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  There was an uptick in graffiti in this particular neighborhood. Nearly all the cargo containers were steeped in the colorful tags. Most of it was meaningless, though there were a few sexual and defecation references. She wondered what the neighborhood would look like with public overlays enabled—the virtual graffiti would probably coat every last square centimeter. She decided that was something she wasn’t entirely keen on seeing.

  Also, there was an increase in the amount of garbage lining the sides of the road, and far less delivery drones. Not a good sign.

  After taking a few more detours, Will stopped before an ordinary-seeming cargo container. Like all the others in this area, it too was riddled with graffiti.

  “Well, we’re here.” He beckoned at the backpack she held.

  Rhea reached for the shoulder straps and sloughed off the pack, handing it to Will.

  He dipped his chin in thanks. “Wait for us here while we dispose of our salvage. Keep your hood pulled low. Giz, watch her.”

  “Can’t I come inside?” she implored.

  Will shook his head. “You don’t want a guy like Rosco seeing you. The dude’s a parts collector… and an opportunistic one at that. If he realizes we’ve brought an expensive cyborg onto the premises, things could turn sour for you, fast. Stay here. If you need anything, give us a call.”

  Rhea stepped aside as Will opened the door and ducked to fit his bulky pack inside. Horatio followed, shutting the door behind him.

  Well, though she was disappointed about not being able to go with them, on the bright side, she did actually feel a lot lighter now that the pack was gone.

  She checked the augmented reality overlay while she waited. The place was called “Rosco’s Parts Emporium.” She realized that she could turn on labels on the HUD map, which told her the same thing. She could see the blue dots representing the positions of Will and Horatio inside, and that was comforting.

  She glanced up. Gizmo hovered nearby. That also reassured her.

  Her gaze drifted to a curio shop across the street, and she approached to examine the goods on display outside. The robot on duty nodded its featureless head as she perused a shelf lined with old power cells. The batteries were ancient, probably salvaged from some abandoned attic in the Outlands and sold to the curio shop by a salvager after Rosco’s rejected the parts.

  The next shelf held a beautiful diadem crafted out of fake diamonds and emeralds. There was a small mirror connected to the shelf beside it so that prospective purchasers could admire the crown after trying it on.

  She looked around to make sure no one other than the robot proprietor was watching, and then lowered her hood to try on the diadem. After donning it, she looked in the mirror, and smiled when she saw herself.

  All hail Princess Rhea.

  With a dreamy sigh she returned the crown to the shelf and raised her hood.

  She continued to peruse the different curios, though she was distracted, her mind lingering on that diadem.

  Someday I’ll have enough money to buy whatever I want. I’ll have a room full of diadems if I wish it.

  The thought made her chuckle. Like she’d have any use for something so cheap and gaudy.

  Without warning, a deep, gruff voice came from behind her. “My drone spotted you when you took your hood off back there. Doing the dirty work of Khrusos again, are you?”

  Confused and afraid, Rhea tightened the hood around her face, and turned around.

  5

  Rhea stared at the man who stood before her.

  He was tall, with a broad chest and a bulging waistline. He wore a black vest over tight-fitting brown pants, and dark boots belted just above the ankles. His gray hair was combed forward and did a poor job of hiding the bald region atop his forehead. His eyes were heavy-lidded, giving the impression of a man walking through this world half awake. He had scars crisscrossing his face, and his nose was uneven, hinting at a past marked by more than a few fist fights. Either he couldn’t afford the cosmetic procedures needed to have the nose properly set and the blemishes removed, or he preferred to show them off to the world, perhaps as a warning.

  The man leaned forward slightly, as if trying to peer deeper under her hood, and his eyes drifted to her forehead. He frowned. “Sorry, I seem to have mistaken you for someone else.” He raised his palms and backed away.

  Before she could answer, the man hurried away.

