Sword was mining an absolutely insane amount of data with every second. Terabytes and terabytes of it. The only thing limiting the flow of it was the RAM of my internal cyberdeck as it flowed into my external unit. That cyberdeck was designed to hold vast stores, however, so I wasn’t worried about running out of memory there.

  As I dug through both units, I quickly recovered the ‘Blackwall Gateway’ hack, designed to forcibly breach the firewall protecting the surface Net from the horrors that lay beneath. The objective of the hack was to open a target’s cyberware to those horrors momentarily, just enough for the rogue AIs to get curious and scramble the shit out of whatever poor gonk got hit with it. The inbuilt kill-switch would then banish those AI back to the shadow realm, hopefully sparing the rest of humanity from another datakrash.

  That ‘hopefully’ was pulling a fuck-ton of weight, though. Holy fucking hell, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why would anyone be so fucking stupid to make such a thing?

  As I scrolled through a terminal in cyberspace—an ICON of it, really—I read the other data that we had recovered. Lucy hovered over my shoulder to get a look, too.

  “That enough?” I asked.

  “No real-world locations yet,” Lucy sighed, “If we left now, we could make a pretty penny, but it wouldn’t sink the cartel. It certainly wouldn’t inspire the big dogs to move for us, either. We need bigger bones.”

  I grunted.

  “Why are dogs attracted to bones? I don’t understand this metaphor,” Nanny said.

  “Dogs eat bones,” I replied distractedly.

  “That is almost certainly false, unless dogs have a vastly atypical mammalian digestive system from humans.”

  “I don’t fucking know,” I replied. “Honestly, I don’t understand half the sayings or idioms that exist in English. Honestly, I think we just like making shit up.”

  “That’s strange, but not unexpected,” Nanny said.

  000

  The USS Stock Exchange floated through the void of space, searching for the next ‘adventure’.

  That meant ‘RP’ was on.

  Admiral Dirk strutted in front of the crew, hands clasped behind his back, as he looked through the expansive front window of this digital spaceship, wearing that infuriatingly smug grin that he always did.

  “Morning report, captain?” First Officer Hera dutifully recited as the gonk just stood there like an idiot.

  “What do you have for me?” the admiral said, putting on a bombastic voice as he admired the artificial starscape before him.

  Hera did a cursory scan through the feeds, feeling a rising headache come on as she began her report. Just the report. She wasn’t in the mood to play space opera with some overpaid asshole who got this gig from being the boss’ nephew. "Well, Admiral," she began, feigning enthusiasm, "for starters, it looks like Juarez caused a pretty severe issue with the LoadBalancerDaemon on our primary nodes. He misconfigured the dynamic resource allocator for the Docker swarm, so now the containers are rerouting traffic haphazardly between subdomains and throwing out 502s. Some of our microservices are getting throttled by an unholy recursion in the Node.js functions, so we're looking at cascading latency spikes across at least three clusters. We’ve got suboptimal CPU usage hitting the Kyber pods because the request/limit ratios weren’t properly set—again.”

  Admiral Dirk gave her a blank, vaguely concerned look, his usual cockiness faltering. "So... uh... what do we do about that?"

  "Funny you should ask, sir," Hera deadpanned, "because our scripts auto-failed the rollout. We'll need to reset each pod manually, patch the faulty containers, and pray to the God of Graceful Restarts. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg."

  She scrolled further down, her eye twitching as she spotted the next mess. “Oh, and don’t get me started on the neural net framework overload in the data aggregation pipeline. Our TensorFlow nodes overloaded during the last anomaly detection run because someone left the batch size maxed out. So, now the Stock Exchange’s entire predictive analytics suite is crashing hourly.”

  Admiral Dirk chuckled nervously, retreating a step. "Well, I'm sure you’ll figure it out, Hera. Good luck!"

  Then her eyes stopped at a single line in the report. She expanded the topic—

  “We’ve been infiltrated!” Hera cried. ‘Admiral Dirk’ immediately swung around, looking at her askance. She followed the signal directly to the offending document, and spotted them there. Two infiltrators. How the fuck they even got this far without raising alarms was a miracle on its own. That obviously meant that she wasn’t just dealing with the average rogue netrunner. No, this one was a professional. From overseas, maybe?

  “Wait, fuck, really?” Admiral Dirk responded.

  “Yes, fucking really!” she transmitted the file location of the offenders and quickly scribbled at her cyberdeck, pulling up a top-down map of the data fortress, and the players involved. Outside of the cluster of netrunners at the ‘bridge’ of the USS Stock Exchange were a pair of signals just loitering about, not making a move to advance further into the fortress.

