Technical Bleed

1: Requiem For A Glacial Morning


It was cold. It always was in the catacombs below Brook Tree Alley. The temperature probably had a great deal to do with Brook Tree’s close proximity to the glacier that dictated the boundary of our city.


I sucked my fingers for a moment, trying to get some feeling back into them. Shimmering ice coated the once-magnificent renaissance columns in a silver that gave them a ghost of their old dignity back, fingers of it creeping along the flagstones. In the dark recessed of the vault’s ceiling it glittered in the sputtering light from my almost dead torch.


God I hated ice.


Even my interface was whining at the extremeness of it, and I quickly set to my work at its keyboard again before it decided to cut out on me.


Footsteps rang through the ice-coated catacombs like someone striking a bell, and I hunched myself further into my coats, focusing on the droning click-click-click of my keys.


The footsteps ceased just short of me, and I stilled my fingers. “I’m nearly finished.”


“You damn well better be,” a familiar male voice said. “You’ve been working on this bloody technique for weeks now.”


“Months,” I corrected without a thought, focusing once more on the interface. A minute or two passed, and the solid presence continued to lurk behind my shoulder. I stopped again. “What do you want Damian?”


“I’m just watching.”


“You’re a fucking pain. Do you want me to get this finished or not?”


I could imagine the small smile that would be twisting his lips as he hovered for a moment more.


“Yes.”


“Then fuck off.”


Another loaded pause. “Whatever you want, Jezyiah.”


The ring of boot on icy stone faded away into the catacombs, and I finally focused again on my work.


*


Glacier Falls had never been the best place to live. Isolated even in this world where ‘close’ was a thousand kilometers, you never saw anyone new. Just the same people, the same dark, dirty oppressive streets and crowded highrises. Sunlight didn’t think to touch Glacier for most of the year, and when it did it was like an afterthought; brief and halfhearted. I suppose it was more beautiful than most of the cities I’d seen pictures of, with its intricate honeycomb nature and arching bridges and walkways set against the sparkling blue ice of the glacier, but when you’d seen nothing else for twenty-eight years it didn’t seem so breathtaking. But it was home, and until a year or so ago it hadn’t been so bad.


Of course, that was before the great, scandalous Brook Tree affair that drove my clan to the bottom of the pile. You might wonder how an illegal revolutionary gang could get much lower, but trust me, when the other clans decide you’re down, you’re down and there’s no crawling back up out of the dirty sleet again.


I was going to change that.


Damian knew I could, so he’d let me stick around after the debacle. I just wished the bastard would get off my back and let me finish the job properly.


Interface folded and muffled up in a satchel hanging from my shoulder to give it some measure of protection from the cold, I pulled myself up one of the many ladders that lead to the lowest street level from the catacombs. The rungs were frozen solid, treacherous and sticky. I bit my lip whenever my fingertips stuck, leaving a trail of bits of skin and drops of blood.
The satchel bumped awkwardly against my hip through the layers of velvet and wool as I reached the top and balanced precariously on the slick rungs to spin the dial of the hatch that led to the icy street. Its hinges groaned as I swung it back, clambering out and slamming it back down with a loud clang.


Not that the noise was noticed. Brook Tree Alley and surrounds were crowded and noisy; people shouting, laughing, singing, brawling. Underfoot the snow had been churned to a dirty, sloppy soup that froze to a treacherous slick wherever it had a moment to settle. So close to the glacier the smell of ice overpowered most of the more noxious smells that accompanied life in the cities, but beneath it my enhanced olfactors could easily detect the heavy smell of people living in close quarters, of fish, of decay and the bitter overtones that came from the manufacture of countless bits of hardware.


Of all the pieces of me that were tech, most had been procured around Brook Tree. It was barely a step up from the true Glacier slums, but it had its tech to be proud of.


I started off down the bustling alley, touching the brim of my felt hat to the many people that I knew—most because they had made parts of me. It was something that Damian didn’t understand, the way I refused to get tekked-up by one of the major cybernettos over in Black Rabbit district. He didn’t get that I preferred to be done piece by piece by different people who were experts at that one part. I also happened to have a higher opinion of the quality of work done in Brook Tree.


I guess I was just biased, but the parts had done me good the last eleven years of my life, so I wasn’t about to change.


I kept walking until I reached the first major overpass the bisected Brook Tree’s main drag. It cast a wide shadow over the alley, sparkling with so many layers of ice in the bright lights that it sent shimmering fractal rainbows dancing all around.


