The Scioneer

by Peter Bouvier

  ***

  Lou Tech’s Autoshop was hidden down a side street near Clapham Junction, next to an old scrap yard which was slowly being reclaimed by Mother Nature. Lek checked the streets again, acutely aware that he was still carrying the second iHare transponder in his pocket and could be pinpointed by Pechev’s men at any moment.

  They stood in the forecourt of the garage for a few moments, trying the catch the attention of the mechanics busying themselves with nothing in particular.

  Eventually they found Lou Tech himself. He rolled his eyes as he peered up through the engine of the Lexus Neuro and saw Crystal Purcell looking down at him. ‘If I’ve told you once, treacle-tart, I’ve told you a hundred times, no car rolls out of those gates until the bill has been paid. And I know, for a fact,’ he continued, as he shifted out from under the chassis, ‘that you don’t have the creds to get the job done, so unless you and your fella here want to push the piece of sh...’

  Lek interrupted him, ‘How long will it take to fix?’

  Lou wiped his hands on an oil-stained towel hanging from his belt, and squeezed his dirty fingers against the bridge of his nose. He had the look of an old film star from the turn of the Millennium who had fallen on hard times.

  ‘I’ve got to change the bio-shocks on this one. That one there needs an exhaust, methane-filter, haemic-filter. Then there’s a full service on the Rhesus over there. Then there’s hers.’ He pointed at the beaten–up Proto at the end of the workshop.

  ‘But the job itself, how long will that take?’

  ‘Oh, got you. Well, it’s just a dead biorg, so thirty minutes, three quarters of an hour max,’

  ‘And how much will it cost?’

  ‘600 cred.’

  ‘Bloody hell Lou, the car only cost me that much when I bought it!’ Crystal exclaimed.

  ‘Well it wasn’t a biorg then. Listen baby, these are mates’ rates. Take it to Spacagna’s Auto down the road, See how much he charges for a biorg upgrade.’

  ‘I’ll give you 1000 cred if you can fix it now. Right now.’

  ‘What’s your rush son? You on the run?’ Lou grinned. ‘Fine, a thousand. It’ll be purring in an hour. Are you going to wait? Watch a master at work if you like, or there’s a coffee machine in the office.’

  Lou whistled loudly and had one of his lackeys roll the Proto over to the pit. He popped the bonnet and stared down at the dead biorg. In some ways, he loved the job these days – it was so much easier now than it had been fifteen years ago when he first got into the business, straight out of a seven year stretch as an engineer in the Legion. But in other ways, he missed getting his hands dirty - really dirty – fixing up engines, working around a problem to find a solution, before the advent of the biorg.

  To think, the biorg revolution had started as a quirky idea on a children’s TV show. The heady techno-days had been and gone; the energy crisis had put paid to any more development in the field of telecommunications and electronics, and if the Hadron Collider disaster of ’27 hadn’t been enough to put the public off the idea of having a fridge-freezer powered by anti-matter and God-particles, the thought of having nothing to put in it certainly did. People had merrily returned to nature and embraced the notion of living off the land. Allotments sprang up all over the city. Carefully coiffured Japanese gardens had been converted into chicken runs and pig sties, vegetables grew in window-boxes, and fruit hung from hanging baskets. Overnight, funding for fission and fusion was pulled, and any research into their future usage was shelved. Since that time, the developed world had virtually stood still. The only advances of any kind were retroactive, built on technology which had since been surpassed and now, for the sake of the planet, were being brought back to life. That was the very thinking behind the biorg.

  Whizzer had once been the most popular programme for the 8-11 year old market: a chunk of global prime-time children’s TV, where kids with nothing better to do were invited to share their ideas and inventions to revolutionise the planet. Amongst the usual rubbish which came in week after week – vacuum hoverboards, snot-powered rollerboots and the like – an eleven year old from Ipswich named Josie Waters put forward the idea of creating some kind of ‘super-rust’ which could work with metal rather than against it, helping machines to function not as inanimate objects but rather as living organisms. Josie had even supplied a pencil diagram of a car’s engine, covered in part by a blob of the so-called ‘super-rust’. The picture now hangs in the Europa Institute of Science and Technology in Prague, because somebody in Jetstream Technologies was clearly paying attention to Whizzer that night: within a month young Josie’s idea had been snapped up, patented and copyrighted for the bargain price of a lifetime’s supply of Kinder Eggs.

