Short Story - King of the Stacks (Part 2)

A homeless boy in the slums has his life changed forever when he begins chasing down mysterious airdrops from the sky. This is an original story set in the Cyberpunk universe.

The next week went by much like the last. Part-time beggar, part-time thief. It wouldn't be much longer until the haggard boy would fill his belly like true royalty.

The drops came on all seven days, and the times would vary depending on the day. Today is Thursday. It dropped at 8am. Last Thursday, they came at 8am, and 4pm. Last Friday, it was 11am, and 7pm. With eight hour intervals, the next one would be at 4pm.

The AV would release them seemingly at a whim, and the thrusters only had minimal guidance to ensure it lands safely. Lew has counted 16 total landings. 5 in Luxor Heights, one in Longshore, one beside the stadium, 6 in Golden Pacific, 3 in Terra Cognita. The map was dotted with X’s, and while there had been no repeat landings, he noticed a pattern starting to form. 

The crates had guided landing thrusters ensuring they wouldn’t crash into the sides of buildings. That left Lew to fill in the gaps of “suspected zones”, and it left him with a shockingly narrow window. Now, all he had left was to close it.

The screeching of the thrusters could be heard all the way from the Stacks. Lew was already halfway to it by the time the red smoke started to rise. He’d never run so fast toward anything in his life. The scuffed up, beaten down sneakers were scraping soles on the concrete. They were burning more rubber than a turbo-charged Thorton. Now he could see the crate. It was off Andrew Jackson, by the old Akebono hotel. Directly in the middle of a neighboring hotel’s rooftop pool was a plume of red. Surrounding the rooftop lounge was dirt, rubble, and all sorts of wrecked construction machinery from a bygone era. One side was level with the road leading up to Terra Cognita while the other led to a 30ft. drop.

Pacifica was only a faded picture of luxury. Its people knew that, but not Lew. He saw the shining blue lights of the Black Sapphire and the fighting last stand that is the Heavy Hearts. Lew watched as the combat cabs escorted corpo VIPs to all the city’s hotspots with their own personal entourage of neon-green bodyguards. No, he needed to believe this city still had love to give.

As fast as his organic legs could muster sprinting up the hill, they weren’t fast enough. In the blink of an eye, a man of chrome and rose gold has boosted up the side of the hotel, his cyberlegs compensating for both the jump and the landing. This machine of a man was already opening the crate when his partner, a noticeably less metal woman, clambered up the scaffolding.

Up the road, Lew could spot a group of scavengers running down the street from Terra Cognita fully armed. His first instinct was to warn the two unaware solos. His second, and more recent one, was to keep quiet and get in close. Lew scrambles off the street and slides in behind a rusted-up bulldozer. He has a clear view of the crate, and the rubble obfuscates the view from the road enough so that he could slip in and take a peek inside while the two parties had their party.

The solos are quickly reaching in and tossing things out onto the ground. There are layers of foam stacked inside that protect the various items carved into them. It’s like Christmas day for Lew as the pair unbox their gift. In one such foam layer, various types of handguns. The next present under the tree has some kind of combat injectors. 

A synthesized voice shouts in Russian from up the hill, around the hotel. The two solos scrounging through the crate immediately look at each other and reach for their weapons. The box slams shut, and the pair make their way up toward the road. Soon after, the bullets start to fly. Masked by the deafening sounds of gunfire, Lew springs from cover and sprints toward the airdrop. Then, in the next second, he's there. No, he's not. Lew almost falls as momentum shoots him past his target and he course-corrects. Hands shaking with adrenaline meet the bright red crate, but the crate does not budge. In fact, it’s locked itself.

Lew’s rattling fingers can barely fit into his pocket to pull out his ICEpick, and his next immediate problem is finding where the damn thing slots in. That jumps to the bottom of his worries when he looks up to find the lady solo has not run into the hailstorm of bullets but has instead positioned herself behind a rock for cover. And she’s looking right at him.

