My nose curled at the stink of cigarette, corner of my mouth twitching involuntary. It was a familiar stink, that. Something I associated with late nights, grinning friends spilling drink from red cups, small packages passed furtively from one hand to another, music I could make no sense of, grey concrete floors and swaying lights. It pervaded everything, invading clothing with no compunction about who was actually enjoying the tobacco or not. Good times, bad hangovers, and the glance of suspicion when I returned home. 

I wasn’t cheating on her. No, I wasn’t the type. But I did love a good brawl, and that was something she’d never understand. She wasn’t like me. She didn’t need the raw, preferred the refined. And that was all well and good, too, you know? But I wasn’t always fit for refined. Sometimes I could get...nasty. Blues, punk, metal, ska, it didn’t matter. It just needed to be raw, and there needed to be a fight. ‘Cause, in the end, that’s what I was. A stinking fightin’ dog. Dawg if you’re from the South. God, they can’t talk right, can they? 

Fightin’ dog. 
	
I shook my head, stepping into the bar, doing my best to ignore the myriad and pungent scents. I banged down my money and got cheap shit in exchange. Beer. Never liked beer. Disgusting taste, didn’t get ya drunk half as fast as it should. Better than cheap syntho, though. Never got a buzz of that stuff. Something to do with biology and how I was built. Some folks got knocked off their asses on it, and it was hilarious. Never bet against a fightin’ dog in a drinking contest, or any contest, really. Stubborn fools we are. 

But nevermind all that. I wasn’t there to get drunk. I was there to look like I was getting drunk. 

For a long time, nothing happened. Just dumb kids moshing to intelligibility. I toyed with my beer and held back and watched. What I wanted was to jump into the middle of it all and throw down, of course. I was game. I wanted to show I was game. But I didn’t. I held old brutal instincts in check, staring at a couple of humans and 'thros duking it out on what could loosely be called a dance floor. Oh, Mya wouldn’t like this, I thought, Dear sweet thing. My poor heart.

A human boy with nanodesic scales was thrown up against me. I shoved him off, choking down a snarl. I didn’t need to call attention to myself. Not yet. 

Things got wilder and wilder, and the bar tender looked more and more nervous. I was beginning to think nothing was going to happen when finally, she showed up. She did a good job looking like she belonged. Typical cyberpunk, bright green and blue hair, ripped latex and tons of dilapidated gadgetry, from her glasses to her knee-high adren-o-pumps. Made me wonder how much of it actually worked, she was so covered in wires and neon readouts. So, maybe not so typical. 
	
I sipped my beer, watching from the corner of my eye. There she went. She was talking, laughing. She didn’t go to the back room like I expected. Instead, she slipped a guy a package, would walk, talk to another guy, and give him a similar small packette. I didn’t stop her. I could have made a drug bust right there, but that wasn’t the point. I was to tail her back to her contact, and tail them back to the bosses. At the very least, I had to find out what the hell she was handing out, ‘cause she certainly wasn’t selling the stuff. Druggies don’t exactly pay in advance on these things. 

“Another,” I demanded from the bar tender. He raised an eyebrow at my half-full cup, but didn’t say anything after I gave him a significant look. I took my second beer, and that was about when all hell broke loose.