A quick cyberpunk. Not something I've read much of, but the idea struck, and I felt I had to run with it. I'm pleased with how it turned out. Tina held her hood to her head, fighting against the wind that wanted to push it away so that she could be even more the victim of the merciless rain. It was cold, and the night was dark with few stars in the sky, though the neon landscape meant that it was never completely dark.
She looked down at the streets, her rifle on the rooftop next to her. The rest of her team should have checked in by now – they were late. There hadn’t been any kind of alarm yet, but that didn’t stop her worry. She was tired, the concentration of staring through the rain taking its toll, and the later they got, the slower she was going to get if they needed her. Her phone vibrated and she risked taking a look. She had it blocked to all contacts outside her team, so any message must be from one of them. It wasn’t. She narrowed her eyes as she saw the screen: 1 new message – unknown sender. This should be impossible. She put the phone back in her pocket. It wasn’t her team, so it could wait. A minute passed. It vibrated again. She pulled it out and looked. 2 new messages – unknown sender. How was this happening? She pressed the screen, looking at the messages. “jooR T34M 12 1n TROU8L3. h3Lp tH3M.” “p4Y 4tt3NT1On. 1’M try1N’ TO h3lP U.” Tina quickly translated the Cityspeak messages, used frequently by runner crews as algorithms and artificial intelligences struggled to understand them. Could these it be true? Was her team in trouble? If so, why hadn’t they managed to get a message to her themselves, and who had managed to contact her? A third vibration. “7h15 15 7He C17Y.” Tina blinked and reread the message. The City? How was the City texting her? Another vibration. “s70p d4wdl1nG. 17 D0e2'n7 m477er. W0rRy 480U7 17 l47er, 4Nd gE7 M0V1nG.” She shook her head and wiped the rain from the screen of her phone. She didn’t like this. She didn’t understand what was happening. However, they were late. Not very late yet – there were always complications on jobs like this. She couldn’t deny that she’d already had a bad feeling about this, even before the strange messages though. She put her phone in her pocket and picked up the rifle, quickly folding it to be more surreptitious. Without waiting to let herself second-guess, she stepped off the building and fell to the street below. As she landed, splashing in the omnipresent puddles, her leg-gear bent and absorbed the shock. She set off running as quickly as her enhanced legs could carry her. She knew where her team had planned their entry point, so she would follow them in. Whilst she’d been guarding the intended exit, if they hadn’t managed to leave, she probably couldn’t enter that way. She turned through streets, largely ignored by the other people on them, all wrapped up in their own problems. She entered the alley where she knew she would find an old sewer entrance and was surprised to find somebody waiting there. He was big – and not naturally big. He looked like he’d been beefed up – and not with equipment, but with drugs. He was also covered in weapons, from a long knife and machete at his hips, a large underslung gun being balance by one hand, and a bandolier of grenades. She could see another couple of gun handles sticking out over his shoulders. Perhaps this guy was the trouble. Her phone buzzed again, and she saw from the man’s reactions that his must have done so too. Gingerly, neither wanting to trust the other too far, they both reached for the devices and looked. One new message – unknown sender. She clicked it open. “7H12 12 D02Er. j00 k4n 7rU57 h1m.” Tina looked back at the large man – Dozer – before her. He was looking back at her. “You Eagle-eye?” he asked, putting his phone back in his pocket. She nodded. “You must be Dozer?” He nodded. “I’m here to help you.” Tina raised an eyebrow. “Why? You don’t know me.” He shrugged. “The City asked, and I owe it a few. This way.” He moved out of the alley, back to the streets, away from the sewer entrance that Tina had planned to use, but she followed him. Once they were out on the streets, Tina saw that the rain seemed to slide from him. He clearly did have some tech, and good tech. Personal forceshields were expensive! “You often get texts from the City?” Tina asked as they moved, her enhanced legs easily able to keep up with Dozer’s longer gait. “All the time. You don’t?” Tina shook her head. “Well, let me be the first to welcome you to a whole new world, then.” “I don’t understand,” Tina answered. “What do you mean?” “Don’t worry – I know it takes some getting used to. Hell, I remember what it was like when I got my first message. If we walk away from this, I’ll try to explain it all. Just in case I don’t, all you need to know for now is that you’ve been invited to join the Network, and the City has our backs. Always.” Tina shook her head but forced herself to keep moving. For all of her frustration, if her team were in trouble, which she was starting to believe was the case, she didn’t have the time to stop and try to force more information from Dozer. If she even could. “Where are we going?” she asked. “Back to Halcyon,” Dozer answered. “Your team