His clean shaven face annoyed me. I’m not sure why, but it did. You didn’t see many around these parts with the luxury of shaving every day, mostly because nobody had a reason to shave.

“You understand what it is I’m asking of you and your Thirds Mr. Sendo?” he asked, his minute gestures drawing my attention to his perfectly manicured hands.”

I sneered internally. Yeah, I knew what he wanted from us, but his use of the word “Third” was more than a little insulting. I was a Freelancer, or a Lancer, or even an Independent Agent, but the use of the word Third was a derogatory term coming straight from a Corporate drone. Third was in reference to third party, as in someone that you might work with, but at the same time you didn’t want anyone to know you were working with.

My real question though, was why did he want us to spy for him? Spying on the Corps was nothing new, but spying on your own Corp was. I had my fixer do a couple of checks on this particular Smith, turns out he was working for GreenCO, the up and coming environmental power this side of the Atlantic. Jumped up environmental terrorists if you ask me, they hit it big when they blew up some new plant in the former territories of New France. Must’ve found something there and taken it for themselves. After destroying all the evidence of course.

Well, whether he spied on his own guys or spied on his competition, the pay was the same and that’s all that matters to me. My rents were paid, but I still had to eat. Corp policies and politics may change, but the physical necessity to eat doesn’t. Even if you are half machine like me.

“Mr. Smith.” I began, with as friendly and disarming a voice as possible, “We’ve done these sorts of things before, as you know. Data extraction is one of our specialties, after all. My only remaining question is, when will we see our money?”

        “As soon as the job is complete. As you know, my sponsors don’t donate to charities.”

“Of course not, I would expect nothing less. Now, as far as security goes...” I left the question hanging in the air, waiting for his response. I knew he knew the answer, the question then, was how much would he share?

“I would expect the usual Category IV countermeasures, nothing too fancy. They are a small operation after all.”

I almost choked. Cat. IV countermeasures may seem like small fry to a MegaCorp like Eurocean or Proto-Tech International, but to me they’re a nightmare. Scanners to identify cybernetics; high burst electro-magnets to fry anything that isn’t registered with the Corp scanners, specifically data storage devices; completely cut off from the Matrix as well as any and all outside networks; multiple cameras with overlapping fields of view complete with IR detection to monitor physical network ports; a complete lack of any sort of wireless networking capabilities; Corp security guards on randomized patrols 24 hours a day inside and outside the entire compound; biometric scanners as well as ID cards, PINs and facial recognition; RF scramblers for every frequency range with only their personal security forces having the correct algorithms and codes to transmit through it. You know, nothing fancy.

“We’re equipped well enough for that Mr. Smith, I assure you. I don’t suppose you might know anything else about the information in question? It’s physical whereabouts, location on the network, anything of that sort?” I knew he didn’t, or at least wouldn’t disclose it if he did, but it was worth a shot. Any information would help me deal with less of this security, and that would be a huge relief.

“Telling you more would incriminate me, as you well know” he said with a small mocking bow. “You know how to get in touch with me. Good day.” Just like that, Mr. Smith removed himself from our little table and left, the other patrons of The Rusty Joint following his departure with hungry eyes.  I sighed, here come the scavengers.

“Hey S" shouted the first of them, approaching with malcontent written on his every feature, “how come that Smith sat down with you? Everybody knows I got the strongest crew in the district!”

While it was true that Tough-guy Tom, a cybered out tin man from Bmore, had the strongest crew, he also had no concept of finesse and/or subtlety, which was exactly what this job needed. He only knew how to do smash and grab jobs, though, admittedly, he was the best at them. His whole crew looked more robotic than human, relying on heavy obvious cyberware and weapons to get in and out. They also lost more members than any other crew around because they refused to run from a fight, choosing to engage and die rather than run and survive. The crew was already running on borrowed time, but they certainly made the best of it.

