It was a long and bad tempered walk to Jed’s Pawnbrokers. My leg was killing me and I was cussing myself out endlessly for snapping at Marilyn. She was only being nice, what right did I have to be horrible to her? She was probably the only person in the whole world you gave a damn about me and I’d basically told her to shove it.

  I didn’t have too much time to wallow in my misery, as pain drove out all other thoughts. Every step on my injured leg was grating. But I was so broke, I couldn't even afford a bus or a painkiller right now. When I finally arrived I felt a deep relief that I didn’t have to walk anymore, my argument with Marilyn pushed to the back burner for now.

  Jed was the local pawnbroker. I've had reason to deal with him several times in the past, usually when Grandad and I couldn't afford to put the heating on. Grandad would be forced to pawn another one of his medals, his old gold rings, or any other memorabilia that might be worth something. It was one of the main reasons why I didn't have much left of my Grandad in terms of possessions. Over the years, we'd pawned off most of it so Grandad could keep the flat warm and keep food in my stomach. Every time I had a growth spurt, it meant new clothes, new shoes, and new school uniforms. Grandad's pension rarely ever reached the third week of the month, let alone could stretch to luxuries like clothes that fit.

  I pushed open the door and limped in. I always liked Jed's place as a kid; it was full of fascinating and strange things. Jed was one of those old weirdos who had a lot of military memorabilia, and he'd sell pretty much anything to anyone as long as they could pay for it without asking too many questions.

  Jed was sitting behind the plate glass window at the back of the shop. He was an old, fat, sweaty man with a nose that seemed to get wider and redder year after year, and it had even begun to develop some unsightly warts. He needed glasses but always refused to wear them, so he had a heavy squint, a balding head, and sallow cheeks that hung lower than his chin. He looked up as the door jingled, and at first, his eyes narrowed, seeing a young man with a hood on entering his shop. That was a sight no shopkeeper ever wanted to see, but when I pulled back the hood and he saw it was me, he brightened up.

  "Is that little Alex?" he said, squinting.

  "Hi Jed," I replied. "Yeah, it's me." I limped towards him, and his eyes widened as he saw the state of my face.

  "Damn it, boy, what's happened to you?" he asked.

  "Oh, I got mugged," I replied, shrugging my shoulders. It was a pretty normal occurrence on the estate, and Jed tutted sympathetically.

  "I'm telling you, these animals around here get worse every year. One day, I'm gonna pack it all in and take myself to Barbados and sit on a beach and sip margaritas ‘til I keel over. That's the dream," Jed said in his husky voice.

  It was the same thing I'd been hearing from him since I was a little kid. He had a poster of a faded beach in Barbados behind him and would often tell me and Grandad about how he was gonna retire there. Yet, he was still here. Nobody ever really left the estate.

  "How's your Grandad, boy?" he asked.

  I swallowed and shrugged.

  "Same old, same old," I replied.

  "Haven't seen him in a while. Is he doing alright?" Jed inquired.

  "Yeah, I've got a job," I said to Jed. "So, you know, we've been doing okay for money and stuff now."

  "You left school, have you?" Jed asked me, and I nodded.

  "Good. Bloody waste of time, school, if you ask me. A lad like you should be out there getting a whiff of the real world, earning money, and supporting your Grandad. Good lad.”

  I felt a sting of pain in the back of my throat and changed the subject quickly.

  "I've got some stuff I was hoping to get a price on," I said to him.

  "Well, you've come to the right place, lad. What have you got for me today?" Jed replied.

  Creakily, I unslung my backpack, dropped it onto the floor under the counter so Jed couldn't see, and pulled out the plastic bag full of money. I then grabbed the smaller bag of gold trinkets and plopped it down on the desk, quickly putting away the money and zipping up my bag again.

  Jed eyed the bag curiously and then looked at me. "Where'd you get all that from?" he asked.

  I just looked at him thin-lipped, and he nodded his head in understanding.

  "Is it all gold?" he asked, and I shrugged.

  Jed sighed and opened up the carrier bag, peering into it and then running his tongue around his teeth.

  "It's gonna take me a minute. I need to check what it is and weigh it up for you. Of course, it's all made-up jewelry, so that's gonna affect the price."

  I just nodded. I'd been here enough to know that Jed was gonna screw me over, but not so much that I wouldn't come back. Jed nodded, took the bag, and hopped off his stool, waddling away behind the counter to weigh and appraise my goods.

  While he was gone, I limped around the shop, looking around. As a kid, I was always fascinated by the place, but now that I was older, it all seemed like musty, smelly crap. Old toasters, battered microwaves, dirty blenders, and a few more modern electronics, but even those were older versions and outdated. Audio chips, visorless glasses, augmented reality helmets, but none of that interested me.

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  I kept limping through the shop until I got to the military section, and suddenly I felt like a kid in a toy factory. There were combat boots, trousers, night vision goggles, but what really caught my eye were the armored vests. I limped over to them, picked them up, and undid the velcro, pulling out a heavy plate that was roughly the size of two of the Tank Beetle’s carapace plates.

  "This could work," I thought to myself.

  I hadn't thought of an armored vest with plate carriers. This would be perfect, and it would probably offer more protection than taping the damn things to my torso. I found a particularly good plate carrier that seemed incredibly impractical in an actual gunfight, but for my needs, with the thin rectangular scarab plates, it'd be perfect. It wrapped all the way around the chest and torso and had plate pouches the whole way round. It was abominably heavy with all that armor in it, but the scarab plates barely weighed anything. I tried the vest on and liked the feel of it. It was bulky, but in a way that made me feel protected rather than slow or clumsy, and it had a strap on it to tighten it around my waist so it fit nice and snug.

