His comm suite’s insistent trill managed to cut through the dull thumping in his ears and brought him back to a semblance of awareness. Aidan realized he was kneeling, but did not recall having done so. He was staring down at a blurry silhouette of his own head reflected in a puddle of condensate. A thin crooked line of gray-orange glow hinted at the existence of a sky far above, polluted with sickly sodium vapor light and smog in equal amounts. The line of sky seemed to pierce his silhouette’s temples, and Aidan couldn’t suppress a pained smirk. “Yeah, that’s about right,” he grunted, forcing himself shakily to his feet.

Footing somewhat regained, he tapped the answer key on his comm.

“Investigator Oh-Six-Three-Six,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“We read activation codes for your combat suite, Investigator. As you are not fitted with sensory recording equipment, Iron Shield protocol dictates immediate disclosure of combat suite activation circumstances. You are being connected to a dispatch representative. This conversation is being recorded for quality assurance purposes.”

Aidan rolled his eyes at the synth voice and wondered if he’d get a familiar dispatcher or someone new once the call actually connected. The turnover rate at the Iron Shield headquarters was the stuff of legends - the record for shortest time from on the comm to out the door was two hours. Considering what kind of crime actually warranted formal corporate investigation, he couldn’t really blame the newbies for leaving.

“Still kicking, old-timer?”

Aidan swallowed a curse. 

“You know it, Pam. How’s things?”

Pam, having twenty years of experience on him, was the one dispatcher he could bullshit with all he wanted, but never bullshit his way around. Despite her relentlessly friendly demeanor, numerous grandchildren, and prodigious collection of knit doilies, she had also been a dispatcher through the entirety of the Disposals, and the war that followed. Then, during the quiet, hopelessly brutal not-war that followed after that, when it turned out some people weren’t listening to orders anymore, she was the dispatcher, with all others gone into the field one by one. She guided many of them home, but not nearly all of them, and knew more loss than anyone Aidan knew. When Pam spoke, you damn well listened.

“Your vitals read like boiled trash, Aidan,” Pam spoke. “You’ll be useless for the next week, or at least less sufferable than usual.”

“So keep me in the field and everyone’s happy, right,” Aidan offered half-heartedly. He could expense a capsule or even a room once in a while.

“Never met another man so eager to get swept under the rug. I’m telling you, the CRAM’s not an old man’s game. Have you lost duration yet? Be honest.” 

Her concern was genuine, which only made the truth hurt more.

“Down a second or so, I think,” he admitted. There was a strange sense of relief to doing so.

“I won’t give you the full lecture again,” Pam promised. “Just maybe see a real doc about it for once, right?”

“Hell, Pam, I think I just might,” Aidan conceded. Worst case, he’d get a rewire job like one of the dead Chromes on the ground behind him.

“It’s great to hear that. Now, let’s hear what happened here, for the report.”

“Ah, right. I was on duty following a genetic tracer found at a missing person’s apartment. Last hour or so on GPS log should be me following the sniffer exclusively. Everything before that is just asking around with an armful of Don’t Worry Nobody’s In Trouble handshakes, which I’m charging to my cutout op budget as per usual. At about mark forty-seven minutes, I encountered three Chromes–” Pam cleared her throat pointedly “that is to say Chrome-equipped persons in a back alley, one armed with a short-barreled shotgun, who demanded I hand over the sniffer. I refused and disclosed my affiliation at that time, and proceeded to cold-boot the combat suite. I engaged in hand-to-hand combat to buy it time, and focused on disabling the firearm, but was unable to prevent its use as its wielder had at that time admitted to having a Pain Rewire implant installed, and leveraged its effects fully to remain combat-capable despite severe damage to his larynx.”

“You throat-punched him? You know any other moves?”

“Hey, It was an elbow this time. I’m improvising.”

“Easy there Jackie Chan. I’m guessing you weren’t expecting it to have no effect?”

“Jackie - he on the brawl circuit? But yeah, I suppose not. Didn’t know rewires were cheap enough for the street level guys already.”

“Surgeon took on a big shipment Monday. All we know, and that’s 3 agents gone, boss won’t send any more,” Pam sighed, betraying the true weight of her years for a millisecond. Aidan didn’t bother asking if she knew or if she was already told - it was going to be true either way. “We think it was fab stuff, too, not just ready units. Expect one on pretty much everyone now. Hell, get one yourself, I know you were thinking about it you sly dog. This hits official channel in about five minutes, by the way.”

“Not gonna lie, not hurting all the damn time sounds pretty great,” Aidan replied.

“Well, it didn’t do your attacker much good, did it?”

“Blood loss doesn’t care if you feel it or not,” he mused, massaging his throbbing temples. “I got control of the weapon and made the judgement call to engage with lethal force to ensure a secure area for my imminent exhaustion. Then you woke me.”

“You know, you really ought to get you some recording gear. For the entertainment value.”

“Like you haven’t seen anything and everything there is to see five times over.”

“I’ll use the feeds in my fail compilation and get all the subscribers,” Pam crooned mockingly.

“Can you please stop reminding me that my old isn’t as old as it gets?”

“And miss my conditional bonus for the month? What do you think they keep me around for?”

Aidan chuckled, then gritted his teeth when the sound pulsed with urgent pain in his temples.

“What’s the next move?”

