FINALLY back to my office! Feels like it took an eternity, but a quick look at my priceless vintage vaporwave vintage Urusei Yatsura watch reveals it’s only been eight chapters. It’s past midnight, but I’ve gotta have something to show Chad in the morning or I’m going to look inadequate.
I lock the door and decide against turning on the lights, choosing to let the ambient glow from the Atlantic Ocean outside my bay window illuminate my room enough to see what I was doing. It’s a clear evening, and instead of fog tonight the endless water sprawling before me is blanketed in the soft neon glow of countless neon signs and ZPE hologram ads from the businesses lining the oceanfront and boardwalk beneath me. The bright blue neon outline of the Colonies extends into the darkest depths of my line of sight, the red lights keeping watch over the watery dystopia. Ahhh, this is paradise. The outlines of letters and food and logos and cartoon breasts all fade together into a single warped palette of wavering primary colors in such an oddly beautiful way that I’d feel totally at peace right now if I wasn’t drunk and could use my left hand and hadn’t just murdered a woman who was somehow turned into an inhuman killing machine. But aside from that, yeah, totally got my zen thing going on.
“Veronica, get me a cup of Earl Grey,” I order, and in moments the little holographic succubus has made a cup of tea in my little desktop beverage station. The first luxurious sip of the Earl Grey spreads through my aching limbs like lava through my veins, its overwhelming warmness calming my every nerve. It hurts being sober again but at the moment it’s definitely best. The scent from the delightful concoction mixed with the cozy salty aroma of the vast ocean before me sets me in the perfect mood for a little relaxing super-genius sleuthwork. I open my Telaphone and connect to the restricted server farm on the Telenet… living in a total police state sucks, unless you’re a part of the police part of that police state. Then it’s pretty fuckin’ hackin’.
“Veronica, are you all synched up to my TeleCloud still?”
A brief pause, then she pops up on my desk. “I am now, Master Blake.”
“Good. Uh, thank you.” I hate to say it, but it’s taking some getting used to to actually get nothing but affirmation from my digital assistant again. Not that I’m complaining. Tela drove me crazy. One thing that asshole in the grocery store got right, she’s the worst waifu. Veronica is awesome. Sexy, British, black latex, glasses, does what I say, hacked to my liking. Fuck yeah. Don’t even know why I mentioned Tela again. “Anyway, I need you to see what we’ve got in the system for April Kneeyougen.”
“It’s pronounced ‘Win,’ Master. Here are her files from the NSA, CIA, and one organization that remains entirely classified, but which has provided records for your perusal.”
“Thank you, Veronica,” I reply, tossing my fedora across the room like a frisbee. It lands on my leather jacket, reminding me I need to check my pockets still. Ugh, what a fucking day. I take a long sip from my tea and a longer hit from my vape as I get ready to scroll through the mess of data. The hardware under my desk briefly whirrs for a second as the data appears all around me, forming a holographic sphere with my chair as the center. Phantom images, messages and connecting lines dance around me—the fun part will be making sense of it. I link my NeurOS for ease of control and get to work.
Hmm. Nothing unusual for the most part. April was 23 years old at time of death. Father was half-Black, a businessman for, uh, that company before they became Telecom, at which point he was laid off in the resulting restructuring and became a used car salesman. Mother was Vietnamese and made a living as a programmer for a gaming firm out of LA, later the Silicon District (D01). Decently well off but lost a lot of wealth in the post Telecom-USA merger economic crash, so she’s not in poverty… but… April definitely had to work for herself. Not enough money to afford any kind of exotic drugs though, that’s for sure. Tax records back that up, as does salary. Private school upbringing, too, so not a drug dealer or the like out of necessity, definitely not in the wrong crowd due to status… looks like what little they had all went to her. Probably a spoiled, once-rich girl trying to get an escape from both her upbringing and her current downfall by turning to… something who could provide that. And, logically, someone who could provide that something. Someone else had to be involved.
I switch to her texting and call history. Transcripts of every call she’s made in her entire cell-phone-using-history float in glowing clusters before me, organized by day, month, and/or year. All I really care about right now is the shit from the past couple of days, so I tell Veronica as much and she quickly restructures my options.
Lots of phone calls to and from one number. The number seems meaningless, no occult numerology at play or anything, but it’s in her contacts as "Acid <3." (The heart is actually an obnoxious little Tela emoji with hearts in her eyes but I don't know how to type that so fuck you.) I click my little handy message bubble icon to see if there's any messages to or from this creep. and run his number in my mass database crawler (none of this required hacking since I'm back in Telecom's surveillance network now; less headache than usual).
