'The Transaction' Pt. 2

Cheung had suffered as much as he could of Ash's pompous preamble after no more than a minute or two and allowed his attention to drift away from the drone of his voice. He scanned the rows of books and wondered if any of the old libraries had really kept books like these.

Must have taken some serious coding to map all the individual covers like that. Particle effects on the dust are pretty cool too, not that I'd give this guy the pleasure of – what the hell?!?
 
Movement behind one of the bookcases; he was sure of it.

'You said this node is secure, right?'

'Correct.'

'So how come we got a lurker?'

'Ah... that is no lurker, Mister Cheung. It would seem the final guest has arrived. Gentlemen, may I present Miss Domino,'

The figure emerging from the shadow of the bookcases seemed immediately incongruous in the context of their surroundings. Where the three men had presented as photo-realistic humans, Domino's avatar was a stylised, cell-shaded animé girl.
As she moved to join them, Cheung noted she wasn't broadcasting sound files for movement; enhancing the grace and efficiency of movement evident in the animation of her oddly alluring online self. He suddenly felt a little embarrassed that he had chosen to present as a Chinese Elvis in a pimp suit.

Way to be classy, Cheung...

She nodded to each of them in turn before sitting in a meditative posture. Her slender hands made a few short gestures in the air before her, causing several glowing data readouts to blossom translucently in front of her face. Her eyes scanned rapid streams of kanji, the flow only occasionally interrupted by IP addresses, one of which Cheung recognised as the anonymous re-mailer they had used to contact Domino's handler. The data-flow came to an end and her focus returned to Cheung and Jeong.

'You wish to employ my services,'

It hadn't been posed as a question, so Cheung just nodded confirmation.

'I need further details.'

Her voice was smooth, confident and hinted at an attractive intelligence. Cheung was looking forward to meeting her.

'What do you want to know?'

'You request protection for both the duration of a transaction and transit to and from the meeting. I need to know the location and nature of this meeting.'

'The meeting is at the Intercontinental in Wanchai. The transaction is a simple sale of goods; desirable goods. Something we worked very hard to obtain. We wish to protect our investment.'

The animé Domino seemed to consider this while Ash shifted uncomfortably.

'My fee is non-negotiable. I require an advance of ten thousand new-yen and a further twenty thousand on completion. You will also send any information you have regarding your buyers to this address.'

'Done,' Jeong said, his fingertips a blur over the Samsung.

Seconds later, a new data stream appeared before Domino. She took a moment to review the files, an exaggerated expression of concentration animating her face. When she looked up, her eyes were drawn as simple black lines of suspicion.

'This is no simple sale of goods. These buyers have been linked to radical groups and terrorist cells. They will be well protected themselves. Considering their trade, you cannot be suggesting that your buyers are the only possible threat.'

Jeong's uncertain glance deferred to Cheung, who smiled ruefully.

'Okay sister, you got us. The product could be considered hot; word is maybe once upon a time it was a Yakuza interest. 'Course that could just be a rumour...'

'Indeed...'

She fell silent then, and Cheung felt fearful she may now turn their contract down. They needed her; she was widely accepted to be the best.

'Contact me through the same channels when you have finalised your meeting; I will be ready.'

Cheung and Jeong let out sighs of relief in unison as Domino's avatar winked from existence.

Now to put the final pieces into play...

Copyright © A. Flood 2010

'The Transaction' Pt. 1

This is another story I wrote some time ago and one I intend to return to, possibly once 'Smoke and Mirrors' is done.  I hope you enjoy.

Cheung had never seen so many clocks in one place and he was reasonably sure that he never wanted to again. Their combined sound reminded him of a club he had visited with Kanoko the Nissin Noodle girl, back when she had been someone he wanted to impress. There was this guy, she had said, made really cool music with sound chips from old games consoles, a drum machine and DNA fragments as source code for the tones.

Cheung shuddered as he recalled that night and hated the way that these clocks and their syncopated ticking gave him flash-backs to that dingy pit some Indian gimp was passing off as a club. He looked over to Jeong, who was entranced by a Doraemon branded digital clock with a built in piggy bank.

'Dude!' he hissed, 'let's find the entrance; this place is freaking me out,'

Jeong pushed a button on the base of the clock. It chimed 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in uncertain tones.

'This clock's like... older than your grandma, mate!'

'Whatever. The entrance?'

'Oh yeah, sorry...'

Jeong looked up from his prize find and nudged his wire-rimmed spectacles back onto the bridge of his blunt, slightly-too-wide nose.

'...Need to look for the shopkeeper first.'

