5 – Noodles
Tony watched the shop door close behind Adelaide, the bells strung on the handle jingling gently against the sounds of traffic in the distance. Bert was quick to comment, “She’s driven, my Addie. I can’t hold it against her ‘cause I raised her that way.”
“I sure hope something comes of all those stories she’s posting.” Mr. Nguyen patted his friend on the shoulder, adding, “You know, if half the people in the district cared as much as she does, we’d have a much different place to live in.”
Tony reached up to gently scratch around the bandage over his eye, wondering what he’d just volunteered for. “She, uh, posts stories?”
“News stories!” Mr. Nguyen nodded enthusiastically.
“Her grandma was a journalist—one of the last to get chased out of the Twin Cities before the end of the AI war. Addie grew up wanting to be like her, even chased after a few scholarships by some of the corpo-news outlets, but she got disillusioned pretty quickly when she found out how all that works.”
Tony coughed, a sour taste left over from his surgery in his throat, and spat on the pavement. “Uh, ’scuse me. Corpo spin? Fake stories to sell the latest pharma breakthrough?”
“Yeah, you get the picture.” Mr. Nguyen smiled and glanced at the shop, lowering his voice. “Now she’s trying to stir things up like the real newsies.”
“Right.” Tony nodded, beginning to get the picture. “The independents. The local journos.” He hadn’t been living under a rock. As the pub nets got bigger and bigger, spreading to suburbs and nearby cities, people said it was starting to feel like the old “internet,” like what existed before the AIs got loose.
Bert jammed his hands into the big pockets of his overalls. “Yep. Lotta people on the nets these days. Easy to get heard if the algo doesn’t bury you. ’Course, that just makes me worry—if she fails at this… I worry about her, you know? Then, if she is successful—”
“You’ll have even more to worry about.” Tony frowned grimly. He’d heard plenty of stories about independent journos getting the wrong kind of attention from the corpos they were trying to expose.
Before anyone else could comment on the nature of her business, Adelaide burst through the door, sending the little bell jangling wildly. Tony saw an addition to her ensemble—a battered gray backpack with half a dozen old patches stitched onto the sides. He could only make out some of them—slogans like “Unfiltered, Unafraid,” and “Truth Never Sleeps.” She started down the sidewalk, taking long, quick strides. When he realized she wasn’t going to pause or say anything, Tony glanced at Bert, and the old guy just shrugged.
“Wait up!” he called and jogged after her.
She glanced over her shoulder, “You’re coming? Sorry, I’m running late.”
Tony chuckled. “C’mon, you knew I was coming.” She hurried around the corner, and Tony caught a new vista of the district. Nearby, the buildings were similar to those on Bert’s street—lots of two and three-story buildings, with a few taller ones intermixed—but further down, some much larger buildings began to fill the skyline, and further still, Tony saw a couple of megatowers in the haze. “Those aren’t in the Blast, are they?”
Adelaide shook her head. “District eighteen.”
“So what’s the big story?” Tony sidestepped a man sitting on the sidewalk, panhandling. His cardboard sign had a Sol-bit address and a handwritten note that read, “My dog needs surgery. Please Help!”
Adelaide glanced at Tony, her thick ponytail bouncing with each of her long strides, “Well, extortion, I guess.”
“As in?”
“Protection rackets. Typical stuff around here, only this apartment complex has three different gangs taking a cut.”
“And people don’t just move?”
Adelaide gave him a sideways look, her eyes narrowed. “Think it’s that easy?”
“I—”
“Well, it’s not. Not for some people. Everywhere you go in the district, you’re going to be on someone’s turf, so nobody’s guaranteed something better if they move out. More than that, some people at the Royal Breeze are afraid of retaliation; the gangs don’t like losing the income. Then you’ve got some folks trying to lie low, afraid of background checks. Some people have to live there because of employment contracts nearby, and there are people who—”
“Easy, Adelaide. I was just curious, and, yeah, you’re right—I’ve never lived in a district like this. I understand overbearing contracts, though. I understand feeling like you’re stuck. So, here’s hoping you can help somehow.” Tony tried his best “friendly” smile, but Adelaide narrowed her eyes further.
