by Tex Leiko
“Okay, here is another for you since you are obviously well scripted and nothing I have asked has even made you bat an eye.” She paused.
“Yes?”
“Back in the centuries before we had this technology, naturally occurring weather patterns would arrive at the same point of contact, causing a disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, gale force winds, flash floods…need I go on?”
“Okay, destruction, disorder, chaos. I still don’t understand your question.”
“It’s because I haven’t asked it yet. How do you keep these things from happening?”
“It is easy. We check all orders, cross check all orders, and even triple cross check every order around the globe to see to it that no client conflicts occur. Additionally, even if there is no client conflict, we check with a discrepancy in weather patterns. As you probably know, we can’t be having a fast moving humid hot front collide with rapidly moving cold front. It would spell disaster for us all. It would spell…” He trailed off.
“Chaos, I get the point. I am glad to see that you have a system to check these things. The last thing I want to do is fund a company that inadvertently was used by terrorists to kill us all!”
“We, as a corporation, concur. I can tell you they have tried, but with our security checks doubled with the high grade override systems that we have installed, it is impossible for anyone to abuse this technology, even its creators. Any further questions?”
“You’ve mentioned cost, all random numbers that didn’t seem to indicate a base price. What is the cheapest your services come in and what are the increments of time?”
“All weather can be purchased in increments of one hour. Base price on the median is twenty thousand credits for an hour. Some requests are easier than others so that’s why I gave you a median. We have a spreadsheet that covers it all. However, if one is to make a purchase of a whole day and night’s worth, with the exclusion of sunshine—we aren’t gods—a discount then applies. Buying only one hour is always the most expensive route one could possibly assume. A twelve hour package is typically the most reasonable. However, as I said, there is a spreadsheet that covers this all.”
The answer was as well rehearsed as it could come. She scanned him up and down with her piercing eyes and remembered everything about him. From his navy based, pinstriped blue suit to his late nineteen-fifties bowler hat. She wanted to remember him for her own purposes. This was a man that was obviously intelligent and filled with more information than he would divulge given this situation.
“In order for you to be a client, you have to sign this document, which as you pointed out, swears you to even more secrecy. If you are okay with that,”—he began to hand her a pen—“then all we need is for you sign your name… What was it? I know I could look at the original documentation, but you must understand, I really am bad with names and I forgot what you said at the beginning of our conversation, terribly sorry really.”
This excellent business man had lost his edge. He didn’t remember her name. He had been pacing her so well.
“It’s because I didn’t say, and you didn’t think I would be worth your time so you didn’t even bother to look at my application or my preliminary paperwork. I forgive you; the name is Crimson, Crimson Rose.”
She took his pen and signed her name. She was now a member of the Barometrics Corporation as a client. She could now buy the weather she wanted. Some of her questions were satiated, for now. She, however, felt that it was time to leave; more of her inquisition would come later.
“Thanks for doing business with me, sweetheart,” she said with a sly wink to the business man.
“Um, uh… No! Thank you for your business,” he said unsurely, caught off guard.
“And your name was?” she said, smiling innocently as a blushing virgin who had seen the man she lusted after naked for the first time.
“How rude of me. I must have never introduced myself properly to a woman of your caliber, as well as a potential client.” He didn’t know it, but he had already made several vital mistakes in his answer. “But the name is Brian Nash.”
“Good meeting you, Brian,” she said, turning toward the hallway that would lead her out of his office. “I hope to be doing a good amount of business with you in the future.” She then sauntered down the hallway with a feline’s grace. As she exited the office building and hit the streets, she cocked her head and spat, followed by a mutter. “God damn pig!”
She continued down the concrete sidewalk back toward her house on the west end of town; she would have to pass by the central slums to reach her home. She had more business to attend to today. The road to completing her vendetta would be long and bloodied.
I may as well continue to pursue my ruse since I am stuck walking, she thought to herself. She activated her Link System Communications Device and asked it to call Brian Nash. There were three rings; he undoubtedly had caller identification and knew it was her. Her final dealings with him must have had him confused; it’s what she had intended anyway.
“Hello?” he asked, puzzled.
“Brian, I know I only just left your office, but I wanted to throw this out there. I do have half a mind to retract any thought of wanting to purchase your services by the fact that you didn’t give me your all from the very beginning as you should have.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. It was presumptuous of me to do so. I see so many people come in looking at our product and they never make the commitment. I judged you to be like them and I really wasn’t trying to impress with my best of knowledge and expertise. I am really surprised you noticed. You are quite the savvy woman. May I ask, though? Why are you calling? You aren’t retracting your request to be a customer, are you? As you know, we require a fifty thousand credit applicant fee that is non-refundable. Also, may I add, our services could be of much benefit to you in your line of work, Miss Crimson.” He was a salesman, all right. She could hear his cockiness coming back in his tone of voice.
