Zef's top surgery is scheduled for next week.

He heads home late and hungry. The loss of his meagre lunch follows him, stomach snarling. The new implant is a bit itchy—fingertips are sensitive. He tries to figure what he can grab from a food cart that will keep to his budget. At least until his first paycheck comes in.

In spite of all that...

Two weeks, and it's bye bye titties.

There were other enticing implants and surgeries, but with all the options, he needed to give it more though. A flat chest, though, that was simple. A decision he'd have made years ago, if he'd had the creds.

There are levels in his apartment block for food trucks and quickie marts. Also, notably, a gun shop. The grating on the elevator rattles aside on Zef's floor, the concrete tomb of his apartment block riddled with the dirty needles and condom wrappers of its beleaguered residents. Usually, it's also pretty empty.

Not tonight. Tonight, there are three people—two women and a man—standing around. They're all over six feet tall and white. They all have bulging muscles. They are also covered from neck to wrists in tattoos.

Now, lots of people have tattoos. Zef, on many occasions, thought about getting one. But—and it's a big 'but'—all these tattooed goons are arranged around Zef's door.

When the elevator grate opens, they all look at him.

Zef, because self-preservation is apparently a foreign concept, keeps walking towards his door. He reasons, against all odds, that these people can't be here for him. Cannot possibly be associated with Gray. Because what are the chances of that, right?

But his day has been so full of coincidences that this, on top of it, feels too much.

He marches towards his door on auto-pilot pretending everything's normal will make it so. He feels their eyes on him, but he doesn't meet them. He thinks about those self-defence people who instruct you to put a key between your knuckles. Zef's dad taught him right, though. Punching like that is awkward. Won't do much damage, neither. Better to hold the key in his fist like the world's piddliest dagger and go for the eyes.

Problem is, that only applies to the old-fashioned kind of keys. Like the one to their trailer in the bayou. Here in the city? Zef's apartment unlocks with his fingerprints.

He cannot stab assailants in the eyes with his fingerprints. That is, actually, just poking someone in the eye. He could be vicious about it. But he probably wouldn't get far using that method on three people.

He swipes his hand across the biometric lock. It beeps. He expects the sound of footsteps closing in, but none come. Instead, his door swishes open, he goes inside, and it closes behind him.

In the quiet of his apartment, he realises his heart is kicking the shit out of him.

Only now his anxiety has less to do with the danger of scary gangs outside his apartment and more to do with the shame of overreacting, but at least he's safe. Probably. For now.

He still has to find out more about Gray. Meet up with him. Figure out a means to capture him. And do so without ending up an Alphagetti soup splatter.

Dumping his bag at the door, he pulls up a Net search for implant tattoo tech.

It's not like he expects to find much on the unique shit Gray's got going on. If what Rylan says is true, and it's a prototype tech made by CyberSuite, nothing about it's going to be available on ye Olde search engine. But Zef isn't interested in that, he's interested in the way modern tattoos work anyway. He's seen plenty that light up or animate a bit, and if Gray's tech operates similarly, knowing how is the first step to figuring out how to disable it.

His conclusions aren't anything radical. It's injected subdermally with needles the way a traditional tattoo would be, but instead of ink, it's nanotech made with a semi-organic micro titanium alloy that can be coloured. Some of it contains synthetic photo-receptors similar to those found in bioluminescent creatures like fireflies and deep-sea creepies. Some are animated to move in a limited way, but nothing too dramatic as even small movements cause microtears in the subdermal layers of skin, which can create layers of scar-tissue. It's neither here nor there. Gray's tattoos never moved, just lit up.

Beyond aesthetic value, there's no mention of a functional use for the tattoos like hijacking traffic lights.

Zef gives his head a shake, and the search results clear from his vision. It's frustrating. The tech doesn't employ any magnetic metal, so using magnets to disrupt or stall it isn't an option. Beyond the components themselves, Zef doesn't have enough information. The true capabilities of Gray's implants are unknown. He only has a few facts and clues.

Gray mentioned his implants amplify his metabolism enough he can't get drunk.

He used it to interface with traffic lights and an auto-driving car.

He also used it to blow up a factory and everybody in it.

The sick pit in Zef's stomach opens. He taps his fingers against his sternum. Quick, punctuated taps with the pads of his fingertips. One, two, three, four. Pause. One, two, three, four. Pause. A syncopated rhythm to distract from the wave of dread chewing him up. Like he's amphetamines and the dread is an overzealous intern at a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate.

It helps. Slowly, one beat at a time, his heart rate comes down, and he's left with, now what?

He knows the answer. Can't get any further searching the net and sucking dick.

He pulls up Gray's contact info.

It's not much. Just his name and number. Zef doesn't have a photo or a dedicated string of emoji associations with him, like with his dad or friends back home. His dad has the frog, robot leg and sparkly heart, for example. What should he put next to Gray's name? The knife and the blood drip and the 'yikes' face?

