Hard Times, chapter 2?

   A Preface here: If you haven't read this == https://bockin2.blogspot.com/2022/01/week-2-hard-times-chapter-1-partial.html

....Which is also on this blog (Week 1: Hard Times, chapter 1 partial), this story will be missing that section. I haven't actually chaptered this project before, but going back over it, I guess this is as good as any for a second. Anyway, Enjoy--

 The elevators leading up into the industrial sector of the city were always busy around the clock, sunshafts shining down as you approach. Bull Industrial shipped containers everywhere, and around every sector in the city, which for them, meant transporting tons of metals, chemicals, and weapons, all stacked on the platforms day and night. As the largest durasteel manufacturer in much of Texas, there was an estranged, tense relationship between the city and Bull. Dozens of goons walked the streets as their enforcers, and company middlemen hired them out to run down locals, collect debts, provide protection for their interests, and kill Yakuza on anyone‘s turf. Bull was one of the few companies around that stood up and fought open corporate warfare with the Yakuza; Fuu & Shukov, the russo-triad front also did, but their presence in the UFS was largely in small pockets. The largest company in the city, Tanaka Medical, headed the Yakuza under a thinly veiled pretense as an open secret.

But Bull Industrial had one advantage: Security. All around the elevators near the far-eastern most edge of the city, machine gun toting maniacs prodded the workers to keep them moving, landed mafiosos took clients into nearby bars and hotels, and Minos units strolled about in pairs – fourteen-foot mechanical suits of armor piloted by experienced psychopaths, each with enough of a personal arsenal  to level a small building in seconds.

George, to say the least, took his job very seriously.

Moe spotted him and McKenzie, and immediately started walking toward them. He was bald, tall and big in a white suit. Here near the Elevator, the rain finally let up, so Georgie shook out his umbrella and put it up. A Minos followed close behind Moe, moving with a natural grace inconsistent with its size and weight.

"Well if it ain't the dumbest pair of fucks I ever seen - how's it hangin' there McKenzie?"

McKenzie managed a dishonest smile for Moe, "I've been worse. Listen, I can tell you two want some alone time, so I'm just gunna go hop my happy ass to work."

"Well if that ain't exactly what I wanted to hear!" Moe laughed and slapped McKenzie across the back, who visibly strained. Moe stuffed his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a blue hundred-credit stick, which he shoved into McKenzie's hand, and slapped him across the back again, "Go grab yerself a bone or somethin', eh?" McKenzie took the cash and awkwardly walked to one of the many platforms around heading up into sector one. Moe walked closer to George, lowering his voice a bit.

"So uh, Georgie – it is Georgie, right?"

George nodded quietly. He'd prefer if Moe got his name wrong once in a while. Moe very slowly smiled at him, like he was already on the hook.

"Yeah, so Georgie – we got uh, uh… a little problem upstairs,” Moe threw his arm over George, and pulled him uncomfortably close. His perfume was strong from a distance, but gag worthy up close. “Go on up and get tooled out. If you do good today, it'll be more tomorrow, so don't blow it. An' remember, if they can't pay, jus' take it outta their asses, so’s the next ones know what's comin' to ‘em."

Patting George on the back, Moe spotted another one of his employees, "Hey, I gotta tell this other fuck what's what. Don't blow it, Georgie!" Moe walked off. The Minos that had followed Moe eyed George with its huge, camera lens eyes. The pilots weren't visible when they were in the suits. Instead, it appeared as if the suits were alive, such as with Bull’s Minos machines, which resembled hulking half-bull bipedal humanoids. They didn't move like machines, with every part of its huge metallic body shimmying and sauntering as naturally as any other living thing. A low rumble came over its vocal box as it walked off, following Moe, who was already yelling at someone. It was a young kid, probably fresh from robbing his parents back up in Sector Four. He had too much money in his pocket, and he looked scared by Moe, terrified by the smelly, perfumed middleman. George watched the Minos pull out a massive handgun with a barrel as long as the kid's forearm.

George quickly walked off toward the elevators, terrified of watching the boy being retired on the spot, but intently blank faced. Moe caught his expressionless gaze before he made the platform, studying his expression.

