I’m starting to consider fleeing the city. Leave it all behind. Maybe I can go to Krathia and be the world’s first cyborg farmer.

It’s been two days since talking with Emaphra. In that time, I’ve been doing what I said I was going to do. What I have to do. Which is all the quiet, desperate, and boring work that comes with bagging a murderer. I’ve spent about half this time at my desk slogging through screen after screen of personal data, and the other half out on the street staring at people that hopefully didn’t notice the eight-hundred pound cybernetically-augmented wizard mutant glaring at them from across the street. Surveillance stops being a useful method of information acquisition if you start developing a reputation for spying on people as elegantly as an artillery cannon loaded with pasta. That simile didn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve been awake for a while, give me a break.

There are about six thousand arcanists in the Registry. Like I’ve mentioned, this database is publicly available. Anyone with a terminal and a connection to the pool can look it up and thumb through it to their heart’s content. The Dynamic Brotherhood don’t just believe in the phrase ‘know thy enemy’, they live it. And I guess that makes sense. I’d probably never give up a tactical doctrine that handed me more or less total control over the entirety of the civilized world. That said, their utter disdain for magic and anyone that uses it has led to their database being… what I (and they, honestly, if they were in their right minds) would call suboptimal. Here, I’ll show you my own entry in the system, just as an example.

NAME: Baulric Alamantus Vaxmord Featherlight

Accurate so far. They even spelled my essay of a name correctly. Yes, my parents were addicted to names - it’s a tragic condition from which they never recovered. My theory is that their pride and abyssal social station led them to imitate the naming conventions of the old families, to lend ours a little legitimacy. You can see how that panned out for them. My first middle name is borrowed from an obscure legend about a knight of the Primordial Era, and my second one was some ancient emperor of one of the old pre-Reclamation nations, I forget which. Mom and Dad’s expectations were a touch unrealistic.

AGE: Born 08WIN554, 29

Eighth of Winter, in the year of our noble post-magic technocracy five-hundred and fifty-four, making me twenty-nine years tired. I’m… not sure why I’m telling you this. Maybe whoever ends up reading this won’t understand how dates work. Or maybe this document will fall into a dimensional rift or something. Hello, people from another world. I hope this rambling account of my incomparable and astonishing deeds finds you moist and squirming, in keeping with the charming biology of your beautiful, tentacular species.

RESIDENCE: Abandoned water treatment cistern, located beneath 189th Street, Sector 18

POOL ADDRESS: KingScumbird/arcreg

CATEGORY: 4, Biomancer

THREAT LEVEL: Yellow, probationary pending further observation

I’ve hinted before that mages are all classed by the Brotherhood’s category system. I won’t get into a ton of detail here because it can get a little complex, but here’s the gist - the higher the number, the more dangerous flavor of magic the arcanist wields. Category One is stuff like animal communion, prognostication, and divination, the kind of magic that the Brotherhood doesn’t consider very scary. Category Five is all the ones from humanity’s collective traumatic past - world-breaking shit, like summoning (demons have taken over the known world at least three times now), nethermancy (darkness magic, very unpredictable and dangerous), chronomancy (I shouldn’t have to explain why the ability to manipulate time itself is terrifying), and hieromancy (re-writing the laws of physics and probability), and a few others. Ones are given the blessing of being almost completely ignored. Fives are detained by the Wellwardens upon discovery and confined to the Arcanix, for life, no chance of parole.

There’s also Category N, which is technically above five, but that classification is basically unused in praxis - you won’t find any Category Ns in the Registry. Necromancers are executed immediately if found, no matter how young, no exceptions. As far as I’m aware, it’s the only kind of magic that’s been completely hunted to extinction, which is… actually kind of ironic, considering the name and what they used to be.

