Promethean Files 1: The New Prometheus

by Andrew Dobell

  She didn’t care, her life wasn’t this room, it was out on the streets, doing what she did best, and she wanted to be out there now. Pulling herself up from her bed, she put the empty Ramen pot on the table, next to the others that sat there, waiting to be thrown in the bin. She changed out of her work clothes and put on a pair of black leggings, boots and a dark jacket over her vest top before checking herself in the mirror.

  She was in her early twenties with short dark hair cut to just below her jaw line. Her fair skin had seen better days, and she almost always looked tired with dark rings under her eyes. She had fairly pleasant, if a little sharp, features, with no one thing being too prominent. She didn’t hate anything about her face, but sometimes felt she looked a little plain.

  She kept herself in trim, her time on the streets and her self-defence training keeping her fit and teaching her to take care of herself.

  Happy with her outfit, she picked up her Data Pad and key card before leaving her apartment. She locked the door behind her and headed to the row of elevator doors pressing the button to call one.

  Someone else walked up and stood close by, waiting for a car to reach their floor. She glanced it him as he approached and recognised him. This was Dion. He was well known on her floor and in the building in general. He and his teenage mates hung about being anti-social and intimidating people. He seemed to have lost some of that confidence for the moment, though, stood here alone without his friends to back him up.

  ‘Evening Dion,’ she said, looking at him.

  He looked up at her with just his eyes and then looked away. ‘Evening,’ he grunted in answer to her, apparently not impressed that she was talking to him.

  ‘Off to see your mates?’

  ‘Ugh,’ he muttered. At least, that’s what it sounded like to her. It might have been a word or two, but she couldn’t tell. He clearly didn’t want to talk to her, though.

  Raising her eyebrows for a moment, she silently mouthed the word ‘okay,’ to herself and looked back at the lift. It was taking a while today, so she reached forward and pressed the button a few more times.

  She glanced at Dion as she stepped back again and she knew the thoughts he was having. “How backwards, having to push a button to call a lift,” or something to that effect. He probably hated Nats, but she didn’t care. It was her choice not to turn herself into a robot.

  Most people these days had some sort of Cybernetic enhancement. It was as much a fashion statement as anything else. A Neural Net being perhaps the most common kind of augmentation, giving people a direct connection to the Net from their brain. With that, they could log into the buildings Intranet and call the lift with just a simple neural command, but Frankie didn’t even have one of those. She preferred to keep herself all natural. If that made her a Nat, then so be it, but she didn’t see herself as one of those Social Justice Warriors out there attacking anything that didn’t fit with their world view and protesting against the Corporations playing god.

  She’d just made a conscious choice to stay as free of Cybernetic implants as she could. She still had the Nanobots inside her, though, just like most of the human race did, that was pretty much a given, without those the chances were she would have died from a bout of the flu by now with Antibiotics being ineffectual.

  The lift door finally opened up before her and announced its downward direction. She stepped in and looked over at Dion.

  ‘Going down?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll get the next one,’ he answered her.

  She nodded and pressed the bottom button on the panel. He probably thought that she would try and talk to him again, which was no doubt the greatest of indignities.

  Descending seventy-four floors to the bottom level of the tower block she lived in, the doors opened and allowed her to disembark. Although she was on the lowest level the apartment block lifts went to, she wasn’t at the lowest level of the city. This was merely the bottom of the mid-levels, the main working-class section of the city, built atop the ruins of old London. What had been left of it after the war anyway. There had been some notion of saving the cultural heritage of old London, but these days it was an area you avoided if you had any sense. Today it was filled with those who had nowhere else to go. The cast-offs from society and those who preyed on them.

  But Frankie had been going down there for months now, with a goal of helping those who needed it. She walked through the lower lobby of the apartment block, nodding at the concierge who saw her pass this way most days.

  She made it outside and looked up for a moment. She’d lived in the city her whole life, but no matter how often she came down here, she always enjoyed the view. She felt like she was at the bottom of a steep-sided valley, surrounded by these towering buildings that stretched up high into the low hanging clouds.

  Above her, elevated highways snaked between the buildings feeding onto the upper-mid and higher levels of the city that hung in space above her.

  Drones and flyers flew through the air, their lights flashing in time to the neon advertising signage that covered the sides of the buildings selling their wares to the hungry masses.

  The street was busy as she moved into the crowd and made her way a few blocks over to the nearest escalator that led to the Undercity.

  It looked relatively innocuous, and there were far fewer people near here. She didn’t stop, she just walked onto the moving stairs and dropped out of sight of the street. No one else was before her or following her down as the escalator moved through the tunnel before eventually exiting through to the underside of the high street she had been on moments before. She stepped off the end of the escalator onto sturdy metal catwalks suspended on the underside of the main street level, looking over the rooftops of the old city about eight or ten stories below her.

  Looking over the old city, every so often, one of the blocks had been reinforced and extended up to the mid levels above, acting like massive supporting pillars filled with small and dirty apartments, most of which were probably empty.

