Payday

Payday, Part 1

Payday
By
Dan Fergerson
         
         
         
         
         Some would call what I do criminal. Perhaps to justify myself, or simply get it off my chest, I’ll explain exactly how it is I ended up that way. Bear in my mind, I don’t see myself as a criminal, but labels are a terribly hard thing to shake in these modern times. Maybe some psychology major will pick this up and give me a nice, long read, and devise some wonderful thesis about me. That would just be a treat.
         My name is David J. Fowler, though I haven’t gone by that name in about twelve years. Most people just call me Xero, like the number, except with an x. It’s been my handle on NeuralNet as long as I can remember. I dropped myself off the grid round about that same time, twelve years ago. Even at that ripe old age of fifteen, I was planning ahead, knowing I would need to stay under the radar wherever it was I was heading. Foresight is a beautiful thing.
         As my last statement would imply, I don’t get out much to use my real name. People know me as that quiet guy in Apartment 5-J, you know, the one that never leaves but for an hour a day. I moved myself quietly into an old apartment complex in the sprawl that used to be called Buffalo. Since most everything inside the city is lost and forgotten, I thought it would be a nice place to disappear. Truth be told, though I’m not a fan of admitting it, I was born in North Jersey Metroplex, Sector 1, on June 4, 2074. Yeah, I’m not an official street rat; I was born with the fortunate ones.
         I got into streaming on NeuralNet when I was ten. Back then, I could barely customize my avatar with a blue shirt. That probably doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? Most folks will never need or use NeuralNet, and don’t know people that do, except for that creepy IT guy in the basement with the crazy eyes. Basically, you get a minor surgery to implant a jack in your head, just behind your ear. Don’t worry, it’s harmless, even kids can get it. Then you connect a cable into said jack, and before you know it, your brain is a server on NeuralNet, streaming your consciousness into the ether.
         The world inside isn’t that different from the world outside. The only thing that has always bugged me is that everything is too shiny. The cars are too cherry, the food tastes too good, and the colors are too vibrant. Oh, yeah, and nothing smells bad, which is harder to get used to than you think, especially when you stop streaming and breathe in some Buffalo air. Try that sometime. First time I did, I ended up tossing up in my kitchen sink for the next two hours. I really need to clean out my fridge more often, too.
         Most people you come across on NeuralNet aren’t people at all, they’re programs. They suck at conversation, too. Forget any goofy sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen, these things don’t have personality, they’re as engaging as a block of wood, and about as smart. So no, contrary to the paranoia some conspiracy theorists will write, programs are not going to take over our world, they’re not going to nuke us, and no, they will not build a robot army to enslave us. Makes for great TV, though. I have no fewer than a thousand sci-fi movies from the last hundred years on holo, and I can’t get enough. That’s another conversation entirely, though.
          When you do end up meeting someone while streaming, it really isn’t much different from doing it in real life. Talking to a person you’ve never met connects the chat protocol, initiates contact, and then a response is received, if that person feels like talking to you. Usually you’re just talking to the person, unless it’s a girl. People jump on every girl they see like they’re the last on earth, mostly because it is pretty rare to find one on NeuralNet. It’s every bit as hard to score on there as anywhere else, and twice as messy. Your brain while streaming is intricately connected to the system, leaving your body almost comatose. But, as all teens with a jack in their head will eventually find out, actually getting someone to sleep with you in the Net is also the fastest route to being glued to your chair in the real world, in the most unpleasant of ways.
         For perverts and hardcore geeks alone, NeuralNet is an addictive and easy way to accumulate information, something that is a bit like currency. You have credit, I have info. If you want my info, then you can fill my account with your credit. It’s how I afford rent, keep upgrading my rig, and so on. For the average streamer, it isn’t enough to make a living, unless the type of info you’re getting is from a contact with better access than you.
         The information exchange is done publicly, for the most part. Corporate offices and warehouse auctions are held the same way the old internet worked, just on a more personal scale. Commodities ranging from books, music and movies, to real-world objects like cars and houses can be found there. You’re probably used to seeing them in the form you recognize on your media unit, where you see it on the screen and order it. In NeuralNet, you physically post a bulletin on a bulletin board, or fill out the corporate forms and request your items posted. At least, that is the way it works for the public stuff.
         The criminal aspect, the one I’ll likely someday be arrested for, is vastly different. Research and development for a major corporation has a new top secret project at their headquarters in Los Angeles? Well, some investors are going to want to know that in advance, and their credit account is pretty big. NeuralNet can’t give you access to stuff like that, but it would be the place you meet, make the deals, trade the info, and so on. And that is how I got started.
         I’m not a sob story. I didn’t come from a broken home, at least no more broken than anyone else’s. I’m not a hero, either. I don’t have some baby sister that needs a million-dollar medical procedure. I’m just some guy that wanted to be set for life, and had the ability to make it so. Before it all started, I was just raw talent, cracking into little secured servers on the net for some cheap info to pawn off. After proving myself a few times, my name was recognized, if not known. I frequented the clubs on the net where guys like me could go and talk about our exploits, improve our techniques, and so on.
         There, no one uses an avatar that looks even a little bit like them in any way. It’s kinda funny, actually. Your brain creates a self-image that is stored on your rig when you first start it, so changing your looks on there is akin to hacking your own perception of your appearance. Most people can’t handle it, and never get themselves involved in illegal activity just based on that fact alone. It can be hard, sometimes, to pull the jack out and go look in the mirror, and find a different face than you were expecting to stare back at you. As for me, I didn’t have the hang-ups. I have a face in the real world, and I have a face on the net. Neither one is truly me, in my opinion, so I’m not particularly attached to either. On a good day, I’ll brush my thick, dark hair, put on some fresh jeans and a cotton shirt, sit my tall, lanky behind in the recliner I found on a curb down the street, and jack into my alter-ego. My other self is pretty stylish - shades, slicked-back jet black hair, black leather trench coat, the standard geek’s attire for the net. My facial bone structure is a bit different on there, and I never have any facial hair, not even shadow. I’m usually wearing combat boots, black jeans and a matching shirt. I’m also about six inches shorter, and a tad more muscular. I look pretty damn cool. Okay, so maybe I’m a little attached to that appearance.
         After getting known by my handle, it was a matter of time before I had to prove myself to cement the name as a real player. I needed to get a stamp of approval from the guys that were watching these clubs. So, I busted into the storefront mainframe over at Nobleman. Yes, the giant multimedia store. For about half an hour, I was one of the clerks at the store, happily taking your purchases and sending them to your media unit while putting your credits in my own account. You win, I win, everyone was happy. Except for Nobleman Inc., which took two hours to find out I was there, and a week to put out a notice to its shareholders. The official press release confirmed my humble announcement to my club, and I was finally considered ‘elite’ by the group at large. That was my first step into the grave I’ve dug for myself, but we’ll come back to that later.
         Most guys that get to that point in their skills will switch to one of two things: a mentor to the new kids on their way up, or a professional thief. I became neither. My one day working as a clerk-bot for Nobleman set me up with rent and food for months, years if I stayed living in the slums. I was far too young still to be training high-school kids to use the rig their parents got them to impress girls and get laid. I could go off on a rant about those little monsters for an entire other story, but I doubt my opinion would be worth reading, what with all the profanities I’d be using.
         I wasn’t planning on going out the day I got into the life, even though it was a nice spring day. Instead, I started up my Saturday like I always did, setting up my security system to kill anyone entering the house while I was streaming. You can never be too careful, especially when leaving your body so vulnerable. I jacked in, became my other self, fixed my slicked hair, and hopped into my car. It’s not really taking me anywhere; it’s just a transport protocol to another server. The car ride takes as long as it does for my data to stream onto the server, which can be a few minutes. Wireless reception for my rig is little shoddy in Buffalo, and I was transporting to a Russian server. So, it took a while that day, much longer than I expected. But, I wasn’t really going to a Russian server like I planned. My car had been rerouted, to parts unknown. I hopped out, expecting to find a Moscow sky greeting me as I made my way to the hush-hush club I haunted, and instead found a beach in what looked like a brochure for California.
