Mr. Helsiner responded the way that most uppers respond to news of cheating lovers, thieving partners, or boosting housewives.
He started with denial. There were accusations that gutter scum like me were just a spiteful little men that attempted to ruin successful mens' lives. There was a moment where he raised his fist with the promise of a physical attack, but then he thought better of it.
After a few minutes of shaking his head no, screaming at me, and pacing his luxurious living room, he broke down in tears. His uncontrollable sobbing was my cue to leave, but he begged me to stay.
"Please, Kaiser. What do I do? How can I get her off the drugs?"
"Not my field, Mr. Helsiner. I just provide the information that you pay me for, nothing more and nothing less." I had to have this conversation more times that I could count.
"Will she always be hooked?" He said through falling tears. Seeing a grown man that couldn't stop crying, even long enough to get a sentence out, was pitiful.
I finally felt bad for him. The boost was wearing off.
I turned and left the sobbing husband to his thoughts and tried to not wonder what he might do to Monique Helsiner when she came home from her weekend bender.
I was downstairs in a flash, and the uppers that walked along the street sent dirty looks in my direction. If there was one thing that uppers hated, it was for gutter scum to be in their part of town.
If I didn't get a taxi soon, or get off the street, someone was sure to call the authorities and I wasn't sure that I could depend on Mr. Helsiner to give me the alibi I would require to avoid a night in lock up and departure train to a random location in the ghetto.
It became apparent that there weren't going to be any taxis on this part of town that would take the risk of picking up a fare from me.
I started walking quickly, avoiding a run to keep suspicion down.
Paige, did we get any appointment request last night?
I moved passed a group of younger adults, obviously drunk or high or both. They laughed and giggled as they staggered past me, pointing judging fingers at me.
As much as uppers hated gutter scum, I hated uppers. I really hated younger uppers.
We received one appointment request, Kaiser. Senator Hernandez has requested your presence, as soon as possible. Would you like for me to show you the videomail? She asked.
A senator wanted to see me. That was probably the most worrisome thing I'd ever heard Paige say.
Nobody from the slums ever wants to hear that a senator wants to see them.
Sure, Paige. Patch it through. I said.
The video came up on the heads up display of my right eye. It wasn't the senator, but I assumed that it was his secretary or someone else of that caliber.
She was young and pretty, but when she spoke she almost had an android-like quality to her voice. It was unnerving to hear such a young and pretty girl speak in such a monotone and cold voice.
"Mr. Vrix, your company has been requested by Senator Juan Hernandez for a possible job offer. We are located at 75 West Ministry Boulevard on the top floor. There is no need to respond to this message, as we are sure that you will grace us with you presence. Any time today is fine, and please come prepared to answer a series of questions that will help us determine if you should be the candidate elected for this position."
The video clicked off and I could feel a cold sweat running down my back, which oddly enough felt great given the heat that was left over from the daytime.
The secretary had made it abundantly clear that saying "no" to this offer was not an option, and the last thing that I needed was to disrespect a well known senator. I'd already gotten on his radar somehow, but as of now I was in good graces. It would be in my best interest to keep it that way.
West Ministry Boulevard was only fifteen blocks back from where I was, which meant that I would have to go through the uppers again. At least the video from Senator Hernandez was a better alibi, and more than likely enough to get me out of any trouble.
I doubled back the same street that I'd been walking, passed Mr. Helsiner's building, crossed a bridge over the purified river, and made my way to the Senator's building.
I could see it from the bridge, and it was the single tallest building in the upper neighborhood.
The white building stood like a monument to the rich, and powerful with a spotlight ontop that put a beam of white light towards the sky to let the heavens know that these people had money and influence.
It was an hour before I got to the building at hand, and I was covered in sweat.
To my surprise, I never once was approached by the authorities. Perhaps they had been given a heads up to my arrival.
I was sure that the senator had synced to the public domain and done a thorough background check on me already, and there were probably even more files on me in the government domain, so I'd have bet that he knew I didn't own a vehicle.
The authorities would have known that I would arrive on foot or in a taxi.
When I got the building, I approached the young woman from the videomail.
She was standing, almost like a guard at the entrance of the fortified establishment, stone cold and like a statue.
I wanted to ask her if she was an android, but I left it alone.
"Mr. Vrix, please follow me."
I had a bad feeling in my gut, but it was hard to tell if it was my instinct or the boost leaving my system. Either way, I wasn't prepared for a job interview from a senator that could have me locked away for the rest of my short life with one stroke of a pen.
The young woman, who still hadn't introduced herself, led me to the door, put her eye up to a iris scanner, opened the door, and ushered me in.
The lobby was the grandest that I'd ever seen. Mr. Helsiner's building was nice, but this was just this side of ridiculous. If any of the gutter rats had known that places like this even existed, we didn't talk about.
I'd never even imagined that places like this were reality. Fiction spun in a movie maybe, but not real life.
The place was a near blinding white, and it gave you the sense that there wasn't even so much as a speck of dirt in the whole building. Little cleaning androids raced around the floor, gathering up dust that couldn't be seen with even my replacement eyes.
There was a front desk, but no one behind it. I assumed this was where our lovely, unnamed, possibly android, secretary was stationed.
She led me across the immaculate floor, underneath the most complex chandelier that I'd ever seen, and to a single sliding door that concealed the elevator.
"Senator Hernandez is on the top floor. He is expecting you, so let yourself in."
On that note, she turned and went back to her desk.
The elevator made a "ding" sound and opened up.
