Machine State

by Brad C Scott

  “Is everyone alright?” he asks to the room.

  “Jim,” says a female voice, “what’s going on? Simone just called about a security breach but wouldn’t say anything else.”

  “That prisoner they’re holding escaped,” he says. “You’d better lock the door and stay put until they sort it out.”

  Looking over his shoulder, I see two women dressed in lab coats, the room beyond them stocked with pharmaceutical equipment, some sort of lab.

  “All right,” says one of the women. She scrunches her eyes at me. “Who’s that?”

  “Gabriel,” he says, “a friend of mine from East Side.” I start to open my mouth, but he cuts me off. “No time for introductions now, though.” He steps in, grabs the door, and starts to swing it shut. “Make sure to lock this up.” Then he closes it.

  A moment later, we hear the bolt slide into place. We draw and resume our route.

  “You handled that well,” I say.

  “You’d have objected if I terminated them. We can’t afford an argument.”

  “Will they call it in?”

  “I don’t know. Come on.”

  After passing a few more closed doors, we arrive at another T-intersection and move right. So far, we’ve encountered no one in the corridors, maybe due to a general lockdown. The sounds of footsteps and raised voices continue to dog us. How many people are in this complex? Let’s hope we don’t find out the hard way.

  The patter of hurried footsteps prepares us for the two men entering a crossing corridor ahead. Both carry ATAC rifles, military-grade assault rifles built for heavy modularization. And neither is ready for us, naked shock painting their faces. The sentinel drops one with silenced rounds while I nail the other with stunshock.

  “Not professionals,” I say as we move up to inspect the bodies. His target’s dead, mine still alive but unconscious. “How’d they acquire ATAC rifles?”

  “NDL supplies them. Hancock is blind to the implications.”

  “No,” I say, grabbing his wrist before he can shoot the unconscious guard in the head.

  Smirking, he pulls his wrist free. “We won’t have any choice ahead. Come on.”

  We continue around the corner, heading in the direction from which the two hostiles came. A short jog later, we draw up at the reinforced steel door at the corridor’s end. If memory serves, beyond it is the main entrance to the complex. Guards are sure to be posted. But do they know we’re coming?

  “Did you disable the cameras along our route?” I ask.

  “Yes. They may have gotten them operational again, but I doubt it. The virus I used takes time to sort through. You ready?”

  I nod, stepping up to the side of the door, SWAT pistol raised.

  He pulls a key card and punches in an access code on the door. It unlocks. He grips his pistol in one hand while pulling open the door with the other.

  Small-arms fire greets us.

  Leaning out, I fire into the room as rounds snap by, the harsh caress of displaced air prickling my ears. One man out in the open goes down, body spasming as argent energy surrounds him. So long as they’re not wearing any sort of body armor, stunshock is the best bet for these amateurs. The sentinel dead-shots another one in the forehead, a look of utter surprise on the man’s face as he slumps over the console which failed to keep him safe.

  I crouch and move in left as the sentinel follows right. Catching sight of another hostile sighted in on the doorway, I roll forward as he fires, causing him to miss. Regaining my feet behind a console’s backside, I look left and right while keeping my head down, watching as the sentinel quick-fires at the assailant who almost nailed me.

  I rise up to assist as the body hits the deck, sweeping for more targets. A different hostile rises from cover on the room’s far side, pistol out in black-gauntleted hands, and body-shots the sentinel before either of us can react. The sentinel twists toward his assailant, squeezing off two rounds before getting shot again.

  Activating armor-piercing rounds, I quick-fire at the sentinel’s assailant, a mercenary wearing body armor, scoring four torso shots out of five. The sentinel, stepping and falling backward, finishes the job, hitting with a headshot through his killer’s left eye. Good thing, too – the mercenary didn’t look ready to lie down yet. Now he does, his body collapsing only a heartbeat before the sentinel follows him to the ground.

  I duck back down and reload while glancing at the sentinel. He’s in rough shape, shirt soaked with blood, though he’s still gripping his pistol. His eyes find mine, lips moving. I move closer and try to make out what he’s saying, but it’s only a whisper and my ears are still ringing from the fight. Then he breathes his last, and I’m left staring into the eyes of a dead man.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Fuck. Fuck.

