The Bridge Chronicles Trilogy (2 page)

Bridge kept that smile on his face, tossing the kid a conspiratorial wink. “Say no more.” He stopped as the punks giggled like schoolgirls. “No, really, say no more. I don’t need nor want to know what you use the product for. You never knew me and I never knew you, got it? I know a guy. You give me 24 hours and I’ll have you a meeting set up. My cut is $3,000 in advance. You pay in cash, five-year, deposited in a locker at this address. We meet tomorrow night and I’ll give you the details.”

“You could tell us some bullshit and leave us hanging!” the middle-class kid, Brett Wolf, said. “Uh uh, you get paid after we get our stuff.”

Bridge got serious. He could see the gigantic form of his bodyguard, Aristotle, hovering over him in the mirrored wall behind his clients. He gave the bodyguard a subtle hand signal to keep the giant from interfering. “That isn’t how it works. You may not know me, but you know of me, right? And do you really think anybody would have given you my name if I was the kind to fuck over a client? No, they wouldn’t because I’m not. My word is bond. I tell you you’ll get the meet, get it you will. Whether you can work out a deal is your problem, not mine. People use my services because I know people they don’t, and I don’t give a fuck what it is you want or how you are going to use it because it never touches my hands. I do nothing illegal. Now if you want to go wandering around asking people for highly illegal drugs because you’re too cheap or paranoid to use me, we’ll see where thd asee wheat gets you. But if you want your drugs, I can save you the trouble of getting guns stuck in your face for asking very dangerous people very dangerous questions. We clear?”

The three exchanged nervous glances. Archer tossed an angry bug-eyed stare at Wolf, which seemed to silence him. “No, it’s cool, man. You’re the guy we want to deal with. Here’s my card.” He handed Bridge a flashy bizchip. “Call me when you have things set up. You’ll get your money.” Bridge chuckled inside at the uselessness of a college kid with a bizchip, but took it without comment.

“You won’t be disappointed, young gents,” Bridge said with the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster.

*****

“You’re going to do what?”

Angela’s tone was bitingly chilly, malicious anger bleeding through her voice despite the crèche’s tinny speaker. Bridge’s live-in girlfriend, Angela Powell, was jacked into the GlobalNet, an architect of a number of massive virtual worlds and full-time information broker for a stable of hackers domestic and international. Bridge used to be one of them, before the riots last August. The experiences the two of them had shared during those awful days had affected them both in different ways. While Bridge had given up the hacker life and become the know-to, go-to guy, the amoral fixer with the slick patter, Angela had retreated deeper into the GlobalNet. Their apartment, never the most well-kept joint, had become an absolute shithole. Used food containers and dirty dishes were left everywhere, dust accumulated on every surface, dirty clothes piled up in the closets and hallways, towels mildewed on the bathroom floor when Bridge neglected to pick them up. Angela didn’t see the mess most days anyway. She spent hours and days at a stretch buried in the coffin-like crèche. The layer of dust coating its exterior dulled the shiny black surface, but it was the only thing Bridge ever saw of her anymore.

“I gotta get some Sluv for a bunch of fratboys,” he repeated flatly. “What’s Doc Cramer’s number, babe?”

“What am I, your fucking yellow pages? Look it up yourself, asshole.”

Bridge raised an eyebrow. “I take it you don’t approve.”

The speaker was silent for long, tense moments. The silent treatment then. Bridge sighed and went to his own abandoned crèche, similarly dusty. He brought up the exterior console and began a search for Cramer’s number. “You’re just going to ignore me?” Bridge sighed again.

“Ignore what? You didn’t say anything.”

“You shouldn’t even have ghtt even to ask me if I approve. You’re getting a date rape drug for a bunch of leg-humping rich boy cocksuckers.”

“Of course. The leg-humping poor boy cocksuckers aren’t profitable.”

