Ion Hunter

  Mega-City Crimes

  E. L. Strife

  elstrife.com

  Ion Hunter

  Copyright © 2022 Elysia Lumen Strife

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover Design: Amy Harwell

  Thank you for purchasing an authorized version of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not scanning, reproducing, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.

  Ion Hunter is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contraband

  I pedal my bike fast, watching the meter climb to the watts I need to run my microwave and heat my lunch. I can’t seem to keep rhythm today as I think over our latest string of unlikely offenders. Mrs. Everson, who ran the bakery, has only ever followed laws. It was the same with the Pastor's son, Ronny, and Nurse Ishan. They all possessed materials on the restricted list. I've known them for years and can't fathom their insubordination. Only criminals peddle toxic batteries. Either there's a sinister plan building underground, or the Ion Hunter’s system is broken.

  “No machine is more beautiful and precious than the human body,” the PEDAL reel scrolls across my iris implants. I grumble as Decker, the spokesperson, grins. I have to stare at his ugly mug every time I get on the bike to eat.

  I miss Mrs. Everson’s fresh bread. Rehydrated potatoes and soy patties are as delightful as a mouthful of hot mud.

  “Your compliance with biomechanical power generation is important.” Decker’s enhanced eyes shine with mischief and prime augmentation. I’d like to decorate his pristine nose with a bruise or a scar.

  Outside my window, my employer, Corrections for Ion Abusers, a division of Power Equality Department for All Lives, shines like a beacon through the rainy night. The latest string of crimes must have detectives working late.

  An alert flashes in my eye. New Assignment: Tovus, Bouncer at Dark Labyrinth. Crime: scavenging in Abandoned Laboratory Zone B.

  The microwave dings, and I gladly hop off my bike. As I eat, I look out at the jagged metal landscape and patrol the windows of other apartment buildings. Bright lights at night are usually an indicator of illegal activity.

  A picture of Sadi pops up in my eye. Then I hear her voice in my head through my implant. “Razer, where the hell are you? We have a job.”

  “I’m finishing eating right now,” I say, swallowing my last bite.

  “Oh, I'm sorry.” It's an unspoken courtesy to let people eat. No one benefits from wasted energy.

  PEDAL thought they were being creative with their acronym. But I, and everyone else, hate them when I’m hungry.

  I put my coat on. The yellow IH symbol lights up on the back. There isn’t enough nanothread in the world to run a microwave.

  I leave my singleslot apartment and hustle down the stairs. Ten flights take a while. Elevators don’t operate anymore. I use the mechanical energy in my movement to power the flexscreen on my sleeve. I swipe through the subject's profile but find no one listed under Informant. No illegal material is listed either.

  An investigation then.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Sadi steps out of a corner. I see her coming by the yellow glow at her back.

  “I didn’t see you yesterday,” she remarks. Her thick, curly hair is up in a plump black bun. She pulls up her hood as we step out into the rain that snaps and pops as it lands on our shoulders.

  The rain is constant. Buckets fill and spin wheels, slowly turning small generators throughout the city. A few street lights flicker on as the rain grows heavier.

  “Made an arrest at the addiction clinic.” Mercury and other metals pose hazards PEDAL doesn't want fertile females exposed to. I'll take the risk of cleaning up to protect Sadi. I don't want to raise a family in this world anyway. I lost one to the mines already.

  Few people are ever out at night, but a biker passes us, slinging water up from a puddle with his wheels.

  I pull up the address for Tovus in my eyes with a single thought. “He’s at Violet’s club.”

  “Dark Labyrinth.” Sadi nods and fidgets anxiously with the coil of nanorope in her pocket.

  We descend into a vacant speakeasy. A door blazes purple ahead of us.

  “We’re never welcome here,” Sadi mutters.

  She’s extra tense tonight, which makes me curious. “What’s gotten into you?”

