The streets of Harlem were slowly covered in summer twilight. The rain had effectively driven most people off the streets. A few stragglers, mostly futus, with their heads hidden in the deep dark hoods of their tops or jackets, shuffled under buildings. Some, eager to hide from the rain as quickly as possible, stopped under the awnings that hung in front of many buildings or under the anti-drone sheets stretched across the narrow streets.
Awnings in front of buildings usually provide protection from rain or the blazing sun. In New York, especially north of Central Park—in Harlem, Upper Manhattan, and the South Bronx—awnings had an additional function. Where streets were narrow, often between opposing buildings, awnings were replaced by sheets of double-layered material stretched on steel cables. Some were waterproof, others allowed water to pass through, but in all cases the top black and bottom silver film did not allow or interfere with electromagnetic radiation, including infrared. Police drones were either completely blind to what and who was under such a film, or the images they captured were so blurred that they could not be used as evidence in any police or court case. Though city regulations banned materials that interfered with electromagnetic waves, enforcement in Harlem’s maze of vacant lots was nearly impossible. Broadway, too wide for sheets, had its pavements lined with the same anti-drone awnings, and a few drenched pedestrians sheltered beneath them.
Because of the rain, the streets were quiet, empty, and peaceful for this time of day. Gone were the delivery drones, as only the rotaries flew into Harlem. Police drones had not been seen here for months. Even bot-driven vans and ubers were scarce. Only a few autonomous vehicles purred quietly through the wet steel and concrete canyons of the streets. Besides, the areas from West Harlem and Upper Manhattan to Sugar Hill and the South Bronx were mostly occupied by the diners, clubs, and squats of futures and kindred souls from various offbeat subcultures, usually associated with hackers. They rarely ordered anything bigger or more expensive than a pizza. Even rarer in the neighborhood, regardless of the time of day or weather, were parked air-vehicles. Although they were harder to steal than ordinary wheeled bikes or cars, they were easy to damage. Stolen ones, though quickly located by police, were usually found in a state that insurance companies used to describe as ‘total loss’. As a result, the owners of these vehicles rarely left them parked on the streets of Harlem and the South Bronx.
The woman who rode up Broadway from the south must have been aware of this. She stopped her airbike between cars before the old subway station exit at Harlem Garden and scanned the surroundings. Her eyes seemed to be searching for potential fans of other people’s property. She switched off her machine but stayed on, helmet in place. Despite the rain, she did not seek shelter, as if her shiny flexiglass helmet, gloves, and dark leathertex catsuit offered enough protection. She moved the airbike into a shadowed spot between low trees, blending into the dusk and rain, making herself and the bike nearly invisible to street cameras and drones. From there, she had a clear view of Broadway and the 145th Street crossing.
To a local passerby, she might have appeared as just another young, middle-class woman, bored with doing nothing, looking for thrills in the hackers’ district, or a young corpo venting her frustrations after work by pretending to be a futuress. Many such part-time futuresses frequented the clubs and squats nearby.
She sat on her bike for a few minutes, helmet on, visor down, until a miniature drone flew up to her. It hovered at head height, pulsing a bluish light about three meters from her. There was a soft hiss from the trunk of her airbike; the lid jumped back, lifted, and moved away, making the interior accessible. The drone flew in and the trunk lid closed. After a few minutes, a second drone the size of a sparrow flew in and, like the previous one, found shelter from the rain in the trunk of the airbike.
The female biker started the machine again and headed downhill toward the former underground station, now used as an underground car park and freight train loading yard. Once underground, she stopped and looked for the entrance to the subway. Seeing nothing, she moved on, weaving between aisles of vehicles until she reached the unloading ramp for supplies delivered by the freight train. She parked her airbike in the most obscure spot, and the two mini-drones flew out of the trunk. They hovered a few meters away from the bike, clinging to the ceiling. The female rider waited a moment, perhaps waiting for the drones’ messages, then removed her helmet and stored it in the boot. She was a woman of caramel skin and long, straight hair pulled back. She quickly put on a pair of large XR glasses with mirrored lenses and a black baseball cap with a long visor that shaded her face. Then she took a short, loose sleeveless top with a very deep hood from her trunk and quickly put it on. She pulled the hood over her baseball cap. Apparently, she valued her privacy.
