by E. R. Jess
“Stop. Stop.” He said calmly to the inside of his eyelids. He couldn’t get the handheld to turn off, his hands didn’t work the same, they weren’t obeying his commands. The sensation fell away suddenly, turned off like a switch. The number fifteen was displayed on his screen, nothing more. Makz looked around for his gun.
“You checked into this hotel under a fake name. I will not say the name, it is a keyword. Its been added along with yours on the list. I will say that you are easy to find and if I can do so, they can. They could triangulate at any moment. I re-calibrated your implant's operating system and set its tracking number to randomly change. The true number is still there and it will be found.”
“Fuck you.” Makz said. He considered going back to sleep.
“Get up and get downstairs. Act normal. I’ll meet you at the street.”
“Why didn’t you just knock on the door?”
“You would shoot me.”
“Yes, that sounds nice,” he said as he tasted the thought on the air. “What do you want with me?”
“We could use each other's help.”
“Alright, I’m game.” Makz had his gun in hand behind him as he paced and looked out the window street-ward. He jumped into his boots and slammed his belongings on the dresser into his pockets. “This is amateur hitman shit. A little old-fashioned for someone who can hack the UCG.”
Jenna, the woman responsible, cut him off, “Go ahead, say another keyword. You will be in rehab under assumed guilt within the hour. This is bigger than you think.”
Makz was already out the door and looking at all the exits. “Do you think I would believe that in the nearly two trillion people in this City-State that some fucker at a computer is watching the flags go up on a few words coming out on a handheld that is one of millions? This is some very stupid paranoia to get me up for this early for.” He threw the handheld overhand down a stairwell. It was useless since it had been hacked.
Makz took off down the stairs and opened an emergency exit on a building bridge at his hotel’s seventh floor. Emerald light filled the tunnel as he was halfway across to a parking garage. A hoverjet floated chaotically at his eye level. Sedation needles rained over the curved glass and bounced off. With a sneer, he stood on the bridge sideways, his riot pistol aimed at the hotel door, and an arc taser pointed at the other. I’m fucked, he laughed to himself.
Both doors opened at the same time. He switched hands and fired the taser towards who or whatever was at that door, but concentrated his aim at the garage entrance and emptied an entire clip into what looked like LCS. Light City Soldiers, UPC police. Two of them fell, and he didn’t have time to see the effects of his taser behind him. He was blasting his way out.
Thin darts rained over his skin. The sedation needles were low-powered and stung like a bitch. Makz struggled behind the door then put on some glasses. If a needle went through his eye, it’d be over. As for the sedation, he was quite immune. The stuff almost gave him a high.
He charged into the soldiers, slamming against their glossy plastic armor plates causing a brilliant cacophony and everyone tumbled down a set of stairs. Makz winced as a handful of needles were pressed deeper in his leg when he landed on it. The four soldiers tried to get to their feet before Makz, but he threw his back against the wall and emptied his gun into the people tangled on the floor. The riot bullets at that range broke and dented the plastic all to Hell, but most didn't penetrate the armor cloth beneath. It was enough to horribly bruise and daze the police.
One got off a shot, but in the wrong direction. Makz was crawl-running his way through an access hallway. Another set of LCS waiting in the wings charged after him. His hallway was dank, amber-lit and lined with pipes that he had to squeeze by. It snaked around until it led to an opening by the street. A single LCS was waiting there and peppered the area with needlegun rounds. Makz hugged a wall and inserted another clip.
Once again, LCS closed in on him from both sides. He decided to go after the weaker position, the single soldier. He charged and got some needles to the face for the effort. One of them shot into his cheek. The pain shocked him and Makz went tumbling to the pavement. He rolled to a stop at the LCS's feet. The soldier tased him with the taser bayonet on his needlegun. Makz crumpled up in pain. He dug in his boot for his knife.
