by Dan Wells
They heard the gunshots long before they reached the warehouse. The streets looked like the world had ended; cars were stopped, windows and doors were broken, and bodies lay strewn across the parking lots and sidewalks like broken dolls. Marisa wondered if they were dead, or beaten unconscious by the Bluescreen puppets.
The puppets were the most terrifying part of the scene—hundreds of them, some running toward the warehouse fence, some walking stiffly, some only crawling on limbs too damaged to walk. Marisa looked for Anja, but couldn’t see her in the crowd. Some of them chased the car, but only vaguely; most were marching toward the Bluescreen warehouse with a grim, mindless obsession.
“What are they doing?” asked Bao.
“This can’t be about protection,” said Fang. “The best protection Bluescreen had was secrecy, and they just blew that.”
“Lal claimed he didn’t know what was going on,” said Marisa. “Maybe this is a glitch? A malfunction in the virus.”
“Or another virus,” said Bao, “infecting the first.” The thought made Marisa shiver.
“Done,” said Sahara. She looked up from her coding and grimaced. “Just in time for the apocalypse, apparently.”
The Baron pulled to a smooth stop five blocks from the warehouse. More of the Bluescreen puppets took notice and started walking toward them.
“We didn’t count on this many of them,” said Bao. “Fang, are you going to be okay driving through this crowd? They might not jump out of the way like the others will.”
“Ten more seconds and it’s not going to matter,” said Fang. “Hold on.”
The car lurched forward and stopped abruptly. Sahara fell off the bench, and Marisa caught her, bracing herself in place with her feet.
“Sorry,” said Fang. “I’ve never been a car before.”
“Been one?” asked Marisa.
“That was the easiest way to fake the controls,” said Sahara. “She’s not using a control panel, she’s literally jacked in, like a VR game.”
A glassy-eyed teen beat his fist against the car window, a larger group right behind him, and the car lurched forward again, leaving them behind and weaving through the crowded street. “Just don’t forget that this isn’t a game,” said Bao, gripping a cup holder for stability. “We’re actually in this thing.”
“I’m fine,” said Fang, though her voice was strained. “Stop distracting me.”
Marisa held Sahara’s hand as tightly as she could, forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths as the car got faster and faster. “Jaya, you ready?”
“Ready enough.”
“Hit it.” Marisa couldn’t see it, but she knew that the digital onslaught Jaya unleashed on the Bluescreen servers was working its way through their system now. The car sped up, swerving more wildly.
“You weren’t kidding about these guys’ cyber security,” said Jaya. “This is crazy. I feel like I’m—holy crap—I feel like I’m being bombed.”
“You okay?” asked Marisa.
“I’m hanging on,” Jaya grunted. “You?”
“Stop talking!” said Fang. “This is harder than it looks—”
The gunfire grew louder, and the crowd thicker, and Fang accelerated suddenly, leaping the curb with a rattling bump, and roaring through the open gate. The space inside the fence was filled with gangsters, running and shooting and crouching for cover behind bullet-riddled cars, both sides retreating toward the building as the Bluescreen puppets advanced across the yard. Fang swung sharply to the left, hugging the outer edge of the compound as she angled a wide right turn toward the side of the building. Marisa hung on, pressing herself into the corner of the seat and praying the car wouldn’t roll over. A bullet slammed into the window and she almost screamed, and then a barrage of alarms leaped up in her djinni, scaring her even worse. But they were just service alerts from the window washers: the nulis had arrived. She craned her neck to look up and saw the sky over the warehouse fill up with quadcopter robots, racing toward the windows and doors, spraying them with foam and water, attacking them with articulated rubber wipers. Fang zoomed around the first corner of the building and slowed slightly; the side door was there, waiting on the back of the west wall. The side of the car slid open, the noise of the battle suddenly growing louder and more terrifying. Marisa watched the asphalt speed by in a blur, and pressed herself against the seat, practically climbing up on the bench to get as far from the open door as possible.
“Slow down,” said Sahara, “we can’t jump at this speed.”
Fang hit the brakes, a little too abruptly, and they tumbled to the floor of the car. “Hit the ground the same way,” said Bao. “Rolling absorbs the impact.”
“I’m not ready,” said Marisa. Her muscles felt locked and rigid; she couldn’t move if she wanted to. Sahara and Bao grabbed her together and pulled her out of the speeding car.
Marisa hit the ground with a scream, scraping and rolling and tumbling across the rough asphalt. She covered her head with her arm, and even when she stopped moving the world seemed to keep spinning around her. Her torso ached, the new bruise throbbing on one side and the jagged scab tearing with her movement on the other. She took a deep breath, clearing her head, and staggered to her feet. Bao was nearby, and she helped him stand up.
“Thanks,” she said. “The door’s there.” Sahara caught up to them, Campbell and Camilla hovering over her, and together they ran toward the cloud of window nulis jockeying for position to wash the back door.
“There’s like ten doors back here,” said Fang. “I just passed them, on my way back around to the front.”
“Mierda,” said Marisa, panting as they ran. “I forgot about those—there’s a whole row of loading doors back there.”
