neCroSYS by Dark Angel

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neCroSYS (Exerpt)

by Dark Angel

I

Julian closed his eyes, the iridescent ghosts of the constructs still flickering behind his retinas. He knew that he wasn’t actually seeing them, that he wasn’t actually seeing anything, but direct stimulation into his cerebral cortex could be pretty slagging persuasive. Unbidden, his insides reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in days. ‘It’s just the impurities of the meat, it doesn’t really matter,’ he thought, forcing his mind away from indulging the frailties of his flesh form. Trying to ignore the dull ache in his stomach, he replayed the events of the last few minutes in his head. He had been so close!

(neCroSYS)The sky faded from deep crimson, through endless shades of bruised purple, finally to black as He made his way from UCAS space into the freedom of the unpoliced sectors. Passing a few buildings that looked like rejects from a Clark-Ashton Smith fantasy, all gaping black windows and eye-wrenching angles that seemed to turn in on themselves the longer you stared, He moved like a halogen dream. He had long since grown used to the impossible skyscapes and buildings that filled the consensual illusion know as the Matrix, they were just part information being fed to his brain by a small metal jack inserted just behind his ear, having been interpreted by a ridiculously complex and expensive deck that was sitting on his lap back in the meatworld.

Previous scavenging expeditions to several datacores, including Data Heaven, the Z.O.ne and even some of the nearly-mythical otaku havens in NewJapan had brought Him ever-closer to his goal, but the final answer still eluded him. Hopefully, though, this last foray into the deep ice of Tokyo would yield the Rosetta stone that remained just beyond the edge of His vision. All of the information He had collected simply confirmed His beliefs, but if He could actually find the files, it would save Him a lot of guesswork.

Approaching a MuNIP, or Multi-National Interface Point, He saw a small cluster of clapboard buildings that looked liked something right out of the Old-Old-West, if they had infused their clapboard and stucco with flashing fiber-optic wire and circuitry back then. As he neared the first few buildings, he could see a sheriff leaning back against a wooden hitching post, its chrome badge glinting softly, though the sky above the town was as black as a starless midnight. The sheriff’s eyes moved quickly over the MuNIP, watching all of the pathways at once, its gaze sharp and unblinking under its wide-brimmed hat.

Quickly, He traced a few arcane symbols with his hand. A phantom began to shimmer in the air next to Him, its cracked skull and ancient breastplate seeming to shine a bit too brightly against the featureless black plain, criss-crossed as it was with neon pathways and half-lit hinted constructs. Beneath the breastplate, the phantom hovered in empty air. At a nod from its master, the phantom streaked into the cluster of buildings, an unearthly wind seeming to howl behind him like the keening of a banshee. As the sheriff caught sight of the ominous spectre, it began to move toward it quickly, barking commands. “IDENTIFY……IDENTIFY………IDENTIFY!!”

Ignoring the sheriff, the phantom flew down the wide, empty street of the MuNIP. Turning at a random corner, the phantom did not alter its speed in its flight through the streets, until it began to move away from the dingy buildings. Then, it seemed to fly even faster through the air, the outline of the obsidian armour seeming to grow hazy in the artificial perspective of the Matrix. Appearing from the thin air in the streets of the MuNIP, a posse of electrically-infused cowboys gave chase after the phantom, riding chestnut steeds that looked identical, down to the artificial gleam in each of their dark eyes.

Radiating silent amusement, He moved through the MuNIP unharried. He could almost feel the smile on His construct’s face, so obvious was His mirth. It was really not warranted, however. This did not represent any sort of real victory, especially for an old console-jockey like Himself. Ice was ridiculously easy to circumvent out here in the boonies, especially in Govzones, or government-controlled areas and nodes. It would probably be milliseconds before the MuNIP even replaced the Access Control Program at the hitching post, let alone realized that its Intercept and Destroy had been fooled by a Decept construct. Shaking His head, He moved further out into, literally, the middle of nowhere, the virtual space the Matrix imposed between physically distant points. He shouldn’t have to bother with more than a handful of MuNIPs between here and the congested ‘cores of CalFree.

