Chapter 9
As Petrova drove back towards her home I drifted into sleep. While I had paid to get my liver enhanced so that it would party harder than a hazardous chemical disposal plant my brain was not up for this kind of punishment. All the drugs that had enhanced my thought process earlier had left my synapses wasted. The sudden collapse of the chemical framework that had given them the power to work miracles caused some serious confusion. Neurons were waking up in in the gutter filled with suspiciously coloured spinal fluid wondering where they were and where they had left their trousers.
As I slipped into the world of dreams I found my self again floating in the warm water that flowed under all of the infinite city of Europa. The only thing there apart from me was the long bridge extending into infinity in both directions. On top of a large round explosion slowly bubbled into existence in yellow and orange tones casting a warm comfortable light. High above me the sky was Jupiter again. There was nothing else in the heavens but the irate gas giant and its angry eye. The planets gaze filled me with cold dread. I looked around. I was no longer alone. Around me rough human shapes had floated into view. All of them dead. Limply moving along in a current which I could not feel. There was also movement now the pylons of the bridge. Here and there strange black clad people were moving along them like geckos. Casting beams of laser light from their eyes moving them around looking for something. Someone. But they never did get close to spotting me. Whenever they remained in one spot for to long they simply burst into little clouds of red mist. Staining the pylons and then drifting away enjoying their new found freedom.
As these things happened I started to become aware that I was dreaming but despite this realisation I could not wake up. The cold terror that I felt squeezed a little bit harder. It must be the drugs, I thought. Next time I see Louis I will kick his shivering arse. For a short moment I saw his image flicker past me, unnaturally quick with enough steel in his eyes to provide a small army with swords. This was not getting better. I tried to concentrate. If was lucid there must be something that comes from the waking world. I listened. Where was the whine of the cars alcohol fuelled turbine? Not in my dream. There were just the whispering voices of the dead around me. Strange. They had not been whispering before and instead of the expected lamentations from beyond the grave they seem to have a rather civil conversation. Also one of the voices was female. As far as I knew there had not been any female casualties among my newly acquired fan-club. Casualties... when that thought crossed my mind all the shapes around me suddenly looked into my directions their mouths open. '...fuel. You can try it yourself.' Not quite what I expected. It was also clearly Petrovas voice. I could not move. But I could now smell the car again, feel the faux leather seats and part of the door uncomfortably pressing into my side. My face was resting against the cold window. I was awake. My eyes open. The real world fading into my consciousness while the dream clung onto the back of my mind not wanting to let me go that easily.
'Are you trying to poison me Katja.' said a male voice I did not recognize.
'Of course not. I told you this car has a combustion engine and what a better combustible than some self made spirits? It fuels the car and it fuels me. Come on Evgeni I made it after my grandmother recipe. And I spent a fortune for getting a real earth yeast to brew it too.' while I did not dare to close my eyes again. The nightmare was still waiting for me to return. I also did not dare to glance towards the door. Outside I could only see a long street surrounded by darkness. We were on that bridge again. In front of us several Russian patrol cars blockading the street. Petrova seemed to have everything under control and I was not going to ruin what she was trying to pull off by stumbling into her conversation like the idiot I quite probably was.
'All right. I guess making sure that your fuel is up to government standards is part of my duties.' the voice carried a big smile.
'See. I told you that was quality stuff, didn't I? I'm still offended that you thought I was trying to poison you.' I could hear that this was some kind of ritual. The exchange had a certain playful well rehearsed air to it.
'Well you said it was fuel...'
I could hear the eyes rolling in Petrova's face.
'Mid to tell me what all this impressive show of police power is about?' she asked the policman who was taking another swig from the 'fuel' bottle.
'Looks like crime is getting a bit out of hand over in the European sector.' short pause 'Again.'
'And because of that you have to harass everyone crossing the bridge? What's happened have our criminals the week off?'
'No. But someone killed some high ranking Triad member here on this very bridge. With a bomb no less. Which has everyone nervous as you might imagine. Who ever did that obviously wanted to send a message and that message has been heard. Now we get to stop everyone passing the bridge to ask them if they by any chance happen to be criminal hit-men with a penchant for the dramatic.'
There was a bit of silence.
'This could be serious.' said Petrova.
'Yes. Very much so. the crime syndicates have been keeping a low profile over the last couple of years. But seems like someone got greedy and decided to kill the middle man. With a bomb. Damn I'm not getting paid enough for this...'
'You certainly don't. This is getting serious. But this has hardly anything to do with me hasn't it?'
'No.'
'So can I pass now?'
'I'd say so. Only one question?'
'Yes?'
'Who is the dead guy?' when the guard said that I felt panic rubbing its head against my heart.
'That one?' Petrova asked 'He's a friend. I showed him how to party like a Russian. He's till got a long way to go.'
Laughter.
'He's still got a long way to go.'
'Yeah. So. Anything else you need? Passports? Fingerprints? DNA profile?'
'It's OK you can pass. Have a good night.'
'You too. and if you need some more fuel just tell me and I'll give you enough to fill up your tank for a week.'
Not taking her eyes from the street in front of her Petrova started talking.
'What were you thinking blowing up the Triads anyway?'
'They were trying to take to some damp cold place where they would have tortured me until I had come up with a good enough story for them to believe followed by death.'
'That still does not explain the blowing up part.'
Come to think of it she was right.
'I was covering my escape?'
'What do you suppose would have happened after you jumped out of the window and down the bridge? That they sprout wings and come flying after you. You said that they weren't the people who were trying to kill you. Now you killed one of their bosses and publicly humiliated them. Were does that leave you?'
'I do admit that that wasn't the most clever plan I had but I was under a lot of pressure.'
'You were drugged and drunk. It's miracle that you came out alive in the first place.'
She was right. My chemical friends might have given me some confidence and made me think faster. But that way I just managed to do more stupid shit per minute. I took an upper out of my pocket and seeing that the 'fuel' was gone I put it in my mouth to swallow it dry.
'Did you just take another pill?'
'I'm still trying but its a bit sticky.'
'Spit it out.'
'What? Why?' the pill was stuck to my tongue and I could not produce enough saliva to unstick it.
'The last time you took drugs you turned an entire crime cartel against you, I don't want to know what you will do next.'
'It's just an upper to keep me going.'
'You will spit that pill out this very instant or I will kill you my self.'
'I just fell asleep. I was not even tired. I need all the help I can get.'
'You fell asleep because you took drugs in the first place you idiot. Spit it out. Now.'
I cranked open the window and spent the next minute spitting out the pill that had glued itself into my mouth.
'That's better.' she said. 'When we are back at my home we'll give you a strong coffee and a shot of vodka. That's all the uppers you'll need.'
I sulked for a couple of minutes until I remembered our luggage.
'What are we going to do with the large guy?' I asked.
'We will interrogate him to find out who paid him to get you. Then we'll get rid of him and be on our merry way.'
I did not like the sound of that. With each step I took trying to get my self out of this mess I seemed to just get myself into a position even worse than the one where I had started. From pianist, to escapee, to assassin of crime lords.
Suddenly being a burnt out musician in a third rate brothel sounded rather nice.
Monday, 27 December 2010
Monday, 13 December 2010
Project Rain 11
Chapter 8 continued
'The gravity dampers on my gun are detachable. It should be pretty easy to strop them to the plug-in. Then we just have to haul it to the car.' I suppressed the urge to add a 'Right?' at the end of that sentence. I felt that manly confidence was the best way to go.
'And where will the dampers get their power from?' Petrova made a point of examining the metal cylinder with great care.
'Power?' I had to control y voice to keep it from breaking.
'Yes. Power. Did you really think you get to break a fundamental law of nature for free?'
'I actually had never thought about that.'
'You do give a lot of things no thought, don't you?'
'That is a bit unfair. I am under a lot of stress here. It seems that everyone but the Triads are trying to kill me. Which isn't really helping my thought process. And really as long as it works' I gestured towards my gun that she was still hanging from her belt 'I really don't care how it works.' She rolled her eyes and started pacing up and down the pawn shops little vault. Two and a half steps up, two and a half steps down. Cursing under her breath pausing every once in a while to look at the plug-in and shake her head at me.
'How about this' I said 'I get us a couple of crowbars. We can use them as levers to get the plug in out. Then we just roll the thing to the car. Case closed.'
'Yes why don't we just drop a priceless cylinder stuffed full of fragile gears to the ground and roll it around in the dirt a bit.' her reserves of scorn seemed limitless.
'Fine. I'm not a tech guy. But you are hardly helping, are you? I can be sarcastic all on my own I really don't need your help for that. I need your help with this.' I pointed at the plug in.
She cursed.
'You wait here I will go and look if I can't find something useful.' she turned around and stalked out of the vault.
'Wait!' I called after her. 'My gun.'
Another judgement by glances only this time she gave me a court nod and handed me my pistol. I pushed the deposit box shut. Which gave me an idea. I ran after Petrova to share my latest brilliant idea.
She was upstairs browsing through all the junk that was ready to find a new owner looking for something she might use. She was in a state of constant head-shaking. When it came to look utterly disappointed with nice dash general disgust she could have given my father a run for his money.
'I think I might have thought of something.' I said.
'I admire your courage. What's it this time? Tiny helicopters?'
'No. I just noticed that the secure box which is holding the plug in is really easy to open and close.' One eye brow moved up and one corner of her mouth went down. 'No hear me out. When I dumped the plug-in into the deposit box it did not budge a bit. So I would guess that it has got its own gravity dampers.'
'Sounds plausible.' her eye brow and her mouth corner moved closer together again.
'OK. Those things are built to take a lot of punishment from outside. But not from the inside. I mean' I dropped my voice a few notches, the owner of the pawn shop was browsing some magazine but I really did not want to risk him overhear my fabulous plan 'who ever opens a safe deposit box and then tries to steal it?'
'I see where this is going but there is still the problems with the...' now her face was almost neutral. Just her crossed arms needed some more convincing.
