The car rolled to a smooth stop, rain drumming on the rooftop.

  “Out of all the places I would’ve expected ‘JackGab’ to be working from, this was not it,” Isia said as she looked upon the facade of the sex-shop. Neon pink and blue letters ‘Tail raiser’ flashed on and off, illuminating the alleyway that was practically buried underneath the slum’s improvised brick construction. A small barred bullet-proof window display showed an assortment of toys and mannequins. “Retro.”

  Getting ‘JackGab’s’ details from the Paws had been a simple thing. They had a list of licensed bookies that could operate in their streams, in exchange for a small fee of course. The gang members hadn’t even questioned why we wanted the details, just one look my way and they’d hurried along to provide every shred of documentation they had available.

  Which included a convenient business address.

  “Retro?” I asked, eyeing Isia.

  “You know, faceless single-color mannequins.” She pointed at the glass. “Nowadays all the shops have some android or another ‘testing’ the products and all that.” Rolling her eyes and letting out an annoyed sigh, she cocked her head. “You sure this is the place?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  It was an odd trail of breadcrumbs. JackGab operated through a paper-thin shell company that reported all proceeds to the sex-shop. It felt as cheap as the ‘traps’ within the terms-of-service, as if someone had just followed steps out of a decade’s old scammer’s playbook. There were other possible leads tucked away in the documentation, but this was the current strongest one.

  “I think we- what are you doing?” I blanched, looking at Isia as she pulled out a gun.

  “What?” She asked. “We get a little rough, bash a few noses in, and if he doesn’t pay what he owes, then-”

  “No.” I refused emphatically. “We don’t know what may or may not be going on, and an escalation can blow up in our face.”

  “Shame someone lost the fucking awesome bulletproof shield we made!” She pointedly pointed at me with her free hand. “Otherwise, we could totally handle anything. Better-”

  “Negotiate.” I cut her off. “If we can get the money without resorting to violence, then all the better.”

  “If.” With just that one word, she pocketed the gun rather than holster it, stepping inside, me following close behind.

  We were greeted by corridors upon corridors of cramped, sealed glass shelves. Within their confines there was a parade’s worth of product, each one more… unique… than the last. They came with little paper price-tags that also contained tiny texts describing…

  “This isn’t a sex-shop, it’s a antique sex-shop.” I muttered in what could only be a mix of horror and amazement.

  “Toe curlers for anyone seeking a more authentic historic representation.” The man behind the counter called out, he was a hefty guy, with a shirt that had long since lost its color and been stretched out. The guy spoke with a voice that carried the same kind of wear-and-tear as the doormat. “If we don’t have what you’re looking for, we can put an order. If you’re just here out of curiosity, I’d recommend sticking to aisle four, that’s the post-modern section that’s been all the craze recently.”

  “We’re looking for JackGab.” Isia declared as she eyed the clerk suspiciously.

  The clerk barely reacted before letting out a sigh. “I dunno what he’s done, but I want nothing to do with it. I’ll go get him.” He turned, crossing a door that led deeper into the shop.

  My brows furrowed. “Why?”

  “Why what?” Isia asked.

  “Can’t he just use his neurali-” The sound of the door locking cut me off.

  Isia sprung, pointing the gun at the door leading to the back. “He’s going to run! Let’s go!”

  I was more concerned about potential traps or attacks, but once I was certain nothing was happening, I approached the door instead, gesturing at Isia to step away. “Could you deal with the cameras?” I asked, flinching when three shots rang out. “...Did you really need to be that wasteful?” How much was that? 30$ in bullets?

  “He’s getting away!” She snapped back.

  Not arguing her point, I proceeded to kick the door, only to bounce a little backwards. Realizing my mistake in not properly cementing my footing, I took a more solid stance and tried again. The metal cried out and bent, needing two more solid kicks before it finally clattered to the floor, revealing a set of stairs leading do-

  BANG

  My ears were ringing, and there was a hole on the wall where my head would’ve been had I fully peeked in. Someone was shouting, I didn’t quite catch all of it, other than “motherfucker” and a second shot that made the wall next to the door cough up powdered concrete and debris.

