She woke up …

Sweating… the ceiling fan was dead and the neon from the noodle shop across the alley kept the room in a constant state of artificial twilight, it was exhausting. Rane was pretty sure the only reason why the streets now looked like those futuristic movies was because everyone thought it would be a good idea to actually make them in real life.

She sat on the edge of her bed, the frame making noises under her weight as she sat closer to the edge. Part routine part itch, she ran a finger down the back of her neck, that tiny ridge where the skin met the cold seam of the spine mod. It didn’t hurt, not anymore, but there was always that feeling of an itch in the morning.

She stood up, looked at the window and stretched her back, that always made the servos thrum with a low-level static that she could feel in her molars.

Looking around the apartment was tiny but functional, mostly empty, she had just moved in. Four days out of jail, got assigned some work, a legitimate job starting Monday at the hydro-processing plant, a real luxury all things considered.

The credits they gave her when leaving ran out already, was barely enough for a couple meals, if not for the work assigned living space, she’s been out in the street already. Not that it was just luck, she paid dearly for what was now a handout from greedy-corp. She just needed to survive the weekend.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three taps on the door. She looked towards the door, to the small monitor on the right side, slightly aged but perfect quality to see who it was.

Knock. Knock.

Rane opened the door reluctantly. “I can’t believe you still wear that coat”, a stressed but suddenly confused face looked back to her. “Rane, listen I ….”, she cut him right away. “You know what, f- you, two years, not a single visit? I thought you were dead. Or maybe you are, judging by that face and still wearing the same stupid coat”. She didn’t even knew why she was pointing out the coat but it was pissing her off.

“Listen, I’m sorry but we don’t have much time, they are just behi….”. Now it was Rane’s turn to be confused but worried quickly.

“Get out”, she started closing the door, but it halted.

A hand kept it open, with a screech of the door trying to go where it couldn’t anymore, forced to go against it’s initial direction, but very quickly turning direction, opening again, it’s let’s-not-crush-a-human mechanism triggered.

Victor stepped to the side, now looking like a man who had been beaten down.

“Well well, if it isn’t Miss Rane, fresh out of the box”, it was Jack, smaller than both of them, but still a menacing figure. Behind him one goon who’s grin was as stupid as his face. Both entering the apartment, not in a forceful way but also not in a waiting for permission mood.

She didn’t lose a beat. “Exactly, and my debt is paid Jack, you know this.” “Oh I know” , he replied. “But old Vic here has some pending business, and I know you owe him”. She looked at Victor “The fuck?” - he shrugged. The other guy circled behind her. “See I got a problem” Jack continued, “That needs fixing, which makes it a problem for both of you”.

“Rane,” Victor started, his voice in a almost caring but serious tone. “We wouldn’t be here if we had a choice, coppers got the kid, he’s still in a local but if we don’t get him out soon, he’s ending at Blackgate”

“Blackgate? The heck did he do? You have to do some serious level of fuckery to end up there”. Blackgate was bad as it gets, even she didn’t ended up there and well, it had been messy.

Victor intervened, “He’s in for minor only, barely one hour ago, we managed to escape, but it’s what they’ll find once they process him.”. Victor paused, eyes to the left side corner, “We hijacked a lab and there was a bundle package with some Root Certs in it … still valid till midnight”.

Rane turned at the goon who had now circled to her back. He wasn’t looking at her face or checking her out, instead looking at the chrome seam at the base of her skull. She knew already.

Jack was mostly observing her interactions, like evaluating the next step that would get him what he wanted, not in a mood for prolonged conversations. He started “Ok now that the introductions are made. Yeah we’re in a pinch we can’t properly setup anything, you’re as good as it gets on short notice, also clean, won’t flag anything until we get there.”

“Get a cab? Why you need me for?”. She was playing dumb trying to gain some time for … something. But she knew they were after her for the spinal mod. It wasn’t one of those that gave strength or anything like it, it had been a life-death situation that allowed her to walk again.

