Rebecca opened her laptop and established a connection to Kelly’s tactical visor. She switched on the microphone.
‘Testing mic… one, two, three… You read me Kelly?’
‘I hear you,’ Kelly replied.
The captain put her helmet on over the little visor and kicked her bike into gear. The engine roared. The motorbike helmet featured a holographic display that gave her directions, speed, fuel age, without her having to take her eyes off the road. Kelly didn’t hold back, speeding through the city, zipping in and out of traffic jams, blaring around corners. Even though Bec only watched through her computer she tensed every time she thought Kelly was going to crash into another car. The city lights slowly blurred into long neon streaks to give the impression of being warped through time.
‘Hey,’ Bec almost shouted, ‘You can slow down a little. She’s not going anywhere.’
‘I’ll be fine’ Kelly replied.
Bec rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, you got it under control.’
A while later Kelly said, ‘I’m here,’ and pulled up on the side of the road. She removed her helmet and glanced down the street at the dazzling signs and dancing holograms. She was on the outskirts of Tokyo’s underworld, a melting pot of augs and criminals. Even the Yakuza didn’t hold much sway over this place anymore.
‘You got eyes on Song’s location?’ Bec asked.
‘I got it.’
Kelly crossed the wide street and neared a club where silhouettes danced in the icy windows and a woman outside batted her eyelids. Kelly passed a bar and an old movie theatre until she reached to the entrance of the real party. The massive dome shot through with burning laser-lights. Kelly was greeted by a massive hologram of a girl with short acrylic-blue hair that pulsed to a beat that pounded from everywhere at once. The hologram girl leaned forward and gazed at Kelly under long eyelashes and sparkling blue lipstick and she bowed politely, welcoming her to the night.
‘I think I like this place,’ said Bec. She wished her arm wasn’t injured so she could be there in the action.
‘Yeah, if you ignore all the illegal cybernetics,’ said Kelly.
‘I’m willing to ignore them if you are. What do you say we come back here for a night out once this is all settled?’
‘One step at a time. We have a mission to complete, let’s focus on that.’
A giant screen mounted onto the side of a building displayed a new visually stunning “wallpaper” every few minutes or so in a rather hypnotic fashion. Flickers and static. Mountains and clouds of burning orange rolling over at incredible speeds. Flickers and static. A fox made of light, stepping forwards over a bed painted with moonlight azure. Flickers and static. A sparkling river meandering away into the sunset, surrounded by zigzagging towers of stone protruding from the grassy plane. Flickers and static. A young girl holding a thatch umbrella, standing under a tree as the sky curved and melted away like oil pastels under the heat of the sun, icy blue waves colliding with passionate reds. Flickers and static. A woman stared sensually forwards as she threatened to remove her clothes, she bit her lip and batted her pretty eyes. Flickers and static.
‘You’re getting close,’ said Bec. ‘Song should be in the building just up ahead.’
Kelly accidentally bumped into a man clad in full yellow bounty-hunter armour. He shoved her aside with a robotic arm and continued on his way. Kelly looked back at him as he disappeared into the crowed, then turned back ahead. A ball of anxiety lifted in Rebecca’s stomach.
‘Hey, do you think maybe you could be in danger here? What if Sato and Emily have bounty hunters or private security looking for you?’
Kelly brushed her hair out of her eyes.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping an eye out. Not much we can do about that though. Let’s just keeping moving. The sooner we get her the better.’
‘It’s this one here. The nightclub.’
Kelly entered a club where the electric air was filled with smoke, lasers and deafening music. She checked her phone then glanced over the thick pool of people, mingling and moving about, many with their faces covered.
‘I don’t see her,’ Kelly said, trying to remain inconspicuous. She made her way towards the bar, keeping her eyes peeled.
‘Scanning,’ said Bec. She ran the scan then sent the data to Kelly’s visor. Emily Song became highlighted in red.
‘I have her,’ said Kelly.
Emily Song had a certain sinister appeal, a padded leather jacket and a dark purple hooded cloak. She had pale skin and sharp cheekbones, her expression grave, the way she stared with thin golden eyes, grim eyes hidden within two columns of blood-red makeup, war paint. Rebecca noticed that Song’s eyes were implants, they displayed that telling LED glow.
‘Watch out,’ she warned Kelly. ‘She has a neural implant. Look at her eyes.’
In a flash Emily Song’s stare shot straight in Kelly’s direction and then she was shoving her way out of the club, jumping over people and sprinting for the door.
Kelly took off in quick pursuit.
‘She’s onto me,’ Kelly said. ‘She’s making a run for it.’
Rebecca ran a broad search for hackable items within Kelly’s vicinity, hoping that she could use the environment against Song’s escape. But they were moving too fast.
‘She’s heading back out to the street,’ Rebecca said. ‘Do you have a shot?’
Kelly put her hand on her pistol as she ran but she didn’t draw it.
‘Too many civilians.’
Emily Song vaulted onto a motorbike and took off down the street.
‘Shit!’ Kelly yelled.
‘Ahead of you,’ said Rebecca, directing Kelly’s attention to another bike parked nearby. ‘It’s an automatic. Give me a second.’
Bec pulled up the schematics as quickly as possible, hijacked the bike’s start-up program and unlocked it. The bike started up on its own.
‘Go!’
Kelly mounted the bike, using the GPS route on her visor to track the target, and took off after Song. If she was driving recklessly on the way then this was something else. Kelly ripped through the city like a bullet.
‘I can’t catch her,’ she said. ‘One of us is gonna get killed.’
‘Working on it…’
Rebecca was already hacking into the city’s traffic control systems. All the main roads were remote-control roadblocks precisely for situations like this. She predicted Song’s route and then activated the roadblock. The metal wall sprung up right in front of Song, forcing her to slam on the brakes until she lost control and slid sideways, eventually losing the bike and rolling across the road. Kelly pulled up near her and ran from her own bike, closing the distance in seconds. Kelly drew her pistol and grabbed Song by the collar, shaking her around and jamming the gun to her head.
‘Where are the others?’
Song didn’t speak. Rebecca began tapping into Song’s phone.
‘Maybe I can pull some info—’
Kelly fired a shot right next to Song’s head.
‘Jesus, Kelly!’ said Bec.
‘Where are they? Sato, Hiroshi, Dimitri Aleksandrovsk.’
‘I know where to find Dimitri,’ Song blabbered. ‘He’s hiding, posing as a construction worker. The Laputa initiative. He’s working on the floating platforms.’
Rebecca leaned back. She was at once both excited and surprised, and a little frightened.
‘This could be a problem,’ she said. ‘There’s no way we’re getting up there on our own.’
Kelly kept her gun aimed at Song.
‘We’ll worry about it later.’
‘Police are on the way.’ Bec had been monitoring police activity and tracking nearby units.
‘Shit, if I leave her here, she’ll bolt.’
‘Kelly, you shouldn’t be around when the police arrive.’
‘I know that.’
‘Can’t you tie her up or something?’
Kelly glanced around at the crowd that had slowly been forming around her and Song; a band of curious civilians wanting to see what all the commotion was about.
‘Let’s try this,’ said Kelly. She called out to the crowd in Japanese. ‘Does anyone here know how to treat a gunshot wound?’
One old man timidly raised his hand and stepped forward. Kelly nodded to him, then aimed at Song and shot her in the leg – a flesh wound, but potentially fatal if left untreated. Song writhed and screamed and cursed Kelly as the blood trickled from her calf-muscle, and the majority of the crowd rapidly and noisily dissipated. She’d need a hospital. The old man stammered over to treat Emily Song’s wound. Kelly thanked him in Japanese then returned to her bike.
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