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  Chloe shakes her hands in an apologetic motion. “No!” she corrects, her heart suddenly racing, “I just meant… it’s, like, his life insurance, but only for the artificial bits!”

  Keeping aside the fact that she dreams to make a living off of her words, that’s what lack of sleep will do to a person, Chloe thinks to herself. She clenches her teeth with regret. David is at a loss for words. Seeing her efforts at reassuring him brought down so easily, she pats him joyfully on the shoulder.

  “David,” she reprises, “now’s not the time to worry about that! I swear: it’s not as big a deal as it sounds.”

  Her persistence seems to eventually pay off. “OK,” David mumbles, forced to trust this unusual guide across uncharted waters.

  Jake walks out of his bedroom. His mask is back in place, slightly bent along the edges where the clips have been damaged. A long strap of silver duct-tape goes around his forehead like a bandage, and he sits a baseball cap on top. Approving of his street-wise looks, Chloe winks at him.

  “Besides,” she adds, “I know exactly the kind of place that will cheer you both up.”

  Chapter 3

  Angelo hasn’t been able to catch a lot of sleep. The remains of his excitement almost spoiled by Chloe’s tirade, he’s ended up calling the number on the business card to set up a meeting. Turning down a proposition without first learning about it doesn’t conflate with his values, however this might affect his relationship. As he steps out of the subway and walks to the police precinct, he musters his resolve to see this offer through.

  The precinct is one of the first facilities built on the platform after its completion, and it shows. The young man walks past graffiti and bullet holes up to the main entrance. Inside, a hive of cops and delinquents is buzzing in a crowded rumble. Thugs in cuffs are being processed by overworked officers sweating behind bulletproof glass. Angelo walks past them up to the reception desk. “Hi, my name is Angelo Saldana,” he tells the distraught rookie, “I’ve got a meeting.”

  After being asked to leave his passport and sign a non-disclosure agreement, Angelo receives a pass on a lanyard. A quiet officer escorts him to the back of the building, where they cross into a small courtyard. Compared to the rotten atmosphere of the precinct, Angelo feels like he’s stepping into a brand new compound; a sleek-looking apartment building on one side faces a wide hangar on the other. These large blocks of concrete have a cold atmosphere to them, but the young man sees method, discipline and, more importantly, budget.

  He follows the officer through magnetic locks and cement corridors, until he finds his way to a catwalk overseeing the warehouse. Below, escorted by flying drones and autonomous shielding units, five troopers in combat exoskeletons are training their deployment tactics in a maze of plastic walls and springing cardboard silhouettes. Looking down from a railing, the Japanese officer is standing above them, communicating with the team through a radio headset. The police officer motions Angelo to wait while he catches the attention of the man. After a quick exchange, the Japanese takes off his headset and walks to Angelo.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Saldana,” he greets with placid contentment. Here in the confines of their headquarters, he’s wearing a uniform showing the rank of Major. His name tag reads: “Hanzo.”

  “Glad to be here, sir,” Angelo replies with mixed conviction, as the memory of Chloe’s diatribe lingers still.

  The Major looks down at the group of assisted troopers, who are pursuing their training exercise under the supervision of the squad leader.

  “So! What do you think?” he asks Angelo while keeping an eye on his troops.

  Angelo follows the harmonious deployment of embarked soldiers and defense peripherals with the fascination of an engineer. “Impressive, sir!” he blurts out.

  The Major locks eyes with him in a manner typical of inquisitive people. “I need an overseer, young man,” he says, straight to the point. “Do you want the job or not?”

  Angelo feels a thrill rush along his spine; this is a job like no other, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Yes, sir!” he replies, proudly standing at attention.

  The tour of the building is exhaustive. Before they even get to the outfitting department, it feels like visiting a chocolate factory; but when they enter the rigging room, bordered on each side by railings sustaining militarized exosuits, Angelo’s mouth drops to the floor. He’s only read about this equipment in military publications and doesn’t even recognize most of the attachments.

