Chapter Text
Nights in Feli City are never to be called peaceful, tonight is no different. Just another gang fight, then gunshots, smoke and explosion. Some rusties gooning in public and joytoys flexing their "hard earn" creds. Solvers glare and ignore the blood and metaldust on the ground, gotta be quick for the corpo walking vaults. And what, nothing more preem to say. Or not if you do care about a very specific junkie-looking scum on the street. His name is Hydra Collociatus, or, like other goons call, the infamous "Collo-boy".
- Get up leadhead, your credchip is hungry.
The boy mumbles to himself, and tries to stand up to escape this trash dump before the mere smell gonna plug him off. It's not exactly easy.
- What a fragging nonex, imagine getting a monkey netrunner to do the work.
Standing right next to him now is another boy, but with fox ears and tail. Acerous stands tall and confident with a stunning look, blue eyes, blonde, 20-min-to-take-care-of hair and a casual outfit. This is opposite to Hydra, the one with black, messy hair with some wildly looking blue stripes, and teal irises. Don't mention the clothes, they're fragged up enough to look like a camo suit in the dump.
- Did the corps scan you? Full face?
- Nah, scratches on suit and that's so far all they threw at me. Not like I'ma appear on their coord-board tomorrow.
- Polymer tricks huh? Work all the time, crazy. What 'bout that deckhead?
- Probably sent a Hellhound after him, wouldn't care tho, frag that monkey.
Acerous grins from ear to ear hearing that, and grabs the gang goon's shoulder to pull him close. Obviously getting sneered at, Hydra pushes the fox away and stutters for a curse. He lets his hand fall into the back pocket, for the key that's no longer there.
- Hey choom, lost my jeb's key.
- Klepped?
- Nope, guess the bombshell costs more than just this suit.
- Wanna ride me home?
- Don't get funny ideas, Ace.
The fox slams something hard and cold on his face, and Hydra deftly catches it before it can fall down. It's a black, solid and pretty heavy cube. Lookin' polished and smooth all sides. Collo-boy observes for longer, unsure of whether he should rip this thing apart or what.
- New model portable key, silly. Full packet, signal and ride right then, anti-klep. Been workin' all the night before to chip in.
- So now I call it or throw it at the wall?
- There's a touch sensor, fondle it would ya?
After a sigh, Acerous reaches out with his fingers, delicately touches and swipes around the cube. A crack can be heard, and the top face splits, silvery tendrils rise and cover up the cube. They also hug around the foxboy's wrists before a handle can be seen forming in his fists, he jumps up, and a black platform slides from the black mess to catch his ass. Circles appear, wandering along the tendrils to the back of the board and into their places. Hydra hears a humming sound of a ready anti-gravity engine, and the giggles of the fox, currently sitting on the fresh and clear form of a jet bike.
- Done scanning my new horsy? Get on the saddle, Collo-boy.
And then they arrives at Hydra's door, after a pretty long drive of 4 mins.
- Hope ya get a new suit soon, Collo-boy, and take a shower.
- Such nova words from the boss's joyboy.
- Frag you, silly goon.
After the sensor has recog his face, Hydra kicks the door open, and kicks it back to closed before throwing himself on the sofa, which is also his bed, not noticing the light in the kitchen. His hoarse voice commands the light to turn on, but then he remembers he forgot to pay up the electric bill for this month. To his surprise, the neon aura fills the room.
- I paid, you molder.
A normally soft voice speaking in a very harsh tone will never fail to startle him.
- Paradox, why ya here?
- Checkin' well aye?
That familiar figure steps out from the dimly lit cooking area, long crimson hair, and orange irises, the famous fixer of his gangs and many others, might as well include the corps. Her cat ears flicker in a fake enthusiastic manor, the tail wraps around her right leg as she walks. That smile which never quite reached her eyes, and the steady, calculated steps toward him, making creaky sounds from the floor. Pale skin, but beautiful, unaugmented curves, nonex view of the skin under the latex.
- Might wanna ask the org princess the reason she's in my home.
- Trust me, I'm a nomad, not a joygirl. I can shoot some cred for my stay tonight.
Hydra growls, and drowns his face in pillows.
- Told ya I don't have a bed, and I'm not lying on the floor.
- That's alright, not planning to sleep anyways.
- What are you, BD junkie?
- Nah I'm plotting. Credchip won't fill itself, gonna visit ol' "friends", see if your gang can take one more.
- Not another nigh-flatlining session, I won't agree to a mission for deniables.
- Cred is cred.
Paradox sips her synthcoffee before turning back to the holographic screen, shining as the last light source when Hydra starts snorting and darkness takes over this block of flat. Her glare scans the image of the city below through the glass.
- Not much of a Feli-city anymore, right aye?
