A Night’s Work – Chapter 2

Aysha studied herself in the mirror, mostly checking to see how her bruises and scrapes were healing. She was topless, standing in front of the bathroom sink in her one-room apartment in just a set of plain black panties. The dark patches of purple across her elbow and left arm were still visible over her tawny skin. She lifted her arm and checked on the stitches over the left side of her ribcage, where the bullet had grazed. The wound seemed to have closed but Doc had told her to keep them on for another couple of days to be sure it wouldn’t reopen. The metallic staple-like stitches were uncomfortable, and she frankly couldn’t wait to be rid of them, but she had learned her lesson from the last time she didn’t follow her physician's recommendations regarding a bullet wound. She wasn’t keen on repeating the experience.

She took the grey tank top resting over the sink and tossed it over her head, tugging it down before she walked out of the bathroom area and towards her kitchen, if one could call it that. More a minifridge with a microwave on top, and a small electric plate for heating that she couldn’t remember the last time she actually used. She felt a familiar light buzz and tapped the implant on the left side of her head. Within her field of view, she spotted an emoticon with grunge lines crisscrossing the eyes.

“Cryo,” she greeted.

“Aysha,” the familiar, jovial voice chirped on the other side. “How’s everything?”

In the background, she could hear the muffled bass of music. Cryo wasn’t calling her from home, but that wasn’t surprising. Who wanted to be home on a Saturday? Only those that couldn’t afford an outing.

“Shit,” Aysha responded as she pulled a can of algae beer from her fridge. “My credits zeroed out two days ago and Gum has been holding out on me for jobs.”

“That’s effed up,” the girl on the other side spoke. “ ‘member you told me to hit you up if I spotted Synchro?”

“ ‘Course. Fucker stole my bounty.”

“Well, that’s not how he’s telling it.”

“That’s ‘cause he is full of shit,” she replied, before taking a swig. “He’s there?”

“Yeah.”

“Loophole.”

“Where else?”

“Great. I’m on my way.”

There was a moment of silence on the other side.

“What?” Aysha asked with mild annoyance. She couldn’t see Cryo’s face but she could picture her expression of concern perfectly clearly in her mind.

“Just... Don’t come up too hotheaded, yeah?”

“I’ll try my best,” she said, not entirely honest. “Cya soon.”

“A’ight. Ta-ta.”

And the image in the corner of her vision disappeared. Synchro had been laying low for the last three days since the Montego incident. Aysha had been itching to put her hands on him and she knew he couldn’t stay out of the circuit for long. She grabbed the first jacket she could reach in the closet, pushed her legs into some low-waist pants, donned her combat boots and headed out of the door. She would much rather take a self-driving cab to the Loophole, so she could drink, but cash was short. Her bike still had a little bit of charge though, hopefully enough to get there and back. And who knew, maybe she could make it a business trip and grab a much-needed job while she was there. Gaia knew how much she could use the credits. Just getting enough to cover rent would be a huge weight off her back. As she stepped out of the door and into the main atrium of her hab-block, she pressed her finger on her data bracer, locking the door behind her, before heading towards the elevator to the garage.

The Loophole was one of the main hubs for all sorts of runners and mercenaries in the city. The club was located on the underground floors of a large hab-block. The place had once been a parking lot but perhaps the original builders overestimated how many of the hab-block inhabitants would have their own cars, or maybe as crime went up in the neighbourhood, people simply did not feel safe leaving their vehicles there, preferring more secure spots or not having a vehicle at all. Whatever the case was, the open area was divided and sold out to people interested in exploring it for other purposes. The founder of the Loophole had bought a large portion of two floors and separated them from the wider parking space with metallic walls. A large neon sign announced the club’s name with the two first O’s merged together to form the symbol of infinity, a clever visual pun but utterly empty of any meaning.

She parked her bike in one of the sections of the underground parking space left untouched, reserved for it. The Loophole's security kept a symbolic eye on their patrons' vehicles but the truth was, most petty criminals were too scared to mess with the Loophole's clientele. A great number of them were mercenaries, ex-mil veterans or career criminals, and many were more than capable of tracking down a car thief. Aysha approached the bouncer, a large man with two cybernetic arms, silver and polished into a mirror sheen, no hair, but a beard ending in twin braids. He stopped her briefly, bringing his bracer close to hers to scan her.

“Really, Gunnar?” Aysha sighed at the unnecessary formality.

“Rules,” was all the stoic man offered before stepping aside and letting her through the sliding doors.

