I awoke to the Sound of a hyperactive radio announcer telling me that there was barely any acidity in the rain today.
Great. I needed a few seconds to lie down, time enough to start my systems, and my headcom. Checking the mails, checking the commcalls….
It was one of the perks you could do when you had headware.
You were just not supposed to. because it led to muscle atrophy and severe cases of bedrest, but damn, I was barely awake, and willing to shoot the next fucker that worried for my health.
So, overcome with an inexplicable case of serendippity, I went down and out.

I allways called it that when I entered my headspace.
Technically, it was called “Entering a full VR Simulation”.
You were supposed to do it in a monitored chair, with enough nutripacks on your side.
You were not supposed to do it in your bed.

But, what mattered was the info.

The router in my house sprang into action with a whirr, as the headcom locked my muscles, to prevent me from actually getting up and walking. Well, and Caithlin took over.

See, one of the basic regulations was that simsin, the technology that allowed me to lie there, tucked in, and browse my selection of newsfaxes, radioshows, newssites and so on, was fully immersive.
So, I had a room full of files in front of me, each one with a little preview icon of the contents, that I could move around, throw into the virtual wastebin, and so on.
Would it not have blocked my celebral acess to my muscle system, it would have ment that each turn that I made, like when I grabbed my edition of the black star, the anarchists newspaper, and flicked over the headlines, would have forced my body, just out of old habits, to do the same.
Now, you couldn’t have that.
So, while I strutted around, caithlin took my body for a limited walk. It was only timed, and just to get me up and started, but it worked great.

See, a couple of years ago, riggers and the whole lot had begun to have a problem.
When they were plugged in for a longer time, like me, they began to lack muscle tension, and suffer from atrophy.
Imagine driving from pague to madrid, 48 hours, without moving a single time, or emptying your bladder, or getting a snack or something to drink.
Now, of course, you couldn’t have that. After all, streets where drivers of 4+ ton monsters did not drink behind the wheel?
It would have been the death of culture as we know it!

So, instead of just suffering, they turned to hackers, who soon develloped an answer.

Namely, downtime regulators.

For example, say you were down for 40 hours.
What would you say if your body clenched and opened, moved around a bit, perhaps even did a few exercises?
All, of course, while still in the comfort of being connected with the computer, being able to do what you do best.
So, the first generations were just for the real hardcore jackheads, who stayed on 40, sometimes even 60 hours a time.
When they had such a session, their body was now welltrained, and even a bit toned.
Soon, it became all the rage with the jackheads all around the globe, those who connected their brain with the computer over longer and more regular times.
The next logical steps of course were evolution.
Telling us that only the best and most adapt were able to survive, it meant smaller and better.

Now, what if you were, say, a particular lazy hacker, who had a trustworthy ai grade personal assistant?
Wouldn’t you assume that the exercise routines were for weirdoes?
You, of course, have had a lot weirder uses in mind.
For example, bodily hygiene, cooking, cleaning up, and so on.
So, while I was jacked in, she took my body on a testdrive.
Put it under the shower, cleaned it, brushed its teeth, all while I was able and willing to do what needed to be done. Namely, get my fix on the newsfront.

See, in 2070, it is not so uncommon to be a user. You use everything. Some of us require coffee, some dope, some fucking…. I required news.
I had subscribed to over 40.000 newschannels, and all of them were there, just waiting for me. And I loved every minute of it.
I sorted them. One pile general news, one pile trid news, one pile just the ordinary city wide news. Then, I had the three piles each pick one random item to me, play it simultaneously, and have me discard it, while my deck played a selection of classic rock. Really, was there any better way to go about your day?
When I was through with the lot, I hardly noticed how I had the gentle smell of coffee in my nose. It was a kind of signal for me to be ready.
I closed my eyes, and sent the rest of the newschannels back where they belonged.
Blogs, combat bike scores, it all would have to wait.

When I opened my eyes again, I was at my chair.
I wore the usual assortment, so I guessed it must have been tuesday.
Jeans, faded grey, soft socks, a pair of sneakers, a black shirt with the chemical formula of nutrycoffee on it, and a black hoodie.
My hair smelled freshly washed, and I felt clean and healthy to go.
She had also make me make eggy, toast, a bit of rhubarb and sellerie, and some fresh pure soy.
It was one of her kinks, something that had snuck in her code from the personal assistant packages I used, but it was something I had refused to see as a bug but more as a feature.

My unit in the fridge did not contain much, so she prolly had to work with what was there.
Psychologists would have called it borderline disassociation symptom, but for me, it was heaven.
Nothing to do except what payed good money, and what pleased me.
I turned, and saw her standing there, looking a bit ruffled herself.

Carefull, I thought, she was not as real as you think she was.

The ruffled look was an approximation routine out of the virtuial pet programm, designed to give the pet a sort of lived in look.
It could be disquieting to say the least when she just looked like a freshly peeled egg, and it made me feel uncomfortable.

So, I had coded more then the usual share of realism in her icon.

I nodded. “Did a fine job, as usual. Go make yourself ready. “
As she turned, her green pyjamas fluttering a bit, I hungrily finished what she had prepared me.
She, of course, did not need to get ready. It was just code, to make it seem a bit more real. As she closed the door behind herself, and left for the bathroom, I smiled.
The water was simulated, the looking in the mirror was simulated.
All designed to make it seem like she was just an other girl, who did unspeakable things in the bathroom.
In truth, she had precompiled a scene of audio visual hallucinations, of water running, while she migrated from my home node to my equipment node, and cleaned up my home node.

I could have stood up, at each second, and opened the door.
I would have felt the heat, smelled her, possibly have had a good morning quickie.

But what was the point? After all, she was just code.

So, I left her to her own devices, and made my way through the food.
An other interesting point, while she ran the maintennance routines, and fed my system the hallucination of her taking a shower.

In the 60’s, a couple of eggheads were hard at work streamlining the food we processed.
It had something to do with vegetarianism, and how things tasted, and natural ressources not being able to feed us all.
Sorry, but I never really payed attention to ancient cultures.
So, untill very recently, it was just that.
Things.
Food, flesh, bacon, eggs.
These eggheads now came up with a cleverer way to solve the problem.
They made designer food. Think pre 1990 astronaut food, or survival food in bar form.
Chemically designed to have the exact ammount of nutrients, and so on and so forth in them, but also a huge variety of artificial flavours, think anything from human meat to strawberry fries.
Of course, the people revolted.
How could they, and it was unnatural, and it was playing god….

It was mainly just neccesary.
See, when the world population grows, you can’t just expect everyone to eat steak.
Somewhere, that steak has to grow, to devellop, and to be slaughtered.
Too much manpower.

So, they turned to chemistry, which tasted at least as good, but which left a hell more room for robots.
The base material was soy, or soja, like it used to be called, back when everyone could read.
Soy, or to be more precise, soy juice, was in and by itself nearly tasteless.
So, the eggheads figured, why not build something that makes soy mix with forms, flavours, and so on?
The end result, I sighed, was before me.

Take the eggs, for example.
I still know how real eggs taste, so there goes that
As mom used to say, it has some benefits not growing up in corporate heaven.
What was designed to look like eggwhite was, according to the recciepe database, 90 % soy, fluid, 10 % soy, solid, a few grams of condenser, and a whole lot of stuff in there, like vitamins, essential fatty acids, and so on.
It could have pressed it in the shape of an orange, and I would still have all of the stuff neccesary to get a healthy breakfeast.

It was amaziong, if you stopped to think about it.
The chemistry enabled us to make something that by all means tasted nearly as good as real bacon, but with as much value, and nutrition, as either a sheet of paper, or a very big box of chocolate.
What you got out of it was mainly what you were allowed to have.
The dieticians had been right.
It did not matter what you ate, as long as it had the real value.

The same enabled me to go into any fast food place in the world, hand them my credstick, and sure enough, what I recieved would be about as tasty as I could wish for, but contain exactly what I needed.

I finished my plate of soy, flavouring, and form pressed stuff, as she stepped out of the bathroom again.
It was not real, I told myself, none of it.
The room is just as dry as it used to be, perfectly clean once the drone had its way with it, and will be ready to do whatever you want to.
She wore a stunning combo, that I had seen in one of the many newscasts I had flicked through.
Her hair was slightly tied back by a band of green, fitting the color of her emerald eyes.
Green suit/skirt jacket combo, which was just about fine enough to actually seem tailored, and a bit smoother and more form fitting.
Even her black glasses seemed to not disturb the piece.
Her black pumps made her seem like the perfect secretary type, to which the pearls helped a bit.
I just nodded.

“Looks good on you, Cat”
She gave me a beaming smile.
It was a sort of experiment, one that had been going on for a while now.
I allowed her to choose her style of dress freely, and gave her my estimations of what I thought it looked like.
Then, as we left my room, I allowed her to get the reactions of others, that were also plugged in, and able to see it.
Thus, in a short while, she had picked up a few rules regarding her dresscode, that sometimes allowed for a few quirks.

That, of course, she knew, and played it fully.
Sometimes, she surprised me with dressing like a pirate, or scottish, or in an asian kimono.
She knew that if she was dressed too inappropriately, it was no problem, but that I sometimes had to disable her, or turn her invisible.
Some people, girls in particular, react poorly if they see a bikiny clad woman walking next to me, carrying a PDA.
So, over the course of what seemed to be a half a lifetime, she had picked her style.
Modest, when she needed to be, the kind of look the librarian at a fancy upscale library would wear, that secretly liked it when she got oogled a few times.
But hey, like they said, girls just wanna have fun.

