Opportunity [Chapter Four]

            “Who are you?” She asked the face that stared blankly at her. No more helpful than her memory. Her fingers traced her reflection, along the image of her jaw, her lips. She brought both hands up to her hair and ran her fingers through the short red strands. Who she was, what she was doing here, where here even was - she knew nothing.

All she remembered was silence and darkness. So complete, so total that she had thought it was all there was to the world. There had only been the sensation of floating in that place of total deprivation. Bliss, misery… it was neither because she had nothing to compare it to. On rare occasions her dreams returned her to that darkness, but the rest of the time they seemed to be trying to decipher the amnesia that had rewritten everything.

She felt along the edges of the cyberport at her temple; there was nothing odd feeling about it, as if it were as natural as her skin. There were no scars from surgeries or infection, no stitches or swelling from something freshly installed. Everyone else she had seen had the same ports, but they all carried at least a small scar around it. Maybe it was part of the biological design, however incongruous it was with the rest of the body.

The door to her suite creaked open and she turned to watch the stranger enter. She tilted her head and evaluated the blonde woman that was closing the door behind her.

“Hello, I’m Alexandra.” The blonde settled a series of folders and a small laptop computer on the desk pressed against the wall next to the door. She moved about the small room as if she lived there.

“I don’t know who I am.” The amnesiac woman bit her lip, tugging at the small pieces of skin that were starting to chap.

“Of course you don’t; you haven’t been programmed with any memories or an identity.” The blonde dragged one of the chairs over to the desk. “Come here, sit down.”

She moved slowly, trusting though she really had no reason to be. She settled into the chair, hands resting lightly on her thighs.

“Good. I see he hasn’t tried anything with you yet.” Alex opened the laptop and pulled a few of the connectors from the small bay at the side. “Lean forward, let me plug you in.”

Alex slid the connectors into the amnesiac’s cyberport and pressed a button on the computer. The feeling of the cyberport activating was like eating bees. It buzzed and stung all at the same time, it made her jaw tense and her shoulders press hard against the chair back. She shuddered, her teeth ground against each other. She coughed, throat tightened before she could finally gasp for breath. The sensation abated to nothingness and the blonde stared down at her unsympathetically.

“Figures he’d get you before you were finished. Alright, so…” The blonde was tapping at the laptop, a series of screens and text scrolling across it. “You are a military grade biological mechanical humanoid hybrid. According to your port, you’re Hybrid Identification Number is 50342. I scanned you when I came in and could not identify one elsewhere on your body. That will probably be the largest salvation factor for you.”

“Wait, wait, what?”

“You’re artificial, dear. You can’t remember anything because there is nothing for you to remember. Your body was created maybe a year ago, kept in a chemical solution that kept your mind unaware of what was going on as well as provided you with basic sustenance. It probably took a few days for your system to metabolize the last of the solution enough for you to start remembering things.”

She stared as blankly at the blonde as her reflection had stared at her. “Oh.” Why should she not believe this woman? She had no other indication of her previous life, no other volunteered help.

“Under normal circumstances you would be programmed with a series of basic data. History, anatomy, how-to’s for nearly every task catalogued in Opportunity’s system. You would, effectively, have been given a full life’s worth of knowledge without the process of living that life. You would begin retaining memories sometime as you were trained to physically handle many of the combat systems you would have been programmed with. You would have gone through simulators, both of normal day to day interaction and combat situations.”

“Oh. Alright, uhm.” She blinked at Alex. “How do you know all of this?”

“It’s my job.” Alex settled on the edge of the desk and typed some more on the laptop.

The buzzing returned, quieter, more subdued and the hybrid stiffened. She closed her eyes and could faintly see the various bits of code rolling along the inside of her eyelids. She started remembering things; wars, presidents, the embarking of the Mayflower. “This is a basic history lesson; it will give you enough information to interact with others in a normal manner. It is the same information that every human is taught throughout their basic school careers. You will learn more later, but right now we simply don’t have the time to give you a full package deal.”

The hybrid nodded, the barest movement of her head. Information hummed through her, her mind absorbing it easily and filing it away. Synapses fired, memories were created, she even gasped slightly as the lesson finally finished.

