3

Bennie Shrapnel sat in her office, an elbow on her desk and her head propped on her hand as she looked over the array of invoices and order forms and paystubs spread out before her like random gears and bolts littered on a smashfield after a match. She'd gone through each account line by line, stripping them down to their individual components and scrutinizing them as closely as she would one of her smashbots. Each asset and liability lay bare before her, ready to be reassembled into some brilliant new whole that would solve all of her money worries. But no matter how she tried to frame the problem, there was simply no way around it: too much money was going out and not enough was coming in.

Tears began welling up in Bennie's eyes; she bit her tongue, trapping it between her molars and bearing down so the pain could focus her. On days like this, she wondered if leaving Rustland had been a mistake.

She knew that, objectively, she'd done well for herself in Cyber City. In just a year, she'd grown Shrapnel Systems from a one-woman robotics repair shop to a proper six-person team. They got plenty of work. They'd even assembled a smashball team from parts they scrounged and salvaged. And, hell, they were on a tear so far this season.

Of course, none of that kept the lights in the workshop on.

It wasn't fair. But then, fairness wasn't owed to anyone, she knew. One of the first lessons she'd learned as a little girl, one of the truest, was that the strength of John Henry's arms didn't translate to an indefatigable heart.

Every month she found herself in the same position, and every month she came up with the same solution. She couldn't screw over her team. She couldn't forego the essential materials and components she needed for the business. She couldn't ignore the rent and have the landlord change the locks and throw everything into the street (especially since she'd converted the storage room above the main floor of the workshop into a cramped studio apartment, and she'd be damned if she was going back to a habcube no bigger than a closet).

But, if she had to, she could make do with the city-provided BASIC ration of protein paste and vitamin tablets for the rest of the month.

Again.

Bennie sighed and pushed her chair back from her desk. She was looking up at the ceiling. There was a fresh water stain in the ceiling tiles, and for a moment, she distracted herself by imagining climbing onto the roof or into the dropped ceiling to try to track down its source.

Then the sound of a hollow metal pipe slamming into a hard surface filled the air.

Bennie leapt to her feet and looked towards the window. For a second, she could see her reflection in it: her dark skin stained darker by sweat and oil and grease, curly hair kept sensibly short, and bags under the eyes from long nights spent tinkering with her smashbots at best and juggling money and working on other people's dreams at worst. Her face looked uncomfortably thin to her, the product of a few months spent back to BASICs. If business ever picked up, she was getting a steak. A real one, dammit.

Then she got close enough to look through the reflective glass, and she sucked air through her teeth in annoyance at the scene before her.

Mortimer was directing the action, one hand on Hyrak's shoulder as he used the smaller man with his self-built eye augmentations like a living camera. Tuskie, with her sunburned skin and her oversized snakebite piercings, had a smash shield on her arm and was dancing around the portable lift that held the Shrapnel Sword's star forward, Leah, immobile in the air. Leah's usual armament had been replaced with a bent and rusted piece of pipe, and now her sensor suite was tracking Tuskie like she was an opposing defender. Tuskie juked left, right, raised the smash shield with the tracking marks on it, and promptly got knocked on her ass as Leah brought the pipe down hard onto the titanium and plastic barrier. The others cheered and Tuskie whooped from where she lay on the ground. Off in the corner, Eight-Ball sat on Steve's workbench and shouted encouragement as he drank a can of cheap beer like he was at a smashball match. Steve happened to glance up as she was glaring down at them all and quickly busied himself with moving parts around the bench.

"Hey," Bennie shouted, but the team couldn't hear her over their excitement. "Hey!" Bennie shouted again, slamming her fist against the office window's thick glass. That finally got their attention, and they all looked up and waved. "What are you clowns doing?"

Mortimer grinned and pointed at Leah. She had lowered the pipe, and her sensors must have picked up that a timeout had been called because now it was scanning the environment in search of further input or instruction. "Boss, look!" Mortimer called out. "We rebuilt Leah's attack actuator, Boss!" he called out, grinning wide, his teeth filed into points and making him look like some kind of joyous shark. "Got it real fuckin' juiced up, just like you said!"

Bennie exited the office and began heading down the stairs, the smell of oil from the bots and ozone from the welders and chemicals of all kinds filling her nose. Hyrak helped Tuskie off the floor, one mechanical eye on his friend, the other on his supervisor. Tuskie moved stiffly, and despite herself, Bennie felt a moment of concern for the younger woman.

