Diver Downtown

“Rash fucking promises!” A coffeeman at his cart heard the teenage girl swear as she stepped off of the open sidewalk and out-of-sight into the relative seclusion of a one-lane alleyway. The girl stepped surely through a drift of garbage, choked with styrofoam chunks and long, fluttering newscripts. Looking quickly around Diver twisted a dial at the bottom of her Dozer and brought it to her lips. The hiss of propellant seemed too loud in the confines of the damp alley and Diver instinctively dropped into a crouch for a few moments. The familiar munge rush washed over her and drove her rocking on her heels back against the grimy brick. She had been holding her breath and now she let it seethe outward through her clenched teeth and slowly stood. Holding the inhaler loosely in her right hand, arm out like a gunslinger, Diver clicked the canister release on the side, flicking her wrist sharply as she did. The empty clattered to the trash and pavement at her feet, but Diver saw its fall as a slow and graceful trajectory, the bright alloy pressure vessel sparking with preternatural color, each frame of the descent separate and pregnant. The street hustle 50 feet away slurred into a tidal rush of static and white noise in Diver’s ears and she smiled wide. This was good stuff. Well worth the bullshit errand she had promised Jack. Jack! With a start Diver remembered that the motel she was supposed to meet the guy at, some dive with a dubious French sounding name was still some 4 blocks away. She would have to hurry.

A roar, a whirlwind of newscript and the smell of fried potatoes signaled the arrival of the metrobus line. The coffeeman made brisk business on the metroline customers and was frenetically pumping steam through canned milk when the homeless looking girl he had seen earlier leapt over his cart and walked up the back of the idling behemoth at the curb. His customer, a businessman in his early 30’s let the fresh cup slip from his fingers, throwing himself and the uniformed schoolboy at his side to the sidewalk in exaggerated escape. Diver laughed at the display as she pelted up the back of the metrobus. It was an easy trick really, more show than talent. She learned it from Slide so long ago.

“Slide,” Diver thought ruefully atop the bus’s carapace, 15 feet above the street, “The bastard that started it all.” This run to the motel was pure Slide. Hell, even the reasons were right up his alley. Hot tech? Wanna-be thugs posturing like they were legit criminals? Just a grip of loadies and street trash hustling for shit. Yeah, it was Slide’s scene, or would have been if he was still around.

Diver waited for the bus driver to come out and bitch at her for jumping on his bus, but he doesn’t, and as the bus pulls off of the curb Diver is watching the pattern of traffic on the boulevard. The bus accelerates, Diver leans into a low crouch and when the big plastic vehicle has crept two lanes toward the center line, she leaps to the roof of a taxicab passing on the right side. Diver has been watching this cabbie follow none-too-patiently for the past block and the high flanging whine of his electric engine tells Diver that the driver’s foot has just hit the floorboards. Diver’s Kevlar soles thump to the plastic roof of the cab in time with the flat slap of her palms, and she hears the cabbie shouting inside the car. But this cab is clearing the front bumper of the metrobus and Diver is already out of her crouch, leaping fluidly with the thrust of the accelerating taxi. Diver stretches out, languid in midair and catches the frame of a utility truck lumbering ahead of the metrobus in her gloved hand. 60 seconds of real time has dilated into a slow flood of rich information. Until now Diver has been both calmly present and far, far away. Her path from ground to bus, taxi and here has brought her 3 blocks down the busy street in less than 2 minutes. Her motions entirely impulse, the jarring pain of impact and muscle strain went unfelt as the last of the Macro Neural Growth Enhancer saturating her bloodstream repaired the damage as fast as she could do it. Diver is riding the back of the utility vehicle, gripping the welded cage around a workman’s lift. She looks down the street, expecting the driveway to her dive motel. Diver breathes slowly in through her nose and out through tight teeth and waits.