I leaned back, and fixed my own equipment from the wallsockets and power outlets.
My tasers, a bit more highpowered then usual, but nothing that could not be explained in a brim as an error in configuration because one was bad with hardware.
Their sleek holsters, streamlined leather, nothing fancy, but that fit my body well enough to not let everybody know I was packing.
Then, my belt comlink, which was a nice piece of work, all shiny and corplike.
And, to top it all of, my long black duster, and my black hat.
And finally, just in case, my pipe.

I felt the surge in power as Cat linked the comms up.
The best thing in commlink technology was, you were allways able to make it smaller, one you left out the interface stuff.
So, take a comlink, and make it blind.
Make it not interact with anything outside your own equipment, and presto, you have something as small as a ballpoint pen.
So, I patiently grabbed my bag, as she reported in the status.
“Beltcom linked to headcom, mode open slave.
Weaponcoms linked to headcom, mode hidden slave.
Drones linked to headcom, mode hidden slave.
Headcom now running hidden master.

All commlinks operational. “

In essence, it meant a lot of me.
I did not buy just anything, you know.
I bought quality.
So, when you start getting a collection of highpowered computers with a very small surface, it often becomes a problem.

For example, I had heard that there were viruses out there, really advanced stuff, that infected your firewalls and opened them up to new spam.
Meaning in a second or so, you would literally be swamped with unwelcome advertisements, and so on, and so forth, all popping into your line of sight, fully 3d trideo quality graphics, of course.
So, I set my comms so that the networks could only detect the first node, in the open mode, and all the rest would be gone and hidden away, using my beltcom as a communication point.

Why?
Well, for one thing, it gave me controll.
I loved controll, over what I can consume, and what not.
As dad taught me, the most valuable choice you can make when forced to consume the media garbage was just to say no.
So, as I entered the augmented reality modus, I saw the flood of spams already swarming in.
Also, my deck had its icon up, which I studied for a second.
A small, potbellied orc, and a pitcher stood on my shoulder, and were just shooting ball after ball at the incoming spam, causing them to explode in a shower of light.
Of course, they were just icons.
In former times, it would have been fit to just write a command line interface that did it all silently, and without any question.
Nowadays, when we had complex enough structures with enough calculating power to figure out nearly everything, this was way funnier.
I had tried a few skins before.
Soldiers, cops, gangers…
It all seemed to affiliated.

Now, the math behind the device was actually impressively simple.
In basics, the program opened up each incoming spam, saved it, and put it in a Database.
Then, when it was paged again, it would just reply, yes, please, send me information about all of your penile enhancement implants, loan offers, and such, and in the return field, it would include a line of code that told the sending device to please reply with the stuff.
I usually included a good copy of the bible, the porn version of course included, that sent most of their machines straight to hell when they tried to process my offer, and in return, sent me even more spam.
So, over short or long, the pitcher on my shoulder would get a few dozend pulse of data together, and would need to slow down a bit.
In return, all of the other spam servers would get copies of each of their competitors spam. My nickname for that?
Spamexchange.
A bit mean, of course, but what am I gonna do?

Now, as I stood outside of my shabby appartment, I saw Freddie and Elmo.
You have to understand something, here.
Freddie and Elmo were nothing unusual in my part of town.
The nicer blocks, or the megacorp alleys, usualy had doorboys, that looked spiff and so on, greeted you, and in turn you were expected to tip them now and then.

Well, in the underclass, you got Freddie and Elmo.
Frecddie, allright, was a Dwarf.
Don’t toss me into the racist edge, or say that I am politically uncorrect.
Some of my mates were little persons.
Freddie was a dwarf.
Of course, they said it a bit more polite in his SIN. The official term was Homo Sapiens Pummelonis.

As if that was really neccesary.

He was short, allright, but not the usual short short.
Take it like short in terms of arms and legs.
He could wear my shirts, he allways used to say, and still kick me in the shin.
Meaning, in big words, he had a normal sized torso, but short and stubby arms and legs.

He was the local gang retiree.
I was allways nice to him, because his aim with a weapon was hardly the best, but the fact that he preferred a remington roomsweeper, a revolver modified enough to fire shotgun shells, made up for that.
Plus, he had a few hot connections on the local underground, and allways an ear open for gossip.

Elmo was Freddies Dog.
Now, when I say Dog, I mean the term in the same way as when I would have said Freddie was a person.
Generally right, but a lot too unspecific.
Elmo was the kind of dog that shat license plates, and for fun hunted motorbikes. The kind of Dog that would not have been missplaced in hell.
So much dog that I sometimes wondered if there was a smaller dog inside him, begging to be free.
He reached barely to my nipples, and was the size pof a small pony.
When Freddie got drunk, which was not too often, he would tell everyone who wanted to hear it that he had bought Elmo at a corp sale.
Freddie was what some called a deflamed hellhound.
Well, the particular con had thought it could screw the breeders of flamed Hellhounds, magically active dogs that were the size of horses and able to produce short bursts of flame.
So, they had taken it on themself to create one of these Hellhounds, superdogs that produce breath hot enough to grill a pig.
What came out was their breeding experiment was one single mutt, Elmo.
Without any sense of agression, and generally considered the nicest dog on the block.

Well, he was, after all, what we called a retard.

I guess the two were made for each other.
Freddie, who had retired from active gang life, lived on a nice pension, not that much, but he had no family, and Elmo, who would have been a part of someones breakfeast, became his riding dog.
Laughable, but it worked.
After last year, we had an intruder in freddies room, it turned out Elmo had stuck to the plan, and raped the kid.
Now, when you have a 200 pound dog holding you down, licking your face with its tongue, you just can’t shake it off.
And it manages to get your pants down….

After that, Elmo was a bit more respected.
Local Gangs even allowed Freddie to dye Elmo in gang colours, so now he was bright blue in fur colour.
Not that it mattered too much.

“Hey, Freddie, Elmo…” I said, showing my respects to the pair.
Freddie was sitting in a reclining chair, grilling what looked like a rat, while watching his favorite trid show over the pirated station a few blocks down on his low class commlink.
Cat used the opportunity to pop into view too.
Only then, I realised freddie had been in AR too.
The older dwarf sat straight, and got a leecherous smile.

“Hey, Professor, Cat…
Say, Prof, can’t you really lend her to me?
I mean, just for a couple of hours.
I’ll be quick, I promise…”

I looked to Cat, and paged her with a mental command that she was free to do whatever she liked, as long as she did not harm anyone.

“Freddie, could you do me a tiny favor?” she said, and gave him one of her most alluring smiles.
The dwarf seemed entranced by it, and nodded.
Elmo took the opportunity to swipe a rat off the grill, and swallow it whole.

“Anything you ask for, sugartits. ” came the reply.

You could clearly see how he was thinking already.
She bent down a little, and flashed him a bit of clevage.

“I would like a smart, orderly man, not someone who does not understand me…
Could you count to four in binary, using your fingers?
You will find my answer there. “

To his credit, it was only a minute later when I was allmost down and out of the door, when I heard the old dwarf curse a bit.
I smiled.

“That was not nice at all, you know. “
She seemed genuinely sorry for a moment.
I wondered, what trid she had copied the pose off.
Eyes down, tits and ass out…..
She was getting better at this.

“Should I stop that routine?” she asked, her voice a lot more businesslike.

“Naa, just… try not to be too hard on him. You know, he watches over our security while we are gone, and it is a bit rude to tease him like that. “

She was silent for a few seconds, and then nodded, while I picked up the pace.
I saw a few of the early morning variety scum crawling out of their holes.
Most of them knew me, and knew that I was in good standing with the gangs and the police, which meant they did not consider me a target.

“Should I progress with reading your appointments for today?
Or telling you a few news stories?”

I shrugged.
It could have been worse.
As if on key, it started raining.

The rain was new too.

And trust me, I do not mean that someone reinvented water coming down from up above.
I mean, it was not as if there was no acidic rain in the suburbs.
On the contrary. back there, it was thick, and moist, and made sure no hair grew where it had hit.
It also served as a kind of marker.
A guy wanted unhairing?
Just stand outside in the rain for an hour, and for the next few days, you were as smooth as a guy could legally get.
It meant a lot, back then, to have facial hair, or any hair at all.
It meant you had a place to stay, even if it was just a place under a bridge, while the notoriously bad weather was coming on strong, washing all of the chemicals down on the kids, the squatters, and all of the other lowlife.
I heard that some places, there was rain, smooth water, even drinkable, that you could just stand under, and get wet in, and have nothing to worry about.
Weird thought.
 
This particular rain was a harsh bread.
Coming from the SOX, a place where a few years back a few toxic laden labs went bang, it meant that you damn well should make sure you had something to wash it off with.
My commlink, or that is to say, cat, suggested category four raingear, meaning burn your clothes afterwards.
Of course, only health nuts and seriously weird freaks would do so.
I, on the other hand, had the comfort of my enchanted duster, and my enchanted black hat.
See, lots of enchanting is just there to make an item special.

