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Authors: Joshua Wilkinson

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BOOK: SF in The City Anthology
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“You told me I’d have 15,000 ECUs by the end of the week,” Kim didn’t seem to show any sign of moving. For an older woman, she inspired fear in youth as only old, grouchy women could. “I saw that 8,500 were transferred to my account today. What about the rest of it?”

             
“I’m meeting up with the rest of the gang today,” Charlisle smiled. “We’ll go ‘hunting’ all day. Something will turn up.”

             
“Rob a bank if you have to,” Kim snorted. “Just get me my money before tomorrow evening or you’ll find yourself living on the second floor.”

             
   Charlisle swallowed reflexively. Everyone knew why the second floor of this building should be avoided. The homeless were permitted to stay there, as long as they provided entertainment for the spaq dealers who actually rented rooms. He could picture the piles of people crammed into the floor’s dimly lit hallway.

             
“Don’t worry, I’ll avoid that!”

***

              It was 9:26 AM by the time Charlisle reached the group’s designated meeting place – a dark and graffiti plastered alleyway. Vox Fuchs was the only other member of the group to arrive early. While he certainly felt more comfortable around Vox than some of the other members of the Dingonek gang, Charlisle also hated the inferiority complex he experienced around the older boy. Everyone knew that Vox was the smartest student in the Abscess’s school system.

             
Charlisle secretly kicked himself for the times he accidentally referred to his bloated neighborhood as the “Abscess.” That was a term for pricks too judgmental to live on these streets. Those who actually resided amongst the crumbling infrastructure and overpopulated dwellings referred to their collective home affectionately as the Gorse.

             
  Vox was a very quiet individual, and he did nothing but play around with his switchblade until Charlisle instigated the conversation.             

             
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” Charlisle said playfully, hoping that Vox would be more gregarious than usual. 

             
“School was cancelled today,” Vox said without taking his eyes off of the weapon in his hand. “There was a fire in the chemistry lab.”

             
“And I missed it?” Charlisle attended school twice a week for the sake of appearing somewhat interested in the future it allegedly provided for him. Because there had been so many acts of violence at their neighborhood’s institution, robotic teachers had taught classes for the last four years. What the hacker wouldn’t give to see those automatons try to adjust to such a chaotic situation. “Who started the fire?”

             
“Who do you think,” Vox smiled for the first time, as he spun the weapon around like a child’s toy.

             
Charlisle laughed and walked over to his friend, patting him on the back. What Vox lacked in communication skills, he made up for in creative disobedience. Going into his third year as a senior (he had been held back for multiple acts of violence over the years); the brainiac proudly identified himself as a “super senior.” Of course he could have an instant education at the push of a button, if he had been born to a wealthy family.

             
“So what brought this conflagration on all of a sudden?” Charlisle asked. “Were you just bored?”

             
Vox stopped spinning his knife and retracted its blade. “I already knew the elementary information those machines forced me to study, so a diversion was necessary to get out of school early and do some valuable research. Until Norn called me, I was categorizing some of the most recently discovered xeno nucleic acids (XNA) for the Neo-Biological Survey Institute (NBSI).”

             
“Nerd!” Charlisle gave his fellow gang member a poke in the ribs. “You’re going to get a
real
job someday, aren’t you?”

             
“Why not?” The youth looked at his friend, as if in pity. “You could find a corporation interested in your skills. I’m sure of it.”

 

“Yeah, but where would the fun be in that,” another voice called from down the alleyway.

             
“Sup Norn,” Charlisle could afford to address their fearless leader informally. He’d been wise enough to never get on his bad side.

There had always been tension between the boss and Vox; however, since everyone knew who was the smarter between the two of them. With a machete hanging next to his right hip, it was obvious why Norn’s authority had gone unchallenged. Taking a comb to his spiked blue hair, which Charlisle always found reminiscent of an anime character’s, Norn evinced such confidence that he never needed to draw a weapon on his own followers.

“What are you listenin’ to?” the group’s hacker asked innocently. Norn had the volume cranked up so high on his micro-liners that people could probably hear the music a mile away.

“‘GMO’ from
Key to the Kuffs
,” Norn said as he mentally turned down the volume.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Char
lisle admitted with a chuckle.

“It’s actually a very prescient piece o
f work,” Vox said stoically.

“Of course
you
would have heard of it,” Norn smirked. “I don’t think there’s a song you haven’t heard of.”

“Yeah, and the bongger listens to crap with violins in it too, I bet,” Nettles half stumbled into the alleyway. A bloody chain hung in the grasp of his heavily scarred hands.

“Who was the lucky recipient of
that
,” Charlisle pointed at the gangster’s weapon.

“Some meathead dissed on my shoes in line at the deli,” Nettles jumped onto the covering of the alley’s only dumpster. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as sturdy as he thought.

“Did he also point out your poor relationship with gravity?” Vox chortled.

“No. He did mention sleeping with your mom last night,” Nettles was famed for his strength, not wit.

“Oh, I’m so offended,” Vox ran his hand over his shaved head, a sign that he was thinking of the next insult to send his rival’s way. A tattoo of a Greek laurel ran all the way around his skull.

“Yeah you better be,” Nettles pulled the remnants of a shredded document out of his red-dyed Mohawk and climbed out of the dumpster.

“Well we’re all accounted for except Probably,” Norn asserted. “Where the devil is that kid?”

As the youngest member of the Dingoneks, Probably Guruson had a bad habit for arriving late to meetings. Unlike his fellow members, he had a specific problem – attentive parents. Vox and Norn had lived without families for years, and Charlisle’s mother hadn’t been very present in his life after his father’s incarceration. Nettles had a legal guardian, but he did ephemerol so often that he rarely noticed the youth’s absence.

