by Aies Jay
-You think this is enough?
I ask Teeth. He shrugs.
-I think so. Why?
-I just think we’re missing something.
Gereld whimpers.
-Please! I’ve cooperated. Cut me loose. I’m lying in my own shit here. And I think you broke my nose and my fucking sternum.
I ignore him and look at Brute.
-Big man. Any thoughts?
The body mod who never left his post at the door shrugs.
-I don’t do much brain work. I ask those who do if I got questions. You had a doc on the case. Show him the works and ask him.
I get up and pat his shoulder.
-Good thinking, as far as not thinking goes.
-It’s called delegating.
-Whatever you like.
I say and scroll my mails to Seizer trying to find a number to call but no dice. I use my com link to mail him, feeling the QA get hotter in protest. Old crap. After waiting six minutes for a reply from the doc but only getting a note from Nicla saying she’s back at the apartment and an ad for penis enlargers I get way too restless.
-Fuck, I’ll just bring the crap and go there. Sooner or later someone may check on this guy or something and we don’t know how long we have until that happens. Be right back.
Teeth raises his eyebrows.
-What do we do with him in the mean time?
I shrug.
-Fuck if I know. Don’t kill him. Let him clean off and tie him up again or something, this place stinks. Or pull his teeth out to kill time, I don’t care.
burn
As I reach the doc I’m out of breath and notice somewhere in the back of my head that I’m both seriously nauseous and hungry at the same time. This is not what I wanted to do. I wanted a quick, clean job and this is far from it but I have no second chances if we off Gereld and then come to think about one very important detail and thus are fucked. I pound on the door that’s now locked for some damn reason and ring the bell, the H model nurse buzzes me in and looks at me with a plastic odd smile.
-Hello Mister Star, what is your emergency?
-I need to talk to the doc.
I pant, having to lean on my knees, wishing for numbness in my aching thighs. I got here in less than twenty minutes, thanks to the reopening of one of the bridges, but I still ran all the way and it feels like I’m dying. The H nurse keeps smiling but looks a little concerned.
-The doctor is currently busy with his patients. May I help you?
-No! I need Seizer and it’s urgent as fuck!
I shout at the fancy robot. She now looks fully concerned and says as she quickly walks away
-I’ll see what I can do, Mister Star.
I take the two minute eternity before he shows up to catch my breath and swallow down the bile in my dry mouth. As the doc shows up he looks hassled and annoyed, his lab coat has a weird blue stain on it and he’s snapping off purple latex gloves as he comes out through the door.
-Right, what’s the emergency?
I wave at him.
-Check your mail. There’s a file there. I want to know if I need anything more to take the fuckers down.
He looks at me, tilting his head.
-This is not an emergency. An emergency is a head injury, a ruptured aorta or a punctured lung at the very lea-
-Please, doc! It is an emergency, okay? We have one of the fuckers tied up in a honeycomb hotel room and-
-All right, all right! Stop talking, I don’t want to know! I’ll look at the file right away, just don’t tell me more about men tied up in hotels rooms, okay? Keep your weird sex life to yourself.
I open my mouth to argue but realize he might have said that for possible denial issues so I shut up. He walks up to his Gate, muttering, and asks the nurse to make us coffee as he clicks slower than your granny and starts reading. As far as I can tell he at least reads fast. His expression goes from concentrated to concerned and then back to concentrated. As I’ve accepted and had the first sip of the coffee the H nurse made for us he rubs his face.
-Umm… the one thing missing would be what strain of the bacteria they lifted from the place that kept it. If you can get a record of that and then have it confirmed with the place somehow, that would be the last nail in their coffin.
-Can you check the strain on our samples?
-Already did, it’s in your reports. Same strain, the both of them, which more or less confirmed your and my suspicion that this was planted all along, like I said. Honour and Lychee lived on the same station but if we get more samples of dead babies or bacteria with the same strain and can trace the strain’s origin back to these people, I mean, we don’t even have to do that ourselves, then that would prove it even further. The same strain from that holding, travelled all the way here without infecting anyone and causing a breakout? Neigh impossible, even a freshman would say that.
I nod, taking a way too big gulp of scalding coffee.
-Okay, thanks, doc.
I open my mouth to ask something more but I’m getting a dial from Teeth and hold up my hand to the doc as I answer my com link
-Teeth, man, good news, we only need-
-…got away…
I stop dead, all the warmth draining from my body. Teeth sounds like he’s talking through a mouth full of blood.
-Teeth?
-…panic button… bathroom… got away…
-Oh, holy fuck.
This is what we get for having mercy on murderers. The doc looks at me, bewildered.
-What’s going on?
-Hold on, Teeth, I’m coming!
I shout and then turn to the doc.
-Lock this place up, put armour on, don’t open for anyone! This thing just went beyond south!
I don’t stop to listen to what he’s yelling about after me, I’m already running out the door, down the stairs and across the Atrium, to the sounds of Teeth trying to breathe his own blood.
