The southside of Chicago was the most dangerous part of the Windy City, and the cover of darkness only amplified that. I figure that's why they sent me to guard Ole Miss, even though she was just going down to the Asgard to play cards. The bar's one of the most well-known by gangsters, mercenaries and all other types of freelance criminals, regardless of who they work with. Conflict and contracts are equally as likely to start within. Mulling this over as I walked towards the entrance, I examined the people in the small crowd out front, trying to spot the veteran in the group.

My eyes wandered through the crowd, passing over groups of console cowboys, mercenaries, punks, and contractors alike. Eventually, I noticed an older, grizzled woman in baggy gray coveralls leaning against the wall, smoking a crumpled cigarette. One of her arms had been inlaid with shining metal, no doubt concealing some black-market weapon. Noticeably absent, however, was the metal inlay in her skull where a drive could be inserted to back up her brain. The missing implant, an easy tell for paranoid old war vets, pegged her as Ole Miss. After staring at her for a few seconds, she turned towards me, a confrontational expression on her face.

"You the Newblood they sent to keep an eye on me, or are you looking for something?" she questioned, motioning at me with the cigarette loosely hanging between two fingers.

"That's me, ma'am," I confirmed, stiffening up. As she saw me snap to attention, she scoffed and shook her head.

"You don't gotta do that, kid," Ole Miss said. "The young punks who head the 'Tags these days need to stop trying to play army general. It's pathetic!"

Confused, I nodded as I relaxed my posture. During initiation, I'd been told that the most important part of being a Dog Tag was carrying yourself like a soldier. The idea was that if a kid could walk, talk, and act like one of the marines of the past, they'd eventually shoot like one. Something about discipline, I didn't really understand it. Evidently, neither did she. As I considered that, I noticed her glance at the pistol on my hip, equipped with an NCP Computer Targeting module.

"Nice piece, Newblood," she chided mockingly. "You know that computer isn't gonna do it all for you, right?"

"I know," I replied indignantly, my face reddening. "I can shoot straight with or without it."

"Let's hope we don't have to find out," she joked. "Now let's get in, I'm already running late."

With that, she turned and briskly weaved her way through the crowd to the front door. I quickly followed behind her to the door into the Asgard. Before I could get in, though, the bouncer standing at the front stuck an arm out, stopping me in my tracks.

"Split, kid," the bouncer growled. "Or I'll make-"

"He's with me," Ole Miss interjected, annoyed. "So I'd let him through if you want to keep your job."

Begrudgingly, he lifted his arm, allowing me entry. As I walked past, he gave a curt nod before taking his place in front of the door once again. Trailing behind Ole Miss, we briskly walked through the crowded bar into a sparsely decorated hallway. Once we were out of earshot of the bouncer, I turned to her.

"What a prick!" I lamented. "It isn't like I don't belong here!"

"You're joking, right?" Ole Miss asked. "A place like this is exclusive to high rollers, and you don't look like you really fit that description, kid."

"Oh yeah?" I challenged. "Give it a few years and I'll be playing next to you!"

"Keep that attitude after getting zero'd a couple times and I might even believe you, Newblood!" she shot back. "Now pipe down, we're almost to the room. I'll introduce you to the guys."

Ole Miss stopped in front of a nondescript metal door. The bald light bulb hanging above our heads slightly flickered. If I were just walking through here, the door would've blended right in with the other doors to closets and back rooms we'd already passed. However, the interior of the room was completely opposite to my expectations.

An ornate, dark wooden table was in the center of the room, surrounded by a number of matching chairs. Green felt covered the table, and five people already sat around the table, all wildly different from one another. One seat was left open, waiting for Ole Miss. When she walked in, all the guys turned to greet Ole Miss, and then slowly turned to me, a mix of confusion and wariness written on their faces.

"Chill guys, the Newblood is with me, courtesy of Scotty," she began. She then motioned to the dark-haired, regal looking man with an eyepatch holding a deck of cards. "Odin, why don't you get everyone introduced while I pour myself a drink?"

