure, but all around there was cover, the kind where our competition could have left their own backup. ¡°Got a few marks already¡­¡± she grumbled. ¡°Yeah, lot of irrelevant radio chatter,¡± I agreed, activating my second sight and examining just how many people were well hidden¡­ and well armed. Highlighted against the dark in bright reds, some connected by thin lines occasionally as they activated communications like walkie talkies or ear pieces. ¡°Some of these dudes are armed to the teeth. Stay out of trouble¡­¡± I warned her pinging high end weapons on a lot of otherwise well hidden people. ¡°Yeah, we kitted this thing out to escape a lot but not to be missile proof. Or Prodigy and Shift get into a fight with ninjas and gangbangers with superpowers and magic proof,¡± Gabe warned. The car was a passion project of his, lots of work on the engine, bulletproof windows acquired over time and a whole lot of compartments for weapons should we need to turn it into a getaway vehicle. Which we had. ¡°I got it,¡± she grunted at him, and Shift offered only a chuckle like the goblin she was. I took it as my que and opened the door to get out. We¡¯d dressed up as the party was, in theory, black tie. I gave it my all with black slacks, and a vest under my black button down shirt. Over that, a gray cardigan that was much heavier than it looked, considering the loadout Marauder and I had hidden inside of it over the week. As for him, he had no bones about showing off with the submachine gun on his hip, three silver balls hanging from his belt, his vest over the rather nice satin gray shirt and the thermo-sword on his back. For effect, black sunglasses for us both, aviators for him, Lennon frames for me. We definitely looked exactly like the kind of dudes you¡¯d be wary of and that was intentional. We had to look the part, more importantly than we needed to actually play it in some ways. Appearances meant a lot in this world if only because the older crowd was more likely to play ball with those who looked dangerous over those who didn¡¯t. Even so, not concealing the heavy shit he was taking had been a point of contention. ¡°Let¡¯s go, the second we stepped out the car at least three people radioed that we arrived,¡± I told him as we closed the door. Prodigy was still haughty that she wasn¡¯t going in, but she sat back and nodded to me when I gestured to her. The closer we got to the door of the club, the louder the music got. Marauder broke the spell of silence that had taken us, lightening the relatively heavy apprehension. ¡°Man, this takes me back,¡± Marauder said as we approached the bouncer. ¡°Yeah, simpler times back in Venezuela,¡± I agreed. ¡°At least back then the antagonism was out int he open.¡± He chuckled. ¡°Missing open war being your lullaby?¡± he asked me. The bouncer, huge and rippling muscles almost scarier than the rifle in the hands of the security flanking the door behind him, held out a hand. ¡°You two lost?¡± he asked lifting an eyebrow. Marauder laughed. ¡°You practice that line in front of the mirror?¡± he asked the man cocking his head to the side. ¡°Needs more work, not sounding generic enough. Gotta add something about us being little or maybe some implicit threats.¡± The man hardly reacted. I held up both hands and then slowly lowered my glasses. Without the contacts the black sclera of my right eye and bright green lines of code scrolling down and across my fake left one always gave me away clear as day. ¡°Might wanna watch your boyfriend¡¯s mouth, Upgrade. Won¡¯t be enough to keep him alive if he mouths off to the wrong people tonight.¡± Marauder clicked his tongue. I almost stopped him but he was quick on the draw. ¡°Ah yes homophobia veiling your own insecurity. I love it I love it. Hey, when you figure out how to open that closet door, gimme a call big guy, I¡¯ll show you a few things.¡± The man unfolded his arms, and I could see him flexing his arms like he wanted to swing. He thought better of it when Marauder flexed his fingers and a flair of orange energy arced between them. ¡°Go directly to the kitchen and head straight to the next guard. Try anything and you won¡¯t live to talk shit to anyone else.