Artificial Risk
A short story
This is my submission for the Soaring Twenties Social Club monthly Symposium. This month’s topic is Risk.
No risk, no reward.
I knocked on the door. Cold steel rang under my knuckles. I looked around. The alley was empty as far as I could tell in the dark. Nothing but rats and converted warehouses turned into steel-and-brick minimalist condominiums.
No risk, no reward. Someone said that. Maybe some famous writer or playwright. I don’t know who but whoever it was never had my job.
If he had, he would have said all risk, some reward.
What do I mean? Well, more or less, I risk my neck every day and in turn I get a bit of scratch to keep living on, to make it from day to day.
That’s the risk of working alone.
The door opened a crack.
One eye, darkly lashed, looked out at me.
“Well?”
“Sheridan?”
“Yeah. Who’s asking?”
I held up the platinum slip.
The door closed, then opened wide.
She was standing there in very little all crowned in long black curls, faked interest mixed with an edge of boredom on her face.
“Come on in.”
The door shut out the night behind me. The warm light inside did a little to warm the wide open interior. All steel and polished concrete in the kitchen, a steel and wooden table with four chairs, a couch that looked like it had never been sat on, and a bed against the wall with a chic white comforter. No windows. One door, probably to a bathroom. Another door in the back likely leading to another bedroom was slightly ajar.
She took the platinum out of my hand and laid it on the table. With her back turned, she bent over the table.
I knew she was scratching it to test the purity of the metal, as she should.
“Checks out. Would you like a drink, mister—?”
“Taylor. Please. What do you have?”
“Scotch, bourbon, vodka, gin, beer, wine.”
“Vodka.”
“Bubbles?”
“No thanks.”
She didn’t show her surprise but I could tell it wasn’t the order her clients usually gave.
If I have to drink, I’m going to drink vodka. It’s pure.
She pulled the vodka out of the freezer which was bare otherwise. She poured a double shot in a short square glass and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I took a sip. “Anything for you?”
I don’t know why I offered but there it was. Just kind of came out.
She nodded. “Champagne.”
I got the champagne out of the fridge, which was also bare, and she produced a short champagne glass from the cupboard.
I popped the bottle and poured. “Old fashioned glass.”
She nodded. “Easier to drink. It lets off some of the bubbles. I hate flutes.”
“I’m not much for music either.”
She smiled, wider than the quip deserved. Some of the tension dissolved. She drank half the glass and I refilled it.
“So,” she said, gesturing toward the couch, “what can I do for you?”
I unbuttoned my suit jacket and sat down.
I sipped the vodka, processing the subtle flavors. “This is pretty good.”
“Only the best.”
She sat back and looked at me, waiting.
“I’m looking for someone.”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t look for people. That’s not really my line of work.”
“You might know more than you think.”
She shrugged. “I might know something. Doesn’t mean I’ll tell you.” She took a drink. “You still haven’t told me who you’re looking for.”
She stiffened. I could tell she was steeling herself so that she wouldn’t react no matter what I said.
“Craig Ratchet. Know him? Big guy, six-four, three hundred pounds, face like a steam shovel.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You could have just said ugly.”
“Seemed more specific.”
“No, I don’t know him.”
I hammed it up a bit and raised my eyebrows. “Really? You sure about that?”
Her dark eyes flashed. “I said so, didn’t I?”
I pulled a data tab out of my breast pocket and thumbed the switch. The three-dimensional head of a large, ugly man appeared above it.
“This guy?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t even look.”
She took a drink, real slow, leaned forward so her heavy curls fell over her shoulders, and stared at the image.
“Yeah. I’m sure. Never seen him before.”
I set my drink on the end table. “That’s funny, ‘cause this says otherwise.”
I thumbed the switch again. The image dematerialized and reformed. Two people, a huge man and a small woman with dark curls were sitting at a high top, a drink in front of each.
She sat back, one inch at a time, then sipped her champagne and looked at me as if to say, ‘so what?’
Then she actually said it.
“So you know him. That’s what,” I said.
“Know who? Some guy I had a drink with in a bar? I didn’t even know his name.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
She flung her hair back over her shoulder, a haughty gesture that matched the haughty expression on her face.
“Prove it.”
I sighed. I was growing impatient, which surprised me.
“It seems we’re at an impasse.”
“No, there’s no impasse. You’re going to leave. Now.”
She rested a revolver on her hip, the muzzle aimed at my chest.
“Pretty slick. I couldn’t tell, do you have a special gun safe for that built into the couch or do you just stuff it between the cushions?”
She glared at me. “Get out.”
I headed for the door.
“And leave the platinum. Consider it payment for my time,” she said.
“A girl’s gotta work, huh?”
I ducked out the door before she could throw something.
I set up shop in the warehouse across the alley and watched the door for a couple days waiting to see if she would come out or Ratchet would go in but neither happened. It was par for the course to sit in one spot and watch another spot for twenty-four hours for days at a time so I handled it as I always did: just sat down and watched.
