Chapter Eight - Hover

“The great selling point of hovercraft was the lowered traffic.

That was, until someone realized that a complete lack of oversight was an absolute disaster. So the bureaucrats came in. They set height and speed limits, created avenues and aerial roads. They created new departments specifically to regulate traffic in the air, then commissioned new companies to act as police forces.

New permissions had to be handed out to EMTs and police and paramilitaries so that they could use the roads too.

Soon, the air roads became just as clogged and congested as those on the ground.

New roads were added atop them, ones that required special permits, or that were policed by private corporations that purchased the airspace and sold traffic rights for an exorbitant price.

Now a businessman can get across the city in mere minutes, while the middle class wait in traffic, and the poor have to contend with the ultra-violence of the ground and what few public transit systems that are still in place.

Our stratified society became far more literal.”

--Alex Begler, The New Air Race, 2034

***

I stepped out of the penthouse while adjusting my new scarf.

A scarf shouldn’t have worked to tie together my rather eclectic outfit, but somehow it did. It probably helped that just about everything was a mix of the same three or so colours. It made matching things easy.

I moved past a cleaning android and towards the elevators while adjusting Whisper over my back. I wasn’t expecting to find two guys in the hotel’s livery standing by the elevator doors.

“What’re you guys doing here?” I asked.

They looked at each other, then one cleared his throat. “We’re with the hotel’s security, ma’am. Just making sure there are no more intrusions like this morning.”

“Huh,” I said. “Well, that’s nice.”

People doing nice things for me just because? That was going to take some getting used to.

I’ve called the elevator up. We’ll have to find a way to get to Katallina’s last known location. It’s not within walking distance, and I suspect that there will be some barriers along the way.

I nodded, not wanting to make a fool of myself before the guards. The elevator rose, clearly audible thanks to my new ears, and I stepped into it before turning around to face the exit.

A moment or two after the doors closed, I heard one of the hotel guys muttering to his friend. “She’s scary.”

“Scary but kinda hot,” the other said.

I rolled my eyes as we started to descend. “Where was she last seen?” I asked Myalis.

Her last known location was in the orange zone of yesterday’s incursion. That area has returned to being a green zone as of this morning.

“Am I likely to run into some aliens?” I asked. I could probably use a few more points.

Statistically unlikely.

“Well, that’s no fun,” I said as the elevator slowed to a smooth stop and its doors opened to the hotel’s lobby.

I hadn’t really taken much time to look around the night before. It was a bit hazy. I remembered getting out of a car that Speedy the Clenze soldier drove over, then a minute later I was falling asleep on a comfortable bed.

Now I could take in the big marble pillars and the holographic modern art sculptures and even the people moving about. There was something about the rich that made them stand out. Not just the expensive as hell clothes, but their demeanor and way of moving.

The women all wore impractical gowns and looked like they could be on a catwalk. They were showing off body mods that probably cost more than what most people made in a lifetime. The men were no better. Some in suits and ties, but the really rich wore clothes meant to look casual at first glance.

They didn’t need to wear a suit, because they were so important that the traditions would bend over backwards for them, not the other way around.

By contrast, the hotel staff all look like they had twice daily applications of sticks up their asses. They were uptight and servile and looked and looked like they were dead inside.

I stepped out and felt a few eyes turning my way. The pretty woman taking in my half-burnt features and lanky hair, then realizing that my looks didn’t matter because I was carrying a fuck-huge rifle.

Really, all those shows Lucy and I had watched as little girls telling us we had to be pretty never mentioned that you would get just as much positive attention from carrying half your body’s weight in guns around.

It was with a smug little grin that I cut past a line at the front of the lobby and stationed myself right in front of the only human behind the counter. The other rows had androids, and far fewer people waiting.

The young woman behind the counter blinked, then smiled through the transparent mask over her mouth. “How may I help you, ma’am?”

“I need a taxi,” I said.

She nodded. “Of course. We have an in-house taxi service available right outside the main entrance. You only need to flag down one of our valet’s... I’ll call ahead for you, if you want.”

That was handy. “I’d appreciate that,” I said. “Thanks!”

I crossed back to the middle of the room, then looked around.

You’re lost, aren’t you?

“Just a bit,” I said. A large red arrow appeared in my vision, and then because Myalis was being a pain in the ass, a dozen more arrows appeared around that one, all pointing towards a doorway out across the room. I... could probably have found it just by listening to the traffic, I realized as I moved closer.

Stepping through the airlocked entranceway, I found myself next to a tunnel built into the side of the building. There was a car dispenser, basically a lift where you could park a car and it would be stored somewhere deeper in the hotel, and a few more impressive cars were parked out front where they were plugged in to recharge.

“Miss Samurai?” An acne-faced valet asked as he moved over. “Um, you need a taxi, miss?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Got anything?”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Could you wait here for just a moment?”

I nodded as he pulled up a tablet and pressed a few buttons.

One of the dispensers rumbled up, cars flashing by as they rotated past, then a small yellow hovercar drove off the system and floated its way over to us.

The valet and I both stared at the little yellow clown car. “I... can order up something, um, better,” he said.

“It’s self-driving?” I asked as I looked inside. It had two pairs of two seats, both facing the middle where a little table sat. No controls that I could see. “It’ll do,” I said. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy anyway.

The boy (who was probably older than me, but he had a spine like a wet towel) opened the back door for me. I tossed Whisper in, then contorted myself into the seat.

“Thanks,” I said before he shut the door. I had to shift to accomodate my tail a bit, but it wasn’t so bad. “Now... how does this work?”

You have no public record of using one of these that I can find. It’s meant to connect to your augmentations, then drive safely and securely over to a destination you specify. The cost is extracted from your credit account based on mileage, plus service fees, membership fees, special fees, local taxes, and a few other price gouging techniques.

“Uh huh,” I said. “I spent most of my credits on a sandwich yesterday,” I said.

Your purchase was reimbursed, actually. Your current total would... not cover the re-parking fee.

“That’s... annoying.”

I’ve hacked into the vehicle’s controls. Or rather, I did so before you stepped out of the hotel.

My eyes narrowed. “Are you the reason I’m in this tiny thing?”

We’re taking off now.

“You didn’t answer the question, Myalis!” I said. Any further conversation was cut off when the hover car took off with a lurch, cut off some fancy car, then shot out into the sky.

There were roads, with plenty of midday traffic flitting through the smoke let out by smokestacks and the low-hanging smog clouds that were drizzling down a haze of rain that smacked the car’s windows, but Myalis didn’t seem to care about such trivialities.

We didn’t merge into the traffic flows, or slide into one of the far more expensive express routes. Instead Myalis shot out across the city at a diagonal.

“This can’t be legal,” I said.

It isn’t.

“Uh,” I said.

It’s not as though traffic laws apply to us. Most traffic enforcement vehicles ping off of any law-breaking hover car’s onboard computer to make it come to a stop. I can merely tell them that this vehicle has been commandeered by a Vanguard.

“And what’s stopping anyone else from doing the same thing?” I asked.

Superior coding. That, and on occasion traffic police will nonetheless chase down a Vanguard’s vehicle. It usually ends in disaster. In this case though, our flight plan is bringing us directly into a semi-active incursion zone. There’s nothing for them to worry about.

I settled into my seat, one foot pressing against the table in the middle to keep my in place. “Nothing to worry about,” I repeated as I worried.