Ro (A Cyberpunk Retelling of Romeo and Juliet)

10

RO MONTAGUE

When religion went more New Age sometime back in 2071, people turned to outer or inner forces for their religion. No more institutions. No more hierarchy. As the world was lit up by neon skies and patrol bots, our spirits descended into history to find our spiritual roots. As our lives merged more and more with the cold kiss of silicon and tech, we wanted desperately to believe in magic.

Gran Viviana is a Wiccan, like much of New Verona. She participates in the rituals, the holidays and the symbolism. Some turned to nature for their magic, others to the reigning force of this new world.

Technology.

They found worship in wiring. In implants in their skin, directly fused to their brains. They tinkered with the databases and came out unscathed, an extension of their monitors, a body to serve the will of the gods of technology, the power hidden in veins that flowed with electricity. The only thing certain was written in binary code, and within that structure, they found their spiritual answer.

"Holy hackers," Officer Mercy muses. She was raised in the old religions, of patriarchal gods and sacred books, institutions and joined worship. She accepts the others, a whole pantheon of dying gods of nature and spell books, of young ones who find worship in blinking screens and power grids, who serve tech before tech serves them.

The hacking district, residing right on the line between north and south sectors of New Verona, is humble enough. Simplistic for a northern structure, plain white walls and flat ceilings, but too clean to be anything from the south.

"No Monty or Cap allegiance markings. Who can tell what this is if you didn't know what to look for?" Benny growls, nibbling on some corn-flour cakes that he took for the road.

"The wires mark it." I reply, running my fingers down the cables. "Siphoning energy from the northern sectors. Yet..." I lift my monitor ring. The screen displays the credits I'd set aside for bribing, but the numbers glitch. Sometimes too high, often too low. "They're tampering with the signal."

"No digital trace." Mercy replies. "We're dealing with people who don't want to be found. A wonder Rosaiah got to them at all. How will we get an audience with—?"

I lift my bio-gun, the one that runs on solar, lunar, and blood energy. I raise it above my head and fire, narrowly missing the siphoning cords.

"Hey! Hey!" A voice shouts, a bot detaching from the wall, a camera lens shaped like a human eye pointed at my face. "Watch where you shoot that thing!"

I point the barrel evenly at the eye. "The name's Ro Montague. And this is Officer Mercy and Benny."

"What do you want?" The eye swivels to focus in on my face. I don't blink.

"Revenge."

The person behind the monitor sighs.

"Kids these days, always want some kind of revenge. Nobody relaxes anymore. Appreciates the little things in life."

"Fine, I want a ticket to the Capulet's lottery masquerade."

"A Montague and a Capulet?" The eye bobs upwards for a second. A glitch, but it almost looks like it's nodding at me. "Intriguing. Come in, come in."

The earth shakes as a section panel of the wall, seamless as it is, bends back. The surface defies physics. One moment, the wall was there, and the next, it simply shifted. Like a reflection in a mirror, distorted once you tilt it the other way.

Staring into the crawlspace, I shove Benny ahead of me. "Well, go on, kid."

"Hey!" He squeaks, crumbs of food flying.

Mercy flicks the back of his head. "Listen to your elders."

I scowl at her roguish smirk as Benny, grumbling the whole time, falls to the ground and shimmies into the tunnel. I follow after, my shoulders brushing against the edges. Siphoning wires dig into my skin. I sense Mercy follow soon after.

The wall shuts behind us, and as we emerge from the crawlspace into an open area, carved into a simple, cubic shrine. Eggshell colored walls and slick, unforgiving tile.

All the easier to mop up the sacrificial bloodstains with.

On every wall, there's a computer screen, running a scan of endless lines of code. The monitors are supervised by clusters of people, of all different varieties. But they wear the same uniform: a body shaved of all hair, a dove-gray robe, and a tattoo of a tiny camera on their foreheads. From the masses, a man in his forties steps forwards. He differs from the others in one, crucial aspect.

It's not a tattoo. He went one step further.

He really doeshave a camera implanted in his skull.

"Welcome to the house of 01000111 01001111 01000100," he smiles, "or, in plain speak, the house of god." His voice is the same that addressed me on the camera-bot outside. "I am Lawrence Fry. And you, Ro Montague, must help me change the world."