531

Shaken

Chan Yi was shaken. There was no other word for it. As he slunk back to the office, he could feel the shake of his hands and the rush of his heart. He might not have blood pumping through his veins, but they damn sure gave him all the tells of a human body.

It was the only excuse he had for why he made it all the way into his office before he realized he wasn't alone.

He nearly ran into a brute of a man before he stopped. His office had been tossed, and the man in front of him leaned against the front of the empty desk, arms crossed in waiting.

"Mr. Chan. I believe we need to have a conversation."

The guy was a suit, but not like Faceless and Jackson. He was a different breed. More like the beater from earlier, only better paid.

"Seems like you've made yourself at home," Yi said, looking around the office. There wasn't much there that was worth looking through. He kept his files encrypted and nothing was on paper that wasn't common knowledge. His only case at the moment was Fulmer and he didn't have anyone he thought would be calling on him. What enemies he'd made over the years knew not to come at him like this. No one tried to take him head-on. It was a quick way to learn that Chan Yi was more steel than heart.

The suit had two guys with him, each waiting on the opposite corner of the room. They were perfectly placed for an ambush in his small office. Yi might be metal, but he wasn't invulnerable. He was harder to fix than a human, and there was only one person he trusted to patch him up. He tried not to make a habit of visiting though.

"Jason Fulmer," the guy said as Yi looked at each of the men he'd brought in.

"I don't want any trouble," Yi said honestly. "Guy's wife hired me to find him. You got information on him? I don't mind sharing if you can give me a heads up on this one."

"You should just tell us anything you know and let this one go. We don't need anyone meddling in this," Suit said as he pushed away from the desk. The guy was pushing 6'5" and the way his jacket settled on his shoulders said it was all muscle underneath. Shit.

"That might be a problem then because I already told his wife I was on the job."

"You don't want this kind of trouble." The two guys on each side stepped closer.

"No, I don't, but that's the story of my life." This wasn't a fight he wanted to tackle, so he turned to run back out, but he was grabbed by the man to his left. He was thrown up and over his desk, landing hard on the floor behind it. Fucking augmentations. He scrambled to the desk and reached under it, only to find the gun he kept there missing.

"Think we didn't find that?" the guy coming for him asked. He had his sleeves pulled up like he was itching for a fight. Yi blocked a kick to the face, and swiped out with his arm, catching the man's knee sideways with a sickening crunch. He went down hard with a scream and Yi dove away from his desk towards the empty one.

He got to his feet and pulled his arm up, opening the minigun on his right forearm. He didn't want to shoot up his office, but he wasn't prepared to lose this fight either. The suit had the same idea and had Yi's other gun in hand. He shot at Yi, and he would have been hit were Yi human, but he was fast enough to bring his arm up to block it.

"What the hell are you?" Suit demanded as he stared at Yi's arm.

The minigun was destroyed by the expanding bullet that he'd blocked. In fact, his forearm was just mangled bits of metal and synthetic flesh, hanging from his exoskeleton, gushing fluid that might look like blood but was very different in function and construction. He couldn't block the pain, but he rerouted some of his processes to mute the pain so he could stay in the fight.