Los angeles 2170, p.1
Los Angeles 2170, page 1
Los Angeles 2170
A Cyberpunk Collection
Blaze Ward
Knotted Road Press
Contents
Dancer
Dancer
Shirabyōshi
Shirabyōshi
Summer Witch
Summer Witch
Just Business
Just Business
Huntress
Huntress
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Rescue
Rescue
About the Author
Also by Blaze Ward
About Knotted Road Press
Dancer
Kumiko started, ever so slightly, when the auto-copter’s computer control systems spoke to her. The ducted fans, nearly-silent, had lulled her almost to sleep with their steady hum, in spite of her desire to stay awake for the whole flight. The Puget Sound was still gorgeous, even if the waters were nearly dead, these days.
“Pojar BioGenesis Arcology landing in three minutes,” the woman’s voice said politely. “Please check around your seat for any items you might have brought aboard.”
Kumiko grinned momentarily. Most people today had no idea that the female voice of many different systems had originated more than two centuries ago, an actress on an early vidshow who also did the voice-over for the computer on a starship. What would she think, to discover that after her death, she had entered the public domain and become the voice of the future?
Still, Kumiko did as she was bid. It wasn’t like there was much she had brought aboard the auto-copter when it arrived for her. And even then, almost none of it would be allowed to accompany her through security when she arrived at the facility. The handheld she had been reading would go into a bio-secured lockbox, along with the kimono she wore, her invitation, her diplomatic passport, and even her copy of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, still the legal basis for corporate interactions, more than a century after nations had ceased to matter.
All that was permitted to accompany her inside the facility was the small anvil case tucked under the seat in beneath her. It contained the special cyberware that marked her as Shirabyōshi, and not just one of the Favored. That, and her training. And her guile. It was the reason the invitation could specify Kumiko and no other.
She smiled once more and glanced out the window. The auto-copter was over the massive arcology now: a squat, white-granite, ziggurat six kilometers wide, four deep, and nearly a kilometer tall in some places. Most of the block was barely thirty stories above ground, but fairy towers soared above that here and there, able to view the fabled Olympic Mountains to the west, or Puget Sound and the Cascades to the east.
And if the slums that butted up against the Arcology itself were ugly, they were far better than the teeming mass of despair across the water in Seattle, where more than five million unfortunate souls struggled daily against the rising seas, many of them refugees from the impossibly-hot interior. Barely half a million people crowded the thin strip between poisoned water and soaring peaks on the Olympic Peninsula.
Outside, the auto-copter’s fans rotated and the tiny craft began to descend, a hawk swooping down onto a landing platform that was emerging from the side of the facility to catch her. Kumiko centered her breathing, and let that calmness expand outward to her fingers and toes.
A mistake in this coming performance wouldn’t just risk her career and her name. It might cost Kumiko her life.
There were six of them, as always.
Kumiko smiled innocently at the men as she entered the room, the flight deck behind her already retracting as her auto-copter chariot departed. The smallest man here had half a head and thirty kilograms of mass on her. The largest was a monster nearly two meters tall and one hundred forty kilos of muscle and cybernetics.
And yet she made them nervous.
Kumiko never tired of that little spark of fear in their eyes, when they watched her move. Kumiko even recognized four of them. Two of the six were obviously cybernetically enhanced: extra muscles with fast-twitch, wired to electronically-control combat systems buried deep inside reinforced skulls.
Four hundred years ago, those two, at least, would have been samurai. If the others rated merely bushi, they were still tough men, trained and alert to attacks and surprises.
Facing a single Japanese woman, twenty-four years old, one hundred fifty-four centimeters tall, and sixty kilograms, although most people would have guessed fifty-two kilos at most.
Compact. Lithe. Well-muscled. A dancer perhaps, when they didn’t mean Dancer.
These days, her kind eschewed the traditional white paint on her face and neck, as culture had evolved over the centuries.
She was still Improved with all manner of expensive bionetics, more refined than the mere electronic versions those men had, and costlier by orders of magnitude.
The men were serious about this guard duty, protecting the fabulous people accorded citizenship in the famous arcology from an outsider like her.
And they were all armed, deadly men.
But her mission today was nothing more strenuous than to dance.
Perhaps.
She stepped to the armored glass cube that would reveal her to these men as well as to the many scanners pointed at her from every direction.
A bio-secured lockbox sat on a clear shelf, itself transparent so that it could bear no secrets.
“Papers, please,” the youngest, the newest, asked in a voice that actually sounded polite and helpful.
Most of the time, their voices never rose above a surly growl.
Kumiko pulled the passport and invitation from the folds of her kimono and rested them next to the box, open for the camera to scan. The Vienna convention would only come out if these men decided to get officious with her.
