Tag: Jackstaff

Short Story: Bright Futures

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Rain slicked roads shine from countless headlights of rush-hour victims, jam-packed in carpool vans. Faces of every age and origin stare in sordid envy; the auto-car lanes and their continuous stream of traffic. Never the same people, yet always the same car, and somehow always moving, passing. The spite in onlookers, palpable as their own lust for the speed they lack. The irony, not one of them having anywhere remotely important to go.

Certainly, not important enough to justify the strength of such emotions. Collectively however, Humanity had nowhere more important than where they were headed.

Jackstaff was the sort of city that made people believe in reincarnation and resurrections. It had lived and died, then lived again; all more than once. It was the American west-coat’s Phoenix, sinking into the decay of old age only to burn and be reborn newer, more beautiful than ever.

Its most recent rebirth, from a social standpoint, was still occurring. Arguments could be made the birth had passed and infancy had begun, but truly, the umbilical to the mother-event had yet to be cut. That metaphorically-great, burning bird, was the advent of a technology that had literally begun to revolutionize the world.

Like auto-cars, this tech everyone wanted, for one reason or another. And for one reason or another, few could afford access to it. At least, outside certain black markets still largely specializing in its prototypes.

The tech, known officially and “Integrated Optical and Aural Control Heads-up Displays,” was well-known in some circles (and fast becoming known in others) simply as HUDs. The first in a new generation of elective, assistive augmented implants, these “augs”were civilization’s first, true-to-life step toward post-humanism.

On smaller scales, that evolution had already been in human hands for centuries now. From Pasteur’s discovery of vaccines to Fleming’s creation of penicillin, to the gene therapies fighting or righting defects and deformities (however confined to the upper class). Until now however, nothing Humanity had done had quite crossed the boundaries, or blurred the lines of, what made one human.

Few knew this truth as well as Kayla Lexington.

At just over five-feet tall, Kayla was the perennial odd-child out. Since birth, Kayla had been too small, too smart, too mature, or too something to fit anywhere. In school she got by on a relatively dull and stable home-life, and eventually, recreational drug use.

She attended state college on scholarships and grants, too focused and overloaded with work to do much else. College ended and she found herself too inundated with job offers in various C-S positions to do anything but dive straight into work, responsibility, and adulthood.

That all changed at Arc Systems. Software Titan and recent partner to long-time Med-Tek demigod Cameron Mobility, hired Lexington in with a slew of others as part of Arc’s expansion into the same type of R&D that made Cameron a Trillion-dollar Mega-corp.

In effect, Arc needed programmers to help create, update, and secure the increasingly emergent field of bionic prosthesis. This new era of bionics, investors were assured, would revolutionize medical technology.

Kayla Lexington knew otherwise. She saw then, as others did later, that the field was uneven. Too closed and isolated between Cameron Mobility and its main competitor, Byrne Corp, the field could never thrive. Simply, the corps had rigged match after rigged match of an entire sport, andin a slow but certain destruction of the very game they relied upon to survive.

Conscious or not, it was done through various cost-cutting decisions, by myopic executives with hard-ons for money yet possessing no fiscal sense.

Fact was, no innovation had come from Med-Tek that wasn’t somehow connected to either company in over a century. Prosthesis R-and-D suffered as a result. The patients dreadfully so. The designers, engineers, coders, all of them were– had been— building off one another for generations.

Not an original idea had come about in more than twice Kayla’s life-time. For tech, that level of stagnation was as good as extinction. What it and everyone else involved, needed, was complete revitalization.

Lexington approached her superiors with a request; a small team of coders, designers, and engineers for less than a month, on a radical redesign of several well-established prosthetic models all-but-perfected, decades ago. Her aim was to show the proper talent in the right space, could do anything.

The request was granted on the grounds of her obvious intelligence, and the company’s possible gain, as well as the short time the diversion required. In short, because Kayla offered them the perfect cost/risk/time ratio.

With only a week of prep beforehand, she assembled her team and the various detail. She and her chosen few took to isolation, spending three uninterrupted weeks of meetings, brainstorming, and spit-balling in a mountain-ski resort.

The twenty-four year old woman without a place took to carving one out.

The days became invariably the same; rising for four-star resort-meals between bouts of meetings finely interspersed with Kayla’s rigid adherence to down-time. In most instances, hot tubs and heated pools amid frigid air; or snowboarding and skiing via the company’s blank-check; lounging and gaming, drinking or drugging in the meantime.

As much as she insisted on that down time, she too, insisted on the rigid adherence to work, meetings, designs, arguments. Even if unstructured, more open-air and brainstorming sessions, she ensured everyone knew their importance and attended. Given what she’d provided, the team obliged.

Even decades later, Kayla Lexington remembered the night it became clear. The night she knew that uneven field was the result of something deeper– the night she first dreamt the post-human dream.

Distant diamond-dust glittered with the first rays of moonlight beyond floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding doors, framing her temporary wooden balcony. Earthen warmth from wood set off the perpetual winter beyond, hiding even the faintest glow of the resort below. Kayla was nude.The cleaning girl she’d taken to likewise behind her, watching from the fur-lined bed.

Hardly her first or last experience with a woman, Kayla still found something summed up in her– what had caught her eye about her. What it was,really, couldn’t be explained until later.

