The Deadman

Robert arrived before ten in Pei’s warehouse. Gu was chewing on breakfast while looking at the news. With half-opened eyes, Robert took a glance at the newsholo.

“You got bothered by the quarantine?”

“Nope. They sectioned the block. Got out before that. You?”

“Was on a drink.”

“You drink? Join me on Maze next time.”

“That the place with  the disco?”

“And a brothel.”

“Ah, yes, the brothel. How could I forget? I prefer a quiet place. If I want to drink.”

“You are not a social guy.”

“I spend time doing deliveries. Last week I became a medical examiner’s assistant for a few bucks.”

“I remember you taking a package to Mimi. I hear that she had you fix up her vagina.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“She said to a girl I know who knows Mimi. Is it literal or did you pound her hard enough with your organic self kind of fixed?”

“Literal.”

“Nasty. I heard that implants like those can make you cum fast. Shit, when did you become a doc?”

Robert ignored most of his sentences.

“Any news on the Vultures or whatever?”

“Vultures ran out of the city. I heard that they got a boat that took them out. Reminds me, the Solar Temple cultist, they say they got wiped in one night.”

“They did?”

“Yeah. Said that they found the chums with slit throats. Their night watch got stabbed in the back of the neck. From the look of it, some chromed psycho took them down and didn’t let them see the sunlight.”

“Bad day for them”

Gu nodded, “Saw many of those folk in action. Zealous. Hardened folk with god, steel, and chrome fueling them. Gotta make you wonder who the psycho that killed them in a night. Could be vultures, but those bastards don’t do silent kills.”

“They are showy and let me guess… they scavenge their enemies.”

“That they do. This worries me. Another gang maybe? Some psycho?”

“Who knows? As long as that psycho doesn’t bother us. I don’t care.”

Gu increased the volume of his holonews.

“Boss got a job?”

“Been doing a good job. Don’t usually last a week.”

“That why you talking to me now instead of your perpetual frown, Gu?”

“Partly. Lux has a way of making you unfriendly.”

“That reminds you were from Sichuan? How is it there”

“Prefab houses. Quiet. No job opportunities so unless you work plowing shit for a living. Good place with clean air. Actually I worked in Vietnam before coming here… legally.”

Gu searched his waist bag. Took a dummy chip.

“Here’s an actual chip that they delivered in our workplace. Congratulations, you’re an actual citizen of this city. You are the 63rd Robert Oswald in this city.”

“Neat.”

He ran a scan on the CIN-chip before slotting it in his deck on his left forearm.

“Never going to get neurally chipped?”

“Do you want to be easily compromised is what I’m hearing from you right now.”

“Just say no, fucker.”

“I’ll keep the chip.”

He pocketed the chip and stood watching the news. Most of the holonews was about recent local and foreign news. Local news being about the gangs and the foreign news more about various anarchist groups and anti-transhumanist folk.

The rest are ads about products and ads about ads regarding products. It was the corpo-product circus that made Robert wonder if Gu spends products in this kind of garbage.

“What are you into these days?”

“Idols are nice. Do you like idols?”

“Real or Virtual?”

“In Between. Bella’s my favorite. What? Don’t like this?”

“I do watch a few. She’s the one who sang the rendition of the thousand years right. Hmm, I thought you’d be more into rap or pop.”

“I dabble on any good song. Anything that sounds good to me.”

“So you don’t have any preference. I prefer rock, jazz, and those tunes without vocals.”

“Good for you, chum. Are you planning to watch till you get a new job?”

“Might.”

“You need a girl or a hobby. What are you spending your shit anyway. Because it sure ain’t clothes or gear.”

“Tech. Bought hardware with the pay. Mulling over whether to get a full dive and play around the virtualspace.”

“Get the one that warns you about real-time. Don’t want to lose years in that space and starve to death.”

“Is it any good? Heard the local virtual space is garbage here.”

“It’s full of ads that you might as well spend some cash to block them. We have local invite-only space, but unless you have the specs. I doubt they’d even bother inviting you in.”

“That elitist?”

“Secret club levels of elitist. If you don’t get the min-spec. You don’t get in. Not to mention that the bandwidth fucks over your senses and there are cases that the synchronization causes confusion. Had this netizen mate who got hit by lag. He had to be pulled out and had to reboot his optics and update his drivers. Spent eight hours blind.”

“What about neurogear?”

“Hmm, they are fine, but they still have those microwave shit scanning your brain. Don’t recommend it. You could install a brain implant to reduce body-device to machine lag.”

“So stick to the wearable devices, I got it.”

“You could get a cranial processor. They only need to install it on the back of your neck.”

“I’d stick to virtual reality. I can deal with the input lag.”

“Whatever you say, man. It’s your cash anyway.”

“Send me some links to all Bella stuff. Need to hear some of her songs and covers.”

“I’ll ping you the links later.”

Gu continued staring at the news. Robert shrugged and waited inside the warehouse for any packages. It was only past twelve that he got a call from Boss Pei about a new job that required him to take to one of the hideouts.