'The energy I know. What ever reduces those drawers light is probably hooked to an external power-supply. But we could get a battery or something and hook it up to it. Right?' as manly as the class nerd eager to please the teacher.
'Hmmm... Yes that might work. OK. You know this place better than I. I need a charged high power battery. Do you know where we can get one?'
'Certainly. The Square of Desires is not 100 meters from here and on its market we should be able to get one of those without a problem.'
A tiny smile appeared on her face. 'Right let's go then.'
It did not take long to find a stall on the market selling all kinds of car related junk. Petrova had come up with a good enough cover story about a ridiculously overpowered quadrophonic sound system for her car which needed some serious juice. The vendor was all to happy to oblige her and was scuttling all over his stall like an over exited capitalist hamster unloading some of his choice morsels in front of her. She produced some kind of measuring device from her tool-belt. It looked like a cyborg popsicle with rainbow coloured wires for hair. She attached some of the wires to the first battery on offer. A solid silver ring the size of a small fist. She watched the data parade over the little devices screen while it made a rather sad noise that went from low to lower. Pertrova looked at the vendor, she sighed deeply and her eyes went to do their grisly work. They took the man's head and started to make a brain omelette.
'I could have better performance using a potato and a lemon. This does not make me want to buy your shit it makes me want to set you on fire.' The man looked slightly nervous and started to tell her how that was actually a very cost efficient device, but Petrova just silenced him with a glance. Now she tried a smile. It was mostly a baring of teeth.
'I am a reasonable person. So I will give you one more chance before I go somewhere else. Try and give me a really good battery. So far I am not very impressed with your performance.' her voice had gone from icy to malicious innuendo, 'So just try to think of what impression you are giving when presenting me with this tiny, useless, shrivelled piece of shit.' she opened her hand letting the battery fall down with an audible crash onto the stall, her eyes fixed into those of the vendor. The man had gone through some rather impressive colour changes in the last few seconds. A chameleon witnessing this would have probably turned green in envy and felt inadequate about that too.
In the end he produced some below the counter batteries which elicited some slightly bored coos from the little device. Good enough.
We were walking back to the pawn shop when a large man stopped us. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat against the rain and a long coat to conceal his arsenal of weapons. Either that or he disliked leaving his house without his golf clubs.
'Piss off missy.' he was also very charming.
'And a good evening to you to.' I said while keeping an eye on Petrova who I was sure was already planning a murder.
'Shut up Kane. You're coming with me now. Nice and quiet and we will see that your girlfriend here goes home in one piece.'
'See I told you I was famous.' I told Petrova using this to have a proper look at her and see if there was someone behind us that might be a colleague of the large man. Petrova to my surprise looked terrified. But at least the streeth behind us seemed to be clear. There where only the usual patrons of Leftover street who now minded their own business with utmost concentration.
'Now missy do piss off before daddy gets angry!'
'Oh... OK... Just please don't hurt me... Sir.'
I started to believe that I had slipped into a parallel dimension. The new Petrova retreated hastily backwards almost falling down in the process.
'Now to you Kane. Are you going to come with me or do I have to beat you up a bit first?'
I answered that by pulling out my gun.
'How about you turn around and piss off mate?' I said.
I just got an ugly smile full of ugly teeth as an answer.
'Don't think I will shoot you.' as I said that I pushed the button that let the laser aim points light up for dramatic effect.
The large man was still not impressed. He pointed with one thumb over his shoulder saying: 'And you should not think that 'I have come alone to get you.' Taking a step back to avoid a surprise attack I looked up to where he was pointing. Far above the ground sticking to the wall like a strange bug was another person. Clad in black wielding a rather evil looking rifle. The sniper also turned on his laser sight for dramatic effect. That worked pretty well I had to admit. Then he exploded. Also very surprising but not as intimidating. The large man hearing the explosion turn around with one of his hands moving inside of his coat.
That was all the invitation I needed. I covered the distance between us with all the sweaty nervous excitement that comes with an old fashioned rush of adrenalin. I raised my arm holding my gun high into the air ready to strike. The large man turned around to me again his eyes still wide in surprise. When he saw me coming he pulled his arm up with shocking speed intercepting the gun on its way towards his face. When the the practically weightless barrel was slowed down by the block it released its entire mass again. The gun broke through the bones pulverizing them and there was still enough momentum left to smash right into the large man's face sending him into the ground in an awkward pirouette leaving a spiral trail of blood spit and broken tears.
The passerbys had all frozen for a shocked second when they suddenly remembered that they had some pressing business to attend to far away. Petrova walked back to me her rifle leaning over her shoulder.
'Well done Kane. If a bit excessive.'
'Excessive? You just made that sniper explode!'
She shrugged. 'Explosive rounds tend to do that. He still alive?' she prodded the prone figure with the tip of her boot. There were some gurgling noises coming from the heap that had once been the large man. 'Brilliant. We'll take him with us.'
I had to agree with her 'Some answers would be nice for a change.' I could not shake the feeling that things were going more and more out of control with every passing moment.
'Can you drive?' she asked?
'Sure.'
'OK you get the car then. You pack this idiot into the boot.' another prod with the boot. 'While I try to modify drawer in the pawn shop.'
I got the car. Shoved the still unconscious puddle of a man into the boot. Tied his hand and feet with the the car's jumper cable to avoid some unpleasant jack-in-the-box action later. That done I drove back to the pawnshop. Inside Petrova was working on the safe deposit box.
'Will it work?' I asked.
'I think it will. The dampers are integrated into the drawer itself and the connection to the mains is actually pretty straight forward. And the best part is that the boxes are actually made to be easily removed. Looks like we can leave the cover plate intact. No one will even notice that we took it.'
'Brilliant. I brought a tarpaulin to cover our new toy.' bought for one measly credit from this very pawn-shop.
'Good thinking Kane.'
Five minutes later we were hauling out the plug-in with its new handy drawer. The gravity damping was not as good as with the carrying case, but at least we were able to get it out. I checked out my 'parcel' paying for the day it had been in the vault and because I felt guilty about demolishing the shop I had left 250 Credits behind the cover plate of my former safe deposit box.
Then we were of on the streets again with a failed murdered in the boot, a miracle of modern technology on the back seat and a goal before our eyes. Now we could finally go and teach a terraformer how to speak.
'The gravity dampers on my gun are detachable. It should be pretty easy to strop them to the plug-in. Then we just have to haul it to the car.' I suppressed the urge to add a 'Right?' at the end of that sentence. I felt that manly confidence was the best way to go.
'And where will the dampers get their power from?' Petrova made a point of examining the metal cylinder with great care.
'Power?' I had to control y voice to keep it from breaking.
'Yes. Power. Did you really think you get to break a fundamental law of nature for free?'
'I actually had never thought about that.'
'You do give a lot of things no thought, don't you?'
'That is a bit unfair. I am under a lot of stress here. It seems that everyone but the Triads are trying to kill me. Which isn't really helping my thought process. And really as long as it works' I gestured towards my gun that she was still hanging from her belt 'I really don't care how it works.' She rolled her eyes and started pacing up and down the pawn shops little vault. Two and a half steps up, two and a half steps down. Cursing under her breath pausing every once in a while to look at the plug-in and shake her head at me.
'How about this' I said 'I get us a couple of crowbars. We can use them as levers to get the plug in out. Then we just roll the thing to the car. Case closed.'
'Yes why don't we just drop a priceless cylinder stuffed full of fragile gears to the ground and roll it around in the dirt a bit.' her reserves of scorn seemed limitless.
'Fine. I'm not a tech guy. But you are hardly helping, are you? I can be sarcastic all on my own I really don't need your help for that. I need your help with this.' I pointed at the plug in.
She cursed.
'You wait here I will go and look if I can't find something useful.' she turned around and stalked out of the vault.
'Wait!' I called after her. 'My gun.'
Another judgement by glances only this time she gave me a court nod and handed me my pistol. I pushed the deposit box shut. Which gave me an idea. I ran after Petrova to share my latest brilliant idea.
She was upstairs browsing through all the junk that was ready to find a new owner looking for something she might use. She was in a state of constant head-shaking. When it came to look utterly disappointed with nice dash general disgust she could have given my father a run for his money.
'I think I might have thought of something.' I said.
'I admire your courage. What's it this time? Tiny helicopters?'
'No. I just noticed that the secure box which is holding the plug in is really easy to open and close.' One eye brow moved up and one corner of her mouth went down. 'No hear me out. When I dumped the plug-in into the deposit box it did not budge a bit. So I would guess that it has got its own gravity dampers.'
'Sounds plausible.' her eye brow and her mouth corner moved closer together again.
'OK. Those things are built to take a lot of punishment from outside. But not from the inside. I mean' I dropped my voice a few notches, the owner of the pawn shop was browsing some magazine but I really did not want to risk him overhear my fabulous plan 'who ever opens a safe deposit box and then tries to steal it?'
'I see where this is going but there is still the problems with the...' now her face was almost neutral. Just her crossed arms needed some more convincing.
'The energy I know. What ever reduces those drawers light is probably hooked to an external power-supply. But we could get a battery or something and hook it up to it. Right?' as manly as the class nerd eager to please the teacher.
'Hmmm... Yes that might work. OK. You know this place better than I. I need a charged high power battery. Do you know where we can get one?'
'Certainly. The Square of Desires is not 100 meters from here and on its market we should be able to get one of those without a problem.'
A tiny smile appeared on her face. 'Right let's go then.'
It did not take long to find a stall on the market selling all kinds of car related junk. Petrova had come up with a good enough cover story about a ridiculously overpowered quadrophonic sound system for her car which needed some serious juice. The vendor was all to happy to oblige her and was scuttling all over his stall like an over exited capitalist hamster unloading some of his choice morsels in front of her. She produced some kind of measuring device from her tool-belt. It looked like a cyborg popsicle with rainbow coloured wires for hair. She attached some of the wires to the first battery on offer. A solid silver ring the size of a small fist. She watched the data parade over the little devices screen while it made a rather sad noise that went from low to lower. Pertrova looked at the vendor, she sighed deeply and her eyes went to do their grisly work. They took the man's head and started to make a brain omelette.
