The Pod finally arrives in front of an imposing looking dome topped with a red neon sign labeled “TELEDRINKS.” The font on the sign is in fucking Comic Sans. I feel like they did it on purpose, put the fucking Comic Sans sign there to make you so angry you HAVE to get drunk, so you go inside and oh hey, what a coincidence, a bunch of fucking alcohol. Fucking business geniuses, these Telecom guys. A nice Corona Extra materializes above the pod, tipping over as its rush of holographic liquid pours tantalizingly over us. It “disappears” into the concrete as a giant Corona logo pops up on the side of the building–I’m sure there’s some groundbreaking way to use “zero-point energy” to cure cancer or some shit but here we are using quantum positioning projection technology to make magic traditional-physics-bending beer ads. Telecom, ladies and gents–fucking Telecom.
The door to the Drivepod slides open. Charlotte bows and then blows me a kiss. “Always a pleasure, Mr. Blake! I’ll be waiting patiently for your return.”
“I’ll be waiting patiently to get fucking shitfaced, BIIIIIITCH!” I shout, as I slide through the automatic glass window thing of the ABC store. I mean that literally, too, I’m not abusing the word ‘slide.’ I actually slid, because there’s no fucking doormat and it’s raining. I almost smash into an endcap of margarita mixers, but I manage to barely stop myself and make the whole motion look like a planned, cool guy thing. Because I’m a cool guy who plans.
The place is deserted except for a couple Telecops in the back and a half-dead looking old man working the register. The cops are identical: a couple of roided up white boys with donut bellies. I reach my head around the aisle and shout at the cops, “Hey, getting some Telebeer to go with your Te-T-Teledonuts?” He doesn’t reply, so I flip him off. Apparently he doesn’t like my new tattoo because he kind of flips his shit.
“FREEZE, HANDS IN THE AIR WHERE I CAN GODDAMN FUCKING SEE THEM YOU GODDAMNED CULTIST CUCK!” he suddenly commands. “PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON HAND!” the other chimes in. “I REPEAT, PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON HAND!” Sheesh, talk about mixed metaphors. They’re both pointing guns at me with these super imposing looks on their faces so I meet them in the middle and dramatically spin my right hand round to show them the tattoo they seem so stupidly frightened of. They drop their guns, and run out of the building screaming, stumbling into everything between them and the doorway since they keep their eyes tightly shut for some reason.
“Pretty hackin’ get out of jail free card,” I mumble, sensually kissing the back of my left hand (shut up) and pocketing the two pistols. I grab another bottle of Pinnacle and leave the money on the counter, because the cashier has apparently walked off for some inexplicable reason. I walk out cautiously, doing my best to look innocuous with my hands in my pockets clenching the guns I just stole from the cops. Fuck, when I put it like that, it sounds bad.
“Charlotte,” I say, sliding in as the ‘pod door slides open. I pause for a second, eyeing the ominous, lawless, red-light-lined skyscraper complex far out in the Atlantic. The Colonies were the one place under NanoTEC jurisdiction instead of Telecom jurisdiction, so as a now-wanted man, it was pretty much my only safe option… but a pretty unsafe option in its own right, because, you know, ominous lawless floating skyscraper complex. Fuck it, I just stole guns from cops, beggars can’t be choosers. That and I have a couple ‘ins’ there–
“Yes, Mr. Blake?”
“Uh… take me to the Colonies.”
“But Blake-san!” Tela interrupts, popping up right in front of my face as Charlotte takes the pod back on the interstate. “The Colonies are dangerous! They’re full of rogue ARTificials that will dissect you on sight for being human!”
“That’s not a real thing, Tela,” I sigh. “ARTs don’t hurt anyone anymore; that war’s been over since before your bitch ass was invented. That, and they’re basically human as it is, human brain imer--imagin--BIMs at least. You need to stop believing everything they program you with. You’re closer to an ART than a human yourself, bucko.”
