Bly took a breath. She was in her leather boots, a puffy raven-cut shirt tucked into a bulletproof beige corset, and a gray bridge coat that swept at the seams of her pants. She stepped to the edge and stole a glance overboard. The sky was deep and the streets weren’t visible through the cloud cover.
Behind her, the rattle of men raising automatics. When she smiled, her cheek grazed the chain between her nostril and earlobe.
She tugged her gloves tight, pivoted, and did a cursory check of her hair. Best to look good if one may die any moment. "Gentlemen," she said, and lowered her goggles. "I’m afraid this is where I say, ’Go nuke yourselves.’"
A relaxed step backward amid a hail of gunfire.
The gaudy, half-mile long, silver and gold half-cylinder of tack-tech receded. A cloud ate her, then vomited her into open air. The stream thrashed her back and forth. Bly pressed a button on her wrist com and attempted to stabilize herself. She passed through a hole-ad for feminine hygiene products, dispersing it for a moment.
Off to the right, a fiery speck grew. Bly recognized her spitfire: a one-person, open-cockpit, airborne crotch-rocket. Hers was mahogany, adorned with brass trefoil ribbing and graffiti of Bly riding a missile and flipping off the Sixth Sun logo. The spitfire turned with her, read the sensors in her boots, and once she had stabilized her free fall, the bike pivoted and matched her speed so that all she needed to do was reach out and grip its handles.
Five other spitfires dropped into view out of the shadow of the airship. They joined Bly in a tightly choreographed V formation that soon scattered to avoid pulse cannon fire from the ship. Her boys.
Like over-sized mayflies, the spitfires zigged and zagged between one another and across each other’s paths, leaving trails of soft blue light echoing in the wake of their triplet engines.
A deep voice in Bly’s ear: "Did you rip ’em?"
The bay doors on the Corporate Airship above opened and fourteen mechanized Seekers shot out, maneuverable little buggers that exploded on impact.
"Bly, we couldn’t get to ’em. Did you rip ’em?"
They dove into the city, massive edifices lit up so that the night sky seemed a second ocean reflecting them.
Sparkers weaved in and out of each other like trout racing upstream. Bly hugged a building wall as if she rode down it, spun the front end so it aimed her sideways, pushed down the throttle and rode the divide between sky traffic and skyscraper.
She reached into a saddle scabbard on her bike and pulled a pulse rifle, turned around and aimed. The targeting system in her cybernetic eye linked wirelessly with her gun, zooming in and moving its vision with the gun’s sight.
The seeker closed in. Bly shut her real eye. She inhaled. She cocked the burnished silver double hammer. A bright electric hum let her know the gun was ready. She pulled the trigger. Something between thunder and electricity filled the air. Something between lightning and water spilled from its barrel. A bolt of blue-white light cut the space between Bly’s rifle and the seeker, sending softly caressing tendrils casually at its sides toward anything magnetic. A foot before actually striking the target, the EMP of the bolt completely disabled it, throwing its timing off and keeping it from dodging at the last second. It struck, detonating the bastard in a satisfying hale of fire and reverberation. All of this, inside a second.
(When I see Coil again,) she thought, (I might have to kiss the little nuker.)
---
Wrapped tight in a bundle, she tucked the package under her arm and slipped into the crowded streets, her spitfire speeding off into the midday sky and back to the mothership. She had five hours before the schedule delivery time, which was the most dangerous part of the entire mission. The longer she was in possession, the more likely she’d be shoved into a work camp and forced to...well, to work. (Ugh.) Just the thought of sitting in a cubicle, typing out code all day, making money for Corporate. It made her shiver.
...What to do, what to do. Ahoy! A pop-up. She walked over to it, sat down and ordered a carafe. No use being sober if she was gonna get picked up by coppers. She downed three shots in as many seconds, hot and tingly in her throat. "Woo!"
"Nice one," said a low voice.
Bly looked down to the other end of the bar, saw a nice piece of copy lifting his glass to her. "A girl after my own heart," he added, and shot it. He winced a bit, but tried to hide it. Just Bly’s type: good-looking, dumb, and weaker. It had been awhile since she’d had a guy, anyway. She winked at him and nodded next to her, and he got up to take the stool next to hers. She still had four hours to kill.
A ceiling, cold and gray. Mere yards to either side, it met walls--cold, gray walls that fell into the cold, gray floor. The window was smothered with a smoked plastic filter to dim the harshness of the yellow sun on the orange sky, so that no color could break and enter. Such a small space--tiny really--yet the occupant had cluttered it with all manner of possessions, shrinking it further still. From looks, the ultimate consumerist ouroboros: a consummate consumer consumed by his consumptions. Posters and paint, an alarm clock, a mattress, random belongings all crying out: "With this combination of objects, I display myself, the individual, yet also hope to create a sort of ’like-mind gravity.’ With these products, I will attract friends." How heavy, how cumbersome it all seemed.