Another twitch from the man. He sat on the far side of a counter that was probably hardened to resist small-arms fire, and his scanners were finally picking up her enhancements. She smiled at him as the rest seemed to breathe faster.
Just how dangerous was this woman? And why did the corporate lords allow her to enter?
“Invitation confirmed,” that long-dead actress spoke again. “Kumiko. Shirabyōshi. Access classification four.”
Some of the air seemed to drain from the men, taking the mad energy with it.
Just another tradeswoman, coming in through the servant’s entrance. No more threat to their world than that.
How little did they know.
“Ma’am?” the young man at the scanner continued. “The system says that you are required to strip and that everything must remain here except the case in your right hand, which must be scanned. Could you open the case and place it flat, please?”
Kumiko smiled discretely and complied, laughing inside herself as the secrets in the case were revealed.
Shoes went first into the bottom of the lockbox. She untied her obi and folded it neatly atop them, with each of her three robes, and then wrap and panties last.
Ancient geisha, the fully-qualified geiko, had worn elaborate wigs, but Kumiko did not, keeping her straight, black hair tied in place with a simple band that went into the box last but for all her papers. Her look harkened back to the Heian Era, and not the later Restoration.
She fixed the man with a mildly-challenging smirk and let him observe her. Creamy perfect skin, nearly porcelain, unmarred by any tattoos or visible scars. Muscles from the hours of training each day: dance, swimming, machines, and laps around a track.
Lean, athletic perfection.
The young man looked pale. Whiter than he had been before, before he flushed ever so much.
She probably shouldn’t enjoy that moment of embarrassment that each of these men went through, but she couldn’t help herself. Standing proudly nude before them as they contemplated the contents of that case: five, different, cybernetically-control penii, attachable to a hard mount on either side of her vaginal canal and wired directly into the same nerves as her clitoris.
She could be a woman, or a man, depending on what the client or situation warranted, and enjoy herself equally.
Shirabyōshi.
“All system are cleared,” the man said, swallowing past a dry throat that made her smile.
The Twenty-Second century had reverted to a prudishness unseen in perhaps half a millennium, from her own historical studies. But, as with all cultures, what the elites demanded and enjoyed in private frequently had very little to do with their public face or what the masses were allowed.
And thus, a woman enhanced with cybernetic systems, and bionetics.
Enchanted.
Dancer.
Not so limited as a geisha had been, although her training was nearly as broad and certainly as rigorous. Her ancestors had been entertainers who merely dabbled in sex with their customers. Perhaps as rewards for their best patrons.
It was not the central point of their training.
But theirs had also been a world rigidly controlled by society and the needs for utter secrecy, a world that one entered by invitation only.
Kumiko sealed the bio-lock and stepped back, picking up her case and closing it delicately. It was an anvil case. She could have possibly thrown it off the ledge outside for no greater damage than the weight impacting a favela below, but all tools should be treated with care.
The inner door slid open and Kumiko stepped into their world, cataloging the looks on the various faces. Lust, indignant disgust, and envy, for the most part. The youngest guard, the face she did
He rose as she approached and draped a suit bag over the counter.
Kumiko noted that none of the others got any closer than necessary, and stayed far enough back that she couldn’t get to more than two of them, had she chosen to attack.
“Ma’am,” he said carefully, nervous at his confusion. “The system says these clothes are yours, but stored here. Would you like a changing room?”
Kumiko smiled serenely and opened the carry-all. She had nothing more for these men to see at this point.
The outer pocket held a tie for her hair. She started there, before pausing to just run her hands across the perfect feel of the silk kimonos inside.
Her clothing for the outside world was historically accurate, if rugged enough for travel in the harsh, modern world. The Kyoto Historical University staff saw to that. Contemporary technology had done amazing things with fabric that her traditionalist masters would never deign purchase.
But while she was at Pojar BioGenesis, she would have access to only the finest of everything.
Nothing less would do for her client.
The youngest guard had been assigned to escort her. Kumiko assumed the others considered it a punishment of some sort. Forcing the young man to pay his dues, or some such stupid, macho, guy-thing.
“William Church, ma’am,” he replied to her question of his name.
The elevator was a small space. She could smell his nervous sweat as they ascended into the heavens of the South Tower, the one with the best view of the sunset.
“Can I ask a personal question?” William finally asked into the silence.
She could already read it on his face, but she was impressed by the politeness about the man. The others were frequently rude or spiteful, going out of their way to be ugly.
She presumed William hadn’t had time to harden as his dreams died.
Sometimes, it took them years.
She nodded with an encouraging smile. At least he was being courteous about it.
“Is it because she likes boys, but there are none like you who are male?” he asked, faced screwed up with curious intent and obvious confusion.
“It is because she prefers females, William,” Kumiko replied softly, discretely. “But she wishes to retain all the options for pleasure, from tea, to dance, to physicality.”