  Jetstream, a Manchester-based company which primarily produced organic fuel additives and lubricants, had been searching for a new future since the energy crisis brought about the collapse of the motor industry. They saw Josie’s idea as their last big play. The science which followed was a work of art: genetically modified amphibian stem cells were combined with common ferric oxide to create Josie’s ‘super-rust’ (now ‘bio-organic-polymer-ferro-acetate-gel’) which believed, for want of a better word, that its job was to plug the holes in decomposing metal, rather than create them, meaning that vehicles and factory machinery could survive long beyond their normal life-expectancy.

  What the scientists behind the research hadn’t foreseen however, was the cells’ ability to adapt to new circumstances. Evidence began to show that the super-rust could regenerate from the trauma of a road traffic accident or a fire for example, in the same way a living organism might. They went back to the bar and mixed a new cocktail. By taking motor-neurone stem cells, adding biological enzymes, immuno-rich white blood cells and huge amounts of the coagulant fibrinogen, the scientists had created the first ‘thinking’ organic-mechanical hybrid. They called it the biorg.

  Biorg technology had come a long way since then, the science itself growing like one of its own precocious offspring. In 2036, researchers at SKAMS, the Skoda Academy of Motoring Science, produced preliminary evidence of a biorg assimilating the fuel system of its ailing Mazda, not only improving the car’s fuel efficiency in the weeks that followed, but furthermore enabling it to run on waste organic materials – nut husks, coffee grounds, even animal excrement. It was a nothing short of a breakthrough.

  Lou Tech caught himself running a rubber-gloved hand over the sparse bristly hairs of the dead biorg in Crystal Purcell’s Proto. It seemed that biorgs themselves had a lifespan of around two years after inception into an average engine. After that, like any other living tissue, they withered and died. The one Lou was currently caressing looked like a large, grey, deflated balloon with shrivelled tendrils reaching into the workings of the engine.

  He picked it up by the body with a pair of steel tongs, careful to pull the whole thing out in one piece, and then dropped it into a bio-hazard bin, which would be picked up by Oryx Waste Disposal at the end of the working day and emptied into the Thames. From the shelf, he took a new can of Host – chemical gel which provided a perfect environment for the biorg to thrive - and sprayed it all over the motor, making sure to cover the battery, carburettor, radiator and all the filters with the blue foam.

  In a refrigerated combination safe at the back of the workshop, Lou kept his precious jar of biorgs. There were probably fifty five, maybe sixty left in this batch, and that represented around 20,000 cred after expenses. This jar was Lou’s livelihood. He unscrewed the lid, and still wearing his gloves, scooped out a single pea–green golf-ball sized organism. Holding it carefully in the palm of his hands, he walked back to the Proto and placed it in a puddle of Host which had formed on top of the battery.

  In seconds the biorg had begun to grow in size and sprout tendrils, which wrapped around the various parts of the engine and pushed themselves into its pipes and tubes. It swelled and pulsated with life. Lek and Crystal looked on, him with scientific interest, her with growi
ng disgust. She decided she could take no more when she noticed that it had grown its first tooth, and hooked it artfully around the casing of the air-filter.

  She nudged Lek, ‘Let’s get a coffee.’

  Lou had known they wouldn’t last, and he smiled paternally as he lowered the bonnet down gently on the biorg so that it wouldn’t burst.

  ‘So, what are you thinking?’ Crystal asked as they sat down on the battered sofa in Lou’s office.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About all this. What are we going to do now? For all we know they could be waiting outside for us.’

  ‘No, they’re not. My guess is they’re trying to give me enough rope to hang myself.’

  ‘And me in the process?’ Crystal raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m sorry about that. But if we play this right, if we’re smart, we can start a new life. Together.’ He paused, then looked into Crystal’s eyes. ‘How would you feel about that?’

