Revenge for Lychee

by Aies Jay

  The kid in the bed looks seventeen, tops. His faded muscles tell me he’s been paralysed for a long time. A rubber hose coming from a large gas tank is fixed under his nostrils. It hisses softly, giving him enough oxygen to survive even if his lungs aren’t strong enough to breathe in what he needs. He has six jacks from what I can tell and he’s hooked up to all of them. The two underneath his eyes are the same ones Nicla used to have but this kid takes his shots punctually. Two of them are on top of his wrists, one in each, and two vanishes in behind the base of his ears. His eyes look cut too, like there’s a cross hair in the middle of them, but I don’t see how, he’s not wearing lenses or retina screens. It could be bioware. He blinks at me and his eyes move to one of the multiple screens. I follow his look and letters in brilliant green grace the glass.

  -LIONFISH, I PRESUME?

  I nod, ashamed as fuck.

  -Yes.

  -YOU SHOLDN’T HAVE COME HERE, OLD MAN.

  I swallow and nod.

  -I know, I’m sorry. But you were too slippery in the System.

  -HOW DID YOU FIND ME?

  -Creds. You don’t change cred chits often enough and I’m good at backtracking transaction connections.

  -THIS IS RUDE BEYOND RUDE AND YOU KNOW IT. THIS BREAKS EVERY SINGLE RULE OF CONDUCT.

  -I’m sorry, okay? I really am. It’s just that I really need to talk to you about this.

  He glares at me as much as his muscles allow him to.

  -FINE. SEND OUT YOUR HENCHMAN.

  -Teeth, guard the door or something.

  Teeth nods at me after a second of doubt, then holsters his gun and leaves. As the door clicks shut behind him the letters light up the screen in front of his bed again saying

  -GIVE ME A SECOND TO PROOF THE ROOM. GOING DARK.

  I watch him slap up a massive fire wall and run black ice all over the place, shutting down everything except the tiniest of trickle of the System into his Domain, like an umbilical cord of digital life. He probably rarely leaves it. Do I blame him? Hell no. When he finishes he gives me another look of disdain.

  -HOOK UP OVER THERE AND DON’T MOVE.

  Six of the screens light up again and I feel the hair on my arms stand straight up. He’s just using the tips if his fingers, resting on little touch sensitive pads, but he’s also using his eyes to control the computers, while communicating with me still. I grab one of the free cords and hook up, just using the jack behind my ear and don’t move as per instructions as he checks me for spyware, viruses and crap. Once satisfied he demands

  -UPLOAD THE SCRAP AND THEN UNHOOK. YOU’RE CLEAN ENOUGH BUT I DON’T WANT YOU IN MY DOMAIN LONGER THAN WHAT’S ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

  He lets me in and I make a small gasp as I enter his Domain. My little Avatar lionfish actually makes a looping flip of surprise and delight. It’s the Universe itself, and I can’t tell the icons from the decorative animations and maybe it’s all icons. It’s like watching a live screen of some Liner bow camera, only objects in space are swooshing and soaring around it, like animated girls, sword heroes, sneaky looking animals, a star exploding and imploding over and over, while we’re moving, constantly moving forward. I see the green gummy bear Avatar going from sleeping on a cloud to jumping into a small space jet and zooming ahead of us after grabbing the scrap of paper that symbolizes the mail I just dropped. Three little space ships the shape of saucers launch from the space jet with miniature gummy bears of variant colours inside them. I force one flesh eye to look at the paralysed kid in the bed. He’s opening his Domain, launching info bots, enters three different Portals at the same time and entering the System, all at once. I unhook most reluctantly while saying

  -Fuck, you’re good.

  He blinks, giving me a shred of his attention.

  -ONLY ONE BETTER.

  -The President?

  -HE BEAT ME WITH TWO POINTS IN THE TOURNAMENT. IF NOT, I WOULD HAVE BEEN PRESIDENT NOW.

  Half a grin reaches my eyes.

  -You know his name?

  -I DO. FLESH AND AVATAR BOTH. AND I’M NOT TELLING YOU.

  I get no more than that. After a single minute he says

  -I GOT THE DROPPER. BUT IS THAT REALLY WHAT YOU WERE AFTER?

