The cavernous garage was loaded with the silhouettes of various vehicles with the makes and models masked behind walls of darkness. The emergency lights that provided scant light revealed the smooth and gleaming lines of ground and aerial vehicles, testaments to pride and a healthy amount of money. The garage was down a small smattering of stairs while a tier circled the entire room.
The dark was cut by a pneumatic door hiss as a lone woman walked out of the employee entrance and into the plain, gray, and exceptionally boring excuse of a parking lot. As the doors shut behind her and clicked as they locked, she ventured forth. Her muffled steps were eaten by the cavernous garage and the series of cascading clicks as the lights, detecting a presence in the formerly empty space, turned on. Her pace was slow, yet deliberate, avoiding all other stationary vehicles she passed by.
At just under five and a half feet, she was short, rail thin, and very leggy. Her entire body was uniformed in a drab form-fitting mixture of red and gray that gave only the slightest hint of a bosom. Each hand was covered in a shiny black glove, just like her feet were covered in solid black work-shoes polished to a shine. Rather than walk to an automobile, she circled wide and walked along the tier with slow, unfocused steps. Her rich blue eyes, rather than filled with delight at having finally gotten the chance to see the skies rather than a desk or cubicle, were drained of emotion, tired, and full of fatigue beyond that of weary body.
She walked along the tier and towards a row of equipment lockers lining the entire wall. Hundreds of cars populated the garage, and an equal number of lockers lined the walls. She approached a locker that was indistinguishable from the rest, save for the number printed across the door one digit higher than its clone on the left, and one lower than its clone on the right.
She swiped her wrist across the electronic eye placed below the numeric code. The door clicked and swung open with the grating squeak of unoiled hinges. Inside was a simple cloth knapsack, a change of clothes, and a few knickknacks and baubles to lighten up the otherwise dreary garage. Taped on the inside of the door was an aged photograph. A stick of a girl with hair cascading to the small of her back was dragging a piece of firewood towards a woman tending to a firepit. The woman was smiling in laughter and tender love towards the girl, who was glaring at the wood for weighing more than her tiny muscles could lift.
For a brief moment, the woman allowed herself to caress the photo with her right hand while her left twitched at her side. The woman in the photo had red hair while the little girl had a shock of gold, but she still shared the same heart-shaped face, eyes, and dimpled smile. Tracing down the woman's shoulder brought her down the woman's outstretched arm, palm open and reaching for something. Whatever she was grasping for would be forever lost, as the rightmost edge of the photo had been burned away.
The woman grabbed her knapsack, stuffed her extra clothes inside, and slammed the door. The employee exit wasn't much of a walk away, and it hissed open to reveal the first wall of steel and concrete that defined the urban sprawl. Stepping out of the garage, her blue eyes looked towards the heavens. A thick layer of bloated rainclouds blocked out and starlight. Running one gloved hand through her shoulder-length golden pleats, she used the other to touch the name tag attached to her breast.
Eden Enterprises
Calibration Technician
"I got a name, you bloody wankers."
The tag was ripped off her shirt with a wordless snarl. As if the very gods were offended by her disgruntled malcontent, the angry skies opened up and let loose a torrential downpour, quickly soaking her uniform. Shivering slightly, her gloved hands rubbed her arms to provide a little warmth, only succeeding to rub the moisture deeper into the fabric.
Readjusting her knapsack, the technician quickly ducked under the overhang that shielded new arrivals from any heavenly wrath. Despite the clouds being little more than an unending mass of black, the cityscape was utterly alight.
"Home sweet home in the City of Night. What the hell, Seattle?" City of Night. What moron started that name? Even without the moon circling above, the clouds were still tinted orange with city lights. Despite it being ten at night and the radiant moonlight shielded behind walls of clouds, the City of Night was better off being called the City of Light. Solar powered streetlights guided the technician's eyes left and right. Past the employee and guest parking lots was the—shockingly—empty highway and skyway. Normally vehicles would be loading the hard road and skyways with traffic, but here they were, empty and silent. The rest of her gaze was filled with concrete and the blinding eyes of an unending mass of city light.