         “Over here,” a throaty voice called out.
         The man with the gravelly vocals was definitely addressing me. He was a chubby Puerto-Rican man in a shitty suit. His bald spot was almost as glaring as the gold chains he had around his neck. If he was a hacker like me, then he had officially made the scummiest avatar in the world. If he wasn’t, then I liked him even less. He stood calmly on the patio of a seaside condo that likely cost more than I made in a year. At a table beside him, I caught sight of a dorky-looking guy in glasses typing on a laptop media unit. This was the hacker, I figured, though he hadn’t gone to enough trouble to un-nerd his avatar. I guess it was a personal choice.
         “You tapped my line, changed my coordinates. Why?” I asked pretty casually. I’m good at that, saying things calmly when internally I’m about to piss myself in fear. Hey, I never said I was a badass.
         “Quick, son. Joo know how much credit it would cost me to know what SynTech is planning on putting out this year?” He said in that gravelly, badly faked Hispanic accent. Okay, so he wasn’t really what he appeared to be, or he was a walking stereotype. I was curious, so I played along.
         “Pharmaceutical hacks are dangerous ground,” I said coolly. “Their security systems are rumored to flip your brain onto genetic diseases, make you jack out with a condition only dinosaurs had.”
         “So, how much would it cost, hy-po-thetcially?” He was humoring me. It came off somewhat condescending.
         Saying anything right now that wasn’t the right thing could be trouble. If he’s a cop, he’s entrapping me, but I’ll still do the time. If he’s a hacker, he’s testing me. If he’s a shark, I could get myself caught up in all sorts of shit. I just pulled a number out of my ass.
         “One point five mil.” I tossed it out there like it was no big deal.
         “You can do this for me?” He responded in kind. The money was no big deal to him. I felt that urge to pee again. This guy was a shark.
         I thought about it for a few minutes. It wasn’t like I couldn’t do it, if I was at the console. I’ve fought security programs that were pretty damn dangerous and came out on top. The problem really was that I needed to be at the console. Like I said, this info isn’t going to be on NeuralNet, it’s going to be privately held inside a corporate building somewhere, with real security guards and real creepy IT guys in the basement.
         “You have a team?” I asked, stoking the fire. I wasn’t going to jump on this, no matter how good it sounded, unless I had complete coverage going in and out of the damn building.
         The Puerto Rican chortled out a hearty laugh as he waved me over to join him at the table with his hacker. There was something in that guy’s eyes that bugged me, but I dismissed it. Eyes were not windows to the soul on the net, they were about four thousand polygons. The boss took a seat in unison with me, and poured me a drink. Of course, as is always the case in the net, it was the best tequila I’ve ever had. I stopped at one, though. It can be amazing how easily you can get drunk on the net. Yet another fast way to find yourself jacking out in a puddle.
         “Tell him what joo got,” the Puerto Rican says to the goofy guy next to him.
         I stare across the table, enjoying the perfect breeze on the perfectly sunny day, wondering if this is the perfect way to end up dead.
         “We have three candidates for the infiltration. You are the last position to fill,” the guy’s voice is mechanical, with no inflection or tone to discern mood. I’m thinking he’s a program, but everything about him seems too complex. “You have a bodyguard to get you in, and a spotter once you are on site.”
         I note to myself that he doesn’t use slang, or contractions. Maybe I’ve just seen too many TV shows, but now I’m thinking he’s some kind of super-bot.
         “How are we getting in?” I thought it might be an important detail. I’m not well known for my ninja techniques.
         “Through the front door, but we will get back to that.”
         I like the sound of that, but I’m also not well known for my acting skills. Still, it was a better answer than I thought I was going to get.
         “I need equipment and toys,” I tell them. Now I’m just reaching for goodies.
         “We have the new prototype learningware. It will not be out until the FCC gives the approval,” the robo-nerd informs me, piquing my interest. It’s rare to be so well-informed and find out about tech you’ve never heard of.
         “Learningware?”
         “It is software you install directly into your brain, giving your physical body all the understanding of a specific subject type,” he replies.
         “So, I can be a black belt in tae kwon do, huh?” I know, it seemed far-fetched to me, too.
         “Not quite so simply,” the robo-nerd said. He looked slightly irritated with me, the first sign of actual life since the conversation began. “It can not give you muscle memory, or experience. You could memorize every form, but you would need years of practice to master it.”
         “Sounds good, I think. Get me some gunplay stuff, basic self-defense.” I’m now placing orders for things I’ve never even heard of, and am not sure exist.
         “Done. Hardware will be a little more difficult…,” the robot trails off, looking to the boss, who is busy enjoying a moment with his drink at the time.
         “We can get you a contact, but joo have to set up the deal yourself,” he almost chokes on his own bullshit accent. I’m guessing it’s his first tequila.
         “Then I want half down, plus expenses, and the bodyguard with me for the meet.” Truthfully, I’m enjoying the moment at this point, because I can’t imagine ever feeling this on-top ever again. It’s like I’m a most-wanted assassin that some corporation is bidding on, it just couldn’t be anymore cool. Plus, I’d be rich, set for life, exactly what I envisioned for myself. I could get myself a new metropolitan hooker every other night, like the super high-class ones with the genetic enhancements that were popular in Nevada Sector.
         The hacker spins his laptop to face me, and I see it on the screen. I see it, but I’m still not believing it.
         “Verify your account number and the deposit amount, then press enter if it is correct,” he says to me while I’m trying to play it cool.
         The Nobleman gig didn’t seem high-level enough to be grabbing this kind of attention. One day I’m stealing from a media store, the next I’m on corporate espionage? Of course, I can say that now, but not even something resembling those thoughts are moving through my mind when I see my unmarked bank account on the screen, and a number with so many zeros behind it ready to deposit. Yeah, I hit enter, committing me to this shadowy Puerto Rican and his nerd-bot, and I defy you to tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. Of course, now that I’m committed, that’s when they can tell me all fine print.
         The boss puts a bag on the table, digs in, and pulls out a lab coat. I can see where this is going, and I don’t like it already.
         “Joo and dis bodyguard are walking right in. We gonna ship this to where you going,” he says, though now he’s sounding like a Cuban gangster. That tequila must have hit him harder than it did me.
         I shake my head in disbelief. “Don’t we need ID? And aren’t we going to be on camera with facial recognition software running the whole thing?”
         “We have an in,” the hacker informs me. I’d probably be using his name if I ever knew it. Sorry about that. “The company outsources security to another firm. The spotter can get into their systems long enough to get you through the doors.”
         “Through the doors? What about back out of them?” I’m raising my voice here, mostly because I know I’m asking a question there isn’t an answer to.
         Predictably, they stare at me blankly, letting me know I’m on my own. I huff indignantly, it was my only defense. An awkward moment of tension fills the perfect air.
         “Get in your car, Xero,” the boss tells me, his accent making it sound like my name started with an s. “Joo are going to meet the bodyguard in the Cleveland sprawl, we sent you the address. Then get to Drama, look for Mr. Crowe. Any hardware you need, you get from him.”
         I stand up from my chair, wondering which questions I have left, and how much more screwed the answers are going to make me.
         “What’s the bodyguard’s name?” I ask, thinking I’m starting small.
         “Gia,” he replies coldly, with a deeper tone and very much without the accent. He straightens his jacket as he takes a calm pose, plays with his media for a second, and then he vanishes on me. It’s just rude to log off in front of someone that is talking to you.
         I roll my eyes. The bodyguard is a girl. I’m not getting anymore answers. And now I have to drive my beater car on the old highways to the Cleveland sprawl, which will probably kill that old thing. The hacker guy remains behind, but makes himself look very absorbed in whatever he is typing on his laptop media. I get the hint and hop in my car, which I only wished I’d be taking to Cleveland. If I did have a car like that to take, though, I’d still probably never see it again, for a totally different reason.
