"Hey, ain't that our VIP?"
A call sounded from behind.
And for some reason, he believed it was directed at him but still chose to ignore it.
His steps a bit hurried now.
He didn't want to stay here another second.
"Hey, didn't you hear the boss just call you.!"
He stumbled into what felt like a wall.
"Huh?"
Confused he raised his head, expecting to meet a door—or maybe a wall—but to his dismay, his gaze met the rectangular glowing pupils of a bear of a man.
Michael felt like a child before him, standing two heads shorter.
And those eyes... though he didn't believe in the supernatural, they looked demonic.
Like the gaze of Baphomet.
"Your boss?" he croaked out, trying his best not to sound scared.
Though his heart beat could sound a wardrum.
The guy was intimidating in every right; his eye sockets darkened with what Michael believed to be carbon fibers, his cybernetic sutures tracing the symbol of a demonic star.
"Yes, Mr. VIP...?" The voice he'd ignored earlier spoke once again.
He wished he could ignore them - get out of there and enjoy his new apartment, but he had no choice.
It was clear they were cyberpunks.
Messing with them would cost him an arm or two, at the very least.
"So... I didn't know you were calling me." He wanted to say sorry as he usually did, but for some reason, it felt infuriating.
Why should he apologize when there was no need?
"Huh..." His own actions surprised him.
Usually, he'd apologize, they'd pity him, and let him go—or he'd find another way of that didn't work.
But this time he went straight for the bluff.
A last result he usually took when the situation demanded it.
His back straightened, his gaze locked on the man who had called him. " What do you want from me"
The man sat comfortably in a neon-blue booth sofa.
He too had goat-like, horizontal-slit pupils surrounded by sickly yellow irises.
But unlike the burly guy, his cybernetic sutures were only around his eyes, tracing toward his ears.
It was normal—something you could see anywhere.
"Wow, we got a spicy one," the boss said, standing up, his cyberware exposed—mechanical legs that eerily resembled those of a satyr.
Coupled with his goat-like eyes, he truly looked like a mythical creature envisioned by a mad engineer.
Michael's gaze was unconsciously drawn to the legs.
"You ain't from here, are you?" the boss questioned.
"No."
"Well, yesterday, you spurted all your T's[1] on the dolls here..." He stepped closer.
Michael's heart beating in his chest threatening to flee, yet for some reason, he stood his ground, his unwavering gaze looking down at the man.
He was slightly shorter than Michael.
"I was watching you the whole night, yet you didn't even give a single T and left to enjoy your night..." He tugged at Michael's shoulder. "Well, it ain't too late to give us our quota." He smirked, the others in the lobby bursting into mocking chuckles.
"Oh, I get it—he wants to extort money. That's why I never want to cross these punks. I'll just give him a few units and bail. He doesn't know where I live anyway..." Micheal thought, calculating the amount of units he could give that wouldn't be too large or too small.
"100 units should be enough," he concluded.
That should get them off his back for a while, he believed, but even a fool would know a hundred units could never be enough.
But his poverty said otherwise. One hundred units was a quarter of his monthly rent back when he was in the beehive; 100 to him was more than enough.
A poor man made rich becomes as stingy as rain in a desert.
"I won't give you anything!" Michael exclaimed.
Quickly covering his mouth as if he had said what he shouldn't have.
Taken aback by his own words, he quickly corrected himself. "Sorry, what I meant to say is that I'll give you a hundred units..." He tried to recover, but before he could thin of what happened, he felt annoyed at the thought of giving them anything—and once again spoke.
"I ain't giving you squat! The dolls there made me feel pleasure—can your hard cyberware do same?"
Michael spat, his gaze dripping with indignation.
"What did I just say?" he screamed internally.
It was his own mouth, yet it seemed he couldn't control it. He didn't feel possessed—but blatantly said what he felt.
Like a child without any filters, his grown-up filter seemed dysfunctional, saying what he felt.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to..." He bowed to the 'boss' who was now looking at him like a fool.
Michael hadn't noticed, but the lobby had gone dead silent.
Most had their mouths agape, staring at him as if he'd just put his hand into the mouth of a sleeping hippo.
Only this time, the hippo wasn't asleep.
"Are you joking with me right now?" The boss raised an eyebrow, his face contorted in rage.
"Sorry... I'm not. I felt like giving you a hundred, but considering you've got nothing to give me, I'm taking that back. Maybe another night with the dolls will be worth my time..." Michael said with disdain—and to add salt to the injury, turned to one of the strippers nearby.
A hologram unit bill floating toward her—on it, a thousand.
"Take that doll," he winked, then turned to the boss who had his head down.
" What can..." Michael, who was about to taunt, paused as he sensed an attack from behind.
It seemed the burly man had had enough of his nonsense and was about to strike.
"Child's play," Michael thought as he tried to dodge—well, he believed he had dodged—but the next moment—
Crash! His head hit the glass table nearby, the table shattering on impact.
"How dare you!"
Several men rose from their booths, their eyes bearing the same horizontal pupils.
It was clear they were a group of cyberpunks, and disrespecting them on their turf was a huge blow to their egos.
"What... I thought I could dodge that..." Michael lay in a pool of his own blood, glass shards glinting under the neon lit luminance.
He was bruised and cut, yet paid it no heed, his eyes widened in disbelief as he thought of why he couldn't dodge.
Better yet, why he, who had no martial arts data, thought he could dodge.
For some strange reason, he truly believed he could evade the attack with ease—yet here he was.
"Wait... why did I even...?" He thought of where that uncharted bravado came from, his eyes lighting up in realization.
The same reason he was in this mess in the first place.
"Ironbeard..." He gritted his teeth in frustration.
The darn neuro pathways was interfering with his reasoning.
"Argh!" A foot landed on his leg, the sound of crushing bone echoing.
Several attacks landed on him as the whole group took turns beating him like a dog, the 'boss' with arms crossed, a wicked grin on his face as he watched the show.
This was no longer about the money—they had to beat him for the sake of their reputation.
Several attacks landed on him, yet he didn't make a sound.
The first scream of agony was unexpected, as he'd been caught off guard—but now...
Michael and Ironbeard shared the same iron-blooded will.
I won't let them get the satisfaction of seeing my tears. If I'm going to die anyway...
If there was no chance of survival, then he wouldn't give the enemy the satisfaction of victory.
He would try, beg, kneel—if he believed there was hope.
But as long as hope disappeared, so did his weakness.
There was no need to beg if it wouldn't work.
"Is he dead?" The raining assault halted, unsure whether he was alive or not.
They had beaten him, but avoided his vitals—if he died in the district R, it would cause trouble.
"I hope he isn't dead. If he is, you know what'll happen," the bartender said calmly, skillfully cleaning a glass.
[1] Short for Unit