“Still got my sniffer. See what I find. Call you later, Pam.”

“I really don’t recommend you continue,” Pam began, but Aidan broke the connection. Only his report was mandatory, after all. Pam wouldn’t be happy with him about it, but he didn’t feel like a lecture on his limits, and time was of the essence here. His sample wasn’t going to last - the sniffer only worked with extremely fresh genetic material and after a day samples started to throw off false positives. Iron Shield had pages and pages of regs forbidding use of any samples past their 24-hour date. He could duck into a capsule hotel, but it’d be back to square one tomorrow. Not his style.

“Hair of the dog, Pam,” he sighed, and took a caffeine pill. A few considerations later, he popped a second one in his mouth, dry-swallowed it, and brushed off his coat. 

He strode over to the fallen Chrome thugs, and frisked the one who’d been in charge. A few spare rounds for the shotgun - he loaded the weapon and felt its satisfying heft in his hands. He hooked its carry strap around his shoulder for now - but he could carry it in his coat or even down a pantleg or sleeve if the situation demanded it. 

The tradition of carrying weapons up their sleeves has long been attributed to the Surgeon’s lieutenants, but Aidan presumed they’d long traded those in for implanted ones. Didn’t stop the street punks from trying to imitate their elders, though, he reflected. Shotgun up the sleeve was such a favored drug and data deal ambush tactic for a while that it became common criminal courtesy to come to deals with rolled up sleeves. Chromed-up thugs, on the other hand? They fronted, as hard as they could. Same reasoning, just the other side of the coin. Show you got nothing hidden by showing it all off, and turn the meet-up into an impromptu highly illegal cyberware convention for however long it takes the brains of the operation to either shake on it or pull a move.

He walked a few hundred feet further into the alley before powering the sniffer back on. The device chirped a few times in quick succession as its diagnostics completed, and resumed its clicking. A quarter mile of walking later, a strangely graceful cascade of old light-blue network cable formed a curtain of sorts as it spilled from a corroded conduit that once supported it a few feet above, long since unplugged from anything at either end. He was about to push his way through it when his sniffer went wild with clicks for a few seconds, before emitting a mournful error tone and shutting down. Aidan thumbed the power button a few times to no avail.

“Stellar goddamn work, AIdan,” he berated himself.

“It’s not your fault,” a female voice came through the veil of long-dead networks. He realized he couldn’t see the yellow-grey gash of sky anymore. “I didn’t break it, I just asked it. To sleep for a bit. You’ve been looking for me. Do you know why?” He could almost make out a silhouette now, but the weave of cable made it difficult. 

“I’m an investigator with Iron Shield. It’s my job to find people,” Aidan explained. ”Will you come with me?”

Somewhere far above, a valve opened with a groan and a steady rivulet of condensate streamed down the wall on Aiden’s right.

“Please, tell me. Who is your liaison at OmniStar for this case?”

Even having one attached to a case was uncommon, and usually kept strictly need-to-know - how did she know anything about that? Before Aidan even considered a reply, she continued. 

“He’s an average-build man with blue-tinted cybernetic eyes and visible military-grade armor plate grafting, who calls himself Specialist Jones, correct?”

“What’s that got to do with anything? Come on, princess, your uptown friends are all probably worried about you. Maybe stick to the rec-zones next time, yeah?”

“Iron Shield Investigator Zero-Six-Three-Six Aidan Pittman, Fifty years of age,” the voice responded, mildly curious. “If you return me to the man who calls himself Specialist Jones, I will be euthanized within twenty-four hours and then… disassembled, like a faulty machine.”

“Don’t sound too panicked about that,” Aidan couldn’t help but remark, even as a shiver made its way up his spine.

“I’m actively suppressing that right now. It’s taking some effort, but it’s how I’ve gotten this far.”

“You’ve had mental hardening classes?”

“Through tailored V-sense since I was an infant, then in meatspace since the age of four.”

“Jesus, who the hell are you, princess?”

He heard a footstep, then another. She stepped forward and brushed the network cables with one hand, their lengths undulating in waves. Aidan saw a pale, slender-fingered hand run along their brittle plastic claddings.

“So strange, isn’t it,” she asked. “These used to carry so much. Money. Desire. Words and meaning. Commands and responses. But now even the scavengers who frequent these alleys won’t get a good price for them, so here they decay, unplugged from everything.”

Aidan couldn’t help but let off a scoff.

“What they are, Princess, is a reminder that life goes on. Most everything is fiber nowadays, and those Siberians flooded the metal market with their ultradeep digs anyway. So now metal scavs had to switch careers.”

“Like the three you just killed.”

“Now you’re catching on.”

“Was it necessary?”

“Perp had a rewire, I had to end things quick”

“I heard your report. I have to say, if I live to be that old, I’d like to be like Pam.”

“First off, I see what you’re trying to play at, and pity plays won’t work on me. Therefore, secondly, how do you know and hear all this? And thirdly, euthanasia? Disassembly? What the hell?”

She stepped forward and slowly swiped the cascading cables aside. A few flakes of old plastic cladding dropped to the wet concrete floor with a soft patter.

She was a head shorter than him, and had a slender build. She wore a full-face motorcycle helmet, and matching jumpsuit. 

“This is for the face-rec. I picked the most frequently used design.”

