Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  Which is where I came in.

  He shook his head at me, mouth tucking into a boyish smile. The skin by his eyes crinkled with it, giving him that aw, shucks vibe that made me want to break him hard and throw him to the streets he wanted to be part of so bad.

  “I was going to say that you seem tense,” he said.

  I stopped just in front of him, mirrored his stance by tucking my own hands in my pockets. It let me bend in, rock back on my heels, and give him the kind of hungry smile I knew disturbed him. “This a link and chill, Greg?”

  If he’d been standing in meatspace, I’d’ve watched him blush. He wouldn’t here. As ruggedly attractive as the detective was in general, he’d gone and paid to sharpen up his image. A little tanner, jaw a touch squarer than in reality. Brown synthetic leather jacket with sleeves shoved up on nicely tanned forearms, despite the fact he’d roast alive in that thing outside.

  His smile, irritating me, had been given a little extra special bling.

  It wilted. “Don’t tease me, Riko.”

  Meh. Been there. Done that. A one-night decision, whole lot of fun at the time. He’d been a sweet boy in blue fresh off his promotion to detective, a Judeo-Christ devotee who’d gotten off on my wild side – at least, wild for his view of the world.

  Time had left its marks on us both. Now he worked on the side for me. While I didn’t have the creds to spare, I made up for it by slaving him out to Indigo. Talk about bribery. Greg made for a shitty bouquet in general, but Digo seemed content to use him for all a cop was worth.

  Which isn’t much. Cops make shit, overworked and with half the cred they need to do what they’re supposed to. Aside from excellent health coverage – nobody wants an injured cop with excess tech in their station; going necro in a copshop would suck big rotting ass for everyone – police get jack access from the corporations that own them.

  Keeping the peace is an ideal, one overturned by corp forces and political gain, and that’s especially hard on the civic drones like Greg; blue down to the bone, he didn’t stay shiny long. His badge, contrary to his projected avatar, had already started to tarnish.

  Fuckos like the Good Shepherds aren’t limited to Trinity. Dealing with the worst of the street takes its toll.

  I wasn’t in the mood to hold his hand today. “What do you want, Detective Choirboy?”

  He no longer rolled his eyes at the monikers I saddled him with. Served him right for trying to blackmail me a while ago, especially when he’d wasted it to make that bank he wanted so badly. Total loss of a good hand. Not that I’d discouraged him.

  “More what I was hoping to do for you,” he replied. He took a couple steps back, out of my reach. “I’ve got something on the two other tech centers you asked me about.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Chopshops, Greg. If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

  “Says you,” he retorted. “One of the places you flagged is registered. As,” he added with a smug crinkle to his smiling eyes, “a tech center.”

  “Eat shit and die.” I was a poor loser. “Which one? Not the Vid Zone.” That place had looked like a chopshop above ground, but a hospital lab setup beneath it. Too covert to be registered. Especially if they’d been fucking around with necrotech conversion, or even just risking it.

  As walking techmeat, the things operated under an overwhelming amount of programming. Or that was the theory. The signal courses wire to wire, infecting every system clocked in via physical lock. Makes the virus easier to deal with, and when it surges – plugging into a system directly and hopping local network to network – the physical limitations make it easier to burn the fuck down.

  Only problem was that the Vid Zone had turned into ground zero for what I suspected had been an alpha test gone really, really bad. Data from the Zone had suggested that the balls-stupid technicians in that lab had been trying to weaponize the code, and a four-block radius had turned into a blight. The number of people who’d gone necro blew away all records.

  Turned out that necrotech had learned a new way to spread. With nanos still occupying the meatsuit, reprogrammed with everything else, they’d learned to infect a living body and spread that virus. Nanoshock hit harder. Conversion followed fast.

  To make matters worse, Reed suspected that the necro processors had learned to access the bandwidth. The signal was shaky, connections frail enough that it wouldn’t hold, but this was scary stuff. We’d be so fucked if they learned how to stabilize.