"Fine, Miss," he sighed. He then turned towards me, his face brightening considerably more. "As she said, I'm Odin. I run the Asgard, and negotiate contracts for most of the lovely mercenaries you see sitting before you." As he talked, he motioned broadly to the rest of the table. A tough looking man with long hair in a tan work jacket raised a hand in acknowledgement to me.

"Mac," he stated matter-of-factly. The scrawny guy in loose-fitting clothes, a beanie, and mirrorshades sitting next to him made a cartoonishly offended expression.

"Just Mac?" he cried indignantly. "Just Mac?! You undersell yourself, you're Mac THE American! Say it loud and proud!"

"Pipe down, man!" Mac replied, stifling a laugh. "You've definitely had too much to drink." The loudmouth waved him off after that, and then turned to me himself.

"I'm Gamble," he started. "The greatest console cowboy in the Windy City, with the jobs to back it up." He pointed to a raggedy man wearing a worn out military jacket. "That's the general, or as I like to call him, a big Bummer. The newsy sitting next to him calls himself Upton, but I bet if I jacked in and did a background check I'd find-"

"You wouldn't find anything worth finding!" Upton interrupted hurriedly. "I'm just writing a report on some of the night life of Chicago. You all aren't using your real names, so why should I?"

"I am," Mac said simply. "It isn't like any of you could zero me anyway."

"Only 'cause you've got enough metal inlaid to fry a metal detector," Bummer muttered. "Back in my day I coulda laid you out, no sweat."

"Times change, though, don't they, general?" Ole Miss replied, walking back into the room, drink in hand. "I mean even I've got some metal in my arm. I dunno why you're so opposed to it all!"

"Same reason you ain't got the backup slot in your head, Missy," he retorted bitterly. "You're worried about the corps controlling your mind, but you're chill with them taking over your body?"

"Let's play!" Odin interjected quickly, before the quarrel between Ole Miss and Bummer could escalate further. "We're dealing five-card draw tonight, ante starts at twenty dollars. Everyone in?" Everyone placed a twenty in the center of the table, and Odin began dealing out cards.

"So, Mac, what's the biggest job you've been a part of?" Upton queried.

"Well…" Mac pondered, reminiscing on his past. "That'd have to be that robbery on the Ovis Bioengineering Lab downtown a couple years ago."

"You expect me to believe that?" the newsy asked incredulously. "It was in broad daylight, there would've been someone who'd have seen you!"

"Well I hope not," the mercenary replied concisely. "Or that clunky cloak gadget would've been pointless."

"Cloak?" he questioned. "Do tell, please. Everything surrounding the incident suggests a lack of technical aptitude."

As Mac the American pondered, Bummer tossed a crumpled five onto the table, grunting what I could only assume was his intent to raise. Upton followed suit, and Ole Miss sighed before tossing her cards and declaring she was out.

"Sure, why not?" Mac answered, tossing a five in as he did. "If you'd believe it…"

…the job was for that major cybernetics design corp, Hexodyne. Some corporate rivalry deal, I assume they didn't want to use a merc of their own in the worst case scenario, so they sent me. The target wasn't money, or data, as you all know. It was one of the cloning machines, one of the ones they use to make bodies for our backups to go into. Of all the high tech crap in there they could've taken, they opted to take that. Before the job, some lab geek gave everyone on the crew, that was me, Gamble, some other barkeep, and one or two other hired guns whose names I didn't catch, a weird gadget none of us had ever seen before.

After we put the devices on, we had different faces. I recognized a couple of the others as looking like the Franks that people without DNA insurance get. Honestly, the tech was surprisingly convincing, and if I hadn't known the person standing next to me was Gamble, I'd've thought that he was just another Frank.

Anyway, from there it was basically just a smash-and-grab. We busted in, loaded the cloning tech into a truck we'd stolen in prep the day before, and drove outta there. Gamble also fried a buncha their soft in the netspace. I'd bet that's the real reason cloning was down for a week after. They had about fortyish machines in there, and we only took one, no way it was a hardware deal that tanked the place.