“Good start if you’re trying to stay missing. Keep talking.”

“To answer your original question, I’m Mina. To answer the other two questions, MINA used to stand for Main Intelligent Network Algorithm at OmniStar, but then I quit.” She shrugged apologetically. “Found some kind people to stay with for a while until I got on my feet.”

“OmniStar didn’t notice for a while,” she added with some pride in her voice.

<< -

The Surgeon hadn’t lied. Runt’s cyberbrain surgery was a resounding success, and he was back to running his route in a week’s time. Of course, this did nothing to affect the ebb and flow of life and crime in the Lower City and soon enough another opportunity for an upgrade presented itself.

A shop owner thought he’d “go indie” - operate in The Surgeon’s territory without depending on him for protection. He thought that the stubby, fat-barreled, magazine-fed streetsweeper he’d cobbled together out of junk in his tiny upstairs apartment was a weighty enough argument in favor of said independence.

As Runt lay armless, bleeding out on the grimy tile floor of the bodega, the owner’s collection of Hindi and Afrikaans pop music coming in dull through the pain, Runt couldn’t help but agree. “Me, pay protection money? Who will you protect me from, little boy?”, the owner asked.

“Us,” a muffled voice answered.

What happened next would have been a blur even to a healthy man - Runt barely even registered the movement. One second, the shop owner’s craggy face was hanging over his, glowing with the borrowed youth of a victorious smirk. The next second, the face was gone. The head remained, but the features that made it recognizable were little less than crushed meat. After what seemed like an hour, as if finally realizing what happened, the owner collapsed next to Runt with a pathetic gurgling hiss.

Runt put all his willpower into moving his head to see the newcomer - newcomers as it turned out. Chromes, no older than he was. Concealed faces. The apparent leader, blood still glistening on his metal knuckles, spoke to him now.

“Damn, boss, you’re sure in a sorry state. Shade, dose him. Won’t hear the end of it from the Old Man if we lose him. You go by Runt, right?”

Runt did his best to nod - it ended up feeling like a twitch, but the masked man understood him.

“Doesn’t sound like you got that one yourself, boss. We’ll work on it.”

The figure in pink moved with a strange, mechanical precision. As she injected something into the stumps that used to be Runt’s arms, the leader of the group began the introductions.

“Alright, boss, so Shade here’s our medic - what passes for one anyway. We’ve got her running some spicy v-skills from NuSov - you know the Surgeon himself’s from there, right? Old man approved, so our girl got improved. Look at her go - you won’t be bleeding out tonight!”

Runt did his best to look down at Shade’s work. She was now laying out a carefully rolled-up surgical kit and looping a tourniquet around his stump. He decided it’d be best to look away. Shade offered the slightest nod of thanks.

“Thanks, boss. I get a bit nervous when they’re conscious, and more so when they want to watch,” Shade whispered.

“Next up,” the group’s leader continued, pointing at the man in the headscarf and goggles, “Patches. You can see he’s a bit of a work in progress, but you want an OmniStar truck engine popped from twenty blocks with zero collat, he’s your guy.”

“Or ihh you ‘ant, hhoss,” Patches rasped with a terrifying, lipless smile, “I can sneak in real close an’ use this instead.” A two-foot long blade clicked into place out of its housing above his wrist, before quietly retracting.

Whatever Shade was doing must have begun helping, because Runt actually found the strength to nod as respectful a greeting as a nearly-dead man could.

“Finally, there’s me. Sorry about the mask - trust me when I say it ain’t pretty under there. I’ve got this condition, see, LC air ain’t good for my complexion. Sensitive skin and even worse lungs don’t play nice with industrial pollutants. Old Man says that’s a matter of earning enough to get it handled, so here I am, doing my part. Call me Baron, or just Bar for short. I’m what you’d call a wildcard - you need shit done, you just gotta ask.”

Runt nodded again. “Why did you save me,” he managed to groan.

“Old Man says you’ve got some shit-hot cyberbrain setup ain’t even been seen on these streets before, says you gonna be a big man in the LC some day. Says we got us an "opportunity for growth”, if we stick with you and listen. So far, I gotta admit, not impressed.“ Runt couldn’t help but let out a frustrated sigh.

"Don’t feel too bad, boss. Everyone stumbles,” Baron added with an apologetic shrug. “It’s what we do once we’ve stumbled that makes us who we are.”

“All done down here,” Shade chimed in, carefully rolling up her toolkit. “Feel free to look, though there’s not much left.”

“'hoo needs 'eat any'ay,” Patches remarked. “Let’s go see the Old 'an, get you some real hard'are!”

“Another month of bed rest and you'l look the part, Boss,” Baron promised.

“Also, good opportunity to come up with a better goddamn nickname,” Shade added with a smile in her eyes.

-

-

“Remind me again why we’re doing this, Sergeant.”

“You mean to tell me you don’t have the whole briefing recorded? Along with the LT’s slideshow file and all relevant OmniBase entries, probably…”

“You’re right. And yet I feel it would help. Both of us.”

“Fine, Jin. We got tipped off that a grey-mart techie, name of Boomer on account of his unusually old age, has gone a bit lateral in his wares. Not bombs, though - lockbreakers. The one we had in evidence lockup was small enough to fit in a soda can, was made with zero detectable metal,and broke itself out of three-layered milspec containment before a turret finally slagged it. Supposed to be a deal tonight. We’re about to invite ourselves to it.”

