Wiggle Room Ch. 3

Not too toot my own horn, but I like the imagery in this scene... violent, strategic, dark...

Dekks office reminded me of something I could not quite place my thoughts on. The A.M.R.I.C.S. seal hung vulture like above him on the mahogany wall.

“Look.” Dekk spat. “Stop being a woman and take the job. I don’t want to send Jace out to get his a*s blown off again, f*****g springs, and we need this for the Singleton case.

“Do it yourself grandpa. I bet you one thousands credits you wouldn’t budge from behind that desk.” I was treading on melting ice. Dekk had seen more patchwork action than most, but in my book, we were dead even. To ease the building tension I gave him some wiggle room. “What is the mark anyway?”

He narrowed his eyes so that I thought he might give himself a headache. “Outer-world tech. What the f**k do you think? You worked Singleton.”

Right... I worked singleton. It wasn’t a case. Singleton was a man, and I worked him into quite a few pieces before he got patch worked and I repeated the process.

“That s**t was nasty. If I play I want forty percent plus organics.”

“F**k you Hazel. This isn’t an auction, this is your job.” Dekk tossed an info chip at me.

***

I sat across the street from the Hourglass. What a seedy pit it was. I saw pros and Johns walking in and out, some shadowy patrons, and the occasional high roller looking for a night of pure debauchery. After the A.M.R.I.C.S. continuum reached its dagger like fingers into the cookie jar of the galaxy, every inhabited world started looking like old earth, fruit spoiled to the core. I was an agent of harvest.

I watched as six suited and hardened men exited a limo a half a block down and looked around intently. I sipped at my water, masquerading in a soda can. I don’t drink that soda s**t.

A military cut was trendy on Lucky Down, so combined with a long black leather jacket, maroon slacks, and black boots, I was nothing more than a student or a capitalist working class servant. I was fiftyish by old earth years, but a decent atmosphere, biosphere, and cellular augmentation does wonders for the body. I looked twenty four, and my stride felt every bit of seventeen. The scars of war had been patch worked, the hair which interestingly enough still turns gray, dyed. Everybody deserves a little fun right? I tossed the can, lit a cigarette and walked a tangent that would bring me closer to the meat without causing alarm. I even opened the door for them, and then I was a ghost. Blending in with trash is easy; you just have to get filthy.

I ordered two shots, downed them, and two outer world whiskeys, walking away from the bar like a seasoned pro. Sexually enhanced dancers ground the men down like sensual interrogators, slapping, licking and sucking for every credit. I noticed a pheromone imbalance in my senses as an exotic looking Afro-A.M.R.I.C. walked past me, drinking my come with her emerald green eyes; a real panther. Pheromone replacement; she probably was flooding the room with her witchy way, with every breath, out of every pore.

I sat at a booth and waited a while, letting the alcohol take effect and enjoying it before my adrenal-stimulant dampened its character. Then I pulled the vidi-screen prompter out of the side of the table and looked through the pictures until I found the dark cat again, with her jungle eyes. I queued her services and drank the rest of the first whisky. The heavy hitters were cloistered around a table, speaking in hushed tones even with the noise buffer active, I could tell by the shimmer in the air around their booth and the angle of their stares. Definitely off world talent.

I saw a curvy shadow manifest beside me through a strobe light and anticipated nothing less than smut. A manicured hand wove its way into my jacket, past my belt and massaged my swelling member.

“Hey daddy...” She even purred the words like cat. “Look what I found.”

I didn’t look, I just spoke. “Tell me.”

“Oooooo… A hard white boy. I like that, and I don’t discriminate baby, I’ll f**k and suck you like one of the brothas.”

I turned towards her and kissed her full in the mouth, enjoyed it, and plotted while she, practiced, responded.

I broke contact. “Tell you what cutie, you go get me a bottle of the strongest liquor you got back there, a bag full of peanuts, and I’ll take whatever you got for the next three hours, whatever the price.” I pulled a thousand credit wafer out of my pocket and slid it onto the table.

“You’re not going to hurt me daddy?” I knew she didn’t care, but I played along. “Are you?”

“I’m going to fill you up girlie. Now get to it.” I looked back at the heavies table.

“I knew you liked it when you seent it.” She purred, and slinked off towards the bar.

A part of me was disgusted with what I witnessed at the Hourglass. Indentured servitude and sexual slavery; the pimps watched eagle eyed from the corners of the room as their capitol literally milked their clientele. Addicts were tucked away in dark booths so high they damn near levitated as they shook from the calico, falling victim to sensation and sampling each other’s taste and wonders at random. Then again, a part of me was swept up by the raw sexual power of the scene, the possibilities, the… I caught myself as two of the big men got up and walked toward the lavatories.

