What Gray didn't tell Zef about the old, eastside industrial quarter where they planned to meet? It's abandoned.

The shells of factories stand watch with windows like countless eyes. Like modern day Biblical angels. The quarter is a museum to the corporations absorbed, lost or destroyed in the cap wars. NanoSoft, Nutrifun, Ares. Whether they sold tech, food, or even guns, none were safe. The old signage, now removed, left behind imprints in the grime of the buildings in the shape of their names and logos. Like footprints. Like archeology for corporate historians to pick apart.

Zef's every step crunches. Sometimes with broken glass, sometimes garbage. Though few cars drive past, the place still hums, but in a different way from the city centre. Here, the homeless and downtrodden hole up in the derelict buildings. The place is an anthill. Shelled holes in the walls and ceilings, tarped over or left open to the elements. Tents everywhere.

He'd followed Gray's advice and worn shorts, a button-up, and his runners. The runners are the nicest article of clothing he owns. Found them at a used clothing store, barely worn, vintage, still in the box from 2102.

Zef follows his nav to the postcode Gray gave him that morning. Out here in the crumbling ruins of failed industry, net coverage fritzes out like a dying light bulb. The red line overlaying his vision flickers with it. Not bad enough to be more than a nuisance, but it really sticks in Zef's craw that Gray chose a place so remote. It ups his anxiety a notch or six.

Gray waits outside an encampment of tents, leaning against a telephone pole, still leather-clad and covered from neck to foot in clothes like it isn't a hundred and twenty degrees. He looks rougher than usual. Smudges under his eyes bruised dark. Hair a mess. Still unfortunately hot. He talks to a woman sipping on a green smoothie, her hair shaved with a lightning bolt pattern at her temples and long twists bouncing in her eyes. She's tall and angular, making Gray look like he's built in miniature. She also comes up suspiciously blank on Zef's HUD. Only her pronouns are there. No name, no date of birth, no indication of gild, if she has any.

Probably, she's Gray's contact. The one who can get the repair parts for Matthias's legs. It's weird for someone working in tech to opt out of wearing any. Like a scrawny chef or a tattoo artist with no ink. Hard to trust.

Gray sees Zef coming and gives him the nod. "Here he is."

The woman turns and gives Zef a once over. It is the most piercingly casual up-and-down Zef has ever experienced. She clicks her tongue and says in a voice like velvet and an accent so mixed it globe trots from word to word, "Well fuck me sideways. Gray left out that you're one of ours."

Zef blanks. "Ours?"

"A filthy gender radical. Pussy princes and pecker princesses."

"Uh," says Zef intelligently.

Gray waves a hand at her. "Zef, this is—"

"Dee," says the woman, her tone cut finely between friendly and mistrustful. Whether Dee is her real name? Doubtful.

Gray introduces them. "Dee, meet Zef. He's looking for that BCi500 series CPU."

"And a fan, if you've got one," Zef adds.

"And a fan."

Dee hums. "Practically an antique, that series. Not that I can complain, seeing as I'm an antique myself."

Dee looks no older than Gray or Zef, though her clothes are from a bygone century. Block patterns in monochromes and splashes of neon. Popular a hundred years ago.

Zef chooses a tactful answer. "Well, you don't look a day over twenty-five."

"Flattery?" She turns to Gray. "I'm keeping him if you don't."

Gray doesn't react. Zef hurries to redirect the conversation, grateful the flush he worked up walking here in the heat covers a blush. "But you've got it? The CPU."

"Sure. I'm a bit of a collector. Got a bit of everything. Why the rush, though? I got questions. How did you two meet?"

"At a gay bar," Zef says quickly. Too quickly. Gray's teeth flash, daring. "He bought me a drink. It was disgusting. I didn't drink it." Zef adds. Don't mention the car. I do not need the whole city knowing about that damn car.

Dee's interest is elsewhere, though. Now, her focus zeroes in on Gray. "You bought him a drink? Like, to consume? You didn't pour it over his head?"

Her tone is incredulous. A silent conversation occurs between them. One Zef knows he's missing crucial context for. Dee wiggles her eyebrows. Gray's taunting grin uHauls out of town. Dee tilts her head questioningly. Gray scowls and gives a subtle shake of his head. His whole demeanour is prickly today. He's giving porcupine and she's giving gregarious puppy about to get a snout full of quills.

Given what Gray can do to people with implants, Zef reassesses her choice not to wear any.

In whatever silent battle they're waging, she finally waves the white flag. "Fine. Spoilsport. Let me rustle up the bits and bobs."