'I could have better performance using a potato and a lemon. This does not make me want to buy your shit it makes me want to set you on fire.' The man looked slightly nervous and started to tell her how that was actually a very cost efficient device, but Petrova just silenced him with a glance. Now she tried a smile. It was mostly a baring of teeth.
'I am a reasonable person. So I will give you one more chance before I go somewhere else. Try and give me a really good battery. So far I am not very impressed with your performance.' her voice had gone from icy to malicious innuendo, 'So just try to think of what impression you are giving when presenting me with this tiny, useless, shrivelled piece of shit.' she opened her hand letting the battery fall down with an audible crash onto the stall, her eyes fixed into those of the vendor. The man had gone through some rather impressive colour changes in the last few seconds. A chameleon witnessing this would have probably turned green in envy and felt inadequate about that too.
In the end he produced some below the counter batteries which elicited some slightly bored coos from the little device. Good enough.
We were walking back to the pawn shop when a large man stopped us. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat against the rain and a long coat to conceal his arsenal of weapons. Either that or he disliked leaving his house without his golf clubs.
'Piss off missy.' he was also very charming.
'And a good evening to you to.' I said while keeping an eye on Petrova who I was sure was already planning a murder.
'Shut up Kane. You're coming with me now. Nice and quiet and we will see that your girlfriend here goes home in one piece.'
'See I told you I was famous.' I told Petrova using this to have a proper look at her and see if there was someone behind us that might be a colleague of the large man. Petrova to my surprise looked terrified. But at least the streeth behind us seemed to be clear. There where only the usual patrons of Leftover street who now minded their own business with utmost concentration.
'Now missy do piss off before daddy gets angry!'
'Oh... OK... Just please don't hurt me... Sir.'
I started to believe that I had slipped into a parallel dimension. The new Petrova retreated hastily backwards almost falling down in the process.
'Now to you Kane. Are you going to come with me or do I have to beat you up a bit first?'
I answered that by pulling out my gun.
'How about you turn around and piss off mate?' I said.
I just got an ugly smile full of ugly teeth as an answer.
'Don't think I will shoot you.' as I said that I pushed the button that let the laser aim points light up for dramatic effect.
The large man was still not impressed. He pointed with one thumb over his shoulder saying: 'And you should not think that 'I have come alone to get you.' Taking a step back to avoid a surprise attack I looked up to where he was pointing. Far above the ground sticking to the wall like a strange bug was another person. Clad in black wielding a rather evil looking rifle. The sniper also turned on his laser sight for dramatic effect. That worked pretty well I had to admit. Then he exploded. Also very surprising but not as intimidating. The large man hearing the explosion turn around with one of his hands moving inside of his coat.
That was all the invitation I needed. I covered the distance between us with all the sweaty nervous excitement that comes with an old fashioned rush of adrenalin. I raised my arm holding my gun high into the air ready to strike. The large man turned around to me again his eyes still wide in surprise. When he saw me coming he pulled his arm up with shocking speed intercepting the gun on its way towards his face. When the the practically weightless barrel was slowed down by the block it released its entire mass again. The gun broke through the bones pulverizing them and there was still enough momentum left to smash right into the large man's face sending him into the ground in an awkward pirouette leaving a spiral trail of blood spit and broken tears.
The passerbys had all frozen for a shocked second when they suddenly remembered that they had some pressing business to attend to far away. Petrova walked back to me her rifle leaning over her shoulder.
'Well done Kane. If a bit excessive.'
'Excessive? You just made that sniper explode!'
She shrugged. 'Explosive rounds tend to do that. He still alive?' she prodded the prone figure with the tip of her boot. There were some gurgling noises coming from the heap that had once been the large man. 'Brilliant. We'll take him with us.'
I had to agree with her 'Some answers would be nice for a change.' I could not shake the feeling that things were going more and more out of control with every passing moment.
'Can you drive?' she asked?
'Sure.'
'OK you get the car then. You pack this idiot into the boot.' another prod with the boot. 'While I try to modify drawer in the pawn shop.'
I got the car. Shoved the still unconscious puddle of a man into the boot. Tied his hand and feet with the the car's jumper cable to avoid some unpleasant jack-in-the-box action later. That done I drove back to the pawnshop. Inside Petrova was working on the safe deposit box.
'Will it work?' I asked.
'I think it will. The dampers are integrated into the drawer itself and the connection to the mains is actually pretty straight forward. And the best part is that the boxes are actually made to be easily removed. Looks like we can leave the cover plate intact. No one will even notice that we took it.'
'Brilliant. I brought a tarpaulin to cover our new toy.' bought for one measly credit from this very pawn-shop.
'Good thinking Kane.'
Five minutes later we were hauling out the plug-in with its new handy drawer. The gravity damping was not as good as with the carrying case, but at least we were able to get it out. I checked out my 'parcel' paying for the day it had been in the vault and because I felt guilty about demolishing the shop I had left 250 Credits behind the cover plate of my former safe deposit box.
Then we were of on the streets again with a failed murdered in the boot, a miracle of modern technology on the back seat and a goal before our eyes. Now we could finally go and teach a terraformer how to speak.
Project Rain 10
Chapter 8
Her shower was a shower-head with attachment for a large white metal bathtub with cast iron lions feet. Perfect. I was in no shape to stand for longer periods of time so I was happy to simply sit in the tub having hot water rain down on me slowly washing away the stench. I had a bush on a long handle one you'd use to scrub hard to reach parts on your back. I used it simply to reach parts. Moving the brush symbolically, leaving soapy trails on my skin. I watched how the soap tracks dissolve. Life was good. For a while.
I could not stay here forever as nice as it was I, no, we had to keep going.
When I got out of the bathroom Katja Petrova was already waiting for me. She was the picture of a modern adventurer. With a long leather jacket, a tool belt full of gleaming steel and her pet rifle slung over her shoulder.
'So where is that plug-in of yours?'
'I left it in a safe deposit box in a pawn shop near Old Town back in the European sector. And where is my gun?'
She moved her jacket back over her tool belt revealing my gun hanging between a hammer and something that looked like the love child between a lighter and an anteater.
'I kinda need that gun.'
'And I kinda need to trust you first.'
'Fair enough. I guess.'
She turned around walking to the stairs.
'Follow me, we'll take my car.'
'Good I haven't bought mine yet.'
Soon after we were thundering back towards Old Town in her monstrous car. Most cars here were electric cars they were almost silent very powerful and there was a public power socket at every street corner. Electricity being one of the many products that the terraformers produced in almost limitless amounts. But Miss Petrova drove an enormous four seater with a combustion engine that burned alcohol.
'Isn't it expensive to run a car like this?'
'A combustion car? Not really. More expensive than free but I mostly drive for the pleasure. Public transport is everywhere and it is boring. So when I do get out for my free time I like to be either on my own or with the people I wish to travel with. Also just listen to it!' As she said that she floored the accelerator changing the low murmur of the cars engine into a high pitched turbine noise. It also left my inner organs in the boot. I had to fight the urge to undrink my coffee.
'Very impressive but could you go a bit easier. I am still not feeling that well.'
'You are doing pretty well for the state you were in yesterday. That's quite impressive.'
'Enhanced liver.'
'You were a soldier.' it sounded genuinely surprised which I found genuinely offensive.
'No, I was rich.'
'Really? So how comes that you did end up working on a train?'
'What?'
'You said you were a conductor.'
She and my dignity were in a street brawl and right now she was bashing its face repeatedly into a brick wall.
'I was a conductor of an orchestra.'
'For one of the big ones?'
'The Addis Abeba Royal Orchestra.'
This did elicited a whistle. A hand was offered to my dignity.
'So how did you fuck that up ended drunk and wet at my doorstep?' and a straight to the chin.
'Long story.'
'Can wait. Open the glove box and hand me the bottle with the skull on it.'
'What's that?' it was filled with a clear liquid and sealed with a cork.'
'Fuel for the car. Another plus. I can make it myself. Bit of a hobby. And I'll need it. This is my favourite part.'
She uncorked the bottle with her teeth as we turned a corner. Before us stretched the bridge back to Old Town. She spit the cork into my general direction and took a large swig from the bottle and made a satisfied roaring noise.
'Hold on to your internal organs Kane.'
She floored the accelerator again and then it seemed she pushed it right through the floor as the car just kept accelerating. As I started vanishing into my seat my life had a quick glance out of my eyes to see if it was time to wander up and down before my eyes again but just shrugged and went back inside. The lights of the bridge rushed by so fast that they turned into lines. We past the spot where the triad wagon must have exploded but there was only a bit where there were no lights. A short flash of darkness but nothing else.
Not long after we were standing in front of an open safe deposit box looking at the plug-in.
'What the fuck is that supposed to mean Kane?' Petrova gestured towards the glinting cylinder.
'That's the speech thing I told you about. Why? Is something wrong with it?'
'As far as I can tell it's fine. But where the fuck is its carrying case?'
'Oh that. Well I took it with me and then detonated it.'
'You did what?' her eye brows narrowed and went up a bit creating a small vertical wrinkle on her brow that looked like it could crush stones.
'I made it explode. To get rid of some Triads. I'm pretty sure that they were going to kill me.'
'And how do you suppose are we going to get that thing out to the car let alone to any terraformer.'
'I thought about carrying it.'
'Really. Have you tried lifting it?'
'Well...'
'Go on try it.'
I tried. It did not move. At all. It sat snugly in its safe deposit box, tipping it into it had been easy enough. But now it was the very idea of unmovable. Theologians would have used it on their god asking Him Her or It to move it to prove their divine power.
'Oh..'
Her shower was a shower-head with attachment for a large white metal bathtub with cast iron lions feet. Perfect. I was in no shape to stand for longer periods of time so I was happy to simply sit in the tub having hot water rain down on me slowly washing away the stench. I had a bush on a long handle one you'd use to scrub hard to reach parts on your back. I used it simply to reach parts. Moving the brush symbolically, leaving soapy trails on my skin. I watched how the soap tracks dissolve. Life was good. For a while.
