RAW - Chapter 2: Snacks and Explosions

“Have a good day!” I said.

“Don’t you mean half day?” asked Lester, looking down and adjusting his horrible flannel shirt.

“I’m going to be honest here, Lester. No matter how much you keep fiddling with that thing, it still looks like a rotten topping resting on leftover pizza that has been left out on the sun for two weeks.”

Lester’s shoulders slumped more than usual, which is saying something. “I know.”

“Come on man,” I said with a smile as I wrapped my arm around his neck. “Don’t let your nonexistent sense of style deprive you of the wonders and exciting activities you can do whatever sun we have left. You could watch a film, or count tiles, or watch grass grow!”

“Or I could shove red hot nails in my eyes.”

I tapped my chin. “But where are we going to get so much disinfectant and canned tuna to pull that off without liquefying our brains in the process?”

“I don’t know,” Lester said, surprisingly lowering his head even more than what I considered was the standard human limit. “Maybe I could just always jump in front of a moving bus and call it a day.”

Red alert -- literally. I put my hands on his shoulders. “I will drive you home, and I will take no for an answer.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Never mind that.” I had to practically shove the guy to my car. I opened the door with my leg and threw him inside. He landed on his back. Sure it looked funny and nothing like a kidnapping to those curious people staring from the sidewalk. “I’m only making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” I shouted as I sat on the driver’s seat and lowered the window. “He said he wanted to marathon ‘Mad About You’.”

All of the onlookers nodded in unison and understanding and carried on.

Before Lester had a chance to sit properly, I was already sinking my foot on the accelerator. I was ready to feel the motor screaming, the smell the burning rubber. It was then that I remembered my car was a Volkswagen and barely accelerated to beging with.

“Could you at least turn on the AC?” Lester said as he wrestled with his seat in a fruitless effort to make himself comfortable.

“Sorry mate, no AC. No radio. Heck, the backseat is made of cardboard and wet newspapers that I put on a blender. Pray heavens this car actually has a motor… either that or the power of the imagination is bigger than I had anticipated.

“You haven’t checked?”

I laughed. “Don’t be silly, I’m terrified of machinery I don’t know. One of those mysterious phobias that people can’t understand, like Hollywood actor’s phobias to criticism… or real life.”

After ten minutes, I felt a rumble in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was caused by all the potholes on the road that were slowly killing my fading suspension, or if my poor dietary habits were beginning to get to me, but after I saw a dim light in the distance, something became obvious.

“Hey man, I’m hungry,” I said. “Let’s stop on that ‘Plain’ corner store.”

“It looks that dull?”

“No, it’s really just called ‘Plain’.”

We parked and got out, Lester falling on his face first. Classic Lester.

“I wonder if I can buy a life? Or hopes and dreams?” He asked.

“Don’t think so mate, they discontinued that soda flavor in the eighties after it made people too happy and gave some kids glow-in-the-dark barf.” I walked over the snack stand and pulled a bag of chips. “Oh hey, this time they have one percent real cheese and ninety nine percent high fructose corn syrup. Nice.”

We walked over the counter with some junk food and paid the lady who smelled of wet pancakes and cigarette butts. We exited the place, making sure not to step over the rat that was waiting for its turn to come in, and walked back to the car, my hand already full of fake cheese and crumbs. “You know, you can now at least taste a thing besides stale gluten and sugar in these.”

As we were about to get inside, I saw a red shine, a sparkle if you wish, reflect on my windshield, as if a something had went kaput high above. “Now what was that?” I think Lester saw it too, since he looked up to the sky at the same time I did. “Is it me or did Mars just explode?”

“Good riddance, that was planet was nearly as devoid of life as me,” Lester said with that typical magical depressive charm of his.

“Don’t say that mate, I’m sure—“ Then I saw another sparkle, except larger.

I rubbed my chin and raised an eyebrow, “Well I’ll be…”

“I didn’t know we had two Mars,” Lester said

“We don’t.” I saw another red flash. It was getting bigger, and closer.

Red alert -- literally. “Get down,” I shouted, shoving Lester. 

The store window exploded in a million tiny pieces. Something, someone, or a very realistic special effect crashed into the store and send millions of now-free stuff into the air, scattering nachos and all kinds of artery-clogging snack cakes all over the place.

CyRun - Chapter 6

“So.” Medici waved his arm from behind his wooden desk as Gabe entered his office. “I want to think no one bothered you?”

