Outside World

I reach out to a thin cable sticking out of the building, detach the cablegun from its holster on my right leg, and touched the black line with it. The gun wrapped around the cable, connecting me to my transport. This was my kingdom, the spaces between buildings. No gang had the technology to match me yet, figured that would change in about less than a year. But untill then I could travel where I wanted, as long as I kept on creating new routes. The cable itself was a piece of tech people would kill to possess. Or they’ve tried to. There was exactly one cable, and I owned it.

I made the gun myself, using pieces of several different weapons scavenged from gangmembers and Imperial Police. It mainly featured a modified Staatentek grenade launcher, along with the power pack from a R73X military Assualt rifle. Another one of Staatentek’s little toys. The superlight crystal-tipped cable was made to order, quite a simple tech actually, but very desirable because it’s not avaible on this planet at all. If you combined the cable with the gun it made a great combo. The gun shot the cable between the buildings, and the crystals at each tip penetrated building defences with ease, and stuck there, no matter what.

The gun whined slightly as I reeled in the cable from the building far above me. It was only seconds before the entire length of cable was coiled on the side of the gun. I aimed it downwards, roughly sixty degrees with the horisontal. The flitting hovers moved between straight edged holographic lines, so it was possible to pass the cable between them. But you had to judge the angle carefully.

With a small shudder the gun launched the cable, the bright crystal falling with a line trailing behind it. It stuck some two hundred metres down, and the gun immediately deployed the rear end of the cable. It thudded into the wall behind me, and pulled tight. No, I don’t know how that happens. The cable just knows how long it’s supposed to be. The guy who sold me the cable tried to explain, but he lost me. I know that it’s somehow telescoping, but I don’t have any idea how. That type of tech is not my line.

I reach up with my right hand, detached the gun, clipped it back onto my leg, muzzle just above my knee, and when my fingers contact the cable the glider grows from the right bracelet, shimmering silver with reflections, like a prism designed by a drunk aided by a blind man. It wrapped neatly around the cable.

I jumped.

The rush of air folds around me, becomes a solid wall that tries to rip me from the cable. I feel the strain in my arms as I allow myself to be pressed back parallel with the cable. The electroptics in my clothes swirl from building grey into black as the tiny sensors pick up the colour change in my enviroment. I become effectively invisible. Hovers flash past, and they do not move that fast, passengers blind inside the sealed capsules. Inners was the term most widely recognized for them. The people, that is. People who lived their entire lives inside the sealed buildings. They were scared to come outside, scared of the fresh air, scared of every possible type of shit that could exist outside of their carefully regulated enviroment. Shame.