The Dolphin Job

***   Malik "Spirit" Jones leans against the cracked bathroom sink, staring at his reflection in the flickering neon of the buzzing motel sign outside. The geckos on the walls move like they know something he doesn’t. Rico in recovery is bad news, not just because he’s a friend, but because it means they're limping into their next job without their heavy hitter.   He rolls a cigarette between his fingers but doesn’t light it, chuckling at the fact that this building is a converted fire station. Questions don’t pay for a safehouse or cover a week’s worth of med tech care. He needs to make a call, dig up some work, something that pays fast and doesn’t require an army.   "Something easy," he smirks bitterly at his reflection.   ***   Back in the dusty room, Zoe, also known as Flash, flips her knife, catches it by the hilt, and huffs. “No one's hiring for easy gigs, and the hard ones come with body bags.” She’s half-sprawled on a heart-shaped bed, brave—even looking at the sheets made Spirit’s skin itch a little.   Jack ‘Shield’ Thompson, corporate meathead turned street meathead, looks up from his corner, cracking his neck as he pushes off the mattress, seeming to occupy the entire space at once with his massive shoulders and cyberarms. "Spirit, you got a fixer you trust more than a rabid dog?"   Spirit lets out a slow exhale, rubbing his temples. "Yeah, I got a couple names," he says, reaching for his burner. "I can see if Juno’s got work. She runs gigs where discretion’s key, but she’s been dodgy ever since… well, she’s just like that I guess."   Jack glances at Zoe, "And you—what’s this about Slayton? You’ve been sittin’ on that lead?" He’s not wrong, she must be already cooking up something in that fast-processing brain of hers.   Zoe sits up, flipping her knife one last time before tucking it away. "Slayton was sniffing around for security leaks, and now one of our netrunners—Lenard—is just gone. Either he went ghost on purpose or someone made him disappear. Problem is, no one’s paying for answers. Not yet, anyway."   Shield crosses his arms, chewing on the decision. "Fixers first," he grunts. "We need eds in our pockets before we start chasing ghosts. Last thing we need is poking Slayton and ending up on some corpo hit list without a payout." Nobody made him the boss, but probably talking through the steps makes his precious little brain more at ease.     ***   Jack leans against the rusted wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. He listens as Spirit lays out the jobs from the fixers, each less appealing than the last. His jaw clenches at the first one.   "Assassination and a cyberbrain rip? That’s messy. No guarantees, tons of security, and if we botch it, we’re on Desai’s shit list for life. That’s a major corp. Ain’t worth it unless the payday is outrageous." He spits to the side, clearly not thrilled.   Zoe shakes her head. "We don’t even know what cyberbrain tech this guy’s running. Could be simple, could be some next-gen bio-encryption that fries itself if we handle it wrong. Too much risk, not enough reward unless they’re paying stupid money."   "The data job for MilCom… now that’s doable,” Jack muses further, scratching his beard with chrome fingers. “High risk, but more about speed than gunplay. We got Zoe to slice through security, Spirit to ghost us through the building, and I keep us from getting flatlined on the way out. But if Milcom catch us—it’s a black ops kill list. Not on my watch."   Zoe rolls her eyes, muttering something about Jack going into dadmode again, as he squints at the last one. "...A genetically engineered dolphin? The fuck?" He lets out a dry laugh. "That’s gotta be some corpo nightmare in the making. But low-key, I like it. Weird jobs pay good, and it sounds like a theft, not a murder spree. I say we get the details on that one first."   Zoe’s already scrolling through her optical overlay, no doubt running silent searches for anything related to Desai Transport, MilCom’s research projects, and the what-the-fuckery of genetically modified marine life.   Then, she smirks at the last job. "Dolphin heist? Oh, I’m in. That’s some corpo-grade gene-hacking bullshit, and you know whoever wants it is willing to pay big to keep it out of the wrong hands. It’s the most fun we’re gonna have without ending up as a smear on a corporate hit list."   Spirit looks for Juno’s contacts in his busted phone. "Hope she’s paying well, ‘cause I ain’t getting geeked over some corpo’s pet fish."   Zoe grins, already plotting the angles. "Oh, we’re gonna make a splash with this one."     ***   The ride to the client meet had been long, frustrating, and filled with enough urban sprawl to make even the most hardened city rats car sick. After four hours in traffic, the team pulls up in Futura, stepping out into the slightly cooler air—a rare blessing in the endless heat haze of 7C.   Spirit pulls his jacket closer against the overpowered AC as they step into the pork joint. He eyes the pilot uniforms, students, and general clientele, clocking potential troublemakers. "Place has that cheap authenticity knockoff vibe. I bet the pork’s good, though."   “Cheap authenticity knockoff vibe? Just don’t talk like a philosophy podcast scaring off a client,” Jack says with a half-grin.   “Better than you sounding like a malfunctioning killbot.” Spirit retorts, but they both know it’s a weak one. “Wait, lemme try again. Scaring off? Your damaged mug takes care of that, honestly, fix your face man, shit is drastic.”   “OMG, men,” Zoe adjusts her jacket and stretches her fingers. "More worried that someone has actually provided ‘Ms. X’ as their alias for this meet, what a psycho." She eyes the restaurant layout, noting exits, camera placements, and where Ms. X might be waiting.   Shield leads with his broad frame, while Spirit is looking for someone sitting alone, someone who doesn’t quite belong. A minor corp executive means expensive tastes but a lack of real power—someone who probably tries too hard to look important while still being nervous about dealing with people like them. Sure enough, distinct corpo vibes from a woman in a booth over to the side. She could be any age between 30 and 60, a little doughy, broad white face, white hair with purple highlights, navy blue pencil suit with rainbow accents, purple synleather gloves. Two identical shallow pans of food in front of her, untouched. She waves them over, expression flat.   Shield takes point, as usual, stepping forward with the casual confidence of someone who’s walked into a hundred sketchy meetings before. Or what it probably looks like in his mind anyway. His boots thud against the cheap tile floor as he leads the crew toward the booth. Spirit follows just behind, hands in his pockets, loose. Zoe lags half a step, eyes flicking between the pilots, the students, and the corpo woman’s untouched food.   They slide into the booth, spreading out enough to watch the room but close enough to talk low. Spirit nods to the untouched food. “Either you’re waiting on us to eat, or the food’s poison.” Spirit’s voice is calm, amused—testing. She doesn’t bite.   Spirit noticed Zoe’s fingers drum lightly on the table before she folded them under her chin, clearly scheming. “Nice suit. Not quite boardroom. Not quite street. That means you’re hungry for something.”   Ms X's glance barely shifted over Zoe dismissively. "I appreciate the fashion character analysis about as much as two for one specials", before fixing on Shield, and continuing without skipping a beat, like she just wants to get this over with. "It’s a simple extraction. There’s a piece of experimental biotech being held in an off-books facility at the Old Fish Market. Flicking you the coordinates. It’s not some corpo fortress, just a rundown wetlab with a few low-tier contractors playing gatekeeper. The corp’s too embarrassed to acknowledge it exists, so security is tight but local. No kill squads, no mechs, no orbital strikes, ” it’s difficult to pinpoint which of the three she used as a humorous exaggeration. “The job is in and out—neutralize the defenses, grab the asset, and get the hell out before anyone even knows you were there." She fidgets a little, running the glove finger over the rim of one of the plates with a tiny squeaky sound.   Spirit barely reacts to Ms. X’s dismissal of Zoe—corpos love their little power plays—but he clocks the way her gloved fingers twitch. She’s nervous. Not scared, but she’s got something riding on this job, and that makes him interested.   He leans back slightly, arms still planted on the table. "Alright. Sounds like a clean op. But what’s the real risk factor here? You say ‘experimental biotech’—that can mean a lot of things."   "It’s a prototype. Some kinda neuro-uplift. It’s... unstable. Maybe chemically dependent. Maybe a little paranoid. I dunno, I don’t work in R&D. But it’s valuable, and I want it.” Spirit saw Zoe’s expression shift ever so slightly. Typical of a corpo to think that ‘I want’ is a good enough reason for anything. “The dolphin is locked up in some kind of reinforced tank, probably wired into life support. You don’t just unhook it and toss it in a truck. Be smart.”   Spirit watches Ms. X closely, reading between the lines of what she says and doesn’t say. She keeps looking at Spirit as he asks questions, but then continues with answers as if talking only to Shield. Zoe sits with a slightly vacant look, no doubt already looking for a life support solution in her overlay.   "Now, there’s one wrinkle." Ms. X looks at each crew member in turn. "There might be... outside interest. But don’t worry, they aren’t looking for you. They’re looking for exposure. Which means you don’t want to be there when they show up."   Spirit exhales, rubbing his chin. "Who exactly are we talking about? Activists? Journalists? Rival corp goons?”   Ms. X tilts her head slightly, as if deciding how much to compartmentalize.   "They are some lunatic fringe types. The kind who think setting labs on fire is good PR. Just get in and out before they make a mess.” She waves dismissively. “These guys don’t RSVP. So prep what you need—but don’t drag your feet. The drop point is here in Futura where the tank can be reconnected to the necessary systems. Just come up with a temp solution so that it survives the move."   “Also,” she gets up to leave, the audience finished, "The pay has been arranged with your fixer, but I might throw in a little extra if I like the outcome." The warmest of smiles shines onto Jack before Ms X returns to the business attitude.   "Alright. We’ll handle it," Jack says simply, pushing back from the table slightly. "Expect results."   "That's what I like to hear". Ms X shows teeth and glides away. Jack turns to watch her go, dragging the untouched plate across the table toward him.   ***   “Expect results,” Zoe drones off in her imitation of a brain dead corpo soldier, ”Jeez, they must have left something in your head to go with those arms when you ditched Biogenics. Cringe conditioning.”   “No idle chatter on comms!” Jack barks, unwittingly proving her point. Spirit waited for his laughter to subside before reporting his preliminary recon to the crew channel.   “Two to four Spines near the lab door all the time, no holes in the building armor. They got no slack worth exploiting—unless we use the neighborhood. There’s barbershop, gym, apartments full of old geezers—places to blend, maybe stage from. I say we find a way to pull those Spines out the open. Fire drill, gang beef, maybe Zoe stirs the net with some false-flag chatter. Then we slip in.”   The Old Fish Market is a rotting low rise maze of a hood. Proximity to water is supposed to make it breathable, but here near the lab area Spirit only noted two canals choked with garbage on his walk around.   “Distraction sounds good, use the apartment block,” Jack rasps on the comm. ”I’ll wait one block down, watching for the Spines’ reaction. Once they peel off to handle the distraction, I’ll keep them tangled so you two can move. Then you pop the door, Zoe. How we doing on transport solve? And any chatter from the external interest bunch?”   “Nothing but the name—Blue Shadow, radical environmental bullshit.” Zoe chimes in. “Figures the eco-heads cover their tracks better than I uncover them. Or maybe they just… don’t prep? As for the tank—yeah, I found a rig to move our fish, but they’re bleeding us dry ‘cause they know we’re on the hook. Not risking the dolphin croaking mid-ride ‘cause I cheaped out though. We’ll make more money. Can’t make another dolphin.”   ***   The busted-up apartment block smells like piss, concrete dust, and boiled cabbage. In the basement utility room, Spirit takes a deep breath, listening to the soft clicking of beads and data shards in his dreadlocks, a tiny, sacred sound in the daily turmoil shared by tens of millions of souls in this sprawl. “Balance and perspective”, he breathes out his mantra, and throws down the switch on an old breaker box.   He rigged a rolling blackout, flipping juice on and off in bursts. Lights stutter, hallways plunge into dark, alarms on some of the tenants’ old pacemakers probably start ringing. Now for the fun part.   “Spines are shaking folks down! They killing for drugs! Save yourselves! Cops, call the cops! Fire! Gun, gun, gun!” He screams as he rockets up the stairs and down the corridors, rapping on old metal doors of the apartments, a wave of smoke from a fire extinguisher behind him.   Finally, on the fourth floor, his face screwed with effort, he upends and pushes a rickety wooden cabinet through the staircase window. It lands in the yard below in a crash of splinters, memories, and glass.   This worked, and the three guards from the lab entrance, in signature studded bright purple leathers, cautiously approach to investigate. Residents are twitching even more, as they believe that this is a shakedown coming. Some run, some close the doors and the broken shutters, some get into the Spines' faces confronting them.   “Bingo,” Spirit grins. The second those three Spines peel from the lab and stomp toward the old folks’ block, Jack’s massive frame appears dramatically silhouetted against an alley entrance. He rolls his bulging chrome shoulders and steps into the yard like a slab of meat wrapped in kevlar.   “Yo, Spines! You lookin’ for trouble, you just found it,” his voice is booming as he grabs a chunk of busted concrete from the gutter and hurls it at the ground between him and the guards—loud crack, dust plume, gasping residents.   Spirit watches from above as Spines grab their weapons and are about to turn Jack into mince. All according to plan. He sees Zoe’s cyber legs flashing a dull lightning as she maneuvers from the opposite end of the yard to the lab door and sets to slice into the lock and camera feeds. Taking his cue, Spirit turns back into the building and runs downstairs. Gunshots erupt outside.   When he emerges from the apartment lobby, the residents are diving for cover. There’s a body. The two remaining Spines are now focusing on Jack with their back to the building entrance.   “That all you got, you fucking amateurs?” Jack snarls, laughing and dodging a shotgun blast. Sparks and torn cables rain down. His next rifle burst deletes the shotgun guy, sewing right through him, and the armor plate on both sides of his body.   Covering his ears, Spirit runs to join Zoe at the door, her face creased in concentration. Gritting her teeth, she slams her palm against the console. The lock’s fighting her, hard-coded, old-school nasty, but she ain’t letting go. “Not today, sweetheart. You’re opening up for me, like it or not,” she grinds through her teeth.   “Why don’t you breathe Flashy?” he suggests calmly.   “Right-right,” she pings back not looking up from her work, but a fraction of tension seems to deflate from her neck.   Looking back over his shoulder, Spirit sees one Spine left, rifle boy—panicked, sloppy, spraying wild. There’s a bunch of rats scattering from somewhere squealing in the upheaval.   “Gotcha, bitch.” Zoe’s grin’s pure predatory—fingers twitching on the panel. The lock cracks, lights on the panel flip green, and the door yields under her control. Spirit yanks it open and steps inside.   ***   The storage room is stuffy and dusty. Spirit steps quietly, eyes wide, listening for possible company. Supplies all around—tools, crates, junk. He slides a hand across a shelf, and picks up a wrench heavy enough to crush a skull.   