7. Partners

7 – Partners

//2 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 5.//

The kid stopped breathing as his chest contracted, forcing all the air out of his lungs. The color drained from his face, and his eyes went cloudy. Then, like someone tripped a breaker, he gasped for breath, eyes watering. “Wha-what—” he tried to ask, only for his words to falter as he squeezed his eyes shut and cradled his head in his hands. Hector had seen it a hundred times; an aura drain when you didn’t have much to give could deliver a hell of an instant hangover.

He walked over to the wiry guy, who was conscious but barely; his lungs weren’t working so well, and he was hyperventilating in a panic. Hector pushed him onto his back, and he cried out, drawing a shuddering breath that made his shattered ribs grind wetly under his skin. “I w-wish I knew…” he gasped.

The words tickled Hector’s curiosity. “What?”

“R-red. My dad s-said—” He coughed, choking off the word. Hector almost gave up on hearing the rest, but then the guy’s blue-tattooed lips moved and he croaked out, “—said never fight a red.”

Hector inclined his head, nodding almost imperceptibly. “A hard lesson.”

He triggered his system and felt the aura potentia rush out of the man into his hand, tingling into the pathways of his new skin. The meaning of the thug’s words rattled around in Hector’s mind; he’d heard variations a thousand times, seen the stares, heard the whispers. Red auras weren’t common, but everyone in the business knew that when you ran up against a team with a red, you had to take ’em out. Reds were fearless—no hesitation, no backing down—certified terriers. They were finishers with killer instincts, and their aura systems evolved in violent, dangerous ways.

So they say.

//7 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 12.//

He inhaled shakily, sucking his teeth at the rush. Up the block, someone coughed, and he saw the flare of a chem-stick. He knelt there, letting the potentia settle into his body, then he stood, stretched his neck, and walked over to the last thug, the one he’d pistol-whipped.

The big man’s barrel of a chest was moving up and down, but a fist-sized purple lump stood out over his right ear. Hector was pretty sure he’d need some time in a trauma center, or he’d never wake up. The price of drawing iron in a fistfight. He knelt and put his hand on the shuddering chest, pressing into the rough fabric of the overalls. A moment’s pause, and then he triggered his aura system.

//4 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 16.//

Hector grinned savagely. Damn nice scrape for a guy with no system.

He ran his eyes over his attackers and decided they were more dead than alive—faces ashen, eyes bloodshot and colorless, bodies trembling. But they were breathing, and that was a mercy as far as Hector was concerned. He took a step but then paused, examining the men’s fingers. Sure enough, they all wore rings with digital interfaces. He tugged them off, stuffed them in his pocket, and continued on his way.

The encounter had been brief—the fight a handful of seconds. Nobody seemed to have noticed, but Hector knew he might have missed a witness or three. People didn’t tend to stick around to announce they’d watched some thugs killing each other in the pre-dawn hours. He looked up. Drone lights flickered, but they were distant and seemingly unconcerned. What had Grando said about the peacekeepers in this district? Real bastards.

Hector had a feeling there wouldn’t be much of an investigation into three thugs taking a beating. He’d been worried about the gunshots at first, but the more he listened, the more similar sounds he heard echoing off the plasteel towers of the city. It didn’t seem that crime management in Helio was very high on the City Governor’s agenda.

“City Governor.” He grunted, scratching the itch of a memory from another life. Drake Conti danced past his mind’s eye, bragging about being given the honor of appointing a governor at Ceres—the result of his work on an Imperial committee. Hector pushed the memory away.

An alcove in the side of a building, lined wall-to-wall with brightly painted vending machines, caught his eye. An idea occurred to him, and he stepped up to one of them and ordered a hot coffee. When the price flashed on the screen—1.21 bits—he tapped one of the rings against the sensor. A red LED flashed, and nothing happened.

Locked, no doubt.

He tried another, and the machine played a tune—cha-ching—as a raccoon-tailed girl danced across the screen with a thumbs up. The bulbous, silver machine hummed and hissed, and as it worked to deliver his order, Hector tossed the ring in the air and caught it, holding it up to inspect. A red-eyed black skull met his gaze.

The machine spat his coffee into a plastifoam cup, so he picked up his drink and stepped back to peruse the rest of the auto-vendors. A bright red and green one caught his eye with its holo display of a nuke going off, followed by the product name: Atomic Foodz Bar. Hector smirked and tapped the third bit-locker on its sensor—red LEDs. With a shrug, he paid with the skull ring. Then, Foodz bar in one hand, coffee in the other, he continued on his way to Lemon’s.

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He took his time, pausing to watch the trains pass under a bridge. The district was waking up; a few pedestrians passed by behind him while he stood there, and he could see lights turning on up and down the avenue. For just a minute, as he stood there in his new body, in that magical hour before the sun comes up and things get busy, he believed he really was a young kid—future wide open and unknown. Then he remembered he was Hector Finalis. He remembered what he had to do, and his eyes got hard as he turned away from the trains.

When he reached Lemon’s building, the street-level door wouldn’t open for him; she hadn’t set up his biometrics yet. After scowling in irritation at the sensors for a moment, Hector stepped up to the panel and tapped 33 on the menu—Lemon’s apartment. A chime sounded, then another, and then the screen resolved into an image of Lemon.

“Hector?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh…the door. Listen for the beep.” She reached for something, then the door made a chirp sound, and Hector went through. He made his way up the stairs to her place, and before he could knock, she pulled open the door.

He slipped past her into the cool, filtered air. “Thanks.”

“Do you do this all the time? I’m missing hours of sleep here.”

Hector looked at the clock on the wall: 0812. “I won’t be here long.”

“I wasn’t saying that…” The corners of her mouth tilted down, and her lips pressed together. She sighed and walked over to the kitchen. “We’ll get you coded in before we leave. Then I won’t have to wake up to let you in or whatever. Besides, maybe I can get Grando to change my shift—if you’re going to be going in earlier, I mean.”

Hector nodded, sitting down. He watched as she made herself a cup of tea. He didn’t want to talk, but something told him it was the right thing to do. “You don’t have to bend over backward.”

She looked up from the tea she was mixing. “Hmm? What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I really won’t be around here long. I’ll try to make you some money before I go, though.”

She smiled with one corner of her mouth, stirring something that looked like honey into her cup. “You’re sweet. I…I mean, I won’t lie, those extra bits are much appreciated.” She nodded her head toward the door. “You met my landlord.”

Hector snorted, then he remembered the bit-lockers and pulled them out of his pouch. “Forgot about these. One of them is unlocked, the other two—”

“Where did you get those?” She set her cup down and hurried over.

“Some bangers.”

“Bangers?”

“Yeah—street-gang type.” Hector shrugged.