Zef makes it back to his apartment in time to find the tattooed goons still lingering like portents of doom on his doorstep. Worse, they're beating the snot out of someone.

The old bloodstains had dried in the summer heat, so brown they blend into the dirt and concrete. Now, fresh streaks and speckles paint the floor. The victim curls up in the foetal position, scrawny arms—pocked with track marks—curled protectively over her head. She doesn't cry. Lets out a yelp when a steel-toed boot connects with her back, though. Right in the kidneys.

Zef isn't big. At five-foot-six, these gangoons could flick him away like a bug. He has no weapons. He's categorically unequipped to defend this total stranger.

But Zef is also brave and a bit stupid. He grew up in the bayou, where he once stabbed a gator in the eye with a broken bottle defending his friend who fell in the river. So, like.

Not the picture of self-preservation.

He stomps into the fray. "Stop! What the fuck? Leave her alone!"

One of the goons whirls on him. She's got ginger hair and a nose that's been broken a few times. Adrenaline picks out details in slow motion as her fist bunches in the fabric of Zef's shirt. A button pops off and bounces across the concrete. Zef grabs her hand to pry it off him. A hopeless endeavour. Her quads could crunch melons. Her koi fish tattoo lights up orange, and Zef's vision dances. A lightning aura like an oncoming migraine encroaches on his periphery, and his head aches like it's split open. Like she took a hatchet to his skull and burst it.

His implant—she's doing something to it. Wrecking it, short-circuiting it, something. Using it to hurt him.

Someone—another gang member?—says, "Hey! Hands off that one."

Fast as the pain came on, it abates. Zef's vision returns in speckles of television static. He blinks deliberately while the cracking headache throbs in time with the heavy beat of his heart.

Deliriously, he says, "Let her go."

But the victim they'd been beating already fled. Zef stares, uncomprehending, at the three gang members. They all step back, exchanging knowing looks between one another.

Why aren't they attacking him?

What the hell is happening?

Two sides of Zef go to war. These people just violently assaulted someone—probably an addict who owes them money—and Zef foolishly intervened. Only instead of getting his head kicked in, too, they all back off.

All of them have tattoos just like Gray's.

None of them make a move towards him, but Zef still sprints to his front door, slamming his hand against the biometric key lock and stumbling into his flat. The door swishes shut behind him.

So. Gray's probably part of some CyberSuite gang. And he's sent these guys to watch Zef? Not being subtle about it, either.

Why?

As Zef collects himself, a delayed notification flickers over his vision from his implant. Data Download for software JewelWasp1.2.cds 15% complete.

When he touched that woman's tattoo, the device on his finger must have made contact long enough to continue the data transfer he hadn't finished with Gray.

It didn't complete, though. He should open the file, anyway. See what he's up against.

Really, he already knows. The ache in his head and sluggish response of his implant tell him everything.

He's fucked.

The reality is he can't overcome this tech, let alone capture Gray and deliver him to Rylan. He can barely feed himself in this city, let alone maintain his job at Bionic Capital and go toe-to-toe with some kind of cap war kingpin.

He's not just up shit creek without a paddle, he's got no boat. He is drowning in sewage, here.

He should have known. Should never have broken any of his rules. He can't do this. He'll die trying.

He has to go back to the bayou.

Which means another year, maybe longer, before he can re-approach medical transition.

Now his heart really pounds. Breath coming shallow. The elastic of his binder feels like a wire cutting into his circulation. He fights his way out of his shirt and the binder. Pants, too. His fingertips break out in pins and needles. He curls up in the window next to his still-busted air-con unit, puts his head between his knees and, with the methodical evenness taught to him by his dad, taps his temples in a rhythmic pulse.

Tap, tap, tap.

Then the spot over his eyebrows.

Tap, tap, tap.

Under his eyes, on the occipital bone. Filtrum. Chin. Chest. Tap, tap, tap until his heart goes from a gallop to a trot. Until he can take a full breath. Until his skin no longer feels too hot and too cold at the same time.

When his body feels close to normal, close to calm, he calls his dad.

Through all life's hiccups and hailstorms, Zef's dad was there. Not always with the right words but with love. When Zef first came out, Matthias just nodded, said he loved him, and then in a very quiet voice added, 'I always wanted a son.' When Matthias got deployed in the cap wars, he made sure to come home as often as he was allowed. Zef remembers his dad waking him in the night in the scant hours he had off work, and he would sit Zef on the counter and make them up drinks and snacks. Apple juice instead of beer for Zef. Sweet and salty popcorn. They'd watch a movie on the tiny, beat up tablet at their kitchen table. Then Matthias would kiss his forehead and say goodbye with too-shiny eyes.

