The Freeloading Monster (1)
Rain tapped at the window, and I opened my eyes slowly.
The mattress was thick and heavy. The springs creaked a little, but when you're crashing under someone else's roof, you take that much and count yourself lucky. I shifted in the warm blanket.
...Still. For a first day in Nowak City, this is easy living.
Set against the original game, where you got worked like a dog from the opening second, I was starting soft.
My body felt light. My stomach was another matter—hungry enough to twist. My gut sat hollow, as if a beggar had moved in down there. The P-Cells, most likely.
A synthetic sandwich doesn't even touch the sides.
The body those P-Cells had claimed demanded calories without end, no matter how much I fed it. In the game it had only meant eating a little more. Now that it was real, the feeling belonged to another dimension entirely.
Maybe Predation would take the edge off...
The thought surfaced on its own, and I shook my head. I wasn't insane enough to start absorbing random people just to get by. For now I'd stock cheap lumps of protein and shove them down.
I glanced beside the bed.
The old leather sofa where Jackie had slept was empty. A thin lap blanket lay tossed across it any which way, so he'd been up. Did he run?
I checked the Servant Cell, just in case. He hadn't gone far. One floor down, the sense of an unseen thread binding the two of us came through sharp and clear.
A clatter rose from beneath the stairs—dishes knocking together. Was he making breakfast? A savory smell drifted up with it.
I climbed out of bed, shoved my feet into slippers, and took the groaning steel stairs down to the first floor.
Jackie stood in the cramped kitchen behind the counter, still in his pajamas. He looked as if he hadn't slept a minute all night, gaunt in the face and moving in a nervous rush. The moment he shut the microwave he must have felt someone there, because he spun around.
"Eek?! Jefe?!"
He jumped and scrambled backward, one hand clamped over the nape of his neck, plastering himself to the wall.
"You're up."
"Y-yes...! I've been up for a while! I didn't run! I swear!"
"Up early. Sleep well?"
"Sleep well? How was I supposed to sleep well...?!"
Jackie stuck his lower lip out. The skin around his eyes had flushed red.
"With the boss under the same roof... how am I supposed to sleep?! I'm scared!"
"Of what?"
"This neck! The thing you put in the back of my neck! The bug... ugh! I'm terrified it's going to burst out like a horror movie... and the sofa's so narrow I thought my back was going to snap... Please, couldn't you give me my bed back...?"
"I'm hungry. Feed me."
"Here..."
Jackie reluctantly set a warmed plate on the table. Two heated convenience-store burritos, two steaming cups of synthetic coffee, and a single silver pouch.
"It's the high-density protein shake my uncle used to drink."
"Looks a little past the date."
"Urk...! I'm sorry! I just took it out of the fridge... Should I throw it away?"
I waved him off like it didn't matter, and only then did he perch, carefully, on the edge of the chair across from me.
I tore the burrito open, bit off half, and poured the protein shake down my throat. The thick liquid carried that cheap synthetic flavoring, sweet in a way that tasted like it had cost nothing. Once I'd packed a few things in, my stomach finally settled. A little life came back.
"Not bad."
"R-really...? That's a relief..."
Jackie sipped his coffee, watching my face. Yesterday still had him drawn in tight. You could see it at a glance.
I swallowed a mouthful of coffee and asked.
"What happened to the credit chips I tossed you?"
"Oh! Those! One second!"
Jackie scrambled under the counter and came back with a thick old portable terminal and a heavy hardware adapter.
A beep, and a window of green grid lines rose on the screen.
"Let's see..."
The moment the terminal was in his hands, every trace of playfulness dropped off Jackie's face. He started paging through the display with practiced ease.
"You know the two delivery chips you left on the counter? I had them clamped in the cracking tool the second I opened my eyes. Ah...! The locks just came off!"
"Already?"
"I didn't write the code. I'm not a professional hacker... but the custom cracking rig my uncle used is the real thing! Security was three layers deep. Call in outside help and the fees eat half, but brute force walked straight around the lock and punched through!"
His fingers rattled across the display.
"And... I routed it through a dark-web ghost account and wiped the tracking code completely. Four thousand credits a chip, eight thousand total? I cleaned it so we can withdraw and spend it right now!"
Better than I expected.
Not a pro hacker, but a fence's years don't go anywhere. In the original, too, the kid had been uncanny at cleaning up messy money.
"You know your way around the gear."
Jackie gave a little shrug, then dropped his voice.
"Also, I went out to the garage first thing and went through the truck and the cargo bed. Nothing left unchecked."
"How's the truck?"
"It's an Atlas, 2068 model. There are bullet scars on the engine block and the body, but if I pass it to some guys I know, we'll get at least eight thousand credits. Take out fifteen hundred to wash the VIN and that's sixty-five hundred net!"
Jackie tapped the screen and asked.
"But boss, what are you going to do with the guns in the cargo bed and the passenger seat...? We need to clear them out before thieves strip the place..."
"What was loaded?"
Aside from the machine gun, I couldn't remember. I needed a look.
"One old M2A9 heavy machine gun, three or four AK-86 Baryak rifles, half a dozen assorted 9mm pistols... and a Mastiff 4, that ultra-large-caliber shotgun, plus ammo. Where did you even get that one..."
The question was what to do with them.
My real weapon was this body. Even so, on the outside I still had to pass for a merc running implanted bioware. A gun or two would have to come with the costume.
"Set aside the Mastiff and two pistols in decent shape. Sell the rest."
"The Mastiff 4? A normal person fires that standing up and their shoulder dislocates! It's a cannon for cyberware solos... well, with your strength it's probably nothing! Got it. I'll move the rest through someone I know. Guns alone should pull at least another three thousand credits!"
