LitShark
Predator
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2002
- Posts
- 3,565
Sketch wasn’t exactly a people person. He lived alone, he worked alone and preliminary latitude algorithms estimated an eighty-seven percent probability that he would die alone, at his deck, jacked into cyberspace. Of course, that projection had been before—before he wrote the Bethany software. Bethany wasn’t a virus, per-se. She was more of a worm, but a teeny tiny worm, able to condense down into the digital memory-space of a period. Less than a byte. Like a needle hole through terabytes of information and protective ICE. Almost impossible to detect, yet able to rearrange and alter the source code of her target with almost the same level of efficiency as even the most advanced and expensive Chinese penetration software. So far, Sketch had been using Beth to patch into toll gates and siphon small parts of each digital transfer into a dummy account which he had access to.
The account grew so quickly that he’d aroused some unwanted attention.
Bethany was the reason that Sketch was in the highest suite of the Hilton Manhattan, sitting across from the most feared Yakuza Lord in the Sprawl. Takeshi Kiyaburo was not the sort of man whose attention was desired. He had a reputation for extreme cruelty as long as his rap sheet (which was in its own right impressive). Not the sort that Sketch wanted anything to do with, but even less the type that Sketch could refuse a direct invitation to meet.
“Shark fin soup.” Takeshi grinned, his voice crackling and mechanical as it passed through the translation software built into his modulation device. “Extinct some years gone, but vat grown. Reconstituted from DNA codes, genetically modified to serve such a purpose, all fins, no teeth.”
Takeshi laughed, his modulator causing his laughter to ring with a sound like that of an antique electric shaver. A humorless chef placed an opaque glass dome in front of Sketch, once lifted, the dome preserved its shape for a fraction of a second, a semicircular ball of white steam that curled upward and evaporated to reveal an exquisite, hand-painted bowl—filled with red broth and massive chunks of meat resembling whitefish.
“Cool!” Sketch exclaimed, having never before seen the pomp and pageantry that came standard on expensive cuisine. “This looks a lot better than the self-steaming ramen, I usually eat.”
It was Sketch who laughed this time, nervously. Takeshi was stone-faced. Perhaps he was less than thrilled by the level to which his culture had been appropriated, disseminated and degraded by the capitalist agenda—but it wasn’t like Takeshi was missing any meals in this dog-eat-dog economy of the Sprawl.
The Yak ran the waterways, every piece of land that touched the sea was subject to their authority. There wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it, unless they wanted to become an “example”. As Sketch’s nervous laugh faltered and tapered off into an uncomfortable clearing of his throat, he leaned forward and lifted spoon to lips slowly. He blew tiny little columns of air over the spoonful of red soup, Takeshi seemed to be growing impatient.
“Enough small-talk, I’m here for the worm. I've brought enough money that you can eat shark-fin five times a day and move into a huge house. Girls! My family has the best women from all parts of the globe. Thai girls, American girls, Russian, Italian, Swiss blonde! All will know that you are an important, big shot to their family. They’ll fight to be close to you.” Takeshi’s linguistically altered sales pitch rattled through his voice box like bees in a tin can. He removed his sunglasses for the first time, revealing pale blue eyes that seemed almost white, save for the black circles at their centers—augments, likely saving Sketch’s facial grid to their internal mainframe for future use.
Sketch didn’t like that, an act of aggression, offering big promises while also preparing to hunt and kill. Sketch slurped his soup loudly, looking back at Takeshi’s pale eyes. The taste was unlike anything the shut-in had tasted before, singular and delicious—but the knowledge of what Takeshi was planning made Sketch feel an odd sense of kinship with the poor, vat-grown, ten-finned sharks—kept docile and helpless until they were ready to feed the bigger fish. All fins, no teeth.
