For the first time in his life, Gunnar stood in front of Olive’s without the expectation of being kicked out on entry. They were off the main street of the Glass Park, which was still closed off. Fighting and yelling still echoed through the streets, but no one dared to mess with this road despite how close it sat. Olive had some of the biggest named mercenaries in her contacts, most of which were happy to do her a favour or two. Not even the dumbest ganger would mess with that kind of protection.

Gunnar followed the sisters into the store. He wanted to ask how their latest lead was going, but Nati had already told him that they were in quite a hurry to get back to it. So it must have been going somewhere. There were a few guards in the main room of the store and the standard array of guns and ammo displayed. A young attractive asian woman stood behind the desk with a service smile. Though as soon as she saw the sisters, it subtly shifted to a more genuine curve.

She pushed a button and to her right a door unlocked and opened itself, behind it stood a simple looking lift. ‘I will inform Olive of your arrival. Please go on ahead.’ The three did as they were told, Gunnar thanked the merchant with a cheeky smile and a wink to see if he could get the same smile that the sisters got. All he was rewarded with was an elbow to the rib from Nati.

On the surface the store appeared a typical gun store, the true store rested deeper down inside a heavily armoured vault. Everyone knew about it, it was the worst kept secret in the sector. Unfortunately, to be allowed access you had to get into Olive’s good books. The actual store made plenty of shrapnel for her, but some of the exclusive fancy guns were worth more chips than most folk would earn in their life. Technically Gunnar had not earnt her trust, he wasn’t high profile enough. Luckily for him, the sisters had.

When the lift reached its destination, Gunnar finally laid eyes on the woman in question for the first time. Olivier Ross, or Olive as she liked to be called. A small, old and at first glance unassuming dark skinned woman in a luxurious green suit. Olive green to be exact. One wouldn’t expect much at first glance, but the woman had a presence, and a look in her eye that said not to fuck around.

The room they were in appeared smaller than the one above, but there were about five doorways leading in various directions. It was lit with a bright white light and guns lined the walls. Some Gunnar recognised being on the edge of legality. For example, a long rifle that fired venom needle seeds with hundreds of metres of effective range. Venom needles were farmed from deadly pods from some nasty trees in the southern forests, they exploded and shot hundreds of said needles in all directions, the venom tore flesh from the inside. The risk and cruelty of the rifle caused it to be banned in most cities. Somehow it squeezed through Juniper City’s law system though. Not even most mercs would touch it and luckily most gangers couldn’t afford it. The fact that it was just one of many questionable weapons on that particular wall said quite a lot.

As they reached the center of the room, two orbs lowered from the ceiling and scanned them with a red cone of light. When they finished there was a gravely buzzer sound and Gunnar felt the weapon in his coat click. He looked over at the sisters. ‘She disabled your gun,’ Kat stated matter of factly.

That seemed like it probably was some level of actually illegal to Gunnar, but he wasn’t going to argue with a woman with that level of tech. He did think that he might find himself an old manual gun just to be safe though. They were rare, but kinda cheap. Can’t scratch most modern armour or even touch personal shields, but it’s better than a knife. . . Marginally.

Olive nodded at the sisters, but seemed to glare at Gunnar. Which he did feel a little offended by, as far as he was aware they had never met. ‘Hey Olive. This is our fr-’ Nati began.

‘I know who he is. You two have mentioned him on more than one occasion and I like to know potential clients,’ Olive interrupted Nati. She straightened her back and quickly glanced at Gunnar, giving him the up and down, then turned her attention back to the sisters. ‘So. How can I help you?’

Gunnar opens his mouth ready to speak but is interrupted by the oddly intimidating woman. ‘Ah.’ She raised her hand and shook her head. Returning to the sisters once again. ‘So. How can I help you?’

It was at this moment Gunnar began to feel trepidation about what exactly the sisters had said about him. There was an unfortunate phenomenon in humans, that when discussing those you care about you tend to rant about their worst qualities rather than their best. Or maybe that was just people around him? He glanced at Kat who returned a fake smile and thumbs up.

Nati steps forward. ‘We got a big game, Olive. Need some big guns that hit hard, with a decent amount of penetration.’

‘Are we talking body armour or tank?’

‘Something in between,’ Nati replied.

Olive let out an inquisitive hum. She looks between the three standing before her with a soft scowl. She pulled a display up on her desk and began sifting through a few pages of weapons. ’I don’t need to know what you need the weapons for, I’m not interested frankly, but I would like to know if you’re bringing him along. Hmm?’ She pointed at Gunnar.

