Titan. After the success of its terraforming, Saturn’s biggest moon became the most populated drifting rock beyond the main belt. Similar to Mars and Luna, huge towns arose on its young surface as the first colons enjoyed a secured artificial atmosphere.
Ali and I came from the Xanadu Prefecture; and especially from Neo-Babylon, its capital. Home of 35 million souls, City#91—as colonies were once numbered that way—was the second largest but most dangerous megacity of the Gas Giants. Its region included the highest density of protein farms, necessary for the conception of the valuable nutrigel, as well as the headquarters of major tech-zaibatsus in direct competition with Mars.
Over the past decade, Saturn’s corporats had the brilliant idea of starting an open war with the Red Planet’s Technocracy after the latter raised the imports’ tariffs. Since then, destruction and death had sufficiently increased the profits of the Lunar military-industrial complex while impoverish the local population and the conflict was coming to an end. The Separatist League of the Outer Worlds pushed the Reunification… and a new free trade agreement with the central power.
Starting point of this modern and twisted “Tea Party”, Neo-Babylon had barely been troubled by the murderous battles that had ravaged the Rings, but has been hit hard by the following economic crisis. Since then, the organic existence became even more meaningless in this limitless suffocating grid of concrete, steel and glass that was City#91. However, to avoid sinking into its stinking slump, the morose earthlings had found a remarkable solution: the happy hour.
“Are we going to see your father already?” I hoped that a twelfth shot of cherry-sake would finally open Ali’s mind. Despite my eager to come back, I had predicted this trip on Titan wasn’t such a great idea knowing how my partner dealt with emotions. That’s why I decided to focus on another matter: “I understand that crossing Lucille Blaine may have twisted the knife in the wound. Maybe your father isn’t the right way to go and perhaps you should talk to Zéphyr. This evasive androgyne seems to be a decent sapiens—blatant kleptomania left aside.”
Leaning on the zinc-plated bar, my human pointed a shaky finger at me despite this one being at least thirty centimeters away from where I stood. “You’re pushing it, huh? All this Niku-doll crap—this bulletproof body and this fucking cattle tattoo—are a secret. And I wish as few people as possible knew ‘bout them ‘cause shit can hit the fan very quickly! Don’t you 'member Europa?” A new glass swallowed up, Ali applied her portable nitrous oxide inhaler on her nose and inspired as much gas as she could before blood droplets condensed on the mask’s transparent plastic.
“The tattoo is on your right inner thigh, junkie,” I gagged, raising my eyebrow’s whiskers. “A quarter of the system knows about it.”
With the rubber mask still on her face, my partner tried to slap me on the cheek. Far from fully possessing all her faculties, she slipped, and ultimately punched a client sitting behind me: a broad-shouldered cyborg with a blue Mohawk busy flirting with his date. The latter’s blonde highlights were wrapped in enough perfumed lacquer to wipe out the ozone layer twice.
Ali fell upside down. Her hysteric laughter was covered by the bass shaking the pitiful bar’s old jukebox. But under the rhythm of Pump Up the Jam, tempers flared. The Mohawk guy wanted to defend his honor and possessed two augmented arms to back him up. In the end, an android bartender had to intervene to prevent Ali, high as a kite, from crushing the booster’s wired vertebrae.
Outside, the nitrogen blue shaded turquoise sky had given way to the stars. The faraway shy sun was replaced by the bars’ neon signs and the dance of the advertising holograms. “Panasonic Cyberoptics for cat vision!” shouted in both Solarian English and Japanese the polygonal representation of Hitomi Kisugi who overlooked the crossroads in her thief suit from Cat’s Eye. She shared her promotional spot with security software ads and muscle biowares sponsored by our good old Arnie, the most famous movie star between the belts. But the city’s heights weren’t the only ones spoiled by these digital disclaimers. The purple ghost of a Freak with tiger ears and enticing winks harassed me next to the holosex booths lined up near the aerial subway stop: “Konbanwa! You want some pussy, tomcat?”
The neon lights had begun to sizzle in the sultry night. A fine rain fell on Neo-Babylon making the smell of cigarettes and trash vanish as the scent of wet asphalt invaded my snout. It was strangely comforting.
“O—one more drink and we bounce…” Ali stuttered as she headed to the next pub overlooking a crowded outdoor sit-down ramen shop.
“You’re rambling, little human! The sooner the better, don’t you think?”
