The hallway still stank of electrified flesh as I gripped the handle of the stairwell’s door—in case you were worried that I had somehow gone anywhere in the meantime. I had only paused for a moment to take in what I had done, pondering the mess I was to make in the near-future.


    I pushed the needless thoughts away and put a finger to my earpiece.


    “Darian, I hope you’re keeping a keen eye on the clinic. I just made things a little more exciting.”


    “Business as expected, then?” he asked.


    “Pretty much.” I yanked open the door to the stairwell and moved inside; I was greeted by beige walls and concrete steps, where every footfall echoed in my ears. Just because this clinic was owned by the continent’s richest tech conglomerate didn’t mean they''d actually try to make it aesthetically appealing. In fact, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in the fucking Undergrowth, but that was probably giving my hometown a little too much credit. “Remind me: What floor is our target supposed to be on?”


    “Well, assuming you didn’t make them move it by alerting the building’s security, then it should be on the seventh floor.”


    “Kind of high up, but oka—” I moved a few flights up the stairs, fluorescent lights guiding my way, then stared up with a frown. “Okay, if it is on the seventh floor, why the hell does this stairwell only lead up to the third?”


    “Pardon me?”


    “First floor stairwell only leads up to third. First to third. One to three. There’s no way to any other floor from here.” I shook my head. “Why? What’s the point of having this if it won’t connect to every floor?”


    “Legal obligations? Well it doesn’t matter too much, cause—” His audio fuzzed up for a moment. “No, girl. We’ll have to play later. Go take a look at the scrap metal over there—seems pretty tasty to me.”


    I frowned. “What was that?”


    “Gracious is getting hungry, I think.” Darian sounded exasperated. “I’ll need to pass her a bone once we get a moment to breathe.”


    “Awww! Could you give her some scritches for me?”


    “Sure, sure, just stay focused on the now. Anyway, I think I know how you could get to the seventh floor. I’m looking at the layout of the building; the upper floors are obscured from public maps, but it looks like there’s a cargo lift that reaches down to the parking garage in the building’s basement. I’d wager it’s to deliver heavier goods to their projects on the upper floors, so you should be able to find a way to get up the lift’s shaft from the third floor.”


    “Okay, sounds simple.” Or at least it sounded like the kind of simple where you started wondering how it would go wrong. “Any idea where I can find it?”


    “It’s one the far north side of the building, so just make your way over there, I guess.”


    “Sure, easy enough. Just need to get past the horde of guards I’ve alerted.”


    “Well, maybe you shouldn’t cause big fusses if you’re going to whine about it later.”


    I grunted, not wanting to admit that he was right, since I knew I would’ve done the same thing either way. But at least I wasn’t charging blindly into whatever was ahead of me, this time.


    I climbed up the rest of the stairs, and was only mostly dead of exhaustion by the time I reached the door to the third floor. The metal door had one of those little windows that was probably there to make sure you didn’t open it in anyone’s face, but was paradoxically made of black non-transparent glass. Just another drop in an ocean of bafflement.


    I pulled the door open, ready to rush my way northwards to the fabled cargo lift, but was instead greeted by three gun barrels trained at my face.


    I froze in the doorway—even as the door tried to close on my back.


    The people holding the pistols were three security officers, not unlike the one I had just knocked out downstairs. All in the same uniforms and all with the same equipment. Two of them stood off near the walls of the hallway, crouched down, while the third—a person with a young face and permanently angry eyes—stood perfectly in the center. Their gun was lowered in a lax position, but still aimed at me.


    “Stand down now!” they shouted at me. “Leave your weapon on the ground, and you’ll be taken in without—”


    “Nope!” was my sole response before I ran into the adjacent, presumably northwards, hallway. A chorus of gunshots echoed behind me as I broke into a full sprint.


    “Don’t shoot at the door, dumbasses!” a voice said back there. “That’s company property!”


    I turned down the next hallway to my right, then back around the left, hoping that I could put enough walls between me and the lovely people with guns that I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a bullet in the back.