Mama Putains approaches at 35 miles an hour, its arch of dingy pink stucco scabrous with age. Diver lets go of the cage and pushes off, twisting in midair toward the courtyard parking entrance to land in an awkward, skidding run in the oily wet. The neon liquor ads in the motel bar window splashed the asphalt with garish color. Diver ran her fingers through her ragged shock of hair and strode across the lot to the door marked Lounge, only a few minutes late after all.

The dude Jack had called Lupins was in the back corner booth, his brooding face painted with runny black streaks. A style made popular a by a gloomy retro theatric band called Mister Mondays. Diver picks him from the midday detritus easily. “You Lupin?” Diver calls as she approaches his booth. The guy looks around and motions quickly with his hands for her to sit. “Blu Lupins,” the Mondays guy starts, but Diver cuts him off. “Some sort of wolf thing?” Blu looks more morose than Diver thought possible before and with a look past her, over her shoulder he says coldy, “No.”

“I swear that means wolf.” Says Diver, and slides into the booth opposite him. “Jack call you?” she asked. The guy named Blu looked uncomfortable for a minute. He made Diver nervous, she never could get behind that make-up, it had always made her think of zombies. A party of giggling women and a man took the booth across from them. Diver watched as the balding suit type eyed her greasily while the others were getting situated. Blu noticed her distraction, saying “An office pimp and his whores, I’ve seen that one around.” He smiled when Diver looked back at him sharply; all thin lips and pancake white. “Yeah, Jack called me. Said he had a job to run so he was sending his sister. You don’t look too much like Jack though, sis.” Blu smiles so wide that Diver sees cracks in his thick face paint. “Same foster house.” says Diver with a noncommittal shrug. “Now we gonna do this or what?”

The Monday nods and begins to stand up, gathering his cloak-like raincoat from behind him in the booth. “We need to go to the apartment, that’s where we’re keeping them.” Blu says quickly. Diver stood to follow, starting to feel uneasy. She cursed herself silently for not asking more questions when Jack asked her to go “pick up some new vids from some street boys in the ‘Grove.” This was a district known for its porno holes, drug dealers and street gangs and Diver had been here many times before with Slide. She had even gone alone a few times. It was on one of those solo runs that she first watched someone throw a Munge fit.

That poor fuck had been some thrasher kid, they had to cut the straps on his street ‘mail when he started seizing. Apparently he had been trying to ‘ride out’ the drug withdrawals, white knuckling it was what they called it in the scene. Sometimes it could help if you tried some other habit. Blotto yourself on alcohol or sleepies and maybe float comatose through the worst, but this kid had been too far gone for the White Knuckles. It was fix time or the guy was gonna be dumpster food.

Diver didn’t remember why Slide hadn’t been there that day, but she vividly recalled the way the bile had stained the front of the boys Animal Chen T yellow-green. His shoes had made this awful scuffling sound when he pitched over and seized on the dealer guys dusty throw rug. Diver had been terrified, maybe fourteen years old, new to the whole MNG scene. She hadn’t known how to react and just stood there, small fist in her mouth while Tom and his partner heaved this poor junkie against the corner walls. They cut his skate armor off and he started to throw up. Tom, that was the dealer guy, it was his place. Suddenly Tom had a jar like the kind baby food came in. Some purplish black ink stuff was slopping from the jar onto his hand as he tried to get it near to the heaving skater in the corner. Diver backed against the window and she remembered how the roaring Munge high she was riding made the sun bite and claw at her back. The walls of the room closed slowly and stiflingly as she watched the boy in the corner fight for breath.

