Cat and Mouse and Sheep

  Bucket and Tales stand in the middle of a shot up store, the floor slick with hydraulic fluid and blood oozing out of a few dozen echo-suits. Malfunctioning servos clicking like sickly crickets in the night ring out from the immobilized echo-suits, an old Ramones tune can be heard, blaring from a hand held scanner . The smell of blood, hydraulic fluid and death hangs in the air. Bucket peels an EMP immobilizer off a Specters echo-suit.

  Earlier...

  “So how do we find an invisible Specter?” Bucket asks Tales. It's typical chaotic spring weather in Manhattan, the sun is out, but threatened by the dark foreboding clouds of an impending storm. They stride along the sidewalk, dodging the oblivious Net Lords that pass by in their echo-suits, locked into viewing the Hype by default they never look in the real world, unless there is an unauthorized physical contact with someone not in the Hype. Not trusting just how corrupted the ghostshades may be they wear none, nor an echo-suit.

  “You're thinking of it wrong.” She says as they trot down the street, dodging Net Lords.

  “How so?” He says, not looking at her as he carefully weaves around the sea of white exoskeletons.

  “From a mouse's point of view, what's the difference between a cat and a mouse?”

  “Well, the cat'll generally try to kill you.”

  “But I asked what the difference was from a mouse's point of view.”

  He thinks on it as they dodge the oblivious pedestrians. “Well, the mouse really wouldn't know much about a cat, because if a mouse meets a cat it likely won't survive the encounter. It wouldn't survive to learn from the fatal error.”

  “Exactly. Sure, there is some instincts and maybe the smell of death mixed in with the smell of the cat. The odd mouse survives the cat attack, but it's not the norm. But most mice live their whole life never encountering a cat, yet fear them. Now, from a cat's point of view, what is the difference between a cat and a mouse?”

  “The cat encounters many mice, they know how they act, how they behave. They are clearly a weaker species that they prey on. They exist for them to feast on, for them to practise killing by playing with them.”

  “Ok. So we have Specters and Net Lords, who is the cat and who is the mouse?”

  “Logically, we are the mice and the Net Lords are the cats.”

  “Ah, but the mouse is not aware of the cat. We are well aware of what the cat is, so we can't be mice. I would say we're also the cat.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Thinking we're mice all the time, walking around here in echo-suits, hiding from the cats we just exist until they catch us and gobble us up. But if we accept we're cats at times, if we walk like a cat, strut around like a cat with no fear we're stronger.”

  “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you're weak.”

  She shrugs her shoulders in agreement, “That's the concept in far less words. I've never heard it explained like that.”

  “It's not my idea, it's from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, an ancient book on military tactics. I came across a copy years ago.”

  “You read?” She says, glancing at him with a grin.

  “How can you be a cat if you're as small as a mouse?” He says, glancing over at her flashing a wry grin.

  “Hey Bucket?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You're kind of a fricken arse hole.”

  Bucket chuckles. “Ok, so, we need to not think like a Specter or Net Lord in order to find Leech.”

  “Yes. A cat would stroll around like all the other cats, like the Net Lords and us through the crowd. A mouse would hide in the shadows. But Leech is hidden from view, he has no fear of being caught or of scaring others. So what would that make him?”

  “I guess he would be the dog. Yeah, that makes sense. The dog doesn't bother with the mouse, and has no fear of the cat. So the dog will be...” Looking down the street, a block away is a figure walking down the exact middle of the road as traffic blasts past him. “You see'n that?”

  “Yes, we got our dog.”

  With a bark they move to the middle of the road and start running towards the figure in his echo-suit. Like most events above in the Hype, traffic is mostly predetermined, it's been the same traffic flow in the Hype for at least 90 years. All they have to do is stay in the middle and the traffic will move in it's predetermined route.

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  Bucket finds the blocky, generic look of the real world vehicles more disturbing then seeing how they're textured in the Hype. There are sedans, pickup trucks and cube vans in the city, only three vehicle types. The squared edge seem ominous, like they'll clip their shoulders.

  They catch up to him fast. “Wait, we can't take him out in the middle of the street. Pull off to the side when we get a bit closer.” Bucket says. They get a bit closer and pull off to the sidewalk.

  They look at the figure in the distance, it's a warm spring day, there are grey clouds cutting through the clear yellow sky threatening to assault them with a torrent of rain. The ions firing off in the air forces the hair on the back of their arms on edge. A wave of rain rolls towards them from the direction of the man down the street.

  His hand to his brow, tented how a civvie thinks they salute, Bucket squints looking down the street, the rain running off the top of his hand. The man walks over to the sidewalk. They mirror his moves, now half a block away. The man looks back, they quickly duck into an alley, with all the pedestrians Bucket hopes he didn't see him.

  Flowing back and forth and around like bits of styrofoam in a brackish wash, the white plastic clad Net Lords bob around the sidewalk through the torrential rain. Like a herd of drifting sheep with eyes as black as the void, they drift as one. Bucket peeks around the corner; one of the flock is staring at him with black listless eyes. The wolf in sheep's clothing has just acknowledged he sees another wolf on the hunt.

  Buckets been made.

  “He made us Tales.” Bucket says with only his lips moving.

