Topic: Mercator Arc
This is more about what I'm looking for to get into Roco's head months after his botched mission. I need a compelling set up to get him into the next mission.
Revised for clarity and a few more paragraphs added.
Section 2 of part 2 complete. Go here.
Section 3 of part 2 complete. Go here.
The weave let me get drunk. I drowned my worries in a bar called Zero's Hell that had become a criminal haven. Here we—me and the other convicted—found refuge from the judging eyes of the rest of society, those people we could not avoid as we went about our daily activities. We became nocturnal, like vampires. Feeding off of each other. It was safe here. And quiet. The Federal Assembly figured it was a bad idea to let criminals register the censure flashes of other criminals. Such people might congregate and plan more crime. Become a greater burden on this shitnut society. Yeah, that was working well, wasn't it? Eventually the cops would bust the place up. Fine the owner. Scatter us. Then we would coalesce somewhere else. Make another lair.
I tried not think about the life I hated. They were pushing me out; offering shitty jobs the cops could handle. I turned them down until the offers dried up. I didn't care. What was the point? They didn't really need me. The system was broke and no one cared. Why should I?
I drank alone, the worse kind as any serious drinker will tell you. I tucked myself into the lonely shadows of a booth set far in the corner of the back wall. I sipped my dascoe, amber fire in a chipped glass tumbler. The room was loud in a white noise of conversations, chinking bottles behind the bar, and the clack of pull balls colliding as they shot through gravity gradients on the baize skins of the gaming tables. There was music, but I had my weave block the music-cast. I wasn't in the mood for music.
The doors opened and a group of youths entered. Their chattering laughter stopped after the weaves of all the patrons flashed them a horde of censure statements. I felt my own pulse out. They beat a hasty retreat out into the street, nearly falling over each other to get out of the nest of snakes they found. No one inside bothered to glance at the group, not even the raucous men and women standing around the pull tables who were apt to fight over gambling losses and snap cue sticks across the backs of heads. Bar hoppers happened in every night. Usually left just as quickly.
Usually.
Someone else slipped in as the youths left. Almost without detection. But even through a buzz that was working its way toward igniting that angry thread within me, I noticed. Couldn't help to with that ingrained alertness dulling my inebriety. The lithe figure walked to the counter with a woman's gait, head hidden in a hooded jacket that looked a size too big. He or she must have been a criminal, or had been around enough of us not to be bothered by flashed disclosures.
A sniffer maybe. They could tolerate the vilest of us. I didn't like the situation at all. A news guild would love to get inside the Shop and expose it. They knew something was up and was looking for a way in. Looking for a person to use as their portal. Like me. I was such a damn-Iman fuck-up in my desire to put the Bad Guys away, that I had made myself far too visible. I had become a liability. But the Shop hadn't wiped me yet. Guess I was a chit they hoped to cash in someday.
The new customer leaned against the bar waited for the bartender, an ugly man that wore the scars of his fights as badges of valor. The two spoke and he put a bottle of beer on the worn, damp counter. The hooded figure turned to me and my censure pulsed. As if in answer a hand raised to the edge of the hood and pulled it back from a head fringed in obsidian hair.
The person was a women and for a moment my gut clenched because I thought it might be her and here I was drunk and ungunned. But no, this girl was taller than the one that haunted my dreams. And her hair was longer. Her face not as wide and pale as a full moon.
She turned her gaze from me with petulance, as if rejecting a lewd emote I certainly hadn't sent. I felt recognized. Targeted. I had my weave start the detox and left a finger of dascoe on the table as I got up to leave. I tightened my jaw. Damn-Iman sniffers ruining my night.
She stole a glance at me before I reached the door. Come sniff this girly-girl. It will be the last thing you do.
The street was dark except for a few neglected fluttering light rods leaning over the sidewalks and staining them with spastic ill light. Rollers and lifters were parked along the curb, but none moved along street of low buildings. A group of youths stood beyond a low slung roller across the pavement talking and drinking. I strode briskly to an alley with the intention of putting a stop to this intrusion of my privacy. I heard the door to Zero's Hell open behind me and set up the dust on the back of my coat to form a simple optic array.
It was her alright.
I slipped into the alley and about half way into it crouched behind a metal refuse bin to spring an ambush should she enter. A sniffer would have some fighting skills if he or she wanted to subdue an uncooperative target such as myself. If she did not follow me, no harm no foul. But if she did, well . . . I'm not a man to beat up a woman out of anger or sport, but don't send a woman to take care of me. No leniency should be given in combat. Do it and lose.
