Written by OrdDiff

Smoke filled the room. The man at the desk leaned back in his black suit, the lights purposely hiding his face. He had a cigar in one bronzed hand, the powerful bionic handling the plant matter with perfect precision.

“Knew a kid like you once,” he said, “yeah?”

The person he was speaking to could not have been more than twenty. Outside in the harsh chemical rain, loaded up with tattoos and hiding the obvious bulge of a gun under his gang colours, he was the king of the world. In the darkness of the professional’s office, he was a scared kid in an ill-fitting jacket. “Yeah?” he asked, unsure of his words.

The suit swung his legs up over the desk. Any fool could see he was trying to intimidate the youngster. Any fool could see it was working. “He wanted an edge. Thought he could pay for it.” The man coughed haggardly before taking another drag. “Can you pay for it?” he accused in his gravelly voice.

The boy stiffened and nodded, eager to show his strength. “Yes, I-”

“No!” The man interrupted him with a slam on the old wooden desk. “No, you cannot.”

In one fluid motion, the man rose from his chair, letting it clatter to the ground. “You have the money?” he asked. The kid was using all of his nerves to not flee, and simply nodded. “Then what you want is possible. The question is, can you pay for it?”

The kid tried to figure out what the man meant. “I, yeah, I got the G’s right here.” he replied with a mixture of unease and confusion. As he reached into his pocket to pull out the aforementioned cash, a motion from the man’s bronze hand stopped him.

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