Chapter 1 – Wake Up Dead

Lowly beneath the shop vendor’s transistor radio playing Green Earrings by Steely Dan, my netscanner started its let’s piss off Richey song.

“Goddamnit.”

Huddled on a stool in a vinyl draped ramen shop, I had only drunk half my Heineken, and had barely touched my steaming bowl of late-night noodles. The orange grease circles in the broth swam lazily as the passing Shinkansen swept up the degrading plastic flaps. I sighed and slapped down some new yen. The force caused the half boiled egg to flip over and its jelly yolk to drift away meekly. The vendor gave me a raised eyebrow.

“Keep the change.”
“But this is three times the cost?”
“I don’t give a fuck.”

I finished the beer.
Left the ramen.

Thirty seconds later, high in the sky in my Ford Thunderbird III, rain beat down, I adjusted the wipers and flicked the control switches to manual. I throttled up with no goddamn computers telling the turbines what to do. 49,000lbf of thrust slammed me into my seat as the dual Pratt & Whitney J75s hit the afterburners.

The floating neon signs began to blur, the red dot on my matrix radar began to blink faster. Someone found a new body with the right MO. I gripped the wheel hard with one hand and lit a Camel Turkish Royal with the other. I was dreading what we would find this time. I pinged HQ on the comm-link.

“Dispatch: Unit 808—report current location.”
“You know where I’m at.”
“Formality, report location.”
“What, do you think I’m in the fucking Kirin factory? Jesus Christ, I’m southbound on Tanaka 6. Looks like we got another body from preliminary reports. Requesting backup and med-evac team. 14 minutes out to destination.”
“Med-evac ready to deploy.”
“Confirm their destination coordinates.”
“Sector seven. Zone 3B.”
“Yeah, I can see that on the screen, dumbass.”
“Formality, oh and Richey—godspeed.”

I closed the channel and began the descent. Still pissed, I tuned over to J-Wave—81.3FM. The guitar solo from Green Earrings oozed through the dash speakers. I popped a small blue pill and felt just a little better.

Filth rested between the ill-maintained mega complexes, with their thermo panels rusted and shifted from years of neglect. Last election they promised to bring change to sector seven. Then again, they say that every time. Still, old people and Russian androids voted as if it mattered. As if the board wasn’t only worried about lining their pockets and sending us government suckers to do their bidding. The glow of the street approached and I aimed for an open spot between busted cabbies, touching down and immediately getting flipped off. Passersbys threw trash and coffee cups all over my T-Bird. Street patrons looked up from their steaming cups of gruel. The sewer drains wafted up thick scented vapor out in the cold.

I turned over the key to the internal combustion engine. A supercharged Ford 460 pushing 700 horsepower. After a second it caught with a roar that sent a few street urchins running.

I understood the people’s resentment, but I flipped them off anyway. Met with a sea of traffic, I switched on the lights and siren. Cars began to move out of the way, or receive digital citations. Kinda fucked the system deducted new yen from their bank accounts in real time, but it was effective.

After fighting through the congestion, I finally drove up to the scene. It was gruesome. Above a canal bridge was a woman’s body. Well, half of one. The lower half was torn away, entrails hanging, threaded all throughout were CAT 6 and coax cables, as if she was being consumed by wires. Press vans, other Thunderbird and Charger cruisers with lights flashing, and med-evac vans were scattered about creating chaos. Several beat cops in blues were attempting to direct traffic. One walked up, “Ay detective Valence, c’mon, this way. AY HAKESUMA GET OVER HERE AND PARK THIS GODDAMN CRUISER!”

I jumped out and hit a button on my Casio F-91W+, linking it to my netscanner.

A press hound came up mic in hand, “Detective! Detective, can you tell me what we got here?”

I didn’t even look at him and replied with, “Fuck off.”

I turned to some of the beat cops. “Get this asshole outta here.” They picked up the man by his arms, one on either side. “THIS IS POLICE BRUTALITY I’LL SUE YOU I’LL SUE YOU!!”

I lit a cigarette off the dying one between my lips and motioned to another beat cop.

“One of y’all get me a Mitsubishi PLX-80, not that 50 series bullshit.”

“What?”

“Did I fucking stutter? Go to the van and get me a goddamn good chip.”

“Ah listen Richey, chief said no more of the 80s can go out. Direct orders.”

“The fuck?”

I pulled up a comm and pinged chief Watson. Newly appointed. With plans to clean up the city. Right. They had assigned me this case with the utmost importance. Fuckers didn’t get that it took two things: time and money.

