Machete Girl Issue 8.4 Cyberpunk Short Stories

“Ha! Once would be a good start. Wake
up Dust, we can’t afford to be doing
“So now that’s Mao’s run out of blood-
DATASTREAM 051
this, we have too much to do on the job
relatives he’s started on his old war
we’re already on.”
buddies?”
sending the pictures from my wet drive
“The program has changed
Tachi still hadn’t looked at me.
over to him.
Tachi, get with it. We need someone to
I saw him clench his hand into a fist
hack for us on the Hamilton job. This is
then slowly open it again.
“What the devil?”
how we get that someone.”
“Would you please relax?
I shrugged. I couldn’t blame
“And what if something goes
Tachi, I’d asked the same thing when
wrong? The Hamilton job is a delicate
Mao’s done the hard work already. I
I first saw the pics. Mao’s mark had
operation, especially compared to this.
checked over every inch of his recon
undergone extensive cosmetic surgery.
We can’t afford to waste time.”
work and it’s every bit as good as it
He’d bleached his skin milky white and
was when I served under him. All he
had colour-changing contacts installed
“I already told him that.” I said
needs us to do is stick to the script.”
in his cybereyes. From Mao’s info, the
scratching the stubble on my chin.
mark’s eyes would turn from an eerie
“Mao promised me this would be a
Tachi lazily swivelled his head
gold to dark red on mental command.
one-night job and provided we come
back my way. “Oh yes, the script. That
His hair could change colour too, the
back alive he’ll put us in contact with a
is not a two-man job Dust.”
long white locks turned to black as
hacker who’s done good work for him.
the wearer desired. Some reinforced
All we have to do... is retire this one
“No.” I said. “It’s not. It’s a one-
fangs and hand-rippers completed the
guy.”
man, one-cyborg job.”
ensemble.
Tachi leaned back in his seat
and crossed his arms. “I don’t like it,
Tachi may have looked like
Tachi didn’t say anything.
just waltzing in, bold as brass and plug-
any other suave, unreasonably hand-
The techs did their signal checks
ging the mark in his own office. It’s so…
some bastard, but everything from the
for the cybervoip. The lights on the
uncouth. Like a common thug.”
brain down was a prosthetic. He was
boxes flicked from red to green and a
a collection of vital organs in a biopod
swarm of micro-drones crawled out
I held back a sigh. “I didn’t ask
controlling a replicant human body
of their containers and into the alley.
you to come with me.”
from inside the torso. They were all the
The drones looked about the size of a
rage in Japan.
large cockroach, the kind you’d get a
Tachi snorted, ran a hand
hammer to kill, just in case. But they
through his painstakingly perfect hair
Me? I had the standard Australian
resembled ants in design. The swarm
and looked away.
Army Augmentation Package (or AAAP
crawled down an open drain and made
for short. Unlike the US the Australian
their way into the mark’s building
“Thuggish and blunt are how
Army doesn’t base their acronyms on
through the utility pipes.
Mao wants it. He’s making an example
what would make a better G.I. JOE toy).
of the mark so he needs it to look like a
So I had a string of interface plugs
And then finally, once all the drones
mob hit.”
throughout my body and a pain editor
were in place, they gave us the green
in my neural processor. That and lots
light too.
“We never go in blind like this Dust. Do
of squishy, squishy flesh. That may
you even know why your ‘friend’ wants
sound like a lot, but I’ve worked along-
According to Mao’s briefing,
him dead?”
side 4RAR Commandoes, those boys
the mark had holed himself up in a
“It’s a family matter.” I said.
“The mark killed Mao’s daughter, then
his son went after the guy and wound
up dead himself.”
and girls have chrome on their chrome.
“Do you even know what the
mark looks like?”
“He looks like this” I said,
private office he operated out of on the
top floor of a backpacker’s hostel. After
Mao’s son had his turn at killing the
mark, the Dracula wannabe had hired
a squad of muscle boys to look after
him.
I had to confess, Tachi’s incessant nag-
MACHETE GIRL ISSUE 8.4
ging was justified.