Chapter 1-A - May 23, 2275: 'Round Midnight
bye spencer
GENRE
It'd been about two weeks since they'd taken off into the barren wastes outside Central Cascadia, but it felt like they'd been gone five times as long. With the desert's dust and sand licking at their heels, the two mercenaries, if you could call them that, sped past decrepit pioneer towns and rolling dunes. They'd been lucky having barely seen a bandit, cop, or some kind of mutated oddity wandering around. About a few hundred kilometers ahead of them, a rain storm was forming, a rarity this far out. It was usually just dust and radiation, but the industrial districts around the city got acid rain on a bad day. All the smog they pumped out could choke even those wearing advanced air filters.
Morgan wasn't used to company on trips like this, though this was her first 'trip like this.' She'd normally gone alone had it not been such a demanding job, one that she herself had put up. For the first time in her life, she'd made the decision to do something for herself and on her own accord. As the sand-filled winds whipped through the rags covering her face and tapped on her goggles, all she could think about was the fact that she refused insurance on her new left arm. A not-so-fancy stock cybernetic arm with wireless movement. Before leaving the city, Morgan took every opportunity to flaunt it, and she'll continue to show it off any chance she gets.
It'd been about three hours since last she spoke to her companion, Garth. Morgan peeked back at the young man who was a good two to three meters back, with the glint of his holo-GPS in his goggles. She wondered how he could see through them, but assumed he probably wasn't even paying attention to what was ahead, just leaving the dessie on autopilot. Catching a quick glimpse of the gear strapped to his DesBike, she couldn't tell if he'd need ammo or other supplies when they reached the next town. Flicking through the filters in her GPS, Morgan checked to see how far out they were; even when traveling at 110 KPH, it'd still take another two hours of constant riding.
Morgan's NeuroCom WICS beeped to life with a notification of an incoming transmission, "What? Whataya want?" She asked the caller.
The sound of rough wind and Garth's voice tapped the inside of her ear drums, "Did you check any of the reports on the net about the town and its surrounding area?" Unlike Morgan, Garth wasn't augmented, at least not deeply. He did his best to stay as close to organic as he could, the only implant being the universal port, a chip reader embedded behind his right ear and the standard universal wireless internal communication system.
"Barely, I saw some rad zones to the South of Batto, along with some commonly used caravan routes..." She trailed off, trying to remember more details. "Why do you ask?"
"Curiosity," Garth began speeding up to her side and resetting their bikes' KPH sync, "And I was wondering, why would anyone settle way out here. Why not back behind the walls of Central? This place is littered with–"
"Bandits? Psychopaths?" Morgan looked over to him and raised an eyebrow, though Garth couldn't see it under her face covering. Off to the North, atop a somewhat solid hill, a caravan of nomads and commoners riding in patchwork buses and junked up, armored combat vehicles. Garth watched them as they kicked up their own dust storm, stretching back a kilo or two. He imagined that if they were in Australia, the caravan would probably be lugging a large water tanker. The thought made him appreciate Cascadia.
"I was gonna say degens, but those work too." His gaze switched, looking out towards the Southern canyons. Deep crevices known to be filled with all sorts of mutations and ungodly horrors. The Southern regions of the desert had been bombarded as a reaction to a dirty bomb going off some-odd years ago, a reaction to the growing mutated populous. "Hmph," Garth ended the call, much to Morgan's relief. No more noise and static ricocheting inside her head.
Upon exiting the weak dust storm, the two saw something neither had seen before: A large sculpture made of what looked to be scrap metal, cloth and bone. Morgan had little reference for the sculpture, but Garth immediately recognized it. Though they'd slowed in preparation for whatever was beyond the dust storm, the size was made even more apparent. Confused, Morgan checked her live GPS but didn't see the sculpture, only a scuffed blot about a kilometer wide emanating from it. She thought there was no way it could've been made recently, the thing was 50 meters tall.
Garth's PDA sprung to life, "Garth, what the hell is that?"
"A shrine..." Morgan was staring right at him.
"...To what?" She looked back to the sculpture; its dark, looming presence disturbed her. It felt alien, yet inviting. The actual top of it was obscured by the encroaching low air pressure, only a faint outline of its shape was visible behind the clouds.
"Some old god. Probably." The closer they got, the tighter its influence became. It felt like the structure stretched to the sky, blotting out the sun with its shadow pressing down upon the desert. Garth kept the structure in the corner of his eye, suspicious of its presence.
Morgan's CerebralOS read her intent and shuffled one of her playlists. Garth had already popped in his earbuds, flipping through a couple of his playlists on his phone. Having nearly a quarter-million songs on his phone was starting to take its toll. Too many titles to choose and scrolling takes forever. Out of frustration, Garth connected his phone to his own OS to select something without having to fiddle with another device.
Another hour passed and the storm had settled in, dumping gallons of rain onto the dehydrated desert sands. The two companions pulled into the shack town of Batto, a dinky place with a population under two thousand. The ruins of recently burned down buildings were slowly revealed to them as the storm clouds obscured the sun's light. Morgan and Garth assumed nothing of the torched shacks as it was common for wildfires to break out in the smoldering heat and intense dryness of the desert. Passing through the town's entrance towards its middle felt like two different places. The short, single floor buildings along the town's outer perimeter looked crummy and unkempt. Each street they passed through had gradually taller buildings, almost like they were scaling for population, but none of the buildings were as large as the skyscrapers back in Central. Very few of these multi-floored buildings had holo-ads or neon displays, often opting for traditional cardboard adverts or posters plastered all over their exteriors.
Their first stop: Finding a garage. It was difficult with everyone closing up for the storm, probably the first storm most of the people there had ever seen. Morgan pointed out the sign above an old concrete building, and the old man behind the counter. He was an odd looking character, silver grey beard, two synthetic arms, and a round beer-belly. Morgan noticed something else about him, the glimpse of a tattoo of a simple eye and curved squiggly-like lines running downward from its pupil. She didn't hesitate to approach him, landing her bike and hopping off into the fresh mud.
Morgan removed her goggles and let them dangle around her neck. She ran her finger against the strands of dark-brown hair stuck in the goggles' crevices, "Hey," she asked, the man didn't turn around to face her, but continued working on a buggy instead, "How much to store our DesBikes here?"
The mechanic still didn't turn around and continued working, "It'll be 15K to store your dessies for da night, and 10K for each followin' night." The mechanic swapped his hand out for another attachment, though Morgan didn't know its purpose. She looked back to Garth, leaning against the wall beneath the sliver of shelter the garage's canopy provided.
"Fuck it, we'll do it. We'll only be here for the night." The mechanic stood up straight, swapped the attachment out with his hand, and turned around. The man had no eyes, but in their place were two small, gunmetal black discs with five dim white lights. "Do you know where we can find a place for the night?" Morgan asked him. The mechanic's ocular implants cycled their lights for a second.
He gestured up the road, "There's a bar three buildin's down, on the right." He looked up to Morgan, "Place called Ol' Moriarty's, hell, you can see it from 'ere." He was right, Morgan could see the busted neon sign glowing down the road, "And wha's yuh name?"
"Morgan," she gestured to her companion, "And that's my traveling partner, Garth."
"Morgan and Garth, huh? Odd names. A'right, that'll be 15,000 cascs 'n' your dessies will be safe 'ere."
Ol' Moriarty's was this dingy dive bar filled with odd characters. Morgan and Garth sat down at the bar and watched as the lone bartender served a mostly cyborg patron his drink. Morgan immediately asked for one, while Garth looked over the bartender and her features. The woman's left leg and arm were cybernetic and the augments were slightly beat up, her face was scarred with one eye being milk-white while her other arm was tatted from her shoulder down to her fingertips. Her short almost bob-like haircut seemed kinda shoddy, and like she'd cut it herself.
Morgan spotted the letters 'B-T-C' embroidered on the bartender's jacket, "Hey, I'll do a Suplex with an extra shot, thanks. Oh, Garth, what do you want?"
"Uh, I don't know, I've never been to a bar before."
"You- You've never been to a bar?" Morgan narrowed her eyes and got close to Garth's face. He pulled away as far as he could without falling over.
"No?" Garth tried to avoid eye contact with her.
"How old are you?"
"That's the third time you've asked me and I'm 22." Garth said, rolling his eyes. "And half your fucking age, grandma." he mumbled, just quiet enough that Morgan didn't hear.
Morgan turned to the bartender, "Eh, what the hell, get him the same," she leaned in, "But double the alcohol," she said with a wink. She watched as Garth left the bar and disappeared into the bathroom. Her look of joy fading into emptiness. The first time in years she'd had someone to drink with and she barely knew who they were. Morgan kind of regretted not talking to him more, in those brief moments they'd made eye-contact, she could see a pain drifting behind them. She couldn't tell when was the right time to ask about Garth's past, let alone any questions about his interests. All she knew was why she selected him. Garth was a cybernetics technician, a piece of an army he refused to give details about, just that it was 'wiped off the face of the Earth.'
The bartender came back and handed Morgan her drink, "You look dead," she said. Morgan looked up to the bartender confused. "You're not from around here, are you?" She asked.
"Am I that obvious?" Morgan skulled the drink and shuttered, two weeks without alcohol made her realize just how much she missed it. Hopefully Garth felt the same, if only a little.
