Survival has many faces

By Henko Beukes

Leon Kruger is a hacker and ex-mercenary down on his luck when he meets Six Josephson, an enigmatic girl who had been implanted with the latest hacker hardware. Somewhat reluctantly he gets involved with her and finds that she drags him deeper and deeper into a world of intrigue, mayhem, and murder. She seduces him into also getting a lattice implant, but all is not as it seems. The Guild and the Liddell Corporation play dangerous games with them before luring them into an ambush which leaves Six seemingly dead and Leon running for his life.
Leon meets up with people from a resistance movement who scam him out of his body and into an obsolete mecha where he has to work as a security guard for the shady Thaddeus Garvin. He befriends Minuet, a sexbot with a human ghost, who helps him with his plan to get a new and more permanent body.
The rest of the adventure involves break-ins into the most powerful corporate tower, surprises and rescues and general mayhem and destruction, teaching Leon, Six and Minuet that no shell is permanent if you wanted to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Henko Beukes
• Release date: Feb 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370650682

Book preview

Chapter 1

She was draped over the edge of the bar counter like a boneless mannequin, her black plastic and metal exoskeleton fitted her as if she had put it on when she weighed four kilos less and had grown into it. Not that she was padded, more like a gymnast on a vegetarian diet, lithe, lean and as taught as a drum. But the exo fitted tailor-made; and looked very expensive, a Hitachi, if the small logo could be believed. That quality you could not get outside of High Town, even if you looked hard and were prepared to sell organs; even your own.

The blackness of her exo reflected the blue and red neon lighting behind the bar, and the drink she was attacking was something smoky in a short fat tumbler. Her hair was as black as the shadows in the corners, and the skin of her neck was a pale blue-white like a backlit LCD. Two black cables curved from a golden jack in the back of her head to the collar of her exo, entering the suit on either side of her throat. She was drinking with premeditated intention, like a girl celebrating or a girl wanting to get shit faced.

As soon as I laid eyes on her I hated her. She was the reason I was without work, without prospects and with a leaking e-coin stash. Not her specifically; I did not know her from a knock-kneed pole dancer, but she represented everything I was blaming for the ills in my world.

I had built up a reputation as a competent indie compsec expert, but my craft was suddenly no longer in demand. Her type had access to the next wave of tech, and for that I hated her almost as much as I hated synthetics with vat-grown human skin. For the fourth time in nine years I had to find another career. I guessed that must have been some sort of fucking record somewhere.

I felt a barely controllable urge to walk up to her and rip out the jack-plug in the back of her head and with it that fine web of neural-connections. One thing kept me from acting on the impulse for unprovoked petty violence; she was probably capable of kicking my ass. She was smaller than me, but I was drunker; just enough to count. And she had that fucking exo.

I also suspected that if I actually had caused any trouble for her, the eight other people in the bar would have rushed to her aid. They were a rag-tag bunch, who all sat in groups of one, nursing their alcohol in glum silence in the glow of their own augmented reality tech. None of them looked like the white knight type but something about a girl in distress tended to bring out the make-believe hero in most men, even in a bar called The Bloody Didgeridoo in River Town.

Hey, Nine! I shouted from the other side of the bar. She turned slowly and deliberately. I saw her dark eyes focus on me and instantly categorise and dismiss.

I was suddenly at a loss for words; the insult I wanted to fire in her direction seemed futile. The fog of cheap alcohol, dirty drugs and despair had drained my neurons of all snappy insults. So I just sat there, doctoring the cringe with the remaining vodka in my glass, and waited for inspiration to rain down on me out of the gloom of the bar.

The inspiration took an hour to find me; in the form of the Nine falling over stone cold drunk. I just sat there looking at her unmoving form for a whole drink. Then I got up and did a deliberate stumble over to see if she was as dead as I was hoping, after her heavy face plant on the sticky floor. It turned out that she was alive and still full of shit. As I bent down to check her vitals, she took a wild swing at me and caught me on the lip with a lucky knuckle.