Cara was pretty but rougher– the type whose potential partners often fled from intimidation before opening up. Kayla was certain she was younger than she’d said, even less experienced than could be mistaken for. Yet, she was an entirely devoted lover. Kayla guessed they could’ve shared a one-night stand and she’d have shown just as much selflessness.

Yet her world– its society– demanded everything about her not only should not exist, but could not exist. And still she did.

The mountaintops dissolved before Kayla as she brokered an image of not only her future, but that of Humanity’s:

Arc’s group had only a few days left. By then the company would sink or swim with Kayla’s budding-career. Unfortunately, nothing they had yet would prevent that. As a result, the pressure was mounting. Her own tension, peaking.

If her choice of partner had been any more or less innocuous, or Cara even a modicum different than she was, Kayla knew history would never have taken its course. Fortunately for the world, Cara was herself

She spoke three seemingly innocent words, “Aren’t you happy?”

Their tone said all; told of constant pain, emotional and otherwise; habitual disregard for I and the knowledge that one day it might very well be all she knew; yet it told how she’d grown to accept that, moved on. Most of all, it told of a lost, wandering creature whom sought only to leave their mark in even one moment of happiness– joy– even if she couldn’t have it herself.

Something deeper stirred in Kayla Lexington then, something that didn’t quite make sense. A flickering film-reel of Humanity joined it; its masses undulating through time through traffic jams, clogged sidewalks, workers in mechanical motions.

It continued on, spiraling backward through eras of history she wasn’t sure she knew. Images depicting society’s evolution, but in reverse. Onward, back through eras of steam-trains disgorging crowds, to village-squares of huts overrun by crowds and haggling and hawking wares.

On and on it went until, perched just below the starry sky that burned despite the vision; two hairy creatures joined at the groin for no purpose beyond sheer, animal compulsion. It was then that she knew; Humans had changed.

And Cara proved it.

The undulating masses were no longer the hunter-gatherers of their ancestry. They were masses of cells amid faceless organisms; corporations, companies, governments, families. They were beyond what Humans had once been. As with all organisms that wished to survive nature, they’d been forced to evolve or die. Not only as one, but as their collective; Humanity.

She could think of no better example than her employers and her retreat; its very purpose was to combat stagnation with the search for vigor, revitalization. She saw only one path forward– for Cameron, for Arc, for society– and it came with two, hyphenated words; post-human.

The rest is history. Kayla answered Cara eventually, and more satisfactorily than the girl might’ve intended. Then, when her rigid schedule demanded it, Kayla left Cara smoldering in her room until she could return and reignite her. That last few days of that retreat were passed with tireless work.

When Kayla finally returned, Cara at her hip, she gave the corps what they’d paid for and demanded a raise. Then, she took control of the new Bio-Augment division of Arc-Cameron.

And somehow, even though it had taken its first steps into its new future, Humanity as a general rule knew only the envy of traffic-jam auto-cars– Ironic given how much brighter each person’s future now was, and how utterly blind they were to the dullness left behind…

Hard Lessons: Pt 8

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

8.

All Work and No Play

Angela joined the madness of upper-class mallers’ sport and luxury sedans. A pair hid Angela’s black, Ferrari California GT behind their imitations of wealth and power. She preferred the juxtaposition; the Human inability to grasp irony meant none would be any the wiser either.

She preferred it that way. For a thief, hiding in plain-sight meant you were good– and safe.

Usually.

Presently, she awaited her mark’s armored SUV. Curie’s contact had finalized the details; his afternoon and evening this side of the week was a usual affair. Every Friday night he had her, Deangelo Harman took his young daughter shopping. It was partly to fulfill the custody arrangement with his ex-wife; partly just to avoid his daughter’s vapid ego.

Harman’s dossier reeked of money. The kind from an intellect that didn’t extend to human pursuits. No doubt he’d been the desperate loner that headed A/V and chess clubs, ran them like mafia families and Arthurian round-tables.

Angela couldn’t really blame the guy. Intellectual money usually made one stupid all elsewhere. Mostly, because it was impossible to escape the isolation of intelligence. That strange dichotomy of life– the cosmic balance that needs-must-always be maintained, decided it before Deangelo Harman every entered the equation.

In essence, he was smart, wealthy, and a complete fool. Especially with women. It was forgivable. Especially since it would make Angela’s job infinitely easier.

She checked herself a final time; reviewing the play.

Harman’s firm had contracted with Arc Systems, the largest software manufacture on Earth The writ demanded NDA-tight upgrades for network-controlled drones. Classified beyond even governments. It was private and profitable.

Though hardly true AI, Harman’s firm was to use its learning principles, applied to swarm theory, to design and code networks of drones for patrol and delivery flights across Jackstaff. Having already made his name design security software as a teen, Harman was contracted as talent. His firm’s inclusion was more incidental than anything.

Nonetheless, if successful, the project would launch its next phase, expanding to other cities and areas near Arc’s various HQs and areas of control. Evidently, Harman’s software would make that happen sooner or later. Someone would prefer it didn’t.

In theory, a simple job; lift an SD card from the mark.

But Harman rarely left home; had a closed, barely existent social life; nd other than these occasional trips with Sadiee, was unopen to the bump and grab necessary to pick-pocket him once, let alone twice as needed by the job’s secrecy.

A home job was equally unlikely. She’d seen the prints. His house was a fortress; physical and digital security mining and moating it with various levels of layers and pit-falls. Enough to put to shame even some of the more paranoid-thieves Angela knew.