"Not really, no. What's your name?" The bartender said, raising her eyebrows up and down a single time while nodding her head.
Morgan tried to contain her laughter, "I'm Sebastian, but you can just call me Morgan; and no, I'm not interested." She held up the empty glass of ice next to her head and shook it, letting the ice clink against the glass's walls, "But what's yours?"
"Lilly," she started mixing another Suplex.
"First name Lilly, last name... Moriarty?"
"No, Lilly Votali." She handed Morgan the fresh drink, watching as her silver fingers wrapped around the glass.
"Wait, then who's Moriarty?" She took the drink from Lilly.
Lilly rolled her eyes, "The owner, but she isn't here tonight," Lilly leaned in towards Morgan, "She's out on an inventory run or something." Morgan sipped her drink and watched Garth from the corner of her eye as he came out of the restroom; Garth looked around the room again, inspecting the patrons while also looking for something to do having seen the bartender chewing off Morgan's ear. In the corner of the bar sat an old jukebox, patched together with scrap metal and crooked antenna protruding from its top. Lilly finally noticed the woman at her bar wasn't paying attention to her, but to the boy walking up to her jukebox, "Is he with you?" She asked Morgan.
Morgan snapped back to Lilly, "Huh, him? Yeah, we're just travelling together." She said, downing what was left of her drink and shuttered, jerking her neck. Morgan turned in her seat toward Garth. He was leaning over the jukebox's screen, looking around for a way to turn it on. Garth dropped into a squat and started feeling around the broken player's base and then moved onto the sides.
Lilly tapped on Morgan's shoulder, "It's broken."
"It's what?" Morgan cocked her head back to look at her.
"Broken," Lilly took Morgan's cup, cleaned it and gestured to it, wondering if she wanted another drink. Morgan lazily waved it away, "Yeah, it hasn't worked since we got it. I think Moriarty dragged it in from the junkyard just passed here." She chuckled, "She isn't a mechanic or a technician in any way, but she still tried so fucking hard to make that thing work." Morgan continued watching Garth as he pulled a plate off the jukebox's side and caused sparks to fly. Some of the bar patrons were observing this kid tinker away, but no one said anything.
"Actually, Lilly, can you make another drink for me?" Morgan unzipped her leather jacket, and unbuttoned the top three buttons on her shirt. Lilly's intense gaze inspected the newly revealed skin, taking notice of the light scarring that tapered off towards Morgan's right side.
"Sure, but um, what's with the arm?"
"Oh, this thing?" Morgan held her hand to her face with a smirk and flexed her fingers, listening to the joints' muffled hissing as they moved, "It's a custom model that cost me quite a few cascs." She took off her jacket and dragged her sleeve as far up her arm as she could. Pressing a few buttons revealed a small slide-lever along the shoulder of the cybernetic arm. Pulling it down until it clicked and then almost up past the neck caused the arm to go limp. Morgan grabbed the arm by its pseudo-bicep and placed it on the counter with a gentle thud. "Brushed gun-metal and titanium blend built to mimic an Arakami Mark VIII, but the onboard OS is taken from an after-market VIII.03; was a bitch to get working with my native cerebral OS." Morgan's not-so-humble smirk stretched into a big smile, her eyes sparkling and the reserved excitement melting into overt joy, leaping at the opportunity to brag about her newest toy, "I had to force a modified Aramaki program into a wrapper. And then, force the wrapper into an emulator. You'd think there'd be some latency, right, but so far it's been doing great, even in the dust storms."
Lilly cocked her head and examined the arm, "I didn't take you for a techie, I just figured you had a technician operate for you."
Morgan sat back on the bar stool, "Yeah, for the surgery and getting the thing attached to me." She looked proud of herself. Lilly wasn't actually impressed by Morgan and her technical ability. She perceived Morgan as kind of pretentious and overly smug. Lilly knew that everything coming out of her mouth was pretty standard for anyone who worked on cybernetics but wanted to humor her anyways.
"Did you just... you know, chop off your arm?"
Morgan laughed, "I'm not one of those masochists who lops off a perfectly good limb just for some expensive, shiny chrome. No, I, uh..." She pulled her shirt over the metal stump, revealing the severe scarring and burns covering a majority of her chest. "I lost my arm just past my elbow thanks to a plasma rail-gun; along with some organs and a kidney," she lifted her shirt, showing more scars that stretched down to her stomach, "I'm surprised I survived, to be honest. Had it not been for my squad, my body would've stayed on that field, face down in the muck." As Morgan pulled her shirt back down and slid her shoulder back through, Lilly seemed somewhat horrified at how casually Morgan explained the damage. Before docking her arm back in its socket, Morgan caressed the silver crater where her real shoulder used to be. "I had to have the rest of my arm and my shoulder blade removed, then a lot of skin grafting and some synthetic organs installed." She rubbed the left side of her stomach, "Sorry, I guess that was a lot."
"It's fine, really," Lilly shrugged, "I did ask."
Morgan took a deep breath and exhaled, "Random question, you know a place where he and I could stay for the night?" She pointed over her shoulder to Garth.
Lilly looked a little disappointed, probably still assuming the worst. "Yeah, there's a motel across the street, and a slightly less clean one further down the–" Lilly jumped as the jukebox sprung to life with a scratch of static and noise. A few of the other bar patrons glanced over at Garth but didn't really seem to care. Garth smacked the jukebox and the noise became replaced by an old country song from well over 200 years ago. Morgan grabbed the drink she ordered for Garth, its ice already half melted, and walked over to him.
Garth turned to Morgan, "Wha–?" she held the drink to his chest, "Uh, thanks?" He gingerly takes a sip and coughs, "Blegh, mm-hm! That tastes like ass." Garth sets it on the table next to them.
Morgan snickered and downed her drink in one swig, "You did that pretty fast, I thought you specialized in cyberware, not vintage radios."
Garth allowed a faint smile to creep in, "Yeah, that's what I mostly did. I've been tinkering with tech since I was a kid, this was actually pretty easy. Whoever scrapped this together soldered a lot of wires into the wrong places, I'm surprised they didn't just outright break it."
"That's the most you've said to me in a month, and it was about fixing a jukebox." Morgan smirked. She felt a little proud of him, though she didn't know why. His whole demeanor seemed to shift from reservation to confident, and back again almost as quickly.
"You don't exactly ask a lot of questions. Or any, at all."
"Yeah, I'm not really... good at that."
"I can tell. D'you find us somewhere to stay for the night?"
"I–I did. There's a motel, I think it has rooms with two beds, if you care about that."
"I kinda do," Garth said to her. The two of them paused for a moment and awkwardly avoided eye contact. "Did you already pay for the drinks?"
"Not yet," Morgan snatched up Garth's glass, letting it clack against her's. As she walked away, Morgan peeked over her shoulder back at Garth, the kid was staring at the jukebox like he knew there was more he could do. As Morgan set down the glasses, Lilly popped up from behind the counter almost like a cartoon bartender with a rag and a dirty glass in hand.
"Lemme guess: You're heading out?" Morgan nodded her head while avoiding her gaze, "You know, we're open 'til 5am? You don't gotta book a room right away."
"No, Garth and I have to be out of here early tomorrow to beat the storm." Morgan said, gesturing toward the front door.
Lilly threw the rag over her shoulder and put her hand on her hip, "Well, you better get goin' then. The streets out there aren't used to rain, so the mud's pretty na–"
"How much for our tab." Morgan cut her off.
"What?"
"Our tab. I gotta pay now or not at all." Lilly pulled out a thin, black rectangular that had an odd light red icon in the middle and a pale blue light in the bottom left corner. Morgan glanced at the device and then met Lilly's eyes, giving a slightly confused look and Lilly reflected the expression back to Morgan. She then froze for a second as she realized the device was a near decade old casc scanner, something that was long since forgotten back in the metropolis, "Why do you have a SynaCom reader? SynaCom isn't even around anymore."
"As I said, Morgan likes to go digging around the junkyard for crap, she found this. She's cheap." Lilly looked unenthused. Morgan was starting to understand Lilly and Morgan's dynamic, and it was one that she wanted to watch from afar. Morgan pulled up her sleeve and waved her forearm over the scanner. The tiny blue light flashes five times and then stays green, "You're good to go." Lilly gives her a thumbs up.
Garth stopped fiddling with the jukebox and walked up to the counter, "You done yet?"
"Yeah," Morgan said to Garth, she then turned back to Lilly, "Wait, how much was that?"
"Uh... about 790 cascs. The first two drinks were on the house." Shocked by the price, Morgan looked at Garth, who returned a look of disappointment. "Can I ask you guys a question?"
Morgan leaned against her seat, "Sure, shoot."
"What's in your packs?" Lilly pointed back and forth at their packs.
Morgan and Garth looked at each other, and as if they'd had a telepathic conversation answered her, "Just some survival stuff for the trip."
"Ah, okay. Don't tell me." Lilly walked towards the backroom to do dishes, "See ya two later, I guess. Oh, before I forget," Morgan and Garth stop in the entryway, "Better not stay out too late tomorrow." Morgan, puzzled, just shrugged it off.
