Hard Lines 21.0

The unveiling

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Earl yammers on, but I can barely hear him. Ever since my conversation with Jimmy, my thoughts have been a noisy cloud of doom and static. Every so often, I drift in and catch the tail of something, Earl talking about the price of running his EMV, or speculating about the score with Control Kinetics. But the moment I manage to focus, the shock and trauma of what I've just learned overwhelms me once more and leaves me feeling faint, dizzy, and nauseous.

'Ooh,' Earl says, referring to the game. 'Looks like we've gone a goal up!'

Part of me wants to ask him to shut up. Still, there's something about his part-human voice that helps me regulate, or at the very least throws up conversation points that keep me from jumping out of the airborne vehicle and plummeting to my death.

'Say, mister? Are you OK?'

Earl sounds genuinely concerned. To be fair, I am sitting here pale-faced, my mouth drooling and half-open.

'Mister?'

'Yeah, sorry. Sorry.'

'No worries,' he says, chuckling with relief. A return fare city-wide makes me his biggest ride this week. 'You looked like you were having some kind of stroke.'

'Oh, no,' I say weakly, fixing my eyes on the horizon. 'Just, you know…'

'Long day, huh?'

'Yeah,' I say, remembering Varis and Syrix in the dome and everything that has happened since. 'Something like that.'

'Back there. In that rave church…'

'What, sorry?'

'The Chapel of Ascension.'

Oh, is that what it's used for? I think back to the day-glo murals scrawled across the walls. Figures.

'Yeah. Back there in the church, it looked like you might have seen a ghost.'

'Ha! Yeah,' I say, realising he's fishing for details, so I keep my wagons close. 'It wasn't good in there. Believe me.'

'I understand.' He pauses, weighing what comes next. 'Well, you got some balls going in there, whatever your reasons.'

I laugh, but there's no humour to it. 'Thanks.'

'Hey, believe me. You wouldn't catch me doing anything like that pre-op,' he says, nodding at his tentacles as they continue to work the Amberlite's controls. 'No way at all.'

'Is that why you became a gene-hack then? For security?'

'One hundred per cent. Although these days, I can make just as much from piloting and running other side hustles…' He glances up at me in the rearview, eyes flicking toward the two extra tentacles at his waist. Both of them are busy working on a turnkey blockchain device. 'On the side, you know what I mean?'

'I do.' Out the window, Teunning House is drawing nearer, the familiar H glowing on the skyline. The Amberlite begins its descent from the skyway. 'Making yourself super-employable is never a bad idea.'

Earl nods in approving fashion as we pass into the housing maze and wheels touch down on tarmac. The suspension sighs as the knot in my stomach tightens.

'One minute,' Earl continues cheerily, no doubt thinking about the fare. 'We're nearly there.'

We snake around the estate's roundabout as Earl makes apologies for the traffic, the whole trip having taken nearly an hour. I let him talk, my thoughts elsewhere on an endless, grinding loop. Elise and her face. Her mysterious chapel and now, her absence.

A ping in my overlay. Jimmy!

The encrypted donkey icon pulses. No words in the feed. Just a file.

I open it.

The time-stamp says four hours ago. Back when there were streaks of dusk fading out over the Aphex skyline.

And then there she is, inside my headface. Elise. Or what's left of her. Pummelled, bloodied, twisted in the dirt. My mind tries to rearrange the image into something survivable, but the angles of her limbs won't fit.

'No…'

From the shot's perspective, she's in a drainage channel outside the chapel, gunned down mid-flight.

'Did they say who did it?'

'Watch on,' Jimmy says. 'Got this from the shopkeeper across the street.'

So I continue, and passively consume yet another atrocity I can't ever unsee.

The camera then follows Manni Xhakia as he steps into frame, rifle in hand. My supposed ally. He places the muzzle against Elise's head, then whispers something that none of us will ever hear. He fires three times into her head as I stop the feed.

'Don't worry,' Jimmy says between my chokes and splutters, 'I won't charge you. You'll need all the pseudos for the fare.'

'Uh, thanks,' I say flatly.