“Watson, what’s this shit about no more 80 series?”

“Use a 50 or nothing. The 80s are too expensive and the budget, well you know, it’s tight….”

“Are you fucking serious? You seen this yet?”

“Well no, but the budget, council has been on my ass…”

I touched my temple and relayed the scene to this overpaid dickhead. Her entrails were still steaming in the cold rain, bile and chrome leaked out into a pool underneath.

“Oh sweet Jesus, Rich… use an 80. I’ll be down there.”

I hung up.

Fucking prick was gonna be down here in the goddamn way. Some blue brought me the 80 and I climbed over the canal bridge rail, approaching the body. I just needed to jack it into her neural port to see if we could pull retinal recordings. I approached a girl, face at peace, wires now in her skull and spine. Second time. Same shit. She couldn’t have been more than 21.
Fuck.

I reached behind her back.
Then the wires started moving.
The crowd gasped.

I hurried it the fuck up, the body just out of my reach when cables started wrapping easily around my ankles. “Someone grab a torch—NOW!! GET THIS SHIT OFF ME.”

Cops running, paramedics stone faced, me—sweating my balls off, circulation at my ankles becoming nonexistent.

I got the tip of the tracker in her completely exposed spine port when the wires tried to pull me away. I started to feel the unwanted but familiar feeling of animalistic fear. The demo man and his torch started cutting through copper and rubber lines. A feverish attempt to free me from the wires. I lunged. Desperate.

With a small click—I got it.

The chip slipped into the neural port, giving us at least a chance of tracking her body. Then the wires reacted violently, knocking me off balance. Right off the bridge.

I was dangling.

Head down. Feet up. Watching the victim’s body as wires snaked it into the nearest storm drain. Like a ghost crab retreating into its hole. I had been on this case for months without good tracker placement.

I checked my Casio that was linked to my netscanner—the red dot failed to appear. Whoever was taking the body fried the half million new yen Mitsubishi chip.

Hanging like an idiot I managed to grunt, “You motherfucker.”

Chapter 2 – This City Runs on Drugs

Back in my Thunderbird I opened a small stainless steel flask then a small orange translucent bottle. I shook out the last two peach colored footballs. I washed down the alprazolam with Jim Beam. My adrenaline began to ease. I was feeling better already, minus sore ankles. I switched over to auto-pilot and pulled out my S&W Model 29. Flipped open the cylinder, double checking, then spun it and whipped it back in. I didn’t care if it was bad for it or not.

I needed to make a stop in the best neighborhood in all of New Tokyo.

I parked in a corner on Go-Go Boulevard. I glided up to the clear PXE door and scanned my palm sensor. The old protocol slid the glassdoor with a hiss and the intercom crackled a weak voice, “Alone?”

“Always, old man.”

I made my way up the stairs, didn’t trust the elevators in this piece of shit. I walked down a hallway full of hookers, real, android, half and half, anything to satisfy. But I didn’t want pussy.

I knocked on the door: 13C.
It slid open.
Before me was Sangoku, my best chem supplier. As usual, he had the window grates closed and his pink bunny ear slippers on. He bowed, I nodded. I’m sure he thought of me as a dirty gaijin, but I had Fukinara’s blessing—which on the street was everything.

“C’mon in, c’mon in.”

His apartment was lined with countless bottles, glass beakers, bunsen burners cooking god knows what.

“You got the shit?”
“Always for you Rich.”

He handed me three orange translucent bottles. Pure benzos, one amphetamine, and one of pink charge. Pink charge was the ultimate hangover cure, and they had been trying to outlaw it a long time. Only the old heads could still synthesize it. It was probably the only reason half the cops in New Tokyo still had a badge.

I slipped him a small envelope of new yen and was on my way. In the hallway two pimps caught my stare and ducked in a doorway. They knew not to fuck with me ever since I beat one once with the butt end of my .44 magnum and he had to get a new synth eye.

Chapter 3 – Tech That Should Not Be

Freshly stocked I needed to see if the netrunners got anything from the chip with their rigs. High on amphetamine and clear headed from pink charge—my buzz was making my Thunderbird feel like a goddamn SR-71. I made my way back to HQ.

I parked, and headed inside. After a flight of stairs I stepped out through a set of three vault doors into the atrium, lit by dim fluorescents that were at least 40 years old, synthetic trees, and a bubbling thermal waterfall. The desk girl looked me up and down with a grimace.

“You really should go home and change.”
“Easy to say when you ride a desk all day.”