    The thought crossed my mind that I probably should’ve taken the gun off that unconscious guard’s body, but I wouldn’t have used it anyway. There was something so garish and nasty about using guns. It never had the same finesse or sense of style that hitting people with a blunt metal stick has, y’know?


    As I ran through the third floor, distantly followed by angry voices, I found it noteworthy how utterly undisturbed everyone else in this building was. Not much of a stink was raised about how I wasn’t supposed to be there, and most of the employees and patients I saw didn’t give me more than a passing glance. I could only spot most of them through windows, where the workers of this clinic used increasingly elaborate machinery to install cybernetic implants on people in increasingly uncomfortable places.


    I didn’t get much time to soak it in, though, knowing that, at any point, I could run into more happy gunners eager to use me as target practice. So I kept moving and hoped that whatever direction I moved in would eventually take me to the north side of the building.


    The only real speedbump happened when I turned a corner and ran almost face-first into another guard, dressed the same as the others, but not one of the ones who had attacked me before. They were alone, and had a hand on their baton, but held a cup of coffee in their other hand.


    At first, when I almost knocked them down, they looked indignant. I flipped out my baton, charged it, and whacked them in the neck just as their expression twisted into one of surprise and disgust. They seized up and got this close to toppling over like a tower of bricks when I slipped the baton away and hurried around the next corner.


    I was amazed that I didn’t run into any other guards along the way, but considering how the building was still not locked down, they mustn''t have seen me as much of a threat.


    Despite feeling like a maze with how goddamn samey the hallways were, the floor wasn’t terribly large, so I didn''t have to cover too much ground. Shortly after knocking out the prior poor dumbass, I reached the north side of the clinic.


    I ran along the length of a hallway that had various curtained windows against the outside-facing wall before encountering a large antechamber to my immediate left. Besides some cozy-looking lounge chairs, its only distinct feature was a huge set of sliding metal elevator doors set into the same wall as the windows.


    That has to be the cargo lift Darian told me about, right? With a little luck, I could put the armada of people with guns behind me in a few flat seconds. About four floors behind me, if I remembered correctly.


    I walked up to the metal doors and had a look at the control panel to its right. It seemed that the lift had just settled after being in transit from one of the upper floors.


    That was concerning, sure, but the hell did it matter? I wanted my way up, and I found it. So I slammed the button to call the lift and stood back, waiting for the opening lights to blink on. I smirked, confident.


    The door slipped open with a metal shriek, giving me a clear view of the cargo lift. It was a flat platform, wide as a room, with a grated floor and yellow-painted support beams framing its edges. The lift was piled with old mechanical parts, a few spare electronics, and piles of unused boxes shoved off to the side.


    Oh, and there were also five armed thugs in blue uniforms standing atop it. Maybe I should’ve noticed that first.


    Fortunately, the guards standing in the lift were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. One of them tapped another on the shoulder, pointing to me. The surprise quickly spread through them, as did the upraising of their guns.


    Fucking nope! I thought as I broke off and ran back down the same hallway I came from.


    I wasn’t immediately chased by the sound of ear-ringing gunshots, this time, but the feeling of triumph was offset by knowing that the one way I had up was now out. Although… It might not be out forever. All I had to do was lead them around the circumference of the floor, and hopefully they’d be baited away from the lift, whereupon I—


    As I ran down the hallway, I was greeted by the three guards I met outside the stairwell, sprinting toward me with some truly ferocious frowns on their faces, guns ready.


    My mind spun. This was a narrow hallway. I couldn’t go straight. I couldn’t turn back and run the other way; the guards from the lift were stampeding down that way. All I had against their guns was a pocketed stun baton.


    The cheeky bastards had pincered me. So naturally, before either of them could get too close, I ducked into the nearest side room and out of their line of sight.