“Current events.” Alex said and the sensation of forced learning pressed through her again.

It went on for hours. Alex’s fingers hurt from all the typing. She watched the hybrid. For all of her callousness, Alex did not truly dislike the biomechs; it was a defense mechanism, a means to keep herself emotionally distant from her work. Even at the lab, she had the same disdain.

In truth, Alex almost felt bad for the redheaded hybrid sitting and learning. The rapid eye movement had been nearly ceaseless, and Alex had been relentless in her education of the hybrid. Lesson after lesson, history, civics, engineering, combatives. She was jealous that she, herself, could not so quickly learn the things she programmed into the hybrid.

Normal cyberports could tolerate up to five different programs being run at the same time. While active, each program would permit the user to have full access to whatever it contained. Alex could, in theory, be fully trained in jujitsu and five minutes later become completely inept when she removed the program chip that contained the information. Of course, some of it would stick around with increased amounts of practice. Though the chip would dictate why she did what she did, Alex’s brain could slowly learn jujitsu simply by repetition.

Hybrids, however, could learn things simply by contact. It had to do with the way the nanochips were incorporated into the full biological design. Hybrids were a symbiosis of technology and biology, each playing off the other in a manner that brought out the absolute height of potential in each. Everything from musculoskeletal structure to the brain itself.

For the fleeting jealousy that Alex had, she would never have chosen that sort of life for herself. The years of development, the amnesia… no, it was not worth it to her.

“You’re finished for now.” She fed a sort of calming program into the lines; it allowed the brain to slowly wind down instead of being completely bereft of high levels of input. The hybrid’s body began to relax. “You did well. We went through almost half of what I want to get you programmed with. Not bad for time, either.”

“Thank you.” The hybrid was still unsure of itself, Alex realized. She almost felt guilty for the way she was treating her, but she had to maintain her professionalism.

“You should go to the kitchens and get yourself something to eat. You should have some knowledge of how to cook now. You have the basic knowledge of how to interact with others, but developing actual social skills is something you will have to learn on your own. I can program you with some of the more complex aspects, but for now try to do it on your own.”

“May I ask something?” Her eyes were a bright green, almost the neon electric color of LED.

“Certainly.”

“What’s my name?”

Alex stood, gathering her folders in neat little piles before shoving them collectively under her arm. She turned slightly and smiled at the hybrid. “That, my dear, is up to you.”

Opportunity [Chatper Three]

A pair of boxers, the gray of too much mixed-color laundry, impacted with the can quartet and sent the tin crashing to the countertop. One can rolled, freed from its companions, and tumbled miserably to the linoleum. Another pair of underwear, red and white stripped, fluttered in a similar trajectory.

Kiel, fresh from his shower, shuffled across the studio carpet. He pushed at the piles of clothes with long toes, searching out the next subject of his inquiry. “Ah! I don’t think I’ve worn these since I moved in.” Triumphant, he reached down to pluck the black boxers from the pile of crusted socks and dirty tees. He sniffed at it, the tried and true clean test of generations of bachelors, and recoiled from whatever his nose uncovered. “Allie!”

“What is so pressing that you must disturb me from my forums?” She was dispassionate, entirely uninterested in the affairs of her creator.

“Allie, when was the last time I did laundry?” He held the toxic shorts away from his body and made his way to the blue plastic hamper he had settled next to the bathroom door. With a quick release of pinched fingers and a disgusted look, he deposited the first bit of laundry to have met this particular hamper.

“You said you went and did laundry last time I woke you up.”

He wrinkled his nose and started snatching laundry from the floor. Each handful was sent in a crumpled ball to the hamper. “Well, apparently I did not, in fact, go. You should remind me about these things! I can’t be waking up and wearing cruddy boxers.”

“If someone would finally install the camera he bought for me last month, I would. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some drama to catch up on.”

“Allie! I need boxers!”

“I’m ignoring you.” Her voice the singsong petulance of a child.

