Nanoshock

by K C Alexander

  “Finally,” I breathed, tapping my drink lightly. “A solid. What deliveries?”

  “Unknown.” Not surprising. Not a lot of chopshop sources brand their shit with their names or logos. That was just asking for a hit.

  “Who runs it?” I asked.

  “Doc by name of Hevin Kern.”

  “Do what now?”

  He shrugged. “Hevin. With an i. No a.”

  “How literate.”

  Another shrug. “Not much on him, either,” he added. “My usual contacts wouldn’t go near it. I’m waiting for a few to get back.”

  “He that big a deal?”

  Another shrug. “Like I said, there’s not much on him. We don’t usually wander around Knacklock.”

  Another point, and one I chewed on. Greg assumed all of us knew each other, because everybody on the wrong side of the SIN does, right? Ignorant chumhead. Truth was that Knacklock was so far out of my usual trails, I’d have to hire a guide to find anything.

  It wasn’t the worst of the wards, but it held no awards for the best, either. Maybe I’d be able to find a fixer willing to nose around. “Let me know if they get back?”

  He nodded.

  “What about the zone itself? Any sign of necrotech activity around the place?” I dropped my voice for this one. The room was quasi-private, but I refused to take chances.

  “Not that I can tell,” Indigo answered, lines gathering between his black eyebrows. “I can’t just ‘ject up my usuals and drop necro line like it’s cred.”

  Valid. Very, very valid. Necro conversion isn’t something mercs and techheads worry about until they start implanting the big stuff. For most of the smart ones, it’s a bogeyman; keeps us in line. Wasn’t the same with the actual code locked down in Malik’s closed-circuit lab.

  If Indigo hit up his people with news of necro in a box, he’d be committing suicide by saint.

  I grimaced. “Got it.” I lifted my metal shoulder at him. “Don’t know about Reed’s progress, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything about that, too.”

  “Yeah.” Not exactly ringing enthusiasm. “Have you been by Kongtown lately?”

  I shook my head. “Not since I pulped Fuck It Jim.” Speaking of fixers who’d tried to screw me. The scummy weasel had been part of whatever it was I’d done in my fugue. Sadly, I’d crushed his head before I got any answers.

  Indigo tapped the table with his drink. “Don’t for a while.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled thinly. “You’re not exactly subtle, Ree. Between the rumors and the saints you pissed on, there’s a handful of warning signs. The rounin gangs in northeast Kongtown are looking to score.”

  Which meant they wanted a flag to plant in their camp. The rounin gangs – also known in the area as ghosts, the friendless, or simply bag of shit depending on what area you ride through – all have something in common: no turf of their own or kicked out of the Kongtown families. Or both. Usually both.

  “Oh-kay,” I said, a long exhale. “You think they’ll want my ass for a boost?”

  “I don’t know.” He tipped a mouthful of sparkling yellow into his mouth, took his time swallowing as he studied the glass. Then, “Nobody’s saying your name directly. Not to me,” he clarified. “But you know how it is.”

  I did. The thing about cred is that nobody has to say anything. There are always those that do, which helps boost the word, but so much of it is based on social cues. Who’s working with whom. Who got kicked out of what club, who killed what and where.

  Fixers get off on this kind of social engineering, and mercs get off on using it.

  Obviously, some had decided to get off on me. Couldn’t be many, or else I’d be fighting off every screwhead looking for a break, but the fact Indigo said something meant my cred was sliding lower than I’d hoped. From cool shoulder to knives out. I sighed. “Last thing and then I’m out of your silky sweet hair.”

  That smile again. Like he couldn’t quite nut up to it. “What now?”

  “I got set up by a Shepherd.”

  8

  That got his attention. Indigo straightened, gaze sharpening. “What? Trinity scum?”

  “Yeah.” My smile twisted, bottom rim of the glass rolling on the table as I spun it between my flesh fingers. “Far as I can tell, an old deacon with an old grudge worked it. The others let him die, but came after me saying something about a source wanting me alive.” When he only stared at me, waiting, I gave him the answer he waited for. “Yes, I splattered them. No, I didn’t let any of them run off to tell big daddy in the sky or whatever passes for their leadership. But…”

  “But,” he picked up when I trailed off, “you want to know what the fuck.”

