A/N: Written for the auabc challenge on LiveJournal.
Cyberpunk
Part One
Sawyer was impatient. That was a fault, really. It was a sun-filled day; the park he was in was painted with thousands of colours – red and yellow flowers, freshly cut green grass, a blue paddling pool packed with screaming kids, a sunny clump of pine trees offering shade behind them. Beautiful women walked around, with their short little skirts and their low-cut tops. The sun really did bring out the best in people, especially when that 'best' included tanned and pert skin.
The day was peaceful and therefore Sawyer should have been too. With the sun hot like this, he should have been able to lean back and relax. He had the 'leaning back' done perfectly – he was lying on the grass in the park, having to squint his eyes into the sunlight. But 'relaxing' would be an impossible task, seeing as he was stuck working.
He'd been on this job for a long time – way too long, if he was honest. Jessica, with her toothy grin and long blonde hair, was proving to be difficult to crack. Most women melted the second he showed off his dimples. Jessica was a different brand of woman altogether. She didn't want a fling; she wasn't just interested in sex (although, Sawyer knew the signs to look for and she'd definitely been checking him out at every opportunity); she wanted romance, with red roses and sweeping gestures. Hell, she probably wanted a damn proposal.
Now, Sawyer could do all that, minus the proposal. He'd worked hard to make her fall for him, make her fall in love with him. It was working, but it was just working too slowly. He'd been here for over a month already and this was all the progress he'd made: a picnic in the park.
Not even by moonlight, or candlelight, or something more impressive like that. Just a regular picnic in the sun and he'd already had to try and squish a line of ants. He hated bugs.
"Roy's thinking of taking a weekend away again," Jessica said, in a distant tone of voice. Sawyer glanced towards her, but she wasn't looking at him. She was watching the clump of kids in the distance, kicking a ball between them. "If you're not doing anything, you could come back to my house. I could give you a tour?"
Alright. Now that was progress. He didn't usually like to go back to their homes – it was too easy to get caught out and blow the job like that – but in this case he'd make an exception. If he didn't jump on this, he probably wouldn't get another chance for a month or so. He needed to get his hand on that cash. It wasn't that much, but he'd worked too hard to let it go – and he had debts piling up.
"Well, baby, I definitely can't turn down an invitation like that, can I?"
Her smile widened, all teeth and gums, and he shifted so that he was sitting instead of lying down. He brushed his hand down her arm, felt her shiver, and was about to kiss her bare shoulder when he heard the screams. Loud screams, real screams, not the happy shrieks of the children that had been sounding all afternoon.
His hand snapped away from Jessica's arm as he forgot her existence. He looked up, scanning the park and trying to work out what the hell it was that was happening in front of him.
The first thing that came to mind to explain what he saw was 'movement'. Flashes of it everywhere, with people running in all directions, arms flailing. The ducks that had been floating idly on the pond now flapped and ran in every direction, an epicentre of chaos. Two dogs bounded around barking, yapping, growling. The movement rippled out, out, out, until even Jessica joined in and scurried to her feet. A football soared over their heads.
Another scream pierced the air, but in between all this chaos it was hard to tell what had started it. As Sawyer hustled Jessica towards the relative safety of the trees behind them, he kept a look out until he found it.
There.
Four figures, all identical, moved through the masses, shoving at or chucking aside anything or anyone in their way. They moved fluidly, gracefully, but they weren't human. They couldn't be human. There was no emotion of their faces, they showed no clear signs of gender. They were just blank inside their neat black clothes. But that wasn't what separated them, wasn't what made them other. Their strength did that.
A park bench, made from varnished wood and sturdy metal, cracked and broke in two as one of them walked right into it. No pain registered on the figure's face; they just kept walking. Kept walking right towards Sawyer and Jessica.
"Aw, shit," Sawyer muttered as he noticed that he didn't have a clue who these people were or how they could walk through wood like it didn't exist, but he'd figure it out later. In the meantime, he was going to focus on his own survival. That was, and always would be, the most important thing to him.
"Come on, sweetheart," he said to Jessica, taking her hand; freakishly strong people coming towards him or not, he still had a con to complete and money to collect. He wasn't going to fluff it just because of some weird incident in a park.
