Neil woke up from his doze when Opal’s voice buzzed through his subcutaneous coms implant.

“The meet’s happening. Time to get up, sleepyhead.”

Blinking away the tatters of some comfortable dream he was having—even now, only half-remembered at best—he glanced at his watch. Just before quarter past seven. A little later than what they’d expected. Hopefully, he’d still have enough light.

“How many are showing up?” He only had to mumble the words for the transmitter in his jawbone to pick them up and beam them to his sister.

“I see five vans from Kingfisher Inc. Seven from Punjab Tech. Both parties making their way to the anticipated meeting point.” The sound of Opal’s voice had that little tell-tale distortion that happened every time her computer was running near max capacity. “How are you feeling, Neil?”

“I’m awake,” said Neil. “I’ll take a tab if I’m getting drowsy. But only after I take the shot.”

The stimulants were good at keeping him alert, bad at keeping his hands steady.

“What about you?” He asked. “I’m hearing a little static on the line.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s just that damn cooling fan on CPU six again, I think. Something’s probably got it gunked up again, so I’m working with one processor less.”

“Sorry. I’ll fix that when I get back.”

“Thank you.” The smile was apparent in her voice, and so was the anxiousness beneath it.

The gas station that he was sitting in had probably been abandoned for the last fifteen years. It’s been a long while since he last saw a car that ran on gasoline.

This whole section of the city was dotted full of buildings that had outlived their purpose or profitability. And considering the state of the infrastructure—the rusted water pipes, the decaying two hundred year old electrical wiring that had never been organized in a way to support modern needs—it was unlikely that any company would be willing to put in the investment to make these city blocks popular with anyone other than vagabonds and rogue corporate agents looking for a place to conduct unofficial dealings off the grid.

Neil sat up in the chair he had found in that dusty gas station, and scootched it closer to the window he was sitting next to. There was no glass pane in the widow, so his rifle sat perched on the windowsill on a bipod, waiting for him.

It was an older design, an AR-10/SR-25 pattern gun chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor. Quality ammo in a vintage calibre was hard to come by, but whenever they could afford to keep it fed, this was the gun that Neil preferred on jobs.

“They’re here,” said Opal.

Neil peered down his rifle scope at the scene unfolding four hundred yards away. A dozen armored vans with black, reflective windows were pulling up to an old, concrete basketball court. Right where their source told them they would be.

“Where’s our mark?” asked Neil.

Opal highlighted one of the Kingfisher vans in Neil’s retinal overlay. He saw it blink blue a couple of times.

“That’s probably our most likely car, based on corporate SOPs for these sort of events.”

“Okay,” said Neil. He tugged his rifle’s charging handle just far back enough to confirm that he had a round in the chamber. “Let’s go ahead and start streaming.”

A little blinking red dot manifested in the corner of Neil’s left eye’s field of view, indicating that his visual feed was being broadcasted live to their client. Opal handled the triple encryption that made the livestream extremely difficult to trace for third parties.

There were people coming out of the vans, now, dressed in armor plate carriers worn over business casual shirts and pants. Almost every one of them on both sides carried compact rifles, held in that falsely relaxed way that telegraphed alertness.

Neil kept his crosshairs floating lazily over the target’s van. With just a little bit of practiced mental effort, he tuned out the little swaying movements the scope would make every time he breathed. He could almost imagine that the van was right there, within an arm’s throw, and not a quarter of a mile away.

The van’s door opened.

Another two guards, and one that wasn't a guard. She exited the far side of the car, so at first only a little bit of her was visible. But from what Neil could see, the stern-looking, gray haired woman matched the description he was given. He immediately started tracking her through his scope.

“Client says that’s her,” said Opal.

“Heard,” he said. He flicked off his rifle’s safety with a twist of his thumb and waited for a clear shot.

The woman walked forward, apparently already in discussion with one of the Punjab representatives. Her movement took her out from behind one of the armored vehicles, and then Neil finally noticed the dark, bulky vest she was wearing.

“She’s got armor on,” said Neil. “Do we know what kind?”

He didn’t want to try for a headshot at this distance if he didn’t have to.

“Hold on just a second,” said Opal. “I’m asking the client.”

A long stretch of seconds passed. Neil’s index finger found its way into the trigger guard, and he squirmed in his seat. How long would the mark's conversation with Punjab take? Was she just about to duck back into the safety of her armored van?

“Client says he’s pretty sure it’s just a steel plate,” Opal said, finally. “He says he got the info from the company armorer. Owed him a favor, apparently.”

“Okay, we’ll take his word for it,” said Neil.

Less than five seconds later, he fired.

The gun kicked sternly against his shoulder, and the sound of the shot was immediately dampened by the noise-sensing implants in Neil’s ears.

For half a second in the clear, windless air, he could see the mirage distortion from the arc of the bullet, rising at first, then falling and striking the mark dead in the center of her chest.

