Into Neon

by Matthew A Goodwin

  “I didn’t mean any offense,” Gibbs stuttered.

  “I think you did,” he said as he moved closer, his words steaming from his mouth. “I think you meant we were trouble. And maybe we are,” he added in a stage whisper.

  “What do you want?” Gibbs cried as they closed in, boots crunching on the wet pavement. He had acted so tough in the burb but now that they were out in the real world, Moss realized his friend had been mostly bluster.

  “We just want to have a little fun,” he said, eyes flaring and teeth showing red in the light of the web. Moss, like a cornered animal, reached behind his back and produced the Kingfisher, pointing it at the woman and squeezing the trigger without thinking. Time froze as all ten eyes tilted to watch the dart lodge itself in her neck. The woman looked confused for a moment before her body began to twitch uncontrollably, arms and legs vibrating as if trying to shake themselves loose from her torso. She crumpled to the ground as a wide smile crossed the leaders face. He began laughing uproariously and his goons followed suit.

  “She was taken down by a fucking bub!” he hollered as he clapped a hand on one of the other men’s back. After a moment, he stopped laughing and turned a deadly eye to Moss, shaking arm still outstretched. “That was a mistake.”

  Moss could not believe what he had just done. His mind screamed for him to run but his body did nothing. They stepped closer and Moss braced himself. He had never been hit. Never felt physical pain except when he twisted his ankle as a child. But his mother would not be able to pick him up and tell him it was okay this time. He might not even find out about his parents. All this could have been for nothing. The leader wheeled his arm back.

  White light. For just a moment. It blinded all of them and was accompanied by an electronic pop. Moss had never heard a sound like it before and he blinked his eyes back to the world. The leader furrowed his brows.

  “What the fu—” he began but his jaw hung slack and smoke poured from the orifice. A perfect line bisected his face from cheek to cheek and the top half of his face slid ever so slightly to the side. His body fell to the street, sending half his head bouncing into the road before landing upright in a puddle, flared eyes still staring at Moss. Pumping blood from his body hissed as it was cauterized upon reaching what was left of his face. Gibbs shrieked, and the two remaining men turned to see a form emerge from the rain holding a wide, black line laser pistol in his left hand.

  “You two best be moseying,” he said to them, his sonorous voice like crushing gravel. They didn’t need to be told a second time, on their bikes and roaring away into the night in an instant. The gruff man was on Moss and Gibbs in no time, holstering his pistol.

  “You Moss?” he asked from under a dripping bulldogger hat and Moss nodded. His mouth could barely be seen when he spoke, hidden by a scraggly beard like an unkempt garden of gray weeds. The whiskers seemed to meld into the ratty fur lining of the long gray duster he wore over what appeared to be a large hump protruding from his back. He looked at them with one narrow dark eye, the other being a black glass DigPlate. He appraised them and growled, “We have to go.”

  “We are meeting someone,” Moss protested through trembling lips.

  “Ynna, I know, but she’s held up and Carcer Corp will be on us right quick,” he informed them impatiently as he grabbed their jackets and manhandled them toward an alley. Just then, a soft buzz filled the air as two drones dropped from the dark sky above with scanners making grids on the street.

  “Cocksuckers,” the old man said as he released the two and slid the jacket from his shoulders. It exposed a metal box that was fused to his spine, part of it jutting through a slit carelessly cut in his vest. It was military grade headwear but if he had acquired it new, those days were long gone, rust and blood mixing where metal met flesh. He manipulated some commands on a cybermesh palmscreen and small flares fired from his back toward the drones, leaving streams of white smoke in their wake. The drones bobbed out of the way like fighter jets avoiding anti-aircraft fire as he continued to tap at his palm. “Got you,” he muttered as the palmscreen flashed green before displaying a view from one of the drones which he controlled to fly directly into the other.

  A firework of plastic and metal exploded above the street, causing cars to swerve and crunch into one another. The dancers in the windows watched as the drone carcasses rained onto the street below. People called out and screamed as the old man looked at the two and said, “let’s go.”

