City of Walls: Chapter 4

"Huh…I'm still not getting any readings." Carl said. He walked up to the girl crumpled on the street, and nudged her with his foot. He bent down and the green glow that encircled her head flowed through the air to the young man's head.

          "Genie, it looks like she ain't got any nanos for me to take."

          "What do you mean? Everyone's got nanos." She replied tersely. Genie came closer to Carl's side, anger etched in the muscles of her arms. "I need more nanos!" She wrapped her hands in Carl's shirt, pulling him closer.

          "Hey cool it!" Carl broke Genie's grasp on his shirt with a simple sweep of his arm. "You know this is as tough on me as it is on you. It's not easy for any of us. Bruce needs 'em or else he'll..."

          "Wus goin' on ova der?" Bruce, the first modrpunk called from his post, where he'd taken cover once again.

          "Bruce and I will dump her over on 14th. It'll be hours before she wakes up or anyone finds her. Look for her ID." Carl instructed Genie with a pat on the shoulder. He trotted over to Bruce "Hey man, she doesn't have any nannites." The grizzly face Carl spoke to seemed to cave in a bit. Carl quickly interjected, "did she say anything to you?"

          "She wus poor. Jus a messenger. Mebe she deliverin' somethin', we cud take it an sell it." Bruce's voice trembled as he spoke to Carl.   "She ded say she'd give us wuut she cud."

          "Alright my man! That's good thinking!" Carl responded in a light hearted voice. "I'll get right on that. You keep an eye out here." Bruce's mouth drew itself out in a slow smile as Carl made his way back to Genie.

          "You get anything, Genie?"

          "Ya. She's Tara Harrison, a level 3 living in a level 4 deck." Genie shoved the data card into Carl's hands. 

          "Well that kinda explains her lack of nannites. She's gotta be pulling some strings to be living in that building." Carl continued examining the card. "It doesn't say anything about relatives." He snapped the card in half then crushed the remaining pieces under foot, rendering the ID useless. Lowering himself onto his knees, he began removing the netlink devices from the girls arms and hands. Genie began undoing the clasp of the girl's necklace. Holding the data crystal in her right hand, she reached for her ear with her left. On the cartilage of her outer ear was a standard control module with 6 small gems encrusted in it. With a touch to a purple gem, a yellow glow emitted from her fingertips and enveloped the data crystal. When the yellow quickly darkened to a dark amber, Genie tightened her hand into a fist.

          "Little brats got an firewall process running."

          "So she does have something valuable in there!" Carl smiled at Genie, and slowly put his hand on her fist. "Allow me my dear, no need to work yourself into a sweat."

          "Ladies don't sweat, they glow." She held on to the data crystal for a moment more, then dropped into Carl's hand.

          "You always glow radiantly." Carl said with a half smile and a short bow. Genie blushed and smiled back, then turned to walk back to her hiding spot in a building across the street.

          Carl turned back around, facing Bruce's direction, "Hey help me carry her over to 14th and I'll get started on cracking her crystal." The first modrpunk that Tara had encountered once again appeared from his hiding place. He did as Carl asked, lifting Tara in his arms from the ground. Bruce lumbered off to the edge of their territory, with Carl following them.

          While walking, Carl held the crystal tightly in his left fist. The green glow slowly drifted from his eye to his fist. Once it encircled his fist, he made a motion, like peeling a banana, with his right hand. The air around his left hand shifted from green to an intense blue, then back to green and a small beep was heard. He opened his fist, leaving his palm facing upward and a holopad appear. On the pad was a breakdown of the crystals storage capacity and a list of its contents.

          "Bruce my boy, we could be hitting it big. One massive, highly encrypted file, and some small fry stuff. I'll check the small ones first, then devote all of my nannites to cracking the big one." He pointed at the first item listed, titled Invoice, on his holopad and a small menu popped opened. The first option was Display, and the second was Scrap. He pointed at Display, and a second holopad appeared on the right side of the first. Carl's eyes darted back and forth, scanning the info on the page.

          "We just got new netlink set!" Carl said to Bruce with a smile on his face. Bruce paused his trek and turned to look down at Carl.

          "Wud dat halp me?" Bruce asked, his face unreadable due to his modifications. Carl brought his hand to his mouth and began chewing on the knuckle of his right index finger.

