Cybercity Lawndale - Part 1

Daria woke up in her sub-stasis unit and lifted up the lid. She climbed out and walked over to her walk-in closet. As she stepped in, a voice came from nowhere: “Good morning Daria. Which clothes would you like to wear today?” to which Daria replied: “Casual set B” in a commanding tone. A outfit then appeared in front of her, a brown leather jacket with worn blue jeans.

Daria took these clothes and put them on before walking out of the closet and to the kitchen section of her apartment. She grabbed a cup and put it in the ancient coffee maker she had and put the coffee beans into the container and slotted it in. As she pressed the button to start the coffee maker, she thought: “I really have to replace this crappy thing one day” before hearing a “Ping!” to indicate her coffee was ready.

She then grabbed a couple of slices of bread and tossed them into her slightly more modern toaster and saying “Make toast, medium brown and buttered” which triggered the bread in the toaster to disappear into the slots. She then grabbed her coffee cup, walked over to her window and opened the curtains with one hand. She gazed upon a dank cityscape, one that had decayed over the years of pollution and corruption. The sunset looked beautiful to her, no matter how bad the city looked. Then she heard her toast pop out and land on a plate lying next to the toaster.

She walked over to the counter and picked up the plate with her free hand before walking over to her desk. She put both the coffee and toast down beside her keyboard and pushed a button to power up both the screen and computer. It booted in a matter of seconds and said: “Good morning Daria, you have 2 new messages” to which Daria said: “Display inbox”. Her inbox came up on-screen and she tapped on the screen to select the first message which read:

“Hey Daria,
It's Matt. You did great on the last job you did for me so the 20,000 credits should be heading into your account in then next couple of days. I'll be sure to contact you if I need anything else doing.

Yours, Matt Barkley”

Daria knew some of her clients liked to be old-school by using encrypted text messages so she closed the first message and noticed that the second message was a voice message from the icon next to it so she said: “Play Message BL02”

The voice started playing from the speakers:

“Hello Daria, we have another target for you. The details are in the text portion of the message. It'll be 35,000 as usual for completing the mission successfully”

She thought: “Goddamn i hate working for these scumbags but i have no choice since they pay well” as she read over the details:

“Target: Cybex Corp.
Task: Retrieve and Erase any files relating to the 'Icarus' Incident
Payment: 35,000”

She had heard a lot about Cybex but she knew that in the end, both her employer, Darklight Industries and Cybex were as corrupt as each other. She took her phone from off the desk, flipped it open and dialled a number:

“Ring”
“Ring”
“Hello?”
“It's DarkFox”
“Oh. Hey”
“Got any info on the Cybex servers?”
“Christ! You know how hard that info is to obtain? It's going to cost at least 9,000 credits”
She thought: “I have about 12,000 in there at the moment and with 20,000 coming in soon, I can afford it”
“Ok. I'll wire it to you now”
Daria put the phone on loudspeaker and put it down on the desk while she wired it to the other person.
“Ok, Done”
“Wire transfer confirmed. I'll get right on it”

The informant then hung up and Daria picked up a slice of toast and started eating it. Then she heard her a buzz coming from the front door, got up and walked to the door. Daria then said: “Who is it?”

“It's me amiga” came from the other side of the door.
Daria knew who it was. She hadn't spoken to Jane in a long while since both of them had been a bit busy recently so she opened the door and let her dark haired friend in. Jane then sat down on the Two-seater sofa Daria had as Daria closed the door and walked over to the kitchen area.

Jane: “So, how have you been recently?”

Daria: “I've been fine thanks. Coffee?”

Jane: “Ok. You know how I like my coffee”

Daria (Making Jane's coffee): “And what about you? Much been happening?”

Jane: “Not really, the same old crap going on. Fancy going out tonight?”

Daria: “Sure. Not much to do as my informant is looking into a bit of info and he'll probably have it by tomorrow so i have one day to waste”

Jane: “Umm... haven't you got any other jobs?”

Daria: “Just finished one yesterday and that's going to pay 20K. Plus this one if completed will pay 35K”

Jane: “Ah. Let's go then since we both need some fun.

Both of them drank their coffee, put their cups down and walked out of the apartment, locking the door.