warehouse. One chuckled. Otto made a mental note to pull that one's enhancements out of his skin while he was still conscious. The other went forward and rolled back the door. Grinny came forward and motioned him inside while doorman covered them. Otto stared at them. They laughed at his helplessness; they knew it was still too risky for him to try and take them out. Otto's time was running out, because god alone knew what twisted shit Tufa had inside.
Otto found out.
The concrete floor was crumbly underfoot, the air smelled of tropical damp and rot, but it was otherwise tidy. The warehouse had been cleaned, soundproofed and painted, a stage set for Tufa's revenge. Four cell lamps were set up to illuminate a hollow square defined by three metal tables with a variety of surgical and engineering tools neatly arrayed upon them. They stood round a chair that had been bolted to the floor. The bolts ran through plastic sheeting under and surrounding the chair. The layout was obsessively executed, far too neat. That, rather than the fact that most of the tools weren't there for the good purposes their makers had intended them, made it out to be the work of a sick mind. Otto looked it over and nodded, as if in agreement with it all. He didn't think he could be scared any more, hadn't been since the mentaug. What he felt was weary, and he let some of it show. His shoulder hurt, his guts hurt, his fucking bladder hurt it was so full. He'd done too much hurting the last thirty years. Why not give up? Because I'm not going down to scum like Tufa . He made a mental note to kick himself in the balls after he'd killed the Albanian.
"Huh, you have been thinking about this for five years. Must have taken your mind off all those ass-fuckings," said Otto. His voice was low, strained with effort, but he'd be damned if he'd let a couple of bullets shut him up. He was clutching at straws – angering Tufa might make him lose control, give him an opportunity, but it could make his situation worse. No matter. Otto disliked waiting. "That's if a guy like you with a face like yours can find himself a nice husband in jail." Tufa shoved him. "Asshole," Otto added. The chair bolts, they weren't big enough, nor were they driven far enough into the floor. He looked away from them, he didn't want to draw attention to them, but Tufa was past noticing anything, too drugged, too bent on revenge.
"Don't call me that," Tufa said calmly. "You'll be calling me 'sir' and begging for death before I'll let you die." He stepped away, his face fixed with triumph. He picked a shock baton off one of the tables, weighed it in his hand with mock thoughtfulness. "Boy, am I going to enjoy myself tonight," he said, and jabbed it into Otto's spinal interface port. Pain shot through Otto's body, skittering like lightning through cybernetics and organics alike. His shoulder felt like a scratch and his guts like a love tap by comparison. His machine senses crackled offline, scrambled by the charge; his iHUD danced with crazy patterns. His polymer muscles spasmed with such force they cracked carbon-bonded bones. He jerked madly, fell over and locked into a foetal ball, vomited. A delta of piss spread across his trousers. Tufa laughed and whooped and shocked him again.
Today was turning out to be a shitty day.
Richards was out in the dataflows of the world's information network, deep in the sea of the sum of all human knowledge. The raw Grid was of a different order to the cosy places the AIs constructed for themselves: it was a non-place, sketched by a lunatic over the phantom datapipes and optic cable beams of reality, the trails for dreams, a nonsense land. An endless series of pathways spread fractally for ever, growing ever smaller one way, joining one after another in rapid succession to form the unfathomable trunk of man's accumulated wisdom in the other. Richards was in a thundering world of light and sound and raw, pleading data begging to be
Otto found out.
The concrete floor was crumbly underfoot, the air smelled of tropical damp and rot, but it was otherwise tidy. The warehouse had been cleaned, soundproofed and painted, a stage set for Tufa's revenge. Four cell lamps were set up to illuminate a hollow square defined by three metal tables with a variety of surgical and engineering tools neatly arrayed upon them. They stood round a chair that had been bolted to the floor. The bolts ran through plastic sheeting under and surrounding the chair. The layout was obsessively executed, far too neat. That, rather than the fact that most of the tools weren't there for the good purposes their makers had intended them, made it out to be the work of a sick mind. Otto looked it over and nodded, as if in agreement with it all. He didn't think he could be scared any more, hadn't been since the mentaug. What he felt was weary, and he let some of it show. His shoulder hurt, his guts hurt, his fucking bladder hurt it was so full. He'd done too much hurting the last thirty years. Why not give up? Because I'm not going down to scum like Tufa . He made a mental note to kick himself in the balls after he'd killed the Albanian.
"Huh, you have been thinking about this for five years. Must have taken your mind off all those ass-fuckings," said Otto. His voice was low, strained with effort, but he'd be damned if he'd let a couple of bullets shut him up. He was clutching at straws – angering Tufa might make him lose control, give him an opportunity, but it could make his situation worse. No matter. Otto disliked waiting. "That's if a guy like you with a face like yours can find himself a nice husband in jail." Tufa shoved him. "Asshole," Otto added. The chair bolts, they weren't big enough, nor were they driven far enough into the floor. He looked away from them, he didn't want to draw attention to them, but Tufa was past noticing anything, too drugged, too bent on revenge.
"Don't call me that," Tufa said calmly. "You'll be calling me 'sir' and begging for death before I'll let you die." He stepped away, his face fixed with triumph. He picked a shock baton off one of the tables, weighed it in his hand with mock thoughtfulness. "Boy, am I going to enjoy myself tonight," he said, and jabbed it into Otto's spinal interface port. Pain shot through Otto's body, skittering like lightning through cybernetics and organics alike. His shoulder felt like a scratch and his guts like a love tap by comparison. His machine senses crackled offline, scrambled by the charge; his iHUD danced with crazy patterns. His polymer muscles spasmed with such force they cracked carbon-bonded bones. He jerked madly, fell over and locked into a foetal ball, vomited. A delta of piss spread across his trousers. Tufa laughed and whooped and shocked him again.
Today was turning out to be a shitty day.
Richards was out in the dataflows of the world's information network, deep in the sea of the sum of all human knowledge. The raw Grid was of a different order to the cosy places the AIs constructed for themselves: it was a non-place, sketched by a lunatic over the phantom datapipes and optic cable beams of reality, the trails for dreams, a nonsense land. An endless series of pathways spread fractally for ever, growing ever smaller one way, joining one after another in rapid succession to form the unfathomable trunk of man's accumulated wisdom in the other. Richards was in a thundering world of light and sound and raw, pleading data begging to be
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