Born out of Binary: A Cyberpunk Revolution

So uh... The warehouse blew up

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Mon, 5 Aug 2019 15:18:00 -0700

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/butler-county/hamilton/crews-responding-to-large-warehouse-fire-in-hamilton

This was right around the block from my old place with the Nazis. It was listed as 999 Laurel Ave. 999 was the number at the end of three previously used emails that have been hacked since 2016 at the beginning of this ordeal three years ago.

Jen's still unreachable. If any of you remember Street Clan, Sal was in a warehouse when the roof blew off and Ulrich Mikael and the Black Swords arrived. Also I had dreams about this time period for most of my life so I suppose that came into play during the writing of SC. I'm currently in court to prove that my mental health is sound after having an RPG I once played online have parralells to the Syrian Civil War. When I reported that I saw parralels of the conflict and the game to a doctor, also at the same appointment saying I was experiencing a premonition coming true in my personal life I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. So far the court monitor believes I am having premonitions and have had them in the past but this doesn't change how close I am personally to the aforementioned news story. So maybe someone is acting out the stories. I've lost contact with multiple people on Facebook inexplicably and have also found

Small Update

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Mon, 27 May 2019 20:53:00 -0700

In regards to the reasons I went underground the Klan did show in Dayton originally slated to have 20 members at their rally only 9 showed. Over 600 counter protesters rallied against them. I believe that the Esoteric Techno Fascists were the ones who sent the nazis I encountered in my building to harass the neighborhood as they were largely interested in spells and technology although they killed a black man down the street in December as well as destroying a shop owned by a Muslim man two blocks away. They apparently can cause dreams with negative after effects. I have personally been confronted with this and can attest to the negativite events that follow, however it does not seem to correlate with the effects of time as myself and my associates reported their group only within the last five years.

I am unsure as to what it may mean however I have some guesses. If it is combined with the hack I recieved I am unsure as to what will occur. However, knowing that my old friend who shall remain unamed is unreachable on any platform following the break in that caused my phone to be stolen just after two spoofed calls and what has followed was and is the lack of contact (thus far I have tried contacting her on two different phones, one of which was a landline) and could only get two rings before recieving an answering service. As her and I once worked at the local library and the Klan from North Carolina fliered it in 2017 before the nazis arrived, I am greatly worried about her inability to contact me. There still may be some danger. I've tried to make this battle of wits work. I don't fully understand how so many platforms could be disabled (a few family members are unreachable currently on Facebook as the option to add friends has been removed and two or more friends have suddenly blocked me despite this being a new account and the fact that no messages were recieved. Also I can verify that Messenger has been encountering issues as one voice clip to me exwife was dated with the year 1970. I personally can only believe that this has to do with the Armata hack that had my universal username in Russian as the first delivery account.

As that game is hosted in Eastern Europe and has Ukrainian players and that the dreams would give me information about OWS, Ukraine, and Syria, even Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts and death, in some cases knowing about things that were happening like SEALs violating rules of engagement in Iraq (my father was not a SEAL but was Navy and served with SEALs and spoke highly of them so this is difficult) in a dream at the time of the event, or prior as formerly listed I have been able to prepare responses to certain events in the past few years. However, I am unable to respond to them any longer as the events have unfolded and the dreams which were arriving twice a year have been absent since I came to this building and discovered the nazis.

I can only hope that this ends soon and that my friend is safe and sound. Oddly enough, the skinheads have been rather accomodating so I'm unsure what this will mean in the future.

BLACK SWORDS INC CH17 AND 18

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 20:20:00 -0700

CHAPTER 17

I couldn't stop crying silently. The reminders of my past were strewn around me like missing toys. There was nothing that could seem to bring him solace and the only things that he had were packs of noodles and cans of vegetables. It was the kind of life that being stuck in the middle of things would seem to bring at an older age. I had once been someone, a great leader for freedom and justice who became a great betrayer of both of those things. I had risen above and overcome many great obstacles in my life with the help of many but no one these days seemed to be interested in the trail I had left. After the raid with Taina on the V'Halsen databanks I had lost something great in this life. A sense of belonging and purpose and love. Sure Jin was there for me these days but Ulrich seemed to be more focused on the data that they had recovered than the return to the Durik safehouse that had become nessecary. They were locked in and safe for sure but somehow and for some reason Jakk just wanted to see his mother and brother and find that they were happy. The last uprising had come and gone and not much had changed. There were still regular MP patrols and now I had a front row seat to watch the MPs go about their daily business in their own sector.

But still, I was terrified.

Still I was angry.

Instilled with courage, he had made a difference.

Jin was walking up the stairs when she head him in his room. Mell was walking around in the main hallway of the building looking upset. The telltale signs of aftershock were all around Sal as she walked in. He had his rig up but nothing was running on the screen and the headset was flickering in the darkness. She spoke up.

"So did it take a lot out of you or..."

I shook my head.

She grinned, remembering what that had looked like before his dreads were cut.

"Felt like a betrayal."

She set the bag of groceries she'd been carrying down and sat on the chair in front of the machine.

"Why them?"

Jin shrugged. She didn't really know either but after sifting through old after action reports and meeting notes they hadn't found much yet. There were some reports of tensions in the Northern Dominion near Belkavisk but it seemed as if that'd be the kind of thing Ulrich was focused on primarily. But that was above their pay grade and she knew it. Fruk it anyways. They killed who they had to kill and hacked who they had to hack. Gods knew it was a good way to get out of the city with the company but now they were back and with nothing to do but wait for Ulrich to turn in his work to whoever he answered to they had to wait. Wait and wait and wait. At least they could people watch.

She took out a jar of instant and set it on the table.

"Want some?"

Jakk nodded, wondering when Taina and Jerri Boy were gonna be back.

She pulled a strip out from under a recyclable cup and water filled the cup from the bottom and began to boil. She dumped some instant in. Jakk began to salivate and rubbed his knee where the joint had begun to collect salt. He'd had to disconnect the leg and then clean out the cap when it had collected saltwater in the Klerian Sea on the oil platform raid. At least it was clean, but the connection still felt a bit fresh. He picked up his cup and began to sip from it looking at her eyes to maintain a different connection that had been established when they were collecting guns and info at the suites. Home sweet home had begun to feel like home sweet fruk and boy oh boy did I wish we could get to a bar but none of the MPs trusted us enough for a drink at the bars in the sector they lived in. Jin hadn't even gone to the store but just had one of the kids make a quick run to what many called the PX store so we didn't instigate suspicion.

"Ulrich sure knows how to pick 'em," she said lighting up a real smoke.

I grinned and took a few more sips.

The problem with instant was it was always bitter.

"Oh yeah," he said suddenly turning around. "The apples are rotten and the oranges are lost."

She laughed like music.

Mell grumbled something outside the door.

The steam was rolling in from the river outside. Jakk rubbed the back of his head and leaned back on the bed.

"Do we have anything spicy?" Jin asked.

"Noodles are in the crate."

***

Harom and Ulrich were still combing over the data at a local C-Fed station and finding everything they couldn't find without the box from the Crater. Harom kept stroking his freshly shaven beard and jaming away on a holokeyboard while Ulrich looked at the data that was streaming on the display. They had found the V'Halsen connection to a Belkaviskan trandimensional lab about fifteen days earlier and had to put up a network barrier so hard the MPs were getting interference on their comms and were getting antsy. Ulrich liked antsy MPs. Antsy MPs were Ulrich's happiest scenery and the if they were antsy they bitched like mother frukers. If they bitched like mother frukers to the brass the mother frukers in the brass ended up cracking down on VHM in the prison blocks. If the prison blocks got busted down there was time for energy and more parties. At least that's how Sal saw it and Ulrich could hardly understand his lowbrow sense of style.

"This is fascinating." Harom said.

"How so?" asked Ulrich.

Harom brought up three screens on the display like opening a coffin.

They were that low on CPU speed.

"They're using energy from dead star cells to make-"

A siren went off down the street and they froze. Ulrich stood up and looked behind him. What was that, he wondered. Maybe the shield wall had cracked. They got quieter and quieter as they rode off into the distance. As that happened the wall cracked and the system error messages began to pop up.

"Oh no."

***

Taina got the call first in the basement of the safehouse as her and Jerri were coiled up with each other both sick as dogs after the jump out they got from the MPs. Jerri slept soundly as she crept up the stairs to the top floor, her feet light and her head lighter. There was no way she could get through to them from the basement and was met by the sound of Sal and Jin snoring in their room. She opened the door.

"Guys," she barked suddenly.

Sal awoke with a start and looked at the thinning woman.

"The fruk?" Jin muttered.

"They broke through."

"Who did?"

"I don't know, man."

"Fruk fruk FRUK!" I screamed. He saw the phone in her hand. "Give it to me."

His ear was met with Ulrich's voice.

"The system is down."

I gritted my and teeth pulled on some clothing.

"The fruk do you mean?"

"We had it, now we don't have it."

Ulrich cleared his throat audibly.

"I'll be there soon."

***

The fleet of MP trucks had emptied the garage as Sal walked through the empty plascrete structure with a small courier bag under his shoulder holding his gear. It would be a long night and he waved to a guard, his stomach tight but only got a smile. The door opened and Harom De'Jueve walked out with a cigarette between his lips and his sweating palms in his pockets.

"Salmon," he said. "You made it."

Not recognizing the old man I stopped and looked him up and down.

"Yeah..."

"Ulrich's up the hall. Come with me."

I followed the old man into the building and after a while they were in the glowing green and orange room that and instantly found myself at home in. Ulrich stood up, his milked eye glistening under the scar that made his visage threatening and warming to the samurai's core. The older gentleman walked up and shook his hand with a supportive grin. My's stomach tightened more and all I wanted to do was throw up. The good day had gotten confusing.

Maybe it's what she said.

"How's Jin?" asked Ulrich.

I sat down and shrugged.

"Alright I guess. I'm feeling miserable. What's up?"

"The system was down but now we're running at fifteen percent and can't seem to recover the data."

My thumb pressed the scanner on the table and his ident info popped up.

"No good." he said.

The login succeeded at least and the room darkned heavily. Sighing I began to type on the manual keyboard once the prompt screen came up and could practically hear the old man's country music playing in his head. Once he was in he saw holes everywhere in the system wall. He could only guess where and what that meant. So much bullshit went through his head that he couldn't stand it. The frukkers had shot the hell out of the system and left a smoking fort in their wake. There were no traces of the data nor the entrants. Everything was gutted. Fruk fruk fruk.

"It's gone." Probably C-Feds based off of the fruking garage, he thought.

"What is?"

I looked at Ulrich with a flabberghasted look that was mixed with disdain.

I logged and stood up.

This was bullshit.

"Everything we did that run for is gone and we broke the MP network. We're fruked."

"How much so?" asked Harom.

"They're gonna kick us out, sir."

"I'll speak with them," Ulrich said.

I nodded, took the gear I brought in, and headed out.

Total. Bull. Shit.

Instantly I began to wish for something better than the merc life.

***

On the way to the LE Sector the bastard known as Jakk stopped caring what the MPs thought. They just wanted a camp to run, well they could go to the Northern Dominion for all he cared. That would teach them. Surely it would. Surely. Sure. And like that I fell asleep on the train only to be haunted by another dream about MPs trying to jab a taser up his ass because his shit stunk so fruking bad. At least he wasn't on tetrameth like that guy in the Brissian Regency. But that was easy pickings. BSI was full of dumbasses and so was Sal. I'd glutted out on the way home. Tasty muscley stomach and smelly fruking pigs with ears.

Hells. He almost felt like a fool himself.

When he arrived in his old neighborhood the snow had just begun to fall.

I entered the new apartment building and walked up the stairs noting the cameras had been ripped from their sockets. Fruking freemen probably. It was just as well. I couldn't smell any food cooking in the halls and that didn't bother me any so I made my way up to the top floor and knocked on the door of my mother's apartment. Or at least what had been it. Noise music met me as the door opened and was greeted with a scraggly looking visage of a trench coat wearing freeman.

"Yeah?"

I stepped back for a moment.

"Look squid head I don't care what you-"

I swung up and punched the freeman in the face without thinking and ran.

Soon he was in a bar that was empty and full at the same time.

Broken furniture and broken men.

A few broken bottles here and there.

Broken glass on the floor.

The hood had changed.

I went to the warehouse but it was completely burnt.

I went home because no one was there.

By the time he was in the MP sector there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground and everhything had gone quiet except for the hum of drones buzzing through the air. My fist didn't hurt but he was just too tired to give a fruk. Nothing mattered when it was quiet and that was when he needed more music and he regretted not lifting the files from the new freeman district so he could listen to it. Sadness crept into his bones like a bittersweet symphony and soon he was back in his room laying next to Jin. She had the Net up playing technojazz documentaries and they soaked in it for a while and didn't care how they felt. Everyone was sick of the shit and it they trades small breaths of stinky kisses.

***

The next time we saw the sun we were down south in the Brissian Territories in a truck convoy going through the jungle. Two Hifflon Corp tank walkers were escorting them as they hugged a mountain covered in foilage and as the rain pelted their windshields Harom sang over the comms.

"How the fruk is he so happy?" grumbled Mell.

"I just don't know."

They were moving at a snail's pace and in the dry carapace of the tank walker the movement sensor picked up blips of nothing at all. It was all easy going and nothing mattered but sucking on their dip and taking one step forward at a time. It was easy shit and it was easier to take a shit in there with a big fat diaper on their asses. The man in the walker was called Blue 78. Simple as fruk the pilot was humming along to Harom's classical voice. His eyes were behind a recticle but at least he was reading time. Everyone in the trucks, like the Black Swords were sucking on hot air and drinking sips of blue exhaust. The mission they were tasked with was taking the BSI mercs and the scientist from Hifflon to a secure lab in the jungle city of Re'Boko and then sitting on their asses until they were called upon to move or called upon to just get out since Harom would be running tests very soon. Choppers had flown in earlier with crates of food for the local workers and plenty was about to be eaten at a banquet of enormous proportions. A good haul for sure thought pilot. He felt like hot shit in his little caracpace and piped up on the mic.

"Hey babe," he said to his lover and team mate.

"Yeah?" the radio crackled with her voice.

"Play some different music for our team mates."

"Why?"

"Because I can feel them getting antsy."

Soon more technojazz was playing over the comms and Harom finally shut up. Buncha freaking monsters, thought 78.

In the truck Harom hung up his headset and began to snap his fingers. Excitement was coursing through the grey bearded man and it was bound to be a great day for science when the transdimensional tests were complete. Much would be accomplished, of this he was sure. It would take no time at all. He had the box from Mishka, the data, as corrupted as it was, stored on a drive that Ulrich and Sal and the rest of the swords knew nothing about. He'd take the credit and everyone would find him sitting on top of the world some day. Yes, of this the man was certain. He was from West Barr'iti and had grown up piloting farm walkers to clear the hydroponic factory farms that hugged the artificial sulfur flats of the city state in order to provide wheat for the bread of the people of the C-Fed. It had gotten him used to long hours in a jacked up HUD helmet, holo displays at a finger's breadth and the pungent smells of acrid diesel. What it hadn't prepared him for until his militia days was the roar of banditos that were driving their hovercrafts over the tree tops that day.

First came the hum of the masked and motorcycle helmet clad banditos that were loyal to the Regency's last King Maximillian Randolphus VI,

The golden sea lions emblazoned on the bottoms of the hover platforms streaked by faster than either of the HIfflon Corp could see with their naked eyes but the camera clusters on the hull of the walkers IDed the logos and brought up enemy combat alerts after an infintiesminally timed search against the milintel servers for Hifflon Corp's Territorial Hub. But in that ear searing moment for Mell and his hired guns in the trucks, a rocket screamed from the sky and blew apart the front cabin of the transport vehicles that were trudging through the rainy jungle roadways. Screaming and burning technical staff and a few stunned and bleeding mercs stumbled out of the burnt carcass and the smoke trail from the rocket drifted skywards, disappating into the oily smoke that was now filling the sparsely open sky above them. Blue 78 swung the eight barreled gatling cannon on top of the Jaquar chassis skyward and began raking the air with white hot rounds hungry for a loyalist body to catch and eat away. Blue 21, the rear Jaguar popped smoke grenades to cover the area. Mell's helmet had closed around his face and his HUD began to register the signatures of his team mates as he lept from the truck with his L8 rifle raised and met with the crew in the grey black and orange haze that was pulling Harom and two other techies to the side of the road under the bushes to their right.

Over the screams and gunfire the buzz of the hovercraft was audible again and gunfire pelted the road catching many of the mercs in the open and leaving a few to dive for cover if they weren't stunned by high explosives popping off around them. It was a fruking hell of an ambush Mell would have thought if he hadn't been dragging someone back from the burnt truck whose leg was tugging along the road at an unatural and bloody mess of an angle. Blue 78's rockets screamed suddenly as they gained missile locks from the hack targeting systems. Mell and the others were clustered along the hillline at the edge of the road as the rockets contacted above them with thuds to their ringing ears. Blue 21's smooth voice chimed on the comms circuit, "Looks like the craft have been neutralized. Stay woke for the trees holding foot mobiles."

For a while they did, but nothing was coming.

Blue 78 gritted his teeth as his sensors picked up nothing.

No jams.

Just sudden quiet.

"Sword 1-1, please advise on current course of action."

Mell's gnarled voice rang in on the pilot's ears.

"Check around the bend for one fifty meters with Swords one six, one eight and one ten. They're our heavy team so if you encounter any resistance nearby hit them with everything you have. We'll be here cleaning up."

"Righto," said 78. "You mercs, form on me. I want you up front about two yards keeping pace in skirmish order."

Three rogers came up and the mercs formed up on the road in front of the tank walker in their seemingly micro looking exoskeletons. Two of them had heavy machine guns and the third had a rocket launcher with several ready to drop rounds protruding from the slide on a belt. Blue 78 grinned underneath his mic and they began to move out once their chips synced and he could give commands neurally. They made their way around the bend, the rain falling on them slightly faster now and soon they were out of sight of the rest of the column.

