Shift Change

The common man's life is constructed of only common decisions. Therein lies the difference.

Not everyone gets a slice of heaven. You’ve got to break ground and build your own Eden.

The Kid comes back to life.

Every morning he rises to meet the day at the behest of a digital chirping. Dreams dismissed back into the ether and the Void above.

He rolls to his side and reaches for the handheld. His connection to the world at large. The key to Uruk’s data sphere and all that chirps within it. Expensive bundles of data transit beyond to pass star to star across Galaxy.NET’s network. The waves bring back news of The Frontier, of conflict, and of finance.

A second alarm goes off. Fifteen minutes have been paid to the screen. But, WAR-Lock’s stock is up.

The Dirt War went hot as the Kid slept. Not his problem. Just his profit.

He sits up and stares into the window across the room. Through the frame is a view of a lush mountain landscape. Trees, real Earth-born conifers, edge the sightline from the outside porch to the white topped mountain that rises on the horizon like a monolith of nature’s might.

It is beauty there. Birds move within the branches of the trees and animals make their way through the underbrush. It is clean. The air, the sounds, and the sightlines. It is as close to the Garden of Eden as the Kid can conceive.

The blur creeps across the screen as the Kid leers. Simulated nature snaps away and the statistics of life march across the screen.

Black text. White background. Data concise.

Colors begin to accent critical elements as the Kid stands and stretches to the ceiling. The room realizes the occupant is awake. Lights rise in intensity to match the sun of Uruk beyond the confines of the apartment block.

Through another screen-made-window, a camera pickup shows the view outside of the 43rd floor. Real time footage of a world separated from the Kid’s rectangle by meters of concrete and the condos of those that could afford the edges of the building.

The ones with real windows.

Here was nothing more than a rendition of a ship officer’s quarters. Shelves and cabinets built into the orbital polymer walls. Neutral patterns etched into the floor and ceiling of the same material. A bed is molded into the wall like an inset shelf next to a sliding door that leads to the toilet-shower.

The Kid had done well enough to extract a comfort from the pockets of the Syndicated Colonies. He moves around his small kitchen.

He is frying strips of synthetic meat in a black metal-poly pan at one of the electric hot plates. The Kid crouches to look into the small fridge-freezer beside the door to the maze of hallways beyond.

Rising, he pops the top on a container of NITRO. Its casing a neon pink. Its contents a mix of orbit-sourced water, synthesized pseudo-biological sugars, and a modafinil blend to promote wakefulness. The container says the energy drink tastes like bubblegum.

The meat is finished and the Kid scoffs it down. A slug of pink liquid follows in succession. Then a few pills. A workout supplement, a mood stabilizer, and something to give the night a slight kick. More of the pink liquid follows.

Then he’s pulling his uniform on. A jumpsuit in utilitarian light brown. An undersuit of legacy design. One with velcro straps around the ankles, wrists, and waist. It has pockets on the chest and on the tops of the thighs. An embroidery of a skull and crossbones is stitched into the right shoulder. The logo of Spacer Jack’s.

With that, the Kid was out the door and into the hallway.

Now he moved with haste. His steps weaving through the tunnels of his concrete hive. There were smells, sounds, and the occasional sight all before he reaches the elevators.

One arrives and he steps in.

Leaning against the full size video screen at the back of the elevator is a man in a suit. One of the ones that combined the toga folds into the jacket. Its material some sort of matte cloth that seemed to absorb the light that shone onto it.

The man doesn’t react. He stares into his handheld and reaches up to double tap his head behind the right ear. The next song in his playlist begins vibrating through his skull and the eardrums within.

The Kid waits and watches the screen behind the man. An advertisement for a special deal on a 10 year contract with the Syndicate military. A chance to become an Aegis Suit pilot.

His brow furrows only a centimeter. A squint, perhaps.

The doors open and the Kid turns to walk out when the man pushes by. His eyes still locked to the handheld’s screen.

It’s just a video of words flashing across the surface as a talking head projects words into the man’s mind as a standardized replacement for his own thoughts. The voice echoing through the skull and the conscious focused on them like its own thoughts shouted.

The Kid is already striding out the front door.

He steps onto the street. That four wide valley between sheer cliffs of concrete, orbital alloys, and synthetic, borosilicate glass. The immediate center like a river of rolling plastics and metals. The personal vehicles and taxis of those who still sought to drive.

He sticks to his path at the side of this ponderous river. The place where awnings set on great multi-story tall, Romanesque pillars shielded fellow walkers from the late afternoon light of Uruk’s sun: Durandal.

Far down the street, the Kid can see one of the corporate pyramids. A monolithic structure of black glass. The top chopped off before the point to accommodate the rotor aircraft that could be made out as black, shapeless forms in the haze.

The morning before, on his way home, the Kid had seen that pyramid launch a drone swarm into the sky. He remarked to a woman nearby that he could almost hear the buzzing of all the metal frames moving to pursue some unseen target. She did not respond.

