Woman of Glass

by Stephen Cote

Woman of Glass

  Stephen W. Cote

  Copyright Stephen W. Cote 1994

  About the Author

  Hello and thank you for reading. My name is Stephen W. Cote. I am a Software Engineer and Consultant, a United States Marine, a martial artist, and an author. You can find more information about my early creative writing and ongoing open source projects on whitefrost.com. I enjoy writing hard and whimsical science fiction, adult fantasy, and poetry. As an early advocate of Creative Commons licensing, many of my short stories and poems have been available online since 1996.

  If you would like to learn more about my writing, open source projects such as the Hemi JavaScript Framework, or inquire about unpublished manuscripts and shorts, please contact me at whitefrost.com.

  Thank you for taking the time to read my work and I hope you enjoy it.

  Woman of Glass

  Axe in hand, Julian lit off the stage and ran into the hallway before the crowd made it through the electric fencing. He couldn't tell if the faceless mob thrashing everything in their path loved or hated his music. They only wanted to destroy something, anything, to satisfy the urge. So he ran through the darkened corridor and straight into the largest man he had ever seen.

  Well dressed, the dark skinned mammoth, possibly Samoan, pushed a wheelchair to the only handicapped exit in the Pipeline. Julian nearly dropped his Les Paul and stumbled back. The huge man turned around and scowled.

  "Bashi, my blanket. It's cold out." The feminine voice from the wheelchair sounded young, though her words and tone were scholarly.

  Bashi, the behemoth, obliged the cripple and left the building.

  Julian sank against the wall, waiting for the rest of the band, and swore. The Pipeline, an upper-class rock pit, served those in pursuit of real beer and a venue with liberal attitudes towards synthetics. With the riot booming from the front, he waited for his band and drifted into daydream: The lush voices and perfect curves of synthetics dancing amongst the humans. As always, reality struck: A modernized inflate-a-mate couldn’t carry a good conversation.

  "Jules!"

  Julian clenched his left hand, half-cocked the stun gun trigger with his middle finger. He waited until the stranger walked into the light and let down his guard. "Carlos. What's real?"

  Carlos, the bassist for Julian's band, Gabrielle's Trumpet, dropped his axe next to Julian's. "Garcia's hive fused a Model A."

  "Chrix!" Julian said.

  Garcia's hive, a swarm of New Seattle Latinos, cut their mark by targeting Model A synthetics and overloading the magnetic emotion receptor. The Model A's advertised, writ in market spiel, Peace To The Humans. Except technology had yet to invent artificial emotion: The model sampled emotional state from people nearby. An angry human with a Model A made the synthetic angry. When too many people stood around it, a fatal processor flaw caused the receptor to burn the pattern. Garcia's hive did this for cred.

  "Gloria got knocked around and her drums got sixed." Carlos slapped his hands together. "Bang!" He shook his head, sat down in the hallway with Julian. "All screwed up."

  "I body checked this beefsteak, he didn't give a shiver. Scanned me like a free download, pushing out some crip." The bite about Garcia’s hive swarmed Julian’s head, more social pull than Brahma-man. Screaming echoed from the main room.

  "No tu grokas?" Carlos kicked Julian's boot. "That’s body armor for the chica on the bit. " Carlos looked to see if Gloria made it free of the ruckus. "She squats on your lawn. Tu grokas? "

  "No yo shiver, Carlosito, but I don't drop armor. That black dude's hive is swarmin’. They don't say nothing like human, just bang-bang kiss-bye fido."

  Again, Carlos kicked Julian’s boot. "Stank dope make you stupid? They're no hive. A gang of Model A’s Garcia made. They're mimicking Garcia and trashing your vector. Cops'll run an AS on ‘em. "

  "Bobble."

  New Seattle's law enforcement existed as service non-gratis. Julian imprinted a release form stating: You are entitled to call the police, but they may not be held liable for what transpires. Glorified trash collectors. Brutal hive that’d x-bomb first and, and that’s it. X-bomb. Oddly, ironically, iconoclastically, no one died. Police academy training: Chuck the x-bomb, fire the x-rifle, graduate. X-weapons suck. Mix rioters and an x-bomb or x-rifle and really effing fast they aren’t so uppity anymore.