         A few minutes later I’m back in the real world, and the smell reminds me nauseatingly quick that I need to empty out that fridge. I grab my palm media, and the first thing I do is check my bank balance, which is currently quite fat. The little gesture of already having my account number up and ready for the deposit was a nice visual aid, but I can’t imagine how much that must have cost them to pull off. Hacking banks is usually a suicide mission. Guys you hear about on the news that died while hooked up to their computer, I’ll tell you, easily half are laying there from attempted bank hacks. The autopsy might say heart failure, blood clot, any number of things, but the one flipping the switch was the security program at the bank.
         I pack pretty light. It’s late spring, and if all goes well, it’s only about a three-hour trip. Those of you that have flight systems in your car are probably laughing at that estimation, but you can take your flight system and stuff it, you spoiled jerks. I’m just a little bitter. Back to the point, I lock up everything, arm my security system, and head out the door. SynTech’s main offices are just inside the Cleveland Metroplex, in Sector 2, so I could possibly be back home by morning, and begin spending my new fortune. I could also be dead, and my apartment would be vacated by Monday, because I owe rent. Either way, things were suddenly moving very fast in my life.
         Among the things I grabbed were two .38 pistols, each holstered on my right and left forearms, with muscle-controlled release, hidden under my jacket. A flick of my arm sends them right into my hand. I didn’t really need the holsters, but they made me feel cool, that’s why I bought them to begin with. There had been several times where I went out with them on me, just to feel like a badass or fight crime or something, but this time I might actually have to use them, and I started feeling a little nervous realizing that as I started my car.
         I mounted my palm media on the dash, even though I was pretty confident I knew the way. The highways aren’t really patrolled anymore, so for all I know a tanker could have crashed there and I’ll need a detour. My car might have been junk, but my software was all top of the line, so my palm would be feeding me real-time satellite positioning the whole way into the bowels of hell that people called Cleveland.
         Back before the Green Earth City Relocation Program a few decades ago, it seemed Cleveland was a pretty nice place. Major corporations were well-installed in there, making their money, people seemed pretty content, and all was well. But when you uproot an entire city and put it on glorified stilts, then wrap a forcefield around the remnants below, you kinda choke anyone that can’t or won’t move upstairs with you. The slums below still have their factories, and those people there still have their jobs, and they get to taste the smog they’re trapped in every morning. It made some people down there bitter, but it made a lot of underhanded goons very rich, probably just like this Mr. Crowe I’m going to see. What better place to hide than a place not even cops bother to go?
         I’m not an activist, but those people living down in the slums are there for one of two reasons: they want to be hidden, or they got stuck there. Buffalo was never that bad with the smog, so it’s not like you have the cancer rates the Cleveland sprawl has. By the time the air-recycling technology comes out that would outmode the forcefields protecting our dear Mother Earth, the people inside that need it the most will be dead. Hell, I get terrible bronchitis every winter, and Buffalo is one of the safest sprawls in the world. Maybe you should give that a thought once in a while.
         Anyway, my media tells me clear sailing all the way, so I agree with the devil on my shoulder that I do, in fact, only live once, and put the pedal to the floor. I’m there in two hours and change. Take that, flying cars. Before I know it, I pass through the forcefield gate, which is unmanned, humorously enough. My media tells me the apartment complex I’m heading for is on the second floor of what would have been a very pricey neighborhood sixty years ago.
         “She’s doing well for herself,” I remember saying out loud as I approached. As far as sprawls go, this was probably as far from a factory as you could get. It was also on the west side of Cleveland, which means an insanely long drive across broken-down parts of the city to get back to the eastside entrance to Sector 2. I sighed to myself, walked up to the front door of the brownstone apartments, and started fiddling with the door management console.
         It was a pretty modern one, installed in the past five or six years, from the looks of it. It had facial recognition, real-time video, everything a tenant would ever need to prevent someone they didn’t want to see from getting into the joint. The facial recognition software, I noted, was on an updated database, which meant it had a presence on NeuralNet. If the place was monitored from the comforts of some slumlord in the Metroplex, then security controls might have been on there, too. I immediately walked back to my car and pulled out my rig. I wasn’t a huge fan of having my picture taken, especially after all the trouble I went to to disappear.
         NeuralNet interfaces, or rigs, can be easily found in your local mall. They’re at the deep back of the media stores. Normally a rig is about a foot and a half long, maybe six or eight inches wide, and about and inch thick. They’re usually made by corporations to be user-friendly for everyone, which means stupid people that shouldn’t have gotten the jack put in their head in the first place. Most hackers are going to treasure their rig, because they built it from the ground up, customized it, and hacked the living hell out of the neural interface. I live in the sprawl, so I use a high-band communications system. It lets me pick up a signal from even very far away. That wasn’t cheap, especially when I was starting out.
         It was a necessary extra step that chewed up a lot of time, but I locked my car doors and found a signal, jacked in, and off to the ether I go. Jacking into a different city’s grid can be a disorienting experience. You’re suddenly standing on a street nearest to the closest server, so basically a strange place, and it can take time to adjust. I don’t have that kind of time, so I grab the media unit in my trenchcoat and check my positioning system. Now I need to get back to Gia’s apartment in this world and go have a talk with the doorman.
         Two minutes later, I’m standing in front of a corporate representation of what a tidy and proper doorman should look like. He’s short, of unascertainable ethnicity, dark haired, and wearing a suit. He’s very happy to meet me.
         “Hello, so happy to meet you,” he says as I walk up. “Would you like a tour of our facilities?”
         “No, I just want you to call apartment 227 and let her know her ride is here,” I shoot back quickly. I don’t have time for games.
         “I’m sorry, sir, we do not keep records like that in this system. I’m afraid you will have to call the tenant you wish to reach, or use our directory, located conveniently in front of our building,” he replies with a grin you just want to punch right off his soulless face.
         “Then I’m going to need you to turn off the cameras at the front of the building,” I’m saying, though I know he isn’t going to hear me the first time.
         “I do not understand your request, sir.”
         So, I pulled out a gun. It’s not really a gun, it’s a physical representation of a course of action. Using it would be like attempting to breach or destroy the program’s code. Used on a real person, you can seriously damage their psyche, which is why all programs and people have defensive countermeasures built in, which represent themselves as shields. A weak, out-of-the-box and installed panel like this isn’t going to have the ability to fight back, and will put up limited resistance. Truthfully, I’m committing a crime just by owning the gun in this world, but I’ve never used it before, so don’t judge me.
         I grab the guy around the neck from behind, and place the barrel of my .9mm right to his head. I still don’t plan on using this gun.
         “Let’s go inside your office,” I state pretty plainly.
         “You are a committing a crime, sir,” the bot replies.
         What I’m doing here, essentially, is called a brute force attack. The way this scene plays out is being physically represented in this world the way I describe it, meanwhile the code behind it is basically me trying a few billion combinations of passwords to gain entry to the mainframe. The mild resistance he is putting up right now is showing the length of time it is taking to get in. Thing is, you don’t think about the code that way when you’re in this world. Because the brain is capable of bouncing from one task to another without losing train of thought, it is a better multi-task system than code-intensive typing like the old days, or long, drawn out program code based around algorithms. That’s why white-collar crimes these days involve NeuralNet hackers, there just isn’t a more efficient operating system than the human brain. See, I’m even educating you here.
         “Put in the code or I’m going to splatter you all over the door,” I warn, sounding real tough and crazy.
         His hand slowly lifts, putting in a sequence of numbers on a nearby keypad. Six. Four. Seven. This is taking too long. I smash his annoying face into the door. He speeds up. The sequence was twelve digits, which was an unfortunately large number, but the low security allowed me to do it quickly before any cops noticed. Cops are much more dangerous on here than in the real world. It’s called brutality when they leave you beaten so bad you’re a vegetable for life out there, but there’s no way to prove brutality on here when your body becomes permanently comatose. I avoid that fate at all costs, starting by smashing the doorman into the wall a few times, until I’m sure he’s not waking up anytime soon. I swear, though, I’m not a violent person.
