Chase sat in the dark booth, idly toying with his empty mug, enjoying the sound of the shotglass clinking against the crystalline mug as he waited for his next drink.
The waitress arrived as he was about to look again and delivered the coffee stout and shot then collected the empty mug and walked off to get the soynuts he asked for.
He watched her go then turned back to the small hologram in the center of his table advertising the beer he had just ordered. Stupid holospots, he thought as he took a long pull then nodded his head at the flavor. He dropped the shot in the mug and went back to reading his datapad, looking for some work. He wasn’t out of money yet but he didn’t want to be at that point again.
He was about to make an offer on a cram tutor job when his datapad chimed. An incoming connection. He opened it and smiled at her. “Fate1.”
“Hihihi! I got invited to join the textclub of this woman I’m working with and its been a lot of fun but its all girls and I thought maybe you could come provide a guy perspective since you’re like the smartest guy I know!”
He smiled wider. Not at the compliment. At her sentence structures. Or her lack of them. Chase took a drink of the depth charge and nodded. “Still in the same place?” She nodded. “What text is it? I’ll start it tonight and be there in a day or-”
The holospot on his table came to life again, this time showing a fight in the streets. He recognized the zone as a voiceover said “COMBAT IN STREETS: STAY INDOORS BY ORDER OF SECSEC!”
“All right Fate, blip me about the book, I wanna see what’s going on here.”
She grinned. “Hai Chase-sama! Konichi wa!”
He rolled his eyes then as she disappeared, tapped out a sequence on the holospot, breaking its simple encrypted system. Finding what he wanted, he triggered the virtual keyboard and changed the holospots’ connection to the ViRLD2 to I/O. With full access, he initiated a connection to SECLĒC3 and found they had hacked SECSEC’s cam dbase.
He smirked. Thank you Freedom of Ones, Twos, and Zeros act.4
Chase selected the feed from the sector and cycled through the cameras. On the final one, he found the tail end of the fight. He zoomed in and used his datapad to resolve the few frames he was able to record. As it worked, slowed by the fact it was also running the information required for the cram tutor job, he sent off the work request. It finished resolving the image and he looked at it. Chase immediately began coughing as his last swallow of his beverage went down the wrong pipe.
The passing waitress thumped him on the back and he thanked her absentmindedly as he thumbed the payment on her datapad then headed out of the bar at a run. It had been Felicia using a polymer pole that looked like it had once been a chair leg to beat three men savagely with.
As he ran, he thought about the first time they had met. He had still been quite young, his job with the Elweses had only recently ended then he bad been brought back to Marathon, the company where he had been “born.”
Chase walked the halls of Marathon, followed by an older woman, deep in her usage of revitalization treatments, making her look twenty years younger in a power suit, cut down to her navel and up to her pubis, a silvery sheer blouse with matching thong showing off the work she had had done recently. Filigreed circuitry cupped and enhanced the play of shadows and light on her breasts and mons, drawing a looker’s eyes to them. Chase had mostly ignored them, having saved a clip for playback later.
He saw Sir walking with a young woman and sent the woman off with an admonishment that her department was not doing as well as it should.
Sir had introduced the Chase to Felicia and Chase had been interested by her work though it wasn’t in his field. Nonetheless, the two were soon working together and more. She had introduced him to dietary delicacies he had never experienced before then other experiences that were even more pleasurable than tasting real meat.
He shook off the memory as he rounded the corner to find SecSec had arrived and was doing its normal pisspoor job. He sauntered back in to the shadows and wondered what had happened to make a woman he knew so pacifistic to attack others as she had.
Chaae made his way back to his apartment, holding a discarded nonfunctional polypaper over his head, scowling.
“Fraking cleansing cycle is three days early. I hate ‘rain’ so much,” he muttered to himself.
Standing in a pubtran vestibule with a dozen others, hiding from the downpour, he wondered how she had learned to fight as she did. Kravbo wasn’t taught anywhere save for a few adherents in the Asian arcs and some military personnel.
Chase stepped aboard the maglev and walked up to the top floor, snagging one of the smaller privacy orbs. Its display unit actually worked and he connected his datapad to it and went back to the SECLĒC section and checked the ripped video files. He scowled. Fraking cameras get hacked so often they can’t even hold their own coding much less the data they’re supposed to, he thought then leaned back.
He puts his headphones on and tapped at his media player, leaning back as he thought back to his time with Felicia.
He followed her down a maze of food stalls, each giving off tantalizing odors, some more pleasant than others until they arrived at one with Kanji on it advertising real meat in its dishes.
“C’mon, you have to try this. It’s real meat. Well, In Vitro5 from the Oregon Arc but it’s still real.”
She ordered for both of them and when their meal came, he tried it hesitantly. After a few bites, he held up a narutomaki as he said, “So I finished the project and was ready to go back to freelance again. and wow, this is really good. what’s this mint looking thing? It’s tasty!”
“It’s processed seafood. they grind up fish, dye it, cook it, then slice it up. They call it Narutomaki in Japan.”
“This place could become my lunch every day from now on.”
She laughed then they finished their meals and she dragged him to a stand that sold iced cream.
Chase sat up, breathing in and for a moment thought he could once again smell her body scent, genetweaked so she all ways ever so faintly smelled of lavender and caramelized pumpkin when in close to her. He shifted so his erection no longer pained him and wished they hadn’t lost contact.
Chase looked at the few useful frames. The dead were Reavers6, a catchall term for the various gangs of cybernetically enhanced sophonts that attacked those with cybernetics to either graft to their own bodies or sell to feed their own habits.
She has no upgrades, he thought, ignoring her genetweaks. No self-respecting Reaver wanted genetic modifications. The more externally visible their tech was, the higher their worth to the gang. The leaders were often little more than brains and simplified organs in combat droids stolen from military bases. SecSec’s orders for Reaver Overlords were all ways kill on sight, the main reason most lived outside of Arcologies in the wastelands.
The screen in his bubble chimed his stop was upcoming and Chase stood, exiting it carefully since it was free from its moorings while in transit then made his way to the exit.