You could enchant a pipe to allways smell like a particular brand of tobacco.
You could enchant your boots to tie and untie at a command word.

But, It was commonly agreed upon that it was weird, and should better be left to whizzmoingers and shamans and the like.

Upper payscale folk did never even bother.
They went as far as to just wear something new every day.
Be dressed in 356 styles a year, some ads suggested.
The concept was easily translated to down the line folk like me:
Buy shitty clothes, look good in them for a day, then throw them away.
Corps made millions of script with it, so it was worth for both parties.

For down the line people, it meant dumpster diving was more then lucrative.

See, most items nowadays came with a warrenty.
Federal regulations and all.

So, corps got inventive, in a way I really admired.

They sold rather cheap clothing, that was guaranteed to make you look perfect for one day.
Well, it did not fall apart untill the second or third day, but it meant that there was a lot of choice to what a fella could wear, if he did not care that much that the seams started showing the second or third day, or that it had belonged to three other owners before himself. 

I was an oddity that way, at least with my hat and duster.

See, in some items, quality counts.
You may have on shitty underwear, or socks that you had to soak in the sink for a weak to get the stains out, but as far as I was concerned, you had to have at least one kind of all natural decent clothing.
For me, it was the hat and the duster.
I payed a lot for them, more then some fellows spend for food in a weak.
Also, I went to a trusted friend of mine, and asked them to be enchanted.

It meant, for all purposes, nothing really.
They did not glow in the dark, or show holographic images.
They just stayed very robust, and hard to destroy.
The friend in question said that it was perfect for just keeping them stiff and nice, and intact.
I allmost payed her the same ammount as I payed for the clothes, but it was worth every penny.

Rain in the city, nevertheless, was allways something wonderfull.
For a few minutes, all of their daily life was forgotten.
Gangers shared a roof with cops, prostitutes and prostitots stoof under the same marquise, and even the notoriously badmouthing caffees were glad to open their marquises to so much business.
I was the oddity, as I walked through the rain, trusting in the hat and the duster to keep me dry.
Even Cat had reacted and had expanded a newspaper, which she held over her head, as if she needed it.

I liked peoplewatching that way.
You are not a part of their life, they are not a part of yours.
I saw the other kind of recent and common additions to the homo sapiens family.

Trolls, three of them, cowering under a bridge, all in gang colors.
They were the one end of the spectrum.
Allmost 9 feet tall in general, Horns at both sides of their head, and pronounced canines.
Pack to that a lot of muscles, and a face only a mother could love, and you sure as hell have something that is guaranteed to not make anything else out of himself then a security guard.
At least in the Corp world.

Here, in gangland, trolls were kings.
If you are 9 feet, and have nearly 500 pounds of pure muscle mass, a lot of people tend to get a lot more respectfull.
The occasional racist might think twice about showing up at your door with a gun if he knows you lift 400 pounds without any trouble.

There was a downside to this too.
The general life expectancy, as I had read somewhere, for a troll was 40 years.
Some claim that because they are only good for menial labour, and guardwork, it is a profession risk.
There is some truth to that.
Most of all, if you are the biggest baddest motherfucker on the block without even trying, everyone wants a piece of you.
Every ganger, racist, and tough guy seems to see it as the ultimate challenge to geek, or kill, as the corp world would say, a Troll.

So, they have two options.
First, they get into a lot of unneccesary fights, which lead to weapons, which lead to somehow being killed because Mister Racist just found himself in posession of a gun when you were only carrying your normal breakfast.
Or, you made yourself smaller, which did not help a lot.
In the streets, respect is all, and trolls that appear small are generally seen as weak targets.

That, plus a relatively low IQ, tended to lead to a lifespan of rarely more then 40 years.

A lot of it was known when the awakening happened.
That was when the magic came back to the world.
It meant that Susi Corpgirl, 13, Teenage Miss Corp, might just find herself in the same position as me, only suddenly a troll.
HUGE, they tended to call it around here, hilarious unexplained genetical expression.

So, while all of the world was at war, because they thought that being a Troll was contagious, or because black and white tended to really band together well against green, the trolls had a spark of genius.
They moved in on Bavaria, and claimed it as Troll Kingdom.
Gotta hand it to them, they were not that that big about it, and most of the racists tended to think twice before attacking a state backed to the brim with Trolls and meaner variants.
It meant monarchy, and anarchy in the countryside, and occasionally, if things got too out of hand, you would see a cruiser full of trolls come into a neighbourhood, decked out in riot gear, and all.
It really was paradise on earth for homo sapiens ingentis, the common Troll.

The ork prosititute, huddled under a shang-corp sponsored umbrella of a nearby coffee ( They made bullets, I think) opened her vest, and revealed to me in passing what tripple H really ment.
I just smiled, and shook my head.

Orcs in general gave me a bit of the creeps.
They were allright, being an allmost smaller version of Trolls.
Take away the horns, the size advantage, but keep the muscle, and the canines.
I had nothing against green breasts, either.
It was just that I liked mine 100 % fluffy and soft, not 50 % breast muscles.
Homo sapiens robustus had an average life expectancy of 50 years.

Robustus was just the word for it.
They were allmost human, but a lot more animal like.
I mean, you could go chug a beer with some, and even have a barbeque.
A pal of mine described it best, I thought, when he said that Trolls and Dwarfs werent a threat, because they played in other leagues.
I guess it was right, and sighed.
When you get to the male points of view, it meant one thing.

Dwarfs were, well, proportionally shorter, and a lot thicker, so it did not seem like much of a thread.

Trolls on the other hand, well, they were built to scale, and they could use it as a club, you know what I mean.
You just sleep once at the neighbourhood house, and see a Troll with a morning hardon walk to the showers just in his boxers, and you were a little bit scared for like.

Orcs were just the same as normal scale humans, but with all kinds of warts and stuff, and that was what worried me a bit.

Women, I sighed, and moved on, going into the small street leading behind a falaffel stand to the subways, and offering a shortcut and at least some cover from the rain.
Women were still the hardest currency, and they were there a plenty.
Human girls all seemed to dream about bedding an orc or even a troll, maybe just to scare daddy.
Which was fine, I think.
Medicine was up to a point where it could do some wonders in terms of stretching, tearing, and so on.
But it was a bit difficult on the other end.

You allways read about how trolls, males in particular, use to have a slightly lower pain recceptor count.
In some of the storys I heard while in the company of some, they allways boasted about how well they could endure anything, and usually twisted out their smokes on their bare hands.
For me, it left a few questions open.

Imagine you are a very normal human female.
Now, imagine 400 pounds of troll on you, hammering you to kingdom come.
How would one go about the inevitable stretching, and perhaps even tearing?
Or how to tell the guy that he hit the wrong hole?
For all I knew, most trolls indeed were hung like, well, proverbial trolls, and I usually left the thought right there.

It made it a bit scary for me to deal with the females.
You know, I had a reputation as the professor.
I have once had to taser a ganger, in the balls, because he smashed a beerjug on my head.
Now, most guys would have seen it as a death sentence.

I, however, saw it as an opportunity.
I went straight to their headquarters, and offered my services as a consultant.
Non commital, and not in inter gang warfare, but nevertheless, services hardly anyone could provide.
See, I was one of the very lucky few who had technical skills, and a semi academic background.
I did not overly indulge in any vices, and I was kind of scared of VD, so I did not fuck around.
They could leave me a message, and I would look at their coms, or their electrical equipment, and try to fix it, or explain it to them.

A lot of them even came with simpler tasks, like proofreading a letter of application.
I allways did it without boasting,something that was rare when every two bit mechanic boasts about how dumb his clients are.
Plus, I did most of the work for what they thought it was worth.
Sure, I could have tried to haggle, or boast, or use the stories of the Troll second in command of a Biker gang that could not work out how a GPS worked.

I merely sat there, usually at a pint of beer, and explained to the guy what he had to do, in simple terms.

So, the nickname Professor stuck.
I was quiet, non gang affiliated, and I could do wonders with gear.
Of course, soon, when they wanted to pay me back, they tried their best.
Some left me drugs, most of which I told them I would not use, but rather resell to the nearest ganger.
Some left me weapons, or ammo, which I politely declined, reminding them of my trasers.

Of course, some tried to bribe me with Sex.

And that was where the trouble started.
See, naturally, I was a nice guy, and I had seen what the suburbs could do to a guy.
I had seen my fair share of people biting the dust, sometimes in my front yard.

So, I helped out, without question or expecting any payment.
I just built a small but nice network.

But when a 400 pound troll prostitute whose commlink you just upgraded using pirated software tells you you are cute and she would not mind doing a trick on you….
There is only so much a guy could do.
And dropping a pencil down a mineshaft is not something a fella can boast about.

So, it was kind of a secret, why I turned down so many offers for free sex.
Of course, I told no one that I simply did want my first time with a real woman to be with someone who wanted me because of myself, not because of what I was, who they thought I was, what I was, or because they felt they were indepted to me.
Which meant I did not get laid at all, but the ladies were kind enough to adapt to my version of the events, which generally was
” A gentleman does not talk about such things, but it was mutually pleasant”.

A birdie had told me that the local whores had a bet going on who was going to bed me first, and one that I was prolly gay, whose pools were quite high.
But they kept their mouths shut, because they valued a guy they could count on more then a quick buck.
And thus, the Legend of the professor grew.

