My day started slow again. I woke at five, did the usual: checked the cameras, got dressed, washed my face, knocked out a little neuro-scripting while the kettle heated. Drank a cold, bitter caf and felt marginally less like trash.
I slid Nick's cred chips into the Faraday case along with half of my body. No radio bleed, no surprises. I ran a brute-force routine I'd cobbled together. Clumsy, slow, but it works when you don't have money for licenses. Nothing gave. These chips had hardware salts and locked slots. Even if the take was tiny, the usual cracking fee was fifty eurodollars plus seven percent. Losing that cut would be dumb.
I took out a protein bar and began chewing on its tough texture.
Running nodes had been paying better than the garage. Still, the easy gigs around the block were drying up. I'd have to push farther. A car would help. Public transport was not it.
My eyes landed on the DR-11 case and the Spiker on the bench. I had time. Figured I'd test the module.
I clipped the Spiker to the DR-11 port and booted it slow. The DR-11 was a scrap combat AI—patched and half-dead. If it fried the Spiker, that would suck, but it wouldn't touch the Raven. I wasn't risking the new deck.
The module unpacked, files wrote out in neat columns. When the init finished it dove into the Spiker's address space like it was hunting. System calls, port probes, device scans. Then it spat an error: NEURO-MAPPING ERROR.
The logs were the only useful thing. The DR-11 was calling MIL-SPEC routines. I presume they used Militech signatures, neural port mappings, proprietary handshakes. I searched my internal system for matches and came up empty. That meant either the DR-11 wanted a different hardware layout, or it was looking for corporate middleware I didn't have. Fixing it properly meant buying the matching Militech stack or hiring someone with access. Both options cost more than I had.
I could've tried reverse-engineering the module, but that felt like guaranteed bricking. Corp-grade ICE isn't forgiving. You poke the wrong routine and the board locks, or fries something you can't replace on the street.
It was still early, so I did the stuff I could control. The Raven still felt like a little weight in my head. I wanted to get comfortable with it. There was a cap on quickhack slots—I checked why. The deck was ninety-two percent full: libraries, fallback branches, device signatures. Makes sense. These things are swiss-army knives, not toys.
I could probably trim dead branches, but if I removed the wrong fallback a camera control could fail against some weird firmware and flip an alarm. Writing my own quickhacks would mean cataloging vulnerabilities across vendors and firmware versions. Could you buy that data? Most likely. Most sellers move quickhack bundles and then sell updates later. I'd have to ask Sasha which vendors were reliable and which sold one-use junk.
Speaking of Sasha—we were meeting at the mall in a few hours. Yoko's node map showed a couple of residential nodes nearby. Quick cash while I was in the area. After Vik blurred my face on camera feeds, the risk dropped a notch.
I kept tweaking quickhacks until seven, cutting down absolutely useless pieces of junk that only wasted time. I swear to god one of the lines of ping was just to delay the visual layout for visual effect, making it smoother on the eyes.
Sprocket showed up, rolled her Quadra in and started cleaning her disks.
"Any orders today?" I asked.
"Nope."
"I'll be gone half a day. That cool?"
"Cool? Who says 'cool'?" Sprocket asked. That was a yes.
"Thanks."
She nodded and went back to scrubbing.
Work was slow. I packed my kit and headed downtown. Ads and holo-noise covered the concrete. The residential building was a few blocks from the mall. Turrets concealed right above the entrance.
I stood outside to scout the area.
The doors opened into a small garden and a reception desk. A quick ping found three camera endpoints—two obvious, one tucked behind decorative trim right near the door. Easy enough if you time it to turn off at the same time to simulate an error. Two connected people on the first floor, one elevator moved upwards.
First person stood and the other one was laying asleep in the back.
I walked to the desk and played idle polite while the receptionist checked her console. Her screen flashed an alert and it was easy to notice as a reflection on her silver skin replacement.
I turned off all of the cameras just a moment before.
"I'm sorry, I have a meeting—" I started.
"Please wait a second. I'll be right back," she said, calm as glass.