I could not stay here forever as nice as it was I, no, we had to keep going.
When I got out of the bathroom Katja Petrova was already waiting for me. She was the picture of a modern adventurer. With a long leather jacket, a tool belt full of gleaming steel and her pet rifle slung over her shoulder.
'So where is that plug-in of yours?'
'I left it in a safe deposit box in a pawn shop near Old Town back in the European sector. And where is my gun?'
She moved her jacket back over her tool belt revealing my gun hanging between a hammer and something that looked like the love child between a lighter and an anteater.
'I kinda need that gun.'
'And I kinda need to trust you first.'
'Fair enough. I guess.'
She turned around walking to the stairs.
'Follow me, we'll take my car.'
'Good I haven't bought mine yet.'
Soon after we were thundering back towards Old Town in her monstrous car. Most cars here were electric cars they were almost silent very powerful and there was a public power socket at every street corner. Electricity being one of the many products that the terraformers produced in almost limitless amounts. But Miss Petrova drove an enormous four seater with a combustion engine that burned alcohol.
'Isn't it expensive to run a car like this?'
'A combustion car? Not really. More expensive than free but I mostly drive for the pleasure. Public transport is everywhere and it is boring. So when I do get out for my free time I like to be either on my own or with the people I wish to travel with. Also just listen to it!' As she said that she floored the accelerator changing the low murmur of the cars engine into a high pitched turbine noise. It also left my inner organs in the boot. I had to fight the urge to undrink my coffee.
'Very impressive but could you go a bit easier. I am still not feeling that well.'
'You are doing pretty well for the state you were in yesterday. That's quite impressive.'
'Enhanced liver.'
'You were a soldier.' it sounded genuinely surprised which I found genuinely offensive.
'No, I was rich.'
'Really? So how comes that you did end up working on a train?'
'What?'
'You said you were a conductor.'
She and my dignity were in a street brawl and right now she was bashing its face repeatedly into a brick wall.
'I was a conductor of an orchestra.'
'For one of the big ones?'
'The Addis Abeba Royal Orchestra.'
This did elicited a whistle. A hand was offered to my dignity.
'So how did you fuck that up ended drunk and wet at my doorstep?' and a straight to the chin.
'Long story.'
'Can wait. Open the glove box and hand me the bottle with the skull on it.'
'What's that?' it was filled with a clear liquid and sealed with a cork.'
'Fuel for the car. Another plus. I can make it myself. Bit of a hobby. And I'll need it. This is my favourite part.'
She uncorked the bottle with her teeth as we turned a corner. Before us stretched the bridge back to Old Town. She spit the cork into my general direction and took a large swig from the bottle and made a satisfied roaring noise.
'Hold on to your internal organs Kane.'
She floored the accelerator again and then it seemed she pushed it right through the floor as the car just kept accelerating. As I started vanishing into my seat my life had a quick glance out of my eyes to see if it was time to wander up and down before my eyes again but just shrugged and went back inside. The lights of the bridge rushed by so fast that they turned into lines. We past the spot where the triad wagon must have exploded but there was only a bit where there were no lights. A short flash of darkness but nothing else.
Not long after we were standing in front of an open safe deposit box looking at the plug-in.
'What the fuck is that supposed to mean Kane?' Petrova gestured towards the glinting cylinder.
'That's the speech thing I told you about. Why? Is something wrong with it?'
'As far as I can tell it's fine. But where the fuck is its carrying case?'
'Oh that. Well I took it with me and then detonated it.'
'You did what?' her eye brows narrowed and went up a bit creating a small vertical wrinkle on her brow that looked like it could crush stones.
'I made it explode. To get rid of some Triads. I'm pretty sure that they were going to kill me.'
'And how do you suppose are we going to get that thing out to the car let alone to any terraformer.'
'I thought about carrying it.'
'Really. Have you tried lifting it?'
'Well...'
'Go on try it.'
I tried. It did not move. At all. It sat snugly in its safe deposit box, tipping it into it had been easy enough. But now it was the very idea of unmovable. Theologians would have used it on their god asking Him Her or It to move it to prove their divine power.
'Oh..'
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Project Rain 9
Chapter 7 continued
Not long afterwards I was slumped on a chair almost lying on the table before me, huddled over a steaming mug of coffee inhaling the steam rising from it. I made happy noises.
'So.' the woman that lived in the pair of boots said after watching for a while. 'To what do I owe the honour of being assaulted by drunk maniac in the middle of the night.'
I was about to answer but she was just getting started.
'A drunk on drugs and wet like something that the cat dragged out of a storm drain. And.' Dramatic pause. Suggesting a humiliating punchline. 'Someone who seems to be training for the projectile vomiting championship.' OK that's a bit awkward. 'All over my entrance stairway corridor and in the end bathroom.' Shame strode boldly into the room and pinched me in the cheek, telling me how much I had grown. I let my glances wander slowly towards where the woman sat, but then they reached her slightly trembling fist got scared and hid behind the coffee mug again.
'Look. I'm very sorry about that. I... I will clean up the mess. I promise. But it...' She just laughed without humour.
'You were knocked out for almost 12 hours. I had to do it myself and I was tempted using you as a rag.'
Silence settled over us.
I knew that it was my turn to say something but what did you say in such a situation? I tried to sip the coffee. It was still hot and very strong. It tasted almost real. My body reluctantly accepted it. I tried again to look at my host. There were the piercing eyes from the entrance. Almost black in a pale face. The mouth a smirk.
I gritted my teeth against the drills working their way into my skull when ever I spoke.
'Let me try again. Hello. My name is Hamilton Kane. I am a conductor. I came here because you can help me with something that I have to do.'
'And what would that be?'
'I have to enter a terraformer.'
She snorted.
'Why should I help you with that. I'm an architect.'
'You need to work on your cover Mrs. Petrova.' I heroically lifted my head to meet her hard gaze straight on. It was like meeting a train straight on.
'I beg your pardon...' her voice carried enough ice to turn a desert into a clever metaphor.
"If you want people to think that you are innocent then you should say 'How could I help you' and not 'Why should I...'" suddenly her pet the rifle was on the table its muzzle hungry for my life.
'You test my patience Kane. Talk. Talk in a way that makes me want to kill you less.' her look were what a hit-man's look wanted to be when it grew up.
'You were recommended to me by Bryce Franklin. He told me that you were the person I had to talk to about terraformers.'
'Franklin is an idiot.'
'Yes his knowledge seems rather limited.' I had read in a women's magazine at my hair-dresser once that people liked it a lot when you simply rephrased what they had just said.
'Absolutely. He is always talking about stats, theories, stupid numbers. God that man is irritating.' Wow. Thank you Solar Lady!
'Wisearse but without any grounding in reality.'
'Absolutely. He always quotes his stupid manuals. And quote official top secret documentation unquote. As if that would make his regurgitated book knowledge more true. It's simply not true. Terraformers are immensely complex machines. Probably the most complicated machines humanity has ever build. Once you set such a system in motion things change. You have to adapt to the reality of the machines. If you just follow the fucking handbook you will end up with a disaster on your hands. I mean just look what happened with Harumadis in the European sector in Old Town. A bunch of suits with handbooks and regulations and quote maximum yield for minimum expense unquote strategies walk right in and try to dictate their ideas upon reality. In the end the fucking terraformer broke in fucking half. A machine designed to last tens of thousands of years destroyed in two and a half years!' She slammed her fist on the table sending the coffee mug and her rifle jumping in surprise and me in excruciating pain. I had created a monster. Thank you Solar Lady...
'I agree. He is not good enough. I need someone who knows how things really work. Which is why I am here. I need the advice f someone who actually knows how these things work.' that would had sounded better with me wincing.
'They work on their own. That's what they were made for. You stick them in the ground and they do the rest.'
'I know. But you can change them can't you?'
'I certainly can't.' she could not have distanced her self more from my implications if she had taken the next space train back to Earth.
'I mean hypothetically. There are functions that can be added. With plug-ins.'
'Actually it is more complicated than that. The terraformers are thousands of miles of analytical engines so their potential is almost limitless. The plug-in just tells them how to unlock a certain ability. You could theoretically teach them from scratch but...'
'Yes. Thank you. Fascinating.' And there was that icy stare again. She was like a cryogenic light house.
'I have a plug in.' there I said it.
She had her best Sunday poker face on but her eyes the little traitors were all round and full of stars.
'One that can teach a terraformer to speak.'
'How did you get such a thing?'
'Heirloom.' if my my deformed contact Kennedy could be a human this could be a truth.
'You inherited a Class A restricted piece of machine.' how dare that woman say that Kennedy was not a human!
'It's a long story and really not the important bit here. The important part is that I have this plug-in which I'd love to use.'
'What for?'
'I need help.'
'You seem to need a lot of that.'
'Yes. I do. People are trying to kill me.'
'Imagine that.'
'There is a price on my head. Hit men are after me. They all think I have some kind of vital information. But I have no idea what it is. I can't work it out myself. But with a terraformer to sift through what I know, to go through all permutations of possibilities... that way I might find something. My time is running out. Getting here was very hard.Everywhere I go there is someone already waiting ready to kill or torture me. I'd like to at least know why.'
I sat back. I was sick and tired but I was finished with snivelling.
'What you are planning is ridiculous. It is close to suicide.'
'I'm living on borrowed time anyway. I'd rather go down in flames than let myself being led to slaughter.'
She smiled.
'I like that.'
'Really?'
'Yes. Despite the way you look and act and smell there seems to be a man hidden somewhere inside you. Now drink your coffee while I prepare myself. Oh and feel free to take a shower.'
She got up and left me with my coffee. She paused when she was passing the door.
'And when I say feel free I mean do it or I'll kill you with a shovel.'
Not long afterwards I was slumped on a chair almost lying on the table before me, huddled over a steaming mug of coffee inhaling the steam rising from it. I made happy noises.
'So.' the woman that lived in the pair of boots said after watching for a while. 'To what do I owe the honour of being assaulted by drunk maniac in the middle of the night.'