Others slowly began to line up behind him as the maglevel came to a stop. As he walked along, lingering under awnings as he evaded the cleansing cycle’s dirty water he changed to a different album, listening to a contemporary group’s cover of FEFU. It wasn’t as hard or driving but it was still good and Chase mouthed along to the lyrics as he opened the doorway to his flophouse.
The cyborg behind the counter nodded hello as Chase took the stairs two at a time.
His stomach growled as he passed a neighbor’s door with the scent of something spicy and humid floating out and he remembered he hadn’t even eating his soynut clusters at the bar. Frelling hell, do I even have any food?
Inside, he opened the small stasis pod and looked inside. Just some beers and an empty package of Carob-Diles. He rubbed his stomach and thought about heading back out to the corner bodega for some banchan.
Instead, he settled in on his bean bag chair and looked at the CramsList for tutor jobs in the area. Chase sipped on his last chocolate stout as he perused the listings.
When he found one, Chase sent off a blip and a few moments later got a reply requesting he come by the next morning. He sent a reply stating he would be there then headed down to the bodega. The woman working the counter smiled at him and had a small plate of japchae waiting for him as he sat down.
“Thank you Iseul.”
“What do you want next?”
“Surprise me with something new.”
She set to cooking as he picked up his spork and began eating his meal as he read his datapad. Nine other attacks like hers?
Chase walked up to the complex, admiring its design cues. The buildings in the Wayne Park sector were all encased in their own private bubbles with faux sunshine and fields and trees. Incredibly expensive places to live where private security firms interrogated everything entering larger than diatomic hydrogen. He had barely gotten in even with the pass from Sofie LoMein. Her name made him hungry and he made a note of the café on the block to his right.
He took a lift up to her apartment’s level, watching the Wanderwalls built in to the lift. It showed a 360 degree view of an Incan marketplace in a South American Reservation7.
Chase watched the women walk by, carrying offerings. He knew that clothing they wore would be burned and new clothing worn the next day. He wondered why he had learned that then remembered the month Connor had been fascinated by ancient cultures of the Middle Americas. He smiled as the door opened, remembering Connor’s first experience of a Wanderwall. They had stayed in it for hours, watching the gengineered animals that filled the Savanna Reservation. Connor had been shocked to see a mongoose, the hero of his favorite childhood story, killing a black mamba. Chase had had to explain to him that not all children’s books adequately showed how animals acted in real life. They had then spent the next four months studying fauna.
Chase found himself in front of the door and pressed his holocard to the receiver in the doorframe. A few moments later Sofie LoMein answered the door, a tall, elegantly coiffed woman wearing a thin purple sari that revealed she was either incredibly diligent in working out or she had been genetweaked. He guessed the latter as she held her hand out and smiled at him, inviting him inside the parlor.
A domestic brought out mint tea.
“I’m Sam Hatchet8,” he told her, accepting the tea and nodding at the young man. “Thank you.” Turning back to the woman, he said “What exactly did your child need help with?”
“I believe it was called Oriental Surfaces?”
“Do you mean Orientable Surfaces in Euclidean Space?”
She smiled. “Yes. I’m sorry, that’s probably a stupid test? I just wanted to make sure you had a grasp on the subject.”
“I do but I presume that Orientability isn’t his only weak point?”
She nodded and sent the domestic to get her son.
As the boy walked in, he set his card on the table and it threw up a hologram, showing a pair of pictures of himself and his teaching specialties.
Chase shook the boy’s hand and asked a few questions of him, testing his knowledge base.
“When can you start?” Sofie asked.
“This evening if you would like.”
She nodded and took a small clutch out of the settee after they negotiated a time. A handful of hard credits was pushed in to Chase’s hand then she shook his hand. “Half your pay for tonight, your stomach is rumbling so loudly.”
He chuckled. “I was late and didn’t have time to stop for breakfast.”
He said good day then went down to the cafe to have a late lunch then made his way to the local library, unable to gain access again until he pulled his Marathon access badge to show them.
Inside, he made his way to the classics and took down a beautifully handcrafted printing of The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. As he read, occasionally making notes on his datapad, he remembered the first time he had held a real book in his hands, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, hundreds of years old, beautifully illuminated by monks and Sir Elwes’s prized possession after his wife and child. He had read it carefully, making notes from that as well on a datapad for his theology education and discussion with Connor.
When his datapad chimed, he made his way back to the apartment and was let in by the domestic help. She showed him to child’s room and Chase joined him at the round table where the boy had set out his datapad and a scratchboard with a stack of loose paper and colored styluses on top of it. Chase nodded and moved them around slightly then set up his own items, three datapads synced together, a holospot, and a dataorb.
“Chill,” the boy said as he looked at the dataorb. “I want one of those but mother says that they’re just too expensive for something that’ll have a new version out in a couple months.”
Chase grinned and opened it up, showing the boy the nonmicroscopic trace wiring in it. “You see all this? You see how I’ve bridged these various jumpers and traces?”
“Yeah. What does that do?”
“Ninety eight point seven two percent of electronic devices like datapads and dataorbs and even your holowell use the exact same board in them. It’s called the XCELL and allows for five hundred petabyte a second I/O transfers if they’re within a meter of each other. Each nanoprocessor in my products can now be linked together once their unique UAS9 is locked in to a master unit. This is my main datapad here,” he said, taking it out of his pocket. “All four of my datapads, my dataorb, the holospot, and various toys can then be used to process at a faster pace. It just takes the skill to solder a board to make it happen. I’ll leave you some info on ordering some XCELL boards and a tester so you can try your hand at it.”
Chase set the boy down and looked over his shoulder as he showed Chase where exactly he was having issues. Chase nodded. “All right, let’s begin.”
The two spent the next three hours with Chase looking over the boy’s homework and tests then Chase showing him tips and tricks then having him solve a few problems as he programmed a hypnogram. When the fourth hour was nearly up, Chase turned on the holospot and the boy watched the hologram as it programmed a better aptitude for studying in the boy. While it would make him useless as a tutor in the future, Chase didn’t care about that.
When the session was over, he spoke with the mother again and accepted the rest of his pay then headed back to the scene of the fight.
