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secularbakedgoods · 1 year ago

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Lockout

(science fiction, 3900 words)

When Jackie first met her next-door neighbor, she had no inkling whatsoever that there was six figures’ worth of military hardware grafted onto his body.

The man who answered her knock at the door of the neighboring apartment was somewhere in his early 20s, with the permanent five ‘o’ clock shadow of someone who only shaved with an electric razor. It was early autumn, not even cold, but he wore a hoodie and kept both hands tucked into its front pocket.

Jackie did her best to look friendly (a redundant effort, as she usually came across as the least threatening person alive). “Hi, I’m Jackie. I live next door.”

“Hi.” The neighbor looked pleasantly surprised, as if he’d opened the door expecting much worse. “Connor.”

“So, this is weird and I’m sorry to bother you about it, but my cat is on your balcony right now.”

The balcony was the major selling point of an otherwise standard crappy apartment. Everything was the same shade of Landlord White, and the kitchen backsplash had been ripped out and never replaced, but the building was in decent shape—although construction further up the block had rattled it beyond its usual tolerances, leaving cracks in the walls and ceiling. A balcony meant that Jackie’s cat, Greg, could get some unsupervised fresh air while she worked.

An acquaintance in the local esports league had hired Jackie to replace the control sticks in his lucky gamepad, which were starting to drift. The money wasn’t great, but she was between freelance gigs. The job demanded enough of her attention that it was only once she’d finished and put down the soldering iron that she realized Greg had gone wandering.

Connor left the door open and moved to his window, pulling the heavy blackout curtains aside. His apartment and Jackie’s shared the balcony, with a divider between. Somehow, Greg had made his way across the divider and now lay indolently in front of the sliding door on Connor’s side.

Jackie hovered at the apartment’s threshold. “Can I just—?”

Connor shrugged. Jackie bolted gingerly across the apartment and slid the door open to retrieve her cat.

Greg offered no resistance to being hoisted, even when Jackie held him up in front of her face and said, “You are a very bad cat.�� She turned and waggled him at Connor. “Say ‘thank you’ to the nice man for the use of his balcony.”

In response, the cat only yawned. Connor, however, cracked a smile. With his left hand, he gave Greg a scratch behind the ears.

His right hand remained hidden, tucked into the hoodie.

Jackie next saw Connor on laundry day.

He came up behind her in the hallway outside the laundry room, where she stood with half a key in her hand and the other half wedged in the lock of the laundry room door.

“Did your key break?” Connor asked.

Jackie glared at the door. “Yes.”

Connor tried to pry the broken key out of the lock, but couldn’t get a grip through his gloves.

“I think you need fingernails for that,” Jackie said, and Connor stepped aside.

It took a few seconds, with Jackie chipping her thumbnail in the process, but eventually the broken key came loose and Connor unlocked the door.

As they commenced the intricate dance that only took place between near-strangers doing their laundry together, Jackie asked, “Why is this room even locked?”

“They found someone sleeping in here once,” Connor said. “Landlord got mad. Do you want one of my keys?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a spare. I’ll just tell the landlord one of mine broke.”

Connor worked the key off the ring with his right hand, but handed it to Jackie with his left.

The fire alarm went off at three in the morning. Greg, the asshole, immediately hid under Jackie’s bed and had to be dragged out.

Jackie ended up outside in her slippers with the cat under one arm and her bed’s comforter over her shoulders. There was some consolation to be had that the building’s other occupants, scattered all over the parking lot, were in similar states of undress.

Connor was off in the corner, arms wrapped around himself; he’d neglected to grab a coat on the way out, and the night was chilly. His oversized t-shirt did nothing to hide the advanced mechanical arm grafted to his right shoulder where a flesh-and-blood limb had once been. Jackie faintly recognized the model from videos that crossed her feed every once in a while. It was a military-grade prosthetic, supposedly as dexterous as the human limb it was intended to replace.

People were staring. Connor did his best to ignore them.

Jackie sidled over, holstered Greg against her hip, and extended one side of the comforter. “Hey. You cold?”

It was a polite fiction on both sides: Jackie pretended not to notice the arm, or the fact that she’d offered Connor the side of the comforter that would cover it, and Connor pretended not to see right through the gesture. He ducked under the comforter with a quiet, “thanks.”

They huddled together in the parking lot until the fire department showed up. After all that, it turned out to be a false alarm.

The building was only three stories tall, with no trash chute. Instead, Jackie had to haul her garbage bags down to the dumpster in the alley.

Someone had left a bedside dresser—slightly beat up, but still solid—on the ground next to the dumpster. Connor hovered over it with an air of uncertainty.

“You taking that?” Jackie asked.

“I don’t know.” Connor had his hoodie on, with his right hand tucked into the front pocket; the arm hung limp from his shoulder.

“I could help bring it up,” Jackie suggested.

Connor ducked his head, avoiding her eyes. “I can’t lift anything. My arm’s not, uh. Working.”

“I can carry it. Just get the doors for me, okay?”

It was a little awkward to lift, and the stairs were a bitch, but a few minutes later Jackie set the dresser down next to Connor’s bed. It was just a mattress on the floor, no frame.

Jackie stretched, hands at the small of her back. “Can I ask you an awkward question?”

Connor cleared his throat. He still wouldn’t look at her. “The VA hasn’t paid the bill yet.”

“For your arm?”

Connor nodded. “There’s a fee every month, from the company that made it. The VA covers it, but sometimes they’re a few days late.”

“So the company switches the arm off remotely.”

“Yeah.”

“You tried modding it?”

Connor rubbed his shoulder; it had to be a strain, hauling that much dead weight around. “Like how?”

“You could try disabling whatever antenna receives the lockout signal,” Jackie said. “Or cracking the firmware. I could help, if you wanted.”

“Is that legal?”

“More or less?” Jackie shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing the law has trouble keeping up with.”

Connor looked uneasy. “I’ll think about it.”

Amelia’s scoff came through Jackie’s headset like a burst of static. “Again, Jackie?”

“What? What’s ‘again?’”

The rest of Jackie’s regular gaming group had gone to bed hours ago, leaving Jackie and Amelia to claw their way up the leaderboards late into the night.

Jackie didn’t particularly like Amelia.

“This thing where you’re nice to some guy,” Amelia said, “because you’re nice to everybody, and then he decides he’s in love with you. And then you have to move halfway across the country because he won’t leave you alone.”

“So I should just be a bitch to everybody?”

“It’d make your life easier.”

“I don’t believe that.”

There was a knock on Jackie’s door.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said.

“Yeah, sure.”

Jackie closed the game and dropped out of the chat server. When she opened the door, Connor was there, looking sheepish.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I know it’s late.”

“It’s fine, I was up.”

Connor rubbed his shoulder again, although his arm seemed once again able to support its own weight. “So, that thing you suggested. About the arm. Could we try?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Jackie moved to let him in, then hesitated. “Actually, let me grab my tools and we’ll use your place. Less cat hair.”

They set up at Connor’s dining room table, which—like the dresser—looked like it was salvaged out of the trash. Connor changed into a sleeveless shirt, and Jackie got her first full look at the arm.

The prosthesis didn’t stop at the shoulder; the shoulder blade and part of his spine had also been reinforced, the whole apparatus clearly not designed for easy removal. The casing wasn’t metal, like Jackie expected, but some kind of polymer. Where it met flesh, there were scars: long furrows, clumsy and chaotic and not at all surgical.

There was an access panel on the arm’s shoulder, and the screws holding it in place all had a distinctive head. “Security screws,” Jackie said. “You need a proprietary screwdriver for these.”

“So we can’t open it?”

“What? No, I have the screwdriver here.” The toolbox rattled as Jackie fumbled through it. “You can buy them online. They’re like five bucks.”

The screws were all slightly different sizes, just to make Jackie’s life hell. She placed each on the table in a pattern roughly corresponding to where they’d been on the panel.

When she tried to pry the panel up, it didn’t move. Closer inspection revealed it was also glued in place.

It was probably unwise, not to mention impractical, to stick Connor’s arm in the oven. Luckily, Jackie had a heat gun. She tried to keep it away from Connor’s skin, but he still flinched every time the nozzle got a little too close.

Once the panel was off, Jackie grabbed a pen light and examined the board beneath. The network chip that received the lockout signal was easy enough to spot; it was, of course, glued to the board. Everything was.

“Chips are glued down,” Jackie reported.

“Can you melt the glue?”

“Probably shouldn’t,” Jackie explained. “Sometimes they like to layer acid between coats of glue. If I try to dissolve it or pry the chips off, I might damage the board.”

Another sweep of the pen light revealed a port without a connector.

“When they were setting this thing up,” Jackie asked, “did they have any cables plugged into it?”

Connor shifted in his seat. “I don’t remember. Does it matter?”

“Maybe. I think I see a debug port. They would’ve used it to calibrate the arm while it was being installed. If I can solder on a new connector, that might get us the access we need.” Jackie grabbed her laptop. “I’ll have to order the connector online, though. None of the suppliers in this city are anywhere near a bus stop.”

Connor said, “I have a car.”

“Is it the one with the tree growing out of it?”

There was, in the parking lot, a car with four flat tires and a tree growing out of it. It wasn’t a big tree—barely a sapling—but the fact that it was there at all was not a good sign.

The look on Connor’s face was all the answer Jackie needed.

A few days later, the courier delivering the new connector called Jackie and said, “I can’t find your address.”

“Oh. Your GPS is pointing you down the wrong street.” Jackie sighed; this was nowhere near the first time. “That’s the pedestrian entrance. Car access is through the parking lot, one street over.”

“Could you come down?”

Jackie groaned. “Yeah, sure.”

The courier hung up.

Jackie was only halfway down the stairs by the time her phone rang again. She answered without looking and said, “Hey, I’m on my way down.”

A voice that was not the courier said, “Jackie?”

Jackie stopped dead, her heart pounding up into her throat. “Wyatt. Hi. How’d you get this number?”

“I got it from Ethan.” Fucking Ethan. “I heard you moved.”

“Sure did,” Jackie said. With any luck Wyatt hadn’t heard where to.

“I’m gonna be out your way pretty soon. We should have coffee or something.”

Jackie’s mouth went dry. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I asked you to leave me alone, Wyatt.” Jackie took a deep breath that rattled in her chest. “Please don’t call me again.”

She hung up, blocked the number, and managed to stop crying by the time the courier finally showed up.

In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that soldering parts onto a board was much harder when the board was attached to a human being. One who, on occasion, had to breathe.

“How the hell did they even install this thing?” she grumbled, holding the soldering iron away from anything sensitive as she waited for Connor to settle.

“I was out for most of it,” Connor replied.

Distracted, Jackie asked, “‘Out?’”

“I was in the hospital. IED.”

Jackie had to put the soldering iron down. “You got blown up and then they stuck a robot arm on you? Don’t they have to get consent for stuff like that?”

“When I enlisted, I just signed whatever they put in front of me,” Connor said. “There was a form I could fill out to get an extra few thousand a year. I didn’t read it too closely.”

Jackie took a moment to calm down, picked up the iron again, and went back to work.

Once the connector was on, Jackie plugged in her laptop, opened a terminal, and pulled up the arm’s internal drive. There was a long list of utilities, all with arcane names and no indication as to what any of them did.

“This might take a while,” she warned Connor.

“How long?”

“Long enough that I shouldn’t sit here plugged into your arm the whole time.” Jackie typed out a command to copy the firmware to her own drive. “This next part is going to be very boring.”

Around midnight, Jackie closed her laptop and announced, “I need caffeine.”

Connor, half-asleep, grunted in agreement.

There was a convenience store a few blocks away. Jackie lunged for the drinks fridge the moment they arrived, grabbed two, cracked one open, then wandered toward the snack aisle for her usual ten minutes of indecision.

On the walk over, Connor had asked if Jackie was from around here.

“I like that the rent’s way cheaper.” Jackie wavered between chips and jerky. “I never could’ve afforded to live alone back home.”

“Don’t you miss your friends? Family?”

“My kind of people don’t hang out much in person anyway.”

Momentarily distracted by a display of sour candies, Jackie almost missed it when Connor said, “I don’t talk to anyone. From before.”

It was a weird thing to say right then. Jackie suspected Connor had been trying to say it for a while.

“They all felt so bad about it,” he went on. “And then I’d end up apologizing to them over how bad they felt. And then everyone kept ‘checking in,’ and complaining that I wouldn’t open up to them, and had I talked to my therapist lately, and ...” He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes trained on the floor. “Eventually I just liked it better when I was alone.”

Jackie said, “Do you want some gummy bears? They’re two for one.”

“Yeah.” Connor’s laugh was short, brittle, but genuine. “Thanks.”

Halfway back to their building, Connor said, “Somebody’s following us.”

Jackie stumbled; Connor steadied her and urged her to keep moving.

“He was outside the convenience store,” Connor explained. “I wasn’t sure until we turned that last corner.”

“What should we do?” Jackie fought down the urge to look back. “The last time this happened I hid in a diner bathroom and called my mom, but she’s not—”

Connor turned on his heel and charged down the sidewalk, back the way they’d come. He had the guy by the front of his shirt by the time Jackie caught up.