Skipping a few steps at a time, she ran up the ramp and approached the scratched steel door with the ‘Supplies and Deliveries Only’ sign at the end. She placed her gloved hand on the scanner on the wall. The door swung open, and she entered a spacious corridor lit by LED strips mounted on the ceiling. She walked past more alcoves, corridors, and doors with company signs until she reached a side corridor marked ‘Follow the Light. Suppliers only’.
She placed her hand on another scanner on the wall next to the door, and when she crossed it, she found herself in the back of the club. She walked between boxes, stacks of racks of bottles and cans, cleaning supplies, parcels, old beer dispensers, kegs, broken coffee machines, and assorted junk that had probably once run the place. She passed the fridges, the door to the kitchen, the staff bathrooms, and stood before the door to the hall, which, like all the others in this back area, had a round porthole at face level. Thanks to this porthole, she avoided colliding with a waitress who was returning from the hall with a tray of glasses. She let the waitress pass, who glanced silently at her. She bypassed the bar and entered the main room of the club.
The female rider sat far away from the bar, in a dimly lit booth with worn seats of dark green imitation leather. The tabletop glowed faint pink and displayed a modest menu of more or less alcoholic drinks and snacks. Without studying the contents, still wearing the thin, tight-fitting gloves, she tapped the item in the top corner.
After a few minutes, the waitress brought a large mojito. The rider nodded, leaned back in her seat, and scanned the room. She reached for her drink. Her gaze focused on a young, thin man with a reddish beard and a shaved head, sitting alone at the far end of the room. The redbeard figure was clear, without the typical holographic glow, and more than that, she noticed now that he cast a distinct and natural shadow. Still, she preferred to make sure.
‘Turn off XR and phantom objects.’
After switching off the phantoms and augmented reality in her glasses, the motorcycle against the wall and the two people sitting at the bar vanished. The skinny redbeard remained.
‘Give me an updated bio on the bald, red-bearded guy.’
Her glasses reactivated AR, highlighting the young man and displaying a brief dossier with his 3D portrait. The biochip read the full description.
‘Mike “Rainman” Pullasca, 25, lives in a squat in Riverdale, Bronx. Freelancer, but affiliated with e-squat Hybrids-2 and futures clan HaarLads. Criminal record for minor cybercrimes—smartcom hacking, trafficking in celebrities’ memories and confidential data, creating obscene fake videos, minor blackmails. Two paroles, one violated. Released on March 5th on bail of 50,000 b-coins, paid anonymously. Probably a police informant.’
With a subtle gesture of her hand, she adjusted her glasses.
No change? You have neglected your self-improvement, Mr. Pullasca.
The young man rose from the table, waved his hand in greeting, and walked toward her with a bizarre dance-like stride. He stopped at her table but did not sit down. He had a pointed, close-cropped mustache, the only part of his appearance that seemed groomed. She did not turn her head to him. She continued to look around the room, sipping at her drink.
“Funny how the professions of waiter and bartender have endured despite all the advances in technology,” the futu remarked, searching for an opening.
The biker woman ignored the taunt.
”The crowd is the best place to hide, isn’t it?” The young man did not let up. “It’s the only one that offers anonymity, even if it doesn’t heal loneliness.”
The female biker snorted, glancing over his shoulder.
“Pathetic,” she smiled and took a sip of her drink. “Must be a quote from a bot novel.”
The young man seemed to take her response as encouragement, and slid into the seat across from her. He pointed to her hands. “You can take your gloves off. You won’t leave your fingerprints on these glasses.”
“Did I give you any idea that you could sit down?” She put down her glass and looked around the room. “Get lost, kid. I’m waiting for someone. An adult”
“Yep,” he replied with the confidence and smile of a con man who had just succeeded in swindling a rich sucker. ”I even know for whom.”
The woman remained unimpressed, her gaze drifting away.