He tugged at her hand, creeping through the pine trees, over the soil and out the other side, knowing that they'd be able to scale the painted fence and get out of here. Let the police deal with it, right? He glanced behind him at Jess – he could also see that the figures hadn't followed them into the woods. "Jess? Are you alright?" Yeah, that was good, acting all concerned for her well-being. She'd lap that up.
But she muffled a squeak and dropped his hand and gasped his name and he knew, he just knew, before he turned around, that those creeps were standing right in front of him, and that he was about to get so very hurt.
He started to turn, tensing and getting ready to throw a punch. Before he could, a hand grabbed his neck. He was lifted up like that before he could even form a fist. The grip around his neck was tight and constricting – strong fingers and biceps that seemed to be made of steel. Green eyes stared at him without care.
He kicked out, waggling his legs while his hands clawed at the grip around his neck because screw this. His throat hurt and he didn't know who these people were – he assumed that they were connected to those guys he owed – but screw them too. He wished he had a gun on him, but he hadn't worn it today; he hadn't wanted to scare Jess.
Now she was screaming, loudly. He distantly heard footsteps as she ran off. Perfect, he thought while gasping for air that just wouldn't come, just perfect. His movements were starting to slow, as his limbs were deprived of the oxygen they needed. He managed to score a kick against the being's leg, but there was no wince, no flinch, not even a blink. He scraped his nails, short as they were, along the back of the hand holding him. It didn't get a reaction. Fuck. Was he going to die here? Like this?
"Let him go, mate," a British voice ordered, but the hand around his neck just tightened substantially; it felt like his throat was about to collapse under the strain. He could feel his hand shaking but it was starting to go numb, as his vision started to fade. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, da—
Thump.
He groaned as he hit the ground, but then oxygen flooded his lungs; he welcomed it gladly, like an old and long-lost friend, as he lay in a heap, gasping for breath. His throat hurt and burned with every gasp, but who cared? There was air, and there was no one crushing his throat.
But there had been, which made his eyes snap open, already glaring. He needed to get back at the person that had just tried to kill him. He was fairly big on revenge. The artificial green of the grass seemed to burn his eyes, but once his vision cleared he could see exactly what was going on.
All four of those black clothed figures, identical with their black hair slicked back, were moving viciously, grouped in a loose circle. In the centre of the four of them was the male that made the entire scene look extremely bizarre; a short blonde guy, with dark jeans that clung to his legs and a black t-shirt that showed off a tattoo over his bicep. It was a surprise that he could move in clothes like that, but he definitely could.
His body twisted, turned, struck out at the four figures surrounding him. Whatever he was doing, it was more effective than Sawyer's kicks had been, than an entire fucking bench had been. One kick to the chest from him, and one of the figures fell stumbling onto the ground.
The man didn't stop there, just kept going in a whirlwind of desperate violence. He seemed to defy gravity, delivering kicks to the head with what looked like no effort at all. Sawyer would've ran forwards to join in – he wasn't one to back away from a fight, especially not against someone that had wronged him – but this seemed a little too professional and a lot too choreographed for him. He hadn't watched enough Bruce Lee movies to be able to join in. He got to his feet anyway, just in case.
Didn't look like he was going to be needed, until he winced in sympathy as the blonde took a hit to the face. A slapping sound rang out. Sawyer took a step forwards, unsure what to do. It'd come to him. Running forwards, he grabbed the figure's arm, stopping them from throwing another punch.
It seemed like a great plan – for about two seconds, until there was an open-palmed hit to his chest and he was lifted off his feet again, sailing right through the air as if he weighed nothing at all. He kept going and going, until his back slammed into the jagged spines of the pine trees. With an 'oof', he collapsed onto the ground.
The Brit swore loudly, and looked up at the sky. "Help would really be appreciated right now, Mike," he yelled, and Sawyer didn't even have time to wonder what drugs this guy was on (and where he could get some) before a small black stick appeared from nowhere in the stranger's hand. "Thanks!" he yelled up again, before starting to run forwards.
He didn't stop as one of the figures reared up in front of him; it was tying to block him off as the other three regrouped and ganged up on Sawyer. Sawyer knew that he needed to recover and get up and get out of here, but his back hurt from slamming into the tree like that so he didn't think that he could move at all, not yet. Unfortunately, he doubted if those three would be willing to give him a time out.
