The latest unconfirmed rumors about the exploits of illegal hacker Yug Ocramed are that he is writing a new cyberpunk novel series about Maya, the hybrid engineered human with an unconfirmed computer-wetware singularity. The following data file was leaked to the public nets:
Chapter 1
A series of pings pulled Kinoshita from his daydream about sharing a Pattaya Beach cabin in Thailand with his favorite AV actress. More sensors chirped, indicating someone with a live Net connection slowly progressing toward his position on the roof of the dilapidated Grand Hotel. Restoring his mental balance and self-control, he began to prepare.
“Yuna-ka.” Said mentally, this keyword brought his sniper systems online. Subroutines sent out encrypted pings that piggybacked on already-established local wireless connections to activate disposable camera bugs he had deployed two days ago. Signal sniffers began to record and analyze every electronic signal within a one kilometer bubble. Their streams of data converged in the computer surgically attached to the interior of the back of his skull. His occipital lobe processed the new views as though he had sprouted a dozen new eyeballs with independent control. The nausea passed quickly thanks to years of training.
After standing and stretching, joints popping and cracking in protest from hours of lying prone on the hard and dusty elastomeric roof of the hotel, Kinoshita crouched down and duck-walked to the rear edge of the building. At this height, a slight breeze from the east brought the smell of the Atlantic, abandoned beaches covered in rotting fish and kelp, and the acrid odor of partially burned hydrocarbons from the vehicles that still ran on dinosaurs and biofuels. The Grand Hotel was the tallest of the buildings in this run-down neighborhood, so he could see the corporate archologies gracefully reaching skyward from their emplacements in downtown Manhattan, the buildings glowing from neon, xeon, and OLED displays overlaid on skyscraper windows. Towards the ocean, a bluish line of artificial lights marked the roadway on top of the Great Ocean Wall, without which this section of Brooklyn would be submerged due to global warming and the rising seawater levels.
Peering over the knee-high wall denoting the edge of the precipice that was the Grand, Kinoshita examined the killing field from his fifty-story vantage point. The wide delivery alleyway ran perpendicular from the hotel northward, dotted by empty dumpsters and the occasional stray cat. His target would be appearing within three minutes, probably walking briskly towards the rear kitchen entrance of a traditional Japanese noodle shop they frequented every Thursday at eight forty-five, fifteen minutes before closing time. The normal order was two gallon containers of buckwheat udon noodles in broth; chicken and mushrooms in one and an eclectic mix of shellfish in the other.
Even from this height with a slight crosswind, the assassin could smell the noodles and, for some reason, beef and tofu with broccoli and snow peas, just like he would order whenever he visited such a shop in Okinawa. The calming memories gave Kinoshita a sense of Zen, a good sign.
Two minutes, and something happened that made Kinoshita jump. A seagull landed on an electrical conduit next to one of his remote cameras and began to peck at the shiny lens. The effect was as if a Kaiju-sized monster was attacking. Kinoshita mentally turned off the redundant camera. It wouldn’t be needed for such an easy job.
Bending low, he retrieved a heavy bolt-action fifty-caliber sniper rifle. Kinoshita toggled the manual switch to boot up the rifle’s targeting scope. In his brain, two more virtual eyes opened; one with a view through the scope, one a data display for the sniper system. Once both were stable, he forwarded an image to the scope of today’s assassination subject — a young, scruffy-looking girl with severe razor bobbed jet-black hair. Frowning slightly, he checked his data file provided by his client. She looked fourteen, but the file showed her birthdate was thirty years ago today.
“Shit,” he said aloud. Bad karma, killing someone on their birthday. Still, someone thought this raggedy collection of cast-off clothing was worth two million credits, an amount usually reserved for celebrities and politicians. Money changed accounts. Agreements were struck, and Kinoshita was a man of his word.
The first camera picked up the girl’s shadow as she calmly walked towards the noodle shop. She appeared to be more alert than the last time he saw her. Instead of skipping and humming to herself, she moved from dumpster to dumpster, pausing and surveying the environment.
Kinoshita shouldered his weapon and placed one of his special rounds into the breech. The tip held an explosive compound to punch through any cranial armor, which would trigger sharp steel spikes that would destroy a target’s brain matter, killing them instantly so they would not suffer. Even if the target had self-repairing nanotechnology upgrades, the damage would be too severe to recover. With an audible grunt, he slid the bolt home and aimed with years of precision and determination.
