Outrun Stories #41

This was the sort of place you went to die. When youth was all you had left to give, and even that had run out, there wasn’t much else that you could do other than go to a place like this and it took in all sorts. You’d walk in and every time you’d be surprised by all the different types you’d have in there. The amount of people never took you by surprise, but the types certainly did. Business man to family man, down and out to yuppie, I swear I’ve even seen a few clerics in there. Everyone’s got a problem at some time or another, and more often than not, when that problem runs too much, too high, too bad, you end up here and you better hope that you had something decent to sell in that brain of yours, otherwise, that’s when the real trouble would kick-in.

Someone like Sydney Leathers wasn’t about to take the time out of her schedule unless you had something good. She needed something she could sell on and if you told a story and it wasn’t actually in there, in your brain, with the hope that they might find something of interest, well, you better hope they’re having a busy day and flatline you quickly, otherwise it would be a world of pain until they eventually let you slip off the coil.

I remember the first time I came into see her, I’d somehow got myself involved with some assholes out of Iowa and we’d hit a bank, old school hit a bank. Gone in with guns and shit. These guys were jacked and you could tell for sure they weren’t going to make another summer, but I was down and we hit that place hard. Got away too, well, three of us did, the other two hadn’t severed their live-wire completely and the cops jacked into their STEM and they were toast. Well, the three of us got away, but next thing I’ve burnt through my share of the takings and I’m back there, the place you go to die, with Sydney Leathers staring me down and I’m going. “Serious, we hit the bank, real-life scenario, fresh too, just a couple of weeks ago, get it out of me, it’ll sell well.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said and turned to a couple of her lackeys, giving a slight nudge of her head towards me. Next thing I’m in the back with the ‘trodes stitched into my temples, painful as hell and they have the analyser rooting around in my brain, my mind, for the memory of what went down. One of them let out a kind of deep, belly laugh, must have liked what he saw because next thing I remember I’m back in the main room, propped up against some sort of bar they had in there with Sydney sat next to me nodding.

“Solid stream off you, kid,” she said to me. “We got that and a couple of other things. Your account has been loaded with the regular amount of credits plus a little extra because somehow your stream was clear. People pay extra for the clarity you know.”

That was me happy, I got out and called an old pal, we went straight in for a block of H that would last us a few cycles, and then I guessed I’d try and pull some other shit that I could sell to her. I’d be back, and she knew it.