"Uncle Marcel, I hope my next order will be on the house?" he asked, pointing to the broken glass and spilled alcohol.
"Ha, what do you want?" asked the old bartender, looking dejectedly at the dead waitress.
"Hmm... Coffee. Americano."
"You mix alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine? Are you completely crazy?"
"Definitely not crazier than this dump," he replied sarcastically, looking at the two mutilated corpses.
The old bartender could hardly argue with that, so he just started making coffee.
"Excuse me, but you... Ahem, what will happen to us now?" said the man who had recently told the story from behind him. From his voice, it seemed that he was still in shock. Meanwhile, his friend, who had been so impulsive in his surprise, could not even find the strength to speak.
"Hmm...?"
Still standing with his back to them, he barely turned his head.
He saw the man he had just killed. Pieces of brain and other entrails from the skull were scattered all over the table. The face of the crazed man was completely disfigured by the shot.
"Haa..." He sighed wearily, reaching for the corpse's head. "…Who are you?"
"W-we?"
"Yes."
"We are nobod... Ahem, w-we are simple workers. We deliver food to the people of Southville."
"I see..."
With these words, he took a sparkling chip out of the corpse's temple and shook the blood off it.
"W-we saw your face... M-Mr. Nobody, y-you... Are you going to shoot us?"
"Ha..." he chuckled.
Getting to his feet, he found himself face to face with the speaker.
"That depends..."
He tapped the black bracelet on his left wrist, and something unusual happened.
The face the two had been talking to for the past hour turned out to be some kind of hologram and instantly changed into something completely different.
However, his smile remained.
"That depends... Can you see Nobody?"
…
After squeezing out an answer, the two men hurried to escape from this hellish place.
"Well, well..." he whispered, stepping over the body of the girl with her throat slit. "What is that this month? The third time?"
Only he and the old bartender remained in the room. Sitting down at the bar, he quickly pulled off his mask.
Surprisingly, when not in use, it resembled a morph mask with moving black spots. Removing the mask revealed his already grown ash-colored hair.
In general, one could talk at length about a joint project with a certain advanced intelligence, but for now, we can do without it.
"Actually, it's the second. The case with the veteran who went mad was last month... It's just a pity about the girl. She was very young and had only started working here a week ago," said the old man gloomily, looking at the corpse.
"Ha..."
He just smiled sarcastically and brushed away the bangs that were falling into his eyes.
"Your Americano," said the old man, not very happily, placing the cup in front of him.
"Oh, old man, what's with that look…? You know, as far as I can remember, you've got to be the worst recruiter I've ever seen, Marcel."
"What do you mean?"
He smiled and, without answering, began to fiddle with his bracelet, sipping his coffee.
Sometimes, a hologram of a planet with a crudely drawn red X over its mouth would pop out of the bracelet. It would shake its fist at him, trying to attract attention in various ways, but it was all in vain. Each time, he would simply brush off the hologram like some annoying fly.
Finally, the hologram of the planet displayed all the necessary information.
"Sara Modax. Officially charged only with racketeering... Unofficial data: sale and distribution of Black ice, organization of brothels, kidnapping for ransom, violence, and torture..." Without reading everything, he scrolled to the very end of the file. "Human trafficking, especially of minors."
"..."
"She was involved in a scheme to buy girls under the age of 13 from dysfunctional families and sell them into slavery. Plus, even though she looks like a little girl, she's well over 30. A manufactured face. A synthetic voice."
With every passing second, the old man's face grew more and more gloomy.
"As for the psycho who killed her..."
He held the Neodeck chip up to the bracelet's sensors and let Paymax read all the necessary information.
A moment later, a small dossier was in front of him. And although he had suspected as much, it didn't make him feel any better.
"Haa... Morak Summers. As a child, he was lucky enough to get into the police academy and escape his drug-addicted family... Just an honest cop, nothing more, nothing less. He went crazy from long-term use of government implants and, apparently... from the system he worked for. When he stopped being useful, they discarded him and left him to rot on the outskirts."
"..."
"He never once stepped outside the law, except for today. What do you say to that, Marcel?"
"Haa..." The old man sighed heavily.
Giving him time to recover, he sipped his Americano.
"Am I really that bad at judging people? Sara... I can't believe it."
"What am I talking about? You're just terrible at it..." he replied, shaking his head.
"But still, I wasn't wrong once..."
"Huh?"
"There was this one guy... I found him two years ago on the side of the road. And can you imagine what that lunatic was doing? Do you know?"
"Old man..."
"That psycho with broken arms was arguing with the hologram of the planet from his bracelet in front of the whole street! A real lunatic who couldn't even read or write before he met me."
"..."
"And now this guy is the only reason why not one, but five people a day come to my bar. He's my best employee and walking advertisement!"
"Haa, go to hell..." he whispered with a smirk.
"Okay, let's go downstairs. I'll call the Cleaners to... take care of this. Damn, I pay these guys almost a fifth of my profits. I clearly need to change something in my business model..." lamented the old man.
The old bartender's name was Marcel. However, bartending was just a hobby, and the bar itself was a cover. His real profession was a broker. He connected clients with mercenaries operating in Southvillee.
Or, as Mr. Nobody called this neighborhood, New Italy.
"So, what does today have in store for us?" he asked with a smile, stretching his back.
Marcel smiled back and pulled one of the hundreds of bottles behind him.
A moment later, the liquor rack swung open to reveal a real secret passageway!
"Anything suitable for you and Black Gold rank? Nothing. But..."
"As always, there's a 'but'."
"...But there is an order that fits the conditions for a rank upgrade."
"..."
"Maybe it's time to become Diamond, kid?"
Once again, he heard this proposal. For a while, he sighed and stared at the remains of his dark coffee.
"Haa..."
He finished his Americano in one gulp and left the empty glass on the counter.
"To hell with it. Let's do it."
It was time to become Diamond.