Zoe made short work of the only camera, then looks over, “We’ve got maybe minutes before somebody clocks I rerouted the feed. Next door’s our path, but we move careful. If they’re cooking bio in here, hope it doesn’t stink too badly.” She’s nervous, but then she is most of the time, in Spirit’s experience, her default mode. She makes a quick check of the door leading deeper into the facility and then motions to come through.   Jack’s voice mutters on the comm, “Three down. Keep moving, kids. I’ll hold the street.”   The next room is more cramped and dark. Immediately clear this is the systems room. There are servers, some equipment with buttons and feeds, blinky lights. There are three small glass tanks with little crocodiles in them, immobile. Workstation has a table and six monitors rigged above it. A techie in a blue cap is sitting in a chair at it, her legs on the table. She doesn't turn until Spirit and Zoe are well inside the room, and then she just looks at them, jaw slack, "Where's them guys?" She knows the answer before she finishes the question.   “Them guys? Painting the sidewalk outside.” Zoe tilts her head, flashes a wolf’s grin. “You’re breathing ‘cause I like my answers live. So—let’s start with the tank. What’s the trick to keeping a dolphin from keeling over in there?”   Spirit notices the techie is about to step up from stupor to terror, time to play the good cop. “See here, you play smart, you walk out. You play dumb, you get carried,” voice velvety and calm.   "Look, I don't get paid enough for this shit, so you got no problem from me, you hear?" She spills everything of course: what the systems do, the feeds that go into the dolphin tank in the next room, controls for water chemicals, meds that go into the body, and signals that go in and out of its cognitive implants. "But I don't know why or how, I just key in whatever the doc tells me to, okay?" Her panic rises again, as she realizes she’s no longer useful.   “Relax, sweetheart.” Zoe’s voice is cheerful, but not her eyes, “We’re not here for you—we’re here for the fish. You’re okay, but if you trip an alarm on the way out, I’ll know.” She drops into the techie’s seat, getting ready to take a real bite of the controls. Spirit just nods the techie to go on, as she quickly grabs her shit and scurries. Not wasting a life just might buy them a sliver of equilibrium.   The feed from the next room appears on the screens. It is much bigger, the lab area with tiled floors is separated from the office area with fancy wooden floors, featuring a wide desk and an older guy sitting at it, eating something from a bowl. There are three spines in there too, armed and starting to get twitchy, trying the comms that their friends from outside aren’t answering. And a huge vertical, at least three meters tall, tank is dominating the space. A grotesque creature is floating in an unnatural color water, tubes and wires going under its sickly skin and into lumbering metal plates sticking from its skull. One eye, black and glassy, turns toward the camera—fixes on them. Not random.   Zoe shivers. “It’s looking at us.”   “Little soul, still in there.” Spirit mutters peering at the screen. Something about the hum of the water, the flicker of movement inside—it stirs the same part of him that the old songs do. He bows his head slightly, touching Zoe’s shoulder. “What if this isn’t a lab rat?” He whispers. “The way that corpo bitch was talking about it… What if it’s a prisoner?” Zoe’s eyes are wide as she looks up at him, considering the possibilities and implications.   “But that doesn’t change our job, choom, does it?” she asks slowly, uncertainty creeping into her voice.   “Are you alive in there? Report!” Jack’s sudden voice on the comm makes them jump.   “Fish is in the tank, and we got three meatheads with guns.” Spirit relays, still looking at the dolphin on the screen.   “Three more inside, huh? Sounds like my kinda party.” It did sound like Jack was smiling.   ***   Zoe’s eyes are flicking over the system feeds, lips curling into a grin. Cameras, chems, dolphin cognition chip—too many toys she doesn’t fully understand. Regardless, she patches the entire system into her implant and optics.   Immediately the cognition interface flares to life—raw, glitchy, unreadable. Then:   STAY?   YOU HOLD?   Zoe just stares at the words. Her fingers stop moving. Something in her chest tightens.   But then Jack stalks in, cracking his neck and immediately making the space crowded.   “Pop the door when you’re ready. I’ll make ‘em look my way.”   Swiping away the dolphin interface, Zoe refocuses on the job. No time. Spirit presses close to the door, huge sweat stain on the back of his billowing sack-like shirt, ready to go in the second Jack pulls the trigger.   She keys the cameras into a loop—if anyone outside’s watching, they’ll see nothing but calm water and lazy guards. Then she whispers to Jack:   “Door’s yours, cowboy.” And she cycles through the camera feeds linked into her optics: the door yawns open; old man stares up from his bowl; dolphin thrashing, sending a ripple of garbage data across her feeds; rifle snapping to Jack’s shoulder, burst aimed clean, keeping it fast, keeping it mean, not giving ’em the chance to squeeze; Spirit diving in right behind him—low and fast; two Spines drop, blood splattering the floorboards, one boot skidding across the room like a bad joke; older guy jumps up, data shards, his soup, and small debris falling off the table in a little piles; the third spine shoots Spirit in the chest, he stumbles back, slams into the wall, bright red circle spreading fast on the cozy fabric; yelling on comms; Jack hammers the trigger and erases the bastard with no second thought.   