A MANY SPLENDOURED THING
Love is eternal.
No matter where you are, no matter what time you’re in, love will always link those two special people who were just meant to be together. Body and mind. Heart and soul.
Which is great for those two but everyone else found themselves wondering if they’d fucked up big time. People watched TeeVee and fall under the spell of the search for ‘soulmates’ and ‘my other half’. In a generation that would rather learn about relationships from Third Eye media that real life experience, all this stuff was dangerous.
Sure it sounds harmless enough, what harm can come of believing in something like that?
Nothing, really. Unless the concept is introduced to an overly receptive audience that regards TeeVee not as entertainment, but as fact.
So when people looked away from the strobing screen with silver clouds in their eyes, they went looking for love. True love. Relationships crumbled under the weight of unattainable expectations. Newborn romantics went looking the mother lode of lurv. It was a brand new planet rush. Only no one actually ever found any worlds.
Somewhere along the way, the TeeVee stars and the screenwriters forgot to tell the sheep that love, real love, wasn’t just found. It was.
Ah, who wants to hear a whole bunch of moralising crap? On with the history lesson.
So the ‘truelove’ generation suffered a variety of interesting fates. Some became unfulfilled, bitter ex-romantics who had ended up in relationships with someone just as unfulfilled and bitter as themselves. They were the lucky ones. Other dreamy-eyed soul mate seekers ended up in the clutches of less pleasant individuals who have been with us before the term ‘sick fuck’ or ‘Trade’ was even invented.
Still others found that the nice man or woman whom had wined them, dined them and wed them was a believer in the line ‘til death do us part’. With marriage rapidly becoming a passe institution, concerned parties pulled strings to save this ailing custom. Divorce was no longer a matter of signing papers and collecting half your partner’s assets. In some parts of the WOP it’s actually easier to get the Shivers to give you leniency on a multiple murder rap than it is to get your marriage annulled.
So when these unfortunates found out their partners spelt ‘marriage’, le-g-a-l-i-s-e-d s-l-a-v-e-r-y, they found out the hard way.
The vast majority did find happiness however. They ended up with ideal partners, the kind of people you could spend the rest of your life with. And they all did. The heterosexual couples went on to breed and raise their children in a loving, family environment. They all lived happily ever after as the years rolled on.
Isn’t that nice? I bet you were expecting a nasty ending, weren’t you? B L I S S Jane Box smiled as her family hungrily ate the meal she had prepared. It was a smile that wavered somewhat when she looked at Cousin Billy Bob who sat at the end of the table. There was something wrong with Billy Bob.
Nothing she could put her finger on. He was polite and well spoken. He had apologised for not telling her he was coming, that he’d been in the area and decided to drop in. She’d offered him a place at the dinner table and he’d complimented her cooking, which made her blush.
"What is it you do again, Billy Bob?" Joe asked around a mouthful of food. Heated grey diet supplement dribbled down his chin.
"I’m a self employed social engineer," Billy Bob replied, smiling.
Silence descended around the Box table, perforated only by Joe Junior and Jenny Anne’s continued mastication. Joe Box looked puzzled before shrugging and returning to spooning gruel into his mouth and lap.
"…That’s nice," Jane answered. Something dark was drifting through the usual grey swirl of her thoughts. "How long have you been doing that for…again?"
Billy Bob’s smile got wider and his brown eyes gleamed with something that could have been humour.
"Not too long. It’s the training programme that really uses up the time. There’s so much to learn."
Joe emerged from his meal and grunted in sympathy.
"Yeah, know what ya mean. At the fact’ry they tell us DON’T STICK YER HANDS IN THE ROLLERS and YA GET THE BOTTLES AND YA PUTS IT IN THE BOX, STUPID!"
Jane and the kids looked at Joe for a moment before returning to their meals. They were used to his outbursts. Billy Bob watched with a raised eyebrow as Joe slurped his way through another plate of gruel. Then he spooned some of the dietary supplement near his own mouth, pretending to eat while taking in his surroundings.
The apartment was typical suburbia block housing, designed to be an economical use of space as well as being easy to clean. Not to mention as thin and cheap as paper. The Boxes were having a hard time keeping house though. Dirty plates stacked in the sink, ridden by Karmilk stained glasses. Empty meal packs and cartons lurked in the corners of the kitchen and it was the same in the other rooms from what he’d seen. Billy Bob got the impression that the family just forgot to clean up, just like Joe forgot to tilt his spoon after it was in his mouth or the kids forgot to wear a full set of clothes on their dirty bodies.
Only Jane seemed to keep herself maintained on first glance. Then you saw the dried food in her hair and the mismatched shoes and the illusion shattered. She watched him with troubled eyes, smiling and frowning at the same time.
Joe belched to the amusement of the children and stood up. He wandered out into the lounge area and the TeeVee could be heard soon after. Joe Junior and JennyAnne squealed and fled the table too, shoving each other to get pride of place next to their father right in front of the TeeVee.
"I’ll help with the dishes," Billy Bob said, clearing the table.
