The Neo-Metropol Heist

12: Edward

Edward knocked back the remnants of tea that tasted like dirt and looked back down at the terminal that sat in his lap.
The café he had found was far enough out of the sunken end of the island to be considered respectable but not far enough to be full of pompous morons in ridiculous 'trendy' clothing that showed skin that didn't need to be shown, squawking about whichever ridiculous thing society was pretending mattered on that day.
He'd found a fairly good balance and now sat in relative peace on an almost-comfortable metal and wood chair underneath the café façade to protect him from the drizzle from the rumbling clouds above.
He reached over and tapped the 'menu' button on the screen set into the table, selecting another mug of tea. A few minutes later, a serving droid hovered out to him and he took the mug from the tray that was affixed to its spherical body, watching it as it happily disappeared back into the café itself.
It had been three days since he'd heard from Harry or Artem - they were making sure to limit the amount of interaction between them outside of secured rooms. Apart from the incessant checkpoints across the city, it wasn't particularly obvious that he was being constantly tracked and observed by the government any more than when he'd been arrested, but Artem assured him that he was.
When they did have to communicate through their terminals, they had to use a special encrypted channel and a code on top of that. Edward felt it was a little bit ridiculous, but didn't question it. He was smart enough to know that he was the fish out of water here.
In his downtime, he had sent Dante a message asking if he had anything useful relating to his arrest and trial, and what had happened to Sergei Castells in the years after.
Dante had returned him a link to an online archive detailing the case with a helpful note:
"Dredging up the past like this isn't going to help anybody."
Edward had thanked him for both the link and the advice.
He took a sip of his tea and began to flick through the archive on the screen of his terminal.
Starting with screenshots of the old news coverage, he finally began to understand the scale of what kind of effect the job that had sent him to prison had had on the whole country.
His sentence had been extreme to serve as a warning and an example to other thieves. He'd been demonised in most news outlets across the world, but made out to be some kind of folk hero by the increasingly forgotten and disillusioned masses.
His trial had been short - he'd been caught red handed and sold out by people he thought he could trust, but he'd been there for all that.
Searching for more on Castells helpfully informed him that any information on Sergei's involvement simply didn't exist anymore - the man had disappeared after Edward had been arrested.
After that, there was no record of him anywhere until ten years later.
In the years that Edward had been rotting away, Sergei had invested the money that he'd weaselled away from the police into companies that seemed random and disconnected.
It only appeared as one conglomerate, CastellsTech, shortly after the Secession and Reformation as the North States. Then, it had expanded rapidly.
CastellsTech was now the leading manufacturer in over fifty markets, from toothbrushes to warships, but most prominently of all - intelligent service droids.
Edward glanced over at one of the serving droids that was now buzzing towards a table across from him, noticing the embossed logo set into its casing, matching the CastellsTech press reports on the slate on his lap.
Then, his tired old memory impressed him by going a step further and matching the image to the logo pressed into the chest plate of Artem's enigmatic robotic best friend, Cad.
So, Sergei had leverage himself into a position of power using money that was rightfully his.
It wasn't until ten years ago that Sergei had appeared as a serious contender for the governor candidacy. He looked older but nowhere near as old as he should - his hair was still a deep, shining black, his eyes youthful and bright.
All PR trickery and plastic surgery, no doubt, but it had been enough (likely along with enough bribery and extortion to get a dancing monkey into power) to get him a landslide vote from both the citizens and the city council.
Since then, Sergei had survived two votes and was still clinging to power, and CastellsTech had almost doubled in size and profit. It was only then that Edward began to fully comprehend the scale of the wasp's nest he was planning to kick up. It didn't do a thing to deter him.
After a little more research, he'd discovered that Sergei had made numerous attempts to buy the prison that Edward had been wasting away in, but it had always been out of his reach. That could explain why he'd managed to get free, Edward thought.
Edward searched a few more names that he'd pulled from the dusty banks of his memory, trying to gain some understanding of where the rest of the group had gone after the job had sunk, but as it turned out, Dante had been pretty spot on.