  -No. I’m after the person who sent the mail. Any more and I have to update you fully.

  He glares at me.

  -YOU’RE ASKING ME TO CHOOSE FROM SELLING OUT A FELLOW HACKER OR TO GET INVOLVED IN YOUR QUEST. I ASSUME IT HAS TO DO WITH THE BABY KILLERS YOU SCREAMED ABOUT EARLIER?

  My heart takes a leap. That would save me a shitload of time and effort.

  -In one word, yes. If you would. This was your offer.

  -THEN THAT IS AN EASY CHOICE FOR ME. TAKE NOTES OF THAT, OLD MAN. UPDATE ME. I’LL DO WHAT YOU CAN’T.

  I nod and hook up again, unload my encrypted files, looking like little paper notes falling into his Domain. A tiny dragon with glasses gathers them and then looks like he’s digesting them. I then stand quietly, letting him read. William, the flesh in the bed, almost gasps.

  -I THOUGHT YOU WERE MAKING THAT SHIT UP. THIS IS BEYOND BAD, OLD MAN. THEY MAY KILL US BOTH FOR EVEN POKING AROUND IN THIS IF THEY SNIFF US OUT.

  I swallow. Maybe he’s already updated to everything I know about this, apart from the personal stuff, and then some.

  -I know.

  He averts his eyes from the screens for just a moment.

  -AFTER THIS, WE’RE MORE THAN DONE. GET IT?

  -Totally.

  He takes another breath and I almost have to hold on to something as he speeds up. The information crashes across the screens, I know I’m seeing a pathetic minute part of all that he does and it’s still impressive. I get the chills from just watching him. He unzips the walls of the System, snatching info, breaking code quicker than I can read a sentence and brooms it before anyone even notices he came knocking. The Universe in the screens in front of me suddenly seems to take a leap back and the space saucers as well as the little jet with the bigger Avatar returns.

  -DONE AND DONE OLD MAN. I’M COPYING IT ALL AND SENDING IT TO YOU ENCRYPTED. YOU KNOW “THE LABYRITH”?

  -Yeah, sure.

  -IT’S NOT AS OLD SCHOOL AS YOU’D LIKE IT PERHAPS BUT I PREFER BEING SAFE TO BEING NICE TO YOU.

  -Hey, I found you, and twice. I may be old but I’m not unplugged yet.

  -THAT MAY CHANGE IF YOU MESS WITH THESE GUYS. YOU’LL NEED MORE THAN A CONFESSION AND CUTE PICTURE TO SHOW THE MASSES, YOU GET THAT RIGHT?

  -What do I need?

  -IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE, SPREAD WIDE.

  The room goes black again and the lights gently switch back on. The kid looks at me, his throat fighting to swallow.

  -NOW LEAVE. AND REMEMBER I’VE BEEN INSIDE YOUR SOFTWARE AND I KNOW YOU NOW. DO NOT COME LOOKING FOR ME AGAIN.

  I want to apologize or something again but I’ve insulted him so hard just by doing this I’m not sure he’d accept an apology of any kind even now. He could have fried me when I was in his Domain. He probably would have, had the info proved to be faked.

  -I, um… thank you.

  -GO GHOST YOURSELF, OLD MAN.

  I leave, giving him the last word.

  battlefront

  It’s a good thing Teeth came with me in a double sense because I feel faint all the way home, like I rode a carousel too hard for me. As I tell him the basics of what transpired between me and the paralysed kid in the bed, he buys us food and black coffee on the way and makes me drink a full damn cup of it, no matter how hard I protest against it. I cringe at the brown hot beverage, no sugar or milk, but as we’ve reached my door I actually feel better. I go inside, nod at Nicla and sit down by my Gate right away, I’m not opening shit from GummyBear, also known as William Cheng Smythe, DragonFire, the impressive little shit, without my Gate’s protection. Especially not now as he pointed out he’s been inside my head ware. I hook up and invest in doing a safety check before I enter anything at all. The food I’m handed by my friendly bully is cup noodles, beef flavour, and in the b
ackground I hear Teeth bringing Nicla up to speed. I yawn as I see the bar telling me I should have done a safety check long ago slowly crawling along the screen. A cold Jackhammer lands in my hand. I take a moment to look at Nicla who turns out to be the one who handed it to me. She’s painted up again.