    Without a second glance, I slammed the door behind me, leaving behind the clamor of stomping boots outside—accompanied by the occasional angry shout. I felt pretty confident that they wouldn’t break open the door, considering what they’d said about company property earlier. But they''d probably find a way to get it open anyhow, given enough time.


    I clicked the little lock on the doorknob. Just in case.


    I had locked myself in an utterly desolate lounge—the kind that would’ve been coated in a fine layer of dust if it weren''t for MergoTech’s strict no-dust policy. Clearly the people who worked on this floor weren’t the kinds to get a break like the lucky bastards on the first floor were. There was a full and spotless vending machine, and a sad little sofa with its legs bolted to the floor.


    Shit. That’s one idea gone. I thought about pushing furniture up against the door, but that wasn’t going to happen, and now—


    At first, I looked back toward the door because I heard an ugly metal CRRRRREEEAK, and surmised that they had somehow found a crowbar sitting around to do just as I feared. But then, I saw a big red button on the wall next to the door with the words “EMERGENCY OVERRIDE” printed across the top.


    Eureka!


    A series of harsh clicks and SLAMs followed on the other side as an array of locks sealed the door impenetrably-shut. The metallic creaking noises stopped; I heard a few angry grunts.


    Finally! I thought. Nipped that problem in the bud. Now I just have to get out of—


    A bright red light flickered on the ceiling, then began to flash on and off non-stop. Suddenly, the only thing I could hear or think past was the screaming of a klaxon alarm so loud that I thought I might need to replace my ears after all.


    “Are you fucking KIDDING me?” I shouted, though I could only hear my voice by pressing my hands to my ears.


    So the hot pursuit with a thief didn’t set off any lockdown alarms, but pressing a button did. Great. Perfect.


    Now with this thing going off, I would get an extra helping of proper MergoTech security, and maybe some law enforcement on our back—assuming MergoTech didn’t pay the pigs to back off. With all that pressure on me, it was only a matter of time until someone in the corpo scum’s chain of command overruled the officer’s orders about door protection. This room would get popped open like a biscuit can.


    Or, I don’t know, maybe they’d go to the security office and override the door’s override lock. Christ, that’s confusing.


    I half-considered doing a cannonball out the nearest window and hoping for the best, but as I looked around through the blinding, flashing red light, I realized to considerable despair that there were no windows in here. It had to be against the outside edge of the building, but apparently they thought windows would be too costly to install in a lounge nobody would use.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    As I looked around, anguishing over my situation, I heard the faint fuzz of audio in my earpiece. I tried to listen closely, but all I heard was, “...im… wha… every a… ert…” And the rest was klaxons.


    I pressed my hands against my ears harder. “WHAT!”


    “I sai…” BLEEP! “You set off ev—” BLEEP! “...arm in the buil…” BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!


    “I SAID WHAT!” I said. “I CAN’T HEAR A SINGLE THING YOU’RE— Oh, fuck it.”


    I pulled out my stun baton, flipped it open, clicked the circuit on once more, and tossed it up at the blaring red light on the ceiling. The electrified end struck the alarm head-on, and there was a violent, bright SIZZLE-ZAP as my weapon electrocuted the demented device.


    All was blessedly dark and quiet. The sudden silence and dimness of the room’s underpowered fluorescent lights was almost serene.


    It was soured by how the baton then fell spinning from the ceiling. In my fumble to catch it, I almost caught the end that was crackling with bolts of electricity.


    Thankfully, luck prevailed; with only a slight tremor through my hands as one of my fingers touched a little too close to the wrong end, I had a good grip on the baton once more. I turned it off and flipped it shut again, happy, in my embarrassing clamor, that Darian hadn’t been here to see that.


    “... I heard that zapping. You didn’t electrocute yourself, did you?”


    “Hush it, I’m fine.” I slipped the baton back into my pocket. “And sorry for earlier. It was kind of impossible to hear you through the banshee-screaming alarms.”


    “Yeah, sure. Speaking of which, mind explaining how you managed to set off every alert in the entire building right now?”


    “I pushed a button.”


    “Bad one or good one?”