  When a necro surge is registered, civic responders roll in and burn the whole area to ash and slag. Scorched earth is the only way anyone knows of to burn out a blight. People infected via nanos would be slagged right along with it. I shuddered to imagine what the city would do if the bandwidth became the new vector.

  I could barely wrap my head around the size of that threat, so kept my eyes on my own problems.

  The rest was way over my paygrade.

  “The Vid Zone is still a dead end. Battery is the one,” Greg replied. “It’s up closer to the 7th Long, far enough from–”

  “I know where it is,” I cut in, turning away. I paced to the far wall, glowered at an ad for something called Ecstasy Vacations – ugh, Greg – and considered my options. The 7th Long hugged the fringes of the corporate sector, but far enough away that a hit may not invoke reinforcements in time to be much good.

  I could get in with a good team. Ransack the place – murder a couple screwheads – and get out with more data, if it still existed. But then, how long could I wait to hunt down Carmichael’s source?

  Which should I go after first?

  The detective watched me as I turned back around, his hands still tucked into the pockets of his jeans. “It comes with bad news,” he added before I could ask. “Whatever corporation registered it, I can’t trace it past the shells. I’ve gone about six deep and hit a wall.”

  “Shell companies, huh?” I leaned back against the shop wall in meatspace while sizing the detective up in the box. The heat in one nudged up against the cool nothing in virtual space, creating a minor sense of cognitive dissonance. Always felt weird.

  “It gets better.”

  “God fuck it, Greg.”

  6

  Greg’s cheek twitched, a muscle just under his eye. Poor sinner. He used to full-on flinch when I took his oh so pious Lord’s name in vain. “The Battery center’s been cleaned out.”

  “Come again?”

  “Up for lease,” he added.

  “Motherfucker.”

  “And demolished on the inside.”

  I threw my hands up. His gaze flicked to the matte gray one, then away just as fast. To my chest, of course. Then away from that and to the floor. In a show of nonchalance, he leaned back against the table, propping one hip on it like some sunny boy vid model.

  “Why the hell not?” I drawled. “What else could go wrong?” Before he could justify my bitching with a smartass answer, I added, “Salvagers get in there?” When possible, they rolled in to an abandoned hole and stripped it down in nothing flat. Parts sold. Not usually that close to the Corporate Zone, though there were plenty of sinners in the area. The place straddled the line between residential and fading, leaving a hell of a lot of room for surprise.

  Greg shrugged. “The work order was registered two days ago, with a deadline of twenty-four hours. Signed by the same shell.”

  “Ah.” That explained it. Since he couldn’t trace how far back those shell companies went…

  God stick a dick, I should have been faster. Malik Reed and his gluesniffing intelligence team should have been faster. Red tape was supposed to be his specialty.

  My fists clenched. I was going to have to hit the Capital sector after all. And then hit Malik.

  And hunt down his analysts and beat them to pulpy mush.

  Greg read it on my face. “Now you look mad. Sorry,” he said ruefully. The asshole, he even sounded like he meant it. I’d nail him on that later. Sorry didn’t have a role in the street.

&nbs
p; “What about Knacklock?” I asked. The third and final listing.

  “Chopshop,” he said immediately.

  Smartass after all. I flipped him my favorite finger.

  He grinned. Didn’t even try to hide it, even though it faded just as fast. “I don’t have much more to go on there. It’s out of my jurisdiction.”

  “Like Cuntville Incorporated isn’t?”

  “That’s just barely in it.” Another smile, this one wan. “At least on paper. Knacklock’s bottom tier ghettos belong to you people more than us.” Ghettos, huh? You people. Like he wasn’t on the brink of becoming one. By choice, no less.

  The sweeter irony of it was that he thought Knacklock and its surrounding zones were bottom tier. How fucking quaint.

  I waved that away. “Fine, I’ll handle it.”

  “I could, if I had access to some extra contacts…” He let it trail off, looking at me with pleading eyes he figured would do the job.