  -Going out?

  I ask.

  She nods.

  -I doubt you’ll need me for this one. I have creds to earn for my big one.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  -I thought you got it the other day?

  She shakes her head.

  -That was just the preliminaries. The update of my old hardware. I’m nowhere even near that kind of creds yet. I have neuro damage I have to fix before…

  She stops talking. My brain tries to inform me there’s something off here, something I’ve missed.

  -Nicla?

  She shakes her head.

  -I have to get going. See you later. Work hard.

  -Hey, Nicla! Wait a minute, would you?

  But she doesn’t. The door closes behind her. Teeth, now holding a steaming tea cup and dipping a tea bag looks at me in odd wonder.

  -What the hell is on between you two?

  Body mods. I say it again, total meatheads. They have no respect for secrets. On the other hand, I’m feeling more than a little black kettle-ish by now.

  -She’s hiding something. I still trust her though.

  I mutter as the bar fills up, the little lionfish trying to drag it along faster, grimacing.

  -Want me to talk to her?

  -Hell no.

  -I meant as in careful conversation.

  he says, slightly offended. I shake my head again.

  -Her world is her own. Leave her.

  He mutters something about soft brain and drinks his tea. The bar finally fills up and I’m informed that the baddies have been made rid of, I don’t check the nine threats gotten rid of, if any of it turns out to be planted by DF, aka GummyBear, I might get pissed at him even if the biggest transgression was still mine by far. I go straight for my mail and there, lo and behold, it is. Encrypted with The Labyrinth code, a thin, lovely file with a final threat to leave him the hell alone, from the GummyBear, aka DragonFire. I still don’t know what happened to him. Was he born a paraplegic or was that due to the burn? Was that why he changed his Avatar? No matter. His world is his own and he still hacks like a God. I exhale through my nostrils.

  -Here we go.

  I open the file and apply my Labyrinth Straightener, waiting for the encrypted code to revert to pure info as I down the rest of the cup noodles and the Jackhammer in between each other. The numbers and letters shift places in a good pace, it’s five files in all and it takes less than ten minutes before it’s all done. I put the empty containers aside and mutter

  -And here we really do go. Teeth! Take notes!

  He plonks down beside me and stares at my Gate screen, reading less than half my speed. The information is short but thorough and as I’ve finished reading I realize coolly we now have all we need.

  This is the work of three fiends. Milian Caldwell, a slightly overweight suit clad and brown haired man with watery eyes judging from his photo, is the lesser son of a Maxima millionaire, Harvey Caldwell, a man who made his fortune in the fast food packaging business. Milian is the funding for the operation they all refer to as “Tar Toad”, probably referring to the brown sticky stuff in the throat of their choking victims, and the old saying of having a frog in your throat. Sadistic fucks. The next bastard is Lola Monterey, a Luna 3 med school dropout. Her picture is of a woman that even looks to have both smarts and a cool unfeeling arrogance. Her flat blonde hair is combed back and she’s wearing expensive but discreet accessories, the boring kind of pretty in my opinion. She’s had the means to get a sample from the stored bacteria and probably learned about the breakout on that colony, but she’s not the author of the scrap of mail that started all of this. That’s the last of the fuckers is Gereld Ferguson, a childhood friend of Caldwell who’s been employed in Caldwell senior’s company as a travelling merchant. The photo of him shows us a man who looks like he’s trying too hard and still failing, all accessories, no base, an expensive haircut dyed black but with a cheap watch on his wrist and an almost demure body frame that he’s doing his best to give an impressive posture, rolling the proverbial turd in glitter. They’re all in the same age group, twenty-eight to thirty-two, fairly rich, and none of them on top of their games. Ferguson seems to be cousins with Monterey. The plan is measured out in a succession of seventeen mails in total between them that GummyBear fished out for me, attachments in almost all of them, and it’s all protected but not protected enough to hide from GummyBear. The kid has even added their current locations. Caldwell is on Maxima, no surprises there, Monterey is on Luna, can’t get to her, but Ferguson’s last known address according to GummyBear is no less than Sweet Sleep Honeycomb Hotel, on Miter Street 46, sweet home Scorpio 2, even the same Atrium as mine.

