Edge City Chronicles 06

I used the train to head back to Mercer, walking a different route than the previous one, though I wasn't varying it by all that much. He was alone again, other than Voronov and all the guards, of course, and I sat at the table as soon as I got back. Mercer's eyes were glowing golden, meaning he was on some kind of call, and I just rested my forearms on the table and waited for him to be finished.  

"Two jobs done now," Mercer said to me after his call ended. "I'm about to be done for the day. Here's your pay." 

His eyes flashed blue for a second and thirty credits were deposited into my account. "That's a lot for courier work." 

"Really? I expected you to try to already be angling for bigger things," Mercer said, giving me a grumpy old man frown.  

I shrugged. "It's a lot more than I was making yesterday, which was nothing. I don't need to buy the whole city just yet." 

"Anyway, the reason it is so much is twofold," he explained. "Firstly, you're carrying valuable shit and, while I don't expect you to die for the goods, I do expect you to really put some effort in to getting it where it needs to go without losing it. Second, the people you're delivering to are paying premium dollar for the item and the service and I compensate accordingly. You could go work in one of the warehouses for ten credits a day and make way less, but hardly anybody ever does anything dangerous in or to the warehouses." 

"I understand," I replied, and I did. He was paying me to not get the good stolen, or steal it myself, and to deal with both hostile people and clients. I was just glad I was going to be able to do this kind of work and get at least a handful of credits a day for the next couple weeks.  

"Alright, I'm shutting down for the day," Mercer said, standing. "I won't have any simple jobs tomorrow, either, so come back Friday, kid." 

"Right, got it," I said. Maybe I wouldn't be able to make quite as much as I thought.  

I left out through the way I had entered that morning, not too worried about the information I was giving away with using the same route. I headed back to the train and rode the subway back to the stop in the block across from my apartment building. The megabuilding took up the entire block and stretched up over a hundred stories, blocking out the light from the sky whether it was day or night. I entered the building and took one of the relatively fast elevators, the kind that only stopped every ten floors to get people to the general area of where they were going, up to floor fifty and walked down to my apartment. I slowed upon seeing the group of goons hovering around outside, but then picked back up my step. There were two wannabe tough guys that were bigger than the ones I had smacked around yesterday, the little pissant that kept bothering me, and a woman with two chrome hands. 

"You need to come with us, choom," the little pissant started off with. 

"You need to get the fuck away from my apartment," I said coldly. "I told you it wouldn't end well next time, and I meant that shit. Leave. Now," I said. 

"Grab him," the little bastard squeaked at dumb and dumber.  

The two thugs immediately moved to comply, rushing at me. I sighed as I unslung my backpack and tossed it to the side, blocking the stab of the first one's knife with an open palm hit to the wrist before grabbing said wrist. I twisted his arm, passing it in front of his body where I did a disarm with my right hand, spinning the knife in my grip as I jerked on his arm and kicked his knee. Dumb twisted and fell to his knees, right in dumber's path, and I kicked the back of dumb's head right into dumber's stomach, sending them both down in a tangle of limbs. Stepping up to them, I twisted their jackets together behind dumb's back and drove his own knife through them at an angle, pinning the two together. I gave dumb a nice little slap on the back of the head, hard, as I stood, knocking him out and posing even more problems for dumber. 

The little whiner acted next, though he had been slow, and I pushed the basic pistol he was just finishing drawing out of the way, not surprised when it went off twice. I stopped that with a backfist to his temple, driving the metal hilt of the knife hard into his head. Little bastard went limp, wrist still held in my left hand, which I twisted until there was a snapping sound, grabbing the gun he dropped on reflex from his now broken arm. I twisted him around and tossed him on top of the still struggling thug pile, not very concerned with a disarmed, ha!, opponent of his caliber. The woman with chrome hands rushed me now, and I would have been far more concerned if she had more chrome. I put the pistol and knife away as she closed, making sure the pistol's safety was on, before the woman got to me. I could have just shot her, of course, but I wasn't quite ready to start killing people, despite how little the authorities cared about even violent street crime.  

The woman didn't speak, just started lashing out, striking with her fists in a skilled series of punches. She wasn't a professional boxer, not by a long shot, by she was competent enough. The thing I was most concerned with was that her hands might have something hidden; if she had fully chrome arms, I might be more worried about her hits, but that wasn't the case. Her fists hurt, sure, and I didn't have the same kind of toughening that decades of fighting had given my arms in my last life, but she was bruising my forearms, nothing more. The biggest worry was if she had a hidden knife, or electrifying capabilities, or even spikes in her knuckles that could really turn this fight in her favor. Otherwise, while it was bruising my forearms and shoulders blocking and slipping her hits, I wasn't really concerned about minor contusions. Also, she wasn't a great fighter and was way shorter than me; I could reach out and punch her in the face from a range where her fists weren't even close to me. 

She also didn't have very fancy chrome hands, as they didn't produce any surprises while we traded strikes, and I pretty quickly overwhelmed her with my higher skill and far greater reach. I don't take any pride in beating up a woman, but in a world where you never knew who might be able to chew a tank in half without even trying, it was best not to take any chances. Besides, she was certainly gunning for me first, and she was tougher than normal, too. I doubt she had much other work done, but her hands were clearly chrome, with a tacky gold and silver paint job and red highlights on her nails. I was just thankful that her arms weren't also chrome, which would have let her hit harder, and if she had some of that muscle and bone reinforcement the doc had mentioned, it would have been way harder, to the point where she could have been breaking or fracturing my arms after a few hits.  

