He stares at me for a few seconds before a wide grin flashes across his face. The blade retracts back into his arm, and he crushes me with a fierce hug.
"My boy Specter. Always cool as ice." He laughs, and his sycophants laugh with him. He waves them toward the door. "Give us a minute or two, fam. Gotta catch up with my man Spec. Go get pissed on a few bottles. I'll catch up in a few, innit."
He waited for them to clear out before brightening the lights and turning back to me, face turning serious. "Don't think this makes us good. You left me gutted, mate. I was counting on a few more scores to get me back across the pond."
"London? I thought you hated it there."
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say. Point is, I could be there already if you hadn't skipped out. Hope you're in for putting in real work or you're wasting my time."
"I'm in for it. Looking for something heavy. Rent on DSPs is sky-high, man. I need enough to last for a while. Whatever you got."
"DSPs?" He sneers, shaking his head. "You and your v-addiction. It's worse than any grime on the streets. Got you Sleepers shook when you have to come back to the real world."
"It's not an addiction, man. It's a lifestyle. No different than the one you choose to live."
"Bollocks. Life is walking and breathing, mate. Not hooking some corporate IV in your veins and bleeding five hundred quid a day into their fat accounts. And for what? To trip on a fantasy. Immersion is just another drug. The most addictive substance on the planet and you know it."
I fold my arms and grin. "Listen to you. Next thing you'll be hooking up with the Digital Underground, fighting for humanity's freedom and all."
"The DU? Not me, bruv. I got scratch to make." He glances around. "Not used to seeing you without that peng holo you run with. She finally let you off the leash, eh?"
"She's not a hologram. And you gotta use the visor, man. She's right in front of you."
"Ha! No holovisor for me anymore. Got the shines last year. Just have to make the adjust." His eyes glimmer for an instant as the cybernetics switch to the right filter. He grins when she materializes in front of him. "There you are, Hel. Looking well fit as usual. Still got this wasteman proper moist on you, eh?"
Hel waggles her fingers, switching her accent to match his. "Cheers, luv. Got nothing to do with Specter's decisions. I follow where he leads, you know?" She sidles to the window and dances sinuously in the flashing lights, throwing a wink over her shoulder at me.
Keno snorts. "Yeah, right. Well, I gotta say that you two showed up just in time. I was just kicking myself for having to cancel out on a major score." He points to the nearby glass tabletop, where several rolled joints are stacked. "Bun a zoot, bruv?"
I shake my head. "No, thanks."
"Going clean, that it?"
"My lungs can't take the beating. Especially the skins you roll."
"Aw, what's the matter? The Deep Sleep wankers cut back your nutrients again? You look half-dead, mate. Just another reason to quit Immersing while you can."
Hel turns from dancing in front of the window. "I thought you said something about a major score."
"Just getting to that, luv." He frowns at her for a second before turning back to me. "Look — are you really back or just looking to pull small fries like last time? I need to know before I go any further."
I open one of the bottles of Guinness from the open chest on the counter and take a swig. For some reason, beer always tastes better outside of Immersion. Something about the translation doesn't quite match up.
"I'm back if the payday is major. But just so you know — after the job's finished, I'm going back to Elysia. Don't try talking me out of it. Waste of time."
"Yeah, yeah. They got their hooks in you right proper." He crashes into a padded armchair, looking uncharacteristically sober. "Look, I've been working on this for a while. Should be more than enough to make you a permanent resident of your virtual world if we can pull it off. I'm talking a one and done, hit and retire kind of score. Coordinating with several different parties to get it rolling. The only missing piece is a sure-bet core-jacker like you."
I sit opposite on a cheap faux leather couch. "So obviously this involves synoids."
"Yeah. But not your ordinary rollover. We're not talking five-and-dime manservant or cutesy little sex doll types."
"Military-grade, then?" I scrub a hand across my chin. "Soldier units. That's gonna take some real strategy. Not some half-baked plan like last time that got two bodies dropped."
He glares at me, rage twisting his face into something feral. "You're lecturing me about killing people? You gotta be taking the piss, mate. How many bloody bodies have you burned in Elysia? Don't hear you getting arsey over those corpses."
"Those corpses aren't real."
"Allow that, bruv. You don't get to choose what's bloody real and what's not. You're hooked on Immersion like a fiend with a needle in his veins because you think Elysia is more real than this world. If that's so then the killing is too. Worse, even. Because you can laugh it off. No guilt, no trauma. It's just a game, right? You can pull a trigger, watch the blood spray, listen to the screams, and feel nothing. Nothing but the thrill, that is."
I snort out an uneasy laugh. "Jeez, Keno. What's got into you? Why all the hatred of Elysia?'
"Nothing, mate. Nothing except maybe I know a little bit about the dirty laundry there. Like maybe I had a proper bird I was sweet for a bit — proper toff, but always up for it, you know? Turns out she took a vacay to Elysia for a tad. Total noob, she ended up taking a wrong turn or two, found herself in a skin district, one of the dodgy ones. Buggers who like the rough stuff, rape fantasies and all."
I feel the fight drain out me. "Aw, man."
"Yeah. Bloody bastards used her like a human toilet for thirty-six hours straight because she didn't know how to switch the environment. When she finally got out, she was never the same. We weren't the same, you know? She doesn't like anyone touching her. Not after counseling, not after months of her being back in reality. She still has flashbacks. Still has nightmares."
"I'm sorry, man. But that's not me. That's not what I'm into."
He settles back in his chair, a bitter smile on his lips. "I know that. But that place is proper grimy, bruv. It's a cesspool where people go to wallow in their true natures in like pigs in a sty. No shortage of psychopaths and sickos with their masks off, indulging in their basest desires. You know it. You've seen it."
My eyes drop. "Yeah. I've seen it."
"Then don't go telling me about the place like it's the dog's bollocks. You wanna turn a blind eye, that's fine. But don't expect everyone to buy in on your little whitewashed fantasy."
"Yeah, I hear you. Look, we talking Elysia or we talking business? You were saying something about jacking a shipment of military synoids."
"No, not military." He leans forward, face intense. "Even harder."
"What's harder than military?"
"Prototype. Maximillian Industries. I'm talking the nick of all nicks. Straight from the vaults of Los Nuevos, bruv."
The bottle nearly falls from my hand. "Let me get this straight: you're talking about hijacking a heavily guarded transport rig carrying prototype synoids from a corporation known to kill to protect its secrets."
"Bloody right, mate." A wide grin stretches across his face. "Time to go big or go home."
Chapter 6: 3N16MA
I want to wake up.
The world is washed out, hazy around the edges. I know I'm dreaming again, trapped in a miasma of memory that resurfaces whenever I'm too weak to stop it. Weak, just as I was then. Eight years old, abandoned by whoever birthed me into an overcrowded orphanage. Not enough beds and not enough food led to the survival of the fittest, and I wasn't fit enough to stay. Pushed out by children stronger and more ruthless, I found myself on the streets in a week. No one bothered to look for me. Children vanished all the time, and the only people who noticed were predators.