  In a flash, he had picked his jacket off the ground and was off running, Moss and Gibbs following closely as he ducked into a trash-filled alley. They dodged bags, dumpsters, and what appeared to be sleeping people as he guided them into the dark, their way lighted by little more than seedy storefronts whose yellow light pushed out against the black. They reached the door to a cement building which stretched into sky endlessly and the old man pressed his soaking palm against a screen. The door beeped and stuttered open just enough for them to squeeze through. He manually closed it from the other side with a handle crudely soldered to the door. “You idiots cost me a lot of hardware. You got the chip?” he panted.

  “Y—Yes,” Moss answered, holding forth the small item which had so changed his life.

  “I don’t want it,” he stated as though he was being offered a bag of cat shit. Moss quickly shoved it back in his pocket.

  “Who are you?” Gibbs asked.

  The man groaned. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said coldly, reaching into a pocket and producing an unlabeled, grimy bottle which he put to his lips. The smell of the alcohol filled the tiny space. The liquid trickled from the side of his mouth into his beard as he glugged. “They call me Burn,” he said, holding the bottle to them. Moss shook his head, but Gibbs took a quick swig and winced.

  “That’ll wake you up in the morning, boy,” he said before coughing. Burn smirked.

  “Let’s get upstairs and learn you,” Burn said as he returned the bottle to his pocket and headed up the stairs. Faint sounds of scratching could be heard from within the apartments and a foul smell increased the higher they went.

  They plodded up the stairs for what felt an eternity before reaching a landing with a boarded-up door. Burn pushed it open and led them down a carpeted hallway of flickering lights. Small white feathers danced underfoot and as they passed an open door, it was made clear. The apartment was stacked with cages full of chickens quietly clucking and pecking about.

  Burn turned over his shoulder to see their eyes. “Not everyone likes the vat stuff,” he informed them as he ran his palm over what looked to be a misaligned brick. A wall panel creaked open and he ushered them into a small room, the sounds of scratching coming in from all sides. Moss grimaced as he saw an old couch, more duct tape than fabric; a rusted electric oven with a single pan atop; a sink green with algae and a lamp which Burn turned on with a wave.

  “Janitor’s space from before these were the coops,” he muttered as he pulled a chair off the wall and unfolded it, gesturing for the two to sit on the couch. They un-nestled some rats as they did, sending black creatures scurrying across the room. Moss yelped.

  “We’re going to have to toughen you up,” Burn said, one unblinking eye staring at the two awkward kids on the couch. He lit a Longpork brand cigarette and sucked in a lingering drag. “You two know why you’re here?” He exhaled, smoke spraying from mouth and nostrils.

  “I was supposed to give that chip to Ynna,” Moss said, sounding like a child asking about homework.

  “So, no?” Burn stated more than asked.

  “Not really. See, here’s the thing, I don’t really know what this is about or how I’m involved but she mentioned my parents and I want to know more and Gibbs here—you met Gibbs, right? Well, Gibbs here offered to come since I had never been to the city and so I said yes, even though now I think it would have been better for him to stay. I wanted to know about my parents because I don’t really believe what I’ve been told about them. But now that I’m here and I saw a
person get murdered—well, he deserved it for threatening me. Well, maybe not but I don’t know, I was scared. But now that I’m here, I think maybe I should have just stayed home, too and ignored this whole thing.” Burn held up a hand to silence him. Moss felt as though all his nerves were forcing themselves from his mouth.

  “Guessing Thumbs never got to you?” he asked, raising the brow above his one natural eye.

  “No,” Moss answered, pressing his mouth shut after.

  “Gibbs?” he asked, turning to face him and fixing a cold stare.

  “Yes?” Gibbs said, trying to sound confident.

  “You understand what you’re into?”

  “Better than he does, I think,” he said, hooking a thumb at Moss.

  “Right, you boys are in it now,” Burn stated.

  “In what?” Moss pressed.

