The city of Novalectrum is cold and wet tonight, a miserable drizzle breaking up the neon lights of the city. A hoverbike zips between the sparsely inhabited skylanes, flying almost at random. Though these supposedly random movements eventually bring the vehicle to rest in a rooftop in an out of the way corner of Sludge Narrows - the bad part of town.

  A short, heavyset person dressed unobtrusively in loose clothing and an old black duster gets out of his sleek, dark blue hoverbike. In his hands he's carrying a case of the most illicit implants he's ever tried to unload. Their eyes glow cyan, with a matching strip of hair running back the top of their head.

  Plenty of people have called him plenty of things but he prefers plain old Bog. Well, it doesn't matter what they call him, as long as he gets fucking paid.

  A demiguy from southern Mississippi, Bog made his way up north to Novalectrum some years ago. He got into fencing implants shortly after moving up here; most of the time they're not quite so illegal as these. The new X-2s, implants to heighten the reflexes and killing ability of a fighter, are legal only for the corporations.

  Damn corps.

  They vow, as they do every time, not to have anything to do with weapons implants again. Even making this vow they know they'll probably either be tempted by the credits or outright be in need of them.

  Bog takes a moment to send his hoverbike down a couple stories to wait for him - out of sight of the cops if it comes down to that. He's a big believer in hedging his bets and making sure of his entrances and exits. Despite the drizzling rain he leaves the shield down. If he needs an escape he's unlikely to have the time to fool with it.

  He's meeting his contact in the Sludge Narrows for good reason - it's the part of Novalectrum with the least police coverage. Cleaning and sterilizing the implants and wiping their internal memory was a hell of job; there are a lot of safeties in these meant to keep him from doing just that. Even getting them from their suppliers was a pain.

  A chubby hand reaches up to wipe sweat and rain from their forehead - more sweat than rain. Bog doesn't usually let themself get nervous. That's how they get you, right? You start jumping at shadows just enough to not pay attention to the real dangers and then there's the goddamn cops. But getting caught with these implants carries a harsh penalty; fines, maybe even jail time. Plus police pressure, to urge one to betray one's supplier - and then he'd be in real trouble.

  You don't fuck with the organization supplying these implants. That's not usually a problem for him. But shit these things are way more illegal than his usual.

  Trying not to think about it, Bog peers into the gloom, glowing cyan eyes piercing the darkness easily. "Joe?" they call in a deep drawl. "You here?"

  A skycar, all beat to hell, has been hovering nearby. A medium height skinny man with scruffy dark hair and dressed in the most nondescript clothing possible hops out of his vehicle with a theatrical flip that makes Bog roll their eyes. Hell, the man's not all as impressive as he wants to act. But hell, a buyer's a buyer, and Joe's usually pretty good about paying up and not asking too many questions.

  These implants'll pass through a couple more sets of hands before getting into the hands of the transmogrifiers - one of whom he just happens to know rather personally. Transmogrifiers are the so-called surgeons who'll implant anything and anyone for the right price. But that's not Bog's business; they're just trying to make their living.

  Unfortunately a bug's crawled up Joe's ass tonight. He starts bitching about the price, the quality - anything he can find to try and get Bog to lower the asking price.

  Finally, Bog gets tired of his buyer's shit. "Look goddammit," he drawls - making that same face his mother always made when he did something stupid. "I went to a lotta trouble to get this shit, clean it all up, and wrap it all up in nice sterile little packages. Fuck do you want me to do, put a bow on the fuckers?"

  "No, but your askin' price..."

  "Aw shut the hell up, you buyin' or not?"

  Finally Joe gives in and transfers the money to the account Bog uses for this kind of thing. Some days this man is more trouble than he's worth but Bog kinda owes him some; he was his first buyer after all, and he's found a lot of contacts through this man. Fuck knows he could get a better price from another guy. Someday Joe's gonna find out he's not as irreplaceable as he thinks he is.

  At least Bog has the money and Joe the case of implants before all hell breaks loose.

  A dark shape rises from the side of the building opposite where Bog sent his hoverbike. Moments later there's an earsplitting siren and a blinding light illuminates the business they were both trying to keep hidden.