  For all our issues, we connected on some fundamental levels. And stumbled over others. “That’s the one.” I leaned forward, metal arm braced in front of me. “You didn’t set me up again, did you?”

  Digo shot me a sharp frown and an emphatic, “No. Once was enough.”

  I chose to believe that. In his defense, he’d heard on the network that I’d all but murdered his sister at the time. I felt like I’d been dealing with some tit for snatch here, only I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance to even the balance.

  “Besides,” he added, smiling wryly, “I already have you alive.”

  That slipped out of his mouth so easy, both of us froze. Had me alive. Now I was just… alive. Without him.

  My jaw shifted. “Fine. I need to find out who hooked a babyfucking Shepherd up with a Mantis contact, using my name, and offering creds to capture me alive.”

  Indigo’s nose wrinkled. After a moment, he gave me another headshake, like that slip had never happened. “That’s not good.” The fingers of his right hand tapped on the table. “You sure it wasn’t Reed?”

  “Reed has me alive, too,” I pointed out, dry as bleached bone. “And as far as I know, you and Malik Reed are the only ones who know my connection there.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Right,” he replied begrudgingly. “You have a good point.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But it wasn’t me. Too elaborate. If somebody’s got your number, that’s a major problem.”

  “Yep.”

  He leaned forward, searching my eyes. “If there is somebody out there, a few Kongtown scrubs are going to be the least of your problems.”

  I smiled faintly. “Nothing I can’t work out of, right?”

  His silence was answer enough.

  I didn’t need an answer anyway. This was it. The sign I’d been braced for. Going from top of the world to Shepherd shitlist made no sense, not without the intermediary runs, but now I knew I could file Carmichael as just that.

  The real issue started here. More than rumor, I was the target of an active move from some credsucker on my case.

  We both fell silent. Me staring at my clenched fists, him studying the bottom of his glass like he’d find answers there. Finally, when it stretched to the snapping point, he broke the quiet. “Up until this conversation, all I’ve heard are mutterings.” Indigo finally set his glass down, pushed it away with his forearm. “But if there is somebody haunting your signal, that could change any second. I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Thanks.” A pause, then less terse, “Thanks, Digo.”

  His smile, cautious as it was, helped. “There has to be someone out there with something. Nobody operates in a vacuum.”

  “What about Jax?”

  That smile vanished. “You want to owe him another favor?”

  “I don’t know.” I rubbed both hands down my face. “I have to find the source that linked my business, put a bullet in them. Find the source of the Vid Zone laboratory and put a bullet in them, and then spend some time laying waste to make it clear I tolerate no shit. A projector could help.”

  Not that I had many to choose from. Far as I knew, there were only two ‘jectors in the city. I had connections to one, but needing Taylor Jax was like ordering a full back tattoo from a dude who
loved his needles and carved bone deep. Precise, sure, but it’d cost a shit-ton of time and cred and you’d owe more than you thought by the time he was done.

  Also, you’d be walking around with his mark on your ass until you scraped it off.

  The fact we’d been linked cock to cunt a few years back didn’t help. We’d split messily. Now he clocked me as a rival; a compliment and a pain in my ass. Jax would screw with his rivals all he wanted, whenever he wanted, but he’d wreck anybody else who tried to muscle in. He was that kind of saint.

  “Jax could probably find out,” Digo said slowly, but the space between his nose and eyebrows wrinkled deeply. “Not worth the risk.”

  “Says you. It’s not your cred.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  It took me a moment. Then I swore hard. He was right. Again.

  The thing about projectors is that they’re rare as virgins for a reason, branded as kill on sight for every civic-minded Tom, Dick and Blow looking to score some points with big corporate. Of all the ways to uplink and connect, projectors are the only saints who still rely on barbaric jacks, implanting connectors direct into their neural processors and wiring through to the signal.

