Part 2

William street is a mass of market stalls and people, a few stalls have small solar panels that feed computers and other communication devices. There are food stalls, fruit and vegetable stalls and mods stalls for every kind of device. There is livestock for sale here, small pens of unhealthy looking pigs, cages full of chickens and rabbits. We don’t dismount but the crowds that surround us slow our progress to walking speed. Everything is on sale here, vendors shout their wares above the din of the crowds, and the profusion of goods available coupled with the mass of humanity makes the place look colourful and exciting to me. FC15 pauses to talk to a man selling mods for mobile phones and mini comps. I can’t hear what they’re saying, something changes hands but I don’t see what it is. Later, as we filter out of the street I ask him what it was. “Oh that guy. He’s a mate, a good mate of mine. He knows a bit about blocking and scrambling signals. You’ve got to be able to block or, at the very least, scramble any radio or wireless signal you emit, especially in my line of work. If they get a fix on you it can really ruin your day. I mean they know we’ve got stuff right, but they don’t know where we are. They don’t know what we’re going to do with it. We’re not important enough to really zone in on so a small bounty is put up, nothing really, and any old hunter can take a pot shot. It’s just business really.’ We ride over the horse shoe and back toward the Terrace. I try not to think about the gunship as we cross the tracks. There’s no traffic on the bridge anymore. No cars here at all anymore since the warehouse wars of early 2017. As we ride up William street I look over at the half finished building at the corner of the Murray street mall. The rusty metal framework striking into the air looks like antenna. The whole thing looks like what it is; a broken tribute to a bygone age of optimism and imagination. ‘Went to a ripper of a party there the other day.’ FC15 says noticing me looking at the half finished building. I ask him how he went to a party in an empty shell of a building. ‘Oh that ain’t empty mate there’s people living in there. The tunnel people can get in too, from the old station they put in down there. It’s a nice place, they’ve done it up nice.’ We ride past the mall, past Hay street and right onto Saint Georges Terrace. This is the main drag of the financial district and where my driver had dropped me off barely half an hour ago. It feels like a long time ago now. There’s people here now, a few armoured SUV’s dropping off some workers and a few lower paid workers running from building to building with cleaning equipment and other maintenance gear. We ride up to 250 and down an entry ramp toward the car park. The sound of gunfire and shouting encourages us to put the brakes on. ‘A wrong delivery most likely. Those post rooms are pretty vicious these days. One of our gys was killed a couple of months ago, slipped a slick rick in with a delivery. They scanned it and he was dead before they’d signed for the package. Must have been the money. Some of those companies will offer you a fair whack to smuggle a spy bot into a building like this. It’s worth a fortune to them I guess.’

We cycle back up the ramp away from the mailroom and the sound of gunfire. My wife is getting our children up at around this time, fixing them their breakfast. I try not to think about that. I try not too think about the very real possibility that I might never see them again. FC15 locks our bikes together and electrifies them and we enter in through the main lobby. Almost at once we are surrounded by beefed up security. Before you can say eyelid scan FC15 has a 9mm in his hand, where he produces it from I don’t know. He is calmly explaining that he does not give permission to take a retinal scan and that he has First Courier ID and two packages destined for offices in this building. The security guards do not seem surprised to see the gun. They stand their ground, one pulls out a heavy looking Glok. ‘Let us take an ID off you and we’ll wave the retinal scan. Whose your mate?’
‘Just some journo doing a story, he’s cool. He’s got an ID from his Feed, it checks out okay.’ They scan both our id and wave us through. The lift tags us again as we ride to the fifteenth floor to make the drop. The usual rubbish about retinal scans follows and FC15 politely explains that he is unable to give out this information because of the high risks associated with this being logged onto an intranet no matter how secure they seem to feel it is. The receptionist accepts this argument without qualms and the package is dropped. Next we take the lift down to the eleventh floor. The penultimate package that FC15 picked up from east Perth, although he has bid on and won five pick ups to do on the terrace after dropping this one. The doors open out onto a quiet corridor lined with doors. He motions me to stay in the lift. I do as he says. Each door displays a company name and a logo. FC15 pulls his gun once again. I see that he has a holster sitting beneath his flak jacket. He steps out of the lift looking left and right cautiously as he does so. I can hear nothing. I glance nervously down the corridor, first one way and then the other. ‘What are we looking for?’ I whisper.
‘These floors with different firms on can sometimes be dangerous mate. The offices aren’t protected the same as most so once the door is open it leaves a larger security hole, things can get pretty vicious here’ FC15 says in a low whisper. ‘They are often small offices of larger corps and are slightly easier to target than the larger places. Sometimes they fight amongst themselves too. I remember a few years back a couple of firms at 216 had a gun battle over the use of the toilets. That was well funny. Two people dies and another was taken to hospital over whether or not they left the lid down.’
