Ghost in the Machine Ch. 05

"Nah, I left him a breathing tube," Fleischer replied, while the area between the curtains got thoroughly cleansed. The smell of strong desinfectant and soap filled the RV. Fleischer opened the door and motioned me to follow.

"Back already," he asked, shaking a cigarette from a beaten packet. "Didn't you like your gift?"

"Yeah, about that. What the fuck were you thinking, giving me a fucking snuff chip," I screamed at him, causing him to nearly fall off the steps of the RV.

"Snuff chip? What... what are you talking about," he stammered, bending down to retrieve his dropped cig.

I yanked that damned thing from my pocket and tossed it to him. He easily snatched it from the air, his hand going to the jack behind his ear.

"STOP," I snapped, just before he plugged the chip in. Grinning sheepishly, he lowered his hand and instead turned the matte black case over in his fingers.

"It's burnt out by now, I guess," I grumbled. Then I told him what had happened to me earlier.

"Oh my goodness... One of my patients gave it to me instead of payment, he needed his meds so badly," Fleischer said. His eyes added "I can't stand what you are doing to yourself."

"And you didn't think about running at least a diagnostic before giving it to me," I demanded in exasperation.

"How could I know he would give me a killer chip? I was really busy," he tried to defend himself. And I couldn't really blame him. Perhaps the guy he got the chip from didn't have a clue either. Just my fucking luck.

"Katarina, please. Do you really think I would kill you like that? After all we've done?" I smiled grimly. No, he wouldn't. Fleischer was obsessed with exotic cybernetics and I was his favourite study subject. He still dreamed of marketing his eye-add-on to a major cybertech company, for a way out of this hell-hole, and without me, for long-term testing and data-gathering, he would be thoroughly fucked. And besides, he never, ever tried to feel me up. I even offered myself to him a couple of times, when homesickness overcame me. I didn't want to fuck a client, I really wanted some gentleness. But he never, ever let his hormones get in the way of our friendship. Sometimes I even doubted he had hormones. I had no clue how much electronics was inside him, apart from his hands and fairly obvious Mindlink implants. And I still had no clue why a brilliant guy like him squandered his talents in a third-rate flea market instead of working for a top-notch hospital or corporation.

"I'm really, really sorry. I thought I'd give you something good." Although his eyes said otherwise, I believed him.

"Never mind that. It's the gesture that counts. Who's he," I asked, pointing my finger at the open RV door and the guy on the slab within.

"Who cares? Just some random idiot with more cash than brains. Said he needed a bit more striking power."

"And you chopped off his arm," I asked incredulously.

"He paid in advance and was very specific. Who am I to talk reason into him," Fleischer shrugged, taking a pull on his cig. "Now what," he asked me, brushing a lock of his already-greying hair which escaped his operating cowl behind his ear.

"Well, initially I wanted to rip your fucking balls off but seeing that you're not guilty, just negligently stupid, I'll let you off easy. How's that sound?"

"Thanks, inspector," he chuckled, digging in his coat for something. When he withdrew his hand, he handed me a big clump of Euro notes.

"What? Now you want to have a ride with me," I asked, somewhat taken aback.

"Don't be stupid. I don't do kids. I want you to quit whoring yourself out. This should be enough to keep you clothed, fed and dry for at least half a year. Find a nice little apartment and please, get off the street. I mean it." He looked at me imploringly.

"You're shitting me. That's at least ten grand. Wait... Is that what he paid you," I again jabbed my thumb at the door.

"No, I'm damn serious. I hate to see you like this. You're such a brilliant girl. With the right education, you could easily find work wherever it pleases you. You don't need to whore yourself out. I don't want to see you cut to pieces in some alley one day. And if that money will help you do it, fuck, then I'll eat Maggi Ravioli for the next six months."

We shared a chuckle at that. I let his words sink in, feeling my throat tighten up. "You're serious, huh," I sniffled as the tears began to fall.

"Yes. I'll take the rest of what I made tonight and make a deposit with it. Once I see you're actually studying, I'll give you the details for the deposit."

I hugged him, nearly tackling Fleischer off his feet. Nobody in the last four years had been so nice to me and I smothered him with kisses.

"Stop it! What will the neighbors say," he huffed, flustered, once he got me under control again. I cuddled against him, sniffing into his blood-spattered smock.

