Dawn of the Courtezan: Phase 01 (The Eighteenth Shadow) Read online

  Nooo!

  Fhelps exhaled a foggy breath, trying to contain the fright and rage. The cyborgs had not yet moved. It was not to worry. Once they were fully functional, the creatures would scan his Ipv7 and immediately stand down.

  That makes no sense!

  His holoflage suit klaxoned, relaying seismic vibrations from the impact of the cyborgs’ first steps. The animals were fully powered. Fhelps watched one of the DOGS units raise its head to the clouds and open its nacreous mouth, displaying a full set of carbine tipped teeth complete with 25 cm fangs. The beast then howled, a sound so loud their directional mics auto-muted. They could hear it perfectly a kilometer away, like the horn of a maglev train bred with the haunted song of a timber wolf.

  The second DOGS unit joined in, producing an even more fearsome call.

  Both cyborgs then reared back and launched, clearing thirty meters before touching down side by side in a crush of mud. Fhelps frantically checked his suit’s holointerface. His Ipv7 was pushing on all streams, verification green.

  They’ve wonked my Ipv7… but aren’t stopping!

  He had to mute his holoflage suit’s gravotemporal klaxons. The creatures landed and leapt into the air again, gaining incredible momentum across the fields. Their steps thundered, boom-boom… boom-boom… displacing waves of mud a half meter high.

  There was no choice. Fhelps would have to incinerate them.

  If Saxon can hit a deer…

  He knelt and took aim with his lightning cannon, auto-locking into his tracking matrix.

  NOT like the simulations!

  He blasted off two contiguous particle streams, one directed at each cyborg. Lightning rifle rounds were ionically charged to gravitate towards metal objects, and they curved fluidly towards their targets.

  Direct hits!

  Nothing. The jade-toned energy streams distributed over the DOGS units’ bodies, then fizzled harmlessly away. The cyborgs merely snarled and increased the pace of their charge.

  His combud spoke flatly into his ear, “Targets 400 meters from Saxon, 300…”

  Fhelps tapped his com furiously, “Computer! Resend Ipv7! Friendly, friendly, friendly!”

  The com replied succinctly again, “Your Ipv7 has been confirmed, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

  In the hapless, final moments of his life, events seemed to happen in slow motion for Franklin Fhelps. He watched one of the massive cybernetic canines slide to a halt, snarling brutishly at Sax, yet fifty meters off. It was so strange. The boy had stopped calling for help! In fact, he was kneeling, looking straight at the monster with his hand extended, as though he intended to touch its gigantic muzzle.

  The second cyborg continued closing. It was on him.

  Fhelps hurled his lightning rifle at the monstrosity, flailing his arms as he screamed, “Waaaiiit! My name is Franklin Fhelps! I’m on the board of…!”

  The second DOGS unit, unconcerned with board membership, flashed its head sideways and snapped its jaws around Fhelps’ rib cage, causing the man’s torso to explode in a confetti of splintered bone and guts. The animal dug its saber-like claws into the earth and shook its head savagely, rendering loose the dangling sections of spine and hip until the two body halves dropped to the soil with a bloody twook and a twack. The creature’s alloy muzzle was red, yellow, dripping with bile. It growled, circling the severed halves of its quarry, crushing Fhelps’ skull with a single step. As an afterthought, it flicked a rear leg and sent the top half of the carcass tumbling away across the field. Satisfied, the cyborg turned and faced its sister, the one now protectively circling Saxon. Both DOGS units locked vidorbs, exchanged data, then raised their heads to the gray clouds and howled in furious unison.

  It was the sign the man on the hill had been waiting for.

  The hunt was over.

  Excerpt from the 2071 holopamphlet, “Parents: Get Smart About Alcohol” sponsored by CNED.holo:

  In 2060, 47% of North Americans reported drinking alcohol more than once in their lives. 71% of North Americans reported seeing alcohol used at a social function. Alcohol! When it comes to alcohol use and abuse, there is so much at stake for your family and your children. If your combud is vibrating and you are worried about your child floating with the wrong crew and making the wrong decisions, you are not alone.

  Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

  Identifying alcohol and potential alcohol use and abuse is no easy task. There are many threats: black market liquors, such as vodka and rye whiskey, black market beers and wines, and well-camouflaged drug paraphernalia. Even your teen’s social and visual cues. Finding an empty mason jar in the closet in your child’s room, or hearing your child stammering about what went on at their visit to the holosim theater earlier that night with friends might be your first sign of drug use. Don’t make assumptions. But don’t ignore a dark sky too long. Remember: all alcohol is black market alcohol. There is no Federal oversight of production, so your child could literally be drinking ANYTHING. Continue scrolling to learn more about the types of things teens are confronted with these days, from pressure on social networks to avoiding and reporting alcohol use in high school.

  Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

  We can help! The Get Smart About Alcohol section of the CNED Page will give you information to improve your recognition skills for the liquid drug, covering the visual cues and signs of alcohol use, as well as identifying different popular forms and types of alcohol. The information in this section can also help you and your child navigate today’s dark social waters when it comes to alcohol and popularity.

  Swipe your holotab to CNED.holo

  Chapter 1.2 – Only Coyotes Know

  Salina, Kansas – November 2086 – Four Years One Month After Event.

  The thin man sat against the trunk of the great leafless tree. A tattered straw cowboy hat covered his face. Two Rottweilers lay in the yellowed grass to either side of him, each black as coal. All three figures were still.

  After a few seconds, the man raised the brim of his hat. The blue, bionic vidorb that had replaced his left eye glowed, scrutinizing the valley below. He quickly scanned the green holotext being projected before his field of vision. The CNED agents were 1.7 kilometers out, stepping loud and careless between the furrowed rows of dead winter hemp as if they owned the very sky. Each hunter was equipped with a holoflage suit and a Mantis 8.0 series particle rifle.

  “Birds and lies hide behind dying eyes, gentlemen,” the thin man said quietly.

  His expression was devoid of emotion.

  High above, a co2 scrubbing blimp emerged through a break in the clouds, 300 meters long from nose to tail. The high atmosphere dirigible’s enormous ionizing engines trailed below it like black nipples dangling off the tips of its belly tentacles. Both Rottweilers looked up at the same time the man did. All three followed the scrubber’s progress with their eyes until it faded again behind the clouds.

  Spinning wind turbines dotted the horizon, a flock of distant starlings roiled and swirled over the plantations below. A drone flew down the hovroad precisely on schedule. His HUD alerted him via text readout that a subspace airliner would break the sound barrier above their location in 16 minutes. The man noted these variables and yawned.

  He folded his cowboy boots beneath him, stood, stretching willowy arms overhead. He was a tenth of a meter short of two tall. The hemp blue jeans he favored and a white t-shirt hugged his lean frame. He had added a flannel to his normal attire due to the November chill.

  When he stood, the smaller of the two Rottweilers sat up with him. The animal had its mouth partially open, oriented towards the man. A red glow, difficult to see in daylight, emanated from its jaws. The man scratched his three day old whiskers, the flat, afternoon light highlighting new strands of gray that had asserted themselves since his early days in the industry. The gray had even scattered to his thick, brown sideburns.

  The man took a tin box the size of a deck of cards from his pocket and sat back
down, once more resting against the trunk of the shingle oak.

  He extracted a hand rolled, antique tobacco cigarette from the box, stuck it between his lips and nodded at the larger Rottweiler, “Light me up.”

  The big dog rolled playfully onto its back and narrowed its jaws, focusing. A slender line of red laser light ignited the cigarette’s tip. The man took a drag and exhaled, watching the wisps of smoke curve up from the burning end with pleasure, as though he were observing a ballerina dancing upon the wind.

  Behind them, a blonde woman came into view, walking slowly towards them up a gravel path. She was dressed in work-worn overalls, a hempyarn sweater she had knitted the Christmas before and faded, red Chuck Taylors. She was not tall, nor beautiful in the standard sense, but was nonetheless captivating. Her eyes were vivid blue, and her body maintained a strong posture as she approached. She had high cheek bones and the soft, pale skin of a porcelain doll.