While she went to the security room, I hopped the counter, opened up her terminal, and pushed an overridden data shard containing Yoko's backdoor utility. Ten seconds, persistence marker dropped, routine maintenance pings masked it.
Pulled the shard, wiped prints with my sleeve, walked out the same way I came in. Theoretically nothing is overly wrong—she won't remember me and nothing is gone.
My holo pinged: +240 eurodollars. Transaction cleared.
Not bad for five minutes of effort.
I walked the couple of blocks to the mall. Corporate architecture hit different. It felt dirty while looking clean. Glass everywhere, not a crack on it. Guards at the door wore exo-suits—military surplus with logos stenciled on the chest, all of them carrying heavy guns out in the open. Every visitor got scanned before stepping inside.
I joined the line. People ahead of me were corpo kids—polished clothes, dermal overlays, glowing tattoos that shifted color every few seconds. Not one of them older than twenty. They moved like they owned the world, speaking loudly, talking about the most ridiculous shit.
When it was my turn, the scanner chirped, slow. Guard frowned. My jacket was patched, my boots scuffed, my implants not flashy enough. Didn't take a genius to know what he saw: someone without money. Someone out of place.
"Invitation?" he asked flatly.
I slipped a folded bunch of eurodollars. Not much—just thirty. Enough for him to blink, slip it into a pocket, wave me through without another word. I scanned him in the NCPD database and noted his name down. Steven Wreden. I would get my thirty back eventually.
Inside was another world. Air carried that artificial chill, with a hint of citrus from vents overhead. Sound bled everywhere: pop songs, sales ads, the hum of too many voices. Floors polished to a mirror, escalators crawling with kids in designer gear. Half of them wore chrome on their faces, showing off their latest purchases.
I drifted to the center atrium. A giant aquarium stretched three floors tall, water glowing blue from embedded LEDs. Sharks glided lazy circles. Schools of neon fish scattered when they passed. I leaned on the railing, staring at the glass until my own reflection came into focus.
My face looked older than I remembered from a couple weeks ago. Lines under the eyes, skin drawn tight. Early twenties still, but with too many sleepless nights layered in. Like the city had shaved time off me more than just a cell acceleration bullshit.
I checked the time. Still had close to thirty minutes before Sasha was due to arrive. I might as well walk around.
I ducked into the first clothing store I saw. Bright white walls, racks full of things that looked like they cost more than my rent. The clerk glanced at me once and didn't bother with a greeting. Fuck you.
Still, I walked through slow, running my fingers along the fabrics. Most of it was garbage—neon panels stitched into jackets, shirts that pulsed with programmed logos. Fashion for kids who wanted to glow like street signs. I skipped past it all until I found a clearance rack of various hats and masks.
There was one combo piece of a mask and a hat, a black fabric that covered the whole head besides the back with sewn-in plastic plates that gave it structure. Price: 240 eurodollars. Half my budget. I stared at it for a long time. Shit looked like what Kanye would wear if he was from the future.
Not smart, buying something that wouldn't make me money. But a mask is not a bad idea. I checked the label and turns out they used some kind of electromagnetically diffusing plates.
I grabbed it and took it to the counter. The clerk didn't say a word, just scanned it, bagged it, gestured for me to pay lazily.
Then I returned to the huge aquarium. I stood looking at it in the absence of things to do. Fish swam lazy arcs through the water, light shifting over their scales. The fish scattered when a shark slid through the tank. Its shadow covered my reflection for a second. When it passed I felt a poke on my shoulder which made me shudder and I quickly turned around.
It was Sasha. She had sneaked up on me.
She stepped up beside me, her reflection folding into mine. The white half-cut dress Sasha wore clung close, cut just enough to show chrome where flesh had been. Wiring trailed under her collarbone and arms, a plate along her thigh gleamed under the lights. She didn't hide any of it.
"Waiting for long?" she asked.
"Just got here," I said.
She looked at the bag in my hand with a clear brand logo from a nearby store.
"Uh huh. Gentleman, aren't we?"
