The Cinnamon Horizon
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 5: Bowls with Cracks in Them
_____Away from the bar, back in the downtown area, there was an alley. There were plenty of
alleys in this town, sure. Yet this was the alley where Gale was dragged off into. The hit on the
head and his recent drug binge was a sure-fire combination that would keep him knocked out for
quite some time. Hell, maybe he wouldn't wake up at all.
_____While the floppy-clothed cyborg snored--synthesized drool oozing from between rubbery
lips--four enforcers were arguing about his fate. One of them wanted Gale to wake up dead; three of
them wanted to follow the instructions given to them by their superiors. It was an intense argument.
Their angry words were as heated as the city's afternoon air.
_____The angry male enforcer seemed mad enough to do something violent. "I say we kill this asshole!"
His otherwise-plain synthetic face twisted and squinted with fury. Using a metal hand, he pointing to the
slumped figure. "He's making us look bad! Every time an enforcer goes rogue, it makes executives
reconsider why they have us around. It's either us...or bounty hunters. If the people of this sector
wanted bounty hunters, the executives of the Society could always fire us and hire those blade-swinging
psychos from the outside!"
_____"No..." said a calmer, more professional female voice--a shapely, blonde-haired female enforcer in
dark clothes. Her tailored dress-suit hid her electromechanical body quite convincingly, and her black
sunglasses made her facial expression hard to read. "I can understand your feelings. To tell the truth, I
want to kill him too. I read the memo on that crazy bastard...!" She took a deep breath. "But
Miss Patsun has a plan for him."
_____"Okay, okay, she has a PLAN," went the angry male enforcer. "Yet you and I BOTH know that
that plan mean he ends up dead. But, you know what? Maybe we don't...'kill' him. Maybe he has an
accident! Yeah... An accident. Maybe he just had a little too much nose-candy to snort, got a little
too high, then he staggered out of a bar and ended up in front of a truck! Except, maybe we just so
happen to lay him by the street when this 'accident' happens. Get my drift?"
_____Everyone went silent. There was the sound of trucks rolling by and the wind blowing across the
entrance into the alley. The idea fit perfectly. The jerk was already doped up on all sorts of things. He
was drugged up enough to go screaming his head off about "oatmeal" and disembodied faces floating
in the wind. So he wouldn't be too far from falling in front of a truck that was shipping factory-made
goods. It was one of those ideas that lit up the head and make someone think to himself or herself,
HELL yes. What a damn good idea...
_____The female enforcer blinked, cleared her throat. "Ahem! As good an idea as it sounds, we
shouldn't do it. We just can't go against what the executives say and expect to get away with it. We're
supposed to be the ones that make sure people treat each other fairly...in the interest of the Feng-Long
Society, of course. If we don't follow instructions and do what we want with criminals, then we'll be
just as bad as that asshole over there."
_____"Besides," chimed in the second male enforcer, "I like following Miss Patsun's instructions. I like
the way she thinks. She has this way of getting what she wants, even if it doesn't seem like she's going
for it directly. Like, her plans have their own ways of coming together. Remember what happened last
year, when there was a plot by another executive to have her killed?"
_____"Ooh... That was creepy," said the female enforcer. "It was like she knew ahead of time exactly
what beer bottle that executive was going to drink out of. She just went to a bar while the bartender
was on a lunch break and had somebody poison a bottle of beer--inject something through the bottlecap.
the bartender didn't know which bottle was poisoned; it was just one bottle on the shelf. The good kind
of beer, not the kind out of the tap served around here. But he served the bottle with the poison in it--
served it to the plotting executive. He was dead the next morning. Some people said he was screaming
and staggering all night. The poison made him look like he was drunk--until it killed him."
_____"That was just dumb coincidence," said the first enforcer. "I don't believe that story. It would
have made more sense for Miss Patsun to try to hire the bartender directly. You know, mark the
poisoned bottle and serve it to the jerk that was trying to kill her."
_____"Not true," insisted the female executive. "How the Hell did Miss Patsun know the jerk was
going to one particular bar to drink out of one particular bottle? And remember, it was a weekday.
Executives usually save their late-night partying for the weekends. And wouldn't the bartender have
chickened out? How many bartenders do you know willing to kill people?"
_____Snarfle! The four enforcers turned to the knocked-out cyborg--stirring in his unnatural sleep.
Grumble-mumble... "No... Please... No more cinnamon on me." Mumble-mumble... He was apparently
lost in a drug-induced dream--or nightmare.
_____The four went back to talking. "So, we're just supposed to leave him alone and make sure no one
helps him. That's Miss Patsun's plan... Not much of one, I'll tell you," complained the first enforcer again. He
kicked aside some trash in walking over to where the mumbling, drugged-up cyborg slept--back against the
wall. "Not much of a plan. I really wish something would just happen to him, coincidence or not."
_____"Come on," said the female enforcer. "Let's get out of here. That one won't be causing any
trouble for a while. We have to be around to handle other people's problems. Besides, if it makes you feel
any better, we can beat up the next troublemaker that comes along. Well, so long as it isn't the other
messed-up enforcer we're not supposed to touch."
_____Mumble-mumble... For a moment, it seemed as if the cyborg in floppy clothes was responding
to what was said. No, he was just talking in his sleep. Another glistening line of synthetic drool dropped
down to his chest. He wasn't getting up for a while.
_____"Yeah, whatever," went the first enforcer, now standing over the drugged-out cyborg. He lifted
a foot, wiped it on a pants leg of the sleeping cyborg. That was all he did to Gale. And he walked
away. It was hard, but he did it. The other enforcers followed him out of this alley and turned left,
passing by a certain restaurant.
...
_____Inside the restaurant, a certain electrician was back from finishing another job. He was munching
on a hamburger, his soda-pop getting warm. Hey, he LIKED soda-pop! It wasn't a good idea to get
drunk during business hours, anyway. He would go back to the main power plant and wait for another
call after this. It was steady work, and it paid a Hell of a lot better than the factory job he had a few
years ago--back when the Network ran this sector.
_____Swish-swish-swish... "Huh?" The electrician thought he heard sweeping sounds, the swishing
whispery sound a push-broom makes when pushed along a street or concrete sidewalk. Weird... He
thought the sound was coming from the outside. But how could he hear sweeping sounds through a
wall, with a bunch of people in here talking?
_____If he had artificial hearing, he would have thought the sound was a malfunction of his auditory
system. But the only "auditory system" he had was the one supplied by nature. Maybe his ears were
playing tricks on him?
_____Yeah, that had to be it. He was just hearing things, like when he serviced the equipment back at the
clinic. Just hearing things, you know? Or maybe he was just going a little nuts? All the crazy mess happening
these days was bound to make anybody go a little off the deep end.
_____Swish-swish-swish... The electrician got up from where he was sitting, walked over to the bar.
He took some credit chips out of his right pocket and laid them atop the long formica bar top. The
muscular bald bartender took up the chips and thanked the electrician for his patronage. That done,
the electrician turned and walked out of the bar.
...
_____He went out. Outside--standing on the sidewalk--he looked around at the local urban scenery.
A bright sun was high overhead, beaming brightly down on the street and the buildings nearby. The flat
gray street was out front, with short blocky buildings nearby... Some cyborgs and fellow fleshies were
walking by. This was the downtown area, so most of the people were well-dressed. No one out here
had a push broom. But there was still that sweeping sound--the gentle swish-swish-swish of the
broom. Coming from his right, from the alley and...somewhere else.
