Cold Reboot (Shadow Decade Book 1)

by Michael Coorlim

  "Yeah." Chris pulled the doors closed and began securing the older woman.

  I straightened up, gun pointed in his general direction.

  He looked up at me. "She's out. She won't be a problem."

  "Neither will you."

  "Look, I–"

  I crawled into the back, sitting across from him.

  He stared at the gun in my hand. "You just deliver your patient. Don't worry about me. Pretend I'm not even here. Okay?"

  He turned away, slipping into the driver's seat.

  I waited, still, barely breathing, focused on not passing out while he pulled the ambulance around to the parking garage's entrance. He stopped by the automated stand, swiped his badge, and the gate opened. Chris pulled out onto Huron.

  Now that we'd entered traffic, I took the opportunity to find the injection site under my breast. It wasn't hard, but... how'd I know what to look for? I had an academic understanding of fentanyl, a marketer's understanding, but without thinking about it I was able to raise the vein, line up the needle, plunge the ampule, and dose myself while keeping the gun pointed in Chris's general direction.

  How'd I know how? Where'd I get any of these skills?

  Who was I?

  The opioid spread in a warm glow through my body, soothing the needles in my chest, making it easier to breathe. It wasn't a high dose. Not enough to make me drowsy. Just enough to take the edge off the pain.

  So I could think.

  Why had I run? Didn't I have enough trouble? In the last twenty-four hours I'd been mugged, robbed, attacked in an elevator... the police might not be after me, but someone was. It was too much, too soon to be a coincidence.

  I hadn't thought about that, though, when I attacked the nurse. That'd been impulse. I wasn't thinking, I was just acting, and had an immediate powerful aversion to the idea that she'd contact the police about me.

  It wasn't me. It was her. This other Erica. The Erica who bought a gun, who'd faced down a gang of toughs, who'd foiled two attempts on her life without hesitation. This other Erica who had so concealed her tracks that even the police had no record of me for the last decade.

  Who had I been? What had I been up to?

  That gnawing, growing sense of anxiety returned, stronger than the fentanyl. It was a dark anticipation, a fear of what the things I didn't know could do to hurt me. I needed answers that nobody seemed to have.

  As soon as Chris was driving through my neighborhood on his way to the U of I hospital I bailed out, swiftly and silently. I don't think he noticed.

  CHAPTER 18: HOOK UP

  It was a short walk back to 500 Block, but my discomfort and difficulty breathing seemed to intensify with each step, overcoming the fentanyl in my system. I needed something stronger if I was going to stay on my feet.

  No. No, I needed medical attention. I needed to lie down. I needed time to heal.

  Not yet. Not while I was being hunted. Not until I was safe, and returning to the Block sure as hell didn't feel safe.

  I stumbled through the lobby and into the courtyard, right past Ruamano and two of her boys leaning against the wall.

  "Shit, Crawford, you don't look so good." She was masking concern with amusement.

  I stopped to catch my breath. "You guys sell drugs, right?"

  She shifted, crossing one leg over the other, hands in her pockets, smile fading a little. "Maybe you need something, maybe I can get it."

  "Tramadol."

  "I don't know what that is."

  "It's a painkiller. Also called Ultram? It's an opioid."

  "Sounds like heavy duty shit, Crawford. Fuck you up."

  I sagged. "I'm already fucked up."

  "You look fucked up." She glanced at her boys. "I got some iniurprofin. You want a flat?"

  "Iniurprofin?"

  "Military grade painkiller. Strong like morphine, but it won't knock your ass out."

  "You got some?"

  She pushed away from the wall. "Yeah, come on up to my place."

  I staggered forward, almost stumbling. The fentanyl was wearing off.

  Concern broke past the mask of disinterest on Ruomano's face. "Shit, Crawford, you fucked up. You don't need iniurprofin, you need a fucking doctor. The fuck happened to you?"

  "No doctors. No questions."

  "Shit, I know you're in some messed-up shit, but there's a guy down on Lowe. Doctor doesn't ask questions, doesn't call the cops. Everything on the down-low."

