Into Neon

by Matthew A Goodwin

  At the bottom of the stairs, they stepped back into the rain. The pounding, ceaseless rain. Burn looked cautiously in both directions and led them down another alleyway. Every building they passed had stairs leading up and down to solid doors fronted with metal grates. Burn was moving them quickly, every step squishing water between Moss’s toes. He was soaked through such that he felt as though he would never be warm again.

  The aroma of food cooking over open flames filled their noses and light danced on the walls as the alley eventually opened to another market. Not dissimilar from the one they had passed flying in, this one seemed to stretch farther than he could see. It was built at the base of a crumbling freeway overpass which sheltered it from the rain. People had to push past one another through the narrow spaces between the stalls as the actual paths were littered with rickshaws drawn by thin, miserable people with sunken faces.

  A gaunt woman spoke to them from underneath the brim of a wide, triangular hat, signaling for them to take a ride. Burn waved her off and snarled something in a language Moss did not recognize.

  He was uneasy as they moved through the crowds. There were so many people. More people in this one market than in all of Burb 2152. Gibbs was taking it all in. Moss observed his friend watching the bustle, smelling the scents and inspecting the transactions. He seemed transfixed by the activity, staring as two women screamed at one another, hands waving and fingers pointing. Woks of meat and vegetables sizzling as they were flipped and stirred. Shady characters lifting cloths to reveal augmentations for sale, from single fingers or eyes all the way to legs or spines. It was all on offer.

  Burn pulled a flap open on a stall and their eyes were met with a sea of clothing. Rows upon rows upon rows of racks. Tables stacked with hats. Shelves stuffed with shoes.

  “Just pick some shit quick,” Burn said, glancing around. Moss knew that eye his implant was doing most of the work, scanning and keeping a lookout. Moss pulled a black shirt from a rack, the long-forgotten name of a band called Pocket Fluff embossed on the front. He moved to a box of jackets and picked up a trench coat as well.

  “This place is amazing,” Gibbs said, happily rifling through shirts.

  “You would love this place,” Moss said.

  “You are not wrong,” he said, giddy with excitement. “Look at all this. Vintage doesn’t even begin to describe it. Like time stood still. It’s awesome!”

  Moss tried to internalize some amount of his enthusiasm but failed. “You realize two groups of people want us dead, to say nothing of ThutoCo?”

  “I’m not too worried with him around,” Gibbs said, pointing at Burn but not looking up from the racks of shirts.

  “He just killed a man,” Moss hissed, those eyes from the puddle still staring at him in his mind.

  “Good, jerk deserved it. Who knows what they had planned for us. I’m just relieved we hooked up with him so quickly. Who knows if that chick ever made it to meet with us,” Gibbs said.

  “Ynna,” Moss replied and hurried over to Burn who was standing near the entrance. “Have you heard from Ynna?”

  “Huh?” Burn asked, looking lazily up from the bottle he was nursing. “I have a call out. We’ll know more once we meet up with the others. But don’t worry, she knows what she’s doing. That idiot, Chicken Thumbs on the other hand. Bet you anything he stepped right in it.”

  “He was supposed to talk with me first, right?” Moss asked.

  “We gave him the fucking easiest job. Said he was ready for the big time. I guess he learned.”

  “You think he’s dead?” Moss gulped.

  “Maybe,” Burn replied in an unsettlingly cavalier tone. He was so flippant about death. Uninterested in the fate of a person Moss took to be Burn’s friend. He had never met anyone like that. In the burb, death was inevitable (though delayed for many) and taken very seriously. Until today, death had been little more than a vague notion. When he had been told of his parents’ death, he had been too young to fully understand it. But out here, with Burn, life seemed cheap. It was a difficult notion to shake.

  “You worried about him?” he asked bluntly but there was something in his tone which left Moss feeling mocked.

  “If he died trying to find me, then yes,” he answered truthfully.

