Latest / InkandNeon | Speculative Fiction Stories / Jacked the Ripper

Transcript

Jacked the Ripper · InkandNeon | Speculative Fiction Stories

• 0:00
  Hello, mother. Hello, father. I hope this message
• 0:05
  gets to you. This is your son, James Fitzgerald.
• 0:10
  I was once the apple of your eye, the up -and
• 0:13
  -coming star of Tetsudo, the sixth largest city
• 0:16
  in the world. Now, if only you could see me contemplating
• 0:20
  my final steps. My fall into Coral City was not
• 0:25
  a graceful one. I hope I had convinced you that.
• 0:29
  I came here with a wide -eyed and can -do attitude.
• 0:35
  I believe this was a second chance. Because instead,
• 0:39
  pseudo, I would have just been another doctor,
• 0:42
  just another middle -class kid rising up from
• 0:45
  the masses. Please, I was arrogant then. Listen
• 0:49
  to me now. Thank you for all you did for me and
• 0:53
  all you tried to do for me. When I heard they
• 0:56
  were sending me to Coral City, as punishment
• 0:59
  for insubordination at the time i was relieved
• 1:02
  i had thought to myself this is a place where
• 1:06
  i can do good this is a place that needs doctors
• 1:11
  that needs men of healing if i knew what i knew
• 1:15
  now i would have fought harder against it sometimes
• 1:20
  i wonder if i'm just stupid you said it right
• 1:23
  father coral Coral City did not need me. They
• 1:29
  already had doctors and some of the greatest
• 1:33
  mechanics I have ever seen. I had been taught
• 1:36
  by lecturers with hundreds, if not thousands
• 1:40
  of years of combined experience. But when I ended
• 1:45
  up in the Hospice de More, in the Coral City
• 1:49
  Centre, I found out how little I actually knew.
• 1:55
  Traditional medicine and standard cybernetics
• 2:00
  only get you so far. These Coral City doctors,
• 2:05
  they were like wizards. They moved with such
• 2:09
  fluent, elegant grace from patient to patient.
• 2:14
  They were pulling people apart who were nothing
• 2:17
  but scraps and putting them back together like
• 2:20
  a child puts together a jigsaw piece, tirelessly.
• 2:25
  effortlessly they were like gods among men they
• 2:31
  didn't complain they didn't ask for payment or
• 2:36
  compensation they just worked if there wasn't
• 2:40
  an embargo on people moving from pacific city
• 2:44
  and coral city the greatest surgeons they claim
• 2:47
  to this be their origins but even then i know
• 2:51
  that the doctors here will just laugh them off
• 2:54
  and tell them to get out despite being the top
• 2:59
  of my class in every one that I took I had four
• 3:04
  masters degrees I was on top of the world in
• 3:08
  graduation I came in to the hospice tomorrow
• 3:13
  a bumbling buffoon they told me I had potential
• 3:19
  they told me I had potential This was worth everything.
• 3:26
  All the degrees, all the long nights. To hear
• 3:30
  these doctors tell me that, but they wouldn't
• 3:32
  let me near the operating tables. They told me
• 3:37
  I wasn't physically capable yet. These doctors
• 3:40
  were augmented with black market armour and weapons.
• 3:46
  They trained like soldiers. because a lot of
• 3:50
  the people who came in fought back and that was
• 3:54
  just the locals. They told me I needed to forget
• 3:57
  everything I had learned in Tetsudo. I was to
• 4:02
  be a nurse. I would follow the trauma squads
• 4:06
  and their ambulances to the sites and see the
• 4:10
  damage firsthand. I would offer first aid. I
• 4:14
  would be amongst the first responders. And they
• 4:17
  said after a few years of this, buying the augments
• 4:20
  I need, getting the armour, getting the training
• 4:23
  to deal with the other locals. Then they would
• 4:27
  allow me to continue to practice my doctorate.
• 4:31
  The head doctor, Dr. Emmanuel Sebastian. They
• 4:35
  say he grew up in the trenches. This is a place
• 4:37
  far worse than Coral City, down deep below. He
• 4:42
  received no formal training. not so much as a
• 4:47
  basic certificate and yet whenever the heavy
• 4:50
  boots march down from the Queensland elevator
• 4:53
  attempting to recruit him and learn what he knows
• 4:57
  Dr Sebastian would just wave them off he just
• 5:01
  writes a few notes in a book and sends them along
• 5:04
  their way the same is said for the other surgeons
• 5:07
  and doctors and nurses here but Dr Sebastian
• 5:11
  would let them go if they wanted to Nothing is
• 5:15
  forcing them here apart from this sense of duty
• 5:19
  and commitment to the people. It was this lack