“For a handsome half-Japanese,” he added triumphantly. “I won’t mention his name—someone might be listening. But we both know who he is. You’ve been meeting him here for the past four months. Irregularly, about once every two weeks. You park your airbike in the underground garage, behind a pillar by the ramp, and walk down the hallway to the back door for suppliers. You wear a glove with a fake touch ID. You always sit in the least-lit booth. You are always about a quarter of an hour ahead of him. Occasionally, you don’t enter the club at all, but get into his aircar in the underground garage. You drive to his house. The next morning he brings you back here. Every time you’re around, the cameras in the garage and the street cameras at the Broadway and 145th crossing conveniently go offline. It probably has something to do with the two ‘hornets’ that are with you. They are blocking the streaming cameras, which is illegal, as is the fact that they are flying without ID. Have I succeeded in gaining your attention, little girl?”
“I got a permit for drones without ID,” she replied, taking a sip of her mojito, but despite the redhead’s long argument, still refusing to look at him.
“You didn’t get one, you bought one. Hell, you might’ve snagged it because you bought the entire fucking police department of this rotten city. They’ll give you whatever you want…” the youngster leaned closer. “You meet here because futu clubs are the few places without cameras. They provide a shred of anonymity. But that’s not the only reason, is it? You feel disgust and contempt toward us, futus—‘fuckers,’ as you probably call us—but there’s a part of you, buried somewhere deep in your corpo heart, that, in some perverse way, is drawn to this place.”
“Seriously?”
“You pretend to be indifferent, but I made an impression on you, right? No? Then maybe Lil Beauville, will be impressed by the information that you are sneaking around with a man. Because she doesn’t know about this handsome guy, does she? A man, which is quite surprising for an open lesbian. At least for her… because for me, not so much. I’ve seen you leave here not only with that Japanese guy. You’ve been here several times without him. You went to a nearby squat with two futuresses. They were so stoned they didn’t know who they were fucking. Is one lover not enough? Sneaking off to futu squats for a quickie… Naughty corpo-baby with a taste for the extreme.”
“You’re confusing me with someone else,” she said, finally turning her face toward the red-haired futu.
“I’m confusing you… Uh-huh. We’re still pretending. Okay, I wonder how you will explain to your board and the media when it leaks that you are having an affair with Mr. Tonda. I’ve heard that his business of printing clothes and sports equipment is just a front. He allegedly makes his real money from lobbying and selling information. Malicious tongues say he works for SMSNG, while others say he works for TOHO. Maybe both. Either way, for WISE’s competitors. It looks bad… Arcy.”
The woman seemed unaffected.
“Your lover is late. I can replace him, unless you’re in the mood for dripping futu cunts again today.”
The woman took another sip of her mojito.
“You think the lack of cameras, dim lights, large, mirrored glasses, a hood, a baseball cap and diffraction make-up will keep you anonymous?” The young man leaned over the table. “For the untrained eye, this cosplay set will work, but not for me. A consumer advice—forget the custom-printed catsuit. Futures don’t wear clothes like that. It’s unethical. You probably know this, but you think no one will notice because there are only retards around. Arrogance will doom you because arrogance and a sense of superiority are your trademarks, Ms. Canberry, CEO of Enviro.”
“I’m flattered that people confuse me with her,” she nodded. “You’re not the first, fucky, and you won’t be the last. But I’m going to disappoint you—I’m not the woman from your wet dreams.”
“Yes, you are. You are a corpo pretending to be a futuress. Are you looking for hard thrills here? A real man?”
“Oh, do you know one?” she scoffed. “Do you think that deep down every lesbian only thinks about a super stud? Even if they did, you’re a pony at best.”
“Give me a chance, I’ll convert you, because this half-Japanese doesn’t seem to cope with it.”
“You’d be surprised,” she glanced around again.
“You risk a lot by coming here.”
“Really?”
“Testing your limits? How deep do you dare to plunge into the abyss of the futures, into this… ocean of degenerates… and how far do you dare to go beyond your comfort zone? Our world sickens you as much as it fascinates you…”
The female biker smiled. “You should definitely reset the bot that writes this crap for you. But, keeping with your nautical poetics, let me warn you—you’re playing with a great white shark.”
The futu grinned as he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his slender torso. ‘No risk no fun’ was tattooed on his chest.
“As you wish. You’ve been warned.” She spun her glass slowly on the table. ”Have you been watching me for a long time, smart boy?”
“I noticed you as soon as you showed up here, about four months ago.”
“I noticed you were trying to fuck into the chip in my glasses.”