          "I hadn't thought about it before,"He stopped chewing his finger, but kept his hand near his mouth, "but we might be able to do something with it. We can have two, if we take her old one before we use this invoice to get the new one. I know a guy who could do it for us." He paused and didn't speak for some time. "Yeah, he'll do it, I gotta talk to Genie about a favor, but she won't mind. Set the girl down and start gathering all her jewelry. We'll sort the baubles from the useful stuff later." He turned again to the glimmering screens hovering above his left hand. He lowered his hand from his mouth then pointed to the second item listed on the first holopad. It was titled, SOA.

City of Walls: Chapter 3

          Author's note: Only just realized that the wrong version of chapter 3 was posted. This is the correct version.

 

          Walking ahead a few paces I looked around for signs of recent fire damage, or signs of decay. Some structures can be too old and weak to handle modern power. Electrical surges running into older wiring systems had a tendency to blossom into all kinds of trouble. It was not uncommon for whole areas to be blockaded until each and every wiring junction was tested. What was uncommon was the lack of workers, or even work vehicles. No one was checking the area. I turned around quickly and began to race back the way I had come. "Almost a block in, what was I thinking? How stup.." My teeth clacked down on my words as I looked up.

          From the darkened entryway of the second building I'd passed on my way in, a figure emerged. Tall, muscular, and gruesome. It had scales covering the upper portions of its torso, biceps, shoulders, and neck. The abdomen wash a mash of scales, hair, and patches of bare skin, as though different physiques were at war. From the waist down short hair tufted out from rips in the pants it wore.

          My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I saw before me. No shirt means it's probably male. The face was wrinkled with features tightly drawn together, as though someone had molded it in clay then scrunched it together after seeing the result. Bright eyes peered through the folds, a blunt nose sat atop a fat lipped mouth, which joined a protruding chin, giving a snout like feel to the face. An oddly doomed head toped overall appearance of the thing before me. Gotta be a modrpunk.

          "Look," I stammered, thinking good just wants creds, maybe I can get him to take watts instead, "I'm just a messenger, I don't get a lot. But I'll give what I have."

          "Not a lot huh? Pretty little face like that don get born often. Tell you what, you get to keep your creds. I like for those who believe to eat another day. Jus gimme your beauty nannites. Carl, Genie, we got a believer out here." He called somewhere off to my right.

          My heart pounded, and my breath rushed out of me. Curse my face! It thought I had nannites that made me pretty. My ancestral roots were in Native America, Pacific Islander, and Euro-Spanish. My family tree looked very interesting charted over the world. My face had a somewhat unique structural texture. Gracefully curved angles, large yet almond shaped eyes, medium length nose rounded at a small point, full lips drawn in a delicate bow. Growing up my eyes had been too large, nose too small, and lips almost perpetually puckered. I'd hated it. Recently, I started to notice more looks cast in my direction, but I never knew for sure. Family said I looked like my mother. She died when I was younger; I thought she was gorgeous.

          Yet here I was, staring at a modrpunk, that had sculpted itself (himself?) as menacing and intimidating a form I could have imagined, that thought I was pretty because I had beauty nannites that formed my face. And it wanted to take what I didn't have.

          Before I could say anything, two more figures approached us. Carl, I assumed, did not outwardly look like a modrpunk. Slightly smaller than average height, lean musculature, more malnourished really. Almost long, unwashed hair flopped against his face hiding most of his features. Ratty jeans hung all the way to the floor. A white, stained shirt protected pale skin form the light. A narrow chin jutted forward, with thin lips carefully pressed close. Behind him, Genie, a female of lissome figure. She was tall, with a generous hourglass figure, and glistening olive toned skin. Long limbs curved gracefully as she walked right up to me. Dark brown hair with a golden sheen flowed down her back and followed her as though it where a wedding train. While the others had no jewelry that she was aware of, this woman rivaled the Queen of Sheba. Bracelets encrusted with an array of sparkling gems, rings of gold, silver and platinum, arm bands carved with intricate patterns and precious stones set focal points. She wore one strand of the finest silver around her neck, and many diamond pendants were strung on it.

          Net link data storage, I thought, she must hold all their data. Instinctively my hands tightened into fists, and pushed downward into my pockets. A command that set my highest security protocols in place as well as starting my personal encryption file. It would encrypt all the data I had first with separate and simplistic protection, then jumble the documents together, and encrypt it once again. Not much, but based on my own code combined with an archaic code, hopefully it was enough.