Still, she surprised him by saying, “You can call me Addie. I know my name’s a mouthful.”
An auto-cab stopped nearby, and two youngsters dressed like wannabe bangers jumped out, sprinting for an alley. On an external PA, the cab announced, “Attention: A crime has been committed. Attention: A passenger conflict occurred in this vehicle. Attention: Please be wary; dangerous individuals have fled this vehicle—authorities have been notified.”
“Those boys were probably fighting.” Addie nodded toward the black and lime-green vehicle. Tony figured she was right—nobody else was paying the cab any mind.
“Probably be a drone here soon. Come on, I’m late!” She started moving again, and Tony followed. The foot traffic in District Seventeen was much lighter than in Manhattan. He had no trouble keeping an eye on her, even if he fell several steps behind. Half the ground-floor storefronts they passed were vacant, and more than half the people they passed looked like they’d be more at home under a box than in an apartment. The district wasn’t in great shape.
He tried to assess the risks as Adelaide led him from one corner to another; he stared at the groups of men and women lingering on stoops and tried to put himself between the young woman and the clusters of people they passed, but she went so fast, and he was so new to the area, that he doubted he was doing any good. He just didn’t know exactly what to look for. Adelaide, however, did. Twice, she abruptly guided him down alleys, saying things like, “Trouble ahead.”
After the second such detour, Tony observed, “You don’t need me around.”
That got a smile out of her, and Adelaide looked up with those big blue eyes and winked. “I’ve been on my own on these streets a long time. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’ve had some close calls.”
“I don’t think your name’s a mouthful.” Tony’s idiot brain supplied the words to his tongue before he had a chance to review their tardiness.
“Huh?”
“I mean, I was going to say that earlier when that cab started going off. I’ve never met another ‘Adelaide,’ so I think it’s cool. I’ve met a lot of people with my name.”
“Well,” Adelaide said, adjusting the straps of her backpack as they hustled down yet another street, “you’re my first ‘Tony,’ so take heart.”
“Heh, okay. But I bet you’ve seen other ones, like on vids or on documents or whatever. Shit, isn’t there a ‘Tony’ on the BrightStar corpo board?”
“Tony Lafore.” Addie nodded and chuckled.
“See? I’ve never seen an Adelaide on a vid, the news, nothing.”
Addie looked at him and grinned. “I’m actually not even named after a person.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my grandma was from Australia, and I guess there’s a town there called Adelaide.”
“Huh.” Tony frowned, wishing he had a data port and a PAI to go along with it. “Can’t look it up right now. Pretty strange being so disconnected. I don’t think it’s all sunk in yet.”
Addie slowed to a stop and turned to look him full in the face, her brows betraying her concern. “I keep forgetting what happened to you last night. It feels longer, doesn’t it? I already felt a little guilty for bullying my dad about coming to this interview, and now I feel guilty about making you tag along. I—”
Tony waved his hand. “Nah, this is better for me. If I were back at your dad’s store, I’d have to deal with the reality of things. This lets me push it off a little longer. Maybe I’ll be tired enough to sleep tonight.”
“Were you serious about the nanites? They’re Dust-tech?” Her tone had changed as she asked the question, and Tony felt like he was hearing her “interview” voice.
“Yep. If they weren’t, I bet they would’ve butchered my leg for ’em—the bank’s in my femur.”
“But, why wouldn’t they? I mean, even though they’re—”
“Move, dumbass!” Someone large and bulky shoulder-checked Tony and sent him stumbling toward Addie. He whirled on the aggressor, expecting a fight, but the guy had trundled on, head down, giant earmuff-style headphones jutting out from a dark knit cap. He wore an army-green trench coat and didn’t spare even a sideways glance at Tony’s stormy expression.
“Don’t mind him.” Addie pulled his sleeve, tugging him out of the flow of traffic and into the shadow of a nearby building. “You’re going to have to adjust your tolerance for hostility down here, Tony. People are generally either very friendly or openly rude; there’s not a lot in between.”
