Have you ever been electrocuted before? I mean properly so: More fork in the electrical socket than dry hands on a fuzzy blanket. Because I have.

  At the risk of stating the obvious, it isn’t a pleasant experience. But the thing about getting properly zapped is that electric current moves through you so fast that you usually don’t even realize that you’ve been electrocuted until a good second after it’s happened. When it’s happening, you just freeze up; your brain short-circuits and stops processing stimuli altogether besides a vague, sudden pain. A shock, if you will.

  But the other thing is, even though you can’t process it at the moment, you still feel something when you’re being electrocuted. It isn’t just the instant pain of the shock; the experience leaves you with this lingering, persistent kind of pain that’s almost like paralysis. A vague cloud of sharp points, akin to pins and needles. It’s not quite agonizing, but feels profoundly wrong, so much so that even thinking about it long after it happened chills you to the bone. It leaves you uncomfortably aware of the delicate mechanisms that hold your life in place.

  It isn’t actually that nasty, though—unless you get it really bad. The sensation is over and done with faster than you can blink.

  But imagine, just for me, what it would feel like if that intangible pain didn’t go away. If you instead felt that constant feeling of your senses being so overwhelmed that your body came right back around and refused to let you feel much of anything besides a wispy, primal discomfort.

  Well, as I drudged back into consciousness, the first thing I felt was that exact sensation in my right arm. I didn't see, or hear, or even think about anything else for a long time.

  Then, as my brain cleared up, I realized my arm was probably just numb from being stuck in the same position for a while—however long that was. So, still only half-conscious, I shook and flexed the fingers on my right hand, trying to work some vestige of feeling back into it.

  But doing so made me realize that even though there was still that strange, phantasmal pain, I could feel my arm perfectly fine. It didn’t feel right, but the fact that I could feel it at all meant something, didn’t it? It couldn't have been numbness.

  The first thing I heard after waking up, though, was a quiet, mechanical squeeing as I moved my fingers. The same sound as a door with rusty hinges.

  Suddenly, everything clicked together.

  It was an effort to not be frozen by my own surprise, but I opened my eyes anyway, and held my right arm up to my face; I willfully ignored everything else at the moment, like how I was laying down in an uncomfortably flat bed with a white sheet, and the familiar, barren plaster walls in the cramped room all around me.

  It was hard to even internalize that it was my own arm, at first, because it was made entirely of metal. Dull, silvery-grey metal, with visible spheres in the joints of its fingers and elbows, and a hand that had all the right parts of a human hand, but was far more weirdly proportioned. The metal had harsh edges, and a rounded surface around the forearms and biceps.

  I flexed my finger, twisting my wrist around. Now that the presumed-numbness had faded, the movements had perfect feedback: I could feel it as if it were a normal human arm, albeit it didn't hurt as my fleshy arm once did.

  My mind briefly flashed back to when that android monstrosity—Asterion, I thought it was called, but my memory was kind of fuzzy—drove a massive sword through my arm. And now I was left with this.

  Huh. Neat. It was at least better-looking than my cheap cybernetics, if made a bit more disgusting by the fact that it strongly resembled something MergoTech would make.

  Wait. These boring-ass walls. The sunlight shining through a window behind me. The bitter-cold, conditioned air. Am I still in…

  "Well, would you look at that!" another voice in the room said. "Our ballsy little trespasser has finally woken up. The nurse thought you’d be out for at least another day, so I daresay you'll impress them by your mere presence."

  Bewildered and slightly disoriented, I carefully shifted until I faced my left, toward the source of the voice. The man who had spoken sat next to me in a folded-up chair, next to a medical counter—with a locked cabinet below.

  The man smiled, folding his leather-gloved hands together. "How are you feeling, my recklessly misguided friend?"

  I took a moment to study the man, but struggled to make anything of him. He was around the same height as me, wore a long brown raincoat that covered his whole torso, and black pants that looked freshly-bought from the kind of store I would never in a million years be able to shop at. Even if I had a legitimate source of income.

  He stared at me with unnaturally sharp, clear, vivid-blue eyes. The skin of his face was mildly pale, and he had long bright-red hair with dreads tied into a neat tail behind the back of his head.