  She grits her teeth as we're about to enter. “Tovus and I went on a date once, a long time ago. I can't afford for that to come out. I can't be implicated, or my brother won't have anyone to help him. He can't wind up the mechanical generator himself, and his income isn't enough for the filters he needs. Daron struggles to breathe at night without it to power his respirator.”

  “I’d do it. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  Sadi smiles at me. “Thanks, Razer. I always know I can count on you.”

  “Sure.” I scan every person as we enter the club, my implant programs checking for induced voltage and ionization trails. Bioluminescent algae grows in pools that line the club, filling it with light. It’s no wonder people come here at night.

  We slip between couples dancing to music that transmits over our implants. I switch it off with a tap to my temple. “Sadi, can I ask you something?”

  She leans away from a man in a spiked thong, head-banging to his own tune. “Always.”

  “Did the last few people we took in strike you as atypical abusers?”

  A wildly dancing guy lights up to one side. His movement sends his clothes blazing with colors. It’s always easy to tell who is on acid, speed, or has had one too many stimsnacks. I watch the shadows instead.

  “What are you thinking?” she asks.

  “That someone’s blackmailing good people or setting them up to take the fall to cover their tracks. I just don’t have concrete evidence yet.”

  “Gut feeling?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I trust that.”

  “Can I help you two?” A large, broad-shouldered man stops us before we get to the center of the club. He’s dressed in all black and glares daggers at us.

  Sadi looks away, and I know we’ve found Tovus. She should have let me do this alone.

  “What did you collect in the laboratory zone yesterday?” I ask.

  His expression doesn’t change.

  “Someone reported you,” Sadi says.

  “I didn’t go there. I was,” he glances at Sadi, “with someone else.”

  “Who were you with?” Sadi asks.

  A girl in a pleather bikini sashays by. She carries a crop and whacks Tovus on the butt. “Me, honey.”

  “Cut it out, Brandy.” Tovus snorts and crosses his arms. “My sister. I pedal so she can focus on feeding her family. Pyvan didn’t stick around to raise his kids. No surprise.”

  Something shiny in his pocket catches my eye. “And that?”

  He pats his pocket as if he forgot. “Nanothread patch for my mother.”

  My data display blinks with a scan that brings up different material. “It's film alright, but it's for batteries.”

  Sadi charges after Brandy. She returns a short minute later and produces several small square batteries. “Lockers don't lie.”

  “How’d you get in there?” Tovus waves his hands between us. “Those aren’t mine.”

  “Hunter privileges.” Sadi waggles her head and gives him a wink. “Scanners.”

  Tovus grimaces. “I’m sorry I didn’t call after our date, but I swear those aren’t mine.”

  “Sadi and I have more integrity than that.” I peel a collapsed case from my thigh and open it. Sadi sets the batteries inside and the material from his pocket. I close up the case and strap it to my back.

  “I’m pretty forgiving,” Sadi says to him. “But I’ve realized you’re just not my type.”

  “We have to take you in, Tovus,” I say. “PEDAL watches everything we do. You can plead your case with the judges.”

  “As soon as I'm in, I'm as good as dead, guilty or not,” he huffs defiantly.

  “Save your protests for court.” Sadi grabs her rope from her pocket. “And I’m over you ghosting me.”

  Tovus throws his hands in the air. “You really don’t know how they keep the lights on all day, do you? Either of you?”

  “Everyone inside PEDAL works at a manual treadmill desk,” I explain. “The floors are covered in nanofilm. Everything that moves has piezoelectric converters which take mechanical energy and turn it into electricity.”

  Tovus turns and runs.

  I sigh.

  Sadi snaps her rope to life. It illuminates. With one sling, she binds up his ankles. He falls hard.

  She smirks. “Been wanting to do that.”

  Tovus grunts and fights to be free. “We’re not the problem! You'll find the eye above the storm if you're honest Hunters. That's your evidence! That’s what I was looking for!”

  I haul him upright and bind his wrists. The more he fidgets, the tighter the wristlocks grip him. Sadi slaps a vocal neutralizer over his mouth. It latches around his head, silencing him.