The huge shaft leading upward into sector one had dozens of independent platforms, each filled with  Minos, thugs, shipping containers, dozens of slummies working as loaders, and hundreds of others who were waiting to go to work in the  foundries. George walked onto a platform. The lights were flashing green on the local indicator light, so more people piled on after him while workers shifted containers onto the platform. Most lifters had mechanical arms implanted at the shoulder, pneumatic exoskeletons, each section grafted to their flesh by rods running deep into their bones. Georgie watched one of them manage to move what looked like a two-ton container without breaking a sweat, his limbless torso just a fleshy core grafted to his actuators. But the exoskeleton had to be grafted to the entire skeleton. Sooner or later, the flesh would decompose, and if they couldn't pay the bills, they'd lose whatever skin they had left. Just another machine, eventually obsolete or rebuilt too many times. Once you didn't have flesh in the game, they could just erase everything you thought you were – memories, sensations, thoughts and feelings.

Everyone on the platform was trapped by corporations that would use them until they were worse than just dead, and then keep on using their broken husks after they didn't even have rights anymore. Medical bills became sold organs, because mechanical parts needed power, and radiation poisoning had expensive nanotech treatments. It would all just rot sooner or later anyway, says the doctor. Bull didn't pay most androids to work, instead offering free electricity and company housing, where the mechanics could wake you up without your memories intact. Most didn't stick around, instead preferring homelessness or the inevitable retirement by an Autocop.

The green light changed to a flashing red, and a blaring alarm sounded as the platform lifted off, groaning under the weight before it lifted off at a decent pace. Georgie took off his raincoat and blinked in the harsh synthetic sunlight of Sector One.

 

Where Zero was full of homeless vagrants, One was packed with hard workers under the an endless midday sun. But the big name in One wasn't Tanaka, it was Bull, who ran half of the sector by itself. The vast sea of industrial buildings were all tasteless polycrete grey copies under never-ending artificial daylight, supposedly meant to spur the workers on to earn the real thing, a far flung hope of being a company middleman.

George stepped off the elevator and started his way toward his new workplace. Today marked his second day on the job, after what Moe called orientation. He tried to push the details of it out of his mind.

He quickly found one of the many military barracks' nearby. Dozens of bull thugs were on the move around the place, coming and going through the front door of the dull grey building with a dozen floors.

Here, while there are even more cameras, there are also bioscanners, more Minos armed with sizable machine guns, and countless Bull goons hauling serious hardware,automatic weapons, shotguns, plastisteel bodyarmor, and belts of grenades. But there was only one door-man, who stood at the front entrance in a black trenchcoat, his mirrored glasses wrapped around his head like a visor. The building had several mounted turrets over his head, and they idly clicked through their barrels, lubricant splashing the nearby wall. The door man was stout, and George could see up close how his over-the-eye synthglass was installed directly into his face over his eye sockets. When George got close, the door man nodded at him, "Good to see you comin' in.” George still couldn’t tell if he was looking at him. “You ready for the real work?"

George nodded impassively.

The man seemed to wait for George to say something, but eventually just shrugged. "For your sake, bud, try not to take the work too personally. Professionals don't let anxiety get to them, but trust me when I tell ya, everybody's got it. So deal with it." The man took a card out of his jacket and slid it across a panel to his right, and the doorway to the building opened up from what looked like a solid durasteel wall. George walked in, and the door shut immediately behind him.

Here there were the long, dull hallways of a tasteless polycrete building, poorly lit, with dozens of featureless doors. George walked down the hallway, and he opened the door to room four-five into armory seven-seven, exactly where orientation had been yesterday. Inside, the robotic assistant stood nearby, whose obviously-mechanical appearance and human mannerisms unnerved George. As far as he knew, it didn't have a name, but the way it acted was wholly unlike a machine. It was tall and thin, practically all metal rods and rotors, with one big bright yellow eye in the center of its plastic head. It chimed a happy, masculine electric tune as George walked in, "Well, well, well, if it isn't our newest rookie! Let's get you ready for work, shall we?" The assistant indicated to a nearby chair covered in clamps and bloodstains next to a set of medical tables. The tables had motors, batteries, plugs, wires, oils, glues, knives, and a dozen sizes of saws, mechanical parts, replacement prosthetics, and organic parts floating in glass tubes on a nearby table, all carefully arranged as if by an obsessive collector.