  ‘But where will we go? Pechev’s bound to have contacts all over Europa. He’ll only have to say the word, put a price on your head….’ she left the rest unsaid.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’ve thought about going to the police, explaining who I am, what I do, what I’ve seen. I imagine they must have some kind of witness protection scheme I could sign up for? I don’t know really. Cesar – you remember me telling you about him? The Dynagym guy? Yes, well, Cesar thinks that Pechev’s entire business goes far beyond just the drugs, so maybe he’ll just take the hit and let me walk away. You never know.’ Lek tried to sound optimistic.

  She closed her hand around his, ‘No, Lek, listen to me. You need to accept that you, that we, probably aren’t going to get out of this in one piece. You said yourself you know too much. Even if by some miracle, we do manage to escape, they are going to come after us, believe me.’

  ‘Pechev has enemies too. Maybe I could offer myself to one of his competitors in Slovenia or Slovakia. It’s an up and coming market - lots of opportunities for transferable skills like mine. I could hammer out a better deal. You know, something along the lines of, ‘I’ll make your illegal drugs, and you don’t leave severed heads in my fridge and threaten to cut off my hands’.

  ‘Try to be serious, for Harrison’s sake.’

  ‘Alright, alright. I’m sorry. There is something else. In Vienna. It’s called the Rubicon Institute. It’s a facility, funded by the government, for scion-abusers who haven’t yet caused permanent damage to themselves: people who still have a chance to reverse the effects of the drugs. It’s ground-breaking work, stripping back the DNA to its original form. Anyway, I was thinking I might be able to contact them, somehow, Rubicon, that is. If I was working indirectly for the government, they might be able to offer me some degree of security from Pechev. And I’m sure they would be able to find a use for me.’

  ‘Yeah, target practice...’

  ‘No, come on, I am being serious now. If I created this situation, chances are I’m the one who can fix it, no? The way I see it, I could work for them as some kind of undercover agent. Help them crack the codes, you know? Show them my working out.’

  ‘Right. Like the working out in your infamous recipe book?’ Crystal said, her tongue lodged firmly in her cheek.

  Lek laughed for the first time that day. ‘Ah, you saw through that one, did you?’

  ‘I put two and two together back in the flat, once I stopped fearing for my life.’

  The smile died on Lek’s lips. ‘Crystal, I… I was trying to think on my feet. If I’d known for one moment that he was…. you know I would never have let him hurt you. You know I…’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I should have told you about the phone-call. We wouldn’t have even been in that situation if I had. But these people are killers Lek. I don’t need to tell you that. What is he going to find inside that locker anyway?’

  ‘Well, if everything goes to plan, he won’t find a thing. I suppose I could leave my old notebook behind for him though. Sort of a consolation prize.’

  ‘Anything of interest in that?’

  ‘Only some poor attempts at love poetry.’

  ‘Really?’

  Lek nodded and Crystal closed her eyes as he leaned in towards her....

  ‘Your car’s ready!’ Lou stuck his head around the door. ‘You’re paying in cash, yeah?’

  Chapter 13

  On a filthy blood-stained mattress, on the floor of a living room in a derelict house on Electric Avenue, Roma Bruce woke up. She yawned, licked her lips and opened her yellow eyes. A shaft of afternoon sunlight picked up the dust motes floating in the air. She rolled off the mattress and onto all fours, stretching out her limbs and arching her back. Without a thought, she reached out for last night’s hypo, and shot a full vial of Lupinex in between her toes. In an instant, it felt so fucking good to be alive again, and the whole world belonged to her. She raised her head and drank in the myriad scents and aromas that London had to offer on a hot afternoon in October. It was still too early to call the pack, but just the thought of the rumble set her blood on fire. She stood up – it was getting harder these days – and loped into the kitchen. The windows were all smashed, and fat bluebottles buzzed around a hunk of liver on the floor. Roma crouched over it, breathed deeply and sunk her canines into it with relish. She was as naked as the day she was born. But very different.