As they walked out the door, Morgan caught a glimpse of some of the patrons in a far booth. The one posted up, leaning back in his seat, intensely watching them had the same bleeding eye tattoo on his chest. He was grizzly looking, with thin seams along his shoulders and around his elbows. From a distance, you couldn't tell the man was augmented, except for his eyes, which were untainted white with large, deep black dots surrounded by six smaller black dots that quickly rotated to adjust his vision. Morgan's internal systems alerted her that someone was scanning her. As soon as she broke line of sight with the strange man, the alert stopped and the bar doors shut behind her and Garth.
After trudging through the mud slicked street over to the motel, the door opened with an electronic MIDI jingle from an ancient motion sensor. The door slammed behind Morgan and Garth with little resistance. The motel lobby was a dinky vintage with old wood floors and orange metallic walls covered in stickers, posters and an assortment of ads. For a town that seemed so 'off the beaten path,' the lobby's lived-in look made it feel like hundreds came through town every month. The amount of ads referring to jobs in the city seemed odd. Morgan felt somewhat guilty for stomping mud all over the motel's carpets. Garth didn't seem to care; he immediately darted over to the scuffed couch near the reception counter and started flipping through some GunMetal Weekly magazine from the year prior. The counter itself was intimidating, having its own ballistic titanium-weave glass and thick bars penetrating the ceiling from the floor. Sadly, the cutesy chibi and anarchy stickers didn't help much. Approaching the buzzer embedded in the window, Morgan peeked through but still couldn't see anyone. She snapped her fingers at Garth to get his attention and asked him if he'd seen anyone as they walked in, he just shrugged and went back to reading. Morgan gave in and pressed the buzzer, which looked like something from the 2580's. It seemingly made no sound.
A raspy, higher-pitched European voice shot from the room behind the counter, "You need room or some'ting?" A large, heavily augmented man emerged from the room. Morgan noticed the same tattoo as the mechanic under the clerk's shirt collar. "Lady, you want room?"
"Yeah, we need a room with two beds. You got any available?"
"Yes, there is room ready now," The clerk eagerly nodded his head, "Is 500 casc, one night." He held up his index finger, "He, you?"
"Yeah, he's with me."
"How many night you will stay?"
Morgan held up her index finger, "Just one. It is two beds, right?"
The clerk nodded. "You pay now," he said, tapping the glass and pointing to a black pad embedded in the counter. Morgan held her arm over the pad until it beeped. The clerk nodded again and grabbed a keychain with an attached card reading 'Room 211' and slid it through the slot in the glass.
Morgan snapped her fingers again, Garth didn't react. "Hey you! I got us a room, let's go." Morgan walked up the stairwell, Garth trailed behind her. Morgan stopped at the door leading back outside to the upper floor and pulled Garth close, "You and I need to talk when we get to the room." Garth's eyes widened, not knowing what to make of the statement. "Two-one-one, two-one-one, two-one-one..." Morgan mumbled to herself as they walked down the walkway, "Ah! Here it is," Morgan snapped to Garth, "Get the fuck inside. Now." She shoved Garth inside and peeked through the door's opening before quickly shutting it. The room had a slight musky aroma, but looked surprisingly clean with made-up beds and a holo-vision mounted to the wall.
Garth slung his pack onto the bed far from the door and started rummaging through his things, pulling out a few guns and carefully splaying them atop his bed. Morgan did the same but stopped halfway, grabbing Garth's shoulder, "What? You're acting fuckin' weird, Morgan. Did I do something wrong?"
Morgan shook her head and sat on the edge of her bed, "No, you're fine. There's something off about this place."
Garth also sat on the edge of his bed, "Um, okay. I don't really understand what you're getting at." His eyes narrowed and met Morgan's.
"The monument on the way in, the amount of people around her who have the same 'bleeding eye' tattoo on their chests? You didn't think any of that was odd?"
"I hadn't really noticed." They both sat in silence for a moment before Garth stood up and went back to checking his guns.
"Garth, did you see any reports of psychos out this way?" Her eyes boring holes into Garth. He was starting to understand that look was Morgan's way of getting attention.
Garth stopped scanning his iron and stood up straight, "I might've heard something. You're not suggesting..."
"No, no... but maybe? It's totally possible."
Garth sighed, "You realize we can't stay here to investigate something not worth our time." Morgan was still sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her feet and rubbing her metal hand against her real one, "Shouldn't you be cleaning your guns, making sure sand didn't get inside 'em?"
Morgan scoffed at the suggestion and abruptly stood up, "I'm gonna check out the junkyard." She slid her magnum into the holster strapped to her thigh.
"But it's still–"
"I'm aware," Morgan threw on her jacket and slammed the door behind her. Garth sat alone in silence, wondering whether he should follow her or just take a shower.
The rain was coming down harder than before, the droplets sounding like bullets clacking against the motel's roof. The misty splashback obscured Morgan's view of the street and made it hard to hear anything but she could still hear someone moving down below. Leaning over the railing, a shadowy figure quickly rushed past, towards the left of their room. Morgan pulled out her revolver and jogged down to the end, frantically switching the modes in her eyes until she could see in the night. She vaulted over the railing and slammed into the ground, but the figure wasn't there. Confused, she spun around, scanning everything she could. Upon switching to infrared, a red-green blob was hopping across the rooftops of some houses. Morgan smirked and began sprinting after them, leaping onto the roof mere meters behind the cloaked figure. They froze for a second, not expecting to be followed so closely. Morgan could hear their quick, panicked breathing, and held her revolver up. The sound of the revolver's hammer cocking made the figure tense up. As Morgan slowly approaches, the stalker swallows and stops panting. The sound of the rain seems to mute. In one swift motion, the stalker's left forearm split open and a serrated blade swung out, grazing Morgan's left inner thigh. Gritting her teeth, she drops down on one knee and lets a single shot ring out. The stalker flips over Morgan just as the bullet tears through their right foot, destroying it and blasting pieces across the rooftop. Wincing through the pain, the stalker lands behind Morgan with a stumble and gasps. Morgan quickly stands on her uninjured right leg and roundhouses the stalker in the chest, knocking them a few feet away. Pulling up their blade, the stalker pops back up and zig-zags towards Morgan in an attempt to catch her off-guard. Morgan blocks the swipe by grabbing the blade with her metallic arm and firmly plants her boot in the stalker's chest. And with one clean, sturdy jerk, rips the blade implant and the stalker's forearm from their body. The stalker goes flying and slams against the roof door. Unfazed, Morgan pulls up her revolver once again, aims it directly at the stalker's head and tosses the busted arm aside. It twitches and flexes in a pool of water at the edge of the roof before finally ceasing.
The stalker tries to stand, but Morgan says, "Don't." Morgan can barely hear her own heavy breathing under the tapping of rain and the sparks coming from the stalker's broken arm. The stalker frantically looks around, the beads of water and sweat running off their chin and fluid sputtering from their busted implant. They grit their teeth with every inhale, gripping their destroyed stump of chrome. Morgan reaches down, grabs them by the shoulder and kicks them in the face, knocking them over. She drops down, pinning her left knee on their still intact arm, her revolver's long barrel to their chest. She squints and looks over the stalker's body. "They" were in fact "she," with a face that seemed younger than Garth's. From what Morgan could see in the night rain were silver seams along the girl's face and neck, evidence of deep augmentation and the possibility of complete cyberization, or at least an enhanced head. She moved her gun's barrel slowly up to the girl's neck and lifted her cloak. The girl had the same bleeding eye tattooed along the nape of her neck. Taking advantage of Morgan being distracted by her inspection, the girl pulls out a small contact taser and plants it on Morgan's calf, the one place she can reach while being pinned down. With one slight tap, the taser activates. The jolt of electricity is worsened in the downpour, and Morgan's cybernetics locked up, her arm spasms and her eyes roll back while trying to fight the surge. The girl headbutts Morgan, knocking her over. Catching her breath, the girl watches Morgan spasm in the water while she, herself, struggles to stand with her obliterated foot. The girl hobbles away, leaving a brief trail of blood and synth-fluid that dissipates in the coming rain's shallow puddles.
Though, due to the taser's size, its battery runs out after about five minutes. Exhausted from the barrage of watts, Morgan lays still, feeling the cold, acidic rain kiss her face. Hearing someone approaching below, she looks to her right as Garth scales the building, his face being a welcome surprise.
Their eyes meet over the roof's edge. Surprised, he says, "Morgan! Shit!" Garth struggles to pull himself up, his feet slipping against the building's wall. Once he's up, Garth pulls up his gun, looking around the roof for anyone else. Without saying anything, Morgan reaches out with her right arm and slaps her fingers against her palm. Garth grabs her hand, helping her stand, but Morgan legs still feel weak and she falters. Garth drags Morgan to a nearby canopy on the rooftop; looking over her body for wounds, he sees the gash in her thigh. "Jesus Christ, Morgan, you're bleeding. We gotta go back and patch you up."
Morgan smacks his arm away, "I'm fine, the bleeding will stop soon." She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out some medical glue; pinching the wound closed and squeezing the clear ooze across it, Morgan blows on the glaze as it seals up. As she breathes a sigh of relief, Morgan steps out from beneath the canopy, looks up to the moon above and closes her eyes, feeling the rain droplets caress her face before reaching their final destination. Garth sits on an overturned milkcrate and slings his shotgun into his hands. Waiting for Morgan to finish whatever she was doing, he started looking it over as he didn't get the chance to inspect it back in the motel room. Ejecting the magazine, Garth realized he didn't actually load the gun and froze for a moment. He embarrassingly stared into the empty mag, wondering how he could have missed such a thing.