I was about to answer but she was just getting started.
'A drunk on drugs and wet like something that the cat dragged out of a storm drain. And.' Dramatic pause. Suggesting a humiliating punchline. 'Someone who seems to be training for the projectile vomiting championship.' OK that's a bit awkward. 'All over my entrance stairway corridor and in the end bathroom.' Shame strode boldly into the room and pinched me in the cheek, telling me how much I had grown. I let my glances wander slowly towards where the woman sat, but then they reached her slightly trembling fist got scared and hid behind the coffee mug again.
'Look. I'm very sorry about that. I... I will clean up the mess. I promise. But it...' She just laughed without humour.
'You were knocked out for almost 12 hours. I had to do it myself and I was tempted using you as a rag.'
Silence settled over us.
I knew that it was my turn to say something but what did you say in such a situation? I tried to sip the coffee. It was still hot and very strong. It tasted almost real. My body reluctantly accepted it. I tried again to look at my host. There were the piercing eyes from the entrance. Almost black in a pale face. The mouth a smirk.
I gritted my teeth against the drills working their way into my skull when ever I spoke.
'Let me try again. Hello. My name is Hamilton Kane. I am a conductor. I came here because you can help me with something that I have to do.'
'And what would that be?'
'I have to enter a terraformer.'
She snorted.
'Why should I help you with that. I'm an architect.'
'You need to work on your cover Mrs. Petrova.' I heroically lifted my head to meet her hard gaze straight on. It was like meeting a train straight on.
'I beg your pardon...' her voice carried enough ice to turn a desert into a clever metaphor.
"If you want people to think that you are innocent then you should say 'How could I help you' and not 'Why should I...'" suddenly her pet the rifle was on the table its muzzle hungry for my life.
'You test my patience Kane. Talk. Talk in a way that makes me want to kill you less.' her look were what a hit-man's look wanted to be when it grew up.
'You were recommended to me by Bryce Franklin. He told me that you were the person I had to talk to about terraformers.'
'Franklin is an idiot.'
'Yes his knowledge seems rather limited.' I had read in a women's magazine at my hair-dresser once that people liked it a lot when you simply rephrased what they had just said.
'Absolutely. He is always talking about stats, theories, stupid numbers. God that man is irritating.' Wow. Thank you Solar Lady!
'Wisearse but without any grounding in reality.'
'Absolutely. He always quotes his stupid manuals. And quote official top secret documentation unquote. As if that would make his regurgitated book knowledge more true. It's simply not true. Terraformers are immensely complex machines. Probably the most complicated machines humanity has ever build. Once you set such a system in motion things change. You have to adapt to the reality of the machines. If you just follow the fucking handbook you will end up with a disaster on your hands. I mean just look what happened with Harumadis in the European sector in Old Town. A bunch of suits with handbooks and regulations and quote maximum yield for minimum expense unquote strategies walk right in and try to dictate their ideas upon reality. In the end the fucking terraformer broke in fucking half. A machine designed to last tens of thousands of years destroyed in two and a half years!' She slammed her fist on the table sending the coffee mug and her rifle jumping in surprise and me in excruciating pain. I had created a monster. Thank you Solar Lady...
'I agree. He is not good enough. I need someone who knows how things really work. Which is why I am here. I need the advice f someone who actually knows how these things work.' that would had sounded better with me wincing.
'They work on their own. That's what they were made for. You stick them in the ground and they do the rest.'
'I know. But you can change them can't you?'
'I certainly can't.' she could not have distanced her self more from my implications if she had taken the next space train back to Earth.
'I mean hypothetically. There are functions that can be added. With plug-ins.'
'Actually it is more complicated than that. The terraformers are thousands of miles of analytical engines so their potential is almost limitless. The plug-in just tells them how to unlock a certain ability. You could theoretically teach them from scratch but...'
'Yes. Thank you. Fascinating.' And there was that icy stare again. She was like a cryogenic light house.
'I have a plug in.' there I said it.
She had her best Sunday poker face on but her eyes the little traitors were all round and full of stars.
'One that can teach a terraformer to speak.'
'How did you get such a thing?'
'Heirloom.' if my my deformed contact Kennedy could be a human this could be a truth.
'You inherited a Class A restricted piece of machine.' how dare that woman say that Kennedy was not a human!
'It's a long story and really not the important bit here. The important part is that I have this plug-in which I'd love to use.'
'What for?'
'I need help.'
'You seem to need a lot of that.'
'Yes. I do. People are trying to kill me.'
'Imagine that.'
'There is a price on my head. Hit men are after me. They all think I have some kind of vital information. But I have no idea what it is. I can't work it out myself. But with a terraformer to sift through what I know, to go through all permutations of possibilities... that way I might find something. My time is running out. Getting here was very hard.Everywhere I go there is someone already waiting ready to kill or torture me. I'd like to at least know why.'
I sat back. I was sick and tired but I was finished with snivelling.
'What you are planning is ridiculous. It is close to suicide.'
'I'm living on borrowed time anyway. I'd rather go down in flames than let myself being led to slaughter.'
She smiled.
'I like that.'
'Really?'
'Yes. Despite the way you look and act and smell there seems to be a man hidden somewhere inside you. Now drink your coffee while I prepare myself. Oh and feel free to take a shower.'
She got up and left me with my coffee. She paused when she was passing the door.
'And when I say feel free I mean do it or I'll kill you with a shovel.'
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Project Rain 8
Chapter 7 continued
I woke up to the worst hangover of my life. That was probably a lie as I was prone to some highly experimental freestyle partying when I was still young and successful, but right now I was pretty impressed by the constant super nova inside my head. I tried to sit up. A task which almost turned me into a puke fountain. But the cramps that ripped my insides apart informed me that I had already done my share of reverse feasting while I was still mostly unconscious. That left me only with dribbling bit of bile out of the corner of my mouth and hyperventilating to pass my time. I passed out again and found myself lying on the floor my face pressing into the rough carpet the next time I came to again. My left arm still resting on the sofa from which I must have fallen. Somewhere far away in the corner of the room lay a blanket in a disgusted pile. It had probably tried to get as far from me as possible. The air in the room was stale and had the acid smell of old sweat. Lovely.
The door opened sending in a wave of fresh air that mixed with that in the room somehow managing to smell even more offensive. Framed by the open door with dramatic back illumination stood a pair of dour looking boots. Staying close to the heels was the mean looking rifle barrel that had greeted me when I had arrived here. The boots move a couple of steps forward with the barrel jumping up and with to much enthusiasm for my flattened self took the lead. It had almost arrived in my face opening its large dark maw as if to sniff at me. I could smell a faint odour of CL20 the solid fuel that propelled its bullets. The boots restrained the over eager rifle.
'You are alive.' said the boots. Strange they had a woman’s voice. Still dangerous but more conspicuously hidden knife edges and less the ceramic capped shin breakers that I saw.
'Old habits die hard.'
'What do you want from me?'
'A coffee would be grand.'
'Do I look like a waitress to you?'
'No. You look like a pair of angry boots to me. But you asked and I thought it might be worth the risk. I had a rather rough night and went through some rather surprising lengths to find you.' I drooled a bit. 'I have different hangovers fighting a war of succession over my almost dead body. A coffee would be very nice.' Silence. 'I'd be your best friend forever?' I croaked.
I heard a contemptuous snort. Then the boots turned around and walked right out of the room. The evil rifle following it but not with out glancing in my direction every so often. The door slammed shut instantly sending whole factory loads of rusty nails and screws into my head. A whimper crawled out of my throat into safety. I started to empathise with Europa herself who had been viciously skewered by thousands of terraformers to make her more habitable to man kind. I was still wondering if that meant that I was now a hospitable place for lice to live on when the door opened again and the boots came back in. This time without the rifle. Instead they brought with them the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. My stomach was preparing to give me another mime show depicting the angry washing machine but my hippocampus campus told it to shut up and with its best 'Let this be a lesson to you' expression released a tiny bit of joy into my bloodstream.
I woke up to the worst hangover of my life. That was probably a lie as I was prone to some highly experimental freestyle partying when I was still young and successful, but right now I was pretty impressed by the constant super nova inside my head. I tried to sit up. A task which almost turned me into a puke fountain. But the cramps that ripped my insides apart informed me that I had already done my share of reverse feasting while I was still mostly unconscious. That left me only with dribbling bit of bile out of the corner of my mouth and hyperventilating to pass my time. I passed out again and found myself lying on the floor my face pressing into the rough carpet the next time I came to again. My left arm still resting on the sofa from which I must have fallen. Somewhere far away in the corner of the room lay a blanket in a disgusted pile. It had probably tried to get as far from me as possible. The air in the room was stale and had the acid smell of old sweat. Lovely.
The door opened sending in a wave of fresh air that mixed with that in the room somehow managing to smell even more offensive. Framed by the open door with dramatic back illumination stood a pair of dour looking boots. Staying close to the heels was the mean looking rifle barrel that had greeted me when I had arrived here. The boots move a couple of steps forward with the barrel jumping up and with to much enthusiasm for my flattened self took the lead. It had almost arrived in my face opening its large dark maw as if to sniff at me. I could smell a faint odour of CL20 the solid fuel that propelled its bullets. The boots restrained the over eager rifle.
'You are alive.' said the boots. Strange they had a woman’s voice. Still dangerous but more conspicuously hidden knife edges and less the ceramic capped shin breakers that I saw.
'Old habits die hard.'
'What do you want from me?'
'A coffee would be grand.'
'Do I look like a waitress to you?'
'No. You look like a pair of angry boots to me. But you asked and I thought it might be worth the risk. I had a rather rough night and went through some rather surprising lengths to find you.' I drooled a bit. 'I have different hangovers fighting a war of succession over my almost dead body. A coffee would be very nice.' Silence. 'I'd be your best friend forever?' I croaked.