“Does anyone have his number?” Vox looked at each of his fellow members.

“He gave it to me before,” Nettles spoke up, “but I deleted it.”

“I still have it,” Charlisle said.

“You haven’t had problems with unwanted calls?” Norn asked incredulously.

“Believe me, I have plenty of pointless texts popping up in my mind,” Charlisle sighed.

The rest of the gang laughed as the hacker sent a mental call to Probably. It took six rings before he picked up. Charlisle nodded and established the signal as a group call, with Probably’s “voice” popping up in the nanotubes present in all the gang members’ brains.

“Yo Probably, didn’t you get the memo?” Charlisle asked telepathically. “We’re waiting on you.”

“Sorry Char, my dad needed me to, like, take a bag of glass bottles to the recyc’ center.”

“How far away are you?” Nettles demanded.

“I’m on Gaff Street,” he said.

“We’ll pick you up on the way,” Norn replied.

Once they had hung up, the four headed west to pick up the “fifth wheel.” Within two blocks, they ran across a Dèng’s Takeout delivery drone. They could tell that the machine had already dropped off its load by the speed with which it moved. The Treaty of Oscuro Martes made a rule that one projectile weapon was permitted per group. An all-girl group called the Unicorns had been using guns to blow away other crew’s “honorable warriors.” It was not long after this crew “disappeared” that the official gangs held their infamous conference.

 

Unfortunately Probably had the best aim of any Dingonek, so he kept the squad’s SV-98 with him at all times. A rifle could easily knock a drone out of the sky, and Charlisle had no problem hacking into the system of an airborne robot. With only melee weapons, it seemed likely that they wouldn’t secure some extra ECUs on this beat. Then it happened.

A shot rang out, and the drone came sputtering into the street. Coming around the street’s corner, three large boys carrying steel pipes and clubs looked at the damaged drone. Charlisle and company did not even need to look at the insignia of these new arrivals to know their identities. The Manticore gang had antagonized the Dingonek’s for several years. Once Norn had provided evidence that these rivals exceeded the five member limit, the Manticores had lost their popularity in the Gorse.

The leader of their crew, Proc Ocano, stepped out of the shadows, carrying a recently fired Bor rifle. If a fight broke out, the Dingonek’s would be completely justified. While Proc had shot the drone above Manticore territory, it landed on Dingonek turf. Without their fifth man, Charlisle’s gang faced a four on four fight with an enemy that had brought a long range weapon. However, Norn had a much better grasp of diplomacy than most gangbangers.

“Send out your hacker, and we’ll send ours,” the Dingonek leader shouted as his gang approached the scene of the crime. “We can split the ECU’s 50/50.”

“Did you shoot it down?” Proc said with his weapon leveled in Norn’s direction.

“It’s on our turf and you know it, scum,” Nettles shouted angrily.

The Manticores’ own hot head, Apollo A
klys, stalked forward, a jitte
[14]
grasped firmly in his right hand. Nettles started swinging his chain through the air, hoping to give another beating before the morning was out.

“Do you have a rimation program in your hacking pack?” the Manticore’s official hacker, Maxime Oslop, asked Charlisle with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t have one, and we’ll need to split the ECUs somehow.”

“Boss didn’t give you permission to do that,” Apollo growled at Maxime.

“He also didn’t give you permission to draw a weapon,” the Manticore’s fourth member, Kosei Kanabō, spoke up for the first time.

“We’ll do it your way,” Proc scowled at Norn, “but if you cheat us, you won’t leave here with your heads still attached.”

“Understood,” Norn motioned to Charlisle, who broke into the drone and bypassed its security programs in only a few minutes.

Maxime looked on in amazement and checked his currency reader before turning back to his leader and nodding. The money had been divided fairly.

“Hey guys, how’s it going,” Probably said innocently when he arrived at the street corner.

With a raised eyebrow, Proc dismissed himself and his gang. The Dingonek’s watched them walk all the way down Flycatcher Street before turning to address their youngest member.

“How does it look like it’s going bozo?” Nettles punched Probably in the arm.

“We just got ourselves out of an altercation,” Vox said.


You mean Norn did,” Charlisle pointed out.

“Probably, if you arrive late to a meeting again, I will
probably
kick you out, for good,” Norn glared at the youth. “If you can’t fulfill your responsibilities, we’ll find someone who can!”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Charlisle said weakly.

“What? If he had been here earlier, we would have had a leg up on those goons,” Norn looked at Nettles, knowing who would side with him in making a case for violence.

“Umwelt expects us at noon,” Vox reminded them. “I think I speak for everyone when I say we don’t want to miss out on the new shipment.”

That silenced everyone. Huberto Umwelt owned and ran a drug shop called the Pillopticon, and he also made many friends amongst gangsters. Located in a gang neutral part of the Gorse known as “The Nest,” the Pillopticon was the perfect place to chill. Among the various packs that roamed the Gorse, the Dingoneks had the strongest ties to Umwelt and his store. His establishment also distributed uniforms for gangs, and the “Dings” had new ones coming in with the addition of a recent sponsorship patch from Ostanes Foods.

***

After shaking down a couple of people unlucky enough to be spotted in the street and getting into a verbal spat with the Minotaurs, the Dingoneks dropped by the Pillopticon. Anyone could spot the true purpose for the shop from a mile away. A large wooden lady protruded from Umwelt’s place like a grotesque masthead. The skimpy dress that covered the figure’s busty chest revealed enough of its breasts to indicate that they were made in the image of giant pills. Sitting out front was an intoxicated vagrant, his ratty hat pulled down over his eyes.

BOOK: SF in The City Anthology
7.9Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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