“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Those data thieves are already back!” she roared, connecting her unobtrusive wrist-terminal. “Without Luther, I have nothing left to defend myself!”
“We know those dudes. They’re the Thanatos Cartel,” Ali intervened, watching the show with her two close cousins. All three were staring at Selena with the same concern. “Are they going to hurt the animals?”
“Hurt them? They will probably kill them all!” Selena panicked, violently unplugging her implant. “I have already lost both my tigers and my lion against their cyber poachers. We’re now completely exposed!”
“In this case, we have a deal,” I explained while landing on the bed to take a look at the technological wonder that was this widescreen and portable terminal. “Ali and I get rid of the hunters and you don’t mind giving us what we came for.”
The data broker didn’t accept without grumbling first as my delighted human was already removing her Desert Eagle’s safety. Spinning her laptop towards me, Selena started to review the situation: “A week ago, they locked the station from the outside following Luther’s counterattack.” She then loaded the plan of her complex on the screen, before continuing: “You fried the door’s control. Nothing could delay them from entering the server farm once they landed.”
“How many are there?”
Catwoman closed the file to display the feed of the few security cameras still working in the hangar. The poachers’ vessel, a poorly maintained Beetle-XII, had just clamped itself next to the Swallow. These loafers had scratched the brand-new coral paint on the left wing!
The entire crew of philistines descended from the cargo hold and the narrowed cockpit shortly afterwards, activating their electromagnetic weapons. Tinkered but dangerous, their sizzling spears and machetes were powered by brass coils strapped on their backs. Except for the inductors and their magnetic boots, the eight men and women were naked as worms, expecting the data-jungle’s suffocating heat. However, some of them took the precaution of carrying ZeG-4 machine guns. As Selena feared, they would leave nothing to luck.
“We have to entrench ourselves. You don’t stand a chance fighting them head-on!” Selina said.
“True,” Ali conceded. “That’s why Imma gank them in the forest. It makes a perfect cover, haven’t you watched Predator?”
Our host sprung from the bed to search in a metal cabinet. “Corny movies’ references, uh? You remind me of the Maiden,” she snickered before she pulled out of the diving glasses superimposed with cables and chips. “You can borrow this device to dismiss the holograms. This way, I can accompany you and—”
“And take all the fun out of me? No thanks!” Ali complained. Hands on her hips, she spun upside down in the weightlessness. “Keep the animals safe in here while Lee and I zero those mucky bamas.”
“Are you insane?” the broker started after configuring a few soft buttons on the glasses’ uprights. After a buzz she handed them to Ali. “Of course, you are. Just take the damn glasses.”
“I don’t want them. They’re ugly.”
Selena’s ruby eyes flickered. She had silently imploded, creating an invisible field of incommensurable fury which subsumed the whole room and made the data-birds fly off their nests.
Meanwhile, I positioned myself in front of the computer. The monitor retransmitted the surveillance system images that showed the brigands entering the vestibule protecting the server jungle.
Ali took off her sweaty suit to keep only her underwear. Coincidentally, Nixon and Margaret fought over her pink jacket before Selena took their hands off them. She reiterated that my sapiens had to carry the glasses from the antipodes of stealth: “Even by disabling the anti-hologram function, there is still a built-in radio.”
“Very well, thank you Selena!” I said before Ali could make another inappropriate comment. “Now, let’s put some atmosphere to camouflage the noise. With this heat, we can hear Ali’s sugar-coated lungs breathing up to Andromeda.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I see in your data-core that there are speakers scattered all over the place,” I resumed. “Time to bring back some New Wave from the dead, don’t you think?”
A few minutes later, the holo-forest had fallen completely silent. All the animals had joined different safe rooms. Barely covered by the murmur of the fans, only the heavy footsteps of the poachers resonated on the real metal floor.
On the live video stream, Ali was crouching on a server tower, hidden in the foliage of a pink rubber tree. I discreetly alerted her by radio that the first target was heading towards her position. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry as a wolf!” she uttered in response. That’s all it took for our host, finally back, to dust off an old vinyl record lying under Nixon’s popcorn bags. Through the pixels of the terminal, I saw the intruders jump to the electric notes of Duran Duran. “Perfect!” said Ali beyond the first verse of Hungry like the Wolf.
The first target just below her armed his weapon. But waving his brush-brush cutter, the man entangled himself in the very real cables camouflaged by the illusory lianas which sizzled when he chopped them. Receiving an electric shock, he let out a smothered curse dampened by the song.
In touch with the ground
I’m on the hunt, I’m after you
The poacher didn’t see death coming. Ali had jumped on him, her feet on his broad shoulders, her boxer pressed against his Nubian nose, the Desert Eagle’s barrel against his sweaty forehead. The sound of the gunshot disappeared in the harmonics as quickly as my young partner in the supernatural setting.