Jack was still patient but clearly losing it. “A little bird told me that thing in your back”, he moved his finger in the air drawing a line “Can run unsigned code, off-grid, no one’s the wiser”. She looked at Victor, but realized immediately who it was.

Jack continued: “Oh, I know he’s your brother’s kid, he was always very chatty about his cool aunt, so you’ll help us get him out of there, and I need what’s on that head of his.”

02h38m

Designated driver because she had no outstanding warrants, Rane was driving a car that had seen better decades. Victor was on the passenger seat and Jack and Rex, she heard the name when they were getting into the car, both in the back seats.

While going to the car she got the short version of the story, they broke into a lab, stole a big experimental weapons called railcaster or something, almost looked like it belonged on a gunship, but still quite portable all things considered. Rane could see them tinkering with it in the back, they also had this weird cylindric tube with a window showing a chip of sorts, apparently some sort of portable power source they wanted to hotwire to the gun and shoot it to blast their way into the police station. And for that they needed her.

“How do we even get close?” Rane asked, her voice tight as she saw them messing around with the connection ports on the weapon. They were weaving through the thick, neon-lit traffic of the lower districts.

“We don’t,” Jack said, “We pull up, you hit some roof nearby, and you give us one high output burst. We blow the holding cell wall from the street, grab the kid and vanish.”

It started raining…

03h02m

They were three blocks from the precinct when the red strobes started reflected in the water drops filled back mirror. Cop cruiser behind them.

“Keep it cool,” Victor whispered, but not looking at her. “Car is registered. Just a routine sweep.”

The cruiser pulled alongside them. A drone detached from the roof, hovering less than 2 meters from Rane’s window, lens adjusting as it scanned her face, a blue light pattern scanning. She kept looking forward, hands on wheel. In the cruiser two coppers inside, not even looking at them, just watching something on the feed, assuming it wasn’t worth their time, just another routine check.

It seemed like the drone was all finishing when something flashed on the cop’s car. Something was up. A red dot showed up near the drone lenses, infra-red scan, Rane looked through the rearview mirror, the gun!

The drone’s light turned a sharp, piercing red. Both cops looked to them simultaneously, they couldn’t get away clean anymore.

“Go! Go!” Victor screamed.

Rane slammed the pedal. The tires trying to grab the wet asphalt slipping as they speeded up. The cops followed them, sirens full blasting. It didn’t took long until a rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum of a police heavy chopper started to chase them. They hadn’t just flagged their faces, they’d flagged the stolen tech now.

“Rane! Get up there! Now!”

She didn’t have time to argue.

The sunroof already half-open, she pulled herself through. The wind hit like a wall of knives, the rain needling her face as the car was being pushed harder. She pressed flat against the roof, palms over the metal until she found the forward handles of the railcaster’s mount.

The weapon was mag-locked to the roof rack now. She gripped the handles and felt the chassis clamps snap around her forearms, not a designed feature, just the recoil-lock engaging everything it could reach. Good enough so she wouldn’t fall.

She reached back. The cable was thick, triple-pronged, still trailing from where they’d left it coiled near the mount. She jammed the first end into the cylinder port, click, and fed the second into the seam at the base of her skull.

03h11m

The connection hit her like a punch immediately.

a surge

Not a handshake. Not data yet. Just raw, unfiltered current screaming up through her vertebrae. Her vision tore, the city splitting in frames, each one half a second behind the last, neon bleeding at the edges. White noise swallowed her hearing.

Her left eye gave up first, nothing, all black. The right one started throwing errors, the spine implant crashing diagnostics hard, red lines of code bleeding down the lower half.

Through it she could feel the cylinder’s charge the way she’d feel heat from a stove. Present, close, hurting.

Energy climbing.

The police chopper was directly overhead, its spotlight making everything even worse. The precinct was one block ahead. She couldn’t have known where the holding cells were.

She could feel it now, she could command some of the instructions in the flow

The chopper dropped lower but more distant. She could feel the heat building at her back, radiating off the cylinder like an oven, that’s why the cops were backing off. They were running out of road.

Raw data, too much to process…. almost…

Faded voices … “What are you waiting for?”