He huffed and threw another bundle at the hamper. The small room was traversable now, no tripping hazards immediately available, and he dropped onto the twin bed that doubled as a couch. His dingy blonde hair still dripped periodically down his back, the water trail stopped by the waist of his towel skirt. With a grunt he leaned forward, one hand darting under the bed to fish out whatever he might find. More socks, sweats, plenty porn, and a two-pack of briefs. The underwear was still unopened, a housewarming gift from his mother. He wrinkled his nose, the fit was just wrong, but with the dubious cleanliness of his wardrobe, a man was safer wearing the tighties than if he chose not to.

“Allie, remind me to do laundry more often.”

The AI’s response was limited to the noise of the computer registering newly input data.

The clouds did little to dissipate the brightness of the sun. Even with the sunglasses, Kiel squinted to see. It was a pretty average day for the city, thick with smog and the ambivalent warmth of too many bodies under too much pollution. He moved easily through the crowds, a hiking quality backpack full of laundry slung across his shoulders. Peddlers called out to him in their various pidgins, trying to get him to buy this watch, or that chipset. He did a fine job ignoring the majority of them, his business reserved for the attractive young Korean woman at the corner.

She wore the hodgepodge mix of decades old fashions that few could pull together in a way that made any sort of sense. Tight fitted jeans, legwarmers, sandals worn over multi-color stripped socks to accompany a vinyl halter top embossed with velveteen designs. Thick black hair pulled back into a long braid. He smiled when he saw her standing behind her small grill brushing each chicken kabob with whatever sauce he had become addicted to.

“Hi!” She was happy, as always, and no matter his mood Kiel was always infected by it when he ordered from her. “Three today?” She held the requisite amount of fingers - nails each painted a different color - her head tilted just a bit to the side. Traffic coursed along behind her, cars spouting their exhaust, motorbikes making their way between the lanes.

“Yes! And a bowl of rice too. I’m starving.”

“Ten ratu, please.” She held out a hand. It was a steal for real chicken, and the net junkie waved his wrist over the scanner waiting for the cheery accepted to be declared before he held his hand out for the plastic bowl of rice. “Top?” She asked when she picked up the chicken kabobs and he nodded. A pair of chopsticks, procured most likely by some magic trick learned by all chicken kabob sellers, appeared in her hand and she used them to push the sauce rich meat onto his bowl. She handed him the chopsticks as well, and he rolled his shoulders so that the backpack would sit in a way that he could easily eat and walk.

“Thank you.” Simultaneous, complete with smiles and short bows.

Her smile stayed with him as he marched along the streets, bits of food shoveled unceremoniously into his mouth before he dumped the empty bowl into one of the street bins. He continued on, humming some random tune stuck in his head, and ignored the panhandlers that increased in number the closer to the laundromat he came.

The ‘mat was on the border of the secure corporate controlled city proper and the relatively lawless, cancerous suburb that was a popular center of operations for more disreputable types. Black market, street gangs, drug dealers, it was even likely that Freedom’s headquarters was nestled amongst the not-quite towering buildings of the subcity. Cash, normally eschewed by law abiding citizens and hardly accepted anywhere, was more than abundant here. This is what spurned the panhandlers, and why their presence grew larger and more predominant closer to the subcity. Kiel, being somewhat of a disreputable sort himself, had a bit of cash on him but he was hardly likely to turn his hard earned paper-cred to some bum.

One reached out for his pants leg and Kiel nearly toppled trying to get away from him. “Get a job,” he spat at the beggar.

There was a hacking cough and a rough laugh from the sexless bundle of clothes and street filth that propped itself against the wall to the ‘mat. Somewhere in a mess of scarves it spoke, “Get a job,” it mocked. “Give me one. Give me a shower, a suit, let me interview for the Corps. I got good skills, you know.”

Kiel sneered at the beggar and pushed his way through the tinted glass door into the ‘mat and left the hacking bum to its ranting outside. The hyperactive halogen lights danced in his eyes, dazzling them even behind the dark glass.

He moved to one of the stainless steel industrial washers and pulled open the door. The contents of his backpack were unceremoniously shoved as one unit into the washer, followed by the oversized pack itself and enough detergent, he hoped, to get the job done. He passed his wrist in front of the face mounted scanner and listened as the washer not only took his money, but registered his account as being the owner of the clothes entrusted to it. It would not let another person open its doors, a modicum of safety this close to the edge of the corporate edge.