Jane watched a little surprised as her cousin got up and went to the sink.
"Nice place you’ve got here, Jane," Billy Bob said over the sound of running water. "When did you get it?"
Jane’s frown deepened. This was different from the conversations she was used to.
"We got it right after Joe got the job at the factory. It’s…" she trailed off, looking for the word.
"Employee housing?"
Jane nodded, even though Billy Bob had his back to her. Her cousin quickly washed the dishes and dried his hands on a mouldering dishcloth.
"Most of the people around here work at the factory, don’t they?"
Jane nodded again. She’d never met anyone who’d asked so many questions as Billy Bob.
"Say, how did you meet Joe anyway?"
Billy Bob sure was stupid, everyone knew the answer to that one. Still, she felt sorry for him for being so dumb.
"The helpful people came around and got Joe and me together and said we were going to get married."
Billy Bob started to pick up the rubbish off the floor and stack it neatly by the door.
"That’s right, the helpful people. The same ones that helped your Mom and Dad, huh?"
Jane smiled and nodded. Billy Bob wasn’t that dumb after all.
"That’s right. And Joe’s mother and father and everyone else’s."
Billy Bob straightened and smiled at her. He was nodding now as well.
"And I’ll bet you got a little bit of paper around here somewhere, don’t you? That they gave you?"
"Sure do, cousin. Want to see it?"
"That’d be nice of you, cousin."
Jane led him to the entry area where her wedding prints took pride of place. Under the dust clogged hangings was a fancy bit of plastic print with lots of big words. At the top were two hearts snuggling close together. Under the love hearts was a pair of big words that she didn’t really understand. They looked like this:
GENERATIONAL CONTRACT Cousin Billy Bob looked at the fancy plastic print and Jane realised he was reading it. She was a little awed by this. No one she knew could read the little black words. It was so much easier to learn the picture words that were on TeeVee and food packets.
Billy Bob finished reading the plastic print and looked at her. He was still smiling but his eyes had stopped gleaming.
"Thanks for dinner, Cousin Jane. I have to be going now."
She walked him to the front door. Outside, the neighbourhood was as quiet as it always was, the windows of towering housing blocks lit by the glow of TeeVee. The factory sat in the distance, lights muted by the gentle rain.
"You know this suburb has the lowest crime rate in Suburbia?" Billy Bob asked her as he raised the hood on his white coat.
"Umm…no," she replied, hoping it was the right answer.
"Sure has. Everything in a thirty block radius of that factory is so crime free I thought it was an error when I first saw the stats. It wasn’t though. This is a miracle of social dynamics. A zero percent crime rate. I think it’s because every family around here is…like yours."
Jane stayed silent. She got the feeling Cousin Billy Bob wasn’t talking really talking to her. That didn’t worry her much, lots of people around here talked to themselves.
Billy Bob turned to her, most of his face hidden by his hood.
"Good night, cousin," he said and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
She blushed and watched him go, no less confused than when he’d arrived that afternoon.
The rain turned him into a white smudge and when she blinked he was gone.
That night, after Joe had stuck his thing in her and grunted and slept, she stared into the dark. In the other room, she could hear the children giggling as they explored each other under the bed covers.
The thing that had been bothering her all night finally emerged from the fog of her thoughts.
"I don’t have a cousin named Billy Bob," she whispered.
Beside her, Joe farted in his sleep. SERENITY Rain slithered down the window of the discrete office front, making the linked heart logo shimmer. Most people in this part of Sector EDZ West just walked by this place without a second glance. Their senses were so callused by constant advertising bombardment that something with a simple name like The Dating Agency passed beyond their notice.
This suited the Agency just fine. They didn’t need to resort to gross market saturation.
The clientele they catered to would always notice their strategically placed ads. They had accessible outlets everywhere, even here in Downtown. Customers came looking for the Agency, not vice versa.
One pedestrian did stop, however. A gloved hand brushed the water away from the linked hearts. Satisfied that he was in the right place, the man headed towards the front door. Serenity Mohiam sat behind the reception desk of the Agency’s small office front and tried to concentrate on the novelslug she’d brought yesterday. There was nothing else to do. She’d filed, copied and faxed the printwork left in her tray by the never present manager. She’d waited on the phone, which had not rung. She had considered checking to see if it was broken or disconnected but decided against it. She’d worked reception jobs for a little over five years now and she knew that initiative was not a survival trait for secretaries. You just had to concentrate on the three Fs. Fones, Filing and Fucking.
She’d only needed to do one of these things so far and the other two seemed very distant possibilities. She hadn’t even seen anyone in the week she’d been here. Someone unlocked the door in the morning and she assumed someone locked it after she went home. Voices could be heard faintly behind closed office doors but she’d never actually seen anyone.
It was a little creepy but no more so than catching the Gauss train home or going out at the end of the week. As if summoned by the thought, one of the Gauss tunnels that ran right under EDZ West shook the office with its passing. She’d started to look forward to them, they broke up the monotony of her day.
"Why are you complaining?" she muttered to herself.
