This weeks Flash Fiction Friday entry: The Cube
***
The fugitive took the elevator to his stop on the thirtieth floor of the Oakland Municipal Homeless Shelter. He’d never been in a Homeless Shelter before; he’d never had that kind of money. The Shelter was a forty story lattice work, with cubes sticking out at odd angles, established on the shores of the San Francisco Bay, overlooking the localized singularity formerly known as the City of San Francisco which now referred to itself as The Esther.
The homeless shelter was owned by Temporary Housing Solutions, which was in turn owned by the Oakland Municipal Machine, which in turn was owned by…hell, the fugitive didn’t know. The interlocking cooperatives and directorships baffled him. He’d come to the homeless shelter for one reason and one reason only: to see a man about some business.
The fugitive stopped in front of his destination, checked his phone to confirm this was really Cube 30C and knocked on the door.
“What?” spoke a muffled voice from behind the door.
“Uh, I’m here to see Hector. Jules sent me,” responded the fugitive.
“Jules, hunh? What did he say?”
“Jules said to tell you that you still owed him fifty cents, but that if you do me this solid, he wouldn’t kill you.”
“I owe Jules thirty cents, because I paid him twenty.”
“Do this and I’ll pay you thirty five; a whole nickel profit.”
The door spread apart to reveal a rather plain looking man in a tattered white robe, the kind you nicked from high end homeless shelters. The man—Hector—looked the fugitive up and down.
“Come on in, man,” said Hector. “Just me and Vira in here.”
“What do you got?” asked Hector.
The fugitive fished a small black disk out of his buttpack and held it up in front of Hector.
“One hundred terabytes of memory; factory clean, never used, never networked,” said the fugitive. Hectors eyebrow arched ridiculously high at the mention of ‘factory clean’ and the fugitive noted the Hector was modded, if only subtly. Hector grabbed the memory from the fugitive and slipped it into his robe; he smiled widely.
“Easiest nickel I ever made; what do you need?” asked Hector.
“I need a photoshop. A good one. I need a new reality. I’ve got to be off earth in about a week, before…well, before this thing happens, and I’ve got people looking for me.”
“Vandiver?” Hector, said, smiling.
“Maybe,” the fugitive said. Hector stopped smiling.
“Oh. Shit. You got your genome?”
“It’s on my phone; everything you need is on here. Look, we need to get started. Where is your photo shopper? Where do I need to meet you?”
“Man, you are already here. This here cube is a T.A.R.D.I.S., see?” said Hector.
“A what?” asked the fugitive.
“A T.A.R.D.I.S., man, like on ‘Doctor Who’. You know, ‘Doctor Who’?” asked Hector, disbelieving.
“Never heard of him/her,” responded the fugitive.
“Man, you kids don’t know anything about history,” Hector said, shaking his head sadly. “Vira, baby, open this place up.”
Vira reached over to the ‘A Really Tiny P.C.’ by her bed and hit enter. The walls to the fugitives left and right swung back to reveal more cubes filled with odd equipment. Damn, a near full up apartment, thought the fugitive: photo shopping sure as hell can pay.
“All right then, let’s get started,” said Hector. “Just one thing I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“This is going to hurt; hurt real bad.”
“Not as bad as if Vandiver catches me anywhere on earth this time next week.”
“Yeah. I hear you man. I hear you.”
Nice one. I like the evolving stuff with Vandiver from the black market one from before. The TARDIS ref was cute (and the ref to "history" too), but it could have done with a line or two more description of the cube itself, prior to the unveiling.
Otherwise, totally sweet.
Posted by: ben | September 12, 2008 at 09:17 AM
Ben, thanks for your comments. In the version of the story that was in my head, there was a description of Vira (and a contrast with Hector's mods) and the cube. I'm not why sure why that dropped.
But, practice.
Again, thanks.
Posted by: phred | September 12, 2008 at 08:00 PM