  While he’s busy geeking out, the Major casually walks to a group of technicians gathered around a woman strung up by the shoulders. She’s wearing an incomplete set of combat exoskeleton, while the engineers finish outfitting her. Captivated by this ludicrous amount of tech, Angelo doesn’t first pay much attention to her, but as her blond hair reminds him of Chloe’s report, he eventually recognizes the female riot cop.

  “Meet our last recruit,” hails the Major. “Patricia Gillian.”

  Caged in her mechanized suit, the young woman smiles like a child in an amusement park herself. “Call me Patti,” she greets.

  Angelo walks across the room to observe the outfitting process. “Hey!” he says, a little hesitant. “I think I saw you on TV last night!”

  The Major nods quietly. Patti seems to hear about this for the first time, her own evening having apparently been busy as well. “You did?” she asks with a curious expression.

  “Miss Gillian is a last minute addition to our team,” the Major interrupts. “Her show of initiative yesterday is exactly the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we look for in our employees.”

  The sudden flattery seems to baffle the young riot cop. “Wow, thank you sir,” she humbly replies.

  The Major turns to her, motioning at Angelo: “Mr. Saldana, here, is our new overseer. Unlike your teammates, you won’t have to go through training listening to my croaky voice.”

  His deadpan self-deprecating humor draws her smile, that she then turns to Angelo. He smiles back, and by that time, whatever remained of his doubts has quietly gone with the wind.

  It’s late afternoon when Jake, Chloe and David get to the convention hall. All sorts of fanciful characters are gathered by the entrance for a breath of fresh air or for a cigarette: tattooed roboticists and pierced engineers, most of them. Above the large open doors hangs a banner that reads “CYBERCON Manila 2039.”

  Chloe walks in confidently, Jake follows, and David closes the march, astounded. As soon as they enter the main hall, they’re faced with rows upon rows of stands managed like hybrids of a comic book convention’s, and a Brazilian carnival’s. Each has a dedicated specialty: prosthetic hands, legs, drones, wigs, piercing, tattoo and implants, software upgrades; the list goes on and on, as far as the eye can see, illusory holograms flashing elaborate logos. As they walk through the alleyways, surrounded by visitors in incredible outfits, Jake looks around with absolute wonderment.

  “Wow, this place is something!” expresses David.

  Chloe replies over her shoulder as she makes way for him and Jake: “You’ll see, my buddy Sergei, he’s really good.”

  Dazzled by the many flying objects and amazing costumes, Jake lags a little behind. A man sitting at a stand with no current visitor waves at him, strange colorful objects lying on the table between them. “Hey man!” he calls out, “You wanna try on one of my models?”

  Jake comes closer to inspect, with little understanding, the set of prosthetic genitalia displayed on the table. Myoelectric phalluses of all sizes and colors lie next to artificial vaginas. “They’re all one hundred, up to two hundred percent sensitive!” the stand-owner points out. “And they got vibrate, remote, glow in the dark: you name it!”

  A few meters ahead and chatting with David, Chloe looks back only to see Jake standing at the booth. She tells David to wait while she walks back and grabs Jake by the hand. As she pulls him, she turns to the peddler of genitalia: “Dude, not cool!” she exclaims.

  The man smiles joyfully: �
�Hey Chloe!” he bursts, throwing his arms up.

  She’s not responding to his friendliness: “He’s a kid,” she explains, scoldingly.

  The peddler is astounded: “You are?” he blurts out, as they walk away. “Cool!”

  Chloe and Jake have caught up to David. She looks slightly ashamed. “Were these…?” David asks, still unclear.

  “Yep!” she replies, dropping the subject immediately. “Now, moving on: I think I see my buddies over there.”

  Jake laughs to himself. He and David exchange a glance and a giggle.

  “Sergei!” calls out Chloe, waving at a stand owner further into the hall.

  She pushes through the crowd, opening up a path for David and Jake. As she approaches, the people standing in front of the small kiosk turn to her, and David recognizes some of the faces: Bill the biker is here, Malcolm the Brazilian rasta as well. A thin humanoid robot stands by on a set of track wheels, a seven inch vertical screen where its head would be displaying a video call from its remote owner, a disheveled Chinese woman in her sixties.