That's when Mell called me in the comms bird high on rotation high above the jungle. It was a big plane with four jet engines and a few titanium coated net attenae potruding from the bottom of it. It was an old plane so I was paying closer attention to the vid screens than the jerry rigged data terminals that the company had placed there. I was bored for most of the trip until our convoy had gotten hit but there had been no way to detect the hovercraft as hostile since they were still using friendly RFIDs. THe database had to update itself and only then were the tank walkers still able to fight them off. The only thing I had noticed nearby was the Hifflon Corp company bomber closing in over the eastern seaboard one hundred and fifty kilometers off. The amount of activity our companies were putting into what seemed to be a stealth op was slightly worrying to me and clearly the former regent's people had picked up on that. There had been no contact with the communist guerrillas in the area and I doubted there would be as they were fighting a different corporation over the mountain range. I had wondered aloud to Ulrich if there were any plans to sign an alliance contract with them but he just nodded along as the old man always did. It was whatever. General frustration with the company and the life. I was getting used to it.

"Dropping ball drones." I warned, punching a few buttons to open the hatches on the bottom of the plane.

A few holoscreens flickered to life as the drones came online and began searching the road with infrared for any more hostiles.

None. Nothing.

"Can't see a problem, 78. Hold position and await the convoy to catch up with you," I said.

The Barit farm boy sounded disgruntled.

"Holding position."

I leaned back in my chair in the console and called up to the front of the terminals to Taina.

"Hey, you think they thought we were commies?"

She grinned closing a few screens.

"Yeah, why?"

I shrugged.

"Just seems like a waste."

"Stop thinking poor, Jakk."

***

Two weeks later we were chilling in a small cafe outside of the laboratory corporate perimeter drinking chai bubble teas and watching an old man in a straw hat weave a basket across the closed lane. Jin was inside ordering a plate of biscuits and Taina and I were watching the sun list lazily into the afternoon sky with a certain degree of disinterest. Aside from the intiial contacts with the Regency loyalists which had been reported to a local Brissian ambassador, nothing much was happening in the place known as Sabitoni. It was just lazy afternoon after lazy afternoon and I kept wondering what had been deemed so important about the Erisman box and Rider's allegations that the VH were making tests on it. I wondered why it was deemed important and why the damn thing had been worth so many lives and so much time spent running to patch up leaked information anyways. It was all fruked I supposed.

"Order's up," said Jin as she came outside with a box, her jacket tied around her waist and a blue tank top on her tanned torso.

Taina grinned.

"Hells yeah." she said as she took the box from her and opened it up.

I looked up at Jin, and I could tell she could see the boredom on my face.

"You good?" she said reaching for a biscuit before taking a bite.

I nodded and looked up the street at an ancient cab that was getting it's tire fixed. Techno jazz played from somewhere.

I spoke up.

"How's our great scientist?" I asked.

"Still trucking away at the thing."

I smiled.

"Y'know, Rider was a lot more dire about this than the sitution seems."

I shrugged and reached in the box. The biscuit was buttered and seasoned with a particular herb I would only have if I were craving chips and dip so I supposed it was a nice time to try it because that was all I had been craving since we landed. I wasn't entirely sure why but I guess it was probably the fact we were set to be watching the area and watching an area usually meant sport and sport meant chips and dip. But that was just my reasoning. Honestly I felt like it was late in the third period of a hyperball game and we were tied with a player about to make a breakaway move for the endzone but that was just a hunch.

My hunches however had been deadly accurate in the past.

Jin continued.

"Like, he made it seem like it was some big destablizing thing."

I shrugged.

"Well," Taina said. "The VH hack did say that Hifflon Corp had tested the thing in the days prior to the Gaemiria Uprising."

I rubbed the back of my crop topped head in the shade and remembered a few frantic chats with Deronium during the crisis nearly seven years before. He kept saying he was onto something but I knew the Vannies were always saying that since the Wars and the Wars were more like a series of sporadic militia raids into neighboring city states that had been repeatedly put down by corps and C-Fed forces to keep the whole situation from getting out of hand. I guess that was the cause of the Noble Lady Katra V'Halsen when her power had begun to grow too cemented in the minds of the Durik people. Hells, even I had gotten caught up in it at times because it meant that she would allot more funds for the underclasses of the City State but each time those funds fell through because of people like Deronium and me being hired by the Committee for Unification to allocate funds for them. Nothing seemed to change even now and I felt a burn on the back of my neck near my USB jack making me wonder how neurally damaging some of the VR runs we had taken had been.

"He said something about that," I chimed in.

"Who?" Jin asked.

"Deronium." I said.

The table got quiet as the dead hacker's name was brought up.

We had all three known him. He was more like a misguided older brother who got caught up in too many fools' errands and false crusades for riser rats like us but he like a lot of people tied to the VH Wars, even marginally like myself, felt like we had been used or pulled into just that. Fools errands. I figured that's why we were contractors, mercs if you will, because we had been deemed valuable and then taught to be more loyal to the corporate credit than a shimmery political ideal. I could see where Deronium would have thought us to be idealistic traitors but he had always been more loyal to truth than to any specific ideology that a House of Lords politician could churn out for her constituents.

Fruk, maybe that was just my point of view and I was just getting tired of the life already.

"Did he say that's what the militia was after?"

I shook my head. "The Gaemiria Uprising was framed by riots and a VHM battalion infiltrating several schools, hostels and government tennements in the main sector of the city state but he had only said he had information on the massacre but never what had caused it."

"But we got the Upload right?"

"We have parts of it, and half of it is C-Fed contact reports and the other half is software. We're no closer to learning what it was about." I said, dreading the next question as we had been ignoring the results of the run for our main missions for so long. "If those contact reports are to be believed the corp funded areas were the hardest hit by the hostilities and we don't have any record of what Hifflon was doing other than a few crowd control device tests like microwave emmitters and civilian model EMP grenades."

"Didn't they use that stuff, like right off the rack?" Taina said as she leaned back in her chair, a puzzled expression on her face. "The aqquisition receipt section me and Jerri found had it all I think."

I shook my head more in disbelief than any real disagreement. "I dunno. They were batoning down the hatches, that's for sure."

"Then it was dimensional tests." said Jin. "That caused that massive amount of people to go nuts."

"A few things coincided with that," I said. "A lot of the techies from the VHM were economically tied up with Gaemiria and I can totally believe that they exasperated the situation at that stage in the game."

Taina frowned. "Think that's what occurred before we left?"

"I hope not. That seemed to be more societal pressured than any damn test would cause."

Jin put her hands in the pockets of her coveralls and watched the old man walk off with his finished basket for the market further in town. He waved at a razor wire checkpoint down the street and an automated turret whirred onto him as he approached.

"Maybe," Jin said. "I mean we were doing these runs before we picked you guys up."

"For artifacts?" I asked, watching the old man get patted down.

"Yeah, that's why I got into the business. My father didn't support the treasure hunting plan I had after school but Ulrich seemed to have it planned. Met him at a club in the UE sector and we got to talking but he didn't let on about why we were picking this shit up ever."

I looked down.

"What?" she asked.

"Why were we brought in? Like, how?"

Jin smiled. "Doctors are kind to old friends, let's say that."

De'Ferrone's inquiry nearly two years before about needler drugs came to mind and I wished I hadn't have gotten refered to her by the Shogun's med team. But it brought me to Jin which had been my objective in the first place althought I knew good ol' Don M hadn't have known what was going on in the first place. "Did the Shogun know?"

She nodded.

"He wanted you out of the way, Jakk. Too much heat came down on the Blue Katana zones to make you sticking around safe. And to be fair to BSI, you've been kept in a different sphere of influence for most of the run and the heat's been laid off now you have a legit job."

I sighed looking in the direction of a jungle bird that had landed it's bright green mass on the railing above our car across the street.

"You're right."

I felt bitter.

"Stop sniffing around so much and we'll be fine."

Her comment made the bitterness worse.

"Really?" I began but our comm links piped up just then.

"Guys it's Mell," came the call. "We're moving out soon. There's some complications with the local chieftans and Harom wants to leave."

"Like what?" asked Taina.

"A few disturbing deaths in the old warrior cadres. I don't know why but they don't either. They're mostly blaming us for it."

A trace of Deronium's upload about sudden deaths resembling exsanguination in Gaemirian apartments came to mind. Hate is being misplaced, he had said to me at the time leading up to his death. He had left me with the phrase, Hate always brings horrors.

I didn't want any of that.

"We'll be there soon." I said as I stood up.

CHAPTER 18

Again.

Again. And again there was nothing to do.

So we waited.

Jin blew me our last kiss.

Hades chased me to sleep.

Nadia met me in my dreams.

Mint chocolate met my lips. We were sitting on the veranda with a perfect form eating mint chocolate chip ice cream.lds The record player her family had handed down for generations had swallowed itself. The sky was on fire and we didn't care. We held each other, the minted taste still fresh on our lips. The ground shook. But we didn't care. We whispered to each other. We didn't care.

It may come again I thought I heard her say.

We didn't care.

Blood fell from the skies.

We didn't care because it was ripe fruit.

The dream made sense.

But why did we not communicate properly.

She didn't care.

Neither did I.

Collusion and misteps taunted us both.

A haunting spell fell over the night sky as the sun sank to the ground again.

I awoke thinking, damn that woman.

I prayed for a savior.

BLACK SWORDS INC VOL. II

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 14:42:00 -0800

BLACK SWORDS INC VOL II
Taina was in a female dress uniform of dark green with a black beret, her hair in a bun, and she was already following something that she'd searched up.

"Wait up!" I shouted as I pushed past the soldiers on their way to another online battleground. "Hey, I said wait up!"

When I turned the corner she was standing in front of a Vannie base station, windows bagged up and banners hanging from the building. It looked like it had been under siege since the fall of their Noble Lady. And there Taina was just knocking on the gods damned door with a virus gun in one hand.

I walked up next to her.

"Are you fruking crazy?!" I said. "They'd probably kill us rather than give up one of their hacker's-"

The door opened and a tall V'Halsen sergeant stood in the doorway, obviously an AI construct. He, or it, raised a virus rifle and pointed it at us.

"State your business you C-Fed frukers."

Taina showed the sergeant her gun and said, "We're searching for Deronium's Last Upload. A quick search brought us the the V'Halsen quadrant."

The sergeant grunted.

"There's no file here bearing that name. What do you think this place is woman?"

I stepped in. "Look for anything uploaded by Deronium. I know he used to get you guys guns."

The sergeant paused for a moment and there was a brief flicker as his avatar ran the search. It was always eerie during a data dream when this would occur, seeing an avatar not being fluid in the world it inhabited. Suddenly the sergeant came back to.

"There are three hundred forty eight files from Deronium on my local server," the sergeant said. "Are there any specifications for a closer search or should you C-Fed frukers bugger off?"

This time I pulled my virus gun from the back of my belt.

"How about we get this done quickly and you give us the files, Vannie."

The sergeant flinched, and then turned into the building and came back with a stack of files. I grabbed half and Taina grabbed the other half. We tucked them into our ruck sacks so we could view the files on Zed's desktop when we woke from the data dream. Taina went to go, but I stopped. I decided to be a bastard for the minute and shot the AI sergeant three times in the chest with the virus gun. He fell over, shuddering as the virus took effect and claimed the whole place.

Burn the roads behind you, as Ulrich would say.

---

"What the fruk were you thinking?" Jin said.

It was the next day and Taina and I were in Jin's office. On her screen was a news report covering V'Halsen insurgents in the Northern Dominion slaughtering those loyal to the Gaian C-Fed. It was a matter of simple science: Cause and effect. The cause was a perceived attack on the V'Halsen DarkNet archives by C-Feds, and the effect was a very real breaking of the truce.

I sat in slight awe of what we were supposedly in trouble for.

"We were trying to figure out why we're here," I spoke up.

Jin's face was flushed and she was fuming.

"Trying to figure out why we're here?" Jin said. "We're here because we're protecting corporate interests and your moonlighting jobs are causing a whole lot of trouble for the world around you."

I took a moment to let that soak in.

I'd had my share of cause and effect before when I was helping run guns to the Vannies during the Wars, but I didn't ever think that I'd inadvertently cause the death of thousands of loyal Gaians. Three quick shots of the virus gun had put down a Vannie server, and then had pissed of the VHM command enough to try and take down a whole Gaian protectorate.

"What if they were just waiting for a reason to strike?" I asked. "What if they just needed a little bit of chaos to go for it?"

Jin crossed her arms.

Taina took this time to talk, "So what if there's a civil war again? We've all been through it before, and all we were trying to do was just make an info grab about this job we're on. We can't trust this Ulrich guy just because he writes our paychecks, Jin."

Jin shook her head and then her phone began to ring.

She took a look at it.

"Speak of the devil," she muttered as she answered the phone. "Hello sir. Yes sir. I understand that sir. Everything is safe for you up there? What? What do you mean you need to speak with him, sir?" She bit her lip for a moment. "Alright I'll set up the call. Thank you, sir. Goodbye."

She hung up.

"Jakk, you're coming with me." she said. "The boss needs to talk to you."

CHAPTER 13

We walked into a room in another building that had a holographic rig set up in it's center, something I'm sure was used more for briefings than for private conversations with your boss and stern talking tos. At least that's what I thought I was in for when Ulrich's face popped up on the holo display and began to speak.

"Good work, Jakk," he said first.

I was taken aback. Jin looked more pissed than ever.

"Jin, leave us for the time being," he said. "There's much Jakk needs to hear."

Jin nodded and silently left the room.

The blue of the holo display was the only light in there, and it washed over me like a cold bath of holy water. I suddenly felt very small as Ulrich's huge head glared at me.

"Jakk, do you know what the true purpose of the Black Swords is?" Ulrich asked slowly and calmly.

"To fruk shit up?" I said with a sneer.

"Nice." Ulrich grinned like a shark. "Are you familiar with the term black operations?"

I nodded. I'd come across it a few times on the Net and knew enough to reply, "Yeah, when black ops occur a state or entity wants plausible deniability from said operation."

Ulrich smiled wider. "Good. Now did you know that the C-Fed has it's own Black Operations division?"

I shook my head. It was news to me if it was concrete.

"Where are they operating mostly?" I asked.

"Gaemiria actually," Ulrich stated. "They took the reigns of control there not too long after Operation Apotheosize ended and left a large portion of the City State in ruins thanks to the V'Halsens."

I arched my eyebrows, "Well I gotta say boss, that's interesting, but that's not what I was looking for exactly."

"Are you familiar with Operation Apotheosize?" Ulrich asked.

I shook my head again. "Not particularly. I just know it was a bloodbath for those who rose up against the C-Fed's forces up there. Riots in the middle of a battle. Caused a lot of uneeded death."

"Are you familiar with the root cause of the Operation reaching that level of ferocity?" Ulrich asked.

For the third time I shook my head.

"The V'Halsen Militia had taken a school hostage," Ulrich began. "They were searching for a relic, much like the one that we found. When the 1st Air Assault Battalion landed in the area under command of Lieutenant Colonel Fischig Sama, they began killing people in the school and suddenly, inexorably, the people of Gaemiria rose up against both the VHM and the CGMF in the city."

The name rang a bell, "And this Colonel Sama, he's what exactly?"

Ulrich grinned that terrifying grin of his again.

"He is your father, and a former Black Swords contractor."

I took a step back, shocked to my core. My gut flipped. I'd always wanted to know who my father was. I hadn't asked my mother for many years because she stopped giving me excuses and I had grown up on my own under the tutelage of the clan. And now I knew that name. I knew that name from the news, from vid casts, from C-Fed propaganda while growing up through the Wars and now I knew that I was a bastard. A total bastard who knew little of who he really was. This was why I'd been chosen for impressment into the Black Swords; to follow in my father's foot steps.

"Ulrich," I said with a rim of tears in my eyes. "Is that why you brought me here?"

"No it is not," Ulrich said. "I brought you here to try and do better with you than I did Fischig. Fischig is a pure warrior. He knows nothing of computers or the InfoNet. He's always had others to do that for him. What you are here for is for the rebranding of the Black Swords. Harom will be moving soon, and the Swords will not follow. These past few weeks guarding him will all be swept under the rug. There will be no questions, no more digging by you, Jerri, or Taina, or Zed. You will fall into line and begin your true purpose."

I had tears falling down my face now.

I was glad we were alone.

"Then what?" I whispered.

"Then the Black Swords Inc team will follow in it's predecessors footsteps as a C-Fed Black Ops team. I have a mission written up specifically for this purpose, Jakk. You and Jin will have to work together to make this so," he said.

"But my father-"

"You father doesn't know you exist. Your mother was just some random student at a bar to him. I warn you, he is a bloodthirsty man. There is a reason his enemies call him 'the beast'."

I nodded, and wiped the tears from my eyes before looking up again at my new boss, understanding more and more about what Jin had been talking about in regards to Ulrich.

"So he's a bad guy?" I asked.

"That he is my young friend," Ulrich said. "You're being given a second chance at life, as is Taina, as is Jerri. Let the big dogs take control of the reigns for a while. Don't worry about the problems that face you. Just fight hard and fight strong and I will return to lead the Swords to victory."

I nodded, feeling small. So damned small.

---

When I walked out of the room, Jin was there to meet me. She saw that my eyes were red and head bowed low.

"Do you understand now?" she asked, standing in the way.

"Yes, I do." I said, holding back back a sob, my throat tight.

She embraced me. I lay in her arms for a moment, breathing in her soothing scent. Life had just changed in a big way for me. I knew what I was meant for, I had direction that wasn't just for profit. I could bring stability to this country, to this world, and Jin was here to help do that. I let out a small sob and stayed put.

"Jin," I said. "I need to be alone for a few days. Just a few days leave."

She pulled away for a moment and looked into my eyes and nodded. "Alright. You got it."

"Thank you," I said silently.

---

I spent the first day in a hotel room in the City Proper getting absolutely trashed on grain liquor, singing old songs my mother had taught me as a kid from Jimunga. I rolled on the bed, smoking real tobacco cigarettes and wishing I had time to get some of Kalv's drugs from him. It would have made the release of many years of emptiness and angst much easier. I sobbed alone. I screamed into the sky and didn't give a fruk when the other people at the hotel said anything about it. I was hurting, healing old opened wounds. It was my time in the wilderness of my mind. My mind.

