It’s late in the day when you leave Technosis Jones, the autistic, wild-eyed, conspiracy-obsessed anti-technologist who, ironically, helped scan you for tracking devices. The large, spacious storage unit that was his habitat, hermetically sealed from the evil influences from the outside world, was a strange juxtaposition of techno-fetishism and fear. Amid the many devices, both large and small, both familiar and alien, the countless spare parts littering the ground, bunched up on tables and in boxes, labelled and stacked on one of the hundreds of shelves, were the militant messages of the Genetic Purity Council. Posters, ironically framed by coils of loose wires and fiber-optics, illuminated by the neon glow of trideo projectors and the harsh light of computer screens displaying news, ambient pollution levels and diagnostics information of one of the many devices, warned of the dangers of cybernetic augmentation, cyberpsychosis, and the plans for the technological enslavement of the world’s population by the global, social elite. Pamphlets, depicting very graphic images of augmentations gone wrong, extreme cases of cybernetic rejection and supposed cybernetic experimentation on unwilling, human subjects, were boxed and ready for distribution at public cybernetic clinics, hoping to dissuade people from opting for their elective cybernetic surgery. Yes, Jones seemed to be a brain-washed lunatic whose rejection of the thing he loved so dearly fueled his nervous frustration. Either that, or he’d been up awake on Cram for the last six days. Regardless of the cause of his behavior, it felt liberating leaving that chaotic place, however necessary the visit had been.
The automated food processing plants and hydroponics farms around you belch out large clouds of hydro-heavy fumes as they lumber away like stoic giants. The terraced landscape is dotted with these facilities all the way to the west, where Tacoma starts. In the north-west, through the smog, you can spot the contours of Seattle downtown, visible only due to Auburn’s elevated situation. The illuminated roads and highways all seem to lead towards downtown as it lay at the center of everything in the sprawl. Like a heart lays at the center of the vascular system. It was like resting a heavy marble in the middle of an outstretched sheet of soft concrete, glass and steel, causing a deep depression, the sprawl stretched out around downtown, and everything rolled towards it, sooner or later. For now, however, you decide that this industrial park might be a good to place to lay low for a while.
Catastrophe bounds away like an excited feline, desperate for some action and excitement, searching for a suitable place to rest, away from questioning eyes and loose lips. Years of squatting and couch-surfing developed in her a keen sense of awareness attuned to the hidden and abandoned places in the sprawl, and she quickly returns, having found a facility who’s chimneys do not exude any exhaust fumes, a giant who’s bowels lay silent and dormant. With a gental nudge of the GM Bison the main gate’s flimsy lock was forced and the gates opened. The grounds around the facility, an amalgamation of sickly weeds, tall, yellowish grass and cracked concrete, were clear and allowed easy navigation into the catacombes of the building. It was dark, cool and moist inside, like a cavern. The soft wind rushing through the corridors reminded you that this leviathan was asleep and filled you with a sense of isolation. Every sound, every cough and every step was magnified and echoed several times over. Almost all of the interior had been stripped, leaving only the large, immovable machines, conveyor belts, chains, pullies and hooks around to corrode. Stairs, ladders and walkways zigzagged everywhere between platforms, balconies and landings. This place felt abandoned and neglected and for the first time in a long time, you guys felt like you might be alone.
The events of the last several days leading up to Joy’s assassination and Delta V’s death at the hands of enemy fire had seen you running, and even though, physically, you had managed to get some rest, mentally there hadn’t been enough time to digest things. There was a lot of interest in the information you carried – information that you extracted from the neural override buffer between Joy’s synaptic accelerator and her skillwire I/O. The data found there were financial records of purchases made by a company called Silverlight Investments, between March of ’57 and March ’58, some 147,000 records in total, all purchase orders for the stocks of a long list of companies belonging to Fuchi North America; WolfWare Inc., D.S.A. North America, Alphacom, PharmaCom, Omni Matrix Technologies, Benedict Holdings, Tribeca Transportation, Revlon Cosmetics, RJR International, the list goes on and on. Leading the cash back to its source, you found that Silverlight Investments was offered a large influx of capital by a private equity firm called Semaphore Investment Group, a subsidiary of Cambridge Holdings, which is a small subsidiary of Villiers Holdings, Richard Villier’s private stock project outside of Fuchi Industrial Electronics. Villiers was buying up his own companies and consolidating it under his sole ownership. And that was information worth paying for, worth dying for. Mikhail is interested in buying it, and now it seemed that Richard Villiers’ kid brother Darren was also interested in meeting the runners. Bennett would probably pull through, but he’d be off the grid for a while as he recuperrated. Mase had become increasingly morose following the injuries he sustained several days previous, you were one driver short, and a trigger man short a few sandwiches of a picknick.
Each of you have been paid for the job you set out to do, but things escalated beyond the scope of the initial run, and now that money doesn’t seem to carry you that far. You are realising that with great risk comes great reward, and it’s a mantra you’ve all gotten comfortable reitterating to one another. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. And you have promises to keep and many more miles to go before you sleep. Miles to go before you sleep.