  Bewildered, Rhea merely stared at him for several moments. She tried to access his public profile via her HUD as Will had taught her, but either the man was too far away, or he had disabled public access, because she got nothing.

  “Hey, wait!” She darted after him.

  The heavy-lidded man glanced over his shoulder at her and then ducked into a side alley.

  She reached the alley a moment later and peered inside. The metallic walls of lean-tos and cargo containers formed a dim tunnel that proved otherwise empty. The man must have ducked into one of the containers that lined the route and shut the door behind him. Well, she wasn’t about to go inside and look for him…

  “Gizmo, were you able to track where this guy went?” she sent over the shared comm band. She wasn’t actually certain if Gizmo was on the line.

  Will was the one who answered. “Giz says you ran into someone. It tried to track him, but the man ducked into an alleyway and was gone before Giz could reposition. Want tell me what happened?”

  Rhea hugged herself. “Nothing.”

  She gazed into the empty alley one last time, and then returned to Rosco’s Parts Emporium to wait in front. She watched the streets warily, giving suspicious looks to the few passersby she saw.

  She looked up “Khrusos” on the Net in the meantime. Apparently, Khrusos was the President of the United Settlements. A member of the High Council that ruled Earth. But that was also a common name and could have belonged to any street kingpin.

  Finally Will and Horatio emerged and shut the door of the container behind them. Their backpacks were noticeably smaller.

  “So, what did that dude say to you?” Will asked her.

  “He confused me for someone else,” Rhea replied.

  Will gave her a suspicious look. “You lowered your hood?”

  “No,” she lied. “Apparently, he had a drone, and it caught a glimpse of my face when it was flying past.”

  “I see,” Will said. “Well, you’re lucky he wasn’t some black-market parts dealer.”

  “Maybe he was,” Horatio said. “And he’s off gathering his hood brothers as we speak.”

  “All the more reason to get the hell out of this neighborhood,” Will said.

  Will led her and Horatio away from Rosco’s. Rhea decided not to mention the comment about Khrusos. Clearly the guy had her confused for someone else.

  Will and Horatio surveyed the graffiti covered buildings around them as if expecting an ambush at any moment. Rhea did the same. Meanwhile, Gizmo scouted a block ahead, flitting above different alleyways and side streets in search of potential attackers. The drone sometimes doubled back, flying to the streets behind and adjacent to the current neighborhood, to confirm that no one was following the party from the rear or the flanks.

  It was so quiet here… it felt like being in the Outlands all over again. Not entirely trusting Gizmo’s sensors, Rhea peered into the alleyways between the cargo containers that served as homes but saw no one. Some of the lean-tos had windows, but the curtains were invariably drawn. One time she spotted a little girl peering from a partially shuttered window, but the kid quickly ducked from view when Rhea met her eye.

  A drone flew past overhead. It wasn’t Gizmo.

  “Whose drone is that?” Rhea asked when she realized it was mirroring Gizmo’s course, following along about ten meters behind Will’s machine.

  “Either the settlement’s security forces, or a local kingpin’s,” Will said.

  “I’m not able to get an ID on it,” Horatio commented.

  “That rules out security forces,” Rhea said.

  “Not necessarily,” Will told her. “Sometimes settlement drones mask their IDs.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and explained: “The residents of certain neighborhoods like to shoot them down. And you see, while Rust Town security might not have many boots on the ground patrolling the streets, they do like to keep tabs from the air. Covertly.”

  “So you’re saying, if we were attacked, Rust Town sentries would come?” she asked.

  Will nodded. “They would. But about ten minutes too late.”

  The trio continued along those vaguely sinister streets, but no ambushers waylaid them.

  Soon Rhea found herself in a cleaner neighborhood. There was hardly any garbage along the sides of the road, and only a few of the lean-tos and cargo containers were marked with graffiti. The drone traffic picked up. She immediately felt safer, though it might have been an illusion.

  Overhead, the trailing drone lost interest and flew away.