“All I’ve got to do is let you take my sweet Bethany on a run at Tessier-Ashpool’s Finance Server, isn’t that right?” Sketch replied, dropping his spoon loudly into the expensive China bowl and pushing the soup away from himself into the center of the table. “And then what? Once you’ve hit the big score, you trying to tell me that you’ll just keep on paying me, keep me in diamonds and furs, after it’s over? No, cause nothing’s ever enough for your type, is it? One big payday, just makes you lot hungry for the next one, or the next one, or the next one—never enough. Then sooner or later, the ICE will get hip to Bethany and it’ll adjust. Then all systems closed to her. You’ll give me a few months, lean on me to work up something new but just as lethal, and when I can’t—I become a loose end. That’s how these things end, isn’t it? Sooner or later, all of us cowboys outlive our usefulness, and the more we know about the internals of your organization, the less you can afford to let us live.”
“I think you watch too many old exploitation films, my friend. I assure you—“
“I’ve had about enough of your assurances. I don’t want my software to get pinched out, I don’t want to be anyone’s pet—anyone’s vat-fish dinner. You process? Thanks for the offer and the soup and all, but I’m best by myself. Please accept my respectful decline of your offer.”
Sketch stood up abruptly, too abruptly and as soon as he was full upright there was a knife under his chin, someone had been in the room unseen all along, and he moved faster than fly-wings.
Takeshi allowed the tense silence to hang for a moment, splitting a chunk of fin with his spoon and noiselessly placing the food inside his mouth, withdrawing the clean spoon. His eyes closed, obscuring the expensive implants, but not halting their processing.
“Oishi.” Takeshi muttered softly, his own baritone resonating for the first time without technical modulation, returning to the buzzing translation software after he swallowed. “You are making a terrible mistake, Sketch. It may not be ideal for you to be aligned with my family, but anything is better than being against us. Even death is preferable. Take a moment, use your intellect. We will not stop you from leaving if such is your wish, but I urge you to make a better choice.”
The third withdrew his blade, his arms changing hue as he moved, active camouflage from his Modern suit adapting to new backgrounds at fifty scans per second. It was all Sketch could do not to burst into tears. His face was flushed, his ears hot and his heart thumping inside his chest like a jackhammer. Outside, thick raindrops pelted the window. He’d never know this kind of fear.
“Fuck you.” Sketch forced himself to say, his voice wavering faintly as the sob he was holding down nearly escaped.
Sketch stormed out of the suite, with the sound of rattling, metallic laughter ringing behind him.
As he reached street level, Sketch tugged up the collar of his dingy old, second hand green coat, the pouring rain mocking him in a waterfall beyond the Hilton’s protective awning. The full gravity of what he’d done setting in now, the life he’d accepted by telling the Yakuza ‘no.’
“I’ve got to go find me some teeth, fast.”
The account grew so quickly that he’d aroused some unwanted attention.
Bethany was the reason that Sketch was in the highest suite of the Hilton Manhattan, sitting across from the most feared Yakuza Lord in the Sprawl. Takeshi Kiyaburo was not the sort of man whose attention was desired. He had a reputation for extreme cruelty as long as his rap sheet (which was in its own right impressive). Not the sort that Sketch wanted anything to do with, but even less the type that Sketch could refuse a direct invitation to meet.
“Shark fin soup.” Takeshi grinned, his voice crackling and mechanical as it passed through the translation software built into his modulation device. “Extinct some years gone, but vat grown. Reconstituted from DNA codes, genetically modified to serve such a purpose, all fins, no teeth.”
Takeshi laughed, his modulator causing his laughter to ring with a sound like that of an antique electric shaver. A humorless chef placed an opaque glass dome in front of Sketch, once lifted, the dome preserved its shape for a fraction of a second, a semicircular ball of white steam that curled upward and evaporated to reveal an exquisite, hand-painted bowl—filled with red broth and massive chunks of meat resembling whitefish.
“Cool!” Sketch exclaimed, having never before seen the pomp and pageantry that came standard on expensive cuisine. “This looks a lot better than the self-steaming ramen, I usually eat.”
It was Sketch who laughed this time, nervously. Takeshi was stone-faced. Perhaps he was less than thrilled by the level to which his culture had been appropriated, disseminated and degraded by the capitalist agenda—but it wasn’t like Takeshi was missing any meals in this dog-eat-dog economy of the Sprawl.