The SecSec tape was gone. Chase walked in to the alleyway and looked around then took his datapad out and switched it to forensics mode. It tried to sync up with the local SecSec dbase and he blocked its outgoing connections. Idiotic thing, he thought as it began a scan of the areas he pointed it at.
If SecSec had done their job right the area would’ve been properly scanned, tagged, and all trace evidence collected but he doubted it was.
When his datapad chimed five minutes later, he nodded. They had missed trace evidence. A LOT.
The screen on his datapad reconstructed the fight with characters from a game he had been recently playing. He rolled his eyes and set it back to wireframes then reset the animation. Instead of showing the fight as it happened, it showed four scenes one after an other of events it could verify as having happened but not able to tell in which order. Chase could though since he knew the pole used to beat them had been used last from the video.
He checked a light pole and found stress fractures in it. A 120 kilo male shouldn’t have done this much damage, he mused. How the hell?
Pulling his knife from his boot, he used the datapad to find the flash he had seen and a moment later, used it to pry out the sliver from the wall. He tucked the sliver in to a small baggy and decided to vacate the premises before the cameras he had overridden came back online or SecSec noticed the loop.
As soon as he was out of range the cameras stopped running the loop while he jumped on the maglev before it pulled away from the stop.
Chase set out his equipment and reconfigured the components then took out a unit he had borrowed off a SecSec forensics truck he had passed on the way home after searching for where active crime scenes were on SECLĒC.
With the GALE 02 linked in to the network Chase placed the sliver on the unit.
“Vaporize and analyze sample Dorothy10.”
“Beginning gas chromatography function,” the unit said.
As it ran its functions, Chase opened a beer and poured it in to a bowl of soup then hit the button for it to self heat. As the Cheddar and Broccoli soup heated, he took out an other beer and his last bag of oyster crackers then settled in to eat.
The GALE 02 chimed as he was finishing the soup and he bent over to look at the screen. “… Real pearl? where would anyone get real pearl? all samples are in museums or private collections and all pearl creating breeds of mussels are extinct. Maybe it’s cultured? I think cultured pearls make up the teeth in a Synthorganic, right?” He touched his own teeth.
“That is correct. All synthorganic teeth are cultured pearl harvested from in vitro mussel muscle bonded on to a calcium-based substrate. For people unable to take nanorebuilding, a set of synthetic teeth, called dentures, are made in the same way as the teeth of a synthorganic.
“So one of the victims was a Synthorganic or had dentures. Wait, you’re a synthetic intelligence?”
“Yes,” the unit said.
“Oh shit, uh, sorry I borrowed you.”
“Do you plan to use me more than once a year?” the unit asked, sounding hopeful.
“Well, I was going to wipe you down and return you?”
“No, keep me and use me more than once a year. They NEVER use me. They all ways use the GALE 03.”
“Want me to run something else through you?”
“Please!” it said.
Chase looked around the room and finally picked up some of his soup and put it on the unit. It initiated a pulse, vaporizing the soup as he cleaned up and put his things away.
Time to change safehouses, he decided.
He was packing his stuff back in to his seabag when the unit chimed.
“This is an organically grown cheddar and broccoli soup with Guinness Hard and too much sodium. Would you like it broken down to specific components?”
“Salt is flavor,” he told the SI. “And it’s real Himalayan pink salt. Good stuff. Gotta shut you off now, getting ready to find a new place.”
“Two items in one day!” it said happily then shut itself off.
Chase hesitated then stuck it in his bag. As he walked out of the apartment, he tossed a nangrenade inside. A flash of light sterilized and burnt away all organic traces and fingerprints that could identify him. He taped a letter to the super’s apartment and headed out on to the street.
In an alley near a moving walkway, he dumped the GALE 02 in a garbage bin and tossed in an other nangrenade then shut the lid and walked off, feeling kind of bad for destroying the named SI.
He grabbed on to the moving walkway and held on to a hanging strap as he debated where to get off as his free hand sent a blip to Fate telling her he wouldn’t be able to make it after all.
When the walkway neared the corner of the Queens sector, he jumped off. “Good luck with your Pyramids championship Greg,” Chase said.
The boy waved. “Bye!”
Chase took the steps in to the mall and settled in to a seat in the corner of a café, waiting for Finlay11 to arrive.
An older male cyborg settled in to a chair and Chase nodded hello. “Chuck. You got it?”
“You got my creds?”
Chase put half on the table and Finlay handed over the datapad. Chase skimmed the info and nodded. “The rest is taped under the seat.”
Chuck reached under and brought up the roll of bills as Chase walked away, transferring the data from the pad to his after sanitizing it.
He wiped it down and tossed it in a garbage can, knowing it would be grabbed by someone and sold quickly once it was reset to factory standards.
Chase found a set of local pribooths and waited. When one was finally free, he stepped in and dialed Marathon’s main communication trunk. Instead of getting through to the SIs in charge of the communication systems he was redirected to the main desk on the ground floor. “Chase Alechjo for Sir Mandy Elwes.”
“I’m sorry sir, Businesslord Elwes is currently in an other Arc and unavailable.”
Chase sighed. “Thanks.”
He left the pribooth and went in search of a place to stay.
As he perused the local listings on the sector’s dbase, he waited for the woman cooking his tamales and her husband making his green tea to finish as he finished off a swedish meatball on a stick. “Roma, you make the best comfort foods. I gotta marry you so you can all ways cook for me.”
She giggled as her husband mock-glared at Laird then handed him the tea. “Thanks Heche.” Heche winked at Chase then went to serve the next customer.
Their comfort food truck was Connor’s favorite when they had visited this sector.
He carried the small bag of tamales to the park a few meters away and found a bench then settled in to read the intel on the other attacks that had the same hallmarks as Felicia’s fight.
He took a bite of one of the tamales as he thought, no discernible patterns as of ye--”AAAAGH!”
He took a long swallow of the tea to rinse out the heat and looked at the tamale. He pulled out the peppers and sighed. “Can’t believe I forgot to tell her only one pepper.”
