Bright City - Sidewalk Sleep Pod

I wake up. Feel like a rockstar. Pop out of the pod. Tuck my sweaty sleep buddy back in.

Volt oozes from behind the pod. Forms her usual bodaciousness. “We’re in no immediate danger. What’s the plan?”

“Go home. Shower.”

“Okay. That makes sense.”

We skulk through bright streets, busy with fast drones, hyper people, and skittering spider-bots.

“I don’t remember this many spiders.”

“Yeah, I think they’re new.”

We kick them away and sneak on. Before long, I’m home, clean, and fucking a pizza girl. Bouncy braids and yoga pants. She’s sexually demanding. So am I. So is Volt. It’s good to be home.

The pizza gets cold as we smoke, chill, and listen to the news.

..crypto traders continue to get hammered by surprisingly effective tank attacks …

…numerous explosions in the sky. Is Crypto Bro taking a run at Big Cheddar?…

….Blank nominated as most sexy …

…...warn that the spider-bots contain a small explosive and should not be stepped on…

The spider-bots remind me of the weird bugbots in the Dark City. I wonder what their deal is?

“Do you play Dark City?”

“No, I mostly fly at night.” says Pizza Girl.

“You should try it. It’s become an obsession of mine.” I frown. “Or, maybe you shouldn’t. I generally avoid obsessive behavior. Is this a mirroring problem? No, it must be a pastime. I’m not thoughtless pursuing popular goals.”

Pizza Girl side-eyes my buzzing pile of crypto. “Okay…”

Awkward. “Oh, there’s my crypto. Forgot about that. Uhh… did you want some?”

She smiles. “That’s okay, I like the odd free delivery.” She sits naked in bed as she rolls another joint. “Most of the stuff I like is free. Or cheap.”

“Pizza, drugs, and dream games?”

“Yeah. Mom always said I was wasting my life, but really, that’s all you can do with it.”

She passes me the joint. Well, she’s not completely wrong. Some of the finer things are free. Also, that leaves more crypto for me.

We lie in bed, and smoke, and laugh. I’ve missed this. Fucking Harkon. Gotta find a way to deal with him. After the pizza girl leaves, I broach the subject with Volt.

“My gun didn’t do shit. We’re gonna need heavier firepower.”

“Billy’s tank got a piece of him. We could get one. Park it someplace else. Maybe build a bait apartment, where we do a fake crypto deal, and when Harkon attacks, the whole apartment turns into a tank or something!”

“Sounds good, but expensive. Harkon would probably kill us before we got the funds together. Do you have a cheaper plan?”

Volt shrugs. “Hunter drones?”

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A hunter is a small, speedy, drone that flies at a target and explodes on contact. Basically, a self aiming grenade. They can travel a few feet or a few miles. A couple dozen hunters fix most problems. If you consider blown up as fixed.

“Hunter’s are the most obvious solution. Which means Harkon will have countermeasures.” I frown. “Actually, the most obvious solution is to blow up where Harkon sleeps. But we don’t know where that is.”

Volt nods. “Which brings us back to the bait crypto deal. But we still lack firepower. We can trade crypto for arms, but Harkon keeps crashing our deals. So we’re back to Harkon killing us while we get ready to kill Harkon.”

“Fuck.” I think for a minute. Surely we can get through one arms deal without Harkon showing up. Or maybe we don’t have to. “Our hunter purchase can be the bait deal. We just need the seller to set the trap. Who likes us and hates Harkon?”

Volt shrugs. “I dunno, but Billy wanted to buy from us anyway. Maybe we can trade threat detectors for an ambush?”

We call Billy and he’s delighted to help. One ambush for a bag of threat detectors. He’ll even throw in a crate of hunter drones. Smashing.

He gives an address down by the docks, and we skulk our way there. Actually, we just walk. We want to be followed. Bit of a relief. Skulking is exhausting.

We saunter into Billy’s warehouse to find a bustling automatic tank factory. I see a couple dozen tanks being slapped together. They are pumping them out.

