Life is a Beautiful Thing (4-Book Box Set)

by Harmon Cooper

  Carloza-as-Nelly laughed. “Look who is pissed!”

  “I am in a garage somewhere and the lower half of my body has been replaced. Of course I’m pissed!”

  “What did you say about your lower half?”

  Camera on, Nelly thought. She sat up painfully, removing the blanket from her waist. She now had a Humandroid body from the waist down. The lower half of her spine had been replaced and she even had a mechanical cock, although e-skin had yet to be applied.

  “Christ! You’re half-Humandroid now with a half-boner ¡Qué locura! Someone really did a number on you. Clean cut, that’s for sure.”

  She covered herself again. “I want my body and my baby, Carloza.”

  “Well I don’t want a half-Humandroid body. That’s for goddamn sure, amiga.”

  “Where the hell is Meme?”

  “Oh, that guy… he’s in Tokyo now. Left yesterday on a pollute transport arranged by some hombres of mine.” The baby cooed. “That’s a good girl, little Esperanza.”

  “Her name isn’t Esperanza. It’s Rebel.”

  He laughed. “That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard! Listen, Nelly, in all seriousness, you really need to assess the situation here. I currently have your body and Meme currently has my body. I promise, I’ve been taking care of Esperanza like a good mamasita—”

  “Her name is supposed to be Rebel,” she said through clenched teeth.

  He laughed. “Relax… I’m sure we can work something out.” He blinked his eyes twice. “Ah, I see – you are in a neighborhood in Oakland.” He called over to his assistant to take the baby.

  Nelly’s eyes shot open. Everything was fuzzy, the way things looked underwater. “My vision is utter shit.”

  The baby started to cry as a monstrous Mexican man took the infant in his arms. “Take her to the nursery, Arturo.”

  Nelly-as-Tyro said, “Tell him to be careful!”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” Carloza laughed. “Arturo is always careful. Isn’t that right, Arturo?”

  The man grunted a reply.

  “Stay online,” she said. “I need to figure out my current situation. I’ll get back to you”

  Carloza’s face grew serious. “Listen, Nelly, I’m going to send a couple of guys to get you. We’ll get to the bottom of this chica.”

  “Bring me a pair of Leaks while you’re at it. They will work until I can get corrective surgery.”

  “No problemo.”

  NINE∞

  Everything in the room had blurred around the edges. Nelly-as-Tyro rubbed her eyes, remembering that her vision wasn’t the result of medication – it was the result of Tyro’s poor eyesight.

  “What an idiot.”

  Poor eyesight could be rectified, yet some people continued to wear glasses. Nelly closed her eyes and logged onto iNet using one of the dozen throwaway accounts she owned. She checked her GPS location, downloading data from all available cameras. She used a camera override app that she’d bought with Antimeria’s money to generate a list of password-protected camera feeds in the area. Sure enough, she found a few cameras in the house and more importantly, in the garage. It took her a minute, but she quickly cracked the passwords by downloading PassCrack from a WarezShare site.

  The two cameras videoing her appeared on her iNet screen. She kept her eyes closed for a minute, orienting herself with her current position. It was strange watching herself in third person, strange seeing her new body viewed from the perspective of a camera overhead. She moved her arm, watching the arm move on the camera. She checked both her mechanical legs – just seeing them made her feel uneasy.

  There was a phobia many humans had with being partially mechanical. People that were half-Humandroid were treated differently than regular humans, or humans with bionic arms or legs. They were viewed as half-human because that’s exactly what they were. It was worse for people who were more than half-Humandroid, which is how she could now be classified, especially since several of her organs had been replaced. Nelly couldn’t imagine living her life as anything less than fully human – she couldn’t imagine being a ‘clean-cut’.

  I’ll get my body back from Carloza even if I have to kill the filthy bastard. Of course he knew this, and he would likely go to extreme lengths to protect himself and her baby once she got to Mexico.