Startled from his post-run stupor by the insistent chiming of the door, Julian rose slowly. After some rather nasty sleaze-and-destroy encounters with the dark Ice in a little-known datacore financed by the Yakuza, he had managed to discover that the object of his long search was housed in the glacial fields of the Reichiaku Corp Arcology. Even as he scanned the information, his heart had plummeted. He knew that if Matrix constructs could cry, his would have been weeping piteously. To be so close to his one burning desire, and to discover that it remained as unreachable as the cold, distant moon, was almost than he could bear. Even now, locked back in his meatbody, Julian could feel the ache of that knowledge in his chest and stomach, a gnawing far deeper and more insistant than any mere instinctual desire for nourishment.

Julian realized that the door was still chiming and had been for some time, the chimes coming closer together and sounding more irritated by the second. Rising from his bed, he crossed the apartment, trying not to hunch over the twin aches in his torso. It was only after he rasped a harsh “What?” into his door monitor that he realized how long it had been since he had left his apartment and spoken to another living being.

The video display quietly hummed to life, showing him the other side of his door, and the waste of skin and bone that stood in front of it. She glared at the small camera mounted over the door, her shrill voice ringing in his ears. “What the hell, Jules! I been standing out here, ringing your slagging bell for the last half-hour. You’re the one that sent for me, remember??”

Feeling a small sigh escape his lips, either from pleasure or boredom, Julian opened the door and admitted the wraith-thin girl. Not bothering to greet her, he moved into one of the smaller rooms that adjoined his main living space, returning with a box large enough to require both of his wiry arms and a grunt or two to carry it. The girl took one look at the box and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I even bother to drag my ass all the way out here, just to end up in your weird little games. You are really drokked-up, Jules, you know that?”

Setting the box down gently on a low table, Julian looked at the girl without expression. “You drag your ass out here and put up with my…eccentricities because I pay well, and you have a rather expensive synth addiction to support, Brin. And if you weren’t such a skeleton, you wouldn’t have to wear half of this gear. Now stop wasting my time and undress; I’m not paying for your conversation.”

Sticking her tongue out in a particularly childish gesture for a prostitute, Brin began to wriggle out of her black PVC leggings. Julian’s lips drew back a bit in distaste as her emaciated legs were bared, her hipbones jutting from her pelvis like gravestones. Trying to take his mind from the nauseating striptease before him, he opened the box and began to empty out its contents. “I have something new for you to try this time, Brin. It should be a significant improvement over the last one.”

“It better not be like those first few you had, Jules. I had a headache for days afterward, for drok’s sake. They always say that synth fries your brain, but that junk you gave me felt way more like brainburn to me.” Her atrocious hot-pink strapless top muffled Brin’s voice as she pulled it over her head, exposing a frail chest and a pair of tiny, sagging breasts the size and shape of rotted peaches.

“Don’t worry your last few functioning synapses, Madame, and I use the term loosely. Perhaps if they work as well as I expect, I will have a little something special for you as a reward, something I recently acquired from SINLabs.” Julian unfolded a flesh-coloured garment of indiscriminate shape and purpose, reaching back inside the box.

Brin’s eyes lit up instantly. “Really, Jules? You got your creepy little hands on something new, something good?” Her voice drew out the last word, making it sound like both a plea and a moan of pleasure.

“Oh, yes. I’d say it is worth more than you make in a year, even with my considerable patronage. By all rights, I should be charging you instead. But, you are well-suited to my current needs, so I don’t mind being a bit generous. Now, if you can manage to move your skeletal body over here, we can begin.” Julian picked up the flesh-coloured garment again, running his hands over it until finding the hidden seam.

Running a hand through her hair, a sea of uneven white spikes, she sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get this over with, Jules. I’d hate to be around when you are doing your strange little things, it gives me enough shivers thinking about what goes on while I’m in zombieland.” Brin sauntered toward him, a smug smile on her angular face.

Snarling a bit, Julian threw the garment at her. “This first, then I’ll get the stick. I’m not about to bother dressing you while you are ‘tranced.”

Brin caught the large, flesh-coloured bundle with both arms, lifting it up and holding it against her tiny frame. “This looks the same to me, Jules. Just your average skinsuit, padded in all the right places. What’s the upgrade you’re so excited about?”

Julian’s face resumed its former stony expression. “Just shut up and put it on, Brin. You are starting to get on my nerves.”