I had a simple rule: a woman hits me, I hit back. It was a rule that had worked well among the unisex mercenary squads in the Levant, and since then I had no reason to revise it. So I gave her a solid backhand smack in the mouth. Just hard enough for her to notice and smarten up. And that was exactly what it did. It also gave her incentive to struggle into a sitting position on the barroom floor. Her eyes floated loosely in her head for a few seconds before they fixed and focussed on my face. I saw the wheel coming to a halt at a new appraisal of my value.

What do you want? Fake aggression mixed with alcohol.

My cock in your ass, I said. She hardly flinched.

Are you sure it is not the other way around? She had sobered up fast.

Quite, I said, sucking on my bruised lip and tasting blood.

If you buy me a drink, we might be able to talk about that, she said.

You do not need another drink. You are already fucked-up enough, having just been face down and tongue out on the floor. But you can buy me another drink. Vodka neat, I said.

She sat still for a moment, then got up, momentarily steadying herself by the bar and walked off to the toilets. I looked at her walking away, she had an easy sway to her walk, the neon lights of the bar playing on the soft shiny plastic of her ass. Her legs were long and lithe, with just enough muscle to give them shape, ending in strong high heels, as if she liked the way heels made her ass look, but hated the unsteadiness of spiky stilts.

I returned to my seat and my empty glass. I knew the other patrons were looking at me, and everyone was making up their own minds as to how successful my attempt at breaking through to the ice maiden had been.

Don’t waste your time with her, said George the Barman from behind the bar. She is a cunt and semi-professional ball breaker.

I looked at him where he stood drying the glassware. He was the shady proprietor of a shady bar in a shady part of a shady town. His left prosthetic eye glowed a faint amber in the gloom of the bar, and the implant cord snaked from behind his ear to somewhere inside his shirt, like an articulated tentacle of a steampunk octopus. The rumour was that he had lost his eye during the war, but I knew it was an exploding lava-lamp.

George and I went way back, we had served in the same drone jockey squad for UNTEC in Darwin. He was born and bred Northern Territory, rough as a salty’s cock, but okay as a comrade whenever the shit hit the fan. We got out of that place mere minutes before the bomb took it out. Now there was not much left of Darwin, after a twenty kilo-tonner did the landscaping. We came north together after that. He got the bar for a handful of uncut diamonds he had ‘liberated’ from an illegal mining operator during an extramural op, and I set up my consultancy. I looked in at his place if I needed to remember, or needed to forget. And sometimes he had a lead to my next job.

She comes in here often? I asked, trying to sound disinterested and not succeeding.

Been here a few times, got plastered and insulted the regulars.

I lifted my glass in salute to the heads-up and to indicate time for a refill. I assumed she was not going to buy that drink after all. George came over and tipped in the vodka without measuring. I scanned the payment into his handheld paystation and George returned to his spot. Even if we were comrades I always preferred to pay my way; I hate to owe anyone anything. I was wired that way. I took a sip of the vodka and felt the alcohol sting in the cut on my lip.

When she got back, she came and sat near me. Not too close, but close enough to talk without everyone hearing.

I see you have a drink already, she said. Her voice was low and smooth, like a Cuban cigar and cognac.

Couldn’t wait, didn’t know if you fell asleep on the can.

She just nodded and then got distracted by George bringing her drink from her spot on the other side of the bar.

You are a Nine, I said, not knowing why I did that.

Thanks. But I’ve seen a mirror, she said, dropping her chin and looking at me through her lashes. I was tempted to say something flattering, but just sat there scraping around for words until the temptation subsided.

A ninth guilder, I eventually said unnecessarily. Why?

I sat there not really expecting a response, just looking at her face. It wasn’t particularly pretty; thin, angular with sweeping cheekbones that gave her an oriental look without the almond eyes. The scars of removed tech at her temples injected a measure of sadness into her portrait that spoke of practicality above vanity. For a woman to take that route normally involved a story hard to listen to. She was mid-twenties, too young to have a sad story to bore people with, so I just sat there, making up the story for myself, rather than wanting to know her version.