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Tony took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated on one of his favorite memories—sitting in a garden, watching his mom pot some wild pansies that had grown in the moist soil. He always thought about that memory when trying to cool off, and it always worked. He only wished he knew where it took place. He figured he was five or six years old, and he could see his mother like it was yesterday, but he’d never lived anywhere with a garden like that. Not that he could recall.
“Where’d you go?”
“Just counting to ten. Sorry about that. Anyway, the nanite bank—I’m pretty sure I know the doc who chopped me up; he did most of my work. He didn’t do the nanite bank, though, so he wouldn’t have known to look for it. If he took out my Dust reactor first, that would have powered down the nanites, and the bank is made of synthetic bone. I’ve seen it on a scan; it looks like I had a bad break. I figure he didn’t know what he was leaving behind.” Tony rubbed his hands together like he was wiping off some dirt.
“Too bad for the bad guys, huh? Dust-tech isn’t cheap, and medical nanites? That’s a pricey piece.”
Tony grinned. “That’s right. Too bad for the bad guys. Hey, aren’t we gonna be late?”
“Nope!” Addie smiled. “I got a response from the manager I was going to interview. He’s having lunch. I think he wanted to ditch me, but I know where he eats.” She nodded across the street to a noodle shop. The blinking sign said “Noodles” and something else in Hangul. Unable to read it, Tony once again acutely felt the loss of his PAI. Addie shrugged out of her backpack and opened the top zipper. “Getting my drone.”
“Ah.” Tony stepped back to watch as she lifted out a football-shaped black, powder-coated metallic egg. She stared at it for a minute, and then her eyes started to glow faintly amber with the tell-tale sign of someone channeling Dust. The egg hummed and lifted off her palm, floating before her. With a snick, six tiny apertures opened in its shell, and Tony caught the glint of glass reflecting the daylight. “Holy shit! Talk about Dust-tech!”
Addie smiled hugely, and the drone hummed in a quick circle before settling to hover above her right shoulder. “It was my grandma’s.”
“You’re piloting that thing right now?” Addie nodded, and Tony groaned. “Oh man, no wonder you were annoyed when I was talking about that spark I saw.”
Addie cocked her head, confusion in her eyes. “Huh?”
“I mean, I was trying to be all cool, saying I’d seen a spark who could fly, and here you are—I mean, you’ve gotta be at least a glint, right?”
“What? I’m no such thing!”
“But you’re flying that done like a pro—does your PAI have an operator program? I wouldn’t expect a Dust-tech cam drone to interface with a data port, but I guess it could be—”
“I’m operating it! What’s the big deal?”
“Can you see through the cams?”
“Of course… Why?”
Seeing her expression and hearing her tone, Tony decided to back off; she didn’t seem to like the idea of being a glint or a gleam or, frankly, something stronger, so he decided to get back in his lane. “Look, I don’t know much about that stuff, I guess. I’m just surprised at how well you can control that thing with all the cams out and active. I’ve seen operators struggling to do a lot less, runners with years of training.”
“Camera operators?”
“Uh, let’s just say drone operators.” Tony chuckled, thinking of Crystal and her deadly infiltrator drone. He wondered how she was. Had they left her alone? Did they think she was too close to him? Hopefully, she rolled over and promised to squeal if Tony came calling.
Addie turned toward the noodle shop, and the drone sped across the street, nearly silent as its Dust-powered anti-grav tech sent it up and over just about as fast as Tony could’ve thrown a baseball. The girl was damn good, no matter what she said. She had to at least be a glint.
“I’ve got eyes on him. When we get to the shop, stay back and try not to look threatening, okay?”
“Uh,” Tony adjusted his sunglasses and shrugged, “okay.” Addie started into the street, but he held up a hand, “Hey! Hold on a sec.”
“Yeah?”
“Can I buy some noodles and a drink while you’re talking to that guy? It’ll make me less conspicu—”
Addie waved a hand. “No problem, just a sec.” Tony watched her eyes glaze over for a handful of seconds, and then she said, “Ordered you kalguksu and tea. Your number’s 171.” She waited for a couple of cars to pass, then jogged across the street.