But just a moment. Concern could wait. "I said no such thing!" she insisted. "You're supposed to be finishing the loader bots for Mr. Ogunbase, not breaking Leah further!"

Mortimer's face turned into a parody of confusion, of hurt, of picture-perfect innocence. "But, Boss, we wrapped up the Ogunbase job this morning. And we're not breaking Leah; we're improving her!"

Hyrak chimed in. "You said Leah needed more power if we were going to have any hope of beating the Tujimoto Hellcats next week. Steve found the notes you left on your workbench and took the liberty of wiring some supercapacitors directly into the arm."

Bennie turned and glared at Steve. He mumbled something too soft to hear but that might have been an apology for going through her things, and turned away. Meanwhile, Tuskie pushed herself to her feet. She dusted off her clothes and frowned at a fresh oil stain on her workshirt. "Leah's code needed a little tweaking and the joint needed some extra reinforcement," she said, "but now it won't explode from the stress of impact."

"And I supervised," Eight-Ball added, raising his beer can in a toast to himself.

Bennie opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. She moved over to Leah and inspected the joint. The welding was… serviceable. Hyrak had done it, she was sure. She knew Eight-Ball had been imparting his wisdom and letting the kid tackle more projects. And the wiring didn't look like it was going to spark and catch fire, at least. Mortimer was getting better, too, even if he was more interested in building the shop's presence in PlayLand than becoming a proper engineer.

Okay. Maybe there was something here. "Tuskie," she called out and stuck her hand behind her. Tuskie placed the shield in it, and she stepped backwards, fitting the protective device to her arm, making sure all of the tracking icons were facing forward, and squaring up to the lift where Leah hung like a prisoner in a dungeon.

"Oi, Leah!" she called out. The smashbot turned its head towards her and chirped questioningly. "Show mama what you got." Bennie raised the shield and braced herself.

The smashbot's blow set her teeth chattering and dropped her to her knees. She quickly lowered the shield, and Leah went from trying to smash in Bennie's brains to looking around expectantly, like a dog waiting to be told it was a good girl. Once she could stand, Bennie stripped the shield off her arm and hobbled over to the terminal that displayed the strike data. "20,000 Newtons of force? Good God!" Bennie exclaimed, her eyes going wide. Behind her, the team whooped and cheered, congratulating each other on the destructive potential they had jury-rigged into existence. Her five assistants had taken her half-written notes, deciphered them, and worked together to build something in an afternoon that would have taken her days on her own.

When she was a little girl, she'd sneak into her Uncle Cyprian's smithy and follow along as he instructed her in the Sons of Henry-approved metallurgical arts (and the unapproved ones). She could hear his voice in her head, feel his hand intentionally roughing her braided hair as she presented him with a welded sculpture or even a simple circuit. "Pretty damn cool, kid. Pretty damn cool."

"Nice work, team," Bennie said, fixing each of them with a smile. But the smile only lasted a second before she crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. "Now, then." The team snapped to attention, the shift in Bennie's voice even prompting Eight-Ball to hop down from the workbench and set aside his beer. "Let's have a quick talk about the difference between initiative and recklessness."

***

Night fell, and Bennie sent the younger members of her team home. Eight-Ball remained behind, helping her tidy and set up for the next day's tasks. She liked Eight-Ball more than she thought she would when he'd first shown up at her doorstep with his designer tattoos and arm augments with the synthetic jewel-encrusted knuckles that read "EIGHT BALL". She'd assumed he was lost, had maybe even come to shake her down, but instead he asked if she needed a gearhead. He didn't have the same aptitude for electronics as Mortimer or for coding as Tuskie, but he had years of practical experience that translated well to more mechanical skills, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy imparting that knowledge to his younger coworkers.

Plus, the man knew his smashball. They could talk for hours about statistics, famous matches, the game's origins and history. He was great in the pit too. Fast as hell and coaching the others, even, seeing their strengths, pushing them to push themselves, and being patient with them when they made mistakes. He reminded her of Uncle Cyp and the way they'd watch recordings of local matches together to the chagrin of the other elders of the Sons of Henry. "This is about knowing your enemy," he'd tell them, tossing her a wink when her father wasn't looking. "We can't expect our children to foreswear the temptations of the modern world if they don't know how easily the vanity of man can be smashed to pieces, can we?"

Eight-Ball said something. Bennie shook her head and turned to him. "Sorry?"

