Scott Slemons : The City Was Quiet

The city was quiet, dark, but they ran. Leaping across rooftops at an incredible
speed on high rise  apartments, hundreds of feet  in the air, Blank  and Joe ran
with a fury that no man could possess. 

You ok? Blank shouted at his partner in crime.

Joe stood for a moment and watched as the tubes laced through out his skin began
to  surge with  a light   blue fluid. I am  now!  The  two ran  on with   dogged
determination, their Juicer  Suits rhythmically pumped  all manner of  steroids,
uppers,  tranquilizers,  and  other  highly  toxic  and  illegal  drugs  through
surgically placed tubes and I.V.is that  were attached to every major muscle  in
their bodies. Blank knew that staying on  the rooftops was a bad idea. This  was
only emphasized when the huge bulk of a hover tank rose from the street to greet
their retreat with an earth shattering crash from its main cannon.

I guess the  police are tired  of asking criminals  to put their  hands up,  Joe
thought for a second as he, in one fluid motion, leapt into the air and spun 180
degrees to level off his Samson-Made particle rifle at the hulking piece of  air
born armor. A rush of deep green tore across the left side of the tank, and  for
an  instant Joe  could see  the confused,  horror stricken   face of  the tank's
commanding officer. The  tankis fusion driven  core, now exposed,  blew, sending
out a shock wave that shattered the surrounding windows of the buildings below. 

Joe landed on his feet, turned, and ran on, wildly laughing with delight at  the
carnage. His suit  rewarded him with  a dose of  amphetamines that would  kill a
dog. Blank, hoping to  avoid another encounter like  this began to climb  down a
nearby drainpipe.  Joe followed.  After the  two descended  a few  hundred feet,
Blank reached for the bars covering a  nearby window and peeled them back as  if
they were made of rubber. Punching  his way through the bulletproof glass  Blank
slipped into a dark, dank, dirty bedroom and remarked, iThey paid extra for bars
and reinforced glass to protect this place?

To each his own, Joe replied as he crashed through the window with the grace  of
an ogre. For a  split second, he detected  the slightest wince of  pain from the
glass now embedded in his arms and legs. More drugs coursed though his suit  and
he  began to  feel euphoria  mixed with  aggression as  the pain  dissipated  as
quickly as it came. 

Man would you  stop doing shit  like that! That  crap flooding your  veins isnit
free, you know. Blank watched as   Joeis eyes glazed  over, his wounds   stopped
bleeding and the tissue repaired it self almost as fast as his eye could follow. 

Oh, come off it! We just stole plans for the most dangerous energy source on the
planet, and youire worried  about paying for our  next fix! After tonight  weire
going to be rich, damn it, and Iim going to lose this suit.i

Well, I hate to  break up your little  reverie, but we havenit  gotten away yet.
Besides, you love that crap too much. I see the look you get on your face  every
time it loads you up on who knows what mix of meds. Youire a Juicer through  and
through, and you will be till you tox out.i

Thatis big talk from someone wearing the same death trap of an outfit as me, and
donit you tell  me what I  will and wonit  do. When I  say Iim going  to lose my
gear, I mean it. Donit think I need this suit to kick your ass.i

They were both right really, and sadly they both knew it. They went in  together
to get their bodies augmented, by the Body Doc, with the plastic and metal  they
were now trapped in. Ever since that day they were basically dead, just  running
and gunning until their number was up. A body could only take so many meds until
it couldnit live without them.  Blank could feel it, too,  when he sat at a  bar
and his stomach refused food and took the tasteless protein supplement  provided
by the pump attached to his esophagus instead.

Letis move,Joe gruffly ended the conversation  with that and turned to the  door
that he hoped  would get them  out of this  putrid excuse for  a residence. They
found themselves in a  hall, a few sleeping  drunks and piles of  trash were all
that saw them get into the elevator. 

The lift started its  rickety drop to the  street below. iLet me  see those data
banks.Joe handed Blank the two black  plastic blocks he had been keeping   under
his vest. 

I canit believe how  easy these  were to  get.Blank pulled out  his  suitis data
jack  and  plugged it  into  one of  the  blocks. His  visor  flashed a  message
ENCRYPTED BY THE CONFEDERATE GOV

So did we get the right blocks? Joe stood, tapping his foot anxiously.