  “You bubs really are like children,” Burn said. “If he got himself killed, he got himself killed. Weren’t your fault, nor mine. Just his and whoever pulled the trigger.” Moss did not answer, just mulled the words over. “Now get some clothes, we don’t have all fucking night to stand around here jawing. And tell chubs he’s got five minutes before he finds a boot in his anus.”

  He ran over to Gibbs who turned on him with a grin, holding up a white shirt frilled at the front and along the sleeves.

  “But I don’t wanna be a pirate,” he said in mock imitation of something which Moss did not understand.

  “Burn says we have to hurry,” he said, his tone conveying the message clearly. Gibbs hurried to pull a flannel shirt off the rack before moving on toward heavy jackets, Moss right behind. Within a few minutes, they both had armfuls of attire and were standing before Burn who brought them over to an ancient man sitting in a plastic chair behind a cluttered counter, his face blue with the light of an ancient, decrepit television. He wearily rang up the items before Burn spoke.

  “They are going to change in the flaps, you burn what they leave.” The old man nodded, appearing neither to have listened nor heard. In a flash, Burn sent a cigarette butt rocketing toward the old man who had just time enough to slap at the embers as they burst upon his chest. He cursed at Burn who simply repeated, “burn what we leave.”

  “Yes, yes,” the old man grumbled, as Burn ran his palm past a small scanner to pay. “Go change,” Burn ordered and the two pushed into cramped stalls with a cloth hanging from copper rings which scraped across a steel bar. They stripped slowly out of the cloths which clung to them. With nothing to dry themselves, they put the new items on their damp flesh, shivering all the while. Moss noticed a small camera pointing into the changing area and grimaced.

  “Creep,” he said to no one in particular.

  “I see it too,” he heard from the adjacent stall. “I always assumed the hexes had cameras too, despite the company’s claims.” That thought had never occurred to Moss, who had always taken ThutoCo at their word. The idea unnerved him greatly.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, probably. What we’ve learned tonight only bolsters that notion.”

  “You may be right,” Moss had to concede, remembering Issy’s claim that she knew what he wanted to do with her and feeling the pang of guilt once more. He imagined a group of security officers laughing at him and calling her over to watch as he awkwardly defiled his friend. Her imagined face in horror as she was made to stare at the sordid incident.

  “You about ready?” Gibbs asked as Moss pulled the bulky, water-resistant jacket over his shoulders.

  “Yes,” he answered, sliding open the curtain. He took one last look at the sopping pile of burb clothes and headed for Burn who was still arguing with the man behind the counter.

  He led them from the shop toward a section thick with smoke. Crude fires lit with charcoal heated a sea of pots and skillets. They made their way to a young man, covered in sliding tattoos, who looked lazily up at them. He seemed disinterested in their very presence.

  “Help you?” he asked, glassy-eyed.

  “Three meat bowls with everything,” Burn ordered, tapping on his palmscreen.

  “Three?” he repeated as he grasped for bowls.

  “Three,” Burn repeated as the kid lay them out in what felt like a frame-by-frame video. He heaped noodles into the bowls.

  “Soup?” he asked.

  “Everything,” Burn said, not looking up as the kid ladled in steaming broth.

  “Shoots?” he asked.

  Moss began to fret for the young man’s safety as Burn raised an eyebrow and seethed, “Everything!”

  The kid wa
s unfazed, topping the bowl with shoots. “You said meat, right?” Moss held a delicate hand over Burn’s hard, calloused hands reaching toward his pistol.

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” Burn warned but wore a peculiar smile.

  “He’s not worth what will come,” Moss said, retracting a trembling hand. He could not believe what he had done. Since leaving the burb, it was as if instinct had replaced logic.

  “Yes, meat,” Gibbs said to the kid who had taken no notice of the scene unfolding before him. Moss marveled as he heaped meat onto the bowls. He had no idea how close he came to a world of pain, or worse. A tattoo of a woman riding a nuclear bomb winked at Moss as the kid reached for sauce before looking up.

  “Add the sauce!” Moss shouted.

  “Whatever, asshole.” The young man pouted and there was no stopping Burn this time. He grabbed the kid by his scruffy black hair. He was paying attention now.

