Debt adding up? Chronic illness that you’re tired of dealing with? Waiting on a medical lottery ticket?
Ask your medical professional or virtual intelligence if the Veris Fertility Clinic Surrogacy program is right for you!
Luxury accommodations in our state-of-the-art arcology, a top-rate* compensation package, and the best supplemental benefits package in the industry, with free, unlimited, and comprehensive healthcare for life.
Veris Biosciences: Where Miracles Happen.
Rui and I woke up from our respective naps, even though it was more like emotional and energy collapse than it was a midafternoon snooze. It wasn’t comfortable; I had a few sore spots forming, and we’d be billed for time spent inside. It was worth it.
U-Med had pumped her full of dense, bio-engineered platelets and red blood cells, glucose, broad-spectrum antibiotics and targeted antimicrobials, calcium, electrolytes, glucose, and saline. She had also injected bio-polymer into the rib fractures to stabilize them and prevent another laceration.
She looked remarkably better than before I’d passed out. She was still gaunt and looked like she might break in half under her own featherweight upper body. But her color had gone from ashen and nearly corpse-like to actually having a flush in her cheeks and lips, her fingertips weren’t turning blue, and her eyes were sharp and focused.
As we were getting prepared to be discharged, U-Med gave Rui updates on her overall condition and prescribed care.
“Ms. Chen, as a result of Ms. Voss’s intervention, your IAIBD burden has been reduced below the critical-burden threshold. The disease is in provisional remission. That does not mean cured. It means active biofilm burden is presently below the threshold for systemic decline. Residual colonization remains, and recurrence is expected without monitoring and suppressive care. I recommend continued monthly visits for high-resolution scans, continued use of your medical bracer, and continued adherence to the drugs you have been prescribed. I have transmitted an updated dosing schedule to your bracer while you were unconscious.”
I glanced down at the white device on her arm and the vial of liquid loaded into it. She had numerous old injection sites near one end where the IV was stuck in her arm.
“Will I still have all the side effects?” Rui asked U-Med. She even sounded better.
“I have reduced your dosage to approximately five percent of your previous daily exposure. Some side effects may persist, but I expect them to be greatly reduced. A further reduction may be possible, potentially to a level where side effects are negligible or undetectable. However, I would like to establish several months of scan and symptom data before reducing it further. Erring on the side of caution is medically advisable.”
Rui’s pants pocket emitted a chirp I recognized as a World of Divers alert sound.
“I have emailed you a detailed plan of care. Please note, with the reduced dosage of your medication, you will likely notice an immediate improvement in your appetite. I have written you a prescription for a medical diet for the next two weeks. I urge you to resist temptation to return to regular foods. Your body is not currently equipped to handle that kind of nutrition, and it will, at best, result in serious gastrointestinal distress, and at worst, have more serious impacts on your overall health. Ones that might require further monitored care.”
“Drone delivery still available for that?”
“It’s the same provider you were using previously. I can switch it if you’d like; simply call or text me,” U-Med responded instantly.
I tapped my slate against the billing terminal and settled my balance with U-Med. It was weird, because I didn’t feel like I had a ton of money, but a cost that might have forced me to eat universal ration packs until payday wasn’t that much of a big deal for me right now.
I offered to pay for Rui’s care, a quick impulse buy. She told me that despite her living arrangements, she wasn’t flat broke. I wanted to argue with her briefly, but decided against it. She’d been through some shit today. No sense in being antagonistic to my friend. Plus, I had bad news I had yet to deliver to her.
We paid and left. I was cautious about being confronted again by some other meathead, but so far as I could see, nothing. We trudged back the short distance to her hab-block in relative silence. She had her slate out, and her fingers were flying over the screen so fast that even I found it impressive.
We were stopped, and I paid my taxes for fucking around in the hab-block. It was going to be two grand, but Rui convinced Marion that I had been acting in self-defense. I wound up paying 750, but kept my comments to myself. I already had one street gang after my ass; I didn’t need more.
I really need to resolve that, too. Probably not a good idea to duck long-term. But I’m not going to play the sacrificial lamb, either. Urgh.
I had my puncher out this time when the elevator dinged and opened on her floor. No sign of Blaue besides a small bloodstain on the damaged wall. The broken puncher pieces were still sitting where I’d thrown them.
I put my gun away, and Rui bent over and picked up one half of the gun. She looked up at me from it. I was getting a vibe from her along the lines of: “Really?”
