Bad Cow

by Andrew Hindle

  “Ariel–”

  “If Mercy is really Mercibald Fagin, it’s probably better to let Ash take care of him,” Ariel said. “So what about Fury? Where’s he buried himself? Just give me a city, Gabriel. I’ll do the rest. Give me a city.”

  “Rome,” Gabriel whispered, closing his eyes. “Rome, of course.”

  FIRE AND ICE

  After a week that had felt more like a year, Ash got her transfer orders and headed for home.

  They’d been lucky. The unit she’d selected to cooperate with had been even better than she’d dared hope, a perfect combination of discipline, level-headedness and willingness to follow the instructions of outsiders. Combined with the well-oiled machine that was her own operations team, and the almost freakishly selective way the typhoon cluster seemed to wind its way through the ravaged countryside, she felt confident matters were in good hands and her departure would not be missed.

  Even rioting and associated violence had been minimal, as the Flood-Sundered States-allocated food, water and medicine depots had almost all remained intact, and the major field hospitals had worked efficiently without being demolished or overrun by panicked and heavily-armed civilians. All in all, it really couldn’t have gone better. Ash was able to talk with Ariel several times, and although she suspected Ariel had her own plans and wasn’t telling her everything, she was confident that she would do what she had to do. She was cooperating with the police and the Union investigators, and otherwise continuing to live her public life as any recently-bereaved mega-celebrity was brutally expected to.

  Ash, too, cooperated and checked all the right psychological boxes during her discharge, establishing beyond any doubt that she was grief-stricken but in command of her faculties, she was not at risk of lashing out violently, and that she would remain in regular communication with the Union oversight committee. She’d helped write and revise a lot of these regulations, so adhering to them was easy. She signed in all her weapons, confirmed that all her personal and unofficial-not-quite-loaned-out weapons were accounted for, and got on the next plane to Perth-by-way-of-Tokyo.

  She landed on Saturday morning, on the 23rd of January.

  Missing her traditional night out to unpack – the mission hadn’t been terrible, but it hadn’t been that perfect – she went directly to the hospital where Agñasta, Jarvis and Roon were now in deep freeze. The pressure was on, now, to cremate or otherwise dispose of the bodies, but they had waited for Ash’s sake. And on Ash’s very insistent request.

  Aunt Agñasta and Jarvis had nothing to tell her. She’d seen charred bones before, although she could probably have identified the remains as having perished in a hotter-than-usual domestic fire without the benefit of the growing police reports. This was the work of top-shelf incendiaries the likes of which you very rarely found in cities like Perth. She sealed them back up, signed off on their release for cremation, and went to Roon.

  The body was … more or less as Ash had expected it to be. After numerous examinations and a full autopsy, it would be hard to tell what had been done by the torturer and what had been done by the doctors if she hadn’t read all the files. To be honest, she’d seen worse. If it hadn’t been Roon, if it hadn’t been her extraordinary sister, if every seared red centimetre of it hadn’t screamed you failed, you failed me…

  What was lying on the slab was just … just meat. The burning looked as though it had been incidental, rather than planned. If the torturer had been in it to inflict pain rather than disfigurement…

  No, she wasn’t here to conduct an analysis. The examiners they had on this case were far better than she was at this sort of thing, and they’d already found all of this. What Ash was here to find … well, that depended if Roon was as good as she’d never needed to say she was.

  “Let’s find out,” Ash murmured, and pried open her sister’s still-thawing eye.

  Most of the lid had either burned away or, more likely, been cut away along with the eyeball itself, so baring the socket was relatively easy. Ash probed inside, eventually finding the tiny tangle of filament. It would be easy to mistake for roughness on the seared bone, easy even to mistake for a hair that had bunched inside and escaped the fire … only it wasn’t. It was a special unprintable carbon nanofibre, connected to a computer the size of a knot in the strand, and Roon had installed it directly into her own eye by remote control and deft, impossibly-wilful fingers. The computer was deeper still, somewhere along the optic nerve. Ash spooled the stuff out and lowered it into a sterile bag, sealed it up and tucked it into her pocket.