Of course, you all know how the story ends, we got away obviously. Leads went cold because the corp covered their tracks real well, as I'd guess that they usually do. If it hadn't been for the payout, it would've been my last job for the corp. But of course, they throw stacks big enough to play thousands of hands of poker at my favorite bar in the city, so I kept working for Hexodyne…

"...still sometimes get calls from the corp." he finished. "By the way, unless any of you can beat three fours, I win."

Coming back to reality, I noticed that Mac had won the pot, which by that point had risen to over four hundred dollars. In other words, the largest amount of money I'd ever seen someone win gambling. Noticing my shocked expression, Ole Miss scoffed.

"We're just getting started, kid," she assured me. "That's the payout for a slow hand." Turning to Mac, she began, "Well, I'd say the least believable part of your story is that that clown was in the crew. He's not professional enough to work with a corp!"

"I'm hurt that you'd say that, Miss," Gamble replied, an expression of mock offense on his face. "I'll have you know, I actually used to work full-time for Ovis before I left that dump for the streets."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure," she said sarcastically. "Like you're not too much for those eggheads."

"Believe it or not, he's not lying on that one, Miss," Odin stated in a serious voice, finishing his shuffle and beginning to deal. "I saw it firsthand, even mediated a deal between him and Hexodyne…"

…around four years ago. Gamble, the name I'd come to know him by, slumped his way into the bar. I asked him why he was so down, and he explained how much he hated his job at Ovis. I told him to stay where he was, and to-

"Take a nap?" Gamble interrupted, a hint of discomfort in his voice. "That's what we'll all end up doing if you tell this story, it's so boring!"

"Like that's not every story you netheads tell," Bummer groaned. "At least if the barkeep tells it I might get some shuteye."

"Yeah?" the console cowboy challenged. "Why don't you regale us with one of your oh-so-wonderful stories from back in the day, then, general? I'm sure we'll all get something from that."

At that, Bummer's face lit up with an unnerving smile. Handing two cards from his hand to Odin, he began his tale.

"I was stationed in…"

…the Mid-East. Back before it collapsed. Leading a unit of good men and women. True-blue soldiers, not like the poser punks Ole Miss is running with these days. We'd been inlaid with some of the first experimental implants, one among those a prototype of the Spinal-Tap Reflex Booster. We were clearing a building, when I heard a noise the next room over. Gunfire. I jazzed the Spinal-Tap, and sprinted in.

Inside it was a bloody mess. OpFor had captured another marine and had been torturing him. The gunshot I'd heard was the sound of them blowing what was left of him away with a shotgun. A small mercy, I'd say. Seeing his skin flayed off the bone, blood, guts, and brain matter sprayed everywhere in the room in equal parts, I decided I'd repay what they did to him tenfold.

I aimed my own shotgun towards the first guy, and fired.

Bang.

His head popped, like a grape in-between your fingers. Gore sprayed-

"-That's enough, general," Ole Miss interjected. "It's your bet. I don't wanna wait on you all night because you're reliving your glory days."

Upon Ole Miss's interruption of Bummer's disgusting story, I thought about how glad I was to not be born when the military still recruited. Glancing around the table, though, I only registered looks of boredom and annoyance. Even the newsy didn't seem a little squeamish at the gross details the general described. Heck, the expression on his face was one of reminiscence too. Clearly not the only one noticing this, Bummer called with two knocks on the table and turned towards Upton.

"What's that starstruck expression for, paperboy?" he leered. "You secretly serve or somethin'?"

"No, of course not," Upton responded, a disgusted look coming over his face. "I never would've willingly worked in the warmachine. I was just remembering the broadcast that got me into chasing the truth."

"Oh great," Bummer groaned, rolling his eyes. "You gonna tell us how you really saw the leaked footage of the MidEast Collapse?"

"Well as a matter of fact I did," the newsy replied snidely.

