There was a tiny, tiny chance that I wasn't ready. Anxiety thrummed through me like hard liquor, making it hard to really focus on the press of the crowd and the trails of bodies all leading to one singular door.

A door which two muscular toughs were guarding, scrolls in hands, menacing expressions on.

I'd already seen them boot no fewer than four groups. However loud and demanding the people got, they were all served the same way: heel to the ass, fist in the hair, then a fucking professional-looking chuck.

I lived in the slums for most of my life, and I had no clue people could be quite so aerodynamic. One guy really ate his own teeth when he smashed face-first into the wall of the megabuilding opposite the bar. Now, seeing as we were in a fairly tight alley for an inner district, that wasn't a whole lot of distance, but still! The meaty thump was impressive.

It was also important to note that the bouncers weren't just 'big and tough' according to my standards. They matched that description according to the bar's intended patrons. Seeing that most of the patrons I'd spotted last time were mercs, that said something.

Namely, my scrawny ass wouldn't even weigh as much as a feather to these bouncers.

Maybe I could take out one of them if I played cute and then clawed them up when I got close enough? Only if I managed to catch a major artery or something, though. And even then, the other guy would turn my whole head into mush with his robotic hands. Because obviously the two meat mountains were borged out, too.

"You're fidgeting too much." Amelia's voice echoed in my ear, making me freeze.

"No I'm not. I literally don't fidget the normal human way anymore, unless I'm giving into a weird mental tick or something. Besides, you can't even see what I'm doing!"

"Actually, I can literally see what you're doing. I'm in your head. It's also why I know you're one hundred percent fidgeting, ya ass. You're looking all over the place like you're scanning for escape routes."

That… might or might not have been exactly what I was doing. She would never torture the admission out of me, though.

"I'm not 'looking all over the place.' I'm just carefully tracking all the directions people could come at us from. Me! Come at me from. Fucking hell, you've got me doing a weird plural now. This feels way too much like you're right next to me."

"Good. Maybe it'll make you more cautious. And you are looking all over the place. You so are. Do you know that you're glancing side to side so quickly, it's making me a little dizzy just to watch the feed?"

What? I'm just doing it at a normal pace…

"Yeah, I'm going to call bull on that."

"Adrian… Do you even have any clue how good those eyes are? Typically, you need special implants just to keep up with them. You don't have those. I know. I checked when you were brought in for my father like a pile of meat. What you do have, however, are bonker mental stats letting you process everything at unhealthy speeds. Or speeds that would be unhealthy, were you a normal human."

I didn't say anything, because really, what was I supposed to say? I knew my numbers had gone up. I liked that the numbers had gone up. They made me better.

Still, I did try to… 'steady' my eyes a little. To move them at speeds I imagined baseline humans would employ.

"Is this better?"

"Eh, it's a little choppy now, but… yeah, sure, that's a ton better. At least it's not making me dizzy. Uuuugggh, I really wish Yuri could have arranged something for our cybernetic needs before this. I want better eeeeyyyeeesss," my girlfriend whined, pitching her voice to that perfect 'I'm entitled and making it everybody's problem' tone.

Of course, I could also detect the note of genuine distress there. Two weeks wasn't a fuck-ton of time to get to know someone. Well, two and a half weeks, technically. Still, when you spend all your time with the other person? When you talk, cuddle, practice, and share secrets? It has a way of bringing people together.

Besides, I could draw on my own experience with horrible eyesight.

Amelia never said anything about it, but I'd noticed the way she sometimes squinted at particularly far objects with small writing on them. I knew that chagrined look on her face afterwards. That mix of 'self-assurance that everything will be fine' and 'mind-numbing terror.'

Even with all the possible assurances in the world, the idea of your eyesight gradually decaying was fucking terrifying. The mere thought of eventual, absolute darkness… I had a vastly superior cybernetic replacement for my eyes installed in my eye sockets, and it still sent a rush of terror through me that was so potent, I almost pissed myself.

So, yeah. I wasn't going to hold a little good-natured whining against Amelia.

