ADSactly Sci-Fi - Outer Earth Series 'The One Eyed Man (Part 2)'

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Outer Earth Series – The One Eyed Man (Part 2)

Beep Blop Boop Blip… The holoscreen flashed a red message indicator. The one eyed man had spent the past few days frequenting the local pawn shops dumping boosted gear he had picked up here and there.

The proceeds were usually spent at the local dive bars, generally wasted away on booze and ladies of the night. He was getting nowhere fast.

This red blinking light could be it, the score he had been waiting for. The big one. At bare minimum it would be a good reason to polish his guns and get a bit of knifework in potentially.

He waved his hand to begin playback. A secure warning flashed across the screen, this message had been encoded priority delta 4. Oh, what a pain… He’d need to find his decryption key. It was probably buried under his mattress or under a pile of junk on a nearby table.

The good news was that messages marked ‘priority delta 4’ were usually reserved for big clients with serious requests and they always came with a sizeable payoff assuming the contract didn’t get you killed in the process of trying to complete it.

‘Ah, what the hell, where did I put that god damn encryption key!’

The one eyed man was getting frustrated, made all the more obvious as he was now shouting profanities as he tore his little apartment pod apart trying to find the key. It was a small black disc and without it the holoscreen simply wouldn’t be able to play the message.

Eureka! He had found the disc wedged between two cushions in the squalid, beat up excuse for a sofa sordidly sitting against the wall. Yes, it was quite ironic…

Even though it was the year 3363 A.D., some things had changed but other things just seem to hold constant throughout the ages, think about it, where’s the first place you look when your missing your.. hmm what do they say… car keys?

He wedged the disc into the encryption slot and entered his access code into the holographic number pad floating in front of him. The screen flashed green and began broadcasting to his neural implant.

These days you could never be too sure and safest way to transmit information was via frontal lobe virtual construct through a neural implant. A sort of holodeck or virtual reality program inside the user’s brain.

It took him a few seconds to adjust his eyes… Before him stood 3 small pyramids providing light and ventilation to what appeared to be underground spaces. The largest of the three pyramids was covered in reflective glass and painted a pale ocher to compliment the honey colored stone of an older building behind it. It was tall, it appeared towering to the sky and was sunk into a magnificent courtyard.

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He knew this place! He recognized it from an image he had seen while going over a bit of light reading of French history in preparation for an assassination of a Neo-Parisian diplomat on route to a Triad council meeting. It was the Louvre, a famous French museum. It had been destroyed in the great terror bombings of 2022 an event that was orchestrated by a group that called themselves ‘the yellow tank-tops’ or something like that.

A tall slender woman stood before him. She had long black hair and a mouse like face but not at all unattractive. In fact the black pin striped pant suit she wore made her look confident, powerful and sure of herself.

He had never met this woman before, in fact every similar message he had been sent until now had been much less elaborate, he had always found himself sitting in a dark room at a desk where a video display would spout off the terms of the contract, relevant images and video clips pertaining to the job and a bounty offer which could either be accepted or rejected.

A boring, routine affair which never lasted more than a few minutes.

‘Mr. Albright we don’t have much time so I’ll have to make this short. My name is Vanessa Stratmore and I represent a powerful group of biotech executives that need your help. I’m afraid due to the secrecy of this job we were forced to terminate your employer after receiving your contact information.’

Vanessa paused and slowly ran her fingers through her long black hair.

‘I hope you’ll understand and not look too harshly at this decision. The corporation I work for doesn’t like to leave loose ends. After conducting our research, your skillset matched the requirements needed to perform this task and simply put whoever takes this mission will most likely die in the process of trying to complete it. You are in luck, we’ve decided to overlook your past mistakes and hire your services.

If you flerk this job up it will undoubtedly be your last. I should also mention that torture beyond your wildest imaginations is standard procedure for all those that fail us.’

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The one-eyed man grimaced. He thought things had been bad up until now but this was a new flerking low. Did the universe simply want to punish him? If so, it made perfect sense, karma’s got to catch up with people eventually.

‘Here’s the deal Mr. Albright. A few days ago something was taken from one of our secure facilities. This item is of great importance to our research and development department and is highly classified in nature. It’s several meters long and contains corporate markings on either side of the container.

We believe it was taken by a biophysicist under our employ named Derek Green. We also believe he intends to sell this top secret research to a competing multinational company in exchange for a new identity and more credits than he could possibly spend in a lifetime.

It needs to be stated that in order to have pulled this heist off he would have needed several accomplices. Our security systems are state of the art and would have needed to be short circuited from the inside. You must capture Derek alive, not only do we need our research back but its imperative that we understand just exactly how he was able to pull this off from right under our noses.

If you pull this off your reputation will assuredly be repaired and you’ll have more than enough credits to set up a comfortable life on any quadrant in the system. We’ve funded your blockchain wallets with a twenty percent deposit.

It should be enough to assemble your team, provision appropriate weaponry and book passage on a ship to Derek’s last known location. An encrypted packet of data has been sent to your neural implant, all the details you will need to complete this job have been provided. Godspeed Mr. Albright.’

End of transmission.

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Final Thoughts

At this point the story has developed enough to bring a certain level of realism. Can you imagine the universe as it has been described?

Do you feel the tension, the sort of cold despair of a dystopian paradigm? Do you relate at all with the one eyed man? It is my hope that I've got you hooked now. Sorry for the cliffhanger!

I'd very much like to know your thoughts this story so far and what about it you may have liked or didn't like. Thanks so much for reading!

Authored by: Zentalk

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