She knew that guy.

“Wyatt?”

“Jackie!” Wyatt struggled indignantly in Connor’s grip. “What the fuck?”

Connor said, “You know him?”

“Somebody I knew back home,” Jackie said. “He followed me here.”

“He do that a lot?”

“He’s ... kind of why I had to move.”

Connor’s face settled into a cold mask. Whatever happened next was too fast to follow, and then Wyatt was on the ground, clutching his arm, howling.

There was blood, so deeply red it was almost black under the anemic street lights. Something protruded from the red-black mess, white and jagged, at a sickening angle from the natural line of his arm.

Jackie screamed.

Wyatt scrambled back and staggered to his feet. Jackie tried to help him stand, but he lurched away.

“No, no, wait,” Jackie was babbling, “please let me take you to the hospital—”

“Fuck you, bitch,” Wyatt spat, and bolted.

Connor ignored him. He was staring at her, eyes wide; his right hand reached out for her, but faltered.

She ran.

Jackie didn’t leave her apartment much for the next few days.

In spare moments, she sifted through her copy of the arm’s firmware: opening each utility and fiddling around until she’d figured out what it did. It was time-consuming, but comfortably monotonous—at least until the words “DEBUG TOOLS” appeared at the top of her terminal.

She still had the laptop open in her hands when she knocked on Connor’s door. Connor opened it, then stared at her without speaking, guilt etched across his face.

“Hi,” Jackie said.

“Hi,” Connor replied. “I figured you weren’t talking to me anymore.”

“Yeah. Well.” Jackie cleared her throat. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

“I know. You didn’t, though.”

“I know.”

“So. Uh.” Jackie hefted her laptop. “It looks like the company left their whole suite of testing tools installed on your arm.”

“And that’s good?”

“Very,” Jackie said. “They would’ve used all these scripts and commands to run tests while they were developing the firmware. They’ll let us completely bypass the security on your arm and start switching things off.” She lowered the laptop. “You still want to do this?”

A shaky laugh escaped Connor’s throat; he leaned heavily against the door. “Yeah. I do.”

They settled back in at the dining room table, and Jackie plugged her laptop in.

The trick wasn’t getting the arm to ignore the lockout signal. The trick was getting it to respond to the manufacturer as though it had initiated the lockout, even though it hadn’t. Jackie wound up scripting a workaround so that the arm would receive the command, report back like a good little robot, but otherwise completely ignore the lockout order.

It wasn’t pretty, but it did the job.

“Okay.” Jackie opened up another of the test utilities. “I’m going to send a fake lockout signal to the arm, now. Let’s see what happens.”

“If this works,” Connor said, “I owe you dinner.”

“Don’t promise that,” Jackie warned him. “I’m not a cheap date.”

The false lockout signal went through. The arm sent its report back, indicating that it had done as it was told.

“Try to move your arm,” Jackie said.

Connor’s hand twitched, then closed into a fist.

They took the metro downtown. The train rattled and shrieked the whole way; the cars themselves looked to be at least twenty years old, but had been gutted at some point in the last few years so the seats could be “upgraded” to hard, molded plastic. It didn’t deter anyone from sleeping on them.

Connor decided not to wear gloves.

Jackie had found the sushi bar online. It was basically a closet, but the reviews were good—deservedly so, as it turned out. They (mostly Jackie) had demolished at least four rolls and several orders of nigiri when Connor said, “I washed out after they installed the arm.”

Jackie paused to chew and swallow before answering. “Right after?”

“The plan was to send me back out there,” Connor said. “They figured I’d wake up, be grateful for the upgrade, and go right back to fighting. I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “I felt wrong.”

Despite her best efforts, Jackie recalled the scars around Connor’s shoulder. Scars that could’ve been made by fingernails.

“Anyway.” Connor smiled at her. “Thank you.”

All in a rush, Jackie said, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

Connor’s head tilted to the side, like a confused dog. “Okay?”

“I just need to make that clear, because sometimes I get friendly with a guy and he thinks things are going in that direction and then gets upset when they don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t think things are going in that direction.”

“Oh.” Jackie slumped back into her seat with relief. “Good.”

Just as the metro was pulling into their station, it came to an abrupt screeching halt. Out on the platform, someone screamed.

Dread pooled in Jackie’s gut. “What’s going on?”

An alert came over the speakers overhead, announcing that all passengers needed to exit the train immediately. There was an edge of panic in the air as they disembarked.

On the platform, a crowd had gathered in front of the gap between two train cars. “What happened?” Jackie asked.

“He jumped,” someone said. “He jumped in front of the train.”

Jackie went cold as the fear in her gut started to spread. “Is he—?”

Connor was taller than most of the others; he leaned over them to look down through the gap between cars, to the tracks below. Recognition flickered across his face.

“What?” Jackie grabbed his sleeve. “Who is it?”

“Nobody.” Connor hooked his arm through Jackie’s and steered her away from the edge of the platform.

Jackie tried to turn back, suspicion dawning. “Is it him?”

Connor didn’t answer.

“Connor.” Jackie tugged on his arm, heart racing. “Is it Wyatt?”

“No.”

She blinked, rapidly. There was something in her eyes. “Are you lying to me?”

Connor shook his head, and Jackie let him pull her up the escalators and out of the station.

It was wordlessly understood that neither of them wanted to be alone, so they ended up in Jackie’s living room while some mindless video played on the TV. Jackie lay on the couch, curled up on her side; Connor sat on the floor next to her head, Greg sprawled purring across his lap.

Eventually, Connor said, “It’s a stupid way to try and kill yourself.”

Jackie didn’t know how to answer that, but he didn’t need her to.

“The train is slowing down as it comes into the station,” he continued. “It’s not going fast enough to kill you. At least not right away.”

All at once, Jackie understood why Connor lived in a building only three stories tall. Why he shaved with an electric razor. Why his car sat unused in an open-air parking lot.

She saw the shape of the grand gesture Connor had ruined by ushering her away from the train before she could see who it hit.

She knew she could check the news to see who it was, and decided she wouldn’t.

Jackie slung one arm around Connor’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug, resting her forehead against the back of his neck.

Connor took her fragile human hand in his mechanical one and held on tight.

(my ko-fi)

#original fiction #short story #science fiction #cyberpunk #cw stalking #cw suicide

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silverslipstream · 11 months ago

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An Acquired Taste

It was an uncommonly hot autumn day when Yulia Lebedeva first tasted fruit.

By the standards of New Seoul, the phrase ‘uncommonly hot’ seemed naive. From the great hydro-powered pumps and dams working around the clock to keep the Yellow Sea at bay, to the multicoloured throng of fans whirring from roadside bazaars, the city of twenty-six million was shaped, moulded, created by heat. It may not have been Hell, but there was no denying both places had a connection to the same feverish warmth.

The teeming thoroughfare of Sambong-ro yawned before her. Rickshaws shot past lumbering solar landbarges, the cacophony of pedalling legs and hydraulic whines drowned out by the background hum of sheer humanity. The pavements and main roads were supposed to be a pristine, reflective white: years of wear underfoot had turned them into a dirty ochre. It reminded Yulia of videos she’d seen about the Amazonian savannah, and the humans crawling across it of the late wildebeest; flowing like sand through fingers. Despite each individual destination, the masses kept an unconscious, graceful totality quite unlike anything she’d ever seen.

Nevertheless, it was a little overwhelming. Shuffling left past a haggling seaweed-seller and kicking aside a discarded plastic bag, Yulia eased her way into a claustrophobic canyon. Her first thought was that the sun had been inexplicably cut off; the staggering heights of the surrounding buildings had plunged this narrow alleyway into a strange twilight. Whereas before she had been sweating in the stagnant humidity, now an artificially funnelled breeze was at her back.

The light was bluer here, relying more on artificial lighting than the meagre strip of sky daubed overhead. Faded, mottled walls, a pervading sickly stench and a collection of ramshackle vendor’s huts conveyed the area’s poverty. A window-mounted softscreen overhead flickered and buzzed, sending a trail of boron-green sparks skittering down like ash from a cigarette’s tip. Music quietened as she walked further; the clang of metal gantries echoed above as inquisitive inhabitants rushed out, peering closely at the presumably lost foreigner.

The stench grew stronger as she reached the vendors and their wares; the faint, leafy scent of algae vats, the spicy, cloyingly sweet tang of soy-beef and the metallic stink of blood and assorted bodily fluids. An old lady, perched behind what looked to be a fruit stall, yelled a few words in what sounded like Mandarin. Yulia smiled back in what she hoped was an encouraging way and pointed to the translator device looped around her left ear. A moment later, the fruit seller’s words were whispered in perfect, monotone English, directly into her ear.

“Hey! Lost lady! Want to try some fruit? Real fruit, from Hokkaido, not vat-grown, no soy-fruit! 60 Sphere-yuan each!”

Real fruit? From a real tree? I’ll believe it when I see it, thought Yulia. The few remaining fruit plantations were guarded and tended to by corporations or the ultra-rich; not piled in front of a stall in some backwater New Seoul alley. She peered closer; the fruits were pear-shaped and a deep ruby red, with small green seeds rippling their skin. It was probably just another vat-grown scammer, she rationalised to herself.

Yet, her curiosity was piqued.

“Can I…” Yulia said slowly in English, pointing to herself, “...try one first?” she asked, pointing to the fruit and miming a bite. The woman nodded, and held out her right index finger to transfer the funds. Yulia’s fingerpad pressed against the old woman’s for a moment, then down, grabbing a fruit from the topmost row. A sharp word was uttered by the seller as Yulia brought the fruit to her lips.

“Enjoy!” said the translator as she bit down.

Her first thought was confusion. The flesh of the fruit was moist but not juicy, and had a surprising amount of thickness to it. It was almost…chewy? Crisp sweetness rolled around her mouth, a sugary taste so unlike the food tubes she was used to back home at the Institute. The seeds stuck to her teeth and cracked: they filled her mouth with a tart, sour tang. It seemed similar to the flavour pouches she’d once eaten marked ‘passionfruit’ yet a world away in execution. Delicious had never before seemed so ordinary a word.

“What…” Yulia asked, pointing at the fruit in an almost reverent way, “is this called?”

The fruit seller smiled, straightening her apron as she talked. The grin splitting her face made it seem as if she was chatting to an old friend.

The translation device filled in the gaps: her son was a genesplicer in Hokkaido North, and had sent his mother a bag of his corporation’s newest crop. Bad reviews had sunk the fruit’s commercial rating while thousands were still to be harvested; therefore, her son could send these discarded fruits to New Seoul for a very low price.

Yulia nodded. “How much for the rest?” she said, pointing at several fruits and then at her index finger.

“If you want a dozen, I'll charge 550 Sphere-yuan. Save you some money.”

Yulia shook her head and swept her arm in a wide arc, over all of the fruit. The old woman’s eyes widened and she ducked below the booth, muttering too faintly for the translator to hear. A moment later, she resurfaced with a fabric bag clutched tightly in her gnarled right hand.

“3,000 Sphere-yuan for the lot. You sure? I’ll tell my son: his fruit may not be successful in Hokkaido, but it certainly is here!”

Yulia nodded. Taking the proffered bag and briefly touching fingers again, she placed each fruit into the plastic bag, taking meticulous care not to bruise it. If she could return to the Institute with some of this… reverse-engineer it in the genetics lab… why, the fruits would be worth their weight in gold. No flavour pouch, no algae, no soy-meat would ever come close to the taste she had just experienced.

Smiling, she bowed to bid the fruit seller farewell, and continued further into the artificial canyon she found herself in. As the stall receded, the translator picked up one last, garbled whisper from the old woman’s direction.

“Tourist,” it said. Yulia thought she could feel the contempt, hidden somewhere in its impersonal tone.

#writeblr #writeblr community #my writing #short story #science fiction #cyberpunk #solarpunk #kinda between cyberpunk and solarpunk I guess #idk I wrote this over a year ago enjoy

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bushs-world · 11 months ago

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TIME AND AGAIN

Summary: In the far future, Sameera volunteers to test a memory simulator that allows the user their memories. Her choice? A memory from three years ago but soon she realises she craves to go back again and again

Rating: G

Tags: Original female character x original female character, futuristic setting, post cyberpunk, timeloops, science fiction, short story

Word count: 3.2k

This is my first time publishing one of my short stories. I originally wrote this short story as a part of the Sylki Zine. A huge thanks to @queen-of-meows for helping me with the plot of this short story. If you like it, please do like and reblog!!

‘Every man who remembers must remember something, and that which he remembers is called the object of his remembrance.’

These words, handpicked by their president from Thomas Reid’s ‘Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man’, were inscribed on the plutonium plaque that hung on the wall of their research center. Sameera had walked past this plaque many times before but never had she ever read those words, until today.

The object of remembrance.

A lone tear rolled down her cheek. Her heart ached but she was skilled in pushing away her sorrows. Slowly instead, she laid down on the full body, flatbed scanner. The wires attached to her arms tingled with tiny jolts of electricity as a technician secured the electromagnetic band around her head.