“You are correct, and I am a woman of reason. I hadn’t thought anything as crazy as wasting fifty thousand. Additionally, please never pander me as to how useful the company’s services—Barometrics’ services, not your own—could be to me lest I forget my line of work. The reason I called was to offer you a chance to redeem yourself. Prove you aren’t as insolent and useless as I perceive. I know that you make a commission and I can request a new sales representative at any time. So how ‘bout it? Up for proving you aren’t as useless as you seem?” Her questioning tone was subtly seductive, like a dominatrix calling a slave.
Brian’s voice had a tone of confusion. “Well, what exactly did you have in mind?”
“Tomorrow, you take me to dinner. We meet at the Blue Nami on the east end of the city. If you don’t know it, look it up. You’re paying. I figure you can afford it after the commission of my applicant fee. If you can’t stimulate me with an intelligent conversation then take me home. Even a girl like me needs to get plowed every once and awhile. Your body is good enough to do the job. If it isn’t, I’ve got some boosts that will help,” she said forwardly.
It was a risky strategy. If this guy had any common sense, he would feel a trap coming. If he was an ordinary man, he would let his male member do the thinking for him. Either way, she needed to use him like a chess piece and hoped he would take the bait.
“Well, Miss Rose… I don’t know what to say. Under normal circumstances, I would be offended by your outright demands, but seeing as these are anything but normal circumstances…I accept. I will see you tomorrow at the Blue Nami. What time works for you?” he questioned. She could tell he was already envisioning himself panting over her sweaty body.
“Eight,” she said, then disconnected.
Men are such easy marks. All you have to do is offer sex and they will do about anything. If that doesn’t work, cry. She had been so wrapped up in her conversation that she hadn’t realized she was already in the slums. As she looked around for a landmark she could identify, sh
e saw a bald-headed, grey-skinned man stumbling her way.
He was either intoxicated or had obviously undergone recent nanobot modifications, and he had the appearance of a Screamer. As he stumbled closer, she made eye contact with him. He looked at her with a strange, inquisitive expression. She was known to turn many heads with her beauty, but his countenance wasn’t lustful. It was…as if he had seen something familiar to him.
“Excuse me, sir, but is there a clinic around here? My head hurts something awful and I could really use a doctor’s attention,” she said to him in an almost Southern belle accent.
He stared at her with a complex expression in his eyes. His body was quivering from the bots destructing and reconstructing the nervous system in his brain. His lips were even trembling and when he spoke, his voice was distorted. “There is. Keep heading north for about six blocks, east two, and you will see between a café and an abandoned building Dr. Max Hall’s office. He can help.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” she said, still faking an overly sweet persona.
She had to play so many roles in life that she did so naturally. She sometimes didn’t even realize it when she wasn’t speaking in her own voice. Sometimes she forgot which of the voices she used actually belonged to her. All that she really knew was she had a purpose and nothing would stop her from fulfilling it.
“Not a problem,” said the awkwardly proportioned stranger.
Before he could say anything else to her, she had begun a hasty stride in the direction of one Max Hall’s office. She was curious as to how he was doing, if he was the same Max she’d known so many years ago. She passed by many seedy characters as she made her way to the office.
She was certainly out of place by the looks of her. Her skin tight black and pink combat suit, her flowing red hair, her striking eyes, and her angelic skin tone. This was a destitute part of town and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was moving faster in her walking pace than most people jogged, some of these unruly hoodlums would have likely tried to have some fun with her.
She rounded the corner and stood near a green dumpster. Exactly as the stranger had described to her, there was the café, Floyd’s. Then there was a tacky neon sign half burnt out and flickering. Below it was a black cast iron door with a gauss weaponry resistant glass window that read, Doctor Max Hall. On the other side of that was an abandoned building that should have been condemned. There was no doubt a bunch of boost addicts squatting in there.
She flipped open a bangle she always wore on her wrist and revealed a portable Synaptix Corp multiprocessor interface. She pressed a side button and turned it on. She stood staring into space for about fifteen seconds. But by the end of it, she had confirmed this was the Max she had been in school with as a child.
She also confirmed his birth date, home address, blood type, portfolio, specialty of medicine, every test score from youth through his college days, how many women he had been with, as well as any crime he may have been suspect or convicted of. Nothing was sacred.
She closed her portable interface and took in a deep breath. She exhaled it out of her mouth and at the end, let out a girlish giggle. She regained her composure then said aloud, “This is going to be fun.”
In an instant, she bolted off at lightning speed toward the black cast iron door. She knew it was going to make a rumble that would shake the building and those inside the office.
Her speed was unmatched and her strength inhuman; she might even unhinge the door when she came into contact with it. He might have patients in there now that had weak hearts. He might even become startled and wet himself. She knew this, and she hoped these things would all come true.
It would give her a good laugh. Right before impact, she had to wipe the grin she was wearing off her face. She had to be cool, calm, assertive. She had to be in command. She couldn’t be this little girl running in the street about to barge through the door hoping to scare someone.
She had to go back to being a woman. She had to go back to playing roles to get what she wanted to fulfill what she needed to do. It was time to get real, time to be serious. But for those few brief seconds that she could be a child, and the memories she would hold of them after? Well, damn, they sure did feel good.
