Circle of Fate and Pain
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 18—Cosmic Afternoon
1.
…
The rest of Tire-Wire alley wasn't especially crowded, just the usual crowd. There was the usual small and scattered group of Motorball business executives—trickling in from the part of Scrap Iron City. What people did for a living was pretty much obvious, looking at their clothes. There were those wearing the business suits, sitting at the pricier outdoor cafes and drinking anything above thirty credits. Then there were those going to the bars and drinking whatever, the cyborgs who still wore the coveralls of work. Except, there were fewer coveralls-and-factory sort of people than there were of those businessmen and their pricey beverages. Tire-Wire Alley is a neighborhood of restaurants, music clubs and—of course—drinking bars! Those with the prolonged industrial jobs were off at work. At least, that was true of those lucky enough to have jobs.
"Come on, sis!" insisted Vanessa, pulling her reluctant sister along. "The Netman's over there, and I wanna confirm our victim." She looked around, a look of disgust on her face and holding her shoulders in a shrug--as if to shrink from those nearby. "Some of those fleshies are staring me up too much, like we're meat or something. It's like they've never seen anything like a female before. One of these days, I'll show 'em something to look at—like showing them their own livers once I've ripped it out of their guts!" She then wriggled her fingers as if she longed to snatch out her switchblades.
"Hold on a sec! Like, just calm down!" said Vicki, stopping on this sidewalk and looking somewhere. She knew her sister Vanessa, especially when she was getting to be like this. "Let's talk to somebody important first. That girl over there… Doesn't she look familiar? That guy in the bunny suit said something about her."
By her, there was no mistaking whothat Vicki was talking about. It could only be that particular large-eyed and elegant girl—petite and pretty, dressed casually in shorts and midriff-baring tank-top with light jacket worn over, her long moonsilk-pale hair flowing to midway down her back. Somehow, her little white sneakers were clean, though the soles looked a bit worn. She was the height of a child, but her sleek feminine figure was that of a young woman. Those that didn't know her would not at all be able to properly guess her age—unless they knew her to be a slight mutant. Only a slight mutant could have eyes like that.
As for the replicate, it was obvious that she had not yet encountered the other one today. Vicki had the definite idea that the next time Sieben met the nightmarish other replicate, it would mean Sieben's destruction. Her body would be crippled, and then Sechs would take off her head. That would be the case. Except now, Vicki knew what to do.
"What…? You mean the girl who looks dressed like a cutesy hiker?" asked Vanessa. "Oh, the way they're talking, I'm guessing the bodyguard is more than just a bodyguard! One's short and cutesy, the other looks like a cyborg prostitute or something! Why bother with a leather skirt or blouse? That skirt's so short and tight it may as not be worn anyway. Cyborgs ought to walk around naked. What do they have to hide? Cyborgs, fleshies… They're all freaky! Sis, why do you put up with em?" She paused. "Hey! She's wearing white sneakers! How can anybody wear anything white in Scrap Town and keep it white around here? Now that's freaky."
"I put up with humans because they're people," said Vicki, not acknowledging most of Vanessa's rant. "We need to respect and care about people." This synthetic girl then began approaching that outdoor café-table over there where Kyrie was sitting with her bodyguard. The female replicate tensed somewhat.
Kyrie stopped talking when she noticed Sieben looking in a particular direction. As Sieben was not smiling, neither was Kyrie. The girl used some fingers to brush aide some lengths of her own hair and tilting her head slightly to the right, looking in this direction. "Good afternoon…" she said when Vicki came and stopped. "Pardon my audacious inquiry, but it must be asked. Have we met at a prior engagement? You two seem unusually familiar."
"Umm… It's something like that," said Vicki. "It's like… I don't know." She looked to Sieben—a replicate-girl copied from a cyborg-girl. She couldn't exactly tell her to stay away from fighting. After all, Sieben would fight and defend Kyrie—even fighting to the death. In Sieben's case, it would be… She saw Kyrie lean forward slightly, her pert mouth and large eyes open with concern and worry. Oh well, may as well lie. Saving Sieben's life, thought Vicki. What can I say to her to get her away from the city today? Sechs is going to be here.
