The rain never fails...
It always completes its goal, hitting the pavement, a tree branch, the top of a shattered building wall, you name it. The rain always falls. That's what my dad use to tell me when life got hard. "When you fail, just remember the rain always falls," I never understood it when I was 16 living in Downtown New Haven. Now, it's not important.
What's important is completing this job.
I stand in the hills just outside the city of New Haven. My oxygen mask on low as the air around isn't as radioactive here as it is in the Wastelands. New Haven is what use to be old Downtown Los Angles, but now is a ruined neon memory of fallen angels protected by a thin invisible bio-sphere. The light rain turning to steam descending onto the transparent dome as I watch the citizens move through the dense fog.
I peer through cyber optic binoculars. I stole off some dead United Earth soldiers I watched get drunk on moon shine deep in the Wastelands a fews days ago. They took off their oxygen masks to see who could last the longest, but they were so drunk and stubborn that they both slowly suffocated to the radiative dust in the air. I grabbed the binoculars and some other valuables before any mutants came along for their next meal.
I've been standing on the hill where I can see the neon sign for the bar Heat Seekers. I've been waiting to spot my target. Lander Austin. Lander is a dashing man with short platinum blonde hair in a buzz cut who is the back-up news anchor for New Haven News. My Client suspects Mr. Austin of using the news-channel's account money to purchase drugs and protection from Red Cobra thugs. My job is to take pictures of Mr. Austin in the act. Seeing him walk into Heat Seekers, my cloak changes into its surrounding making me invisible like a phantom to those with good eyes, I get into position.
I run through the fog slipping past the crowd of people and Generation 2 androids that have adopted human free-will along the cracked and spray painted sidewalk. I get inside the bar.
Heat Seekers is a fairly decent bar, it's too bad, I'd rather drink alone. Neon lights glow in the dim darkness filled with cigarette smoke. The bar and dance floor is crowed, for this situation my cloak allows me to become hollow for two minutes. Where I can pass through the rambunctious crowd to get eyes on Lander.
He sits alone at a booth enjoying a glass of Red wine and a cigarette. I blink a few pictures with my ocular camera, that uploads them to a hard drive I have in a secure location. Someone sits at Lander's booth. They have on a black trench coat and a rain soaked hat. They are discussing something casual, the bar is deafening and the people and androids constantly walking by making this even more of a chore to read Lander's Lips.
Lander slides over a thin tablet to his company siting at the table with him who uploads a flash drive.
I take a bunch of pictures. Lander and his mysterious friend shake hands. Then they lean in close to Lander whispering something. Lander smiles nodding his head, then the mysterious friend points in my direction. Lander tightens up focusing towards me. Not sure if they can see my outline in the sea of dancing people and androids. But in the world of inspectors, gangs and drug dealers everyone is paranoid.
The crowd thickens, and I lose sight of Lander as he leaves. I undo my cloaks invisibility and hollow abilities to store battery power. I bump my way through dancing fools, to Lander's empty table to see that the tablet is there. I quickly scan it with my ocular camera, but it is protected by an encryption but I can see that is was a transaction. However, the data is corrupted . Damn it. This would have gotten me a fat tip in credits.
A stunning woman bumps into me from dancing her life away. I clench my automatic laser hidden in my cloak. But then I realizes she is staring into my eyes.
"No spark," She says.
I notice that her eyes are lifeless, like most androids, but identical to humans. She is a android model known a IDOL. Her synthetic skin glows with an angelic hue. Her is saloon fresh with curls and highlights completing her doll like make-up. Even though she is a life-machine. Her skin has the aroma of petrichor and aquatic scents make my nose itch or it could just be her perfume mixed with drizzle from outside, which makes her seem more soft than she is.
I go to walk pass her, she grips my shoulders.
"Your eyes," She says.
"What about my eyes," I reply as I try to squirm away.
"There is no, spark," She says.
"Is that all, Ms., just some old 2020 carp," I snap.
"So, you have nothing to live for," She looks deeper into my cold calculating eyes.
A flash in mind, I'm reaching out for her, Mila, she runs into the dense fog of the Wastelands... I'm chasing her into the void of fog....