I took another sip of my drink and stared down at the bar counter. Someone long ago had decided that the counter needed his initials carved in it – ‘E.D.’ I hated people who felt as if they had to mark their territory like a dog pissing on every corner. I decided that if I ever met E.D. I would punch him in the face. I reached for my pocket and another cigarette, but found the packet empty. I crumpled it and left it in the piece of bombshell from the war, cut and polished to resemble an ashtray.

I suddenly realised that some time had gone since either of us had said anything. I was too tired and too blunted for a mating dance and the girl wasn’t enough of my type for the effort.

I got up, drained the last bit of alcohol from my glass and left, not even looking in her direction. I waved at George and he just nodded, a knowing smile playing on his face. At the door I retrieved my Glock from the rack of gun safes and slipped it into the holster under my right arm. I zipped up my jacket and stuck my hands in my pockets, then shouldered the door open.

As I got outside, the night greeted me with a cold and moist gust. The sky was a dirty black, reflecting the city lights off the low clouds, which made it look like the whole city had been grown in a large cave. The rain from earlier seemed to have stopped, but the pavement was still very wet. The wind was sneezing droplets and stench through the city, in a way that reminded everyone on the street that they would be elsewhere, if they had an elsewhere to be. I stood still, finding my bearings and letting the outside clear my head a bit. I checked the projection on my retina for the time; 03:37. I felt a tightness in my chest and my breath felt heavy. I was tired. I also didn’t feel drunk enough. It felt like a failed mission.

Can’t take the punch, hey. It was the girl again, standing slightly to my left. She was ruffling through her backpack. I was hoping she was looking for a smoke. She pulled out a transparent plastic poncho and threw it over her shoulders, pulling the hood over her head.

I’m Six. I hated the name. It reminded me of a girl I knew far ago, one that I never wanted to remember.

Is it your name or your age? I asked the standard question.

No, the number of men I’ve killed since yesterday. She was fast in the retort; as if she had to field it often.

If you are that touchy you should choose another handle. I’m Kruger, Leon Kruger.

Okay, Leon Kruger. See you around. She started off down the road.

I took the opposite direction just out of spite.

Hey! It was her. I stopped and turned around slowly.

Want to come with me? The question was simple.

Okay. So was the answer. There was a promise of something in the exchange, and I hoped the promise involved her lips around my dick.

We walked side by side in her direction. Both caught in our own thoughts, our footsteps making slapping sounds on the wet pavement. The streets were deserted and quiet, even in the city there was a short period between the evening and the morning, when only stupid and lonely people did anything. All alcoves and shop entrances were filled with people sleeping rough under cardboard and plastic. The victims of the globalist experiment were cast like driftwood into every dry shelter on the streets of River Town.

Once we walked too close past a happy rub, and the projected advertising invaded my optical tech for long enough to register the picture of a pretty oriental, milking an erect penis while she looked straight into the camera. I cut the feed as soon as I found the ‘reject’ icon, but not before the girl had a face full of cum.

I found Six looking at me to see my reaction to the adcast. I suspected she had deliberately led me into the radius as a test of some sort.

Nice tits, I said and deliberately thought of other things, to get the image of the creamed girl out of my head.

Six’s building was one of the better ones, which was not saying much in that part of the city, but it had some sort of security system and the cameras seemed to be working. Also the graffiti on the outside were not quite as obscene and there was no graffiti inside, as if someone had painted the walls recently. We had to take the stairs as the elevator was out of order. The slow wordless climb to the third floor did nothing to help the tiredness in my legs.

Her apartment was dark when we entered, she reached for a switch and the flood of light did not raise the mood. The place was decorated in dark. Pictures on the wall mirrored the homicidal or suicidal thoughts of the creators, and the blinds were thick, and black as the inside of a coalminer’s asshole.

I stood in the middle of the room, absorbing the onslaught of nihilism and then looked for a way out. If the art was a reflection of her mental state, I doubted whether I would have survived the night. With that thought I started looking for her, worried that she might attack me out of one of the many dark corners.

I found her passed out on her bed. The cover of the bed was black and with her black exo I almost missed her lying on her face on the bed.

