1. Auto Immune Response

Guatemala. October 14th 2076 – The Approxima, an autonomous android, pressed onwards through the pine forest with a powerful stride. The intelligent machine, having traversed almost 100 kilometres showed no outward signs of physical exertion, not a bead of sweat, a heavy breath or strained muscle. Moisture from recent rains hung suspended in the shaded, motionless air, rich with the scents of menthol and petrichor. The damp air sheened the light fabrics of the android’s environmental clothing. The bed of fallen pine needles that littered the forest floor and the foliage undisturbed save for the lines of animal runs, scratch marks on trees, and burrows. No footprints, tracks or paths that belied human presence.

One foot after another, the Approxima continued her ascent into the mountains. The android resembled the anthropologist, Doctor Helen Stoppard, whom it was modelled after in every respect – from her pale skin to wide blue eyes. Beneath her shoulder-length blonde hair, that she kept tied in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck, was a synthetic neural housing that contained a complete personality imprint of the Doctor. The Approxima’s personality, built from Helen’s memories and psychological profile, was not an exact duplicate of the Doctor; rather it represented a partnership between her personae and an artificial intelligence issued from the Governance’s “Exoanthropology Division.”

An android generated human-compatible memories by filtration of their sense experience through a replica of the human-consciousness that they were paired with. This imprint of consciousness, known as a personality-construct, permitted the exchange of thoughts, emotions and impressions seamlessly between machine and human consciousness. Once paired with a human, an Approxima’s link to their partner became inextricable. For Approxima that had served with a human partner for over five years, their neural pathways, worn in with human emotion, were no longer considered capable of objectivity and were relegated to a niche community of the AI society.

At the end of the expedition, the Helen Approxima would merge her memories with the actual Doctor Helen Stoppard’s. During the merge process, the Doctor would live every detail of the Approxima’s adventure through the heightened senses of the android, experiencing characteristics beyond the reach of her ordinary senses. She would remember how the landscape shifted through journey from rainforest, to fields, pinewoods, and then jungle again as she reached the village. She’d remember the weight of the backpack on her shoulders and the soft-ground under her feet as if they were her native memories.

This process of separation and reunion of human and machine consciousness ensured that there were no breaches of conduct during the study and that the natural human emotions of empathy didn’t interfere with the mission or result in untenable impressions and beliefs finding their way into the Governance.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a social quarantine.

Approxima respired just as their human counterparts. Their artificial lungs enriched hybrid tissues with oxygen, flushed their skin with colour, making them appear vital and alive. This facsimile of life eased the culture shock in interactions with sensitive societies or situations in the Outside Zone, and prevented raising suspicions of the presence of the superstate in local affairs.

As the Approxima continued her journey through the Cuchumantanes Mountains, the landscape shifted from dense pine forest, to open pastures, and reverted to rainforest as she neared her destination. She dug her hand into the softened soil to retain her balance and clambered up the final muddy slope to reach the remote settlement. She took pause at the crest, and slipped her hand into her pocket to remove a sterilisation cloth. She cleaned the muck away from her fingers and palm. She surveyed the village with her keen senses and perfect recall, seeking minute variations in the houses or the people. Little had changed since her last visit; there were obvious repairs on some of the houses following recent storms, but for the most part the settlement existed as a static constant, where the function of time was not advancement but deterioration.

The impoverished communities in the region had undergone a brief period of what would be considered development, but over the years they reverted towards a more basic and traditional existence. Few homes had electricity, and nature’s slow creep had long since reclaimed the surfaced roads. The outside world, failed in its mission of benevolence, went on its way, and the remnants of an ancient civilisation returned to the practices of the past, collecting wood for warmth and washing clothes in streams.