'And I'd caution against going home.'

'Oh?' Yet again, my mind feels broken and lacking in a plan or anything.

'Try the favela near Yvak.'

'Are you sure about the money?'

'Please. Buy me a drink next time.'

I nod and give a weak chuckle. Maybe Jimmy could be a friend? If I survive the night, of course.

The cab turns a corner, and there we have it.

'Teunning House,' Earl says, and for a moment I think he is going to call me sir.

Of course, my window's light is still on, shining out into the night on the fifth floor of the block. And I'm halfway through a mental packing list when I see the figure below.

Tall. Thick-shouldered. Shaven head. Long black coat.

Manni looks at the approaching cab and smiles.

'That'll be five hundred pseudo-dollars.'

I sink down as we pull up. My stomach's acid.

Manni walks toward us, unhurried and grinning as he opens the door.

A cold flood surges through me. Every instinct screams to run, but the cab is boxed in by traffic. My pulse drums in my ears as I take in the exits, the distance to the opposite door. My hands flex uselessly, searching for anything to use as a weapon.

'Don't worry, driver,' Manni says warmly. 'I'll handle the payment.'

Earl starts to explain the size of the fee, but Manni brushes him off, as if it were a matter of loose change. 'Keep going. I'll pay it all when we get there.'

I feel squashed as he slides in beside me, flashing his gold and platinum caps in my face as he clamps his palm on my shoulder. 'Fancy a little talk?'

'What? Me?'

Earl interrupts: 'So, where to now, guys?'

'Nexus Square, please, driver,' says Manni, like we're two friends heading to a concert.

'No,' I blurt. 'Surely you don't want to go for coffee first?' I say.

'Oh no,' Manni says, turning to me like a child getting ready to open presents at Christmas. 'I've got all the names you gave me. You know, the complete list. And I feel good, Rene.'

My skin crawls.

'Is everything OK?' Earl asks.

'EVERYTHING IS FINE,' Manni barks as Earl's eyes go blank and another energy appears to take hold. The gene-hack's head tilts but never turns, the cab now being flown by something else. Manni, or some unknown force that travels with him.

'Was it all a lie?' The ride stabilises. 'That story about your brother?'

'Oh, that! The kids went missing, yes. Just not my brother. I don't have siblings. But I stole plenty from other people. The sob story was from some poor bastard we interrogated.'

'Really.'

'Worked on you, didn't it?'

I close my eyes. 'Why?' I ask eventually.

'You're a problem, Rene.' Manni looks me up and down. 'Although details are classified for the minute.'

'Are you going to kill me?'

He shrugs, as if there are more important questions to take care of. 'We want to show you something first. A present, if you like.'

'We?'

'Control.'

I nod as we pass over a speed bump and near the road's landing and elevation zone. 'We were never going to see Onya, were we?'

'Correct,' Manni says. 'We're going to Eva Devitt's rally instead.' Like that's something I should be excited about.

The cab climbs to the skyway as I frantically try to remember the contact list. Danuta Meir. Song Wallis.

Maybe Jimmy can reach them?

Manni locks the doors as he projects a new chat onto my overlay.

Yet again, another of his hidden powers.

'What is this?'

Manni nods as if to say: Look harder.

A chat interface hangs in front of me. And when I look at the left-hand side, my name is on the account. My fake one: Tilo Mladic.

On the right-hand side, there is a nested correspondence with my full list of contacts.

'They're all coming to meet us in Nexus Square,' Manni says, patting me on the shoulder like a teenager dealing with something he shouldn't. 'And get this,' he says, slapping my shoulder. 'They think they're meeting you.'

'Everyone?'

Manni laughs as I sink into my seat and the EMV banks sharply toward the square. Meanwhile, through the glass, the city unfurls in pulsing neon ribbons, the glow swelling brighter as we close in on Nexus Square and a night no one in Ironforge will ever forget.

To be continued…

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Thanks for reading Hard Lines! That is it for Part One but do you feel like giving this story a review? If so, please let me know in the comments. Or visit the Serials page on Beyond Colossus to read the whole thing.

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