That having been said, Tom and I were fairly close. Well, about as close as anyone lets another person get when they aren’t part of their normal crew. We’d covered each other on numerous occasions, used each other’s safe houses, run interference for each other even. We’d crossed paths before too, but it rarely ever happened and it usually didn’t involve too much blood, we worked in different worlds after all.

“This job isn’t for the strong of arm, Tom. Why don’t you and your mecha-hulks just find a Korner Mart to knock over?” The jab was meant to be friendly, as I’ve said it many times before, but this time I guess he took it a little too seriously. Times were tough, the Corps were starting to do more of their own dirty work, putting more pressure on people like us and cutting deeply into our profits. We were all struggling, but Tom must’ve been really hungry. I saw Tom’s scowl as the flash of crappy bar neons glinted off his chromed arm and instantly my breath caught in my throat.

An instant of panic was all I allowed myself to experience. This wasn’t, after all, the first time I’d been in this situation. Different person on the other end of the cybernetic arm, but the same situation. I smiled a menacing smile, all teeth and no mirth. Calmly I reached down into my pocket and grabbed my pop-top. With half a thought I disabled the safety on my own cyberware, the familiar feeling of the world slowing down as my brain activity goes hyperspeed. Colors became more vibrant, the lights became brighter, the low hum of the bar turned into a deafening cacophony of noise. With heightened speed and reflexes I willed my arm to move. A blur even to my eyes, my pop-top impacted with Tom’s arm. A bright flash and a sharp, deafening crack followed. My automatic safety features were just a nanosecond too late, as usual, causing me to be momentarily disoriented before the flash and noise were dimmed.

I really liked my pop-top. I had a friend help me with the design and creation of it. About the size and shape of an old LED flashlight, one end held a small explosive, which when you included the metal casing, created a small shaped projectile of molten slag. Built and designed to destroy, or otherwise incapacitate Cyberware, it is one of my favorite pieces in my daily arsenal. One can never be too careful after all.

Tom’s arm exploded at the elbow. My heightened reflexes allowed me to avoid most of the shrapnel, having begun moving the instant my pop-top impacted with Tom’s arm. What seemed like an hour later I heard Tom’s anguished scream. I, of course, was already almost to the door, not wanting to get caught between any of Tom’s boys. Tom would live, but I was going to have to come up with a really good way to reconcile with him. He hadn’t deserved that, and it wasn’t professional, but I didn’t like being grabbed. On the bright side, my track record states that the more sideways a job started, the more smoothly it would end. If that were to hold true, this job would be the smoothest I had ever had.

I put some distance between myself and Tom’s goons. Two kilometers a minute would put the distance between me and everything but a vehicle, and it would take them some time to get their bikes going.  I slowed down, switched off my gear and headed for my apartment. Tom knew most of my safe houses, he’d used well over half of them, so I headed to my actual apartment. Nobody knew my real address, or my real name after all, so I figured I would be safe for a while. I stripped my sweat-soaked street gear and started preparing for the job.

My first step was to put together my team, I needed to know who I’d be working with, what gaps I’d have to fill or do without. Then I needed to do some serious reconnaissance, this job would be anything but easy, even with my A-team. Finally, after all of that, I needed to set up my gear. I had a few pre-made kits that would get me through the average jobs, but this was going to be high profile and incredibly dangerous. I’d been doing this for a while, and I usually wouldn’t go for a Cat. IV gig, but times were tough, and I was starting to feel the pinch.

My first call was to Big D, not his real name, go figure. He and I went way back. He was my first Call because I knew that if the job went haywire, I was gonna need him to pull my Scrawny butt out of the fire. Big D could’ve been one of Tom’s gangers, if not for the fact that he was way too smart for that. He may be a big bruiser, with a name that doesn’t identify him as anything other, but he was actually a brilliant tactician and he knew exactly when to use his muscle, and his guns, and when to sit back and let other people play their part.

