Sunday. I’d spent most of Saturday asleep or lounging around, both tired and just generally unwilling to do anything even slightly intensive. I probably would have spent today like that too, but I’d run out of food.
I crawled out of bed at ten, woke my apartment up and got Spider to put on my civilian limbs. One of the problems with being a Runner was some of the everyday tasks became issues. I’d spent a little more than most on my civilian limbs, which came with a small set of features to make my life easier. One of them was water-proofing.
As a result, I could flop into the shower with no issues. I ran the hot water through my hair and down my back, slowly waking up and unknotting myself after Saturday and my long sleep. Even the slowest parts of the house were up and functioning when I got out. I was pretty unwilling to upgrade most of it’s soupware, as a lot of the upgrades required another slug of the nanomachines that made the components up. I’d got all the open upgrades I could off the net in general and Ink in particular, but it was reaching the point where I just needed more mass to keep up.
News feeds were pretty bland today, even Ink. I half-listened as I ate breakfast (noodles, again. This shopping trip was a little desperate) and stared out the window. The morning smog was clearing and the lowest struts of the Suntree were appearing through it, like a vine sprawling over the closest buildings.
Supported by a central pillar, the Suntree spread throughout the city centre, thousands and thousands of glittering blue solar panels providing the power for most of the city. It made itself out of leftovers and garbage, slowly growing it’s branches ever wider. The practical upshot of this was that the city centre was in perpetual gloom, even during midday, with only small patches of unfiltered sunlight making it through. The irony was palpable and property prices were down (though they were up on the outskirts, something Vy bemoaned).
Matsushima’s attempt at “giving back” to the city and rendering themselves indispensable. We had the biggest, but they were putting seeds down in other cities now.
Breakfast finished, I threw the packet out and put on some clothes. Button shirt and a jacket, long pants. Lack of sunlight dropped the temperatures. Hair tied back. I checked myself in a turned off screen. Tall, black hair, blue eyes, softer body than I’d like. I hadn’t changed. I shrugged, and did a final pocket check. Phone, keys. I could’ve had them implanted, but I liked the weight and I was a little squeamish about it. Weird, given I’d had my arms and legs removed, but the feeling was still there.
I locked the apartment and skipped down the stairs, nodding or waving to people as I passed them. Lot of late-night workers just coming back now, which was part of the reason I’d chosen to live here. I smiled to myself. I hadn’t even been in the Runs at that point, just a hopeful.
My car door unlocked as I got close. I didn’t really need to take it, so I waved at the car and it locked again, and made a little sad noise. Advertising ploy to get you to drive more it may be, but that little sad noise nearly had me sometimes. I left the underground parking bay and started to stroll.
Under the shade of the Suntree, advertising butterflies flitted, tiny screen wings showing the range and products of a thousand stores. Larger chains could afford swathes of them, clustering up on the Suntree, wings interleaving to form screens larger than a car. One fluttered past, showing vatmeat and noodles. I waved it down and it landed on the back of my hand, wings opening and closing slowly.
“Show me.” I said, and it took off, weaving a slow line off into a ground-level mall.
The microbusiness was pretty much as expected. Good cuts of vatmeat, couple of vegetables grown on someone’s roof and packets of noodles. I grabbed a bunch of stuff and wandered the sauce and spices for a while, running through recipes mentally. Cooking wasn’t something I enjoyed, but good food was and there was only one way to get that.
Well, I could eat out, but it’s that or Running.
I paid and left, taking a seat outside to start on one of the snacks I’d purchased, a frog made of jelly. I pulled my phone out as I ate, ready to settle and actually take in the news for once. Expanding the screen, I let the news programs just scroll. The main channels were pretty stark. Couple of robberies, very short piece on Friday’s interrupted Run, a long piece about an augmented parrot. I flipped to Ink.
Ink was a bit of an anomaly. What started as a user-submitted newspaper on corporate activity became a breeding ground for hackers to show off whatever they’d gained, push dirty laundry out for all to see. And because most Admins were hackers, it picked up a dedicated Run section. By that time it was picking up steam, and breaking into common use. It had thousands of participants, millions of subscribers and was the biggest route by which we Runners picked up new followers. Access was technically illegal, but it was rarely policed and I had special dispensation anyway.
Top of the news today was the Matsushima Heavy Industry corruption case. It wasn’t really a big deal, but since it involved some of their PR wing, general media was withholding a lot of the information until they were certain they wouldn’t collapse advertising deals, so Ink stepped up. As usual, the tone of the article was extremely anti-corporate, but the fact sheet was absolute and available to download. Ink’s managers were serious about access to information, wouldn’t violate it even to push their agenda.
I flicked to the Run section. A lot of disappointment about the interrupted Runs on Friday. It wasn’t just us, with the Westerners being stopped before they could meet up and the North/South Run hadn’t faired any better, Dog packs crawling out of the cities alleys. Friday had been an anomaly in their numbers and a couple of commentators were worried about this number of Dogs prowling becoming a permanent feature.
I hope not, they’re enough of a hindrance as is.
A man sat down next to me, looked over at my screen.
“Commentary on Runs isn’t why you’ve got access to Ink.” I looked up, and saw the older man’s grinning face. I grinned back.
“Morning, Crave. What brings you out here, picking on your underlings?” I said.
Crave laughed and sat back. He’s the Head of Department for me, a lofty-sounding title for a man with limited funding and barely three rooms to work in. One of which was his office, a fact we never ceased to remind him of. “Just making sure they don’t get in trouble. What about you?”
I kicked the bag at my feet. “Just food. Can’t live out of the microwave forever.”
He looked kinda crestfallen. “I haven’t eaten microwaved food for a long time. Wife’s not a fan.”
“It’s not really befitting her income, boss. You know that.”
His wife was a high-ranking HR employee at Raven Microcyber, which had caused some conflict-of-interest issues in the past. Our work was accountancy, specifically the auditing of companies pulled up by the Corruption Bureau in their never-ending pursuit of justice and whatever else they were talking about this week. We ran on the bare minimum of people to actually function and work was unforgiving, but rewarding. Which was good, because it wasn’t the pay keeping anyone on.
“It’s just… junk food has this taste to it. Salt, additives. I used to live on the stuff, back in the old days.”
“The old days” was his occasionally alluded to three year streak as an open-source programmer. He seemed to have spent most of it at other people’s houses, broke and starving, but he looked back fondly. We’d never gotten a full tale out of him about it, though.
“Boss. Last time I heard, you could afford your own vatmeat grower. I’m not sure you can complain about food.” I waved the jelly frog at him to make my point.
He sighed. “I suppose. Still, gotta have something to complain about or it all blocks up.”
I grinned. He said that a lot. “Yes, yes. I know.”
He stood up. “Right. I better head off, things to do, places to be.”
We said goodbye and I went back to my snack and the news, slowly walking home. I tried not to think about the actual food I would finally be eating, but by the time I was near to home I was practically jogging.
Running Silver 