“Fuck!” Lew panics and dives away from the crate. He shoves his ICEpick back into his pocket and begins grasping for anything he can find from the tossed-out foam mats. A couple of boosters have fallen loose and scattered along the bottom of the pool. Lew quickly snatches them up and takes the biggest pistol he can find. He glances over his shoulder and now sees the woman is aiming her rifle at him. Without hesitation, Lew dashes to the edge of the rooftop and hops over. He knew the scaffolding was below him, but he didn’t know that there was a large gap in the uppermost platform.

The fall was sudden and harsh. Lew’s knees took the brunt of the impact, and he very nearly fell the rest of the distance off the scaffold. The sharp pain in his legs made him feel like throwing up. Those final few cylinders still working in his brain told him to fight through and keep moving. The gunfire was dying down, which meant so too were the scavs. All it would take is a quick peek over the edge for them to get him. That, or a blind leap.

Clasped in his left hand was the gun he had stolen. Pistol was an understatement; the thing is a hand cannon. It felt as though it was molded for titans—metal hands and steel nerves. The gun had to weigh at least 10 pounds. Lew didn't know anything about it beyond point and shoot. He only hoped his arms wouldn't give out doing the first of those two.

Lew was well enough away from the drop once the gunfire stopped. Why didn't she shoot? he wondered. He thought that the gun must've jammed, lady luck smiling upon him in a time of need. It's easier to accept than the fact that this twelve-year-old kid was not worth wasting the bullets on. Moral weight, or a tactical decision? Lew is no child of fortune.

He was in the clear, but his mind was fogged more than ever. Plan? What plan? His body felt cold. It was aching, it was sick. With every step he took, he could feel his legs getting closer to giving in. What's my next step? he asks. This one. And now this one. On he walks towards the Stacks, ambling alongside the road at a kingly leisure. Or is it a walk of shame? All he had was an inhaler and iron, it was hardly the gold from the proverbial pot he sought to liberate.

“Hey, kid,” a voice says from behind. He didn’t even hear the car pull up.

Lew could feel his heartbeat thicken, jumping up into his throat and suffocating him. Clearly it had deafened him, too. He felt flush, only the best he had was an ace high. It was the woman from before. What gave him away? Was he walking too fast? One too many side-to-side glances, or was she simply stopping to check on him? Lew couldn’t bother to entertain that possibility. Right now, he was the entertainment—the main attraction. He’s seen what they do to people who steal from Barghest. He saw the missing limbs, the burdened nooses and burial pits by the walls that keep them in. It’s better to stay a witness than become the victim.

“Hey,” the woman repeats.

How far to the Stacks, again? Lew pulls out the military-grade inhaler from his pocket, pops off the safety cap, and sucks in the taste of freedom. His head immediately clears, and his skin begins to tingle. Then his performance enhanced legs begin to move. One after the other, at an ungodly speed, they move. He feels as though he’s walking on air, flowing between time itself. Even in this state, that wouldn’t be enough to outrun a moving car.

They knew the streets, but he knew the alleys. Once Lew made it into the Stacks, he'd be untouchable. The first thing he did was get off the road. There was a border surrounding the shanty district, but most of it was man-made gates and walls. Directly off the road to his left was another abandoned hotel. The only vehicle that could follow him through the busted-up windows and rundown hallways of that would be a bulldozer. They never finished construction, it's not hard to imagine they'd have just as tough a time with destruction.

The boy made a mad dash through the lobby and past the check-in. He didn't bother making any reservations, because just as quickly as he was in, he was out the rear emergency exit and into the dark tunnels leading to the Stacks. Lew had some belief that he was safe, but he couldn't stop running. His heart was punching the inside of his chest, continuous one-two combos bleeding out to all parts of his body. It was trying to escape, but he wouldn't let it. He felt alive, more than he ever knew he could feel. This wasn't a kid anymore; his blood ran rich. Air intake adequate. He was royalty.

A voice comes in over the radio, the woman from the car. “Code 2, code 2. Got a runner heading northbound into the Stacks. Young boy. Tan skin, dark hair. He’s all skezzed out.”