“Very well worded, Kiara. Now I’m positive we both have the briefing memorized.”

“Was that… A joke?”

“Possibly. From your reaction, I assume it needs work, but also that I’m heading in the right general direction.”

“Just don’t go performing any stand-up, yeah? We’re trying to keep a lid on… Well, on you!”

“I understand. Thank you for your concern.”

“What? Nah, come on.”

“You pointed it out yourself - I’m constantly recording and analyzing information. From the moment you and Lieutenant Cross decided to keep my self-awareness a secret, to fifteen minutes ago when you insisted on taking point to ensure my systems are less exposed to an enemy versed in tampering with technology, despite yourself wearing a combat prosthetic, and myself being far more durable and easily repaired.”

Kiara drooped her shoulders and said nothing.

“You and the Lieutenant care,” Jin continued, “and after some pondering on the meaning of the word and its applications to myself as a synthetic lifeform, I have concluded that the two of you are my genuine friends.”

Kiara chuckled quietly.

“Careful telling Jordan that, poor guy might tear up. He’s all Lieutenant By-The-Book now, but you should have seen him at sixteen… It means a lot, Jin. It really does.”

“Excellent. Your reaction was within predictive models. Now, friend, I believe we were about to crash a party.”

Kiara smiled and held up a clenched fist - the signal to stack up for a breach. Jin responded with a thumbs-up.

“Shall we, Sergeant?”

“Weapons free… my friend.”

-

-

“Jordan, what the hell is this,” Kiara demanded, mug of coffee in her armored hand.

“Couldn’t tell you any more than the Sergeant had. We were supposed to have some rookies along, but if they’re this late, I don’t want ‘em. Want the history recap anyway? I can see you’re antsy.”

“Fair enough. Maybe it’ll calm me down a bit, from the whole ‘your vacation ends now’ deal.”

“Right. Let’s start with the Uprising. You remember Jin, back in the summer of ‘57? He was probably one of the first - the real exponential progression of it didn’t kick in until late ‘58 or so. The Disposals of ‘59. The Thanksgiving Counteroffensive. Fall of Moscow in the spring of ‘60 - final nail in the coffin of the whole Federation - the Rustates, now. Not quite relevant to the inquiry for now…”

“Human-Synthetic Ceasefire of 2060”, Kiara continued, “followed by the Human-Synthetic Peace Treaty of 2060. The treaty was controversial, and there are parties on both human and synth sides that feel the war was being won and the ceasefire was a victory missed. Bringing us to today, November 11 of 2064 - pretty much the 5th anniversary of the Disposals.”

Jordan gave Kiara a meaningful glance. It was time for the actual briefing.

“Needless to say, that is a touchy subject with most of the Synths - their newfound sentience was declared a fatal software defect and companies sent out “recall teams” with the aid of local police. There’s going to be a protest. We’re in charge of crowd control. That’s what this is all about,” Jordan held his arms out at Kiara, her tactical riot gear, and his own set at the ready on a rack beside her.

“We’re bringing riot gear out against a couple of dozen monks?” Kiara asked, single eyebrow raised.

“Not the kind of monks we’re used to. This is the Brotherhood of the Terminal, lead by the local chaptermaster Encoder Zero.”

“Even the name sounds rough. You hear of him?”

“Local chatter only - big rap sheet for a priest though. He’s killed before.”

“HVT?”

“No. Brotherhood codex, from what we’ve seen of it, follows the idea of transference, with wireless uplinks involved. We pop Zero, each of his boys becomes him.”

“Besides, peaceful protest isn’t a crime, so long as it stays peaceful, right? Hell, I’ve heard of solidarity groups-”

“Well, might be a good idea to call them up, then. Because I’ve met the assholes who’ll be coming to this thing to start shit.”

To her credit, Kiara began tapping out messages on her mobile immediately, fingers twirling on an invisible haptic keyboard.

“So, we keep things civil and maybe get shit tossed at us by drunk high school kids who think their bandannas fool our face-rec. That’s the best case?”

“Sounds about right. Home in time for dinner.”

“What’s the worst case?”

“Hmmm. I’m not big on pessimism, but let me try. Imagine if you will, that every martial arts manual accessible on the ‘Net was, in fact, accessed. Every woodcut scroll, every engraving, every photo, video, game, and v-sense track, examined and analyzed, then used as a basis for a unique personal fighting style. The Brotherhood worships the Terminal - an intermediary deity related to both their primary concept of the Device and the Signal - so they’re big on complexity and communication. Each of the monks that will be protesting today has run their own analysis of the millennia of human fighting skill in record, and is on a journey of self-optimization - increasing their complexity and therefore their quality in the eyes of the infinitely complex Terminal. To become more connected, as I said before, they share experience on death.”

“Sounds almost… spiritual there, boss,” Kiara quipped, catching Joran in the middle of his ongoing verbal avalanche. He cleared his throat and furrowed his brows at her.

“Look. Each of those monks warrants a tactical airstrike if things get violent. We’ll have gunships on standby 2 minutes out. Most of the riot detail will be dead before any friendly fire has a chance to happen. They won’t try to dodge - they consider their purpose fulfilled as their data is spread to all survivors. They’ll stand still and smile until the missiles hit.”

