Shyft Read online

  Lost Time: Part Three

  Shyft

  Damien Boyes

  StatUS-ID

  [a646:d17e:8670:511f::Finsbury/D//GAGE]

  SysDate

  [01:23:26:09. Sunday, April 21, 2058]

  I feel like I’ve been standing here for years.

  Less than an hour ago, I pressed a Revv shyft to my cuff and let the code injection amp my Cortex. Let it quicken my thoughts and bring the world to a standstill.

  Immediately disoriented, I snapped in a breath of shock. And in the lag between my brain sending the nerve impulse and my lungs reacting, I thought I was choking and panicked. I tried again to inhale and then coughed as my lungs finally kicked in. My chest heaved and my knees buckled and I threw myself off balance then stumbled over my leaden feet when I tried to catch myself from falling.

  On the way to the floor, I stroked through a moment of desperation. This was the end. I’d be stuck like this forever, my body trapped in liquid amber while the milliseconds oozed by. But in the minutes it took for my body to reach the ground, I learned how to wait for each nerve signal to reach its destination before sending a conflicting one, and got my hands under me just before my face hit the floorboards.

  Once I was up and on my feet and pulling the cuff off my neck, I’d mastered how to manipulate my fine motor control. And in the eon-long walk from my apartment to the office tower where a woman named Kade is hosting the Reszo underworld’s most exclusive party, I learned to live in the space between seconds.

  I arrived full of excitement, bristling with power, ready to take on Kade and the entirety of her crew, but I needed to wait for Galvan.

  Now I’m bored.

  If it weren’t for the hundredths of a second creeping by on the display in the lower left of my vision, I would’ve long ago forgotten what day it is. Instead, I’ve watched twenty minutes erode by in this abandoned maze of plastic sheeting, buckystrut webbing, and exposed concrete underneath the city’s downtown.

  I can’t wait much longer.

  The arKade’s above me, the party in full swing, hidden in plain sight on the top floors of an old skyscraper in mid-conversion to an agri-tower. Galvan told me the arKade is like a Reszo trade show. A place to come and show off for those who’ve made defying the Human Standard laws a way of life. It meets only six times a year, three nights over three weeks in one city, then another three nights somewhere else. Up until a week ago, the Service didn’t know it existed.

  Well, Galvan knew, but he’s been a Psychorithm Crime Detective for about as long as I’ve had this body, so no one listened to him.

  Shortly after that we tied the arKade to a rash of wealthy Reszos showing up with their Cortexes caved in, their bank accounts empty, and their minds held for ransom.

  Last week was supposed to be the third meeting in this cycle. The elite of the Reszo criminal underground and a serial mindjacker all in one place, and we’d missed them.

  Or thought we had, until we intercepted a shipment of shyfts we tied back to Xiao, number two on the Ministry of Human Standard’s Most Wanted list. These shyfts were meant to announce Xiao’s next big product line. Samples and sneak-peaks at code guaranteed to modify the human mind in unprecedented new ways. It was his trade show launch, and we messed it up for him.

  Then we learned Kade added a fourth night.

  And a few hours ago I figured out where she was holding it.

  Right now Kade’s fifty floors above me. And maybe Xiao. And maybe whoever’s been psyphoning people.

  None of them know we’re coming. No one does. Not even Inspector Chaddah. No one but Galvan and I.

  When I told him I’d found the arKade’s next location, he wanted to spin up the troops, but I told him to keep it quiet, that we needed a light touch. Standards would want to come in hot and leave a smoking crater. Or someone would let something slip about the raid and the place would be empty when we showed up.

  It was up to us. We’d play this right, him and I, and end up with a treasure trove of leads that’d spark dozens of new investigations. We wouldn’t get another chance like this.

  He agreed. Reluctantly.

  Although he’s right, we should call this in. Mobilise the TAC teams. Inform Standards. It’s against every procedure and simple common sense not to.

  But not yet.

