I really gods-damned fucking hate this client.

“Beg me for the next one,” he snarls past the cigarette gripped between his nasty teeth. “Beg for the burn.”

“Fuck you,” I spit back, knowing full-well my owner’ll beat me for it later. “Shove it up your ass.”

But my defiance seems to satisfy the bastard. I grit my teeth as he puts the third cigarette out, forming a neat little triangle of burns just above my left breast. His smile stretches so wide it’s not hard to imagine his face splitting in two.

It’s even harder not to wish I could be the one to split it.

Drawing another cigarette from its case, he pulls off the cap and the auto-light sparks. Then his right hand drops to his pants, and he begins to fumble at the closure.

“Almost there,” he says, leering down at me. “Almost ready. Now beg.”

I lean into him where he stands at the edge of the bed, my crouched kneeling position putting my face at gut-height as I peer up at him with my best simpering fuck-me eyes.

“I said shove it up your ass, you ugly piece of shit,” I purr.

His lips pull back to reveal bloodied gums. “Actually,” he growls, reaching behind me to grab me by the base of my tail. “I think I’ll shove it up yours.”

Then he wrenches me around and onto all fours, sending a bolt of pain shooting up my spine. Worse than the burns—I’d gotten used to those. With it comes a burst of rage like blood from an old wound split wide. Because they could have programmed me not to feel it, if they’d wanted—the butcher-artists who hacked me together. Or at least to feel it less. But no…there are clients who like causing pain, and the reaction has to be authentic.

I struggle against his grasp, but he’s strong. He takes a quick drag of the cigarette before yanking my ass upward by the tail, then snatches the cig from his jaws and—

 

AR System engaged. Threat identified. Blink-Scan initiated.

 

A weirdly proper male voice sounds at the back of my mind. As real-sounding as anything, but definitely coming from inside my own head.

Green glyphs flicker to life, somehow overlaying my vision without obscuring it.

 

Threat Designation - “Stupid Ugly Bastard”

 

Species: Human

OP Level: 45

 

Estimated Health: 180/200

Estimated Sai Pool: 3/10

Estimated Strength: 42

Estimated Cunning: 15

 

Augments:

Basic Kit

Drop Soldier Kit

Liver Replacement

 

Further statistics unavailable, scan length insufficient

 

When I focus on any of the glyphs for more than an instant, the same fancy-proper voice I’d heard before reads them out to me with perfect, quiet clarity. What appear as abbreviations in glyph form it recites in full, but still, the information leaves me wanting.

Overall Power fifty-one? But is that out of a hundred, or what?

If my instincts are right, it is—and the same goes for strength and cunning. Which means this guy’s probably pretty tough…and dumber than jellbricks, too. But I already knew that.

“What the—“ the client stumbles back, every bit as shocked as I am. At first, I think he also heard the voice, but something’s going on back there, and it’s not what I expected. I twist around to look and my jaw falls open.

My tail has split into four.

One version looks as it always does—a long, twitching appendage covered in silvery gray and white fur. But the others are all of articulated metal, two of which restrain the bastard’s arms while the third tightens around his neck. His eyes bulge as I watch, and his muscles twitch…but the iron grip of my tails holds true even as my blood runs cold.

What the hells is going on? What do I do?

Some instinct deep inside me tells me I could stop what’s happening if I wanted to. That I could take control.

But I don’t. I don’t know now whether it’s because I’m too shocked, because I’m physically unable to, or because I just don’t want to. But I can’t do it.

So I freeze up, knees sinking deep into the mattress as I watch my last client of the night slowly and messily asphyxiate. I can feel his frantic heartbeat through my tails, feel it slow and then finally, stutter to a halt. His eyes roll back into his purpled head, and his body goes limp. New glyphs flicker forward.

 

Sai Gain: 3

 

Threat neutralized. System entering Sleep Mode in three…two…

 

“Wait! No! What—“

 

…one. Goodnight.

 

“No! Don’t go, damnit. Get back here and explain yourself!”

The response is nothing but resounding silence, and a weird pang of loss wells up somewhere at the back of my awareness. My tails, meanwhile, rejoin one another—the metal ones slipping into an opening in the fur of the original and out of sight.

Time slows down as the realization of what I’ve just done sets in. My legs feel like lead, rooting me to the disheveled bed.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. What do I do? What the fuck do I do?

