Fin

by Larry Enright

  The whispers stopped. Footsteps approached. Fin put his Commlink away and ducked into the shadows.

  A voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  A plan began to form. “I want to purchase Creep,” Fin said.

  “We’re not open yet.”

  “I have the credits.”

  “No Creep till the next train. Come back in an hour.”

  “But I need a fix. I need it bad.”

  “Get lost if you want to live, Cy.”

  The footsteps receded. The threat lingered.

  Fin left the underground and ran to the Northend police station. He identified himself as an agent of the SIA and asked to see their captain. The desk sergeant examined his ID, scanned his tattoo, and called the watch commander, telling him they had a situation up front.

  A haggard, middle-aged man came out of the back stuffing his shirt into his pants and straightening his tie. When he saw Fin, he drew him aside. “What the hell are you?”

  “I am an agent of the SIA,” Fin replied.

  “You’re a Blue. You’re a Cy.”

  Fin glanced down at the man’s nameplate. “Lieutenant Trask, may I please speak with your commanding officer?”

  “He’s not available.” Trask looked over at the desk sergeant. “Have you ever seen a Blue before?”

  The sergeant shook his head. ”His ID says he’s SIA. He’s packing a Pulser bio-encoded to his tattoo. It all checks out, sir.”

  “May I please speak with your captain?” Fin said again.

  Trask scowled. “I said he’s not available. What do you want?”

  “A shipment of Creep will be arriving at the Northend Station in less than an hour.”

  “So?”

  “So, I want you to stop it.”

  “You want me to stop it?” Trask laughed.

  “Article 21.8 of the city code requires that you respond."

  “Not to a Cy.”

  “I am an SIA agent.”

  “I don’t care what you are. We’re a little tied up here.”

  “I am reporting a crime.”

  “What part of ‘we’re a little tied up here’ don’t you get?”

  “With all due respect, is there anyone here not too tied up to help me enforce the law?” Heads turned to see what was going on. Fin lowered his voice. “Perhaps I could speak with one of them?”

  Trask scanned Fin’s neck tattoo with his Commlink. “What’s with the F-I-N? Where’s your number and series?”

  “I have no number or series.”

  Trask read the results of the scan. “It says, access restricted. Never seen that before.”

  “I am an experimental prototype. My records are stored in a classified database.”

  “So how do I download your kill code if I can’t look you up?”

  “We are wasting time, Lieutenant Trask. Will you help me or not?”

  “Let me see that ID.”

  Fin handed his badge to the lieutenant.

  Trask‘s expression darkened. He gave the wallet to the desk sergeant and told him to scan it.

  “I already did,” the sergeant said.

  “Scan it again.”

  The sergeant ran the badge one more time. “This says it’s legit. He’s SIA.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” said Trask.

  “Should I call our union rep?” the sergeant asked. “They’re going to want to know about this.”

  “You do that while I escort Agent Fin out of the building.” Trask motioned to Fin. “Follow me.”

  He led Fin into the back of the station and down a hallway of holding cells packed with Cybernites.

  One of them called out, “Fin. It’s me, Dirk. Remember? On the train?”

  Fin tried to go over to the cell where the Gray was clinging to the bars, but a guard stopped him, pointing to the red line on the floor and the sign beside it that read: no visitors beyond this point.

  “Dirk,” Fin said. “Why are you in here?”

  Dirk shrugged. “I screwed up.”

  “No talking, Drab,” said the guard. “You know the rules. And hands off the bars.”

  Dirk pleaded with Fin to bail him out. The guard banged his nightstick against the cage and electricity arced through the bars. Dirk convulsed and collapsed.

  Trask grabbed Fin by the arm and dragged him down the hall. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Let’s go.”

  “But that man needs medical attention.”

  “One, he’s not a man, and two, he’s just stunned.”

  “He is my friend.”

  “Listen, Cy. If you’re SIA, you know the penalty for resisting an officer of the law.”

