Click.

Kors opened up the bio-blade section of his forearm.

Click-click.

He activated the disassembly procedure and the blade itself popped up.

Click-click-click.

After one more approval, the blade was safely unlocked and detached from the section.

Kors picked it up, gently ran his finger over the blunt side, examined it carefully, made sure the other side looked as sharp and polished as usual.

He put the blade aside, took a look at the forearm section that stored it, activated the cleaning process.

With a low hissing, the section got cleaned up. Kors felt the air running through it. Then there was a slight tickling in his fingers.

All familiar sounds. All familiar feelings.

He did that so many times, he almost paid zero attention to it. To every part of it. His mind was simply registering every moment of the process, like scratching off items from a to-do list. Like running a script for the millionth time. If something went wrong, he’d see it instantly. But when all went as usual, he barely noticed it. The smooth flow of actions, running one after another.

There was no real need to do it all by himself. The bio-blade was engineered with a zero-maintenance approach in mind. It cleaned itself, or rather was made of materials that kept it clean, not collecting any dirt, dust, or other, nastier, work-related substances. It didn’t let any of it stick to its surface, pushing it away like drops of liquid on a waterproof fabric. It also kept itself sharp. Extremely sharp.

If by chance there was anything exceptional that required a human touch or extra fixing, Kors would be notified automatically right away. The same could be said about the blade compartment on the forearm. Everything was extra-smart, over-intelligent, could act independently on its own, aimed at minimal interaction with the human user. Even if it was a part of that human.

But Kors just liked doing his handiwork. He preferred to keep it manual, that’s why, by his special request, his bio-blade was made so that he could disassemble it completely whenever he wanted it. It was his ritual, his moment of being alone, focused on that seemingly needless task. His time of meditation, although he tried not to use that particular comparison often to avoid extra mocking from his squad members.

Kors wasn’t really of a superstitious type, but he also believed that in his line of work having a good luck charm could hurt no one and could even potentially help. A placebo effect of a sort. You keep doing something and stubbornly believe that helps. And, at some point, your belief turns real. The bio-blade was Kors’s good luck charm. His special attribute that stood out from the rest of the equipment. Not just another weapon, not a simple tool. A special part of him, literally. So he kept his ritual of keeping it clean and polished with his extra human touch.

He put the blade back into its compartment, pressed it gently, carefully, avoiding the sharp side, so that the deadly piece of metal slid inside the forearm, fitting it perfectly. He felt a slight familiar motion in his arm while the blade got into its secured position with a quiet click and tiny muscle twitch. He still remembered how it felt the first time when he got that upgrade. It was a long time ago. So long in fact, he barely remembered what his life was like back then. But body modifications, that was something he always kept in mind. Like precious little souvenirs, tiny milestones forming his life path, so he could look back at it at any moment and, thanks to them, see where it all started and where it was leading him. He kept reminding himself of each one of his upgrades, knew exactly how many he had, knew the order they were installed, fixed, or modified. Another checklist he went through regularly. Mental maintenance. Making sure he could still remember things, bits and pieces of his life. Another ritual that kept him sane. Sane enough to do the job. To live through one more day.

Weird. That’s how the bio-blade upgrade felt when he got it. Like having an extra-bone in your forearm. The bone that could move. In and out. Combat or passive mode. Life or death. Back then he spent at least a few hours activating and deactivating it, staring at the blade popping out from beneath his skin. Though the skin was also modified, obviously. It was replaced by the ARM-tissue. Armor-reinforcing material, or something like that. Stupid name, but whatever, it’s not like Kors cared. Point was, most of his skin had been replaced by that thingy. May look complex, but in reality they just slapped some patches on the areas that needed the replacements and then some crazy mix of bots did the rest. All Kors needed to do was wear those patches and wait till the job was done. Wasn’t really painful, just weird. Like having a small colony of restless ants moving underneath the patch, working hard to remove the old skin and replace it with the new upgraded version. They were also literally eating his old skin, and he even tried to remind himself about that during the process, imagining hungry micro bots devouring the tissue. He just wanted to see if visualization would frighten him, make him anxious. Didn’t work, of course. It was that period of his life when, crawling through another chain of hardships, he didn’t care, stopped paying attention to anything. He just wanted a change. And change he got.

