The Outlaw (Phantom Server: Book #2) by Andrei Livadny Page B

most of the doubts. I was pretty sure if I began asking questions, I'd hear a convincing well-plotted story, the product of the scriptwriters' imagination.
    “Did you say cargonite?” Ingmud flipped a few switches on the control panels and nodded. “Yes, that's what I used to do. Ripped off a few, I'm the first to admit it. Greed is addictive, you know. It sucks you in like quicksand. The way I looked at it, you couldn't have too much money. I thought I'd always find what to spend it on.”
    I listened to him closely, making up a mental list of questions to ask him. This location had proved not just interesting but also very useful. An independent human settlement on board a Founders' station was an exceptional precedent. Just think of all the new updated plot lines that must have been tied to its inhabitants.
    Yes, it was probably worth my while not to lose contact with Ingmud.
    “You've changed a lot,” I said matter-of-factly, encouraging him to continue our conversation.
    “Have I?” he turned to me, raising a surprised eyebrow. “You and I, we've only met once and even then only fleetingly. Had it not been for your Haash friend and a couple of decent devices among your Dargian gear that you wanted to scrap, I'd have never remembered your face even.”
    This set my alarm bells ringing. How could an NPC, no matter how well-plotted his backstory, know such minute details of his human prototype's past?
    “But you're dead right,” he went on. “You've read my tag, that's what made you say that. Once a vendor, now a hybrid. But I tell you, Zander, it didn't happen overnight!” he lowered his body into the chair.
    Ah, that did touch a chord! Would he issue me a quest, maybe?
    “Think for yourself, I used to handle tons of cargonite on a daily basis,” the hybrid stooped as if the memory still hurt him. “Mainly useless scrap, fragments of station hull and such, but sometimes I came across various pieces of the Founders' devices. I just didn't have the heart to scoop them all into the furnace. So I started tinkering with the scrap for a bit, removing a part here, an unknown device there. With time I got seriously into it. I became good at dismantling them, I even got myself a special technological scanner. I set up a small workshop in my hangar. I knew, of course, that taking artifacts apart was an unhealthy idea, but temptation got the better of me. I'd find a neurochip among all the junk and I'd be happy as a pig. Why wouldn't I be? It costs an arm and a leg, normally. So I kept all these little gimmicks stashed in a nice little container waiting for their chance to fetch me a nice bit of cash.”
    “And?”
    “They all melted, didn't they?” Ingmud shrugged. “One day I open the box and all my chips have turned to mercury. Or some such. A liquid metal, cold to touch. I didn't notice it at once though. I reached into the box — I had this habit of scooping them out, as if to feel my wealth, if you know what I mean. That's how it happened. I felt something wet and sticky run between my fingers. I looked at my hand and I nearly had a heart attack! By the time I found a cloth in my workshop to wipe the stuff off my hand, it had all soaked in, all of it, without a trace! Then suddenly I couldn't think straight, and the pain, you can't imagine — like someone was ripping my brain to shreds! I thought that was the end of me. No idea how much time I spent on the floor unconscious. When I finally came round, I was already like this,” he unbuttoned his well-worn jacket and bared his chest for me to see.
    Jesus. His mangled flesh was fused with metal gleaming blue. You couldn't tell where one ended and the other started.
    I felt uncomfortable. He must have suffered a torturous agony.
    “You think it hurt? Nope. It didn't. At first this constant mess in my head really bugged me. Then I got used to it. It was worth the new abilities I got. Like when you brought me that Dargian gear, I could see right through it. I