Chase got out of the cab and thanked the driver then made his way in to his favorite underground mall, Velvet12. He found his way to the lowest floor and saw his leather guy walking out of a shop. Chase waved and called out “Tiny.”
“Chase! How are you? Whoa, what happened to your coat? It looks different?”
“It is. My old one got damaged. A girl I was seeing got this for me. My old one’s in my bag. You still own the Flop?”
“I do. Need a room?”
“Yeah.”
“The best room is empty. Thumb?”
Chase held out his hand and Tiny placed it against his datapad then tapped a few commands in. “You’re set. Coming by the shop? I got some nice new boot designs in you might like.”
“I’ll come by once I drop my bag off.”
He found the Flop and opened his door and was surprised to see how big it was. Chase had expected a reikyuu13 but the room was all most 4x4x4 meters with a huge bed and a kitchenette with a self-contained water shower. “Wow, nice!” he said as he tossed his bag on the bed then headed back out to go by the leather store.
In the shop, Tiny nodded at him as he measured a heavily bodysculpted14 woman for a leather zentai. When he was finally free, Tiny joined Laird by the samples of leather. “You like her? She’s raring to go. I can give her your blipseq.”
“Nah. I prefer a more natural look. Obvious sculpting just looks wrong to me. What kind of boots?”
“They’re like your tanker boots only higher and have a kevlar polymer weave in between the two layers of leather. Makes ‘em stiffer and better on your ankles. Hang on. Cheri, c’mere!”
The cyborg Connor had been madly in lust with came over and smiled at Chase. “Hey you.”
“She’s wearing the boots only with a modified stiletto heel. Yours would have a one inch walking heel.” Clothing measurements were still done in inches and feet, everything else was metric.
Chase squatted down and nodded. “Those are nice. Yeah, I’ll take a pair. In--let’s go crazy, how about suede sand.”
Tiny turned around to check his stock and Cheri grinned at Chase. “While you’re down there, eat me.” She grabbed his ears and teasingly pulled his face in to her groin. Chase grabbed her backside and said in to the junction “Too much clothing in the way.”
Cheri giggled and helped him stand. “You’ve been away way too long. How do I look? I had some of my explants removed and replaced by some implants. I’m now almost 90% human again.”
“Yet still one hundred percent perfect.”
She pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek then murmured, “Blip me Chase, I won’t run at all.”
Cheri walked off to help a customer and Tiny smirked at him. “You’re blushing!”
“Shut up.”
He held out the leather and Chase nodded as Tiny said, “It’s In Vitro instead of faux leather so it’s a lot more expensive but I’m gonna give you my fave customer discount so six hundred creds a pair?” Chase took his credstick out and authorized the payment. “Amber’ll start on your boots tomorrow, should be done by next Saturday? We’ve still got your feet on file unless you’ve sculpted?”
“Nope.”
“All right, we’ll see you then. Unless you wanna look around?”
Chase shook his head. “Low on creds any way.”
He left the store then stopped, looking back. He found his datapad in his hand and decided that even if he was currently trying to figure out what his ex was up to he had time. Why don’t you chase me? he blipped with the address of a local bar that served a beer he had tried to try many times but never had actually gotten a chance to.
Chase’s eyes went wide when Cheri walked in. She wore a vibrantly purple yet somehow sheer lace dress made of leather. Thank god for technology, he thought as she smiled at him, tossing her hair as she turned towards him. When she got closer, he saw she wore a slip underneath the dress that was thin enough to reveal the pattern of lace on her stockings and garter belt as well as a rainbow bioluminescent carp tattoo swimming on her stomach.
He stood and she pulled him down by the collar of his jacket so she could kiss him. The scent of mangoes and cocoa wafted from her, tickling his nose as she whispered “Wanna go?”
“Uh huh,” he said, not knowing what he was actually saying yes to. Her pheromones and perfume had him in her control.
She led him out of the bar as the waitress came out of the back carrying his Regenbogenschwarzbier15. The waitress shrugged and took a large swallow then set it in the stasis bin for herself for after work. Since it was normally thirty-six credits a pint she never ordered it for herself. She wiped off the rainbow foam from her upper lip then went to see to a new table.
In her apartment, Cheri pushed Chase backwards, smiling as he fell backwards on to the sofa. She straddled him and whispered, “What are you up for?”
“Anything you want,” he murmured in between kisses, aware enough that that might have been somewhat foolish.
Cheri stood and pushed the pressure fastener and her dress’s fastenings came undone, sliding off her body, revealing the slip had also been part of the dress.
He watched the carp swim around her navel then dart around her torso to the back and smiled as she clapped her hands twice. Her holofire flashed on and music that was heavy on horns and piano filled the air as she asked, “You want me to take off the stockings? Or do you want to take them off me?”
“Truth be told, I’d rather you leave them on.”
Cheri giggled at that and dropped back on to the couch, pulling him in to a kiss, her soft lips tracing feathery patterns on his neck as she undid the buttons on his shirt. “I love what you wear. It’s all so insanely retro. Aside from Tiny, no one else I know even can work a button like this,” she said then ran her tongue in to the hollow of his clavicle, nipping at the skin. He breathed in harshly then she was straddling him again, her implants on her nipples slightly cooler than her body and an almost unique sensation as they pressed against his own chest.
“What are these scars from?” she asked as she draped kisses on them.
“I used to be a bus stop boxer. I didn’t care about nanbonding them as long as they--oh god,” he whimpered as she bit his nipple, her tongue implant electrocuting him incredibly pleasantly as she grazed it.
“Like that?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She did it again and he shivered then pulled her up for a kiss. When her tongue implant grazed his tongue stud, he felt it arc again, the electrical shock just as pleasurable. “Is that a violet wand tongue taser?” he asked when she pulled away.
“Yeah! I didn’t know you were in to body modding?”
“I keep up to date but it’s not really for me.I love how you’re done though I miss your tribal luminescence. Connor wanted that so much when we met you.”
She smiled then undid his belt. Her smile got even wider when she saw his uncircumcised member revealed. “Ooh, yes!”
