The set-up was simple. She did the eject shard quickhack, and I would pass behind whatever gonk she was using it on, exclusively Arasaka suits, and klep the flying shards. It wasn’t even hard at all.

  By the time we reached the end of the line, we’d come up with a fat profit of shards.

  “Let’s try another NCART,” she suggested, and we did.

  Three NCARTs later, and we were sitting pretty on an excess of a hundred shards, a glorious haul to say the least.

  We sat on a stairwell that connected the NCART station to the streets below as we just relaxed.

  “Spill it; what’s your secret,” she said.

  “What secret?” I asked.

  “The Sandevistan. You fired it up like twenty, maybe twenty-five times. What the fuck are you even made of?”

  “‘Ganic?” I asked. “Look, you hacked into me, you should know what I’ve got.”

  “Yeah. Corneal optics, Neural Link and the fucking Sandy. Still doesn’t explain shit. You should be dead by now.”

  “I am amazing,” I chuckled as I leaned back on the stairs. “It’s all I hear every day, and still I get shit on for being a gutter trash street rat. Don’t really know what the whole point is, to be honest. Compliment me one second, then try to stab me in the back in the other. I don’t know, I just…” I paused. “Yeah.”

  She stood up. “I live close by. Wanna come?” I was grateful that she ignored that dumb rambling.

  I looked up at my Critical Progress bar, and due to all the Sandy uses and my having to regenerate from all of that, I was sitting at a pretty dire 40%. Would have liked to continue my insane workout routine, but I guess that would just have to wait because Lucy was inviting me to her home.

  No, no, don’t get ahead of yourself, David. We were just business partners. Don’t go on jeopardizing shit just because your dick was being a gonk.

  I’m a corpo now. I should act like it.

  Then again, Lucy was a little taller than me. What if she liked taller dudes?

  David: Can you make me taller?

  [Your epiphyseal plates have already fused. Any further natural growth is impossible for you. That said, I can separate the plates and promote an overincrease of human growth hormone in your body. This is a process that not even the Sandevistan can rush. Only I can speed this growth up. That said, the separation of your growth plates, the first step, can happen fairly quickly. Activate the Sandevistan.]

  I did.

  Instantly, I was overcome by agony on every joint, only for it to disappear in a split second. When the Sandevistan deactivated, it was like I had never even been hurt to begin with.

  [Done. Now, it should be possible for your bones to continue growing.]

  David: Nova! How long till I’m six feet tall?

  [That should take approximately twenty-nine days. Do you want that expressed in a progress bar format, too?]

  David: Won’t be necessary. I’ll see it with my own eyes.

  By next week, I’d be over an inch taller? Holy fuck. What would I ever need chrome for, then?

  To not get flatlined by any gonk with a gun, sure.

  [This growth will give me an opportunity to make some edits to your bone structure. I am confident that with my current data, I could improve the resilience of your bones by five times.]

  David: Five times? Seriously? What’s the catch?

  [Your bones are fairly below average in density due to a lack of focused exercise and a poor diet. Just improving their resilience by a factor of five would not exceed human limits by too much.]

  David: Oh, okay. Then, what will I need to eat? Calcium and minerals, right?

  [I can visualize your nutritional requirements for you as well if that will help you keep up with them.]

  My HUD received a dropdown option when I focused on it. It dropped down a series of bars with labels on them that were an assorted array of minerals, vitamins, and of course the big three macronutrients. For the macros, I was more or less settled. The burritos were a surprisingly balanced diet. The micronutrients were lagging behind somewhat, especially in the mineral section.

  Needed more calcium, that was for sure.

  What had lots of calcium? What if I just took it in supplement form? Seemed easier, I’d just give that a try. I could faintly recall there being some supplement vending machines inside that gym in Watson. Maybe that was a normal thing for gyms to have?

  While I thought, Lucy had led us to a building where we had ascended some stairs and reached her home.

  “Home sweet home,” she said as she opened the door. “Come on in.”

