Aurora

"Welp, at least you're not a lawman. Just turn a blind eye to me, it's not that hard." Isaac said with a shrug.

"What, you don't want to have a rivalry or something?"

"No. Why would I want that; I just want a game to relax to. Just play until you can change your class, if you even can."

"That's actually a good point, I don't know if you can change classes… But wait, no! Don't change the subject-"

"I didn't." Isaac cut in while Roscoe was still talking.

"-it would totally be fun to have to fight each other and stuff."

"That's too much work. Just change your job and we can make a gang or something. I don't know if that's an actual mechanic, but I assume it is."

Roscoe sighed and gave up. "Alright, fine. I'll look for a way to change my class. You on the other hand need to go to bed. You're going job hunting tomorrow whether you like it or not. Oh, and Loony wants to see you."

"Loony? How's she been?"

Roscoe sighed while turning away in his chair. "Same as always man. Now go on, get to bed."

"What are you, my mom?"

"Might as well be, you'd be bawling your eyes out if I wasn't here." Roscoe replied with a grin.

"Hardy-har-har, you're such a comedic genius..." Isaac said with a voice so sarcastic it'd make a pubescent teen do a double take. But then he did go to bed since he wasn't an idiot.

Isaac struggled to sleep due to the jetlag, but he regardless got up at the crack of dawn and started getting ready. First things first, he'd need to see the manager about his apartment. Then he'd go job hunting and see if there was anything good. Finally, he'd visit Loony.

He left the apartment just as Roscoe was getting up for work. He stepped out to the hall and saw a large open atrium. Looking out, he could see hundreds of apartments, spanning all the way up and down the building.

Isaac headed to the elevator to go to the bottom floor. As the elevator doors opened, he saw a mass of people of all sorts of different sizes. Some had shiny prosthetic arms, others had rustic legs. Most had something of the sort whether it be new or old.

Isaac himself only had the most recent jack in his head and a port on his wrist. He wasn't particularly interested in replacing his body and becoming a chromeskull.

As Isaac stepped aboard, everyone looked at him for a moment before going back to whatever they were doing. A lanky man however with a chrome jaw and silver teeth who was smoking a large cigar kept watching Isaac.

He cracked his neck with a quick cock to his head and wrapped his mechanical arm around Isaac's shoulder.

"Hey, you seem new here." He tapped his fingers which gripped the cigar into Isaac's chest. "We've got this insurance policy here in the building. You might've heard of it? Since you're new here, I've got to collect buddy. A quick payment of a grand should cover it."

A smug grin that only a bastard used to preying on weak targets appeared on his face. He quickly put the cigar and his mouth before blowing a large amount of smoke into Isaac's face. Isaac blinked slightly in confusion.

"Wow, this city has really gone down the shitter since the last time I've been here. Chromeskulls like you just walk around, plain as day?"

"That we do." The grin grew even larger. Only a corporate businessman sucking up to his boss could create a wider and more disgusting smile.

"Well, that's a damn shame. Luckily for me I got evicted, so I'm pretty broke."

The chromeskull unwrapped his mechanical arm from around Isaac's shoulder, instead he gripped his neck. "You really want to piss me off?" He muttered.

"Yeah." Isaac replied.

A moment later the chromeskull felt a slight pain in his neck. He looked down to see a large knife hovering just outside of his skin, drawing a small thin droplet of blood. His grin had long faded as he let go of Isaac's neck. He scoffed and put the cigar back in his mouth.

Isaac put the knife back into its case attached to his hip. Could never be too careful in this hellhole.

The elevator came to a stop for the final time at the bottom floor and Isaac stepped out. He looked around and saw the sheer number of pedestrians walking around on their ways to their jobs.

Isaac then found the building manager and they had a long discussion talking about everything. Isaac was shown an identical room to Roscoe's. He gave them a down payment and a security deposit before signing a contract. Finally, he was given his keys which Isaac promptly placed in his pocket.

He left the megacomplex that was approximately 150 floors tall, and it wasn't even the tallest building around, not by a long shot. Each floor had an insane number of apartments and yet they were now at full capacity.

Isaac shook his head and went outside; the neon signs and holographic advertisements replaced the natural morning light in the inner city unless the sun was directly above. He then hailed a cab and pulled out the research he did for relatively normal jobs this morning. The sheet was long so he held out hope that he could score at least one.

A few hours later however, he found himself turned down at every opportunity. Most of the time not even getting to see the person in charge of the hiring.

They don't welcome those who served, not anymore. Psychological effects due to drugs that were sometimes "given" (a more accurate term was forced) to take in certain militaries. Even after explaining that he specifically was never given any of these, he still wasn't able to get a job.

After all, the city was filled with people looking for work, why trust someone who could be lying. That's why he didn't bother thinking about normal jobs, nobody would hire someone like him.

Isaac stepped outside of Loony's chop shop and muttered, "That's an Aurora city welcome if I've seen one."

He walked towards the shop with a sullen expression before knocking on the door.

"Yeah, come in." A high-pitched voice came through from the other side. The doors slid open, and Isaac walked through. The building had graffiti all over the walls an alternating neon lights.