Have I mentioned I’m incredibly handsome? And also a biomancer? Biomancy is Category Four magic, which the Brotherhood considers “dangerous, but we’ll wait for them to screw up once before terminating them”. I’m also the only one in the entire city, as far as I’m aware. It’s a pretty rare and may I say extremely impressive talent. Apparently. The threat level basically indicates how dangerous they think the individual is. Yellow means they’re not sure about me, which means I’m being watched. My occasional tendency to hunt dangerous mages and lack of criminal record makes me something of a wild card.

PROPERTIES: Increased physical attributes, amplified immune function, biosynthesis, arcaniception. Others likely, awaiting further study.

This might not seem like it, but this is the most threatening part of the report. “Further study” means that they’re waiting for me to violate the Charter and forfeit my individual rights as outlined by the Mayor and the Tribunal. Once I do, I’m not a person anymore - I become their property. A test subject, and the Brotherhood would gain carte blanche to do whatever they want to me, for as long as they want, until their experimentation inevitably kills me. Which, considering my attributes, would probably take a long time. To the Brotherhood, my body contains limitless research opportunities. I’ve been on their table once before. If they think I’m going back without killing a lot of labcoats in the process, they’re even more delusional than I thought they were.

I won’t bore you with the rest, it’s just stuff about my psyche profile (wouldn’t you like to know) and the “reparations” I offer, which is Brotherhoodese for what kind of work I’ll take under the Charter. The point is, this stuff is fairly illuminating on a surface-level, but as I’m proving at this very moment, not all that useful for actually hunting people down, which is what I’m trying to do at the same time they are. My guess is that they keep the more detailed information behind their own secure servers, which I’ve got about as much hope accessing as I do melting a glacier by headbutting it repeatedly.

So I’m not having a lot of luck, here.

There are about four-hundred-odd pyromancers in this city. Four-hundred Category Three, flame-throwing, firewalking, phlogiston-eating hotheads, and any one of them could have killed that guy, whoever he was. If I had infinite time, or the same resources as the Watch or the Neutralizers, this would be a cinch - it’s really not that many people, in a city of millions. But I’m up against a wall, and the other wall is starting to look at me like it’s hungry.

Not a single one of them has a red threat level, which is an interesting but ultimately useless piece of information. (Emaphra is rated green, by the way, probably because she runs an orphanage and only came into her magic a few years ago.) Pyromancy isn’t exactly a marketable skill in this newest version of society. Most of these guys are apparently day laborers, a lot of them in foundries, because they’re not affected by heat. Some have criminal records, but it’s all petty crap, not even worth the Brotherhood’s scrutiny. None of them have psych profiles that scream “indiscriminate murderer”. No outstanding offenses, no obvious indication that any one of them would have any particular reason to snap.

The few that I’ve tracked down and looked at so far all seem to lead perfectly, blessedly boring lives. A foundryman father of two. A kid in the Sector Thirteen slum stacks. An ancient woman that runs a secondhand clothing store. Technically all potential suspects, but murder is one of the most energizing, torturous events a person can undergo, and it’s going to leave signs - none of their vitae clouds hinted at a recent emotional upheaval, no distress, no dark spots. It’s possible that one of the other four-hundred candidates is showing these traits, but by the time I get to them they might have already processed their recent trauma and stop displaying them in a way that I can pick up on. Or maybe it was that ludicrously old lady - maybe behind all the threadbare shawls and stained doilies she’s concealing the unwavering soul of a cold, emotionless killer.

I need to expedite this process. Talk to more people, see if anyone has a story to tell. Trouble is, there’s only one place where the magical community gathers, where I’d have the best shot of finding out something conclusive. The Consortium. And they… well. They kind of hate me. A lot. I haven’t been to a meeting in a long time. I’m not explicitly banned, but they’ve made it pretty clear that they don’t want me sniffing around their place, gathering information so I can more effectively sell them out later. They’re, uh… let’s just say they don’t exactly share my views on what qualifies as “the greater good”.