Now, going through his habitual phase of reminiscing, remembering all those good and bad old days, Kors stared at his fingers, at countless tiny dots of micro-receptors that covered them. The replaced tissue looked different compared to the normal human skin. It was as though his hands were covered in large calluses, bulging over his palm and every phalanx. As though he wore gloves that could never be taken off. He rubbed his thumb over his index finger, felt the touch, or rather registered it. He could no longer feel a normal skin-against-skin sensation. Technically, all his feelings were amplified, improved, cranked to a maximum, but they were being artificially processed now. It was like having a delay between making that real touch and actually feeling it. As if some processor inside Kors’s head needed a bit of extra time handling the operation and then sending the compiled version of the response back to him to consume. In practice, there was no delay, of course, but it still didn’t feel real enough. It was also like having his hand in a constant state of numbness. Not a complete numbness, but the one that starts to disappear when you move your limbs more and more, when you have that tickling all over it and keep wondering when it stops. When you keep touching something, just to see if you can still feel everything the same way as before. Only it never stopped for Kors. He always felt that numbness that never went away. Bothered him a lot at first, but, as with many things in life, he got used to it eventually. Was like having an extra layer between his real skin and any object he touched. ARM-tissue took care of registering every minor detail, but it was no longer a normal human touch. A trade-off Kors agreed to accept a long time ago.

In return, he got his armored skin. Wouldn’t protect him from everything, obviously. But he could, for instance, shove his hand right into boiling water or other, more dangerous liquids for several seconds. It could also block the pain if any significant damage was received, so he could maintain his operational state. Also, dealing with that damage had become easier. ARM-tissue was designed to be replaceable, fixable. It didn’t need healing, only repairs and occasional upgrades.

Upgrades, Kors winced unintentionally, thinking about them. He’d never been a fan of the damn upgrades. They just kept coming, forcing him to undergo all the installation procedures over and over, rebooting his systems, checking afterwards that everything was functioning as before. And, predictably, on quite a regular basis, it didn’t function as before, and then he needed to tweak all the settings and parameters to bring them back to what he got used to. Even worse than that was when the tech-department, the smartheads responsible for all the development and testing, decided to remove or, as they called it, improve some of the settings and parameters. In reality that meant Kors had to adapt to the new ones, to no longer deal with what he checked and tested already and what actually worked. Great thing to face during a real op when this is something your life depends on every day.

Kors did all he could to reduce the number of the required upgrades, kept it to a bare minimum. To those that were critical, necessary. Almost all of his equipment and software was always of the previous versions (if possible, several previous versions). Not fully outdated, but, as long as it was possible, never the latest ones. He was slowly but surely beginning to hate the latest versions, whether they were hard or software related. They never ran properly, always had some useless shiny new features nobody asked for. And they kept failing. That last part was something he couldn’t understand. Why make something new if it didn’t work? If it couldn’t even do what it did before. So, he continued his fruitless fight, balancing between the oldest and newest versions of his systems and equipment, desperately trying to stay on stable ones.

The bio-blade maintenance had been finished. Kors ran a few checks on his inner systems, angrily dismissed notifications about the latest features and improvements, grudgingly installed a couple of updates he could no longer postpone. That last part took him a few extra minutes to make sure nothing was broken and everything worked as before. Thankfully, this time it did.

Hooray, smartheads, he thought as bitterly as ever, you’ve earned your paycheck for today, don’t screw it up tomorrow please, my life literally depends on you, you know.

Kors stretched his neck, clenched and unclenched his fists, froze for a moment, like a racing car before the start, warming up the engine, then he stood up and walked out of his tiny command-cell. It was time to check on his squad now.

The exo-squad. His little band of lucky misfits he was the leader of. His little unit he was responsible for.

How did it come to this? Him being a squad leader. He frankly considered it one of life's mysteries. Not because he wanted to pretend to be humble or to joke around about it. He literally didn’t get it. He’d always been a simple grunt, grinding through his soldiering and countless ops. Saved a few lives, sure, but took much more in return, so that couldn’t really bring the scales to a balance. He wasn’t proud of it and never talked to anyone about that dark aspect of his profession, only idiots did that. But to himself he could be honest. Saving lives was an occasional bonus that was hard to get. Doing the opposite was, sadly, one of his major KPIs.

