/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2122032]

“Welcome back to the Province of Toronto, Mr. Dresden. ” A soft-voice rescinded its temporary hold on Matthias’ vehicle while two white sphere’s with glowing red eyes examined him through the tinted glass of his car. “The Toll for Vehicles in the city is currently: $25.50.” The Voice chimed. “Please insert your card.”

Matthias didn’t move. His gloved fingers tightly wound around the authentic leather of the BMW. Closing his eyes, he could see himself through the camera’s eyes- and saw the bytes of data flowing through the Toronto Police Department in regards to his vehicle. “Please,” The Voice chimed once again. “Insert your card.” Yet as it spoke the camera lights turned a bright turquoise and the steel bar blocking Matthias’ entrance onto the 401 Highway eased into the walls on either side of the car. Behind him, a sea of vehicles all moving at inches per hour impatiently waited for their chance to make and spend their money in the metropolis. Matthias pressed down on the accelerator, and bolted forwards.

[Anonymous No.2122033]

Matthias had only been back on the ground a few hours, and in Canada just a little longer than that. Still, he did not welcome the Cloud-cracking pillars of opulence and the bright, enticing lights that illuminated them. The window to his cars cracked slightly as the vehicle detected the thirty-five hundred some chemicals of a freshly lit cigarette. “Micro-gram of Benzine detected. Flushing system.” Matthias’ body felt cool then, awakening on a sheet of ice. He exhaled another plume of smoke, and the vehicle further rolled down the window. His eyes drifted from the road a moment- staring intently at the center console. As his eyes flickered back towards the road in a pendulum fashion, as if in a seizure, the vehicle cooed a series of emotionless acceptances. “Windows locked. Temperature increased. Chemical Clean up aborted.” Matthias gave a welcoming sigh to the vehicle while his foot pressed even further down the pedal. “For your health, please stop smoking. For information on How to Quit, visit the Toronto Government Websi-” Matthias pressed his finger into the console, hitting a button until the colored ring around it faded.

“I hate the company cars.” Matthias grunted, removing a leather wallet from his pant pocket. He handed the card to a bored looking receptionist that continued to type on a projected keyboard below her fingers. Streams of red light tightly woven together and soft, white text ran backwards when Matthias stared through the projected monitor. “Sending mail, not even saying hello- all it takes is a couple of calls to get you back to working on an old desktop.” Matthias joked in his gravel-thick tone. At length, the secretary looked up and offered a practiced smile.

“Welcome back, Dresden. How was it? Bring back any nice Streams for me?” The Secretary raised her carefully designed brows in a look of mock-anticipation.

[Anonymous No.2122037]

“Any streams I have aren’t mine to share anyhow, you know that, Celine.” Matthias finally offered a practiced smile in return. His eyes disseminated the data on her monitor, paragraph by paragraph the lines of data spun around until the projected monitor’s contents were facing him. Celine continued to punch away at the keys projected across the ebony table, entirely unaware her monitor had done a virtual hundred-and-eighty degree spin. I have to go, The words began to form I’ve 1% of CSIS standing in front of me and it’s asking me to get back to work. I’m off at midnight- Je vous aimé.

“You know I don’t like being marginalized like that, Celine. Show a little respect.” Matthias ran his fingers across the monitor’s back- embedding his signature within it. Behind Celine’s desk a set of large wooden doors cracked open and hummed at recognition of Matthias’ marking.

[Anonymous No.2122038]

The only way I can explain how bad this is is to call it parody.

[Anonymous No.2122039]

“Respect? Says the guy hacking a Government Computer!” Celine chuckled, playfully swatting at the sleeve of Matthias’ greatcoat. “How is it out there? Nice?”

“Summer’s nearly here, that’s for sure.” Matthias quipped, indulging Celine further until the doors behind him closed- locking him deep within. Celine’s practiced smile lingered a few moments longer- then vanished. The lighting in the room disappeared, leaving her with the woven red streams of light and weightless keys under her fingers in her vision.