As he watched the girl proceed towards his position through the unblinking electronic eye of his weapon, the scope verified that the target was correct. Kinoshita clicked the image magnification up three notches to get a clear view of his victim’s face. Even though she was filthy from her usual daily explorations of every sewer, sub-basement, and unoccupied hole she could uncover, her skin was physically unblemished. No scratches, pimples, or even a stray freckle. Unnaturally bright blue irises, surrounded by an inexpertly applied ring of black mascara with a wing in the outer corners to make her eyes appear more Asian. A pert, slightly upturned nose and full lips without any adornment. She should be on her way to school instead of scrounging for cheap meals, he thought.
Sighing audibly, Kinoshita tried to focus on his objective – a single-shot untraceable kill. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t block the scent of food from the noodle shop. Thick slices of tofu and curling cuts of succulent beef, an egg or two, mounds of green onions over a lake of beef broth, and a forest of broccoli. His stomach rumbled and his mouth watered from the delicious aroma. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t consciously identify the issue.
The girl appeared to be less skittish and walked in the center of the alley, pausing to read some of the physical graffiti on the concrete walls and the electronic tagging activated by proximity. Kinoshita couldn’t see the advertising animations and sprites dancing from this distance because his internal computer interface was out of range, but the girl apparently found something amusing enough to make her stop and smile.
This was the moment Kinoshita was waiting for. Someone who died while smiling and laughing would most likely move on from this world and not become a ghost. He toggled the safety off and squeezed the trigger. The targeting scope’s image turned red as it ran hundreds of calculations to guarantee the shot placement. A tenth of a second later, the scope’s image returned to a clear display to record the assassination for confirmation and payment.
The young woman turned her head at the last moment and looked directly at Kinoshita. She mouthed words that he shouldn’t have been able to hear from such a long distance, but he heard her voice nonetheless. “Wow. I can’t believe you would actually pull the trigger and kill me.”
One by one, Kinoshita’s virtual eyes blinked closed. The scope was the last to reveal it had been inactive the whole time. “What the…?” he muttered.
A noise from behind him, a slight tink of metal on glass, made him whirl around, hands automatically retrieving a ceramic fighting knife and a phase pistol.
His target sat on a small stack of leftover ferro-concrete blocks. The noise he heard came from a pair of cheap stainless steel chopsticks lifting steaming noodles from a glass bowl. She brought them close to her mouth and slurped the udon in, sucking on them until they wriggled themselves in through her pursed lips. She barely chewed the soft noodles and swallowed.
“I said I can’t believe you would actually shoot me, in case your computer didn’t receive that last bit of data.”
Kinoshita raised the phase pistol and tried to pull the trigger. With a start he realized each hand held a similar chopstick. “You,” he stated flatly. “You’re doing this. You hacked my systems, or you infected them.”
She smiled. “You’re a smart one. Usually takes a while before people figure that out, if ever.” She pointed with her chopsticks towards a bowl filled with the food Kinoshita believed he was imagining. “I got you a bowl too. I added some egg to your usual order when you go home to Okinawa because you’re missing some nutrients. I would suggest you don’t try to kill me again.”
Kinoshita sat cross-legged and retrieved the bowl stamped with the logo of the noodle shop below. He deftly began to eat the meal while trying to work out a solution to his situation. “These are good,” he grudgingly admitted.
She set her bowl down and stared at the assassin, one thick black eyebrow arched and a bit of green onion on her chin. “You’re the fourth guy who tried to end me this year. I know you don’t know the client, I’ve already been through your information.”
Kinoshita bristled at the intrusion, but realized he had no right to be angry. He was, after all, about to murder a complete stranger for money.
“You’re a well-disciplined gentleman. A higher caliber of killer than the others,” she said. “And my name is Maya. Now we’re no longer strangers, Mr. Kinoshita.”
This made the assassin almost drop his bowl. “You couldn’t have heard me think that I should not be angered because I was about to kill a stranger. That came from my wetware.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. Your meatspace brain. I did hear your thoughts.”
“Nikusui!” His eyes finally began to show fear.
Maya picked up her bowl of noodles and stirred them with the chopsticks. “No, I’m not a flesh-eating demon in the shape of a pretty girl. First off, I’m not pretty, and second, I don’t eat people.” She looked into Kinoshita’s eyes, her noodle-laden chopsticks dripping broth onto the grimy rooftop. “I’m her younger sister. I eat data and memories.”