Authors: Matthew S. Cox
Absent of conscious thought, her old instincts drew the power out of the mechanism before it could fire, leaving it slouched and twitching. Her hands trembled as she stared at it. With fading panic came the reality she could not stand there concentrating to keep it dead; she had to deal with it. Filaments of amber light parted to her mind’s eye, searching for its power uplink. Her gut tightened as she beckoned the surge, pulling power from the building through the sentry gun in amounts beyond its limit.
The turret arm shuddered, sputtered, and smoked before falling against the concrete roof panels with a note like an out of tune bell, its Myofiber muscles limp. Mr. Orange sauntered around the edge, the cable rifle over his shoulder, and glanced at the smoking remnants.
“Not sure how you managed that. P’raps Carroll was right about you.”
“Guess it didn’t much fancy the rain.”
Anna had gotten her fair share of practice at lies, but she cringed inwardly at the weakness of her response. She rubbed her forehead and leaned against the transmitter array. Carelessness would get her killed or put in a cage and poked by the intelligentsia. Of course, the zoom had also put her in a cage. She debated which kind of poking was worse.
Light glimmered in the corner of her eye with the opening of an access panel. Orange flipped it upward into an awning against the relentless downpour. Glowing bunches of optic cable wound over each other inside, looking like a brain made out of red light; groups of fiber as big around as a man’s arm went in every conceivable direction. Individual threads within the clusters shimmered at random, flickering here and there as millions of conversations, images, sounds, and other traces of the modern age scurried across the GlobeNet.
Each nanosecond flash could be a hundred messages going to a hundred people. Daydreaming about the information made her head hurt. She took the umbrella she had bought from the sad little orb out of her jacket and popped it open, relaxing against an HVAC unit as if she waited at a tram stop.
Orange worked at a feverish pace, picking at the bundles to expose single threads of fiber. He appeared to be searching for a specific one. Anna squatted, peeking over his shoulder.
“How can you tell them apart?”
The old man was gone. Orange’s normal face, complete with glowing eyes, looked up at her and blinked once.
“I can see the data in real time.”
That made her head hurt even more. She stood again, ignoring him, drifting between attempts at watching for danger and trying to tamp withdrawal back down into a can she would open later. Orange spun thread after thread betwixt his fingers, smirking at each for a second or two before discarding it to the side. After what felt like forever, he drew one out from the rest, farther than any other, and grinned. She straightened up, taking her weight off her back.
“That’s the one.”
“Good, my ass is getting numb.”
Somewhere in the dark, a hovercar whined its way across the sky. Light orbs from the ion drives didn’t appear anywhere in sight; it was a good thing the weather was so poor. Whoever was in it couldn’t see them either.
Orange removed a one-inch black sphere from the case. It split open like a clamshell and he clamped it around the fiber, squeezing a button on its side as he closed it. White light appeared in small seams for several seconds before it dimmed to lime green. Once the color changed, he connected the wire lead from the splicer into a cyberspace deck, safe from the rain inside his armored black case.
“Ok, lass. Here’s the dangerous part. I’m goin’ inside now. I’m gonna be like a corpse out here―”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not a total blonde. I’ve done this before.”
“You’re not blonde at all.”
He winked. With a flick of a thumb, the M3 wire clicked in behind his right ear and he sagged forward like a Samurai after committing seppuku. His arms fell limp at his sides, his black coat fanned out over the roof behind him. A dead man knelt upon sheets of rain, awash with dark crimson light glinting from each droplet beaded on his shoulders and arms.
Anna gazed into the patterns dancing in the air, wondering why the wind fought so hard to keep the water from falling. A flash of cold paralyzed her for a moment; the withdrawal had gone from hot that kept her almost comfortable out here into the chills phase. She sank into a squat and clutched at the umbrella handle. Diving into the North Sea in February would have felt warmer than she did at that moment. Each gust of wind rattled her teeth and chased feeling from her fingers and toes.
