Hard Lines 19.1

Idle hands

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'Sir?' asks Goldie as the storm howls outside the lobby and hammers rain against the glass. 'Are you OK? You seem a little tense.'

'Yeah, well, you know how it goes,' I say, approaching the counter and hoping this small talk won't last. 'Crazy day at work.'

'Of course,' Goldie says, feigning sympathy. Then, after an uneasy pause: 'Why don't you spend time with your friend to help you relax?' He looks at me earnestly and for a split second, I think he means Manni.

'What are you on about?' I say, instantly on the defensive. 'I don't hang around with anyone here, alright? You've got the wrong idea.'

The other guests in the lobby look up from their feeds.

'Sir,' says Goldie, and he doesn't need to say anymore; his face tells the picture. I'm creating a scene. 'I meant with your small friend, you know...' He reduces his voice to a whisper. 'That you procured off the black market.'

'Oh, the droid?'

'Yes, sir.'

Now I can play along. I smile.

'I mean, it is not for me to pry, sir. What one does with one's spare time, but if that helps you unwind... why not take--'

'Hey, enough, Goldie! Honestly, thanks for your concern, but I'm having you on. I don't mean to spend time with the droid.' I never did, I nearly tell him.

For a moment, the AI looks blank. And then I realise. There's a good chance Goldie hasn't heard that expression before. Eventually: 'You are joking, sir?'

'Yes!'

'Right. Good.' The AI avatar breaks out in a pained smile. 'In which case, please, go in peace. And I hope you can rest in a way that...feels comfortable to you.'

'Thank you.' I turn with a smirk and walk quickly towards the lift.

'Although I must warn you, sir.'

I try not to look irritated as I turn back around. 'Oh?'

'Yes, sir. Only because we are situated near Nexus Square, which is where Eva Devitt's rally is taking place tonight.'

'Who?' But as soon as I've asked, I remember.

Her, from the awful adverts at the station. 'Oh no.'

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'How long for?'

'Only a couple of hours. Or no, three and a half, sorry. I just checked the schedule.'

'OK.' There's nothing I can do. 'I mean, how invasive are these things?'

'Well, you know, sir. I can't say, because I'm not a human. But pretty invasive, from what I hear. If you run with a Delta headface, you might want to switch over your data network for one night only.'

'What, away from my provider and over to the city?' I sound incredulous because I already pay for a supposedly 'better' service through my existing provider. But it seems there's nothing I can do about anything tonight apart from accept slow service. And that will make my wait for Manni even more torturous.

---

Back in my apartment, Will's father is shouting next door and making liberal use of the F-word. And whilst I can't fully work out what he's saying, the cadence is familiar.

Someone - Will, more than likely - is doing something the father, Ibrahim, doesn't like. Then Ibrahim's voice confirms it.

'Will,' comes the father's exasperated cry. 'I've already told you!'

After which, I hear the clattering of pans. Then a scuffle, a roar from the father, and Will shouting back harder.

I can't help but smile. That boy is a wild one, alright.

Tonight is the night of Eva Devitt's rally against the terrorism in our midst, and from what I can piece together, Will is desperate to go. But from the shouting and tone, it's clear that neither Will nor his friends are big fans of Eva Devitt or her authoritarian views.

And while I'd love to think of myself above such things, the drama is a welcome break from my own, so I get a cup and place it against the wall.

'Over my dead body!' Ibrahim shouts again and again.

Will swears and curses his father a few more times. There's more banging, then the front door slams. Startled, I pull back as angry footsteps stomp past my door. Then there's nothing. Just quiet, leaving nothing but the sound of my own thoughts and the thudding in my chest.

I step back from the partition wall, well aware this is hardly journalism.

A couple more blank minutes follow as I look around my apartment and wonder how I'm supposed to survive the wait. These new coordinates given to me by Elise are burning a hole in my brain.

Don't bring your friend.

I bring them up on my overlay and stare at them longingly, like jewels out of reach. Because if it's all true, and by that I mean all the implied insinuations, then the horse has definitely bolted. And all because of the strength of one woman's words and a sketchy, hazy memory.

A true leap of faith, then. Is Elise, like Manni says, a human blood-sucking genie, or something more than that?

Is she, in fact, the contact I've been searching for all along?

It's hard to relax when so much is at stake. If anything, it feels like my soul is suspended by a butcher's hook as I wait for Manni's call. So I go back to the neural net in a vain attempt to find something to occupy my mind. And sure enough, there's the search box. Inviting me to run the coordinates. But of course, we all know that my activity is being watched, and tonight's connection speed is slow.

Dusk settles over Ironforge as I return to the window, the sky behind the buildings fading from cobalt to a cloud-strewn, midnight blue.

There's nothing else to do but people-watch and kill time. And as luck would have it, down in the square, a small form hurries across the barren space. On closer inspection, my headface identifies the scurrying figure as Will, so I watch him until he's a small black dot on the far side of the square.

He promptly enters a bar, blatantly underage, but no one appears to bar his entry. Using my overlay to zoom in on the name, I read a pink, neon logo, scrawled in the style of italic handwriting: Foggarty's.

Hmm. A drink is not such a bad idea.

If anything, I can use it as an excuse to park my brain and get away from these four walls. At least until Manni shows up. Get some food and alcohol inside me. Maybe catch up with the boy.

Besides, I want to know who his friends are.

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Thanks for checking out Hard Lines. To track the whole story so far, please visit the Serials page on Beyond Colossus. New scenes drop each Wednesday.

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