The Turing Point

[johndaw16]

...remember that better lives have been lived in the margins, locked in the prisons and lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in palaces

________________________________________________________________________

​

Ding...
Ding...
Ding...


Something chimed in his head. Echoed painfully. Hot, steaming pressure at the back of his eyes. Consciousness demurred at the suggestion of making an appearance. He slipped back again, into the dark.


Ding...


It was back again. That noise. Recognition tickled his brain. The pain was worse this time, too much to ignore. Reality, coherence, all fell back into place.

Miller Bahr tentatively opened an eye. Just a slit, no need to go fast.


Ding...


The sound echoed in his head this time, each reverberation a lesson in pain. Find the source, make it stop. Miller opened his eye a bit more, things were blurry. His eye darted about. There. An ignition key still slotted. The cabin door was ajar. But whose car was this?

His brain was still too sluggish, the hangover still too overwhelming; memory was optional right now. Miller reached up, snagged the offending key and jiggled it out of its slot. Finally silence. He gathered his will, hoped it would be enough to steady his stomach. He laid a death-grip on the steering wheel and heaved himself up. Vertical orientation was problematic. His stomach did a jig, threatening an explosive morning opener. Deep breaths those are key, deep slow breaths.

The car wasn’t his; it was a brand new Patriot Motor’s Poseidon coupe. He ran his fingers reverently across the LCD console; even through the hangover he could appreciate a car like this. Too bad it wasn't his. And whoever owned it likely wouldn't take kindly to having a disasterously hung-over corporate nobody passed out in it.

Miller twisted the rearview mirror, appraising himself. No puke, good sign. His Di Meo shirt only bore the tell-tale wrinkles of being slept in. Crumpled in the breast pocket an empty Lucky Strikes pack crinkled among the tobacco and paper remains of his last cigarette. He reached into his slacks, found a cocktail napkin tie-dyed with the washed out remains of some girl’s persona ID. His Communiqué pad sat on the front dash. Miller picked it up turning it over in his hands; its battery cell had been removed. He stuffed the now useless piece of hardware on top the Lucky Strikes.

The car sat in the middle of an industrial alleyway, one of thousands of anonymous channels through the sprawling Potomac Industrial Zone. The ranks of industrial production units, warehouses, and distribution hubs marched into the distance inhuman and unfriendly in their austere uniformity. This was the realm of autonomous industrial AI’s, locked in their pre-programmed paths of commerce.

He was alone in the middle of a nameless intersection, the crossing alleys clinically neat, swept daily by automated cleaners. He realized he was isolated here. Disconnected, he might be the only truly living thing for many square miles. The thought unsettled him, but driving the Poseidon back was out of the question. He lacked the ignition code and he didn’t fancy getting picked up for theft either. It was going to be a long walk to a payphone.

He gazed around trying to choose a direction. And jumped, she must have been there the whole time. Funny what you’ll miss. She was beautiful, strikingly so. She lay across the back cabin, graceful even at rest, her curves inviting, suggestive and sensual. He was holding his breath, fearful of disturbing her stillness.

---​

His was mouth dry, stomach menacing again. The stillness wasn’t natural; her careless pose was just that, an artful arrangement of stiff limbs and cold flesh. He reached to her now, trying to steady his shaking hands, pushed a lock of silver hair from her forehead uncovering a single dark spot and a rivulet of blood long dry. A sliver gun, a good one probably.

-^-​

He was wiping his mouth palms slick with sweat. He didn’t remember getting sick. The smell filled the car now. He had to get out.

Miller closed his eyes, the pressure building again. Asphalt wasn’t so bad to lie on. He tried not to see, but it was there behind his eyelids, dried blood across pale skin. He slipped back again, grateful for the dark. Only the hum of an engine held it at bay. And the hope that it brought.

 

[sniffles]

Is this documenting a campaign, or is it fiction?

Just a note re this sentence:
It was going to be a long walk to a payphone.

In a setting with preprogrammed AI's doing the industrial work, it seems unlikely that payphones would exist. They are already rapidly being replaced by the ubiquitous cell phone.

 

[johndaw16]

This is documenting the beginnings of my current campaign, this is all stuff thats roughly 3 months old or so. The story will focus on Miller for the next dozen or so posts then more characters will make their appearance.

As for the payphones. They do still exist, albeit in a much more limited fashion. The setting is about 150 years or so in the future and wireless mobile forms of communication have rendered traditional payphones obsolete. In spite of this, payphones still exist they're more akin to something like an emergency callbox. They were part of a Federal mandate giving emergency service contacts to the poorest people who couldn't dream of owning any personal communications gear.