“How can you even look at yourself in the mirror? They are going to rape some drunk college bow bitch and you’re going to give them the stuff so they can get away with it. You might as well be raping them yourself!”

Bridge had found Cramer’s number and transferred it to his internal HUD. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic. You know as well as I do these fuckheads would rape a lamppost if they could get it drunk enough. It isn’t like they need the drug to bang some sorority chick against her will. They could get her drunk, or just beat her into submission. At least with this shit, the chick isn’t likely to get a beatdown.”

“Wow, you miserable fuck. That’s the most sickening rationalization I’ve ever heard in my life. What the fuck happened to you?”

The old argument had cycled back around again like some ravenous beast, never satisfied with tiny nibbles at their relationship. The same arguments, the same justifications, the same insults, they always returned, each time with more anger, more venom and more hurtful words that couldn’t be taken back. Angela had resented his choices, had resented his leaving behind the hacking life. Though she had been in charge of the illegal information brokering business, as their relationship had grown closer, he had taken a good deal of the responsibility from her shoulders, and he was a fantastic organizer. His absence had hurt her professionally, but she took it personally, as if he had repudiated her entirely.

At her best, Angela was not a social person, at least not in the flesh. She was not the most attractive person. Her gangly arms, small breasts and crooked teeth hardly matched the accepted version of good-looking. Bridge knew her self-image was terrible, but when she tried, she was much prettier than she believed herself to be. The fact that Bridge had been able to shift from the virtual to the meat world with very little adjustment must have stirred a jealousy she didn’t even want to acknowledge.

Bridge had earned the nickname the Amoral Bridge by being exactly that. He didn’t care what his clients wanted him to find, what depravity they requested, what immoral acts they wished to perform. The client wanted it and he got it, no questions asked. His only request was that whatever illegal service or product got exchanged never touch him. All he did was connect the buyer with the seller. That couldn’t be illegal, or at least not illegal enough to get him much heat. That amorality was another sticking point with Angela, despite her chosen profession.

“How do you help these shitheels do these things without throwing up? Don’t they disgust you?”

Bridge exploded. He’d heard it all so many times by now that he was sick to the death of it all. “They all disgust me, every fucking one of them! All of them! EVERYBODY! You think I go out of my way to find these people, that I have to look hard for clients? Shit. I have to turn people away some days, not because I give two flying fucks what tog fucks they want, but because I just don’t have the time. You think there’s normal people out there that don’t want nasty shit like virtual videos of their friends getting tortured, or hired killers, or kidnappers, or date rape drugs but there ain’t. Everybody wants to do something nasty and vile to somebody else. Everybody! They’re all fucking shitheels with disgusting, immoral, vicious desires buried in their tiny, miserable souls just waiting for an excuse to get out. The sooner it gets out and they all burn themselves up in a fiery orgy of self-destructive gluttony, the happier I’ll be. Humanity as a whole is a miserable gaggle of self-pleasuring apes ready to crack you over the head and steal your fucking bananas.”

Having found the number, he felt trapped, closed into a slowly shrinking box that was their apartment. The air was stuffy and smelled of rotten food. He needed to get out, needed space and air. He couldn’t take it anymore. He would head down to the club and call Cramer. He would set the whole thing up and be done with these bastards.

“That’s it, I’m done. Fuck you, Bridge. If you do this, I’m done.” Her words echoed through the hallway as he shuffled quickly towards the door.

“Then I guess you’re fucking done,” he said as the slammed the door.

*****

“And you’re sure this guy is solid?” Archer whined. His rat-faced grin, so smug and self-assured gave Bridge the urge to plant a quick jab right on the guy’s pointy nose, an urge he fought down with some difficulty.

“Doc Cramer is a hundred percenter,” Bridge replied with no hint of malice in his voice. “Whatever he sells you will be the mad notes.”

“It better be,” Pearson threatened, “or we will bury you.”