I make it in fifteen minutes flat, adrenalin fuelling me beyond my capacity of running. As I run into the hotel lobby, the girl that’s now behind the desk makes a feeble attempt at asking me who I am and stopping me but I just careen past her. The door to room number 42 is closed again but the lock looks busted by force and I ram my finger on the button to make the door slide open. The sight inside is a horrid mess and I have to fight to keep the contents of my stomach down. There are bullet holes in the walls and blood spatter everywhere. Brute looks like he hasn’t had any reject drugs in two months and the metal parts inside him seems to have been competing at pushing their way out of his body in every way possible, making him explode slowly. The horrid distorted expression on his face tells me he died in the worst sort of pain. Teeth is speared on his own katana, pinned to the wall like a butterfly next to his friend, and he’s bleeding from multiple stab wounds that’s been placed in the few open unprotected places of his armour. He’s bled so heavily I don’t even get how he’s still alive. They tortured them next to each other, probably to make one of them break easier, but Teeth is the only man left alive and that’s just barely. I grab the katana to pull it out of him but he stops me screaming
-No! It’s the only thing keeping me alive…!
I shove my finger to my com link and hit the QA to mail the doc, telling to him come or send someone ASAFP to the honeycomb hotel, giving him the fastest route, while trying not to panic.
-What the fuck happened, Teeth?
The bleeding body mod looks at me, his canine teeth clad in blood and spittle.
-Fucker had a panic button… in the bathroom or something. Four guys showed up… we killed two, maimed the third but the last fucker… they stuck me to the wall on my own fucking blade…!
He breathes quickly and then continues, locking eyes with me as I get the reply from doc that he’s coming.
-They stuck a needle in Brute. Said it was some shit that burned anti-rejects… and then he started screaming… he told them everything to make it stop. Our names, where you live… but they never let
him off, they just watched him die in agony… I played possum. I dialled you as soon as they…
He fades and falls silent. I don’t even know if he died or just clocked out. But I do know one thing. They have my address and they will probably look there for me. Not that I’m there right now. But Nicla is.
-Oh, unholy motherboard…!
I don’t think, I act. I press the com link switch and stick all the info I sent Seizer in another zip file after labyrinth coding it and send it to GummyBear with
“if I’m dead in when you’ve read it make it viral”
I’ve already overused my quick access and it’s hot in the back of my head, it’s going so slow but fuck that. I’m already on the move and I run for my apartment for all I was ever worth. I have literally no more left, physically. There’s only one damn thing propelling me forward still. Raw fear.
You know those thirty percent you’re supposed to have left when you’re all tuckered out? They’re gone, spent, forget about it. I just did two fucking sprints across the great Atrium, first to Seizer, then to the honeycomb hotel and now a third back home. I’m a hacker, not a body mod, not even a regular nugger or a virgin, and I do not run, ever, except maybe to the bathroom between raids, okay!? But all has gone to hell and even if I actually fucking had to stop to puke along the way I’ve run all the way back home. The lights are on in my living room and the door looks messed up so of course I yank the damn thing open, running in like a fucking idiot and fill my lungs to scream her name but that’s all I have time for.
good night
The pain in the lower part of my back is so harsh I get numb for five full seconds. As my body meets the floor a knee is set down on my back and the barrel of a gun pokes the back of my head. I vaguely feel my knees hit the floor as someone pins me down from behind and I feel zip ties go down around my wrist and ankles before I get fully what the fuck is going on. I grunt at the pain, the zip around my wrists behind my back is tight as hell.
-He’s down.
a voice says behind me and Gereld’s snide and angry voice replies
-I got fucking eyes.
I can’t see my assailant but I can see Gereld, coming out from my tiny bathroom where he hid, and a second grunt, a body bod, with his arm in a sling, well bruised and bandaged. That’s probably the guy who had the prerogative to survive a kiss from Teeth’s katana but he doesn’t look grateful. The man with blonde long hair in a ponytail and ripped denim clothes with a cattle prod the size of a baseball bat looks pissed off. Not nearly as pissed off as Gereld looks, though. He’s dressed and proper again, but bruised and banged up still. His split lip and broken nose has only been patched up in a hurry and he’s probably been told that nob in the middle of his face won’t look right again without surgery. He kneels down in front of me.
-Hello, Jeremy Star, you asshole. Guess what? Your friends are dead and you’re about to be discredited all over the System and not only that, every trace of evidence I fed you is getting erased as we speak. Neat, huh? Consider it my way of saying thank you for letting me live, or something.
He nods at the guy behind me who starts handling something and I hear a very familiar sound. It’s the clicking of a syringe gun being loaded. Gereld grins sadistically.
-Now, we’re going to give you an awesome treatment for free that will rid you of any need of being a meddlesome fuckhead of a little hacker for ever. Plus, we’ll reunite you with your kid again. That’s how nice I am. The serum you’re about to get will purge you from all the crap you put in your system, you see, by eating up all your anti-rejection drugs. I’ve already seen the effects on one of your friends and my, was he impressed with the effects indeed.