My thoughts seem to speed up and intensify until my brain shorts out and a coldly measured state that I’ve never experienced before sets in. I don’t have time to wonder what just happened or why. Not if I’m going to make it through this. I have to get out of here before my owner or anyone else realizes what’s happened. I have to get as far the fuck away from here as I possibly can.

I’ve snatched my vat-leather pants up off the floor and gotten halfway dressed by the time my common sense kicks in like a boot to the gut. There’s no point in running. They can track me anywhere. My owner, the gods-damned government. I can’t separate myself from the coding, hardware, and genetics that imprison me here.

And yet…

I shouldn’t even be able to think of running without a shock of pain directly to my brain stem. I shouldn’t have been able to kill a client either, or harm one without my system detecting the malfunction and forcing me into hybernation mode.

For whatever reason, the rules have gone out the airlock…but they could kick back in at any moment. If I’m going to run, I need to do it now. I wince as I finish dragging the sheer, shimmering thing that passes for a shirt over my lace bra and body harness and slide the compartment door open just enough to shove myself through before slamming it shut again.

“Hey Six, done with your last already? Lucky girl.”

Snow—or Four, as I know her—leans against the wall outside her compartment’s door across from mine, taking a drag on her long-stem opivape. “Mine just kicked me out for a minute to compose himself.” Vapor streams from her lips as her voice drops to a mocking whisper, and she tosses one silky ear behind a shoulder to join her curly white locks. “Then it’s back to work.”

“Ugh, yeah. That sucks. Well, I gotta go. Important, um…business to get to.”

The rabbit woman raises one lazy eyebrow, lips parting to say something more. But I’m already halfway down the hall before she can get it out, slamming my hand onto the elevator control pad and practically tossing myself inside when the doors drag open.

As I wait the eternity it takes the lift to rise to the twentieth floor, I try to hack together some kind of actual plan.

I need to get off-world ASAP, but how? I don’t have any credits to my name, and even if I did—I couldn’t use them without leaving a blaring trail of neon biolume in my wake. I sure as hell don’t have any stormjade, or anything else of value beside myself. Not even back at the studio apartment I share with five other indentures.

Gods damn it. I should have seen if the bastard had anything valuable on him.

But it’s unlikely a basic drop soldier like him would have actually had anything like that on his person, if he had it at all. Not while visiting a megabrothel in the FireBoar district. He wasn’t that stupid.

The elevator comes to an abrupt halt and I hustle out with still no clear idea whatsoever of what to do. People crowd the glowing mists of the open-air upper exit level. Some are fellow indentures smoking and chatting near the doors. But most are on their way out, clients and other workers streaming through the over-elaborate gate with its glittering grime of ziri shit and onto the skybridge. A crowd for me to disappear into.

As I pass through the gates, my eye catches on a scraper snail spiraling its way around the left pillar—a rarity, in this district. It leaves a trail of pristine, polished stone behind it. Pointless.

I wrap my arms around myself, though I barely feel the rainy season chill, suddenly envying some of the humans who shove by in face masks. But only people whose parents refused or couldn’t afford the basic prenatal package ever need masks these days. If I wore one, it would only draw more attention to me…unless I managed to hide my ears, tail, and eyes too. But hells, I’d settled for a coat with a high collar at this point.

A light rain begins, building in seconds into a much heavier one. At a thought, my holobrella kicks in, bathing me in a flickering fuchsia glow that makes me feel like I’m in a spotlight. I dim the illumination and adjust the color to a drab green and shift my tail fur and hair to a dark gray-brown shade while I’m at it. Then I step out of the shadow of the bridge’s far gate and onto the bustling walkway at its other side.

Now what?

If I were a normal person, I’d be hopping the nearest line to the transit station. But that takes credits and involves security cameras.

Ok. My first priority is to get as far away as possible. Which means just keep moving, no matter what. I wend through the converging streams of people as unobtrusively as I can, choosing a random route through the labyrinth of pink-lit pleasure houses and gaming dens, fortune and food stalls.

Second priority: get jade or something I can pawn for it.

I scan the throng of faces. Only about twenty-six percent are fully human…and most with only cheap, standard augments. The rest are hybrids and hyborgs. People like me who don’t even really own their own bodies, let alone the money they earn. I need to get to a district where people actually have money.