  I followed her inside, quelling the part of my brain that kept feeding me bullshit about this situation.

  Before I knew it, there was a broseph beer in my hand, and she sat on the window sill smoking and drinking while I sat on the sofa that was leaned up against the sill.

  She had a touristy moon poster—an astronaut on the moon pointing at something in the foreground, with the text ‘Your new home awaits you’ overlaid beneath him. Did she just have bad taste or was it for a joke? Couldn’t imagine any other option than those two. Leave it to the klepto girl to have a hellworld tourist poster.

  I took a swig of my beer, making sure not to wince at the carbonation. I honestly couldn’t explain why, but the sensation felt both overwhelming and sharply agonizing, and it had for all of my life.

  Guess I was just built weirdly like that.

  Then I got a faceful of smoke from Lucy’s exhale, and the acrid smell combined with the fizz of the broseph and and I started to cough uncontrollably.

  “First time drinking?” she asked.

  “No, not like that at all,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t bully you over that.”

  “It’s just… fizzy drinks and smokes, don’t do neither.”

  “You big baby,” she said.

  “Thought you said you wouldn’t bully me.”

  She leaned over so she could look me in the eyes. “I lied.”

  She flipped over the couch, taking my blazer with it. She wore it. “Oh look, now I’m the ‘Saka prep boy.”

  “I told you it’s not like that,” I said. “Not prep at least.”

  “Inspiring come-up story aside,” she said as she turned to show me her back. “How do you intend to afford the academy tuition if you’re really as poor as you say?”

  Before I could explain my gameplan, light began to appear on the back of the blazer, settling on some graffiti style rendition of the phrase…

  “Edgerunner,” I said.

  “That’s what you wanna be, right?”

  I chuckled. “A solo actually,” I said.

  “Know what edgerunner means?”

  “Of course. It’s another word for cyberpunk,” I said. “‘Course, edgerunner fits better these days, considering cyberpunks aren’t really that… punk anymore. The era of rockerboys is over. Now it’s just… corpo sellouts.”

  “Like you!”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled. “But I like the real edgerunners, too. The ones in JK’s Edgerunner series. Shit, I’m a fan. I think I could make it pretty big, too, with what I have.”

  “Gonk move, that,” she said. “Risking your life on the edge just to go to school. You could just skip the middleman, you know, if it’s money you want.”

  “C’mon,” I said. “Can’t be more gonk than that moon poster over there,” I said.

  Her demeanor shifted. “Got a problem with that?”

  “Uh,” I shrugged. Instincts told me to speak the corpo language now, but I doubted that would do anything more than piss her off.

  So she did have bad taste.

  Didn’t mean I didn’t get to speak my mind. “I don’t know, just seems in bad taste to me. Lots of people died trying to make that rock liveable. It’s more like a prison colony than anything.”

  “Somebody did their homework,” she said in monotone as she walked towards the window sill again, tossing me my blazer.

  “It’s just stuff I learned in school, no big deal,” I said. “Knowledge’s probably out there in some chipstore too.”

  “I suppose it might be,” she took a swig of her beer. “Doesn’t matter, though. It’s my dream.”

  “Your dream?” I asked. “The moon? You gotta be kidding me.”

  “You mentioned the moon being a prison colony,” she said. She buried her mouth in her knees as she spoke. “Well, for me, this city is ten times worse. Can’t escape from it, no matter how far you go. Night City is the world’s cancer.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “Take it you’re not from here.”

  She shrugged. “In any case, it costs a fortune to get to the moon.”

  “Not if we keep klepping shards,” I said with a grin.

  She hummed.

  Gosh, I had killed the mood already. What a gonk I am.

  “My mom had a dream,” I said. “She wanted the best for me, for me to stay in Arasaka Academy and become a good corpo. After she kicked it, it’s just been me trying to figure out how I’m going to stay in school for her. Edgerunning seems… like the best option for me.”

  “That’s not right,” she said.

  I quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean? I’m not scared of edgerunning if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “No. That’s her dream, not yours. You can’t go far trying to chase it. Gotta do what you want, be what you want.”