Next I called my Matrix Monkey, Savoth. This guy wasn’t just the best Matrix Monkey this side of the Mississippi, he was also one of the best planners and strategists around. He could see me safely in and out of Hawaii Prison State, assuming I followed his instructions to the letter. Which I rarely did.  I would need his expertise for this job, even if I did just ignore it later.

Finally I called Rain. I almost didn’t, he was a little punk who thought too highly of himself and his temper usually ended up getting us in trouble. He was the most inept fuggin’ Lancer I’ve ever seen in my life. He used explosives once to blow up a safe door when he said he could crack it. Blew the safe right out of the wall. He got into a firefight with an elite squad of Eurocean security, got shot six times and only survived because they thought he was dead when Med Mercs came and scraped him off the floor. So why am I calling him? In short, it’s his luck. That safe should’ve set off every alarm for 5 kilometers in all directions, but it didn’t. Nobody could explain why, the alarms just didn’t go off. That firefight? Of the five men sent in to eliminate him, only one survived, the other four died in a confusion of smoke, flashing lights and friendly fire. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I still wouldn’t believe it. First, I wouldn’t believe his stupidity and recklessness, and second I wouldn’t believe the outcome.  I took a deep breath to calm down and reminded myself that everyone had to start somewhere.

Now that I had my team together, it was time to get myself together. I started by sitting down and watching the latest vidstream. Doing this usually allowed me to find my center, to rid myself of the stress of the day and just watch all the problems in the world that didn’t involve me. Corporate wars, espionage and propaganda; nothing new there. The only difference between streams was the identity of the bad guy. Gradually the sounds from the stream dulled, my eyes lost focus and I could finally think.

GreenCO was a small affair, generally not threatening to anyone except the other small fry. They dealt in clean energy, a throwback to the early 21” century where everyone wanted to go green. A bunch of shit if you ask me. The world was doomed anyway, why care about how clean the air is? The Smith today claimed to work for MexAsia Technologies, and he had a solid but fake profile, but my fixer found that he was actually working with GreenCo. It wasn’t uncommon enough to throw up any red flags, but it was uncommon enough to be curious. I mean, I knew that even within Corps everyone wanted to be indispensable, but generally the Corp’s success trumps inter-office squabbling. Corp first, self second, that’s the way the machine worked.

Information was the goal. I needed to get in, grab the Tsukuyomi File and get out. I had a voicemail number for the Smith, for when the job was done. These things were basically created by the Corps, for the Corps, just for situations like these. There were no records for them, no way to track them back to anyone, just a load of dead ends. I would use that to inform the Smith of the success of the job, he would contact me back via some sort of secure channel (I’ll know it when I see it), then I drop the info and get paid. I had a bad job in the past, so now I had a secure and almost untraceable way to get my pips.

Pips were small plastic things that were about the size of an average person’s thumb and contained money.  The pips themselves were basically universal things that had replaced the old credit and debit cards. They came in all shapes and types, but the basic size and weight stayed the same. Some of them, like the one I  would inevitably receive for the completion of this job, were prepaid things and weren’t linked to any sort of account with a name on it. Those were what most Lancers used to do any sort of financial transaction. Pip was also a colloquial term for cash, kinda like moolah, scratch, greenbacks, etc. Sometimes it was tough to tell the difference.

        Tap tap tap tap tap!

A soft but urgent rapping at my door pulled me out of my quiet concentration.  I deactivated the safety on my gear, wondering who knew about this place. Big D and Savoth were the only two that can link me here. The only two trusted enough to know this place. Who am I kidding, they’re the only two people I trusted, at all, even a little. Trust was the hardest commodity to come by anymore.

I moved stealthily, my light frame barely making a whisper even to my now heightened senses.  I knew that the chances of anyone hearing me through the walls were slim but I’d learned over the years that not being cautious got people killed. Another half-formed thought and I activated the tactical comms channel my team used for jobs, betting that if they were involved in this the channel would be active.