She guessed she didn’t know. The pace at her last two jobs had been frenetic, so all this quiet should be a relief. Well, they had been until that psycho had shown up and killed
the entire executive staff at Shiver Securities. The company had downsized drastically and she’d been booted out with the rest of the temps.
That sleazy bastard Lamberth at the temp agency had always been keen on her so she had managed to land a job with Seraphim Opiate Biochemicals. Her first day on the job, she’d missed the Gauss train and had caught the next one, scared she’d lost her job.
Which she had but not because she was late. Rather it was the fact that the complex she was supposed to have been working at had been turned into a crater you could lose a cannibal sector in.
After a particularly unpleasant evening with Lamberth, she had finally scored this gig with the Agency. Her predecessor was on leave. For the next six months she could stop losing sleep wondering how she was going to be able to eat.
She didn’t hear him in come in. Was only aware of his presence when he coughed quietly. Serenity looked up and saw a figure in a sodden long coat and fedora. She saw herself reflected in a chromed visor. White was visible beneath the coat.
"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"
"Do I know you?" the White Shadow replied.
"You’re a poxridden bastard and I hate you! Stay the hell out of my life!"
"So we have met? I’m sorry, I’ve got a lousy memory for faces…"
Serenity felt anger and fear course through her in equal portions. Mood swings were becoming a real problem now she couldn’t afford her prescription of mood drugs.
"Every time I get a decent job, you show up and trash my employers! I can’t even get a fucking transfer because I’m a casual employee. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a decent run of work as a casual?"
"Well…"
"Of course, you fucking don’t! Because you’re the White frigging Shadow that everyone’s been talking about and after you’ve had a hard day fucking up my life you return to your secret base and eat carrien caviar from the asscrack of your underage sidekick! WHY DON’T YOU JUST FUCK OFF AND GET A REAL JOB?"
She had just started to reach for the phone when it fell into two halves.
Now I’ll never know if it was working properly, she thought as the Itto-Ryu’s sword moved from the phone to a point just under her chin.
"You’re not a fan, I got that. You’re not having a good day. I got that too. But unless you want it to get a lot worse, I recommend you shut the fuck up and listen to me."
Balanced precariously on the edge of stress, rage and withdrawal symptoms, Serenity realised she didn’t want to die and put both hands in plain view on the desk. This always calmed the gangers and rapists she ran into on her way home.
"Smart move," the Itto-Ryu rasped. "Now unless you want to lose those hands, you’ll follow my instructions exactly."
Serenity nodded, still lost in routine. She ran through her shopping list in the back of her head and added Abort pills. The rapists always wore odd costumes.
"I want you to get on that Clamshell of yours and give me all the info you can about the Dating Agency."
Serenity blinked in surprise but complied. The sword never left her throat as the two of them moved, Serenity sliding along to her workstation, the Itto-Ryu moving around to watch over her shoulder.
She accessed her office Clamshell, which she hardly needed to use. The Agency data pages were tactfully uninformative, offering only contact numbers and addresses. The office mail system was ebbcrypted. All she’d been doing was marking them as received and distributing them around the office network.
"Can you actually get me something useful? If I was feeling lonely, I’d go to a strip joint."
"So do they pay you to keep your clothes on when you get up and dance?"
Serenity held her breath, aware of the sword under her chin. The Itto-Ryu chuckled.
"Can you access a corporate hierarchy? Who’s in charge of what? Shareholders. Anything."
The Clamshell cheerfully informed Serenity she lacked necessary clearance and reminded her it was a misdemeanour to access restricted data. Fifty credits had been deleted from her account as a fine.
"Thanks a fucking lot."
"Put it on my tab. I want you to clear your system and log back in. When it asks for your ID I’m going to give you a group of alphanumerics. Enter it into the system and log on."
When the workstation reset, the White Shadow started to rapidly recite a passcode. Serenity’s fingers blurred as she tried to keep up with him. She had the feeling there wouldn’t be a second chance to get it right. She lost count after the eightieth character and just concentrated on entering data.
"…t540x9. Log on now."
The Clamshell’s screen displayed a series of plain icons on a grey field. The linked hearts were nowhere in evidence on this new datapage.
"That was a highly illegal Skeleton kode by the way. Just hearing it without the proper clearance can get you killed."
"Thank you so much for walking into my life. Please die now."
"You logged out first. There’s a small chance they’ll think it was me and not kill you."
"Why? That’s all I want to know. If you’ve got these great passcode, why not just do this at home?"
"Because for some reason this shitty little business has the hottest firewall in all the WOP. I had to enter the code from inside the company’s network."
"So you decided to just walk into one of the Agency’s offices and bust open their network?"
"Yeah. Pretty much."
"Oh…"
Rain gurgled down the window.
"You could have at least waited for me to go to lunch."
"And miss the pleasure of your company? Come on, start opening files."
Serenity moved her finger and the plain arrow on the screen tracked her movement. She lightly tapped the thin pad inside the navcap on the end of her finger. The grey field was replaced with a list of names and numbers. The list was immense and when Serenity twitched her finger, the names became a blur.
