Machete Girl Issue 8.4 Cyberpunk Short Stories

50 DATASTREAM
Black Bugs
By Ian Winchester
This wasn’t supposed to be my job.
The step van’s doors popped open and two of
Mao’s heavies jumped out to secure the area. Tachi and
I waited inside. This sort of work was supposed to be reserved
for people like them. People who install strength
enhancements in their prosthetics, carry an arsenal of
weapons under their black coats and wear mirror shades
on rainy nights like this. People like that are meant to be
the stars of this kind of show, I’m just a backup singer.
One of the heavies, the woman, voiped the all clear. The
technicians began their work, setting up their equipment
in the back of the off-white van while the heavies waited
out in the rain like chrome gargoyles wrapped in pleather.
A battery of sealed containers, each one with a big red
light in the corner, formed a wall between the cabin and
the back of the van.
The van and the navy blue uniforms we were wearing had all been borrowed from a small electrical
company Mao had a grip on. Even with my eyes closed I could tell they were a matching set,
the AC in here had blown out an eon ago and the smell of burnt plastic clung to the fabric like a
baby sloth.
Tachi glared at me from the other side of the van. He was not happy. He’d traded in his
powder-blue tuxedo for a fluro safety vest, a set of grubby coveralls and an electrician’s belt. None
of which matched with a face that could lead a Hong Kong romantic comedy.
“What happened to no strings attached?” Tachi said over the cyber-voip. His lips never
moved but I heard his voice as though he was speaking right into my ear. His voice didn’t match
his face either. Tachi’s voice betrayed his Oxford education. Sometimes by speaking, usually by
just telling.
“I say a lot of things, Tachi. You can’t expect me to be right all the time.”
MACHETE GIRL ISSUE 8.4