Think so. Itis encrypted by the right government, which is a good sign. Here you
try.Blank passed the cube to him. He  snapped his data jack to it and  began  to
read the streams  of code through  his head link.  Joe interfaced with  the data
block directly through the  small computer implanted at  the base of his  skull,
trying to decode the cube as  fast  as he could think. iAny  luck?Blank  thought
the idea of  brain hacking as  disturbingly uncomfortable, iJoe,  whatis it say,
are they the right plans?He knew that  trying to talk to him was useless   right
now, but he couldnit help but be nervous. 

Suddenly Joeis concentration  broke and he  looked Blank in  the eye, iOh,  god,
help me.Joe grabbed Blank with a  bone-crushing grip. His eyes began to   bleed,
his teeth bit down on his tongue and his whole body shook as his knees buckled. 

Joe, Joe, oh man, no. Shit man, come  back to me! No please donit do this  to me
now  man!The  lift began  to slow  to  a  halt. iJoe,  what is  it? Break   your
connection!Joe didnit  answer. His grip   loosened, his mouth  filled with  foam
and he fell to the grimy floor.   Blank reached for the black box and  ripped it
from its interface in a last ditch  effort to halt his friends pain, but  it was
too late. The  virus that protected  the data block  had spread from  Joeis head
link into his brainstem and the effects were gruesome.

Joeis cyber  mods, with  their CPU  destroyed by  the invading  virus, began  to
function independently. Blank watched as his friendis muscles flexed, trying  to
increase his circulation. He  could feel his heart  race under the power  of the
drug pump. Joeis implants were going into crash mode, in a vain attempt to  save
his life, but it was to late.  The virus that began with crashing his  head link
had now transferred over to his nervous  system and no amount of meds could  fix
that. 

Blank  was  holding his  companionis  shaking body  in  his arms  when  the lift
stopped. He  pulled out  his laser  cord and  slashed the  tubing running across
Joeis now still frame.  Blank stared into his  brain dead eyes as  the green and
blue liquids of the med pump spilt onto the ground. Then he took his gloved hand
and punched it into  the center of the  already withering body and  wrenched out
the blood-soaked drug mod attached to his heart and dropped it into his  pocket.
iLive fast, die young,he whispered to  the corpse as the elevator doors   slowly
crept open.

Throw out the data blocks!a voice  cried out from a megaphone. Blank  looked  up
to see the rundown lobby of  the high-rise filled with a brigade  of Confederate
troops. iCome out with your hands  over your head.Blank reached behind him   and
grabbed the  rail gun  he had  strapped there.  He turned  it on  the lobby  and
unleashed a hail of bullets that ripped through the ranks of soldiers. He flexed
his powerful legs, tucked  his head into his  shoulders, and jumped straight  up
into the air,  smashing his way  through the tiled  ceiling of the  elevator. He
landed and heard the thump of grenades  as they were thrown into the lift.  They
broke open with a crack and gas began to fill the elevator below.

His jaw involuntarily clamped  shut as he felt  his throat being closed  up by a
wire that had  been surgically wrapped  around it for  just such an  occasion. A
valve leading to his lungs opened and he felt them fill with liquid oxygen.  His
eyes closed themselves,  he pointed his  rail gun at  the wall of  the shaft and
fired.  The  ultra  dense magnetically  accelerated  bullets  punched their  way
through the concrete wall. He heard the footsteps, no the heart beats, of troops
as  they  cautiously  approached  the  elevator below.  He  dropped two  of  his
graviton grenades and they exploded, sending  out a pulse of false gravity.  The
approaching soldiers flew thirty feet back landing on the men behind them. Blank
laughed as he imagined this sight. 

Finally,  he heard  the bullets  stop ricocheting  of the  wall, he  had  broken
through it. He bent over and charged the hole he made in the shaft and  barreled
through it. The shoulder pads of his armor cracked as he busted the concrete  to
fit his massive frame. He fell ten feet to the street. Landing on his feet  with
a thump,  his eyes  opened and  the liquid  oxygen drained  out of his lungs. He
looked down the street and watched as  the tanks that had their guns pointed  at
the door of the building turned, lifted off the ground and started on him.  Even
his rail gun was no match for  the three Legion Class hover tanks. They  flew at
him, firing their ion cannons, disintegrating the surrounding buildings.  Rubble
rained  down on  Blank as  he helplessly  returned fire  and bolted  across  the
street. 