As I made my way down the street, I saw two of the lamplighters in front of the rollways.
That certainly was newsworthy, and Cat thought so too.

“Hey, prof, whats up?”, the shorter one of them asked me, a Human like myself.
I wiggled a bit my hand.
“Nothing much. Rain, and so on. You guys doing it permanently?”
“Yea, sure. Blood won a game, so we have rights of passage on this trac for the week”
I nodded, as it made sense.
Usually, there were the Ladybugs down here, a girl go gang that operated out of a few garages, and that controlled the underground pretty heavily.
Their personell was generally a bit more freely clad, which a fella half awake could appreciate.
The lamplighters were a bit more of a metahuman outfit, mostly males. I sighed, and reached for my back pocket.
“Hope you did not leave anything permanent. I allways liked them”
“Naw, forget about it. It is just fun and games. “
I nodded, and handed them three fivers, folded up nicely.
It had a certain kind of style in it, most upscale guys would not have accepted that easily.

See, the corps ran everything in the sprawl, even the subway.
Thus, it turned into a public sport for the local gangs for a while to do drive by shootings, race their bikes on the treacs, and so forth.
Untill some eggheads in the corp bonked, and invented the rites of passage.
It was easy.
The general price for a ticket was 2.50, usually deductible by credstick.
But, as you might have guessed, a lot of the gangers used the credstick holes for something else.

So, the corps decided that they have had it, and sold their right of ways.
They said that any gang with enough manpower could win the right of way of their rival, but had to do so by the matters of a duel, one on one, choice of weapons of the current holder.
So, as the gangs realised that a right of way was a very profitable way of making a quick buck, it turned real.
Of course, the mafia or the bigger gangs did not want to be associated with the whole corps thing, but for the smaller gangs, it provided a lot of funds.
All they had to do was keep the station secure, and they could charge the other 2.50 of the fare price.
Security that paied for itself, and that cleaned up the neighbourhood.
The corporate eggheads must have loved it.

Now, the three fivers had a meaning.
The first one was to cover the actual fare.
You allways payed, wheter in script, cred, or something else, but you payed, or they would not let you use the thing.
The second one was for the boss.
It was generally accepted that there could be tips included, for good service, and since I had a bit of extra money around, it was not too much.
It was the price of a fare to me, but to them, it meant respect that they could count.
And it was sure that the two would not forget that I was a good tipper, and that they would do their best to keep it that way.
The third one was for them.
It was a bit extravagant, I know, but it meant that they could use it as they saw fit.
If, for example, a particularely goodloooking girl one of them had a crush on wanted to use the subway, but did not have the cash, she usually had to look for someone to pay for her fare.
5 bucks in their pocket meant that they could let her pay with her services, or something else.
Or, they could save up, and invest, a thing I allways found agreeable.
Or, if their old mother, or someone whom they would not want to pay with “services”, wanted to use the subway, they could let her.

The bosses would have known if there was extra cash incolved, so I kept it low.
It meant that they could do something good for someone, and not get into trouble.
Which meant respect.
Which in turn meant that there was the very real possibility that their respect for me increased.

I stepped down in the subway, and took a seat near a window. Not a window to an other car, but one sprayed with a gang sign.

Then, I went fully vr.
It allways was nice to get a few minutes of rest, I thought, as I left Cat to watch for my body, and in turn watched the locals arrive.
You could allways tell where you were by just looking at the clientel.
My station was mostly metahumans, orcs, dwarves, and the occasional troll, and a few whores on late shift, that wanted to get home.
I watched them sit in, and open their comlinks.

Pink, storebought versions of the stuff, usually full with adds.
I copied what I could, and stored it for later reference, including several kinks.
It might just pay to know that a certain Miss had some very racy pics of herself doing the beast with two backs with an orcish ganger, though she looked allmost petite and asian.

I saw my first elf at Hauptbahnhof.
It was getting to the brighter corners of the city.
Lots of people started to show up there, and all of them good little Corporate wageslaves.
You could recognise a corp, or suit, as we called them, by their seethrough raincoats.
They were designed to show of workers pride, and as much of a logo as there could be fitted on.
Corporations and their names and trademarked symbols, allways a mistery to me.
I was more of a noname guy.

See, in gangland and in corpland, names meant power.
You had the right names on your nametag, you got preferred treatment.
You wore the “name” of the lamplighters, a huge black tophat?
That meant something.
You wore a renraku shirt to a renraku job interview?
The suit might just think that you are so full of corp propaganda that he might hire you more likely then not on the spot.
Nonames were allways confusing.

An other sign of them was the cut and paste look.
I amused myself with finding out the newest trends, with my fashion spotter protocoll programm, and added them together.
Three items with brandnames, all linked to the same company?
Bingo, a surefire corp wageslave.
Four or more?
Either a newer corp wageslave, that was on the fast track, or a contractor hoping to hit it big.

Now, the elf was only noticed, because he was inconspicuous. I guess a bit of an explanation is in order here.

First of, I do not hate elfs.
I just happen to disagree with them on principle.
See, all those new subraces had a common new name, that was made neccesary when humanity no longer was the largest population group.
So, they called it metahumanity.
Metahumanity was a rather big word, where just Undesireables was enough.
No one would hire an orc as a manager, or a troll as a secretary.
Or, for that matter, a dwarf for something that had nothing to do with repair service.

They were just too disadvantaged, and might scare away potential customers.

So, in the larger citys, metahumanity, excluding humans, were only hired in metahuman centric living areas, and there only sparringly.

Elves were the exception.
See, in the earlier years of the 1980’s, there began a trend called androgynisation.
Women were forced to look and act a lot like men, and men likewise as women.
Unisex was the new word, or leave your sex at home we just want the sales you can bring in.

And elves fit right in that worldview.

They were pleasant to look at, I give you that much.
But, as the saying goes, it only gets better.
Take a modell body, and add to it pointy ears.
Slightly abvoe average height, and a figure many models would kill for.

And you have the average elf.

The downside was of course, that they develloped an attitude allmost proverbial for their race, were not that distinguishable, and thought they ruled the world.

In the later years, pre 2000, there was this trend growing.
Get androgyneous, and be magical.
Of course, back then, it just ment starve yourself and be a hippy.

And as the Magic came back to the world, and technology kicked in, the elves delivered.
Lifespans over 100 years, if unharmed, telltale good looks, and you could present them in any store aimed at humans and they would not cause eyebrows to rise.
Also, their tendency to devellop magical abilitys was definitively higher then any average,

So, in general, they seemed to have all the advantages, and the hatred of the entire metahumanity for it.
Justified, I might add, at least in all of the cases I have met.

I watch him, curiously.
Maybe it is a bit of envy, that played with my sense of justice, but it certainly was no laughing matter.
Now, you could see how the cart population was changing. No more gangers, just more and more salarymen, suits, and suit kids.

I did most certainly not fit in.
I was just getting the hang of being on my own.
Most people would have expected, when you are on your own, and in University, it would be great.
Well, the NFE sprawl was a little different.
The institute for computational science was on one end of the town, and my flat on the other.
It was not really a matter of choice.

Of course, the corps paied major bills to the university, so their kids got first pick at the closest sponsored rooms and dorms.
Nice housing, by the way, but in the property where you better have con affiliation.
Even the rats seem to have corp sponsors.

No kidding on that one, as I once saw a rat with the logo of a local trideo station stenciled on its back.

So, with me, just recently having a sin and all, no corp affiliation as of yet, and a bit of money in my pocket, it was not a matter of choice where I lived.
I moved to the parts that were too seedy for the corp kids, and where even the police wanted to show up in cars packed with force.
And what should I tell you, it worked.

Of course, it gave me a stencil as well.
I had it as soon as I stepped into the hallowed halls of the university.

“Gutter talent”
For me, it was not derogatory.
It was exactly what I was.
I had noone to back me up, I had just my talent to work for me, get me an ediucation, and maybe even a job.
The kind of sad thing was, it was a semi official term.

Now, in the 2070’s, you have machines for allmost everything, from building to cooking.
So, what rises is the ammount of either repair workmanship, or creative labour.
With creative labour, especially with security and coding, it was allways the same.
You had your average joes, who were of only marginally better then the usual con coder.
They were not skilled warriors, but trained monkeys.

They could write you hello world, the first program any coder learns, in over 40 corp licensed languages, but they had difficultys doing it elegantly.
Heck, they might have even consulted the dictionary on that one, just to not break any style regulations.

Coding, for me, was like learning a language and an art.
The corps taught theirs differently.
With them, it was standardised.
You had to use so and so many subroutines, so and so many librarys, had to keep a certain style of code, and best of all, usually incorporate the corps logo somewhere in the sourcecode.
That kind of code was fit for idiots.
For the advanced stuff, you needed someone who was taught how to code on the streets.

If you are street talent, you have a number of advantages.
You may not be able to comment on your code, or you may name a few variables funny.
But, as I can promise, you will be sucessfull.
If you only have matrix acess for under an hour, you learn to code first, and check for errors harder, so that your stuff can withstand and deliver.

You also learn in the way of a baud freak.
Most corps usually code by the standart of “Storeage is easy”, meaning that they know shit.
When it comes to highclass code, storeage is what counts.
Say you have two programms.