The ones that weren't dead were in prison, but CastellsTech prisons with little chance of release. Only two had disappeared completely, Mariana Komor and Tahim Mattrick. Edward could only remember glimpses of them, but he gathered that they were the two that had disappeared to Europe.
He sighed and switched the archive off, the terminal instead bringing up some news story about 'unrest' in Playa Perdido after some kind of trouble with the NMPF. Edward barely glanced at it before swiping it away and paying for his drink with a few taps of his mottled fingers.
The table thanked him as he slipped the slate into his pocket and left the café.
To maintain the image that he was attempting to be a useful citizen, Edward had decided that following the rules of his early release was sensible, so earlier that day he had found the local patrol office and had an ID chip implanted in his palm - it hurt like a bitch, but stopped him getting harassed at checkpoints.
He subconsciously rubbed his palm as he crossed the street.
As he made it to the other side, he caught sight of a man standing in the crowds on the opposite side and realised that he'd seen the same man three times in the same day.
It could've been coincidence, until the man turned and began to follow him in a way that he obviously thought was stealthy.
Edward tried to keep his pace steady so as not to make it obvious he'd clocked his tail, a task made easier by the fact that the speed he could actually manage was limited by the cane he had to lean almost all his weight on.
He turned the corner into a quiet street, so quiet he could hear the man's feet scuffing along the floor.
Could the man have been sent by Castells? Had he finally been deemed a worthy threat and not just a weak old man?
Edward just kept walking.
"Hey, old man," came a voice, finally.
Edward slowed to a measured stop, and then turned, trying to keep his back straight and not look like the frightened old man he suddenly felt like.
The man in front of him was tall and built with a barrel chest and a mess of wild hair tied up with a variety of hairbands - his eyes were wild and he had track marks up his bare, tattooed arms. Edward recognised them as needle marks from overuse of the drug EMBR, or 'Ember', which had been popular in the young gang kids that had rolled through his wing when he had been in prison.
It was horrible stuff that left you spaced out and rotted your body from the inside out, but it was cheap to pump out and usually cheap to buy, so it had spread like wildfire.
"Give me your money, viejo uomo," the kid, because Edward had decide he couldn't be older than twenty, said.
The insult about his age had been spoken in the messy, awkward dialect that had grown out of places like Playa Perdido in recent years known as parlare.
"I'm not going to do that, son," Edward replied, his voice unintentionally shaking.
So the kid hadn't been sent by Castells - in fact, he was just a mugger desperate for a fix. Edward would have been sympathetic if he hadn't been so angry.
"Don't be bobo, gramps," the kid said again, gesturing with his hands, "diners, now."
The kid held up a scruffy terminal and Edward realised he was demanding that he transfer his credits over to him. Edward wanted to laugh at the fact that even muggings had been dragged into the future.
The kid saw him grinning and his back arched like a cat.
"Don't get fresh with me, uomo," the kid started to move forward threateningly.
When he was close enough, Edward reacted as quickly as he could possibly manage, pulling his weight back and swinging his cane up sharply, striking the kid in the chin at maybe half the strength he could've managed even fifteen years ago.
It was hard enough, though, and the kid was so surprised at the old man's strength that he fell flat on his back with a winded grunt.
Edward leaned over him and pressed the cane down onto his solar plexus.
"Get out of here," Edward rumbled, "do something more with your life, kid. Be smarter."
He pulled the cane away and half expected the kid to spring back up and charge him, but he simply whined like an animal and clambered to his feet, running in the opposite direction.
Edward shook his head and exhaled calmly as he watched the kid disappear into the alleyway ahead of him, realising that his hands were shaking.
In prison, he'd had to be prepared to defend himself - as one of the longest serving and the oldest he usually found himself either too respected to challenge or harmless enough to ignore, but that didn't mean he didn't get his fair share of challengers. He'd done exactly the same to them.
He passed his cane to his other hand and balled his fist, wincing as he realised that he may well have broken something as the cane had jarred his palm mid-strike.
Realising he no longer wanted to be outside any more, he quickly reminded himself of which direction his hostel was and began to head towards it.