Death Rides a White Motorcycle

By Katlina Sommerberg

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Content Warnings: car crashes, death

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The last of today’s bodies is in the hospice ward’s VIP wing. She’s not my patient — Harvester pays grunts like me to rip data from implants and bribes hospital admins to bypass security — but the fat cat’s door unlocks before I type in the access code. I hope a glitch opened it; rich schmucks aren’t used to violations of their data privacy, so there’s no chance of a decent conversation while I extract health information from their implant.

The data collection device is a blinking machine shaped like a croissant. It’s not the easiest to wave over the dying with their assorted body shapes and the osteoarthritis stiffening my joints, so I tied it to the end of a stick. Yes, I have waved it in front of a mirror and pretended I’m a witch, but, mostly, I feel like the grim reaper.

I nudge the door and wield the stick like a weapon. Yet nobody’s waiting within, so either the door glitched or Harvester upped the bribes to ensure capturing this fat cat’s data.

The billionaire herself in a coma, shrunken into satin sheets and plump pillows. She’s old — older than my mom when she died at 95 from pneumonia — and has the same wavy brown hair and papery white skin. The chart at the foot of her bed even has my last name, but the coincidence barely enters the hospice ward’s top five creepiest coincidences.

I brace an elbow on the bed and lean forward. The device beeps softly until I tap it to her temple, then it shrieks once. I wince, even though I hear it a hundred times every shift.

The patient’s blue eyes open. I hesitate; the device hasn’t chirped to signal it’s finished the data download.

Her hand strikes and squeezes my wrist like a viper. “You’re not the nurse.”

Fuck, she’s lucid. There goes my lunch break, I’ll either be buried in paperwork, or handcuffed. “I —”

“Did my secretary send for you? I’ll fire him. I do not wish for visitors, let alone family, while I’m recovering.”

“Let go of me.” She tightens her grip, but I’ve rehearsed the following lie so many times, I’m unphased. “I’m collecting data for your treatment.”

“No you’re not, I’m an early investor.” She reaches for the device. Although weak, her precise swipes nearly take it until I hold it above my head like a middle schooler. “I know what that data’s for. They’re mashing up health records with the state’s surveillance network. It’s not to save lives — it’s to predict where they’ll die.”

“Lady, I just collect data,” I plead.

“You won’t feed me into their algorithm!”

I tug backwards. Her fingernails stab into my inner wrist, worse than when I got a lotus tattoo on the same tender spot.

Four red lines welt up from my wrist to my knuckles as I pull myself free.

Suddenly, she lets go. I stumble back into the beeping machines, which break out in alarm, and panic burns my throat. No way I caused this, she must’ve flatlined while she fought over the data harvesting. Even with a stopped heart, anger twists her wrinkled skin.

I brace myself against the wall and check the device. As I use my subcranial implant to read it, the data logs on Habsburg’s health obscure my vision of her corpse. I scroll past the gross biometrics to the last entries.

Relief relaxes my face like a warm towel. The recording implants in my body prove — with timestamps! — an incurable hardware fail occurred before she woke up. Besides, I benefit from her death.

If I didn’t record a death today, I would’ve missed my water payment. Harvester pays me for each data package, which is corporate-speak for a paycheck per corpse, and — as awful as it sounds — it isn’t reliable like salary wages or lucrative like hourly. But it came with high-end cybernetic implants capable of recording everything, even video streams or emotion feeds, and I’d rather have a shot at cracking into online fame than a reliable paycheck.

Yet knowing this doesn’t still my trembling hands. Clutching the stick helps. I lean on it like a walking stick and push open the door.

There is a man in a bodyguard’s suit standing in the hallway. He is hideous in the way his traps rise to both sides of the neck and the oily sheen to his eyes. If he was not genemodded for war and repurposed for safekeeping oligarchs, then I need updated eyewear.

“You are Lady Habsburg?” His eyes glaze over as he studies my face; all elderly women look the same to the likes of him.

Before I shake my head for no, he holds up his palm. I freeze.

However, instead of attacking me, a camera flash blinds me. If he runs a face ID check against the hospital database on me, he’ll know I’m not Lady Habsburg’s healthcare staff.

“My mistake.” The suit bows. “I see the rumors about your health are greatly exaggerated.”