George sat down in the chair, and the assistant brought out a prosthetic arm from under one of the tables. George held his breath at seeing it up close. It had thin finite cords made of flexible durasteel for muscle, and it was definitely fresh metal from the factory lines, like it had been freshly polished. The long mechanical spike on the end was a perfect fit to his shoulder socket, but it burned from the chill of cold metal as the doc slid it into place, and then a static shock pop zapped his shoulderblade enough to make him nearly knock over a table.“SHIT!” he yelled, feeling the part installing as it interfaced with his CI through his shoulder. He felt it come alive, the new signals in his brain brushing against the memories of his old arm in a wave of déjà vu. Yesterday, it had felt wrong watching his arm writhe from fifteen feet away inside a plastic box. But now that it was properly attached, he could see how the surface bristled with small electric sensors, giving him sensations like pressure and temperature. Getting up, he clenched his fist a couple of times experimentally.

The attendee held out its clamp-like hands, and asked in a kind tone, "Please?" George let it see his arm, which it prodded and poked, "Does the limb feel cold? There should be a slight resistance for a while, until your cerebral implant fully interfaces with the prosthetic."

"It's fine." George remained impassive.

"Excellent." The assistant went to a nearby crate, and opened it up. Inside were new clothes - a faux leather jacket, padded jeans with small plasteel plates to guard his knees, and a bullet proof vest, which hid perfectly under a new synthfiber black shirt. He was outfitted with new durasteel-clad boots and fitted gloves. The attendant installed a device into a socket behind his right ear, which instantly came to life with the local Bull radio channels, where he could suddenly listen in on hundreds of conversations, all of which were echoeing inside of his head, but as if they were heard from a great distance; tuning it was a matter of focusing on the right voice. Mostly it was a bunch of chatter and lewd jokes which he had to focus to tune out, although Bull ran the security, so he could call in whatever he needed to. The attendant gave him his new sunglasses. The glasses, he knew, were half his job, with precision scanners and a huge database of registered citizens, with camera and facial recognition software, and an auto-updating manifest.

Lastly, the attendant gave him a new standard issue Bull six-load revolver, with a high enough caliber to blow a hole in solid durasteel two inches wide. He brought enough explosive slugs for a month of work with him in a heavy pack on his back, and he took his old pocket knife and buried it in his heavy ironclad boot.

Checking over all his new gear, George felt his stomach sinking when he thought about how much debt he was taking on to pay for all of it. "You got a manifest for me?"

"Ah! Of course-" the attendant turned George around, and without a word of warning, shoved a cold electronic rod into the plug on the back of his head. He could feel ionized air moving through his nose while the whiz-pop of the spike hummed like a foriegn presence behind his eyes. “Fuck doc, at least buy me a drink first-” the static popping between his ears buzzed and zapped, and his sunglasses came on, reading the data through his Cerebral Implant and processing it.

"How long-" the whirring of his CI and more pops made him pause, whether he liked it or not, "-is this... uuugh, gunna take?!"

The attendant immediately twisted the rod hard to the right, and George felt both his ears pop. Slowly, the attendant pulled the five-inch neural spike out, and George tried not to groan as he felt it slide across the inside walls of his Cerebral Implant. Once it was out, he stumbled away, shaking his head and rubbing his plug, which was now closed with a new metal plate.

"Will there be anything else today?"

George thought for a moment, but all that came to mind was how much he already regretted his new promotion.

Chuckling, he looked up at the attendant, "Ask me again tomorrow."

*

George made his way through the crowded industrial sector. With his new clothes, people avoided him like a leaky barrel of radioactive waste. People knew a Bull thug when they saw one, and he looked every inch the part. Eventually, he found his way to one of the many apartment complexes in sector One. It was thirteen stories high with modest sized places, each larger than most multi-family housing units in sector Zero. His client was on the fourth floor, which George took the stairs up to, stopping at the top of them and looking at the door to apartment 416 in the middle of the hall. He waited a while for something to happen, listening to the other apartments for a while. Mostly just people arguing, loud kids, or the occasional television film. After an hour of waiting, he sighed, walked up to the door, and gave it a sharp knock.

A woman opened the door a crack, no older than thirty, with pretty eyes and a few prosthetic fingers peering from behind the door. When she saw George, she looked worried, "Can I help you sir?"

"I'm looking for Kaito."