He entered a small room off to the side to find a large man sitting in a chair akin to the one you'd find at a dentist's office with a small woman hovering over them. "Hey Loony." Isaac said simply with a slight smile, his previous depressed expression disappearing.

The small woman whipped her head around to Isaac, "Isaa- Oh, you weren't kidding!" She looked shocked upon seeing his face.

"Wow… you look like shit." She said jokingly.

"Really? I think I look fabulous." Isaac replied with a humph.

"Hey doc, can you hurry up and finish?" The man in the chair looked at the small woman, Loony.

"You say another word and I'm keeping your legs!" She turned and yelled, pointing towards to a pair of robotic legs that sat at a nearby table.

"Alright, alright. It was just a suggestion, calm down." The man leaned back in the chair with a dissatisfied expression.

"Roscoe said you wanted to see me?" Isaac asked.

"Hell yeah man, I haven't seen you since you went to fight in- where was it?"

"A few places in South America."

"Jeez, I'm surprised that's all you got then." She pointed at his scars. "Do you want me to fix it?"

"If you mean fix it by replacing it with a metal plate or something, I'm good."

"Nah, I got synthetic stuff. It's basically fake skin, feels just like it, only a little stiffer."

"I appreciate the offer Loony, but I'm good."

"Suit yourself, I'm always here if you ever change your mind. So, what're you doing in Aurora? I thought you wanted to move out of this shithole?"

"Well, what would I do without you and Roscoe?" He ruffled her hair as if she was a child. She was half his height, so it was practically the same thing.

"Hey! Hands off the hair!" She barked and pointed at Isaac again. He lifted his arms in surrender.

"Loony! Please!" The man in the chair said in a half yell, half groan.

"Alright, that's one leg gone! Since I'm so nice, I'll give you some crutches to help you walk home!" She raised her middle finger at him while he groaned in annoyance.

"As vulgar as ever I see." Isaac said with a smile.

"You run a chop shop and see how long you last without going nuts." She shrugged.

Isaac flicked her head, "Yeah, but you were always nuts."

"Stop it! Roscoe told me you were looking for a job and I was going to help out, but I'm not so sure anymore…"

"Alright, I take it back. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I believe that." She sighed. "But since I'm so nice, I'll tell you. Titan Industries is looking for agents, I told my parts supplier about you, and they're interested."

Isaac's eyebrows raised. "Corpo shit? Loony, I'm good. I had enough of them back in the military when they gave us idiotic suicide missions."

"Hey, it'll be better than that. You get paid a lot and most importantly, you'll be the one giving the orders! Maybe you can make corpo suits seem a little less idiotic to the grunts on the ground."

"I don't know…" Isaac hesitated.

"They're just looking for people to run ops against SurgeSystems. Apparently the two have beef."

"SurgeSystems? The ones who made Manifest Destiny?"

"Oh shit, you've heard about that game? We've gotta play sometime." She looked pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah sure, but the beef, get to that."

"Oh yeah, my supplier didn't divulge much, but apparently Titan got some of their tech stolen and they traced it back to SurgeSystems. They're running a massive operation against them in a bit. Don't tell anyone I said that; I only told you because my supplier gave me stuff to reel you in."

"Interesting… alright, give me your supplier's contact. I'll think on it."

"Hell yeah." She paused for a moment and Isaac saw in her eyes small holograms pass by her eyes as she navigated to his number. She got it and told Isaac with a happy face.

Then they spent the next hour talking about various things before capping off the conversation with Manifest Destiny. They swapped player names and she was also an outlaw, as Isaac expected.

The man in the chair had long since fallen asleep when Loony finally grabbed one of the legs of the table and fixated it to the man. After a few touches and tinkering with it a bit, the leg came to life, shifting whenever the man told it to in his sleep.

Loony got up and raised her hands next to the man's face, before loudly clapping. The man shot up in the chair with a panic-stricken face. He tried getting out of the chair, but he was missing a leg still, so he fell to the floor.

"Why…" He groaned out from the floor as Loony went to begin inspecting the other leg on the table. With a satisfactory nod, she tossed it to the side and went to a closet. She grabbed some crutches and handed them to the man. He struggled to raise himself to the seat before standing and grabbing them.

He didn't even bother to argue for the other leg, even though he had already paid for it. If it wasn't for her personality, she'd probably be the best chop doc around. He struggled getting out of the building as he slowly learned how to use the crutches.

She suddenly turned to Isaac. "Hey, want a pair of legs like that? They let you do some crazy shit."

"Why, so you can steal them and take my money?"

"…no." She said after a strange pause. "He can get his leg back by the way. He just has to be mindful that I can turn his legs off whenever I want." She said with an innocent smile.

"What?! That gives me even more of a reason not to get anything here!" Isaac exclaimed.

"I mean, we're friends so I probably wouldn't do it unless it was funny."

"You know what? I'm good."

She shrugged in response, seemingly not offended. "You call that contact; he'll tell you more about it than I can. Also, whenever you want to play Manifest Destiny, just hit me up."

"Cool, I'll do just that." Isaac turned to leave. "See ya Loonster."

"See ya, Mr. Coyote." She laughed.