  “Your fucking generation,” he said to Moss as though it were his fault before turning on the cook. “Listen, fuckwit, when you have a customer before you, that is your whole fucking world. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” he said with venom coated in terror.

  Burn released him and threw crumpled paper money at him. “It’s more than you deserve,” he snarled and scooped up a bowl and two sticks from a jar. The two followed suit.

  “Prick,” Gibbs added before trotting after Burn. “I’ve never said that to someone before,” he whispered to Moss.

  “I can’t believe how much you are enjoying all this,” Moss said.

  “You only get one go, Moss. We may not have much longer, given all this. I’m gonna experience it, live it while I can. Those bikers come back and,” he snapped his fingers. “It could all be over. So, I’m gonna eat, drink, buy clothes, shoot guns, do whatever.” Moss knew there was truth to what he said. A hard, unfathomable truth. “You should take a page, live while you’re living.”

  Moss nodded and considered the words as the three sat in what he imagined was once a park. A large plaza with cement benches, fire pits and lighted posters under a tall overpass, shaking under the weight of cars. People sat about eating, talking and sleeping while others made rounds, performing tricks or playing music with open hands. The beggars stayed well clear of them, Burn obviously not giving the impression of generosity.

  As they sat in silence, eating and slurping, a cat wandered over. One of its hind legs was a crude but functional mechanical version. The cat leisurely circled, mewing for scraps, the robotic leg working in perfect conjunction with the others.

  “Who would put that on a stray?” Moss asked.

  “Who cares?” Burn replied, finishing his meal.

  “Just seems like an odd use of the parts,” he noted, watching the little critter as it made its way to Gibb’s legs and began to nuzzle. Moss dropped a small scrap of meat from his bowl to the ground.

  “Feed him and he’s likely to follow you around forever,” Burn told him.

  “I’ll take all the friends I can,” Moss said without thinking.

  “Friends and followers ain’t the same,” Burn pointed out, but Moss was hardly listening, fixated on the movement of the small animal. It was so similar to the way the tiger in the burb moved, skulking and lapping at the proffered meat. The rusted metal against the dirty orange fur made it hard to distinguish the leg in certain lights as the cat moved. Moss smiled, forgetting for a brief moment where he was and what he was doing.

  “Shit.” Burn groaned and both Moss and Gibbs looked up to see six people coming around a corner into the plaza. They wore the unmistakable vests of bikers with the same horizontal sword emblem they had seen earlier that night. Moss turned to Burn who appeared to be calculating his next move. “We have to get the fuck outta here.”

  “Oh, no,” Moss squeaked and leaped to his feet.

  “Slow up,” Burn hissed. “These lot may not know what you look like, so let’s move out slow.” He stood as he sent a message on his palm. They all turned away and began making their way back toward the narrow walkway. People bustled quietly and a couple moved to sit on the vacated bench. Moss felt the throbbing of his heart and stole a glance over his shoulder. One biker caught his eye.

  “I think they see us,” Moss said, unmistakably panicked. His feet began to move more quickly though he tried to hold his pace.

  “We’re fine,” Burn whispered but Moss could see he was unsure and had his hand buried in his jacket. They were nearing the street, the sea of people in which to get lost a mere ten paces before them.

  Pop.

  The sound of gunfire was unmistakable, and the screaming began immediately. Burn was pushing them through the running bodies as he pulled his Kingfisher from its holster and turned his plated eye back just long enough to get a shot off. The white light filled the space and a different scream echoed behind them—not one of fear, but anger and pain.

  As they entered the fleeing throng, Moss stole a glance back to see a man clutching at seared flesh, feeling for an arm which lay next to him on the street. The beam had sliced him from collar bone to ribs. Moss stared at the man a moment longer than he should and tripped as another shot rang out, moving the already fleeing people faster.