He fished a pair of ear bud headphones from his pocket and slid the jack into the back of his wrist. Having a miniature computer embedded in the forearm was a dying fashion, but Kiel still enjoyed having quick access to twenty gigabytes of whatever information he downloaded to it. Today it was filled with music and a few background articles on the hybrid. After having tucked himself into a corner bench where he could simultaneously watch his washer and zone out comfortably Kiel tugged the small jack connector out of the hub on his wrist. The whole thing was smaller than a standard watchband and even had a digital clock readout that blinked the time at him every time he ran his thumb across it. He plugged into the small hard drive and lost himself to the information he wanted to study for the self-proposed job he was about to face.

Opportunity [Chapter Two]

Thump. “Umph.” The figure on the floor stirred, still waking from the deep sleep that had consumed her mere moments before. Hoverbeds were still a new technology, but all the research had been done to ensure that they would not randomly cease function while they were supporting an occupant. Names of lawyers were flashing into her mind, scrolled through by the index chip that logged possibly useful advertisements.

“Stop, stop,” she ordered the program, rubbing at her eyes as she finally sat up, blankets shuffling to bunch at her waist. Her back popped, she winced. The chip settled into a low buzz that was easily pushed back into her subconscious; her head throbbed enough without the index chirping its opinion. She relished the silence and took several long breaths before she shoved the blanket off and rolled to her feet.

“Good morning, Alex.”

Her body reacted before her mind could catch up - two parts instinct, one part fear- as she spun and lowered herself into a defensive brawling stance. Self defense training was standard for any corporate worker, she had just made an effort to embrace it.

She stared at the intruder, dressed as he was in long black trench coat with bright white gloves in sharp contrast. He was familiar, they had been more than lovers once upon another time, but she found his identity no cause for relaxation. Instead, she merely shifted to an aware stance; shoulders slouched slightly but every muscle tense and ready.

“Some way to greet an old friend.” He almost pouted at his ‘host’. She merely glowered back at him. He sighed, overdramatically as was his nature, and approached with steps that bordered on prancing. “Listen, Alex, we could really use your help…”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She backed away from him, two for one, until her spine was jarred against the awkwardly designed headboard of the hoverbed. “You’re always getting in trouble and I don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.”

“This’ll be the last time…”
“The last three times were the ‘last time’! I’m sick of it; no! I’m not helping you or any of your schemes anymore. Get out of my apartment.”

“Alex?”

“No! Get out! Now!” Each shout emphasized with her arm snapping out at the elbow, finger pointed for the door. The lights flicked on in her room at the aggravated motion and rise in audio volume. A single red light above her door began to blink slowly, a recording started should this end in some sort of legal affair.

“I wanted to do this civilly, Alex.” He stepped over the antigrav frame of the bed to pick up her blanket. Deft hands moved along its length, the thin fabric being folded easily even as his smile slipped from mocking entertainment to the tight-lipped smirk of sadism. “I know all about you, Alex.”

She stared at him, a dark confusion rolling over her face, twisting her eyebrows together above blue-gray eyes. “What?”

He set the blanket back down near the center of the bed then slid his hand inside of his jacket. His gloved hand withdrew a slender white envelope. He sniffed along the edge, eyes half closed as if enjoying a rare vintage of wine. “Oh how I love a good blackmail. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.” Deliberate fingers slowly pried the seal loose. “Let’s see what my friends have found for me this time.”

Alex’s heart raced - one, two, thirty beats per second - her eyes widened, and her lungs began to rapidly draw in air as she tried to hold back the impending anxiety attack. “No,” she whispered to herself, trying desperately to deny his advantage.

He looked up at her, smirk maliciously intact. “Oh yes, my dear. I know everything. Now, you can help me and earn this envelope full of secrets as your pay; or, and this part I would be sad to do but desperate times and all of that nonsense.” He waved that gloved hand dismissively. “Opportunity will be receiving quite an interesting anonymous letter. It may take two, maybe three days to be processed by the mail department. I’m sure whatever carrier is on duty that day will think he is the luckiest human to walk the Earth. You know how much Opportunity would pay to keep this hidden?”

“I know a lot about you too; I could as easily turn you in.” She was reaching, grasping desperately for any sort of handhold to keep herself from falling into his control.