  I know I’m going to catch hell for this. The AMP will report when I found the location. Inspector Chaddah will see the time discrepancy. But I don’t care.

  I need to do this on my own. Chaddah would have given the case to Daar and Brewer. They’re the primaries on the Xiao investigation, and everything I’ve seen from them assured me they’d have fucked it up. They’ve done it before.

  I’m the only one I can trust.

  Plus, I want to see Xiao’s face when the doors burst in.

  That’s why I Revved, why I corrupted my mind with a potentially dangerous shyft: I need every advantage.

  But after this time, I’m done. Never again. I only had the one dose and now that I’ve used it, I need to make the most of it. An advantage like this, able to see the world slowly going about its business, able to anticipate and adjust to whatever it throws at me, it’d be far too easy to make this a habit. To become dependent upon it. The Revv’s power is too great.

  I can’t let that happen.

  For now, the trick is to keep my hyper-speed mind a secret. The shyft I just dumped into my head is one of Xiao’s samples, and heavily illegal. Galvan will be here any minute, and I can’t let him know what I’ve done. It’s our job to keep people from doing exactly what I just did, to keep Reszos and humans on an even playing field. He’s already straining against not telling the Inspector we found the arKade. Seeing his partner deliberately flouting Standards would crack him in half.

  Sure, it makes me a hypocrite, but I have no other choice. I’m about to lead a first-week detective into a two-man raid on a party whose guests are devoted to transcending their humanity. If chasing that jacked-up cypher in the Market taught me anything, it’s that there’s no limit to what Past-Standard skyns are capable of.

  They all move at the speed of thought. I have to be able to keep up.

  I've got a rented drone circling the roof at a casual distance, feeding directly to my tab, and I’ve been cataloguing the guests as they arrive—hoppers hovering in line as one-by-one their passengers are vetted before briefly touching down to disgorge the coiffed and the chiselled.

  Roof security is tight, as though expecting the President. If the President had been elected in a world where monsters have the right to vote.

  Creatures from out of a fever dream patrol the rooftop. From what I’ve seen through the drone, Kade has two different types: the tanks and the monkeys.

  The tanks are each over two metres tall, with pebbly grey skin, smoothly rounded heads, no ears or noses, and the dense musculature of myostatin-inhibited gorillas. Four patrol the edges of the roof while two more are stationed at either side of the rooftop entrance.

  The smaller, monkey-looking things have the same grey skin and featureless heads, but are more agile, with powerful-looking legs. They lope along on all fours, escorting guests from the hopper pad. Two more wield anti-aircraft weapons at the northeast and southwest corners of the roof.

  Kade takes her exclusivity seriously. Standards violations on the roof alone would warrant an immediate Code Zero response. Enough to order a missile strike.

  A instant of doubt blazes through my head. I’d thought when I Revved, I’d be prepared to handle anything the arKade could throw at me, but my imagination wasn’t good enough to anticipate ogres.

  I shake it off. No going back now. The Revv will have to be enough.

  Other than the roof, the only other way in is a single express elevator near where I’ve been w
aiting. I slipped around the hazard barriers blocking the construction area and no one’s come or gone since I arrived.

  There’s another of the same tank creatures from the roof stationed outside the elevator, its bulk obscuring the silver doors. Whatever it is, the thing’s so far past-Standard it’d be easier to catalogue what few things still resemble a human than what’s changed. The Feds would shit themselves if they saw this guy in the wild. But since we’re not getting in through the roof, the only way up is through him.

  The guard hasn’t so much as twitched since I took up my observation spot, so I’ve been keeping an eye on him while using my tab to watch the action on the roof while rechecking the list of facial matches the AMP and I put together of the man who killed Connie, while watching Galvan's sweep trigger on cyphers around the city.

  I have no trouble doing all four things at once.

  I haven’t made any further progress on identifying the driver, but the cyphers have been coming fast and frequent. As the cyphers are tagged and added to Galvan’s dbase, their bio/kin are added to the search parameters, which expands the coverage, resulting in even more cyphers revealed to us.