The tanks halted their fire. iCease  fire damn it! We need those  data blocks!an
officer called over a speaker. A wave of troops, hungry for revenge, poured  out
of the high-rise, and charged down the street with a cry for retribution. Backed
against a wall,  Blank felt powerless.  A volley of  tranquilizer darts showered
down on him. His med pump was working overtime to counteract their affects. Then
he saw it: an open sewer pipe, with a small steady stream of sludge flowing  out
of the duct.  It looked the  right size, perhaps  not very inviting,  but better
than staying out here on  the street. It was fifty  feet to the pipe, and  there
were twenty confederate soldiers between him and it.

He felt his blood boil with a fresh double dose of steroids. His eyes blazed and
he rushed the men. He pulled out his plasma pistol. He knew that the blue surges
of  energy would  dissipate once  they contacted  on their  rubber-coated  steel
armor, but the  force of the  charged particles would  be enough to  clear him a
path through the  mob of angry  militia. The troops  were knocked to  the ground
with each pull of the trigger.  Blank ran through the crowd, punching,  kicking,
and shooting his way to the open channel.

He dove the last seven feet and slid through the narrow opening of the pipe.  He
began to  crawl as  fast as  he could.  The tube  was narrow  but the sides were
slippery. Blank guessed that was a good  thing, but really he just tried not  to
think about  it. After  going forward  for twenty  feet or  so the  pipe took  a
straight drop  into a  darkness that  even his  excellent night  vision couldnit
penetrate. He looked for another way, a totally hopeless cause, considering  his
location.  His hesitation  was ended  by the  sounds of  bouncing grenades   and
bullets  that sliced  through the  air. He  had no  choice. It  was darkness  or
capture, which would be quickly followed by a painful death. He grabbed the edge
of the tube and slid into a fall of uncertain height.

He fell for an excruciatingly long time; his heightened metabolism made the  few
seconds seem like hours. Finally he came to an opening of the pipe and landed in
a body of  water, or at  least liquid. How  much was actually  water was up  for
debate. He felt his lungs fill with  the cold thick fluid oxygen again, and  his
pores  contracted, stopping  the muck  from seeping  into his  skin. He   pushed
thoughts of his surroundings out of his mind, and brought up his city schematics
on his heads  up display.  NO  RECORDS AVAILABLE ON  CURRENT  LOCATION, a  voice
read the flashing message echoing inside his head.

Suddenly the voice screeched  and turned to a  high pitch whine; quickly,  Blank
turned it off.  Radiation  interference,fantastic, Blank thought to  himself  he
looked around. He  was treading water  in the middle  of a lake  that was at the
center of what  looked like a  stadium-sized cavern. He  started to swim  to the
shore of this lake of slime. An object floated in the water up in front of  him.
It was red and spotted, bloated. It looked like a fungus of some kind. It was  a
few moments before  he realized that  it wasnit bobbing  along, but moving  in a
planned direction, directly toward him. It lifted up out of the water as it came
at him, a massive eye blinked open as it rose up into the dim light of the  huge
grotto. Blank jerked his head back and  reached for a weapon, he pulled out  his
plasma pistol, but thought  better of letting loose  a stream of charged  plasma
while covered in slime. As he madly fished around in his vest for something more
appropriate, but sufficiently large enough, the monster continued to rise out of
the sludge. 

Now standing a  full ten feet  out of the  water, the creature  opened its jaws,
revealing rows of shark-like teeth. Its  neck extended as it bent over  and bore
down on the tiny morsel of  food thrashing frantically in the water  before him.
Blank at last found what he had been searching for, a slender long pistol, sleek
and black,  with perfect  balance in  his hands.  He pulled  the trigger and let
loose a  red flow  of energy  that melted  through the  monsteris scaly skin and
sliced off one of its four arm-like appendages. The thing howled in agony,  dove
backward into the lake and swam off in pain, Blank hoped, for good.

Not wanting to wait for its return,  Blank swam on, keeping the laser pistol  in
his hand, just  in case. He  stumbled his way  onto the shore  and rested for  a
moment, leaning on a  ruin of some long-forgotten  sign that still had  randomly
blinking lights that read iOpen 24 Hours A Dayi.

