by Andy Remic
NanoTek was single-handedly responsible for all major advancements in biomods. Nano-technology. This technology consisted of the creation of tiny robots—nanobots—able to operate at a molecular level within the human or alien body, and capable of following simple instructions to devastating effect. But the magic of NanoTek, the major deciding factor which had catapulted this fledgling technology company above the now festering remains of its competition—thus turning NanoTek into an almost immediate Quad-Gal Major Player—had been the simple premise of user-friendliness.
NanoTek biomods were user-friendly; they came with a small colourful plastic console (with a massive variety of clip-on fascias and downloadable polyphonic tunes). The console was a user interface, its intention that of making the application of biomods a breeze. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. It was so damned easy that even kids could use it... despite it being—technically—illegal for anybody under the age of 13 to swallow a biomod capsule, except in medical emergencies, or with a note from parents.
Biomod pads became a fashion accessory. A pad equated to wealth; for only the wealthy could use biological upgrades on a regular basis (although a huge array of dazzling and dazzlingly crippling finance packages were available for the discerning “bodder”). Cars were bought on credit; houses via a mortgage—why not a spectrum of easy-to-manage finance packages for the development and enhancement of that decrepit human shell the average soul inhabits?
“It’s too expensive,” said Franco, finally.
Mel smiled. “Well, I heard about this guy. This guy who can get the pirated stuff.” She whispered pirated stuff as if somebody close-by might be listening.
“No, no and triple no,” said Franco. “That’s even worse. At least when you let the NanoTek butchers maul with your genetics you’ve got some legal come back and you can sue their arses. If you buy an illegal one—shit Melanie, I thought you were more intelligent than this? What legal comeback have you got against a guy on a street corner?”
“At least the illegal ones are cheap.”
“Nothing in this world is cheap,” said Franco sourly.
“I just wanted to improve myself. For our wedding! For you!”
“You’re perfect.”
“No I’m not”
“I think it’s a bad idea.”
“We-eell, you got your tooth done!”
“You bloody arranged that!” shouted Franco. “I was quite happy being gappy! God, can’t you see? As long as the world is full of vain people then NanoTek and other vanity butchers will always grow and expand and end up ruling the damn world!” He calmed himself. “Look. Look. I’m sorry. I just... I saw the mess some of those early biomods made of people. It was horrific. Genetic experiments gone wrong. An explosion in a morgue. Something hideous from a horror flick.”
“That was decades ago, Franco. Keep up! NanoTek have advanced since then. There are all sorts of safety precautions built in. I saw a programme about it. The other night.”
“Well, the bastards tried to cover up their early mistakes,” snarled Franco. “If it hadn’t been for BBC Quad-Gal exposing them on that TV documentary programme...”
“All water under the bridge,” said Mel. She smiled. “They’re safe to use now. Proven. It said so in Cosmospolitan.”
Franco held up his hands. “OK. OK. If you say so.”
“Good.” She snuggled up to him. Nuzzled him. Nibbled his neck. “Glad we got that sorted.”
Franco frowned in the gloom. Got it sorted? Did we? When?
~ * ~
If that wasn’t bad enough, the beginning of Franco’s real problems started—as is often the case in life—with his job. Franco worked for a man called Mr Voloshko, Grade 1 Minister, Head Honcho, the Big Guy, Headman, Boss and Dude, the one and only true Guv’nor of The Hammer Syndicate—one of The City’s seven major gangland mafia-type ruling families. The Seven Syndicates were huge in terms of man-power, finance, political acumen and military might. They traded and trafficked in everything from people to guns to drugs to money: the basics. They had a finger in every criminal pie on every damned planet across Quad-Gal—which made The City a criminal hub for pretty much everything dodgy that went down.
Franco, being ex-Combat K, ex-military and, technically, being unskilled with anything other than guns, bombs and his fists, had tried a variety of jobs. He tried to be a waiter. However, he thumped the customers. He tried working in a shop. However, he thumped the customers. He tried working in a factory making component sliver-boards for robot dogs. However, he thumped the robot dogs. Then thumped his boss. Then thumped the customers.
At first, Franco thought the problem was everybody else.
Eventually, it dawned on him that the problem lay with him. And, with a bit of psycho self-analysis, he realised that—well, Franco and idiots—hell, they just didn’t get on. And there were so many idiots out there! They had all sorts of jobs! Doctors! Dentists! Teachers! Idiots! Millions of bloody idiots! Everywhere! You’d think it’d be illegal, or something.
And so Franco (through a friend of a friend of a friend, no?), managed to get a job with Mr Konan, which in time led to a job with Mr Voloshko. Franco was big (well, he had big fists) and acted dumb and didn’t ask too many questions. He kept his mouth shut, usually (and when sober).
His jobs usually comprised standing and scaring people, collecting or delivering packages, watching and tailing other people in or around the casinos which Mr Voloshko—and The Hammer Syndicate as an organisation—operated, or simply driving a variety of people to a variety of places either in Mercedes groundcars or BMW fliers. It was a cushy job. No violence (mostly), no worries. And because nobody treated him as an idiot, nobody got thumped. And so he retained gainful employment, and didn’t have to brave the horror of the Unemployment Office. After all, he was barred. For burning it down, that time.