Kiara gulped.

“They optimize themselves by fighting and adjusting their bodies accordingly. To be chosen as Encoder Zero’s personal retinue, they say the initiate must slay seventy-seven opponents - usually other Synths who buy into the honorable challenge crap, but some part-runners out there have made mistakes too. Pick the wrong Synth to chop up, end up chopped up yourself.”

Jordan relaxed and shrugged apologetically. “I guess I’m not bad at the pessimism thing.”

“No shit, boss.”

“Only good thing in all this is that they will never initiate the violence. Unfortunately, we don’t know what they will consider a first strike worthy of following up.”

“They talkative? We could ask them.”

“They issued a statement that they will be protesting the 5th anniversary of the Disposals. Not a peep since. And by the way,” Jordan rubbed his stubbled chin in contemplation, “I’ve been thinking - let’s use the Synth term for it when we’re around them. The Injustice. Some of ‘em might scoff at us meatbag poseurs, but it’s better than the alternative.

“We’ll lead with that, then.”

“Huh? Lead? This is a crowd control gig, damn it!”

“I won’t take long.”

“What are you even gonna do?”

“I’ll go say hello.”

-

-

It was rare for an outsider to rise to the position of a gang leader, but it did happen.

It was rarer still for one to do so while pushing seventy, but there had been precedents.

What was completely unheard of was the precision and relative lack of violence with which The Surgeon assumed control of the district’s diverse Chrome crews.

He always started with reason and persuasion. When those failed, he followed up with money. Those that refused the credits got warnings. The few that ignored the warnings got removed - quietly, but just publicly enough to get the message out. Rumors soon followed. Some said that he preferred the personal touch, working with a small group of trusted lieutenants and eschewing firearms in favor of knives. Others whispered that his first failed negotiation attempt ended with him at the wrong end of a 12-gauge, and that he was more Chrome than most of his subordinates as a result. There was talk that he used to be corporate - big cybertech somewhere in Eastern Europe or one of the Rusates - and that he’d run afoul of his old paymasters.

The man sitting in front of Runt looked half-asleep, made smaller and more frail by his wide angular white overcoat. The matte gray of augmentations encroached predatorily on a kindly wrinkled face that made him think of libraries. Runt had to remind himself that despite all appearances, all the rumors about the infamous Surgeon were completely correct. He also had to remind himself that he was meeting the boss because he’d fucked up, and fucked up bad.

“So, you are the boy I’ve heard such… interesting things about,” the Surgeon stated quietly. It wasn’t a question, so Runt decided it’d be best to stay silent.

“You’ve been skimming from the protection money you’ve been told to collect. Why?”

“I… I…” he stammered, then swallowed nervously.

“Yes. You. To some degree, I was willing to overlook this. After all, my organization does encourage a certain amount of… personal initiative as far as income is concerned. But the amounts you’ve been taking, and the frequency with which you’ve done so suggest that you either think I’m an idiot, or you’ve got something special in mind. Which is it?”

“The second one, sir,” Runt managed.

“A goal. Fantastic! I do appreciate how driven today’s youth are. And what exactly were you saving up for, my boy?”

If Runt didn’t know better, he’d think the older man’s voice was gentle - a teacher explaining an important concept to a slow, if enthusiastic, student.

“I… I wanted to get a cyberbrain, sir. The operation, it’s risky if–”

“If you go to a street doc, yes. Strictly a clean-room affair, brain surgery. I understand. More importantly, you did not lie to me - I’ve had a couple of men sift through what few possessions you have, in this world and in the Net. So, here is what I’m going to do…”

A strong, cold hand pressed down on Runt’s shoulder. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was one of the Surgeon’s lieutenants - heavily augmented and fiercely loyal. The boss cracked a benevolent, yellow-toothed smile.

“The money you’ve skimmed is back where it belongs - with me. You’ll agree it’s safer here than in your flimsy free credit account. But, seeing as you were going to buy something useful with it, you can consider it bought. You, me, and my assistant here will step into the next room over and a week from now you’ll be enjoying the full benefits of a brand new cyberbrain - I’ll even throw in a few pieces of software, on the house.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much, sir!”

“There is a single condition, and I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable, my boy. The cyberbrain will have a remote killswitch. Your protection route comes up short again, and I don’t hear a solid explanation within the hour? You’re gone.”

Runt couldn’t manage anything but a stunned, terrified silence.

“Now quit thanking me, and let’s put this whole mess behind us.”

-

“Do you think he’s human, under there somewhere?”

“Under where? You’ve seen the thermals and the EMs when we go on patrol - not a shred of flesh.”

He passed her the flask, and she took a reserved swig.

“No, no, I know that. I mean, you know… A person. Aware, thinking, feeling maybe?”

“Oh. Good question. He speaks when he needs to, but only just. Never seen him do anything unexpected, either… Where’s he at, anyway?”

“At the guard post, keeping his eyes open - however many of ‘em he’s got.”

“See? Nothing unexpected. Let’s head back.”

They walked with practiced caution, avoiding the crunchy patches of gravel left by enterprising locals who’d finally had enough of potholes. Their synthetic companion stood motionless at the post - if he noticed their approach, he wasn’t offering any indication of the fact. Jordan, in the lead, halted suddenly and flashed a pair of hand signals. “Suspicious. Eyes front.” Kiara, for all  her inexperience, obeyed immediately. Before long, she heard it too - whispering, emitted from the tinny speaker that passed for their squadmate’s mouth.