  I grip the sentinel’s shoulder, mouth a thank you at his corpse. I never even got his name. Whoever he was, he died a professional. I’ll let his handler and associates know if I make it.

  Looking about, two other sealed steel doors lead into the installation’s interior. A reinforced double door leads to the outside, my ticket out.

  I step over to one of the security consoles and pull up the holodisplay, manipulating its icons with one hand while holding my SWAT pistol in the other. A rivulet of blood snakes out of my sleeve onto the console’s surface. I’ve been hit, the andronisol masking the pain. Hope it’s not bad, no time to deal with it now.

  The console’s locked out, but I know I can defeat it with time. Setting the pistol aside, I get to work on a hack. Focus, Malcolm. Wait. I pull out the holopad the sentinel provided and find the access codes.

  As I’m entering the codes, one of the steel doors creaks open behind me. I grab for my SWAT pistol and begin to turn –

  “Please move, Redeemer.”

  Krayge. The bastard’s here.

  I freeze. From the corner of my eyes, I see him silhouetted in the open doorway, a pistol pointed at me. He takes a step in as two more figures emerge from behind him, both holding ATAC rifles – the two that were with him during the torture session, experienced professionals rather than untrained civilians. I have no chance here.

  “Place the pistol on the console and step away,” says Krayge with frustrating composure.

  I turn my head to look him in the eyes. The lust for death reflects back at me. Something restrains him from firing, though – he wants me alive. Unacceptable. Tightening my grasp on the SWAT pistol, I’m comforted by the feel of the grooved grip made specifically for my hand. A sense of peace fills me. We’ll go together.

  “Stop! That’s enough, all of you!” Doctor Hancock comes hustling up the corridor from which Krayge came. Two armed men heel after him.

  My smile fades before it can fully form.

  “Redeemer, put your weapon down!” orders the doctor, coming to a stop behind Krayge. “Krayge, we need him alive. We talked about this, remember?”

  “That’s up to him,” says Krayge with reptilian disinterest.

  The standoff continues. As soon as I bring my weapon up, Krayge will kill me. I can move faster than the men flanking him, but Krayge can’t fail to fire first, can’t fail to miss at this range. The only question is whether I can take him with me.

  Hancock steps up next to him. “Redeemer, listen to me,” he says. “Surrender yourself, and you won’t be harmed. We’ll work things out. You have my word on that.”

  Krayge’s left eye twitches – mercy’s not on his menu. No, he’ll make me pay, the promise clear in his dark eyes. If not here and now, then later, after he’s had the opportunity to continue with me where he left off. I won’t be his captive again.

  “Son,” says Hancock, “is this how you honor your dead wife’s memory?”

  An image of Rachel on her deathbed hits me. Her final words echo in my head: “You have to fight them. You have to fight!”

  She knew me better than I ever knew myself. Not a day’s gone by since she passed that I haven’t wanted to follow her. Death is what
I deserve, what I desire. It has to be earned, though. It has to be. I would sooner face an eternity of torture than forgive her for taking the road she chose into the final darkness. She closed that way to me forever.

  I let out a ragged breath and lower my head. I place my pistol on the console and let my arms fall to my sides.

  “Good choice, son,” says Hancock.

  “You should have let him kill me.”

  I feel hands on my arms and raise my head. The two mercenaries with Krayge have me. I don’t resist.

  “Take him back to his room,” says Hancock.

  A sharp bang and the wrench of steel sounds behind me. The door to the outside, blown.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Twisting violently, I free my arms and get around behind one of the mercs. I push to send him stumbling toward Krayge and the other merc before vaulting the nearby console. Landing in a crouch on the other side, I put my back to it and face the opening through which help should arrive. The double doors yawn open, twisted and bent, a haze of smoke filling the space between them. Indistinct shapes move beyond.

  “Get behind those consoles!” I hear Krayge shout. “Dixon, we have a breach at the southeast entrance! Send reinforcements now!”

  The twin beams of traced rail rounds burst through the smoke toward Krayge’s position, their thunderous roar nearly blowing out my eardrums.