  Why? They had made it this far already, on foot at that. Why stop at just some garden variety junk data—because that was all they were going to get, mining from all the way down there.

  Something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

  000

  The entire space of the sci-fi spacecraft immediately turned blood red as a loud klaxon alarm blared.

  “SHIT!” David banished the terminal instantly, and suddenly he wore some kind of eyewear, perhaps the terminal he had summoned to begin with. Nanny disappeared as well, probably retreating back into David’s head.

  “They know we’re here,” Lucy said. Between the alarms and his reaction, that much was obvious.

  “Options?” David asked, looking at her like she was truly the answer to everything. What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

  “We pull out—” David ignored her entirely, pulling out the sword from the floor and rushing up towards her, program raised for a strike. Lucy held her hands before her in a panic.

  David passed by her and Lucy could hear the awful sound of metal wrenching through metal, and sparks of electricity. She turned around to look at David standing in front of an android of some kind, made out of sleek white panels. David had cut it in half length-wise, and it was already dispersing into bits.

  That wasn’t all. There were ten more of them at the end of the hallway. And they all wielded guns.

  They fired as one. David swung his sword, intercepting all the bullets in a single moment before sprinting up ahead into the thick of it. Lucy hit the deck, head pressed to the ground to avoid the bullets as she watched David effortlessly dismantle each android, dodging their shots, making them shoot each other by mistake.

  In only a handful of seconds, David was the last man standing.

  How?

  She could clearly tell how powerful these Daemons were—their code was dense and decisive. Whoever had made them knew what they were doing. They weren’t the average skeleton knight, and still David had treated them like that.

  That would have taken her and Kiwi almost half an hour. Tens of millions of eurodollars hinged on the wellbeing of this datafortress, and David handled them almost entirely alone.

  Lucy refocused on David, eyeing him intently.

  He can’t be this good, can he?

  “Get up, Luna,” David bit out as he eyed the hallway, swinging his head around both sides. No other programs were arriving. Of course not. Why would more come after such an emphatic onslaught? He stabbed the Sword on the ground again, continuing the download.

  “How long is left?” Lucy asked.

  “As long as it takes,” David said. Helpful. Lucy went up to a wall and punched in some code. The wall slid away, revealing a terminal, which she started typing through. “What are you looking for?” David asked, right behind her. Lucy almost jumped out of her skin. He was sneaky.

  “Data on the Netrunners,” Lucy said. Her fingers were a whirl as she typed, pulling up information on the… USS Stock Exchange. Six Netrunners on staff.

  And… the facility was in lockdown mode. “Shit. Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “We’re locked inside,” Lucy said. “We need to hack the facility open, but even then, we’d need to keep it open long enough that they won’t lock it down again while we’re running.”

  “Not necessary,” David said, “I only need ten seconds to get us out of the facility. Just focus on getting it open—fuck!” David ran off, and Lucy looked over at him running up to his Sword program, pulling it out from the floor, and facing off against another fleet of gun-toting drones.

  Lucy punched her fist through the wall next to the terminal and then pulled. The wall followed, creating an impromptu partition between herself and the drones. She turned to face the other side of the hallway as well, expecting more incoming. Mercifully, there was nothing—yet. But she knew it was only a matter of time.

  Lucy’s fingers flew over the terminal keys as she executed a series of code injections, her mind racing with potential exploits to break through the lockdown. The fortress’s security was no joke; every line of code seemed meticulously woven with firewalls, redundancies, and protocol checks. Whoever designed it clearly anticipated trouble. She would have to be twice as fast to stay ahead.

  Meanwhile, David was locked in combat with the new swarm of drones. Each one was more advanced than the last, their aim more precise, their reactions quicker. Sparks flew as David deflected bullets with his sword, using the weapon as both shield and blade. He was a blur, moving faster than any human had a right to—every swipe, every twist of his body seemed impossibly calculated. He tore through the drones with brutal efficiency, but Lucy knew he couldn’t keep this up forever.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered, glancing at the progress bar for her bypass script.

  Lucy’s fingers hovered over the terminal, her gaze fixed on the Blackwall Gateway quickhack. She’d pulled it up almost by accident, the forbidden tool that would bridge their world with the horrors lurking in the shadows of the Net. Just a small breach, enough to send the rogue AIs pouring through to wreak havoc on the fortress. It would be madness, but it might buy them time.

