(no subject)
Even though nobody really wants to read this, I might as well put it up here than just let it languish on my hard drive:
DANCING WATER
“BP 70 and falling-” “Scalpel!” “Diazepam. 30 mgs! Where is that damn tranferplasm?!” “O2 30 and critical-she’s in cardiac arrest-” “Beta signature lost-BP 25.” “-get me that defib NOW-” “Flatlining-CLEAR!” “We’re losing her!-”
“Doctor… Dr. Gaeta?”
*
I never liked Retrodomes. Too posh for a down-and-out journalist like Casey Aren. But just the place for a social event of the year: flying 50 feet above city skyline, the latest climo-sim (now imitating a balmy beach evening), and a vertical pool decked out with gardenias. Perfect for a private shindig. Bad for a hack with a fear of heights.
So what was an ex-war correspondent doing at a 6 million litre-pool party? It wasn’t for the illegal 1 carat ‘iced’ caviar. Or the submerged bar.
My scoop started life as a series of industrial power failures. A kidnapping spree and one female prison-break later, it smelled like a story. Before I knew it, my chase brought me to the uptown swank of a Madame Shuo soiree.
Ah, Madame… Billionaire yakuza. Trophy wife. Twice a beauty queen. Now CEO of EterneCo Inc.
Elixirs changed her rags to riches. Diabetes, cataracts, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, cancer, epilepsy, acne-just 100 doses of elixir cured all. A hundred shots of failed anti-radiation meds. The medical journals went crazy. In the next 10 years, elixirs would move from hospitals to salons and build Madame a beauty empire beyond expectation.
That expectation was running high tonight.
I hunkered down poolside with a Martini. Incognito. Or not. I’d stand out even in a crowd of supermodels. With my face, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Perfect human beauty was no match for mechanized jaws, a transplanted eyeball and a mess of organo-robotics. A souvenir from the defunct Artificial Rehabilitation Program (ARP). Along with the biometric scanner, WWW wireless access, ion receiver and micro-prosthetic eye lens implanted in my head.
Elixirs didn’t work on electronics. But they did on EterneCo’s 100 billion customers. 100 billion willing to pay for the latest from Madame’s top secret labs; Immortale would be unveiled tonight to 99 handpicked guests. One of them was my anonymous contact. With a taste for diamonds. Discreet, non-electronic; the ring was the ultimate call sign… if anyone could pick it out from the ten other Tiffanies.
Apparently someone clever could. Clever enough to know about the omnireceiver in my eardrum.
The voice was digitally re-modulated, refracted and focused by the gem.
I came face to face with a glittering Brazilian swimsuit.
Dr. Jane Gaeta was EterneCo’s Head of Research. And as it turned out, my mystery tipper.
“How did you know about the omnireceiver?”
“I used to work for ARP. I was chief surgeon on your case,” she said fondly, zipping up a lab coat over her bikini.
We hovered forty feet in midair as a computerized docking system reeled us in. 20 layers of security protected the heart of EterneCo. The synth laboratory’s 90 floors were linked by a hoverlift shaft running through the building’s core. I would be the first newshound to have access.
“The labs are self-contained individual bioelectric facilities. Each capable of a 20,000-unit hourly turnover.”
She withdrew a lazertran-etch key and slotted it into the reader beside the blast doors to the control booth. The 8-inch thick steel yielded with a pneumatic hiss.
“This is why I need you to destroy EterneCo Inc.”
A maelstrom of sound was the first to come through the gap.
“She’s in shock-” “I need that diazepam, stat!” “-BP 13. Doctor, she’s not responding-” “We’ve got a gusher here!” “She’s flatlining…”
It was massacre.
Technicians swarmed around a surgeon up to his elbows in blood. They pumped and suctioned like men possessed. But the dame in the pod was already dead. So were those Disposal wheeled out. Their replacements were being sedated to stop the screaming.
