Chapter 8 - pixie dust

Darkness slowly dissipates, blurry lights, shadows, static, clinging metal noise.

Trent's vision starts to slowly recover, it's pixelated at first but it quickly recovers focus. He can see several holographic screens in what seems to be a ripperdoc's operation room.

His vision suddenly focuses on two people in the room, extra pieces of information appear. No threat. His vision highlights them very quickly, it's disorienting but he can see a man and a girl with pink hair.

The girl gets close to him and he suddenly remembers the pink mist that saved him earlier. She is very short but very pretty, she is wearing clothes that match her hair color.

"Can you see me clear?" she asks.

"Yes... Why did you save me?" Trent inquires.

"Not even a thank you? Rude soldier!" She laughs.

Trent is surprised that the girl knows about that, a feeling of paranoid fear starts to invade him. He quickly shakes it off and gets a grip of himself.

"Who are you?" Trent asks.

"My name is Pixie, mister?" she asks.

"I'm Trent... Thank you, Pixie!" he replies.

The other person gets closer to Trent, he is a ripperdoc, he has a sort of mechanical tool in his hand. Trent is pretty familiar with these tools, during his service with Tanaka corporation he has seen plenty of enhancement tech.

The ripperdoc points the tools at Trent's eyes and his vision blurs for a little while.

"Hey Trent, I'm Pax, I will just adjust your vision, it will only take a couple of minutes." Pax says.

Trent stays silent and goes quietly through the procedure. His vision gets back to normal and even clearer than before. It makes him a little bit dizzy.

"Let the dizzy feeling dissipate and you can stand up slowly." Pax says.

Trent stays still as Pax adjusts the table into a long chair. Trent shakes his head trying to get rid of the dizziness and slowly gets up from the chair. He walks slowly towards a small mirror and checks himself. His implants look like mechanical eyes, the iris of his eyes are made of metal that changes shape as he tries to focus his vision.

"These implants look very robotic but they have ports to add more "human" like prosthetics. It's a very popular model among mercs." Pax says.

"They must cost a lot, I'm afraid I can't pay you back." Trent says abruptly.

"I'm sure we can find a way." Pixie says suddenly as she taps on Pax's shoulder.

She gets behind Trent as he continues to check his new eyes.

"I have a job for you, consider it a trial." Pixie says.

Trent turns around to face her, she is so short that he has to tilt his head down to properly see her.

"I guess I owe you the implants then, I'm not sure I'm worth your investment, miss Pixie." Trent says.

Pixie laughs as she waves her hand in front of Trent's new eyes. The eyes focus and follow Pixie's waving hand, she seems to be very satisfied with it.

"Let me be the judge of that." She says with a wink.

She grabs Trent's hand and heads out waving at Pax. Pax waves back and starts cleaning up his operation room. Pixie leads Trent out and stops in front of a pink bike.

"We are going to see some friends and you are going to need this." She says as she hands him a heavy pistol. Trent grabs it and instantly recognizes it, Kalashnikov AK12 Oktober. He quickly checks the magazine, full.

"That's for your "friends"?" He asks.

"Yeah, you will understand when we get there, climb!" She says as she gets on her bike.

Trent puts the gun in his jacket's inner pocket and climbs behind Pixie. She puts her hand on the front panel and the bike says "connection accepted" as it starts. Trent grabs her waist and she pulls on the throttle.

She drives through the dark streets of New Paris commons, street vendors are scattered along the road. They go through the night at high speed. Trent starts to realize that the job might not be very legal, but what other choices does he have.

After quitting Tanaka corporation, his whole life went to shit. If it wasn't for Pixie, he would have been dead already. They reach a less populated area when Pixie starts to slow down.

"Almost there!" She tells Trent.

Trent looks around and feels like he knows this area. It comes back to him, it's a relatively abandoned area, homeless people use these as shelters. The buildings look abandoned but they are still standing.

Pixie stops the bike at the corner of a big building. She gets off and checks her gun. Trent gets off the bike and scans the surroundings.

"What are we doing here?" He asks.

"Infiltration and acquisition." Pixie answers.

"OK, may I ask what are we after?" Trent asks.

"No, you may not, you still need to prove yourself to me." She says.

Trent shakes his head, thinking that things can't be worse than the war when he was with Tanaka corporation. His newly acquired vision quickly sweeps the building for heat signatures.

"The building is empty?" He asks Pixie.

"It shouldn't be, "my friends" said they will be home tonight." She answers.

"They probably have some sort of cloaking technology, I can't pick any heat signatures." Trent says.

Pixie slowly walks around the building to find an entrance. All doors and windows are boarded up, the building feels abandoned. Pixie stops for a moment and touches her left ear, a light starts blinking.

"The building looks empty and completely boarded up, are you sure about your Intel?" She asks.

Trent keeps checking the darkness, sweeping through the different channels of his new implants, without success.

"I can't pick anything, this place is empty." He says while walking around.

Suddenly Trent notices some fresh dragging marks on the floor, he follows them to a few planks covering the ground. He lifts the first plank and uncovers a small stairway going down.

Trent waves at Pixie.

"Wait, I think I found something, call you back." She says as she ends her call.

She quickly gets to Trent and kneels to check the small stairway. Trent moves the other planks out of the way. They can see the small stairway going down into a sort of corridor.

Trent switches to night vision and makes his way down the stairs, followed closely by Pixie. He takes his gun out and ready. At the end of the corridor, he can see a metallic door.

They reach the door to find it closed. They notice a small opening on the upper left side of the wall. Next to the door is a lock pad, Pixie fixes her attention on it.

"Damn lock, too advanced to hack with my tool." She says scratching her head.

Trent looks at the opening and notices it seems to be a way in, but he is way too big to pass through. Pixie's attention gets attracted by the opening too and she signals Trent to lift her.

Trent grabs her waist and lifts her to the opening effortlessly. She slides herself through the opening slowly then disappears swallowed by the darkness.