  When the woman got close, the larger Rottweiler whimpered dramatically and threw herself to the ground at her feet, rolling over to solicit a belly rub. The blonde woman knelt and smiled, scratching the animal’s fur with long, generous strokes. She warmed a hand at the edge of the creature’s mouth then stood, one hand massaging the ache in her lower back.

  Her tone was placid yet firm, “Gunsheye and Fat Girl are dug in and dark. Hugo’s got the deer tied up and ready. Poor animal’s terrified.”

  “Understandable,” said the man.

  “You shouldn’t let the girls toy with the wildlife.”

  “Dogs will be dogs.”

  She came closer, removed the man’s cowboy hat and tossed it aside in the surrounding grass that near matched its color, then took his hand and studied his face. She saw blackness beneath his eyes, new lines. He looked older, leaner, harder.

  The Rottweilers smiled like all dogs smile, doing their best to dilute the concern that lingered behind her careful gaze. The big one licked her hand repeatedly until at last she grinned. Like the man, the woman was no fool. She was the first to feel it in her bones. The dark skies were returning.

  The man whistled low, drawing her gaze, “I won’t let it happen again. Danny is with us now. We know everything,” he said.

  “Do we?” she asked pensively. “Only Coyotes know everything.”

  “It won’t start today. Nothing will start until we find him.” The thin man kept the cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he took her cold hands in his, “Do you think the kid can really do what they say?”

  The woman forced a weak smile, “I don’t know. All I know is this is our home. I don’t want to run again.”

  The man was resolute, “They think it’s him.”

  She took her hands back, rubbed her protruding belly and squinted, her bright gaze darting over details in the vast, forlorn fields, “So does Danny. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we’ve got at least one more mouth coming on payroll for sure.”

  The man closed his single human eye, “I know.” Even as he spoke, the bionic vidorb in his opposite eye socket mechanically scanned the far horizon with a lifeless shine, “No one’s gonna harm my little girl.” He traced a finger down the back of her hand, “Either of them.”

  She turned away, “Don’t. I’ll cry. I’ve puked twice this morning already.” She smacked her palms practically on her rump, “There’s work to be done. I’m not going to waste my time out here in a heat bubble watching the wind blow.” She looked down at the Rottweilers, “Your daddy’s cray-cray.”

  The smaller dog rolled over and yipped in agreement.

  The man sighed, “I promise to ping as soon as I know. If these humdroids get much closer, the dolphins are going to release the deer.”

  The woman was already walking away down the hill. The Rottweilers watched her leave with obvious dismay. Her bright blonde hair flowed behind her like trails of November smoke.

  She said the words over her shoulder without looking back, “I hope it doesn’t come to releasing the deer. I really, really hope that.”

  Fragmented Remains from the Cloud Diary of Daxane Julius Abner – March 2077 – Five Years Seven Months Before Event.

  “…the Hadassa system’s maximum output is 6,000 MW h. Time compresses in the core room. 24 hours seems to pass in seconds.

  Conclusion: In terms of human psychology, the manipulation of linear time is no more than a parlor trick. Religion, paranormal experience, shamanic breath work, astrology; all illusions turned to reality by virtue of our irresistible need for something greater in which to believe. Gravity? Evolution? Thermodynamics 2? By contrast, each an empirically measurable law substantiated by quantum mechanics. Like the spooling of a gravotemporal fusion matrix.

  Yet our feeble minds flood with doubt the moment perception is manipulated! Peoples’ behavior is far less affected by the actual laws of physics than it is by the expectation of what those laws mean to our individual lives.

  Physics lesson number one; there are no individuals!

  After Hugo installed the artwork, he and the Israeli departed. It was then, and only then, that I played The Black Danube. I waltzed alone. The dolphin stared at me from the far side of the glass thinking, Pathetic, emotionally distracted humanoid, fresh on your feet from the tree limbs…

  I know that is what she was thinking. Because she told me.

  I’ve left the old farm’s original wind turbine in place for appearances. Along with the solar array, whatever flies over will scan a standard generator. From the sky we appear as a registered, specialty micro-plantation. Zucchini and watermelons in the summer, field pumpkins in autumn. Inspectors, human and robotic alike, now welcome.