  Patton makes his appearance, trailing smoke as he surges through the opening, a titanium-winged raptor with three gleaming blue eyes. Coil rounds storm from his weapons racks as he moves in, both starboard and port on full burn. Beat to hell, his armored skin scored in countless places, he’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  Thank you, God. But what about the others?

  Patton stops in a hover midway between the blasted opening and the consoles. He continues to rapid-fire coil rounds, rotating in place to sweep across their tops, keeping the hostiles suppressed and unable to reply. Were I to stand, I’d be cut in half. Armored shapes advance through the opening, coil rifles raised, enforcers in gray hard suits, two moving right and two left. They take cover behind columns to either side of the entryway.

  Patton ceases fire. Good thing, too, he can’t sustain that level for long. Neither can my ears.

  “… argue! Bring it now!” shouts Krayge. He must have been yelling into his comm for reinforcements during that barrage.

  “Drop your weapons and surrender!” says Patton, voice mechanized with menace.

  “My God, don’t shoot!” cries Hancock. “We surren –”

  “Get down, you moron!” yells Krayge.

  Sounds like a scuffle. The good doctor gets dragged down against his wishes.

  “Patton,” I shout, “the bearded older man is a non-hostile!”

  “Affirmative, Redeemer.”

  Krayge and his men have yet to open fire, not that Patton has given them much opportunity. Will they surrender? Depends on whether Hancock or Krayge is calling the shots.

  “Surrender yourselves!” I shout. “Throw down your weapons and step out with your hands raised! Do it now!”

  No reply. Since no surrender is forthcoming, Krayge’s in charge. I dare not stick my head up for confirmation. Instead, I slide further down and rest my head against the console siding. The smoke clears away from the opening, allowing me to see more enforcers gathered in the outer chamber, waiting to engage. Beyond them are other figures armored in hunter green. The survivors of my squad?

  The last steel door, closed until now, creaks open. As it does, the hostiles breast the consoles and open fire. Patton and the enforcers return it, coil and small arms fire exchanging furiously in the air overhead.

  The barrel of an ATAC rifle perches atop the console above my head, muzzle break spitting fire. Reaching up with both hands, I tear the weapon free from its owner, ignoring the heat blistering my hands. I raise my head up and reverse the rifle, bring it to my shoulder. The body of the weapon’s former wielder falls away, forehead holed. Two of the other men are also down, leaving just one mercenary, Krayge, and Hancock. The doctor rocks in place on his knees, head butting the ground. Beside him, Krayge crouches behind another console, pistol in hand, shouting something toward the recently opened door.

  A figure in an older-model military hard suit with the Stars and Stripes painted over it stands within the doorway. She holds a long cylindrical tube with a black sphere on its end – some sort of rocket launcher? A couple of other figures behind her hold ATACs.

  Krayge’s head whips over and we lock eyes. Seeing his death, he pushes the remaining merc toward me and lunges away toward the door through which he entered. I put two bursts into the merc, dropping him before he drops me, the body blocking a shot on Krayge. Before I can readjust and nail him, he’s through the doorway and out of my line of sight.

  About to charge after him, I note the figure within the other doorway raise the tube onto her shoulder. The black sphere on its end now pulses with red light. Given the angles, no one but me can see her fully. Before I can sight in, the muzzle flashes of her companions force me behind cover. Damn it, he’s getting away!

  And then it hits me: she’s about to kill us all.

  “DD!” I shout. She’s got the launcher for a detonation drone, a weapon powerful enough to take down Patton along with everyone else in the chamber. “Patton! Doorway!” I yell while motioning with the barrel of the rifle. How the hell did they get their hands on such advanced tech? If she activates it, we’re all dead.

  As I rise and fire, Patton launches a missile, his best offensive option without line-of-sight. It streaks out and then cuts over, brushing past the woman with the DD to strike the wall behind her next to one of the hostiles firing at me. It explodes, the three figures lost amidst fountaining concrete. There’s a transcendent flash…

  I’m thrown off my feet in a chaotic blur of incandescent force and propelled debris. I hit a wall, hard, the feel of something breaking. Then I’m on my back, debris raining down, a shifting dirty light. Stunned, I rasp air and take stock. If something’s broken, I can’t tell. Maybe my head. Having trouble breathing, something’s covering me. I push it off, someone’s body. I blink at the double-vision and raise my head. It hurts. Someone groans nearby. I try to get my eyes to work, but they’re fighting me. There.