• 5:22
  of ego I wish that I had. I know it was my pride
• 5:26
  that brought me here. It is my pride that has
• 5:29
  now bathed my hands in the blood of innocent
• 5:32
  lives. I'm one of the butchers now. One of those
• 5:36
  they call a jacker. Such an unbecoming name,
• 5:41
  but perhaps I deserve it. I take people's livelihoods,
• 5:46
  I take their limbs, and on very rare occasions,
• 5:48
  even their lives, all this because I didn't want
• 5:51
  to be a nurse. I even thought I was a decent
• 5:54
  jacker. Perhaps, maybe I won't be able to be
• 5:58
  a surgeon, but maybe I can at least become one
• 6:01
  of the best in this field, the best jacker of
• 6:05
  Coral City. But even that illusion was taken
• 6:08
  from me not too long ago. I went to fence some
• 6:11
  of the parts. at a high -end store. The shopkeeper
• 6:15
  was discerning, berating me for my lack of jacking
• 6:19
  capabilities, pointing out the imperfect scratch
• 6:22
  marks on the cybernetics. He said his clientele
• 6:25
  would know they were stolen. I told him he could
• 6:29
  just paint over them, reforge them. He laughed,
• 6:33
  just laughed in my face. He told me that was
• 6:36
  my job and that if he had to do half the work,
• 6:40
  he'd just do it himself. It took every ounce
• 6:43
  of my remaining willpower to fight against my
• 6:46
  pride, to not just kill the man on the spot,
• 6:49
  but I walked away. As I attempted to leave, the
• 6:54
  door swung open gently, I swear. I would have
• 6:58
  been lovestruck if it wasn't for the fact that
• 7:01
  I felt a cold chill run up my spine. There she
• 7:05
  was, a dark brown trench coat covering a pale
• 7:09
  body. She had to have been heavily augmented.
• 7:13
  She looked like one of those porcelain dolls
• 7:15
  from Pacific City. She had black veins that ran
• 7:19
  along every inch of her body. Her eyes were like
• 7:23
  two fiery red coals glaring not at me, but through
• 7:27
  me. She carried a large rifle and just casually
• 7:32
  wiping metallic shavings off the slide. Every
• 7:35
  movement was soft, graceful. even though I stood
• 7:40
  a foot taller than her and weighed likely three
• 7:43
  times what she did. That fear still gripped me.
• 7:47
  I looked in the reflection of the store's mirror
• 7:49
  and I could see the once arrogant shop clerk
• 7:53
  adjusting himself, clearing the bench, posturing
• 7:58
  as she approached. She brushed past me without
• 8:01
  even a care in the world that I even existed.
• 8:04
  My shoulder touched hers and as she drew back
• 8:07
  I saw soft white hair beneath her hood and just
• 8:11
  before the door closed I looked back. Between
• 8:15
  her lips I saw a yellow toothy smile, something
• 8:20
  I now know as a promise. That is why your son
• 8:24
  sits here in a moldy festering hideout where
• 8:28
  I've been for the last three weeks. I know who
• 8:31
  she is now, the white mouse. She's the best jacker
• 8:34
  in the cities. A mercenary. The last remaining
• 8:38
  survivor of the Number to Dead. A legendary group
• 8:41
  of soldiers who took on the Rat King and almost
• 8:44
  won. And she is known to go after other jackers.
• 8:48
  Those who operate sloppily on her turf. Stumbling
• 8:52
  idiots like myself. Those of us who won't be
• 8:56
  missed or investigated. Our prime targets. I
• 9:02
  leave the last of my saved ace on my workbench.
• 9:06
  alongside a contract I want to believe that she's
• 9:10
  only doing what she needs to to survive but I
• 9:14
  am terrified I can only hope there is enough
• 9:16
  humanity left in her to grant me one final wish
• 9:19
  to send this recording to you my parents so that
• 9:24
  you know what has become of me of your son mom
• 9:27
  and dad I love you I'm sorry I was a failure
• 9:30
  I'm sorry I couldn't make it even in Coral City
• 9:33
  but if you ever meet anyone who wants to come
• 9:37
  here tell them not to tell them to fight with
• 9:40
  every fiber of their being to remain where they
• 9:42
  are because you will just be waged between the
• 9:45
  angels and the demons and you will never know
• 9:48
  whose side you want to be on her footsteps are
• 9:54
  silent like someone tap dancing with bare feet
• 9:57
  on glass and i can smell that faint ozone that
• 10:01
  follows her i can feel the magnetism in the air
• 10:05
  I see her now in the darkness her smile that
• 10:10
  yellow truthy grin appearing from between the
• 10:13
  crack of her lips I hope my end is fast though
• 10:17
  I know I deserve a slow and painful one