          Genie, whose face resembled the starlet on this month's cover of OMG!, was now standing face to face with me. Her hand reached put and gently cradled my chin, tilting my face upward, letting the light hit my face full on.

          "I wouldn't give her high marks for beauty, but she'd score well for ingenuity. I don't think anybody has structural lines quite like these encoded on models. On a larger or even a smaller head it wouldn't go well, even with proper scaling code applied. Still, I could wipe the code from the nannites memory and use them as filler." Letting go of my face she turned and addressed Carl, with a laugh in her voice "Do your thing, boy machine."

          As he came closer, he lifted his head, revealing his eyes for the first time. A soft green light actually shone out of them. His left eye was just a solid orb, his right one appeared normal at first. Yet as she gazed at it, the iris and pupil melted into a sickly green reticule. Oh man, he's a harvester! I felt a hot, scratchy pressure begin to prick at the base of my collar bone. It rapidly traveled up my neck towards my jaw, across the check to the nose, and finally into my eyes. Hundreds of needles pricked at my eyes, and a searing heat stole my sight.

          "Aaaahh" I cried out as knees buckled under me, sending me to the ground. The last thing I remember before I blacked out, was hearing a voice sounding surprised.

Vacation

If any Niners are reading this, sorry for the delay in City of Walls, I'm going on vacation. Its really more of a fact finding mission, so its for science! Hence you can't be mad at me. I've let it be known in a few places that I may be moving to Chicago. Hubby and I are going up there for a week to scope it out.
If you're religious, pray that we do that which is God's will. This could affect the next decade of our lives. My gut reaction is, I don't wanna go!, but I do want to follow where ever God takes me. If you're not religious, I pray for you.
Signing out.


Not gone just yet, I've been going back and forth on my use of the word religious. It doesn't bring across the thought I want it to. Mainly because religious is so bland anymore, and because most people who only label themselves as religious are not how I want myself to be seen as.

What I would rather use is saved. Saved by the blood on Calvary, i.e. belief that Christ died, made a sacrifice of himself, in order to save me and you. And so as I was trying to say, If you're saved, pray that we'll find God's will for our lives, that the way will be made painfully clear for us. And if you're not saved, I am praying that someday you'll know the same man that I know, who loves you incredibly, and does not want you to spend an eternity in hell.
If you have any questions for me about being saved, please feel free to email me.
archnemesis_goldenhair at yahoo dot com.

News alert

We interrupt your regularly scheduled distraction to bring you this important announcement. Live from the newsroom, Déjà Vancou.

"Thank you, Mike Waski. The General Surgeon has announced that he will be holding a press conference shortly. No word on what this could concern, but our analysts have something for us. Sven Huen, what can you tell us?"

"Thank you, Déjà Vancou. We've been keeping an eyes on a disturbing pattern emerging on feeds across the nation. There appears to be a rise in brain injuries related to VanNans (TM). It's not definitive, but."

"Sorry to interrupt, Sven Huen. I'm being told that the Surgeon General is approaching the podium. Let's go to the Live feed."

"Good Evening, Ladies and Gentleman of the Press. My assistant tells me that some people are beginning to piece together what this is about, so I'll get to it. As we all know, the popular product Vanity Nanos, or VanNan, is the extravagant counterpart to Medical Nanos, a.k.a. MediNans. The VanNans only affect the outer epidermis and hair, thus the regulations on controls for them are more lax than the MediNans. Recently, a way has been found to bypass the safety protocols that are there. The full ramifications are yet unknown, but one thing is clear; ongoing use of nannites without these safety protocols can lead to severe Brain Trauma. I make this plea to our youth, the largest group of the populace with nannites, if you are suffering any complications, please report to a hospital! The main priority is to rectify the problem! The consequences for any broken laws are far more lenient than becoming a vegetable. or worse! I'll take questions now."

"Who started this?"

"We're not sure. There are emerging groups, gangs almost, of modifiers. Some call themselves modrpunkrs."

"How is the brain damage occurring?"

"When the safety protocols are wiped from the memory of the nannites, all control is gone. A wide scope of problems appear when the nannites use a human as building blocks. They replicate at an alarming rate. Severe muscle deterioration is rampant. Mood swings due to unbalanced hormones. The list goes on."

"Is there a solution available?"

"We're working on it. I must end the conference, and head back to the lab. Good day."