O.C. Saar
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General Release | Chapter 4: Six and Six
🕑 Added 2025-06-02 18:04:01 +0000 UTCA man’s raucous laughter all but shook the room. We both turned towards the front desk, where the loud sound came from. There, Thoron sat, slapping his knee, trying and failing to contain his mirth. As his guffaws slowly petered out, he wiped a tear away and looked up at us. His eyes met mine, flickering for a moment with surprise, and he gave me a small smile, barely visible behind his bushy, salt-and-pepper beard. A smile that I was all too happy to return.
He slowly stood up, his massive frame finally in full display. Thoron made Jim look like a chubby kid. He was well over two and a half meters tall, and the bulging muscles under his warm mahogany skin made him look like a sculpture that would grace the garden of a mansion on the Middle Ring. “Raziel!” he shouted, vaulting over the desk with a nimbleness that belied his physique and running at me with a wide grin.
I froze in place, watching with a mix of fascination, joy, surprise, and terror as the 350-ish kilo man barrelled towards me, each step thunderous and shaking the thick metal floor. Momentarily, the image of myself standing before an oncoming train flashed through my brain. I let out a rather undignified squeak.
“Where have you been, you crazy bastard?” He yelled as he approached, stopping himself right before he crashed into me, picked me up, and gave me a surprisingly gentle hug. “It has been too long. Far too long, my friend.” I returned the hug, patting his side since I couldn’t get my arm to reach his back.
“Hey, Thoron. Too long, indeed.” his display of affection didn’t surprise me; he’d always been a hugger, but it warmed my heart to be so eagerly greeted.
He let go and stood back, looking me up and down, concern etched on his face. “I tried reaching out after I heard about… Well, everything, but you never got back to me. How’ve you been holding up?”
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. Well, that’s a lie. I’ve been positively wretched. Anyway, listen, I’m thrilled to see you, and I hope we’ll get to catch up very soon over a cup of hot white chocolate, but I’m on an extremely tight schedule right now. I’m going to need one of your private rooms.”
He could tell that the time for socializing was over. He immediately turned and started walking back towards his desk. “What kind do you need?”
“Evaluation, today. The standard affair, I’m not here for myself. I’m here for the kid. Hey, Aren, introduce yourself.” I looked at Aren, who was stuck gawping at Thoron and glancing around the room in disgust and disbelief.
To Aren’s credit, the lobby did look a little run down. Some wall panels were chipping paint, the synthwood floor had been covered with a ratty carpet that was torn and faded at some points, and stained furniture that I sincerely doubted had ever been considered something close to comfortable littered the vast room. Okay, it looked a lot worse than “a little run down,” but, like everything that Thoron was involved in, I’m sure it was all part of a very meticulously planned and executed strategy. Calling Aren by his name seemed to snap him out of it, and he focused on Thoron after sending me a scowl first.
“Name’s Aren Thells. I’m with Kornok’s crew.” His tone was clipped and suspicious, obviously thinking that I was playing some prank on him.
“You probably know me by my nickname. Does Steelfist ring any bells?” Thoron sat back at his desk and looked at Aren, who’d gone as still as a statue, under raised eyebrows, typing away at his terminal. “And who is this Kornok?” he turned to me.
“Mission broker and gang leader. Owns and lives on a scrap crawler out in 11.” I said.
“Ratings?” His eyebrows climbed up a little more.
“Gray. 4 and 2, if solo. Potentially a 6 and a 6 if there is significant backing, but nobody has claimed him in the past six years. His base has gotten mighty cushy lately, and he’s handing out some pretty serious contracts, so I’d say, put some feelers out, just to be safe.” Rings, I missed talking shop.
“Small fry, that explains it,” he snorted. “Word of advice, kid.” he turned to Aren, whose face had gone pale with shock. “Don’t go around throwing your boss’ name left and right like that. People will start thinking that's all you've got going for you. In this place, your affiliations don’t mean squat. You are judged on the merit of your skills, not whoever you happen to work for.”
Aren’s mouth moved wordlessly as his already pale complexion turned ashen. “I… Steelfist? The Steelfist? But they say that only people who reached the 4th rank have ever seen you!”
