"The City" (Temp Title)

So I've been meaning to start writing again. I kind of went back to my roots as a little kid, creating imaginary adventures, and combined that with my knowledge and fandom of cyberpunk film and literature. So here's what I've got so far. Please don't steal/copy.

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"Running through the room, out the window, and boom; he's gone. 37 stories and not even a stray hair hits the ground. He is gone."

DeMosa shifts uneasily in his red leather chair. His nails are digging into his palms, turning them white. His legs crossed, his foot shaking like a metronome.

"You're telling me that he escaped by leaping out of our building, and didn't hit the ground?"

"Boss, I'm telling you like I saw it. He just threw himself through the glass grinning like a madman, and he didn't fall. The storm out there was something feirce, he just vanished in the rain. We didn't find a goddamn thing."

"And the case?"

Donovan's face tightened. The way his lip curled downward on the left corner was enough to tell DeMosa he got away with it.

"I want you to find that man and bring him back here."

Donovan nodded, nervous and agitated, and you could still see he was more than a little befuddled as to what just took place within the last ten minutes. He turned to leave the office.

"And Donovan?"

"Yes boss?"


DeMosa had already turned his chair around, looking out at the sprawling city under the sheets of rain, the lightning striking the tops of the hundreds of power generators he owned.

"I want him alive."

There was a sharp pain in the center of Donovan's head. He shut his eyes and left the office, his migrane pulsing.

***

The great thing about being me is I'm slippery. I can do just about anything I please. At least, that's what it appears like. The zipline gun was definitely a risk in the thunderstorm, but it was a risk worth taking. Holding the case in one hand and the gun in the other, I glided across the city. Rooftops flew underneath me with such speed they blurred into one another, as if blobs of color were simply strewn below me. I wondered how far the line would take me, what I hit with the destination end of it. The nanomachines in the gun would generate about a mile's worth of spiderstring, give or take a couple hundred of feet depending on the charge of the gun. It was a little lower than usual since the battery had to power the blaster function back in the labs.

The labs. My stomach sinks a little at the thought of the people in the chambers in there. Hard to even call them people. I could've taken some pics, released them to the press, but nobody would believe me. At least, nobody in the press. And the press is all owned by DeMosa, so the ones that would believe it have already seen it, and would naturally deny it. Good luck denying what's in this case, though. Had to tag two guards to get it, sorry bastards. Doubt they even knew what they were guarding, but it was either them or me and this case. And they weren't stopping me from getting this thing out of there.

I hope I land soon.

***

Donovan's cruiser was prowling the streets. He had every camera running, each mounted underneath the plastic body of the car. The onboard computer was checking every image, every detail, every voxel for the slightest hint of James McKay. It contained the most accurate model of him in existence, which didn't say much because he'd been able to keep his profile off the grid since he'd been born. Donovan paused at the thought of James' birth. Who were his parents? Did he have a family? How could he possibly stay out of every major social database in existence if he had loved ones? The amount of anonymity McKay had gave Donovan chills down his spine. He quickly went to turn on the radio.

"--- acid at 24% concentration, so be sure to wear those poncho's, people. If you are in need of a replacement, visit your nearest Red Cross and bring your damaged poncho with you for recycling. And now, here's a track from 1983 off of "Burning Bridges" by Naked Eyes."

He sat back as the synth lines kicked in from the get-go, let the autodrive steer the cruiser, and he shut his eyes again. Why couldn't we catch him, he thought. He didn't look any different than any other man, but he moved like an animal. It wasn't natural. He thought back to the chase.

---

Donovan was supervising an overnight shift in the packing department. He liked it down there, where the screams from the labs couldn't be heard. Those screams, things of bad dreams they were. They were impossible to describe, but once you heard them, you never completely got them out of your head. He spent months waking up every night in a cold sweat, waking up from dreams of those screams. That's how he got the transfer. He was one of the best guards DeMosa had under his employment. Once in a great while he would be assigned bodyguard to DeMosa on various trips. He even got to see Venice once, when DeMosa was meeting with the Prime Minister of New Italy. Two weeks after the meet the PM was found dead, suicide. He had hung himself from the ceiling fan of his living room. What the press didn't tell the public was that he had written "NO GOD" all over his body. He did it with his fingernails.

The goods were being packaged by people who had no idea what it was. They were just happy to be employed, to get paid. To be able to afford to eat. The lucky ones could buy a drink once in a while, if they were awarded a voucher that week. "A Healthy City Is A Happy City!" Brilliant marketing on that one, he thought. Common sense translated the message into "If you consume what we don't want you to, we'll beat control into you."

Control. Something that was definitely not applied in any measure to James McKay. He came bursting through the lab doors, smoke pouring in through the hole he made in the wall. Out of the cloud he came flying, his gun blazing without hitting a soul. Donovan thought about this for a moment too. McKay didn't kill a soul. The one guard probably won't walk again, and the other lost his arm, but they're both in stable condition in the medical bay.

McKay was up on the conveyour belt, running in the direction it rolled, his eyes sharp and fixed on the staircase. Donovan had ran to the freight elevator, hoping he was predicting next McKay's move, trying to stay one step ahead. He was right, too. He got off on the 36th floor, and as he exited the elevator he glimpsed James' sillouhette out of the corner of his eye, running down the corridor. He quickly bolted after him, blaster out and ready to take him down. Then McKay did something Donovan did not expect. The door closing behind McKay, Donovan caught a glimpse of the light, and heard the screa

---

The carphone's sudden ringing startled Donovan and he jumped in his seat, kicking the passenger side door and bending the handle into a now unmoveable position. He cursed to himself as he sat up and touched the center console.

"Hello?"

"Donovan, you sound like shit." A gruff laugh came from the man on screen. It was hearty and warm, the kind of laugh one would hear from a proud father to his son. "Any luck on the search?"

"Hey Mort. Nah, nothing yet. This guy is either really crafty, or dead in a back alley somewhere. I wouldn't be shocked if some bum from this part of town tagged him in the back and took the case."

"Ehh, I doubt it. I've heard of this guy before, apparently he's got quite the fan club down there. They all think he's some sort of 'liberator' or some crap. You might want to try asking around."

"In this get up? I've got a DEC badge plastered on my jacket, and I'm not stepping out in this acid without some sort of cover."

There was another gruff laugh. "Don't be such a pansy, a little acid rain never hurt anybody."

"Yeah, tell that to Griggs. I'm pretty sure they haven't finished filling the holes in his hands at the hospital yet. I like my extremeties in the condition they're in, thanks."

"Well, you better think of something more than just rolling around in that patrol car." Mort had a slight grin on his face. "I hear DeMosa might give you a promotion if you find this guy."

"Thanks, but I'm gonna need a little more motivation than that."

Mort's grin grew wider. "You never cease to amaze me Jason. I'll check up on you later."

The console went to static for a moment, and then standby. Donovan turned the radio back on. He'd known Mort for nearly eight years, since he started working at DeMosa Engineering Corp. He was hired as a lacky, meant to get the coffee and donuts for the guards and engineers. Mort was working on some top secret stuff, the likes of which Donovan still didn't know. He always just assumed it was something to do with the energy collection towers now scattered about the city, collecting electricity from the constant storm cloud that blanketed the sky for miles in every direction. He could still remember what Mort would always ask for. "A diet cola and a plain bagel. And I mean p-l-a-i-n." Every day for two years.

It was Jason's favorite.

***