Matthias preferred his office in Ottawa, helping authorities make the last pockets of Montréal Mafia and old ‘Biker Gangs’ disappear. He’d even go back to Windsor, consulting on closing the border to American refugees and hardening Canada’s domestic defense capabilities. Frying Chinese Botnets and making a joke out of the crumbling Central Intelligence Service was Matthias’ many specialties. “That’s the issue with being good at what you do I suppose.” Matthias mumbled while walking down old marble stairs and gripping its authentic oak rail, still glistening from a new nano-polymer coating. He thought if he could focus his eyes hard enough, he could watch the grime and dirt from his world-trip be devoured by the self-cleaning bots. He made a signature once again, on a blue-colored projected monitor to the left of yet another set of old wooden doors. The handles of the doors turned green, signaling to him he was welcome.

[Anonymous No.2122040]

“Hey, Matthias, good to see you.” A middle aged voice called out down the obsidian-colored walls. “Saw you pop up at the Don Valley security checkpoint about half an hour ago. How’s traffic?”

“Toronto Government makes it expensive to even express the thought of coming here- and yet people are still waiting in line by car for ten hours to get in.” Matthias placed his hand on his office door, craning his neck towards the voice down the hall. “What about you, Rene, how do you manage to land this job and never manage to leave the Province?”

“Slept my way to the bottom old man, that’s how I did it.” Rene gave a grin, his perfect set of teeth shimmering nearly as bright as his pale skin in the florescent lighting above them. The black, perfectly fitted suit Rene wore gave the clichéd look of a Government agent to be sure- but the pupil-less eyes his perfectly crafted face wore discomforted Matthias. There’s just something about those implants. He thought. “Well,” Matthias said, cracking open his door with a turn of his wrist. “Let me know if you ever want to change places.”

[Anonymous No.2122043]

Silence. Sound proofed and well-needed silence. His office window blackened with a gesture of his eyes, and Matthias sunk his face deep into his palms. He let out a short, tired groan. His hands were busy going through his desk, finding a blue and white wrapper and opening it for its contents. Quickly, his mouth made quick work breaking the energy down into chunks small enough for his stomach to deal with- and even smaller still for it to be evenly distributed to his tertiary systems. Out of boredom he ran a self-diagnostic, the results appearing in the corner of his left eye. His power-percentage rose by an abysmal three percent- but he was far too jet lagged to eat another tasteless white slab of Nanonourish. An actual boost of energy from one of the technicians would be better. It would wake him up, and he would feel like he was actually back in Canada. Letting out yet another groan, he began to lift his tall form out of his chair.

His Projected-Monitor materialized as he did so. A series of requests in a retro, pixel font began to appear and disappear as they were instantly denied by Matthias’ personal firewalls. The person attempting to enter his Data nearly gave up until he pressed a spot on his desk- a projected keyboard appearing evenly across the surface upon doing so. “Hello?” A dull, distant voice asked. “Hello? Dresden? You there? Fucking underground garb—”

[Anonymous No.2122046]

“I hear you.” Matthias replied, sinking back into his chair and waving his hand through the Monitor- the beams of light displaying the text dissipating like red and white smoke, pixelated in the air. “I was just on my way to the Tech, what do you want?”

“I want you to skip the tech,” The voice said, much more clear- as if in the room. “I need you to get further downtown- towards the new Carleton Sky-Pillar. We just received word from the Police about a possible situation- and I need you to assess it.”

“Then call the Provincial Director. Why are you asking me?”

“There’s too much chatter- even on a CSIS secured datastream. I’ve got the Data but you need to come meet me in person to analyze it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Matthias began. “The stream is chatty because I’m sixty meters underground. It’s just junk data- no one’s listening in.”

“Just trust me okay?” The Voice pleaded, and then silence. Matthias blinked- his diagnostic data vanished from his vision and his eardrums seemed to pop as the voice disappeared. Visual and Audio errors and he wants me to skip the Tech?

“Celine, pull up a Company Car. I need to head to the Carleton Sky-Pillar.”

“No problem. It’ll be at the back-exit in five minutes. Want me to set a timer?” Celine’s voice asked. Matthias’ boots pounded across the black tiles, past the Tech n’spec Office. Before he could reply, the number three hundred appeared miniscule-sized in his vision, counting down towards zero. “You’re welcome” Celine chimed, and disappeared from his ears.