The acid rain had intensified, clearing the sidewalks. Her pink jacket over her scalp, Ali cursed through this unfiltered atmosphere before blaming it for her growing migraine.
A train for downtown stopped above our heads. The nightlife used to attract crowds: slaves-consultants ready to spend their daily micro-bonus on booze, trendy students seeking for consumable holo-love as well as scoundrels or dealers looking for troubles and easy cash. That evening, the station’s forecourt was almost empty except, of course, for the only category my uninhibited sapiens drew like flies.
“Well, then, ganguro-girl! You rode too close to the sun?” said a stick with heavy eyelids and a yellow coat, leaning on the intraweb terminal beneath the metallic stairs of the station.
The second one was a small hairy guy with a black beard. “Or else, Madame is getting UVA/B in thalasso-shit,” he snickered on the handlebars of his Yamaha Diesel-91. Clearing his throat, he then spewed a brown gob out. Drug-addicted bōsōzokus had nothing to envy from holographic advertisements in terms of approach. Like them, the best solution was to ignore their tirades, hoping that an NBPD drone would fly over the area.
“Did you notice? That’s so sweet!” Ali replied. As clueless as usual, she was pointing out the tan marks on her chest. “FYI, I’ve put a lot of money into it!”
The yellow coat thought she was mocking him. Alas, my human was just under the effect of an ethanol overdose and her brain was still bathed in hilarious gas. After pulling a machete out of his forearm, he raised his voice: “You’re pretty and as dumb as a doorknob.” He then addressed a smug smiled at his partner. “You think she likes movies?”
“Yeah… ‘cuz we’re filmmakers! And those racks would be perfect on tape,” added the second man before turning to my sapiens. “We could motor to the Bay and make you the next Babylon-Babe.”
I forgot about this city being such a cut-throat.
“Oh, I see…” Ali burped. She had quickly drawn her caliber and both the men almost swallowed their cigarette. “But if you want them, warumono… Come get them!”
Holding a hiccup, Ali took down the small man with a bullet in the eye. She immediately tried to taunt his home skillet, but her liver couldn’t stand more acetaldehyde. Her last hour of drinking was suddenly regurgitated straight to the sewer. All around, the small crowd heading to the station was divided between disgust and laughter before a blindly discharged salvo of .50 made them choose another option.
Seeing an opening to avenge his companion, Yellow Coat leaped to my partner but, from nowhere, a shot pierced his throat. The troublemaker collapsed in the gastric stain and his agonizing gurgling was quickly covered by the sound of a flying minivan’s landing on his head, crushing it like an overripe watermelon.
Sitting on the step of the wide-open sliding door, a mercenary with a sunny accent greeted her old acquaintances with a toneless voice: “Buona sera, turisti.” The tall brunette with a muscular tattooed body partially covered by a shirtless black leather jacket stared at us. She lifted the green eyeshade of her military helmet before wiping with her copper-plated hand a drop of sweat on her perfectly straight nose. “Your accuracy leaves a lot to be desired, Bambi.”
Clumsily sheathing her oversized weapon, Ali smiled. “Flatline! Is that you?”
Ada Grant, a.k.a. Flatline, a solo offering her metal arm to the highest bidder, waved back. Ali and I knew the emotion-free street mercenary since childhood. Five years older than Ali, she used to be our baby-sitter; and perhaps an awful role model compared to a monk like Félix Koviràn.
“Check this out! Bambi and the Beast!” A second person had emerged from the driver side’s as the tinted window went down. It was a jovial little human with plump cheeks and an improbable pair of apple green wired glasses. Satori’s techie talents were as remarkable as his bowl cut and purple shell suit. He was the one who installed for free the terminal on my human’s wrist. The self-taught engineer had also designed Ada’s headset incorporating a microcomputer allowing the merc to use a state-of-the-art sight assist. That evening, as usual, Satori was behind the wheel of his Chrysler Voyager inside which he invited us. “Ada? Shall we recover those zokus’ FID?”
“Nah. Not even worth stepping out of the car, amore,” Flatline joked without cracking a smile as the flying vehicle regained height to reach the dense air traffic of the city.
Below, the scene of the shooting was already back to normal. As the witnesses vanished, intoxicated passers-by hopped over the corpses. The cleanup teams or the NBPD would find them the next morning. The Yamaha, meanwhile, has already been quickly stolen.
