Pie Box 1

by George Saoulidis

  Trash clinging to trash.

  He spent the next half-hour pacing up and down the same alley, trying to get someone on the phone. Diego’s body had been picked up and was to be disposed of by the city of Athens. He wanted to be recycled, get a tree grown out of him. They informed Hector that his friend was apparently a Demeter worshipper.

  Hector smiled in surprise. He hadn’t known this environment-conscious side of him. The city declined the request in the will due to the lack of funds, naturally. But even a corporate church didn’t give handouts to people. Especially dead ones.

  Hector thought about it for a minute.

  “I’ll pay for the funeral, as per his wishes. Send me the invoice.” 1200 euro, the email said.

  He checked his bank account. 1700 euro. “I’ll just add it to the rest that you owe me, stupid bastard,” he said to the blood spot.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Nothing. I’ll take care of it right now.”

  He hung up, paid the invoice electronically and went for groceries, even though the mere thought of food right now made him barf.

  DROP NINE

  Back at his workshop, Hector had a nagging thought. He read the last text Diego had sent and read it out loud to Armadillo.

  “Any ideas? No?”

  He put down his tools and went at the front. He stood at the place Diego was the last time he saw him. The time he turned his back on him. He looked around.

  The cupboard at the right, close to the exit.

  He opened it.

  The flash drive was there. Clean. Precious.

  That sly bastard. He had turned his back, what, five seconds? Ten, at most?

  Hector gripped it tight and then went to visit another artisan he knew of.

  DROP TEN

  “Nice babe you got there,” the overweight man said, scrolling on his computer. The hacker’s den was full of gutted out computers and soft drinks.

  “Tony, I still don’t understand this blockchain ownership thing.”

  “Violator, man. My name is-” the hacker whined.

  “I’m never gonna call you that. Now stop wasting my time. Explain,” he said looking bored, motioning for him to move it forward.

  Tony the hacker took a sip and thought about it. “Look, the blockchain is public and immutable. It’s a public ledger of who sent what.”

  “I use cryptocoins, I kinda get that. Okay. How does this stick benefit me?”

  “This stick simply carries the paramone, the ownership hash key of the assigned athlete. In this case, of one Patty Roo,” Tony presented the image of an athlete.

  Name

  Patricia Georgiou

  Alias

  Patty Roo

  Strength

  2

  Speed

  1

  Strategy

  3

  Sexiness

  1

  Cup Size

  D

  Augmentations

  21%

  Team

  Pinup Girls (Temporary Replacement)

  Position

  Enforcer (Sword and Shield)

  Wins

  4

  Losses

  67

  Income

  4500

  Sponsorships

  None

  Hector leaned forward, suddenly not bored anymore. “4500 income, as in euro per month?” He whistled. It wasn’t a fortune, but he needed three full orders to get to that level of income with his shop, and he also had expenses and material costs to think about.

  “Yeah. Lemme load up the Cyberpink Owners App on your veil...”

  Hector tapped the install button as soon as it appeared, his eyes never leaving the stats page.

  “And now the ownership hash key...” Tony tapped his keyboard. “Let’s wait for a few seconds. Three confirmations. Seven. Done.” He turned his chair and toasted him with an orange juice full of sugar. “You are now the proud owner of a Cyberpink athlete. Her paramone contract belongs to you.”

  Hector sat back down and took in a breath. “And I’ve just become a slave owner? Just like that? How is this even legal?”

  “Debt,” Tony said, pinching the air before him as if the word hung from his fingers. “Massive, crushing debt. It’s not slavery, not technically. It’s debt bondage. The girls are just paying back what they owe the corporations by producing income. Of course, the injuries and the upkeep costs keep piling up, along with the interest and the late fees. It’s all perfectly legal according to the contracts we’ve all signed, and they just go through Cyberpink for years before they even get close to paying off their debt.”

  “So, I don’t own a slave, I just own the debt she owes, so until she pays it off, she’s technically mine to do as I please.”

  Tony licked his lips in a disgusting way. “Getting ideas?”

  “Yeah!” Hector spat out, wide eyed. “I’m gonna put her to work and pay off my debts.”

  DROP ELEVEN

  They took Hector’s truck and got to the Cyberpink stadium. The streets were full of incoming people, buses emptied entire rows of fans, cars parked everywhere and anywhere.

  Noise, electronic music, hot dog stands and loukoumades stands, people yelling, excited.

  “I never understood this whole being a sports fan thing,” Hector admitted, waving around.

  Tony bought a handful of soft drinks. “Oh, you’re missing out. Didn’t your father bring you to any games?”

  “My father taught me how to make armour.”

  “Sounds exciting. Then again, it’s a living, right? Let’s go over there, gate C, that’s our seats.”

  Hector followed in the wake of the overweight man as he pushed through the crowd. He never liked crowds, made him feel uneasy. Unsafe. He could make do with at least two of his armours on display right now, even the lighter ones. The vest he wore barely felt as enough protection. People fell on him, one squirted some ketchup from his hot dog on him and didn’t even apologise, kids thrashed while being carried by their parents, kicking others around them with impunity.