"I asked how we're doing this month, Bens," Eight-Ball said, his attention focused on hammering dents out of Leah's chassis plating rather than looking at her. "When I was walking to the shop today, old lady Irma mentioned that I hadn't dropped off any leftover munchies for her in a while. Kind of made me realize that the shop hasn't had any munchies for there to be leftovers of, you know?"

Bennie frowned. "We're doing fine, Eight-Ball. Things are going well."

"'Well,'" Eight-Ball said, his voice neutral in a way that said, "I don't believe you for a second" without actually saying that. Uncle Cyp had done that, too. She found it less charming than his love of smashball.

"...maybe things are a little tight right now," Bennie said. She turned away, felt the heat of embarrassment rising in her cheeks.

"We need better customers, Bens," Eight-Ball said. There was no judgment in his voice that she was mismanaging her shop, no anger at what she could afford to pay him, no pity for the poor girl who couldn't hack it in the big city. Just that damn flat affectation.

Bennie sighed. "I've been talking to some work crews in the Harbor District, and there's plenty of Mom-and-Pop outfits that are looking to upgrade their loaders and movers."

"No, no," Eight-Ball said, setting down the armor plating and turning to look at Bennie. "We don't need more customers. We need better customers."

Bennie crossed her arms, frowned. They'd had this conversation before. Or at least, this part of it. She knew Eight-Ball had a… colorful… past. A colorful present, even. And so long as he didn't bring trouble to the doorstep of Shrapnel Systems, that was fine. She'd grown up around plenty of close-minded men and women who didn't believe that people could change, who had a near religious belief that people were born with roles they were meant to play and that they could only ever fit into those roles. She was determined not to be like them. That was part of why she'd left Rustland.

She was also determined not to get arrested by the Cyber City Police Department for running guns or drugs or whatever else.

"Eduardo," Bennie began, her voice firm.

"Bens, you've got a big heart," Eight-Ball said, his hands up before him in a display of harmlessness. "And God bless you for it, seriously. There's plenty of folks in this city would never do what you do: extend credit. Take barter for payment. Bring in a bunch of local weirdos with no training and no connections, but a whole lot of talent and drive. But none of that pays the bills, and if you don't pay your bills, that big heart can't do nobody any good."

"Well, what can I do? I don't want to turn the shop into a front for some crew of local toughs. Or their armory. Or their drug lab."

Eight-Ball flashed her a grin. "How about you build an industrial bot?"

Bennie frowned. "Ed, I know you're not telling me to abandon the Swords. If we become an assembly line for some outfit in the Facts, how are we going to stay on top of building and repairing our own smashbots?"

"I'm not talking about becoming a satellite shop for some factory. I'm talking about a one-off job that'll keep us cash positive for the rest of the year. Longer, even."

Bennie closed her eyes. This was almost certainly going to be something illegal, she knew. Or at least immoral. But despite herself, she wasn't telling him no. He watched her for a few seconds, then took it as an invitation to keep going.

"So, you know I do a lot of odd jobs and contract work, right?"

She opened her eyes again. "Sure. 'Odd jobs and contract work.'"

"Right. Well. One of my contacts got their hands on an unreleased schematic, and they're looking to get a prototype developed ASAP before someone else can bring it to market."

Bennie let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Oh, thank God. It's just industrial espionage. "Go on," she said.

"It's simple," Eight-Ball said with a shrug. "My guy, Derrig, provides the schematic and the parts. We build it here, he picks it up, and you get 10 million bits."

Bennie's mouth went dry. "10 million bits?" Forget treating herself to a steak; that was enough to cover everyone's salaries for a year. And the rent. And buy all the upgrades and equipment she'd been dreaming about.

Eight-Ball nodded. "10 million bits."

"What's the catch?"

"No catch. We do the work fast, we don't ask questions, and we don't try to negotiate a higher rate."

Bennie closed her eyes. Think about this from every angle, she told herself. What isn't he telling you? Or himself? "Sounds too good to be true," Bennie said.

Eight-Ball just shrugged. "Just think about it, okay, Bens? If your gut tells you it's not right, then it ain't right. But if you're interested, I'll put you in touch with Derrig."

She did think about it. She thought about it as she and Eight-Ball finished the tedious contract jobs and he went home for the night. She thought about it as she crushed her vitamin tablets and stirred them into her protein paste, because at least then it would have a little bit of flavor and texture. She thought about it as she lay on the cot in the storage room and dreamed about pushing back against the city closing in on her until her heart gave out.