“We have to breach every door we can,” said Sahara. “If we only hit two they’ll know exactly where to look.”
“Can the nulis do it?” asked Bao.
“Not the window washers,” said Marisa. They had almost reached the back door.
“Maybe one of the camera nulis,” said Sahara, “but I don’t know how, and we don’t have a lot of time to figure it out.”
“Take the gun,” said Bao, handing it over to Sahara. “You two go through the side door, just like we planned; I’ll head to the loading doors and . . . improvise. We have about thirty seconds.” He flashed a split-second grin, then turned and sprinted toward the back of the building.
Marisa ran to the side door, but saw a movement from the corner of her eye. She looked toward the front of the building and saw three Tì Xū Dāo gangsters running toward them. “That’s not good.”
Sahara joined her by the wall, looking down at the gun in her hands and then back up at the thugs. “They must have followed the car.”
“Maybe they’re just running away from the fight,” said Marisa. One of them raised a gun and fired, barely missing them. “Okay then. Maybe we’re just screwed.”
“Hurry up, Fang,” said Sahara. She reached the wall, Marisa right behind her, taking what shelter they could from the swarm of nulis trying to polish the door. The gangster fired again, and one of the nulis exploded in a shower of sparks and plastic fragments. “Any time you’re ready.”
“Not yet,” said Marisa, “Bao needs more time.”
A thundering crash echoed through the air.
“Niú bī!” yelled Fang. “I can’t wait to do that again!”
“Time to get out of this kill zone,” said Sahara. She stepped out from the wall, aimed, and fired one-two-three-four rounds into the doorknob. Carlo Magno’s pistol wasn’t a rail gun like Calaca had been packing, but at this range it blew an ample hole in the door, and the shattered remains of the bolt fell out onto the ground. Marisa threw it open and charged in, and Sahara emptied the rest of the magazine at the gangsters, trying to slow them down before following her in. The girls found themselves in a short hallway at the base of some metal stairs leading up to the second floor. Campbell and Camilla buzzed in behind them, and Sahara sent them ahead to s
ee where the hall and stairs went, while she and Marisa pulled the door closed and dragged a garbage can in front of it. Marisa wished there was something more, but it was the best they could do.
“Up,” said Sahara, and they clattered up toward the second floor. They’d barely reached the first landing when the door flew open below them, and the charging gangsters kicked the garbage can out of the way with a shout of rage. Marisa patched herself into the nulis’ camera feeds as she ran; Campbell was in the first floor hallway, and turned around for a look at the Tì Xū Dāo. All three were still there, and climbing the stairs. Camilla had already reached the top of the stairs, finding only a closed door.
“Miércoles,” said Marisa. She sprinted up the last few steps and tried the handle. It was locked. “We’re trapped.”
Sahara put her back to the door, facing the oncoming thugs with grim determination. “Trapped isn’t beaten,” she said. “Stay behind me.”
Marisa felt a sudden sense of vertigo, half of her vision showing Campbell’s burst of speed as he zoomed down the hall, chasing the gangsters up the stairs. Camilla dove toward them at the same time, catching the Tì Xū Dāo just as they reached the landing, pinning them between the two nulis.
The thug in the back was short, with a scar on the side of his face that cut off the top of his ear; Campbell shot him with a stun gun, and he fell back down the stairs, twitching as he went. Camilla did the same to the gangster in front—a woman with the right half of her head shaved. She was already on the landing when she fell, so she didn’t roll away, but Sahara jumped down and kicked the gun out of her hand, using only the rubber sole of her shoe so the current from the stun gun didn’t affect her. The man in the middle, more than six feet tall but with a boyish face, raised his gun and fired, but Camilla moved smoothly in front of the barrel and caught the bullet perfectly, falling to the stairs in a smoking pile.
Campbell shot a blob of pink foam at the gun, swallowing both the gun and the hand in a dense blob of goo, swelling and hardening in seconds. He tried to fire again, but the goo held his finger and the trigger firmly in place, stiff and immovable, so instead he swung the useless blob like a club. Sahara countered by catching the arm and levering it backward, popping the shoulder out of joint with an audible crack.
The tall man screamed and backed away, and Sahara turned to face the woman, now recovering from the stun gun. The woman pummeled Sahara with a tight, fast flurry of punches, and Sahara parried each one almost faster than Marisa could follow. The woman swung a wide roundhouse kick at Sahara’s midsection, forcing her to change her stance to block it, and the woman used the opening to launch a devastating chop at Sahara’s head, with no way for her to dodge in time. Campbell zoomed in and knocked the punch aside at the last second.
The woman faltered, surprised, and Sahara rammed her elbow into the side of the gangster’s head, dropping her again to the floor. The tall man came back into the fray, favoring his wounded shoulder but showering Sahara with kicks so powerful it was all she could do to block them with her forearms, grunting in pain at each impact. She fell away from the onslaught, backing up until she was pressed up against the metal railing with nowhere to go. She blocked two more fierce kicks, then ducked away from the next one, dropping almost to the floor; the move left her exposed, but the tall man’s kick had too much momentum, passing through the air where Sahara had just been and slamming into the railing instead.
