Edge City Chronicles 03

Well, I had other things to worry about rather than mega corporations, like how I was going to keep paying for rent. It was already into the late afternoon, so I figured I could make a quick shopping trip today and then get an early start in looking for work tomorrow. Thom had, apparently, been wholly relying on his mother for funds, and had just been living off their meagre savings after her passing. At least that meant I didn't have some grinding nine-to-five, or some contract work I was locked into, to worry about settling out.  

Doubly fortunate for me was that there was a very nice market right next door, a place that was built around an old building at the center, with much of the surrounding complex below street level. A large section of that underground section was covered in glass, or some sort of Lexan or more advanced clear material, and one could walk around and look down at other shoppers browsing the basement stalls. The building in the center boasted a variety of shops, including a gun shop in the basement, which was the first stop of mine. I needed a holster, or even some kind of tactical rig, and I wanted to see what a standard shop in this city charged.  

Turns out, not a whole lot. I got a good holster with a sheath for the knife for thirty credits, something that would hold up to some wear and tear and I could use for a while without issue. I spent another fifteen credits on a very simple gun cleaning kit; it had two or three small, cheap tools for assembly/disassembly, as well as some cleaning solution and oil for the weapon and two cloths that were easily washable. I was now below rent-money amount, but I assumed I could make a couple hundred credits in the next two weeks pretty easy even doing simple jobs around the city. I strapped the holster on, stashing my pistol and knife in the appropriate places, and felt a lot better for it.  

The area had several trees poking out of the glass and reaching for the sky, a kind of apple tree that was surviving surprisingly well in the middle of the city, though there was more greenery in this city than I might expect for a dystopia focused on profit above all else. The central building of the market was four stories tall, five if one included the basement layer with the gun shop and range. The first floor was entirely taken up by a Net café that sold time in chairs and pods that allowed netrunners to dive into the net. I was immensely curious about this, but I figured this was another of those 'one thing at a time' sort of issues. Get some work with a Fixer and start running some scut jobs for some credits, get a better lay of the city and who did and controlled what, then start looking to spend some money or, considering I still likely wouldn't have a lot, start researching some more advanced topics, i.e. netrunning. 

The second floor of the main building of the Applewood Market, which is what I learned its proper name was, was a restaurant. It was quite highly rated and had some fairly steep prices, but they also did takeout that was more reasonably priced, if still rather expensive. The third floor of the building was split between three different shops, all of them selling, or purporting to sell, a wide variety of goods. The fourth and top floor housed two shops, one of which was run by the man who owned the whole marketplace, or so the story went. It was a great place to have right next door, especially as the small vendors with little stalls and booths had a truly obscene variety and plethora of various items for sale. There were people who were clearly tinkers or makers or hobbyist engineers or builders among the group, people who could build or fix just about anything and who sold or fixed tools as well. The only thing I noticed lacking were 3D printers, as nobody sold any outright and I was told that, while a couple people in the market might have the skills to do repairs, the only places that sold the things were specialized shops or big corpo branch stores, neither of which were present in Applewood Market.  

I returned back to my apartment after my explorations, finding the place just a touch hot for my liking but it appeared the air conditioning was already struggling under its current load. I knew a couple things about simple systems, though this futuristic city could be using entirely different tech for their HVAC, but I might be able to pop the thing apart and get it running a bit better. That is, unless it was running out of some kind of coolant, which might be the more likely solution, and which I could only solve with credits. Credits that were not in an abundant supply in my bank account.  

I took off my clothes and took a quick shower, noting after I was done that the place didn't have a washer or dryer. I looked up the reference on my agent and found there was a large one in the building, two in fact, one on the first floor and one on the sixtieth. It was one credit for a full cycle that included a heavy wash and a dry, so it would do me well to save up clothing and gear for a big load in the industrial machine and pinch my credits a bit. I had a handful of sets of clean clothes, a few clean towels and washcloths, and my bedding, which was currently relatively clean. I should probably wear through that and even get my gloves and other pieces dirty before washing everything, though I was going to try to wash the vest, when it needed it, and the holster by hand. Or maybe take the vest to a dry cleaner, but that also sounded like counting on credits I was lacking.  

I browsed the news for a few minutes but found it far more programmed and fake than even what I had experienced in my world; it was clear everything on the TV was there entirely at the behest of the corporations and would be less than reliable. I shut the thing off and rolled into my bed, still using the one in the living room as the one in Thom's mother's room was not sized for someone of my stature and this one, surprisingly, was. I had made sure the door was locked and I turned off the lights before passing out, satisfied with the very first day of my new life. 

I was awoken early the next morning, around my usual time of waking, by a pounding on the door. I was out of bed and with a gun in hand before I was even fully conscious, figuring out a second later I could probably take a minute to throw some pants on, at the very least. I dressed fully, throwing on the vest as well before belting on the holster, returning the pistol to my waist before answering the incessant pounding. It sounded like whoever it was had also started yelling, but the soundproofing in these apartments was quite good, so I could only vaguely hear a bit of their voice leaking through. The one thing I was a bit miffed with was there was no external security or camera feed or anything for the apartment; another thing to add to my growing list of must-buys when I had a few credits to rub together.  

I flung the door open, hand on the pistol on my hip, only to find a familiar face in front of me. A face that was reeling back now, a look of fear in their eyes, though he got a shot of courage from the two slightly bigger, stronger thugs he had with him today. It was the leader of the little group that had given me such a beating the day before. Speaking of that beating, I checked myself over quickly, though just internally feeling how my body currently was. I was surprisingly whole and healthy; whatever doc had pumped me full of, it had done its job quite well; the rib was fine, the bruising was gone, and I was back in top shape. 

"Hey, choom, we need to talk," the punk said.  