  I nodded with a sigh. “Yeah. I know. Told her a million times I didn’t wanna be in ‘Saka. Told her so many times that for a while, I genuinely thought she hated me. She worked herself to the bone and did all sorts of illegal shit to get me through school, and all I ever did was spit on her sacrifices.”

  “What changed?” she asked. “Clearly, you seem more committed now.”

  “Spite,” I said, like it was all the explanation she needed. It was for me. What changed was the thought of fucking Katsuo winning after he took my mom from me. What changed was Nanny and the Sandevistan, my amazingness staring me in the face.

  But I never gave it a good think until now, did I?

  Never wondered what I wanted out of this. What was a worthwhile goal for someone like me to put myself through all this bullshit.

  What was my light at the end of this long and treacherous tunnel, the reward that made all this shit worth it?

  “I can see it right now! You, at Arasaka Tower, the very top! You can change Night City, D.”

  That was mom’s dream, but it was a naive one. One that tried to push me as hard as I could so that even if I fell short, I’d still have made it anyway. Shoot for the moon so that even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

  Yeah.

  But fuck that.

  Fuck that.

  I was doing it. Fuck it, I would do it and I would succeed.

  “Spite?” she raised her eyebrow.

  “I just… had a realization. Tried… indulging in her ideas of me for a moment, and found that… it wasn’t so bad,” I laughed a little. “Not bad at all. I’m angry. I’m spiteful. I’m a motherfucker. I don’t go down after getting my ass kicked, and I’m not about to let Arasaka chew me out. I’m riding that bitch to the top.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “What?”

  “Top of Arasaka Tower,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll get there someday. I can get there someday. It’s possible. Mom believed in me, and I know what I’m capable of. And it has to be Arasaka. It’s the greatest corp in the world. Gotta be ‘Saka. And it’s gotta be the top.”

  “Corporate overlordship,” she muttered sardonically. “Cute.”

  “Don’t need you to believe in me. Can do plenty of that on my own”

  She got off from the window sill and stood before me with a disdainful sneer, one far more intense than I had expected. “Well, then let me put it this way, you Santo Domingo gutter trash; your dream is stupid.”

  “W-what?”

  “You think Arasaka would let you get so high? And even if they did, what then? You wanna be just another evil megacorp exec so your mom can be proud of you in the afterlife?”

  “Who said anything about evil?” I asked as I stood up, still reeling from being called ‘gutter trash’ out of nowhere. “I wanna change the world, make it better! Ain’t gonna let myself fall just to reach my goals.”

  “Then you’re even dumber than you let on.”

  “I know I can do it,” I said. “Nobody else but me has to believe in me.”

  “Your mom fucked up big planting those dreams in your head. Sad.”

  I clenched my jaws. “Fuck you! You’re the one who wants to become a fulltime astronaut in a place where even the air isn’t free! You think the megacorps up there aren’t gonna shaft you ten times worse when they’ve got a stranglehold on your breathing?”

  “And you’re gonna get flatlined from edgerunning far before you’d get anywhere on the corpo ladder. You think you’re special or something? A million little boys like you run around with a gun and a chipped in attitude thinking they’re hot shit, and they all end up fucking dead. You’re lucky if you end up with a drink to your name in the Afterlife.”

  What the hell was her problem? “Look, Lucy, you don’t know shit about me, so don’t go around making assumptions. Besides, I think I’d make it far longer than some psycho ‘runner who picksockets for a living. Talk about wasted fucking potential.”

  “Wanna talk about psycho with that chrome on your back?” she asked, leaning forward. “You’re gonna get your brain fried to a crisp at some point and get zeroed by MaxTac. That’s your future, David.”

  “Yeah, and you’re gonna die in Night City,” I said with a laugh. “Buy one of those tacky moon BDs, why don’t you? Maybe that’d wise you up.” I put on my blazer and grabbed my backpack. “Go ahead and keep the klepped shards, put it to your moon fund or buy some glitter, like I give a shit,” I said as I walked around her and to her door.