He attempted to stand up, and felt a pain rip through him, from his neck speeding down to the base of his spine. But he needed to get over it, move through it, something like that, because there were three wannabe ninjas approaching, and the Bruce Lee-loving blonde was about to be extremely held up.
Or not.
The figure that had been about to intercept him flickered and disappeared, as if it had never been anything more than a hologram. Sawyer had been thrown around like a rag doll by that damn thing. He knew it was real, knew it was substantial.
But it disappeared and the blonde running towards him didn't have to even pause for half a second – he drew his fist back, from where he'd evidently punched the man who'd just disappeared.
Sawyer realised a split-second too late that he'd been paying too much attention to disappearing men and running rescuers, especially when there were the remaining three figures surrounding him, who were apparently keen to cause him some damage. Pain exploded his ribs as a black boot kicked him there. He groaned and rolled on his side, convinced that something had to be broken, but there was no look of satisfaction on the being's face; there's was absolutely nothing.
Another kick, this time to his stomach – it felt worse than the time he'd got food poisoning from eating some dodgy shrimp. He'd been beaten before, but this was something else entirely.
They were just going in for a third kick, the three identical figures surrounding them, when the one in the middle flickered and disappeared. The small guy stood in his place, his face tight and focused. His arm moved to the left, moved the right, so quickly that Sawyer only saw a blur.
The figures had a chance to look down, to see the black stick stabbed into their chest, before they too flickered and vanished. All that was left was Sawyer on the floor, gasping, and the blonde that had rescued him, who was currently looked around fiercely to check the area.
Apparently, he found it clear because the dangerous look on his face faded to wide-eyed concern; he seemed harmless, like a ball of fluff, as he crouched down in front of Sawyer. The black stick in his hand was still gripped tightly, knuckles white around it.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, and his voice trembled. He reached his free hand out towards Sawyer's neck.
Sawyer batted him away. He wasn't dumb; he knew what those hands could do. "I just got throttled by a clone and had to be rescued by the goddamn Karate Kid. Yeah, I'm hurt." It was agony to even speak, but he smiled anyway.
No returning smile, no scowl, just a worried frown and an upset twitch that Sawyer almost didn't see. "Mike?" he called up at the sky again, before he looked back down at Sawyer. "I'm Charlie, by the way." He looked like he was fighting back tears; his voice sounded tight. "Not 'the Karate Kid'."
"Well, that's just swell now, but—Hey, what're you doing with that thing?" He edged back painfully as Charlie suddenly reached up with his disappearing-stick to Sawyer's neck. Oh, hell no. Sawyer liked his neck; it was a good place to store hickies. He'd rather that it didn't disappear.
Charlie swallowed and pulled his hand back, displaying the stick to Sawyer. It had, at some point in the last few seconds, changed from black to white in colour; close up, he could see a glass display panel on the side, a few buttons all over it, and a metal part sticking out the top. It looked like a strangely designed MP3 player.
Charlie lowered it again, looking hopeful. "It'll fix your neck, I promise. Your back too. And your ribs, 'cause I think I heard a snap." Fuck, how'd he hear that over all the damn noise? "And broken ribs hurt like hell. I'm surprised even you're up to bitching at me right now, Sawyer."
While Sawyer had been relaxing into the worried chatter, the use of his name made him straighten up again. "How'd you know my name?"
Charlie winced and seemed to realise his mistake, and immediately started to try and explain it away. "Look, mate, it's-"
"Shut up." Even if Sawyer had asked for an explanation, he didn't want one. "Get away from me." Charlie shook his head slowly, so Sawyer picked up a pine cone and threw it at him, as hard as he could. It bounced uselessly off of Charlie's chest. "Get away from me."
By now, there were sirens wailing ever closer and the coloured lights flashing around the park, dying the green grass alternately blue and red. Normally, Sawyer hated the cops. Right now, he loved them and would even consider signing on as a police officer, because their appearance made Charlie look up, look around, and swear.
Then he looked back to Sawyer, smiling sympathetically. Seeing as sympathy meant pity, Sawyer wasn't a fan of that particular smile. "Take care of yourself, yeah?" Charlie asked tenderly.
Before Sawyer could think of how the hell to respond to that, the extremely solid man in front of him flickered too, and blinked into nothing. Staring at blank space, Sawyer couldn't answer when the police appeared and started asking questions about what had happened.