  It turned out the fat man wasn’t running away, instead preparing to hole up in the basement.

  Isia already had a grenade out.

  Eyes nearly bulging out of my skull, I clutched her hand tightly. “He dies, we don’t get the money. And do you have any idea how expensive a grenade is!?” I hissed through grit teeth, waiting for my hearing to return properly. “Mister JackGab!” I called out towards the open door, but not peeking. “One of your clients-”

  “Fuck you! The cops are on their way!”

  “I’ll blow your shop and all your shitty perv-toys to bits!” Isia snarled back, grenade at the ready.

  “It’s all insured for ten times what it’s worth, bitch!”

  I did not let go of Isia’s grenade-holding hand as I turned to her, talking in a low whisper. “Send a message to the Paws to be ready to answer a call and confirm it’s about you.” Then, I turned back to the open door. “Mister JackGab, I was hired by the Paws. One of the associates of Miss Bear used your services recently. The Paws will not be happy to know you’ve made things complicated for her.”

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Glancing at Isia, I waited for her to give me the thumbs up. “You’re free to contact them right now. Ask regarding Isia.”

  “I think I will!” There was a pause, and I just waited, listening intently as the fat man shuffled, then audibly swallowed. Then, there was another very long pause. “W-would you happen to be a Mister Axel?” His voice came back nervous, shaking.

  “Well that was… abrupt.” I whispered.

  “You don’t fuck with Bear unless you want missing limbs.” Isia grumbled, clearly disappointed as she placed the pin back into the grenade.

  I snatched the explosive from her grasp before something else could happen. “That’s me, mister JackGab. Now, how about we talk about this like civilized people? My friend promises not to bring out her gun… or explosives.”

  Another loud gulp. “F-fine.”

  “Hands where we can see them.” Isia ordered as soon as we heard the guy was starting to go back up the stairs.

  The fat man emerged with both hands raised, face pale as a sheet, and holding both arms in the air. But Isia didn’t remove her finger from the trigger of her gun until the owner had cleared the door and was fully in view. “I… lied earlier, about the cops, I’m still on hold… but I hung up!” He was sweating bullets.

  “And the money?” I asked.

  “I-I… um…” JackGab lowered his gaze, voice turning into a whimper. “I… don’t have it.”

  Isia stomped forward. “That’s it, I’m going to start breaking some fingers.”

  “How about we let the man finish explaining himself?” I offered, halting her progress towards the guy that reeked of so much panic and fear I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t just drop on his own.

  “The payment-processing service, i-it just took all I had saved up! I swear!”

  I wanted to sigh. Of course, a bookie handling barely legal terms-of-use would want to avoid scrutiny from the service providers. And who would be more trustworthy to keep things discreet than getting help from some equally unscrupulous people? What could possibly go wrong?

  “You can produce audit proof-of-transaction files, correct?” I asked, waiting for his very nervous nod. “Go ahead and do that, and pass those over to my friend over here. She’ll be able to verify your claim.”

  Isia looked at me nervously. “What the fuck is that audit thing?”

  “Just pass it over to the tablet, I’ll explain later.” I promised back, waiting for the files to be handed over before she then transferred. I gave the file a good read, needing to cough up some basic fees for online ledger-verification services. “Hm…”

  “What is it?” Isia’s question caused the ‘JackGab’ to twitch and shrink a little.

  “It doesn’t look like he’s lying… at least that he doesn’t have access to those credits.” I declared. “If this were a normal case, all fault would fall on his shoulders, so we could just get the money out of him through alternate means. But there’s that whole nightmare that’s the user agreement, so honestly, this is a mess.” Scratching my chin in thought, I glanced at the ever-paler fat man. “We’re not the only ones you expected to show up, right? There are others that’ve been aggrieved by this.”

  “Well… yeah…”

  “He can take a loan and give us what he owes us,” Isia said, frowning.

  “That’s not a bad idea.” I nodded. “I don’t think he’d get approval for a large enough loan, though. And we’d have to make sure whoever else he owes money to doesn’t kill him.”

  “Wait, what?” She gave me an incredulous look.