“Sorry, professional habit, you understand. I was scanning the signal they send. They look like a ten-cent model, but the protocol they operate in… is fucking brilliant. You must have a powerful chipset.”
“Two hundred tera of RAM.”
“Impressive,” the boy nodded. “And the bandwidth?”
“Sixty-four gigabytes per second in conventional data transfer. They also support quantum internet.”
“Wow!” the boy pursed his lips, shaking his head.
“Wow!” she echoed, mirroring his expression.
“Do you have a dedicated booster in the airbike, or is a smartcom the amplifier?”
“Both,” she nodded. “The connection is optimized in real time, depending on range and signal strength. In the city, the smartcom usually amplifies the BNI chip for my helmet, glasses or XR lenses.”
“Sure. Shared bands or separate?”
“Separate. Drones also have boosters on separate bands. Transmission is synchronized automatically. Upload and download are symmetric and can operate in parallel, independently.”
“I was about to ask that,” Pullasca showed his yellow teeth. “And probably all integrated with your BNI biochip?”
“Probably.”
“And just… out of professional curiosity, do your company’s new biochips support telepathy without a booster?”
“Transfer to the temporal lobe via quantum entanglement,” she nodded. “Just out of personal curiosity, who gave you the assignment on me?”
“It was a coincidence that you came to my attention.”
“Coincidence is for the ill-informed.”
The boy bared his teeth in an insincere smile, which the biker woman returned. She had perfectly even, large white teeth like those you can see only in toothpaste commercials.
“Fuckers hack into the devices of people like me for a few reasons,” she continued calmly. “The main one is trivial theft of tokens. Your hacking attempts were sporadic and inconsistent. You also didn’t use a dedicated bot because you probably can’t afford one, so…” she adjusted her glasses, “that reason goes away. The second is stealing data or memories to sell them or to blackmail the victim. That might be your case, but it also falls out because of the above reason. And finally, the third and simplest—contract surveillance. You are hopeless at that. I realized a long time ago that you were spying on me. You are a moron, and your boss should know that, because it is obvious. You only know as much as he told you. Useless as a hacker and a spy. Which begs the question: Why did he hire you? Are you going to blackmail me on his behalf?”
“It seems that you have paid too little attention to my words.” Mike became serious, leaning back and straightening up. He placed his hands on his knees.
“What’s your name, fucky?”
“Mike. You’ve checked,” the future gestured toward her glasses.
“I make sure you lie, even in such a stupid way… Are you aware, Mike, that you will be deleted once your job is over?” She did not wait for his answer. “There is another possibility, less likely, but it must be considered—both you and your employer are idiots. You decided to reveal yourself because you concluded that your hacking attempts were doomed to failure. The right conclusion, though long overdue. Or the principal finally realized how lame you were and told you to fuck yourself. You decided to try blackmail, otherwise you would have nothing left. Anyway, in the end, we got blackmail. So get to the point. What do you want?”
“For starters… I was thinking of a quick shag. I’ve never had a high-profile corpo.” He leaned closer, grabbing her wrist, but she pulled away instantly. His breath reeked. “No worries. I’ll keep it gentle, as long as you play nice.” He smiled as he glanced suggestively at his crotch. “We can get it over here, anonymously, just the way you like it… Then we’ll talk about how much my innate discretion is worth.”
“I guess I don’t have an out, do I?”
“Whichever way you turn, your ass is behind.” Mike grinned, showing his yellowed teeth.
“Rude, but true. Well… lucky day for you, fucky. But you’re going to tell me who hired you.”
“Depends if I like what you have to offer.”
The woman nodded in the direction of the toilet corridor.
“Ladies’ or men’s?” he asked.
“The men’s ones disgust me.”
They rose from the table and headed for the restrooms. Mike pushed open the door of the women’s and made an inviting gesture with his hand. They stepped inside, where two twentysomething futuresses bent over a counter with sinks in front of mirrors, clumsily applying tattoos to their thighs. On the counter were worn cosmetics and heavily used holotattoo instruments. The girls paid no attention to the newcomers.
“Out, pussies!” Mike snarled. “Now!”
“Get the fuck out yourself, asshole,” a smaller, stocky blonde with short hair shot back, glancing at the intruder’s reflection in the mirror. “This is the girls’ room!”
