[ WP ] In a world where people can buy and sell skills , you work at a skill pawn shop and someone is trying to pawn a skill that you ca n't value or appraise .

Most of the time, I ca n't tell what's beer cases from old monitors, everything's so dusty down here. 
 
 `` What's with the sombrero chick, Hank?'' Kat asks, a trail of cigarette smoke following her down the basement. 
 
 `` My client,'' I reply, pushing Bud Light cases and keyboards aside. I fish for an old metal box on the shelf behind. 
 
 `` What she want? Blowjob 3.0?'' 
 
 `` Not every beautiful girl is a hooker, Kat,'' I reply, opening the box and waving the drives around until I find the 
 right one. `` There,'' I say, pulling the rectangular blue device marked *'Knifes and Swords.'* 
 
 `` Knifes, huh?'' Kat hums, peeking over my shoulder. `` Your girl's got some trouble she wants to take care of?'' 
 
 I go around Kat, stealing the cigarette from her mouth and taking a drag on my way back up to the store. `` She's 
 an actress.'' 
 
 `` Oh, an actress?'' Kat asks, climbing after me. `` Are n't they all?'' 
 
 `` Landed a role as a knife killer on some bullshit on Channel 10,'' I reply. `` They offered her classes and all that, but 
 she wanted to learn the real deal.'' 
 
 `` You mean the illegal deal.'' 
 
 I stop by the basement door. `` Do you have a problem with my client, Kat?'' 
 
 `` None at all,'' Kat replies, taking her cigarette back. `` Do you have a problem with me not having a problem with 
 your client, Hank?'' 
 
 I roll my eyes. That's what I get for hiring my ex-girlfriend. 
 
 
 
 _________ 
 
 
 
 `` There you go,'' I say, pushing the blue driver on the girl's hand. 
 
 `` And it's all there?'' the girls asks me. `` All that I need to know to –'' 
 
 `` You plug this in to your NeuroStym and let it load. By the time its done you'll be a samurai.'' 
 
 She smiles. `` Thanks.'' 
 
 I catch a glimpse of the grey street as sombrero girl pulls herself out to the rain. It's almost end of afternoon, by 
 the looks of the sky behind the buildings. 
 
 `` How would you feel about going legal?'' Kat asks, startling me from behind. 
 
 `` What do you mean?'' 
 
 `` I mean giving up the old skill selling business. Starting something else. Something real.'' 
 
 `` Skill selling is not illegal.'' 
 
 Kat rolls her eyes. `` The kind you do is. You're not selling cooking skill drivers here, Hank, come on. If you –'' 
 
 `` Customer, Kat,'' I say, as the old man rings the bell on his way out of the rain. 
 
 Kat sighs, then takes a step by my side on the counter. `` Can I help you, sir?'' 
 
 The man takes off a flat cap, dusting water drops out of it as he approaches. His eyes stop on me for a second, 
 narrowing. Then he takes a step forward and drops a tiny red driver on the counter. 
 
 `` We do n't buy,'' Kat tells him. `` Try Case's, on Sunset and –'' 
 
 But the man's already gone. 
 
 `` Weirdos,'' Kat says, taking the driver. Throwing herself at a chair, she spins around and wheels for a computer. 
 
 `` I like my job, Kat,'' I say, watching the rain beat the small window on the far corner of my store. The large BANK 
 OF AMERICA screen siding the black building is shining back an ad on loop to me – white shores and a couple 
 drinking Martinis.'Travel without leaving home. VR World Tour. First trip free.' 
 
 `` I like it better than what I did before,'' I whisper, more to myself than to Kat. 
 
 `` Hank…'' 
 
 `` I'm not going back to the shit I used to do,'' I say. `` But I'm not getting a job at a bank as well. Damn straight I'm 
 not working cashier at a Seven Ele –'' 
 
 `` Hank!'' 
 
 `` What?'' 
 
 I turn to face Kat, who's got eyes all over me like I just landed from Saturn. She nods to the computer screen, where long lines of code rain down over white screen. 
 
 `` What is it? Murder?'' I ask. Sometimes people bring in weird shit here. Hitmen and other people… I do n't sell that 
 stuff. Far as I'll go is sell you a driver full of Kung-Fu or how to use a gun. That I can justify to myself. 
 
 Selling'how to hide a body' is a bit too weird for me. 
 
 `` Hank… Look at this code.'' 
 
 There was this old government program. A legend from the early days of the Neuro program. It was called Ultra. A 
 toolbox – a set of skills invented by a hacker on a contract with some people high the kind you think rule the world. 
 It was supposed to access memories, emotions, thoughts – a code you'd install via your NeuroStym, like any 
 normal skill, and it would give you remote access, but not to computers or anything. To other people's minds. They said there was a backdoor in every NeuroStym implanted in every person. They said Ultra was being developed in secret by the government. 
 
 This was all paranoid tin-foiled discussions in message boards. That was my best guess. Until now. 
 
 `` Kat,'' I say, scrolling down at the code. `` Lock the door.'' 
 
 