The ensuing damage…

      On queue the panther was back, peanuts in hand, bottle in the other and all types of woman down the middle. I spun her around with one hand let her bounce her a*s on my lap as I popped the top off of the hundred and eighty proof synth liquor and filled the bottleneck with napkins. I emptied the peanuts onto the floor and all she could say was…

      “What the f**k baby?” As I stood up and dumped her.

      Her eyes widened as she looked at me, my gaze, again at me, the lighter in my hand, the flame, the bottle, and the heavies across the room.

      “Maker has me!” She scrambled towards the bar. Everyone had seen the A.M.R.I.C.S. revolution via vidi-screen, from infant on up. It was mandatory. Everyone knew what a Molotov cocktail was, from the Indo-Russo-Colony wars, and watched the rebels throw them before they were mowed down by military slug throwers; Old school gangster, stuff of ages, and in this type of environment, very effective. No one else noticed me judge the angle, the open flame in my hand, the bottle of liquor. No one watched the toss. But everyone saw the fireworks.

      The bottle burst directly on the hanging light above the heavies table, no thanks to the kick from my now activated secondary twitch ligature, and it cast dazzling shadows across the dim room, and fiery pain onto my new adversaries. That whole corner of the club immediately went up in flames and I pulled the pulse thrower from my waist and skirted towards the restrooms.

      Several people were on fire, screaming, but I, now crouched behind a table, focused only on the restroom doors. The two suits exited, while they both held slug throwers, one also held the object of my evening, a black box, for a moment. Four pulses surged up my wrist and arm; two entry wounds appeared on both men’s chests, fatal shots, only one fell.

Augment.

      I dove as he aimed, but felt fire in my neck. It was my fault; sloppy work. With the ligature I could have tagged their skulls. I twisted and fired, catching him in the mouth. The dark wall behind him changed hues. I stood and felt my blood pressure drop. Already my body was cauterizing the wound with chemo-electric heat produced in the bones in and around my neck. It always hurt. I stood still for a second too long, assessing damage and was speared by a flaming brute.

Augment.

      It really drags that military technology is leaked too readily to the public and private for a profit.

A.M.R.I.C.S.

      I was being pummeled by flaming hands, the synthetic flesh dripping off of the Entroskeletal bone, metallic and wiry tendons flexing and pushing. I exerted force down my left side, through my leg and wind milled it in a scissor like fashion, exchanging leverage while applying all of my upward pressure into a palm strike that connected with the burning man’s nose.

It broke back into his skull and soft matter, releasing him from his hellish Entroskeletal prison. His body twitched beside me and I rose to my feet, confronted by the last of a dying breed; the biggest meanest suit.

Augmented: Yes                 Movement: Ex-Military.

Combat Stance: Eclectic        Damage: Probably

Where the f**k was my gun?

      He must have rolled fervently before the fire had any real effect on his person. The suit was a different matter, tattered and falling off of his huge frame, the release from the restricting fabric may give him an advantage.

The club was burning down around us and death was raging.

I leaned left and peppered his torso with two, then three closed fist strikes, snapping my spine in unison with each arm, connecting heavily.

Damage...

      I was rocked by a right hook, catching me below the armpit as I stretched, and swept across my center of mass. I wobbled but didn’t fall. I threw a natural kick to the knee while he pivoted, resetting. A knife strike to the neck connects. One, two palm strikes blocked, but the third finds his weakened torso and I remember the hook. The swing is slow. I jump into his body bringing my knee directly into his solar plexus.

Damage…

      He head butts me as I land.

Damage…

      Face broken, I kneel with a strike to the groin. Two more palm strikes to his torso right. He is slower, and they connect. I rise with an uppercut and he snatches my arm in a vice grip. Jumping into him once more and  snaking my legs across his back I find purchase on his far arm applying a standing backwards Kimora.

A.M.R.I.C.S. agencies teach lost arts.

He breaks my arm with sheer force. His arm breaks under the Kimora pressure. I push and roll backwards across the floor, coming to a rest, upright and kneeling. We both see my gun, but it is mine.

      He straitens and looks through me. I fire.

Damage…

      The club is a furnace and holding my breath I move towards the bodies near the restrooms. The screaming is marauding my senses. The smell of burning flesh, synthetic and real, tempts my liquor. I find the bodies, I find the box, I breathe the smoke, and I see more bodies. This is death. I am death.

Damage…