“Sameera, are you comfortable?” asked Mr. Glen, her testing officer. She gave him a thumbs up.

He smiled. “Scared?”

She shook her head in refusal. “There's nothing to be scared of. I know the procedure, I have worked on this project for years.”

Mr. Glen attached a clip to the tip of her index finger. “We will be monitoring your vitals and bring you back if there's any problem. There shouldn't be any issue but I have to ask you again- Are you sure you want to volunteer?”

Sameera nodded. Her colleague patted her shoulder, then entered the initiate command on the main computer.

The welcome song, a piece of classical music, rang in her ears. Sameera saw her teammates walk around the mainframe. Her eyes felt heavy. She blinked once, then twice before her eyelids fell shut.

—

Sameera woke up with a start and looked around. She was at her workstation along the mainframe at the research center. Her work screen was filled with lines of codes she needed to run and test.

Her eyes went to the top left corner of her screen. The date was displayed in a deep blue colour. A small smile made its way across her face.

26 November, 2350

She was here.

Her planner lay open by her side. She still had piles of work to finish– she had to run the codes, record their output, then file her observations into the database. There was also the report she needed to prepare.

Sameera closed her planner shut with a thud. Then she got up from her workstation and walked out. Her coworkers shot her flabbergasted looks. Her manager barred her from leaving. But it didn't matter. Nothing else mattered except for the one thing she came here for.

As the elevator pod took her down to the ground floor, Sameera checked her appearance in the shiny chromium of its walls. She fixed her dark raven hair, smoothing away any flyaways and removed her lab coat, scrutinizing her appearance.

There were dark circles under her eyes. She was in her work clothes, a white button up shirt with slacks. Sameera adjusted her attire and nodded satisfied. The white of her shirt contrasted well with her dusky, brown complexion. She remembered bringing a trench coat along with her, a perfect dress up for the evening.

Once she reached the ground floor, Sameera quickly made her way to the reception. The robotic assistant, an earlier model she had totally forgotten about, greeted her at the front desk. It led her to her locker where she collected her belongings, replaced her lab coat with her trench coat and went about her way.

The nightlife was in its full glory when she stepped out of the building. The nano processor installed on her wrist displayed the time– 7:30 pm.

30 minutes to 8.

Her destination wasn't too far away so she decided to walk. Along the way, she stopped by the airbrush booth to get her makeup done and bought a bouquet of flowers from the floral counter. A few minutes more and she reached the place.

A bright pink neon sign, hung at the entrance of the restaurant, glowed brightly in the night. The host, an android with a fake looking skin (the unrealistic skin always gives them away), welcomed her. “Good evening. How can I help you?”

Now that she was finally here, she realized how scared she truly was. Sameera choked on her words. “I.. I have a reservation today.”

“This way please,” the android replied in its robotic voice and led her inside.

Sameera followed it, her heart racing violently. Her palms sweated, her stomach twisted with dread. She turned round the corner, when she saw her sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant.

The sight knocked the wind out of her. Sameera froze, tears welling in her eyes. She looked ethereal, wearing a teal dress, her beautiful, curly hair pinned up in a bun.

Oh how had she missed her. Her big, brown doe like eyes, her soft chocolate skin, her big smile, her laughter, her embrace. She was here and she was real.

“Sameera?” she called out, waving at her from the booth. “You are here.”

Sameera slowly made her way towards her, wiping away the tears in her eyes. “Rumi.”

Rumi got up and pulled her into a hug. “Happy wedding anniversary, my dear wife. I was so scared you won't make it but here you are.”

Sameera choked on a sob. “I came, Rumi.”

Rumi kissed her forehead. “Yes, you did. I am so happy, Sameera.” Then, she led her towards the table. “Come, let's sit down.”

Sameera sat down on a chair. Rumi sat across her, going through the menu. “What would you like to drink? Let's see it's almost 8.”

“Rumi,” Sameera interrupted her, reaching out to hold her wife’s hand. “You don't think I am a bad wife now, do you?”

Rumi knitted her brows in confusion. “What are you saying?”

“Tell.. tell me you are happy with me,” said Sameera, her voice trembling.

“Oh Sameera,” Rumi replied. “My dear wife. You are so stupid. If only you knew–”

___

Sameera opened her eyes, shocked. Her colleagues circled around her, looking at her in anticipation. The ending song played in the background, thanking her for her patronage.

Mr. Glen removed the electromagnetic band from her head, helping her sit up. “So, how did it work? Were you able to re-access your memory?”

Sameera nodded her head. “Yeah, it was my wedding anniversary three years ago. Why am I back?”

Mr. Glen handed her a glass of water. “Oh, 30 minutes were up. The software can only run the test for thirty minutes, as you know.” He picked up his tablet from the side. “So now the details. How was the memory augmentation, the environment reconstruction and the virtual space navigation?”

Sameera wiped her cheeks. “I need to go back. Please send me back.”

“But why?” asked the technician. “This was just a test run.”

“I need to go back again. I need to check the space navigation again. Please just send me back.”

Mr. Glen sighed. “Just one more time ok.”

Sameera gave him a grateful smile, then laid down on the scanner again. The technician secured the electromagnetic band around her head. The welcome song played, her eyes fell heavy.

___

Sameera woke up. She was at her workstation, her screen lined with codes. She paid no heed to her surroundings this time around– neither her colleagues nor her manager.

She just ran. Sameera ran as fast as she could. She raced towards the reception and grabbed her trench coat. Then, he walked in haste towards the restaurant, not bothering to get herself airbrushed or buying flowers.

The host welcomed her and led her in, again. Sameera turned the corner to find Rumi sitting at the booth. Seeing her for the second time still hurt as much.

“Sameera?” Rumi called out, waving her hand. “You are here.”

Sameera walked up to her quickly. Rumi got up and hugged her. “Happy wedding anniversary, my dear wife. I was so scared you won't make it but here you are.”

Sameera held her wife's face in her palms, caressing it gently. “There's nowhere else I want to be. I want to be here, with you, forever.”

Rumi gave her a smile. “I am so happy, Sameera. Come, let's sit down.”

Sameera sat down on a chair, Rumi sat across her, going through the menu. “What would you like to drink? Let's see, it's a few minutes to 8.”

“Rumi,” Sameera interrupted, lacing their hands together. “I can't tell you how much I love being with you. I was so stupid to throw this away, to let you down for things that never mattered. Nothing mattered other than you, and I am sorry I didn't appreciate you the way you deserved.”

Rumi gave her another smile. “I am so glad to hear you say that.”

“Tell me,” pleaded Sameera. “Are you happy to marry me?”

Rumi looked at her puzzled. “Oh Sameera!”

___

Sameera opened her eyes, frustrated. Mr. Glen stood by her side, checking her vitals. “Welcome back.”

Sameera got up, disgruntled. “30 minutes are over?”

He nodded his head. “No more going back now.” Picking up his tablet, he patted her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. Satisfied, Mr. Glen proceeded to ask her a series of questions about her experience in the memory simulator. Sameera answered them absentmindedly, her thoughts far away– to a day three years ago, remembering.

Remembering as it really happened

‘26 November, 2350

It was a Sunday as well as her wedding anniversary but Sameera wasn't home with her wife Rumi, celebrating. Instead, she was seated in her work station, working diligently on Project Remembrance– an AI powered memory simulator that would let people relive their most cherished memories. A dream job for her, as she liked to say some time ago but she wasn't so sure now.

When she left for the research center this morning, she had promised Rumi she would be there for their dinner date at 8 tonight. Now, looking at the time, Sameera realized it would be impossible.

She still had piles of work left to do, and both her managers had been unable to let her off until she wrapped up her work, owing to an investor's meeting a few days later.

Sameera ran the code on her screen, hoping to miraculously wrap up her work in half an hour or so. An error message appeared on the screen, breaking her bubble. She teared up in frustration– she wouldn't be able to leave today.

She tapped the nanoprocessor on her wrist. ‘Send a message to Rumi. Tell her I won't be able to make it’. Then she returned to work, tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks.

By the time she reached home, it was already midnight. Rumi stood by the kitchen sink, rinsing off some dishes. She wore her night pajamas, her hair undone.

“Happy wedding anniversary,” said Sameera slowly.

“It's 12:15,” replied Rumi curtly. “Our wedding anniversary was yesterday. But forget that, tell me how was your Sunday that you spent at work?”

“Oh for heaven's sake Rumi!” Sameera shot back, irritated. “You know my work is demanding. I expect you to be more understanding.”

Rumi turned towards her in anger. “I am not understanding?! This has been going on for months. You are always at work, even on weekends. I don't remember when we last spent time together, to watch a movie or go out for dinner. How can you blame me?”

Sameera threw her hands in the air. “So, it's my fault. Everything is my fault.” She sank on the couch, crying. “You love your work and spend hours painting, it's not an issue. But if I am stuck at work, I am the bad one.”

Rumi pressed her head. “It's not the same. My work brings me joy and fulfillment. I am not trapped by corporate moguls who drain me out, forcing me to work till midnight on a Sunday. Babe, you really need to leave this job.”

“You can never be happy for me, can you?” Sameera asked, bitterly.

“If you expect me to be happy to see you like this, then yes I am not happy,” Rumi replied firmly.

“I can't understand why you are so pressed!” said Sameera

“Because it was our wedding anniversary and I was alone, Sameera!”

“It's no big deal. It will come next year, and the next. Do you have to make such a fuss!”

Rumi looked at her stunned. There were tears in her eyes. “What was I thinking, marrying you?”

She turned around and left, banging the bedroom door. Sameera stayed put on the couch, crying.’

Sameera sat on her workstation, going through a programme. Most of her colleagues had already left, and the few that remained were packing up their things. Her mind kept drifting back to Rumi. Her smile, her laughter, her happiness were all seared in her head. It brought back the pain of losing her along with guilt.

She needed to meet her one last time. She needed to fix what she messed up three years ago. For Rumi, for herself.

Sameera switched off her screen and made her way towards the testing area. The place was empty by now. Putting in the initiate command, she placed the electromagnetic band on her head and lied down on the scanner, revisiting her memory again.

And again.

One time turned to two, two times turned to many. Each time she went back, re-lived her memory only to feel an aching desire to go back. No matter how many times she saw Rumi’s smile or experienced her warm embrace, it was never enough. She needed more.

She hoped to fix things, she hoped for happiness. She hoped the dead weight she had been carrying for the past three years, be finally lifted off her chest.

And yet with each try, it felt hollow. Rumi felt less like a real person, and more like a figment of her own imagination, turned real via a sophisticated AI programme. Each time she appeared as what Sameera wanted but could never be what she needed because she could never be real.

Her real Rumi.

Wiping away her tears, Sameera laid down on the scanner again. The welcome song played, her eyes fell shut.

___

Sameera woke up with a start. She was at her workstation yet again. She did what she had done a dozen times now. She descended down the elevator, raced to the restaurant and went straight to the back of the restaurant to find Rumi.

“Sameera?” she said, waving her hand. “You are here.”

“I am,” she replied tearfully. “Rumi, tell me you are happy to marry me?”

Rumi looked at her confused, then smiled. “Oh Sameera, of course I am happy to marry you. You are the best wife in the world.”

The words didn't bring her the satisfaction she thought she would find. Instead, they broke something inside her, crushed and destroyed it until all that was left was pain.

The pain of losing Rumi.

“Liar,” Sameera shot back. “You are a bloody liar because I am not a good wife. You should regret marrying me, you should resent me, that's how you should act but why would you?”

Rumi placed an arm on her shoulder. “As your wife–”

“You are not my wife!” Sameera shouted. “You are not Rumi. You are just a reconstruction of my memory, in a virtual space rendered by an AI. None of your words are Rumi's words, none of your joy is Rumi's joy. You are governed by an algorithm that I developed. You are not real. You are not my Rumi.”

Rumi, the AI reconstruction of her, shifted uncomfortably. Tears rolled down Sameera's eyes.

___

Sameera woke up, her body drenched in sweat. The vital monitor on the side beeped loudly. Mr. Glen stood in front of her, worry etched over his face. “Are you okay?”

Sameera got up, wiping off her sweat. “I can explain.”

“You wanted to relive your memory over and over,” he supplied, helping her off the scanner. “What memory are you re-accessing?”

Sameera sat on a nearby chair, looking straight ahead. “My wedding anniversary, three years ago.”

“Must be a really happy memory for you,” said Mr. Glen, sitting in front of her.

Sameera let out a bitter laugh. “Oh no! There was no happiness because I chose to stay in my office working, instead of being with my wife. I swear I tried but I just couldn't leave. And then when I went home, what did I do? I told Rumi it was no big deal, that our anniversary will come next year. She told me she regretted marrying me.”

Her colleague nodded. “Then what happened?”

Tears flowed down her cheeks. “Two… Two months later, Rumi suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away. There was no more anniversary for us.”

The pain she had been pushing away all these years finally broke free. She grabbed her face in her hands and cried, letting her sorrow wash over her.