The soldier tased him one last time before putting his hand to his helmet. A muffled electronic voice came from it. The remaining LCS from the access tunnel caught up with Makz and stopped short. They were conversing with one another over their comm-links. One of them grabbed Makz's wrist and pulled it against the other. His knife clattered to the ground. The soldier restrained Makz's hands behind his back with cuffs. The LCS then pointed in a direction and left, leaving Makz bleeding on the sidewalk. A hoverjet flew over with a roar. Makz felt the sharp end of the needle poking through his cheek on the inside his mouth. He winced and grimaced as he tried to work the needle out with his tongue.
After a few minutes, a woman walked up. She wore some kind of armor with wired metal bands wrapped around it. She helped him to his feet and released his handcuffs. She spoke in a newly familiar voice, “Told you.”
She was a pretty girl, and young. Not what Makz was expecting, but it didn't disarm him for long. Makz grabbed Jenna's throat. He lifted her up an inch off the concrete and squeezed. She tried to swallow some air.
Jenna made a few hand motions in the air by her side. Makz felt a tingling in his neck implant and his eyes went wide, “I bet I can kill you before this thing does,” Makz said. He held onto her neck, adding a second hand, crushing as hard as he could. Makz let go as a pain in his head crippled him. His strength disappeared. She swallowed again and coughed and spit, clutching her throat and massaging it. “Tell me why I should make that pain go away, Makz. Not much longer now before you go into shock. Shock kills people fast you know, and right now I don't see any reason to care.”
Makz knew when he was beat. The pain was simply too much. It felt like a ball of broken glass was bouncing around in his brain. He threw his gun down and stumbled back a few steps. He nodded and said through the ache, “Yeah, it's good, we're good.” She was a wire, someone who hacks UPC systems. And Makz was no match for her at the time.
Jenna swiped her hand over the air and Makz collapsed, relieved and a bit giddy that the pain was gone. She said, “Alright, Makz, let's start over. I'm Jenna.”
Makz got up slowly, putting his palms out. “Hello, um, Jenna, it's a pleasure. Don't do that again. Not a threat, just asking nice.”
“Good, yeah, we're friends now, I won't do it.” Jenna said and relaxed her posture. “You, you have a needle in your face.”
Makz nodded sarcastically, “Yeah, too pre-war?” He grabbed it, paused, then yanked it out with a yelp. There were several more over his body that needed removing as well. “So, Jenna, we should get out of here, no?”
“No, we're fine for now.” Jenna turned her head slightly, as if listening for something on the wind.
Makz looked puzzled and asked, “And where did everyone go? I thought I was done.”
Jenna smirked and picked up a stray sedation needle from the street. She studied it and said, “They're heading to a factory uptown. A dirty bomb went off and they have to keep the peace.”
Makz looked down the street, “Really? That's fucked up.”
“No,” Jenna remarked, “Not really. I hacked their network and sent them new orders. That's the first thing that came into my mind. Couldn't think of many things more important to an LCS than beating the living shit out of an outcast.”
“Not an outcast,” Makz said plainly as he plucked out a needle buried in his hand. He held his palm up and showed where a needle had gone through the middle, right through his hand, and left a bloody mess on both sides. He laughed, “Look at that, remind you of anyone?”
Jenna rolled her eyes, “No.”
Makz shrugged, “It's still funny.”
“Makz, I got a proposition. If you help me find
someone, someone out in the Free City, I will get you off the Redlist.”
Makz seemed impressed. He sucked on his bleeding hand and answered a muffled, “Sure.”
“It's a real offer. I need your skills and muscle. I need someone who has no love of UPC.”
Makz didn't react. No love of UPC, that's a pretty good cover, he thought wryly. He visually inventoried the puncture holes and protruding metal shards. He asked, “Why me, you can't find this person like you found me?”
Jenna sighed, but forced it out of her nose, as to hide it. She said, “This person is somewhere deeper into the Free City. I can't go there alone.”
Makz smiled, “Off the Redlist, huh? Just to find someone in thousands of square kilometers of dilapidated city? Not a bad deal. Meals included?”
Jenna nodded, “Yeah, a few credits for supplies and whatever else you need,” And for Pulse, Jenna thought.