  It was a brief fad a long, long time ago, but an important one. According to Jax, tech advanced so fast from that single point that jackplants quickly depreciated. We like our shit wireless, please and thank you.

  In going to broadband, Jax once told me, we’d lost something pure in the process.

  Didn’t change the facts. The direct wires made them way more susceptible to conversion than any other saint teching up on the streets.

  Add necro activity to the mix?

  “Dammit,” I finally said, scrubbing at my forehead. “No Jax.” I laughed, sharp as the knives I still packed. “Nobody even knows how to contact him, the shithead.”

  Indigo shrugged, tense shoulders easing.

  I pushed my drink to the edge of the table in prep to slide out of the booth. “By the way.” Not subtle. I wasn’t great at segues anyway. “I need work, and soon. My creds are tapped. Any offers?”

  Indigo’s gaze flicked to the door. Then to my glass. Then at my face. My nose, to be precise. “Not with us.”

  Anger seared so fast, my fingers cramped around the table lip I’d grabbed to brace. The numbers spiked in my optic, threatening structural failure under my tech hand if I didn’t let up. With effort, I eased the joints. “I know.” A thin veneer over a snarl. “Thanks for reminding me. Where else?”

  And yet another shake of his head.

  “Come on!” I sat back heavily. My shoulder blades hit the vinyl padding hard enough to shake the booth. “You have to help me out. At least before this mystery asshole drops more shit on my cred.”

  The black line of his eyelashes narrowed in clear warning. “No,” he said deliberately. “No, I don’t. Careful, Ree. You’re going to push yourself right out of what you have left.”

  Oh, snap. Snap and fuck you very much. He’d gone there. A warning, a line.

  The shattered glass hollow in my chest squeezed so tight, I had to swallow hard to get it back down. He was right. Shit on piss, he was so right and I hated it. I’d just told him that my life was on the brink of exposure. He’d just told me to watch myself.

  Indigo’s hands were tied. He’d never hook me up long as this shit continued. He couldn’t risk it.

  Couldn’t risk trusting me.

  I downed the rest of the Fem in the glass, swallowed the globule whole. It’d punch me in the guts soon enough. I deserved that much. The thick-bottomed glass thumped on the table. “Let me know what comes up.” Too mild. My throat ached so badly, all the words I wanted to say jammed up in there and stuck.

  A nod this time. How fucking refreshing. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Tense lines hiding too many unspoken things. We knew each other, Digo and I. Too well.

  He affected calm as he leaned back in his seat and waved his yellow glass at me. “Watch the floor,” he said, his version of goodbye. “There’s going to be some serious thrashing tonight, and Tashi’s already there.”

  Oh, good. Maybe I’d get a chance to smash the creepy pixie.

  I left the room wishing there was a door to slam closed. Or punch. Or break over his head. I leaned against the mosaic wall outside it, trying to inhale oxygen through my too-tight chest. Both hands clenched into fists. I pressed them hard into my sternum, where everything gelled. It didn’t help.

  I’d lost him before. Lost my whole team when they thought I’d killed Nanji. I’d come back from the dead, but not her. I’d walked out of the void and left her to die. They’d abandoned me just like I’d abandoned her, because I couldn’t explain what the hell I’d been doing for the months I don’t remember.

  But Indigo had given me the last shred of his faith – despite all odds, he’d run with me on a suicidal plunge into necro infested territory to see with his own eyes the place his sister had died. The ups and downs of my relationship with him shouldn’t have cut through my thick skin. And yet…

  This was so far down, I didn’t know what to do with it. Good cred comes with freedoms lowstreet chummers only wish they had. Good cred gone bad becomes a cage.

  Frustrated, shaking, I grabbed the plastic I’d picked up from Shar and flipped it open with a thumb. Hollowpoint needle and syringe to inject it with, one-button autohit and done. The stuff in it screamed danger orange, reflecting the light.

  New designer drugs. Tweaked to the latest version of whatever the nanos couldn’t bleed off.

  That’s the only problem with nanos. Designed to tackle just about everything, disease to regeneration, poisons are no exception. They adapt fast. Make junkies push harder for the next high, meltdown faster. Those of us with the right friends have direct links to new sources. Each time the system adapts, designers make different stuff to lock ’em up again. Good gig, if you can get it.

