Pushman let them into his apartment a while later, his breath coming in short gasps and his skin clammy. “Sorry, I’ve been working out, trying to get strength back into my body again.”

  “How’s that going for you?” Trace asked him as they followed him inside. “I thought Sevorah said your prognosis wasn’t that good.”

  “She did, and still says that when it comes to using cyberware.” The man admitted, leading them to the front room. “However, it seems someone recently sold her a few healing stims and other supplies at rock-bottom prices. I was able to afford one of them as a result. It did nothing for the nerve damage, that’s permanent. I’ll never have much luck with cyberware again, I’m afraid. Not without extensive work on my spinal cord and everything else that has already been done.”

  Pushman adjusted himself on the couch with only the barest hint of a wince and pulled up his shirt, showing them his scarred chest. “However, as you can see. The physical damage that was left behind from the slicer is slowly healing and getting better now.”

  It was true. The scars on his chest, which had once been an angry red and sensitive to the touch, had begun to heal. The change was minor, as he had only just undergone the process, but all of them were noticeably lighter in color than before.

  “Are all of your scars like that?” Trace asked him.

  He nodded. “It took Sevorah a while of tinkering to get the stim to target scarred tissue and heal it. However, it spreads the effect throughout the entire body, inside and out. She’s still waiting to see how well it performs, but eventually, I might be able to at least depend on my normal body again. Though it will probably take a few healing stims to get there, and this was the only one I get from the existing supply.”

  He chuckled and lowered his shirt, happier than Trace had seen him in a while.

  “Well, I brought over the rest of your guns that I still had, outside your sniper rifle. You still aren’t getting that back. I also have a few of your learning modules here that I’ve already gone through. Thanks for letting me, uh, borrow them.” He finished with an embarrassed chuckle.

  There were another couple of duffel bags by the side of the couch.

  “I appreciate it, though I did mention you could keep the learning modules for as long as you needed them.”

  “And I did for these ones. Like I said, they’re ones I have already gone through.” Trace cracked his neck and nudged Monroe.

  “We met a few times while you were at the clinic. I’m Monroe, the one who sent you the message.”

  “Right. I remember you. Sevorah had some rather choice words to say about your cyberware that I don’t think I was supposed to hear.”

  “Yeah, it’s custom, and the way it was installed wasn’t exactly normal. Every time she looks at it, she gets like that,” Monroe said while looking at the floor.

  An awkward silence descended on the apartment before Trace broke it by bringing up their reason for being there.

  “Anyway, we’re here to borrow some of your expertise. I assume you know what happened to the blood-dogs, yeah?”

  Pushman nodded. “Of course, even if I wasn’t a job broker, it would be hard to not know. The information was everywhere. They were working with scavs, and when the news came out, everyone came down on them and eradicated them.”

  “Well, we’re the ones who released the information,” Trace told him with a smirk. “We had been keeping watch on a few scav dens when we caught sight of them moving all their equipment, with the blood-dog’s help, to a couple of warehouses on the gang’s territory. A lot happened.” He waved his hand in the air, dismissing the rest of the story.

  “This is where it gets interesting though. The location where they were storing the trucks they used to move everything had an open connection to the sewers. One that they were using to move people and scavs, and apparently corpos, though we aren’t sure which ones just yet.”

  Pushman leaned forward, listening intently, not daring to interrupt.

  “We followed their path through the sewers and eventually came to a clear intersection. One group went further into Denver, and the other eventually exited out into Edgewater. A little community that Monroe just discovered happens to be owned by a certain four food corporations. They were also strangely resistant to talking to anyone not part of their community.”

  “Ah, I think I can see where this is going.” The job broker reached behind him for an ink-sheet that had been placed on a table there. “Let’s see Edgewater and the four food corporations. Interesting, I have never made a link between the corporations and that community before. Especially not one with a tentative link to scavs and a now defunct gang.”

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  Pushman’s voice dropped to a whisper as he began to mutter to himself, his finger flicking across the screen.

  “Can you send him all the information you gathered earlier?” Trace asked Monroe, getting to his feet. “Hey Pushman, I’m going to borrow your computer for a bit.”

  The man waved him a way, wordlessly giving him permission.

  Inside the office, Trace was busy reviewing all the latest information Pushman had gotten on Siren’s Rush. The man was taking it slow and steady, just as he had said. The information that he was gathering was good, but it lacked what Trace was looking for.

  There was no lynchpin. The item that would give him an in or a way to attack them. The information was good, and no doubt valuable. It just wasn’t what he needed, not yet, not that he had truly expected Pushman to have something like that. He would have let him know if he had.

  He made a copy of all the data for later, just in case Deckard had time, and went back out to the front room.