  Frankie walked the familiar route through the catwalks, looking down at the city below and wondering if she would see Jude tonight.

  Very few people were walking through these catwalks, she’d only passed one guy, who had kept to himself as most people did, although you did find there was a higher proportion of crazies down here than in the mid levels.

  As she went to pass another guy walking in the other direction, keeping out of his way, he suddenly pulled a gun and pointed it at her. She stopped in her tracks, the barrel of the gun just inches from her head.

  ‘Gimmie all your stuff, whatever you got, I wan’ it.’

  Frankie raised her hands in surrender. ‘I don’t have anything, sorry…’ she said.

  When she’d first come down here, she’d known the risks, the stories, but she did it anyway, and within a few days of visiting every day, she had been the victim of a mugging.

  When it had happened again, just a few days later, this time with a punch to her face, she knew she would need to learn how to look after herself.

  She took up some classes that taught some no-nonsense street tactics for dealing with attackers, and she also started to come down here with minimal possessions. These days she usually only brought her Data Pad and key card, both of which she kept in a hidden pouch at the small of her back.

  The man stepped forward and pressed the gun to her forehead. ‘Empty your pockets bitch, you better have something on you,’ he said, hissing and spitting through clenched teeth.

  ‘Sure, sure, let me see…’ she said, moving her hands as if to fumble for her stuff. But this guy clearly had no idea. He was making it too easy on her, and he seemed just a little bit too crazy for her liking. She just imagined it was her landlord for a moment.

  She reached up in a flash, grabbing the top of his gun with her left hand, moving her head and body sideways simultaneously away from the gun and bringing her right hand into his wrist, forcing it to bend and point the gun ba
ck towards him. With a pull, she removed the gun from his compromised grip and stepped back, pointing the gun back at him.

  ‘Hey, hey, chill out. I wasn’t gonna hurt ya girl. I just wanted some cash fo some dust is all, you know?’ he pleaded, holding his hand in pain. She’d almost certainly hurt him with the disarm.

  ‘Get out of here you bloody prick,’ she said, keeping her distance from him.

  ‘Sure, sure. Whatever you want,’ he answered her. ‘Damn girl, you’ve got some moves,’ he said backing away.

  She didn’t answer him, she just watched him go, backing away from him as he went the other way. Once she felt safe, she turned continued on her way.

  After starting her classes, her confidence grew and she found better ways of dealing with these idiots, knowing she could disarm them if she needed too. Something she’d done a few times now.

  Remembering her training, Frankie found and pressed the button on the side of the gun to released the magazine into her hand and then pulled on the slide to eject the bullet in the chamber, making the gun safe before putting it in her pocket for the moment.

  Upon reaching the next checkpoint, she placed the gun she had confiscated from the attacker on the floor outside the lobby and told them where to find it. They detained her for a short while until they had reviewed the security camera footage of the attack, then they let her continue on her way.

  She wasn’t a big fan of guns, she didn’t hate them, but she felt much happier to be rid of it. She didn’t know enough about them really she thought. Passing the checkpoint without trouble and moving to the next escalator on the side of one of these supporting blocks. She stepped onto it, heading towards the final security checkpoint below.

  Heading down to the Undercity was never much trouble, the guards would warn any new faces they saw about the dangers of the area, but they wouldn’t stop you.

  Coming back up, however, was a little more tightly controlled, after all, no one wanted a Jacker Gang running riot on the mid-levels.

  She passed the final checkpoint, nodding and smiling to the guards on duty and walked through the scanner, out onto the street beyond.

  The layout of the streets down here, from what she knew of its history, had changed a lot since the bombing of old London. So much had been moved or added too, that it looked quite different now.

  These days the only map she had and trusted was her memories, because no current and up to date map of the Undercity really existed. She headed off down the street, her hands stuffed into her pockets and looked straight ahead. It was always tempting to gaze upwards at the underside of the mid-levels and the meagre light that came through the gaps to reach the Undercity, but doing so just made you look like a tourist and painted a metaphorical target on your back.

  She’d learnt a long time ago to keep to herself, look straight ahead and never to look anyone else in the eye.

  She knew where she wanted to go to, and walked with purpose, following a path she knew well.

  After a few twists and switchbacks, she turned onto a narrow single lane side street that allowed her to cut through to her destination a little quicker. Home to one of the Undercities backstreet labs that refused to work with her, she hadn’t been down here for a while. The lab was a recent addition to the black market cyber clinics that were down here, offering Cyberization services at a fraction of the cost that the Corps were offering, but at a much higher risk.

  She’d spoken with the technician in this one a few times but with little luck. He’d been happy to keep meeting with her, but she’d soon realised that he didn’t have any intention of helping her and ended up getting annoyed with him for leading her on. She had no idea why he’d done that, but it was of little consequence.

  She had a few that she did work with, though, helping to get the worst cases she found into their labs to try and help them out.

  But this new one was having none of it.

