Rosewater: A Day in the Life of a Psychic Security Guard
The early morning sun, already a blazing inferno even at this hour, turned the buildings across the way into shimmering mirages of steel and glass. From my perch on the fifteenth floor of Integrity Bank, Rosewater sprawled out before me like some cyberpunk tapestry woven from equal parts ambition and desperation. Even after all these years, the sight still held a morbid fascination for me.
Down below, the relentless pulse of the city throbbed in my ears – a cacophony of hover-car horns, street vendor hawks, and the ever-present hum of the Dome itself. The Dome. That enigmatic, gargantuan structure that had become the unwilling heart of our new civilization. Some worshipped it, others feared it, but no one could ignore its omnipresent shadow.
“Morning, Kaaro! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Bola’s cheerful voice cut through my musings, and I turned to see her waddling towards me, her smile as radiant as ever. Pregnant, again. For the second year in a row. You’d think someone would have told her about contraception by now, especially with how things were in Rosewater. Then again, Bola always did have a way of defying expectations.
The Price of Security
“Just the usual pre-shift jitters,” I lied, forcing a smile. The truth was, my mind was a whirlwind of stray thoughts and emotions, a hazard of the trade, you might say. A client’s impending wedding, a student’s anxiety about an upcoming exam – all these psychic whispers swirled around me, making it hard to focus on my own thoughts, let alone hold a conversation.
“Dumas last night, huh?” I asked, changing the subject. Bola worked the night shift, manning the psychic defenses while the rest of the city slept, or at least, tried to.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she groaned, patting her stomach. “All that talk of love and revenge gave me the worst heartburn. I swear, next time I’m requesting Jane Austen. At least those characters keep their emotions in check.”
I chuckled, picturing Bola fending off psychic attacks while mentally sipping tea with Elizabeth Bennet. It was an absurd image, and yet, not entirely far from the truth. Our work was strange like that.
The New Generation
The familiar chime of the pre-shift countdown echoed through the room, a stark reminder that our break was over. Sixty seconds. Time to suit up, literally.
I glanced around the room at my fellow contractors, the so-called “Metalheads.” Most of them were barely out of their teens, clad in the latest bio-mesh jumpsuits, their faces illuminated by the ghostly glow of their phone implants. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy and resentment towards them. Envy for their youth, their carefree attitude, and yes, even their implants. Resentment for how easily they seemed to adapt to this new world, a world that had ripped away my old life and left me with nothing but ghosts and anxieties.
“You alright, Kaaro?” Bola’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. She was eyeing me with concern, a half-eaten protein bar clutched in her hand. “You seem a bit…off.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the countdown timer reached zero, cutting me off. The lights in the room dimmed, plunging us into a semi-darkness, save for the eerie blue glow emanating from the holographic teleprompter in the center of the room.
Rosewater: A Day in the Life of a Psychic Security Guard
The early morning sun, already a blazing inferno even at this hour, turned the buildings across the way into shimmering mirages of steel and glass. From my perch on the fifteenth floor of Integrity Bank, Rosewater sprawled out before me like some cyberpunk tapestry woven from equal parts ambition and desperation. Even after all these years, the sight still held a morbid fascination for me.
Down below, the relentless pulse of the city throbbed in my ears – a cacophony of hover-car horns, street vendor hawks, and the ever-present hum of the Dome itself. The Dome. That enigmatic, gargantuan structure that had become the unwilling heart of our new civilization. Some worshipped it, others feared it, but no one could ignore its omnipresent shadow.
“Morning, Kaaro! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Bola’s cheerful voice cut through my musings, and I turned to see her waddling towards me, her smile as radiant as ever. Pregnant, again. For the second year in a row. You’d think someone would have told her about contraception by now, especially with how things were in Rosewater. Then again, Bola always did have a way of defying expectations.
The Price of Security
“Just the usual pre-shift jitters,” I lied, forcing a smile. The truth was, my mind was a whirlwind of stray thoughts and emotions, a hazard of the trade, you might say. A client’s impending wedding, a student’s anxiety about an upcoming exam – all these psychic whispers swirled around me, making it hard to focus on my own thoughts, let alone hold a conversation.
“Dumas last night, huh?” I asked, changing the subject. Bola worked the night shift, manning the psychic defenses while the rest of the city slept, or at least, tried to.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she groaned, patting her stomach. “All that talk of love and revenge gave me the worst heartburn. I swear, next time I’m requesting Jane Austen. At least those characters keep their emotions in check.”
I chuckled, picturing Bola fending off psychic attacks while mentally sipping tea with Elizabeth Bennet. It was an absurd image, and yet, not entirely far from the truth. Our work was strange like that.