She marches into the adjacent building through a hole in the wall where metal scaffolding glints with heaps of tech. Zef yearns to take a look. A collector, she said. Some of the hulking machines she has back there, like her clothes, don't look part of this century.

"So," Zef says. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," Gray grunts.

"You don't usually buy men drinks when you go to bars?"

"Do you feel special now?" His shark's smile is wry. It shines, toothy, over something hidden and sharper still. Bloodshot eyes. As he peels a cigarette out of a pack, his fingers jitter.

Wait. Is he high?

Zef says, "Given how that shot tasted, I think it would have been better poured over my head to be honest with you." He glances into the derelict building full of tech. "You sure this CPU will work?"

"You doubtin' me?"

"Come on. None of this looks above board. If I'm paying for it—"

Gray snorts. "You don't trust me?"

Frick, no, Zef thinks. Gray's good-looking, but he's not good. 'Specially not given what Zef knows about him. But he can't say as much. "A lot of this tech is company locked unless you got it through official repair subs. I'm just saying. I need it to work."

"Dee's a professional," Gray says. "It'll work. Chill."

He offers the cigarette pack to Zef. Zef declines. A little breath huffs from Gray's lips before he puts the cigarette between them. A noise of slight derision.

"What?" says Zef.

"Nothing." Gray lights up. His hands still shake a little, the flame wobbling with them. "Seemed like you had guts, is all. Grit. Didn't think the city could chew you up and spit you out so fast."

Zef bristles. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Gray shrugs. "Just trying to suss you out a bit. You're giving 'play it by the book' lately, and I'm not a rulebook man, myself." He takes a drag on his cigarette and lets the smoke unfurl from his lips. It's almost lewd. Tongue tracing teeth. Hand suddenly dead steady. With his gild, can he even get high?

Not stoned, then.

On edge.

That makes two of them.

"Would love if I had a cool answer for you," Zef says. "But the truth is, I don't know what kind of man I am. Guess I came here trying to figure that out."

Gray sucks on his cigarette. He tilts his head back this time when he lets the smoke out, the sharp point of his Adam's apple bobbing. God, how long does Zef have to be on T before he gets his own Adam's apple?

"If you're not careful," Gray says, "this city will make that call for you."

"Jeeze. What's eating you?" Everything about Gray seems off. The playful attitude of last night is gone, replaced with something surly and resentful.

"Nothing. Forget it." Gray runs fingers through his hair. He kneads the pads of those fingers into his skull, drags them down the back of his neck.

Zef's familiar with these gestures. Seen his dad make the same ones.

Gray's not stoned, and he's not on edge.

He's in pain.

"Did something happen last night?"

Gray snorts. "You were with me last night."

"Did that addict hurt you?"

"Pfth. As if he could." A sideways glance Zef's way. He can see Zef's not letting it go. "My implants got side effects. They're hooked up to my nervous system. Comes with risks. Hurts sometimes."

"Did you sleep at all?"

Gray smiles wryly and shakes his head like Zef said something funny. "You're a cyborg engineer. Can ya fix me, doc?"

Why does Zef want to say, 'yes,' so bad? "I don't know enough about your implants to say."

Gray studies Zef for a minute, rolling the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. He holds it between his index and middle fingers and drops his hand to his side. Hesitates. "If I gave you the data, you think you could find a way to... I dunno, temporarily shut 'em down?"

The luck of that sentiment seems too convenient to be believed. Would Gray really just hand over the data Zef's been trying to steal from him this whole time? "I can try."

"Wouldn't be strictly legal. I'm practically patented. You'd be messing with company property."

It gets under Zef's skin. He's not out in Neorleans to make enemies. He doesn't want to get mixed up in illegal shit, doesn't want a criminal record. But what Gray describes smears the line between legal and ethical. Rubs Zef the wrong way the same as his dad's problems with his own implants do. It's a muddy middle ground where his rules don't apply.

"I'm not that buttoned up. If it's hurting you— Fuck CyberSuite. They're crooks anyhow."

Gray's eyebrows rise. "Never said I belonged to CyberSuite."

Shit. Fuck. Zef wasn't meant to know that much. Quickly, he comes up with a reason. "Sorry. My dad served for them. Figured they're fucking you over, too."

Gray runs his tongue along his gum line. "You're not totally wrong. The people at your new job know about your dad serving the competition?"

Heart rate hammering, Zef says, "No. And you can't tell 'em, or I'll lose this job."

"Relax. I'm no snitch." He leans against the telephone pole. "We're just pawns. Got no dogs in their fight."

