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Outrun Stories #39

The Rookie

By Outrun StoriesPublished 6 years ago 2 min read
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“It’s tough being tough, kid,” I say to him as we fire into the redline, streaming across the Pacific coast delta-waves, away from the bust, away from those bad crazies. “Try to suck it up.”

“Suck it up?” He turns to me.

“This is a rough gig, if you’re going to last the pace, you need to have thick skin, don’t let the crazies get to you. They’ll try and drill you for everything you’ve got, suck your brainstem dry and leave you a mushy pile locked in to a long burn, and that’s the nice ones. It’s one serious ride to get where I am, so suck it up.”

“You don’t think I’ve got what it takes, is that it?” he says.

“Not at all, kid. I’m just saying, the delta-stream is a nasty place. There’s plenty of good you can do, but there’s plenty to bring you down. There’s plenty that’ll pull you apart and eat you up, leaving nothing but the bones.”

“You don’t know me,” he says and turns to me. “You don’t know shit about me.”

But I do, as soon as he says that shit the doubt creeps in. The doubt that he’s not one. He’s not one that’ll buckle down and weather the storm, he’s not one that’ll hold fast and in the face of all this shit that we get thrown at us. And he’s certainly not one that’ll hold the crazies back. The doubt that the delta-wave is going to eat him up and spit him out and he’s going to be left with fried circuitry and no one or no place left.

“Look kid,” I say to him as I bring our streams down and flick off the feed. “Just take a look at this for a moment, will you?”

We both flip up our visors and we’re back in the real world, back in our squad car on the outskirts of Santa Rio, back where we had to jack-in on the grid for the right port connection.

There’s storm clouds on the horizon, lit by a golden sunset. “You see that? You want to keep being able to see things like that? You want some sort of life, kid? Do you?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he replies.

“Well, everything in here,” I say, pointing at the flipped-up visor resting on his head. “Is designed to try and take this away from you. It sucks people in, some by choice, some by mistake, most against their will. It’s a necessary evil, but it eats people up and we’re here to try and save as many as we can in as short a time as possible, but you gotta watch your back, and I gotta make sure you’re watching mine, if we go back in again. Can I trust you?”

He looks back at me. “Sure thing, Violet. I’m ready, I know what I’m getting into, it’s what I’ve been training for, I know where we’re headed.”

“I hope so kid, I really do, for both our sakes.”

science fiction
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Outrun Stories

Short sci-fi stories in 500 words or less deriving from the Outrun, tech-noir and NewWave aesthetic.

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