_____It wasn't just that he heard it with his ears. He could also hear the sweeping sound in his head.
It was the same sort of effect produced by a really good pair of stereo headphones. He wasn't
wearing headphones right now, though. He was still hearing the sound of someone gently sweeping--using
a push broom. So the electrician just had to find out who had that broom.
_____He adjusted his cap and wiped his palms on his brightly colored coveralls, took a deep breath.
Then he carefully began walking over to that alley. The wind began whistling in his ears. It began to
cover up the sound of the sweeping he was hearing. Then the breeze really picked up, and he couldn't
hear anything.
_____There was no one in the alley. Neither was there any possible source of that swish-swish-swish
sound. All that the electrician was able to see in the shadowy alley was some trash cans and some
piles of litter along the concrete. But somebody had to have been in that alley, making that sound!
The electrician knew it.
...
_____Gale walked out of the alley, feeling surprisingly clear-headed. After snorting angel dust, smoking
vat-grown marijuana, popping barbituates, and a whole bunch of other shit, he usually felt like street-sludge
afterward. Not now, though! Now, he was feeling pretty damned smooth. No, not just smooth; he felt
SMO-O-OTH. Maybe he'd remember the exact drug cocktails he had sampled last night and try it all over
again today.
_____Too bad the weather was ass-rotten. The sky was overcast with gray cloud cover, and it was more
than a little windy--making his floppy clothes flap. Wind, howling between cracked buildings. Blowing
through the cracked streets... Wait a damned minute.
_____Cracks in the streets? Cracked buildings? What the fuck! Gale looked way up at the nearest
building--a three-story structure set against the backdrop of the metal gray sky overhead. Yes, there
were cracks in it. That was weird; the Feng-Long Society usually made sure that the downtown area
was well-kept. And there were plenty of well-experienced cyborgs and fleshies good at building
maintenance. There was no reason why these buildings should look so cracked!
_____Then came an odd idea. What if he really wasn't in the downtown area anymore? What if those
other enforcers dragged him somewhere else? But, looking around, he knew this place. All of these
buildings were the same. The shops and restaurants were all here. Hell, even the advertising signs were
in place. Except for the cracks in the buildings and sidewalks, everything was exactly where it should be.
Well, not everything. He had forgotten an extremely important detail--a huge and glaring problem.
_____Where was everybody? Gale could see no one. He looked left: nobody. He looked to his
right: nobody there, either. All of the buildings had indoor lights on, the windows glowing with indoor
lights. But he could see no one in those windows. And there were--sure as Hell--NO trucks on the
road.
_____Nobody was walking along the sidewalks. Nobody was in the buildings. Nobody drove trucks on
the street. Apparently, everybody was gone!
_____Or were they really gone? Gale began to hear people--hearing people he could not see. There
were hints of distant laughter carried by the wind, sounds of people in crowds somewhere. He could hear
people in the distance, when the wind wasn't blowing so hard. He would turn suddenly, expecting to see
people at that cafe across the street, or people gathered at the shop over here. Snippets of conversation,
the occasional sound of chattering, he was hearing bits and swaths of all of that. There was the general
sound of people being around here. But he just couldn't...see...anybody! What the HELL was going on
here?
_____Swish-swish-swish... He turned around so fast that his floppy clothes made a whipping sound. Ah,
finally! He saw somebody walking out of an alley. It was somebody in work clothes: blue coveralls and
white shirt, solid brown work-shoes on his feet. His blue cloth cap shadowed his face, and he carried his
broom over his left shoulder.
_____Gale opened his mouth to shout, suddenly decided not to do so when he suddenly knew who,
or what, was over there--the being with the broom. And, of course, HE had his broom with him. It
looked like an ordinary push-broom: long brown handle, a wide flat sweeping head with stiff bristles.
It looked good for wide floors. But the sight of that broom was as frightening to Gale as a very large
gun pointed at his head. It was, indeed, the Janitor. The creepy guy in blue coveralls, someone with no
face... He had no face!
_____So run like Hell, mother-fucker! Shaking his head, Gale turned and decided it just might be a
good idea to get away--very fast. Clothes flapping, arms and legs moving at a rapid beat, he dashed
along the sidewalk. He was hearing the wind all howling in his ears--carrying with it the sound of laughter
coming from all around. And, off in the distance, he heard heavy-sounding music playing and sounds of
people having a good time. Laughing, they were probably laughing at someone.
_____They were laughing...at Gale! "Gya-a-a-h!" he shouted, turning left and continuing to run like all
get-out! No way was he going to get caught by that creepy freak with the broom! Hell, Gale could
run for hours. He rushed onward, running past seemingly empty buildings and alleys, shoes pattering along
the sidewalk. Since there were no trucks in the street, he veered his running to the right and...
_____A blast of air nearly knocked him off of his feet, and there was a flash of lightning. Suddenly
everything seemed to JERK to the left--as if someone had gripped this entire city and YANKED it
sideways. Gale was almost knocked down when everything jerked. Then, blinking, he looked around.
_____Everything had returned to normal. The downtown streets were well-paved again. All of the
buildings became as they were. And the day was all sunny. Then there was a loud blast of sound like the
end of the world.
...
_____"Like, the guy just came outta nowhere!" said the truck driver, standing on the sidewalk. He
kept playing with his hat, metal hands nervously working. Behind him, back on the street, his partially
damaged truck idled. "I was shippin' a load of stirring things, just takin' my usual route, when he just
APPEARS in the middle of the road. I tried to stop an' all, but a heavy vehicle like mine... It ain't
gonna stop on a coin, ya know? Ya gotta believe me... That's all I know! Honest, fellas!"
_____Three enforcers listened patiently to what the truck driver had to say. An enforcer being killed,
that was serious. Damned serious. But, as one of them had found out earlier, the death of Gale was...
expected. A certain executive expected Gale to be killed. How, she did not say. Still, the other
enforcers here had to be sure this was actually an accident.
_____"I ain't ever wanna hit any of you guys!" added the truck driver, real nervousness on his synthetic
face. "You guys are the BEST! Keepin' things decent and all. Better than those fuckin' psycho bounty
hunters, I'll tell ya! Ya done saved my ass a few times before, back when this sector done switched
over from Network control an' all! Yer great! I'd NEVER wanna hurt you guys!"
_____"Ha-ha-ha..." One enforcer reached forward and patted the nervous truck driver on the right
shoulder--three pats. His right metal hand stayed on that shoulder. "I hear you. Don't worry, we
believe you. This was an honest mistake." The enforcer's plain face wore a smile. "Accidents happen
all the time! Now, you'll try to be more careful in the future, right?"
_____The truck driver's head rapidly bobbled up and down--nodding yes-yes-yes. "Yes sir! I'm
gonna be the safest driver out there! Gonna drive a little slow. Maybe be a little late. But I'm gonna
be Mister Safety!"
_____"You do that, but don't be late with shipments! Ha-ha-ha..." laughed the third enforce, a female.
"Now get back in that truck of yours and continue your work. You truck drivers are important workers,
and we don't want our shops and facilities running late and low on the supplies you deliver! We'll dispose
of the body."