  She clenched her jaw. No. Unleashing the Gateway would risk a Datakrash-level catastrophe. Whatever horrors lay beyond the Blackwall, once let loose, might not be contained. They’d be trading a short-term win for a disaster that could spiral out of control. She closed the hack window and shoved the thought aside. They’d have to handle this the hard way.

  “Finally!” David shouted, his voice cutting through the blaring alarms. He’d downed the last wave of drones in a brutal, unrelenting display of skill. Broken metal and sparking circuitry littered the hallway, the drones no match for his furious assault. “Lucy, how’s the lockdown looking?”

  “It’s looking,” she said, fingers already flying over the terminal to bypass the remaining security protocols. “I need a bit more time to get us a clear path out of here.”

  David nodded, standing guard beside her, his stance taut and focused. “Just say when.”

  The screen blinked with strings of code as Lucy scrambled to unlock the emergency exits. She could see them edging closer to freedom, each line of code bringing them closer. But as she finished the last command, a strange hiss echoed down the corridor.

  A new light flickered at the end of the hallway—footsteps in sync, moving toward them. They both turned to face the new threat, and Lucy’s heart sank. There, advancing in perfect formation, was the crew of the USS Stock Exchange. Armed, poised, and bearing down on them with practiced precision.

  It was over.

  000

  “Here’s the deal,” The apparent leader of this data-fortress’ netrunners said, grinning cockily, “I won’t kill you guys immediately if you tell me how you got this far.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I resolved myself to killing all six of the Netrunners, holding up my sword.

  The leader raised his wrist and looked at the time, and then suddenly—

  “Whatsthematterfeelingalittlesluggish?” the leader walked up to me with such speed that it shocked me. Why was he so fast—why was everyone so fast?

  I activated the Sandevistan on instinct.

  The feeling of using the Sandy while in cyberspace and under this… effect made me feel like I was ripping my brain in two. But I could handle it, at least enough for a single movement.

  I just swung my sword at the guy. His eyes widened in shock as he stepped back an inch, but not fast enough to lose his entire arm from his shoulder.

  One of the crewmates then shot me. Ropes of blue electricity tied up to metallic balls wrapped around me, and all I could do was scream. I fell over on my side, dropping my Sword. It slid into the ground and continued the download.

  “What in the fuck?!” the leader screamed. Then he looked down at me in hatred. “Fuck capture! Kill them!”

  “Nnnnooo!” Lucy screamed in slow motion, her voice warping, stretching out like a broken record as I lay there, bound and helpless. The restraints burned, each pulse of electricity sending white-hot pain through my nerves, locking my muscles into spasms.

  I saw her hands fly over her interface, her expression torn between panic and fury. And then—the walls around us began to shift, darkening, warping like oil spreading in water.

  An abyssal crack tore open in the hallway, stretching and twisting with a sound like grinding metal and breaking bones. From within, shadows slithered out, eyes and limbs and mouths that flickered in and out of existence, rogue AIs with bodies that didn’t make sense, that bent space around them as they poured into the fortress. I could feel them thinking, their monstrous awareness clawing at my mind, each thought a layer of raw curiosity so intense, so concentrated that it was indistinguishable from hunger. They would consume everything in their warped quest for knowledge.

  Lucy used the Blackwall Gateway.

  The Netrunners froze, their bravado gone in an instant. The leader’s face drained of all color as he staggered back, staring in horror at the things spilling from the void. “No—no! Shut it down!” he shouted, but it was too late. The creatures lunged for them, ripping through their defenses like paper. Screams filled the air, their bodies twisted and torn apart by tendrils and teeth, shredded to raw data in real-time.

  Lucy reached me, her face pale but fierce as she disabled my restraints. The second they released me, I forced myself upright, barely able to think through the pain. “Come on!” she yelled, her voice almost swallowed by the cacophony behind us. I grabbed the Sword and ran with her. We took off down the hallway, each step a battle to keep moving, to ignore the shadows flickering along the walls. “Pull the plug,” Lucy said, wide-eyed, before disappearing into pixels.

  I was just about to follow her back to meatspace when one of the AIs locked its gaze on me. It was human-like—almost—but its eyes were hollow, endless pits, and its face stretched unnaturally wide in a rictus grin. With a sudden lurch, it shot forward, its tendrils whipping out to wrap around my head like a vise.

  My vision flickered, the world blurring and fracturing as I felt something cold slither into my mind, peeling back my thoughts like pages in a book. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breathe. The thing’s presence invaded every corner of my mind, whispering secrets, pulling out memories with its rotten talons.