Jackie ran the numbers, and his eyes went wide.
"So, to sum it up... eight thousand from the chips, sixty-five hundred on the truck, three thousand on the guns... whoa, you swept up seventeen thousand, five hundred credits in a single night?!"
The moment the figures landed clean, color rushed back into Jackie's puffy face. Even his hands on the terminal sped up with it.
"Feeling better?"
"Of course I am! The interest I owe the loan sharks this month was three thousand credits. Launder just this and hand it over, and the interest's gone easy—I can even chip at the principal! Jefe! You were one hell of a solo?!"
It was so absurd a dry laugh slipped out of me.
"That happy?"
"Hehe... money's nice, isn't it? So... boss? What's this job you said we'd do together? We're not just going to live off selling loot, are we?"
Jackie set the terminal down and asked carefully, reading my face.
Time to get to the point.
"Before I answer, bring me something. It should be around here."
"Huh? Wh-what kind of something...?"
"I need a comms terminal to reach you. You know a smartphone? Has a screen. You press it with your hands."
Jackie blinked, blank.
"A smartphone...? Who even uses junk like that anymore? People use neurochips..."
"I don't have a neurochip. Save the noise and find one."
"Ah, r-right? Boss has... particular tastes..."
Jackie dug through a junk box in the corner of the counter.
This was why I'd chosen him as a partner first.
A pawn shop run since his uncle's time, if I remember right.
In the original game, too, Lopez Pawn was where every kind of junk washed in. And among the things that drifted through this place, there were smartphones.
Normally I'd have no reason to touch one...
In the Nowak City of the 2080s, a smartphone ranked even lower than a feature phone from the early twenty-first century. A scrap toy nobody went looking for unless they were a slum kid or some crank of a retro fanatic. But this body rejected neurochips, and that scrap was the only substitute worth using. The fastest, easiest place to get one was this pawn shop.
"Found it!"
Jackie set a palm-sized rectangular terminal and a wireless earpiece on the table.
"A smartphone my uncle picked up ages ago! It even has encryption!"
A hairline crack ran along the corner of the screen, but it looked sound enough to work.
"I'll link it to a private line. Use this to talk to the pawn shop's main terminal. It won't even catch on a wiretap net!"
"It'll do."
The earpiece settled into my left ear like it belonged there. I plugged the smartphone into the charger.
"We split the work clean. I'll be the one outside, using my body and getting blood on me. You stay here and handle deals, intel, and supply."
Jackie nodded, watching my face. The fear was still there, but once I'd drawn a line with the split, he looked visibly relieved.
"Then... I just have to support you properly from the back, right?"
"Do the job right and I won't have a reason to touch you. More importantly, open the books. The ones who planted a backdoor in your computer and have been skimming the interest—where's their den?"
"What? Y-you're going to walk in there on your own feet?!"
Jackie recoiled, eyes perfectly round.
"Those guys! They're the Rusty Dogs! Vicious scavengers! There's more than twenty of them! The chrome's cheap, sure, but they've got a decent amount of it, and word is they've even mounted a turret in the hideout!"
A familiar name.
If the ones I'd faced first in the junkyard were strays off the outskirts, these were neighborhood thugs coiled up in the middle of the slums.
"Twenty? Perfect."
"What's perfect about it?! How are you going to break in there alone? That's their home base! Go in the front and you'll come out a honeycomb!"
Jackie flailed both hands. His face had gone ashen a long time ago.
"I never said I'd go in the front. Snap their necks one by one in the dark. That's enough."
"You think that's as easy as it sounds?! Ten lives wouldn't be enough!"
"Then what do you want? Spend the rest of your life as a slave to this pawn shop while those guys skim loan interest off you every month? Or burn every debt note tonight, crack their safe, and split it with me down the middle."
Jackie flinched, and his lips stirred.
"...If we crack the safe, how much comes out?"
"Fifty thousand credits. Minimum."
I jerked my chin at the cracked bulletproof glass and the rattling shutter.
"Enough to clear your debt and still leave a fat pile of free money. And... this shop's got more than one thing that needs fixing. Am I wrong?"
In the original, too, Jackie had cherished this rundown pawn shop his uncle left him like it was his own life. A kid who seethed because he couldn't even afford to replace one cracked pane—there wasn't a better hook. My guess landed.
"Fifty thousand credits... and fixing the shop too...? Let's see... with fifty thousand... I could replace the shutter, and..."
Jackie's eyes wavered. Blatant greed, pushing up through the fear.
"Leave the terminal on and stand by. When I'm done clearing the inside and I give the signal, you drive the truck over and sweep up every piece of hot goods. Understood?"
"Y-you really can pull this off, right...? If they come crashing in here, I'm finished...!"
He whined, but his hands were already tuning the terminal to the frequency. An honest kid, when money was on the table.
I went down to the basement storeroom and picked up the Mastiff shotgun Jackie had set aside. I hauled the pump back with a heavy clack, and a 4-gauge shell snapped into the chamber. Cold iron settled into my grip.
Camouflage. Nothing more.
The shotgun was only for the opening blow. I'd play the sloppy third-rate merc, lure them into dropping their guard, and then Devour them as I really was.
I pulled the hood of my zip-up low and walked out to the garage.
Jackie's teary voice came through the earpiece.
"Boss... this is really okay, right?"
"I said it's fine."
The shutter rumbled.
Anxious as he was, Jackie opened for business. The rusted steel shutter rose, and I stepped outside.
The acrid smell of La Frontera hit me full in the face.
Watching the sun come up, I settled it. Start by eating the easy thugs.
Tonight, the second hunt.