Ch 5: Life of a Cityrunner - M’tambe

M’tambe sipped his glass of hundred-year-old Scotch and considered the world around him. On the south wall of his condo were forty screens he could use to access any security cameras in the city. He believed the Broken Chip gang had a rudimentary version of similar tech, but the City-Runners had decided to let them be for now. They’d been nothing but loyal, and their work cleaning out some of the undesirable elements of the Katana had saved him and his weeks of annoyance.

He glanced down at his control console. He decided to order a steak dinner with potato and butter, grilled mushrooms, and flan for dessert. While he was there, he also ordered up a prostitute. He has some basic parameters but otherwise preferred to be surprised. He scheduled the sex for an hour after dinner. That way, he could get tidied up for the experience.

He glanced in the general direction of his screens and frowned. The Kabutowari were selling drugs in public again. They’d had two warnings, the last from the central council, and he needed no authorization to do what he was about to do.

A quick look at the time made him realize he would have to cancel his prostitute, which did nothing to lighten his mood.

Once done with the minutiae, he tapped a comm screen to connect him to the Weapon-Wielders.

He didn’t recognize the face that answered, but that didn’t matter.

“I have a B7 priority request.”

The face, which belonged to a comely young female, gasped.

“Someone has violated two warnings? Who is this idiot?”

He sighed.

“The Kabutowari gang.”

The face turned incredulous.

“All of them?”

He nodded and then shared his security screen. The violation crawled by in a chyron at the bottom, so there was no need for further questions beyond the obvious.

“Do we kill them all?

He shook his head.

“They can’t learn if they’re dead. No, instead, kill the twenty on this screen.”

She nodded and made some notes offscreen.

“Our usual fee?”

He looked at her carefully.

“Double if it’s done in the next few hours. I want the wounds to be fresh.”

She nodded again and disconnected.

He notified the rest of the City-Runners what had happened, how he was dealing with it, and then accepted his dinner from the service robot.

He was just about to bite into his first morsel of steak when heads began to explode. Despite the inconvenience, he was sure watching this was better than anything a prostitute could offer.