So his father's deeply lined, red face flashing up on Zef's HUD is an instant balm to his day.

"Zef! I was about to call you." He's on the bench in the breakfast nook of the trailer, yellowing curtains drawn against the hot sun, pillows piled next to him. When he goes to grab one and stuff it behind his back, he winces. "How was your first day?"

Zef suddenly doesn't give a rat's fart about his job or the gang hanging out around his apartment or the maniac he had dinner with a few minutes ago. "What's wrong?"

"Eh? Oh, I'm fine—"

"Dad."

"It's nothing."

"Dad!"

His father waves his hand. Reluctantly, he says, "It's nothing to worry about. I just took a bit of a fall. Prosthetics malfunctioned. But I'll be right as rain in a couple days."

Zef shoots up from where he's sitting and starts grabbing his clothes. "I'm coming over."

His dad protests. Swears up and down there's no need to worry. But Zef is worried, 'cause when his dad literally lost both legs, he claimed it was 'no big deal.' Said, 'Others have it worse.'

Made it sound like standing on a proximity mine was equivalent to a papercut.

Zef gets the subway to the very end of the train line, walks to a truck depot and finds one scheduled to go through his hometown. He rides the back bumper, holding on all the way to the bayou. The smell of petrol gives way to sweet, hothouse flowers and humid algae. A fragrance Zef can only describe as green.

He gets off the moment the truck stops at a light. Not the safest way to travel but mostly free.

He grabs food at a bodega. From there it's a short walk to the boardwalk, zigzagging through the marshy waters. The buzzing from insects and strings of electric lights replaces the white noise of traffic. Sometimes the bright spots in the dark water are the lights mirrored back. Sometimes they're the reflective eyes of oversized reptiles. Zef never walks close to the edge.

Ahead, home rises out of the water like something half machine, half animal. A cobbled together town, everything on stilts with ladders and iron stairs. A vertical trailer park. Well. Some of the houses are trailers and mobile homes. Some are repurposed shipping containers—fancy for this neighbourhood. Some are five pieces of aluminium siding hastily welded together.

To caps and city-goers, it's called an eyesore. To Zef, it's called home. There's something pretty about the 3D quilt of houses rising out of the water.

There are a few boats in the bayou, rare and in poor shape. After the rich were done polluting the land, lots took to the water, so the cost of boats in general went through the roof. Zef always liked the idea of living on one. Sailing to different ports, to clear water you could swim in.

He passes Leo's trailer on his way up. It's a vintage thing, small with round edges and flaking, turquoise paint gone algae green where the humidity of the bayou seeps up through the cracks in the boardwalk. Warm light spills out of the open door. Camping chairs sit outside with sweating beers in the holders. A rainbow flag hangs in the window. Been there so long it's sun-bleached pale.

Zef loves and resents Leo. Misses him and doesn't want to see him—not yet. Might have to pay him a visit, anyway.

Later.

Zef's trailer is a newer build but more rundown. Things just weren't built to last anymore, so everything but the kitchen sink has been replaced once or twice. Rotted holes in the wood patched up with scrap metal from the junkyard. Moth-eaten upholstery ripped out and redone with whatever's going. Awning is just a tarp now. The real life ship of Theseus.

It's at the top of the floating town. A nightmare for his dad to climb.

Zef raps his knuckles against the door as he steps inside. "I'm home."

His dad jumps awake. He's tucked into the breakfast nook, probably because it's easier to sit up and eat off the table and doze off there than in bed. His cybernetic legs lie discarded under the table. Matthias smiles at the sight of him.

"Ah, my son."

Son. Zef doesn't think he'll ever get tired of hearing it. "Hey, Dad. You okay?" He notices the blankets covering Matthias's legs. Too hot these days for that.

"Fine, fine. You really didn't need to bother yourself coming all this way."

Zef ignores him and sets the bag on the table. "I brought food."

"I'll ping you some money."

"No, leave it. I've got a job now, remember?" Probably not for long enough to cash a paycheck, but... "Let me take a look at your legs."

"Ah, first tell me about your job. How was your first day?"

Something in Matthias's tone—forced casual, suspiciously bright—raises Zef's alarm bells. "Dad. Please. Show me the damage."

