Life, So Far

The sights and smells of Cosmo Town were unmistakable as Val watched from the dark recesses of the alley. Skyscrapers built from spacecrete, that are protected by a border of heavily armed private military units, sit downtown at the heart of Cosmo Town. They’ll tell you it’s not bordered off, but see if they’ll let you walk past their vehicles. Even the smaller buildings on the very border are littered with automated turrets on each corner. Even the dirt seemed to also stop before the mercenary positions, as if it would be wiped from existence if it went too close.

Cars seemed to be alive as they moved under the power of a very strong and precise magnet system. This left no sound to their movement minus the sound of their tires crunching something underneath. A few hundred feet above the cars on the street, you could find the next level of citizen. These were the people who could afford the license, flight fees, and get approval to use the air space. They also lived in those spacecrete skyscrapers, high above the regular folk or peons as they were often called. Lower level citizens couldn’t afford pure enough magnets or receivers for the energy field to wirelessly feed off of. The receivers create the power necessary for the magnets to get their vehicles off the ground. It’s one thing to not have to pay for power anymore, but everyone believes something is dampening our fields the closer we get to downtown. The closer you drive to downtown, the less response you get from your vehicle and other devices seem to have issues as well. Children living in those areas have started to get very sick, but the people living in and around that area have started to put things together. The real question is how long will they live with it.

Val snapped back to her senses as her internal comms kicked on.

“Val, the target should arrive in the next 10 minutes.”

The update vibrated across her secure net, provided by a neural net upgrade she was finally able to afford after her last mission. These missions weren’t always the most exciting, but even if the target didn’t show, she didn’t mind working close to Cosmo Town...it's where she grew up.

Val had to lock in her concentration on her surroundings since the target could be arriving at any moment. She didn't want to miss out on another nice payday!

The more elite citizens couldn’t be seen traveling around in the muck, but sometimes they would slip away to divulge in some not so savory actions. Deeds that were done with someone that would do anything they wanted, for a price. A drug that comes from a natural chemical your body produces. Normally it wouldn't be much of a thought, but it’s the virtual reality stories that causes that massive release of those endorphins in an amount your body is incapable of producing normally. Every story you consume impacts your social credit score...that is, unless you find a Silent Doc. Silent Docs have the equipment to mask a story from the wireless power supply so that their id and story aren't picked up. If a Silent Doc wanted to get greedy, they could keep the story going and you would never come back to reality. It was a known risk, story napping. Now you’re stuck there in a chair or in a bed enjoying a false reality while your body is going hungry, being dehydrated and not being allowed to rest. People have gone insane and even died because of these lock ups by the Silent Docs. No matter the outcome for the patient, the ransoms will still get paid. Even if you’re dead, that information not only ruins your social credit score, but everyone with your family name will take a hit, so the family will pay the ransom to save face and status. The Silent Doc would retire as no one would trust them, but that’s why they set a high ransom. People hope they aren't the last customer or they can buy off the Silent Doc. That's where the bounty hunting came into play. People found that a good bounty hunter will resolve your issues for a much lower payment. Bounty hunting was something Val realized fast that she was good at. She also realized it was something she really enjoyed.

The Silent Docs have vehicles that blend in with the ground level citizens, but they are absolutely capable of leaving the atmosphere with ease. It can then slip through a wormhole before anyone could get a lock and pop out anywhere in the universe safe and sound. Thankfully the amount of trouble it was to hide or mask signals, kept the doc pool fairly small. Cosmo Town was just a massive hole of shit surrounded by shinier shit and full of corruption. It was one of the galaxy's highest rated Silent doc locations so to speak. The scans for the lower level citizens don't always get the best care and updates on some planets or systems as others. This leads to a weaker scan that can be tricked into thinking it's a low level citizen watching something but has a horrible social credit score already, so no flags are sent up. The key to a deeper story experience all depends on the level of implants you have. The more upgrades to your neural net, optical upgrades, textile implants in your arms or legs, and even olfactory upgrades to increase one's ability to smell, the more into the experience one can be pulled by the system. The rich spend crazy money to experience their fetishes without worry. The crazy part was more than three quarters of Cosmo Town's downtown elite took regular sessions with the Silent Docs and the entire board of directors who make all the decisions regarding Cosmo Town, have actually used the same stories multiple times. The fear of a declining social credit score keeps them from even admitting to each other that they indulge in these events. The element of being bad and not getting caught is also part of the enjoyment.

Just as Val started to zone out again, the dark red car belonging to a Silent Doc known as Trina, came into view. Val had to hide in the alleyway so as to not stand out and have the knowledge of her existence become known, as she waited for her bounty. Trina had story-napped the son of a local businessman from downtown, who was supposedly retired but was still very active in varying blackmarket endeavors. The business of stories is so risky that even prominent businessmen with large mercenary armies won't risk sending their men to fix the issue for the simple fact that mercenaries don't have to worry about a social credit score and therefore end up having power over their boss.

The problem with mercenaries are their living habits. You get to have a life without a social credit score, but you give your life in its entirety to some organization. Belonging to an organization meant you could have a life that was whatever you wanted with no consequences to your namesake, but you were at the mercy of whatever organization picked you up and they deal in everything you can think of. Some mercs get cushy assignments, like guarding downtown, while other mercs might not get so lucky and have to pull guard on asteroid fields watching robots mine for precious minerals and gems. There's not exactly a booming business surrounded in fantasies living down the street in the asteroid fields, but when you get to choose your vacation spot and not have to worry about paying for it, you can see how the work life and personal life balance out. The reality is, not everyone is up for that kind of work...the kind of work that could be to take another living being's life if told to.