¡± ¡°Thanks Anthony,¡± I said walking past him as he let us through, tipping him off that I knew more about him than he would have probably imagined. Crazy what a few seconds of distraction netted me, crazier still that people would actively threaten people on a night where an armistice was the one thing keeping chaos from taking hold of the night. Still, we were past the open doors and in the thick of it in seconds and- I almost staggered as we passed the threshold. Instantly my mind was flooded with static and it took all I had not to locate and shut down the source. My second sight was foggy, to boot. The communications were first priority. Getting it up quickly would keep Prodigy from getting antsy, and I needed that more than to keep the noise level in the forefront of my mind quiet. A few seconds passed by and I had it relegated to my subconscious. A herculean effort for some, but much less for me. Still, I was effectively operating with a hand behind my back where raw mental firepower was concerned. ¡°All good,¡± I commented to both Marauder and Prodigy. ¡°Comms won¡¯t be going down again unless I¡¯m in danger.¡± ¡°Alright. Good luck boss man,¡± Shift cheerily said before Proidgy started complaining about being out there. Gabe and I gave the room a once over. Average restaurant, nothing too special besides, as Shift noted, the excess of guards posing as wait staff - effectively I might add. ¡°Straight. Back,¡± one of them commented walking past us in a huff with a bus tub in his hand. No further prompting needed after a shared look between us, and we pushed through the doors as they swung behind him. We were met by three rifles powering up in our faces behind the next door. A woman stepped forward, face covered by a mask and holding a facial scanner in one hand with a pistol aimed at Marauder¡¯s head in the other. Dickhead he was, he smiled at her as she scanned him, and then me. She frowned, and I sighed. ¡°It won¡¯t give you anything,¡± I started to explain and she held one finger up on the scanner. I could see it, even with my second sight being flooded by a snowstorm of false signals and nonsense. A connection came to life and she heard someone speak. My eyes found a camera, and I smirked at it. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s me. Call the hounds off!¡± She froze in place, and the order came over her own head piece. ¡°They¡¯re clear. Head down the stairs and mingle, or whatever the fuck you all do till Halogen is ready for you all to come back. Keep your shit together Upgrade. Same threats Anthony gave you apply here. You two aren¡¯t making any friends, you know.¡± I scoffed, just a little incensed by that as I pushed past. ¡°Sorry, can¡¯t hear you past that FORGE voice modulator and the FORGE armor and weapons yall are holding so near and dear.¡± ¡°Maybe if you weren¡¯t choking on all that FORGE dick we¡¯d be worried about your threats,¡± Marauder said, opening the door for me and flipping them off. Sometimes having a fireball like him for a bodyguard was entertaining if it weren¡¯t a little bit too much sometimes. Here, though? I could only give him a fistbump as we headed down the stairs. ¡°La musica is different down here,¡± he said, opening the next door. The Playground, in truth, was a hidden nightclub under the restaurant upstairs and spanned a far larger space than you¡¯d think having seen the upper floor. We¡¯d been prepped for this when we went over the floor plans with them. They weren¡¯t complete, as this fortress was immense beyond just where we would be congregating. All the scum of the city and then some, by a lot, had gathered tonight. ¡°Much less uppity restaurant and more our speed.¡± ¡°Yeah, stay sharp,¡± I said as we ventured towards the bar. No sooner did we get halfway there did I see her, leaning with her back to the bar, one long red braid coming down the front of her body over her own black corset and pants. Somehow she looked equal parts witch and hitwoman, and she had her eyes set on me with the kind of smile that was more mean than it was inviting and yet still, I knew better than to run from this conflict. ¡°Oh hey Millie,¡± Marauder cheerfully commented as soon as we were in earshot, which was rather close given the volume. She offered him a hug, and it took a lot for me not to stare at everything that was different about her from the last time I¡¯d seen her face. ¡°Well well well, the madman lives afterall,¡± she said cheerily, voice still somewhere caught between rasp and velvet. ¡°Yeah, well, not for lack of trying on everyone¡¯s part. Wait, did you see me dying?¡± ¡°I see everyone die at least twice a year. You, at least seven times.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°Badass.