    “Thought it would be a good one, but I’m sorely regretting my choices right now. As are my eyes and ears.”


    “Ooookay. Well, you might be interested to know that I see a whole-ass convoy of vehicles heading toward the clinic right now. So, want me to bail you out?”


    I thought about it, wondering if the idea I was getting would be worthwhile in the slightest. Then, I nervously grinned at nothing in particular. “Uh, no. I think I got this. I just need you to violently break a wall open. If you can.”


    There was a long enough pause on the other side to make me wonder if I said something too dumb, neatly accentuated by the sudden, violent banging on the room’s only door. I clenched my teeth and took a few steps back from it. Just in case.


    Finally, Darian said, “Sure, whatever. Where are you right now? A room against the outer wall?”


    “I’m pretty sure?” I glanced around once more. “It’s a lounge on the third floor. West side of the building. There’s no windows in it, so it’ll be a wide blank spot along the—”


    “Found it,” he said, shutting me up. “How far are you from the wall?”


    “Uh… well, I’m on the other side of the room from it? Is that a safe enough dis—?”


    There was a quiet hiss of air before the wall opposite of me exploded.


    Well, perhaps the more accurate word would be imploded, but that didn’t quite fit the combination of sounds and stimuli. One of Darian’s rockets must''ve smashed into the outside wall of the clinic, as there was a visceral BOOM that shook the building and rattled my teeth with its impact. A storm of dust and tiny, flying pieces of shattered brick spilled out from the wall and nearly blinded me.


    After wiping my eyes and coughing out all the dust, the first thing I felt was an incongruous gust of gentle, cool wind from outside. The screams of cars rushing over highways followed, and the usual ambiance of buzzes, shouts, and distant sirens that were constant to a big city.


    The dust cleared shockingly quickly, and in the silence and emptiness that followed, a big hole in the wall revealed itself. It unveiled the imploded layers of plaster, metal, and brick that made up the clinic’s walls, and beyond it was a clear view of the rest of Silverhold.


    I moved over to the hole, and at firstonly stared out at the cityscape. If the clinic wasn’t elevated on a hill, then I probably wouldn’t have had as good a view of the many towering buildings and damp alleyways as I did now. The sky was an array of red and black colors, painted with rippling clouds. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the crowing of birds and the hissing of the Atlantic’s waves crashing against Silverhold’s rocky shore.


    The moon shined far overhead; in this low lighting, I could see the glittering windows on every one of the city’s buildings, cars, and many, many skyscrapers. This included the Trident itself: those three massive dagger-shaped buildings that pierced the sky near the center of the city.


    The international headquarters of MergoTech itself.


    It was a beautiful city, for the most part, but I wouldn’t have felt much pity if the entire Trident spontaneously combusted. It was a monument to scum and greed that cast its shadow over the whole city; sure, the city was scummy by itself, but its presence certainly didn’t improve things.


    Down the road from the clinic, a convoy of cars with blinking red and blue lights passed under one of the many massive overhead bridges, rushing toward this city block.


    Oh, sure. Silverhold cops will go whole days without checking on calls in the Undergrowth, but a MergoTech clinic gets battered by one thief, and they’re all over it. Twats.


    On the bridge above them was a silver van with no distinct features. If I really squinted, then I could see a man sticking his upper body out of the driver''s seat window, with something in his off hand that was probably a short-form rocket launcher.


    I waved to Darian, even though he couldn’t see it from that distance. “Thanks!”


    “Sure, you’re welcome,” his voice buzzed in my ear. “Now that you have a hole, want me to bail you out now? I’d rather do it before you end up in prison.”


    “Oh, no. Thanks for offering, but we’re making rent one way or another.” I held up my cybernetically-enhanced hand, flexed it a few times, and smiled at the creaking noises it made. “I have a better idea.”


    The guards outside picked that time to finally pop the door open. There was no violent tearing of metal or heaving strain, so I assume they just undid the override, somehow. I looked over my shoulder and watched as an ensemble of angry faces turn baffled as each one noticed the hole in the wall, and the man (i.e. me) who stood in front of it.