  “This is all Meme’s fault,” she whispered. An idea appeared seemingly out of nowhere: if she could get Meme to give Carloza his body back, then Meme could take Tyro’s body and Nelly could have her old body. No bloodshed required. Yes, it was a clusterfuck, but it would be the most congenial way to solve the dilemma. First things first – she needed to get out of this garage.

  She watched her body move off the bed using the cameras in the corners of the room. Her bionic legs plinked as they touched the ground; it was one of the stranger sensations she’d ever experienced.

  Nelly wriggled her toes, balanced her weight on her feet and stood. The new legs easily responded to the weight of Tyro’s body. She took one step forward, getting used to the act of walking again. A message appeared on her iNet screen.

  Carloza: Mis amigos están viniendo.

  Good, his friends will be here soon, she thought. Her fingers touched the edge of a tray peppered with surgical instruments. The video feed revealed the contents: bone cutter, curette, scalpel, bone saw, forceps, lancet, surgical stapler. Everything was for show – the bone saw still had plastic wrap on it. Whoever had brought her here had done the surgery remotely. She opened her crappy eyes and noticed a fuzzy object above the bed.

  An ArachnaMed machine was tethered to the ceiling by a retractable steel cable. If surgery was needed, it would hover over the patient’s body, using its multiple arms for surgical procedures. A trained physician operated the machine remotely using iNet or a VE rig. Most people simply called the machine a SpiderDoc. Whoever had saved her had gone to great links to hide his or her identity.

  “Can you hear me?” Nelly-as-Tyro asked aloud. She still had her eyes closed, observing the movements in the room with the exterior cameras. “I’m sure you are recording this so I’ll make my peace. For some reason, you saved my life and made me half-human. I don’t know if I should thank you for this, or find out who you are and kill you myself. I suppose I should thank you. So here it is: thank you.”

  She heard a something rattle near her.

  “Nelly?”

  Her heart was practically in her throat now. “Noah!?”

  Using the cameras to guide her, Nelly walked to a darkened corner of the garage. She placed her hands in front of her body and felt the Humandroid’s head.

  “Your body is gone…” she said. “What happened to you?”

  “I was shot after you were shot… I watched you die! My dear Nelly!”

  “My Noah … ” She picked up his head and walked back towards the center of the garage. Noah was her personal Humandroid assistant, her best friend. She would do anything for him and he would do anything for her. They finished each other’s sentences so much that it had become passé.

  “My Nelly … ”

  She could now see herself standing in Tyro’s half-human body holding Noah’s decapitated head. “We’re getting out of here,” she whispered to the head, cradling it in her arms. She kissed his cheek again and again. “We’ll both get new bodies too.”

  “I’m so happy to see you,” he said, looking up at her. Smudged eyeliner encircled his left eye. “I vowed to remain powered-off until you were revived. Now … you’re here. We’re together again!”

  “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know.” he said.

  “Can’t you check your memory?”

  “It’s been wiped. All I can view from that day is the altercation at the restaurant and your death. It was so horrible! How are you? Are you okay? I’m sure the new body is strange … oh Nelly, we’ll get through this together.”

  “I know we will.”

  She kissed his cold cheek again. He was the only person on t
he entire planet who truly understood how she felt at that very moment.

  TEN∞

  Dustin Grier hung upside down with a ball gag jammed in his mouth and a big wet spot on the crotch of his pants. His nostrils were rimmed in snot and his eyes were bloodshot. Tears dripped down his face, pausing for a moment on his forehead before falling to the floor. Rinchi was crouched in front of him, balanced on her high heels.

  Grier tried to kick himself free of the suspension harness, but it was useless. He was completely vertical; his wrists were cuffed to a bar that hung at his waist.

  “Shhhhh … ” Rinchi reached her hand out and grazed the side of his cheek. “If you keep making noise, I’ll kill your secretary too. I’m allowed collateral damage in my line of work, you know.”

