Free Fiction: Go Fish
July 31, 2009Earlier this month Kate posed a writing prompt for her fellow writers. "Pick a song. Any song. You can listen to it once, or until you can't get it out of your head. And then write. You can let the song directly influence your writing, by playing it in the background, or you can let it become part of the story itself."
Here's my contribution, a cyberpunk flash piece inspired by Sophie Ellis Bextor's Move This Mountain. Feedback is welcome and I hope you enjoy! :)
Go Fish
by Violet Hilton
Tyke flicked at one of the neon fiberwire strands woven into her black braids. She passed them off as hip, colorful accessories, but the brightly coated fiberwires all connected directly to her brain. The up side? Technological telepathy. She could hear airborne conversations and see data streams on the transparent lens of her eyepiece as they crossed the ether of wifi. The down side? She still had minor control over the feeds. But she was learning.
She flicked the strand again and frowned when the connection didn't improve. Missing bits of data were just as distracting as too much information at once. Tyke couldn't keep a bead on the infamous Garr's communications if she couldn't get solid reception from the roof of the bastard's office building.
"--couldn't pull it off if she tried," a familiar male voice said in her mind. The chunk of conversation was nearly drowned out by garbled music as someone phoned a friend from a nearby concert. Tyke concentrated on bringing the familiar voice into focus. "--going fishing without a pole -- not saving her scrawny ass this time."
"Tyke's our best shot at getting this information." Maven's husky voice, loud and clear.
Tyke hurried to the edge of the roof and peered down into the lamp lit street ten stories below her. No one person stuck out of the handful passing by on the sidewalk.
"You think twenty lousy wires stuck in her skull's gonna help take out the fish? He's got more wires threaded through him than -- he'll spot--"
"Even he's not -- to hot-wire his own head," Maven said and coughed. "Girl's got an advantage, Hale."
Tyke shook her head in a fresh attempt to get better reception. Whichever of her allies were on the street below must have been walking away from her location.
It didn't matter how much she did for the resistance movement or how many times she'd succeeded in gathering the information she was after. Hale never recognized her accomplishments. It had pushed Tyke to push herself, to embrace a new type of implant that was only available to those who hung around the Underground and were crazy enough to try it. Or desperate enough, in Tyke's case. She'd prove her damn worth to every last one of her allies no matter what it took.
"I'm picking up a strange signal. Nick, sweep for bugs."
Tyke jumped and looked around, sure the man was standing right behind her. Her heart pounded in her throat and she almost missed the snippet of data ticking across her eyepiece with the unimportant feeds. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The code was one of the four she was fluent in, an obsolete language that most hackers recognized by name but had no reason to learn. She lifted her right arm, punched in the passcode to her netbracer, and read the feed off quietly. Her bracer would parse the voice input into text and encrypt it for her.
"I'm sending it over now. In two parts." The same bass voice as before.
"Good. And it better be encrypted or I'll rip your expensive wiring job out myself. Got it?"
"Got it, sir." The man with the deep voice paused. "Nick didn't find any bugs. And the data's encrypted, like always. Different code, different day. That's the customer profiles, just like you requested."
Tyke guessed he was Garr, four stories down, which meant the other man was his superior. She doubted it was the CEO himself. The fish was an important player, but he was small potatoes if they had him running a relatively blatant drug cartel out of this downtown office complex. There was always a bigger fish, Maven was fond of saying.
Garr's data feed was the biggest, brightest stream of data running across Tyke's eyepiece thanks to her steady concentration. She barely caught the attachment flag in time, but managed to hit the record button on her eyepiece before much of it slipped by. There was no way she could stand there and read out the contents of a database file. It was moving too fast and any formatting might have been garbled by the encryption. The recorder in her eyepiece would preserve the integrity of the file.
She put her netbracer back into secure mode and shifted to lean against a large air duct.
"Thought I'd find you up here trying to steal my job."
The tone of Hale's voice chilled Tyke's blood. She whipped her head to the side, thin braids smacking against her cheek as she turned.
"It's not your job, Hale. Maven asked me, specifically, to gather this intel, which makes it my job," Tyke said, doing her damnedest to remain calm. She shifted her focus back to the feed to check on its progress. Nearly done, but the size of the file wasn't a good thing. The database likely contained hundreds, possibly thousands of entries of the poor fools buying liquid fairy dust off of Garr and his underlings.
"You think you're so damn special now," Hale continued. He stepped closer. "You're not, Tyke. You're still the same sorry brat you've always been. Keep trying to crawl out of my shadow. You'll never make it anywhere without me leading the way."
"I'm just doing my part, Hale. For the greater good."
The feed stopped transmitting. Tyke quickly transferred the file to her bracer, ran it through an encryptor Maven had a key for, then sent it and the voice transcription over to the woman.
"Just back off and let me handle Garr," Hale said.
"I've got everything I need from him for now. He's all yours if you're stupid enough to go after him." Tyke let out a tired sigh. She didn't understand why he was so competitive over work that was done to help people. "But the last thing I want is to see my brother killed."
She headed back to the fire escape without saying goodbye.
Tags: flash fiction, urban fantasy, free fiction.
11 comments
Jeff Posey
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Ooooh, her brother. Didn't see that coming. You've built a weave of plot here as well as a whole world of technology, plus a handful of characters. Flash fiction continues to amaze me. Well done. --Jeff Posey
Droogie
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Cool read. The technology was very solid, which is always hard to pull off because you can't get too scifi, but it has to be pushing the edge. I liked this line the most: "It had pushed Tyke to push herself, to embrace a new type of implant that was only available to those who hung around the Underground and were crazy enough to try it."
Mary
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
This was fantastic! As Jeff said, It's amazing how elaborate your world is in such a short piece. Thanks for sharing!
Laura Eno
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Great technology, totally believable and nice twist at the end! Glad you posted in the #fridayflash section on twitter. The group is also listed as #fridayflash on facebook.
Kate Karyus Quinn
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Wow, love the worldbuilding here! Great characters too - my only criticism is that I wanted there to be more so I could keep reading!
greta
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Enjoyed this, Violet. Not only was the technology intriguing, but the psychology was spot on. Nice job.
Obishawn
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Talk about teasers, I loved it. I felt like I connected to Tyke faster than some of your other characters. Keep up the good work.
Chris Chartrand
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Totally believable scifi. Didn't see the sibling rivalry coming at all; loved it. Nice job having so many characters in such a short piece without it becoming confusing.
J. M. Strother
Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Caught me with a great hook and then never let me go. I enjoyed this a lot, the way you wove near-future tech throughout the piece, while creating a very gritty, very real world. Liked the tension you built up between Tyke and Hale, and the revelation at the end. Nicely done. Welcome to the #fridayflash. Hope you join us often. ~jon
KjM
Sat, 1 Aug 2009
Nice work on building the world these characters play in. There's a lot more story and you've got the characters to tell it. Nicely done. I too loved the line "...only available to those who hung around the Underground and were crazy enough to try it." And then the follow-up "Or desperate enough, in Tyke's case." I also enjoyed the difficulty Tyke had at the start, trying to tune in. Don't you just hate that! :)
Violet
Sat, 1 Aug 2009
Thanks for your comments everyone! I really appreciate it and I'm so glad you guys liked Tyke's little story and world too. I'm already trying to brew up some other adventures for her :D