        “Troll, elf? Which one of you am I about to murder outside of my apartment?” I didn’t have to say a word, my thoughts were instantly converted to sound via a small device in my skull. The thing even did a passable job of simulating my voice for the people on the other end. Troll and Elf referred to Big D and Savoth respectively. Even if they weren’t their real names, one can never have too many identities.

Dead air was the only response. Slowly and carefully I moved my hand to a small computer next to the door. I pressed two buttons and a vid feed popped up in my vision. I had long ago replaced my mortal eyes for the much more impressive cybernetic ones. These allowed me to see in normal light, IR and low light, record anything and everything I saw to a hard drive installed in my skull, zoom up to 20x magnification, patch in video feeds so I didn’t need a monitor, and they had automatic brightness dampeners, just in case.

Outside the door I saw a frail looking girl, all panicky and going from door to door knocking, begging for help. I relaxed instantly, reset the safety on my neural enhancers, and went back to the couch. I kept the vid feed up, it was my new entertainment for the evening. I had to admit to being a little torn. On the one hand it could’ve been a trap, every lancer has enemies after all; it could’ve been a scared girl who, after I let her in, some big baddy would come breaking everything down to get to her; it could’ve been a complete cyber freak, tweaked out on drugs, Utopia Chips, or whatever, just waiting to prey upon some unsuspecting good Samaritan. On the other hand, she could’ve been a poor, helpless, scared little girl who got herself involved in something she wasn’t expecting, having fallen prey to any number of horribly clever traps. My apartment may have been in a better neighborhood, but nowhere is safe outside the Corp districts. No matter what, I wasn’t going to open that door for anyone I didn’t know.

I watched the girl for a while more before she moved on. Whoever was after her must’ve given up. My mind wandered back to the job. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but I could at least make sure I got through it. My eyelids started to get heavy, a nap was seeming like a good idea. had some recon ahead of me anyway. I made sure my apartment’s alarm systems were activated and set my mental alarm clock for two hours later. Might as well make it worth my time. I turned off my eyes and slowly drifted off.

“Evenin’ Sponges!” If my comm system simulated feedback, I’m pretty sure my whole head would’ve been ringing. Leave it to me to forget to switch off my comms. At least I got a few minutes of sleep.

“Helloooooooooooo, anybody on the net yet?”

        “Hey Idiot, get off the net when we’re not active.”

        “I’m active though S, that means the net is active. What’re you doing? And I hate that name! Why not just call me Rain, you all know that name anyway...”

“GET OFF THE NET IDIOT” I forced the thought through with the intent to deafen the kid. Too bad it couldn’t actually do that. I pulled up my HUD and team coordination profiles. If I knew Rain, he kept everything active all the time. Idiot.  I didn’t think that callsign would fool anyone.

Sure enough his data popped up and started scrolling down my vision. I pulled up a map file and overlayed it, forcing the data to plot as points on the map instead of scrolling numbers. I expected to find him out in the Arcade district. The guy was pretty much just a big child, he always talked about video games or the latest Life Sims. Instead, a blue dot appeared, representing Idiot, approximately four blocks away and closing in on my apartment. His dumb luck could, potentially, lead him right to my door.

        “Hey Idiot, what are you doing in that part of town? That’s a pretty boring place.”

        Three blocks away, still closing.

        “I’m just out for Some fresh air and peace and quiet is all.”

        I double checked to make sure that my team coordination profile was inactive.

"You know there’s no such thing as peace or quiet in this town, idiot.” I tried to keep the worry and unease out of my message.

Two blocks. Either he found out where I lived, which is unlikely, or he cracked my wetware.  I sincerely hoped the latter wasn’t true.

        “Yeah, yeah. Speaking of...”

Last block, l started grabbing my gear, preparing for a fast extraction. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him knowing, I just knew that if he knew my real home, the world would know my real home. Guy talked to everybody and was just as ready to divulge critically important information as he was what he had for breakfast.  Idiot.