Silently smirking with her own joke, the catgirl pinches the floating screens one by one, closing them, then shuts down the smart watch on her wrist. Her mind starts wandering, to far and blurry lands of memory, not vivid like a BD experience, but more real, and clear enough to process. The city down there shifts, neon leds turn pastel tone, or just plain, pure white rays of light. Stinky borgs and junkies dissolve, replaced by organic, nonex-augmentation merchants yelling at customers. Jebs fly out of the frame, only ineffective, exhausting vehicles like bicycles and motorbikes remain. Cars lose their silvery skin made of expensive tite and white blue flames spitting behind them, and take up a new colorful diversity in appearance, also a less fashionable trail of grey smoke. The lack of the usual airtrains zipping across and the skyscrapers looking like fancier version of flats creates a strange emptiness. Seemin' foreign enough for any other, but Paradox is smiling at this scene in her imagination. Good ol' days of the pre-chrome era, purified and much more tolerable than whatever they call this place, it's absolutely not the Feli City, not anymore.
When the cold neon turns off and the warm sunlight fills the room, Hydra wakes up. The first thing to see in the morning is the navy floor texture, and some scattered coke cans when he turns around, could be synthbeer in disguise. He recalled resting on his soft sofa, so it's either his bad sleeping habit came back or Paradox kicked him down to take the position. Given that she's clearly gone early, Hydra skips over the scrolling and just feels relieved that he still has a polymer synthbeef left forgotten in the oven for days. After fragging himself with the tastebud torture, he leans back on his chair, 'bout to put up the headset for an intense and "hot" BD. An interrupting ring from his watch makes him groan, and his finger switches from finding the headset's button to the holo-popup ads to close them. Quickly enough, he enters the meeting room, and the face of his boss - Nichevsko, is floating in blue statics.
- Morning, boss.
- Kiddo, we got a new task.
- What, I have enough cred to shoot freely until the next Thursday.
- You fragged us pretty badly last night, kid. Not gonna make up for that?
- But did you get a new runner tho? After Gwen, our runners all became deniables. Mission, then zero. We're like a leaking rad core.
- Oh we don't need a runner, 'cuz this time, our mission is to get a runner. Coord and roll up, then we delta the heck out.
- Not in the fixer's list? Where would ya coord that deckhead, any reliable source? Can't trust Paradox all the time.
- Pack stuff up, kiddo. Remember, in this city, "act than ask".
Hydra puts his clothes off and slaps the headset out of the way as he heads to the storage, naked and still grumbling with a passion. Iron, check. Suit, check. Drugs to bribe the junkies, check. Crackard, check. Jeb key, check within 3 days, he will just borrow one until he gets fresh stuff for his own. He clicks his watch, and curses a few times.
- Catch up, Ace. Boss's calling.
- Tell him he will wait for 5 minutes more or I won't give him best quality service next time.
- Then what 'bout me? Don't wanna argue with ya molder, get the frag up.
- This is the worst...
And with a grumpy ride, they drops by the familiar alley. Hydra takes out his gun and shoots at a prole sitting nearby on the street. Other lowlives stare at him, but they know better than messing with a punk.
- He will become the champion in the next wheelchair F1, anyone want to compete with him?
- Haha, that's nice.
The two chuckles before walking off the scene, leaving the man whining and rolling on the pavement with a bleeding foot, and the other proles giving them glares sharper than tite blades. Hydra approaches the ancient style wooden doors and pushes them aside to go inside a pretty small chamber flooded with trash and syringes on the ground, like a mini night bar.
- Hey Floyd, hey boss.
- Close the damn doors, fraggers!
- Right, sorry.
The ripperdoc of the gang, Floyd, turns to face the duo when they come close. His visor retracts to his ear after scanning the two goons thoroughly, His hand with limp, shiny steel fingers skillfully opens a bottle and pours the gold liquid into glasses.
- Rough Saturday.
- Today's Sunday.
- Blame the boss, I had to fix his damn gloves again and got a long night.
- So where's him now?
- Went outside to get more synthcoffee.
Acerous catches the glass sliding to him along the table and takes a sip of the synthbeer. It burns his throat as the liquid flows down, making him talk in a hoarse tone.
- Do you think this runner will be fine?
- The boss seems too overheated. I bet if they aren't a blackhole then they must be a bronzy trying to trick us.
- But the boss said we need to find that guy, serious biz, not through a fixer. Must be a nova with skills.
- Yeah, remember that time we brought a guy with dozens of boosters? In the end we still shot him 'cuz he tried to sell us to the corps. Great skills mean great danger, can't really trust anyone in Feli City, ya know?
Another duo walks in, a boy and a girl. The boy quickly steps to the bar and grabs a glass of alcohol. He tried to give one to the little short stack of a girl besides him too, but got rejected.
- Choombas, stop assuming any shit and just drink. The boss will provide details later.
- Gizk, Ginny, good to see ya. Run well last night, aye?
- My brother knocked over a psycho and we nearly got caught 'cuz the jeb was broken.
- Preem, that psycho's down?
- Still not a zero, but we won't pay for the solvers to clean up the mess we caused.
- Alright, enough chitchat you goons.
The strong voice of Nichevsko silents all the chuckles and growls in the room. He clearly did buy a synthcoffee, but he also brings back with him a large bag. Definitely not caffeine. He puts the bag down and tears it open by a knife. There're a bunch of iron, from simple guns to snipers and minigrins.
- Floyd, time to chip in. I need more explosives on my arms.