“It’s this one, up here, 202.” Blu Lupins the Monday snapped his fingers a few times in the air. “Hey sister, you still with me? It’s up here.” He says. Diver looks at him with visible contempt. “Cool it, fuckhole.” She starts, “I think I’ve been here before that’s all.” She finishes lamely. “Déjà vu, you know?” Blu doesn’t look impressed. “Lots of people come through here, doll. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Apartment 202 is surprisingly tidy. The carpet is low and worn, and the windows are filmed, letting none of the grey light outside in. But in the bright fluorescent room lights Diver sees that this is no ghetto flophouse. A massive glass rack, all black pipe and bluish window plate hold a network rig Jack would love. Kinda ironic, as she was sure that he had asked her to do this pick-up because he was afraid of going to the ‘Grove alone. Here though, was a room stocked as full of bleeding edge tech as any uptown showroom. It was all flash to her, though. Diver watches mime-boy pass her and walk to the little kitchenette. “Get you a drink?” He asks, pouring something dark into a thick square rocks glass. “It’s cheaper here than at Mama’s anyway. My buddy got some lab eth yesterday, still got a flask in the freeze…” He trails off. Diver looks at him across a stainless steel countertop and shakes her head. “Water, if it’s filtered. Otherwise, let’s just get the goods, eh?”

Blu sets the glass heavily back on the counter next to a glossy ivory valise and stalks out of the kitchen. “Fine,” He says sulkily, “If you’re in a hurry, I’ll just go get Holly to unlock it.” Diver is watching him disappear down the hall when she realizes this place is literally the same floor plan as Dealer Tom the dope guys pad had been. The similarity creeps her out. At least this place doesn’t smell like black market tobacco.

Tom’s always smelled like stale smokes but at that moment, her back against the sun heated ‘plex it had been choking to Diver. She had never picked up the habit, but Slide smoked rollies when he could get them. Tom’s partner had been smoking one then, babbling in his panic. “They sweep those lot dumpsters every twenty minutes Tommy! This guy has got to walk outta here on his own, I ain’t goin’ back to Corrections!” Tom just told him to shut up over and over, “Hold him, man. Hold ‘im!” he kept saying. Finally the partner shoved the thrasher kid into the corner hard and Tom leaned in to spoon an oily gob of inky stuff into the boy’s mouth. The effects were shockingly fast. Skater kid stopped twitching and braced himself upright against the corner walls, eyes open and head raised. He was breathing in full shaking pulls of the hazy air. He looked at Tom wide eyed, then back to Tom’s partner, who still held him firm. “That’s at least 70 bucks worth of Bootstrap, Vicky!” Tom yelled at the kid. “Pay up and get out of here before you nose dive again, got it?” Vicky fumbled a bundle of bills out and Diver watched him buy 3 disposable inhalers on top of paying off the other stuff.

Diver shivers, remembering. She sits on a long white upholstered couch and looks at some magazines on the glass table. Her high wearing thin, she picks up a thick glossy mag titled Deadworld and flips through the pages of dark eyes, stage blood and elaborate tattoos. The computer rig she saw when she came in chimes loudly. She has heard the sound before at Jack’s; it’s an incoming video mail. She gets up from the couch and walks back over to the kitchen, where Blu left his drink and the smooth, bone white valise. They are still there, on the sterile steel countertop. The old time label on the brown bottle Blu had poured from says Dr. Umbro’s Bootblack~A Retro Liquor.

The computer across the rooms chimes again, and this time the monitor comes to life with bright cycling colors. Diver is intrigued, she starts to walk towards the monitor and the colors resolve into a field of colorful static. Diver looks at the wide flat panel and catches her breath when she recognizes Jack’s tag, like a compass rosette, spin from the depths of the static and begin to strobe on the screen. She takes a few steps closer pauses when she hears raised voices up the hall. Blu and his roommate are apparently arguing about something. “Every fucking 20 minutes, Blu!” It was a girl, shouting unexpectedly from the other room. “You won’t get back to the apartment before they find her. It ain’t happening here!” Diver’s blood goes cold. She looks more closely at the computer rig, there is something moving at the edges of the case drawing her attention. Small spherical cameras are mounted at the corners and along the expansive framework supporting the desk. They are quietly orienting, lenses reflecting bits of light like the eyes of eager predators. Diver, irritated, moves to the machine and hits the key board with an open palm. The wide, flat monitor goes black and large white letters begin to scroll across the screen. “You are in danger. Get the fuck out. ---Jack” rolls across the panel. Diver backpedals across the room stumbling when her knees hit the glass table and she falls. From the floor Diver sees things stuffed haphazardly under the couch, rolls of strapping tape, handcuffs, a stun baton. Apparently Blu and his roommate are some sick fucks.

