Once Upon a Time in Gravity City by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RiffRaff Publishing
Published: 2018-05-14T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Lemon.” Lee unwrapped a yellow sucker and offered it to Tibault.

He popped it into his cherubic mouth without looking away from the ship’s portal and the blue-and-brown planet beyond it. “Is that Zuleika?”

Jakar leaned close to their young son and peered out the window. “Yes.” He looked back at Lee, his grin wide, wicked. “And it only took love, lies, and lots of bleeding to get here.”

DIRTY DEEDS

By D.K. Cassidy

Eve’s office was in a run-down part of Gravity City. The rusty buildings were shuttered, the streets full of garbage, and the only business being conducted illegal. Cops looked the other way while prosti-droids and drug dealers peddled their wares. Half of them were on the take anyway.

Eve peered out her grimy window. Unlike the wealthy upper neighborhoods, it didn’t matter what floor you lived on. They were all shit. No starscrapers grasping toward the heavens, only the graffiti-covered bottoms of the streets running above for the upper city.

She didn’t mind. All she cared about was the cheap rent. Sure, her office was tiny, but she didn’t need much room to live. Her next client was due in any minute. A message on her tablet said they would arrive today at 9 a.m. No name given. Unusual, but not enough to prevent her from agreeing to a meeting. She put on her least grubby jacket, trying to at least look the part.

Her door burst open. Eve lunged for the desk drawer where she kept a hand-cannon perfectly sized for her small hands, then noticed who it was.

“Pardon me,” said the droid standing in her doorway.

Eve took a moment to compose herself, then leaned back and swiped her tablet, ignoring him on purpose. She was programmed to allow for a bad attitude, and she made the most of it when she could. This droid, Kenneth, was a pain in her shiny metal ass.

He considered her to be of a lower class in the caste of droids because her face was still metal. What he didn’t know was that her legs were still metal, too. She wore bellbottoms to conceal them but longed to wear a miniskirt someday. The cost of a more human face transplant was astronomical, so she tried to be realistic.

“You can’t just barge in,” she said. “You’re liable to get shot.”

Kenneth ignored Eve and continued to speak.

“My employer needs to find out who owns a body mod store called the NuMe Mod Shop.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“You find things. He needs something found.”

“Doesn’t sound like a tough gig. He can’t do it himself?”

“He doesn’t have the time for that, and besides… West Grav? He don’t want to be recognized in that part of town. So he sent me.”

She didn’t budge. Then Kenneth seemed to try a different tack.

“I don’t understand why bios are so obsessed with modifying their bodies.”

Eve sighed softly. “Are you an early Pantheon model, Kenneth? Perhaps one of the older, less intelligent ones? That’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“Pardon?”

“Do you read?”

“Of course I do.

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