  “Immediate recycling.”

  “That’s right. So let’s go.”

  Trask manhandled Fin out the back into the alley behind the station. The steady rain had turned to a downpour. Trask slammed the door behind them and motioned for Fin to follow him over to a group of trashcans, where a disheveled Gray was hiding. Trask pulled the Gray to his feet.

  “You can’t sleep here, Drab,” he said. “The shelter’s two blocks over.”

  The Gray held his hands out for the lieutenant to cuff him. “Please, Mr. Cop,” he begged. “Arrest me.”

  “Why would you want to be arrested?” asked Fin.

  “They’re after me. They’ll kill me. Please.”

  Trask shoved the Gray toward the street and drew his gun. “Get lost, Drab, or I’ll kill you myself.”

  The Gray met Fin’s gaze. “I know you. I’m from 101, too, third floor, back side. My name is Steel. I have a wife. I stole something from them. I had to. We’re desperate. For God’s sake, help me.”

  Trask fired a warning shot. The flash lit up the alley. “I said, get lost!”

  The frightened Gray turned and ran.

  “Why did you do that?” Fin asked.

  “This alley isn’t for sleeping,” Trask replied. “They know that.”

  “But he sounded desperate.”

  Trask holstered his weapon. “They all do when they’ve got a gun to their head.”

  “But . . .”

  Trask shoved Fin up against the wall. “You need to let it go, just like you need to let go of that Creep thing.”

  “But I am SIA.”

  “I know what you are.”

  “Then you must know that I cannot just let it go.”

  Trask pointed to a surveillance camera focused on the station back door. “Listen up, because I’m only going to say this once. The walls around here have eyes and ears, and they don’t like anyone, especially a Cy, meddling in their business. Understand?”

  Fin nodded. “I understand, Lieutenant Trask. I understand that criminals are smuggling drugs into this sector in violation of a law that you have sworn to uphold, and you will not help me.”

  “One: Cytown isn’t your jurisdiction. And two: the only ones hurt by this are you Cys and nobody cares about what happens to a Cy. Come back when you’ve got a crime against a real person and maybe I’ll give a crap.”

  “What about the law?”

  “The law?” Trask spat. “There is no law in Cytown. There’s surviving and there’s dying. You pick.”

  “Creep is a disease. It is killing people. Does that not mean anything to you?”

  “People don’t take Creep, only worthless robots.”

  “We are not worthless robots. We are the same, you and I.”

  “No, you’re not. Who gives two shits about you and your kind? Who’s going to mourn when you die? I’ll tell you who—nobody. They’ll just toss you in a recycling can with the rest of the polyclonic trash and order up a replacement. That’s how it is.” Trask nodded toward the camera. “In about fifteen seconds that camera is going to pan this way. If Sarge sees me out here talking to you, he’ll think I’m a sympathizer. He’ll call the union. He’ll tell the captain. That means I’ll be out of a job and you’ll be dead. Walk away while you still can.”

  Trask went back inside. Fin headed out onto t
he street where a group of Whites was gathered. They were chanting something. When he heard a crunching sound and a terrifying scream, he pulled out his badge and Pulser, and forced his way into the center of the mob. A White, a giant of a Cy, was standing over Steel, roaring incomprehensibly, waving a bloodstained club over the helpless Gray. Fin fired a warning shot and ordered everyone to stand back. The crowd spread out. He knelt down over the Gray. Steel’s face was a battered smear of blood. His skull was crushed, his pulse weak, his breathing shallow.

  “Steel?” Fin said. “Can you hear me?”

  The Gray’s lips moved grotesquely, mouthing something that Fin realized too late was a warning to look out.

  He woke up sometime later in the alley behind the police station. Steel’s lifeless body lay beside him. The Whites like vultures had picked them both clean. They had taken everything: their clothes, Fin’s badge, his Commlink, his Pulser, everything.