Nati seemed a little taken aback by the question. ‘Well. I guess it’s more like he’s bringing us along?’

The arms dealer tutted in response. ‘Just don’t drag these girls down through the muck, y’hear boy?’

Now, Gunnar had had enough. ‘The fuck is your problem? As far as I know we’ve never even met before?’

Both sisters tried to shut Gunnar up in their own way, but it wasn’t as if they could take away his words. Olive scoffed. ‘Just as I expected, as rude as your reputation would imply. I don’t know how business is conducted in your neighbourhood, but here we demand respect.’

‘Respect? You’re talking about respect? You’ve been giving me nothing but disrespect since I got in here and as far as I’m concerned respect goes both ways,’ he could feel himself getting heated, but even so tried to hold himself back. ‘Oh also? As for dragging through the muck? If it weren’t for me these two might not have even made it out of their teens.’

The sisters stopped trying to shut Gunnar up, Nati now looked a little embarrassed and Kat looked away. Olive observed both with surprising interest. ‘So why are you still taking dead end jobs? Why are you living in a tiny cheap house? Just because you guided them doesn’t mean they need you anymore.’

Gunnar laughed mockingly. ‘I could take on every guard in this building without breaking a sweat. I choose to take those jobs because I want to, give me any job and I’d get it done just as well as your precious little clientele… Also I genuinely like my house, so could you not?’ Gunnar began to grumble under his breath. ‘Why the fuck does everyone have to shit on my house?’

Olive stared at Gunnar. Or perhaps glare would be more accurate. Then she smirked, turning to the sisters. ‘He’s amusing. Definitely easier to rile up than I expected, but stood his ground well enough.’

‘So you approve?’ Kat asked her.

The weapons dealer waved her hand in the air, indicating that she was unsure. ‘I said he was amusing, not that I approved.’

Now, Gunnar found himself more bewildered than offended. ‘Am I going to get an explanation?’

The small woman in front of him shot him with a side eye that could make a noble apologise. ‘It was a test boy. It’s always a test. I don’t ask what my clients are going to use my guns for because I don’t need to. Every single one has received my approval.’ She pressed a few buttons on her screen. ‘You’re short tempered and prideful. A bit of a mark off, but, even when angered you weren’t threatening me per se, you were threatening to prove yourself to me.’ She smiled.

‘Well. I mean. I did threaten your guards,’ Gunnar pointed out, perhaps more honest than he needed to be.

‘With the intent to kill?’

Gunnar thought for a second. ‘Well. No…’

She looked satisfied. ‘My point stands.’

The woman then slapped her screen away from her, it spun around to face the three of them, expanding into three screens at a far greater size. Each one held the image and description of a different weapon. ‘I took the liberty of scanning your weapons alongside disabling them. Found the closest matches to what I assumed were your preferred choices.’

Sure enough on the screen in front of Gunnar was some kind of high tech sub machine-gun with a few basic statistics. Less recoil, better armour penetration, that kind of thing. ‘Nati. You already bought a top of the line rifle from me, so instead I chose something a bit more portable that’s essentially an upgrade to your current day to day rifle. It might not puncture through a megatank like your other one, but it’ll penetrate a noble’s manor wall.’

Gunnar had only seen his friend’s favourite anti-everything rifle once. Since she had only used it once, she had a great fear of even getting it scratched as it cost her so much. It was also about twice the size of her, so pretty much anything else would be more portable.

As for Kat, instead of a gun Olive had presented her two iron caestus, fist weapons with powered pulse technology. She already mostly used her enhanced fists as her go-to weapon, so wrapping them in a powered up glove that shot pulses of pure energy with every punch would be deadly for most things that got too close to her.

‘Kat. Those are Foster Bullrushes. Ones that my team have altered. They pack a little less punch, but their battery is mostly charged by kinetic energy. Simply put, you keep finding things to hit, they keep going,’ Olive explained. She then turned to Gunnar. ‘The only weapon I could find on you was an outdated sub machine gun with a dying battery. If you’re as great as you claim, I’m sure you can make do with a direct upgrade. It’s also Foster made, the latest Foster Feral, mark three to be exact. No tinkering, but it’ll pack more of a punch than that mouldy old toy you’ve been carrying around.’