  “Must have been the security forces after all,” Horatio commented, gazing after the fleeting drone.

  “Maybe we should have Gizmo follow it,” Rhea suggested.

  Will shook his head. “And risk having it shot down? No thanks.”

  “It’s also possible a smaller, more covert drone has taken its place…” Horatio suggested.

  Rhea glanced upward, but as far as she could tell, none of the insect-sized drones were following them. She was keenly aware that she was exposing her face to the small drones, however, and soon bowed her head, pulling the hood lower.

  Will led her through another area that was packed with street vendors—human and robot alike—and turned onto a less crowded side street lined with lean-tos that looked freshly painted. There were no vendors openly hawking their wares here, and graffiti had a minimal presence—a good sign. Then again, perhaps the residents had only recently painted over it.

  Will halted before an unremarkable metal lean-to that was airbrushed a bright red. It had no graffiti.

  He spoke. “Master Bardain. I’m here for my appointment. Or rather, your new student is.”

  The door opened and a man, presumably Bardain, appeared. He was tall, lithe, and dressed in a long gray cloak. A zipper kept the left and right sides of the cloak sealed down the middle so that the sleeveless fabric cocooned his body.

  His face was clean-shaven, wrinkled, and gaunt, and he wore thick, visor-like AR goggles, these fitted with a peculiar prescription lens that gave him a bug-eyed look. His hair was shaved almost to the scalp around the crown, but on top he had a long growth of red, spiked strands, giving his head the appearance of a lit match. He was tall already, but that spiked style only made him seem all the taller.

  Bardain looked down on Will and smiled fondly. “Well met, old friend. Always grand to see a former student of mine shine.”

  “Oh, I’ve been shining all right.” Will glanced at Rhea and told her: “I was a student of his, too. But only for a week. Surprised he remembers me.”

  “I remember all who pass within these hallowed halls,” Bardain said.

  Will chuckled and gazed at the red lean-to dubiously. “Hallowed halls indeed.”

  “Oh, it might not look like much in the real world.” Bardain tapped his AR goggles. “But in the virtual, the halls span the streets of Rust Town.”

  Will smiled. “And so they do. You received my deposit?”

  Bardain inclined his head in confirmation.

  “Good.” Will glanced at Rhea. “Well, I’m going to leave you with Master Bardain for the evening. When you’re finished, send me a voice message—I’ll have Horatio fetch you.” He returned his attention to Bardain. “I want her to wear the hood at all times. I know this is a good neighborhood, but even good people can do bad things, especially when something so tempting happens to walk into their world.”

  Bardain was peering beneath her hood and nodded. “A face like that is rarely seen outside Aradne or other capital cities without a string of bodyguards in attendance.” To Rhea, he said: “Why did you have to choose such obviously synthetic eyes for your cyborg? And that mouth…. you do know that for the average resident, your parts are the ticket out of the slums? Tempting indeed.”

  Rhea didn’t answer him. Instead, she looked to Will, and asked: “What do I do if something happens? Someone attacks me?”

  “You’re in good hands with Master Bardain,” Will said. “He’s worth a dozen bodyguards, at least.”

  Bardain chuckled. “You’re too kind. More like two, maybe.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Will told her reassuringly, and then departed with Horatio.

  Rhea noted that Gizmo remained twenty meters overhead, hovering silently. She wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured or offended. Did Will think she couldn’t be trusted to stay here for her training? It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be able to track her anyway, via his overhead map.

  Unless she turned off location sharing.

  “So then, my pupil, it is time to begin,” Bardain told her. “What is your name?”

  “Rhea,” she said shyly.

  “Rhea,” Bardain repeated. “An interesting name. You will call me Master until you graduate. At which point, you may address me as Master Bardain. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Rhea said. When Bardain simply stood there, as if waiting expectantly, she added: “Master.”

  Bardain nodded. “All right, then.” The zipper that kept his cloak sealed lowered, and he produced a pistol from within. He offered it to her with a gloved hand.