The Yak ran the waterways, every piece of land that touched the sea was subject to their authority. There wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it, unless they wanted to become an “example”. As Sketch’s nervous laugh faltered and tapered off into an uncomfortable clearing of his throat, he leaned forward and lifted spoon to lips slowly. He blew tiny little columns of air over the spoonful of red soup, Takeshi seemed to be growing impatient.
“Enough small-talk, I’m here for the worm. I've brought enough money that you can eat shark-fin five times a day and move into a huge house. Girls! My family has the best women from all parts of the globe. Thai girls, American girls, Russian, Italian, Swiss blonde! All will know that you are an important, big shot to their family. They’ll fight to be close to you.” Takeshi’s linguistically altered sales pitch rattled through his voice box like bees in a tin can. He removed his sunglasses for the first time, revealing pale blue eyes that seemed almost white, save for the black circles at their centers—augments, likely saving Sketch’s facial grid to their internal mainframe for future use.
Sketch didn’t like that, an act of aggression, offering big promises while also preparing to hunt and kill. Sketch slurped his soup loudly, looking back at Takeshi’s pale eyes. The taste was unlike anything the shut-in had tasted before, singular and delicious—but the knowledge of what Takeshi was planning made Sketch feel an odd sense of kinship with the poor, vat-grown, ten-finned sharks—kept docile and helpless until they were ready to feed the bigger fish. All fins, no teeth.
“All I’ve got to do is let you take my sweet Bethany on a run at Tessier-Ashpool’s Finance Server, isn’t that right?” Sketch replied, dropping his spoon loudly into the expensive China bowl and pushing the soup away from himself into the center of the table. “And then what? Once you’ve hit the big score, you trying to tell me that you’ll just keep on paying me, keep me in diamonds and furs, after it’s over? No, cause nothing’s ever enough for your type, is it? One big payday, just makes you lot hungry for the next one, or the next one, or the next one—never enough. Then sooner or later, the ICE will get hip to Bethany and it’ll adjust. Then all systems closed to her. You’ll give me a few months, lean on me to work up something new but just as lethal, and when I can’t—I become a loose end. That’s how these things end, isn’t it? Sooner or later, all of us cowboys outlive our usefulness, and the more we know about the internals of your organization, the less you can afford to let us live.”
“I think you watch too many old exploitation films, my friend. I assure you—“
“I’ve had about enough of your assurances. I don’t want my software to get pinched out, I don’t want to be anyone’s pet—anyone’s vat-fish dinner. You process? Thanks for the offer and the soup and all, but I’m best by myself. Please accept my respectful decline of your offer.”
Sketch stood up abruptly, too abruptly and as soon as he was full upright there was a knife under his chin, someone had been in the room unseen all along, and he moved faster than fly-wings.
Takeshi allowed the tense silence to hang for a moment, splitting a chunk of fin with his spoon and noiselessly placing the food inside his mouth, withdrawing the clean spoon. His eyes closed, obscuring the expensive implants, but not halting their processing.
“Oishi.” Takeshi muttered softly, his own baritone resonating for the first time without technical modulation, returning to the buzzing translation software after he swallowed. “You are making a terrible mistake, Sketch. It may not be ideal for you to be aligned with my family, but anything is better than being against us. Even death is preferable. Take a moment, use your intellect. We will not stop you from leaving if such is your wish, but I urge you to make a better choice.”
The third withdrew his blade, his arms changing hue as he moved, active camouflage from his Modern suit adapting to new backgrounds at fifty scans per second. It was all Sketch could do not to burst into tears. His face was flushed, his ears hot and his heart thumping inside his chest like a jackhammer. Outside, thick raindrops pelted the window. He’d never know this kind of fear.
“Fuck you.” Sketch forced himself to say, his voice wavering faintly as the sob he was holding down nearly escaped.
Sketch stormed out of the suite, with the sound of rattling, metallic laughter ringing behind him.
As he reached street level, Sketch tugged up the collar of his dingy old, second hand green coat, the pouring rain mocking him in a waterfall beyond the Hilton’s protective awning. The full gravity of what he’d done setting in now, the life he’d accepted by telling the Yakuza ‘no.’
“I’ve got to go find me some teeth, fast.”