Gods my mind had caused so much trouble.

But why?

I kept an eye on the news feed and watched the situation in the Northern Dominion spiral out of control. I secretly wished for Fischig, my father, who was the commander of the C-Fed peacekeepers on the ground there to be captured and killed by the damned Vannies. I knew my actions had cause this situation to spiral out of control. Like they say, sometimes all you need is one little push. I might have killed my own father before ever meeting him and I knew this and it killed me.

I ordered Malarcan food from the store down the block and ate ravenously, as if another hole had been opened in me, and still I watched the news, transfixed and horrified all at once.

Fruk I was a mess.

A gods damned mess.

And I knew it all too well.

What could I do other than watch that situation? I couldn't convince Jin to move us to the Northern Dominion. That was too risky, especially with her adherence to the rules of the base. I knew we were sitting there just standing pretty for the time being until we were given our next orders. But it was Black Ops. And what I knew of Black Ops was they were fanatical for the Confederacy. They didn't care who got hurt, they fought till the end. From what I knew about my father, he was very much the same. He was probably the reason why there even was a Black Ops branch, just as he was the reason I was here, and why Black Ops were running Gaemiria.

Fruk. What a life I had found myself in. Blood, death, and suddenly relation to one of the C-Fed's biggest supposed war criminals who was fighting it out in the Northern Dominion because of three trigger pulls of a virus gun in Vannie DarkNet territory. How the hell was I supposed to deal with this on my own? I had asked to be alone and I wasn't shaving, I was eating crap, smoke stench filled my nostrils and clung to my clothes. My eyes were bloodshot and baggy. My chest was tight and no matter what my stomach was sick. On the second night, I called Taina.

"Taina," I said into the reciever.

"Yeah?"

"I need you here right now."

"Jakk, I'm not a call girl anymore," she said.

"No," I said. "I need you here. To watch the news with me. Like when we were kids."

There was silence on the line.

"Fine," she said. "I'll be there in an hour."

"You know where I am?"

"Jin told us all you were taking some time off."

"But she told you guys where I am?"

"Yeah, why? Is that a problem?"

I shook my head, "No it isn't."

"Good. I'll see you in an hour."

And so I waited. She showed up a little behind schedule, and I had the news feed on full blast behind me when I opened the door. A plume of stale cigarette smoke fell out in front of me and into her face.

"What's got you so down, Sal?" she asked, hand on her hip.

I thumbed over my shoulder.

"I got some bad news."

"What? That we might have sparked off another war?" she smiled. "Did you think I didn't have that kind of chops?"

I walked back in and she followed me to the bed, shutting the door behind her. The lights in the hotel room were off and the screen was casting a white glisten in all the smoke.

"Taina, Ulrich told me who my father is. And why we're in the Black Swords," I said.

She raised an eyebrow.

"He's Fischig Sama. The guy all the Vannies called a war criminal after Gaemiria Isle and Operation Apotheosize. He apparently used to be a Black Sword under Ulrich, and-"

"And we're supposed to get him, right?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I think so..."

She reached into her bag and produced a bottle of cheap champagne.

"Then let's celebrate a bit. Not every day you find out you're bastard of the year. We're all soldiers now."

She popped the cork and filled two coffee cups that were sitting in the room.

"Cheers, handsome," she said. "Things just got a lot more interesting..."

CHAPTER 14

After my three days of leave we up we were stationed to the barracks just to train more. I dealt with the news about my origins by throwing myself into long hours at the range, firing my L4 with ferocity at the century old range. We were no longer going on rides into the city proper and we spent much of our time waiting for new orders to arrive. Taina and Jin had kept Ulrich's revelation to me under wraps mostly, and I was glad for that to be the case.

Still, I was pissed as fruk.

When I wasn't training, I was drinking, keeping away from the urge to go through all the files that we had snagged, especially Deronium's files. I could only wonder and wait for what would come next and fume over being left behind by a monster I'd never even met. Jin was right in a way about Ulrich. He was a man with a plan. I would have never expected to basically be taking my father's old job. But what was Ulrich doing? He'd been gone for nearly a month, and it was nearly two months before Jin called us all into the briefing room for a meeting.

We all filed in quietly and she lit up the holo display.

"Hello everyone, and thanks for coming," she said as the holo display lit up a map of several hills and valleys with clusters of settlements highlighted in them. "We've got our marching orders. A small town of Erismans in the Ba'tinim River valley has informed the West Ba'Arriti Militia that there is a Bocchus cult of militant fanatics working in their area."

The holo map zoomed in on a ridge overlooking one of the settlements.

Jin continued.

"The Bocchus Fanatics have been extorting the locals for credits, food, anything they need to continue operations in the area," she said. "The West Ba'aritti Militia are in the area but need us as a strike force on the fanatics' base. They'll provide any heavy support, but from what the locals tell us they don't want a major battle in their town. Apparently they've already lost their most notable relic to the fanatics and the local tribe wants us to bring it back to them when we kick the Erismans out."

I could almost feel Jerri grinning and Taina's excitment.

"Now with the debacle going on up in the Northern Dominion the C-Fed needs us to keep this quiet, hence the strike force operation. We're going to be inserted just below the ridge under the cover of night, and then move into the tunnels in the ridge above. Take no prisoners is Ulrich's command. The C-Fed and the Ba'arriti are willing to look the other way on this one in that regard."

I leaned back in my seat, feeling a tad queasy. This seemed to be more like my father's kind of job. Or was this what Ulrich wanted?

"Mission go time is twenty two hundred hours tomorrow evening. Standard assault load outs guys. This is what we've been training for," Jin said, closing the holo display. "Let's make the old man proud."

---

We rode out of the barracks in a two car convoy. Me, Taina and Jerri were in one in our armored suits and gear. Jin, Zed, Kalv and Mell rode in the car in front of us. The trip took us around the outer edge of West Ba'arriti City and most of it was through slums and shanty towns. It was a hell of a sightseeing trip for Taina who still had some untarnished vision of West Ba'arriti tribal life in the area. Most of it seemed to dissipate from her as we made our way. I drove while Jerri and Taina kept their eyes on the streets for any suspicious movement.

Soon though, we made our way to the rendezvous point with the West Ba'Arriti militia checkpoint. There were two automated gun turrets set up behind concrete barricades and two J47 Type military off road all terrain vehicles with their own automated turrets keeping guns trained on us at all times. I understood that since the V'Halsen Wars, it was common for these types of checkpoints to be around most border areas where combat had been fierce, and it made me wonder how these Erismans we were after had made it into the settlement at all.

Jin exchanged details with the sergeant in command of the West Ba'Arriti detachment, and he ordered his men to saddle up and before I knew it we were on the road again into the night.

I pulled on an e-cigarette and watched the blue light at the tip light up the cabin space in front of me as I kept my eyes on the road in front of us. It was a small haul down the road in silence aside from the random radio chatter our scanner was picking up. We'd been afforded a key piece of intel on the Erismans; their radio frequency. Mostly they were chatting about their dinner and how it was going, but they made no mention of our movement into their territory.

"We're doing good," I muttered to myself as the convoy clung to the road along the valley walls.

I checked the HUD map and noticed we were nearing our disembarkation point. I pressed a stud on my helmet and it closed around my face. I could hear Taina and Jerri's helmets doing the same and Jerri racking a round in his carbine.

Jin waved a hand out of her car's window as the convoy pulled to a halt and the J47s aimed their turrets up the ridge. All lights were down aside from the lights of the trailer settlements below.

We all met on the road.

"Alright," Jin said, her voice digitized over our closed channel, "Everyone ready?"

We all nodded.

Something felt off.

Jin was off.

"Alright," she said. "Let's get up there. Sal, you're on point."

I nodded to her and began hiking up the grass covered valley with my comrades behind me. My HUD in my helmet was scanning for any heat signatures and was in night vision. The target point was designated by Jin to be three hundred meters up the slope and was marked by a glowing blue diamond. I kept my L4 close to my chest as we made our way up and up. It was a steep incline but our suits helped relieve some of the pressure.

There was still chatter when we were two hundred meters in on the Erisman radio. There would be little to no way that they could see us with our active camo on. We would look like mirages to the naked eye, but if they had any sort of HUD or goggles they'd be able to see us just as easily as I was beginning to see them then.

We closed within seventy five meters of their hole.

Jin pipped on the radio.

"Hold position. Move into attack formation taurus."

We began to shuffle about into a half ring around the front of the cave entrance. Two guards were sitting out front nursing what looked to be coffee mugs and talking in their native language, seemingly unaware that we were about to unload on them.

"Kalv," Jin said, "drop 'em now."

"Gladly," said Kalv.

He raised his scoped rifle and took two well placed shots.

The guards' heads exploded one after the other like bloody fruit. The gunfire echoed through the valley.

"Move in," Jin said, "Breach formation."

We lined up next to the entrance of the cave and could hear people down inside yelling and guns being loaded.

"Taina, now!" Jin shouted.

Taina threw a EMP and nerve gas grenade into the hole. It exploded and flashing grey yellow gas filled the entrance. Screams and shouts filtered through the smoke and we rushed in, shoulder to shoulder, our guns raised, ready for the fight.

I was in first. A flailing Erisman with a TF31R rifle and a gas mask on rushed me with reckless abandon. I pulled my trigger twice and shot him in the gut. He fell over and I fired two more rounds into his head and kept moving. We were through the gas and the cave was opening up. Several bodies were laying in front of us and a terminal was glitching out behind a barricade of boxes manned by four Erismans in gas masks.

We all stared at each other for a moment.

Close contacts, I've learned, are ugly.

Jerri fired the first shot, blasting away on semi auto at the fanatics behind the boxes. We all joined in. A few shots from them made their way out as their hands spasmed in their death twitches. A few more of the Erismans ran up, one throwing a grenade down the hall that he produced from his gear.

Mell ran up and threw it back in the middle of their oncoming fire. Three rounds hit him and he twisted backwards as the grenade exploded behind the barricade. The Erismans were knocked down. Kalv and Jerri ran up to Mell and pulled him back.

"I'm good!" he snarled. "Just hit my armor, I'm good!"

Kalv whacked Mell's helmet a few times for good measure.

"Nice work with the 'nade."

Jin walked up to them, "C'mon, let's keep moving."

Taina and Jerri moved forward with me, our guns raised. Smoke obscured our vision and there were more bodies to pick through. The other three came up behind us. There was a spoke in the cave there, three tunnels spiraling down into the depths of the ridge.

"Split up into parties of two," said Jin, "Zed you sit tight here with that heavy gun. Move fast and with a purpose. 'Nade the bastards' rooms before moving into them."

Zed unswung his tripod and sat down in the middle of the intersection. Jerri and I teamed up and started moving down the tunnel to the right. It wasn't too long before we heard fire coming from the other tunnels, but there was nothing in ours except for a cable running along the walls. The tunnel descended into the ridge for a while, and the cables kept running, and the gunfire and explosions kept ringing behind us. Finally though, we entered a room lined with monitors and computer consoles. Enough hard drives were there to store hundreds of terabytes of information.

"Shit," Jerri said. "I think we just found an intel treasure trove."

I smiled behind my helmet and brought up Jin's channel.

"Jin, you're gonna want to see this."

CHAPTER 15

We loaded the consoles into the cars and the Ba'Arriti warriors took care of disposing the bodies of the Erismans. I was still buzzing from the fight, and I felt better than I had in about a week. Not even drugs could get me feeling the way that I felt after a good firefight. The street samurai in me made sure of the zen of combat that I never felt tired of. That was one thing that the Shogun had given me, my ability to enjoy combat.

Jin walked up to me.

"Nice find, Jakk," she said with her helmet under one arm.

I grinned and nodded, "Just lucky I guess."

She returned the grin and stood next to me.

"You know you'll be getting a bonus for this," she said.

Honestly my mind was far from the cred that I was getting for the job. She should have known that. I was riding off of the adrenaline high, sure, but my mind was on other things. Wondering about what was going on in the Northern Dominion especially due to the news about who my father really was. To be fair I'd never really asked since I was grown, but knowing that that man was my father. And in matters of family, I was wondering what my mother was up to in the midst of such unrest.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh and a drag. "Maybe there'll be some money to send home."

Jin gave me a sideways glance.

"Didn't expect that," she said.

"Well the news I got has me thinking," I said.

"Thinking more along family lines it seems."

"Is there a problem with that Machiavelli?"

She grinned again and shook her heard.

"Nope."

---

We returned to the barracks, cleaned our gear, and ate some chow. Not much fanfare compared to our last visit with the Klerians. I was exhausted from the job though and fell asleep quickly, but I was met by dreams almost immediately.

I was underwater, so deep I could hardly make out the light of the sun above the surface. I could feel the pressure of the deep on me and yet I felt no pressure on my lungs to breathe. I swam along the floor of that body of water in a haze that I could only figure was the silt from the floor. I felt something brush my leg and I looked behind me to see a tentacle flowing away into the darkness. I turned around and looked where it could have gone.

The fruk? I thought.

I reached to my side for a weapon that wasn't there and swam after the tentacle, wondering if it was the one that had haunted my dreams during my return to Durik City. I swam and swam, and soon I saw the tentacles of the creature pull away into a cave that was littered with skeletons of other fish and beasts of the sea. I knew I had no chance of fighting my way out of an encounter with it now, but I also knew I was compelled to go into the cave.

So in I swam.

It was only a few moments before I was met by the floating corpses of my fellow Swords. This scared the shit out of me, I'll be honest. I turned and swam out only to be stopped by a tug at my leg. I kept pulling and looked back but I was stuck. My eyes met the monster's gaze, and it was the kraken. Giant bulbous eyes met me and a beak clattered in the deep waters as it tried to pull me into it's mouth. It seemed the more I pulled, the more it toyed with me, flicking me around like a rag doll. I was terrified and I screamed, but no sound came out. Only masses of bubbles that burst against the ceiling of the cave I was stuck and there was no way out.

The kraken pulled me in and clamped down on me.

I awoke drenched in sweat and heard the snores of Mell, Kalv and Zedd. It was still dark out, and the rest of the base was still asleep aside from the lights of a patrolling car of MPs. I got up out of my rack and pulled a jacket and pants on, grabbing my e-cig and headed outside.

Vapor poured from my mouth into the night air and the sounds of the distant city met my ears and I stood shaking off the night terror. I couldn't figure out what was happening to me. I had just found out that I was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Fischig Sama, and that meant that I was held in some respect somewhere in this fruked up country. My boss was his old boss, sure, but where was he now? Where Fischig was? What the fruk was happening to me being stuck in this gods damned merc company? Sure the pay was good, and I was among friends, but I couldn't shake the feeling of being a pawn, or even worse, prey in some game bigger than me by far.

I sighed and took a long hit.

I needed it.

Hell, I needed more time off.

I began to walk around the fence of the base. It was a plascrete wall really, with razorwire the top of the damn thing. No one was getting through it without some nice firepower. I looked up at the amber and neon haze of the night sky and wondered who else was looking at that sky as I turned a corner and found Jin sitting on the steps of her office building and staring at the sky as well.

"Hey," I said, walking up.

She grinned and looked my way.

"Hey," she said. "Can't sleep either?"

I nodded.

"What's got you up?" I asked.

She shrugged and looked down at her feet. It wasn't common for her to look so vulnerable. I walked a littler closer.

"I usually don't sleep well after an action," she said. "Or before one. I'm gonna be needing the caffeine tomorrow at breakfast."

She looked at her watch.

"Well, today at breakfast," she laughed. "Why can't you sleep? I thought you samurai loved the thrill of combat."

I smiled and rubbed the back of my head nervously. "Dreams honestly."

"Really?"

"Serious as sin."

"Huh," she looked me up and down. "Come here, I want to show you something."

She stood up and walked into her office. I followed quickly. The office was a desk covered in data pads and hard copy papers and a rack in the corner. There was a holoscreen on the wall and there was an InfoNet feed scrolling down news as a commentator reported on notable highlights from the previous night's hyperball game.

Jin went to her desk and pulled a hard copy file out of the mess.

She opened it up.

"This," she began, "is my secret stash."

"Of drawings?" I said taking a glance at her handiwork. I had to admit, it wasn't that bad.

"Nice stuff, Jin," I said, leafing through the art.

It was mostly animals and still life work done in graphite pencil, but it was very good work. I didn't exactly have an eye for art, but I knew good art from bad art. This was good art. I stopped when I got to a drawing of a young man in the nude with dreadlocks.

I had to laugh.

"Really?" I said. "Is this supposed to be-"

She laughed too.

"Yup, that's you."

"Well I'm glad to be a part of your body of work."

She nodded, "Well, there's a reason you're in there, Jakk."

"And that is?"

"Because you're a beautiful creation."

I shook my head and placed the file down on the desk.

"Jin, we gotta stop this."

"Why? We're not kids anymore."

"Exactly. I'm not your bodyguard anymore, you're my boss..." I trailed off.

She stood up and walked over to me.

I took a deep breath in.

"Jin..."

"Jakk, it's okay," she said placing a hand on my shoulder. "We're a good unit, and you're here and that means the world to me. You learned a lot about your existence the other day and Ulrich has assured me that he's going to find Sama and bring him to you."

I shook my head and moved her hand.

"Jin, I can't right now," I said. "Ulrich told me something I hadn't worried about since I was in Kleria and in love-"

"And that love failed, and somehow the gods made justice for you that my family couldn't have."

"The gods Jin? Really?" I scoffed. "The gods aren't listening anymore. If they're even real, they're just throwing random shit at us and hoping it sticks."

She stepped back, rare tears beginning to brim at her eyes.

"I should go," I said, turning to leave.

"Jakk, c'mon..." she said.

"No, I need to dive for a while." I said, leaving the building.

She stood in the door and watched me walk away. She knew me just as I knew me, and I knew that I'd be better off doing some work on a console. When I got back to the barracks, I fired up Zedd's console and got myself hooked up. I was going to go through those V'Halsen files we had grabbed and I was going to find Deronium's last upload.

