Machete Girl Issue 8.4 Cyberpunk Short Stories

016 DATASTREAM
Private Sector
By Daniel Moore
Felt like I was still stateside.
I pulled up the contact’s name, scrolled
down to his number. Typed: Where are
Sidewalks narrowed. People shuffled
you?
Slept all day. Didn’t mean to, just hap-
sideways to avoid one another, repel-
pened.
ling from tables parked at the curb
Seconds passed. The cell shook. Mes-
Set my lenses to update, put
and storefronts. Calls came from food
sage read: End of the block. Yum-Yum.
my body through motions to warm up.
carts, offering fishy curry. Sexy girls in
I hadn’t yet arrived. Physically I inhab-
tight skirts begged me to buy a pint at
Red and yellow blinked on me, flashed
ited a hotel room, but my head lived
their bar. They were persistent. I kept
down, repeated the sequence in rapid
two days in the past, still asleep on a
on walking. They got the hint.
succession. Girls in underwear, striped
hard black bench in an empty terminal.
with LEDs. Boys in tight denim. Lady-
The bits between—how I got on the
At the end of the row—the open mouth
boys in cocktail dresses. Skin and meat
plane, landed in BKK, managed to get
of Soi Cowboy—I hunted expats.
smiled it up for the tourists. They stood
myself indoors—all lost to me.
close and whispered and coerced with
Kept my hood low, walked along
During a briefing, six doors down from
light touches. Travelers responded with
Sukhumvit Road.
the cupboard that passed for my office,
cash and plastic.
I’d looked over SAT video and listened
February, somewhere in the middle of
to an abbreviated lecture on the Asiatic
A German pair posed outside XY with
their winter. You wouldn’t know it by the
For-Profit Conflict (corporate speak).
a tall girl—muscular with a baby face—
temperature. Head had been buzzed
Seemed like an easy place to hunt for
for pictures, blocking a procession
and dyed platinum back home, which
my contact. But navigating between
of Americans from continuing to the
let me breathe, but I stuck parameters,
go-go bars, strip clubs, food carts, and
leathered men dancing outside Burst
wore denim and leather so I’d be
compact boutiques I found nothing but
City. Around them was just enough
overlooked. The jacket was new, still
foreign faces.
room for me to get close to the little girl
creaked as I moved. Still, I attracted an
riding her infant elephant. Saddlebags
audience.
Most spoke some style of English, but
on either side of the animal offered
Europeans and different were in atten-
burners and chintzy cameras. The girl
Bangkok streets were flooded with
dance as well. Competing with techno
shouted prices to the crowd.
MACHETE GIRL ISSUE 8.4
people, their walls and building facades
housed eyes pointing in every direction.
I lowered the sensitivity on my
lenses; the prosthetic pair found every
face interesting enough to zoom in and
inspect because they were inspecting
me. Somewhere overhead, LOOK
HERE flashed in neon.
and dancehall for attention, finding
the right concentration of sound was
dizzying.
I Grabbed the company cell, checked
the GPS. Tech promised monitoring
of company brands zeroed in within
a meter of the targeted employee. He
Sticking behind the trudging boutique
we made our way through bodies. The
Yum-Yum rainbow sat on the horizon.
They hung around with dancers, these
Japanese men dressed as old-world
gangsters. Tattoos covered all the ex-
was close by.