He looks up and down the corridor and then takes a look at the address for the drop, Unit 101, Radium Resources. He beckons me out and we move down the corridor. As we work our way past the closed doors of each company his pace becomes faster. 97, 98, 99, 100, the last door, facing us, in small black type on the frosted glass the number 101 and just above that Radium Resources. He goes to push the door when I shoot him in the back of the leg. I know he has no armour there, I know he will go down. The silencer deadens the noise but the acrid smell of the explosion still fills my nostrils. He falls against the door pushing it open with a loud yell. I reach into my bag and pull out four tiny spy bots which I release toward the door. They run across his prostate body. Blood seeps from the hole as he writhes around like a stuck pig. I step over him as he finally twists around to face me. I put my foot down on his gun hand and wrench the gun from his hand. He pulls his good knee into my groin as I do so. The pain is enough to knock me backwards, I fall across him, landing on the wounded leg. He lets out another yell. His gun skids across the floor, further into the office. The receptionist in the front office is up and out of her chair. She is calling out something but I don’t hear what. The bots are in the office now, I’ve earnt my commission on this piece of shit fluff piece twenty times over in less than 30 seconds.
‘What the fuck?’ he exclaims. He scrabbles to get out from underneath me. He grimaces as he tries to pull his leg free. I raise the gun but he grabs my wrist and drags it down onto the floor. I hold firm onto the gun as he does this and although he holds firm his other arm cannot get to it without pulling his leg free of me.
‘Oh come on you fucking moron. Bathroom extensions don’t pay for themselves and besides I’ve got mortgage payments to meet.’
‘But you’re a journo. We checked you out.’
‘Everybody has a price 15, you of all people should know that.’ As I say this I hear the alarm go off. I’ve got to kill him before the security guards get to us and he can tell them what has just occurred. I’ve got to get to him before he can tell them the truth. He writhes around so his body is once again facing the floor. He does not let go of my wrist and his grip is like iron. My body is pulled around as he does this. I feel the wetness of his blood seep through my jeans. I punch him as hard as I can in the back of the neck and then I lean into his leg as hard as I can. I can hear him breathing heavily. I figure he will pass out soon. He pulls away from me. He grabs out at the gun lying a metre away from him. Three men run out of the back office, two of them are armed with some kind of gun although they don’t look like the conventional kind, possibly they are tasers.
‘Somebody help me, this guy just released a spy bot into your office.’ I yell at the top of my lungs. The rising panic is real.
‘Screw you buddy.’ FC15 says to me in a low growl and sits up too face me. He pulls his good leg up and kicks me with all he’s got. He connects with my shoulder and I fly back into the door jam, the force of the kick is immense and I hit the metal frame hard enough to pull it from the wall. I find myself staring at the ceiling. I pull the gun up so I can see it. I smile and look for FC15 but he has been busy and is sitting up in a growing pool of his own blood with his 9mm levelled right at me. I sigh and push myself up into a leaning position against the wall just outside the office. The two office workers with weapons level them both at FC15. I smile at him. ‘This guy just released a bot into your office.’ I say. I tried to stop him but only worked out what he was doing a moment before he did it. I think he’s with Uranium’R’Us.’
‘Ok buddy just drop the shooter.’ They say to FC15.
‘I didn’t release no bot mate. This prick gave you four of the fuckers and then shot me in the back of the leg. He’s the dog, not me.’
The two guys look momentarily confused. They glance at one another and then at the receptionist who just shrugs her shoulders.
‘Look guys I’m a journo with the Australian. I’ve got Id to prove it, I live up in Oceanique. I’m true blue mate, why the fuck would I want too give you guys bots? This guy? This guy is a bloody courier, he’s a courier mate. He probably needs the dough for his next hit of Fantasy or some shit.’ I lower my gun to the floor in a gesture of trust.
‘Come on dude this is bullshit. I’ve been in here to pick up and drop off a thousand times, you know me.’ 15 says.
‘Sorry mate I’ve never seen you before in my life. Just hold still and drop the gun now and we’ll let security sort this out.’ One of the office bods says. It’s almost comical how much fear there is in his voice but this pathetic solution is apparently enough for FC15 who lowers his gun.
‘I grin at him and raise mine back up and shoot him in the face. His face seems to implode as the life jumps out of him and something flies out of the back of his head. One of the office guys faints and the other two jump backwards. The receptionist sits down hard on the floor. I hear the lift doors opening and security are yelling at us all to drop our weapons. We all do as they say. They come in and pull the body out of the reception area. Four paramedics come in to check us all out. Turns out he dislocated my shoulder and broke a couple of ribs with the kick. They all buy my story, he was just a courier after all. Three office dudes and a receptionist get the day off and twice weekly visits to the company counsellor for the next six months and I’m $40’000 richer than I was a half hour ago. I pick myself up off the floor with more than a wince. I think about the kids school fees, the mortgage payments, the bathroom extension with the hot tub in it and smile my way down in the lift. In my mind I am finishing off my puff piece for the Sunday supplement with a nice ride off into the sunset for our intrepid adventurer from the wrong side of the tracks. The security guards don’t look at me.