Week One

The Quarter, Neon District

The disembodied head and shoulders of Redhat bobbed along the walkway, suspended in front of him. She was gorgeous.

Paladin had expected as much from a high-ranking corporate executive at Bliss Entertainment. Even considering the washed-out glow of the AR hologram, her beauty was unmistakable and justified her appearance in all the vid ads. Her hair spilled out blond beneath the looping brim of her trademark crimson organza hat. A glitch with his optics, a flicker as some hard-case on the street walked through her floating apparition, it didn’t matter. Regardless of what tore through the projection, that velvet smile immediately snapped back.

Like the inescapable grin of a predator.

He’d tapped into his headset to try and make sense of her title, but ”Director of Acquisition Evangelism” didn’t really pull up any meaningful search results. Would his results have been better if he’d had a real Unity SHARE connected to the Compact instead of his knock-off GHOST headset? At least his GHOST was decentralized and didn’t aggregate, then post data to some corporate server detailing every time he took a piss. If the price he’d have to pay for a little privacy was only having access to a hundred thousand paparazzi pics of “Becca” Redhat instead of her corporate data? So be it. At least he wasn’t aping like some Unity twat.

Snickering, he wondered if all those fleez inside Unity City called her Becca. Paladin was sure she’d send in a scorchteam of Oracles to boil the Quarter if he dared to call her Becca on their call. So he called her Redhat, of course. Hells, at that moment, he’d call her Mother if it’d help boost his terms. Bliss wanted to buy his algorithm for, hopefully, enough NEON he’d never have to deck for a Juice raid again.

While everyone in both Neon District and Unity craved a taste of her celebrity, all that interested him was the “acquisition” part of her title.

“When do you think you’ll be able to push it to our servers?” Redhat purred more than asked the question. Surely Bliss would willingly shell out a little extra if he could trace down a credible counter-offer. Help him max out his multisig wallet.

“I have to run through some regressions,” Paladin replied after a moment’s pause. “Finish up some docs. That sort of thing. I want to make sure your people understand how to install it.”

Blit-nanites linked to his GHOST meant he didn’t have to verbalize his response. In addition to enabling how he’d “heard” her voice on their private link, the blits listened for a thought-based SOH command, then transmitted the appropriate subvocalization through the channel. Then, they closed off the local transmission after his EOT signal.

That way, he didn’t look like a freaker, talking to himself out in the open, and more importantly, their secure comms stayed secure. Again, privacy was valuable in Neon District. Especially when making deals in the middle of Shen Ju Street.

“And how long is that going to take?”

“Not much longer. I should have it linked and committed by tea time.” That would give him enough time to scout his hookup with Zeno.

“That sounds lush.” White teeth shone bright between cherry lips. “Get it in before tea, and I may have a little bonus lined up for you, Paladin.”

“I like bonuses.”

“Don’t we all?” She winked. “Talk to you soon.”

Her transmission ended, and her augmented reality projection, overlaid on top of his corneas, flickered out as Paladin cleared his end of the connection. In its place, an oversized neon sign reading “Zero Day” lurched into view. Perfect timing.

Tapping his GHOST again, Paladin pinged his friends, Swipe and Clutch. They were supposed to meet him, in theory to help out.

“Yeah?”

Swipe’s voice crackled to life without an image as he always had his vid powered off. “Privacy, man,” he’d always say. “You never know who is watching.” That argument, especially these days, had turned Paladin on to the same practice.

“Hey man. Get down here. I need your help.”

“Yup. Just finishing this 4-v-4, Pal. Gimme seven minutes.”

“Hurry up, jackhead.” Swipe was always getting lost in console games and blowing past his timestamps. Paladin supposed it could have been worse. He could have been into simsex. Maybe he was. At least his vid was always off.

Clutch finally connected, his vid automatically streaming. He was a lithe little thing. Dark hair. Purse collection. It was inevitable that he’d end up working for Factor with a name like Clutch. He sure as hell wasn’t named for his ability to come through in a pinch.

“Ah, foobar. Was that today?”

“Yeah. Today, Clutch.” Paladin didn’t know why he’d expected him to be ready. “Right now, even.”

Clutch’s vid flatlined.

“I’ll be right there. Don’t wait for me.”

It was a good thing Paladin was fifteen minutes early and Zero Day didn’t look crowded. Opening the door, he stalked past the bouncer and found a table in the back.

“Smoker on the rocks,” he called out to the cog mixing drinks. “A double. I got some business.”

Harmony Downs, Unity City

The tight grouping of harmwheels thundered across the finish line like an iridescent avalanche. The brightly colored spheres were translucent enclosures containing small, three-wheeled racecogs. They lurched around the inside walls of the transteel balls, propelling them, rolling and tumbling around a large figure-eight track, in a tumultuous race for first place.

Moments later, all of the harmwheels crossed the finish line at the exact same moment, resulting in a perfect, eleven-way tie.

“Ugh. Why do we always pick this place? It’s the lamez.” Waving his hand dismissively at the harmwheels, all of which now gathered on the victor’s pad, Chad reached for his fushcia spritzer. “It’s not like there’s ever a real winner.”

