The quest chip.

Finishing off my morning fix, I threw my cup into the recycling bin, grabbed Red's breakfast, and made my way to Goliath's place.

 Heading to the monorail station, I passed a couple of Cerberus security guards clad in their heavy armor and armed to the teeth with their faceless halms, boring into everyone's soul.

 Nocturna is an anarcho-hyper-capitalist Mega city-state but there is truly no authoritarian government of any kind around here. Everyone is his own sovereign. and with no centralized state or government authority. All functions typically associated with the state were to be privatized or handled through 'voluntary associations'.

 There was a strong emphasis on private property rights back then, after the separation war. Individuals and businesses would own land, resources, and means of production. Property rights are fundamental. Instead of a government-run police force, private security firms could provide protection services.

It was and is still the case in many better districts of Nocturna: citizens could choose a security firm based on their reputation, customer reviews, or expertise in certain areas. These firms could patrol neighborhoods, respond to emergencies, and provide investigative services.

But there was an imbalance of power from the start; the seeds that were the proto-syndicates have grown into a completely efficient ecosystem that quickly revealed its rot. They grew fat off their influence, siphoning off wealth and power, while the rest of us had to scrabble for scraps. They carved out their own fiefdoms, owning everything within, where we, the peasants, have to pick up the scraps they left behind.

And again, there is this whole funny idea of the Restitution and Compensation System, where they thought criminal acts could be addressed through restitution, where the perpetrator compensates the victim for damages or losses. This could involve financial compensation, property restoration, or other remedies agreed upon by the parties involved.

This created all the expected loopholes as those private arbitration bodies were always biased towards those who could pay more, and

those individuals who can easily compensate victims, avoiding significant consequences for their actions, while poorer offenders might be unable to pay restitution, leading to severe penalties or lifelong debt that resulted in indentured servitude or forced labor, effectively creating a class of economic slaves.

This left people between the nail and the hammer: if you run to the corporate-ruled part of the city, you will get screwed by the Corpo apex; if you stay in the gutter's urban sprawl, you will be screwed by the street gangs and their parent syndicates.

With a deep sigh, I boarded the cramped steel worm that was reeking of stale sweat, puke, and alcohol. I leaned with my head against the glass feeling the vibration of the train as it sped up while staring outside as we rattled toward the border of the Quay and Sabletown, where Goliath had his base camp.

 Soon after I passed the giant statue of the Roman hell god Pluto, who stood with its antithetical gaze opposing New York's Statue of Liberty, it was erected as an irrevocable statement from the Cerberus Concordant, that loose voluntarily associated meta-organization that was formed in the wake of the American assault by all selfish forces invested in the city's perpetuation, which was a representation of the Corpos council, the syndicates council, and the Heroes Guild, which formed the three heads of the guard dog that watched over the city.

 Once an incorporated American territory, this not-yet-megacity found itself disavowed in the 1930s after failed Prohibition enforcement, which was the spark that ignited the hell that is now called Nocturna.

 In that period, the production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages were banned. While the intention behind Prohibition was to reduce crime, corruption, and social problems associated with alcohol consumption, it had unintended consequences, one of which was the rise of organized crime.

 Even if different crime organizations sprouted all over the United States, it would be nothing like Nocturna. Here, they were cunning, effective, well-equipped, and cruel—not at all subtle—to show their power.

 The first Syndicate troops were rallied into the streets, surrounded by the corps that wanted the city for themselves, and the killing started.

"Give them hell!" they shouted.

 Not soon after, the USA sent its soldiers to quell and rid the city of all these new organizations; however, the city citizens didn't take their protectors becoming their oppressors lightly.

 After all, it was prohibited to use the military against your citizens, right?

 The resulting violent upheaval led to the bloodiest lightning war to ever happen.

 The arterial streets were choked with corpses, and smoke darkened the sky as government forces crushed civilian resurgences.

In the cataclysmic aftermath, face desperately saved, America performed self-surgery and cut Nocturna from its main body with a series of explosions that blew up the bridges, now known as District Zero or Alhawia.

 The American propaganda went into full swing, pinning all on Nocturna, the usual saving-face mendacities to preserve the wholesome brand. For we, the megaplex dwellers and kowloonist slum survivors of Nocturna Island, had always embodied the most trenchant and sanguinary heart of the violent revolutionary freedom for all dream, the sharpened spirit of colonial upheaval.

 There was also this violent quality to the island; there was always blood in its past and more rushing to its future, and its dripping never seemed like it's going to stop, promising to fill its surrounding ocean.