“Go on, beauty, get busy with no fuss. We’ll get some more,” the other futuress chuckled, continuing to work on her tattoo. She was slimmer and had darker hair. “You’re gonna finish faster than us!”
Both girls giggled. The slim one, holding the applicator, gestured at the biker’s gloved hands. “What, gonna give him a gloved blow job?”
“Look, Patty…” The blonde straightened up. “I guess that’s what they call safe sex!”
They both burst out laughing. The blonde dropped the applicator on the counter, staggered and leaned on her friend’s shoulder for support.
“Get the fuck out, I said!” Mike’s face flushed red.
“You’d better stand on the john, bro. She’s too tall for you even kneeling,” the dark-haired girl added, and they roared with laughter again.
“Get the hell outta here or I’m gonna permanently tattoo your gobs,” Mike grabbed the blonde’s hair and yanked her head back, pulling a small spring knife from his pocket and pressing the blade to her cheek.
“Fuck, leave her alone, you dickhead!” Patty yelled. “We’re out!”
Mike released the blonde and pocketed his knife. The futuresses, without further protest, shoved their stuff into their bags and, cursing under their breath, hurried out. The boy checked the stalls, locked the toilet door and approached the woman. She gave him a slight push, making him lean against the counter. The sour, repulsive stench of his dried sweat hit her. The futu wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close and trying to kiss her, but she turned her head away with a grimace. He yanked off her hooded top and tossed it onto the counter.
“You like to tease, huh? So do I, but only briefly,” he panted, pressing his lips to hers. Then he grabbed her hair, jerked her head back and began kissing her neck hungrily, one hand squeezing her breasts. “A two-way slider zipper… Eh… so nice convenient.”
Leaning against the counter, he unzipped her catsuit down to her lower abdomen and plunged his face into her cleavage. He slid his hands deep under the material, reaching her buttocks. She stared blankly at the guy’s reflection in the mirror. On the back of his neck was a holotattoo of the HaarLads emblem.
“Mike’s your real name?” she asked.
“Oooh… What?” he mumbled, still slobbering over her breasts.
“Name. Yours.”
“Uuuh… yes… Mike,” he panted, too absorbed to notice as she wrapped her arms around his neck and slipped off her glove. On her ring finger was a steel band with geometric designs. She dug her left hand into his hair while pressing her right against his neck, the ring touching the holotattoo. She then plucked the chip from his ear. The futu was too distracted to react.
“Ever thought about showering?” she whispered in his ear.
“Huh? What?”
“Such a procedure… It helps to remove sweat dirt and bad odors. Consider it,” she suggested. The boy’s short, sharp mustache prickled her breasts. She croaked. “Time for something stronger, Mickey,” she tossed his chip into the sink. The youngster, excited and engrossed in her breasts, took no notice.
She seized his ear and yanked his head back, pulling him away from her cleavage and forcing him to meet her gaze.
“I think you like me!” He twisted her arm, spun her around, and shoved her against the sink. With his right hand, he reached to her lower abdomen and unzipped the suit all the way down her back. He opened the leathertex, exposing the woman’s bare buttocks, and laid her flat on the counter top. He kicked her ankles several times, forcing her to spread her legs wider. His one hand remained on her back, pinning the woman against the tabletop, while his other hand, in haste, fought frantically with the zipper of his pants.
“Fuck… seems… the zipper’s stuck.”
“Need help?” She looked over her shoulder at him.
“Shut up!” He snapped, sensing the mockery in her voice.
“Who told you to follow me?” she asked, watching him in the mirror.
The zipper finally gave way, and the man’s gaze rested on the hologram tattoo on the woman’s loins.
“You have your company’s logo tattooed on your ass?”
“It’s the sacrum. In Latin, it means ’sacred place’.”
“What? Uuugh… It’s like I’m screwing a whole company. Uuuuh…” he groaned.
“Who hired you?”
“Will you finally shut up? Fuck… I can’t concentrate!” Pullasca growled.
“Erection problem? Probably from stress. It happens—”
Mike did not let her finish the sentence, yanking her hair again, his other hand raised to deliver a hard slap to her exposed buttocks. Holding his hand up, he paused as if hesitating to punch. His head tilted, and he stumbled, reaching for her hips but letting go immediately. He took a step back and staggered, his left hand flailing helplessly in the air.