The first is a pulse big, and it shows a corp logo in 3d.
The second is half a pulse big, and it not only shows a corp logo in 3d, and all of the naked dancers around it you could wish for, doing a very complicated routine.
If you have not yet guessed it, it means the second attempt gets more attention, more buyers, and more support and funding from the corps.

I dropped out into Augmented reality, or AR, when we hit Plärrer.
Literally, it was translated as coming from plärrn, or to cry out.
It was a big square in the central area of the former Nürnberg area, just perfect enough to house a couple of dozend students and professors.
By now, it was filled to the brim with students, and people who looked like rebell rousers.
I was not in the mood for playing, so I continued, pushing down towards the front doors of the computational science department 3 building.
Cat switched herself off, because her soubroutines did not allow her to have enough leeway.
She was coded to appear when there was enough room for her, and it certainly was not the case.

Demonstrations were not a thing of the past, you see.
As the federal republic of Germany, after the european wars, fell back into the allianz deutscher laender, it also revived a big part of the cultural heritage from way back when we all wore matching shirts and marched to the same beat. As some people often claimed, germans were a warlike folk, and certainly, bavarians and franconians were a class of its own.

Sure, there were neo anarchist movements everywhere.
They had held Berlin for longer then anyone expected, even making it a free state on its own again, and it was a blast.
But, you could be discouraged by their methods.
“Comrads!”, a young guy in a black hoodie screamed into a mike plugged in an assortment of 20.th century hardware, that had been put on a pickup, “This is a fucking peacefull demonstration! So, you cops should back the fuck off, and leave us the fuck alone! Go find your own friends, and make your own demonstration”
I was momentarily stumped by the frequent usage of a curseword as a filler.

Demonstrations were allmost never ever peacefull, especially in this day and age.
Back in the old days, there could have been something like that.
Guys just marching, whistles blowing, and so on, and so forth.

Today, the main difference, again, made the corps.
I saw the Troll squad move into position, and began to make a quicker pace, towards the doors of the building.
Of course, the oh so peacefull demonstration was about to turn pretty nasty pretty quick.
See, the demonstrators were from something called the Black Star Block.

I disliked them, because they even had trouble with the gangs.
Now, their theory was as follows.
Get enough angry people on a leash, drive them to wherever you could rouse the most rabble, and no one would bother to show up.
It worked in the old days, so why not now?

The answer was, again, Lone Star.
Now, when there is a hord of angry anarchists to be expected, it means war path for the locals.
You go out, let yourself be seen, and you defend your turf.

Gangland had it pretty easy in that respect.
It simply meant that each of the gangs moved out and blocked a street.
Some did it by the means of a picknick, some did it simply by staring meanly.
The general idea was, as it followed, to make it clear to every masqueraded hoodloom that if they messed with our turf, we would not stop nicely and ask please, be reasonable.
We had sharp ammunition, surveillance, and the gang bosses had made it perfectly clear that each and every attack would be seen as a disturbance of the public peace.

Now, the Stars just loved that one just great.
On principle, they were against vigilante justice, but in that particular instance, they loved it.
It meant the unit assigned to our turf was waved through, to the central street, where the civilists held our traditional barbeque, and was just expected to pick up the prisoners we made.
On one of these occasions, I was told that we were the neighbourhood with the lowest rate of hurt officers in the entire city, and of course, they loved that one quite a bit.
Some of the gangs “punishment squads” even trained with the police.
Now, these cops were on the other end of the road, and I was getting nowhere fast.
The masses began closing in on me, and I was tempted to use my tasers, but it would have turned the masses against me.
“FORM CHAINS!” the guy on the loudspeaker wagon roared, and I saw how a lot of people in my vicinity grapped into their jackets, overcoats, and so on, and withdrew what could be identified as weapons of pure evil.
Clubs, tasers like mine, and much more.

So, here I was, trapped in a block of badassed anarchists, and it was not looking good for me.

I saw the first clashes as the riots started, and just remembered what I had learned about the Lone Star protocoll.
I would probably get hurt, and not in a nice way.
I had my ID on me, and everything, but it would be tough.
So, I just closed my eyes, and shoved my way back towards the big cement walls of the Subway station.
A few people had to get out of the way, and that was it.
I was safe from getting trampled.
I deactivated my tasers, and locked them, taking me only a few seconds while the first blows were exchanged.
There is nothing worse then getting to a demonstration, and suddenly finding yourself caught with a ready to fire weapon.
Or two, in my case.
The cops would win, I knew it, and they would just enjoy the heck out of it.

“Allerta, allerta, anticapitalista!”

The chorus all around me meant that it was just getting good.
I turned to the wall, and folded my hands around my neck.
I used my last few seconds at full conciousness to instruct Cat to lock down each and everyone of my commlinks, and set my signal to student of the university.
It would probably mean nothing, but I was damned if I did not try at least.
I had a reason to be here, and as far as I had figured, I had done nothing wrong.

I saw them move down like a wave.
They spilled over me, and around me, and were in no good mood to just watch out.

People were trampled, but I was save.
Nobody liked it when there was a brick wall between you and your freedom, and cops behind you.
Don’t get me wrong, it was not as if there was anything that kept them from squeezing up against me, flailing, shoving.
I just stood there, and waited for the inevitable, my hands folded on the back of my neck.
It was allways surprising how the black star block did not get the meaning of peacefull.
Sure, to them, police being there was just a matter of indecency.

But to the business owners around, they were the indecency.
And, as you all probably know or would have guessed, lone star was a corp as well.
I gave the signal to drop my protective eyeshades, and enjoyed the last few moments to just stand there, in the perfect position to be easily grabbed, or given a tap with a baton, or being pulled out and behind the lines.
After all, I did nothing wrong!

Honestly!

Wrong time wrong place!

But my fears were just quentched when I heard the rattering of automatic weapons behind me.

Oh brother, I thought, as the crowd began to quicken their pace, not again!

The cops, of course, had multiple obligations to fullfill.
They were hired, by the city, to keep the peace, and by the business owners, to keep a watch out for trouble makers.
It meant that if there was a riot going on, the cops had the contractual obligation to show back the exact same ammount of violence.
It was just good for the buisnesses!

I saw them leaning over the railing, their weapons pointed south, their clothes pulled high.
These were the hardcore crowd, sin less like I used to be, without any prospect at live. of course, no one even bothered to own a comlink.
I wanted to say to them, please, run, do not shoot at the cops, it will only make them angry.
Were they really that dumb, to think that the cops did not know their law?
90 % of the Lone Star cases went into court, mostly because of excessive use of violence.

So, suppose the following.

You are at a demonstration, that was by all means unaccounted for.
No one even bothered to get a permit!
The cops have shown up, and are now approaching, and they did nothing else then to draw weapons, and shoot at the cops.
Would anyone in their right mind even blame the cops if they shot a few dozend of them?
Even gang violence was ritualised.
You used just your hands and fist, and they used just their hands and fists.

Each side might have had better weapons, but why bother with scartches?

Besides, if you went soft on your enemy, the next time you could be guaranteed that he or she would remember, and went soft on you.
The only ones that just refused to get it were the anarchists.
For them, the corps were evil.
Heck, they were for everybody, but the anarchists just hated the corps. Well, it was their right and all, but I favored a more soft approach.
You watched out whom you messed with, because on the other side, behind that mask, there might be a father of three, just as scared, and with enough force to break your bones, or screw you up a hospital bill a lot thicker then usual.

I felt the cops come, their armour clad bodies branding right in the line, their batons just fiercly flailing.
The anarchists were no pussies either, hitting back, shooting their zip guns and pea shooters against the combat grade armor of the cops.
For them, it was clear.
They wore jackets, the cops wore ballistic riot armor.
How could an attack on an approaching Troll be seen as anything offensive?

I felt it deep in my ears, the sudden buildup of pressure.

Dreck, I thought, theree comes the magic.

With magics, the cops allways were carefull.
Shoot the one with the hand gestures first, ask questions later.
As the spell exploded, it knocked one of them right behind me, and that was it.

It was a kid, barely as old as I was.

They had followed their usual line at the star, stick them in riot gear, padd them up good. and noone would notice that the copper was shaking just as badly.
I made my decision then and very quickly.

I knew that within a few seconds, the gap now opened would either be closed, or devellop in a firefight. So, what would it be? Let a cop be trampled, just because he was out cold?
Or, risk that one cop who had enough of being called names and being thrown sticks and stones at might decide that my….
I signed, turned, and just jumped over the figure on the floor.
I just figured, if I did not take off my hat, and my duster was just enough to increase the chance of someone missing either me of the cop, it was worth it.

After all, with my hands clutched to my neck, what could go wrong? I landed hard, on the firm plaststeel, the eyes of the person under me opening.
Correction, I thought, as the Stars clashed with the anarchists, it was no guy.
It was a girl.
And a kind of cute one too.

Then the world went dark.

Again…

People allways say that stars are inhumane.

See, that is where they are wrong.
Star prisons are among the most humane ones ever created.
Especially, if you manage to make them curious.
I had awoken to the screaming of a lot of the anarchists in the cellblock next to me. With me, there were only a few others.
I remembered someone talking about this kind of behaviour.
You either were in the drunk tank, when you were agressive enough, or in the open cells.