The gale threatened to tear the umbrella out of her grip. Not wanting to lose something she paid twenty whole credits for, she collapsed it and let the rain hit her in the face. At this altitude, the droplets flew at her sideways, rendering the umbrella moot anyway. Within a few minutes, the sensation passed and the hot phase returned. Soaked through, it was almost pleasant.
Orange grumbled, his body twitching as if he had let out a one-second chuckle at something a touch shy of being humorous. Anna glanced at him, wondering what he saw in cyberspace to elicit such a noise. Was he amused by something, or fighting for his life? Anna had worked with hackers before, hearing them speak of what it was like on the other side in a virtual world as real as this one, only death meant an hour of misery rather than the end of one’s life. She could never know what it was like; cyberware was out of the question. She couldn’t keep a NetMini for more than a week without frying it. Electronics
inside
her would be a disastrous idea.
Anna nibbled on her fingernails, finally taking a good look at the defenseless man Carroll was paying her to protect. He was not harsh upon the eyes, and not the sort of man who would have shown up at the club to watch her dance. He exuded high class, or at least higher-class than those idiots. She fantasized about having a man sweep her off her feet and save her from her wretched life, carrying her off into the sunset like the knight from the vids she used to watch. Her head clanked against the metal behind her.
Who am I kidding? They’re called fairytales for a reason.
Orange grunted again; this time, she was sure the sheen on his forehead was sweat and not rain. Curious, she peered at his surface thoughts. Flashes of hallway, white and black marble, passed as flakes of chipped stone flew amid the echo of gunfire. With a submachine gun in his left hand and a katana in his right, he fought a wall of creatures, shadowy things that looked like men only somehow more alien. She leaned back, letting the mental link drop.
Maybe the zoom changed things on her. Sometimes the hallucinations came back when your brain starves for it, only they would be dark and threatening. The drug made you see things depending on where your head was at the moment; some said it brought out your inner personality. She usually saw pixies and cute things, but sometimes there would be an ogre with her father’s face.
Those were the bad trips.
A pneumatic hiss made her head snap up. Rain threaded off her nose into a rivulet. Cold embraced her in every sense of the word. Heavy boots thudded into the concrete. Orange was still a zombie. A little red umbrella peeked up over the roof. She stood and looked in the direction of the approaching boots. Deep and foreboding, a man’s voice echoed through the sound of the rain.
“Gotta be over ‘ere.”
“Yep. Got two on thermal.”
Shit.
Anna forced her twitching muscles to still themselves. With a gulp, she balled her hands into fists and waited. Two men, both over six foot, came around the corner. Glistening grey armor covered their entire bodies, a blue BT logo emblazoned upon the corner of their chest. Each had a rifle aimed forward in a one handed grip. One frowned at Orange, the other looked at Anna and his gaze softened.
These two did not look like constables, rather private security employed by BT. If Anna and Orange were not shot and dumped in the Thames, they would likely be stuffed in a holding facility somewhere in the building with no trial, held at the whim of some executive. Illegal though it was, Old Bill could not care about things Old Bill was not aware of.
“Looks like we got a snoop what brought his strung-out bird along.”
Their size scared her witless for an instant, until she sensed the augmentation in them. Either was probably strong enough to toss a car on its side one-handed. On the turn of a dime, mouse became cat. She stepped away from Orange, advancing a pace towards them.
“You two best be on your way then, this doesn’t concern you. No ‘arm to BT, just borrowin’ a backbone connect.”
They exchanged a disbelieving glance. The one on the left chuckled while the other spoke.
“Who the hell do you think you are? Get on the ground, now.”
“Really, I don’t want to hurt you. Piss off then, and forget you saw us.”
Grimacing through a muscle cramp in her left thigh, she tilted her head. His laugh stalled as something by the edge of the roof caught his attention; nothing was there when she looked at the spot.
“Look, hon, you’re young, you’re pretty, and you got no weapons. Don’t give us an excuse to break that sweet little face.”
Her hands shook. The trembles were on her, and they would not stop for some time yet. Adrenaline soaked into her dried-up brain. She’d slipped into a cold spot again, all her body wanted to do was shiver. The headache formed a wall between her and her power. The security men got closer. One raised his weapon at her. Anna tried to focus through the feeling of a skull packed with cotton balls. She glanced at Orange, helpless. She felt stupid for even thinking she could do this.