    Before their brains could work, I gave them a hearty, “Thanks for the chase, lads. Peace!”


    I slipped one foot back and fell out through the hole in the wall.


    The wind only rushed past me for a moment before I pulled myself forward and slammed my right hand into the brickwork of the building’s outer wall. It painfully scored into my fingertips at first, but with the extra leverage and strength, I scored into the wall. My fingers, creaking with strain, dug grooves into the brickwork, and after a bare quarter-second of falling, I was left hanging on the wall, held up entirely by the force of my enhanced hand.


    I braced my feet against the wall and panted, feeling the happy surge of adrenaline in my brain.


    “What are you, a monkey?” Darian asked in my ear.


    “I said hush!” I whispered, with good reason. Now came the actual hard part.


    From this position, I could move up the wall bit-by-bit by maneuvering my body with all my free limbs, then slamming my right hand into the next patch of wall. Doing this, I moved around the hole Darian had made in the wall and crawled up until I was well above it—maybe at the same elevation as the fourth or fifth floor.


    I glanced back down at the hole. The guards who had chased me peered over the edge with befuddled looks, as if expecting to find me flat on the ground. Heh. Nice. If they thought I was trying to book it down there, then I would probably run into zero resistance on my way to the seventh floor.


    Then I realized I was looking down, and that the ground was actually quite a ways down. Far enough that if I lost my grip, then the impact of the fall would squish me into human paste.


    I looked back up and tried to take my mind off it as I clawed my way up the wall. Truth be told, heights don’t scare me that much, but the old advice of “don’t look down” is good to follow regardless. The last thing you want distracting you from climbing is thinking about how easy it is to fuck up.


    So I kept my eyes up and focused on the screaming pain in my fingers as I carved holes into the wall, one after the other. Even though the cybernetics enhanced my arm’s strength, they only mildly dulled the pain, so I got to feel every centimeter of the bricks’ rough surface scraping across my fingertips as I yanked myself upwards.


    It was worth it, though, because I moved up that wall quicker than the rotten cargo lift would ever have carried me anyway. Kind of wish I thought to climb up the wall at the very start of this job, to be honest, but if I didn’t at least try the stealthy route first, then Darian would’ve been mildly upset with me.


    I passed various windows on my way up past each floor, seeing nothing in some, shadows and light in others. I think I even saw a few faces peering at me through the windows, but apparently it was so dark outside that they must’ve taken my movement to be little more than a wild animal clawing its way up the side of the building.


    Monkey? Feh.


    I kept moving and crossed my toes that nobody would actually see me up here. My fingers burned, but I kept putting one foot up, one hand forward, and launching myself higher with my enhanced hand. It was a grueling and not-particularly-neat form of navigation, but against all reasonable odds, it carried me up there.


    I counted my way past the windows until I stopped under a fairly wide one—which was, shock of shocks, on the seventh floor. There were a few more floors above that before reaching the roof of the building, but that was neither here nor where I needed to go.


    I grinned, feeling the triumph of a job near its conclusion, until it occurred to me that I had to somehow get through the window.


    Looking up at the glass, I suspected that my arm was the only thing I had that would be strong enough to break it. The panes looked a little thicker than you usually see in a building like this. But that same creaking, aching, bruise-red arm was the only thing that was keeping me attached to the side of the fucking building.


    I huffed, then clicked the earpiece with my free hand. “Hey Darian? I’m gonna need more fire support.”


    He quietly sighed on the other end. “What for? All the alarms in the building have gone down, so please don’t tell me they’re still hunting you.”


    “They aren’t! I promise. I just need you to break a window open.”


    Brief, smug silence. "Told you I couldn''t dismiss the possibility."


    "Hey, I''m going into one, not out of one. Important distinction."


    “If you say so. I assume you don’t want me to do it with a rocket launcher?”