Chapter Four
Back Alleyways
After paying, he stumbled out of Max’s office. He had felt pain before, even worse than this, but never quite like this. The large hollow bore needle into his brachial vein was nothing compared to the migraine associated with the robots de-mylenating the sheaths around his acoustic nerve and portions of his brain then reconstructing them to hear and understand new frequencies.
He was stumbling down the streets of Alexarien looking like a junkie; his balance was off and he felt sick to his stomach. The things he heard around him weren’t quite the same and he kept hearing deep rumbles followed by screeching pieces of high frequencies so intense he thought his eyes were going to burst.
The pain made him sick to his stomach and he couldn’t remember where the apartment was that he was staying at. The pain was so bad his vision was blurring and he began to sweat like a booster suffering from withdrawals. He had been so smug back at the office. He did know pain of all sorts that most humans could only imagine in nightmares; this was worse.
He had talked to himself in his head, though; he re-established to himself that this was necessary. Even if it wasn’t, there was no going back now. He’d signed the papers and once the series of injections was started, it could be detrimental to stop. Everything he read on the net said that the first shot was always the worst.
He shook his head and kept stumbling, and crossed the street. He was trying to go by memory, which was now clouded by flashbacks and pain. He thought he was headed the right direction toward home when he saw her, Sarah.
No, it wasn’t her; she was much too old. She would only be about nineteen, and a little bit taller. Her hair would be black. You can change that, he thought to himself. Her face, though, had a similar character, something familiar.
Her multi-colored eyes were the same as his sister’s, how? Nobody had eyes that revealing, that piercing, that striking. Who was this demon headed his way? Doppelganger, he thought.
The way she walked and the air around her made him forget his pain, forget Sarah had been kidnapped. He felt the urge to ask where she had been, but he knew this wasn’t Sarah. She’ll think I am a lunatic.
“Excuse me, sir, but is there a clinic around here? My head hurts something awful and I could really use a doctor’s attention.”
Ironic, so does mine. Who talks the way you do anymore? he was dying to say. “There is. Keep heading north for about six blocks, east two, and you will see between a café and an abandoned building Dr. Max Hall’s office. He can help.”
“Thank you, kind sir.”
“Not a problem,”
He was burning to say something. To ask about his sister, but before he could say another word, she was gone with a stride so swift it appeared she was floating, drifting on the wind. The way his sister used to move.
He clutched his forehead and, strangely, the pain was gone. He could see straight. He heard her fine despite being dumbfounded. Perhaps the pain was over. Perhaps the bots took a break on their task. Maybe he had become accustomed to the pain now. Zarfa didn’t know, and he didn’t care either.
Dazed by the surreal reminder of his sister, he looked around. Despite stumbling nearly blind, he was headed the right direction of the apartment he’d taken a few months lease on. He needed to get home and rest, so he continued to travel down the streets of the slums.
He noticed that this area of the city was a breeding ground for delinquents. He had only been in the city for a brief period of time. Zarfa had heard many tales of Alexarien as a child, and even more when he began his journey to Alexarien for his treatments. He didn’t know how much of what he had heard was rumor and what was true.
So far, he had only seen the run down districts of the city, and all that he
had been told was true. The streets were dirty; there were homeless, gangsters, and punks riddling every street corner and sidewalk. Addicts were everywhere, boosters and stimulant junkies alike passed out or shaking in every alleyway, lying in wait for someone to come by that they could rob for their credits in order to score their next hit.
He had to be here. He had to receive the treatments, and then he was destined back home to Ilyeion. He knew he couldn’t stand to live in a place such as this. He thought the crime and poverty in his city was awful when he was there, but this was inexcusable.
Since this was exactly the vision every rumor of the slums conjured before his visit, he could only imagine what the west end of town was like. He had heard of the luxury, elegance, and decadent lifestyles that were held there. He heard of the slavery—anyone could be bought or sold for a price if they didn’t have the money to support themselves.
Work was scarce. Zarfa was barely getting by with his job fighting in the pits. He began to ponder whether or not he would be able to fight tomorrow night and earn his keep. For now, the pain had subsided, but what if it came back?
What if he was in too much pain to surrender the fight and his enemy got the advantage and was going to win? The rules were to the death or surrender. What if he couldn’t? He had a lot on his mind and was beginning to feel overwhelmed. The only thing that he wanted to do was rest, and he was getting close to home.
His residence was in an alleyway up ahead. Typically, there were a few junkies huddled around a garbage can chatting about how great life had been before they were on the street and how it was everyone else’s fault that they had gotten here. Perhaps it was, but from Zarfa’s vantage point, it most likely was their own.
Zarfa stood at the entrance to the alleyway and saw the same people he had always seen for the last few weeks. The same junkies and the pimp who had taken a liking to this location. By this point, he was glad his pain had gone. His vision was good and he could see clearly again. One didn’t want any disadvantages when he or she was standing in an Alexarien slums alleyway.
