Real: A Cyberpunk Thriller (Simp Series Book 2)

  Real

  By

  Dena Nicotra

  Copyright © 2017 Dena Nicotra

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are either derived from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  V-10-17

  Dedication

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Dedication

  To my people. You know who you are. Thank you for your encouragement and your steadfast support. I admire each of you for your strengths…some of which are portrayed in the pages to follow.

  To the citizens of a certain desert town…together, you have something very special and I will always draw inspiration from you. To my amazing family, I love you all to the moon and back. You are my heart and soul. Thank you for putting up with me while I stepped away to write.

  To every reader who has spent their precious time reading my work…I am honored and I hope you enjoy the ride. Thank you for indulging my imagination.

  Finally, to those that dream of writing: Never doubt yourself or your abilities. You won’t know if it’s worth reading until you try. Just write.

  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption: but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life ever-lasting.

  Galatians 6:7-8

  Preface

  If the statement, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” holds any truth, I’d be the text book example of living proof. At least, that’s what I’d like to believe. Nothing about life after the war has been easy, but for those of us that have made it this far, I suppose that there’s some small fragment of hope. Some people even believe we can start over. Rebuild. Claim our place at the top of the food chain again…

  A little over a year ago, there was no trace of civilization and most people survived by living on the run. Hiding from the highly developed synthetic humanoids that took over our spot at the top of the food chain. The simps, (our cyber-genetic counterparts) were designed to make life less complicated. In my personal experience, I’ve learned that nothing simple is real. Life is not meant to be simple. It’s meant to be challenging. It’s meant to be harsh at times. It’s meant to help us learn how to improve as human beings. It was never meant to teach us how to improve upon human beings. In the end, those efforts overpowered mankind.

  Of course, that too was facilitated by the hand of man (a very twisted man) via a crafty little virus. In the end, killing us off was their primary function. I’m still not a fan of technology, but I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that it can be useful at times. For example, I appreciate my hovcar and the ability to get away when I need to. Mic gave it to me so that I could get around easier and visit him anytime I wanted to get out of the desert. I have no intention of moving back to the city, but I do like to cruise around to clear my head and hunt now and then. If I were being honest, I’d also have to admit that I still prefer to be alone, although I don’t mind having Two and Deraline around for company. I guess people never really change…but I’m trying.

  Not being a people-person isn’t easy, because in Redburg there’s not much of a choice when it comes to socializing. With a population of seventy-two people, you can’t get away with hiding out by yourself for long before somebody gets concerned about you and makes it their personal mission to drop by to make sure you’re still breathing. Let’s just say that I’ve learned to adapt. As much as I like to be alone, I don’t mind folks caring. In fact, I’ve come to appreciate it. Overall, life is easier…for now.

  Chapter 1

  I pulled on an over-sized red flannel shirt and then used the back of my sleeve to wipe the fog from the bathroom mirror. The hot shower felt great, but my propane was getting low and I’d indulged longer than I should have. I made a mental note to talk to Dallas to find out when our next supply order would be coming in. He, together with Tommy and Ross, headed up the law and governing in the town. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Everything they do is under the watchful eyes of the town matriarch, Idella Gannett. That old woman could snap her gnarled fingers and command the attention of every single member of the community.

  At seventy-two, she’d lived in Redburg for more than fifty years and helped deliver more than her share of plump little babies in town. From what I’d come to learn, she was a self-taught medical practitioner and the closest thing we had to a doctor — of the human persuasion, of course. Two and Deraline — my simp “sisters” — had enough knowledge in their synthetic heads to take care of a multitude of things, but not everyone wanted a simp taking care of their ailments. I thought about that with simultaneous resentment and appreciation.

  I looked down at my bare legs and ran my finger over the scar on my thigh. A little over a year ago, I’d suffered from a serious wound infection, derived from a rusty nail that had been stuck in a board. I had the misfortune of landing on it, but it had come in handy as a weapon to exact revenge on a simp sympathizer. Just thinking about that sorry-assed gypsy hag made me angry. What kind of a human being turned on his or her own race? The hole in my leg went clear to the bone, and had it not been for Two, Deraline, and Idella, I probably would have lost my leg. Of course Mic felt awful when he’d come back to visit and learned how bad off I’d been. He could have cured that for me in a matter of minutes with the advanced medicine he had access to in the confines of I.D.E. Incorporated. It had been my decision not to reach out to him for help, against the protests of others. I guess I still harbored a little resentment for his focus on getting back to the Silicon Valley to work on rebuilding the world rather than staying with me and helping with things in the aftermath.

  It was late November and the crisp air was leaching into my little cabin. I poured myself a cup of black coffee and then added another log to my fire before sitting down at the small wooden table under my kitchen window. Much of what I had in my little place had belonged to the prior owner, but it was the closest thing to home I’d had in years. I bit into a piece of homemade soda bread and watched as the wind gently rocked a lone pine tree across the road. Two and Deraline shared a place adjacent to mine, and I smiled to myself as they came into view. Their routine was always the same. All night perimeter checks and the ongoing search for potential threats to the people they guarded here.