¡± She turned her head to me, and my heart skipped. New piercing in her eyebrow, added on the list with her septum, her tongue and her dimples, each a black crystal. Her hair was a lot longer. Her eyes were still so soft even though she had enough power to level a house in one arm. I didn¡¯t linger long but she noticed the second before I spoke up and it caught me off guard when she positioned herself so I could get a better look. Taunting me as always. ¡°Hey Millie,¡± I parroted Marauder for lack of knowing what to say. ¡°Oh, no I¡¯m not mad at you for abandoning me, it¡¯s fine. I also don¡¯t mind that you didn¡¯t call,¡± she responded. ¡°I already processed it.¡± Lie. Miles saved me, walking up and patting my shoulder. Somehow the man looked like a warlock met a businessman, charms in his braided hair and his own long jacket opened up to a vest, tie and shirt that were clearly cannibalized from a three piece suit. Adorning his person was several more charms hanging from all manner of jewelry and accessories. Good, so he was prepared. ¡°She¡¯s been waiting for that one,¡± he admitted handing me and Marauder drinks. ¡°Broski¡¯s in the booth,¡± he said, sounding sleepy, which was normal for him. Where Millie was a limitless battery, he seemed perpetually out of it until he was called upon to do something miraculous and mystic. The twins Miles and Millie were often called the Twin Terrors in the greater underground communities, known to be nightmarish if they had time to prepare for war, and even worse if caught off guard. They were vicious, they were rude, and once upon a time the two of them and I had been thick as thieves. Miles approved of my¡­ proclivities and inclinations where the FORGE was concerned, and Millie¡­ Well. The reason I was beating around the bush calling Jehricho was because when I left them all behind to start¡­ whatever we are now, I didn¡¯t say goodbye to anyone face to face. I paid back a debt and left. Millie had meant a lot to me. Been the first person I¡¯d ever really bonded with on a level beyond mutual hatred for the FORGE outside of a select few. Seeing her now brought up a lot of bad feelings about leaving things how I did, but I couldn¡¯t stay with them anymore. More importantly I had learned a lesson I wouldn¡¯t forget, and that was to tie off my loose ends better. She gestured to where he was, and touched the opposite shoulder Miles had patted. Miles, while I was mystified, busied himself catching up with Marauder. ¡°Talk later?¡± I tried. ¡°Yeah. As long as you don¡¯t wait five years. Or until you need something.¡± Ouch, but he was right. I walked to the booth, far off in it¡¯s own corner, with the Last Word cocktail he¡¯d sent Miles to me with. ¡°Damn, you got old,¡± I opened sitting down across from Jehrico, who was sitting alone, eyes shining a bit in the darkness in that cobalt hue that clued any and everyone in to his own unnatural powers. He pierced me with that stare, but I held fast. This man respected only those who deserved it, and I¡¯d never shied away from him before. ¡°Yeah, and you got fat.¡± He offered a hand, which I took and shook, palms clapping together and sliding skin on skin until the finger knuckles met and locked together. ¡°I did not, you can¡¯t even see me well enough in this light.¡± He smirked, best I¡¯d get out of him. ¡°Upgrade, you¡¯re a fucking irritating little asshole. The second you get your nose in shit it always starts going left.¡± ¡°Gonna hold you to that when alls said and done.¡± ¡°Live through the week first, then make comments like that little boy.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a grown man, Jericho. Don¡¯t call me that again or we¡¯re gonna have issues.¡± He measured me with that gaze, and pursed his lips. ¡°Shit you got a spine since you¡¯ve been off my radar. The fuck happened to you?¡± I took off my glasses and stared him dead on, fake eye rolling almost a full 360 for effect before it centered and I spoke. ¡°I lived through the FORGE trying to get rid of me directly, which put me on everyone¡¯s map after I set one of their heaviest hitters free, and then I rescued a metahuman with the kind of power you can¡¯t afford to ignore lightly and talked her into joining up. I¡¯m not the little fish in the big pond anymore, Jericho.