         I race into the main office, find the security control area and kick the door open. There’s a guard in the cramped little room, but he doesn’t notice me. He just keeps watching the cameras. I reach over his shoulder, turn off the camera feeds from everywhere in the building, then play with it a little longer so the big dumb guard has some cartoons to watch instead of me. He doesn’t seem to mind, so I don’t either. By the time I hear the sirens, I’m already choosing ‘Log Off’ on my media. Within seconds, I feel like I’m waking from a nap. My eyes take a few minutes to stop seeing the world in shades of blue. The sun is starting to set below the Cleveland Metroplex above us, and of course, I’m facing it. My poor eyes just aren’t used to that much sunlight. Living in sprawls under the cities will do that to you.
         Quickly, I hide my rig under a blanket in the back seat, jump out of the car, and race over to the walkway. I punch up the directory, and find Gia. It attempts to connect real-time video and fails. All I’m getting is audio, just the way I like it.
         “Who’s this?” A raspy, bullish voice is talking to me, equal parts feminine and kick-my-ass.
         “Your ride. You coming?” I say curtly. This stupid security system has already chewed up enough of my time, but we can’t just have evidence laying around, now can we?
         She’s even more direct. She doesn’t answer. She just hangs up. How do you like that? I was rude, and she one-ups me. I already don’t like her, and I’m already not going to tell her that, ‘cause she’ll probably beat me up and not care. I decide to hide behind the steering wheel.
         What walks out to my car could have been rougher on the eyes. She’s about average height for a girl, maybe even a little short. Her hair is auburn and short-cropped, either of which I normally don’t like, but she managed to still keep it very girly. The body was toned as hell, she looked more like a fitness model than a bodyguard. She’s wearing jeans and a tight-fitting black shirt, with an old-style bomber jacket from the mid-twentieth with the cuffs up a little ways. She has a backpack over one shoulder, likely carrying guns and more guns. She wears combat boots, the only thing that is not totally working for me. At this point, even if things go south, I might just end up making out with a virtual version of this chick, even if I have to build the model from scratch. Fantasy fulfillment makes up half of the trade and business on NeuralNet, you know.
         She gets into my car and looks around, inspecting it. She doesn’t seem to approve.
         “Get out,” she announces, as she does the same. I’m thinking it’s a little early to be kicking my ass, but mine as well get it out of the way now.
         Once I’m out and looking at her, avoiding her eyes and decent cleavage, the two sure ways to get hit, she puts a hand on her hip, irritated.
         “This piece of shit even gonna make it to the east side?” She seems hostile already. This sucks, I bruise easy.
         “Yeah, it’ll make it there, no problem,” I reply, though probably with more stuttering.
         “Fine,” she huffs. “I’m driving.”
         “Hi. I’m Xero, by the way,” I announce, already moving to ride shotgun.
         “Don’t care.”
         And that’s how I met Gia. Are you already enticed by a life of crime? Yeah, me either, at this point.
         The ride was through the rougher parts of the sprawl, which she seemed to know like the back of her hand. She drove with a rigid posture that was almost awkward to watch. When I had a chance, I caught a glimpse of the back of her neck. I was expecting to see the top section of an exoskeletal graft, and instead I see a long vertical scar. This chick was twice as hardcore as I thought.
         Some of you might have a grandmother with a graft, letting her walk as well as you do. There, the doctor anchors the exoskeleton to grandma’s vertebrae, and they compensate for the strength she’s missing. The brain transfers movement commands through the exoskeleton, and only uses the spine as a backup. It basically makes up for where grandma’s body can’t do things anymore. With bodyguards, special military units, anyone that needs to be in perfect conditioning, they’ll get one done to overcompensate, and do things the body normally can’t. Improved reflexes, strength, all almost superhuman, and the improvements are dramatic.
         With that long scar, Gia went a step further, and had the grafts done directly in the spine, averting the electrical loss and delay the skin creates. With that, her reflexes are almost going to border on precognition. It takes three years of physical and optical therapy to learn all your motor functions again, when suddenly you can perceive things in milliseconds. That is a procedure for only the toughest of people, because even the slightest pain that lasts moments feels like hours of agony. To subject yourself to that kind of torture for a level of power like that means she’s either pretty good at not getting hurt, or a masochist. I’m pretty sure the only way I’m going to find out is the hard way if shit goes down, though.
         “How much does something like that cost? Wired reflexes, I mean,” I say, trying to make idle chit-chat. I’m hoping it’s not a sore spot for her.
         “Three quarters of a million,” she says coldly, not taking her eyes off the road. I briefly note a dot pattern in her iris when the sun hits it. The left eye isn’t hers, either. This chick has more hardware than I do.
          I nervously whistle in surprise. “That’s quite a bit of credit. Wanted to be the best, huh?”
         “We are almost there. What are you getting from this asshole?” She changes the subject, and gets right to the point.
         I want to ask the obvious question as to how she knows ‘this asshole’, but my name was more personal than she would like, so I veer off.
         “I need some high-end unencoded parts for my rig, and I guess we need disguises.”
         “I have the lab coats and ID’s in my bag,” she informs me.
         “Oh,” I again laugh nervously. “I thought you had your guns in there.”
         I hear a tapping sound and look down. Her short, black nails are tapping on the steel barrel of a Desert Eagle, an old pistol that fires bullets that can sever limbs. Even by modern standards, that thing is ridiculously powerful. You could go hunt a bear with a gun like that. And here is Gia, all five feet and five inches of her, strapping a bear-killer to her thigh. I think I’m in love.
         “Well, I guess you won’t be needing anything?” More nervous laughter. I know, I’m even starting to annoy myself with it.
         She pulls out a media with a laundry list on it. Ammo, unencoded ear buds for her media and I’m assuming mine, two new unencoded blank palm media, stone-piercing grapple hooks, and some chemical stuff I can only assume has to do with explosives. What is up with this girl? Is she ex-military? I know I dismissed her earlier in our tale, but a few minutes later, I’m convinced I’ve never met anyone this gritty. Anyway, I put my palm media side by side with hers, and use my finger to drag over a copy from her screen to mine. I go over it, memorize it, and then pocket my media again.
         Drama - the club, not the literary term - was in the middle of a war-zone. The crime in town had its borders, and the club was right at the edge of it. Beyond there, the factories that were still here, making the products you consume without asking where it came from, had its workers living nearby, unwilling or unable to relocate as the gangs kept getting closer to home. The TV is going to have you believe that it’s just another day in Cleveland when someone gets shot, but it’s no different here than it is in Africa. One crazy SOB takes over as a warlord and doesn’t care about respect for fellow man. Then they fight over what crappy part of the crappy city is theirs with the other warlords. They need to be taken down. At least in Buffalo the Mafia took over. You never see them bothering anyone, if you ever notice them at all.
         Walking into the place, it’s a mix of hardened, smog-breathing factory workers too poor or too sick to live near a nicer bar, and the criminals. Some are dressed like bikers, others are in suits, but they’re all here for one thing: illegal services in exchange for credits from unmarked accounts. Fortunately, I have one of the latter that is quite large at the moment, so I’m planning on spoiling myself. Besides, the Puerto Rican gave me some leeway, putting up another forty-grand for expenses.
         The guy at the door is a living mountain. He doesn’t want to check my ID, but he will likely be the one crushing my skull if I screw up in here. Gia doesn’t seem to care, walking right to the mountain with the shaved head like he’s nothing to her. He looks her up and down and smiles in a creepy way.
         “Gia, what the hell are you doing in my bar?” He asks over the obnoxiously loud cyber music. I hate cyber.
         “I’m here to see Mr. Crowe. Where is he, Marko?” She shouts back at him.
         I’m not sure if he’s going to punch her or escort us, but his expression seems like either. Fortunately, we’re suddenly moving through the crowd behind this human street sweeper with a noticeably large connection pin in the back of his neck. They must have gone to double-wide for his exoskeleton.