I heard a contemptuous snort. Then the boots turned around and walked right out of the room. The evil rifle following it but not with out glancing in my direction every so often. The door slammed shut instantly sending whole factory loads of rusty nails and screws into my head. A whimper crawled out of my throat into safety. I started to empathise with Europa herself who had been viciously skewered by thousands of terraformers to make her more habitable to man kind. I was still wondering if that meant that I was now a hospitable place for lice to live on when the door opened again and the boots came back in. This time without the rifle. Instead they brought with them the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. My stomach was preparing to give me another mime show depicting the angry washing machine but my hippocampus campus told it to shut up and with its best 'Let this be a lesson to you' expression released a tiny bit of joy into my bloodstream.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Project Rain 7
Chapter 7
Warm.
Dark.
Weightless.
Also someone has filled my lungs with broken glass and now an angry giant is squeezing them with all his force. I open my eyes. I try screaming but now sound comes out of my mouth. Just bubbles.
I'm under water. Above me I see my voice floating towards the surface.
Panic pays me a visit but I tell it to fuck off. I focus and start ascending towards the surface. The desire to breath start to become overwhelming. I grit my teeth. Trying to exhale what little air I have left trying to trick my lungs into patience. The more I exhale now the more I can inhale once my head is out of the water again. It almost works but not quite. I start sucking in water through my teeth while panic kicks in the door demanding to be heard. My strokes turn into wild flaying as I start to breath in water. Not yet. Just one more second. A few centimetres. Liquid reaches my windpipe. I try to cough violently. Not easy with empty lungs. As I start to breathing a large mouthful of water I finally break the surface. Air. Sweet delicious air. And water droplets. I breath and cough and flail. It is all very undignified but also very alive. I start to calm down getting my movements under control and my coughs turn into gasps and then into normal breathing.
I'm alive.
Above me looms the open sky dominating by the impossibly large Jupiter staring at me with its one furious eye. Behind me the bridge extends seemingly into infinity vanishing in to the distant mist. High above the Triad wagon burns in silence. Down here I can only here the gentle patter of the rain on the water dyed in a warm flickering orange. I feel like shit. I grab into one of my pockets and extract a small plastic bag containing a choice collection of pills. As I open it most of the contents fall into the water. I don't care. The only important thing is that I get a couple of uppers. I know that its stupid to take even more drugs but with out them to keep me going the light less depths below me well get to have me to dinner after all. I'm not done yet. It only takes a minute before I feel wide awake and energized. I also hear my organs starting to write lengthy invoices. I will have to worry about them later. Now I have to get to the Russian sector. I start swimming with al the elegance of an otter, inside a sack of potatoes. I was never a great swimmer and time had not done my technique any favours. But it slowly got me where I had to go.
After an hour or so with only my guns awkward bobbing to keep me company I reach what goes for the waters edge here. A small platform built wearing the latest in algae fashion built around one of the Cyclopean pillars that holds the city securely in place. I spend some time slipping and falling on the slimy ground until I reach the ladder built into the side of the column. I grab hold of a metal rung and pull me up. Standing on the ladder I listen to my body. I tells me to go on. All is well.
The crash following this will be horrible. I have to hurry. I work my way up. It takes forever. And ends a man-hole cover. It's locked. This can't be happening. Now even the City is trying to kill me too? I force my self to stay calm climb a few more rungs and press my back against the cover. Nothing happens. I only feel the large steel ridges pressing harder into my back. This doesn't work. I reposition myself and look down. Cold terror grabs hold of my heart and begins to eat a few chunks. Bellow me is only endless darkeners shimmering very faintly as the water below reflects the light of Jupiter. I look up again. There close to my face I only see the light coming through the holes in the metal plate above me. This can't be. These ladders are mostly here for idiots like me who may fall off the city into the water below and survive. It should, no it must open from below. I pull out my gun and turn on its electric torch.
Ah.
A spring bolt. That does make sense. I slide it back and lo and behold the stupid man-hole cover opens. The lock is there to prevent idiots, drunk or otherwise mentally impaired just to open these things and plummet into their deaths. I crawl out of the floor feeling a wave of relieve now that I finally have solid ground under my feet again. I look around and find my self in a dark side alley but apart from me and my scary gun there is no one.
I move towards the brighter lit end of the alley finding myself on one of the main streets leading directly to the local terraformer. I am actually genuinely lucky for a change as I find my self not three blocks from Kiev station. While I would have preferred the ferry instead of being Shanghaied by the Chinese followed by a refreshing swim in the planet light I was actually faster this way. I walked down the main street concentrating on my goal hardly noticing the local architecture. While the United Empires of Europe had been busy building enormous sky scrapers as if they could not wait to get off their freshly colonized moon again the Russians had first settled on the ground and then carefully built their high rise cathedrals around the existing colonial houses.
This looked actually like a real city. While the ground level was as dilapidated as the rest of Europa it had maintained its dignity. Much like an old lady who may be all frail and wrinkly now but would at the slightest provocation uses her bag filled with broken bricks and powered by indignation to beat some manners into you.
After a bit of searching made more interesting by street signs written in Cyrillic I finally found the house of Katja Petrova. A nice cosy place. With two floors the first slightly elevated with a large faux wooden door holding court in the middle of the façade with eight stone steps as its throne surrounded by a halo of large windows, the ones in the first floor dark mirrors while the ones in the second floor were spilling warm light all over the street.
I walked up the steps feeling a light quivering in my legs. The uppers were finally wearing off. I rang the bell. Nothing. I rang it again more insistently this time. Still nothing. I knocked on the door. First with my fist then for a more dramatic effect by kicking the door and ringing the bell again for good measure. This was answered by a female voice cursing loudly inside the house followed by heavy steps on stairs.
The door swung open but there was no one standing behind it. There was a large rifle barrel resting on a counter that was behind the door at the side of stairs leading up, and behind that really very large barrel where a pair of furious eyes.
'Who the fuck are you and what do you want?' demanded angry little eyes.
'Katja Petrova?' I asked.
'Yes?'
'My name is Hamilton Kane and I am pleased to meet you.' now that etiquette had been satisfied I fell unconscious. Like a wet sack of potatoes. Without the otter.
Warm.
Dark.
Weightless.
Also someone has filled my lungs with broken glass and now an angry giant is squeezing them with all his force. I open my eyes. I try screaming but now sound comes out of my mouth. Just bubbles.
I'm under water. Above me I see my voice floating towards the surface.
Panic pays me a visit but I tell it to fuck off. I focus and start ascending towards the surface. The desire to breath start to become overwhelming. I grit my teeth. Trying to exhale what little air I have left trying to trick my lungs into patience. The more I exhale now the more I can inhale once my head is out of the water again. It almost works but not quite. I start sucking in water through my teeth while panic kicks in the door demanding to be heard. My strokes turn into wild flaying as I start to breath in water. Not yet. Just one more second. A few centimetres. Liquid reaches my windpipe. I try to cough violently. Not easy with empty lungs. As I start to breathing a large mouthful of water I finally break the surface. Air. Sweet delicious air. And water droplets. I breath and cough and flail. It is all very undignified but also very alive. I start to calm down getting my movements under control and my coughs turn into gasps and then into normal breathing.
I'm alive.
Above me looms the open sky dominating by the impossibly large Jupiter staring at me with its one furious eye. Behind me the bridge extends seemingly into infinity vanishing in to the distant mist. High above the Triad wagon burns in silence. Down here I can only here the gentle patter of the rain on the water dyed in a warm flickering orange. I feel like shit. I grab into one of my pockets and extract a small plastic bag containing a choice collection of pills. As I open it most of the contents fall into the water. I don't care. The only important thing is that I get a couple of uppers. I know that its stupid to take even more drugs but with out them to keep me going the light less depths below me well get to have me to dinner after all. I'm not done yet. It only takes a minute before I feel wide awake and energized. I also hear my organs starting to write lengthy invoices. I will have to worry about them later. Now I have to get to the Russian sector. I start swimming with al the elegance of an otter, inside a sack of potatoes. I was never a great swimmer and time had not done my technique any favours. But it slowly got me where I had to go.
After an hour or so with only my guns awkward bobbing to keep me company I reach what goes for the waters edge here. A small platform built wearing the latest in algae fashion built around one of the Cyclopean pillars that holds the city securely in place. I spend some time slipping and falling on the slimy ground until I reach the ladder built into the side of the column. I grab hold of a metal rung and pull me up. Standing on the ladder I listen to my body. I tells me to go on. All is well.
The crash following this will be horrible. I have to hurry. I work my way up. It takes forever. And ends a man-hole cover. It's locked. This can't be happening. Now even the City is trying to kill me too? I force my self to stay calm climb a few more rungs and press my back against the cover. Nothing happens. I only feel the large steel ridges pressing harder into my back. This doesn't work. I reposition myself and look down. Cold terror grabs hold of my heart and begins to eat a few chunks. Bellow me is only endless darkeners shimmering very faintly as the water below reflects the light of Jupiter. I look up again. There close to my face I only see the light coming through the holes in the metal plate above me. This can't be. These ladders are mostly here for idiots like me who may fall off the city into the water below and survive. It should, no it must open from below. I pull out my gun and turn on its electric torch.
Ah.
A spring bolt. That does make sense. I slide it back and lo and behold the stupid man-hole cover opens. The lock is there to prevent idiots, drunk or otherwise mentally impaired just to open these things and plummet into their deaths. I crawl out of the floor feeling a wave of relieve now that I finally have solid ground under my feet again. I look around and find my self in a dark side alley but apart from me and my scary gun there is no one.
I move towards the brighter lit end of the alley finding myself on one of the main streets leading directly to the local terraformer. I am actually genuinely lucky for a change as I find my self not three blocks from Kiev station. While I would have preferred the ferry instead of being Shanghaied by the Chinese followed by a refreshing swim in the planet light I was actually faster this way. I walked down the main street concentrating on my goal hardly noticing the local architecture. While the United Empires of Europe had been busy building enormous sky scrapers as if they could not wait to get off their freshly colonized moon again the Russians had first settled on the ground and then carefully built their high rise cathedrals around the existing colonial houses.