For a blink Zoe’s back in the raid that took her father, spec ops with steel helmet faces, sirens, cuffs, gone.   BAD ROOM. BAD ROOM. BAD ROOM.   She forces it down. Lag kills. Zoe sees the doc’s emergency call coming up on her panel and slams it into digital oblivion, cutting him off from the world.   “Jack, there’s a kit in the lab—right wall, under the monitors! Use it now, he’s bleeding out,” her voice is shaking. “We still need that transport rig. I can run and grab it, but then you’re down a decker while the dolphin’s still wired in. What’s the play? Patch Spirit first? Or get the fish out? Before backup drops on us?” words are stumbling over each other.   I BAD? I FIX?   She sees Jack drop to one knee by Spirit, eyes on that spreading red. His hands are big and clumsy, pressing down hard, trying to slow the tide. Spirit’s eyes flutter, hands weakly paw at Jack’s enormous inhuman arms. Jack rips the kit open, slaps on gauze, wrapping tight. Doesn’t matter– Zoe’s optics show Spirit’s vitals nosediving.   Her gut twists, hard. No med skills. No magic words. Was always better at running than saving. A faint, distorted pulse echoes from the tank—a sound like sonar or song, modulated through machinery.   Zoe kicks off, her chrome legs detonating into motion. Sprinting out the lab, down the block, wind wooshing in her ears.   “Jack, keep Spirit breathing, no matter what. I’ll have the rig at the door in sixty.”     ***   It’s been minutes, way too long. Spirit’s head lolls, breath ragged, then gone shallow. His eyes roll back and he slips under, limp. Jack’s throat tightens—feels like he swallowed glass.   “So much for your fucking balance and perspective, eh?” He wants to be pissed, but his voice cracks. He cinches the bandage tighter, pressing his whole weight down on the wound, trying to bully the blood into staying put. His ears strain for boots outside, for engines rolling in. If backup comes before Zoe’s back…   Jack glances up at the creepy dolphin in the tank, its body is warped, hunched by uneven growth and metal plates bolted into its skull. One black eye is watching him like it knows how this ends.   "There's nothing you can do. He'll bleed out," the old doc’s voice from behind. He is standing near his desk, arms raised in surrender. Generically handsome face, expensive skin with smiling lines but sweating. "Unless you get him to a ripperdoc immediately. I know one nearby." His eyes are twinkling.   Jack stabs a blood-slick chrome finger toward him. “Name. Address. How far.”   "I can show you. I can take you. No more than several blocks away there is a street clinic. It's going to be okay," the corpo says with compassion, that’s his ticket out.   Jack barks a bitter laugh, full of teeth. “You ain’t ‘showing’ me shit. You’re leading the way with a barrel at your back.”   The rig screeches to a halt out front, hydraulics hissing as Zoe’s chrome legs bite into cracked pavement, then click on the lab floors. She sprints in, eyes darting from the grotesque dolphin tank to Jack, to Spirit bleeding out pale on the floor.   “Chooms… fuck. He’s bad.” She slams her hand against the tank’s base. “This tank’s a monster. Jack, even with the rig’s lift, it’s gonna take both of us to load it. Spirit has no time..”   Jack grits his teeth, rifle hanging loose in one hand, dolphin’s black eye drilling into him from the tank. “Spirit comes first. I’ll throw him in the rig, get the doc riding shotgun, and we haul ass to that ripper. Once he’s stable, we come back for the fish if it’s still here.” He scoops Spirit up like he’s nothing, “Lock this place up.”   On his way out he hears Zoe fist bumping the tank. “You ain’t forgotten, fish. But we’re not trading a choom for you.”     ***   Zoe slams the rig to a halt in front of the flickering green sparkle "Medical Assistance". The corporations’ island is looming across the water - slender skyscrapers of every style piercing the clouds. In her optics, Spirit’s vitals went flat just before they arrived.   “Gunshot wound! Now!” Jack kicks through the clinic doors, bellowing like thunder, body in his arms, Spirit’s chip-adorned dreadlocks and loose garments swaying like doll clothing. There's four patients waiting in the seats of the clinic’s front office, they get startled as Jack bursts in, but otherwise remain passive. Ripperdoc's assistant behind the counter is calmly observing the drama. "If you want us to attempt resuscitation, it'll be 2200 eds upfront." She has a tablet with intricate colorful designs at the back panel, and points to Malik's body. "No promises though."   Jack stares at her like she just spoke Martian. “Two. Thousand. Two hundred?”   Zoe pushes through next to him, still shaking, itchy hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, “Jack! We don’t have it! Not even close!” voice cuts sharp, frantic. This is not charity. If rippers worked on all the gunshots on their own credit, nothing prevented the victims from just leaving after, without paying.   “That's if he pulls through even," the assistant adds skeptically, glancing at Spirit's body.   Jack’s whole frame trembles with rage. Zoe just knows he’s about to do something idiotic. He shoves his rifle onto the counter, barrel first, hard enough to rattle it. “Fuck your upfront. Work on him now, and you’ll get paid,” his growl comes out low and lethal.   