_____The first enforcer let the driver go. "Okay! I'll get right back to work! Thank ya very much. Thank
ya, thank ya..." Nodding and bobbing his head, he walked backwards a few steps before turning and
quickly getting away--striding over to his truck. The damage to the truck was only to the right fender--dented
and scraped. The blood on the right wheel could be rinsed off. He revved the engine a bit, then carefully
drove off down the city street.
_____The Janitor was here--right hand on broom and left hand against a pocket. He watched the truck
go by. He held his hand to the left pocket because, whatever it was he had in there, it was trying to get
away. That new thing in his left coverall pocket was really squirming and struggling.
_____Yes, it looks like he caught another one! And it was still trying to run. But it couldn't. HE, the
Janitor, had plenty of experience catching these damned things. Silly, why did this one even try to escape?
It wouldn't have been able to evade him forever.
_____Turning around, the Janitor smiled a dark smile that stretched the swarthy skin of his face. Adjusting
the squirming lump in his left pocket, he began walking towards a nearby shadowy alley. It was a bright
day, yet that alley was dark. The Janitor walked on in there, disappearing into that darkness. And the
winds continued to blow through the city streets.
...
2.
...
_____Sera was sitting cross-legged atop her bed, looking out of the bedroom window. There were plenty
of other things she should be doing at the moment--lots of other things to occupy her time. But not now.
She was just having a moment of relaxation. It was a thinking time, a quiet time to herself. With all that
happened in the past few days, she had to get her head together after all of this craziness that has been
happening with her.
_____Somewhat to the left, the sun burned over the horizon--going down. The sideways glare would have
made her squint if she was still human, with living eyes. And the death of her family should have made her
cry tears. No tears came from her eyes, no droplets of sadness sliding down her cheeks. But she did not
squint, she did not cry. Why not? Maybe, both the lack of squinting and the lack of tears were caused
by the same reason.
_____No, that wasn't true. Before becoming a cyborg herself, Sera had friends with electromechanical
bodies. She was there when things in life made them cry. She saw tears coming from their eyes.
_____Her family, she missed her family. She could easily imagine her little brother and sister--so small and
loving, so beautiful. Martha, the nanny, was there for the children. She was a part of the family. Then
there were her parents... They were killed during the few weeks of troubles that happened when
Network control was disconnected from this sector.
_____Dead, all of them dead. She missed them, wanted them. Still staring out of the window, the winds
blew--gently whistling, not howling fiercely. And the fading sunlight cast a orange glow over the cityscape.
Why couldn't she cry for them? Where were her tears?
_____Her large eyes stared, unblinking. Her thoughts were on those who had died. She was just trying so
hard to mentally recall more details of family gone now. Or were they gone? No, she still remembered them.
Thoughts of them, and the love they had given her, still stayed.
_____Eyes on the city horizon, she held the thoughts in her head. She would not cry. Her family was not
gone. They were dead, but they were not gone. So long as the winds blew, so long as there were
stars in the night sky, so long as she could hold on to the memories, the family would not be gone from
her.
_____Reasons were why things happened. Sometimes, those reasons were a bit harder to figure out.
Because, maybe there are forces at work that go beyond common understanding. Or maybe those
reasons cannot be fully understood and just have to be accepted.
_____As she sat atop her neatly made bed, looking out over the cityscape, some of the breeze blew in
through her window and past her. The wind played with strands of her red hair before passing her and
over to the new nightstand nearby. Atop this nightstand were a few sheaves of newsprint and a small
electric lamp. This breeze made the newsprint flutter.
_____Some of the sheaves of newsprint was marked and circled in red, circling items about an enforcer
being struck and killed by a truck driver. Accidents were not usually a big deal. The roads were very
busy sometimes. People--careless, intoxicated, or both--blundered into roads and were killed. But this
time, it was an enforcer that was killed. It was one that Sera had wanted to murder through violence,
using her metal machine-body to continue her revenge. Not with Gale, now.
_____About an hour ago, someone hired by a messenger had delivered the newsprint to her apartment
door. She had picked it up, read it, and set it atop her new nightstand--next to the little electric lamp.
That was when she began sitting atop her bed, opening her large eyes to the view outside her open
window. She had this feeling...
_____Suddenly, she felt very sleepy. She uncrossed her legs and laid straight back on the bed--long
red hair splaying beneath her head and back like wings. Maybe she should have closed the window against
any sudden rainstorms. No need to worry about birds or flying insects, because pollution had killed them
off around here. Thoughts drifting on the winds, she closed her eyes and her breathing fell into the relaxed
rhythm of sleep.
...
_____He walked the sidewalk, the sunlight casting the city in fading reddish-orange light--making the concrete
of the buildings seem to glow. Though surrounded by plenty of people--the after-work crowd--he was still
alone. No buddies. While plenty of other people chatted with co-workers on their walks homeward, Carbon
had no one to talk to anymore, really.
_____Rafter, that skinny psycho buddy of his, was dead. Carbon got that bit of news while at a downtown
restaurant, overheard some messengers and enforcers talking about the fight. Gale was dead too, according
to the latest newsprint: suddenly hit by a truck, excuse being the driver didn't see him coming. Two pals,
killed in the space of a few days. What the fuck was going on?
_____"Aw, Hell..." said the big cyborg to himself, putting his metal hands in his cloth coverall pockets.
It was mighty strange how both Gale and Rafter were both dead pretty quickly, their brains killed in the
same set of days. Carbon had known those two for over six decades... Yeah, decades! For an
older cyborg, time had this way of just spreading from months into years and decades. So on and so
forth.
_____By now, the sun was low enough that the streetlights were triggered on. This was a residential
area, and people were getting inside--at least most of the workers were. They had to be at work in the
morning, so they didn't want to waste too much time before going to bed. The executives over in the
downtown area were another story. Downtown was back there; Carbon had wandered all the way
from downtown to here.
_____"Hell!" he said again, looking at the sidewalk as he continued along--moving through the pools
of light cast by the streetlamps. He was just moving and walking, no particular direction for him to go.
Then he stopped. Looked farther ahead. About several buildings down, across the next street, there
was a flickering streetlamp--rapidly blinking and stuttering, as if the thing was having some kind of
electric epileptic seizure. And standing under that streetlamp was HIM...
_____It was the Janitor over there, wearing the same style of coveralls as he was. Had the Janitor been
fat instead of broad shouldered and muscular, had he been a cyborg instead of a fleshie, he could pass
Carbon's physical double. Dressing the way he did, the Janitor even seemed to be mocking Carbon.
He even had the same kind of work shoes.
_____Bastard! Suddenly angry, the big cyborg made a mad dash for the figure standing under that
flickering streetlamp. He somehow managed to not be hit by the executive cars using the road as he
ran. Anger made him move pretty fast for a cyborg of his size and girth. Besides, the cyborg had
strong legs to keep up that big round body of his!
_____Feet pounding, arms swinging, he was soon closing in--getting to that flickering. But then he saw
that creepy bastard walk away from the light. Better hurry! Carbon continued to run, yet the Janitor
calmly walked over to an unusually placed manhole in the sidewalk. He lifted up the metal cover with one
hand and climbed down into the dark hole, pulling himself and his broom down.