My fingers ache from choking the stick from shock. As insulting as it is to be mistaken for the corpse inside, my curiosity prevents me from correcting him. “They always are when you’re my age.”

“Either way, I’m relieved you’re able to receive your prototype.” He glances left and right to check the empty hallway, then his voice drops. “With the South China Sea’s recent violence, the delay was unforeseeable. But Harvester is proud to have pivoted to using our stockpile to manufacture enough chips for all our major shareholders. Of course, given your upcoming deadline, you are the first to receive —”

“Where is it?” I hold out a palm. This prototype must be the shit if Habsburg wanted it delivered on her deathbed, so I’m happy to pretend I’m her.

The suit retrieves a navy box from his pocket. It fits snuggly in my palm. Inside, a silver chip the size of my thumbnail rests on red velvet. The presentation disguises the commonality of the item, since everyone in San Francisco has at least one datastick jacked in their cranial implant. Mine is the standard entertainment package to stream content while I work, but my second port is free.

I don’t ask before I pick it up. The suit winces and produces plastic gloves, but I wave his concerns away.

The chip’s corners dig into my skin. Not sharp enough to cut like a cheap mod. And the glossy sheen to the circuitry would be difficult for a replication lab. I’ve never seen a quality chip like this in person, only in advertisements flashing on the highway targeting executives and rich tourists.

I flip open the vagus port on my throat. Yet I hesitate. “This is it?” There are consequences for stealing from the wealthy, even a rich corpse.

Slowly, he nods. “Everything Harvester learned about predicting Death is there.”

I raise the chip to my neck. How could I refuse? This data is why Harvester props up the healthcare industry while paying me by the corpse. The thrill of learning secret information trembles my fingers.

I sweep my long hair back before sliding the chip in. It locks in with a click, and the sound resonates within my collarbone.

The vibration traverses down my spine and diffuses through my skeleton. A hum settles in my cheekbones. When the hospital’s antiseptic smell slides out of my nose, I realize an algorithm on the chip is tuning my senses. I raise my hand to my collarbone.

But the suit grabs my wrist. “You’ll go into shock if you interrupt the download.”

Glaring at him, but too neurologically overloaded to think, my teeth burn. Eventually, I avert my eyes from his blinding stare.

That’s when the figure emerges from Lady Habsburg’s room. A black helmet with a pixel smiley face obscures its head. From the chin down, black leather covers its skin. The gangliness of its limbs resembles a spider’s more than a human’s.

It appears to glide, until I see the gleaming white motorcycle between its legs. The tires turn without creaking. The rider cranks the throttle and a cloud of pale blue exhaust curls around the motorcycle’s sleek metal.

But there is no sound. An electric motor is quiet. Yet this engine is so quiet it is silent, like it doesn’t exist. As though seeing the impossible is all my brain can process.

The motorcycle turns and races down the hallway.

Glittering fog covers the bleached hospital floors. I blink; it’s vanished, replaced by neon pink tire tracks leading around the corner.

I follow. First at a walk then, as I catch a glimpse of the Neon Rider’s rear tire, a sprint. Harvester’s equipment flies out of my hand and smashes against a wall-mounted portrait of Harvester’s founder. Metal shards pierce the cloth and kick up an oily smell. It lingers on my tongue.

As I chase the motorcycle, its noxious smell of blood and gasoline clings to my face. Every inhale numbs me. The harsh lights seem to yellow and dim, calmingly so, even as distant yelps drown out the hum of the air conditioner.

Behind me, the suit chuckles. “I recommend avoiding the Neon Rider!”

I ignore him and skid on the linoleum until I reach a wider hallway. Past propped-open double doors, I slow to a stop in a large room. By the scattered groups of nervous faces and tired receptionist behind a desk, I’m in the ER’s waiting room.

The Neon Rider accelerates and charges towards the operating room. It phases through the wood like they’re holographic and leaves them painted with neon green splatters.

Its pink tracks fade into the fog.

Then screams begin near the exit’s glass doors. It sounds like the same distant wails from earlier, and — by the lack of attention from the waiting patients — this has been going on since they arrived.

The man shrieking is scratching at his neck. Welts the size of his fingernails run up and down his rail-thin frame. He has as many scabs and fresh cuts as I have freckles.