And yet, here he was, the squad leader. The one responsible for four lives at his command. Technically, it was five, he still valued his own life after all. To some extent at least.

One day he just got a message notifying him of the sudden promotion. Nothing fancy, as there were no special procedures, tests, and celebrations. In the Lower city of Clusterpolis, you weren’t allowed to have such luxuries. You just do your work, and if you manage to keep yourself alive long enough, you might get the chance. Everyone had the chance. Not everyone could guess what were the odds of getting it. Even less folk realized that quite often they were better off that chance. Before, all Kors could care about was the success of the op and how to not get flat during it. Now, that burden had been multiplied by five. On top of that, he got his regular dose of headaches, reporting to his superiors and being blamed for every minor issue. And no op could go without issues. Having just minor ones was a huge success already, a good day to live through.

Kors routinely thought about all of that while walking through the corridors towards his squad members’ cells where they were occupied by the same checks and preparations he’d just done a few minutes ago. The cells’ doors were opened, as they knew he’d be doing his daily rounds. Knew their old-fashioned boss liked physical presence, actually checking on every one of them, although it could all be done remotely.

“All good, Rimano?” Kors stopped at the first cell’s entrance, glanced at the burly man sitting inside, occupying pretty much all of the small space available to his impressive body.

“Yep,” the man replied, giving Kors a little salute, pressing two fingers to his temple. It was Rimano’s way to confirm a sending of a brief confirmation message with the results of the daily diagnostics needed to be run before any op.

“Any complaints, requests?” Kors asked another routine question.

“Nope.”

Rimano had never been a talker. Preferred to keep his mouth shut, use internal messaging, and speak only when he thought it was absolutely necessary, which was fine by Kors. The lack of words was entirely compensated by Rimano’s effectiveness in any other aspect of their job.

“Alright then,” Kors said, moving towards the next cell. “Carry on.” Predictably, no reply followed his words.

Walking further down the corridor, before he even reached a couple of other squad members, Kors heard angry arguing voices. In fact, he’d be surprised if he didn’t hear anything like that.

“How many times do I have to ask you not to touch my stuff, Oila!”

Kors approached one of the two cells placed next to each, leaned against the door frame, silently looked at the tall and skinny woman. He knew she was well aware of his presence but kept ignoring him, furiously staring at the opposite cell.

“I’ve specifically put a sticker on those new rounds! Haven’t you noticed red words in caps saying keep your dirty hands away from them?”

“That’s why I took them, Biro,” came the calm voice from the opposite cell. Kors switched his gaze, looked at the other woman. Contrary to Biro, Oila was short, heavily-built. They couldn’t look more different, weren’t related at all, and yet Kors kept wondering if there was a chance they were some distant relatives. Their constant bickering, endless disagreements, neverending fights made them look like sisters who absolutely hated each other’s guts.

“Do you have any idea how much these rounds cost me?” Biro stomped her foot, bringing her anger to the next level. “What’s more important, do you know how much time I’ve spent searching for them on the black market?”

“That’s why I took them, Biro,” Oila dispassionately repeated her previous words without any change in her voice that sounded as lazy as ever. She didn’t even turn, kept sitting with her back towards Kors and Biro, typing something on her wrist-attached monitor.

“You know I need to fix my KPI gap! I need that damn bonus this month! How am I supposed to get it without special equipment?”

“I dunno,” Oila shrugged, still not turning back. “Use regular equipment, like normal folks. It should do you good, you know. Should rely on special thingies less. Get good with the usual stuff, then switch to extra. The only way—”

“Screw your only way! I need these modified rounds!”

“Too late for that…”

“What do you mean too late?”

“I’ve used them for training at the range. Want my opinion? They weren’t good. At least two didn’t have the desired effect.”

“You’ve used my special rounds for… training?” The sudden drop in Biro’s voice indicated a clear incoming menace. She hissed slowly, letting the words squeeze in through her teeth: “I’m gonna…”

Before she could continue, Kors made an expressively loud cough.

“Ladies,” he said peacefully but firmly, enough to make it clear that it was time to put the debate aside. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, hi, boss,” Biro cheerfully said, giving Kors a happy smile, as though there was no prior arguing and it was just another sunny day for her. “All’s peachy.”

