Silver Sahara

Chapter 11: Last Job for the day.

"Target down. Netrunner on ice, chip implant lost." Alex begins her report. She walks away from the coffin with a dutiful, impatient stride. "Suspected rogue A.I. involvement. Investigation into Baylor district, name given 'Lara."

After a short delay, a robotic voice responds. "Excellent work. Pay issued and A.I. report filed to Gaia Protectorate authorities. Is there additional information you wish to give, Styx unit AL-305x?"

The credits display on her hud. "Look for contracts on a 'Victus Gray." Alex ventures to the guest rooms within the aerojumper, trailing blood and bio fluid with each step.

"Victus Gray is marked for Bia unit. Would you like me to send a request to base Pallas?"

Alex reads through information on Victus Gray. Words within the description shift or glitch, revealing the information to be redacted or indecipherable. She examines the countless reports of devastation and crimes not blacklisted. "Never seen one person's death marked like this. Why is the bounty redacted?" Alex asks while entering the shower of an empty room. The carpet permeated the pungent smell of sulfur-based cigars mass manufactured within Krowns.

"Bounty is undefined, spanning 3 planets and 127 governmental bodies; the price has failed to properly calculate due to foreign intervention."

"Failed? How?" Alex takes off her corporate uniform and allows it to sanitize itself.

Zelus takes time to respond. "Gaia and 37 Pallases have requested the bounty be unlisted from public records and the price to be undefined until completion of the contract as to..." Zelus loads an official Kranos address of "midas" bounties, "protect civil society from hunters seeking fortune befit mythology. The individuals whose crime surmounts to a contract beyond conventional wealth are to be listed as 'midas bounties.' The currency is to be undefined to dissuade rogue agents from hunting, and the contract is to be unlisted from public and conventional forums so that innocence are not implicated in acts of violence with dangerous individuals needing higher forms of impairment and injury. Any Kranos operatives vying for midas bounties without Pallas consent will be heavily punished for insubordination."

Alex thinks to herself while the water washes blood from her thin athletic form. "Send a request to the base Pallas." Alex says before hanging up.

She relaxes her tense posture. With a gentle palm, she feels her body, looking for any damages. Only scrapes against the metallic regions on her elegant form. Gray tiles redden beneath the flowing water. Her eyes apathetically stare at the slick corporate alloy wrapping around her legs. She forgets, for a moment, the artificial limbs were a part of her. Memories replace the dark, heavy bottoms with flesh and bone. She sees her smooth skin and flexing calf muscles; it is an illusion. She fails to hold onto the image. In truth, she doesn't remember her "true" limbs, if that's what they should be called. Only in figments that feel like another life, she sees them. Muddled by maturity, surgery, and training. That feigning form is no real than a company made fragrance produced to allure spenders away from their current woes.

Alex leaves the shower and dries herself. Feeling more refreshed and relieved after her last mission, she walks back into the helm. With calm words, she tells the android pilot to venture for New Marrakesh. Within the nearly barren space, she contemplates the coffin across the room. Maneuvering between narrowly spaced panels and onboard servers, she confronts the container. The bullet hole peering through the glass top, allows air to warm the interior. With the subject dead, the coffin rests at room temperature. The red glow radiating from reflecting white light magnifies the warmth pervading the cool interior. Alex scans the face. Her cyberware fails to present one individual; instead, the information fluttered through her hud like leaflets carried by the wind. Nothing more than excerpts of non-linear data and scraps of incoherent code-generated rambling.