Bonus Short Story: Just Another Day

August 17, 2016August 17, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The horizon was a mix of neon and white with the occasional yellow of an old incandescent or fluorescent bulb in the quilt-work of high-rises. Their exteriors were either gleaming, freshly cleaned cement and steel, or dilapidated brick-work, soot-covered from decades of smog. From a distant enough overhead view, sections of the city-streets would be plastered with headlights from vehicles whose owners had yet to make the switch to flying craft. Only the police craft would stick out, their red and blue flashing in groups or singles.

At one corner drugstore with them, was Detective Arnold Rhein. It wasn’t a stretch to call Rhein a veteran of the force. Indeed, he was well-known by most in the precinct. Even for a brief while, by the Press, when he uncovered a Mayoral-aide’s murder that implicated the Mayor in a scandalous conspiracy.

Those days were long gone now. Rhein was near the end of his rope. He’d prematurely grayed decades ago, before cars flew. Now steel-haired, a permanent, salt and pepper tinted his five o’clock shadow. He’d often scratch it to think, infect the air with sand-paper sounds of nails on scruff.

Presently, sand-paper sounded in Armen’s Corner Drugstore. Rhein squatted at the feet of a fresh stiff. The body wasn’t even cold yet. Obvious signs of a struggle adorned the counter in over turned beef-jerky stacks, scattered candy-bars and other miscellanea.

Armed robbery gone awry. The stiff’s gut-wound said as much. It wasn’t precise or intentional. The bruise formed along the bridge of the stiff’s nose, through its crook and to his forehead, said he’d been headbutted and the gun went off. A trickle of blood that he’d made no attempt to wipe away said he was in shock or dead too soon after for it to gain purchase in his mind.

Rhein straightened to survey the scene better. Armed robbery gone wrong. That was it. Simple. Nothing else stuck out. A few, errant bills had been left behind in the drawer. Small bills, not worth risking the time once the sirens started blaring.

The upstairs neighbor had called the police, come down to check on the clerk and found him dead. The old woman with curlers in her hair was wrapped in a bathrobe assaulting to even the most deadened senses. She was a neon-teal beacon with a powdered-white face from hastily glomed on make-up. The curlers created a laurel around her head of clashing, hot pink.

Rhein looked away. He’d been on the job a lot of years, enough to discern two things; this would end up as another unsolved murder, and that woman had no sense of taste. He strolled back across the drugstore, slipped out for a uniform in charge of the scene. He’d already yielded to Rhein’s experience, acting as middle man to keep the blues orderly while the Detective did his thing.

“Detective,” the uniform said with a nod.

“Officer,” Rhein began. “Call the coroner. There’s nothing here. Typical smash and grab gone wrong. The only way we’d’ve caught the guy is if we’d seen him running out with the cash.”

The officer seemed to understand. He flipped his little memo book closed. Rhein stepped around him and through a line of cruisers to his unmarked, four-wheel car. He’d never cared much for the fliers. They handled like refrigerators, big and bulky with no grace, and undeserving of the power of flight. He preferred the old gas-guzzling, air-polluters he’d known his whole life.

But that was the nature of things now. The old got older until they ended up stiffs, took their ways with ’em to make way for young and new.
He drove on through the city: the future was progress that had no place for him. Traffic was horrendous, but better than before fliers. Everything was different– yet somehow, the same. He wasn’t sure when the change had started, but instinct and memory said somewhere between wives two and three. Now Carol, wife four, was looking to get the long end of the stick. The others hadn’t been so fortunate. Rhein had been “married to the job” before Carol, a cop in his prime, then a detective with something to prove. The relationships could’ve never hoped to survive.

Carol had a detective nearing retirement though. Rhein wasn’t even willing to take the extra effort anymore of double-checking things. He made a call, and it was over. Nose to the ground was for greenies that hadn’t learned the cyclical nature of the city and crime. They were still too young to have the skills that allowed him a lone glance to make a call. Only time and experience could allow for that. Rhein had both, wasn’t sure he wanted either anymore.

To any other Detective, especially a greenie, he’d have seemed a burn out. The truth was paradoxically nearer and further than most knew. Rhein wasn’t a burn-out in the usual sense, he was merely worn down. His mind had gone from the razor-sharpness of a freshly honed blade to the dull, age-worn metal of one eons older. Forty years of work had worn it down.

