Chapter 1

"Will you make up your mind already?", said the bulky man to the small group of interested though taciturn buyers.

The trio of men wore black, unadorned exo-suits. Optical augmentations of varying quality featured prominently on their faces. They had been meticulously examining the article on sale for what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time, while one of them had communicated a single word. Neither spoken nor transmitted, in any single language or wavelength. Gretchetna was evidently growing impatient, and put down his chopsticks and bowl of arsubuta before assuming a faintly sour expression:

"It might be the pork, but I'm smelling something sour. If you're here to waste my time, buzz off. If you're here to buy, then buy. Am I getting through to you? Is your auvosense busted or something?"

The irate commentary did not appear to have much of an effect on them, nor the rude gestures that accompanied it. These by no means ordinary customers seemed to be looking for something particular, running meticulous scans with some kind of sensory equipment that looked delicate, expensive and very sensitive all at once. They had largely ignored Gretchetna and that was perhaps the real reason he looked like he was about to explode from frustration.

He decided it was about time he made his point a little more convincing, so he reached for his amada gun below the counter, and clicked the on switch. The characteristic low-pitched harmonics were heard, and the trio were suddenly but calmly becoming aware that some kind of important event had just occurred. They momentarily stopped fiddling with their equipment and the box on sale, and slowly lifted their heads to look at Gretchetna. A radiant smile had appeared on his face, and he seemed to be enjoying the fact that he finally had their attention, even for a little while:

"You said you wanted a look-see. Fine, you looked at it. You can probably just make a copy by now, with all that scanning. The point is, are you buying? 'Cause if you're not, I'd like to be compensated either way. I got a Lambda-Lambda here which says you'd be happy to reimburse me, unless you feel strangely attracted to plasma projectiles. Still want to play dumb and mute?"

The trio exchanged some silent, unemotional looks. One of them made a small step forward, his hands half-raised in a non-threatening gesture. For the first time, he spoke with a dry voice and a heavy mandarin accent:

"We do not wish to buy."

Gretchetna's smile widened to an impossible grin and he aimed the LL-type amada gun directly to the small-framed man:

"Do you wish to be evaporated? I don't mind the cleaning-up later. Pay up. Next thing I know, you'll be selling these cheaper than hamps."

"We wish to destroy it."

Gretchetna's fingers twiddled with the side-switch settings, amping the power to the megawatt scale. The humming noise from the amada gun became a loud buzz, an onerous cacophony that usually implied something was about to catch on fire, explode, or probably both. The moustache on Gretchetna's face seemed to droop somewhat, barely moving with each word:

"Pay up first, buddy. Last chance before you get to see the Big Bang from real up close and personal."

All three men were facing Gretchetna now with hands outstretched, as if they wanted to show they meant no harm. Their palms seemed to glow faintly. The one who had spoken up first, continued:

"You have been tainted. This is nothing personal."

Gretchetna had time enough to see the glow from their hands turn into a searing beam of light. His unaugmented nervous system barely had time enough to let his finger squeeze the lambda-lambda's button. The superconducted mass driver unit on the amada gun started discharging, accelerating the tungsten-beryllium projectile to near-escape velocity. The tiny projectile turned into plasma, illuminating the shady emporium of Gretchetna as if an exotic aurora had manifested itself. At the same time, a searing pulse of light came out of the men's palms, a blinding blue and white illuminiscence filling the space between them and Gretchetna.

When his body hit the floor, there was no blood to speak of. There was, in fact, no sign of Gretchetna's upper torso. The three men though, seemed quite unharmed. There was a passing smell of ozone, and the quite distinct acridity of burnt human flesh. As the three men once again approached the box, this time they each produced a small metal object, each different in shape and size.

One of them made a sudden alarmed motion with his head and an intricate sign with one hand. The one who had spoken before did so again, his voice unnatural, icy and dry:

"Assemble the device. I will take care of that."

While he started walking towards the entrance to Gretchetna's emporium, the two other men complied with speed and precision. They made adjustments to the metal objects with their hands. The pieces interlocked, a perfect fit. Then, they placed the resulting object on the box that was so misleadingly plain and ordinary that Gretchetna had been using it as a bench.

The large emporium echoed suddenly with the massive thumping and ricocheting sounds of a hail of bullet rounds. Immediately, they stepped right in front of the path of some incoming stray shots to protect the device they had just assembled.

Crude and cheap, kinetics were quite efficient for most rough types of troublemakers. To Vic's surprise though, these men were not the usual kind. Vic had just unloaded a full box of 20mm caseless on them, and they had actually got in the way on purpose.

"Oh, fuck me," Vic said quietly to himself, the twin muzzle from his CK-auto making the air sizzle.

Instinctively scrambling to reload, Vic didn't have a chance to see the blurry shadow that hit him with enough force for his ribcage to shatter and his body to be send flying across the emporium, only to have his neck broken on impact with the aerogel walls.

Momentarily assessing the badly light corridor outside, the talkative member of the trio asked the other two:

"Is the Exagrammaton aligned?"

They had been merely looking at the box and the device attached to in a sort of hallowed silence. After a small amount of time had passed, as if they counted every millisecond with atomic precision, they replied as one man, with one voice and one mind, as if they were nothing but automatons:

"The Exagrammaton is aligned. What about the rest of them?"

"Trivial," the one they seemed to defer to as their leader replied, while the the one who had never spoken a word said with what a careful voice stress analysis could identify as a hint of worry:

"Leave now, and let us remain."

The man who had led Gretchetna and Vic to their untimely deaths, was now wearing a grin that felt completely out of place with the rest of his face, as if someone had painted a smile on a jagged piece of granite:

"A touch of Anxiety, Dispatcher?"

To which the man promptly answered while bowing his head only slightly, an almost imperceptible gesture of subservience:

"Only for success, Exchequer."

The man they called Exchequer nodded briskly and said:

"Move. We are done here."

He then suddenly turned into a transparent shadowy figure that challenged any eye, even augmented ones, to an impossible task. The other two men also seemed to quickly vanish into a wispy shade, and then they blended into nothingness. Even their footsteps seemed to be echoes of ghosts. The only sound that could be heard was the repeating welcome message, blowing over the ceiling soundbands, in a rugged but hearty voice:

"You just made the smartest choice, mister!"

"Sam, I know it's going to sound old, but ... What have we got here?"