But they might be my only option. If I can make Em understand, maybe they will too. Sure. And maybe a stampede of angry radioactive goblins will fly out of my-

Ting ting ting, ting-ting.

-asshole. “Asshole” is how I was going to finish that sentence, before something interrupted my train of thought by knocking on my door. Fantastic. If there’s one thing I love, it’s a big stack of syrupy, buttery pancakes. I love those very much. Uninvited guests are the opposite of pancakes. Write that down, everyone taking notes.

Ting ting ting, ting-ting.

“Alright, just give me a second to hide all my contraband!”

I stand up and move a few steps toward the door, extending my senses toward it. On the other side I can feel a pretty odd vitae cloud. It’s like a glacier carved by seawater. Cold, translucent, and different shades of blue, arranged in crystalline spires that shift around slowly as though drifting in some unseen current. Some iridescence around the edges of the ice, like it’s been dusted with a coat of glittering purple butterfly scales. Weird. We’re dealing with one cool cat, I guess.

And that knock. Not the wet pounding of meat on metal - this is metal on metal. And gentle. Either knocking with some kind of implement, or tapping on my door with one knuckle of an armored hand.

There are only a very few groups of people in this city that wear armor. None of them like me very much, and the feeling’s mutual. But if I was under arrest, they would have announced as much already. Again, weird.

I slide the door to the right, revealing only the second worst kind of thing that could ever come knocking.

The individual before me is only a bit taller than the average man, and every inch of his body is encased in metal. But this isn’t the armor of a Centurion. Centurions’ armor is huge, lumbering, its hydraulics arrayed for pure power and unstoppability to be able to compete with even the most foul-tempered bull slabs. This armor is sleek, form-fitting, and elegant, a masterwork of precision engineering. Almost feminine in its grace, compared to the massive shoulders and arms of the cannon-toting Centurions. Unlike the Watch’s massive bullies, this construct is shiny, no paint to indicate a particular precinct or regiment. It doesn’t need any.

I can hear that hum. The insectile, haunting, barely-perceptible drone of the electrite reactor between its shoulder blades, more threatening than an entire ocean of wasps.

The helmet is open, the two halves folded back like the wing cases of a beetle to expose the true danger inside the machine. This one is a man. He has dark hair, which is strange - the Brotherhood generally frown upon hair as being unnecessary. And dare I say it, he’s pretty, in that smug, perfectly-sculpted way that you see on models and executives. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was born as average as the rest of us and took advantage of the Brotherhood’s gene therapy to turn his Handsomeness setting all the way to 10. Other than his head, he probably doesn’t have a single hair on him. A vain, self-important reptile, like everyone else in his organization.

I look down at him, and he looks up at me. He’s smiling, with his hands behind his back like a priest. Not the kind of smile that has conscious effort put into it to communicate something between people. This is the unconscious, semi-permanent smile of the predator that’s surrounded by prey every time it leaves its cave.

There’s no expression on my face at all. This small man in his metal swimsuit could slice my skull in half before I could even think about reaching for my magic, and he has about three hundred different ways of ensuring that he’d get a medal for it afterward. I might be a babbling fool convinced of his own wittiness, but even I know there’s a time to shut up and wait for the first play.

He says in a voice like warm chocolate being poured over a thrumming turbogenerator, “Good afternoon, Mr. Featherlight. I am Neutralizer NH3-588 Corundum Vengeant. May I come in?”

Oh good. All the manners of a computer wearing a bowtie. Or a robot vampire.

I raise an eyebrow. “Hello, Mr. Serial Number. Welcome to a literal sewer. Do I have a choice in the matter?”

Okay, so maybe I’m just kind of suicidal.

His smile stays set, like permafrost over lichen. “The Rectifier’s infinite deliberation provides us all a network of choices upon the crystal lattice of life, Mr. Featherlight. I won’t force myself into your home. But I do require a conversation with you, and I suspect you would be more comfortable within than without. Is it very common for crushed sandwiches to be moldering on your doorstep?”