Fernando knew just the one. He’d see the boy on his patrol route every day at the Tree of the Lost. Nanz had a good eye for pickpockets and thieves. The kid didn’t live beyond his means, he knew when and where to sustain. Small crumbs here and there didn't leave a bread trail worth following. That was until now.

There wasn’t much to do patrolling this particular district of the Stacks. Nanz watched the market, which meant all he had to do was sit and wait. He’d do this all day, almost every day. Sometimes he’d whittle figures, sometimes he’d play guitar. But wait for what? Wait for his past to catch up? Maybe, or wait for the future to present itself.

Lew appeared almost like an apparition from the alleys, and he disappeared just as quickly, remaining full sprint. Here it was. Nanz jumps off the couch, spitting his cigarette into the dirt and leaving it in the dust. The wide-open market soon became a maze of tightly packed containers and steel beams.

“I know that kid, he’s got a little hidey-hole at the north basketball court! D-block!” Nanz says over his radio.

“Alright stay there, we'll sweep the sector,” a new voice says on the radio. Nanz recognizes it from one of the other people patrolling the Stacks.

“You gonks lost another kid in the Stacks?” the patrol woman says.

“Yeah you lost him too, Kenzie.”

“Clear comms,” an older, more brash voice comes in—the sector sergeant. “Any non-pertinent chatter, keep it in your fucking sector.”

Nanz stays on a swivel, drowning out the radio and scanning the muddy alleys for anything suspicious. Nothing but makeshift tents tucked under overhangs and the occasional stray resting on a lawn chair. He soon makes it to the basketball court, where a few teenagers are hanging out and playing a game.

“¡Oye!” Nanz gets the attention of the teens. The two playing immediately stop their game, letting the ball roll towards a wall.

“Young homeless boy live around here?” he asks. A Haitian girl sitting on the sidelines in a blue lawn chair blows a gum bubble before responding.

 “Which one?“

“Ah, Jesús Cristo. Dark hair, brown skinned—not like you, like me.”

“Mmm…” the girl buzzes like a wasp… and she won't stop. Nanz is just now starting to catch his breath, which keys him in that she's stalling.

“Un pinche—you! Point guard!” Nanz points at one of the players.

He scratches his head, “Yeah, I seen the little choom up-n-about. If it's the one I'm thinkin’, he stay up in that red container behind you.”

A seventeen foot wall of metal greets Nanz as he turns around. Eight feet up, on the topmost box, the door is slightly ajar. A gaggle of giggles come from the basketball court.

All of a sudden, the bubble-blowing Haitian is far more talkative. “Yeah, that boy pull Ninjutsu shit to get up there. He got more hops than these fools, se vre.” 

Nanz turns around and steps onto the court, like an invisible boundary was just breached.

“You fuckin’ with me?” he asks the point guard. The teen takes a step back, shaking his head.

The other player decides to finally speak up. “I seen him up there, sir, he watches from time to time. He really does climb up, though.”

It takes a second glance before seeing the scuff marks on the concrete wall beside the container. Nanz was not as athletically inclined. He walks over to the bubblegum girl and gestures to her to stand. A half dozen chairs were scattered across the court, but he wanted this one. 

He may no longer be part of the family, but they're still part of him. There's something in there about respect and hierarchy. In hierarchy, there's something about the duality in imposition. Send and receive.

Bubblegum girl rolls her eyes, the neon-coated tocaor boosting himself up into the container using the blue chair. Inside is dark, there's minimal light bleeding through. A flashlight reveals all sorts of odds and ends. A stack of books, a pen and paper. The kid was schooling himself. And what’s this? A lockbox?

The entire container structure screams in excitement as a proper boxing match ensues. It takes a good dozen or so thwacks against the wall until things come to an end. The larger opponent prevails, of course, and the contents of the smaller red lockbox go spilling to the floor. Nanz is winded once again but manages to let out a breathy chuckle as he finds what’s inside.