  “Chloe!” goes the woman on the screen, visibly surprised.

  “Mum!” Chloe replies joyfully, embracing the narrow-framed drone. “Taking a break from work?” she asks, complicitly.

  The woman sneers: “Ah, you know, I’m multi-tasking.”

  Turning to her guests, Chloe makes the introductions: “Guys, this is my mother: Morgan. Mum, this is David and his son, Jake. He unclipped his mask and we need a fix.”

  “Oh!” The woman bursts. “Well, you’ve come to the right place! This young man here is the best face artist in town!”

  She points at Sergei, a young Russian man at a stand covered with ultra-realistic faces, molded and hand finished, most of which would readily fit the slot in Jake’s skull. Every skin color, every nose type, every eyelid profile seems here, on the table; some faces look more masculine, and some more feminine, but disembodied and lying flat next to one another, most seem androgynous. The face-maker looks proudly over his confections, letting Jake absorb all the input.

  Taking his time, the boy finally leans over the table to pick up the mask which most resembles his previous appearance. He lifts it up to look at it from up close, the strange impression of holding a mirror moving over him.

  David is looking over his shoulder with a growing sense of success, when he feels a tap on his back. Behind him, the biker from the group therapy is smiling at him: “Hi, David,” he says, cheerfully.

  David would rather focus on his son but he’s grateful for the welcome. “Oh, hi. Hem…” he trails off.

  “It’s Bill,” the biker reminds.

  “Funny seeing you here.”

  Meanwhile, Sergei and Chloe are helping Jake take off the duct tape from his head, preparing to switch his current mask with the one he just chose.

  “Chloe brought you?” asks Bill.

  “Yes! She’s been… extremely helpful,” David replies, a sigh of emotion rushing through his lungs as he observes his son try on a new face.

  The biker isn’t paying nearly as much attention to the scene, instead asking: “You’re coming to the Workshop later?”

  Slightly annoyed but still polite, David turns to him. “I’m sorry,” he says, “the what?”

  Sitting at a console twice as complex as the one from the construction site, Angelo tries to keep track of the long list of devices pointed out by the technicians. Facing him from inside the training hangar, the six troopers are in full gear, standing in a row while awaiting orders. Major Hanzo walks back and forth, routinely inspecting their equipment. Everywhere, engineers in full-body suits amass in small groups to clean up and maintain this expensive equipment.

  A technician looking over his shoulder, Angelo boots up the console. In quick succession, his screen starts displaying the point of view of each assisted trooper in smaller windows, along with their heartbeat, systems integrity, and dozens of other cryptic diagnostics. Meanwhile, the smaller screens on the outside rim of the console remain black, but there’s enough already to let Angelo feel overwhelmed.

  The Major walks to the console, now far enough from the troops to appear facing away on each of their screens. “Are you getting ready, Mr. Saldana?” he asks patiently.

  More than a little pressured, but able and willing, Angelo does his best to smile with confidence: “I think I got the basics, sir,” he replies.

  “Alright, boot them up,” orders the Major.

  Angelo presses a series of buttons to launch the boot-up sequence; on his screens, signals turns from red to green as one after another the six exoskeletons power up. The suits straighten up in a quick and threatening fashion, extending their height by half a foot. Once their motors activated, the troopers pull up their high-tech rifles.

  “Good,” deems the Major. “Miss Gillian, are you comfortable?”

  From inside her exosuit, Patti replies through a radio: “It actually is!”

  “This is the Achilles exosuit,” the Major moves on, pacing in front of his troops while reciting his pamphlet like a professional salesman. “It provides protection from heavy caliber gunfire, as well as close ranged attacks. Servomotors embedded under the armor carry the weight of the equipment and assist the user with a better range of motion than any traditional heavy gear. It complements your motions in order to augment your physical capabilities from three to ten times, in areas such as endurance, strike force, or stopping power. It's effective against chemical and biological threats, and it allows for twelve hours of autonomy, which is a hundred times more than any of our engagements will require. Any questions?”