"Looks like a client list," the Shadow muttered as the list strobed across his visor.
Serenity paused as the list changed from white to crimson. She twitched back to the point of the colour change. At the top of the red list a title glowed like blood on grey silk. PREBRED CLIENTS "What does that mean?" Serenity caught herself asking. She was in danger of forgetting the old adage she’d heard ever since she was little: ‘Curiosity killed everything.’
"Generational contracts," the Itto-Ryu whispered in a way that made her shiver. "Get out of here. See what else we can find."
At some point the sword had disappeared from Serenity’s throat. She thought briefly about shouting for help or making a break for it. Then she remembered what had been on the TeeVee for the past week. She remembered a white devil dancing with an angel. She stayed put.
The rest of the icons requested passwords of a higher clearance and the Shadow grunted.
"Damn, that skeleton kode we used gives you access to all the accounts of the SLA Finance Net. Your bosses are hiding more than the confidentiality of their clients."
"Guess you’ll be leaving then?" Serenity asked hopefully.
"Nah. When it asks for that password I want you to enter the following. TZE25364567…"
This code was longer but the Clamshell cheerfully informed them that access was granted.
"What kind of sentence am I looking at for that one?"
"They don’t just kill you, they’d kill your family and friends as well."
"Well, that’s not so bad then. How many of those codes are there anyway?"
The Shadow crossed his arms and leaned against the desk.
"There’s forty of them, opening back doors in security clearances all the way up to the CEO. Officially, they don’t exist. Unofficially, they were the creation of an autistic Ebon mathematician named Xie Lin Fei. Xie could literally see the holes in security programs. They’ve still got her brain, eyes and spinal column on life support somewhere."
"And you’ve memorised all these codes?"
"No, just thirty eight. I tattooed thirtynine onto my dick."
Serenity, momentarily lost in thoughts of secret worlds and shadows, snorted in disgust.
"I didn’t know they made pens that small. What about the fortieth?"
"That’s Slayers. The key to Senti’s box. Xie never figured it out. At least not before she went to the vivisection table."
"What about the highest clearance you’ve got? Have you ever had to use it?"
"I just did."
Serenity suddenly felt giddy and the grey field with it’s white icons blurred before her eyes. She had always imagined the secrets of the WOP to be great cogs and wheels turning somewhere above the steel towers of the city. Now she felt a shift of perspective and realised the unknown world was made not of heights but of depths. Secrets of horrid magnitude swam in the dark beneath her. Her face was pale and distorted in the White Shadow’s visor.
"Scared?" he asked almost gently behind the rasp of the voice scrambler.
Serenity stared at the screen, waited for it to come back into focus. Hidden truths lurked behind unassuming doors. She wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
"You don’t get to talk to many people do you?"
The Shadow shrugged and picked up her novelslug.
"Hey, I’ve read this one. Turns out the butler did it in the end."
"You bastard!"
"What’s wrong?" he asked innocently, putting the novelslug back on her desk.
"You just wrecked that story for me. I like mysteries…"
"So do I. Now get to work before I kill you and do it myself."
Serenity stared balefully at her chrome reflection before turning back and opening the next icon on the list. Data spiralled onto the screen.
"These are business accounts. Looks like your bosses are into making movies too."
"Sweetheart Studios. They’ve been around longer than the Agency. They make a lot of romance movies. Really successful ones."
"Romance movies, huh?" The Shadow mused. "Are those are the ones where there’s lots of talking and stuff before the fucking?"
"Pretty much. Sweetheart started making movies when my Mum was a kid. They started that whole true love trend."
"The one that ended with a whole lot of disillusioned singles looking for their perfect partners?"
"Yeah," Serenity said then looked at the linked heart logo spread all over the reception area. "…Yeah, it did."
"See what else you can find. The night is young."
There were two icons to be unlocked when Serenity returned to the grey field. Her mouse pointer shook slightly as she opened the next file.
"Looks like the client list again. Only longer," she said as she scrolled through a seemingly endless list of names. "A lot longer."
"Stop a second," said the shadow at her shoulder and she complied. Curiosity killed everything, she repeated in her head like a mantra but looked anyway. She frowned.
"What are those symbols? They weren’t on the other client list."
A string of symbols followed each name.
"That’s Senti Script. It’s basically genomic shorthand. You can sum up a person’s inherent traits with a Sentince. This guy here, he’s white, has a weak heart and probably favours his left hand when he jacks off."
Serenity noticed something and pointed to the name underneath.
"What about this one under him? They’ve been paired together. The symbols are almost the same."
"It’s a woman. And she’s…"
The Itto-Ryu lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
"She’s what?"
"Well, if it wasn’t for the fact they’ve got different names their Senti sequences are so similar I’d swear they were…"
"What? You trailed off on purpose, that time."
"Guilty. Okay, if I didn’t know better I’d swear they were related. Like cousins or maybe even brother and sister."
Serenity’s frown got deeper and she stared at the names on the screen.
"I don’t understand."
