Futuro - No Dogs in Philly: A Cyberpunk Noir

No Dogs

in Philly

Andy Futuro

Copyright 201 4 June Day Press

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1500735639

ISBN-13: 978-1500735630

Cover illustration by Alex Eckman-Lawn

To Teofil, MC, G.E., Jamike, and Sky

Pronunciation Guide

Gaespora: Guy-ass-pour-a

Elzi: El-zee

Saru: Sah-roo

Ria: Ree-uh

UausuaU: You-ows-you-ow. Often abbreviated to Uau.

Wekba: Wake-bah

ElilE: Ee-lie-uh-lee

Hemu: He-moo

IlusithariusuirahtisulI: Ill-oo-suh-thar-ee-us-ear-ah-tuh-sul-eye

Saru had ignored the calls from the Philadelphia Daily, the call from Frank Galloway to appear on Wake the Hell Up! Philly , the call from Lorelei Ilesella to be interviewed on Tonight Tonight , and even a call from Mayor Whitlows press secretary requesting a photo op. The call that gave her the greatest pleasure to ignore came from the Gaespora. It came in the usual fashion of summons from the ultra-wealthy and ultra-powerful wishing to impress. There was a custom sonata su-tone that had been attuned to her psychosomatic profile. The image that appeared on her player was of a peaceful green forest with a trickling brookit was a pretty accurate re-creation of the forest behind her parents farmhouse in Tyrone. This told her all she needed know: they wanted her, and her specifically. She hit ignore.

Five seconds later the su-tone appeared again, the son ata and the image of her parents forest. She hit ignore again. Five seconds later there was a new su-tonenot pleasant piano, just a horrible grating, like scratched vinyl and kitchen knives clattering in the sink. The forest was burned to the ground and the river ran with blood. What the fuck? She hit ignore. Shed never seen any su-tone like it. She ordered her player to ignore all messages from suspected Gaesporan nodes.

The su-tone appeared again, about five minutes later , and now she was pissed. She had spent good money on an override, floating a standard bid of over $3,000 to block commercial calls. Any jackass dumb enough to call her private line would have to pay at least that amount to make an attempt. It worked in screening out the riffraff but she realized there was no way she could win a bidding war with the Gaespora. They could keep her player ringing day and night for a lifetime. She unfastened the dime-sized player from below her right earlobe and placed it on the center of her desk. She retrieved Ethics in the Age of Knowing (a gift from Eugene, never opened) from the otherwise empty bookshelf, held it over her head, and smashed the player just as it began the vinyl scratching again. Problem solved.

The next morning her office was closed. The whole damn building, forty-five stories, right on the corner of Thirteenth and Locust. There was a crowd of confused workers out front surrounding the superintendent, who was trying pudgily to answer their questions: Whats going on? Why is the building closed? Why cant we get to work and trundle on in our sad, sad lives?

The building is under new ownership, the super said, shouting over the crowd. Theyve changed all the locks.

What do you mean new ownership? How is that possible?

Please , people, I know just as much as you do at this point. I got the call this morning. No one gets in.

Thats not legal!

You cant do that!

What about our jobs?

What about our stuff?

Saru left and turned down Walnut Street, walking east, no particular destination in mind. They had taken her player and her officefor there could be no misunderstanding the message. They wanted her, bad, and they were willing to spend a lot of money and inconvenience a lot of other people to get to her. There were, as far as she knew, over sixty different businesses, large and small in her buildingshe occupied a tiny two-room office on the thirteenth floor that didnt even have its own bathroom. They could have sent two toughs to stand in front of her door or bribed someone to change the locks, but they bought the whole damn building and all that headache.

She found a Nikafe and bought a small black that she jazzed up with a splash or five of bourbon from her flask. She sat at a small table facing the window and watched the people hurry by. It had started to rain, gray drops for a black sky. An elzi lay outside in front of her, body blocking the gutter. The water pooled around him, black, acidic, rising to his neck. She wondered if he would drown.

Th is was a lucrative age for the private investigatorso many people disappearing, and a weak, underfunded, unmotivated, amoralized police force more likely to take a bribe than a stab at a criminal. Saru was good, she knew, but hardly the best, and maybe no one else realized how lucky shed been in the Favre case. Nine times out of ten it was a kid looking into the UausuaU, no real mystery to solvefuck, her job was 90 percent maid servicebut the Favre job just happened to be an honest kidnapping and she just happened to be friends with enough scumbags to get a good tip.

The rescue was a solid piece of work, she had to admit. The kidnappers were suspected Puritans, crusaders, implant and improvement free as whatever God made them. They had taken the child not for ransom but to bring him over to their way of thinking with good old-fashioned torturethe family had gotten some fingernails in the mail. The kid was a scion of the Favre, the family that owned Priamco that owned Freedom Innovation Technologies (FIT) that begat Diasis that manufactured all manner of vaccines against the diseases of sin. It was an odd target as the Favre had about as much operational knowledge of Diasis as Saru did of her own small intestine, but the Puritans didnt strike her as being a particularly educated bunch.

She had hired a few mercenaries to go on the hunt with her. There was a Net ranger named Pollycock, whod proved useless as the Puritans obviously didnt use Net technology. Shed found a sniffer on South Street, a scent fetishist who had jammed a screwdriver in his eyes and ears to focus on his favored sense. He had a keyboard on his wrist, a real hack job held in place with chicken wire, but it worked well enough to communicate and hammer out a deal. Shed figured that if these folks were serious in their beliefs theyd have to stick to a pretty narrow diet to avoid Gaesporan food alteration and theyd have a unique smell. It didnt turn out to be the casethe sniffer was good but not that good and there were all kinds of other things that got in the way. Leading him around the city on a leash, shed seen how the general reek of shit and garbage confused even a man who could sniff out a pig from his donut farts.

They had to be in the AZ, the Assistance Zone. There was barely any technology there, no cornercams or autometers, fuck, not even running water or a secu rity spike in most places. Any Net access points would be illegal and unmonitored. There was a great mass of elzi, lured by the unmonitored Net access and the assistance points, the great pillbox buildings that delivered food weekly to the poor and useless. Originally actual humans had distributed the food aid, but that plan had been scuttled quick as the elzi didnt wait in line and they didnt fill out paperwork. Every Monday underground trolleys brought in food to the distribution centers. It was raised up on elevators, the domes opened, and elzi swarmed over the feast in an orgy of consumption. Paradoxically, this was the safest day to venture into the Assistance Zonean elzi was less likely to take a lick at your throat if he had bread in his belly. Every month or so a resolution was entered in council to poison the food and clear out the elzi menace, but the rehabbers always shot it down. Idiots.

She had ventured in on a Monday with the sniffer, no real plan other than to follow his nose and find some granola-munching zealots. They had wandered aimlessly, almost running into a n elzi frenzy, which seemed to excite the sniffer for some reason. The very odors that repelled her, the diarrhea reek of decay the elzi exuded, were ambrosia to him. She thanked her private God that shed been blessed with fetishes considered close enough to normal.