“Yep,” Oila confirmed, turning around at last, beaming at Kors with her big green eyes. Every time he looked at them he wondered if she’d had some kind of a surgery in the past. They were just too big for her overall composition, two green lakes reflecting Kors on their surface. “No probs here,” she added, as calm as ever.

“No complaints?” Kors ventured with another question. “No issues with the equipment… ammunition?”

“Ammo issues?” Biro stared at him, as though having no idea why he’d asked that. “No. No probs whatsoever. Why?”

Kors stared at her grinning back at him for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “Just asking, you know. In case you two need anything. In case, there are some… troubles to settle.”

“Troubles?” Biro raised a surprised brow. “We ain’t got no troubles, boss.”

“Yep,” Oila clicked her tongue. “We were just chatting. Girls’ boring convo, you know. Lipstick and stuff…”

Kors gave them both a slightly disapproving glance, just to make it look like at least somewhat formal exchange.

“Very well then,” he said at last. “Carry on.”

“We always do.” A couple of confirmation messages were sent to him right after Biro said it, and he proceeded further with his checkup.

“Where are my new armor plates, Oila?” Kors heard the angry words behind his back the moment he left the two women alone. “How many times do I have to tell you…”

He stopped listening, seeing no point in it.

A while ago, when Kors became the squad leader, hearing these two arguing, he seriously considered doing something about it, thought it could affect the squad performance, its members effectiveness and overall morale. He even checked other potential candidates for replacement, just in case he’d decide to get rid of one of the two women, or even both.

But, after a couple of ops, he quickly realized that Biro and Oila were a perfect match. They fit each other like two correctly placed puzzle pieces and all their disagreements evaporated the moment the real work began. Kors soon figured out that having a dispute over every minor issue was their own little ritual. He had his bio-blade maintenance, they had their quarrels. It was something they treated like a part of the job. Some folk, like Rimano, wanted to be left alone, others wanted to have company to argue. The funny thing was, both Oila and Biro didn’t quite notice others’ attention to their bickering. For them, it was a natural thing, like taking a few deep breaths before the dive. Every time someone reminded them about it, they couldn’t figure out what was so special about it and why anyone should bother with such things. It was at least partially done on purpose, to make everyone else look like a fool, but Kors felt there was some genuine truth behind this as well.

At last, leaving Biro and Oila alone and no longer thinking about them and their word skirmishes, Kors approached the fourth cell.

Leskes. The new guy. The weird one. Well, weird for this type of work, Kors did a mental correction to his thought process. Leskes didn’t look like someone who’d join the exo-squad. Not by his own will, at least. He was just too damn good-looking. A cute and handsome fellow who’d fit right into a role of a popular singer, or an actor. Someone who’d gather stadiums and collect fans like postcards, acquiring the new ones the moment he glanced at anyone nearby. Peeps like that could hardly be found in the depths of Lower city. And yet, here he was, part of Kors’s squad. A newbie who had yet to prove himself.

Kors wasn’t really against him. Contrary to many other squad leaders, he didn’t mind having some fresh blood injected into his team. It was healthy, natural. You think you’d prefer working with hard-boiled veterans that know each other for years, like members of a dysfunctional family know every little nasty habit of each other, but the truth was, these members quite often get so annoyed by this close connection, they’d do everything to spoil everyone’s day. And having someone new always brought a bit of a change to that routine. A bit of oil, to prevent the dish from burning. That way some of the old members would have a new target for jokes and letting out steam, others would treat the newcomers like their personal trainees, younglings that require a few life lessons, even when they don’t ask for it.

So, when the appropriate moment and opportunity came, Kors accepted Leskes. The guy got a rather high score after the initial training, his past logs were relatively clear, and overall he seemed like a decent individual. The only problem was… he was too damn pretty. Which made him stand out. He literally drew extra attention, sticking out like a beautiful six finger in the nasty fist clenched of the rest of the exo-squad members. And, apart from hating unnecessary attention, Kors wondered if Leskes had some history, something he managed to hide while joining the exo-squad.

Modeling career took a bad turn and the fellow went rogue, hoping for revenge?

Kors chuckled unintentionally, considering the possibility of asking Leskes to do some facial adjustments, maybe adding some visible mods even. Was stupid, obviously, he’d never ask that, but thinking about it made him smile.