  'Fuck!' Joe shouts. An old hand at this shit, he takes the case of implants and immediately sprints for his car. 'Thanks for the shit!' he yells on the way out.

  Artificial heart quickening his pulse, Bog enacts their own escape plan. They rip off their long coat and bundle it in their arms, simultaneously sprinting towards the edge of the roof while dimming the glow of their implants. He doesn't like to use his wings in this part of the city - the buildings are dangerously close together - but that's what also makes this such a good escape plan. Even in this day and age, with most of the city's population implanted to hell and gone, the cops don't really expect a fat guy to leap off a building as an escape plan.

  As they jump and simultaneously active their wings, Bog hears Joe's vehicle scream away. The other man has his own escape plans of course - everybody does in this line of business. Bog's never stopped to ask him what those were - loose lips sink ships after all. Right now it's the last thing they should be thinking about.

  Adrenaline keeps him from feeling the cold - under his coat he wears nothing but a thin tank top, the better to deploy his wings. There are slits cut in the back of the shirt for his wings to fit through - best if they don't pass through anything too solid.

  It takes enough out of him to use the things, even though they have their own power source.

  Falling, flapping occasionally to gain momentum and grinning into the wind, Bog uses the controller on his wrist to summon his hoverbike, simultaneously activating the scramblers. On the vanishingly rare occasion that they have to use it - they've been fencing implants for a long-ass time - this tactic is pretty effective for a quick getaway. And even if it wasn't he has the best scramblers a person can buy on his bike and his person.

  These are pretty necessary pieces of equipment when you're dealing in what they deal in.

  Bog hears the sirens fifty stories above, safely away and out of sight from him. Deftly, he pilots his bike to match his descent speed and, with a neat bit of aerobatics, simultaneously slots himself into the seat and deactivates his wings.

  Safe.

  The first thing the implant fence does is raise the top - he's fucking freezing, and that hits him as soon as he's safely ensconced in his hoverbike. He flicks on the interior warmers to boot, sighing as the heat kicks in.

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  The next thing Bog does is to flip on the police scanner that's been a fixture on every bike he's ever had since he started running implants. It powers up slowly, the better to blend in with background chatter - better if nobody hears the thing come online.

  "We lost one of them," one rather frustrated-sounding voice says. "Far as I can tell he just jumped off the building and vanished."

  "Scramblers probably," says another voice, equally frustrated. "The second suspect had some kind of flak gun installed on his vehicle, all my sensors are shot."

  Bog listens amused as the cops curse all criminals and their ingenuity. But he knows better than to let it get to his head; plenty of his type have been busted for less. But, well, the inhabitants of this part of town will also make sure the cops don't intrude into the Narrows again, at least not for a while.

  Bog grins in the safety of his hoverbike, turning the glow of his implants back to where he likes it. In the corner of one of the screens in the cockpit they see a message from Joe - he got chased a little, but he managed to make it out for another day. Irritating as he can be it's a relief to hear he made it out okay.

  He's still an ass though.

  The fence sighs and, when he's sure enough that he's not being tailed, turns their hoverbike towards the beginning of the circuitous route they're taking home. The elaborate route probably isn't necessary but better safe than at the nonexistent mercy of the cops.

  Not that shit again.

  Aside from losing any followers, part of the reason for the complexity of his flight path is due to the various companies and corporations that have control of Novalectrum. Even the laws themselves might vary given the boundaries of corporate influence. Like everyone else who skirts the law in Novalectrum, Bog has a map of the complicated borders available at all times. Got to be able to take advantage of a sudden shift if it's profitable. But that's a problem for the next time he has to offload some implants. Now he just wants to hit the bed.

  His artificial heart is still racing a little as Bog goes to ground - it was an escape they didn't expect to have to make. But they have the money and both he and Joe have escaped consequences for today.

  Time to go home.

  Home is a small apartment halfway up the outside of a mid-height building - just low enough to dip under a border into the territory of a company that doesn't have any rules against what he does for a living. The laws on secondhand implants are different throughout the city and this is usually more or less the safest locale to for Bog to practice his trade. It was really just luck that got him here; when he first moved in, all he wanted was someplace cheap.

