Concrete Chaos

by Earle, Michael-Scott

  "Be right there." There was a sound of crashing metal, and a woman popped her head out from behind one of the cages. She leaped over a workbench and walked the twenty feet toward me with her right hand outstretched.

  "Hi, I'm Emma." I took the woman's hand and returned her smile. She was short and cute, with wavy, brown hair that fell to her shoulders, big hazel eyes, and dimples on both of her rounded cheeks. I guessed she was in her early thirties, and she had an oil-stained white apron covering up most of her jeans and purple shirt.

  "This is when you tell me your name." The smile on her face vanished, and my eyes focused on her left arm.

  It was cybernetic.

  "Sorry. I'm Sue Zay." I tried to keep my eyes off her black metal arm, but it had been such a surprise that I hadn't prepared myself mentally. The technology had been around for the last decade, but they hadn't figured out how to get human physiology to accept the robot limbs yet. This woman was either one of the rare people whose body wasn't rejecting the limb, or she was taking a large cocktail of drugs every day to keep the thing attached to her body.

  "Oh shit. Your bike is fucking hot." Emma let go of my hand and walked over to Funakoshi. "Gasoline? Goddamn! Old school! I love it." She got within five feet of the motorcycle and crouched down to peep at his engine.

  "Girl, he's massive. Look at those big fucking tires! I bet I could put them on my truck. What a beast. You build him?" I felt my pride swell, and I knew immediately that this woman was a kindred spirit.

  "Kind of. My dad did most of the work."

  "Fucking right on. Did he build him from the ground up? What engine did he use?"

  "It's an old Suzuki Hayabusa, but I don't think there is an original part left. Dad even changed the engine to a straight six."

  "I think I've seen pictures of those old bikes. None of them looked as badass as this one, though. I bet he's fast. He's all fucking engine under the seat. Damn girl!"

  "Yeah. I've gotten him up to two eighty-two."

  "Fucking Joseph Smith! Were you on the track? That must have been crazy!"

  "Ehhh." I reached up to my hair and scratched my head. "I was on the 5."

  "Nooo..." she gasped and then it turned into a laugh. "You are crazy, Sue Zay. I like you."

  "Thanks! It wasn't that big of a deal, though; he's got some gyro tech to help at high speeds."

  "Oh, nice." She looked at the bike again. "Did your dad put that on? Ohh, I see the swing arms here." She pointed to the gyro augmentation with her robot arm. It uncurled from her side with an alien smoothness. I could see the exterior coils contract and expand to make the limb function, and I couldn't help but feel uneasy.

  "I did that part a few years ago."

  "I like the paint also!" She tilted her bobbed her head up and down. "Is it black? The paint looks almost purple at some angles."

  "Yeah, it is that Nightflare paint. Looks black most of the time, purple at night, or when the light hits it the right way," I explained.

  "Killer. I think we need to spend some time talking shop then. I do all of our drone maintenance. Maybe later I can show you some stuff I've been working on." She nodded her cute head over to the workbenches and cages.

  "That would be cool." I nodded at Emma and matched her smile.

  "First you gotta talk to Jae though. Let's go inside." She stood from her crouch and walked over to the wall a few feet from where I had parked. It didn't look like there was a door there, but somehow there were seams that puffed open when the cyborg walked close. Then part of the wall slid away with an electric hiss and revealed a wide hallway.

  I followed the woman past a dozen closed doors and then arrived in a large living area. The room had three long, white leather couches, dark brown, wooden coffee tables, posh, contemporary lamps, and a giant television that seemed to take up the entire wall. Most of the light came from the hanging and standing lamps, but I also saw the soft glow coming from the corners of each piece of dark wooden furniture.

  "Hey, Pavel! Have you seen Jae?" The massive scar-faced Russian sat in the middle of a white couch and somehow made the thing look small. He turned his attention away from the television to answer Emma.

  "He has emergency phone call. I will wait with Girl With Motorcycle till Boss frees."

  "Ahh okay." She turned to me. "I've got a few things to finish before I call it a night. If I don't see you at dinner, I'll catch ya on the way out." She reached her right hand out again, and I shook it. I almost begged her to stay in the room with me since the murdering Russian was all sorts of scary, but I couldn't show these people fear. I needed answers from Jae, and if he knew that his sidekick scared the shit out of me, I could lose leverage.