She only looked more worried. "H-he's at work, I'm sorry, but-"

George knew that Kaito had been seen an hour ago coming back here on the security camera's that Bull kept everywhere around sector One, including here outside the apartments. He interrupted her, "I don't know where your husband has been going, but it hasn't been to work. He hasnt been back to the factory in three days."

The woman shook her head quietly, "I'm sorry, b-but he's at work, I don't know what else to-"

"Ma'am, I need to find Kaito, and this will all go real easy if you just tell me where he is."

George heard a muffled but distinct click from inside the apartment.

Leaping away, the woman behind ran deeper into the apartment, screaming, as a blast from the inside makes a gaping hole through the door. George lands on his back, revolver out and aimed at the door, listening to the people inside the apartments everywhere and all at once scrambling. The whole area was suddenly horribly silent, but he heard Kaito trying to calm his wife down, a mistake George intended to capitalize on.

As quietly as he could, he got up off the ground and approached the door. Slowly, he could begin to hear Kaito whispering deeper inside the apartment, "...right now, and we'll go! So go get it, and I'll get-"

Kaito's wife screamed when she saw George coming up behind her husband, but his revolver was already pressed against the back of his head. George hadn't expected her to scream, hoping that he could calm the two down, maybe get the prosthetics and handle the job properly. The last thing he wanted to do was pull the trigger. But Kaito was holding a loaded shotgun, already turning, finger on the trigger. Gore splattered everywhere, and Kaito's partially headless corpse collapsed to the ground in a heap onto his livingroom floor, his blood showering the room. The woman was still screaming, crying loud enough for the people on the streets nearby to hear her easily. George could feel the scream in every part of his body, hurting him more than he thought a sound ever could. He shot her twice in the chest, and she fell silent onto the floor.

The channel in George's ear had some chatter about the noise where he was. He brought his finger up to the dial behind his ear, tuning it partially with his brain, "Worker fifty-five-zero-seven reporting here - just a bit of rough work at the thirty-and-second apartments, but I've got it handled, we’re clear."

"Hahaha, sounds like the rookie went and made a fuckin‘ mess! Roger that Fifty-five-oh-seven, we'll send cleaners! Try and leave a wallet for a tip or something, eh?! Hahaha-" George tuned out of the channel and sat down on the nearby couch. Commercials were playing, just like the ones across the ceiling in sector zero:

"New new NEW! Old sensie-bugs got you down? Can't quite get the same oomph out of kung fu films? Or maybe you're just looking for something a bit sexier? Buy new Sensie-soft, designed for neuralnet five-point-oh! You'll really feel the flesh between your hands, taste the same tastes, and even feel the panic of the gunfight, all with new Sensie-soft Five!"

The cost of the software was just under six-thousand credits, more than George could hope to save in six months at his old job. He got up and checked the house. The closet in Kaito's bedroom had what he was looking for - Tanaka brand prosthetics still boxed up, ready for re-sale. The vendor numbers had all been scratched off, and a couple were damaged. He groaned under the heavy weight of the unmarked crate, lugging it into the livingroom with the bodies. He checked the two for citcards, which he took, as well as stealing a Coffinnail cigarette from Kaito and a lighter. George stuck around for a while, quietly crying while he smoked his heroin-laced cigerette. After a while, he lifted the crate and walked back to work. Nobody bothered or spoke with him, stealing glances at the gore that still was splattered all over him, which George still hadn't noticed. The door man eyed him cautiously when he got there, "You hit a bit of a rough spot there, Georgie?"

George shook his head, and once again said nothing.

"You uh... got a little somethin' there, on your shirt."

Looking down, George saw that he was still covered in blood and gore. He carefully put down the crate and wiped off some of the blood and bits of Kaito and his wife that still clung to his shirt, mostly just splattering blood over his hands and his clothes, not to mention outside the doorway to the facility, and looked back at the door man and nodded, who shrugged and went to scan his card to open the door. Before he could, it opened by itself, and Moe walked out. He stopped and looked at George, then to the crate on the ground. Moe frowned, then looked back up at George, "You bring back the product? I heard there was some trouble."

"Yeah... but I handled it."

Moe laughed, "Good job there, Georgie! We'll make a proper employee out of you yet!" He laughed again and slapped George across the back, careful not to step in the blood and gore as he walked, still chuckling to himself as he wandered off toward the elevator, waving to a couple of nearby Minos that followed along close behind him.