Vanessa saw her sister hesitating, so she not-so-gently pushed Vicki aside. Telling lies to cyborgs and humans was her skill. "Hey! Guess what! You live two out in the border-region, right? We saw some mutants were loping around your place. I think they were looking for a way to break in. Yeah, I think they'll get hurt or something if they do. Or they'll wait until tonight. Then they can try and attack people. I think I scared 'em off or something…"
Sieben looked ready to stand up, looked to Kyrie. Kyrie, in turn, looked at her partner. The replicate-girl angrily shook her head—saying, "That's our home. The mutants from the mountains of waste usually just leave us alone. Why are they suddenly attacking our home again? What's going wrong with things? It's like everything is starting to go down and stuff."
If only you knew, thought Vanessa. She began to say something. "Yeah, and one of the mutants was calling your name…" She looked to Kyrie. "You're Kyrie, right? Those mutants have really got messed up mouths, but they were still able to pronounce it… 'Kyr-ie-e-e…' said one of the freaks. Gosh, those fleshies were so mutated, it makes me admire robots and cyborgs."
"We must go," said the pale-haired girl, uncrossing her legs and standing up. Even standing her full height, Vicki and Vanessa still had to look down to keep eye-contact with her. "Thank you for the words said. Good day to you." A glance went to Sieben, who was already standing. They then were walking away.
And the twin gynoids watched as the pale-haired girl and her dark-haired female bodyguard went away. They were going to watch and be extra-sure that there was not going to be any back-tracking. You'll hate me, but at least Sieben won't be dead, thought Vicki. You'll both be okay now—I hope.
"Sis, you suck!" declared Vanessa. "You couldn't lie to save somebody's own life! If we didn't tell those two something, Sieben's head would've been in Sech's big mighty machine-hands in an hour!"
"Like, give me a break!" exclaimed Vicki. "I'd rather have them both mad at me instead of Sieben losing her head today…" She softened her tone. "And how'd you know how to mention her father? I didn't get any data about that. Didn't we get the same information?"
"Nope, guess not!" commented Vanessa. "Maybe if your optical receptors were tuned to the right frequency, you would've picked up the data the rabbit-guy transmitted to us.
"It's like this. Kyrie's father pretty much acted like any other human male late into the Twenty-First Century. That's right. He just left his own daughter, went off to some wastelands to 'find himself.' Who knows, maybe he did?" She grinned. "Yeah, he'll find himself…turned into a mutant! That stuff out there in the mountains of junk… Some of it's so contaminated and radioactive that even looking at it probably causes all kinds of cancer, will mess up a fleshie's genetic structure in a second!"
"But, like…" added Vicki. "I still don't get it. I was just a few feet from yourself, and…." Her voice was colored with worry as well. Something was wrong. "Oh no…"
Something began to interrupt the flow of traffic. The sound of heavy cyborg-driven shipping trucks had been a sort of steady sound until it began to slow down… Then it stopped. What started next was the sound of the drivers of those vehicles making loud, angry and obscene expressions. Obviously, something was up.
Hmm? Vanessa turned around just to see what the Hell Vick was worried about. Of course there were vehicles stopped. At the crumpled fronts of one van that looked as unknowable creatures from the deepest darkness of space came down to smash the front grilles in. An Ancient slang-term came to mind when looking at some of the wrecked vehicles. It was the word totaled. As in, those vehicles were totally wrecked.
And the cause of the crazed vehicular damage was standing in plain sight--what a sight…. Thick alloyed shin-guards boots covered the legs beneath the knees--the legs and torso covered in a black bodysuit made up of strange ridges. Attached to the torso were arms that just looked too big: great big machine-arms more fitting a construction vehicle than a torso. The gigantic machine-arms seemed so huge that they looked as if the body ought not be strong enough to hold them. Both hands were clenched into fists--each fist the sixe of a head-sized wrecking ball.
One of those fists so happened to be plunged into the metallic front-end of a truck. That truck was totaled. Behind it was another truck that happened to run into the first one. Behind that truck, a few more trucks suffered from impact. One blow stopped an entire row of heavy vehicles.
To this, the wild-haired head on the nightmarish thing had a look of maniacal glee. Its scraped, roughened synthetic face had a huge and vicious grin. And one eye was missing--replaced with a screw. That figure in the black suit could only be one thing: Sechs.