“I’m off, love.”
“Can you pick up some fireworks on your way home?”
“Fireworks? What for?”
“The Quantum Carnival starts tonight!”
“Hot damn, so it does. I forgot.”
“How could you forget that? It’s a global phenomenon!”
“Other things on my mind,” mumbled Franco. “Such as our impending wedding.”
“Of course. How sweet. Can you also pick up some jasmine oil?”
‘‘Jasmine oil?”
“I bought some candles to float in our stimulant-bath when we have one of our bubbly wobbly bath moments. Just wanted a little something to spice up the water my cuddly little lovable teddy bear.” She came through, wiping her hands on a synth-towel which made a little hissing sound as it sucked water moisture from her skin. She gave him a big cuddly wuddly hug.
“OK, will do, my sweet, my little puff pastry pixie,” said Franco with a tight teeth smile, and climbed down the sixty-nine flights of stairs muttering, “Jasmine oil? Bloody jasmino oilo? What the hell is a squaddie’s life coming to when he has to buy bath oil on his way home from work? It’s because my life’s too great, right? Because my life has become perfect!”
He needn’t have worried.
Things were about to get bad.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 2
DIRTY DANCING
London. NewLon. TekCity: a wonder of the modern world, a pinnacle of human and machine evolution, a climax of science and electronics and modified building genetics. Constantly re-built, re-structured, re-moulded, it was a colossal empire of steel and alloy and glass, skyscraper upon skyscraper upon skyscraper soaring like a mammoth dark phoenix with raised and threatening wings—poised, static, above the seemingly cowering landscape for a full two kilometres in height. London. NewLon. TekCity: a showcase for what contemporary architects and engineers could achieve with a little imagination and a bucketful of cash. A template for progression. A blueprint for the most advanced in all technologies and synthetic materials. London. NewLon. TekCity: Global Sales Centre of NanoTek Corporation.
~ * ~
The
WTS—or World Technology Show—was held every year at Joker’s Hall in NewLon. The world’s largest trade event for contemporary advanced technology, the guest speaker on this humid afternoon which promised a violent storm was none other than Dr Oz, the sole owner—and singular share-holder—of NanoTek Corporation.
As Dr Oz took the podium, walking the length of lacquered bubble-stage to grasp the gleaming polished wings of the platinum eagle, a low muttering swept the gathered sixteen thousand tek-people who had congregated to witness this monumental event.
Dr Oz.
Dr Oz was legend; a near-mythical figure who rarely ventured into the public domain and never— not since the early days of NanoTek’s fledgling uprising decades earlier—gave public appearances. He did not agree to TV, kube or media interviews, was never photographed by the paparazzi, and most of the people who worked under the banners of the NanoTek technological evolution and revolution didn’t actually know what he looked like.
Dr Oz was a small delicate man, slim of stature and completely bald. His face was neat; an extremity of paleness, oval in shape, well-proportioned, the nose just the right shape, the eyebrows slim and waxed, the eyes brown, flecked with gold and just the right distance apart. He was not particularly handsome, nor ugly—and combined with his modest stature he was what some would call a grey man. He could blend with ease into groups of people. Nothing big, nothing clever, a statement of understatement. Dr Oz wore a simple black glass suit over a white shirt with blue silk tie. His shoes were slightly pointed, and polished to a deep sheen that would make any military man proud.
And then Oz smiled, and everyone present witnessed that simple face turn from blandness into one shadowed with—what? Just a hint of menace? Or simple vanity? Oz’s teeth were small and pointed. Perfectly pointed—like those of a piranha. They gleamed red. They were carved from rubies.
Dr Oz’s gaze swept the gathered thousands and a total silence descended in a swift rippling wave—so that a clichéd pin would have made a cacophony. Oz gesticulated at the people before him, and his glass suit tinkled. “Welcome, O my brothers and sisters,” came a rich, rolling voice—the voice of an operatic singer, or maybe a classical Shakespearean actor. It was a voice that was a touch misplaced, almost out of synch with the vision of the ordinary man at the platinum podium. And yet, everybody present knew that one of the unique factors which set Dr Oz apart was that he did not do biomods. He did not use his own vanity mods on his own physical frame. He didn’t “dick with his own slime/ you don’t need that grime”, as back-street slang-dreg children chorused.
“We find ourselves at a cross-roads of a technological highway. We find ourselves at a junction: a junction where one path leads down the road to salvation, to a bright future for the human and alien races of this planet, to a new Eden! And yet, down the second road lies a dark and dormant future, a junk-like representation of Toxic Hell... where technology falters, atrophies, fails, and the human races and alien species wither and regress to the primordial soup from which they first crawled.
“Now, all of us, those gathered here today, and those out on the streets, in the skyscrapers and cubeblocks—all can see these two roads, and they can see them clearly. NanoTek leads the silver-bright path to salvation, and the pirates drag us kicking and screaming down into the Toxic Furnace. What confuses me, friends, is that we are slipping; sliding slowly down the Dark Path... and we allow ourselves to be dragged by using the pirated biomods which have so recently flooded the streets, the markets, the Quad-Gal Net—in an uncontrollable tidal wave of abuse and immoral deviation!”