Violence was always part of Noctruna; some even believe that it's the literal hell, and it draws all the wicked to its embrace to purify them with its fire. but whether inherent, imposed, or simply natural mercantile hardening, an inculcation towards violence became our abiding faith. a constant part of Nocturna's history, the foundation upon which the city was built and thrived regardless of the first utopian dreams of the anarchists.

 But it was the crucible of the World Wars that morphed Nocturna into the sleek profithexed alloy it remains today—a neo-feudal corporatocracy springing from the mechanized offal-grinders of mechanized human valor. Our thirsts for technological supremacy and true commercial deterritorialization bonded with the lucrative intimacies of total warfare, allowing us to equip any conflict, any belligerent slaughter spree, so long as the credits flowed.

 Since then, the city has undergone numerous transformations, becoming a city in perpetual metamorphosis, always in flux, never static or stagnant. There was always something happening in some dark alley—a corpus board meeting or a Fixer's den—that defined the next decade, and in Nocturna, everyone hungers to be the meme-spore at the rotting core, no matter how ephemeral such primacy is.

Yet it was called Thronthrone for a reason. No matter how high you clambered up the corporeal stratocracy, you remained just another peon-pretender, squatting atop an entire archaeology of lesser thrones. Even the grand, seemingly divine megacorpus, those ostensibly untouchable people of executive power, existed in perpetual siege. forced to eternally fight over territory, resources, and power.

Getting off, I zigzagged through the crowd as I headed to Goliath's shop, he runs an auto repair shop which I am sure has a lot of chip chopping going on in the back, it was Goliath's father's business, but Goliath had better aspirations than getting his hands dirty with only grease, he wants them smeared with blood.

Fixers, the ones you run to when you want to fix-up something or looking to fix someone's problem. They are deal brokers who conduct business through Quest chips as they are called.

All business around here is done through what's called voluntary interactions, which are deeply rooted in the city's philosophy and mean that individuals can engage in activities, transactions, and relationships based on mutual consent. This means that all parties involved willingly agree to participate without any form of coercion or force.

The Quest chips are a manifestation of that; they are contracts or distributed ledgers that link people involved in them via secure cryptographic hashes. They are just like Credsticks and based on the same technology but have multiple layers of functionality than a simple Credit chip.

As I approached the shop, I could hear what I could only describe as angelic vocal cords, NOT.

"I ain't your average sicko... I'm dead, just like disco... My bank account is zero-zero-zero, oh no." 

I knocked on the back door of the garage as my ears bled from my friend's talent.

"I think I need a hero. Oh," Red sang as he opened the door, he wore his cyber-deck over his head and a dark windbreaker retrofitted with pouches for accessories and local compute modules that made him look puffy.

"Well, my hero is indeed here," he cheered as he grabbed the bag from my hands and headed back inside.

"Where's Goliath?" I asked my friends, who sped to the table, and they started tearing the paper bag like a rabid dog.

"He's upstairs tending to his grandma or something," Red answered with a mouthful.

Red was a redhead with freckles all over his face that looked like splatters of blood or mud. He carried himself with zero care for the world around him, and had the biggest dreams, but did absolutely nothing to make them happen.

I would applaud his cyberrunning if he was good at it, but he comes off as more of a cyber culture nerd than an actual capable cyberrunner and since it's a tight-knit community it made him feel like he belongs somewhere. and credit where it's due, he does have a talent for breaking Credsticks though. 

"He doesn't have a grandma." I deadpanned as I walked around and looked at the rides that were parked inside the garage to be "fixed".

"True, I only babysit you two," a gruff voice said from above as the Blackwall called Goliath descended the stairs with two boxes of parts in his hands.

"What do you have for me today? You said it's something good?" I asked with hopeful eyes.

"It is indeed good." 

"Give me so I can deliver it fast, and hopefully I can squeeze in some more milk runs today," I said, taking a seat beside Red, who had ignored us and focused completely on his food.

"It's not like that, kid," he answered.

Goliath walked into his workbench, set the box, then put his hands in his back pockets and produced a golden Quest chip.

"No, man, I am not doing this," I stammered as I Stood up and took a step back from him.

A golden quest chip means it's a hero's guild job, the major leagues, things that get you flatlined fast.

"Take it easy, kid. I've got this from when I was at Mike's pub on 13th Chainsaw Street. I thought it was a busted chip when I found it in the booth, which my dad usually hangs out in with his associates, but when I checked, I found that it was still not active and the quest was still ongoing," he explained.

While Goliath was aspiring to become a fixer and make easy blood money which pretty much he was already doing but small-time jobs and shit runs like the ones he get me, however, the matters of jobs weren't as easy. If you join the guild, you're pretty much a soldier in everything but name.