That statement didn’t make much sense to me. “4th rank? What’s that about?”
Thoron made a sour face. “Couple years ago, I received a request from the big guys, a unanimous one, too. Had to change how things work around here a little bit. Now, to gain access to better facilities, you have to defeat a challenge. Beat the challenge, and you go up a rank and move on to the next floor. The higher you go, the better equipment you have unlimited access to. You have no idea how much extra work that was. At least they covered the expenses.”
I looked at him in surprise. “But how do you make money now?”
“Monthly membership fees. The higher you get, the more expensive it gets. It feels a little scummy, but since I was practically strong-armed into changing my ‘Pay for what you use’ policy, I had to find a way to stay afloat. At least I made this floor free for anyone with access,” he finished typing on his terminal and nodded to himself. “Room thirty-two is free right now. Go to the left, take the second right turn, and you’ll find it down the hall.”
“Great, thanks, Thoron.” I smiled gratefully at him and started walking in the direction he indicated.
“But why are you here?” Aren asked him, still obviously dumbfounded.
“I heard an old friend was coming. Now off with you.” His ‘trainer voice’ had so much authority that even I started walking a little faster.
Thankfully, that was enough to get Aren to stand ramrod straight and say, “Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” before running after me. I just smiled, imagining Thoron's shit-eating grin on his face right now.
He caught up to me in moments, and the questions resumed. “What are those numbers about?”
“What numbers?” I asked.
“Gray, 4 and 2. Sounded like nonsense.”
“Ah, right. I’m surprised you didn’t know; Kornok didn’t tell you?” I thought this stuff was common knowledge amongst the gangs.
“No.” His expression turned bitter, and he pretended to find the walls very interesting. “My education has been a bit focused on other, more practical aspects of life. As is right for a tool, I suppose.” The hurt in his voice knocked a brick out of the wall of annoyance that his behavior was building in my mind, so I threw him a bone.
"The world is big and complicated, Aren. So are the people in it. So, to make some things a little easier to understand, a classification system was created. This was way before my grandparents were born, but it was good enough that it sort of stuck around. First is the color. White are organizations, companies, and mission brokers that are above board and legal. Think of someone who works with law enforcement to capture criminals or who might specialize in getting contracts for some particularly difficult pest exterminations from various companies and is getting a cut from finding a person for the job."
"Pest extermination? Sounds cushy." Aren interrupted.
"Maybe, but it doesn't pay all that well, and it takes time to build out a network of contacts. People who only work for white contracts are called Whitesuits or just Suits. Anyway, then you have Gray, like your boss and crew. Those deal with some legal jobs and illegal things, but nothing truly heinous. Theft, some drugs, scams, protection rackets, roughing people up, or killing members of opposing gangs, the usual. People who take gray contracts are called Graylines or Liners. Then you have black."
I couldn't help the disgusted grunt that climbed out of my throat. "Gangs designated as black deal in human trafficking, children, and other vile shit. The people who take black contracts I call scum. Others may call them Blackjacks or Jackies. Then, finally, you have red. Red are directly and overtly linked with the Ecclisiarchy and the Priests.”
I pinned him with a look. “Never take a red contract or associate with anyone who does. The moment you pick up a red contract, a mark appears in the middle of your forehead to show that you are acting on behalf of the Priests, and you are essentially blacklisted by all the other brokers, gangs, and neutral ground facilities for good. Nobody wants the Priests or their lackeys getting involved in their business, so only the desperate, insane, or truly faithful take those. We call those people Cardinals. You don’t want to get the attention of the Cardinals."
Aren looked thoughtful, doubtlessly absorbing the information I gave him like a sponge. “Alright. What about the numbers?”
I shrugged.“That’s a little simpler. First number is the danger level of a group, and the second is their influence. Both go from 1 to 10. It's an easy way for gangs to have a hierarchy and to understand who they can afford to piss off and who they can’t. Also helps you figure out if a job is worth the risk or if the backing you have isn’t enough.”
Aren looked pensive, and we walked silently for a moment. “It sounds very tidy and logical. Who decides these numbers and colors? You’d expect that with gangs being... Well, gangs, that it would all be pretty chaotic.”