---

I ran search programs looking for anything surrounding the last date he was known to be active. I ran search programs on every classified file we had in the cache. Anything and everything would be brought up but Deronium had been pretty damn prolific. He was very active up to his last day alive, which even that was somewhat hazy because it was a few weeks before anyone found his body. It took about an hour before I found anything.

"Hm," I murmured quietly as to not wake the others, "this seems about right..."

I scrolled through several files that were uploaded two weeks before his body was discovered. One was entitled "Project ELYSIUM". I opened it and found that the contents were heavily encrypted. It was to the point I almost thought that the contents weren't just encrypted but corrupted even. I opened a cracking program and began running it as everyone began to wake up.

Zedd noticed me first.

"The fruk do you think you're doing kid?" he said groggily.

I stood and waved him off.

"I'm onto something with the files we got from the V'Halsen MilNet," I said.

He rubbed the back of his head as his eyes whirred and clicked into focus.

"Well you could have asked."

"You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you," I said, still feeling the buzz of finding something important.

He muttered something and started heading towards the chow hall with Mell and Kalv. I followed them out, content to wait for the decryption program to run its course. We made our way into the early sunlight that was covered by the smog of the sprawl. Jerri Boy and Taina joined us but Jin was no where to be seen.

We were all a little sluggish in the line.

I edged closer to Jerri and Taina as they made their way down to a table.

"So I think I found it," I said as we sat down.

"Found what, Jakk?" Taina asked.

"Deronium's last upload."

"Oh?" said Jerri.

"Yeah," I said. "It's called Project Elysium."

"And?" asked Taina.

"And it's heavily encrypted and probably highly dangerous."

"So what is it?" asked Jerri.

"Something, I don't know what yet, but we should know soon," I said with a bit of hope in me. "This could be big."

And I left it at that for the time being. I had no clue what we were about to uncover and how much trouble it was about to cause. Not a damn clue...

CHAPTER 16

We were all hovering around Zedd's computer waiting for the decryption program to finish. It was at ninety eight percent and I was pacing up and down the barracks with anxiety. I hadn't slept much and I had caffeine in me to compensate for that, but all I could think about was what we had found.

I had completely forgot about Jin.

Then she came in.

"Alright Swords, we have a new order from Ulrich," she said walking in without breaking a moment's stride.

We all looked up.

Mell grunted out a surprised question.

"What is it now?"

Jin grinned and lifted her data pad.

"We're not guarding Harom tomorrow," she began, "We're arresting him alongside the West Ba'arriti Militia."

Everyone started to their feet. Confusion was on most of our faces. Why now? Why?

Zed asked first.

"Any reason for this mission would be appreciated."

"Ulrich ordered it and he said we'd be paid for it on special combat pay," Jin said.

Most of us sat down at that moment.

I was still standing when the decryption program pinged as finished.

"Whatever that was has to wait," Jin said. "We're leaving in the morning for the raid."

I stifled my dissent for a woman who could seem able to stifle her love for me.

Reason Why I Went Underground

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 10:06:00 -0800

This story starts about three years ago when I was living with a friend form Occupy Cincy's security committee and a friend from high school who I did martial arts with. Basically we had all holed up in this new house for the winter when I finally got a hold a new interview at Neon Dystopia and published the first chapter of Black Swords Inc in L0wl1f3 magazine. Alongside BSI I wrote a piece about the night my security comrade and I became friends and I mentioned how Jesse Jackson met with us at Occupy Cincinnati. This was like five years before the date of publicationa and we had a full house and I also was fairly political with my interview for Neon Dystopia that got published before Isaac interviewed Mike Pondsmith who's a major hero of mine.

Anyways this all happened the month before the Trump election and I had just gotten this bad ass little linux running beast of a laptop (I swear to God whoever set that thing up had a nazi decoding one time pad in mind) and I had not used it at all for two years. Well, I got weirded out because we ordered some Dominos for Halloween and I was unlucky enough to answer the door and see the kid delivering was in blackface and the reciept that NO ONE BUT ME looked at said KKK on it. Figuring it was Halloween and someone was trolling I kept it to myself for another month or two as Street Clan and AntiE garnered some global attention and the country fell to Russian hackers who suck Putin's cock regularly because Trump won. Ever gotten a letter from someone who's military and they're slagging the Commander in Chief a month after the election? That's how you know there's a failure in office and nazis are running the streets like Charlottesville (WHETE'S YOUR FUCKING STATUES NOW SPENCER YOU FIST FUCKING AHOLE????).

By January I bugged out and was on my way to Nebraska via Columbus when I realized I was in Columbus and missed said military friend so badly I couldn't see myself leaving town. So I went homeless for a while in the dead of winter running around scavenging for food and eventually ended up in an apartment in German Village but when I went to an old employer one morning I saw that the Loyal Knights of the KKK had figured out who I was and presumably said friend who was protected by barbed wire and fences since we had both worked there together years ago and... I bugged out again.

Ended up getting a hold of some red pills those Alt Righters were apparently so fond of and a list of false diagnosis (seriously doc if I had AIDs and whatever else you put on there I'd be dead) and I ran around this town's main drag for a bit. This is where shit got interesting. I had this dream in December 2012 that I'd be in that town hearing massive amounts of gunfire like the fucking Mask Off video (I guess Lowlife wasn't cool enough) and that's when I realized the dream was a premonition and said "Fuck this I hear gunfire but see no riot" and sat outside the bar that had the short guy with the nunchucks and free popcorn and found out that the laptop could reset routers and thus did so with every router in the intersection for a few nights until the police showed up and I finally got a reference for a one room the next town down.

Well, the dream kept coming true because as secure as the building looked after I sobered up the neo nazis moved in and started slinging meth to the hobos and the bars stopped letting me in so I started fighting the redneck meth head known Country (I wish that was a joke) and shut down every router within two blocks while the Neo Nazis began to get down with their girlfriends. NO WIFI FOR YOU YOU FASCISTS says I and after the third fight with the redneck and some bullshit tikitorch bomb showing up on my back porch I decided to get them all evicted.

Sadly when I got back to town some idiot who only ever went to one Occupy march decided to stab me in the back and call not only the Iron Horsemen but also the AB on me because I opened up to her about the fucked up necrophilic pedophiles I saw on the when I got the tip that Elysium was a deep web pedophile site. Guess what? That's why we were called Anti E because the E stood for Elysium. The German Federal police raided the fuck out of those dumbass child rapists and snagged reportedly 90,000 accounts along with it. Anit E's primary mission was done and I decided to take down the blog because I didn't feel like getting hacked AND shot and began to start figuring out the alt right's mindset after they lost all their stupid slave master statues and basically came to the conclusion that the alt right is all for a bush war in the woods just around anywhere. Shocked and horrified that the backwoods had become lost to me again the local meth dealer broke into my apartment and stole my bag of pills and my phone, and thus I lost most of Reaver's work from the past ten years. Fucking assholes. Turns out that meth dealer must have sold it to the little Waffen SS wearing piece of shit whose uncle is a Iron Horseman and he began to most recently try and create blackmail against me despite the fact that his uncle probably hates the shit out of his brown ass. So fuck them right?

Oh and fuck playing Armata on Facebook game room. Ukrainians play it and they will clone your IP address and then shoot you with a virus gun with their shitty little vitural APU. Yes. A virus gun. I swear to God that shit I wrote about in the end of Black Swords Inc Volume 1 is real. Also fuck that Chinese piece of shit with the IPad who hacked my yahoo back in 2016 when I last published something. If he was smart he'd lie his ass off about the files in that account and get a commission for a cyber militia or something.

Anyways the nazis got evicted, princesses aeound here are racist whores with paranoid delusions of dope stealing granduer and I'm still in this shitty one room I've had nightmares about waiting for a fucking racist piece of shit to put a bullet in my head while not being able to get a hold of anyone I care about because they're probably dead or busy working to be dead. Fuck authoritarian boot licking pieces of shit and fuck the internet company for taking six months to reset the neighborhood's routers.

If I'm not dead by the end of this year I'll be set. Fuck this place and all people who don't walk the walk when they only talk the talk and fuck everyone who can't accept that there are people with real enemies because they didn't just stand around looking pretty for the cameras.

In the words of Tupac Shakur, "Even if I die I'm gonna be a fucking problem."

Black Swords Inc Vol 1

noreply@blogger.com (FishSama) — Thu, 7 Feb 2019 17:08:00 -0800

BLACK SWORDS INC.

CHAPTER 1

“Echo Bravo Delta, this is Dragon Two One actual,” said the drone pilot into his mic. “We have visual on the Erisman convoy moving south by southwest.”
“Copy Dragon Two One, what is their ETA to the box?” Captain De’ Marlborough spoke in reply from the command seat in the drone control trailer.
“ETA is twenty five minutes, Echo Bravo.”
“Copy Dragon Two One. Dragon One One, your squadron is free to engage, I repeat, free to engage.”
“Copy Echo Bravo. Move into position. Let’s take these buggers out.”
Forty miles away and two thousand feet in a clear night sky over contested Socialist Glinkan ground, the Klerian attack drone squadron peeled starboard and armed their Harbringer missiles. As they glided below cloud cover, ground fire began arcing up to meet them. The Erisman war convoy had good spotters riding five hundred meters out in the desert. Twenty millimeter rounds ripped apart Dragon 3-1’s tail section.
“Son of a bitch!” shouted De’Tora, 3-1’s pilot at the trailer.
“Weapons free!”
Gaian made rounds exited Klerian birds and lit up the convoy like an over-zealous neighbor on a religious holiday. Depleted uranium bullets punched through the battle wagons and armored trucks. Several went off road and fired as high up as their jerry rigged turrets would allow. Still they missed most of the squadron aside from Dragon 5-1’s wing tip being clipped. The Harbringer missile misfired and went off into a nearby wadi and detonated.
“Two One actual, regroup your squadron and fall back into holding pattern. Fenjirs are en route.”
“Copy Echo Delta. Dragons fall back.”
---

“Gots ‘em big guy,” said Rouge Lekki as he drove a retrofitted Crokian dune buggy.
Klerian orders were streaming down the monitor next to him. The feeling of nearby battle touched his warrior spirit to the core.
“Bleed ‘em and Reave ‘em,” the radio crackled as the group of twenty some Reaver war buggies kicked up dirt in the desert night. The Fenjir Chapter held more commie tech than most of their brothers and sisters and were generally considered the assholes of the tribes in this part of the world. This was mostly due to their steadfast loyalty to the Klerians.
“Reave away brothers!” said an urgent De’Marlborugh.
“We ain’t there yet big guy,” said another Fenjir.
Reaver mini-drones buzzed overhead and Lekki knew their Malarcan warmaiden in her command buggy was watching them fly high. The little things were their eyes in the sky.
“How they do, sis?” Lekki yelled into his radio.
“They’re doing great! The Erismans are scattered!”
“Drop the ‘nades on their heads boss lady!” he said with glee.
The grenades were mostly improvised clusters of bombs and mortar shells that were dropped from the bottom of the little drones. Lekki couldn’t hear the screams of the Erismans over the bombs exploding, but he knew they were scattering.
“GO GO GO!”
Howls like demonic hounds filled the night and the Fenjir convoy split into six prongs and lines. Heavy gunners blew apart Erisman war buggies with high explosive rounds. Fire and smoke lit up the night. Lekki led his prong in a zig zagging line through the Erisman convoy firing sporadically at the Erismans bailing out of their trucks.
Most of the heavy war wagons like the F-87’s and F-93’s were captured Allied tech and held fast. Their main cannons fired at the tail of Lekki’s column, blowing apart the Savior’s Lover and Lekki’s brothers inside.
Lekki howled in anguish.
“Bastard frukers!!!”
Tangela’s Ashes, the second buggy behind him fired a rocket propelled grenade at the rear chassis of the F-87 tank. It began to burn as a flurry of molotovs from the Reavers hit it.
Lekki grinned behind his bandanna.
“Tosta mi tolsa,” he said into the radio, his dead avenged.
The Reaver Fenjirs sped out of sight.
---
“Dragon Two One, Foxtrot Charlie is out of the way. Re-engage at will.”
“Copy. Re-engaging.”
The four Klerian attack drones dipped low in the night sky and let their main cannons rip on the remaining tanks and war wagons.
Captain De’Marlborugh left the command trailer knowing that the Erisman fanatics had been dealt with. His lieutenant met him in the yard as he took out his e-cig.
“Sir, I have a data-pad here with sensitive info regarding certain denizens of the Gaian Confederacy.”
Vapor blew from the Captain’s mouth at the young Glinkan. He wasn’t entirely happy with Allied high command integrating the Glinkans so soon after being brought into the fold. Several officers had already been fragged, as the Gaians said it. Luckily this man came to De’Marlborugh fully cleared.
“More riots over their civil wars I take it?” he asked.
The lieutenant just let the captain read. De’Marlborugh’s eyes widended. He had been given this post as a placement for drone ops. He had excelled as a child with massive multiplayer aircraft simulators and joined the Royal Klerian Air Guards as soon as possible, after university of course. With the Erisman Insurrection affecting the globe, he received a commission with his father’s help in the 21st Drone Wing.
It was a cushy position with Top Secret credentials. When he was on leave, he tended to lose track of how many women he could get into a bed with because of his uniform and the old “I could tell you what kind of work I do, but that’s classified” line. Most of his job entailed cleaning up enemy convoys and surveillance on fanatics from the Cult of Bocchus. Most of the Bocchus fanatics came from the Erisman Isles to fight Mother Kleria on Glinkan soil.
Every once in a while the Klerians received news from their Gaian cousins that their Black Ops teams, usually Private Military Companies, had captured some left wing radical or hacker and used De’Marlborugh’s base as an interrogation site, more recently the interrogates were Erismans.
This time was different.
---
“Training?”
Ulrich nodded, his S-7 armour shimmering like an Erisman chameleon in the Captain’s office. Four others stood around the Black Swords Inc. manager with their helmets retracted halfway. De’Marlborugh could tell that one female in their company of Erisman descent.
“What kind of training?” he asked. “Drones I assume.”
“Drones, no. The training is to be VR for our new employee,” Ulrich stated with a calm and even tone. “But the offer is fifty thousand Klerian credits followed by twenty five thousand International upon completion.”
De’Marlborugh leaned back in his chair.
He had run up quite a debt due to gambling on Erisman Paradisio leaves, the casinos being a big draw on him, and an even bigger shame on his family.
“How much is the price of our honor?” the Glinkan lieutenant asked. “Will this interfere with our operations?”
He eyed the Erisman woman known as Jinnifer.
The captain shook his head softly.
“I will aim to keep that to a minimum.” Ulrich stated calmly as before.
De’Marlborugh’s brow furrowed.
“For how long?”
“Two months.”
The captain sighed.
“Deal Ulrich,” he waved at him. “Wire the funds to my personal account.”
One of the mercs stepped forwards and tossed a clip of credits on the Captain’s desk.
“Do it yourself,” he grunted. “We were never here.”
That merc, was me, Salmon.

CHAPTER 2

“Punch harder!” Ulrich said, his voice booming in the VR matrix like and angry god.
The VR matrix itself was a virtual representation of an Emperor’s Shrine in pre-revolutionary Malarca. It was set in a bamboo forest, birds flying through the trees and the whole nine yards. I myself was still struggling with the pure fruking grace of the place. It was better than most of the training sims I used to run through the DarkNet, so here I was, face bloodied, getting my ass handed to me by a 3rd Century Guardian Spirit automaton.
This was training for the Black Swords.
It raised its halberd and swung down on me. I rolled to the side and wrapped my left aug leg around its knee, pulled myself onto its back and got flung to the ground. Birds flew from their perches and the earth cracked under me. I coughed blood, more than usual for a sim set for realism and rolled my head to the side. Two feet were in front of me. I looked up.
Jinny was standing there in a samurai gi.
She drew her katana slowly, enough for me to see the blessings etched into the blade.
“Watch this,” she grinned, her eyes darting to the now standing Guardian Spirit.
Her blade flashed across its back and it split in half.
“Mikael,” she said after the katana clicked into its scabbard, “end the sim.”
“Aren’t you a sight for-“
---
[SIM ENDED] flashed across my field of vision as I finished saying, “sore eyes...”
Jinny pushed herself out of the VR chair.
“Shut up.”
“Yes ma’am.” I snapped off a salute.
I was still happy to see Jinny in one piece, although I seemed to be in the same position she had been this entire time. What had been explained to me by Ulrich was that we were to be trained and used by the Black Swords private security firm in VR and meatspace combat. The Shogun had talked to Don Mackevelli about getting me in and Durik City’s underworld had played a part in getting us and apparently a few others to make some cred. That was all I knew though. I figured it was a way of going legit and I knew I was no longer just a hackin’ street samurai, but a merc, same as Jin. What got me though was that we were being trained on a Klerian base.
I wondered about Nadia and her bastard teacher boyfriend and if we were nearby enough for me to take care of the business me and Don Mak had talked about. I could hear the ocean outside the walls of the base, not some shitty VR sim or audio file, but real ocean. I had a feeling that we were going to settle my debt personally now that I was here, but Ulrich seemed to be a stickler for order, so I would be surprised.
“Your file said you were better at hand to hand, Jakk.” Ulrich said as he walked into the cramped equipment cluttered room.
I was wiping down my chair.
“Sorry. I guess the augs are still glitch.”
“Bullshit.” Ulrich growled. “That doctor vouched for you.”
It took a moment to remember what the fruk he meant.
“You mean that needler bitch?”
“None other,” Ulrich said, lips pursed.
“I looked up her file. She the one who got us on this base? Klerians like the V’Halsens.”
“Shut up about her.” Jinny butted in.
“Why? She was the reason we’re here probably.” I shot back.
Jin turned around looking at me with one of those shocked looks she’d give me before walking out. Only difference was now that look had reason to scare the piss out of me.
“Both of you shut down before your pay goes down,” Ulrich stepped up, his face twisted into a snarl. “Sal, you had her files, and Hera knows why, three mags of needlers in your bag when we found you.”
“Kidnapped, Mister Merc. You kidnapped me.” I said raising a finger.
“Impressed is what they used to call it, but Jinny is right; forget about the doc and whatever drugs she got you on while you were on your way here.”
My fight was up.
“Impressed you Corp frukker!” I leaped at him only to be sidestepped and left sliding along the floor.
His boot stepped on the back of my neck as he ikneeled close to me. His voice hissed in my ear.
“Listen you little riser rat piece of shit, I and the firm are doing you all a big fruking favor by training you in the arts of war.”
I tried to get up and he pushed down harder.
“That doc, that whore, your clan, all of them mean nothing until I am through with you. Then we’ll see about you and your friend making it back to Durik.”
He eased off and I had tears in my eyes.
Me! Tears!
“Get up and hit the showers.” He threw a towel over my face. “Chow is at seventeen hundred hours.”