“Hellooo!” shouts Billy, barely audible over the industrial fabrication of industrial armaments. “Grab a crate of hunters and get equipped! Then we’ll talk shop!”

I pop open a crate to reveal a dozen multi-speed hunters. Interesting. A hunter set to low speed is thrown directly at the target. High speed hunters are released to fly high in the sky, where they loiter until given orders. They can fly dozens of miles, and streak down at blinding speeds. More deadly, but less useful. Because I don’t know where Harkon is, and by the time I do, Big Cheddar’s Skydrones will have picked apart my loitering munitions. The Cheeseman does not share air space.

I stuff a few hunters in my pockets, then look skeptically at the rest. And at Volt. I can only handle so many, but giving some to Volt is a bad idea. The hunter’s aim assist sounds similar to her threat detector, but they’re really not. You have to fire a hunter in the general direction of a target. It can turn a near miss into a hit, or chase down an evasive target, but will only explode roughly where you send it.

Volt chooses her own targets and strikes at will. It’s worked out so far because her arms can only stretch so long. There’s been a bit of friendly-slap, but collateral damage has been mostly comedic. That will change if she can take explosive potshots up to thirty miles away.

It’s important to remember that Volt isn’t actually intelligent. She’s a bundle of assumptions that tries to mimic intelligence and generally fails. I realize that’s also a pretty good description of me, but it’s a matter of degree. I’m much less likely to lob a grenade at a kid for no reason. That kid will have done something.

All that said, Harkon’s on the way and there’s no innocent children present, so I give Volt a few hunters. I tell her they’re mostly for Harkon and not to blow me up. She nods seriously in a mimicry of cool competence.

There’s a huge thud on the roof.

“Woop. There’s Harkon.” says Billy. “You guys know what you’re doing?”

I nod seriously in a mimicry of cool competence. “Any idea why he’s after us?”

“I believe the richer you are, the more Harkon wants you dead.”

“Then why isn’t he after Big Cheddar?”

“Good question.” All around us the partly constructed tanks purr to life, aiming gatling guns at the ceiling. “I’ll ask his corpse.”

It gets loud. The roof is torn away by a ripsaw of incendiary ammunition. Which opens a clear view of hundreds of angry V-shaped hunter drones cascading down on the warehouse. They’re whipped away as fast as they appear, but I’m not happy with how many bullets it’s taking. A tank's main gun can fire 4500 rounds a minute. Which seemed like overkill when we were expecting one guy, but the floor of the warehouse is already ankle deep in spent casings. These fucking V-drones are playing us out. This reverse ambush is turning into a double reverse ambush.

“It may be time to leave!”

“Let’s go!”

I chuck my bag of threat detectors at Billy, and bolt for the door with Volt hot on my heels. We’re puffing down an alley, cautiously optimistic about our escape, when I notice a hulking eye-watering figure ahead of us.

“Poison, salt, ashes, death. Run, die, or take the Oath.”

We scramble to a stop. “We were already running!” whines Volt.

I chuck a couple hunters at Harkon. They sail past him. Goddammit! I chuck a few more. Still miss. Aim assist my ass!

I’m out. Turn to Volt. “Get him!”

“Who? There’s no one there!”

Dammit! I grab a pair of hunters out of Volt’s unresisting hands. Tell them to explode in twenty feet and throw them.

They streak down the alley and detonate halfway between Harkon and us. I botched the distance, but the alley’s obstructed with dust and debris. Good enough. Volt and I rabbit down a maze of alleys. Fuck you Harkon.

Volt instructs me to keep an eye out for sleep pods, but I refuse to see any until we’re home. I’m enjoying the Dark City game but I’m tired of hiding in strangers' beds.

“We can build a sleep pod for the secret apartment.”

“Do you know how?” asks Volt.

“We can steal a sleep pod for the secret apartment.”

Once we’re confident we’ve lost Harkon, we slow and scope for an empty pod to swipe. Normally, I enjoy this kind of petty crime, but today I’m distracted.

How do I deal with Harkon? How do I find him?

How is he finding me?