One of the downsides of building a nightclub in a parking garage was the height of the ceiling, too low and prone to make patrons choke on the smoke of their own cigs. To deal with that, the Loophole spanned two stories, with the floor between them mostly removed, except for a small mezzanine left near the entrance. Once one got in, one found themselves on the second floor and there was a set of wide, industrial, grated staircases with bars lit with shifting colours leading down to the first floor. The ground in the club remained the same asphalt that had been used in the original garage, including markings painted on it to draw the lanes and parking spots, except for the dance floor, which was reinforced glass raised a few inches above it, with monitors placed underneath to draw patterns under the dancers' feet. A decommissioned city bus served as the bar, with one side cut open to form a counter while the rest was left covered in graffiti. A monument to the urban decay that marked the neighbourhood. Aysha walked towards it, feeling the beats of the loud music on her chest as she sat down.

“Aquabier, please,” Aysha muttered to one of the bartenders as she took a seat on one of the stools.

The white and green can of algae-based beer was pushed towards her. It was watery and bland, but it was cheap. On the counter beneath her, a small screen popped up, and she pressed a button on her bracer, agreeing to open a tab to be paid the second she crossed out of the Loophole’s door.

“You look like shit,” a familiar voice behind her said as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Cryo,” Aysha greeted without turning from the counter, her fingers now tracing circles around the top of the can.

The blonde girl took a seat beside Aysha. She was wearing a reinforced leather jacket, with nanoweave linings and visible plates of ballistic-resistant plastic on her shoulders, elbows and forearms. Cryo had a rosy-pale complexion, with light blonde hair often worn in a short undercut with asymmetrical bangs. She lifted her hand to get the bartender’s attention.

“Transfer her tab to me.”

Aysha shook her head in protest but that didn’t stop the man from pressing a few times on the massive counter that was, as a whole, a touchscreen panel and transferred the single Aquabier to the other runner’s tab.

“You don’t have to.”

“You told me you’re zeroed. ‘Sides, I basically invited you here.”

“You didn’t.”

“I told you Synchro’s here knowing you’d come.”

“I guess,” Aysha conceded. “Still...”

“...And I’m currently loaded.”

“You are?”

“Just did a job on Cornelia. Fifteen hundred, three hours, barely got shot at.”

“And my guy got me squat for days,” Aysha grunted before chugging down another sip.

“Things will turn up. I don’t mind giving you a hand until then... I know you’ll pay me back when I’m the one in the shit.”

“As if... I’m yet to see a psi-runner not having their pick of jobs.”

Cryo crinkled her nose and said nothing. Cryo always crammed up a bit when Aysha mentioned her abilities, and she never fully understood why but felt it'd be prying to ask. They were close, closer than Aysha was with most people, but she still felt they weren’t close enough to have that sort of talk. Nothing about their past, relationships or family. In the two years since they knew each other, conversations had remained strictly about the job, other runners, sports and, occasionally, who looked hot. If Cryo had any problem with the arm's length approach, she never voiced it. And that was part of why Cryo, of all the mercenaries she often ran into at the ‘Hole, was the one with which she found it easier to hang out.

Cryo asked for a glass of synth-whisky for herself and, as the broad glass was brought to her, she held it and closed her eyes. Aysha watched as the glass frosted up; first, condensation formed around the rim and then finally, it froze. Cryo opened her eyes and took a large sip, then grinned at her friend.

“Show off,” Aysha scoffed, playfully, shaking her head.

The other runner merely shrugged.

“If you want to find your boy, I think he’s at the gallery,” the psionic finally said, pointing towards the end of the club opposite the entrance.

The gallery was past the dancefloor and the bar, a series of more reserved booths separated by walls on three sides from the rest of the club. The music there was significantly quieter, allowing for some conversation, and fixers and clients often used those booths to conduct business. If Synchro was hanging out back there, he was probably hunting for a gig. She finished her beer, tapped Cryo on the shoulder and got up.

“A’ight, I'm going there,” Aysha spoke calmly but her friend still looked a little concerned, with the very same expression Aysha had imagined her having over the comm call earlier. “I’m not going to get into a fight.”

“Good. Don’t.” Her voice was dry and she gave a brief pause. “Fixers hate that shit.”

“They should hate fucking job vultures.”

“They do. But they hate hotheads more... He’s not worth burning your rep over.”

