Wired

Kane was high. A gentle trickle of electric current massaged his circuitry, his vision swimming with a kaleidoscope of enhanced images and colours. Auras danced and leapt as the music pounded in The Glitch, the booths around the periphery of the dance floor dotted with couples, groups and singles like himself imbibing in the poisons of their choice.

An Enhanced stalked through the crowd, her skin glowing in the ultraviolet lights of the club, her biometrically enhanced epidermis producing an ever shifting display of light that entranced him.

Uninvited, she slid into his booth and plugged into his Flow, the two of them riding the same high for a while in silence until she spoke, the words dancing in coruscating colour from her forked tongue.

"You're Kane right?"

"I am."

"Michaela is a mutual friend of ours, she said you'd be out celebrating tonight: I wanted to go out and she didn't but she told me where to find you and described you to me. You're kinda unique..." She traced a pale finger along the circuitry embedded in his skin. "What is this, some sorta tattoo?"

Kane turned down the Flow and looked at her more closely, his pale blue eyes boring into her obsidian dark orbs. "It's part tattoo, part superconductor, part circuitry and a few other things added in for fun. You'd be surprised what I can do."

"Maybe you could surprise me later?"

Kane chuckled. "Do you often proposition strange looking men without even introducing yourself?"

"You're not strange, merely different, and my name's Isis. So, what're we celebrating?"

"We?"

"Well you don't want to be a wired loner all night do you? I mean it's cool to go with the Flow for a bit, but there's so much more we could do than just sit here watching people get dehydrated... so, what're we celebrating."

Kane looked over the blatantly exposed form and ultraviolet skin of the stunning woman in front of him. "I tend to go my own way in this world, but if you really want to know, we're celebrating me managing to transfer the biggest data package ever through the doors of the Sken Empire without being noticed."

"How?"

"What do you think all this is for?" He waved a hand at his circuit impregnated skin.

Looking suitably impressed the girl leaned in close and switched off the Flow. "So why do you need a trickle feed into your skull if you can do half of what I think you can?"

"Sometimes it's nice just to kick back and let someone else do the work."

"How human are you?"

"Human enough to make me human, non-human enough to make me different." He smiled and traced a finger up her arm, tiny sparks of electricity making her gasp as the static tingled her skin.

Her eyes lit up and she grinned at him. "How far do your tattoos go?"

He smiled enigmatically and signalled a robo-waitress for drinks.

She took a sip of cocktail and tried a different conversational tack. "So, what other information do you have stuck in there?"

"You'd be surprised what I have in, and under, my skin."

"Well I'm hoping to find out more about that later," she purred, "but you're avoiding the question."

"I do seem to be, don't I?" he replied a slight note of caution entering his voice. "My clients do expect a certain level of anonymity you know. The Sken Heist is public knowledge now in certain circles, but I have other clients and all expect me to be a little cautious about who I talk to, and what I talk about, no matter how inebriated I get, or how attractive the company."