Dr Oz paused to take a sip from a glass of NanoTek SterileW™ self-purifying water. When the glass touched down on the podium, there was a tiny clink.
“Now, NanoTek have fashioned a proposal for The City World Council, and I think you will agree it is a very important proposal. At NanoTek we have been working hard on the VitaMod Triple C additives which we propose be added to water supplies of this fine global city. Like fluoride and calcium before it, this additive would enter a general consumer system, a mass-absorbed agent base which would bring en-masse benefits for the whole of organic kind! Think about it... Triple C—anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer and anti-canker biomods which would become a regular systemic additive. On a global scale! Free to all! Think about it... a world where the majority are protected wholesale from diseases and conditions which have afflicted mankind and alien species from the earliest of times. Think about it... the right choice for all our mingled species! The right choice in order to promote the longevity of so many citizens of this noble city!”
Dr Oz took a step back.
Applause and cheers thundered around Joker’s Hall.
Dr Oz took a small bow. “Questions?”
“Sir, Daily Fuzz. Shouldn’t we have a choice in this matter? A choice whether we consume NanoTek’s biomod technology in our very water supply?”
“A choice? Whether you live or die?” Oz laughed. A cold laugh. “What sensible choice is that, boy? Another question?”
“Dr Oz, The Weekly Vulva. I’m not being funny, but what’s in it for the aliens? Your biomod is aimed 80/20 at the human and human derived species. There’s a lot of other flesh out there! You seem to be pandering to the largest common denominator and practically ignoring the alien minorities!”
Dr Oz smiled. “The Triple C additives would be a simple pioneer of the technology. As you know, all biomods are linked to the GreenSource Mainframe and can be subtly tweaked. We have planned stages of tek evolution to integrate all species on The City into our upgrade platform. Yes, for now the bio-mods are predominantly a human upgrade; but that is our base technology platform from which to extend. My friends, NanoTek strives for the improvement of all species.”
“Sir? War Machine Inc. You mention all biomods being linked to the GreenSource Mainframe. Does that framework include pirated biomods? Do you have tags on the mods which have been cracked and smashed and pumped?”
There came an embarrassed silence which swept Joker’s Hall like a tsunami. Dr Oz smiled, but his face was gargoyle stone. A non-animate. “Not—as such,” he said, finally. “But we have people working on it. Now, one final question.” He faced a sea of hands from the gathered media peeps. He pointed.
“Mr Blue. The Shag Town Times. Is it true that NanoTek have secured contracts with Quad-Gal Sec5 Military? And are developing new technology such as processor types, AI scripting and molecular weapon enhancements which will eventually filter down to civilian level?”
Dr Oz peered at the man in the sea before him. He smiled. “That is a rumour circulated by you journalists. NanoTek do not, and I repeat, do not have dealings with the military. We are a simple and ethical organisation interested in the extension and technologically enhanced longevity of the unified organic species of Quad-Galaxy. Now, I thank you for your questions. I bid you good night.”
Another round of applause. A few cheers. That was good.
Dr Oz turned to walk from the stage. As he turned, a man entered from behind silver curtains and made his way swiftly across the platform. The man’s walk turned into a run, another two men appearing from opposite sides as knives appeared glinting in fists and the three large men rushed the defenceless figure of Dr Oz who seemed— suddenly—alone and out of reach of his security.
Dr Oz’s pace faltered. He glanced right.
The first man to appear, a huge and heavily muscled mercenary with a brutal scarred face and hooked nose, lunged with his blade; Oz sidestepped with clinical precision, the knife slashing past his heart as he slammed out, hand snapping down to break the assassin’s arm at the elbow. The attacker screamed, his limb flopping and dangling useless as Oz whirled, fast, to meet the other assassins. With cries they leapt and Oz ducked a blow, ramming outstretched fingers into one attacker’s eyeball which flicked free of an anger-skewered face to dangle, jerking useless and spasmodically against his cheek like a slug on a string. Oz flicked himself left, rolling, scooping up the long slender
dagger from the first assassin and slamming it into the third man’s heart. Blood fountained, soaking the man’s long curly dark hair, and as he fell, ten security men charged the stage and grabbed all three assassins, dragging their bleeding, screaming and, ultimately (after several silenced bullets) limp figures from the stage.
Dr Oz turned, mechanically, then moved back to the podium. He wiped his blood stained hands on a cloth, straightened his tie, lifted his head and swept the hushed audience once more with a gold-flecked gaze. He smiled, a slow easy smile. “I do apologise for this intrusion. As you must acknowledge, when you are in a position such as I, threats from extremist minority groups can sometimes embarrass a situation. I hope this has not ruined what is to be a superb World Technology Show, and beg that you enjoy yourselves in what has traditionally become known as the opening event leading to The Quantum Carnival.” As if on cue, a billion fireworks detonated outside. Through the liquid-glass ceiling, the sky fizzled with colours and explosions. “Thank you. Goodnight.”