The control booth overlooking the lab was built tough. Its polycarbonate shell could take on a nuclear warhead and come out smiling. But that couldn’t stop the carnage played out on the holoscreens. I could almost taste the metal tang of blood.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!!” “-epinephrine. Double it-” “Please no…”
Monitors refreshed vitals to the second. Spasming bodies protested needles. Others choked on vomit. Nurses spread legs for tubes. IV guns dealt immunosuppressors and anticoagulants. All were covered in blood.
I was glad when Dr. Gaeta cut audio.
“This is what goes into Immortale.” She summoned another video. “5000-litre cooling tanks. Blood is stored here before processing.”
“Excuse me… blood?”
“Menstrual blood, Mr. Aren. A powerful antioxidant.” Dr. Gaeta tapped a key, pulling schematics and reports. “The key ingredient.
“Cellular buffers. Endometrial cells are naturally regenerative.” A 3D blob pulsed gently onscreen. “With modifications, they can be programmed to act as sacrificial cells; neutralising free radicals in the system.” The blob popped. “Dead cells become scaffolding for new tissue. Complete restoration of mitochondrial integrity within 6 months. A comprehensive anti-aging system.”
I finally remembered to breathe.
The elixir of youth. Mass produced; with a catchy tagline to boot. No hard sell there. Synth science had finally caught up with the myth. But human nature hadn’t. And it demanded blood.
“Isn’t there...”
“… Another way?” She shook her head. “We tried growing the cells in an incubator… every batch failed to mature.” A bloody geyser erupted on the holodeck.
“To meet launch quota, we had to piggyback the city grid…”
“The blackouts! ... They were signals. You wanted me to investigate.”
“You have to stop me…us-EterneCo.” Her voice was low; angry. Stats flickered across the readout. “You have to shut this company down. You have to save any chance for this science to escape.”
My sensory algorithms were in overdrive. The little scoop had turned into a monster. The world’s biggest business titan had been on the rumour mill for years. And now? I had something better than gossip. Solid proof. Just one broadcast and EterneCo would be languishing in court for eternity. And I would be cause celebre.
But I was getting ahead of myself. That explained why my circuits were too preoccupied to analyse the five new heat signatures relayed to my thermal feedback. Four were bruisers who looked like they ate bullets for breakfast (as I painfully discovered).
Madame brought up the rear, wearing enough red to drive ten bulls mad.
“It’s a federal offence to trespass,” Madame informed us.
“So is human trafficking and exploitation.” I went for brazen.
She took a drag on her pearl-handled butt, circling like a shark. “Jane, I’m disappointed in you.”
“For having a conscience?”
For that, I got a 180-degree twist on my robotic arm. Thankfully I could remote-deactivate the local nerve circuit.
“Be quiet.” Her tone was a harassed schoolteacher’s. “I didn’t survive 3000 years of war, disease and the Internet for a smart-mouth reporter.”
Madame smiled; in a mood shift. “Dr. Gaeta did an excellent job on you. Pity my viral bomb didn’t finish cleaning you”-her black eyes narrowed-“to the bone.”
A bio-grenade in Bossangoa cut my investigative career short. The flesh-eating viral payload had chewed my face into a jigsaw. I was forced to drop my files… of course, the files!
“You wanted to shut me up.”
“Just like all the others who came too close to the truth,” she purred. I didn’t need to look far for disgust. Then everything fell into place.
“You knew I was on to you…You knew you couldn’t escape…” I paused for effect, triumphant. “Countess Elizabeth Báthory.”
“You will not speak my name!” she shrieked. Her gene-grafted face contorted, banshee-like. Amazing for the botox.
My hunch was dead on.
The Blood Countess. 16th-century Hungarian royalty. History’s most prolific serial killer. Classified psychotic. Her rap-sheet would make Jack the Ripper tremble.
“Bloodbaths,” I breathed. “You’re selling your insanity. Immortale is your revenge.”
“You wouldn’t know what it’s like!” she screeched. “My beauty will outlive the ages! I will stop TIME!
“Immortale will help more women than feminism or microwaves ever did! It will save millions! Millions!” Madame snapped the cigarette-holder in two.