    “I... What? God no, just a bullet or something will be fine. Why would you want to use a—”


    “I mean if you’re going to go with the over-the-top entry, why not go as absurd as possible?”


    I couldn’t tell if that was meant as a dig or not, so decided to ignore it. “Nah. From this position, a rocket would mash me into potatoes. If you can still see where I am up here, I need you to break the window just above where I’m—”


    There was a distant, muffled crack, a whizz of air, and the window above me exploded inward in a spray of glass shards. Thank fuck wasn’t looking up when that happened; a few shards drifted out past me and into the dark below.


    “Thanks,” I said, hoping the tremors in my voice didn’t show. With all the strength I could muster into my right arm, I heaved myself up and over the windowsill, landing in  the coveted seventh floor of the clinic.


    It wasn’t the smoothest landing, since the carpet on the floor was blanketed with glittering glass shards, but I managed to scramble to my feet with only a few resulting cuts and slashes. None of them hurt more than my actual cybernetic hand, though, which was looked and felt like it had been dragged across jagged sandpaper a hundred thousand times.


    “Get in okay?”


    “As well as can be expected from me." I tried not to grimace as I looked around, finding myself in a totally nondescript plaster-walled hallway. There was a single door up ahead with a black glass window. Nothing else. The hallway seemed to circle the rest of the seventh floor, but since all the lights were off, I could only see by the light of the moon and the setting sun—cast through the open-glass window Darian had made.


    “Alright, go get our payload then, you mad bastard,” Darian said. “I’ll make my way down to the building now so you can jump out without breaking all your legs.”


    “So little faith in me. Tsk.”


    "I''ll keep a hold on my faith until we''re out of here. Sorry." A short moment later, his van’s running engine hummed through the earpiece. "Won''t be able to talk much while I''m driving, so just… be careful in there, okay? No unnecessary endangerment."


    His concern was always heart-touching in a way that made me slightly melt, but I cleared my throat and kept clear-headed. "Thanks. Can''t make any promises, but I''ll try as best I can." I didn’t see the point in worrying when the hardest part was over, but I wasn''t about to be totally dismissive.


    All he returned was an affirmative grunt, followed by the HUMMMMing of his van picking up speed. I was a little sad that I couldn''t talk with him any further, but there would be plenty of time to catch up once we were done. Always was. As long as I knew that, all other immediate worries became tolerable.


    Not that there were many worries left, of course. If our initial plan still held up, the thing we were here for was just behind that door.


    Supposedly, it was some piece of technology MergoTech was developing in utmost secret, though apparently Darian’s informant hadn''t told him much more except that it was very valuable. That was a given; few things sold for more than MergoTech prototypes.


    Refueled with confidence, I strolled up to the door, and pulled on the handle. Or at least tried to. My attempt to tug it open was blocked when the handle only moved a few centimeters; the door made a little be-beep sound and flashed a red light. The technological equivalent of getting told to do one.


    I frowned down at it. Electronic lock. Of course. If this project of theirs was so precious, then they probably wouldn''t put zero security up here. They might’ve been short-sighted, but they weren’t utterly stupid. Not on this front, anyway.


    I pulled my baton back out, unfolded it, turned on the electric current once more, and stuck it against the door''s lock. It zapped against the metal with a satisfying crackling noise; after a moment, the fritzing LEDs on the lock turned off. If it was a proper electronic lock, then it would''ve slammed shut when severe damage was inflicted. Instead, the lock retracted, and I could turn the door handle all the way.


    Leave it to MergoTech to cheap out on something that by all rights should''ve been a high security priority, right? Maybe I gave them too much credit when I said they weren’t utterly stupid.


    I smiled, and moved to put my baton away. Then, after a moment of thought, I instead folded it up and kept it in hand. Darian suggested being cautious, after all, and ages-old instinct told me that was a good call.


    After all, even if nobody was waiting for me inside, one other certainty existed when it came to MergoTech’s prototypes: They were as valuable as they were deadly.