An odd opinion for an assassin. Zef assumed Gray had more...zeal for his profession. Begs the question how he fell into it. Zef keeps his voice even when he says, "So do you still want my help?"

Gray gives Zef a searching look, then jams the cigarette back in his mouth and says through it, "Ah, what the hell? Couldn't hurt more than it already does."

The implant at his temple, invisible at first, lights up red, and Zef receives a notification.

>>Data transfer request from ^%}c@!unkownError.

Zef scrubs the file to check it for viruses, just in case. It comes up clean. He accepts, and the download begins, number climbing up as Zef wrangles his breathing into something approaching normal. Gray eyes him.

"Bet this isn't what you meant. 'Bout engineering something to help people."

Zef has to search his memory for the moment he said that. At the bar, when they first met? "Actually, this is exactly what I meant."

"You really think you can do it? Make shit that helps."

"I think I should try. Maybe I won't make something big as I'm aiming for, but if it helps a few people? I don't know..." The download creeps up in his peripheral HUD while he chews the dry skin of his chapped lips. "I want to leave some mark on the world. Something more than a carbon footprint. Something good."

Gray's expression shifts subtly. Searching and almost..wistful?

The download finishes. Zef opens the documents and gives them a cursory overview. There's a dense amount of code and information in there. Will take a while to sift through.

"Thanks. I'll have a look for anything in there that could help."

Gray grunts, clearly uncomfortable accepting help. "Appreciate it. I'll pay you."

Zef needs the cash, but finds himself saying, "Nah. You helped hook me up with these parts. We're even."

Maybe he imagines Gray's shoulders unwinding a fraction. He taps out the ashes of his cigarette. "Sorry. I'm a grump when my gild acts up."

"It's fine."

Dee's voice carries out of the hole in the wall. "There you are, you cheeky lil fucker!" Seconds later, she reappears, holding a paper envelope in one hand and a fan in the other. She extends both to Zef. The envelope has 'BCi500 series CPU' written on it in purple sharpie. "That'll cost you 1500 credits, a blowie behind the porta-loo, and your immortal soul."

Zef's immortal soul withers and depreciates in value on the spot. "Fifteen-hundred? As in one-five-zero-zero decimal point?"

Dee laughs. Her laugh can only be described as evil. "I'm having you on, babes. It's covered. A favour for Gray—"

Gray gives Dee a cutting look.

"Oh, we're being coy now? I get it, I get it. Whatever, point is, we're not running an extortion racket. If you're really antsy 'n think we'll come raid your house to collect interest, just bring something to trade in. Older, the better. I don't care if it's grandpa's self-cleaning dentures. Or trade in a lil service job. Gray says you're an engineer. Those chops will get you far."

Zef stares at her. Then he looks at Gray. He doesn't know what in the frick-frack is going on here, but it's weird. When he doesn't move, Dee takes his hand and balances the envelope and fan on his open palm.

"Th-thanks?"

"You're very welcome. Like your kicks, by the way. Had a pair like that once." She points to Zef's shoes.

"Thanks," he repeats. "But seriously, I don't get it. You're running an antique tech pawn shop out of a derelict building. Apart from me, who needs stuff this old? How do you afford to live, selling stuff for favours?"

"Asking the real questions," Dee says. "Just hypothetically speaking, what do you figure would happen if something diddled all the tech we're all hyper-dependent on now?"

Zef doesn't have to think about it. There was a blackout back in '31 that knocked out power from one end of the 'Sippi river to the other, and it didn't come back for a week. The official story was a transformer blew at a power station, whole thing caught fire, but plenty of conspiracy theorists had a litany of alternative explanations. Everything from anarchist hackers to alien annihilationists. Either way, for that week nobody could pay for anything. Nobody could cook. Food went off in the heat 'cause nobody had aircon or working refrigerators.

"It'd be apocalyptic," Zef supplies.

"Right," Dee agrees. "So let's just say I've got a vested interest in techno-fossils 'cause I'm something of a doomsday prepper. And when I fancy it, I run a 'lil pawn shop outfit for people like me who see broke and fix it instead of running out to buy a new model."

If there is one thing Zef can relate to, it is seeing broken things and wanting very badly to fix them. "I can get behind that."

Dee grins like Zef just said something very revealing. She looks between he and Gray. "I'll bet."

Okay, Zef thinks. Read and roast me for filth, why don't you.

But it doesn't matter, because this little conversation with her gave Zef an idea.

An idea that might just fix his Capture Gray problem.