A Bad Memory

What his real name was no one could say, but everybody who was on good terms with him called him Big Daddy, especially the ladies. Big Daddy was not without his problems, his bad habits, and a reputation that reviled any of the big city gangsters. After the nano-bombs cooked the east coast black a hundred years ago, the world had been full of problems, though no one had any time to complain.

If you wanted to eat, breed, congregate, or even move during the daylight hours, you needed numbers. Safety was not an issue, because safety was a lie. No guarantees existed for childhood words like safety, words used to get mutant children to sleep at night while security drones haunted the landscape.

Big Daddy and his screw crew were specialists at dealing with yesterday’s garbage, the kind that flew around, or lurked under the crumbling infrastructure where highways met byways. In such desolate places they flourished like professional hitmen, decked out in military hardware scrounged up from lockers and caches.

Big Daddy wore black from head to heel, rocking a hooded trench coat, big bad head crushing boots, and a flak vest he found several years back. His hair was raven, his flesh tone pale as ghost vapour, with optical cavities black as charcoal. In truth he had no eyes, having had them removed after he witnessed a nano bomb detonate under a holographic sky, the whole thing bright as almighty God and overly cancerous to the retinas.

On his back he slung a shotgun next to a six foot long ninja blade he had forged by a rigger in brick town who had fire hot enough for titanium work. At his sides were holstered twin fifty cal pistols with bayonets, and these had silencers which muffled but did not kill the thunder his triggers summoned.

BD rode a nuke powered motorcycle with a charge of fifty years, made tough with run flats and a three part unseizable motor. He sped through a secure zone toward his fellows, realizing through his cybernetic modem that he was already late for the job. Big Daddy’s bike pulled into the yard just as they closed the gate behind him, the guards shaking their heads as if he would never learn. Big daddy swore to himself that he never would.

You never showed up when expected, the voice of his brother had always told him, because if you did then they always knew where and when to get you. Not that he had any foes here, but then again you never know. BD dismounted and found himself kissing one of the armored searchers, presenting him and the others with a sort of conflict of interests. He pushed her off of him to keep from wanting more, and the text she sent him tickered passed his cyborg vision like sexual stock futures promising a robust return. Then Glen and Myra strolled up, the former speaking under the sound of a reving turbine which had just gotten put back together.

“Big Daddy! To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

BD threw it back in his face.

“Can it Glen. My head is pounding from that junk you sold me last night. I’m here for the money and a chance to decrease the surplus population of the earth. Let's not hem and haw over any details.”

Myra nodded with a smirk and said.

“This way Big Daddy… We have the kind of work you’re gonna love.”

Glen and Myra led BD into a tent where Jorge, Meadow, and Owens waited, gathered as they were around a holo emitter set to infrared light. Big Daddy didn't need any augmentation because of his custom optics, but others donned goggles so as to not be left out of the planning stage. Glen stood before the projection and pointed here and there as he spoke, trying to set up the half ass data they got into some kind of game plan. This didn’t bode well.

“OK. So. We got word that a power signature flashed on and off over the last twelve hours, and it’s the kind of flicker we have to check out. It promises some parts we desperately need, and suggests that they might still be functional. However…”

The tent felt the plunge of that however like a knife in the gut.

“...This factory or hub or automatic vehicle is in the dead zone. So anyone not playing with a full deck tonight should sit this one out. There is likely to be bad bloods, maybe even jelly dolls walking around out there. Armed no doubt, and we won't be the only ones to notice that flicker. The blips prolly brought every scumbag from here to the bay into contest for it’s prize. Figure it out.. We leave in ten minutes.”

Everyone gathered voted to go, and before the meeting was even done they were filling out into the rain. Glen was yammering about how he wasn’t finished, but even Myra went to join the eager flock. Everyone surrounded Big Daddy, listening closely as thunder attempted to drown out his basso voice.

“Alright kids. Whoever thinks that this is just some kind of smash and grab better think again. It ain't. This sounded like a caper I pulled about five years back, and if it's half as ugly as that one was, then we better bring all the toys and hostility out of hell.”

Meadow spoke up, her squeaky voice sounding like squealing tires on a cloverleaf drift.

“Oh man! It’s like that one? Like that one with the androids and the plasma thrower? I always wanted to get into synthetic soldiers. On the street they count as double.”

Jorge laughed to emphasize how stupid she sounded, saying.