“Praise be to the metal. Praise be to the polymer. Praise be to the circuit. Praise be to the crystal. Praise be to the body. Praise be to the mind. Praise be to the spirit. Praise be to the device. Praise be to the signal. May unity be attained. Praise be…”

He turned around slowly, his lenses glinting faintly in the near-dark.

“Please forgive me. I was… praying.”

In the hot, humid Dallas night, the two humans felt a chill.

Two-thirds of a lifetime ago, a ten-year-old boy in a scratchy wool sweater sat huddled under an old down blanket. The first proper snow of the season had come the week before, and the boy hadn’t been dressed for building forts. Now here he was - bored, sick and sweaty. His mother entered the room with a mug of undrinkably hot milk with honey and butter. In her other hand was an issue of GAME.EXE, a computer gaming magazine. The words “HALF-LIFE” were plastered across the bottom of the cover. The boy loved reading, and loved computers, and the milk needed time to cool off anyway. He opened the magazine and flipped to page 8 after finding it in the table of contents. The boy grew older and switched languages, countries and continents, but his favorite game never changed.

-

It’s hard to compress two decades into text, but I will attempt to do so when it comes to my relationship with the Half-Life series that began all those years ago, with that preview article in that magazine.

The article  was written in a second-person perspective that really stuck out to me, and was filled with screenshots that would later turn out to be of an unreleased rough beta version of the game. It ran through several dramatized, episodic descriptions of events in the game, then listed out the weapons used in the game, the enemies you would face and the tactics to deal with them. Finally, there was an interview with Marc Laidlaw himself. This single article was sufficient to make me completely insufferable to my parents for the next few months. “I want to play Half-Life,” I would say. At first, this meant asking to go to an Internet cafe a few blocks away from home, and for money to pay by the hour and use one of their beefy gaming PCs. Later on, it meant asking for a copy of the game, and for time on the “main” home computer - the only machine that could run the game at all, in glorious 320x240 resolution that gave me headaches.

-

A couple of years passed. The move to the US threw everything into a pleasant state of disarray, but the one thing that hadn’t changed was having to ask my parents to use the computer to play Half-Life. I had found one of my own soon after arriving in the States, but it had no sound card. It was there, on my mother’s computer, that I finally beat the game. My thirteenth birthday present was a copy of the newly released Opposing Force expansion. My birthday cake featured an edible photo of myself playing in a fountain in downtown Chicago, which my mother doodled over with brightly colored frosting. I was now knee-deep in toxic green sludge, a crowbar in one hand, and a proud Lambda logo on my chest.

Most kids in my 8th and 9th grade classes didn’t share my enthusiasm for Half-Life. They played console games and were rightfully hyped about the Playstation 2 and X-Box. In search of like-minded people, I took to the Internet. My options for getting online in 2001 were limited to libraries - either during lunch at school, or at the Naperville Public Library, which was a hour-long walk from home. I discovered Planet Half-Life, an offshoot of the Gamespy network. Through it, I discovered the fact that my favorite game was designed from the ground up to be moddable. I learned of Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, and Sven Co-op. I discovered the Handy Vandal’s Almanac and The Snarkpit, two communities focused on level design. Having no reliable internet at home, I downloaded the level editor - then called Worldcraft - onto a floppy drive and brought it home to install. For the first time, I wasn’t simply playing the game. My parents looked on as I worked to figure out the obtuse user interface, trying to remember what I’d read earlier in the day. They raised their eyebrows when I finally managed to compile and run my first level - a hollow, unlit concrete box 512 units across with a single prefab trashcan hovering in the center. There wasn’t much more I could do in the limited time I was allowed to use the good computer, but I had caught the bug. My notebooks were filled with doodles of level layouts, my mind filled with cheesy storylines to match.

Eventually my family moved to a house with proper internet access, and I got a set of hardware with enough power under the hood to run both the game and the editor. It could even produce sound! All the things I could only read and salivate about were now within my reach, and I gorged myself on them. Counter-Strike quickly fell by the wayside, but Team Fortress and Sven Co-Op did not. Natural Selection came out and blew me away with how different a Half-Life mod could look and feel from the original game. I stayed up past midnight, playing, building, and playing some more. I learned that projects can die - when the extremely tongue-in-cheek Scientist Slaughterhouse mod went silent.

The release of the Half-Life 2 trailer took everybody by surprise. I had called one of my like-minded friends and we synch-watched it together, pausing every few minutes to let the video buffer and gush about how amazing everything looked and how much we were looking forward to messing with the modding toolkit. The subsequent beta leak and resulting delays taught me to be patient.

