Chapter 1 - Taking an emergency call

Posted on https://books.clockworkcaracal.com/dragons-heart/old-beginnings/ch1 - if you aren't there, this is a pirated copy!

Cyan hummed absently to himself, tracing a glamour into the casing of his current commission. It was an upgrade for one his regular clients: a lancer werewolf who'd lost a foot in a job gone very, very wrong, a few years back. They'd needed a replacement - not just a custom foot, but one that could still shift with them. And they, like everyone else looking for magitech prosthetics inevitably did, wound up coming to Cyan.

Of course, integrating magic into electronics was highly illegal, but if Cyan had been worried about little things like laws, he would've picked a different line of work a long time ago. Besides, his perfectly legitimate robotics repair shop covered the legal issues just fine.

This client - they went by the name Six - typically just came in for a tune-up, but their team's latest job had apparently been especially lucrative. Hence the full upgrade. Which Cyan was determined to make the most of; repair work was good enough to live on, but it was making new pieces that he really enjoyed - the reason he was in this line of work, and not something safer.

Picking up the nearly-completed cybernetic foot in his also-cybernetic right hand, he turned it back and forth, inspecting the glamour for any gaps or knots. Finally, satisfied, he spun his chair around, grabbing a spare shoe box from the opposite counter and dropping the completed piece into it.

"That's the last one," he announced to the empty room, briefly wishing - not for the first time - he had someone else to talk to while working. Someone who wasn't a computer, at least.

Cyan sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his left hand, before scrubbing at his namesake cyan-blue hair vigorously with both hands and giving himself a shake. "Right. Dinner, then---"

A loud chime sounded from his hip, signalling an incoming call. He frowned, then glanced down at his right arm. The back of his wrist lit up briefly with the time - nearly midnight, well past the times even his most nocturnal clients and associates would be doing business with him. With a shrug, he clipped on his earpiece and reached into the fake pocket over the control panel on his right hip to accept the call.

(Like his arm, that leg was entirely replaced by his own custom prosthetic, along with the lower half of his left leg - and he'd decided ages ago, if he had to replace half his body with robotic parts anyway, why bother carrying around a bunch of other computer devices when he could just build them right in? And so far, the convenience had proven more than worth it.)

"Cyan of CMY repairs and---"

"Hey, Cyan, it's Dave, from Carbon Copies." Cyan didn't recognize the voice on the line, but he did know Carbon Copies. A lancer team started by a pair of twins. No prosthetics, but they'd commissioned independent pieces a couple times.

More immediately important, though, were the note of tense desperation in Dave's voice, and the muffled screaming Cyan could hear in the background.

"This sounds bad," he remarked, carefully.

*"Yeah, uh, look, can you make a... house call? We need someone who gets shiny tech and you're it. We'll pay."

Shit. One of their team members must have gotten hit with some kind of device they couldn't deactivate - and from the still-audible hoarse screams, it was a bad one. ...Shit.*

"Pipe me the address," he answered, already shoving on his shoes, "I'll be there."

"Oh my god, thank you." The relief was audible. "Sending now."

"Good. I'm hanging up." Cyan did, falling into a stream of swears immediately after the line disconnected.

This was way too close to lancer work for his comfort, but... but he couldn't just leave someone to be tortured by some kind of corp tech, dammit. He grabbed his emergency kits, shoving them into a bag as he headed out the door, then brought up the address on his wrist display. Twelve blocks away and not on any bus lines; the fastest way this time of night was going to be a run. Gritting his teeth and setting his bag over his shoulder, he took off.

Fifteen minutes later, Cyan stumbled to a stop in front of a second-floor flat and banged on the door, leaning against the doorframe as he tried to catch his breath. If this somehow wasn't the right address...

He'd barely had time for the thought before the door opened abruptly and he was greeted by an anxious, red-haired man, still partly in wolf form. "Hey, good," the man said, Cyan identifying his voice as the person who'd made the phone call, "come on in."

Cyan nodded, still breathing too hard to answer, and limped through the door. His knee ached; even with all the improvements from the past fifty years, running half on prosthetics still sucked.

"She's in the back," Dave informed him, pointing at a door as his ears swivelled nervously. "It's the only room with soundproofing."

Cyan nodded again, heading for the indicated room, and braced himself before opening the door.

His client--- patient was a human woman, laid out on the floor of the room with another werewolf hovering anxiously over her in full wolf form. The screams he'd heard over the phone had settled into hoarse sobs, and her shirt had been torn open in the front, revealing a small device which he recognized immediately.

"Shit, it's a leash." He stepped quickly into the room, zipping open his bag and ignoring the faint tingle of ritual wards across his skin as he passed through the doorway. "They have trackers built in."

"We figured it probably did," added a new voice, "so I set up a comm bunker."

Cyan glanced briefly towards the speaker, sparing just enough attention to identify them as a spell-caster and probably the one who had cast the rituals, then gave them a brief nod before focusing his attention back on the job at hand.

