Masamune’s thread was pinned at the top of my agent display, one line in all caps—ANY VISION ARTIFACTS?—bright enough to keep catching my eye. I read it, left it there, picked the agent up again, set it down again, then did the same lap through the unit: sink, counter, cot, back to the sink.
Morning light came in flat through the blinds and lit the damp corner by the plaster; the stain’s edge had pushed outward again. My thigh hurt under denim where a stim needle had gone in during the blackout. The puncture was almost nothing, but the soreness around it flared in a tight ring when I pressed.
Two outgoing messages sat under Masamune’s name, both stamped sent, both timestamped inside the hole. I opened them, read my own words twice, then went to the logs: outgoing list, location history, receipts, call list. The blackout was a blank span between two tidy timestamps.
A receipt anchored it to a place: vending terminal three blocks away, twelve minutes after my last clean entry. STIM PACK ×1.
On the counter the stim bay stood open. The wrapper had been folded into a narrow strip with the batch print still attached, set down carefully. I unfolded it once, refolded it wrong, refolded it again, then put it back and stopped touching it.
Old Jax’s face was frozen on the deck display—split lip, bruised jaw, eyes steady on the lens—while the open bin beneath it held the badge, the map, the photo strips.
I went back to Masamune and typed what I could defend later, no extra story: minor lag right optic, head pressure, no hallucinations. I hit send and kept my hands off the glass.
His response came back fast: fix it today; tomorrow 14:00, same rules.
I sat on the cot and dug two fingers into the puncture ring until pain rose sharp enough to clear the haze behind my right eye. When my hands stopped twitching, I ate a kibble bar, chased it with water, then packed the deck case and cable.
I reached for the paper spec strings and found my pocket empty. I stood there for a second too long, then went back to the counter, grabbed the paper, and folded it into the same crease as before.
The unlabeled shard was on the counter. I kept my eyes off it on purpose.
Misty picked up on the first ring.
“You eat?” she asked.
“Yeah—kibble.”
“Don’t ‘yeah’ me. Say it normal.” A pause. “Back door in ten. Bring the spec strings on paper.”
“I’ve got them.”
“You don’t. You think you do.” Her voice tightened a fraction. “Paper. Not your agent notes. And today you drop the squad words—no ‘crystal,’ no ‘copy.’”
I started to answer and she talked over me.
“Hold.” Her mic went muffled for a beat and I caught her saying, flat, “No, you don’t get a refund, I don’t care,” then she came back on me. “And go piss before you leave. I’m not pausing mid-chair because you suddenly remember you’re human. Move.”
From deeper in the shop, Vik barked loud enough to punch through: “If he comes in empty, I charge extra!”
Misty didn’t raise her voice. “I heard you, Viktor. Back door.” Click.
I took the stairs at a normal pace. On the landing, my body hesitated—thought first, motion after—then the delay passed. I stayed there for one breath with my hand on the rail, then kept moving.
Outside, the Galena started on the first try and rattled at idle. I sat with both hands low on the wheel until my breathing slowed, then pulled out without feeding the Baron throttle. A badge cruiser rolled through the next intersection and didn’t look my way.
Vik’s clinic was wedged between a vending row and a shuttered storefront. The back door opened before I knocked. Misty stood there with sleeves pulled over her hands, hair loose, eyes on my face a second too long.
“Water,” she said, and shoved a sealed bottle into my hand.
I drank. She tracked my throat as I swallowed, then pushed me through the bead curtain.
In the lobby, someone complained about a bracelet “reading wrong.” Misty answered without turning: “It reads what you do. You want a different reading, do different things. Also stop wearing it in the shower.”
“That’s—”
From behind the curtain, Vik called, “Stop running my lobby as a church.”
Misty rolled her eyes toward the curtain. “Stop running your clinic as a chop shop.”
“That’s what it is,” he replied.
“That’s what you call it,” she shot back, then pointed at the chair without looking at me. “Sit down and chew.”
A kibble bar packet landed in my lap. I tore it open and took a bite; Misty waited until my jaw moved, then shoved me into the back.
The back room smelled of disinfectant and hot electronics. Vik was at his bench with sleeves rolled, hands moving through tools with the rhythm of repetition; he glanced up, down, then back to my face.
“Wired,” he said. “Chair. Mask off.”