  Not happening. Greg only thought he wanted to run the streets. If he cared so much about the wife he cheated on and the daughter he mooned over, he’d leave it well enough alone.

  Fuck me if I wasn’t protecting him from himself.

  “Nope.” I waved at him, a perfunctory goodbye. At this point in my evening, all I wanted now was a goddamn drink.

  Greg’s eyes widened. He bent just a little and stared into my face. He was barely taller than I was; wasn’t his fault I’m a goddamn skyscraper. “Why,” he asked bluntly, “aren’t you yelling at me about all this? Normally you’d be swearing six kinds of purple.”

  Because I’d had worse on my plate today and I appreciated his info. It wasn’t his fault that his job cut him off at the balls. “Whatever,” I said instead. “Why aren’t you at home with the wife and kid?”

  That one got him. Another wince. The muscles around his mouth and eyes tightened. “I’m at the station.”

  “The hell you are.” I closed the distance between us again, careful not to touch him. Baseline protocols, no real integration possible. I could put my hands on my hips because I knew exactly what my hips feel like. Could lick my bottom lip because my mouth was part of me. My processors didn’t need to crunch the data, it was already locked in. Might’ve felt a little off, the touchy version of shit resolution, but I still knew.

  I didn’t know what Greg’s skin felt like in his own projection, what his jacket was supposed to be. Better integration could fix that, but it required both of us to enhance or else the protocols fried. Between our shit connections, we’d probably short both.

  I did not want to add another reason to need a doc. I was full up.

  “Fine,” the detective said, looking at my face instead of down my shirt or at my arm, so there was that little spot of willpower in him. “I’m not at the station, but I’m still working. For you,” he clarified, “instead of the city.”

  Poor civic drone. So earnest. Something about yanking his chain always helped perk my day a little.

  I didn’t get to play with street virgins often.

  My smile widened.

  “Uh…” He moved farther back. Bumped into the table. The connection protocols had that much built in – sitting on the base furniture wouldn’t do anything. They just integrated with the projections, plain old tables and chairs.

  In this case, they helped to block his escape.

  “Uh, Riko?” He pressed both hands against the table behind him. Like he’d climb over it if he had the option. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I hemmed him in simply by moving close enough so he couldn’t swing his legs without hitting mine. “I’m going to have to pay you, you know.”

  “Yeah.” A short laugh, uncomfortable as hell. “That’s the bargain.”

  “Mmhm.”

  His whole body braced as I leaned closer, tensed from projected hair to toe. “Hey…”

  I tucked my face by his and breathed in his ear. His filters didn’t know what my breath felt like, what it smelled like, how hot it was. The edge of his avatar juddered, leaving part of his prettily designed face lagging. “Tell you what,” I murmured. “If you can find me, Detective Gregory Keith, you can fuck me.”

  I’d make Indigo pay him for real later.

  Both hands fisted on the table behind him. He snapped away from me from the waist up, leaned far enough back that his elbows hit the surface. Not quite out of danger, but he could look me in the face.

  His face twisted into a pained expression.

  I don’t know what he’d meant to say. His whole body projected regret, hesitation. The kind of thing people do when they’re trying to be goddamn nice.

  I didn’t give him the chance. I recognized pity when I saw it.

  He hadn’t earned that. He didn’t fucking have the right.

  I jerked upright so fast, the edges of my avatar left trails. “You’ll get paid,” I said shortly, and the hell with walking out that cunting stupid door. I shut down the projection so fast, it lagged on the detective’s still open mouth. Vividly colored ads winked out, leaving me leaning against the worn shop siding, blinking rapidly in the sun.

  What little pleasure I’d gotten from toying with the detective, the sense of purpose his data had left me with, twisted to pure rage. I shook with it.

  No. Goddamn. Right.

  I stomped to my bike, threw a leg over the busted seat and yanked the machine up into place. The engine squealed when I over-gunned it. Fuck him. Gregory Keith, the good ol’ boy in blue from gee whiz nowhere, had taken my invitation and turned it into something that deserved sympathy.

  Bullshit.