  She’d given up on him after the last meeting she’d had with him and walked past the non-descript door that led to the lab holding her middle finger up at the hidden security camera as she went.

  Screw him.

  Up ahead though was something she wasn’t expecting, the blue and red flashing lights announcing the presence of some police in the street. She continued walking up the narrow road, and sure enough, some tape had cordoned off one side of the street, with a police car just past it and a drone hovering above.

  A couple of onlookers stood outside of the tape, while inside, a few crime scene investigators were picking over two dead bodies. Stood just inside the crime scene, Detective Gibson stood with his hands in his trench coat pockets and a grim look on his face.

  She reached the tape and caught a glimpse of the two bodies. Jackers by the looks of it, one with a Mohawk and one with a missing Cybernetic arm, both of them with a single bullet hole in their heads.

  ‘There are worse ways to go,’ she said, standing next to the Detective.

  He spun round and smiled briefly on recognising her. ‘Frankie, down here again are you?’

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ she quipped.

  ‘Yeah, well, if people keep getting executed down here, we have to come down and clean it up.’

  ‘What is it this time, gang wars? They look like Jackers to me.’

  ‘Yeah, looks that way. Maybe they tried to Jack the wrong person or the wrong lab. Who knows, just two more faces with made up gang names to add to the folder.’

  ‘Do you ever find out who these people are or what happened to them?’

  ‘Sometimes, if they’re related to someone up there that cares,’ he said, looking up at the city above briefly. ‘Do you recognise them at all?’

  ‘Sorry, no, can’t say I do. Look, I’ll catch you later okay?’

  ‘Sure. Go careful tonight. The gangs are out and about.’

  She nodded back to him and left him to finish cleaning up the mess, heading out into the streets beyond.

  She’d crossed paths with Gibson a few times these past few months as he went about his job down here. She liked him, with his close-cropped hair and world-weary expression. She’d already noticed the ring on his finger, though, so she hadn’t pursued him. She had too much on her mind anyway.

  He’d helped her out in her mission a few times, giving her some help here and there. She liked and trusted him more than she would most authority figures.

  He was probably just looking out for her, a young woman down here trying to do some good. What was it about men that sometimes made them want to be the knight in shining armour?

  It was cute, but there were times when it grated on her.

  Leaving the side street, she continued on and after another couple of blocks found the disused parking lot she had been aiming for. Located beneath the corner of one of the gigantic skyscrapers above that rose into the main city, this area looked like a forest of concrete trees that held up the underside of the building above. Wires and thick cables hung down from the bottom of the structure above, leeching power from the city. No natural light reached down here, only the random dirty work lights attached to the makeshift hovels and shelters provided any light. Made from scraps of metal, scaffolding and sheets of plastic to keep out the incessant dripping of water from the city above, these were the homes of the victims of the modern capitalist Cyberized society that lived above them.

  Most of the people in here were Cyberized to some extent, and most of them were victims of the corporations and their greed. Cyberization was the new frontier, giving you abilities far beyond what a natural human could do, but it indebted you to one or more of the corporations. Cyberization was expensive, so most paid for it on finance, paying monthly amounts to the conglomerates for the work and products. Then there were the repairs and upgrades, it never ended, unless you couldn’t pay of course.

  The Corporations didn't care if you couldn’t buy food this week, they only cared about the money you owe them, and if you couldn’t pay, then they could always turn off your
implants, or worse.

  She’d heard it all during the few years she had been trying to help those who had become victims of the Cyber Revolution. She’d heard of bank accounts been wiped clean of money. She’d heard of Corporation thugs paying visits to people, threatening all kinds of horrors, such as smashing up your prosthetic limb.

  Often, these victims were left homeless, impoverished and without recourse. The police were impotent against the Corps, not least because most of the police were corrupt, paid off by the Corps to look the other way.

  Law enforcement, the judiciary, government, all of it seemed powerless against the Corps. She hated it, and she felt like she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. She wanted to help, to do her bit, somehow. She couldn’t do much, who could? But she could try to help those in a worse position than her.

  Coming down here and offering support to some of these victims so that maybe they could have a better standard of life, that was her purpose now That was what she wanted to do.

  She’d learnt to hate the Corps, and did her best to remain as free as she could from their influence. There was only so much she could do really. The Nanobots inside of her were the only thing that tied her to any Corporation, and they were an unfortunate necessity in this post-Antibiotic world.

  She walked into the shanty town, ducking through gaps between the shelters and through the plastic sheeting that hung here and there.

  She saw a few people she knew, people she’d helped already. But she was looking for a young man she’d met the last couple of times she’d been here who went by the name of Jude. She hunted around for a few minutes before she spotted him and walked over. He sat by the side of a shelter, his back leant against it with his two Cyber legs stretched out before him.

  It was the usual story. Jude had fallen upon hard times, been made redundant and fallen behind on his payments. He’d been threatened and harassed, and eventually, they’d repossessed his apartment and much of his belongings, which led to him finding his way down here.