A small torn piece of a photograph, not much larger than his thumb, smiles up at him. The face is familiar, it’s the same one that he’d smiled back at. On the paper is a photo of a young boy, around 8 or 9, with tanned skin and dark hair. He has hazel eyes, and a missing tooth still going through the growing pains. It’s Lew, lost and soon to be found.

“¿Cuál soldado estúpido?” Nanz whispers to himself mockingly, slouching into a seat against the container wall. Nanz tucks the photograph into one of his vest pockets, whichever one didn’t have his cigarettes and guitar picks in it.

“Market’s clear, no sign of suspect,” a voice says over his radio.

Then, another. “B-block clear.”

Another. “He crossed over somewhere back near the Scraper. Let's get a patrol swarming around E-block ‘cuz I guaran-fucking-tee that little gonk'll keep trying to shake us there.”

The chirping feedback is harsh and resonant inside the structure, so Nanz decides to break protocol and turn it off. There’s only the hum of the slums now, that and the chatter of the teenagers by the court. 

“You have to understand, this is just how things were done—are done. I wasn’t a war reporter, I was a poor schmuck just like all these other kids. Inexperienced, naive, used. What use was a newly hired county boy BD critic in a Nevada FOB? Exactly nothing. Trial by fire, doused with kerosene.

I felt betrayed by WNS, sure, but they read me like a book. I could’ve quit my job and risked it as some small fry radio jockey spewing off ads and getting in my little five minute spots, but I rode that fine line between wanting more in life and being too inadequate to achieve it. It was perfect for them.

There’s no feeling quite like being stationed behind enemy lines. You know you’re a black sheep, but the herd can’t excise you. You’re press. So they flock together and watch with trepidation. It could’ve been a great comfort, really, knowing I had that power.

But here I was, daydreaming about break room coffee parties and weekends jogging the trail with my input. My journalistic field work was jerking it to virtus in my tent, yearning for the real action back home. I got caught up in the disparity of it all, reviewing BD-action flicks and exposing war crimes. It played right into their expectations.

I was in the fire, and they all wanted me to burn. I knew there was no alleviation. Not in hell, not ‘till heaven.

It had only been five or so minutes, but to Nanz it felt like hours in the book. It did its job. Time has passed. The soundscape has shifted. Chatter from the court has subsided. Wait, it has only just now subsided. Someone half-heartedly snaps their fingers below. Someone's trying not to be heard. Someone's trying to hide something.

Nanz quietly places the book on the floor of the container and turns his flashlight off. Slowly, he rises, trying to not disturb the metal structure. Through the crack, Nanz can see the point guard leaned over, whispering something to the boy. The boy. In the same instance that Lew looks up at the container, the door swings open and Nanz jumps out.

Lew has already disappeared around the corner by the time Nanz collects himself, having landed roughly from quite a height. The teens begin mimicking the sounds of dogs barking as Nanz chases after the boy, now cheering on the Barghest soldier.

A high pitched chirp sounds the reactivation of Nanz’ radio.

“In pursuit of suspect, southbound towards the market!”

“Copy.”

Lew with his short legs isn't faster than Nanz, but he does have distance and distance creates separation. He takes a sharp left and heads east underneath The Spire—a large cylinder of condominiums bridged to a neighboring hotel.

Nanz is staring down a long alley with empty ends. The kid couldn't have gone straight, the path is too long and too busy. Cut right, and he heads to the E-block. Swarmed. Nanz decides to take the left field once again and head for The Spire.

 On the exterior, the unfinished walls and skeletal interior are draped by dozens of hundred foot long Auroch tarps, a sea green reminder of shattered dreams. At the base of The Spire was a roundabout carpool that connected to Kress Street. The building itself was seated directly above by steel support beams, and the lobby was a modest purgatory lounge meant to send people hundreds of feet up into the heavens. That's where Lew was now headed.

There were a fair few loiterers who used the carpool area as shelter from the elements. No sign of Lew. The lobby of the building is in complete disrepair, occupied by the homeless and lit only by glow sticks and lanterns. Despite this, power was connected to the grid, which meant the elevators worked.

