this world will break your heart

Part 1: Garbage City - Chapter 4

By the time I was in high school, I had a lot of work done. I stopped caring about being thrown out because I knew it was an idle threat. I had my wrist payment enhanced and my grandmother reminded me that she wasn't going to pay for that. Then, she jacked herself into her stories and was gone until it was time to work again.

The thing about implants is that they are expensive. A Cantos Neufchatel original would set you back at least three years of credits. That's where Sonny and the black market come in handy.

At the corner of most major streets, you can find the stalls staffed by the most enthusiastic, charming people. They tell you that you are beautiful and they have something for you. It is always small and cheap. The procedure only takes seconds. There is also a strong possibility that it won't work. If I had to categorize my implants, they would fall into two types: the ones that work and the ones that are just sitting in my body, rusting, or leaking fluid.

Here's the thing about the implant black market, it's not encouraged. Even buying non-licensed merchandise can leave you with a warning and a credit debt. However, it's really how most people get their implants because of the exorbitant cost of the official ones. So, while they are illegal, there's no real crackdown on these items. There are no warehouse raids in the middle of the night. There are no border guards quickly evaluating everything that comes in those large crates marked "Fragile". There might be an uproar when some stupid kid gets a cheap engager, has seizures, and then dies in a horrible way. The news runs with the story and images of her bloated body that they are used on billboards to serve as a warning of what can happen if you engage in illegal implants. The fact that this stupid kid had a pre-existing condition, already had an engager, and tried to double it up, never enters into the reporting. It's just those scare tactics all dressed up as concern and the fact that for every fake implant sold, the government implant tax gets hit. Yes, there's a government implant tax and it's one of the smartest things they ever did. What is it used for? Supporting fine establishments like Garbage City or padding the pockets of the real implant designers like the great Cantos Neufchatel—whose majestic compound sits on the edge of town.

Sonny was different from the usual charming implant street corner sellers. Instead of hanging around outside of public buildings, or shopping malls, he set up right across the street from my high school. With his angular features and athletic physique, he stood out. The school's administration sent the police around on a weekly basis, but Sonny wasn't scared and always agreed to be searched. He described it as the cost of doing business. There were stories about him that circulated around our classes. The rumor was that he had been a promising cage fighter on a scholarship track. But then, he lost one too many fights and nobody was interested in him anymore. He quickly faded into the background, dropped out...only to re-emerge with a tray full of fakes and set up directly across the street from the place that was once his only source of hope.

His name wasn't Sonny either. Everyone called him Sonny because of this huge sun tattoo across his back. He was one of the first people I ever saw with that type of emotional branding. It would change and reflect his feelings, but considering Sonny's easy-going personality, that sun was always bright and smiling. I only saw it change once—and that was when it faded out for good.

We were hanging out outside of school, using our lunch hour to vape and inject caffeine, when Sonny first walked over. He didn't take out a briefcase or let us know what he was selling. Instead, he just started shooting the shit. What grade were we in? Did the school still have a good caging team? Did we live around here? I was standing with my little posse of smart-asses and we didn't answer him directly. But he didn't get mad. He just laughed and said he knew a lot of girls like us back in the day.

Slowly, we all noticed something about Sonny. Whenever he blinked, his eyes changed color. They were blue, green, grey, brown, black, and then hazel with gold flecks.

"Who did that for you?" Melanie demanded.

"I got a guy. I can hook you up if you want?" And man, we really wanted to be hooked up. Sonny told us to meet him after school and that it would cost us about three weeks' worth of credits. While this was a little strange because we always heard the first one was free, the school dance was only two weeks away and those eyes would increase our date-a-bility. And three weeks of credits wasn't that bad. After all, what else could I spend that on?

Truth was that the color switching only lasted for two months before an upgrade came out. And that would be another three weeks of credits. Then the software was out-of-date and incompatible with older models. What else is new? But for the next two months, we were the shit. We ruled the school, safe in the knowledge that our eyes were amazing.