Suddenly the tiredness of the night overwhelmed me as well and I crashed next to her on the bed. Whatever promises had been implied earlier, it seemed that none were being kept.

Chapter 2

I woke up to the sound of running water. It took me many seconds to balance my thoughts, remember where I was, and open my eyes. First thing I did was feeling for my Glock, it was still tucked in the holster. The room was dark, with a slight sliver of light piercing the blind. Just enough light filled the place to show that she was not in it. I adjusted my retinal projector and scanned the room. I had to flip through all three filters before I found enough data to know that the sound of running water was coming from a door to my left. Some light was also leaking from under the door.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, wondering if I should make a quick sneak exit. Then my bladder made my decision for me; too many double vodkas and too few trips to the dingy toilets were creating a serious hydraulic overpressure. I got up and lightly knocked on the door.

Where is the head? I need a piss badly, I said, hoping she would hear me over the sound of the shower.

She answered immediately: You can come in and use the toilet in here.

Thanks, I said, as I pushed the door open. Pissing in front of someone else apparently is a problem for some people, but once you had a female comrade stand guard over you shitting under fire, nothing could interfere with your ablutions again. That is one benefit of unisex merc squads, the sex is another.

She was in the shower, behind a clear glass door. Her body was as thin, hairless and taught as I had imagined, but it also had a criss-cross of scars that you only got from a lifelong regimen of committed self-harm, or an abandoned body prosthesis operation. I decided then to stick around long enough to find out the history.

She was totally unself-conscious about her nudity, and stood around drying herself while I tried to piss, her small tits hardly jiggling as she sawed the towel across her back. I suffered from holding my piss to long, for about a minute, before I could relax my bladder muscles. She looked at me pissing like a horse with an amused expression, not once did she look away to give me some privacy. When I had finished she offered me a shower, which I gladly took up.

When I returned to the room she was busy getting into the exo. It was a beautiful strip ballet in reverse, matt black panels and cables being pulled and seated, while flexible shiny black strips were being clipped and zipped. The final product was a body armour accentuating all the curves and bumps, to the point of modest exaggeration. I knew just by how much exaggeration, after having seen her in dripping skin.

I got dressed quickly, black steel tip boots, light plastic box to protect the nuts and black pants. After that I did my tech ritual. I had learned the assembly ritual way back, when I was still earning a merc’s salary.

The ritual worked for me and it ensured I had everything connected and working. First I connected the input set, connecting the cord to the daisy plug in my left forearm. I ran the cord on the inside of my arm to my armpit. I secured the cord with the Velcro straps below and above my elbow. I then put on the tech harness, a simple affair to hold the hard plastic tech modules and the six flat battery units. I attached the CPU and Comms modules to my ribs under my left arm and connected them to each other. I then connected the input cord to the CPU. Lastly I fitted the RP. It clipped onto the four magnets embedded in my skull under the skin around my left eye and the earpiece fitted over my left ear. I then connected the cord of the RP to the CPU module and booted up.

Once the system was running, I made sure the display was showing all parameters in focus, that the latency of the RP was optimised, that the optics were clean and the sound level was right. I put on my stretch black shirt and the gun holster harness, which was made to fit with the tech harness.

I put on my jacket, it was a lightweight synthetic black leather job, with built-in mail armouring, that might stop a 9mm round, if it hit at the right place at the right angle, but it would definitely stop a blade going deeper than 6mm. It also protected against a Taser by shorting the electrodes. Lastly I checked my Glock; clip full of 9mm rounds, round in the chamber, pistol cocked, and I slipped it into the holster. I was ready to face the world.

Do you have something to eat? I asked after getting dressed.

No, we can go out for breakfast, she said.

I checked the time: 15:07. I was surprised that I felt better than expected after a night of binge. I only had a blinding headache and my throat felt like I had gargled gravel all night, nothing a quick fix of Jack and Jill cocktail could not remedy.

I quickly pulled my last pen of J&J from my jacket, and behind her back, gave myself the jab in the inner thigh. As I waited for the mill-spec chems to kick, I made a note to myself to restock as soon as I got paid again. The correction left me clear-headed and hungry, and if she wanted to call it breakfast at that time of the day, then I was not going to argue.