Offended once again, Gunnar chose to ignore it this time, as she wasn’t technically wrong. He had a few chips now, he didn’t have an excuse for not upgrading. He had never been able to afford a Foster before either, the premium weapons manufacturer in Juniper City. No rival for Windholm Arms for pure fire power, Foster usually focused on reliability as their major selling point.

None of them could complain about the choices, Gunnar wouldn’t have minded seeing a choice of weapons, but he didn’t much feel like pushing his luck any more. ‘So how much is this gonna set us back Olive?’ Nati asked.

A wicked grin spread across the weapons dealer’s face. She glanced at Gunnar. ‘Well. I’m quite happy to give a little discount for the bulk purchase, say 45k, but, he’s got to pay for it all,’ she pointed a bony finger at Gunnar.

Was this another bizarre test? The bewildered mercenary could understand being tested, it was well within Olive’s reputation, but what did this one prove? That he had money, or maybe that he was generous? He could afford it, but it was practically half of what he had left. The rest would last a little while, but Walther never mentioned how his salary would work. Gunnar thought about taking a few old jobs on the side. Everyone’s got to make a living.

He sighed and stepped forward, pulling out a few chips and counted them in his hand. ‘Here.’ He presented the shrapnel. Olive’s eyes widened, if he had blinked, the mercenary would have missed it.

She nodded her approval. ‘Well well. Unexpected, I guess your stock is a bit higher than the sisters had implied.’ Gunnar raised an eyebrow at the sisters who avoided his gaze. ‘If you have that kind of wad floating around why not upgrade those rusted cybernetics?’

‘Because I don’t want to.’

The only reaction Gunnar had to that was a simple disinterested grunt. She instead looked down at her screen and nodded. ‘Well, shrapnels gone through.’ Olive pressed on her screen a few more times and the world behind her began to shift. A section of the wall opened up as three claws holding solid fortified cases reached out. Olive stood from her chair to walk over to them, a sound of elderly complaint whistled from her mouth. Gunnar now just realised that she had only used her left arm to do all the typing and work on her desk, what made him realise was that her right arm appeared to be a hand longer than the other and made of solid machinery. It looked like it had many compartments and also appeared to have some sort of inbuilt gun nozzle in the palm. He had to wonder how much strain that put on her body, but then he didn’t know what other more hidden enhancements she might have.

She picked the first case, exerting only a small huff as her arm buzzed and chirped. It seemed to be designed to take the weight, perhaps it evened it out across her body to lessen the burden on the back and legs?

After placing the first case gently on the table and releasing the clamps, she proceeded with the second. Kat had already run over to play with her new beaters though, giggling like a teenager.

Next came Gunnar’s new toy. He folded it out and looked down its sight. There was a display with his ammo count and the condition of the gun complete with inner temperature and the current charge of its battery. It felt balanced, but Gunnar was never an expert with guns, all that mattered was if he could hit what he aimed at, especially whilst sprinting full speed.

Gunnar looked up, he watched the other sister assembling her new rifle, it looked to be longer than her last but definitely not the size of her prized possession. On the other side of him Kat punched her new fists together creating a wave of force blasting them apart, even Gunnar felt it a few feet away. She jumped gleefully and threw out a fist pump so she didn’t set off the pulse again. ‘Do you have a gun range or something in this place?’ he asked the merchant.

She smirked. ‘Oh. Boy, I have something far better than a paltry range.’ She walked out from behind the desk and shined a key fob in front of a door sitting to the left of her desk. A sign next to it with an arrow read ‘Merc Course’.

The sisters seemed excited and eager to follow, so Gunnar did the same. They were led through and down several flights of stairs, walking past various other rooms. It seemed as though this place was even bigger than Gunnar had initially thought. They must have rebuilt a ruined ancient facility to have such a large underground shop.

After a few more flights, they reach the bottom level of the stairwell. The room they entered was pitch black, but Olive wandered straight in. Then sounded a loud clack and the whole room lit up, with Olive standing not far away, her hand on a large switch.

The room they stood in was quite huge, it had to span the entire length of the building. On one side was what looked like an obstacle course built out of steel and concrete. To the right of that was a shooting range as Gunnar had requested. Both had a scoreboard hanging above from an iron frame that criss crossed across the ceiling.

Both the sisters were on a scoreboard, Nati was at third on the shooting range, a score of 422, though what that was out of he didn’t know. The two above her were Philosophy, a well known marksman in the local sectors and someone simply called Bob. Nati clicked her tongue noticing Philosophy’s name.