His unmarked car rolled up to his tenement on the city’s outer-edge. He put it in park and killed the engine. For a moment, he sat there staring, watching cars and fliers pass on the road and in the sky.

The world had changed, and not for the better. His world, the one he’d come from anyway, was smaller, more tightly-knit. People had worked for one another, and with one another, all to make life better. Personal gain had been the side note then, societal gain the main passage. Now everyone was out for themselves. The world was too big. Cities had tripled, quadrupled in size to accommodate the ever-growing global census. With them rose violent crime rates until one could no longer hope to make a difference, no matter how hard they tried. At least, if they could, it took a technique Rhein didn’t know or could never learn.

The old guard had to inexorably resign, move on, fade into history to become a forgotten relic. Why not start here, with himself? He saw no a reason not to.

A few moments later, he exited the elevator to the squalor of his tenement’s hallway, pushed his way into the meager apartment he’d afforded on a cop’s salary. He found Carol in bed, covers up to her chin. He went about quietly undressing, slipped into bed.

She stirred, “How was work?”

He pulled her in to his bare chest, stared emptily at the ceiling, “Just another day.”

The Nexus Project: Part 9

July 29, 2016July 27, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

16.

Before them lay a massive, open cavern, half a kilometer tall, and three-quarters in width. The splendor that captivated them stood on a dozen, hydraulic legs and filled most of the space. Three, squared sections ahead of a larger fourth connected to tubular engines Simon recognized from his lab. He’d designed them– both in theory, then in 3-D software. He’d even built a prototype, or what he thought was a prototype, anyway. It was currently sitting in his lab’s test-chamber.

They were PL-5 plasma-fusion drives, the “next-gen” of propulsion, and descendants of all engines currently used through-out Sol. Simon had calculated them capable of Earth to Ganymede travel in a little over an hour. They cut the current, eight-hour travel time to a fraction of itself via advanced-compression gasses that created tremendously greater thrust when turned to plasma. None of that seemed relevant now, but Simon was humbled at seeing his work incorporated into one, magnificent ship.

He and Niala pulled back as she whispered, “They weren’t stealing the information to use it. They were stealing it to keep us from using it. The anti-humanists have already developed D-S travel.”

Simon glanced between Niala and Rearden. It shuddered as it processed the thought. Snow suddenly whispered, “There it is.”

Simon and Niala leaned back out to see Josie’s doppelganger stroll along the ship’s belly. It dwarfed the faux-feline like a skyscraper turned on end. The MeLon headed for the tail-end, passed behind a large, ice-pillar that obstructed any further view. Snow moved forward on his paws as if stalking prey. Niala followed in a similar fashion. Simon followed, struck by how like a savanna or forest hunt it must be.

Rearden kept behind him, the bot’s thrusters in silent mode at minimal power. They followed to the obstructing pillar. Massive enough for the four to fit comfortably behind it. The far-end of the circular engines edged onto a long, empty expanse. The MeLon began to cross it for a transparent enclosure ahead that looked to be made of matte steel and other metals. Windows were fitted along its top in a dome, the MeLon already halfway there.

Snow readied to run, “We have to get to that door before it closes.”

Niala was ready. They timed their run. The MeLon was steps from the door. They dropped to all fours and galloped off. The MeLon keyed in a pass-code. The door slid open. Simon barely blinked before Snow landed atop the lizard.

They tumbled and rolled to the enclosure. Niala stopped in the doorway, waved Simon forward. He broke into a run, Rearden’s thrusters screamed past. He suddenly felt outpaced everywhere– maybe Snow was right about humans.

He couldn’t think of it now. Snow grabbed the faux-feline by her neck scruff, held her there. If she hadn’t been camouflaged, he’d never been able to hold her, but with the rearrangement of certain features, came the rearrangement of nervous systems to compensate. He snapped a metal clamp to the back of the feline’s neck and it stiffened like a board. He kicked it across the room as Niala and Simon appeared. Rearden was busy sealing the door, overwriting its lock codes.

Control panels on a raised platform bowed along the back wall with equally as many screens above them. Lights winked or glowed steadily, each one monitoring some component the place.

Snow headed for a door at the left in a carved, rock-wall that jutted out past the enclosure. Niala moved to the control panels, examined them. Simon merely stared at the MeLon. It was a cat to him, but something seemed off; a scent to the air like dried wood-chips beneath a heat-lamp. He remembered the smell from an Iguanidae researcher who’d been shedding. The smell was a type of oil especially pungent during molts. Here the scent was less intense, but unmistakable. Clearly the MeLon’s Pheromone treatment had worn off.

