Hammer Town

by Selina Rosen

  The Building District where she now stood was a product of the environment of fear of a returning plague and mechanical achievement. Simply put, in the minds of the survivors, human contact and world travel had caused the plague. With the new strides in computer technology and robotics there was no need to travel or to have anything more than minimal human contact. Follow that thinking a hundred years down the road, and you came to FreightCity’s Building District population – complete shut-ins who never walked in direct sunlight or breathed anything but filtered air. The most exercise they got was when they stepped off their moving walk way into the parking garage and called for their car. Many of them, maybe even most, never even got that far. They worked, ate, slept and lived – if you could call it that – without ever leaving their floor, much less the building.

  Corporations ran everything including city governments and police agencies. Everything now centered on the all-mighty dollar. Rich districts could afford the best police agencies and plenty of patrols. Their crime rate was almost nonexistent these days, if you didn’t include all the illegal VR. Of course this was where all the crime lords made their homes. They conducted their sordid business from here, and it was here that they lived to escape the kind of corruption and depravity their “business” created.

  Drugs and hookers were still big in SlumTown, and the crime lords – who were connected to yet another corporation – dealt in that. But they made most of their real money selling illegal virtual reality programs, which miraculously appeared in the “crime free” building district. Programs that could screw up your brain every bit as bad and a hell of a lot faster than drugs. If Hammer had a dime for every time she’d pulled a VR helmet off some overindulgent building brat, she’d be rich instead of just comfortable. Their blank eyes would stare up at her, their drooling mouths gaping at some horror or ecstasy that had wrenched their soul from their body. They had never really lived, never touched or been touched by anything but damn machines. They were conceived in them, born in them, lived in them and died in them.

  The majority of people were miserable, and they didn’t even know why. The programs the pushers sold them for ridiculous prices helped them for a while to escape from the bounds of the walls they’d built all around themselves. It was easy to get addicted, and the younger they were the easier it was. They used it more and more and more until they couldn’t stop, their brain overloaded, and they died.

  Hammer knew what the programs did to you first hand. Hammer had been a building brat, raised in a building not far from where she stood now. She’d been created in a tank and confined to one of these prisons of convenience. She had parents she never talked to, and was raised by machines, with no warmth. The programs had given her something that life and her parents hadn’t, and she found herself doing more and more programs. One program didn’t last long before it crashed, and then you wanted a bigger and better program. That’s how they sucked you in, by making sure that you got just enough that you had to have more. She hocked everything she owned. She hocked her parents’ stuff. They punished her by locking her out of the computer and deleting her access codes, but they didn’t talk to her, they didn’t pay attention to her, and they didn’t include her in a life that they shared together – apart.

  She went into withdrawal, and she needed a program, so she left the building for the first time in her life. She had heard over the net that you could buy programs in SlumTown, so she called for a car, charged it to her parents’ account and headed for SlumTown with her VR unit in a pack on her back.

  The car had been programmed not to go into SlumTown, and it left her on the outskirts. It was a big, dirty place where none of the machines seemed to work right, and Conner fell in love with it immediately. She had been walking in SlumTown less than ten minutes when her legs started to cramp. When she sat down to rub her legs, someone jumped her, beat her up, and stole her pack off her back, leaving her with no money and no VR machine.

  It was the greatest thing that had ever happened in her sixteen years of life. The programs had made her an excitement junkie, and virtual excitement couldn’t hold a candle to the real thing. She never looked back.

  Life outside the building – life in SlumTown was rough, and it was gritty, rich, and intoxicating – a much stronger drug than any program.

  Conner never saw her parents again. She heard – years later – that they’d had another baby created, a boy. Conner felt no link to him, no desire to find him or to have contact with her parents. If they had any desire to find her, they hadn’t been successful, and she didn’t know anything about it. Maybe they were dead – even this thought didn’t stir any feelings within her. They had been incapable of forming any kind of emotional attachment to her, and so she was incapable of feeling anything for them now. They had given her their DNA, that was all.

  People walked the streets in SlumTown. There were moving sidewalks, but they only worked half the time, and most of the people who lived there didn’t make enough money to buy a car. Public transit was iffy at best, and so when you lived in SlumTown, you learned to walk. You also learned to fight, or you died.

  Since SlumTown was so impoverished, it couldn’t afford to pay for the services of any of the better police agencies. The only time cops came to SlumTown was when they were looking for leads in a case that had taken place in more affluent neighborhoods. Because of the lack of good jobs and the lack of adequate police protection, SlumTown had become a haven for FreightCity’s ever-growing criminal element. If nothing else flourished in SlumTown, crime did. The more adventurous population from the buildings would sneak in and engage in all the debauchery they shunned in their sterile little Building lives.

  All of the program dealing that took place in FreightCity went through SlumTown, although most of the real addicts lived in the buildings. The hackers were hidden in dens all over SlumTown. The people in the buildings would find a pusher on the net; it wasn’t very hard. They would slip an outrageous amount of virtual cash into a specified account, and then they would receive a program. The new program would satisfy their habit for a while. In SlumTown, small – time program dealers were everywhere, and they’d let you sample their wares for free, so you always knew what you were getting into.