Matthias's brow creases. The facade drops. It's clear from the deep lines in his face and his damp forehead that something went very wrong. He picks up the edge of the blanket and allows Zef to uncover him.

He's only in his shorts. His legs terminate just above the knee, shiny scar tissue over both stumps from the day he stepped on that proximity mine. There are patches of heat rash and open blisters from the prosthetics. An unfortunate and oft overlooked side-effect of some disability aids—they weren't always comfortable, especially if you couldn't afford custom builds.

But this isn't what makes Zef's breath come short.

Angry, weeping burns cover the outer thigh of his left leg. Some spidering blisters like lightning bolts arc higher up.

"Think the liquid cooling system's fried," his dad says. "I had a look. Fan must have gone, so the radiator heated up the metal in the socket. Did a number on me. With the weather we're having, I should have known."

"The cooling system's supposed to have back ups. Heat sinks. Ionic wind pumps—"

"Fried too, I figure. Had these legs about ten years."

Frustration winds tight in Zef's chest. "There should be some kind of alert system if things break down. It's dangerous. The company that made them—" He cuts himself short. Bionic Capital made this model.

"They got a clause in the manual. Only safe to use for a year, then you gotta bring 'em in for repair." Matthias leans back against the cushion, face drawn. "I was pushing my luck."

A thousand and one arguments rise on Zef's tongue. The company shouldn't be making disability aids to only last a year. They should be making them so repair and upkeep is possible for the user. While custom cybernetics are often more comfortable and easier to move in than old-fashioned prosthetics, the upkeep makes them unaffordable for anyone living within a hundred miles of the bread line. Old-fashioned prosthetics are no longer in production. Plastic, and its cousins, carbon fibre, acrylic resin, silicone, whatever, became the environmentalist scapegoat many years ago. The lightweight materials were regulated, which functionally meant only big companies could afford to use them.

Those old-fashioned prosthetics weren't cheap, either, and they had their faults, but they wouldn't give second-degree burns or need to be replaced and repaired every year.

Zef grabs the tool chest from under the sink and pulls the cybernetic legs out from under the table. He sits on the floor and unscrews the vented panel over the fan. Sure enough, the fan's jammed. Won't spin. Something's gummed it up.

While Zef picks at it, his dad sighs, "You shouldn't be taking care of your old man like this."

"You took care of me all these years."

"I signed up for that, being a dad. Was supposed to set you up for success."

"You did. World's just determined to kick us in the teeth."

Matthias hums, somehow managing a minor chord in that singular sound. "Didn't help Ollie."

"That wasn't your fault." Zef snaps it out. Reflexive. Like if he gets it in quick, he can stop them both spiralling. Can't, though. Already started. Even if it's true, even if he means it when he says it to his dad?

Zef still blames himself for Ollie.

A sombre silence falls. He blows dust out of the prosthetic's chassis. Despite all the deliberate faults, the idea behind cybernetics is sound. Hydraulic systems compensate for the extra weight of the metal, so users didn't have to be built like a brick shit house just to take a step. They were coded to respond readily to the user's muscles. Just weren't built to last. Couldn't make billions if people only bought the product once. These ones were used, and that still probably cost Zef's current monthly salary.

If he still had a salary...

Matthias tries for lighter topics. "You gonna tell me about your first day or what?"

Zef pauses in detaching the fan, which needs outright replacing. His problems churn through him like a bad case of dysentery. The danger of Gray, the gang outside his apartment, the ultimatum Rylan saddled him with.

He realises it just as he pulls out the cybernetic CPU and finds it's melted. Won't just be giving up his transition if he quits his job now. His dad needs first aid, maybe antibiotics. He can get around the trailer, but he won't be able to go outside much without prosthetics, and the replacement parts are going to cost big credits. It'd be best if he could get something new and custom. If only they could afford it.

But they can't. Not if Zef quits.

Between taking on a deadly criminal and retiring to the bayou until a better opportunity comes along, neither option feels quite as attractive as wrapping himself up in a tinfoil sleeping bag and nuking himself in the microwave.

Zef can't let his dad down, though. He let Ollie down. He'd be fine letting himself down, too. Not his dad.

He never lies to him. Not usually. But looking at Matthias's creased brow, the angry burns and welts on his legs, the dilapidated state of the trailer—

"The job's real good, Dad," Zef says. "Yeah, you know, I think it's really going to turn our lives around."