  I forced myself to straighten, to hide my pain from this girl, from her friends. You never let them see your weakness. "You trying to talk yourself out of a sale?"

  Ruomano shook her head and jogged past me up the stairs. "Fuck, it's your life. Come on up."

  ***

  Ruamano's apartment's door was just like all the others on the block, but inside it was very different. Furnished not with the disposable fabricated accoutrements that had come with my own place, but with genuine looking resin statues, wooden masks, tribal print wall-hangings in patterns similar to those of the gang's graffiti, but more ordered, more skillfully produced. There was an exotic smell in the air, too... strange meat mixed with stranger spices. Appetizing.

  It looked more than just lived-in. It looked like a home.

  After a moment I realized that Ruamano's place was two apartments, the wall between them knocked down, makeshifts sectioned off with fabricated partition screens.

  An old man, face covered with tribal tattoos, sat sunk into a plush recliner in the living room, facing the flat-screen, watching some program in a language I didn't speak.

  "Got a friend over, Koroua."

  The old man waved a hand vaguely in Ruamano's direction.

  She put a hand on my arm. "Come on."

  "That your grandfather?" I asked.

  "Yeah. Punga and I take care of him."

  "Punga..."

  "Yo, my brother, shit. Boss of Te Awara. You seen him. Big dude. Gold teeth."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, scary motherfucker, right? Nobody fucks with Punga."

  "You guys are what... Hawaiian?"

  She looked amused. "No, man, Maori. Te Arawa is Maori for 'Sharks.'"

  "You're the sharks?" I couldn't help but grin. "Like in West Side Story?"

  "I don't know what that is." She led the way to one of the partitioned rooms, containing little more than a simple cot and what looked like an extensive cobbled-together computer rig. Wires and peripherals sat on every available surface, with more wires taped to the walls.

  I cast my gaze across the mess. "Are you all from..."

  "New Zealand. Me and Punga and grandpa, yeah. Some of the others. Others are from wherever. Bangladesh, Tonga, Kiribati, Maldives, whatever islands been getting washed away."

  "New Zealand was washed away?"

  She laughed. "Not the whole thing, no, but my ancestors built all their shit on the beaches. You know? Man, don't you watch the news? Everybody getting flooded out. Climate refugees n' shit."

  "No, I... I don't remember anything from the last ten years."

  She turned and stared at me. "What, for real?"

  "Yeah. I was in a coma for a week, and they said that that was one of the things that can happen."

  "That's fucked up."

  "Yeah." It was pretty fucked up.

  "They got implants for that now. Stick a chip in your head. Fix your memory."

  The doctors had gone over that with me in the hospital. "That kind of thing only helps if you have physical damage. My brain's fine it just... it just needs to rewire itself."

  "No wonder you're so fucked up."

  "Thanks?"

  "It's cool, Erica. Lots of people are fucked up." She pulled a plastic tackle box out from under her cot. "So you got money to pay for this shit, right?"

  Fuck. I laughed. It hurt. "You don't take assistance credits, do you?"

  "Shit yeah I do." Ruamano grinned. "That's all the money most people here got. Poor people gotta get lit too, right?"

  "Wait, you
do? How does that even work? I can't even buy wine at the store."

  "Shit, I can sell you wine, you want wine. But don't mix it with the pills. Unless you never want to wake up."

  "How?"

  Ruomano held up a hand-held scanner. "Okay, this scans in purchases from your credits, right? Spoofs it to the government like you're buying bread or milk or whatever. Credits are then put into a hold on the online marketplace until someone buys them for real money, which gets transferred to my account."

  "Why would they do that?"

  "Say you actually need to buy some food or supplies or whatever credits get you," Ruamano said. "You can buy, like, a hundred credits for seventy dollars. Because they're less useful, but you got them for what you need them for."

  "Is that legal?"

  "Fuck no. But the government doesn't do shit about it. They don't have the manpower. You know? But after the time it takes and the processing fees and all that shit, credits are only worth half as much to me as real dollars." She met my eyes meaningfully. "So the flats are twenty-five dollars or fifty credits each."