George went inside, going to the room he was told to bring product back to. Inside, three or four androids were hard at work, unpackaging and repackaging weapons, prosthetics, jars of organs suspended in preservative fluids, and numerous implants, from toes, fingers, eyes, facial plates, rotors, and motorized wheels to pistols, assault rifles, more shotguns, grenades, landmines, and even swords and motorized axes. One of them looked at George when he walked in and stopped, "What's that you got there?"

"Prosthetics."

The guy pointed to a small pile of crates on one side of the fairly large room, "Put it over there, but on the floor. It’s disgusting."

 

George sat down the crate, and left as quickly as he could. Once he was outside, he stopped and stared at the endless crowds of workers walking through sector One. He saw names appear over peoples heads, identities and any 'criminal offenses', along with their supposed stake in the company – a clean, fat rate of their assumed total net value in Credits. People pretended not to notice him watching. He sighed, trying to forget what happened, but his left hand wouldn't stop shaking. His right, with the chrome lightly tarnished from where he had tried to wipe the blood off, was still, cold, and lifeless. It felt like it was almost too sensitive, picking up textures he hadn't seemed to notice before.

"Something wrong Georgie?" The door man asked him, watching him stare at his hand.

"...do you know if I can get the feeling turned off?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel everything this fucking thing touches, even the air - it's too damn sensitive. I was wondering if I could get the attendant to turn that off."

The man scoffed, "How the fuck should I know?"

George mentally brought up the manifest of his clients, the neural connection between his sunglasses and his brain letting him skim it effortlessly. He could read out where his targets were last seen, and more work had already replaced his job at the apartments. During orientation, he was told that the manifest was important, a database he couldn't touch stored in one of the new brain implants they'd given him to work in tandem with his arm, free of charge. It was information his glasses could access, but not something he could access without the glasses, or at least not without possibly blowing a security circuit and dying a painful death. Or at least, that's what the attendant told him after they put it in.

 

* * * * *

 

Georgie sat at Naoki's bar in sector zero eating a bowl of noodles. McKenzie was eyeing him in the next seat over, trying to make him feel uncomfortable.

"Do you ever take off your work clothes anymore, Georgie?"

Naoki was busily serving customers, but stopped when she heard McKenzie. The older Japanese lady had four arms, two mechanical ones serving and two behind her cooking. "Hey, you gunna order something, or just talk? Seats are for customers, not free loading!"

George pulled out his citcard, which Naoki snatched from his hand, ran through an ancient looking computer panel to her right, and threw back all in the matter of a second.

"Next!"

 

The two got up and managed to find a nearby spot to stand where the rain didn't pour into George's meal. Whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, George couldn't remember. The stimulants in his system kept his mind skimming his manifest idly, not even realizing he was working the whole time, scanning faces, downloading data, noting clients, checking for weapons...

"You fuckin' hearing me George?"

Annoyed, he turned to McKenzie, "Yeah, yeah - I heard you just fine, McKenzie, but I don't see your point. I'm workin'; I'm not exactly feelin‘ like idle conversation."

George had made what in his old job would have taken two years, and in the span of only three days, completely paying off all his gear, even the arm. He had never imagined the promotion could mean so much to him, but every time he found another client, he got another paycheck. He'd hardly spent anything on the chems to stay awake, but the credits kept calling his name. He turned back toward the crowd, still working.

"I don't think you hear me at all though Georgie, because you still haven't answered my question."

George shrugged.

"So no, I take it?"

Slowly, George shook his head to answer no.

McKenzie inclined his head, and stared down the street for a moment. After a minute of listening to George slurp his noodles loudly, he looked up at the hundreds of people making their way through the mercantile district, most with their heads down, trying not to start anything. Yakuza thugs were rampant, some with swords, but most with submachine guns. When a pack of gangsters spotted him and George, he felt his heart drop a little. They talked back and forth, watching the two. George waved, a gesture they returned, and then they walked off, looking back occasionally.

"You don't see many Chronosians down here," remarked McKenzie.

Chronosians weren't well liked by most people. Mostly they had a reputation for eating people and flying into terrifying rage-induced massacres. Few ever made it to the UFS, preferring to live where they were more numerous, farther south.

