Dean's fingers swiped through the circular interface smoothly, pushing windows to pin them at the QuickAccess, leaving only the live camera feed on display and magnified it in the center. The feed was showing a room with a closed windows looking out to the downtown Manhattan covered in snow. He checked the time, 7:45 AM.
He sat still in his chair which connected to a custom made wheel line in his cubicle apartment, and waited for something to happen on the other side of the feed. Outside the wind howled and he heard police siren bouncing up and down in the air.
Presently, a women figure walked into range and was doing her makeup. Seconds later, Dean heard a girly scream followed by a muffled shot. The girl, confronted with the gun in her most vulnerable moment, fell down onto the mattress and bounced off to the floor. A man covered in a bulky dark-blue greatcoat came into view and lifted the girl's body in front of the camera with caution. He gently positioned her to lean against the bed and carefully closed her eyelids to cover her dilated pupils.
With that done, the man stood there and held out a display facing the camera. Dean performed a scan on the display through the panel and transferred a large sum of credits following the details he retrieved from it. The man checked with the device as the transaction completed, then he froze in front of the girl saying something inaudible to Dean, and opened the windows before he left. "It's been good doing business with you." Dean said to the screen.
The girl's head remain tilted backward lying on the bed with her neck exposed to the chilling winter air and her blood tardily soaked up by her white bathrobes.
Dean didn't even check his credit account, not the sum, not the transaction record because he had so many liquidity going in and out all the time, it was hard to keep track on every single detail.
Dean terminated the connection to the feed in self-envy and dragged a list with names, titled 'Performance Appraisal', into the center display. He scrolled down the list and crossed the first name, 'MADISON, KAT'. One down, nineteen to go.
His finger then kept circling around the QuickAccess undecided. When he finally settled on 'Contacts' and dialed for one named 'Jason L', he was a bit skeptical about himself.
"Hey watup D?" Jason blurred.
"Don't D me." Dean remarked. "Where are you? Sounded too loud to be the club in the morning."
"I am driving to pick up this girl for my uncle. Guess I am now doing Girls Delivery, too."
"At this hour? Man that sucks." Dean said. "Well, I guess I would have to call the other guy then. Later."
He ended the conversation and initiated a chat with 'KPJ' on the contacts list.
08:11 Dean: Up for a Job?
08:11 KPJ: Anytime
08:12 Dean: 'STEVENSON, JOSEPH', MALE, ADR - O, DLV 0
08:14 KPJ: EST - O
Dean dragged the bubble 'O' open to view the content, it showed the time, 12:45 AM Midnight.
Dean pushed himself away from the workstation and glided to the kitchen on the wheel line. Breakfast cereal was on the upper deck. He recalibrated his artificial arm and extended it to grab the box, he didn't like to move around in the morning, stood up was absolutely unnecessary in his mind when he could utilize his arm. A cockroach in the drawer was added in the meal for flavoring and nutrition. He ate it with disgust, crunched the food with his dirty yellow distorted teeth, then slid to the bathroom and immersed himself with the artificial right arm taken off in a pond of yellow rusty discolored water for a very long time.
[This is a fusion of three ideas, an expansion of details from the previous 'Random Encounter [2]' (Kat and the man in bulky dark-blue greatcoat), 'Artificial Limb' (Dean) and 'Escape Driver' (Jason), check them out if you haven't already.]
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