In fact, she’d knocked off state-of-the-art systems with less tech.

To say nothing of the security escorts one expected of the wealthy and lonesome.

Raiding Harman’s fortress was a contingency, but for now, she’d lean on her feminine wiles. Hopefully passing for straight enough to get the job done. It’d been a while since she’d run the approach, but knew it was solid. Given the payout, it was also more than worth the attempt. If she managed it, the effort would pay off.

If not, improvise as always.

The armored SUV swung wide a few spaces from the Ferrari. To any passersby, they were just two more of the multitudes feeding consumerism. Modern super-malls were the sort of place Titans and kids went to melt plastic. Usually, enough to feed starving third-world nations.

Angela had done it herself enough times to know it well.

Security left first. Plain-clothes and blending well enough that Angela was impressed. She’d never have expected them to pull off such convincing cover. She saw right through it, but few others could. Her HUD auto-tracked them with opaque pips.

Harman slipped from the SUV. Sadiee took his hand and climbed down.

No more than thirteen, Sadiee already walked with the refined stiff-neck one unwilling to deign look at the withered masses she trod upon. Something primal in Angela flared. The girl was a brat. Spoiled rotten. She’d never work a day in her life. Never known the value of sweat on her brow.

She was new-age, prime meat; the next generation of ignorance that ensured thieving would continue to be lucrative well through the coming millennia.

More than that, Harman seemed proud of it; a moron in love with his own daughter’s domineering personality. Angela sensed she walked all over him. Probably, just as his ex-wife did.

And knew then exactly how to play it then.

Harman’s cronies were already inside as he escorted his miniature princess forward. Her walk said one thing, “I am here to spend money; his.“

It never ceased to amaze Angela how many young women and men wore that pose. Adults donning it were even more bewildering. Mommy and Daddy-money kids were an epidemic in Jackstaff and other such cities. Then again, they had been for generations, that’s what made her work so lucrative.

People with money to burn required only the illusion of security; alarm systems, door locks, pass-codes and the like. Things to keep so-called refuse out. That was all that necessary to let them sleep at night, no matter how easy they were to bypass for someone skilled and trying to.

But People like Harman, whom needed security and built themselves fortresses and surrounded themselves with armed posse, knew true security. Not just disincentives and deterrents. Rather, the protection of valuables whilst letting moving about freely otherwise.

Thing was, the posse and fortress lulled Harman-types into the same complacency as all others.

In effect, it wasn’t just illusion that let them rest soundly, but it equally blinded them to true vulnerabilities. The kind Angela could exploit without lifting a finger.

She checked herself in the rear-view, straightened her brunette wig. She double-checked her tattoos, made sure none them shone through the bimbo-librarian-turned-huntress fashion appearance so common to wealthy prowlers.

She slipped from the car, black-leather heels like a dominatrix, if shorter. The door came in confident, measured steps. The kind a woman in such heels would use; disciplined, frightening, inviting. Above them, her slit dress wavered, revealing just enough of her shapely legs to confirm she was stunning.

Angela hated it. As cats hate hunting in floodlight. Part of her was panicking, searching for darkness to slink away into. The rest was calm, professional.

The .380 PPK/S strapped to her inner thigh helped. She’d half considered leaving it, but decided it would keep her from allowing anyone close enough. She’d breach Harman’s home-fortress before stooping that low.

She sauntered into the mall, settling into her role like an undercover agent for some acronym agency, but infinitely more experienced and nuanced. She owned every moment. Every step. Prepared to buy and sell it, eschewing market values as convenience charges.

She was the wealthy mogul looking for someone to make her as much money as eye-candy.

It wasn’t difficult to find him. She made a point of shopping first; indulging the cover, blending to absorb the mentality of the endless, excessive consumerism she’d decided a rich woman needed. Nothing she bought was useful. None of it her style. Rather, the Mogul’s.

Expensive perfumes. Jewels. High-fashion shoes. All of it demanded by the ego assertive woman she was playing. She’d keep it all too, in case it was needed for a future job or something otherwise. It wasn’t hard to make her move once she tracked him down again.

In the meandering way of a shopper, she passed from place to place before entering the department store she knew she’d find him in. Her eye flitted to capture the place as the security pips reappeared, scattering themselves across her HUD once more.

Clustered about the “young women’s” were Harman’s escorts. Hidden in plain-clothes and all appropriate, but distinctly male, and standout. Especially to the Mogul, the perceptive predator. Between she and her Mark, a whole store and a daughter with plastic to burn.

Angela took her time. Too obvious to go straight there. Besides, that required a different mindset. One open to failure. She wasn’t doing this again.

She perused high-end jewelry. Shoes. Slowly but surely weaving over. That cat was at the mouth of a meadowed plateau, Harman the prey at its edge.

She planned her move, Harman’s men pipped for reference. She needed to avoid them. Expertly. Not so much it was obvious. Not so little to get lose the edge. She had to think of them as the Mogul would; curious men hanging around, not threats to be avoided. Only once Harman revealed himself could she think of them as anything resembling security.

If her approach was off, the wind would shift without her.

Angela prepared, taking time to evaluate the air. The place was off. Not professionally, but socially. It put Harman and his ilk slightly out of place. Her moreso.

But nothing else existed save she, her mark, and their environment.