"There it was, your spark," She smiles.
I snap out of my daydream.
"What are you talking about, out of my way please," I say.
" You having something to live for," She smiles.
" Yeah, credits," I say as I bump my way out of Heat Seekers through drunk and intoxicated crowd swaying like a flood in a dream.
I step outside into the warm misty air. I pull out a cigarette lighting it. There are less people standing around but a few stragglers smoking and chit-chatting. I feel I should just call it quits and just expect partial credits for this job. Who care if a snobby news anchor embezzles money for drugs. It's the tip of the iceberg in this city.
I feel the presence of eyes staring at me, I peer into an alley adjacent from where I am standing.
Someone is standing at the end of the foggy alley with blue lifeless eyes. I can't make out if they are human or android. I blink to focus my eyes, and they're gone. I drop my cigarette bud on the spray painted sidewalk.
"I need to get some sleep," I murmur out loud to myself.
I would go home, to my apartment, but it's dangerous. Not the best security. I'm low on credits, and I can't exchange the pictures I got until 8 am this morning. So I only have enough credits for food and a few charges for my cloak and oxygen mask. I ponder this as I walk away from the booming music from the bar.
I walk into an alley, I know a ramen shop down this way. It's always murky down this way when it rains. It's quiet...
BEAM!
A laser beam shoots right across my face, luckily I slipped back. BOOM! The beam smashes a hole in the brick wall.
I quickly pull out my automatic laser gun shooting into the foggy abyss.
Beam-Beam! Nothing...
Then he emerges from the fog, it's the mysterious guy from earlier still in his trench coat, he removes his hat revealing that he is a EX1 android, the executor class. Mechanical and bulky.
"If you know what's good for you Inspector, you'd just hand it over nice and easy," The EX1 android demands.
" Wish I could, It's in the cloud," I say pointing to my ocular camera in my pupil.
"Just take out your eye out," The android suggests.
"Nah, that's not an option, either," I smirk.
"Seriously, take it out, I can help you," The android takes a step forward.
I toss a grenade into the android's face engulfing him in thick smoke. I activate my cloak becoming invisible as I sprint away.
I rush through the congested streets and notice men dressed in military uniforms with red bandannas, a stenciled insignia of a red cobra on their shoulders are following me through the crowd. There are wearing special goggles that can see my body heat.
I cut down a side street, the EX1 android is standing at the end of street holding his laser gun, his face dented from the grenade.
I continue up the street, the only safe place is the Wastelands. I make a break for it , heading out of the electric biosphere that protects New Haven from radiation. My cloak is short circuited and will need a hour to reset. I turn on my oxygen mask to high as I dash into the green radioactive dust of the Wastelands. I turn back to see the EX1 and Red Cobra gangsters quickly following behind.
I will need to find a place to hide, best bet is to find an underground bunker nearby. I don't want to wander too far into Black Vulture territory, but I can hear the boots of my pursuers, maybe I do want to run into the Black Vultures. Then again I'm not crazy.
Beam-Beam! they are shooting at me, they can see my body heat through this green fog of radiation that is starting to sting my skin under my cloak. I need a place to hide.
Up head is a rundown warehouse, I dart there. The big metal doors, are rusted shut like a 20th century fossil. I kick the door hard, but it doesn't budge. I try to peek into one of the windows. It's dark, but I can see someone standing in the distance, the same lifeless blue eyes from the alley? They glow... the figure rushes towards the door.
I lock aim with my automatic laser.
BOOM! The metal door is sent flying off the hinges landing into the desert sand with a thud.
I hold aim, and from the darkness stumbles an android, a Generation One Android. Bald, with a mechanical body in the shape of a woman, with a human face. Her compassionate eyes stare into my cold eyes. She falls into my arms. Her exoskeleton is still soft like human skin, but so cold.
A rare creation, worth a lot on the street. Even more if it's operational. But for now I need to keep her out of sight from the Red Cobra gang.
I can see the glow of their flashlights through the green fog getting closer to the warehouse. I carry the android into the warehouse to find a place to hide...