_____He was getting away! Not thinking clearly, so full of anger, Carbon leapt up and tried to dive
feet-first into the sewer, getting after that bastard in blue...THUNK! Yes, TRIED was the word, because
big fat Carbon had a great big tank-belly that kept him from squeezing down into the sewer. He became
stuck, like a factory-farmer's turnip half-out of the ground.
_____"Aw, shit! Damn it!" he shouted, squirming. As soon as he said that, the sewer hole widened and
he went down. He fell down into the darkness, sucked down. It really was a darkness darker than the
night...
...
_____He hit the bottom at some point, and he found himself in a dark place. No, that wasn't quite
right. It wasn't really dark. But it was just very, very dim. With his artificial and enhanced eyesight, he
could barely see. There was a gray floor under him feet, that much he could see. Getting to his feet,
he could also see a little bit around. There was wind blowing through this place, so it must be pretty
big.
_____There were other people here too, people in the dim gloom. It was just so damned dim here.
He could barely see them. But they were definitely all around, keeping their distance. They were
creeping him out! Were they the ones who brought him here? And why the fuck was it so windy? It
didn't smell like sewer, either.
_____"Where the Hell am I?" he muttered. Ha-ha-ha... Gentle and distant laughter answered on the wind.
The wind, howling in his ears. Someone was laughing. Not just someone, it was some people. Some of
those people in this place were laughing. Carbon could barely hear them with the wind howling, but they
were definitely laughing, oh-so-gently. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...
_____The laughter and the wind surrounded him. The wind was all howling and blowing through the
darkness, filling his ears. All of the low laughing, all of the wind, and it was just so damned dark here!
Carbon turned and ran, not caring if he bumped into anyone or anything. Ha-ha-ha... His shoes
pounding the hard floor, he ran through the near-total darkness and through the crowd of unseen people.
They seemed to step aside and let him run. A-A-AH, HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA…!
_____Whoops! Something long and stiff made him trip and slide along the smooth floor. A broomstick!
Tripped by a God-damned broomstick! Carbon slid for a good long distance on that big round
belly of his. After skidding a while, he was able to put his metal hands down as so he could try to get
up. But he couldn't. Couldn't get up. Something had taken hold of him.
_____He struggled and squirmed as that unseen force gripped him harder, pressing him harder against
the floor. Then everything went silent--silence and darkness. There was the whispery swish-swish-swish
of a broom moving along the floor. Carbon could hear the sweeping coming in his direction, even if he
couldn't see who it was. The sweeping in the darkness was coming in the direction of his head.
...
_____When he returned to consciousness, he found himself sitting down on the sidewalk--sitting in the light
of the streetlamp, not flickering anymore. He looked around. Luckily, there were no passers-by or bystanders
to stare at him in his foolish state. Sitting on the sidewalk, looking like an idiot. What would the locals think?
_____"Hmmph..." he went, looking over to the manhole he had just... What the Hell? The manhole wasn't
there anymore. Carbon got up enough to get down on his knees. His metal fingertips brushed the concrete
as he searched for the manhole he could have SWORN was just here. But he just felt plain old sidewalk.
_____Confused, he got up. There was no point in looking for something that wasn't there. "Ain't no
point," he said aloud. "No point at all..." He then deliberately walked over the place in the sidewalk where
the manhole was supposed to have been as he walked away, walking into the city night. Now he was scared.
...
_____"AI-I-IGH!" Screaming, Sera sat up! She shook her head and quickly scrambled out of bed. She
folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. Her legs felt weak, and she felt shaky. It was dim and
dark here, making her want to run somewhere! Pacing around, her eyes glanced left and right. It was
almost as if she expected someone to come out and grab her.
_____Then she found the light switch. The simply furnished bedroom was now well-lit, light coming from
the fixture on the ceiling... Everything was well. She was standing on a carpeted floor, surrounded by four
pastel-painted walls and a ceiling. The nightstand still had the lamp and sheaves of newsprint on it, set next
to her bed--which was now ruined. It was neatly made when she laid down on it. Now it was a mess of
yanked and jumbled quilt, twisted with ruined sheets.
_____And that was the worst of it; there were no other signs of anything violent or wrong. Everything
was fine. Just fine. Sera closed her eyes, inhaled. Seconds passed. She then let out a slow and shaky
breath--opened her eyes. Everything was normal here. What just happened to her was all just a nightmare.
It was awful, but it was over.
_____What was it? As soon as she had fallen asleep, she had this awful nightmare of being YANKED
out of the bedroom window and being sucked away by the wind. Then she was in this dimly lit place,
crowded with people she had never known. Most everyone was in weird clothes she had never seen
before. A big fat jerk went running through the crowd and everyone started laughing. She would have
been knocked over had someone not pulled her aside.
_____But the nightmare people were laughing at everything here. It wasn't a normal kind of laughter,
either. It was a low and dark laughter--almost whispered. After that, her recollections of the nightmare
was a confused blur of strange faces and blowing wind. It was a nightmare about darkness and wind--and
flying!
_____Still on shaky legs, Sera moved over to the bed and sat down. Maybe kids dreamt of flying somehow.
Dreaming about flying was probably the only way they would fly: the Network made the making or usage
of flying machines illegal, punishable by death. Flying seemed like such a wonderful thing of dreams, but
now she wanted no part of it. Her flying nightmare was just so dark and strange.
_____That'll be the last time she ever slept with her bedroom window open! Nightmares about flying
around and being sucked into darkness, she never wanted that again! If she left the bedroom window
open again, maybe she would have nightmares about circular spaceships coming down from the
infinite dark depths of space--piloted by short, skinny gray-skinned beings in skin-tight clothes, heads
with gigantic black eyes. (No need to worry about that, though. If there WERE space aliens, their ship
would have probably been shot down by guided missiles launched by modified Deckmen…)
_____R-r-r-ring! For a second, she didn't know where the sound was coming from. The front room,
her telephone was in the apartment's front room. And it was still ringing. Its little electric bell continued
to trill.
_____She stepped out of the bedroom and into the front room, turned on the light. R-r-r-ing! It was
attached to the wall. Her metal fingers wrapped around the plastic handset, lifted it and brought it to
her ear. "H-hello?" she said into the telephone, hearing a slight distant electric hiss. The telephone lines
in this sector weren't perfect, but were good enough: the local workers had to learn to repair and
maintain telephone lines without the help of the Network.
_____"Good evening, young Miss Sera," said the calm male voice on the line. It was Mr. Yin. Sera
imagined him in his grand office, reclining at his desk. "I suppose you were just getting ready to sleep
for the night. So sorry to interrupt."
_____"It's okay, Mr. Yin," she answered respectfully. What time was it? It must be only nine o'clock
or so. "I had just taken a nap. But...something woke me up." A Hell of a nightmare! She wouldn't
tell him about it, though. "I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep anyway, Mr. Yin. I'm glad you
called. I think I would have been bored if you didn't."
_____"Is that so? Ho-ho..." He kept his laugh politely low, stopped. Then he continued speaking.
"However, this is not a call meant to entertain you. This is more a business call. A business proposal,
if you would like to see it that way." A pause. "Are you doing anything now for an income?"