The last of the three stirred her gut. A department store like any other, but designer prices on brand-name labels. Old money didn’t work that way. Their every item was tailored. Locally or richly-imported through other old money, their family.

This was exactly the kind of place a Noveau Riche type like Harman would shop, because it was built for him. So the Old money could distinguish the New from rest but without being forced to share their traditions and ways.

In the end, they were two different animals. Harman the latter.

Like every new money tech-geek, Harman knew money like a fangirl knew their favorite pop-star. He could emulate it, romanticize it, lust ravenously for it, but ultimately it wasn’t him or his world. Not at his present social-level, anyhow.

Worse, he’d grown up middle class, left it behind in his late teens to found Harman Technologies. He knew the worth of sweat. After contracting with Arc-Systems, it was rumored HT was considering a merger with Med-Tek giant Cameron Mobility. The idea was to become part of its new software-wing; a role once filled by Arc alone but now demanding further utilization.

Initially, Harman Technologies had created network security software for local banks and other, high-profit establishments. After contracting through connections in banking and finance, Harman found himself in right place after right time, and increasingly filthy rich.

Now, he and his company mostly wrote upgrade software, patching vulnerabilities in the code of billion dollar bionic-prosthetics. AKA Augs. He sat beside literal Titans at the economic dining table. Not least of which, the Womack brothers; peers and personal friends of Harman whom were swiftly overtaking even Jobs’ wildest wet-dreams.

However much the black-markets modded– and thus finished them– it was these groups that had initially created the HUD implants being adopted by shadow-dwellers like Angela. The black market latched onto the idea, and before corporations or governments could wade through their own bloated bureaucracy, they were was already supplying it to the masses– for a nominal fee.

Fact was, all it took to make an implant was the right software in the right interface. Both of which had long since existed but required sophisticated implementation. After that was stream-lined there would be no stopping it.

In the case of Jonas, their former fence, it was a type of modified optimetrical device for needled eye treatments. Curious device, dangerous to the unskilled, but nothing prohibited. It simply wasn’t available to the general public due to cost.

But a legit-fence like Jonas could afford it on credit. More than that, any opportunist could make bank offering under-the-table services with it for cash cheaper than any “official” fee for a general waiver of consent– unspokenly agreed to before any meeting occured.

All they’d ever needed to get there was the chances to experiment; figure out it was possible.

They did, too. While the Womacks and Harmans of the world were making themselves new-age royalty with stock-profits from the aforementioned prototypes, people like Jonas, Titus, Crystal and Angela, were making the tech viable.

Yet another reason Jonas’ death was a loss, even if half the time she’d threatened it herself.

The thought refocused her. She understood Harman better now, their environment. Her cover shifted imperceptibly. She remained the old money bombshell, but it was now also a facade. Beneath it was the “real” girl; a confused new-money kid hiding in what she thought she was meant to emulate.

The predatory wanting to be prey but unable to admit it.

With that minor adjustment came with another. Then again. Minute revisions in muscular tension. Until her posture and walk were right. The flitting, most minor hint of vulnerability to the eye. A predator posturing, that really survived on luck, desperation, even pity.

Exactly like Harman.

Angela made her move, careful not to be caught watching him pocket his phone. She let her eyes be pulled toward his tones, used the Mogul-Pretender’s quick appraisal of form to see him pocket his phone. Left-pocket. Conversing with Sadiee. Eyes up. Linger. Away.

Smooth. Natural. No-one watching would’ve ever been the wiser. Even if she’d been caught.

Angela shifted, interested now. She let herself be pulled about by the personality’s quirks. They’d seen each other now, it was obvious. They liked what they’d seen, too. These two creatures, now stealing glances, needed closer looks.

Angela agreed.

She meandered toward the young women’s changing room, the restrooms near it. The pips disappeared temporarily. She looked herself over in the mirror, spent a moment appearing to freshen herself.

She was doing three things simultaneously; building cover, reinforcing it, and otherwise working a HUD-hack on the store’s wifi.

She was here, now, for a niece’s gift. Common ground. Her persona would need it to make her move. The makeup reinforced it. The more aged a young person looked, the more they felt it. For a woman on the hunt, that meant covering it up.

The final track was actually easiest, almost seamless nowadays. Her eyes flitted back and forth to command her HUD with muscle memory, peripheral locked on the broad strokes of a makeup brush. Her bypass didn’t even need to crack the unsecured network. Her HUD auto-located the security nodes, masked its identity as authorized, and accessed the linked Surv-cams nearest her. One-by-one they appeared as thumbnails, opaque when not in focus.

She minimized the least useful, reacquired Harman. His pip returned in her periphery, tracked him through the walls.

She waited, timing her moves. Harman was getting bored, anxious. He’d watched her go in, wanted his closer look. That was good. The male mind couldn’t comprehend the female one in such situations. That was a fundamental difference between the sexes.

She watched, awaiting the intended effect. All Harman needed was the excuse of time. He’d been bored with his daughter’s plastic-melting at the outset. This was a change of pace, if nothing else. It was exactly what she wanted.

Problem was, she had precisely one chance to get the phone out of his pocket, and one more put to put it back. She’d have to maneuver it, but so long as she got through the first, she could get through the second.

Harman bobbed with boredom on the feeds. He said something she couldn’t make out, face too far to read his lips. She knew it all the same; this was it. She exited the stall, slipped to the edge of the hall, still eyeing the cams.

Angela had never had so willing a mark.