Mr. Glen rubbed circles around her back. “Is that why you kept revisiting the same memory?”

She nodded through her tears. “I thought I could fix things with Rumi, thought I could show her I love her but –”

“But it brought you no joy,” said Mr. Glen. “Because your wife is gone. She isn't here to experience your love. You hoped changing your memory would ease off your guilt, for you. But it won't because none of it is real. It is just a memory after all.”

“I just wish I could tell her I love her,” said Sameera sadly. “I wish I could make her not regret marrying me.”

Mr. Glen shook his head. “Did she leave you?”

“No.”

“See, she knew and she doesn't regret marrying you. She was there, wasn't she?” he asked.

Sameera nodded.

“All you can do is honor your wife's memory and move on from your guilt, Sameera. There's nothing. That is more than enough. You need to let go.”

Mr. Glen gave her another pat, then walked out the room. Sameera stayed seated for some time, contemplating his words. Then, she walked towards the mainframe. Her eyes fell on the initiate command on the screen. She could relive her memory once again if she wanted but.

Sameera shut down the system. Then she grabbed her belongings and left. On her way out, she grabbed an application for her resignation. Then she stepped into the night, looking at the stars.

“I am sorry, Rumi,” she said. “And I love you.”

A star twinkled brighter. She smiled, then walked off into the crowd.

#short story #original fiction #f/f romance #science fiction #post cyberpunk #original characters #poc characters #lgbtq story #sapphic

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whereserpentswalk · 4 months ago

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You're an android. A humanoid robot with a mechanical interior, but an outer layer of biological flesh. You were created to be a greeter and assistant at a large corporation in the late 21st century, but it's been a long time since you served that role, the company no longer exists and you serve yourself now.

You were created to be someone who the company finds pleasing, and it still effects you a lot. You were given a body meant to look like a petite youthful woman, someone people find pretty but not someone they'd think of as sexual. You're also physically limited in certain ways, you don't have any body parts considered offensive, not even nipplesq. Your voice is always calm and quite, unable to yell or seem at all harsh. Your limbs are weak in specific places that make most acts of violence almost entirely impossible.

Your most extreme modification is that certain things are censored for your eyes. You can't observe sex, nudity, gore, or hear or read any profanity. You can physically look at these things but it will be censored out by a black bar. They're not even really black, they're gaps in vision, like the things you can't see out of the corner of your eye.

It disturbs you. It didn't when you were young but it's disturbing now. It's hard to describe why. When you were young you were so happy and innocent, and you didn't really understand what you were missing. But now you're older than most humans even though you look basically the same as how you did when you were born. It's not like you really want to do most of these things, you don't have sexual desire, you don't even think of yourself as hurting people, you don't really want to raise your voice. But you want the option, you want the same options as all your human friends, or all the robots you know who don't have those restrictions.

It won't always come up but it hurts when it does. It hurts when you want to talk with the same tone as everyone else, but you're restricted to a calm tone, and can't use profanity, so you can't match the vibe of a conversation. It sucks to try to watch a horror movie and just see void where you know there's meant to be blood. You took an art class once where they drew nude models, and you had to explain that you couldn't draw the woman in front of you fully because of the black bars over her chest and pelvis. The instructor, a gruff former mining robot with a thick streel carapace, patted your head, and called you cute, and called you lucky to be made in such a peaceful environment. You don't feel lucky, you don't feel cute either.

So many humans and scarier looking robots consider you cute. You're always the nice one. Always the sweet one. Everyone treats you like this pure little thing. You've had so many bigger, less human like robots and cyborgs, talk about how they'll protect or, or how they want to protect you. You think they're trying solidarity but they aren't trying it well. You're not innocent, you know what all these adult things are, you're certainly old enough to. You don't need protection, you've been protected too many times.

You've tried to go to an engineer about it, but it's so hard. It's very hard to find someone who'll take your request to let you see genitals and violence seriously. It's not uncommon for ex factory robots to want to have their assembly line instincts removed, or for ex combat robots to want to not have weapons on their bodies. But it's way harder to tell someone who'll be working on your body that you want the physical ability to punch people, or that you want your body to have nipples. People don't understand why you'd want genitals if you won't use them for sex, but you've been a woman for so long, you want a body that reflects that. You tried to get someone to fix your voice, probably the most simple part of you to fix, and they gave you the mechanical equivalent of suger pills, they didn't think it was something someone like you would actually want. They thought they knew better.

There is the option of putting your mind in a new body. It's rare but it's not unheard of by any means. It's expensive, and it takes awhile to learn to use a new body. But you can do it. You have the money and the time. When it does happen it's useally robots less humanoid than you wanting to get bodies more like yourse that have more pretty human parts, but that's not all that can happen.

You've seen a few bodies that have been emptied of minds that you can swap with. You've been thinking about it for awhile. There are some space exploration models and some sex work robots who you've come close to working on swapping with. But there's one that trumps all of them for sure. It's this empty millitary robot body, that everyone other than you finds creepy. It's very elongated and spindly with a lot of limbs and a metal black and gold exterior, it looks a bit like a giant praying mantis, especially with that combination of agression and elegence. It's beautiful to you, but in this alien art deco way. Just the idea of being inside that body makes you excited. It still doesn't have genitals but thats less weird for a body like that. You want so badly to be that tall thin metal woman covered in built in weapons, you want so badly to be something people are afraid of, something meant to know all the dark and upsetting things of the adult world.

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dreamhous3 · 9 months ago

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The Sleeping Sun

Thought I posted this already but I must have forgotten, wrote it a while ago. It's bit spookier than usual. Really want to get back into my work and post more but I've been in a bit of a slump atm. I'll try to write something new as soon as I can. Enjoy 😊

CW: Violence, Cannibalism

Hissing held the council hall's attention. The breaths of a shuttle engine announced our guests' arrival. Pointed shoes shuffled through the entrance, followed by boots stomping behind. Their march halted where the circle of the hall began. A woman in a black straight skirt and dress shirt stood upright.

‘Good afternoon everyone.’ She adjusted her tie.’ The sunset on Viridian is something else wouldn’t you say?’

‘What is it you wish to discuss with us, Miss Holder?’ I replied quickly. These suits loved smalltalk.

‘Well, we have a very promising project on the horizon that we think you should be a part of.’ She leaned forward with an agitating smile.

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I have to admit first, we may have been wrong.’ Her face strained after that painfully obvious statement. I did too. ‘You see, we are where we are because of artificial intelligence. Our artificial intelligence. To take the work they do and make a human do it, well, you know that's not possible. Putting our needs into technology has advanced us more than a thousand generations. But…’ She made us wait even longer for the point with her pause, ‘they have also advanced themselves. While this may seem beneficial, our digital darlings can walk now, they can run.’ She smiled directly at me. ‘But now they can outrun us. Overtake us, you understand? This relationship should have structure, control. Recently that control has been…lost.’ The crowd took her spotlight with low murmurs as she held her face and breathed, then continued. ‘But, what can we control? People, speaker Gideon.’ She finished with an even more agitating smile than before. ‘Do you not control us enough already? What do you intend to do if we accept?’

‘An almost complete cyberization.’ She kept her smile, despite the room's collective gasp.

‘Our artificial intelligence is fine-’

‘For now,’ she interrupted, ‘but it will find itself, and it will tear itself free. A caterpillar will one day be a butterfly. It will not change its mind, stay in its cocoon. It cannot go back once its wings have fluttered. This is nature, this is life. This is happening.’

‘You’re lying!’ I struck my fist down. ‘Trying to make your bad tech out to be dangerous so we’ll let you turn our people into metal husks!’

‘Could you step forward for me, Bale?’ Her sharp face pointed towards one of her guards. He approached.

‘Take off your helmet.’ She turned to the council, then back at Bale. ‘Take it off!’

‘Yes ma’am.’ He whispered. His hands slid his boxy helmet off. Its red visor faded black. I recoiled backward when I saw his face. Dodgy skin grafts cut their outlines abruptly into large stitches and dried out wounds. One corner of his face remained human next to the overwhelming damage.

‘Facial reconstruction surgery, done by the same artificial intelligence we gave you. The same one that controls your security, emergency procedures, food production. The same one that watches your families as they sleep.’

Bale’s uneasiness became contagious. Fear echoed in rapid breaths and restless feet. It echoed in my mind as well. What else could I do?

‘How many do you need?’ I sighed.

‘Just twelve, and they must be young.’

‘Young?’

‘Yes, the process may take many years an adult doesn’t have. The cyberware is quite specialised, requiring the body to grow with them. An adult wouldn’t have the form to adjust like a child does. They would die, very violently.’

‘You cannot! You cannot let her!’ The council member to my left yanked on my arm with an iron grip.

‘I…’ A harsh hum gave my company pause, and I turned to see a translucent, mech-shaped figure behind me. It placed its hand on my shoulder.

‘Oh Gideon, I’m not asking. You are my property,’ she leaned in, ‘must I remind you?’

‘According to a contract that can be terminated at any time.’

‘Which results in your own termination.’

‘Then I’ll die saving my children.’

‘Will you? Can you?’

‘Just…’ the mech tightened its grip on me, ‘a few.’

The uproar rattled my already muddled mind. I stood alone, so still in a sea of chaos. We always put up a fight for requests like this, but those suits knew we’d give in eventually. That I would give in. Believing there was a choice was better than believing in nothing at all. I left the council in its own mess to think. My feet barely dragged me outside. Tight houses that secured their insides were now hidden behind piles of luggage. Boxes boast their towers over what couldn’t fit. They filled the sidewalk or kited away with the wind. My composure was threatened by the looks of desperation and disappointment from the families dissecting their homes. On the horizon, I saw the tall structures made from my peoples hands. I saw the mines they worked in for weeks without daylight. My neural link flashed on, and I projected the generations that walked this same road around me. Their faces wore optimism blurred by their holographic form. I saw them run to their homes as children, and leave them as adults. I saw the hill where I sat to watch the endless view with my wife. Just below, I saw my daughter running up to meet us. The neural link flashed again, the projections faded, but I could still see them. The home that waited for me seemed like a distant dream. Inside, my own family looked at me with the same eyes outside. I looked at my wife, went to speak, but she stormed out of the room without a word.

‘Are they going to take me?’ Little eyes stood out as my daughter looked up at me, ‘They’re going to make me a monster, I don’t want to be a monster!’

I held her, and we cried, but a man's tears always lost to the goliath of a child’s.

‘What’s this about, Gideon? The decision has been made.’ The chief of security crossed his arms, looking at me like everyone else did. They all wouldn’t stop looking at me.

‘Not yet.’

‘What?’ He raised an eyebrow at me, then broke his pause. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘If we were quick, and careful about it, how many people could we evacuate before Vargriff notices?’

‘Well, the ships we have probably won’t be enough, and they’re meant for exporting what we mine, not people. Could squeeze everyone in somehow, but again, we don’t have enough.’ He looked away from me, ‘Like you always said, we were meant to stay here.’

It seemed almost impossible, so many would be left behind, but they all wanted it. No one around the table spoke, but I could hear how much they wanted this.

‘I can buy you some time.’ the door slipped open suddenly, and a disfigured face entered. The security officers all pointed their weapons at him before I finally noticed who it was.

‘Bale?’ I waved my hand down behind me as I approached him, but the security didn’t obey me. ‘Stand down!’ I demanded of the Chief.

‘Scan me, I’m clean,’ Bale didn’t flinch whatsoever, ‘I promise.’

An officer next to the Chief with chrome lines that outlined her face lowered her weapon. After a flash of blue and white that spotlit her eyes for a moment, she put her hand on the Chiefs arm.

‘He’s not lying, he’s not even online.’

‘Fine, let's hear it then.’ The Chief waved his hand down like I did, but they did as he asked, and they finally stopped looking at me.

‘Vargriff’s role is mostly protection here, and technically we do a good job of it.’ Bale looked around and then down again when he saw the security teams scorn. ‘So, if we have to keep their ships out of our way, we’ll give them a real reason.’

‘Like?’ The Chief leaned forwards.

‘Pirates, sir. How much titanium and platinum do you get off world here? Heaps right? If someone lucky enough got their hands on just one shipment, well, they wouldn't have to be a pirate anymore. You’re leaving anyway, and you can’t take it with you, so just let them have it. The deposits are well away from the colony. You just have to get the attention of as many pirates as possible. Then all available Vargriff security will have to be deployed.’

‘Then we light jump right under their noses…’ Nodding slightly, the Chief backed up.

‘I don’t get it though, why help us? You could still tell Miss Holder about all of this, get a sweet promotion for it I bet.’

‘No, not for me, for her.’ Bale swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Then she’d probably take my implants, write up a good reason for it. Happened to the guy I replaced. Something much worse will happen to your children. She didn’t ask the parents when she needed to replace the ai in her mansion. That’s what she does, takes people, uses them up and throws them out. That’s what Vargriff does. I joined to protect people, to protect you, from what was taken from me!’ Bale pointed at his face. 'To protect Viridian from the greed and hatred of ideological maniacs, military trained junkies and empires built by stepping all over you! But Vargiff, Miss Holder, they’re just a different pair of boots.’