"R-r-r-gh…!" declared the nightmarish replicate, ripping its right fist from the metallic innards of the truck. "Y-y-you! I know you two just spoke to a certain replicate! Tell me where they went, or I'll rip off your heads and use your bones to make a table! And on that table, I'll make a tablecloth of your own skin--your heads as ornaments!
A quick breeze, a sudden thought, and Vicki instantly knew what to do. She screamed, "Hey, Netmen! He-e-elp! Some crazy person is wrecking Factory property! Now it's gonna try to take our brains!"
"What!" shouted Sechs. "I shall destroy you and…" F-f-fw-w-wish-h-h… A flash of flame, and then there was a missile-fast streak of gray. The results were amazing.
Sechs exploded quite nicely. The huge machine-arms sort of collapsed to the left and right in the midst of the fireball, while the legs, shin-guards and assorted metal body parts flying in all directions. The explosion lasted long enough to glow into a bright golden glow cast onto nearby buildings. Thunk-k-k… That was the sound of the replicate's charred head landing in the middle of the street.
…
2.
…
There was the sound of a friendly neighborhood Net-man robot trundling on over here. Its rubbery-chubby face typically blank. "Thank you for reporting a breach of Factory Law. Your cooperation is appreciated. To claim your reward in a timely manner, please cash in the head at your nearest Factory outlet!"
To that, Vanessa began to saunter over to where Sech's angry and smoking head lie on the street. As the artificial girl walked, there was an entirely inappropriate sway to her hips in tight jeans, her biker-boots clacking on the street.
Vanessa then bent over at the waist and put her hands on her knees. Of course some of the male population was staring. This time, she meant for that. "Well now!" she said to the Sechs replicate's head. "We won't be needlessly going around to slaughter fellow replcates anymore, huh? I know, I know… You're probably saying that this is some kinda time-paradox thingy or something, wondering how you can be killed here and now when you were supposed to do so much stuff with somebody named Gally…
"But do I care about time travel stuff? Hell no! All that matters to me is cash. That, and we're keeping you from helping some short freaks in disassembling reality." The replicate's severed head tried talking, mouth moving. "Huh? What's that? You don't know what I'm talking about? Hmm… Let me help you."
The artificial girl then bent over even farther, her body poised oh-so-deliciously, buttocks pressing the tight jeans as her hands grabbed the crazy dark hair of Sech's head. Straightening to stand, she said to the head, "We get rid of you, it'll be one less piece of the circle…" At this point, Vicki walked up to stand by her sister, also staring at Sechs' head. "Say, Sis… Let's go cash this thing in. It ought to at least worth a new shirt. A cheap one, but it's something."
…
A half-hour later, Vicki and Vanessa rode the back of a truck to Tire-Wire alley after a foray deeper into Scrap Iron City. The truck stopped at an intersection amidst a healthy hustle-and-bustle of people walking along sidewalks, the noise of people and vehicles mixed in with distant sounds of restaurants playing music. It was good to be back to where there were people walking around, being lively. Both hopped off the back, and Vicki walked up to the front-cab of the vehicle to pay the man. She also said, "Thanks again for the ride."
They both now had an extra item added to their biker-styled outfits; now there were purse-sized backpacks on their backs. They needed the little backpacks just because the pockets of their leather jackets were far too small to carry all the credit chip bounty they earned for reporting destruction of Factory property. Indeed, destruction of the Factory's means of production was a heavy crime. The gynoids therefore obtained a heavy bounty for stopping such a thing.
It wasn't that the synthetic girls needed the ride. Having artificial bodies meant having robotic levels of endurance: unlimited endurance. But Vanessa just wanted to hire a ride just because she could. They now had more money than they knew what to do with. Vanessa just felt like spending some cash
"Hell yeah," cheered Vanessa as she walked with her sister. "Being a tattle-tale is a too-easy way to make some hot and heavy cash. About the only thing I regret, Sechs was a robot—just like us. But hey… Shouldn't have crossed me!"