  From the shop, navigating the way I did, it was only a few minutes to the rack. Getting there gave me time to zen. The wind in my face, the shriek of wheels and horns in my wake, gave me enough space to take a breath. It helped.

  So the detective was a jackwagon. Fine. I’d let Indigo deal with him from now on; see if I’d help his sorry ass make extra creds.

  Meanwhile, I’d make sure he got paid for this one. I’m an asshole, I’d never argue that, but he had given me something worth paying him for. A registered chopshop – tech center, my ass; Christ on crank, the detective irritated me – in Battery, and the last of them up for grabs in Knacklock.

  After this, the places listed in one of those files fingering me as part of the problem would be tapped out. Unless Knacklock provided any leads, I’d have no more – not unless Digo or Reed miraculously came up with something. Reed had been about as useful as a crank addict on the curb.

  Decisions, decisions. Seemed like every time I picked a path, more intel floated my way.

  For now, I’d let Indigo know the deets. I’d hit Reed up later about his slow ass, but all I wanted right this second was to go drown in something poisonous.

  7

  Caught somewhere between the gloss of the corporate sector and entertainment districts farther south, the rack lights up the night like a raver on colordust. Top to bottom, marquee signs scroll in real time, screens flash and vids play across every signal. The ads cross over each other in a pixelated crush, while billboards and neon climb the buildings in every direction.

  The people in the rack range from street trash to slummers, saints and sinners smashed together – a hive of humanity wrapped in vinyl, synth, light, and scraps. Dirt to semen to ink.

  Entertainment district, hooker’s wet dream, black market front, saint’s haven. Mad, sexy, noisy, vivid energy. Nighttime takes it all to the max, swapping out the usuals for the real weirdos.

  This was my go-to, and I loved it.

  The Mecca isn’t the only club that offers what it does, but its regulars don’t go anywhere else. Owned and operated by a scary bitch called Shiva, nobody yet had busted her balls and survived it. Deals, fucks to give and take in whatever way suited, drugs. Even murder, if you’ve paid her fees.

  Everything for everyone, but for a price.

  The rack is buried in a zone that doesn’t see much police patrolling. Not
that it matters – the sinners in blue can’t do much without getting themselves brutalized in a terminal way. Most of the clubs here have bouncers instead of laws.

  And, oh yeah, a fuck-ton of blooded mercs protective of their turf.

  My kind of place.

  A neon lotus marked its doors. The club had been here longer than Indigo had – longer than most of us – and we’d all come together under that sign. Digo, Tashi, Fido and Boone. Valentine and me. When you find a mercenary team that doesn’t stab you in the back, you keep them. Stay with them long enough, and you become family.

  We’d been that. Done that. Every one of us rocked a lotus tattoo, different colors and different places. I’d etched mine on my left bicep. I’d had it laced with bright pink and orange vid-ink, popped the colors into a sexy glow when I wanted to.

  Maybe blowing off my arm had been a sign. Maybe the metal that hellhole had installed on Nanji, massive spinal tech where her shades of pink lotus used to be, had been the end of it.

  I hated that I thought about this stuff when I approached the Mecca.

  I squared my shoulders hard, gritted my teeth, and shook my head fiercely. It didn’t jostle anything out of my skull, but at least I looked like I owned the place when I strutted right on past the line.

  Chromers, slummers, or would-be runners without the cred to back up the swagger had to wait. The Mecca filled up fast – and the staff knew how to build anticipation. Saints like me, with enough local rep to bypass it entirely, didn’t have to stand in line. Perk of the job. While I knew my cred had taken a hit, I’d had more than most. The Mecca knew me. I knew everyone who mattered in it. The day my cred went septic, I’d hear it here first.

  Verbally, if I was lucky. Via bullets, if not.

  A few crunked out kids who didn’t know better catcalled me across the lightrope. Twenty-something and, as Lucky used to call me, built to break. One leaned out as I passed, her green and yellow wire dreads falling over her shoulder. “Hey, dude! Can you get me in?”