#kooler

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT! ⚠️ Click here to read Neon Blessing from the beginning!

“Look, you don’t have to give me a map. Just point me in the right direction.”

“Shiv, kid, I get it. You want revenge. But-”

“I don’t want revenge,” she said. She wasn’t certain if it was a lie.

“Then what do you want?”

“Answers.” Hell, she didn’t even know the finer points of what the two of them had stolen. The house had been full of valuable art, they’d passed a poorly-hidden wall safe on the way to the owner’s office, and they ignored it all in favor of the data drive that had sat atop a messy stack of papers. Ornarch hadn’t told them what was on there, just that it would go for a hundred thousand credits at a minimum, or a million from the right buyer. Most drives its size were just something convenient to hold, with the data itself stored on a chip a few nanometers thick. Whatever was on that drive had been complex enough that the whole damn drive was dedicated to memory. A sphinx glinted darkly on its surface, mirror finish set into matte black. There was something captivating about its sheer scale and the precision of its construction. Something a little sinister, too. Then he had shown up, and the rest of the night was a blurry nightmare of burning, screaming, and blood.

Kooler pursed his lips. “And once you have those answers, what are you going to do?”

“My job. Ornarch wants me to-”

Kooler’s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head. “Isn’t your job breaking and entering? At least, I think that’s what you told me the first time we met. Forgive an old man’s memory for its failings, but I think I would have remembered hearing a teenager call themself an executioner.” He suddenly sounded very old, and very tired.

“Maybe I’ve changed. Why do you care?” It came out a little colder than she’d intended it to.

“Sorry, sorry. You’re right. None of my business.”

“So you won’t help me?”

“Staying neutral is how I stay alive. Everyone knows old Kooler keeps his mouth shut.”

“That’s a no?” Her heart sank. She’d known it was a long shot, but even still, Kooler was the closest thing she had to a lead.

Whatever he saw in her face gave him pause. “I… offered them ten thousand for the drive. I don’t even have half the hardware it would take to decrypt that… monster. I told them I wasn’t paying a credit more than that for a piece of software I couldn’t validate, no matter what rumors I’d heard. They took their business elsewhere. I don’t know where.”

“Rumors?”

“Have you been online since you stole it?” She hadn’t. “Half of the criminals in the Diluvian District are hunting after that sphinx drive. It’s anyone’s guess what’s on there, but Ebrelurge put a bounty out on it and then a few gang bosses joined the bidding war. As of this morning, the best offer is 1.6 million.”

Lord of birds. One point six fucking million?

He went on. “I don’t know where they went, but I know someone who might. Don’t go telling everyone I lent you a hand, but you’re- you’re a good kid. Just- hear them out when you see them. Don’t rush headlong into being a killer.”

“Yeah.”

Kooler pushed off the counter, sending his chair on a practiced arc towards a shelf of folders in one corner of the shop. He returned bearing a business card, a thin sheet of crisp white plastic stock with “Club RED – 1191-3962” embossed on it in brilliant crimson. The back side of the card was decorated with a staring eye in the same shade. “Kurtz–the owner of Club RED–knows me, and she’s got a panopt. Ask to see Odie. If it can’t help you, no one can.”

Shiv grinned. “Thanks, Kooler.”

“I’d say ‘any time,’ but really I’d rather not stick my neck out again.”

“With any luck, you won’t have to!”

The door squealed as she left.

Them

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT! ⚠️ Click here to read Neon Blessing from the beginning!

As she climbed the stairs from the train station, she was assailed by the riot of color and text inherent to any District’s downtown. A thousand ads warred for her attention, wielding punchy slogans and brilliant hues. Unable to compete with the noise of the falls, the ads screamed in vibrant silence: ONLY 70C! TAKE A BREATH OF BLACK SUN! CELESTIAL COLOSSEUM: DEATH MATCHES WEEKENDS AT 9! LIVE FOREVER! Half-nude models leered down at her from thousand-foot-tall billboards. One caressed a rifle as if it were a lover and winked at her. The ad had no text indicating whether it was the woman or the weapon on sale. Hell, it could have been an ad for fruit juice.

Her destination was only a few miles from the parking garage. This morning, she would have walked that distance, but the 3C train fare was more appealing with twenty thousand in her pocket. If she was going to find Raz, there was only one place to start.

The Big K was a small shop, the only sign of its existence from the street being a grimy neon sign half-visible down an alleyway. Compared to every other business on the street, it had a tasteful air of desperation and disrepair. She stepped around a sleeping form at the entrance of the alley, slipping a coin into their pocket as she did so. She could spare the change.

The door squealed loudly as she swung it open. It was so perfectly Kooler: why spend money on grease or an entry chime when he could kill two birds with one cut corner? The Big K was a pawn shop, of a sort. Kooler would buy from and sell to anyone, but above all else he was a cornerstone of criminal life in Diluvian 22. Kooler knew everyone, everyone knew Kooler, and most importantly, the cops didn’t fuck with him or his clientele.

The store was empty, save for the owner, who sat in a swivel chair behind a glass counter filled with a vast assortment of pricey trinkets. Kooler was a fat man in his early fifties, dressed in a perfectly-tailored, if shabby, suit. He was meticulously clean-shaven, his long hair up in a ponytail. He blinked away his HUD, then produced the practiced grin of a salesman when he saw who had entered his domain.

“Shiv!!! How’re ya holdin’ up, screamer?” His gaze flickered to her shoulder and the arm that conspicuously wasn’t there.

“Hey, Kooler.” Shiv liked Kooler. He was cheap, but he was honest.

“I saw your buddy in here last month–asked ‘em where you were. They said you nearly got memorialized!”

“That’s actually what I’m here about.” She realized her fist was clenched.

Kooler had kept on talking. “--was some haul you two birded! You puttin' your share towards a shiny new arm? I could hook you-”

Shiv cut him off. “I didn’t get my share. And neither did the old man.” Kooler’s mouth closed like a vault door. “Raz skipped town.”

“Ah.” His good cheer had evaporated.

“Yeah.”

“Playing headsman for the thief-god now, are we?” For as long as she’d known him, Kooler had never particularly approved of violence, for all that his business depended on it.

“I intend to do a lot more than play.”

Kooler sighed, then leaned over the counter, pressing fingertips together. Down to business. “Well, kid, what can I do for you?”

“I need to know where they went.”

He frowned sympathetically. “Shiv, you know I like to stay out of shit like this.”