He slapped a biomon patch onto my forearm; adhesive bit, then the patch buzzed when his slate synced.
“You ate,” he said, eyes on numbers.
Misty from the doorway: “I watched him eat, don’t start.”
Vik’s mouth twitched once. “Good,” he said. “I’m not cleaning up a mess.” He shined a light into my right optic and the stutter hit once, then he set the light down. “SD-5 timing drift—old firmware, processor compensating, heat behind the eyes, jaw locking, delays.”
“I came in,” I said.
“You came in late,” he replied. “Same outcome.” He held out his hand. “Spec strings.”
I gave him the paper. He read fast without talking, then looked up with the mechanic stare that makes cars and people feel equally guilty.
“Arasaka again,” he said. “Great.”
“Corp contact,” I answered. “He’s asking about artifacts. Yes-or-no.”
Vik snorted once. “I don’t care what his name is.” He tapped the paper with a fingernail. “You’re paying Arasaka prices for Arasaka toys.”
“I’m paying for my optic to behave.”
Misty’s voice stayed mild. “Say it plain.”
I exhaled slow through my nose. “I can’t stutter under corporate eyes.”
Vik nodded once and braced my head with both hands. “Optics first. Don’t move for me.”
Pressure built above my right eye, then a hot pinch precise enough to curl my toes inside my boots; the old stack fought being unplugged and my vision stuttered hard enough to pull my stomach upward. Vik locked my skull. Misty’s fingers touched my shoulder and stayed there while she paced my breathing in a low voice.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
The internal click landed, and my vision steadied.
Vik checked his slate. “Stable. Firmware after.” He reached for a case with an Arasaka seal scratched through; the label ruined, the part numbers still etched into the plastic. He held up the spine module, then the core, and read them out without ceremony: “ARS-NP/SL-74, SATORI. ARS-NC/KMN-74R, KOMAINU.”
“You fancy that one,” Misty said, and it wasn’t a question.
A short laugh escaped me at the wrong time. It was small and ugly and I couldn’t put it back.
Vik didn’t look up. “Still want it.”
“Yeah,” I said, and it came out flat.
Misty went quiet, then careful. “If you start selling yourself a power story, I smack you.”
Vik rolled his shoulders and started the neural work. The headband tightened; the clamp pressed behind my ear; pressure built under bone, then pain arrived in a wave that didn’t care about pride. When the spine seated, cold ran down my back and my stomach dropped.
The patch vibrated. Vik’s eyes flicked to the readout. “Pulse spiked; breathe slow.”
I breathed slow enough to keep the clamp from biting deeper.
The Komainu core seated next with a deeper chill that settled at the base of my skull and refused to move. Vik tapped his slate and watched numbers scroll.
“Any flashes. Any ringing.”
“Not yet—only you talking.”
Misty, softer: “Answer him straight.”
Vik moved to my arm. Raven Microcyb F-24 sat under synthskin, already part of me. He popped a seam at a joint I hadn’t noticed and exposed the grid beneath.
“Daikon kit integrates—keep the arm, get blades; deploy in my shop and you go outside.”
Misty added, “And I keep your iron.”
Vik glanced toward her, annoyed. “You already do, Misty, every day.”
Pain climbed into my forearm as pressure, deep and hungry, rewiring that didn’t care about my schedule. My breath hitched anyway, sharp and embarrassing. Misty stepped closer, fingers on my shoulder again; her agent pinged once, she ignored it.
“Eyes on me,” she said. “Breathe slow.”
Vik pressed my forearm down with his palm and leaned weight into it. “Stay still. Don’t fight me.”
A cold voice rose in my skull, calm and certain, not human.
obey
“Fuck you,” I whispered.
Vik’s gaze snapped up. “Who you talking to right now.”
“Myself, Vik. Drop it.”
“That’s always the answer,” he replied, and went back to the work.
The click of the control chip seating sounded soft. The pain didn’t ease when the pressure let up. When he sealed the Raven seam again, my forearm felt heavier. Vik ran a sweep, stripped his gloves off with a snap, and tossed them into the bin.
“Optics stable, neural stable—mantis integrated.”
Misty checked the biomon readout and nodded once. “He’s still here.”
Vik leaned on the bench and let impatience show: “Take the pills, eat, sleep, and come back in a week so I can check the mount.”