  Carlos snapped his fingers in front of Julian's face. "Sound check. Probe la chica’s nest. Prolly have – something. Get down and low with that crip stank, she’ll play for you."

  Julian, annoyed with being kicked, glowered. "You snortin’ that Aqua-Velva sauce? Body armor says, No Jules, eff off. You think she’s dealing shop from a metal bed?"

  Carlos said, "Effects. Any chica on the bit spins high-tone ‘rics. Kick it. We'd be the hardest-smokin’ gig to hit the Pipe."

  "Bobble." Julian nodded towards the hall and grabbed his axe. "It's Gloria, let's go. Promised to cut stank."

  Carlos hefted his bass and snorted. "That’s worn and mangy tail. Dress for rain."

  "No down-vote, but my cup is dry."

  "Tu grokas, amigo. Wise up. Be, like, romantic and hunt the wild. Grep smart conversation the way you replay." Carlos helped Gloria with the remains of her drum, all of it trashed, and the three left into the alley.

  After clearing the back exit, Gloria held up her reddened forearm and said, "Damn, got burned. Bouncer pulled an x-piece and mopped the Model A's and humans."

  Julian led Gloria and Carlos out of the alley. On the street, a tactical squad surrounded the front door and pitched four or five x-grenades inside. Julian cringed: Mob’s got no foresight. Here comes the X. Gloria started walking away and Julian hurried on her footsteps.

  Carlos said, "Smell up? They’re smoking a bad batch. I'd rather be shot than get X’d alongside that crap."

  Julian winced against a bright flash bleeding onto the street. A crowd thickened around them, and he fought through the ranks to catch up with Gloria. He slung his arm around her waist.

  "Jules," she said, and pushed his hand off her hip, "Gotta shutdown. My chakra is all, like, misaligned. Another time?"

  "Si, bobble." Julian shrugged, waved her off, and coded a sign to Carlos. The laser clock etching the night sky showed a late hour. The neighborhood hives would be swarming, so Julian hailed a mag-cab.

  The cab’s skids screeched over a curbside landing plate and the backdoor slid open. Julian climbed in, laid his axe across his lap, and pulled the padded flight harness over his shoulders.

  "Where? Donde?" The voice came from somewhere in the front, behind an inch of Kevlar and high impact ceramic.

  Julian wheezed: A mildewed aroma infused the cabin with rotting plastic, the seats upholstered in mold-crusted spills. A new series came to mind, Dirtiest Cab in USNA. Someone probably thought of that before. "Capital Hill, 12th at Madison. Tres Terrace."

  The mag-cab lurched upwards, drifting in and out of a sky lane demarked with hovering buoys. The flight corridor took them to a safe height, but still at window level, so the occasional voyeur leered from the safety of reinforced glass.

  When the mag-cab descended to a strip near Madison, Julian slid his thumb over a payment terminal and punched his twelve-digit password. A computerized voice bid him buenos noches and a blinking red light over an x-gun invited him to promptly exit the vehicle.

  Julian's house, willed to him by his parents, once occupied a decent neighborhood. No longer: Now, hives roamed the streets. As he walked to his front door he saw the mammoth wheeling the child into the house next to his. He stopped and watched, wondering why, in the fourteen years he had lived there, had he never met his neighbors. When did the Alvarez’s move out? He had no idea. No house on the block showed transparent windows.
Armored shutters covered the glass, and he suspected that those who could afford them installed nature scene viewers.

  The mammoth turned towards him, grunted. Julian briskly walked past and the huge man turned, followed him. He wondered if the stun gun in his pocket could talk beefsteak body armor.

  Julian stopped walking, shifted his axe to his left hand, and clenched the stun gun in his right.

  "Excuse me," Bashi said with a thick Indian accent.

  Julian felt his blood curdle. "No yo shiver. That’s real. Truth. I didn’t scan nothing."

  Bashi laughed and the sound of his gay, lively chuckling surprised Julian. Gentle laughter. "Mi amigo, my friend, requests: Play for her?"

  Julian turned around, holding his axe against his leg, and released the x-grenade. He opened his mouth, ready to speak, and