  The section of corridor where the three hostiles stood is flame-licked, melted rubble. Hancock’s torso, which I’ve pushed aside, is just that, all the appendages missing save half an arm. We’ll never have a chance to talk again. There’s blood on my face. Is it mine? Or the doctor’s? In either case, it’s not innocent.

  Gulping air, I tilt my head over to see Patton approaching, his blue running lights beautiful in the sparking darkness. Staring up into his blue-tinted lenses, I wonder what he’s thinking. How he’s thinking it. Inhuman, unknowable, a machine intelligence, yet no one I’d rather have here with me, now, at the end.

  Three eyes the color of approaching dusk, the deep blue of falling horizons. The avatar of justice, silver wings outstretched. Justice? Is this the angel that God intended for me?

  “Lie still, Malcolm,” says a concerned voice. Patton. Right. “Help is on the way.”

  Help? I don’t need it. Let me die.

  Someone has to pay.

  PART 2

  CHASING GHOSTS

  CHAPTER 11

  One Month Later

  “You win.” I raise the shot glass in salute and throw back the whiskey. Relishing the burn, I return my gaze to the headstone: JAMES H WORTHY III – BRONZE STAR – SSG DRA ARMY - SCR DRA DRR – OCT 14 2022 – SEP 11 2064. Tokens, pictures, and flowers surround it, his glass of whiskey among them, amber liquid aglow. I recap the ten-year-old fifth and stow it within my long coat for later.

  We made our pact six years ago, in Houston. It was sad hour at the Anvil, a reclaimer-friendly local bar with a pleasant, dark atmosphere. Not dark enough, not after what we’d seen that day. City-wide rioting, gun battles in the streets… little Mary Swans
on’s death. There was no choice but to get smashed afterward. A few hours in, I proposed the idea, and Worthy nodded at me to seal the deal: survivor drinks at the other’s grave. We sat there and stared at each other with the unspoken understanding that he who dies first wins, being that sort of serious that only a drunk in the throes of despair can appreciate.

  “Fuck, James…” Feels like I’m going to break my jaw keeping the scream in.

  I was still comatose when they lowered him into the ground. I missed all their funerals, though none of the others are buried here. Maybe it was for the best: would their families have wanted me hanging around, the man who got them killed? The grave lines in the grass are still visible, his marble headstone pristine. Beyond it, other headstones rank in linear formations to the tree line, luminous in the late-afternoon light. Strays of conversation carry on the breeze from the copper-domed columbarium behind me, a draw for visitors to Arlington.

  On impulse, I turn and hurl the empty shot glass in its direction. It shatters against its side. I pant through clenched teeth, raise my head, and blink at the moisture in my eyes. After a while spent clenching and unclenching impotent fists, pushing it back down, I get it together.

  Swiping a hand over my eyes, I turn to regard his grave again. James was a good man in all the ways that mattered – if anyone deserved a long life, it was him. He had a family still – two daughters, a son, his wife. Kim was polite enough when I visited her at home to pay my respects, but her kindness felt like repudiation. We were both haunted by the same question, in those awkward silences of mutual bereavement: James died, yet I still live?

  More proof that God’s justice is not to be trusted.

  “My friend…” Nothing I could say seems adequate to the task. The cool breeze stirs the limbs of cherry blossom and elm trees, rustles the rose bushes bordering the colonnade around the columbarium. My words, like the breeze, will leave no mark.

  The sound of a vehicle approaching from the access road means my time is short. Also reminds me I’m being watched. There, on my eight, a wavering distortion hovering in a gap in a hedgerow: the air shimmer of the spy drone hounding me. Almost forgot it was there. Active camouflage tech makes them frustratingly effective mobile surveillance vehicles. They’re tricky to spot, but I’ve had enough recent practice to know what to look for. The little bastards have been on me since I left the hospital.