Preface
"You know what makes us different?" Harry Mandible said as he spit out tobacco soaked blood between his remaining front teeth.
"I actually enjoy this shit."
The sick thudding crunch of bones, wailing agony, the sound of new wounds being created.
I should back up. Three months ago, I was just an average astro delivery boy, spending all my free time and hard earned astro-cash on lucid pills and temporaral access to the cybersphere. Well, that didn't work out so good.
CRUNCH. That one will definitely leave a gaping wound.
I guess it just comes with the territory. Mess with a guy like Harry Mandible and its unlikely you'll walk away unscathed, free of wounds. If I'd had half a clue I'd be tangling with his likes I'd have stayed surfing the cybersphere, dipping my haptic finger gloves into the endless streams of content-data.
To be continued...
Chapter 2 - Deliverance
Sunday, April 24th, 2143 (Easter Sunday)
"Mind if I smoke?" A husky feminine voice asked behind me.
"Doesn't matter two squirts of a rat's ass to me. But he might have a problem." I jerked my head towards the obese priest wearing a full body haptic suit on a raised platform at the front of the dimly lit church. A dual-bit 56G modem line jacked directly into his neo cortex sent his cyber sermon to thousands of souls in the data sphere, while only a dozen scattered bodies sat in the church itself, seeking deliverance from whatever demons (or wounds) that haunted them.
"I can handle him." She replied as she slipped off one haptic glove and began rummaging through her magnetic purse as the priest began making a soft moaning sound up on the cyber alter.
Her voice was handsome.
"Whad ya say your name was?" I asked as I turned around. The pew behind me was empty. Making a line for the exit was a tall, female human wearing a dark brimmed hat and dark brimmed clothes. She had raven black hair that fell from her scalp to the middle of her back. Her shoes were also a dark color, not quite as dark as her raven black hair, but darker than her hat for sure. She cut a handsome figure alright, but something in her gait told me she was dangerous; a mysterious character that I would be helpless to fall for, even knowing she would surely double cross me in the end.
As she reached the tabernacle, she stopped and pulled out an eCigarette and lit it up. She turned back towards me and revealed that her face was only half human; the left side was built from blinking circuit boards and small mechanical shit, e.g. gears.
A cyber borg I thought. Don't see too many of those nowadays.
Both halves of her face twisted into a crooked grimace that I suppose was meant to be a smile, then she turned and walked out the door.
Yeah. Definitely a recurring character