Reading the details made Robert hesitate, but the pay was enough to cover some of the purchases he was trying to make and get better parts for his motorcycle.

Boss Pei’s calculating and calling at the same time. The man’s focus when it comes to work was astounding despite his ‘I will murder and beat you into a paste of meat’ look he had.

“Bah. Fire them. Hire a new batch.”

“Trouble, Boss?”

“No. It’s our customer service. All they need to do is process the order. Get the bot to put into the query. It is simple work. They have a script for it but they still mess up.”

Boss Pei gestured for him to come close.

“I understand that you’ve done well. You got talents in acquiring tips. I respect that. I pay for a good job and you do a good job. It's been two weeks so far, and that’s a good thing. Theo wasn’t lying at least.”

He spoke calmly. He wasn’t pushy. For a man who ran a business legally and illegally.

“You do good, you are paid well. A simple line that any freelancer can understand. It’s hard to find a courier with the ability to survive and take their package to their destination. Gangsters these days don't understand that you don’t kill the messenger and courier. I pay so much for package retrieval these days. So a man who can deliver is paid well. If you want to be contracted. You tell me, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

“Good. Hmm, I have a package for certain clients. We call these premium package like Ms. Mimi had.”

“I see. So another premium delivery?”

“Yes. This time… it's Corporate Delivering.”

“Which means?”

“It means you might get greedy corpos hounding your back if you take this job. I have prepared a facial recognition jammer and disposable lightshield camo.”

“Disposable??”

“It means that you use it only when needed. Preferably, I’d want that back. If you do, you get a bonus from me.”

“Must be quite a job, Boss.”

“Lores Consortium has been adamant about acquiring this relic. It’s supposed to be an artifact from London. A board member needed this done.”

“Sounds like a big job.”

“It is. Personally, I don’t like it, but the pay is good. They want discretion and if you get this thing delivered… well, it’ll be worth the pay.”

“How many people I’m expecting to chase?”

“Could be a whole squad against the Lores Consortium. Your contact is Rene Belmont, he’s a LC suit that had volunteered in this op.”

“Got any details?”

“Here’s a flash memory.”

Robert connected his smart glasses to his left gauntlet’s deck and slotted it in the flash memory. He saw a presentation of how the job’s done. It was a four-way delivery that needed to be done. They already had four drivers with a plausible replica. The fifth driver was going to be Robert if he accepted it.

“So a distraction?”

“They don’t know which one’s real. All they know is that one of the relics must be real.”

“For a relic… this is a lot of trouble.”

“These pieces of history are worth their price because they are history. Will you take it?”

“I will.”

Robert took the jammer and turned it on. There was a light that covered him. Black suit, a hat, and smart glasses looking ominous.

“I see that you have quite the taste in.”

“Is it? I just thought of how to disguise myself with the jammer. You do see differently beyond the optics?”

“I do. Take this beacon. Press it once you arrive at the location. It’ll notice the beacon. And also take this burner signer.”

But he only wore the mask. Artificial eyes would only see the transmogrified form while natural eyes would only see Robert wearing the digital mask.

He took the package with him and then rode the motorcycle that they were going to let him borrow. Navigating through hidden alleys, tight corners, and thin passages, avoiding drones and surveillance with his all-sense.

When he came to the meeting point. He turned the beacon on and signaled who was coming. Two heavily armored cars approached. The first one to come out was a heavily plated security who told Robert to raise his hands.

“Delivery,” Robert said blandly. “Sign this and I’ll go.”

The security officers pointed their guns at Robert. Robert was unmoved. He held out the burner signer and then kept the package on the back of his motorcycle.

“Give it to me.”

The man in a suit wearing protective garment took the burner signer and confirmed it. Robert  accepted the signature, placed the box in the middle of the transaction and went back to his motorcycle with his arms raised.

One of the security took the package and hurried it back to the back. Robert stared down the forces before looking to the side where he saw aerial patrols.

“This will do. Tell Pei that he has my regards.”

Before Robert could reply. He heard engines booming somewhere. He mounted his motorcycle, and then drove out of the meeting area. Dodging the hail of gunfire that came from the attackers.

There were more than enough to scare Robert. He scanned the area for any hostile or tracking devices before turning the facial recognition jammer off.

“Boss Pei,” he dialed the Boss’s number, “it’s done. The package was delivered and I got away without using the lightshield.”

A pause.

“The other drivers were met with a deadly ambush. You’re one of the three that survived. It seems that our client has severely underestimated the scope of this job. They will have to pay more if they wish to keep this transaction a secret.”

Robert revved up  the engine and then set a waypoint, “Guess I’m done here, Boss.”

“You can return the motorcycle. As a bonus you can keep the mask and the lightshield. You didn’t use it, right?”

“Didn’t.”

“Good job, Oswald.”

Robert looked to the chaos not far from him. The ones chasing the client were not making it easy for them. Better and just men would have helped, but Robert looked away and drove out of the area, avoiding the hostile group securing the district.