Tela seems totally unaffected by my explanation, frantically waving her little stubby holographic chibi arms. “Tela will go with Blake-san then, to make sure he doesn’t get hurt!”
“Haha, no. Tela will not go with Blake-san and Tela will not figure out who Blake-san is meeting with and Tela will not report that information back to Telecom, because Tela is staying here.”
“It’s against Telecom policy to enter a non-Telecom establishment without checking in to let your friends know on the Telenet, so you HAVE to take Tela!”
I spin around in my seat to get her projection out of my face and one of the guns falls out of my jacket. Charlotte (and by that I mean the cameras in the damn ‘pod) sees it, so of course as a good little Telecom-sucking bitch she has to go and get all butthurt about it. The doors seal shut, the Flexiglass tints itself so the outside is nothing but darkness to me, and suddenly this convenient little bubble feels like a claustrophobic death trap. I feel us moving faster, and we’re definitely not going to the Colonies.
“Charlotte, what’s going on?” I ask, my heart racing. Charlotte doesn’t respond. In fact, Charlotte isn’t even there—she’s completely vanished. “Tela!? Tela, what’s going on!? Come on, Blake-san could use a little help right now–” I look down and realize my Telaphone has shut itself off again, and this time it didn’t come back on. This was seriously not good. A tiny part of me is even worried about the implications for Tela, for some stupid reason.
I take a deep breath, then a long drink, and try to use my superhuman intellect to figure out the situation. Clearly the Drivepod was on some sort of lockdown, probably delivering me to a police station for possession of firearms… and there’s no doubt those two Telecops have already called in a description…
My first instinct is to strike a badass pose and wait for the pod to open in the station, then bust out guns a’ blazin’ like the badass motherfucker I am... no. Realistically, I won’t be dealing with normal Telecops, but with Pneumats. No way in hell can these tiny little Glocks do anything against a pneumatic battle suit, though they’re admittedly easier to fight against than a WAR-ART was back when those were legal. My only choice is to escape.
With the interior of the pod mired in total darkness now, I quickly aim for where I’m best able to guesstimate the sliding hinge mechanism on the door is and open fire with both pistols like a madman. Either this hinge-like sliding structure is plastic to save money like I’m guessing, or the bullets ricochet off the bouncy Flexiglass interior hundreds of times and I die. It’s a risk I have to take. Three shots in and I see cracks forming and light peering through the slightest bit, six shots in and the door falls out with a sickening crack and bounces down the interstate, causing pods behind us to swerve and bounce off of each other harmlessly like bumper cars. God bless Flexiglass.
Directly across from my line of sight is the ocean, with the Colonies’ main rec area floating just a few dozen yards out—if I can just make this jump, I can find the tunnel to the underwater lobby and I’ll be home free, for a little while at least. Jumping in 3… 2…
Annnnd the pod slows down as a police car pulls up across from me. Large-frame, double-manual-type classic black Dodge Challenger; not too unlike the Mustang I used to drive for these same creeps. The window rolls down, revealing the signature encapsulated wolf-like helmet of a Pneumat battle suit in all its hulking, obnoxious, “we had no budget once ART creation was illegal and the top brass fell for a stupid sales pitch from a failing pneumatics company so here’s a stupid dangerous piece of shit to punch people with” glory. My little pistol wasn’t gonna do anything against his carbon-fiber neuronally-linked mecha anime bullshit, but his 1000-lbs force punch could kill me without me even having to stick my head out of the pod.
Through the tinted Flexiglass in the front of the helmet (essentially the wolf’s mouth) I can see his asshole little coward face all decked out in Oakleys like he thinks he’s some big shot. I want to tell him to get out of the suit and fight me like a real man, but I know he’d just punch me with his stupid Gundam bullshit since he doesn’t even lift, so I instead raise my hands in defeat, drop my pistols, and sigh as the pod rolls to a stop next to him.
It’s gonna be a long fuckin’ night.