She tasted Harman’s desperation, almost pitied him. He clearly had even less pull with women than she’d anticipated. It happened sometimes; like intelligence, money could insulate or isolate. More one than the other if those effected people had few social skills to begin with.

Harman’s social-stuntedness was obvious from the start.

Angela slipped out, catching his eye at the precise moment she needed. She could only imagine it from his perspective. Slow-motion. Eyes meeting, locking on. Brushing to feel the animal spark, caught in lust. Completely obliviousness to the moment.

All telltale signs of the hopeless romantic. The fool. The creature oblivious to the control his own glans were exerting. The animal lust was obvious in the air as she brushed and felt him stiffen; the utter, ingrained restraint that kept him from pouncing as nature dictated.

She smiled, drawing his eye to hide her sleight of hand and making for the young-women’s section. She could’ve signaled she liked what she saw, but she needed him thinking too quick for rationality. She wanted the glans to work against him, keep him from checking his pockets.

He bit it; hook, line, and sinker, disappearing into the men’s room with it.

Angela kept her cool, busied by clothing and half-heartedly fussing to stall. Meanwhile, the other hand pried it apart, removed the card, and reassembled it. She bided her time thereafter, taking in the posse, the girl. Letting them swarm Sadiee while utterly ignoring her.

More and more, they appeared there just for the girl. Made sense, in its way. Nobody would look twice at Harman alone. He was just another hipster living beyond his means. No-one knew him as the billionaire in plain-sight. The girl was different. She added a new element to the equation. It required compensation.

Angela played her part, phone palmed and waiting. Harman re-emerged. Rushed attempts at looking suave, that such men found compulsory, confirmed her brush had the intended effect. He was Jack Rabbit on date-night.

His best, nonchalant attempt at a return pass did her work for her. He took the long way ‘round back to Sadiee and her guardsmen, faintly brushing her back as he passed. Between the adrenaline and his hard-on, he could never have noticed the two fingers casually dropping the phone back into his pocket.

He returned to his daughter’s side, no doubt hoping to discern the performance’s next steps. He was turned but moments, speaking to Sadiee. When he rounded again, she was gone. No-one else had even noticed her. It might never have happened.

But it did.

Angela was already slipping into the Ferrari. She yanked her wig and glasses off, slipped the card out again, and slotted it in her own phone. Encrypted files displayed on the screen with the request of a password. She didn’t need to know anymore than the file-extension; the “.nppx” told her everything. She had what she needed.

She started the car, made for home, the night’s darkness rising with her. The Ferrari’s hands-free calling system pinged her HUD with an image of Arthur. She answered with a thought.

“Headed home. What d’you need?”

“There’s a problem.”

“With?”

“Your brother.”

Hard Lessons: Part 2

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

2.

To This, We Drink

Dropping off the merchandise meant a night out. One of the rare times where meeting a Middler in public was as much for safety as payment. Titus wanted full deniability, witnesses. Curie agreed. Everyone in the Fox-Hound knew the game. Even Triads weren’t bold enough to cause such a public scene over one job.

Especially not at a shadow-hangout loaded with patrons armed to the teeth.

Add to that the general public in full-swing on cooler nights and there was no chance of anything popping off. No-one wanted that publicity. Summer was gone. Everyone left behind was getting their last nights of debauchery in before hibernating through the winter’s rains and snow

Pacific-Coast imagery notwithstanding, West Coast ideas fell short of Jackstaff’s latitude. Too northern to be tits and ass all year, too Southern to be Canadian wilderness. An urban no-man’s land, however paradoxical it seemed.

But that was part of its appeal. Despite grotesque helpings of poverty and homelessness, Jackstaff was always growing. The wealthy were always moving in. With them, came clientele. Best of all, Marks. There’d been no better time to be a thief since the days of the open-air bazaars.

Provided one was good enough, smart enough– smart about it– they could take everything not nailed down. No-one would be any the wiser ’til they were long returned to obscurity.

Presently, that obscurity was a bar on Jackstaff’s outskirts. The Fox-Hound was one of those places of juxtapositions managing to define itself with negative space, what it was not. The once-kempt exterior, its wood and mulch-colored scenery had faded until satirized it as “rustic.” The inside’s poorly-aged woods and half-rusted brass gleamed beneath lost polish of a decade’s to-do lists.

Yet more-selective patrons, clad in the finest silks and leathers, mingled freely with the denim and cotton marking even the drunken bar-hoppers. Always those types stumbled in before falling out again, oblivious to their mistake and gouged wallets.

Between extremities of both life and style were the interlopers. Few as they were, people like that didn’t need to fit in. Neither fixer nor civilian, tooler but not tooler, too smart to need to front for contacts nor oblivious drunks. They were people playing a different game just so happening to interact with others’ and using the same board and rules. One was pleasure, the other business.

Crystal followed Angela in; clad in tight, riding leathers that would’ve diverted all eyes toward them were they not so utterly average for the place. They’d come on separate bikes, but in pro-gear, handguns more defensive than fashionable like the other patrons’. They didn’t need to be pretty. They needed to be functional.

Crystal’s shoulder-length cut softened the announcement of Angela’s swept-back blue-mohawk to the crowd, allowing them to enter as if another pair of lean-muscled predators in a room filled with ’em. Undoubtedly, anyone looking closer saw the apex predators for what they were.

