The crackdown, part three of MiaM
And this is where the story got a major change in plot. I introduced a new character who was going to be the decoy love interest. Then I decided she should be the love interest. THEN I realized I could use a story style I love but don't see often enough. The hero of the story being the sidekick and the protagonist being the person constantly saved by the sidekick. And I loathe calling her the sidekick but for now, it works.
Iona, the new chara, is based on a barista at a coffeehouse that I visit fairly often. It would be higher up on my favorites if it didn’t feel like a colony of hipsters from PDX landed in Salem and are beginning to fruit. I know that’s not fair to the place but as self-aware as I am--and I peg pretty hard on hipsterism--I just don’t much like the hipster vibe.
Anyway, she asked me if I wanted my usual only the third time I planned to order said usual and I admit I was immediately smitten. Not just from her remembering me/my order, her smile was... nostalgia inducing. It made me want to think back on our relationship fondly. And at that moment I had no idea what her name was, just that I wanted to know her better and have her be a muse.
While i was walking to the coffee place after writing a few hundred words having her appear, I came to a realization. I love stories where the real hero of the story is the sidekick to the protagonist who’s actually a secondary character. And then I realized Iona would make for an excellent hero in the story, who saves the wrong genre competent protagonist. Will probably necessitate a minor rewrite but it’s a rough draft anyway.
I also thought about doing this story as a poly oneto salvage the niki chara but realized too many of my recent stories are such. And the fantasy is so much better than the reality. Besides, Niki has way too much of my ex in her to be a chara I want to use in a romance again.
And so it begins, the rewrites:
“Your usual?” She asked as I came in, smiling at me.
I blinked. “Iona? What’re you doing here?”
“New manager. What’re you doing—”
I slapped my hand over her mouth, pulling her towards a dark corner.
“You animal,” she teased when I let go.
“I’m undercover,” I whispered.
“Obviously. Now, unless you’re gonna kiss me, can we?”
I smiled at her. “Next time then.”
I watched her walk away, admiring her figure. She’s a natural, no explants—externally viewable technology. And no work on her body besides hard work at a gym. I sighed. Flirting with her now was going to necessitate a long walk. Totally worth it, I decided as she bent down to pick up something, revealing stocking tops and garters. I waved my hand to cool myself off as I followed her out.
Her no longer working at my favorite caf was a bit of a blow. I need the exercise, I reminded myself as I sat down to await my CI.
He walked in and sat in the booth ahead of mine, having dropped a business card on my table as he passed. I swipe my comm across it and it beams a fifty gigabit file to my cyberdeck, decompressing it from the image on the card. I burn the card in the ashtray then light a fag as I watch Iona cross the room to show someone else to a table.
I sigh as the fifty gigabit file fully decompresses into a 500 terabit dump. My cyberdeck’s memory is now full, no space to manipulate the data, even with a five terabyte ramdrive.
I leave a tip for the waiter, exchange a smile with Iona, then I’m out the door, tossing the fag away once I’m outside.
Back in the office I fit together a dozen cyberdecks and have them begin crunching the numbers, trying to find the data that might lead to more corrupt officials. I have a feeling this is going to make my career or end with my dead body in an alley, two in the back of my head.
I decided to stay in the office. I told the guys at the mission I was heading to another arc for some interviews so I have about 96 hours of work and a pneutube account with all the local cafs.
~•~
There’s something about being a journalist. It isn’t the terrible pay. It isn’t the women you get--you don’t get women for being a journalist. It isn’t the constant traveling--if you’re lucky enough to get a job that pays for it. It’s not the stringer work that keeps you in food when your regular paycheck barely covers your rent. It’s the people you meet. Sometimes the best people I’ve ever met are the ones who are the heroes of stories they would prefer not be told. Like last night. I found a woman standing in a corner. She was a pro. And her custom had tried to attack her. The bangers who controlled the block’s drug trade--but didn’t fuck with the whores because they rolled deeper than any gang does--were watching one of their own beat the shit out of the custom. They were making suggestions about how to really damage the man while their boy worked the guy over. And as I watched, they came over and once they found out I was a journalist, started telling me their street names, how they got involved the gang, and how much they liked the comics in our paper. The kid kicking the shit out of the custom turned out to be a med student who got jumped in to the gang a week ago when his older brother who was a member was killed by another gang. He got jumped in and is expected to kill the guy who killed his brother. He’s terrified he’ll never become a doctor.
~•~
I sighed as I finished a story I couldn’t write until the hero was dead. I wrote a temp headline ~Healer or Killer~ then encrypted the file, uploaded it to the paper’s server, and reopened my story on corruption. As I was tightening up some prose that was a little too lurid, a screen activated. Niki had returned. I watched her exit a cab and enter her building. I reset the sequence and enlarged it, watching it frame by frame, looking for any detail that might have escaped the virtual intelligence in my cyberdeck, scanning for abnormalities. Nothing really stood out save for her wearing crime scene socks but she was also carrying anti-grav heels, her feet probably hurt. I’d keep a few pairs in a clutch too if I was a girl. In fact, I made a note to add them to my wallet. There were times I needed the like.