Vicki said nothing immediately. She didn't really like the idea of killing for money, not at all. Yet she knew that bounty hunting was the only legitimate means used by this city in order to have some kind of law enforcement. There was no such thing as police anymore—not since the days when she and her sister were prototypes created by a blonde-haired smiling man and his team of robotic scientists. That was centuries ago, when the land was untouched by nuclear weapons, earthquakes and obliteration. So long ago…
"Hey Sis! Hell-o-o! Where's your mind at?" pointedly asked Vanessa. She waved her right hand in front of Vicki's face—making her blink. "I know we've taken the occasional hit in the head every so often, but that's why our nanobots keep fixing us up. Your thought processors getting screwed up or something? Maybe you need a drink."
Vicki ignored the drink comment. Vanessa usually liked going to rough-looking bars and enter drinking contests with the patrons—who had no ideas that they were getting into a drinking contest with a robot. It was one of many ways Vanessa used her own human appearance to take advantage of people. Vicki could do the same, chose not to do so because she cared about people. "When are we going to start caring about people?" she asked.
"Wooh… So that's your software malfunction?" asked Vanessa. "It's an attack of consciousness, huh?" She wrapped an arm across Vicki's shoulders and leaned close—also taking her to a side of the sidewalk. They now stood near the wall of a particular store-front business—a large picture-window looking outward.
"Like, I don't care as much about the meat-bags as you do," continued Vanessa. "But they've got some use to 'em. Particularly, their brains are good for cash. Their blood will probably make luxurious skeletal joint-lubricant some day, too." Vicki's eyes went wide. "Just kidding! Anyway, I do care. But we do what we have to do to survive… Right? And if we didn't get that Sechs-thing blown up, she…he… Whatever it was, it was gonna chop off our heads. Do you know how long it would take our internal nano-swarms to fix us up after that?"
Head bowed, Vicki nodded. "Yeah… You're right…" she conceded. "Still, it's like so many people keep dying. People are still gonna keep dying. And… And something bad could still happen. I had a dream last night…"
"Like, come on, Sis! Dreams are software malfunctions!" exclaimed Vanessa. "We don't even need to sleep. We're gonna have to yank that bit of human emulation out of you one of these days—when the meat-bag humans get the technology to work on us again. Still, dreams don't mean anything. So you dreamed the world was gonna get nuked by some kind of karma bomb… It's not like this world wasn't nuked before!" Swish-flick!
An eighth of a second, and something was now different. The swish was the sound of Vanessa quick-turning right, and the flick was the sound of both her switchblades being clicked into life—the sharp blades gleaming hard silver and sharp. "Hey, bitch! Didn't anybody ever tell you not to butt in on a family discussion?"
Standing there was a dark-haired replicate-girl—just their height and looking just their physical age, dressed in new leather skirt and tight-fitting top with an open jacket. Except, Sieben was no more actually a young woman than Vicki and Vanessa were human. It was all appearances. Sieben's wide-eyed look appeared to show more sadness than fear—no reaction to Vanessa switchblades. Actually, she was looking into Vicki's eyes. "Like, I had the same dreams," she said to Vicki. "Someone killed the world."
"Well, hey, you can thank us for blowing up Sechs later," said Vanessa. Fwick! Her hands blurred, the switchblades seeming to vanish. "And about the sun changing color and those short muscular midget-guys, we don't know anything about that. That's all crazy fantasy that belongs in human brains, not in nice and reliable thought processors. Now please leave us alone?"
Vicki looked at her sister. Vanessa seldom acknowledged anything pertaining to dreams or imagination. "You too?" she asked. Vicki didn't say anything about those aspects of the dream she had. As far as Vanessa cared, it was just a dream—if it was a dream. "How did you know?"
"What is this, a meeting of the Psychic Friends Network?" asked Vanessa. "Okay-okay, maybe I caught a little glitch or something in my head, too. Maybe we all had the same software glitch at the same time…" Vanessa looked to Sieben. "You're a GR-model replicate, right? Your brain's a computer, too. You'll know what I'm talking about."
Sieben looked at Vicki. "Jack Bent is the one who's going to make it happen," she said. "He's the carrier. If he doesn't carry the ball, he can't make another round happen. We'll have to kill him."
"Kill Jack Bent," said Vicki. The look of human compassion once in her eyes was now gone. There was now the data of what would happen if Jack Bent continued to live. It was only logical: to prevent future death and destruction, one man would have to die. He would not know why he had to die at this point in time. It was simply the digital truth that he did.