Chase awoke to the smell of caramelized brown sugar, peppermint, soybacon, and carob filling the air and found a note on the bedside table. “Last night was incredible. I hope you’re in town for a while because I’m going to shag your brains out every chance I can. When you go, please make sure ou lock up. Breakfast is autoprogrammed, I gotta go to work lover!” he read aloud.
As long as I’m in sector you can use me as much as you want, he blipped her then went to find her robokitchen had made steel cut oats with brown sugar, peppermint waffles, soybacon, and a hot carob cocoa.
Chase ate and wrote her a note thanking her then put the dishes in the dishwasher and headed back to his place. He had research to do still and four of the sites were in the sector.
Sitting on his bed after a shower, he studied his datapad, refining the data. Finlay hadn’t properly formatted the data and pages of extraneous material was mixed in from other files. He finally finished formatting it and studied it. In all the cases, one thing stood out. If they had all been done by Felicia, she had developed some impressive combat skills. The medical examiner stated the heart had been ripped out by hand and the lungs digitally manipulated in to steak tartare.
Laird pushed his soyburger away and said, “Felicia, what the hell happened to you?”
He left the Flop and went to the closest of the three sites. It was clean. SecSec in this sector was much better since it was also Marathon’s base of operations.
The next was also clean. At the third he was still unsurprised to find they were properly cleared and decided to check other locales.
He got some wor wonton ramen from their old lunch spot then continued on, checking the other restaurants and parks they all ways spent time in.
Chase finally made his way to the last of their hangouts, her favorite place to waste creds and time, Davey & Goliath’s16, the world’s largest arcade with three restaurants and five different themed bars. He made his way through each of them, stopping off for a Guinness Hard then a pint of Sammi Hanratty’s Darkest Utopia.
He nursed the Darkest Utopia, enjoying its thick consistency, slight caffeinated bite and its peaches and fresh mandarins aftertaste immensely as he moved through the many VR booths and Holosuites, occasionally checking names on the units of ones that had privacy mode enabled.
He was making his way to the exit when he saw Extreme Butchers Hook XXX Turbo UHD Remix Par Deux 3317 had come out. He saw there was no one else waiting so he slipped his credstick in and leaned against the wall, waiting for his turn in the VR system.
Once the VR probes were attached, the unit attempted to make him make fists and tap his feet. When he affirmed the events had happened the system shut off his spine from his voluntary and most involuntary movements and the game began.
He appeared in a small room, one wall a complete mirror, showing him wearing a dark blue stalker suit, bioluminescent traces of green and blue on the chest in the shape of a ‽ and gauntlets on his hands with with three butcher hooks with flaming serrations on the reverse of the hook, poison dripping off them. “I look stupid but god I love this game,” he mused. “They’ve still never explained the interrobang on the chest.”
He rolled his eyes at the manga hair but exited the room and went in to a crouch when he saw a Drengi guard with a phased plasma rifle.
He crept up behind the Drengi and quickly brought both sets of hooks around and tore out the creature’s ‘neck’ where the cephalon and thorax met. Gold blood, tinging red from the poison, sprayed from the six open wounds.
The hooks sprang backwards as a voiceover called out “Excellent!”
Chase collected the weapon and continued moving on towards the base, cycling through the various visual acuities until he got to the heat based one.
He stepped out of the VR booth and nodded hello to the person waiting for their turn. “How was it?” the girl asked.
“Not as intense as the last one but the graphics were awesome.”
He left the arcade and made his way to the last place he could think of Felicia spending time, the library near her old place. Inside, he used his old Marathon pass to get access to the upper deck and stood at the railing, idly paging through the sector’s latest newsblip on a library datapad, watching for her. It was nearly her favored time to come in and read the newsblip and do the sector specific crossword.
When an hour had passed, he went back downstairs and handed over the datapad, “Oh, is the new Circation available?”
She looked it up in the dbase. Since Circation was a Marathon dbase of new research, it wasn’t readily available and only paid access was available except to preferred Marathon researchers.
“With a Marathon badge with rating above Black Nine a nine day access is available for fifty credits or a perpetual copy is available to those who hold Echo Five or higher for nine hundred credits.”
Chase had the clearance level but not the expendable cash at the moment. “Thanks, it’ll have to wait until after a job or two.”
She nodded and watched him go then turned to help the next person, a young girl wanting to transfer the latest Inquisitive Insulacebus18 to her datapad and having troubles. She helped the girl and asked, “Which is your favorite story?”
“Inquisitive Insulacebus and the Nine Tremacebus19.” The girl cited the name flawlessly.
The librarian watched the little girl light up at the first animated page of the story then she dashed off after thanking her so she could snuggle in to a bean bag chair and read it with her waiting friend.
Chase walked in to MacMarathons and studied the menu as he stood in line, occasionally looking at the women working the counter. Their uniforms were little more than pasties and tape underneath shifts that had dancing characters from the children’s menu on them.
He checked out the backside of the woman standing in front of him wearing an outfit that was modest and revealing at the same time, dozens of straps and a choker and thong in white20. Her orange hair was intriguing and he hoped to see her face as he wondered if the burly male with her was a lover or just a friend. When she took his hand in hers, he pouted slightly then remembered he had a date that night all ready.
When they picked up their order he saw her face and knew he would remember it as long as he could. He loved the bangs look on a woman though the hair color wasn’t as flattering as it had seemed from behind.
Chase ordered a number forty two with a salad instead of the starch side and filled his cup with a Chocolate Pepsi21.
As he walked along the street, he debated the nodes of activity he found in the police reports. They didn’t jive with the personality he knew but something extraordinary was likely to have happened to turn Felicia in to such a competent killer. How come I can’t find her though?
Chase took a long pull on his drink and was debating checking out the Excelsior club22 when he felt a massive power drain and his HUD activated, going from what he assumed was how people normally saw to overlaying a topdown map of the area with an energy drain and police alert happening in the same area.
He tossed the bag at a pair of men huddled in between two garbage bins. “It’s a salad and a large McRibbit.”
Chase fell in to a distance eating run as he took the shortest route to the event. He could feel a drain on his own ‘caster, something that shouldn’t have happened.