To Bly it was all the same as the last cube in which she had lain. Corporate made all the products, as the Great Machine made all the people, and all the cubes were the same crushing size, the same twenty-four by twenty-four cells of meaningless death.
Next to her, the boy whose name she could not care to remember rustled. The urge to flee choked her, shamed her, was too overwhelming to ignore. She flung the sheet off and fumbled for her pants. Her beau groaned behind her; she ignored it and continued about the work of leaving. She fastened her right arm as carefully as possible, covering it with a pillow to muffle the click. She tossed on her blouse, not bothering with the bra. She slid her legs into the bottom of her pants, maneuvered herself in so that her nubs reattached, flipped the switch on the prostheses, and stood. The fly to her pants zipped, she chose to hold the belt rather than risk the noise of buckling it.
Her boots! Contam her shizzy boots and their million clasps! They would have to be done up in the hallway as well. She threw on her flight cap, not fretting with its chin strap or to fix her hair into it properly, and crept into her bridge coat. She hazarded a glance back at the boy she was in the middle of abandoning.
He stared at her, sleep already removed from his eyes, waiting for Bly to notice him and his laser eyes.
"Oh," Bly said, her face flushing with shame.
"Oh," the boy repeated, at least three facets in his voice. He was not a bad-looking guy by any standard, but then, none of them were. They were all pretty, all smart, all empty-eyed and hopeless. Bly sighed. "I’ll void you?" she said.
His glare turned disapproving and condescended to her as he cocked his head to one side.
Bly nearly laughed at herself, but settled for a forced smile. "Sorry...guy. I just can’t nail myself to one place...or person. Or personality for that matter. You wouldn’t want me anyway. I mean I didn’t even bother to learn your name. What kinda troll does that?"
Still not speaking, his eyes shifted from anger to disappointment, and the two emotions gave birth to depression. Bly watched the inevitability of the next lonely night settling behind those big, blue eyes, and she nearly wanted to stay out of pity, but sympathy for these poor bastards was what got her into situations like this in the first place. She turned around--boots and belt still in hand--and left the cube, allowing only one stray thought even resembling regret to flutter into her mind as she saw her watch: (Nuke! I’ve only got thirty minutes to get to the bar! Nice job, Bly, you don’t even know what ring you’re in.)
The pipes were crowded, of course. Though the magnetic field within them kept each sparker moving at a safe, controllable 130kph usually, with this many vehicles it lagged at times and slowed them to 100 around the corners. Gen was going to be pissed when she got there.
It took five minutes. Bly parked on the roof of a sparker complex and got out. The wind was heavy with water and the smell of brine, and when she exhaled, a long, gray cloud advanced from her lips. This close to the water, it dipped below freezing nightly. She pulled her hair through the slot in the top of the cap. Her burgundy Mohawk flapped like a lesser flag in the steely breeze. She typed her code into the docking brace, locking it, and then took the lift down to ground level. Across the street, the Kabuku Pub lay.
The ground felt uneven at her feet. It pushed against her as gravity pulled at her shoulders, oppressive in its weight. She secured her scarf, lifted her pleather goggles from eyes to forehead, and pushed open the door to the Kabuku. As she let the door slide closed, its swood fibers squeaked against the steel of her hand.
The voidscreens had been covered with flex bags, casting a dull, piss-yellow glow on everything in the bar. The only other light came from the hole-candles, an ill-advised attempt to add ambiance that added only nausea. The permeating smells of fish and sweat did not help matters, either. ’Nese lamps threw characters in light and shadow on the walls, and as the lamps slowly rotated, indecipherable subtitles migrated from object to patron, patron to worker. Bly liked imagining that the things they said were appropriate things about each person, but had never bothered to learn graffito.
Indistinct Kabuki-mono chatter filled the bar. It was Joker’s shift, the only non-’Nese allowed work at the Kabuku, as it was the foremost seafood bar run by the Eight-Nine-Three. Making sure her presence was recognized, Bly nodded to Joker as she entered, her piercings assenting noisily. He made eye contact with her. "The ’uge?" he said. She held up two and mouthed it. He nodded. She asked a silent question with her eyes--he nodded his curly mop stage left, delineating a path to the booth at the very back of the bar and the small man that occupied it.
Bly, no different from the rest of the population, did not know much of anything about her progen--just enough to get a handle and a work assignment, which was not how she made her money. Bly had acquired her particular handle because they had cloned her from a pilot, and thus designated a pilot upon reintegration. Among the older samples discovered and harnessed by the Machine, the holes told Bly her DNA had been a godsend for the re-pop effort, although fifty years in, everyone had yet to really notice anything special about all the "special" genes.