He looks down for a moment at the sad remains of my erstwhile meal, half picked away by a chorus line of scavengers.

I reply, “A memorial to a fallen comrade, taken before his time, returned to the concrete he so loved. Forgive my reticence, Mr. Vengeant, do come in.”

I shuffle backward out of the way and extend an arm inside while giving a slight bow, like a butler. If he’s not here to have me erased, I might as well see if I can irritate him. Just a teeny bit.

The Neutralizer walks into one of the two rooms I own (a concept so nauseating that even thinking about it makes my guts feel like a big bag of worms) and just stops, a respectful distance between him and my bed by the far wall. I have one chair and if it encounters a Neutralizer’s steely butt I’m selling it for scrap, so he can deal. I go back over to my desk, but I don’t sit down. He says he’s here to talk, but a chatty scorpion still has a stinger.

He just stands there, smiling. He’s not looking at me, he’s looking around with a weird magnanimous bemusement, like my converted pump room is some kind of fucking anthropological exhibit showcasing faraway primitive cultures. After he feels sufficiently enriched by the rusty rivets and oil-stained cement, there’s a little clack. I suppress a cautious twitch. A compartment on his leg opens up, and he pulls out what looks like a… pack of cigarettes?

He holds the gold-and-white rectangle up, as if to indicate that it’s not a weapon, and says, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

What kind of game is this cat playing? Is this some kind of show of solidarity? Sharing a dirty little human secret in an attempt to prove to me that no, seriously, I’m really super normal, like an average fella and not at all a cybernetically and genetically perfected murderous zealot wielded by the hand of a centuries-old authoritarian regime of soulless technocrats?

It’s against the doctrine of the Dynamic Brotherhood to corrupt the machinery of the human form with intoxicants of any kind. I always thought that was kind of hypocritical considering the things they’ll do to their own bodies in the name of progress and superiority, but hypocrisy is basically item number one in the Brotherhood playbook. I guess this dirty boy is just as capable as the rest of us in bucking the rules when the boss isn’t looking.

In the concrete quiet, my eyes go whzzt as I give him a blink. “This is, and I cannot stress this enough, a literal sewer. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

He opens the top of the hard plastic pack and pulls one out. I recognize the brand - the white rolling paper even has shiny faux-gold filigree wrapped around it. If he’s trying to pretend like he’s street, he should have brought the everyman’s cheap smashed-up pack of Shallowgraves rather than the most expensive imported Valtean tobacco the Sector Two markets have to offer. And uh, also maybe taken off the polymerized enamel killing machine he’s wearing. That too.

The smoke goes between his lips, then he pulls out a second one and holds it up to me silently, meeting my eye with a totally neutral expression.

Remember what I said about offering consumables to a stranger to gauge their opinion of you? This slippery salamander must’ve read my pamphlet. That little stick of paper and dried leaves is worth more than some home appliances though, and I’m nothing if not greedy. I give him a nod. He’s trawling for some weapons-grade disappointment if he’s actually trying to poison me - this wouldn’t even be the fifth cleverest way someone’s tried.

He puts the pack back in his little leg container, then holds a hand up to his smoke, like he’s pinching the end of his cigarette. A tiny but furiously bright purple arc of electricity crackles to life between the claws of his thumb and forefinger. It casts a flurry of sharp and vibrating shadows all over the room for an instant, then disappears. He takes a few contemplative puffs. Showoff. Pyromancers do this trick all the time. There must be some kind of law saying that energy manipulators lose their powers if they don’t use them to light a cigarette in front of someone at least twice a week. Very cool, buddy.

The braggart does the trick again to light mine, then takes a few steps forward to offer it to me. He doesn’t come completely within smelling distance, stopping short a few paces away. Get it? It’s the height of subtlety - he wants me to meet him halfway.