  "Fuck it," I said, handing over my card. "Gimme a pill."

  Ruamano took my card and held it against the scanner. "So you get hit by a car or some shit?"

  I shook my head.

  "Man," Ruamano said. "Your business, I know. I'm trying to help you, woman, but you ain't making it easy."

  "Ruamano..."

  "You don't gotta say nothing. I know how to mind my business."

  I sighed. "Someone tried to kill me."

  "You got rolled again?" She didn't sound surprised.

  "No, I... a guy jumped me in an elevator. Tried to shoot me. Knocked out the car instead... we fell like six stories and I barely made it out alive."

  Ruamano stared at me. "For real?"

  "Yeah. Busted up my ribs pretty bad."

  "You gotta get to the hospital. No fooling."

  "I went but... as soon as they started talking about the police I freaked out. Think I broke a nurse's arm. Ran out."

  "You get mugged, your place gets tossed, someone tries to kill you in an elevator? And you're worried about what, the cops?" She handed over a pill. "You some kinda bad-ass secret agent?"

  "No, I mean... I don't know." I tossed the pill into my mouth, swallowed it dry. "I just... know things. Know how to do things. That gun... I don't even remember buying it. I never had a day at the range in my life, but it feels perfect in my hand."

  "And that ninja shit you did? Flipping down to the courtyard?"

  I tried to smile. "I don't know. I don't know why I'm in this shape. I don't know how I took out the mugger or the guy in the elevator, or why I attacked the nurse. I just don't know."

  "How do you forget shit like that?"

  I shrugged. It didn't hurt too badly — the pill was already kicking in. "You tell me."

  "All I know I that you're wrapped up in some hardcore shit."

  "Yeah."

  She bit her lip. "You know it's all connected, right?"

  "What is?"

  "That mugging. That was a hit. Right? And the guy in the elevator." Excitement gleamed in her eyes. "And your place wasn't robbed. They were looking for something."

  "You think so?"

  "It's the only thing that makes sense!" She was almost shouting, caught herself, and glanced in the direction of her grandfather.

  The idea was compelling. It fit. But what it implied... I'd never be safe. Not until whoever was after me succeeded in killing me, or I managed to find out why they were after me.

  I slipped a hand into my pocket, closing it around the card I'd taken from the man in the elevator. I pulled it out and considered it. "Hey, do you know anyone who can like... break into ChicagoCards?"

  "Show me."

  I waved it. "Grabbed this from the guy in the elevator while we were struggling."

  She sat, cross-legged, on her cot and clapped her hands. "Yo, give it here."

  I handed it over. The pain in my chest had faded, save for a small itch.

  She turned it over in her hands. "Burner. You can print them up at any public printer. But gimme a few and I can break into the call log. See who was calling him."

  "How much?" I asked. "I'm almost through my monthly allowance."

  "Shit, now I'm just curious."

  "Do it."

  She nodded and put the phone aside, picking up a tablet that was wired into the rest of her rig. She played with it for a few, than cleared her throat. "Only a few calls. Most to another burner, but there's one from some dude named Yeong Dae."

  "Yeong... He was the guy who called me to a meeting in that building." My hands clenched. "He set me up."

  "Shit yeah he did!" Ruamano grinned broadly. "Who is this fucker?"

  "I barely know him. He works for a guy I used to work for." I licked my lips. "The guy who might find me a job."

  "Maybe he's jealous?" she suggested.

  "I don't know. I barely spoke to the guy."

  "I'll see what I can dig up." Ruamano grabbed a soda can from on top of the computer tower, shook it, then put it back down. "Hey, can you go grab me a drink from the kitchen?"

  "Okay."

  "Just down that way."

  I nodded, and stepped back out between the partitions. I wasn't sure exactly why Ruamano was so eager to help me out... I was just grateful that she was. Even if it was just a matter of mild curiosity. The only other person I could talk to about this stuff was Scott, but I had the feeling that this was more than he could deal with. More than he should have to deal with.