Cheung sighed in exasperation.

'The fuck we supposed to do that in amongst all this shit?'

Jeong shrugged, almost apologetic but not quite pulling it off.
In that moment, all the clocks stopped ticking. The digitals powered off in unison. Cheung felt his eye twitch.

The sound was faint at first, like maybe it wasn't there at all; teh... teh... tehpahtapah... tepapahtapahte...

There was something else there too, just floating at the edge of that sound; a mechanical whirring, a hint of tiny servomotors...

When the rabbit appeared between Cheung's feet, playing its little red drum and smiling enthusiastically, all he could manage was, 'erm...'

They stared warily at the toy as it made a shaky half-pirouette before wobbling off in a very decisive path through the jumble of timepieces.

'Erm... I think maybe it wants us to follow it,' Jeong offered.

'Of course it does,' Cheung managed to deadpan.

He shook his head slowly.

Too weird...

They formed an unlikely precession behind the toy rabbit as it led them through the shop toward a door they were both certain had not been there a few moments before. The rabbit disappeared smartly through a cat flap at its base, leaving them staring at their distorted reflections in a perfect walnut veneer.

'Should we knock?'

Jeong seemed to consider this at length.

'Guess so,'

Cheung rapped his knuckles against the wood three times.

Nothing.

They waited, still staring at the walnut versions of themselves.

As Cheung raised his hand again, the door slid into a recess in the wall, contrary to the design indicated by its brass hinges and handle.

The passage ahead of them was blocked by an efficiently muscled black man wearing a top hat and white grease paint around his eyes. Small staples formed fractal patterns on his naked chest and served to enforce the aura of menace initially stated by the shotgun cradled in his arms.

'Are you Domino?' asked Cheung, suspecting it was a stupid question.

'PASSWORD.'

His voice was virtually subsonic and the word arrived with all the force of a gut-punch.

Jeong produced his Samsung palmtop and checked for an instant message, as he had been instructed. He recited the massive string of alphanumerics he saw there, his voice trembling slightly. The Staple-Guardian retreated to a previously unseen alcove and settled into an overstuffed armchair, replacing his shotgun with a cup of steaming tea. Almost as an afterthought, he nudged open a second door with his toe.

With no small amount of trepidation, they stepped into this new room. In doing so, they were certain they had stepped back in time. They were surrounded on all sides now by books of every conceivable size, stored reverently on hardwood shelving that extended to a rich burgundy ceiling. Motes of dust danced in warm cones of light cast by intricate fittings which were most likely antiques even in the last century.

'Welcome, gentlemen,'

The jovial greeting had come from a portly man with a vaguely middle-eastern cast to his features. His arms were held wide, as if to welcome home a sorely missed family member. Cheung was more interested in the man's face and noted his expression to be entirely predatory.

'Come, sit with me,'

Their host gestured to the centre of the library, where he had laid out a spread of exotic throw cushions around a low table covered with batik.

'We're here to retain Domino's services; isn't he joining us?' Jeong asked, jerking his thumb back toward the door. Cheung cringed inwardly at his friend's clumsy approach.

'I'm afraid you have made a common, though understandable mistake. That man is not who you seek. Domino is female.'

'So who's he, then?'

'He is in fact a very expensive counter-intrusion program I am rather proud of; no simple firewall, I can assure you. My name is Ash and I am administrator of this most private of chat rooms and designer of the virtual space you now inhabit. How do you like my little island in the net?'

Copyright © A. Flood 2010

'Smoke and Mirrors' Pt. 3

Part three of 'Smoke and Mirrors', in which we follow Domino after her escape from Koralev's surveillance.

The privacy capsule came back to her with a sort of hyper-clarity; the input from her optics went way beyond those in the Dolldroid. She allowed herself a few seconds to settle into her own body again before moving off; it would take the doorman three minutes or more to get back to her position. Plenty of time.

She dropped her connection with the capsule's system, switching instantly to her own private access node. A few quick prompts and she was shrouded with proxies and stealth programs. Her fingers worked intricate patterns in front of her, supplementing her neural and vocal commands. She gained remote access to the capsule's node under the guise of a maintenance/sys-admin operator and started her scan.

A backtrace showed her no-one had flagged her sojourn or indeed her fake account. She decided to drop a clean-up program on the system anyway, as the logs could be mined by anyone and there seemed little point in compromising the French-Vietnamese rich girl cover without good cause.