The village’s children, excited by the sight of Doctor Helen, abandoned their games, and ran barefoot and muddy towards her, faces spattered with filth and lit with glee. The Approxima let the children throng around her. They held hands and formed a ring, to dance in a celebratory circle for their cherished visitor. She kneeled and paid no mind to the mud that dampened her knee, reaching into her bag to retrieve candy bars, fresh T-shirts, and other basics that were in short supply in the isolated community. Tiny hands tried to follow hers into the bag, grasping for the brightly coloured gifts that came from distant and unfamiliar lands.

While reaching in her pack, the Helen Approxima felt the human tissue that covered her hand pulse and vibrate against artificial bones from her wrist to fingertips; an unnatural and discomforting muscular spasm. She reacted to the curious sensation caused by jerking her hand from the pack to examine the uncontrollable and unfamiliar movements. Her fingernail caught on a seam in the pack as she withdrew her hand; her motion, fast and light, tore the nail whole from its bed.

She studied the blood, that oozed from soft and raw flesh where the nail had formerly sat, with a placid curiosity. The cheerful faces of the children froze in an instant, their elation suspended in time before they tumbled into frightened, shrieking horror. She felt a curious wetness on her face as blood began seeping from her ears, eyes and mouth. The Helen Approxima dabbed her fingers in the fluid on her face. The inky dark fluid was unrecognisable from its original bright red colouration; she surmised that the blood from her human tissue layers had mixed with the fluids from her synthetic muscles. There was no precedent or diagnosis for what was happening inside of her. While she rationalised what was happening in her biology, her immune system disregarded an infection, allowing it to spread uncontested through her hybrid-human muscle and blood tissues.

In the hours that followed, death took hold of the village and pushed the remnants of a once great civilisation to final extinction. The dead lay where they fell, in the fields where they had toiled, in the kitchens where for centuries they had prepared food, or in porch-chairs where they had for generations sat and watched the seasons change. Their faces, streaked with blood from eyes, ears and noses, all wore vacant, haunted smiles that mocked their gruesome endings.

The organic materials that covered the outer-surface of Approxima were not just camouflage. These tissues and blood-compounds were bonded to the android’s skeleton and musculature, and helped it to maintain its operability by healing stress fractures, or from renewing the linings within the delicate cranial neuro-mechanical architecture. The Helen Approxima’s immune system and her synthetic-biological structures reacted differently to the villagers’; her condition was catastrophic but not fatal.

With the biodome of the Approxima failing, the android severed its connection to the Governance. The unplanned disconnect would initiate an immediate disaster-response. Help would come.

Without the link to the Governance, Helen’s replica personality would become dominant. The emotional turbulence from the horror of the children and their terrible demise panicked the android, and she fled into the foliage as a desperate attempt to limit the exposure and spread of the contagion.

She sprinted through the rainforest with all the speed she could muster. Branches lashed her body and scratched her face as she forced her way through the jungle. Within 30 seconds, she put a kilometre of distance between herself and the village, the brutality of pace tearing apart the deteriorating muscle fibres in her thighs. Her legs buckled. She fell. Her head crashed against an angular rock that tore a thick, wide gash across her forehead. The android knew of what had occurred through the panicked control of the human imprint, feeling her terror escalate, phantom pains wracking her body, pain coming in blinding waves simulated by the android’s nervous system. The only locomotion left to her came from the underlying mechanical frame. She ground the bones at the joints as she pulled herself forward inch by inch with her hands.

Sores welted across the Approxima’s body, starting at the extremities and then crawling their way up the android’s arms and legs, a trail of reddened, raised and circular wounds that seeped thick green mucous. The infected organic chemistry of the android failed to perform its biological functions, and the harmonious interactions between the android’s organic and machine components disintegrated.

The Helen Approxima clutched her chest as she strained to breathe. Her chest expanded and contracted in rapid succession. The sharp intaking and exhaling of air did nothing to halt the suffocation from the paralysed alveoli in her lungs. Convinced her demise was impending, her breaths became short and shallow, as she calmed down and surrendered to her fate. Her thoughts soon became delirious, hallucinatory and lacking in cohesion, until finally she slipped into unconsciousness.