“Oh.”
That seemed to be sufficient for the boy. No, young man.
Kumiko had been born into the university, but she had known a lucky few there who had managed to escape the favelas such as existed below this place, somehow making a better life for themselves and their children. The scars they bore were always bone deep.
William was actually within a year or three of her, but lacked the exposure to the outer world. He had never lived in the slums. That did something inscrutable.
The bell of arrival seemed to end all conversation. William gestured for her to precede him into the hallway, and then walked at her side down the long, sumptuous corridor on thick rugs she could feel through her thin, rice sandals, past paintings serving no purpose but to entertain a pedestrian walking on this floor, under lights that seemed mid-morning sun at all times.
The doors were far apart on this level. The residents of this tower were all important scientists. At this altitude, they were god-like beings whose every words moved stock markets world-wide.
Her client’s door was already open, fourth down on the right. The corner penthouse suite.
Luxury itself.
And she was there, standing in the doorway, smiling.
Kumiko felt her breath want to catch, had she let it. Her heartrate pounding was all she would allow, as she saw the smile on Rosamond Watanabe’s face. She had many clients, but there was only one Rosamond.
Tall. Regal. Pure-blood Nihon, with long, straight hair the color of midnight falling to nearly her bottom. Eyes somehow a magnificent jade, but Kumiko assumed that an expert bioneticist like Rosamond could reprogram something as simple as eye color and change it daily, as the mood struck.
Like Kumiko, she wore a simple kimono, hers with orange silk as the outermost layer to Kumiko’s aqua.
Kumiko felt the weight of the world vanish from her shoulders.
“Ma’am, you have a guest,” William said superfluously.
Rosamond just smiled. Kumiko bowed politely to him. More than he rated, but the man had gone out of his way to be polite, so different from his comrades. Perhaps his dreams would last longer.
“Thank you, William,” Kumiko said.
Rosamond remained silent, stepping back into the entry chamber as Kumiko followed.
The door closed, and all outside concerns vanished, leaving only the world of flowers and willows as she placed the anvil case by the door.
“House systems, revert to touch screen interface only,” Rosamond commanded in a strong voice.
A sound like a low bell pinged.
Until she brought the voice system back on line, they were as private as one could be. There would be video cameras recording everything and intelligent systems observing for risk, plus occasional guards checking screens, but they would only see the silent performance of the two women.
It was as private as Rosamond was ever allowed.
Rosamond bowed.
“I did not even bother to pretend my mind was on work this morning,” she said with an impish grin. “My team got an extra bit of holiday as a result, so they would thank you as well, for being here.”
Kumiko grinned and returned the courtesy with her own, deep bow.
“If one found it necessary, I could entertain them as well,” Kumiko ventured with a sly tongue as she straightened.
“Absolutely not,” Rosamond replied tartly. “I shall greedily keep you for myself.”
Kumiko stepped closer and was instantly engulfed by the taller woman’s arms. They kissed with the briefest breath and the hottest touch before Rosamond stepped back.
“You are so good for me, and so bad,” she said wistfully. “I could get lost in you.”
“Then perhaps some music first?” Kumiko replied. “Salve for the savage beast in your breast?”
“Indeed,” Rosamond said.
Kumiko followed the woman deeper into her palatial suite. There were rooms here larger than her entire apartment, and she had one of the largest in the dorm, the most successful of her sisters, even at such a young age.
Down a long hallway, past closed shoji, paper doors one slid sideways to open, hiding a conference room, two offices, and even a guest bedroom, had Rosamond ever entertained any of her estranged family here.
Kumiko knew most of Rosamond’s secrets, including her utter isolation from her kin. Choices made while young that could not be undone now. They would not know her, nor her them, were they to meet today, so they did not.
When Rosamond needed human company, the corporation supplied it. Up to and including the incredible expense of forty-eight hours with her own, personal Shirabyōshi.
Past the elaborate kitchen that existed almost solely for Kumiko’s needs, Rosamond generally settling for take-out delivered from one of the corporate-approved chains downstairs or something pulled from the freezer and subject to microwaves by the intelligent house system.
Into the living room. Comfortable chairs were covered in deep green to contrast with a soft navy carpet, along with two overstuffed sofas, perfect for relaxing, or watching vids. Bookcases reflected precious few tomes and many trinkets. Floor to ceiling windows covered two sides.
They would not open, but would stop bullets, a security feature to keep the guest safe, and protect them from deciding to escape the rigid confines of their corporate world by stepping into space.
It was a gilded cage, and Rosamond a valued songbird who could never leave.
Rosamond went down three shallow steps and settled herself on the nearer sofa. Kumiko went to the guitar case by the entry to the dining area and placed it upon the counter top before opening.
