The pattering of the
rain against the metal roof of the train carriage was far less
comforting now Darren knew it would gladly peel the skin from his
face in an instant. Myriad loaded up a selection of history mods on
her bridge and indulged Darren in any questions he might have, since
they were stuck inside the carriage for the unforeseeable future.
The shockingly familiar
branding of TESCO on his otherwise quite alien new drink was his
first line of enquiry and the answers revealed that modern life was
now entirely catered for by three major companies: Tesco, Google and
Xygon. The first two being hugely expanded from a mere supermarket
and search engine respectively and the third, more recent company,
despite now being the world's leading tech giant started its business
as a humble pizza takeaway.
After wrapping his head
around the idea of “Tesco-Value Nurseries” and the “Google
Military”. Darren realised he had been rudely holding his gifted
drink like a slack-jawed monkey and decided to take a drink from the
bottle. A decision, it became evident, he took far too casually as an
almighty surge of frighteningly potent sensations rushed through his
body.
He couldn't even take
note of how the liquid tasted before he began shivering and mentally
preparing to die. The new flood of feeling was not exactly painful
however. After a few seconds it struck him as invigorating, bringing
forth a wave of energy, clarity, motivation and pleasure within him,
the likes of which he'd never experienced before.
He finally shook
himself from the experience, unsure if his blurred vision was now due
to the fading effects of his abductor's blinding device or his eyes
had transcended dimension and he was now looking at himself from the
outside.
“Woeughal...Buh, what
the hell is in this?” Myriad was trying to conceal an amused smirk.
“I actually gave you
one of the weaker flavours.” Darren scans the sparsely detailed
label on the bottle.
“Is it alcoholic?”
“Pass it here.”
Darren leans over and hands her the bottle, wobbling slightly and
becoming increasingly concerned about what the beverage's ingredients
have done to him. Myriad turns the bottle in her hand and pauses
looking at a blank part of the label.
“This one's not
alcoholic. Could've been any number of things that caused your little
jitter-fit though.”
“How do you know
that? There's basically nothing on the label.” Myriad passes the
drink back to Darren who cautiously takes it as though handling a
dented grenade.
“There's pages of
ingredients and legal shit on there, you just need a bridge to see
it. They couldn't print it all on the actual bottle.”
“So the ingredients
are basically written in invisible ink? That's kind of fucked up.”
“Eh” Myriad shrugs
nonchalantly and takes a long guzzle from her own bottle. She shifts
on the bench seating, pushing her bag up against the far wall and
resting her head against it.
“So what is in it?”
Asks Darren glancing between Myriad and the selectively blank part of
the bottle's label. Myriad sits up and throws her bag from behind her
to down by her feet.
“I dunno what it was
that kicked your colour, might've been the glucose in it, the
caffeine, climbspon, cocaine-”
Darren spits his
tentative second swig across the train carriage floor.
“Did you say
cocaine?” He choked, wiping his chin and shirt.
“It might not have
been that, it could have been the heroin.” Myriad adds
reassuringly. Darren gawps in disbelief like a slack-jawed monkey.
Myriad begins scratching her arm and restlessly crossing and
uncrossing her legs.
“There's drugs in the
drinks now?”
“You'll have to
define what you mean by drugs. Everything's at least partially made
of drugs.”
“Like, illegal,
dangerous drugs that people die from.”
“They're hazardous
sure but not really dangerous unless you're a moron. If they start to
fuck up your insides you just get new ones. Also, definitely not
illegal, they sell UNSH fucking everywhere.”
Darren blinks
aggressively.
“You get new what?
Insides? You can just do that...That's gotta be expensive even by
crazy future standards?”
Myriad notices herself
scratching her arm and leaving marks and slaps her own hand away. She
swings her legs around off the seat and faces Darren leaning back
against the wall.
“If you go for
premium quality cloned human stuff then it's pretty sad prices yeah
but most people just get mechanical replacements.” She lifts up her
shirt to the lower half of her ribcage and the skin appears steel
blue and pale. After a few seconds of squinting, Darren's repeatedly
tampered with eyesight notices the metallic colour belies actual
metal faintly visible beneath the skin.
“This is my
fourteenth liver I think...I'm on like my eighth pair of lungs
too...I kind of lose track to be honest.”