  “Credits from loans are earmarked. If someone pays you with loan money, and they default on that loan, the money they gave you is charged back to the loaner. Worse, if you spend those credits, they can incur transaction fees.” I shook my head. “The way I see it, our best bet is trying to find whoever scammed Mr. scammer.”

  There were ways to potentially work around the recall money had, underworld gangs were known to trade “illegal” credits. So long as no system connected to the CYPHER credit-certification mainframe, then theoretically one could just use the money without issues. But that was like saying the credits could only be used in places without internet access, because nowadays CYPHER was connected to everything one way or the other.

  “I wasn’t running a scam!” JackGab declared. “I had more than enough to cover for the bets! Bear losing that fight was the biggest payday of my life!”

  “Is that why you’d also put in a request to have all your credits transferred to an inter-city safety deposit?” I asked, pointing at the tablet screen. The safety deposits were meant to be a safe way to not put your digital money at risk when moving to some new city. Who knew what wild things could happen along the way? “Looks to me like you were planning to make a run for it with the whole of it.”

  “I…” The man grimaced, but became silent. “I’ll… ask for the loan.”

  “Great.” I turned to Isia. “It should hopefully cover expenses for the next few days, buy us time to figure out who’s running the bigger scam. Maybe get our money back.”

  “Our?” She asked with a half-cocked grin.

  “My paycheck’s in there, I’ll remind you,” I said flatly. “So. This work for you?”

  Though she looked indecisive, she’d properly holstered the gun, which in my books looked like a good sign. Isia eyed the guy for a moment, then at me, then at the guy again. “Yeah, we can make it work, though…” She proceeded to sucker-punch the guy, hard. “THAT is for being a dickwad.” With a huff, she glanced my way. “Now you.”

  “Me?”

  The look on her face was full of disbelief. “He shot at you!”

  “He missed.” I gestured at the metal door that I’d totalled. “Besides, if I punch him, he turns to salsa, which kind of beats the point of keeping him alive.”

  If the guy went any paler, he’d become transparent.

  “Fair enough.” As she said this, she proceeded to move in to punch him again, but stopped when I stepped closer. “What?”

  “Let’s not.” I replied, glancing over at Jack. “I don’t think anyone else you owe money to will be showing up anytime soon, but I would recommend closing the shop and laying low somewhere not affiliated with your name.”

  “And if you try to run for it, we will find you.” Isia glowered. “Got it?”

  Jack nodded frantically.

  “Preem.” She walked out of the shop.

  Though I followed, I took a moment to pause on the way out, frowning as I stared at the bruised shop-owner we’d just extorted into coughing up several thousand credits. For a moment I hesitated, wondering whether this was the right thing before nodding in confirmation.

  “Hey, so, you think we could find the guys who scammed him?” My partner-in-crime asked as we made our way back to the car. “And what was that audit thing?”

  “Credits leave a digital trail that requires a user fingerprint. It’s why robots can’t normally just up and…” I blinked as realization struck me about something else.

  The reason why Grills couldn’t or wouldn’t accept payment was because standard credit transfer required user signature on both ends of the transaction. Robots could not generate their own signature because it required a neuralink to create. Without the owner’s permission, then Grills was effectively locked out of-

  “Earth to Axel, you there?” Isia waved her hand in front of me.

  “Sorry, sorry, tangent thought.” I made a note to try and see if I could verify the idea later. “All neuralinks have a credit-audit function, basically the ledger of transactions. It shows what moves you did, and what moves you tried to do.”

  “...that’s just freaky.” She replied. “I think I’ll stick to unmarked cred-chips from now on.”

  “Those are tracked too, actually.” I replied. “Theoretically, I’ve heard of truly untraceable credits.” From Moreau, to be precise. “But I’m not even sure how those can even exist.”

  “I swear the more you geek out, the more like a corpo-goon you sound.” Isia let out a defeated sigh. “Anyway, you think this is worth a shot, or that we might be getting into too much heat?”

  “Heat?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know, trouble.” She elaborated. “I figure whoever set up the payment site our shlub used might know what they’re doing. We might not be able to just bully them into giving us our money back.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” I shrugged. “We won’t know until we try. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  here], but the TLDR is that I'll be posting irregularly at a "put out as I write out" pace.