by Nick Petrie
“You call that positive thinking?”
The desk lurched as something shoved the door hard. Lewis jumped down to push back against it. “What else we got?”
Peter looked around for something else to stack against the door, but the chairs were all on wheels and the counter was firmly attached. He headed for the stairs. “Be right back.”
The desk lurched again. Lewis called, “Don’t take too long.”
* * *
—
The second floor was more desks and file cabinets and broad windows on all sides. There were good views of the yard and the open shed and the piers beyond, as well as the larger seventies-era building across the entry drive. The sun was below the horizon and the light was starting to fade, but Peter could see two of the creatures in fluid, effortless motion, trotting toward them.
“We got company,” Peter shouted.
“I can barely hold one of them,” Lewis called back. “Any options up there?”
Peter figured Lewis was right, they’d come through the windows eventually. The stairway was narrow, and Peter thought they could block it with the desks, but he doubted it would be enough. They could certainly shoot the damn things, but Holloway had more hyenas than Peter and Lewis had ammunition. Besides, sooner or later, the hyenas would start shooting back.
They could go out the windows on the road side, which would put them back outside the fence and maybe outside the creatures’ zone of interest, but if the things did pursue them past the perimeter, he and Lewis would be in the open with no vehicle and no place to hide. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades, thinking of those electric sniper rifles.
Then he looked up and saw the roof access hatch in the ceiling. There was no ladder. He shoved a desk over, climbed up on it, then undogged the hatch and pushed it up. He pulled himself above the rim and saw a flat rubber membrane and a low parapet wall. Someone had left a bucket of roofing tar in the corner.
He heard a thump from the first floor. “Motherfucker,” Lewis said.
Peter ran down the stairs and saw the desks shoved back six inches with Lewis braced and sweating. The hyena reinforcements had arrived. The door was partly ajar and a long metal arm snaked through the gap, its claw feeling blindly for the obstruction. “How do you feel about the roof?”
“I feel good,” Lewis said. “Real good.”
The minute Lewis stepped away, the heavy desks slid back with a screech and the door opened wide. The first creature nosed into the gap, servos whining softly, its arm cocked back but the claw open wide, blue-tinted sensor domes gleaming in the dim light. Two more stood behind it, arms retracting from the dents they’d left in the door.
If Peter had ever thought he might someday get used to their eerie animal grace, seeing these headless nightmares up close made him feel differently.
Then Lewis jumped for the stairs, and Peter ran after him.
As Lewis leaped onto the desk and pulled himself up through the hatch, Peter hustled a second heavy desk to the top of the stairs, where he saw a hyena already halfway up. He flipped the desk and shoved it thumping down the steps, expecting to bulldoze the creature to the bottom. But the thing just set its feet and caught the weight with its claw and stopped it cold. Then it walked backward, navigating the steps easily as it pulled the heavy piece of furniture down the rest of the stairs and out of the way, before heading up toward Peter again.
“Come on, Jarhead.” Lewis looked down through the hole with daylight behind him. Peter vaulted to the desktop and Lewis grabbed his arm and pulled him through the opening as the creature’s claw tried and failed to clamp on his leg.
Together they slammed the hatch and sat on it, breathing hard, looking down over the low parapet wall at the industrial yard, where fifteen or twenty of the creatures ran across the cracked concrete like so many bright flocking birds.
Beyond them, the giant open-sided shed looked empty and abandoned. Aside from waving grass, there was no movement on either of the earth-filled piers. A white van was parked by a door in the side of the two-story building on the far side of the gated entry drive. Because of their location, Peter had no view of the back of the building, but he could see the blunt nose of a white semi, maybe with its trailer backed up to a garage door or loading dock.
Peter elbowed Lewis. “See the truck?”
Lewis nodded. “That building’s our next stop.”