The New Generation
The familiar chime of the pre-shift countdown echoed through the room, a stark reminder that our break was over. Sixty seconds. Time to suit up, literally.
I glanced around the room at my fellow contractors, the so-called “Metalheads.” Most of them were barely out of their teens, clad in the latest bio-mesh jumpsuits, their faces illuminated by the ghostly glow of their phone implants. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy and resentment towards them. Envy for their youth, their carefree attitude, and yes, even their implants. Resentment for how easily they seemed to adapt to this new world, a world that had ripped away my old life and left me with nothing but ghosts and anxieties.
“You alright, Kaaro?” Bola’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. She was eyeing me with concern, a half-eaten protein bar clutched in her hand. “You seem a bit…off.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the countdown timer reached zero, cutting me off. The lights in the room dimmed, plunging us into a semi-darkness, save for the eerie blue glow emanating from the holographic teleprompter in the center of the room.
Into the Maelstrom of the Mind
The air crackled with anticipation as the teleprompter flickered to life, bathing us in its cold, blue light. Words began to scroll across its surface, not the usual banking protocols or financial data, but lines from Plato’s Republic. Of course. It figured someone up in Corporate Security thought giving us philosophy would make us feel more sophisticated, more vital to the whole money-grubbing machine.
“…and justice, my friend, is the principle which, as we have often said, should be established in a city…” droned the teleprompter.
My consciousness, already feeling stretched thin from the background noise of the city, began to detach from my physical body. It was an odd sensation, like being pulled through a thick syrup, both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Around me, I could sense the others making the same transition, their individual psychic signatures flaring into existence in the xenosphere, the strange, ethereal plane where thoughts were currency and memories could be mined like precious ore.
We were the guardians of those memories, the protectors of our clients’ innermost thoughts. While others worried about hackers and viruses, our job was to safeguard against a far more insidious threat: psychic intrusion. Untrained sensitives, desperate to escape the poverty that gripped the city, would try to pry their way into the minds of our clients, hoping to steal a PIN, a password, anything they could use to get ahead. Our job was to build a wall between those thieves and their targets, a firewall forged from pure thought and fueled by the collective will of our minds.
Echoes of Yola and Mumbai
A sharp jolt ran through me, like a live wire brushing against my skin. An attack. I focused my will, pushing back against the intrusion, and saw him, a young man, face gaunt with hunger, eyes burning with desperation. He was coming from the direction of Yola, one of the poorest sectors of Rosewater, a place where hope went to die and resentment festered like an open wound. I’d seen his kind a thousand times before. They were easy to dispatch, their techniques crude, their desperation palpable.
Sure enough, a single, withering blast of pure, concentrated Plato was all it took to send him reeling back into the darkness, howling in defeat. But no sooner had he vanished than another took his place, this one a teenager, barely old enough to shave, his eyes glazed over with the telltale signs of a chemically-enhanced high. This one was different. He was more focused, more determined. A Mumbai combo, I realized, a tag-team attack designed to overwhelm the defenses. Clever, but ultimately futile.
A Lull in the Storm
The day wore on, a relentless cycle of attacks and counterattacks. But something was different this time. The attacks were less frequent, less intense. It was almost as if the criminals were…hesitant. Word must be spreading on the streets: Integrity Bank was a hard target. Maybe our efforts were finally paying off. Maybe we were actually making a difference in this crazy, mixed-up world.
Or maybe, I thought to myself, pushing the thought away as quickly as it had surfaced, maybe they were just saving their strength for something bigger, something we couldn’t even begin to imagine. The thought sent a shiver down my spine, a cold whisper of unease in the back of my mind.
The Weight of Knowledge
Back in the relative safety of the physical world, I peeled myself out of the bio-mesh suit, the familiar feeling of exhaustion washing over me. It was always like this after a shift, a bone-deep weariness that went beyond the physical. It was the weight of other people’s thoughts, the burden of their secrets and anxieties, that clung to me like a shroud.
I glanced over at Bola, who was already halfway through her post-shift protein shake. “Quiet shift?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
She shrugged, wiping a stray bit of chocolate from her chin. “You know how it is. The usual assortment of petty thieves and wannabe psychic spies. Nothing we couldn’t handle.” She paused, her eyes meeting mine, a knowing look in their depths. “But it feels different now, doesn’t it? Like something’s changing out there.”
I nodded, unable to shake the feeling that she was right. The xenosphere felt…off. The usual background hum of psychic energy was laced with a new kind of tension, a sense of anticipation that sent a chill down my spine. Something was brewing in the psychic ether, I could feel it in my bones. And whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for the future of Rosewater.