A Study in Cyber

“Hey, you! Got a name yet?”

The girl looks up. Gone is the braided hair, the pin laden denim and crimson boots. The sides of her head have been shaved smooth to reveal gleaming new implants, straight silver lines that run flat and parallel along the curve of her skull. The same metal glints at the corner of her mouth - he makes a mental note to talk to Janyx about offering clients amateur piercings. Again. 

She looks confused. Hesitant. “Um, its Neyr, sir.”

He shakes his head, dismissive. Every goddamn time. Twenty-three years in the game, and still every so often someone’s lack of comprehension of the most basic fundamentals of identity fraud manages to surprise him.

“Not that. A name, a new one.” He taps his own Holocard at her - second generation, bearing a photo of a face that only barely isn’t his, and a name that he doesn’t even bother remembering anymore. 

The girl still seems nonplussed, somehow. Honestly. Do these fools think that all that talk about ‘changing your name’ is just figurative? He almost says as much, too, before memories of Kyr’s lectures on not insulting the people trying to give you money make him think better of it.

Be personable. People will trust a person they like.

Just think charm and charisma. 

“Look, kid. You wanna new life? That’s great, who doesn’t? And that means you need a new identity, and you’re off to a good start. I mean, you came to the best guys in the business, you ditched the hair, new piercing - suits you, by the way.”

She seems more relaxed. She seems to be following, anyhow.

“And you’re shiny Cybernets are good too, last gen drop one - that’s just standard procedure, new enough to not be old, but still too old to be new. Keeps ‘em from drawing attention that way, see?”

She clearly doesn’t, a moment away from getting lost trying to parse those last few sentences again, so he moves on.

“Without any major changes - surgeries and the like - you’re looking as new as you’re gonna get. And sometimes, that’d be enough - we set you up with some fresh new papers, new numbers, new Holos, and you head off into your fresh new life. But that’s not what you want. Because you think there are people looking for you, and you’re paying us extra to make them stop. So yeah, usually you could keep a name and nothing bad would ever come of it. But you want to be untraceable. If you want to disappear, you’ll need a new name. What’s it gonna be?”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move, or react, or even blink, really. She seems a little stunned, which is probably fair - it’s more than anything else he’s said to her in the three days since she was brought to their crumbling base combined.

“There’s still about an hour to go till we start the final fabrications. Just, take a moment, think about it, and come find someone before then.”

The girl just stares at him. He turns to leave. 

Maybe he can catch hold of Janyx before he has to go start up the fabricator units.

****************************************************************************

Janyx has a place somewhere in the ‘Del, theoretically, but she rarely uses it. She claims it’s ‘just in case’, and then winks, but he knows there’s more to it, as much as Janyx would rather die than admit it. A refusal to be dependent, deeply ingrained and sorely earned. A reluctance to be alone warring with the instinct to push people away. It’s a feeling they all can relate to somewhat. Still, more and more these days, that need for companionship tends to win out. She hasn’t spent a night alone in the ‘Del for months now.

Whenever Janyx isn’t in the ‘Del, she has a room just across from fabrication. 

It’s not very big. Somewhere between a small room and a large supply closet. But he and Kyr and started retrofitting it a few weeks after Janyx first showed up and made it clear that she wasn’t planning to leave. It’s evolved over the years, as Janyx grew more comfortable here, as her interests changed. Ten months ago he’d helped her lift the bed up onto stilts so she could set up some sort of workstation underneath. He eyes the table now, covered in Tytanite needles, scraps and bolts, small vials of ink. The doodles that cover her walls have slowly transformed over time to what now look like popular tattoo templates.

Janyx herself is currently hanging upside down, bent knees folded over the industrial curtain rod that stretched wall to wall across the middle of the room, just over a metre below the ceiling. The door’s been left open, but she has her back to it so he knocks anyway. 

She reaches up to flip herself upright and sees him as she straightens off. “Hey, Boss,” she calls out, dropping to the ground.

He motions to the workstation. “Thinking of a new career?”

She laughs, motions him in. “Well, you know, I thought we could try and, broaden our horizons a little. Offer that little bit extra.”

He bites back a smile. Be serious. He steps into the room. 

“I see Quanta out there’s got a new piece of jewellery.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Quanta?”

“New girl. Or, old girl now, I guess.” There’d been a malfunction with the Holo-sett, so he hadn’t had time to come to speak to Janyx until after Quanta t-Ux’s persona was all complete. Quanta herself was planning on heading out within the next few hours.

“Oh, right. Neyr.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response. She just smirks.

“Whatever. Your work, I presume?”

“The lip ring? Yeah, course. Why, you think it was Kyr. I doubt they’d know one end of the needle from the other.”

He gives a slightly choked laugh, half amused, half defensive, and moves towards the table, ducking under the bar as he goes. “Okay, look, their understanding of more recent cybernetics and identifiers may be lacking, but that doesn’t mean they’d get caught out by something as simple as...” He picks up one of the needles. Looking closer, he sees the Tytanite is sharp at both ends, though not identical, and also hollow throughout. He stares a second longer, then puts it back down and walks away, silent. Janyx is just openly laughing.