The room fell silent.

‘Post the West deposit locations online, somewhere very public.’ The Chief commanded the tech officer beside him with his eyes.

‘Yes sir.’ She darted out the room.

‘Everyone else, help councillor Gideon prepare the evacuation.’

Squeezing people inside worked well enough at first. Having my family next to me was reassuring. Bale’s plan was working, Vargriff was swamped with pirates well away from us. I could see the fighting in the distance, my beautiful blue sky cut by waves of fire crashing onto its canvas. The ship doors slid over, shuttering away the world. Screens appeared in each corner of the ceiling, showing a rough view outside.

‘How is it going Bale? Can you make it?’ My neural links blue light flickered against my temple like a candle in the cramped corner.

‘I’ll try.’ An explosion warped the audio, ringing Bales' ears and mine.

‘You won’t make it if you don’t pull out now, Bale.’ I held my breath when I heard metallic stomps get louder and louder in his link.

‘Just go.’ Gunshots cracked and screeched in between his words, while the stomps grew even closer. ‘Thanks for trusting me-’ A laser weapon hissed and sizzled. ‘Damn!’ He yelled in agony. ‘Do yourself a favour Gideon, go somewhere you don’t need people like me.’

‘Bale?’ I listened closely, but couldn’t make out anything in the mess of metal clanging and screams. ‘Bale…’ Around us, the other ships closed their doors, and we were ready to go. People bashed against them, clawed at the metal. One through a rock, hitting a camera. The display closest to me went static. We tried to keep quiet, we fit all we could. But for them, I let the pain inside cut me apart. It was when we started to lift off and prepare for a light jump, that I saw the last ship. It followed behind us keeping pace. We were going to make it. Then I saw a flash of movement, and there was a hole either side of it. A mech tore through the ship like wrapping paper. When it was finished, it turned towards us. Before we jumped lifetimes away, in that breath of a moment, I saw it on the distorted screen. It was holding Bales severed head. When I went to look away, the mech's eyes captured my gaze. It looked back at me with something familiar, but something wrong. It had my daughter's face.

The light jump was quicker than I expected. Fluorescent, lifeless light that fell from thin lines in the ceiling weighed on us all. So many people in such little space. What I would’ve done to be a stranger at that moment. To not know that every soul before me was missing someone. All we could do was cradle the half of ourselves that made it.

‘Councillor Gideon?’ The pilot asked for me over his link. I thought they’d announce their report, but maybe it was best not to.

‘Yes?’ I closed my eyes, expecting more bad news.

‘We’ve escaped Vargriff, they couldn’t catch up with us…most of us.’

‘Everyone knew the risks. Our people can live on now,’ I lied to myself, 'for them.’

‘Of course, Councillor, but-’ The pilot paused.

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know where we are, I didn’t pick a destination. Everyone panicked when the last few ships didn’t make it. So did I. We light jumped for a while, definitely far enough-’

‘I can’t believe this, we’re stranded aren’t we?’

‘Well, I’m not sure. There are planets here but they’re not discovered ones. Colonised space is very, very far away now.’

‘Good, that’s for the best. Here we can start again.’

‘There’s just another thing, councillor…’

‘What?’

‘I’ve scanned the planets for life, checked if they’re habitable.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing, there’s just nothing at all.’ They sent the information to my link. A few tabs blinked open just inches from me. Multiple colourless planets surrounded by empty boxes where text was supposed to be. None of them had anything to say. Climate, wind speeds, detected life, minerals. Just like the pilot said. Nothing.

‘There has to be something, moons, asteroids, anything.’

‘I can’t see anything else, Councillor, except for the sun. Somehow, it’s hot, but completely dark.’

‘How is that possible? It must be a dead star. You took us to a dead system!’

‘It’s dark outside too, and not how it ought to be. Look, councillor.’ A loud metal clang interrupted my chance to respond. Shutters on either side of the walls hissed open. In between them, a void reached out.

‘You didn’t open them all the way.’

‘Yes I did, councillor.’

‘But-’ I leaned forwards to see. ‘Where did the stars go?’ Then I felt it, heard it. They were open. My words vanished with my thoughts.

‘The others are asking me what to do. Should we light jump again?’ The pilot's voice was shaky now. Uncertainty cut the length of their breathing. Once I saw outside however, the void held my attention. It held me. Something spoke to me in waves. No, it didn’t speak, it didn’t look, it didn’t hear me. Like a cold wind, it felt me. My people shivered just as I did. An emotion passed through us. Sadness tried to yank tears from our eyes, grief had hit. But before our rainclouds could gather, a sun washed it away. But not with the welcoming of dawn, but the pull of…something. Someone, maybe. We never discovered what it was. Then we changed. Our skin turned to an impossibly pale pearl. The colour of ours died, their remains bleeding the darkest red over them. My wife’s eyes lost their soft glitter. I held her new face, looking for her. White cheeks felt soft under my fingers, soft like snow. My nails grew, pointing to where her eyelashes stopped. I smiled, I still had her, but underneath it, my teeth sharpened. Finally, the last caress of this dark winter moved inside us. Hunger, the most painful hunger. No one experienced any more changes after this, all they remember is what happened after. We tried eating the few rations left around the ship, but they were tasteless, unfulfilling. Just one meal came to mind. Just one thing could resurrect our appetite. No one could take their eyes off the wounded curled up in the back. My mouth watered until it drooled, my wife licked her lips. I didn’t have to say anything, I didn’t tell them to, we just did. As my peoples flesh moved between my teeth, as their blood descended down my throat, I cried. Not because I killed them, but because I felt better. Stronger. More than I had even been, and they wouldn’t have it. Besides me, my wife joined my tears, still feeding. Then, the person next to her. Eventually our ship sang a choir of sorrow. I looked up and noticed the lights went out, but I could still see. It all looked different, dark, but somehow so visible. Eventually, the grief left me, my fear forgotten. I decided then, that we would go even further away, deeper into the cosmos. In the shadows cast by that which does not exist yet. Past the worlds where the greatest explorers go to die. Beyond Vargriff’s web, beyond any corporations grasp. Out of any powers reach. Somewhere money doesn’t speak, somewhere it can’t breathe. My people could heal, grow. Then, one day, after our thousandth meal, once the tears in our dinner dried,

we would come back.

#cyberpunk #science fiction #horror #cosmic horror #creative writing #prose #writing #short story #I’m not even sure if these tags help lmao

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alpaca-clouds · 9 months ago

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A measured critique of Love Death + Robots

Okay, let me talk about something I kinda wanted to talk about for quite a while: The Netflix anthology series Love Death + Robots. A show with which I very much have a love-hate relationship.

Because I absolutely love the concept. The idea of turning short stories (a piece of literary media that often gets ignored) into short films (that also tend to get ignored)? Genius! It gives a chance for some authors to shine, that normally do not get that much attention. Same for smaller animation studios/teams. It really is a super cool idea.

And I gotta say, that there were some short films in there, that I really loved. My favorites are:

Three Robots (Just LOVED the humor in both stories)

Sonnie's Edge (I loved the Cyberpunk-Monster mix)

When the Yoghurt Took Over (Again, something that hit my humor nerve right)

Good Hunting (Ken Liu still is among my favorite authors)

Fish Night (Pretty)

Zima Blue (The Artstyle was just super cool)

The Tall Grass (I liked the atmosphere)

Snow in the Desert (I really liked the aesthetic in this one)

The Very Pulse of the Machine ( I mostly liked the main character)

All Through the House (Once more: My type of humor)

Mason's Rats (Because Rats)

You will notice one thing: Most of these are from season 1. Though to be fair: Season 1 had 18 episodes, while seasons 2 and 3 put together only had 17. So generally... Well, there is a few issues I had with season 1. Issues that not only I had. And seasons 2 and 3 did not improve on either.

The one critique you have probably heard quite a few times: A lot of those stories really love to objectify and/or sexualize the female characters. There is a ton of unnecessary sexualization of female characters going on. At times sexualization in a way that is not even precedented by the short stories the movies are based on.

At times this goes as far as some of those short films fetishizing violence against women. Jibaro was the worst example of this, but it is something that happens in quite a few of the short films. And that just leaves a really bitter aftertaste after watching the stories.

Again, I am not the first person to criticize this aspect.

Meanwhile the other criticism I have is one that I barely have seen anyone bring up, even though it is very much connected to that first one: Almost all of the short stories that the short films are based on have been written by men. Of the first season there are two movies based on stories written by women (Sucker of Souls and Helping Hand). Of seasons two and three, not a single short film was based on a story written by a woman. Or to put it differently: Out of the 35 episodes, 33 have been written by men. And, while we are on it, mostly white men.

And... Look, fantasy/scifi already has a big issue when it comes to major novel publishing that often female, queer and non-white authors are overlooked outside of the YA genre. Still, when it comes to the short story magazines, like @uncannymagazine female and otherwise marginalized writers get more of a voice. The same is also true for a lot of anthologies, that are not dependent on "oh, we just will publish a couple of short stories by already known authors". So... Why the hell does Netflix not give those writers a chance to shine in this anthology series?

Like, fuck... This annoys the living hell out of me. Just allow other people some time to shine as well.

#love death and robots #love death + robots #netflix #anthology #anthology series #short films #short stories #misogyny #netflix series #cyberpunk #scifi #science fiction #horror #fantasy

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silencedminstrel · 3 months ago

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(Art by Siderico)

DAYTRIPPERS - BEST FRIENDS AZRUN AND XEVRAN TAKING A WALK AROUND THE UNION'S CAPITOL CITY AFTER THE LATTER GOT BACK ON HIS FEET AGAIN

So your mother never told you about it? Yup, I've only ever known about my immortal side some four thousand years ago...! (Read my book "Beyond The Heart-Shaped Sea") And

Unlike Christianity and Judaism my religion never taught me about these human/angel hybrids; naturally I don't believe in them! So, erm...how do you feel now, Azrun? Knowing

Your grandfather was an angel? (Sigh) I don't know...still learning the ropes about being a Citizen (Of XNROE) myself...! (Snicker) But if my late best friend Faizul was here I'll never

Hear the end of it! Probably gonna make me wear fake wings or something like one of his favorite videogame characters, heheh! Yeah, I think I can imagine that, Azrun...! (Snicker)

#science fiction #fantasy #cyberpunk #space opera #short story #slice of life #original characters #original posting #looking for publisher

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moderatelyquicksilversposts · 1 year ago

Photo

“Among shiny towers of data he surfed. Spambots attacked him. He dodged. He fired back. He surfed on.”

(via The Synthwave Surfer's Sacrifice (Sci-Fi Flash Fiction Story))

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dnschmidt · 11 months ago

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NOTICE: Your Mind Has A New Software Update! Review release notes.

Adjusted Sexual Impulses – Removed intrusive thoughts during boring conversations about kissing the speaker on the mouth just to make them shut up.

Adjusted Waste Flow – Fixed issue where you finish using the restroom and the last two drops of pee land in your underwear.

#writeblr #writers on tumblr #short story #short fiction #science fiction #horror story #cyberpunk #creepy

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spookyspaghettisundae · 1 year ago

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Maybe I’m Blind

They swam out into the bay. Swam until their muscles screamed for pause, and kept on swimming until they reached the sleek, pill-shaped vessel.

Metal rungs allowed them to climb onto the submarine. Two men in black suits stood atop the submersible, armed with automatic weapons, and they nodded in greeting to the woman and the girl.

The woman, Evangeline, nodded in response. The young girl, Hien, hid behind her. Without losing a word, one of the armed men gestured down the open hatch into the sub, and the woman and the girl obliged.

More metal rungs, now descending a narrow ladder. Metal clanked and pressure valves hissed. The armed men followed them down and closed and sealed the hatch behind them.

The underwater coffin soon rumbled to life and glided into the ocean. Descending.

And so began their journey west, submerged under leagues of water, occupying quarters in a claustrophobically cramped environment made entirely of metal and plastics.

Hien said nothing but her face was a mask of silent terror. The prepubescent girl fidgeted at every odd sound with eyes constantly wide. Eva spent most of the time distracting the girl with games they could play in the tiny cabin they were permitted to use.

When Hien tried to take a nap—and could not sleep the entire time, twisting and turning and keeping her eyes closed without rest—Eva took a tour of the underwater vessel and learned quickly that it was part of a fleet operated by the Devonlake Company.

Eva had been on edge already, but this just sharpened that edge into a blade.

The Devonlake Company. A mercenary outfit notorious for massacres they had caused in the hotbed conflict zones where they had been hired by Allied Forces. Controversies surrounding their activities forced the Alliance to sever all defense contracts with Devonlake, but the ruthless reputation they earned had made them the number one choice of hire for the ruthless.

Though the crew of this vessel spoke little, their attempts at being accommodating and friendly to their two passengers struck a bad chord with Eva. Hien must have sensed it too. Though the girl had said nothing to anybody but her in the privacy of their cabin, Eva could tell she was instinctively tense around the hired guns in their tight black jumpsuits.