***

By the time Bennie's alarm went off and she pulled herself out of bed and into the recycled water shower, her mind was made up. 10 million bits was simply too much to pass up, and she trusted Eight-Ball not to set her up with someone who was going to completely screw her or the shop. With that settled, she felt a lightness she hadn't felt in months. She went to the shop down the street and picked up a box of sweet treats and synthetic coffee for the team, only wincing a little bit as the bits drained from her bank account. She even crossed the street to the hab-block stoop where Irma slept and left a snack on a napkin next to the baglady's misspelled sign proclaiming "THE END IS NIGHT".

As her team trickled into the shop, Bennie told them not to worry about their contract jobs and instead set them to work implementing the changes they'd made to Leah's systems on the other smashbots: Rebekah needed a matching actuator for her right arm. Lot and Raddai could use the same changes on their leg joints to give them some extra oomph to knock the Hellcats' offensive line to the ground. Chalcol could use both, since the center bot would be alternating between both offense and defense depending on the game. Altogether, the upgrades were going to be just what the team needed to turn their 5-game winning streak into a sixer.

When Eight-Ball wandered in past noon, he arched an eyebrow at the box of pastries that was sitting in the breakroom. "That mean what I think it means?" he asked her.

"Means I'm thinking about it. Hard. But still want to see that schematic first."

Eight-Ball opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he was going to say, closed it again. "Got it, Boss. I'll have him send it to me."

As the day wore on, Bennie's mind kept returning to the upcoming job. Maybe this was some kind of RoboCorp skunkworks project, a prototype they were eager to keep off the books. Could be an Uroyo Company thing; they didn't really do robotics, but they were always expanding into new markets. Or even Murini Media. Lord knows they had a history of big stunts to promote the release of some new game or movie or news channel.

Of course, it could be some kind of criminal enterprise. Throwing around 10 million bits likely meant this wasn't some local crew but a proper organized crime ring. Bennie didn't know how many such criminal enterprises like that there were in Cyber City; even being aware of their existence felt like it triggered some old childhood superstition, like saying their names might invite their evil eye and all the calamity that would bring.

Eight-Ball lingered long after the rest of the team had clocked out for the day, just as he always did. But this time, rather than puttering around the shop floor wrapping up his various tasks, he was in her office as soon as it was just Bennie and him. He tapped and swiped at his handheld to connect it to the big monitor she used to review files with the team.

"Derrig sent over a simplified schematic. File's encrypted, too. It'll delete itself after a few minutes, but he'll bring a more detailed one to the face-to-face."

"And the code?"

"He said his people would take care of that side of things; all we need to do is build it. "

"Cagey," Bennie said.

Eight-Ball smiled sheepishly. "What can I say? That's just how he is."

Bennie nodded. This wasn't how she usually liked to accept commissions, but 10 million bits wasn't a very usual payment. "You said this thing's industrial?"

Eight-Ball nodded. "Yeah. Something about environmental disposal. Waste remediation. Something like that."

Bennie ran her fingers over the screen, rotating and zooming in on the bot. "Looks like it's got a bunch of proprietary hardpoints on the chassis. Your guy tell you what's supposed to attach to this thing?"

"Yeah, one sec."

Eight-Ball swiped at his comms again, and the new schematics replaced the old. Weapons filled the screen, blades, and guns, and some kind of restraining device, and God only knew what else. Bennie sucked in air through her teeth. "Eduardo, what the hell!"

"What?" he asked, genuine confusion playing across his face.

"What do you mean, 'What?'" Bennie zoomed in, the intent of the attachments growing clearer with each second she stared at them. "Look at those things! 'Environment' my ass. This is a damn killbot!"

Eight-Ball glanced down at his handheld. "It says right here all of that stuff is industrial equipment."

"Eight-Ball, come on. If you're going to lie to me, at least try harder," Bennie said, crossing her arms.

"Look at the labels! Look at the parts they're calling for! That grabber's for handling radioactive debris. The hydraulic breaker’s for busting up reinforced concrete in abandoned buildings."

"And the gun?"

Eight-Ball squinted as he looked over his handheld. "Says it's for reforestation."

Bennie laughed, the sound sharp and cold.