She starts speaking as he settles back against a wall. “Look, we were talking, and she mentioned some of mine,” - she gestured here at her jewel encrusted ears - “and I could tell she was kind of angling, so I offered to put something in for her. It’s not a big deal, and I charged extra, of course, so, you know. It’s all good.”

He sighs. “I get that. It’s just an unnecessary risk, and you know how Kyr gets about those. I just wanted to check in, is all. I mean, things going wrong with IDs is less of an issue, you know, ‘cause more often than not when it happens the poor fools involved aren’t left in any position to complain. The last thing we need is to get shut down over licensing fines after some idiot gets an infection and complains to the Poes.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Hey, it could happen. Rx went down after a client got a Nyxel allergy from the safehouse he left them in. I mean, obviously, the client then had to explain how they knew Rx, so they dropped charges, but by then it was too late. Three decades, and in the end it was the paperwork that took her out.”

Janyx blinks. “Huh. Whatever. Look, don’t worry about it. I mean, I did all of my own, I haven’t lost an ear yet.”

He smiles. “True.”

“And besides, you can’t think that piercings are a bigger risk than the implants?”

“And the tattoos,” he cuts in, jerking his chin towards the inks.

She nods. “Haven’t done one yet! But, yeah. One day, hopefully. If I can fix up a gun. The point stands. It’s no different from the rest of the identity masking we do.”

“I know. But.” He drops his voice, in what he hopes is, if not good, then at least a contextually recognisable impression of Kyr. “No one is coming after us for bad implants. Faking Cybers is always illegal. Faking piercings is only illegal sometimes .”

She snorts. “They say that?” she asks, incredulous.

“They will.”

Her face stills.

“I’ll cut you not to tell them.”

“Yeah?”

“30-70. I get more, I do the work. But you can, I don’t know, take yourself out to dinner, buy something pretty. Whatever old people do.”

He still has a stylus on him from earlier. He takes it now to toss it at her head, muttering. “Brat.” She dodges easily, laughing the whole time.

“We got a deal?” This is an old game between the three of them, him and Janyx fixing various deals whilst Kyr claims to be equal parts unknowing and above it all.

He smiles, and if it’s a little softer than he’d normally allow, than a stupid credit arrangement perhaps should warrant - if it holds in it the warmth of happy memories, well. Janyx won’t tell anyone. He pushes off the wall, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. “You know we do.”

****************************************************************************

He and Kyr live in a set of much nicer rooms in the most distant, private section of base, courtesy of having found, cleaned up and lived in the place longer than Janyx, now twenty-one, has been alive.

Of course, Janyx spends a fair amount of time with them anyway, not having her own kitchen or living area. (They keep a small pantry and a pull-out for clients who have to stay a while, but it’s nice to keep some distance. She uses the client bathroom though, says she’d rather have strangers occasionally encroach on her space than have to share it.) But otherwise, it’s just them. Completely off bounds. He doesn’t think there’s been another person inside in the last fifteen years.

He goes in now, careful to catch the door before it slams, and treading lightly. He stopped wearing platforms for a couple of reasons, but the noise was definitely one of them. 

The bedroom is the last room down the short corridor. He can just make out the light seeping through the gap under the door, and sighs in relief. Not a bad, bad day then. He keeps walking.

“Kyr?” he calls out, voice soft, as he cautiously toes open the door.

They’re sitting up in bed, still mostly under the covers, but there’s a screen on their lap and every now and again a hand fiddles with the dated gunmetal in their temple that, despite the age and corruption, they refuse to upgrade.

Their eyes look tired, face grey and fingers lagging slightly. Still, they look up as he enters the room, and break into a real smile. “Hey.”

He walks over to his own bed, and starts unlacing his shoes. “How are you feeling?”

They shrug. “Same as, really. How’d it go today?”

He shrugged back. “Pretty standard, really. Slight hiccup with unit three, nothing devastating but I think we’ll have to replace it soon, and the kid didn’t come up with a name until I was practically coding it in but…”

Kyr sighs. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no.” Barefoot now, he moves over to perch next to Kyr, who moves over and lifts up the covers, inviting. He shuffles under the covers, lifts up an arm. “None of that, ok. Me and J have got this, we’re professionals. Just trust us.”

They sigh again, but set the screen aside and settle against him. “I know. Still,” they say, speaking into his shoulder, voice muffled.

“I know.” He rubs their arm, and they sit together for a moment of indeterminable length.

****************************************************************************

“We should go away somewhere.” Kyr is almost asleep on his shoulder. “Just you and me. Or maybe we drag J along with us, I dunno.”

Kyr grunts. “Sounds nice.”

“I’m serious. It’ll do you good, it’s been way too long.”

“It has.” Then there’s silence, long enough that he thinks they may well have just dropped off. “No use though,” they add, shaking their head in what he assumes is an attempt at pointing out his Cyber. “And no, TravelPorts, or nothing.”

He laughs. Pulls out his most recent Holo, fully equipped for international travel. Honestly.

“Somehow,” he snorts, “I don’t think the documentation is gonna be an issue.”