I struggle to get my bound arm out of the grip of the man behind me but I’m a prone target and he’s, as mentioned, on top of me. He puts one knee almost at the base of my neck, holds my arm down with pincers of steel and his other knee is pushed harder into my back. I can’t move, not even when I feel the syringe gun touch my skin. The very fresh and vivid memory of Brute’s face returns to me and I start unwillingly to go over the list of all the stuff I’ve installed inside me. Most of it is in my head. My retina screens, my three jacks, my memory bank, my quick access mini Gate, the extra memory card, the extra processor unit, shit, this is going to really fucking hurt. Gereld grins even wider.
-I see you understand what that means. Now, there’s a quicker process, of course, an alternative B, if you like. A led bullet to the brain, cures everything, you see. But you’re not getting that unless you give ME every damn detail of what else you got, where the fuck you got it and the names of anyone else you’ve involved. I can hire people to track your activity but I’d really rather not. You’re a pesky and nosy bunch of little shits on this station, the lot of you. So tell me, and we’ll just shoot you. Let’s start with an easy one. Are there any other assholes than you and the two meatheads we just wasted that I need to concern myself about? What doctor did you use, someone credible or some burnout? Names, if you please.
I feel the syringe zooming in on my vein and hear the beeping that says the shot will hit its mark. The man behind me waits and so does Gereld. I swallow and hot tears run down my cheeks. I realize now that it’s all over and whatever could have been done is either gone or done already. All I can hope for is that Nicla and Seizer gets away and that GummyBear spreads the info as much as it is when he’s told of my fate, if ever. Hope. That’s all that’s left, the hope of a dying man. I choose my last words well.
-You killed my son, you utter filth. There’s no way you can hurt me any more than you already did. So fuck you, Gereld, and fuck everyone who’s ever helped you.
The man who murdered my son makes an angry sigh and nods at the man holding the syringe. A short, stabbing pain in my arm is soon followed by an itch. The itch starts travelling up my arm, in time with my heart pumping blood through my veins and even before it goes full circle, the itch is turning into heat and very suddenly, to full on pain. I grit my teeth shut against it but I feel my face getting hot and my head suddenly feels like it’s full of stuff that really, really shouldn’t be there. Gereld bends closer and shouts at me
-Tables have fucking turned now, haven’t they?! You still think you’ve had all the pain you could feel? It’s going to get a lot worse before it’s over! Names! I want names!
I make little stifled noises, trying to hold back my wincing but there’s no way. The heat is now in all of my body, every inch of it, and the pain in my head has gone beyond any full migraine you’d ever imagine. Gereld kicks at my sides.
-Names, motherfucker! Give me the names of the rest of you little misfits and it will all go away!
Against my efforts I’m whimpering, gasping and as the last of the heat in my body is replaced by the same pain as in my head which gets even worse. Gereld keeps screaming at me but I can barely register what the hell he’s saying, the agony of feeling the implants actually starting to move and dislodge in me is drowning it all out along with my own screams getting louder and suddenly forming words, the last bit of rage I’ll get to spit at him, becoming erratic cries of agony.
-Murderer! Murderer, you fucking child killer, murderer! Lychee! Lychee!
I can feel how my jacks are popping out of their flesh sockets, my screen retinas are tearing themselves off my eyes that are now dripping with blood. As I feel the QA in the back of my head dislodging my screams become wordless and feral. I can only vaguely discern the discussion going on around me that I have seconds left to live and they should just stick everything here in bin bags or torch the place and fuck off before my screaming is overhead by someone. I never hear the end of it because at some point my poor brain decides it’s just too much, and fuck the last flick “highlights in life”, because now, I’m turning the fuck in. Something snaps inside my skull, and with a loud cracking noise, it’s the end of it.
Gatekeeper
I’m not dead. I should be, but I’m not. I can’t open my eyes and I have a tube down my t
hroat. I’m barely conscious, I’m just painfully aware of that fucking tube and that it’s shoving air into my lungs. I try to struggle free of it but my arms weigh a ton and I have needles with tubes stuck in them. I hear an odd voice saying
-Calm down, Mister Star. Your medulla oblongata is in recovery. If we remove the tube, you will stop breathing and suffocate.
The thought of suffocation only feeds the panic and even if I recognize the voice I can’t place it so I fight harder. A machine starts beeping faster and another voice is heard but I can’t make out the words of it, all I know is that I’m suffocating and dying and then I can’t struggle anymore, I can’t even stay conscious.
I’m not dead. I’m numb. I’m aware of my limbs, I can vaguely feel them but I can’t move them. I still can’t open my eyes. Someone’s holding my hand. I think it’s Nicla. She’s crying. The tube is still down my throat but I can’t fight it. I can’t think either. I don’t understand any of this, how did I get here and where is here? What happened?
I’m not dead. But I am blind. The pain is seeping through the medicine I’ve been given, and that can’t be good. Nicla’s hand is holding mine and the tube isn’t down my throat anymore. Like in a fog I hear Nicla calling Seizer. He approaches, I can hear the clicking of his shoes. He checks the machinery and touches my face. His hand smells of chemicals.
-Jeremy? Can you hear me?
I swallow and try to answer. Three drops of mango juice in my mouth feels so strong an impression on the senses I almost gasp and choke. A small fight to not cough later, because it hurts too damn much, I’m able to croak a