Flesh and Alloy: A dystopian novel

by Nathan Lunn

  The door slid open, as Kye came face to face with Julie, who was waiting behind the door with tears already running down tracks in her face. He stopped, catching his breath as she silently stared back, unable to bring herself to speak. Kye tried to talk, similarly unable to find the words, as the door closed behind him, and his supply of Aggressor gas was shut off. His senses had already started to dampen, calming down his anger and leaving him emptier than when he had first gone in. Looking into Julie’s eyes, as he once did, his emptiness started to fill up, finding the comfort he needed in her. But when she finally managed to speak, his chest turned to ice.

  “You’re weak, Kye. I thought–” her voice cracked, as another tear spilled down her cheek– “I had hoped, that you were better.” Kye’s emptiness started to fill up again, instead this time, it was with shame. She continued as he started to wince, sharp shock running through his brain, numbing his tongue. “I know you’re upset about Charlie, but you can’t just run back to PR. Think about all the effort you put in, the years, the classes? I said that to you.” She muttered her next line to herself, but Kye could still hear, “Why didn’t you just listen?” She slammed her hands against his chest, pushing him back into the door, yelling now, “Why didn’t you just listen! I needed you!” Stunned, Kye’s legs started to shake as his head went light.

  “Julie please…” Kye managed to speak. Stopping by a display, she picked up a PseudoReality box and weighed it over in her hands. “If you can’t handle this world, Kye, why don’t you just leave it?” She threw the box to his feet, and walked out of the shop.

  8

  Kye sat on the bar stool, sipping dejectedly at his straight grain vodka, staring ahead at the various liquids and embellishments lining the walls in front of him. He had arrived at the Gallant, a local nightclub, almost an hour after Julie had left, and he was still feeling the effects of her cutting comments – although the four drinks he had had once he had arrived had helped to numb those cuts. He wasn’t enjoying himself, but he never did when he drank; it wasn’t about having fun, it was about forgetting. The club was packed with men and women younger than him, all looking for a good time, and out to show the world they were the boss. This resulted in a rather negative and hostile atmosphere, though was the perfect place for Kye to be – at the bar that he had originally visited, Kye was cut off after just two drinks, with the barman instead trying to talk to him about what was wrong. Laughing him off, Kye had spat in his glass before leaving to go to the Gallant. Since he had sat down, the only thing that he had been asked was ‘Want another?’ Most times he didn’t even need to answer, the bartender just poured him a glass, then moved onto the next man looking for liquid confidence. Keeping busy, that was what kept them quiet and non-invasive.

  Swilling the liquid around in his glass, Kye knocked back another shot’s worth, wincing as he felt the warmth spread, first from his throat, down to his stomach, then into his legs and dripping into his toes. His head and chest remained cold, or at least that was how he felt. Physically, he was sweating excessively, more than over-dressed for the cramped and restrictive venue. He had been to the club before, it was right near the PseudoReality store after all, and often times he had retired here when he was looking for an escape from his persistent need for PR, or any semblance of an excuse to not go into the shop. As the burning stopped, and his senses returned, he started to listen in on the music that was playing, marvelling how they always seemed to be a shuffled mix of the same five songs. Nowadays there was barely good music anyway, but it was still irritating to hear, especially since the music the Gallant picked was incessantly catchy, and had an unwanted effect of getting into your head and playing over and over throughout the whole of the next day. Kye decided to use the music as a marker: as soon as he heard silence, he would stop his drinking. Finishing his glass off, he went back to staring as the woman came over and filled it back up to the top.

  As he finished his sixth refill and had his seventh poured for him, he decided he needed to move. The circulation through his legs was fading, and he started to feel tingles as he stood, slipping down off his bar stool to investigate the nightclub. He was also starting to feel less numb, the warmth spreading up to his lower ribs, and as such was a little less immobile. Men and women who were busy dancing paid him next to no attention when he pushed past them, bumped on all sides as he made his way to the opposite side of the room. He slid between two pillars, both clear as a sheet of ice, serving support to the second floor whilst also providing equal parts lightsource and entertainment value. Inside the pillar was a thick coloured liquid, the consistency of honey but more translucent – and then inside this liquid there was a beautifully sleek woman, completely naked and sliding around the interior, swimming in a trance, watching those around her with some sort of morbid curiosity. Kye couldn’t help but watch, partially as a mirror to her intrigue, but mainly so he could look at her body. It wasn’t common to see genetic alterations in this area – that was reserved for those who had both the money and the time to undertake this endeavour – and Kye was fascinated like the rest of the locals in the club. This, surprisingly, was only a small percentage of the entire occupants – as the Gallant was in the middle of the Central Business District, it attracted customers from all corners of class: poor souls out searching for their big break; tired workers looking to unwind after a long day; rich aristocrats wanting to flaunt their overindulgent wealth and receive unwarranted praise from the thankful saps who yapped around their legs like tiny puppies. Kye, who counted as the first, couldn’t quite wrap his head around the woman he saw in front of him. Most of her was normal, and all of her was human, but yet she was very different. Kye ran his eyes down, lingering on her flat ears, the webbing between her fingers and toes, her overly-pointy elbows, surmising she had made subtle but useful genetic enhancements to help her line of work. She thrashed about, as bubbles slowly exited her mouth and slid to the top of the pillar and out of sight. A flash of red from inside her throat caught Kye’s eye, and he understood – she was using a small reserve of oxygen to remain under the water for that long without proper breathing. He watched, as she followed the bubbles up through the ceiling, sliding out of his view and onto the upper storey. Shaking himself out of his stupor, Kye pressed forward to the stairs, taking them two at a time to the next floor. Interacting with his commlink, he paid the fee, and the door was opened, revealing the second room.