  He looked… well, handsome, but it was the kind of handsome that one tends to associate with old marble statues or Renaissance paintings. The kind that looked more specifically crafted to be aesthetically appealing rather than something a real human being would resemble. It gave him a surreal quality that made my skin crawl whenever I looked at him.

  Though that might also have been because there was something familiar about him that was difficult for me to pin down. Jury’s still out on whether that was because the man himself was strange, or because my brain felt like a bag of broken bricks.

  "Heh. Not much for chatting, are you?" His tone was insufferably smug.

  "Kind of still trying to figure out if this is a dream or not. You look about as real as one.”

  He nodded. "Not the first time I've been told that, and I’m honestly not sure whether I should see it as a compliment. But before you roll into the same inevitable questions that’re usually uttered after waking up from anesthetic: You're still in the clinic you tried to rob, you've only rested here for one night, and you don't have to stay for much longer, but can only leave once the nurses have deemed it safe enough for you to go." He counted off each point on his fingers, then lowered his hand, smirking. "Does that cover all you wanted to know?"

  "Think you missed a rather big point there.” When his only response was a raised eyebrow, I asked, "Who the hell are you, and why are we talking when you implied that I should be resting?" I pointed my brand-spanking-new robotic arm at him for emphasis.

  The man stared at me for a moment longer, then broke out laughing and stood up from the chair. "Oh, my friend, my buddy. Now this, I did not expect. I know I haven't been occupying the public spotlight lately, but most people I talk to recognize who I am in seconds. Even the Undergrowth's people."

  He folded his hands together, looking down at me expectantly. At first, I considered spitting in his face and leaving it at that, but for some reason, now that I had a full view of him, I quickly realized why he had seemed familiar.

  I tried to hide my shock, and I think he bought it, but it was still fucking startling. This man didn't share many features with his old man, but the sharpness in that jawline and those eyes was unmistakable. The way he held himself so calmly and confidently was a direct mirror of his father. It was no wonder I didn't recognize him at first, because once Vincent Mergo started running for Minister of Finance, this lad almost completely vanished from the public spotlight.

  Alex Mergo. Vincent's only child, MergoTech’s manager of PR and Marketing. Heir to the company's throne.

  I got a very sudden, very good idea that filled me with giddy glee.

  "Sorry, I'm, uh… not sure my vision is the best right now," I lied through my teeth. "It's a little difficult to see your face from here, honestly."

  Alex Mergo frowned, then put a hand to his face. The look in his eyes was academically curious. "Weird. That shouldn't be happening after all the time you’ve had to adjust. We might need to see about getting your left eye recalibrated, then, once the rest of your body has recovered."

  Recalibrate my eye? What is he on about…?

  Oh. That's right. That woman shot me in the eye. It was startling to remember, both because my new apparently-cybernetic eye looked and felt like a perfectly normal eye (I didn't notice any weird vision artifacts or static), and also because I was somehow alive after getting shot in the fucking head at point-blank range. But hell, I'd roll with it. That was modern medicine for you.

  "I suppose if you're struggling to see, then this would probably help." Alex moved over and half-knelt next to me, almost expressionless. "There. Is this better?"

  "Very," I said. Then punched him in the face.

  Or, at least I tried to. It looked good at first: I took my new metal arm for a spin, balling it into a tight fist and feeling the joints click down as I forced as much energy and strength into it as I could. Then, the moment he knelt down, I swung it around, and drove the fist directly into his face.

  It was all so perfectly executed that it made me grin. Until he caught my fist mid-air.

  My brain didn't register that he had moved his hand up until it happened. But there he was, still kneeling amicably, with one gloved hand wrapped around my robotic hand, my metal knuckles mere inches from colliding with his face. His grip felt unnaturally cold, despite the gloves—like the man was a goddamn vampire.

  I felt paralyzed at his smiled, not really sure how to react without escalating this further.

  Since when did I give a shit?

  I growled and threw a quick extra punch at him with my left fist. He caught that his other hand.