“I won’t skip.”
“You always say that,” he replied.
Misty cut in, sharper than needed. “He showed up.”
Vik paused, then shrugged. “Fair.” He named the number. It hurt. I paid it anyway.
When I stood, the delay hit—thought, then motion—and my stomach knotted.
Misty walked me out toward the curtain.
“You buying that Quadra today?”
“Yeah.”
“Legit,” she said.
“Legit.”
“Then keep your mouth shut in the showroom,” she replied. “Smile once. Don’t try to win.”
From the back room, Vik called after me: “If your corp contact asks, optics stable and head stable. You don’t tell him what’s in my tray. You understand.”
“Crystal,” I answered out of habit.
Misty snapped her fingers once, sharp. “No.”
Outside, street noise hit too loud for a second, then flattened. I called Dino on the walk to the car.
“Jax,” he said, lazy edge, “you breathing or you flatlined on the chair?”
“Breathing.”
“Head.”
“Clearer.”
He let that sit for a beat. “Car.”
“Quadra Type-66. Six-forty TS, paper, today.”
“Paper,” he repeated, and it sounded as a warning. “Forty thousand, list price, clean title; you get in, sign, get out. If they stall you, you wait. If a fee appears, you call me.”
“What about the guards—”
“Don’t,” Dino cut in. “Don’t explain your life to strangers. Address is in your inbox.” A beat. “Drop ‘crystal’ outside Kabuki. Makes you sound trained.”
“I hear you.”
“You never do,” he said, friendly about it, and ended the call.
### City Center
City Center was glass and white light. Cameras.
The guard slid a tray out; my handgun went into it and stayed there. His wand chirped at my forearm and his gaze held on the synthskin line.
“You deploy anything in here, you get zeroed,” he said.
“I won’t.”
He paused, then added, “Good. Don’t get clever.”
Inside, Dino’s referral did its job: name, signature, scan. The scanner ate my ID, held it for a second too long, then spit it back with a green check. The pen they handed me felt cheap for the room, slick under my fingers.
A man in a suit crossed the lobby and glanced once at the seam line on my forearm, then walked on.
Kellan came out with a sales smile and stood too close. “Mr Morrow—Kellan. Dino said you wanted a Quadra.”
“Type-66.”
He nodded, already moving. “Six-forty TS. Good taste.” He kept talking on the walk—numbers, options, a story about a client trying to finance with a stolen Chop—while I tracked cameras and door angles and the guard’s sightlines in the glass.
The car waited under strip light. Quadra Type-66 640 TS. Kellan circled it once, stopped at the driver door, and said it clean.
“Forty thousand. List.”
“Good.”
A flicker crossed his face and vanished. He’d wanted the dance.
“Wire transfer,” I said. “Full.”
“Proof of funds and an ID scan,” he answered, smooth.
A camera arm extended from the wall and angled toward my face. Scan light hit my right eye. The new optic didn’t stutter. The terminal beeped once, then cleared. Kellan watched the result flash and said, too quickly, “All good.”
“Rep,” I said.
“Rep,” he echoed, and slid the slate over. “Sign.”
I put the pen down where it told me and started without thinking—J—and my hand stopped dead. The letter sat there in black ink under the camera, too big, too confident.
Kellan didn’t move. He didn’t look at my face; he looked somewhere near my shoulder, polite enough to be a lie.
The pen skipped when I tried to pull back. I mashed it down and turned the J into a blot.
Kellan blinked once and pretended he hadn’t seen anything.
I started again, slower. Morrow. The slate took it. Confirmation chimed in my ear.
“Congrats,” Kellan said, too bright again. “Your ride.”
He held the key fob out with a little ceremony. It felt small for the number. My chrome fingers closed too hard and the plastic creaked; his eyes flicked to my hand, then away.
“You know,” he said, searching for something extra to sell beyond metal, “Sold this trim to a Santo kid once. Thought chrome made him immortal.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He shrugged, as if he’d completed his line. He opened the driver door and stepped back.
I took the seat. The engine started smooth, almost eager. The bay door rolled up while the guard watched from a distance, waiting for a mistake.
I pulled out slow, held the speed legal for the first block, and let the Quadra beg without feeding it. The Baron pushed for throttle and dominance. The street didn’t care where the urge came from.
