Outrun Stories #60

This morning I was normal. This morning I was a different person. This morning I had had some semblance of a life. I had a past with friends, family. I had a future with a job and a girl and all the other shit that goes along with that. Now, none of it matters, but what else could I have done? There wasn’t anything else, so when they came knocking, I saw in their eyes what they were there for, who they were there for, but he’s my brother, so what am I supposed to do, just give them his neo-coding? Just hand him over to them? Say, "Oh yeah, here’s the bloodline teli-sync that you’re looking for. Why don’t you just hack straight into his god-damn neocortex and wipe his consciousness out of existence?"

No.

You can’t do that. Well, I couldn’t do that at least. So, when they came knocking they got a big middle fucking finger in their faces and I got fifty-thousand volts in the chest and then I woke up here.

For Christ sake, Johnny, who did you piss off so much this time that they’d come after you through me? You knew I wouldn’t give you up, must have thought it would buy you some more time.

I’m buried deep, I’ve got my own past, my own history that requires a certain level of anonymity, one that I’ve done very well to cover up and start having that normal life, but fuck me, these guys walked straight up to my door. Pre-sight quantum AI that’s supposed to be able to tell the fucking future couldn’t pick out these guys coming, which means they’re either military or off-world. Either way, that’s some serious shit.

“Now,” the voice in the dark says with a thick Russian accent. “Mr. Traypik, are you prepared to start talking?”

I laugh, hard and then harder and harder until I’m in complete hysterics and a cybernetic fist connects with my reinforced jaw and sends a few circuits in my brain implants into overload. My laughing peters out, “That’s a bad fake accent. I would have expected more from you guys.”

“No is not!” and fucking slam, another fist to the jaw, followed by some eye gouging. Luckily, I have my pain receptors turned right down but I can feel their hack getting through some of my firewalls. There’s never a 100 percent block when it comes to these sorts of things. Same as back in the day some poor bastard would be made to eventually crack under torture, same thing now, only I don’t have shit loads of training. All I have is a firewall, and they’ll eventually get through it.

“Tell us, you motherfuck!” bang, another smash and some hammers to my kneecaps. Things are starting to get serious, it’s only a matter of time now, but the longer I can hold on, the more time I’ll give him, my brother.

“You die! And we hack your cortex anyway!” the Neanderthal in the dark shouts, as if I don’t know. I can hear him cocking a gun and the time’s here, time to go out with a bang, so I switch the pre-frontal cortex detonator that I had installed up to the maximum. It’s not big, but it’ll be enough to take this fucker out and anyone else within 20 feet too.

This morning I was normal. Well, nearly normal. This morning I was a different person. Well, that’s mostly a lie. This morning I had a brother, that’s true, and so did he, but now, not for long.

This one’s for you brother. Here for you, always.

Music Inspiration – "Neon City" – Midnight Fighters