Aysha hated that she was right but she couldn’t admit to it. So, she only gave a dismissive wave with both hands and moved to walk around the dancefloor, noticing how it wasn’t particularly crowded that night. As she reached the doorless threshold into the gallery, she didn’t even need to check the booths in search of the guy who had swooped in and stolen her bounty. Synchro was standing right in the hallway, leaning into a wall with one arm and chatting up a girl that looked like one of the tourists that only popped into the Loophole in order to rub elbows with mercs.

Synchro was tall, and he was wearing the red jacket that had become part of his signature visual. It was a bit garish but of all the things she could find to dislike about him, his style wasn’t one of them. He pulled it off, and she knew the importance of standing out, visually, in their line of work. You want to make an impression, and for people to remember you and tell you apart across a sea of fresh faces also trying to make a living on the edge. Synchro had a fair complexion and dark hair, and although he had a handsome face, he leaned towards a more rugged look. His eyes seemed always tired and he always had a bit of stubble going on. His hair was shaggy, done in a wolf cut, and always seemed to have a strand annoyingly close to falling in front of his eyes. As he leaned on the wall with his right arm, he gestured with his left hand, the shiny black and gold prosthetic he was also known for. And the one he had used to flick her off after stealing her bounty. Aysha stomped towards him, touching the girl’s shoulder briefly and telling her:

“Go find your friends, dear. This one is not worth your time.”

Synchro didn’t look pleased in seeing her, standing from his lean. The girl looked at him for a moment, as if expecting him to stand up for her and tell Aysha off, and tell her to stay. But he knew better than that. He and Aysha had business to sort out, and it wouldn’t pay to discuss it in front of tourists. She scoffed and walked away.

“Nothing better to do than cockblock me all night, now, Aysha?” he said, annoyingly calm, but there was a hint of a frown forming on his expression.

“You've got some fucking nerve.” Her finger poked his chest a bit aggressively. “I should’ve shot you when you pulled that stunt.”

“What stunt?”

“What the fuck do you mean what stunt? Stealing the Montego bounty from under me after I went all in.”

“Bounty was open to anyone who delivered him...” Synchro shrugged.

“Yet, I extracted him and put him in the car I bought for the gig. That bounty was as good as mine and you fucking took it.”

“Yeah, I did.” He shrugged and shook his head, and when he looked at her again, she could see he was getting angry too, his tone of voice rising. “Kinda like you stole the Biochem job from me.”

“Fucking didn’t. That was my sweat and hard work.”

“Oh, please... You might have gone into the building but I’d been working their security for a month, leaving holes, cracking the system... You and your crew put in a couple of hours to actually do the heist with my intel.”

Aysha bit her lip. He wasn’t lying and she couldn’t even say she had not known she was acting on the intel he had collected. Synchro was recruiting a crew to steal the cargo from Biochem’s warehouse when one of his friends deserted and brought Synchro’s intel with them. And she knew that would come back to haunt her, eventually.

“Look, you didn’t have a crew to go in, I did. Would you rather nobody collected the credits for that?”

“Fuck. You at least owed me a share, you greedy bitch.”

“I owed you nothing. You botched Sokov's job!”

“Good grief! For how long are you going to insist on this shit? Sokov’s wasn’t my fault.”

“It was and I’ll say it until you die in a ditch!”

By then, their argument had evolved into a shouting match paired with energetic gesturing. Aysha was usually calm but something about Synchro just got under her skin. And she could tell Synchro had the same visceral reaction to her. Knowing all she knew now about their explosive chemistry, she wondered how they managed to work together half a dozen times when they first met. There had been arguments about how to conduct things back then but they never quite saw eye to eye. The attempted heist on Sokov’s villa was the last job they did together, and not successfully. Having survived the catastrophe, they both decided it was too close a call and to part ways, but never agreed on who was to blame for the fiasco. Since then, nobody got under her skin as he did. She was tempted to punch him, and she was sure he wasn’t the kind to hold back his own punches. Normally that wouldn’t dissuade her but Aysha knew getting into a fistfight in the Loophole wasn’t going to make it any easier for her to find work. And that had to be her main concern right now. In part thanks to him.

As she clenched her fists, she spotted Gum’s head peeking out of one of the booth divisions and waving at her. As much as she wanted to explain in clear detail how everything wrong with Sokov’s job could be ultimately traced to him, that was more important. She shook her head, presenting both palms in exasperated resignation towards him.

“Whatever, man,” she conceded. “I have more important things to deal with. But don’t fucking think I’m letting this go.”