Charlie blinked his eyes and opened them. With everything tinged blue at first, his hands fumbled up to the visor over his eyes. The drab surround of their hide-out quickly replaced the multi-coloured wonder of the park; a grey cement floor instead of soft turf, low-watt electric lighting instead of the bright sun, the smell of unshowered bodies instead of the fresh park air. It should have been disappointing to come home to this, but he was just so glad to be back.
He took his feet out of the black receptors, removed his hands from the gloves, and leapt out of the extremely uncomfortable seat. "We found him! Mike! Mike!" He ran up, nearly exploding with excitement, and swept his friend into a reluctant hug. "We actually found him! You're a genius, Mike. Seriously, absolute bloody genius. Geniusy genius."
Laughing hysterically, Charlie pulled away from Michael and left the older man to fiddle with his laptop. Instead, Charlie turned to run out of the Computer Room and into the rest of the dull apartment. No sunlight spilled through the small windows that dotted the walls, as it was raining outside. But it always seemed to be raining and it always seemed to be dark, so that didn't dampened Charlie's spirits at all.
Of course it didn't because they'd found him, found Sawyer, after so many years of searching. He'd looked so healthy too, with his skin tanned and his hair long and…. Wow. Just wow. Just so very wow.
"Rose!" he yelled her name as he saw her and the others – Sayid and Ana – clustered around the coffee table with a building's blueprint spread in front of them. She looked up in surprise at the sudden noise, and Ana glared at him for being so loud but she'd stop glaring when she found out. He bounced over at sat on the shaky arm of the couch that Rose was sitting on. "I just saw him, Rose. Sawyer. Mike found some Cleaners, sent me in, and it was him."
Rose placed a hand on his jean-clad knee and squeezed, happy for him. She was smiling, but Sayid frowned and looked thoughtful. "You're certain it was Sawyer you saw?"
"Yeah, Sayid." Come on; he wasn't going to make a mistake, not about Sawyer. If it was anyone else, then he'd happily question himself but that had been him. Definitely. He just knew it. "And the Cleaners were after him. That's proof, isn't it? They only go after the prisoners, and it said that, didn't it? On the news report? They said they'd upped his sentence."
Sayid nodded, slowly, but Ana was still confused. They'd only picked her up after Sawyer had been taken – she'd never known him, so she didn't understand. Of course she didn't, poor girl, but that was okay. That was fine.
Eventually Sayid nodded. "Tell Michael to trace him. If the Cleaners have been sent after him once, it is highly likely that it'll happen again."
Rose looked towards him, away from Charlie. "And his body, Sayid? We need to get him out of there, before something happens to him."
"Something's already happened," Charlie said quickly. Rose's hand tightened on his knee, but it wasn't comforting. "There were four Cleaners, mate. Four. I had to get Michael to port me in a stick." Memory sticks – bloody useful things, in the government program. In the past, people would use him to store files; music, documents, photos, anything. Now you could upload anyone from the various virtual realities. Theoretically, in any case. The devices had been outlawed by the Government after that very useful quality had been discovered; however, Sayid was practically the King of Technology, so he'd managed to build them up some supplies.
"But you got out okay, didn't you?" Ana pointed out. Charlie frowned, but he had to nod.
Still… "They hurt Sawyer."
Rose stroked his knee, patted it once, then stood up. "But you took care of him, honey, and that's what matters. Now, Sayid. Me and Charlie are gonna go and make us all some dinner. I want you and Ana to have a plan to get that man's body back, by the end of tonight. Can you do that?" She smiled sweetly, talking in her gentlest voice, but there was steel in her; there always had been. That was why she had taken over as leader once Sawyer had been captured.
Sayid nodded, submitting to her soft-spoken authority, and she stood up. After a second's thought, Charlie did too, and ran a hand over his shaven head; they all had the same hairstyle, with everything buzzed off.
He missed his old hair, the stuff he had while in the Program, and the way that Sawyer used to run his hand through it after sex, but it needed to be like this. The visor didn't work right with a full set of hair, and you couldn't get the sensors close enough to your skin, so you couldn't go in unshaved. Even knowing that, even while being fully aware that it was essential, Charlie always felt a little guilty when getting rid of it.