“Not as much as you expect. There are neutral facilities similar to this one, whose sole purpose is to investigate, evaluate, and assign these scores. Gangs can volunteer to be tested, too. Some carry their numbers as marks of pride. Gangs that don’t have rankings are either beneath notice or soon to be violently, and permanently, disbanded.”
“Huh, I think I get it now. So we have Whitesuits, Graylines, Blackjacks, and Cardinals. What are you then?”
“Retired.” I returned his grin with an equally cheeky, flat look.
“Really? Not “Homeless”? Would explain the smell.” The brat’s expression didn’t change, but I was sure he was grinning on the inside.
“Hey, I showered this morning!” I sniffed myself, just to be safe.
“Sure you did. By the way, we went past our door a minute ago.”
“Oh, for the love of… Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I turned around and started heading back.
“I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.” The cheeky fucker had the gall to grin at me.
Finding our way back to the right door, which, to my embarrassment, had a giant 32 painted across it, I scanned my watch over the lock. It soundlessly slid open, revealing a huge tiled room with metal walls. We both stepped in, and as soon as the door closed, a blue light went down the space between each tile and metal seam of the room. An information window appeared in front of me, floating in the air.
[Training room no. 32] - [Evaluation Mode]
Please select an evaluation program.
Physical Evaluation
Close Quarters Combat Evaluation
Sharpshooting Evaluation
I selected all of them. I had to know everything the kid was capable of. The last thing I wanted was to put him in a situation that was too much for him to handle. Dialing the difficulty to scale, I hit the " Initialize " button.
“So what now?” Aren looked antsy, probably still off-balance from meeting Thoron.
“Now… this!” I said, and with a flourish, pointed at the empty room. A couple of moments passed, and nothing happened.
“Uh…” Aren turned to me, once again looking at me like I had lost my mind.
“Give it a second. Ah, here it is.” The entire room rumbled, and the tiles and walls all started moving. Within a few moments, the whole room had transformed into an intricate obstacle course, with monkey bars spouting out of pillars that had risen from the floor and sections of deep water appearing. “You know how to swim, right?”
“Yeah, Kornok has an indoor pool on the crawler.” Aren started doing some stretches. “So I just have to run a lap?”
I ignored the fact that Kornok, a man who looked like he was allergic to water, had an indoor pool and nodded to him. “Start from the green line there and go a lap. This is going to be your base measurement. Wait for my signal to start.” Wordlessly, Aren walked to the starting spot, and as soon as I said “Begin,” he set off like a bullet.
I’ll admit, the kid was impressive. His form was crude, and he made tiny mistakes here and there that cost him a lot of time, but he was much better than I was at his age. Completing the course, he looked at me, grumpy at being soaked from the water sections, but my nod of approval softened something in his eyes.
“Alright, now that we've got the initial measurement, it's time for the evaluation,” I said.
“What? I thought this was the evaluation.”
I chuckled at his look of confusion. “Nah, this is the evaluation.” I clicked a button floating in the corner of my vision, and a panel on the left wall slid open, revealing a humanoid, faceless automaton. I’m sure it had been shiny a few years ago, but now its surface was lightly rusted and pitted, which only added to the intimidation factor. “And this is your evaluator.”
“What is this thing supposed to do?” Aren looked dubiously at the machine.
“It's supposed to chase you around the course.” The robot bent its knees with a jerky motion.
“This old thing?” His whining started getting on my nerves, so I may have dialed up the evaluation’s difficulty a couple of levels above the baseline for that comment.
“Again, with you judging things based on their appearance.” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Aren. You need to get this lesson through your thick skull before a bullet does it for you. Things are seldom what they seem. Now…” I clicked the glowing red button that had appeared once the robot was good to go with glee.
A whirring sound from the machine started getting louder and louder, the lights that dotted its body turning red. It exploded out of its recess, running like an athlete trained his entire life for this straight at Aren, who looked at the approaching machine with sheer terror in his eyes. Pretty sure I made the same expression when Thoron was barreling at me. It was hilarious. I gave him the brightest smile I could and a double thumbs up.
“Run!”