Makz clapped his hands together carefully, “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I will think on it. I have a date with a pair of pliers at the moment. Thanks for not making my head explode.”
“I want an answer soon,” Jenna stated.
Makz shook his head and spoke as he limped away, “Oh sure. Give me a day, I'm sure you'll know where to find me.”
“Yes, I will. Please take this seriously. It's not just your life,” Jenna said to his back.
0
Makz could feel the ground shake, or the lack of Pulse made his legs tremble. He was being hunted, and his anonymity was broken. He gathered what was left of his things from Glori and unceremoniously kissed the woman who saved his life. She understood well enough to be mad. She turned from him as he walked out the door and kept her mouth shut. No sense in saying goodbye to a dead man. He had accumulated too many enemies. And when that happened, he moved on.
First things first.
Makz found a new Pulse dealer and a quiet playground to use it in. He then stocked up on supplies, ammo, bought a few extra pieces of tech to mask his UCG signal. He kissed the last credit chip before it fell into a gun runner's hand. He set off into the concrete and steel with a zealot's passion. The Wire would be on his heels, and he had work to do.
After finishing UCM's business for them, he had a plan in his mind that he did not share with his body. He planned on turning himself in to UPC to be rehabilitated. He knew it was the logical course and didn't bother going over the details. If a bullet caught him before that, so be it. But he wanted to be made better. To take the injections and listen to the words. It was a tangible afterlife. He wanted to be numbered and coded. Makz knew what he was looking for, to be boiled down to his base elements and born again. He looked up into the neck of the city as ashen snow fell around him. He wanted life, a real life. Not a chaotic existence out in the mess left by his ancestors. He wanted the conformity so much it began to manifest in him.
For All Its Good Works
“Have I been asleep for all this time?” Revan Kore asked rhetorically to the room. An answer came, and the Minister rubbed his eyes and focused them on an android next to his bed.
The android spoke in a spartan, crisp voice “Yes sir, the Pulse that you injected...”
“Silence,” Revan breathed with some effort.
“Your board meeting is in twenty-five minutes,” The android said.
Now there's a reason to wake up, Revan thought sarcastically. This was reflected by his stubble-covered expression. Not that the android caught on; Revan's assistant was completely robotic, standing about two meters tall with a basic human shape and an exoskeleton of blackish metal and polished chrome. That skin was in style at the time. The year before, it was earth tones.
“Suit.” The word barely fell out of Kore's dry mouth.
“Yes, sir.” And his servant produced a black and gray business suit with silver trim and a dark red shirt and tie. Thirty-five minutes later, the UCM criminal report sub-committee staff was before him and standing at attention.
Revan Kore, Minister of Urban Citizen Monitors, the law enforcement half of UPC, was third in command of the entire City-State. He controlled the Light City Soldiers, known as the general police of the City-State, the rehab prison system and his favorite, UA, Urban Assault.
The agenda for that day was as usual, request for streamlining with the latest tech improvements, prioritizing law enforcement duties, clerical shit, all shit to Revan. There was very little trouble in the City-State. Thought control kept everyone in line, he was rarely needed. The Free City was where he wanted to be. Enough trouble out there for a lifetime.
A cyborg from some uptown satellite office adjusted his steely gunmetal gray overcoat and addressed the issue of rusters wading through the champagne fountains of his gilt embossed palace or some nonsense, Revan held his tongue.
A dark eyed beauty with expiration dates stamped on her forehead complained for forever about tenement ruins blocking her view of the wasteland sunsets. Revan said nothing.
The hologram of an Outernet commerce official whined digitally about wires and viruses and forwards compatibility and virtual empires and planets made of sheer information. Revan kept his mouth shut.
Elann, the woman who ran the mind control annex of UCM, spoke up, “I have made great progress in our synthetics program, and in our thought-control implant. We should be able to begin distribution to conformity centers next season,” She said, answering a question Revan didn't ask.