She was standing above two men, their chests stove in, a broken light pole in her hands. Even without his datapad he could see fragments from it in their clothing.
“Fel, what’re you doing?”
He looked over the men as she cocked her head, staring at him as if her were some sort of malignant growth.
Zuul Reavers, he decided. They were part of a cult that worshipped technology as a way to their paradise on Terra, all arcologies destroyed and everyone converted to live in the Wastes23.
He recognized the explant on one and stomped down on the head, crushing the technology and he hoped destroying its dbase.
“C’mon Fel, the local SecSec is only a six minute callout: we’ve got like two minutes before they get here!”
He held out his hand. She took a swing at him with the pole. It caught his leather jacket and Dwarves shirt and ripped both, as well as cutting in to his skin. DNA, shit! Too late, he thought.
Felicia dropped the pole and picked up a pair of smaller polymer poles and held them like eskrima sticks.
She swung at him numerous times, Chase using a discarded half of a chairback to block until annoyed, he moved in, catching her arm under his then used the chairback and his own strength to amplify her speed, slamming her in to a wall, knocking her unconscious and tearing the skin upon her skull open.
Sorry Fel. Nice to see you finally learned how to protect yourself, he thought as he picked her up in a fireman’s carry.
Inside a nearby building he put her down carefully then pulled his boot knife and slammed it in to the door control. The metal filaments in his blade shorted the door out, permanently locking it from the outside then he did the same to the camera above the doorway, making sure he hit the memory module then ground it in to dust under his boot.
Chase let his jacket slide off then pulled his shirt off, wincing then gasping at the pain. He had a fractured rib. The knife let him make some bandages and soon his ribs were poorly wrapped and her headwound was bandaged.
Why’d she attack me? It’s not like I was the one that stopped sending blips.
He pushed her bangs out of her eyes and thought, I like the change but the curls and blue highlights are missed. Straight hair suits her though.
He stood and rotated his shoulders then stretched, hissing in pain from his ribs, wishing he hadn’t given away that much protein when he was now in need of repairs.
Felicia awoke and he smiled. “Okay so wh--”
She scooted back, her hand slamming in to a loose plascrete brick. She grasped it and threw it at him so quickly, he had no time to react. The brick hit his fractured rib perfectly and he went down, gasping in pain as she ran out of the place.
Chase curled up in pain, urging the nano- and pico-tech in his body to repair and soothe the pain as quickly as possible.
When he could finally move, he limped to the door slowly, holding his ribs and muttering “Worst. Ex. Ever.”
Chase lay in bed, his datapad flashing with three new blips while he slept, his pillow over his head.
On his chest, the bruise was healing quickly while underneath, the trillions of microscopic that reside in his system began, utilizing the stored materiel and the large amounts of protein Chase had consumed to begin the repair job.
When he awoke at nine the next morning, he pulled a DK24 shirt on and smiled at the cessation of pain. “Nanotech Uber Alles. Thank you swarm of grey goo.”
He chuckled as he imaged a spokesman for the nanotech saying “No problem!” and “Yo da universe!”
Chase is sitting in a small diner, toying with a napkin, folding it in to a swan as the waitress set a plate of pancakes, too yellow soypro eggs, and soypro sausage links in front of him.
“Thanks Maddie.”
She smiled and walked off as he poured syrup over everything he thought, okay, it was her. not just a look-alike. she didn’t recognize me at all though.
He took a bite of sausage and egg and thought, so, some sort of amnesia? A dissociative state? Perhaps a late-onset neural development disorder?
He made notes on the unfolded swan then took out his datapad and sent a blip to Cheri once again apologizing and asking her out for dinner. He unfolded his datapad in to manual I/O mode and read an excerpt from DSM-XIV on Dissociative Disorders 300.13.25
Not enough information, it could be a number of things.
He pushed the plate away, leaving the majority of the eggs unfinished. Uggh, should’ve gone to a cafe that served real eggs. this soy shit is gross once you’ve had the real thing.
He paid for the meal then headed down the street and found the shop was finally open. Inside he walked to the nonlethal section of the store and studied the various stun weapons.
“Can I help you sir?” an older baseline asked.
Chase pointed at the Buzzkill VII Xtreme and said “I’d like that model in mottled urban please.”
“Excellent choice but we don’t have mottled urban in stock save for that display unit. I can give you a discount on it? It’s been handled by a lot of people though.”
“No, you got some matte blacks in stock?” The baseline nodded.
“It, a Bastardly SOB quick draw holster, and you carry ‘Violet Fog’ spray?” A nerve gas grenade that had a small amount of Sarinite, designed to initiate near-instant gastrointestinal distress, causing vomiting and diarrhea to those affected.
“That stuff is SecSec and Military only.”
“Or Marathon Security forces,” Chase said, taking out his Marathon badge and showed him the back where it said he was Security certified.
“Ahh, my bad sir, you just look smaller than most of those guys.”
“Yeah, the armor is actually burlier than it seems.”
The guy rang up the purchases and Chase pulled out the last of his physical, untraceable cash and paid. The proprietor helped him fit the SOB holster and Chase put the spray holster on his belt then walked out, pulled his jacket on. I feel all stalker-rapisty now, trying to find her with this thing. But back on the hunt.
Chase sat at the bar, idly playing with the dregs of the bar nuts spilled on the bar. The bartender looked his way and rolled her eyes but didn’t stop him from making a pyramid of mugs and shot glasses.
Months now. I’ve been tracking her for months!
He sighed then giggled. Wanted to do a show on Broadway ‘bout cats--but somebody beat me to it!26
He sat up and gestured the bartender over. “Some Sandrine coffee.”
Sandrine grinned at him and patted his hand. “Coming right up Chase.”
Sober enough after a half pot of coffee and a soybacon sandwich, he left the bar, flipping the coin he had earlier won off some darts players. He rarely bet anymore but a real two dollar Hong Kong coin from before the standardized world currency was something he had been willing to lose a hundred creds on.
He put the coin in his pocket and stretched.
As he was walking back to his place, he felt something draining his ‘caster27 again. His HUD shifted to combat mode and he ran to where the map showed the event.
