Chinatown was rife with mischief. Each person that passed him fit into one of three categories: grandparent, lost and angsty teen, or a thug. If somebody tried to tell you otherwise, they were full of shit.

That was why DeVile kept his gun holstered, his fingers trailing over the leather flap idly that was concealed beneath his coat. Each time somebody got too close to him, he would unlatch the button just in case he needed to make a quick move of self-defense. He couldn’t help it, he knew how these streets were.

The evening was new, streets fogged over from the rain that had paid a visit a few hours prior. Water splashed with each step he took, dampening his pant leg as he maneuvered through the growing crowds of people. Making a right turn into an alleyway, he found a small sitting area. Hanging above it were red lanterns strung from side to side, swaying in the chilly wind. Neon lights flickered on and off, a few metal fences slamming shut as people prepared to close for the night. Approaching the benches, he rested his hand on the splintering wood and picked at it irritably.

DeVile watched a couple pass him by, giggling to each other about the woes of young love. It made him sick. He watched as they tucked away under an awning, lifting their wrist up to the door handle and opened it once it unlocked. As the girl dropped her hand, her wrist still glowed the subtlest blue hue—a sign she was chipped just like the rest of them.

DeVile traced the cool metal of his artificial arm. As he closed his eyes, he remembered the pain he endured to get rid of that god-forsaken chip. It took four surgeries, each of ungodly lengths and measures. They tore away at his nervous system, rebuilding it with an artificial one. They broke his arm in half, leaving him with only his bicep until they could replace his forearm. That chip, the chip given to people at birth, was so rooted in people's bodily network that it took an amputation to rid himself of it. A physical rewiring of his entire makeup. He was convinced he still didn’t feel things the same way he used to, even if the black market doctors told him it was like new.

Scoffing, he pushed himself from the benches and kicked up some of the rubble that surrounded the concrete slabs. He peered over into the hole, glancing into the shallow opening with a scowl. It smelled like sewage. To be fair, this part of Chicago always smelled like trash.

The buildings were in shambles, every other one he had passed by was boarded up and littered with broken glass and graffiti. Droplets of water fell from the storm drains, plopping into the puddles that coated the cracked sidewalk. Chinatown wasn’t necessarily a haven to find locally owned cafes and shops, it was a place to find ghettos and people up to no good. He would know, he was one of those people.

A gentle whirring greeted him in the distance, a drone scanning over every nook it passed with a light. Backing away slowly, he looked around for a place to hide while it did its patrol. Stepping towards a metal fence, he stuck his foot into one of the grooves and hoisted himself over the top, careful to avoid the spikes protruding from the top that were meant to deter people from doing just what he was doing. He was no amateur, though, considering he had jumped many fences in his time.

The drone shined a light to the opposite side of the street just as he landed on the muddy ground and tucked away into the shadows. He used a decaying bush to hide from the drone as it looked into the alleyway, the illumination tickling every blade of grass at his feet. It wasn’t life or death if this thing saw him, but it caused a shitshow once the reinforcements came to check his ID. The ID that was supposed to be in his wrist.

As soon as it passed him by, it began to flash its siren.

“Citizen, please validate your identity with ID Chip!” the agonizing, high-pitched voice echoed against the brick walls. DeVile peered past the corner, his cheek pressing against the cool metal of the fence as he struggled to catch more than a glimpse of the drone.

It was a creepy little thing, a flat disc as the body, bulbous and round only at the top. It had a set of lights and a speaker for its siren, and one long arm extending out of one side that held the flashlight it was scanning things with. DeVile had seen enough of these to know there was at least one other arm hiding in there. It was just waiting to be tempted out.

It hovered around in a circle, getting a complete look at the person it was interrogating before repeating the sentence once more.

“I don’t have it, you stupid bot!” The person choked out. DeVile hoisted himself back over the fence and stuck the landing, using his hand to stabilize his fall before looking back up at the scene. It was a man, his hair graying and his skin wrinkled. He was Asian, clothes tattered and loose.

The wrists of this man were what caught DeVile’s attention. Flesh and bone, each side of his wrist so pointy it could have been used as a weapon. He was a scrawny man, one he assumed was homeless. Most people were given these chips and implants at birth, rich or poor, but there were cases of people being born off the grid. If they tried to reintegrate into society, they would be running away from the law unless they went through the process of getting an ID chip. Unfortunately, that process was both extensive and painful.

The drone extended a second arm that protruded from the right side of the hull like a bad dream. It was spiky, the tips flickering hues of green and yellow. At the end of this arm were a taser, a gun, and some pepper spray. It could be cycled through at the bot's command.

The man immediately put his hands up, reaching up to pull his sleeve down to reveal his wrist.

“See, I don’t have one!”

Like a mindless bot, it repeated the same command: “Citizen, this is your last chance. Lift your wrist and reveal your ID, or else we must take disciplinary action.”