Snow reappeared, “She’s here. Go. I’ll guard the lizard.”

Simon and Niala hurried away. Snow took on a menacing hunch, stalked toward his prey. The pair entered a lavish room replete with red, hanging banners trimmed in gold. They gleamed with a strange, inhuman symbol along the walls and above a secondary control-panel. It was set in a small alcove before a chair, thirty or so screens with various feeds on them above it. At a glance, Simon made out various Ganymede districts and parts of the cavern.

Ahead, a large, satin-sheeted bed sat beside a lighted doorway jutting from an outcrop. Niala passed through first, Simon on her heels. A narrow hall cut left, opened on another room. Along its walls hung weapons and clothes of various sizes and shapes, likely where the MeLon stored its various species’ wardrobe.

Along the back wall, dangling from shackles at navel-height, was a crumpled feline.

Josie was almost unrecognizable. Her usually vibrant, striped fur was bald in places, mottled with blood in others. Her eyes had the crusted-goo effect domestic animals tended to get when they couldn’t clean themselves. Moreover, it appeared she’d cried so long and hard her eyes had turned a permanent shade of red, her fur stained at their corners.

“For the love of Bastet, what the hell has it done to her?” Niala asked, transfixed.

Simon pushed past, his throat ablaze. He didn’t care. He fought the rusted shackles and their pad-lock. They were crude, especially for this era. Then again, it didn’t take much to immobilize and contain such a helpless creature. Simon stepped back, pulled his pistol. He blasted the locks off to a red-hot glow of lasered steel. Josie’s arms fell free. She roused, already terrified and crying. Simon was beside her, his fiery throat less pained given her appearance.

“Shh, it’s okay.”

The closer he got, the more emaciated she looked. He tried to help her up. Her knees buckled. He lifted her gently, her weight a mere feather.

“She needs. A. Doctor,” Simon said.

Niala nodded, “I have something to keep her pain-free for the trip.”

“Help… me…” Josie purred in agony.

“Its. Okay. Josie,” Simon managed. “You’re safe.”

She sensed his sincerity, shuddered. She began to sob with light mews that stole what remained of his breath. He carried her back to the enclosure; Snow had the MeLon in a chair, menacing it with his teeth bared.

“We’re leaving,” Simon said, headed for the door.

Snow whipped toward him, “You’re out of your mind. We’ll never make it with her like that.”

“Do you. Have a better Idea?” He asked as caustic as his wound allowed.

He whirled back on the MeLon, “Tell me, assassin, does your ship have an infirmary?” The creature couldn’t reply with anymore than a pair of blinks. “Good.”

In one move, he knocked the lizard out.

17.

It hadn’t taken long to find the infirmary, but it was a wonder nonetheless. The ship defied logic, twice the size inside than it appeared outside. New, metal paneling formed its walls and floors, appeared as if anti-static film had only just been peeled away. All around, painted lines and signs directed them in a myriad of Earth-languages and a few others now native to Sol.

The ship was otherwise vacant, and according to what little they saw, yet to be flown. Simon carried Josie through the ship behind Niala, her sense of direction uncanny. Behind them, Snow maneuvered their prisoner through the ship over a shoulder. He cared little for the bumps and bruises its parts suffered along the way. He considered releasing it a moment, recalled a long-past fight with a MeLon and scars where his fur still grew wrong, and decided against it.

By the time they reached the infirmary, it had been nearly a half-hour since they’d found Josie. She no longer cried but seemed unable to do much more than purr. Given the feline propensity for purring in states of both pain and joy, Simon’s heart bled for her.

He laid her in a bed and stepped back while Niala rushed back and forth. Snow chained his prisoner to a bed on the infirmary’s opposite side, drew a curtain around it.

He stopped with it nearly closed, only part of his face showing, “You’re next.”

He threw the curtain closed and stepped to Simon’s side. Rearden lowered onto a bed, disengaged its thrusters to settle into place. Fifteen minutes of injections and bandaging later, Niala finished. Both Snow and Simon had settled into chairs, as much unsure of what to do as unwilling to get in the way.