“By butchering thousands?” Dr. Gaeta had climbed aboard.
“You stupid girl! You work for me! I own-”
A spring-release shunted my robotic arm into the bruno’s gut. My thoughtfully arranged fist corkscrewed into a chin. The ex-limb (now spinning missile of doom) had enough momentum going for a diversion.
“Boss, we got a situation-”
“You think?!” Madame Shuo didn’t appreciate the obvious.
The bodyguard stooped to the diamond ring the metal arm dislodged. A red light winked on.
“Hey that looks like…”
He didn’t even get to run before the solitaire band detonated.
Dr. Gaeta kept the information flowing even when running for our lives. Difficult to do with only one arm.
60…
Our plan was cobbled together hastily. And the ring stunt wasn’t the most dangerous part.
39…
I had recorded the earlier proceedings on my retinal cam.
We skirted the lab, heading for the exits. Alarm strobes bathed us.
18…
Klaxons blared. My vibration sensors picked up SWAT moving into position. A nuclear blast tends to do that.
7…
3…
We sprinted the final ten feet. Sprinklers misted us with antiseptics.
2…
1…
Night air blasted through the yawn of alloyed doors as we burst onto the tarmac. I was blinded by flashbulbs. The press. Right on time. Overhead, the Retrodome glowed. A massive holoscreen on the dome’s side broadcast CNN. Madame’s confession video had replaced EterneCo’s logo. A blitz of paramedics and decontamination teams descended upon the complex. Lawyers were already punching in calls to the DA.
Madame was dead.
For EterneCo, all that was left was the harrowing ordeal of a public prosecution. A long overdue one.
A lot of things were going to change. Like gene-grafting. Crooks could have a field day: a new face after every job. The new medical attorney would be looking to revamp the legislation on that one. A fitting end for Dr. Gaeta.
A reporter documents the times. But I didn’t have to remain a casual observer.
And then I knew: my time was just beginning.
On a happier note, I'm thinking of making my own mood icons X3 If only I had the perseverance to do it...
DANCING WATER
“BP 70 and falling-” “Scalpel!” “Diazepam. 30 mgs! Where is that damn tranferplasm?!” “O2 30 and critical-she’s in cardiac arrest-” “Beta signature lost-BP 25.” “-get me that defib NOW-” “Flatlining-CLEAR!” “We’re losing her!-”
“Doctor… Dr. Gaeta?”
*
I never liked Retrodomes. Too posh for a down-and-out journalist like Casey Aren. But just the place for a social event of the year: flying 50 feet above city skyline, the latest climo-sim (now imitating a balmy beach evening), and a vertical pool decked out with gardenias. Perfect for a private shindig. Bad for a hack with a fear of heights.
So what was an ex-war correspondent doing at a 6 million litre-pool party? It wasn’t for the illegal 1 carat ‘iced’ caviar. Or the submerged bar.
My scoop started life as a series of industrial power failures. A kidnapping spree and one female prison-break later, it smelled like a story. Before I knew it, my chase brought me to the uptown swank of a Madame Shuo soiree.
Ah, Madame… Billionaire yakuza. Trophy wife. Twice a beauty queen. Now CEO of EterneCo Inc.
Elixirs changed her rags to riches. Diabetes, cataracts, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, cancer, epilepsy, acne-just 100 doses of elixir cured all. A hundred shots of failed anti-radiation meds. The medical journals went crazy. In the next 10 years, elixirs would move from hospitals to salons and build Madame a beauty empire beyond expectation.
That expectation was running high tonight.
I hunkered down poolside with a Martini. Incognito. Or not. I’d stand out even in a crowd of supermodels. With my face, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Perfect human beauty was no match for mechanized jaws, a transplanted eyeball and a mess of organo-robotics. A souvenir from the defunct Artificial Rehabilitation Program (ARP). Along with the biometric scanner, WWW wireless access, ion receiver and micro-prosthetic eye lens implanted in my head.