More soon I hope.

John

 

[johndaw16]

Fistful of Steel

A .44 full of bullets
Face full of pale
Eyes full of empty
A stare full of nails
The roulette ball rolls alone on the wheel
A mind full of fire
And a fistful of steel

Consciousness teased Miller once more, pain goading his mind from its retreat. There were sounds, like a voice but garbled. Like someone yelling underwater. But the pain drowned out thought and Miller couldn’t make sense of the words. Someone was kicking him.

A groan escaped Miller, as he took another kick. Unknown hands dragged him to his feet, and threw him against the car. The car! The woman! Miller opened his eyes, just in time to see the bejeweled hand before it slapped him across the face.

Miller’s attacker was a dark Latino man in a suit, creases razor sharp. Guess I found the owner of the car. The man paused to wipe Miller’s blood on the Di Meo. Miller opened his mouth to protest, but the man hushed him pulling a revolver from his coat.

“You do have cahones, letting yourself pass out next to my car.” The man talked with his hands, the revolver weaving about as he spoke. He continued to drown out Miller’s voice. “No, no, you are going to be quiet puta. You are going to listen to me. And then...you’re going to give me answers.”

Miller slumped against the car, his arm draped over the passenger door, too beaten to protest more. The man moved to Miller’s left, leaning in to look at the woman’s body laid across the backseat. “Do you know who she was, man? C’mon dude man…SMACK…pay attention. She was my woman, but you probably knew her as Joliette Kane.”

Recognition dawned on Miller slowly. He was starting to get dizzy again.

“I see you’re starting to understand now. Her papita, he’s a powerful man, he’d kill you for doing this to him.” The man finished examining Joliette’s body and turned to face Miller again. “But…her papita won’t get the pleasure. No, I will get the pleasure…the slow pleasure. You wouldn’t know it but you have cost me an’ da Havens a lot’a money.”

Sh-t…I’m dead. Miller cast about; there was no one for miles, except for the man’s driver sitting in that second Poseidon smoking. With a sigh of resignation, Miller looked the man in the eye and did the only thing he could do... he desperately kicked his leg out.

Miller’s kick slammed the rear door shut, catching the man’s right knee in the door jam. The man cursed, taken completely by surprise. Miller was on the man before he could bring the revolver up. He grabbed the man’s gun arm in one hand and snagged the man's greasy hair in the other. They grappled, spinning away from the car. Recalling every dirty desperate trick in the book Miller slammed his forehead into the man's face. The face gave way with a crunch and spray of blood. The driver was yelling now.

Miller was losing his grip on the man’s arm, his sweaty palms slipping. He groped frantically with his other hand, feeling across the man’s ruined face. Broken nose, bloodied lips. There…an eye socket. Miller plunged his thumb in, twisting up and across. The man cried out, one high long note, jerked and fell back bringing Miller down on top of him.

Miller rolled off the man, scrambling for the gun. He came up on his knees wincing as he heard the driver’s gun. Miller blindly fired…eyes closed screaming for his life.






Click

The cylinder was empty. Miller was alive. He stood, felt a cold trickle down the side of his thigh. The driver was sprawled across the hood of the second Poseidon, his heart and lungs misted across the windshield and pavement. The man’s bloodied socket stared up at him. Miller fell into that bloody well, his world spinning, and doubled over heaving.

 

[johndaw16]

Industrial Cocktails

…im the addict on the corner
im the lawyer in the tower
im the body with the coroner…


An unmanned SaniTech cleaner drone sat in the middle of alleyway AA-34, just one of thousands of deserted industrial conduits in the Corr. The drones AI paused, a nanoseconds delay, as long dormant protocols were called up. Unused logic processes ran through sensor data, eliminating contingencies. In a fraction of a second a message was sent, the drone settling into standby.

Thirty miles away, a BACA police router received an alert. Three unidentified bodies: human; location: AA-34_P.id_Z., identification, removal, and response requested.


A handful of miles away, Miller leaned against the cool steel wall of a warehouse. Rain had begun to fall in the fading twilight. Cold rivulets of water ran down the steel, down the back of Miller’s Di Meo. He didn’t care anymore, but the rain felt d-mn good on his neck.

He ran a hand across his forehead, wiping away the rain that clouded his eyes. Miller didn’t know how long he’d been running. A few miles tops. He couldn’t afford any stops but he had to stop anyway to dry heave every few minutes.