Hearing Kors approaching, Leskes turned around.

“Hel-lo…” he stammered in confusion. Kors knew the young man couldn’t figure out how to address his squad leader: sir, boss, just by the first name? Kors never gave anyone any instructions, he didn’t care. They could call him “the bastard that gives us orders”, it was all the same to him. He never really paid attention to formal or informal variants. The world has enough troubles on its own and adding naming debates to the equation didn’t really help. But for folks like Leskes that was a problem. They needed some strict rules to follow when it came to talking to their superiors.

“Hey Leskes,” Kors said, as friendly as he could manage, which predictably turned out awkward. Seeing further confusion on the young man’s face, he added: “Just call me Kors, aye? We aren’t doing any sir-yes-sir here, alright?”

“Sure… Kors,” after some hesitation, Leskes squeezed out the name at last with some relief.

“All’s good?” Kors switched to his regular questioning. “Any complaints, requests?”

“N-no,” Leskes looked around, as though expecting to find his complaints and requests lying nearby, like a pair of lost socks he was searching for. “Not really.”

Seeing some hesitation on the pretty face, Kors probed the man further: “Need to ask me something? Go ahead, pour it out. Better get rid of the hanging questions before we get a new op to tackle.”

“Well,” Leskes stared aside, avoiding Kors’s gaze. “During the last training session… The one we had with Rimano…”

“You shot at him.” Kors made sure to make an emphasis on “at”.

“I didn’t shoot at him!” Seeing Leskes getting angry all of a sudden, the squad leader barely managed to hide his smile. He liked when folks showed their true emotions, it meant the real talk was about to start. “I shot in his direction. And I…” Leskes hesitated a moment, then finished: “I did that on purpose.”

“Oh yeah?” Kors crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the cell’s wall. “Thought you could hit that target behind Rimano’s back?”

“Not just thought. I would’ve hit it. 100%. I knew my weapons and how to handle them.”

“And yet you’ve missed.”

“Well, it’s because I should’ve aimed closer to Rimano.”

“Seemed pretty damn close to me.”

“Not close enough,” Leskes muttered angrily. “A few more inches would’ve done the trick with no harm done to Rimano. I just felt he wouldn’t appreciate that.”

“He didn’t appreciate it in any case,” Kors shrugged. “So…” he let it hang without finishing the phrase.

“So you agree that I should’ve taken the shot?”

“I neither agree, nor disagree, Leskes. It’s your decision to make. I won’t be giving you precise instructions every time you need to hit a target. It would only make it worse. It’s up to you and how confident you are in your aiming.”

“I just thought Rimano would—”

“You really think he got so pissed because you shot in his direction?” Kors interrupted.

“I mean, that seems to be the most obvious reason…”

“He got pissed because you shot and missed. If you’ve made a decision, you stick with it. There is no mid-way course correction. You thought it was worth it shooting close to Rimano. Want my take? Once you’ve made up your mind, you do the rest to a max. Otherwise you just put your teammate’s life in danger for nothing. Which is, to put it mildly, beyond stupid. Rimano knows that, Biro and Oila know that too. It’s not their first friendly-fire pickle.”

“I see…” Leskes had a guilty look on his face. Kors really hoped he wouldn’t start apologizing. Saying sorry was just useless air distortion. “Got it,” Leskes suddenly said, looking Kors directly in the eye. “I have my answer then, Kors. Appreciate it.”

“Huh,” Kors nodded, looking a bit surprised by the unexpected reaction. “Good then. Anything else?”

“Don’t think so,” Leskes was silent for a moment, then added: “I have some extra rounds, by the way. I mean the black market ones. I’ve just heard Biro and Oila talking… So, maybe I could give Biro a few…”

“You could, but you better not,” Kors did his best to keep a neutral look on his face. “She wouldn’t appreciate any favors, trust me.”

“It’s not really a favor. I could just give it as is…”

“No, seriously, man, don’t do that,” Kors leaned a little bit forward, lowering his voice to not be overheard just in case. “When these two are arguing, you don’t want to step in-between. Crossfire is never a good thing. And, unlike you, these two won’t hesitate.”

“O-o-kay…” Leskes slowly said, trying to figure out how much of it was a joke and whether it had any traces of a joke at all. “Then I don’t have any other questions or requests. Thanks again for the advice, Kors.”