Chuckling under his breath, DeVile stood upright and crossed his arms before biting the corner of his cheek. This thing would have scared him shitless as a kid, but luckily back then the only things patrolling the streets were humans in mecca suits and bulletproof vests. In his growing years, people were killed for having augments on site. Things have gotten ‘better’, but he still saw it as a ruse. Beneath the first layer of ice was a sea of corruption, murder, and discrimination. It was just waiting to break through.

Strangely, he found these drones more intimidating than the super soldiers that used to patrol the streets when he was a kid. Nothing was more terrifying than an artificially intelligent robot pointing a gun down your throat.

Without much more warning, the drone’s mechanical arm rotated until it landed on the pepper spray, blinding the man promptly before flashing its lights. DeVile cringed from the cries, covering his eyes from the flashing lights that reflected from the windows and puddles of water on the ground. The dimly lit street now was awake with the brilliance of blues and reds as the man fell to his knees, sobbing from the pepper spray.

“Please remain on your knees, reinforcements are on the way.”

The drone repeated this statement every few seconds, the shrill voice echoing off the walls and pierced his ears. It was worse than a siren. A few doors opened, residents peeking their heads out before tucking away back to the safety inside. In the distance, DeVile could hear a siren approaching. Surely, the reinforcements would not see DeVile so kindly considering he, too, lacked an ID.

Cursing under his breath, he turned on his heel and ran in the opposite direction. If he was quicker on his feet, that drone would have been smashed against the wall before it even had time to get the other arm out. That was for a different day, though. The work of a vigilante could be continued once he got his issue with Vesna handled. He worried she had a hand to play in way too many of his issues to be comfortable.

He only stopped once the sirens were a distant dream. It might have been crazy, but he swore he could hear the hollering of those police officers five streets over.

Eventually, he found himself outside a club, slipping by a group of scantily clad women. They had vibrant hair, each representing a color of the rainbow. As one lifted her chin to blow him a playful kiss, her eyes shined in the neon lights and revealed one crimson eye and the other silver. She had cybernetic scarring crossing over her cheek, the thin metal lining glistening beneath the artificial lighting. He nodded, allowing them to pass before taking a second once over. That cybernetic gaze told him he was in the right place.

Entering the club, he waved the bodyguard off and moved right past him. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything to stop DeVile, he was known around this part of town. It was his roots.

“Nice club,” DeVile grumbled to the bartender as he took a seat. She was a tall woman, her hair silver and curled. When she looked up, her long and curled eyelashes batted at him with the intent to please. Her eyes, too, were red and silver, drinking him in like a cup of water. Without asking for his drink of choice, she gave him a jack and coke. He accepted it gladly, taking a sip without tearing his focus from her.

“You’re new,” she said with a sultry tone.

“Not in the slightest, sweetheart.”

She chuckled, leaning over the counter to look him up and down. “Who said you could call me sweetheart?”

“I did.”

She hummed, cocking her head to the side, and tapped her fingers against the countertop. Each tap lit the ends of her fingernails, tiny shocks of blue and green accenting her nail polish. He flashed a brow, chuckling under his breath.

“That’s an interesting way to accessorize your augmentation.”

This coy remark earned a grin so wide it was jarring. She slapped her hand on the countertop with a sudden revelation. “DeVile.”

He hummed, narrowing his stare towards the girl. “Glad you know the name.”

“Everybody does, I just didn’t think you’d look like… this?”

“Tell me, sweetheart, what made you connect the dots?” DeVile asked, setting the cup down and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned into the barstool.

“When I moved here, they always told me of the infamous DeVile. The man with an augmented eye and arm, the man with the wits, and the man that needed to be avoided at all costs.”

“You’re doing an awfully bad job at avoiding me. Who’s ‘they’?”

“You know who they are.” She smiled again, leaning over the counter so her face was a bit closer to his. She smelled of a honeysuckle flower and lavender, her crimson eye twinkling beneath the pink lights that flashed over the bar every few beats. “They made you.”

“Just like they made you.” He retorted.

Nodding, she traced her fingernail across the metal of his arm and stopped at a groove by his wrist. She looked down, pushing into it a little. Her eyes were so sly, almost like a cat waiting to jump on a rat it had cornered.

“Just like they made me.”

“And what do I call you, then?”

“You will call me nothing. If you’re interested, though, you can meet me upstairs in ten minutes and we can discuss more pressing matters.”

DeVile followed her eyes as she looked to her left, landing on a small hallway that had a stairwell sign. Large black letters that faded at the edges read: Roof Access.

Nodding hesitantly, he took a sip of his drink when she walked away. He came for one thing and was leaving with another. Scoffing under his breath, he slammed the glass down on the countertop and decided to rue the day. Vesna would be an issue for another hour.