"Fuck the neighbors," I forced out around the lump in my throat. Then I looked up at him, blinking the tears off my optics. "What do you want in return?"

"Nothing. I don't want to fuck you, I don't want anything. I just want you off the streets, away from those horrible people you give yourself to. Oh, and one little thing..." He actually blushed.

"Aha. You want a quick BJ, right," I teased him, tickling his sides through his smock.

"Fuck, NO," he protested. Cuddling against him, I could feel his body betraying his words.

"I just want to meet you now and again, checking if your implant holds up. Will you let me," he asked, almost shyly.

"I would get on all fours for you, Fleischer-darling. For that kind of cash? Everything you ask, really." Almost brutally, he pushed me off him. Before he could say anything though, the guy inside his RV started to scream.

"Now what," I asked, bewildered.

"Looks like he needs another shot. Or maybe I re-wired his nerve endings the wrong way. Either way, I've got to go, see to him. Promise you'll be in touch, okay," Fleischer asked, already back inside his rolling clinic.

"Yeah, sure," I called. The door slammed shut.

***

I trotted through the throng of people cluttering the Tempelhof Market, even this late in the night, Fleischer's present practically burning a hole in my pocket. The later it got, the more interesting the crowd became. Mercenaries looking for more firepower, corp people looking for cheap thrills, punks like me looking for scraps off the big boys' tables or a client to fuck or maybe to burn some of that money on drugs and chips. I was pondering my options. I certainly had no desire to sell my body much longer. Three and a half years were enough, thank you. Thanks to Fleischer and his meds, I never contracted anything more serious than a rash or a bad cold and I really had been lucky with my clients so far. No stab-happy psychopaths. Yet. But the older I got, the harder the competition became. Already I had to fight the bodysculpted bimbos the Turkish and Russian pimps fielded for my regulars. So far, I had always been younger and cheaper than they were, but frankly, I was getting sick of the filthy coffin motel crowd. The longer I mulled it over, the better Fleischer's idea sounded. I knew I needed to rein in my chip habit and find someone who would lend me a school deck, but if Fleischer was right, maybe this was my way back into Neu-Alexanderplatz.

The commotion became even more deafening, tires screeching, then the sickening thump of a body hitting something much more resilient. As if pulled by invisible strings, I followed the noises. A moment later, car doors closed shut, an engine roared and the car took off. I only could see the rear lights vanish in the distance. Near the mouth of the alley I came out of, a guy in a suit was lying spread-eagled on the tarmac. Quickly scanning from side to side, I knelt down by his side. The bend in his neck looked damn unhealthy to me and the people who rammed him obviously weren't interested in first aid. Instead, they had pilfered his pockets and taken off, crushing his ribcage when they ran over his prone form. I shook my head. Poor bastard.

Raising my gaze, I caught something glittering in the light filtering through the alley. It was the lock of a briefcase, a rather expensive-looking one at that. I knew that stealing was bad and looting corpses even more so, but where were my parents, who instilled these rules into young Shine, now? Hearing voices draw closer, plus the wail of an ambulance siren, I nabbed the case and high-tailed it out of there. I took off my jacket and hid the case under it while I made my way, shivering in the cold, back to the station. I couldn't wait to find out what was locked inside.

***

"Can you open it or not," I asked, hunched over in my coffin. Per specifications, they were eight feet deep, four feet high and about five wide but, crowded with my meager possessions and two people, it felt like the proverbial sardine tin.

"I wish it was an electronic lock; that I could open without lookin'," Krone whined, baring his grill. Why anyone would cram his mouth full with precious metal still eluded me, especially when it looked as tasteless as the thing Krone wore. He had practically every currency sign on his teeth, Euros, Dollars, Yen - you name it. He fancied himself to be a gangster on the up'n'up, but the fact that he lived in this coffin motel longer than I proved otherwise. Nevertheless, he had the skills I needed and he was one of my favoured customers. If he could be bothered to take out his grill and brush his teeth, he was a fantastic lover and somehow he managed to tip generously too.