She took it with her, and I followed her back into her apartment. When the door was closed behind us, I decided to break the news to her.
“So uh…”
She leveled a fingertip at me, then gestured to the wet closet. “No. You stink to high hell and you’re covered in dried blood. We can talk after you’ve detoxed and I’ve blasted your clothing through the ultrasonic.”
I gulped.
Is it really that bad? Aw, man…
She pulled a drawer out from the wall and tossed me a rather nice towel. I sighed and complied, mostly stripping down outside the booth, then stepping into it with just my pants and sports bra on. A few bruised elbows later, and I dropped them out the gap I’d opened in the retracting door.
I think I might have gotten a little spoiled already. Well, that, and I didn’t have a two-meter menace stuck to my backside before.
“Please leave the bra alone; it cost a fortune and cleaning it is a fifteen-step process,” I called out to Rui.
“You know, most people I’ve met in meatspace from the game don’t tend to put their avatars to shame. Although I can see why you went for such a tall avatar now.”
My cheeks were burning as I fought to scrub myself under the high-pressure, low-flow jets. “Hey! My avatar wasn’t that tall! Besides, all the avatars skew tall; your average man on the streets isn’t like 220 centimeters!” I paused a long moment, hearing quiet snickering clearly through the paper-thin polymer laminate. “I, um, thank you, though.”
“Pft. Didn’t you tell me you worked in a gear junky sweatshop before you came down with random IRS?”
“Yeah?” I half-said, half-asked. I deliberately avoided getting my hair wet to the best of my ability; I didn’t have the time, patience, or tools to deal with that right now. The water coming off me was a grungy, ruddy murk, though. Rui was probably right in declaring me ripe.
I heard her rummaging around and moving things, then a blower kicked on. A clothing dryer, if I had to assume.
“So what the hell is someone like you doing working in some random shit-shack slinging used slates and fashion accessories? You got like…” She grunted, and I heard a seal on something breaking, then sloshing sounds. “…body image issues, or something? Like, I respect the hustle, really, but it doesn’t add up to me. You could have probably made ten times what you were making as a booth babe at some fancy corpo retail outlet.”
The water cut itself off, and I was fortunate enough to have gotten distracted with the conversation. I’d only washed my front half, but didn’t soap up the back half. I had a few bubbles I had to wipe off, but the disposable sponge was still plenty soaked enough to avoid giving myself scaly soap residue skin. I wasn’t going to tell Rui that, of course. I gave my underarms an experimental sniff. They were getting fuzzy again—I’d just blasted them yesterday, ugh—but were perfume-scented.
I’d probably look like some kind of werewolf creature if I went a week without my Sul’vari buddy. That’s a terrifying thought. Stupid ass Vitality aspect…
“Are my underwear done?”
“Ehhh… Three more minutes. It’s nothing you don’t see at the bath house, though?”
I cleared my throat. “You see people with giant butt snakes in your local Onsen?”
There was a moment of silence. “Okay, I admit, you’ve got me checkmated there.”
I hit the forced-air dryer in the booth and let it blast the water off my skin, then folded down the toilet seat to sit on it while I waited. It was a precarious fit.
“So uh. First things first, I’m really sorry for nearly killing you earlier. Your psycho ex was shooting at me, but I acted without thinking because I was scared you’d catch a stray. Never can tell when someone’s got a pocket rattler, and it’s going to send bullets flying everywhere.”
Rui burped, and I heard an empty bottle hit a recycling chute. “Shit happens, but apology accepted. I wasn’t blaming you. If I wasn’t, you know, like this, it wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place.”
My curiosity spiked. “Can I ask how you got infected in the first place?”
She let out a quiet sigh. “Have you ever heard of Z-7?”
“No, can’t say that I have,” I admitted.
“It’s a neural stimulant that’s used in decking circles. Military-grade shit, super duper illegal. Juices your brain up so hard that you experience time dilation. It’s… awesome.”
I didn’t respond. I knew what vice sounded like well enough from my own life.
“It’s not addictive or anything, but the effect, the power? It’s hard to put down. I’m getting off-topic. Anyways, Z-7 is absurdly dangerous. Ungodly lethal. The dose is in micrograms; the difference between an effective dose and a lethal dose is so small that it’s basically impossible to administer without specialized equipment, which is part of the story of how it finds its way to distribution through back channels. Without the gear to actually use it properly, it’s just death juice. You need a cybernetic drug pump capable of nanogram-level accuracy.”