  Before I could reach it, it opened, revealing an enormous, black guy with a blond crewcut. He leered at me. “You fell over the edge, punk.”

  “Huh?” I stepped back, and the guy just followed me in.

  “Tough deal, but that implant you chipped is mine,” two other people followed him into the apartment, blocking my exits. “And I’ll be taking it back!”

  I turned around right before I felt the unmistakable bite of wire around my neck, to see Lucy, glaring daggers at me.

  Then back at the titan of a man, whose hands glowed red-orange at the joints. He clenched his fists, and drove it into my face.

  000

  “—think we could just flatline him and do the old five-finger scav discount?”

  “We’d still have to shell out for an install,” one voice said.

  “But we’d break even, right?”

  “Yeah, just about.”

  Fuck, what the hell was going on?

  [David! Activate the Sandevistan! You are concussed!]

  I followed Nanny’s orders and flashed the chrome. The world cleared up instantly.

  Then I saw three chromed-out assholes sitting on a sofa across from me. A huge blond woman with an open blazer that revealed her breasts, her nipples only concealed by a band of tape or something. She sat on the left, my left at least. On the right was some dark-haired, long-fingered, mohawk-sporting, goatee-having dude with an electronic visor over his eyes. He wore a vest jacket revealing his bare chest. His skin seemed gray of all things.

  And in the middle, the enormous black guy who had knocked me out.

  “The fuck is this?” I muttered.

  “He’s awake!” the long-fingered guy said.

  “Good! Now you can answer for why you klepped my chrome!” He moved too fast for me to react, once again, grabbing me around my leg and dangling me.

  “Feel free to splatter him, but remember you pay for the drycleaning,” I heard the voice of Lucy. That bitch!

  “No problem at all, Luce!” the guy roared.

  Nevermind her, what did this asshole say again?

  “Your chrome?” I asked in shock.

  “That’s right, bought and paid for!”

  The girl to his right, my left, sighed. “That’s what happens when you pay in advance.”

  “Gloria’s good people, one of our own, always been true to her word,” the man said. “That is until she dropped off the face of the Earth and went no-contact.”

  “Gloria?” I asked.

  Then I remembered the forty thou in the bank account. Fuck.

  He refocused on me. “Yeah! Gloria Martinez! That ring a bell!”

  “Yeah, of course it does. She’s my mom.”

  “Your mom? The hell was she thinking, giving that shit to you?”

  “Wasn’t exactly a discussion,” I said. “She died.”

  “What?!”

  “Two days ago.”

  “That’s impossible! I talked to her two days ago!”

  Using my cyberoptics, I NFC’d him her death certificate.

  He finally let go of me. I landed on a heap, but it didn’t hurt much. The man sat down with a sigh. “Condolences kid, but that doesn’t make things free’n’easy for you.”

  “I can pay you back,” I said. “Return the eddies you put down.”

  “Not good enough, kid,” he said. “That right there is military grade, bleedin’ edge, too. You know how often that stuff hits the streets? Fucking never.”

  “Didn’t think it was yours to begin with,” I said. “Didn’t think there was anything wrong with taking it.”

  “Cut him some slack, Maine!” The long-fingered guy. “I remember when I used to chip in all the mil-spec chrome my mom kept lying around. Christ, this kid’s obviously got a circ loose or something.”

  I snorted. “Wouldn’t have taken it if I knew it was spoken for, but that’s an old story now because I’m not giving it back.”

  The woman chuckled. “You really think you’re in a place to make demands here? And what’s with the attachment anyway? You fire that thing up, you’ll scramble your brains.”

  I could just leave right now. They weren’t exactly cornering me, and they didn’t expect me to be able to fire up the Sandy.

  Then I felt the bite of monofilament wrap around my neck. “Don’t even think about it, you gonk.” Lucy, again. She really wanted to kill me, huh.