Zoe stands frozen, heart hammering like it’s gonna break through her ribs. She imagines the clicks and purrs of concealed automated turrets, almost feels their crosshairs on her skin. There are some things everyone agrees are just fucking wrong, and causing a scene at a ripperdoc’s is one of them.   "What's with all the noise?", a serene Indian woman in a red medical jumpsuit is standing in the doorframe of the clinic's doctor's office.   "Credit issue," the assistant replies, still looking at Jack with a shade of mocking smile. "On improbable resuscitation."   The ripperdoc takes in the scene, and all the participants one by one, walks over to Malik’s body, checks him. A red triangular jewel is glittering between her eyebrows. "I see. Well, the chances are slim. We can make an attempt now, you pay later. You won't know the result until you pay 2500.” She looks right at Jack appraisingly, calm, but firm, she'll take no shit.   For a long second, her stare is meeting his rage head-on. Then he nods once, sharp. “You bring him back, I’ll get you your creds.”   "Oh, don't get me wrong, he's dead,” the doc seems amused. “You are paying for our attempt at resuscitation. You'll find out only after the eds clear our books. And if you fuck me on this, every fixer in Swash will know about it."   Zoe’s stomach knots tighter with every word. 2,500 eds is a fucking mountain compared to what they got left. Does Spirit even have a whisper of a chance? Should they let him go maybe?   Jack grunts his agreement, looking down, defeated. The ripper motions, and a burly nurse takes Malik's body into the operating room. "Prepare to be disappointed." She follows, and the doors close behind her.   "Anything else I can help you with, or you'll be fucking right off?" the assistant asks looking up from her tablet.     ***   They step back out into the hot air, Zoe glances around—no corpo doc from the lab. That slippery bastard ghosted while they were in with the ripper. Figures.   Jack flexes his jaw, spits into the water, and slams a fresh mag into his rifle. “But the job ain’t done,” he says.   “Lab’s hot, choom,” Zoe leans against the rig. “We left three corpses in the street and three more inside. Spines’ll be buzzing it like hornets by now.” She chews her lip. “We could cut losses—ditch the fish, save our hides.” She doesn’t know how to even bring up that the dolphin was talking to her.   Jack looks through the heat haze to the skyscrapers on the island, and then turns his sunken blue eyes on Zoe. “We finish it. We go back, grab the dolphin, load it fast. Then we vanish.” He wants to make it count. He thinks Spirit’s bleeding buys them that much, but in fact it doesn’t. She should run.     ***   Zoe is driving the rig back to the lab, knowing she’ll regret it. As they approach, she sees activity in the yard. Three vans, people milling around, but not Spines - none of the neon colored leather with metal spikes, heels, hooks, glowing tattoos. This bunch is more raggedy, some mismatched combat fatigues, also younger than a spines enforcers would normally be. All of them got weapons though. Must be the Blue Shadow eco-ters that the client warned about. Two people are working on the lab door's access panel, no doubt trying to get in.   “Fuck. We’re late to the party.” Jack growls under his breath.   Zoe pulls the rig up slow, not trying to be subtle—they’re too big for that. Jack opens the cab door, stands tall on the step, all shoulders and chrome might, and bellows:   “That lab’s ours. You want a fight, you’ll get it. Or you can walk the fuck away before I redecorate this street with your organs.” Undiluted macho bullshit. But then again, being shouted at by a combat vehicle of pale flesh and battle-scarred chrome can affect some people.   With a sigh, Zoe scans their vans, hunting for wireless signatures—any weak locks, unsecured comms she can fry if they push.   A snowflake in an orange bomber jacket stops the music and comes forward, brown hair, bright red eye makeup like spray can crosses:   "And who the fuck are you? You don't look like no corpos,” she’s a small scrawny thing, jacket making her shoulders comically large. “We are blowing this fucker up. Medias are on their way, will be reporting all about how a black site wetlab can fade from all of them balance sheets. Wanna stick around for the show - go right the fuck ahead." She grins. The ters are fingering their guns now. Zoe realizes there’s much more of them than just her and Jack.   Jack hops down from the rig, boots cracking against the stone, rifle slung low but obvious.   “You blow this place, you ain’t just slagging a lab—you’re slagging the only leverage worth a damn inside it,” his voice sure carries. He steps closer to the snowflake, the blood still dried on his arms. “You really wanna be the crew remembered for fragging the world’s most expensive freakshow dolphin before the whole city sees it? Or you wanna sell your little exposé with a living specimen?”   That actually might work. They’re kids with guns and dreams, not hardened ops. Zoe leans out the rig window:   “He’s right. You torch it now, you get headlines for a week. You show the fish breathing, you get headlines forever—and creds rolling in from every eco donor dumb enough to think you’re the saviors of the seas. I can hand you the tank feed, live to your media buddies, right now. Show them the abomination floating in corporate piss-water. We’ve seen it, it’s impressive. But we get to leave with it at the end of the day. Or you can blow it all to dust and watch the story fizzle.”   