He didn't know what the official name of the things might be, but they'd been called a "leash" in the lancer underground for as long as he'd known about them. Intended for preventing prison escapes, they latched in with barbed legs and operated on a "dead man's switch" design: if in range of the control center, they did nothing, but once out of range, they started pumping pain directly into the victim. And any attempt to remove them would trigger an overload, potentially killing the target.

Cyan hissed out through his teeth, then pulled out his medical kit. "I can do this," he confirmed, preparing a sedative injection. "I've done it before. But it's going to take a while, so I'm going to put her under."

"Do whatever you need," Dave said. "Come on, Lena, let him work."

The second wolf growled softly, but paced out after him without argument.

Cyan murmered soothing sounds as he gave the injured woman the injection. It wouldn't help the nerve stimulation from the device, but it would give her a mental break and he wouldn't need to worry so hard about her holding still.

Seconds ticked past into minutes before she finally relaxed, muscles slowly going limp. Cyan gave it another minute, monitoring her breathing carefully, before pushing aside the medical kit in favor of the repair kit. A spudger to pry the casing open, and a pair of plastic tweezers for internal work.

Hovering his left hand over the device, he carefully felt out the threads of magic woven into the casing he knew would be there. The casing itself was easy to snap off, but the spellwork on it - that was what set off the lethal overload if you tried to take it off.

Taking a deep breath to settle himself, he started unravelling the spell, a series of gentle tugs and tiny breaks in the threads of magic. Not for the first time, he thought of how much easier it would have been if he'd still had both his hands. He'd figured out how to mimic normal sensory inputs through his cybernetic limbs ages ago, but all his attempts at threading magic-sense through the machinery had been abject failures.

At least he didn't need both hands to work magic; it just made it a lot more difficult.

And a lot slower. After what felt like hours, he finally plucked out the last bit of magic from the casing, letting it seep back into the air and the earth, and took a few minutes to center himself before carefully prying off the casing.

Inside the device was about eighty percent ordinary electronics - painfully outdated electronics, at that, which spoke to how long ago the hellish things had been developed - all of which had been built around the remaining twenty percent: a faintly glowing crystalline node.

Cyan still had absolutely no idea what it was, just that it was extremely magical and that it powered the whole thing. It wasn't elf-magic, at least not of the sort his family used, and it wasn't runic magic or alchemy, which were the only other kinds he knew.

The important thing, though, was getting it out. The last - and first - time he'd had to cut a leash, he'd spent hours trying to turn off or pry out the damn crystal and nearly fried himself and his patient more times than he liked to count. This time, fortunately, he had the benefit of that harrowing experience eventually finding a workable solution.

He started pushing aside the wiring running across the crystal with the tweezers, careful to avoid touching the traces carved into its surface. He didn't need to completely reveal it, this time; he just needed to get off the top layer. Tugging aside the last few wires, he studied the crystal again - pulsing faintly like a heartbeat, which honestly was even creepier than it being wrapped in a horrifying pain-and-death spell. The whole centimeter-square top surface was accessible now.

Gritting his teeth, he braced himself and, ever-so-gently, pressed his pinky against the magic.

It hurt. The flood of magic through him wasn't concentrated into pain, like the spellwork and technology would've told it to be, but the sheer intensity of it was even more painful than he'd remembered, tearing through his arm and torso before rapidly diffusing back into the environment.

A startled swear from behind him reminded Cyan that the spell-caster was still in the room and, belatedly, he realized he should've warned them. He knew it was harmless, but it would've looked like a small explosion to anyone with magic sense.

"Sorry," he managed through gritted teeth. "Almost done."

"The hell is that?"

Cyan didn't answer immediately, focusing instead on channeling the last of the magical power out of the crystal and back into the room. It was only a few more seconds, although it felt much longer, before the magic weakened, slowed to a trickle, and then, finally, stopped.

He took his hand off the device and flopped backwards onto the floor, exhaling loudly. "There. Hard part is done."

From his position on the floor, he could see the spell-caster scowling at him. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," Cyan admitted. "Some sort of ensorcelled power source. The only way I've figured out to turn it off is to drain everything out of it, which... well." He gestured lethargically in the air over his head. "That's what that was."

"It--- wait. It's off?"

"Yeah. I still have to detach it, but the nasty part is gone."

"Good." They sounded grateful - or relieved, maybe. "In that case, I'll take down the spells."

Cyan gave a thumbs up, then forced himself back up into a sitting position, opening up his medical kit again as he ignored the still-raw feeling in his skin.

A few careful minutes later, he had the device's barbed legs pulled loose. That left a quick cleaning and bandaging of the punctured skin on the woman's chest and then, finally, he was completely done.

His spell-casting companion had left during those last few minutes, it seemed, leaving him along with his still-unconscious patient as he cleaned and packed up his tools. He took his time, letting the stress and adrenaline from the whole procedure he'd just spent god-knows-how-long doing. By the time he finished, he'd relaxed enough that he was aware of how tired he was. A tap on his wrist showed it was nearly two a.m. - and he still hadn't even had dinner.

The door opened and Dave stuck his head back in. "Styx says you're done?"