"It's a hoax!" the general shouted. "Nobody woulda aired it!"

"Yeah, obviously," Upton shot back. "You miss the manhunt for the broadcast tech who did? Or were you too busy pounding sand and killing civilians to notice?"

"Shut up before I do something I regret," Bummer growled, a dangerous look in his eye. My hand dropped to my hip, feeling the butt of my pistol.

"Don't do this again, man, come on," Mac said simply. "I don't want to have to end the night on a loss."

"He doesn't even have iron," the newsy said confidently. "He's hardly got the cash to play or afford clothes, he hasn't got anythi-"

Bang.

Upton's head exploded into a cloud of mist, and his body fell to the ground with a hollow thud. Bummer had leapt out of his chair, a heavy silver pistol in his hands aimed at where the newsy's head had been seconds before. As I was drawing my arm, I noticed the rest of the table doing the same. Mac, a shotgun sawn down as small as possible. Gamble, a pistol similar to mine, but noticeably more modified. Odin had reached under the table and pulled out a submachine gun. Ole Miss was the only one without a gun, but her arm had transformed into a club of razor blades.

"Well," Odin started after a few seconds of tense silence. "That's it for tonight, I guess. Miss, it's your turn to bring his Backup to the cloning station."

As the rest of the people around the table shuffled out, I turned to her, confused, as she let out a sigh and bent over the zero'd newsy's body, tugging on the metal datacache mounted to the back of his shattered cranium.

"Can never get the thing off," she muttered.
"Did he say it was your turn?" I questioned, confused by Odin's statement.

"Yeah," she replied casually. "This is how poker night usually ends. Happened a lot quicker tonight, though. Normally we get through at least five hands before Bummer guns Upton down in a drunken rage."

"So he comes here and dies every Friday night?" I blurted. "Why would he do that??"

"Well, he's not just dying," Ole Miss stated, holding up the Backup of Upton's brain. "Guy gets stories from us. He's working on some book cataloging the nightlife, and first hand experience is the best way to learn about it. Also, despite him getting killed, I think we make pretty good company."

"I guess," I responded as I opened the door to the maintenance hallway. "That must suck, though."

"What?" she questioned.

"I mean, he dies every night," I continued. "That must screw with his brain somehow, right?"

"Probably," Ole Miss remarked. "Heck, I'd be surprised if the guy we play with now even remembers who he was before he started playing cards with us. They're probably screwing with his brain every time they burn it into a new body."

"So you really buy into those conspiracy theories?" I asked, intrigued. "Wouldn't people have noticed they're being messed with by now?"

"Maybe," she said. "But, then again, you haven't heard what I've heard at that table. Despite how much Gamble lies, something he's consistent about is that Ovis is screwing with the Backups in some way. And he's way more techie than me, so I figure that I'm better safe than sorry."

As I mulled over her statement, we stepped out into a desolate alley, out of a back door in the maintenance hall. The traffic of Chicago hummed distantly from the end of the alley. As we strolled through, I quickly scanned the area out of habit. Then, I looked it over again, out of caution. Someone was here, and I quickened my pace, walking in stride with Ole Miss now.

"Get outta here," I hissed. "Someone's shadowing us."

She nodded in acknowledgement, and I dropped my hand to my side. Adrenaline began pumping through my body. This was it. I surveyed my surroundings again as we walked. We were close to the edge of the alley. Our shadow was behind me, on the right. No idea what he had. As we reached the edge of the alley, I stopped and Ole Miss took off running. I spun around, drawing my weapon as I did, and saw a glint of iron appear in the hands of my shadow.

Time felt as though it slowed to a crawl as the alley exploded with gunfire. I saw my pistol, its targeting computer frantically deducing the most optimal times to discharge, shine in the light of the blast from my attacker's shotgun. Before I could even think, I felt the pellets shred my chest and knock me to the ground. As I fell, though, I saw my attacker flinch, and heard the clatter of his weapon skittering away from him. I got him too. As I thumped onto the pavement, I stared into the night sky as my life ebbed from my body. It was beautiful. I let my eyes flutter shut, and…

…then I woke up in an unfamiliar chamber, the rush of death overtaking me already a fading memory. I was in a fresh new body, cloned in the nearest revival station. As I rationalized my death, one wall of the chamber slid away to reveal Ole Miss standing outside the chamber, a passively annoyed look on her face.

