Read Online Steel Rain by Nyx Smith - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nyx Smith
Tags: Science-Fiction
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resources."
"You propose to investigate?"
"To seek the truth, Chairman -sama . The truth of our enemy's sword."
"Do you propose to make use of gangster tactics?" Machiko breathes. She breathes twice deeply, and determines to hurl herself upon the sword of the Chairman's question as though she were already dead. "Chairman -sama ," she says. "I propose that we are already at war. Our enemy makes war on us. We must find and defeat this enemy or face destruction."
"You speak as a warrior."
"I do."
The Chairman gazes at her with an expression like adamantine steel: hard and wholly unyielding.
It is many long moments before he gives his reply.
10
The interior of the building is like a maze, and it's dark. Neona's mirrored Porsche shades turn the black of night into twilight, but that's all. There's no lights, no jazz in the sockets. She finds a bank of public telecoms on one dusty, graffiti-layered wall, but the vidscreens are dead and the datajacks are red and brown with corrosion.
She nearly shrieks when she sees a cockroach almost half the size of her foot crawling onto her sneak. But instead she merely jumps half a meter into the air, trips, falls, then goes scrambling, gasping, fighting the fear, back the way she came.
She's safe here. Safe as it gets. The corridors are strewn with every kind of litter and devil rats rustle everywhere— but there's no people! No cutters, no freaks. No jackboys or razor-punks to give her a hassle. No slags trying to shag her and no trogs wanting to tweak her condition a little nearer slab city.
She finds a stairway of steel rising to an elevated gangway. The rusted steel creaks and sings with every step, but the gangway holds. Both sides of the gangway are lined by narrow doors like locker doors, and abruptly she realizes where she is: a coffin hotel. Abandoned, derelict. Left for dead in the devastated wastes of the Zone. The Slag Heap. Somewhere in Long Island's County of Suffolk. It's buff perfect. Absolutely jewel. She pushes and kicks at doors till one slides open. The space beyond is a black pit, probably big enough to lie in and not a millimeter more, but that's all she needs. Exactly what she needs. She pulls the rickety metal door shut to keep the bugs out and feels her way around. There's a small tridscreen, a thin mattress, a couple of blankets, all the comforts of home and all she'd dare ask.
She sits, pulls the blankets up over her knees, and leans back into a corner. She's hungry, but she'll survive. Once she gets to the city she'll figure a way to sleaze some nuyen. The gray nylon carrypack she holds clenched to her stomach contains a macroplast-shielded Fairlight invader, and with tech like that she's sure to find work slurping data or busting code red or some fragging thing. She just needs some sleep. A minute to breathe. Stumbling through the Zone half-crazy with terror and buzzing on adrenaline wears a body out. She feels like she's been running for days. Probably running around in circles. Give her the trons of the local telecommunications grid and she'll find her way home in a flash, like the 'Lectron Angel she is, but throw her meat body into the Zone and she'll freak. She ain't meant for this kinda squat.
She closes her eyes and suddenly she's in a dream, the nightmare that's been looping through her head ever since she met this slag called Gamma. As real as simsense and as chilling as roaches climbing her spine. Someone's got her tied down on a bed of cables writhing like snakes and he's prying open her skull. Microtonic tools clack and clatter and whiz and the air smells of solder and burning skin and she feels the truth turning her stomach and churning through her bowels. He's putting a deck in her head— a cranial cyberdeck! Now it opens a plate in her skull every time she needs an upgrade, new memory, more processing power. Now it's risking frying her brain every time she test-drives a new component. No way, no fragging way!
She wakes up
"You propose to investigate?"
"To seek the truth, Chairman -sama . The truth of our enemy's sword."
"Do you propose to make use of gangster tactics?" Machiko breathes. She breathes twice deeply, and determines to hurl herself upon the sword of the Chairman's question as though she were already dead. "Chairman -sama ," she says. "I propose that we are already at war. Our enemy makes war on us. We must find and defeat this enemy or face destruction."
"You speak as a warrior."
"I do."
The Chairman gazes at her with an expression like adamantine steel: hard and wholly unyielding.
It is many long moments before he gives his reply.
10
The interior of the building is like a maze, and it's dark. Neona's mirrored Porsche shades turn the black of night into twilight, but that's all. There's no lights, no jazz in the sockets. She finds a bank of public telecoms on one dusty, graffiti-layered wall, but the vidscreens are dead and the datajacks are red and brown with corrosion.
She nearly shrieks when she sees a cockroach almost half the size of her foot crawling onto her sneak. But instead she merely jumps half a meter into the air, trips, falls, then goes scrambling, gasping, fighting the fear, back the way she came.
She's safe here. Safe as it gets. The corridors are strewn with every kind of litter and devil rats rustle everywhere— but there's no people! No cutters, no freaks. No jackboys or razor-punks to give her a hassle. No slags trying to shag her and no trogs wanting to tweak her condition a little nearer slab city.
She finds a stairway of steel rising to an elevated gangway. The rusted steel creaks and sings with every step, but the gangway holds. Both sides of the gangway are lined by narrow doors like locker doors, and abruptly she realizes where she is: a coffin hotel. Abandoned, derelict. Left for dead in the devastated wastes of the Zone. The Slag Heap. Somewhere in Long Island's County of Suffolk. It's buff perfect. Absolutely jewel. She pushes and kicks at doors till one slides open. The space beyond is a black pit, probably big enough to lie in and not a millimeter more, but that's all she needs. Exactly what she needs. She pulls the rickety metal door shut to keep the bugs out and feels her way around. There's a small tridscreen, a thin mattress, a couple of blankets, all the comforts of home and all she'd dare ask.
She sits, pulls the blankets up over her knees, and leans back into a corner. She's hungry, but she'll survive. Once she gets to the city she'll figure a way to sleaze some nuyen. The gray nylon carrypack she holds clenched to her stomach contains a macroplast-shielded Fairlight invader, and with tech like that she's sure to find work slurping data or busting code red or some fragging thing. She just needs some sleep. A minute to breathe. Stumbling through the Zone half-crazy with terror and buzzing on adrenaline wears a body out. She feels like she's been running for days. Probably running around in circles. Give her the trons of the local telecommunications grid and she'll find her way home in a flash, like the 'Lectron Angel she is, but throw her meat body into the Zone and she'll freak. She ain't meant for this kinda squat.
She closes her eyes and suddenly she's in a dream, the nightmare that's been looping through her head ever since she met this slag called Gamma. As real as simsense and as chilling as roaches climbing her spine. Someone's got her tied down on a bed of cables writhing like snakes and he's prying open her skull. Microtonic tools clack and clatter and whiz and the air smells of solder and burning skin and she feels the truth turning her stomach and churning through her bowels. He's putting a deck in her head— a cranial cyberdeck! Now it opens a plate in her skull every time she needs an upgrade, new memory, more processing power. Now it's risking frying her brain every time she test-drives a new component. No way, no fragging way!
She wakes up
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