  Emma stepped away from me and walked toward the garage. I stood awkwardly in the room for a few seconds before I decided to put my helmet down and sit on a couch. The Russian had turned his eyes to the television and didn't seem to realize that I had sat on the side of the adjacent couch as far from him as I could possibly get.

  The news was playing, and the perfectly blonde, perfectly tanned reporter was faking empathy when she spoke about the latest Muslim and Mormon conflict in Phoenix. Several hundred people had died in a bombing of a suburban mosque, and the Muslims had staged a violent protest outside of an LDS temple. I normally didn't watch the news; fuck, I didn't even own a television, but it seemed like a week wouldn't pass without religious tensions rising again between the two factions.

  "Girl With Motorcycle," the Russian addressed me, and I almost jumped out of the couch cushion. Calm the fuck down, girl. You saved this guy's life. He doesn't want to hurt you. I turned to look at the man, and he fixed me with a deadly serious expression.

  "Do you like cats?" he asked gravely.

  "Do I like cats?" I repeated his words. The question didn't make sense.

  "Yes. Your helmet." He pointed at the black, shiny dome on the coffee table. It had pink cat ears coming out of the top and a stylized kitty cat's face painted in pink on the front.

  "Oh. Yeah. I like cats." I sighed in relief. I'd somehow thought his question would be more sinister.

  "That is good to know." He was suddenly sitting on the couch next to me. Like, right fucking next to me. I almost yelped with surprise for three reasons. One was that I hadn't even seen this fast motherfucker move. Second was that from across the room I'd somewhat forgotten how giant the man was. My shoulder should have been touching near his shoulder, but I think it was almost even with his elbow when he sat next to me. The third was just a general terror of the big dude who had killed a bunch of people with his knives.

  "I want to show something." He had a light coat on, and he reached into the folds with a big meaty hand. I saw the handles of several knives hanging on the inside of his jacket, and I realized that it was far too late for me to scream, or run away, or decide that I shouldn't have come here tonight.

  Then he pulled out a personal tablet.

  "This is Boris. He handsome, no?" The Russian used his giant pointer finger to scroll open the roll screen of the device. On the screen was a picture of an orange and black speckled cat.

  "Uhhhh. Yeah." I felt my heart fumble a beat and try to slow back down to a relaxed rate. I realized that I had been holding my breath, and I tried to let it out slowly.

  "He funny cat. Chasing robot mice all day." He flipped the screen and showed me a picture of Boris jumping on top of a toy mouse. "He also like to dress up as sailor." The next screen was the orange and black cat wearing a white cap and matching vest.

  "He is, how do you say it in American? Not the smartest knife in drawer. He not realize that mice not real." A short video played of the cat getting some crazy air trying to catch the remote-controlled mice. I heard a low, evil-sounding laugh from the audio and figured it was Pavel.

  "I love him. Oh, this is Viktoriya." He flipped to a picture of a fluffy cat with white fur. The animal had striking blue eyes, and the picture showed her sitting on an arm of a couch. Then I realized the couch was really ju
st a giant leg.

  "She is really pretty. I like her blue eyes."

  "Yes. Me as well. She is my lover girl. Always sitting on me and purring. She cannot have enough of scratching." He toggled through a few more pictures of the cat, and I noticed that each one was her either sitting on Pavel's legs or his lap.

  "Then there is Mikhail. He trouble maker." This cat was gray with black and white spots. He almost looked like a wild bobcat. "He always scratching and eating bad things. He doesn't even like to use litter box. Makes big mess for poppa to clean up." He flipped through eight more pictures of the cat climbing on a carpet post, hanging from the side of a wall, and other sorts of dangerous positions.

  "But my Queen is this one." He flipped the image to a short-haired black cat with giant yellow eyes. "Stoya is her name. Is beautiful, no?" The giant man sighed and leaned back on the couch slightly. "She is boss of house. Look at her back. It arches perfectly. You see?" He flipped through a few more pictures.