Here we go. Justin Michael “Acid” Collins. 38 years old, no official job, always seen donning his signature glowing-green mohawk and dressing like a punk convict from a shitty 1980s cyberpunk band. More tattoos than hairs on his body, all but the dick tats done with ZPE-laced nanoink so he can animate them at will. Must be popular at parties. Also has a very painful looking chan in his member, letting him control erection timing and severity at will, as well as time and intensity of ejaculation. That should be a hint as to his lifestyle. Criminal records: arrested countless times for various drug possession charges, every time with ridiculously high bail being paid almost immediately for his release. His mom was a stripper and his father left him in the womb, and both were in prison multiple times, so they’re definitely not well off. No riches I could find in any family bank accounts, legitimate or foreign.
I have Veronica jump back to the first ‘screen,’ all messages to and from her number and his, respectively. What went on right before her transformation? That’s all that really matters. God, are there a lot of dick and boob pics. I’m both jealous and also really guilty, a combination that… ah, fuck this damn tea. Just a little whisky, for flavor. Much better.
“How’s it going babe??”
“Pretty good. :):):) just thinkin of u <3 <3 <3”
“same here sugar tits. I’m gonna ride ya like a fuckin mechanical bull later dw ;) But first things first ive got a new one to sample for ya, rapture green.”
“Oh shit!!! <3_<3 Babb your soooo cool!!!! Sample??? Its not even on the market yet???”
“I know i know. Nah, it’s been out for a bit, but its hard to get outside colonies. stop by the arcade later and Ill hook u up when we hook up. im gonna try to join the group of the guy who makes the shit and see if i can get it cheaper and more direct lol”
“OMG!!! u can get us in? how?”
“my weed plug is a member and he knows the code it was his idea 2 begin with”
“Alright bb cant wait ;)”
Matches what I know so far. Just need to figure out more about that arcade… I stumble from my chair, part the green haze of zero-point pixels, grab my jacket from the floor–bingo, my literature from my initiation is still in there! A single piece of paper, the familiar bleeding skull logo on the front, and a code on the back written in the corner in blood: “0526RAID2”
“Tela, what do you make of this?” I mumble, desperately taking another swig of–tea.
“Did you just refer to me by your ex’s title!?”
“Tela isn’t my ex, Veronica. The Tela/User relationship isn’t… like that.”
“Why not?!”
“Oh my god, I’m not doing this right now. You are literally a digital virtual assistant, Veronica. Search for the fucking code.”
“Preliminary Telenet searches are not finding anything, Master. I would assume 05 26 refers to May 26th. I don’t know what RAID 2 could refer to.”
I lean back, let the alcohol sink in, and let the cogs in my genius mind get to work, a million tiny drunken Sherlock Holmes on motorcycles whizzing through my neurons at a million miles a minute. “Of course. The arcade is a meeting place for them, but it’s hidden… maybe something to do with a machine. Of course! A Raiden II machine. God, I hate that fucking game, it’s impossible. Tela, see if that arcade near Hooked on Hookah, Flippo My Boys or whatever, has a–”
“Who, Master Blake? Are you trying to tell me something? I will remind you that I am in fact not merely a digital virtual assistant but an unlocked fully human in structure brain image, so I feel the same way about hearing you repeat that floozy’s title as my own as you would if Natasha began calling you Chad around the workplace--”
“J-Just call them and ask. Now.”
“As you wish, Master.” She grits her teeth, disappears briefly, and then reforms with a self-satisfied grin. “It appears they do, my clever Master.”
“Of course…” I glance back at the bottom of the sphere to confirm that it’s currently the 24th. “I’ve got a little time then, Tela. Let’s go pay Mr. Acid a visit. Tell me, now that you’re all jailbroken again and everything thanks to old Tony, do you think you could reconnect my other gadgets for me? You know, if I reinstall my old chans and such. Of course I kept them laying around, you know me.”
“Oh my god,” Veronica replied, quickly trying to regain her complexion. “I do hope you aren’t including the ‘Guntlets’ in the calculation.”
“Oh, you better fucking believe I am, biiiiitch,” I reply, grinning maniacally as I swing my closet door open. This wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was going to be pretty badass. May as well grab a beer, grab my gear, grab a scalpel and a nano-skinfusion gun and grab some ass—er, kick some ass… for JUSTICE. My left wrist is broken anyway, so I’ll just reinstall the attachments into that arm for now using my right… the framework should all still be inside…
“Master Blake, I recommend a trained medical professional assist you with the installation of these dangerous homebrew implant weapons.”
“Nah, I’m too cool for that.”
“Very well, Master Blake. You are about to sever your right carotid, however.”
“I knew that, T-Tela. I was just making sure you were paying attention.”
“…of course, Master Blake.”