I do, and take the toxic treat from his steel claws. There’s gotta be some kind of metaphor here, but who has time for witty or insightful comparisons between seemingly unrelated things? He backs away in a show of respect for my personal space, and I take a brief drag from the little smoke. These are long ones, but they weren’t made with people like me in mind, so I’ll huff through it fast.

Even so, it tastes great, in that ‘this doesn’t actually taste very good’ way that tobacco does. Cigarettes in my price range (plucking lost ones out of the gutter) taste mostly like butane and despair, but this is the stuff for people who want to slowly kill themselves in absolute luxury. The sweet poison hits my bloodstream like a trickle of soothing ice water.

The proper observance in situations like this is to bathe in the smoke in reverent silence before leaning into the conversation proper, and we do, after I give him a brief “Thanks”. We smoke quietly for a moment. He doesn’t try to do what a lot of people would do here and drill my eyes in half with his own, or awkwardly pace around. He throws his eyes all over the place, still smiling, still drinking in an environment that can’t be as fascinating to him as he’s making it out to be.

Board room negotiators with too much testosterone for their own good will tell you that speaking first indicates eagerness, and therefore weakness. Personally, I disagree. Waiting for the other party to start is passive and safe, whereas taking the lead allows you to control the pace of the discussion. Also, I’m just not generally very concerned over who the dominant alpha male is in every conversation. Mr. Numbers already has the advantage over me in pretty much every conceivable way, so I’ve got nothing to lose at all. Let’s get this over with so I can either die or get back to work.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Mr. Emerald Obliterator?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. One more drag, his eyes over by the wall somewhere, apparently lost in thought.

“Have you ever seen a tree, Mr. Featherlight?”

Or we could do whatever this is. Sure. Okay. “Only in pictures. I hear they have some in the bubble gardens in Spire Circle, but, you know, they don’t allow riffraff like me in a nice place like that.”

“I also haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Arboretum, myself. But I have seen trees. I was deployed to suppress an incipient atavist insurrection in east Krathia, near the border of the Barksea.” He meets my eye again. “You know it?”

A cloud of smoke issues from my nostrils. “Heard of it, read about it.”

His eyes, blue and clear, are near to sparkling, his excitement plain. “As had I. I assure you, Mr. Featherlight, no secondhand account can compare to the majesty of parsing such a place with your own senses. To be surrounded by green, after living a life of steel gray and desert orange. Endless grasses, flowers like gems, thorny vines, but most of all, the trees. I do not exaggerate when I say that the smallest of them would cast our paltry buildings in rustling shadow. Each one a stoic titan, silent and still, feeding on only sun and rain.”

The death squad operative goes silent for a moment, but continues before I can figure out how sarcastically I need to reply to this.

“It’s curious. All my life, I have been told that the perceived aesthetic value of the natural world, or of anything, is an illusion. An immaterial and beguiling remnant of protohuman sentiment, that serves to only cloud a true assessment of practical resources. And I suppose that there are many right-thinking people who, if told for decades that flowers are nothing more than a reproductive organ configured by the blind hand of evolution, will truly believe that, and nothing further. But then there must also be people who are told the same thing and are unable to stop at mere functionality. They cannot control their nameless appreciation, and find it only sharpened by those lecturing against it. Perhaps there will always be people who are awed by the trees, no matter their programming. Of all the atavistic ghosts haunting humanity, beauty may be the most powerful. The beauty of life being king among them. Does that make sense to you?”

Wow. I take it back. This guy can’t have ever been inside a museum. I think he’d go into cardiac arrest if he saw a kid’s chalk doodle on the sidewalk, much less an actual painting. How does he even go outside without breaking into tears?

Despite all my misgivings, I feel a little twinge of pity for the extremely lethal goofball. In his club, these kinds of thoughts are basically the blackest depths of pure sin. He can’t talk about this stuff to anyone he knows without getting strapped to a table and reconditioned, so if this is really how he feels, he’s got a lot of creaking knots in his chest, and no choice but to carry them everywhere he goes. I guess the Brotherhood torture themselves almost as much as they torture everyone else.