“I can’t see shit!”, Rane didn’t know what was in front of them anymore.

Jack shouted “Just shoot!”

She squeezed.

The recoil didn’t just shake the car. It almost broke it. A white-hot displacement beam punched through the rain and hit the precinct wall in a single detonation of concrete and violet sparks. The blast wave shattered every window on the block.

The shockwave threw her into the asphalt, the cable ripped from her spine with a sound she felt in her back teeth.

The world went black even before she hit the ground.

06h42m

Sleep was a thin, fragile thing. It broke when the smell of antiseptic hit her nose.

Rane opened her eyes. The room was sterile, filled with high-tech monitors that hummed with a rhythmic pattern. She tried to reach for her head but her arms felt heavy. She looked down and saw high-tensile magnetic handcuffs.

Victor was sitting in a chair by the bed. He wasn’t wearing his grimy jacket anymore. He was in a crisp, dark uniform with a badge that caught the light.

“You’re awake,” he said quietly.

Rane stared at him, the static still echoing in her teeth. “What happened? Where’s the kid?”

“Alive.” He didn’t look at her when he said it.

“You’re a cop,” she whispered, the betrayal stinging worse than the spine mod. “You used us, …me. I did time for you.”

“I was undercover.” He paused, eyes going to the window. “I didn’t know their target tonight until after the robbery. By the time they showed up at your place I had no way to get word out without blowing everything.”

“So you let them use me anyway.”

“My cover got blown the second I called for backup.” He met her eyes then. “I barely got you help in time.”

Victor stood up, reaching into his pocket. “Rex boy is in custody. Jack disappeared in the chaos. We thought he was small fish but we think he’s working for someone much worse now. All that firepower, that device, whatever it is.” He paused. “They got a brain dump out of the kid before we could pull him. He’s out but what he was carrying isn’t.”

Rane looked at the sterile white walls. She was four days out of jail, and she was already back in chains.

“I’m sorry but let’s be honest here, you and your family were doing stints well before I showed up. I just rode shotgun for a while.”

She looked at Victor’s empty hands.

“So… what you’re saying is that you brought no chocolates or flowers?”

Victor reached out, but he didn’t touch her. He pulled a small set of electronic keys from his belt and tapped them against the bed rail. “I brought keys…”

He looked at her, his expression unreadable behind the professional mask. “We might need your help again.”

Rane laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. The sun would be rising in a few hours, but for her, the night was just getting longer.

.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for potential disappointment, sometimes I have flashes of stupid ideas form in my mind that "are nothing or not complete", but I've been doing this exercise were I write them in my blog as brain dumps.

Photo by Valentin BEAUVAIS

The dog was just a few meters ahead, going back and forth once in a while, as if covering the extra distance ahead multiple times didn’t mattered at all, like it was effortless, which made John feel even more tired. He guessed being a husky maybe helped with the cold, but still, it was weird how much the temperatures didn’t seem to bother him except at night. John hadn’t given it a proper name, so he’d been calling it Dog, since a few weeks ago when they found each other, a name to which Dog seemed more than willing to answer, honestly just seeming incredibly happy someone was interacting with him.

It’s not that John didn’t liked the company, obviously he did, but part of him was still worried about the noise. He actually tried to get rid of him for that particular reason, but Dog kept following him, and it wasn’t until he found out he was being followed without knowing, from shadows and corners for 4 days, with no bark at all, that he decided that maybe it could be ok to have him around. Dog had survived so far, so there had to be something.

A clearing ahead, he’d been hearing water running for some time, and that was probably also the reason why Dog was more active then usual. They’ve been walking for so long, it would be a nice break next to a fresh source of water, also a good time to get some bearings.

Despite hearing the sound it took them quite a bit to get to the creek, but on arrival a transparent-green ribbon of water was greeting them, just cutting through the white around. A desolated view, a few small dead animals around, clearly no longer being able to stand the thirst they had no choice and probably consumed too much of the tainted water.