“No probs,” seeing a confirmation message in his UI, Kors nodded. “Carry on.”

With that, the squad checkup had then been finished. Kors got both his formal and informal confirmations that everything was in order and ready for a new op, should one be assigned to them.

The exo-squad mostly operated on a call model, preparing and training when there were no ops to do, waiting for the next assignment. Truth be told, Lower city could never run out of problems to deal with, so there was always a huge variety to pick from. But the superiors had their own tangled and shady processes and ways to operate, so there was always some in-between ops time, periods of inactivity and waiting. Officially, it was covered by the usual paperwork and bureaucracy, visibly taking care of maintaining employees mental and physical health, and complying with a bunch of laws related to human rights. Unofficially, it was simply being used to get the best out of any trouble, to negotiate the most lucrative deal, and to receive the biggest paycheck.

There was also such a thing as exo-squads rotation, in theory at least. But if there was one area where Clusterpolis excelled in its consistency, it was the supply of ops for them to do. So, never minding more jobs to earn some bloody liquid, most of the squads were always ready and prepared to deploy at once. More ops meant more money, and more money was the best motivation in the time of endless price increase and neverending scarcity.

Kors went back to his cell, wondering if they could get an op or two for the day. So far it all seemed quiet, and he didn’t like quiet. Quiet only meant that stuff to deal with was gradually piling up and waiting for its moment to come down directly on your head. He’d much prefer to have a smidge of chaos during his work hours, getting calls and messages and being overwhelmed with new tasks. Some would complain about it, but for Kors it was a way to concentrate. When you’re idle, you get lazy, you think too much, postpone and look for an excuse to keep your idle state. But when you act, there is no time for that rubbish. You are in the do-mode, and that is exactly when you can really focus. Do the job, get stuff done, accept the new job and move on.

“Man, all that pondering makes me too distracted,” Kors muttered, talking to himself. “With all these thoughts I should write a book one day… Or at least a story. A terrible one for sure.” He rubbed his eyes, hoping to get a call giving him a new assignment. “Hate waiting. Need some real work.”

His UI flashed with a sudden notification and he froze for a moment. Wasn’t one of the official channels. It was Corly, his colleague from another department. CCI, Cyber Crimes Investigations. She was a special investigator and they worked together from time to time. Or rather, she did some digging and then called Kors to take care of the results of her findings because they weren’t supposed to be dug out. Only this time she seemed to be bypassing the standard procedures.

Kors quickly checked Corly’s data: coordinates, status, recent assignments. With the two departments working closely together, he had access to all of that in case an emergency happened. Yet, most of the info was rather vague this time, as if someone had restricted access to it. He couldn’t check exactly where Corly was and what was her current status. That only meant she was either investigating something unofficially, avoiding extra attention and usual logging process, or was directly violating all the inner policies and procedures. Knowing Corly well enough, Kors was sure it was the former. Covering her chief’s dirt most likely and trying to get him out of trouble. They had a complicated relationship and the chief used every opportunity to drag Corly into some shady stuff which would either help him get rid of her or bring the desired results, cause she was an exceptionally good agent. A good agent and a bad boss, dancing their never ending tango and trying to keep their jobs.

“Corly? That you?” Kors accepted the call. “Your coords are all over the place. Something’s wrong?”

“All’s peachy, Kors,” right after hearing the words said in quite a cheerful tone, Kors knew that nothing was peachy. Corly never talked like that. “Just some minor glitches after an update.”

There were no updates that day. Kors knew that for sure, cause every extra day without updates was a happy day for him. And he liked keeping track of his happy days. It was easy, as such days were rare.

“Didn’t know there was an update,” he said, frowning. “Haven’t seen any notifications.”

“Never mind that, buddy. We have a child to rescue!”

At that moment Kors already knew he wasn’t talking to Corly. Either some clown hacked her system and was now impersonating her, which would be a minor inconvenience to handle, or something worse happened, which would require quite more effort and caution.

“Buddy?” Kors decided to play for time for the moment. “Are you alright, Corly? You sound kinda too cheerful today.”