In the drunk tank, they have had their fun with you.
Hosed you down with ice cold water, or something like that.
Fired teargas in there, if you set stuff on fire.
Well, guess all that agression during the demonstration had to go somewhere.

I sat up straight, and felt it.
Mage mask.
It meant that they had at least a Mage of their own, which had scanned each of us for possible magical activity, and then had issued mage masks.
They looked a lot like gimp masks, come to think about it.
Tight rubber, to encase your head, and to prevent you from speaking freely.
Soft pads, to block out your eyes and not let you target anyone.
After all, you can’t hex what you can’t see, as they tell the recruits.
A white nosise generator, over headphones, to not let you generate any static, or let you concentrate enough.

Plus, the way I felt it, they had added a cyber block and at least some jackstop.
See, my kind of prosthesis was not that uncommon.
In fact, many people did not use ist as a prostesis at all.
If you had the money, you could get the skin you allways wanted, the headcommlink, or anything like that.

Of course, there were offensive prosthesises as well.
Blades hidden under the artificiual leg, fangs with venom, or even something as sick as a gun in a hand prosthesis.

Their scanners were tightly knit and pretty well in shape, and I hoped they had picked up that there was only headware and a bit of senseware inside of me.
I tilted my head a lit to the left, and felt the impressions of the jackstop on my shoulder.
It was simple science.
They did not have the manpower, or the knowledge, to disassemble every piece of cyberwear.
So, once they had knocked me down, they wanted me to stay down.
I had switched off all of my stuff, just the way they liked it.
So, when I attempted to get it back online, I would get a bit of a shock, perhaps enough to leave me breathless.
All because they had put a sort of plug inside of my datajack, a port in my head that connected my implants, that sensed electricity.
If I would switch my system on, I would get electric jolts, straight to the brain.
I just loved the way they thought.

I did not have to wait for long.
I felt the celldoor open, and a guard tapped me on the shoulder.
I stood up, and with as little rush as possible, I let him lead me outside the cells, into the darkness.
He did not even bother to take of the mask.
After a few minutes of endless turns and twists, I was turned around, and was placed on the chair, where I lost my magemask.
It gave me an opportunity to look at the cop next to me.

A pretty standart build, I have to say.
Medium size, medium built.
Upper lip beard, like they have themn in gay porn.
Heck, I knew enough of them policemen personally.
I put on a smile, as he made a show of opening a folder with my name on it.

“Is she allright?”
It may have been confusing to him, but it sure was something he did not expect.
“Who?”
“The girl I landed on. That was knocked down and in the progress of being trampled?”
The cop raised an eyebrow.
“I do not see what that has to do with anything, but yea, she is allright.
Some mage like you hit her with something. Pretty sure it was a bit harsh, but most of the hurt came when you landed on her. “
I managed to blush a bit. And the cop smiled.
“Well, as lucky as it is, we checked out.
You are right to go, but we do have a few questions for you. “
I shrugged.
What could that be possibly be about?
“Shoot.
Wait, poor choice of words, but just… you know, start asking. “
The cop smiled, a little bit surprised and desperate.
“Son, you know we found the credstick on you, with all of the information. Are you for real?”
I was stumped a bit.
It was not street lingo I had heard a lot.
More a bit of the ancient stuff.
“Well, I certainly feel so. Can I ask why?”
“Says here you are magically active, and have headware.
Can you explain to me how that goes together?”
“Easy. First, I am not one of those health nuts, second, As you may have read in my files, they remind me what happens when you are at the wrong place at the wrong time, and third, for the same reason your hand twitches. “
Now, I had him. I could see it in his eyes.
It was not how he expected it to go.
“And why would that be?”
“Easy. I mean, first, your rank. You are allowed to interrogate me, yet you called me a mage. That tells me that you rely on something a mage told you, or some sort of gizmo. So, you probably have had extra training on how to handle the situation. “
I could see how he was intrigued.
But I had to just impress him a little more.
“Moreover, I think I recoignise the style.
Gun on the table, you watching me attentively, looking for any signs of me doing a fast one.
Making some moves, which I would like to say I am not, or trying something funny.
All I am saying is that you look like that.
Which tells me that the gun is prolly loaded with either taser, or gel ammunition, which is supposed to be less deadly, but which can be just as deadly when fired in an eyesocket, or in the temple.
Now, as for the training, you know that I am on the list of friends of Lone Star, and have gang affiliations.
I would like to say, nothing extraordinary, just a routine, but it gives me an idea that for that kind of training, you need not only have a higher rank, but also an edge. I am guessing cyberware?”
I could see a twinge of a smirk in the corner of his eye.
“So, just guessing, because you do not look that tough, and you are, if you excuise me saying so, human like me.
So, I suspect someone sprung the question on you, getting under the knife for a chance of a promotion.
To give you an edge over all the trolls and so on.
So, by the way your hand is shaking, I would say you had wired reflexes, or skillwires.
Most likely, Shiawase, because they have a contract with the star.”
“Mitsuma. “
His words were slightly victorious, but I could sense some kind of doubt in his head.
“Well, that eases the point a bit. I know that most of the regular clinics use shiawase, or an other subsidiary. Mitsuma is only used very very rarely these days. Of course, if you have not gotten your cyberwear now, I would guess you have had it when you were on fire. I am assuming, in your 20’s? Now, you look like 40 something, excuse my assumption.
You are also most likely married, because you have an indentation on your ringfinger.
I know, you did not look, so I am now sure it was an unpleasant breakup.
Mainly because you used self tanner on the spot to get rid of the white stripe, and forgot all about the ridge.
Now, I would say, that smallens the possibility of you having much money left, because by the way you are now smiling, she cleaned you out. “

He nodded.
“Moneygrubbing whore”, he said, “outside of protocoll”

“Now, I would say, you have a little less money on your paycheck then usual, perhaps a lot less because you need to pay alamony.
The thing is, you noticed the twitch.
It seems barely significant now, and certainly not that problematic, or worth the money they said it was going to cost to fix you up.
But, I am telling you, just as a friendly warning, get it looked at, because if you devellop the black shakes, or something similar, you are bound to get replaced real soon. “

The cop folded his hands, and looked at me.
Kind of funny. I knew he knew that I had the mirrored sunglasses on, and that it left only one eye free to stare in. I had shut the cyberwear down, and would not try to use it.

“You know that you could have been well cared for at the star? They can allways use a man who can think.”

I nodded. “Do know, but have to say I am more of a lover then a fighter. But the same reason you refuse to get your ware fixed is why I refuse to get my cyberwear taken out. It would take me weeks to get back in circulation, and still longer to get back to where I was before. I am guessing my eye would need to be cloned, because I am magically active, so, I made a simple calculation. The time and money I would loose by going back under the knife are not worth the potential I would gain. Plus, I am getting so used to all of it that I just would not feel the same. Does that satisfy the question?”
The cop nodded.
Now, he was at least in a good mood.
“You know, I like you. You are a good kid. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
I sighed.
Why did it allways come to this…
“Okay, look. I know that you know that you had me scanned while I was out, and that I have a few too many comlinks for your taste.
I am guessing at the moment, your techs amuse themself with my assistant?
And that she has mentioned to you that I am under contract, and that the opening of certain encrypted containers on my comlinks would not be the best for my career?
Because, as I may say, these containers are corp property, so they fall under corp law. I could now explain to you that in order to get to look into one of these, you would have to fill out a non disclosure agreement after getting a judge to sign a waiver. So, please, even if I hate to say it, but you and me both have buddys upper scale that can make it out by themself, so let’s not worry anytime soon about that. Okay?”
The cop sighed.
“You know, you take all the fun out of it?”
“I could tell you the same. All I wanted was to give you all of the answers you asked for, and provide you with an excuse to go home a lot earlier. But I guess you could not do so as the two are watching. “
“Huh?” Now the cop seemed honestly confused.
“Easy. I know that my cyberwear breaks no laws, and that I have all the permits and registrations I need. Heck, I even have a star gylph for my avantar in the matrix. It may be dubious that I habitually answer all of the spam I get, but not punishable by law. So, it leaves me to ask, blonde or brunette?”
“But how did you…”
“Easy. I am a registered sin person, and somewhat good at what I do. So, when you run my identity, a few bells at the workplace go off, and the boss sends out one of the lawyers to see what is up. Meaning, she is already here, and not in a good mood. But you thought, which is admittively nice, that I could perhaps spill some beans, just to see if you still had it. So, if I may make a suggestion?”
The cop nodded, folding my file. I smiled.
“I am not charged with anything, because I simply did not do anything punishable by law. My ID provides a valid reason why I should have been at the place, and the masses of individuals provide a reason why I was stuck in the middle. I am sure if you check enought cameras, you will see I even assumed a position of innocence, that made it impossible for me to be squashed.
Now, as for the touching of an officer of the law, I would say that I am guilty of that, and I would suggest a moderate fee of 40 nuyen? Yea, that spounds a bit right, because hindering of policework usually has a 30 nuyen bill. So, for the rest, I would like to purchase a coffee-mug with the lone star symbol on it, and one ticket to the policemens ball. I know you guys have some really nice ladies, and most of them are not that muscular?”