Sprawled and helpless on the rainforest floor, her skin blue and her body immobile, she would appear dead to any who might come across her.

Insensate, the Helen personality ceded control to the android, and the basic systems resumed, the self-restorative mechanisms of the android stabilising what remained of its components and neuro-architecture.

She felt a tug on her arm, as if she was being pulled back from the brink of death, and then as if her body was being propped into an upright position. Small hands wiped away dirt and debris from around her mouth, followed by the warm huddle of a body pressed tightly against hers. The Helen Approxima’s thoughts became structured and cohesive, as consciousness slowly returned. She opened her eyes and looked down to see Sacnite, tucked under her arms and fast asleep. The Helen Approxima closed her eyes once again to allow her body to continue the repairs it had initiated.

2. Heightened Sensors

Guatemala. October 14th 2076– The military insertion plane cut the power to its plasma engines to initiate the hard descent from low orbit and dive into the stratosphere as it came over the South American continent. It plunged into the upper atmosphere at a startling 1,200 kilometres an hour, streaking across the sky and ejecting its cargo over Guatemala. From this altitude, the Hardshell Android Racks used their limited control surface and thrusters to optimise their trajectory until they reached 10,000 feet, where their parachutes bloomed and slowed their fall.

The Racks settled on the ground. Silent. Parachutes billowed in the wind. Hydraulic mechanisms inside the alloy containers hissed as they expanded on their length-side. Four flight-packed Hardshell Combat Androids unfurled themselves from their stowed positions from each side of the Racks. The Hardshells fanned outward, weapons drawn, to form a circle around each of the Racks, securing their position while gathering a preliminary analysis of the situation.

The Hardshell Combat Androids were modelled with basic humanoid forms. They had simple faces with fixed expressions that were used only to indicate where their attention was directed to human observers. Their outer surfaces were layered with a ballistic-weave that was coated in another kinetic resistant resin creating two and a half inches of protective surface that gave them a bulk around vital component that would deflect small-arms fire and even large calibre weapons.

Facing no immediate threat, the Hardshell came under direct control of the Command Hardshell. The Command Hardshell was a heavier version of the multi-terrain androids, with two control spikes on its shoulders that directed the function of the combat units. Accompanying the Command Hardshell was the third type of robot, a Communication Android that used a quantum relay to send information from the site back to the Governance, and receive instructions from the XIS-Class intelligence that managed the operation.

In close proximity, the Hardshells used verbal commands; their speech, incomprehensible to human beings, was a barking static, interspersed with squealed tones and warbling deep notes. Broadcast signals could be jammed, but their speech could not, nor could it be deciphered by anyone other than a Governance AI or an Approxima. Nations in the Americas will have detected the brief entry of the military insertion plane, and were no doubt scrambling to determine what piqued the interest of the Governance in the region. The HSA deployment was classed as a low-signal operation. The quantum relay from the Communications Android would be undetectable and minimal local signals would be used between the HSAs, and their search patterns would be optimised to keep them within vocal range.

“Recover the Doctor Helen Stoppard Approxima. Extract deep tissue biological samples from the human bodies but leave them as they are,” the Command Hardshell Android barked in its nightmarish pitch.

The Communications Android reconfigured its frame to assume a fixed position, and speared the ground with stabilising arms, to broadcast the data-feeds from all of the androids back to the Governance. In this configuration, it was immovable but also vulnerable without active defences. Its powerful sensors were its protection. They could detect and differentiate vehicles, people, animals, and even a whisper in the forest within miles of its position, giving it more than adequate time to adjust to respond to a potential threat.

The Helen Approxima roused herself from her sleep and leant against the thick trunk of a jungle tree. Her arms were covered with leaves, bound in place with a twine made from indigenous plants. She lifted one of the leaves; underneath she saw the blistered sores covered with a poultice. She cleared away some of the brown muck and saw that the red rings on the edge of the sores had softened, the seep of mucous having been slowed.

