“Here is the first lesson for you. I have your backs.”

I grabbed Jimo’s arm, yanked it to me, activated the vibroknife, and plunged it into his forearm.

He screamed as it bit through the flesh, carved into the bone, blood and muscle flying everywhere, gouging out a horrible wound six inches long as he howled in pain.

But his arm couldn’t move an inch.

I shut off the knife, and flipped Grim out from behind my head. The crystal familiar seemed to pulse from pearl to red as I slapped it down over the wound.

He trembled as the wound was stolen from him, split open on my arm. Muscle reconnected, blood was sucked back in, sinews repaired, bone mended. They all gaped as they watched the wound reappear on my arm, the same one that was holding him, and it twitched and slithered together and went away.

There was some blood on the floor, but both of our arms were unmarked.

“I have your backs,” I said calmly, meeting his eyes, then slowly moving it to clever Brekko, clam-lipped Davro, and the others. “If you get shot, I can take the injury. If you get stabbed, I can take the hit away. If you get beat, pummeled, mashed, crushed, I can make anything but limb or organ loss go away.

“So when you fight, you FIGHT, goddamit! I HAVE YOUR BACKS! All you have to do is win, and regardless of how chopped up, mangled, beaten, and bruised you are, I will take care of it!

“Now, each of you give me your arms! You’re going to see this, you’re going to feel this, and you’re going to believe this, each one of you!

“Then,” and my smile grew totally cruel, “you’re going to practice how to fight. You’re going to hit, and you’re going to get hit. I’m going to patch you up, and you’re going to fight again. You’re going to learn what it means to dish it out, and very, very importantly, how to take it.”

I flicked on the vibroknife. “Student Brekko.”

He swallowed, looked at the rather pale Jimo, his unmarked arm, and stepped forwards.

----

“This is a Transfer Circuit; it’s attuned to me.” I held his hand, poked his finger with a Vajra sharper than a needle, and Davro didn’t say anything as a tiny drop of blood rose there. I touched it to the white crystal, and scarlet veins ran through the psionic circuit in precise runeforms.

I dropped the chain onto his hand. “Now, I want you to practice stabbing yourself, and then healing yourself with that jewel. You need to spend your Nimbus into the jewel to let me know what’s coming. If it doesn’t turn red, I’m not in a situation where I can accept the damage.”

He swallowed, looked at the crystal, shuddering a bit as he formed his Nimbus. “Why me?” he asked, gesturing to the others looking at him... who didn’t know whether to be envious or not.

“Because this ain’t a Soulbound Item, which means they can’t Attune to it. You’re the only one who can. In other words, if they go down, you’re the only one of you six who can heal them.”

His back straightened as he suddenly realized the responsibility he had. “R-right!” He could heal his bros... and probably anyone else who needed it, come to think of it. He stared at the crystal as he concentrated, trying to align the psionic power flowing over and around him, and align it into a working Nimbus of psionic power that could do all sorts of stuff, if one had the time and inclination to learn.

The crystal pulsed red, and I felt a throb in my heart, let it connect. The crystal turned red, and Davro clenched his jaw as he drove his knife to the hilt into his arm...

-----

His fist, covered in the mindclaw, crashed against my jaw.

Jimo yelped as my head turned slightly, and my eyes didn’t leave his. He clutched his hand and stepped back as he looked at me.

“That was extremely disappointing, Disciple Jimo.” He swallowed at my voice, suddenly feeling very, very weak. “Discharge it this time. Again!”

He did, crashing his fist into my gut. Psychic energy blew out from his mindclaw, trying to rip and tear at me.

It barely raised a scratch on my stomach.

I backhanded him. He spun around in place, body following face, and ended up face-first on the ground, drooling.

“Very disappointing.” I lifted Grim, his chain wrapped around my hand, and nodded at Davro, who sidled forward to treat his buddy. Practice, practice! “Disciple Brekko, put some muscle into it, I hope.”

He looked at his big buddy Jimo, back at me, and swallowed as his mindclaw materialized...

------------------------

The car came into a stop in front of them as they hung out in front of their favorite loading dock. The six of them looked up as four brawny sorts piled out of the slick car that was riding low, heavy with armor, and with the multiple scars and paint jobs to verify that it had seen some action.

The men were moving with the precision and weight of the cybered, having the glint of neural circuits on their faces, and the stiffness of subdermal armor turning their faces into oddly similar ridges. Their skin wasn’t glossy, so that hadn’t been totally repressed, but they were definitely big and confident as they rounded on the six teens who were just looking at them.

Nobody had drawn yet, but the four were all packing.

They were a bit disconcerted to see two of the teens were, and the guns had quite naturally dropped into their hands.

Brekko rose, his eyes having an odd light to them. It was the light of someone whose soul had been touched by the dead, and suddenly was a whole lot older for it. They were eyes that had lost their bravado, and replaced it with something else a whole lot colder and grimmer.

The ebon-skinned man nearly a head taller than him came right up to his face, glancing over them all, and settling on Davro quite quickly as the other three backed him up from by their car. Disruptors and slugthrowers had range, after all, no need to get up close and personal.

“Davro Klingster. My boss Sharkey, has heard that you seem to be in possession of a rare gift. He’d like to invite you to sit down with him,” the man said, with a smile that said this wasn’t an invitation.

“Fuck off, bot,” Davro said without batting an eye, and the man actually blinked at the casual reply. None of the six seemed at all surprised or even uncertain at his words, or the threat behind them.

