Borough of Bones

by John Conroe

  A black multi-legged horror swarmed along the bundle of cables straight toward me, Rikki hovering alongside it.

  Automatically my body moved sideways, right shoulder hitting the tunnel wall, pistol angle moving so that Rikki wasn’t in the line of fire. “Head down,” my drone said. I dropped my face toward the floor, simultaneously pulling the trigger. The big pistol bucked in my hand, the normally deafening boom reduced to a merely sharp crack by the suppressor, and I felt a wave of something like a mist fall over my shoulders and arms. Then I heard Rikki’s single shot.

  “Clear,” Rikki said and I looked up to see the bot lying in front of me, frozen on its back.

  “Firing EMP devices,” Rikki announced immediately.

  “Ajaya report,” Yoshida’s voice came over our heretofore silent helmet radio.

  “Contact. One bot down. Rikki has fired EMPs,” I reported even as Rikki flew past me and shot out of the spoke, going left.

  “Major, the drones in every hangar went berserk,” Aaron’s voice came over the comm. “It stopped almost immediately except in hangar seven.”

  A single shot cracked in the distance. “Hangar seven drones have stopped. There are casualties,” Rift’s voice came through.

  “Estevez and Rift provide aid. Aaron, call building security and request medical aid. Ajaya, secure the bot and meet me in the shaft,” Yoshida ordered calmly.

  My weapon light was still on the dead bot, my pistol never leaving the target during the whole conversation. Carefully, I poked the metal carcass with the scalloped edges of the pistol light. It was dead. I shifted the gun slightly, reaching with my left hand to shut off the light before holstering it. The powerful LED on my left wrist lit up the back of my gloved hand and I froze. Hundreds of tiny glittering fibers stuck out of the back of my glove. I moved the light and found even more all up my arm and shoulder. Using all three lights, I could see that both hands, arms, and shoulders were peppered with the tiny crystal spikes, each less than a centimeter long and thinner in diameter than a human hair. A little freaked out, I shifted position and a cloud of glittering fibers floated down from my helmet. I stopped and took stock of my body. Nothing hurt, and my heart rate had been gradually slowing. The spider-silk bodysuit seemed to have stopped anything from penetrating, as had my ballistic gloves.

  “I’m going to need decontaminating when I get out,” I said. “Some kind of close range weapon.”

  “Affirmative, Ajaya. Postulate toxic fibers fired from nose of infiltrator drone,” Rikki said as he floated back into my tunnel. He had somehow known the bot was going to fire and warned me in time.

  Moving very carefully, I picked up the dead bot and backed out of the tunnel, trying to avoid stirring up the needles. The major was already at the ladder and I had him go down first, waiting till he was completely out of the tunnel before I stepped on the ladder and gingerly climbed down with our trophy in hand.

  When I stepped out of the tunnel, Sergeant Rift was there with a plasticized emergency blanket spread out on the floor, wearing a white disposable anti-tox suit. She pointed me onto the center of the blanket, then proceeded to spray me down with a foamy substance from a small blue canister the size of a home fire extinguisher.

  “Helmet off. Drop it on that corner of the blanket. Goggles and chest harness next. No, leave your gloves on and hold still.”

  Then she stepped up and peeled the spider-silk suit off my body, leaving me naked except for my boots in front of her. I must have hunched or something because she just tutted. Then she sprayed my nude form with more foam. “I grew up with four brothers and I got two boys of my own. There’s nothing special about another penis, Gurung. And you should be much more worried about whatever toxins are possibly on your junk than me seeing it. Now get your scrawny ass over to that other blanket.”

  I did and immediately got sprayed with a blue liquid that was cold and slimy. Then she handed me a white suit like her own, ordering me to pull it on over the slimy stuff while she carefully collected and disposed of her field-expedient decontamination suite.

  Chapter 19

  “You look like a Smurf,” Kayla said.

  I couldn’t argue her point. My shirtless image in the mirror was a deep shade of blue, almost a purple. “Yeah, that has already been pointed out to me several times,” I said.

  Yoshida had shipped me right back to Zone D, where I underwent a more thorough decontamination, then got to shower and put on clean clothes from my go bag. The blue had already set in place by then and I heard all about it from virtually everyone who saw me, including my trainees. They all recognized decom chemicals, so they were mighty curious as to what I had gotten into. And I couldn’t answer them, the major slapping a need-to-know order on everyone involved in the morning’s exercise. So I couldn’t even tell his own troops, and they respected that… but they didn’t respect my pride much, not with all the blueberry jokes, blue balls—blue body, comments about the old Avatar movies, and about two dozen references to the cartoon Smurfs that were older than all of us but kept getting reintroduced to each new generation when the entertainment industry ran out of original ideas.