The security guard and two orderlies argue amongst themselves about treating his overdose without medical staff. The guard doesn’t want any of them to lose their job for an idiot’s decision to ruin his life with meth. One orderly argues emotionally like he’s a recovered addict himself. And the other mediates.

I inch towards the ER doors. Nobody tries to stop me.

My fingertips graze the green drops on the wood. But I do not feel anything. The door is dry underneath my hand, yet the wet paint glistens in the harsh overhead light.

When I lean forward to investigate inside, an arm wraps around my waist and pulls me backwards. For an instant, I thrash, but still when I remember where I am. I look too much like a dementia patient to draw attention to myself.

“Don’t be stupid, Lady Habsburg, what would the media do if they caught this story?” He sets me down in front of the windows. “If you want to see death in action, the hospice ward is less conspicuous and makes better PR.”

I lower my shoulder to push past him, but I bounce off his torso. He’s built like a brick, looming in height, and I’m nearly intimidated into stepping back. Instead, I lunge right.

But he holds his arms out to block my way around, and lowers his chin to hiss in my face. “Lady Habsburg?”

“Can’t you see —”

“Lady Habsburg.” He grabs my left shoulder.

“Don’t touch me.” With both hands, I push off his belly and glance around for the security guard, but he and the nurses are busy dealing with the meth addict.

The doors’ hinges burst open. Surgeons whisper amongst themselves as they leave the ER, and the Neon Rider weaves their motorcycle between the scrubs.

The white motorcycle accelerates ahead of the pack. It’s driving towards the corridor to the hospice ward, but then it turns and loops back. The Rider’s helmet gleams iridescent as its neck swivels, scanning the crowd, and I want to rip off the visor to see how it looks at us humans.

“What’s it doing?” I hiss.

“I don’t have the implant.” The suit leans down to whisper into my ear. “What do you see?”

“It’s looping around the room.”

“Then it’s waiting for the next death.” His hand grips my elbow. “The implant allows you to avoid areas where the Neon Rider appears. I suggest we leave.”

“Because a racist with an automatic could be in route?”

“Exactly.”

I glance at the cluster of muted TVs behind the receptionist. There’s always a crime report, but I don’t see Riders zipping across the expressway to the massive pileup. If there’s death there, then it hasn’t arrived yet.

The Neon Rider cruises between me and the screens. I stumble back, coughing on the taste of sweet rot.

Foggy exhaust obscures the motorcyclist. It creeps over the floor towards the staff struggling to restrain the meth addict and solidifies into a cloud. Pastel dots like confetti shimmer and swirl around the group before settling on the screamer’s hands.

The glittery fog sticks to his skin and sucks the color away. The greyer he becomes, the brighter the sparkles. They flash brighter than neon Christmas lights.

When he slumps, dead, against the security guard, he is as dull as a concrete block.

One orderly jams her fingers into his neck. The other runs for medication before she calls his lack of pulse.

Why is she bothering? He’s colorless like wax. Unless only I see him this way.

That’s right. I’m the only one in the room — maybe the whole city — that can see the Neon Rider. And I’m certainly the only person with this chip motivated not to keep it a secret and equipped with the right implants to record and broadcast this insanity. Would people panic if they see what I see? Would they riot at the oligarchs using their health data, not to save them from such a fate, but to save themselves from the fates of the masses?

As I tap my recording implant to boot up, I don’t care about the answers to these questions. But I do know a ticket to rising to the top of the streams and upgrading from a paycheck per corpse to the gravy train of ad revenue.

I glance at the TV screens. The expressway pile up is still ongoing, and not far from here. There will definitely be at least one death to record, and the stream will look realer than real. Hospitals are a terrible place to record; the lighting is shit and everything looks staged on camera, so I’ll go to the traffic horrorshow.

I turn and totter out of the ER’s glass doors. My fingers fumble and ache in my pocket as I pull out my motorcycle’s fob.

Wedged between two doctor’s cars and illegally parked, my motorcycle glistens from the morning rain. I discovered this loophole my first week on the job, and, after getting one ticket for messing up which doctor got off after my shift ended, I’ve used it for two years. If my livestream goes viral and pulls enough subscribers, I’ll never again have to fear losing an hour’s work to the meter.

The suit walks out of the hospital while I slide into the seat. His confusion ignites into rage when I slip the helmet over my head.

