Free Liquid Cool: The Cyberpunk Detective Series by Austin Dragon

later). I was really home now.
     
     
    I laid on my bed with my right forearm on my forehead. I thought about what Run-Time had said. He was right, of course. You create your own destiny by altering your own perception of things. Maybe I did over-exaggerate a bit earlier. Besides Punch Judy, there was only three other sidewalk johnnies in the main lobby, and the only sniffing they were doing was from the cigarettes they were smoking. I chose to view the situation as negative, so it was. I always got a little soft before I fell asleep and it always took me awhile to do that. It was the sounds of pouring rain from my side table radio that always helped me sleep best. The Concrete Mama's walls were so thick that even if there was a hurricane force rainstorm outside, you wouldn't hear a thing. That's why I had the sounds radio. The rain could always lull me to sleep. Unlike most of the population, I didn't hate it. I hated the lack of sun, but not the rain.
    "Capitalize," I heard Run-Time's voice in my mind. "Capitalize on your opportunities, or someone else will."
    I guess it was better to focus on a friend's life advice rather than the fact my future parents-in-law threatened to kill me by poison or knife-attack at the dinner table. But to me opportunities were like the elusive electric butterfly in a video game. You see it, but you can never get to it. It's the programmer's demented idea of a joke. Like the story of Prometheus. Eat all that heavenly food in the temple that you want, only a flock of cannibalistic harpies will rip your guts out with their claws afterward. Only a lucky few can ever really capture the real opportunities. After all, this was Metropolis, not fantasy land. Fairy tales are as rare in this city as a full day of direct sunlight.

    "Yeah?"
    I had answered the phone, with the video off, and was talking, but my conscious mind had not yet engaged. My eyes were still closed and I could have been dreaming actually.
    "Cruz," Run-Time's voice continued. "I need a favor."
    "Yeah."
    "I need someone to kick around a bit and do some investigating."
    "Investigating?"
    "Technically, anyone can do it, but I want a third party. Someone reliable with street smarts and can do things discreetly. I thought of you. You're not on any gigs now, right?"
    "Yeah."
    "Come on down to the office tomorrow morning."
    "Yeah."
    "And Cruz."
    "Yeah?"
    "Take a look at the newspapers before you come in. The story about an Easy Chair Charlie and his ill-advised shoot-out with the police."
    "Yeah."
    I was a true vocabulary virtuoso when I was half asleep.
    The electric roller coaster of life was about to snatch me.

Part Four
     
    A Case or Not?

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 10: Fat Nat
     
     
    Run-Time's business empire, Let It Ride Enterprises, took up most of its monolith tower in the trendy, but wealthy, Peacock Hills on Electric Boulevard. There were the business districts of "old" money and there were the "new" money business districts like Peacock Hills. There wasn't a president or CEO of any business on this street over the age of 45.
    Let It Ride's clientele was always treated like royalty, whether they were a foreign dignitary or celebrity, or some working stiff who paid for no more than a simple hover-taxi ride from one end of the block to the other. But I was more than clientele today, I was expected by Founder, President, CEO, and COO, Mr. Run-Time, himself.
    He had three VPs and it was the Lebanese female one that escorted me from the lobby after I greeted the reception staff--I was on a first name basis with all three of the receptionists--straight to the Man's office.
    Run-Time greeted me with a handshake and a hug as he did with all his friends. It was always as if it were the first time he ever met you, but that was part of his charm.
    Run-Time only wore slim fit business suits, the expensive kind, with slim ties, along with his trademark Kangol hat. He had suits to match every color of