They entered the bar from the rear, as custom for regulars. The bar itself hid its parking lot from the main street. With it were hidden the high-end cars and bikes of the regulars and occasioners. Driving home the rustic veneer kept the place place discrete. Besides, everything was a shit hole now, why’d it matter if you went to a different one to drink? To Fox-Hound’s credit, it worked….

For the most part.

Angela readjusted the Jian on her back, concealed in a vinyl covert tube. Crystal unzipped her leather-jacket. Gold flashed above a chocolate hand, prompting them toward a back-booth. The man attached to it pivoted in his purple cashmere and khaki slacks to shake a hand before him. A small, gold-chain glinted beneath his collar, disappeared as the second man stepped between it and Crystal.

The man passed, once more revealing Titus. He smiled toward her, teeth and eyes glinting like the Five-carat Asscher-cut in his left lobe. Angela allowed Crystal into the booth first, unslung the tube, then set it in the center of the table beside a fresh pilsner.

“Angela,” he said with a practiced, silken tongue.

“Titus.”

She unzipped her jacket, revealing hints of color beneath her high neck-line. Her figure was vaguely outlined in curved hips, small breasts. Were she not so intimidating to strangers she’d have had her choice of fling. Were she straight or bisexual, she’d have been even more sought after than Crystal.

Titus cracked the blueprint tube and peered in. The sheathed Jian glinted in low-light. He tamped the lid back on, propped it in a corner of the booth. He slid a USB key from beneath a pile of miscellanea.

“It’s all there.”

“I believe you.”

Titus had never lied. He wouldn’t start now.

He motioned a waitress over with a finger, the swiftness said he’d palmed her a G or more to serve him for the night. Angela ordered a scotch-rocks. Crystal a Mojito before the mint was gone for the season. Small-talk subsided into the fatigued silence of old friends before Titus broached a subtext he’d reserved for now.

He eyed Crystal. “Curie’s got an assignment. For me. I’ll need you along.”

She cocked a brow. “Me?”

Angela intoned, “I assume she has something else for me.”

He nodded to both of them, order a pint. A bygone instruction told her to slide an envelope from her apron onto the table. She whirled back toward the shadows near the bar. He offered Angela the envelope.

She took it without looking. Inside would be an SD-card, encrypted with the specific key Curie’d recently delivered via courier. Only after combining the two would she receive full details. Such contracts were only ever issued if the involved parties were expecting a knock-off– or attempts anyhow.

That alone told of risk. Knowledge of her profession said the key’s use meant the Mark or John was well-connected, powerful. Were it not for her own professionalism, she might’ve been immediately curious of the job’s details.

Fortunately, she’d long ago learned the knock-off was irrelevant. Planning for improv meant being prepared if things went wrong.

She pocketed the envelope and excused herself for the bar, knowing Titus needed Crystal alone. She pushed through the bodies outside the occupied stools, leaned to order and drain a pint.

Titus intentionally relaxed, obvious in the slight discomfort in the movement. He wasn’t the type to overplay a hand. It was clear he needed to appear as nonchalant as possible, meaning there was already more to what he was about to say.

“I need help. Angie’s busy. Next job’s too big for me alone.”

“I can do the other if you’d rather.”

He sipped his pint. “No. I trust you. Curie doesn’t trust you alone yet, but I trust you with me. Nothing personal, Cee. You’re good at what you do, but your strength’s teamwork. Angie’s more than capable alone. Besides, mine’s a two-man gig. Her isn’t. Pays good too.”

Crystal chuckled at the in-joke; all jobs paid well when you’d lived on the street a decade.

She sipped her mojito, both agreeing and scorned by the Fixer’s assessment. It wasn’t from malice, rather assessment. If it were, Titus wouldn’t have pinged her for the job.

She focused on that, hoping to play to her strengths, and spoke levelly, “Wasn’t aware you were a fielder anymore.”

“Usually not,” he admitted, setting his pint down with a half-twist. He straightened slightly, “Used to be. Not for a while now. But an old acquaintance owes me.”

Her brow cocked slightly. No-one owed anyone in this game. If they did, they paid with their lives or were being collected on. But Titus was far from a collector, and so far as Crystal knew, no-one had outstanding debts. In a game as small as theirs, she’d have heard a whisper at least.

She recalled the last “acquaintance” she’d met. Angela’s had kidnapped and tortured her nearly to death. She’d only been saved by the skin of Crystal’s teeth and Arthur’s impeccable timing.

Titus read her thoughts. “Nothing sinister, Cee. Just a job need’s doing. But there’s a time issue. Stake out. Couple days or so. Interested?”

“May I ask what’s the Madame’s interest is in your old friend?”

He grinned, “The Madame feels any strength of mine is strength of hers. She also feels this is best handled as professionally as possible.”

Crystal considered it. That Curie felt her strengths weren’t in solo work wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. A surgeon didn’t use a mallet to open a vein– ‘least not a good one. Curie was being tactical, precise, allowing Titus the job while Angela worked solo in the meantime.

It took a moment for her to realize the offer itself was a compliment, an honor even.

Titus wasn’t a fielder anymore, but he was incapable of incompetence. He’d never stand for it either. Curie knew that. Knew, undoubtedly, Titus would ping her for the job, allowed him to.

The opportunity was too good. Prove she could do jobs with others. Prove her worth and training. She glanced over at Angela, engaged by a tall, gaunt, man at the bar. Crystal recalled the last time she’d chosen such an opportunity.