They had their costumed heroes as they called them for branding, which are celeb-mercs they parade around for busting a ripper gang or holding off a USA incursion.

But those pretty heroes were just that, pretty, but the dirty work is done by the scared warriors whose short lives in the business aren't that pretty or easy; they were daredevils who banked on the small window of pleasure they live while doing the most dangerous job and you can't get more dangerous than pawning your life on the chessboard .

For some, a small, short-lived pleasure-filled life is much better than a long life of struggle; live fast and die young in a blaze of glory.

If you grow old in such a profession, it means you belong to the "most dangerous person on the planet" category and those are rare.

I thought Goliath took the easy route to the fixer's business by signing in with the guild but even if he explained he wasn't I still didn't calm down since he was still trying to throw me to the dogs.

Red perked up from his food and devilishly smiled, and that smile meant he would drag me into trouble.

"What is it, and can we do it?" he inquired, approaching Goliath with an eager curiosity, his eyes fixated on the chip in Goliath's hands.

"Sit, both of you," Goliath commanded.

We complied, and Goliath produced his Nexus, plugging the chip in before sliding it over to us.

[Loading quest...]

Serve and Protect

Type: Courier.

Pay: 10,000 credits.

Additional confidential details will be revealed after accepting the quest.

[Do you accept the quest?]

[Yes] [No]

Red made my ear drum bleed again as he squeaked in excitement and my eyes widened to the size of melons, but worry soon clouded my expression.

"There's no way anyone short of a Concordant platoon walks away from that alive. Look at the zeros, man," I said, my voice tinged with disbelief.

"Let's take it; we'll be rich dude!" Red shouted, his mind already racing with fantasies of what he'd buy with his cut. The thought of finally losing his virginity danced in his head.

"don't be spoilsport" he added with a childish pout.

"Think, Red. This is too good to be true." I shook my head, trying to be the voice of reason.

"Listen, kid, if you don't want it, leave it," Goliath said, leaning back in his chair, interlocking his hands behind his bald head. "I've only brought it to you because you're a hardworking kid and trustworthy because of all the jobs you've done with me and as you can see it's still a courier gig, you do those daily."

"Trust is hard to come by in this city, and as you see, this is a guild's chip. It means trouble if I involve any outsiders. I haven't told anyone else about this," he added.

"But you can clearly see it's a big job. Don't you think whoever lost it will come looking for it?" I countered, feeling the weight of impending doom. I wanted to keep my skull intact when the heavy waves came crashing, but it seemed the tsunami was already here.

"It doesn't work like that, Pip-Squeak; you can already see the quest is not active."

"Well, wouldn't that mean that if the chip quest is lost, whoever issued it will cancel the quest or re-issue another one, and maybe the quest is already done?" I was not sure how the guild and merc business worked so I asked.

"That's a lot of money to just brush aside unless you're a mega-corpo, and second, as far as they are concerned, the quest is not active yet."

"But..." I was about to object when Goliath hit his hand on the table.

"Enough pussying around; you think avoiding the water will get you to cross the river?" he sneered.

"Pain or damage won't end your world. despair, or taking a fucking beating will not do either. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back," he saged, clearly telling me to grow a spine.

"No, I can't." I shook my head down, remembering the orphanage, the blood, the fire, and the possibility of letting whatever did all of that loose on the world.

[grrrrrr, sharu'endal dar]

He lunged at me and yanked me from my chair by my coat collar, and I let out a yelp.

[baa?]

"This city is a pit and there is one ladder, and that's your courage, and sitting in the button won't save you from stammering and falling cause you're already," he said through his teeth, then he released me.

"Ugh," I said as I massaged my neck. "What was that about?"I snapped at Goliath.

"This is a chance for you and me," he started to explain.

"What about me?" Red whined and we both shot him a glare.

"You can cling to the illusion of safety or having another way up or around the ladder; there are none, all your copious ideas are fake and a Mirage; the only thing real is the ladder; as a matter of fact, you will fuck up; it's up to you to choose to fuck up slowly or a little too late; you choose. 

"Remember you're not the son of a Corpo, an heir of a syndicate family, or even the owner of a food truck, you're a street kid, you have nothing to lose beyond your life, it's the only thing you have worth gambling" Goliath finished his speech and leaned back in his chair.

[Hhhhhhhhhhhhh]

"I say we t-" Red tried to say before I shut him up.

"Shut up, I will take it," I stated as I stood back and took the chip in my hand, thinking that this may spell doom for either me or those around me, but Goliath was right; I was just biding time for the inevitable.

"Believe me, I have no delusions about those facts; I am more afraid of myself than the ladder," I forewarned.

They both looked at me with tilted heads, having no idea what I was talking about.