  I pulled it off and folded it over and then saw a leather jacket. It was a cool leather jacket. It wasn't quite a duster; it was more of a military-style coat that came to around mid-thigh. It felt like it was actually made of real leather, not that cheap plastic crap I was used to. I tried it on, and it fit well. Perhaps it was a shade long and a shade bulky in the shoulders, but that was fine, especially if I was gonna wear it over the top of the plate carrier. I liked how it felt, and even better, I liked how it looked. I grinned stupidly at myself, thinking how cliched it was for a vigilante to have a cool leather jacket, but I could definitely understand why they did.

  Next to the duster was an array of masks that varied from wildly impractical to tactical. I perused them casually. The old scarf I had been tying around my face was becoming more impractical every day. It kept slipping and made breathing difficult, plus it only covered half of my face which always made me concerned that one day someone would spot me from my forehead. As I looked through the collection, I saw a three pack of black balaclavas that were meant for skiing. They were made of a soft fabric that looked quite breathable. I tested them out and liked the feel, so I grabbed all three.

  As I turned, something else caught my attention. Under a glass display cabinet was a collection of weapons, mainly knives, but there in one corner was a slingshot. This wasn’t a little Y shaped tree branch with a rubber band around it either. This looked military grade, as stupid as that sounds. It was made of carbon fibre and had a wrist mount that offered support for greater accuracy. The band was made of a rubber tube rather than a strap of rubber. Instantly, I saw an image of me loading Bang Rocks into it and shooting down goons from the rooftops. I grinned and limped back to the counter where Jed had just finished appraising my goods.

  "I'll give you ￡500 for the lot," Jed said to me.

  "￡500? Is that it, Jed?" I said.

  "It's the best I can do, lad," Jed replied. “Not all of it was gold; some of it was alloy. You know how the market is right now, the price of gold is up and down.” Jed went on, giving me the usual spiel, trying to lessen the blow of how bad he was screwing me. So I cut him off because I'd heard it all before.

  "What about store credit?" I said.

  "What?" Jed replied.

  "Could you give me a better price if I was spending some of the money here?" Jed looked at me curiously and then shrugged.

  "I could do ￡600," he said.

  "￡700," I replied.

  "Now don't take the piss, Alex," he said to me, raising a thick finger. "￡650 because I like you and your Grandad.”

  "Deal," I said, and then I plonked down the plate carrier, the leather jacket, and the pack of balaclavas on the counter. "I want these and the slingshot in the cabinet."

  Jed looked at the items and then back at me, scratching the side of his chin.

  "Do I wanna know why?”

  "Do you?" I asked him.

  "Your business is your business, lad. It'll be ￡300.”

  "Oh, come off it, Jed," I said.

  "Fine, ￡250, and you're really twisting me here, Alex. You're gonna drive me out of business at this rate.”

  "Fine, ￡250," I agreed.

  Jed went and grabbed the slingshot for me and packed it into a bag with the jacket and plate carrier.

  “You want the ammo?” he asked.

  “Ammo?’ I said.

  “For the wrist rocket,” Jed replied. “You want steel or clay?”

  “Umm…” I thought about the morality of shooting steel balls at unsuspecting humans and blanched. “Clay will be fine… the biggest that you’ve got.”

  Jed threw a bag of clay balls into the bag that were roughly the size of marbles and then paid me out ￡400 credits into my WristPod.

  "Have you heard what's been going on out here?" Jed said as the money loaded into my account.

  "What's that?" I replied.

  "There is a vigilante on the estate," he said quietly, as if he didn't want to be overheard in the empty shop.

  "Vigilante?" I replied.

  "Oh, come on, Alex," Jed said. "There’s some mad lad who's been running around kicking the shit out of all these yahoos and hoodlums around here."

  "Oh yeah, right. I might have heard something," I said to him.

  "Word is, he's got magic powers."

  "What?" I replied.

  "He's got magical powers. They say that he appears out of thin air, like teleportation." Jed waggled his eyebrows at me. "And they say he can render you unconscious with just a touch of his hands and that he's some sort of half-demon, half-human hybrid."

  "Really," I replied, trying not to burst out into nervous giggling.

  "Yeah, I mean, I think it's all bullshit, really," Jed replied. "Probably just some other thug trying to muscle in on their territory, but everyone's talking about it.”

  "Yeah, it's probably that," I said, picking up the bag.

  "But still, if someone was running around taking the law into their own hands, I'd salute that person," Jed said. "About time someone did something about all this nonsense, and if I was a few years younger, I'd be right there with him kicking the shit out of these wannabe tough guys. Back in my day, we had real hard nuts."

  "Sorry, Jed, I've got to grab the bus," I said to him quickly, knowing I was about to get a 20-minute rant about how things used to be.

  "Alright, Alex, you pop by anytime and say hello to your Grandad for me.”

  "Okay, thanks, I will do. Bye.”

  I quickly left the shop and squinted in the weak afternoon daylight. Half-human, half-demon. I shook my head and chuckled to myself. I limped back home just as the sun was setting, my tongue flicking across my split lip.

  It was time to get back to work.