  “For God’s sake!” Fin screamed over and over into the face of the uncaring rain and the God who had abandoned them. He stumbled out into the street. The Whites were gone and Cytown was still that oppressive, dismal place where he had spent his entire life. It would never change because no one cared about Cys or the hell they were forced to endure; no one but him.

  He ran back to Cyblock-101, stopping at the emergency call box outside. He pressed his palm to the identity switch activating the screen and demanded of the operator that he be connected to Agent Clayborn of the SIA.

  Clayborn came onscreen. “You look like shit, Blue. What happened? And where the hell are your clothes?”

  “I was mugged, sir. They took everything.”

  “What do you mean everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “Your badge and gun?”

  “Yes, sir. I am sorry, sir.”

  Clayborn looked down at his Commlink. “Shit. You discharged your weapon?”

  “I fired a warning shot. Sir, the Pulser is encoded to my bio-signature. Whoever took it will not be able to use it.”

  “Screw that. You fired without authorization. You gave up your piece. This is not going to sit well with the commander, especially after what happened today.”

  “I will explain the circumstances later and accept full blame, but for now I need your help, sir.”

  “I guess I can scrounge you up a loaner and get Records to issue you a temporary badge, but . . .”

  “That is not the kind of help I need.”

  “Then what?”

  “A shipment of Creep is arriving at the Northend station in fifteen minutes. We have to stop it.”

  “Let me get this straight. Your ass is in the wringer and you want to take on Death’s Door right now with no backup, no gun, and no clothes?”

  “Please, sir. I need your help. We need your help.”

  “No way I can be there in fifteen minutes. It would take me twenty just to requisition a Lev, another hour or so to pull together a tactical team and get to your location. We’d need to coordinate everything with the locals. It’s their jurisdiction, you know. That always complicates things.”

  “There is no time for that."

  “Now you’re getting the picture. If we went after every drug bust in Cytown, we'd be there twenty-four seven busting heads. Let it go, Blue.”

  “I cannot let this go.”

  Clayborn sighed. “Look, I’ll notify the locals, call in a few favors, see if they can handle it. That’s the best I can do.”

  “I already tried that.”

  “You went to the locals without my OK?”

  “Yes, sir. They turned me down.”

  “You’re a Cy. What did you expect?”

  “I expected help.”

  “You’re not going to get it, Blue. Not tonight.”

  “Then I will go myself.”

  “You can’t go in there alone. That’s crazy talk.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “And I’m telling you, you can’t.”

  “Is that an order, sir?”

  “Damn straight, it is.”

  Seconds passed. Neither spoke. Clayborn finally said, “I know that look. You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”

  “That depends on your definition of stupid, sir.”

  Fin disconnected the call and ran up to his apartment where he washed Steel’s blood from his face and got dressed in his secondhand clothes and pullover. Taking down the waterfall painting, he removed a gun from the box in which he kept his stash of credits. It was a cheap projectile-discharging weapon Mama had made him purchase from a street vendor who sold unregistered guns to Cys in the market district for twice their value, no questions asked. She told him it wasn’t safe to walk the streets of Cytown unprotected. In the year he had lived there it had never moved from its hiding place behind the waterfall. He tucked it into his belt and re-hung the painting, wondering only briefly if what was depicted in that work of art were real or just another illusion designed to give him a false sense of peace like the oppressive rain that dulled the Cybernites’ despair or the Creep that numbed their outrage.

  Fin left and went downstairs to Steele’s apartment where he found the Gray’s wife bludgeoned to death and the place ransacked. Anger drove him out into the street. He ran to the train station and down the steps two-at-a-time to the entrance tunnel. A crowd of Cybernites was blocking the way. Across the barrier that bisected the tunnel into its entrance and exit sides, Cys trickled out of the station, carrying bags filled with vials of Creep. Fin pulled his hood tighter over his head and tried to push through the crowd. Unable to get past, he doubled back and entered the station again through the exit side. Ignoring the alarms, he jumped the turnstiles and sprinted to the end of the tunnel.