His dot went purple. That meant his biometrics spiked, generally indicating a scuffle. Idiot! My extraction gear suddenly looked a lot like insertion gear.  I bound my special infiltration line to a support beam, made just for this purpose, flipped on my enhancers and my coordination profile simultaneously and formulated a quick shoddy plan for how to bail Idiot out of whatever he had gotten into. I grabbed the first handgun I could find, which was, unfortunately, a behemoth of a weapon. The thing didn’t even fit in my hand properly, I had to rely almost entirely on the Sight Link to tell me where my bullets would fly. Luckily for me, the gun would link with my eyes and put a red dot right on target. I only had the magazine that was currently loaded in it, it had better be enough.  Just before jumping I grabbed an armored coat. Nothing too heavy, but it should blunt the impact of most weapons and completely stop any small caliber firearms. I put my jacket on just before I went over the rails of my balcony, strapping myself into the harness on the end of the rope on the way down.

I heard Idiot grunting, huffing and puffing over the comms. It took a lot of self-discipline to keep from broadcasting everything over mental comms. He was getting better, but he definitely didn’t have it mastered. At least I knew the team program was working correctly, as this was the first time we’ve had it running,

        “ETA 2 minutes. I’m coming, Idiot.”

        “Thanks!” I heard him shout as well as broadcast. Stressful situations were the worst for control.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have bothered wasting the time, effort, or resources to bail Idiot out of whatever he’d gotten himself into. I would turn into a twenty-four hour babysitter if I did that. Tonight was an exception simply because of the upcoming job. I needed my full team, all mission ready and in good health for this job.

I felt the impact as the line drew taught, letting go as soon as I deemed it safe. The line was designed with just enough elasticity to prevent being ripped apart when it snapped taught, and it was made of a special chemical compound so that, given the right catalyst, the whole thing would dissolve. I Snapped the catalyst to it and activated it as begin sprinting to assist Idiot. I barely heard the hiss as I went.

My HUD displayed the two minute countdown I started earlier.  1:45, I would be way ahead of time. At least if there was anyone monitoring the comms, they wouldn’t expect me. As I rounded the corner IFF markers immediately identified Idiot and put a slight purple glow on him, making it much easier to pick him out. One individual was down already, showing as a faint red, indicating faint vital signs. Down but not out. Two bright red blips appeared ahead of me and on either side of the road. There was also a van in the Center of the road with its doors open. Nearly as fast as the gun would cycle I fired three rounds; one into the head of the guy that was down, and one more at each of the other combatants. I missed the one on the right, the one on the left took a nonlethal shot to the chest and the faint red indicator on the ground went out completely.

I barely registered Idiot thanking me before I blurred past him, hot on the heels of the other combatants. They were in a tactical retreat, one covering the other as they bounded back. I began to serpentine, trying to keep them from getting a solid bead on me. I saw one get his shot lined up, I found myself nearly staring down the barrel of his rifle. I tried to hop to the side, throw off his aim a bit. I may be fast, but a bullet is a hell of a lot faster.

I felt and heard the bullet rip through the air by my head. That was too damn close. I crouched low, trying to change directions as fast as possible. My feet slid, my momentum stronger than the grip on my boots. My pistol came up, red dot solidly on the guy I shot before. I squeezed the trigger, the bullet fired, the gun kicked back, searing pain hit my shoulder, amplified by my neural mods. The force of the bullet hitting me threw me awkwardly to the ground, my right arm barely able to move after the impact.

I hit the ground, sliding and rolling from my momentum. I knew my jacket absorbed most of that impact, I was just glad the guy didn’t fire a second later. He probably would’ve caught me right in the face. My arm moved sluggishly, my shoulder still feeling like it was on fire. There was only one red target now, either the other one ran or I got him with that last shot. I got my feet under me again, my focus on the last guy. Movement is life, gotta keep moving. I dashed left, my boots grabbing the concrete and gripping, the rubber soles barely managing to keep traction as my legs pumped inhumanly fast to propel me through the open field of view. I dove for cover as soon as I was within reach, I didn’t even look over my shoulder to see what the last combatant was doing. If Big D were here, or even if Idiot was just a little more competent, I would know they were keeping the enemy’s head down, keeping him pinned and keeping me safe. As it was, I had to assume I was on my own, as Idiot could barely be considered help.