Readjusting my priorities and replotting my course, I hang left down a grate-floored alleyway. Someone on the twenty-third level just below whistles as I walk over, shouting something about my ass.

Ignoring him, I resist the urge to pick up speed. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he’s frightened me. But the walls to either side of the alley seem to press closer the further I go, the greenery that clings to the jellbrick structures dancing to the rhythm of the rain. The man below matches my pace, leering up at me. Then he hurries forward until I’m looking down at his hulking back. Gray skin…tail…fucking huge. Some kind of hybrid. A quarter of a second later, I register the reason for his sudden rush. There’s a rickety stair up ahead, allowing access to the alleyways above and below. He’s going to try to intercept me.

The fifth hell he is.

A launch into an all-out run, but the grating reverberates with his pounding steps as he throws himself into pursuit.

 

AR System engaged. Threat identified. Blink-Scan initiated.

 

“Oh now you decide to come back?” I bark out loud, panting between words. Almost there. “What the hells are you?”

The voice doesn’t answer my question, but the glyphs glow back to life, painting themselves across my vision.

 

Threat Designation - “Some Fucking Guy”

 

Species: Hybrid - Human, North American Brown Bear, Bull Shark

OP Level: 72

 

Human, bear, and shark? Gods. I’ve heard of that line. They’re pit fighters. If he gets his hands on me, I’m finished. I push myself to move faster. This alley is really, really fucking long, but I’m not too far from the end.

 

Estimated Health: 336/350

Estimated Sai Pool: 0/0

Estimated Strength: 88

Estimated Cunning: 31

 

Further statistics unavailable, scan length insufficient.

 

Calculating optimal response.

 

Stealth Mode engaged

Sai Pool: 45/90

 

Wait…Sai pool? That’s impossible. What the—

A strange, tingling sense of power washes over me just as the asshole makes a swipe for my tail, and I feel the disturbance in the air as he only just misses. Not this shit again. The fury is like a jolt to my circuits.

“What the fuck?” shouts shark-man before vomiting up another string of curses in two different languages. It sounds and feels as though he’s swinging wildly, aimlessly, and a heartbeat later I understand why.

I’m invisible. And though my holobrella seems to have turned off, I can’t see myself in the outline of the water pattering off my skin. Though I remain dry, the rain looks as though it’s passing right through the nothingness that is me.

 

Sai Pool: 44/90

 

I burst free of the alley and into the green downpour of the square beyond, my pursuer less than a pace and a half behind me and practically frothing at the mouth in frustration. I’m somewhere in the blurred border between FireBoar and WaterRat. Debauchery and respectability. Several faces turn to look at Bear Man, some with shock and fear, others with affronted interest.

The shark-bear man casts one final, frustrated glance around, beady black eyes searching the crowd. And not just his eyes—his line’s got senses the rest of us can only dream of. But apparently they’re blind to me too, because he turns a moment later and stalks back into the dripping shadows of the alleyway.

 

Sai Pool: 43/90

 

I laugh. I can’t help myself—it just comes pouring, cackling out of me. But no one looks my way, no one seems to hear it. Then someone bumps into me, a white-haired human lady. She trips backward a bit, blinking rapidly. One of her eyes is glowing a hazy blue-green…low quality stormjade, but stormjade nonetheless. I had the right idea, coming this way. But of course, I’m not about to steal the eye from some poor old woman’s face. She might be well off for Boar caste, but gods only knows how long she had to save for that.

Putting a hand to her shoulder to help steady her, I brush past the woman as she sputters in confusion. The Sai Pool counter ticks down, and I can only assume that when it runs out, so too will my invisibility. At this rate, I have about fifteen minutes before Stealth Mode turns off, assuming the AR system—whatever the hell it is—doesn’t disengage it first. I’m not even supposed to have Sai, though, so I have no idea how long it’ll take to replenish.

I’ve gotta make the most of this while I can.

I kick back into a run, weaving through the pedestrians and loiterers, making sure this time not to collide with any of them. If I can just make it to a richer district in time, getting my hands on someone’s jade will be as easy as stealing candy from a blind baby.