---

I found it odd being in the place I was so suddenly. I’d made the jump across the ocean before but the training regimen Ulrich had us under was more exhausting than any hop skip and jump. The base was a small Klerian drone base and I had heard about the operations the Klerians were running against the Erisman nomad fanatics. Fruk, the fact that Fenjir Reavers were in on the action got me wondering. It made me wonder what was going on back in the old C-Fed. I had left the place as a battleground of rioters and militia.
Another civil war was hat the Klerian drone jockies called it from what I overhead at chow. I worried about Taina, Jerri Boy, all the people from our old riser. I figured my mother and brother were probably displaced, if not dead, and I prayed silently that night for them. Of course, Jinny was supposedly dead at one time too, but here she was.
One night after training, I found her reading off of a datapad. We hadn’t talked much outside of official business. There was the smell of autumn in the air, crisp leaves on cold winds that reminded me of uptown.
“Hey Jin!” I shouted over the after burners of a drone making take off. “How goes it?”
We were both in the Black Swords dress down uniforms of grey digicams, our forage caps held under our right shoulder bands.
“It goes squid head,” she grinned that toothy grin of hers.
My dreads had been shaved for a while now and I chuckled and rubbed my neck port nervously.
“Yeah...” I looked down at my boots.
“So how do you like the company?”
“It’s something,” I understated. “Didn’t think the Shogun would put me in a merc outfit ever.”
“Really didn’t?” she asked. “For my pap this was a business deal.”
“Probably the same for us.”
I sat down next to her on the barriers she had perched herself on.
“So how’s the wife?” she asked.
Dear gods, she has no clue, I thought.
“The one who stabbed me in the back?” I asked.
“That’s the one.”
Thank Zeus she knew.
I leaned back and stared into the night sky. Here there were more stars than clouds. More constellations than spires, and we were still in Klerian territory.
“I don’t know.” I answered. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
“Really?” she asked in disbelief. “It’s in the past for you?”
I looked at her.
She looked back, “What?”
“What do you want me to say Jin?” I’m here because of some political wheeling back home, same as you-“
“It’s impressment Jakk.”
I knew that. I was fruking Salmon. I knew all. I was the best hacker Durik had seen aside from Deronium. Of course I knew that impressment was still a problem these days, and that we were part of some deal involving our own impressment.
“I know, but it’s not the deal I signed up for.”
“You’re with people you trust, and Ulrich knows that. Ulrich has real power. Papa knows that and so does the Shogun.”
I looked into her eyes.
“So why are you here?”
Jin just shook her head and walked off.
I walked after her.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” I said as I reached for her arm.
She grabbed me and shoved her hand twice into my chin and threw me to the ferrocrete pavement.
“Try that again, Jakk and you’re dead.”
I rub my chin and realize it just was not my day.
“The fruk’s your problem?”
“Same as yours!”
She stormed off to the barracks we were staying in and I could only sit and wonder what the fruk had just happened. Behind me walked up this moulded mass of muscle with a bright red Mohawk and beard. To me he looked like some sort of ancient Brissian warchieftan. He sat beside me.
“We’re all in the same boat, you know,” said Mell.
I laugh under my breath.
“Is that where we are? On some Klerian boat?”
The Brissian took a deep breath.
“No...” He pointed to the skies. “We’re all warriors here Jakk. Mikael has assembled a great unit.”
“For what? We were all kidnapped to fight who? For who? For what objective?”
Mell grins.
“Credits and glory my friend.” He pats me on the back. Hard.
“That’s great,” I wince, “but why all the secrecy? Is this some CGIM shit? Hifflon Corp?”
“Any and all really. But for me?” the Brissian smiled a wolf like smile. “This is like Valhalla.”
I recognize the Brissian religious term for paradise.
“You mean like our Elysium?”
The Brissian’s smile shrunk.
“Someone will kill you for that.”

CHAPTER 3

Lekki and his warriors rode hard in the desert night. It was cold, but not as cold as a winter night in their homeland. He threw his head back and howled with his column. The two moons of Janus smiled down upon the raiders as a flight of Klerian fighter drones screamed overhead.
    “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all!” shouted a recording from his nav computer.
    The Klerian captain had installed that for him.
    There was a Glinkan nomad camp ahead circled by Erisman fanatics of Bocchus. Lekki detested wine. Erismans loved it, as did the demi-god Bocchus, as did Glinkan nomads. Somehow Captain De’Marlborugh had informed the Reavers that was against the law. Lekki knew as well as his Reavers, that Imperial Klerian law was Zeus’s law and that was good enough for him. Godless lying Crokians spat in the face of Olympians and Valhallans and Lekki wanted none of that. These traitors would be dealt with soon enough.
    The fighter drones lit up the camp with white hot tracer rounds, killing women, warriors and children. The battle wagons roared to life and began to scatter under the onslaught. Lekki’s column halted and formed a “u” formation. The fighter drones peeled off. Several of the war wagons began driving at Lekki’s trap. Others split into the night.
Both columns rode into each other.
"Die! DIE! DIE!" Lekki screamed, firing his chain gun into the Erismans.
A war wagon ran over two of the Fenjir battle cars before exploding. Fenjir warriors leaped from their war buggies onto the Erisman wagons, cutting with electro-blades into their chassis, severing coolant hoses and radiators before leaping back into the sand.
Fighter drones flew in and fired into the Erisman war wagons that were left stranded like dying sandworms. The drones darted back into the night sky. It didn't matter much to the Klerians whether the Glinkans at the nomad camp lived or died. Their job was done.

---
See that? That was a result of a meme-trade. I'll tell you all more about that later on. Here's another meme trade I made at this time.
Enjoy.
---
Gunfire in a storage crate neighborhood.
Bullets smacked and ricocheted around De'Ferrone's helmet.
"Stay down dammit!" she shouted firing down an alley with her R47 machine pistol. Two New Aegean fighters ducked behind a dumpster.
De'Ferrone was bent over a wounded V'Halsen squad mate. Blood was gurgling through his rebreather, a shot to the throat slowly killing him. De'Rizo, her fellow medic was cutting through another squadmate's armor to reach the spider round that is tearing up his organs and muscles from the inside out.
"You find that sniper yet El Tee?" De'Ferrone shouted into her mic as she plugged another pain dampener into the replacement's USB port.
"I ain't got shit!" said their marksman.
"Well hurry the fruk up! We aren't gonna last much longer!"
De'Ferrone put some more suppressive fire before she turned to look at her patient. Her omnitool flickered as the kid deadlined. She turned to assist cutting through the body armor with her heat blade, but the man was thrashing too damn much.
His rebreather bursts.
The blood covered spider round jumps out at De'Rizzo and crawled under her HUD goggles and into her eye.
---
Fruking sick right? That was just a partitioned flashback. Here's the rest of the meme. This is how I knew what was going on at home.

---
Doctor De'Ferrone jolted awake in her private emergency tent. She looked down at the pile of used downer shots and put her head in her hands. Disgusting. She picked up a needler and loaded a stimm shot. Carefully she put the needle to her eye and injected away the bad dreams, the bad memories. The cycle. The never ending cycle...
There was a scratching knock at the door of her tent.
"Doctor De'Ferrone!"
She hid the needler.
"Yeah?"
The door is unzipped a bit for a wirey haired orderly to look in.
"We've got incoming casualties."
"I'll be out in a minute..."
Sweat was pouring from Dr. De'Ferrone's face as she left the tent and examined the casualties of this latest outburst of violence in Durik City. The V'Halsen Militia were co-operating with the C-Fed military police to bring order to the Riser slums and the tentaments where the street samurai clans and freemen were still putting up a noble but futile fight with demands for equal housing.
The Governor and the House of Lords had been given communiques listing grievances. Several sectors of the InfoNet had been put down and in other City States, most notably Gaemiria, there were riots and uprisings led by Gaian socialists who clashed with Hifflon Corp security forces. The Confederate Gaian Military Forces were keeping the peace in the outlying sectors of the City States.
Two weeks of this.
Two fruking weeks.
Dr. De'Ferrone knew to her core that it would all calm down once the rains came. The calm she found was wondering where I was. She knew I was safe, but she had no feeling whether or not she would be. The V'Halsens were vying for more power and several old VH Army members had contacted her about becoming a combat medic again.
She told none of her nurses in the hospital tent that they were running about while she had a PSK7 pistol strapped to her ankle. A few of the MP medics had given her glances that weren't just for their rack time.
She took a drag on her e-cig.
"Gods-dammit." she muttered.
Before her was a city at war with itself, just as she had been at war with herself during the New Aegean Raids. Now here she was, thinking of little ol' me, Salmon, instead of thinking of her husband. Her husband's boss had been trying to screw the both of them over due to her service in the VHA, and she could understand why.
A Wareagle flew low overhead bearing a red medic's staff on its' belly. Her eyeglass began streaming patient names, all from my neighborhood.
Her heart leapt and her adrenaline kicked in.
"Clear the LZ!" she ordered over the comm line. "Incoming wounded!"
MPs and nurses ran to stations around the relief site. Park the orderly ran up to the chopper and began rushing a young woman with a red holocloth bandana packed with real ice over and abrasion on her left arm. A young man with a mohawk and from what De'Ferrone could tell was an augmentic arm ran behind them with a double barrelled shotgun in his other hand.
Two MPs blocked him off.
"Fruk you!" Jerri Boy shouted.
"Hand over the weapon!" one MP shouted over the rotor blades.
"That's my sister!"
Dr. De'Ferrone stopped and turned back to the confrontation. She knew this young man. She knew him from the memes she'd stolen from me.
"You!" she pointed at Jerri.
Jerri pushed through the MPs only to make it a few feet ahead before getting zapped in tyhe back by a tazer round. De'Ferrone ran up to the young street samurai as she convulsed on the ground for what must have felt like hours. He arms spread out like the wings of a mother bird. An MP reached for his baton. De'Ferrone dropped to the ground and grabbed the shotgun, aiming it up at the MP.
"Try it you piece of shit." she snarled.
The MP lowered his weapon.
The other grabbed her comrade's shoulder and pulled him away.
De'Ferrone rose.
The whole LZ seemed to have stopped.
"Get this man on a stretcher!" the doctor ordered.
Everyone began rushing back to normal. Downwash from the Wareagle blew De'Ferrone's hair away as it took off.
She checked the shotgun.
Both barrels were empty.
De'Ferrone sighed in relief and walked her way through the street hospital to find her patient. One of the orderlies found her first after about a half hour of aimless wandering.
"That geisha girl is awake. We ran the same scans you did on the street-"
"Got ya," De'Ferrone said. "Take me to her."
They walked quickly down the rows to the recovery tent and there she is.
"Miss Ngyui, how are you feeling?" asked the doctor.
Taina grinned painfully, her torso bandaged up. There were multiple lacerations on her face and her eye was entirely red and nearly swollen shut.
"I'm alive I guess," Taina muttered.
De'Ferrone sat next to her and began to read the charts on the holo-display. "That you are. Do you remember me?"
"Yes." Taina said. "You're Sal's doctor."
De'Ferrone grinned and checked off a tab on the chart. The patient's memory was still there. She got out a fresh needler and began to prep a VR dream sim for Taina's frontal cortex to stay preoccupied with. De'Ferrone knew she was ready to take the leap again.
"Doc, if I were you I'd take a moment to look behind your back."
De'Ferrone froze, recognizing the street samurai Jerri Boy's voice.
She eyed the needler.
"If you two came here just to get supplies-"
"Shut the fruk up you Vannie bitch!" Jerri shouted.
The doctor turned her stool around to see Jerri's arm blade at her throat almost immediately. She grinned. She'd seen better hardware during the Raid and the Five Striper was quivering with rage. That made him weak in her eyes.
"You seem angry, Jerri," she said.
"No shit!"
Anger was just another tool to her.
"I should call the MPs on you again. Maybe some militiamen to rough you up a bit."
Jerri Boy's face expressed his indignation at the thought.
"Oh, like they did to Taina? Like they vaped Sal? After you-"
She rose to her feet, the blade tracing a thin scratch along her scrubs.
"Shhh..." she cooed.
Jerri's face was as red as the blood in the streets. De'Ferrone pushed his arm away slowly. She drew in close to him.
"Sal is safe, Jerri," she said, inches from his face, "as is Jinny. We're all going to be fine."
Jerri Boy recoile away from her and stepped into a defensive stance and spat.
"Bullshit."
He drew his blade up to strike.
"Jerri wait!" Taina said behind them. "She might be right."
"Not a chance," Jerri said. "Sal wouldn't leave again. Jin's dead and that's why Sal went crazy and got vaped out there!"
De'Ferrone smiled wryly.
"Your whore of a sister is right, samurai. Put the blade away and I will show you."

CHAPTER 4

We were on a sub in the Bone Straits. It was about ten meters long and three wide, built, so Ulrich told us, to sneak past Crokian minefields and insert a team of six agents such as ourselves into a shore position.
It's pretty good for a VR sim, yet again. I still don't know who is writing the Swords' BIOS and sims but I'm still impressed (ha haaaa, irony) that it's better than the C-Fed stuff. I was wearing the same helmet that everyone wore in the Swords, an Aegis KA MkIII. It's equipped to auto inject USB pain programs and provide a top of the line HUD system in the visor. The Brissian with the mohawk who was next to me had his helmet painted orange and blue. A skinny guy on the other side of me was from New Aegis and had a satchel of EMP charges at his feet. His name was Kalv O'Rennith. His armor was marked with New Aegean knots. Jin was at the front of the compartment and her armor was factory matte black. Ulrich was behind her and a Crokian named Zedd is at the rear piloting.
We were moving slow as the Styx in these sims till now. I had about seven months of sim time in the two month span of me being in the Swords.
I felt less and less like a Street Samurai and more like a merc. I had a gun, good armor, and steady pay. I was ready as I thought I would be for this mission, this run, this sim.
On the HUD display we all had numerals floating over our heads as the sub ran closer to the area of operation. Ulrich uploaded the briefing. An AI program named SAMI popped up in front of us. I wondered how much this software would run for as the pudgy red faced balding head with diabetic eyes started to talk to us.
"Good evening Swords. Today I'd like to talk to you about the Crokian Nuclear plant on the platform just north of the Bone Straits."
A map popped up next to the AI avatar.
"You are to be inserted at the base of the platform via mini sub, the one you are on now."
A glowing blue arc plotted our trajectory.
"You will insert yourself here and breach the platform doors at your will. Be prepared to engage the Crokian guardian drones, but don't be too hasty, Kalv will need time to clear the firewall on the reactor's computer and place the EMPs."
Kalv chuckled into his helmet.
"Sal, your job will be to go ham on those guards with your electro-blade and hack the drone captain's intel files. Jin, you will be covering Sal with overwatch from Zedd. Ulrich will be with Mell covering Kalv."
SAMI looked at all of us.
"Mmmkay, we all good?"
Everyone noted affirmatively. I had to admit, there was a nice touch of humanity with this AI.
SAMI spoke up.
"Pick up is Oh-Oh thirty. Be quick Swords."
The fat man's head flickered out. Mell was chanting some Fenjir incantation. Everyone checked their weapons. A pressure gauge index lit up inside our HUDs as we began to come up out of the water.
"Black Swords," Ulrich said with a tone that made me forget this was a sim, "see you on the other side."
We crawled out of the hatch of the sub and latched ourselves onto a pillar under the Crokian platform. The guards pace their preprogrammed routes along the girders. Kelv knows they're drones, as do we all, and let us know their paths with hand signals. I whispered coded commands into my helmet mic as everyone began to climb their way up.
"Esper, Sama, Zoso. Esper, Sama, Alpha, Zoso."
Two arcs of blue hit the drone guards on my display and the seconds begin to tick away as my virus takes effect.
They froze as we reached the top of the platform.
With a flick of the wrist my electro-blade cuts them down.
Rain and lubricant sizzles off the blade.
"Clear," I said, feeling powerful.
Gunfire from Ulrich and Mell drop two more drone guards. I ran ahead, assault rifle ready and tucked my blade away. Kalv peeled off into one of the rooms and the sounds of gunfire and screams follow. Dead workers now adorned the place. I grit my teeth and hope that Ulrich wouldn't ask me to kill civilians as well some day. Just as I thought that, a group of workers trying to make their way to an escape raft run in front of me.
Jinny lights 'em up from behind me with scattershot.
"Thanks," I said.
"Don't sweat it."
The one blue arc turns red.
"Rando, Fetid, Deltsen, Harp," I said quickly.
"EMP in place," Kelv said as he breached his own type of firewall.
"Almost got the cap!" I shouted.
I ran to keep up, firing sporadically at the drone captain to keep him pinned. Jin assisted with a shot here, a shot there.
Gunfire roared below.
I broke through.
"Esper, Esper, Xanu!" I shouted.
The download of all the data from the drone captain took seconds to make its way into my helmet's hard drive.
"Pull out," Ulrich said over the comms, "I repeat, pull out."
He didn't have to tell me twice.
---

We were in the big main hall of the Klerian base after we cleaned up. The hall kind of reminded me of a mix between a cathedral and a stable due to the simplicity of it's arches. I was still feeling the outjack sickness due to the sense of vertigo I got after jumping off of the sim platform. That and the dead workers and Jin's short work of them. I wasn't nearly as prepared for that as I thought I would be.
"Good job my Swords," Ulrich said as he walked in dressed in a casual business suit. "We went in, did the job, and got the fruk out."
Everyone was too outjacked to care.
Kelv was shooting up.
Jinny was crouched against a wall.
Mell was smoking his pipe hard.
I was wishing I had a handful of mom's pills as my leg joints resynchronize.
Zed, well Zed was still plugged in. I think.You could never tell with Zed's cheap Crokian eye augs, all cockeyed and shit.
Ulrich read out our stats and then we file out as the men and women odf the 35th Royal Air Guard, 22nd Squadron filed in. Ulrich and Captain De'Marlborough exchanged nods and the pilots exchange glares with us mercs.
I smile at the one female with her hair in a braid. She looked the other way.
Jin smiled.