  "Ooh! You're a feisty one, aren't you?" Alex's grip on both my hands tightened just enough that it felt strangling. "But seriously, 'Tarim'. Since you clearly do know who I am, I'm honestly disappointed that you seem to think nobody's tried that trick on me before. You don't get to where I've gotten without catching the eyes of a few people who want to break your teeth."

  He smiled bright, baring his utterly spotless white teeth, then finally let go of his grip on my fists. I pulled my robotic hand back and started trying to shake some feeling back into it, then stopped when I realized how dumb that was. My fleshier hand was the only one that needed to worry about pain, now.

  It was only then, in mild frustration at my failed attempt to get one over on Alex, that I absorbed the only important part of what he said. Tarim.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I sat up in the hospital bed, noticing for the first time that I apparently wasn't wearing a shirt—not that I cared. "Hold on… how do you know my—"

  "Your personal belongings revealed a few things, and my family owns the city." Alex stepped away and dug a hand through his raincoat’s pocket, maintaining eye contact with me. "Really didn't take that much to dig up who you were. I know your full name is Tarim Al-Vashir, that you were raised in an Undergrowth orphanage that you deserted at a young age, bounced between some foster families that you never stayed with for long, and a short while after disappeared from the public record. According to hearsay, you turned to theft and burglary from that point on, teaming up with various other Undergrowth gangs who never found reason to keep you around for long." Of all things, Alex pulled out a lighter and an old cigarette from his pocket. Not even an electronic one, just straight tobacco. "So save us both some time and don't try to lie to me, okay? About anything. I'll know. Don’t bother."

  I scoffed, then looked away while he lit up a cigarette. "Really? In a clinic?"

  He shrugged. "Call me old fashioned. And I own this building, so nobody's about to stop me from indulging a little."

  "Of course they won't." I didn't even bother to hide my seething.

  Alex was quiet for a minute, as if mulling over his own putrid thoughts. "I have to say, I wasn't expecting you to be so… ungrateful to the man who saved your life. If you're upset about the cybernetic arm, there wasn't anything else that could be done about it. Your nerve damage was so bad that nothing could—"

  "Oh, this thing?" I flexed the metal fingers. "I ain't mad about this in the slightest. Considering the cybernetics I already had, I was probably just one nudge away from getting a robot arm myself." At least if I had the small fortune needed to buy it. A fortune that I could've gotten if three goons hadn't stolen my loot, stabbed me, and shot me in the face. "But forgive me if I don't see you dragging me into a hospital bed instead of handing me over to the police as ‘salvation’. It's not like you installed this yourself." He was just a suit who owned something he barely understood.

  He didn't stop smiling, but the demeanor of Alex's smile changed just enough that it became something else. It reminded of a scientist slowly watching the culmination of a long-studied theory or experiment, with academic and morbid curiosity alike.

  "Ah. I misread the situation, then." He took another puff from his cigarette. "My apologies. Sometimes I forget just how… close-minded your types can be."

  If I could be bothered to get up at that moment, I would've liked to try punching him again. I was tempted to do so anyway.

  "But no matter." He walked toward the door of the room, one hand pinching the cigarette between two fingers. “I can see that you have no interest in pleasantries, so I won’t begrudge you for it. We have business to discuss.”

  “What business?”

  “Oh, you know. Even if you think you don’t.” He knocked on the door, then shouted, “Jakob! He’s awake! Get in here!”

  Jakob?

  Alex stepped back from the door. Shortly thereafter, it cracked open, and a stout, burly man with an open-front black leather jacket strode in. He had a head shaved bald in the military fashion, wide eyes, and a permanently angry grin—which he now directed at Alex. His clunky, calloused fingers were visibly filled with cybernetic parts.

  “By Christ, Alex,” he muttered in a heavily-accented voice as he walked in, “this better not be another false start, or I’m just gonna go back to my work and leave your ass in the—” He paused, looking straight at me as the door closed behind him. An expression eerily reminiscent of a smile appeared on his face. “Well, well, well. Nice to see you kickin’ your feet outside a dream, street rat.”

  I didn’t know whether to be afraid or more annoyed that I actually, at first glance, knew who this man was. Jakob Lazarus, MergoTech’s chief of manufacturing and development. He was a reclusive, antisocial sort who became famous for being an ex-general, although it must have been pretty awkward for him to move into a city with no military. He still held himself with the intensity of someone who was expecting an artillery barrage at any moment. Or, I dunno, someone who just had a permanent stick up their ass.

