Something that being a mercenary for the past five years taught me was that this job had no room for compassion. This was one of the first things I learned from my mentor, and he would drill it into me constantly:

  “There are two kinds of mercenaries, Arid, those who show mercy, get used up and killed, and those who do their job. Which one will you turn out to be?”

  I shook my head as I focused back on the job. There was no point in dwelling on the past on my last job before paying off my debt. Five years of jobs, five years of taking reduced cuts on every single assassination, item reacquisition or rescue mission that was sent my way. Three hundred thousand dollars, the price of my life. Well, the price for the implants and surgery to repair my body after the incident.

  I felt a small twinge of pain through my synth nerves in my legs as I shifted slightly and adjusted my scope. While the implants were high quality, they still couldn’t perfectly emulate some of the feelings that normal body parts could. One of the problems with implants, although the highest quality ones that the corporations had access to likely didn’t have to deal with these sorts of issues.

  I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a fragment of a long-broken mirror. I could see the seams on my arms, legs, and face, where the panels of fake skin connected. I could get them removed, but that would cost money that I didn’t have. At 5”6, I was shorter than most people my age, and while I would like to blame my genes, it was most likely a combination of malnutrition and the near-full body replacement by cyberware that hampered my growth.

  The only aspect I really found pleasing about my appearance was my green hair and eyes, which were the height of fashion back when I was 15, until the trends shifted. I still liked them, though, and it was a waste to spend any money to change them.

  A faint rumbling in the distance shook me out of these thoughts. The lack of sleep was definitely catching up to me, and the Caffinate Max I'd gotten from a vending machine outside my apartment barely helped. I quietly aimed my rifle at the approaching convoy, invisible from my position in a nearby abandoned apartment building.

  My target was sitting in the backseat of a Humvee, protected by two-inch thick plasglass, something that would stop almost any attempts to shoot him. Luckily, I had some piercing bullets that I had managed to buy for a thousand, quite a large sum but discounted due to the specialised rifles that would be required to fire them. Thankfully, I had managed to modify my rifle to fire them. It wouldn’t be able to shoot again, but I only needed this one shot.

  I waited until the convoy was mostly past me and pulled the trigger. The bullet rocketed out, slightly visible with the slowdown caused by the specialised armour piercing, before slamming into the plasglass and nailing the target in the head. I dropped the rifle; the firing mechanism had fused together from the stress of the modified bullets, outputting significantly more heat than the cheap rifle could tolerate.

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  Moving speedily, I ran through the old corridors, heading for the exit that I had scouted out an hour before. A hail of bullets followed me, forcing me to duck below the window frames, concrete chips ricocheting around the empty building. I breathed in, centring my mind before triggering my boostware. The world slowed around me, concrete fragments now visible, bullets that were streaks in the air now visible. I felt a sense of calm wash over me as sound became dampened, and I started to move. Sprinting through the building, I ducked into the stairway and started to make my way down. Why did I decide to set up on the 14th floor?

  I flew down the stairs, rapidly reaching the 10th floor, hearing the dampened echoes from the guards of the caravan making their way up the staircase. I was following the route I had scouted out earlier in the day, heading towards the end of the corridor, before opening a laundry chute and jumping in. I had cleared it of rubble, and I was small enough to squeeze my way in, and it would hopefully give me enough of a head start to lose my pursuers.

  I carefully slide down the chute before landing on a mattress, with my leg implants absorbing the rest of the shock. I scrambled off the mattresses, looking around the alley that I was in before continuing further into the maze of buildings.

  I heard a faint whining sound from above, and what I saw made my heart drop.

  “Where did they get drones from? I thought they were low on the corporate ladder?”

  Drones were some of the most expensive pieces of weaponry that money could buy, at least if they were autonomous, especially after the great A.I. destruction of 2105. I quickly ducked into a side street, hoping the piles of garbage and random car wrecks would shield me from whatever scanners they had equipped. I dived behind a car and peeked out at the drones.

  They flew around 10 feet above the ground, their small, sleek metallic form showing that they were built for speed, while the twin guns on both sides of their chassis hinted at the danger they could pose. I held my breath as they flew by, going past the street, seemingly following the main street and passing me by. I snuck further into the side street, my previous route rendered useless by the presence of the drones.

  I shuffled forward carefully, avoiding any stray bits of metal that could reveal my location to the high-end sensors that the drones were equipped with. A slight clatter ahead of me caused me to freeze. I ever-so-slowly slid my head out of cover before eventually spotting nothing but a small rat, standing frozen next to a slightly vibrating tire rim. Unfortunately, it seems I wasn’t the only one to notice the noise.

  I cursed my bad luck as the drones started to converge on the location of the noise, forcing me to speed up. I vaulted over cars, jumped past piles of garbage, and launched myself further into the street, giving up on stealth in the hopes that I would be able to find an unlocked building that the drones couldn’t follow me into easily.

  I heard a robotic chime as the drones' targeting systems attempted to lock onto me, getting confused by my rapid movement in and out of cover. They were likely controlled by a very rudimentary AI, which would explain their difficulty in targeting me. After a short sprint, I found myself at an intersection, before catching a glimpse of some movement out of the corner of my eye. I drew my pistol and swept the barrel towards it, before stopping on a camera. A camera that was on in an area with no power.

  An alert flashed across my screen, stating that my systems had been breached. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head as everything went dark.