He smiled, and I smiled.
Racism was an ugly thing.
Hating someone just because what he happened to be, that was just wrong.
But, in a very real sense, it made a connection easier.
He was human, and older then me.
He possibly suffered from the same predjeduces as I did, and possibly had to use one showerroom with trolls.
Also, policemen tended to be allmost as hated as elves, but without any reason to it, which made them single more often then not.
Plus, cops usually kept to themself, not making such a fuzz out of everything.

“Can I ask how much the lawyer has payed you?” I asked, leaning back.
“50 bucks. ” the cop answered.
I nodded.
That sounded like corporate tactics.
“So, am I now free to go? I mean, unless you need to take my statement, or something?”
The cop just waved me off.
I was free to go.

Outside I still straightened my gear as I met her.
Her, that was Miss Manners.
I never learned the real name, and it was probably better that way.
Her ultra short black hair was painfully hedgehog like that morning, and she had a cup of coffee waiting.
I took it, and grimaced, as I sipped.

It was good.

Good coffee was never something ordinary.
It meant real beans, not something fake, or soy, to make it worse.
Good coffee was rare, and that was the catch.

Early on in life, I had learned that nothing was for free.
Dad had taken it upon himself to teach me the little he knew about capitalism he knew.
Mom had allways said, “But Pa, he won’t need to know, surely, the revolution will come, and then there will be no more corporations!”
He would have never admitted it, but he adored her for this.
Her willingness to believe.
It was something we both shared, when she told us about anarchist communes, and so on.
But, there also was a secret understanding.
If it was to come, as sure as mom predicted, why would it hurt to learn what you could ?
So, he told me that for every thing there is, someone has had to pay.
Sometimes, people with more money then others choose to pay for stuff, and sometimes, all of us payed for something, but it meant that you at least had to be carefull with everything you took as free, because the truth was it could break, and then there would possibly be noone to pay for it anymore.

My boss was someone with a lot of money.
He was called, I kid you not, Mister Richard Richards.
He was also the reason Miss Manners had a job, and by extention, I had a job as well.
It was only as an assistant in a university maintennance department, and there was allways the threat of him kicking me out and me having to pay the tuition fees all by bmyself, but well, some things are more free then the rest.
Dreck, I had seen the trid.

I played what I liked to call the waiting game with her, as we stepped into her car.
It meant I knew that she knew that I knew that nothing was free, and that she would soon enough spill why she had come.
There was a rumor going around that she had a pretty high hourly salary, which meant that she coming to the station herself and bringing real coffe was all the more costly.

As I waited, not saying a word, and counting the streetlights, that slowly went on, I took the time to carefully boot my equipment up.
The lights went on, and my second eye reported back with full vision.
The interior of her car looked all the more interesting for it.
It was certain that there had been at least five large animals, that were killed, and their hides were used to stuff that car.
I let my fingers glide over the upholstery, quickly calculating, as my commlinks hooked up to the matrix again, and downloaded the latest episodes and updates of all of my corp software.
The pure number that I came up with was a bit staggering.
Even with my knowledge of capitalism, all of these numbers made barely any sense.

Big money. Very big money.

Back in the old days, when I was in the suburbs, if you had that much money, you bought a house.
Or, you fed your entire family, which often enough included some friends, gangmembers, and perhaps even your religious group, with nothing but premium food for at least 5 month.
Was she that rich?
Or was it the same reflex that allowed freddie to keep a tailored suit in his closet?
Sure, it had seen better days, but there was a rumor going around that he never wore it, except on special occasions.
I mean, to be honest, I could see Miss Manners doing exactly that.
Nothing more then an accessoire, to make her look big and buff, and to make her clients feel all the more important and small.

It also must be that she was terribly lonely.
I at least would have taken a more modest car, and would have treated myself and a few gangers to the occasional barbeque.
But spending all that on a symbol?

I made it to 255 Streetlights, as she dropped me the chip, and flipped the switch that made the screen come up.
It was a nice chip, certified credstick, silvery size.
I slotted it on the commlink on my hip, and watched as the data poured over my field of vision.

“During the riots, in which you were a part, there was an… Incident”
She spoke softly, and I could not help but hear a trace of an accent.
It was something special to her, something that made her appear normal.
That hinted that behind the fasionable trendy hedgehog style hair, the masterfully accented Zoé businesswoman combo, the thousand nuyen shoes, and the manicured nails, there was a woman.
There was a reason for you to never date corp women, especially if you are not corp ypourself.

“What kind of an incident? Some suit” I enjoyed her flinch at my decisively lower class expression” forgot his passwords?”
She swirved around a biker, and for a second, I could hear the zing as the bullet grazed her car.
It was not a lowclass bullet hole zing, but more of a highclass ” I am 10.000 Nuyen reinforced steel, try to hit me” zing.
Apparently, the gogangs here were not the best choice of enemies.
“No. You are familliar with the medical studies program?”

I nodded.
Heck, that was where half of my tech came from.
As much as I figured, I had died that day with the bullet, bled my brains out.
The fact that I was not dead meant that someone or something had liked the kind of decisions I made, and intervened.

So, I had a healthy curiosiity about cyberwear, and upgrading it frequently.
Plus, there was nothing more classy then being there, on the table, your meat there all fresh and pumping, and you can use their cameras for a visual trideo projection of yourself, or just watch the students try their best at upgrading my hardware.
Of course, some of you healthnuts might be screaming, but dude, these are students, and most of your hardware is in your brain!
Well, to the health nuts, I can plainly tell

“Get bent!”.

I mean, after all, who do you want to work on your car?
The lower class mechanic, who does that stuff every day, and has grown up with that level of technology, or the specialist, who has had to spend a fucking ridiculous ammount of nuyen to get to that level, and who’se only acessory is seniority, but who have billion dollar insurance companys at their back in case they make a mistake?
See, that is why I take my chance with a student.
They care, and even if it is just to keep their insurance cover low.

Plus, of course, being an adept with cyberwear meant that you were allways good for some beta testing.
So, the students watched their fingers, the corps watched their beta tested cyberwear, and I got the state of the art cyberwear I allways liked.

“Sure. I get frequent visitor bonuses”

It was true. I enrolled in so many testings, and trials, and such, that some of the elders in the program often jokingly referred to me as semi-professional labrat.
Well, it meant decent food, free entertainment, and staffers that would jump through many hoops just to get a good review from you.
Plus, the few times they payed, I was able to invest it in a little extra.
She did not take the joke.
“As part of their mid terms, a group of students from there was brough out by bus towards the free clinic in Erlangen. They were there to help out there to get some field experience, and so on. As of 16.00, the group went missing. “
She suddenly had my full attention.
“You are joking, right? None of them had their commlinks with them? No headcomms, pagers, anything?”
“The students were scanned before to determine that they had no equipment capable of cheating. That ment all cellphones, pagers, commlinks, PDA’s or anything. They were expected to turn up at the free clinic, work there for four hours, and then return. However, they did not even show up. “

I uttered a silent prayer.

Not good.
“I have to look up something in VR. Can you open a window for me?”
The first reaction she showed, and it was a smile.
As far as stories go, only twice was a smile won from her, and once was on a nasty accident scene.
“Is your equipment that low powered? And, after all, we are in an area where wireless access is not that common. We should reach city limits in about an hour. “
I knew she was right, and still, it was worth a try.
As I stayed silent, she opened the window.
I could see on her face that she was not OK with the dirty nonfiltered air, the howls, and the wossnames.

I could care less.

I went full VR, and found Cat already waiting
“How can I be of assistance?”
She had not changed a bit, and I loved her for that.
Professionality around the clock.
“Get /dev/eins to open up the satelite, and get me an uplink. “
/dev/eins, of course, was a bit of a joke to others.
See, I saw no reason why an eyeball that was shot out and replaced with a myoptic camera should remain what it was.
So, I had a heavily modified drone in there instead.
Pays to be a pro, after all.
I saw through my own eyes, and felt the shift.
I knew that my artificial eye would flip open, and the iris would detach, and form a tiny recceptor dish, just big enough for a low orbit satelite.
Acess cost me quite a bit, but it was worth the nuyen.
After all, as space flight was now getting cheaper and cheaper, a few of the companies began to rent out older model com satelites, and so provided an uplink whenever it was possible.
I saw how Miss Manners was gripping the wheel tighter.
Apparently, she disliked it, or found it too alien.

I could care less.
One time, I had taken a job, without knowing what it was. That one time landed me in one of the most dangerous parts of the city, in a flooded Watermain, without any diving gear, expecting me to fix up a professors wire connection to the matrix.
“Cat? Listen to me. I need to get online, and I would like to do so fast and secure. So, instruct all decks to get me matrix acess in a supporting capabilitry, as soon as we are within reach, and then come with me.”
It was a blink of an eye, but I opened up my tools.
See, VR had a few advantages. I was able to work anywhere, I could do things, and I did not have to worry about my body.
Also, I had a little help from my friends.
See, I had more then enough support from the fully virtual environment.
“Load navisoft, load chip”
Electrons screamed through wires, as the commlinks processed my requests.
I grabbed a copy of the files on the belt commlink, that I just viewed, and they appeared to me as nicely organised as I expected.
Semi transparrent windows of the single picture ID’s. Straightfaced corp kids, each and everyone.
The navisoft loaded as a flat layer below me, a 3d picture on the virtual floor.
I could see how the sprawl was, what it was, how it lived.
Representations of each and every artery of the city, including the vehicle data.
Pathways, times…

I tried it with a simple routesearch parameter.