For an instant, an almost hurt look surfaced on Brin’s sallow countenance, replaced so quickly by silent indifference that Julian might have imagined it. Quickly bunching up the suit, she leaned back against the table for balance as she inserted her right leg slowly into the leg of the garment. Drawing it up to her ankle, she moved her hands over the feet, pushing the articulated toes into place and flexing her feet to ensure the fit was exact before continuing to draw the soft material up her leg.

Working silently and efficiently, she did the same with the other foot and leg, wriggling her bottom a bit as she pulled the skinsuit up to her waist. As she began smoothing out the upper legs and pelvis, she gave a surprised cry. “Ouch! Drok, I forgot about those….” She glared at Julian as though the oversight were his fault and quickly moved both hands to her pelvis, fingers slipping between her legs and adjusting some unseen feature of the suit.

Running her hands over her bottom, Brin grunted slightly, before continuing to pull the suit up her torso. Pausing just below her sickly breasts, she shifted slightly, pushing her shoulder tightly against her body to allow her arm to slip into the suit’s arm. Reaching the end of the arm, she used her other hand to pull and adjust the artificial hand as she had done with both feet, moving her hand up over the material to perfect the fit against her arm.

With considerably more difficulty, she managed to slip her other arm inside the form-fitting suit, not asking for assistance from Julian and certainly not being offered any help. Finished with the arms, Brin left the hood of the suit hanging against her collar, the seam still open against her spine. She stood in front of Julian, a remarkable change having been wrought on her gaunt form. Her legs were now very shapely, even slightly muscular, but without a trace of their former osseous appearance. Her torso was now very attractive, with pert breasts jutting gently from her well-rounded frame, her bottom soft and lush without the slightest sag, her rib-lined abdomen replaced by a healthy, almost slightly-plump, stomach that seemed to hint at well-developed muscles just beneath the skin’s surface sloping down to a well-trimmed thatch of soft black hair that peeked from between her legs. Brin looked down at her new body with indifference, as though one was as good as the other.

Reaching into the box and carefully retrieving a pair of strange devices, Julian approached Brin’s now-attractive nude body. “You will probably want to wait a moment before accessing. Fitting the mask to your face will be much harder if your muscles are slack.” He waited for her nod of acquiescence before running his hand up her still-bare neck, allowing her to prepare first. The back of her head was shaved all the way from the base of her neck to the middle of her skull, continuing on the side to the skin just behind her left ear. The hairstyle was more functional than stylistic, however, leaving the areas around her jacks free of any interfering hair follicles.

Julian inserted a small nipple into the standard datajack behind her ear, the nipple an exact twin of the jack that connected his brain to his cyberdeck, except that the nipple ended in a small circular piece of metal that fit snugly against Brin’s skull. Brin’s other jack was part of the reason that Julian had deemed her suitable for his purposes. While most synth junkies were satisfied frying their minds using the standard jack, a few wanted something more substantial. Brin was one of those, sporting a second, larger jack that fed directly into the junction of her medulla and the top of her spine. The synthsticks that supported this new jack were generally more intense, longer lasting, and far more destructive to the user’s nervous system. Julian would be surprised if she survived another year.

The second jack, while certainly not the healthiest upgrade to hit the cybernetics market, allowed a more direct interface with the physical and autonomic centers of the brain, which was exactly what Julian needed to fulfill his desires, his only desire actually, apart from the Matrix. Brin gave a quick sigh of pleasure as Julian slid the modified synthstick into her second jack, the stick much wider than the small metallic nipple behind her ear, filled with circuitry and fiberoptics.

Remaining behind her, Julian pulled the hood of the skinsuit over Brin’s spiked hair, smoothing it down over her head and neck, so that the hair beneath seemed to disappear, leaving a smooth, bald skull. Running his hands over the seam against her spine, Julian sealed the skinsuit closed, the seam melting into the back of the suit, becoming indiscernable from the rest of the new skin.

“And now, for the final component….” Julian’s calm tone hid his feverish excitement, as Brin nodded impatiently, her body already crying out to activate the synthsticks in her head. He lifted a mass of hair and flesh from the box, seeming to be a shapeless lump in his hands. Manipulating the mass deftly, Julian slipped it over Brin’s motionless head. At once, the shape and purpose of the mass became clear, it was an ingeniously crafted mask.

