Read Online CyberpunkErotica by Ora le Brocq - Free Book Online Page A

main rival. One less corporation in the world, but now, there was a much bigger one, with even more power. The Tendriz Corporation promised an ethical business model. I had already accessed their mainframe and discovered they were as bad as Vine, if not worse.
    The elected government had been all too happy to let Tendriz take over Vine. “The market should regulate itself,” was the line of the official press release, as it always is. The corporations demanded the government back off and do nothing. The government, as always, obeyed. Besides, the government was busy prosecuting all the rioters who had broken into New London and punishing them with long jail sentences. The grievances, the injustices, the sheer unfairness of life had been pushed away by media outrage at the mob. The press demanded action and blood. The government, as always, obeyed.
    I made my way to the laboratory where I had been upgraded. Tendriz is now exploring that experiment. All the staff and material had been removed from Vine’s headquarters to give the illusion the project had been shut down, whereas in reality, it was merely relocated and rebranded. Professor Holloway now has a larger budget and even more human guinea pigs to work on. They tried looking for me, but when you can access all information, all commands, all communications, it’s difficult to sneak up on a girl.
    I reached the lab. It was empty and dark, apart from a dim light in Professor Holloway’s old office. I walked in and saw Andrew, sitting on a cheap chair he must have scavenged from somewhere. I knew he was there. I’d followed him on the surveillance cameras for a week as he wondered New London in a daze, refusing to answer his phone, to access his emails, to go to work. Now, he was here, snivelling in the chair.
    He looked up as I entered. He squinted in the darkness.
    I mentally increased the light level just enough so he could see me.
    As he recognised me, he burst into tears, then laughter and then more tears.
    “It’s Zara!” he finally hiccupped. “Zara, who I had to convince to help us. I couldn’t convince you of anything, could I? Not when you have access to everything. Now look at me. My life is ruined. Your fault!”
    “Your life is ruined because you embraced just one aspect of it. You believed it, breathed it, and now it has been taken away you are left with nothing. Now, you’re like the street.”
    “No, no, no,” he shrieked, shaking his head violently. “I’m not like the street. I’ll never be like the street. I have knowledge! I have understanding beyond the sheep on the street. I’ll never be like them. I know too much. I’m too clever!”
    “You’re not clever. You’re just a drone. Just like everyone on the street is a drone. The only variation is we’re programmed in different ways. You were programmed to aspire. We were programmed to sink down. Yet we were all indoctrinated with the fallacy that we were free.”
    “I was free. I had wealth and security and respect! What did you ever have?”
    “Nothing, because life is just a grey drizzle for anyone from the street and golden drizzle for those in steel cities. Your corporations and governments have made it that way.”
    “No! You’re violent and morally depraved,” burbled Andrew. “I saw it! I saw it on the screens. I saw it in the violent behaviour of the mob who just wanted to burn and smash! They’re all trapped by their own hatred and violence. I see it in you! No wonder you all mutilate yourselves with tattoos and piercings! You’re so violent, you carry out that violence on yourselves!”
    “Our bodies are all we have been left with, the only commodity we have after years of having our rights and dignities stripped away by the media, by government, by business. Our bodies are our own canvas. Modifications, tattoos, mutilations, cutting, it is our way of marking our canvas, of making a personal stand, something unique to us. Except,” I added bitterly, the knowledge