[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 19

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There were paintings of dolphins everywhere, speckled with water droplets, sprawled across bunched up velvet sheets. Their composition invited a very different sort of appreciation than felt by conservationists. “Dave, is there something you neglected to tell me about this guy?”

I heard brief, muffled laughter. “Nothing relevant to the job” he replied. “Have you got eyes on the safe?” I cycled through the available imagers until arriving at accoustic. Optimized for the density of air at sea level psi, crucially.

After a few sweeps, I sorted through the resulting point clouds until I found a rectilinear mass that seemed a promising candidate. Behind one of the paintings, of course. Why always behind a painting? Do they think they’re being clever and original?

As expected in a private residence belonging to a well moneyed person, the only surveillance system was privately owned and operated. A brick wall I banged my head against fruitlessly for a few minutes until Dave asked me what the problem was.

Upon receiving my answer, he directed my attention to an exploit he’d thought to preload the carrier with. I raised an eyebrow, surprised again at Dave’s intelligence. He’s a much more impressive person when you’re not close enough to smell him.

The robotic arms of the carrier were equipped with all the tools I needed to extract the safe. Dave really thought of everything. It was still a messy business pulling it free from the wall, bits of plaster raining down around me once it came loose. I then replaced the painting, for all the good it would do.

“That’s good” Dave’s voice crackled. “Bring it into the light.” I inferred he meant beneath the skylight, and began to wonder about how he meant for me to escape. Through the acrylic qater channels? I doubt if I can hold my breath for that long.

Despite my misgivings, something about all of it felt good, natural and right. Pleasantly nostalgic I suppose. Here I am, after six years on the sidelines, back in the game at last! My good mood was short lived, though.

Upon lugging the safe into the patch of illuminated plush carpeting beneath the skylight, I heard the front door open. My blood ran cold. All I could think to do before the Norwegian owner of this apartment spotted me was to block his view of the safe.

“Oh my” he cooed. “I wasn’t expecting you so early. Did Miranda let you in?” Still frozen with fear, I struggled to work out what the tall, slender blonde man could be talking about. “She always picks out the finest, fittest young fins for my every...late night rendezvous. Where are you from?”

He sauntered up and began to caress the silicone rubber animatronic dolphin atop the carrier I was still huddling inside of. I felt him abruptly withdraw. “What...what is this? You’re not...” Voice strained, I frantically whispered to Dave that whatever he was planning, he’d better do it now.

The gravity shut off. The Norwegian, the safe and my own dumb ass still locked inside the animatronic dolphin carrier “fell up”, crashing through the skylight. I heard only a brief moment of his confused screaming.

I guarantee it was more of an ordeal for me than it was for him. Something like going over Niagra Falls in a barrel, banging my head and every other part of me on every possible hard surface as the carrier plummeted into the canal below.

Still nothing compared with when it impacted the water. I think I passed out briefly as the next thing I knew, there was water up to my waist. I panicked, fiddling with the controls, but they were shorted out. I pounded on the door release, to no avail.

The ice cold water now up to my chest, I positioned myself such that I could leverage my legs against the other side of the carrier while pushing outward on the door. The water level had just reached my nose when at last, the flimsy metal door burst open.

I gasped for air, thrashing at the frigid surface as I fought to keep my head above water. I’d not yet tried swimming in this body and found it was unexpectedly heavy, given how minimally augmented it is. Isn’t fat supposed to be buoyant?

Once I spotted Dave’s little aluminum dinghy bobbing gently on the waves sent out by the carrier’s impact, I swam for it. I arrived as his diver buddies finished hauling the safe up out of the drink, having wrapped it in netting and lashed it to the front of the boat.

A few dozen feet away, the Norwegian shouted unintelligible curses at us as he doggy paddled in our direction. How had a man with his...sexual preference...never learned to swim? All the better though. Before he could make it even halfway to us, I’d climbed aboard and we’d set off for the bay.

As we entered the drainage pipe between the canal and the bay, over my shoulder I watched all the little indicator lights of Panopticon’s countless sensor clusters flickering to life. Secure in the knowledge that we’d gotten away with it, I took the opportunity to unload on Dave.

“Are you fucking retarded? I almost died! You could have at least warned me.” He cackled invisibly in the darkness of the drainage pipe. “You’d never have gone through with it if I did.” I tried to punch him but couldn’t see well enough, my fist sailed ineffectually through the cold, damp black which engulfed us.

His submarine was waiting for us outside the drainage pipe, on the bay side. Here, he handed the safe over to the sub crew and invited me to board. Still fuming, I obliged in the hopes that whatever they found inside would make that whole shit show worth it.

Boy did it ever. The jewelry and fat stacks of krona that spilled out exceeded even my most optimistic predictions. Very little is worth rocketing your way up out of a man’s home like Saint Nicholas after another successful ritualistic home invasion, before plunging into freezing sea water. This haul just about does it, though.

“Here’s your cut, just like I promised” Dave declared, dangling a single string of pearls which he then dropped into my hands. I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. “Dave, you’d better be fucking with me, or you’re about to swallow the few teeth you’ve still got.”

He laughed nervously as the two divers positioned themselves, ready to lunge at me should he command it. “Well, hold off on that until we’re back at the ol’ HQ” he urged. “I’ve got a little something you might like.”

HQ turned out to be a drainage chamber which connected to the sewer system. It was spacious enough, with iron mesh walkways overhead, a dozen or so of Dave’s men peering down at us over the handrails as our boat came in to dock.

Of course. The surprise was only ever going to be more muscle. I should’ve knocked him out and jacked the contents of the safe back out on the bay. Too late now. I clenched my teeth and played it cool as I climbed out of the boat into Dave’s fetid new hideout.