Eight. Ten. Eleven. The faded red indicator above the elevator flickered, struggling and lagging as it counted the floors ascended. Nanz stops himself in front of the elevator and lets out a chuckle. He’s bent over, trying to catch his breath, but he can still crane his neck up and watch the numbers climb. Lew was finally on his way to the top. Seventeen. Twenty. Twenty-four. The numbers stop rising. Nanz stares up at the screen, now static. Twenty-four. The panel next to the elevator doors is stripped, exposed wiring snaking out like vines. Two scratched up buttons still remain intact, dull and unlit. Nanz reaches out, and the down arrow comes to life.

Concrete gray consumes every inch of the unfinished paradise. Lew bounces around the dim hall like a pinball, slamming his body into the plywood panels covering the doorways. None budge. None need to. The fourth one down on the left has no plywood panel, only caution tape. Light shines through from the other side and bleeds out into the hallway. Lew can’t contain his excitement; he sprints down the corridor and barges right through.

When funding for Pacifica dried up during the war, The Spire was well underway towards housing its lavish NeoKitsch tenants. Most of the lower floors had electrics, plumbing, the whole works. The high money penthouses at the top never got made, bare concrete foundations being the only evidence of their existence. Floor twenty-four was somewhere in the middle. Wood boards were installed over the doorways to prevent squatting, and inside the rooms themselves were empty window frames and various construction materials. Lew felt the consequences of his ambition immediately.

As far as he could tell, the hounds of Barghest were still gnashing at his heels waiting to maul him at any moment. They wouldn’t string him up for his crimes, there would be no usurpation. Time lags behind actions and events when on boosters, even adults feel this effect to an extent. Lew tripped and fell ten seconds ago, and only now is it beginning to register. The bright light of the sun blinded him as he crashed through the doorway. It wasn’t until he hit the ground that his eyes adjusted and saw the wood planks and circular saw. And blood. First drops, then a small puddle. Capillarian crimson spills out of a gash along the side of his leg. Fatal? Maybe.

Lew goes to stand, but he can’t. It’s not pain that stops him, it’s his body. He’s beginning to slow down and catch up with himself. That’s when he starts to notice. His mouth is dry. His throat is tight. His chest feels like it’s underwater and his face is a pufferfish, numb and bloated. Is he drowning?

A haunting, garbled beep signalled the stop of the elevator on the twenty-fourth floor. Nanz had to squint just to make out any detail in the hallway beyond a uniform grey. He reaches into one of his vest pouches and pulls out a flashlight. The entire place is eerily quiet, and the clicking of the light in contrast makes him tense up. It takes Nanz a couple of moments to process he’s in control, and that he is the dread. The Constitutional Arms pistol in his left hand serves as a solid reminder.

“It’s over, güey. Come on out.”

Lew is sitting in the corner of the bright room, looking out the open window toward the Pacific Ocean. He struggles to hold up the revolver he’s had aimed at the doorway, his arm shaking from the weight of it all. Is he weak? Is the gun heavy? No to both. Shadows conceal him at this particular angle, but he knew he wasn’t hidden. Like the rest of this building, he was condemned. Heavy footsteps draw close in the hallway, then they stop closer.

“You’re bleeding,” the man says on the other side of the doorway. The trail leads from the center of the room right to Lew, tucked in the corner to the left of the door.

“You armed?” he continues.

“Fuck off!” Lew exclaims.

“Shit, you hard, but I’m patient. I can wait. You don’t wanna sit here and bleed out in this dump.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“What, and fight with time? Or run where? You got a two-hundred foot drop between here and home. Ain’t no gliding to salvation, güey.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“A’ight. What do I call you?”

Lew doesn’t respond, instead stewing in the silence. Maybe the problem will go away if he just shuts his eyes and ignores it. Nanz backs away from the door, resting his back against the wall.