“I don’t think you understand what Mr. Sharkey’s invitation actually means, punk,” the cyborg smiled, revealing teeth too perfect to be natural, now sparking, and his eyes grew targeting rings. It was quite an intimidating display.

The six punks looked back at him as if he were joking. “And just what does the great and mighty Mr. Sharkey want with one of us?” Brekko asked, his voice just as apathetic as Davro’s.

The cyborg wasn’t a fool, and these six were all giving off all the wrong vibes. They should be punks, nervous, sketchy, fighting to calm down their nerves at his presence, the show of power on the street.

Instead, they were just looking at him without the slightest sign of fear. Despite himself, he had to wonder what was going on.

“You were waving a mindblade around a couple days ago. That’s a rare and precious talent. Mr. Sharkey would like to talk to you about your future.”

“Oh, that.” Davro just waved it off. “Yeah, you probably got the wrong person. Don’t matter, tho. Ain’t none of us interested. Just fuck off.”

The cyborg blinked again, his hand drifting to the holster at his waist. “Are you really that damn dense?”

All six of the boys were still looking at him like he was the stupidest person, and it was putting him on edge. Who did they think they were? They didn’t even have a name, nobody backing them, no rep, no influence.

“Nah, we understand what you are saying, but like Davro said, none of us are interested. Now, why don’t you just turn and drive off with all your implants intact?” Brekko said flatly.

The borg was sensing all kinds of problems here. These kids just shouldn’t be so calm. “Just where do you think you are getting your nerve, boy?” he asked harshly, starting to step in.

All six of them made the same gesture at the same time, right hands opening, turning, closing.

Six points of green light were brought humming to life, an ominous, harmonizing drone that instantly had the cyborg retreating a step.

Six mindblades!

The thought of all this treasure was replaced by the fact that he realized he was suddenly in tremendous danger. They all had Nimbuses active on those Claws they were showing!

He grabbed for his gun, and his boosted hand closed on air. He looked down, to see his gun hit the ground, bounce, and fall into the sewer grating. Then he looked up, and... where were his boys?

They were nowhere to be seen...

Just a ruffle of motion, he looked back, and blanched and tried to snap out his arm-blades as four humming mindblades came for him together. Emerald light glowing on two heavy laser pistols grew in his eyes, and the punks fired.

----------

“Hey, now you got a car.” I tossed the keys to Brekko. “One of you better know how to drive and jump this thing.”

Brekko tossed the keys to Billi, who hurried to the ride to get to work on it.

“Carve ‘em open, take the tech, sell it to the chop docs, leave ‘em for the TC Soylent Wagon. Chopchop.” Quite literally.

Mindblades and claws were uniquely suitable for the job, and if it was bloody, that was fine, you didn’t need to clean them.

Also, the other four of them also had disruptors now, although we’d have to burn the signature locks off of them. Disruptors and slug-throwers with a psionic charge on them hit like trucks, as that borg had been very unhappy to experience, and the hole in his head attested to.

Their clothes were suitable for tossing the extracted tech into, and Billi had the car running before they were done. The unsightly corpses were left in the gutter for the Soylent Wagon, and now four of them had armored flexamite jackets, too.

“Sell the tech, keep the money. Start making up wish lists of what you want to complete your quests.

“When you’re done, park it down in our spot under Habberblok, take anything you’ve brought up to your rooms, and start on your conditioning stuff. Any questions?”

There was a loud chorus of “No, Sensei!” and I nodded. “I’m off to see My Queen. Any questions, I’m not far.” I tapped my head, they all flushed, and then scrambled off to get into their new car.

Sharkey might be responding again, and if he did, he was going to get a very unpleasant surprise. Six guns with psi-boosts were not something anything but a high-end cyborg could survive...

-------

According to the previous owner, the piano was an heirloom, passed down in the family for many generations. It had been psi-enhanced once, so it had resisted the effects of time, even though it was made of actual wood. I did have to respin some threads, and tune it all up, but I got it to working status over the course of a week or so.

Then I heaved it up on my shoulder and walked it out to the steel struts over the Plunge that had once held the false ceiling, trying to ward the Top Fifty off from those below.

Some sharp eyes saw the girl with a baby grand piano on her shoulder walking out over the arched steel, and that sight spread pretty quick. I set it down on the center of the arch where the struts met, pulled out my Disk, and sat down in front of the keys.

7 Ranks in Piano, possible courtesy of my AB, programming reflexes and brain, downloading heaps and heaps of music from the akasha and the Boole, just so I could sit down at these keys and feel totally comfortable doing this.

The dead were swirling above me, wondering what I was doing.

My Nimbus swirled on my fingers, my Vajra swirled against the keys, over the strings as the edges of heartsong effects took hold, and I began to play.

There were words to go with this, but the key thing was that the melody was in Dirge, meaning it could be heard clearly by the undead. It was not an old, old song, not one they’d heard before, but it had its own resonance.

And it built, slowly, and quietly, thrumming with power, with drive.

And a need for vengeance. I could even say it wasn’t speaking about me, but the notes echoed and re-echoed off the Plunge, clearly audible to anyone in the central area of Habberblok.

She’d made it the first time to play for herself. The first time I was playing it here, it was to an audience of a quarter-million.

Tremble, oh ooooo Tremble, she comes, the wordless notes began to rise and fall, and people looked up, the ghosts looked back, and everyone listened.

Music at 30+ is transcendent to most people, and ghosts, too...

-----

It was called the Serenade of Ghosts when it hit the Boole. The fact that no one could properly duplicate it would mean the official recording made me a lot of money, as would the follow-up concerts to the ghosts of Habberblok over the coming weeks...