        “Thump!” Idiot’s voice came through the comms and from behind me at the same time.

“IDIOT!” I mentally screamed at him again. Thump was how we let each other know there was a grenade out. Gunfire was just part of an average day, grenade detonations were a sure way to get even those corrupt Marshalls Inc. cops to come out. I hit the ground hard, sliding and rolling as I reached out and grabbed my chosen cover, coming to a painful stop. I tucked myself into a ball hoping that Idiot could actually throw a grenade.

        Clink clink

        It was close, maybe too close.

        Clink thud thud thud

Footsteps approached. I hoped he blew up on his own fuggin’ grenade! it would serve him right that-

        Fwump

The sound of the detonation was dampened as soon as it began, still didn’t keep my ears from ringing though. Fuggin’ idiot and his fuggin’ grenade!  My team display showed he was still back with the van, if it wasn’t for his luck, I would’ve killed that kid years ago.  I looked over the concrete planter and saw a bloody lump that could only be what was left of the last combatant.  Frag grenade shredded him to a point where he could barely be recognized. Poor bastard.

        “Clear” broadcast.

I stepped out from behind the planter, it was pocked and ragged from the nearby explosion and resulting shrapnel. From the looks of it, the pile of meat on the other side was trying to get behind the same cover I had occupied only a moment before. Guess he was a moment too slow.  I brought my pistol up lazily, not really expecting any more fighting. My shoulder still resisted, damaged from the bullet I had taken earlier. The red dot in my vision swung around, a truly welcome sight considering I didn’t think I could raise the weapon enough to use the iron-sights. I saw the van jostling around slightly, then Idiot got out with the girl I had seen banging on my door. I slowly lowered my pistol and began my shutdown and cool down process, having seen the body of the last combatant spread eagle in the road, no signs of vitals. As the neural enhancers clicked off, the pain in my arm subsided to a dull ache, easily ignored.

Methodically I went and cleaned the bodies of valuables and weapons. There wasn’t anything worth mentioning, and without a kit I couldn’t identify the guys. It probably wouldn’t tell me anything anyway, everyone in our line of work can spoof their own I.D. or knew someone who could do it for them. The rifles they carried were standard assault rifles, cheap, both in price and quality, and easy to get your hands on out here. No serials, no surprise. Even the clothes and padding they wore as armor were torn up, tattered things. They looked like they just walked out of a thrift shop. Dead ends. I really didn’t need that shit.

“Idiot, time to move.” I turned and saw the girl, well, woman, obviously distraught, obviously not from The Slums. She didn’t look Corporate, but then, she was kidnapped.

        “What do we do with the girl, S?”

“We take her home, of course.” Chances were, we would get her home and be done with her, but there was always the possibility of a reward. And by reward, I meant ransom.

As we left, the sirens of Marshalls Inc. had just become audible to my enhanced hearing. We quickened our pace and moved out of the area without incident. I wouldn’t be able to return home for a while, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. We avoided the usual rough spots, as well as any of the places I knew Tough-guy Tom liked to hang out. I imagined he was still pretty upset about what happened earlier. I know I would’ve been. Eventually we came to a parking garage, just on the outskirts of Corporate territory.

“Where to?” I asked, fully expecting an address in a nearby Corp arcology, some overpriced piece of real estate where all the middle management guys lived. They were chic at that point in time, because they showed economic Conservativism while still being expensive enough to be elite, I always wanted one of my own, just something to show that I was moving up in the world. But those of us in the shadows of society were destined to remain there.

        “Virginia City.”

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