  "She is beautiful. Great proportions." I agreed, partially because it was a damn good looking cat, but partially because I didn't want to disagree with the man.

  "She beat all others when they out of line. Here, watch videos." He pressed a button on the tablet, and I saw a video of Stoya running around a room. She pounced on each of the other three cats, gave them a beating with her paws, and then moved onto the next.

  "Mikhail tries to stand up for himself. Look." The gray cat surprised Stoya by jumping on top of her from a higher ledge. For a few seconds they were a tornado of black and gray fur. Then the scuffle ended with the black cat on top of the gray male. She clawed the fuck out of his face with an angry snarl, and then the gray male screeched before running away.

  "Hahaha!" Pavel laughed way the fuck too loud and then slapped his hand on his leg. It sounded like a thunderclap, and I almost made like Mikhail and got the fuck out of here.

  "She is too strong for him! He think he big kitty, but she show him who boss! Here watch other videos." He clicked on another video, and it showed Stoya chasing the three cats around a room.

  "Do your cats live here?" I asked.

  "No," he said sadly, "they in Moscow with sister. Boss allergic to cats." He sighed and flipped to another video. "She send me video every day." I watched Stoya pull a ninja-like backflip move on Boris and then beat the fuck out of him.

  "I think I like Stoya." I laughed.

  "Yes!" He joined my laugh with his thunder and flipped to a new video.

  "Sorry for the delay." Jae was suddenly standing next to us, and I felt my heart do all sorts of Stoya-like sprinting and flipping.

  "Girl With Motorcycle likes cats also, Boss." Pavel showed Jae his tablet, and the super sexy Korean man nodded.

  "Dinner is ready. Did you eat yet, Pavel?"

  "No. I eat later. You talk to Girl With Motorcycle about mission. I will watch news."

  "Alright." Jae turned to me and offered his hand to help me off the couch. I thought about not taking it, but who the fuck was I kidding? I was only here because I wanted to fuck the guy. Oh, and because I needed to know how he learned my real name.

  My palm met his, and he easily pulled me to my feet. Once I was standing, he let go of my hand, damn it, and I followed him into the next room. This was a sprawling kitchen with clean white marble counter tops, steel fixtures, and computer displays covering almost all the available smooth surfaces. There were info tickers scrolling along with muted television news broadcasts.

  "Caleb, this is Sue Zay." Jae introduced me to the man moving around in the kitchen.

  "Ahhh, the legend is here!" The man was in the middle of opening an oven, and he quickly yanked out the pan that had been inside before he stepped toward me with his hand extended.

  "Nice to meet you." I shook his hand. Caleb looked like he was in his late forties. Most of his hair was gray, and he had a weathered look to his dark skin. He was fit, though, and wore a tight shirt under his apron that showed lean muscles. He also had tattoos of snakes, dragons, and lizards running up and down his forearms. The art looked old and had faded into his skin.

  "I've heard a lot about you. Take a seat. I've almost finished cooking." He gestured to the small dining table in the corner. Jae and I moved to sit there, and I tried to keep my eyes from trying to undress him.

  "I wanted to thank you again for the other night," Jae began. His eyes didn't seem to blink when he spoke, and I felt my cheeks redden. Fucking shit, this guy was too much for me. What the hell was my problem?

  "Here is salad." Caleb laid out two small bowls with mixed greens and brightly colored purple beets. There were flakes of white cheese on top, and a coating of oil dressing.

  "Let's eat for a bit, and then we can talk business," Jae said.

  "Fine. But I first want to know how you got my name." I took a bite of the salad but didn't really taste the lettuce.

  "I'll explain that to you, but it requires a small amount of back story." He raised both his eyebrows apologetically. I tried not to let my heart start racing, but the fucking bastard had a mind of his own.

  "I can listen while I eat."

  "Very well." He wiped his perfect mouth with a cloth napkin.

  "My associates and I are involved with some work that is..." he smiled slightly at me, "not entirely legal, but also not villainous."

  "That sounds like a bunch of bullshit." I shook my head and took another bite. That's right. I could talk back to this guy; I just wanted to talk dirty to him later.