         We make it to a restaurant-style booth in the back of a VIP room. Mr. Crowe is in his forties, apparently, calmly sipping his drink, and wearing the rest on his dress shirt, which is unbuttoned entirely too far. Anything unbuttoned on a dress shirt below the first is unclassy territory, becoming worse each step down, until you get to Mr. Crowe’s shirt here, almost in North Jersey Metro Italian levels of classiness. His graying hair is combed over a balding spot, and he looks like he hasn’t showered or shaved in a day or two. His watch is Rolex, vintage, and the gray suit jacket is Armani, immediately speaking to the connections his crappy hygiene does not.
         “Mr. Crowe, you have visitors,” the mountain introduces us before returning to the door.
         I immediately notice guys on both sides of the booth he’s sitting in, trying to look casual. They’re likely armed to the teeth, something Gia probably saw from the other side of the room with all that tech she has in her. I try to play it cool as Mr. Crowe sends a random girl out of the room from under his table without breaking eye contact. I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit, but I do well to hide it as he offers me a seat beside him in the booth. I slide in, with Gia positioning herself just over my right shoulder. So here we are, at the back of this noisy bar, sitting at a booth with a human pig that is guarded on either side by tall, well-armed men. Uncomfortable, yes, but at least now I can barely hear that shitty cyber music.
         “You’re early. Made good time, I see,” Mr. Crowe gives me a nod, and motions to his drink. I’m not thirsty, especially for whatever he is having, so I politely shake my head.
         “This is what I need, tonight,” I try changing the subject and getting right to the point. I quickly see why you need to be a badass like Gia to pull that one off.
         “Oh, you don’t want to talk to me, eh? I’m just supposed to be a fuckin’ clerk to you? Show some respect, boy,” he says with a voice so rough it would make the Godfather wince. Probably throat cancer.
         “I didn’t mean any disrespect, sir, just don’t want to take up too much of your time,” I fold pretty easily.
         He huffs and inhales his double of scotch in disgust, then scoops up my media and skims the list.
         “Pretty specific,” he says, looking at the model number of a processor for my rig. Of course it’s specific, I’ve been drooling over that part for eight months, while it was still in prototype.
         He casually lets my media hit the table, no longer interested in the list.
         “Two hours,” he tells me. “One hundred thousand.”
         A brief estimate in my head tells me he is way off. Even if all my parts were unencoded, we’d still be talking about fifty at the most. Gia’s list couldn’t have even totaled ten.
         “That’s a bit much, I think,” I sheepishly make him aware, pocketing my media. I might be scared as hell, but I’m making a show that I’m not doing the transfer under those terms. This, of course, pisses him off greatly.
         “You wanna fuckin’ walk outta this club under your own power, kid? Call it a ‘you’re an asshole’ tax, but it’s a hundred k!” Now he’s just trying to push me around. It’s kinda working.
         “Then I guess we don’t need your business, Mr. Crowe,” I announce, getting ready to leave the table.
         I’m suddenly very aware we’re alone in the VIP room when I see Mr. Crowe give a nod over my shoulder to one of his boys. My head gets pushed down hard and fast, probably by Gia, but I manage to draw my arms up and out with a twist, snapping the lock on both of my holsters. As my cheek stops just inches from the table, my hands instinctively catch my .38’s, which are now trained on both his bodyguards. Yes, really, I’ve been practicing with it for a year now.
         The guard on my left, the one I can see, already has his piece pointed right at me. He’s frozen in place, while the other one is pointing his gun at what I’m assuming is Gia. Out of stupid curiosity, I glance behind me, where my chick bodyguard has the cool, stainless steel barrel of her bear-killer pressed against the head of Mr. Crowe, and the guard’s gun at the back of her own head. In movies, this would be what you call a Mexican standoff. In reality, I’m exactly four seconds from crapping myself.
         I try to breathe, but there is no air left in the room, only tension. There is a gun pointed at every single person at this table.
         “Mr. Crowe, you’re a man of your word. We expected you to come through for us, not rip us off,” Gia explains in a more civil tone than she gave me in the car. I’m not entirely sure at this point why she’s being borderline pleasant with a man trying to kill her and I.
         “Gia? That you, girl?” Mr. Crowe suddenly recognizes her, or he’s devised a way to talk his way out of this without losing face in front of his boys. I didn’t think they were that dumb, but they sure were.
         “Yeah, boss, it’s Gia,” the one with the gun on me says in a nasally voice.
         “So, being a man of your word,” Gia continues, playing along with Mr. Crowe’s bullshit excuse. “Let’s say seventy is fair?”
         “Seventy-five sounds better, my dear,” he replies. I’m now realizing my presence in this negotiation is no longer required, never mind that she is spending my money.
         “You tried to kill me and my friend, Mr. Crowe. I think seventy-two will be just fine for all the trouble.”
         “Not kill him, just teach him a lesson. He’s an asshole. But I wouldn’t have hurt you, Gia. Seventy-three,” he replies. And now my money is going, going, and…
         “Absolutely, we can do that. Xero, let’s get this man paid,” Gia instructs me calmly, tapping me on the back of my shoulder as she lowers her weapon.
         …gone. But seventy-three is better than a hundred, I guess. I slowly sit back up and pocket my .38’s, because getting them back in those holsters is a bitch. Mercifully, the other guys are putting their equipment away at Mr. Crowe’s order. Quickly, I fish out my palm media, get to my bank account, and bring up the wire transfer protocol. I drop my palm on the table, and Mr. Crowe presses his thumb to the screen. It offers eight possible accounts for that signature, and he picks the one he likes. I pick my media back up, set up the deposit, and I let him see that I put a death clause on it, just to scare him. I show him the transfer, he nods, and I send. The whole death clause was a ruse, because me being off the grid means I don’t have a life monitor, but at least if he thinks I do he won’t kill me anytime soon, at least if he wants to keep the money in that account.
         “Come around the back in two hours. Marko will load it in your trunk,” Mr. Crowe tells Gia. It’s like I don’t even exist anymore.
         “Thank you, Mr. Crowe. I’ll make sure the boys know you are still the man to see,” she polishes his ego a bit, promising to send him business.
         I’m shocked as hell when I see that it works, with his chubby, stubbly face almost cracking a smile as he nods to her.
         “Your friend,” Mr. Crowe is looking at me all of a sudden. “She knows about respect. You do well to learn a little.”
         I nod humbly like an idiot and follow Gia’s lead right back out of there. Not a word is exchanged between the back to the front of the club, all the way to the car. Then all hell breaks loose.
         “Way to go, there, dipshit,” Gia compliments my technique loudly.
         “What the hell did I do?” I’m still trying to figure it out as I ride shotgun.
         “That,” she condescends very clearly, “is a man of respect down here. Do you even know what the hell you were doing in there? And why won’t this piece of shit start?”
         I turn off the car’s media console and press the ignition button again. That usually does the trick.
         “I thought you said he was an asshole,” I begin, waiting for an unnecessarily violent reaction.
         “He is. But in there, he’s king, and you treat him that way to get what you want. What were you thinking?” Gia is easily my age or younger, and she’s verbally beating me like only a mom should.
         “I really didn’t have a clue, honestly. The Puerto Rican that hired me said I’d have to do the deal myself, but I don’t know anything about that stuff.”
         She’s already driving when she gives me this sideways look.
         “What Puerto Rican?”
         “The one that gave me this job. He was a Puerto Rican on NeuralNet, at least,” I say, not willing to accept the ridiculous nature of what I just said, or the fact that I have already put my life on the line for this job. “Why, how did you get hooked up with this?”
         “Usual channels. My media gets an encoded message, I usually don’t know the buyer,” Gia replies. At least this is normal for her, cause it’s scaring the crap out of me.
         “Look, we got the equipment, you smoothed over the whole thing. Let’s just not talk about it, okay?” I’m defeated at this point. I just don’t need her spiking the ball on the goal line.