I watched from a dust-assembled optic array I had smeared on the bin.
Then she was there at the mouth of the alley, a dark form like the blade of a knife against the brighter ambience from the street beyond. She drew the hood of her jacket over her head- no telling what kind of sensor arrays lay in its woven edge-and entered the shadows with small measured steps. I readied myself, feeling the tension in my muscles build.
I hoped the metal of the bin would mask my heat signature, and it must have because she advanced about half way to me without making any indication she could sense me. But then she stopped, almost invisible in the darkness, and reached into her jacket for . . . a dull metal disk.
A millimeter wave antenna to augment her weave-dust sensor set.
I sprang out from my cover, the tail of my long coat spreading like the wings of an angry raptor. I meant to have shouldered her into the ground, but she was swift, sidestepping away. I felt her hands briskly on my shoulder, pushing. I stumbled, but managed to catch my balance. I did a quick about face, spinning on the ball of my foot while stooping into a crouch. She pirouetted, swinging a leg out, her knee gracefully unhinging and the sweep of her booted toes just missing my face. I dropped and rolled into her just as she was about to stand on two feet again. She tumbled beside me, and before she could recover I pounced upon her. She struggled under me, a hard form breathing heavily. I pinned her down with a knee between her flattened breasts. The dust on the index and small fingers of my right hand grew into spikes. I held them over her face.
"Talk. Or you're getting new eyes." Dark and feral. Almond shape beauties I wouldn't mind peering into under different circumstances.
She tried to move but I pressed my knee down. She surrendered. "I have a message for you." Her voice was iced water.
A message. By courier. Hadn't had one of these in a long time. "From who?"
Her hands had found my knee, warm things. She made no attempt to remove it. "I'm just a link in a long chain."
The Shop would do something like this if they had reason to believe a direct scatter-cast wasn't secure enough; use a system of couriers to thwart traceback who had no idea who the messenger was, or what the message was, or for whom the message was intended. For all she knew, I could be another courier in this chain. But no one used me for that business. The message was for me. "Let's get a drink."
"Let's have it," I said stepping out of my cramped excuse for a kitchen, my hands chilled by two glasses of Vrimmel Stock premium dascoe. I placed one on the low table in front of the young woman sitting on the edge of the sofa.
She gave a wary glance at the drink and put a hand into her jacket. The cuff of her sleeve slid up revealing a tattooed kaleidoscope of writhing symbols and images; she had been recruited from a gang. I wasn't surprised. Her hand moved out and laid something beside her dascoe. She uncovered the object and lifted the glass to her lips, forcing a conservative sip.
The message was encoded in a button of dull blue-green smart matter. I sat in the chair at the end of the table, swallowed a dollop of dascoe. The rest of my life seemed compressed in that tiny thing. All I had to do was activate it and see what was in store for me. I didn't know if I wanted too. They should let me fade out. It's what I deserved.
This had Castle written all over it. He knew I'd appreciate a rough and tumble little woman. Like last time. The choice of courier was a message in and of itself. Something deep was going on. My handler wanted me in play.
But did I? For all the things I have done for Pavona and the Expanse, it was still corrupt and diseased in its the core. Lives were still pretty much shitty, and getting shittier.
I swallowed dascoe, wanting the liquor to burn out my hopelessness. The button gleamed in the soft lamp light. It remained strangely inert and silent in expected frequency ranges. The messenger held her glass, sipping and waiting. "You got the wipe codes?" I asked.
She frowned. "I just know to get that to you . . . and get paid."
I nodded. Yeah. Get paid. I hear you. "The message comes with a wipe code. The courier before you automatically transmits-"
"I know how it works. I don't remember the other one. I was wiped." She took a large swallow of dascoe and put it on the table. "Believe me." An off-world accent began to flavor her Pavic.
"So the other runner wiped both of you, but you didn't get the code?" I didn't like this. This was very deep.
She shrugged. "How would I know?"
I was the intended recipient so both of our weaves should be talking to the message tablet. I pointed at it. "It should send a key to your weave to flash me the code. But if you don't have it . . ." I bit my lip and hefted the glass of dascoe, the amber-gold liquid complemented the lamp light. Romantic in any other setting. My blood chilled.
"But what," she prompted.
I put my glass down, leaned over, elbows to knees, and steepled my fingers below my chin. That evil little button, looking so harmless on the table. Like a forgotten thing."It's a lot more serious than what you think." My voice was amazingly calm despite the rush in my heart. Messages within messages."Dangerously so." The wipe code ended at the last transaction because they wanted me to remember this encounter. To jeopardize her. If it came to it. Now she, she would be wiped. I would have to do it. But only if I fully received the message.