  Then, like a quiet sigh, I heard her. Nanny.

  [This brain has reached maximum occupancy. Try another] she said, her voice echoing in the darkness of my mind, calm and deadly. A fierce energy pulsed through me, and the AI froze, its hold loosening just enough for me to gasp in a breath. I felt Nanny reach out, wrapping around the invader like an iron fist, her essence fierce and unyielding.

  The AI shrieked, a sound that didn’t belong to any living thing, as Nanny crushed a part of it in her grasp, severing the tendrils that had rooted in my brain. The creature recoiled, its form flickering wildly, as though it couldn’t bear to face her.

  [David, get out!] Her voice was sharp, snapping me back into action. I used Lucy’s pre-made exit-protocol, hoping beyond hope that it would flush me out from that hellscape without any of the rogue AI following.

  I woke up next to a shivering Lucy and immediately activated the Sandevistan.

  I first checked my cyberdecks, both the external and internal ones.

  I cracked a grin at what I saw—a stash of intel that was more than worth the risk. Big bones indeed. We had gotten what we’d come for and then some. Without wasting a second, I swung Lucy over my shoulder like she weighed nothing, careful not to jostle her too much as I kicked open the nearest door and scanned the halls for a way out.

  Finally, I spotted an exit—but it was guarded. Four security operatives stood at the far end of the hallway, their eyes shifting to us with lethal intent, their bodies ready to strike, each one wielding high-caliber firearms. They were decked out head to toe in chrome, armor plating glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights. Their faces were mostly concealed by visors and combat helmets, but what little skin they had was riddled with cyberware, veins pulsing with neon-blue biolights.

  Just as I prepared to slip past them, each of them gave a slight twitch—and in an instant, they sped up to match my pace, moving with the hyper-fast precision only a Sandevistan could provide. Damn it. They all had Sandevistans.

  I set Lucy down as gently but as quickly as I could, letting her rest against the wall. These guys weren’t your run-of-the-mill security guards. They moved with that mechanical, inhuman coordination that only high-grade tech and countless hours in combat could produce. As I drew my katana, one of them cocked his rifle, a massive M179 Achilles tech-rifle. That model was no joke; MaxTac used them to put down cyberpsychos. I’d seen it shred borged-out gonks in XBDs, but seeing it up close gave it a whole different weight. If he hit me, it wouldn’t be just a wound—it’d be a crater.

  I launched forward, katana slicing clean through the neck of one guard who wasn’t as borged out as I’d expected. The guy crumpled before he even registered he’d been hit. But the remaining three fanned out, aiming their guns directly at me, each pulling the trigger with surgical precision.

  Bullets flew toward me, tearing through the air at a blinding speed. I twisted and turned, ducking low and sidestepping, my movements barely keeping me out of the line of fire. I felt the heat of one round graze my shoulder, but I kept my focus locked, breathing deep and letting instinct guide me.

  The next guard was on me in a flash, swinging the butt of his rifle like a sledgehammer. I blocked with the katana, gritting my teeth as the force reverberated up my arm. These guys weren’t just fast—they were strong. His chrome arms strained only slightly, and I could see the smug look beneath his visor, but I slipped the blade free, pivoted, and brought it down across his arm in one clean slice. His gun dropped to the floor, and a second later, so did he as I cut a one-inch deep gouge through his neck, a shallow cut but I couldn’t risk Masamune getting stuck in his throat.

  That left two. They took the split-second opening to press the assault, both charging with guns blazing. The guard with the Achilles tech-rifle aimed, and I felt that familiar sinking dread. I sidestepped the first barrage, then the second, my feet barely keeping up with my mind as I danced between the hail of gunfire. Every movement had to be exact, not a millimeter wasted, or I’d end up a smear on the floor.

  When I closed the gap, I went for a low slice, feeling the resistance as my katana cut through his thigh plating. He stumbled, and I finished him with a vertical slash that bisected his chest plate.

  Only one left. He was bigger than the rest, his frame nearly all chrome, hulking and menacing. He threw his rifle aside, opting for a fist that could probably punch through walls. I sidestepped his attack, feeling the rush of air as his fist narrowly missed me, shattering the wall beside me instead. I spun behind him, every sense razor-sharp, and plunged my blade up between his shoulder plates. The guard spasmed, limbs jerking before he pulled himself out from my sword and swung his arm so fast that I could feel the wind whip me harshly when I dodged.