John filled up his canteen, with the cold metal stinging his hands as the water touched it. Dog was sniffing around, always the curious one, he’d grown to appreciate that, while stationary they were a target, and having “someone” watch his back felt reassuring. He closed the canteen lid, shook it a bit … good enough, he couldn’t drink it yet but a problem for later.

He placed the backpack on the floor, which should have probably been the first thing to do, but it was heavy and most times taking it off and putting it back on again was worse then just resting a bit with it. He reached for the map, not because he was lost, they were close, it was a motivation look, that maybe he could make it there soon.

They couldn’t stay long.

The night was approaching fast, no place in sight for bunking up, another night outdoors. Dog recognized when it was time and knew the drill already, what places were better, and would keep closer, eventually they found a place with enough trees around, and John slowly started mounting the tent.

Warming up a can of beans by a small improvised fire before dark was crucial, he hadn’t lit a fire in weeks at night time, he feared it would be like turning on a lighthouse with a giant sign “I’m here”. He reserved those warmer nights for indoors.

He felt guilt the first nights he sleep on the tent and left Dog outside, the bond wasn’t there, and in a way it was clear both were still anxious to be trapped with each other on the first night he made signal do the dog - “Want to sleep on the tent tonight?” - It wasn’t until the third night of him leaving it a bit open for some time that Dog finally entered. On the opposite the bond grew faster from that point on, he appreciated the warmer feet, a dog right at the entrance of the tent, if someone - or something - opened it, he had a buffer of safety, with teeth.

The nights weren’t as cold as the process of packing the tent again still in night time, after being a bit cozier for a couple hours, and starting the walk again.

A bit after mid-day he spotted the first thing that was not a tree or a mountain in weeks, a saw mill, it was a few kilometers ahead, excitement and a sudden rush started flowing though his veins … civilization. Well … hopefully just the building.

They both scouted the area for a couple hours before entering, it seemed to be the saw mill of a nearby town, which they could see it far ahead, the building seemed empty, so they got in eventually.

The bottom floor was filled with machines part covered in some ice near the outer walls, part covered in vines, chunks of wood they could easily use to light a fire, John decided he would feel safer on the top floor, where a few offices were.

There were just too many entry points here to feel completely safe, but he didn’t wanted to venture into the town just yet, tomorrow. The good thing about these sort of places is there’s material everywhere, he grabbed some wire, several cans, bottles and other things and improvised an alarm system near the entrances on the bottom floor. It was easy to spot but better than nothing.

Tonight he didn’t needed the tent, the backpack was heavy and if he had to leave in a hurry it would be a problem. He decided to leave it on the bottom floor hidden, just the small blanket would suffice today. Before closing it he looked further inside, he’d been carrying around that thing for so long, he opened it a bit more, inside a cylinder made of some alloy he didn’t know, rust already forming in some of the places, it had a small glass window where a bunch of wires coming out of a chip could be seen. He reached for a small wooden box that was between the cylinder and the backpack itself near the bottom. This was more of mental reassuring, he knew it was there, a small lithium battery tucked away inside the box wrapped in some paper. - “I hope you still have juice, it’s been a while”.

He picked a corner far from windows, hauled several rocks, covered the floor and lit a fire. He boiled the water he picked the prior day. In its raw state, the water was thick, with synthetic spores, green-ish bastards that would settle in the kidneys and eventually shut them down. He watched as the heat killed the bloom, with the spores falling together into a dark sediment at the bottom of the tin. After a quick filter with a spare cloth, it was back to being drinkable. It still tasted of metal, but it wouldn’t kill him, not today at least.

Dog feel asleep before he did, or at least it looked like it. He checked the perimeter again and laid on his back, checked his watch, old technology was great, batteries would last years especially if had solar charging … 22h47m.

His mind suddenly rushed to the usual, always her … usually around this time of night, John wondered if she was alive, if any of his family was really. Flashbacks of both good and embarrassing moments flashed his brain.

23h19m ….

He turned to the side, placed his hand near Dog head … it was nice.

23h21m …

Sleep was a thin, fragile thing. It broke at ….