  Didn’t even wanna look that bitch in the eye. Christ, what a fuckup.

  Why did I even trust her in the first place? First girl that comes around and bats her eyes at me and I just lose my head like that? The fuck was wrong with me?

  “You really think that’s necessary?” the large lady said. “We’ve got three of us right here to stop him from leaving.”

  “Can’t exactly do that when he moves at mach speeds,” Lucy said. “I’ve seen him fire that thing up today over twenty times. Kid’s a gonk, but you underestimate him and that could be the death of you.”

  “No way!” The lanky mohawk guy said. “Twenty times? Get your head checked, Lucy, that’s impossible!”

  “You serious?” the lady asked. Both her and Maine were taking Lucy far more seriously than the guy on the right.

  “Deadly,” Lucy replied. “Saw it myself. We were working together klepping shards. Guy doesn’t tire.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Can I fucking talk yet? Am I allowed to do that?”

  Maine smacked me. “I don’t need that fucking lip, kid. But go ahead. The fuck do you want?”

  ”You guys… you guys are cyberpunks, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Maine said. “What’s it to ya?”

  “Been thinking about getting into the business,” I said. “Was gonna get in touch with a fixer called El Capitan for my first gig, but… what if I ran with you guys? Did jobs with you? You’ll still basically have the Sandy. It just won’t be on you. But I’d still make you eddies.”

  Maine seemed to think for a minute. “And you can really just use that Sandy on command, huh?”

  “There’s a limit,” I said, thinking about my Critical Progress. “But for the most part, yeah.”

  “Wait, Maine,” Lucy said. “You might wanna reconsider. Kid’s a corpo brat. Can’t see his uniform? Arasaka Academy. Straight A student.”

  The long-fingered guy cackled. “The things corpo brats do for kicks, man. Now I’ve seen everything.”

  “You serious?” Maine asked. “No wonder Gloria was always strapped for eddies.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I’m just trying to get through school, man. I’ll do jobs and everything, no problem. And you can trust me because my livelihood is on the line.”

  Maine scoffed. “And what if ‘Saka came around and offers you the big eurobucks to turn on us?”

  “They’d have no reason to,” I said. “I want to be on the R&D track, not counterintel. Soloing wouldn’t translate to anything I’d even want to make money from. I intend to keep my solo life and my school life entirely separate. Disguise and ICE. I was told that rep is everything in this game, and I intend to cultivate one of trust and reliability,” I said. “You knew my mom. She was the most important person in the world to me, and you found her to be reliable, right?”

  Lucy sneered. “Don’t bring your dead mom into this, you corpo psycho.”

  “Quiet, Lucy,” Maine said. “Whatever the hell kind of beef you have with the kid, leave that in your own time.” He focused on me now. “You really wanna roll with me, fine. I’ll put you on a trial gig. Paid cuz I’m not a corpo motherfucker with that internship crap.”

  “I appreciate that,” I immediately lit up. “You won’t regret this at all, I promise!”

  “Make sure I don’t,” Maine said. “I’m a fair guy, but you took my chrome. If you’re not up for the job, I’ll take back what’s mine, kid, make no mistake.”

  I shuddered. From what I saw in his eyes, he really meant that.

  “Lucy, let him go,” Maine said.

  She clicked her tongue as she uncoiled the monowire from my neck.

  “I’ll be in touch, kid. You be available.”

  “I’ve still got school,” I told him. “That will always take precedence.” I couldn’t help but feel a flash of disappointment at that fact.

  Couldn’t edgerunning just be… for its own sake?

  No. That’d be way too easy.

  “Got it,” Maine said. “And the money I put down, make sure it’s in my account the moment you get home.” His eyes shone blue for a moment and some info came into my HUD, payment information. “And Lucy.”

  She slapped me on the back of my neck. The pain wasn’t as shocking as the sudden insertion of a chip. “Don’t try anything funny,” Maine said. “That’s to make sure we know where you are at all times, so you don’t try runnin’ off.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered as I rubbed the sore skin around my chip-slot.