CHAPTER 5

"Contact! Six o'clock, lower left vector!!!" shouted Liuetenant De'Andrae.
A twitch at her eyebrow infuriated her more than us mercs that she shared a base with. She yanked her drone fighter hard to her nine. Dragon Two Two banked the same way and lit the Erisman fanatics' bunker up. On the VR headsets a bright flare went into the dark night as it exploded. A second explosion went off as the arms and munitions in the bunker got touched off.
Anti-aircraft rounds blew everywhere throwing Erisman commandos down in the dirt.
"Two-Two coming for another pass!"
The nose cannon tore apart the fanatics.
"Good work Two-Two," De'Andrae called out. "Dragons return to formation."
Captain De'Marlborough took the con back in the base.
"Lekki's Reavers, you are clear to mop up."
"Gotcha Cap!" crackled the Fenjir over the radio.
The drone squadron went into a holding pattern. They still held visual surveillance of the bunker site. A ridge over the flaming ruins gave cover to the Fenjiri Reavers who had been dismounted from their dune buggies and war wagons.
"Sharp shooters," Lekki said over the comms, "take 'em out!"
Gunfire began to pick off the Erisman commandos with ease. They were from a land where bad marksmanship usually meant death for you and your entire family. It was easy to pick off a bunch of tropical islanders stuck in desert country. It was easy for the Reavers and the Dragons to make short work of their "crusade".
The firefight was over quickly. Us Black Swords were choppered in by our Wareagle. Lekki and his sharp shooters had found an item of interest and Ulrich had brought up some fine print in the Black Swords' contract to De'Marlborough. It pissed off the Captain a bit, but Ulrich had insisted it was what we were here for. I was just glad the fighting was by the time we landed.
Ulrich didn't even bother getting us to form a perimeter.
There were bodies everywhere and fires burning bright.
The boss approached Lekki with Kelv next to him.
"It's a box," I heard Kelv mutter.
"Shiny box! Worth many dead wine drinkers!" Lekki insisted.
Ulrich's helmet began running an interpretor program so he could speak with the raider in his native tongue.
"Hey Jin," I said as I walked over to her. "What are they saying?"
"Ulrich is telling Lekki that this is an item of great value. Pre-colonial era stuff. Back when the Erismans ran the sea unchecked," she replied on a private comm line.
"So why do we want it?"
"Investment opportunity. An old guy at Hifflon Corp studies these kind of things."
"So how do we figure into it?"
"Think of it as 'go fetch'."
I could feel her grin on me. Ulrich handed lekki some pay cards and we get back on the Wareagle. Easy work. Easy day. Ulrich sat next to me and Kelv in the chopper.
"Sal," he asked, "How are you finding the work we do?"
I grinned like a kid at a festival and lied my ass off.
"Sure beats data dreaming for the Shujini and the Mackiavellians."
Ulrich smiled back.
"Any reason why we're out here in this desert?" I asked him.
"Cause of Klerian cutbacks," Kelv said. "Plain and simple, Sal."
"I think he means me and him," Jin cut in.
"Ah," Ulrich said. "Tribute."
"What? For who?" I asked.
"That's for corporate to know."
"But the don and I had a deal."
"That will be honored."
I pointed to Jin."
"Then why is she here?"
"A different matter altogether."
I leaned back into my seat, trying to keep my mind on how much pay I would lose if I lost my shit on the boss right then. Jin's helmet segmented it's way back from her face. She was grinning a grin that let me know she knew more than me and I knew that always got her going. It's something that happens more often than not. But you know what I do know? Shit about what's going on back home.

---

Dr. De'Ferrone took a long drink of the mixed drink and an even harder look at Jerri Boy.
"Are you sure now that Sal's alright?" she asked. The concern she had for the street samurai looked to be testing his patience. Jerri knocked back his shot, his brow furrowed under his holoband giving him a mean robotic look.
"Yeah, Doc. I can feel it."
"Then where is he?" the doctor leaned in closer. This had become the norm for them over the past week. "Kleria? Erisma? Crok?"
"Honestly I hope it's Jimunga cause that mother fruker needs to get some discipline." Jerri swiped his pay card on the bar. "Left us sitting there in the middle of an uprising with nothing."

---

Jerri had been one of the crew waiting for me in the street when the riot started. He had a knocked off reticle down over his eye rigged up to his L4 carbine. He had watched in awe as I leaped over buildings. Taina however had joined her brothers and sisters in battle. By the time they reached the barricades there were hundreds of people milling around from the risers trying to get out. Some of the samurai were handing out pistols and clubs to the mob.
"Fight hard and the Shogun will reward you!" bellowed a man with a speakerphone.
Jerri snorted at the notion and grabbed a handful of pain dampeners from a basket next to the screaming herald. Taina pulled a rebreather with blue neon spikes on the filters onto her face and racked up her shotgun.
"The Shogun will reward you for fighting the V'Halsen Militia!" screamed the herald.
"Damn right!" said one of the newly armed warriors.
"They started it! We'll finish it!"
"At least we know who they are!"
"Kill those bastards!"
"Forward! To the barricades!" yelled one of the samurai, his katana awash in blue flame.
There were hundreds if not more of the Blue Shujini and their wards in the intersection that was serving as the rally point. Squads found each other and blue banners flew, masks were raised. The crackle of gunfire could be heard everywhere. Jerri and Taina ran with their squad and ten others to a north eastern barricade a few blocks away.
More gunfire met them.
"Stay low!" yelled Ader, their squad leader. "Take them down!"
The barricades were reinforced steel walls that rose out of the streets. Two blocks down were the VHM ducking behind cars. There was a riser slowly burning.
"Get this!" Taina said as she leaned out of cover and fired two incendiary slugs at the VHM. A car exploded and the Vannies broke cover. She grinned under her mask.
Several of them were burning alive.
"They're on fiiiirruuuh!!!" Ader shouted with glee as he opened up on the fleeing VHM.
Jerri leaned out of cover and gave some supporting fire. It was easy for him, like so easy there had to be something more to it easy. No one was really surprised when the Malarcan made Iguana MkIV tank walker lumbered into view on its' four legged chassis.
It began firing it's grenade launchers immediately.
Yellow gas filled the street. Ader checked his goggles and Jerri couldn't seem to forget that.
"It's sarin gas!" Ader screamed.
"Fruk!" Taina said, struggling with her mask. "Fruk this!"
Jerri fired and few shots and they all began to fall back. His reticle targeted every Vannie that began to fall in behind the tank walker. A few fell under his aim. The main cannon on the Iguana roared.
The barricade blew in a mass of lightening and fire.
HUDs went down. Time pieces stopped. Weapons jammed.
It was an EMP round.
Taina was firing madly into the gas as several of the warriors around her were choking on the nerve gas. She was blowing away militiamen left and right.
"Ader!" she yelled. "We gotta get out of here!"
The Iguana fired its main gun again at a building that housed over three hundred families. Everyone was knocked flat, even Jerri. Taina and Ader kept fighting through the fire and smoke. Boom. Slice. Boom boom. Slice boom. The Vannies just kept coming and Jerri had never seen Taina fight like she did.
He picked himself back up and as the Iguana was stuttering forward, bright tracer rounds flickered through the barricades. Ader flicked his katana in hand to hand with several Vannie grunts. He was a master with the blade.
Jerri ran into the smoke to grab him and pull him back, firing his L4 from the hip when he saw Taina go down, taking a butt to the face from a militiaman. He grabbed her by the arm, letting Ader take care of himself. Jerri reached into his satchel with his other hand and armed an EMP grenade. He threw it at the Iguana.

---

"And then it went down?" asked De'Ferrone, her new cocktail untouched.
Jerri, feeling a long way from home, nodded.
"I didn't know Taina could fight like that, but none of us needed to much longer than that. The Black Swords showed up right after with some MPs and cleaned the Vannies up. Then they brought us here."
De'Ferrone smiled. The young man didn't have to share his war story with the good doctor if he didn't want to, but she knew the booze helped. She knew what else would help as well. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her needler.
"You'll need this to sleep tonight, Jerri." she said.
Jerri nodded and took the needler. He knew that the doctor was probably right but he didn't know what was in it. Trust was something that the drink lent him when needed.
"Is Taina okay?" he asked with genuine concern.
"She'll be fine Jerri. Come back with me now."
He rose from his seat and followed the doctor out as she placed her arm around his shoulders.

CHAPTER 6

[CGMF MOUNTAINT OUTPOST #7723]
Loading Transcript...
...
...
"Heya Sal."
"Captain Relmos, how are you?"
"So formal.. I thought we had a repore."
"I thought we had agreed on being more like aqquaintances after what happened."
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean wat do you mean?"
"You... You were a prick. Wrapped up in your own accomplishments. And for a-"
"Don't say it! Don't even Sari!"
"For a fellow trooper..."
"What? Why the hesitation?"
"I can't believe this."
"Cap, I joined a PMC in the war against Erisman fanatics. A real one. You can just stick to your games."
"What?! Who's your officer?"
"Jin, actually. And I shouldn't say this, but fruk it. Ulrich Mikael is the boss."
"Dear gods do you know who he is?!"
[Transcript Ends]

---

I left that there for you. I still feel uncomfortable sharing this shit with you sick fruks but that was me having it out with my wife on an open server. No VPN, nothing. Just bare assed honesty. Ulrich told me to, and the guy really made sense when he did.
---
Two minutes later I was in a VR sim with Jin.
The sim was of a crowded slum in West Ba'arrit. We were both in civilian clothes; designed skins to make us look like student backpackers from New Aegis. We walked at a leisurely pace in the reservation city's marketplace. Dreamcatchers hung from every stall and heat beat down through the layered awnings. Everything you could think of was being hawked for cheap credits.
"So... didn't go so well did it?" Jinny broke the silence.
"No." I said, inspecting a rack of repossessed hardware. "No it was just fine."
"I knew it."
"Knew what?"
Our ear buds chirped twice.
"Keep on point," Ulrich said over our comms.
Jin looked into the reflection of an old CD.
"DOWN!"
She tackled me to the deeply padded earth as a flurry of rounds flew overhead. Three Native Ba'arriti warriors in matte black armor fell next to us. Several more pushed through the panicking crowd, aiming their guns.
"Sal, this isn't a game! Get up!" Ulrich shouted in my ear.
Jin took a knee above me and fired several rounds at the Erisman fanatics who were slaughtering civilians like cattle. I rolled onto my back and began firing, scared by Ulrich's words. The blood, the dust, the gunfire and screams seemed very real.
The Native Ba'arriti warriors stood above us, firing on full auto at the fanatics. Hot gases from the caseless ammo filled my nostrils. Several Erismans lay dead along with the shoppers they had killed in the market. Even in such close quarters I couldn't tell if I was hitting shit.
"Get up!" Jin ordered.
I scrambled to my feet.
The sim faded away around us, stall by stall, body by body.
Only Jin and I stood in a vast grey expanse.
"Good work," said Ulrich as he appeared in front of us, clapping slowly.
I could tell he wasn't being honest.
"I'm sorry, boss," I said putting my hands up. "I lost my head-"
"Bullshit." Ulrich snarled. "Someone with your data dreaming experience should never lose your head in VR unless you are a burn out to the tenth degree. Are you a burn out, Jakk?"
My back stiffened.
"No sir."
"Then why did you fail?"
I gritted my teeth.
I knew why.
"Because I-"
"Because you what, sir?!" Ulrich barked.
I looked down, my face red with rage, then looked back up.
"Because I wanted my deal!"
Ulrich scoffed.
"Your deal? Bullshit again."
"You mother fr-"
Jinny held me back with one arm.
"He means the deal with my father."
Ulrich nodded, a grim smirk on his face, "Are you sure, Jakk?"
I stepped back and nodded. I knew the deal was to assassinate a Klerian school teacher, and I knew I had somewhat tipped off my ex-wife by engaging in a chat with her over my misogynist pride. I knew this would strain the Black Swords' relationship with the Klerian drone operators, but fruk it. We were mercs after all.
"I'm sure."
"Then let us prepare," Ulrich replied.
---
It took about two days for the job to be set up. The Black Swords' Wareagle was fitted with the stealth rotors and a single android pilot was fitted to the cockpit. Along with a Klerian military persona, there was a slew of passes and visas installed on the RFID chip. The night of the mission I prayed to Aries, donned by black body suit, and strapped my katana on. Bulbous night vision goggles were strapped over my eyes and I made my way to the helipad.
Jin blocked my way in the hall.
"You don't have to do this Sal."
I took a deep breath before replying.
"My honor has been-"
"Honor means nothing in these times."
I stepped back.
"Then maybe this is all we have of honor, Jinny."
"Gods dammit Sal! He's a school teacher! She's some gamer country girl. No one needs to die over this."
I gritted my teeth, "Then why would your father, Don Mackiavelli try and bring me here? I know it's not just because I'm good in a fight. I need to seal the deal on this, Jin."
She crossed her arms and looked at the wall.
"I viewed the transcripts, Sal." she said after moments of tense silence. "There's a lot you don't know about Ulrich. About the Swords' true purpose."
I was disgusted. Another breach of my privacy. I tried to move past her. She stepped in my way.
"You're not a street samurai anymore Sal." she said, inches from me. "Please, don't do this."
"Why? Why bring this up now?" I said, feeling exasperated.
"Because she'll know, Sal. She'll know it was you and-"
"So what Jin?! So fruking what?!" I yelled, continuing to walk towards her.
She launched a knee into my gut, but my armor took most of the blow. I shoved her and she used her footwork to displace most of the force behind it. She was in her dress downs but a pistol was in her hand and a glisten in her eyes.
"They're not worth it Jakk." she said, with her vocal chords clenched.
I stood there furious with myself, with her, with Durik's leaders, and the whole gods damned world. I couldn't believe it had come to this. Jinny meant a lot to me and now we'd been in training together I wasn't just her bodyguard. We were closer now than any bedsheets or car cab could bring us.
"I'm sorry Jin..." I said, lowering my guard. A calmer air washed over us. "I have to go."
"Don't even," she whispered. "Don't."
"What is this?" a Klerian accent rang out down the hall.
It was Lieutenant Harbin Parker, the base MP. He was in his battle dress uniform and walked towards us with his side arm out and his other hand outstretched.
"Both of you bloody mercs stand down now!" he shouted.
I sighed, being no stranger to jumpy military police, and turned around, hands up. Jin holstered her pistol. After dealing with the MPs in Durik I wanted none of the Klerian flavor. I knew now that my personal op was a bust. Still, I was surprised when Ulrich entered the hall.
"What is the issue here Lieutenant?" the boss snapped.
"Your mercs were disturbing the peace on my watch, Mister Mikael," said Parker.
"We are on a military base in a time of war surrounded by warriors," Ulrich said. "There is no peace."
The lieutenant faltered for a moment.
"What about that bird outside? I didn't hear about any missions from you lot."
"I don't need to clear missions daily, Lieutenant. I cleared this one with your Captain De'Marlborough upon our arrival."
Parker's brow furrowed.
"Trust me, Parker. I can show you the file," Ulrich said. "However I do have some intel to share with my man Jakk here that superceded the parameters of our mission."
My mind did a complete one eighty. Something had changed? After all of this?
"Jakk," Ulrich said as he walked towards me. "Erisman fanatics attacked the school your wife's teacher friend worked at. One of his students was actually part of the Cult of Eris. I found out about it on the Dark Net. The mission is scrubbed. The teacher is dead."
I felt physically ill. Grief and rage mixed with months and months of angst and expectation left me. I felt empty. Hollow. My honor, my kill, had been stolen from me. Not in the way it had originally, no. It had been stolen by random happenstance, something I didn't expect to happen at any point in my life. I lea leaving me. My face went red. Jin stood back and I took a deep, ragged breath in.
"Get up, son," Ulrich said. "There is war to be made."
---

Dr. De'Ferrone was sitting in her apartment overlooking the city of Durik. She appreciated the privelaged view of the city more now after spending several weeks on the streets during the shattered peace. Jerri Boy, or Jirai De'Tarai as his official name went, had been an interesting side job for the good doctor. She and Taina however had not traded much information as of yet. She had a VR headset on a table next to her and a data drive of Taina's memories next to a bottle of wine. The doctor poured herself a glass of the sweet Erisman import, a luxury wrapped in controversy, much as was her life.
She sipped the glass and looked out over the city. Her city. Smoke still rose from some parts, not due to the battles directly, but due to the slums and their process of trash immolation. Everything felt like a haze to De'Ferrone in the same way. She was losing her honor as a doctor and was slipping into the midst of dishonest dealings.
But she needed more.
Sal had whet her palate for meme-trading, but with Taina's memories she could live out the moments of passion between the two of them. De'Ferrone drank heavily from her glass before setting it daintily on the table.
Oh, what she was learning from the memories she harvested. Salmon had been the beginning. The uprising had allowed her to garner many more from many walks of life. There were buyers in this marker. SHe knew a few of them personally and she planned on building up her stocks first before selling to her affluent friends. For now, she would enjoy her harvest.
She placed the data drive into the port on her neck before donning the headset. She leaned back into her chair and dove in, undoing her pants.