¡± ¡°You got a few good things going, I won¡¯t lie. Marauder was a known quantity before he got linked onto you, but he¡¯s linked into your sphere now. Prodigy¡¯s someone everyone¡¯s worried about, not the least of which is one of the sharks in the water. San ain¡¯t too happy about you and her being in together. He¡¯s asking questions. As for Shift¡­ yeah. No one knows enough about her besides that she¡¯s a FORGE prison escapee. Word on the street is they¡¯ll pay stupid amounts of money to get that girl back. And then there¡¯s you,¡± he pointed. I sipped at my drink as he continued. ¡°The world''s best technopath, and the thorn in everyone¡¯s side. After the shit we pulled together back in the day? Crashing those data centers and ambushing that convoy? You¡¯re almost as dangerous as you think you are boy. I¡¯ve never met someone with your caliber of precision and mean streak.¡± ¡°I sense a but,¡± I told him. ¡°Why the grandstanding. I know all of his. They¡¯re my team.¡± ¡°Because, nigga you ain¡¯t the only fish with your weight that¡¯s trying to punch up. You see the girl with the bright tattoos and the fucking minigun on her back?¡± I turned and glanced. Sure enough, she was leaning back in a chair with a pair of equally well armed chicks on either side, each similarly armed. ¡°One example of people with your level of influence and relative power. Just one. They¡¯ve arguably done more, come to think of it. You aint the only hungry fish here. Hell some of these people still think you¡¯re under me.¡± I frowned. ¡°And you called me over here, separate from my own bodyguard so that you could foster that image and position yourself that much better, didn¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I wanted to see my old follower, where he ended up after he left me,¡± he admitted. ¡°Against all reasoning, I¡¯ve agreed to this gamble, and against all emotion I¡¯ve forgiven you. But don¡¯t think for a second I¡¯ve forgotten that you left us without a word. You were family.¡± ¡°I had to.¡± ¡°Yeah, so you say.¡± ¡°We wan¡¯t different things, Jericho. I respect you, I always did. Fuck, I admired the vision. The hunger and ambition you have? The need to break their hold on Detroit. But,¡± he cut in before I could finish. ¡°But you got bigger dreams than helping us.¡± ¡°No, fuck man that¡¯s not it Jericho¡­¡± I trailed off. ¡°I have the kind of personal vendetta that might end up crashing and burning around me one of these days, and I¡¯m taking them down with me if that happens; The FORGE and probably everyone around at the time too. My team knows and made their peace with it. I don¡¯t want that for y¡¯all.¡± ¡°Yeah? For all of us?¡± ¡°For Millie most of all, yeah, and Miles too. But she meant a lot to me. More than revenge.¡± She looked at us over her shoulder, and then back to Marauder, who was tossing that damn silver ball in his hand up and down again. ¡°She cried a few times. Miles shut down for about a week. You hurt them already,¡± Jericho said without an ounce of kindness. ¡°I know.¡± I never had to confront it till now but I knew. ¡°And?¡± I met his eyes again, raised my chin. ¡°Better hurt now than dead later.¡± ¡°You know what I learned the fastest coming up? How I got here mostly intact?¡± ¡°Cunning and wit?¡± ¡°Yeah smartass, and by learning that you can¡¯t decide FOR people. That¡¯s what THEY do, kid. And you¡¯re gonna learn that lesson fast, or burn more people trying not to burn them.¡± ¡°Alright, dad, enough with the lecture,¡± I said, fighting against the tide of emotion he was trying to punish me with. I waved Marauder over. ¡°Hatchet buried?¡± Marauder asked. ¡°Yeah, hombre, with me and him. But I¡¯m pissed at you too,¡± he told Marauder. ¡°Hey hey hey, you knew damn well me and him are a package deal. Still, lo siento former Jefe,¡± he commented offering his hand. ¡°This scheme he hatched, though? We¡¯re going places with this one man.¡± ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s hope,¡± Miles commented. ¡°Future¡¯s all kinds of muddy with this one. Foresight rituals have oddities and mysteries, and a lot of that comes from the Uncertainty Principle.¡± ¡°No one has all the facts, so all estimations are likely to be heavily biased, even when you have a solid base from which to start guessing,¡± Millie cut in pushing me into the booth to sit by me and easing into the seat comfortably. She saw me go almost still and chuckled. ¡°I said I was over it, Upgrade, relax. Besides seeing you squirm is more than worth a bit of embarrassment on my part. Anyway, that¡¯s the reason i see you die all the time Marauder.¡± ¡°You still think I¡¯m suicidal?