  She lifted a confused eyebrow.

  “I know what you’re thinking, guns are outlawed in Rust Town,” Bardain said. “This is a toy. Fires virtual energy bolts only.”

  She reluctantly accepted the weapon. She pointed it at the dirt ground of the road and squeezed the trigger experimentally: nothing happened.

  “I’m going to need you to disable public rights to your HUD,” Bardain continued. “Can’t have random AR spam interfering with your training.”

  “I already disabled public rights shortly after entering Rust Town,” she told him, remembering the profusion of AR ads that had filled her vision, courtesy of the different street vendors and shops.

  Bardain smiled patiently. “Well, that’s good. Because the next step is, you need to give me access to your AR.”

  She received a request on her HUD.

  Bardain (745168) would like access to your augmented reality interface, and requests the following permissions:

  - Ability to overlay objects

  - Ability to provide haptic feedback

  - Gaze tracking

  - Location tracking

  - Emotion tracking

  Allow? (Y/N)

  Note: Access can be revoked at any time.

  Rhea agreed. A pop-up reminded her how to revoke access and she dismissed it.

  Bardain disappeared inside the lean-to and returned a moment later carrying a pair of folding signs. Both had the same message scrawled onto the front:

  Training in progress. Proceed with caution.

  He placed one sign in the middle of the road not far from his abode, and the second several meters down the street, facing the other way.

  “I’ll let you know when any passersby enter the area, and I’ll also highlight them in blue, just to be safe,” Bardain said. “Wouldn’t do to have you ripping people apart with your cyborg strength.”

  “I don’t really think this body is strong enough to rip anyone apart,” Rhea said.

  “You might be surprised…” Bardain said. “Now then. Let’s see what I’m working with. Eliminate the targets.”

  The sky overhead became replaced with a vaulted ceiling, courtesy of AR overlays, and Gizmo and the few other drones up there vanished from view. She resided within the hallowed halls that Bardain had referenced earlier. Around her, the real-world lean-tos remained in view, as did the passersby in the distance, and Bardain himself. Which made sense, considering she’d have to navigate around them during her training.

  Several small, motionless red spheres appeared on her HUD. They were randomly distributed throughout the street.

  Keeping her hood raised, she aimed down the sites of the pistol, lining up one of the spheres. The weapon felt odd and unfamiliar in her grasp. Perhaps it was because she was wielding the weapon in a hand entirely different from that of her lost body, but the more likely explanation was that she had no muscle memory of the pistol whatsoever.

  She squeezed the trigger. A yellow energy bolt erupted from the tip of the weapon, traveling instantaneously toward the target. It missed, and she adjusted her aim to fire again. It took a third try before she finally hit it. Upon impact with the virtual energy bolt, the sphere flashed white and vanished. A new one appeared in a different part of the street a moment later.

  She targeted another sphere nearby and fired again. The first shot missed so she adjusted her aim and tried again. This time she hit it. For her third and fourth shots, she spent a good five seconds lining up each before squeezing the trigger and hit them both on the first try.

  “Let’s see how you handle moving targets,” Bardain said.

  The spheres began zipping back and forth, sometimes swerving towards her at the same time, and then away.

  Rhea fired frantically but missed everything. She tried leading the targets, and came close a few times, but still failed to strike any of them. She spun in place one time, causing her hood to drop, and quickly replaced it.

  “All right, I’ve seen enough,” Bardain said.

  She tried to fire at her latest target, but the pistol didn’t respond. Bardain had remotely disabled it.

  She lowered the weapon; the spheres continued to move in the background around her.

  “I can see why Will brought you here… a salvager who can’t fire a pistol isn’t going to last very long in the Outlands, cyborg or no,” Bardain said. “Tell me, what exactly did you do before this?” He folded his thin arms beneath his gray cloak, and gazed at her through that AR visor, his eyes magnified bigger than ever.