531
The Muck

Chan Yi hated wearing gloves. His skin was far too sensitive for cheap synthetics and something like genuine leather drew too much attention around the Piles. He pulled on the black gloves he kept in his jacket pocket and hoped no one noticed they were silk. He’d spent 7 years here, but there had never been security like this in the Piles. The people in the Piles were left alone to deal out their own justice. Today, cops patrolled the streets in twice their numbers and Yi had seen men in non-descript black uniforms going into two different sections. Xian wasn’t wrong about the crackdown. Whatever they were looking for, they were coming for it hard.

Yi took to the second level and crossed away from the black uniforms that were doing… whatever they were doing. It wasn’t a raid. It was more like a shakedown, but on a scale Yi hasn’t seen before. Someone high up was nervous about something. It had nothing to do with him though, so he left it behind and used the sky-walks to get two blocks over. He came down beside a butcher’s shop and tried not to notice what the catch of the day was.

He scrambled across the narrow street and waved at the Parlour whores watching from the second-story overhangs. They cooed and called to him, but he wasn’t in the mood for banter today. He slipped between two idiots racing past on their delivery bikes and slid through the doors of the old, abandoned church. It was just an orphanage now, but the pews and confessionals were highly polished and cleaned with a fervor that had nothing to do with religion and was more about discipline and keeping idle hands busy.

He stepped into one of the confessional boxes and waited.

It wasn’t long before Yi heard someone settle on the other side of the screen. He could hear the scampering of feet beyond the wall and ignored the warning in his head. They were children but he knew if anything happened to the man that had come, gunfire would follow quickly, and the plaster walls wouldn’t offer much cover.

“I don’t have time for your sins today,” the man said. His heartbeat was fast, but nothing more than a brisk walk would do.

“Who ever does?” Yi answered. “Just need some information. Looking for Jason Fulmer. I was hired by his wife, Charity. You know anything about him?”

He heard the flick of a lighter and the smell of smoke pulled through the screen before the man answered. “Fulmer. Not a bad guy. Selling some trash tech, I hear. Nothing special about him though. He’s just a small man with a tie strung around his neck a little too tight if you ask me. You check with the mistress?”

“According to his wife, he ain’t got one,” Yi answered.

“They never do,” the other man replied.

“You heard anything about the crackdown in the Piles?”

“Nasty business, that. Lots of people around here are getting antsy.”

“How antsy?”

“Turn on your neighbor antsy,” the man said. “My kids are keeping an eye on things, but we haven’t seen anything concrete yet. They’re looking for something, but no one knows what. Raided a trash tech dealer last week. The week before they hauled off a truck driver. Even one of the whores got taken away and you know Madame K doesn’t let that happen lightly.”

Yi was surprised by that bit. Madame K’s Parlour was as respectable as business as they came in the Piles. Her people did their job, they kept their mouths shut about what they overheard, and no one messed with her Baubles, as she called them.

“Let me know if you hear something?” He slipped a piece of paper under the screen to the man. It wasn’t much, but the credits would come from an untraceable account and the man had more mouths to feed than he knew what to do with. He might use the kids to get information, but he trained them, fed them, and looked after them like they were his own. Much like Madame K and her Baubles. No one messed with the kids on this street. The Confessor didn’t allow it.

“The kids know how to replace you.”

It was a bit ominous, but he didn’t comment. He left the confessional and walked back onto the street.

It had started to rain again as he was in the church and rust rained down the streets like blood. He’d love to head back to the Skylines, get above the dirt and take a clean, hot shower, but he wasn’t done for the day, and he wasn’t sure he’d make it tonight. He might have to settle for the lukewarm water and barely-there pressure from the apartment at the Builds over his office.

###

Yi pulled off his silk glove and pressed his hand against the locking mechanism of Fulmer Tech and Trades. The Best in New to You Tech. He pressed his palm flat against the cold screen and hacked into the lock. It opened a moment later and Yi walked in without any trouble.

He left the lights off and walked through the store front. Behind the counter, everything seemed in order. No sign of a struggle or a break-in. Glass displays were clean and looked ready for the store to open. In the store, rows of shelves showed off the best tech - new and used - per the promotional promises. But no Fulmer.

The store was well kept, swept clean of the debris and dust that fell to the Builds. The front windows were clean, even with the fog of the city coming in nightly. Well cared for and expensively kept. Fulmer took pride in his business. So, what the hell happened to him?

Yi hacked into the back door of the store where the staff room and the manager’s offices were. Fulmer’s office was the biggest room in the back, with a large desk and a couple chairs. A display shelf on the back wall held personal trophies and sales awards. There was even a clipping with him and the CEO of Augalife with an article about their up-and-coming sales department dated fifteen years ago.

Yi took a seat at Fulmer’s desk and opened the ports to the display. The connectors on his hand linked in and he had full access to Fulmer’s files. It didn’t take long to see that there was nothing funny on the books. Receipts all added up and the numbers made sense. It was clear Fulmer was putting all his money into the business, though business wasn’t that great. Payments were made a few days late, or some just before service disconnects. He was a man struggling to keep his head above the water. So, what had he gotten into and where was he now?