don’t have time for you to go crawling through sewers. They’re outmanned, and outgunned, and if Halcyon’s security goons find the thumb drive they’re using to give your hacker access… well, you know what will happen then.” Tina gulped. She did indeed know what would happen then. Halcyon was very security conscious – to the point that they didn’t have their main networks connected to the outside world. The only way for Drift, her team’s hacker, to get in had been for Alibi, their face, to sneak in and insert a thumb drive to act as a temporary wireless entry point. But if that was removed before Drift was out of the system, his mind would be permanently disconnected from his body. “So, what’s the plan? We can’t get in the front door.” She didn’t care anymore if this was some kind of trick, or trap. The threat to Drift was far greater than death – she’d risk her own life to protect him from that. Dozer led her round to the side of the building, away from the streets. “The old-fashioned way. Get ready.” As Dozer removed one of the explosives from his bandolier and attached it to the wall, Tina widened her eyes, stepped back as far as she could, and drew out her rifle, extending it into shotgun rather than her preferred longer-range option. This was going to need the work to be much more up-close and personal. Dozer stepped back from the explosive and smiled at her. She found herself smiling back. This did have a refreshing simplicity to it. A few seconds later, she saw the explosive flash and looked away for the actual detonation. The loud noise would soon draw problems – Halcyon’s security and, probably, city police. She looked back at the wall and found that a large chunk of it wasn’t there anymore. Dozer was already stepping through, his largest gun ready to fire when necessary. “You get any messages, let me know to cover you and answer them,” he said. “The City might need to update us.” As Tina followed him, her phone buzzed again and, giving Dozer the head’s up, she checked it. “1 k4N K33P 73H p0L1C3 4w4Y PH0r 20 m1Nu73S. 1'm s3Nd1n' j00 4 M4p - PH0ll0W 17.” She looked and a map had, as promised, downloaded. She checked it and saw a layout of the Halcyon building, with directions to take. She looked up, trying to marry up the room that she could see with the layout now on her phone screen. She saw the door they needed to take and was about to point it out to Dozer when a different door opened, and Halcyon’s goons rushed in. There were four of them, each wearing the typical helmets and vests of low-value rent-a-cops. Dozer looked at them and opened fire – they had probably fallen before they even realised what they were up against. “This way,” Tina said, moving towards the door that she had already identified. He nodded, following her backwards to keep an eye on the room behind them. More cheap goons appeared from corridors, but Tina’s reflexes were quick, and her shotgun shells took them down in quick order. She knew that they couldn’t keep this up though – eventually, Halcyon would send in their big guns. Tina followed the map, ending up at a room filled with computer screens and databanks. She looked round, wondering why they were here. Dozer took up position in the doorway, giving her time to investigate. Nothing sensitive would be in a room like this – it wasn’t even close to sufficiently guarded. Similarly, she very much doubted that she would be able to deactivate security or anything else useful either. She picked up her phone, feeling it vibrate in her hand. “su8R0Utin32 3Ss3ntI4l pH0r iC3 rUn tHr0u9H H3r3. D3sTr0y tH3M.” She read the message again, certain that she’d made a mistake. Surely, a corporation like Halcyon, as security conscious as they were, would have access to their ICE software so easily accessed. She risked a reply to the text – just a short one. “h3R3?” Her phone buzzed as the reply came in. “y32. 1'V3 K0n74C73D dr1F7. H3 H42 m4d3 S0m3 ch4N932 PHR0m 1nS1D3.” “What’s the hold up?” Dozer asked over his shoulder. “The messages say that the ICE subroutines run through here,” she replied. “That if we destroy these machines, it will all fail, which should let my hacker get out.” “ICE?” he asked, still not looking into the room. “Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.” He nodded. “Take my place then Eagle-eye. I’ll light the room up.” She nodded back, moving into the doorway. Dozer’s explosives would be far more efficient than anything she had for this. As she moved into position, she saw a couple more guards running towards them. Quickly. No longer the cheaper security they’d faced already, these two were clearly enhanced. One was running along a wall towards them, and the other made Dozer look small as he charged down the middle of the corridor. She gulped. She might be able to take the smaller one, but she didn’t think her shotgun was going to do much to the larger one. She had to stay in the doorway though. Tina opened fire, aiming for the wallrunner. If she could take him out, that might at least give the bigger one pause. However, he moved too quickly, shifting between walls and ceiling and avoiding her shots. She took a moment to look behind her, taking one of the grenades from Dozer’s bandolier whilst he worked on setting up