  “Be seein’ ya,” the gruff edgerunner said as he and his chooms left without any further ado, and I was alone in the room with Lucy.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” I said.

  “Get the fuck out.”

  Didn’t need to be told that twice.

  Once the door closed, I muttered a “Bitch.”

  000

  I went home to transfer the forty k to Maine, and then went to hit a nearby ‘ganic gym to pump some more meat.

  As I thought, vending machines with nutrient-rich foods seemed to be a mainstay in these kinds of places. They even had jars of supplements. I shelled out extra for them, and took some SCOP bars with me as well to the reception desk where I paid for a monthly subscription.

  Then I got to work.

  Hours later and my Critical Progress bar finally hit 90%, signaling the end to the workout session, and what a workout that was.

  I weighed in at a hundred and thirty eight pounds before starting.

  Now I was a hundred and forty-five.

  I was shredded. Huge. I was at a spot where I felt comfortable not getting any bigger.

  I’d have to seriously consider upsizing my uniform soon.

  As I walked home from the gym, I started chatting with Nanny.

  David: wish I could keep working out without getting ‘Animal’ big. Like, wider than I’m tall.

  [That would be physically impossible for you unless you put on enough adipose tissue to kill you.]

  David: Was just an expression is all.

  [An increase in mass is suboptimal. I recognize that. I am starting to formulate a method to increase your strength without affecting your size. Optimally, I will be able to not affect your weight, either, but I still need more data to do so.]

  David: And you get data by watching me rip my body apart and then putting it back together.

  [Yes.]

  No pain, no gain.

  Tomorrow was a saturday. Inbetween all the bullshit that happened today, I forgot to be fucking happy about my two-day vacation from corpo bullshit.

  Whatever.

  Had to go to sleep and then immediately hit the gym once I woke up, maybe get up to 50% critical progress, just in case Maine called me in for a gig.

  Took a shower and then went to bed. Nanny knocked me out.

  000

  It was Saturday, and I wasted no time getting to work at the gym. Grinding up to 50% Critical Progress felt a lot harder than before, even when I tapped into hysterical strength.

  Nanny was getting better and better at managing the nanites’ imperfect cell replication, which meant that I managed to get up to a full twelve-pound increase in total mass, all of that extra weight being pure muscle-mass.

  Nanny hadn’t bullshitted either about my size staying the same. Almost a hundred and sixty pounds on a frame as small as mine, my muscles would be laughably large. Instead, they were in a good size.

  My favorite black shirt was getting tighter on me, though. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but it was what it was.

  [Based on the events of yesterday, I am curious: do you still wish to grow taller? This request was prompted by a desire to be more sexually attractive to Lucy, whom you have sown an inexplicable enmity with.]

  I rolled my eyes.

  David: She’s the one who started it, the fucking psycho. And yeah, I’d still like to get taller. Taller means stronger, right?

  [Undoubtedly. With a larger frame, you will have more muscle and ability to exert greater force.]

  I looked at the nutrient requirement dropdown, and it reminded me to load up on more micros. And macros.

  With nothing else to do, I decided to head towards Reyes. The route to the dam wasn’t hard to find. It was further into 6th street territory than I’d have liked, but as long as I kept my head down, it wasn’t like they would just go on and pick a fight with me. I’d grown up in Arroyo. I knew how to appear harmless enough that their cop senses wouldn’t tingle.

  I also just… wasn’t that worried. Was it the Sandy or was it my newfound physique? Either way, I was pretty much as safe as any gonk could be just walking around here.

  I spotted some armed and chromed patriot types walking around with long guns, some eyeing me, but I kept my head down and kept walking.

  Then I passed by a little clothing store where I found a sugar skull mask on display amongst a sea of other latino trinkets and tchotchkes.

  Now that was a good way to start attracting unwanted attention.

  But fuck it. I couldn’t be David Martinez in the solo world anymore. Even if it was disrespectful to the fixer I would end up meeting or suspicious, I had to think about what was best for me. I went into the store and bought the mask. It was a full head mask, like a luchador kind. I should cut a hole in the head to let my hair out at some point, but just wearing it right now would be good enough for me.