"I think I do. I think we’re looking at more than a client list. I think we’re looking at a genetic charter of every person in this sector and you’re bosses don’t have it because they find it interesting reading. I think they get their clients and they cross reference them on this and find partners who fit so well together they could be related."
"You’re telling me they’re selectively breeding people?"
"Well, not breeding so much as inbree…"
"Stop! Stop, stop stop," Serenity covered her ears. "I’m not listening because that is fucking insane!"
She felt gloved hands grab her arms and pull away from her head. The Itto-Ryu’s voice rasped by her ear.
"Take a look outside! This whole WOP is insane! And the people in power can do whatever the hell they want because every time someone like you sees something you don’t like you close your eyes, cover your ears and pop a fucking pill."
"But why?" Serenity hissed. "Why would they want to…to do what they’re doing?"
"The same reason they fill your food and water with drugs and fill your head with all that shit on TeeVee. Because they want to control you. They want productive, undemanding morons that will work, consume, obey and breed likeminded offspring. They do it with mood drugs and this…this is just another piece of the puzzle. This has been going on for a lot of years now. There are whole sectors of these poor bastards hidden out there. Some of the genetic damage I have seen is nothing short of incredible, given the relatively small amount of time the Agency’s been around. They’ve planned this down to the last chromosome."
The Shadow took his hands from Serenity’s and prodded her gently in the shoulder. She felt her world spinning.
"There’s still one group of files. Open them."
Serenity fought down an urge to vomit as she sent the charter away and attempted to access the last icon.
The screen went black. Then white words trickled onto the screen. ACCESS DENIED. INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE. "Bastard," the White Shadow whispered as Serenity threw up in her trash receptacle.
"Oh God. This is too big," Serenity gagged. "This is too big."
"Welcome to my world. Come on, let’s go ask your bosses what they know."
He seized her arm and dragged her towards the back offices. Autonomic functions built up from years as a secretary continued to function as she stumbled along in a daze.
"Wait! You can’t go in there."
"Why the hell not?" the Itto-Ryu growled as he kicked the first door of its hinges.
"Because…"
The office was dark except for the blue light spilling from the mist wreathed cryocapsule. It lay alongside one wall, it’s occupant’s rimed face fixed in a beatific smile.
The man wore a wellcut business suit with a linked heart logo on the breast pocket.
A small speaker spat random snatches of conversations into the cool air.
"Typical production line Bee," the Itto-Ryu said. "Cheaper to grow your mindless workers than to hire them, see? Bees have to be robust to survive their growth period so you can stick them on ice and they can handle being thawed. Saves you having to feed them."
“Bees?”
“Yeah, Stormer variant 621-B, Bee’s for short. Mindless, programmable, social interaction workers. Barely a mental step up from a Low Wave. Don’t think the public models are all that’s out there Sweetcakes.”
Serenity could make out fine particles of ice in the Bee’s eyebrows.
"So when the Agency gets a call, the capsule remotely thaws him out and bang. One relationship adviser ready to solve your sorry problems. After he’s done his job it’s nap time again. They probably keeps you around to add a bit of colour."
"You’re not going to…"
"Wake him up. Nah. This popsicle won’t know anything. All these offices are the same I’d say. Full of stormers whose lives start the second before you walk in the door and finish the moment after you leave."
Serenity breathed cold air and felt her head clear. She put her hand on the capsule, enjoying the sensation.
"So what are you…"
The Itto-Ryu’s head whipped about to stare at the wall that adjoined the lobby.
"Fuck. Trouble."
"I didn’t trigger any alarms so don’t kill me," Serenity said quickly.
"Don’t worry. It was all that fucking around in their files. They’ve sent a Cloak squad."
"What are we going to do?"
"You’re going to go back out and do your job…"
The Itto-Ryu looked at her in the glow of the cryocapsule. The chrome visor blazed electric blue in the light of the cryocapsule.
"…or you’re dead." C L E A N U P Serenity watched the front door to the Agency’s office get torn off its hinges. Then the doorframe buckled as the Crackshot pushed its way into the reception area. Rain haloed the dull grey armour suit as its arm raised, covering the area with its Ultrareaper. A pale targeting laser gleamed at her from its place on the Crackshot rocket pod.
"Hands where I can see them, miss!"
The Crackshot lumbered over to her desk. It towered above her as she held her hands above her head.
"Thank goodness you’re here," she burbled. "That maniac came in and threatened me and…"
"…and used your Clamshell to access confidential company data. We know, ma’am. If you could just tell us where the subversive is, we can get on with the clean up."
"I…didn’t see where he went."
"Figured as much," the Crackshot’s pilot sighed through his speakers as he pointed the Ultrareaper at her. "Time to clean up, then."
Serenity scowled.
"What the fuck do you mean? I didn’t do anything!"
"You were here, ma’am. That’s enough," the pilot answered as the Ultrareaper powered up and began to spin.
The White Shadow’s Vibroblade stabbed down through the suspended ceiling, cleaving the Crackshot’s portside helmet join and the pilot’s head. The suit slumped forward slightly and the Ultrareaper groaned to a halt.