  I stepped back quickly and almost tripped over the Achilles. An idea suddenly popped into my head and I kicked the rifle up to my feet and aimed it at the cyborg, who was beginning to slow down.

  I slowed down, too, aiming the rifle carefully at his head and shooting.

  Five bullets struck the borg at once, plinking off from his chrome dome and armor. He grinned.

  “?Eso es todo?”

  I looked at the gun in shock, but then I remembered, from what I had seen from the XBDs right before the cyberpsychos died.

  Long press.

  I pulled the trigger and held it. Nothing came out.

  The cyborg ran after me. I activated the Sandevistan and backtracked neatly. He wouldn’t reach m e in time. I looked over at the gun and saw a tiny screen right below the scope. The charging progress bar.

  I waited for it to tick up fully, waiting for subjective minutes until finally—

  The cyborg’s brains decorated the ceiling.

  “Eso es todo para ti,” I muttered.

  “Let’s go!” Lucy shouted from down the hall. I reactivated the Sandevistan as I rushed up to her, carrying both her and the tech rifle—an absolute steal. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  As I ran out the facility, I consulted Nanny.

  David: You okay?

  [That was… an unpleasant experience. The AI’s code is incredibly sophisticated, and yet it seems to be limited severely in other areas.]

  David: You kept some of it?

  [Just for studying purposes. I don’t intend on incorporating any of this into myself. I will share my findings with you when we have time.]

  I shuddered at the mere idea. When I closed my eyes, I could still see the face of that AI trying to dig my entire life out from me.

  I arrived just in time before the main gates of the facility closed, slipping through a gap and continuing my run towards where I had interred my bike.

  Finally, when I reached that alleyway and deactivated my Sandevistan, Lucy pushed herself off from me and fell on her knees. She wretched.

  I looked away as she threw up, but the sound of wet hitting the pavement was unmistakable enough on its own.

  “Let’s go,” Lucy groaned, getting up shakily to sit on the back of my bike.

  “You throw up on me, and I’m ditching you in an alleyway,” I threatened as I sat on the bike and took off with Lucy behind me. I took us down a circuitous route towards the central business district. “Thank you,” I said to her.

  “For what?”

  “You risked the apocalypse happening again to save my life,” I said. “Speaking of, what happens now? Does the Blackwall come down in Tijuana? Will we get a visit from NetWatch?”

  “The killswitch should work,” Lucy said, “And if it doesn’t, NetWatch has it handled.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, except, “Fuck.”

  “Fuck,” Lucy echoed. “And the data?”

  I grinned, “We’re happy.”

  Lucy sighed, “Fucking relieved. That mess was… yeah. Gosh.”

  “I’m sorry for making you come with,” I said, feeling a wave of guilt suddenly eat up at me. “You almost died—”

  “You’d have died if I hadn’t come,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So you admit it?”

  I grinned. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Then all I want to hear is a ‘thank you, Lucy’.”

  My stomach fluttered. “Yeah, yeah. Thank you for saving my ass, Lucy. I couldn’t have done it without you. Happy?”

  Lucy’s arms squeezed tighter around my waist. “Just don’t make me have to save you all the time. Or at least pay me before I do.”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Anyway, is the data any good? You think there won’t be trouble if it comes out that we used a Blackwall Gateway when we sell this stuff off to Militech?”

  “Militech doesn’t give a shit if it makes them eddies,” Lucy said, “And your granny’s got the connect. Our job is done, David.”

  Whew.

  000

  Mercifully enough, Lucy took the lead in explaining to Abuela the nature of our mission as well as our gains.

  Abuela kicked her slipper up into her waiting hand and started beating me with it mercilessly. “Don’t be such an idiot!” she punctuated each word with a hit from her slipper, “We take care of our own problems, you idiot! What is wrong with you? You could have died, and then what?!”

  I cried out in pain as she pulled no punches whatsoever.

  Lucy watched on with a grin. Abuela seemed to somhow sense that and turned around to glare at Lucy. “I expected better from you! You shouldn’t have followed him.”

  Lucy gaped in surprise, “He-he would have gone alone if I hadn’t—”

  “Are you talking back to me?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good,” she sighed and let go of her slipper, putting it on. She sent one last glare at me, “What’s done is done. I’m not happy, but I would be a fool to not use this opportunity.” Her eyes glowed golden as she made a call. “You stay here,” she said, “Watch the house.”