“Let me guess…” I muttered.
“Yeah. I got one. It was clean as far as we could tell, but I still got infected. With how nasty the Rot is, you don’t need much error.”
“Used?” I asked, already assuming what the answer was.
“Hadn’t even cooled from the corpsec it was ripped from.” I could hear a grin in her voice.
“I didn’t take you for being an activist sort,” I admitted to her.
“Well. You’d have to be a basket case to talk about that shit on WoD. But they’re murdering us, Kiera. Every single day.”
“I know,” I half-whispered.
“Are you a sympathizer? I guess you have to be now, don’t you?”
“I always considered myself sort of… well, about as apolitical as you can get, which isn’t saying much. I’m not a total idiot; I just, I was content to hack firmware and provide identity scrambling for people who were more politically minded, and then go home and plug in to grind. Escape is the best medicine, and all that.”
Something thumped against the other side of the booth from me; I felt the vibration as much as I heard it. Rui was quiet for several long moments.
“Yeah. I know all too well. I didn’t use to have as big of a chip on my shoulder, but knowing you’re going to die a slow, horrible death because corporations decided your life isn’t worth the effort of saving… well, it has a way of changing your view of things.” Her volume grew soft toward the end, but the walls didn’t know the concept of privacy inside a cube.
“You’re right, though. I had my head in the sand, still sort of do, and often, I wish I could stick it back in there. I have a relationship with one of them now that isn’t entirely voluntary. And with that, and the Awakening, well. I want to Dive, and you can only keep so much of a distance between the houses of power in the city as a Diver.”
“Who is it? Can you say?”
I thought for a moment about the NDA. I was pretty sure I was in the clear for very broad strokes.
“Veris. I’m sure you noticed that I have an unmistakably big butt snake.”
“Oh, is it the snake that’s big?” She laughed, and I did too. I didn’t want to think about bursting out of my pants, but it had happened. Her voice grew more serious when she resumed. “They’re one of the bad ones, Kiera. I’m not sure if I’d call them the worst of the worst, but they’re top five—no, top three. Yeah.”
“You hear stories,” I admitted. I tried not to think about those things. I think most people did. There was rustling from the other side of the booth door, then a knock. I cracked it open, and a pair of bottoms and an absurdly humongous sports bra were dangled from Rui’s fingertips. I took them, thanked her, and worked on putting them on.
The underwear was clean; the bra had salt-crusted sweat stains all over it, but was dry. I stepped, stretched, lugged, lifted, tugged, shimmied, and strapped myself into decency. I debated zipping up for maximum support battle mode, but the cool air was doing wonders for me at the moment, and with the front of the bra open, it was just stretchy mesh showing a shitload of cleavage.
Rui looked over, then up, and her eyes grew wide. I fought the urge to cover my front with my arms. A spectral Vael drifted past, waggling a nagging fingertip at me.
“You know, I was only partially joking. You could be a seriously big-name model if you wanted to. You look amazing, especially considering you were shot a couple of hours ago.”
I shifted in place and looked away. I reached out with my tail and picked up my pants.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make things awkward!”
I gnawed on my lower lip for a moment. “It’s… okay. I’m still trying to get used to it myself. I didn’t look like this before Awakening. The uh, Vitality aspect did me good, I guess. And I don’t think most companies want models with buttsnakes, or that I’d be any good at posing for photos.”
I scratched the back of my head for a moment. “Although I guess I’d be on the rarer side of human models that could model Sul’vari fashion items? Assuming that it’s not a chromehead mag with a scantily-clad person with a mechanical tail, or something.” I chuckled and turned away to pull my pants on. My tail grabbed my shirt for me without me turning around, or asking it for the assist. That was nice.
The shirt had a hole in it and bloodstains that weren’t coming out. Nothing some repair tape wouldn’t fix, an easy two-in-one solution. I tugged it on, and it did a good job of covering the wicked and nasty-looking bruises I had on my lower abdomen. Turning back around, I took a seat at Rui’s tiny table and looked over at her sitting on the bed. She looked like she had a lot on her mind.
I cleared my throat. “So I was thinking about the whole Blaue situation. And the fact that he sent some lugnut after me out of spite.”
