Edge City Chronicles 04

The other two Solos had talked with the old man for just a moment before grabbing a set of packages and departing, giving me a side-eye as they left the area in front of the warehouse. I approached the man, who I assumed was Mercer, before stopping a short distance away and giving him a nod.  

"You're a big bastard, ain't ya?" he said, gesturing me to sit across from him. "Sit, sit. I ain't gonna sit here and crane my damn neck backwards to talk to ya." 

"Just how I was made," I said with a shrug, taking the proffered seat across from him. 

"No shit? No modwork at all?" he asked. 

"Not as far as I know, sir," I said and he immediately waved me down. 

"I'm Mercer or The Old Man, none of that 'sir' shit," he exclaimed.  

"Right, sorry," I replied, shifting a little before clasping my hands on the table in front of me. I didn't want to seem very nervous, but it would also be weird if I appeared so cool and collected, though people excused a lot. See a big and tall guy, somewhat muscled, hard look in his eyes? All kind of assumptions would be made about him, even subconsciously, and that could greatly play to my advantage, if I kept in mind the relative power imbalance and what I was aiming for. 

"It's not a problem," he said, waving a hand dismissively again, something I was thinking might be a long habit, maybe even a bit of a tic. "What can I do ya for? I assume, based on you havin' that old vest on and that nice, new holster, that you're here for some work?" 

"Yeah, that's right," I nodded. "Dad was an old soldier and merc, taught me a couple things, passed away a while ago. My mom just passed recently and we didn't have much savings; I figured I could put the little bit of skill I have to use, get some practice in, and make some credits." 

"Story I've heard a thousand times," Mercer said. "You think you're any good, kid?" 

"Honestly? Not really," I said, getting a short bark of a laugh out of the man. "I mean, I can do okay in a fight, hold my own and maybe a little more, but I don't have any mods, like I said. No chrome, no biomods, and certainly no nanotech or anything more advanced." 

"Nothing at all?" Mercer pressed, raising an eyebrow before reaching for a cup of coffee from the little shop I had passed on my way in. 

"Got a super basic neural link, really basic agent, and my eyes are a really cheapo model from years ago," I ticked off on my fingers. "I'd like to get an eye upgrade eventually, on the long list of things I'd like to get. I think I could get something midrange for not that much and see a huge improvement." 

"Ha! See an improvement," Mercer laughed, at which point I realized what I had said. "Anyway, kid, think you could take ol' Voronov in a bit of fisticuffs." 

Mercer had pointed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the big, chromed-out man behind him who gave a slight nod at the mention. I sized the bodyguard up, not really being able to tell just how tough he was; he clearly had chrome, and a lot of it, but I didn't know exactly how that would translate. Well, there's nothing like learning by doing. 

"I don't know about getting hit by those chrome arms, but I could spar a little," I said, looking back to Mercer. 

The old man just gestured to the open area to his left, my right, indicating we should put on a little bit of a show. I stood and took off my vest before tightening my belt and stepping over to the open area. Voronov was wearing some kind of sleeveless trench coat over a thick leather vest and heavy cargo pants, the pants heavy enough that they might even have some armoring or be made of a toughened fabric. We squared up against each other, the man adopting a fairly classic boxing stance while I mostly mirrored him. I had trained in both boxing and martial arts in my last life, preferring a martial art with fast, heavy, solid striking as my main hand-to-hand fighting. Many people who practiced the art would stand at an angle to an attacker, helping minimize the opponent's access to the stomach and, especially, the groin, but I had never really liked that. I stood squared to my opponent with a very square body position, which wasn't itself really bad; my instructor had often said that it reminded him a lot of an old training partner and merc friend of his that was incredibly fierce in close.  

