Going Viral

Short story — In a city where skills can be bought and swallowed via engineered virus pills, a hatchet man must make sure one particular product stays off the shelves.

Even through the respirator, the air beneath the inversion smog reeked of industrial exhaust, hot garbage, and — more recently — rotting flesh. Meat wagons couldn’t maneuver the claustrophobic warren of winding alleyways; the fallout from the Geist Brain-Bombing had them busy beyond reason anyhow.

Rats would probably beat them to most of the bodies.

I stepped over a cadaver, and across the threshold of a noodle spot with a storefront skinnier than a school bus. Two-seater booths lined the left of the joint; to the right was an open kitchen, where a woman browned lab-grown chuck in a wok that looked thick enough to catch bullets.

I took off my mask and sat at the counter. “Lookin’ for Eve.”