Leaving the confines of the capsule, she left her heads-up overlay running and her private uplink open. Using the booth had been useful only insofar as concealing her prone form while providing a focus for the doorman's surveillance. So now she enjoyed the freedom of her own system and all the familiarity, speed and utility it offered her as she melted into the crowds.

Data streams ghosted across the faces around her as she began her preparations for that night's meeting, her physical body nimbly dodging jostles and missteps while her networked body floated serenely among the reams of information she had collated.

Something tugged at her subconscious, drawing her focus back to the physical sphere: a full conversion cyborg, crouched in silent guardianship while the pigtailed girl at his side played with an old gravity ball. His work had been done a long time ago, the cybernetics behind the conversion almost antiquated, old Ninth Column Navy markings running around the tarnished metal where his biceps used to be.

The girl too, seemed to be a relic of a bygone age, her glossy black hair adorned with bubblegum clips to match her simple summer dress. Her fingers, sticky with gum syrup, manipulated the rotations of the ball with a rare, carefree delight.

Domino felt a strong, unexpected surge of melancholy as she regarded the scene and the odd couple seemed to freeze-frame into a snapshot for her. Not knowing if the pain she felt was borne of memory or of fearful portent, she forced herself to sublimate both the feelings and the images they carried. Discipline overwriting sentimentality, for now at least, she wiped the stinging rain drops gathered in her eyes and moved on.

She ducked into a service alley set into the square and padded swiftly into the shadows. Once certain she was concealed from view, Domino shifted her balance and leapt. Her legs propelled her in an explosive acrobatic arc, the motion a miracle of prosthesis. As her palms found the metal of a vent housing several metres up her arms tensed and she flipped her body, extending her ascent while twisting to place her feet beneath her again as she cleared the edge of the roof above. She landed silently, her body in a loose crouch.

Staying low, she moved quickly to look back out over the square. Her eyes found the privacy capsule and scanned back from there to the ramen stand. The doorman was there, his hand pressed to his ear, no doubt already on a call with Koralev, relaying his bad news.

Domino cursed her own lack of focus; she had wasted too much time in getting to her perch and might now be too late to piggyback the call. She started the hack anyway, her mind darting through networks and directories as she launched a simple yet effective eavesdropper program. With no small relief she located his carrier signal and slipped neatly through the standard encryptions surrounding it. Garbled frequency squeals coalesced into the sound of the doorman's voice.

“... gone boss, I'm sorry. I lost her,”

“How? How did you lose her?” Koralev's voice carried a nasty edge.

There was a moment's pause as the bouncer considered his response.

“It's... it's kinda a long story, boss.”

“I'm sure it is,” she heard Koralev sigh theatrically. “It doesn't matter now. I knew she would make you sooner or later. Pays to send a message though, doesn't it?”

“Sure does, boss.”

“Head back now, Dimitri. The club's getting busy.”

Domino watched the decidedly uncertain Dimitri push his way back through the crowds. She sat back on her heels, relaxed for a moment and confident that she could move freely now, away from Koralev's prying eyes. The whole process of ditching the tail had taken too much of her time and now she would have to act quickly to set everything in motion for the meeting at the 37 Lotus Massage Parlour.

Her brief moment of respite at an end, she dropped the two stories back down into the alley, carrying the energy of her landing forward as she broke into a sprint; she had less than five minutes to reach one of her safe houses. Any longer, and she would enter the meeting unprepared which could so easily lead to failure. This was too important. The plan had to work.

Copyright © A. Flood 2010

'Smoke and Mirrors' Pt. 2

Here's the second installment of 'Smoke and Mirrors', where things start to get complicated for Domino...

The shadow Koralev had sent after her was tenacious; his dense bulk and clumsy gait looming large and obvious each time Domino checked her surroundings in one reflective surface or another.

It was time to ditch him; she had less than two hours to work with. Pull anything flashy and Koralev would know she was someone to be wary of. She needed fast and indirect.

Open flame table lamps at a nearby bistro offered an option to use her lighter as a small time delayed incendiary. No, too unpredictable. She considered pulling his comm code from the data-mine she'd run on Koralev, maybe use vocal synthesis to put in a call, tell the guy to get back to his post. Again she dismissed the option. The ruse would unfold too easily.

Then she saw a privacy capsule and the answer presented itself. A quick glance in a darkened window showed her tail to be twenty metres behind her, browsing a ramen auto vendor, all the while being non too discreet in his interest in her.

She left him to his menu and pressed her palm to the ID plate set in a recess in the front of the capsule. Ghostly blue light flashed between her fingers as the scanner read her biometrics. The scrambler program she was running would point the security routines to a log-in held in the name of a French-Vietnamese girl with a healthy corporate expense account in Zurich, a girl who was no more corporeal than the virtual idol whose songs were being piped through the holospeakers lining the street.

