Wiggle Room Ch. 2

Moving on...

Wiggle Room

Ch. 2

 

“Comon Dekk, the credit is always thirty percent minus organic damage!”

 I was hot. Dekk, my commissioner was so crooked. I don’t even think it was about the money, he just wanted to f**k with me. His office reminded me of an old vidi-scene called The Hustler from before the A.M.R.I.C.S. continuum. My father told me people used to play a game called billiards hundreds of years in the past; hitting balls around with sticks - how barbaric. It was still practiced in some circles of high society. Leave it to the rich, holding onto the past. The office was green and mahogany, with glassy silver frames on all the pictures and accommodations, the box with all the war medals, and the synthetic cigars. We served together on new earth.

Whatever…

      “I heard about the club Hazel! Organics division will only cover you. You know a woman burned through too her Entroskeleton.”

She must have been a pro. Only pimps outfit their best w****s’ bodies with the cheap nearly death proof material.

“I feel sorry for her, if she didn’t have the Entro she would have died. Did you know her nerves have to re-grow along with the patchwork? Imagine feeling like your body is being flayed alive while being put back together, and you! You already burned her to death!”

      We both knew I had experienced this and worse during my conditioning. But then again, I got to f**k people over; the reanimated w***e would just be fucked.

      “I didn’t start the fire Dekk, I didn’t even engage. Well not completely.” I looked at the wall.

      “I don’t give a flying f**k!”

      “Cut me some slack Dekk.” I didn’t need the money, it was the principle. “You haven’t seen fieldwork in how long? This office is eating what grey matter you have left.”

      “What about the memo I got thirty minutes ago - A stone dead whack job by Miriam’s, and a filleted reptile. It has Hazel written all over it. Chunks of lizard meat, one man broken down, tell me Hazel, did you break his face before or after you ripped his arm off? We are professional man! You really screwed the pooch on this one. You’re lucky commission is still a topic.”

      “Dekk...” I never engaged the Lekani so I hesitated, and he knew the arm wasn’t my style. But I chose not to continue. The dogs must have got to Teeth, and I wasn’t admitting to s**t off the company’s triangulation zone.

      “Look, the rate is twenty percent today, plus organic damage, no f*****g wiggle room, my head hurts. Clean yourself up and I’ll buy you a drink, and for god’s sake stop bleeding on my carpet!” He picked up the paper bag I had laid on his desk and placed it into the floor conveyor. I knew it was the end of the conversation.

      “Thanks a lot Dekk.”

“F**k you.”

I walked out of his office and down to the hall to organics.

***

“Helluva night huh?” The voluptuous tech said as she surveyed my wounds and took a scientific interest in the blood I dripped on the tiled floor. Her name was Tresti, and she was a smoking hot outer-world medical genius of sorts. I heard some of the younger agents swapping fantasies about her heavy thighs and supple breasts. I was too beat to think about a chubby.  A wisp of her long black hair teased my skin while she took a closer look at my neck. She pulled it back into her pony tail and stepped away to my silent disapproval. I felt a whisper in my dick. Maybe I wasn’t too far gone.

“Maker, I sighed, is everyone watching a new show I don’t know about.” I remembered the smart cabbie and held my pounding head; I had lost a lot of blood. Naturally, my agency equipped, augmented body would not allow me to die from blood loss, but the extraction out of an adrenal-coma was the last thing I wanted to experience.

“So what happened, did Dekk extend organics’ reach to the club or are you broke?” She smiled as she typed away at the servo-comp. The arms of the device sprang into life and I took my place horizontal on the operation table.     

“You heard about that huh?” I closed my eyes.  

“Well, it was on vidi-scene, so I am pretty sure everyone did.” She laughed. 

“F**k.” The last thing I wanted was an agency court martial, or worse, termination. I know I said I wanted a new job. I lied.

“Dekks an a*****e.”    

She nodded silently as she typed some more commands and the anti-gravity kicked in on the table, lifting me into the air. I hated the medical ward. Everything was mechanical. Sure the techs placed the commands, but you were being tended too by a robot, which like a human, despite popular and in some new cases religious belief, was not perfect. I’d rather be cut accidentally by someone I could punish. The dexterous insect like arms of the machine turned me slowly in the air as it separated me from my clothes.

“You want subconscious.” She asked.

“Real time, please, the last eighteen hours.”

I was jacked in intravenously, then digitally via light-band, micro diodes were placed over my shaved scalp and chest, then an external catheter. I guess I was going under for a while. I noticed the catheters motions were lingering playfully and I opened my eyes one last time to glare over at the tech.    

“Hey!” I coughed, my neck protesting.

She giggled, and I passed out.