Elixirs didn’t work on electronics. But they did on EterneCo’s 100 billion customers. 100 billion willing to pay for the latest from Madame’s top secret labs; Immortale would be unveiled tonight to 99 handpicked guests. One of them was my anonymous contact. With a taste for diamonds. Discreet, non-electronic; the ring was the ultimate call sign… if anyone could pick it out from the ten other Tiffanies.
Apparently someone clever could. Clever enough to know about the omnireceiver in my eardrum.
The voice was digitally re-modulated, refracted and focused by the gem.
I came face to face with a glittering Brazilian swimsuit.
Dr. Jane Gaeta was EterneCo’s Head of Research. And as it turned out, my mystery tipper.
“How did you know about the omnireceiver?”
“I used to work for ARP. I was chief surgeon on your case,” she said fondly, zipping up a lab coat over her bikini.
We hovered forty feet in midair as a computerized docking system reeled us in. 20 layers of security protected the heart of EterneCo. The synth laboratory’s 90 floors were linked by a hoverlift shaft running through the building’s core. I would be the first newshound to have access.
“The labs are self-contained individual bioelectric facilities. Each capable of a 20,000-unit hourly turnover.”
She withdrew a lazertran-etch key and slotted it into the reader beside the blast doors to the control booth. The 8-inch thick steel yielded with a pneumatic hiss.
“This is why I need you to destroy EterneCo Inc.”
A maelstrom of sound was the first to come through the gap.
“She’s in shock-” “I need that diazepam, stat!” “-BP 13. Doctor, she’s not responding-” “We’ve got a gusher here!” “She’s flatlining…”
It was massacre.
Technicians swarmed around a surgeon up to his elbows in blood. They pumped and suctioned like men possessed. But the dame in the pod was already dead. So were those Disposal wheeled out. Their replacements were being sedated to stop the screaming.
The control booth overlooking the lab was built tough. Its polycarbonate shell could take on a nuclear warhead and come out smiling. But that couldn’t stop the carnage played out on the holoscreens. I could almost taste the metal tang of blood.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!!” “-epinephrine. Double it-” “Please no…”
Monitors refreshed vitals to the second. Spasming bodies protested needles. Others choked on vomit. Nurses spread legs for tubes. IV guns dealt immunosuppressors and anticoagulants. All were covered in blood.
I was glad when Dr. Gaeta cut audio.
“This is what goes into Immortale.” She summoned another video. “5000-litre cooling tanks. Blood is stored here before processing.”
“Excuse me… blood?”
“Menstrual blood, Mr. Aren. A powerful antioxidant.” Dr. Gaeta tapped a key, pulling schematics and reports. “The key ingredient.
“Cellular buffers. Endometrial cells are naturally regenerative.” A 3D blob pulsed gently onscreen. “With modifications, they can be programmed to act as sacrificial cells; neutralising free radicals in the system.” The blob popped. “Dead cells become scaffolding for new tissue. Complete restoration of mitochondrial integrity within 6 months. A comprehensive anti-aging system.”
I finally remembered to breathe.
The elixir of youth. Mass produced; with a catchy tagline to boot. No hard sell there. Synth science had finally caught up with the myth. But human nature hadn’t. And it demanded blood.
“Isn’t there...”
“… Another way?” She shook her head. “We tried growing the cells in an incubator… every batch failed to mature.” A bloody geyser erupted on the holodeck.
“To meet launch quota, we had to piggyback the city grid…”
“The blackouts! ... They were signals. You wanted me to investigate.”
“You have to stop me…us-EterneCo.” Her voice was low; angry. Stats flickered across the readout. “You have to shut this company down. You have to save any chance for this science to escape.”
My sensory algorithms were in overdrive. The little scoop had turned into a monster. The world’s biggest business titan had been on the rumour mill for years. And now? I had something better than gossip. Solid proof. Just one broadcast and EterneCo would be languishing in court for eternity. And I would be cause celebre.