The door up the hall opens and the monitor dies again. “Holly will, uh, be along in a minute.” Blu says, coming back into the kitchen. Diver gets her feet and walks back toward to the counter where Blu is sipping his drink and looking over the case. The valise is about the length of a glasses case, but is too wide. Blu gingerly rolls it over to reveal the glossy black square of a biometrics lock. “It’s keyed to Holly, I can’t open it myself.” Says Blu. Diver shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. She sneaks glances toward the computer, but can’t tell if anything is happening from the kitchen counter. “You sure you don’t want a drink?” Blu asks. “Pour me something small.” Diver answers. She slides her hands into her pockets and feels for her Dozer, but it’s empty after the monster hit she dialed up an hour ago. Her glove closes around its familiar shape and she relaxes a little just the same. Diver smiles a little bit, she has an idea. The computer chimes again. Blu picks two more glasses from a cupboard and pours. He hands one to Diver and strides to the machine leaving the other two on the counter. Diver sniffs at the drink tentatively, the dark fluid inky, like the oily Bootstrap in Tom’s apartment.

“What is that shit?” She had asked after Vicky the thrasher kid had left. Tom dug a few small vials out of his bag and held one out to her. “Slide didn’t tell to you to pick some of this up? It’s 20 for that there.” “Yeah, but what is it?” She had asked. “It’s a kick in the face if you’re not far enough gone that you need it, so don’t take any yourself. Just keep it on you if you’re gonna be riding Munge. It could save your life.” Tom was counting little pressure vessels from the same bag he brought the Bootstrap out of. Slide bought her a custom Dozer like his for their anniversary, they didn’t use the disposables like the dabblers. When he was done, Tom added another small vial of the inky stuff and looked at Diver across the stuff laid out on the couch. “Promise me you’ll carry it. Really, Slide’s an asshole little girl, I’ve met 10 more girlfriends like you, he’ll be gone soon enough and all you’ll have is this shit here. He gestured to the rows of little canisters on the cushion between them. “Do me a favor and get on top of your fucking habit ok? You want to fish out in some Grovetown alley?” He had tried to act like a jerk, but Tom was an ok guy as it turned out. A lesser dealer would have pitched the thrasher kid, might have roughed her up for even being there, but he was chill. Diver wondered where Tom was now, if he was still alive.

A woman Diver assumes is Holly comes out from the hallway, dressed in glistening pink vinyl. She had impossibly purple eyes under very obviously fake black lashes and more makeup than Diver ever wore. She looks across the counter at Diver. “Who’s this bitch, now?” she asks Blu. His ghoulish face looks back from his computer and he replies stuttering “I told you, it’s his foster sister or something.” He looks at Diver for some support, but she just shrugs half heartedly. “I’m just here for some vids.” Diver says. Holly snorts and walks to the kitchen counter, her tall black boots made loud snapping steps on the linoleum. “Pour me one too, foster girl.” She snaps, and walks to the computer where Blu is tapping furiously at the keys. He curses loudly, “This thing’s gone fucked! Did you touch any of this sister?” Blu is turning back to Diver anger in his painted face just as she finishes pouring the Retro Liquor into the last empty glass. He does not see the vial she slides into the sink with her left hand. It clinks noisily into the disposal and falls out of sight. Diver shoves the drink toward the approaching Blu like a ward; she can see the computer screen past him, some sort of porno looping on the screen. Holly is looking from the screen to the counter where the valise still sits, she is open mouthed and angry.

