Assorted Ancient Texts

Sector 23 - Part I

***This story is a three-part series taking place in a distant dystopian Japan***

The smells of roasted coffee beans, cheap cream, and human sweat fill my nostrils as I enter the warm and thick atmosphere of the bustling café. As the metal door closes I take one more glance outside at the dirty snow covering everything in sight. The door passes in front of my vision as it closes with an atmospherically-stabilizing hiss.

The café is a medium-sized one: about the size of a diner. There are no walls separating the internal space, and I can see my future espresso being prepared in the kitchen as I walk up to the counter separating the dining area and the 'business' area. The cashier looks up and asks me my order without a smile. I tell her my desired drink and she turns around to grab one under a heat lamp on the counter behind her that separates the clerks from the kitchen. She places the espresso on the counter. I take my card out of my pocket and tap it to glass surface. The banner advertisement on the LCD screen pixelates away instantly and an order confirmation flashes on screen. The screen thanks me for my service, and highlights my cup with a grey circle. I take the cup and turn around as the grey circle dissipates, letting the counter revert back to an ad.

I spot my informant sitting at a reserved table across the entire café and walk through the rows of full tables of people enjoying their brew and fighting over politics, sports, and what-have-you. Somewhere behind me, the sound of a paper cup hitting the floor catches my ears. I ignore it and continue walking. My informant spies me and reaches into the book bag by his left leg. I sit down, placing my cup on the table. Advertisements instantly scroll across the table as it recognizes my cup's weight. The bright screen makes my eyes sting slightly.

As my informant places his laptop on the table, I place my newspaper over the advertisement – fulfilling the 250-credit, load of junk's main purpose. My informant opens his laptop and spins it around to face me. I open the CD-ROM drive and insert my card into the modified disk already in the drive. The disk drive closes and spins for a few seconds, transferring data to and from my card through the modified CD. The disk drive stops and pops open. I take my slightly warm card out and shove it back in my pocket without so much as a change of expression.

My informant coughs into his hand, saying with a sarcastic smirk and an out-of-place Brooklyn accent, "Thank you, Mister Sevali fer buying you and yer wife a new bed. It'll get lost in da mail dis week."

My last name is not Sevali, and I am not married.

"Just don't get me caught, Mark. You know the saying, 'Go down alone.', but I'll be damned if I go down because of you."

Mark taps the computer, "Aw, shut it. There's no way. All the links are clean and there ain't a single camera in this hot house. Just watch the darned screen, you paid millions for dis."

I focus my attention on the laptop as images are displayed. I use the arrow keys to go through each image. The laptop reveals hastily-taken photographs of printed pictures, all of them pictures of a dirty, grimy wasteland with faded shapes of grey and a disgusting rusty color. A small scribble of writing is drawn on each image near the bottom. It is nearly illegible.

"What the heck am I looking at, these look like satellite photos of a junkyard in a third-world country."

Mark sips from my espresso – I bought it for him, anyway, with Mr. Sevali's bank account too.

"Yer only half wrong. Read the writing on the bottom of each picture."

I glare at the dusty laptop screen to read the pixelated scribbles.

N40 42.8688 W74 0.35879

"What is this?" I turn the laptop around and point at the scribbles I just read.