  “All right,” Burn said. “Here goes. You two work for a company that runs the world. There are several mega-companies: Kingfisher, RePurp, Xuefeng Technologies, Carcer Corp, Dyeus Industries, Tomar, D2E, and a few more, but ThutoCo is the biggest. They control the food and the power, they sit at the head of the AIC.” He took a drag and was about to continue when Gibbs put in.

  “What’s the AIC?”

  Burn exhaled slowly, as if to calm himself. “You fucking bubs need to learn quick when to keep your mouths shut. I was getting to it.

  “The Amalgamated Interests Council is the worst kept secret in the corporate world. All the big companies meet to make sure they keep people spending a lot of money while making little. With monopolies in their various industries, they no longer fear one another, and they can work as one.

  “The few times a company got uppity and tried to move on another’s business, the Council sorted it. Scraps and subsidiaries folded into the rest. The mayors are little more than exalted marionettes, kowtowing to the Council’s every whim. These ‘representatives of the people’ are little more than Royal Families. They all stay rich while we stay poor, slaves to greed. Anyone who had been left in the middle after the wars were sent to colonize the Great Black,” he seemed to conclude, lighting another cigarette.

  “But we aren’t slaves, we are employees,” Moss said, resenting the implication. He believed ThutoCo had lied about his parents but wasn’t ready to hear what Burn was saying.

  “That so?” Burn asked, smirking patronizingly.

  “Yeah,” Gibbs agreed. “We are paid.”

  Burn chuckled. “How much money you got, Moss?”

  “I’ve saved over two hundred thousand DLI,” he stated with pride.

  “Would it surprise you to learn that’s worth less than a thousand bucks real-world money? Couldn’t afford a month in this room for that,” Burn said through the smoke hanging under the brim of his hat. He pressed on his palm and projected the conversion rate. Moss and Gibbs sat in stunned silence, mouths agape. “It’s why they give you a vacation stipend when you come into the city, so you never find out how truly broke you are. You try to quit, uproot your life and move out of the burb, you find out right quick that they have you over a barrel.”

  “Evil,” Moss finally said. “Ynna called the company, ‘evil’ but…” he trailed off and slumped back, the water from his soaked clothes seeping into the fabric. It was hot in the building and he had been too distracted by the action to remember how wet he was, but at this moment, he felt drowned.

  “But you didn’t want to believe it,” he stated.

  “No,” Moss acquiesced. He let out a deep breath as he turned over all which he had learned in his mind.

  “Neither did your parents,” Burn told him, the statement like a thunderclap.

  “You knew them?” Moss asked, less surprised than he would have expected.

  “I did. They started all this.”

  “All what?” Gibbs inquired before quickly covering his mouth with his hands, his inquisitive nature having gotten the better of him once more.

  “We’re getting to the meat of it now,” Burn said, but the two young men said nothing this time. “I met your parents when they came to visit your grandmother. She and I served together and were living in the same government subsidized shithole. They were like you in a lot of ways, unaware of the world outside the burb, though your dad had lived in the real world until he was old enough to work for ThutoCo.

  “That all changed when your father got promoted to Level Five. He started coming around less, leaving your mom to care for her mother-in-law. When he did show up, he looked scared, defeated. When Sandra—when your grandma passed, he couldn’t even get the time off to attend her funeral.

  “That was the breaking point. He got a pass to come into the city and tracked me down. He told me he suspected that the company was getting into some sketchy shit and he wanted help to get it out. I knew some people, so I obliged.

  “As he got deeper, it seemed as though the company caught wind. He became paranoid, always looking out for the other shoe to drop. I guess they finally caught up with him because he dropped off. Never heard from him again until this month.”

  “What happened?” Gibbs blurted, enraptured.

  Moss punched him hard on the shoulder. “Shut up!”

  “Sorry,” Gibbs said, rubbing the spot.

  “You’ve got your grandma’s fire kid, I’ll tell ya that. Noticed it when you shot that biker,” Burn said, the ash from his cigarette bouncing precariously with the words.

  “What can you tell me about her?” Moss asked, snatching one question from the river rushing through his mind.