  Why was Yeong after me? Why'd he try to have me killed? What was he looking for in my apartment? It all seemed... extreme. Then again, even back in 2015 people had killed for less. And if he was worried about his job, in an economy where the role of Personal Assistant was almost always a virtual one, more often than not... fear does strange things to people.

  ***

  The fixtures in the kitchen were nicer than what I'd had in mine, though far older. The fridge was full-sized, a sort of pale yellow that had once been white, covered in magnets and family photos. There was one that might have been Ruamano as a little girl, several of a couple that might have been her parents or her grand-parents, and a number of other family members. Most had the same facial tattoos, and some of the older photos were taken on some tropical beach or another.

  Had she grown up in New Zealand? She must have, if her family came over because of sea levels rising. Her brother, her grandfather... I remembered hearing about the danger the Maldives were in, back in my own time, but she'd said that the members of Te Arawa came from all over the ocean. Made sense... the water levels had to be rising all over. A lot of people flooded out at the same time, coming to the US at the same time, put into government housing at the same time...

  Just one more point of separation between myself and everyone who lived here. One more reason to move on. At least they could find solidarity in their shared circumstances.

  The fridge's motor kicked on when I opened it, sounding like shoes thrown into an otherwise empty washing machine. The inside was packed with Tupperware containers filled with leftovers in various states of decomposition and mold, along with a box of store-brand cherry soda. I grabbed two cans, one for Ruamano and one for myself.

  When I turned away I found myself face to chest with a wall of meat and aggression in the form of a massive young man in torn jeans and a wife-beater. Rings adorned his fingers, and his incisor glinted gold in his unfriendly smile. His facial tattoos were intricate, following the shape of his cheekbones, and more elaborate than his sister's.

  "Punga." His name escaped my lips.

  "Listen–" His voice rumbled like granite.

  I moved to slip past him. "I'm here with Ruamano."

  "You think I don't know that?" His broad forearm blocked my way. "Ain't bad enough you got your shit all over the block, now you got to get my sister involved?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

&nbs
p; He stepped forward, but I held my ground, staring up at him. He was big. I don't think... even if I wasn't all busted up inside, even with my mysterious skills, I don't think I could take him. Not without one helluva fight, and I'd left my purse and gun in Ruamano's room.

  "I tell you this once. If your bullshit splashes on my sister? If you bring trouble down on my Block? On my family? On Te Awara? From the cops, from anywhere? I will end you."

  "Okay." I tilted my chin. "I get it."

  "I don't think you do," he said. "You ain't family. You're just a visitor here, short-timer. You get your shit together, and you get out."

  "I'm not planning on staying."

  "Yeah, but you can gentrify your ass out of here, or you can be carried out in a bag. It's all the same to me. You get that?"

  I met his gaze, then looked away. "Yeah."

  I could feel him staring at me. "Yeah. Right. You just remember. Te Arawa watches out for this Block. And if we gotta protect it from your mess, then that's what we do."

  He pulled his arm back and I stepped past him.

  Who the hell did he think I was? Did he think I wanted to get Ruamano involved? That I wanted to endanger others? That I didn't care? I wasn't an animal.

  I believed him, though. About all of it. That he'd take me out if he had to. That Te Arawa protected this place. And me... I was an outsider. A parasite. A virus, maybe, bringing only trouble.

  Just one more reason to resolve this, to get on with my life.

  ***

  "Okay. Yeong Dae." Ruamano's screen displayed a three-dimensional image of Greg's PA. "Twenty-seven. Born in Skokie. Graduated with a BA from University of Illinois. Worked at Novabio Medica for five years. New job title just about every year, according to his social media."

  "That's fast." I cracked my soda and handed her the other. "Where's he live?"

  "Unlisted. He's got a car registered in his name... I can probably hack into the city's tracking system and find out, though."

  "What tracking system?"

  She didn't seem to understand the question. "The Chicago tracking system."

  "Yeah, but what are they tracking?"

  She gave me a disbelieving look. "Shit what don't they track? You know. Everything."