Deciding that standing under the overhang wouldn't get her any closer to home, the technician did her best to maneuver from overhang, to canopy, to cubby. Vehicles were expensive, and it was overall cheaper to take mass transit rather than to buy and upkeep a vehicle. "Catching a tube is gonna be tough enough wading through this," she sighed and rolled her eyes at the heavens. Raising a thin, dainty hand to brush the hair plastered to her face behind her ears, she increased her pace across the darkened streets. Well-lit as they were, even in the titanic central business district, they were still dark. Dark in the worst possible way.
Corporate offices, R&D research centers, and pyramid-shaped arcologies thrust from the hard concrete, steel, and stone ground; that was the norm as she exited the monolithic shadow of her corporate workspace and pavilion. Hiding between each titanic building was a billion points of light from one of dozens of city districts. Gray was an omnipresent hue, despite the steady trickle of people she saw after leaving work. Free from her corporate cage and the underground, the steady hum of chattering voices and milling bodies became increasingly more common.
Blacks, grays, whites, reds, blues, and clothing of every hue in between cloaked the city masses; there were simply too many colors to count given the sudden onslaught of people across the labyrinthian concrete walkways after she left Eden's dominion. People wormed and shoved their way past each other in a practiced dance abandoned in lieu of ducking their heads and running for cover like her to escape the sudden, inexplicable downpour. Standing at an intersection to wait for a passing vehicle was a balding man in an immaculate business suit. Unlike her and many others, this one had the foresight to bring an umbrella. She still thought that the umbrella was not to keep himself dry, but the suitcase cuffed to his wrist.
'Ahhhhh...' she hummed to herself, 'A Johnson...' Nameless, faceless, and completely forgettable, a Mr. Johnson was the go-to mask of anonymity for underhanded dealings. Johnson was a common surname, afterall. Stopping at the same intersection, she made sure to keep her distance from the man. He didn't even acknowledge her, for which she was thankful. The last thing she needed was a "job offer" from a Johnson. Good results for a Johnson resulted in fairly lucrative profits. Bad results resulted in fairly lethal gunshot wounds.
The last polysteel car whizzed by the pair, a silver hovercar made by... well, she wasn't exactly sure. The black tinted windows hid the occupants inside. Looking both ways, she hoisted her knapsack and sprinted across the noisy street. A quick look back revealed that the Johnson hadn't moved an inch. He checked his watch, an archaic spring and gear thing from god only knows where.
"Hey, chummer, runnin' late?" said a portly man in the back of his hovercar-drawn food stand. He had parked parallel to one of the cyclopean towers of business and city hubris. She could smell the scent of stir fry and fresh noodles. An array of steamed veggies assaulted her sensitive nose and she indulged a moment of weakness with a deep intake of breath.
"Just got out."
"Let me guess. Dataslave?" the cook asked, using the colloquial slang for a corporate drone. He shed his gloves and dried what sweat remained on his stained apron. His rotund gut stretched the fabric precariously tight, as several frayed seams attested.
"Yeppers."
"Name's Porky." The woman slipped, but was unsure if she could blame it on the wet ground or her near pratfall.
"What stupid blighter names himself Porky?" The technician blew at a strand of hair that resolutely clung to the side of her face. It refused to move. "Sophia."
"Well, Sophia, that would be Porky Senior."
"I'm sure he was charmed," she snarked. At least the overhang was enough to block out the downfall. Rain beat like thunder above her head. Given the small reprieve, she tried to squeeze a little bit of moisture out of her braids.
"Oh, surely." Strangely, he sounded quite sincere. "You know what? I'll drop a few nuyen for a bowl." Porky brandished his arms. Behind him was a small fryer and several veggies stored behind a cooler's sliding glass door.
Oh, the siren call of noodles and body-destroying sodium. "Sorry, but got to catch a tube." Double-checking her bag, she prepared for a quick jog.
Porky shrugged, another customer inevitably lost to the downpour. "Stop by sometime. I'm here every week.'