  The weariness of the day hits him as they land their sleek bike on the tiny landing strip outside his apartment. Before going back into the cold he wriggles into his coat - awkward in the cramped space, but it proves worth the effort once they pop the top of their bike.

  'Fuck this,' they mutter to themself as the frigid air hits his face.

  Squinting against the rain-broken lights of lower Novalectrum, they step off the strip and hit a button inset in the wall. The landing strip retracts into the building and a panel slides down, concealing their hoverbike. And if they've installed some extra scrambling mods into the dock without the landlord strictly knowing about them, well, that's between him and his bike.

  Ugh, it's too cold to sit out here woolgathering.

  The short demiboy pops the biometric lock on his apartment - the better to keep prying eyes out of all the implants in various states of repair - and steps inside.

  The heaters start going as he steps in and closes and locks the door behind them. They accept the heat with a sigh, just standing there basking in the warmth and the safety of the place they live.

  After a few moments they hang their coat up by the door and step past their repair desk with boxes of implants waiting for repair. On the other side of it is a cleaning station, for...freshly obtained implants, and on the opposite wall is a shoddy table covered in equipment to sterilize and bag the implants. He thinks for a moment about working on some of them.

  At least until Peanut greets them with an urgent reminder that he's been waiting patiently for his supper long enough.

  Peanut, the successor to the cat he came to town with, is a tubby orange boy. They bend to rub the cat's ears for a second and then fill his dish. He smiles down at the warm little living creature, crunching away at his kibble. It's nice to have something alive in this apartment apart from him, especially when he forgets that he needs to take care of himself and his boyfriends and his lover aren't around. Or they're busy with things of their own.

  This place is nothing like a real home of course. The time when he could have that is long past - Gods know his mother never provided anything like maternal warmth. But it does him enough for now, though it's a bit cramped when any - or all - of his partners come to visit. Most of the apartment is taken up by cybernetic implants in various states of cleaning, repair, or repackaging.

  He takes pride in providing quality implants to his various buyers throughout the city. And usually they spend a lot of time hunched over their repair desk or running the implants they obtain through a UV sterilizer. But for now they want to leave work behind as best they can and get a goddamn shower before bed.

  After offloading the implants today he can at least afford to take a day or two off, maybe more. So that's something. That's good; using their wings takes a lot out of him, even if they're mostly powered by the wing implants themselves as well as his fake heart. Maybe tomorrow they'll hit Torvald up or take a drive outside the city for once. Or maybe he'll just rest.

  Bog shrugs to himself.

  In the bedroom portion of his apartment, cordoned off by curtains, he kicks his boots off, strips into the hamper, and steps into the shower in the tiny bathroom cubicle by the toilet. It's all in the same room of course; that's the price he pays for living in such a cheap apartment.

  They didn't always want to be a fence of course. They used to have hopes and dreams, back before they had to flee their mother's house. But now part of the reason they're so busy is because they're into so much. Nobody's ever going to accuse him of staying still for long.

  Bog starts singing in the shower, some old shanty he doesn't know where he learned. His low tenor fills the bath cubicle.

  Torvald is on a mission for the company he works for tonight, but maybe tomorrow he wouldn't mind a night out? Or a night in? Thinking about their boyfriend makes him smile secretly to himself between verses. Torvald is always good at helping him relax.

  His other boyfriend, Etienne, is supposed to be in town from Stilt City soon. Bog has a longer history with Etienne than with Torvald by simple virtue of having known him longer, but that doesn't mean he cares about Torvald any less.

  Bog has difficulty telling his boyfriends - indeed, any of his lovers - how much they mean to him. It's yet another thing he can thank his mother for. They do their best, though.

  At least he knows his partners appreciate the effort.

  The water starts turning cold before Bog deems themself adequately washed and he shuts it off. The humidity from the shower will be good for their sinuses; that's the one perk of living in an apartment this small.

  They get out, dry themself off. He doesn't bother getting dressed for sleep - he's never seen the point - he just falls into bed. 'Lights off,' they slur drowsily at the voice-commanded switch.

  Tomorrow's another day.