  There have been five hits in the past day alone, with one arrest—a low-level enforcer for the Nigerian Make-Dems—but we're still no closer to uncovering anything related to Xiao.

  He’s still out there. Selling his advanced shyfts and Past-Standard skyns and driving humanity further and further into the unknown. Since that first encounter in the Market, his entire organization has been somehow lucky enough or prescient enough to avoid being tagged.

  Tonight his lucky streak’s over.

  Galvan finally arrives a few minutes later. I can hear the long low shuffle of his shoes on the dusty floor before I see him. The Revv gives me time to study him as he approaches, darting from a shrouded utilibot to a pillar to a chalky potted plant as he tries to remain in cover.

  I told him to dress safe and he’s chosen a long grey coat over his usual cardigan and white shirt combo, lapel popped. The dull black ring of a stopsuit pokes out from under his shirt collar. He really should have a helmet, but it’ll do.

  His hands are thrust deep into his jacket's pockets, and his left knee subtly hitches with every step. Something I hadn't noticed before.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asks as he reaches me, the words stretching out for minutes. I understand him perfectly but have the time to watch his lips and tongue form each syllable, have figured out what he’s going to say before the sound hits my ears. “We should report in. Wait for back-up.”

  His pupils are wide. Brown irises flecked with gold dart about as if he's expecting an attack at any second, from any direction. A thin film of sweat sheens his forehead.

  “We're going to walk in, have a little chat and leave,” I say. “No need for dramatics.”

  He starts, focuses his attention on my face. “Why are you talking so fast?”

  Shit. I didn't realise I was. “Just excited,” I say, speaking slowly and clearly. “Pre-operation jitters.”

  “You've got the jitters for a good reason. We have no idea what we're walking into—”

  I don’t want to rehash this. “You said so yourself: it’s an art show, a bunch of wankers in look-at-me skyns.” I don’t mention the arsenal on the roof or the monster guarding the elevator. He’ll find out about those soon enough. I need him calm now.

  “We should at least let the Inspector know where we are,” Galvan offers.

  “And have her tell us to stand down? This is our case and we’re going to see it through.” I can feel the words blurring from my mouth and force my lips to slow down. Even as I'm saying this, justifying a course of action I know isn't wise, I still don't exactly understand why I'm so intent on going in without back-up, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.

  Subjective hours.

  Why didn't I let Galvan tell the Inspector when he first found out the arKade was being held over for a fourth night? Why did I keep the location to myself? What's the harm in calling in a support team, going up with a couple dozen guns at my back? I'm violating protocol and direct orders and basic safety training. What's the rush?

  Because then I'd just be another drone, acting under orders.

  Stand down. Wait.

  Do what you're told.

  It never bothered me before—I was a soldier, I was good at following orders. Go there. Kill that. Turn off the part of your brain that asks questions. But things were always done in a certain way. Protocols are followed because they work, because the wrong people die or the guilty go free if you don't.

  I don't know what's changed—except everything—but I don't think having died once has anything to do with it. I’ve always been like this.

  I need to be doing something. I need something to focus on. Like a shark, I’ve always needed constant momentum. That’s one of the things Connie did for me. Making her happy gave me something to focus on.

  When I woke up in Second Skyn, all that was gone. I had nothing. Connie was gone and my life with it. I almost gave up, would have given up—if it weren’t for the microsecond glimpse of Connie’s killer.

  His face gave me something to focus on. Gave me a reason to stay in my skyn.

  After that cypher in the Market, or when I was marvelling at the Hereafter, or when I was combing through my memories for the man who killed me, I was doing something. I was taking my life into my own hands. Not sitting around waiting for permission. Life can change in an instant. I need to seize the opportunities that are presented, regardless of procedure. Wise or not.

  Yeah, maybe I should have called the Inspector two days ago, but it's too late for that now.

  Forward or die.

