Garret sighed as the alarm on his peripherals started to chirp. Break over. The street outside of his humble corner store was one of the less busy ones in zone 5, but there were still enough people walking by to make his breaks somewhat more interesting than the rest of his time. The sim parlor a few blocks down brought in some colorful types – and decent business during the night cycles. Maybe sometime I’ll pop in and see what that’s all about, he thought to himself. Maybe.
Trudging back into the store, he took a moment to look upon his sad little domain. Two cramped aisles of marked-up, mass-produced snacks. Behind the counter, a rainbow of brightly colored neuroinhibitor refill cartridges. Not the stuff that would rip you away from reality, but just strong enough to make things more bearable. In the back there was a door to the storeroom and the stairs up to his tiny apartment. Above, the lights hummed their droning tune. The one in the back corner near the drinks had been flickering for a while now, but it was not annoying enough to warrant the cost of a replacement. This was all that Garret had: his purpose, his legacy. At least he had it better than others. It could be worse.
He took his seat behind the counter and tapped at the terminal on the wall next to him. No news of note, really. Some dark den at the edge of the zone caught fire, a few people protesting the new mayor. He hated how boring it got, but he hated it even more when things happened to him. A rowdy customer stumbling in from the sim parlor every handful of cycles was more than enough. He swiped more and more, hoping for something vaguely interesting.
*Ding!*
Garret lifted his head from the terminal and smiled. Torrin was as much of a “regular” as you got in a transient place like zone 5. He stopped in now and then to do a little shopping, but mostly to gossip. It was usually inane politics or farfetched conspiracy theories, but Garret welcomed the idle chatter to break up the monotony. Torrin owned a car wash a few blocks over near one of the main intersections of zone 5 and loved to chat up the people passing through. Not that he did the bare minimum to verify what he heard, but at least his rumors were less dry than the news.
“How’s business lately? Been crazy at the wash, lots of deliveries coming through from 6.”
Torrin walked straight up to the counter, the usual devious grin spreading across his face. Between the sparse, thin hair clinging to his head and the bleach-stained overalls, he was disarmingly endearing in his own way.
“Same as always,” Garret replied, “but you know that. Really just drivers getting lost or people heading home from the sim parlor. Enough to keep the lights on, not enough to move somewhere relevant.”
Torrin slapped the counter and laughed his hearty (slightly grating) laugh. “Oh come on! I’m sure some of those protestors wandered through, they’ve been swarming the main roads. Blah blah blah, corruption this, rigged election that. Sure it’s a load of crap that he’s going to crack down on gangs but that’s on the tamer end of lies.”
Knowing that Torrin was setting up for another of his long-winded rants, Garret chuckled and settled in. “Just another pack of Blue Sky today, or you want anything else?”
Torrin huffed, moderately annoyed that his hook failed to fish out a response but not enough to stop his thought. “Yeah yeah yeah, might as well before they hitch the price again. Anyways, can you imagine making such a big deal about another mayor? Not like they actually do anything. Just puppets dancing to the Consortium’s strings, they are. We don’t even have a gang problem in 5. Been here my whole life, was born around the corner from here, and nothing worse than a few delinquents with nothing better to do. Keep ‘em in 8 and we’re just fine.”
Garret reflexively nodded as reached behind him to fetch a cartridge from the wall, not entirely listening. “You know,” he mused, “makes me wonder a bit. Had a couple of guys come in not too long ago, stimmed out of their minds and making fools of themselves. Thought they were just hitting the sim parlor for a bit of fun before heading out to the dark den on 206th. Real weird though, demanding keys to the back room and getting aggressive about it. Pretty sure they weren’t going to buy anything so I told them I’d ring up Enforcement. They were none too happy about that, but they eventually left without making a scene. One of them was especially mouthy, yelled something about the Chains on his way out. I’ve had stimmers in here before all the time…but something was off about that one.”
*Ding!*
Both of them glanced over to the entrance and paused. The dark den patrons rarely wandered multiple blocks all the way out here, so it was odd to have it happen twice in a matter of cycles. The young woman was alone and clearlyhaving either a really good or a really bad night. Her thick makeup was running down her face as she eyed the store with disdain. She stomped in with her clunky boots, not acknowledging either of them as she walked to the back. Garret turned back to Torrin but kept his eyes trailing the obnoxiously bright blonde pigtails that bobbed just above the shelves.
Torrin scoffed, but the interruption was not enough to deter him. “Seriously, Chains? Let me guess, the Sun Emperor walked in with them? Please, they were already a bedtime story when the dome went up. Those guys could have at least picked a real gang if they wanted to scare you.”
“I don’t think he was all together,” Garret said. “They usually just want some inhibs and then they’ll leave, no fuss. But that one guy…I’m not sure.”