The diner called Lucy’s was on the next block, it was the standard layout with over-lit faux red plastic furniture, brushed aluminium and not a single human in attendance. It also had hyperband Wi-Fi and the standard power jacks at each booth. I was glad for both, as I needed a boost desperately, and it was not going to harm checking the notice boards for work.

The server was a vintage four-arm Kiko, but the coffee was fresh, strong and tar black. While we waited for the pancakes and 3D printed eggs and bacon, we sipped the brewed caffeine. I unrolled the black power cord from my jacket pocket and plugged it into the port on the side of my RP. When the projection showed that I was taking on charge, I shifted my attention to the outside again and realised that we had hardly spoken fifty words.

Why did you invite me up last night? I asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from her.

She gave a sideways smile, it made her face soften a bit. She flicked a lick of jet black hair out of her eye.

I wanted to fuck someone and you were the least pathetic at the bar. That hurt like a glancing kick to the balls. But when I got home I was done, said Six.

Tell me about yourself, I said.

Why, are you going to write my life story?

No, I am writing an autobiography about a serial killer and his victims, and you would make a good Jane Doe number eleven.

She laughed and it made her look even younger. I won’t make an easy victim, she said. I believed her.

You know, this is really bullshit, said Six, sitting back in the chair, her exo squeaking on the plastic of the diner’s bench.

What?

Small talk, she said. This is the thirties, for fuck sake.

What does that have to do with anything?

"Well, I don’t know about you, but by the time I had a piss at the Didgeridoo last night, I had already ID’d you with face-rec, tracked your personal, criminal and medical histories on all important databases, and even got references from your previous associates. I found out that you had been arrested once, but not charged, for association with the Anonymous Defenders. I know that you are not under suspicion for being a serial killer, so your serial killer story would be pure fiction. I know everything I need to know about you, and after seeing you in the bathroom earlier, I know you are uncircumcised and I can even guess the size of your erection. What else is there to know?" She looked smug as she took another sip of her coffee.

Impressive, I said, but I was relieved that her prying had not uncovered anything that I had not put out there to be uncovered by just that type of casual snooping.

And I all I know about you is your first name. I think we are starting this at an imbalance, I said.

My last name is Josephson. And what do you think we are starting? She looked mildly amused. Like a cat playing with a grasshopper.

I don’t know. You tell me, I said, already tiring of her game.

She seemed to pick up on my mood and decided to tone it down a notch.

Okay, what do you want to know? she said.

Nothing, I said, taking another sip of the coffee.

You don’t want to get to know me? she said with feigned hurt.

I know you are female, and the rest I will pick up as we go along, I said.

It looked as if she wanted to say something but then thought better of it. Right then our breakfast arrived at the table and we completed the condiment, cutlery and first bite rituals in silence.

I looked at the TV screen above the counter and saw a burning building with a blue banner reading: Soldiers of Christ claims responsibility for bombing of Zander laboratories in Dresden.

What do you make of that? she asked after following my gaze.

I can see how the religious nuts could dislike the existence of the Zander crystals, I said, glad for the new track of conversation, I understand why they would want to destroy a place where they make the crystals.

Why is that? Don’t the Zander crystals prove the existence of the soul?

It proves that human consciousness can exist outside of the human brain. It proves fuck-all about the soul or all the religious crap that goes with it, I said.

I thought it did, she said.

The religions all claim that it does. And after the Marlow-Zander technique made it possible to transfer a consciousness to another vessel, they all said that the scientists were interfering with God’s work. And since then they have made it their business to destroy the technology. I suppose it must suck to be on the better dead list of all religions.

Do you know how the tech works? she asked.

"Not any more than what was on the news. I know an accident in Marlow and Zander’s laboratory caused an assistant to have her consciousness ripped from her body and captured in a special gold-quartz crystal. Her consciousness scattered quickly but not before they could take some readings. They then duplicated the accident and with some patented process they could move the consciousness from a living