Eden & Echo - A Gritty Cyberpunk Noir Thriller

"The trick to shooting accurately is to follow through and not fuck up." Simon explained before he shouldered his carbine and fired. There was a supersonic crack as the thin magnetic projectile was accelerated to several times the speed of sound followed by a loud "Plink!" and a shower of sparks as it hit the metal silhouette target two hundred meters away.

Then he did it three more times. He started at a low ready, shouldered the weapon, then fired. Each time there was a shower of sparks and the sound of a high speed projectile hitting metal. He made what I knew was a tricky shot look like the easiest thing in the world. And he did it without wearing a HUD.

"If you want to get really good at shooting you need to understand that usually the weapon is more accurate than you are." He patted the black carbine lovingly. "At two hundred meters this weapon is capable of putting all ten shots within a two centimeter circle. That is the mechanical accuracy of this carbine. So as long as I follow through and don't fuck up, this weapon will hit what it is aimed at."

"Your goal is to get out of your weapon's way so that it can do its job. If you try to anticipate recoil, flinch, or have a sloppy trigger pull you will be unintentionally steering the weapon away from its target."

"With smart weapons shooting becomes both easier and vastly more complicated. It is easier because once a target is designated the weapon compensates for environmental variables and fires for you once you bring it on target. But marking targets requires practice and that's where most people screw up."

He handed me a memory chip. "Slot this into your scarab." He said. "It will run a scan to make sure it's safe then you can access the data."

I eyed the small carbon black chip. It was thin and rectangular with one side chamfered for easy insertion. On the back was a silver logo, the letters K and A enclosed in a circle, my father's company. I opened the hard case in front of me and took out the scarab.

The portable firewall and anti-intrusion device was light in my hand, just four flat black straps in an X configuration with a thumb-sized bump of black glass in the middle. A small fluorescent orange triangle indicated which side was up and a rectangular opening on the right side was outlined with that same orange to show where new chips could be installed.

I placed the black chip inside and felt something click as it locked into place. The orange ring around the socket pulsed for a few seconds before turning green. I looked at the scarab, knowing what the next step was but not wanting to do it.

"Is it going to hurt?" I asked. "Is it going to try and read my mind?"

Simon shook his head. "No. It doesn't hurt, it just feels strange, like having someone really close to you that you can't see. Your wetware views the scarab as an external device that it can control and route network traffic through, but it doesn't grant the scarab permission to access any of your internal processes."

I picked up the scarab and slapped it onto the base of my skull before I could lose my nerve. Four cold legs attached themselves to my skin and made small adjustments as they lined the scarab up with a hidden magnetic data port.

I felt the computer in my head ask me if I wanted to install an external device and what that device was. I said yes and that the device was a scarab portable firewall. My wetware confirmed that the device was indeed a portable firewall and let me assign permissions.

A few seconds later I had the strange feeling that someone was behind me, right behind me, so close that they were almost touching me. I looked but nobody was there.

"Spooky, isn't it?" Simon laughed. "The feeling goes away eventually. Let's try something, turn and face away from me."

I turned to face away from Simon. "Alright, now what?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?" He asked.

"Three." I said, somehow knowing the answer.

"Very good. How about now?"

"Four." I replied, slowly turning around to confirm. Simon was holding up four fingers.

"Well done Hase!" He beamed. "Your wetware seems to have integrated with the scarab nicely."

I was about to ask how it all worked but just like with Simon's test I already knew the answer. My wetware was querying the scarab and it was compiling an answer based on what it saw through its sensors or had stored in its files.

"Woah." I said, "This thing is insane. What else can it do?"

An overwhelmingly long list of uses for the scarab flashed through my mind, making me dizzy. It could do everything from network monitoring to visual identification of flora and fauna. I sat down and fought the nausea. It was too much.

Simon cleared his throat to get my attention. "On the chip is a raw sensory log of a training exercise I went through. It's violent and bloody. But it highlights the difference between using a HUD and natively interfacing with a smart weapon. You might not want to see it. I kill a Howler at the end."

I didn't want to see Simon kill someone. I intentionally avoided violent situations because of my demi-human heritage. It was bad enough knowing everyone thought my kind were monsters. I didn't have to play into the stereotype. But eventually curiosity got the better of me.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Most of the recording is us fighting bots. The Howler I killed at the end was an evil prick. But you can stop the recording early if you don't want to see that part.”

“Ok.” I said as I prepared myself to dive into the recording. My wetware was good enough that I didn't need an external rig. Normally I used it to play video games and stream media. But this was raw unedited sensory data. I would feel everything.

I found the file and initiated playback. I closed my eyes and felt the world around me melt away. My body and senses went silent. I became a bare mind floating in a sea of emptiness. I became nothing.