Smell like I sound, I’m lost in a crowd
And I’m hungry like the wolf
A second man immediately burst in, chewing a lit cigar as perspiration ran over his temporal chips. Seeing the lifeless body of his companion, the large colossus retreated to clasp himself against a flickering rainbowed-colored trunk. His tattooed hand slipped back to take hold, but it didn't touch the hot metal of a server block. This tramp was getting lost between the thighs of my partner, perched two meters from the wall, just behind him. Jumping over the panicked intruder with an athletic backflip, she cut him from the ground with a bullet in each of his prosthetic knees before disappearing again.
Floating defenseless, the brigand barked for help. I saw on the screen that some of his companions were approaching from the northwest of the neon jungle and I immediately reported it to Ali: “Three poachers. Wedge formation.”
By my side, Selena was policing the progress of the operation over my shoulder. She seemed concerned and I didn’t know why. On the monitor, three new corpses were piled up at the foot of a fake rubber tree as the injured man emerged from another foliage, a large hole where his heart once stood. The hunt was being reversed.
When the leader cyber-poacher fell between the claws of my partner armed with one of her grunts’ electrified pincers, she showed enough courage to immediately alert the last three survivors. Under the agonizing howling of their frying companion, her associates took their heels and fled towards the vestibule as fast as their magnetic boots allowed them.
“We can’t let them escape!” cried Selena, jumping on the terrace of her perched hut overlooking her turf.
“Do you think it’s on our agenda?”
On the screens, Ali dived through the jungle. She finally caught up with the slowest thug who threw her powerless electromagnetic spear. Slipping on the round wall, my partner dodged it before gathering momentum against an electronic tower. Three shots were enough to clean the head off the thief’s torso before it flew towards the fake leaves.
Burning the ground, I break from the crowd
I’m on the hunt down, I’m after you
It was time to catch up with the last two: a blue-haired man and a muscular bald woman who had gotten rid of her back-coil. Armed with genuine rusty revolvers, they had just knocked over a shelf to use as a cover. The hologram of the uprooted tree emitted a sizzle that spread in a circle about ten meters in diameter around them. The area formed a gigantic disco ball that obstructed all vision; even through the cameras.
“Hell! We can’t see anything!” I cried. “Selena? Can we shut down the holograms?”
“It’s fine, Lee,” Ali whispered. “I have the fugly-ass glasses. Remember?”
I smell like I sound, I’m lost and I’m found
And I’m hungry like the wolf
The sphere started to dissipate, allowing me to discern the two furious poachers’ silhouettes hidden by the overturned servers. Silent and the glasses on her freckled nose, Ali floated behind their back like a boogeyman from the old tales. They hadn’t noticed her—too bad. As she had run out of ammunition, Ali smashed both their heads against the metallic frame. She only stopped when nothing remained to crack.
I’m hungry like the wolf…
“What the fuck was that?” Carole Selena yelled by grabbing a mouse-shaped lighter. Her hands were shaking and Ali had to take over the lighting of her Virginia Slims. “Who will clean all the meat you spread across the whole station?”
“Get outta here!” my partner complained, returning the blood-dripping lighter. “I took the time to pack them up!”
The cat lady sat on her pink rocking chair—useless in 0G, her golden cigarette holder rolling between her fangs. After snapping out of it, she gave us the micro-diskette. “You can tell Mancy to go to hell!” she added as Nixon and Margaret joined us to hand a Wiseguy VHS to their master.
As wisdom prevailed, we had preferred leaving the nameless moon as quickly as possible. Back on a known orbit aboard the Kitty, I could insert the floppy disk into the control computer. Its contents were slowly drawn on the central polychrome monitor.
“There’s an entire file dealing with the Cronian conflict,” I noted when an internal review from both the Techno-Secretary of State and the Defense Intelligence Agency appeared on the screen. “It might interest our brave King of the Fairies.” The confidential reports thus gave way to photos and videos of awful qualities. There were also samples of radio and telephone conversations between politicians and a Lunar pawn called Sirona.
Ali blew a raspberry. “What a buzz kill! What does Nora have to do with these war stories? When did all this information date back?”
It varied. The oldest ones were from before we met Zéphyr, the others just a few months ago and linked to a webrunner nicknamed “The Druid” and another weirdo called “The Boogeyman”. Several corporations were also involved such as WarTech and Mendel-Genomics.
A very interesting memo dated to several earth weeks after Nora’s supposed death on Titan. It informed us about her passage through Ceres, in the main belt. As the computer proceeded to analyze the files, a fresh entry popped up in the corner of the screen. It was a voice access code stolen from the Thanatos Cartel. The voice belonged to Nora and had been associated with a brand-new FID. She had taken on an alternative identity before leaving for the Middle System.
“We’re so close!” I exulted. “Look!” This digital fingerprint had been repeatedly recognized by the control computer. Someone with the same tampered implant as Ali’s sibling was scanned on Mars… “… six months ago,” I cried, checking the incredible conclusion of the analysis several times. “I assume we just uncovered your sister!”
“What did she run there?” Ali worried.
I immediately understood my partner’s concern. Mars and the Technocracy. So close to Lunapolis and the intriguing Metacastes. A hornet’s nest filled with dioxygen-filtered kerosene. “We have only one way to find out, dear. Let’s bounce for the Red Planet!”
Back to business!