  “Moss,” he heard his friend utter as he turned to see the crimson seeping into the white squares of the flannel on his left arm. He was staring into Moss’s eyes as he ran, a vacant look on his face. Moss would never forget the fear and grim understanding he witnessed from his friend at that moment. Gibbs clutched at the wound. The blood began to trickle from between his fingers, slowly filling the creases at the skin of his joints. He was panting and his flesh turned pale.

  “Gibbs got shot,” Moss yelled to Burn through the crowd. He grumbled an inaudible response.

  Moss hooked himself under his friend’s other arm, helping to take some of the increasing weight. Another shot fired at a distance exploding a streetlamp overhead, showering glass upon the crowd. More shouts and shots could be heard as drones dropped from above and zipped toward the perusing thugs, scanning as they moved. Burn lowered his head as they passed, blue lines moving over the brim of his hat and Moss held his free hand over his face, pleased that he was already shielding himself from falling debris.

  “This way,” Burn shouted as he ducked into a doorway and kicked the entire door off rusted hinges, a muffled hiss and gulp emanating from the back implant. “We can get to them this way. The buildings are connected.”

  “All right,” Moss said, looking at Gibbs who was hardly conscious, eyes bloodshot and glassy under dark bags. Climbing the stairs was slow going and Burn eventually took over carrying Gibbs. They reached a landing and made their way down a long hallway of doors, Gibbs all the time dripping on the patchy carpeted floor. Wailing music grew louder as they moved toward a set of open doors with people partying back and forth between apartments, red plastic cups to match the red faces. The revelers seemed utterly disinterested in the three as they passed.

  “Dude’s messed up,” one announced drunkenly, cheap beer dripping from his mutton-chopped face. “You should get him to a vet.”

  A girl by his side slapped him playfully, before nearly falling and grabbing his arm. “You mean a doctor!” she shrieked through laughter. He joined in the laugh.

  “I know, right?” the drunken kid said.

  The three kept moving.

  “We’re taking him to a hospital?” Moss asked.

  “We’ll get him patched,” Burn answered, impatient as they reached a walkway between buildings. “Places get quieter farther in.”

  Moving through the endless sea of apartment doors and hallways became increasingly frustrating as Gibbs sank deeper and deeper, hardly clutching he wound any longer.

  “How you doing, kid?” Burn asked.

  “Been better,” Gibbs rasped, always one to joke under duress.

  “Sounds about right,” Burn nodded. “Just about there.”

  “I always like to make an entrance,” Gibbs sputtered ju
st before his body contorted and he sprayed vomit on the peeling papered wall, pieces of undigested noodle sliding slowly to the ground. Burn ran his palm over a screen next to a door and it opened—revealing an empty room. Four wood paneled walls with linoleum floors.

  Nothing. Moss turned to yell at Burn, who was awkwardly tapping at his palm with the fingers from the same hand. Just then the back wall was no longer wood panel but a blank screen with a door which slid open. Though he had looked at wall screens like this his whole life, he had never considered that they could be used for clandestine purposes.

  “Woah,” he uttered.

  “Cheap trick, but keeps the landlord from asking questions,” Burn said as he heaved Gibbs toward the open door.

  “Can’t be that cheap,” Moss noted.

  “We inherited it from an off the books porno studio we,” and his tone shifted, “helped to relocate.”

  “Ah,” Moss said, pretending to understand the implication but unsure what exactly he meant. He followed Burn up a narrow staircase with hardly enough room to drag Gibbs up. An impenetrable looking door with machine gun turret and camera waited for them.

  “Let us in,” Burn ordered into the camera, immediately followed by an electronic click and the sound of someone shifting heavy metal.

  Chapter 8

  They crashed through the door and were greeted by staring eyes and pointed weapons. Seeing Burn, a thin, dark, meticulously clean man in a checkered suit rushed over to Gibbs. He was devoid of any hair and wore lemon yellow gloves with matching tie.

  “He’s been hit,” Burn announced as he and the thin man helped Gibbs onto a couch. The man began scanning Gibbs, taking vitals and putting bots to work. “Legion’s on our ass and Carcer’ll be swarming,” Burn added.