Rebecca.

  “No, Sachiyo’s got no idea either—” Chris grumbled, his words abruptly cutting off as Beckie entered the room, the man looking momentarily surprised, then annoyed, then outright disinterested as he let out an exasperated sigh, gncing back at the other man sitting at the table.

  Liam, and to a smaller extent, his crew, were all seated in the conference room, Sally, Tish, and Candy all ‘appearing’ like they were interested, while the leader of their somewhat strange little quartet seemed to be the only one actually paying attention.

  Two of the girls gnced at her, offering a little nod which was as good as she was probably going to get, though ‘Tish’ just flipped her the finger, eyes glowing and betraying the fact she was fucking around in the Sub-verse.“Anyway…” Chris continued, clicking his tongue as he did so, “Like I said, we’ve got no idea why everyone went dark on us, but it seems like we're not the only ones. As previously stated, Sachiyo admitted their people have all gone silent as well… And though I wouldn't normally trust anything she says, Francisca came sniffing around asking if we’d heard any interesting rumors about a Meadows bckout, which pretty much tells me their contacts are all unresponsive as well.”

  “So the fuck you want us to do about it?” Liam ughed, throwing his hands in their air as if this wasn't the first time he’d said it. “I mean, Chris, Candy’s good—”

  “Excuse me, but I’m the best.”

  Liam just sighed, looking resigned as he nodded his head before waving away his own comment and powering through, “But seriously, man, you know how long it took Juan and his crew to get in there?”

  “Yes, I remember it like it was yesterday! Almost,” Chris added with a smirk, “as if I was the one who paid them to do it!”

  “That Op wasn't your’s…”

  “No, but I’m the one who recommended them. Regardless, I’m not asking you to infiltrate the damn pce as a permanent residence, I just want you to figure out what’s going on! Juan had been alluding to some kind of big shakeup he’d stumbled upon between the Meadows and their parent company and—now, it's not just him that’s gone quiet, but literally everyone! The pce is locked up tighter than the Republic central banking servers!”

  “And you want to send us into that shitshow?” Sally accused, now gring at Chris who simply shrugged at her.

  “Again, I don't want you to fucking walk right through the front door! Just figure out what’s going on.”

  “Buuut—” Candy began, her tone monotonous and ft, “If there’s a ‘bckout,’ how do you expect we get anything done without walking through the front door? I’m already poking around from the Sub-verse, and personally, I wouldn't say their ‘locked down,’ more like their just offline. I’m not seeing a single domain of theirs that's actually functional… Which, when coupled with the fact that Juan isn't responding… Meh, I’d say they were suffering from an EMP, but there’s no way all of their servers went down. Not when Brutal Fantasy still has as many pyers online as ever right now.”

  “And we’ve confirmed they haven't been nuked?” Liam asked, a wry chuckle escaping him as he leaned back in his groaning seat.

  Chris just sighed, closing his eyes and pulling in a deep breath before letting it out and returning his attention to Beckie. “Yes.” He stated evenly, not breaking eye contact, “We’ve confirmed they haven't been ‘nuked’ at the very least but…”

  After a moment, he gnced to the side, mind seeming to struggle between pondering the reason for her intrusion, and the ‘meat’ behind the meeting he was holding.

  “Either way, I’m not asking you to do this. You’re being told. The syndicate has invested significant resources into that dreadful pit, and while ‘Brutal fantasy’ is keeping its subsidiaries' stock from taking a dive, despite the Meadows' sudden online absence, I doubt that’s going to st very long. It will cost a small fortune in rapid-sale fees, but if we need to pull out our money sooner than ter, I want to know before our credits ‘fuck off’ from beneath us.”

  “Alright, alright… We’ll go ‘take a look…” Liam muttered, sighing as he did so. “I’m not promising anything though, they’ve militarized that whole fucking bubble! And, we're gonna have to go for a low-gravity walk, just to avoid the checkpoints. This ain't gonna be cheap.”

  “Just send me the invoice when you're done,” Chris grumbled, a hand moving through his slicked-back hair. “After the ‘Rosa-Pond’ incident and the inevitable plunge everyone takes during election season, our portfolio can't take another significant hit before we need to start making some radical changes of a ‘wage’ variety to make up the difference.”