         She contains her inner beast with prolonged huffing and grating silence. I’d flip on the media console and listen to some music, but I’m not going to provoke her. Finally, she breaks the silence as we are back on the old highways, for whatever reason.
         “You hungry?” She almost makes it sound like an accusation, but I still nod calmly.
         “I know a pretty good place, it’ll kill some time until we get our shit together and pull off this gig,” she continues. She’s actually starting to sound a little friendly.
         We end up at Joe’s Diner, located in some part of the sprawl that used to have a name way back when. The name probably followed them up those pylons the Metroplex now rests on. The diner is over a hundred years old, and really looks it. The smell of cigarettes and bacon fills the air, pleasantly reminding me why I never live topside. All those laws Green Earth has been pushing for decades now keep restricting more and more in the Metroplexes. I like my burgers, and I like them liberally topped with bacon. Try to get that up there, I dare you.
         I’m waiting ten minutes before a half-pound of dead animal is gloriously steaming away on my plate, overflowing with bacon and sitting on a toasted bun. Having skipped every meal up until now, that cow is quickly making a new home in my stomach before Gia gets her roasted chicken put down in front of her. This burger was juicy, rare, and crunchy with the bacon. It could have tasted horrible and I wouldn’t have stopped eating it, but the fact that it was probably the best burger I’ve ever had made all the Mr. Crowe junk fade away.
         “You like it, I guess?” Gia interrupts the sweet union of this burger and my mouth.
         I look up, realizing she’s giving me a look like I’m insane. I look down at my plate. I have a pile of fries in one hand, this massive burger in the other, and I’m kinda hunched over the plate like I’m protecting it from theft.
         “It’s like it’s making love to my mouth,” I announce before resuming my meal undaunted.
         “Have you ever been on a run like this?” Gia asks, being all fancy as she uses utensils to eat her meal.
         “What run? For food?”
         Gia huffs like I’m an idiot. “A run. What do you nerds call it? A mission? A quest?”
         “Hey,” I say with a mouthful of ketchup-soaked fries. “I’m not a nerd, and I didn’t know what you meant by a run. Sorry I’m not familiar with all your lingo there.”
         “You would be if you’ve ever done it before, which you haven’t,” Gia announces to herself.
         “I’ve never done anything in person, but I have all the experience I need for the streaming part,” I’m trying to defend myself, but I’m much more interested in this dinner.
         “This is big-time, and they sent me a rookie,” she says, shaking her head as she indignantly stares out the window. It’s like I’m not even sitting right in front of her.
         “Yeah, well, they sent me a girl for a bodyguard,” I return the favor, just loud enough for her to hear me.
         Those wired reflexes are pretty scary. She had me out of my seat, and the booth, and slammed against the nearest wall before I could blink. As my back hits the wall and sucks all the air out of me, I’m still trying to remember if I saw her get up.
         “Listen close, you little shit,” she threatens just inches from my face, despite the fact that I’m almost a foot taller than her. “I’ve been on runs more times than your nerdy ass has been laid, so don’t ever wonder about how good I am, got it?”
         With a restaurant full of hardened truckers staring right at us, I nod nervously. This is clearly not the start of a beautiful friendship.
         “This is the payday I’ve been waiting for. I earned it,” she continues harshly, still grasping me with both hands by my shirt. “And if you manage to screw this up for me, you won’t have to worry about the security at the site, ‘cause I’ll put the bullet in you myself.”
         Part of me wants to wet my pants. Another part of me is remembering Lindsay Cotter, a rotund girl that used to beat me up in sixth grade. The part of me that is intoxicated by Gia’s perfume seems to be the one I’m trying hardest to shut up. The last thing I need is some kind of complex about getting hot for girls that rough me up. That’s kinda gross. So, I just nod my understanding until she lets me go back to my burger.
         We don’t really talk much after that. Being gentlemanly, I grab the check and scan my credit for the whole thing. She doesn’t make any mention of it, which doesn’t surprise me. She doesn’t strike me as the type to give thanks often. A few minutes later, we’re back in the car, but she’s not trying to start it. I wait for a few minutes while she just sits there, staring out the window.
         “Look, if we have to work together, we should make do with it,” I offer.
         “What is that supposed to mean?” Gia asks accusingly.
         I’ve kinda had enough. “What is your problem, lady? You really want your one and only partner, the one that is supposed to give you this big payday, to be all kinds of on edge and nervous?”
         I’m a tad snippy with her, but at least I’m honest.
         “I need this pretty bad,” she tells me. “Three hundred k is a lot to a bodyguard.”
         Man, I knew they didn’t pay bodyguards anywhere near what they do for streamers, but three hundred thousand for trumping a pharmaceutical giant is a joke. Guards are expected to die to make sure info gets where it is going. Suddenly this whole operation is starting to seem way off to me. I smell it, but I’m trying to ignore it.
         “You seem almost desperate,” I tell her. I’m heading into dangerous levels of honesty she might just hit me for.
         “I need some work done on my spine,” she says defeatedly. She did not want to admit that.
         I really, really want to press her further, but she hits the ignition button, and we’re off. The propulsion system in my car has been dying for about two months now, so it sure doesn’t sound good, but she’s still alive. Maybe I should have put a new car on the list to Mr. Crowe, I think to myself.
         Once we’re on the highways again, I see the sun setting as we head back to Drama for the pickup. Seeing the sun once in a while reminds you that you’re still human, and not some rat that lives beneath the real people in the Metroplexes. Sometimes I think the utopia Green Earth was shooting for should be dropped to its knees for falling so short of their promise. But I believe just writing those innermost thoughts is a crime called ‘terrorism’ up there, isn’t it? I don’t believe in real terrorism myself, it rarely brings desired results, but I think Green Earth needs to be knocked down a few pegs.
         The trip back to Drama was as uneventful as I’d hoped for. Considering this morning I was walking around my apartment in Buffalo with nothing but my underwear on, I could do with an hour or two of peace and quiet. A calm before the storm, if you will. I left Gia to her peace, mostly because she seemed happier pretending I wasn’t there.
         The pickup went on without a hitch. I was expecting some shady characters in expensive suits and secret passwords and veiled threats. Instead, Gia pulled up at the back of the building and hit my trunk button. I hear some bumping around back there, then the trunk slammed shut, and we were off again. She didn’t even turn off the car, which was probably a good thing. The propulsion system was starting to get loud.
         “We need to stop for a second before we get to the Sector 2 lift,” I mentioned.
         “Why?” Gia sounded irritated already, as though my request had shattered her world where I don’t exist.
         “I need to transfer my data onto the new storage on my rig and upgrade the parts,” I replied. It was more important to our success than she realized.
         “Fine,” she said with a huff.
         I started to become concerned as she completely bypassed the highway ramp, wandering into a nasty-looking neighborhood with purpose. She might be able to hang with anyone in here, but I was just meat. I tried to play it cool and just watch the road ahead, but when she turned into a parking lot to a big building that said ‘Macy’s’ on it, I lost my full mind.
         “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Shopping malls are suicide, you know that!” I was shrieking kinda high-pitched there.
         “Just keep your mouth shut. Does this car have history?” Gia asks me, cool as ice.
         I shake my head. I got my car from a legitimate source a few years back, so it has never been involved in any crimes, at least none I’ve been caught for while driving the thing.
         She takes us around the back of the building slowly. I spot at least three snipers on the roof. The sun is almost completely gone, and I am once again on the high tension wire. We’re being watched by guys that likely have our heads in a crosshair, and I’m really quite a fan of having a skull without holes in it. This isn’t like Drama, there’s no mix of criminals and poor people, this is where entire gangs go to set up their own private fortress. Sure enough, we’ve barely approached the building itself before I start seeing the oh-so-colorful gang tags littering the outer walls, which look like really pretty nonsensical logos in LCD paint.
