The next week was fairly uneventful. Most of the time, she didn't even bother going to Spire for assignments. She was more of an independent asset with a broader area of expertise, acting as an intelligence operative more than anything. On occasion, her services were called upon to hunt a specific target but for the most part, she was sent into the more lawless parts of the city to gather information. She sent regular reports to Frank, her handler, about the state of the gang politics in the lower levels. Such places were her usual beat and she could move more freely given that not many gang bangers had access to the kind of weaponry that could actually hurt her. She did stand out, though. You didn't get to be a gray without corporate support. Luckily, most thought she was an operative for a corporation rather than law enforcement. There were quite a few corporate nations involved in all manner of shady shit and the lower levels of the city were a perfect place to run rampant without drawing too much attention. She kept tabs on the corporate operatives too from time to time.<br/><br/>Most of her job these days involved paperwork... or whatever the paperless equivalent was. She entered data and wrote reports. She was putting the finishing touches on a status report on her little terminal when she got a blip from Frank. She sighed, keying to his frequency. His face came up on the screen, looking tired and overworked as usual.<br/><br/>"What's up boss?" She asked as she leaned back in her chair, holding the tablet up so that he could see her as well.<br/><br/>"Just got an op handed down to me from the higher ups. It's too small for them to commit a task force so they thought of you. Looks like a defective labor clone wandered away from his minders. Somehow he got himself stuck on a cargo crate. Probably an error. They likely shut the door without knowing he was inside. Got shipped all the way from one of the outlying colonies. Now he's wandering around somewhere in the city. Probably lost. I don't know why they requested a Spire operative for this. Seems more like something that should be relegated to DistSec but ever since the Anyo Nine, defective labor clones have been taken a bit more seriously. Just hunt him down, tag him and bag him and bring him to DistSec 17 for processing." Even as he spoke, he was popping pills. Either anti-depressants or stimulants. She couldn't see the bottle.<br/><br/>Another blip and a forwarded incident file appeared on her screen with details of the clone's last known position and some other information. "Right... I used to command field ops, you know..." she said, thinking back to her time at Darkstar. She might have been a slave but at least she was never bored.<br/><br/>"Hey, be glad. After Janus, I thought you'd be happy to have some easier duties. Besides, the payout for this retrieval is... oddly generous. I don't know about you but I could use the bonus. I got three kids and a wife who likes the mall a little too much so go earn us some dough. And feel free to shoot the little runaway if you need to. If he's in unfamiliar territory, his programming might not be able to handle it. He could be violent. Good luck."<br/><br/>The screen went black and disappeared, returning her to her status report of the RedDevols Spice gang. She saved the draft and sent it to processing before putting the tablet aside and moving over to a wall panel. It flipped open to reveal a small arsenal. She pulled on a vest and a lanyard, slapping a magazine into a modified Nadez9 SMG and clipping it onto the lanyard, letting it hand in front of her torso. Next, she buckled on a thigh holster, checking the sights on her pistol before sliding it in and clipping it shut. She pulled on a coat over it all and called the elevator.<br/><br/>---------------------------------------------<br/><br/>Two hours later.<br/><br/>District 17 was supposed to be the last place anyone had reported a sighting of the runaway clone's model. Facial recognition had flagged him but there were so many of his model walking around doing menial tasks that it was hard to be sure she was in the right place. Apparently, though, the clone had grown a beard and, ironically, a near positive facial recognition match, hindered by the facial hair, was more useful than a positive one in this case. Still, District 17 was a big place. Without intel, she could search the whole area for months and never run across her target.<br/><br/>Plan B was to seek out Sunny. The madam ran a pretty popular escort service in the area. District 17 was near the lower levels. It was primarily an entertainment district but it had its fair share of criminal activity as well. While a lot of the larger pleasure houses had been given government sanctions to operate in the city, Sunny's was a little more underground, their clientele among the city's criminal elite. As a result, she had a pretty reliable information network in this part of the city. And she was sweet on Beretta.<br/><br/>A couple of hours of sweet talking and a promise to come back for a longer visit was all it took to get what she needed. Apparently, one of Sunny's girls worked primarily in a popular club in the area and Beretta's description of her target reminded the girl of one of the new maintenance men. It was actually pretty surprising. Beretta had half expected to find the clone dead or wandering aimlessly. They were supposed to be pretty brain dead when they were cut off from their regular duties. But not only had this one evaded detection by the authorities, he'd gotten himself a job. She could only imagine that the club owner had found him somewhere and realized he was a runaway and took the opportunity for some cheap labor. It made her think of her own time with Darkstar. The people running those corporations had thought of others as property. From the sound of it, the club owner felt the same. Beretta instantly didn't like him on a subconscious level. Still, the clone wasn't like her. It was essentially a biological automaton, right? And she could use the money....<br/><br/><br/>No one bothered her as she approached the club. It wasn't uncommon to see someone armed in this part of the city. DistSec and corporate security forces made regular patrols in their own territory and some brazen gang members were known to do the same. Besides, no one wanted to mess with a gray. But that didn't mean she didn't get a few frightened looks. She ignored them, or tried to for the most part.<br/><br/>The bouncer at the club was just opening the doors, a sizable line waiting to get in, all dressed in exotic, brightly colored outfits that Beretta thought were ridiculous but apparently were in keeping with local clubbing culture. The muscle bound man moved to intercept her until she placed a hand on the grip of her SMG. Then he backed off and shouldered past him.<br/><br/>The staff had just finished setting up and were readying for the influx of customers. The owner, who she recognized from Sunny's girl's description, was standing at the bar talking with one of the pretty bartenders. Beretta tried to ignore the way he stared at her tits as she sidled up, a hand still on the grip of her gun. "You the owner? I'm looking for one of your employees. Goes by Castor."