CHAPTER 7
Ulrich stood before us in the briefing room. There was a holo display at the center of the room showing some of the foot hills of an old Klerian Empire era mining town at the heart of an ancient crater. The co-ordinates displayed put it as being located on Glinkan soil. The name of it according to our dossier was Ericstown.
All of us gathered around.
"Alright, what's the job?" asked Mell, his fingers itching for his pipe.
"Remember that box we won from the Erismans?" Ulrich asked. "Well we traced it back here. The Glinkans and the Klerians gave us clearance to gather up the rest of the relics here and bring them to Hifflon Corp back in Gaia for testing."
"So why aren't they just shipping them to us?" Kelv asked.
Jin stepped up.
"Erismans occupy the high ground over the town. The local guard have held their own but there is still resistance formidable enough to keep us from making a helo insertion."
"Why don't the Twenty Second give us air support?" I chimed in.
"They don't have the time, to put it frankly." Ulrich said.
"How are we gonna do this then?" Zedd asked. "We got to get in, out, that sort of thing?"
Jinny spoke up again.
"There's a small pass through the edge of the Erisman lines." she produced a holowand. The display zoomed in on the southwest edge of the crater. "The fanatics were maintaining their observance of morning truce with the Glinkans until recently. We'll have to move between the hours of twenty three hundred and oh one hundred to get into the town."
Ulrich thanked her and took his place in the room again.
"We're going in armed, but in civilian garb for extra security," he said. "Once in the town we will meet with a Glinkan contact, an anthropologist with the People's Musuem of History named Mishka Terinett." A holo-pic of a woman of Glinkan and Klerian descent popped up. "She will guide us to the objective and if all goes well, we'll be out by oh eight hundred."
I frowned. I still wanted a recompense for my ex-wife's betrayal. I knew I wouldn't get it with this job and that as I learned the original objective had already turned up dead which left me with an itch I couldn't scratch.
Jinny had said it.
Sari had said it.
Ulrich was key. We kept doing these snatch and grab contracts for the Glinkans or the Klerians or Hifflon Corp or whatever. It felt like I was just here to be here. Still, at least I wasn't stuck in the old neighborhood while the C-Feds picked through the rubble again.
Zed said it before I had to.
"What if we're compromised?"
Ulrich made that grim grin.
"Then we fight our way out to a secondary extraction point on the other end of the high ground."
And that was that. The boss's word. We geared up.

---
Somehow, with the help of me running ahead as recon with my aug legs, we made it into Ericstown all safe and sound. The edges of the town were guarded by tired Klerian Rangers and Glinkan military in their berets and turban helmets. We gave them our IDs which cleared us through the Klerian checkpoints. Everything seemed to be going okay.
The town was in rough shape. Erisman fanatics and their rocket attacks had gutted the old miner's district. Shops were boarded up and for those lucky enough to afford it, eletric generators kept the heat and lights on. The place was spooky and with us armed so lightly I got the feeling one good push from the Erismans we'd all be shit out of luck. Jinny took photos and Zed's aug eyes whirred and clicked. We needed to fit the cover of a journalism team to fit our cover for the locals.
There were still, through it all, a street of bars and cafes open in the midst of the war. There was no music, but there was Mishka Terinett, her hair tied back, leaning over a half empty tea glass. Mishka didn't notice us until Ulrich walked up under the cafe's awning.
"Professor Terinett," he said with the warmth of an old friend or lover, "how do you do?"
She looked up with big brown eyes that recognized him immediately. A worn out smile spread across her face and she wrapped her arms around the boss.
"Ulrich!" she kissed his cheeks. "How are you? Better than the town I hope."
She laughed. Ulrich smiled and nodded.
"I'm doing well. Thank you."
"And your compatriots?"
Automatic gunfire echoed in the distance.
I couldn't help but look over my shoulder at the gunfire. I check my reticle. Twenty five thirty two was the time. We still had three hours till we had to pull out.
"They're fine," Ulrich answered her.
Mishka slapped her hands together.
"And Harom?"
Me and Jin share a look. Harom was some sort of mad professor who supposedly worked for Hifflon Corp. We'd only heard of him in urban legends from drunken businessmen. I could tell then, Jin knew more behind her gaze than I did.
"He's doing quite well, I assure you," Ulrich said.
"Good. Glad to hear it." Mishka said. "Shall we?"
We began to move through the streets and I get the odd feeling of having been here before. I remembered what Ulrich said about losing my head and turned around and back front as we moved. The street plan was non-existent. We weaved and turned through the streets and alleys a few times and make way for trucks of soldiers a few more times. Siege warfare is a bitch it seemed. Mishka lead us to a bullet bitten five story building that looked like it used to be a school or a university. She walked us up to a staff entrance and we walked down a dimly lit hallway. Oil lamps pierced the dark and the professor threw a few switches on the wall. The lights came on and we made our way down a set of stairs.
Row upon row of crates and loose artifacts were stored below.
"Here we are?" Ulrich asked.
"Here we are." Mishka said.
She scanned her hand on a pad she pulled from her bag and a drone with quad-rotors fell down from the ceiling, buzzing seven feet in the air. The professor punched in a code on the pad and the drone flew down the aisles.
"It'll be a moment." she beamed.
The place was stuffy and the air stale.
I whispered to Jin.
"Get a load of this place."
"I know right? like a vid or something."
"Quiet." Ulrich chided us as the drone returned.
There was a small ancient looking box hanging from the drone. Professor Terinett walked up to the drone.
"Thank you Three Five Four Eight." she said as if the dumb thing cared. The box detached into her hands She turned and handed it to Kalv and he put it into his bag. The deed was done.
"Cane we get out of here?" I asked feeling way out of my element.
The others ignored me.
Ulrich shook hands with Professor Terinett, "Thank you Professor. The pattern will be safer with us."
"There may have been troubles in Gaia as of late, but there is little like our town is having here now," said Mishka.
I stiffled a pang of homesickness. Ulrich let us keep up on the news and talk to home but I hadn't heard from my mom or brother since I'd been with the Swords. I missed Gaia, but the news I had heard made me worry more than feel secure at work. I just had to stick to it and get through my contracts. Maybe then, Ulrich would let Jinny and I go home.
This "pattern" would do that.

---

We were drining tea with Terinett when the rockets began to fall.
"Fruk!" Mell spat.
Ulrich stood up at the table. Every cup in the cafe was chittering like a million tiny insects.
"Let's move people!" he roared over the screams and explosions.
I pulled my PK38 pistol from my jacket and stuck close to Kalv. We Swords, we moved through the streets with a purpose. Old air raid sirens began to wail through the night and the citizens of Ericstown began to rush below to bomb shelters. It made our retreat to the other end of town easy. Mishka guided us through more alleys and we began to hear the gunfire at the edfe of town.
The Fanatics of Bocchus were on the attack.
Ulrich spotted a lieutenant in Glinkan gear next to a dug in tank walker that was hammering away at the Erisman advance. We all crouched down as Ulrich talked to the lieutenant.
Suddenly the tank walker raised its main gun to fire on the lip of the crater. Ulrich waved us ahead. Mishka stayed behind.
"Jakk!" he yelled to me. "Run ahead to the landing zone and let the Wareagle know we're ready to go!"
I nodded, not really thinking about what I was about to do, and went straight into the killing field. Cracks of bullets and bright heavy auto tracers are all around me but my augs help me move in and out of the line of fire. I let loose a few rounds here and there at a massive horde of charging fanatics and the tank walker back at the line blows them away. I ran through the smoke and the gore ahead of me and up the curve of the crater.
Gods did I run.
At one point I was twenty meters from another Erisman charger. Again the Glinkans ripped them apart with tank walker fire. I could feel the heat of the explosions and smell the now familiar scent of burnt flesh.
I kept running.
Run. Run. Run.
Fire and smoke.
I pressed up the pass and the Wareagle was firing into the fanatics' lines with the old bird's door railguns. I leapt with every ounce of will I could muster and tumbled into the cabin, wild eyed and ragged.
"Hello Master Jakk." the AI drone said with programmed politeness.
"Shut up and fly low! We need to get the others!"
"As you will, sir."
The railguns continued to fire sporadically as our altitude lowered, hatches open and mag-ropes down. We passed over the lines and everyone began to make their way up into the chopper.
"Status!" Ulrich yelled once everyone was inside.
"Ready!" Jin shouted.
"All clear boss!" shouted Mell.
Zed gives a thumbs up.
Kalv checked his bag and nodded grimly.
"Get us out of here!" Ulrich ordered the drone pilot.
The Wareagle began to pull into the air. My whole body was shaking like I'd been tazed on high voltage. I could feel the adrenalin surge even in my teeth. Gods, there was and is nothing like it. I didn't even calm down until after we were on our way to base. Kalv looked at me and grinned.
"Had your first wargasm?"
I let out a shuddering laugh and pulled up on my e-cig.
"Yup."

CHAPTER 8
Captain De'Marlborugh stood in the hall from the helopad when we arrived back at the base. A squad of military police stood with him in full gear. Ulrich was the first to say anything.
"Captain, to what do we owe this reception?"
"Ulrich Mikael," said De'Marlborugh, "You and your band made quite the mess at Ericstown."
All of us stood firm and Ulrich stepped forward. I was tired from all the running and combat, but I was ready and willing to fruk up some pigs any day.
"Captain, there is no certain way-"
"Horse shit Ulrich!" De'Marlborough shouted. "Hundreds are dead! Erisman fanatics are running amok in the east side. That box you carry is a sacred relic-"
"Horse shit in turn, Captain." Ulrich cut him off. "This war is not a holy war filled with superstitions and legends as our enemies would have it! It is a war of economic and resource values. Hifflon Corp and Black Swords Incorporated made this deal on behalf of the Gaian Confederacy and the Klerian throne. I paid you to keep this site dark and now you threaten my contractors with your MPs twice in a week? Good day Captain!"
Ulrich's upper crust Durik flair came out impressively to me and everyone else. Everyone except for the Klerians.
"This relic is to be in Klerian hands as of now Ulrich Mikael," sneered the Captain, unfazed by the boss's reason. "The Erismans are fanatics of the cult of Bocchus and are under the influence of the Weirizoni Republic, a theocracy with a far reach. Shall I just turn you over to them?"
Just as he asked that, klaxons went wild throughout the base. The captain turned with his guards. A voice came on over the loudspeaker.
"All personnel report to battle stations! This is not a drill! Incoming hostile drones! I repeat, incoming hostile drones!"
"Dammit!" De'Marlborough cursed. "Battle stations everyone!"
He turned to Ulrich.
"You! You and your mercenaries have brought this upon us and you will pay!"
Ulrich grinned although we could tell he was fuming.
De'Marlborough and his detail left us in the hall.
"Back to the chopper," he said finally. "We are pulling out. You all have fifteen minutes to grab our gear before we leave."
We all stood there, stunned.
"Now gods dammit!" he barked.
We scattered. Jin and I immediately went to the VR room and began packing the console and cables up. Everyone else moved their gear and personal belongings into the confines of the Wareagle's cargo hatch. Red and orange lights of the klaxons went mad around us in the scramble. Above it all, Ulrich stood waiting for us with that damn wooden box in his hands like it was his first born child.
We were all getting ourselves strapped in as Lieutenant Parker walked out to the pad, pistol raised.
"Damn you mercs!" he shouted. "You it us up!"
The hatches began to close with a hiss and he opened fire. Bullets pinged off of the hull.
"At least you got paid asshole!" Kelv shouted although Parker couldn't hear him through the hull.
A few of us laughed as our drone pilot pulled the bird up and out into an orange sunrise. All I could do was sit and wonder what the fruk had just happened. It was one hell of a night, that much was for sure.

---

We stopped to refuel at different islands and articial platforms that were similar to the ones we'd done VR training drills on, trying to make our way to some sort of safe haven. No one was chasing us, but for me, the hours felt like days, and the days like weeks. We didn't stay overnight at any one place and got our rest while we were in transit. It wasn't until nearly a week later that we disembarked.
Where you probably ask?
The Malarcan Empire.
The helopad was on the side of a superscraper that was certainly not alone in the sprawl that surrounded us. A Malarcan man in a suit of grey with a few ground crew androids ran up to service our strained chopper. The man in grey shook Ulrich's hand warmly. Zed, Jin, Kalv, Mell and I exited with our gas masks so we could breathe in the chem drenched air. Ulrich and the suit walked into the building quickly. We took a moment to enjoy the hazy view of the megaopolis.
"Gods damn." said Mell. "This is what I call a sprawl."
It went in all directions, all at once like a massive horde of nanobots running on a horde virus. The super scrapers were above the clouds, and down below was a crisscrossing of pathways and a light polluted haze of low level habitats and forgotten people.
People like me.
People like Jin.
I felt an urge to go down there.
Kalv spoke up.
"Well, we got leave now. Everyone rested up from the flight?"
A chorus of yups came, even from me, but I was fighting vertigo again and the shakes from the long trip. Either way, we all went straight for the elevator. It took a long time to get down there. Too long. Like an eternity of rushing motion and screeching joints long. I tried not to vomit. Jin and the rest of the team were fine. Zed was messing around with his eyes and I could tell he was fine in this place. Probably had some permaware installed that made long trips like this easy.
The door opened on the seventy first floor.
Smells of nicotine vapor and booze wafted in. From the stained carpet and work suits it looked like a nice hole for midlevel workers and their managers to discuss how little they had in common. Good thing Ulrich wasn't there.
Jin looked at me.
"You want a drink?"
Honestly I wanted nothing like that. I nodded anyways.
"Peace!" she said, not waiting up.
I stepped into the bar, just squeezing past the door at the last second. It was after the door closed behind me that I heard the music through the funk I was in. It was techno-jazz.
Our old thing.
What was she thinking?
She was already at the bar with two beers. The scuzzy bartender in a shirt and tie. The music. The holodisplays, all of it. Reminded me of all those years ago. I mean really,the Don probably borrowed the floor plan here for some of his bars in Durik City.
I approached her at the bar, the blue and amber light from the holodisplay casting across us. I reached for the beer, took a sip and leaned against the bar. Played it cool.
"So," she said, setting the beer down, "what do you think of the company?"
I took a drink and watched the crowd.
"It's something." I said. "Didn't expect to find you with them."
"Maybe I didn't want to be found."
She grinned and drank up.
I do some thinking.
"And what baby wants, baby gets."
I gave her a big grin.
"Bingo, Detective Sal."
She pointed at me with a mock gun gesture.
"So why did you go for being a merc?"
"Wanted to prove I had the chops."
"With all the secrecy though?"
"It's been worth it."
I frowned.
"Why did the Shogun get me involved?"
She didn't answer. She just pulled me into the floor of the bar. We came together on the dance floor. Her hands grabbed my jacket. Our foreheads touched as we moved to the music. The music though? It was a good song.
Our song.

---
"Because I wanted you here."
That answer came the next night on an encrypted chat on my company phone. I was out walking the lower levels of the superscrapers, trying out some Malarcan delicacies; fried insect on a stick. The air was as damp as it was stale. The people, well let's just say I saw a few mutants down on their luck around there. The corridors were cramped with stalls and people, but as soon as I got that message, I felt like I was the only one there. Like some snippet of the past was with me, surrounding me in a cocoon.
"Where are you?" I sent back.
"In a meeting with some of Dad's clients. Zed and Mell are down there. They'll meet with you soon. Just enjoy the leave Ulrich is giving us."
So I roamed for a while more and met Mell and Zed at a nitrous bar.
They were high as fruk.
"Sal!" Zed shouted, his yellow pupils wider than the moon. "How was last night, bro?"
He slapped me on the shoulder.
Mell took a hit from the pipe.
"Nothing different from the old days," I managed a laugh.
Zed pointed at me.
"You two lovebirds be careful boyo. Might violate company policy doing all that dancing and boozing."
Mell laughed loudly.
"Oh come on Zed, they're old friends. No harm in spending their first leave together."
I was more than eager to change the subject.
"So where to, guys?" I said, stealing a glance at my phone.
No reply from Jin, I thought.
"Arms market is three blocks over," said Zed. "We could use some new gear I think."
"You got the company card?" Mell asked.
"You know me too well to ask that, Mell."
"Well I never do," Mell laughed.
They both took long hits. I did my best Ulrich impression.
"Shall we gentlemen?"
They laughed and swiped their cards to pay the bar before we headed out into the sprawl.

CHAPTER 9

We made our way down to the lower levels of the super scraper. The air down there was humid and stale all at once. Pushing through the crowd we made our way across three bhlocks to the arms market. I recognized a few models that I knew were illegal in the Empire within a few minutes of being down there. We mixed in with the other mercs, bounty hunters, gang members and would be revolutionaries.
"Now this is more like it," said Mell, hefting a bullpup TR14 off of a stall. "Sal, look at this beaute!"
I managed to grin, knowing that the rifle was probably way out of the grizzly man's price range.
"It's a nice one isn't it?" said the stall dealer, a mutant cyclops. "Three hundred forty Malarcan credits. Three fifty and I throw in two extra mags."
Mell began to haggle while I took in our surroundings. The market was packed with mostly foriengers and I couldn't see more than four feet over everyone's heads due to the faltering halogen lights' glare. I thought back to my hacking days and the data dreams always seemed a bit like this when getting new programs that could put the InfoNet into shock. Like an arms market, the Deep Net was full of shit no mother's child should own, but here people were, owning it anyways.
I was halfway through this train of thought when I spotted him.
Large hood.
Long black coat.
Thin frame.
It was Rider.
"Hey you!" I called out.
He kept gliding through the crowd.
"Hey I'm talking to you!" I yelled, gaining on him.
"Sal!" Zed yelled out to me. "Wait up!"
Rider stopped then.
Slowly he drew a thin katana from his coat. The crowd parted.
I stood across from him with my hands up.
"Look, I just want to chat-"
Within a milisecond he was holding his blade to my throat.
"Why chat?" he said, his voice barely a whisper. "our deal was voided."
I gulped.
"I wanted to ask you-"
"Put the blade away!" Mell said. He had the TR14 aimed on Rider.
"See, I got friends with me this time," I said, sweating bullets.
Rider frowned beneath his goatee. I couldn't see behind his rectangular shades, but I knew he was weighing his options. The crowd was quiet.
Finally he put away the katana.
"Meet me in one hour at the Flaming Horse on the thirty eighth level," he said. "Your friends may come if you would like."
I blinked, surprised.
"See you then," I said.
He nodded and then melted back into the crowd.