Gabe shook his head, his eyes half closed and his expression devoid of any emotion whatsoever. 

“Good,” Medici said. “Please, sit down.”

Gabe did so.

Medici put his hands across the table, crossing his fingers. “I won’t bore you with details, since I can see you’re a man with very… well defined priorities.  There’s a cargo transport I need you to recover for me.” Medici stood up and pressed several buttons on his computer. The lights of the room dimmed and his window darkened by itself. A holographic projector that was set on the ceiling turned on with a loud beep, and after a handful of seconds a holographic display in shiny neon blue appeared in the middle of the room, the lights and lasers of the device illuminating part of Gabe’s back. 

Gabe turned around and looked up as the device displayed a 3D rendition of a large three story building. 

“This is where you’re going.” Medici walked around the desk, pulling a tactile glove with metallic strips over the fingers from inside his suit and putting it on his left hand. He moved his hand and the model rotated. “It’s on the corner of Koldyron and Hannon, third sub-level, near the fifth abandoned subway. Inside, there’s a truck.” He moved his fingers, and the model of the building was replaced with a picture of a medium-sized hovertruck. “I don’t need the truck, I need the cybernetics and the devices inside the trailer. They belong to me. Bring the contents back here and get paid. A simple cybernetics run.”

Gabe crossed his arms.” A CyRun.”

Medicci nodded. “Right. My men tell me it is heavily guarded, and trying to go via the main door is suicide. Your only point of entry…” With another small move of his fingers, the holographic projector displayed the building again. He walked around it and pointed at a window on the third floor. “Is this. Leads to some offices, should be lightly guarded.”

After a brief silence, Gabe grunted. “That’s all?”

“Unfortunately,” said Medici. “My men were unable to procure any more information. We don’t know how many people are inside, we don’t have floorplans, and we don’t know where the truck is exactly. All we know its inside.”

Gabe stood up and looked around the model of the building. He stared intently and with a frown at the 3D model as if something had caught his eye. After going around it twice he closed his eyes, took a long breath, and nodded.

Medici raised an eyebrow, feigning not to notice. “I told my people to prepare a car for you. It’s old, but reliable. Inside you should find all the things you need.” The old man walked around the desk, sat down, and turned the holographic device off. The lights turned on and the window cleared up on their own. He took his glove away. “Now I don’t need to tell you that if you leave with the car and never come back, we’ll track you down. If you get to the truck, somehow, and we find out that by mere accident someone on the street is using the same devices you were supposed to bring, we’ll track you down. I much rather…” Medici scratched his chin, “Avoid such a needless, pointless act of… violence.“

The old man once again waited for the man in front of him to react to what had been, for him, a clear treat. He didn’t. Gabe simply looked at his with cold, emotionless eyes.

“Is that understood?” Medici asked to make sure.

The man grunted. The old man knew that was all he was going to get.

He waved his hand. ”I’m glad. If you have any questions, ask Neri, my right hand man.”

Gabe raised an eyebrow.

“The man you just met. Half cybernetics for a face? Looks like a lawyer? That guy.”

He nodded and walked to the door. Neri opened the door before he could. Once again, Neri petrified the second their eyes met. He felt like he was looking at a giant brick wall with legs, his uncaring, cold expression carried a glint of treat that he soon found impossible to shake off. 

“Car.”

“W-what?” asked Neri nervously, with a half-broken voice.

Gabe kept staring right at him. “Car.”

“O-oh, right. It’s-it’s in the hangar. Second car t-to the left, the one with the b-big altered compressor on top. C-can’t midd- I mean, miss it. K-keys are inside.”

Gabe grunted and left, bumping his shoulder against the terrified man. It nearly made Neri fall over. Neri kept looking over his shoulder until the man disappeared from his view, and went inside Medici’s office, closing the door behind him.

Medici wasn’t too pleased with his right hand man. “Do you need some testicle implant?”

Neri said nothing, he simply adjusted his tie, cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and turned around. “There’s something about that guy, boss. I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I.” Medici closed his eyes and scratched his chin. 

“Permission to speak freely, boss?”

“We’re not in the army. Sit down and go ahead.”

Neri did. “If you don’t trust him, then why did you sent him to recover our ‘products’ from Varnetti? That guy is a dregger, that guy has no fucking chance, no one does, you know that. For the love of God, why did you sent him of all people? If he finds out we sent him, we’re fucked!”

