"Let me look at your eyes."

The customer was a portly man, balding and sporting a patchy mustache which made him look like either a sex offender or a high school gym teacher. His pale skin was pockmarked with small pimples and Alex could smell his breath from where he stood almost five feet away. His username had identified him only as 'JD8008135'

"Excuse me?" Alex had the sinking feeling that he already knew why 'JD' wanted a look. Nevertheless, he obediently met the man's gaze, his pale blue eyes meeting JD's brown ones.

"What color is that? Why's it like that?" He squinted, trying to get a better view of Alex.

"Because I was born with blue eyes." Alex's grip tightened on his palmtop, still holding it out in front of him. The screen was blinking, waiting for JD to pass his own palmtop over the screen in order to confirm the job.

"They're not supposed to be like that." He leaned in, intensifying the unpleasant smell of old seafood. "They're supposed to be like...metal or whatever?"

"No, sir." Alex took a deep breath and exhaled a small cloud of fog into the chilly air. He was struggling to keep his facial muscles locked in an expression of pleasant interest. On many occasions, he'd been told that he had a "resting bastard face", causing his expression to shift to an aggressive-looking scowl when he wasn't thinking. It was a face that had provoked a lot of ass-kickings and lost him a lot of jobs, so he struggled to keep it under control. "They aren't. I don't take vitae supplements."

"What?!" The man's tone put Alex's teeth on edge. "I put this in for a four-star job! You can't charge me four-star prices if you aren't infused."

"The four-star rating is based on speed and reliability. Infusions help with that, obviously, but they aren't required." Alex's heart fell as the man began flicking the screen of his palmtop, staring accusingly at the tiny text as it flew by.

"Here!" He thrust the palmtop screen right into Alex's face. It displayed the home page for runR, the courier gig app that provided most of Alex's meager income. "It says right here, most four-star runners have received vitae infusions."

"Exactly, most of them are infused." Alex's teeth hurt from keeping a smile on his face. "But some people, like me, are able to get a four-star rating without-"

"All the other four-star runners I've hired have been infused. Every one of them. That's what I wanted."

Entitled fuck-head. This was not a new conversation for Alex but he also couldn't afford to just give up a four-star payment. "Well, then you've been very lucky in the past, to always get an infused courier...but if you need to be guaranteed an infused courier then you've got to check the box when you order it."

"That costs extra!"

"Because it guarantees someone with infusions. But I promise you, if you just need four-star service then I'm more than capable of-"

"What if someone tries to steal my package?" The man had a nasty little sneer on his face and Alex wished he could slap it off.

"The runR contract doesn't obligate a courier to endanger themselves to protect your package, infusion or not."

"But no one could steal it from someone with infusions."

Unless the mugger is on supplements too, ever think of that, shithead?

Alex decided to try a slightly more aggressive approach. Some customers would happily rip into anyone who seemed too polite or vulnerable but backed down when confronted with a bit of backbone. "Look, if you don't want me to take the job, then we can just cancel it. That's fine. The next runner to show up might be infused but..."

"But what?"

"Just between you and me, not many people with legal infusions stay in the Stacks." He had no doubt that JD was aware of this. Relying on it, in fact. But he had to cover his ass. "So, there's been a crackdown from the unions on illegal infusions and a lot of them are keeping their heads down right now. That means if you cancel then you'll probably end up waiting at least a few hours for someone to be available."

That furrowed the asshole's brow a little bit. Four-star runR jobs weren't cheap (although only a fraction made it to the runner themselves) and they meant that speed was a priority, usually for transporting data.

In most parts of the city, broad-spectrum wifi and miles upon miles of fiber optic cable meant that massive amounts of data could be pumped from one place to another in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, the Stacks, and places like it, were a low priority when it came to information infrastructure. Most homes and businesses relied on improvised signal towers and home-made antennas to access a few over-loaded datalines.

All of that meant that, in the Stacks, transferring large quantities of data was normally done via "sneaker-net". The bandwidth available from shaky wi-fi networks paled in comparison to an underpaid courier with a sack full of hard drives. Not only was it faster, but it was less likely to be intercepted by government or union enforcement agencies. Privacy was important, for a variety of reasons.

"Three-star."

"What?"

"I'll cancel the four-star order and put a new one in for three-stars. You can take it or leave it, but I'm not paying four-star pricing for someone without infusions."

"But I am a four-star courier, and-"

"Or I could just put in a complaint since you're being so rude."

There it is. Alex's left eyebrow twitched and his free hand was starting to clench into a fist. That would be his third complaint in a month from assholes like this. One more and he'd be dropped back down to two-star jobs for 90 days. A three-star job paid half as much as a four, but a three-month demotion would be a disaster. RunR wouldn't care. Even as a four-star runner, he was replaceable. Kids hooked on low-grade infusions were always looking for cash.