Rui stopped what she was doing, which was fucking around with some kind of very expensive-looking electronic device. We made eye contact. Yellow on black.
“It’s not safe for you here. You have to relocate.”
She sighed loudly, then gingerly rubbed her ribs near where they’d been broken. The bloom of color peeking from that area was telling a story about a whole lot of tenderized meat. “Yeah. I know. And I’m not looking forward to doing it again.”
I swallowed, suddenly feeling my nerves wavering. “I’d prefer it if you came back with me. There’s plenty of space, I have contacts with some local security, and when I get glow-juice back in my tank, I can work on fixing up some more of your shit.” I tapped the side of my boob around where her broken ribs would be on my body.
Her brows drew together, and her voice was just a touch tight, a little defensive when she asked: “Where is that?”
Blinking my eyes rapidly, I wasn’t sure what she was asking.
You didn’t tell her where you lived or where you were coming from, idiot.
“Oh, uh, my bad. Five-Three. Nice place. The apartment, I mean. I don’t know if you’re into sex worker culture.” I was blushing for having made a fool of myself yet again.
Rui let out a big sigh. “Oh, thank fuck! I thought for sure you were going to say some place on X-2… or worse.”
I couldn’t help myself; I laughed loudly. It was like a pressure valve letting off stress all of a sudden. “Me? Living on X-1!? I don’t think most places would serve me kitchen scraps out of a slop bucket! Hah! Maybe if it was a place for remedial learner-permit Divers, haha!”
Rui tilted her head slightly to the side and gave me another once-over. “I’m not opposed, but I have to ask: are you a sex worker too? Or just a coincidence?”
Beet syrup was probably less red than I was when I processed that question.
That led to the conversation about how I ended up in 5-3, with some select edits to be compliant with my NDA. She had gotten herself cleaned up and changed, and the two of us had packed up a woefully small amount of stuff that she called hers. A couple of boxes and two larger rolling trunk hard cases, along with a tightly-packed and orderly suitcase. She had one case for her deck and various other electronics that were already stowed before I’d arrived, and another one that her cradle disassembled and packed into.
The entire thing took less than an hour, even loading it into a cargo cab. Rui was equally blown away by Vael’s apartment as I had been upon arrival, although she did think it funny that I was growing hot peppers as a training exercise for my User abilities. We got the last of her stuff rolled in and set down in my former room when a sharp staccato tune was tapped on the outer door. I keyed the display next to the door to see Ellen’s big frame around the outline of her up-close-and-personal middle finger in front of the lens.
I let her in and introduced her and Rui.
She was mostly all business, but there was a heaping serving of smart-assed cracks and side-eye glances at me as she mostly talked with Rui.
What was her ex’s name? Where did he live? What were his nicknames and handles? What sorts of shit was he doing? Did she think he’d track her down again?
I have to hand it to her, she probably would have been a good detective; if such a thing existed down here. I guess, in a way, she sort of is. Well. One part detective, two parts cybernetic murder machine.
I was vaguely annoyed with myself, because the way she kept looking at me was having an effect. I couldn’t help the fact that I found her really damn attractive. There was something about the mix of knowing she was dangerous as hell, clearly interested and appreciative, and…
Yeah, okay, maybe I have a thing for girl abs. Fuck. I bet they’re salty.
She caught me looking under the hem of her ragged-edged crop top, and was grinning like a shark that smelled chum. My face was probably beet red. Ellen went back to grilling Rui, who was taking Ellen’s pushiness surprisingly well, considering.
The two exchanged contact details, and Ellen told Rui that The Peacock Society would be keeping their eyes open for Blaue. Message if he turned up or started making overtures. Rui made her way into the bedroom, presumably to set up her cradle and deck. She was probably horrifically backlogged on guild shit by this point, even if she had set some time aside to meet with me today.
Ellen closed in on me, all predatory grin and exposed muscle. The base of my tail bumped into the kitchen counter behind me. I glanced down at it.
The damn thing was trailing itself around her leg like a lost puppy or something.
You traitorous bastard… Don’t go biting off more than you can chew.
“So, you and me are long overdue for a talk.”
I looked up, and she was staring directly down the neckline of my tank top and exposed cleavage where I’d left my sports bra partially open.
“I’m more than a pair of tits, you know,” I snipped at her.
