robot driving the cab says, and he almost does sound sorry.
Scott aims something vaguely like a blow dryer at the driver. “You’re a twat.” Electricity sparks from the device, and the robot slumps, then immediately reanimates. Scott strikes a few keys on his wristpad, and the driver stomps on the pedal. “Disable safety protocols,” he says to the driver, then, “eject trunk.”
There’s a moment where I imagine a spare tire and maybe a jack flying through the air at the cop, then the entire rear above the bumper pops a foot into the air, and lands on the bike, stamping both bike and cop into a metal paste on the concrete. Immediately, a second cop who had remained at the scene turns on his lights and hurries towards us. “Take this right,” Scott says, and I barely have time to see the second cop pause to examine the remains of the first. “Next left, quickly, then shut down.”
A moment later, the cop flies past us with his lights blazing. “Cop started pinging me, so I’m bouncing my IP around the city. Right now it’s free-riding in the back of another cab. After another thirty seconds it’ll jump into a bakery truck, and from there into a freighter heading south out of the bay.” Scott was pleased with himself. “And I got a text back. Apparently, she was having some difficulty getting at your back-ups- cops were trying to cordon it off for a detective, but once they thought they had us in the chase they redirected resources to physical capture- only to lose us. So she’s got a copy of your back-up, and right now they’re still chasing ghosts in their machine.”
I'm frazzled, I can’t help but feel bad for the cops who chased us, and as we pull out of the alley back towards Markley I can’t stop staring at the flattened bike and rider. “They’re likely just code coppers; I mean, there’s an off chance they’re drones, being remote piloted by flesh and blood people, but their safety procs should keep them from feeling the brunt- it’ll just disrupt their code long enough for us to get lost in the system. Probably already have a replacement body flying towards us now.” That didn’t really make me feel any better.
“Take this left,” Scott says, the block before the corner of Markley. We stay on the same street, and with every neighborhood we pass through, my hopes fall that much more, because the area’s getting poorer and poorer, like watching time-lapse gentrification in reverse. We’re knee deep in the slums, and I swear I could see just a few blocks down the street a shanty-town, and I thought of course that would be where we’re going. “Stop,” Scott says, before the last apartment building in this part of the city.
We get out of the cab. The street is dark. A single streetlight shines from the corner, but its illumination barely touches the front of our car. The building is painted in shadows. I look to Scott, wondering if we should go to the front door, try to get buzzed in.
“Cop’s coming?” The voice is hot and ragged, moist and closer to my ear than I’d have thought possible. I spin around, and she walks out of the darkness towards me in slow motion.
“No; lost ‘em.”
“Good, because I imagine they’ve probably locked down his back-ups again. You’d have a bear of a time getting at them remotely, and I doubt the pair of you have the credit to stage a break-in at one of the memory towers. So this,” she pulls a small, flat disc out of her jacket, “is his last chance.”
Suddenly there’s movement, from a pile of trash, and a voice, deeper than the growl of the cab’s engine, echoes from beneath it. “Think I’ll be having that.”
Mind-thieves. “Ugh,” I say, old disgust creeping into my brain; “fucking freaks.” They’re fetishists, like to walk around in somebody else’s personality and perception, trying on the world in somebody else’s underpants. The thing is, they’re usually about as stable as your garden variety street tweaker, and get the borrowed memories confused with their own; lot of innocent people get raped, murdered or worse (why the hell was that the one memory that seemed be intact?).
His hearing is better than I’d guessed, and apparently he takes my dislike for his lifestyle personally, because he takes out a long pistol and shoots me in the face. Then he takes the back-up disc and runs. Scott stands to his full, gangly height, his fist twitching as he weighs the value of chasing after him.
Cass steps between him and the junkie running awkwardly away. “Aw, that’s sweet; you were having a John Wayne moment- over my honor. Don’t bother.” She exhales from a cigarette I’d never seen her with before (or light). “That disc belonged to a bona fide war veteran who lost the use of everything from the waist down- just use, not feeling. And I doctored it, too, so it’ll also give him crabs. And I’m not talking teensy parasites, I mean Alaskan King motherfuckers, clawing out of his urethra. You’d be surprised how many people think just because something’s physical they can just snatch and grab it.”