  The man slowly turns, then scurry's down the street like a mouse, his strides wide with the power of the echo-suit he pulls away.

  The man disappears from view down an alley, they catch up. “I know this alley, it's a dead end, he's going for the fire escape.” She turns the corner of the alley, revolver shots ring out. She's hit in the chest at least once. Bucket turns the corner, the man's story up, on the fire escape, pulling a second revolver. Bucket levels his AR at him and fires. The man in the suit takes a half dozen shots, mostly on his legs. His revolver falls to the ground, he's limping moving up the fire escape.

  Bucket turns to Tails, two holes have ripped through her shirt in the chest, she looks dazed. He rips her shirt open to see where she's shot, mentally getting ready for just how bad she will be hurt. The two bullet holes have healed already, the rain washing away the blood. Her face is flush as she pulls her shirt closed.

  “Frick Bucket, did you have to do that? You know how fast I heal...”

  “I... um... good, you're not dying.”

  “This is going to be one of those things we don't talk about Bucket.” She says, getting to her feet.

  They run over to the fire escape, he boosts her up to the lower landing. She lowers the ladder for him.

  They climb the slippery fire escape, arriving at the top they peek over the edge and climb up. The man is by a skylight, he turns to them, his legs are shot up, he took a couple of rounds in the chest.

  The figure crashes through the sky light. They rush over, Bucket jumps down first. The man is closer than he anticipated in the dark room. With the power of the echo-suit he slams Bucket in the chest with a back hand, Bucket takes the blow with a sickening crunch, spun around like a top before hitting the floor. Tales leaps down as the man leaves the room.

  “You OK Bucket?”

  “Yeah, help me up.” She pulls him up and they continue the chase. Bucket arms his EMP dispenser. They hear him going down the stairs. They arrive on his tail, it's a full shop, over 30 Net Lords. He recognizes the record shop, there are empty boxes where the LP's are shown in the Hype. The man is running to the closest Net Lord. Bucket levels the EMP launcher at him and fires. The claws with a wire extend into the echo-suit, the electricity surges through the echo-suit, freezing him in place.

  He has a device in his hand, music from the Hype starts playing; it's a Ramons tune. Shaking, the device drops, bouncing once, twice, the third time it lands on the Net Lords toe.

  All 30 some odd Net Lords in the room turn to them; the man's device hitting the Net Lord set off a contact alert.

  “Oh Bucket, why couldn't you just do the damn report?” The man says.

  “Commander Underwood?” Bucket exclaims.

  Bucket and Tales draw their AR's and start taking out Net Lords, the room is chaos, revolver fire is shot back at them. They drop to the ground, shooting the closest ones under the racks, nailing them in the head after they fall. They run to the checkout counter to get cover, a couple of dozen revolvers firing at them from all directions. Concrete from the wall behind them rains down as the revolvers pelt it.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Bucket asks.

  “Watching you die.” Underwood retorts.

  “Oh no, you're going to see me take your ass in.” Bucket pulls him down, his echo-suit locked in place he falls like a knocked over clothing store mannequin.

  “Are you sure that's the play?” He says.

  “Tales, we need to get the hell out of here, we need this cleared fast. I'll give you cover fire, stay low.”

  “10-4.”

  Bucket peers over the counter, firing high, spraying automatic fire. Tales runs out, hunched low. He ducks to reload, he can hear her machete clanging on metal, cracking the polymer panels of the suit. He peeks up again, nailing a couple of them in the chest, Tales is cutting through them.

  The shooting stops, the low murmur of janked servo motors and leaking hydraulic fluid squirting on the floor can be heard. He blows the emergency panel on Underwood's echo-suit, entering his code nothing happens, the code should force Underwood's suit to do an emergency purge. He enters the Colonels code, and initiates the emergency purge. Underwood coughs as the suit falls off him, the kinetic jell layer underneath melts, the nano-bots pulling it out of his lungs and stomach.

  “Damn you, Foresters codes?” He says, between his coughing fit.

  “What can I say boss, I'm good. Now shut the fuck up, pull another contact alert and you're gone without the cloaking echo-suit.”

  “Bucket, your boss is a bit of a fricken arsehole.” She stomps his communicator, the music stops.

  Underwood snorts, “Well aren't you your Mothers Daughter.” She looks at him, mouth ajar, a pensive far off look in her eyes. He forces Underwood to his feet with his pistol to his back, Tales heads out in front of him, Bucket spits, it's red.

  “Let's get the hell out of...”

  It hit's Tales first, she drops to her knees. Bucket has a split second look of confusion, then the high pitch whine slams into his skull, like his brain is vibrating he drops to his knees and falls over. He's paralyzed, shaking, he sees Tales laying on her side drooling, eyes wide open. The sound stops, his jaw chatters, Tales looks in much worse shape than him, she looks comatose with her eyes open.

  His eyes move up, he sees a man look down at them with a sonic wave modulator in his hand. The man helps Underwood get to his feet.

  “Ha, how's your boosted hearing treating you now Tales?” Underwood says with a sneer, “Bind her quick before she recovers, don't underestimate her in any way. We'll take them back. You two are under arrest.”

  “Yes Commander.” Leech responds.