Momentarily, I consider sneaking aboard someone’s private airship. Stowing away. But the minute Stealth Mode lapsed, they’d be aware of my presence. No, better to go the halfway legitimate route. Steal the money, then buy the tickets fair-and-square.

The bullet-lines are too crowded to risk, so I keep to my course and make for WaterRat proper. I get there within minutes, finding myself in a sleepy bedroom neighborhood. It’s somewhere around five in the morning, and only a few windows are aglow, painting rectangles of teal light across otherwise darkened walkways, raised gardens and water features. The rain and detritus from the gutters catches in translucent fish-stocked canals that line the walks, flowing over in places. A little way down the street, someone leans on their balcony rail, exhaling a stream of vapor as faint music plays from their compkit.

I imagine that if it weren’t raining, this place would smell of coffee and tea, lotus flowers and cigarette smoke. An orange cat blinks slowly at me from someone’s stoop. Feeling a vague sense of bitterness towards the people who live here, I press on.

A few more minutes and I’m nearing the heart of the district. Everywhere I look are high-end condo towers and townhouses, with the occasional boutique, tea house or bar tucked underneath. This is more like it. A few blocks down, a man strolls towards me with his compkit holodisplay open before him, actually working as he walks. A gutter heron spooks at his passage, taking flight.

Near the door of one of the townhouses a light flickers on, snagging my attention. I ghost over to it, and moments later a woman in a suit emerges, a sleek black security kit hovering over her right shoulder. Crossing my fingers and holding my breath, I slip past her before she can close the door. If anything should be able to detect me, it’s that kit. But I make it inside unnoticed, thank the gods. The autolock clicks into place behind me, and the clacking of the woman’s heels fades.

My pointed ears prick, the fur of my tail raising on-end as I sniff at the air. She’s the only human whose regular presence I scent here. But not the only person.

For the first time in a while, I check the glyphs.

 

Sai Pool: 10/90

 

Fuck. Not even two minutes left. I gnaw my lip as I scan my surroundings. Don’t be too picky. Doesn’t have to be jade. Any valuable small enough to carry will do. I venture further into the house, leaving the receiving room behind and stepping through a round archway into another. My eyes go to the massive wall screen first, unstealable as it is. Then, more usefully, to the long shelf below it—where two pinpricks of pure, leaf-green light appear to be staring directly at me.

I take a few awed steps closer to it, forgetting the time crunch. It’s an antique, no…an ancient servitor construct. Housed in an articulated shell of carved ivory shaped like a small pig. But it’s still as an ordinary figurine, aside from the steady pulsing glow of its eyes. Must be in the ancient construct version of Sleep Mode.

Casting one final glance around, I listen for movement. Hearing none and still seeing no one, I dart across the room, snatch up the construct and almost drop it again in surprise. It’s warm as living flesh, and I could swear I just felt a pulse beneath its polished surface.

 

Artifact Acquired.

Touch-Scan Initiated.

 

But just as The Voice speaks again and fresh glyphs scroll across my vision, the construct screams—an ear-piercing squeal so loud I almost drop the damned thing again. There’s a galloping series of thumps from overhead. Then a door hisses open at the other end of the living room, and…something emerges from the lift behind it. Four legged but six limbed. Tall.

 

AR System engaged. Potential Ally identified. Blink-Scan initiated.

 

Designation - Kirron

 

Species: Hybrid - Human, Red Deer, Hyena

OP Level: 66

 

Estimated Health: 150/150

Estimated Sai Pool: 15/25

Estimated Strength: 48

Estimated Cunning: 65

 

Augments -

Basic Kit

Domestic Kit (Multitype)

Pleasure Kit (Multitype)

Custom Kit (Lower Body/Leg Replacement)

Custom Kit (Type Unknown)

 

My “potential ally” with his impossible Sai pool takes several clopping steps forward, eyes narrowing as he hefts the Bonaparte 356 bioshredder attached to his right arm, aiming it in my general direction. An easy task, considering the artifact is still fully visible and probably looking as though it recently attained the Blessing of Levitation.

 

Sai Pool: 0/90

 

Stealth Mode disengaged

 

Kirron’s eyes go suddenly wide as I flicker back into visibility, and he adjusts his aim so the barrel points straight at my forehead.

 

“Put the pig down. Carefully.” says the cyborg centaur man. “And back yourself against the wall with your hands up.”