  Tovus shouts angrily, but all we hear are muffled whispers.

  “Stars, I love that device,” Sadi remarks as we escort him out of the club.

  Deep inside, I wonder if he’s right.

  Eye of the Storm

  Tovus glares at me as he’s taken away by in-processing officers inside Corrections for Ion Abusers. He gestures a finger toward an eye.

  I squint back, stifling the urge to flip him off in return. He’s told me where to find evidence. But PEDAL knows now too. They see everything when we’re on duty, so I have to do recon undercover if I want answers.

  Sadi and I deposit our evidence and leave. We immediately get another target—a teen using a battery-powered screen at school. The informant is a teacher.

  The pickup is messy. The parents don’t want to let their child go. The teen doesn’t understand what he did wrong. It was just a cool toy.

  “If we don’t take Joules,” Sadi says softly, “CoIA will send Enforcers. They aren’t as nice.”

  The mother cries.

  The father is pissed. “I’m going to remember your faces.”

  “I have no doubt you will,” I say as we cart Joules down the stairs and out into the streets. We pass a junkie trading batteries for packets of whatever he’s on. I stop.

  Old Cody sees me. His eyes widen. On a skybridge between buildings, I see another IH team. They pause. The younger man Old Cody’s dealing with bolts down an alley.

  “You got him?” I call out.

  “Yeah.” It sounds like Gibson. He and his partner, Reese, take off after the trader.

  I frown and wave Old Cody over. “Come on. You know the drill.”

  He trembles as I help him up. I bind his wrists. He doesn’t fight. He’ll be fed and sleep dry tonight.

  The entire way back, Cody mutters to himself, unnerving the Joules.

  I grip Cody’s shoulder. “This will be you, kid, if you don’t stop peddling contraband.”

  Tonight, old Cody doesn’t just want his drugs or for me to let him go. He talks about the heart, broken hearts, electric hearts. He’s never struck me as the sentimental type.

  Sadi’s eyebrows quirk upward. She’s surprised too.

  When we get to the steps of CoIA, Cody cowers back. “Not the eye. The eye sees everything!”

  I take him by the arm and lead him up the steps while fighting a sinking feeling in my gut that I'm sending him to his doom.

  Sadi and I get our detainees checked in and turn to leave.

  “Hunter Razer,” a voice calls out to me from the broad stairs descending to Central Processing. Decker Coult, the CEO of PEDAL, takes every step down with an extra heavy landing. His blue dress shirt and navy tie hint at a shimmer, telling me he has the top-of-the-line nanothread woven into his clothes.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Sadi stops near the door, waiting for me. We’re not supposed to work alone.

  Decker leans close. His cologne scent is as heavy as his gait. His eyes are a bright shade of bourbon, and his hair is perfectly combed. “I got the data relay from your iris about Tovus. The board of directors has assigned someone to look into his claims and see if we have a mole in the system.”

  “Who?”

  “Weston and Leanna.”

  I was hoping to get an answer myself. “Can I help in any way?”

  “No. We want to keep this quiet, you know?” He winks at me.

  “I understand,” I reply apathetically like a trained soldier always does. It’s the perfect mask for my disgust.

  Sadi was brought into IH because she grew up in the underground. War ended with a neighboring city, and I needed a new job. Decker knows I served on a night-infiltration squad. He’s not sending his best team. He’s sending his friends.

  “I’m glad. Be safe out there.” Decker slaps my shoulder. He's the son of a board member and a city council member and thinks everything is easy, even his manipulation.

  I turn and walk out.

  “What’d he say?” Sadi asks.

  I tell her. We have no secrets.

  “So they're watching us,” she says, giving me a mischievous look as she descends the stone steps. “Guess we better be extra careful on patrol.”

  Sadi was a rule-breaker before her brother got sick with a chronic type of metal fume fever, yet I see fire in her eyes tonight.