---

I hate to admit it but I was scared as fruk walking into that club. Mell and Zed had tagged along for support in case anything went wrong like the last time I had a rendezvous with Rider. I had filled them in on how Taina had given me the contact and how the General's men had caused the MPs to raid the place. Mell was kind of quiet at that point in the story and I suspected if the pay was better he'd be up Lady V'Halsen's ass in a heartbeat. Zed though, being augmented, pointed to the bright side of me getting my new legs which got us out of Ericstown. A silver lining in all of that mess.
Still, I had insisted, there was that doctor who I knew had a habit of meme-theft and narco addiction. It was all there when I spoke about it to you. Anyways, I won't lie, I wished I hadn't gotten so drunk earlier that day so I could be sharper in the meeting.
The club was quiet, many of the partiers had gone home. In their wake were empty cups and cans strewn about the place on tables. The lights and holo-girls still danced to an absent beat. We walked around a bit before seeing Rider at a table in the back of the club.
"Let's get this over with..." Mell grumbled.
Rider paid him no mind and sipped his whiskey on the rocks. With his other hand he motioned for us to sit down.
"What do you need, Salmon?" he asked.
My answer was still the same.
"Information."
Rider smiled.
"Don't we all in a world such as this?" he laughed silently. "What sort of information do you seek?"
At this point, I paused for a moment to think. I had many questions. What was happening in Durik was a big one. Why I was running with Black Swords Inc was another. Why Jin was here as well, and why she seemed to know more than me in that regard. But there was that old itch that was the kind of itch that made me hack away.
"Why are the Black Swords collecting relics?" I asked bluntly.
Mell and Zed looked at each other.
Rider sipped his drink and answered.
"Hifflon Corporation is doing tests in the Gaian Confederacy."
"What kind of tests?"
"Dimensional ones."
Mell stepped forward.
"Dimensional tests... on wooden boxes?"
Rider just kept smiling.
"So why are the Mackiavellis and street clans involved?" I asked.
"Money," Rider said. "Credits. But let me tell you that these tests involve us all."
He stood up from his seat. "Have a good one gentlemen."
"Wait, you're just going to drop a bomb like that on us-" Zed started to say, but Rider had his blade on him in a flash.
"Any further explanation can be done by your hacker here. He's good at that." Rider turned his head to face me. "It is a pity that you're a merc now."
Zed stepped back and Rider put away the Katana. I on the other hand was in the midst of confusion and awe that someone like Rider would regard me so highly. He left the bar.
"So what now?" asked Mell.
I took a moment to think.
"I need to get to a comp." I said.
"I have one in my room," said Zed. "You can use it."
The bar tender began shouting at us in a Malarcan dialect.
"Let's get out of here then." I said, heading for the door.

---
Three blocks back and fourty eight floors up we were in the Xi Tseng Suites. Zed had let us into his room and we were preparing the rig for me to data dream on. I was nervous, palms sweaty and stomach clenched. The VR sim I ran with Jin in the West Ba'aritti tribelands had me worried my search for her had left me with a touch of outjack disease; the inability to determine datadreaming from the very real meatspace. I knew when me and Taina hooked up before all this I was still in the dark and hallucinating over Lady V'Halsen's head.
Zed set up a ritzy chair for me to crash in as I prepared the jack in programs.
"So, you're gonna search where?" he asked.
"Dark Net. It looks how it sounds."
Zed grinned behind me.
"Dark?"
"Think the parts of the sprawl that Jin and Ulrich warned us about but worse," I said, typing in a few more parameters.
"I'm thinking Hades ninth level," Zed said.
I managed a laugh. Zed, Jupiter bless the old bastard, managed one too.
"You got this, kid," he said, patting me on the back.
Mell grunted. He was watching the room with a medkit ready on one arm and a gun cradled in the other.
"Be safe, Jakk," he said.
I nodded and began my dive.
---

The dive into the dream was smooth, in a wooshing stream of black and grey smears I burst through a blue Netgate program and landed in the DarkNet. I was dressed in a black suit. All around me were the colorful characters of the DarkNet. A female gorgon avatar walked past me, her snake hair hissing venomously. I waved despite my fear. I was in the lore sector and true to Zed's suspicions the denizens were mostly monsters and cultist freak jobs with esoteric tattoos.
I stuck out like a halo on a devil.
Moving as quickly as I could, I found a Library. It was a terrifying mass of black spikes and threatening gargoyle encrusted spires. This was not the place for some light reading. I slipped in just as a procession of satyrs blowing trumpets and drinking wine made their way down the street with an avatar of Bocchus. This was not the place to earn my pay and I couldn't risk fighting them here where a quick tracing program could light up my position.
I stepped inside of the library. Inside felt more like a temple than the terrifying bastion of legends it made itself out to be on it's exterior. Flames burned from urns and cultists milled around the bookcases. I relaxed a bit and brought up a search engine.
I tried "Ericstown Relic" and got a bunch of university reports flying at my face. I cleared them away until I had Mishka's report in front of me. I scrolled through it for a few moments until I found a reference.
The box was called nothing.
What Mishka said was inside was everything.
"The Horn of Bocchus," the words slipped from my mouth and into a search engine. Up came several ancient texts from a 15th century Klerian monk named De'Larouse. I grabbed the texts and tucked them into my courier bag that would send copies to the comp's hard drive. I had a lead, but with all the cultists outside I didn't want to push my luck. I made my way to a back exit and readied a virus pistol I kept on my avatar. I was definitely spooked. There were a lot of questions I wanted answered.
I unplugged.

---

Jin had rang Mell while I was data dreaming. My head was still spinning.
"She wants us to meet her and Ulrich at the hotel bar," he said.
I waved at him.
"Whatever, I need the drink."
Zed was looking over the files I'd saved and encrypted them as he did.
"Good shit kid," he said. "You might be in for a bonus."
I shook my head.
"I get the feeling they already know."

---

We walked into the bar. I had to keep my jaw from hitting the floor when I saw Jerri Boy and Taina sitting at a table with Jin and the boss.
"Holy shit!" I yelled as I ran over to hug them. "You two are alive!"
Jerri laughed and Taina grinned. They were both in company duds, dreads gone, 'hawks cut. Nice and clean.
Ulrich raised a glass.
"To our new Swords!"
I took a beer from the table with Zed and Mell. Kalv raised a glass of speederhol. Jin had a glass of wine raised high.
"To our new Swords!" we all toasted.
That night, we drank like kings.

CHAPTER 10
It was later into the night after Ulrich and the others had turned in that I got the chance to talk to Jerri and Taina. They told me about the firefight at the barricades and how they took on an Iguana class tank walker. What suprised me most was their contact with Dr. De'Ferrone.
"The fruk?" I stammered when they told me.
Jerri nodded.
"Gave me a needler and everything," he said before pointing at Taina. "Gave her some new guts."
Taina smiled and sipped her beer. From our tab I could tell she was enjoying De'Ferrone's contribution to her health.
"Wait," I said, holding a hand up. "how did you guys get here? Like, I ran and was brought in by Ulrich, but you guys were with a doctor."
"Meme-trade, Jakk," said Taina. I wasn't used to hearing her say my real name and my body stiffened. Stiffened even more at the mention of meme-trading. I knew firsthand that the good doctor liked to delve into her patients' memories, but how did that tie into Jin and Ulrich impressing Blue Shujini members into PMC work?
Taina, oh Taina, she could practically hear my thoughts.
"She saw our, shall we say, combat experience," she paused as she took a sip of her drink, "and our bond."
Jerri laughed hard; the way drunks laugh when they can't hold their drunkeness back and don't care.
"What?" I asked, my face twisted into confusion.
Then it clicked. The times Taina and I had fruked were now just more of Taina's porno-casts. I held my head in my hands and they both laughed harder. A few Jimungan suits left the bar.
"Shut up, both of you," I said, grinning despite myself. "Bartender, a round of sake."
The bartender in a black vest and white shirt lined up the shots.
The three of us downed the round.
"So what have you been up to, Sal?" asked Taina. "Or the Swords, I should say."
I sighed and rubbed my temple a bit.
"We're getting relics before Erismans in the Cult of Bocchus can capture them. Or we get them after we fight their fanatics," I said taking a drink of my beer. "Depends on the job."
Taina's brow furrowed.
"What kind of relics?" she asked.
"Woooo!!! Treasure hunt!" Jerri shouted.
I ignored him.
"Weird ancient ones," I answered. The Bocchus fanatics leveled a whole town trying to get the last one."
"Sounds familiar. Not that much different than any of the groups running around Durik," Jerri said, his eyes suddenly misty.
Technojazz did that to Jerri, and the bar was playing it as the night wore on. Taina, hearing Jerri Boy, looked forlorn. I suddenly realized this was the farthest either of them had been from Durik City State. The place was full of freaks, creeps, junkies, and wannabe warlords, but it was still home. The place had torn itself apart for the second time in our short lifespans, and from what I heard, the Vannies were on the up and up again. We were exiles by necessity, all in Black Swords Inc, and all in it together.
Suddenly, I remembered my last training session with Jin.
"Y'know guys," I began, "we might be seeing action in West Ba'arriti soon."
Taina brightened up. Jerri smiled like a kid.
"Why?" he asked.
"Apparently corporate thinks the Erismans are going for a tribal relic or some shit," I blew the info out my ass. "Either way we'll be closer to home."
I was still playing my cards close to my chest. I needed to figure out what was going on with this relic hunting and why there were supposed dimensional tests being done on them. But that was good enough for my old friends. Taina always wanted to go to the tribal lands of West Ba'arriti. She'd talked about it since we were kids. She had the whole thing in her head about them being closer to the planet and that whole deal. I made a note mentally to tell her about the Fenjir nomads the company had fought with.
"Fruking Erismans," she said.
I shrugged.
"Apparently they're gonna be ninja about it," I said. "But we're gonna be too."
"Wait, where are these relics going?" Jerri butted in.
I frowned. "Does it matter? They go to Hifflon Corp."
"Salmon, to me it does. My grandma is Ba'arriti," he said. "Is the tribal council in on this?"
"I dunno, Jerri," I said. "Above my pay grade. Just a job man."
"Yeah," he said standing up. "A job we get killed for."
"I'm not arguing that, Jerri Boy-"
"Don't call me that!" he shouted.
The bar got quiet.
Taina got between us.
"That's enough," she said. "Time for bed."
Just like kids and their mom we both backed down and I paid our tab. As I did I told Jerri to ask Ulrich about the job in the morning. He just nodded.

---
Three days later we landed in West Ba'arriti on a helipad outside of the main sprawl in some dusty prairie. As we unloaded the Wareagle, Ulrich, dressed in a grey causual suitcoat and slacks apparoached the tribal militia and welcoming committee. They were in body armor adorned with Ba'arriti feathers and beads, their faces covered by balaclavas. A large warchief stepped up under the orange West Ba'arriti banner that fluttered in the wind.
"Mister Mikael," he said, offering his hand. "A pleasure to meet you at last."
Ulrich shook his hand firmly.
"Colonel Treepaw Adersen," said Ulrich as he took the man's hand. "A true reception."
An older, white haired and bearded man with a cane and glasses stepped forward and greeted Ulrich with open arms.
"Harom!" Ulrich laughed. "How was your trip in the Brissian Territories?"
The old man chuckled. "The trip and my research was well executed, but I and my team have much more work to do."
"So the research is going forward?"
Harom patted Ulrich's shoulder.
"You would be wise to check your news feed more often."
We did the grunt work of loading the relics and our gear into trucks bearing the spear and shield emblems of West Ba'arriti City State. There were two limos in the line of automobiles flying little Hifflon Corp flags from the hoods that beat angrily in the prairie wind. Several suits guided us to the limos. We were all in our civvies, but we knew the partying and liberty we had in Malarca was now over. The inside of the limo though? Liberty unto itself.
Jerri laughed as he popped the cork from a bottle of champagne and began filling glasses. "Looks like we made it, Taina!"
Taina grinned and took a glass. She made eye contact with Jin as she sat between me and Kalv. Kalv grinned at Taina.
"Yup," she muttered.
I know before the trip was over Taina was gonna do something about Jin and I. Taina had told me via private message that this whole Black Swords deal stunk like an overlfowing dumpster. I had told her and Jerri about the relic hunting, sure, but overhearing Harom and Ulrich's conversation made me wonder; what was the dimensional research for and how did the info I found on the DarkNet tie into that? Why was the Machiavelli family and the Corps, and for that matter, the gods damned nation states of the world tie into this? All I knew was that I trusted Taina's hunch, that Jin, good ol' Jinny, knew more than she was letting on.
As our convoy was moving out and everyone else drank and talked, I sat back and planned my next move.

CHAPTER 11

We were eventually stationed at some long forgotten C-Fed barracks that looked and smelled like they'd just been cleaned up just for us. There was a sign at the front of the base that had the Hifflon Corp and Black Swords Inc logos in nice glossy fresh paint. The limos and trucks pulled in and we got out, a few of us drunk, but not me. I was sober and I wasn't resting easy. Workers in Hifflon Corp coveralls walked up to the trucks and began to unload the boxes and gear for us. We stood around with Ulrich and Harom as they chatted with Colonel Adersen.
Ulrich stepped forward after a few moments.
"Swords, I have just been informed by corporate that I must go on a different mission for two months," he said. You could have heard a pin drop if it weren't for the wind. "Jin will be left in command of this operation until my return."
We all looked at her.
She was fruking beaming.
I knew we were in for a haul.
Ulrich continued, "We have come a long way to be back in the old C-Fed. Things are tense here due to the Erisman conflict and leftover tensions from the V'Halsen Wars." He raised his hand to his mouth to clear his throat. "The mission here will be escorting Harom De'Jueve from this base to his research facility twenty kliks away in the West Ba'arriti industrial sector as many times a day as he needs. It's an easier said than done job due to reports from intel saying that there are Bocchus cultists running around on some of these prairie lands."
"Savages fighting older savages," Kalv said derisively to Mell. I watched Jerri Boy get red in the face. Mell chuckled.
"Quiet in the ranks!" Ulrich barked. "We are lucky to be here. The trip home was as dangerous as it was hurried. We must be better guests than we were for our Klerian hosts. Our futures and the future of the company rests on this. Stay sharp. Keep your wits about you. Set an example for your fellow Swords and fight hard when the time calls for it."
Ulrich walked along the row, looking each one of us in the eye and shaking our hands. When he came to me I met his glassy eyed gaze and shook his hand. I felt a releasing chill wash over me as I did.
What Jin, what Sari had said, came to mind yet again.
Who was this man, I wondered not for the last time.
I knew I had time to find out.

---

Later that night after Ulrich had left and we were separated into male and female barracks, I walked over to Zed as he was setting up his rig.
"How goes, Jakk?" he asked as he put two chords into their ports.
I stopped for a moment, trying to word what I was about to say perfectly. "Zed, I need to do a data-dream again. There's been some talk about Ulrich and I need to figure out what's going on with the boss and-"
"And how he ties in with this dimensional stuff?" Zed said with a grin as he booted up the machine. "Listen kid. I've been with this company for twelve years. Ulrich's the CEO for Hercule's sake. He hand picks each of us and every job we do, we get paid mass cred for it. I lost my eyes and the company took care of my new eyes for me. Now I understand that there's some semblance of loyalty within a street clan, so that makes me want to ask; why not just go along for the ride?"
I had my mouth open like an idiot. I didn't really have an answer for him, but I did know that I had that old itch to dig up dirt like I always had that always made me a good hacker. So I looked at Zed and said;
"I understand loyalty, but Rider's not the kind of guy to give out free info like that for shits and giggles. There's gotta be more to this Horn of Bocchus and these other relics."
Zed frowned and rubbed his scalp.
He sighed.
"Fine. You have two hours to dive in there and check this stuff out." Then he grinned the cheesiest grin I'd seen on anyone in the company. "I highlighted the parts of Professor Mishka's papers that you might want to focus on. Knew you'd ask."
I laughed hard and patted the old merc on the shoulder. "Thanks man, I mean it. You really had me going."
"Had to have someone's chops to bust and I knew you'd be back for that info," he said. "No worries kid. You hackers make this line of work fun."
We began to jack into the infonet.

----
Taina was in a female dress uniform of dark green with a black beret, her hair in a bun, and she was already following something that she'd searched up.
"Wait up!" I shouted as I pushed past the soldiers on their way to another online battleground. "Hey, I said wait up!"
When I turned the corner she was standing in front of a Vannie base station, windows bagged up and banners hanging from the building. It looked like it had been under siege since the fall of their Noble Lady. And there Taina was just knocking on the gods damned door with a virus gun in one hand.
I walked up next to her.
"Are you fruking crazy?!" I said. "They'd probably kill us rather than give up one of their hacker's-"
The door opened and a tall V'Halsen sergeant stood in the doorway, obviously an old AI. He, or it, raised a virus rifle and pointed it at us.
"State your business you C-Fed frukers."
Taina showed the sergeant her gun and said, "We're searching for Deronium's Last Upload. A quick search brought us the the V'Halsen quadrant."
The sergeant grunted.
"There's no file here bearing that name. What do you think this place is woman?"
I stepped in. "Look for anything uploaded by Deronium. I know he used to get you guys guns."
The sergeant paused for a moment and there was a brief flicker as his avatar ran the search. It was always eerie during a data dream when this would occur, seeing an avatar not being fluid in the world it inhabited. Suddenly the sergeant came back to.
"There are three hundred forty eight files from Deronium on my local server," the sergeant said. "Are there any specifications for a closer search or should you C-Fed frukers bugger off?"
This time I pulled my virus gun from the back of my belt.
"How about we get this done quickly and you give us the files, Vannie."
The sergeant flinched, and then turned into the building and came back with a stack of files. I grabbed half and Taina grabbed the other half. We tucked them into our ruck sacks so we could view the files on Zed's desktop when we woke from the data dream. Taina went to go, but I stopped. I decided to be a bastard for the short term because I hated nuclear bombs.