"It was a girl," Garth looked up to Morgan who was now looking over her shoulder back at him, her eyes like beautiful mismatched daggers. "A fucking little girl was watching us. I let a child get me," she said to him, emotionless.
"What the hell," Garth's mind raced with theories but none of them made sense.
"Yeah, I know," Morgan looked ahead, scanning the small moonlit town. "But she had the same tattoo as the other people here."
"What tattoo? I never noticed any–"
"I know you didn't," Morgan returned to the canopy and planted herself on the milkcrate adjacent to Garth, "A bleeding eye. I've never seen an image like it, have you?" Her elbows on her knees, she continued to send daggers his way.
"A bleeding eye." Morgan gave a single, slight nod. Garth leaned back against the wall and said, "Well, fuck. And here I thought that was some bullshit Louis urban legend."
"I'm sorry, you want to explain?"
"Right here?" Garth tilted his head to the heavy downpour beating the roof like a drum, "Don't you think we should head back, where it's not soaking wet?"
Morgan sighed and then stood up, "You're gonna have to help me down, this hasn't fully healed." She pats her wound and struggles to keep a straight face.
"Oh yeah? I coulda guessed." Garth flipped over the edge of the roof, hung down then dropped while dragging his hands along the wall.
Morgan looked over the edge to make sure he was still standing below, "I can't believe I'm saying this," she mumbled. "You better catch me!" Garth clapped his hands twice and gestured to come down. Morgan followed by hanging before dropping onto Garth, nearly knocking both of them into the mud.
He grabbed her right arm and pulled it over his shoulder, propping her up, she groaned and watched as the mud made way for her feet as she dragged them alongside Garth's. He felt awkward holding her side, he could feel the lumps of scarring and surgery beneath her clothes. It didn't feel like the rain was gonna let up anytime soon, or at all for that matter. The two of them walked back in silence, both not knowing what to really say and not wanting to alert anyone to their presence.
Getting back to the motel, Garth struggled to open the front doors while holding Morgan. She got fed up with his struggle and grabbed the door's edge, nearly crushing it with her mechanical arm and swung it open. The motel lobby was empty once again, the visage of the tall foreign man behind the counter was vacant, leaving behind an almost lonely presence. The two of them didn't stop to knock the mud from their feet and just slunk past the lobby and up the stairs back to the balcony. Garth looked around at the plethora of motel doors ahead of him, and then behind him. Morgan sighed, reached into her pocket and pulled out their room keycard. She then lightly slapped him in the face with it, and in response, he sent back an unamused look before taking the card. Garth felt like she was getting heavier as they passed room after room. As he slid the card into the door's slot, Morgan looked out across the town, watching bolts of lightning punch the earth in the distance. Garth moved her inside, helping her lean against the bathroom sink. Garth pressed the button next to the front door, it slid closed with the first clap of thunder slipping through as the metal shoved into its gap. As Garth walked back into the bathroom, Morgan was plopping down on the toilet seat, her pants just above her knees.
She snapped her fingers twice, "In my pack, there's a medical field kit. Left side, bottom pocket, get it for me," she said between breaths. Garth nodded and grabbed the kit. He examined for a second, then he heard Morgan groan, "Motherfuck!" Garth came back and saw her hunched over, blood dripping on the floor. The wound wasn't sealed up anymore, the gooey residue of the sealant was still faint along its opening. The rain must've caused the glue to break down.
Garth handed her the kit, "You need any help?"
Morgan grabbed the railing opposite the toilet, looked up at the wall with clenched teeth and heavy, deep breaths. She grumbled, "No. Go clean our toys." She reached down and grabbed her revolver, tossing it to him. She pulled herself in then pushed off the rail to sit up again. Garth moved his tongue inside his mouth, popping his lip and gently nodded his head as he walked back to the beds. He opened the revolver's cylinder and knocked the four bullets and single casing on the bed. He looked over the casing and pocketed it, then put the bullets back in Morgan's pack. He could hear her still groaning in the bathroom, assuming she was being dramatic.
Morgan held the stapler in her mouth as she squeezed a stronger sealant into the wound. As the goo settled in, she grit her teeth waiting for the pain to subside before she began stapling it shut. Fighting back tears became more difficult, she looked at the numbing agent in the kit, but again, refused to use it. Morgan pinched the gash as tight as she could and used the stapler. She winced with each individual staple penetrating her skin. It'd been awhile since the last time she'd actually been physically hurt, her tolerance was almost nothing. The staples then cinched shut and dug in deeper.
Garth made sure all six guns were ready to go. He owned three and she owned three. Morgan had bought him a large, used, after-market sniper off one of her merc friends, but the full-auto pistol and custom shotgun were his. He was a little jealous of her arsenal. They'd stopped at her place just before leaving through the East Gate. He'd seen the secret room in Morgan's apartment; a three-wall spread of metal and chrome. She'd spent about an hour deciding on what to bring: her .50 caliber revolver, a military-issue full-auto assault rifle decked out from stock to barrel, and a vintage triple barrel sawed off that shot incendiary shells. She'd demoed the shotgun for Garth on her roof, shredding and roasting dummies. He'd never seen most of the guns she had, most seemed heavily modified. She also had her own augmentation station for swapping out parts without having to see a cyberdoc. Garth's prized possession was his shotgun. A heavily modded trench//LORD Gutter Mk. VI that spit corrosive slugs. Morgan had actually come up with that, she'd actually tweaked all his guns before they left, but he did get it from his friend Kite, whose signature 'KiteSoft' OS was loaded on the shotgun in order to crack it.
Morgan limped out of the bathroom in a tank-top and briefs, with an angry expression that spooked Garth. He watched as she sat at the table in the far corner of the room, throwing her jacket onto the table. Garth reached into his pack and grabbed two packets of 99% water and tossed one to Morgan. She cracked the seal and sucked the fluid out, as did Garth. They sat in silence. Garth peeked at her from the corner of his eye.
Garth broke the silence, "You, uh... patch yourself up?"
Morgan drank the last of the water and gasped, "Hurt like a bitch," she let her head hang over her shoulder and looked at him, "But yeah, I'll heal. Probably be good to go by morning."
Garth looked at the digital clock mounted in the wall beside their beds, "It is morning. It's nearly 3am right now."
Morgan rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling, "How'd you find me."
"Huh?"
She looked back to him, now looking back at her, "How'd you find me anyways? I didn't tell you where I actually was, just that I was going to the junkyard."
He put his fist over his mouth and popped his knuckles, "I went outside to follow you, then I heard the gunshot. I saw your silhouettes on the roof. That's it."
"Really?" Morgan reached into her jacket pocket, "What's this then," she pulled out a tiny, grey thin square and set it on the table.
Garth looked her in the eye, "You know what that is. You hired me to protect you, and," he reached and snatched the tracker from between her fingers, "How else am I supposed to aid you if I'm not there?" He shoved the square into his pants pocket.
"I understand the sentiment, Garth, but I didn't hire you to stalk me. I hired you to maintain my mechanics because," she leaned in, "That is where you and I differ." She noticed that his pupils were dilated. She remained silent, her stare bothered Garth and his eyes darted to the left. She cocked her head, "Are you fucking fried, right now. On a goddamn job?" She stood up and glared down at the boy, now burying his vision in the floor, "Not only did you slip a tracer on me, but you're fucking zooted off–" She grabbed his face, startling him. Caressing his eyelids with her thumbs, she noticed the distinct red veins creeping up from behind his eyeballs, "You're fucked up on– What is that? Czerwony?" Garth pulled away, avoiding eye contact but saying nothing. Morgan stood up straight again, pushing her shoulders back while keeping fixed on the back of Garth's head.
Garth took in a deep breath, Morgan could hear the faint choking of the snot in his nose. Breathing back out, he mumbled, "It helps me... helps me manage." Morgan was unfazed, "I use it to–"
Morgan covered Garth's mouth and moved his face to meet hers, "I'm sorry, but I do not care. I got stabbed, found out you are a liability," he felt like melting into the floor, "and it's just past three. We are. Going to. Sleep. Understood." Garth gently nodded. She pulled her hand away from his mouth, walked over to her bed and moved everything onto the floor before climbing under the sheets. Garth sucked in his lips, still nodding his head and wiped away the few tears that escaped his eyes. He looked at Morgan, her closed eyes peeking over the blanket. He blinked. She was now looking at him, so he snapped to a different angle. Garth carefully picked up his steel pieces and strapped them back onto his pack.
But before getting in bed, he reached into the large front pocket of his pack, and pulled out an external VR-EX headset. He slipped it onto his forehead, and looked back to Morgan , now looking away from him. He slipped under his blanket, taking note of how stiff and cheap the mattress felt. It was somewhat comforting though, the mattress felt familiar; similar to the dirty twin he used to sleep on in Louisiana. That vague nostalgia felt less inviting and more like a reminder of how far he'd come. He stared at the ceiling, tracing the little lines etched into it with his eyes. To him, they looked like circuits on a board. He smiled for a moment, pulling the thin wire from the headset and popping its plug into the port hidden under his hair. A few seconds after he flicked the on-switch, his eyes rolled back and he fluttered his eyelids shut. Garth rarely used the headset his mentor had gotten him, it helped him sleep by sending his mind to places he'd rather be.
