I checked the prices of platinum on the Boole, and it wasn’t bad. I’d have to find some that was Energized, as the rote stuff probably wasn’t suitable for magic, only for tech use.

I was probably going to have to enchant my bones a lot if I wanted to work with Nog Levels. It didn’t bother me... what else was I going to use them for? They were already in the middle of being reinforced and made more efficient for heavy gravity. No reason not to keep improving on them, right?

Of course I was right.

Hum hum, thrum thrum...

I brought my head back down to the gangers passing by as I was sitting there outside, looking at the wonderful eye-bending rustle-wave dome of the sky. One of them was waving a mindblade.

It was a bare thing, more a wedge of green light than anything else, clearly just manifested. The kid who had it couldn’t be more than fifteen, clearly exulting over what he had, waving it around as if it was a great thing. His bros were congratulating him, clearly envious.

He had psi-potential, the Gift. He had a ticket out of this place, and was gonna leave them far behind, no matter what he said.

He caught me looking at him, and promptly went into rooster strutting mode, heading on over in front of me, waving his new little psi-toy. “Hey, girl, wachu think? I gots me a mindblade, girl! Ima be a bladeboy! Ima be goin’ places! How you like to have a piece of this action?”

He waved it in front of me, showing it off as I raised an eyebrow.

I reached out, pinched the mindblade in mid-wave, and then jerked him forward, interrupting his spiel about himself. My other hand grasped his arm, and my fingers closed.

He squeaked as he fell to his knees, grasping at my hand on his wrist, gawking at me as I flicked out a vibroknife, turned it on, and before his buddies could rush to help him, brought the whirring edge up against his mindblade as he gasped.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” he shouted as the humming teeth bit in and sawed through the psychic force. His buddies held up as they watched the strangely fascinating sight of a vibroknife eating through the hard light of the mind blade. It got just about halfway through before the mindblade shattered, dispersing into random light particles, and the idiot screamed and jerked away, blood coming from his nose as I let him go.

I held up the knife to his buddies as they caught him. “You all got knives?” I asked them casually, knowing they were packing. It was the default standby for low-end gangers who couldn’t afford anything. Half of them already had them in hand, although they hadn’t turned them on. “Well, as you can see, your knives are better than his, so you got nothing to be afraid of with him.”

Despite themselves, they had to smirk as they looked at him getting taken down a peg. He wiped away the blood on his face, cursing, and glared at me. “Yeah? Well, breaking it means nothing!” He concentrated, and it flashed back up at the end of his hand again. “I’ll just bring it back, and it’ll get stronger than-urk!”

He shut up real fast, and they all backed away as I drew my appropriated Penson Industries Mark 49 Laser sidearm from my Masspack and aimed it at him.

“So, you think you got a superior weapon there?” I asked casually.

He looked at his mindblade, the laser in my hand, and the green wedge of force dispersed into random motes of light.

“Now, see, that was the only intelligent thing I’ve seen you do today. Sit down, all six of you.” I waved at the spot on the pavement in front of me.

“Hey, girl, just cause you... have a dark gold mindclaw fuck I’m sitting down,” said a sharp-eyed older teen who looked like the leader of the group, hurriedly doing just that. The others looked at my laser in one hand, the metallic soulclaw on the other, and also decided that sitting down would be good for their health.

Especially the new baby blade, who looked a bit awed.

“Sama Rantha, Termite, sensei, bladebelle,” I introduced myself, as both weapons suddenly went away. “To whom do I have the great honor and privilege of addressing?” I asked in lofty and very sarcastic terms.

They all flushed, but Smart Guy spoke first. “I’m Brekko. The guy with the mindblade is Davro. This is Jimo, Frankie, Billi, Tohks, and Jamal,” he introduced each of them carefully, and each nodded once to make sure I knew who they were.

“Just a crew, not affiliated yet?” I asked casually.

“They’ll just have us selling, and we ain’t having none of that business yet. Thought with Davro growing a blade, we might get a chance at something better.”

“Newsflash, geniuses. Did any of you go look up ANYTHING about new blade babies in Downspire on the Boole? Anywhere?” I asked archly.

They all looked at one another, and then over at Davro, who just shrugged.

“Right. Too excited to get the nod, and ignoring what it means.” I reached up and massaged my temples. “Little boys, take a look at where you are.” I waved at our surroundings. “You are trash. We live in trash. And somehow, something bright just started shining in the trash. Guess what happens to shiny, expensive shit in Downspire?”

Their faces all got that Oh Shit look. “It gets taken away,” Brekko spoke up.

“By?” I prodded him.

“The first to take it?” big Jimo spoke up, trying to sound clever.

“Or?” I egged him on.

“Whoever’s strongest. They’ll just kill the first ones and take it from them,” Brekko said, eying me, and then glancing at Davro, who suddenly paled.

“That’s exactly right. And you... are a baby blade. You have the ability to manifest a totally useless toy and wave it around, announcing the fact that you are valuable yet defenseless, a perfect combination of stupidity and value. Congratulations. Think about how many hundreds of people have seen you waving around that foggy, weakass mindblade of yours, telling people you have the Gift and can’t do shit with it.

