“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!” Preature’s team chanted at Darius as he imbibed his seventh beer.

“Fuck! We could make a fortune off your drinking alone!” Leary said, giving Darius a slap on the back.

“You don’t feel anything?” Tinker asked, keeping track of vitals through the drinking process.

“[BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL NORMALIZED]” Darius’s visual display repeated with each drink.

“I feel nothing,” Darius said.

“Maybe it is working!” CURL joked.

“No, I mean that I don’t feel any different.”

“Yeah, we got that, kid,” Leary handed a shot of some honey-brown liquid to Darius, who immediately choked it down.

“We should probably stop this. It will start to add up soon,” Tinker said, checking the balance on their tab.

“Come on! We made a mint off that last job. This is totally worth it!” Leary said before taking another shot himself. “So, kid. Tell us more about yourself.”

“Well, you know the important stuff. My dad was the head of SaeSyn, and I spent my life locked in my home in Miami.”

“So that’s really all there is?” CURL asked, a bit disappointed.

“Yep. Not much more than that.”

“First kiss? Shag? Wank?” Leary asked abruptly.

“Look, I was locked in my house all my life. There wasn’t any of that.”

“Still coulda wanked...” Leary mumbled under his breath. CURL punched his arm. “Come on! You were thinking it too!”

“What about all of you? You haven’t told me anything about yourselves.”

“I lived on the street,” CURL answered. “Until I got in touch with Preature, he gave me the chance to prove my worth by testing my hacking skills. He set out three skill challenges for me and told me to complete one. I completed all three. I pissed off an AI security system as a result. Now, I’m always looking over my shoulder in the deep web. Never know when this thing will come for me, scramble my brain.”

“I was going to school to be a surgeon. My bills got out of control and I had to drop out. Preature hired me to the team and I’m trying to save up to go back to school,” Tinker offered before taking a drink.

“I fought in the wars,” Leary’s face became serious. His eyes glossed over, the soul draining out of them. “Everyone I knew from those days has died.” He took a drag from a cigarette. “Every last one of them,” eyes staring blankly into nothingness.

“What happened to them?” Darius asked cautiously.

“The war got some… The corporations got the rest. P-Sec is a thankless business. More often than not, taking the job means signing your life away. I guess I got out at a good time. Went private. Found a Ven that would give a shit.”

“Preature is many things. One of my favorite things about him is that he gives a shit,” CURL agreed.

Darius thought about this and said, “What do you think he wants with me?”

“From what I can see. He wants to get the details on that tech you’re sporting,” Tinker replied.

“Why?”

“He could sell them for a big payday. The design files, that is,” CURL answered. Then immediately sealed her lips, realizing she may have said too much.

“How would he get those?”

“We don’t know,” Tinker said, pointedly. “Just a working theory right now,” he shot CURL a glance of concern.

“I don’t know what I have to offer any of you. I’m nobody. I haven’t done anything to help anyone. I might as well have never existed. My whole life, I’ve been locked away from the world, so I’ve never left a mark on it. What’s going to change that now?” Darius asked with concern mounting.

He looked around the dirty bar. Red lighting drowned the space. It was nearly empty, save for a few regulars that had already sunken themselves deeply into the drink. The robotic bartender hung like a torso from a single curved bar with a track that ran all through the place. It approached their table with another tray of shots and beer.

“Do I have to? I’m getting full,” Darius said.

“Yes, you do, because I’m getting drunk, and I don’t want anyone here to be sober when we’re done. Not even you, robo-boy!” Leary pointed a scarred finger at Darius’s chest.

“ROBO-BOY!” CURL shouted.

“YES!” Tinker locked eyes with CURL.

“NO!” Darius shook his head. “That’s the worst nickname ever.”

“Actually, the worst nickname ever was Shovelface. A buddy of mine who did aerial bombardment in the war. I probably don’t have to explain why he got that one,” Leary slammed another shot and lit a new cigarette with the old one.

“Please, not Robo-Boy.”

“How about Proxy, then?” Tinker spouted.

“Hmm,” Darius thought.

“You’ll always be Robo-Boy to me,” Leary said, with an unapologetic smirk.

The front door to the bar swung open and the large figure of Preature stood there. He pointed at Darius. “We need to get him out of here.”