Simon sensed a curious air about the Wolf. He occasionally sniffed with a subtle, upthrust muzzle. There was a deep contemplation in his features, as though mentally working something out. Wary of him, Simon ignored it until a rhythm became obvious, as though Snow wished to speak but knew not how to.

Simon sighed with a spark to his throat, “Something wrong?”

Snow’s mouth quivered with disgust, but for once he didn’t insult Simon, “Why here?”

“Huh?”

Snow expounded, “Why build the ship here? We are inside a mine. There is only one conclusion; they planned a way out.”

Simon thought on it, “What way?”

Snow eyed the human, “They planned to ignite the ship’s engines and incinerate the ice-mine. It would’ve pumped lethal amounts of ammonia into the atmosphere. The station would have been fine, and the planet would have been cleansed in time, but the lower station-levels would be toxic for days. Meanwhile, they’d bury all other evidence here.”

Simon was dumbstruck by his insight, began to see why he might be considered a leader. Despite his own distaste for the Wolf and its ways, a new image formed of him; he was far more intelligent than he let on. Given his association with Niala, he assumed they’d known one another in some capacity other than military– or at least one therein that showcased intelligence as an asset.

Simon’s voice was weaker, his speech as compact as possible, “Logical enough.”

Niala edged over, “We need to get Josie back to the ISC. I say we steal the ship and go now.”

Simon frowned, “Snow?”

The Wolf scoffed, “It would require vaporizing the mine and releasing the ammonia.”

“We’ll alert the station,” Niala countered. They watched her with dismal looks. “Josie needs medical attention and the sooner we get this ship out of MeLon hands, the better.”

Snow shook his head in defeat, knowing the Lion’s will was unshakable. He replied with a hint of enmity, “Do whatever you feel’s necessary, Matriarch.”

Niala squinted, then instructed the group, “Simon, with me. Snow, watch Josie and the prisoner. Rearden, see if you can hack the med-terminal and link with security. Search the data-stores for any traces of that’s been anyone aboard– or still is.”

Rearden’s thrusters engaged. It zoomed across the infirmary to a terminal. Simon rose as Snow chided him, “Be a good boy for mother-domess, pet.”

Simon flipped the Wolf a bird before he left with Niala. They explored the ship, mostly blind but occasionally guided by hopeful signs touting “Bridge” in a handful of languages. They kept their pistols out, Simon’s more for show than anything. Despite the obvious scrapes with death, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to kill someone. It all depended on the moment, he guessed.

“Snow’s concerned,” he said finally.

Niala pointed them around a corner, pistol aimed outward, “About?”

Simon shrugged in reply; it was easier. He managed a few words, “Ceres. What happened?”

“I told you–”

Simon grabbed her arm, grit his teeth against talons goring his throat, “I’ve been framed. Threatened. Cut. I deserve answers.”

She moved to speak but saw he would take no protest. He altogether refused to move until the truth came out– Josie and Sol be damned, he’d earned an explanation.

She heaved a sigh, “Walk and talk.” Simon eyed her skeptically. “We may not have much time. We can do both.”

Simon started forward apprehensively. They took corners slowly, traversed long wide corridors that felt more like a power-plant than a deep-space vessel.

“Shortly after I had my third litter, I left Earth with the Federation. The HAA had recently negotiated the Federation into excellent benefits, and given I now had a Pride’s worth of family to provide for, I needed all I could get.” She rounded a corner, pistol up, then lowered it, “Because of my intelligence and civil-station as Matriarch, I was recruited into the Federation’s Special-Forces unit codenamed “Padfoot Lightning.” The PFL is how I met Snow.”

Simon listened intently as they started down a long corridor toward an elevator. “Bridge-4” was painted beside it beneath a list of other levels. The pair relaxed in the absence of threats.

Niala continued, “The P-F-L was the military’s answer to old-world units like SEALs and Rangers, but with an emphasis on using evolved animals’ heightened instincts for covert missions. Snow was a tracker. I was communications and tech. There were a few others with us– a Tigress, a Hog, and a Rat– each of us had unique skills because of our species’ evolution. We were all physically robust, and trained in unarmed and weapons combat. We were the Federation’s elite.”

Simon had difficulty seeing how this formed such a heavy grudge in Snow. Military units were usually like a brotherhood or family, and given the Wolf’s regard of honor, the two seemed irreconcilable.