Something thumped hard on the hatch lid. After a moment, it heaved up, dumping them both to the roof surface. “Man, I am tired of this shit.” Lewis calmly rolled to his knees and pulled his pistol as a questing claw reached through the opening.
Below, one of the creatures stood on the desk just as Peter and Lewis had done.
With one hand, Lewis grabbed the arm right below the claw and pulled up. The arm thrashed and the legs churned in the air. The beast had to weigh eighty pounds or more, but Lewis showed no sign of effort as he reached down, put the pistol to one of the sensor domes, and pulled the trigger.
The creature froze. Lewis shifted to the other dome and pulled the trigger again. The arm went loose and Lewis let go and the creature bounced off the desk and fell to the floor.
Lewis slammed the hatch and sat on top of it again. “Go tell your friends about that, motherfucker.”
Peter turned to look at the creatures flocking in the yard. One of them had stopped, back legs bent to angle the bug-eyed sensors toward the two men on the gatehouse roof. After a moment, the rest of them stopped, too, then turned in unison until they all pointed their alien faces at the same targets. Like a pack of predators catching a scent.
Instinctively, Peter ducked. It saved his life.
He heard a zhip and felt a puff of air as the first round whispered through his mop of shaggy hair, just missing his skull. It was a distinctive sound, and Lewis must have heard it, too, because he dropped flat to the roof deck at the same time Peter did. There was no crack of gunpowder. The electric rifles were almost completely silent.
Peter thought of June and felt his fear for her lance through him. “We gotta tell June to back off and wait for the cavalry. This is a goddamn mess.”
Lewis pulled his phone and looked at the screen.
“Too late. She’s already here.”
65
HOLLOWAY
When the van pulled up to Holloway’s building, a dozen hyenas clustered around it. Their claws were folded back but he knew their weapon capacitors would be charged and their targeting systems ready to fire. Holloway opened his door and looked the closest one right in the sensor suite, knowing its facial rec would automatically give him command status.
“Four hyenas, on me. Personal protection mode. We’re going up to the loft.”
He loved the natural language function, and knowing that his creations could understand him and would obey his every word. More than that, he was absolutely certain that they felt a kind of unconditional love and devotion toward their maker. It went a surprisingly long way toward filling the void inside.
They made quite a caravan as they crossed the wide two-story production floor with its joyful noise, then climbed the stairs to the former office space carved out of the back corner of the building. Holloway first, carrying Maria’s backpack and the fuel cell in its shoebox, then Harry Hyena, towing sullen and silent Maria by the wrist. A pair of nameless hyenas from the yard came next, followed by Edgar, his white shirt increasingly red, and two more hyenas brought up the rear. Safety in numbers.
Opening the door to the wide marble entryway of his home, Holloway felt the void deepen a little. He’d never actually had another human being in the place. The contractors who’d done the work had obviously been inside, but they were finished before Holloway moved in.
Still, walking into the loft was like entering his own personal sanctuary. The enormous space was clean and spare, but also utterly luxurious, English oak and Italian tile, handw
oven carpets, a spa bathroom and chef’s kitchen. One of these days, Holloway thought, he’d learn to make something besides those damn green smoothies.
He had two weeks to get the rest of his hyenas assembled and through initial diagnostics and on their trucks to the Aberdeen Proving Ground. He knew his babies would kill the army’s test protocol. Once they came to terms on the fast-track initial production contract, the money would start rolling in, and Holloway’s life would be different, richer, better. The wound in his chest would finally heal. Maybe he’d buy an island.
He watched Maria stare at his elegant modern furniture, the giant wall of screens. He hoped she liked it. “We’re very private here,” Holloway told her. “We never have to leave the grounds. All food and supplies are delivered to the gate next door, completely frictionless, we never have to interact with another soul. There’s a full gym at the end of the hall, with all the latest equipment, and a state-of-the-art lab through that door. I’ll bring in whatever you need.”
She stared at the corner and wrinkled her nose. “What is that?”