"How?" Apprehension crept into her voice. She craned her neck around to steal a glance at the door. It would never open for her unless I authorized it.
I sighed. "There is no wipe code because if I do not accept this message, both of us are going to be wiped for good."
She gaped at me.
I stood up and sat beside her on the couch. "Good as in dead."
No one likes to be told that and her reaction was normal. She jerked up but I held her wrist, gently. "But that is not going to happen. Understand?"
She snatched her arm from my grip but didn't move. "Nobody told me . . ."
"I know." I eyed the tablet, our fates in its grasp. "You were not just the last link in a chain."
She sagged back onto the couch, her suspicious eyes locked with mine.
"You were also the first."
She frowned at me for a few seconds. "Like hell I was."
I reached out for the tablet, finding it light weight and not quite cold; its machines working and generating heat. I dropped it into my palm, studying it. I could just make out the scored line that divided it in half. It was meant to be split in two and dissolved on the tongue. By two people. The message encoded in tangled chains of molecule like machines.
"You've been a runner for a while, haven't you."
She squirmed. "Yeah. Couple of years."
"You did a job and they got samples of you. This has two messages. One's a decoy. The real message is paired to our genemetrics. It won't activate without them."
"That's crazy" she said above a whisper.
"It's security. And insurance."
"You need what? A blood sample? Hair."
The tablet had recognized me and separated. "No. Saliva will do."
"What," she said with disgust, "you want me to spit on it? Or on you?"
"A kiss will do."
She chuckled, and when I didn't she added, "Are you serious?"
"Just a quick open mouth kiss." I held one half of the tablet up for her to see. "Let this melt in your mouth."
She hesitated and I could image what she thought. I brought her to my place, gave her a drink, now was trying to coax her to put in her mouth half of something someone she could not remember with any clarity gave to her, and then to kiss me like a lover. I'd be wary too.
"If I don't?" Worry crept into her face.
"I don't receive the message. We likely won't see the morning."
She eyed the half of the tablet I held out for her.
"And you won't get paid," I added.
She glared at me and took the half. Popped into her mouth.
I looked down at my half and felt finality, as if it were not a just a message but a step that once taken could not be undone. My fate seemed to lay in this smart matter pill. My fate . . . I thought of dreams and shuddered. So be it. I cupped the thing into my mouth, my tongue tingled under it as it collapsed into a foam of machines. "You ready?"
She nodded. I drew in slowly and our mouths met. It was about as clinical as it gets, our tongues rubbing purposely against the other for the sake of mixing chemicals and machines. I released her and she wiped her mouth.
"That wasn't so bad was it?"
She offered no reply. Just scowled.
My weave had the message. It activated instantly, launching me into a cyberscape and severing me from reality. I found myself in a white nowhere, still sitting, but on nothing. An autonomous avatar of Castle appeared as if stepping through a door. Like the man it represented, it was tall of slender build, yet not softened by years of being out of the field and behind a desk.
It stopped in front of me and shot a look to my right, as if to the gang runner that was not present in the ‘scape. It looked to me. "Meet me in Heil Thericon in two days." Without waiting for any reply, it turned around and started walking away, then stopped as if it forgot something. It half turned and glanced at the young woman not there, then said to me, "Unless you don't care."
Eternity stretched between us. A memory from a dream stirred. That haunting moon face. A cool gentle hand on my shoulder. Breath at my ear. Words.
Fate.
"I'll be there," I told Castle's avatar.
It nodded and disappeared beyond that imperceptible door. I dropped out of the ‘scape.
Heil Thericon. Near the edge of the Greater Pavonan Expanse. Close to Derelict Junction, a travel hub to points outside the Expanse. To the uncivil worlds. I didn't know where this mission would take me, but glancing around my apartment, I didn't think I would be coming back here. It's funny how a feeling can feel so certain. Like a punch in the gut.
I finished my dascoe. I had things to do. I'd have to pay the courier; transfer funds through backroute networks from one of the Shop's accounts to hers. I had to wipe her. And as much as I would like to get drunk with her and fool around, I didn't see it happening. I had to prepare for this mission.
And there was something else I had to do too.
