The empty trailer bounced erratically behind the speeding semi. The side of the trailer swiped an old light pole, breaking it off at the base and sending it careening into the distance.

  Trace spun the steering wheel and got the large vehicle going straight after almost losing control of it a few more times. Speeding up, he was soon headed back to New Denver, with Sabine and her truck only a short distance behind him.

  Overhead, dozens of large aircraft screamed through the air toward the site they had just left.

  For the purposes of immediacy, the corporations involved with the operation were sending in their first wave of agents through the air. More would be sent along with all the supplies as they were shipped out over the road route. This was one of the rare times that the corpos would also take the time to fix the road outside of their city, though only on the needed streets.

  When Sabine, or rather Sabrina, now that the job was officially over, had said she would follow him back to the city, she meant it. They entered the city and carefully wound their way through the streets all the way back to the warehouse. She parked just inside the doors and hopped out, taking a moment to stretch.

  “I thought you were going to lose control of it there for a moment in the beginning.”

  Trace placed his hand on the dent he had created in the side of the trailer and shook his head. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I was perfectly in control the entire time.”

  “Uh, huh, sure?” She agreed doubtfully.

  “So, anyway, tell me what happened down in the pit and tunnels last night?” Trace asked as he began unloading his gear from the semi. The railgun drew an interested glance from her. “I have some food and drinks inside if you want?” He placed a few things on the table outside and brought the guns that hadn’t gone down into the pit with him inside. Namely, the scout rifle, and the railgun. Both needed to be cleaned and gone over.

  She followed him inside, grabbed a cold drink and a burrito from the offered fridge, and began her tale.

  “Everything began on the wrong foot, for me at least. Apparently, there was a group of gonks down there still without the good sense to get out of my way as I was coming down.” She rolled her eyes and drained half the soda in one go. “I almost squished two of them. Thankfully, both decided to find their brains at the last second and roll away. Unfortunately, one of them decided it was a good idea to try and reach back for his gear.”

  She chuckled darkly. “Like I said, a pair of gonks. That one in particular is going to be needing a new arm from the elbow down. It was turned to paste beneath the boot of my mobile fortress, and the other one decided it was a good idea to fire on me. I tend to react badly to that sort of thing. I’m pretty sure he was still alive, but simply swinging my arm tends to break a lot of things.”

  Trace could imagine. Her mech was intimidating and large. Just standing near it the night before, he had been able to feel the power it contained. Looking through the unprotected sections, he had been able to spot high-quality and dense synth muscle. Old-fashioned hydraulics like in Deckard’s day had nothing on the performance that those things could deliver.

  “Anyway, after that, somewhat awkward beginning, I mostly stayed in place. The mobile fortress wouldn’t fit inside any of the tunnels. All I could do was listen to the others as they had their fun and catch the occasional stray that appeared. Jaco went absolutely wild, and I actually think he is still down there. I’m pretty sure he ignored the order to evacuate and simply headed deeper inside the tunnel he chose.”

  She took a brief break from talking to gobble down the burrito and then continued. “There was some excitement when those creatures broke through the tunnel that had been collapsed. They dug right through and into my waiting weapons. I went through so much ammunition, taking that horde out. In the end, those that were left retreated though.” She shrugged heavily. “There were some losses, of course. Thankfully, we were able to retrieve their bodies, along with those edgers that had been set to the side of the pit.”

  “That’s good. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for that, or if there even was one, when I placed them there.” Trace leaned back in his chair, dirt falling to the floor of his apartment. “Do you think Jaco was right? That those things were past experiments of the corporations?”

  Sabrina drained the rest of the soda and began playing with the can as she thought about how to answer the deceptively deep question. “Don’t be mad at him, but Monroe told me you grew up on the streets. Is that right?”

  Trace carefully nodded. “He seems to have told you a lot about me. That’s not generally what one does when it comes to their team partner.”

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  She grimaced and ran a hand through her hair. “Yeahhh, most of what he told me was before the two of you decided to team up together.”

  “Most, but not all?”

  Sabrina held her thumb and a finger a millimeter apart. “Just a small amount of info afterward.”

  “Fine, whatever.” He replied with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll beat him up later or something. What were you going to ask me?”

  “What do you know about the underfloors?”

  Trace stilled what he was doing, setting the cleaning instruments on the table as he turned to fully face her. “Do you know how many times that subject has come up over the last day now?” He asked softly. “I’ve gone years without hearing so much as a word about that place even being muttered, and now it’s popping up everywhere, even in random conversations.”