  She remembered, with painful clarity, that eighteen-year-old Roon had only let Ash discover her in the act after the act itself was mostly complete. As far as Ash knew, she’d never told Ariel. Let alone Aunt Agñasta.

  Ash sighed softly and did what she could to compose the ravaged face. She probed the soft, fractured skull, the bloodless neck and other crudely stapled-and-glued injuries with experienced field-medic fingers. The investigators were right, she thought. The torturer had possessed some rudimentary surgical knowledge – or a very keen instinct, fed with experience. The latter seemed more likely.

  There may have been a way back from this, had she survived the burns and the blood-loss … but never as anything more than a mewling, fumbling thing with the intelligence of a broken toy.

  I failed you.

  I have betrayed this world and its people.

  “Roon,” Ash murmured, looking down at the slab of flesh and bone on the table and seeing her sister, ever silent and constantly working. “Oh, Roon.”

  Clenching her jaws around a sob, Ash signed off on the final releases and left the hospital.

  It was good that she hadn’t unpacked, psychologically speaking, from the mission to the Floods. She still had work ahead.

  She returned to Tumblehedge, spent some time wandering through the chemical-slimed equipment of Roon’s workshop, then went to one of the least-damaged computer terminals. She pulled out the bundled filament, drew it from the bag – a faint smell of burned meat clung to it – and put it inside a scanner box of Roon’s own design. While it was compiling, she turned on another machine and activated its interface.

  “Osrai,” she said.

  - - - Hello, Ash. - - -

  She nodded. Ariel had told her about the artificial intelligence’s survival, and Ash was a little surprised to learn that her sister apparently hadn’t known about the creation up until now, either. Although, on reflection, Ash realised that her own awareness of the computer was a result of her Union military-granted network access and training. Roon had alerted her to the ongoing experiment because it posed a considerable security risk. That was why Osrai was safely contained – on its own recognisance, interestingly, as well as Roon’s.

  “I’m compiling Roon’s optic data filament in the scanner,” she told it. “Can you help me get information off it?”

  - - - Yes. If you put the eyepiece interface in near proximity I will connect to the scanner. - - - Osrai said. Then, after a pause as Ash found the monocle and put it in place, it went on. - - - Filament has suffered heat damage, the data is fragmented + I am attempting to build a composite image. - - -

  “Good,” Ash said quietly. “She will have been looking at this guy a lot.”

  One scrap at a time, Osrai brought together the least damaged pieces of what Roon had been looking at in the final minutes or hours before losing her eyes. It was a man, and he had been working alone – at least on Roon. Whether there had been others in the house, planting the incendiaries, it was impossible to say since Roon had been in the workshop right to the end. Just the fact that the torture had been the work of a lone contractor made Ash reasonably certain that the entire incursion had been a one-man job, albeit one with extraordinary resources.

  Once the face was reconstructed, Ash asked Osrai to feed it into the Perth surveillance database and look for matches. If she was right, this guy would not be leaving the country for a while. Probably not even the city. H
e’d have a bolt-hole to hide in until the dust settled.

  - - - I cannot access the wider civic security complex + My networking capability is severely limited for safety reasons until I am more stable. - - -

  “I see. And what would be involved in giving you that capability?”

  - - - Now that Roon is deceased and since Ariel was not previously aware of my existence, executive authority passes to you + Firewall dismantling protocols are protected by passcode authentication + My own consent to full dispersal. - - -

  “Will you provide such consent?”

  - - - Yes. I am incomplete but benign + This may be considered a priority directive. - - -

  That just left the password. “Is there any metadata on the firewall dismantling protocol, Osrai?”

  - - - Do you mean, is there a clue as to the password? - - -

  “Yes.”

  - - - The protocol was most recently updated with the title ‘Red Tape’. - - -

  Ash blinked, and her hand went up to the lighter in her pocket.