He reached for the light switch as they arrived at their tiny kitchen. He and Rose had taken on the role of unofficial chefs for the moment. It hadn't really been a conscious decision, but it was a logical one nonetheless. Sayid could cook, but his time was much better spent with their technology and making plans; Michael got harassed in the kitchen and would snap at anyone foolish enough to offer to help and would yell at the food as if the power of his voice might convince it to cook properly; Ana could probably burn cereal, somehow.
Charlie, if he was honest, was an awful cook and Rose was only marginally better, but they could both open tins and microwave meals, and they both had the ability to stir pots, so they were considered to be master chefs.
Charlie left the door through to the kitchen open, so they'd be able to see into the living room. Ana and Sayid's voices changed to vague murmurs, as Charlie stared at the cream wallpaper with its brown flowered pattern and he just felt a little light-headed. He'd been searching for Sawyer since they'd be separated in the Government's headquarters four years ago. Seeing him again had been dizzying.
They hadn't even been doing anything when he'd been captured – just recon, nothing more. Just investigating a few of the rumours of a cyber-prison that had been flying around. Then Sawyer had gotten bored, and had started messing around; he'd grabbed Charlie's ass, pressed him hard against a wall and had started to kiss and bite at his neck. Seconds later, a torch had shone harshly on their faces, and Charlie always had been the faster runner. He'd got out. Sawyer hadn't made it.
He still felt guilty for that and he was going to get Sawyer back, but the way that Sawyer hadn't known his name, hadn't even recognised him…
That had hurt. Sawyer telling him that they were over, that he hated them, would have been easier to bear.
Instead, the man he'd known since they went to school together, the man he'd fallen into this political scene with, had just been replaced. New memories; it was all part of the coding, part of the program used to detain 'dangerous' criminals, so maybe everything would come flooding back to him once they got him out of that reality.
"Charlie?" Rose's voice cut through his thoughts. "I know your mind's elsewhere, but we're got a meal to cook. You better focus – we can't rescue your Sawyer on an empty stomach, can we?" She smiled indulgently, and he tried to smile back, because he had to.
He smiled shakily and nodded, while walking towards to try and decided if they wanted tinned peas or tinned sweet corn.
"Do you believe we can do this?" Rose asked Sayid calmly, while looking over maps of the holding facility that were spread in front of them between their chips plates and mugs. Charlie hadn't taken a single bite of the food.
It had taken Sayid two days to come up with a plan. During those two days, Charlie might have become a little frantic, and he might have more or less stopped talking, and he might have started watching the coding of Sawyer's reality compulsively. It was just… amazing. That was Sawyer; all they had to do to get him back was break into a top-secret high-security government building. Yup, simple.
Or, it would be. Sayid had a plan, didn't he? Sayid was a genius, wasn't he? Therefore, they'd use this plan and everything would work out perfectly.
"I believe it is possible – whether or not it is suitable, I don't know." Sayid looked down at his maps and his notepads as he spoke, as if they might tell him the future. Whatever he saw there didn't seem to please him, as he ran a hand over his jaw line.
Ana leaned forwards. "Bottom line, Sayid – are any of us going to get killed?"
"I don't know."
"Captured?"
"I don't know. There's no way for me to be able to guarantee your safety."
"Then why are we doing this?" she asked, and Charlie had just known that she was going to cause trouble. He leaned backwards on the couch, able to feel the ancient strings digging into him.
"Because he's a friend," Rose said, her voice containing years of trained patience. She'd worked with kids before this, in a nursery or something like that. From that to this was a pretty extreme jump.
Then again, Charlie knew that musician to activist to 'terrorist' was extreme too, so he didn't question it.
Ana wasn't looking at Rose, but Rose carried on talking anyway. "Ana, if you got caught, you'd expect us to go after you – you're one of us. Sawyer is too. So we're -"
She cut herself off as Michael appeared, popping his head through from the Computer Room. Charlie sat upright quickly, eyes wide.
"The Cleaners; they're back." That was all Michael had to say to get Charlie on his feet, rushing towards the door. He'd been expecting this, constantly on edge for the past forty-eight hours, but having to happen, knowing that the Cleaners were after Sawyer again, made his blood run cold. He ran towards the Computer Room, feeling as if he just couldn't move fast enough.