"Sure, uh, loser?" I shot back, though it was clear by my tone that it was much less of a question and more of a statement.  

"Listen you fucker-" he started before one of the other goons grabbed his shoulder. 

"You're gonna come with us right now, gonk," the other goon said. 

I stepped out of my door, straightening up, which had me towering over the two new thugs, which had the two new thugs rethinking some of their life choices, if their expressions were anything to go by. I carefully shut my door behind me before stepping forward to the thug that had called me a, uh, gonk? Whatever that was, it didn't sound great, and I decided to explain to him that I was not happy, starting with getting in his personal space and slowly leaning down towards him, still towering over him even bent down, saying, "What was that…gonk?" 

It really shouldn't be any surprise that he took a swing at me, but it was kind of laughable with how sloppy he was. I had been expecting the punch and swayed back, dodging the hit before kicking him in the knee. He folded like cheap paper and I swayed to the side, avoiding the loudmouth's thrust with a knife before I backhanded him hard enough that he spun around before he fell. The second big thug tried for a tackle, or a grab, I wasn't really sure what it was supposed to be based on the horrible form. I dodged it with a simple move to the side and kick to the gut, which had the thug folding over my leg and wheezing. I clocked him on the temple before he finished falling, knocking him out before he hit the ground. The punk that had given me the beatdown was trying to get up but was rather discombobulated, so I gave him a nice, solid kick in the ribs before turning to the first thug that had swung. As he was getting back on his feet I stepped into his range, dodging a swipe before popping him in the jaw with a right cross. It didn't take him out immediately, but the pistol-whip to the temple while he was staggering from the cross did the job. 

"Now," I said, grabbing the little weasel by the scruff of the neck and lifting him up, disarming him in the process. "What's say you and I have a little talk?" 

"Look, I don't know nothin'," he wheezed, grabbing at his ribs when I set him on his feet.  

"Well, you know who you work for, which is more than 'nothin',' " I said. 

"You don't want to mess with the Apartment Piranhas," he wheezed. 

"Really? That's what your little thug club went with?" I asked, exasperated. "Apartment Penisheads would be a better fit." 

"What?" he asked, not quite able to focus on what I was saying.  

"Your name's shit," I said. "Go tell your boss to piss off. And clean these up." 

"Boss is blood brothers with a banger from the Hell Cats," he responded. "You're gonna be in trouble if you don't come with us." 

"So, let's recap," I said, seeing him frown at me as he continued holding his ribs. "You want me, the guy that just beat you and two of likely your best enforcers' asses, to come with you to pay respect to your boss…because your boss knows somebody in a bigger gang? Did I get that right?" 

"The Hell Cats run this town-" he started before I slapped the back of his head. 

"I don't give a shit about your boss's friend's boss's third cousin. Get these two fucking losers out of here, then get yourself out of here and don't knock on my door again," I said crossly. "Next time, I put a bullet in your dumb ass before even saying 'hello,' and don't test me on that." 

"R-right," he said, staggering off to, I hoped, get somebody to cart ding and dong off from my doorstep.  

With my day already started, I decided to get on with it. I needed to find Mercer, as doc had called him, and also somehow convince a man I didn't know that a random kid, as he would very likely see this eighteen-year-old body, was worthy of some work from him. I did know two things; one, Mercer worked out of the warehouse district and, two, the warehouse district was in the northern part of the city along the coast. Edge City sat on the western coast of the northern of two closely spaced continents and had served as a major trade hub for quite a few centuries. As such, the city was a major port city with an extensive warehouse district and, even though business wasn't as booming as it used to be, it was still a trade and shipping hub with plenty of work to go around.  

The first thing I noted that morning, other than that the city was pretty busy at dawn, was that getting around without a car or vehicle of some kind was going to be a real pain in the ass. I could take the metro, which is what I wound up doing, but that took a lot of time and cost some money. I would have to figure out a way to get a vehicle at some point, but like all my other problems, I was guessing the solution was going to be credits. A lot of credits.  

The subway wasn't exactly as bad as I feared, either in cleanliness or speed, and I got off at a stop in the warehouse district about thirty-five minutes later. I had a pretty simple strategy, one that would likely prove the next most effective apart from asking around, and that was to observe and follow the people. Regular dockworkers and longshoremen were pretty easy to spot, and I zeroed in on a couple people that looked a lot more like mercenaries, or likely Solos, than they did dock workers. I pretty easily followed them down a few blocks and then through a small plaza between a couple warehouses where there was a small coffee shop and a little clothing store, little holes in the wall that serviced the dockworkers, before they turned down an alley and walked down to an area outside a warehouse that had some seating and three cars pulled up. The gathering was pretty obvious, and there were four obvious guards loitering about, but I supposed the Fixers would go with a theory of displayed strength versus stealth and concealment.  

The biggest part of blending in was looking like you belonged, so I simply walked out a little after the two Solos and headed in the same direction. The guards gave me a glance but didn't react otherwise, so I assumed random Solos and mercs showing up to do business wasn't anything unusual for the place. The two I had followed had walked over to a table where an old man, hair light gray and slightly wispy, sat at a big, heavy oak table. The table was a rectangle with a bench on either side and various packages and weapons strewn about the surface, and there was a tall, heavily muscled man standing a little behind the old man, I assumed as his personal bodyguard. Said bodyguard was a lot better than anybody else I had seen so far, apart from the noodle shop girl, who had moved like a real, genuine killer, but this guy was close. He had a certain look about him, and a certain economy of movement, coupled with a stillness that sat well on him that led me to believe he was rather dangerous. Both of his arms were cybernetic, or chrome, as they say here, which likely greatly increased his capabilities. Plus, who knew what else he had installed or 'chipped' that I couldn't see or detect. 

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