Naturally there was about a hundred ebikes stacked up around the outer wall. He led me to the nearest row, where I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was my bike! “Fresh off the streets” he boasted. “Just brought it in this morning. I’m willing to cut you one hell of a deal on it.”

I blinked. Then looked at the bike. Then back at Dave. “This is my bike, Dave.” He laughed. “I know, right? It really suits you. You’ll look great on it.” I slowly shook my head, now glaring at him. “No, I mean this is the bike you gave me last time. In the barge, remember?”

He stared off into space. I curled my fingers into a fist and got ready to fight. A dozen men made little difference at this point, I wasn’t about to walk out of here with nothing but a string of pearls to show for all that.

“OH! Yes, right you are. I was testing you!” he lied through his rotting teeth. “You passed.” After further negotiation I wound up riding out of there with my bike, the pearls, four other necklaces and a stack of about 25,000 krona. I was at the end of my rope, about ready to kill him and it must’ve shown.

I’d also talked him into replacing the bike’s motor such that it now moves at a much quicker clip than before. The thrill diminished my lingering anger somewhat. I wonder if Dave and Dinesh are buddies? At this point it wouldn’t surprise me.

I spotted a few raised eyebrows as a I zipped past. Locals unaccustomed to seeing one of these things doing over 20 miles per hour. I stopped at a traffic light next to that bubble trike from the canal and once again gave it a long, hard stare. It really is the weirdest looking thing.

The petite Chinese man inside only stared back, as if to say “What do you mean, why am I driving a bubble trike? Why AREN’T you? Where’s YOUR bubble trike?” Which would be a fair question. It looked to be just about ideal for the local transport ecosystem.

This is what economic evolution decided was a good solution for this environment. Not substantially more powerful or complex than a typical ebike, but with just enough insulation from the often toxic atmosphere and harsh weather to make commuting tolerable during the winter, or during a gas storm.

There is nothing like vehicular machismo here. The American male’s romance with big, loud, fast automobiles is an absurdity and an alien notion in a country where the concept of “little cleverness” glorifies efficiency and shrewdness over wasteful chest thumping.

It gave me reason to reconsider what I really wanted out of my new life in China. Do I even really want a fancy apartment? Do I even want to be back on a motorcycle? Maybe this is an opportunity to downsize, instead of trying to transplant my old life into an environment it’s ill suited to.

But there would be no new life in China. The last day of Dad’s one week time limit came and went, at which point I knew he was in more trouble than he could get himself out of alone. I’d dreaded this the past few days, but held out hope that he’d be fine without me.

Because that apparently wasn’t the case, after fencing my cut of the haul and putting most of it into Seacoin so it wouldn’t raise any red flags in some government database that would connect it to the recent heist, I chartered a flight to South America.

The waste of money pained me, as I’d already paid the first month’s rent and now had to pay storage fees for the ebike as well. I was still thinking in poverty mode though, having not yet refactored my priorities to account for my recent steep increase in personal wealth.

The chartered flight seemed to be my only option. Every alternative I compared it to was either drastically more expensive or didn’t land usefully near to the coordinates Dad indicated. I could take an airliner for example but it would put me down at an airport nearly a thousand miles from where I needed to go.

The chartered flight was aboard a six seater VTOL, apparently the smallest craft capable of intercontinental flight. Otherwise I’d have just hailed another air taxi. I shudder to think of the fare however, given what I was charged last time for the brief flight from prison to Dad’s seastead, less than twenty miles offshore.

It was the best of a lot of bad options. I could afford it anyway, and it would save me from having to navigate a thousand miles of dense jungle. I claimed the last seat on the flight leaving the soonest, 9am the following day.

My last night in China for the indeterminate future. Felt weirdly cozy and nostalgic. I’d worked so hard just to put myself in this shitty little excuse for an apartment. It felt humble and lean, but homey. I had some small amount of pride in it.

In my dingy, frankensteinian mess of ebike too, though it bears little resemblance inside compared to when Dave first handed it over. Like me, in a constant state of change, improving its capabilities piecemeal as resources permit.

I pulled the blanket up to my neck, then bent my legs a little so my feet wouldn’t stick out the bottom. After switching the lights off and waiting for my neighbor to finish his usual noisy evening activities, I drifted off to sleep.

The aircraft looked like pure sex, perched on the helipad. No helicopter has landed on or taken off from it in nearly a century, so it’s a bit of a misnomer. One of those funny linguistic atavisms, like “gas pedal”, or “smoking jacket”.

The sleek, aerodynamic hull had four engines arranged like the props of a quadrotor. Ducted fans in this case, or so I thought until I peered up into one of them and saw nothing resembling blades. It was empty all the way through, nothing but a series of metal coils.

“You must be the last minute addition.” A muscular looking fellow in a grey peacoat and sunglasses gestured from the open hatch for me to board. Only once inside, my eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, did I realize the severity of my mistake.

The other four passengers were full metals. I immediately recognized them as the enforcers who raided Dad’s seastead. I backed away, at first meaning to run for it. But Peacoat McShades pulled a gun on me, and took hold of my arm.

“Don’t make a scene. We pride ourselves on minimizing collateral damage. If I meant to kill you, you’d be dead already. Take a seat and hear me out. It’s not as though you have any other choice, unless you’re content to leave here in a body bag.”

I weighed my options. Then I sighed, took the only open seat and buckled myself in. He smiled at me, unnaturally calm given the situation. “Good, good. I’ll bet you’re confused and frightened. Not to worry, I’ll fill you in on the way.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 20!}