  “Not with my fucking paycheck you wont!” Tish growled, though Chris wasn't to be intimidated.

  “I can assure you, your paycheck will be among the first at the top of my pile. Doubly so if you can't handle a simple reconnaissance operation.”

  Then, the extremely weary man smiled, looking back up at Rebecca with a crooked expression. “Now that were all clear on your assignment, kindly fuck off and see it done while I have a talk with our favorite ‘princess…’

  “Pauper princess…” Tish snickered, the woman's sharp eyes already having noticed Beckie’s changes. “Look, she went and hawked her tech! Fucking told you! Candy, you owe me a gram of dust!”

  “Never agreed to that bet.” The woman in question replied, frowning slightly as she stared at Rebecca’s hands, eyes blinking with momentary confusion… “And, those are actually an upgrade.” She added, pointing to the exposed hands with mild interest.”

  “What?”

  “An upgrade. I know you have a hard time with this stuff, Tish, but ‘upgrade’ typically means they’re better than whatever preceded them.”

  “Those are not an upgrade…”

  “Check ‘stats” Candy countered, eyes again dull, even as they fshed. “They’re specs have already been uploaded and verified. Model name: ‘Junker-special Mrk1.’ Even though the metadata looks like a joke from head to toe, they’re already listed on several augment trading domains and basically every cyber-swap forum I can find.

  “Straight out of ‘Gunther’s scrap…’ Hmm… It’s not top-tier gear, but the value-to-spec ratio is actually ughably off the charts.”

  Tish looked at Candy with sheer exasperation, clearly thinking the other girl was messing with her but—the other’s? Well, Liam looked amused, Sally still upset, while Chris merely appeared confused.

  The man looked at Beckie’s hands, chewing his lip before gncing at the bag she had over her shoulder. And, cking any better opportunity on the horizon, Beckie chose to just power right through.

  “So,” She began, shrugging off both the duffle and doing her best to ignore the butterflies in her guts. “Gunther and I sort of have this business pn we’ve been cooking up, and have pretty much put together a really—really weird but super amazing product!”

  “You’re a terrible salesperson…”

  Beckie ignored the voice in her head as she pced, not tossed, the bag on the table. Then, she folded up her sleeves to reveal her scrappy arms, only to elicit a stifled snort from Tish…

  “Wow…” Liam chuckled, “Those are—ha… those are a joke, right?”

  “I don't know, just ask Candy how capable they are.”

  “A solid ‘seven’ across the board.” The girl chirped without missing a beat. “Given that civilian tech is only rated out of ten, and again, given what the price point is—yeah, they look like a rusty toaster, but it's a rusty toaster that’s only a single grade below your own gear, Tish. And even then, they’ve got more tactile dexterity and the durability is straight up even. I take it there’s more in the bag?”

  “Yuppers…” Beckie, somewhat awkwardly nodded, really sort of surprised she had such an enthusiastic ally that was making the whole clumsy sales pitch she’d been pnning to improvise, suddenly not really needed…

  Without asking permission, Candy reached out and pulled the bag over, unzipping it and retrieving a limp leg that she then simply held onto while her eyes fshed.

  Everyone, excluding an incredulous Tish, stared at her as the girl did—something, presumably analizying the damned thing but, honestly, Beckie had no real fucking clue.

  Candy, much like Cire, was a bit of a wizard when it came to the online world. Not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but she knew her way around cybernetics and the Sub-verse.

  Honestly, Rebecca hadn't even realized that Cire had already gotten the augments rated on ‘stats,’ though how the hell the woman had managed it—no, on second thought, she really didn't care to know…

  Hell, she wasn't even sure if the reading was accurate, or just some bogus bullshit, but considering wher her own augments were rated for raw power, she supposed there was a tinge of truth to it all…

  “Hot damn…” Candy eventually stated, though the woman really didn't emote when she was speaking, “Whoever rewrote the BIMA on this thing really knew what they were doing. This is the sort of mod I’d expect to come out of a third-party shop that I’d go to for my gear… You know,” She added a moment ter, tone almost musing, “if this really did come out of your ‘business arrangement,’ a simple coat of paint would probably let you charge five times what you're asking for these…”

  “I said the exact same thing…” Beckie grumbled, though didn't say more, remembering how their ‘creator’ had gone off on a thirty-minute tangent about Gunther’s ck of a painting studio, which of course, had derailed into a forty-minute rant about all the things she could do with real equipment and factory fresh parts.