She nodded before dashing off into the night. Lightning slithered behind the clouds while fat raindrops assaulted her neck, back and shoulders. The cracked concrete beneath her shoes was slowly becoming slick with moisture, making even her reasonably brisk pace hazardous. Fortunately, Porky's stand was only two more blocks away from one of the Seattle metro entrances. The great gaping maw bled scant light and she rushed into its embrace.
The underground access was hemorrhaging people profusely, yet few were entering the dark underground like her. The doors were constantly open with the stream of people and the floors slick with moisture. More than once she removed her hand from her shoulder to steady herself on the rail.
Any water that had progressed so deep underground was drained away via the sewer grate at the bottom of the steps. Her shoes thudded lightly as she passed, her exceedingly small frame carrying little weight. Holographic ads plastered the metal walls. Two gear girls speaking in a foreign language held a bottle of some type of soft drink. A polished car fresh off the assembly lines. The newest cyberware equipment fit for domestic or work life.
Sophia ignored the ads and kept shuffling. Hearing a grinding and a hiss ahead, she picked up the pace. She came across a set of gleaming turnstiles that contrasted with the cracked concrete floor and a few flickering holovids. There was a slow stream of people moving to and from them, each swiping cards or inserting credsticks to pay for a trip. She swiped her wrist across another electronic eye. The red light across the base flashed green and the turnstile door clicked to allow her safe passage.
"Oh, fuck," she cursed. It was the curse of trains and metros everywhere to never run on time, and it was just her luck to hear the low hum that heralded the metro's exodus. She darted around a corner and across the final stretch. Each compartment was perfectly identical to the next and always reminded her of a smooth, distended brick. The very low, almost inaudible, hum of the magclamps bore down on the air like some great weight. The air conditioning must have been broken, for the heat radiated through the door in waves, carrying with it the funk that came with all metros available to the public sector.
The door snapped shut and locked just as the strap of her knapsack fluttered past the threshold. Sophia braced her palms against her knees and panted to soothe the slowly-growing stitch in her side. "Girl, you are out of shape." Sweat and rain plastered her clothes and hair to her body. What few curves she had would have been obscenely outlined had her uniform been made of quality linen. 'The benefits of mass production and cheap materials.'
The occupants didn't even look remotely surprised or perplexed by her late arrival. An androgynous man—woman? It was hard to tell—leaned his head against the shoulder of an asian male. He looked well off in his pristine work shirt and loosened blue tie. There was a middle-aged man with a ragged shirt, jacket, and trousers. The shoes, she noticed, were snake skins under platinum engravings.
'Zoe's designer line, eh?' she couldn't help but chuckle silently to herself. If the man was trying to be inconspicuous, he certainly failed at that.
Sophia walked towards the door to the next compartment. Getting on so late had taken up most of the good seats, which were—strangely—all near the rear of the metro. Every seat was taken, and some even decided to stand and chat. She ignored them and walked, looking for a seat.
She stopped. 'Wait...'
She turned her head and scanned the compartment behind her once more. Men, women, and others. A pair of elves, and a stout dwarf decked out in enough cybertech and gizmos to guarantee he was a rigger. Some with cybernetic replacements, some without. None of which matched the image in her head, that of a single individual who might—just might—be on the metro with her.
The door opened with a hiss to grant her access to the next compartment. There were fewer people compared to the other compartment: a muscular injun with a cybernetic red eye, a busty gear girl in a cocktail dress with seams across her arms outlining her poorly hidden replacement limbs, a rather appealing shirtless man that made her lick her lips after she got a good look at him, and several others that didn't match the man in her head. Several people were looking at the holovid on the wall. The audio was muted, but the captions coupled with the visual stretched across the screen told a compelling enough tale.