Still, he’s been trained from birth to see me and everyone like me as subhuman aberrations, so I can only have so much sympathy.

I frown. “I don’t see the harm in stopping to smell the roses every once in a while. Some might even call it necessary. You’re far from alone in that sense.”

The mage hunter nods very slightly, his eyes away. “You may be right.” Then all the wistfulness drains out of his eyes, replaced by the vacant chill he walked in with. “Forgive my wayward speech. None of this is the reason I’ve come to you today. You are collaborating with the Tenth Precinct Watch to apprehend the culprit of a recent metaphysically-assisted homicide, correct?”

Ah. Looks like our misty-eyed myrmidon has meandered to the memory of his main mission. Heh. Alright, not the most elegant alliteration ever, but maybe I’ll go back and polish it up later. Or maybe I won’t. It’s not like I owe you anything, all you’re doing is reading.

I take a deep drag of my cigarette, then say around a cloud of smoke, “That’s right.”

“What is your primary motivation for doing so?”

The Neutralizer’s expression is harder, somehow. More intense, as if he’s invested in my answer. And frankly, it’s a pretty good question. But I don’t see a reason to philosophize in his face like he just did to me - that would be pointlessly vindictive, even for me. It’s important to be the bigger man, after all. I’ll take the easy option. He doesn’t need to know any more about me than he already thinks he knows.

“I need money. Mostly so I can buy food. As you can probably tell, I’m a pretty avid eater of food.”

I could swear he just suppressed a frown. I stop the live feed and play it back a few times. Yep, right there, at the corners of his mouth, for a fraction of a second. That’s interesting. Disdain? Disappointment? The first makes more sense considering who I’m talking to, but who knows, maybe this one is crazy enough for it to be the second.

“That is your primary motivation? Currency?”

My shoulders rise in a little shrug. “Sounds cold, but survival is what it is. You and your crew have made it pretty damn hard for people like me to find steady work, what with all the propaganda and the sociopolitical stranglehold and institutionalized oppression and whatnot. I need money. Hunting Watch bounties is good business.”

“I have consulted your record of prior activities. You are no doubt aware that the utilization of your abnormalities to apprehend other aberrations conflicts directly with the interests and directives of the Prime Controller.”

Another great opportunity for a dramatic pause and a smug cloud of smoke. If this guy keeps it up my cigarette will be gone in three more sentences.

“Yes, it does make you all look bad. And while it might strip the ol’ Control Freak’s screws somethin’ fierce, he doesn’t control the Tribunal, much less the Mayor. Until that hopefully distant day comes, I’m perfectly within my rights to bag as many rogue mages as I want, Mr. Scary Robot Name.”

Everything I’ve just said is true. It is equally true that I just said it to a Neutralizer that could kill me and have my annoying corpse packed off to Sector Seventeen for recycling before I could say “go sniff a butterfly and cry, you drip”. It would be illegal, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Dynamic Brotherhood have supplanted Wellspring City law with their own dogma.

So what comes next is either the inevitable threats or a swift death. I’m more than prepared for either.

His jaw is set. “You seem to pride yourself on your mercenary ways, Mr. Featherlight. Business first, yes? If that is so, then churlish antagonism is beneath you, as it is us. We need not be at odds to an extent further than that which already exists. I suggest a mutually beneficial resolution to this issue.”

He reaches for his leg again. Different side. I brace.

The agent removes and holds up a credit chip.

“You say we have made your opportunities few upon the ground, correct? Then consider this just recompense. I have been directed, by the authority of Optimizer Exarch OMB1-004 Copper Dawn, to hire you.”

My shutters narrow on the chip, then at his face, scanning for any hint of deception. But I don’t see any.

