My guide never told me her name. But she did, after cursing a little, confirm that she could find someone to sell me netrunner shards. Then she proceeded to complain about how she’d normally be owed a percentage of whatever credits I settled on with the seller, as commission.

  I ignored all the subtle looks she gave me through this rant. It wasn’t my fault Catill had used whatever favor she owed him to maneuver her into helping me. I didn’t have the credits to waste on paying a guide.

  I could, however, admit in the privacy of my mind that I would’ve had a jolly old time trying to find the market without her.

  The address Catill gave me ended up being for a megabuilding, and one that stretched a decent bit higher into the sky than most others in the middle districts. Seeing as those structures were towns in their own right, with an entire ecosystem of gangs, markets, and shops hidden inside their walls, a simple address was supremely lacking. I could’ve loitered in the stupid building for days without ever coming across the market I was looking for.

  Then there was the fact that my oh-so-friendly guide didn’t even enter that building. No, she led me around it to the back of the mega complex, where it abutted another building.

  Along the way, we passed several dangerous-looking people who were just standing around, drinking something nauseously green and trying to look casual. I tensed up, but no one so much as glanced in my direction. I had a strong feeling that the only reason they ignored me was my guide.

  This was confirmed when she walked right up to a door in the other building and knocked on it with all the force of someone who had every right to be there.

  There was grumbling and cursing from the inside, loud enough to reach us. Then a small grate protected by some kind of metallic mesh opened up to reveal the squinting eyes of a man.

  “Whatcha want? Show your invite or piss off, you — oh. It’s you again. Fucking hell do I hate seeing your ugly mug.” The man sneered at my guide as he pulled the door open. “Fine, go on in. Guessing this is your ‘date’ for the evening? Watch out, kid. She’s going to take ya to all the most expensive vendors. By the time she’s through with you, your mom and pops ain’t gonna have a credit left.”

  I nodded at him in respect, because what else was I supposed to do when he was actually warning a newcomer? Then I glanced at the woman Catill had sent. Her expression was bitter. In fact, she looked very tempted to lash out against the man, who was pretty obviously a ganger.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she just started leading me down the sloping hallway.

  The first thing I noted was the pitch-black wolf’s head painted all over the walls. It was the same symbol the guard featured prominently on his bare, tattooed shoulder. Now, I wasn’t up-to-date with my middle district gangs, but I could only assume these ‘wolves’ were a big deal, considering the fact that they could organize a black market in a heavily corpo-controlled area to begin with.

  I glanced from the wolf-decor to my guide. There wasn’t much to see. She kept herself mostly hidden beneath a long coat. Her faded brown hair was cut short. The bits of clothes and gear I could spot looked high-quality, but worn.

  So what kind of connection did she have to the ‘wolves’? And how did she even know Catill, let alone owe him enough to be forced into this errand?

  Then we finished our lengthy stroll downwards, and all thoughts of gangs and mysterious guides fled my mind at the sight in front of me.

  We were in an absolutely massive underground space that must have stretched the full length and width of the mega complex. Only the occasional pillar, meant to keep the setup stable, broke up the view.

  Stalls, stands, and even small kiosks filled the room, fighting for space. I could barely hear my own thoughts properly from the constant buzz of voices. The air was full of the noise of vendors hawking their wares, people arguing over prices, and the occasional scream as violence broke out.

  Everyone was remarkably unconcerned about that last category of events. With an effort, I kept myself from clutching at the pocket where I’d hidden my Kitten-issued gun.

  My guide’s voice hissed in my ear.

  “Stick close to me, and try not to stare at anyone too much. If they think you’re eying them up and decide to shank you, I’m not going to be saving your ass, got it?”

  I grimaced but nodded in a hurry, which just made the unpleasant woman scoff.

  “Good. Now, I have an idea of where you might get decent runner shards. Do you want to do the whole fucking tour, where I take you from one vendor to the next and compare prices before we finally visit my guy, or do you just want to cut the crap and trust me?”