  My mind traveled back to that final day…the hills that nestled this lost little town were crowded with simps. They came up over the ridge like a brigade of insane machines. I’d closed my eyes and braced for the worst. In the back of my mind, I could still hear Mic shouting, “Do it NOW, Giz!” By some means, the two of them had finally managed to crack the line of elusive code that linked every simp to the real Aaron’s diseased brain. The man I viewed as the true monster behind the fall of civilization. They say that genius borders on insanity, and Aaron Metchler was (living) proof of that.

  He’d created simps in his own image (and some in some pretty deranged images). Then the sick son-of-a-bitch digitally linked them through his own DNA so that his brain could serve as the mothership of all world dominators. Basically, he was one fucked up omnipresent synthetic psychopath, exacting revenge on humankind. Hi
s reasons? It seemed there were many. Revenge, lunacy…pick your theory. In my mind, he was the mad-mad scientist with a God-complex. What he coveted was the physical body he could no longer possess. What was left of his genius mind was hidden away somewhere, plugged into the mainframes of the technology he’d helped to create…with my boyfriend.

  On that day, Mic and Giz had managed to send out a magical line of code that unplugged his sick little brain from his soldiers. In a blink of a human’s eye, every single one of them dropped where they stood, as if the puppeteer cut their strings. It took us months to clear those wire sacks. Dragging them into pits and burning their bodies became a daily chore that I vehemently resented. The smell was a stomach-turning blend of burnt hair, rotten meat, and plastic. Just the thought of it makes me gag.

  Deraline spotted me in the window and we waved at each other before they both climbed the steps to go inside. I noticed something that seemed almost sad in her expression and then I quickly shook my head to clear that thought. I had to remind myself that neither of them felt emotion, so that couldn’t be right. Two had been modeled after my own genetic coding, so when she acted like a bitch it was easier to convince myself how simps just mimicked behavior to appear more human. I downed the last of my coffee and set about preparing for the day. I had plans to check in with Dallas and see about the propane situation, and then I was going to make another run to Mojave to stock up on more hydro. There were several abandoned hydrogen stations along the main road, but they were all dry now. Fortunately for me, the abandoned airport had turned out to be a hell of a find.

  I laced my boots and checked my pack one last time to be sure I had everything I needed for the trip. Four water bottles, a half a pack of smokes, my pistol, knife, and slingshot. At the last minute, I wrapped up the rest of the soda bread and added it to my cache. I also made a mental note to thank Sue for making it for me and check in on her to see if she needed anything. Her little boy, Otto, was nearly four now. And as much as I hated to admit it, I liked the little squirt. I’d helped to save the two of them the day the simps attacked us, and as far as Sue was concerned, that made me “Auntie Lee.” It also meant occasional treats, and the woman was a hell of a cook. Sadly, her husband hadn’t survived that day. I brushed that thought away, pulled my pack over my shoulder, and closed the door behind me. The faint scent of burning wood and damp leaves wafted through the air, providing an unspoken sense of loneliness. Each little cottage here housed some sort of a broken family that was managing without someone they loved as winter descended.

  My hovcar rose silently over the cluster of houses and storefronts that made up the little town I called home. Down below, I could make out Ross and Dallas pulling several stand up propane tanks from the back of the old truck they used to do their trading. The few small towns in the surrounding area had enough supplies to garner some fairly decent transactions, but the real value came from haggling with the new government representatives. They didn’t come out our way very often, but when they did, they had huge trucks of supplies. Of course, greed is greed, so most of them didn’t just dole out the freebies like they were supposed to. Instead, they chunked out rations to the highest bidders and created a black market that most folks lived by. That often included prostitution, drugs, and —in our case —homemade liquor. Chalk up another one for Idella’s know-how — not that she imbibed, as it went against her faith. The new government was significantly smaller, but no better than the old one. Dallas shot me a thumbs up as I flew over and a part of me wished I had checked in to get myself a fresh tank before I headed out. The rules were simple: first come, first serve. Everyone worked together to make sure we had our needs met, but nobody played favorites, and that was more than fair in my book.