“They don’t always end in ties,” is what came out of Glorious’s mouth, but what she wanted to say was, “Ugh. Why do we always invite you?” She didn’t. Instead, Glorious looked to Win-Dee for backup.

Win-Dee shrugged in response. “Not always, but almost. The walking chin-strap does have a point.”

Sighing, Glorious gave up. Neither Candi, nor Roberto would bother weighing in. They were just here for the food and vidkids spotlight. As sponsored Influencers, the five of them were contractually obligated to make ten public appearances each month. Today’s scheduled event happened to be race day at Harmony Downs.

“Yeah,” Chad continued. “The bookies don’t even take bets on individual winners anymore. Just if it’s a tie or not. And it’s always a tie.”

Candi piped up, “Maybe if they dressed them up, it’d be more exciting. You know, put some rainbow lip gloss on the racecogs.”

Of course, that’d be Candi’s suggestion. With her, everything was about lip gloss. She was currently shilling four different lines of lip wear from Bliss Entertainment. Of course, that consistent brand play was probably the reason she had more subs than the rest of them put together. That, and her enormous breasts. The newest and most plush upgrades available on-market were usually a little gift from Bliss for all that shilling. Sometimes a fan contributed to the stack.

Glorious snorted, leaned back on the velvet cushion, and smoothed the flexribbon winding around her leg. The shieldsun was bright today and one of the glittershards had clipped an odd reflection. Couldn’t have that showing up on vids. “Maybe not lip gloss on a cog, but something should be done. This place used to be so fire.”

A few years ago, when Harmony Downs had won the Allocation and first opened, Citizens flocked to see the racecogs in action. Then, gradually, software optimizations from the various teams started closing the gaps between winners and losers. Finish times started to converge with more and more ties, and the crowds started to disappear as the races became more rote. Putting cogs inside the balls, instead of on the track itself, was supposed to add more room for variety in terms of racing complexity. And, it worked for a while. A small blip of interest returned as they introduced these “harmwheels”, but soon enough, the optimizations destroyed that little bit of diversity, too.

“If you want hip, you should just go outside the wall like everyone else.” Candi sprayed another blast of lip cover, layering on her technicolor smile. “Neon District is where all the hi-socs are going these days.”

Roberto peeked over his menu, “As if you’ve ever been to Rev.”

“Of course not.” Her brows pinched as a lilac curl of hair fell from its perch and rested on her cheek. “It’s dangerous out there for a virtue like me.”

Glorious and Win-Dee shared a glance, an eyeroll, and a long, resonating sigh.

“It is! There aren’t any laws!” Candi swept a soft, cream-colored arm in a wide arc. “Look at all this. Safety. Rules. The cogs do all the work. All anyone in Unity needs to do is brunch and play!”

“But it’s boring,” said Glorious.

“Pfft. Only boring people get bored.” Chad winked, for about the ten-thousandth time, at Candi. “Am I right?”

It was Candi’s turn to roll her eyes.

“Man, you need a girlfriend.” Roberto had finally put down the menu, seemingly decided on a brunch plate.

“Just so happens, I’m going on a date tonight.”

“Who is it this time? The girl who follows the delivery cogs around and vids package drop-offs?” She obviously was not a popular influencer as people didn’t generally dapper up to get the mail.

“Hey now, she was cute.”

Copying Glorious, it was Candi’s turn to snort. Definitely on purpose, and definitely with a much more enchanting delivery.

“Whatever. Talk to the cog.” Chad crossed his arms.

“No really. Who is this new girl?” Glorious wasn’t too proud to admit she was curious. If only to open up another vector to make fun of him. A little pandering was worth an exploit shot at Chad.

A huge grin split Chad’s face, “Rebel Pixie.”

“What?” Win-Dee sat up laser-straight. “But she’s hi-soc.”

Hi-socs were the ruling class of influencers. They each drove millions of subs. Tens of millions. If any corporation scored a deal with a member of the high-society, their product immediately mooned. They were shilling geniuses.

“I know.”

“No way,” said Roberto, shaking his head.

“Yes, way,” said Chad.

If any of this was even remotely true, Chad was going to be impossible. Especially if his date tonight was also even remotely successful.

“But she’s top tier.” Win-Dee tilted her head and frowned, dark hair swinging around to frame her warm face. “She’s friends with Allison, for nano’s sake.”

“I know. She said she’d introduce me.”

“But . . . we’re tier three.” Glorious still didn’t understand how any of this worked. Her brain refused to picture Chad and Rebel Pixie together. It just wasn’t done. A tier three being seen in public with a tier one?

“Um. Tier two, thank you,” Candi corrected.

“Fine. But, the rest of us are tier three.”

“Even better? I’m taking her to Rev.” With a twinkle in his eye, Chad whispered, “That’s right. I’m going to Neon District with a hi-soc.”

All three girls groaned in unison.

Roberto picked the menu back up.

A new chapter of Neon District: The Future. Edited., written by Christopher D. Chapman, will be released weekly in preparation of the highly anticipated cyberpunk RPG “Neon District: Season One”.

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