“You know, I got plenty of business from people who don’t threaten me. Maybe I should go take care of some of it.” Bridge was genuinely ready to walk away, if for no other reason than to see how far they’d go to get him back. If he pushed it, if they really tried to play the hardass, he might even be able to get a few extra points out of the deal. Bridge started to stand, and Archer almost knocked the table over to keep him from leaving. Aristotle had tired of the game and leaned over the back of their booth, exposing his tree-trunk thick biceps to full view. Archer thought better of actually touching Bridge once he saw the dark form of the bodyguard hovering over the transaction.

“Sal, shut the fuck up, dude. I got this. It’s cool, man. It’s all good. We’re all friends here.” Archer couldn’t take his eyes off the bodyguard’s arms.

Bridge sat back down, his smile oozing smug triumph. “If the dick-measuring contest is quite through with, let’s get down to business.” He pulled a bizchip from his pocket and laid it in the exact center of the table. “Payment received, so we’re all set on my end. You put your thumb on this chip and Cramer will contact you shortly to set up fulfillment. I never see the stuff, and I never met you. You can back out now, and I’ll refund half the fee and we never met.” Bridge had to give them the out, give them the opportunity to tamp down their worst desires. He was always surprised when someone took that opportunity, mostly because it was such a rare occurrence. Despite the profit, he was always a little disappointed when a deal went through. But the more jobs he did, the more he saw that the people who sought him couldn’t help themselves, no matter how self-destructive their requests were, no matter how far down the path to self-immolation they already were. His clients either couldn’t help themselves or didn’t want to.

Archer giggled with depraved glee and jammed his thumb down onto the card. It flashed twice. Bridge picked it up and tossed it into the sparkling clean ashtray where it smoked and shriveled before catching fire and dissolving into a fine pile of ash. “Enjoy your party, boys,” Bridge said and waved them off. They left with hardy back slaps and effervescent excitement.

Despite the fee, Bridge was going to make nothing on this job. He had traded his entire fee to Cramer for a special request of his own. Bridge knew that his reputation required that he get his fratboys exactly what they wanted no matter how sleazy it made him feel. But their attitude towards him demanded attention. There was no reason to be so dickish in business. He could have gotten them anything they wanted and looked the other way without blinking, but they had to play the alpha male. Spoiled rich kids with nothing to lose because their daddy’s money would always backstop any bad behavior really pissed him off. So he asked Cramer to work a little extra magic on his client’s order of Sluv.

The drugs would work, of course. They could dissolve it in a chick’s drink, or place the paper-thin tabs on the girl’s skin. Within minutes, the victim would be completely suggestible, a fully conscious robot awaiting whatever depraved instructions the boys could dream up. The men would touch the tabs since Sluv were normally designed to only work on female body chemistry. Unfortunately for Archer and his would-be rapists, Bridge had asked Cramer to spike the dose.

The rapists would get their victims, but they’d be completely impotent for the entire duration. Whether the male touched the tab to administer the drug, or touched the victim’s skin after it took effect, there was a second nano component that turned a male’s equipment into a flaccid noodle.

Bridge was taking a chance, of course. The disappointed customers might try to blame Bridge, but to do that, they’d have to admit they couldn’t close the deal. Bridge was betting on the fragile ego of the alpha male. If there was one thing Bridge figured he could count on, it was his client’s inability to admit they couldn’t lay pipe at a moment’s notice. They would lie to each other, maybe even lie to themselves, but the odds they would put two and two together to equal Bridge were astronomical. It may have cost Bridge his entire fee, but it was worth it.

Bridge thought about Angela with a scowl darkening his face. Angela had made her arrangements moments after he slammed the door. His shit would be gone by the time he returned. He thought briefly about calling her, about trying to explain what he’d done, but dismissed it. He could explain all he wanted, but the distance between them had grown too wide, had grown with every job he’d done, with every minute he’d spent doing this thing he had to do.

*****

BOOK 1: UNDER THE AMORAL BRIDGE, A CYBERPUNK NOVEL