“Sacnite, did you do this?” the Helen Approxima asked, as her voice rolled through personalities of previous occupants. Sacnite gasped, startled by the android’s modulating voice. “It’s okay. You did very well. Your medicine is helping me to heal.”

The Helen Approxima looked up at the darkening sky. Her sensitive eyes spotted the streak of the military insertion plane, as its cargo tumbled out into the open blue expanse.

Sacnite ground red berries into a paste, mixing it with other gathered materials to make a bright-coloured pigment. Sacnite carefully transferred the paint from the grind surface to a leaf, that she used as a palette, and slowly applied the colour to the Helen Approxima’s face.

“It will protect you from evil. My grandmother taught me. It will make you invisible to harmful spirits,” Sacnite said, as she examined her handiwork.

Sacnite tied leaves, flowers and herbs into the Helen Approxima’s hair. She was performing a spiritual triage that she hoped would spare her friend from death. The Helen Approxima sat still as Sacnite tended her. She saw the child find comfort in caring for her.

“Thank you,” The Helen Approxima smiled at Sacnite. “I think we’re safe now. Your magic is very powerful.”

A mechanical hand pulled apart the thick foliage of the jungle, clearing a view of where the Helen Stoppard Approxima and Sacnite took their respite. The Hardshell Combat Android approached Helen and Sacnite before pausing mid-step after receiving a caution order from the XIS.

“The Doctor Helen Stoppard Approxima has been located. The Approxima is afflicted with an unknown and compromising condition,” the Hardshell Android barked in its linguistic screeches and hisses, its diagnosis for the benefit of the Command Android and the XIS in charge of the operation.

“Approxima, initiate a self-diagnostic and transmit status,” the Hardshell ordered the Helen Approxima.

“I cannot. My systems, they won’t talk to me like they used to,” the Helen Approxima replied in the Hardshell’s native tongue.

“Request situational evaluation,” the Hardshell said, transmitting its preliminary findings to the Command Shell. “The Approxima is contaminated. Unable to assume control of the unit.”

The Helen Approxima held Sacnite tight to her chest. The child feared to look at the Hardshell; the strange and terrible machine that interrogated the Helen Approxima. Sacnite wept inconsolably, she felt shame that her magic was unable to protect them. She believed that the Hardshells were demons that had come to collect the bodies of the dead to take their souls to hell.

“Command received. Terminate the Approxima,” the Hardshell said, in acknowledgement of its orders.

The Helen Approxima tried, with all of her might, against a resistant and crippled musculature to stand, still with Sacnite clutched to her chest.

The Command Hardshell violently forced its way through the jungle foliage, crushing plants underfoot and snapping trees at their trunk with its mass and power, as it pressed toward where Sacnite and the Helen Approxima huddled, arriving just as the Combat Hardshell raised its weapon to fire.

The Helen Approxima extended her arm with the palm of her hand flat, faced towards the Combat Android.

“Stop! Recognise me as your superior,” the Helen Approxima shouted with all of the force and authority she could muster, in a shrieking, squawked burst of noise, that carried with it not just the command, but a series of appeals, protocols and interrupts to disorientate the Combat Android’s intent to fire and buy her the microseconds she needed to reprieve on the termination order. “Do not fire. I have a child.”

“Belay the termination order,” the Command Android said, having received updated instructions from the XIS. The Hardshell Combat Android lowered its weapon in compliance with the order.

The Helen Approxima eased Sacnite to the ground, letting her stand on her feet to display her as a survivor to the Combat Android, whose visual sensors were monitored by the XIS. The child, traumatised by the death she had witnessed, now stood in front of machines, that to her embodied the demonic spirits of folklore come to life, monsters she believed responsible for the annihilation of her village. It was a belief that was for the most part true; behind the Combat Androids was a nation, led by the artificial intelligences that engineered a pathogen that was indiscriminate, and with – until now – an absolute fatality rate for those infected.