"Too good at your jobs I guess."

"No, I don't think it's that," McKenzie pointed out a man missing half of his torso - sparks shot out of the open cavity from the exposed parts inside, drenched as he was in the rain, but still walking slowly and steadily down the road. "See that poor soul there? You don't see Chronosian androids down here too much, either. You ever wonder about that, Georgie?"

Finally finished with his meal, George tossed his plastic bowl into a nearby trash bin and wiped his face, sighing contentedly with the feeling of a full stomach.

"First, I don’t think a Chronosian framejob would look like a Chronosian, it’d look like a junk android. You might be overthinkin' this stuff. You don't see many Chronosians because most of your, uh... people, I guess, don't live in the States."

"And why do you think that is, Georgie?"

"Maybe because they live elsewhere? The fuck is going on with you today, McKenzie? This whole time you've done nothing but nag and talk about your *people*. Since when do you give a shit about other Chronosians?"

McKenzie shrugged, "Maybe I'm just putting more thought to things. But somebody around here has to compensate for your stupid ass, walking around like a brainless chemhead whose biggest concern is how much your next paycheck is gunna be."

George felt little more than vacant about the comment. "I know my place around here. I know exactly who I am, and I'm not ashamed to be a man with a job."

McKenzie shook his head again and gave up. "Fine George, but don't expect me to stick around a thug who kills decent people for money."

McKenzie started walking down the street.

"Hey, McKenzie!"

The Chronosian stopped for a moment, listening, but not turning around.

"I know I haven't been myself lately, but... I'm just trying to survive out here, man."

McKenzie turned and smiled, "Aren't we all, Georgie?" then he left.

George went back to skimming his manifest, looking for another client.

 

The last three days had been one incident after another. George had shot and killed more people than he cared to think about, as the rough business of acquisitions for Bull Industrial wore on him, day in and day out. He hardly ever did business in sector Zero, but he rapidly came to the conclusion that it was the best place to work. Generally, if someone was going to do something illegal, they didn't do it under Bull's nose up in sectoer One. Down here, all he needed to do was watch people coming down, passing through the mercantile, and follow them through the crowd.

Buildings in both sectors were abandoned or destroyed, as open war occasionally broke out between the ruling gang, the Yakuza, and just about anyone else sorry enough to be trapped in their basement. Numerous blown out stores, abandonded warehouses, and destroyed houses were filled with squatters. Most of the viable businesses did their deals in the center of Zero, the mercantile, where George spent a great deal of his time. He had become intimately familiar with the merchents who watched him wherever he went, making sure he didn't cause trouble in the mercantile. He’d tried taking a client there once, and ended up in a shooting match with five Yakuza. It had lasted an hour – day or night, he couldn’t remember anymore. Three dead thugs later, he fled. Second day at work, and he had already ruined his reputation.

To the west, Bull Industrial ran its elevator. Around the mercantile, the Yakuza had all of its muscle, since their hospital was in the dead center of the it. Slummies who couldn't afford a place usually took up residence in one of the huge sleeper complexes that lined streets around Zero, each designed to hold as many beds as possible.

A sleeper unit looked like a casket with a soft gel insert. They functioned as protection, and would nourish their occupant as long as they stayed inside. Destroying one from the outside was a damned hard thing to do, and once someone got into a complex, finding the right sleeper was nearly impossible, being that there could be a couple dozen to a room, thirty rooms on a given floor, and twelve to twenty stories to a given complex. There wasn't a man at the door or someone behind a desk to check people in and out, but there was always security and cameras everywhere. All anyone needed was enough credits to rent it for a day, and they'd be gone.

George watched The Comfortable Inn and waited. Not many Bull thugs had the kind of patience that he did, who preferred to go after easier to find clients in sector One, but those were also generally the ones who were also better armed. Here in Zero, where George was at home, most people could hardly afford to live, let alone defend themselves.

Not that the job didn't have its drawbacks. George knew that Zero was a place for the mentally unstable. People were trapped down here, always greedy for enough money to get out. A Taxi didn’t just cost money – it cost citizenship.

George had followed a client to complex thirty-seven a few hours earlier. The guy was jittery, and worried about being seen, though luckily George managed to avoid being spotted. The guy was definitely a slummie in over his head, and without too much gear besides a spring baton he kept fiddling with at his side, playing with the button. He'd even sprang it accidentally near the door, cursing and limping inside on his now injured leg.

