Hemispheres
© 2004. Revised version © 2009
“What the fuck were you doing in that place?” he asked, voice rasping, eyes fixed ahead as he pushed the car through 2 am city traffic.
“I was fucking dancing,” she said.
“With a bunch of redneck fundamentalists? They fucking hate us. You know that.”
“So. Their problem. Shouldn’t let them stop us enjoying ourselves.”
“For fucks sake Matiz…” The quazi legal police scanner suctioned to the dash beeped and he made a hard right, down a side street. “If you put yourself in harms way then harm will find you.” He still looked out the windshield. “You were mood tripping again, weren’t you.” She looked at her hands and just shrugged. “They can spot that, you know, if they know what to look for.” Matiz didn’t reply. Momentary wash of imagery from dancing at the Promethean, music charged with thrash laced algorithms and machine driven mood cues. For a short while he said nothing, then asked,
“You’re boosted, aren’t you.” She didn’t reply, so he prompted. “Amphetamines? Was it medical grade this time? Hey, look at me for a moment.” She turned and leveled a flat stare at him. Roal stared back, noting variances in the intricacy of her iris. Beyond the chemically altered physiology he could feel her, like a bright aura, bruised for the moment. They’d closed in from around her, like a net, fitting right in with the rest of the under dressed and glittery clubbers. She hadn’t seen them coming, being wrapped up in a sensory high, tuned into the euphoria of everyone moving to the mood cues. He had seen them, but then only because he was looking for her. Seen them, seen red and then made a bloody mess getting her out.
“Are you alright?” he finally asked.
“You’re boosted too.” Matiz said.
“Had to be,” Roal said. “Had to find you.”
“Why?”
“Call came through. We’re going to Rimward. Gotta see Jon. Tiv said you might be at the club, so…”
“Ah.” Tiv was a friend of sorts. A basic, but sympathetic to the cabal. All the same, it had become clear that he, like others, saw their movement more as a radical social escapade. Their drive and real purpose was less relevant to him than the rush of different kinds of clubs, drugs and meeting dangerous illegals. So now he was disposable and would be left in their wake. “We’re leaving this place?”
“Soon. I’ve got to wrap up some business first.”
Twenty minutes later they parked in a tenement block side street. Small apartments, crowded and noisy, were crammed into slab sided blocks, forming a U around bitumen courtyards. Roal checked the pistol and asked,
“Are you coming up?”
“Sure you want to leave the car alone here?” Roal shrugged and said,
“If the car’s fucked I’d rather you weren’t in it.”
“I generally manage,” she chided.
“Yeah… Yeah. I guess I’m still kind of wired.”
“Alright then. Let’s go.” Matiz shunted the door open and they stepped into the rain.
Apartment access was internal. Carpeted floors were stained with damp and years of accumulated grime. Overhead light panels were occasionally cracked. Even the armour glass bubbles hiding surveillance cameras showed wear. Below waist height, the mostly cream walls had been painted gray, concealing the paw prints of generations of children. They stopped by an unmarked steel door. Roal hit a comm. switch and said,
“Jim. Roal… open up.” A few moments later the steel slid away. Jim, bleary eyed and rumpled, stood in the arch, boxer shorts hanging low off his hips. He scratched his broad, hairy belly.
“Roal, ‘Tiz,” he drawled. “What brings you kids here?”
Stepping back, he waved them in and resealed the door.
“Don’t mind the mess. The maid’s a fucking pig.” He opened an ice box, rubbed his jaw and asked, “Beer, anybody?” Empty cans littered the floor, mostly around an upturned carton, more or less resembling a bin. Old, worn furniture made the tiny lounge room drab, except for a gloss black holograph and sound rig.
“We can’t stay here long,” Roal replied.
“So what’s happening?” Jim looked up, almost curious.
“Gotta move on,” Roal explained, “some friends called, you know. Have to go see how they’re doing.”
For a moment Jim stared. There was more to it than Roal would say. There was always more to it with these two.
“So you’re closing up shop?”
“Yeah. I’ll need my part of the cash. Now. Keep my share of the gear.”
“Fucking hell,” Jim grunted, rummaging through a small satchel. Amid a few fat, snap seal bags he found a wad of hard currency. Plastic bills were rare, but cash never died. “You know I can’t use that much gear. I’m not a fucking drug baron.” Roal shrugged.
“Find a friend to cover it. Start a retirement fund or something. Whatever. Probably wasn’t up to scratch anyway. Last time they said medical grade they’d already cut it. Makes my life fucking difficult.” Roal took the cash and stowed it with his gun.
“Coming back, you reckon?” Jim asked, opening the door. He knew they were enhanced; psychic. But Roal had been good to deal with. Roal paused for a long moment.
“Don’t know. Depends.”
At a road stop shop, while Roal filled the cars hydrogen tank, Matiz asked,
“How are we getting to Rimward?”
“Driving.”
“That’s six hours.”
“Yeah. But safer. Kind of.” He was thinking of predetermined commercial carrier routes, cramped cabins with no privacy, maybe covert surveillance. Better with a car. At least they had their cocoon of privacy.
“We going back to the hotel, to get our stuff?” she asked.
“No. I just threw everything in our bags… I don’t think I missed anything.”
“Fair enough.” She knew from experience that Roal was thorough. By now he would have organized anything necessary, and been ready to move as soon as they met. “Did you steal the towels?” He grinned slightly,
“And the robes.”
They bought coffee and energy drinks with the fuel, throwing them in a satchel as they powered up the car.
“Are you going to stay boosted the whole way?” she asked.
“Yeah. Probably smoother that way. I’m still fucking wired from that club. Besides, you never know.”
“You going to want me to drive at all?”
“No, I’d rather. Keeps me busy.”
“Have you got enough of, well, whatever, for it?” Whatever, in this case, meant a reasonably clean amphetamine derivative, to keep his enhanced, Right Hemisphere neurons boosted, their meta-psychic capacity peaked.
“Yeah, enough.” Pausing, as he charged up the engine, he turned to her and asked carefully, “How about you. Will you be OK?” For a people born into a drug dependent subculture, managing addiction was a leaned competence, like self medicating for diabetes or cancer… all the more so with the erratic cognitive pitfalls of hyper awareness.
“Don’t know,” Matiz confided, “I wasn’t expecting much tonight.”
A few hours later, half way between precincts, she took a morphine surrette from Roal’s back up stash. The pre-mixed package looked like a soft capsule, with a short needle that pressed out of one end. With practiced dexterity she inserted the needle into a sub-dermal infuser; an implanted network of tubes designed for frequent, targeted medication. Originally designed for cancer patients and hormone therapies. With scientific efficiency the drug rushed to key points, dulling the tired headache buzz, numbing her right cerebral hemisphere. Calm seemed to wash through her, easing off the tense vigilance she’d been riding for hours. She huddled up in the bucket seat. When her eyes closed, Roal paused to look at her. Leather clung to her thighs, hugged her waist and cleavage. A soft, perpetual frown dimpled her brow. All these things were intimately familiar, but with the separation of sleep looking at her made him feel like some kind of voyeur. For six years they’d known each other, and he’d known her body, the mind it housed. He’d watched it change and mature, parallel to himself. Six years with nothing consistent. No one else for any real time, except Jon. And then, later, the cabal. He breathed deeply and set aside a wave of memory. For now the road mattered. He kept his hands on the wheel unnecessarily, choosing to drive instead of using the autopilot, even as the car shifted gears and ploughed along the highway, his grip tight and consistent.
cognitionfatigue 