Blu takes the drink from Divers outstretched hand and slurps noisily before he continues. “I bet you think this shit is funny, right? You and your boy Jack set this up?” Holly shouts petulantly from where she stands behind the couch. “You fucked with the wrong people, street bitch. Let’s see how your brother Jack likes seeing you in our next production.” She has the baton that Diver saw earlier in her hand, flicking the switch to send arcs up and down the shaft. Diver flicks the empty liquor bottle from the counter and flings it toward Holly’s chest in one motion, then she turns towards Blu but the Monday clone is in no shape to fight. One hand covers the lower half of his face and the other is swinging gropingly in front of him, as though he can’t see where she stands before him in the cramped kitchen. “You bitch! What the fuck?” he is shouting. Blood is pouring from both nostrils, adding to his grotesque make-up job. Holly has taken the last few moments to recover her composure and put herself between Diver and the apartment door. Diver grabs the ivory valise and shoves it in a cargo pocket, then puts her back against the countertop bracing herself for Blu’s flailing assault.

Blu fumbles toward her with bloody hands outstretched, his eyes wild and shot with angry crimson. Diver lifts herself with her arms and kicks him in the chest, driving him across the plastic tile and out of the tiny apartment kitchen into his vinyl clad roommate. “Just let me by bitch!” Diver shouts. But Holly has shoved Blu to the floor and stepped over his twitching form. “You’re not leaving, snotty little cunt.” She says, snapping the baton out at her midsection like a kendo swordsman. “This little bit of snuff will make me a nice handful of clink too. Your brother Jack isn’t the only one that buys fetish video you know.” Diver pauses half a second and Holly steps quickly forward, baton waving before her. Diver brings her hand out of her coat pocket with the Dozer pointed away from her, aparture toward Holly’s darting face and presses the trigger. Holly drops the baton with a yelp, her hands flying to her face, but the Dozer only emits a weak puff of spent propellant, no canister in the lock. Then Diver spins and kicks Holly in the side of her head, the toe of her combat boot connecting square with Holly’s powdered ear. Holly falls and Diver steps quickly over her, stomping sharply on her chest with her heel as she moves quickly to the door. Jack’s tag was spinning on the long, expensive monitor as she looked over her shoulder through the closing apartment door.

Slide was an asshole it turned out, they had broken up a few weeks later. Diver never told him what had gone down at Tom’s that day and he probably wouldn’t have cared either. Jack at least listened to the story. He took one of his headphones off while she related the events. Jack had a black box for spoofing the case lock, he even laughed when he saw it. “That rig was nice, for a store bought.” He had said of the computer she described in Blu’s apartment. “But, I was in there just a few minutes before you showed up. I mean, I didn’t even have to guess the account name, they still used the defaults.” He looked at Diver and pulled his headset to his neck, she heard loud guitars faintly screeching through tiny speakers. “I was a little worried about you, those two sell some really violent shit.” Diver tries to look casual and makes a little “Pfft” noise with her mouth. “That was good shit you picked up for me, I owed you something.” “Yeah,” says Jack, “But that was craziness, I never expected them to get all hostile on you.” Diver looks over at the white clamshell, now open on the computer desk. “But why do you want snuff vids, Jack? You’re not into that shit.” Jack looks grim and picks a chip from the clamshell to show her. “Proof positive. This one here was a girl I knew from school. Answered an ad on BuddyNet.” Jack puts the chip back in a foam bed and draws another. This kid was a hacker from just down the street from here, we used to flame each other on forums and shit, a little punk. I last heard that he cut some sweet deal with the digirock scene in Frisco.” Jack shakes his head and slots the vid, his five screens come alive with choppy video of a suburban garage. A teenage boy kneels on the floor, his arms taped to his sides and his mouth gagged with a cloth. A gang stands around him, their face paint pale and streaking in the naked incandescent light. Jack looks back at Diver who snickers cruelly. Well that Lupins fucker isn’t gonna be doing anyone anytime soon, and I think I broke his girlfriends ribcage on my way out.” Jack smiles. “It’s a start.” He says. “Say, I’ve got a line on some great Munge. Now, That isn’t my rush, but I know this girl…”

Diver sighs exaggeratedly. After all, she’s out.