Marisa heard the ankle snap. The man screamed, and Sahara lashed out with a kick of her own, knocking his other leg out from under him. The tall man toppled, and Sahara stood up with a grim smile.
“Now who’s trapped?”
The door at the top of the stairs rattled, and the girls turned toward it wearily, bracing themselves for another attack. Sahara raised her fists, and the door swung open.
Omar stepped out, his gun raised. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Marisa yelped and ducked, but he fired over their heads, hitting the scar-faced gangster who’d crept up behind them. The gangster fell, dropping his rail gun, and Sahara fell into another fighting stance, ready to face Omar bare-handed.
Marisa clenched her fist. “You gonna kill us, you fracking bastard?”
“I just saved your lives,” he said fiercely. “I saw you on the security cameras and came as fast as I could.”
“You’re part of this!” Marisa shouted. “You’re helping them! Anja was your friend!”
“Anja wasn’t supposed to take it,” said Omar. “Neither was Franca—and Tì Xū Dāo was definitely not supposed to get involved.”
“But everyone else can go screw themselves?” asked Sahara. “This is evil, and you know it.”
“My father will be pissed when this all goes down,” said Omar, not bothering to defend himself, “but I’ve seen enough. It’s time to end this.”
“How do you expect us to trust anything you say?” Marisa demanded. “You supported this—there’s no reason for us to believe you’ve changed your mind now.”
“Look around you,” said Omar. “I supported this because it was a good business decision. Can you imagine what we could do if we got this into Ganika? Our control code in millions of heads, all over the world. Power and money become almost meaningless at that point—we’d control enough of the world to make no difference. But that’s impossible now. We could have weathered the gang war, but not this zombie thing, whatever the hell glitch is turning them all into killers. Not only are we not getting into Ganika, but Ganika might take a huge hit—no one’s going to trust their djinnis anymore once word of this gets out. It’s no longer good business, so I’m pulling us out.”
“You heartless, soulless bastard,” said Marisa.
“I’ve already destroyed any evidence linking my family to this company,” said Omar. “But I can’t cut the power to the server without everyone out there ending up like Franca. Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-three people. I’m not a total monster, you know—I want to release them all safely, but I don’t know how. We’re locked out of the root software.”
Marisa struggled for words, not knowing what to say, or how. Finally she walked toward him, opened her hand, and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.
Omar glowered, but didn’t attack her back. “I deserved that,” he said darkly.
“How many guards are in the server room?” she asked.
“None,” said Omar. “They all went downstairs when my car flew into the lobby—I assume I have you to thank for that?”
“Thank Sahara,” said Marisa. “My revenge is coming later. For now, get me to those servers.”
He turned back through the open door, motioning for them to follow him down a long, dark hallway. “What happened to your arm?”
“Calaca,” said Marisa. “He’s going to catch hell, too, if I make it out of here alive.”
Omar grunted. “Shut this place down and I’ll make sure you do.”
“Here it is.” Omar stopped in front of a door and swung it open, revealing the room beyond. A bank of server towers stood against the west wall, drawing local and external power, just like they’d guessed. The south wall was lined with monitors, some showing lists of data, some showing security images, and some showing live feeds through the eyes of Bluescreener puppets locked in combat with the gangsters outside. In front of the monitors, set up on folding tables, were more screens and drives and keyboards, linked together with a vast tangle of cables. The most important feature, however, was the center of the room, which held a pillar of ad hoc computer parts, surrounded by five VR chairs, spaced around it like petals on an industrial flower. More cables snaked between them. The only person in the room was lying in a chair, jacked into the cylinder and oblivious to the rest of the world. Marisa stepped forward, looking at his face.
It was Lal.
TWENTY-THREE
“That’s how they control them,” said Omar. “Or at least that’s how they’re supposed to. They jump into your body just like jumping into a VR
game.”
“Or a Futura Baron,” said Sahara. “Thanks for those access codes, by the way.”
“I never gave you the access codes.”
Sahara smirked. “Thanks anyway.”
Marisa stepped closer to the VR setup, trying to decipher how their system was laid out. “What are they doing?”
“Active control can override whatever malware is turning the users into combat drones,” said Omar. “Lal was hoping we could figure out how to reverse it permanently by looking at the infected djinnis in person, but so far they haven’t found anything they can use.”
“So it’s malware?” asked Marisa.
“None of the programmers put anything like this into the code,” said Omar, gesturing at the screens on the wall. The battle outside was a chaotic mess. “At least nothing they’ll admit to. With Nils and eLiza dead, Rodriguez here is the only actual programmer left, so it’s not like any of them profited from it.”
“Nils is dead?” asked Sahara.
Omar gestured at Lal. “He found out Nils betrayed him—went to someone behind his back, trying to get out.”
Sahara nodded. “That was us.”
“Let’s assume it is malware,” said Marisa, “and not just a glitch. Who would profit from it?”
“None of us,” said Omar. “None of the puppets. None of the megacorps we’ve been trying to infiltrate—a disaster like this is bad for all of them, especially the ones that make djinnis, like I said with Ganika. They’re going to want this whole mess to disappear as quietly as possible, not burn the city down and kill seven thousand people.”
