Chapter 6: First Blood
Nine days since waking up as someone else. Nine days of careful progress, steady accumulation, the patient construction of a new life from the ruins of an old one.
It wasn't enough.
The text came at 7 PM: chuco wants to meet. says he got something big. midnight at the old auto yard on mesa
Chuco. Small-time dealer who'd bought information from me three days ago—which corners were hot, which weren't. He'd paid forty dollars and walked away happy. Now he wanted to meet at midnight, in an isolated location, claiming to have "something big."
Deal Sense activated the moment I read the message. The familiar cold pressure against my spine, the instinct that something was fundamentally wrong with this picture.
I texted back: auto yard won't work. too exposed. how about the industrial lot on southern? more exits.
His response took five minutes: sure whatever. midnight
That delay bothered me. If Chuco really had something valuable, he'd want to meet as soon as possible. The hesitation suggested consultation—someone else making decisions.
I could walk away. Ignore the meeting. Disappear into the city and let whatever trap this was spring on empty air.
But walking away meant burning Chuco as a contact. Burning contacts meant shrinking my network. Shrinking my network meant fewer resources, less information, slower progress toward becoming someone who couldn't be touched.
Besides, I was curious. Who had I pissed off enough to warrant an ambush? And how much did they know about me?
The industrial lot on Southern was a quarter-acre of cracked concrete surrounded by chain-link fence, lit by a single working streetlight. An auto body shop had operated here once—the skeleton of the building still stood, windows broken, walls tagged with graffiti. Multiple exits: gaps in the fence, access roads, even a drainage ditch that led to a residential street.
I arrived at 11:30, thirty minutes early. Walked the perimeter. Identified sight lines. Picked a position that gave me views of both entrances while keeping my back to the fence.
Then I waited.
Chuco showed up at 11:55. He walked slowly, hands visible, trying to project casual confidence. But his movements were wrong—too stiff, too controlled. Like an actor hitting marks.
"Pete! Good to see you, man." His voice carried across the empty lot. "Thanks for meeting."
I stayed where I was. Let him close the distance.
"What's this opportunity you mentioned?"
"Oh, man, it's perfect. My cousin knows this guy who—"
Movement behind me. Left side, maybe thirty feet away. The scrape of a shoe on concrete.
I didn't turn. Didn't acknowledge. But every sense went to full alert.
"—who's got a line on some seriously premium information, like, cartel-level stuff. Worth a lot of money to the right people."
"And you need me for what, exactly?"
Another sound. Right side now. They were flanking me.
"Well, you've got the connections, right? The buyers. I figured we could split it—"
"Chuco." I kept my voice level. "Who are the guys behind me?"
His face went pale. The mask slipped.
"What? I don't—there's nobody—"
"The one on the left is about thirty feet out, near the burned car. The one on the right is closer, maybe twenty feet, behind the stack of tires. Want to try again?"
Chuco's mouth opened and closed. He looked like a fish drowning in air.
"It's not—I didn't have a choice, man. They would've—"
"Who sent them?"
"I don't know, okay? Some guys showed up at my place, said you'd burned the wrong person, said they wanted to talk. That's all."
Tomas. The name clicked into place. The dealer I'd exposed to Little H a week ago. Someone in his orbit had connected the dots.
"Walk away, Chuco. Right now."
"Pete, I'm sorry, I didn't—"
The man on my left stepped out of cover. Big guy, shaved head, wearing a tank top that showed off arms covered in prison tattoos. His right hand held something that caught the streetlight.
Knife. Serrated edge. Eight inches, minimum.
"Snitch." His voice was flat. "Someone wants to have a conversation with you."
The second man emerged on my right. Smaller, faster-looking, with a phone in one hand. Recording, probably. Evidence for whoever had sent them.
I calculated angles. The fence behind me was chain-link—climbable, but not quickly. The drainage ditch was fifty feet to my left, blocked by the knife guy. The nearest gap in the fence was behind and to my right, past the second attacker.
No good options.
"I'm just a guy who notices things," I said. "Whatever Tomas told you—"
"Tomas is in the hospital." The big guy stepped closer. "Two broken arms. Missing teeth. Hospitality from his employer. And he mentioned your name. Several times."
Shit. Little H had taken my information and made an example. Now Tomas's friends wanted payback.
"I didn't hurt anyone. I just—"
"You talked. Talking has consequences." Another step. The knife glinted. "This doesn't have to be bad, if you come quiet. Just a conversation."