  Both 2,000 liter fractionating columns are onstream. 26,000 liter (potential) monthly output. The Salina distributors can dilute that into another 180,000 liters. No one’s missing water from a half-kilometer wide river. Output is now only limited by manpower, ingenuity and time.

  Regarding manpower – security specifically; I hired the individual referenced earlier. Gathering intel on this one, no easy task.

  William Thomas Angevine, 27 years old. He’s a quiet, cowboy drifter, body tech-free. One of the 7%. An examination of known holohistory shows the only device he’s ever owned is a standard 2.5d holotab, free fifty gig down 1 up citizen account.

  For the last three years, Angevine was a trail guide at Cyberstalk©, the 5,000 acre cyborg hunting preserve outside Enid, Oklahoma. Unlike the hunting ranges on Luna, Cyberstalk© is a laser contact only preserve. The animals still go dark instantly when shot, tumbling where and how they fall to the delight of patrons. None are getting ripped apart by harpoons though. So there’s that.

  Employment records indicate Angevine has strong experience correlation with borgs.

  A colleague is quoted; “Bill whispers to them.”

  And before the last three years? Maybe a mystery to be solved another day.

  So how did I come to acquire this drifter?

  Here is the rest of what is known. Angevine is a high functioning amnesiac, the result of a beating at the hands of Enid CNED agents. He retains his sense of identity, but has turned his back on whatever life he lived before his mother’s murder. That was six weeks hence.

  Mother, a Marilyn Angevine, owned a janebev convenience float-through. She also scanned a little shine on the side. Angevine kept an apartment in the back, along with a small kennel for his organic short-haired pointers.

  Angevine was at work, leading a hunt. An alcohol transaction at the float-through went south. Marilyn Angevine is found dead, uncoded sonic shotgun blast pulverized the bones of her face, suspects escape. The case is given low priority because the woman was pre-tagged black market affiliate.

  Translation; the murder will never be solved.

  Understandably drowning his sorrows, Angevine seeks out a speakeasy and is stopped by three CNED agents as he is stumbling home down an alley. Angevine resists, is beaten unconscious, inducing aforementioned amnesia. Before succumbing to the attack, Angevine blinded one of th
e agents with his thumb and fractured the man’s wrist.

  In retribution, the other agents hogtied him, threw him in the back of their hovtruck and floated him to his mother’s shuttered janebev shop. Once there, the agents sat Angevine up in the bed of the hovtruck, broke an aerosol stym-pak under his nose and made him watch as they burn his mother’s store, and Angevine’s apartment, to the ground. With all his guns and dogs still locked inside.

  Then they arrested him.

  Per Federal benevolence guidelines, over-crowding at Bmod hospitals is not permitted. Accordingly, Angevine was transferred to the next closest Federal facility, Greystone Behavioral here in Lawrence.

  That is how I came to acquire this drifter.

  I’m afraid the memories that Mr. William Angevine has left are none too pleasant. All the same, he is willing, doesn’t ask questions. He also displays transhuman abilities with a rifle. But of greatest import, I believe he has the ability to tether. Tricyclic Summit Theory. It is possible. Dolphin-kind know it. Marvin Adler died for it.

  Joan will make the final determination, though I can already say with certainty, from a glance behind his eyes, the man is no white mole. He comes from the motel in the morning.

  On a more practical note, Hugo and I must soon float to the Israeli’s warehouse and allocate a flat of potato pow… UNSCHEDULED HARDWARE DESTRUCT / DATA COMPROMISE / INITIATE BACKUP.EXE FOR REINTEGRATION FORMA… LOSS. LOSS. LOSS.”

  Chapter 1.3 – My Name is Tara Dean

  Wikipedia.holo Excerpt (Last Updated 2077.09.11) Regarding 21st Century Alcohol Addiction:

  …third time offenders scheduled for SAMCL surgery will be housed on a secure wing or hospital floor. These areas are called slaughterhouses by the pro-alcohol subculture.

  This slanderous term was popularized in The North American United States Union by members of the antique substance abuse organizations, Alcoholics Anonymous and Alanon. Members of AA/Alanon stand by their long held position that alcoholism is best treated through a voluntary request for assistance initiated by the addict.