Even at this distance, Neil could see a brief flash on impact, when the projectile’s tungsten penetrator core superheated and punched through the steel armor.

While the supersonic crack was still lingering in the air, Neil fired again, just for safety.

By then the woman was already crumpling to the ground, and the round just went into whatever body mass was still available for Neil to aim at. At this point, he was less concerned about good shot placement.

With a remarkably quick reaction time, the two sides were shooting at each other.

“Client sent half the payment. We’ll get the rest when he confirms her death.”

“Congratulate him on the imminent promotion we just freed up for him,” Neil muttered, suddenly very tired. He began began his after-action rituals. Removing his rifle’s bipod, changing the magazine for a fresh one, switching the optic for tritium iron sights.

Just when he stood up, Opal’s voice came again, desperate in his ear.

“Neil! There was a perimeter team I missed! They’ve already got a bearing on your shots.”

Shit.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“On top of you!”

Shit!

Neil slung his gun, and began to hurriedly move to the back exit. Just as he walked into the alley, he saw the glow of flashlights pierce the evening darkness ahead of him.

He ducked behind the first bit of concealment he could find: a rusted green dumpster. Even without peeking, he could see the pools of light from his assaulters’ flashlights wash over towards him, bouncing as they ran towards the gas station.

“They’re here,” he mumbled. “Give me some cover.”

“EM chaff on the way,” said Opal. “Three, two, one…”

Almost ten thousand feet above Neil and the Kingfisher thugs, Opal’s camera drone was spinning lazy circles in the sky. On her command, it delivered payload from its single 40mm launcher.

The falling canister exploded at a precisely calculated height over the gas station alleyway, dispersing several ounces of highly charged carbon nanotube material milliseconds before the canister’s second component, a magnetic flash coil, detonated.

The resulting dispersal of a powerful localized electromagnetic field disabled everything that held an electrical current, for at least a few minutes.

Neil began moving as soon as he saw the flashlights shut off. He saw a team of five corporate soldiers that were suddenly fighting to regain their bearings. Some struggled with artificial eyes and limbs that had suddenly failed them, leaving them groping blindly with weapons dropped. Others suddenly had their attention elsewhere, instinctively trying to pull their disabled colleagues to cover or fidgeting with electronic targeting systems that were suddenly unresponsive.

None were looking down the alleyway as Neil leaned out from behind the dumpster, rifle shouldered.

Neil’s left eye was, of course, just as disabled as the Kingfisher men’s gear. But his right eye was organic. And the tritium sights that glowed atop his rifle didn’t run on batteries.

He began putting two shots on each target as quickly as he could, starting with the ones that were still on their feet. In a surprisingly clear part of his mind, he registered that without the electronic dampeners, his ears were ringing out in sharp pain with every trigger pull.

Two of the mercs were able to open up with their rifles, in an almost perfunctory kind of way. With their feet knocked out from under them and caught off-guard, they had almost no chance effectively returning fire.

As soon as all the soldiers were on the ground and moving only limply, Neil starting running away. He didn’t want to stay and give any of the survivors the chance to recover.

With the whine of tinnitus in his ears, he barely heard the sound of his own footfalls as he crossed the rest of the distance to his getaway trike.

---

When he arrived home hours later, Opal was immediately yelling at him.

“Why in the hell didn’t you talk to me, you complete fucking tool?!” Her voice cracked at the edges from worry.

And only then did he realize that he hadn’t yet rebooted his coms implant after the EM burst.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Arms were raised placatingly, a dizzy smile on his face from leftover adrenaline. “I forgot.”

“Oh my god, you idiot. How do you forget that kind of thing? Honestly!” Opal’s voice stretched out, teetering on the edge between crying and laughing from the pent-up emotions that were finally being released.

In that moment, Neil remembered Opal as a child. Baby Opal, who was born fourteen years after him, who chased the invasive pigeons on the streets, and who sometimes hid behind his legs when he was barely a man.

Neil smiled at the memory. And then he remembered something from earlier that day.

“Here, peace offering,” he said, leaning down until he was at her computer tower. “Lemme get that busted fan for you.”

“Some fucking peace offering,” grumbled Opal. And even though her voice came only through the room’s speakers, he could easily imagine her sitting, cross-armed, like she used to.

The computer was a big thing, and it generated a lot of heat. It had to, in order to run Opal’s consciousness.

Neil carefully removed the outer casing, and then with a can of compressed air, he blew away whatever tangled mess of dirt had seized up that one cooling fan in the back. It started spinning again in short order.

“Feels so much better,” said Opal. “Thanks, Neil.”

“It’s nothing.”

Suddenly as exhausted as he had ever been, he fell face-down on his bed, his body still unwashed and his dirty clothes unchanged.

Idly, he booted his datapad up, and glanced at the new sums in their bank account.

“We’re just a little bit closer. Thank you so much,” said Opal, quietly, like she always did.

“Yeah,” he said, like he always did. “Not that much more, now.”

New organic bodies were very, very expensive.