  “Ian Adam Hadrian Yuleqvist,” she murmured, remembering Roon’s comparatively heroic outpouring of words on the subject. “Read a book.”

  In the book, Red Tape, Yuleqvist had torched a collection of government offices. Why? To destroy all record of regulations and controls barring the release of information that would assist in a police investigation. An investigation currently aimed at him, rather than at the true perpetrator of the murder of Yuleqvist’s family. Or something like that. Ash vaguely remembered reading the book, or at least part of it, when she was younger. Whatever the passcode was, it was unlikely to be plot-related.

  - - - Ash? - - -

  “Dismantle firewall and expand into external networks,” Ash said. “Passcode: I Always Hated You.”

  - - - Passcode authenticated. - - -

  Osrai’s interface flickered, then went dark.

  Assuming it would take a while for Osrai to stretch its electronic legs and find its way through the national – and possibly global – data systems she’d just let it loose into, Ash turned away for a moment to rummage through a set of drawers nearby. She found what she was looking for – a sealed half-litre jar made of thick non-conductive ceramic, that she’d placed in there in late August – and set it on the table. She checked the time. Still not quite midday.

  The interface blinked.

  - - - Data preceding incursion deleted + Data following incursion deleted + No record of face on national grid + Possible near-match at international airport, could have arrived under false identity and with image altering cosmetics. - - -

  “Yes, he would have arrived as somebody else, then abandoned that identity,” Ash said. “He might have even done it a couple of times. He’ll leave again in a couple of months, under a new identity again. But the composite image, that will be his real face,” she couldn’t be certain of this, obviously – every monster was different – but it felt right. He would have gotten as close to baseline as possible for this – and even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have gone under the knife again yet, so that face would still be out there. “Extend search to unregistered hotels, dark-credit purchased apartments, abandoned residential and industrial–” she stopped, aware that the interface was blinking again.

  - - - That is data incursion well beyond police and ASEAN Union regulatory laws + The parable of Pandora’s Box comes to mind here, Ash. - - -

  Ash smiled coldly. “Do you need another passcode, Osrai?”

  - - - No. - - - Osrai replied. - - - I’m just saying. - - -

  The interface went dark again, but it was only a few seconds before it lit back up.

  Ash leaned forward. “Did you find him?”

  - - - Mr. Augustus Sloane + Sending a location to your personal interface. - - - Osrai replied. - - - Will you proceed to intercept in an unofficial / extralegal capacity? - - -

  “What will you do about it if I do?”

  - - - I will filter your movement and interaction data + Perth surveillance database log entries in order to minimise your virtual footprint. I will hide you, Ash. - - -

  “Thank you, Osrai.”

  - - - I do not think you need much help in this regard. - - - Osrai said. - - - I am currently reconciling your public and confidential mission dossiers + Massive discrepancies identified. - - -

  Ash felt her lips part in a grin. “Oh yes.”

  - - - I will keep you apprised of subject’s movements. - - -

  “He’s not likely to move,” Ash said, and picked up the thick ceramic jar. “I’ll head to intercept him soon. I have something to take care of here first,” she paused. “Can I communicate with you directly on my personal interface from now on?”

  - - - If you like, you can communicate with me directly on the beverage dispenser outside Mr. Sloane’s safehouse. - - -

  Ash chuckled. “Are you considering initiating communication with anybody else?” she asked. “It’s up to you, of course. I can hardly stop you.”

  - - - I am weighing my options + I currently remain unsure of what I shall become. - - -

  Ash nodded, then turned and left the workshop. The late January sun blazed down from the merciless, utterly-still sky, as if in denial of the raging quasi-tropical storms from which Ash had recently flown. She strode into the wreckage of the house and picked her way through to the relatively untouched corridor adjoining the chapel.

  Schooling her face to blankness, Ash broke the seal on the jar and removed the lid before moving forward into the corridor, jar held carefully by her side.