Working his fingers over Brin’s face like a masseur, Julian fit the mask into place slipping the edges of the mask inside her lips, her nostrils, and even her eyelids. The mask, made of very high-grade silicone and other polymers, held its molded shape regardless of the wearer’s features, the material light enough to transfer movement and expression easily. Brin murmured something indeterminable, obviously trying to keep her face rigidly still while Julian applied the mask. Rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth in anger as the illusion was temporarily marred, Julian snapped irritably, “You don’t have to mumble, you stupid slitch, the mask isn’t restricting you at all.”

Brin’s maddeningly high-pitched voice issued from the new lips, the cheeks twitching in discomfort. “…said that this drek is too slagging heavy. It always makes my face ache forever afterward.”

Julian, his patience tried beyond his limit, roared, “Then just synth yourself into neural failure after I am finished with you. Then you won’t give a drok about your goddamn face; I’m giving you enough stimulus to not have to put up with your slagging whining. Just slot in these contacts and, for Christ’s sweet sake, shut up!”

Shocked into momentary silence by the vehemence of his outburst, Brin reached for the contacts as they sat in the case on the table. Manipulating them easily, even through the skinsuit, she slipped the custom contacts over her eyes, blinking a few times to restore her vision. Julian smiled and stepped back from his creation for a moment, marvelling at how much one could accomplish, with the right amount of creds and the right connections. The irony of the situation was not lost on him either, and he smiled wryly. There was something rather amusing about a decker, one of a group of people known for their disdain of “the meat”, who was hung up on a physical representation of something that now only existed within the Matrix itself.

As his wry grin twisted into something more bitter, Julian stared at his creation and said, “Access the sticks……”

Before him, the figure stirred slightly, blinking her long-lashed, almondine eyes. Looking around at the spacious, if sparsely-decorated, condominium, her eyes widened. Turning around frantically, she seemed to be looking for something familiar upon which to fix her gaze, her generous breasts heaving as her breathing became more and more terrified. So intent was she on her plight, that she did not notice her own naked form. “Where am I?”

At the sound of the voice, Julian had to brace himself against the table. So many memories flooded him, so many emotions washed through him in waves of crimson and midnight. Almost an octave lower in pitch than Brin’s and infinitely richer in timbre, her voice spoke in musical phrases. So perfect in clarity and resonance was her voice that musicians and scientists were still unable to reproduce their exact sound. Julian steadied himself and looked up again, the word he breathed infused with such pain and desire that the figure instantly focused on its source, her eyes softening in sympathy. “Yukie.”

Yukie nodded in recognition of her name, her unearthly lavender irises slightly larger than any human’s could be, a stylistic change that Julian had requested in a moment of weakness. As long as the figure didn’t look too much like Yukie, he thought he could bear the sight of her for more than a moment. Yukie moved forward, her posture changing from fear to a desire to comfort the obviously-pained Julian. “Do I know you, sir?’

Julian found he had to fight the tightness around his throat and chest to answer, the question causing more pain than any of the times she had asked before, perhaps because this time he had succeeded so much more completely. “Yes, Yukie, you know me very well. My name is Julian Tenebris, and I am your fiancé.”

Yukie blinked again, as if trying to remember the name and the association, unable to do so. After all, there was no mention of a Julian Tenebris in the trid he had stolen from Yukie’s employer, a subsidiary of Reichiaku, and Brin’s stimfried brain certainly did not contain any such association. Yukie simply stared blankly back at Julian, a puzzled expression on her flawless, delicate features. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are talking about, Julian.”

She stuttered his name, as though unfamiliar with saying it, and the sound pierced his chest, a shard of perfect crystal. He shook his head, unwilling to believe that he had failed again. “Yes, yes you do. I love you more dearly than life and you have always returned my love. We have a perfect life together here, Yukie. You composed your first aria in this room, during three frantic nights of sex and espresso. You have to remember, Yukie! You love me! Please say that you love me, Yukie. I have waited so long to hear it again. I feel that I have gone deaf, my ears straining every day and every night for a hint of your voice, and I am surrounded by only the endless silence that has covered me since you……”

Julian’s voice broke, the tears streaking his cheeks like dewdrops of glass. He felt Yukie’s arms around him, her delicate limbs enfolding him in a gentle embrace. He could sense the soft weight of her breast touching his back and he closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of his success and Yukie’s love begin to fill him, as the symphony of her voice filled his ears with heartrending beauty. “You poor, poor man. How much you must have suffered, to feel such pain.”