  “Yo, Blue Bell. Major wants to see you,” Estevez said, poking his head into the mixed-sex team locker room.

  I threw on a shirt and headed toward the door. “Hey, you can tell your girlfriend that it’s in honor of her blue peepers,” Kayla said as I slipped out of the room, flashing her a single finger salute over one shoulder as I left.

  “Whoa, that set in deep,” Maya said as she caught sight of me entering the drone lab.

  “Yup,” I said, not in the mood to entertain more jokes. Sergeant Rift started laughing as soon as she saw me and everyone else looked up from the lab table where I could see the infiltrator bot lying in pieces.

  “It’s the Great Grape Ape,” Aaron said with a snicker.

  Rift broke off laughing and turned to fix him with a stellar glare. “You get to make jokes when you come under hostile fire protecting this city,” she said, serious as a heart attack. The arrogant scientist went flat-faced and pale, frozen by her death stare. He finally nodded, which seemed to satisfy her. Yoshida was smiling a little as he watched the byplay, but now he turned to me, grin fading.

  “Good shooting—as I would expect. Looks like you cored it right through the CPU and your drone shot out the connection to half of its legs,” he said, pointing at the table. “From what our brain trust can figure out, it had left some kind of deadman command if it stopped transmitting. The remotes all triggered preset codes to the drones in the garages to go berserk and attack everyone nearby. When your Berkut fired off all the EMPs, including the one that I had just taken my hand off of,” he said with a frown, “it fried the remotes and stopped the kill commands, except for the one we hadn’t gotten to. But Rikki shot that remote to pieces before anyone died. Close, though. Five wounded workers, two of them in critical condition.”

  “So what kind of drone was it? I didn’t recognize it,” I asked.

  “Something new. Mostly 3D print fabrications, with some scavenged parts from a Meerkat and a Crab,” Maya said.

  “The stuff it sprayed you with was a cloud of fiberglass needles coated with almost pure nicotine,” Eric added.

  “Nicotine?” I asked.

  “It’s an easily obtainable toxin which is lethal in high enough doses. I don’t know how many of those needles you would have to get hit with to kill you, but even in lower doses, it is fairly debilitating,” Aaron said.

  “Making it a good weapon for an infiltrator that gets discovered by a human IT worker. Coat the face, hands, and neck, leaving them too sick to interfere with it,” Yoshida said. “Its other weapon is an infrared laser for blinding, and it has a mechanical stinger with a reserve of more nicotine.”

  “So this thing was created brand-new by the Spiders?” I asked.

  “Near as we can tell. Smaller than a Crab, armed with toxic weapons that can be refilled using refined tobacco or vape products as raw m
aterial. Relatively big CPU for hacking networks and lots of network connectors, including those remotes it left behind. The Spiders must have used the 3D printers on the remaining mothership drones,” Maya said.

  “That’s terrifying. They’re making new drones—for specialized missions,” I said.

  “Yes, Ajaya, and as you pointed out before, there is almost certainly one or more in the Citywide controller systems,” Yoshida said.

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. It was worse than I had thought.

  “Yeah, it’s bad. I’m leaving in ten minutes to accompany General Davis when he briefs the White House,” he said, glancing at his watch. “In the meantime, these three are going to build on Maya’s excellent work and get more intelligence on where these things are in the City’s network. Then we’ll go after them. Ajaya, we’re going to need you and your drone again. I don’t have anyone with the effectiveness of you and your Rikki. Your drone alone saved who knows how many lives.”

  “Yeah, we’re ready,” I said, nodding.

  “Good thing you’re a blue-blooded American,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

  “Nice one, sir,” Estevez said as he followed his boss out of the room.

  “Mean little shit,” I said to Rift.

  “He’s jealous. Follows the major like a dog. Hates it when anyone gets more attention from Yoshida than he does,” she said with a shrug. “Now, ignore that crap and let me show you what I’m thinking for the next time you hunt those nasty little killer toasters.”

  “I’m hoping you’re going to tell me we have something better than those foggy goggles?”

  She smirked and crooked one finger at me. “Let Auntie Rift show you what she’s got saved up for special occasions.”

  A couple of hours later, I was home, bothering Aama as she made dinner. My mom came in and did an immediate double take at my face. I’d taken another shower when I got home, but no dice on getting rid of my deep blueberry coloring. “No Smurf jokes, Mom. I’ve already heard like a hundred.”

  “I would never,” she said, but she couldn’t keep a twitch of a smile off her face. “I would, however, like to know what happened to turn you into a human grape?”