  Madness.

  The Cyberpink girls were everywhere around them. In gigantic posters, in lifelike holoprojections, in AROs that included a handy ‘Buy Now’ button that got you a high-res animated version to wank to, everything.

  Colours, flesh, breasts, junk food, booze, but it’s all still kid-friendly somehow, suitable for the entire family. Bring your son to a Cyberpink match, have something to remember when the shitty brat becomes a teenager and doesn’t wanna hang out with you any longer.

  Excess.

  Bread and circuses.

  Hector shook his head. Who was he kidding? If anything, he was part of the system now, a proud athlete owner. He could hardly believe it.

  “Come on!” Tony yelled and waved him to come up the bleachers.

  The place was packed. Hector sat down, having to elbow Tony a bit ‘cause he took up so much space. The stadium was much smaller than a soccer field, closed dome, but with the same blinding lights shining down on the grass, the gigantic scoreboard, the photographers and videographers flanking the field.

  Of course, you could load up everything on your veil and watch from any angle you desired. All for a low-low subscription of 14.99 euro. The ad blasted in Hector’s face, completely illegal in other areas, you couldn’t just highjack people’s veils like that without their permission, but they had accepted the Dionysos Entertainment terms and conditions upon purchasing the ticket.

  Their house, their rules.

  A big breasted Cyberpink athlete jiggled them in his face, and he tried to ignore the annoying ARO.

  Tony elbowed him back, grinning. “You think this is silly.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “But you’re also kind of getting amped up.” He offered a soft drink.

  “I have to admit I am. No, thanks, I really don’t wanna have to use the toilet here. So, tell me all about this crap. I don’t know shit about it.”

  “Nothing
? Wow. Okay, let’s see. Jugger is a simple sport, but lots of fun.”

  “It’s like soccer with medieval weapons, right?”

  “Pretty much. Two teams on either side, five athletes each. One qwik, one chain, three enforcers.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all it needs. But it gets complicated real fast, so let me explain.”

  The match was about to start. Horns blew, music blared, fans shuffled to get seated.

  “The only one who can carry the skull is the qwik from each team. So the others try to protect her, while hitting the opposing team.”

  Dionysos’ logo flashed in the middle of the stadium. Fans roared.

  The Pinup Girls ran in a loose formation inside the stadium. Their team colours were green and white. They posed in unison, just like in old-timey pinups. Perking up their butt, puffing their chests, squeezing their lips.

  Fans went nuts, screaming wild, giving public declarations of love, flashing their cameras to get a tiny piece of the lovely women.

  One wasn’t that much perky. They had expertly covered her in the back. “Is that her?”

  “Yup, that’s your girl. No offence man, but she seriously looks out of place in the Pinups.”

  “None taken,” Hector grunted while keeping his eyes on his investment. Yeah, she was different, all right. Short hair, excessive augmentations around her body in contrast to the rest of the Pinups who only had the breast type, real armour which Hector couldn’t see clearly from this far away but already approved. She held herself in an awkward ‘sexy pose,’ obviously trying hard and obviously failing harder at it.

  The stadium erupted. Hector thought he had gone deaf. The announcer could barely be heard. The opposing team entered, and the crowd roared, standing up, throwing their food in the air, rattling the metal gates while security took them down, tazing them with impunity.

  “Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereof, presenting the Daaarlings of Deeestruction!” the announcer said in his rumbling voice.

  “I’m guessing they are the favorit to win this match?” Hector yelled to be heard.

  “Sure are. Man, I love me some Pinups any day of the week, but the Darlings... Well, you’ll see.” He kissed his fingertips.

  “Oh, wow, that’s some nice armour,” Hector said, appraising the value of each item as the Darlings went past and he saw them on an AR closeup.

  Tony turned to him. “What are you, dickless?”

  Hector choked. He nodded, explaining, “No-Yes, they are hot, but their armour is seriously fine, I’m not kidding.”

  Tony chortled. “You are messed up, my friend.”

  The two teams took their spots on the field. A referee placed a skull in the middle, and they waited in a line at the opposing ends. There was a mound behind their backs made of something orange and soft. They held weapons, swords and a ball and chain, that seemed like they were made of practice material, with soft edges and enormous tips.

  Then a drum started thudding deeply, reverberating across the clamouring crowd.

  The athletes darted forward, covering the distance in a second. Hector couldn’t follow the action. Someone struck another, she knelt down, the small-figured ones ran for the skull, they got hit but one parried with her arms? “Why don’t the other ones parry with their arms too?”

  “Only the qwiks can, shut up now,” Tony said focusing on the action and taking a sip.

  Something happened in the middle, swords struck, a woman fell on her back, the action moved forward. A ball and chain swung in a wide arc and struck a Pinup Girl, her head wrenched sideways and she flew backwards with so much force that she travelled about five metres, pink blood spraying in the air, the crowd going wild.

  Then a qwik slapped the skull down.

  A ref whistled. Horace was shocked. “What the hell? Eleven seconds and they scored already?”

  Replays ran in a loop, the poor girl getting hit in the face, her head jerking back again and again, pink blood shooting off in the air.