“Oh, I’m terrified,” he barked back sarcastically, waving a hand in the air as if her words were something physical he could swat away.

And with that, she walked past him and into the booth where her usual fixer, Gum, awaited. Their nickname came from their bright pink hair, worn short and spiky. Gum sat with their legs over the table, an e-cig pressed between their lips painted bright pink with lipstick. They had a wide, sable satin choker covering most of their neck, and a short-cropped black jacket with a fluffy furred collar on. Underneath it, a fishnet high-cut bodysuit covered most of their flat chest before narrowing down across their stomach to disappear within the tight leather pants hanging dangerously low. Gum was never one to hide their slender body. They were sitting in the booth with both legs stretched forward, crossed at the ankles over the table as if deliberately displaying the expensive short-heeled boots. A single foot wiggled restlessly as she entered and took her seat across from them. Gum took a deep inhale of their e-cig and then spewed forth a cloud of pink smoke that smelled nauseatingly sweet before pulling the smoking device off their full lips.

“Aysha... How’s my tigress?”

“Starving,” she grunted, sitting with her legs spread wide and resting her elbows on them to lean towards Gum. “Things weren’t good before the Montego job, and I was counting on that. How comes you can’t find me shit to do?”

“Wow, wow... Cool your processor, kitty.” Gum pulled their legs off the table in the middle of the booth to slide closer to her. They moved in a languid, graceful and very deliberate manner, ending up sitting much closer to her, both knees folded and pulled up on the seat. “When did I ever leave you hanging?”

“Chronologically or just the most recent?” Aysha retorted.

Gum put their hands to their chest as if feigning being struck by the invisible arrow of her words with a theatrical gasp.

“You wound me, darling. You really do.” Gum pouted but even that they did provocatively. “And now you're gonna feel like a jerk because I...” They paused dramatically. “Got you something.”

“Something good?”

Gum reached to their data bracer, a small gaudy gold device attached to their left wrist, pressing on the side to produce a small memory card and handle it to Aysha with a cocky smirk.

“You tell me, boo.”

She grabbed the card with some suspicion and slotted it into her bracer. While the device's wireless capabilities were great, some particular sensitive information was always safer being transmitted physically. It was way harder to intercept that way. The memory card was encrypted and blocked from being copied. Standard stuff in her line of work. She scanned the description for details.

“You gotta be kidding me...” she grunted. “Three K for a night’s work?”

“Not just... It’s a milk run. Just a drive across town.” Gum nodded.

“This seems... Too good to be true.”

Gum pursed their lips, and their eyes, mismatched violet and green, looked up trying and failing to appear innocent. Aysha frowned. Of course, it was too good to be true.

“There’s a catch, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s a catch,” Gum said, with an impatient exhale. “This much money for this little work, there was always going to be a catch.”

“Out with it then.”

“You won’t be working alone.”

“That’s fine, I think Cryo might...”

“...No, no, dear. The client’s picking the crew. Not me, not you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what to tell you. They were very particular, asked about you by handle.”

“And... Who will I be working with, then?”

“No idea,” Gum offered an apologetic shrug and a smile that seemed to say, ‘we are both stuck with this’.

“That’s... Unusual, isn’t it?”

“Not common, no. But you have a certain reputation. Probably the client knows someone who recommended you personally. I don’t know.”

“This sounds off... I’m not sure about this, Gum.”

“Oh, I’m sorry... I didn’t realise you were in a position to pass on jobs,” Gum said in a perfect fake intonation of a sincere apology.

“It’s not that, it’s just...”

“Half up front.” Gum's hand landed on her knee, interrupting her.

“Half?”

“Half. Today, even. Can walk out of here with fifteen hundred creds, if you take it.”

Of course, there wasn’t even a question about whether or not she would do the job after taking the money. If any mercenary wanted to take payment up front and then disappear and not work the job, they could easily do so, but they would never find work in town again. Fixers were a close-knit community and if a client got cheated out of their money, often it would be up to the fixers to reimburse them as middlemen. Cross one fixer in town and every other fixer would hear about it before you could start spending your ill-gotten gains. And on a few instances, disappearing with a client’s money also happened to not be very good for one’s health.

“Fuck. You’re a temptress,” Aysha cursed, and she chuckled and extended her hand. “I’ll take it.”

“Of course you will.” Gum extended their own hand with lovely black painted nails and delicate long fingers, to shake hers. “Now get your ungrateful ass out of my booth, I have three more people to see tonight,” they cooed, lovingly.