We didn't need a signal, just sizing each other up for a moment before nodding and staring off, Voronov cautiously approaching me and throwing out a few jabs. It was pretty clear he was holding back, as they were punches I could keep up with, and blocking one of them didn't hurt as much as I expected. Don't get me wrong, it fucking hurt, but that's what happened when someone with a metal fist hit someone with a flesh-and-blood arm quite hard. I slipped another two jabs before firing back myself, hitting his guard with three jabs before throwing out a right-cross and a left uppercut. I didn't overcommit to any of the attacks, just testing his defenses and reactions, finding he easily blocked or slipped my strikes with minimal movement and no effort.  

We traded blows for a minute, and I was glad after a bit that Thom had spent some time training this body. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but I did have a solid base to work with, something I could already use to fight and that I could mold into something greater. Voronov and I traded a few more blows, and I did manage to overwhelm him a little with an old combo of mine, firing off four rapid jabs into a hook, then two more rapid jabs into and uppercut and hook combo. It was enough to get my first hit around his defenses, though he slipped it a bit and I got his shoulder instead of his chin with the last punch.  

"Enough!" Mercer called to us. We broke it up, giving each other a nod before returning to our previous positions. "That's more than good enough; Voronov is an expert boxer, a former champion from the Freelands Federation. If you were able to tussle with him for a minute, you can easily handle any random gonks out there. If your shooting's even halfway decent, you'll make a more than capable solo." 

"I'm good with the pistol and great with a rifle, though I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver," I said.  

"Well, you're going to need to get something better than that little peashooter," Mercer grumbled. "Speaking of which, what do you want get out of this?" 

"Well, I need credits," I replied slowly. When Mercer just looked at me, I continued, "I want gear, equipment, connections, and skills. I want to be a Solo, and a damn good one." 

"Good. That's the kind of thing I like to hear," Mercer said. "Listen, kid, I deal in a lot of stuff, but I mainly expedite goods for others. Fixers, merc companies, Solos, shops, small businesses, gangs, and even the bigger corpos. A lot of my work is going to be delivering packages, or picking up packages and bringing them back here. Sometimes, some people may try to stop you doing that, but most of those people are going to be the kind of people Voronov could knock out in a second with his little finger, so I doubt you'll have much trouble." 

"Understood," I said. 

"Can you drive?" he asked. 

"I know how, but I don't have a license," I said, calling on Thom's memories to realize I didn't have a license to operate a vehicle in Edge City. 

"A license is a lot more a suggestion here than a rule," Mercer said with a laugh. "Just don't kill somebody when you're drivin' and the cops won't care." 

"Good to know," I said with a nod. 

"What are your short term goals?" Mercer asked me, and I realized he was basically still interviewing me, trying to figure me out. 

"Well, I need a new set of boots," I said, which elicited several laughs, including from some of the guards. 

"You big," Voronov said. "Boots, they must be custom, yes? Will cost a lot of credits. You will have much work to do." 

"Story of my life," I muttered. 

"You need more chrome?" asked Mercer next, looking me up and down. 

"Like to get the eyes upgraded, like I said; would be nice to upgrade the neural link, and I'm kinda interested in netrunning. Don't really want to replace any other meat yet if I don't have to. Thinking about getting a few biomods when I can afford it," I said.  

"Hmm, yeah, you'll need a new link," Mercer said, scratching his chin. "That cheap shit you got probably can't even accept a netdeck, which is the basics of the basics for a 'runner. I could two old decks right now that don't have anybody's name on them, but you'll have to work for them." 

"Yeah, I, uh, don't think I have a slot for that," I said. 

"Should get big upgrade," Voronov said. "Crappy link, no speedware. Can't fight like that?" 

"Speedware?" I asked, totally lost. 

"You know, like a Sandy," Mercer said. 

"Uh, the things that make you…go fast, is it?" I asked, having frantically searched for the info on my agent. 

"You really are some fresh meat," Mercer muttered. "Yeah, speedware; it boosts your perceptions, nervous system responses, and some other stuff to make you both perceive time faster and be able to move in that accelerated time. Three most common types are Sandy's, Keren's, and Renn's. They also conflict, like Voronov was saying, with a netdeck if you don't have enough space in your link. Shitty links can't run both, you need a better neural link to slot both a 'deck and a piece of speedware." 