  “Well,” Candy murmured, pcing the leg back in and fishing around for an arm, “If your intent is to try and sell these to the syndicate, then you've got my blessing. Having these professionally cleaned up and sold through our channels would make for a pretty easy markup on our end.”

  “How much of a markup?” Chris asked, frowning as he stood and walked over to the bag once it became clear that Candy wasn't willing to give it up.

  From the look on his face, he was obviously skeptical. But, Candy didn't just stick her neck out for any random reason. In fact, she rarely did it at all… which, when Beckie thought about it, was extremely strange…

  O-oh well, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

  “I’d say, well, if we take the base price I’m assuming they’re selling for, with the right advertisement for our external interests, these could easily sell for two-thirds of a ‘factory-made’ alternative. It’s still not going to look anywhere near as good as something that comes off the assembly line, but again, if the price point is good for what you get, and they at least look respectable, you’ll have people flocking for these things.”

  As if to accentuate her point, Candy opened a manual release for an arm, carefully extending a deviously sharp and polished bde that extended from the forearm like a praying mantis' scythe.

  This time, there was a whistle, and Liam leaned forward as though to get a better look.

  “Great quality tech, low-quality cost.” Candy reiterated, putting a good amount of strain on the bde with her own cybernetic arms as if to test the weapon's durability.

  “Not just for show either…” She concluded, stowing the bde back in its compartment. “There’s a lot of tech out there that pays for better numbers on Stat’s than they should have, but these aren't among them. Again, whoever made these is a genuine genius. Inspired and punching way below their weight css given where they supposedly came from, but again, a genius.”

  “Fucking right I am!”

  “Also, there’s four sets in the bag, just in case you were wondering.” The hacker finished, taking in a deep breath before pcing the limb back with the others, apparently done talking for a while.

  “Yeah, so, anyway, like I said, new business venture and—I thought—hey! Who better to sell to than the syndicate?”

  “And you didn't, hah, you know, steal these?” Tish huffed, looking at the small pile as though the simple act of touching it would ruin her robotic nails.

  “Even if she did, who cares? I’d say we just go steal more!” Liam ughed, kicking his legs up on the table with a grin. “If they didn't look like you pulled 'em straight from the recycling pnt, I’d buy a set for my sister and her kids! Assuming they were made for tykes, and again, that they didn't look like genuine garbage.”

  “And how much are you trying to pawn these things for?” Chris murmured, holding an arm and looking completely unimpressed.

  “Five thousand.”

  “Ha!” Tish snorted, covering her mouth as she continued to stifle her giggles.

  Beckie—well honestly, she felt her face flush just a little, but Tish was a bitch, and she just happened to know what her gear cost because she’d been looking at the same tech before she’d settled for her own.

  “You could outfit ten people for the same price as the gear Tish runs around with, and like Candy said, the ‘stats’ say they're pretty even.”

  “That ‘Cyber-junk’ is nowhere near even!”

  “Actually, Tish,” Candy intoned, “They are pretty even. And the BIMA’s better than your stock profile, so if I personally had to make the choice, I’d be getting kitted with the ‘Cyber-junk,’ rather than your fshy influencer bullshit.”

  Holy shit, sparks were literally flying, but Beckie could only grin as the two women gred at each other, or rather, Tish gred while Candy just sort of—well, did what Candy usually did… which, was to say, looked like a complete and total robot…

  “You know,” Liam chuckled, “working the math, you could ‘equip’ thirty people for the price of that loan you settled Beck with. And the gear’s better than the fucking shit you sold her, you bckhearted bastard, you. So why not give the kid her shot?”

  Chris simply frowned, putting the arm gently on the table before staring at Beckie, the gears in his mind slowly churning…