Only five feet five but built like a brick wall, he divided his time between lording over his bunch of cronies and working out at a gym. He had the bronzed skin of an Italian but he spoke with a strong Berlin accent. And the rest of his looks - dreadlocks, gold studs in his ears and nose, his trademark grill and the baggy jeans and oversized basketball sweaters - screamed "Gangsta Rapper wannabe." Only, somehow, he managed to pull it off without being totally ludicrous. His people had taken the coffin motel under their wing, no doubt extorting protection money from the owner, but in return they kept a semblance of order. And they were generally nice customers.

"Well, since it isn't... got any ideas, Romeo?" Don't laugh, that was his "real" name and he hated it as much as I hated mine. Katarina, that wasn't me. Katarina was the demure daughter of a good corp drone, not the whore I was. Katarina had wonderful chestnut tresses, not a fucking billiards ball for a haircut. Katarina had parents. Parents who died, at the hands of their former employers. It was a Ceiss guard who shot the car we were in. And even though my parents were declared traitors and guilty of industry espionage, the people from Internal Affairs never bothered to show me the documents they allegedly possessed. All I had was their word.

A metallic "SNIKH" noise ripped me back into the present. Krone held out his hand, his fingernails hidden under three inches of gleaming, razor-sharp steel that sprouted from ports near his nail beds.

"Pretty cool, eh, Katarina," he teased, before jamming the tip of his nail razor into the seam between the frame of the briefcase and the leather covering its sides.

"Hey, what the fuck're you doing? That thing's expensive," I shrieked as he began to cut open the seam.

"Yeah, and you pilfered it off a dead guy. What's more important, the contents or the wrapping? And since I can't go through the locks..." He threw me a glittering smile and continued to cut open the suitcase.

All was silent between us, apart from the gentle ripping of actual stitching and the rhythmic thumping from underneath us. I rolled my eyes. My lower-coffin neighbour again, probably fucking his fist to the latest VR porn.

"That's giving me ideas..." Krone suggested silkily. He stopped cutting up the suitcase's outer shell long enough to brush his other hand, the one without nail razors, over my thigh. I shivered, not, as he was probably thinking, in anticipation but in dread. Since when did he have these killing blades?

"Sorry, sweetheart, I already had my fill today. Besides, I'm paying you enough, am I not?" I was generous. For both his skills and his silence, I had sprung more than a hundred Euros already.

"Yeah, the cash is fine and all, but you know me. I can't get enough of your hot box, babe. I'd have rather taken you than your cash, dig?"

Under different circumstances I would have agreed to that, but my earlier experience with the snuff chip was still far too vivid in my mind for any serious thought about sex, 'specially with a guy who could grow stabby knives from his fingertips.

"Ta-dah," he exclaimed, flicking the leather shell off one side of the suitcase. Another quick slash with his razors bisected the inner lining, and we both stared. There were just a few items in that case; a long, rectangular item, matte black plastic, gilded jacks and ports on one side, a few cables and a small chip binder.

"Dang, girl, looks like ya hit the jackpot this time. Want me to take it off yer hands," Krone leered, nearly drooling over the machine.

"You could never pay me what this is worth," I whispered in awe.

"Yup, right. But I know peeps who could. And you let me in on the profits, 'kay?"

I looked into his eyes. He averted his gaze, but not quickly enough. My heart sank. Despite what may have been tenuous friendship before, I saw the Euro signs blazing behind his eyes, flaring hotter than his common sense. And I knew that he would stop at nothing to get his hands on that deck. Gingerly, I scooted backwards until I was almost sitting on my jacket. Then I spread my legs. After returning from Fleischer's, I had retrieved my laundry, fully washed and dried, and changed into a set of work clothes, just in case Krone needed more persuasion. The Euros I handed him were enough but I was glad I now only had my leather mini skirt and see-through red fishnet panties on. Trying my best to smile seductively, I snapped the buttons open and flipped the front half of the skirt up, flashing my shaved pussy, deliciously wrapped in a hint of red at him.

"I have an idea. Let me think on it. And while I do that, you can have a go at my box. For free. 'Cause you're such a good sport..."

"Now that's one hell of a way to seal a deal," Krone whooped, placing the suitcase to the side, on edge, so he could contort his body into an almost-lying position between my thighs. I tapped his skull with my fingers.

