*I looked at the slip, it was such a simple thing, just a QR code on a business card, the paper wasn't even that nice, it felt like sandpaper in my fingers. But it was the biggest clue I had to figuring out what the hell this whole thing was and why it had cost my brother his life. The Sub-Rail was a quick ride but I found the rhythmic thrum of magnetic rail oddly soothing, even in the din of barely heard headphone music and general murmur of the crowd, it felt like a small paradise right in the center of North City. North City had been my home since the earliest memories I still had and if things stayed as they were, I might very well die here without ever having left the neon lights and grey spires of highrise apartments and companies whose employees worked themselves to the bone just to keep the lights on at home. The stink was my stink, the sounds were like a soundtrack to my life, the roads akin to my veins and its people my lifeblood.
I didn't think my dreams could ever take me so far from this familiar, dirty place. But every since I saw that symbol and that look in my brothers eyes on that cool fall night before he disappeared forever from my life, my dreams haven't been dreams at all. It's hard to describe. Have you ever had a dream that felt like reality? not to say that you believe the dream was real and only realize afterward you are dreaming, but like a dream that is itself a separate existence or world? The more you think about it the more you question what is reality and what isn't? That's what I saw in my brothers eyes, and somehow I feel like it all came back to that symbol he tried to hide from me.
The doors slide open with a mechanical whir and the flood of humanity spills forth unto the gray platform. The metallic femenine voice calls "Todai station, Todai station." a sound like the hiss of a cobra has the door close shut behind the mob and the train quickly regains its momentum as it pulls free from the station like a bullet fired from a gun. A young woman keeps her bag close to her chest like it's been taken from her once before. She makes her way up and out of the dimly lit station and into a world not unlike that below, save the ceiling is much higher up but no less dim and grey. Green eyes reflect a myriad of colour, blues, yellows, purples and pinks mingle in the emerald of her gaze, it's a familiar sight to her. This world, dreary as it was, dangerous as it was and as dreadful as it could be, it's familiarity bred a sense of safety that threatened to lull the girl into complacent numbness.
The package, all she had to do was bring the package home and then she could keep moving on, she found it easier sometimes to set a goal and just do it, then set the next, don't think too much about anything else at the time. There was always more time afterall. Despite this simple and focused mindset, her thoughts kept drifting to the card she had found. It was the only truly unusual thing on her brothers person that the police had handed over to her as his only next of kin. Had they kept more as evidence? perhaps some great secret could be revealed if she only had some missing piece? And why had she decided to not mention that name to the police when they questioned her about his death. Perhaps the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know, that name was for her only, it was something special her and her brother could share even beyond the veil.
Part of her wanted to believe if she stayed in that dream place, that threshold, long enough, she would find her brother there waiting. But so far it had only been strangers, men, women, old, young, there seemed to be no true rhyme or reason to any of them.
Enough...
She could just get home, get home and get to work. Open the package, get it working and make rent for another month. Maybe if she was lucky she could even have a fresh cooked meal or two this week instead of her usual re-hydrated stuff. A left at the smokeshop, a right just before the game cafe and up the steps, turn right and go between the twin signs that read "Pharmacy" in red Katakana, third door on the left, just like a thousand times before.
Rhian Tokuma, North City, Ward K, CLNR
She read the package again, idly wondering if this was finally the day her foolish decision to use her real name instead of her NQ on her Ads would finally wind up with her inhaling some substance and dying in her small apartment or worse, drawing the eye of the government and getting raided. She had to remain competitive though and if she priced her work any lower she would have to choose between rent and food, so the extra security of knowing your Eraser would be just as screwed as you if they messed up seemed like… Well not the best choice, but it was one that kept customers.
Opening the brown unmarked box up she flipped its contents out onto the table. A card, a Viphone and a small note. The usual, nothing strange this time. Rhian picked up the Viphone and pulled herself up into her lounger, a raised hammock where she did her best work and, often enough, got her best sleep. She sighed and shifted a bit to get comfortable and to also retrieve her toolkit from the small pouch she carried on the leg of her black shorts.
It wasn't the name, nor the pictures, nor the NQ that caught her eye as she bypassed the biometric locks, it was the most recent saved file in the documents, that name, that symbol,
Amets Falas.
The symbol, like a mass of swirling shapes looping in on themselves and creating an eye in the negative space. The name, why did the man know it was a name? Not a saying, but the name of some person or collective?
The bigger question however.
Why was it on this stranger's decrypted phone?