"...Fine." Alex sighed and watched as the icon on his screen flickered out of existence, taking about one hundred dollars with it. The man in front of him slowly pecked his finger on his palmtop's screen, filling out a new job request.

The three-star job icon popped up and Alex dutifully tapped the screen to accept it. The man smiled smugly, as though he had taken advantage of some incredibly clever loophole and wasn't just being a greedy bastard. The smile made his mustache ripple like a fuzzy caterpillar.

The job details scrolled across Alex's screen, showing his current location, the final destination and the straight-line distance between them. There were no suggested routes for jobs larger than two-stars...the company expected high-level couriers to find their own way.

It wasn't hard to see why the jerk wasn't taking the package himself. The destination was deep in the Stacks and near ground-level. You couldn't get that deep into the area by car and the crime rate was unmentionably high. A weasely little shit like JD wouldn't be able to walk two blocks without getting mugged.

Not that Alex was much more intimidating. He was tall, but in that particular way that made him look scrawny rather than intimidating. Like an ineffective scarecrow. His "resting bastard face" didn't help, broadcasting aggressive energy that his body could not back up.

Fortunately, he didn't usually have to worry about running into anyone else on the job.

After verifying the request, Alex slipped the palmtop snugly into his coat's inner pocket. As he did, JD popped back into the cluster of interconnected pre-fab structures that pretended to be an apartment building. After a few minutes, he emerged with a small metal clamshell container marked with the runR logo. Once the recipient notified JD of the delivery, he'd be able to send a signal to open the case.

Unconsciously, Alex hefted the case, testing the weight. It was very light and, as it shifted, he could feel something faintly clattering inside. Probably high-capacity memory cards, each holding about a hundred terabytes.

Looking JD up and down, Alex's guess on the contents was some kind of unlicensed simulations. Probably porn.

I hope it's not anything too fucked up. Alex slipped the case into his coat pocket and looked up just in time to see JD heading back inside. He grabbed for the door, but he was too late. It had closed behind JD and its automatic magnetic lock had engaged.

"Hey!" Alex shouted, recalling a detail that he had overlooked. "You're going to give me a good review, right? Since I'm doing this? Right?!"

The cloudy plastic door was most definitely not soundproofed but the retreating blur that was JD made no attempt to turn around or acknowledge Alex.

Fuck. Alex wished he hadn't agreed to the price cut. It was a bad precedent and now this guy would probably try the same thing every time Alex answered one of his job postings. If that dick gives me a bad review anyway...

The thought trailed off. Alex wasn't going to do anything, other than adding JD to his list of asshole customers to avoid. A list which was long and often-ignored when money got tight. Which was most of the time.

Alex felt a sharp, cold spike on his cheek. Then another. He pulled his hood up to protect himself from the ice-cold rain. Literally ice-cold, the water that fell from the slate-gray sky was easily ten degrees below freezing, kept liquid by the chemicals lacing the clouds.

Alex took several long, deep breaths and started stretching his arms and legs. It was getting late and the air was getting colder. Even if it didn't get cold enough for patches of ice to form, the rain would make things dangerously slick. He'd worked in wet weather, even icy weather, before, but it wasn't ideal.

Despite this, he forced himself to complete his entire stretch routine until every muscle felt limber and supple. Infused couriers, like the ones JD wanted, would have been able to just set off running, vitae-enhanced muscles propelling them at superhuman speeds wherever they wanted to go. If they ended up falling or twisting something, the vitae in their system would ensure that they healed quickly and easily. Even if they could only afford cheap tin-grade supplements.

Alex didn't have that luxury. If he gave himself a muscle cramp at the wrong time and sprained an ankle then he'd miss several day's worth of jobs. If he broke a leg...well, they shoot horses, don't they?

Tapping his pocket to reassure himself that he had the container, Alex set off, jogging across the rooftop towards the nearest walkway. JD's apartment was on the edge of the Stacks, where the unrestrained construction was still somewhat under control. They were only about five stories above ground level and the apartment building itself was the tallest structure for a block around.

Alex reached the walkway but instead of running down it, he jumped, grabbing onto an overhang and pulling himself on top of the covered path. The roof over the walkway was rounded and starting to get slippery, but he managed to keep his balance as he dashed along it before making another jump and snagging the bottom of an old fire escape. The rusty metal groaned and shook, barely holding onto the wall as Alex clambered up it.

Reaching the roof (having successfully bypassed three stories worth of stairs and over thirty yards of corridor), Alex broke into a run. Ahead of him was the center of the Stacks, looming like a jagged mountain. Buildings piled on top of buildings, converted shipping containers interlocking like a brick wall and the whole thing covered in a tangled nest of electrical wires and fiber optic cables, like trees in a kudzu forest.