  We patrol the Iron Gardens, a marketplace of craftsmen. I notice etchings on the walls of eyes in rain clouds.

  “Creepy, isn’t it?” Sadi points to one.

  “Like they’re always watching.” I nod. We leave the marketplace for the restricted mine and laboratory zones. A teen drowned in the water-logged Coult mines last week.

  After checking with our contacts in Neon North, a hotspot where patrons can pay or pedal to get laid, we end up in Sadi’s old territory. We always run the same path, just like every IH team but at random times to keep abusers guessing.

  “I always hate coming here,” she says, dropping down a set of stairs. That’s a lie. She misses selling tapas with her mother before the gangs took over and ran out every food cart.

  I’d give anything for real food again.

  The back of my neck prickles. “Then let’s come back later.”

  “Nonsense. We’re already here.”

  The moment we set foot on the dark bottom floor, Sadi slams into me, crushing me against the wall. Breath leaves me. She lurches out into the room again. I hear scuffling and see the light of her jacket dart in and out of the shadows. She’s fighting with someone.

  “Sadi!” I charge after her.

  A body slams into me from the side, and we fall to the concrete. I wriggle an arm free and land a fist in a face. Two more people try to tear my jacket from my shoulders. I free a boot and shove the first guy off of me. Leveraging myself against those who hold my arms, I lean forward. I kick the person on my right, then use my momentum to ram the last man into a pillar. I pull out my magnetic induction flashlight that’s charged from our fight and shine it on my attackers. I get faces recorded in a second, then hurry after Sadi. Her attackers are down, but I don’t see her or her IH light.

  Scanning the facility, I find her near the opposite exit. She's bent over, and her coat's gone.

  Panic strikes me when she wilts. I catch her and discover a knife in her back. I memorize the details on the handle, the eye in the cloud with the rain streaks underneath.

  Like Tovus said...and Cody who feared the eye.

  I bandage her with my shirt. It’s the most absorbent thing I have, and it’s dry. I put my coat back on.

  After an unusually long delay, my facial scans render no database files.

  I cover Sadi with my jacket and carry her up the steps. Back on Neon North, I summon a cab. A young man stops. When he sees Sadi, he opens the door and then gestures to an additional bike seat on the back.

  I rest Sadi inside and climb on the back. “Nearest hospital. I’ll pay twice your rate for extra fast transit.”

  We pedal hard and get Sadi to the hospital south of the murky river in minutes. A nurse runs out and slows when she sees me. The woman cowers back. “Here on business?”

  “Just her,” I say. “Stabbed in the back by a gang up north. She has only me and her brother, Daron, who’s on a respirator. No one else.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I transfer the cab rider twenty credits. He almost cries. I have no one to spend money on except Sadi and Daron. I give the nurse a credit chip, one I’ve kept under my old name. “There’s more than enough.”

  “Yes, Mister…” She reads it and stops.

  “Just take care of Di Di,” I interrupt. Sadi’s hand is cool and clammy when I hold it. “Hang in there.”

  PEDAL only tracks us when our coats are on. Without mine, I’m under the radar. I have to make use of this opportunity born from a solid excuse. I need to know who would hurt Sadi and stop them before they hurt anyone else.

  I backtrack to the old food court. The bodies are gone.

  Under the faint light of Neon North’s streets, I study the knife. The eye in the cloud taunts me. There are no inscriptions.

  Craftsman's alley is where I remember seeing eyes etched on city walls. None of the markings I find lead anywhere.

  I realize where the doors are when I see a child splash in the draining rainwater. The streaks of rain on the knife weren’t that at all but a symbol of a drain grate.

  The nearest opening to the storm sewers is a hole in the road near a forbidden zone, and I climb down inside. Wheels of buckets spin under the draining water, keeping the lights on above. Even down here, Mother Nature cries.

  I slosh through the tunnels, climbing around small dams and generators. Voices echo from distant chambers. I follow them.

 

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