Emergency Situation - Episode 2 3D Render, Digital Art by emarukk

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Emergency Situation - Episode 2 3D Render, Digital Artwork by emarukk

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PROFILE

Emergency Situation - Episode 2

3D Render by emarukk

While I was wondering why the taxi company had seated a robot in the driver’s seat of a self-driving cab, the city’s sour, chemical tang pressed in heavier than ever, a cocktail of burnt ozone, engine coolant, and the lingering stink of fried food from a street kiosk nearby. Real Nexfood synthetic meat, safely labgrown in dark corners of the Off-world. On the curb, the policeman was next to a cab, his boots squelching through oil-slicked puddles of sour rain, his uniform reeking of cheap detergent and old cigarette smoke. His voice cut through the low rumble of passing freight vans on the upper level, each word wrapped in the surrounding noises.

He launched into a practiced traffic safety lecture, his breath sour with synth-coffee, as if this part of Portauthor wasn’t a gauntlet of broken crosswalks and cars so timid they’d emergency-brake at the sight of a pigeon on the sidewalk. I half-listened, already halfway into the cab, the battered door’s hinge squealing, metal on metal, sharp and cold, as the hydraulic door lifted up. The street girl nearby stopped and hovered around, eyeing the situation, maybe weighing her odds to get her share. This Policeman was clearly the type who considered a bribe versus real paperwork. Bribery wasn’t my style here; too many familiars in this district, and I’d seen what happened to people who built their fortunes on the backs of extorted memory coins. They got rich, and society got poor. I only traded favors during business, and usually only at Off-worlds.

Gods, if only I had one of Aygul’s club cards, gray, with that magical trigram: CSB. I could almost feel the pleasure of watching the color drain from the policeman’s face as he realized who they’d stopped, but I was only a normal civilian here. Nothing special. Now, with trouble looming and no time for games, I fished out the memory coin I’d planned to spend on the repairman. It was warm in my palm, humming faintly with the echoes of adrenaline races and rebel bravado, carrying the faint trace of someone else’s last wild joy. I showed it to the officer, then tossed it onto the greasy pavement behind the cab, feigning a clumsy apology for dropping my things and for crossing the road like an idiot.

He bent to scoop it up, eyes hungry. I slipped into the taxi, the interior thick with the plasticky vanilla scent of overused cleaning bots desperately covering up old sweat and generator fumes. My cybernetic hand left a cold print on the pleather seat beside the stiff-backed synth driver. I barked the address, my voice rough, the urgency clear, and the driver lit up, a shrill chime echoing in the cabin as the system logged my route and deducted the fare in Confederation Lari from my electronic wallet, which was not locked this time because of payment violations. Taxis used to be cheap, but this payment hurt. Regulations had choked the cab business dry; now every ride cost more than a week’s old rent, and every cab felt just a bit more dead. The Commission had created innovative regulations, and the Parliament had passed them with the favorable influence of Multigroup representatives. Nice to be the owner of an auditing company or a house organizing new, useless certification courses for company owners and those few people who still drive a cab. This all trouble had passed to prices.

The taxi surged forward, generator whirring, tires slicing through puddles with a hiss and a slap. Outside, the street was alive with chaos: the slap-slap of wet shoes, the whistle of a distant hawker, the angry blare of a delivery van’s horn as it swerved around a cyclist cursing in three dialects. Neon light bled through the window, painting the inside of the cab blue and red, and the stink of overheating batteries and fried noodles drifted in every time we stopped at a light. At least the rain had stopped, and it should stay away for hours.

In the mirror, I caught a glimpse of the policeman, already pocketing the memory coin, his face smug. He’d gotten more than he deserved; inside that coin was a slingshot racer’s last run, the pulse of a rebel’s stolen night. A waste, but a necessary one. The street girl had moved to flirt with him. Maybe she wanted a shared experience and a few Lari, or lunch. I pressed my palm to the window, feeling the city’s throb. The real fight was ahead, and I had to get there before it was too late and Aygul let herself slip through those merciless cracks.

The taxi accelerated onto the highway, tires humming, the city’s ugly music fading behind me. All that mattered was the destination blinking in my tactical eye, and the hope that I wouldn’t be too late.