Passing a man sitting with his back to a plate glass window, the Kid ignores the smell of urine and sweat. Two Syndicate Military Police with, “WAR-Lock, Private Services Division,” stitched onto the backs of their plate carriers stand looking down at the fallen man.

“Fuckin’ corpos,” he spits at one of their boots.

The Kid kept it clean. The Kid keeps moving.

He enters the train station and hears the voice come on over the speakers, “North-East Bound Express. 2 Minutes.”

The Kid rushes for the turnstile walls. Their black glass stretches to the ceiling and a place for ones handheld to tap sits to right of each doorway.

He pushes his device against the pad. The door’s video screen surface morphs to indicate he must face the camera. The Kid complies.

Then the gateway to the stairs that will take him to the trains opens. He surges forward like a horse through the gates and takes the steps of the escalator in twos. A man steps aside with a scowl as he ascends. The Kid glances in haste and hostility, and continues his ascent.

At the platform he waits behind the bullet resistant polymer walls for the train to float into the station. It slides to halt and the gates open. First people flow out and then people flow in. Conversions like heart valves.

The Kid stands holding a bar that run along the top of the train car. It begins to move and he braces until the acceleration evens out. Speed made to feel normal through physics.

The car floats along its rail as it darts through the ecumenopolis of Uruk, a story or two above the streets. He looks out the window at it all as it slips by. His eyes only able to focus on anything sitting still for but a moment as his body continues to hurtle forward.

There is a curious mix of buildings beyond. Some built in the style popularized by the late leader, Marcus Caesar. A mix of modern materials and ancient design sensibilities. Their sloping roofs, gargantuan colonnades, and megalithic statues of long extinct animals made them distinct. Something like a trademark of Uruk itself.

In the clothes of the Syndicate’s new leaders, The Board, were the rest. Sleek structures made of concrete, orbital polymers, and dyed glass. Their forms sleek and hard edged like cut gems washed black. At night the neon lights of the city would reflect off their surfaces like imposing prisms.

And some were amalgamations of the two. The bold, archaic curves of the neo-classical buildings were studded with growths of prismatic, brutalist crystal. And within them all, the hive continued to churn.

Life carries on.

The Kid looks down at the sitting girl he’s standing above. The train is packed tight. Her hair cropped short like a hood down to her shoulders. Each strand a reflective silver color except for one streak of lime green from tip to top. Her eyes are emerald green to match. An Outcast spacer’s tattoo of a green chevron is on the peek of her left cheekbone. It points towards the Void above.

She looks away from the Kid and removes her handheld from a pocket in her tactical jacket. Underneath is a modern, sleek undersuit. Its form cut to encourage curiosity as some of the tribes of spacers do.

It is nothing like the replica of a relic the Kid wore. She is nothing like him. They know this without a word exchanged and none are.

A dual rotor, VTOL aircraft lumbers in to keep pace with the train. Its emergence stealing the Kid’s attention away to see the characteristic blue-grey and red accented paintjob of Tacti-Health.

In the open crew bay doors of the aircraft, a man in full combat gear is visible sitting with his legs dangling over the city streets below. He is tethered in and keeps one hand on the fixed monopod support for his dual, belt-fed machine guns. The M7A2s both slaved to a single trigger.

A helmet with an opaque visor stares out across the void between the two vehicles. Two cat’s eyes are hand painted onto the surface of the visor in a deep, bright blue.

They are staring into the Kid’s soul.

The Kid casts a small wave. The man in the VTOL raises a finger to the Kid and, in a moment, the VTOL pulls back to bank away and into the sky.

The Kid says nothing. For what is there to say?

The speakers proclaim, “Forum Syndicum.”

The train stops and the Kid pushes his way to the door. They seal behind him and he’s away again, descending the steps back to the street.

A short walk from the train station at the Forum Syndicum is a Spacer Jack’s franchise location.

The Kid crosses the forum from the train station stepping over the community lawn. It is dotted with people enjoying the sun. Some in the clothes of professionals argue into handhelds or implants. Others lay in complex bathing suits on padded towels waiting for the sun to sauté their bodies to perfection.

Then he is outside the Spacer Jack’s.

It’s not busy. The lunch rush has come and gone. Only the first forays of the dinner and late night crowds have begun to emerge from the city’s cracks.

Inside, the Kid taps across the floor designed to evoke the feeling of a wooden deck. Imitation cellulose composite, of course.

He walks past the curving facades of the walls made to look like an ancient water ship’s hull. Something from the era of water faring pirates and swashbuckling sword-slashers.

The Kid moves past the small life boat cut in half and pressed against the back wall of the dinning area. Another employee, some girl the Kid has yet to talk to is manning the grey rectangle of technology placed within the boat like some relic sent back in time.

Inside the cubby of an office tucked away in the back of the franchise, a man of some girth and a cropped beard peeps out at the Kid’s approach.

“Shift ready?” squawks the man handing the Kid his tricorn hat.

“Course,” states the Kid like a bill paid.

The little fat man taps a sequence out on the keyboard next to him with one hand.