_____Sera thought a second. "Well, gosh! Uh, no... I really haven't been thinking about that, Mr. Yin.
Ever since I had my body replaced. Guess I can't go back to my old job now, ha-ha...! Hmmph." She
thought about her money caches. About half of her main savings were gone; the great big purse full of
large-denomination credit-chips was half-empty. And she still had money held in the strong-house run by
the Society. Not much, though... "I guess I don't have a job, Mr. Yin."
_____"Which is why I called," said Mr. Yin. "Some messengers told me of how well you have performed
in destroying Rafter. He was a rare cyborg, dangerously enhanced and modified. Lissette must have
taught you well! Now, how would you like to make regular wages from the skills you have learned?"
_____Sera puzzled over it a second. How would that be? First, she thought of being a bounty hunter.
But bounty hunters were workers for the Network... So, that would mean she would be made into
an enforcer--wouldn't it? Only one way to find out. "Mr. Yin, what do you mean? A job as an enforcer?"
_____"I have talked things over with my business partners. A colleague of mine runs the local arena.
He says that new fighting talent is always welcome. New talent. You seem to be new talent, Miss Sera.
How would you like to be a professional prizefighter?"
_____"Huh?" The question really did surprise her. She had only just learned how to fight. Mere days of
training, and she had somewhat blundered her way through her first real fight. Now Mr. Yin was asking
her if she would fight regularly? "Mr. Yin, I... I am not a good fighter yet."
_____"Oh, but you will be, Miss Sera!" answered Mr. Yin. "Experience is an excellent teacher. Experience
will come of practice, practice, practice. And within the professional bouts set by us, the fights are not
as deadly. Mix that with how you will be able to get steady money again…" He paused. "Besides, you
want to be skilled and strong enough to get the third one that killed your family, don't you?"
_____"HELL YES!" shouted Sera, yelling her answer into the telephone. "Oh...! I apologize. Sorry
Mr. Yin! I didn't mean to be so rude and loud! Sir, I just lost control of myself. I would never disrespect
you, sir. Please..."
_____"I forgive you, Miss Sera," said Mr. Yin, his voice calming and reassuring. "However, to truly
be in my good graces, you can stand by the positive answer you have just given me. An answer full of
strong will. So, you will become a professional fighter..."
_____Sera felt a strong stir of will surging within her. If her heart was flesh and not just an electromechanical
circulatory pump, it would have been fluttering at the moment. "I will do it, Mr. Yin. Just tell me what you
want me to do next."
...
3.
...
_____Mr. Yin told her what to do--things that could not be done until tomorrow morning. In the meanwhile,
there was nothing to do but come back to her room and try to get some sleep. Not that she actually would
get to sleep that night, but at least she would try. There was going to be a challenging day tomorrow. She
turned off the light and went to lie in bed. A moment of hesitation, and she sat up to make sure that her
window was closed.
_____It wasn't closed. Someone had opened it, just a few inches. But how? She was sure she'd closed
it after that flying nightmare. Her apartment was more than six stories off the ground! Nobody
was in here but herself. Who could have done this?
_____She put her fingers to the windowsill, ready to close it again. She didn't. Closing the window
would keep fresh air from coming in. At least it was relatively fresh: The air WAS polluted, after all. The
factories in this sector didn't run at night, so the air was better after sundown. It was more reason to keep
the window opened. All buildings had air ventilation shafts, maintained by local handymen and janitors.
_____All of these thoughts about air... Why was she thinking about that? "Stop being so silly," she
muttered to herself. Of course she kept the damned window open that night. Nobody who lived in
buildings slept with bedroom window closed. So she leaned back and tried to relax--arms and legs
straight, face looking to the ceiling--indirectly lit by the city lights outside. It was a long and restless
night.
...
_____Morning eventually came to the city again. Sunlight became a beautiful reddish glow on the
eastern skyline, bringing light. The streetlights of the city began winking out. And, soon enough, most
of the working people were up and getting ready for work. All of the streets and sidewalks were soon
busy with people walking and driving vehicles--heavy trucks and lighter executive cars. It was going to
be another day in this sector.
...
_____Sera got out of bed, feeling a little weary. Thoughts had kept her up all night. There was no
sleeping for her. Well, it was time to get ready for whatever Mr. Yin had for her. She took a towel from
a drawer and went into the bathroom. Showering really wasn't necessary when one's body was made
of metal and electromechanics, one's face and hair synthetic. But it was a good idea to wash--to avoid
buildups of city dust and grit within the joints of her body's metal surface.
_____Standing in the shower, warm water poured down on her. She didn't actually "feel" the warm water
pouring over her. She "felt" it through metal--felt the warmth and pressure, but not the wetness. It still
felt as if she were wearing tight-fitting armor over a flesh body. After showering and toweling herself
dry, wiping and fussing with her waist-length red hair, she put the towel in a hamper and went to the
kitchen. There were boxed sugary snacks in the kitchen cabinet.
_____She leaned against the wall next to the cabinet, boxed snacks in her left hand. She began munching.
It was funny, eating snacks for breakfast. A person usually ate nice hot oatmeal-mush before heading off
to work. Human people, that is. A cyborg just had to eat enough to keep the brain alive. There were
lots of funny things about not being human anymore.
_____Mr. Yin would send someone by within an hour or so of sunrise--probably more of those
messengers. She looked at the kitchen clock up on the wall. It was around that time. So she closed
the box of snacks, put it back up in the kitchen cabinet. Went to get her little day-purse.
...
_____When the black limousine drove up to the building, Sera was standing by the entrance. Well, this
was fancy! Messengers usually didn't get such classy long cars: Those were usually reserved for high
ranking executives of Feng-Long. She crossed the sidewalk and approached the vehicle as one of the
rearmost passenger door opened to the sidewalk.
_____"Good morning, Mr. Yin!" said Sera, surprised. Her former--and again current--employer had
personally come by to pick her up! "I'm really honored that you came by to pick me up yourself. I
though you'd send someone..."
_____"Ha-ha-ha!" answered the refined bald businessman in the limousine's passenger compartment--
the compartment being much like a scaled-down smaller version of a passenger train's luxury compartment.
He was sitting next to a dark-haired slim businesswoman in sunglasses. "Good morning to you as well,
Miss Sera. Do come in..." He gestured to the seat opposite himself.
_____Sera climbed in. They were going to the local arena--one of just several in this sector. Mr. Yin
gave a summary and lecture about professional fighting. The rules and reasons were just a little different
in this sector. Outside of this sector, in a world of cities still controlled by the Network, cyborg gladiators
fought until the opponent was practically destroyed. The Feng-Long Society ran professional matches
as so things were a bit safer: Matches abruptly ended when one opponent was brought to his or her
knees or completely fallen and unable to get up.
_____Few fighters were actually killed--unless they were remote-controlled robots. That way, Mr. Yin
explained, experienced fighters wouldn't be killed off ever time there was a championship. And the locals
liked having their favorite champions around. Ticket sales were higher in this sector than in the surrounding
places still controlled by the Network.
_____Sera listened with honest interest. This was going to be her new job, how she would earn money
for herself. This was going from having sex for cash--to fighting for it. These were two radical extremes,
and Sera was now on the opposite side, opposite from her last job.