Kabuki swallowed me again when the streets narrowed. The Quadra took bumps without drama. Under my building, it filled the bay and looked too wide for the space; the strip light flickered and painted the hood in bars.
Upstairs, the unit was itself—damp corner, counter stains, the bin on the floor with somebody’s old life inside it. The key fob sat heavy in my palm while I stood in the doorway and listened to the building breathe: pipes ticking behind the wall, a neighbor’s laugh track bleeding through plaster. Old Jax’s paused frame still stared from the deck display. The photo strip still showed the woman turning her face away from the lens.
Masamune’s thread chimed once: STATUS?
I sent: Clinic done, visual stable. GOOD came back fast.
I sat on the cot with my boots still on. Another kibble bar, slower this time. Water until my throat stopped tightening. Vik’s pills sat in their packet. I took one and let it dissolve into a dry warmth behind my tongue.
My chrome hand went flat on the laminate until the metal squeaked. Two taps with my index knuckle, then I stopped.
“Later,” I said, to nobody.
The system overlay didn’t pop on its own. I forced the snapshot the way I used to force log pulls in old jobs.
SYSTEM SUMMARY — EXPANDED VIEW
LEVEL: 5
ATTRIBUTES:
BODY: 8/12
REFLEXES: 4
TECHNICAL: 5/6
INTELLIGENCE: 5/5
COOL: 5/9
CLASS SEED: SOCIAL ENGINEER
CHANNELS:
SHINOBI: 04
ENGINEER: 05
SOLO: 08
BRAWLER: 04
NETRUNNER: 05
HEADHUNTER: 05
ENGRAM SLOTS (3):
[01] JUNKYARD NETRUNNER — COMMON (ACTIVE)
[02] BLOODY BARON — EPIC (ACTIVE)
[03] MURK MAN — UNCOMMON (ACTIVE)
PERKS (ACTIVE):
SHINOBI — QUIET STEP
SHINOBI — GRIP DISCIPLINE
ENGINEER — JURY-RIG
ENGINEER — SCRAPWORK PROTOCOL
SOLO — PAIN BUFFER
MURK MAN — ICE COLD CONTINUITY
JUNKYARD NETRUNNER — BUFFER DISCIPLINE
JUNKYARD NETRUNNER — TRACE SHUNT
SOCIAL ENGINEER — PRETEXT CACHE
SOCIAL ENGINEER — FAST TALK (ACTIVE)
CO-PILOT (ACTIVABLE)
BLOODY BARON — BARON’S DECREE
SKILLS:
RANGE TRAINING: 34/50
HAGGLING: 28/50
MECHANIC AFFINITY: 38/50
BRAWLER: 20/50
NETRUN: 33/50
RED RIVER: 1/100
CYBERWARE:
ARMS:
Raven Microcyb F-24 — COMMON
Arasaka Daikon NT — ARS-MB-DNT-3 (Gen-2073)
DNT-3/CTRL-NC (latency map: 0.8ms)
DNT-3/SHEATH (override: HARD)
OCULAR:
Kiroshi Cockatrice Optics — KOS-COC-73
KOS-FW 3.19.4-nc74
NEURALWARE:
Arasaka SatoriLink Neurospine — ARS-NP/SL-74 "SATORI"
SL-OS 4.2.6-saka
Arasaka Komainu Compute Core — ARS-NC-KMN-74R "KOMAINU"
KMN-μ 2.08-r
NW-SICE "Aegis" v2.4.1 (policy: AEG-P/NC-74)
Seacho SE-ND-02 "Junkyard" Mk.2 — UNCOMMON
Zetatech Neural Processor Mk.2 — UNCOMMON
ZT-NP-M2 "TAR" (aux slice)
ARS-SL/BRIDGE-M2 (shim FW: BRG-0.9.3)
PACKAGE: ARMED
DRIFT: HIGH
STATE: NOMINAL
ASSET REGISTERED:
Quadra Type-66 640 TS
ACQ: €$40,000 (LIST)
TITLE: CLEAN
Masamune’s invite was on my calendar for tomorrow at 14:00. The Quadra’s fob rested by the deck case. The unlabeled shard was beside it on the counter.
When my fingers stopped above it, the plastic sleeve caught the light and showed a shallow scratch: NO QUARTER.