  “Sandra? She was tough. Never took shit from no one and in the war—” He snorted a laugh. “Type of broad you thought was going to get you killed on the daily, but never got hit. Pulled me single-handedly from the line when I got shot in the back and recommended me for this.” He knocked a knuckle on the box jutting from his spine.

  “She wanted better for her son and encouraged him to move to the burb. I know it was hard for her to watch what happened to him. To see him become like the drudges he programmed. She loved your mom, too, her zest. She never lost that light, even when your father faded to black.” Burn smiled far away, lost in memories.

  “What happened a month ago?” Gibbs peeped, curiosity superseding fear.

  “We got a message, preprogrammed,” Burn said as he tapped at his palm again and a new projection appeared before them, rippling in the smoke. Moss’s hands went numb as the face of his father appeared as a hazy apparition. He looked gaunt and nervous, drenched in sweat with deep bags under his eyes. It was a version of the man which Moss could not remember, but which clearly existed.

  “Burn, I’m recording this during the Alpha stage and if you’re receiving it before we talk, that means they got me. I’ve coded this message to be triggered and sent when phase one of testing begins. When that happens, a data chip here,” a map of a server room appeared next to him, “will be uploaded with all the information and available for extraction. It will have everything you need to expose ThutoCo. It won’t be easy to get and there is no one I can trust to get it out to you, so it’ll be up to you.

  “And Burn, if you’re seeing this.” His face turned grave. More serious than Moss had ever seen. “Get Moss out. Promise me. Get him out. Show him the truth. Don’t let these bastards do to him what they did to me. Promise me,” he pleaded. Moss’s eyes grew wet, heart pounded against his ribs, fists clenched. He wanted to reach out. Hug his father one more time. Though, at this moment, he felt as though he had never known the man.

  He heard the words before thinking them. “I’m out, dad.”

  Chapter 7

  Gibbs put a damp arm around Moss, filling him with a warmth which the video had drained from him. The projection was over, leaving scratching and smoke.

  “We’re going to do it for him. Whatever’s on that chip, we are going to show the world,” Burn assured him.

  “Yes,” Moss said, grim determination hard in his voice.

  “The chip will be encrypted so we will need
to get it into some capable hands,” Burn stated.

  “You can’t do it?” Moss asked, looking at the palmscreen hopefully.

  “No,” Burn answered with such finality as to make Moss feel instantly foolish.

  “I’m cold,” Gibbs added and for the first time, Moss noticed that their clothes were lightly steaming in the warmth of the room.

  “We will get you new clothes,” Burn said. “It won’t do much for you if those drones caught your faces but maybe it’ll help with the Legion MC—those bikers are unforgiving. We have much to do and little time if the company is beginning testing.”

  “What are they doing?” Gibbs asked despite himself. Burn groaned.

  “If I knew—” he began but Gibbs cut in.

  “Right, you wouldn’t need the chip.”

  “Let’s get you boys cleaned up, try to get that chip into the right hands before sunup,” Burn said, standing and stamping out another cigarette, leaving another black spot on the already polka dotted floor.

  “Where are we going?” Moss asked as he stood.

  “Get you some new threads,” he answered.

  “Something with autodry?” Gibbs asked hopefully.

  “We’re not made of money, kid,” he said and pulled his pistol, running a thumb over the battery display to check its life. “We are also going to need to get you two something with a little more bite.”

  “That was my first time firing a weapon,” Moss put in.

  “No shit.” Burn rolled his eye. “You’ll be learning a great many new skills before too long.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt,” Moss said.

  I could eat,” Gibbs added, almost pleading.

  “You could stand to lose a few.” Burn gestured to his gut. “But we’ll get something in you.”

  “Anything but chicken,” Moss joked, and Burn snorted a laugh.

  “You couldn’t afford it anyway,” he said, muttering something under his breath and jamming his pistol away. “Let’s go.”

  They left the room and made their way down the hall, passing an obese man wearing nothing except boots, gloves and a leather apron. A hessian bag leaking bird scratch bounced on his shoulder. He grunted in their direction, but no one spoke a word. Moss stole a glance over his shoulder at the man’s fat, furry backside and wondered what that man’s life was like.