Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23
Part 24
Part 25
Part 26
Part 27
Part 28
I did order myself a crabjuice, dimly recalling that I used to drink a lot of it for some reason when I lived with Aubrey. Upon cracking it open and getting a whiff of the contents, those memories came rushing back. “Oh, right” I muttered to myself before pinching my nose and downing most of the bottle at once.
I arrived in the ebike storage corridor to find it cleaned out. No ebikes, not even any dangling charging cables. At first I assumed it was simply because, unlike me, the majority of tenants had a job to go to during the day. Then I poked my head outside to see a small crowd of them giving statements to a police robot.
Asking one of them on the periphery of the group what exactly happened, he confirmed my worst fear: There’d been a mass ebike theft during the night. I asked him to repeat all of it. Not because I didn’t hear him properly, but because I desperately hoped I’d misunderstood.
No such luck. I haven’t even been here a month and my ride’s already been jacked. Could it be karma for the mass ebike theft I facilitated the other day? If so, it sure fucking kicked in quickly. I couldn’t even be mad because of it. Not without feeling intensely hypocritical.
Looks like I’m back to hoofing it. One step forward, two steps back. But crying doesn’t get anybody anywhere, so I filed it away as a problem to be solved when money and time constraints permit, and headed for the canal.
A few blocks from my apartment building, I began to notice clusters of makeshift shelters hanging off the sides of some buildings. Often two or more stories up off the ground, they resembled wasp’s nests but made from tarps, cardboard, coroplast, and scraps of mylar insulation.
I wondered what they could be for until I saw a criddler poke his head out from inside one of them. He coughed for a bit, then cleared his throat loudly enough I could hear it from ground level and spit a considerable wad of saliva and mucus that landed just a few feet from me.
I didn’t care enough to shout at him, lest I awaken any of the others I now knew to be tucked away in these bizarre suspended trash pods. They hung from a hook, which led me to suspect they were built around the portaledges that seasoned climbers often sleep on during a multi-day ascent of a cliff face.
Like the barges out in the bay, they’re presumably just enough of a hassle for police to reach that they don’t bother to. I imagined a documentary style voiceover explaining how the wild Chinese criddler nests high up in the concrete jungle to evade its primary pedators.
Wherever two buildings were near enough to one another, I also saw enclosed hammocks the likes of which I recall are intended for backpackers strung between the wall of one building and the other adjacent to it. Again, just high enough so that it wasn’t worth the time, effort or police resources to cut them down.
They did bother to set up awnings in the alleys to protect shop owners from getting pissed on while taking out the trash, though. It powerfully motivated me to invest in an umbrella as soon as my finances allowed.
When I arrived at one side of the immense concrete canal, I was surprised to note that my prosthetic leg’s battery level wasn’t depleted nearly as much as I worried it might be. I was also somewhat tired, but nowhere near as exhausted as I would feel if I’d walked all this way on two meat legs.
I took an odd sort of satisfaction in the discovery. That’s fucking teamwork, is what that is. After the demoralizing blow of losing my bike earlier in the day, I welcomed any victory, however small it may be.
There was a weird little bubble car type thing parked across the canal. I’ve seen a bunch of those. China’s got as loose a definition of “car” as it does “bicycle”. Really more of an enclosed electric trike with a weatherproof clear plastic canopy that retracts the same way an armadillo shell opens, so you can get in or out. There’s a rear seat for two passengers, but you’d have to be pretty tiny to fit.
The dizzying variety of half-way bikes, half-way scooters and half-way cars supplies many intermediary steps one can ascend between bicycle ownership and car ownership, like specialized subspecies filling out their respective niches in the ecosystem. Though the fact of the matter is that car ownership is still out of reach for most.
Autocabs also render full sized, full price personal automobiles economically uncompetitive and arguably pointless unless you need to impress somebody. I rubbed my stubbly chin, mulling over my upgrade options should tonight’s heist be as lucrative as expected. “That assumes Crazy Dave doesn’t fuck me again”, I thought.
Shading my eyes with one hand, I peered up at the inverted apartment. Magnifying revealed luxuries undreamt of for someone of my standing. A polar bear rug, probably authentic. A jacuzzi sized to accommodate easily a dozen people.
Even without knowing what I knew about his background, I hated the guy enough by this point that I could scarcely wait to relieve him of that safe. What could be in it? That’s part of why I’ve long had a predilection for safe heists, I think. The mystery prize waiting inside.
When I spotted a dolphin approaching me on its motorized carrier, I began hastily rehearsing excuses in my head for why I was loitering here. Not that I was breaking any particular law, just force of habit.
It stopped in its tracks for a moment. “Disable Panopticon now” commanded a muffled voice from inside the wheeled carrier. Seriously? No fuckin’ way. The voice returned, once again instructing me to begin my attack on Panopticon for this block...so I did.
Within thirty seconds, all cameras and sensor clusters in our vicinity went cold. Then the door to the lower portion of the carrier, where I assumed all of the waste handling and life support machinery should go, folded open to reveal Crazy Dave’s filthy grinning mug. Now, I’ve seen some shit in my day. I’ve seen some seriously fucked up shit. But this? I’ll have to revise my definition of fucked-uppedness.
I prodded the dolphin atop the carrier, worrying they’d imprisoned it. Nope, animatronic. I don’t know why it surprised me. I mean, I might ask where they got their hands on an animatronic dolphin, but then where did they get their hands on a hollowed out trash barge? Or the submarine? Or the industrial O2 cylinders?
Useless to ask, the first step down a tangled path I felt sure I wouldn’t like any of the multitudinous ends to. Dave climbed out and brushed himself off. The water circulation system still worked so as to give every appearance of legitimacy, though apparently it leaked as Dave’s tank top was soaked through.
He casually invited me to climb in. I’d have done a spit take had I been drinking anything. “I’m not joking. Not even a little bit. This is how you get inside, the carrier has all the clearance flags you’ll need. Get in before somebody sees us.”
The sun was low on the horizon by this point but it wasn’t properly dark yet. With less than a minute left before Panopticon coverage of this block was restored, I didn’t have many options. So, begrudgingly, I climbed into the cramped little compartment.
“I’ll be in contact with you over subvoc. You’ve got subvoc, right?” I searched my device list and confirmed it. Switching it on, I paired to the address he supplied and inaudibly sang part of the Speedfoam jingle to test the connection.
“Loud and clear” I got back, in the form of equally inaudible vibrations sent through my skull to my inner ear. “We really could use some of that stuff right now.” I badgered him to explain what for. “Don’t you watch the commercials?” he balked. “It does everything! Plus, you wouldn’t believe what happens when you snort it.”
A few minutes later, having gotten the hang of the controls, I was scooting through the front door of the embassy. There was a joystick that looked to have been salvaged from an old power wheelchair for movement. The dolphin’s bodily movements were on a simple canned loop. The facial expressions, insofar as dolphins have them, were mapped to my own.
Stay Tuned for Part 30!
Bulk mail theft? I find this so real! What caught my attention in this part is the landscape and the spaces made for the refugees. The way you put it looks like animals, beasts and chaos. The real and immediate overcrowding that many countries will have. The tone of anticipation and science fiction continues with new advances and new expressions. I look forward to the next one!
Your story is very nice . I hope this story helpful for all . You are good writer . Thanks for sharing @alexbeyman