  "Yes, I understand that. Here is the deal." He spread his hands out over the bowl of salad. "There are forces in this world that act without check. They have infiltrated governments. They control militaries, banks, churches, and corporations. Even the usual criminal elements are unknowingly doing their work. My friends and I have spent the last few years in Europe. We have followed a promising lead to Silicon Valley, and we are close to discovering a powerful player in this organization. We plan on working here until the lead has panned out."

  "So you guys are some sort of secret agency?" I huffed.

  "No." He smiled, and my fucking heart skipped a beat. "Just a small group of people who are sick of shit. We like to think of ourselves as freedom fighters."

  "But we are honestly more like freedom burglars," Caleb called out from the kitchen.

  "He is correct." Jae laughed. "There isn't much fighting going on. We've been operating for the last four years, and Friday night was the first time things didn't go quite as I planned."

  "No shit," I said.

  "It made me realize that I am missing a role in the team. I don't have someone who can get in and out of places quickly. I don't have someone who can be in the field besides Pavel. I need someone with tact."

  "And you believe that person is me?" I tried not to laugh. No one who knew me would think I possessed any sort of tact.

  "I don't know. When we first got to California, I thought I wouldn't really need an alternative mode of transportation. I thought I could just take pods everywhere. But our mission is becoming more dispersed. I've got tasks that need to be done in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and of course here. Even getting to other sides of the valley isn't very quick in the pods."

  "So you want me to drive you around?" I winced at him.

  "Maybe. Can you drive a car?" he asked.

  "I don't have the correct license, but I could figure it out. It isn't something I want to do, though."

  "I can see that. I know you are talented on your motorcycle. Most of the work I have in mind for you will just be jobs that will involve you riding," Jae said with a gentle smile. Caleb walked over to set down two plates. Each one had a small piece of filet mignon and some bright-green Brussels sprouts. I couldn't help but stare at the meat. I lived off dollar-discount soy noodles. The cut of steak before me probably cost a hundred bucks.

  "How do you know about me? How did you figure out my name?" I crossed my arms over my riding leathers and tried to glare at him. Fuck, he was so hot. E
ven when I was mad at him, I couldn't really be mad at him.

  "We didn't really know about you," Jae said, and he frowned. "We knew that Katsumi Zato was having dinner at The Flying Fish. She goes nowhere without a few dozen bodyguards. We scheduled a meeting there with people who were dangerous, hoping they wouldn't attack us. Or if they did, Zato's guards would think the violence was intended for her, and they would put a stop to it."

  "Ahhh." I nodded. "How did you know she was having dinner there?"

  "That is my doing." Caleb waved from the kitchen.

  "Caleb is superb with computers. He's also great in the kitchen. Let's enjoy a few bites of our meal before we continue." Jae cut into his steak and then took a bite. The meat looked rare, and the smell was fantastic. I took a bite and quickly realized that it tasted better than it smelled.

  "After you saved Pavel and me last night, I had Caleb dig. We knew your AI tag, but that didn't help us any. We also knew you were having dinner alone with Katsumi Zato. This was weird, but again, he couldn't find out much. It wasn't until he looked for a woman who could ride a motorcycle like you that we got some leads." Jae smirked

  "Check it here." Caleb pressed his wrist by his watch, and the screens in the kitchen showed an image of a handsome man covered with motorcycle-branded clothes.

  "Can we just talk about Sue Zay? I need a whole fucking channel devoted to this girl. How fucking hot is she?" An image of me standing at the top of a podium holding a giant trophy in my hand flashed on the screen. I couldn't remember exactly which competition it was since there had been almost a hundred that I won, but I looked happy in the picture.

  "Just fucking look at her. Dammmmnnnn. She is like one of the models that hangs on the bikes at fucking shows. She is hotter than a ride through Death Valley in August."

  "Oh, come on. I'm not that hot." I sighed, and Jae raised an eyebrow. Wait, did that mean Jae actually did think I was that hot?

  "But I don't even want to talk about her looks. That isn't even why she is so fucking amazing. No folks, this hot little piece is probably the best fucking rider to grace out planet. Fucking ever. Think I'm just a fanboy? Here is the damn proof." The guy rolled his eyes, and the image cut to a video.