  Tipping my head back against the wall, I tucked the needle under my tongue until it hurt, ensuring a seal. Depressing the injection switch, that little hurt turned into a quick jab and pain that lit the nerves in my mouth up like pepper spray and strych.

  The stuff warmed the space under my tongue, seeped through my jaw. The first whisper of calm eased into my aching throat. I pushed away from the site of my own eviction, tossed the needle into a bin.

  Now I’d go play. Because fuck this doubt and fuck this nagging sense of guilt and fuck Indigo, too. I didn’t need him.

  I snagged a purple and gold drink off a waiter’s tray and forged toward the dancefloor. “Hey, wait–”

  “Let her go,” a woman said quickly.

  I glanced back. The waiter wore flowers on his head. Nice shoulders, solid abs. No ink on all that ochre skin, and more flowers draped around his neck. Marked as definite prey – I could see why. Everybody had to be tough to live this life, but some just never shake the eat me alive vibe.

  The waitress beside him, a busty dark-skinned femme with a mouth made to suck the chrome off a slummer’s bridgepiece, gave me a wide, red-lipped smile. Wolf ears in her close-cropped buzz, enough junk in the trunk to lose your face in…

  Oh, yeah. I recognized her, even if I didn’t know her name. Maybe I’d try to find out later. A lot of us get to know the staff. Those who come down here know the game, or at least the basics of it. Sex can be a commodity or it can be fun; and if it’s the former, Shiva gets a cut. If it’s the latter, she doesn’t give a damn as long as it doesn’t affect her business. Staff that voluntarily vanish with the clientele while on shift don’t have jobs to come back to.

  Clientele that vanish with involuntary staff show up later in the chumhole out back. What’s left of them.

  But before pleasures of the flesh, I wanted the pain; something way more visceral.

  I drank the Cellular Sunset, dropped the glass on the nearest flat surface. Bass pounded, met an answering kick in my chest. Didn’t know if that was because of me or the shit I’d consumed. Didn’t care. P
redator was in my genes these days.

  The smell of sweat and heat amped up the crazy.

  Which didn’t mesh with the knock at the base of my skull. Another haptic tap, merging with the music and the junk I’d put in my body to make me wince. Not cool.

  Scowling, I loaded up the call.

  9

  The moment my consciousness embedded into my personal avatar, shelves of old-fashioned books greeted me. They lined one wall, floor to ceiling because why the fuck not, while a huge window streamed bright daylight to my right – pure and clean, well away from any hint of smog or pollution.

  Sunlight smacked me in the face, forcing my protocols to adjust down the halo. As it configured, an enormous custom desk focused into view. Figured Malik Reed wouldn’t make do with the basics. Anyone can alter their projection box. The more it changes, the more it costs, but that had never been a corporate problem.

  Malik Reed, on the other hand, was my corporate problem.

  I glowered at him before I’d even finished loading. “What the fuck do you want?” I said by way of greeting.

  From behind the desk, he spared me the briefest of glances. Raised a disappointed eyebrow. “You’re late,” he replied, dropping his attention back to the projection slides in front of him.

  The asshole was always at his desk. It didn’t surprise me he’d tailored the dominating piece of furniture into his virtual space. He lived behind that desk. He probably fucked hookers on that desk, jamming a thumb up his own ass while swiping through stock reports with his other.

  I liked to imagine bending him over that desk and pegging him six ways to raw. I’d shove that stupid hand-tailored vest he wore so far into his mouth that his smoky brown skin would turn purple at the edges of his strikingly sculpted face, make his tech work to keep oxygen flowing. I’d take his dumb tie and wrap it around his wrists so tight, those nanos would have to build bridges over the imprint the fibers would leave behind.

  I have a libido. Sue me. Also, I really, really wanted to ruin his day. And if fucking him stupid didn’t do it, maybe that wedding ring he sported on his left hand would seal the deal. Whoever had married him, she’d probably dance for joy if he gave her a reason to leave his sorry ass.