He quietly decided on the issues and adjourned the meeting without ceremony. He sat himself in front of a propaganda viewer and let the words and images wash over him like flower petals. Visions of a perfect world of order and compliance and joy. A nutrition stimulant injection. A dose of Pulse. A game of chess with the Japanese UPC headquarters Sub-Minister. A quick visual scan of the Free City with vector camera recreations. A half-hearted review of supposed domestic terrorists, people that had infiltrated the City-State and were looking to rip it apart from the inside. Revan yawned. Then it was to his chambers and into his Seluna brand magnetic delta wave stimulator until he fell into a coma-like sleep for the remaining six hours of the night. Revan dreamed again. Black and white and an undefinable color. Thought itself was fleeting and the capillary sized light pulses told him to sit back and forget about everything. And his dreams were in black and white and a color he couldn't define. His dreams were all useless. Reruns. White noise.
He visited his physician, Dr. Epps, late that night. The night was choked with stale air. Dr. Epps' office was a few dozen floors below his own in the Imperium, UCM headquarters, room 802, a conforming laboratory. Revan entered and found his doctor waiting for him. Revan said, “Can't sleep right.”
Dr. Epps rubbed his tired eyes and sighed at the intrusion of his employer. “I know the feeling,” He said, “Delta wave simulator not doing the trick?”
“No,” Revan replied and then smashed a piece of lab equipment with the side of his hand. “Nor are the drugs or meditating or fucking.”
Dr. Epps ignored his outburst and swept his handheld computer over Revan. “How's your memory, any gaps?”
Revan shrugged, “No, I remember everything from the whole day. That's part of the problem. I wish I had memory gaps to cut out the bullshit.”
“Vacation in the future?” The doctor asked while going over the data on his handheld.
“Yes, well no. It'll be a while. Lot of work to be done,” Revan answered then began, “It feels like I have a lower purpose. Know what I mean? People always talk about having a higher purpose, that they're of great importance to UPC, the powers that be just need to witness this. But for myself, I feel like I was destined for lesser things.”
Dr. Epps maintained a blank face and answered, “Stress. Garden variety. Leave your work to a few of those go-getters for a couple weeks. Go home and put your feet up.”
Revan looked at his doctor for a while, then dropped his head and laughed, “Right, good advice. I was hoping you'd throw me in one of these conforming pods. Give me a fresh start. I imagine it
's pretty pleasant, having your mind cleared of all burdens. Like dying without the loss.”
Dr. Epps laughed uneasily through his nose.
Revan tapped on a table and waved on his way out. “Always a pleasure, doctor,” he said.
The doctor set his handheld down and rubbed his temples, watching Revan's shadow vanish down the hall.
Revan was arguing with a UPC representative the next day. The man, Sen, an Outernet specialist, was a member of Citizen Strategies, the propaganda wing of the City-State government. “Words alone won't hold these people,” Revan moaned, “Drugs won't hold them. These are, were, Americans. They need a boot up the ass. They've been scratching little farms in the concrete since the purge, they've been baking out in the sun and freezing to death and digging their toddlers out of skyscraper rubble and you think they're going to give a fuck what a brochure tells them? They need a bullet or two to the sternum and one in the head if we can fucking spare it.”
“Sir,” Jakob Spenning, his inter-agency liaison, disagreed. Jakob had been his confidant for years; a man with whom he could share his wilder ideas about running the Urban Citizen Monitors. Jakob was the one man that Revan felt he could trust. “Our mission is to absorb. We pull the citizenry out of the wastes, reintegrate them, bring them home,” Jakob said diplomatically.
“No!” Revan exclaimed, “You put these people in our house and it will melt from the inside. You've never seen a ruster. They've reverted back to animals.”
“Mr. Kore, it's right here in black, UPC will offer amnesty and reparations to the peoples of the Free City,” Jakob and his android assistant sat across from Revan at a table overlooking a bright part of the City-State early in the evening.
Sen paced by the window. He added, “Traditional propaganda mixed with a new brand of UPC conformity, one that sells a better life, that will bring them in. Back to the basics.”