“You’re not Lady Habsburg.”

“Never said I was.” The engine turns over.

I lean forward and the engine roars to life, drowning all other sounds. My recording implant syncs up with the city’s internet and sharpens my senses for the viewers’ experience; the smell of hot asphalt assaults my nose. I activate my helmet’s air filter.

The crispness of my vision catches the white motorcycle phasing through the ER’s glass. Jackpot, I’m a lucky bitch.

I finger salute to the suit. “Gotta go, catch me on my stream!”

I twist the throttle and my motorcycle surges after the Neon Rider. The wheels jump from off the curb and touchdown on the pavement, the whole machine vibrating with the force of the impact. But I do not slow; I accelerate.

While I weave around the cars occupying the two-lane road, the Neon Rider tightropes the yellow paint. It phases through vehicles and traffic median alike. I can’t hope to match its speed without a collision, so it’s slipping ahead, gaining a car-length with each passing second.

My implant buzzes once with a string of comments from the livestream’s chat. I only read one: WHAT ARE THEY COSPLAYING? And I know I have to record the Neon Rider in the act, perhaps a string of deaths, and then the truth will be undeniable.

“This isn’t cosplay!” I scream. My helmet’s microphone catches my words and fling them to the stream. “This is Death, and Death rides a white motorcycle!”

The Neon Rider turns onto the expressway ramp. I’m seven cars behind and accelerate, weaving between the cars and the guiding wall. Exhaust slips in through the helmet’s filters and burns my throat.

It’s easy. The cars are slowing down while I’m speeding up, because all seven lanes are clogged and sluggish. Their wheels turn so slowly, their rims reflect the sunlight and create a shimmery, painful glare worse than looking at the ocean at high noon.

When the Neon Rider phases through a minivan and leaves pink splatters against its black paint, my livestream’s views double. The Neon Rider continues on, phasing through a string of mommy mobiles and momentarily disappears in a chain of eighteen-wheelers.

My handlebar shatters a side mirror as I insert myself between the two rightmost lanes. Traffic’s so slow, I’m practically squished between two giant metal earthworms.

Ahead, Neon Rider phases in and out like a dolphin jumping waves. The lane to my left shimmers with a trail of pink, green, blue paint.

Horns blare as the livestream’s views go exponential. The chat floods with comments on the white motorcycle and quotes from the Bible and fiction alike. That’s the last I read; people are posting too fast for even my augmented brain to parse.

The cars around me have slowed. The only difference between now and an apocalyptic graveyard are the rumbling engines and blaring horns.

Above the traffic, media drones dip and dive. They’re searching for the best angle for the carnage. I’m closer than I’ve ever been to breaking out of the rat race. I’ve grown old with bones weighed down from my impossible dream, but now my weary burden has hatched into elation.

Orange caution tape circles the concrete littered with glass. Cone-shaped road safety bots patrol the edge, carrying blinking signs for the drivers to turn right, keep right, and stay seated.

As I cut through the tape, the Neon Rider accelerates and loops around the broken vehicles. The wounded shriek. I narrowly miss clipping a woman limping to an upside-down car.

The warmth of anticipation chills to dread. Who will the Neon Rider drain of color? I don’t dare take my eyes — and the camera — off the white motorcycle.

AREN’T YOU A HOSPITAL WORKER? I’m surprised anyone in the chat has watched any of my streams before to know. DIDN’T YOU RIDE TO HELP?

I begin dictating a reply before I realize what I’m doing and stop. The response sits in my mind, half-formed, and I chew on continuing —

Amongst the glittering glass, there’s a metal bumper shining in the sunlight. I turn right, sharp, relief already singing to the adrenaline in my veins.

But the glass rattles the motorcycle beneath me. The front tire hits the bumper at an angle.

The concrete rises up; my motorcycle’s flipping.

And beyond the concrete is that fucking bumper, and my motorcycle’s exhaust mutes the shimmers in the white paint that is the Neon Rider.

The Neon Rider salutes with two fingers. Their helmet shimmers chrome.

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Katlina Sommerberg (xe/xyr/xem) is living xyr best queer life in a menagerie of stuffed animals. Xyr work has previously appeared in Zooscape and other places. https://sommerbergssf.carrd.co/#

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