I’m still on the ground, bleeding; Scott saunters over like he’s got all the time in the world, and even once he leans over me, he spends a good thirty seconds staring through the hole in my skull. “Cool,” he says. “I assume it hurts.”
“Like a hole in the head,” I mutter, as he pulls me up off the sidewalk. I’m getting tired of picking myself up off concrete.
“Why’d you fuck with that guy? Seriously retarded, even for you- even for mildly brain-damaged you.”
I blink at him a moment. “I… didn’t think he had a gun.”
“Jeez, you must have lost all kinds of memory. Guess it’s a good thing you went first with the warez this time; if I’d have been fried, there’s no way you’d have been able to walk me through this. But yeah. Everybody can download basically whatever they want when they’re hooked into the network, guns, ammo, a stripper pole, whatever.” At the suggestion Cass downloads a pole, holds it with one hand and leans back just enough to be suggestive- then it’s gone, and I wonder if my brain with a hole in it imagined it. “There’s supposed to be safety protocols that keep you from getting hurt or losing memories and such, but you were running softwarez designed to bypass those protocols and get you stoned out of your fucking ballz.”
“Did I at least get high?”
“Not from what I could tell. You screamed like a robot lumberjack was fist-raping you,” he leans in closer, “then passed out and gently pissed yourself- not so much that people walking by would notice or anything, but enough that, hovering over you wondering if you were dead or not, I saw.” He moves back away, and his voice got louder. “Didn’t look like you enjoyed it, though, no.”
Cass shuffles; I can’t tell if she’s cold or anxious. “We should go. That mind-thief realizes he’s been screwed he’s going to come back looking for somebody to bloody- and he’s probably carrying some illegal warz.”
“Warz?” I ask blankly.
“Weaponized warez,” she says. “Shit that’ll tear clean through safety protocols like his virgin ass in prison,” she smacks Scott on the jeans, and he squirms uncomfortably. “I guess the spaz is vulnerable anyway, but the last thing I need is some mind-thief wearing my brain around town like a tuxedo.” Scott opens the car door for her, and she gets in front with the barely conscious robot driver. “You’re buying me a drink- and by ‘a’ I mean as many as I order. And that’s just for starters.”
Scott gets in back, and there’s a long moment where I grapple with the door handle on my side before he leans over and opens it from inside. I should feel self-conscious, but I can’t- I’m not really self-aware enough for that. “Why’s he staring at me like that for?” Cass asked.
“Lost his brain, twice now, enough that he can’t remember it’s impolite to drool.”
“Oh, good, for a minute I thought he’d pissed himself.”
“Did that a little, too.”
“He’s turning red; aw, he’s embarrassed. And staring in a creepy uncle way. He doesn’t remember me?”
“Don’t be hurt. He doesn’t really know me, either, and I was there when he popped his cherry, and I mean I was there, in the front seat while he was steaming up my backseat- er, the backseat of my car. Traded me a date with his sister for a
date with mine- only he neglected to mention his sister likes women.”
“Really? What’s she look like? My type?”
“Who isn’t your type?”
“Fair enough. But if he doesn’t remember me, does that mean he don’t remember trying to date rape me? You know, before I punched him in the colon.”
“Hard to call it rape if you were involved enough you could punch him in the colon- if you had a hand in him that’s either consensual or mutual date rape- attempted, at least.”
“Aw, I was just trying to fuck with him. I think he got drunk and tried to ask me out, once. It’s hard to know, cause he only got like three words out, ‘Would you like’ before he got an erection and passed out. From the looks of it he landed on it, uh, not that it broke his fall, more like he broke it in the fall. I felt a little bad for him.”
“Pity- that’s his natural state of being- and the closest thing he has to charm.”
“Can I have my brain please?” I ask sheepishly, only it doesn’t come out right. I sound like a stroke victim, and I’ve got what I hope is only drool pouring over my chin, but I was shot so there’s probably at least a little blood there, too (though hopefully my other head fluids are staying where they’re supposed to be).
She looks at Scott. “He good for this? I’d ask if you