He's stalling. He knows he's stalling.

With the sense he's a dumb, Greek mythological hero tiptoeing into a den of lions to poke one in the eyeball, he hits call.

It rings twice before picking up.

Gray's soft, Southern accent comes through dripping with deadly charm.

"And here I thought you didn't want to see me again."

Before Zef can lose his nerve, he responds, "Do you know any good places to eat?"

~***~

The restaurant in question is a hole in the wall on the seventy-seventh floor of the subcity. There's no interior seating, just an open window with three stools outside. Doesn't even have a name. Just a giant, metalwork fish skeleton spray-painted copper and fused above the window.

Gray sits on one of the three stools. Bony elbows lean at odd angles against the countertop. Knees knocked apart. Eyes shadowed like he's never known an eight-hour sleep, and fuck, unfortunately he is still relentlessly attractive. But, and this is an absolute doozy of a fly in the ointment, he's a murderer.

So Zef sits next to him, feeling like, here I am, the entire three-ring circus, just a tent full of clowns.

"Hey, darling," says Gray. "Drink?"

"Not if it's that sewer water you called a shot last time."

"Ouch."

He smiles, though. They order sodas and a sushi boat from a wispily moustached chef. Zef resists the urge to hold the condensating can against his throat to calm himself down.

"Didn't think you'd call," Gray continues. "Our little adventure didn't freak you out so bad after all?"

"Oh no. That was mortifying," Zef says. "But I don't have, like, friends in the city. 'Cause I just got here. And I'm hungry, and I figured you might know where to get dinner without going bankrupt."

Gray takes a toothpick from the chipped mug on the counter and puts it between his teeth to chew. It makes the tendons in his neck flex, the peek of tattoos flexing with it. "That I do. Sushi, though? Nothing here's ever seen an ocean before, but it's served cold and fresh enough. If you close your eyes, you can pretend."

"Not like I'd know the difference," Zef points out. Trailer trash like him? He's never touched real meat. Could only afford supermarket synth stuff.

Gray rolls the toothpick over his tongue from one corner of his mouth to the other. "Where you from?"

Zef doesn't know whether to give up any personal information, but he needs to keep Gray distracted if he's gonna touch those tattoos just long enough to transfer the data.

Easier said than done. The tattoos are only visible at Gray's throat, above the turtleneck, right below his jaw, and the backs of his hands, which are mostly covered in fingerless gloves with four holes over each knuckle.

Zef puts his hand on the counter for a start. "I grew up outside the city in the bayou."

Gray somehow points with that damn toothpick in his mouth. He points it up at Zef's temple. "You homebrew that implant out in a swamp somewhere?"

"Yeah. You'd be surprised what people throw away."

Gray barks a sardonic laugh. "Naw, wouldn't be that surprised. So. How was your first day working for Shitheads 'R Us?"

A brief spasm of fear goes through Zef. Fear that Gray knows why he's really here. Did Gray know all along whose car he'd stolen? The whole coincidence reeks. Zef's heart rattles like a bottle cap in a laundry drum.

No, he's got to chill out. Take a valium. Bionic Capital is an international conglomerate that employs a healthy percentage of the whole dang world. A juggernaut so huge it sent other companies the way of the dinosaur during the cap wars.

If Gray suspected Zef had been hired specifically to capture him, he wouldn't have turned up at all.

Still, should probably avoid letting on that the car belonged to Zef's boss.

"Someone got, like, arrested for trade secret theft," Zef says. "And I was shitting bricks thinking they were after me for the stolen car."

If Gray suspects anything, he shows no sign of it. No shifty pauses or searching looks. "Eh, no one's tearing up the city over automotive theft anymore."

"Not even for a Vitali?"

"Well. You and I both know cops ain't competent. Chill though. I dumped the thing out in the boonies. Cops'll find it eventually, pat themselves on the ass and call it job done."

"You just...dumped it," Zef says.

Gray raises an eyebrow. "You know a fence who'd risk their neck to pawn it for me?"

"Okay. No. But consider, I'm new here. And I kind of need money. And those cars have some intense security. Losing my job? Would suck."

"C'mon, it were fun, weren't it?"

"It wasn't fun, it was dumb. And reckless."

Gray waggles his eyebrows. "You liked it a bit."

"I didn't," Zef insists. "Doesn't matter. It's not happening again, all right? I need to keep my clean record sparkling, all right?"

"Then why'd you call me?" Gray flashes a cheeky grin.

The spotlight of that smile calls up the fireworks and euphoria from the night before. Zef won't admit it—not out loud—but, yeah, there had been a moment where it was fun. Kind of. Stupid, but fun.

The shared smile, the shared memory, even with the word murderer circling Zef's head like a buzzard, allows for just a smidgen of spark. A crumb of courage.

Enough Zef moves his hand toward Gray's.