In the early days, things were tightly controlled.

  People were scared, and the government stepped in to ensure things didn’t spiral out of hand. In the US the government established The Agency.

  No. Not that one.

  The Agency ran programs of detection and categorisation. When they came across a special, as they called them in those days, they were tested, recorded and registered. Those that didn’t want to register with this central authority were…persuaded, or failing that, incarcerated. Several years later, the ever increasing incidence of specials made it impossible for the government to maintain its operation with any efficiency. The Agency bloated out its staffing, its infrastructure, its prisons. It still wasn’t enough.

  Eventually, in some backroom government den, some staffer or lobbyist proposed the silver bullet solution.

  Privatisation.

  With the delegated authority of the Specials Management Act, the government authorised the development of private institutions to track, manage and nurture the society's growing population of special individuals. In theory, the government received reports of these organisations activities, and were able to stand up in financial committees and proudly boast they had put the administration back into the black side of the ledger.

  In truth, they had just ceded control of their society into the hands of merciless corporations.

  From one Agency, into many agencies.

  The C-Train was disheveled and disgusting, as per usual.

  I stood quietly in the corner of the carriage, not caring to disturb any of the poor souls sleeping on the threadbare fabric benches. Bottles jingled as the train thrummed its way between the high-rise buildings of the city. Liquid, which I sincerely hoped was the contents of those bottles, spread out over the already sticky floor of the train, as its rumbling passage overcame the viscous liquid’s surface tension.

  I watched as the sun set behind the cyclopean towers of the midtown district, and the first of the garish holographic displays thrummed into life, flickering images of beverages, vid-shows and soft-core pornography up and down the midtown streets and by-ways. The neon glare lent the sunset a sickly hue, and I instead began scrolling the news-feeds via my optical implant in my left eye.

  Three special attacks last night. Seventeen armed robberies. Twenty-five assaults and various affrays. A riot in a dive bar.

  Pretty standard for a Monday.

  The train pulled up at Station 12, and I minimized my reading as the shrill tone of my comm broke out.

  “12-278,” I answered, “Go ahead”

  “Hey Kino,” Mabel responded, “Got one for you. Hop off here and I’ll brief you en-route.”

  I stepped over the growing puddle on the floor of the train, which I know saw was leaking from a particularly destitute passenger, and strode out onto the platform.

  “Location?” I queried to my collar mic, “Tell me it's not that hab-stack on third again. I bought you those chocolates and you promised you’d send all those to Malliard.”

  The dispatcher laughed. Mabel, despite her name, was a young woman, and I’d had to bribe her with several boxes of expensive chocolate to give me the good calls.

  “I never go back on my word Kino,” She chirped, “besides Malliard never gets me anything. This one is building seventeen, apartment four-hundred and eight. Six-hundred metres west of you. Rogue special for…recruitment.”

  She drew the last word out. Recruitment was the official term, but not the common parlance that employed specials and dispatchers informally used. Snatch and grab was the more accurate turn of phrase, but my employers, the illustrious Stevenson agency, had begun to clamp down on what they called defamatory terminology.

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  I turned and followed the twisting streets toward the apartment block in question.

  “Any intel for me on the target?”

  “The applicant is a fourteen year old male,” Mabel explained, emphasizing the company terminology, “Skill-set is unknown, this one a tip off from a member of the public.”

  Turning a corner I came face to face with the hab-block. A dirty and downtrodden apartment block, the building had originally been whitewashed, but dirty black and grey rain had stained the facade of the building. It resembled nothing so much as a blackened and broken tooth, decay as disease took hold and rotted it away.

  “Onsite now, standby.”

  I conducted a quick readiness check. Reaching into my black bomber jacket, I felt the handle of my service piece in a shoulder rig. In my right pocket I retrieved my credentials and affixed them to my belt, so they could be easily seen.

  I strode into the building, neatly sidestepping the vagrants who had congregated in the ground floor hallways. I punched up a rickety elevator and rode it up to level four. The fourth floor was in a marginally better state than the ground level. The plaster was peeling away from the walls, and in several places water was dripping from the hallway roof. Grime caked every surface, and its matte colour made the passageway feel dark and claustrophobic.

  Apartment 408 was at the end of the hallway on the left. I walked up beside the door and listened while I closed my eyes and focused. I could hear a repeating sound through the door, as though a radio or other device was broadcasting at a low volume. I let my mind reach out and explore the architecture of the room. It was a studio, a living room and one bathroom. There was a warm trace of a living creature in the centre of the room.

  I drew my pistol, and flipped off its safety. I took a deep breath in and prepared for the shift.

  The transition was instantaneous and seamless. I opened my eyes and found myself inside the apartment's cramped bathroom. I could hear the radio broadcast now, blaring from the living room. Carefully I slowly pushed the bathroom door open with the muzzle of my pistol. The living room was bare but for a single occupant, sitting on a chair, listening to a radio broadcast. The boy had long flowing hair, draped over his shoulders. He had a muscular build, more akin to a fully grown man than I’d expected.

  The boy didn’t move as I slowly advanced behind him.

  Two paces from the target, I drew back the hammer of my pistol with a loud clack.

  Usually this brought a startled reaction, but the target didn’t move so much as an inch.

  Carefully, I stepped forward and placed the barrel of the gun against the back of the target's head.

  The boy slumped forward in his chair, revealing the two bullet wounds in his back.

  A sound came from the wardrobe to the right of the dead body, and a rush of cortisol woke the optical combat protocols in his implanted corneas, just in time to identify the assailant as he burst out of his hiding place.

  “Ambush!” Was all I was able to scream into my comm, before the man was on me.

  He was a tall, well muscled man. His face was covered by a mask of matte grey, and he wore unadorned black combat gear. In his right hand he held a shock baton, crackling with electricity, and in his left he held a snub-nosed pistol.

  As he emerged from the wardrobe he swung the baton at me, clearly trying to disable and capture me, rather than kill me outright.

  He would have had me too, except for two facts.

  One, I shifted, blinking out of existence in the path of his swing, and reappearing behind him.

  Two, I had no compunction about killing.

  I fired three shots into the back of the assailant. He went down with a grunt of pain. He tried to rise again is armor likely absorbing the force of the first three rounds.I put the fourth shot into the back of his skull and he dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and blood began to pour out across the mildewed floor. I heard the sounds of a helicopter landing on the roof of the building.

  “Tell them we’re status one.” I radioed to Mabel, “I’ve got two bodies for recovery, one assailant, one target.”

  “Confirmed,” Mabel radioed back, “Response team will be with you shortly.”

  Carefully, so as to avoid getting blood on my boots, I walked over and turned the assailant's body over with the tip of my foot.

  I crouched and began rifling through his pockets. There were extra magazines for the pistol, but little else. The gun itself was a military surplus model, and there were no identifying marks or serial numbers. In a hip pouch of his webbing, I found an ornate and high-tech collar. I laid this out on the ground for the recovery team.

  The first member of the response team kicked his way in through the still-locked door. He put his rifle up as he saw me, and proceed to pant noisily as he recovered from his rush down from the roof.

  “Hit squad?” He asked, struggling to catch his breath, as more members of his team moved into the apartment to secure the scene.

  I shook my head, “Poacher, I think. He didn’t kill me outright. He seemed intent on taking me alive.”

  I pointed to the collar on the ground, and a visored soldier carefully picked up the device and placed it into an evidence bag.

  Mabel’s voice trilled in my ear.

  “Better get back to base,” She whispered, “They want you for a debrief.”

  “Acknowledged.” I signed off.