NEWFOUND RELATIONS WITH AWAKENED ARRIVALS DEEMED "EXTRAORDINARILY PROMISING," ACCORDING TO AN ARES MACROTECHNOLOGY SPOKESPERSON
The screen was showing footage of several diplomats and armed personnel approaching two... somethings. The first was a broad-chested creature that greatly resembled a small horse or large pony, but the proportions were all wrong. The eyes were large and expressive, and the snout far less defined than earthen equines. Despite never having an affinity for livestock or animal genetics, something about the creature seemed unerringly male. Perhaps it was the large fetlocks and stout posture, lantern jaw, or even something as totally normal as the horn protruding from his head.
His companion was even more difficult to comprehend. Unicorns were reserved for children and tripping balls every other Friday, not living creatures. At least they were defined, tangible creatures, something his pink companion was not. Gold and violet locks hugged her youthful face. A biologist she was not, but the slender form and smooth curves gave her the impression the other creature was female. What didn't make sense was the pair of wings attached to her side.
"There's a reason I don't watch the fuckin' news," she said with a derisive laugh. A few occupants chuckled along with her before returning to their weary languor. She opened up the next compartment. Sleepy and tired individuals lined the seats, although less than the previous. The aisle was empty and her the sound of her light steps was eaten by human chatter and the low hum of the metro.
Her thoughts returned to the broadcast. She had known of the extraterrestrials for quite some time. Fantastical or not... what did it matter? Even the confirmation of such foreigners seemed insignificant. She was just a corporate drone working five days a week, eight hours a day. She went home, washed, rinsed, put in a movie, and waited for the next day. She drifted about, meeting the occasional friend. No career ladder to climb. No significant other, male or female, to come home to every night.
'Aliens...' she thought, tasting the word as much as she could. She reached within the confines of her mind amongst all the wires, circuits, gears, cyberware, and tools almost three decades of life had taught her to use and build. Every child dreamed of aliens or monsters or fey at some point. To have confirmation that they were real, to know they carried a life possibly more fantastical and wondrous than any childish whimsy and dream...
Nothing...
There was nothing there, not even a spark of life. She couldn't even muster a laugh.
There were twenty cars in total, with the twenty-first being reserved for the metro's electronic brain. At car nineteen and only a scant five in the compartment, her face had all but sunken into a scowl. 'Goddamn it, Gunny. I'm pissed and tired as it is. You better be here.' The moment of truth came and the final door opened.
The last car was empty save for a hulking mountain of a man lying across several seats to her left. Unlike the hodgepodge of civilian garbs seen elsewhere on the train, this man was dressed head to toe in iron gray surplus military fatigues and an olive green overshirt under an officer-issued coat. While his clothes were immaculate and wrinkle-free, the coat was frayed at the hems and the rank across the shoulders had long been ripped away. Polished black boots and fingerless gloves cloaked the rest of his body, but his coat settled unevenly across his burly chest; he was wearing something underneath, something she guessed was totally not gun-shaped. She supposed that was the reason he had a compartment all to himself.
"Lie down and shut up, Syn. This will take only a minute," the man barked. He spoke with a light baritone as his fingers danced across what she recognized as a handheld cyberdeck, a personal computer. His eyes, she knew, were cybernetic as well. She worked with cybertech enough to distinguish the slight difference between real eyes and replicants. She laid down on the seats opposite the man and closed her eyes. The man worked silently and ignored her for several more moments.
"Done," he said.
Palms down, she quickly pushed herself into a sitting position. Her seat emitted a strange funk that made her nose burn and made her eager to remain away. A series of pops arched across her back and she winced under the new strain her body was placed under.
After a few more button taps, he folded the screen down and reattached the cyberdeck to his wrist with a soft click. His black hair and hazel eyes framed a scarred, angular face and a nose sharp enough to cut wood. "You look like shit."
"Stuff it, Gunny. A dataslave like me has a legit way to pay bills. Just got off work. I'm tired, frustrated, and am ready to pass out on your titanic arse, a'right?" the so-called "Syn" shot back.
Gunny snorted before checking his other wrist. All Sophia saw was a flash of green across a small mechanical device before he straightened his coat, hiding it from sight. "If you are frustrated, I'm the wrong guy to talk to."
"Wrong kind of frustrated."
Editors: Softy8088, The Synn Lofsvard, TittySparkles, RainbowBob