Niala intoned over his thoughts while they entered the elevator and began to rise. “We ran counter-terror ops, tracked drug and weapons dealers, smugglers. You name a black-trade, and we worked it, either to shut it down, expand it, or manipulate events through it to our advantage.”

The elevator doors opened on a massive, wide room filled with computers and console-like workstations both eerily foreign and extremely familiar. Niala swept the area with her pistol, then relaxed.

“Needless to say, during one mission, our team was captured. We’d been sent in to extract a hostage from a gang on Ceres. If you’re not familiar, Ceres is essentially one big mine. An entire city was built beneath the surface where the crust was mined out.” She started across the bridge, focused more on her own thoughts than the room’s features, “That city was also a haven for smugglers and gangs. Mafioso types that, like Snow now, controlled everything on the planet. They’d organized a union strike, and in the process, had captured several foreign dignitaries escorted to the planet to ensure there were no Human Rights violations.”

Simon began to see where Niala was headed. He managed to forward her nearer the point with a few, painfully choice words, “Emphasis on Humans. The animals weren’t. Happy?”

Niala affirmed with a shake of her head. “We were lined up to be executed. It was then that we met the master-mind… one of my sons.”

Simon’s brain decoupled from his body for a moment. He stood in utter shock.

Niala’s voice became distant, “When my son saw me, he released me under guard.” Her eyes welled up, her breaths weak, “We argued until… he forced me to execute my team.” Traumatic memories played over her face, visible in her eyes and weak muscles, “I killed the Hog first; Our explosives expert and connection to the black-market. He had a way of making you hate him. It almost wasn’t difficult.”

She swallowed the admission hard. Simon watched internal conflict play visible stills over her.

“I killed the rat next– our infiltration expert and recon-man. He always shriveled like a fool at danger. Why he was chosen for the P-F-L, I’ll never know. It was a mercy, to say the least.”

Her voice was quiet now, her breath stuttered. Simon sensed she no longer inhabited the room, but instead a dimension of agony where nightmares were reality.

“I killed the tigress last,” she admitted. “We were friends. But she was straight as razor. If she lived, and we escaped, I knew I’d be court martialed and jailed for life. I couldn’t allow that.”

Her chest no longer moved. She existed in a vacuum. Simon stared dully.

“I turned the gun on Snow next,” she breathed finally. “And… I couldn’t do it.” She broke from her trance to meet Simon’s eye. “Snow was my best friend. My partner in crime. We were inseparable, and worked well together. Killing him meant killing a piece of me– maybe all of me, given how many times he’d saved my life.”

She almost choked on her tears. Simon’s heart felt a knife penetrate it.

“My son was agitated by my hesitation. I was wasting time, but I couldn’t move. I knew what I’d done was irredeemable, but I’d have rather died than hurt Snow.” Her face went blank. “So I murdered my son to save Snow.”

There was a silence impregnated by a tension whose source eluded him.

Niala finished with an ashamed glance away. “Snow blames me for the loss of our team and the black marks on his military record, but owes me his life, and so knows he cannot hurt me. What’s more, his beliefs in loyalty and honor makes him see the murders as a betrayal of both trusted friends and family.” Her tone shifted formally, “For a Wolf, the commitment to honor is instinct. Were Snow in such a position, he’d have inevitably chosen to kill us all, or immediately murder his child. My choice was motivated differently, by different instincts, but the same devotion. He refuses to admit that…. but I don’t blame him.”

She stepped to a console, examined it pointedly.

“Snow hates me because he believes I have loyalty only to myself. No matter how I’ve attempted to convince him my loyalty was ultimately to him, the murder of our team supersedes it. For me to have murdered my son as well only solidifies his belief that I know no true honor or devotion. He is mistaken.”

The foreign nature of the console began to dawn on Niala, but her mind was too transfixed on her memories. It took a moment for her to comprehend the design of what she was looking at. In the meantime, she breathed, “Now you know what happened on Ceres.”

Bonus Short Story: No Questions Asked

July 27, 2016July 25, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

A news-vid blared on the television. It was an old, tube type. Manta wasn’t even sure how it got signals in the digital age. She didn’t need to be. It was like her; it did its job, no questions asked, and that was that. It was currently saying something about Aries Security Corporation’s CEO being missing. Manta turned over on the tattered old couch, groaned with a hangover, and tried to sit up.

