Edge City Chronicles 07

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, and without having to suffer through pissant (I think his name was Bill, of all fucking things), pounding on my door and being a nuisance. I likely wasn't done with the Apartment Penisheads, or whatever the fuck those mooks were calling themselves, quite yet, but I put them out of my mind for now. I had a couple things I needed to take care of today, one of them being looking for work. With Mercer not having steady work every day, I needed to see if I could get in with any other fixers, though I doubted I had enough of a rep after just one day of package delivery for that. The Empress was straight out; it was very clear she and her establishment were 'cream of the crop' kind of things, and I wasn't getting an invite to the Den for a very long time. I would have to do a little recon and see what other Fixers were out there and what work they had, or what other trouble I could get into that would earn me some credits. I had all my military training and know-how from my last life, as well as a smidge of computer science and electrical engineering knowledge; maybe some of that would come in handy. I could see if, maybe even when selling the extra pistol, anybody had any work with firearms or weapons I could do. The low-tech stuff was more than similar to my old world, the pistols and such being very easy for me to disassemble, clean, and even repair. 

The second thing on the docket for the day was finding a decent gym I could join. Like always with those things, I needed somewhere that had nice equipment and facilities, was clean and well maintained, and didn't cost me an arm-and-a-leg to sign up. Oh, and not having to deal with complex contracts, cancelation fees, and being locked in for months or years at a time would be nice too. I knew gyms in my old world did pay-as-you-go types of memberships where a person could buy a month at a time, and I wanted to see if I could find something like that. This body was rather healthy, but I didn't have nearly the amount of muscle and strength I could pack on, even without mods, and I wanted to push myself, and fast. I had a feeling I would need every advantage I could get to make any progress in this life.  

The third thing I had already briefly mentioned, but I wanted to hit up a good gun shop and sell my excess weapons. I also wanted to buy a little ammo and maybe even spend some time at the range if I could. I was still getting used to this body, though the adjustment hadn't at all been that bad, almost natural, in point of fact, and I could stand to do a little practice before shit really hit the fan. Bill and his little gangbanger mooks didn't really count as a shit hitting the fan kind of deal, and I was worried about what a really bad scenario might look like. That and I also wanted to check out what some of the standard prices were for a variety of weapons, especially the Tech 2 and Tech 3 stuff, as setting a Tech 3 weapon as my goal could be something nice to work towards for the next couple weeks. 

Before all that, however, it was a quick trip to my favorite little shopping center, the Applewood Market, to get a bit of breakfast in me. I was still adjusting to the idea that food, especially with synthetic meat made of plant matter, was so cheap that most people just bought all their meals. The idea of living in a place with a mini-fridge and a microwave as the only kitchen gadgets was a little depressing, but searching the net showed that few people had any more than that. Even many fancy apartments in the city center didn't advertise as having a full kitchen, just a full-sized refrigerator where the tenant could store copious amounts of leftovers. Most people with the wealth to really afford a good setup just hired a company or a private chef to cook for them instead. Again, depressing. 

After having eaten, and a couple credits' worth of food, at that, I stopped down at the gun shop to sell the extra weapons I had mysteriously acquired. The owner didn't ask many questions, or any questions, but he did try to lowball me on price. I knew what I had and was able to wrestle thirty-five credits out of him for both the weapons, and that was with using every trick in the book and some they never wrote down. The credits were nice, but I was also more concerned about not having massive piles of junk cluttering up the tiny amount of space I currently had to call mine. I browsed the shop for a bit after making my purchases, seeing that I could pay a small fee to rent a gun at Tech 1 or Tech 2, but I thought I was fine for the time being. I was more interested in the rated stopping power of the different weapons and their purchase price, giving me some idea of what the overall prices were.  

The gun shop was a bit of a bust, otherwise, as the owner said he currently had more help than he needed, even after I demonstrated I was pretty damn handy with fieldstripping and cleaning a gun. Well, he would have probably paid me in centicreds every hour, so I didn't consider it to be some great loss. Moving on, I headed out based on a tip I'd gotten from the shop owner, at least managing to milk another good thing out of the trip after selling the extra weapons. He'd recommended a small gym ten blocks down, which I might have hopped on the subway for, but it was a nice day and walking ten blocks wasn't really at all bad. The biggest thing I was on alert for was pickpockets, but I was reminded rather abruptly that I was in Edge City when a speeding car careened around a corner in front of me, followed by quite a few bullets. A van with some punks with digitized masks chased the car, firing pistols and an SMG at the car as their driver swerved around, trying to keep the van on the road and pointed at the car.  

The hubbub disappeared down the street and I, as well as most others on the sidewalks, checked to make sure we didn't have any bullet holes before moving on. I did hear a couple more gunshots further down the street, but that could have been from a shooting range or gun shop or any number of other, slightly more 'safe' things, so I just moved on. Eventually, I made it to the location the shop owner had described to me, finding I was outside a twenty-story building with some fancy signs hanging over the street. Rather than go in the front door right away, I scoped the place out a bit, which was fortunate, because the gym was in the basement of the building and accessed through a stairwell in the alley on the building's left side. I read the old sign over the entrance, proclaiming this to be Fighting Storm Gym, shaking my head a little at the dumb name. Well, if they had decent equipment, and possibly an instructor worth their salt I could spar with, it would be worth it. Just as long as it was as cheap as I had been told.  

Entering the gym, I found a counter in a lobby with scuffed but clean tiles and faded paint on the walls. The counter was marred by quite a few scratches and one dent, but it was also rather clean and looked like it was genuinely cared for. There was a short, muscled woman behind the counter wearing something like a sports bra and some kind of tight, athletic pants. She greeted me with a warm smile and a bright hello, after gawping at my height for just a moment, of course.  