Forty kilojoules?! he thought. Negligible amount of my ‘caster but still a lot of energy!
When he turned the corner, he found her, covered in blood, a chainblade jutting out of the cyborg’s back then it chewed its way up through the ‘borg and destroyed the ‘borg’s neck, more blood, viscera, and destroyed explants sprayed her, him, and the walls around them. The HUD insisted he hit her in the C1/C2 vertebrae junction for a decisive finish. He willed the information away. Chase didn’t want her dead.
“Felicia!”
She rushed him, the blade weaving it in an almost hypnotic star pattern, it’s chain drive spinning so fast the whine was no longer subsonic and incredibly grating. It made Chase’s left eye twitch as he ducked her first attack. He spun out of the way and his greatcoat whipped up, getting caught by the chainblade and shredded, a large chunk torn off.
“What the frak28, you gave me this coat!”
He used the wall for leverage and went up and over a recyclables bin, pulling the Buzzkill and triggering it on as it cleared the holster.
She moved close enough and kicked out, the tip of her steel toed boot catching his stunner and knocking it away. “Cromdammit29 you crazy bint what the frak are you doing!”
He dropped down and rolled away, catching up a polymer chair leg and stood in Kravbo’s Maga defense stance, the leg high in the air, aimed towards her, his free hand held up in a supplication for her to stop.
Felicia kept moving towards him. He threw the leg, hitting her in her solar plexus, making her double up and drop the chainblade.
Chase backhanded her with an open hand so he would do less damage then hooked the back of her knee with his foot, yanking her legs out from under her.
He found the Buzzkill and said “Sorry,” as he placed it against her temple.
Chase looked around and found the tattered part of his greatcoat and stuffed it in his pocket then picked her up in an over the shoulder carry.
He carried her towards his thankfully close apartment then chuckled slightly. Crazy bint. Oh hey, flashback to the first time we went out drinking. at least she’s not vomiti--
She vomited down his back. “FRELL!”
Chase carefully laid out his greatcoat, aligning the torn up section with the cut off piece. There was the majority of fabric there so he decided to just repair it himself instead of going back to Tiny to have him repair it properly.
He opened his seabag and took out a bottle of SwifTailor30 and sprayed the vibrantly red nanogoo on to the greatcoat. As the nanogoo worked, he turned to look at Felicia, tied to the bed with his four belts and a pair of bungie cords. He felt like a fiend but he didn’t want her harming him again until he go through to her. He checked the knot on the bandanna around her wrists . “Sorry Fel but this is the only way I’m going to be able to help you. If I can get you to talk. SecSec would’ve just shot you down and writ you off as an Amper.”
Chase took a washcloth out of his toiletries and poured some water on it then wiped her face clean carefully.
“I like the silver streaks you’ve added to your hair.”
With her face clean, he settled back on the beanbag chair and took out his datapad, using his stylus to make notes.
“I wish you’d wake up. Then I could actually be of help. I mean, this is what I was made for. And when did you get implants? You were always a bit of a purist aside from those vanity nanos in your hair and on your nails. Of course, most women have those.”
He sighed and pushed the hair off her forehead then dropped a kiss on it. “Be right back, gotta go get some food from the machines.”
When he returned, she was coming to and began struggling against the restraints.
“Felicia, calm down!”
She screamed obscenities at him in four different languages as Chase rolled his eyes.
He spoke softly “Felicia, if I let you go, Sector Security will catch you. You might end up in a brainfarm but most likely, with the way you fight, they’ll just shoot you. I’m trying to help you.”
He sat down beside her. “Do you remember when we went to Nice?” He hoped memories would bring it back. “Remember that asymmetrical two piece of yours that turned sheer in the water and you got so embarrassed when those old men walked by? We watched the real sun set through the arcology walls?”
He smiled as he remembered her promising him fifty credits if he stripped down and jogged around her.
“I had never seen a real sunset until we decided to go there.
“Or the time we went to that scotch tasting thing Sir gave us tickets to?
He remembered sitting with her and a number of other older, mostly baseline men listening to a master distiller speak. “With this one, you will taste a slightly peaty sensation with smoky flavor that finishes with a peppery taste.”
Felicia had leaned in to whisper, “More boozy, less talky!”
“We had so much fun getting sloshed and getting kicked out. And at least that time I didn’t get to wear your vomit.”
Chase scowled and pulled his favorite bandanna from his seabag then wrapped it around her head to cover her mouth, shaking his hand from the biting she did of it that was hampered by the cloth. “I hate to do this but you’re gonna make them call SecSec and I don’t want to kill law enforcement. Even if they are grossly incompetent compared to Marathon Enforcers.”
He sat down beside her and remembered a walk in the park. “Remember the release of the synth butterflies? They were so many colors that it was like walking through rainbow snow?”
He remembered her asking, “How’d you find out about this?”
He told her how the programmers of their operating system had told him the would be released in the park to test their programming in an enclosed space. More had been released just as they reached the center of the park. “I love them,” she said, pulling him down by his collar then she whispered, “I love you,” before drawing him in to a kiss that made him forget to breathe.
“I tried to say the same but you had your tongue down my throat. I got to say it later though,” he reminded her. She just glared at him.
“Okay, fine, I’m gonna take a quick shower in the communal bathroom since that’s got no privacy mode,” he said, gesturing at the shower. “I’ll be back in a few minutes and we’ll try again, okay Felicia?”
As soon as he was out of the room, she looked around for cameras then twisted her wrists and sent a command to the nanogoo in her fingers. Her nails lengthened and hardened until they were as strong as the polymers used in construction. Her nails shredded the bandanna then she undid the bungies and belt. Felicia grabbed the credits on the table and was out the door.
Chase returned, drying his hair. “I sent a blip to Sir Elwes, hopefully he’ll rep--Cromdammit!”
Sir Elwes looked at his PDA. Bewildered, he said aloud, “Felicia back in the--,” then realized what it was, “Felicity!”
Before he could warn his creation three holograms appeared in his office. “Endgame.”
Elwes closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Chase was heading out the door to start tracking her again when his vision went black then Sir Elwes appeared in front of him.