He eyed the opening he  fell through some fifty feet  in the air over the  lake,
too  far  away  for even  him  to  reach. He  waited,  listening  for sounds  of
approaching soldiers  who may  have been  dumb enough,  or had  been ordered, to
chase  in  after him.  The  cave was  silent.  He remembered  for  a moment  the
elevator, the last  few moments he  spent with Joe,  the hum of  the lift as  he
locked in the data cube to his head link. He fingered the two blocks now in  his
pocket. iHow the  hell did this  happen?They  were  so easy to  get, in and  out
through the  ventilation system.  They got  the plans  for the  building from  a
street punk,  and blowing  through the  vault had  been a  snap. He  gritted his
teeth. Joe was gone.  He held his med  pump in his hand  and popped it open.  He
pulled out the canister that housed the various fluids that had kept Joeis  body
running. Then he reached for a tube from under his chest plate, screwed it  onto
the cylinder and started  to fill up with  the fluid from the  canister. His own
depleted med pump ravenously accepted  the liquid. It was the  greatest feeling;
for a moment he forgot his  dead friend, the sewer, the Confederate  Army above.
But all of this faded away as the last drops from the canister emptied into  the
tube.

He started to move again, threw down the wasted canister and heart pump, slipped
the black data blocks into his pocket and headed into the darkness.

The dank underworld of the sewers was alive with the noises of derelict machines
still running on  some unknown power  source. Rats and  other creatures scurried
about in the darkness as Blank stumbled aimlessly about in the endless gloom  of
the sewers. After several hours of  dead end tunnels and circular passages  ways
that brought him  back to where  they began, Blank  finally heard the  sounds of
street noises. He stood for a moment, turning his senses to the sound, trying to
pinpoint where they came  from. Then he saw  a dirt-encrusted grate in  front of
him; a small shaft of sunlight broke through the grime. He ran to the grate  and
pulled it apart.  Grabbing the sides  of the hole,  he pulled himself  up to the
street. 

Blank  found himself  alone in  some alleyway.  Thankfully an  alley and  not  a
highway he thought to himself. The sun was now hidden behind some clouds and  it
began to  rain. The  steady drizzle   washed away  the coating  of slime  he had
acquired from his trip  through the sewers. His  lungs drained, pores opened  up
and the mechanisms in his body  relinquished their control, for the time  being.
He took  a breath  of the  relatively clean  city air.  He brought  up his  city
schematics again, hoping that  they would tell him  where he was. He  was twenty
miles from where he began, not very far when you thought of the size of New Asia
City, but still along way to travel. He had no one to call, no one to help  him.
With Joe dead, he was alone. 

He fumbled with  the data blocks  in his pocket.  He had to  finish the job, for
Joe, and for the money. His body was drained from the brutal environment of  the
sewers. He had run out of most  of the major meds he needed. Even  the re-supply
from Joeis canister  was almost gone.  If he ran  into any Confederates  between
here and the Body Doc he would have a tough time making a get away like his last
one. He brought up the drop off point on his map display: fifteen miles. Too far
to walk on the  open streets, he had  no money to pay  for a shuttle. There  was
only one thing to do; steal a ride. He stood up, turned to the end of the  alley
and stepped out into the street. 

He was in what looked like a lower-class anti-Confederate neighborhood. Most  of
the bums and punks walking the streets were covered in implants and cyber  mods.
Blank fit right  in. He would  have a little  more trouble trying  to jack a car
from one of these people; you never really knew what you were getting into  when
you messed with  a body-jacked person.  This, however, was  a risk Blank  had to
take.

He slowly  strolled down  the street,  keeping an  eye open  for an easy target.
Finally he found what he had been looking for. An elderly man was fumbling  with
the keypad lock on his transportis door. Blank glanced around the street; no one
would notice  a little  mugging in  a locale  like this.  Black was now directly
behind the man, who was still blundering with the keypad. After a few more tries
the dooris hydraulics hissed  and opened for the  man. Blank quickly shoved  the
man into the car  and jump  into the  driveris seat. iSorry old   man,Blank said
with a smirk, i just wana barrow your ride.

Not as sorry  as youire guna   be.The man  turned a small,  ancient  revolver on
Blank and fired.  The bullet dug  in to his  neck where is  lodged its self into
rock hard muscles.

Ouch, you crazy old fool. Thatis really  going to take a lot of meds  to fix!The
car was speeding along at about fifteen  feet above the ground. I was going   to
give you the car back, but you  can forget it!Blank reached for a door   release
button on the steering  column, iSee  ya old  man,Blank pressed the  button  and
kicked the poor  man out of  the craft as  it pasted over  a dumpster. iHeill be
alright,Blank thought to himself   iBesides, the auto-drive system  will  return
the car to him when Iim done anyway.

He brought up his map;  he would be at the  drop point in five minuets.  For the
first time all day things were looking up.