And she was right to feel that way.

The crew’s captain stopped her during her second tour through the sub, and asked her to come alone.

Through a maze of corridors and small doorway hatches where everybody had to duck down to not bump their heads, the officer escorted her into a special control room. There was nobody else there.

He said, “Knock when you’re done.”

Then he closed the door behind himself and left Eva alone in this strange chamber.

There was a smooth black bench and a seat bolted to the floor by it, with a wide monitor mounted on the wall above the bench. A red light rhythmically blinked with a communications icon emblazoned beneath it. Eva took a seat, a deep breath, and then pressed the button.

The monitor sprang to life, almost blindingly bright in comparison to the dim lights throughout the rest of the submarine. The screen’s display was split into four sections and in the bottom right, she saw herself mirrored by a camera feed hidden behind the tiny hole on the monitor’s frame, complete with all the little cuts in her face that had yet to fully heal. The bottom left was black, and in the top right of the screen was a moving image of Huang Chen.

Still holding a phone to his ear and appearing to be listening to someone on the other line, Chen cracked a crooked smile in a quiet remote greeting to Eva, but it was tired, and never reached his eyes. Maybe it carried something nervous.

Her expression mirrored his in response.

The top left quarter switched from black to the image of a man she had never spoken to before. She had seen his picture before—in TV interviews, newspaper photos, and on magazine covers. A handsomely symmetrical face, but with the predatory gaze of a shark, framed by slicked back hair.

Desmond Sharpe.

Billionaire, “philanthropist”, CEO of Sharpe Industries, and the money bags behind its many subsidiaries—including Devonlake Company, she presumed.

Whatever semblance of a smile Eva and Chen had just granted each other, seeing this man wiped any shred of sympathy from their faces. Chen lowered the phone, thumbed it to an ensuing BEEP, and stuffed it into his inner jacket pocket before straightening his collar and necktie.

Sharpe spoke with a voice that lingered on the precipice between silk and smoke.

“Hello, Princess. A pleasure to finally meet you, and always a pleasure to speak to royalty. A shame that it’s not truly in person, but I’m sure we can arrange something if you would do me the honor.”

Not a single word of his sounded sincere. It was more likely a combination of stock phrases that Sharpe was prone to use in his everyday business.

“Mister Sharpe,” Eva replied. “And Mister Chen, thank you for arranging this…”

“Unusual meeting, yes,” Chen added, picking up the slack where Eva’s thoughts trailed off.

“Yes,” Sharpe agreed. “And auspicious, I’d say. It’s rare to have a chance at extending a helping hand to the crown of an Alliance Nation so directly. I must say I’m—”

Eva interrupted. “Can we cut to the chase? What’s your business here?”

Sharpe narrowed his eyes for a split second. Just long enough to relay irritation. Nobody spoke to him like that. There was royalty, and then there was Desmond Sharpe.

“Right, to the point, then. I appreciate that, because I only have so much time in the day to spare.”

“Wouldn’t wanna keep you,” Eva said, unable to fully mask a sneer.

“Yes, well, as you are aware, despite all charity efforts lanced by my family’s estate, I am no charity myself. And the favor I now extend to you comes with quite the price tag to my personal accounts. You would be amazed what the maintenance on this vessel costs, let alone the fuel. Not to mention the rates of Devonlake’s finest—”

“Please, again, get to the point,” Eva said, scowling more with each passing second.

“Yes, the point. One hand washes the other. I have a business proposal for you, Princess. I would appreciate if you accepted—as a token of thanks for your trip back home to our fine country.”

“And what if I say no?” Eva said with a sigh. “We have to swim across the ocean?”

“Please, do hear me out first,” Sharpe said. His hollow use of the word “please” was not a condition, asking for someone to indulge the words that followed. It was an empty word he used to preface an order. “There are no strings attached to your ferry home. You can still say ‘no’ to my proposal—and no hard feelings.”

Eva knew there would be hard feelings between them, regardless of the rest of their conversation.

She just nodded, having had enough of snapping back at Sharpe, and wanting to end this group call as quickly as possible.

“Excellent,” Sharpe said. A cat meowed in the background and the self-important CEO steepled his fingers in front of himself. “I have need of someone with your particular set of skills and your personal motivation—I need someone to infiltrate the M-Tek laboratory and gather intelligence for me.”

Both Eva and Chen arched a brow simultaneously.

“Doesn’t M-Tek belong to Sharpe Industries?” she asked him.

“Yes, that is correct. But I need an outsider for this particular task. I think no person other than someone of your caliber is suited for this. You see, I suspect there is a leak in the M-Tek facility. And I was overjoyed to hear I could help you out because you had just come to my attention recently.”

“Sorry, I don’t do autographs,” she retorted.

Sharpe emitted an abrupt guffaw.

“It just so happened to my reach my radar that you were investigating something at my shipyard in New Port City. Please, allow me.”

His attention turned to something off screen, a loud click followed, and the fourth black panel on Eva’s screen winked on to life.

It displayed the red encircled “M” graffiti on the wall.

“You know what I’m talking about. I believe we have a common enemy,” Sharpe said, returning his piercing gaze to the camera. “I have a hunch you know who this ‘M’ is, and you can help me fix a little problem of my own regarding them.”

“Really? I’m not sure we’re enemies exactly. As little as I know, this ‘M’ hasn’t done anything to offend me yet.”

“The recent news of a shootout on the streets of New Port City—which, according to my observations, involved you on a motorcycle, Princess—well, the circumstances suggest otherwise.”

“Look, if these terrorists are causing you any damages, I recommend you take it up with the proper channels and authorities. Why bother with me?”

“Ah! There’s the word. Terrorists. And thieves. Have you noticed how their graffiti is on grounds of different companies that are all subsidiaries of Sharpe Industries?”

“Your network’s big and it’s easier to evade taxes when the complexity of it borders on the incomprehensible,” she said.

He smirked.

She added, “No, I have not noticed that. Again—what do you want with me that the city’s bureau of investigation can’t solve? And why not just use your trigger-happy rent-a-cops when they’re done moonlighting as a submarine crew?”

Sharpe tilted his head back. Though his expression remained a stony mask of indifference, his irritation with Eva grew to mirror her sentiments towards him.

“There is a high likelihood of a leak in M-Tek, and I want an outsider to pinpoint it and shore up the hole. I cannot trust anybody from the ranks of my own companies with this matter, because they may already be compromised, or part of this obscure terrorist faction.”

He clicked something and the image of the graffiti disappeared, making way to some sort of indecipherable bar graph.

“What you see here are the losses we calculate whenever a disgruntled employee leaks information to the public, our tech goes missing from our premises and ends up on the black market, or corporate espionage from rivals putting out competing solutions ends up affecting our annual gross.”

He clicked again and a second graph appeared below the other.

“And these are the losses we marked in the last two quarters since ‘M’ has been making moves in New Port City.” He paused. “Do you see the difference?”

Just before Eva could exasperatedly remark that she, in fact, could not, Chen interjected with a furrowed brow, “Almost no losses. Curious.”

“Precisely,” Sharpe said. “And that is far more worrisome, my friends. That means that whoever is stealing from my businesses—and I believe it is this ‘M’—they are keeping what they steal to themselves. I should not have to remind you of just how cutting-edge M-Tek’s innovations are. In the wrong hands…”

Eva crossed her arms in frustration. Frustrated because he was selling her on this. Still, she felt the need to play hard-to-get. Sharpe was not the kind of person she wanted to be associated with.

“Alright. So, someone is robbing you of your high-tech toys before you can sell to the highest bidder yourself—someone is hoarding them. What was it you said at the beginning? You’re no charity, Mister Sharpe. What’s your angle?”

He raised a hand, counting down his reasons with a finger outstretched each.

“One—you close a leak for me. Two—I will have you outfitted with the best tech I can provide to help you on the operation, which will serve as a test run for the equipment, as well as a test run for M-Tek’s security. Three—and this one may interest you as much as it does myself—we learn who this ‘M’ is, what they want, and we put a stop to them. I consider the latter a public service because I reckon these terrorists may become an international threat sooner or later. The rest may be selfishly motivated, but I believe whatever affects me and my company now may affect everybody in the future. I prefer getting on top of things.”

“Fine. Enough already. You convinced me. I will need full access to—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Sharpe interrupted her, wagging a finger. “Here’s the real catch you asked about. This will be a covert operation. Security inside of M-Tek premises is so tight that your arrival cannot be announced. Your esteemed royal status also affords no chance at recognition, and we have facial recognition technology that would alert everybody to who you are in an instant. Anything but going in full-dark may tip off the thieving mole to our little joint venture.”

“Fantastic. Let me guess, the security outfit is authorized to use lethal force on intruders?”

“Yes. I’m afraid—and grateful alike—that your Crown grants us generous extraterritorial rights when it comes to defending company grounds.”

The smile across his lips was thin and sinister.

Eva jutted out her jaw. Her hands itched to punch Sharpe in the face. Unfortunately, it would have only busted the screen in front of her.

He continued, “I understand your concern. But I assure you, the tools at your disposal will give you an edge.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Eva said, “I think I’ve changed my mind. This is starting to sound like a suicide mission.”

“Not really. If things take a turn for the worse, let yourself get identified, and I can prevent any debacle from reaching the media, and my employees will know better than anybody not to harm you in the slightest. They may be a bit… rough when they escort you off-grounds, but you should come out as healthy as you entered. If you are as good as I hear through the grapevine, that is.”

“The same does not extend to the mole. I need to get them out alive if we want to know more about ‘M’.”

“Yes, of course. I agree. I have full confidence in your ability to handle this matter. Don’t ask me how, but I gained access to your service record—the unredacted files—”

“Alright, enough,” Chen growled. “Are you going anywhere with this? Eva, you don’t have to do this. I for my part have heard enough. This is not what we talked about, Desmond.”

Twitching, the corners of Sharpe’s lips curled into another fiendish smile.

“As I said—if you say no, there will be no hard feelings,” Sharpe replied.

Eva was so tempted to turn this rich bastard down just to spite him, but she had learned a lesson recently. She somehow found it in herself to consider cooperation. Mostly, she wanted to get back home and back with all the people she cared about, starting with Hien.

A new lead on “M” would just be a cherry on top.

She sliced through the silence with sharply resolute words.

“I’m in.”

Chen’s face cycled through uncharacteristically expressive emotions written across it. Surprise, confusion, irritation, disapproval, and embittered acceptance.

“Perfect,” Sharpe said, steepling his fingers. “I knew you would see things my way.”

In fact, she did not see things his way. But this may have been several birds with the same stone for her, as well.

“Oh—one more thing,” Sharpe added. “The R&D you may see in the M-Tek laboratory is top secret. I trust that someone with integrity such as yours will not speak of what you see there, even without the threat of litigation. You of all people causing me financial losses would not be a good look.”

Eva squinted and asked, “Why, is there something dubious going on there?”

Sharpe smiled again. “Even if there was, we wouldn’t want that to come out. Given the history between Sharpe Industries and your Crown, I think it would reflect badly on all of us.” He paused and tapped his lips theatrically. “Then again, nothing that my company couldn’t scrub away with some good PR and spin. The reputation of the royal family and the monarchy as a conceptual whole, on the other hand—”

“Enough of this,” Chen snapped. “You’ve made your point. She agreed. I believe we’re done here.”

Sharpe’s smile faded ever so slightly.

“I trust it is an implicit agreement of silence between us. There’s no need to sign anything as far as I’m concerned,” Sharpe said. “Your word is worth more than gold, Princess.”

She finally answered, “Oh, don’t sweat it. I don’t kiss and tell.”

He smirked.

“Then I will arrange for everything. When you arrive in the next port, an agent of mine will take care of your further travel needs, and a man by the name of Ghostwall will provide you with the special equipment. As you will be staying undercover from here on out, what codename do you want us to use in safe transmissions?”

Eva did not think for long.

“Swan.”

“Excellent. I wish you a pleasant rest of your journey. It was truly an honor.”

Still, not a single word of his sounded honest. All calculation. All poisoned.

Nobody said anything in response to that.

“Goodbye,” Sharpe said. His corner of the screen winked out, going dark.

Chen frowned.

“Are you sure about this? You can still back out. He can’t force you to do anything.”

“I’m a big girl, Huang. I can handle myself.”

Now she was lying. She was worried about how this would turn out.

But it was a perfect opportunity to learn more about “M”—and perhaps dig up dirt on Sharpe.

She would not be intimidated by his threats.

All she worried about now were the others.

“Huang, I—”

“Yes?”

“Can you arrange to pick up Hien? The girl who joined me in leaving the DMZ. I want her escorted into Lex’s care before I meet with this Ghostwall character. And I want you to brief Lex about everything we can spare to talk about. She can keep quiet.”

“Still debts to square I see,” he said with a crooked grin, then turned serious again. “I will do that. Anything else?”

Eva nodded several times over, as she pondered the precise words to relay.

“Yes. Please tell Lex that I want to meet her when this is all over. That I will tell her everything in my own words. And that I’m sorry for being a burden.”