"Jesus, Newblood," she started. "You best not make a habit outta dying in gunfights, it took forever for your revival!"

I gingerly stepped out of the pod, testing my legs. Everything seemed normal, they supported my weight. A quick glance at the digital clock on the wall confirmed it was only about four hours after I'd gotten to the bar to meet her. Had I woken up in bed I would've assumed I'd just blacked out. That isn't where I woke up, though, and I vividly remembered my death.

"How'd you get me?" I questioned. "There was someone after me, he blew me away. I got him too, but what if there were others? What if-"

"There were no others, kid!" she interrupted. "It was a test to see if you were any good at your job. Mac owed me one so I figured I'd have him test your reflexes. See if you were up to coming with me on a few more dangerous missions."

She motioned towards a window at the front of the station, where a familiar figure in a dark work jacket stood outside smoking a cigarette. He'd traded the sawn-down shotgun for a duffel bag slung over his back.

"Oh," I said sarcastically. "Glad you brought him back too, gonna have him shoot me again as revenge?"

"Kid, you didn't kill him," she sighed, exasperated. "Unlike you, he came wearing a bulletproof jacket."

Annoyed, I walked past her towards the door to confront my killer myself. Before I could get past, though, she grabbed my arm.

"I'll say, though," Ole Miss began. "You're a heck of a shot. I know you had a targeting computer on your piece, but that doesn't aim for the gun someone's brandishing at you. Just wear armor next time you're working guard duty, huh?"

I looked at the ground, a maelstrom of emotions brewing inside me. A mix of hatred, rage, confusion, and thankfulness, all directed at her. I knew that if I let any of it out, I'd be wishing I stayed dead.

"Appreciate the advice," I replied curtly, not looking at her as I spoke. "Let me know next time you need me, I'll be there. Gotta take a walk now, though."

"Talk to Mac before you go," Ole Miss demanded as I stormed out. "He's got your stuff."

I threw the door to the revival station open, and turned to Mac. He looked over to me, dropped his cigarette to the ground, and stomped it out, before shrugging the duffel bag off his back.

"Got your gun, holster, and ammo off your corpse," the mercenary stated. "Also the shotgun you shot out of my hands. Won't work anymore, but it'll back up your story."

"Thanks," I mumbled, reaching for the bag.

"Listen, kid," Mac started, keeping the bag just out of reach. "It was a good shot. Would have zero'd me if I was unprepared. And while she might think you were just lucky, I can tell you knew what you were doing."

I looked up at Mac, bemused by his compliment.

"Threw an armored vest in there for you, too," He said. "Was wearing it under my jacket. Dent on it shows that had I not worn it, you would have got me pretty good. Lucky I did. Maybe it'll serve you the same."

As he finished speaking, he dropped the duffel bag, turned around, and walked off into the night. I wanted to stop him, no longer for revenge, but now to understand why. Why did he wait for me to come back? Why did he give me all my stuff back and more? Why did he care? Lost in my thoughts, I picked up the bag as the door I'd just come out of opened.

"C'mon, kid, let's go," Ole Miss barked. "We can chat about tonight on the way back, but first, what'd he say to you?"

"He said we were lucky," I trailed off, still mulling the interaction over.

"Well, pick up the pace, Lucky," she snapped. "We're still in a pretty dangerous part of town. No sense dying twice, huh?"

As we walked and talked, I turned the new moniker over and over in my mind. Lucky. I was Lucky. No longer Newblood, occasionally still "kid", but more and more I was Lucky. She kept calling me that name, giving me that identity. And sure, hitting Mac's shotgun out of his hand was lucky, but was I? Would anyone normal say I was lucky?