Darren remembers the
similar markings on his abductor Wentworth, although his seemed far
cruder with almost no effort made to hide the metal. It could have
even been bare and exposed with no skin covering it. Darren had moved
his gaze to the window of the train but he spots in his peripheral
vision that Myriad is still holding her shirt up and gazing at her
aforementioned replacement liver. Darren quickly returns his sight to
the window suddenly feeling more than a little awkward in
particularly awkward places.
Something about
Myriad's personality seemed different. For the short time he had
known her she had been terrifyingly perceptive and defensive despite
a certain apathetic tone. Why was she now keeping herself exposed in
front of him? Granted it was the less erotic half of her torso but at
this point in Darren's prolonged stale love-life, a scandalous
Victorian-era flash of ankle could probably get him going. Perhaps it
is just this future's relaxed nature about sex and nudity. Darren
fretted and felt that this in particular would take some getting used
to.
“So yeah so there's
all kinds of fucking crazy fuck in drinks and food now everywhere
here now, it's pretty bleak to be honest, you probably shouldn't have
too much of anything any before too you can register you at a chop
shop and we can't do that or anything any time any soon 'cos of your
stalker abductor people, gotta stay off any public servers, this
making sense? tell me if it's not making sense 'cos I don't wanna
just be wasting my ime-time t-here.” Darren waits a moment before
answering if only to give Myriad a chance to breathe.
“They're not really
called chop shops are they?”
“Nah, none that I've
been to round anyway, nearest one I normally go always down to is
SomeOfIt'sParts, pretty bleak there. Is it municipal? is it still
raining? did you ask a question? what's the next question? hurry
der-the fuck up, why are you still so quiet all of the sudden?”
Darren looks back at Myriad who's finally let go of her shirt but is
fidgeting like an electrified hamster with a jack-hammer. She squints
and then opens her eyes wide before tapping an unintelligible rhythm
on her lap with her hands.
“Are you feeling
alright?” Myriad's eye twitches and she looks at Darren
quizzically. There is a considerable pause with the rainfall alone
puncturing the silence and only serving as an ambient drum-roll to
heighten Darren's anxiety. Myriad finally turns away and makes some
gestures as her bridge's visor flips across her eyeline and different
screens appear on its surface. She pauses and lets her arms fall to
her sides. Her hands are rapidly tapping the nearest surface but
apart from this she remains almost motionless.
After an unsettling
half a minute in which Darren is unsure if something fatal has
happened or if speaking to her would provoke something fatal
happening to him, Myriad's hands start to slow the pace of their
tapping. Her eyes move down to look at the gradually decreasing
twitches until after around ten seconds she pivots on her seat back
to face Darren, avoiding eye contact and looking quietly aggravated.
An expression that is subtly new to Darren as until now the only
thing Myriad has been quite open and relaxed about displaying is her
anger.
“Drank mine
too fast.” She eventually says, in a far more familiar and downbeat
tone. Darren smiles in baffled relief.
“So what on Earth is
in yours then?” He asks with a chuckle. Myriad seems to grind her
teeth together and pushes a strand of hair back behind her ear before
looking at the ingredients of her orange labelled bottle of UNSH.
“Fuckin'
amphetamines.” She growls. “They added that since I last had it.
Used to just be MDMA and Tripaplin.”
“Wow.” remarks
Darren.
Myriad scratches her
forehead, frustrated at her own embarrassment. She clears her throat
and looks outside.
“Well the acid rain's
stopped.” She states, attempting to change the subject. Darren is
leaning forward, amused by Myriad's frenetic phase and also relieved
it wasn't in fact a coma. He glances outside briefly but turns back
promptly, unable to resist the refreshing enjoyment of someone else
being the centre of humiliation for once.
“So what happened
there? You got an implant or something that can counteract drug
highs?” He asks with a grin.
Myriad sighs and glares
through the top of her eyes at him.
“Not an implant, it's
just come-down drugs. Injected, like everything else through the
bridge into your blood or your brain.” She points to the
pebble-like devices on her temples used to initiate the bridge visor.
She squints and chews
her cheek, clearly uncomfortable with being on the back foot. “The
scrubber will probably have the street safe in about twenty, forty
minutes. Are all of your questions going to be shit-circuited and
fucking beverage based?” Darren drops his grin and withdraws upon
confirmation that Myriad is completely back to her usual prickly
self.
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