“Thanks,” Tony said to the empty sidewalk, then followed, hands in his pockets, keeping some space between them. If she wanted him to be part of the scenery, he could do that. His stomach was growling, and the smells coming out of the noodle shop were making his mouth water.
He could see Addie inside through the street-facing windows. She walked further into the shop but stopped by a booth occupied by two middle-aged men. Tony could only see one of their faces, and the guy looked irritated as he spoke to Addie. Tony pulled the door open and, once inside, sighed heavily as he took in a big breath of thick, humid, noodle-scented air. He walked down the aisle between booths, sitting in an empty spot across from Addie and her mark.
“I told you! I’m busy, girl!”
“Mr. Robles, I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to talk. Your friend—er, employee, here, might add something to the discussion.”
Tony used his dark sunglasses to make his observation less than obvious as he watched Mr. Robles’s scowl deepen and his already red-hued skin darken toward scarlet. “I can’t talk to you! I told you that I’m conducting a performance evaluation here, and, besides, it’s not good for me to be seen talking to a ‘reporter.’” He made air quotes and smirked.
Addie was undeterred, and so was her drone—humming near-silently, it slowly moved in a wide circle around the table. Addie opened her mouth to speak, but then one of the noodle shop employees shouted, “Order 168! 168!”
Addie tried again, “I can put a filter on your face and voice, sir. I always protect my sources. Please! There are people in desperate need of help in your complex, and I can’t shed light on the situation if everyone’s too afraid to talk!”
“What do you want me to do?” It seemed that Addie took the question as an invitation, and Tony chuckled softly as she slid into the booth, nudging the other man until he slid toward the wall, making room.
“Just tell me how three different gangs are operating on the same turf? Do they know about each other? Are they all shaking everyone down, or just a few unlucky tenants?” The drone slowly reduced its elevation as she spoke, rotating slowly, no doubt to create a shot panning from Addie’s face to the manager’s. Once again, Tony found himself a little awed by her level of control. She was watching the man’s face, speaking naturally while fully controlling a high-end cam drone's movements and camera activity.
It would be one thing if the drone was standard tech and controlled by her PAI, but it was Dust-tech; she was doing it all with her mind, and controlling a device like that was a hell of a lot more complicated than firing off something automatic like boosted reflexes—Tony ought to know. He got so engrossed in just watching her operate that he lost track of her questions and the other guy’s answers. By the time he tuned back in, the clerk shouted, “Order 171! 171!”
Tony stood and collected his large bowl of brothy noodles with hunks of vat-chicken, zucchini, carrots, and potatoes swimming in the broth. He scooped up a little plastic pack of garnishes—green onions and sliced hot peppers—and his big paper cup of iced tea. He’d been expecting a cup of hot tea but was happy for the larger serving of something cold and refreshing. He was thirsty as hell. On the way back to his table, he grabbed a spoon and chopsticks.
“…so you think they’re all part of the same group?”
“I didn’t say that, but I heard one of the Lobos on a vid call with someone he called ‘Mr. Ross,’ and then two days later, one of the Black Hand crews was talking in the hallway outside my office, and I swear the, uh, main enforcer guy, O’Mally, said something like, ‘If Ross hears about this, we’re melted.’ That’s all I know.”
“So,” Addie nodded, and her drone hummed as it moved around the manager’s head so she could look up at it dramatically, “we’ve got at least two different gangs connected to this mysterious Mr. Ross. What about the third gang that’s been collecting in the Royal Breeze complex, sir? The Red Thumbs?”
“I never heard ‘em mention that guy, but, on the other hand, I’ve seen them and the other two gangs walk right past each other in the courtyard, with nothing but dirty looks passing between ‘em. Now, that’s something I haven’t seen in more than twenty years on the job.”
Addie started asking follow-up questions, and Tony lost track of the conversation as he dug into the noodles. Looking down, watching his new, mechanical hand deftly manipulate the chopsticks, he felt a weird sense of dissociation—like the hand wasn’t his. It forced him to confront the fact that he’d had his other arm cut off less than a day ago. Of course, that line of thinking threatened to make him look more closely at the incident, including the people who’d betrayed him, so Tony tried to focus on the present.