Julian could only nod dumbly, so great was the emotion that filled him, the near-extinct sunlight streaking through the poisoned sky of the Sprawl, touching the tops of the buildings like the fingers of some benevolent God running over the flower petals of his private garden. Yukie’s voice was the sunlight and the flowers, and the only God to which he would ever pray. Her lips, pressed against his forehead in a calming caress, moved again. “But if you needed to hear my voice, Julian, you could have bought any of my recordings. They are all available from White Lotus Recordings, both in Japan and internationally.”

Julian pushed Yukie away, his hands clutching his face, as though he wanted to rip away any shred of consciousness that could cause so much pain. His nails dug into his cheeks, leaving blossoming droplets of red below his eyelashes. “No! Not again! I can not bear to fail and fail again! The last fragment of my beating, living heart is regrown only to be ripped out of my chest each time. The only beauty I have found in this graveyard of neon and ferrocrete was taken from me when they stole you away, Yukie, and now all that I have left is a pathetic puppetshow, where it is my strings that are pulled by synth and silicone.”

Julian wailed as though his soul were being ripped from his body, his tall, athletic frame twisting back and forth like a bedsheet left to hang in a thunderstorm. Yukie watched his seeming disintegration, her programmed, synthetic emotions touched by his pain and his fury. Tears spilled down her cheeks, her full lips trembled with empathetic sadness. Still too preoccupied with the emotionally-charged scene to notice the need for clothing, Yukie approached, her arms held out in a beseeching embrace.

Seeing her approach, Julian was galvanized into action, his face twisted beyond recognition. Raking his clawed hands behind her head, he pulled the mask off of her face, the vacuum created by the tightly-formed material leaving small bruises on Brin’s suddenly-bared features. Roughly, Julian removed the synthsticks from Brin’s datajacks, beyond caring that such a sudden neural disruption could easily kill the emaciated young woman. Brin’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fell bonelessly to the floor.

When Brin regained consciousness, some hours later, she found Julian sitting curled on one of his couches, his palms pressed against his eyes. Tears coursed down his cheeks, trailing down his cheeks and wrists slowly. Brin shook her head. “It’s always the same with you, Jules. Every time I wake up, you’re crying your eyes out. What is it about sex that makes you so sad?”

Julian lifted his head slightly, baring one red-rimmed eye. He stared at the girl, still wearing Yukie’s body and felt a sob hitch in his chest. Even in his failures, he had occasionally been unable to resist Yukie’s charms, resulting in a forced sexual encounter that was not unlike the rape of a child. The manufactured Yukie could not remember him, could not understand why he would want to possess her, sexually, to feel that union once again. Those failed experiments provoked far more tears than the others.

“None of your business, Brin. Just get out, please.” Julian’s voice was little more than a whisper.

Brin frowned angrily, her attempt at sympathy so completely and casually rejected. “So, you want me to take this off or what?” she gestured to the skinsuit she still wore, folding her arms over her generous chest. “And where’s my money?”

Julian returned to his prior position, his eyes buried in his palms. “Take it off, throw it away, it doesn’t matter any more. Your drek is on the table, take it and get out.”

Brin paused for a moment before stripping the suit off quickly, considering the possibility of keeping such an expensive wardrobe item. But she didn’t want Jules to be angry with her when he came to his senses, he was one of her best customers. And he was always like this, afterward. Dressing efficiently and quietly, Brin grabbed the credstick and the large synthstick from the table before letting herself out the door.

Eventually, Julian stirred from his couch. Ignoring the protests of his stomach, he walked back into his bedroom slowly. Taking a soldering iron from a workbench, he sat down on the bed, idly piecing together servomotors. Reichiaku had stolen the breath from his body, and all of his technowizardry was as lifeless as the empty windows of the Sprawl, dark eyesockets that stared back at him under the grey-green clouds.