Morgan wasn't used to company on trips like this, though this was her first 'trip like this.' She'd normally gone alone had it not been such a demanding job, one that she herself had put up. For the first time in her life, she'd made the decision to do something for herself and on her own accord. As the sand-filled winds whipped through the rags covering her face and tapped on her goggles, all she could think about was the fact that she refused insurance on her new left arm. A not-so-fancy stock cybernetic arm with wireless movement. Before leaving the city, Morgan took every opportunity to flaunt it, and she'll continue to show it off any chance she gets.
It'd been about three hours since last she spoke to her companion, Garth. Morgan peeked back at the young man who was a good two to three meters back, with the glint of his holo-GPS in his goggles. She wondered how he could see through them, but assumed he probably wasn't even paying attention to what was ahead, just leaving the dessie on autopilot. Catching a quick glimpse of the gear strapped to his DesBike, she couldn't tell if he'd need ammo or other supplies when they reached the next town. Flicking through the filters in her GPS, Morgan checked to see how far out they were; even when traveling at 110 KPH, it'd still take another two hours of constant riding.
Morgan's NeuroCom WICS beeped to life with a notification of an incoming transmission, "What? Whataya want?" She asked the caller.
The sound of rough wind and Garth's voice tapped the inside of her ear drums, "Did you check any of the reports on the net about the town and its surrounding area?" Unlike Morgan, Garth wasn't augmented, at least not deeply. He did his best to stay as close to organic as he could, the only implant being the universal port, a chip reader embedded behind his right ear and the standard universal wireless internal communication system.
"Barely, I saw some rad zones to the South of Batto, along with some commonly used caravan routes..." She trailed off, trying to remember more details. "Why do you ask?"
"Curiosity," Garth began speeding up to her side and resetting their bikes' KPH sync, "And I was wondering, why would anyone settle way out here. Why not back behind the walls of Central? This place is littered with–"
"Bandits? Psychopaths?" Morgan looked over to him and raised an eyebrow, though Garth couldn't see it under her face covering. Off to the North, atop a somewhat solid hill, a caravan of nomads and commoners riding in patchwork buses and junked up, armored combat vehicles. Garth watched them as they kicked up their own dust storm, stretching back a kilo or two. He imagined that if they were in Australia, the caravan would probably be lugging a large water tanker. The thought made him appreciate Cascadia.
"I was gonna say degens, but those work too." His gaze switched, looking out towards the Southern canyons. Deep crevices known to be filled with all sorts of mutations and ungodly horrors. The Southern regions of the desert had been bombarded as a reaction to a dirty bomb going off some-odd years ago, a reaction to the growing mutated populous. "Hmph," Garth ended the call, much to Morgan's relief. No more noise and static ricocheting inside her head.
Upon exiting the weak dust storm, the two saw something neither had seen before: A large sculpture made of what looked to be scrap metal, cloth and bone. Morgan had little reference for the sculpture, but Garth immediately recognized it. Though they'd slowed in preparation for whatever was beyond the dust storm, the size was made even more apparent. Confused, Morgan checked her live GPS but didn't see the sculpture, only a scuffed blot about a kilometer wide emanating from it. She thought there was no way it could've been made recently, the thing was 50 meters tall.
Garth's PDA sprung to life, "Garth, what the hell is that?"
"A shrine..." Morgan was staring right at him.
"...To what?" She looked back to the sculpture; its dark, looming presence disturbed her. It felt alien, yet inviting. The actual top of it was obscured by the encroaching low air pressure, only a faint outline of its shape was visible behind the clouds.
"Some old god. Probably." The closer they got, the tighter its influence became. It felt like the structure stretched to the sky, blotting out the sun with its shadow pressing down upon the desert. Garth kept the structure in the corner of his eye, suspicious of its presence.
Morgan's CerebralOS read her intent and shuffled one of her playlists. Garth had already popped in his earbuds, flipping through a couple of his playlists on his phone. Having nearly a quarter-million songs on his phone was starting to take its toll. Too many titles to choose and scrolling takes forever. Out of frustration, Garth connected his phone to his own OS to select something without having to fiddle with another device.
Another hour passed and the storm had settled in, dumping gallons of rain onto the dehydrated desert sands. The two companions pulled into the shack town of Batto, a dinky place with a population under two thousand. The ruins of recently burned down buildings were slowly revealed to them as the storm clouds obscured the sun's light. Morgan and Garth assumed nothing of the torched shacks as it was common for wildfires to break out in the smoldering heat and intense dryness of the desert. Passing through the town's entrance towards its middle felt like two different places. The short, single floor buildings along the town's outer perimeter looked crummy and unkempt. Each street they passed through had gradually taller buildings, almost like they were scaling for population, but none of the buildings were as large as the skyscrapers back in Central. Very few of these multi-floored buildings had holo-ads or neon displays, often opting for traditional cardboard adverts or posters plastered all over their exteriors.
Their first stop: Finding a garage. It was difficult with everyone closing up for the storm, probably the first storm most of the people there had ever seen. Morgan pointed out the sign above an old concrete building, and the old man behind the counter. He was an odd looking character, silver grey beard, two synthetic arms, and a round beer-belly. Morgan noticed something else about him, the glimpse of a tattoo of a simple eye and curved squiggly-like lines running downward from its pupil. She didn't hesitate to approach him, landing her bike and hopping off into the fresh mud.
Morgan removed her goggles and let them dangle around her neck. She ran her finger against the strands of dark-brown hair stuck in the goggles' crevices, "Hey," she asked, the man didn't turn around to face her, but continued working on a buggy instead, "How much to store our DesBikes here?"
The mechanic still didn't turn around and continued working, "It'll be 15K to store your dessies for da night, and 10K for each followin' night." The mechanic swapped his hand out for another attachment, though Morgan didn't know its purpose. She looked back to Garth, leaning against the wall beneath the sliver of shelter the garage's canopy provided.
"Fuck it, we'll do it. We'll only be here for the night." The mechanic stood up straight, swapped the attachment out with his hand, and turned around. The man had no eyes, but in their place were two small, gunmetal black discs with five dim white lights. "Do you know where we can find a place for the night?" Morgan asked him. The mechanic's ocular implants cycled their lights for a second.
He gestured up the road, "There's a bar three buildin's down, on the right." He looked up to Morgan, "Place called Ol' Moriarty's, hell, you can see it from 'ere." He was right, Morgan could see the busted neon sign glowing down the road, "And wha's yuh name?"
"Morgan," she gestured to her companion, "And that's my traveling partner, Garth."
"Morgan and Garth, huh? Odd names. A'right, that'll be 15,000 cascs 'n' your dessies will be safe 'ere."
Ol' Moriarty's was this dingy dive bar filled with odd characters. Morgan and Garth sat down at the bar and watched as the lone bartender served a mostly cyborg patron his drink. Morgan immediately asked for one, while Garth looked over the bartender and her features. The woman's left leg and arm were cybernetic and the augments were slightly beat up, her face was scarred with one eye being milk-white while her other arm was tatted from her shoulder down to her fingertips. Her short almost bob-like haircut seemed kinda shoddy, and like she'd cut it herself.
Morgan spotted the letters 'B-T-C' embroidered on the bartender's jacket, "Hey, I'll do a Suplex with an extra shot, thanks. Oh, Garth, what do you want?"
"Uh, I don't know, I've never been to a bar before."
"You- You've never been to a bar?" Morgan narrowed her eyes and got close to Garth's face. He pulled away as far as he could without falling over.
"No?" Garth tried to avoid eye contact with her.
"How old are you?"
"That's the third time you've asked me and I'm 22." Garth said, rolling his eyes. "And half your fucking age, grandma." he mumbled, just quiet enough that Morgan didn't hear.
Morgan turned to the bartender, "Eh, what the hell, get him the same," she leaned in, "But double the alcohol," she said with a wink. She watched as Garth left the bar and disappeared into the bathroom. Her look of joy fading into emptiness. The first time in years she'd had someone to drink with and she barely knew who they were. Morgan kind of regretted not talking to him more, in those brief moments they'd made eye-contact, she could see a pain drifting behind them. She couldn't tell when was the right time to ask about Garth's past, let alone any questions about his interests. All she knew was why she selected him. Garth was a cybernetics technician, a piece of an army he refused to give details about, just that it was 'wiped off the face of the Earth.'
The bartender came back and handed Morgan her drink, "You look dead," she said. Morgan looked up to the bartender confused. "You're not from around here, are you?" She asked.
"Am I that obvious?" Morgan skulled the drink and shuttered, two weeks without alcohol made her realize just how much she missed it. Hopefully Garth felt the same, if only a little.
"Not really, no. What's your name?" The bartender said, raising her eyebrows up and down a single time while nodding her head.
Morgan tried to contain her laughter, "I'm Sebastian, but you can just call me Morgan; and no, I'm not interested." She held up the empty glass of ice next to her head and shook it, letting the ice clink against the glass's walls, "But what's yours?"