The Itto-Ryu dropped through the hatch to the suspended ceiling, glancing outside into the rain.
"Good work," he said as he strode over to the Crackshot. He pressed a few sections of the armour and the pilot spilled out of his harness as the suit opened. His head had leaked red everywhere.
"You took your fucking time," Serenity spat, legs shaking.
"There’s two more out there. They won’t play nice now their buddies dead. Get in the suit."
"Why?"
"Because it’ll be the safest place to be for a square mile in the next thirty seconds."
"Tell that to the last occupant."
The Itto-Ryu unstrapped the pilot and dumped him unceremoniously behind her desk. He held out his hand to her.
"The others won’t be using Vibroblades. They’ll be using rockets and Ultrareapers. Trust me, this place is about to turn into a warzone."
Serenity stepped around the desk and looked inside the suit. What she really wanted to do was find out if this place had a back door and if so, run out of it. She played her last card and tried to make it sound convincing.
"Eww, it’s full of blood," she said as she wrinkled up her nose in what she thought was a convincing fashion.
"So are you. If you want to stay that way, get in the fucking suit."
Serenity sighed and climbed in, trying to ignore the smell of blood and the wetness in her hair. The Itto-Ryu strapped her in and then closed the armour. Her breath became the loudest thing in the world as she tried to look through the blood stained visor. She could just make out the White Shadow going through her handbag.
"What the fuck?" she whispered. "Now the bastard’s robbing me?"
He turned and looked at her, visor gleaming.
"The speaker’s still on," he said as he pocketed a piece of paper and her compact.
"Fucking prick, I hope you die," she answered as he walked out the door.
A Couple of Fans Rain had turned the small street into a river as the White Shadow stepped out the door. Traffic of all kinds had magically disappeared. People had seen the Crackshots and gotten as far away as they could.
The eight foot tall power suits waited in the middle of the road. They bore no insignia or logo. All that differentiated them were red suit numbers, 099 and 124. They weren’t here to sell products. They were here to work. The Itto-Ryu paused on the sidewalk, watching the two suits.
"Your pal couldn’t make it. Guess that means you’ll have to call yourself the Two Stooges from now on."
Chortles from the Crackshot’s sounded across the street.
"Ah man, you are so cool," 099 said. "I’ve been looking forward to this, eh 124?"
"He’s been looking forward to this," 124 answered.
"I am like your biggest fan, White Shadow. I’ve got the footage of your battle with Shiver Securities and your duel with Seraphim. Talk about awesome."
"It was awesome," 124 agreed.
"That whole running on bullets gig, the one liners, the swearing. My wife wants to fuck you. Hell, I want to fuck you."
"He wants to fuck you," 124 said.
"Well, I’ve already fucked your wife and guys in power armour aren’t my type. Why don’t you get out of the suit so I can see you better?"
099 laughed again. He was still laughing as he raised the Ultrareaper and fired a thousand rounds at the Itto-Ryu. The Shadow blurred, leaping backwards onto the wall above the Agency’s shattered door, then running up the wall with liquid ease. Glass and concrete exploded behind him as he flipped up onto the roof.
"Why didn’t you turn on your AIM software, 099?" 124 asked his partner as the shooting stopped. Somewhere a man screamed for help. None was coming.
"Ah, I just wanted to see that running up walls shit. I love it when he does that. I needed to see it before, you know, we turn him into compost."
"You’re a real aesthetic, 099."
"Thanks, man. It’s not easy in this business but I try."
"It’s not easy," 124 replied as he engaged his AIM software.
The White Shadow watched the two Crackshots raise their Ultrareapers in unison. He breathed out and leapt as the air turned to bullets. As he dropped in a controlled fall towards the Crackshots, the White Shadow realised that he wasn’t going to be able to dodge all of what they were throwing at him. His overcoat shredded as high velocity projectiles flew at him in swarms. He spun, cut four bullets out of the air and fell through the gap. He picked his microsecond, picked his bullet and pivoted his body.
His left shoulder turned to fire then ice as the bullet tore through armour cloth and flesh. It left his body like a comet with a six foot crimson tail.
The impact spun him out of the way of the next sheet of bullets, the burst missing his head by a finger’s width. He slashed into 124’s head as he landed before sliding off the armour and darting between 099’s legs with sword raised. The water sluiced in a shimmering V behind him as he came to rest, head down.
Water dripped from the tip of his oscillating sword. Blood bloomed vividly across his white shoulder in Rorschach patterns.
Behind him, rain steamed on the Crackshots’ Ultrareapers and beaded on polarised view ports. They still faced the Dating Agency’s office front. It gaped in the wake of the devastation, a vertical crater. The linked hearts were broken beyond repair.
"Did you see that?" 099 said. "That was beautiful."
"Sure was."
"How many rounds you down?"
"Four nine seven seven."
099 whistled.
"I’m out five thousand thirty eight. We threw over ten thousand bullets at him with the benefit of AIM and we only hit him once! Wait till I tell the wife!"