Beer and whiskey bottles cascaded off of her and clattered onto the floor. Manta’s head was saved from the brain-melting noise by a series of fast food wrappers dampening the ruckus. It wouldn’t have been a problem were it not for the damned, vat-grown liver she’d been given after an accident. She’d been on retainer then with a corp, off-the-books of course, and when she wound up in hospital, the corp footed the bill. Auto accidents were a rarity these days. Few cars filled the roads, even fewer manually piloted.

So she’d been drunk, big deal. Locust Group still had had no right to go rooting around in her organs. Though if they hadn’t, she’d be dead of cirrhosis, or something-else alcohol related. That would’ve been fine by her. Billions of dead creatures over the years and not a single one had ever complained. Meanwhile, ten dentists couldn’t agree on what kind of toothpaste to use– although you could be certain it would be made by the corp that owned them, and the most expensive of the choices at that.

She sat upright, then fell forward in a hunch. Her head rang. Goddamn vat-grown organs. They could be engineered and catalyzed to literally grow overnight. In the morning, they’d be more robust than any natural-one that’s ever existed. Still, she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemies.

She couldn’t get drunk, or rather could, but only with great difficulty. She could still smoke cigarettes, grass, and take pills– as long as their ingredients weren’t metabolized in the liver– and she’d get high, no problem.

But Drunk?

If she wanted to get drunk she had to spend damn near all her creds on beer and whiskey. Nightly. Forget trying to go out, that was a one-way ticket to the poor-house. The only thing that had somehow remained the same, or rather grew proportionally, was the morning-after hangover. It was like having an 18-wheeler roll half its wheels over your head, turn around, then do it again with the other half.

“Bastards,” she muttered habitually.

The corps had no right to go rooting around in her organs– or they shouldn’t have had one anyway. L-G, ASC, and the other head-honchos, managed to get all the rights of various state citizenships with none of the responsibilities. Manta had heard years ago of a “new world order;” this was it. Corps. Slang for corporations. In other words, big, hydra-like entities with more money and brown-nosing than a stripper’s asshole at a fetish-party.

Manta begrudgingly cursed life and her still-functioning organs, drug herself to her feet. Wading through the liquor bottles that covered the flat’s floor, she swayed, eyes half-closed, to the kitchenette. She went about the excruciatingly noisy process of making coffee– real coffee, one of the few luxuries of being used by one corp against another. It was always in her contract, at least since L-G’s “mandatory” organ replacement.

She leaned back against a counter, closed her eyes to open a comm-channel with her in-built augments. Another gift of the corps, this one a necessity even to her. Internal comms were encrypted to user specs, could be changed with one good session at a PC. Plus, when she wanted it, she got a HUD with everything imaginable. If something she could imagine wasn’t there, she’d just spend another session at a PC creating and uploading it.

A tone like a phone’s sounded. Then, a man’s voice, “Yeah?”

“Where d’you want the package?” Manta yawned.

“I’ll transfer a set of coordinates. Be there at Noon.”

The comm went dead and Manta knew he was gone. She flashed her HUD on to check the time. “10:28” was sequestered in a lower corner with a few, monitored vitals. It wouldn’t be long now. A small mail icon flashed in the HUD’s upper-left corner. She opened it mentally, linked its info to her GPS software. A mini-map appeared below the mail-icon. Waves of light rolled across it over a line that appeared, directing her through the city from her present location.

She sighed, downed a cup of coffee, then weaved through the bottle-filled floor for a door off the kitchen. She opened it to a small, cramped pantry. Instead of shelves of non-perishables and snack boxes, a man was curled up. He leaned to one side, hands bound, eyes covered by a swatch of cloth, and mouth duct-taped.

Manta nudged him with a foot, “Hey.” He jerked awake, yelling into the tape in a muffled attempt at intimidation. Manta shook her head, jabbed him with a booted toe, “Look, I don’t care what you’re saying. I’ve gotta’ job to do. You’re wanted across town, and I’m to deliver you there.”

The man cursed loud enough, that even muffled, Manta understood him. She jabbed him with a toe again, “Shut up and stand up. I’m too hung-over to pick you up.” The man slowly clawed his way up the wall. “Don’t worry, I can still kill you pretty easily. Benefits of augs and all that.”

He sneered a little beneath the duct-tape. She pulled him forward, got behind him to direct him. A few minutes later they were sitting side-by-side in a black, Hyper-Dyne sedan. The alley was empty, but its windows were tinted black to hide them from passersby anyhow. Manta keyed up her location, started the engine manually. They rolled out onto a main street. She wished for a working radio, but the corp-sedans never had them; it was extraneous, not cost-effective.