George waited for hours, and he didn't intend to waste the effort. Eventually, finally, the client came out, but he didn’t look the same as before. Some terrifying chemicals had calmed him down, still bleeding from the leg, but not limping.

The client, James by name, was all glassy eyed murder when George looked into his eyes. He looked like a hungry predator, searching for something or someone to kill and eat, nothing like the scared slummie before. George was glad he had stood there, leaning against a pillar he’d picked out to watch the door from, and been quiet. He watched another Bull Industrial thug approach the guy, hand already buried in his jacket, probably wrapped snug around his revolver.

Once he was close, the thug pulled out his revolver and shoved it into James' face.

"Hey Jimmy! Where'd you hide the parts, you fuck?! Moe wants-"

Before he finished, the spring-loaded baton smacked the Bull thug across his face hard enough for George to hear the bones in his face shatter. The man fell to the ground. James watched the man lay facedown in the puddle for a moment, bleeding to death if he wasn‘t already drowning. Then, he looked right back up at George, who didn't moved yet. He felt his heart drop into his stomach, with James‘ eyes being horrible and unnaturally wrong. James approached him slowly, watching him. His eyes were all silvered chrome with small red lights at their center, unlike anything George had seen. He passed several people, who he politely pushed aside, but still stared at George, who didn't break his gaze. George slowly gripped his revolver in his jacket pocket, tilting the barrel upward, toward the man.

Closer now, George could tell that Jimmy wasn’t a framejob – just a kid with a scraggily hair. "You're with bull, right?" his voice was definitely synthetic, but with the sounds of an expensive unit. It didn't pop or hum - it was just a velvety, low-pitch voice.

George shrugged, "I guess so."

James pointed at the dead thug in the street, whose body was being picked clean by a couple of slummie kids, "Aren't you going to help your friend?"

George laughed, but James just stared, unblinking, cold and empty like a polycrete wall.

"Nah... See, in my business, we appreciate a competitive market."

James smiled, then frowned, then went back to his previously stoic expression.

"The fuck was that, some kind of facial bug?"

"Sort of, actually." He smiled again, though he went back to impassive again just as fast. "When I find something amusing, I can generally only hold the expression for a couple of seconds."

"Well, glad to hear there's a guy who appreciates a good joke around here."

"Actually, you are incorrect. It was not your joke that I found amusing, it was the business practices of Bull Industrial. They hire mercenaries by the dozens for every sector, but not a single one supports his coworkers. And do you know why that is?"

"Lemme guess... because they're cowards, right?"

Leaning in close, James stared George in the eyes. Somehow, even in the rain, George still managed to feel himself begin to sweat.

"I believe you are incorrect again. You see, it is not because of cowardice that Bull Industrial associates refuse to assist one another, it is because of pay. If the first man kills the client, the second man will kill the first man, knowing he will not be punished for it, but still rewarded as if he had killed the client himself."

"...and that's funny how?"

"While it is certainly amusing to think of how quickly a man will turn to murder, thievery, and betrayal over money, it is far more amusing how much money a man will turn down out of fear. For instance, if I offered you fifty-thousand credits to kill your boss - Moe, I believe your associate said - would you take it?"

George stared at the android. The manifest said he was a chemmed-out moron with a synthetic brain - a harddrive head chasing stirs of emotion through electronic induction since the ol' synapses wouldn't do it anymore. As hard as he looked, George couldn't find psychopathic killbot anywhere on his rep sheet, and it was starting to worry him.

"Fuck no."

"And yet, it is not unreasonable for you to kill men for money?"

"That's... sort of my job. Most of the time."

"Yet you will not kill this man, who has done so much evil, even for such a large amount?"

"Look, I get your point, but there's no way of getting to Moe without going through some serious security, and even if I did manage to kill him? I'd be out of a job after that. Not to mention, you can go fuck yourself, I ain't dumb enough to kill for some random asshole."

The android smiled again, which still unnerved George a great deal, particularly when it happened only a few inches from his face.

"You see? Humans are such... intriguing creatures."

James left without another word.

George checked the manifest for James again, but only got an error:

Client not found.

George shiverred in the rain, trying not to think about James, McKenzie, or Moe.