  Monroe was sitting next to Pushman, leaning close as he looked at the ink-sheet in the man’s hands. “No, that can’t be right. Scroll back up and compare it to the information I sent you. I remember that one. It says something completely different in my files.”

  “Hmm, you are right, it does. Now the question is, which one is correct? The one I have, or the one your friend got?”

  “Considering how those people were acting?” Monroe muttered with a half-snort. “I’m inclined to say, my friend.”

  “Indeed.” Pushman sighed and dropped the ink-sheet onto his lap. “However, this complicates things. If I can’t even trust my own data, it will make things much harder. I am competent, but my specialty lies in organizing the information and making sense of it. Learning how to retrieve it was something I did out of necessity.”

  “I can ask my friend if they don’t mind working with you?” Monroe said after a minute of struggling with the decision. He was very protective of his friends and preferred to have clear lines between all of them.

  Trace felt his brows rise as he blinked in surprise. “Be honored Pushman. He doesn’t let anybody meet his actual friends. I only met his girlfriend completely by accident. If he is offering to make an introduction, then take it seriously.”

  “I will, and in this case, I think I will take you up on the offer. If they are willing to help me with my other work, then so much the better.”

  Trace tuned them out, his mind focusing on other things. After he had sent the payment to Georgie earlier, he had also asked him for the details on increasing the internet bandwidth. Currently, the warehouse was part of the basic package that all buildings in the city belonged to. It was part of what their taxes paid for, ensuring the network was available everywhere. If he wanted to increase the bandwidth beyond that, then he would need to pay for it.

  Georgie had been kind enough to explain the process to him, along with how much it cost. Which it did, cost that is. If you were increasing the bandwidth, then you were generally an apartment building, a megastructure, or some other form of large revenue-generating place with a lot of people.

  What Deckard wanted was an entire apartment complex-sized connection, all to himself. It was rather extravagant, and the price reflected that at two thousand credits per month. To go from a free connection to that was a hard pill to swallow.

  He had still signed off on it for Deckard, but it hurt.

  The upgrade would be completed sometime the next day.

  Monroe, getting to his feet, brought Trace’s attention back to what was going on around him.

  “Let us know what you find out about the place. It seems to me like the entire community is some sort of long-term test site, but…” Monroe shook his head. “I don’t know. They’ve had enough time to implement whatever they have going on there in other places. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Sure it does,” Trace said as they all walked to the door. “There are plenty of other food corporations in existence. Edgewater is a closed ecosystem of sorts. They probably control everything that the people there are sold, so they only get products from their four companies. They can’t do that anywhere else. You’ll notice that they also aren’t doing any of the more risky experiments there either.”

  Pushman paused, his hand on the panel to open the door. “You’re right. For a place like that to survive, they couldn’t do anything like they did with my sister or Devko's mother.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Is the community a form of last-phase testing, perhaps? A place for finalized products?” He quickly shook his head. “No, that doesn’t make any sense either, otherwise the situation with Ko’s mother would have never happened.”

  He tapped the panel, opening the door. “I’ll continue to look into the matter and let you both know what I find. Just don’t expect this to be quick. As I have warned Trace in the past, these sorts of investigations take time. Monroe’s friend may make the information-gathering stage quicker; however, I’ll still have to sort through it all myself.”

  A couple of minutes later, the two were safely inside the truck and back on the road when Monroe spoke up. “Do you think he can do it?”

  “Honestly? I have no idea, but I would like to think so. The information and plan he put together on Sekmore was impressive, to say the least.” Trace kept his eyes on the road, as lights began to flicker on. “There is always room for error and just pure dumb luck, I suppose. I’ve had him gathering information on Siren’s Rush for a couple of weeks now.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “I think what he said about his skills earlier is true. He can do information gathering, but it isn’t his specialty. The plan he put together though… If he had just used it! Assuming your friend agrees to work with him, then I think the odds of him being able to learn what is going on go up significantly. Assuming, of course, there is even enough data out there to be found.”

  Monroe groaned. “All of this is giving me a headache. Drop me off at my place, would you? I’ve got a few more items to move into Black Betty and the semi, and then I can get rid of that hole once and for all.”

  “I’m surprised it has taken you this long. I figured you were going to move into the semi as soon as we brought it back.”

  “Nah, I have to make a few adjustments to it still,” Monroe admitted. “I can’t always have the trailer attached to its back, so I need to put a couple more boxes for tools and other items on it. Speaking of which, is it alright, if the trailer gets stored at your place?”

  “Sure, just make sure to put it a corner out of the way. The warehouse has plenty of room, and that’s not even counting the basement. By the way, are we selling those vehicles we got from the blood-dogs?”

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