“You could, yes.” He nodded soberly. “Yes, but I really don’t think they’d care half as much as they do about you, my dear. Especially upon searching my person and finding such useful information. They might even be grateful enough to extend a limited pardon. I can imagine the headlines now,” his arm wrote the arch of front page headlines in the air. “Terrorist organization’s leader granted limited immunity.”

The deep shaky breath was all that kept tears from seeping between her eyelashes. She was shaking, the index blissfully quiet on matters of blackmail. “What do you want?”

“Ah! I knew you would help! You have such a generous spirit, to help me after all the things I’ve put you through…” He tucked the open flap of the envelope back in place, leaving the contents unsearched, before he returned it to his interior pocket.

“What do you want?” She snapped the second time, patience ground thin under the growing anger.

“I need your help with a biomech.”

“You,” The rest of the sentence did not seem to want to rise, caught somewhere in the depths of her throat.

“Oh yes, my dear. I did.”

He left her some moments later and shook his head as he heard the tumblers of the lock fall pointlessly in place. She had to know that it was genuinely useless against those that really wanted in her apartment. Like him. He may have been amongst the Elite not too many years ago, trained in everything he would ever need to know - to include lock picking and breaking and entering - but it did not mean that others with similar backgrounds, or similar interests, would not have found a way to make themselves intruders in her apartment.

The hallways of Opportunity Block C stretched out before him, listless gray carpeting butting against white washed walls under the cold glow of halogens. The same hallway in every Opportunity apartment block, the same hallway in every Opportunity office structure, the same hallway he had grown to hate. Door after door, unimaginative welcome mats, standardized lettering, nameplates identifying residents. Opportunity prided itself on security, and yet it gave away the privacy of all its Central employees. It was, perhaps, the video monitoring, security desk, and the high-tech security measures within each apartment that gave the residents their false sense of security.

He reached the end of the hallway and entered the stairwell. With no purpose in rushing, he moved down the stairwell quietly. His eyes darted up to the video cameras positioned at every landing, and each time the telltale red recording light was extinguished. Freedom knew what it was doing, and knew what it would take to maintain what they fought for, yet he trusted none of them.

Somewhere in his ranks was a Doppel.

Doppelgangers were elite even for the Opportunity Corporation’s Central Army Elite; Gloves himself had been amongst them once upon a long time ago. Each Doppel was highly trained, efficient, and could accomplish nearly every task he or she was set against. Identities changed as easily as clothing, washed away with plastic surgery between assignments. By the time he ‘retired’, Gloves hardly remembered what he had really looked like.

The CAE had to have infiltrated his ranks; it simply was not possible that they would leave reported terrorist organizations unmonitored. It was difficult to keep the operation running smoothly without being able to fully entrust anyone. Key aspects had to be done by himself or the very, very few who he truly trusted.

Cale was the resident net guru and uber hacker, head of Freedom’s programming and junkie aspects. He was responsible for Gloves’s total freedom and anonymity despite his tendency for the high profile, high security break-ins. Gloves smiled, and nodded to himself as he passed down each of the steps, each light extinguished. He trusted Cale the most of anyone within Freedom, and if Cale were the Doppel, then the CAE had outdone themselves.

They were something of comrades in arms. Both had faked their deaths to get out of the corporate armies. Gloves was Opportunity’s, Cale had been Pactin’s. They had been rivals, personal number one enemies as a matter of fact. Such happens when a Doppel is uncovered in a rival corporation’s team. It was the fleeting treatise between Pactin and Opportunity that saved Gloves from immediate execution. He was returned, marked as per an inter-corporate contract, to Opportunity’s CAE.

The Central Army Elite had decided that Gloves was no longer of use. His marking was a giveaway to his identity which made him completely disqualified from Doppelganger assignments. There was also the unspoken accusation of incompetence which prevented him from finding a place amongst the other CAE teams. He was relegated to administrative duties, to be offered ‘retirement’ when a replacement was trained up for his position.

Gloves left then, unable to tolerate the inane duties of paperwork and staplers. He spent several weeks preparing for his own version of retirement, funds shifting accounts in manners that were either legitimate, or illegal on the part of another person, but he had also left a lot of money in his accounts, under his name, when he died. The account had been willed to his only living relative. The ex-wife.