_____Funny, the dark-haired businesswoman in sunglasses said nothing during this entire ride to the local
arena. As Mr. Yin would pause during his speaking, Sera would glance in the woman's direction. She
wasn't one of Mr. Yin's working women; she could tell. And she certainly couldn't be one of Mr. Yin's
bodyguards: The woman's outfit left neck and hands exposed, crossed legs bare from the knees down.
she was obviously a fleshie--a human. Smooth, golden skin. She sat with back straight and slim arms
carefully crossed. The woman was someone very important.
…
_____They arrived at the huge arena around nine o'clock. Morning traffic, with all of the trucks, had
held them up. The limousine drove through the cracked and gritty parking lot around the gigantic
building and stopped at the back entrance--reserved for those who had business here. Two bodyguards
were waiting for Mr. Yin. He and Sera stepped out of the limousine, yet the dark-haired woman
remained inside.
_____"Ah, now we are to begin," said Mr. Yin as they walked into the back entrance. There was a
large reception area for this entrance--a sort of environment for white-collar workers. The floor was
tiled beige marble, the walls painted peach-toned. Florescent lighting blended with the morning daylight
from the glass entrance.
_____A receptionist--professionally dressed, shoulder-length brown hair--sat behind a desk. She
stood as the newcomers walked up. "Good morning... And you must be Mr. Yin. Everything has been
arranged and is ready, sir. "
_____"We all are," said Mr. Yin, glancing at Sera before returning his attention to the receptionist. "Well,
is the ah…practice fighter ready? The ring prepared? The stands well-maintained?"
_____"Yes to all of those question, sir," answered the receptionist. "The maintenance staff came by
extra early to make sure the stands were in good order. And the pit crew made sure that the sparring
robot was in good condition." She said this with professional discipline and pride.
_____Mr. Yin turned to Sera. "Your fighting skills will be tested using what we have prepared for you.
Of course, not all matches will be as difficult as the one you will take part in. This is a test, after all.
Testing if you will be a good competitor."
_____The receptionist nodded. "It's going to be tough, I was told… Sir, some of the junior executives
are looking forward to seeing this. The sparring robot has a few surprises they said they were testing out."
...
_____Within fifteen minutes, Sera was taken deeper into the vast building and into the arena itself. The
place was massive. The ceiling was at least five stories up, supported by metal beams--huge lights
shining down. And all around were bench-like seats, placed on concrete slopes and stairs for the
nightly and weekend crowds. This place could easily seat thousands of spectators. A person could
imagine all of those thousands of spectators making an ocean of noise when gathered.
_____But there was no crowd right now. Instead, there were just randomly seated executives who
just sat anywhere among the seating, in the stands. They were here and there. All of them were
waiting and watching the performance about to happen. That was what they were watching for--
performance. All of them were skeptical about newcomers to gladiatorial fighting: They just didn't
think there was enough talent among the general public to really make for good fighters.
_____Which made Sera feel even smaller. Here she was in the fighting ring, surrounded by a circular
wall of reinforced concrete. She double checked her athletic-looking footwear, made sure the straps
were on tight--footwear made of synthetics, specifically designed for cyborgs. Her long red hair was
held back with an elastic band, done up in a ponytail to keep it away from her face. Other than that,
her sleek armored body was unadorned.
_____What was taking them so long? She looked around, looking at the raised circular wall. Wait...
THERE. There was the sound of an electric lift at the edge of the ring--humming. The sound stopped.
What the...? Then she saw a blue-colored metal hand clasped the edge of the wall. The other hand
came next--two blue metal hands gripping.
_____Swish-CLINK! Something swung itself over the edge and leapt down into the ring--landed in
a kneeling position, one fist to the concrete floor. Then it stood, a blue metal monster of six feet. It's
body human-shaped, shaped like that of a man--dressed in red boxer-shorts, red boxing gloves on
its huge "hands." But beyond that, it couldn't rightly be considered anything like a man. It's metal "skin"
was covered with black and blue ridges, dark swirls on its chest. Black banding covered the neck. And
the face was something Sera stared at--a jumbled and lumpy mass of flesh with a jagged hole for a
mouth. Scraggly dark hair radiated from the scalp, a patch of it even on the forehead. Three eyes...
_____Sera wanted to run. No, there was no running. The walls were too damned high. Anyway, the
blue metal monster was now running at her. The fight was on!
...
_____The long-haired female cyborg readied for the fight--snapping herself into a basic fighting position
as soon as the thing began its approach. The robotic creature was running at her in the fashion of a true
monster--long, stomping strides, its armored arms out and ready to pounce. She could hear it snarling,
heavily breathing through that ragged mouth-hole as it came. Then it was here.
_____Pounce! "Ai-i-igh!" Sera shrieked when the boxing thing pounced on her, knocking her down
and pinning her arms with its boxing-gloved hands. Its ruined face was just a foot away, snarling and
growling. And she thought she heard the thing laughing...
_____Struggling, she managed to roll away--knocking away the metal monster. It looked vaguely
confused as it got to its feet. Sera was doing the same, getting ready for whatever else the thing had
ready for her.
_____The thing faced Sera, put its gloved fists on its hips. "Hrr-hrr-hrr..." It's deep laugh filled the ring,
echoing and resonating off of the concrete wall-ring. "Hrr-HRR-hrr-hrr...!" It thrust a fist in Sera's direction,
laughing some more. Then it began to hop and skip around in a small circle. The thing seemed to be mocking
her. Laughing with that nasty face it had, it didn't take Sera seriously!
_____"Oh, YOU...!" She made a dead run at the thing and leapt, lashing out with her right leg in a leaping
side-kick. She was not going to let that thing pick on her..
_____WHAM! Impact! Sera's foot landed on the thing's left arm, and it was blasted sideways, caught
in mid-skip. Sera then landed, looking at the results of her attack.
_____The thing was knocked away, skidding and rolling... It came to a stop near the circular wall, a
series of long scrape-marks along the concrete floor where its ridge-covered metal skin scraped. It
took a little while to get up again.
_____"Hrr-hrr-HRR!" Way over there, it then ripped off its gloves. Off came the boots and the boxing
shorts. The metal monster was exposed as being more of a beast now: three-fingered metal hands were
under those gloves, and the "feet" were lumps of metal. As a final act, the thing tore off its own face
and scalp, like a person would take off a head-covering mask--the synthetic face and scalp plopping
to the concrete floor. Its clothing and discarded face lay in a heap, like laundry. It's skeletal metal face
was exposed, triple eyes still staring.
_____Then the robot-thing faded from view. "What the...?" went Sera, seeing the metal monster as it
practically disappeared. It went from being blue, to white, and then it became less distinct--harder to see.
What the Hell was that thing?
_____She saw the blurry form come at her, and she leapt out of the way. Kneeling, she saw the thing
standing there. It was like watching heat waves coming up off of a hot road, except in the shape of a
person. At least now she couldn't see how ugly it looked.
_____But she could see it--somewhat. She saw it as it walked towards her... Closer... She clenched her
fists and stood. This nightmare thing was what stood between her and her future. She had to live long
enough to secure her revenge.
_____The blurry shape pulled back a fist and prepared to strike. Suddenly, there was an explosion of
sound--a BLAST of sparks. Smoke billowed from its chest and mouth. And then the metal monster
became visible again--its skeletal gray jaw open in shock, three eyes staring at the foot in its chest.