  I put it on, and instantly somewhat regretted it. My peripheral view was shitty now, which did not bode well for my longevity.

  Ah, fuck it. I went to some backalley where no one was watching and fired up the Sandy. It didn’t take any shorter time from my own perspective, but the less time spent walking around with a gonk mask in gangland, the better.

  I stopped at an alleyway near to the stairway up to the dam’s lookout, and took off jogging up. No shouts followed me as I ascended the stairs.

  I spotted some dude leaned up against the barrister, wearing what looked to be a suit expensive enough to mark him as a man of means, but his lack of shirt underneath and his tattoos made him seem just illicit enough that I would peg him for someone who might know about El Capitan, if that wasn’t El Capitan himself.

  He also had a hairstyle that reminded me of Katsuo. Wouldn’t think too hard about that, or I might curse him out.

  I walked up to him, and he immediately spotted me from forty feet away. “That’s far enough away,” he yelled as he held his side. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “My name is D,” I said. “I’m a solo, looking for work.”

  He burst into laughter. “Fuck off, kid,” He said, his laughter not fully done yet.

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “Come over here,” he said, and I obeyed, walking up to him until I was six feet away. “What’s with the mask?” he asked with a tilted head.

  God, this was embarrassing.

  What the fuck was wrong with me?

  “Is that necessary information for you?” I asked.

  “Oh, you wanna go corpo on me now? What are you, some kinda corp student or something?”

  Fu-cking hell.

  This disguise was not working at all.

  “I’m just looking for work,” I said.

  “You’ve already established that,” he said. “Ugh, what the fuck, whatever. I’ve got a delivery job you can do.”

  Ah, hell no.

  “You up for it?” he asked.

  “I’ll respectfully decline,” I said.

  He scoffed. “Why? Courier work ain’t good enough for ya?”

  “Respectfully, it isn’t worth my time,” I said. “I will take my leave now. Apologies for wasting your time.”

  I turned to walk away, feeling profoundly annoyed by this shit. A delivery? Seriously? How many deliveries would I have to do to earn his trust and get to the good shit? Better to wait for Maine to hook me up with the trial gig, then. I’d be wasting my time for ennies for no reason.

  “Wait, kid,” he said. I turned around. “What’s the matter? I wanna hear your reason for ditching the work.”

  “I don’t think doing grunt work for you until you trust me enough to give me real work is a good use of my time.”

  “‘s how all solos start out,” he said. “You think you’ll be an exception?”

  “I recognize that I may have seemed rude or arrogant in my dismissal, and you are free to interpret—”

  “Cut the shit, kid. Just talk normally.”

  “Edgerunning is serious biz for me,” I said. “I’ve got the skills to deliver and I’m in a tight spot, so I literally can’t afford to do basic work for you. It’s not that I don’t want to. I simply can’t.”

  Reyes gave a slow nod. “Alright then. What if I told you this delivery gig wasn’t small potatoes?”

  I perked up at that. “What’s it got?”

  “You’ll be delivering a package to a block encircled by Maelstrom members who are specifically looking for it,” he said. “There will likely be violence if they catch you. You fast or stealthy?”

  “The former,” I said.

  “Prove it,” he said. I backed up away from him until we were thirty feet apart.

  Then, I activated the Sandevistan.

  A moment later—to him at least—I had his watch in my hand. I dangled it in front of him. His eyes widened as he checked his wrist.

  “What in the fuck was that!”

  “My credentials,” I said. “I’m up for the job,” I said. “How much is the pay?”

  He shot me a text. Two thousand. That was interesting.

  “Half upon securing the package from the sender,” Reyes said. “The other half upon a successful delivery.”

  He sent me more details afterwards.

  He held his hand out expectantly and I activated the Sandevistan again to put the watch around his wrist.

  Reyes chuckled. “Crazy bastard.”