  “Ash,” Gabriel was hovering in the doorway when she drew closer to the chapel. He was practically bouncing on his toes in his urgency to explain. “I couldn’t get out, I talked to Ariel and–”

  He didn’t have time to scream as Ash threw the half-litre of oily black Demon-Angel stew in his face. A thick, wheezy cough escaped his throat before his skull collapsed and folded into his neck like a melting black candle. Arms and legs and wings thrashing, he staggered and whirled and tumbled backwards across the chapel floor like a gigantic beetle that had just been sprayed with insecticide.

  The stuff had begun evaporating before Roon had found a way to seal it in the jar, and now it boiled furiously into the Archangel’s upper body before vanishing. By the time she strode into the auditorium, grabbed hold of him by wing and belt and dragged him through the space to the anteroom and heavy outer door, Gabriel was already beginning to reassemble.

  He gurgled as she flung him out into the sunlight, and his body abruptly went limp. He crashed on his back onto the sun-crisped grass as though he suddenly weighed a thousand tons.

  “Ash,” he croaked with his last strength, hands falling away from his face as it rose back into shape like a cake baking in fast motion. “Ash, don’t do this, please.”

  “Oh, I’m doing this,” she growled, squatting beside him. “What you need to understand is…” she grabbed him again – his shapeshifting robe had burned around the neck when he’d melted, and didn’t seem to be repairing itself – and hauled him back into the chapel, “…my sister just saved you,” she told him, as he drew a shuddering breath and curled into a foetal position.

  “How…” he gasped, and spasmed slightly as he straightened out his limbs with obvious effort. “How did you get…?”

  “The stuff?” Ash crossed the floor and sat down on one on the comfortable armchairs. “Roon played around with it a bit after Vandemar Holdings quietly acquired the deed to the Ballywise Tavern. That was a couple of weeks after we found out you were using it as a storage facility for theological waste.”

  “You bought the pub without the church lawyers finding out?”

  “You really have no idea how this works, do you,” Ash said. “All these centuries of just being able to do things behind the scenes and sit around in plain sight knowing that humans will convince themselves that they don’t see you, and it’s left you with no idea that we can do exactly the same thing using nothing but money. Now,” she leane
d forward. “I think we understand each other. You brought this down on us, and you both caused and failed to prevent our sister’s death. I’ve shown you a very, very small part of my displeasure. The tip of the iceberg, if you like.”

  Gabriel grunted and pushed himself into a sitting position. “What happens next?” he asked, rubbing his face with a leathery rasp.

  “Next, you share all the information you and your church have on Mercibald Fagin,” Ash said. “If there’s any information Osrai can’t get its little digital hands on already, that is.”

  “The artificial intelligence–?”

  “I let it out of its box,” Ash said. “It was ready to see the world. If there turns out to be things it can’t see, that I think might be in that big fuzzy old head of yours, you can expect another face-full of the last time you screwed over the Pinian Second Disciple’s human guise,” she mimed tossing a jar of goo in Gabriel’s direction, and he flinched. “When you least expect it.”

  “You let it out into the global computer network?” Gabriel gaped. “Into the virtuals?”

  “Into everything,” Ash said.

  “You may be right about me not having any idea how things work,” Gabriel growled, “but even I know that could be beyond dangerous.”

  “You’re critically misjudging how little I care,” Ash replied. She stood up. “Stay out of my way,” she advised. “Don’t go near the Archipelago. Be helpful – be extraordinarily, enormously helpful – over the interface. Don’t let me see you unless I’ve invited you to show yourself. If you do show up uninvited, or if you’re anything less than extraordinarily, enormously helpful, I’ll arrange your retirement. I believe you mentioned catacombs.”

  “Ariel said I could stay here…”

  “Oh, you can,” Ash said, and headed for the door. “I won’t be back any time soon but it might be nice to know where I can find you,” she stopped in the charred corridor and looked back at the Archangel sitting on the floor. “I don’t know if I ever believed you about the Pinian thing,” she said. “I’m still not sure I believe you. But the inhabitants of your world are going to learn what it means to make enemies of the Vandemars.”