“Oh.” Holloway hadn’t left home expecting company, so he’d left Holly, his Lumidoll, plugged into the wall. She wore a filmy negligee that did not hide her lush synthetic curves. “That’s my, ah, side project. When she’s done charging, she just hangs on a hook in the closet.” Holloway felt his erection swell at the sight of her.
Edgar peered at the doll and his smile faltered. “That’s not right.”
“She’s a custom model, six thousand dollars plus shipping from Japan.” Holloway wasn’t going to explain his testosterone treatment, the vast and necessary energy and confidence it gave him, and the unfortunate requirement of satisfying the biological urges that came with it. He didn’t want to bother with the messiness of human relationships, so Holly was a good solution. He picked her up and tossed her through the door to his master suite.
He realized that he’d have to tidy up the lab, too. He had Holly’s twin laying on a table, cut open like a specimen frog. He was installing a more realistic skeleton and servomotors and touch sensors. A good solution could always be made better, after all.
There was no way he would tell them that sometimes he sat Holly at the dining table during dinner, or beside him on the couch while he watched television. This was why he didn’t like other people. All they did was judge him.
“Harry, bring Maria to the couch.”
“No, no. Hell, no.” But Harry had her wrist and pulled her over to him. “You are a sick fuck, Vince.”
“Oh, please, Maria. I’m not going to rape you.” He dropped her bag beside her and pulled out her laptop. “We’re colleagues. Business partners, remember? But we’ve still not solved our little ransomware issue.”
In the van, she had proven stronger-willed than he’d expected. The logistics of persuasion in a moving vehicle were difficult. He also found himself unwilling to damage her wrist, given that they would be working together for a long time. But there were other, less permanent ways.
And he had Edgar, if it had to get messy. She’d watched him cut up her friend in the wheelchair, after all. Perhaps they’d start with a toe?
She looked at him now, then at Edgar. She’d done the math. It wasn’t complicated. But again, he had the feeling that there was something else she wasn’t telling him.
“Okay,” she said. “But I need both my hands. I can’t just turn it off. I have to get into my server and change the code.”
“Honey, I’m not letting you touch your computer, not until you show me I can trust you. Tell me your password and walk me through it. Better yet, let me delegate this.” He called Coyle, his systems guy, and put him on speaker. “Hey. I have our hacker here. She’s going to help you untangle her code.”
“Wait,” Coyle said. “You have the hacker? In person?”
Holloway liked the surprise in his voice, and the respect. “Yeah. You better double-check her work before you actually do anything. She’s, ah, still adjusting to her new situation.”
There was a pause as Coyle processed this. Then he apparently decided that he didn’t want to know any more. “Okay,” he said. “I’m Coyle. I’ll need remote access. Where do we start?”
While they talked in a language Holloway only half-understood, Edgar poked around the loft, opening doors to the gym and workshop, rattling through the kitchen, peering into the fridge.
“This is all weird stuff. Don’t you have any regular food, like beer or lunch meat?”
“No,” Holloway said. “There’s food in the freezer. Kale soup, quinoa pilaf, marinated tofu.” It came every week in a Styrofoam box with a slab of dry ice to keep it cold. Most of it tasted like dirt, but it was supposed to be good for him. He was planning to live forever.
The fridge door closed with a thump. “It’s time to call your doctor.”
Holloway still needed the leverage. “As soon as we’re done here.”
Edgar came around the kitchen island. “Now.”
Harry sounded the discordant chime that indicated a warning. “Security breach. Security breach.” Holloway had given Harry the voice of Operator Twelve. He found it pleasing. All the hyenas had a broadcast function, too, so a remote user could give orders to locals on the ground, either as Operator Twelve or yourself.
“Okay, Harry. Put up the video feed. Back up to the first time you first saw them. Show only relevant sections.”