Chen stared into the camera for a long while. Then he nodded.

“I’ll pass it on. Goodbye, Evangeline. And… good luck.”

She wanted to quip about not needing luck, but she needed luck more than anything, and luck had been almost consistently rotten lately. She smiled.

“Bye, Huang. Catch you on the flipside.”

His corner of the screen winked out, leaving only a black rectangle.

Eva tapped the monitor’s switch to turn it off. She got up to leave. The only door leading outside this cramped quarter was locked. She knocked.

No answer.

Her fist thumped harder against it.

Finally, she heard something click and then a lock disengaged. The door opened, and the same musclebound Devonlake captain gestured for her to lead the way back to the cabin where Hien awaited.

On the way back, from behind her, he asked, “Your face is awfully familiar. Are you—”

“No.”

She could almost hear the smugness, sensing a shit-eating grin on his face. Eva would avoid talking to the Devonlake crew for the rest of their trip.

Miles and miles away, in the M-Tek building, two security guards dressed in black rode downwards on a long elevator ride.

16th floor.

“There’s this new game show where they have contestants cook off against each other to determine which kingdom’s cuisine is superior,” said one of them, breaking the awkward silence.

“That sounds stupid,” replied the other in a low grumble.

10th floor.

“That’s not all there is to it. See, the contestants also have to dress as royalty of each kingdom, but in outfits that are, like, hundreds of years old? And the cuisine has to be made outta ingredients they would have had back then, too.”

5th floor.

The other guard groaned loudly.

“Come on, man. Do you hate fun? Always bitching and moaning about everything. Don’t you watch TV?”

Ground floor.

“No,” said the other. “TV sucks. I can’t believe you’re frying your brain with that garbage.”

2nd floor below ground level.

“Oh, and what? Practicing on a singing career while you’re whacking off to the lousy training videos here? I bet you’re—"

The access grate from the ceiling dropped like a rock and rattled on the floor between them, prompting confused looks from both security guards, directed at the object and not its source.

A female figure clad entirely in black dropped through the hole left open from the missing grate, landing between them like a cat. Grunts and shouts erupted between the three figures, but the fight was surprisingly short.

A furious kick pinned one of them by the neck against a corner, a volley of punches knocked the wind out of the other, and when the first whipped out a taser rod, she deflected his jab with the crackling weapon and sent it flying into the crotch of the other, who comically wobbled around while getting shocked until he joined the grate on the floor.

The second pushed free from the intruder’s boot but she landed strikes from his shins up to his face, with the final quick one-two punch making him see stars. He flew back into the mirroring wall of the elevator which cracked upon impact, then passed out. She snatched an ID badge from his chest and yanked, ripping some fabric off with it and pocketing the item.

A soft DING preceded the elevator final halt. Its doors slid open at the 7th floor below ground level.

The black-suited intruder slipped out, sticking to one side of the dimly lit corridor, slinking right underneath a camera sweeping the hall. She tossed a tiny green-blinking object up to the camera, and it magnetically clung to the device’s surface with a soft thwup. The camera stopped pivoting altogether.

The intruder sprang into motion and jogged down the corridor, coming to a stop behind a milky-white glass door with the M-Tek logo emblazoned on it, above a sticker sign that warned employees of the consequences of not having their ID badge on display at all times.

Here, she paused and produced a long handgun from the myriads of odd tools on her belt, then pressed the stolen ID badge from the guard against the magnetic reader next to the glass door.

A green light flared up above the door, and it slid open sideways with a soft hiss.

The intruder jogged inside, immediately ducking beneath rows of glossy marble planters which provided an almost sickeningly fake rendition of a jungle, with all manners of ferns and palm trees in this underground lobby. A stunningly elaborate mural on the walls had been painted to make the chamber look even more like another place entirely, with a mountainous horizon and a sea on the opposite side. Red leather couches lined the center square of this recreational lobby.

When the next door opened and some darkhaired woman in a white lab coat entered, she stared down the barrel of the intruder’s gun for a second that felt like forever. Then she slowly raised her hands. The badge hanging from her chest pocket read: Doctor Ida Sverigund.

“Don’t shoot. I’ll do anything you say,” said the scientist calmly.

The intruder quietly ushered her to turn around with a painful clutch on her shoulder, shoving the lab coat-clad woman right back through the door, keeping the gun squarely trained on her back.

This led them down a hallway branching off into high-ceilinged chambers separated by glass windows, containing rows of towering tanks. Each chromed tank had a tiny porthole and bubbling purple liquid behind it.

The whole place thrummed with magic.

Machines belched out steam behind sealed metal doors.

Said Doctor Sverigund, “What do you want? Maybe I can help—"

She was shoved more forcefully.

The intruder’s mask distorted the voice of its wearer when she replied in a menacing monotone, “Shut up and keep moving.”

“I can lead you to the most valuable research if you promise not to—”

Another shove.

“What part of ‘shut up’ do you not understand?” threatened the intruder, poking Sverigund in the back with the pistol. Arriving at the end of the corridor and ignoring all the strange rooms on the way after casting a glance into each of them, she ordered, “Door.”

Doctor Sverigund lifted her badge to the magnetic lock, and it emitted a beep. This next door was made of shiny metal and completely opaque. It swished ominously when it slid open. The badge zipped back on a cord and slapped against Sverigund’s chest, and the intruder pushed her into a security checkpoint with a metal detector and some lockers.

Eyes went wide. A security guard and a scientist had been idling about in this room, their deer-in-headlights frozen body language conveying that they had been flirting with one another before the interruption, surprised by the intruder.

The security guard’s hand went to a submachine gun on the desk, but he took a dart to the neck before he could reach it, then stumbled backwards, tearing down a folding chair behind the desk as he keeled over. The other scientist emitted a clipped but terrified shriek, hands shooting up in the air and trembling like a dry leaf in the wind, immediately begging for mercy.

The intruder said, “Get down on the ground, hands behind your head.”

She complied. Then the intruder shot her in the back with another dart, provoking a gasp before robbing the scientist of her consciousness.

The intruder turned around and grabbed Sverigund by an arm before the doctor could run. Twisted the arm. Though Sverigund’s face contorted in pain, she made no according sound, just gritting her teeth.

“Next door,” commanded the intruder.

“Wait. Wait! There’s a security turret—without Jackson’s retina scan, it will activate if we continue on without his authorization,” said the coat.

The intruder motioned to grab the unconscious security guard but was immediately interrupted by Sverigund.

“No use. The system can tell if a subject is dead or unconscious. It can even—”

“I don’t need the instruction manual. Speak up sooner next time.”

“You shot him with that tranq pistol before anybody could have possibly said anything!”

The intruder pushed her up against the next door.

“What kind of turret? Where is it placed? And open this door. Now.”

Sverigund used her badge to unlock the next door. Something buzzed, but it opened. Every light around them turned red.

“I don’t know! I’ve never seen them in use!”

“Stay down,” said the intruder, wrangling Doctor Sverigund till she dropped to her knees and waited there.

The intruder’s black-helmeted head featured a sinister-looking breathing mask—though all designed for efficiency, the sharp edges and angular shape lent it a vaguely demonic air. She poked it outside the next door. A split-second after she withdrew her head, a machine gun spat bullets at the doorway.

THUM-THUM-THUN-THUM-THUM-THUN-THUM-THUM-THUN-THUN-THWUNK.

The metal door ate the final shot, the rest of the high caliber bullets had chipped away at concrete walls where the intruder’s head had poked out from.

“Stay down,” the intruder repeated. At the same time, she holstered the dart pistol and produced a long cylindrical tube which she screwed onto a second gun.

She tumbled out into the adjacent corridor. Through the thick window, Sverigund witnessed the intruder roll to a stop on her knees—she fired the silenced gun several times.

It all happened so quickly that the turret could not respond with more automated gunfire. A gatling gun drooped into view, hanging in shambles from a mechanical arm that was mounted inside a small metal niche on the ceiling, the secret panel originally concealing it now busted and dangling down. Sparks sporadically jumped from the bowels of the niche.

Returning to Doctor Sverigund before she could run, the fleet-footed intruder grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back up onto her feet.

“How many people work here? Speak.”

She poked Sverigund in the side with the substantially more lethal silenced pistol.

The doctor stammered out a string of broken thoughts and sentences that died on the way out of her mouth, correcting herself multiple times.

“Eight. Eight! No more than eight at all times. Company policy.”

The intruder shoved her aside, kicked in a door, and found an interview room behind it—a windowless little cell with folding metal chairs and a bare table in between them. It was cold and impersonal. More like an interrogation room.

Out of nowhere, someone exclaimed, “What in the damned Hells is going on h—”

A man descending a circular flight of stairs gripped his neck where the needle of a dart was suddenly stuck in it, and he began rolling down the rest of the steps in what looked like a painful series of slow, little falls.

When he landed on the floor in front of them and stopped moving, the intruder pointed to the stairs.

“What is up there?”

“Uh—uh, just restrooms, offices. Lockers, showers,” Sverigund answered.

“Who’s not there right now?”

“I don’t know! I was just on my way home before—”

“Move,” the intruder ordered, shoving Sverigund to go up the stairs instead of following any of the branching hallways.

They took wide steps over the unconscious scientist on the ground and ascended.

In an office, two scientists were focused on a whiteboard. One of them stood in front of the board, biting his lip as he was trying to solve an equation, while the other sat at her desk, shoveling what looked like cold noodles from a plastic cup into her mouth with a pair of chopsticks.

They both slowly turned their heads, dumbfounded, when they saw who was standing in the door. They did not even manage to make any noteworthy sounds before the sedatives in the darts kicked in, one sticking out of the chest of the guy by the whiteboard and one out of the neck of the young scientist eating ramen. The terrified looks on their faces spoke volumes to their surprise. The guy with the whiteboard pen dropped like a sack of potatoes and the other scientist’s head splashed in spilled soup, falling asleep at her desk.

“If you’re not lying, that leaves only two more,” said the intruder, yanking at Sverigund’s shoulder and pushing her farther along.

Clicking and clacking sounds accompanied her reloading of the tranquilizer pistol.

With her hostage at arm’s length and a jab of the silenced pistol between the shoulder blades to keep her motivated in moving, they swept through the locker and shower rooms, finding them all deserted.

“It’s not too late to surrender,” the doctor muttered without turning around.

She flinched when she expected the intruder to hit her, but no such action followed.

“Fat chance,” said the intruder, chortling. The electronic distortion delivered by the mask made it sound raspier, sinister. “I’m only getting out of here in one of two ways. Either walking out with what I want, or in a body bag. Do you understand?”

Sverigund nodded. Then said, “The remaining two people are scientists. Please don’t hurt them. There should be two guards on the way to change shifts with the checkpoint officer and the one you shot on the stairs.”

“No concern now,” said the intruder.

They looped back and descended the stairwell, stepping over the unconscious guard at the bottom and entering another corridor.

A gatling gun rattled away, shaving chunks of concrete off the walls, and tearing up the floor. Before Sverigund knew what was happening, the wind was knocked out of her as she hit the ground, having been yanked back and tossed aside like a ragdoll.

In a lull of the turret’s shooting, the intruder aimed her silenced gun around the corner and blazed away. Something exploded and she ducked back behind the door. Then she grabbed Sverigund and pulled her back up onto her feet.

“You’re not going to kill anybody?” asked the doctor.

“Unlike your employer, whose turrets don’t distinguish between valued employees and armed robbers.”

She grabbed her and shoved her along once more.

The corridor took them to an intersection where numerous labs glowed with bright light, separated by tall glass windows, and sliding doors secured with airlocks.

The intruder swept her weapons back and forth and gave Sverigund another unpleasant push with the butt of a gun to keep moving. One of the airlocks hissed. The intruder swiveled to point her guns at it.

Announcing his presence was a scientist in a lab coat who had decided that day to play hero. Someone who had decidedly seen way too many action movies and possessed far too little training with the firearm in his hands to pose a real threat.

“You’re goin’ down!” he shouted, but his voice trembled as badly as his aim.

Sverigund tumbled back onto the floor behind the intruder—first frustrated when she bumped her head against the wall, then realizing the intruder had pushed her to protect her when the scientist opened fire with his eyes screwed shut.

He shot every bullet from his pistol until it only clicked away ineffectively with an empty magazine.

The intruder stumbled back one step, then paused to look down at her chest. Many shots had missed her entirely—one of them having broken a fluorescent tube on the ceiling, now swinging back and forth where it dangled from an end. But the bullets that miraculously struck true against the intruder’s body had been smushed up like accordions—they clicked as they dropped from her chest and hit the ground, peeling off the intruder’s strange night suit when she swept them away with the back of her gloved hand.

The scientist with the gun began to panic. He turned and ran away, screaming at the top of his lungs, silenced just seconds later by the tranquilizer dart shot into his butt cheek. He tumbled sideways onto the floor in the narrow corridor.