  Teeth’s hand on my shoulder feels like the led glove of Doom.

  -We got them.

  I shake my head a little. It looks good, sure, but irrefutable? Hancry’s scepticism and comment about hard evidence echoes in my head.

  -This is enough for you and me but DF said we needed really watertight stuff. I’m not sure this is enough. And how the hell do we get to the fuckers on Maxima and Luna?

  Teeth snorts at me a little, a harsh laugh, and his finger points at the picture of Gereld Ferguson’s face.

  -We get him, he’ll give us the others. We find him, press him for what will be enough and then spread the info wide like the kid said. Let society crucify the two others. We’ll take care of Ferguson ourselves. The two others won’t get away once this hits the System.

  I grit my teeth, nodding. Murder sounds cute in the stages of a plan but facing it like this makes me feel like the floor is falling out of my stomach. My sentiment still stands. There’s no room left for doubt. Fucker is going way, way down. Like Seizer said, these are mass murderers, if not now they most certainly will be if we stand back and do nothing. I look at Gereld Ferguson’s face and wonder what mother kissed it when he was a child and why she could teach him no better.

  -Call your man.

  murderer

  While our second body mod for the operation has been contacted I’ve taken a good look at the outlay of the honeycomb hotel our villain is staying at. S2 doesn’t have luxury hotels, like most liners there’s just no room for them, but this hotel offers very comfortable honeycombs for the one ready to pay a fairly hefty sum a night, close to a connecting door to the main harbour of course. It boasts expensive food products in the fridge, refilled daily, towels, robes, linen sheets and a room service to die for. That last one is getting a whole new meaning. I haven’t hacked into the security system of S2 to have a look at our man to confirm it’s really him, I’m not risking anything. I’m actually nervous at this point. This is space cowboy work, not hacker work, but as Brute comes in through the door I feel oddly relieved. Brute looks like his name and Teeth’s description of him implied. He’s tall, wide, and has the old fashion upgrades, all metal and plastic, to enhance his body. If he’s half as mean as he looks, we’ll do just fine. Him and Teeth makes an odd hand grip and slam each other’s arms once before Teeth makes the formal introduction.

  -Brute, this is Jer, our employer. Jer, I give you Brute.

  I look at the huge man with rust red hair in a jar head haircut and am forced to tip my head up as I do to get eye contact. He’s almost a full head taller than me. The man ate his vegetables as a child, it seems.

  -Pleasure.

  I comment to our meeting, nodding at him. He never offers his hand to me, he just nods back. More than enough.

  -Boss. So, what are we doing?

  Teeth takes the lead for me.

  -A snag and grab. The asshole of this occasion has been up to a lot of no good and we need to pin him and make him squawk. How much do you need to know?

  -No
t much. How illegal is this?

  -Very illegal. Not as illegal as what he was up to, though.

  -This sounds like cowboy work.

  Teeth actually snickers at the comment.

  -Then giddy up.

  -I’m a merc, not a cowboy.

  Teeth heaves an annoyed sigh at his old partner.

  -Brute, how many times? The line is so thin it wouldn’t matter to a spider. Mercenaries are honest about being ruffians, space cowboys claim rewards for taking down pirates and murderers and shit, pretending to be do-gooders, but all the difference there really is happens to be that we don’t pretend to uphold any remains of what law there is in the Universe. None of us are pirates or make a habit of doing straight out illegal work, so basically it’s the same job.

  -I’m not having this discussion with you again.

  -You want in or out?

  Brute looks at me and then at Teeth.

  -How bad is this guy?

  I blink. The more I’ve been figuring the details of the plan the more I’ve realized that we really do need another guy. I sure as hell don’t want to involve more people but this is minimum damage. I sigh at the whole thing. In for a penny, as the saying goes, whatever the hell a penny was. Some sort of token, I’ve figured.

  -He’s killed babies for profit. My son and Teeth’s daughter are just two of them.

  -For real?

  -Real.

  The big man slowly shakes his head and rubs his rugged chin. Teeth makes no notion of that I just told intimate details of our lives. Maybe Brute already knew of Honour’s fate.