Yi unplugged and ducked behind the desk as something hit the back door. He’d curse himself for not paying attention once he’d cleared the front. He was slipping. In the old days, it would have gotten him killed.

He could hear three heartbeats on the other side of the door. One augmented which meant he was probably some sort of beater. No hackers or they’d have jacked in as he had. Which also meant they were certain they weren’t going to be disturbed. Yi pulled up the schematics of the building and realized the air duct above his head would hold his weight and afford him the best hiding place, but there was only one exit.

Yi knocked the cover of the duct up, so it slid to the side and pulled himself into it. He settled as quietly as possible and set the cover back in place as he heard the door crash open.

“I know I heard something back here. Check the back door,” one of the voices said.

“There is no back door. This is a dead-end,” another said.

Yi turned his breathing and temperature regulators off in case they looked up. He hated doing it. He lived his life as human as possible. It made him feel … less. More machine and less man. More like what Mariner Tech had wanted him to be.

“So, where the fuck are the goods?” A man came into view below Yi. He settled over the desk and pulled up the same display Yi had been using. Unlike Yi, he had to plug in through a device. Poor schmuck couldn’t even afford a cheap port. Or he was Anti-Aug. Which might make sense if he was targeting a tech dealer.

“Nothing. There is nothing here.” The beater came into view and all Yi could see were his wide shoulders and back, standing over the man at Fulmer’s desk.

“There must be a back door then, a storage unit or something. The boss is gonna be pissed if we don’t replace his goods.”

“Why don’t we just take what’s up front?” Beater asked.

“That stuff is all tagged, ya doff! That’s not what we’re looking for. Cops would be on us quick as spit if we started selling that stuff on the market.”

They tossed the place around before leaving but didn’t replace what they were looking for. After they left, Yi lowered himself down. He turned his systems back on, tilted his head up, and closed his eyes, taking a moment to feel the rise of his chest once again. He opened his eyes and paused when he noticed a think lip on the edge of the duct. It didn’t show up in the schematics of the store, so Yi reached up and pulled on it. A long thin tube slid out, hiding a secondary data device. It probably had information about the missing tech those men were looking for and might give Yi some answers.

He didn’t want to risk the other men returning so he decided to read it back at the office. He pressed a finger against the vein near the inner joint of his left elbow and a compartment opened. He slid the data device in and pressed the compartment lid closed. His skin grafted itself until it was indistinguishable from the rest of his arm again. He replaced his glove and left the store quickly, afraid the other men had caused enough noise for the neighbors to call the cops.

Yi stepped out of the store and realized his mistake too late. The men who had broken in were still there, standing outside the store. He really was slipping.

Two of them looked at Yi while the third had his back to him, speaking into a communication device. Yi ran as one lunged for him but barely missed. The guy’s reactions and reach were beyond a regular human’s range. He was the Aug.

Yi ran past them and was grateful that Fulmer’s store was so low in the Builds. He just needed to get back to the crowds of the Piles and lose himself there. A drainpipe ahead caught his eye and he jumped onto the ledge of the sky-walk and climbed out to it. He slid down, thankful for the gloves that made the slide so much easier. He was two levels down before he climbed back onto the sky-walk and ran again. He continued to work his way down into the muck of the city, aware that the other men were still following him.

When he reached the street level, Yi ran past the old church and did his best to lose the men in the crowd of the Piles, but he didn’t have any luck. The two still followed, and Yi heard the third calling down from above, telling the others where he was. Yi cursed as he looked around the Piles for an escape.

“Get back here! We want to talk!” The guy with the augmented legs yelled. Behind him, the beater was losing steam. He was all chest and arms. He’d neglected to keep his legs as strong as the rest of his body. That was good for Yi at least. Thankfully, this was the part of the Piles he knew best. He just needed to get past the next side street, and he could get clear.

He was almost there when he was knocked to the ground. He rolled and found that the guy who had been following from above had jumped down on top of him. They were both covered in the filth of the streets now and when the guy tried to grab him, Yi’s hand slipped out of his grasp. Yi didn’t stop to fight but ran again. He might not be human, but he didn’t want to test his strength in the middle of the streets against three men.

He turned down the next side street and had barely rounded the corner when he jumped. An escape ladder protested his weight but held as he pulled himself up. He barely made it up onto the landing of the second-story sky-walk when the other men caught up. Yi ran back onto the main way and was swallowed by the crowd.

He tore off his brown coat and tossed it down an alleyway to a man lying against the wall and pulled off his ball cap. He zipped his hoodie up, hiding his ball cap inside it, and pulled the hood up to keep from getting wet. He pressed another button behind his ear and the mask reset from the black mesh he preferred to a large black mouth with jagged red teeth. He changed his eye color to an unnatural red and slowed his pace to match the rest of the crowd.

When the three men came barreling through, they barely gave him a glance before they continued running.

Yi watched them go, made note of their faces to check against the police database later, and decided to head back to his office. Or maybe his hideaway. He wasn’t staying in this muck any longer than he had to.