This shit always starts the same and it's always the same story. With a hangover and a reason for one. The pulsing on my wristband wakes me up. Matches the banging in my head. I get up. Pretend like it's a coin toss to do my calisthenics then put my clothes on.
I check the screen in the center of the wall of the one room apartment. Everything squared away and as tiny and as minimal as their designed to make the person residing in them feel. The dancing parallel lines of the screensaver disappear sensing me look at them. I check my messages realizing I have a meeting I'm probably late for. Doesn't really matter the other persons probably late too.
I walk over to the other side of the room. Not for the first time noting that design flaw. An alcove in the wall. "Glass of water." I pause trying to get a sense of how she's feeling today. "Please."
"Authentication failed. Try again." The voice of the room slowly replacing the cricket on my shoulder.
"Oh for fuck sakes. I can check my mail but I can't get a glas-It's me. Always me. Alone." I swear I can hear the room chuckling.
Outside in the hallway of a building made out of milk crates I fall into the wave of the rest of the morning traffic. My morning their whatever. Always something with people isn't it? I'm just minding my own business waiting for the elevator getting the side eye from an old woman. Staring at the open flaps of my trench coat. "You want a peek pervert? Is that it?"
The floating sphere that constitute the eyes of a blind person floats around from behind her and blinks at me. Apparently keeping an eye on a small child behind her back. "Sorry. How was I supposed to know?"
On the ground I grab a Track. A four wheel horizontal vehicle. Self-driven. Much to my envy. Across the vast sprawl of Coruscant that connects Toronto, Chicago and New York. To a bar not of my choice. Kinda jealous of that too. The crowd pleasant as long as I don't know them. The atmosphere not conducive to smoking indoors or any introduction of spark for that matter.
In the corner sits a black haired women with pale skin wearing a dress on which my only comment is she could do without. In front of her is a gentleman, I don't know if he's actually gentle but by in way of comparison to her he most certainly is. Between them is a deck of cards spread across the table. Not like a normal Tarot deck. This one has too many cards or too few depending on who you ask. The cards themselves change depending on what she's in the mood for.
"Up. Up, up, up, up." I skip intimidation and go straight for annoying. He hesitates so I raise two fingers getting the bartenders attention "on me."
"That was rude Darter." Not that one. Just a name. "He was a paying customer."
"Paying with what Natalie? His soul?"
Her eyes narrow and I have a feeling she's about tell me something I wish was a lie. "He was a Wedge." Blackmail, part of a bigger con.
I mock sympathy. "Really him? Well then I'm sorry." She does something that makes the table shock me. "Ow. Seriously I'm sorry. How much trouble am I in?"
"You're not in trouble. If you were in trouble yo-"
"I'd already be dead. I know." Multilateral multimedia. Everyone's a camera. Everyone's watching. Literally billions of channels. All the same thing apparently.
"What's that from?" She begins compiling her deck.
"I don't know." My attentions drawn towards the dancer. Her movements like my screensavers. Like my screensaver she catches me watching and stops. "Really?"
"Want me to read your future?" Her smile the proverbial mirage. The gloss on her lips and the pheromones in her perfume the nectar of a Venus fly trap.
"I'm good. I have a feeling even if you told me I'd still fuck it up."
A gaggle of quacks stand up from the tables in the subset of the floor. Make eye contact with me and move to the opposite side of the room. I kiss her on the cheek and join them.
"How are you today detective?" Reo, my contact in the Supermercado mob. Italian or Spanish I can't tell. Not their real name either just what I call them.
"I'm not a detectiv- y'know what? Never mind. I've gotta open up more. It's going very well. Weather's nice. My hangover sorted itself. I thought the dry cleaner was gonna mess up my coat but they didn't. I got a nice Track. The A.I wasn't too blabbery-" Not amused. "I'm sorry I'm just going on and on. How are you Reo?"
I've grown on him. This didn't go too well the first couple times we met. "I cannot complain." Except for whatever you're about to tell me. "Let's have a drink shall we?"
One of his sisters. I call them sisters. Really they're big hairy men nearly identical to him. Had surveillance on them for a bit caught them trying on wigs. Kinda just stuck. Anyway one of his sisters takes a shot glass pours from a bottle which I imagine he just carries around. The liquid starts brown then begins to exhibits properties of colors outside my visible spectrum.
"What is that?" A reason to tie one on.
He crosses his arms and leans back cocking his head. "A bit of self-reflection."
"I can see myself in your forehead. Does that count?" His sisters stiffen behind me. "Not just me. Both of us. Couple of dates, marriage, kids…an affair. But it's okay because I know you still lov-"
"We want to know if you've been playing both sides."
The Supermercados aren't like a typical mob. Organized crime works in facets. A bit of this a bit of that. A bit of this and that and most of it goes to the top. You sell drugs, guns, or people or find a way to steal from those do so legitimately. They sell a specific product to a specific person to create specific results which in turn they can sell to a select group of clientele.
I don't even know if they produce the drug themselves. It's marketed as a way to see alternative versions of yourself. A tap into the multiverse. Now imagine taking it and realizing out of all the different versions of yourself you're the biggest failure. Might explain why your wife left you, your kids hate you, and why you're stuck in a dead end job as a mid-level exec in a laundry detergent company. In reality it's the culmination of a kid with a notepad sitting across from your apartment, a psychologist compiling a profile and an artist creating a psyche-override. That information or when you've already been turned is then sold to whomever. Mostly competing corporations.
I take the glass in my hands and look at my fiancé through it across the table. Throw it in reverse. Should be pretty fucking "obvious isn't it?"
"That's not the side we're talking about." He leans forward as a show of insistence.
I drink it. Strawberry flavored. Considerate of them. Behind me the sisters can read my thoughts and memories like a catalogue. They're not doing the processing themselves. I can hear the flick and buzz of an AI scanning for something specific. When they're satisfied they nod and I'm allowed to leave.
As I step outside a comlink opens up. "You did well in there." Says the voice.
"How you'd do that? Hide me from me." Talking to the air.
"It helps if you have something to-"
"I get it."