Chapter Thirteen - Actually Cool
Chapter Thirteen - Actually Cool
A ground-based city is a city whose infrastructure isnt--yet--designed to accommodate sky-based traffic. These cities require that hover vehicles use ground-level commercial and public traffic lanes and are generally accessible for people on foot, or on self-powered vehicles (i.e.: bicycles, roller-blades, scooters).
As Mega-cities continue to become more popular, living in a ground-based city is seen as something less desirable and more mundane. People living in these places are often called Dirt, or Ground Pounders.
--Modern Dictionary of Modern Slang, fourth edition, 2045
***
The city past Downtown wasnt all too different from the city within the barricades. It wasnt like theyd stopped right on the edge of the high-rises. Though the further out I walked, the shorter the buildings became. Most of them were older constructions, the kinds of building styles that were popular in like, the early bit of the century.
These were pre-Antithesis buildings. Cheaper, designed to be prettier. Theyd been retrofitted, of course. All that flat space on their sides was wasted if it wasnt plastered full of ads.
The place was a mess now. More windows were broken than not, and I suspected that had more to do with looters than any alien presence. A couple of places had gone up in flames, and I stepped over the hood of a car that had merged into a few others in what was obviously a spectacular pile-up.
Burlington, it seemed, was very much a ground-based city.
Shes to your right, around the intersection and one floor above ground level.
Thanks, I said. I looked around for any signs of the antithesis and found a whole lot of nothing. Strange. I would have expected them to be swarming almost non-stop. Wasnt that what happened in New Montreal?
Why was it so different here?
It couldnt have been Manic. She was alone and still relatively new. The area around the city had been culled, probably, but... no, I had a worrying feeling in my gut that said that something was off here, and I couldnt place exactly what it was yet.
The missing aliens was part of that, though.
I poked my head around the next intersection and scanned the space. A shopping area? There was a music store, an aug clinic, and a few chain restaurants with flashy ads competing for attention. Or they would have been if they werent off. Neon wasnt nearly as impressive when it was powered down.
The second floor on the music store was blown out, the entire facade missing. Music was coming from there, which... was a little strange. The street seemed entirely unpowered, so what was making the noise?
After checking for stuff that might shoot at me and finding none, I stepped around the corner and started towards the store.
The music continued. It was just a guitar being strummed, something acoustic, if I had to guess (and I did have to guess, I didnt know jack-shit about musical instruments). The sound carried well across the empty street. Without half a hundred air conditioning units and neon tubes humming along and no cars passing by or catchy ad jingles competing for ear-space, the street was a nice, echoey place for a haunting, slow song to linger in.
I didnt know music, but I knew emotions, and that song was as melancholic as any.
I stopped in the middle of the street in front of the music store, head tilted back to watch the player.
She was older than Id imagined, somehow. A 30-something woman with pale blue hair tossed up in a pompadour and shaved on the sides with a clean fade. She was augd to the tits (Which were, admittedly, fantastic), with shockingly blue eyes and a few wires just under the skin of her face.
I laughed. Sorry. Couldnt resist. But really. If you want, hit up the hive yourself. I can stand back and blow shit up when you cant handle it anymore.
Girl, Im too old for that kind of double-think trickery, she warned.
I shook my head. One way or another, weve got hives to explode. You can work with me, you can go at it alone. Either way, we have work to do.
Says who?
Says me, I said.
And youre the boss of this place?
Literally, yeah. Some fuckwit whos never seen the outside of his little beige heaven assigned me to protect this backwater shithole of a city. Trust me, Id rather be back home wearing a lot less and frying my brain out on my media feeds while fondling my girlfriend. But no, instead Im out here giving orders that I hope wont get anyone killed and trying to lead around a bunch of noobs who dont know any better. So yeah, either work with me, or work for me.
Those are my two options? she asked. She stood taller, and I realized that she had a good half-head over me. Still, something about her posture, the way she crossed her arms and scowled... yeah, we were on the same page, more or less. At the very least, we were in the same book.
Well, you can go back to practising your guitar.
She tilted her head to one side, the cybernetics in her neck poking out of her skin in a disconcerting way until her spine cracked, then she did the same on the other side. Yeah, alright, show me what you can do, Stray Cat. You some sort of top-tier samurai?
Not even close, I said. Just been at this for a little longer than you have. Long enough to figure out which end of the gun goes bang.
Hm.
Myalis, nearest hive from here?
Difficult to confirm. With local surveillance networks mostly down, I can only point you in the general direction. There are a few potential locations to visit. One is a botanical shop on the other side of the city, the other a sewage treatment plant, another--and this is the nearest, is beneath the Burlington museum of Natural History.
Cool, I said. I love museums.
Museums? Manic asked. Are we talking about the tallest cabinet thing?
What? I asked.
Yeah, nevermind.
I frowned, but didnt ask. Come on, it cant be too far from here. You can tell me your sob story as we walk.
Fuck you.
Only if youre real okay about threesomes, I replied.
***