Chapter 6: Mind's Eye
Yata
Sunday May 16th 2088
Brantford Station
New Detroit
1:40 AM
I had to move quickly if I wanted to save Quince's sorry ass. Under normal circumstances, I knew she could handle herself. However, her odds weren't looking too good with every merc in town gunning for us. They desperately wanted us to turn down the job and balk on our client, but they made one critical mistake. Coming after our friends. I rode a motorcycle I hotwired as quickly to Brantford Station as I could. Thanks to whatever this bike I stole had, I had a couple minutes to spare before the Light Rail arrived. I ran up the stairs as quickly as possible so that I could get a good view of the rail cars, whichever one Quince was in. Ray wanted me to make sure she and any of her friends were safe. I couldn't care less about the personal life of Trinity Quincy, as I was here to take out some frustration for the death of my hacker buddy Darius. He was one of the few people who rivaled me in the Shadow//Net. But now he was fried in his chair with a bullet in his head. The only solace I had left was that he took the gunman with him, frying the fucker's cyberbrain.
The anger motivated me to move faster than I ever did. As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, I saw three poseurs making out with a chick with blue hair in a pink dress. That detail would serve me well despite my desire to ignore it. The poseurs wore suits and dressed like 1950s white collar workers. Maybe their confidence attracted her. Or maybe they put something in her drink. Either way, I tried to ignore the gut feeling I had. That shit was about to hit the fan. I wasn't about to play white knight just yet as the Light Rail had just arrived. All four of us stepped inside, them heading in about two doors away from the door I entered. I looked around and searched for Quince. Fortunately, she wasn't too hard to find. I was behind a woman fitting her description to a T. I turned on my cyberdeck and it identified her immediately as an ally. I found Quince and she was looking rather shocked about the poseurs in front of her. The four were still entangled. One of them broke their kiss and approached Quince. She reached for her gun, but the other two poseurs brandished knives on the blue haired girl. My opportunity to enter the scene was at hand. At this point, I realized that Blue Hair was a friend of hers and she was about to be a bloody pawn in the game this city was playing with us. I found it very odd that Blue Eyes wasn't afraid of the knives. She seemed to be into it. At this point. I was sure she was high off of something. The Light Rail closed the doors, then started moving to the next station.
"If it isn't Trinity Quincy," He said. "Or should I say Quince..."
"What the fuck did you do to her?" She yelled out.
"Wouldn't you wanna know. But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you don't take the job that was given to you. The one where you're attacking Libra Industries."
"How the fuck did you know about that?"
My instincts were right. They were hired by whoever wanted to get in our way. At this point, Quince was begging for her friend's life, but I was there. I wasn't going to let her turn out like Darius. Or Ray's old colleague. I opened my cyberdeck's daemon storage menu. Thor.EXE was one of my favorites as it not only fried the person I was hacking, but spread just as quickly as your typical contagion daemon. Alternatively, I could have uploaded the Tiamat virus, which would have been a fun time. Mostly for me. But they deserved something quite special. Seppuku was going to be my choice for these low lives. The Seppuku daemon did exactly as advertised on the Shadow//Net. It caused people to kill themselves with any weapons they wielded. The catch was that it didn't work if there were no weapons within six feet. But every one of them was armed.
**SEPPUKU.DLL UPLOAD: 20% Complete**
"Let her go..." Quince pleaded with tears in her eyes, "Please."
"Then tell your crew to call off the job. It's that simple. And if you warn your friends we're here, the dame gets it."
Now was the perfect time to make my presence known. I took a few steps forward. Their noble leader finally noticed me.
"Kill the bitch!!" He screamed.
**UPLOAD COMPLETE**
It was too late for his cronies. They were already going to meet their maker. One of them slashed their necks, then the other followed suit. Exactly as Seppuku ordered them to do. I wasn't here to offer even a modicum of clemency to these scumbags. Blue Hair then cowered near the door in fear of the two that just killed themselves on my command. Whatever she was on was now wearing off. Blue Hair just sat there, crying and begging for her life. Quince finally turned around and looked at me. Nobody could see my eyes underneath my hair, but I was sure she knew I wasn't in the best of moods at the moment.
"You know," I remarked. "There are two people I hate most in this world. Poseur gangs and Corpos. And you scumbags bring the worst of both worlds..."
"How long were you here?" She asked.
"Just got here. Right place at the right time."
**UPLOAD PSION.DLL: 90% Complete**
I decided to upload the Psion daemon into the leader's cyberbrain. It was only a matter of time before the daemon would kick in and the leader would lose control of his motor functions.
**UPLOAD COMPLETE**
The leader was now my own personal puppet for the moment. He reached for his gun and drew it, and I made him point it at his own head. The fear in his eyes told me that he didn't expect me to be there. Nor did he expect to be hacked so quickly. He held the gun against his temple at my decree. My cyberdeck was one hell of an ego trip. The DS-550 was doing its job splendidly, giving me a slight sense of satisfaction at a situation that made me angry. I gestured to Quince.
"Yo, Quince. Care to do the honors of ridding the world of this piece of shit?"
"With pleasure." Was the response she went with.
She drew her gun and fired. What was left of the poseur gangster's head was chunks of matter, some of which spilled all over Blue Hair. I thought nothing of it since I was used to this lifestyle. But I could tell Blue Eyes was traumatized. I approached her slowly, Blue Eyes cowered away from me.
"STAY BACK!!" She screamed.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Quince yelled.
"Trying to make her forget what just happened." I replied.
"Like hell you are!!"
"I'm assuming she had no idea you were a mercenary until just now. You really want her to remember this night? You really want her knowing her life is constantly in danger because you're in the biz??"
"Fine, birdbrain. But make it quick."
There was a cord behind my ear for moments like this. I decided to use a remote hack to knock Blue Hair unconscious. The DS-550's citizen database told me her full name. Elizabeth Lione. Elizabeth had experienced what could be the worst night of her life. And I had to do what I could to erase it from her memory. I didn't take any pleasure in this, but it was necessary to prevent the poor lady from becoming catatonic. I plugged my cord into the port in the back of her left ear. Meatspace quickly vanished from my sight.
Inside her mind were typical memories of a girl in her mid 20s. Parties. Dates. College Lectures. Every moment since she got her cyberbrain installed was at the tip of my fingers. Normally, curiosity would get the better of me and I'd explore the memories of any shady dealings she may have witnessed. However, I didn't want to risk a bullet in the head from Quince, so I had to be discreet. For the most part, Ms Lione was your average woman. Nothing noteworthy I was interested in. Except for the memories of what had just happened. I worked my mojo and purged the memory of tonight from her mind. She remembered the rest of the night. Except she would forget the poseurs, Quince's gunshot. But I wanted her to forget that I even existed most of all. The memory was not gone. I unplugged from her cyberbrain to take a look at Quince.
"You were discreet, right?" She asked. "I hope you respected Lizzie's privacy."
"Yeah." I replied. "Nothing interesting up there."
"I'll take her back to her place. You go home and get some rest. You look like shit."
"Don't I always, Quince?"
With that, the Light Rail stopped at Jefferson Station. I waved goodbye to Quince and, as expected, she responded by flipping me off with a smirk. I knew she was joking around this time though I knew I wasn't well liked by the crew. I got off the Light Rail and decided to head back to my apartment.
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