Instead she reached sideways, tore the duct-tape off the guy’s mouth. He instantly shouted, “You’ll never get away with this!”

She winced, blinked hard, head throbbing from the volume, “Christ man! I get it. You wanna’ be freed. I can’t do it. Sorry. We’ve gotta’ make our creds. All of us. Me included.”

“You’re going to kill me,” he growled angrily.

“No,” she countered reassuringly. “They might, but I won’t. Not part of the job description. There’s only one person I want dead most days– two when I’m really feeling my self-loathing.”

“You’re a nutjob.”

“And you’re an asshole, elitist, corp-CEO. D’you know what I could get for the bounty on you?” She asked pointedly. “I can guarantee you it’s a fuckuvalot more than what I’m getting for this job. But see, I’m not nuts, and wouldn’t do this without another corp covering me.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” He asked crassly, though Manta detected morbid curiosity.

“You know as well as I do what’d happen to someone that just flies off the handle and starts taking out high-ranking corp execs.”

“No. I don’t. Enlighten me,” he said with an acidic tone.

She rolled her eyes, “The same thing the corps do to any threat they can’t buy off. Even if I managed to duck on corp-sec, I might as well be dead. None of my contacts would ever wanna’ work with me again. They’d be too afraid to be put in coffins themselves.”

She paused as she made a wide turn into an empty parking lot. The car rolled to a stop.

“So like I said, I won’t kill you. It’s them you gotta’ worry about.”

There was a momentary silence as he contemplated her sincerity. He was suddenly curious, casual, “Who are they?”

She cracked her window, lit a cigarette, shoved one in his mouth and lit it too. She exhaled a large plume, “I don’t know. Might be L-G. Maybe Arc Systems or Guardian L-L-C. Hell, it might even be someone in Aries gunning for your spot. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just do the job, get paid, and drink. No questions asked.”

A black van appeared beside them. It rolled to a stop and its back doors opened. A few, large men appeared. One moved for Manta’s window.

She snuffed out his cigarette. “Ride’s here.” The door opened and he was pulled out. “G’luck.”

She rolled down her window enough to be receive a usb-stick. It would be filled with a bit currency routing number to receive payment from. She’d slot it once she got home, get the other-half of her paycheck. The van’s doors slammed shut and the man at the window disappeared. The van rolled away.

Manta stayed long enough to finish her cigarette. For a moment she wondered what would happen to the guy. It wasn’t long before she remembered it didn’t matter. She didn’t ask questions, ever. She just did the job, got paid, and got drunk. It was the same indifference the corps used, and she didn’t mind emulating it, especially against them. Seeing as the first two acts of her mantra were complete, it was time for the third.

She started the engine, headed for the liquor store.

Short Story: All in a Day’s Work

July 19, 2016July 18, 2016 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

It was dark, dank. The whole place had a smell of mold and mildew. It was just like the places she’d hung around in her youth; abandoned basements with random, leaky pipes. The only difference was that she was above ground. A few hundred feet above it, actually. She wasn’t even sure what the hell could leak from this old junker. All she knew was that it was, and it felt more homely for it.

Izzy Merritt was twenty. She had all the markings of someone her age who’d lived with the streets and shadows as their home. Her brown dreadlocks, streaked with rainbow highlights, bore bone clasps and pipes interwoven with neutral colors. They accented the other, random objects like dyed feathers and random hemp twine. Enough piercings covered her face and ears for them to glint silver in passing, but not enough that any competed for view-time.

Her body bore the eccentricities of youth and street living too; rail-thin, almost emaciated. A sinuous strength said it spent as much time running from corps and cops as swaying to hypnotic trance beats. It had even infected her walk with a saunter that seemed crafted to tease and tantalize. Most would have called her a free spirit, though some derisively. Izzy, on the other hand, knew that was bullshit.

There was no such thing as freedom anymore. Not really. Either you fought the system, or it swallowed you whole. If there was anything Izzy was, it was a fighter. Maybe not physically, though she could hold her own, survive, but mentally. Brain-over-brawn attacks were just as effective, more so even, provided you knew what you were doing. At that, Izzy sure as hell knew what she was doing.