"I'm done," Cyan agreed, fighting back a yawn and zipping up his bag. "She'll be good with normal first-aid from here."

"I knew you'd be able to do it." Dave grinned - if he'd been in wolf form, Cyan was sure his tail would be wagging. "How much do we owe?"

"Owe?" Cyan blinked. They had promised to pay, hadn't they? But this wasn't really his job; this was more of a helping-people-in-need moment. And he wasn't struggling for money these days.

"Dinner," he decided after a moment. "Thirty bucks should do it."

"Thirty... what?" Dave stared, cred chip already out, torn between ethics and not looking a gift horse in the mouth. "But, uh..."

"I'm starving and the Golden Dragon's right on the way home." Cyan grinned. "That'll cover everything I'm planning to order. Just don't get hit with any more prison tech."

"Damn." He shook his head, swiping through the payment. "Okay. Hey, if you ever need a quick out from somewhere, you call us, got it?"

"I'll keep you on speed dial," Cyan joked, settling his bag over his shoulder again as he headed for the door. Several people were in the main room, including the spell-caster and another red-head - probably Dave's twin and the wolf from earlier - but they were deep in conversation and didn't seem to notice him leaving.

It might've been rude of them in most situations, but he was grateful as he slipped silently out the front. It was late, he was hungry, and the sooner he got himself dinner and some sleep, the happier he'd be.

The Golden Dragon wasn't exactly on the way back, but it was close enough - only a block out of his way, and only a few blocks from home... which meant a long walk there, but less time between getting the food and eating it. Plus, while he could really go for some noodles and fried dumplings tonight, the key advantage of the place was being open until three. So, if he ordered something now, it'd be ready for him to pick up when he got there in half an hour.

Dodging foot traffic while ordering dinner over the phone wasn't too difficult; the streets were only slightly less busy at two-something a.m. than during the day, but Cyan had been living in the neighborhood for years. This time of night, most people on the street were stumbling around in various stages of inebriation, but a good number were heading to or from their night-shift jobs. And some, although Cyan never speculated on who or how many, were lancers: prepping for their newest gig, making connections, whatever it was lancers did with their free time.

Cyan might have a lot of lancer customers, but he'd kept his quasi-legal business going this long by drawing an uncrossable line of how far was too far. And the kind of work lancers did? That was so far over the line, even knowing what they were up to was too far. Which is where he found his thoughts wandering as he walked.

The little rescue mission he'd just finished up was already too far, honestly. If it weren't for his weak spot for helping injured people in need, he would've hung up as soon as he heard the screaming.

He frowned, sticking his hands in his pockets as he considered the chances of getting caught from this incident. He'd left the leash with the lancer crew, so that couldn't be traced to him. If the corp cops had been on their tails, they would've crashed the place already while Cyan was working. The only real danger that left was one of the Carbon Copies crew getting caught later on and somehow forced to reveal their tech source - which, despite how he usually avoided thinking about it, was an every-day level of risk in black market tech.

"I guess it's fine, then," he muttered to himself, ducking as a drunken pedestrian gestured just a little too wildly to their companion. "Gotta fill my excitement quota somehow."

Fortunately for Cyan, the universe didn't seem to have any more excitement in store quite yet. Several blocks passed uneventfully, the biggest incident being a small fight happening on the other side of the street from where he was walking.

The unpleasant sensitivity in his skin from the magic overload had faded completely by the time he reached the Golden Dragon, leaving hunger and exhaustion the only remaining effects of his unexpected outing - one of which he was gratefully within sight of remedying. A brief but friendly exchange of food and money later, he stepped back out onto the street feeling much more cheerful. As he turned towards home, though, something at the corner of his eye caught his attention.

A man was standing motionless at the curb, far enough from the restaurant that the glow from its windows barely reached him, but close enough to see him staring up at the sign.

Cyan paused, distracted by a nagging sense of familiarity, and studied the dimly-lit figure as he tried to pinpoint the feeling.

"Hey," Cyan called out after a moment. "Looking for something?"

The other man looked over at him, then smiled and shook his head. "Not right now. Thanks, though."

At the sound of the man's voice, the sense of familiarity snapped sharply into vivid memory and Cyan nearly dropped his dinner in shock. That voice - that figure - both belonged to someone he hadn't seen in years. Decades. Not since the war began, and that man had vanished from his life without a trace.

And now, here he was, standing in front of---

With a start, Cyan realized that he was alone again. Well, surrounded by the usual three o'clock pedestrian traffic, but the man he'd recognized was gone.

Thought he'd recognized.

Cyan slowly started walking again, trying to process what had just happened. There was no way he had actually just happened to bump into his presumed-dead ex-boyfriend, halfway across the continent, sixty years later. It must have been some kind of bizarre coincidence. Or his exhausted mind playing tricks on him, making him think he recognized a complete stranger.

That was the explanation, he decided, ignoring the faint pang he was pretending he didn't recognize as squashed hopes, and the best thing to do was to go home, eat, sleep, and not think about anything that had happened in the past few hours ever again.