The code worked, and a red line marked the start and end point of the kids travel.
I followed it, and took in account the number of surveillance devices.
It was impossible to disappear from that route.
They were practically all the time on there…
Cat looked over my shoulder.

“Cat, how accurate is the map? I mean, from the last point of creation. “

She took a second.

“Less then two weeks old, at the time. Is there something wrong with it?”

“No. Just… get me the last 24 hours as an update. You know your sources. Pay, and do it orderly. “

I felt the data come in, and smiled.
Wonderfull new world of technology.
My commlinked talked with a bunch of computers, and all were happily working within each other.
Then I saw something, as I slid up the virtual road, moving my icon.
“Cat? what is that?” I said, pointing to a large red symbol.
“It marks the location of a traffic jam, and is from trafficwatch” She moved closer too.

I had something.
It was not much, and I did not know what it was, but as a great american hero once said, I felt my hacker sense tingling.

“Cat, get me the vehicular configuration of that area, for one hour before and after the jam. And get me the time and place of the accidents that caused it. Everything you can. “

I felt the data coming in, and zoomed in.
There was…
something I was not yet seeing.
I looked at the bigger picture, and pondered.

Traffic jam, on the route.
Couple of Go-gangers had stormed a booze transport, and had raided it.
Sounded fishy, but not my interest.
As far as the situation went….

It hit me. Hard and fast.

“Cat, keep it open and running. ” I said, and switched back.
A count on the side of my field of vision informed me that I had spend 2 minutes in contemplation.
“Miss Manners, ” I said, and nodded towards her, “Which kind of transport were they using? Can you name a company?”
She knew data miners well enough to not make a show.
Which kind of saddened me.
It was a route she had well traveled past herself, I suspected.

“VGN, a private company. Not the newest modell, but you know finance”

without a word, I switched back, online to VR.
I felt my batteries draining.
The peak was allmost over.

“Cat, go on traffic watch, and get me the drivers number of the bus that drove the students. If possible, a photo of him too. “

I switched down to the simulation, and pondered.
Traffic watch was a kind of gizmo allmost all companies in the sector of transportation used.
It was meant to give the other commuters a possibility to reward or punish official comnpany drivers for their behaviour.
If a busdriver, or taxi driver left you standing in the rain, a negative comment was just a commlink-connection away.

I got the picture of the bus, and the driver.

Kind of a rough look, and not particularely fitting.
It was not bad from someone from the streets.
I had it.

The picture.

There, just on the hand, designed to look like one of them oldfashioned tatoos.
I grabbed the image, turned it, and went fully online.
The travel was shorter then expected, as I had preprogrammed the node.
The big, hulking lone stra logo was up there, and the agent greeted me at the door.
I smirked, and pointed to the badge of my icon.
Of course, it was not like the agent actually saw the icon.
It just recognised the code, and compared it to its natural database.
Then, it smiled.

“Neighbourhood watch, badge number 3400567, What can I do for you?”
I smiled.
The star, as all companys, has understood the concept of matrix 2.0 well enough.
It meant user created contend, mostly, but it was actually fun.
They gave the badges of the watch to allmost everyone, and everyone could send in suspicious gang signs, and get a positive ID on them, mainly to get the star to note the gang activitys.
Well, my niche was a bit more darker.
“I need an ID on a suspicious man’s tatoo. Nothing important, just that he passed me and that I did not get anything more then a snapshot, and I wanted to thank him and give him a positive mark on traffic watch. “
It was more then lame, but better then nothing.
My Icon handed the agent the photo, and off she went.

Well, I was also a frequent customer here.
Most of the gangs had traffic watch, and neighbourhood watch too, and they were not the best of customers.
But, and that much was important, if you knew someone who was high enough on their ranking, you could get that someone to your newest gang designations, and tags, and grafiti, and snap a picture of them.
That was basically why I had the account, after all, why pass an opportunity for free favours?

Sort of like a matrix PR manager for a couple of lower gangs.

The agent returned. “Sir, I would suggest you approach with care, the tatoo is part of a former crashcar gang’s logo, and said subject is no longer active there. do you have any other part of the image recognisable?”
I disconnected, and back I was, hanging over the simulation.
Crashcar gang, right?
“Cat, I want to emulate a lower chipset then mine. Emulate the make and modell of the bus, a preprogrammed navsoft of the lower end of the buscompany’s licences, and run it, on time, into the situation, as if we were driving in the bus. I want to see what the bus might do, and what the navsoft would suggest. “

I saw the tiny bus driving along the red line, as if the area was full.
Then, the simulation got slower.
A path was marked in pink.
I did not need a guide to know where it was going.

As I came back into the real world, Miss manners looked at me expectantly.
I saved the simulation, and closed the connection.
No sense in wasting minutes, right?

“And? Found what you were looking for?”
I nodded.
“I have had 120 Nuyen of expenses. Care to clear them first?”
She nodded.
I knew, when I would come home, someone would have dumped that into my account.
Just like that.
They would not trust me with an expense account, but her, it was like butter.
Welcome to the new world were even lawyers have a trustworthyness rating that determines how much they can bill the customer with.
“I will. Now, what have you found out?”
“They are possible in the fields, or somewhere like that. “
“The fields?” She actually sounded surprised. “But that’s gangland! Isn’t it near the suburbs?”
I nodded.
“But how would a driver end up there? There is no police force out there…”
“What have you checked the schedule and the route with? I suppose state of the art, right?”
“Of course! The system was regularely updated as well!”
I sighed.
You could allmost smell the corp ideology…
“Okay, The driver had a gang tatoo , crashcar. “
“On the danger of sounding ignorant, that sounds unhealthy”
“Same as a go gang, but instead of using bikes, the crashcar gangs use old cars. So, the driver drives his bus, and since he is a former ganger, he perhaps only gets every other update, to save some nuyen for anything. I mean, he is, after all, a professional driver. So, he sees the traffic jam, and gets to think that if the corp kids get taken, he might be out of a job. So, he uses an older modell, less updated navigations chip, and gets a route that takes him through the suburbs. I bet he figured, if he either lost the kids, or arrived too late, he would be out of a job and on the pay of some gang. So, with these two alternatives, he deccided to take the decent route, and go through the suburbs, endangering his and the kids life. “
There was silence in the car, and she missed a stoplight, as con propaganda undoubtfully flashed before her eyes.
I checked to see if by buckle was allright, when she snapped out of it.

“We are going. Now. “

I grabbed on closer to the upholstery, as she turned the car around, looking furiously.
“Whoa whoa whoa…. What about payment?”
she grunted, a halfdisguised smile.
I saw a few streetlights flashing by as she stepped onto the paddle.
“Young man, I have an expense account that is quite deep. Plus, on that bus, there is my baby sister. So we are going there.”
I sighed.
“Look, I am ok with you being all protective, but you need to do something, and I need to get some equipment. WHat do you say to you dropping me off, you getting a second change of older nonbrand clothes, and an urban explorer jumpsuit, and pick me up at my place in half an hour? That way, our chances might be better”
She pondered for a bit, and then tuned the car down, getting within normal speed limits.

“You mean it? You will help?”

I nodded.

“I can imagine that you are interested. You would have called the star, but did not have the permission of the department head. You probably had a cussout, and he told you that you could hire outside help, but you did not know the neccesary gangsters, and I am about the closest thing to street that you know. Am I right?”

“Wanted to call it a possible terrorist act. said 24 hours after disappearance, there would be alerts. Cold bastard”

I smiled as she mumbled.
You could count on Corp culture.

“Okay, I get that you have your equipment you need, but why the urban explorer jumpsuit? wouldn’t decent armour be a better match?”

I grinned.

“Hey, nothing against you, but that is gangland. Decent armour would get you first looted, then raped, then killed. An Urban explorer jumpsuit, preferrably in dark blue, will just get you kidnapped, and released against a modest sum. It screams tourist. “
She was scared, I could see that much.
Heck, I would be scared if there were people I knew in the “Fields”.
Then again, it was better then doing nothing.

I told her to slow down, as the nearest checkpoint to my neighbourhood approached.
We saw the firebugs, young recruits with was too much firepower for them to handle.
I patted her on the shoulder.
“Okay, let me out of here, and we meet again at 19.30, 50 Minutes from now. Think you can make it?”
She nodded.
“I will. But… If I can ask, what’s in it for you? I mean, I would not go into the “Fields” for all of the money in the world, let alone for someone else. “
I smiled, stepped out of the car, and bowed down to her.
“Take it from me, the money is just a bonus. I will bill you, for the hour, and for all expenses, and it will not be little. I will not guarantee that you get your little sister back, but I will do my very best to see to it. And for my personal pleasure, you owe me a date, or a decent subsitiute. Also, bring your comlink, and any acessorys you might need to use it. I will take care of the rest. “
She smiled, perhaps a bit surprised.
I just turned around, out of the fresh chill, and stomped towards the guard post.
They recognised me easily enough.
“Hey, prof, who was that suit? You getting decent, or searching your snatch on higher grounds?”
I smiled, and lit a cigarette at their bonfire.
“My johnson, it appears”

With that, I walked in, and towards my flat.
I would have to make a few calls, but at least, rent would be on time for a few more days. and hey, who said strong women killed chivalry?