  Passing over the red mountains, I turned on the autopilot, sat back in my seat and enjoyed the view. As I got closer to Mojave, I checked my pistol and positioned my pack so that I could grab it and go as soon as the autopilot handled the landing. There wasn’t much of a risk for running into rogue simps these days, but it wasn’t my style to trust that, just in case. Besides, bad humans were just as dangerous. Once on the tarmac, I booked it to the first building a few feet away and slid the heavy metal door open just enough to slip inside. It was still early morning, and the bright sunlight streamed through the windows placed high above, casting long shadows along the cement floor. I made my way through tall rows of metal shelves, taking care to spot check the inventory. I’d done this before, so I knew right where to go. I pulled one of the large boxes down and then stuffed four hydro cylinders into my pack. I was reaching for a fifth when I heard the distinct sound of a hammer clicking. “Shit,” I said, under my breath. Aside from killer simps, there was the added danger of corrupt people better known as “Baggers.” They survived by taking from others and some of them could be ruthless in the process. I shouldn’t have had my back to the doors. I hadn’t heard anyone coming, but it was too late for regrets now. There was nothing I could do but raise my hands.

  “Drop the bag and turn around, real slow —and keep those little hands where we can see them. We wouldn’t want to damage the merchandise.”

  I set my pack down slowly. “I’m not armed,” I lied.

  “We’ll be the judge of that,” said the older, greasy-haired man with hugely dilated pupils, and the gun. The other two looked to be in their late teens, or early twenties. One of them wasn’t wearing any shoes, and the other one had hollow disks in his ear lobes the size of walnuts. All of them smelled bad. “Damn, little momma, you’re a pretty sight,” said the one with the gauged ear piercings. He let out a low whistle and made a disgusting sound by clicking his tongue against the back of his bottom lip. I could feel my blood pounding in my head. That bastard would pay for that gesture if I got the chance. The older one snickered at this, and I noticed that both of them were missing more than a few teeth. Judging by the way that they twitched, I was pretty sure they were all using chalk. Fan-fucking-tastic. I was about to meet my maker at the hands of tweaked out hillbilly street urchins.

  I took a cautious step backward. “What do you want?” I asked, trying to gauge my options. There was only one way in or out, and they were blocking it. I was alone, and outnumbered.

  “Yeah, what do we want, Dean?” He laughed like a donkey.

  “Shut up, Rodney, you ain’t touching this one.”

  “I don’t want her,” said the one with bare feet. His face was extremely pale, and despite the chill in the air, he was sweating profusely. “John, you’re gonna get well, man! Just hang in there. We’ll all get fixed up after we trade this sexy little piece. This one’s gonna bring in enough to fix us all for a while!” Dean said this with enough conviction to make me wonder how many times they’d done this to other females. I swallowed hard and silently cursed my luck. If they had their way, I was about to become a commodity for them…and they were contemplating sampling the goods. Whatever they had in mind, I was sure of one thing: it was going to be bad. Dean pulled a zip tie from his back pocket, and handed it to Rodney.

  “Tie her hands behind her back, and make sure you tighten them better than you did on the last one.”

  “Ah, c’mon man! I told you that wasn’t my damn fault! John was supposed to do it!” Just before the greasy-haired mastermind could dispute this claim, a loud knocking sound stopped them all in their tracks. Rodney clamped his dirty hand over my mouth and jerked me backwards so that we were concealed behind a tall, rollaway toolbox. He hadn’t had a chance to secure my hands, and I debated turning on him. Taking him out would be easy since he was so scrawny, but I was acutely aware of Dean who had moved to position himself behind one of the rows of shelves less than six feet away. He was crouched down, with his gun still trained at my head. I watched him spit tobacco onto the cement floor before he mouthed silent orders to the one they called John. Unfortunately, John wasn’t paying any attention to his buddy’s frantic attempts. He was still standing in plain sight and looking as though he was either going to puke
or pass out.

  The metal door slid open, bathing the barefoot kid in a rectangular spotlight of sunshine. From the profile view I had, I could see that his tee shirt was drenched in sweat.

  “Do you require assistance?” The male voice boomed in the silence. Recognizing the standard simp inquiry, my brain went on autopilot. It was a matter of fight or flight. I pulled my gun from the back of my jeans, raised it over my right shoulder, and fired a single shot into the bottom of Rodney’s jaw. Warm blood sprayed the side of my face as he fell backward. Dean was on his feet, his face a contortion of rage and confusion. “You fucking crazy bitch!” He shouted, as he fired his gun. My ears were ringing as his bullet lodged in the toolbox just above my head. I didn’t hesitate to fire a second shot into the center of his oily forehead. My eyes darted to the sick boy, still standing like a statue in the patch of sunlight as the simp rushed toward him, oblivious to the gunfire around him. In one swift move, the simp snapped the boy’s neck and he slumped to the ground. That was the end of the story for the addicts that would have sold me for their next high.

  I wasted no time running for the door. Simps are several times faster than humans are, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying to live. I felt like I was running in a dream, but by some means I made it out of the building alive. My ears were still ringing as I hit the power button on the control panel of the hovcar and scrambled inside.

  It wasn’t until the ground below me started to fade away that I realized it wasn’t chasing me. He stepped out of the building, raised his head up slowly and stared at me as I continued to ascend. I raised my middle finger to the glass. I wasn’t going to die today.