02h39m

He didn’t wake to a noise, but to a sensation. A heavy, warm weight was pressing down on his chest. He opened his eyes to see the silhouette of the husky standing over him. Dog wasn’t growling, that would be too loud. He was silently and intensively breathing, ears were flat against his head, and he was staring one of the cracked windows.

Then, John felt it.

The noise of the cans started first, but then the vibration in the floorboards.

Thump.

It wasn’t footsteps.

Thump. Thump.

It was too heavy for that, too rhythmic.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It sounded like something massive was breathing through the earth itself. Through the window, a faint light began to pulse outside. It didn’t cast shadows like a lamp, but instead it seemed to swallow the darkness, turning the world into a blurred version of itself.

John didn’t moved for a few moments, maybe he could ignore it and go back to sleep, he didn’t breathe.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He quickly and silently got up, there was no way of knowing how long he had, he had to hurry. Dog was already ahead of him going down the flight of stairs, he was fast. As they got on the ground floor he saw the four legged animal pick up even more speed, he couldn’t match, he disappeared one room ahead right after the corridor.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The next sound hit John like a punch

a bark

…. it was the first time in many days he hear it, and it wasn’t the playful type.

He started to slow down, with doubts flowing through his head, but quickly picked up pace again, he wouldn’t leave him behind.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Even with the increasing noise he feared how far the bark noise had travelled.

Right around the corner he saw the husky rushing back in his direction, eyes wide open, still reflecting some of the light ahead, he had seen something and was running away, the pulsing light growing bigger, he quickly ducked as the light was passing through the window outside.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

While this looked like the wrong way to exit the building, it was also probably the safer bet in a few minutes as it seemed the light was moving towards the other end from the outside. He just had to wait …. but he remembered the backpack, he left it on the other opposite side of the building.

He maintained his crouched position and started moving as quickly as possible, there was still time.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Th…

Silence.

He realized the noise had stopped, but there hadn’t been time to move that further away, so still outside.

He slid his arms into the backpack straps while still lying down, clicking the plastic buckles with agonizing slowness, muffling the click with his sleeve.

He looked at Dog. Movement noises were forming outside.

Both started moving again to the opposite side of the building, like a cat and mouse game, but it was much harder doing this with the backpack, his knees couldn’t keep up, and he kept losing balance, almost falling backwards. It was an impossible task, but he couldn’t leave it behind.

As they moved to another room he decided to get up.

The light outside moved towards that room … he kept moving, not running but no time to be subtle. They were outside, he moved instinctively to the direction where Dog was running to, no time to second guess, animal instincts would probably be right, choice paralysis would be the worse thing now.

Th… Thump. Thump.

The vibrations had resumed, took him a while to notice, but then again it was only when they stopped running, after ducking under some nearby trees, that he was able to listen again something else other than his heart pounding through his chest.

He opened the backpack, grabbed the wood box and took the battery and held it as tightly as possible, ready to slot it in if needed, the metal device half outside, half still covered by the backpack itself.

02h49m

He waited …. a hand on the battery, another hand resting on Dog’s body, he could sense his heartbeat.

02h51m

The pulsing light grew brighter, but then began to fade as the vibration moved further down the road.

02h53m

It was impossible to distinguish anything, whatever was out there this night wasn’t looking for them anymore, it was just passing through now. John waited until the lights vanished completely.

03h17m

He stood up, his bones aching from the cold and tension.

Survival was a game of staying out of sight. He patted the dog’s once, a silent thank you. Dog nudged John’s hand with a wet nose, probably from the cold, he just realized he didn’t had his gloves.

The sun would be rising in a few hours.

They stepped out into the freezing night, two small shadows disappearing into the trees, leaving nothing but paw prints and boot marks soon to be covered by the falling snow.

.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for potential dissapointment, sometimes I have flashes of stupid ideas form in my mind that "are nothing or not complete", but I wanted to start this exercise were I write them in my blog (aka diary) as brain dumps. I guess this could even help me improve my English writing skills which are quite lacking.

Photo by Maxim Shklyaev