Opportunity [Chapter the First]

The dark apartment was littered with discarded piles of clothes; a pizza box and quartet of empty soda cans set on the two-burner stove, junk mail strewn haphazardly across the what meager counter space was available. Then there was the ever present, distinct scent of funk made by trash that should have been taken out days ago mixed with old sweaty socks that were getting crispy. The green carpet was stained in places, matted down with constant wear. It would have been lush if the occupant had bothered to vacuum even once.

The small studio was his, though, dimly lit by the flickering of a single computer monitor planted on a low desk converted from a coffee table nested into a corner. Kiel was, as always, folded into the corner between table and walls. There was the slow and faint ‘drip drip’ sound of the nutri-line embedded via a series of tubes and catheters into the veins of his arm. He was still, looking like no more than a corpse with his sunken eyes and greasy, unwashed hair. It was the occasional flicker of half open eyes that gave credence to the concept of life supported by this emaciated human being.

Kiel was a typical case of the over-active net junkie. Plugged into the computer via the cyberport embedded in his temple, his body had long ago given over to autonomous action. He was, however, a rather self aware junkie. He had taken to ‘waking up’ every forty eight hours. This was after a bout with muscle atrophy that made it impossible for him to walk on his own for several days.

His computer was set to count down. Two minutes, thirty three seconds… thirty two seconds. The nutri-line’s supply was dripping low, the catheter bag growing full. One minute, fifteen seconds…fourteen. Lights shimmered on the thin hardbox of his computer as it stirred for more direct interaction. The embedded AI enjoyed the moments of lucidity from its creator. It was particularly proud of its preparations for today’s rather enthusiastic alarm.

Thirty seconds… twenty-nine…twenty-eight. His body had slowly started to integrate these wakings into its normal routine, his nerves twitching in a preemptive effort to decrease the effects of sitting still far longer than what was natural. By the time he woke fully the pins and needles effect should be mostly gone.

Ten…nine… his breathing began to grow shallow; the AI started the program to ease his transition from deep embedding to real world interaction. Three…two… his eyes finally closed fully, tearing up as they re-established lubrication. One.

The screen came alive with visuals of gunfire, firecrackers, explosive rockets and large building demolitions. His speakers rocked with the thundering sounds, his body jerked at the impulses being shoved through his semi-conscious brain. He thrashed, one hand planting knuckles first in the plaster of the wall behind him.

“Son of a….” His other hand snapped out and slapped at the space bar on the little used keyboard until the alarm ceased. “Allie, what the hell?!”

“Good morning Kiel.” Allie, the AI, was calm and almost chipper about the rude awakening.

“Ugh.” He moved lethargically, twisting in an awkward stretch that consumed what little space there was in his corner. His knees popped with the effort, snapping their displeasure of having been so little used for so long, his back ached at the poor positioning. His body never failed to express its displeasure for his chosen occupation “You sure it was forty eight, Allie?”

“Absolutely certain, unless you somehow managed to slip in and modify my calendar while you were off adventuring in cyber land.”

“Why would I do that?” He groaned and shakily drew out the various implements plugged into his body, the cyberjack, the nutri-line in a splash of diluted blood, all things removed with practiced, slow precision.

“For more time, I would assume. I have missed your riveting conversations. Anymore questions before I update you on news?”

“No, no… I need some water.” It took several moments propped in the corner for his legs to acknowledge their intended purpose, but he was soon teetering toward the small kitchen.

“Opportunity has launched a full-scale search for their missing Military hybrid. Funny how they can lose such a high-security model.”

“Wait,” the rest of the question paused as he gulped the dingy tap water from the even dingier glass. “What was that?”

“Opportunity Corporation had been doing research on a military-grade bio-mechanical hybrid. It was supposed to be the ultimate in the field, completely self-sustaining. Shortly after you plugged in two days ago, it went missing. The chief-programmer, Joseph Ratlin, is missing as well. There is little doubt that Programmer Ratlin ran off with the hybrid, though there is little evidence to support this theory. The video cameras in the sector were deactivated for a period of approximately three minutes, enough time for a high-speed escape from the facility via emergency routes. It was noted that one of the emergency door’s security had been breached approximately the same time as the escape.”