"Lilly," she started mixing another Suplex.
"First name Lilly, last name... Moriarty?"
"No, Lilly Votali." She handed Morgan the fresh drink, watching as her silver fingers wrapped around the glass.
"Wait, then who's Moriarty?" She took the drink from Lilly.
Lilly rolled her eyes, "The owner, but she isn't here tonight," Lilly leaned in towards Morgan, "She's out on an inventory run or something." Morgan sipped her drink and watched Garth from the corner of her eye as he came out of the restroom; Garth looked around the room again, inspecting the patrons while also looking for something to do having seen the bartender chewing off Morgan's ear. In the corner of the bar sat an old jukebox, patched together with scrap metal and crooked antenna protruding from its top. Lilly finally noticed the woman at her bar wasn't paying attention to her, but to the boy walking up to her jukebox, "Is he with you?" She asked Morgan.
Morgan snapped back to Lilly, "Huh, him? Yeah, we're just travelling together." She said, downing what was left of her drink and shuttered, jerking her neck. Morgan turned in her seat toward Garth. He was leaning over the jukebox's screen, looking around for a way to turn it on. Garth dropped into a squat and started feeling around the broken player's base and then moved onto the sides.
Lilly tapped on Morgan's shoulder, "It's broken."
"It's what?" Morgan cocked her head back to look at her.
"Broken," Lilly took Morgan's cup, cleaned it and gestured to it, wondering if she wanted another drink. Morgan lazily waved it away, "Yeah, it hasn't worked since we got it. I think Moriarty dragged it in from the junkyard just passed here." She chuckled, "She isn't a mechanic or a technician in any way, but she still tried so fucking hard to make that thing work." Morgan continued watching Garth as he pulled a plate off the jukebox's side and caused sparks to fly. Some of the bar patrons were observing this kid tinker away, but no one said anything.
"Actually, Lilly, can you make another drink for me?" Morgan unzipped her leather jacket, and unbuttoned the top three buttons on her shirt. Lilly's intense gaze inspected the newly revealed skin, taking notice of the light scarring that tapered off towards Morgan's right side.
"Sure, but um, what's with the arm?"
"Oh, this thing?" Morgan held her hand to her face with a smirk and flexed her fingers, listening to the joints' muffled hissing as they moved, "It's a custom model that cost me quite a few cascs." She took off her jacket and dragged her sleeve as far up her arm as she could. Pressing a few buttons revealed a small slide-lever along the shoulder of the cybernetic arm. Pulling it down until it clicked and then almost up past the neck caused the arm to go limp. Morgan grabbed the arm by its pseudo-bicep and placed it on the counter with a gentle thud. "Brushed gun-metal and titanium blend built to mimic an Arakami Mark VIII, but the onboard OS is taken from an after-market VIII.03; was a bitch to get working with my native cerebral OS." Morgan's not-so-humble smirk stretched into a big smile, her eyes sparkling and the reserved excitement melting into overt joy, leaping at the opportunity to brag about her newest toy, "I had to force a modified Aramaki program into a wrapper. And then, force the wrapper into an emulator. You'd think there'd be some latency, right, but so far it's been doing great, even in the dust storms."
Lilly cocked her head and examined the arm, "I didn't take you for a techie, I just figured you had a technician operate for you."
Morgan sat back on the bar stool, "Yeah, for the surgery and getting the thing attached to me." She looked proud of herself. Lilly wasn't actually impressed by Morgan and her technical ability. She perceived Morgan as kind of pretentious and overly smug. Lilly knew that everything coming out of her mouth was pretty standard for anyone who worked on cybernetics but wanted to humor her anyways.
"Did you just... you know, chop off your arm?"
Morgan laughed, "I'm not one of those masochists who lops off a perfectly good limb just for some expensive, shiny chrome. No, I, uh..." She pulled her shirt over the metal stump, revealing the severe scarring and burns covering a majority of her chest. "I lost my arm just past my elbow thanks to a plasma rail-gun; along with some organs and a kidney," she lifted her shirt, showing more scars that stretched down to her stomach, "I'm surprised I survived, to be honest. Had it not been for my squad, my body would've stayed on that field, face down in the muck." As Morgan pulled her shirt back down and slid her shoulder back through, Lilly seemed somewhat horrified at how casually Morgan explained the damage. Before docking her arm back in its socket, Morgan caressed the silver crater where her real shoulder used to be. "I had to have the rest of my arm and my shoulder blade removed, then a lot of skin grafting and some synthetic organs installed." She rubbed the left side of her stomach, "Sorry, I guess that was a lot."
"It's fine, really," Lilly shrugged, "I did ask."
Morgan took a deep breath and exhaled, "Random question, you know a place where he and I could stay for the night?" She pointed over her shoulder to Garth.
Lilly looked a little disappointed, probably still assuming the worst. "Yeah, there's a motel across the street, and a slightly less clean one further down the–" Lilly jumped as the jukebox sprung to life with a scratch of static and noise. A few of the other bar patrons glanced over at Garth but didn't really seem to care. Garth smacked the jukebox and the noise became replaced by an old country song from well over 200 years ago. Morgan grabbed the drink she ordered for Garth, its ice already half melted, and walked over to him.
Garth turned to Morgan, "Wha–?" she held the drink to his chest, "Uh, thanks?" He gingerly takes a sip and coughs, "Blegh, mm-hm! That tastes like ass." Garth sets it on the table next to them.
Morgan snickered and downed her drink in one swig, "You did that pretty fast, I thought you specialized in cyberware, not vintage radios."
Garth allowed a faint smile to creep in, "Yeah, that's what I mostly did. I've been tinkering with tech since I was a kid, this was actually pretty easy. Whoever scrapped this together soldered a lot of wires into the wrong places, I'm surprised they didn't just outright break it."
"That's the most you've said to me in a month, and it was about fixing a jukebox." Morgan smirked. She felt a little proud of him, though she didn't know why. His whole demeanor seemed to shift from reservation to confident, and back again almost as quickly.
"You don't exactly ask a lot of questions. Or any, at all."
"Yeah, I'm not really... good at that."
"I can tell. D'you find us somewhere to stay for the night?"
"I–I did. There's a motel, I think it has rooms with two beds, if you care about that."
"I kinda do," Garth said to her. The two of them paused for a moment and awkwardly avoided eye contact. "Did you already pay for the drinks?"
"Not yet," Morgan snatched up Garth's glass, letting it clack against her's. As she walked away, Morgan peeked over her shoulder back at Garth, the kid was staring at the jukebox like he knew there was more he could do. As Morgan set down the glasses, Lilly popped up from behind the counter almost like a cartoon bartender with a rag and a dirty glass in hand.
"Lemme guess: You're heading out?" Morgan nodded her head while avoiding her gaze, "You know, we're open 'til 5am? You don't gotta book a room right away."
"No, Garth and I have to be out of here early tomorrow to beat the storm." Morgan said, gesturing toward the front door.
Lilly threw the rag over her shoulder and put her hand on her hip, "Well, you better get goin' then. The streets out there aren't used to rain, so the mud's pretty na–"
"How much for our tab." Morgan cut her off.
"What?"
"Our tab. I gotta pay now or not at all." Lilly pulled out a thin, black rectangular that had an odd light red icon in the middle and a pale blue light in the bottom left corner. Morgan glanced at the device and then met Lilly's eyes, giving a slightly confused look and Lilly reflected the expression back to Morgan. She then froze for a second as she realized the device was a near decade old casc scanner, something that was long since forgotten back in the metropolis, "Why do you have a SynaCom reader? SynaCom isn't even around anymore."
"As I said, Morgan likes to go digging around the junkyard for crap, she found this. She's cheap." Lilly looked unenthused. Morgan was starting to understand Lilly and Morgan's dynamic, and it was one that she wanted to watch from afar. Morgan pulled up her sleeve and waved her forearm over the scanner. The tiny blue light flashes five times and then stays green, "You're good to go." Lilly gives her a thumbs up.
Garth stopped fiddling with the jukebox and walked up to the counter, "You done yet?"
"Yeah," Morgan said to Garth, she then turned back to Lilly, "Wait, how much was that?"
"Uh... about 790 cascs. The first two drinks were on the house." Shocked by the price, Morgan looked at Garth, who returned a look of disappointment. "Can I ask you guys a question?"
Morgan leaned against her seat, "Sure, shoot."
"What's in your packs?" Lilly pointed back and forth at their packs.
Morgan and Garth looked at each other, and as if they'd had a telepathic conversation answered her, "Just some survival stuff for the trip."
"Ah, okay. Don't tell me." Lilly walked towards the backroom to do dishes, "See ya two later, I guess. Oh, before I forget," Morgan and Garth stop in the entryway, "Better not stay out too late tomorrow." Morgan, puzzled, just shrugged it off.
As they walked out the door, Morgan caught a glimpse of some of the patrons in a far booth. The one posted up, leaning back in his seat, intensely watching them had the same bleeding eye tattoo on his chest. He was grizzly looking, with thin seams along his shoulders and around his elbows. From a distance, you couldn't tell the man was augmented, except for his eyes, which were untainted white with large, deep black dots surrounded by six smaller black dots that quickly rotated to adjust his vision. Morgan's internal systems alerted her that someone was scanning her. As soon as she broke line of sight with the strange man, the alert stopped and the bar doors shut behind her and Garth.