  I looked between him and Alex. The head of PR and the head of production. Two high-class bosses of the most powerful tech conglomerate in North America. They were all here at a mid-range clinic, likely because I had tried to steal a piece of classified tech that I barely knew anything about.

  StormHand. Remember the name, ‘cause this is getting more interesting by the minute. I half-considered trying to punch Lazarus too, but dismissed the thought for curiosity’s sake alone.

  Besides, that face looked so hard that punching it would’ve hurt my fingers more than him.

  Lazarus coughed, waving the air in front of him. “Fuck me, did you really have to fill this tiny room with smoke? You’ll choke this poor cur to death if he’s stuck in here a second longer.”

  I glared at him. “First you call me a street rat, and now you’re calling me a—”

  “Focus, you two,” Alex said. “Unless you’re planning to call each other more names, we have business to get to.”

  I didn’t even get to call this lumbering brick-face one name, I wanted to protest, but didn’t really have the energy to push on that point right now.

  Alex folded one hand into his coat’s pocket, and kept sniffing on the cigarette with his other hand. “I’ll get straight to the point, Tarim. You owe us.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the fact that you broke into this clinic and attempted to steal a piece of private company tech. Now, that technology is out of our hands, and you have an expensive piece of my own tech investment where your arm used to be. I’d say that warrants a little bit of ownership on your part.”

  “Well it wasn’t like I asked for—”

  “Do you know how much that cost me and my crew, you little shit?” Lazarus boomed at me. “My branch dumped more fortune than you’ve made in your whole life into that lil’ hand that got stolen, and now we’re a dollar and a penny short of fu—”

  “Jakob, what did I say? Focus.”

  The man opened his mouth like he was about to protest, then just sat back with a huff, crossing his arms.

  “Now, then,” Alex continued. I could feel a surprising amount of exasperation in how he spoke. “As I was saying, those are both reasons that you owe us. Or, more specifically, me. Because it was primarily my project that got stolen, and my technology that you now have. My investment.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I wasn’t aware that marketing snakes had knowledge of any technology besides money printing.”

  For the first time since we started talking, Alex’s smile vanished. “Don’t talk down to me about things you know nothing about, Al-Vashir. Why are you still arguing with me on every point when I’m trying to peacefully negotiate an agreement with you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because this doesn’t feel like a particularly even arrangement right now.” I pointed at the hospital bed, and then flipped the bird at him with my metal arm. “You’re calling me an investment and having this ‘discussion’ with me after I’ve been out for a whole day. It sounds like you’re stacking the deck against me instead of actually giving me a choice.”

  Alex let out an annoyed breath, but his smile returned. “Oh, but you do have a choice. And if you choose right, then you and I will both come out of the deal better for it. There’s a lot more to the technology of that new arm and eye of yours than it seems—and a lot of money in it for you, if so desired. All you have to do to realize that potential is agree to help me recover the lost device.”

  Potential? What more can this stuff do? It’s just a hunk of prosthetic metal. “StormHand, right?”

  Alex tilted his head. “Didn’t think you’d know its name.”

  “It wasn’t difficult to miss, honestly. Printed right across the thumb.”

  “Hmm.” Alex freed a hand to tap his chin. “Note that down, Jakob. It’s a potential design oversight if they can see the name as clearly as a road sign.”

  “Already did,” Lazarus said.

  “Sir, I didn’t see or hear you write down a single thing,” Alex said without looking at him.

  “Since when have I ever needed to! This right here is all I need.” Lazarus aggressively pointed at his own head. “I was a general, the Firehawk of the battlefield! A commander has no need for little notes. Nobody in their right mind who possesses a strength of will should have to rely on such things as—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Maybe save the mighty speeches for when you don’t have an audience of two.” Alex Mergo looked back at me. “Anyway, if you know enough about my project, why are you so hesitant to help with getting it back to me?”

  Besides the fact that I don’t give a shit about helping corpo scum like you? Besides the fact that that thing felt so terrifyingly powerful I’m not sure I want it to get back to you?

