Eden & Echo - A Gritty Cyberpunk Noir Thriller

As we were gathering our stuff, Rook pulled me aside. I had been avoiding him because I knew he would want to talk about the firefight. “How are you holding up?” he asked.

“You were right. Tomorrow the sun will rise, there will just be fewer people alive to see it.” I threw my bag over my shoulder.

“I hoped you would never have to find out for yourself. But it is nice to hear that I was right,” Rook admitted, “Do you want a rundown of what we found?”

“Sure.” I gestured for him to join me in a corner, away from the rest of them. I reached out and held his hand to establish a private link.

The information was all neatly organized. Knight’s contacts confirmed the weapons left official service before they made their way onto Porto’s streets. Simon's company was in the clear.

I was relieved to find out the weapons hadn't come from us, but something about the whole situation still bothered me. There were too many unanswered questions.

“Do we know who was backing the gang?” I asked, “That was some pretty heavy hardware.”

Rook shook his head. “We have people looking into it. But they don't have anything solid to report yet.”

“Alright, how about an educated guess then?”

The panzerhund looked at me for a second before he answered. There was something in his expression I couldn't quite read. “My money is on one of the old monsters stirring up trouble. A lot of money went missing when the Howl collapsed, and warhunds age slowly.”

“Great,” I said as I patted my bag to make sure it was secure, “Just what we need, a bunch of near immortal hund supremacists.”

“I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to finally put them down. Have fun at GG’s party.”

I let out a snort of laughter. “Hah! I'm probably going to hide in my room until it's over. I'm not in the mood to see my aunt cuddling up with a bunch of naked models half her age.”

“Good point,” Rook admitted.

***

We took a helicopter over to the hotel. Once my bags were safely stowed, I wandered down to make an appearance at GG’s party. She had rented out an entire ballroom and, judging by the booming bass, festivities were still in full swing.

I hesitated at the doorway. I knew that she would give me shit for it later, but I wasn't in the mood for a party. The group of drunken hunds that came along a few seconds later were the tie breaker.

Something about the way they moved had set off my threat detection software. It was screaming at me to run, to find a weapon and prepare myself for the coming attack. But none of them were armed, or visibly enhanced.

I forced down my instincts and stood perfectly still as they brushed past. No attack came. None of them even bothered to give me a second look.

I half expected Echo to make a snide comment about me being jumpy. But she was blessedly silent. I decided to go back to my room before I accidentally stabbed a bellhop for looking at me funny.

I was still on full alert from the firefight and needed to calm down, preferably far away from anyone else. When I got back to my room I collapsed onto the bed and tried to pretend that everything was fine.

I pretended that I wasn't some freak of nature. It was perfectly normal for someone to kill a bunch of gangsters, as well as their childhood hero, and feel zero remorse.

“Echo,” I said quietly, “What did you do to me?”

My worse half declined to respond. I waited for a minute, wondering why she was being so quiet. “Hello? Are you there?”

Echo still refused to answer. Instead of yelling at her, like a crazy person, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then, I slowly let it out.

I tried a different approach. “I just want to know if I'm like this because of you, or if I was already broken.”

Then, without warning, every joint in my body locked up. I couldn't move, speak, or breathe. A raspy chuckle rose from somewhere in the shadows to add to my panic.

“You can't go blaming everything on her,” said a hund as he stepped into the light, “After all, she laid down her life for you… so to speak.”

I couldn't move to get a good look at him, but his charcoal black fur and golden eyes were familiar. It was that thing from the Dead Net. The thing that had taken my grandfather.

“It's too late to do anything about it now, but your instincts were bang on.” KB let out another chuckle and lit a cigarette. “They spiked you in the hallway when they brushed past. Now something highly illegal and expensive is eating your wetware.

“Echo took the brunt of it because she acts like a firewall. But a few seconds from now you'll be dead too. Which is a shame, because I had hoped that you would at least get to the gate this time.”

My vision was already starting to blur. KB’s words echoed in my head as I tried to fight the paralysis. Even my basic functions like S.O.S. and messaging were down, leaving me unable to call for help.

KB came over and sat down beside me. He gently stroked my hair as he spoke, but I couldn’t feel it. My body was already going numb. “It's strange,” he said, “I have your grandfather’s memories. I know how much he loved you. And yet, I feel nothing.”

I heard him speak, but my mind was already slipping away. Thick, inky blackness was reaching up to claim me. This was it, I was going to die.

The last thing I heard was a raspy chuckle, and a few whispered words. “Do better next time,” KB said as he reached down and broke my neck.