the explosives for the room. Tina leapt into the air, letting her powerful legs rocket her to the ceiling. She might not be able to stick to it as her opponent could, but her rapid movement still clearly caused both of them to be surprised. She fired at the wallrunners feet, causing him to jump. That was when he was vulnerable – more used to being connected to something than being in mid-air, he now couldn’t manoeuvre. She fired again, shells hitting him directly in the chest and forcing him to the floor where he lay still. Tina kept up her leap, angling in the air to push off again from a wall where she set the explosive and then, landing behind the larger guard, stuck it to his back. She dove back, and the twin explosions of both her grenade and the room sounded together. When the smoke cleared, both guards were down and Dozer was walking out of the ruined room. She checked her phone, expecting a message and wasn’t surprised. “goOD work. dr1Ft 12 OUt. phOlLoW T3H m4p TO R35CU3 4l181 4ND tW1n5hot.” She swiped and saw that the map had updated. The phone buzzed again as another message came through. “8e reaDY. 7hey R P1nNed d0wN.” “OK,” she said, looking between Dozer and the map in her hand. “We’re done here. Be ready – apparently my last two friends are pinned down.” Dozer smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Eagle-eye. I’m always ready. Let’s move.” The two of them ran through corridors, alarms blaring around them. Clearly the defeat of the guards and the disruption of the ICE software had set something off. They barrelled into a room and dove for cover behind an upturned desk. Tina risked a look out. She could see where her two friends were pinned down, and from the blood pooling around their cover, it looked like at least one of them was hit. Dozer got her attention and pointed towards where the guards crouched and pushed a medpack into her hand. Tina nodded in understanding and held up three fingers. As she finished the countdown, Dozer opened fire, drawing the attention of the guards whilst Tina ran for Alibi and Twinshot. She dove behind the desk, seeing that it was Alibi that was on the ground bleeding. She flashed Twinshot a smile and started to remove equipment from the medpack. “What are you doing in here?” Twinshot asked, pausing only for a moment before shooting back at the guards again. “And who is your friend?” Tine tore off some RegenBand with her teeth, giving a grunt. Starting to apply it to Alibi’s wounds, she looked up at Twinshot again. “I got a tip off that you were in trouble. Don’t worry about where it was from – I’ll explain later. He’s Dozer – he’s giving me a hand.” Twinshot nodded, never one to question good fortune. Alibi’s wound was severe, but he was still breathing, and so the RegenBand should quickly fix him up. She crushed some Bloodflow pills and poured the powder onto his tongue, encouraging his body to replace the blood it had lost. This was an impressive medpack, but Tina realised that she shouldn’t be surprised. Dozer was clearly a wealthy man to have the gear she’d seen – this was just one more example. With that, the noise stopped. Dozer was walking over, guns lowered to appear less of a threat – as if he could ever appear not to be a threat. All of the guards were down. She checked her phone. They’d used twelve of their twenty minutes. The map had already updated itself. Dozer glanced at her handiwork at tending to Alibi, and then looked at Twinshot, offering a hand to shake. “Dozer,” Tina said, scanning the room for the appropriate exit again. “Can you carry Alibi?” The big man nodded and picked up her injured friend. “This way!” She ran off, leaving Twinshot and Dozer to follow her. They moved through a circuitous route, and Tina started to worry. They didn’t have long to run around Halcyon’s building, but it seemed that whoever was handling the map knew what they were doing. They managed to avoid all guards – she suspected that all of them had either fled or routed towards the areas where they had set off explosions – and they reached their original exit point with a couple of minutes to spare. The four of them disappeared into the alleyways and were long gone before the police arrived. Later, when the police response had died down, Alibi had recovered, and they’d had a chance to check on Drift, they all met up in Dexter’s, one of their preferred bars. “As I said to Eagle-eye earlier,” Dozer started, once they all had their drinks, “welcome to the Network. Before you ask, I have no idea who sends the messages.” Tina had taken the time to explain to her crew what had happened, and they’d been just as confused as her. Drift had taken the time to do some research. “I’ve read around the ‘net,” Drift said, sipping at his drink. “All that I can find is people saying that the City has their back.” Dozer smiled and raised his glass. “And that’s all you’ll find. Sometimes the City helps us out. Sometimes it asks for us to repay it. The important thing to know is that it’s on our side. The City always has our backs.”
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Flash FictionSome shorter fiction, usually based on some kind of challenge. Archives
October 2021
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