Outside World

It was surprising that the outside spaces still existed between buildings. Given the nature of the people building the things, you could have expected every availble space to be filled, buildings touching each other. But the spaces were there. For some reason the buildings were always expanded upwards, rather than sideways. Someday the whole conglomerate would collapse, taking millions with it, not that the prospect would stop or even slow down the expansion.

My stop is coming up fast, and I slow down the glider, increases the friction against the cable with a switch. I drop lightly to the ledge, twisting my ankle slightly. Dammit. Misjudged the height of the exit point. The glider fades back into the bracelet, and I get my cable back. The gun clicks against my right leg, and as my clothing swirls into stone grey I run a quick check through my weaponry. Knives, all three ok. The discgun is a solid weight against my left leg, and the three tiny flash granades snuggled against my belt in the small of my back. I pulled my gloves from a pocket in pants, onto my hands, small spikes extended briefly from the two big knuckles on each hand before collapsing into the gloves. The force-shield on left left bracelet is fully charged, shimmers electric blue for a second before I switched it off again. I take a deep breath before hitting the zubei switch. The potent drug mixed with my blood, moving between tiny red cells, white cells, whatever else was still left in there. I feel the heigtened awareness coming on, feeling each hair on my body. I knew my pupils had shrunk to tiny points, but that didn’t matter. The microamp in my wraparounds compensated automatically.

In short, I was ready to deliver my package to the gangleader of this part of the city.

Just a brief word about the gangs. There were literally hundreds, predatory groups that ruled the lower reaches of the city. The bigger you were, the higher you moved up the levels. But don’t go too high, as the Imperial Police tended to get aggressive as soon as the richer inhabitants start to feel threatened. And the Police were definitely too big for any gang too take on. An alliance could maybe work, but who’d ally with who? Another thing. The gangs were in a state of continual warfare with each, or they created the war at the lower levels. Kill those below, and try to wrest territory from those above. Some of the gangs had almost military armament at their disposal, with headquarters, barracks, armouries, med facilities, you name it. And some of them had me.

You see, I am a thief and a courier. But maybe that’s too short a description. I am something unique in this city. I become what you want me to be. At the moment I was making creds running as a thief for some gangs, stealing plans of new tech, straight and bio, stealing battle plans for others. The lower part of this city’s continual gang wars needed me. Or I needed it. The distinction was fine, and had blurred by now. I moved across the top of this like a stone skipped across water, touching here and there but never becoming involved. Not any more.

Once, long ago, I took an active part in the war, believing that I could make a difference. The arrogance of youth. We were immortal, Sandrii and I. The lesson I learned to late was that gangs lived as organisms. Single members got killed, without it making any impact whatsoever. And when individuals got in the way, too bad. You either had it or you didn’t. And Sandrii got caught up, was made an example to another gang. She was continuously raped and tortured over a period of a two days, with live broadcast to us. I do not remember much after the first hour, as my friends sedated my. I had apparently smashed three monitors with my bare fists, nearly killed people trying to hold me down. I do remember what happened when I woke up. I had loaded up with weapons, and walked to what was then the main stronghold of the gang that had caught Sandrii. Details faded into a blur of blood and speed, except for single faces burned into my mind. Surprise, anger, pain.