“This is Downspire. You’re gangers with no gang, you got no backers. Right now, those people are blabbing. Someone’s gonna think something like, ‘Oh, ho, a punk psi who can’t protect himself. I can sell his brain for a brain battery and make some nice creds.’, or ‘A stupid psi with no backer. I can turn him into a brainbanger and nobody gonna give a shit if I do.’ Or ‘Hah, what a dumb shit. Ima get that punk hooked on Cortical Ride and make him my fucking dawg’.” I trailed off after a moment. “And that’s if some old psion doesn’t suddenly think he don’t wanna be old no more, comes down, evicts your stupid mind from your skull, and grabs himself a new meatsuit of you.”

I lazily drifted my eyes back from the pale kid. “And you, of course, are his friends. Easy to track, easy to lean on. If you get in the way, you’re soylent fodder. If he decides to run or hide, you can be used to draw him out. After all, you got next to no use yourselves. Chop you up, make you spill your guts, make it loud, pretty, then start on his next of kin if he’s got the guts to watch you all die.

“Damn, I can’t believe you were that stupid. This is Downspire, you fucktard, and you just made yourself into bling, and showed yourself off to everyone. It’s like you wrote a big ‘Come Fuck Me’ sign on your face and challenged the world to do so.”

He really didn’t look too good right now, nor did his buddies. He had just drawn them into some bad shit, after all.

“Now, you can run, sure. But you’d have to stay totally off the grid, and that means running into condemned zones, and word’ll get out and back to those who are looking for you. If you don’t go into no-Boole zones, some hacker will track you down in no time.

“So, gotta ask there, blade baby Davro... what the fuck are you planning to do now? Because I estimate a week before there ain’t no blade baby Davro anywhere, anymore. You’re either gonna be owned by somebody, or somebody is gonna be wearing you.”

The horror on his face as he contemplated what was going to happen to him was pretty moving. He looked at his buddies with sorrow, and it was plain that they didn’t know what to think, so they were getting mad at him.

Smart boy totally ignored that shit. “You’re selling us a story,” he noticed, drawing them back. “Yeah, I actually believe it. Can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.” He glanced at Davro, who shrank in on himself. “Okay, we can cut him, that might get us off, might not. Why you telling us all this? You got something to sell us?”

“What you got to pay with?” I replied easily, looking them over with an eye that told them they didn’t have shit.

“We got time and we can fight.” I just lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, we got no cyber or psi. We’re not hooked up yet. You knew that just watching us. Ain’t gonna boast to you. Just words, right? So, we got time, we got ourselves, and we can take care of ourselves. That’s what we gots to offer you.”

Had to smile despite myself, and I could tell it roused them. Okay, nymphal looks weren’t for nothing, and the Branding didn’t bother them at all. “Well, I might be in the market for a bunch of punks who got nothing but time... and a desire to get the fuck out of here.” I flicked up my soulclaw, held my hand out, flickered my fingers a few times for them, so they could admire the cleavers that could reach into their chests and tear out their hearts. “I might know what I’m talking about, too.”

“Can you save us from what’s going down with Davro?” Brekko asked pointedly.

“Good way to stave off guys coming for his brain is make them think he’s with someone they don’t want to mess with for just one baby psi. Better way is to make him think he’s with a bunch of people they don’t want to mess with.”

“You got a gang?” Brekko asked, interested. “No offense, ain’t heard of no gang led by a bladebelle with a golden claw. Looks like yours, people’d talk.”

“I’m looking at building one, a bit different from most.” I glanced at Davro. “No offense, blade baby, but you’re not actually what I’m looking for. I’ll take you in, and I can teach you, but I actually want your buddies more.”

“You want us?” Brekko and the others all looked surprised. “I mean, he’s got the Gift, just like you!”

“I don’t have the Gift.” They all blinked. “What, you think my Claw is here because I do? I can’t manifest a mindblade. I’m a Null, got no true psionic power at all. I’m not much different than you all that way.”

“But...” the smart guy trailed off. “Never heard of no Null.”

“Well, probably not, because we can’t fly, shoot fireballs, teleport, or read minds. We got no flash. Cybers get more respect than Nulls do. We’re just kind of meat on the street and goons in the room to the Psis. But,” I flicked up my Claw, admired it in front of them, “that don’t mean there ain’t ways, and it don’t mean we got no power.”

Okay, I had their interest, even Davro. “Sounds innerestin’,” Brekko admitted. “How’s it work?”

“Everything that thinks is psionic, more or less. The problem is that using psionic power is very different from being psionic. Nulls can’t use psionic power directly. Can’t spend it. If you want an analogy, a psion is a water pistol, and you’re a bottle of water with a sealed cap.” I paused. “But we can still hit people with the bottle.” My gold-shrouded fingers waved at them. “A mindblade is just a bottle. It’s a minor side-effect some people are lucky enough to be able to see and visualize when they become psionic.

“So, becoming a mindclaw isn’t nothing much. All of you can become mindclaws... not mindblades, ‘cause you got no range with your claw. He can do shit with his mindblade that we’ll not be able to do. Matter of fact, there’s almost nothing you can learn that he can’t learn, too... it’s just that he’s got other things he’s gonna need to learn which are more effective and useful, overall.”

“Wait, you saying you can give all of us... one of those?” Brekko asked, as they all gaped at me.