Trace held back a wince as Atraxia sipped at her incredibly sour drink. She had offered them both a taste of it and laughed uproariously at the faces they had made. Their tongues and stomachs had not liked them afterward.

  That was what it took so she could get more than a muted taste of something.

  During the entire time they had been eating, they had continued their discussion. The meal which had been delivered to them through a small elevator next to the table without the need for anyone to show up. The complete privacy provided to those who rented out the private rooms was another reason this was such a popular restaurant among people with means.

  Ko wiped her mouth as she finished off the sandwich she had ordered. It had been a completely real sandwich, with none of it coming out of a 3D food printer or a tube. It was gloriously tasty and hideously expensive.

  “You still haven’t told us which corporations G1gleMyte owns, controls, or works with,” She said as she lifted a fry to her mouth.

  Atraxia lifted a piece of thin, paper-like material to her lips and placed it on her tongue with a shiver of delight. It was the android version of food, as there was no reason for her to eat actual food. These little slips were infused with the flavor that she craved. Of course, should she want to actually chew something, those options were also available.

  “To begin with, you were not entirely wrong in assuming he was part of RyZyx. However,” She raised a hand, stopping them from saying anything. “They are merely a corporation that he works with on occasion, nothing more.”

  Trace leaned back; his brows furrowed in thought. “They’re his supplier of android bodies, aren’t they?”

  She pulled back in genuine surprise. “Indeed, RyZyx is one of the best corporations for that sort of thing.”

  “Alright, so what are the actual corporations we need to watch out for?” Ko wondered.

  Atraxia put her elbows on the table and threaded her fingers together. “Vinna-Kwoi is one of them. The corporation isn’t one of his primary holdings, but he does have a large stake in it. If he ever became aware of what went down that day…” She spread her hands and raised a brow silently. “The two you need to keep a watch on are SensorWipe and DataDrive.”

  “DataDrive doesn’t sound familiar at all, but I know SensorWipe. They have a massive research division geared towards sensors of every kind.” Trace chuckled and pointed to his eyes. “They probably helped develop at least half the sensors in my eyes before they started working with outside sources to develop the other half.”

  Atraxia leaned across the table to inspect his eyes. “An apt analogy, if somewhat limited in scope, unless those eyes of yours are more than they appear.”

  He winked and pulled back. “What’s DataDrive?”

  “An information collective, one of many that exists out there. This one just so happens to belong to him, is all. All those ads you see, the ones that always seem to be geared directly to you, the ones that know your habits and what you are really craving? All of them are a result of deep data mining into your personality and habits. Companies like DataDrive then organize it all and create a profile on the person.”

  Ko’s eyes widened. “So, if he knew even a little bit more about Trace?”

  “Then he would have already been able to create a full profile on him and tracked him down already.”

  “That’s a comforting thought,” Trace tapped his fingers on the table as he thought over this recent round of information. “Where would he have dumped that android body I shot, and where can we get one for cheap?”

  She laughed. “Android bodies can be had for almost as cheap as you want if you know where to look. The tech is old. That said, finding them in a city like this would be much harder than in other places. The junkyard to the west might have a few if you dig around long enough. I also know of a few pawnshops that I have dealt with in the past you might try speaking with. That junkyard or the pawnshops are also where he likely would have tossed that body, assuming he cared enough to have it brought back in the first place.”

  As they were standing up a while later, their meal and discussion finished, Atraxia gave them one final warning. “I’m going to give you both my number, however, you are only allowed to ever use it one time each. I’m doing this because I despise G1gl3Myte and want to interfere with everything that even remotely belongs to him. The two of you seem to be nice enough people as far as meatbags go. Just know my actual interest is in taking him down, not in helping you.”

  With the lines clearly drawn, she stalked from the room before they could say anything.

  “Well, that felt a little unnecessary,” Trace muttered as the door closed behind her.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “No, I think she’s just protecting herself,” Ko said, taking his arm. “She wants us to believe that she is just doing this all because she is a bored rich woman with a grudge born from something he did seventy-five years ago or however old they actually are. I suppose that could be the truth on some level, but I think her artificial heart is just as warm, squishy, and soft as her real one was.”

  He shook his head and led her to the door of the private room while reattaching his mask. “Whatever, just don’t let her hear you say that.”

  ***

  The next morning, Trace was up early to head over to the south junkyard. Monroe would be coming part of the way with him, but would be getting out in Edgewater to talk to the people there.

  The south junkyard was the one closest to the mountains. It was also the only one you had to pay to enter. The rest were free, though they sometimes charged you depending on what or how much you brought out, or if you were running a recycling crew.