Why am I even running, you were the one attacked. You didn’t do anything wrong. Well maybe his toxicology would be enough to earn him a fine or two…but still. Miller had hardly any memory of last night, and what little he could remember couldn’t save his ass.
.
..
…
“C’mon Miller, its Thursday night and I know damn well you want to go out.”

“Vermon, you know I would if I could, but not tonight. I got $30,000,000 in clients assets strung across the Euro-Spread and ‘till I close those positions I ain’t going nowhere. I want my 6 month bonus.”

“Bullsh-t, dude you know there’s no one on the spread right now, no market makers at least. We’ll hit the clubs, come back when we’re done, and hit the Bundesbank with they’re morning coffee.”

“You can’t be serious; you know I’ll be totally fragged after the clubs. No way can I hit work to trade at whatever god-awful hour we stumble out of the club.”

“Nah, dude we’ll be straight,” Vermon leaned in close, that familiar glint in his eyes. “I got some good sh-t tonight…Aimee you remember her right, she knows a guy, from the islands. Could give a sh-t where he’s from, but she got some stuff off him that’s bangin’. Ramps you up for a good sixteen hours, gives ya a boner for four, and you ain’t fried when you come down.”

“Chill, Vermon. You know I’m done with that scene." Miller stalled Vermon's diatribe. "Wait…wait…tell ya what I’ll do bro, I’ll go get some of Mer’s modafinil hit that before we go and get a cat nap for five. We’ll roll out hit the clubs and then come back and do some early trades before open. Deal?”
.
..
…
It was. Five hours later Miller found himself in Vermon’s Honda cruising the Old Town strip along Union St. The club de jour this side of the Potomac was the Union 495, a retro dance joint that pumped anachronistic techno beats spliced with indie movie clips from the turn of the millennium. By the time they’d paid their way to the front of the line Vermon was already orgiasticlly high off whatever designer drug he’d gotten off Aimee. The word said the club was completely wired and that a Dutch engineer had teamed up with a Chi-town entertainment programmer to design the club like a gigantic tuning fork; attuned to resonate with the music and primal human responses, to produce stimulating responses. Within a month three copycat clubs claimed to have perfected the technique from Tokyo to NYC.

The interior was tastefully decorated in a modern minimalist way, brushed steel, plain ipe flooring, and clean lines. The crowd was a cross-section of the "best" the Corr could offer: young professionals like Miller and Vermon, the socialites of high fashion, and a bevy of posers mimicking whichever gang or tribal style was in vogue that week.

By the time Miller’d gotten his drink Vermon had roped himself a girl for each arm. The women wore matching tribal tats and little else. He’d waved them off as they made their way onto the balcony dance floor. Miller felt off tonight, something slightly out of synch. The omnipresent vibrations seemed to give Miller heart palpitations instead of anything remotely arousing. He wound his to the fourth floor and out onto a deserted balcony overlooking the Potomac. Be good to give my inner ear a rest.

“A fellow seeker of solitude, I see.”

“Pardon?” The balcony had been almost deserted.

“Sorry, please pardon my intrusion. But I’ve been struck by the urge for company. My name’s Joliette” The voice belonged to a striking young woman, of some indeterminate age. She wore a light dress of shimmer silk, tailored in an anonymous South Asian boutique. Loose strands of silver hair framed a beautiful face…a face perfectly sculpted according to the computer generated projections of human desire.

Miller almost choked on his Jack. “The Joliette?” He scanned the rest of the balcony searching for an entourage that wasn’t there.

“Shhhhh…please be careful. I don’t want to attract any attention.” Joliette flowed to Miller’s side, twining an arm along his and led him further out on the balcony. “And your name is?” She turned to him with the question, smiling as if to some personal joke.

“S-s-sorry. Names Miller.”

“Miller? What kind of name is Miller?”

“Dunno. My Mom gave it to me, said I was named after the only good thing my Dad ever gave her. I’m still not sure what that meant.”

“Mmhmm…well Miller, you’re cute and I really want your company.” She leaned into him, standing on her toes to give him peck on the cheek. “Why don’t you follow me upstairs in a few minutes? There will be a man at the stairs, his name is Zampano, just tell him I asked for you.”

She slipped away with that, passing the last words over her shoulder. Miller downed the rest of the Jack. He stayed on the balcony for a minute convincing himself that she wasn’t the real Joliette Kane, just a look like. But there could be no one that looked like her anymore, not since her father bought the rights to the computer models that created her face. Miller could remember getting another Jack, and speaking to Zampano. But the rest of it, faded away into quicksilver haze, with only the slightest hints of passion, lust, and pain.