I wasn’t sure how well they knew each other but that picture, according to my client, was recent so I had a hunch that he would show up again. She would call him or he would come to see her first (they always do) and then I’d have him.
Well, I’d know where he was. That was the easy part.
Doing something about it was the hard part.
Sure enough day five around ten o’clock at night a huge figure darkened her door.
She opened it a crack then swung it wide. She hurried him in and shut the door but not before I confirmed it was Ratchet when he turned once inside and the light showed his face clearly along with his unmistakable jutting steam-shovel jaw.
Well, that was the easy part done.
I watched the door close, wondering how I’d get in.
No need to get in, just wait for them to come out.
There wasn’t much in the place. No food in the fridge. They probably had some Quik-Serv rations stored but they wouldn’t last forever. The place, although pretty nice as things go, was clearly temporary. The fact that I’d had to track her down, my clients having been unaware of her location, was testament to that.
Day ten. Three in the morning.
Two shadows, one massive, one tiny, walked out of the unlit apartment into the warm night. They turned right and I watched them until they got to the end of the alley, then I sprinted from my perch down the stairs and out into the alley.
I slowed as I reached the end, smelling the conflicting scents of two very different people against the background of warm muggy air, rats, and exhaust from the road. Power lines hummed overhead.
They took a right at the end of the alley into another passageway between warehouses and I followed as close as I could without them hearing.
A car screeched to a stop somewhere in the distance then gunned it.
She jumped. He didn’t budge.
“She’s afraid,” I said to myself, “and he couldn’t care less. I guess a guy that big doesn’t have too much to worry about although he does present a rather large target.”
A few lights showed their progress clearly ahead, though I hung back to avoid the light.
They stopped at the end of the alley then headed out into the road.
I peered out from the end of the alley into the road.
The car that had flattened its tires was nowhere to be seen. A few colorful lights dance over darkened shops up and down the street but nothing else moved.
The air was warm and moist. It smelled of salt and hung there heavy.
I didn’t like it.
I kept to side passages and alleys behind them as they brazenly walked down the middle of the empty street.
This cat and mouse game continued for some time while I tried to guess their destination.
If they had a car stashed somewhere they might go for that. Big if though. I had no idea one way or another.
The train station was close, definitely within walking distance, and unless their car was between them and the station, they were headed to catch a train.
Why sneak out in the dead of the night and then walk down the middle of the street for everyone to see?
Unless they weren’t sneaking out and had a plan in place and they wanted the streets empty for another reason.
I thought about just taking him in the middle of the street but I didn’t like the idea of getting into it out in the open. I liked to operate in quiet out of the way places. It attracted less attention.
I crouched next to a brick wall, the exterior of some shop. Something skittered behind me and a moment later there came a rodent shriek. Always lots of rats around.
An air conditioner kicked on overhead and proceeded to drip on the ground next to me.
I planned my next move.
I took a step and felt a rush of air on the back of my neck. I turned and ducked in one movement.
Something hard and heavy slammed into my forehead. Somewhere deep inside a switch flipped. My neck flopped slightly, took the blow then stiffened to prevent whiplash.
I collapsed in a heap, still conscious but unable to move.
The street was sideways from my new perspective. I didn’t care for it. The ground was damp and gritty.
“Gotcha, asshole.”
An ugly bearded blocky face with close set eyes peered down at me. He grinned.
“Not so tough now.”
He straightened, put two fingers to his lips and whistled.
Two people, sideways, rounded the corner and approached. One was a huge man. The other, a small dark woman.
Ratchet looked at me. “What’s wrong with him?”
No response came from the man who’d hit me.
He put his steam shovel right next to my face. “Who sent you?”
I found I couldn’t answer. I closed my eyes and blacked out.
What felt like the hardest restart of my life kicked me back into consciousness. I opened my eyes.
I was sitting on what looked like a chair as far as I could tell. My wrists were bound behind me and my arms were bound to the back of the chair.
All in all, pretty effective.
I struggled a bit but it was mostly for effect. I could tell I wasn’t going anywhere in my current state.
“You’re back.”
It was the guy that had clocked me.
“Well, from your perspective, I never went anywhere but to me, I’m back. So yeah, I’m back.”
He looked confused, an expression he washed away by grinning and shaking his ugly head.
“Don’t get clever with Ratchet. He won’t like that.”
“Thanks for the tip. You know, you have the squarest head I have ever seen.”
He walked over to me and punched me in the stomach. I doubled over as much as I could given my restraints.
“Thanks. I’ve never heard that before,” he said.
He went out. The door clanged shut.
I checked out the room. Dark. A dim bulb overhead. Door on my left. Brick wall straight ahead. Three brick walls that I could see. Presumably a fourth behind me.
I listened but couldn’t hear anything through the door.
A small window at the top of the wall, though it was blocked up, told me that I was underground.
Not much to do but wait.
I closed my eyes and reviewed my assignment.
Craig Ratchet, the big steam shovel, wanted alive by my clients for unspecified offenses.
Mine not to reason why. Mine but to do and try not to die.
I could see him in my mind, him and his girl, Sheridan.