  ***

  Danny Calabas had an aversion to needles. The very thought of sticking a pin into himself brought him out in a cold sweat. For that reason he preferred to take his drugs orally whenever possible, or anally when he had to. With a grunt, he pushed the Natterjack-Up suppository into his rectum, wiped his fingers on his denim shorts and clattered out of the cubicle, unleashing a torrent of abuse on the Filipino cleaner mopping the bathroom floor for invading his privacy. He didn’t even know which one she was. Kai-phen maybe, who could tell?

  Natterjack-Up was a slow-release scion, completely illegal, which over a twenty-four hour period dripped essence of toad into the bloodstream, leaving the user in a permanent state of heightened sexual desire, coupled with a pleasing sense of woozy apathy. Frequent abusers enjoyed the added side-effect of sweating weak hallucinogenic drugs through their pores, and could be seen licking themselves, or indeed being licked, in doorways and back-alleys around the city. Danny Calabas had been addicted for years, and found it the perfect drug in his line of work. Vidmar kept him in constant supply, in return for the use of Danny’s Serbian prostitutes every now and again.

  Danny’s club was called the Shangri-La, and it sat proudly on the corner of Upper and Theberton Street. It was an institution in the club scene north of the river, and offered patrons three levels of enjoyment: a grimy speakeasy in the cellar, with secluded wipe-clean booths, a Castro-cave and a back street entrance which meant it stayed open after electricurfew. Upstairs was the day-club cum lap-dancing bar, one of the few operating in this part of town, with a private function room for hire. There was even a kitchen too, serving the usual fare: meat-sticks, burgers and fries, but even the mashed-up regulars knew better than to touch the stuff. Finally, the top floor housed the brothel, ‘The Swinging Hammocks’ as it was known, where Danny’s girls – mainly young Eastern Europans who had been duped into believing they were coming to London to work as au-pairs or cleaners – performed their duties in tiny single-bedded cells, two metres by three, some of which even had a view of the brickwork of the building opposite. Danny Calabas, the warty, bloated 48 year old, who still lived with his mother in Mile End, was master of it all. He shuffled into his office at the back of the club, kicked a couple of boxes of toilet paper out of the way and flopped into his swivel chair with a deep sigh. The inside of his wrist tasted vaguely of aniseed, and Danny stretched his arms out widely like a monarch looking out over his glittering realm of sunflowers and melting clouds, and belched loudly.

  It felt good to be in a car again. Crystal’s Proto might have looked like a wreck, but with the new biorg under the bonnet, i
t was running like a dream. Lek felt safe for the first time in hours - moving at speed, rather than skulking around the side streets hoping not to be spotted. The city was beginning to fill up again: the climate change in London had led to a shift in the working routine - most people tended to start earlier and finish later in order to take a couple of hours’ siesta in the middle of the day. Lek caught a glimpse of Big Ben as they crossed the river at Westminster – it was nearly four o’ clock. Still over six hours to kill, or be killed.

  ‘What exactly are you planning to say to Calabas?’ Crystal asked.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.’ Lek had heard that line in an old film he had watched as part of the Leicester Square Open Air Oscar Winners’ Weekend last year, and it had stuck in his head. ‘He’s a businessman after all.’

  ‘He’s a slippery bastard, Lek. He’s a toad, in all senses of the word. You don’t know him like I do.’

  ‘I’ve met him a couple of times, through work mostly. Vidmar likes to keep him sweet, so I make him up his own variant of Natterjack-Up. He’s got a thing about needles apparently.’

  ‘Yes, never touches them. He beat up one of the girls once for taking her insulin jab in the same room as him. Justified it by saying he wouldn’t be able to eat for a week with the nausea.’

  ‘Poor lamb,’ said Lek sarcastically. He put a hand inside his sports-suit top, fished around in a pocket full of vials and hypos, and drew out the two stacks of cred. It had been so tempting to lay-off the transponder on Lou Tech, but he was just an honest mechanic, if there was such a thing. ‘Keep your eyes on the road, Crystal’.