  She stepped over his amputated finger (which she had bitten off), moving towards his desk. She looked down at his iDeskpad. Transfernote continued to send descriptions of what was happening to Grier’s account in real time.

  “You can stop sending notes now; everything you send will be deleted anyway. Please relax, Mr. Grier. Enjoy the last few minutes of your life.”

  The mention of life caused him to squirm even more.

  Rinchi walked over to him and pressed the tip of her high heel against his forehead. She brought her foot back and kicked him hard enough to really hurt. He began whimpering again. She checked his vitals, noticing the percentage of blood that had rushed to his head.

  “If I removed the ball gag will you keep quiet?” she asked.

  He nodded frantically.

  “Okay, but I’m warning you, if you make any noise, any noise whatsoever, I will end this right now. I’m trusting you, Mr. Grier. Do you trust me?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good, you’re finally learning.”

  Rinchi unfastened the ball gag and crouched on her haunches. Grier closed his eyes and turned his head away from her. A bruise was already forming where she’d kicked him earlier. “Don’t be repulsed by me.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “If you aren’t going to speak, I might as well put the ball gag back in.”

  “No … ” he said hoarsely, “ … please don’t. Please … don’t kill me. I have a—”

  “—I’m afraid it isn’t in my nature to feel sympathy for human’s life or their familial relations. Pleading won’t work with me.”

  “What do you want then?” He opened his eyes and looked fiercely at her.

  “Well you’ve certainly come alive, Mr. Grier.”

  “Why me?” he asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “One of the stipulations in my contract is that I don’t reveal who has sent me. However, seeing that I’m going to kill you in the next few minutes … ”

  He yelped.

  “Shhhhh … ” She reached her hand out and ran her fingernail along his barely visible chin line. “You’re the type to always go back for seconds, aren’t you?”

  “Please … why are you here?”

  She paused. “Seeing as how I’m going to kill you and all the feeds in the room have been disabled, I might as well tell you why I’ve come, not that anyone could really learn from your mistake.”

  “Please don’t kill … ”

  “I work for MercSecure, which was contracted by Walliburton to take you and Edgar Cave out. Would you like to see what I did to Edgar?”

  He shook his head.

  “I thought you wouldn’t. Anyway, the information that Edgar gave you may have contained some encrypted data regarding body-switching tech. Do you know about this?”

  “No … I swear I don’t!”

  “I see. Well, it isn’t really my job to decide who is right or wrong. We’ve moved well past the judge and the jury. My sole job is to perform a service, a removal service – I suppose I’m no different than an executioner, really.”

  “So you aren’t … an escort?” His eyes shot to her bag of bestial goodies.

  “Oh, that.” She adjusted her top in a flirty way. “I was an escort and yes, most of the things I told you before were true. However, I am no longer an escort.”

  “You tricked me!” he said bitterly. Veins bulged on the side of his forehead. Blood from his amputated finger had traveled down his arm and to his shoulder, forming a puddle on the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Grier. Is there anything else you’d like to say before I finish the job? As long as it isn’t incriminating, I’ll make sure the message isn’t suppressed by ExEx.”

  Text began to appear on his iDeskpad. Rinchi walked over to his desk and read aloud: “To my daughter, Amanda – please stay strong and finish school. To my wife, Jessa – I’m sorry for leaving this way. To my son, Abel – Never forget what I told you after your first game. To Adam Pitt– Stay blue.”

  “Stay blue? What’s that supposed to mean, Mr. Grier? Stay blue?”

  “It is just something we say…” Gravity was making difficult for him to keep his eyes open. His head had started to resemble an inflated tomato.

  “Stay blue? It’s code for something, isn’t it?” She bent down in front of him, examining the man with an unapologetic grin on her face.

  “No! Please … please … I promise it isn’t!”

  Her eyes dilated. “I can tell by the increase in the temperatures around your nose that you’re lying. It’s quite obvious, even in your current state. I guess I’ll have to make sure all the messages are deleted.”