"I mean, sure—"
"Let's go." She didn't let me finish as she pushed me toward the endless shops.
"So, Sasha, what are we looking for?" I asked.
"I don't know," Sasha said while scanning around for anything interesting.
"Great plan. Knew that you had it in you." I weaved out of her push and began walking alongside her.
"You get it. If I wanted to buy something specific I would look on the NET and get it cheaper."
"So what's the vibe in Afterlife? Leather? Shiny?"
"Hmm. Gruff and rough mostly. Mercs usually are there before and after gigs, so it's become like that."
"So we are to make an impression?"
"Nope, just us two. My buddies wear the same clothes for weeks on end."
"Gross."
She gave me a quick look, holding back a smile.
"What?" I asked.
"You know you smell, right?"
I picked up the corner of my jacket and sniffed it.
"I wash it. Sometimes. Actually, I'm kinda homeless."
"Really? And here I am thinking you got it all figured out."
"Hey, I did well enough for the time being. Do you own a house?"
"Own? What do you think I am, a millionaire? I rent," Sasha said with surprise.
"You have to be paid well enough, right? Don't you think it's a wise investment?"
She suddenly turned in toward a store.
"You sound like my sister."
Sasha started drifting through the racks like she'd done it a hundred times before, brushing fabric with the back of her hand.
"You have a sister?" I asked.
"Oh yeah. And she LOVES to nag. Do you have siblings?"
"I... did." I couldn't say properly about my circumstance. But technically not anymore.
She stopped for a second and resumed browsing.
"Sorry to hear that. I guess it's worse than having a cop older sister."
"You? A cop sister?"
"Yep. And she does not like my line of work."
"Speaking of that, how long have you been doing it?"
She tilted her head backwards. "Forever."
Then she pulled a dress out—black, shiny latex, cut short at the thighs. She held it against herself, looked in the mirror.
"What do you think?"
"I don't know about that. Decent, maybe."
She put it back on the rack.
"Garbage it is."
"Hey, I didn't say that."
"Decent will not do. Let's go to another place."
We walked out and she once again was walking ahead of me, making me notice that even with heeled boots her steps did not make a sound at all.
"Would you say you are an edgerunner?" I asked.
"Yeah, totally. Wanna be like me? I really don't suggest doing it, Caelen."
"Just interested in what you got installed."
She turned around and began jokingly covering her chest and groin with her hands.
"Oh my, a pervert is taking interest in my body!"
"Don't be so loud!"
She began walking backwards, looking toward me.
"When I'm not in the chair running, I'm in the chair getting new chrome."
"So that's why you rent."
"A part of it. But soon enough we'll get the big gigs, and then I won't even know how to spend it."
We moved on. She led the way into a shop selling jackets. Holo-mannequins posed in them, flickering under neon text that screamed SALES. Sasha didn't even slow down, just scanned the place and shook her head.
We drifted through another couple of stores, nothing catching Sasha's eye long enough for her to bother. By the third one she sighed and stopped in the middle of the walkway.
"Alright, I'm starving," she said.
"Already? We've been walking for twenty minutes."
"That's twenty minutes too long. Come on."
She steered us toward the food court, which was an entire floor of glowing stalls stacked side by side. The air was heavy with fried oil, soy-scent, and whatever chemical they used to fake beef. Corpo malls loved to pretend it was all authentic, but everyone knew the patties came out of a vat.
We picked a stall with some half-decent pictures. Burgers, fries, synth-cola. Sasha didn't even look at the menu, just jabbed a finger at the combo with the biggest photo. I got the same.
We carried the trays to a bench table by the glass wall, the aquarium looming behind. Sharks gliding slow circles over her shoulder while she unwrapped her burger.
She took one look at the tomato slice inside, pinched it out, and dropped it on my tray.
"Eat this."
I raised an eyebrow. "You don't like tomatoes?"
"Nope." She popped a fry in her mouth, then picked the lettuce out and dropped that on my tray too. "Or this."
"What do you actually like, then?"
"The important parts." She took a massive bite of the patty and bun, chewed slow. "Mmm. See?"