Jumping over a planter full of withered leaves (someone's failed attempt at a cabbage garden, no doubt), he accelerated towards the roof's edge and launched himself off. Rather than splattering against any number of unforgiving concrete protrusions, he managed to grab hold of the railing of a disused balcony. Letting go, he dropped to the balcony one floor down. In this way he descended the building until he was able to drop down to the roof of one of the mobile homes that lined the edge of the streets, barely leaving a lane's worth of room for cars to travel.

There was a shout from the irritated inhabitants as Alex's feet hammered over the roof of their dwelling. More followed as he leapt from roof to roof. By the time one of the doors burst open, he was ascending once more, clambering up a nearby building's plumbing.

JD had been right about one thing: very few people got a 4-star runR rating without taking vitae supplements. Getting packages from point A to point B across this mess of deranged architecture in a matter of minutes usually required superhuman speed and vigor. He knew only a few other non-infused four-star couriers who made up for their shortcomings in their own way. Like Rhonda, who had somehow built herself a working sky car from scrap metal and used the mini-chopper to zip around the Stacks in record time.

For his part, Alex had what he referred to as his 'flow'. Almost everyone who lived in the Stacks (especially the deeper parts) was familiar with free-running to some degree or other. You never knew when a walkway would collapse, forcing you to find creative ways to get out of your apartment.

For Alex, it was one of the only legitimate talents he had. When he traversed the city he entered a kind of heightened awareness, allowing him to instantly spot stable footholds, judge distances and trace a path through complicated environments in an instant. It wasn't as graceful or acrobatic as popular online parkour artists, no flashy flips or handstands, but it was fast and efficient.

Knowing the topography of the Stacks helped as well. It would be wrong to say he knew them like the back of his hand because the internal shape of the neighborhood tended to change from week to week as areas collapsed or walls were broken down or new structures were built on top of the old. But the twisting corridors didn't throw off his internal compass the way they did for most people and his flow usually guided him to the fastest way in and out of the buildings that spread over the neighborhood like a tumorous mass.

"That's it...right there. Fuck me, fuck me harder!"

Alex stumbled, catching himself at the edge of a forty-foot drop. The breathy, feminine voice had shattered his focus, nearly sending him over the edge. Breathing heavily from exertion and the adrenaline rush of the near miss, he took in his surroundings to try and get back into his groove.

He was on a gravel-covered rooftop and a quick glance at the screen of his palmtop showed he was about two-thirds of the way towards his final destination. Skylights dotted the surface of the roof, although several had been covered over with pressboard planks or sheet metal. One had been completely shattered, a decrepit cell tower emerging from it like the trunk of a dead tree, leaning drunkenly to one side.

"I'm so close, baby! Keep going!"

The voice was coming from below him, through the glass of a nearby skylight. This wasn't particularly unusual. Sound-proofing wasn't a huge priority in the cobbled-together structures of the Stacks and there was no shortage of people who had no qualms about letting the neighbors hear what they were up to, whether that meant fucking, watching weird porn or shrieking arguments.

Still, frustration from his earlier encounter in the immersion made the sounds of vigorous, enthusiastic fucking difficult to tune out. Alex's pale skin flushed as a loud, drawn-out moan could be heard from below.

I'll just...take a peek, He thought to himself. Then I have to get going.

Creeping closer, he leaned over the skylight, trying to position himself to give him the best point of view without blocking out the faint sunlight and casting a shadow down into the room.

A hulking man was on his back, laying on a dirty mattress spread over the floor. Straddling him was a woman who was just as naked as he was. She was a brunette, with a thick, wide-hipped figure and large chest. The guy was pumping away and although he couldn't see it, Alex imagined that he could faintly hear the wet noise of his dick sliding in and out with each thrust. Her eyes were closed and her head was thrown back, gasping and grinding her hips. He could see her breasts rippling in time with each jerk of her partner's hips.

This is a bad idea. Alex really had no business sticking around but he was having a hard time taking that step back. Ying had left him hot and bothered and even before then his last sexual partner had also been a cloud of one's and zeroes. His eyes were locked on the sight of her breasts moving up and down.

Then her eyes popped open.

Their gazes locked. Both of their eyes went wide with surprise and alarm. She pointed up at him and opened her mouth to scream something.

Alex took a step back, directly onto a patch of half-frozen slush. Almost falling backwards, he instinctively compensated by leaning forwards, too flustered and out of focus to rely on his usual flow. He went too far and tipped forward, arms pinwheeling as he tumbled towards the skylight.

He threw his left hand forward on blind instinct, hoping to catch himself on a joist but instead his palm smacked right against the glass. The window, already cracked, shattered under the impact with his palm. There was a sharp, hot pain in his hand as he fell through. Both the man and woman shouted in alarm as he tumbled into the room in a shower of broken glass.

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