         She takes us up to a garage entrance for some old car service company. As the ancient motors grind the door slowly up, Gia sits back and breathes deeply. Either she’s more used to this than I am, or she’s damn good at convincing me she is. Once the door is up, there’s no fewer than ten guys, all armed. The sight of them is almost cartoonish. If my life wasn’t on the line, I’d be laughing at these tough thugs, standing guard at the service doors in their high-fashion clothes from twenty years ago, likely raided from whatever stores had abandoned their stock when this mall was taken. However, they have more guns than me, so I keep the amusement to myself. Gia pulls us into the garage. I’m thinking ‘great, at least now we’re surrounded, that’s something new I’ve never tried’.
         The garage is big enough for three cars, with long workbenches on either side. In the deep back of the area are hydraulic lifts, one of which is raised enough to mount a sniper position, which the nice gentlemen were prepared enough to do. He’s wearing a beret and sunglasses, and seemed very stylish in his sweater-vest.
         “Get out slowly, and don’t say a word,” Gia warns me. She’s as deadly serious as she was at the restaurant.
         She calmly steps out of my car, and I follow suit. She closes her door, I do the same. It’s like ‘Simon Says’, only the losers get shot to death.
         Every one of these guys could spray us all over the cement floors and no one would ever know. They look at us expectantly, not sure as to who should make the first move. These are hardened street guys, I keep saying to myself, not forgetting that even my body language can be enough to set these guys off. I take a relaxed, non-threatening pose, which leaves me at a loss to defend myself if the need arises. I haven’t felt this naked since my mom walked in on me in the shower when I was fifteen.
         “I’m here to see Trey,” Gia announces, throwing all the attention of the armed men onto her. She could have it.
         A beefy black guy in Tommy jeans wades through the crowd with a Russian assault rifle over his shoulder. The men seem to want to give him space, like he owns the mall or something. Come to think of it, he probably did.
         “Lil’ bits,” he smiles as he notices Gia. I feel somewhat better now, knowing that he has a nickname for Gia means he’s less apt to kill the both of us.
         He gives her a very brotherly hug, dispersing the crowd of armed men to the four winds. I startle as I hear the loud metal gears begin to close the garage doors. I opt to stay planted firmly and on my guard as Gia walks with this Trey guy to a nearby workbench. There is a sense of an uncomfortable tension as they drop into stools facing each other.
         “Whatchoo need, girl?” Trey asks her.
         “I need wheels that can get me topside. I can give you this one. It needs work, but it’s clean. I can pay the difference…,” Gia explains quickly, showing the first signs of nervousness. I’m so glad she’s offering to trade my car.
         “Don’t I give you enough favors by now, Gia? When you gonna stop offering to pay me back?” Trey replies, sounding irritated at the notion. He gets up from the stool and starts pacing. Mercifully, he left his large weapon on the bench.
         “When are you going to stop being a stubborn ass and just take it?” Gia snaps back.
         I’m thinking the tone was uncalled for, but seeing as we’re now mostly alone, I guess Trey didn’t view it as losing face in front of his men. Good thing, too, because I hear that crazy warlords normally get mad when you do that.
         “I’ll take the trade, even split. You need money for ‘dem operations,” Trey says. He sounds firm on it.
         “Fine,” Gia replies with a huff. “But you owe me for this.” A smile cracks her lips, and I think her face is going to split in two.
         As nice as Gia’s smile was, my concern kept growing as I hear more small details about her. What’s with the operations? What does she need done to her back? How the hell does she know this guy? I can appreciate that she’s well-connected in this sprawl, but these connections are mostly raving psychopaths thus far.
         “Xero,” Gia is suddenly turning her attention to me. “Get the equipment out. You can use this workbench over here to do anything you need to while we wait for the new car.”
         “Great,” I say, because it is. She’s handling my finances and trading off my personal possessions, and all I have to do is sit at that workbench and plan the heist of secrets from a major multinational corporation. Ah, teamwork.
         Truth be told, getting the gear out of the trunk gets me all giddy in a matter of seconds. My shiny new processor, high-band data-stream cables, and alt-wave direct neural interface are right there, in their original boxes, just waiting to be added to the sweetest rig a man could want for. Every part was unencoded for untraceable anonymity. I put the boxes on the workbench as though they’re made of eggshells, then race back to the car to get my rig and bring it over. With all the new toys, I’m feeling like Christmas morning.
         I think I might have completely ignored Gia for a solid twenty minutes while I put all the parts in and installed the software. For about a minute, I stream into my rig, not connecting live. I’m inside the little home I’ve created for myself in there, making sure all the hardware went in alright. It looks like a real house, only much better than mine. I’m standing in my living room with my kick-ass outfit on, feeling very comfortable. But this wasn’t a time to enjoy my net life, so I walk over to my media center. It has a table where I have a couple of palm media, a laptop media, and my video wall.
         Scooping up one of my palms, I start some basic tools to test the new equipment. Pi calculations increased over thirty percent, so the math processing is working well. The smoother transition from my thoughts to actions was almost too much for me. It wasn’t that bad before, but now it’s better than real life, like my brain had wired reflexes. I think what I want, it appears on my palm with no lag. I try to avoid getting caught up in playing with all my toys too much, though, and remind myself to return to the dreary garage armed with some random bad guys and their big guns. Real life would probably be more enticing to me if NeuralNet wasn’t so much better.
         Before I leave, I connect to a local line and check my messages. I have a few, but the only one I’m interested in is an encrypted message from an unknown address. I open it up, and up on my video wall appears that dweeby hacker.
         “As promised. Enjoy,” the guy says, cryptically.
         A package appears on my media center, so I open it up. Inside is a flash stick, so I grab it and plug it into my palm media. Without asking me, it immediately begins doing something to upload bandwidth. For those of you that don’t know, the upload is the part where your credit goes from your media to the cashier at your local store. On NeuralNet, it’s the part where something goes from inside the program directly into my brain. Usually the only things that are even rumored to possess such ability are security programs, but that could all be an urban legend. As far as any published research that I’m aware of, programs can’t tell your brain how to store data, because most scientists don’t understand the brain any better than they did a thousand years ago.
         The program has its way with my mind in a matter of seconds, and then it’s over. I appear fine on the net, but I nervously put down my gadgets and log off, just to make sure I don’t have a new drooling problem or partial paralysis.
         I don’t feel any different as I welcome back the crappy real world. The program didn’t seem to have any lasting effect on me. Then I see Trey, and suddenly his rifle is not just a rifle, it’s an AK-47 with a banana clip. He has it set to full-auto, I can recognize the alterations made on it from here. The safety is on, which is good to know, I think, when I realize that my minor recognition of some weapons is now perfect knowledge of every gun I can see. I also have this strong desire to reenact some favorite movie scene of doing a one-handed cartwheel with a full-auto M-16 spraying bullets like it was going out of style the next day. I quell that desire, even though the devil on my left shoulder seems pretty confident that I can pull it off.
         “You done screwing around?” Gia says, startling me. I had no idea she was right next to me, but from the looks of it, she had been there a while.
         Still in disbelief, I snatch my .38 out of my pocket, twirling it like I’m in some tacky western, nothing to it. I decide to put it away, and suddenly it’s not that much of a bitch to put into the holsters under my sleeves.
         “I’m set,” I let Gia know.
         “Cute trick,” Gia says, pointing to my gunplay exhibition as she walks away.
         My first compliment from Gia. I was touched.
         Standing up and looking around the garage, I see that my time inside my rig had been quite eventful. The friendly and well-dressed gang members had snuck my car out and swapped it for a black ’63 Fusion. Despite being over a decade old, it looked great and, most importantly, legal. I gathered up my rig and equipment and loaded up the trunk. As busy a day as it may have been, it was about to be a crazy night. With all this money and all these toys, I was actually starting to look forward to it.
         Once I’m in the new car, I laugh to myself. These guys actually went to the trouble of putting back the new car smell, and the media console looked like it was upgraded. They apparently had not just mechanics, but tech geeks like me in this little suburban fortress. I was impressed, to say the least.
