Friday Challenge Entry #8

For the Friday Challenge.

Folk Tales of the Final Frontier #2

"Red Hood courier"

The sudden rush of cold and numbness were her only way of telling when she'd left the “real world” and had entered the unforgiving bastardized version of it known only as “The Forest”.

Red had been working at her family's courier service ever since she was first fitted with a neuro-spike on her sixth birthday. She had taken to the job much more quickly than anyone had expected. Sure, being a data-courier had run in her blood for generations, but no one had jumped from the nothing little missions you were supposed to start out from, to full-fledged paying jobs like she had.

Grandma had been so proud of her, that she gave her all the sensitive jobs she'd normally trusted to much older more experienced couriers, like Red's father or her older brothers. By the time she'd turned thirteen Red had developed such a reputation for herself, the family business was practically the only data-courier left in business. Well, at least if you expected your information to get where it was going without being sifted through and copied a few billion times before it got to it's destination, she thought to herself, as she ran across the wide open planes of the computer construct.

Looking at the receipt attached to the data packet Red saw where she had to take it, and sighed.

DeturaFalls@Badlands.universe.

Boring, she thought as she sped by the denizens of the artificial world. To them all they saw of her was a reddish blur going by, but anyone who had been in The Forest more than a day knew who it was.

As she approached the edge of the open space she considered slowing down, but kept up her pace instead wanting to get this job over with. She hated the easy ones like this, she thought. Inwardly she hoped for an actual challenge for once. And because she wasn't giving her full attention to what she was doing, she missed the signs of an ambush until it was too late.

Strung across her path were micro-fine strands of charged neural inhibitor wiring. Nearly invisible to the naked eye Red would have seen them with all the enhancements Grandma had given her, but she didn't until the sudden jerk of going from top speed to a full stop threatened to practically turn her inside out.

Red struggled with the webbing of thin wiring that even now was quickly sapping her strength.

“F*ck it all to hell, who's responsible for this sh*t!?!” she screamed into the darkness of the wooded area she was now trapped in.

A dashing figure stepped out from behind a tree and smiled a toothsome grin as he approached.

“Why dear Red, what a mouth you have on you.” said the stranger.

Red quickly studied his avatar, as she felt herself losing consciousness, hoping that she could identify him once she was free. He was obviously a weirdo, or one of the furries she'd been warned about.

From the neck down he was a nondescript normal man dressed in a bright blue business suit. But his head was that of an anthropomorphized wolf, complete with a full set of razor sharp fangs.

It was at this point she realized that she was utterly helpless and with only two options; stay with the package and face whatever this guy was planning, or signal her operator back home to yank her out and back to safety. Never one to back down from a fight, Red decided to play the last card she still had.

Using the last of her strength, she bent her left thumb back until she heard the tell-tale crack, and began the mental countdown of how much time she had left.

“What's that you say, wolfie?” she said hoping to draw him in closer.

Her plan, what little there was of one counted on it.

“I said you have quite a mouth on you for such an itty bitty thing.” he said as he playfully flicked at the curls of hair hanging limply over her face.

“All the better to tell you better f*ck off.” she said watching the wolf's face try and display the human expression of bemusement.

The wolf laughed at her despite himself. As he got closer to take her head in his grip he smiled and bared every tooth he had in a threatening manner.

“And why ever should I do that, little girl?” he asked dismissively as he looked into her eyes for any sign of what she was planning.

“Well, unless you got the latest upgrades to your anti-artifacting software, by my count you have about three seconds to haul ass out of here.” Red said calmly as she watched the realization of her words sink into the wolf's face.

But before he could even turn to make an escape the entire area was lit up in a sudden ball of bright green light, as anything not linked to Red's feed was wiped out in the blink of an eye. Picking herself up from the ground as it quickly re-materialized underneath her, Red took a minute to check her avatar's vitals, and ensure that her recklessness hadn't wiped the package too.

A row of green lights on all fronts, she searched the area briefly for any sign of the wolf, but found nothing, not even a residual avatar tag or anything. Taking this as a sign, Red decided to take the much more traveled and maintained route to her destination.

As she approached the way-station, she debated over whether to tell her grandma about the attempt on the package, but thought better of it. No reason to scare her, she thought as she waited in line behind the other data-couriers. Besides, what were the odds she'd ever even see that freak again, she thought as she scanned the package over the deposit area, watching it disappear into a small cloud of photons.

“Another job completed.” she said happily as she felt the familiar stomach dropping sensation of returning to the real world.

Gingerly lifting the neuro-spike from the collar around her neck, Red realized that she'd managed to dislocate her thumb in the escape attempt. Hard to hide that from grandma, she thought as she watched the sweet older woman approach her carrying a stack of new jobs preloaded onto the dozens of storage drives in her arms.

Letting the next day's work fall to the table, Red's grandmother fussed over her best worker, checking to make sure she was okay, just like she did after each job was completed.

“You're slipping young woman. That last one took you .0000009 of a second to run. Are you getting slow in your old age?” her grandma playfully chided.

Red smiled and stood on unsteady legs as she hugged the older woman, resting her chin on her grandma's shoulder.

“I'm not old until I'm your age. What, is that 34, 35?” Red said laughing as her grandma's face turned beet red with indignation.

“I'll have you know I did this job until I was forced to retire at 22, missy. You know full well things run a little faster these days than they did in my parents time. Why back then you worked until you were 70, and you liked it!” she said continuing her speech as she followed Red out of the workroom and into the living room, telling her all about the dark days of the late 21 century.