I made myself step inside, and the uneasy feeling in my stomach doubled in strength.
It was instinct now.
The elevator door opened and revealed that the entire top floor was set aside for Mr. Hernandez.It appeared that we had at least one thing in common: we both worked and lived in the same place.I was certain that this wasn't the senator's only place of business, nor residence, but there was no way for me to know that for sure. I truthfully knew very little about the new politics of the reformed Republic of North America, and didn't care to learn.I wasn't sure if the senators still met in Washington D.C. like they did before the reform, or if they just met via the government domain through sync. Again, these things didn't concern me.The main chamber of the room, what I had to guess was the office, was exceptionally empty. It was a large room, just as white as the lobby, with a single desk in the middle, al
I filled Mr. Hernandez in on how little I knew about computer hacking.The extent of my knowledge was that it had been extremely popular when the net was in its primitive stages, there was an extreme hacking war about five years before I was born, and that it was virtually nonexistent in the present due to modern firewalls being impossible to penetrate."Fair enough, Mr. Vrix. Allow me to brief you on the case that I will be hiring you for."I wasn't sure if the senator was aware of it or not, but the sun would be rising in about two hours, and I had no intention on being caught outside during the daytime. I would give him one hour, and then I didn't care if he was a senator, I was leaving. He could finish up with me via videomail."A little over two years ago, the Republic employed a young man by the name of Ed Shulister. He was exceptionally talented at engineering, and his skills were required for a series of tas
The shuttle pulled up just as the sun started to break the horizon. The top sliver of the orange orb brought a promise of unbearable heat and skin blistering light. My heart sped up a few beats when my eyes took in the reds and yellows coming over to our side of the world.I was thankful that traffic had kept a steady pace, and the high-end droid driver had taken back roads that I hadn't even known existed.I made my way into my building, already feeling the heat of the day beating down on the nape of my neck.But the sun was only one part of the reason that I was moving with the speed of a panic.My hands were slick with sweat, my shirt soaked through, my head was pounding, and my eyes were having trouble focusing.I needed a hit of purple.I took the
After thirty minutes of waiting, Hernan finally showed up. I'd tried to save a seat for him at the bar, but, fifteen minutes into the wait, the small Asian owner began yelling at me."You're bad for business!" He screamed. "You can't save seat! You go away!"With a little work and a little cash, I convinced him to let me stay, but had to give up the chair.When Hernan walked in, his presence was immediately known throughout the small diner. The sheer size of the man was enough to intimidate even the hardest of gutter rats.He had some of the broadest shoulders that a man could possess and stood at an impressive six foot ten. He was a thick man, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he was fat. There was a beer gut that had started to develop, but he was still shy of being overweight. The best way to describe him was 'solid'.
I woke up from the beautiful world, the gorgeous companion, and the marvelous peace of my Dream Sync Room to find a filthy apartment that baked my skin like an oven.My eyes focused in on the rather large crack on the yellow stained ceiling as I tried to get my head to stop swimming.Memories of the day before were a little hazy, to say the least. I'd remembered leaving Hernan at the bar and walking home, but then it got fuzzy.I could have asked Paige to give me a replay of what had happened, but her day was just as long as mine, so I let her sleep.My feet hit the floor and I walked over to my desk. There, sitting on top, was an empty baggie with little purple particulates that wouldn't do anything but arouse my appetite.I'd done the whole damned bag.
My feet carried me five miles from my apartment to a street market that was packed to the rim. If I'd been there for shopping, I'd have likely turned around and gone home. I usually didn't wait to stand in line for a roll of toilet paper, no matter how cheap it was at the market compared to the conventional grocery. I'd push the limits until the sun was going to rise within the hour, speed shop, and then jog home.Looking at the huge mass of men and women that went about their business, buying the little knick knacks of life, I felt overwhelmed and had no idea where to begin.I proceeded in trying to find my way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, hoping that something would catch my eye. After a few ugly looks from the people that I was pushing passed and likely couple of bruises, I came across a street peddler that was pushing some AI devices. I had to assume that they were hot from the extremely low
Stephen Nguyen was my height, but he must have been at least twenty pounds lighter. He looked frail, to the point that if you touched him he might fall apart into a dust and blow away in the wind.When he spoke, his English had no hints of his Vietnamese background. His name, I assumed, was the only thing that he possessed from the Asian country."Have you been here before?" He queried."No actually. This place was referred to me, and I was just a little curious about what it was that you have going on here." I responded.His eyes searched me up and down, almost to point that I felt over scrutinized. He was sizing me up the way that the Authority would. The smile that he wore while doing his inspection of me was as fake as they come. It was a forced show of emotion to make the inspected feel at ease."And your name is?""Calvin. Calvin Spencer." I said. Calvin had long been my go-to
Fly?" I said out loud.My eyes turned upward, towards the sky above the mountain.I looked back to Paige, and met her worrisome eyes. The look on her face was true emotion, and it was fear.Sometimes it was easy for me to forget that simulated realities were the only worlds that she knew, and the task of flight would probably feel the same to her in a dream room as it would to me in the real world.His psyche was built around mine, and she more than likely felt my fears as well. In the real world, I was terrified of wide open heights. In here, I was fine. I was not scared because I knew that it was fake, but this was as real as any world that Paige had ever felt.I took a baby step towards her, afraid that I would walk right passed her if I didn't control my stride. I reached out and took both of her hands into mine, and really feeling what her touch was like, leaned in to rest my forehead on hers.