  Conner took a lot of free samples, but after she got to SlumTown she never bought another program. For one thing she never had the money to replace her VR unit, much less buy a new program. Besides, after she started living in SlumTown she never had the need to program. Her addiction ended where real life began, on the streets of SlumTown.

  She wound up working for a Fagen named Willie Street. He taught “his” kids how to read computer language and how to use an instrument called a keyboard. It resembled its historical prototype only in that there were keys that one pressed. It was smaller, more compact, and the vid screen folded down over the board to make a tight seal. With several ports for input and output, it was a very versatile tool. Using this tool, Willie taught them how to hack into any system. He would take them up town and they would spread out. If they could find any computer feed wire in a building, they would wire the keyboard in, and in a matter of minutes they could hack their way into the personal bank accounts of any tenant in that building. Once there, they would transfer small amounts of money – never more than twenty dollars – directly into one of Willie Street’s many secret accounts. A good hacker could easily bring in anywhere from two hundred to five hundred dollars a day, and to be a good hacker you had to learn to read.

  Years later she realized that they had made Willie Street a very wealthy little criminal mastermind, while they had cost him practically nothing to keep. At the time he had seemed to her to be the family she had never had. He kept all the money, but he at least acted like he cared about them. He spent time with them, which was more than any of their parents had ever done. He gave them a clean place to live, and the computer spit out three square meals a day for anywhere from six to eight kids, from ages twelve to twenty. That and the fact t
hat he never tried to molest any of them, and protected them from the rougher elements in the city was enough to buy both their loyalty and their devotion.

  When Conner got older and it became obvious that she liked girls, Willie introduced her to one of his sidelines. He pimped her out to some very high-classed, older building broads, who had lots of money to spend and had become bored with virtual sex, older mates, or using screens. Homosexuality, while it was largely accepted in modern society, and even embraced by some cultures, was still considered an abnormality among the building people. In their sterilized civilization those kinds of urges were best kept in the closet, and since the desire was more than an urge, Conner never missed a meal for lack of a trick.

  Willie let Conner keep half of what she made. It was a good job for a horney teenage girl to have. In fact, at the time Conner had thought it was really no job at all.

  One day police agents came and took Willie and locked his ass up. At the time Conner had been outraged. Willie had been more like a parent to her and those other kids than their own parents had. Now they were on their own, and SlumTown was a harsh place for young people to be on their own. They had stuck together for a long time, finding that there was safety in numbers, but eventually they had all gone their separate ways. They all still kept in touch through a fellow named Pinky who had helped them from time to time with absolutely no strings attached. There was still a bond between them, and a loyalty that had made Conner as a police agent look the other way, and warn them away from certain places at certain times more than once. Of course in turn they had helped her out from time to time as well. For one thing they had kept her very well connected in SlumTown.

  It wasn’t long after Willie went down that Conner was busted for illegal prostitution – the only legal prostitution was run by one of the corporations – and they threw her in jail. She was locked in a small cell with nothing, not even a computer. It was harsh and bleak, and it made Conner’s skin crawl.

  Different police agencies came through the prison on a regular basis looking for non-violent criminals to train as undercover police agents. Criminals were much more likely to trust someone they had seen involved in criminal activities in the past.

  The deal was simple, the agency trained you, housed you, fed you, and you belonged to them for two years. For two years they kept all the money you earned. You lived in barracks and got three meals a day. Conner was only supposed to spend a year in jail, and even Willie had let her keep part of her money, so the first time they offered her the deal she spit in their faces and told them to shove it. But after six weeks of staring at bricks and steel, she was ready to climb the walls, so when they came through recruiting again, she grabbed them and begged them to put her into their program.

  By that time it had been three years since she’d last been cooped up in a building, and she was freaking out. She was used to touching other people and being touched by them. She was used to getting rained on and having the wind in her face, she couldn’t live surrounded by walls again. Not unless they were going to supply her with the illegal programs which had sent her into the streets in the first place.

  Conner stopped walking and looked up at PowersTowers. Elantra couldn’t stay in prison, either. Not now that she had been on the outside. It was only a matter of time till Elantra came out of the building, and when she did Conner would be waiting.

  Conner walked across the street and leaned against a lamppost, just watching the building. She was so close that she could hear the machines cleaning up the mess she had made in the parking garage. She looked up the building at the window that she knew looked into Elantra’s room. She lifted her patch and looked. She couldn’t see through it now. They must have ordered the computer to black it out; she was relieved and disappointed at the same time.

  She felt more than saw something, and she turned in time to see someone duck into the shadow of the parking garage. She caught just enough of his face to recognize him as one of Mishy’s boys, and she knew from experience that he wasn’t alone. Conner harbored no doubt that Mishy wanted her as dead as Tarent did. However she doubted these men were here for her. By now Mishy would have heard that Elantra was now safe at home with Daddy. He’d also know that Tarent had more than probably taken off the kid gloves and had a hit put on him.

