Some people never see past the glitz and glam of the bright lights of the city; they’re usually too busy with their heads staring skyward, that they forget to look down sometimes. Down in the shadows, where the ‘undesirables’ crawled, that was where all the unsavory folks who actually knew how to have a good time gathered. At least, that was what was true back on Earth, in the major cities that were homes to millions of people; it was no surprise that the stuffy tight fisted money grubbers didn’t know a good time if it bit them in the ass.
Cities like Atlanta, Beijing, Berlin, New York, Sydney and others; they were full of bureaucrats and politicians, lawyers going through fifteen to seventy cases in the course of a day thanks to their implants. Highly modified humans flocked in droves to these cities, working their asses off at accelerated rates and most ridding themselves of the need to sleep. Most were more machine than human, pretty much casting aside their humanity, bit by bit they would descend into the cold, lifeless embrace of a complete bio-mechanical transference. Nothing more than a collection of human memories and emotions inside of an immortal, unfeeling casing.
Nathan had seen it happen first hand, half of his family was affluent, the heirs to some fortune that consisted of old-money heaped into a pile that made the 1% that the Occupy movements marched against seem like underprivileged snots showing off toys on the school yard. Nothing more than a bunch of attention whores with grubby little fingers playing at wealth, while the ones with real money were sitting off to the side laughing at them. Nathan’s half of the family or rather, the half of the family that decided it wanted nothing to do with the money; retreated from the mechanical madness that they saw.
Most people, at least those who weren’t flat broke, would consider Nathan an Amish. No modifications to his body, solid muscle built from years of hard work; he often didn’t indulge in the modern conveniences of the time period. He didn’t have an galatic-net port installed into his head, nor had he managed to upgrade any part of anatomy; which for the college kids of any port, the stereotypical ones at least. “Is like, so lame man! Why wouldn’t you want a shlong to be as long and thick as possible.”
The tell-tale signs weren’t on him, he was a foreigner in the world he lived in. People saw him, they would point and stare at times; at least, they would have, if everyone around him wasn’t in the same boat. Down beneath Roshire’s middle-class layers. There were nothing more than starving aliens, illegals, criminals and other down-on-their luck people simply scrambling to maintain a living. Mechanical upgrades had become the riches game, those who augmented themselves; well, they were smarter and they went on up the business ladder. Lawyers, politicians and CEO’s all becoming the most upgrades of them all, redesigning themselves into walking, talking supercomputers; however, the technology wasn’t perfect. People who got these upgrades, well, depending on their demands might never be able to move again, at least without being connected to a large vehicle of sorts.
Most chips would process a terabyte of information in about two seconds; however, these men would augment their brains to the point where they were processing seven hundred yattabytes in the same amount of time. Doing so requires ungodly amounts of power and processing design. So they were, trading everything they were and most of their freedoms, to be more efficient at making money they no longer needed. Ironic, in most senses; however, Nathan didn’t think it was at all funny.
Right now, the idea of that becoming Garrus was all that came to his mind. Staring over the body of his companion, there was little more than a bloody smear of him on the vehicle in front of him. It was only five minutes ago that he had been laughing and joking about what they would do when they got back, at least he had been joking. Ludma had just stared stoically ahead without so much as any inclination of giving a damn about Nathan.
While the captain looked over the body of his destroyed friend and could see that Ludma was looking over Lily and maneuvering her so that she was in a position to reduce blood-loss. Rage was something that Nathan often didn’t feel, it was a cold-emotion that he had no place for; however, right now, he was trembling from it. Turning to Ludma, he walked whispered into her ear, his voice little more than a snarl of equal parts hatred and sorrow.
“Call the paramedics, tell them we’ll reimburses everything in pure credits, no loans, no debts, everything in straight credits. Tell them that Garrus will sign it over when he is back to a cognitive state; which should be the moment they hook his brain back up. I’m going to go settle the score. Enough people have been staring off in the direction they said the assailant went that I can figure out enough.” Stepping away from Ludma, he could see that the woman’s hands were shaking, but he didn’t pay much heed to that.
“Nathan….bad luck seems to just follow you everywhere you go. Why is that?”
“The devil and God made a bet on me. Just think of me a modern day Job and sing your prayers over me if you will. Cause right now, I’m just another soul up for bid and no matter what happens next; I’m sure more shit will rain down on me after.” Smirking, he walked back to Garrus’s corpse, fishing a cigarette out of the container that he kept in his coat. Surprisingly, he managed to find one that wasn’t drenched in blood at the filter. Holding it up, he ignited it and placed the burning roll of tobacco into his friend’s mouth; closing Garrus’s eyes after he did so, he walked away. “Sleep easy, you’ve earned your shore leave, sailor. I’ll see you in a few hours I’m sure.”
Everything said and done, Nathan ran down the platform, watching the buildings and construction rush past him. Everything starting to branch out and turn into a variety of decrepit apartments and shops; a few desperate looking children stood huddled around a filthy paper-airplane. Every now and then one of them would through the stained, make-shift toy in the air; it would fly lazily for about four or five feet then hit the ground.
They would all look disappointed, then try again; the joy almost completely burned out of their eyes. Nathan ignored it, his feet not stopping as he ran he brushed right past them; knocking one over and leaving the other three to shout back after him. A mixture of aliens and humans, all of them snot-nosed, dirty and from the looks of things hungry; Nathan had nothing to give and no way to bargain for information. It would be pointless to stop running now.
As he continued to run, he couldn’t see any signs of the assailant anywhere, nor any trace of Tesla; his path eventually stopped in front of him. Leaving him with nothing, but four options of what to do next; the solid barrier in front of him was equipped with a ladder. He could climb up it and search for them upon the roof tops; or he could just run down one of the alleys to his left or right. Down the left were a couple of bums, adults this time passing around a bottle of home-brewed liquor; down the right was only darkness and then a few rushing cars at the end with their lights being the only sign of them.
Lastly, Nathan looked backwards, he could just resign and leave Tesla to her fate. Lily and Garrus had been his friends much longer than Tesla and he had known them for months, versus the few days he had known Tesla. Could he trust Ludma not to take this chance to run as well? Why should she care what happened to Lily and Garrus.
Four paths were opened to him now and he found himself idling, wasting time instead of actually doing something that would make life easier for anyone.