¡± ¡°No, but that ¡®blaze of glory¡¯ mentality is the same thing,¡± Miles said sitting beside Jehrico and twisting a ring around his middle finger with the opposite thumb and ring finger. His eyes fogged over briefly, literally, and he smirked when it faded. ¡°Oh yeah, worth burning a preset spell to see that shit.¡± ¡°See what?¡± Marauder asked. ¡°Even odds you blow yourself up with that grenade and that you blow up the bouncer,¡± he smiled. ¡°What when!?¡± He asked. Miles smiled. ¡°In the future.¡± I cleared my throat, brute forcing my way in. Marauder, standing beside the booth next to Millie put away the grenade, and I spoke. ¡°I saw San on the opposite side of the room,¡± I commented leaning closer to the wall, hand resting precariously close to Millies and motioning with a nod to the table with the absurdly huge Korean man, hidden well in the direct opposite corner. ¡°No love lost between him and the FORGE still I see. They don¡¯t even have water at the table.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t be too safe. We checked for poisons and hallucinogenics and¡­ well¡­ everything else too,¡± Jericho said. San turned to face us just after a man in all black, including a cloth scarf wrapped around his lower face, adorned only with a white spider leaned to whisper in his ear. Jericho nodded to him, curt and sharp. I only watched as he got up and even though the music didn¡¯t quiet, the room seemed to acknowledge him. ¡°Lets go Upgrade,¡± Jericho commented as the twins let us out. A few others got up too, people I didn¡¯t quite recognize from the Dossiers but no less important if they were going to meet in the center of a criminally underused dancefloor. Each of us came alone, but our seconds followed close enough to be a standing threat. Marauder, taking no chances, had his weapon in hand. All of the others had followed suit or preceded him in one way or another. ¡°San the Mountain,¡± Jericho spoke and San flared his nostrils. ¡°You should know better, boy,¡± he chided with a thick accent, and I saw Jericho understand exactly why I hated that shit and decidedly let go of my plan to fuck with him for calling me boy again as he bristled. ¡°Simply call me San.¡± ¡°Pleasure to see you again as well,¡± he grumbled. ¡°I think introductions are in order?¡± ¡°Why is he here?¡± San asked, pointing at me. ¡°Is he not one of yours?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t belong to anyone, San. I¡¯m representing myself,¡± I answered indignantly. ¡°And yet, unlike the others here, you are the only one in question. Still cowering in the shadow of your betters, of those who are above you head and shoulder. You come when he calls, you sit at his table. You are nothing worth a second glance.¡± I grit my teeth, and without looking I could feel everyone had turned their eyes to me. I removed my glasses once again, and hung them from my shirt. ¡°And you¡¯re a relic of an era long gone, one who failed in his ambitions and takes second seat at best to your most hated enemy. You sure are quick to point a finger at me for breaking bread with a friend while you cower at the heel and come to sit at the feet of a FORGE bigwig when she calls. You¡¯re nothing but a gangster who failed at becoming a Corpo rat-king and settled for organized crime far away from the reach of YOUR betters. Don¡¯t presume to dictate to me who I am or what I¡¯m worth.¡± In the silence that followed, I could almost feel blades being drawn, but then San smiled and the world kept spinning. ¡°Shit, I like this one,¡± one of the 6 who wasn¡¯t me, Jericho or San gathered here commented. There were some nods, some looked almost astonished. Most of all, it seemed like I¡¯d made it over the first huddle. ¡°Fucker¡¯s mouth is worse than the stories said. Maybe all the psionic shielding we picked up was worthwhile after all.¡± A glance his way, lazy and put upon to look as unimpressed as possible, was enough to let me know that it wasn¡¯t. Amateur grade stuff. I could see through him and everyone else just fine. ¡°Welcome to the deep end of the pool, lil nigga,¡± Jericho commented to me so only I would hear, distancing himself a bit as the preliminary conversations got started in earnest. Appearances, after all, mattered more to some of these old heads than how dangerous you were, and if you appeared weak or like someone might step on you? Everyone would try. Jericho never quite stopped looking out for me, and that was why I came to him with my plan to get one over on everyone present.