A quiet dive bar was preferable to a raucous sexually-charged club, somewhere Warchild hadn't been before. No one would recognize him here. In this rundown part of the DMV, a drink hovel stood on every block corner to succor the wretched, and to relieve the dregs the last of their creds. The spurting neon clover outside had a name underneath -- Black Irish.

From the outlook, the pub might be a favorite among the local working class. It was a no-nonsense drinking hole, frequented by the wearied and the have-nots. A place such as this offered refuge, at least for a few hours from their apathetic spouses and asshole bosses.

Warchild pushed past the doorman who gave him a once over.

The interior was dark, just how he liked it. The coolness soothed his mental anguish. The lighting overhead was yellow and tired. Rows of colored bottles, none labeled, decorated a long foggy mirror that took up the entire length of the dive. The place reeked of stale beer and was thin of patrons.

Warchild made his way to the bar.

"What'd you have," grunted the barkeep, a fat man wearing a stained apron, drying a mug with a dirty rag, his bald scalp glistening from recessed LEDs.

"Strongest proof you got."

"I got just the thing. It's homemade."

"I don't care, keep 'em coming."

The barman eyed him. "Bad day?"

Warchild nodded. "Yeah, a string of bad luck. You serving or what?"

The fat man hesitated, then reached for a low ball and a bottle of clear liquid.

"Lose the glass." Warchild stuck out his arm for the barkeep to debit his account. The scanner's blinker stayed on red.

"Something wrong with your chip?" The barman asked.

"Nothing wrong, Hoss."

"Well, it ain't accepting the charge."

"Swipe it again."

A second time didn't help; the scanner stayed red.

"No green, no jelly bean," the bartender said, taking back his bug juice.

"Here, this is worth something." Warchild unscrewed his wedding ring and tossed it to the barkeep. "It's platinum."

The barman weighed it in his hand, then passed Warchild the bottle.

In one motion, Warchild tilted the nozzle down his throat. In seven gurgles, he'd drained the content down to its neck.

The barman stood transfixed, his mouth wide in amazement.

"Either you got a hole in your gut, or I'm serving root beer. Some trick you did."

"It's in the blood, man," Warchild said without missing a beat.

"Yeah, I'm Irish too . . . but I can't drink like that. No one can."

"Another."

"Now listen--"

"Go on. I'll let you know when I'm done."

"Go kill yourself elsewhere, buddy. Not in my place."

Warchild lashed out and grabbed the fat man's arm. The grip was vice-like.

"All right, all right, it's your life, whack job."

It was the nastiest swill Warchild ever tasted, most likely distilled in the back and cut with methanol. But he didn't care. He waited for the warmth to flood his cheeks and a soothing to fill the hole that was his life, feeding the bitterness, restoring color to the surrounding grayness. If he could, he'd climb in the bottle and never emerge.

As he emptied the second fifth, nearby conversations wafted toward him from a group of four local yokels. Talk was about the same two things everywhere: politics and poverty.

"Oh yeah? They're talking about closing down the plant, cause we're obsolete."

"Shh, keep your voice down. You wanna get dinged?"

"I'm an Unaffiliate, so are you. What can they do, keep us poor? We're already outcasts."

"I might apply for a work visa with Midland."

"Yeah? I hear parts of the GCE are ghost towns."

"Dust-bowl Detroit too, miles of it."

"Then get useful. Get more training under your belt. We technicians work and eat."

"800 million mouths is too many to feed, man. We need some kind of population control. You control people -- through their stomachs."

"Why don't you ask the 2.5 billion Chinese how they do it? No kidding around over there. You steal anything -- zap. You say anything -- zap." The speaker made a mock shaking from being tased with a lethal charge. "Then night cremation. I was a contractor there once."

"Is that so?"

"Once a population gets into the Bs, life loses value." He gulped his beer. "Yeah, scratch a million, that's chump change compare to 2.5 billion."

"We're far from that number here."

"They say in ten years, we cross the B mark in North America. Then all hell's loose."

"It's already loose, you idiot," cried the loudest drunk. "Trust in the paramountcies, brothers. Arbeit macht frei -- Work and be free. What a crock of shit."

The group nodded furiously while downing their swill.

"You come from shit, cause you weren't born in the right caste or go to the right school." He spat on the floor. "We toil for them, so they could build their towers to keep us out."

Warchild looked away. The misery club bothered him. The words seeping in, breaking up the lovely haze, and keeping him sober.

He almost missed a new gaggle of customers entering, then his training took over. With a quick glance, he picked up four men, younger than the locals, fitter, and among them was a firefly -- an irresistible female lure.

She had an immediate effect.

The locals stopped talking for a second to notice the newcomers taking a table in the far corner, then resumed their griping.

Warchild didn't turn but he could feel eyes on him.

In no time, the firefly wandered up to the bar to order drinks for her guys. The conversation of the locals paused, necks craned to ogle the strutting talent. She oozed confidence and a sexual magnetism even he found compelling enough to glance over.

Warchild returned to his bottle. But he missed nothing, his mind still clear, and curious. What are you after, girl?

A wiser voice answered in his head -- If you haven't spotted the chump, then you are the chump, a lesson he learned long ago. Stop it. He shook the thought away and returned to the drinking, agreed it was the stupid training that was out of place in civilian life.

But was it stupid?

She shifted to him, giving him a curious smile. "Rough day?"

Warchild returned a fake grin.