  “Well, I can’t say anything about that, but my broker seems to think that the site we were at is connected to them.”

  “And who is your job broker?” He didn’t know all of the regular job brokers in the city. However, there were far fewer high-tier, or specialist-tier job brokers.

  In fact, there were exactly two per specialty. For wraiths, one of them was Stick-Point. The other was a woman called ShadowFiend. He had never met her, but Stick-Point assured him that while she was an absolute pain to work with, the woman was as much of a suit as someone in their business could be. She did everything by the numbers.

  “Tallix,” She replied with a grin.

  “Yeah, she would know.” Tallix was the female half of the specialist tier job brokers for mobile fortress specialists.

  He had met her in passing once, years before, shortly after he had started working for Stick-Point.

  The woman was scary.

  She had grown up on the streets the same as him. Except, she hadn’t escaped the various corporations' experiments. Her body had once been a mass of scarred and twisted, deformed flesh. Now, Tallix was one of the most auged-out people he had ever seen. All four limbs had been replaced, along with her spine, several internal organs, and her eyes. She kept her normal skin where she could, wanting the scars as a reminder, though she did eventually cover the cyberware in synth skin.

  She was exactly the type of person that you would expect to go cyberpsycho, and yet, according to her, she had never even felt the slightest urge. So much damage had been done to her body by the experiments that replacing everything piece by piece was a relief. It felt as if she was finally coming home. This was her true body, not the other way around.

  Back then, he had been coming inside the building, looking over his shoulder, checking every shadow fearfully even as he clung to them. Tallix had stopped him with a firm hand on his chest, looked him up and down, and then shook her head.

  “He is not reaper or mobile fortress material, not in his current state. You can forget about system ghost as well. The others would never allow you to do what you want like that. That leaves blitzers and wraiths.” The woman had stepped back and slowly shook her scarred, shaven head. “No, I think wraith is the one for him.”

  After that, she had walked out, and he had never seen her again. The brief meeting had been important enough to shape his life and goals afterward. Stick-Point had valued her opinion and strongly counseled him to do so as well. That was part of what had set Trace on the path to becoming a wraith. Though he had been set on becoming one even before that meeting, he just hadn’t told anyone yet.

  With a sigh, he repeated everything he had told Monroe the day before. “I’m sure she already knows all of what I know. I avoided the corpo experiment recruiters with all my might. I’d rather die on the street, cold and starving than subject myself to what they were doing.” Trace said hotly, his fists clenched, as unbidden and unwelcome memories resurfaced. He hadn’t always been successful at avoiding the corpos when he was younger.

  He took a deep shuddering breath and cracked his neck, forcefully calming himself. “As I said, I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the underfloors. Sure, they exist, but they were never used.”

  Sabrina raised a brow and popped the lid on another soda. “Are you sure about that? Tallix seems to think otherwise?”

  A message came in from Deckard right then who had obviously been listening in. ‘It seems to me that this Tallix lady believes that the corporations have released their experiments into the underfloors.’

  Trace shook his head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would the corporations release their old experiments down there? It was supposed to be a bomb shelter for the entire city, not a site for them to hide away what they have done.” He hesitated before continuing. “Though that does sound exactly like something they would do.”

  “You would have to ask Tallix for her actual thought process on the matter. All I know is that when I was talking to her earlier, that’s what she told me.”

  “Is that why they never used the bomb shelter back then?” Trace asked softly in confusion, before shaking his head in annoyance. These weren’t questions that anyone there could answer. Even for Tallix, they were simply nothing more than partially educated guesses.

  Sabrina stood and walked to the door. “Thanks for the drinks and food, and for answering my questions. Let me know if you need any help working on any technology or hardware.” She winked and walked on out, eager to get to her own place.

  Trace shut the warehouse doors behind her and finally stripped down to clean himself off in the sani-spray shower. Now that he owned the warehouse, he was going to have to start paying for that connection, as well as the connection to the city water. In a pinch, the city water was potable, as it was filtered to remove the worst of the crap. It just didn’t do anything for the smell, taste, or the scum that would clog up your throat on the way down.

  He did have a bunch of filters now though; it might be interesting to see what using them all in one large series would accomplish. That was for later. Right now, he had other things to do. Like sending off a bunch of messages, and then trying to pound out a certain dent in the side of the trailer.

  After that, he needed to sharpen his vibro-blade and do some work on the new leather holster for his revolver. Once all of that was done, he was going to start power washing the basement walls and ceiling. Yup, there was plenty to do until Monroe got better, or another job came in again. Whichever happened first.

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