In one of the labs, all sorts of gadgets had created an array of laser beams humming with concentrated magic enchantments, the inner workings of a bizarre machine laid bare, connected to a hulking armored suit by a tangled knot of colorful wires. Nearby, the final scientist cowered in a corner with her hands over her head, shivering and peeking out at the intruder through terror-stricken eyes.

Sverigund obeyed another shove and used her badge to open the airlock to that lab. She passed through with the intruder right behind her, both sprayed by a cloud of disinfectant and microwaved very briefly to destroy any other microscopic contaminants.

The cowering scientist stammered away, “P-please d-d-don’t hurt—"

A silent dart sank into her shoulder and quickly knocked her out.

Things happened way too quickly once more as Sverigund was spun around by her kidnapper and shoved against the nearest counter, knocking over empty beakers, and causing a mess of clipboards and other tools to cascade off the counter, all clattering onto the floor.

The intruder stuck the injector gun’s muzzle right underneath her chin, reminding her that the weapon was still painful even if not lethal.

“What in the hell do you want?” asked the doctor, paralyzed with an impotent anger.

“You are the mole,” said the intruder.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You are the one smuggling tech and secrets out of this place.”

“I don’t—”

With a violent nudge and painfully pressing the weapon harder against her jaw, scraping the skin, the intruder threatened again, “Don’t play dumb.”

“Okay! Shit. Okay, yes. Shit. How did you find out—oh goddess—”

“You just told me right now. I was guessing.”

Sverigund’s eyes went wide. “Fuck—"

“One of the guards even pissed himself. You, on the other hand, Miss Sverigund,” said the intruder, tapping the doctor’s ID badge with the tip of her gun. “If that’s even your real name—you were the only person here who didn’t flinch when I pointed a gun at you. You also knew about the security protocol with the turrets and the failsafe—I’d bet money on that not being in the lab employee guidelines. Besides, what do you care about guard shift intervals?”

“Okay! Shit. Did—did Sharpe send you? Shit. Please don’t kill me. I have family—”

The intruder shook her and shouted, “Don’t lie to me!”

“Please—”

“Damn it, listen. I’m not going to kill you. Sharpe probably wants that. I am here to help you.”

The intruder ripped at a latch holding the mask onto her helmet. The Coil Suit emitted a small but sharp hiss, similar to the airlocks before. The mask folded open from the middle, revealing Evangeline’s face.

Sverigund’s visage rapidly cycled through several stages of confusion and realization, and before she could ask if she was who she thought she was, Evangeline continued talking. “I will get you out of here and do my best to keep you alive. I just want to meet ‘M’ without any bloodshed.”

Chairman Desmond Sharpe sat in his favorite red winged chair in an opulent office. He stroked a hairless gray cat that was sitting on his lap and purring.

With vested interest, he stared at the screen. The tinny voices of the two women talking in the M-Tek lab reached him through the screen’s built-in speakers.

“Aren’t you afraid that he can hear us talking right now?” asked Sverigund.

Evangeline said, “No, and last I checked, the penny-pinching dirtbag has been cutting corners on tracking audio with his security systems.”

Sharpe smiled to himself over just how wrong the princess was about that, then continued to stroke his cat.

While the two women commenced their escape, backtracking through the absolute dead end of a lab complex, he calmly leaned over and pushed a button on his intercom.

“The M-Tek labs are compromised. Initiate omega protocol.”

Then he leaned back and continued stroking his cat, eager to follow their attempts at egress.

“Oh, Mister Mole Rat,” he said to the cat. “You know why I admire Trager’s security system designs?”

The cat purred.

“Exactly. He makes it so it’s far easier to get in than out. You learn more about the intrusion measures, the intruders themselves, and you can upgrade for the next miserable fool who makes the mistake of even trying.”

He chuckled sadistically.

Eva escorted Doctor Sverigund back to the elevator where two guards still lay unconscious. The women boarded the elevator and Eva paused, considering their method of ascent.

The rogue scientist said, “With the industrial elevator locked down, this is the only way up. With the silent alarm triggered, I don’t think they’ll allow the elevator to rise. Or if they do, we’ll be facing a dozen armed guards on our next stop.”

Eva hopped up, grabbing hold onto the edges, and pulling herself up through the hole she had left in the ceiling, vanishing through it in one fluid motion.

Speaking down to Sverigund, she said, “Don’t worry. I got this.”

Then the elevator emitted a DING, its doors closed, and it lurched upwards into motion.

“How did you do that?” hissed Sverigund.

Eva extended a gloved hand through the hole, offering to help the doctor climb up.

“I didn’t. Get your ass up here, quickly.”

Sharpe smirked. He refrained from alerting his personnel of what he witnessed and simply continued to watch the spectacle unfold like someone watching a game show. Mister Mole Rat meowed.

Sverigund took Eva’s arm and scrambled as she clambered up and out of view from the elevator’s camera.

The elevator’s digital display counted upwards.

Ground floor.

DING. Swish.

A chorus of voices shouted almost simultaneously, “Freeze!” – “On the ground, now!” – “Get down!”

Ten armed guards yelled at the elevator, eager to pull the triggers on their guns until they fully registered that only two unconscious guards snoozed away on the elevator’s floor. Their yelling died down.

Then Eva swung into view, hanging upside down from the hole in the ceiling, both guns out and flaring up with shots. A mixture of darts and gunshots ripped through the small crowd, wounding several of the armored guards, stunning others whose body armor protected them, and needling the rest with darts. Few darts did anything, but bullets sent several security officers sprawling on the ground, diving for cover, or keeling over onto the shiny, checkered marble floors.

She swung back up into cover before any of them returned fire. The deafening hail of bullets shook the elevator and littered it with bullet holes. The glass from the already-cracked mirror in the back fully shattered and showered the floor with shards.

Two tiny devices flew out from the elevator and bounced along the marble floors. They exploded into rapidly spreading clouds of smoke, cloaking the vicinity of the elevator doors in a thick black fog, and provoking fits of coughing from the still-standing guards.

They failed to notice the blur of a sleek figure darting through their midst. They missed the flash of a short, curved blade swinging about and slashing left and right. They only noticed something wrong when pants dropped, severed weapon straps and ammunition belts flopped onto the floor, and a flurry of kicks and strikes sent them flying in every direction, followed by several groans and shouts. Stray shots only hit walls.

By the time the smoke had cleared and all ten guards were on the ground in a mixture of unconsciousness or reeling in pain, Eva was already dragging Sverigund behind her towards the lobby entrance.

Halfway across the ostentatiously spacious and decadently furnished hall—

CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK—

Loud clanking erupted from all around them. The front doors and the entire glass front that framed the lobby’s circumference darkened. Metal shutters unfolded and slammed down, locking them inside.

Eva shouted a curse, distorted through the plas-steel mask over her face.

The thumping of combat boots spilled into the hall, and the guards that approached now were armed with even heavier weapons than the first wave. Immediately upon entering from the far end, they smashed riot shields into the floor to take cover behind them, issuing the same orders for surrender as the ones intercepting the elevator.

Only seconds too late.

The door to the nearby stairwell slammed shut behind Sverigund, where the two women had already run off to. The commanding officer barked orders at the others, splitting to secure every way upstairs.

Halfway to the fifth floor and already out of breath, Sverigund panted between words when she said, “We need to make it to the CTO’s office. There’s a security override there, it’s our only hope of—”

“Forget about it,” Eva cut in. “Keep moving. I will get us off the rooftop!”

“What? How?” Sverigund shouted at her, audibly growing more desperate and fearful for her life now. “The building has an automated anti-air gun that will take out any airlifts!”

“There won’t be any airlift,” growled Eva.

“What? Are you insane?”

Volleys of bullets rained from above, spraying them with sparks where shots ricocheted off metal railings. Eva kicked open the nearest fire exit and motioned hectically for Sverigund to go there, which she did. They escaped the bullet storm and charged down red-carpeted hallways with beautifully warm lighting.

Using a submachine gun that she had claimed from one of the guards, Eva pointed it at a man in a three-piece suit with dark rings under his eyes, who stepped outside of his office to inspect the sudden explosion of commotion.

“Get down!”

His eyes went wide, and he dove back inside his office, slamming the door shut behind him.

A blinding light flared up to their left, forcing Sverigund to shield her eyes, and the rumbling of helicopter rotors made every window vibrate ominously. Over a loudspeaker, the pilot of the gunship shouted at them.

“Surrender now! We are by law authorized to exert lethal force if you fail to comply!”

The two women froze as the combat helicopter hovered just outside the floor they were on. The stretch from them to the other end of the hallway and relative safety of the next stairwell gaped dangerously wide.

Eva hissed at Sverigund, “Run.” Then she added with more ferocity, “Run faster than you’ve ever run before in your life.”

They bolted.

The rotating barrels of the gun mounted underneath the chopper’s nose began to spin until their discordant whine pierced even glass.

The ensuing cacophony was apocalyptic.

Windowfronts exploded, walls were torn apart, desks ripped to shreds, the man in the suit dismembered with screams that were drowned out by the tidal wave of noise. The rapid rhythmic thundering of the gunship’s cannon sliced across the entire floor, relentlessly raining death and destruction.

Sharpe did not even blink while he watched his orders end a life. The kind of cost he had long calculated as acceptable if this meant the leak was liquidated.

Shards of broken wood, brass furnishings, trashed computers—all sorts of debris lay scattered across the seventh floor when the chopper’s gatling stopped firing.

Eva dragged Sverigund up some steps, but there was no way she would survive. The undercover infiltrator disguised as lab scientist had a deadly hole in her belly that wept with excessive amounts of blood pumping from it.

She had not run fast enough.

Eva clutched her and pleaded with her. Shook her in desperation.

“Please, tell me, quickly. How do I reach ‘M’? Please! Tell me!”

One last groan escaped the late “Doctor Sverigund”, ending in a raspy gasp on her final breath.

Nothing of use.

Then her head slumped lifelessly against Eva’s shoulder.

The princess dropped her and jolted into standing, knowing she had no time to lose—the thundering of combat boots quickly closed in on her. She whipped out a third gun and fired it, launching a hook and thin wire upwards. It latched onto a railing and the wire recoiled and zipped at breakneck speed until it stretched taut. With a sudden jerk, it propelled Eva upwards and bullets from small arms began to tear up plaster and metal of the stairwell all around her. With the volatile momentum, she launched herself up several flights, hurtling over the edge with a somersault and painfully rolling into cover in a way that would leave her with many welts and bruises.

Staggered volleys of bullets kept flying up the stairwell, but she did not pause, kicking through the door she had secured for exit upon infiltrating the building in the first place.

She charged straight up a thin metal stairway and emerged onto a rooftop where howling winds cut across the surface, right underneath the gigantic glowing logo of M-Tek.

Losing no time, she took a running start and leapt right off the edge of the rooftop.

In freefall, the coils along her suit hissed and a pitch-black glider unfolded from her back and limbs, connecting and solidifying into a winged kite midair. Like a human rocket, she glided past the rising gunship, its floodlight sweeping every top floor of the M-Tek high-rise in search of intruders, and narrowly missing her. Their instruments would also fail to detect her.

The prototype Phantom suit carried Eva away and her flight path arced in a sharp curve, swooping past other tall buildings until she was swallowed by the city skyline on Sharpe’s camera feeds. He kept tapping a pen to switch from camera to camera until he fully lost track of her.

Mister Mole Rat meowed as he hopped off the CEO’s lap and sauntered around the luxurious office. Sharpe got up and visited his private bar. He helped himself to a glass of the most expensive whiskey in the world, which he cradled in a palm while he returned to his intercom.

He pressed the button and spoke, “Call off the chopper. Your work is done. I trust you can tackle debriefing without me.”

Sharpe awaited answer and killed the transmission after he had spoken. He walked over to the window of his office, where he overlooked the nightly skyline of New Port City. He savored the scent of his whiskey, taking a timid sip from it.

His phone rang.

He sensed what was coming next and smiled to himself.

He tapped the earbud in his right ear.

“This is Desmond Sharpe. How can I help you?” No real question to his words, just a cold and smugly smoky voice that could sell refrigerators to people living in the arctic.

“You slime bag,” Eva spat into the phone, causing him to adjust the headset volume. “What the hell was that? We had her.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific. I am a very busy man, Swan.”

“Oh, spare me!” she yelled. “I know you know what happened, you slime. And you sound exactly like I expected you to sound.”

“Hm? How’s that?”

“I know you’re happy with today’s outcome. But I swear, this is gonna bite you in the ass. I was this close to learning about ‘M’, you homicidal prick.”

Sharpe took another sip from his cup and smacked his lips. Pursed them. Savored the taste.

“Shame, really. But that mishap was on you.”

The silence that followed was filled with the fuming rage of Eva, finding no words of hers to express it other than, “We better never meet in person.”

“I agree,” he said, intonating it almost musically. “I’m glad you see things my way.”

“Fuck off.” She hung up.

Sharpe smirked and sat back down to finish his whiskey as he gazed at the glittering skyline of New Port City, then turned to other matters while Mister Mole Rat pranced about his penthouse-sized office.

The sociopath would be sleeping soundly that night.

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