  “I’m not hearing any real reason that I should,” I said.

  “Hmmmm. Now, maybe I don’t know you as well as my intel makes me think, but if I knew people who had destroyed one of my eyes and one of my arms solely for their own profit, then I think I’d want to exact a bit of personal justice on them. Rather than letting them run away with the earnings that should’ve been mine.” His eyes widened at me as he took another puff of smoke. “Wouldn’t you?”

  I paused, seriously thinking about it for a moment. It surprised me how little hate I actually felt towards the gang of thieves that nearly killed me. Yes, there was a degree of want for that kind of righteous vengeance that drove so much of the criminal underworld into action, but I can’t say that I would’ve acted any different if someone stood between me and profit that stubbornly.

  Maybe the one thing I could be upset about was how they'd stolen my payload out from under me, as Alex said—and god only knew how we'd make enough money to pay off our rent, now. But the more I saw how weirdly invested the management of MergoTech was in StormHand, the more curious I got about what it actually was.

  Not to mention how vague Alex was being about this new technology he’d forced upon me….

  Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more avenging thyself dropped lower and lower on the priority list.

  “Let’s assume, for a second, that I didn’t particularly care about personal vendetta,” I finally said. “Which is pretty easy to assume. What else is in it for me? And don’t give me vagueries of learning what a hunk of metal for an arm does, this time.”

  Alex nearly cracked up when I spoke. “You’re trying to bargain even though you don’t think you’re in a position to negotiate with us?”

  “Well, do me a favor and at least pretend to hold to your promise that I actually have a choice. I would like to know what I’m getting into before throwing jumping into this particular ring.” I folded my arms, the metal one cold against the fleshy one. “We’ll even do the favor of pretending that you’re not going to turn me in to the police if I say 'no.'”

  “... Well, I wasn’t actually planning on doing such a thing. But so be it.” He glanced at Lazarus as he spoke. “We are willing to offer you a hefty chunk of money if you get back to us with the StormHand device that was originally stolen, as well as the chance to learn what it does. And believe me when I say that the second part should interest you, more than anything else.” He raised his brows and took another cigarette puff. “Particularly because your new arm there might have some… compatible functionality with it.”

  That did interest me, but not for the reasons he thought. “How much money are we talking?” I asked.

  He rolled his shoulders, and smiled. “We’ll discuss the details once you’ve actually accepted the job. But however much you earn, you’ll get. We have the money.”

  “Hmmmmmmmmmmm…” I stated as I thought about how I can swerve this into a deflective direction. “Can I think about it?”

  “BAH!” Lazarus suddenly burst out before shoving the door open. “This was a waste of time and money, Mergo boy! Just look at him! A little lowlife like this rat can't even begin to imagine being a part of something better! Bah, I say! Zero ambition, zero vision!”

  “Certainly not if you keep talking shit about me like I’m not here,” I said, as he continued to not acknowledge me.

  Alex deeply groaned, then looked to Lazarus. “I never once heard a direct rejection from him, Jakob. Only questions. In fact, considering that the man has only just woken up from a gruesome surgery coma, I’d rather think that giving him a moment to think and rest before deciding anything would be courteous. Perhaps it would even give him time to reassess his priorities.” Alex looked at me again, with a bright smile that underlined his mixture of threatening words and genuine belief that I’d come around. “Wouldn’t you agree, Tarim?”

  Lazarus just grumbled and walked out the door. Alex paid him no mind.

  The Mergo boy brushed a strand of red hair away from his face. I met his unnaturally-blue eyes, thinking, as I saw the deep and surprising cunning behind them, Yeah, there’s no way this man is going to let me off easy. If I give him anything, he’ll always want more.

  “I guess I would agree," I said. I scratched at the side of my temples. "Not sure it's smart to be this amiable with someone who tried to rob you though, mate. And punch you.”

  “You know what they say about gift horses, my friend. And I’m always one to believe in second-chances.” He pulled the cigarette out of his teeth to give me a mock-salute, then followed Lazarus out the door.

  The look he gave me was a little too knowing, like he had seen clean through the veneer of trust that I had barely even tried to project.

  Like hell I’m giving you a second chance.