Thirsty, I left my office, trying to find the new canteen. I finally found it in the opposite corner of the floor--the owner was a fiend for remodels--and fed a ₩anstick into the central control. As I selected a meal--a chocolate mole covered enchilada and a mug of hi caf tea--i kept typing at my cyberdeck.
~•~
INSERT GRAPHIC OF CORRUPT OFFICIALS
~•~
I studied everything I had on her. She wasn’t active duty due to a genetic deformity that couldn’t be compensated for. She couldn’t see the majority of colors, only grayscale and hues of blue that weren’t blended with other colors. I didn’t even think that was possible until I read half a dozen papers on the illness. She had been married for six months, had a miscarriage, and the marriage had fallen apart. The divorce had been finalized on her twenty-first birthday. She had been nearly killed by enforcers in Brazil who had opened fire on the school she had been a guard at. She had nearly been killed by her own comrades. And now was incapable of having children due to one of their bullets. She went back to school and graduated with honors. But her parents died on their way to her graduation. This woman’s life was trauma upon trauma. And I was going to add another. But the fact she was working with corrupt fuckwads--I couldn’t let her past stop me from destroying those people.
~•~
Iona smiled as I walked in. She waved the hostess off and seated me herself. “If i didn’t know better, I’d think you like me,” I teased her.
She smiled and gave her hips a little extra sashay as she walked away. I debated pouring the cup of ice water on my crotch.
My CI walked in, this time someone who could be seen with me in public, a stripper who worked at the station nearest where the cops worked. It was a base of sorts, full of low grade corruption where the bill never comes and the badge bunny girls make a few extra bucks in the backroom from the officers.
Fantasia--whose real name was in fact Esther Doyle--smiled as she sat across from me. She wasn’t a badge bunny but she was an incredible dancer I knew from when she worked at the club near my offices.
“Hey sweetie. Good to see you again.”
“You too. Here’s what I wanted you to look at.” I flip my cyberdeck and she plugs into it, getting that zombified look most users get as the switch in the back of her neck was flipped, shutting off manual control of the body. She’d keep breathing and everything necessary to live but her consciousness was now in the big sprawl. I leaned forward and tucked a napkin into her collar in case she started drooling and smiled as Iona winked at my actions.
It didn’t take her long to assimilate the images. “Sure. I’ll keep an eye out for them. I hate the secfor who come in the club. They act like I should fuck them for free in the private rooms.”
Iona, the new chara, is based on a barista at a coffeehouse that I visit fairly often. It would be higher up on my favorites if it didn’t feel like a colony of hipsters from PDX landed in Salem and are beginning to fruit. I know that’s not fair to the place but as self-aware as I am--and I peg pretty hard on hipsterism--I just don’t much like the hipster vibe.
Anyway, she asked me if I wanted my usual only the third time I planned to order said usual and I admit I was immediately smitten. Not just from her remembering me/my order, her smile was... nostalgia inducing. It made me want to think back on our relationship fondly. And at that moment I had no idea what her name was, just that I wanted to know her better and have her be a muse.
While i was walking to the coffee place after writing a few hundred words having her appear, I came to a realization. I love stories where the real hero of the story is the sidekick to the protagonist who’s actually a secondary character. And then I realized Iona would make for an excellent hero in the story, who saves the wrong genre competent protagonist. Will probably necessitate a minor rewrite but it’s a rough draft anyway.
I also thought about doing this story as a poly oneto salvage the niki chara but realized too many of my recent stories are such. And the fantasy is so much better than the reality. Besides, Niki has way too much of my ex in her to be a chara I want to use in a romance again.
And so it begins, the rewrites:
“Your usual?” She asked as I came in, smiling at me.
I blinked. “Iona? What’re you doing here?”
“New manager. What’re you doing—”
I slapped my hand over her mouth, pulling her towards a dark corner.
“You animal,” she teased when I let go.
“I’m undercover,” I whispered.
“Obviously. Now, unless you’re gonna kiss me, can we?”
I smiled at her. “Next time then.”
I watched her walk away, admiring her figure. She’s a natural, no explants—externally viewable technology. And no work on her body besides hard work at a gym. I sighed. Flirting with her now was going to necessitate a long walk. Totally worth it, I decided as she bent down to pick up something, revealing stocking tops and garters. I waved my hand to cool myself off as I followed her out.
Her no longer working at my favorite caf was a bit of a blow. I need the exercise, I reminded myself as I sat down to await my CI.
He walked in and sat in the booth ahead of mine, having dropped a business card on my table as he passed. I swipe my comm across it and it beams a fifty gigabit file to my cyberdeck, decompressing it from the image on the card. I burn the card in the ashtray then light a fag as I watch Iona cross the room to show someone else to a table.
