Volume 1 Chapter 4; The scum on earth

This place is filled with scum, people that take advantage of others without a care in the world, people with families to feed going to ruin because of some thug that wanted a quick buck. There are all kinds of criminals, ones that work in the gutters, and ones that hide behind the loopholes of the law, those ones are the worst, the ones who pry on the civilians the most.

It's truly disgusting. 

"That would be $20.99," A cashier spoke to me snapping me out of my daze, the place was just any normal store, though due to the recent rise in crime, the place has been taking a bit of a hit, civilians refuse to leave their houses in fear of being robbed blind on the streets, and with the rise of cybernetics, machines made by the genius Prof. Zenith Morales to modify and enhance the human body, crimes had been on an all-time high, creating more work for the C.C.C.A (Cybernetic Crime Control Agency.). 

"Here," I muttered, paying for the groceries and walking outside, the sun glaring into my eyes, my ringtone going off in my pocket, slowly I reached down for it, answering the call and placing it to my ear.

"Hey, it's Max, get over at the C.C.C.A headquarters as soon as you can," His voice sounded a bit more serious than how I remembered it, causing a bit of concern to rise within me.

"I'm on my way," I responded, promptly hanging up then running to the headquarters, bumping into a man with cyan hair and lime green eyes, his neon blue high collar jacket shielding his neck from the sun.

"Watch where you're going," He muttered, his gaze hardly even reaching mine as he walked ahead.

I stopped for a minute, something about that guy felt like bad news and I couldn't put my finger on it, I walked up to him to stop him in his tracks but I remembered, I had more important things to focus on. 

"Glad you could finally make it," Max's voice boomed in the tech room of our headquarters, a room lined with state-of-the-art monitors, each one looking at a different case, the pictures of Riya and Jax on the screen before them.

Right next to Max sat an energetic boy with a lollipop in his mouth, he had scruffy brown hair, streaks of blue running through the strands as he typed away.

"Sorry, I was a bit held up," I muttered standing by his side, "Who's this?"

"Oh he's a new recruit, was a big name in the hacker community, he's talented despite his age."

The boy's clothing comprised of a black t-shirt, golden chain, and a jacket that barely hung onto his shoulders, the fabric black with blue highlights running down the arm, spelling "Cryptic". He refused to get up from his chair as he pushed it and from one screen to another, his fingers tapping away vigorously.

"His name is Damian Martinez, aka Cryptic, he's currently working with us in exchange for leniency in his sentence after selling pirated software on the internet," Max said, his arms crossed lightly on his chest as he watched the boy closely.

"I see," I muttered as I too watched him, my eyes soon darting to the screen, "So what's this all about,"

"Cryptic apparently found information on their background along with another crime that's about to happen, apparently they're college students who disappeared years ago, soon to come back and turn to a life of crime," Max explained, "Their cybernetics also seemed more that of a military weapon."

"That's right," Damian finally spoke as he turned to us, his feet planted in his chair as he pointed to the screen. "These two, Jax Frayroll and Riya Frazer were last sighted at their college party seven years ago,"

"Before the invention of cybernetics," I muttered.

"Exactly, so the question lies, where did they come from and who gave them such high-grade tech, the cybernetics accessible to the public are simple strength modifiers for the blue-collar workers, or stuff for limb replacements and bank information transfer." He continued, now murmuring more to himself than talking to us. 

"So I assume you'd need time to figure that out," I muttered, looking at the screen, and analyzing what was there.

"Nope, I've already figured it out," He declared, typing away once more, leaving me in shock.

"Impressive," Max said under his breath as he watched him work, the screen shifting to a yellow spot on a blue holographic map, a square appearing on the side of the screen, showing a more rendered image of a Ray tech building.

"There's been a report on tech going missing from here a while ago, exactly four years, and the case went unsolved." Damian turned to the two of us with a smile. "So, either Decryption stole their tech and made their own prototypes from it and copied its hardware, Or it's a third party selling it on the dark web."

"If that last theory is true, can't we track it in some way?" Max pitched in, his hand stroking his beard as he looked at the screen.

"I can do that," Damian muttered, "But it's going to take a while."

"How long is a while?" Max asked, his eyebrow raised, 

"three to four weeks," Damian stretched from his chair, a smile on his face. "If you want an accurate location that is."

"Right, we'll leave you to it," Max smiled back, leaving the room with me close behind, the boy soon returning to his original posture the moment we left.

"So, you up for a few drinks?" Max asked, a hearty laugh escaping his lips as we walked down the hall.

"Yeah I could go for a few rights now," I sighed, slowly reaching for my pockets, my heart sinking when I didn't feel my wallet where it should be. "What the hell-"

I started to search better, looking around the area to see if I dropped it, but nothing was there.

"Where the hell is my wallet?!"