"That’s bullshit," the Shadow growled. "I don’t care how hard a Crackshot is, it’s still matter. It’s still got molecules you can cut between."
The Crackshots lumbered around to face him, leaving footprints in the macadam.
"You’d be familiar with the run of the mill Crackshot there. These are the Deadshots. Same as the standard gear except it packs an integral energy field. Our buddy, 665, was always forgetting to turn his on. Anyway, the field really fucks with vibro weapons. If you were going to be still alive after I’ve finished talking I’d have recommended you take a Jolt particle lance to that sword of yours. Instead, I’m just going to take it from what’s left of your hand and hang it over my mantelpiece."
The White Shadow sheathed his sword and faced the Deadshots.
"Well," he grated, "I guess I’ll be leaving then."
He blurred between the Deadshots and dove back through the front of the Agency. 099 and 124 halfturned and tracked him with more Ultrareaper fire. The Itto-Ryu rolled across the glass-strewn carpet and crouched behind Serenity’s Deadshot.
Inside the armour, Serenity flinched as Ultrareaper rounds battered against her cramped prison. The beating of her heart seemed to echo off the inside of the cockpit.
"Way to fucking go, badass," she hissed as the viewport cracked under an impact. She wondered how many times a round would ricochet through her body if it got in.
The White Shadow considered his options as the Agency shredded. The Dante grade ammunition would probably be slowing down about three or four streets away and he didn’t doubt the Deadshots’ ability to keep up with him. He had to move over terrain, they just went through it. They hadn’t even engaged their high-yield armaments yet but that was just a matter of time. None of his vibro weapons would work against them and he wasn’t packing anything that could take down a Integral energy field. He couldn’t run and he couldn’t fight. He saw Serenity’s handbag lying a metre away from his foot, miraculously unharmed by the gunfire. That was just a matter of time too. He snatched it between bullets and rifled through it. Though an observer wouldn’t be able to tell, he smiled.
"I guess I’ll just have to improvise."
The Ultrareaper fire halted and targeting lasers strobed through the dust thrown up by the pulverised concrete walls.
"We know you’re in there, White Shadow. We’ll give you a choice. Come out and die like a man or stay in there and try to dodge explosions."
The Itto-Ryu stood and walked out into the glare of the Deadshots’ spotlights. He raised his hands and paused, framed in the gaping window of the Agency.
"So which one of you guys gets to be the hero who caps me? You can’t both do it."
The targeting lasers from the Deadshots’ rocketpods locked onto him, pinning his chest.
"Sure we can," 099 said. "The unit that slays together stays together."
"Sure does," 124 said as both rocket pods fired full salvoes of antiarmour rockets. It was overkill but 099 and 124 thought this was a special occasion.
The Itto-Ryu flicked open Serenity’s compact, using the mirror to reflect the targeting lasers back at the Deadshots.
The rockets went berserk, peeling off in all directions on mad contrails. The majority of one salvo hit 124 and blew it apart. 099 reeled as three rockets struck home in quick succession. The rest turned the street into a garden of fire blossoms, nurtured by showers of glass and stone.
The earth shook as 099 hit the street on its back. The remains of 124 burned briefly before being doused by the dirty rain. The Itto-Ryu stood unperturbed in the midst of the carnage, the eye of a firestorm.
"What’d you think of them fucking apples, fanboy?" the White Shadow asked the flailing Deadshot.
The armour levered itself into a sitting position and sprayed the street with its Ultrareaper.
The Shadow flicked himself over the bullet spray and landed briefly on 099’s head. He crouched briefly on the wet carapace and gestured at the viewport with his middle finger.
"So what are you going to tell the wife first? That you got your ass kicked by a guy with a make up kit or that you turned your own partner into a grease stain?"
"I don’t love you any more!" 099 wailed and stood up. The Shadow slid to the pavement and sprinted down an alleyway between two shattered buildings a second ahead of 099’s next burst.
The Deadshot charged after him, smashing a passage through the alleyway. Walls collapsed in the armour’s wake. The alleyway ended in a chainlink fence. The White Shadow vaulted it easily. 099 didn’t even slow down as he tore through it.
The Shadow stumbled and hit the ground. He rolled to his feet and ran between wet black walls, pursued by a juggernaut. The bullet had pulled a lot of his blood out of him and the exsanguination was starting to make itself felt. His elasticised armour cloth had contracted around the wound, stemming some of the blood loss but nowhere near enough
"I really could really do with a bottle of bourbon about now," he growled and stumbled into a bare concrete courtyard fenced in from all sides by deserted buildings. There was no visible way out. Behind him, he heard the sound of metal tearing through stone
"Make that a case."
099 smashed his way into the courtyard and didn’t have to use the Deadshot’s enhanced sensors to spot his prey. The White Shadow was crouched in the centre of the courtyard, slicing a hole in the concrete with his vibro blade. He seemed to be having some trouble.
"Told you the field fucked vibro weapons!" 099 crowed.
The Itto-Ryu stamped on the sliced concrete and it fell away into darkness, leaving behind a jagged circle. The Itto-Ryu waved at him before jumping into the hole.