“Just having a great afternoon, Kors.” Corly’s voice suddenly got a touch tired, as though she was no longer pretending to be in a great mood. “Now listen, it’s about the chief’s son…”

No impersonation and minor inconveniences then, Kors thought. If Corly, or whoever else it was, mentioned the chief, let alone his family, it was something serious.

Kors was about to ask a few extra questions to try to figure out who he could be talking to, but he suddenly saw a new notification. A private channel. Direct link with Corly that only the two of them could use, plus it required extra authentication, so hacking and unauthorized access were almost out of the question.

“I’m baking some special kind of cookies, Kors,” the message said, bringing up the code word. It was a silly method to add an extra layer of verification, but, apart from being colleagues, Kors and Corly shared a bit of history, thus they had a few phrases the meaning of which was known only to them. “Cookie cutter won’t do this time. Just play along and treat that idiot as if it was me.”

The message ended. Kors compared the facts he had now. It was enough to not ask more specific questions and do what he was asked to do. So, he remained silent and listened to fake Corly who was in the middle of explaining to him the unofficial op that he and his squad were about to do. In the middle of that explanation, having the basics, he stood up and walked out of his cell, sending brief instructions to the squad members. He also called in the heli, already knowing the location of the op and forming an initial plan of what and how to do.

The squad didn’t ask questions. They trusted Kors and let him handle all the pre-op stuff. If he accepted the job, it was good enough for them. Silently, knowing that the boss was still in the deets obtaining process, they boarded the heli and proceeded to the location. All that time Kors kept listening to Corly’s impersonator chaotic speech. He let out a quiet sigh and shook his head a little.

Corly was right, he thought, that’s one hell of an idiot. Some amateur that didn’t really know how CCI and exo-squads worked in real. Used too many words, added too many personal remarks, and Kors couldn’t wait for that article to finish talking.

“Understood,” Kors said a touch too harshly, showing his impatience when all the instructions had been given at last. “We’re two mins from the location.”

“Wait, what?” fake Corly said, not even trying to hide the surprise. “Already?”

Kors sighed again, quietly cursed, then replied calmly: “Course we’re. I’ve called in the heli. It’s not the kind of situation we want to postpone, right, Corly?” He couldn’t help but make a little ironic emphasis on the name.

“Yes,” reply came after a pause. The voice got steadier, doing his worst at pretending it was Corly.

“Alright,” Kors said, taking initiative. “We do this with minimal headcount. Gonna be a five-agent op, me included.

They discussed the tactics, opponents' disposition, and some other details of the op. Obviously, now it was mostly Kors talking, telling fake Corly what was about to happen.

Extraction op. Chief’s son got his knickers in a twist and exo-squad was about to help with the untangling procedures. Kors was far away from being someone who enjoyed pulling higher ups underwear, especially the one that hadn’t been exactly clean, but a job’s a job, whether you like it or not, so he kept his complaints to himself.

They arrived at the location, spread out, following Kors’s orders to take care of all the entry and exit points. The chief’s son somehow managed to get himself dragged right into the flip-freaks zone. A crazy band of augments lovers, occupying quite a significant chunk of the Lower city. They were approaching the building now, most likely to grab the young idiot and hence acquire a wild card to play with the chief. Hardly for ransom reasons, most likely for redescussing zones of influence and other perks of similar nature. The exo-squad was about to prevent that from happening.

After a bit of hesitation, Corly’s impersonator confirmed the lethal approach, so Kors’s hands were no longer tied. The objectives narrowed down to just a few then. Take care of the squad first, so no one of their own gets flat. Take care of the chief’s son second, so he’s also alive and relatively well. As for the other party, now their well-being was out of the question. Not an ideal situation, of course. The ideal one would be having his squad as a single priority during the op. But life rarely brings you a perfect cake, so Kors was fine with his current dish.

One minor extra detail was making sure that the upcoming and inevitable fight would look like a local issue with no exo-squad involvement. But that was never a problem with bands like flip-freaks. All that was needed to do was to make a mess. And making a mess was easy, you just put less effort into doing the job. So, it almost felt like a bonus.

The four squad members took their positions, proceeding to the locations Kors assigned to each one. He was taking care of the extraction itself. That was the main breaking point of the op, so if things got bad, he’d prefer dealing with it himself. That would also make him the main scapegoat and target for all the blame, but he was fine with that. If they’d chosen you as a leader and you accepted it, you had to commit, otherwise what’s the point of being one?