Definitely working, the ters share some looks between each other, some huddle to discuss.   The snowflake raises her palms up, "Okay, first of all, dolphins are not technically fish," murmur of approval, "secondly, if you have the feeds, you also most def have the data from the lab systems. We want that too. Deal?"   Zoe patches through the files she ripped from the lab—system logs, chemical feeds, implant protocols, surveillance. The whole ugly pile is fed to the Blue Shadow local net they’ve set up.   “There. All the dirt you can choke on. Enough for a dozen exposés. And when your media pals show, you can feed ’em the live freakshow cam I’ve still got running. You get your fame, we get the meat in the tank,” she grins, “Everybody wins.”   "On second thoughts, you do look like a corpo cleaner, big guy," the snowflake says, eyeing Jack. She turns around for a quick convo with her crew. "Alright, the lab is yours, go ahead. Everybody wins."     ***   It was a spectacle—the tank is enormous and awkward to move around, trailing the viscera of wires and pipes, and heavy like a motherfucker. Zoe and Jack, mostly Jack, dropped it twice and damaged it before even reaching the rig. A little stream of water is leaking from it.   As they shuffle into daylight, the dolphin starts to thrash—not violently, but aimlessly, like trying to swim in too-small water. The biomonitors on the panel spike: cortisol, adrenaline, heart rate all redlining.   I BAD? I FIX?   SWIM.   NEW WHERE?   YOU HOLD?   “It’s going into withdrawal,” Zoe says quietly. “They drugged it bad. If it crashes, we lose it. Or it kills itself trying to move.”   “Well then we should move it fast, don’t you think?!” Jack huffs irritably, his chrome arms, shoulders, and back straining almost audibly.   As they were trying to maneuver the tank into the rig lifting system, the ters gathered around and looked at the dolphin with grim concentration. The mood of the crowd took a turn. They started bussing around their vans and darting in different directions too actively for Zoe to track what's up. Best leave asap.   Finally, the orange bomber girl approaches with a serious expression on her face.   "Sorry, the deal is off,” she announces, all trace of playful confidence gone. “This creature is clearly suffering. It deserves help... or peace. And the company deserves more pain for what it did. We cannot let you take it. I'm sorry. No deal."   Jack freezes, shoulders heaving, tank still gripped in his hands, water dripping down his chrome. Slowly, he set it down, rifle swinging forward with the same motion.   “You think suffering ends with you fragging this tank?” he growls. “No. It just moves from the dolphin to you. So you decide, right here: you honor the deal, or you all find out how many eco-kids I can bury before my mag runs dry.” Riding a testosterone wave looks like their only chance right now, so Zoe needs to play along.   “He’s not bluffing, snowflake,” he is totally bluffing—the eco kids outgun them ten to one. ”This ain’t about mercy. This is about who gets to cash the corp’s sins.”   The bomber-girl appraises them for a few moments, calculating. Finally she closes her eyes, nods knowingly, and steps aside. Jack holds her stare a moment longer, then gives the smallest nod back: “Smart move.” He sweeps his gaze across the circle of kids clutching their guns. “Keep those barrels pointed at the ground, and you all walk away.”   Then Zoe and Jack crouch back to the tank, chrome muscles whining as they get under the frame again. One more heave should do it.   ***   When it’s done, Jack slams the rig’s lift controls, locking the beast of a tank into place, water still dripping down onto the cracked pavement.   “You ride,” he tells Zoe. “You’re faster behind the wheel. I’ll keep the rifle hot in case our fan club gets twitchy.”   As he climbs into the passenger seat, Zoe wipes the sweat off her brow, fingers tapping the rig’s dash like a pianist limbering up.   “Copy that. Hold tight—this girl’s about to fly.”   She slams the ignition, chrome legs pressing hard on the pedals, expecting the rig to growl to life.   Only it doesn’t. The rig won't move, it is dead.   As on command, the Blue Shadow scatter round and take cover. Zoe clocks the movement on the high points surrounding the yard—lab roof, apartment building.   "Right, the hard way then,” the snowflake's voice from somewhere. “You are not going anywhere. Your truck cabin is rigged with explosives. We detect intrusion—you blow up. The corpo meathead twitches the wrong way—you blow up. You try calling reinforcements—you blow up. You get the idea. Now slowly shove the rifle outta window and drop it."   Jack meets Zoe’s eyes, low growl in his throat. “They think they’ve got us boxed. Fucking’ amateurs.” Zoe pauses in disbelief, staring at his haunted eyes, icy blue sunken in the scar-trenched landscape. Are the kids wrong? If the cabin’s rigged, the stray ping could set it off. And they had plenty of time to rig it while she and Jack were fucking with the tank.   “They’ve got us in a cage match, choom,” she murmurs back. “But bombs mean signals. And signals I can kill. Just need a window.”   Jack nods and leans out, rifle dangling from one big chrome hand, then lets it clatter to the pavement.   “Alright, you won. Tank’s yours.” Zoe calls out toward Snowflake's phantom voice. “So why don’t we all calm down and figure out how you want this handoff to go?”   "Clever girl, good start.” Snowflake calls back. “Now—step out of the truck and start walking. When you are two blocks away, we let the big guy go the same way. We'll have eyes on you. Nice and slow, move."   “Go. Do what she says,” Jack nods. “You’re fast, don’t come back for me if it’s a death run.”   Zoe’s chrome legs twitch, itching to spring.   “Always knew you’d play the martyr card, big guy,” she glances at Jack, smirk bitter on her tongue. “But I ain’t ghosting while you sit here waiting to become confetti. Keep your head. If I can burn their bomb signal, we flip this whole board.”   She pops the cab door open slow, hands high. Her legs clank on the cracked pavement.   “Two blocks, right?” she calls out, voice carrying. “Keep your crosshairs warm. I’ll make it a nice, slow stroll.”   The further from the source, the smaller the chance of finding their signal. Zoe pauses mid-step, scanning, one chrome heel crunching glass underfoot. Her optics flicker, zeroing in on the faint ghost of a line in the static—like a string stretched tight between the rig and one of the Blue Shadow vans.   Could be the detonator. Could be a decoy. One wrong poke and her, Jack, and the fish are pink mist across Swash.   STAY?   She flicks open a side-channel on her overlay—the dolphin’s cognition chip interface. Might as well.   “Hey fish,” she types. “Don’t blow up. Not your fault this time.”   The cursor blinks. Then:   FRIEND?   That’s the thing with overlay optics—sometimes they mess with tear ducts and make them ooze.   “Maybe. Later.”   She draws a long breath through her teeth. Her lips curl into a grin, even though her hands are shaking.   Then she dives into the signal, slicing at the thread with digital claws—hoping to sever it before it blooms.   One second later, Snowflake’s voice: “Ah fuck... Fire now!”   Two rounds hit Zoe in the chest and throw her back and down.   The falling lasts much longer than it should have.   She keeps falling and falling—   —but the pavement never comes.     ***   Jack’s world explodes in bullets and glass. Sitting in the truck passenger seat he feels the thuds of bullets crashing through the subdermal armor plates, chewing into soft organs beneath. Blood sprays his teeth, dribbles down his chin. Zoe’s scream cuts off sharp—she’s gone.   His lungs feel like they’re filling with wet cement, vision tunneling at the edges. He drags the stim from his pocket with a bloody fist, jams the injector into his thigh. Fire floods his veins, white lightning snapping through his shredded body. Vision sharpens, heartbeat hammers like a drumline, pain fading into spam messages.   He hurls himself out the passenger side, hitting pavement in a roll, not aiming to win a war—just to move. His sprint is jagged, zig-zagging through broken glass and concrete, heading for the shadowed gape of the rotting housing block.   Every step feels like it tears something open inside. He slams into the moldy hallway of the housing block, breathing ragged. The stink of piss and rot seems to penetrate the wounds. He ducks low, moving past broken doors, flickering lights. His blood’s dripping, a red breadcrumb trail he can’t stop. He rips a busted chair leg off the floor, jams it under the stairwell door—glass kicked, metal clanged—then slips quietly into a side apartment.   The little zealots might follow the blood.     ***   Crouching in the dark, the stim keeps him upright but only just. They’re not following.   Jack drags himself deeper into the apartment, toward the window. Through the grime-smeared glass, he sees them swarming the rig, shadows flitting between vans, scopes glinting as they keep the block covered. They’re not coming for him—they just want to make sure he doesn’t come back out.   “Yeah… run, you little punks. Take your prize. Think you won.”   The stink of the housing block folds into another smell—new car seats and favourite aftershave from years ago. He remembers the whistleblower kid with the terrified eyes and a nose ring he shot. Exec orders. ‘Clean the room’. Same age as the eco‑kids below. Same brittle courage.   Took them some time to unfuck the rig, but Jack hears its engine finally catch with deep growl. Tires crunch glass, vans rev in chorus, and just like that—the fish, the whole payday—roll away and gone.   Down below, he sees Zoe’s body, sprawled among the glittering shards, chrome legs catch the light. Still, for once.   One more for the list.   Jack fumbles for his phone, fingers slick with blood. The ripper's assistant answers on the third ring.   "Medical Assistance, how can—"   "The... the patient you're working on. Jones." His voice comes out wet. "I'll have your money."   "Sir, as I said, payment is required before—"   "I said I'll have it." He cuts the connection.   Jack pushes himself up, vision swimming. The stim's burning out but his legs still work. Sort of. That’s all he needs. He’s always the one who walks away. Every fucking time.   You don't walk away, you just reboot the wreckage, he can hear Zoe saying. You're like a bad patch, Jack—crashes everything, still won't quit. Too proud to die, too guilty to stop. That’s your whole brand. He limps toward the stairs. Every step feels like it tears something open inside—not the wounds, something else. Something that's been tearing for years.   Jack doesn’t have a plan. Just the bleeding, the weight, and the need that won't let him stop.   That’s what’s left of him.   That, and the job.