  From the shadows, he surveyed the platform. A train bearing the Death’s Door gang sign idled there. It was an older model, like ones Fin had seen abandoned in the vehicle boneyards on the outskirts of the old city. Its antiquated fossil fuel engine filled the station with noxious smoke. Standing before it, lined up in rows by color, were Grays, Whites, Yellows, and Greens, all classes, all types, obediently waiting their turn.

  A hand touched Fin’s shoulder, startling him. It was Esse. “Fin,” she whispered. “This is a dangerous place to be right now.” She nodded toward the heavily armed gang members patrolling the platform. Fin counted at least twenty of them, seasoned street warriors by the looks of them.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  She touched his neck tattoo. His skin tingled. “Be careful,” she said.

  The hard steel of a gun barrel pressed into the back of his neck. “Hands up, you Cy piece of shit. Turn around.” Fin raised his hands and faced the rifle that a tattoo-covered teenage girl was pointing at him.

  “What are you doing over here?” she demanded. “Get back in line.”

  Fin looked down submissively. “Yes, ma’am. My apologies, ma'am. I just was assisting this woman. I will come with you, but please let her go.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Cy?”

  Fin glanced around, confused. Esse was not there. A tunnel light caught the blue of his skin.

  “What the . . .?” said the girl. “Let me see your face.”

  Fin pulled back his hood.

  “What kind of Cy are you?” said the girl.

  “As you can see, I am not like any of these others already in line,” Fin replied. “I was trying to decide to which line I belonged when you came over. Should I start a new one?”

  “You some kind of freak? I ain’t never seen a Blue before.”

  “Of course, you haven’t. Perhaps you should take me to whoever is in charge. He will know what to do with me.”

  “The boss knows everything about everything,” the girl nodded.

  “I’m sure he does. By the way, I have a gun tucked in my belt. I recommend that you confiscate it first, or the boss might think the less of you if he finds it on me.”

  The girl looked confused. “Right.
Give me the gun. Hand it over nice and slow.”

  Fin complied and then raised his hands over his head again. They marched over to the train, where the girl showed off her trophy to the others. None of them had ever seen a Blue. They frisked the strange Cy and took his credits. They pushed him around, knocked him down, made crude jokes about his color, his lack of intelligence, and his disgusting smell. When Fin remarked that humans also had a distinct body odor, they beat him. A guard called out from the train that the boss wanted them to bring the freak inside, so they dragged him into the first car.

  Metal plating reinforced the inside walls of the train car. The windows all had hatch covers, swung open to give the guards a clear line of sight to the platform. The seats were packed with shipping crates filled with sealed polyvinyl bags. The rear door of the car was propped wide so gang members could pass through to the other two cars where business was being transacted. The gang’s banker, sitting beside an enormous antique safe, looked up from sorting a pile of credits to stare at Fin.

  “Boss, look what I found,” the girl said to a huge man sitting in the conductor’s seat.

  There were no mug shots of Book, the leader of the Death’s Door gang. There were no photos and no surveillance footage. No one knew Book’s real name. He had no aliases, no history, no address, and no known relatives or friends. He was a man without identity in a city where everyone was registered and only those properly authorized could pass through the shield. Book had simply appeared out of nowhere some years ago to assemble a ruthless gang of drug dealers, smugglers, and murders. He was inked from his shaved head to his waist. He was grotesquely muscular and hideously scarred, the scars tattooed over to blend with the intricate designs on his skin.

  He took a deep drag on his cigar and stood up, exhaling slowly. The man towered over Fin. “What have we got here?” he said.

  “I caught him sneaking around the tunnels, Boss,” the girl said. “He’s a Blue, Book. Can you believe it? I ain’t never seen a Blue before.”

  “You ain’t seen shit, kid,” Book said. “You got a name, Blue?”