  I gave that serious thought, but…

  “I guess I’ll trust you. Remember it’s not me you owe. It’s Catill. If he finds out you fucked me over, he’ll be the one you’re dealing with.”

  That seemed to be the right thing to say. She glowered at me, but there was something like a spark of respect there, too.

  “No need to be fucking hardass about this. We’re just doing business, and it doesn’t look like I’m getting my commission anyway. Now come on, and remember what I said about staring.”

  I tried to follow her instructions as I kept myself to her shadow, but it was genuinely difficult for several reasons.

  I’d never seen such a sheer variety of people. Just the number of alien species I spotted went well over all the encounters in my life thus far.

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  Then there was the variety of cyberware on display. Even the most badass-looking borgs I’d seen before, Garren notwithstanding, were sort of… scruffy. Their equipment was covered in dents and scratches. Some had mismatched arms, legs, or even eyes. A couple looked like they’d been welded to their cyberware instead of having it properly installed.

  None of those things were true in the middle district black market.

  This was the place where people with money went, for the most part. Pristine cyberware gleamed. Flawless equipment shone. Overall, it was an exciting show for a poor street rat who’d come into his meagre wealth by way of murder and looting.

  The final reason I couldn’t help but stare was the misery.

  For every ten excited sellers and their customers, I’d spot one person with dead eyes and even deader mannerisms. These people were hawking themselves, be it as an edgerunner, regular merc, or joytoy.

  And it wasn’t just individuals. I saw no fewer than four businesses showing off their latest ‘merchandise’, in the form of men and women who looked done with life and all it had to offer.

  Not slaves, of course. Never slaves. Our glorious city was too civilized for such depravity.

  Indentured debtors, though? That was much more the corpos’ style. Can’t pay your debts? Well, eventually, you don’t even own yourself anymore.

  That was how it worked with corpos, up on street level. Owe the same thing to a gang… I was now being treated to a front row seat of where you’d end up.

  I’d known it all along of course. Hard not to, living in the slums. The thing was, people like that just… vanished. You knew what had happened to them, but no one really discussed it much, so you didn’t have to come face-to-face with it.

  But here, in the actual market where they ended up? Well. It wasn’t quite so easy to hide from the truth anymore.

  After spotting the first few faces like this, I fixed my eyes on the neon signage and the excitedly hawking sellers. I wasn’t about to do anything stupid if I recognized one of the ‘merchandise’, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for days afterwards if I kept looking.

  Then and there, I affirmed my conviction never to end up in this kind of situation. I didn’t give a shit if I had to beg Garren and Mela for help.

  I wasn’t letting these assholes take me.

  “Almost there.”

  My guide’s gruff voice broke into my thoughts. I hurriedly checked if she was looking at me, then breathed a sigh of relief when I realized she wasn’t. She was glaring at the crowd straight ahead, ready to do something at the first sign of trouble.

  Good. I wasn’t sure what my expression had been. It was stupid of me to get lost in my thoughts like that, regardless.

  I couldn’t afford to show that kind of weakness down here.

  Eventually, when I was just getting the hang of drifting in apathy, we arrived at a banged-up kiosk pressed against a wall. It didn’t have many customers eying up the wares, but what I could see through the grimy windows and the neon displays made me blink in surprise.

  Even a cyberware ignoramus like myself could recognize the brands on offer, and all of them were shockingly high-end. High-end enough for me to wonder what the fuck we were doing there in the first place.

  I grabbed the back of my guide’s shirt before she could push her way inside the limited kiosk space.

  “You do know I can’t just throw tens of thousands of credits on this shit, right?” I snapped.

  “Relax, kid. I know that,” she snapped right back. “Jelly doesn’t just sell to the rich and powerful, okay? If he did, he wouldn’t be here. Just shut your fucking grease trap and let me do the talking.”