‘Bastard beat my score. Couldn’t take me beating him.’

Gunnar felt a little pride. ‘You were in second place?’ He asked.

She smirked. ‘Of course. No idea who Bob is though, Olive won’t tell us.’

‘Customer privacy,’ Olive replied as she walked past, hitting various switches on both stations.

Kat came over to join them now. ‘You can put whatever name you want on your scorecard, most folk are gonna want everyone to know it was them though.’ She pointed at the obstacle course. ‘I’m pretty proud of my score too.’

Gunnar looked over to the other scoreboard, he had only taken a glance before. Kat was on this one, but Nati wasn’t, despite the speed at which she sprinted. Kat sat in seventh place, with a score of 390 and a time of 52 seconds. Once again he had no idea what this score really meant.

Next to him, the older sister pouted. ‘I am 21st on the obstacle course. Just don’t have the reaction time.’ The scoreboards only went up to ten, but he imagined 21st was still a decent score. It wasn’t only mercs that Olive supplied, so Gunnar had to guess she had at least a fifty to a hundred or so regulars.

Olive finished her preparations and made her way back over. ‘So. You want a go, big man?’ She shined a wicked smile at Gunnar.

Gunnar looked at the obstacle course then down at his gun. He smiled. ‘Why not?’ He cracked his neck and made sure his new toy was loaded, stepping into the entrance of the course. Nati and Kat both ran to some kind of observation platform nearby to watch the upcoming spectacle. In front of him a red light blinked three times, then it blinked green and he set off.

…

A whistle sounded out, Gunnar was drenched in sweat. He looked down at his new gun, the barrel leaking light smoke. ‘I like it,’ he smiled.

He had just finished his first run of the course. At the end of it a small recovery room awaited him, inside was a bench and a small screen for him to type out his chosen name. Next to it was a board that shuffled through every name that ran the gauntlet. A total of 132, that is until Gunnar’s name popped up. 42nd place. Gunnar clicked his tongue.

Olive slapped the mercenary’s arm with a scolding gaze. ‘Why do you sound so disappointed boy? You know how good that is for your first time? Especially with those enhancements you’ve got.’ She pointed at Nati. ’She got 54th on her first try. Nati looked away, pouting.

Gunnar felt a spark of pride. ‘So, does that mean your estimation of me has improved?’

The merchant’s scowl lessened. ‘I can see why the girls keep you around at least.’

Generally, Gunnar had unwavering confidence in his abilities, but that also came with stubbornness on top of a few other issues. Though he did try and not overestimate himself, which had kept him alive thus far. Not taking jobs out of his league and not messing with the mercs that shouldn’t be messed with. Even so, he couldn’t take the fact that he wasn’t even in the top forty of the local sectors. ‘Do you mind if I stay a bit? Try to improve my score?’ he asked Olive.

She shrugged. ‘I’ve got cameras down here, I’ll call you when I’m locking up.’ She looked at the sisters. ‘Girls?’

Natalia mused on it. ‘Nah. Would love to show him up, but we’re well on the trail and we gotta get back to it.’

‘Oh? You’ll have to message me about it later.’

Kat tapped Gunnar’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Olive keeps it all confidential, we can talk about the job.’ She glanced at her sister who nodded. ‘Basically, Joy’s contact had seen a group of cultists disappear into the mountains out the western gate. We figured their base of operations must be around there somewhere.’

Oftentimes, the space in between each city within the Ring would be filled with farmland and shanty towns; which were very rarely run reputedly. The forests inside the walls had all been long cut down, but there were still a few mountains around that had yet to be completely stripped of stone. The walls were so large that few peaks could be seen over them from the outside, the mountain in question was no exception. It was also quite large, but still, the location had been narrowed down significantly from the whole city to one mountain.

It was good, that the sisters were so enthusiastic in helping Aethel, especially since they were not getting paid for it. Though they did get free weapons given that Gunnar paid for them. He gently slapped Kat’s arm back, embracing it in a shake. ‘Best of luck girls.’ He then pointed his free forefinger at Nati. ‘And don’t forget you owe me for the weapons, yeah?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Sure. Tight arse.’

Olive led them out of the room, closing the door behind her leaving Gunnar alone in the large facility. Well, alone other than whoever was currently watching him on the security footage. It was an odd space to be in by himself, deep underground but far better lit than the undercity. He looked back at the entrance of the course. Feeling like he’d had more than enough of a break, the mercenary hyped himself up with a few quick breaths and took off once again.