  Likewise Mishy had raised the bar. No doubt he was no longer going to be happy to simply kill Elantra and make Tarent suffer. Now he wanted Tarent dead. He had his goons watching Tarent’s place looking for chinks in Tarent’s armor. He had gotten to him once and knew that if he watched closely enough he could figure out a way to get at him again. This time he wouldn’t be taking any prisoners.

  Conner being here where they could shoot her was just a happy little bonus for them.

  At least that was what they thought. Conner put her patch back down and pretended to relax against the post. The guy she had spotted was waiting, too, his actions confirming her belief that Mishy wanted her dead. Conner supposed that in his position she might have wanted to kill her, too.

  If it was a choice between Mishy and Elantra, or even saving her own skin, Conner had no doubt that she would kill Mishy. But if she could save herself and Elantra without killing Mishy, she would.

  Peggy had loved her brother. They had been close in a way that had been completely alien to Conner. There had been a bond between them that had seemed almost tangible. Peggy and Mishy looked nothing alike, yet when they were in a room with each other you knew they were family. Till now Mishy had always treated Hammer like part of that family, in spite of the fact that she was a cop and he was a criminal. For her part Conner had covered evidence against him more times than she cared to count. Mishy was scum, there was no doubt, but he was at least the scum that rose to the top.

  When she met Peggy Mishy, Conner had already been employed by Brakston Agency for six years and had all her implants. She had also already converted to Constructionism and had become a legend among them as well. In fact she was already living in the newly named HammerTown.

  She thought she had everything she wanted and needed until she saw Peggy Mishy.

  Conner’d been cruising a popular SlumTown club called Whips, trying to talk a set of identical clones into an incredibly kinky sex act when Mishy walked in with a bunch of his usual thugs and the most beautiful woman Conner had ever seen. She immediately lost interest in the clones, who seemed more than a little upset when she became less than attentive and told them to bugger off.

  She already knew Mishy on sight. Mishy was the lesser of two evils, and the agencies left him alone for the most part to balance out Tarent Powers’ operations. Mishy was a thorn in Tarent’s side, and since the agencies seemed incapable of affecting Tarent at all, Mishy was considered a necessary evil. Mishy knew this, and tried to hold up his end of the bargain by being very careful not to cross over the line. Which meant he didn’t hustle the more dangerous programs – drugs, illegal hookers, gambling, and fairly benign programs, but nothing lethal.

  Conner stared at Peggy for an hour trying to figure out how to approach her. In the end she didn’t have to. Peggy walked right up to her and asked, “Why are you staring at me?”

  Conner answered truthfully, if unromantically. “Because you’re turning my guts inside out.”

  Peggy had laughed. “So is that good or bad?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Conner said.

  “Homosexual?” Peg asked, never one to beat around the bush.

  “Very.”

  “Want to go to my place?”

  “Ah... what about Mishy?”

  “My brother. I’m Peggy Mishy,” Peg explained. “I don’t tell him not to cheat on his wife, and he doesn’t tell me who to sleep with, it’s kind of an agreement we have.”

  “I think I should tell you I’m a cop,” Conner told her.

  Peggy had laughed. “I’m not blind. I can see your agency tattoo. So... you game or not?”

  “Oh, I’m game... With or without a screen?” Conne
r asked.

  “Without... I’m a Constructionist.”

  Conner smiled stupidly. “Me, too! I’m Hammer McVee.” Conner knew in that instant that they were meant to be together; she knew then that she was in love.

  Peggy would later tell Conner that she had thought Conner was pulling her leg about being a Constructionist, much less THE Hammer McVee. That hadn’t stopped Peggy from bringing Conner home with her. They’d made love on a chair, the floor, the couch and the kitchen table that night. They got married a week later, and they were together every day from the first time they met until Tarent Powers had cut Peggy’s life short and her body into twenty different pieces.

  Conner glared at the building. Tarent had taken Peggy away, and now he was keeping Elantra away.

  There was really only one way out of the mess she’d gotten herself into. She had to kill Tarent Powers. With Tarent dead there would be no reason for Mishy to kill her or Elantra. Of course if he were easy to kill she would have done it years ago, and none of this crap would have happened. The real problem was that the bastard had never stuck so much as his finger out of that building in going on twenty years. Try as she might, she’d never been able to crack the bastard’s codes.

  Conner had a sudden need to hit someone, and remembered the man who had run into the parking garage. She moved away from the lamppost and started strolling leisurely along as if she had not a care in the world. She walked into the parking garage unzipping her pants, and started walking in the direction of a bathroom. She heard a gun cock, turned in an instant and fired. Six nails penetrated the man’s jacket and pinned his gun arm to the concrete wall behind him. She swung around quickly and just shot the other one in the head; he dropped like a rock. Conner swung back around to face the one she had pinned. She easily kicked his gun from his trapped hand.