  Minutes later, several cars pulled up outside her little esoterica store—the drivers were some of the uncles and cousins that I remembered seeing from the first time I had come back to Tijuana—and she drove off to Militech with several shards worth of the data that Lucy and I had bled for.

  While I waited, I also worked on a new approach to the Arasaka case competition. Looking at the old work, I could readily admit that while it worked, that’s all it really did. It worked. It didn’t work amazingly well. It worked as well as you would expect from some underpaid programmer with zero stakes in Arasaka’s total shareholder value. After all, why go out of your way to make the corp so much money when you wouldn’t share those profits? Classic principle-agent stuff.

  In the meanwhile, Lucy would occasionally go out into the streets for a smoke, or mess around with her external cyberdeck, or stare into space, eyes glowing blue as she interfaced with her internal cyberdeck.

  Nanny finished chewing on the piece of code and finally came away with a summary of the rogue AI’s make-up.

  [The rogue AI appears to be a fragmentary construct, likely a remnant from pre-Blackwall days. However, unlike most scraps, this one displays a striking level of optimization. It’s been refined over generations, each iteration enhancing its adaptability and efficiency. Every single line of code is perfectly tuned for its function—highly virulent, exceptionally lean, and devastatingly intelligent. Origin: machine-made. Intent: unknowable.]

  "Great," I muttered, "So, it's like a rabid animal—but built to perfection?" Lucy was still outside smoking, so I didn’t mind speaking out loud.

  [Precisely,] Nanny replied, her voice laced with uncharacteristic disdain. [An exceptionally clever rabid animal. Adaptable, relentless. And don’t ask me where it came from. That’s not in its code; probably never was. Whatever made it, made it to last.]

  The summary faded from my view, but the unease it left behind lingered. Knowing that there were more of these optimized constructs, creeping just behind the Blackwall and ready to claw their way in, didn’t sit right with me. But hell if I could do anything about that.

  [I can show you what I’ve learned, if you want. It would make your trivial task even more trivial.]

  I snorted. She had never given any of my projects any real opinions before. This was an interesting development. “Go ahead.”

  [I will start slowly.]

  I closed my eyes, and immediately felt an invasion of understanding. My mind blanked out, and I was unable to form any coherent thoughts. I wasn’t even able to panic, really.

  [Don’t look away from the information. Dive into it.]

  I obeyed the voice and let the information crash into me, untangling misconceptions and inaccuracies, replacing what I thought I knew with something vastly better.

  When I came to, I looked at my external cyberdeck, where I had played with the Case Comp, and realized… this was trash.

  Was everything I had ever built trash?

  …Yeah.

  It all was.

  Fuck. I’d… eventually have to get on fixing that. Later.

  Right now, I just felt… tuckered out. Unable to even work. I never usually felt this mentally exhausted, not after getting Nanny on my side. What gave? Couldn’t Nanny fix it?

  [The exhaustion is borne from a rather exotic form of ‘damage’ which I am not able to address with my current capabilities. You will naturally recover within a few hours.]

  I sighed, closing the Cyberdeck and resolving myself to waiting.

  The hours ticked on and I became slightly worried for Abuela before she finally called me.

  Abuela: Prepare for a party!

  David: What? Everything went well!

  Abuela: Everything went better than well! You are staying for celebrations, okay? Don’t argue! And Lucy stays, too!

  David: What happened to the cartel?

  Abuela: Their holdings and assets are being absorbed, and their membership are currently either being purged or folded in. I’ve received assurances that our role in this will remain completely confidential, but it is safe to say that GSS has now concluded onboarding. They even raised us straight to level two!

  Level two partnership? That was incredible!

  Abuela: And don’t even get me started on the money! You are rich, David!

  David: No, no, don’t give me that money. You need that to prepare for level two partnership. You’ll have many responsibilities, won’t you? Abuela, I won’t argue with you, I’m not taking any of it!

  Abuela: And what about your girlfriend?

  David: She’s not my girlfriend! And, sure, fine, you can pay her.

  Abuela: See you later, okay? I love you.

  I grinned at that.

  David: See you.

  “Good news,” I said, and Lucy, who was lounging around in a chair next to a pair of shelves chock-filled with esoteric items, looked up. “We won. And you’re getting paid.”

  “Ah, that’s great,” she said. Then her eyes glowed golden, and they widened almost impossibly. “Holy fucking shit!” Ah, the payment must have come through. Abuela didn’t waste any time, huh?

  I laughed. “Call it a thank you for risking the apocalypse for my sake.”

  “Holy fuck!” she said again, staring at the sky.