I might have bungled that one. I underestimated her. Thought she would be a walkover and instead she hadn’t given up the mark and she’d been a tough customer herself. The gun had proved that. I only like guns when I’m holding them.
The door opened.
Here we go, I thought.
Sure enough, the big man himself came in.
He pulled up an unseen chair from the corner and sat down across from me. He had to lean down to put his big flat face across from mine.
“Well, my friend.” His voice was higher than I expected. “Who sent you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t actually know.”
He studied me.
I elaborated. “In my line of work, the less information the better. Clients use an intermediary. I get instructions. I carry out the assignment and I get paid. I know the object and all the info I need to get it done. That’s it. If you don’t know who hired me then might I suggest you screw over fewer people in the future?”
He smirked. “You’re funny. A bounty hunter with a sense of humor.”
“I prefer people finder.”
“Why? That sounds stupid.”
“Kidding.”
He shook his head and chuckled quietly. “Man, you are in such deep shit you have no idea.”
I laughed sardonically along with him. “Haha, no I don’t. Good thing I don’t plan on sticking around to find out.”
“Yeah? How are you going to get out of here?”
“The door, of course. I don’t see another way out.”
“I guess that was a dumb question. I got that a lot in school. My teachers always told me I asked dumb questions.”
I tried to imagine a young gorilla with a jaw like a steam shovel squeezed into a student’s desk. It amused me.
“You know, I’d say things like, ‘Why does i come before e except after c?’ and they’d say, ‘Because,’ so I’d say, ‘Tell me or I’ll put my fist through the chalkboard.’ They didn’t like that too much and I didn’t go to school too much after that.
“So you tell me if I’m asking a dumb question. Who do you work for? And if I don’t like the answer, since I don’t see any chalkboards around, I’ll just put my fist through you.”
“That’s a tempting offer. It really is but I can’t tell you what I don’t know. This is exactly why I operate the way I do and why my clients like me. They know me but I don’t know them and they can’t be got to.
He pulled back and belted me in the stomach.
Unable to double over because of my restraints, my head just flopped forward. I coughed.
“Okay then. Glad that we see eye to eye on this. I look forward to a fruitful partnership, you and I.”
He hit me square in the face. My head rocked.
He stood up and walked to the door. He shot me a puzzling look before going out and closing the door behind him.
“Well this is a real pickle,” I said to no one at all. Maybe there was a sympathetic spider listening in some dark corner.
I sighed. No telling when he’d be back.
I struggled against the restraints. They were too strong and too tight for me to tear through but a sharp object might do the trick.
I closed my eyes and focused on my left hand, my disposable hand. I only meant to dispose of it temporarily.
I uncoupled the servos at my left wrist and sent the command to execute the detach procedure.
The servo piston expanded. My skin tore at the wrist and my left hand dropped to the floor.
The hand crawled up the leg of the chair. The little blade in the index finger snicked in and out as the hand crawled over the back of the chair and around the legs.
In a few seconds I was free.
I stood up, left hand in my right, and made sure the servos were clear to reattach the hand.
The door opened. Ratchet followed by Sheridan entered.
I froze.
They stopped and stared open mouthed at me holding one hand in the other.
I stared at them.
Sheridan raised her arm to point, her voice shrieking: “He’s synthetic.”
“I knew there was something weird about him,” Ratchet said.
As they stood dumbfounded, I reinserted my left hand into the stump. It clicked into place.
That quiet click might have been a gunshot.
A revolver appeared in Sheridan’s hand. She fired once. The round struck my left shoulder and my arm went dead.
I moved in a blur and slammed Ratchet into the wall, his three hundred pounds tossed like a feather pillow. An uppercut with my right knocked him out.
Sheridan backed against the wall, gun shaking.
The bearded lackey appeared in the doorway. He fired once before I could get the gun and put a round in him. He dropped.
I realized my back was wide open. I turned.
Sheridan was sitting on the floor, gun on the floor next to her. Her lips were red, too red.
I stood over her and kicked the gun away. “You should have given him up.”
“Help me.”
I looked around. Kneeling down, I grabbed her dress in my teeth and tore off a strip. I crumpled one end and shoved it bit by bit into the hole in her chest.
She cried out then continued moaning.
“Help me. Hospital.”
“I’ve got a job to finish.” I jerked my head in the direction of Ratchet’s motionless form. “They don’t pay me to be sentimental. Help yourself.”
She croaked something but I wasn’t listening.
Despite my left arm being slack and still not responding, I managed to swing Ratchet onto my back with just my right.
I squeezed through the doorway and over the lackey’s body.
“You soulless counterfeit.”
I stopped. “Yep, that’s me.”
I skirted the table, struggled up the concrete steps, pushed open the overhead steel doors with Ratchet’s body and emerged onto the street.
I dropped Ratchet. He hit the ground like a sack of wet dirt.
A quick glance around told me the street was deserted.
I threw him back over my shoulder and headed out into the night.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any perceived resemblance or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No generative AI was used in any way to write this story.