Stray Cat Strut - 6Chapter 19 - Hardware

Chapter Nineteen – Hardware

“In the 80s and 90s people kind of assumed that the future would be cyborgs. We have early sci-fi and movies like Robocop to thank for that, I think. There’s something romantic about a person combining their weak flesh and powerful technology.

Unfortunately, romantic and realistic aren’t the same.”

–Techtransitionalism, a video essay, 2040

***

I sat on my bike, adjusted my helmet, then finally decided to look at where I’d be heading to.

I had a noon-time appointment with one Peter Silverbloom, a man that I’d met in person all of once and yet whom I still kind of just… trusted.

Peter was a bit of a weirdo, but he wasn’t a bad sort. In fact, it was the opposite. He struck me as very nice. Not a saint or anything, but maybe the closest thing to that in a shithole like New Montreal. His service record was basically nothing but volunteer and non-profit work, and not the hyper-corporatized sort that was flashy and self-serving, but actual get-your-hands-dirty work.

And I had an appointment with him in about half an hour.

“So, where are you, Mister Silverbloom,” I muttered.

I’m assuming that was a rhetorical?

“More or less,” I said. “Did he send his location for this meeting?”

Via email three days ago, then he sent three corrections since.

“Wow, he really can’t decide where to meet? Is there a common thread here? Should I be worried about traps or something?” I asked. My map app opened up and pins appeared in the locations that I assumed he wanted to meet in. They were all lower city spots, mostly close to the more urban parts of the city, but that was the only common thread that I could see at a glance.

Every location is a different non-profit. I dug into it out of curiosity, and it mostly seems as though Peter is just a busy man. His attention is constantly being diverted to issues with different groups within the city. He is quite good at putting out metaphorical fires.

“Huh. I guess that makes sense. This guy’s not gonna live long if he’s spending this much time chasing after problems. He won’t be able to fix every problem in New Montreal.” I turned my bike on and then gently rolled it off the side of the building. My flight drooped for a bit before I started to fly properly and then did a long, slow circle of our home.

His success rate at solving those problems is quite impressive, and his record suggests someone who is genuinely selfless. I’m happy to see you help him as it might help a lot of others.

“You know, he sounds like a pretty good candidate for being a samurai,” I said. I’d never done any charity work before, and I was a bit of a bitch. I also couldn’t picture Peter blowing up the mayor. He’d probably convince even that old asshole to be a better man. Or he’d try, at any rate.

He has a lot of the traits that we search for. He lacks some others.

I locked in the last location Peter had sent me into the bike’s auto-piloting system, then let it lead me around and out across the city. “I don’t know. He sounds like a nicer guy than me.”

Niceness is desirable. Peter Silverbloom is too nice. His desire to be diplomatic at all times would be a hindrance. There are other factors as well, though they might be difficult to explain because of your cultural background.

“My cultural background?” I repeated.

You are human. You value human qualities.

That was needlessly cryptic and a bit creepy. I decided to cut that line of discussion off, it wasn’t going anywhere except to make me feel bad about myself. Besides, comparing yourself to others was a great way to fuck up an otherwise nice day.

Still, the thought worried at me. Would Myalis be disappointed that she was stuck with my dumb ass if there were others out there that were so much better?

I swooped down to the lower levels, then slipped into a parking garage on the ground floor.

I could tell already that this place was a bit of a hole. The building was an older residential complex, long streaks of rust and grime clung onto the sides and the interior of the parking garage was filled with old beaters. Cars twice as old as me were crammed into the corners and it looked like a number of them were parts cars.

There was a camp at the back of the garage, a few containers set in a semi-circle that enclosed a few tents and lean-to shanties. A few ripped apart neon-signs were stacked in the middle with a fire-hazard nest of wires leading to them. It provided a surprisingly bright light for that corner, which let me see the folk hanging around there.

There were a lot of homeless people. Although… I supposed that they did have a home of sorts.

I got off my bike and started towards the back where there was an elevator. Peter was on the fifth floor according to what I’d gotten from him.

One of the locals called out to me, asking me if I wanted some puff for cheap. I wasn’t even sure what that drug was, but he raised a cheap inhaler my way, then took a hit from it himself and let out a giggle.

“Nice place,” I said as I slipped into the elevator and stabbed at the button for the fifth floor. I rubbed my finger off on my pants, the button was sticky.

The elevator’s stereo tried to play some ads, but someone had ripped the panel off and stabbed a screwdriver into it, so the noise was more of a gargling hiss that accompanied me until I made it to the floor I was heading to.

The place was… old. Old and not terribly maintained. Paint was peeling and the stainless half-wall panels were marred by thousands of scuff marks. Still, it was more or less clean. Someone had swept the place and mopped the floors, so even if the flooring was cracked and worn down, it was still clean… ish.

I checked the address Peter had sent and compared it to the imprint of some numbers left next to a doorway nearby. “Weird place,” I said.

As far as I can tell it’s mostly safe.

“Mostly?”

There’s a drug production facility two floors down that doesn’t meet even the loosest of safety standards, there are several dozen armed people on this floor, and hundreds more across the rest of the building, there are addicts and gang-affiliated people spread around you, but for the most part, the local threats are unlikely to be able or willing to harm you.

“Right, so mostly safe,” I said.

The place Peter wanted to meet me at was in the centre of the building. There was an open space where a bunch of corridors came and met in what might have been supposed to be a sort of ‘town square’ area. There were two automated fast food places, a couple of boarded up stores, a pawn shop, and to one side a place called Death Bread, which was apparently where we were supposed to meet.

I slipped into the entrance and took a look around. It was a bakery, of sorts. The food looked… actually, kind of decent. Next to all the prices–which were all in the low hundreds of credits, some even in the double-digits–were little plaques with expiration dates. Most of those were a few days ago.

A young woman came up to me, she had a smile, and no eyes. Her hand reached out to shake, and I realized that it was a skeletal prosthetic, one of those older cyborg arms. “You must be Catherine,” she said. The upper half of her face was a cavity with plastic skin and a trio of cybernetic eyes.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said. “You don’t look like Peter, unless he had a serious makeover?”

She snorted. “Nah, Peter’s in the back dealing with something. I can tell him to drop it, if you want. It’s probably not that important?”

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “So, you’re his… assistant?”

She shook her head a little. Her shirt’s neckline was just loose enough to reveal that her neck was reinforced. “No, I’m Laura. Friends call me See-Three. Peter called me over for a consult, of sorts, if you wanna borrow the corpo term. Nice arm, by the way.”

“Thanks. A consult, huh?”

Laura nodded. “He said you were donating a bunch of prosthetics. Don’t know where you’re getting them, or what sort they are, but I know my metal bits better than anyone else.”

“How’d Peter find you?”

“I work for a charity that fixes folks’ cyberware for cheap. Poorly installed gear is a nightmare. Cheap gear is awful. Combine the two and you can make someone’s life not worth living real fast. Been there myself, so I try to help where I can.”

“That sounds like exactly what we need,” I said.

A door further into the bakery opened, and Peter came out. He saw me, then smiled. It was time to get to work, it looked like.

***