I sigh as the fifty gigabit file fully decompresses into a 500 terabit dump. My cyberdeck’s memory is now full, no space to manipulate the data, even with a five terabyte ramdrive.
I leave a tip for the waiter, exchange a smile with Iona, then I’m out the door, tossing the fag away once I’m outside.
Back in the office I fit together a dozen cyberdecks and have them begin crunching the numbers, trying to find the data that might lead to more corrupt officials. I have a feeling this is going to make my career or end with my dead body in an alley, two in the back of my head.
I decided to stay in the office. I told the guys at the mission I was heading to another arc for some interviews so I have about 96 hours of work and a pneutube account with all the local cafs.
~•~
There’s something about being a journalist. It isn’t the terrible pay. It isn’t the women you get--you don’t get women for being a journalist. It isn’t the constant traveling--if you’re lucky enough to get a job that pays for it. It’s not the stringer work that keeps you in food when your regular paycheck barely covers your rent. It’s the people you meet. Sometimes the best people I’ve ever met are the ones who are the heroes of stories they would prefer not be told. Like last night. I found a woman standing in a corner. She was a pro. And her custom had tried to attack her. The bangers who controlled the block’s drug trade--but didn’t fuck with the whores because they rolled deeper than any gang does--were watching one of their own beat the shit out of the custom. They were making suggestions about how to really damage the man while their boy worked the guy over. And as I watched, they came over and once they found out I was a journalist, started telling me their street names, how they got involved the gang, and how much they liked the comics in our paper. The kid kicking the shit out of the custom turned out to be a med student who got jumped in to the gang a week ago when his older brother who was a member was killed by another gang. He got jumped in and is expected to kill the guy who killed his brother. He’s terrified he’ll never become a doctor.
~•~
I sighed as I finished a story I couldn’t write until the hero was dead. I wrote a temp headline ~Healer or Killer~ then encrypted the file, uploaded it to the paper’s server, and reopened my story on corruption. As I was tightening up some prose that was a little too lurid, a screen activated. Niki had returned. I watched her exit a cab and enter her building. I reset the sequence and enlarged it, watching it frame by frame, looking for any detail that might have escaped the virtual intelligence in my cyberdeck, scanning for abnormalities. Nothing really stood out save for her wearing crime scene socks but she was also carrying anti-grav heels, her feet probably hurt. I’d keep a few pairs in a clutch too if I was a girl. In fact, I made a note to add them to my wallet. There were times I needed the like.
Thirsty, I left my office, trying to find the new canteen. I finally found it in the opposite corner of the floor--the owner was a fiend for remodels--and fed a ₩anstick into the central control. As I selected a meal--a chocolate mole covered enchilada and a mug of hi caf tea--i kept typing at my cyberdeck.
~•~
INSERT GRAPHIC OF CORRUPT OFFICIALS
~•~
I studied everything I had on her. She wasn’t active duty due to a genetic deformity that couldn’t be compensated for. She couldn’t see the majority of colors, only grayscale and hues of blue that weren’t blended with other colors. I didn’t even think that was possible until I read half a dozen papers on the illness. She had been married for six months, had a miscarriage, and the marriage had fallen apart. The divorce had been finalized on her twenty-first birthday. She had been nearly killed by enforcers in Brazil who had opened fire on the school she had been a guard at. She had nearly been killed by her own comrades. And now was incapable of having children due to one of their bullets. She went back to school and graduated with honors. But her parents died on their way to her graduation. This woman’s life was trauma upon trauma. And I was going to add another. But the fact she was working with corrupt fuckwads--I couldn’t let her past stop me from destroying those people.
~•~
Iona smiled as I walked in. She waved the hostess off and seated me herself. “If i didn’t know better, I’d think you like me,” I teased her.
She smiled and gave her hips a little extra sashay as she walked away. I debated pouring the cup of ice water on my crotch.
My CI walked in, this time someone who could be seen with me in public, a stripper who worked at the station nearest where the cops worked. It was a base of sorts, full of low grade corruption where the bill never comes and the badge bunny girls make a few extra bucks in the backroom from the officers.
Fantasia--whose real name was in fact Esther Doyle--smiled as she sat across from me. She wasn’t a badge bunny but she was an incredible dancer I knew from when she worked at the club near my offices.
“Hey sweetie. Good to see you again.”
“You too. Here’s what I wanted you to look at.” I flip my cyberdeck and she plugs into it, getting that zombified look most users get as the switch in the back of her neck was flipped, shutting off manual control of the body. She’d keep breathing and everything necessary to live but her consciousness was now in the big sprawl. I leaned forward and tucked a napkin into her collar in case she started drooling and smiled as Iona winked at my actions.
It didn’t take her long to assimilate the images. “Sure. I’ll keep an eye out for them. I hate the secfor who come in the club. They act like I should fuck them for free in the private rooms.”
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