Eight-Ball shrugged. "Bens, this is Cyber City. If somebody wants to build a killbot, they don't try to dress it up in flowery language; they just build it, announce that they've built it, and count the money as investors flock to this exciting new opportunity."

"The design's insane," Bennie protested.

"Okay, so an insane person designed it. Doesn't mean it won't do what it's supposed to."

Bennie looked at the schematics on the monitor and sniffed. "It probably won't."

"Well, that doesn't mean Derrig's bits don't spend just as good as the next guy's."

That was true. And 10 million bits spent a hell of a lot better than zero.

"Fine," she finally muttered. "Tell Derrig we're in. But so help me God, Eight-Ball, if I look at the news and hear about this thing killing children halfway across the world, we are both going to be very unhappy."

Eight-Ball grinned. "Of course! Of course. Good choice, Bens, good choice. I'll message Derrig right now." He started tapping at his handheld, talking without looking at her. "He's gonna be real happy. I told him you're the best, and–"

The thing beeped in his hand. Eight-Ball's mouth twisted up. "Uh… he says he's in the neighborhood and he'd like to meet you in person."

Bennie frowned. "What, right now? Are you serious? Can't this wait?"

Eight-Ball swallowed nervously. "Listen, Bennie. He's… you can say no to him, but he remembers stuff like that. He's not the kind of guy people really say no to."

Bennie frowned. "So you're saying, what? I have to meet with him?" Eight-Ball shrugged sheepishly, suddenly looking twenty years younger, younger than even Hyrak at his most bashful. "I just think it'd be a good idea if you did, is all."

Bennie closed her eyes. This was not how she imagined things going. Derrig was shaping up to be a pushy customer and he wasn't even a customer yet. She knew the promise of 10 million bits was too good to be true, and now she was going to, what, get shaken down by one of Eight-Ball's shady friends? At best. At worst, they were going to case the shop for a robbery, or a protection racket, or some other stupid thing that was going to make life even harder. Just tell him no, she thought. Tell him no and sleep with a vibrosaw under the pillow for a few nights.

But what if she said no and this Derrig was legit? Could she really risk losing out on 10 million bits because of nerves?

"Fine. I'll meet him. Just… give me some space, will you?" Bennie said, rubbing her temples. "When this Derrig guy gets here, just bring him up and we'll talk."

Eight-Ball nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Sure thing, Bens." He left the office, gently shutting the door behind him. Bennie sat down at her desk and rotated her chair away from the door. She tried to meditate a little. She had no skill for it, but she hadn't prayed in years and she needed something to calm her nervous energy ahead of this stupid meeting.

As she tried to imagine the stress leaving her body one limb at a time, she heard Eight-Ball opening and closing the shutter of the shop. Two sets of steps echoed through the empty space, became clanging as they climbed the staircase, then the creak of the hinges as the office door opened. "This your robotics genius?" a reedy voice asked.

Okay, Bennie thought. Here we go. Bennie took a deep breath and forced a smile to her face.

"Yep! This is Benedicta Shrapnel, owner of Shrapnel Systems and the Shrapnel Swords, and the best damn engineer the Lows has ever seen."

Bennie spun her chair around, ready to stand up, shake Derrig's hand, say how much she was looking forward to working on his bot design. But before she could get a word out, the smile vanished. She felt her skin go clammy, felt the color drain from her face as her brain reluctantly processed the implications of what she was seeing.

Oh, God, no.

The man that stood before her gave the impression of a living knife, all sharp cheekbones and gleaming augmentations peeking out from under the collar of his shirt, the sleeves of his coat. He had humorless grey eyes framed by thin cybernetics that pierced his skin and disappeared into his temples. His body was thin, yet somehow the jet-black greatcoat he wore, the leather gloves, the calf-high boots fit him perfectly. They were less like oversized clothing and more like a second skin, or a shell, some essential part of himself without which he was incomplete. The entire effect created a silhouette purpose-built to intimidate, just as surely as her bots were made to dominate the smashfield.

She'd seen men and women like him plenty of times since she'd come to Cyber City, but never up close. That was one of the first lessons you learned when you moved here: if you ever see them up close, something's gone very, very wrong in your life.

The knife man smiled, calm and in control. "Ms. Shrapnel. What a pleasure to meet you." His lips split like a wound, revealing teeth perfectly straight, brilliantly white, so much more shark-like than Mortimer's could ever hope to be. "I'm Agent Derrig Hanssen. I'm with the System, Cyber City Special Operations Division."