"That's his second bottle," the bartender said to the girl. "What will you have?"

She gave him her order for five: four lite beers and a glass of cranberry for her. No ice. A strange combo, Warchild wondered, the alcohol content from all five barely equaled one gulp from his.

And again, she turned to him. "Two bottles and you're still standing?"

Definitely a looker, ripe lips, glowing skin, long-lashed green eyes, a diamond in a pile of pebbles, he thought, sure of who she was. The chick just didn't belong in a shit hole like this. This sty was for the abused, the overused, and the obtuse. She'd have been home in a high tower, luxuriating in silk and hobnobbing with paramount Affiliates, fingering champagne flutes. Not down here with the have-shit mud boys.

"I'm Angie. You are?"

"Still sober," Warchild said dismissively. He knew better than waste his time. Her iris waxed in brightness, telling him they were synthetic -- high-end ocular implants. A firefly this perfect had to be artificial, the spanking new body a dead giveaway. Girls like her he can't afford anyhow. "Nice tattoo."

She touched her neck. "It's my little dragon. You know what he whispers to me?" She leaned in closer.

He cut her off just in case she had ideas. "That I don't have money?"

She straightened up, her eagerness suddenly turned obscene.

Warchild smirked. "My bad, unless it's for free."

"I'm no whore, buster." She bristled with righteousness, pulled down her micro skirt as if the leather were elastic, and glared at him with murderous eyes. "Go to hell."

Warchild nodded, agreeing with her. He was there right now.

The girl slipped back to her crew with their drinks, ego bruised and spiteful. He saw from the mirror she whispered something to the men.

Shit, there goes another angry woman. He was better off alone.

"Yo, bartender," Warchild called out and pointed at his empty bottle. "Keep it coming."

"No, you're done. I'm cutting you off."

"What do you care? The ring I gave you is worth at least three more bottles. Come on, hand over the shit or the ring. I ain't leaving, Hoss."

The barman passed him a square bottle and tapped out the sale. Warchild burped loud enough to show his disdain.

"Him? He said what?" A male gruff voice wafted over. "Oy!"

Warchild ignored the challenge.

He glanced in the mirror -- the four men at the back table had gotten up and were heading his way. They surrounded him. He noticed the details now: they wore loose comfortable utilities, nothing constricting. Their hands rough. But their eyes revealed much more. No fear. Much aggression. And purpose.

They looked hard at Warchild -- measuring him.

Towering over 6'2", the alpha male of the group made his way over. Thick barrel chest, spiky hair, cranial implants, bioware heavy, cybernetic shards breaking his skin. Aussie accent.

"Oy, I'm talking to you, mate."

Warchild took a swig from the bottle, hoping that the swallow would change the scenery.

The snub didn't sit well.

"What the fuck -- Lookie here boys, he insults our sheila, then turns his back on us," the big Aussie said, stirring up his posse. "That hurt our feelings, don't it boys?"

Angie the firefly grinned instead, whispering to the bruiser. Most girls would be incensed, and loud. Her calculative silence told Warchild all he needed to know.

The big Aussie suddenly poked him on the neck and growled. "Oy, you will answer me, cunt."

Warchild looked straight ahead at the mirror. "Go away." As he brought the bottle to his mouth, the man swatted it from him, sending it careening across the floor.

"All right, break it up." The bartender waved the bouncer over.

The latter took three steps and stopped. The doorman was no heavyweight, everyone could see. He was paunchy and carried no standout tech; he was unaccustomed to real violence. He turned to Warchild and said, "Come on, let's go, mister. Else you get the collar. Cops won't be so polite."

"That's aright, we'll take the bloke off your hands, eh?" the Aussie said.

Warchild scowled at the big man. "I ain't your guy."

"Get him out of here." The fat owner behind the bar snapped his fingers at the reluctant bouncer to do his job. The latter approached tentatively, wary of the circle of men.

"Up you go, buddy." The doorman took Warchild's arm.

"Fine," Warchild said, teetering, the alcohol finally having an effect and imparting a discomfort in his bladder. "Pisser first." He got up from his stool, made a show to stumble to the washroom.

"Go with him," the bartender ordered his cooler. "And make sure he leaves."

Warchild pushed open the lavatory door and sauntered up to the middle urinal next to the stalls while the bouncer waited behind him with arms crossed. The bathroom was small with four stalls arranged opposite two washer-bowls.

"You gonna help me hold it?" Warchild teased.

"Hurry up."

As he shook it off and zipped up, the door opened. And no surprise, in walked the same four led by the big Aussie who thumbed to the guard.

"Beat it, mate. We got business with 'im."

The bouncer didn't try to argue, seeing vicious blades in their hands. He took off past them out of the pisser.

"Those for me?" Warchild said, playing the drunk. "This isn't over the girl, is it? Cause if it is, then I'm sorry. I didn't mean nothing."

The burly Aussie grinned, one tooth glinting gold.

"No, mate, ain't about her." The Aussie brought up his knife, an eleven-inch carbon-fiber Bowie knife with serrated edges. His buddies had their blades out too.

"Dumb-ass, I'm the wrong guy to mess with." It didn't matter what he said. They weren't going to listen.

"First, I'm gonna gut you, then I'm gonna cut out your face and take your fingers. And nobody in Hades will know who you are tonight, mate."

Warchild removed his belt, wrapping it around his left forearm. He had one thing going for him -- the washroom was narrow enough that only one attacker at a time could come at him.