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself, Romeo," I asked. It was strange. Despite my unease, the tricks of the trade worked. I sounded playful, conveyed nothing but willingness. He even handed me his oh-so expensive grill, which I placed on a saucer out of harm's way. I felt his nail razors, clipping open the fishnet panties, before his tongue slithered up and down my snatch, lapping at the few, errant drops of moisture. I had to force myself to relax. I needed to give in to him, at least for the time being, to lull him in. He did his best to get me off, teasing my sex with his lips and tongue and, when he thought me sufficiently horny, even with his fingers. My hand had snaked into the pocket of my jacket and I was carefully fishing out my gun, all the while playing the horny, brainless bimbo in heat. I moaned and gasped obediently when he nibbled on my clit or flexed his fingers inside of me. Eventually, I had my gun free. I quickly debated if I should blow his brains out but, despite everything that had happened to me, I was no cold-blooded killer. So, instead of shooting Krone, I instead slammed the heavy, unwieldy plastic gun into his skull for all I was worth. Thankfully, he was just brushing my thighs with his hands because, as soon as I hit him, knocking him cold, his hands spasmed and ten nail razors flicked out, nearly slashing me open. I looked at the magazine housing of my gun. The cheap high-density plastic had fractured and I could see the metal frame housing the bullets. But I was happy that hopefully, Krone would survive.

***

I knew I couldn't stay in the coffin hotel anymore, not after knocking out the local gang boss. Krone would be more than furious and I knew damn well that he could hold a grudge. So I grabbed what I didn't want to leave behind, shoved it into a backpack and got outta there. I was almost out of Kreuzberg when I noticed that I had a serious problem. Since Ceiss had broken off all ties with my family, I had no papers. I practically didn't exist, technically speaking.

When it became apparent that one of the biggest drains on a nation's finances were the expenses for social services, Germany was quick to allow the corporations to care for their employees, taking the monetary weight of welfare off the nation's shoulders and shifting it to the much more wealthy corporations. Work well and hard and the corp takes care of you, even when you or one of yours couldn't work anymore. "Modern slavery," Fleischer called it.

Without papers - real or forged ones - I couldn't rent a flat, I couldn't even visit a respectable hotel. The owners of that coffin motel didn't bother with IDs, they made their profit by dealing with the bottom rung of society and people like me or Yilderim or Krone paid cash anyways. No questions asked, perfect deniability if the cops came snooping, which they did at least once a week.

Theoretically, I could apply for official, German papers. Fleischer always urged me to it. I would need to provide both a living address and a source of income and I highly doubted that "whore" would qualify as such. Plus, I figured that all that paperwork would take quite some time, time which I didn't have right now. Maybe Fleischer had an idea.

It was already dawning when I mustered the courage to enter a bar in search of a payphone. I didn't bother with a cell, I just couldn't spare the money for prepaid cards or service plans.

The bar was a tube of a room, with the actual bar taking up most of the space. A handful of patrons were sitting on the stools. Some had the traditional drinks in front of them but I saw at least two who were lying on the bar, wearing rented VR headsets, their faces blank, eyes hidden behind the visors. Remembering my close brush with death earlier that same night, I shivered.

"You got a phone," I asked the barman, an oily weasel of a person. His eyes travelled down my body, taking in the leather miniskirt and the naked legs underneath. I realized I should have changed into something less provocative than my work clothes on the way here. Couldn't be helpled now.

He practically drooled at me when he said, "If you're nice to me, you can even use it for free, doll."

I gave him a lukewarm smile and jingled my jacket pocket, which had a couple of Euro coins just for that emergency.

"Thanks but I'm not that desperate, darling," I said, striding past his customers towards the wall-mounted unit.

He shot me an ugly look but didn't say anything. Instead, he lighted a foul-smelling cig and took a pull from it. I felt his gaze on my butt as I looked at the payphone. That thing was ancient, possibly pre-dating the fall of the Berlin Wall, with a dial instead of a keypad. A wonder it accepted Euros instead of Deutschmarks. Quickly, I fed it a coin and dialled Fleischer's number, hoping he would be near his emergency phone. My free hand fished for the gun, just in case.

Fleischer's phone rang, three, four times. I was pondering if I should hang up and try again from somewhere else when he finally took the call.

"Huh?" He sounded sleepy.

"Don't tell me you celebrated that operation with a hot, steaming girl and now you're too tired for me," I purred into the phone.

"Huh? Who is this?"

"Hello-o, Fleischer, it's me, Katarina! Good morning, handsome!"