  Trace had never had to worry about the fees since he was small time, and everyone knew him at his usual junkyard. Not only was this not his usual junkyard, but it also quickly became clear why it charged a -small- fee for entry.

  The place was organized.

  There were no haphazardly created towers of junk. Instead, there were neat rows and bins stacked atop each other, with a rolling ladder placed on each side. Everything was readily accessible, and each row was even labeled with what the bins were supposed to contain.

  Trace immediately fell in love with the junkyard and knew this wouldn’t be his last visit to the place. With how organized the place was, people were more willing to junk their more precious items there as well instead of at the other junkyards. At this location, they had a better chance of being found and repurposed or used again, instead of simply being lost and eventually melted down.

  All those project items he had been looking for, well, they could be found there. Android bodies could as well. Not the specific one he was looking for, however, there were several older models laying in a bin waiting to be melted down.

  Trace was tempted to grab one of them for Deckard, but they really were in bad shape. Not to mention how old they were. He was willing to bet that one of them was over a hundred years old. He knew Deckard wanted a body, but finding parts to work on something that old would be next to impossible. And trying to retrofit it would be a nightmare. The build architecture of now, versus back then, was completely different. Trying to fit modern parts on something that old just… it was more trouble than it would be worth, in his opinion.

  Maybe if he couldn’t find something else.

  Trace grabbed a few items to work on later and then left the junkyard behind. He still had some pawnshops to visit.

  The first two were a bust. The third one though, well, that one just so happened to have the exact android he had shot up so many weeks before. Apparently, the shop owner had gotten it for cheap off a couple of gangsters who were looking to offload it quick. Unfortunately, the damage to the head and body was more severe than it first appeared, and the store hadn’t been able to sell it since.

  It worked out well for Trace, as he was able to buy the body for cheap-ish.

  That didn’t save him from wincing as he loaded the android body into the truck bed. He hadn’t realized just how much damage he had done to it before. The head… well, the head was mangled, but he also put several shots up its spine as well.

  Fixing this would require all his skills and everything that he could possibly learn in the near future. It was absolutely the project he had been looking for and he couldn’t wait to get started on it.

  With his current knowledge and skills, there was absolutely no way he would be able to design and create a working android body. Fixing one, however, depending on the damage and the resources available, that he might just be able to do.

  If he had Deckard’s help designing the pieces that would need to be printed, the odds went up even more.

  Trace was grinning happily as he wrapped it in blankets and strapped it down in the bed of the truck. He didn’t want it moving around and getting damaged while he drove around.

  He sent a message off to Monroe and then headed towards Edgewater to pick him up.

  “You get anything?” He asked when the large man angrily climbed inside the truck a while later.

  “No,” He snarled. Monroe curled both hands into fists, his normal hand cracking as the joints popped one after another. “Sorry, just really angry right now. The answer is no, but also yes. They all refused to talk to me still, but I think I found out why. The little community of Edgewater belongs to Sekmore, Siren’s Rush, EdibleEats, and DelGreen.” He spat out the names of the four largest food suppliers in the area.

  Sekmore Snak-Co, the corporation that had ruined Pushman’s life.

  Siren’s Rush, the corporation that led to Ko’s mother seeing her own daughter’s throat as a piece of prime snacking material.

  Then there was EdibleEats and DelGreen. They were a little harder to pin down, or at least that would have normally been the case. EdibleEats was the maker of Food-in-a-Can, while DelGreen was their direct competitor with Meal-in-a-Can. Only someone like Trace or Ko knew that those also had plenty of substances inside to mess with the drinker’s brain.

  However, some people were probably aware of the effects to some degree, as Trace had been, even before he had actually known why.

  “You think the food companies are what? Mind controlling them?”

  “You think it’s stupid?” Monroe demanded angrily.

  Trace drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought. “Honestly? I don’t know. We know that the food companies get up to some pretty scary stuff with their chemicals. I guess I’ve just never thought about how it could be used outside of forcing people to buy more of their products.” He was silent for a while longer. “We need to talk to Pushman. He’s the one who knows the most about how Sekmore, and likely the rest of these corporations, operate. Can you send him a message? We need to swing by the warehouse to drop off what I have in the back, and then we can head over to his place.”

  Monroe nodded, already putting the message to Pushman together.

  “How did you even learn that the place was owned by them?” Trace asked, glancing over at him.

  Reaching into his pocket, Monroe pulled out an age yellowed piece of paper. “I found this in one of the warehouses there. The company listed is defunct, but it led me down a rabbit hole, which eventually, with some help from a friend, led to buried purchases. All were made through shell companies several years ago. The place is split evenly between them.”

  https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern

  https://joshuakernbooks.com/