The Mechanic

Black Market

What he was doing was ill-advised, and possibly could compromise his whole identity along with his mission. Public Portals were under the jurisdiction of the FTL Transport Authority which was overseen by Praetors. Which made journeys easier to track for the Praetorians. And without the Portals, intergalactic transportation was limited to Astrocarriers. Which takes days to travel even several thousand light-years. Their monopoly over transportation among all the other basic human needs made the Praetorian indisposable

Soon as he stepped into it, the cylinder rotated so that he was completely enclosed in its embrace. What a nice way to die. Completely out of the world's reach, yet, seeing the world in all its horrors. Entombed in glass. A deep thrum started rumbling through the base of the device. The deep throb carried through the soles of his shoes and vibrated his bones.

"Entanglement sequence initiated"

The once-transparent glass suddenly turned opaque and white, as if a switch had been flipped. The boss kept waiting, tapping his foot impatiently. The entanglement sequence normally took less than 2 minutes to completely sync up his atoms. It seemed like this was taking way longer. Really should get a private portal installed somewhere here. His ears picked up a faint tap on the glass. A weird sensation traveled through the metal base, through his soles, and into his feet. Almost like a... scratch. He frowned and looked down at his shoes.

Someone's messing with the control board

"Fatal Synchronisation Failure"

His eyes widened with terror as he pressed the button on the watch-like device on his left wrist. He lunged forward to the control terminal and pressed abort. It did nothing. He kept jamming his fingers against it as if he had the power to command technology with sheer willpower and force. The next moment, he was no more. The portal was empty.

His body rematerialized in a completely different environment but not the way his body was supposed to be. There was no human. There was no man. In fact, there was no living being at all. Just a mass of flesh and bones in the wrong angles and in all the wrong places. In the place between stars and planets. In the cold, dark void of space, light years away from the nearest human settlement.

***

"Well done." a gravelly voice spoke through her earpiece.

"This was easy, wait till you actually see what I can do". Sara announced cheerfully

"Oh, I don't doubt it. We'll stay in touch."

Call Ended appeared in the middle of her vision. She looked around. She was sitting on the hard-packed dirt floor, huddled against the portal's white cylindrical tube. Her legs stretched in front of her, she was holding a black tablet and was pretending to play a video game on it. Video games were a thing of the past, the newest craze was RL games or Real Life games. But they were still useful in scenarios like this. Besides, no one would look twice at a poor teenage girl dressed in rags sitting on the floor, playing video games. Nobody would notice that she didn't, in fact, have any game running on the tablet. Or the wires running through the sleeve, under her oversized shirt, and back down into the access hatch that she was covering with her back. She quickly dispatched a script that would erase the portal's logs and reverted it back to factory settings.

A quick notification reminded her that fifty-thousand units had been delivered to her account. An involuntary smirk lit up her face.

***

She was looking through the eyes of an augmented bodyguard in the black market. The bodyguard's visual feed coming from his sub-cranial processor was live-streamed into the luxurious home of the Board executive. her lithe body was cradled in the soft cushions of her expensive lounge chair. The augmented bodyguard was looking at a small girl sitting on the floor leaning against a portal. She was about 10 meters away from him. She didn't notice the bodyguard looking at her. A small smile slashed through her face. The executive could see it through the bodyguard's enhanced vision.

"Terminate this asset. She is of no further use to us."

"understood"

the bodyguard made a beeline towards the girl. She didn't notice him until it was too late. Her eyes made wide white discs in her dirt-streaked, dark brown face. The bodyguard sensed her heart rate and perspiration levels skyrocket. The bodyguard grabbed her from the shirt and pulled her towards him and lifted her off her feet.

"what. NO get OFF ME!" the girl's shrill voice drew in little attention. Things like this were commonplace in the black market.

She kicked the man repeatedly and kept pummeling the man's face with her bony fists. She twisted and turned and bent her neck at an angle and bit the hand holding her shirt collar. The executive smiled at these futile efforts. Augmented humans felt no pain.

The bodyguard reached into his suit jacket with his other arm and pulled out a silver blaster. He pointed it at the girl's head and fired. The girl's horrified expression was the last thing the executive saw of her as her skull imploded, splattering grey matter, blood, and sinew everywhere.

Satisfied, the executive laid back in her plush cushions. Her serene face was graced by a small, mischievous smile.