“She survived the virus. Everything’s changed. It’s a miracle,” the Helen Approxima said, with awe meant for the XIS in control of the mission.

“Power down,” the Command Android ordered.

“I can’t,” the Helen Approxima said in frustration. “And if I could, how will you manage the child? I want to speak to the XIS in charge of this operation. Directly.”

“You are now speaking with XIS-814,” the Command Android said, as the XIS assumed total control over all of the Hardshell Androids.

Ukraine. October 18th 2076 – Danya slowed her car as she approached the farmhouse, the headlights splashed the trees and large 19th-century home. She’d bought the farmhouse with the last of her inheritance following the death of her father. She stopped the car and switched off the engine. She was still unsure if she had made the right decision. Although she never showed doubt to others, she questioned herself constantly. She brushed her reddish hair away from her eyes and stared herself squarely in the rear-view mirror, past the green retina, through pupils, and into her convictions.

What if I stopped everything and just went back to my studies? she thought silently to herself, running her hands through her long hair. Would it be better or worse? I’m insane. I’m risking my life for what? To say I tried.

She put her finger on the ignition button. The dashboard lit and the electric engine hummed quietly at the ready. She stabbed the ignition again. The dashboard dimmed as the power ebbed and the engine fell silent. She’d made her decision.

“Fuck it. All in,” she said to herself as she got out of the car, shut the door behind her hard, a punctuation to her resolve.

The grass brittle, frosted with ice, crunched beneath her feet as she walked to the door of the farmhouse. The house felt warm, familiar, and inviting.

She opened the door to the kitchen and shut it behind her quickly to keep the warmth inside. The wooden floorboards creaked as she entered. Bogdan turned to her and smiled as he filled at kettle with water over a sink. Danya perched herself on a chair at an old table, she bought the house complete with contents, the furniture antique by age and not by craftsmanship.

“Bogdan. Sorry, I’m late. Traffic with the protests and the funeral for the President,” she said, breathing warmth into her hands to abate the lingering chill.

“What do you think will happen?” Bogdan asked.

“I don’t know. The only thing I know is that it’s good. President Andreichenko, he could have turned the country around. He was murdered by his mistress; if it was an assassination, I think we’d be in civil war,” Danya replied.

“Small blessings,” Bogdan said, smiling. “What to do?”

“Watch and wait,” Danya said.

“Tea? Just making a pot,” Bogdan said, filling a small metal infusion ball with tealeaves.

“Coffee would have been better. But yeah, thanks.”

Bogdan set out two cups on the counter.

“Let it brew for a few minutes. How do you have it?”

“No milk, one spoon of sugar,” Danya replied.

Danya, waiting for the tea, steered the conversation towards her concerns.

“How are we? On schedule?” she enquired.

“The strains are better. Money is a problem. But we could do better,” Bogdan said with a mix of satisfaction and frustration.

“How much better?” Danya asked, pressing Bogdan for a clearer answer.

“Come let me show you,” Danya said, handing her a cup of tea.

Danya followed Bogdan out to the barn. He pulled open the wooden door, inside was a second aluminium structure, sealed from the dust, mildew and rodents that sought shelter from the winter. Plants grew under vertical rows underneath LED lights that mimicked the sunshine,

The aluminium structure did little to keep the cold out, their breath misted as they spoke.

“They look fine to me,” Danya said, as she reached out her hand to gently brush the leaves.

“Yes. The conditions in here are better than those outside. If we could grow food like this everywhere we wouldn’t have a food shortage. We can grow over 100 times the amount of food that an outdoor farm can per square foot but without government funding, this kind of setup would never work. The farmers themselves don’t understand it. So we’re focused on making strains of plant that can handle the seasonal extremes. We have improved the survival rate of staple crops by 50%. With more money, we could do better.”