         Gia jumped right into the driver’s seat, and Trey walked up to her side. She pushed the ignition button, and the propulsion system came online with a very excitable purr. This car was definitely loved by their mechanics. Gia takes one listen to that engine, and immediately gets in a huff.
         “Trey, you can’t give me this,” she explains, though I disagreed strongly. “This is serious work your guys put into this one.”
         “One of my best, Lil’ bits. You want to do me a favor, take good care of her,” Trey replies.
         Suddenly, I can see why she is tight with Trey. He’s actually a really decent guy, you know, for a warlord.
         “Thank you,” Gia concedes grudgingly.
          She closes the door and we’re off. Theoretically, there is nothing we stop for between here and the biggest payday I would know up until that point. We sail smoothly out of the parking lot and we’re heading back to the old highways. I’m excited and nervous, but Gia is still doing the calm thing. It’s beginning to grate on me as she goes into her bag and pulls out the unencoded palm medias she bought.
         “I have all the software on here we’ll need to be in contact with the spotter,” Gia tells me, reminding me of team member number three that I had forgotten about.
         “Yeah, are we picking him up?”
         “No,” Gia replies. “We’ll be in contact through NeuralNet. He hacks us in, we walk through the doors. If we play it cool, we get right past the guards, then you do your thing.”
         “Then we find our own way out of the place,” I say somberly.
         “What do you mean?” Gia asked me. I guess she never asked how she was getting out, like I did.
         “We have no exit strategy,” I tell her, surprised she didn’t know. “We might not be safe going out the way we came in.”
         Gia practically slams on the brakes and drags us over to the side of the road, just before the highway ramp.
         “I thought the spotter was there to get us in and out,” Gia yells.
         “Well, it didn’t seem that way when I asked.”
         Gia fumbles with her bag, pulling out the ear bud and synchs it with her palm media. No longer interested in me, she hurriedly connects to an encoded communication line.
         “We’re heading to the site,” Gia says after a moment. “One problem just arose. What is the exit strategy?”
         “Well, yeah,” she continues. “Xero didn’t know the exit, and I didn’t either, but that’s fine. Call you again from the site.”
         She disconnects and begins driving again.
         “Well?” I ask, since it doesn’t seem like she’ll be telling me without coaxing.
         “The security roster refreshes every thirty seconds, so the hack will give us a window long enough to get us in. So, they have us going out of an emergency exit inside the building.”
         That’s a lie. The security inside the building is all biometrics, and needs to be hacked on site. The guys out front are outsourced from another, more easily hacked database. There doesn’t seem to be any intent to get us out of the building, and they’re lying to Gia about it, probably assuming she’ll just muscle me into being quiet about it. This whole thing has turned further and further south as the night has gone on. My paranoia kicks into high gear, and I find myself assuming the worst as Gia gets us moving again.
         “Do you live with anyone?” I’m asking, but it sure isn’t for small talk.
         “I don’t see…,” she starts, but I’m not hearing any of it.
         “Do you live with anyone? Yes or no?” I sound a little snippy, but I’ve already swiped her palm media and begun tinkering with the communication program. Doing this stuff by hand with a stylus is very inelegant, and a lot slower than streaming.
         “No, why?” Gia asks.
         I hand her back the palm with the communicator protocol open.
         “Contact direct into your house,” I tell her.
         “What are you, mental? There’s another word for contacting my house with the same media I use in a heist, it’s called evidence!”
         I don’t really have time for this. “I already stripped out video transmission and the signature is coming from that pizza place we’re about to pass. Just do it.”
         She seems like she might put up more of a fight, but she can tell I’m pretty serious about this, and finally does it. I have it on speaker, so I can hear it, too. It rings once, nothing. Two, three, four rings, and nothing. I’m just about to calm down when a deep-voiced guy picks up the line.
         “Yeah?”
         “Get whatever you can out of there and enjoy it, asshole,” Gia starts fuming. She thinks it’s a burglar. Silly girl. “Because if I find you, I’m going to jam every single thing you took from me up your ass!”
         I’m getting a visual of that terrible notion in my mind, distracting me from the real situation at hand. This guy isn’t a burglar.
         “Ah, Miss Sloan. Don’t worry, no one is going to take a thing from you. Or Xero. We’re just making sure you don’t plan on changing your mind,” he says cryptically.
         “Changing my mind?” Gia is very confused.
         “If we go back home without doing this, we eat a bullet,” I say, realizing the unfortunate gravity of the situation. We’re in over our heads.
         Gia looks at me in disbelief. I really wish she would just pay attention to the road, but she’s more into this conversation.
         “Is that true?” Gia asks the killer on the other end of the line.
         “Be certain to accomplish your mission,” is all we get back before hearing him disconnect.
         We sit in stunned silence for a moment. Gia keeps her eyes on the highway. I’m looking back on all of this, realizing how I got here.
         “Why us?” Gia asks aloud.
         “Because,” I reply, knowing my input is the last thing she wants to hear. “We’re expendable. I’m a rookie, as you put it, and you’re a bodyguard.”
         “But I’m a damn good one! I just got myself to the point where I could start taking jobs like these, and they’re going to kill me?”
         “It isn’t fair,” I try my hand at consoling her. “But now, it’s either certain death waiting at our apartments, or a chance to live through tonight’s run.”
         The logic of it all made sense to me. In practical application, I’d probably be crying on my knees to the security guard at SynTech, begging him not to put a bullet in me if we got caught. But right now, in the sprawl under Cleveland, I have a wonderful sense of bravery about the whole thing.
         “We don’t even know if they’re going to waste us after all this, anyway,” Gia explains.
         “I doubt that’s the issue here,” I reassure her. “They probably figured that after we realized how impossible this might be, that we might just split. Those guys are just insurance that we get to the site. I mean, they don’t get any info if they outright kill us, right?”
         “Yeah, I guess,” Gia agrees, though there’s a real sadness in her expression. She was genuinely proud of herself for making such a name for herself, and this job just took her down a few notches.
         I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt like I really wanted to be closer to Gia. Maybe it was that we shared impending death, but I wanted to be real tight with this girl.
         “We can only rely on each other tonight,” I start. I don’t know where I’m going with it, but there’s twelve more miles of highway before we break off for the Sector 2 lift. “We’re going to need to trust each other.”
         “I swear, if you’re trying to hit on me…,” Gia starts.
         “I wet the bed until I was nine,” I blurt out. Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.
         “What?” Gia exclaims, caught off guard by the whole thing.
         “My parents are rich, or they were, last I heard of them. I took myself off the grid when I was fifteen,” I continue, my mouth not having the good sense to stop flapping.
         She waits for a second, digesting the information and assessing her reaction. I’m putting myself out on the most ludicrous limb I ever have, emotionally, but I gambled she would see it for what it was, perhaps even return the trust.
         “I was in a car wreck when I was twelve. I was paralyzed from the waist down until a few years ago,” Gia replies.
         Woah. Didn’t see that one coming.
         “Your back and eye?” I ask, wondering if that’s the need for the wired reflexes.
         “I’ve had ten years of reconstructive surgeries and replacements. I’m making enough strides that I might be able to walk without the augments someday,” she says, sounding almost excited.
         Wired reflexes only last a few years before the body starts attacking the implant sites and gobbling up the puppet’s strings, as it were. The jury is still out on long-term effects of having them to begin with, which is why the doctor only gives them to grandma. Bad doctors give them to Gia.
         I was floored that she had shared all that with me, but now we had trust in each other. Let me tell you something - it may an intangible, but trust is a commodity of this business, probably the biggest one. It is the one that put new gear in our trunk, got us into that garage earlier, and now will be the only thing we have to share between us on this run. You can’t buy it, bribe it, or entice it. Trust and loyalty are concepts corporations just don’t understand, and are viewed as foolish by institutions like Green Earth. I guess I’d feel that way, too, if everyone I worked with politically and professionally lied to themselves and each other for a living. I’ll just hop off my soapbox now.