I stared at the mess she left me. My burger already had its share of filler, and now it looked like a compost pile. "Barbarian."
"Exactly." She shoved a pickle across the tray with a fry. "Here, more for you."
I sighed, stacked the extras into my burger. "So this is how it's gonna be, huh?"
"Teamwork," she said with her mouth full.
We sat in silence for a bit, the noise of the food court washing around us. Teenagers yelling across tables, the hiss of soda machines, a kid crying two stalls down. Sasha kept flicking fries at her mouth without looking, missing one, then casually scooping it back up like it didn't matter. I was about to finish my burger.
"Uh huh." She pushed half of her burger onto my tray. "Here. Handle the rest."
I blinked at it. "You serious?"
"Can't finish it. Don't want to. Waste not, right?"
"You're ridiculous. Be ashamed." I quickly took the half of the burger.
"Thank you," she said, leaning back in her chair, sipping on her synth-cola like she'd just won the argument.
I devoured the burger and sat there for a second as a worker picked up the trash from our table.
"Thanks," I said.
Then I remembered that I had questions to ask.
"You do your own quickhacks?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I think it's a good idea."
"It's a lot of work for not a lot of result. I just upgrade what I use the most."
"But you can conserve the memory and get more of them."
She looked at me with amusement.
"Get chromed up and it will balance itself out."
"It's expensive."
She flexed her biceps, which barely moved.
"Choom, you are way too poor for this amount of chrome!" she said in a deep voice, sticking bodybuilding poses.
"Pfft. HA HA HA HA HA HA!" I began to laugh.
For the first time in a while, I genuinely had a laugh.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!" she laughed as well.
We were laughing for a solid ten seconds. People stared at me and I did not give a shit.
"Whew. That was a good one!" I wiped down the tears from my eyes.
"Taco man knows comedy! One of my best impressions."
"That was good. I admit. Let's go?"
"Let's go."
Sasha walked fast, weaving through crowds like she'd done this mall a thousand times, and I trailed a step behind, bag in hand.
"Alright," she said, pointing at a boutique with glowing mannequins in the window. "This one."
Inside, racks of clothes lined the walls in perfect symmetry, each item tagged with prices that made me want to choke. Sasha slipped in like she belonged, already flicking through hangers.
She pulled out a jacket—short cut, chrome zippers, deep red leather that gleamed under the lights. She draped it over her shoulder and turned to me. "Yes? No?"
I gave it one look. "Looks like you stole it off a Tyger Claw."
"Exactly what I was going for," she said, deadpan.
"Fuck you."
She put it back without another word.
A few minutes later she came out with a dress, silver fabric that shimmered every time it caught the light. She held it against herself, tilted her head at me.
"Too shiny," I said.
"Too shiny? It's dark in the Afterlife."
"You'd blind people walking past even there."
She frowned at her reflection, then shrugged and stuffed it back on the rack. "Harsh critic."
"I'm honest."
"Honest or just being mean?"
"Yes," I said.
That earned me a quick smirk.
We kept circling the place. I pretended to browse while she actually tried things, pulling out outfit after outfit just to toss them back after a glance in the mirror. At one point she yanked a long neon-pink coat off the rack, threw it over my shoulders, and stepped back like she was an artist admiring her work.
"Perfect," she said, mock serious.
I stared at myself in the mirror. It looked like I'd been swallowed by cotton candy.
"This is shit," I said, peeling it off.
"You'd be unforgettable."
"Yeah, as a clown."
She took it from me and tossed it back on the rack.
By the time we walked out, she had a small bag with nothing in it but socks. "Essential," she said when I gave her a look.
"Three hours and you bought socks."
"Don't knock socks. Good socks can save your life."
We walked to the outside and our path diverged.
She turned to me and said, "I had fun. Did you?"
"Me too. Let's meet in the Afterlife."
Then I received a message on my holo. A pink grumpy cat appeared on my screen.
"You've been hacked again. Upgrade your ICE."
And then she ran off, laughing.
"FUCK YOUUU!"