There are alleys in Gigerpunk City where the lamps work and nobody walks alone anyway. The Reapers know those alleys. In hoods and heavy coats, they watch the clubs empty and the night workers come home exhausted. They can recognise an expensive enhancement through a coat sleeve and know who has fallen too far behind the city’s pace for anyone to come looking.
Reapers deal in second-hand parts. They buy damaged implants, strip machines for components and sell replacements to people who cannot afford a Fusion Doc’s catalogue. They also strip the dead: a mercenary left in an alley, a body beneath a loading bay. To a Reaper, a stranger crossing the street may have rent, food and three months of safety fitted beneath their skin.
When business is poor, some stop waiting for death. A person with an expensive arm may wake to find it gone. Others do not wake at all. A blade, a scanner and a quiet place are enough to start in the trade; knowing how to remove a part quickly and get it to a buyer before the trail goes cold is what keeps a Reaper in it. Most remember the first time a victim spoke to them. Few tell the story the same way twice.
They work alone or in small crews, trusting one another only as far as the next payment. They sell to anyone who pays, including Fusion Docs who would rather not hear where the hardware came from. Like the grave robbers of old, Reapers haunt the edge of a trade that respectable people claim to despise. Those same people sometimes arrive with cash, begging for a part by dawn. The Reaper takes the money and does not ask what happened to the old one.
The city makes enhancement necessary and keeps it out of reach. Almost everyone in Gigerpunk City wants another chance to survive. A Reaper sees one attached to somebody else.