“I seen you down at the tree. Every evening. Tough, ain’t it? No family? Lost in life? You got fight in you, snatching SCOP scraps for a quick snack. And yeah, you’re good with it too, not like those other huevos. But you can’t carry that shit on your own in NC, not forever. 'Specially not in Dogtown. ‘Specially not someone your age. Just ain’t possible.”

More silence.

“Come on, you wanna wait it out, then talk to me. No one tells me nothing. What was you running away from? What'd you do?”

The question is made rhetorical. Thirty seconds pass unanswered, then a handful more. Nanz is soon reminded of his obligations.

“Any new leads on the boy runner?” a voice says over the radio. It’s the sector sergeant. No one’s answering, which means no one has leads. Well, that would check out.

“Got something in D-block, searching The Spire,” Nanz responds.

“Copy.”

More silence.

“Do we know what the runner’s suspected of?” Nanz asks.

Static comes through the other end, like someone is trying to answer but can’t quite let out the words. Eventually, the sergeant’s voice comes through.

“...As previously stated, an eyewit confirms him fleeing from Andrew Jackson. We got foreign bodies up by the 1600 drop, so gunfire probably spooked him. Shake and snip.”

“Copy.”

“This is your only warning. Keep your fuckin’ radio on, Cervantes.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Nanz pushes himself off the wall and leans against the open doorway, rhythmically tapping the magazine well of his pistol against the frame.

“Hear that? Shake and snip—means they ain’t got shit. You’re off the hook. Don't know why you run in the first place, choom. Whole lot of hullabaloo for nothing. Gonna let me come in, look at that wound?”

The only sound that responds is the howling of the wind coming from the open wall inside, spilling out into the hall. There’s a deathly chill that accompanies it.

“You still there?”

The rhythmic tapping of the gun stops, instead replaced by one from his foot. It’s much more rapid; anxious.

“...I’m coming in, okay?”

Fernando’s eyes took far less time to adjust, and he didn’t like what he saw when they did. Upon a closer inspection, a small chunk of skin stuck to the blade of the circular saw. The safety cover had been raised, just one more of the many carefree oversights from fed up and overworked laborers. A scattered and splattered trail led to a leg sticking out into the light. It has a long, deep gash still dripping blood onto the ground. Not quite to the bone, but hardly a flesh wound. A puddle about as wide as a dinner plate has formed underneath it.

Upon raising his flashlight, Nanz sees the boy slumped against the wall, eyes closed.

“Ay dios.”

He quickly places his gun down and clasps two fingers and a thumb on the sides of the boy’s throat. The pulse is strong and accelerated, more than should be for someone unconscious. It’s arrhythmic, but Nanz thanks God that there even is one. He didn’t lose too much blood; it must’ve been whatever drug he was on. Next, Nanz pulls out a tourniquet from one of his waist pouches and fastens it around the boy’s thigh.

In the kid’s right hand, a Malorian Overture. It takes no effort to confiscate it, far less than deciding what to do with it. Nanz knows immediately upon seeing the serial number that the kid was more than just an onlooker. This came from the drop.

The cylinder clicks open. Empty. Nanz untucks his t-shirt and conceals the gun in his waistband.

“Found the runner boy, he’s injured but breathing. Bystander, as mentioned. He’s clean.”

“Copy. Return to patrol.”

Nanz lets out a frustrated sigh at the response, his wrist shaking as if the blood circulation has been cut to his hand and he’s trying to reawaken it.

“Volver a ronda….” he whispers to himself, “Vete a la verga.”

Nanz kneels down and scoops his arm underneath the boy’s back. Lifting him is surprisingly easy, easier than he would have thought. His hands are steady now. The bleeding has slowed, but it still remains. Fernando’s vest of neon green is slowly becoming smeared with red as the wound brushes against it. 

“C'mon soldier, let’s find you a doctor,” Nanz says. He steps into the elevator and, careful not to bump the boy’s head against the wall, presses the ‘one’ button with his finger. The subtle blue glow of the indicator lights up the otherwise dark cabin. Then the doors close.

To Be Continued...