But I was getting ahead of myself. That explained why my circuits were too preoccupied to analyse the five new heat signatures relayed to my thermal feedback. Four were bruisers who looked like they ate bullets for breakfast (as I painfully discovered).
Madame brought up the rear, wearing enough red to drive ten bulls mad.
“It’s a federal offence to trespass,” Madame informed us.
“So is human trafficking and exploitation.” I went for brazen.
She took a drag on her pearl-handled butt, circling like a shark. “Jane, I’m disappointed in you.”
“For having a conscience?”
For that, I got a 180-degree twist on my robotic arm. Thankfully I could remote-deactivate the local nerve circuit.
“Be quiet.” Her tone was a harassed schoolteacher’s. “I didn’t survive 3000 years of war, disease and the Internet for a smart-mouth reporter.”
Madame smiled; in a mood shift. “Dr. Gaeta did an excellent job on you. Pity my viral bomb didn’t finish cleaning you”-her black eyes narrowed-“to the bone.”
A bio-grenade in Bossangoa cut my investigative career short. The flesh-eating viral payload had chewed my face into a jigsaw. I was forced to drop my files… of course, the files!
“You wanted to shut me up.”
“Just like all the others who came too close to the truth,” she purred. I didn’t need to look far for disgust. Then everything fell into place.
“You knew I was on to you…You knew you couldn’t escape…” I paused for effect, triumphant. “Countess Elizabeth Báthory.”
“You will not speak my name!” she shrieked. Her gene-grafted face contorted, banshee-like. Amazing for the botox.
My hunch was dead on.
The Blood Countess. 16th-century Hungarian royalty. History’s most prolific serial killer. Classified psychotic. Her rap-sheet would make Jack the Ripper tremble.
“Bloodbaths,” I breathed. “You’re selling your insanity. Immortale is your revenge.”
“You wouldn’t know what it’s like!” she screeched. “My beauty will outlive the ages! I will stop TIME!
“Immortale will help more women than feminism or microwaves ever did! It will save millions! Millions!” Madame snapped the cigarette-holder in two.
“By butchering thousands?” Dr. Gaeta had climbed aboard.
“You stupid girl! You work for me! I own-”
A spring-release shunted my robotic arm into the bruno’s gut. My thoughtfully arranged fist corkscrewed into a chin. The ex-limb (now spinning missile of doom) had enough momentum going for a diversion.
“Boss, we got a situation-”
“You think?!” Madame Shuo didn’t appreciate the obvious.
The bodyguard stooped to the diamond ring the metal arm dislodged. A red light winked on.
“Hey that looks like…”
He didn’t even get to run before the solitaire band detonated.
Dr. Gaeta kept the information flowing even when running for our lives. Difficult to do with only one arm.
60…
Our plan was cobbled together hastily. And the ring stunt wasn’t the most dangerous part.
39…
I had recorded the earlier proceedings on my retinal cam.
We skirted the lab, heading for the exits. Alarm strobes bathed us.
18…
Klaxons blared. My vibration sensors picked up SWAT moving into position. A nuclear blast tends to do that.
7…
3…
We sprinted the final ten feet. Sprinklers misted us with antiseptics.
2…
1…
Night air blasted through the yawn of alloyed doors as we burst onto the tarmac. I was blinded by flashbulbs. The press. Right on time. Overhead, the Retrodome glowed. A massive holoscreen on the dome’s side broadcast CNN. Madame’s confession video had replaced EterneCo’s logo. A blitz of paramedics and decontamination teams descended upon the complex. Lawyers were already punching in calls to the DA.
Madame was dead.
For EterneCo, all that was left was the harrowing ordeal of a public prosecution. A long overdue one.
A lot of things were going to change. Like gene-grafting. Crooks could have a field day: a new face after every job. The new medical attorney would be looking to revamp the legislation on that one. A fitting end for Dr. Gaeta.
A reporter documents the times. But I didn’t have to remain a casual observer.
And then I knew: my time was just beginning.
On a happier note, I'm thinking of making my own mood icons X3 If only I had the perseverance to do it...