  The Gallant was famous for its height, and its effective ability to accomodate for all types of interests. They achieved this with the themes than ran through each floor, getting more niche and more strange as you continued up. Unfortunately for most, the prices rose with the floor numbers, and so the top was nearly always abandoned, save for the richer patrons. Taking a look at the walls and the lights (cheap astroSuits displayed, pinhole lights dotted around), Kye surmised the theme here was something space related. He laughed; a lot of the floors were weak and tacky, and this was no exception. He moved to the bar, only to get a refill on his drink (needing to actually speak this time), then left this floor, and moved up to the third. He thought he spotted Julie in the corner of Burlesque, calling out to her before embarrassingly shying away when he realized it wasn't her. She wouldn't want to talk anyway. As the next hour passed, Kye led a nomadic drinking attitude, moving up through the various storeys – Jungle, Savanna, Temple – before he finally settled at Arcade. It felt fitting to him. Spending another hour drinking, he had nearly forgotten his problems, playing at one of the machines set up against the wall, when he was pushed into the screen by a clumsy man stumbling past him, spilling his entire drink for the first time in the whole evening. Instantly vexed at losing both his drink and his high-score, he spun around, catching his feet together and tripping, before grabbing onto the man’s back and bringing him around to reprimand him. He paused with his finger already in the air, as he noticed who it was, watching as the other man took the same second before reacting as Kye had.

  “Holy shit, Kye
!” Danny pulled him in for a hug, slapping him hard on the back, as Kye exclaimed, “Oh man, what the hell are you doing here?” Pulling him to his face, he endured a sweaty kiss on the forehead, before looking at him and asking again, more guarded this time, “Danny, why are you here?”

  Danny’s smile hadn’t broken, panting in Kye’s face, replying with a heavy helping of spittle, “I’m drinking. Drinking lots. I saw two people die, like, five metres in front of me, so of course I’m gonna drink. Been all round the Gallant for like, the past 7 hours or summat.” He took a second, before realising once again, that it was Kye, frantically yelling, “Fuck, sorry dude, are you feeling okay? I was never close with the runt, but still he was a good kid.”

  Kye frowned, and pushed him off, muttering a lie as he did so: “I’m fine, Danny. You spilled my drink.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” His smile stayed, as he waited for a response. Danny was sweating heavily, his eyes entirely unfocused and bloodshot red – his pupils were round and completely dilated, which in this light must have been killing him. He seemed to hum with an excitable energy, without actually managing to move his feet, standing still like a robot waiting for you to input your commands. His breath was ragged, like taking little sips from the air around him, and his fingers wouldn’t stop tapping on his palms. It took Kye a few seconds, surveying his state, but he was able to respond eventually.

  “I want a drink. Buy it for me.” Danny finally cracked the smile with a laugh, slapping him once more on the back, ignoring Kye’s clear irritation, and blurting out what he had been waiting to say.

  “I was hoping you would ask for a favour. I can do one better than a drink, actually…” He leaned in close, whispering in his ear, giving Kye a fresh whiff of alcohol, mixed with something else, from his breath. “I can do a fuckload better than a drink.” Kye had to push him away again.

  “I don’t want any drugs from you, Danny. Just buy me a drink and fuck off.” He turned around back to his game, starting a new profile in an attempt to salvage some dignity. After a few moments, Danny leaned in, over his shoulder and whispered again in his ear, ignoring Kye’s blatant recoil.

  “Not drugs, my friend. I can offer you revenge.”

  Kye paused, and turned around to look at Danny.

  They were sitting in a booth across from each other, neither saying a word, when their food arrived. A common staple of all WestMeri arcades, this floor of the Gallant served the greasiest pizza you’d have seen, coupled with thin stick-like fries and litre large coke jugs. Naturally, Danny had ordered two for each of them. The robotic server stood, waiting for their tip and performance rating, before shuffling away from the table, leaving the duo with an awkward silence that hung thick, until Kye broke and finally asked a question.

  “What do you mean revenge? I killed that guy who shot Charlie, I got my revenge.”

  Danny took a slurp from his drink, drawing it out unnecessarily long and loud to Kye’s despair, before putting the jug down and replying.

  “That guy was cannon fodder. Trust me, he knew from the moment he got here that he might die – if he had wanted to leave that badly he could have. No getaway car.” He held up his cup to Kye, before smirking and saying, “So. Congratulations, Kye. You literally shot the messenger.”