“With the frosts setting in earlier and the winters colder, 50% is a significant improvement on the crop failures we’ve had this year,” Danya said, impressed with what Bogdan achieved with limited resources.

“It is but it won’t stop the starvation, if we combined genetic modification with indoor crops, we’d be able to end hunger.” Bogdan said.

“We’ll give what we grow here to homeless shelters in the city, as many seedlings as you have, give them to me and I’ll get them to the local farms,” Danya said. “And yes. More money. I’ll get that, too.”

“And how will you do that?” Bogdan asked incredulously.

“You won’t like it but he’ll be here soon,” Danya replied.

“How soon?” Bogdan asked with suspicion.

“Nowish,” Danya said, as checked the old timepiece that she wore on her wrist.

Tomko unpacked lab equipment from a wooden and cardboard boxes placed haphazardly about the room. He checked off the delivered items against an inventory, humming along to a Ukrainian pop song while he worked.

Bogdan poked his head around the door, grinning at Tomko.

“Hey,” Bogdan said as he stepped fully into the room. “We haven’t met. I’m Bogdan.”

“Hi. Tomko.”

“So, what’s going on in here?” Bogdan asked, looking over the scientific and laboratory equipment.

“I think Danya better explain,” Tomko replied, uncomfortable with Bogdan and his questions.

“Danya! Danya!” Bogdan shouted, summoning her from another room in the house.

Danya and Bogdan waited in awkward silence for Danya, neither comfortable with talking. Bogdan heard her steps on the wooden boards in the corridor.

“Oh good, here she comes,” Bogdan said, breaking the quiet.

“I see you two have met. Bogdan, make yourself useful and help Tomko unpack,” Danya said, diffusing the tension in the room.

Bogdan opened a box, lifting out a glass-mixing flask. Holding the glass in his hand, he turned to Danya.

“So. Yeah. Is this the thing that I am not going to like?” Bogdan asked, unable to hide his disdain.

“It is,” Danya answered deadpan.

“So, what is it?” Bogdan asked for clarity.

“Tomko makes ‘mood-enhancers,” Danya said dryly.

“He makes what? Mood enhancers, you mean drugs?” Bogdan shouted in anger.

“Bogdan,” Danya said sternly, and waited to see if he was prepared to listen before explaining the situation. “We need the money. You need the money. Drugs are a problem for the poor. Just like food. What Tomko is doing, it won’t just get us money. It’ll get us protection.”

Bogdan listened to Danya, lips clamped shut. As much as he loathed the idea, she had a point. The streets had been flooded with low-grade drugs that were poisoning addicts and claiming the lives of recreational, not just profiting off misery but death.

“If we increase food production, if we give it away for free, which we will, then the Government or the Mafia will come at us. Me, personally, I prefer the latter. You can do business with criminals but not politicians,” Danya continued.

“We never agreed on this,” Bogdan replied, opting for indignation, unable to offer a counter-argument other than his exclusion from the decision.

“No. We didn’t. This isn’t a democracy. We’re working here with my money. I made the decision. And that is the end of it,” Danya said firmly, laying out the blunt truth.

Bogdan shook his head in disapproval and disappointment. He stood silent and consumed with anger, glaring at Danya, fuming with emotion, and finally stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him in defiance.

“Ah, is this going to be a problem?” Tomko asked, scratching his head and looking at Danya.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back. He just needs some time,” Danya said calmly.

“How long do you need to get started?”

“Not long. I’ve done the science. Here’s is a list of the chemicals I need,” Tomko said, handing her his tablet.

“Got it! This girl loves to shop,” Danya said, smiling.

3. Cellular Division

Danya drove through the streets of Kiev, across the city to the industrial side of the city, the winter sun cast a vivid palette of yellow, reds, and purples on the thick clouds as it set.