The woman had made her way through the aisles and had stepped up to the counter behind Torrin. She looked absolutely ridiculous: her bulky jacket was several sizes too big and hung loosely on her frame while the mesh top underneath it revealed a gaudy mess of tattoos. She tapped her boot restlessly as she glared at the back of Torrin’s head.
“Ah, kids will say whatever they want to sound big,” Torrin said. He was either oblivious or indifferent to the woman behind him. “I was dumb and rebellious once too, you know. They grow out of it one way or another, just wish they wouldn’t be so loud about it.”
The woman loudly cleared her throat as the tapping got louder. Torrin raised his voice over her and shrugged. “There’s no glamor in honest work but someone’s gotta do it. If I had a credit for every time I heard one of-“
His words cut off into a short yelp as the woman’s fist slammed into the side of his face. He hit the floor and slid towards the entrance from the sheer force. Garrett froze in shock as he watched her stomp over to the limp body. She lifted up one of the boots and kicked Torrin square in the nose.
“Why is it always these shitty leeches who wind up being the most self-righteous?” she fumed as she wound up another kick. She continued pounding him as blood began pooling on the floor. “Think they’re so much better just because they know how to follow the rules. Be a good little tool, pay your taxes, queue up nice and neat for the slaughterhouse. Makes me sick!”
One extra kick to the stomach for good measure and she took a deep breath before walking back to the counter. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “I’m sure whatever you were talking about was incredibly interesting. I just need a liiiiiiittle bit of your time, if that’s okay?”
Garret’s adrenaline kicked in enough to free up his muscles. He fumbled with the terminal, trying to bring up the line to call Enforcement.
“Tsk tsk tsk,” she pouted, “I don’t think you want to do that, mister. It’ll be at least 6 or 7 minutes before they get here, and that’s plenty of time to make you regret it. Besides, why wouldn’t you wanna chat with a cute little lady?”
Slowing his breath to calm his trembling hands, he turned to face her. Her eyes were wide open and her smile reached from ear to ear; she was having the time of her life. “Whatever you want,” Garret whispered, “take it. I don’t want any trouble miss.”
“Oh no no no no no,” she said, “I’m not interested in any of this crap. See, a couple of my associates stopped by and they said you weren’t too nice to them. Yeah I’m sure they were being dumb as bricks, but I don’t appreciate when people aren’t accommodating. We’re all friends in this city, aren’t we? And friends look out for each other.”
“I don’t want to know what you and those guys are doing,” Garret said, “and I don’t want to be involved. I just want to run my store.”
She leaned forward, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him down to meet eye-to-eye. “But you are involved,” she growled. “Just because you look away from the line doesn’t mean you haven’t picked a side. You people only watched as they built this cage around us, and now you’re going to watch as I tear it down.”
With her free hand, she fished into an inner pocket of her jacket. Garret’s blood froze as she whipped out what looked to be an extractor…or some crude approximation of one. Despite sharing the general features of the collectors’ implement, the device in her hand appeared far more brutal than functional. The corners of its pitch-black surface were jagged and unrefined, and a small chain coiled around its body and handle. Instead of the typical display panel on its top, a dark red jewel gleamed in the artificial light.
“H-h-hold on,” Garret stammered. “I haven’t done anything wrong! I got it, I got it, I’ll do whatever you want! Just put it down, put it down…”
The woman laughed in his face. “Oh no silly, I’m not going to kill you! We’re friends, remember?”
Her eyes narrowed as she brought the incredibly sharp prongs up to his neck. They felt unnaturally warm against his skin. “Buuuuut,” she mused, “you’ll probably wish that I did.”
With a little pressure, the prongs poked into his flesh and his nerves exploded. Fire surged through every inch of his body as his vision blurred into blackness. One by one his senses faded, completely overtaken by the most excruciating pain he had ever felt. The sensation writhed and twisted within him, eventually eclipsing any word he had to describe it. It grew worse and worse as hours melded together and he struggled to retain any coherent thought.
Why is this happening?
What did I do?
Is this it?
Is this all there is? All there was?
Why, why, why?
Please stop…
Please stop…
“Please stop,” he whimpered. A metallic chill spread across his face, the ugly lighting flooding into his view. He could barely move his head from the pool of tears and saliva that had accumulated on the counter. “Please stop…”
“Relax,” the woman whined, “I barely tapped ya.”
She wagged the extractor in front of his face, its chain clinking from side to side. “I sure hope that you’ll feel more generous in the future,” she said. “Or we can spend some more quality time together if you’re not sure.”
Garret babbled incoherently as she returned the extractor to her jacket pocket and turned to leave the store. A solid crunch sounded as she stopped to give Torrin a parting gift. “Oh yeah,” she yelled back from the entrance, “between friends, the name’s Kimmy. Love what you’ve done with the place, could use a bit more color though. I’ll see ya around!”
*Ding!*
Garret sobbed into the counter, his body still burning beyond in agony. He hated when things happened to him.