City of Walls: Chapter 1

2048 Present Day

Eeep, Eeep, Eeep. My hand flew out from under the covers, trying to smack the alarm into obedient silence. But it wasn't the alarm that awoke me, it was a warning buzzer from my Overview Screen.

Crap, not again, irritation springing in my brain, breath slowly huffed out in an attempt to calm nerves already singing in tension. Gazing at screen that displayed a predetermined info set from my automated apartment, perched on the wall near my bed, I groped for clean clothes, my mind racing for a feasible alternative for what the screen was telling me.

All ready at max power usage for the week! But I only used the travel pod for my outer office commute. Errands, and food stuffs were delivered and fuel costs were taken directly from my points account. I rationed my watts sparingly, only splurging on my bandwidth. BANDWIDTH! That was it! Fingers stroked the screen, bringing up the browser. All viewing panels had indeed been closed the night before. Then what took up the bandwidth, keeping the browser open, and sucking up watts? Tapping through queues, a delivery marker popped up. Gently, almost reverently, I caressed the screen, highlighting the packaged that had been downloaded to my home drive. It was a heavily encrypted video file, one that had the added security of having all the exif data stripped. Somebody is being real tight on this. Who would send something like this to me?

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP, an alarm overhead sounded. Instinctively my hand shot out to silence the clock. 8:45! Almost late. I pulled the vid over to my netlinks. Disengaging the jeweled mesh of wires from my overview screen I scanned the room for any more necessities, placed the ring like emitters on my fingers, the dangles of receivers around my neck, the controllers around my wrist, I trotted out the door on my way to work.

As I entered the elevator of my building, I made sure that the jewelry styled mobile computer was charged and patched into the office line.

“Freidman’s” A disembodied voice chimed into my ocular receiver.

“Tara here, Sonj- I’m gonna be late. I” I spoke just loud enough for the audio mike on my lip ring.

“Tara, your deck isn’t more than a 5 minuet pod-hop from here.” Sonja replied scornfully.

“Yes, I know that Sonj. However my travel pod is indisposed at the moment.”

“Humph! Did you use all your watts again! You better watch out, or you’ll end up in a higher watt bracket, with more point deductions too!”

“I know, I know. Can you cover for me Sonja?”

“I can do better than that, actually. Mr. Freidman has told me to prepare you for the next tier. Basically you get to be a personal gopher. No one was scheduled to lose an aide until next quarter, and there has been a push, and a need, for an additional receptionist; so I’ll just take you on myself! It is a bit ahead of schedule…” Clacking sounds from her old keyboard could be heard.

“But who’s going to take my station at the file counter?”

“Oh, did you hear about Kenny’s live-in scoring a job?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s been taking pay, but so far just being eye candy for Kenny. Payroll’s about to cut her loose, but I think she can handle locating lost files in the server dungeon. Hee hee heh!”

“She's not a bad person, and it would do her good to learn a new skill. At least now when Kenny dumps her, she'll have somewhere to land. So what’s in store for me, and how does that help me not clocking in on time?”

"You such a do-gooder Tara, I should fix you up with this guy I know."

"Sonj, please don't lay into me already, it's not even 9 a.m.!"I sighed, What's so big a deal about dating? Most people don't even stay in relationships for long either.

“Alright, alright. Stop where you are so I can get a fix on you, as of now, you’re on the clock.”

"Sonj, I'm just hit the ground floor of my building." I hit the hold button on the panel beside the elevator doors, hoping it would keep me still long enough.

"Good, there are some errands to take care of in your near vicinity. And some clients, as well as partners who need a check up in person. Considering that you’re traveling bi-pedal today, that should take up your day just about. I’ll upload an itinerary, and some paper work, along with my Seal Of Approval to your netlinks."

I waited in silence as Sonja transferred files to my data storage. Aw crap! the vid. It took up a quarter of my meager storage.

"Tara, your netlink can’t handle the data stream. I can throttle back the info for now, you won't have an it itinerary, just call me for your next task. But first, it looks like you need an upgrade."

"Sonj- you know I can't afford that!"

"Just let me take care of that. Go on and head over to Goldberg's Jewelry store, we have a standing agreement with them."

"Alright, I trust that you'll mend whatever goes wrong. Hmm, Goldberg's, I think I know where that is, granted I’m usually zooming by at 120 KPS. I’ll get going in that direction.

"Don't forget, you have my SOA, use it like a shield. Now hurry up and get to work." Sonja's soft laugh lingered as she cut off my patch.

"Thanks Sonj." I said to myself. I wonder if they'll upgrade my storage, or give me a whole new link set?

With a new destination in mind, I headed out of the elevator at last.