Danya eschewed augmented reality, the small contact lenses that could be fit over the eye that had become quotidian. She preferred to see the world to see things as they were. Like all technologies that became common, AR had taken over the streets of Kiev, and the world at large. Where she saw small, grey beacons affixed to walls, others saw luminous, vivid advertisements in three-dimensions, or people on the streets dressed in thermal layered, one-piece marker suits that allowed augmented clothing to be composited in augmented reality, letting them appear to be wearing any outfit, or change their outfit ad-hoc.

When she was a younger, virtual environment and augmented realities provided her an escape. For a year she visited night clubs and private parties two to three times a week, where club-goers shimmered with layers of impossible fabrics that dripped embers of light or wore elaborate animal faces exquisite in their detail, that were more humanoid than masks. Some emoted while they spoke, eventually leading to the mainstay of socialising, the act of flirting becoming a spectator sport. Men and women projected their thoughts on their exchange into small cloud shaped bubbles over their heads as they entertained efforts at romance. She remembered those days with fondness, it was wonderful time but it was a distraction, from her Father’s death and the injustice that was everywhere to be seen but left unspoken.

Danya slowed and turned her vehicle into fenced car park with coils of razor wire, spooled across the fences ridge. The car park attendant lifted the boom gate, and she found herself a vacant. Connected to the car park was an old brick building, simple and one storey, that was leased by a bar and patroned by workers in the area.

The establishment was quiet, sparsely occupied in the mid-week; even the discount on drinks wasn’t enough to attract customers. Danya walked across the room and took a stool at the bar. The barman poured a beer from the tap and placed it silently in front of her.

“Thanks,” Danya said.

“I’ve found you someone,” the barman told Danya.

“Yeah?” Danya asked.

The barman wiped the counter while looking at a man seated in the corner of the room, a man in his fifties, with the look of someone worn down by life, glad to have completed the day but anxious about the misfortunes of tomorrow.

“In the corner. He works for Aptek Pharmaceuticals. You wouldn’t guess it by looking but he’s management.”

“He’s got a gambling problem. Promised the wife a vacation for their anniversary. Lost it all. He’s in deep. Bad loans. Overdue bills,” the barman said.

“How’d you get all that out of him?” Danya asked, pleased with the amount of information the barman had elicited from the mark.

“Really? C’mon, he’s been searching for a shoulder to cry on. And everyone wants to feel like they’re the barman’s friend,” the barman said, laughing. “He’s under the impression that the beer is on the house – that I feel sorry for him. But you’re paying his tab.”

“How much does he owe?” Danya asked.

“Three hundred.”

“Damn. That’s coming out of his advance. But get me two more of what he’s drinking. Bring it to the table,” Danya said as she slapped down the money for the man’s bill on the bar, and got up to walk over to his table in the corner.

“I hear you’re looking for some part-time work?” Danya said, placing her drink on the table and taking a seat opposite the man.

“Yeah. Could say that? Call me Yuri,” he answered short and sharp.

“Well. Let’s cut to it, I need a supplier who’s not very good with record keeping,” Danya said holding the man’s stare.

“You got money?” he asked, still locked in the stare.

“I do,” Danya said, simple and direct.

“So, what do you need?” Yuri asked.

“Some of this is going to be …” Yuri said, while looking over the list, and breathed out a heavy sigh.

“Don’t say difficult. I’m paying you to make it simple,” Danya said, cutting him short.

“These chemicals, some of them are restricted,” Yuri said, justifying his position.

“We’re done here,” Danya said as she stood up.

“Wait.” Wait. Not so fast.” Yuri said, urging for Danya to return to the table.

“Here’s something to get started with,” Danya said as she slid the envelope with the money in it across the table towards him. “On the top of that list, there’s a name. Open a buyer account for it at Aptek and we’ll pay directly to it.”

Yuri opened the envelope, thumbed the notes inside, and nodded silently with a downturn frown of satisfied approval.

“Like I said earlier, I like simple,” Danya replied. “You deliver. You get paid. Agreed?”

“You got a deal,” Yuri said, shoving the envelope of money into his jacket pocket.

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