“Not telling you again girl, get on your face.”
Come on! Damn drugs…
A fist grabbed her by the collar, tightening a bundle of jacket against her neck. She cringed.
Calm down.
She brought the sound of Penny begging the Crossman to let her go into her mind. The memory of how it felt to surge with power crept in behind it. Anna raised her arms as if to surrender. Her body shuddered, but she let herself go.
With a crack like a gunshot, a narrow spark leapt from the tip of the obelisk and struck her in the back. The guard holding her jumped away, howling and shaking his hand. The beautiful amber filigree of subdermal wiring traced over their bodies, outlining all their implants. She reached for the transmitter array, clawing through the air at the two men. She grasped the power, pulling it out of the machinery and willing it into the world. A web of lightning arced from the corners of the metal box, scoring burns across their armor and knocking them flat to the ground. They skidded back several meters into the wall of the elevator enclosure.
She tugged her coat back into place and made a ‘come here’ motion at their weapons. The power cell for their rifles’ firing circuits dissipated in a tiny crawling shimmer of blue along the wet roof. Their guns went dark, the absence of glowing LEDs revealing their uselessness. Anna glanced at Orange, wishing he would hurry up and be done with whatever he was doing. He still knelt in silent meditation, a techno-Buddhist lost in a world imagined by machines.
Anna swayed into the vibrating chamber of fiber optics, her touch sent little arcs creeping in two directions along the frame; a one-handed grip kept her from falling to the ground. Her hands shook, her legs twitched, and the roof wavered back and forth in her vision. Bile leaked through her lips, trailing to join the water she stood in. Hot and cold came one after the other, so fast they blended into an entirely new level of awfulness.
A moan emanated from one of the security men as he sat up. With an exasperated grunt, Anna latched her mind onto the power lines in the elevator system and created a blooming orb of lightning six meters around. The security men convulsed for several seconds before she released the power. Both collapsed flat, steaming and moaning. She was nowhere near as angry as she was in the alley. Penny was not in danger; her body could only handle so much power so soon after that night. Anna swooned to her knees, sparks dancing out from where her hands touched wet metal. Pain like a dagger through the skull set her heaving. She would have thrown up again if not for having an empty stomach.
“What the hell…”
Orange was awake.
Anna looked up, not even noticing the sparks that lapped at her body. He stared with both eyebrows lifted; his eyes brightened almost yellow as monk-like calm parted long enough to flash a ‘please don’t kill me’ smile.
“Well fuck me, you really are a psio. Carroll wasn’t dicking around this time.”
He slammed the panel closed like a mechanic having finished his work. She forced herself up and zombie-walked over to him, no longer possessed of the energy necessary to hide how bad a state she was in.
Orange caught her fall and pulled her into a platonic embrace. “Easy Pixie, guess that took a lot out of you.”
He doesn’t know I’m a drugged out wreck.
“Yeah…”
“No worries lass. I’m good with secrets.”
“Thanks.”
Associating with people that operated outside the law provided some comfort. He would be disinclined to approach the government to report an unregistered because they would ask him questions he did not want to answer. Anna did her best to walk as he pulled her along to the edge of the roof. The sound of the rain upon the tiny lake they stood in gave way to the spectral keening of razor wire being cut and peeled. Doing it one handed slowed him down; Anna glanced over at the moaning of the security men as they stirred.
“Sorry I’m spent so fast. Not quite the protection you asked for.”
“No harm, girl. I needed protection when I was online, not so much now.”
Time blinked out of existence for her until she felt something tightening around her wrists, binding them together.
Plastic zip ties.
“Ow! What the hell are you doing? I thought…”
“Trust me… You’re in no condition to hold on to anything but the floor.”
He turned his back on her, and pulled her arms over his head, wearing her like a living cape. As the scrapes of the security armor signaled the men were standing, Orange stepped off the roof. Anna clung as hard as she could, which was not much, and breathed into the thick bundle of synthetic wool at the base of his neck.