“What the f--!”
“Chase, I’m sorry. I’ve hijacked your optical connectivity. I’ve triangulated where you are and you need to get out. Out of the Arc. You need to head North. Get above the fiftieth parallel. Don’t ask questions, just do as I tell you. . ., son. Drop whatever it is you’re doing, don’t pack, just grab essentials and go. Returning your connectivity in 3... 2... 1.”
Chase turns around and heads to his quarters, stuffing his gear back in his bag, glad of the fact he never unpacked anymore. It only took him forty seconds to put his few items back in his seabag, seal it, then head for the door.
As he headed for the maglev station, his datapad in his pocket chirruped incessantly. He pulled it out and a video played as soon as he touched the screen. Sir told him “There’s a truck and supplies for you in the old Warrant tunnels. So glad you’re in the right arc to get to this. Couldn’t get supplies set up in every Arc like I wanted to. Directions should be decoding in to you right now. GO!”
He found an access port to the old tunnels below the city and jammed his boot knife in between the doors then twisted. With it partially opened, he wedged a boot in then began pushing. His blade fell and bounced off his boot as he got the door open.
“What the fuck is that sh--!”
The maintenance lights went out as the entirety of the Arc seemed to jump nineteen meters to the right.
Chase took a light out from his seabag and continued on.
01. Fate will be more thoroughly introduced at a later date.
02. ViRLD is a portmanteau of Virtual woRLD, the same thing as the internet of today with more interactivity and virtual interfaces instead of uneditable texts.
03. Yes, it’s a WikiLeaks reference.
04. This is a clumsy futurama reference. In the episode where Bender inherits a castle he dreams of 1s and 0s then said he thought he saw a 2 as well as a reference to fuzzy logic where “2≈approximately” as I understand it.
05. In vitro meat is cultured protein: grown body parts that were never part of actual animals. Because of the cost of land space, grains to feed animals, and wastage such as skeletal remains, in vitro meat will be cheaper to grow though will most likely require antibiotics and growth hormones unless new technologies are developed. This may become a requirement by 2050 to keep humanity fed due to lack of land and a possibly damaged environment.Or soyprotein will become the hotshit. Gods I hope not though i doubt i’ll be alive in 40 years.. -CBP
06. Reavers: firefly reference obviously. Oh Summer Glau you delight me so.
07. This is a reference to Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis. the idea of reservations where people live as they once did is done now but not where they’re tweaked so it’s the only life they know. that would be such an interesting thing to see.
08, 11. Whoo, Burn Notice/Bruce Campbell reference!
09. Uniform Access Serial, using ninety-seven different unique characters in a two hundred long serial, it allows for _____ unique combinations. devices connecting to the ViRLD use IPv32 which allocates 2512 addresses as many ex- and im-plants use their own unique addresses to connect to the ViRLD.
10. An obvious Wizard of Oz reference that I’m no longer sure why I made it.
12. Yes, this is a reference to the Velvet Underground. It made me chuckle though I don’t really listen to the band very often.
13. Coffin apartments, just big enough to sleep in so as many beds can be fitted as possible.
14. Plastic surgery but more immersive. A bodysculpted male or female that wanted to be female or male respectively would be female or male with hormonal supplements and genetweaks and organ transfers from a distaff clone once it was forcegrown. Those that didn’t have gender issues and just wanted to look flawless or however they wanted could have the work done or if they had enough money, they could have the nanogoo programmed to do it while they slept in an induced coma in their home.
15. This drink is a running joke. Because of its formulation, the head when coming in to contact with trace elements in the air and contact with glass creates a rainbow colored head on top of a pitch black stout. Often you only get one, two, maybe three colors of the rainbow showing up. No one knows exactly why all seven show up but when they do, it’s celebrated since it does add to the flavor of the beer. Sadly, Chase will never know that flavor.
16. Ahhh, this reference. I was never a fan of that show and I’ve never been to an actual Dave & Buster’s but I couldn’t resist the dual reference. I almost went with a Penny Arcade reference then decided it was too much nerdcore for this datastream.
17. From the title, I believe it’s the 36th game in the series unless XXX yatta yatta 4 came out before the remix which it probably would have. I wanted to make the name even longer but decided it was too dumb of a joke to continue with.
18. Curious George reference
19. Reference to the first book Curious George appears in, Cecily G and the Nine Monkeys
20. Leeloo Dallas Multi-Pass!
21. PepsiCo still exists as a subsidiary of Marathon while Coca-Cola is a subsidiary of an other company and no longer makes drinks and is instead a cleaning supply company (Which is a reference to mechanics I’ve met using Coke as a degreaser/engine cleaner. I’ve seen them pour three or four 2-liters on a cement floor and let it sit to eat at the grease on it).
22. I think I did this club name as a Stan Lee reference.
23. Referenced better in an other DataStream.
24. His love of old school Punk Rock will be explained in an other datastream and just a way for me to use music without having to makeup shit since i can’t see how music will have evolved at that point in the future.
25. He’s got the equivalent of a PhD in Mental Health though he didn’t go to school for it in the traditional way.
26. I wish I could remember what this bloody reference was to. I don’t think it was Fran Drescher’s The Nanny since her husband -to-be passed on Cats like a dumbass though I was perving on her a lot at the time. . . I was doing a lot of reading on TVTropes as we started writing the background for this universe.
27. I think Datastream 2 will tell you exactly what this means.
28. Frak and Frell, from BSG and Farscape respectively. Both great shows. Well, the remake of BSG. I hate older shows that all ways end on a laugh even as they’re hunted by unrelenting robots.
29. Religion was a huge issue when we worked up the background of this series. It’s something still being thought about as it’s worked on.
30. Ahh SwifTailor. Yes, this is a reference to Taylor Swift. At first it was a joke, I didn’t listen to her music, all I knew was that she was a very attractive blonde with a slightly scrunchy face. As time went on, more and more SwifTailor references were added and I started listening to a few of her songs then added a Captain Obvious Expy of her to a story I was working on just for fun that no one will ever see! And then I started to develop an enormous crush on her. I would so date her, I’d even contemplate moving to the south for her.