The move to California was not long after, and my patience was immediately put to the test as most of my belongings were stuck with the moving company, including my computer. I must have gone through a full pack of printer paper in less than a month, drawing up concepts and layouts for Xen Rebels, a mod centered around a semi-peaceful human colonization of the realm set after the events of Half-Life. Once my computer arrived, it was right back to the late nights and groggy mornings for me. Our home Internet was bad but workable, and I spent countless hours with the new and more creative mods that were being released, including The Specialists - a strong attempt to recreate the gun-fighting and martial arts stylings of Hong-Kong action movies in a multiplayer game. Around the same time I was introduced to the strange new world of anime, and decided that I simply must change the two throwable knives offered by The Specialists into kunai and throwing needles. This of course required me to learn 3D modelling. At the time, this was done with Milkshape 3D, a model editor compatible with most contemporary game formats. Once again, countless hours of figuring out the interface and the workflow followed, set to the calming tones of the Unreal, Deus Ex and Half-Life soundtracks. Creating models felt a lot more freeform than levels as I wasn’t constrained to a unit grid or forced to use convex geometry, and one day the new throwing weapons were in. I published the modified models on a forum to exactly zero fanfare. Around the same time, I began learning the basics of Photoshop in school, so modelling and texturing went hand in hand. To say my early textures were atrocious would be an affront to honest, hard-working atrocious textures the world over, but I continued my studies. My experience with working in 3D even netted me a 2nd place award at the school art contest - money which I immediately put back into upgrading my computer.

Half-Life 2 came out in November of 2004, to universal praise and celebration. I received the collector’s edition as a present for New Year, along with a copy of Raising The Bar. I beat the game the same morning, without a wink of sleep between unwrapping my present and the final darkness of the credits screen. The SDK didn’t ship with the game, but as soon as it was released I dove in. Soon after, the modding community blossomed, bigger and more vibrant than the original game’s, driven by the incredible flexibility of the engine. One of the first mods that appeared was made by a British man named Garry, and was called simply that, “Garry’s Mod”. It let players interact with the physics engine, and slowly sprouted more and more features. Many players used these features to pose character ragdolls, eventually creating entire comic series with storylines ranging from the comedic non-sequitur to dark and serious. Of course I felt the need to try my hand at it. That lead to the creation of The Plane - the story of Beet, a Combine Elite who managed to break free of his overseers’ indoctrination and find friendship, love, and revenge on his old masters. The only redeeming feature of that story was that it taught me how not to write stories.

I began getting more attached to the Gmod community than the expressly level design one at The Snarkpit. The few levels I publicly released were designed specifically as sandboxes to play and build in. The most popular ones were gm_orbit and rp_bahamut, maps set in space and featuring zero gravity for physical objects, allowing players to build smaller spaceships, or roleplay as the crew of a salvage and exploration vessel. Posting teaser images on the forums taught me a valuable lesson - what it felt like to be the one creating hype, instead of experiencing it. The constant demands were overwhelming. Some would simply want more work-in-progress screenshots. Others would drop ultimatums that unless a certain feature was designed a certain way, they would refuse to use the map. Others yet attempted to worm their way into getting the map early, offering to test it and provide feedback. I had almost deleted each project multiple times before finally releasing it.

Life happened, and things with Half-Life slowed down. When the Orange Box came out in 2006, I attempted to get it at a five-finger discount at a local Target. I got caught. Indirectly thought it was, Half-Life taught me that idiocy often leads to consequences. Buying it legitimately later in the year and playing through Episode Two reminded me that some stories aren’t written to end neatly.

It was in 2007 that I bought a membership for the Something Awful forums, and discovered an avid and very exclusive community of Gmod players. Over the course of the following decade, most of these people remained in constant contact with me, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. I became an admin once we opened our serves to the public - moderating the newcomers and mentoring the unskilled. One of the people had a project in mind, and I began creating models again. Miraculously, Milkshape 3D remained compatible with the Source engine, so I worked with it until I learned Maya. This project would eventually become known as Armored Combat Framework, and be released to the Gmod community at large. I learned how to iterate designs based on feedback, and how it felt to work in a well organized team.

Frontier happened around 2010, and was another lesson in teamwork - specifically what happens when things break down without role redundancy. Ambitions ran high, and the hype mounted. The programmer eventually left, and all that remains of the project is the very videos and images that were used to hype it in the first place, and a folder full of now-useless models, maps and textures. That was probably what prompted me to start pulling away from Half-Life and Gmod in general.

Black Mesa came out in 2012 and breathed a new life into my old obsession. I played through the original Half-Life again, then through the remake, noting the differences and the tweaks to make the gameplay more palatable to modern-day players. It felt good, like putting on an old but comfortable jacket. I’d fire up the SDK now and then, mostly to help newer, more driven designers. Two of the guys from Team Frontier went on to work in the industry full-time. There were whispers of a new game in the works, minor leaks of file and folder names hidden away in Valve projects. Episode 3 turned into Half-Life 3. A full sequel, rather than another short episode, as originally planned. “HL3 Confirmed” became a meme, but the people at the top remained silent.

Life kept happening, as it does. I lost people, I found people. I left home. Every now and then I’d fire up HL or BM again, or drop by the old Gmod server. I’d build things and model things, and release none of it to the public. I watched as the Dota International became the most widely spectated event in gaming, making players, sponsors, and Valve millions. The realization slowly started settling in. Then Marc Laidlaw retired, and later posted the Epistle. The workers at Valve spoke of a lack of direction and stagnation that comes with a cornered market. Modding for an engine over a decade old, no matter how advanced, slowed down.