  And I've already been dead once, so what's the worst that could happen?

  Actually, one thing. He’s trembling in a stopsuit, hunched over beside me.

  There’s no need to drag him into this. Busting Kade isn’t worth Galvan getting hurt. “You’re right,” I say to him. “Stay here. Just give me five minutes then call for back up.”

  I leave Galvan and round the concrete abutment I’ve been waiting behind and stride across the gritty concrete floor to the elevator bank. There's a moment of contemplative silence, and then I hear a slow-motion scramble behind me.

  The guard’s head perks as he hears us coming and shifts his bulk to face our approach. Up close he’s even bigger, built for combat. A Fleshmith's concept of an urban assault vehicle in humanoid form. His smooth head slopes down into his shoulders as one seamless nub protruding from his muscled slab of a body. His nostrils are broad slits in his face. No ears. Only the slightest suggestion of a chin. Bright blue lenzs cover his eyes.

  Two long strips of cobalt blue stopsuit cover his vitals, the protective fabric cascading down from his squared shoulders to tent off his massive pectorals and drape to the floor. Underneath the fabric is the bulge of full-on, body-hugging armour. His arms are bare, the skin tight over a custom-design weave of corded muscle that’ll give him an advanced range of motion. Both his hands have three long thick fingers extending from a broad palm with a thumb jutting from each side. I'd bet his skeleton is reinforced.

  There's nothing to strike, nothing to grab hold of. Nothing about him is based on the original blueprint.

  He steps forward, legs revolving on odd ball-and-socket knee joints, raises a hand that's twice the size of mine, and in an avalanche of flesh, cranes his whole torso down at me.

  “I'm afraid you're not permitted to enter,” he says once he gets his head locked into position. His voice is a surprisingly gentle baritone, as though genuinely embarrassed he can't grant us access. “Invited guests only tonight.”

  “We have an invitation,” I offer.

  “No, sir. You don't.”

  I lift my hands, pause them at chest level and then use two fingers to pull the right side of my jacket and reveal the badge. “Toronto Police Service. We have reas—”

  “I know who you are. Detect
ive Gage.” He looks past me, straightens and puts his arms behind his back. “Detective Wiser. We at the arKade appreciate your service to the community and all the work you do keeping your city safe, but you're not on Ms. Kade's guest list. I'm sorry, but I can't grant you entry without her approval. If you'd like, I could add you to our feed permissions.”

  “Aren't you helpful,” I say. I didn’t think he’d just stand aside and let us pass, but it was worth a try. Now I need to figure out a way into that elevator.

  “There's no need for sarcasm, Detective Gage,” he says, flush with the confidence of invincibility.

  “Let's go, Finsbury,” Galvan says behind me.

  “Why don't you contact Ms. Kade, tell her two Service Detectives would like a moment of her time?”

  “Ms. Kade has left specific instructions. She is not to be disturbed during showtime except in the direst of circumstances. I can book you an appointment. Ms. Kade has an opening in her schedule next Tuesday at 10:30 am local time for a virt conference, if that works for you gentlemen.”

  “This is definitely an emergency,” I say.

  “You're not an emergency.” His hands fall to his sides.

  “I'm about to be.”

  “Please don't do something we'll all regret,” the tank rumbles, fingers rolling into fists the size of artillery shells.

  I feint for my weapon and see the future. Coils of muscle contract in the tank’s shoulder, and his fist shoots out at the pressure point where my right shoulder meets the pectoral muscle, middle knuckle raised, aiming to numb my gun arm before I can draw.

  He's fast. Inhumanly fast. Probably amped on something similar to the Revv. He'd have connected easily, left me literally and figuratively disarmed, but it seems his code’s no match for mine.

  I see it all coming.

  I angle my shoulder back. His knuckle brushes harmlessly across the surface of my jacket and his face crumbles in confusion as he shifts his weight to counterbalance his swinging arm. I straighten back up as he clumsily retracts his fist, resets and fires again.