That didn't happen, though, and I eventually tricked her with a double jab into a hook that I feinted into a cross, catching her through an opening in her guard and dropping her like a sack of potatoes. I walked over, drawing my pistol and giving both dumb and dumber a good whack, making sure they weren't getting up any time soon. I lifted the little pissant off the ground by his collar and gave him a nice couple light slaps to wake him up. Seeing him start to struggle as he woke up, I gave him a backhand, though a light one; I had to remember I was big now, and even if this kid wasn't juiced to the nines, he was still in good shape. Combine a decent amount of muscle with a lot of mass and powerful tendons and ligaments and I hit quite hard, even when not trying to, so I needed to be careful not to break somebody I wasn't intending to cripple or kill. 

"Hey, you little shit," I said, giving him a slight shake. 

"Wha-what?" he groaned, wincing as he tried to move his arms. 

"Take me to your boss," I said, shoving him against the wall.  

"What do you-" he started before I slapped him. 

"Less yapping, more leading," I grunted.  

He got the message that time and starting walking down the hallway at what he probably thought was a quick pace, but I had to go slow to not run his scrawny ass over. He took me to the high-speed elevator and went up to floor sixty, which I didn't find very impressive. The higher floors of the buildings had nicer apartments, but that only really applied to anything past floor eighty. Sixty wasn't really any different from where I currently lived, though he did lead me to an apartment that was larger than mine. It was only due to it being a three-bedroom unit, however, and not that the place was really any larger; the common area and bathroom were the same size and footprint wasn't that much bigger since it didn't have the sleeping area off the corner of the living room like my apartment did.  

"Bill, you little shit, wha-" a heavyset man at one of the couches started before he noticed me. 

In the time he had launched into his tirade, I had moved in behind my 'guide,' using the surprise of there being someone else, and someone huge, to start taking the thugs out. There was a man by the door that I pistol-whipped as I passed, not even needing to look to know I knocked him out, while I shoved Bill down, eliciting a cry from him as he landed on his broken arm. I punched a goon behind the couch square in the face with my off-hand, laying him out on his ass with a single strike. I was clobbering the third goon, a woman with one of her arms partially chrome from the elbow down, when the room started to react, and I had her unconscious on the couch before anybody could do anything about it. Two more fast exchanges and a swift kick later, the leader of this…group, was left alone with me. 

"Hey, choom, let's talk," I said, drawing my pistol and flipping the safety off in a single, smooth motion before pointing it directly at the leader's face. 

"Hey, hey, easy, choom," the boss said, holding his hands up and making soothing motions. 

"Your little pissant buddy there and some of your thugs keep bothering me. I don't like that," I said coldly. 

"Hey, easy, choom, it was just some biz," he said. 

"Oh? And what is this biz you have with me, choom?" I asked, quirking a single eyebrow. 

"We're just trying to establish ourselves, ya know," he said, starting to sweat. 

"Let me just tell you this," I said. "I don't really give a shit about you or what you do. I don't care what your gang is up to or who you know or how you know them. If you fuck with me again, I'll kill all of you." I twitched the gun to the side and shot a bullet over his shoulder into the back of the couch, eliciting a loud squeal from the man. "Am I clear?" 

"C-clear," the man stuttered, sweat pouring down his face.  

"Excellent," I said, holstering my pistol. "Oh, and I'll be taking this. Compensation for the harassment, physical assault, and mental anguish." 

I snapped a credit chit off the enter table of the entertainment area and turned on my heel, walking out of the apartment quite confidently. I moved back down to my apartment, pocketing the chit on the way, noting that nobody had asked for the knife or pistol back, either. I could at least sell them to get a handful of creds, which would be nice, especially paired with the chit. This society had gone so digital that there was hardly any physical currency in existence anymore, and people who wanted money in a physical form, for a variety of reasons, would use these small chits. They could be used with any cash register or similar system, and it was easy pulling the creds out of them and putting them into an account. This chit, it turned out, had two hundred credits on, so there was my rent money for next month handled without an issue.  

I grabbed my backpack, which was still in the hallway, though the mooks weren't. I assumed that one of them, likely the woman, had woken up and gotten the others moving. I entered my apartment, tossing the bag to the side before disarming at the circular couch. I pulled out the weapon cleaning kit I had picked up the other day and went over all the weapons, finding the new pistol in pretty bad shape, but nothing I couldn't handle. I figured the gun and knife would be worth about sixty credits, and that was basing it on the merchant low-balling me even with them having to resell it. I finished the cleaning and put the weapons away before throwing my holster and sheath back on, not having anything in the apartment I could heat up. Heading out, I walked to the elevator, rode down to the ground floor, and headed over to the Applewood Market. The place was open at all hours, though it was busier at certain time, but there was always some kind of small food stall or little bar open and selling. I grabbed two extra large beef bowls, though it was synthetic beef, and took them back up to the room. 

After eating, I made sure the apartment was secure, including throwing a small door wedge I had bought for three credits against the base of the door. Not very safe if there was a fire or something like that, but I was much more worried about the little gang of idiots attacking me in the night than about this building burning down. I would have to find a nicer place to live, but I could stand this place for a while if it saved me a decent few credits over the next couple months. What I really needed was to make some good cash and get some upgrades; I'd like some muscle and bone improvements as well as either skin reinforcement or subdermal armor. If I was stronger and tougher, I could take some more risks and worry a little less about some of the missions I was bound to be doing. I fell asleep quickly and easily, something I had never had trouble with in my last life and that seemed to have carried over into this one as well.

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