  “Can’t really say, Mom. It’s the result of being decontaminated. There was some concern I had been exposed to dangerous toxins. I’m fine.”

  Her humor was gone, wiped clean as soon as I said decontaminated. Go figure. Moms, right?

  “Ajaya…” she began.

  “Mom, I’m fine. All checked out. No exposure. It was a precaution which, unfortunately, I’ll have to live with till it wears off.”

  “Some kind of spill in that defense lab?” she pressed.

  “I can’t talk about it. You know that.”

  “So I’ll just have to ask Major Yoshida myself,” she threatened.

  “Make sure you tell him that I didn’t say a word.”

  “He’s not going to tell me either, is he?” she asked.

  I shook my head. She studied me with those careful mom eyes. “You look tired.”

  I thought about that. Maybe. Maybe killer drones running through my dreams were disrupting my sleep. Maybe.

  “Go take a nap, Ajaya, and let your poor grandmother finish her cooking,” she said, waving me toward the door. I nodded and she stepped over to the counter to set down her purse and a bag of odds and ends groceries. Aama waited till her back was turned, then pressed a hot piece of naan into my hand as I headed to my room. I’d been lurking for a half hour without success, and all it took was a worried mother, and boom… naan nirvana.

  My AI woke me from a dead nap, my head groggy and my stomach unsettled. Naps sometimes do that to me, but I shook most of it off when I watched Yoshida’s video message.

  “Ajaya, we’re going in tonight. Pack your gear. We’ll pick you up at 23:30 outside your place. Briefing on the way to our insertion point. No details till then. Get some rest.”

  “Time?”

  “18:35, Ajaya,” my virtual assistant said. I’d been napping for a couple of hours and probably missed dinner. But I needed calories in me now if I was going into another sketchy drone hunt, so I got up and left my bedroom.

  The twins were settled around the dining table, doing homework or studying, Mom was paying bills, and Aama was stretched out in her recliner, watching one of her Bollywood movies.

  Everyone turned to look at me, the twins’ eyes widening as they got a look at my new skin color.

  “We saved you some dinner,” Mom said. “It’s in the microwave.”

  Aama looked like she was going to power her recliner back down to get my food, but I quickly waved her off. She didn’t take much convincing, settling back to watch one of the never-ending song and dance scenes.

  I heated my food, my peripheral vision picking up on my sisters’ glances, and I waited for a comment, but they very uncharacteristically didn’t utter a peep. Making a bet with myself, I tapped my watch, starting a timer.

  Bringing the reheated food to the table, I settled down with Mom on my left, Gabby on my right, and Monique across the table. No one spoke. The minutes ticked by, just the click of my fork and the tapping of Mom’s fingers on her virtual keyboard. She’s old-school, likes to input the bills herself rather than just directing her AI assistant to do it.

  I kept my eyes on either my food or the center of the table, waiting as I ate. Mom must have laid down the law on the girls, but that could only hold so long. My bet with myself was ten minutes, tops. At ten minutes, forty-seven seconds, Gabby looked up at her twin. “Want some juice?”

  “Actually, it’s funny you ask… I’m craving grape juice,” Monique said without a glance my way.

  “Exactly what I was gonna get. Also, anyone want grape jelly on toast?” Gabby asked.

  “I’ll take some blueberry pie if we have it,” Aama said from her recliner, piling on.

  Mom’s head came up but she didn’t say anything, instead just looking at each of the others. It got real quiet. I looked at Gabby.

  “Are there any gummies left? The purple ones?” I asked.

  My little sister froze for a split second, then cracked a huge smile. Aama snorted and Monique laughed out loud. Mom finally smiled, but her eyes were watching me carefully.

  “I have to leave a little after eleven,” I said.

  “Date?” Mom asked, her voice hopeful.

  I shook my head. “Work.”

  “Really?” Monique asked. “You’re going into the shacking Zone at night?”

  Mom didn’t even correct her language, instead waiting, frozen, to hear my response.

  “No, not the Zone. A bit less dangerous than that, but really important.”

  “Can’t one of these hotshot soldiers you’ve been training do whatever it is?” Gabby asked.

  “None of them have the necessary experience. They’d all do it if they knew, but they would be much less likely to succeed. Major Yoshida and I will do it.”

  “He’s going in with you?” Mom asked, leaning forward.

  “Like he did this afternoon.”

  “You mean when you got exposed to something that needed to be decontaminated?” Mom asked, eyebrows up and tone chilly.

  “It turned out to be unnecessary, but we didn’t know that till after. The grape effect was a precaution, that’s all.”