The computer pings in response, “Register.”

The Kid was already walking to his place in the boat up front behind the point of sale system. The girl who had been there is already gone. He sees her walking away across the Forum Syndicum through the glass storefront.

Customers begin to filter into this facsimilia of an ancient pirate ship. They chat, joke, and order from the Kid. He gestures to the payment contact point and facilitates the exchange of food in return for Money Units. He and the robots in the kitchen feed the populace their synthesized proteins for a modest price from within a building made to look like an ancient ship of thieves.

Only time was ever stolen.

A small pack of corpos arrive to collect their dinner on the way home or to loiter in the forum just beyond. The men all wear toga-esc suit jackets over white shirts buttoned up to one down from the top above slacks and smart, synthetic leather shoes all in a deep grey. The women are clad in pencil skirts and blouses. Some in tight dresses of the same. Each wearing square, blocky heels. And every one, every corpo there, has the name and logo of Homlot Manufacturing printed onto the material above their hearts.

They ramble, order, and leave.

Soon the sun begins to fall behind the teeth of Uruk. The buildings cast long shadows over the Forum Syndicum beyond the franchise’s walls. The crowds outside change and morph as the streets lights come on and the bright colors of a thousand neon advertisements light up the night.

The Kid remains at his post like a nightwatchman at the gates. Attentive, but mind separate from all that occurs before him.

Then a group of gangers roll in. The hair on their heads shaved to stubble and traced with intricate designs from cheetah print to binary sequences. Their hands all callused and climbing harnesses hang from their waists or sit over their shoulders.

The Kid squints at them when they arrive. He does not see any weapons and he figures they must be Night Jumpers on their way to do some climb up one of the mega-scrapers that surround the Forum Syndicum.

The Kid remains at his post and feeds them until they leave to ascend a corporate tower come hell or high water.

As the night deepens, more come filtering through Spacer Jack’s like a place of pilgrimage. Most, normal.

Like a man and woman out on some nighttime escapade to sail the legendary nightlife of Uruk. The man in dress pants and shoes, but with a black t-shirt featuring the logo of the Sol Company. A decimated battalion of survivors of the Syndicate-Outcast War that now fight in staged zero-G battles streamed live to shed their company’s debt one criminal soul at a time. The man’s hair is of medium length but slicked back into a matte helmet; not a spacer himself.

The woman is wearing tight synthetic leather pants in black that fit her like a second skin above short, heeled boots. On top is a small, black, tube top. Her lips are painted black in an X across them and sit below cobalt blue, synthetic eyes. Her cyan hair is tied into high ponytails.

The Kid takes their orders and watches them leave as he has done with thousands before. All supplicants to the manifestation of digestible bounty that the Kid stands guard of like Charon at the river Styx.

Exchange a coin. Get a burger.

Then the doors before the Kid produce something new. Something he is yet to apprehend.

Leading the pack is a tall woman with what seems to be natural red hair. She has four arms. Two, biological, toned, and in the usual places. Two, robotic and emerging from a module grafted to her back below the shoulder blades. The spider woman is wearing short, torn jean shorts and a tank top under a neon camouflage plate carrier complete with magazine pouches for a handgun decorated the same within a cross-draw holster.

Behind her is a man in trench coat. Its surface emblazoned with the text, “KILLTEAM,” repeating forever in small, cyan letters across its non-reflective, white base. He has wavy hair and a pencil thin mustache above a set jaw with a scar on his lower lip. Under the coat, the Kid sees the hint of the butt of a rifle or submachine gun in stark, orbital white. Its form hangs just so to be pulled with ease. It remains stowed.

The third is a short girl wearing a neon pink, form fitting, Outcast-style undersuit. A matching duffle bag is slung over her shoulder and zipped closed. But, the Kid see’s she is wearing surplus, Syndicate military combat boots.

They’re all smiling and laughing at each other as they approach. These runners. These solos. These KILLTEAM mercenaries that have taken life into their hands. Each committed to the struggle to wrestle life into something made for them and them alone.

The man with the pencil mustache approaches the counter and the Kid. Mustache stares up at the menu for a few seconds as the shorter girl takes a selfie of the her and the spider girl.

“Ummm...,” says the mustache before he looks down to the Kid.

Their eyes meet in transaction like data through a network port.

The KILLTEAM Veteran has seen a hundred people like the Kid in a thousand different contexts. The Kid has never seen a real KILLTEAM mercenary in the flesh.

The merc veteran seems as if he’s only a few years and few decisions older than the Kid. The Kid sees they both have eyes of the same brown and hair to match. They are built the same in an outward fashion and both are now staring into each other.

The Kid knows now what has become of himself. The Kid sees the cage that he has placed himself within and the world that feeds off of his time, his soul, and his health. The Kid sees the abyss as it comes for him as time folds and Death rises to take him to the Void above on his final and only trip to the stars above.

Every choice the Kid has made in his life has led to this moment. Every choice the Kid has made in his life has condemned him to his position now.

And all he must do to change his life, is to break it.