  The squad leader raises a hand: “Sir, I forgot the button for the cup holder,” he jokes, drawing chuckles from all except the commanding officer.

  “Very funny Mr. Bautista,” slams the Major, his trademark deadpan chilling the room’s atmosphere. “Your second piece of equipment is the Percival smart rifle. It comes with automatic two twenty-three fire and an underbarrel twenty millimeters rifle. On-board computer systems take care of the targeting and firing mechanisms, sending direct feedback to your suit, as well as to the overseer's console.” He marks a pause, certainly aware that half of that techno-babble went over everyone’s head. “Under your thumb, next to the safety, you'll find the muzzle camera switch,” he dumbs down. “Give it a try, Bravo Three.”

  Realizing that the instruction is purposefully lacking, Patti first looks down at her smart-rifle to find the power button. As she switches it on, the rifle comes alive, speaking with a genderless synthetic voice: “User online.”

  She aims down at the ground and pushes the muzzle-camera switch with her thumb. On Angelo’s console as well as in her own display, a window pops up from the rifle’s point of view, telemetric lasers simulating bullet trajectory in real time. She moves the rifle around carefully, unfamiliar with hybrid weapons such as this. “Alright! We can use this to shoot around corners!” she appreciates, profanely.

  “That’s just one application,” the Major expands, leaving to the imagination. “Top to bottom, these rifles are designed to be carried by suit operators. They link directly with your operating system, allowing the overseer complete supervision of the operation. Full recording of our engagements will allow our clients to make a… more favorable assessment of this technology. Provided that you don’t screw up, of course.”

  While the sarcastic warning washes over the troops, technicians show Angelo how to activate thermal vision and light amplification for the troopers. The Major continues his briefing: “This is essential to our assignment in this city. Once your training is complete, our government contract will allow us to take on assignments usually reserved to Special Forces, as a means of demonstration. If the mayor’s office is satisfied with our results, we pack up and move on. If they’re not, I’m the one who’s gonna have to explain why to management.”

  He pauses, letting the idea sink in. “I don’t look forward to that. So you’ll do me the favor of behaving like exemplary civ
ic servants, at all times,” he emphasizes that last part. “I don’t want to see your ugly mugs going viral on the web! Finally, I don’t want to hear about any petty beef between army, navy, police or the secret service. You left all that behind when you signed your contract. Do I make myself clear?”

  The order couldn’t come out in a more crystalline fashion, and the six troopers all reply at once: “Sir, yes sir!” Angelo joins in, uttering the words from mere reflex memory.

  Satisfied, the Major swirls a hand to the attention of the technicians: “Now roll in the hive,” he orders.

  The outer rim of Angelo’s screen lights up with three dozens small windows, when an orchestra of peripherals fly and roll in from their respective stations, surrounding the troops in all-terrain bulletproof shields and surveillance UAVs.

  That same evening, following Chloe’s directions, David drives his car down a dirty alleyway, up to an industrial warehouse located on the edge of the city platform. Above the large open door shines a red neon sign: the word “Workshop” made out of disparate letters projects its warm glow over a small set of stairs. Stepping out of the car, Jake looks up to the luminescent skyscrapers rising high above them. From inside the Workshop, he can hear the chatter of the group of friends they met at Cybercon.

  Chloe lets the boy walk in first, checking his reaction with glee when an automaton springs out to welcome the new guests. Standing on a bent axis, a top hat sewn to its head and a red tailcoat on, the burlesque figure sends its rag doll arms flying as it swings around, a small speaker on its painted face greeting: “Welcome to the Workshop!”

  Jake turns to Chloe and David with a radiant smile; he’s now sporting a brand new custom face, the brown-skinned mask oddly framed by a beige jawline and neck. They found him a wig though, and this fake curly hair is enough to make him resemble his old self. As they walk past the automaton, and inside the warehouse, Jake discovers a large circular room full of electronics and celebrating friends. Under a wide glass rotunda through which the downtown skyscrapers appear, stands a grotesquely huge humanoid robot. Jake freezes with excitement.