I have never, in my life, heard of the Brotherhood negotiating with arcanists. Not once. To them, it would be akin to making deals with vermin. They’ve spent nearly seven centuries trying to scrub every single one of us from the face of the earth, and were only stopped once the war was won. And even then, only barely - they’ve since decided that if they’re not allowed to kill us where we stand, they’ll just press us while we’re down and make us wish we were dead.

There’s only two possibilities as I see it. Either I’ve been such a persistent irritant to them despite their efforts that they’ve given up and finally decided to reach for other tactics to make me go away… or they really, really don’t want me investigating this case.

Hear me out, here. The Watch have no love for me, but they do know me, and they have for years. My reputation isn’t incredibly savory, but it exists, it’s consistent, and they know that only a few things in this city are good enough to kill me. If I disappeared just after signing on for a big bounty that puts me in direct competition with the Brotherhood, I’m confident they would notice. Lieutenant Deepwell in particular - he’d owe my corpse too many favors.

The Brotherhood doesn’t make compromises, they don’t give up, and they’re too smart to flat-out implicate themselves in the eyes of their enemies. This isn’t the deletion of a bug, or a desire to bury the hatchet somewhere else besides my spine.

This is desperation.

But in order to find out why, I’m going to have to put on at least a bit of a show.

I frown. “You want to hire me.”

A stately nod. “Just so.”

My eyebrows furrow dramatically, and I sniff a few times. “Is that… irony I smell?”

He blinks. “From your perspective, perhaps. To us, it is simply the most efficient solution to an outstanding problem. You provide services to obtain money. We have money, and a service we would like you to provide. These parameters factorize with no remainder. Will you hear our offer?”

My eyes bore into him like I’m really thinking about it. Then, with the appropriate amount of skepticism, “I will.”

He smiles, apparently satisfied to be able to find footing and the chance to hash it out. It’s funny. Part of me actually kind of likes this guy, in a way. He seems… refreshingly eager, and adorably naive, like an armored preschooler. Maybe this is what happens when someone’s weapons and faith are so secure that they never have to be afraid of anything ever. So… protected. From bullets and ideas.

“Our proposal is very simple. For your part, you will relinquish your currently contracted bounty and cease any and all investigative activity correlating to same. You will not confer with any Watch officers, nor provide them with any further advice or consultation, including knowledge of this agreement. You will not speak of this agreement to anyone save myself, not even other personnel of the Dynamic Brotherhood. You are not being asked to cease all dealings with the Watch or other bounty providers for the duration of this obligation, or any other activity of any kind - merely ones pertaining to this specific case.

“In exchange, we will remunerate you to the sum of two million credits. One million paid immediately, the second upon the conclusive apprehension of the aberrant murderer by any party barring yourself. In total, I believe this is two-hundred percent the amount promised for the bounty you currently hold.”

Two million credits. Two whole goddamn million. Sure, your average accountant makes more than that in a single season, but it’s more than I make in an entire year. That’s enough to square me with Electrofuck and keep me out of starving range for months afterward. I could even take some time off for the first time in… ever. I’d be completely free.

Wouldn’t I?

I put a thoughtful hand to my chin, but don’t say anything.

The young killer continues, “It would be the easiest money you have ever earned, I suspect. Very few people are paid to do nothing at all. You could attend your living expenses, take your leisure, perhaps even purchase some amenities for your home! You would be paid to preserve the greater populace’s faith in our ability to keep them safe, by remaining idle! Perhaps you could think of yourself as a… as an official public relations consultant.”

His eyes go wide in excitement, and he’s smiling like he got to be the one to tell me I just won the lottery. I stifle a guffaw. He even came up with a clever and sneaky title for what I’d be doing, like he’s a bigshot gangster playing with legalities. This kid is having so much fun. It’s probably the first time in his life he’s ever had a conversation like this with another human. In another life, he’d probably have made a good salesman. God knows how much I love amenities.