This looked actually like a real city. While the ground level was as dilapidated as the rest of Europa it had maintained its dignity. Much like an old lady who may be all frail and wrinkly now but would at the slightest provocation uses her bag filled with broken bricks and powered by indignation to beat some manners into you.
After a bit of searching made more interesting by street signs written in Cyrillic I finally found the house of Katja Petrova. A nice cosy place. With two floors the first slightly elevated with a large faux wooden door holding court in the middle of the façade with eight stone steps as its throne surrounded by a halo of large windows, the ones in the first floor dark mirrors while the ones in the second floor were spilling warm light all over the street.
I walked up the steps feeling a light quivering in my legs. The uppers were finally wearing off. I rang the bell. Nothing. I rang it again more insistently this time. Still nothing. I knocked on the door. First with my fist then for a more dramatic effect by kicking the door and ringing the bell again for good measure. This was answered by a female voice cursing loudly inside the house followed by heavy steps on stairs.
The door swung open but there was no one standing behind it. There was a large rifle barrel resting on a counter that was behind the door at the side of stairs leading up, and behind that really very large barrel where a pair of furious eyes.
'Who the fuck are you and what do you want?' demanded angry little eyes.
'Katja Petrova?' I asked.
'Yes?'
'My name is Hamilton Kane and I am pleased to meet you.' now that etiquette had been satisfied I fell unconscious. Like a wet sack of potatoes. Without the otter.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Project Rain 6
Chapter 6
I was lead upstairs into a narrow but comfortable room housing a very nice very mahogany table which sat smugly between two leather chairs. There was also a small bar housing a collection of rare liquid treasures that almost made me squeak in excitement. Instead I just stared at them. My host noticed my discrete glances and actually asked me if I wanted a drink.
Of course I wanted a drink.
'Only if you take one too, Mr...' I raised my eyebrows and left a name shaped hole open in our conversation.
'Sun.' I hoped that that was his name and that he was not trying to tell me that he would divulge his name soon.
'A pleasure Mr. Sun.'
He turned around busying himself with glasses and bottles.
'Ice?' he asked.
'No. No ice.'
I waited for Sun to sit down and take his first sip before I allowed my self to drink. Paranoid? Maybe, but in the last few hours three different parties had tried to kill me for reasons that escaped me even more than fame and glory. I took my sip. It was heaven. Complex and peaty with a spectacular finish that went on for ever. Bliss.
'... would you not agree?'
It seemed that Mr. Sun had been speaking for a while.
'Yes...?' it was worth a try.
'But why are so many killers after you?'
'I have no idea Mr. Sun. I play the piano in a really low class brothel. One with whores. Not hostesses, not escorts and not companions. The only place that is cheaper than the one I work at is the street corner. And while I might not be the greatest of all pianists I am really not bad enough for people to want to kill me.'
'So it seems. But things are often not as they seem, are they Mr. Kane.'
I was talking to a fortune cookie.
'By which you imply...?'
'Since the word spread that you are wanted dead by someone in a position most lofty I took an interest in you. It is most peculiar. First of all no one actually knows who is paying so much money for your life. The people I got to' he paused here for a moment looking up at the ceiling 'ask about it could just tell me about middle men and tempting offers on the clandestine message boards where wet-work is distributed among the day-labourers of the underworld.'
'And it's not even my birthday.'
Sun gave me one annoyed look but decided not to have my legs broken.
'Digging deeper into your personal life I did find that you have been boosting your rather tragic wage with trading information to various low level peons.'
'See? Low level. Nothing serious.'
'And yet a very influential player wants you dead. This leaves me with only one possible conclusion. You hold in your hands information so vital that it might topple one of the greater powers of Europa. And if this is the case I want that information.'
'It's not the case. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the person who wants to kill me is not with the Triads.'
'Why is that.'
'I'm sitting here. Drinking expensive Scotch and you haven't killed me.'
'Most astute. Yet this is hardly new to me. Look, Mr Kane, I am a reasonable man. All I want is the information that you are so zealously guarding.'
I saw where this was going and it was not a nice place. If at all possible it was a place that was even worse than the early grave that had been my destination so far.
'I am trying to give you a chance here. You can talk now. Or we will make you talk.'
I stood up walked over to the bar and poured me another drink. I fully intended to take advantage of the bar. My next drink would probably be a cocktail made from two parts blood and one part teeth. Thankfully the Übermensch was still whispering sweet nothings to my ego so that I kept my cool and my hand steady. Sun was a high level criminal wrapped in layers and layers of civilisation and style all in the hope to hide his rotten murderous core. But the monster he had turned into was looking at me from the depths of his eyes.
'You understand Mr. Sun that the information I am privy to is of a very delicate nature.' I'd play along.
I walked over to the window opposite to the table. A wonder of ceramics looking like lacquered wood and paper panes. I slid it open. No one protested. A bad sign. It meant that they did not really care if I saw were we were going.
'Every organisation needs its peons the henchmen the bouncers and leg-breakers. It is the foundation of every kind of organisation.' I turned around. Sun was looking at me the beast inside was now looking at me with deep fascination. Not quite sure if it was seeing a fellow predator or an exotic dinner.
'These people are the basis. The roots. Without them the entire structure would not hold. Do you know what I am Mr. Sun?'
Large eyes. No comprehension.
'What my job is?'
'I heard that you are a pianist.'
That one never stoped to sting. My temper flared as it always did when people called me a fucking pianist, third rate brothel pianist at that. Usually this made me bitter but thanks to my new pill shaped friends I felt indignation.
'I am a conductor.' My nose was so far up now that outside I would have drowned in the rain.
'10 years ago on Earth I went from one success to the next with the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Addis Abeba. And one thing I understand above all other things is polyphony. When you take each instrument isolate it, listening just to its part of a symphony you hear nothing. Just some random noises. If I may give you a piece of advice later when you torture me just get one tuba player and let him play his part of a concert in isolation. I guarantee that after 15 minutes everyone in the room will admit everything.'
Dramatic pause. Sun regarded me with great interest now. Even the man in green was taking notice of me. Usually bodyguards only see empty rooms or people that need to be severely beaten.
'The magic happens when all instruments play together in perfect harmony. Harmony. A word from music theory. When you understand how all the bits and pieces fit together only then you unlock the magnificence of music! And do you know how I do that? The piecing together? Seeing if it all works?'
Sun shook his head very slightly.
'In my head!' eyes wide, index fingers pointing at my brow.
He recoiled a tiny bit. That filled me with immense pleasure somehow. It also meant that for now I had a rapt audience. Enough time to make an escape plan. I started to pace up and down the room gesticulating with my glass working on my escape without rousing suspicion.
'That. That is my secret. When I was in that shit Brothel listening to low-life lackeys talking about their work when drunk on sex, drugs and alcohol I pieced together the symphony of power in this city. True I did not had all the parts. But puting it together piece by piece I started to see a theme emerging.' The theme being that I was fucked. The green guard was blocking the stairs. The other doors just lead into dead ends and the window was suicide.
'If you listen very closely you see the underlying currents. After that you only need to fill in the gaps.' I looked out of the window again in what I hoped would look like another dramatic pause. I drained half of my glass. I felt how my ego enhancing drugs where starting to quiver. We were driving down a lone bridge one of the few parts of the city where the space between two terraformers had not yet been covered by buildings. To my left I could see Old Town vanishing into the fog while to my right the lights of the Russian sector where looming ever nearer. Funny. They really were going in my direction.
'So.' Sun started to talk again. 'You managed to piece together some vital information just by what the henchmen were saying?' his voice was laden with doubt but it was carried by hope. The hope that wants to believe in that perfect scheme, in the pheromone perfume that will make you irresistible that still believes that Santa Clause might be real.
I snorted.
'Of course it is not that easy.' I decided to pepper my story with a bit of the truth. Meanwhile a plan was born. A horrible, a stupid plan. As Sherlock Holmes once said if you eliminate all impossibilities from a situation what remains no matter how stupid, is your plan. Or something like that.
'No I alone could not piece it together. It was just to vague and there were to many variables. I needed to get rid of the chaff. So I rented a terminal with high priority access to the analytical engines of the terraformer Poseidon and let it do the heavy lifting.'
I let Sun soak in the implications. Leaning out of the window I could see that we were getting closer to the edge of the Russian sector, the first buildings standing guard at the end of the bridge casting their neon light into the water below us. When I turned around no one was looking at me, instead all eyes where on my black carrying case.
'Inside that case is a storage cylinder which contains my information. I was still testing my predictions but it seems that what I had on my hands had enough of an impact to make someone very nervous. I had planned to analyse my data to see who it was.' Not the triads obviously. 'But then things got ugly.'
'Show it to me.' Sun was dribbling greed all over the floor.
'Of course Mr. Sun. I assume that you have access to high yield analytical engines?'
'It can be arranged' he said without his eyes still trying to stare open the case.
'Well.' I stepped forward. 'Let me show you my secret then.'
I opened the hidden compartment on the side of the case, dialed my code in and let the security system taste my blood. I stepped back from the clicking case while Sun moved closer.
I rested my hands on the window sill leaning out taking one deep breath. The clicking and clacking grew more agitated and angry behind me. That was my cue I jumped up, my feet touching the edge of the window and I leapt.
The edge of the bridge was a farther away that I had thought. The idea of crashing face first into the bridge opened the floodgates of mortal terror. My drugs stood valiantly against the tide but were washed away in a split second. Time slowed down as my brain stopped thinking about anything else concentrating instead on my brilliant plan that would either see me with a head like a post party piñata or plummeting into the depths of what was considered a favourite activity spot by the local suicides. I flailed around with my arms and legs trying to clear myself from the bridge. My life tried to pass before my eyes I tried to ignore it. I needed to see what was in front of me not my bleeding fingers when I was 4 years old. Bleeding from practising the violin all day long. And I certainly did not need to see the face of my father silently watching me, closing his eyes and shaking his head a tiny bit before turning around leaving a trail of disappointment behind him. I shook myself out of it. The edge of the bridge was now directly in front of me. I pulled my head up. Exhaled. Tucked my stomach in. Pulled my legs back. Everything to miss the bridge. I felt it scraping at my fluttering clothes.