“What the fuck?” He rubbed his nose, which was dripping with blood and snot. A shudder shook him and his face turned beet red. He took another step back, struggling to stay upright. The woman watched in the mirror as he stumbled, his movements disjointed.
“Is that it, son? Is that all you can afford?” She rose from the counter and fastened her catsuit. She waved her hand in front of the faucet’s photocell and rinsed her hand. Pullasca’s chip danced across the sink along with the stream of water and spun down the drain. She wiped her hand with a paper towel and grabbed her glove from the counter.
Mike, with his pants around his knees, leaned on the counter, one hand futilely trying to stem the bleeding from his nose. His face and neck were turning a bluish-red.
“You bitch…” he growled. “What… did you give me?” He took another shaky step, his fingertips barely grazing the counter. His pants, fallen to his knees, made it difficult for him to stand upright. The long shirt now covered his bare buttocks and genitals. He was foaming at the mouth. Finally, he lost his balance and, flailing his arms wildly, collapsed to the floor. He rolled onto his back.
“Women, son, can forgive a lot except disappointment,” she said, wiping her cleavage with a paper towel. “I’m not fond of men, indeed, but of all the examples of your species, fuckers disgust me the most. But to the point… because there’s a line outside and you’re in a hurry. Who hired you, Mike? Human or bot?”
“Shit… erghm… I’ll tell you… whore,” he choked out. Frothy saliva poured from his mouth, his body convulsing.
“In a few minutes you won’t be able to speak, and then you will be useless. After that, brain death begins, unless I give you a blocker.” She held out her hand with a steel ring in front of him. “You will be in a coma for a few days. When you wake up, you won’t remember your own name. You’ll suffer from uncontrollable spasms, constant drooling, and paralysis of the limbs for a few months. But you’ll survive. You have a few minutes left. Don’t waste them on boorishness and vulgarity.”
She pushed open the nearest stall, kicked down the lid, and sat, keeping the door open to watch him.
“I’m not usually effusive, especially to snots who try to harm me, aside from the already failed rape attempt. Yet, given your situation, we can talk briefly. So… I’ve been a regular at this club for six months, not four. At first it was a thrill. I understood the risk of someone recognizing me. But you’re the first, Mickey. Against the omnipresent surveillance—or maybe because of it—people are more isolated. They are increasingly alienated… indifferent, anonymous to each other… yet increasingly identified and known to the system. Thirteen billion people create such an information mayhem that hardly anyone pays attention to the person next to them. The natural defense mechanism is mental self-isolation… You are not interested in your own mother, not to mention strangers in public places. We live in a digital world more than a physical one… We look at bot-generated images displayed by smartcoms, glasses and lenses, not at the people standing next to us… Boring you, Mike? No? Good… Also, futures don’t follow mainstream news. They live in their own channels. If I stood in the middle of the club, took off my glasses and cap, and shouted my name, most of them would have no clue who I was. Atomization and channeling of information according to social castes… That’s why—yes, I feel anonymous and safe in such places.” She sighed. “Well… enough about me… How are you, Mickey? Have you felt the expansion of our galaxy? Reached the event horizon yet? I ask because, what do I know… I’m not familiar with that shit.”
“Pol… pol…” The futu wiggled his legs and his body convulsed on the floor. He was choking, so she got up and turned his chin with her shoe.
“Who?”
“Poli… poli…”
“Are you a police snitch? No kidding.”
“Pol… poli…”
“Trying to call the cops? A fucky calls the police. The joke of the year. You think I worry about the cops? Well, look at this.”
She unzipped her suit at the crotch, squatted over him, and, holding the futu’s belly with her hand, began to urinate on him.
“If someone called the police here, the bot coroner would find an overdose of Abyss-365, probably known to you as Pearl Jam. But nobody’s going to call the cops, because you’re trash, Mickey. You’re going in the dumpster. Nobody cares about garbage, son. Nobody wants to mess with you, not even the police. The only friend you have now is me.”
She stood up, carefully avoiding the puddle of urine, vomit, and blood dripping from his ears and nose. The guy twisted and writhed again, mixing her urine with his blood and secretions. She zipped up her catsuit and looked at him.