Her eyes flitted back, gaze returned to Titus, “Alright, I’m in.”

His half-smile gleamed, “Get the details to you tomorrow.”

He waved the waitress back, a folded stack of hundreds in his hand, then slid it to her as he stood. He whispered something as she pocketed the cash and she turned away. He grabbed up Curie’s merchandise with a last smile and parting, then disappeared through the crowded bar.

Crystal nursed her mojito watching Angela converse with the man. It was quiet, awkward, hinting intimacy despite the distance between its speakers. For a moment Crystal thought him an old lover, but even in her youth Angela only sought women. Crystal’s gut churned.

She slug back the remnants of her drink to mosey within ear-shot.

“I don’t know,” Angela said with an uncharacteristic uncertainty. “… Not the best idea.”

“Angie. It’s not a big deal,” the man said, curiously ambivalent. “I’ve never even seen your place. Probably living with a couple roommates anyhow. Wouldn’t want to bother you.”

Crystal ordered another drink and listened carefully. His casual use of a nickname reserved for only those closest confirmed intimacy, but something beyond distrust coursed through Crystal. It took a moment to understand why. Angela huffed with something akin to being shaken, and it doubled itself into recognition.

“… Outside in an hour. There’s no reason not to. I’ll give you a lift.”

He smiled a predatory smile and Crystal suddenly sourced the doubt; Angela’s confidence was gone.

No creature capable of stealing confidence from Angela was to be taken lightly. Crystal caught only an edge, but was on-guard. Some mysterious person wanted to know where Angela lived. It made her uncomfortable.

In the time Crystal’d known Angela, few things had shaken her. That rather small list now had another addition.

The predatory smile disappeared with a hug, “I missed ya’, Angie. Meet you outside. Go. Mingle.”

Angela said nothing, shaken to one well-versed in her silences. The man moved away through the crowd and disappeared into the crowd.

Crystal finally butted-in, her own predator’s instincts riled, “Friend?”

Angela returned to reality slowly. “No… My brother.”

Short Story: Someone Else’s Heaven

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

She awoke on her bed, certain of where she was and completely unaware of how she’d gotten there. Kris had a bad habit of waking up in familiar places for unfamiliar reasons. More often than not, it was a combo of drugs and The Arcade that did it.

The bar was a retro-retrofit of an old-time saloon. Someone had once attempted cash in on a wild-west craze with it, but far as Kris knew, she’d never lived through one. That the Arcade had been abandoned thirty-odd years or more before its present incarnation.

It wasn’t the best or the worst place in town. That was reserved for Downtown and the ghetto respectively. Though nowadays an argument could be made that everywhere that wasn’t Downtown was a ghetto, it was an argument made only by the people unaware of a real ghetto’s realities. Kris had grown up in that part of the city, and really, it was a different world.

One of the things about being black in Jackstaff; Male or Female, you were certain to interact with the ghetto, no matter how hard you tried not to. If you came from it, you lived it. If you didn’t, your family or friends did. Else-wise, your enemies or rivals did.

Of all the options, that last was the worst. Hood rats, Kris knew, stuck together like a rat-king. They traveled in packs, could devour you in passing swarms. She was just glad she’d managed to dodge them as much as she had.

She let her eyes focus. The groggy blur of perpetual hangover resolved into the water-stained ceiling of her loft. Like the rest of the world, her place was in between worlds; not a slum, (mostly in name only) but not the hangout of the Elite either.

Mostly, it wasn’t a slum because some damned fool got it in their head to paint half the town without actually repairing it. Then, they charged higher-than-normal rent rates for ghetto-slum living. The idea caught on, spread like wildfire.

Now, it was damned near impossible to find a place not molding, mildewed, or otherwise rank. Even if, you’d be nearer uptown than was affordable.

Kris couldn’t complain too much though. She’d lucked out. Even as she stared at the spotted ceiling, she felt a warm body beside her. She was only vaguely aware of it until her periphery resolved again and formed into the smooth, supple outline of a petite body.

The night rushed back like a freight-train. If she’d been standing, it would’ve knocked her down; sitting, it would’ve stolen the wind from her. The body was the newest bartender from the Arcade, Yuki.

Yuki was the kind of Asian-American girl whose parents hailed from their homelands. They never let her forget that. Half-Nipponese, half-Korean, she’d said once she’d “been cursed with the worst of both worlds,” from parents both monumentally judgmental and over-demanding.

Yuki’d played along until she’d turned eighteen, then fled San Diego to wander North, fucking, sucking, smoking and snorting until ending up in Jackstaff older, broke, and looking for work. She’d yet to recognize that was how most people ended up in Jackstaff.

All the same, she’d bar-hopped and couch surfed since her arrival. Months had passed with the only semblance of stability the nightly rush of gaming, drugging, and bar-tending. In a way, Kris felt, they were perfect for each other.

That feeling had gotten the best of her. She couldn’t say for sure how much so yet, but the aching in her legs and the warmth in her groin said it was enough. The distinct feeling of her cotton mouth spawned by moaning rather than drinking and getting high confirmed it. Unbeknownst to Kris, Yuki remembered it all, was too dead asleep to say it.

Didn’t matter in the end: good nights were marked by lost memory; the best by the severity of bodily exhaustion come morning. Judging by Kris’ strained lower-half, this was one for the record books.