“No need to raise your voice, Neri. I trust you and your judgment, and I know you’re voicing valid concerns for the business. That’s why you’re my consigliere.” Medici clasped his fingers in front of his chin, elbows resting on the table. “But don’t worry, he won’t be doing that.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he won’t get a chance to talk. He will be shot the second they see him. You have not been paying attention. That’s how Varnetti works, that’s how he has always worked. That’s how all dreggers work.”

Neri tried to get comfortable on the chair. He failed. “So let me get this straight, boss. You sent a guy that could as well have ties with them, a guy you knew nothing about, to make something that none of our guys could, no questions asked? Why, just to piss on Varnetti?”

“Exactly.”

Neri laughed, throwing his hands up. “Well sorry, but I… I don’t know what to say. Might as well tell Varnetti we give up while we’re at it. Who knows? Maybe we… we’ll be able to work for him selling counterfeit hi-jacks on the streets!”

Medici smirked. “You see Neri, that’s both your biggest asset and your biggest flaw, you worry so much you fail to catch what isn’t obvious.”

“Boss, I’m just trying to understand, to make sense of the thing you just pulled!”

“It’s very simple. Put yourself in Varnetti’s shoes. You’re up in your mansion on one of them middle levels hovering above town when suddenly you hear that a total stranger has assaulted the pound that you also happen to use to stash all of your wares. You don’t who it is, or who send it, but you know they know, the voice is spreading, and that someone might try again. What do you do?”

“I move it, of course.” Neri raised an eyebrow, still not seeing it.

“And if you move your stuff, people will find out, we will find out. And that’s when we’ll strike and get our ’products’ back, and even some, and at the same moment hurt Varnetti were it hurts the most, and because he won’t know who attacked him before, he will be clueless to who did it.” Medici smiled wide. “You see, it’s perfect. All we needed was a suicidal idiot or a punk off the streets trying to play tough guy to pull it off, and he just happened to be perfect for it.”

“What about the car?”

“Neri, why do you disrespect me? Do you think this is my first time planning a CyRun? The car has being cleaned, it’s impossible to track it back to us, no one will know about it but us. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t track it ourselves. It just happens it’s not a necessity.” 

“What?” Neri opened his eyes wide. “Why?”

Medici laughed. “Because my dear friend, we will be tracking him. Every person that enters my office gets scanned, you know that. All we need if for Lou to zero on whatever augs the man might be carrying, like his arm-phone or maybe an eye. We’ll be fine, trust me, my good friend.”

Neri tried to relax on his chair a second time. It worked. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Well, it seems you have approached this from every angle possible. I apologize for doubting you, boss.”

“It’s all right,” Medici waved his hand dismissively with a smile. “I have no need for a yes-man as consigliere.”

There was a knock at the door. Medici glanced at his computer monitor. He pressed a button, activating a speaker on the other side of the door. “Come in, Lou.”

A short man with a tribal tattoo on his face and wearing a suit walked it.

“You sick Lou?” Asked Neri as he looked over his shoulder. “You look awful pale.”

“B-boss…” Lou loosened the shirt around his neck. “W-we… we have a problem.”

The old man’s stopped smiling. “What is it now?”

“Erm… the man you told me to scan?” Lou began to sweat profusely.

“Gabe. Yeah, what is it?”

“He has no augs.”

Both Neri’s and Medici’s eyes opened wide as they jumped out of their chairs. “What?” shouted Medici. 

Lou pulled a paper out of his jacket and shook it as he pointed at it. “He has no augs. No implants. Not even a fucking arm-phone. He has nothing.”

Neri and Medici walked towards Lou, the old man snatching the paper. “Are you sure? Completely sure about this?” asked Neri, his tone bordering on a scream. Medici focused on the paper.

“Y-yes. I checked a dozen times.” Lou remembered what the guy had done, how he had behaved, and what he had pulled off in the hanger. “That man… he’s a monster.”


“Oh my god,” Neri looked at the paper. Lou was right. He glanced at his boss, who was standing next to him. “What do you want to do, boss?”

Medici didn’t answer, the paper shaking as his hands trembled. His eyes were opened wide.

“Boss?”

“What the fuck are you two idiots doing?” Medici shouted. “Track the fucking car, right the fuck now.”