And I was past it.
I laughed as I fell past it. I decided that if my memories would march me into the underworld I might as well remember the good times.
Haydn Symphony No. 94 in G major. The second movement. Conducting it before a full house of mostly bored politicians and dignitaries. I loved this concert. Most of these people could not tell the difference between classical music and what they had been hearing on the elevator. The opening very silent, like my fall and then a sudden fortissimo hit. The wagon above me exploded. The shock wave burst out of it like a furious bouncer. When it noticed me it garbed me and ran me with all its fury into the water below.
No more memories.
Just darkness.
I was lead upstairs into a narrow but comfortable room housing a very nice very mahogany table which sat smugly between two leather chairs. There was also a small bar housing a collection of rare liquid treasures that almost made me squeak in excitement. Instead I just stared at them. My host noticed my discrete glances and actually asked me if I wanted a drink.
Of course I wanted a drink.
'Only if you take one too, Mr...' I raised my eyebrows and left a name shaped hole open in our conversation.
'Sun.' I hoped that that was his name and that he was not trying to tell me that he would divulge his name soon.
'A pleasure Mr. Sun.'
He turned around busying himself with glasses and bottles.
'Ice?' he asked.
'No. No ice.'
I waited for Sun to sit down and take his first sip before I allowed my self to drink. Paranoid? Maybe, but in the last few hours three different parties had tried to kill me for reasons that escaped me even more than fame and glory. I took my sip. It was heaven. Complex and peaty with a spectacular finish that went on for ever. Bliss.
'... would you not agree?'
It seemed that Mr. Sun had been speaking for a while.
'Yes...?' it was worth a try.
'But why are so many killers after you?'
'I have no idea Mr. Sun. I play the piano in a really low class brothel. One with whores. Not hostesses, not escorts and not companions. The only place that is cheaper than the one I work at is the street corner. And while I might not be the greatest of all pianists I am really not bad enough for people to want to kill me.'
'So it seems. But things are often not as they seem, are they Mr. Kane.'
I was talking to a fortune cookie.
'By which you imply...?'
'Since the word spread that you are wanted dead by someone in a position most lofty I took an interest in you. It is most peculiar. First of all no one actually knows who is paying so much money for your life. The people I got to' he paused here for a moment looking up at the ceiling 'ask about it could just tell me about middle men and tempting offers on the clandestine message boards where wet-work is distributed among the day-labourers of the underworld.'
'And it's not even my birthday.'
Sun gave me one annoyed look but decided not to have my legs broken.
'Digging deeper into your personal life I did find that you have been boosting your rather tragic wage with trading information to various low level peons.'
'See? Low level. Nothing serious.'
'And yet a very influential player wants you dead. This leaves me with only one possible conclusion. You hold in your hands information so vital that it might topple one of the greater powers of Europa. And if this is the case I want that information.'
'It's not the case. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that the person who wants to kill me is not with the Triads.'
'Why is that.'
'I'm sitting here. Drinking expensive Scotch and you haven't killed me.'
'Most astute. Yet this is hardly new to me. Look, Mr Kane, I am a reasonable man. All I want is the information that you are so zealously guarding.'
I saw where this was going and it was not a nice place. If at all possible it was a place that was even worse than the early grave that had been my destination so far.
'I am trying to give you a chance here. You can talk now. Or we will make you talk.'
I stood up walked over to the bar and poured me another drink. I fully intended to take advantage of the bar. My next drink would probably be a cocktail made from two parts blood and one part teeth. Thankfully the Übermensch was still whispering sweet nothings to my ego so that I kept my cool and my hand steady. Sun was a high level criminal wrapped in layers and layers of civilisation and style all in the hope to hide his rotten murderous core. But the monster he had turned into was looking at me from the depths of his eyes.
'You understand Mr. Sun that the information I am privy to is of a very delicate nature.' I'd play along.
I walked over to the window opposite to the table. A wonder of ceramics looking like lacquered wood and paper panes. I slid it open. No one protested. A bad sign. It meant that they did not really care if I saw were we were going.
'Every organisation needs its peons the henchmen the bouncers and leg-breakers. It is the foundation of every kind of organisation.' I turned around. Sun was looking at me the beast inside was now looking at me with deep fascination. Not quite sure if it was seeing a fellow predator or an exotic dinner.
'These people are the basis. The roots. Without them the entire structure would not hold. Do you know what I am Mr. Sun?'
Large eyes. No comprehension.
'What my job is?'
'I heard that you are a pianist.'
That one never stoped to sting. My temper flared as it always did when people called me a fucking pianist, third rate brothel pianist at that. Usually this made me bitter but thanks to my new pill shaped friends I felt indignation.
'I am a conductor.' My nose was so far up now that outside I would have drowned in the rain.
'10 years ago on Earth I went from one success to the next with the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Addis Abeba. And one thing I understand above all other things is polyphony. When you take each instrument isolate it, listening just to its part of a symphony you hear nothing. Just some random noises. If I may give you a piece of advice later when you torture me just get one tuba player and let him play his part of a concert in isolation. I guarantee that after 15 minutes everyone in the room will admit everything.'
Dramatic pause. Sun regarded me with great interest now. Even the man in green was taking notice of me. Usually bodyguards only see empty rooms or people that need to be severely beaten.
'The magic happens when all instruments play together in perfect harmony. Harmony. A word from music theory. When you understand how all the bits and pieces fit together only then you unlock the magnificence of music! And do you know how I do that? The piecing together? Seeing if it all works?'
Sun shook his head very slightly.
'In my head!' eyes wide, index fingers pointing at my brow.
He recoiled a tiny bit. That filled me with immense pleasure somehow. It also meant that for now I had a rapt audience. Enough time to make an escape plan. I started to pace up and down the room gesticulating with my glass working on my escape without rousing suspicion.
'That. That is my secret. When I was in that shit Brothel listening to low-life lackeys talking about their work when drunk on sex, drugs and alcohol I pieced together the symphony of power in this city. True I did not had all the parts. But puting it together piece by piece I started to see a theme emerging.' The theme being that I was fucked. The green guard was blocking the stairs. The other doors just lead into dead ends and the window was suicide.
'If you listen very closely you see the underlying currents. After that you only need to fill in the gaps.' I looked out of the window again in what I hoped would look like another dramatic pause. I drained half of my glass. I felt how my ego enhancing drugs where starting to quiver. We were driving down a lone bridge one of the few parts of the city where the space between two terraformers had not yet been covered by buildings. To my left I could see Old Town vanishing into the fog while to my right the lights of the Russian sector where looming ever nearer. Funny. They really were going in my direction.
'So.' Sun started to talk again. 'You managed to piece together some vital information just by what the henchmen were saying?' his voice was laden with doubt but it was carried by hope. The hope that wants to believe in that perfect scheme, in the pheromone perfume that will make you irresistible that still believes that Santa Clause might be real.
I snorted.
'Of course it is not that easy.' I decided to pepper my story with a bit of the truth. Meanwhile a plan was born. A horrible, a stupid plan. As Sherlock Holmes once said if you eliminate all impossibilities from a situation what remains no matter how stupid, is your plan. Or something like that.
'No I alone could not piece it together. It was just to vague and there were to many variables. I needed to get rid of the chaff. So I rented a terminal with high priority access to the analytical engines of the terraformer Poseidon and let it do the heavy lifting.'
I let Sun soak in the implications. Leaning out of the window I could see that we were getting closer to the edge of the Russian sector, the first buildings standing guard at the end of the bridge casting their neon light into the water below us. When I turned around no one was looking at me, instead all eyes where on my black carrying case.
'Inside that case is a storage cylinder which contains my information. I was still testing my predictions but it seems that what I had on my hands had enough of an impact to make someone very nervous. I had planned to analyse my data to see who it was.' Not the triads obviously. 'But then things got ugly.'
'Show it to me.' Sun was dribbling greed all over the floor.
'Of course Mr. Sun. I assume that you have access to high yield analytical engines?'
'It can be arranged' he said without his eyes still trying to stare open the case.
'Well.' I stepped forward. 'Let me show you my secret then.'
I opened the hidden compartment on the side of the case, dialed my code in and let the security system taste my blood. I stepped back from the clicking case while Sun moved closer.
I rested my hands on the window sill leaning out taking one deep breath. The clicking and clacking grew more agitated and angry behind me. That was my cue I jumped up, my feet touching the edge of the window and I leapt.
The edge of the bridge was a farther away that I had thought. The idea of crashing face first into the bridge opened the floodgates of mortal terror. My drugs stood valiantly against the tide but were washed away in a split second. Time slowed down as my brain stopped thinking about anything else concentrating instead on my brilliant plan that would either see me with a head like a post party piñata or plummeting into the depths of what was considered a favourite activity spot by the local suicides. I flailed around with my arms and legs trying to clear myself from the bridge. My life tried to pass before my eyes I tried to ignore it. I needed to see what was in front of me not my bleeding fingers when I was 4 years old. Bleeding from practising the violin all day long. And I certainly did not need to see the face of my father silently watching me, closing his eyes and shaking his head a tiny bit before turning around leaving a trail of disappointment behind him. I shook myself out of it. The edge of the bridge was now directly in front of me. I pulled my head up. Exhaled. Tucked my stomach in. Pulled my legs back. Everything to miss the bridge. I felt it scraping at my fluttering clothes.
And I was past it.
I laughed as I fell past it. I decided that if my memories would march me into the underworld I might as well remember the good times.
Haydn Symphony No. 94 in G major. The second movement. Conducting it before a full house of mostly bored politicians and dignitaries. I loved this concert. Most of these people could not tell the difference between classical music and what they had been hearing on the elevator. The opening very silent, like my fall and then a sudden fortissimo hit. The wagon above me exploded. The shock wave burst out of it like a furious bouncer. When it noticed me it garbed me and ran me with all its fury into the water below.
No more memories.
Just darkness.
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