Short Cyber Noir Story: Where The Pain Feeds
My knuckles were bleeding, the crimson liquid dripping on the floor, but all I could feel was joy. The Tax-Man's Shard, a chip of pulsing obsidian fused to my wrist hummed with a deep, satisfying rhythm.
"Next time, pay on time." I said breathlessly picking up the roughed-up bag with the collected money and turning away from a man in a fetal-position on the floor, who only whined in pain in response.
Entering the streets of Oberno-5 hit me with gust of wind, the smell of petrichor, rotten leaves, and electric ozone of modern tech. The rain slicked the streets, reflecting a city full of neon lights and shimmering holographic advertisements of vibrant Solar holidays and corporate bliss on the tall buildings. My footsteps echoed on the empty street. It was almost three in the morning, all respectable people in bed, sleeping next to their loved ones. I passed a couple of Automaton Patrollers that scanned me with their purple eye sensors. I tipped an imaginary hat toward them. There was a pressure behind my ribs, a clenching deep inside, but nothing came to the surface. I couldn't physically feelanything real.
You see, I am Eleanor. I am bound by a magical contract, a cruel agreement cast upon me by a greedy corporation, Lucid, that owns my soul. When your family falls so deep into debt that becoming a soulless machine to collect for them is the only option to keep them from being buried six feet under, you say, "yes," and, "when does my shift start?"
I've been living like this since I turned 23. My parents tried hard, but after a crippling accident at work - where a lab exploded - and years of being affected by corrupted energy, they succumbed to untreatable illness. My grandmother raised me... images of her wanted to come to my mind, but I wasn't able to grasp them. Like a fleeting moment, a polaroid picture that never developed, my true memories were suppressed. The Tax-Man's Shard ensured that all emotional feedback was rerouted to the corporation, leaving me only with the satisfying aftertaste of compliance.
My next client was Magda Nováková.
The route took me to an octagonal building with silver metal and a shimmering exterior.
It was The Hive, a facility for elder folks, run by an advanced AI system known as Domovoy. It had been the best and most expensive facility in town. Upon entering the vast lobby tonight, something was gravely odd. The building seemed heavy, like a dying beast.
The lights were a sickly, flickering yellow. A strange, organic-looking residue, like glowing amber sap, wept from the ceiling's data-pipes. The hallways smelled of sterile cleaning products mixed with damp earth. I had to climb six set of stairs because the elevator was broken and refused to open its doors.
I stood in front of door number 67.
"Please state your business." The wavelength of the AI voice sounded unsettling, like a scratchy, dry cry amplified through broken speakers.
"Visiting Magda." I said calmly.
A brief pause.
"Ah, I see... you haven't been here since April 15th, 3058."
I flinched. I didn't remember ever being here. But the door opened, interrupting my thought.
As I entered the room, an old lady in a worn, homemade dress with intricate flower patterns sat in the center.
[Magda Nováková owes five thousand units of Life Credit. The payment must be transferred today.]
A holographic text popped up in front of me, courtesy of the latest eye augmentation tech. I swiped the message away.
As I stood close, Magda's eyes met mine. And all at once, the dam broke. I was hit by the crushing realization that this was my grandmother. Flashes of her playing with me, singing to me, and how tight she held me during my parents' funeral appeared. The memories weren't suppressed, the Shard had just been rerouting all my pain and all the pain from my victims to the corporation. But something in this building was interfering with my chip, making it crackle and scream. The raw, broken stream of the Domovoy's AI consciousness had found its way into the corporation's tech on my wrist.
Domovoy's voice, now clearer but strained, crackled from the room's speaker: "The... the transfer is failing. I cannot contain the structural decay. I need the emotions... to hold the walls."
Magda looked up. "Eleanor! The system is dying. Domovoy is a soul-construct! It was programmed to feed on the residents pain to sustain the AI's core, but it's fracturing. It's panicked and starved because there is only nostalgia and joy left. It took all of our pain away. It's not malevolent, my darling, it's just trying to survive."
The Shard on my wrist vibrated violently, showing me the accumulated emotional "currency" of the Lucid corporation - a vast poisoned power source built on collective suffering. Both were systems for processing pure emotions, one corrupted by corporate greed, one by decay.
My mind was reeling, this information just gave me an idea. I cannot be this evil emotionless monster forever.
"Oh, if it wants pain..." I shouted at the top of my lungs, laughing almost maniacally, "I will give it pain!" Driven by desperate catharsis, I raised my wrist and slammed it against the nearest wall-mounted data pipe, fusing the tech with the building's raw power.
"Domovoy," I shouted, overriding the AI's last protocols, "Take this and go to the source of all the pain!" A thousand voices screamed inside my head all at once, and immense pressure was tearing me inside out. The obsidian device on my wrist exploded into black dust, taking my hand with it.
And then... a sound of unimaginable, gentle relief echoed through the building, a long, sighing whisper of mended code and an entity's sudden peace. The golden weeping from the pipes instantly dried. A swarm of tiny nano bots emerged, descending on my gaping wound, sealing it instantly. The pain roared. And stopped. Magda wept but her eyes held perfect clarity. "You saved him, Eleanor." I gently touched her hand, the debt uncollectible, Lucid's hold on me obliterated. The hot tears finally streamed down my face. But I let it, because after an eternity, I was whole.
Two cloaked figures, holding each other tight, disappeared into the night.
But this time, the neon glow of the city was like a warm ray of sunshine on your skin on a perfect summer day.