  “Cyberpink. It’s the fastest sport ever. You’ll get used to it. Tap the replays in your veil. Once you understand the rules, it’ll become easier.”

  “Okay. And, at the risk of sounding stupid, why is the blood pink?”

  “Oh, that. It’s ingenious actually. Because the broadcast rules state that you can’t show blood on screen, they have a machine-learnt AI change the colour of the blood in the stream in real time.”

  “But we’re not watching it streaming. It’s here, live.” Hector opened his palm lamely towards the match.

  Tony waved about. “It’s a light at a specific wavelength, plus some opaque AR and it looks pink, even when you’re here in the stadium.”

  “Wow. That’s...”

  “Brilliant, right?”

  “Sick. That is... sick.”

  “Oh, yeah? I wanna see your face when you collect the paycheck from the match, owner.” He said the word as if it tasted bitter.

  Hector shut up. Sure, he was a hypocrite. But what could he do? His business was going under. It wasn’t like he had asked to own an athlete, it just sorta fell on his lap. He could sell her as soon as possible and make a nice profit. Tony would happily hook him up with the market acquaintances and make sure it went smooth, for a cut.

  They carried the Pinup Girl on a stretcher and a replacement walked in. It was Patty Roo. She carried a longsword and she looked uneasy.

  Who wouldn’t? One team member down, one point lost already. This game was nuts.

  The drum started again and the athletes darted forward, once again a flurry of blows and parries and lunges forward and screaming and...

  The qwik scored.

  “For fuck’s sake!” Hector exclaimed and stood up, the crowd around him moaning with him.

  Tony grinned and took a sip. “You’re hooked already?”

  “Come on, it’s barely been a full minute and we’re losing?”

  “Don’t worry, the athletes get paid the same, win or lose. The winners get the bonuses of course,” he mumbled to himself, nodding. “And the sponsorships, and the merchandising, and the sex, and the-”

  Hector waved him away. “I get it.” He sat back down, sagging on his seat. “I got a loser.”

  “Yeah. Man, you’re forgetting who the previous owner was. Diego, man.”

  “Yeah,” he breathed out.

  “It’s an ad break, I’m gonna go take a whizz. I should have listened to you about the soft drinks.”

  DROP TWELVE

  Hector pulled his hair.

  This was so stressing. The match went on, he could barely keep up. Swords and staffs and balls-and-chains flew and smacked everyone around.

  He had no idea what was happening. He ran replays and watched Patty Roo.

  She seemed good at this, but something was off. She spun her longsword with precision, she sidestepped so many blows, dodging them by an inch. But the opposing team as a whole seemed to be better.

  Much better.

  All the Pinup Girls had to show for was their boobs. Hector checked their stats. Sexiness, 3. Sexiness, 2. Sexiness, 3. The useful stats were all ones. Sure, it made for a sweet ad package, but it wasn’t gonna let them win any matches. Ass or no ass, this was still a sport, dammit!

  Or, maybe it didn’t even matter?

  Hector was this close to tearing a handful of hair out. From a business standpoint, it was insane. The Pinup Girls wore skimpy armour that barely covered them up, going for sexiness rather than protection. Helmets were out of the question of course.

  No wonder they were being ground to paste. Two athletes down, with weeks of recovery and possible permanent damage?

  Nuts.

  He sat at the edge of his seat, almost ready to drive back at the shop and get these poor girls some proper gear. I mean, fuck, even the cheapest gear he had would have stopped that last debilitating blow that cost them a point.

  The weapons were supposed to be of training quality, soft, foamy, plastic. But force
equals mass times fucking acceleration, and when you had cyberarms swinging them around with so much strength it didn’t matter if they were foamy or not. They still knocked your teeth out.

  Blood. That was the game. Correction, that was the show.

  But the waste behind it all was maddening. Didn’t these people care about these poor women, at all? At the very least they could protect their investment. Buying an athlete was not cheap, even in this shitty third-tier league.

  Tony came back, pushing his gut between the fans, and sat down. “Man, it took forever to take a piss. I ended up whipping it out at a shack next to the toilets.”

  “Lovely to hear that,” Hector winced.

  “What did I miss? Oh, ten points ahead? Sorry, man, no bonus today.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it, yeah. But...” He got lost in thought. “I mean, they...”

  The drumbeat started again and Patty charged. She was sluggish, clearly still recovering from an injury even before the match. Still, she was good. She struck two opponents, paralysing them for a few drumbeats. Hector had figured that one out on his own. She kept both of them down, leaving an opening for her qwik and the chain to swing wide and cover her. They ran in unison, going for the mount.

  They got blocked, and both took a knee, the skull rolling in the ground. It was covered in pink blood. Patty moved forward and covered her qwik while she recovered, but it was too much, they all ganged up on her.

  She fended off one Darling, but the rest struck her down. The stadium mics picked up an audible crack of her ribs. Another blow from a staff, and Patty went down, blood spraying pink all over the Darling. The crowd reacted with a collective wince.

  The Darlings of Destruction kept on kicking Patty on the ground, and the referee pushed them back, screaming in their face.