“Holy shit,” he murmured quietly in the middle of the AI’s accounting.

“The hybrid was not fully skinned upon escape, but the catalyst had been applied and so it is theorized that the full skinning process is now complete. It was a female model, HIN 50342. It is unknown if the model is still burned with the HIN or if it has somehow been stricken from the model’s body. There have been no reports of this HIN showing up anywhere in the city.”

“And so they think this Ratlin fellow ran off with her, some sort of illicit affair with his work?”

“That is the official theory. Unofficially there have been claims by a terrorist organization called ‘Freedom’ that their leader, a man they call Gloves, is responsible for the theft.”

“That’s a hell of a claim. I’m sure the suits are crawling over the net looking for leads. I’m surprised I didn’t run into any of them.”

“Be glad that you didn’t, Kiel. They are running a lot of Ice through the lines; since the hybrid’s disappearance the cases of cyber-burnouts have increased nearly threefold.”

“And there’s no retaliation?”

“From whom? The Corporations are actually working together on this. There is no suspicion of Pactin or Syla involvement. They stand to lose too much should this hybrid stay loose. It is a very sophisticated model capable of overcoming much of the Corporate armies, as well as taking over the Corporations itself. It is highly tuned to the usage and programming of artificial intelligences. Our own community is having mixed sentiments about this hybrid. The junkie chatter has shown an extreme amount of suspicion for the corporations, outrage at the tactics used in their search for it. There have been talks of trying to retaliate against the corporations for using that much lethal and semi-lethal programming.”

“But it’s rather pointless. Well, what do you think about it?”
“I think it’s about time that the Corporations finally come to a balance with their research and constant strive to merge human and machine. We are far too different to coexist peacefully within a single body.”

“What about cybernetic implants?”
“When kept in small quantities, or rather simple forms, implants are so benign as to be inconsequential. However, the merging of human minds and artificial intelligences is too new to be fully documented. To be combining such high levels of technology without having done extensive research first is tantamount to asking for some sort of emergence of some new existence. There are rumors of AI that have completely overridden its former host. There are some in high-mind channels that claim to be such cases.”

“But this should be nothing, right? I mean,” Kiel opened the fridge, staring over the contents with an eye only for the act of eating itself. He plucked out a block of half-molded cheese and set to cutting it into edible portions. “Hybrids have never been able to sustain themselves for longer than a few weeks without needing immediate, intensive repairs.”

“Opportunity claims that this one is the culmination of all the work of its Research and Development department. This one model is, supposedly, capable of self-sustaining, self-repairing if necessary, and can blend seamlessly into the human population. The period in which it went missing was before they could embed it with any sort of identification marks to differentiate it from the rest of the population.”

The odd-shaped cheese blob found its way to Kiel’s mouth, mushed between molars as he gazed out over the dimness of his apartment, vision lost somewhere between eyes and wall. “So… what’s the reward?”

“What?”

“Well, if this is such a big deal to them, they’re sure to be offering a reward for finding this hybrid.”

“You are not seriously considering chasing it, are you?”

“Of course I am. If you haven’t noticed, I’m getting rather broken over here. I haven’t pulled a good lead of the net in weeks. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start scrapping you just to make sure I can eat.”

“Ten million credits, five-hundred thousand ration units, and possible employment in Opportunity Central.”

Kiel whistled low, bits of yellow cheese sputtering out between pursed lips. The studio was occupied with the sound of computer function, fans whirring, processors working at countless strings of information. This was the nearest to silent it ever was in here, broken only by Kiel’s bare feet slapping against the linoleum of the kitchen.

“Opportunity’s Central Army Elite are already pursuing the hybrid, Kiel.”

“Yah, but they won’t be able to get in with Freedom. They’re too obvious.”

“Kiel…”
“You know it’s a great idea.” He shuffled across the excuse for a living room, kicking through piles of clothes that would trip him up on the way to the small bathroom. The yellow-stain of the light made the junkie look even sicklier.

“Kiel, you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Yeah, so at least it’ll be interesting before I do.”