The rest went relatively smoothly. Biro complained, Oila made sure to pour more oil into that. Apart from a few remarks regarding Leskes and his aiming skills, Rimano was mostly silent, effective and precise as ever. As for Leskes, the new guy got himself into a bit of trouble, having to deal with a couple of extra targets, but a sudden warning from fake Corly got him out of it. The building was shielded from the satellite feed, hence they were operating mostly on instincts and internal comms. Kors didn’t expect much but still asked fake Corly to guide them and apparently that was worth it. Whoever it was on the other end, Corly or not, that individual knew how to play around with all the software and network connections. In a way, he saved Leskes from having at least a few scars and bruises, thus the pretty face remained intact, which almost made Kors regret it, giving his previous thoughts about the new guy’s look.

Feeling a bit ashamed, Kors realized his part was the easiest this time. Extracting the chief’s son didn’t require much effort. Flip-freaks weren’t expecting the exo-squad to prepare a surprise welcoming party. They didn’t send anyone up top, to where the young man was located. So, Kors simply went right to the target and apprehended it. A minor issue was some other shady individual, fiddling around. He started getting all emotional seeing Kors distinct look, clearly indicating exo-squad and CCI involvement. Kors didn’t get any specific orders regarding anyone else apart from the chief’s son, so he knocked that one out right away. As the op went smoothly, his overall mood was at a relatively positive point, so he tried to be gentle. Meaning, his fist left only bruises and next day pain. The bones and inner organs remained intact. The emotional fellow was now tranquilized and put to peaceful sleep.

Kors looked around the dirty room he was in, glanced at the two lying bodies. The one he’d just put down and the chief’s son’s. The latter one seemed to be fully off and Kors did a quick scan to check the condition. Some sedatives in action, voluntary or not, he didn’t care.

What a waste, Kors thought, idiot got the chance of having CCI chief for a father and yet he was spending his best days in the worst companies, fully determined to throw his life into the filthy abyss of the Lower city constantly hungry maw of degradation and decay. But then, the Lower city wasn’t really a place for high moral choices and beautifully innocent life, so all that grim pondering was rather rhetorical.

Kors then examined the emotional fellow, thought about what to do with him, and decided to check with Corly. The impersonator was silent for a moment, probably checking it with the real Corly, then asked to bring back both of the individuals in non-flat condition.

“Fine by me,” Kors said with slight satisfaction. The request was potentially one more proof that Corly was the one in charge. He knew she’d prefer keeping casualties to a minimum and being able to have at least a few suspects to interrogate and use afterwards. Practical, with no extra blood to spill. Corly’s preferred way to operate and do the job.

Kors quickly took care of the bodies and dragged them both back to the heli. Giving some final orders to the team and reminding them that the whole op should resemble a local skirmish between flip-freaks, he made a few last minute checkups, then contacted Corly via their private channel.

“Hope you’ll like your special cookies, partner,” he sent her a message. “Enjoy.”

“Appreciate it, Kors,” she sent a quick reply. “Owe you for this one.”

“It’s fine, don’t mention it. Was a nice little practice exercise for the squad.”

“I might be able to squeeze out some cash for you. Be in touch.”

“Aye, some liquid would be nice. Pleasure doing business with you, Corly. As always.”

With that, the op was practically done. Standing in the heli, Kors watched the building underneath them getting smaller. Suddenly, one of its walls collapsed, sending pieces of bricks and glass all over. A cloud of dust went up and hid the debris for a few moments.

Observing the results of the explosion and, almost by instinct, making notes for future mission report, Kors slightly turned his head towards the squad behind him.

“Oila?”

“What?” she said, as innocent as ever. “Why you always think it’s me doing all the boom-work?”

“Was it not you?”

She pursed her lips, gave it a momentary thought, then beamed with a smile. “Yeah, was me, boss. A finishing touch, you know. Just one room, nothing too big.”

“Fine,” Kors sighed, slightly shaking his head. He didn’t mind anyway. The op had been done. No one got hurt, the target was acquired, they lived through another day and maybe would even get some pay for it. All in all, a positive outcome.

“Have you just used my new explosives, Oila?” Kors sat back down and closed his eyes, listening to Biro talking. “How many times do I have to tell you…”