After trudging through the mud slicked street over to the motel, the door opened with an electronic MIDI jingle from an ancient motion sensor. The door slammed behind Morgan and Garth with little resistance. The motel lobby was a dinky vintage with old wood floors and orange metallic walls covered in stickers, posters and an assortment of ads. For a town that seemed so 'off the beaten path,' the lobby's lived-in look made it feel like hundreds came through town every month. The amount of ads referring to jobs in the city seemed odd. Morgan felt somewhat guilty for stomping mud all over the motel's carpets. Garth didn't seem to care; he immediately darted over to the scuffed couch near the reception counter and started flipping through some GunMetal Weekly magazine from the year prior. The counter itself was intimidating, having its own ballistic titanium-weave glass and thick bars penetrating the ceiling from the floor. Sadly, the cutesy chibi and anarchy stickers didn't help much. Approaching the buzzer embedded in the window, Morgan peeked through but still couldn't see anyone. She snapped her fingers at Garth to get his attention and asked him if he'd seen anyone as they walked in, he just shrugged and went back to reading. Morgan gave in and pressed the buzzer, which looked like something from the 2580's. It seemingly made no sound.
A raspy, higher-pitched European voice shot from the room behind the counter, "You need room or some'ting?" A large, heavily augmented man emerged from the room. Morgan noticed the same tattoo as the mechanic under the clerk's shirt collar. "Lady, you want room?"
"Yeah, we need a room with two beds. You got any available?"
"Yes, there is room ready now," The clerk eagerly nodded his head, "Is 500 casc, one night." He held up his index finger, "He, you?"
"Yeah, he's with me."
"How many night you will stay?"
Morgan held up her index finger, "Just one. It is two beds, right?"
The clerk nodded. "You pay now," he said, tapping the glass and pointing to a black pad embedded in the counter. Morgan held her arm over the pad until it beeped. The clerk nodded again and grabbed a keychain with an attached card reading 'Room 211' and slid it through the slot in the glass.
Morgan snapped her fingers again, Garth didn't react. "Hey you! I got us a room, let's go." Morgan walked up the stairwell, Garth trailed behind her. Morgan stopped at the door leading back outside to the upper floor and pulled Garth close, "You and I need to talk when we get to the room." Garth's eyes widened, not knowing what to make of the statement. "Two-one-one, two-one-one, two-one-one..." Morgan mumbled to herself as they walked down the walkway, "Ah! Here it is," Morgan snapped to Garth, "Get the fuck inside. Now." She shoved Garth inside and peeked through the door's opening before quickly shutting it. The room had a slight musky aroma, but looked surprisingly clean with made-up beds and a holo-vision mounted to the wall.
Garth slung his pack onto the bed far from the door and started rummaging through his things, pulling out a few guns and carefully splaying them atop his bed. Morgan did the same but stopped halfway, grabbing Garth's shoulder, "What? You're acting fuckin' weird, Morgan. Did I do something wrong?"
Morgan shook her head and sat on the edge of her bed, "No, you're fine. There's something off about this place."
Garth also sat on the edge of his bed, "Um, okay. I don't really understand what you're getting at." His eyes narrowed and met Morgan's.
"The monument on the way in, the amount of people around her who have the same 'bleeding eye' tattoo on their chests? You didn't think any of that was odd?"
"I hadn't really noticed." They both sat in silence for a moment before Garth stood up and went back to checking his guns.
"Garth, did you see any reports of psychos out this way?" Her eyes boring holes into Garth. He was starting to understand that look was Morgan's way of getting attention.
Garth stopped scanning his iron and stood up straight, "I might've heard something. You're not suggesting..."
"No, no... but maybe? It's totally possible."
Garth sighed, "You realize we can't stay here to investigate something not worth our time." Morgan was still sitting on the edge of her bed, staring down at her feet and rubbing her metal hand against her real one, "Shouldn't you be cleaning your guns, making sure sand didn't get inside 'em?"
Morgan scoffed at the suggestion and abruptly stood up, "I'm gonna check out the junkyard." She slid her magnum into the holster strapped to her thigh.
"But it's still–"
"I'm aware," Morgan threw on her jacket and slammed the door behind her. Garth sat alone in silence, wondering whether he should follow her or just take a shower.
The rain was coming down harder than before, the droplets sounding like bullets clacking against the motel's roof. The misty splashback obscured Morgan's view of the street and made it hard to hear anything but she could still hear someone moving down below. Leaning over the railing, a shadowy figure quickly rushed past, towards the left of their room. Morgan pulled out her revolver and jogged down to the end, frantically switching the modes in her eyes until she could see in the night. She vaulted over the railing and slammed into the ground, but the figure wasn't there. Confused, she spun around, scanning everything she could. Upon switching to infrared, a red-green blob was hopping across the rooftops of some houses. Morgan smirked and began sprinting after them, leaping onto the roof mere meters behind the cloaked figure. They froze for a second, not expecting to be followed so closely. Morgan could hear their quick, panicked breathing, and held her revolver up. The sound of the revolver's hammer cocking made the figure tense up. As Morgan slowly approaches, the stalker swallows and stops panting. The sound of the rain seems to mute. In one swift motion, the stalker's left forearm split open and a serrated blade swung out, grazing Morgan's left inner thigh. Gritting her teeth, she drops down on one knee and lets a single shot ring out. The stalker flips over Morgan just as the bullet tears through their right foot, destroying it and blasting pieces across the rooftop. Wincing through the pain, the stalker lands behind Morgan with a stumble and gasps. Morgan quickly stands on her uninjured right leg and roundhouses the stalker in the chest, knocking them a few feet away. Pulling up their blade, the stalker pops back up and zig-zags towards Morgan in an attempt to catch her off-guard. Morgan blocks the swipe by grabbing the blade with her metallic arm and firmly plants her boot in the stalker's chest. And with one clean, sturdy jerk, rips the blade implant and the stalker's forearm from their body. The stalker goes flying and slams against the roof door. Unfazed, Morgan pulls up her revolver once again, aims it directly at the stalker's head and tosses the busted arm aside. It twitches and flexes in a pool of water at the edge of the roof before finally ceasing.
The stalker tries to stand, but Morgan says, "Don't." Morgan can barely hear her own heavy breathing under the tapping of rain and the sparks coming from the stalker's broken arm. The stalker frantically looks around, the beads of water and sweat running off their chin and fluid sputtering from their busted implant. They grit their teeth with every inhale, gripping their destroyed stump of chrome. Morgan reaches down, grabs them by the shoulder and kicks them in the face, knocking them over. She drops down, pinning her left knee on their still intact arm, her revolver's long barrel to their chest. She squints and looks over the stalker's body. "They" were in fact "she," with a face that seemed younger than Garth's. From what Morgan could see in the night rain were silver seams along the girl's face and neck, evidence of deep augmentation and the possibility of complete cyberization, or at least an enhanced head. She moved her gun's barrel slowly up to the girl's neck and lifted her cloak. The girl had the same bleeding eye tattooed along the nape of her neck. Taking advantage of Morgan being distracted by her inspection, the girl pulls out a small contact taser and plants it on Morgan's calf, the one place she can reach while being pinned down. With one slight tap, the taser activates. The jolt of electricity is worsened in the downpour, and Morgan's cybernetics locked up, her arm spasms and her eyes roll back while trying to fight the surge. The girl headbutts Morgan, knocking her over. Catching her breath, the girl watches Morgan spasm in the water while she, herself, struggles to stand with her obliterated foot. The girl hobbles away, leaving a brief trail of blood and synth-fluid that dissipates in the coming rain's shallow puddles.
Though, due to the taser's size, its battery runs out after about five minutes. Exhausted from the barrage of watts, Morgan lays still, feeling the cold, acidic rain kiss her face. Hearing someone approaching below, she looks to her right as Garth scales the building, his face being a welcome surprise.
Their eyes meet over the roof's edge. Surprised, he says, "Morgan! Shit!" Garth struggles to pull himself up, his feet slipping against the building's wall. Once he's up, Garth pulls up his gun, looking around the roof for anyone else. Without saying anything, Morgan reaches out with her right arm and slaps her fingers against her palm. Garth grabs her hand, helping her stand, but Morgan legs still feel weak and she falters. Garth drags Morgan to a nearby canopy on the rooftop; looking over her body for wounds, he sees the gash in her thigh. "Jesus Christ, Morgan, you're bleeding. We gotta go back and patch you up."
Morgan smacks his arm away, "I'm fine, the bleeding will stop soon." She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out some medical glue; pinching the wound closed and squeezing the clear ooze across it, Morgan blows on the glaze as it seals up. As she breathes a sigh of relief, Morgan steps out from beneath the canopy, looks up to the moon above and closes her eyes, feeling the rain droplets caress her face before reaching their final destination. Garth sits on an overturned milkcrate and slings his shotgun into his hands. Waiting for Morgan to finish whatever she was doing, he started looking it over as he didn't get the chance to inspect it back in the motel room. Ejecting the magazine, Garth realized he didn't actually load the gun and froze for a moment. He embarrassingly stared into the empty mag, wondering how he could have missed such a thing.