In the alternating shadows and light behind one of its major support pillars was tucked a dirty chrome trapdoor. I crouched down to press my hand against the panel on its face, and heard a cheerful tone when it had read the data coded into the lines on my palm. I stepped back and watched it swing open before starting down the ladder it concealed.


This one was shorter than the one up from the catacombs, and lacked the horrible coating of ice. I could feel the glorious warmth emanating up from the chamber below, and quickened my pace.
My feet touched warm stone in the corner of a crowded room; a bar set back in one corner, tables and chairs packed haphazardly into the remaining space. The room was barely twenty-five meters square, and there were perhaps fifty people occupying the space. That alone generated substantial heat, but overhead the syrupy glow of a rare heating coil showed the true source of the delicious heat.


Still standing unnoticed in the alcove that housed the ladder I stripped off several layers of clothing; my scarf, hat, ankle-length coat, thigh-length undercoat, two jumpers and my gloves. I bundled up the heavy garments and shoved them into one of the many lockers that pocked the stone alcove, the one with Jezyiah written across the face. Keeping a protective hand on top of the satchel that housed my interface, I moved further into the room.
One man in particular was drawing most of the attention. He was standing on one of the benches, giving a fiery speech about the merits of robotic parts over android. I rolled my eyes. Lark was a massive man with two equally massive robotic arms, and he was always rousing an argument on the topic. The whole world should be able to see your mods, he said. What’s the point of using android parts when you can’t tell the difference between them and real thing?


I sidled onto one of the rear benches, slipping my satchel over my head and resting it on the table.


Then I waited.


A few minutes later one of them finally noticed me, a newbie I didn’t really recognise. Her eyes opened up wide, and she moved quickly to tell Lark.


The girl had a hell of a lot to learn about subtlety.


Lark went quiet, looking straight at me. I smiled and waved.


“Jezzie!” He boomed. I flinched as every eye in the room focused on me.


Lark would never understand subtlety.


“We’re having a meeting in a bit,” he continued.


“I know,” I said. “Lucky Damian told me, because my comm doesn’t seem to be working… I didn’t get the memo.”


There was a protracted silence before Lark smiled, awkwardly. “Thank god for Damian.”
The room lapsed back into a general buzz of chatter, the attention they had been paying to Lark disappearing as quickly as the sun in winter.


Just over a year, and the loss of so much trust and respect still stung something deep inside me.


Lark pretended not to notice me for a few more minutes before sidling over. I edged to the end of the bench to accommodate his imposing, half-mechanical bulk. He hunched over the table, and even then towered over me.


You never, ever want to get into a fist fight with Lark. Believe me, I’ve been there, and it hurts like hell. Had me out cold for seven hours.
That was back in the day though, before things changed. Now we couldn’t afford that kind of familiarity.


“What do you want?” He said gruffly, not even looking at me.


I sighed. “I need a contract. I haven’t been given a job by anyone in weeks, and things are starting to get a bit tight.”


He nodded slowly in understanding. “You know I can’t give you a contract.”


“You’re in charge of the guild Lark, no matter what the clan heads say. You control the cybers. We all answer to you before we answer to our clan heads, that’s why you piss them off so much.” I held my interface tightly, looking up at him.


He continued to stare down at the table. “What’s your point?”


“Give me someone else’s contract. Just one, and tell their clan that they let me do it or they don’t get it done.”


Lark was shaking his head before I finished. “No, Jezzie. I can’t.”


I gritted my teeth. “My energy situation ain’t too crash hot right now you know. I need a hit. Regular rations aren’t going to keep me running much longer.”


Lark was silent for a long moment. “How much longer do you think your organic can take it?”


“Four days, maybe. Less if I use my mek capabilities more.”


“Fuck, Jezzie,” Lark finally looked at me. “Why did you leave it so long to say something? Give me time and I could get you a job somewhere, to tide you over. But not that fast. I don’t have that much power.”


I didn’t say anything. He was right, but I was too damn proud to go begging for a job until I was desperate, no matter how close I came to crippling my organic parts under the strain of supporting all my mek.


“Have you told Damian?” Lark asked.


“No,” I said, too sharply.


Lark stared at me, then sighed. “You can do a transfer from me, then. No matter what everyone says, you’re the best damn cyber Glacier’s ever had. Can’t have you carking on us.”


I twisted my fingers together. “I can’t. You’re robo not andro. You need more than I do.”


“And I can get a job to replace it. You can’t. Just swallow your damn pride and take it, Jezzie. Please.”


“You’ll find me a job in the next week or so?”


Lark nodded. “Come on.” He looked around. “Better find somewhere private to do it before the meeting.”

*