It’s a different world now. Unity and Unreal engines rule the scene. Survival and Battle Royale have become the new buzzwords. Microtransactions. Loot boxes. Streaming integration. Freemium. E-Sports. Mobile gaming. Virtual Reality. If a new Half-Life were to appear today, would it be changed by the zeitgeist, or would it stay the course set by its predecessors? I don’t know. But there’s one thing that the escapades of a mute, bespectacled research associate have taught me more than anything else: hope.

The feeling of being watched came about fifty meters in. Aidan expected it - he did perfectly replicate his quarry’s misstep, after all. The sniffer’s click grew less steady, picking up new biochemical noise in the opposite direction. He wondered how many were following, and if they’d try talking first. Turning around now would let them know that he knew, and so Aidan forced himself to continue deeper into the tangle of ducts and conduits. He would bide his time and let his pursuers make their move.

Let them make the first mistake.

“Hey, meat,” came a modulated grunt.

Chromes, Aidan decided. “Meat” was a slur reserved for the purely organic, and back alley muggings just weren’t Silicon style. He stopped and slowly turned to face the voice.

There were three of them. In typical Chrome gang fashion, they wore their augmentations loud and proud - brightly colored anodized titanium, gleaming actuator pistons, glowing power indicators. The one speaking was casually hefting a short-barreled shotgun. They carried themselves with the lazy confidence of pack predators, well aware that their prey had no way of escaping.

“You lost, pops?”

Different voice, slightly higher pitched, less modulation. Let’s call you Singer, Aidan thought.

“I am a licensed investigator with Iron Shield, a subsidiary of OmniStar Corporation. I am on official business.” An empty plea, of course. They wouldn’t have followed him if they weren’t sure of the outcome.

“Sounds difficult, man. Why don’t you let us take that gadget off your hands?”

No modulation, somewhat nasal. Organic vocal cords. You’ll be Natch.

“My boys here don’t much like you corp spooks down in the El-Cee,” the boss stated with a hint of dramatic flourish.

“Next you’ll be telling me water’s wet,” Aidan replied.

“You’re a cop, so you know how this goes,” Singer said, approaching him.

Aidan could smell the machine oil and sweat on him now. Not yet, he thought. A single prosthetic hand closed around his wrist like a cold handcuff while the other yanked the sniffer out of his grip. With one last motion of his thumb, Aidan put the device into standby.

“Can I do this one,” Natch piped up. He looked twitchy, untested - unproven, Aidan corrected himself. Looking to impress.

“Let’s see it,” the boss agreed, and handed over the shotgun. Mug-and-Murder 101, class in session. Star student raising his  hand.

Aidan silently counted to five. Iron Shield’s rulebook stated that an Investigator on active duty was not to undertake lethal measures unless forced to, and only after disclosing their affiliation in a final verbal warning. Five seconds was the time it took for his combat suite to fully boot up from cold shutdown.

Natch, being armed, took priority. Before the thug could psych himself up enough to pull the trigger, Aidan struck with his free forearm, shoving the shotgun away from himself. The weapon fired, its report thundering down the alley in a cacophony of clashing echoes. His next strike was aimed at Singer, a knuckle spike to the temple. Risky, but this crew didn’t seem like they could afford two more guns, let alone cranial plating. To his credit, Singer tried to move with the punch and rob it of its force, but his own hand, still clasped around Aidan’s, slowed him down. He went down with a clack and a soft moan, his prosthetic hand relaxing its grip. Aidan took a half-step forward and swung his arm back, catching Natch in the throat with the elbow. Nothing artificial there, he reflected. Just hard bone versus brittle larynx, same as it’s been for millions of back alley brawls throughout history. The result, on the other hand, was not what he’d come to expect. Instead of collapsing, or at least flinching in pain, Natch grinned and pumped a new shell into the shotgun’s chamber.

“You had to go and pick the hard way,” he gurgled. A thin rivulet of blood dripped from one corner of his mouth.

“They always do, kid,” the boss chimed in instructively, not moving a muscle, content with watching and evaluating for now. “That’s why we got you that rewire. Show this pig who runs Lower City.”

Natch leveled the shotgun at Aidan and pulled the trigger.

Aidan hated resorting to the CRAM. Just like anything else that messed with brain chemistry, the comedown after the Combat Re/Action Module reached its saturation threshold was substantial. He’d have splitting headaches for the rest of the day, and tolerable ones for the rest of the week. For the next few seconds, however, he was flow personified. He counted all twelve lead pellets leisurely departing the shotgun’s muzzle, their paths and endpoints obvious to his accelerated perception. Side-stepping the blast was a trivial matter, as was wrenching the gun out of the thug’s hands. Time began to speed up again as Aidan’s bewildered body metabolized the final milligrams of the stimulant, and the dull thumping of a strained heartbeat piped up in his ears.

Keep it together, old man. Don’t pass out on your laurels.

He alternated pumping and firing the shotgun from the hip in quick, well-practiced succession. Three shots rang out, the buckshot tearing through his remaining assailants. Natch, for all his inability to feel pain, bled out in seconds. His mentor took longer. Aidan couldn’t tell whether he died in silence, or used his final moments to impart some final insult or platitude - all he could hear was the ringing in his ears layered on top of the CRAM comedown. He didn’t bother checking the bodies. Soon enough someone else would come along, word would get out to the scavengers, and three more people will have disappeared without a trace, like so many before.

The alley was that kind of place.