"Think you’re gonna get away that easy, huh? No way, no way, no motherfucking way!"
099 ran to the hole and leapt after the Itto-Ryu. The shoulders of the Deadshot smashed the hole open further as he fell through. 099 was in freefall for a few seconds before he felt a jolt of feedback through his legs. He’d landed. He hit the IR spots and scanned the tunnel he was in.
"Where are you? Where’d you run off to, huh?"
Everything started to shake and 099 never completed his last thought as the Gauss train smashed into him and threw him along like a tin can for a quarter of a mile. The Deadshot crumpled under the initial impact and Pilot 099’s liquefied remnants were eventually interred in a jug on his widow’s mantelpiece.
Clinging to the roof of the tunnel, the White Shadow felt the shockwave of the passing Gauss train tear the clothes off his back. Then his top three layers of skin. He felt himself being pulled free of the ceiling and reapplied his grip as the Gauss rail blurred by mere metres below him.
After an eternity, the world became quiet and still again. The dragon was gone, Serenity’s transit timetable floating after it like a ghost trying to find its way home.
POSTCLEANUP
When he opened the suit she breathed in the smoky air like it was the finest perfume. Then she noticed the destroyed office and the burning street beyond that.
"You bastard, you did it to me again," she whispered with no real vehemence. The destruction was breath taking.
The White Shadow grunted by way of a reply and rechecked the bloodied bandages he’d wrapped around his back. Serenity looked over at them curiously.
"You’re hurt…"
He nodded and for a moment Serenity would have sworn they were making eye contact despite the intervening visor. Time seemed to slow dance between the two of them.
"Good, I hope it hurts like hell," she said and wandered away from the remnants of The Dating Agency’s Sector EDZ branch. Survivors hadn’t begun to make their presences known yet but the air would soon be full of screams, sirens and Shivers. Serenity enjoyed the sound of flame struggling to burn in the rain.
The Shadow fell into step beside her. She did her best to ignore him.
"Fuck, I left my handba…" Serenity began, then trailed off as the Itto-Ryu handed her purse over.
"Don’t even think I’ll say thanks," she said and snatched it off him. They kept walking down the street.
"I just wanted to say it was really nice to meet you," the Itto-Ryu began. "And if you ever wanted to…"
Serenity stopped and held her hands up.
"I’m sorry but I hope you aren’t going to ask me out because the last thing I need in my life right now is a superpowered psychopathic stalker."
"Oh, uh, no. I was just saying thanks for all the help tonight. Well done and uhm, see ya."
When she blinked he was gone. Serenity left before the fire Shivers moved in and made her way home. She let herself into her dingy apartment and tried not to think about anything that had happened to her. That night she closed her eyes and covered her hears and popped a pill she found under the couch.
But it wasn’t enough. T H E S H A P E O F T H I N G S T O C O M E Rain slithered against the window of his penthouse as he stared out across the city. This high up he couldn’t see people or cars, just moving lights.
He swigged bourbon from the bottle and shifted his shoulders. Sprayskin was drying on his back and he still felt lightheaded from the transfusion but otherwise everything was in working order. It sure beat the side effects of Kickstart. Now he just had the inevitable call to look forward to.
His work clothes were draped over the back of the black leather sofa. The black armour cloth and the white stealth suit, dichotomous but synchronised. His visor gleamed in the dull light of his penthouse, reflecting his sword in its chrome arc.
The phone chimed. He sighed.
"I’m here," he said as he continued to stare out the window.
"I’ll assume you have an explanation," a female voice began. Deadpan, without accent, it was Mathers. It was always either her or Chapra. He liked both of them equally. Which was not at all.
"For what?" he asked and emptied the bottle. He dropped it on the floor with the others.
"Don’t play with me. The operation you initiated this afternoon was not sanctioned."
"I felt like freestyling it for a change. I was curious about a few things and wanted to check them out."
"You cannot operate unsanctioned. We are working on a carefully planned timetable and it must be adhered to. You jeopardised the entire project today. We had to pull some strings to have your DNA signature erased from the scene. People will notice."
"Isn’t that the point? It was all over the news by the time I got home. They delayed tonight’s game to show footage of me…and no one complained. I helped further the whole agenda today."
"You have no idea what you have done. And you made contact with a civilian. That was foolish."
"She doesn’t know anything. She’s isn’t a threat."
"We will monitor her anyway. If she steps out of line she will be dealt with."
He rested his head against the glass and closed his eyes, blocking out the city.
"How long have the Dating Agency and Sweetheart Studios been in collaboration to inbreed humanity?"
The phone buzzed. He couldn’t see Mathers’ face but he could imagine it. She would have made a great poker player. Or a statue.
"You will be contacted soon in regards your next assignment. You have a job to do. Don’t forget it."
The phone chimed and went silent. He opened his eyes and stared at the city.
"How could I forget?" he whispered and put his fingers against the glass. They rested under the looming pyramid of Slayer’s seat of office. He formed them into a gun, cocking his fingers.
"Bang."