  Kye batted the cup down, hissing back, “Well, what would you have me do? I’m okay with that. He inflicted the pain, he shot Charlie, I shot him.”

  “You’re not getting it, Kye! He didn’t inflict the pain and I think you know that. You threw the bottle, you know who it is you’re really angry at.”

  Kye paused for a moment, before answering Danny. “The Crofts.”

  “Ding! Ding! Ding!” Danny dropped a token from the arcade into Kye’s coke jug, grinning joyfully and shouting, “Correct! And that, is who I will help you get your revenge on.” He sat back, allowing Kye to take in what he had said, clearly proud of himself.

  Not buying a second of his smugness, Kye countered, “That’s clearly not gonna be possible, is it? Why did I sit here to listen to you–” he started to get up–”...this bullshit. You didn’t even get me an alcoholic drink, what is this crap?”

  Danny sat up, soothing him to sit back down before he walked off,

  “Sit down, sit down, I’ll get you your drink. Just listen. I know where he is. The son, Isaiah? I’ve seen him here tonight, minimal protection, minimal risk. Trust me.”

  Kye sat back down, if only to maintain the privacy of their argument, before he replied, voice dripping with contempt. “I don’t trust you. Why the hell would I trust you, and why the hell would Isaiah Croft be at the Gallant? This is a load of BS, and I can’t be bothered for it, Danny.”

  “Look, I know it seems ridiculous but he is here, I promise. He’s a decadent guy, this is a decadent place! Look – wait, watch this,” he spoke, grabbing the elbow of a woman who was walking past their booth. “Sweetheart, sweetheart, wait a second. Do you know if Isaiah Croft is here tonight? We heard he might be around.”

  The girl perked up at the mention of Isaiah, which almost confirmed it for Danny – Kye saw his smile return as she spoke. “Totally! He’s on Concert floor, rented the whole place out! I’m gonna try and get up there, get him to shag us. Then I’ll get his millions.” She sighed, eyes glazing over and stopping in place, before Danny pushed her away with his now-empty coke jug.

  “Told ya so,” Danny said, folding his arms and looking pointedly towards Kye.

  Kye ate some of his food, groaning at the taste of the fries, before he finally spoke again. “How the hell are we supposed to get to him, then? He’s not going to talk to us.”

  “We don’t need to talk to him. We’re gonna kill him.” Danny had gotten excitable again, drumming on the table with his fingers now, tapping his feet underneath to the blaring music.

  Kye scoffed, “That would be perfect. Sure, let’s just kill him. When you said revenge, that’s exactly what I thought would be possible. We can just roll up to Concert floor, walk over to Isaiah, calmly take him aside, and beat him to death, like I did the other guy, huh?”

  Danny rolled his eyes, spurring forward. “Enough of the sass, okay? Im’ma lay it out for you, so listen here and listen closely. A rich guy like this, he’s bound to have some sort of safety measures right? So, even ignoring the security he has with him, his commlink has to have some kind of alarm feature, like those adverts you seen on the freeway? What’s the fucking thing called?”

  Kye searched his mind for a second, clapping when he got it. “Erm, CommPad? Comm-something, it’s like… CommLock! That’s it!”

  “Yeah, CommLock. All the uppers have them, means if any sort of attack occurs, it saves the feed from the last few minutes – I think the higher tiers can actually save from up to an hour before – anyway, it transmits it back to their company for analysis. You can bet that they’ll have their own database like that jag-off Croft family does. To be honest, knowing them now, they probably own the bloody thing. We can’t allow for being seen anywhere near him though, clearly, and especially with the history we have with that family now, he can’t see us,” Once Danny had begun to talk, he was speeding up as he got closer and closer to the point. Kye had stayed quiet, and was now paying attention. “So, here’s my thinking.” He sat back, spreading his hands. “We spike his drugs.” Kye started to speak, but Danny cut him off quick, rushing to finish his point. “I know the guy he buys from, he’s posted up here in the Pysch room. I can distract him, while you poison his next batch with something mean. It’s foolproof!”

  Kye laughed rudely, taking a bite of his pizza before talking. “I knew it would be something ridiculous. What we gonna poison him with? I actually left my cyanide batch at home tonight, you brought it with you?”

  Danny slammed his hand on the table, yelling, “I said cut the sass, asshole! I’m serious here, we can do this! We can kill that bastard! Don’t you wanna get back at them? Look–” he pulled out something from his pocket, frantically che
cking out of the booth before sliding it over to Kye– “I bought this from him tonight. He took it right from the source – a massive packet, kinda like some sort of bucket thing.” The packet was already open, though Kye could see there was a mechanism in place to easily close it. “It can be resealed see? Without looking any different. We just gotta get the poison, drop it in when we ‘test the product source’ and bam! It’ll be in the batch. Give it a few days, he’ll be gone, and we’ll have never have met.”

  Kye was sceptical, repeatedly testing the mechanism on the drug packet, as he spoke. “How can we be sure he gets any more? I mean, how can we even be sure he’s gonna get that part of the packet? What about the others who take it?” Danny laughed, and Kye’s voice turned stern. “Seriously, you’ll kill anyone who takes it.”