I exited and stared down the street before stepping onto the snow-covered sidewalk in front of the Quarterdeck, a derelict bar that served as my temporary home, if five years was considered temporary. The façade was windowless on the first floor, giving the air of a private club. A functional design decision as glass tended to shatter in places like this, evidenced by the busted globe Recog camera above the entrance. I pulled open the heavy, wooden door and crossed the threshold into a roadside dive from fifty years ago. My senses awakened to thick cigarette smoke, though vapes made up ninety percent of tobacco sales. Light from wall-mounted, vintage beer signs cast a neon glow, though advertising was mostly digital and holographic. Country music echoed from a jukebox still playing CDs. Everything in the bar was wooden, like the berth of an old pirate ship, and decorated as such thanks to the sailor who kept bar. Photos of ships, the ocean, maps of sea lanes, and the occasional salvaged part adorned the walls. My boots squeaked across the hardwood floor as the jukebox changed albums, drawing brief attention from the few drunks scattered throughout.
“Cap’n.” I said to the short, stout man behind the bar, who looked unhappy to have a customer.
“Gonna buy something today, Locke?”
“Isn’t rent enough?”
“We both know who pays that.”
I smiled and noticed a quick twitch of his lips, like one may form on his face as well, but he stifled whatever emotion it was.
“Your Recog cam is broke again,” I said.
“City’ll have it fixed by morning. Got a backup anyway.” He motioned toward a 6 ft. tall sign stand that used to say “Seat Yourself”, but currently held a tablet responsible for scanning entrants. “Keeps me from getting fined.”
Recog cameras became part of building codes during the last pandemic. You couldn’t walk into a grocery, restaurant, or department store without scanning your face and vaccine passport. Intentionally damaging, hindering or deceiving Recog cameras became a crime shortly thereafter. The Crypto companies that partnered with states to create NFTs from vaccine passports survived the first battle of the Currency Wars. Instead of easily forged paper cards, states issued NFTs to the vaccinated in digital wallets linked to and authenticated by facial recognition databases shared between government and the tech sector. After a couple years, the Recog cameras at the local mom & pop could scan a customer’s face and link it to the vaccine passport in their digital wallet within seconds. The alt-right, the anti-vaxxers, the independent researchers could keep their deeply held beliefs and personal freedoms, they just couldn’t buy groceries, go to the movies, shop, or participate in society. Thanks to big tech, vaccine rates reached 95% with the un-vaccinated dying off, along with the last variant of the Covid-19 virus.
“Where’s Locke?” announced a voice from the barroom door.
In the doorway stood a barista wearing a green apron with company logo front and center. I felt the patrons burning holes in my back with their stares, silently selling me out. Cap’n leaned forward.
“Take it outside. You know the rules here,” he whispered.
“I break it, I bought it?”
Cap’n smiled.
I stood and walked casually toward the barista.
“I’m Locke. Can I help…”
A left jab cracked my nose. I grabbed the barista through watery eyes, pushing him out the door and onto the snow-covered sidewalk.
“What the hell was that for?” I yelled.
“My kids. You stole their Christmas present, you piece of shit.”
Another jab landed, spraying the snow with red.
“I didn’t steal anything. I was doing my job.”
The barista telegraphed his right cross, allowing me time to deflect it and spin him into a headlock.
“What kind of man makes THAT his job?” The barista choked out.
He wasn’t wrong. Repossessing Christmas presents from children was a new low and if I had any control over my life, I’d still be hunting real criminals instead of using my badge to steal Christmas a month in arrears. I felt a step below P. I.’s who took scandalous pictures of cheating spouses for the highest bidder. The barista grabbed my arm, tucking his chin into the crook while buckling his knees. The movement was quick, pulling me up on my toes as I tried to maintain leverage over a dead weight opponent. He stepped to the side, hooking my leg and tilting us both backward until the ground reached up to meet us. The barista was on me, raining punches through a guard of which I was only half-committed. He punched like an MMA fighter, like someone who took lessons at the gym in a past life, when he could still afford it. Part of me deserved it, while the other part wanted to end it clean so both of us could walk away, a consideration often ignored when chasing criminals. They fought different on the run, desperation making for dangerous, ugly attacks with escape as the only goal. It’d been years since anybody had gotten this close, since anyone had really tried to do me harm. Even with rusted over defensive tactics, I could’ve ended the encounter quickly, but a voice echoed in my head, “you deserve this.”
“Logan…what have you done now?”
A deep, feminine voice halted the beating. We looked up to see a slight woman in fur-lined black snow boots, ripped black jeans, and cream turtleneck sweater peeking out from a black-and-white striped raincoat. Her face was tan with features hardened by middle-age, framed by choppy, black hair that blended into the starless sky. The falling snow melted against the open straight razor in her right hand. My savior.
“He repo-ed my kids’ Christmas present!” The barista yelled, using the distraction to land a cheap a shot that rattled my teeth.
“Another shot like that and your kids’ll lose more than a toy today.”
The barista slowly lifted himself up and backed away, raising his hands in the process. The crunch of the snow grew distant as he retreated to his Prius. I laid there in the cold and wet like a fallen snow angel until she knelt and closed the straight razor on my chest.
“Jesus…fucking Christmas presents?” She asked as she struggled to lift me to my feet. I didn’t answer, but pecked her on the cheek, leaving a smudge of blood behind.
“It’s nice to see you too, dear,” I said, before we stumbled into the bar.
"... vaccine rates reached 95% with the un-vaccinated dying off, along with the last variant of the Covid-19 virus...." Yikes. Could that happen? It is a little beyond my comprehension, but I am sticking with this story