“And if I refuse?”

A bit of a shadow crosses the Neutralizer’s face, as though he hadn’t even considered the possibility.

“That would be highly illogical, Mr. Featherlight, even for an aberration.”

“You’ve really got no idea how aberrant I can be, bud, but that’s not really what I asked. I’m asking what you and your superiors’ reactions would be, if I turn down your offer.”

I can’t read his expression. His vitae is getting even chillier, though. There’s that smell of freezing salt air.

“None, aside from disappointment at the breakdown of mutually productive negotiations.”

My eyebrows go up. “Yeah? No harassing my known associates, no destruction of my property while I’m away, no silently slicing my throat open in the middle of the night with your neat little wrist-mounted whizbang there?”

He blinks. “The arc lash is actually rather noisy when powered to lethal voltages, as is a target when aspirating his own boiling blood. If you were asleep, we would simply reach through your skull with our digital monofilament blades and destroy your brain. Much faster, and quieter.”

He holds up a hand. The claws on the ends of his fingers sparkle in the lamplight as he waggles them helpfully. His face isn’t boastful or menacing. He’s just talking shop! You know, like a regular guy! “But regardless, no. All the acts you described would be illegal.” He places his hands behind his back with great finality. Where did his smoke go? Maybe he’s got a portable ashtray on his butt.

Yes. Those things definitely wouldn’t happen to me, because things that are illegal cannot occur. I feel very reassured!

My reply is nonchalant. “Is this a now-or-never deal?”

The metal menace scrunches up his brows. “Clarify.”

“Will I be given any amount of time to consider your offer before accepting or declining, or am I to make my decision presently?”

He nods in understanding. “Ah. Yes. We can extend you forty-eight hours’ processing time. However, if you continue your investigation in any meaningful way during that time, we will consider it an outright refusal and the proposal will be rendered void.”

My hand scrapes across my stubble as I ruminate. “I see.” I take one last drag of my cigarette, plant it in the tray on my desk, and set my fists on my hips with even greater finality. “You drive a very hard bargain, uh… run that name by me one more time?”

Smiling, he chirps, “Neutralizer NH3-588 Corundum Vengeant.”

I smirk and wag a finger playfully. “Hell of a mouthful! Why don’t I just call you Corundum, huh? We’re pals, aren’t we? And you can call me Baulric!”

His eyes crinkle in a smirk of his own before doing a happy little head nod and replying, “Very well, Baulric my newly acquired compatriot!” Bless him, he says it like it’s the punchline to a mildly saucy joke at a cocktail party for bankers.

I go on, “You drive a hard bargain, Corundum ol’ chum. I think I am going to need a day or so to mull it over. Run the numbers, weigh the measures, you know how it is. This is a lot to take in for a guy like me!”

He nods enthusiastically. “I understand! ‘Careful consideration is the schematic of success’, as the Rectifier tells us. Take all the time that you require! Provided that the amount of time does not exceed the previously established upper bound of forty-eight hours.”

“Yes, forty-eight hours. I have no doubt I will come to a decision some time before that. How should I contact you when that happens?”

Beaming like a laser, he says, “We will send you a message on your terminal shortly. Simply reply to it with your response and we will proceed from there!”

“Great. That’s just ducky, Corundum. I’m sure this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship.”

“Yes! That eventuality does seem likely!”

Neither of us say anything, just looking at one another. Above my 50-watt smile, my eyebrows pop up suggestively.

He appears to have some sort of realization. “Oh! Yes. Our business is concluded for now, so I will leave you. I eagerly anticipate your logical decision, new friend Baulric. Farewell!”

“Bye bye, Corundum. Have a super fantastic day!”

From the door, the brainiac says, “It is also my wish that you have a super fantastic day! Goodbye!”

The instant the door shuts, my smile disintegrates, and I flop down into my chair, utterly dazed.

What the fuck am I going to do?