Seconds later and she was inside the cubicle; a two metre high tube with just enough space for a high speed data terminal and a reactive memory foam chair. In the relative hush of the capsule the terminal blinked into ready mode and Domino initiated a wireless link.

Brief amber data streams flashed in her peripheral vision as the system cycled through boot-up and then her view of the capsule interior was overlaid with the standard access screens.

“Give me the closest Dolldroid rental outlet,”

Dolldroid... for all your dreams and desires! Your very own out-of-body experience in the body you've always wanted! Have you ever wished you could look like your favourite idol but can't decide on a surgeon you can rely on? Dolldroid has the answer! (Actual unit may differ from illustration)

The mandatory sales ad washed into background noise as she sighed with relief when her query procured an address just around the corner. 'Puri-Puri Doll Loving' seemed to be a small but semi-pricey outfit running out of a unit above a maid café and Gachapon centre. Her funds confirmed and validated, Domino's fingertip glided through the centre's site, neural-haptic feedback confirming each movement and selection as full holographic previews of the Dolldroids available scanned through her heads-up feed.

She quickly located a match for her physique in order to minimise the 'learning phase'. The transition of consciousness into the vat-grown body of a Dolldroid was always disconcerting, even for experienced users and the practise of manipulating the 'so real, it's unreal!' body could take some time to perfect.

Her fingers tracing the uplink code, she braced herself for the imminent top-of-a-rollercoaster vertigo the transfer would bring. The website's graphics fell away and her every perception was thrust down a split-second funnel of disorientation terminating in a pinprick of white-hot light.

The wake-up process felt a lot like climbing out of an anaesthesia induced fog; lack of sensory input slowly giving way to nausea and uncertain movement. Vaseline filtered eyes showed her the door of her sterilisation coffin opening into a small room lit with muted hues of pink.

A few experimental steps confirmed she had made a good choice of body and as her new senses cleared, she quickly tested the limits of her new muscles.

“Show vanity display,”

The Dolldroid's voice was carefully modulated to sound kawaii and alluring, the syllables feeling alien as she uttered them.

A full body holomirror flickered into the space before her and revealed her new self; tumbling neon pink ringlets of hair, small, high breasts and an 'uncanny valley' face straight out of an otaku's fantasy. She cycled the display through several sexy but impractical outfits until she found one which would allow for freedom of movement.

She quickly pulled on the translucent mini dress and soft sole boots retrieved from the dispenser and left the pink overkill of the docking room. Moving as fast as the Dolldroid's systems would allow, she started down the stairs back to street level.

Domino found using Dolldroid bodies painfully slow and frustrating; after all, they were originally commercialised with a fairly singular purpose in mind. Despite the shortcomings of the model, she felt confident she would be able to do what was needed for the distraction to work. She grabbed a clear plastic illumi-glow umbrella from the foyer and started making her way back to the ramen stand.

The bouncer was still stood by the auto vendor, now with a bowl in hand, staring with dumb intensity at the privacy capsule. She wound her way through a jostling sea of umbrellas to within his line of sight and made a deliberate path for the noodle stand. His gaze wavered from his vigil for only the briefest of moments so he could glance at her breasts as she perused the menu. That was enough. He only needed to register her presence.

She carried her bowl over to the counter and moved to set it down next to his. A feigned stumble found her body pressed close into his for the briefest of moments. It proved to be all that was needed as the pheromone-enhanced perfume exuding from the Dolldroid's body started its non-too-subtle work in stirring the man's libido.

“I'm sorry,” she giggled at him, “this is my first time controlling one of these. I had no idea how clumsy I would be!”

“You're doing just fine,” he managed to mumble.

Within a few minutes, she had him following her to the nearest love hotel. They checked into the 'Warming Beach Feeling' suite and she fell back on a bed surrounded by a full-immersion holo of some remote Hawaiian resort as the bouncer fumbled with his belt.

She waited for him to reach for the 'Condomania' vendor by the bed before she said, “Magenta.”

There was a second's pause, followed by an uncertain beep.

The bouncer looked at his girlfriend for the night in confusion as her body shuddered into a rigid state.

“My safety word has been used and shut-down protocols activated. My operator is no longer present. Please wait for the next available Dolldroid retrieval crew to arrive.”

The slow realisation of his error cut through his pheromone stupor and tugged mockingly at his gut; his quarry had escaped.

Copyright © A. Flood 2010