I prepared myself to be turned away as I settled the lifter on the parking slab of an opulent-but not arrogantly so-home. It was a sprawling one story affair, with rooms attached here and there as if they were spur of the moment additions. They curled back around to wall in a garden, if I remembered it right. The low pitch roof was red and gold slate. Columns supported the roofs of porches. Tall elegant trees stretched their canopies offering shade. Hedges and flowers bordered walkways. I knew where the craters had been, but they had been expertly filled, topped with short younger trees as if they never existed.
Before I reached the door, it slid aside. Anella stood there, regal and forbearing. She suddenly grimaced and lifted slender fingers to her temples, shutting out my flash. She took in a breath and dropped her hands. Held the edge of the door. Blocking the path inside. "What do you want?" There was nothing friendly in her tone. Her glare, unforgiving.
"I want to see my wife."
Anella harrumphed. "She was never your wife."
I wasn't going to argue the point. "She was going to be."
Anella shifted her weight and looked away, out across the yard. "I suppose she was." There was distance in those words that stretched back through the years. She let go of the door and her fingers fidgeted with one another. She watched them a while before looking back up at me. "I don't abide criminals on my estate."
"You know me."
"I knew you!" She shuddered, held her own elbows. "How could you do that?"
"I pay for it every day. Believe me."
Then came a silence between us, heavy and choking. I watched an insect crawl across the flagstones. I looked up into her thin pale face. A face of severe beauty. "Anella, please."
I could feel her weighing who I was against who I am. The moment dragged. I sighed. "Forget it," I mumbled and turned. What a waste of time. I'm such a damn-Iman fool.
"Wait," Anella called.
I stopped and faced her.
"Why do you want to see her? Why now? After all this time?"
The dream burned in my mind. Fate. "I never said goodbye."
Anella absorbed it. She nodded. "You know where she is." She ducked into the house and I followed her.
We walked through the spacious foyer to the garden. Anella stopped and I continued on through. The path meandered to a wide alcove. Set inside were bouquets of eternal flowers. An explosion of colors. They framed the bust of a woman whose beauty rivaled even Anella's.
Teola.
Suddenly I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to be here. I didn't know why I was here. What I was seeking. I had accepted her death. Hadn't I? After all these years the wound that cored out my heart had grown smaller. Here I was to rip it open afresh.
I reached out and touched a shoulder that looked like cold marble. Teola awoke. Or rather what awoke was the remaining cyberphrenal portion of her weave now enmeshed in the smart matter of the bust. It wasn't her, but it was. The living memory. The bust enforced that idea by doing what I had rather it not do: became more lifelike.
Teola recognized me. "Hello Roco," she greeted cheerfully. "It's been awhile."
It wasn't her, but it was. "Your sister doesn't like me."
The bust laughed lightly. "I doubt that has kept you away." Her tone dropped to something more serious. "How have you been? Doing well?"
"Yeah," I shrugged and nodded. "I've missed you." Terribly. "But I've been busy." I felt like an idiot school boy confronting his crush.
"That's good," Teola said. "Getting on with your life." She paused. "After all that has happened."
"Yeah, I know. Been doing something good. I am doing something good now. Screwing up . . ." and I couldn't help chuckling for levity, "But still . . . I'd like to think that what I've been doing is for the good . . . is good. You know?"
"I think so." Quietly.
"Doing things that need to be done." I saw that day the lawn erupted in geysers of earth, leaving fire and holes. Hopelessness. Misery. Loss.
"What do you want Roco?"
I caressed her cheek, wanting badly to fall into the illusion of Teola's simulacrum. Wanting it to be her. "I don't know. I mean . . . I'm sorry I couldn't do anything. I'm sorry you're not here . . . so sorry."
"Don't blame yourself. I'm with Iman now. And you are where He needs you to be."
I sighed. Such talk was never any consolation for me. "Am I a good man?" I looked at her, waiting for an answer. From a simulation. A ghost. A memory.
"I fell in love with you."
I closed my eyes, damming a tear or two. I nodded. "You did. I thank you for that." I stood there for a moment, lost in those days gone by. It seemed like centuries since we were together, planning our future. Then it ended. Now it felt like it was ending for good. I could still turn the job down after I was briefed on Heil Thericon, but . . .
I couldn't shake the feeling I would not see this world again. I could be marching toward certain death, and it was better than living here with this censure screaming out of my head.
Another sigh. "Goodbye Teola."
"Goodbye Roco."
I touched her shoulder and she was gone. I stood there for a moment, looking into that marble face, until Anella grew tired of my loitering and escorted me out. I gave her my thanks. She gave me her silence.
And that concludes part 2.
