The bouncer at Guts was a very lovely woman of six feet and six inches, sporting two pairs of cyborg arms and a pair of straight, oni-like horns, one of them broken deliberately from the looks of it. Oh, and a tail with what at first glance appeared to be fold out blades. And she was shirtless on top of that, the only thing remotely covering her chest being her badge on a lanyard, name and pronouns on said badge. “ID?” She asked, and I sighed.
“Yeah just stamp me with the minor marker, I don’t drink anyway.” She laughed as I reached my hand towards her.
“I’m just messing with you, we don’t check ID here. We do check for ill intent, however.” She cracked her knuckles on her lower pair of arms.
“I have a business meeting with someone here. And I left all my guns in my car.” Her eyes flashed neon green as she looked me over.
“Any concealed cyberware?”
“I’m all meat excluding my vocal cords and base of my skull, honestly though I have been considering some forearm blades.” I grabbed hold of my wrist while saying so, shrugging.
“Really? What kind?” Her tail wagged and her eyes opened up more in curiosity.
“Some sorta fold out deal on the sides, not a slide out blade from below or above the wrist, ya know?”
“Yeah, yeah I can see it. I know a place that might have a pair in stock to mod, if you want to look into it.”
“Oh, for sure, I’ll ask you on my way out.” I started walking towards the poor, but she threw her arms out to stop me.
“Bold of you to assume I’m letting you in.” She was smirking, her tail was wagging and there wasn’t an ounce of aggression in her eyes.
“And here I thought we had really hit it off.” Century jumped on my shoulder, and pretended to lick her paw. She didn’t even have a tongue installed to do that with! She looked at the bouncer with her big ol’ gryphon eyes and chirped. The bouncer immediately folded her arms.
“We have, now don’t go causing any trouble, I have eyes everywhere in the club.” She tapped her intact horn and I gave her a thumbs up, finally walking inside.
When you spend your whole life out on the road, traveling with a community that counts as your family, you get used to quiet. You get used to only hearing the roar of engines while moving, the crackle of fire while resting, to getting to see the stars above you at night as you lay in the back of a truck holding hands with your first girlfriend who you end up breaking up with three months later after coming out because she’s straight and you’re a girl.
So imagine the headache I experienced the moment I stepped foot into the club, the lights changing colors constantly and the music loud and thumping. I was already missing the calm pub atmosphere of Maria’s place. I approached the bar while squinting to not have my retinas be completely burned, the bartender behind it a catboy, his cybernetic ears and tail sporting a stripped pattern of colors I could not decipher thanks to the club’s ever changing lighting. “Hey! I’m here to see Kim?” I called out to him, upping the volume on my voice module to make sure he could hear me. He pointed his thumb towards a private lounge door without even looking at me, not skipping a beat on the drink he was mixing.
The lounge was, thankfully, soundproofed, and had much calmer lighting, so I slumped down in one of the couches without even properly addressing Kim the moment I walked in. “It’s god damn overwhelming out there, why’d you pick this place for a meeting? Sheesh.” I turned to take a look at her, and sighed. “Should have brought the gumshoe getup.”
“What?” Her confusion was a little funny to me, but then again with Rabbithole releasing re-re-re-re-remakes of numerous films, how would one get their hands on a black and white Noir flick from the 40’s? And my slight joke was quite appropriate for her appearance, she looked just like one of the widowed dames who killed their ancient husbands to run off with the money into the arms of a girl. A tight velvet dress with the dark green color of glass bottles and a slit up the thigh, exposing the tops of her stockings. She was made up far too classily for the establishment, more dressed to show up at a movie premiere than hire a merc in a dance club.
“Bad joke, sorry. I’m M, Grimm told me you have a job for me.” I leaned back on the couch, resting my arms on its back, Century sitting in my lap to either make me look more approachable or more dangerous, it was hard to tell which with her.
“And M is short for?”
“For ‘My full name is worth so much more than what you can pay me for robbing Rabbithole’, Miss Smith. Speaking of,” I scratched under Century’s chin, my eyes focused on Kim, “what is it that you want me to steal?”
“Are you aware of Rabbithole’s Vault system?”
“Doesn’t quite ring a bell, is that the one where they release movies and you can only rent them for a bit before they’re gone and it’s years before they show up again?”
“No, it’s one of their more expensive services, derived from their Hall of CEOs idea. You get a chip to record yourself with, and then that recording of you can be played back, so that your grandkids can meet you.”
“Creepy, and they definitely own you after that, I’m guessing.” Kim wriggled her hands, nodding to confirm my suspicion.
“Yes. What I want you to steal is a prototype of a biochip, which is capable of not just recording your memories for playback to construct a fake you out of, but to make a complete digital copy of you, personality and all. A Daemon, if you will.” Century perked up at that, her eyes focused on Kim, narrowing with suspicion.
“I know mine and Century’s opinion on Daemons, and on how they’re seen in Dusklight.” There was the heist job three months ago that was called off the moment the client saw Century, the spying work two months ago that ended when it became clear Century had more going on than an Angel would, and last month I was kicked out of a bar in the Polish quarter for bringing Century in.
All of which had been surprises, since my reputation was spreading at the time. “Why would someone desire to become one? Or, in some cases, have another you run around. I imagine the paranoia would make the original think the Daemon is out for blood so they can be the one true version of them.” I asked, stroking Century’s back, her tail lazily flicking from side to side.
“Why else, immortality. Aging treatments only go so far.”
“And the brain degrades over time anyways, being coherent past a hundred and twenty is a miracle.” And Auntie Patty had managed it without anti-aging treatments, that woman was a beast in the gunner’s seat. Having an owl for a Daemon helped.
Kim nodded, taking a sip of the drink that had been sitting in front of her, the glass collecting dew on the surface. “Imagine it; taking a snapshot of your most coherent self, and then just adding on experiences as you age, able to transfer to a new body once the old one gives out. No more fear of death, you could just send a copy of you in a resistant shell for dangerous endeavors.”
“Cheaper and safer to launch a couple rent-a-bodies with yourself in them to make a base on Mars or Venus or such. If you manage to see them as human.” Of the Daemons I grew up surrounded by, they took pride in not being human, in being different from us in their own ways, but if you made a snapshot of a person into one? Well, I was sure Zagreus and Auntie Murphy would have a lot to contribute to the discussion. “Let’s cut to the chase, why do you want to steal it?”
“Sell it, make millions, and leave this city for good. Maybe follow in Scent’s footsteps, buy a ride to the station orbiting Saturn.” She shrugged, and I really couldn’t blame her for thinking it was an option. CosmoZ did an amazing job of transforming their CEO into a Russian Dog.
“Can’t say I blame ya for the attempt. So, how do you expect me to steal it?”
Kim stood up and waited by the door. “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet first.”
A station around saturn... Is that an hommage to Welcome to Saturn Beta? ^^
Love the aesthetic of the bouncer too