She often wondered why they had bothered to search for "special" DNA samples when they had to be modified anyway--didn’t anything remotely different make the point moot? Bly hadn’t grown up in the same conditions. Add to that her genetic perfection/deviation from the original, and you had an entirely new person who could have been made of anything. She supposed it comforted the OGs pre-Burn to think that they were bringing back the best the world had ever offered, and that with nothing but geniuses, poets, dreamers, and leaders, Bly’s world would be a peaceful and perfect utopia.
She took her seat in the bar across from the gangster that owned it.
Gen was a relatively squat CC in his early sixties, genetics holding him up in relative good health, apart from one first gen printed ear. He had a reputation as a lecher and a crook, which he gladly claimed as well-earned. He was not the head of the Eight-Nine-Three, but he was the highest ranking that a non-Nese could ever hope to meet.
"Ailr, 我的朋友, so good to see you," he slurred, in an accent as real as Bly’s left arm. In Gen’s words, as new Buraku (outcasts from old Nese history), the Nese could not afford to be over or even accurately estimated. The accent made those not familiar with the Eight-Nine-Three’s methods think them idiots or dumb to Comlang, which was to their advantage. It also had the convenient side effect of making them unintelligible to anyone not accustomed to speaking with them. Besides, speaking in Nese kept their culture intact.
Bly sighed. Under the table, she pushed the booty she’d nabbed for him to his side. He played, quite effectively, like he didn’t notice. "Any plroblrems?" he said.
"No more than usual."
"Did you look at the intel?"
She stared at him for long enough that he knew she was offended. "I’m a professional."
He smiled his toothy smile under his affected stereotype mustache.
Her metal fingers fidgeted and flexed. "What’s the job?"
"やり万," he said under his breath, shifting in his seat. "Down to business so soon, Ailr? Lret me show hospitalrity. Have some sushi, on house."
On cue, right around the first mangled "L", a plate of Xerox rolls had been laid on the table and the package discretely bussed. Bly did not hide a dry heave. Fish, fish, fish. The entire city reeked of it. Fish for breakfast, fish for lunch, fish for supper. Even the printed meat was infused with the briny taste of it. If one wanted to eat, one had to eat fish. Apparently, Bly had tired of eating. "No, thank you."
Gen frowned, but bit his tongue. "Velry welr." He passed a file across the table.
Bly took it, opened it. No need for discretion in the Kabuku.
"Thelre is an object that we need lribelrated--"
"That you need what?" Bly lowered the file and cast a facetious glance at Gen.
"I want you to steal something, 红毛鬼子," he said, dropping his accent for a moment, his voice dripping with frustration.
"Mm," Bly nodded, understanding through experience that he had repeatedly insulted her since she had arrived, but choosing to embrace her ignorance of his language. "I’m a courier, Gen. I...curry." She fidgeted with her jacket. "Larceny’ll run you five thou’ extra."
"...From Corporate, in Ward Three," he explicated.
Bly dropped the folder, scattering a photo between them. Gen just stared at her, a bitter grin on his round face. Joker brought over the drinks that Bly ordered, but ignored their conversation and left.
Bly looked down at the two shots of dark brown liquor, thought about it a moment, and then threw both at her uvula in short order. She looked back up at Gen. "You want me to sneak through the most heavily guarded border on Xerox, traipse through the wastes like a noob, and walk out not only alive, but with an object I should not legally possess?"
"Yes."
"That’s more extra."
Gen gritted his teeth as he let out, "Of course."
Bly sat back in shock. She looked around her. Everyone in the bar was pretending not to pay attention to their conversation. "Now I’m getting scratch. No haggling, Gen? What the nuke am I stealing?"
"A smalr box, about zis big." Gen held his hands two feet apart. "Englraved upon lrid is circulralr snake, sulrounding white sun."
"The Sixth Sun logo," Bly said. "So the rads stole it?"
"No. That has moon and sun. This is something diffelrent. The rads unearthed it."
Bly’s eyes drifted to the picture on the table in front of Gen. Expecting a picture of the box, she instead saw a picture of a girl: head tilted down, bald but for some stubble, eyes dead yet possessed of a profound sadness--who also happened to be dead gorgeous. "Who’s the girl?" Bly asked, not taking her eyes off the photo. "And cut the shit with the accent, Gen, we’re in impolite company."
Gen went stiff. "She is connected to the box. It is thought she will make play for it. Beyond that, no one knows who or where she is."
Bly rapped her fingers on the table, squinted as she pretended to think it over. She never could resist a locked box and certain death. "Ah, nuke me and my nukin’ curiosity. TF. I’ll do it, under a few conditions."
"Whatever you need."
Bly took out her e-cig and clicked it on. "A nukin’ steak would be a nice start," she said, taking a long drag from the plastic tube and exhaling a tiny vapor nimbus. "Print beef, not salmon. You put any fish on that plate and I will rip out your trachea. Ooh! and one of those drinks with the little umbrellas you guys make here."