  Then my kindly guide finished stuffing herself into the kiosk. Its owner had left the side door wide open, probably because of the joint smoke rising from the inside and misting everything up.

  An unwise move on ‘Jelly’s’ part, apparently. When my guide swooshed through the smoke, dispersing it a little, I caught an ‘oh, shit’ look on the man’s face.

  “Jelly, my guy! Been a while! Remember the last time we spoke?” my guide crowed cheerily, though I noticed that her posture and underlying tone of voice did not match up to the friendly emotions she was trying to project. The few customers gathered around the kiosk scrambled away, clearing out in record time.

  “O-Oh, it’s you.” The man was sweating. That much was obvious, even from where I stood. “Heya pal, my friend, my amigo, how can I help you on this fine day?”

  “Help me? Whatcha offer that for? I mean, for the nice deal you cut me last time, I should be offering to help you. You want me to do that, huh? Want me to cut you in for something nice?”

  “No, no, really, it was my pleasure! All my pleasure, amigo, all mine!”

  Jelly squeaked when she slammed her hand down on the shelf next to his head, looming even closer.

  “Cut the shit, asshole. You know exactly what you did. That fucker tried to hunt me down because of the faulty cyberware you sold him. Me! No one would fucking trust me for months before I managed to patch that up. You’re fucking lucky I didn’t just gut you and take them your head as payment instead!”

  That was when I noticed the wickedly sharp knife pressed up against the guy’s ribs. His hands were shaking so badly, the ash from his joint was getting all over the place,. He might have shit himself as well. I couldn’t tell if the stench was coming from him or the general mass of unwashed bodies around us.

  “You fucked me over, Jelly-o. So, let me tell you what’s gonna happen right now.”

  She jabbed a finger in my direction.

  “My friend over there is looking for runner shards. You know, the premium shit. The ones that actually let you learn how to do all that net crap. So, you’re going to offer me up a selection, and then you’re going to name a fair price for them. And then you’re gonna give us a healthy discount, got it? Or I go exploring with my knife and see if I can find those fucking creds you owe me somewhere in your liver.”

  “O-Okay! Okay! Fuck!” Jelly squealed. “Stop pressing, stop pressing!”

  For a moment, I swear my guide looked tempted to just stab him and be done with it.

  Instead, she finally pulled away with a nod, but still lingered close enough to stick him in the throat if he tried something silly like screaming for help. Not that anyone would actually come running, anyway.

  Jelly’s hands were shaking too badly for him to manage his inventory properly at first. A few more threats actually did the trick of motivating him to hurry things up. Eventually, we had five sets of shards all laid out neatly on a small desk that folded out of the wall.

  “All of ’em are pretty good for beginners,” he said, peering at the two of us nervously. “The R0NN3XZ 350 is pretty reliable and generally recommended, while the SHAD03 line’s always popular, and…”

  The man ranted about the various shards for several minutes with no signs of stopping or even slowing down. I admit I might have lost the plot once or twice, but I still got the most important memos.

  Two of the series were corpo-approved and frequently used, but they didn’t even scratch the ‘basic’ level I’d be expected to hit before calling myself a runner. The other three were sort of like legacies, something a runner put together to train their personal apprentice. Those were way more advanced, but not quite as thorough. After all, the assumption was that the runner would be there to provide guidance themselves when needed.

  It was greedy of me, but my gut wanted to pick a shard set from both categories. That way, I had an actual chance to learn. Unfortunately, when I suggested that, Jelly quoted me a price of around seven thousand credits.

  I didn’t even have that much.

  Thankfully, what I did have was a very pissed-off guide who seemed set on properly paying off the favor she owed to Catill. With one eye on me and the other on the unfortunate vendor, she started putting on the pressure.

  I honestly couldn’t believe my luck when we left a few minutes later, only three and a half thousand credits lighter and with two shard sets in hand.

  It was official: I was never doubting Catill again.

  Ever.