#verse ;; cyberpunk'd (closed)

[drsallyrothering]

What Who Knows - for @whosxafraid

"Oh!...Hello Pat. Is the Boss not about?"

Not for the first time in her life, Sal cursed a mental blue streak over Pat's Boss keeping free of chrome. Putting in a call to the Work Line was nowhere near as secure as would be a personal link. God only knew who'd pick up when something was urgent - the man she needed to talk to...or his major domo, which is who she'd got on the holo now.

"Ee's in meetin's all day, luv" Pat replied amiably, his voice rendered clear enough that he could have been in the room with her. "Take a message f'yah, c'n I? 'Ee'll buzz yah back, promise."

"I..."

Sal trailed off, her eyes fixed forward as reams of data scrolled like rain down windows on her HUD. The data-shard Pat's Boss had handed to her personally - the one she'd half an hour back slotted into the port behind her right ear - had dumped what must've been a terabyte's worth of info on her in the ensuing; a heavy but manageable load for anyone with anything beyond first gen hardware. It wasn't the amount of it that had her on the holo though. It was the word sitting top left in her field of view.

"You alrigh', Sal?"

That was Pat's voice again, concern in it now.

Sal blinked herself out of the reverie she'd slipped into. "-Yes, I just-"

She cut herself off, weighing for what felt like a full minute the pros and cons of broaching what really needed to be given all she'd seen. It...wasn't a usual, above-board, buddy-buddy relationship she and Pat and Pat's Boss had. They treated her pleasantly, no question. They supplied her clinic and made sure the security was top notch. But she wasn't naïve enough to think for a second they did these things through legal channels and so, in matters where she might be seen as questioning their decisions, she knew she had to tread gently.

"...It's been three years we've known each other now, right Pat?"

Confusion vied with concern in his reply. "It 'as, yeah..."

Sal pressed on. "And you know I served - MedCorps for nearly twenty. Different to you, different place, different time, but we both served in our way."

"We did...Sal, wha's this-"

"What does Gemini mean to you?"

At that word's intonation, Pat's entire world felt like it narrowed to a pinprick. The voice on the other end of the line, Sal's voice, faded from him; laid over by a hollow buzzing nothingness that could've dragged Pat under had determined Sally not kept on; had she not invoked his Boss's name with such sincere worry.

"Is Ron in the habit of liberating military hardware?"

"-Sal" Pat tried, the absence of accusation in her voice all that was keeping him seated. She went on like she'd not heard him.

"Better question. Is Ron in the habit of taking in military hardware that liberated itself?"

The silence on the line was like a lead weight in her gut.

"...Did you know, Pat?"

It only got heavier the longer the quiet stretched.

"...Does Ron know?"

[drsallyrothering]

The Year...Is 3494 - for @whosxafraid

A ragged gasp ripped through the apartment’s night-time silence as Sal, drenched in sweat and wild-eyed, lurched upright out a dead sleep. She was half out her thread bare single bed in a heartbeat, right hand going for the pistol she didn’t keep on her nightstand when her pa was home. By touch it was absent, so she whipped her head round to sight-find it; to give direction to her scrabbling hands, desperate for the welcome weight of the iron she’d kept loaded all the four years since she’d been tossed out the MedCorps after a ‘routine check-up’ turned real serious real fast. That same second though the blankets knotted round her legs snapped taut, her balance up and deserted and before she could catch herself—

WHAM

She was flat on her back on the cold tile floor, the breath knocked from her and the world frozen dead still; caught in a mental beartrap of shrieking voices, the metallic clatter of pulsing rifle-fire, and the smell of acid-burned flesh.

Then though...

Then though. Slowly, bits and pieces started to filter through panic's haze and come into proper, wakeful focus. Sal pressed her palms to the ground either side of her, watched the ceiling fan up above slowly turn; saw how neon light and darkness filtered in through the mech-blinds covering her window.

It couldn’t have been long after 3am.

Forcing her shallow breaths to slow, she spoke quietly into the murk that lay atop her like a quilt. “—My name…is Sally…Rothering. The year is…3494, and I am inside my apartment. The door is locked…My father is home…and I have work in…”

Sal blew a breath out between her lips, blinked dry eyes up at the ceiling fan and then pressed the heel of her hand over one, then the other. She wanted to groan when she sat up, but swallowed the sound. Her alarm clock’s glowing blue digits twinkled at her from her bedside table. What they read displeased her so much she screwed her eyes up; turned her face away.

[03:10]

That wild guess had been right.

“—I have work in four hours.”

Sal dragged in and blew out a steadying breath before wiggling free of her traitor of a blanket and wobbling onto her feet. She'd quit cigs on discharge, but still wanted for nicotine when stress gnawed her bones; let alone when they'd been cracked clean open thanks to a night-time return to places long since abandoned. A hot pot of caff would have to do though. That and swearing she promised herself, wrapping up against the chill in something oversized and soft before pottering off to the apartment's small kitchen-space.

Sal welcomed that day with a muttered "Muthafucker."

It was hardly sleep replacement, but in its way it helped.