"He's working on it," I assured her instead. "'Sides, he also has to find us a reliable ripper. Need I remind you that your father could have us back in his grubby hands in a blink if we trust the wrong person? We both have his prototype tech in us."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Yuri did say he's got most of what I asked for and, yes, is currently looking for a ripper. He's got a few options, really. He's just vetting them 'cause my father used to know Yuri's circle of clients and associates and such. Tough to really know whom you can trust on short order and all of that."

"See? You just need to wait and relax. It's not like people are planning to rip your spine out of your back."

I shuddered at that. I couldn't help it. Sure, I needed that shit because of my arms, but the idea of such invasive surgery…

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"Urm… right. I, uh, forgot to mention this. Sorry? My uncle actually surprised me, to be honest. He got a lead on a military model for a full spine and ribcage replacement. Comes with the surrounding bone tissue and its own grafted muscle, too. Perfect match and all that."

"…What?" I squeaked. "Amelia, what the fuck?! You can't drop that on me right now! Spine was bad enough… Now you're basically telling me someone's going to rip out every bone in my upper body and replace it with metal or whatever the fuck the cybernetics are made of?!"

"Eh… Well. More like all of the bones in your body?"

"…Amelia."

"Hey, at least you stopped fretting about your place in the line! Look, you're coming up next!"

"Oi, kid," said a gruff voice.

I stepped forward in a daze, thoroughly distracted.

"Ya got a ticket, or a name or whatev'?" one of the bouncers demanded.

My brain short-circuited for a second or two. He was just starting to reach for me when I found my tongue again.

"Ames! My name is Ames!" I quickly spouted off the name I'd given Deacon, which had taken me an embarrassingly long time to remember. "Urm, Deacon invited me?"

That last part was a bit less confident. After all, I had run out of there pretty fast. Deacon could have moved on long, looong before the party rolled around. Or regretted his decision to invite a flighty rando who freaked out over having his hand touched. Or —

"Oh! Deacon did warn us to keep an eye out for ya!" The second tough cheerfully glanced down at his list before his eyes flitted over me. "Yep, ya match the description, ya do. Short. Cute. Startles easily."

The man laughed, shaking his head. "Swear, he gave us a fucking speech on how ta handle ya best. Like we don't know how to deal with, ehhhh, 'easily spooked' customers. Go on in, he's somewhere in der. Working behind 'iz bar is my guess."

I was thoroughly flushed and embarrassed as I mumbled a 'thank you' and slipped inside the bar.

Thankfully, Amelia stopped giggling long enough to say something constructive. "Okay, head out of the gutter! You can be cute and blushy later. Just not TOO cute and blushy, you hear me? That's my privilege to enjoy now. Anyway, you need to look out for our targets."

She was right, even if she was also asking for a lot. For one thing, the party was in full swing. For another, said party was full of costumed individuals.

There were too many 'sexy nurses', 'drill sergeants', and 'bunnies' of either gender all over the place. If Amelia and Yuri hadn't helped me install a bit of potentially illegal software, and if I hadn't gone over its code pretty thoroughly, I wouldn't have had even the tiniest chance of finding Oliwia Rangel and Rafe O'Quinn.

As it was, I silently booted up the app. It started to rapidly analyze the people around me, latching onto their physique and what was exposed of their facial features and hair. Then it checked them against the extensive collection of photos and videos Amelia had compiled from all of the two mercs' publicly available online profiles.

And a few profiles that required a person to 'friend' or 'follow' their intended stalking target.

When I assured Amelia that the shadow on her 'borrowed' scroll was fully cooperative and could keep our tracks hidden, she really went all out. To the 'intensively obsessive stalker ex' degree. It was as scary as it was impressive. I knew now that if I ever broke up with her, she could absolutely track me down and murder me.

As my software ran, I tried to find my third target for the evening. Deacon. Even if I could theoretically just 'enjoy' the party at that point, it felt more than a little rude not to even look for him. Besides, the bouncers knew who I was and that I'd arrived, even if I'd only put on the bits of my 'costume' that covered my face once I'd been admitted into the club.