“Sperm, blood and urine… How human is that. Epic.”
“Poli… polish… my… dddi… dick…”
“Really? Those are your last words?” She sighed. “I’m trying, really trying, but it seems I’ll never understand men.”
Mike already appeared to have a bad grip on reality.
“I can end your agony, son. Who?”
“She…” he mumbled, ”she…”
With her shoe, she turned his face to the side again, so he would not choke on his own froth.
“You’ve wised up a bit,” she crouched at his side again. “A woman? I’ll ask questions. Blink your eyes to confirm, and I’ll give you a blocker. Do you understand?”
The futu blinked.
“White?”
Nothing.
“Black?”
His body jerked, and his eyelids fluttered in what might have been a blink. Spasms wracked his frame. Outside, someone jiggled the handle and banged on the door. A frustrated woman’s voice came from behind the door.
“Fuck, why is there always a line to the ladies’ room?”
“Open up bitches, this is not your private bathroom!” Another squeaky, desperate female voice sounded.
The biker glanced at the door and then at the lying man.
“You see, Mike, time is relative. Whether it flies or drags depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on. But in our crappy reality, time is also linear and one-way, which means you can’t undo what’s happened.”
The futu gasped, his body twitching as if in an epileptic fit. He reached out with a trembling hand.
“Open the damn door or I’ll call the bartender!” Someone banged on the door and kicked it.
“Do you think forcing a woman to have sex by blackmail can be considered rape? I do. So let’s save the taxpayers the expense.” She strolled over to the door. “The world’s better off without you, Mickey.”
She picked up her hooded top from the counter and slung it over her shoulders. As she opened the door, three twenty-something futuresses froze in their tracks. They glanced at the woman in the suit, then at Mike, now motionless on the floor.
“I’m sorry… I tried to help him. Looks like he overdosed,” she threw at the girls as she squeezed between them. “You better get out of here, girls. He’s supposedly a police informer.”
“I don’t give a shit, I need to pee,” the first of the girls with expressive makeup around her eyes muttered, stepping over Mike’s body and into a stall.
“What a pig! He pissed himself!” the second girl commented with a disgusted look on her face. She navigated around him and disappeared into another stall. The third girl gave up on going to the restroom and ran away.
On her way out of the corridor and onto the club floor, the biker woman bumped into a handsome man with vaguely Japanese features.
“This place has lost its former charm. Such a shame.”
“Let’s go to my place,” the half-Japanese man suggested.
“Another day. Someone is watching us,” she whispered in his ear, “and I’ve got something urgent to handle. Let’s go to the garage.”
They went back to the underground garage the same way the biker woman had come—through the back room and down the hallway. As they walked down the ramp, she pointed to a maroon aircar that had not been there when she arrived. “We’ll talk inside.”
He unlocked the door remotely, and they got in. She cut to the chase.
“I need urgent help from your MI-something buddy,” she said.
“I told you, he’s not my friend. I used his services once. I don’t even know what he looks like. All I know is he’s a middle-aged English guy. No photos, no videos—he’s a ghost online.”
“That’s good, but is he on the run?”
“Supposedly clean for two months, but I can’t vouch for him.”
“In that case, I’ll evaluate him myself. Call him,” she ordered. He reached for the car’s dashboard, but she grabbed his hand mid-air. “Smartcom only, the one you’re talking to me on.”
He sighed, and shook his head, pulling a flexiglass smartcom from his jacket. “Connect to Shade,” he commanded.
The smartcom displayed the man’s avatar. The female biker took the communicator from her friend, hung up, and got off the aircar.
“We won’t see each other for a while,” she threw through the open window. “I’ll call you when I think it’s safe. See you later.”
“Who’s watching us?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve left a message at the club that’ll make him think twice. Or her.”
“You have my smartcom,” the man pointed at the woman’s hand.
“Get SMSNG to give you a new one, a company one,” she threw over her shoulder and walked away. After a dozen steps, she tapped the smartcom again and said, “Don’t hang up, Mr. Shade.”
She stopped by her bike, watching her friend’s vehicle disappear around the corner. Opening the settings panel on the smartcom, she found the aircar MZD-6 profile and tapped ‘unpair,’ then ‘forget device.’ She switched the voice to ‘default female voice.’