"It was a girl," Garth looked up to Morgan who was now looking over her shoulder back at him, her eyes like beautiful mismatched daggers. "A fucking little girl was watching us. I let a child get me," she said to him, emotionless.
"What the hell," Garth's mind raced with theories but none of them made sense.
"Yeah, I know," Morgan looked ahead, scanning the small moonlit town. "But she had the same tattoo as the other people here."
"What tattoo? I never noticed any–"
"I know you didn't," Morgan returned to the canopy and planted herself on the milkcrate adjacent to Garth, "A bleeding eye. I've never seen an image like it, have you?" Her elbows on her knees, she continued to send daggers his way.
"A bleeding eye." Morgan gave a single, slight nod. Garth leaned back against the wall and said, "Well, fuck. And here I thought that was some bullshit Louis urban legend."
"I'm sorry, you want to explain?"
"Right here?" Garth tilted his head to the heavy downpour beating the roof like a drum, "Don't you think we should head back, where it's not soaking wet?"
Morgan sighed and then stood up, "You're gonna have to help me down, this hasn't fully healed." She pats her wound and struggles to keep a straight face.
"Oh yeah? I coulda guessed." Garth flipped over the edge of the roof, hung down then dropped while dragging his hands along the wall.
Morgan looked over the edge to make sure he was still standing below, "I can't believe I'm saying this," she mumbled. "You better catch me!" Garth clapped his hands twice and gestured to come down. Morgan followed by hanging before dropping onto Garth, nearly knocking both of them into the mud.
He grabbed her right arm and pulled it over his shoulder, propping her up, she groaned and watched as the mud made way for her feet as she dragged them alongside Garth's. He felt awkward holding her side, he could feel the lumps of scarring and surgery beneath her clothes. It didn't feel like the rain was gonna let up anytime soon, or at all for that matter. The two of them walked back in silence, both not knowing what to really say and not wanting to alert anyone to their presence.
Getting back to the motel, Garth struggled to open the front doors while holding Morgan. She got fed up with his struggle and grabbed the door's edge, nearly crushing it with her mechanical arm and swung it open. The motel lobby was empty once again, the visage of the tall foreign man behind the counter was vacant, leaving behind an almost lonely presence. The two of them didn't stop to knock the mud from their feet and just slunk past the lobby and up the stairs back to the balcony. Garth looked around at the plethora of motel doors ahead of him, and then behind him. Morgan sighed, reached into her pocket and pulled out their room keycard. She then lightly slapped him in the face with it, and in response, he sent back an unamused look before taking the card. Garth felt like she was getting heavier as they passed room after room. As he slid the card into the door's slot, Morgan looked out across the town, watching bolts of lightning punch the earth in the distance. Garth moved her inside, helping her lean against the bathroom sink. Garth pressed the button next to the front door, it slid closed with the first clap of thunder slipping through as the metal shoved into its gap. As Garth walked back into the bathroom, Morgan was plopping down on the toilet seat, her pants just above her knees.
She snapped her fingers twice, "In my pack, there's a medical field kit. Left side, bottom pocket, get it for me," she said between breaths. Garth nodded and grabbed the kit. He examined for a second, then he heard Morgan groan, "Motherfuck!" Garth came back and saw her hunched over, blood dripping on the floor. The wound wasn't sealed up anymore, the gooey residue of the sealant was still faint along its opening. The rain must've caused the glue to break down.
Garth handed her the kit, "You need any help?"
Morgan grabbed the railing opposite the toilet, looked up at the wall with clenched teeth and heavy, deep breaths. She grumbled, "No. Go clean our toys." She reached down and grabbed her revolver, tossing it to him. She pulled herself in then pushed off the rail to sit up again. Garth moved his tongue inside his mouth, popping his lip and gently nodded his head as he walked back to the beds. He opened the revolver's cylinder and knocked the four bullets and single casing on the bed. He looked over the casing and pocketed it, then put the bullets back in Morgan's pack. He could hear her still groaning in the bathroom, assuming she was being dramatic.
Morgan held the stapler in her mouth as she squeezed a stronger sealant into the wound. As the goo settled in, she grit her teeth waiting for the pain to subside before she began stapling it shut. Fighting back tears became more difficult, she looked at the numbing agent in the kit, but again, refused to use it. Morgan pinched the gash as tight as she could and used the stapler. She winced with each individual staple penetrating her skin. It'd been awhile since the last time she'd actually been physically hurt, her tolerance was almost nothing. The staples then cinched shut and dug in deeper.
Garth made sure all six guns were ready to go. He owned three and she owned three. Morgan had bought him a large, used, after-market sniper off one of her merc friends, but the full-auto pistol and custom shotgun were his. He was a little jealous of her arsenal. They'd stopped at her place just before leaving through the East Gate. He'd seen the secret room in Morgan's apartment; a three-wall spread of metal and chrome. She'd spent about an hour deciding on what to bring: her .50 caliber revolver, a military-issue full-auto assault rifle decked out from stock to barrel, and a vintage triple barrel sawed off that shot incendiary shells. She'd demoed the shotgun for Garth on her roof, shredding and roasting dummies. He'd never seen most of the guns she had, most seemed heavily modified. She also had her own augmentation station for swapping out parts without having to see a cyberdoc. Garth's prized possession was his shotgun. A heavily modded trench//LORD Gutter Mk. VI that spit corrosive slugs. Morgan had actually come up with that, she'd actually tweaked all his guns before they left, but he did get it from his friend Kite, whose signature 'KiteSoft' OS was loaded on the shotgun in order to crack it.
Morgan limped out of the bathroom in a tank-top and briefs, with an angry expression that spooked Garth. He watched as she sat at the table in the far corner of the room, throwing her jacket onto the table. Garth reached into his pack and grabbed two packets of 99% water and tossed one to Morgan. She cracked the seal and sucked the fluid out, as did Garth. They sat in silence. Garth peeked at her from the corner of his eye.
Garth broke the silence, "You, uh... patch yourself up?"
Morgan drank the last of the water and gasped, "Hurt like a bitch," she let her head hang over her shoulder and looked at him, "But yeah, I'll heal. Probably be good to go by morning."
Garth looked at the digital clock mounted in the wall beside their beds, "It is morning. It's nearly 3am right now."
Morgan rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling, "How'd you find me."
"Huh?"
She looked back to him, now looking back at her, "How'd you find me anyways? I didn't tell you where I actually was, just that I was going to the junkyard."
He put his fist over his mouth and popped his knuckles, "I went outside to follow you, then I heard the gunshot. I saw your silhouettes on the roof. That's it."
"Really?" Morgan reached into her jacket pocket, "What's this then," she pulled out a tiny, grey thin square and set it on the table.
Garth looked her in the eye, "You know what that is. You hired me to protect you, and," he reached and snatched the tracker from between her fingers, "How else am I supposed to aid you if I'm not there?" He shoved the square into his pants pocket.
"I understand the sentiment, Garth, but I didn't hire you to stalk me. I hired you to maintain my mechanics because," she leaned in, "That is where you and I differ." She noticed that his pupils were dilated. She remained silent, her stare bothered Garth and his eyes darted to the left. She cocked her head, "Are you fucking fried, right now. On a goddamn job?" She stood up and glared down at the boy, now burying his vision in the floor, "Not only did you slip a tracer on me, but you're fucking zooted off–" She grabbed his face, startling him. Caressing his eyelids with her thumbs, she noticed the distinct red veins creeping up from behind his eyeballs, "You're fucked up on– What is that? Czerwony?" Garth pulled away, avoiding eye contact but saying nothing. Morgan stood up straight again, pushing her shoulders back while keeping fixed on the back of Garth's head.
Garth took in a deep breath, Morgan could hear the faint choking of the snot in his nose. Breathing back out, he mumbled, "It helps me... helps me manage." Morgan was unfazed, "I use it to–"
Morgan covered Garth's mouth and moved his face to meet hers, "I'm sorry, but I do not care. I got stabbed, found out you are a liability," he felt like melting into the floor, "and it's just past three. We are. Going to. Sleep. Understood." Garth gently nodded. She pulled her hand away from his mouth, walked over to her bed and moved everything onto the floor before climbing under the sheets. Garth sucked in his lips, still nodding his head and wiped away the few tears that escaped his eyes. He looked at Morgan, her closed eyes peeking over the blanket. He blinked. She was now looking at him, so he snapped to a different angle. Garth carefully picked up his steel pieces and strapped them back onto his pack.
But before getting in bed, he reached into the large front pocket of his pack, and pulled out an external VR-EX headset. He slipped it onto his forehead, and looked back to Morgan , now looking away from him. He slipped under his blanket, taking note of how stiff and cheap the mattress felt. It was somewhat comforting though, the mattress felt familiar; similar to the dirty twin he used to sleep on in Louisiana. That vague nostalgia felt less inviting and more like a reminder of how far he'd come. He stared at the ceiling, tracing the little lines etched into it with his eyes. To him, they looked like circuits on a board. He smiled for a moment, pulling the thin wire from the headset and popping its plug into the port hidden under his hair. A few seconds after he flicked the on-switch, his eyes rolled back and he fluttered his eyelids shut. Garth rarely used the headset his mentor had gotten him, it helped him sleep by sending his mind to places he'd rather be.
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