She tried to rise from the bed; her legs wobbled, knees buckled. She fell to her ass on the bed with a whompf of old mattress. Yuki groaned half-asleep, mumbling something in Nipponese first, then Korean. She pulled the wool blanket over her head, further blotting the gray leaking in from the frosted windows, then stilled again. A moment later, she was snoring again.

Kris surveyed the room, awaiting her legs’ wake up: nights were cold already, forced the peeling trim to condensate and peel further around the windows. The drafts were enough to make her knees lock-up first thing in the morning. Usually though, that was only if the windows iced over on the coldest nights.

She suspected Yuki as the cause for her lameness this morning. Or part of it. It explained why they’d slept ’til noon; they’d been unconsciously spooning for warmth.

Kris shivered, boyshort panties and t-shirt too little to cover anything worthwhile. Her nipples hardened, forming small circus-tents on her chest. She groaned, rose again, and wobbled like a drunken sailor until she caught her footing. Gait wide, low, she sumo-wrestlered her way to the kitchenette to make coffee, lace it with Irish cream.

The ancient auto-drip protested its continued life with spitting hisses and gurgling moans. Kris ambled across the loft, returned in flannel pants and a spare blanket; as near to fully clothed as she was willing to approach so early in the morning.

Yuki tossed again. Kris poured liqueur in, then coffee, stirred. She swiveled to lean back, letting the warming plate radiate at her back while staring headlong at the bed. Yuki’s outline deformed, re-formed, pulsating beneath the woolen blanket that rose and fell with her breaths.

Kris’ eyes wandered again, up, to the decor tacked to the plaster wall. A black and white photo, enlarged to poster size; two women, spooning from a side angle. Perfect shapes, perfect skin, perfect nudity, and perfect joy; all hinting that level of perfect, pornographic class every half-romantic/half-pervert aspires to and knows doesn’t exist.

Kris stared at it, as she did every morning, assessing whether or not she’d attained that level of perfection. As usual too, she doubted it.

Even if something felt different– she guessed her jaded cynicism was finally taking over– waking up beside Yuki felt the image’s utter antithesis. The girl’s life was so hellish she’d begun running, never stopped. No perfection involved, save perfect despair.

Fact was, Kris knew the pair in the image. They weren’t a couple. They weren’t even gay. They were straight. Straight as every lipstick Lizzie drunk on curiosity then hungover on shame.

So far’s she knew these days, they weren’t even friends. They had been, once, when the photographer took the image. Somewhere between there and here, one screwed the other’s man, and they ended up at each other’s throats.

Still, the image had a resonance. Art was art, regardless of reality’s shortcomings.

She’d zoned out so hard she didn’t even notice Yuki ambling over. “Some for me?”

Something stirred inside Kris. Her eyes fell dully to Yuki.

So much happened in the span of a heart beat, it felt as though time stopped with her outside it, still running. Yuki’s voice; the high softness as petite as the rest of her. An edge of perfectly feigned timidness suffused it, concealed otherwise atom-honed steel. Something in its timbre, its rhythm, opened a flood gate in Kris’ mind.

The night came rushing back.

As if happening again, in doubled-time, Kris saw herself in the Arcade alone, bored. She saw herself getting high in a bathroom, Yuki with her. Nipponese lips pressing hers, shotgunning pot-smoke into her with growing heat of arousal,

Then, Kris remembered the hustling; players at the tables where the oldest console games ran on emus. She faked out a bar-full of players, letting Yuki run the bets’ odds rise until they’d worked the crowd to a sufficient level of belief.

Then, Kris wantonly kicked ass.

She stormed and combo’d her way through ultra-gore M-Ks, Doom M-Ps, and Street-Fighters. Each time, she won killings, killed winnings. She drank and drank, smoked and smoked. Before long, she was making eyes at Yuki; the girl who’d run from hell, somehow wound at its edge as herself someone else’s heaven.

Kris realized it then. That was what she’d felt. Why she’d brought Yuki home. The girl had wandered, drifted. She couldn’t be allowed to anymore or who she’d become would begin to be tainted. Kris felt all her feelings anew. Her stoned revelations hit in double, triple time along the gallop of a metal beat from a long-past era.

Love at first feel, and they both knew it.

They hated it for making them wrong, making them have to take back what they both thought they knew about the world, about love, but loved it too because they loved each other.

Time resumed at-once and she found Yuki before her, coffee steaming in a hand. She shoved the mug onto the sink counter separating the kitchenette and loft, shoved Yuki atop it. She didn’t resist. In mere moments they were back in bed, breath heavy, bodies slicked with sweat.

The collapsed beside one another afterward. Kris lit a mix of hash and grass, still naked on the bed. Liqueur coffee steamed the air, melding into the skunky smoke of the lit spliff. Kris watched Yuki’s small breasts sink with hit, thoroughly enjoyed the sight.

She recollected her bulwark of memory, her feelings. Mostly, she wanted to be sure Yuki’d felt it too. Her tacit admission came with a smile and nod. Then, a deep kiss that ended with blowing smoke into Kris’ mouth.

She took their joint as Yuki slurped up coffee.

“I guess you’re right, ya’ know?” Yuki finally said. “I was running. For a long time. Now I don’t need to.” She laughed paraphrasing Kris, “Running from hell to end up someone else’s heaven.”

Kris was right, too, and neither one minded a bit.