_____Sera grinned, yanked back her foot. More sparks followed, gushing from the chest of the
metal monster-thing. She saw it sink to its knees, shuddering. Then it fell, face-down. There were all
kinds of squealing and grunting noises from the thing's mouth and chest before a final hiss of static. Black
smoke billowed from the thing's back. The air over the ring was filling with dark cloudiness and the distinct
smell of ultra-hot metal, mixed with burning plastic.
_____Gosh, she wasn't even sure if that move would work! Her legs felt a bit shaky now, but it worked.
Now that nasty thing she had killed was just junk. Good thing it was just a robot... Earlier, Mr. Yin
had told her it was perfectly fine to destroy it.
_____"Perfectly fine. Ha-ha!" said Sera. She strutted over to the smoldering heap of metal monster
and laughed at it. "Piece of nasty junk!" Giving the thing a few more kicks made her feel better. She
had won this preliminary bout with the modified boxing robot. Now she could enter the upcoming
professional bouts.
...
4.
...
_____"Oh MAN! She didn't have to kick me...! Like, I was already defeated," whined Lissette,
the helmet muffling her voice. The helmet was an shiny, insect-head sort of thing: round and
plastic, with bulging places around where "eyes" were--earphones making for two additional
bulges at the sides.
_____That thing covered Lissette's head and had an opening at the back--leaving her dark hair
trailing out. Her body was covered in something that seemed to reveal more than what it concealed:
a skin-tight bodysuit made of an odd and slightly rough material. Big clunky wheeled boots covered
her feet, and jointed black "gloves" covered her hands. Several wires were attached to the lower back
of the outlandish outfit she wore. It was simultaneously the sexiest and the clunky-looking "outfit"
she ever wore.
_____The wires trailing from the outfit were attached to the back of a computer workstation, Jake at
the keyboard and monitor. On the screen were several smaller windowed images, two of the images
tinted in red. One could look closely at the screen and see that the image in the upper-left corner--
showing a view of the arena ceiling: It was what the blue robot-monster was "seeing" right now,
after having been destroyed by Sera.
_____"Huh-huh-huh..." chuckled Jake. He smirked as his fingers tapped commands at a
rapid-fire pace. In the middle of the screen appeared an entire list of readouts. It was a readout that
only Lissette and Jake would understand, since they developed the computer program themselves.
But the last line was easy enough to read: "Game Over."
_____"Yeah, yeah... I lost," said Lissette. This outfit is annoying, she thought as she took off the
sensor-embedded gloves. She had to fumble a bit as the view in her helmet was showing a view
several miles away, in the downtown arena. Where's the... Oh. There we go. Much better! Gloves
off and dropped, the helmet was easy to take off.
_____She walked over to a side-table where she set down the gloves and helmet. The clunky
boots made clomping sounds as she went to the computer workstation Jake was working at. He
glanced back at her before returning his attention to the work at hand. "Huh-huh..." he chuckled
again.
_____"Huh-huh yourself! I planned to let her win, anyway!" said Lissette, pulling up a seat and
sitting down next to Jake. She crossed her leg and gave a sideward toss of her head, getting
loose strands of hair away from her face. As she stroked lengths of it behind her ears, she added,
"That was a lucky hit, that's all. And there's a half-second delay in transmission and processing!
The hardware limitations slowed me down! Besides, YOU were controlling mobility. So you lost,
too. Ha-ha!" She put her hair up in a simple ponytail, then crossed her lithe arms across her flat
midsection. "Now save the configuration data. We'll probably have to tweak the macros later."
_____"Huh-huh..." went Jake, hitting a few keys to save the data. The blond teenage boy did
all of this while barely paying attention to Lissette--though Joel would have been a great deal
more distracted. The dark-haired girl was quite a sight in that piezoelectric sensor-suit she had
on, especially with the helmet and gloves off. The curves and lines of her young firm body were
revealed and accentuated in that outfit. And she was sitting so close... Not that Jake didn't think
Lissette wasn't attractive.
_____If he ever wanted to see sexy images, there was plenty of porn to see from computer-stored
archives. And there was plenty of real-life porn, too: Prostitutes and strip-clubs offered more of the
same. Those sorts of things were fine for short-term distractions, but Jake was usually too tired to
go out for that sort of thing. "Huh-huh-huh..." he chuckled, tapping a few more keys.
_____"What are you chuckling about now, hmm?" said Lissette, tilting her head to the side.
The skinny teenage boy turned his blond-maned head away from the computer screen long
enough to glance up and down Lissette's body before continuing to work the machine. Enough
said. "Oh, I gotcha. I wouldn't want Joel to walk in and, uh... Wet his underpants." She got up,
disconnected her sensor-suit from the computer. Her real clothes were in the side-room, so she'd
she'd change and shower there.
_____Moments after she went into the side room, there was the slight sound of the shower
working as Jake continued to review and close the software applications on the computer.
"Huh-huh..." he chuckled in that way of his. Lissette was a funny kind of girl. It was easy for Jake
to maintain a working relationship with her, but harder for Joel. A lot harder. Joel had his uses.
He was pretty good at finding masked connections to the Network, and he was decent around
breaking the (weak) passcode security on Network servers. If only he didn't get so distracted
around Lissette...
_____Soon enough, girl-wonder herself walked back into the main room--back in her outfit of
sleeveless blouse and shorts, hair slightly damp. Flat shoes on her feet. "You know what, Jake?
Maybe I shouldn't joke about Joel when he's not around. It's not fair. Besides, he's been in love
with me ever since we first met. I'm not stupid, you know. It's in the way he looks at me
sometimes. He wants me, but I'm just not interested in anyone right now."
_____"Huh-huh-huh," went Jake. He shrugged before opening other software applications.
Lissette's love life was her own business. And she usually kept talk of that business away from
here. She swapped occasional stories about boyfriends and such during nigh club conversations.
Beyond that, Jake hadn't actually met any of her past loves. For all he knew, she liked girls and
boys. She didn't seem to be dating any recently.... Huh-huh, those thoughts were just worth a
shrug. Huh-huh-huh...
_____She sat down at the second workstation in here, at the left side of the room. The machine
took some minutes to boot up--especially with all of the custom software and hardware
configuration it had undergone. The Parasol Club had done its best to find--scavenge--the best
computer hardware around, but the machines were still slow. This wasn't like the twenty-first
century, where a person could just walk into a computer shop and get the latest processors
and motherboards: Most all the good hardware had to be found in distant scrapyards and. The
machines mass-produced these days were relatively low-tech--because it was all the factories
could make.
_____Still starting, booting... She would get to work as soon as the machine's operating system
finally started. The computer workstation had to connect itself to the larger machine--the server--
in this lab. In turn, the server would connect to the data network contained within this sector of
this city. All the local telephone and data transmission lines setup by the Network were put to
good use--though not by the Network.
_____Lissette heard Jake chuckle some more. Huh-huh-huh... She sometimes wondered about
that guy because he never said anything but HUH-HUH-HUH. She also wondered about Joel.
When he wasn't at the local nightclubs, Joel worked so hard. Or maybe he "worked" hard at
the nightclubs as well? He really tried to make himself happy when there, talking and drinking--not
dancing much. The poor guy.