I knew what that conversation would involve. These weren't professionals—professionals wouldn't monologue. They were enforcers, street-level muscle, used to targets who froze or ran. They expected fear.
I was afraid. But I was also thinking.
The big guy is confident. He'll commit to the first attack. The small one is hanging back—recording first, backing up second. If I move right, I have a better angle on the gap in the fence. But I'll need a distraction.
"Okay." I raised my hands. "Okay, you win. I'll come. Just—"
I stepped backward.
And something happened.
My foot caught on a piece of rebar jutting from the concrete—debris I hadn't noticed during my earlier reconnaissance. The stumble was uncontrolled, genuine, sending me sprawling sideways instead of backward.
The big guy lunged at the same moment, knife sweeping through the space where my chest had been half a second earlier. He overextended, momentum carrying him forward.
The small guy cursed and moved to cut off my new angle. But he stepped on something—a crushed beer can that rolled under his foot—and staggered, arms pinwheeling.
I didn't think. I ran.
Behind me, shouting. The big guy recovering, giving chase. But I was already at the gap in the fence, squeezing through the bent chain-link, tearing my shirt on an exposed wire but not stopping, not slowing.
The drainage ditch was ahead. I jumped down, landed hard on damp concrete, felt pain shoot through my ankle but kept moving. The ditch ran between buildings toward a street where people were walking, cars were driving, witnesses existed.
A car alarm erupted somewhere behind me—I didn't see what triggered it, but the sound was deafening, drawing attention, making pursuit conspicuous.
I hit the street and merged into foot traffic. Head down. Shoulders hunched. Presence Reduction at full throttle, becoming nobody, becoming invisible, becoming a face that no one would remember.
Three blocks. Five. I ducked into a 24-hour laundromat, pushed through to the back, found a corner between two industrial dryers where I could collapse and shake.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
The luck. That impossible, life-saving luck.
The rebar I hadn't seen. The stumble that moved me out of the knife's path. The beer can that tripped the second attacker. The car alarm that covered my escape.
None of that was skill. None of that was planning. That was something else—the same something that had warned me about Rico's bust, the same cold certainty that had pushed me away from danger before I could articulate why.
Lucky Survivor. The ability I'd read about in the powers documentation. Subconscious probability manipulation during genuine danger.
It had saved my life. But my body was paying the price.
Fatigue hit like a wave. My muscles went liquid. My vision blurred. For a long moment I couldn't move at all—just sat there against the warm dryers, feeling the vibration through my back, trying to remember how to breathe.
A stray cat wandered over. Grey and white, one ear torn, the look of a survivor. It sniffed my hand, apparently decided I was acceptable, and climbed into my lap.
I let it. The warmth and weight were grounding. The purr vibrated through my chest.
"Hey, buddy," I whispered. "Rough night, huh?"
The cat didn't respond. Cats never do.
Dawn came slowly. The laundromat filled with early customers—shift workers, insomniacs, an old woman who sang quietly to herself while folding towels. None of them paid me any attention.
I took stock.
Two hundred dollars in my wallet. Ninety-seven NZT pills in my invisible bag. Minor scrapes from the fall and the fence, nothing serious. An ankle that ached but supported weight.
And the knowledge that my current approach was unsustainable.
Street-level information brokering had been a good start, but it put me in direct contact with dangerous people. Every transaction created exposure. Every satisfied customer told someone else. Sooner or later, I'd make the wrong enemy—someone smarter than Tomas's friends, someone who wouldn't send amateurs.
I needed distance. Layers. The ability to operate without being personally connected to every deal.
I needed to become someone else.
The thought had been percolating since the transmigration. Pete's face was burned now—anyone looking for the snitch who sold out Tomas would find Skinny Pete's description. But faces could be changed. Identities could be created.
Mexico was close. Tijuana had doctors who asked no questions, clinics that specialized in people who needed to disappear and reappear as someone new. The cost would be substantial—tens of thousands, probably—but the investment would pay dividends for years.
First, though, I needed to survive the next few weeks. Lay low. Let the heat die down. Build enough capital for the procedure and the time off that recovery would require.
I gently displaced the cat from my lap. It meowed in protest but settled on the warm spot I'd left on the floor.
"Thanks for the company," I told it.
The morning sun was bright outside. I limped toward the door, every muscle aching, every sense still hyperalert despite the exhaustion.
The game had changed. I'd almost died in an empty lot because I'd underestimated how fast information traveled, how quickly enemies could form, how dangerous this world really was.
I wouldn't make that mistake again.
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