MECHFLESH

The future, a body divided, flesh and machine. The fate of all depends on a fallen space cowgirl.

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How does it begin…?

Under the grand portico of the Frawley Building, the compstate officer stepped into the shadows. He buttoned his green woolen jacket against the cold May night and glanced at his glowing ptenda: he had twenty-five minutes until another officer relieved him.

He jumped at the shatter of glass: close to him, maybe one block east. He reached for the IR goggles on his forehead and slid them over his eyes. With a soft whir the lenses focused on a target. Telemetry danced along the periphery of the central image, a mechflesh stranger exiting a closed grocery store carrying a package.

The stranger crossed the empty street and entered an alley next to the officer.

Good thing he doesn’t have upgraded lids, the officer thought.

He followed the stranger into the alley.

“Stop!”

The stranger dropped his package, a lone can rolled to the officer’s feet.

More telemetry arrived in the goggles. The package contents couldn’t hide from compstate security.

“Stealing food are we?”

The stranger looked from the package to the officer. He was a beefy mechflesh man with two hydraulic legs and an exoskeleton to support working with heavy equipment. Probably a farmer.

“My-my kids are starving.”

The officer nodded. “Kids?” He picked up the can. “Kids shouldn’t go hungry.” He looked at his ptenda, no other patrols were nearby. “Go, quickly, before I change my mind.”

He was familiar with this alley that bordered on Bod Town, one of two ghettos where mechflesh were allowed to live. It was popular with mechflesh to trade low-level contraband.

The officer pointed to an industrial ladder used to scale the security fence. It had been there a week and nobody bothered to take it down.

The mechflesh man nodded and picking up the package started to climb the ladder.

“Wait,” the officer said. “You forgot something.”

The mechflesh man stopped.

The officer tossed the can. The man caught it.

The man smiled. “Thank you, Officer.”

The officer returned the smile and watched the man climb. A pulse of a phasewave hit the man in the back and he fell. The officer returned his phasewave to his holster and walked into the night.