…

Hours had passed and Gunnar was now completely drenched in sweat, but it had paid off, to a degree. He had gotten up to 29th, which Natalia would probably be upset about. He also tried the shooting range, but aim was never his forte. He managed to get 61st after a few attempts, which was probably still decent. He wasn’t in the top ten for either though and he found himself wanting to go on until he was.

His pride was only one reason. The other was related to the main thing that had been troubling him the past few weeks. Puppet. How could someone that can’t even make the top ten of a local obstacle course be able to stop some sort of advanced killer tech beast? Sure, those that had tried said obstacle course were already the best of the local sectors, but that didn’t mean he could settle for being worse than them.

‘You know if you want to get into the top ten there are better ways than death by exhaustion.’ By the doorway stood Olive. She had stopped by for his last few attempts, ready to lock up, she let him stay for another ten minutes.

Gunnar wiped his face with one of the supplied towels. ‘I’m not getting any cybernetics,’ he replied.

Olive moved from her pose and walked over to the power switch, motioning for Gunnar to move to the stairs. ‘Will you answer if I ask why?’

He did as he was told, but not as he was asked. ‘I won’t.’

‘And will you answer why that’s the case?’

The mercenary stopped by the door. ‘Because it doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’ He opened the door as Olive flipped the switch.

She chuckled. ‘Seems like an odd sense of pride to me. Sure you’re skilled and you’ve lasted this long, but implants are commonplace, especially in your line of work. You can survive like that, but you’ll never live.’

Gunnar let the merchant walk past him and start up the stairs, he followed shortly behind. ‘I don’t know why everyone assumes I wallow in powerless misery.’

Olive stopped on the stairs. ‘No one practises like that if they’re happy. I watched you, a bit. You weren’t smiling kid.’

They carried on walking. Right up to the shop floor in silence now, Gunnar left with a simple half hearted thank you. Olive told him he could come back again, but he shouldn’t expect to get much better. At the very least, Gunnar was happy to have gotten onto Olive’s good side, to a degree.

As soon as he left the building however, a loud shot rang out, followed by repeated screaming and yelling. Rest was rare in the current state of the city. Gunnar started jogging, half exhausted, to the source of the gun shot. Once again, unfortunately, it was found at the Glass Park.

This wasn’t an unusual sound at the moment. The riots in the Park had been raging since they started, plenty of shots and plenty of deaths, on both sides. If anything it had only grown, to the edge of bursting like the rest of the damned city.

On top of the militia, there were mercs too, on both sides, paid by locals and paid by the nobles. Though most seemed to have been paid to try and keep the peace, hold the others back and stop too many deaths. Though at the moment there was a familiar body holding back a particular small angry group.

It was Kat, her sister? Nowhere to be seen. She looked stressed, maybe nervous, not that Gunnar could blame her. The younger sister looked over to him and waved, she pushed a few dwellers out the way and shouted something incoherent to another mercenary.

‘Gunnar! Shit, where have you been?’ She swore, gasping for air.

Gunnar looked around. ‘I wasn’t down there that long was I?’

She grasped her legs and caught her breath. ‘No, but I’ve been waiting for ya. Ended up getting involved in that whole mess. Wasn’t even paid for it haha!’ She looked behind her then back at Gunnar, nodding towards the street Gunnar had come from, it was a lot quieter than the square that was for sure.

They hurried down the street until the sound of the riot had drowned out and no other body was around. Still, Kat pulled Gunnar closer to her and spoke in a whisper. ‘Nati’s pretty sure we’ve got the Gospels church cornered.’ She watched Gunnar for his reaction.

He raised his brow and did a double take. ‘Well,’ he paused. ‘You guys really were on the trail, huh?’

Kat looked around and smiled. ‘Nati found a group collecting supplies in the mountains, dropped by some kind of merchant we think. Anyway, she followed them to a large opening in between a few smaller peaks, with a very old abandoned mine sitting deep within.’

Gunnar nodded in approval, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was impressed. ‘Well damn. No time to lose?’

Kat grinned, she may have had a halo of sweat on her crown, but she looked eager to go. She dropped her sister a message to say that they were coming and the two set off. One step closer to figuring out how exactly a random group of cultists were involved with Puppet and with Aethel. Now though, they had weapons that might punch a hole in Puppet too. Gunnar found himself walking with a renewed confidence, founded or otherwise.