Thankfully, it wasn't hard to find Deacon.

He was a blur of friendly chatter, gestures, and drinks as he worked behind a bar, dressed in a very form-fitting outfit of an old-timey suit, some kind of a cape, and dashingly styled long, blond hair. Which, my eyes helpfully allowed me to spot, was a high quality wig.

"Umm…. So, what kind of drink would you recommend?"

I tried and failed to be smooth, partly because my voice almost cracked, and partly 'cause I was blushing up a storm. And that was before Deacon finally turned towards me and his entire face lit up in a blend of delight, panic, and… something else.

If I had to guess, he wasn't really expecting me to show up and was still blaming himself for the way I'd made my exit. Which was genuinely not fair to him at all, but I had no idea how to fix it. I'd watched the video of my hurried escape, recorded through my own eyes, a couple of times. The look of crushing guilt on the bartender's face was hard to swallow.

Especially since a part of me wanted to bathe in his blood.

That was always an awkward thing to explain to your maybe-sorta-date-you-are-taking-advantage-of.

"Ames! I'm so glad you decided to come. And… that's an interesting costume!"

That was… one way to put it, I suppose. Amelia had been a little too enthused when she smugly reminded me of the fact that it was a costume party.

I'd tried to argue that I could pretend to be a soldier or something and get all of my gear easily and visibly into the bar, but she just told me to 'trust her.' Which I was never doing again after what she'd done to my wonderful armored clothing.

Namely, she'd covered it in faux fur.

Sure, she assured me the adhesive would wash out easily, but that didn't change the fact that I was walking around looking like a cutesy ball of fur. It did not at all help that she'd attached a cat-ears hairband to my head, tastefully concealed with my hair so only the cat ears peeked out. Or that she'd synced the things with my eyes so that they actually wiggled around and responded to my emotions.

The look was complete with a whiskers-and-googly eyes mask. The eye part was see-through, leaving my eyes bare for 'dramatic red glow effect people will assume is part of the costume.'

Oh, and a tail. She'd given me a tail. Also synced to my eyes, so it wiggled and moved like the ears.

I could see Deacon holding back snickers.

"Y-Yeah. Happy to be here. Wouldn't miss it." I laughed awkwardly, feeling like I should be doing something with my hands in spite of the zero urges pushing me to do it. Didn't normal people fidget with their fingers a lot?

"Oi, move over yer skinny ass, can't reach the bartender!" A gruff voice slurred behind me as someone elbowed me aside and a huge, obviously drunk guy pushed his way to the bar counter. "Hit me with… with… whatever the fuck comes in the biggest glass. The hard shit, ya hear me?!"

I winced away from him, extremely grateful for the thick clothing I was wearing. The armor was doing an amazing job of blocking out murder urges, but they could still trigger if I wasn't careful. Amelia and I had done some testing, and while I obviously didn't react to her all that much, I still… reacted.

Deacon definitely noticed my wince. A flash of livid rage snuck over his face before he smothered it.

"Ah, yeah… How 'bout this, big guy?" Bending briefly out of our sight, he came back with a bottle, popped it open, and handed it off. "Here's a bottle!" he said cheerfully. "On the house!"

The big asshole cheered, getting lost in the press of bodies a second or two later.

Deacon's eyes, until then still burning with indignation, landed on me and immediately softened. "Sorry 'bout that. Still working for another…" He glanced under the counter again. "Hour and twenty minutes or so. You don't mind waiting?"

"Nah. Gonna get in the way if I stay here?"

"Not at all! That fucker was just… never mind. That bottle I gave him?" He leaned forward, and I instinctively copied him so I could hear his whisper over the music. "Nearly 100% proof shit. We use it to scrub the floors. He's gonna pass out and we'll need to scrape him out of the bar soon. Literally!"

He laughed, and there was something so delightfully villainous in the sound that I couldn't help myself.

I joined in.

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