Idly lifting and dropping some wooden tokens with his off hand, the other rhythmically stirred an iced coffee, his phone display showing his current cash, Sid stared at the number, it was red, and the dismay was etched into his face. It hadn’t helped that Yaegger had caught up to him that morning, shook him down for the last of his abyss coin, the goons hadn’t been gentle, his shoulder still a little sore, a situation that shouldn’t be happening again yet, Sid had his doubts. It would be a week or two before he was again, gently persuaded that there was some accounting error showing he actually owed another half a black, maybe less if he was lucky.

Lucky, a word that had never described him. He set the scrabbler on the counter, the heavy metal clinked, the familiar dread already settling over him. He’d said just a month back that he was out. He’d busted his hump, squared his debts, got a job on the white side, paid the first land last up front, and was straight Ki-Ray. Turns out the whole turn of fortune, was just a taste, just enough to hopefully hook. The social worker who’d set up the whole arrangement was on the take, the plan being to leverage favors for continued approval for participation in the program, He’d wanted Sid dependent. That’s how they get you.

No Sid had thought at the time, there was was no telling where that road went. He’d stared at that dotted line, just as he stared at the scrabbler now, he’d made a choice. He wouldn’t sell his soul, at least not to a devil he didn’t know, familiarity with the black made the choice easy.

With an uttered curse, he started powering off his phone, setting the scrabbler into the slot, then flicking it back on. Indication of a hijacked boot sequence, a strange flow of glyphs, about a third he could read, reading something about a connection, the familiar timer kicked on, just over three minutes, thinking it would be enough, he pulled up the jobs browser. Found one that was near enough he shouldn’t need to spend any of his fares, farther than he’d wanted to walk but time was the one thing he could spare at the moment. Simple pick up, move something across town, and it was paying just enough to let him squeak by for a week, it was weird, but he wasn’t about to check the teeth of a gift horse.

There was also a comment, listed a potential bonus, giving a time, a second request number, a quick check confirmed it wasn’t active till that time, a follow-up job request. The whole thing was a situation that wasn’t unheard, though he hadn’t seen one of its like in a while. Reticent, but feeling pressure, he signaled that he’d accept the job.

Stepping out into a light drizzle, pulling his coat in around himself, sliding it into an alley, he trudged toward the pickup site. Studiously avoiding eye contact with his fellow alley rats, both sides showing the deference to pretend the other didn’t exist, he slipped deeper into the narrow streets bordering the market row. Market row was awash in flickering neon, a thousand smells bombarded him, as he bumped and nudged past throngs of passers by. Coming out onto a main road, hooking a right, down a flight of stairs, he entered the underground mall.

Running under neath the roads, connecting various transit stations, the mall was populated with people like himself avoiding the rain. He wouldn’t call it busy, but it was the morning. There were just enough to blend in, to not look odd, inconspicuous, Sid liked it that way.

He had to go down a bend, a little ways off the beaten path to get to the stop. Coin Lockers, it was the standard for this business. Obviously broken cameras, marked with a work order sign, the sign itself dusty from being ignored. A sign on the door written in legalese shirking all responsibility for what may happen within these walls. He fumbled with a marked tile on the wall, finding a key exactly where the job request had said it would be. A quick twist, the crunchy grind of an old tumbler giving way, and he had the package.

Sid picked up the small cardboard box. Wrapped in several layers of packing tape, an old label on the top, its text faded from dampness and rain spots, it couldn’t have weighed more than a couple pounds. Wrestling his sling bag to his front, he slipped it inside and pulled out a cleaning wipe, taking a moment to wipe off the key, the tile, door handle before disposing of the rapidly dissolving cloth into a canister just outside the door.

Emerging back into the main thoroughfare, he was shocked to find the place empty. There was suddenly no one, and it looked, like a couple of the stores had closed up. Alarm bells already ringing, pushing forward though the sea of red flags his mind had marked, thinking if he was going to get pinched, he was already in too deep. Pausing to sigh externally, an old habit of his before he did something stressful, he pressed on.

Keeping to the underground, he walked alone among the empty corridors, only the sound of his feet slapping the tile work to push back the silence. He counted the exits off on the right, finally stopping at the eighth, and ascending. The storm had picked up, cursing his ill luck again, he hoofed it the remaining block, to what had looked like a run down out hotel.

Stepping into the lobby and out of the rain, he took a moment to case the joint. No cameras, there were mounts for them but it looks like they’d been pulled down years ago, the automated check-in counter had a cracked screen. There was no dust though, and there wasn’t the smell of squatters that he could detect. Vigilance and a hint of paranoia floated in the back of his mind, but he poked the check-in urgently. Should just be a short walk upstairs, drop the package, place the key just under the door, then saunter off with fresh abyss coin in his coffers.

It took patience and insistence but eventually it coughed up a room key. Stepping into the elevator, he rose to the eight floor. He walked up to the door, no voices from the other side. Normally there was a receiver for these sorts of things. This job was getting weirder by the minute. Was he just going to get away without any verification? The kind of people who hire illicit gigs are the kind of people who wanted to get a good look at your face, and to check the goods on arrival.

The door opened, hinges complaining with a squeak. The room had a musty smell, like too much smoke. The carpet was stained, with a mix of colors, substances he could only guess at. Stepping further in, he realized most of the furniture had been removed. Guessing like the coin lockers this place was a commonly used area.

