Drifter

Chapter 3

  My aim was true, my arrow, so carefully fired, hit the inner ring of the target set ten meters back. The tactical aspect of my aim was as good as ever, but my heart had never been less into it. I know it may sound strange to talk about something like heart when doing something as simple as firing an arrow, but I recognized it to be one of the most important aspects of archery. Heart, conviction, loyalty, these were things that let you hit the target, even when the target was something you may not want to hit. It drove the doubt from your mind, leaving only the calm that comes from knowing your acting for the greater good.

"Looking good," I turned at the sound of a voice to see my friend Alexander Thorn, standing behind me. He had a gun strapped to his leg so I moved out of the center of the target range so he would have room to practice.

We both took a few shots at the target. My aim was unsurprisingly, much better than his. That was hardly his fault though. I had been recruited at a much younger age for the experimental surgery that had given us both our better than human eyesight, and the ranged targeting system that improved our aim exponentially. I was eighteen now and had been standing in front of this same target, practicing this same shot, since the surgery almost thirteen years ago. I was the youngest person ever to receive the experimental upgrade, but also the most adept at using it. It helped that I could hardly remember a time before it was a part of me.

My father had been a bigshot media specialist here at the corporation, back when the tech had first become viable for human trials. He had been only too eager to get me placed in the test group for the first round of surgery. I had always suspected he had been embarrassed by my disability, a rare form of early onset cataract that had blinded me as an infant. The surgery had corrected that. Both my eyes had been removed and replaced with cloned copies that contained nanites and cybernetic relays that controlled my ranged targeting systems, cameras, and other various digital accessories.

My father had been pleased with the results of the upgrade but hadn't lived long enough to see me grow into my full potential. He passed away when I was nine, but the corporation had continued to care for me since I had no other family. At least that's what they had told me at the time. As an adult, I recognized that I had been kept more for the substantial investment the company had made in me. I was a one of a kind guineapig, a rare chance to advertise that early installation made a difference in human upgrading.

And they weren't wrong; I did make a great example for them. I used the upgrades like they were a part of me, because they were. And since I started working at the corporation in an official capacity two years ago, they could now show me off to any potential investors. Something I had a feeling they had been doing even before to was strictly legal. The corporation had been pressing for the full legalization of upgrades for a few years now. As of this moment, it was legal for consenting adults but incredibly expensive. It was estimated one in every hundred thousand citizens of New America had an upgrade. But I knew this was all part of the plan, by making it almost impossible to afford or acquire the corporation was building interest. In a few years, when the price was reduced drastically, people would line up for something that had previously only been reserved for the most elite. By the time talks of upgrading children came about, most adults would already be living with the service, thinking it was safe.

But they hadn't seen what I had. They didn't know that behind the public face of the corporation was a strange world of experimental science and illegal human trials. Not that I blamed the public for that, I had lived here, inside the belly of the beast, for years. Walking past rooms with people screaming and doors marked Authorized Entry only, never giving any of it a second thought. It was easy when it's the only thing you had ever been taught to do. My handler, Edward Hoth, often said; a good field agent had to ask the right amount of questions, enough to get the job done, and nothing extra. But lately, I had been asking a lot of extra questions.