  He tried to kick himself free again. “Please, I’ll do anything! Anything you want! Don’t kill me. Please … I’ll pay you. I’ll … anything!”

  “Anything I want?” Rinchi pretended to ponder the offer for a moment. There was really nothing a human could do for her now that she had become a MercSecure representative. It was, for lack of a better term, her dream job.

  She stood. “Well, it’s been a lovely afternoon, but I need to get back to LA and from there, I’m off to Tokyo. Have you ever been to Japan?”

  He was sobbing too hard now to shake his head.

  “I’ve heard it’s wonderful in the Fall. Maybe I’ll do some sightseeing – I’ve always wanted to visit Hiroshima. Are you still crying?” Rinchi retrieved her tactical knife from the table. She bent forward again, pressing the tip of the blade under his ear. “Smile for me, Mr. Grier. Good, just like that.”

  ELEVEN∞

  Rinchi wiped the knife on Dustin Grier’s shirt. She glanced up at her suspension set, wondering if she should leave it or not. There was another set at Antimeria’s place in LA, which she could grab before heading off to Tokyo. Leaving him hanging with his throat cut would definitely send a message, even if it essentially fell on deaf ears.

  She logged into MercSecure’s encrypted network to indicate that the job was done. The wolf mask went back in her oversized bag, settling next to her medieval cage mask. After brushing out a wrinkle on her silky black dress, she let herself out of the office.

  “How did the meeting go?” the secretary asked as she walked by.

  Rinchi couldn’t resist. “We got hung up on some things, but everything should be good to go now.”

  “That’s nice.”

  She glanced up at the camera watching her. All the footage would be deleted in a matter of moments so it didn’t matter what she did now.

  “You know,” Rinchi said, turning to the secretary, “if you cut someone’s throat while they’re hanging upside down, the blood makes it looks as if their head has been dipped in a bucket of paint.”

  The secretary nearly fell out of her chair. “W-w-what did you just say?”

  “Never mind. It’s just something I learned recently.”

  Rinchi stepped into the elevator and quickly found herself on the tenth floor. She walked briskly towards the aeros pick up area, to a black MercSecure vehicle with tinted windows waiting for her. As soon as she got in, the vehicle lifted into an airlane.

  “How did it go?” a man with a deep voice asked.

  “All’s well that ends wel
l,” she said.

  “Your flight to LA leaves in thirty minutes. It should take about fifteen to get to LaGuardia. I’ll handle your luggage transportation through MercSecure’s check-in lane.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “I’m required to go over the details with everyone I transport.”

  “Do what you must.”

  The man shrugged. He was of mixed heritage, his shoulders broad and muscled. He glanced at Rinchi in the rearview mirror, aware that she was scanning his vitals from behind.

  “See anything I should be concerned about? I haven’t been in for a check-up recently.”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s your ranking by the way?”

  “Ranking?”

  “I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’m always curious about this when I meet a new representative.”

  “I’ve killed two people for MercSecure,” she said, cutting to the chase.

  “MercSecure doesn’t kill people,” he reminded her, “we alleviate problems. If you have only alleviated two problems, it means you’re at the bottom of the list. All representatives employed by MercSecure are ranked by the number of problems they resolve.”

  “I could alleviate three and move up a notch … ” she said.

  He laughed nervously. “Damn, they knew what they were doing when they hired you. The reason I ask is because … ”

  “Because why?”

  He smiled. “There’s an internal message board where the various employees – not representatives – post about their experience within the company.”

  “Couldn’t you simply have checked my stats yourself?”

  “Your stats haven’t been listed yet. That’s why I asked.”

  Rinchi made a popping sound with her mouth. “So there is someone at the top who is the best representative of them all?”

  “Her name is Keva,” the driver said. “I’ve never met her though.”

  “Humandroid?”

  “She’s half. Well, not exactly half. She’s not a clean cut, that’s for sure.”