He turned around, and looked down on his pillow. The whitish shape shone like a rainbow in various colours with his inhuman sight. He switched to exclusive lowlight mode. His eyes was the best money could buy. He could see in the dark. And a lot of other things. A megacorporation had seen to it.

Good. No blood on the pillow tonight, at least.

Faces half forgotten danced like blurry spectres for his inner eye. Faces that had once belonged to people, people alive, dead, gone...

Mariko, with her mild way, a humorous glint in the eye, so very non-traditional, when she was otherwise so very traditional. With her father being one of the executive directors in a megacorporation, she had become a target for kidnapping when her father died and let her inherit his shares. He had been able to save her from that, just to discover she had disappeared out of his life while he was busy defending hers.

Must find Mariko. Sooner or later. Must know.

Welcome to the Sixth Age. Mind your head, and conserve ammo.

Enemy. There was always an enemy. Man, woman, black, white, red, yellow, inhuman - it didn't matter. Everyone could be an enemy, and everyone could try to kill you. For their own reasons, for the reasons of others, for money. Anything could happen. So far the opposition had been too incompetent, or he had been lucky enough.

They. There were always someone. Someone who made plans, who wanted things done.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Rebuild his body even more to get stronger, tougher, faster - endure more. Be better. He had spent almost one million nuyen, most of his part of the six million nuyen. Contacts wasn't a problem - as long as you had money, you had contacts and friends. The last month had amply shown him that.

Now, he was human. But only in shape. He moved faster, smoother, easier. He was inhumanly strong, possessed with an inhuman constitution. It was everything he had wanted. Then why did he feel so strange?

It was as if he didn't quite belong in his own body any more. A strange ... connection ... that just wasn't quite what it had been. He wondered what the shaman, his elven friend Rake, would say if he told him about how he felt. Probably some nonsense about auras and such.

Mustn't think about that. Concentrate. Focus on nothing but the job.

He slid out of the bed like a ghost, and stood there in the vague shimmering from the street light shining through the window. For him, it was more than enough light. It could be almost dark, and he would still be able to see perfectly. If not with low-light, then with thermographic. Or ultrasound. Or something else.

He reached for the extra-large contact lenses that lay on the small table beside the bed. A vague smile pulled on the corner of his mouth when he saw the very fake logo the green neocrystal-lenses had laser-engraved.

John Smith Bargain Basement Cyberware... Ridiculous name. And good camouflage.

The small, wiry man blinked a couple of times. Good. The lenses were placed correctly. Swiftly he strapped a special sheath on his lower right arm, and placed his whip there. One of those who could cut through almost anything. A monofilament whip. A weapon for one highly trained in his use. A weapon for someone not interested in knocking unconscious, subdue or disarm. A weapon dedicated for killing someone. The familiar weight of it felt good - right - strapped to his arm. He felt better. This, he was trained for.

A black t-shirt of neocotton was next. A pair of black jeans followed. The shoulder holster holstering the customized heavy automatic pistol was strapped tightly. His movements were fast, reflexive, precise. Movements honed to the absolute minimum through years of training under any conditions. He then put on socks.

As an afterthought he strapped a stiletto to his lower leg, so that it was properly concealed. A larger survival knife went into its sheath on his left side, threaded through the broad leather belt he put through the loops of his pair of jeans. The grip leaned slightly forward, so that it would be easy to draw quickly. Give the enemy something to worry about, so that they don't see the other weapons. He smiled. A walk through the streets might be exactly what the doctor ordered. There, he might feel alive, be a shark among small fish, feel right.

The jacket, heavy from the ballistic and shock-absorbing materials it was made from, was light on the narrow shoulders of the little man. He laced on the soft, silent, medium-height boots he usually wore. A cap, with the half-ironic logo of Seattle Supersonics, completed his outfit. He looked just like what he wasn't - a young man out late to check out the night life in Seattle. A young man that had gotten cybereyes installed because it was cool. A young man perhaps without much money, but full of life.

Suddenly, he felt ancient. Chronologically, he was still a young man. But his face was like hewn in stone - immovable, sharp, lined from his experiences. His hair, streaked with white. White hair that came from one particular experience in Africa - a continent that was as mystic and backward as it always had been. Dark Africa. A continent where he had met ... things ...

Don't dwell on it. Concentrate. Focus. Focus.

They. Always those cursed 'they'.

He slid out into the night, walking along the street, his personal demons bothering someone else for a while. Here he felt home. Home in the shadows, and in the city. The city was always the same, yet unique. An ecosystem with its own rules, with prey, with predator.

Let them come. I am ready. And perhaps I will find Mariko tonight.