_____Yeah, I've fallen in with a real cast of characters, she thought. All of the members of the
Parasol Club had their peculiarities. Jake was always going HUH-HUH-HUH and never saying
much. Sam was a middle-aged balding guy who wore pinstripe suits, the oldest member of the
club. Kela was pretty, and pretty weird, especially with those great big strange-colored eyes.
But she wasn't "normal" either.
_____Oh, well... She couldn't make everyone happy. Or hadn't she done enough for people?
She was the one who started the Parasol Club. And she had met with Miss Patsun back when
the Feng-Long Society was just beginning its plans for this sector of the city. Lissette wasn't
a hacker for the money. But it wasn't exactly for the sake of making people here happy--free
of Network control around here.
_____FINALLY! Her computer's screen flickered a few times when it was done booting. She
uncrossed her arms, leaned forward and set to work. Before hacking the Network some more,
she needed to check her electronic mail. All the members of the club knew her electronic
"address" and occasionally sent her bits of information. Uh oh...
_____Sam had sent her an e-mail marked IMPORTANT. It was the first time he'd ever done
so. So she used the arrow keys on the keyboard to select the e-mail and open it. Hmm, this
one was going to be trouble--a problem. Not that it was Sam's fault. He was just the
messenger of bad news.
_____According to this e-mail, Sam, Kela and Joel were at another lab--using a kind of computer
program to simulate part of a Deckman's cyborg "mind" to check the Network's control
connections to this sector. It was a standard procedure, nothing major. Using Deckman emulation
software was how Lissette was first able to get into the Network and do some local damage to it.
_____But they had run into online trouble. They had gotten a feedback message from an
actual Deckman on the Network. It had warned them that "electronic infiltration" of the Network
was considered "damaging Factory property." That crime was worth death.
_____Lissette opened her mouth, slumped back in her seat. This was the first time since the
beginning that one of the machines on the Network had tracked them back and sent an e-mail
reply. Something on the Network now knew that they were hacking... And maybe some
bounty hunters would be contacted.
_____"They wish!" said Lissette aloud. She closed that e-mail and sent something back to
Sam's electronic mail account. She wrote up something about Sam not having to worry about
the damned Network sending bounty hunters and all that. In order to put a bounty on their
heads, the Network would have to know what they looked like. And the Network would need
offices around here to set up a bounty hunter's group. The Network had no control over this
sector of this city. As far as the Network was electronically concerned, this sector of the city
doesn't exist at all. No problem!
_____Clink-clink-clink... What was that? Lissette heard the distant sound of someone coming
down the metal ladder that led from the surface--the sound of sneakers on the rungs. She looked
to the right of her computer, set next to the door. Eyes looking at the door. Since her computer
workstation was closest, she was able to better hear the sounds of someone coming down…
_____Before Lissette could warn Jake, the door opened! She jumped up out of her seat!
_____"Hi, people!" said the new arrrival. She was a thin girl in shorts and dye-slotched tee-shirt.
Her purple hair and sun-colored eyes shimmered in the florescent lighting.
_____"Kela, you BITCH! You SCARED me!" said Lissette, arms at her sides. She slowly sat
back down. I thought you were a bounty hunter or something. Couldn't you have at least
KNOCKED before barging in?"
_____She smiled, squinting those big odd-colored eyes of hers when she began giggling.
"Hee-hee-hee! Do I ever knock? Besides, how the heck would a bounty hunter ever be able
to find our underground labs? Hunters can't get any bounties around here!"
...
_____Kela didn't know it, but there was a bounty hunter nearby. Not exactly "nearby," yet
damned close enough. This computer lab was located under a machine parts warehouse--used
by Society-run factories. There was a bar conveniently placed across the street from the warehouse
as the few cyborgs who worked here had little to do; all they had to do was inventory parts and
handle security. Truckers handled shipping. This place wasn't busy too often, so the ale house
across the street--named The Silver Rail-- had plenty of business from the warehouse employees.
_____The Silver Rail wasn't much to look at inside: some old metal tables, a big old radio
blaring music in the corner (not that the reception was good), and some bored cyborgs in work
clothes at the drinking counter itself. Then the bounty hunter came in.
_____He wasn't alone. He had along with two good-looking, giggly female enforcers. How the
Hell could a guy like that…?
_____The first female enforcer looked like an airline stewardess from a far-gone century: tall,
slender and in a simple dress suit. A pleasant face, her straight-cut dark hair hung to shoulder-length.
Her left arm was hung behind the neck of the tough-looking bounty hunter, and she was laughing
and hanging close to him as if she drunk.
_____In contrast, the second enforcer was blonde and daring sort of dresser--short skirt and a tight
long-sleeved top. Stockings hid the metal surface of her legs. The outfit showed off her (artificial)
curves. Long sunny yellow hair. Though this second female enforcer seemed just as drunkenly
happy, she hung back from the "couple" and signaled the bartender with a thumbs-up. Yeah, this
bounty hunter had come to the wro-o-ong part of town.
_____So thought the bartender--a brown-haired man in buttoned shirt and black slacks. He saw
the bounty hunter and the two female enforcers come in. Yeah, a God-damned bounty hunter...
Those bastards always tried to sniff around this sector of the city for potential rewards even though
the hackers made sure there were none. Didn't those outsiders ever just give it up? At least that
young punk will be good for laughs.
_____And the bartender had to keet himself from laughing out loud. Damn, the bounty jerk looked
like a clown. The jeans and sleeveless tee-shirt combination was just so damned corny! How many
bounty hunters wore that outfit when they first started? Too damned many! Worse yet, the
asshole had on cowboy boots. HA-HA-HA…! COWBOY BOOTS! This ain't some God-damned
factory-farm, kid! Go back to wherever you came from--before you get yourself killed.
_____"Hee-hee..." giggled the first enforcer, her lips close to the bounty hunter's mouth. "So
you're some kind of criminal killer? And you just wanted to, like, have a look around here?
You're the curious type. I LO-O-OVE curious." Mouth opened, she kissed him.
_____Sexual prospects weren't exactly something male cyborgs could really hope for--especially
since they lack the equipment for that sort of thing. All the same, he still had a human brain--a
brain that readily responded to her deep, wet, and delicious mouth. His tongue greedily explored
her mouth and he relaxed, went with the sweetness of the moment.
_____Which made him perfectly open for what was going to happen next. She reached up and
caressed the back of his neck with her left hand. A quick yank, and his head was suddenly at
an angle it really shouldn't go in.
_____He fell to the bar floor, gagging, sparks flaring from his neck. His eyes were open in
shock. His mouth was working as if he was still tonguing down the female. Then he began to
twitch like mad.
_____"Pathetic," said the dark-haired female enforcer, wiping her lips with the back of a gloved
hand. "I've had better kisses." Then she raised a foot and brought it down HARD on the bounty
hunter's already damaged neck. There was the sound of snapping metal connections and wires,
and the body went still. The cyborg's brain was dead; he was dead.
_____"Wow! Looks like another one for the recycling facility," said the blonde enforcer. "If these
random bounty hunters showed up more often, our tech-guys would have a steady supply of parts
to dissect and learn about. But the guy looks like he was made out of cheap parts. Oh well."
_____…Before you get yourself killed, thought the bartender. Whoops, too late! That must have
been about the fifth bounty hunter to come sniffing around this sector since this month began.
The sixth would probably come around here sometime soon.