"Hello!" she said. "Welcome to Fighting Storm Gym! You're a new face! How can I help you?" 

"I was told this gym was pretty good and not too expensive," I said with a small smile. "Would that happen to be true?" 

"Of course! We're one of the best gyms in Edge City, and we have super affordable rates," the woman chirped back at me. "Would you like to sign up for a single month, a monthly membership, or a yearly plan? The monthly membership and the yearly plan include discounts as compared to a single month. You can also purchase a single week or single day, but we rarely see people do that these days." 

"I'll buy a single month, depending on the price," I said. 

"Oh, yes," the redhead said, smiling again. "Sorry, my name is Lana, I should have said earlier. The price for a single month is twenty credits." 

"How much is the monthly plan to subscribe?" I asked. 

"You can't cancel before the fourth month, but it does cost only eighteen credits a month," Lana replied cheerily. 

"Right, I'll just buy a month," I said. 

"Okay, fill out this small form, please," Lana said, handing me a form. I quick jotted down my basic information and handed the form back, after which I transferred twenty credits to the gym's account. Lana then handed me a small fob that would act as my key, allowing me access to the gym at all hours. I used it right away to swipe in, thanking her for her help before going in and checking out the rest of the place. 

The gym was solid, taking up half of the building's basement with a ton of equipment and weights. There was a set of locker rooms at the back, and a boxing ring took up the back left corner of the area. I decided to take advantage of the huge amount of credits I'd just spent and got in a quick workout, though I would need to get a set of gym clothes for the future; working out in sweatpants was fine, but I preferred athletic gear. Wrapping up the workout after forty minutes, I walked out while giving Lana a nod and headed back to my apartment to take a quick shower. Despite the dystopian nature of the world, showers were still done with hot water, though there was probably some kind of crazy carcinogen in the water or something equally wild.  

Once showered, I headed back down to the market to get some food, spending a couple credits to get enough to fill my stomach and help make up for the training. Once that was done, I needed to look for work, as that was all I had to left to do today other than explore the city. I didn't want to spend a lot of time randomly wandering around, either to get more work or to explore at this moment. In the first case, I had a feeling that work wouldn't just be sitting around in a city like this for me to find, though the case with Mercer ran counter to that to an extent. Still, I figured I would get more either working through people I knew or through research on the net versus just wandering around. I also didn't know the factions and control scenarios in the city, and in a place like Edge City, wandering into the wrong territory could easily get a person a few bullets in the brain.  

I walked around the megabuilding I lived in, scoping out the block and all the surrounding buildings before circling further out to survey the surrounding blocks. The area had a lot of large buildings containing housing and small shops, though I couldn't be a hundred percent certain what each building was without further exploration. The area wasn't…the best, with it being pretty dirty and rundown looking even for such a hard-nosed city in such a terrible time, but it wasn't the worst place I'd ever been, unfortunately. There were definitely people I labeled mentally as gang bangers hanging around, though many people simply looked like regular individuals without any kind of criminal connection. Then again, a lot of them likely worked for the corpos, who were the biggest gangs around, so talking about no criminal connection was a bit of a stretch.  

Speaking of criminals, I noticed a strange van driving down the road and turning into the back of the megabuilding I lived in as I returned. There was a series of basement levels under the building with parking, but also water, power, net, and other hookups and maintenance areas. The van was unusual in that it looked brand new, though it wasn't an expensive model, it still stood out driving into my old, beat-up building. It could just be a company with newer vehicles making a delivery, but it had me a little curious. I checked my gun and knife while slowly walking down the edge of the ramp, catching sight of the van moving down to the next level. I cut across and used the stairwell, peaking out to see the van driving towards and onto the ramp down to B3. The building had six basement floors, but only the first three had parking, though the levels were huge, extending into the block to the north on the first floor and both north and south on the second and third. Below that, there were three floors of maintenance tunnels and miscellaneous junk. 

The van pulled into a space at the far south end of B3, an area I noticed was both rather dimly lit and had several broken cameras. A large section of B3 was without any kind of camera coverage at all, though the empty housings or smashed cameras were still in place, showing that neglect and cost-cutting was to blame. I also found it quite suspicious that a medium-sized truck like this, one that would be delivering to shops and restaurants, was pulling down to a back corner of B3. They should be stopping in a delivery space in B1 or out on the street in the parking zone at the side of the building, not in a dark corner of the furthest basement parking section. The only ting that would have been as suspicious was if they pulled into one of the small, private garages that ringed B2 and B3 garages.  

My hunch in following the truck turned out to be only too spot on, proving once again that all the experience of my past life was good for more than just beating up a couple wannabe thugs. Two men hopped out of the front of the truck, both wearing masks that fully hid their faces, though that was crazy unusual based on the things I had seen of people's current fashion sense. Basically, anything went in public, as long as it skirted the edge of full-on nudity, and even that I wasn't sure of, as I'd already seen some ads that were…questionable, at best. Not that I was a prude or anything, just that I thought it was rather different than what I had been used to for many years. Either way, the masks made a lot more sense as something other than a fashion choice when the two men opened the back of the truck and pulled a body out. Well, not a body, but a person who was clearly unconscious and unable to do anything about their current predicament. I tried to run through a few scenarios in my head where this would be anything other than a major crime, but I was coming up with a big blank. The scenarios got pruned even further when I followed them into the stairwells and watched them go further down, not up, which was not where I would be taking an unconscious and possibly distressed individual. I was going to have to follow these goons, carefully, and see just what they were up to. 

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