Location: Dicky Twister, Vista Del Rey Tags: Music:Radio Station
Germaine had never been particularly forthcoming when it came to the nature of gigs. Oh sure, he'd give the deets, whispered words slithering out from a forked tongue and lips so unusually large, they'd have to be synthetic. But when it came to the methods and the ways in which means of vigilante justice were dished out, well he cared about as much as a fixer should when the client carried no such considerations. Might as well have asked him his opinion on his preference between Constitutional Arms and Tsunami. It all comes out in the wash.
He was a cacophony of cosmetics, sycophant fixation on assembling all the various flashy appendages and pieces to make the perfect thing. He was that persistent pursuit, a skin suit meshed together by neural streamers, chrome flesh, double irises, and enough jewelry and metal to set off an Arasaka AIT weapon sensor from over a mile away. He wasn't that bad though, once you got past the facade and the implications of his perspicacity. He had a means for maneuvering the bureaucracy of fixing, the interrelationships between the various gangs and pseudo-corpo agencies and resistances. And for matters such as that, my gain might has well have been turned down to zero. It simply didn't blip the radar.
"You know where it is?" He whispered, lips jostling distractingly underneath the faintest black mustache that parted at a tear drop piece of chrome, nested in his pronounced philtrum. He had refashioned his hair into some even mixture between a frost topped mohawk, propped up by a god's serving of wax or whatever product stacks the racks in Venetian styled stores like Giovanni Brizzi, and the flowing stream of thin black hair that he proudly called his fashullette. A young man hung on his side, playing with a tassel on Germain's purple blazer that was strategically placed where his nipples likely resided. If he even considered keeping those these days.
"Of course I know where it is…" Any merc worth the eddies knew the locale around All Foods, they just avoided going. It's one of the main hubs for the booster gang, Maelstrom, and base of operation for their illegal exports, security forces, and the not so occasional execution style events often memorialized by songs, affair, and juices running so thick that it lacquers the dance floor of Totentanz. "Speaking of what you know. You know I fucking hate this bar."
"Darling…" He cooed, flirtatiously slapping his friend's hand away from the tassel. I suddenly felt like an uninvited guest to a bit of foreplay. "You need to lighten up. What's a little flesh to help push along the process?"
Flesh, right. It was all bleached and glossy mannequins with members that were comical in size and shape. Dancers pressed against chrome poles on the striptease platforms, in varying degrees of nudity. It all was enough to keep my attention firmly at the bottom of the cup that I had cradled for the past few minutes. Bottom shelf bourbon, watered down with chips of dirty ice.
"Of course…the eddies are low on this one." He pouted his lips, feigning some display of sadness. But it just gave the impression of a retired advertisement for Bottoms Up, The Prequel. Kiss me here, I'll kiss you there.
"You know that's not important." I'd jump at the chance to disrupt Maelstrom and Germaine knew that. Even if he pretended like he didn't, my penchant for causing havoc in corpo funded gang interactions would always trump other factors. The icing on the cake was that this gig had roots running back to Arasaka. The sort of gig to report back home, make the trumpets sing and the brass clatter.
I stood up from the table which up until now, I hadn't realized was as sticky as it was. I massaged my concern by convincing myself it was from spilt drinks and crumbs from what passed for food here. Sliding the cup over to Germaine, the sound of chips rattling against glass like dice thrown in Dogtown, I adjusted my high collar and gave him a nod. "NCT forecast says it's supposed to rain today up on the Northside."
"And when it rains, does it pour?"
I let the answer hang in the thumping air, resonating with the modern electronic beats of 99.9 Impulse. Another reason to hate this bar. I saw myself out through the neon beams, gyrating flesh, and taffy tinted smoke.
She'd put aside enough time to soak until her skin felt as if it was as soft as paper. She blinked and looked up at the screen. There were so many years of content to consume.
Code White
That was distinctly annoying. There was no sender on your message.
With a regretful sigh, she pulled herself up and put of the tub.
A few minutes later she was sat at her table, wrapped in towels and making a call.
"Get someone else for the job, it's too obvious."
"There is no one else."
She knew that job wasn't an AI proper, but it was some basic programme simulating a voice to deal with her.
"How am I explaining this? This will impact my cred."
"We will work something out."
Callista made a small sound of annoyance. She had worked hard to cultivate her cred at street level. She didn't overeach and the gangs didn't cross the line and put a bullet in her skull. That seemed a good arrangement all around.
"A solo has been engaged on the gig already. We will arrange to make contact. If things become messy, don't get linked to it," continued the not-AI.
"Seeing as I don't have a fucking choice here: make contact with a go between. Find somewhere near All Foods for the meet. Don't contact me whilst I'm working this."
An incoming message pinged on the windshield as I dialed down the radio. Wasn't so much an invitation for conversation as it was a suggestion for a meet spot. Just reading between the lines on the text that blurred out portions of the road, it seemed to me like the gig had captured some attention from another participant. Perhaps another merc. Which was a bit inconvenient given my inclination to work solo. But at the risk of ending up in the crossfire of some mystery attendant, I thought it worth enough of my time to delay my arrival to All Foods.
I passed under the expressway moving through Kabuki, taking a hard turn on Charter, as the navigation pane oriented me to the southern end of Northside. There was discrete transition in the surrounding scenery as the not so nuanced culture peeled back to reveal the industrial pursuits that were laid bare in the scav and maelstrom districts. I cut off the messaging and punched it en route to one of the lesser populated Diners at the cross section of fuck all. Wasn't much to say about it that couldn't be gleaned from the towering smoke stacks, abandoned waterside refineries, and export warehouses.
I parked in an otherwise nearly empty lot, terminating at a red and silver diner that brought back nostalgia for an era I had only ever seen captured in vintage Avant-Garde braindances. Between strips of glowing neon yellow, along the exterior roof and along the sidewalke, stood two entry points to the restaurant. I assumed the one with the flashing pink light was for customers while the other stood as a service entrance. Locking up the Javelina, I walked in under the rotating holographic display of a burger with the icon of a flashing sun in the background.
Tom's Diner.
Behind the long bar that ran the distance of the building and tapered off to an entrance into the kitchen, a balding elderly man rubbed the polished bar top with a stained rag. Behind him, the news ran across a long display about recent containment locations implemented by Militech in the eastern Badlands. Something to do with the missing remains of Kang Tao corpo that had been running a rather successful campaign for elected position. Some might say it was too successful.
I took a seat in an empty booth after signaling to the tender for a cup of black coffee. Fiddling with a glass cup near the window that looked out towards the parking lot, I extracted what I assumed was an unused toothpick and fiddled with the pointy end. And advertisement overlay popped up on the window, mirrored image reflected towards the empty lot and intended audience. But I knew the ad all too well, the image of a freight airship across a blue sky in an orange and brown landscape.
Decker, Tanaka, and Rodgers. We move things so your business can grow.
I couldn't help but laugh at the prospect of business growth in Northside, where anything that wasn't firmly rooted had long drifted off towards Kennedy and China Town. I offered nod as the coffee was dropped off and took a slow sip.