"Target spotted." Val responded.

"Careful Val, target is wanted alive." came the voice over the net.

"Jess, when have I not been careful?" Val queried.

Val moved along the street to Trina's car and as she closed in, Trina locked eyes with Val. Fear? Why would a Silent Doc look like they just saw the dead walking?

"Jess, something's off. Trina looks like she's about to run screaming out of a cemetery. Something has her scares shitless!" Val stated.

"What? What the...just grab her already! Why should we care if she's scared or not?" Jess replied.

"No! She's not scared because of what we're doing, she looks scared like prey being used as bait!" Val tried to make sure her words came across clearly, but all she really had to do was think the words and they would be heard by Jess because of her latest upgrade to her neural net.

"I'm going to plant a tracker. This is bigger than just a rescue." Val commanded.

"Then what the fuck are we going to tell the client? Sorry, the target you wanted interrogated looked like they had conjured a ghost in a abandoned church? We're here to make money, not become worm food!" Jess retorted.

"Fuck it, we'll come up with something. We have close to 100 hours left on the contract to find the client's son before a bounty is placed on us. We'll get this sorted Jess!" Val responded.

Val continued on her course to intercept the car as it was stopped at a light.

Val knocked on the car window and Trina looked up and locked eyes with Val. Val knocked again and smiled as if to say she's a friend, or at least she hoped it would be interpreted that way.

"What do you want?" Trina asked shakily.

Val replied but made sure her voice was so soft Trina wouldn't be able to hear it.

"What did you say?" Trina cried.

Val made a nonchalant movement with her finger as if to tell Trina to put her window down. Trina finally gave in and as the window lowered, so did the color in Trina's face. Trina had already figured out what Val was she thought, but for whatever reason, she gave in to Val's request.

Val leaned onto the car door and as she cleared her throat to buy time to figure out what to say, she quickly but gently grasped Trina's arm and proceeded to squeeze three times fast followed by a pause, then three slow squeezes followed by a pause and three more quick squeezes....Morse code for SOS. Trina obviously knew what the signal was and Val felt her relax in her grip.

"I was wondering if you knew of an implant repair shop that might be in walking distance from here." Val asked.

Trina looked all around in a panic, but returned her gaze to Val.

"There's one just up the street here if you take that right and go about four hundred meters up the road. You should see it on the left, Implant Imporium is the name." Trina managed to get her voice to work.

"Thanks a mill!" Val responded as she patted Trina's arm as if to say don't be afraid as she attached a tracker to the car with her other arm.

"Sure thing." Trina responded and drove away as she rolled her window back up.

"Tracker planted. Something is scaring that woman half to death. I tried to signal to her that she can trust us. Let's see where this leads." Val told Jess.

Jess was Val's handler. An ex-merc, Jess disappeared from the mercenary group she was with, Sirius, and went dark. Jess found Val before Val knew she had been found. They just happened to be walking down the same street one night, Val walking home from a late shift at the local imported implant repair shop, and Jess was out just taking in the night. As Val took one of her shortcuts down an alley, she was jumped by three junkies needing to get high on sap.

Sap, truly disgusting when you find out it's the bio-adhesive and the host's coagulated platelets filled with their endorphins from every story that user had experienced while wearing that implant. However, when it's dried up, crushed to a powder, then snorted, it brings about a high that mirrors the story high, but without the need of implants. The adhesive though creates an addiction as it binds to various receptors in the brain that after just a single dose will not stop causing a spiraling depression until that fix is found. It's nasty stuff, but the Silent Docs make money hand over fist with every part of the process be it selling a protected story, installing black market implants that may or may not have come off of another body, selling the sap or even story napping people.

The three junkies jumped Val, and if they had won, would have taken her credits, her implants and anything they could find of value. Val didn't even realize it until after all three junkies lay unconscious on the pavement that she had been ambushed. Val moved by pure instinct and just as fast as it had started, the ambush was thwarted. Sometimes hand me down implants come with memories that aren't exactly visible, but in a situation, could show themselves. Once it happens, generally one can tap back into that memory for whatever it's use was for. It's like recovering deleted data and used implants always had data that had been cleared so they could be sold. Sometimes you might tap into something cool, like attending an awesome concert or you might experience someone's death as if you were dying in the middle of broad daylight. Buying used implants came with an inherent risk, but that's life.

Val would make it home safe and sound that night, all the while walking home high on adrenaline.

Jess found Val's performance shocking. She was used to the normal faces in the area and knew that Val worked at an implant repair shop, but nothing about her looked like a badass. Jess couldn't shake the memory of her speed and agility in that fight for life. The look of disbelief that crossed Val's face was quite shocking and communicated to Jess that Val just accessed a memory that she never knew existed. Jess realized that she had two choices, try and work with Val to save her or let the word spread to the mercs who would most likely kill her to try and get that memory into their systems. Jess knew that she had to help Val and never in a million years did she think they would be where they are today.....saving story nappers and making stupid money doing it.