The grin didn’t leave her lips. “Oh, I know. Trust me, I know. You have to admit, they are some spectacular tits, though. I know a good twenty dolls that would probably drop you ten grand to take a casting. Hell, you might even be able to sweet-talk them up to twenty. That’s more than just a compliment, little Keke.”
…Little Keke?
“That’s real big in the biz, you know. Call it plug’n’play. Full sensory prosthesis, looks, feels, acts like real life. Sweats, bleeds, blushes, the whole thing. Expensive toys, but they’re money earners. Most view it as an investment, some pool resources to buy units to share. Your favorite model’s ass, cock, or tits, your dream matrix star’s face and voice. Can go wherever you want with it, all the freaky things you can dream up. The high-end dolls, they’ve got sockets all over their body for connections.”
“And you can do the same thing with a VI and a DNI. Literally anything you can think of, even the black label stuff,” I shot back.
Her eyes locked on mine, and I didn’t have my deflector shield glasses up to hide behind. “That’s not you. Don’t bark where you can’t bite.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe I’m into crazy shit. Anyone could be.”
Her finger came up, calloused and rough, and traced along my jawline. It sent shivers down my back. “No. Reading people is my job. I’m good at what I do. Vael’s said a lot about you. More said in what wasn’t said, and isn’t brought up, you know. I know her well; we go back years.”
My heart was thumping in my chest. There was something in her voice, something telling, and also dangerous.
She leaned down to bridge the gap between our faces, and she lowered her voice. “If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you slowly, and I’ll enjoy every moment of it.”
My heart was thumping harder, and it wasn’t exactly out of fear. I raised my chin, my jaw muscles flexing as I fought to keep my feelings from betraying me. “I could say the same about you. I saw the looks you share.”
“Mhmm,” she dragged it out like a purr.
I smelled something with my damn aura sense, and suddenly, things clicked for me in my head. An understanding I didn’t have. I squinted at her, and she wet her lips in response.
“You’re trying to threaten me,” I blurted out without fully thinking through what I was saying. “You want me to think that you’re a jealous lover, but you’re not.” Her fingertip, which had been lightly stroking the side of my jaw, paused mid-motion. “You don’t love, no, you don’t lust after her the way you do with others. She’s more like… a relative, a sister.”
“Careful now,” she hissed through her teeth.
“But you’re trying to manipulate me, paint a picture, but I see through it. I can tell what you’re actually doing.”
Ellen’s nose grew fractionally closer to mine. I could see the places it’d been broken and fixed by hand. Subtle bumps and imperfections in a district that prized appearances over most things. A point of pride for her. Vanity.
“What’s that, little Keke?”
“You think I’m a liability, and that I’m soft. You don’t think I’m going to break her heart because of something I do, but what I don’t. That I get myself killed.” Her taste and temperature shifted, although her face didn’t so much as twitch a single muscle. “But that’s not the whole picture, either.”
I swallowed hard, my mouth going dry all of a sudden as I kept shooting off what I was feeling. “Y-y-you want to fuck me.”
Her grin grew wider than it had any right to be.
I continued the thought. “But it’s not because of how I look, not totally.” A flicker of tartness, like artificial citrus flavoring, the cheap kind that was too tart. “It’s because you think I’m weak. Someone you can stand in front of. Someone who needs protecting.”
Another shift, this time more drastic, salty and sweet, a shiver of coldness. Ellen blinked once, slowly.
“I’m not. Maybe I’m not very strong yet, but that doesn’t make me weak here.” I placed my hand over my chest. “I told someone twice my size I’d rip their cybernetic arms off and beat them half to death with them earlier, and I fucking meant every word of it. I would have done it. Maybe I would have died trying, but I’d have tried no matter what.”
Ellen’s thumb came on the other side of my jaw, and she gripped it firmly, not hard, but secure. My heart stopped for a moment, because my brain was telling me that she was either going to invade my mouth or snap my neck, and there wasn’t anything in between those two options.
Instead, she turned my face slightly to the side and laid a kiss on my cheek. Then she straightened up, cracked her neck, and let herself out without saying a single word. The door buzzed with confirmation of the bolts setting in place.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Then I pulled out my slate, browsed to a pretentious upper-middle-class specialty shop, and ordered a drone delivery of a portal world fruit smoothie that cost me what had been more than a month’s salary at my old job.
Fuck it. Just more motivation to get out and make more credits, and I need the mana booster if I’m going to fix Rui’s busted ribs and bruises.