The wall screens combined to show one large image. A long view of the last delivery truck rolling through the gate, then two tiny figures scurrying away from it. It cut to the old gatehouse, one man going inside, the video getting quickly closer as a second man followed. Another cut to the door, with a claw pushing against it.
Coyle asked, “Is everything okay?”
“No problem,” Holloway said. “A few gnats buzzing around. Get back to work.”
Edgar walked closer. “Call the doctor. We had a deal.” His hand was tight against the red on his shirt. The fabric looked wet.
“Not now. This is more important. Harry, show me facial rec on the two men.” The screen showed grainy profile images and a probability match from the much better video grabs from Metzger Machine just a few hours ago. Ninety percent odds they were the men who’d killed the hyenas guarding the shipment.
Maria’s eyes were wide.
Holloway smiled. “Pretty cool, huh? You’re going to wish those shares I gave you were real.”
Edgar stared at the screen. “Those are the reporter’s protectors. Maybe the reporter is out there, too.”
“Harry, show me current video of the lead unit.” The door being pushed wide by two claws, a stairway. “Take them alive if possible. Significant injuries are acceptable.”
On the screen, a black man’s face appeared, then a hand with a gun. There was a flash and the feed went dark. It was quickly replaced by a new view from lower in the room, but still. With all the blood, sweat, and tears that had gone into their development, losing even a single hyena felt like losing a child.
“Harry, forget about taking them alive. Shoot to kill.”
He grabbed a VR headset from the coffee table and fired it up. Voice control was great, but virtual was better. He could do much more with a direct interface, as if he were inside each and every one of them.
He turned the goggles in his hands, waiting for the light inside that would let him know he was live. It was weird to put them on before the link. It reminded him of that moment during his heart attack when everything went black.
When Edgar stepped toward the couch, two hyenas moved to intercept him, claws rising. Edgar stopped. “The doctor. How long will it take him to get here?”
Fucking human beings, Holloway thought. So fucking selfish. Didn’t he understand that hyenas were dying?
He almost told Harry to take Edgar apart, but Holloway still had a use for him. It wasn’t easy to find
a real assassin, after all, and the reporter was still out there somewhere, writing lies about him. He couldn’t send his hyenas out in the street, not yet. Plus, Edgar had been paid four times the going rate on Maria, and he’d done hardly anything to earn the fee. Okay, he’d taken care of the cripple and driven Holloway home, but how hard was it to kill a cripple? Holloway wondered if he could get some of his money back.
Then he thought again of what Krueger had said. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
He looked at Edgar now, at the wet red stain on his shirt. Holloway didn’t really have a doctor who would make a house call. When the Pentagon gave him a nice juicy contract, and the money started coming in dump trucks, he’d definitely change that.
He pulled the goggles over his eyes. “Thirty minutes to an hour,” he said. “I’ll message him right now. I’ve got all kinds of pain pills in the bathroom, just help yourself.”
He brought up the virtual keyboard and searched for the closest ambulance service. Those paramedics were pretty good, right?
66
JUNE
June thought she’d be nervous driving a small arsenal down through Chicago, but she wasn’t. She felt clear and focused and ready. She was starting to understand why Peter was addicted to this stuff. It had a way of blocking out the bullshit, all her worries about her book deadline and what kind of life she might actually want and when she was going to get her next Pap smear.
She’d called Oliver from the on-ramp, but he didn’t pick up. She’d texted him the Stony Island address, hoping she was right, then turned on her fuzz buster and pushed the little Subaru up to ninety-five. It didn’t complain.
She was almost through downtown Chicago when Lewis sent her a text with GPS coordinates and she knew Stony Island was the right address. She forwarded it to Oliver with a message. Don’t be an asshole. We’re counting on you. She thought about reducing the bitch factor with a smiley face but didn’t.
The app on her phone could find Peter’s signal within three meters. She left the car hidden in a brushy thicket, slung the heaviest duffel over her shoulder, then picked up the second bag and ran down some crappy train tracks toward the building where his green dot blinked.