She presently stood in the bridge of a mostly hollowed-out freighter. Its gnarled corpse of steel and rust had come to rest in an ancient Tokyo harbor. CRTs for radar and informatics displays were still present in the place, despite being out of use for decades. Back in the day, they’d kept the ship on course or from running into others. Now they sat beneath layers of dust, puddles, and trash, as unused as any of the old gear like them. It was obvious the ship hadn’t run in decades.

Izzy figured as much. It was barely standing. It only remained above water because, aside from being taller than the harbor’s modest depth, it had come to a rest at a slight angle. Curiously enough, though it had been scrapped from roughly the mid-point to the stern, it remained sound enough to host a little street kid and her tech without much grief. She sensed she’d found something, if not permanent, temporary enough to call home.

The Bridge’s slight angle meant any thing cylindrical would roll away. She circumvented the issue by laying out her sleeping bag against the rear of a console. Ahead was another, but with enough space between them that she could lay out her bag and gear without issue.

She sat down, tattered backpack before her. She had a place to live now. Tokyo had been unforgiving lately, but it seemed karma was coming ’round to make her even again. Or at least, it would until she finished what she was about to do.

She dug through her pack for a laptop, set it on her lap. The odd protuberance of the battery in the rear bulged out awkwardly. The solar cell collector she’d installed was one of her own design, the battery it serviced even more-so. She’d created both to get around never having power outlets to jack into. The design and juice was more than ample, especially for what she was about to do.

She pulled up a list of net connections nearby, ran a brute-force software crack she’d designed. Thanks to the years of rising security, a WEP-key wasn’t difficult to crack anymore. Not for someone with a program like this. A command prompt opened, spooled out thousands of lines of code with each blink.

She pulled out a bag of Tokyo Cheeba to roll a joint and pass the time. Grass was easy to find now that most of the world had legalized it. Japan was still a ways behind in that regard, but it didn’t stop smugglers, traders, or everyday tourists from bringing the stuff in by the truck-full. It also made it easy for a street-kid to do five minutes of work, make it look like thirty, and walk away with a few ounces as payment for a job well done.

She sparked up the joint as the program cracked the WEP-key. The computer icon winked in the upper corner of her OS with a notification, “net connection complete on secure uplink: The Varden.”

It was one of the nearby freighters. She couldn’t say which, but calling a net connection something like that was what people hosting public access points did. “The this” or “the that,” or corp-name “guest network–” Things that only made them easier targets.

“Whatever,” she muttered for no reason in particular.

Her thoughts had been hectic lately, especially given her last “home” had been raided. She wasn’t the only one squatting there. In fact, she was one of a few dozen. Some asshole though, had got it in his head to mess with the Yakuza. Instead of just killing the guy outright, they’d sent in their corporate-security. Everyone scattered, scrambled for freedom– or rather, just fled. Some were gunned down. Others were arrested, printed, charged, and wouldn’t see daylight outside a corp-prison’s grounds for another twenty years, if ever.

She pulled up a pair of web browsers side-by side, fished a sheet of old-fashioned paper out of her pack. A list of numbers and words were scrawled on it, neatly spaced. With a series of quick clicks, she brought up logins for administrators of each of the sites. The banks would never know what happened. Her IP was masked, her MAC non-existent, and everything else identifying her a forged or stolen credential.

She flitted over to one window, keyed in an account number, then transferred a few thousand bitcoins into an account she’d memorized. She closed the window, repeated the process with the next, then closed it too. She slotted a chip into a reader on one side of the laptop, then keyed in a few commands on a prompt.

A few lines of code made a rubric with account numbers to one side, “transfer” in the middle, and a bit-currency amount to the right. The account balance below them read, “10,000;” somewhere around $500,000, if the US economy had ever survived.

She took a deep hit off her joint, shut the laptop, and kicked back. The banks could never trace the encryption on her bit-currency account– or any bit-currency account for that matter. That was the point. The black market functioned solely on that encryption, and there were a hell of a lot more people who wanted it that way than didn’t. Didn’t matter if they were on the corp’s side or not, bit-currency was here to stay, and so was the encryption.

She relaxed with a long exhale, felt the stoned haze descend. She gazed up at the dusty, dripping room, “It’ll work. With some new décor, anyhow.”

She laughed to herself. She could afford to buy a ship brand new now. But she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t blow all the creds at once.

She took another deep hit, exhaled slow, “All in a day’s work.”