“Synthetic soldiers get you killed. They are more like three or four people, and without the right hardwear they don't go down. What makes you think that it won't be you on the street?”

Owens put in his two bits, though not with any exuberance.

“We got synth rounds. Enough for all. So that ain't the issue. The issue is that that flicker could be a trap. Maybe these are tongue slugs, those cannibals who emerge from the sewers to munch on sentient flesh. That’s what got my sister. She thought she was slick too, and now she’s a turd on the asphalt.”

That sobered them up a bit, and so Big Daddy had his chance to reclaim the bravado.

“Listen. Myra and Glen will take the drop ship in, and you two will ride in the rhino.”

BD stopped in front of his bike and pointed to Jorge and Owens. Then he turned to Meadow and said.

“I need you to take the other bike and ride with me, because if we need to draw the jelly dolls out that’ll be the best way to do it. They run fast, so don't be afraid to punch it. We will likely have to get our hands dirty on this one, so no belly aching.”

They nodded to him as the game plan came together and ammo got passed out.

After a high speed hour on roads and ramps leading into the industrial dead zone, Big Daddy heard gun fire. Above them the gun ship was exchanging shots with something on the ground. The next thing he knew, Big Daddy was sliding down the street on his side, sparks flying from his bike and cybernetic hand. He tried to prevent road rash, but felt a bite of the street break skin.

BD got to his feet and saw what was left of the gun ship plummeting out of the sky, the whole thing completely involved in fire. There was no call back from Myra or Glen. Not long after this Meadow circled back on her bike. She wore a look of horror, realizing what happened and how deep they were in it.

The rino’s machine gun turrets could be heard but but butting off into the distance, running from something, leaving Meadow and Big Daddy to fend for themselves. Then came an army of synthetic jelly dolls, the militant androids who always sought to regulate the territory they haunted. BD turned to Meadow and said.

“Punch it!”

Then he remounted his bike and revved, burning rubber on his way out of there. Meadow did her best to follow and they only just made it past a swarming mass of naked androids with glowing optics who sought to dismember them with hydraulic force. Big Daddy drew his blade and swung it’s lengthy edge one handed, cutting a jelly doll’s head off at the neck.

They blew by them as more and more leapt from behind derelict structures, but the click clicking of metalized feet sounded like a drum machine just behind them. In his rear view hologram BD beheld a growing legion of synthetic killers, enough where he knew they could not stop or drop. They’d be as good as dead if they did.

Before long they showed up at the old skyway bridge, and that was when Meadow hit the skids. He heard her scream as she rolled, only just barely avoiding patches of sharp debris that cluttered the right of way. Big Daddy replaced his blade back onto his magnetic harness, and smoothly drew a pistol. He spun the bike and revved it back up to full speed, leaving rubber enough to stain the grime as he did so.

Big Daddy emptied the pistol, cutting down a dozen jelly dolls with auto targeted vengeance. Before she knew what happened, he had Meadow up and onto his bike, feeling her shaky arms cling to him as he spun round and revved to resume their escape.

That was when he felt her jerk back, heard her scream bloody murder, the sound of it turning wet almost at once. Big Daddy kept his balance and spun while reaching, seeking to grab at Meadow as she came apart in the android’s soulless clutch. His metal hand grabbed but came up with nothing but a cluster of necklaces that she wore for good luck.

Meadow was shredded into bloody gore, and the resulting displacement of weight caused Big Daddy to swerve and lose control of the faltering bike. He left the bike to smash against the bridge’s guardrail, feeling the open air greet him, welcoming this terrible alternative to being dismembered. About half way down the bike exploded, the resulting dirty detonation likely knocking all the jelly dolls off of their feet.

Big Daddy woke up on the filthy river bank, his body sodden with contaminated scum and un-drinkable river water. The smell of burning vinyl and fallout was smothering as he brought a scraped up hand before his optical sockets. In the metal clutch there lay a single heart shaped locket, the one and only thing left of Meadow other than a bunch of irradiated blood and guts.

BD pressed the tiny switch that sprung the locket open, looking at an image of Meadow and her sister Lilock. He got to his feet and swayed, checking up and down for any sign of jelly dolls. The coast was clear. Big Daddy sought shelter in a burned out wearhouse in order to wait for nightfall. He knew the only way he would make it back to camp was by the cover of night. All that day and into the evening he opened and closed the heart shaped locket, looking at the ghosted sisters who would never be anything again but a bad memory.