“Mr. Shade, still there?”
“Have you changed your gender again, Tonda?” a male voice quipped from the smartcom. She tapped ‘Voice ID,’ and a message popped up: ‘This voice belongs to Paul Newman, an American actor and film director, 1925-2008.’
She smirked, closed the message with a wave, and said, “Mark lent me his phone, Mr. Shade. Or Mr. Newman, if you prefer.”
“Shade is fine. Who’s speaking?”
“Someone who pays well. My personal details are unnecessary to you.”
After a brief pause, the man replied, “I warn you that I refuse assignments that violate the law.”
“That speaks well of you, but my assignment is legal to boredom. What I need is to quickly and discreetly reach someone who prefers to remain anonymous. The thing is, this has to be taken care of immediately. I need someone who is discreet, smart, effective, and loyal.”
“You’ve come to the right person. I tick all those boxes…”
“I have done research on you. You have good references. What worries me a little is that since MI6 booted you, your hobbies have been booze and drugs.”
Frank ’Shade’ Newton grunted, probably to hide his embarrassment.
“The problem was temporary,” he grunted again. “I find humans and bots. Is it a bot or a human?”
“Human or bot… Maybe a whole bot farm, or all of them at once. I can’t be sure. All I have is a rough location and limited time.”
“It costs more to track a human and often requires travel,” he added.
“Let’s assume it’s a human with a bot farm, and you might need to take a trip to Australia.”
“Corporate job or private?”
“Private. I am the sole client and contact. If you complete this assignment, you won’t have to take any jobs for the rest of your life.”
“I live up to the mark… I have expenses…”
“Your annual MI6 salary times fifty, plus expenses as they come.”
There was a seven-second pause on the smartcom before Paul Newman’s voice came through again. “I used to take a non-refundable twenty percent deposit up front.”
“Agreed, but I must warn you of something, Mr. Shade. While this assignment is devoid of the risks you were used to in MI6, it is highly confidential. Only two people will know the details. Me and you. The only threat to you is… me. If you prove unworthy of my trust, or are mundanely stupid to return to your addiction before completing the job, I will hunt you down and have you killed. Is that clear?”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s not a threat, it’s a warning. If you ever reveal anything about this mission to anyone, including Mark Tonda, I will have you killed. You can sleep peacefully, I assure you, on the condition of discretion.”
“And if I fail?”
“That is unlikely. I will provide you with enough information to complete the task, but if you still fail… well… let me put it this way—if the mission fails due to your fault, I will consider it gross negligence.”
“Let me guess… you will have me killed?”
“I’ll decide depending on the circumstances, but you can certainly forget about the rest of the money. Think it over. I’ll call in five minutes.”
“Decided, I’m in. I will send the address of the blockchain account to this smartcom in a moment.”
“That’s unnecessary. Be at Heathrow, Terminal Seventeen, in five hours. A private jet will be waiting. Check in, and they’ll take care of the rest. You’re flying to Sydney. All the info you need, including the advance payment, will be on the smartcom onboard. Use your left thumb to unlock it.”
”How did you get my thumbprint?”
“Mr. Shade, I’d appreciate it if you’d give up asking the questions you won’t get answers to. It will save us time. We will communicate only through the smartcom you will find on the plane. I’ll talk to you when you land. Have a safe flight.” She disconnected, dropped down to the platform, and placed the smartcom on one of the freight tracks. She climbed back, returned to her bike, opened the trunk, and waited for her mini drones to fly inside. Then, she rode toward the exit ramp.
A black airbike, driven by a woman in a dark leathertex suit, emerged from the disused subway station, now an underground parking lot and storage facility. Had she paused at the freight elevator leading to street level, she would have seen two men dumping a large, heavy, oblong bag into a biowaste bin on an autonomous forklift.
But the rider woman did not stop.
She sped up the exit ramp and darted out onto Broadway. She paused only when she reached a small group of trees and released two sparrow-sized drones from her trunk. Without waiting for the lid to close, she accelerated sharply and turned onto 145th Street. Had she lingered and looked back, she would have noticed the autonomous forklift carrying a biowaste bin into a nearby alley. She would have seen it pull up to a street container, lift the load, tilt, and empty the bin before returning to the freight elevator.
But the female biker did not look back.