"Right, got it," I said, glad that he had explained what Voronov meant.  

"Alright, first job of the day," Mercer said, sending me his contact details. I noticed his eyes flashed gold when he did so, which explained what that was; I had been wondering. "Take the package by your left elbow to this address. Guy by the name of Iron Knuckle-don't ask-will grab it from you there. I sent a picture with the job detail. Don't hand that to anybody else; if you can't get it to the target for a courier job, bring the parcel back, but I expect results." 

"Understood," I said, grabbing the package, about a cubic foot in size and weighing maybe forty pounds, and standing up. "Anything else I should know?" 

"How much you get paid depends on how fast you work. Now get that delivered," Mercer said, ending the conversation. 

I gave Voronov a nod and turned on my heel, heading back out the way I had come in. I hadn't thought to bring a backpack, not that I had one at home that would work for courier duty, and I made a stop to correct that. Twenty entire credits gone to get a good, solid backpack, not massive, but bigger than a standard bookbag or laptop bag, giving me enough space to stash packages, which I did with my very first one. With the backpack secure over my vest, which I had to let the straps all the way out to accomplish, I was once more on the train and headed to my destination. The train which also cost me money, though it was much more reasonable than the backpack, as a card that allowed movement across the city for a month was just ten credits. That was only thirty or so centicredits per day, which was rather nice, but it would still add up over time.  

I shook off the distracting thoughts, including thinking about how my bank balance was only going down so far, and got off the train at the appropriate stop. One great thing about having this cyberware in my head was it could be immensely helpful in navigating this unfamiliar city. Not only could it help in guiding me in every way, but I could set alarms and reminders, and even program in simple alerts for basic things. I wasn't some programming wizard, but I had at least dabbled pretty heavily in multiple languages in my last life, so the idea of throwing together a little script or managing to force a small app to do exactly what I wanted wasn't foreign to me. The alerts would have to wait, as I walked out of the small station and looked around at an area of high-rise apartments. This section of the city, near the eastern hills where there were more wealthy districts, didn't have megabuildings like other parts of the city, but most blocks had a one or more large apartments buildings, usually with smaller buildings wedged in-between them. 

The building I was after was four streets over and one down, a big complex that had a bunch of businesses on the first three floors, with the bottom floor being taken up entirely by a huge gym complex. I found my way to stairwell and hoofed it up to the fifth floor, an area of fairly nice apartments before finding the right unit and ringing the buzzer. I also gave the door a quick, sharp knock, not wanting the person inside to miss it if they had their doorbell disabled. I could hear movement inside after a few moments, the heavy footstep of someone right on the other side of the door before said door opened and revealed a tall, dark-skinned man with a lot of chrome, especially his arms and hands, which sported huge, shiny knuckles.  

"Damn, you're a big bastard," he said immediately. 

"That's right," I said before asking, "You're Iron Knuckle?" 

"That's me. Whaddya need, kid?" he asked, clearly identifying me as being on the younger side despite my size. 

"Package from Mercer," I made sure to say first before slinging my backpack around. Didn't want to reach for something before saying anything, might not get a great response. I pulled out the parcel and handed it to the man, who's face lit up like a kid that just got his Christmas present early. 

"Old man came through! I've been waiting for this forever!" he said, opening the box to show a piece of chrome that I couldn't immediately identify. "Replacement liver and all the necessary meds," he explained on seeing my questioning look. 

"Interesting," I replied mildly. 

"Well, it's great for me," he said cheerfully. "Here, the delivery receipt." 

His eyes flashed gold for a second and I got a notification that I had successfully complete a job with Dwayne "Iron Knuckle" Simmons. I had also taken a basic picture with my eyes, the only 'extra' function they were capable of, with him with the box open in his hands. Didn't want to get back to Mercer and not have any proof. 

"Thanks for the delivery," he said then, snapping me out of examining my agent. "Gonna head over to my ripper right now and get this installed." 

"Sounds good. I gotta report back to the old man," I said, giving him a nod before he shut the door.  

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