Everyone and everything for hire he mused. The inky shadow of the black was long indeed, leaving the world just arranged, like a long series of coincidences if you didn’t look too hard. Sid stepped through the small entryway into the room, his gaze falling on the rooms only object, a futon, little more than a large pillow, stained like the carpet, a form bound in tape and zip ties, still moving, face covered, screaming through their gag. His stomach dropped like the other shoe, he tore the package out of his satchel, and tossed it without a word onto the floor.

Fuck the bonus was his first thought. Knowing what lied in the darker parts of the world was a very different thing from being a participant. He signed on to be a god damned delivery boy, the kind that didn’t asking questions, not getting caught, and not knowing enough to be useful to anyone who might come looking. With just enough of his faculties intact, he shut the door, setting the card just under it, as he’d been instructed. He walked to the elevator, jamming the button with jittery impatience.

It was a length of moments before he realized it wasn’t coming. Indicator lights had grayed out. Sitars were his next thought. Wandering over to the emergency exit he found the door had been welded shut. His chagrin grew by the moment, leaving him with only one thing to do. Sid waited til the appointed time for that followup request, jacking back into the black net, he read the details.

Open up the package. Withdraw the firearm, Shoot the captive. Payout, one hundred abyss. Elevators will activate after weapon is discharged. were the next set of instructions.

Opening the package, he found a strange piece of tech, it was vaguely gun shaped, a tangle of wires, a strange glass contraption of diamonds and mirrors, and what looked like some kind of light emitter. He had no idea what he was looking at. A hundred abyss was a large sum, way too big for this, which could mean any number of things. Sid had a million questions, but the person giving out the orders was behind the same wall of tech that was protecting himself. No paths forward, save the one. With building dread, he stepped back into the room, kneeling down to the bound form. Taking another deep breath, sighing as was custom, he ripped off the the veil.

It was a young woman, instinctively shutting her eyes, slowly reopening them, after adjusting, they widened with terror, then her agitated struggling grew fiercer. As he’d thought, she was gagged, looked like a simple cloth one, which after sitting down on the futon, he set to the work of undoing. ‘Do not scream’ he whispered the command ‘They’re probably listening.’ He figured they would be, even if he didn’t know for sure. He was risking the ire of his patron regardless, but he figured he couldn’t know if the bang was going to really restart the elevators, instead of calling the cops. They couldn’t be counted on for much, more than any other gang at any rate, quotas are quotas though he thought wryly.

‘I’m meant to kill you.’ he continued, whispering just as loud as he’d dared, ‘But, I wanna know who is going to come looking after, and how far I’ll have to disappear to assuming I even can.’ Doing the math in his head, the hundred abyss should make it easy, spending about half to pay off the dozen of favors he’d need to ghost this city. The retort came back, a glare full of fear and anger, a mouthful of spit. ‘Look, I don’t know who you pissed off, but this is weird as fuck and I want out already. This anger you earned is gonna come now or later and I’m not taking that off you. It’s a you problem. So help a guy out cause you’re fucked either way. Have you even seen this gun?’ he gestures it at her ‘This is the weirdest gun thing I’ve seen’

As she put eyes on the weapon, her face turned to a smile, a wicked grin that only set his unease even higher. ‘Hey, I’ll tell you what to expect, as best as I can guess.’ she uttered as quietly as she could through her restrained glee ‘But, I want you to do something to that first.’ she nodded her head toward the weapon ‘you’ll thank me later’ A dubious assertion he thought to himself but the instructions didn’t say he couldn’t tinker with the weapon first, so a final request was probably the least he could do.

‘This isn’t going to kill me is it?’

‘No, it will save you, but you wouldn’t believe it if I explained it. Besides, whoever arranged this might do you in any way, so you might as well try it. No guarantee either way.’

‘Sho-ga-nai’ to which she nodded her smile unabated.

‘Take that emitter, and turn it…’she paused, her eyes closing again, and she held her breath ‘once. Full rotation counter clockwise.’ After waiting for him to do so, she then said ‘And swap the blue, and brown wires.’

‘Now your end. I did mine’

‘And I appreciate it. Names Cavalier by the by. I’d say its a pleasure but, I’m sure you ‘d think me lying.’

‘Sid’

‘They’re not going to let you out, you’ll probably get dragged back to a lab, and depending on how smart their geek is over there, it might just be holding, or brainwashing. They’ll probably let you go though. I don’t know how much they know yet.”’

‘So I’m also fucked either way?’

‘No. Someone will come for you, I promise. I just hope it won’t be too late.’

‘Ready to go then?’

‘I know you don’t believe me, but have a little faith.’ she looked into his eyes meaningfully. ‘Remember my name. Hold onto it, and you should be fine. Just make sure you do.’

‘Cavalier, it was a pleasure I’m sure. For what its worth...I’m sorry’

Bowing her head, he took aim at her head, having no idea how this gun would work but he surmised it had to be some kind of laser based weapon, and he pulled the trigger. There was a whir, and a bright light, then his head began to hurt, it felt like he was being turned inside out, then stretched, then like he’d snapped. Reality snapped back into focus, and he looked down at the futon that was completely empty. There were no traces of Cavalier, no blood, no bindings, no corpse. He felt dizzy. In this state of disorientation, he didn’t hear the door being bashed open, nor really feel the black bag being placed over his head.