The hand worked pretty damn well, and the weird, synthetic pads on the inside allowed him to feel things almost as naturally as his old, synth-flesh-covered hand did. The back of the hand and his arm were utterly devoid of feeling, which wasn’t ideal, but he figured it would do for the short term. “Always room for an upgrade,” he muttered between bites. If nothing else, the hand felt strong, and it was responsive. His nanites had already helped with the swelling and soreness around his elbow joint.
He took a minute to silently thank his lucky stars that he bought the nanite bank when he was on a job in Mexico City—he’d never mentioned it to anyone at Cross. That thought brought up more questions he didn’t want to deal with: why hadn’t he mentioned it? How long had he felt like things weren’t right with Eric and Jen? How long had they? Again, he opened the door where he kept his darker thoughts and shoved the questions in there, slamming it shut. Then, he got to work on his noodles.
Afterward, he felt confident that he’d never eaten anything that fast in his life. He killed the thirty-two-ounce cup of sweet, iced tea in a matter of seconds, then stood in line at the counter for a couple of minutes, hoping for a refill. He’d just gotten the guy in the back to grudgingly fill it up when Addie approached. He arched his eyebrow at her. “All done?”
“I am! I’ve got some very promising leads, but, more importantly, I got some great material. I’ll probably get a couple of episodes out of this interview if I add some commentary and drone footage. Let’s take a walk past the apartment complex so I can get some aerials; they’ll come in handy as I continue this series.”
Tony shrugged and sipped the tea, sighing happily at the heavy feel of his gut. “Thanks again for the noodles.”
“Just add it to what you already owe us.” She smiled, taking the sting out of the words, then gestured to the door. “Ready?”
“Yep.” Tony followed Addie and her drone down the street and around the corner, where he saw the apartment complex in question. The place consisted of a pair of primarily concrete buildings—nothing huge, maybe thirty stories—wrapped around a park-like central courtyard. An extruded metal fence with big openings, where gates might once have been, blocked off most of the courtyard from the street, but Tony could see the place wasn’t what it once might have been.
Pavers covered most of the ground, and what little grass remained was yellowed with dirt walking tracks worn through it. A couple of half-court, concrete basketball courts took up a fourth of the space, and Tony saw quite a few kids and adults hanging around by the netless hoops. Nobody was playing basketball.
Two drones hovered in the air—conventional ones with rotor propellers buzzing as they swooped from one side of the complex to another, ever watchful. Rough characters of all types lurked on the edges of the property, leaning on the buildings, sitting on the curbs, and walking around with hooded heads down and hands in pockets.
Tony leaned against the brown-brick building on the corner, watching the people pass as Addie sent her drone swooping around. “Doesn’t look very ‘royal’ to me.”
“The place is pre-war—almost fifty years old. I bet it was different when it was new.”
“Whole city was different.”
Addie looked at him, narrowing her dark eyebrows. “You don’t have to accept that. I mean, everyone does, but we don’t have to. We don’t have to be okay with the decline of…everything.”
“Tell that to the folks up in ’Hattan.” Tony jerked his chin to the left, where he imagined—if there was less haze in the air—a person might be able to catch a glimpse of the megatowers of District One.
“What? ’Cause a small percent live the good life, it should be okay for the rest of us to just kind of fade? To be drones? To—”
Tony held up his hands, his mechanical digits clicking. “Easy—I surrender.”
Addie glared at him for another few seconds, then turned back toward the apartment complex. “I kind of want to go ask some of those residents for interviews. I’m curious about the idea that these gangs might be tentacles of the same squid.”
“Doesn’t look too friendly over there.”
Addie nodded. “You can wait here—I only have a few units of Dust left to burn, so I won’t be long.” She didn’t wait for an argument, starting across the street as the old green “WALK” signal counted down from thirteen. With a sense of foreboding, Tony followed a few steps behind. He flexed his new, mechanical fist and rotated his shoulder, checking for soreness. It felt all right, but he hoped he was overreacting. He hoped he wouldn’t have to get in a fight. “Not yet,” he sighed softly. “Let me get at least one good night’s sleep under my belt.”