After check-in I made it over to my division—homicide. My partner, McSweeney, was leaning back in his desk chair smoking, he stubbed out his cig and closed out of his terminal.

“Well goddamnit boy.”
“Back from leave, eh?”
“Yeah, well, after they read your adrenaline charts, here I am.”

He smiled.
We embraced.

“Heard the scene, you get any reads?”

“Didn’t get jack shit.”

I reached behind my ear, finding the right switch, and ejected an Intel 357–standard police retina recorder. They’re lucky I even had it jacked in tonight. Hell, it was even fresh. Only reason was I had been trying to catch whoever kept fucking with my medicine cabinet. Turns out—it had been me. Yeah, I had DBAN’d that one this morning.

I inserted the chip into the terminal and uploaded the files for our netrunners to analyze in a NeuroLive.

“Alright, let’s head on down to see Mort.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I say we grab some bigger heat.”
“Going out after this?”
“Don’t see why not.”

I grabbed my Marlin 336 .30-30 from behind my desk.

McSweeney looked at me, “You superstitious motherfucker, need to upgrade that old shit.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take stopping power all day.”

He shouldered his M4A1 carbine and picked up his coffee mug, “.30-30 aint shit.”

“You wanna get hit by it?”
“Fair, no.”

Down the hall we entered a large room that was lit green from the walls of CRTs.

“Moooort.”
“Great.”
“Tell you me you got something, my favorite desk jockey.”
“Keep it up Rich, just keep it up.”

I reached in my duster and set him down a fresh pint of Jim Beam.
He smiled and opened it with a rush.

“Fucker.”
“Alright, what you got.”
“Basically nothing, except one thing, the 80 was live for 1.8 seconds. Didn’t get a fucking thing from retina or any other body systems. Just a small trace of the kill protocol.”
“English, baby.”
“From what I was able to get—whoever did this is good—and old. Haven’t seen protocols like this in fucking years. This is founder level shit.”

“Damn. We gonna see more?”
He replied, “No shit, Dick Tracey.”

Chapter 4 – Everyone Talks at Gourudenaragon

I pulled us into the loading paddock at Ichiban Station—the bar district for salarymen. A floating parking lot lined with neon green holofloor. We got out, and entered the Gourudenaragon. Tacky. Smokey. Black walls. Little gold dragon incense holders on nearly every table, and an almost empty bar. Neon Kirin signs, posters of Akira, and classic neo-tech terminals with the degenerates playing virtual pachinko. The jukebox was set low and was playing My City Was Gone by Pretenders.

Fukinara spotted us, setting two sweating green bottles of Dutch gold on the bar.

“Ahh, my favorite gaijins.”
“Up yours, two bowls of spicy pork too.”

Fukinara motioned and the girls drifted off to the kitchen.

His voice got low, “Seen the TV tonight, that young girl strung up by her entrails across the canal bridge. Wires all throughout the body.”

I sighed, “Yeah you see me on TV? Thanks for the beer, old man.”

Fukinara furrowed his brow, “Yes… any leads?”
“You know the answer. Why you think I’m here.”
“Ah, I outta start charging you rent for that stool.”

McSweeney and I toasted, taking long well-deserved swallows of Heineken.

Some barfly in a wrinkled suit piped up. The burned out salary man type with a defunct company pin on his lapel like it meant something.

“Well maybe that girl liked being tied up, heh.”

McSweeney gave me a look as the man laughed to himself. I walked over slowly. He looked up just as I reached him.

“Say that again,” I said.

“Hey, man, no offense—”

I stopped inches away from him. Activated my retinal scanner. A soft tone pinged as it ran his ID—expired corp credit line, no criminal charges, three pending domestic abuse reports. Nothing that’d raise an alert.

I grabbed his collar and yanked him forward till our foreheads touched.

He stank of burnt plastic and gin.

“Oh fuck, I didn’t know you were a cop—”

I didn’t upload anything permanent. Just a localized neuro-jolt, enough to cause a nosebleed and make his eyes water. He lumped forward into the bar with a dull thunk, and stayed there, dripping. Fukinara didn’t flinch, just muttered, “No manners anymore.” The girls brought out our spicy pork ramen bowls. We all watched dozens of TVs on mute. Cyborgs boxing, cock fighting, and poker world series.

“Richey.”

I turned and faced the man who had raised me in this bar.

“Head up, my son.”

I managed a small laugh when he leaned in, “They say it was coax cables in her.”

“Yeah.”
“Rich, that coating is old. Before the net boom. No one still makes that shit.”

We bowed and that was it.
The Kage-Okami detail was off to prowl.