SINdrome

by J. T. Nicholas

  He shrugged, a somehow elegant movement of the shoulders that made his suit flow across his body like water. “Now, now, Mr. Campbell, what could I know about such a thing? I would think, though, that your detractors—and I assure you, there are many—wouldn’t want to see you dead quite so soon. Or quite so easily. There are many things that need to happen first.”

  The threat in those words, delivered with such nonchalance, chilled me. I dreaded knowing, but I had to ask. I tried for the same casual tone, and failed. “What things?”

  “Well, Jason,” he filled my first name with scorn, as if not granting me the formality of Mister was somehow the gravest insult he’d thrown my way, “your revolution is well on the way to destroying the lives and families of tens of thousands of people. And that’s just the direct action, mind you. That says nothing for those who will be caught up in the fallout if we allow this farce to go forward. It seems only fair that some of the same fall on you. And yours.”

  I thought of my parents, whom I’d distanced myself from since the moment I decided to throw in with the synthetics in an attempt—futile I now realized—to make them less of a target. I thought of Silas, and the other synthetics gathered under his banner. Of Tia, who really didn’t deserve to get caught up in the shitstorm, but who had thrown in with us nonetheless. Of Hernandez and her daughter, already traumatized by the psychopath Fowler. There were so many people in my life, despite my best efforts to distance myself after Annabelle’s death. So many potential targets of the wrath that should come to me instead.

  Had I been free, I would have been across the table in a heartbeat, taking great pleasure in taking Woodruff apart bone by bone. As it was, all I could do was curl my fingers into fists and open them again, while applying a steady upward pressure against my manacles, the steel leaving white indentations in my flesh. The pain reminded me that I could not, in fact, exact immediate, violent, and preemptive revenge. So I settled for a deep and heartfelt, “Fuck you, Woodruff.”

  “Clever,” he said urbanely. “I’ve done most of what I came here to do. Mostly I just wanted to see you. To tell you that, as of this moment, your little revolution seems to be finding traction. I thought I owed you that much. A professional courtesy of sorts, and an acknowledgement of a worthy foe.” That smile, again. “And, of course, to remind you of the consequences of your actions. Some have already come to fruition. Others…” That plastic, condescending smile stretched his lips once more. “Others are on the horizon, Jason.”

  He stood, nodded solemnly at me, and moved to the door. His hand was raised to knock, to summon the guards to let him out, when he turned back to me. “One more thing,” he said. “A final thought to keep your mind occupied on the long nights between now and your trial.” He paused, as if expecting me to demand to know what he wanted. After a long moment of me silently staring he continued.

  “It’s a question. Do you think Walton Biogenics would have developed the synthetics, and released them into the wild, without some sort of a failsafe? Some sort of way to end the program if things got out of hand? If those things started getting a little too uppity for their own good? Think about that, Mr. Campbell. Think about it long and hard in the days ahead. Remember it, when the casualty reports start rolling in.”

  He pounded three times on the door and it opened immediately. “Have a lovely day,” he said in parting, flashing another brilliant smile, as the guard escorted him away.

  Chapter 3

  I’d spent the night churning on Woodruff’s parting words. The idea that Walton Biogenics would build in some sort of omega protocol to terminate the synthetics simply hadn’t occurred to me. Perhaps hadn’t occurred to anyone. It made sense, from a certain, twisted viewpoint. Humanity had obsessed about falling prey to their creations for hundreds of years. The whole “playing God” thing left an indelible mark on the psyche. But the notion of simply turning off millions of living breathing creatures…

  The thought sickened me to the point where I’d found sleep impossible. My mind kept returning to the notion, and wondering how they would do it. Had Walton Biogenics implanted some sort of physical device? A poison pill or explosive that could be remotely triggered? It seemed far-fetched, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Was that yet another reason why all deceased synthetics were supposed to be returned to a Walton facility for processing?

  Or did they have something more sinister? A flaw in the genetic coding that could be triggered…somehow?

  Dammit. I was way out of my depth. I didn’t know enough about genetics and biology and whatever the hell else to figure out how to wipe out an entire species. I knew violence and investigation. Tracking down the bad guys and putting them away. Maybe, just maybe, I was good enough at my former job to take what Woodruff had told me and find the how of it, even if I didn’t understand the how of it. And if I found it, maybe Silas and Al’awwal and Tia could do something about it.

  But I couldn’t do shit from inside a cell.

  I pushed myself from my cot and pounded on my cell door, hoping to attract the attention of one of the guards, if not directly, then at least through the electronic babysitters watching the prison.

  They couldn’t deny me visitations or calls, even if I was technically still in solitary confinement. The same prison reforms that had guaranteed every inmate a personal screen and access to the outside world—if only for downstream content and if those screens didn’t suffer “accidents” anyway—ensured that every prisoner had the chance to make monitored calls to family and friends and to receive visitors every day. I hadn’t taken advantage of those provisions. In some ways, I couldn’t, not directly. Calling Silas would just give his enemies a better idea of where he was located. Tia might still have been clean, as far as anyone in law enforcement knew, but why put her at risk? The same went for Hernandez. And my parents. So I’d weathered the first week of incarceration largely alone.

  It was time to change that. None of my friends had been particularly keen on the idea of me turning myself in, even if they agreed that it was the best way to lend credibility to the evidence we had stolen from the Walton Biogenics lab. In the end, they had agreed, but not without concessions of their own. They insisted on a contingency plan, a way to attempt to free me if the danger was too great, or if it looked like the evidence we had gone to such lengths to acquire would be ignored. I’d gone along with it, under the assumption that I’d never agree to actually attempt it. It was foolhardy bordering on stupid to try to break me out of jail—putting everyone else and maybe the entire revolution at risk in the process—just to save my own skin.

  But it wasn’t about my own skin anymore, was it?

  It occurred to me that Woodruff, if he was a particularly sinister kind of smart, might be trying to feed me false information to trigger the very response I was considering. Threaten a few million lives and see if I made a hasty decision, a stupid phone call, and flush some accomplices out of hiding. If so, I was going to play right into his hands. I’d spent too long idly accepting the status quo, playing the role of observer and telling myself that there was nothing I could do to change things. Maybe I’d been right. Maybe nothing I did had any real chance of creating lasting change. But that didn’t matter. Not anymore. What mattered was that I tried. I couldn’t sit idle any longer.

  Which wasn’t the same as saying I had to be stupid about it.

  It took almost five minutes of continual pounding before anyone bothered to check on me. I turned it into a workout. Palm strike high. Palm strike low. High, high, low. Low, low, high. Again and again, alternating the rhythms, the levels, envisioning the cashmere-clad form of Woodruff on the door before me. I was sweating when the thunk of the lock disengaging broke my rhythm and the door swung open to reveal an irate-looking guard.

  “What the hell do you want, Campbell,” the guard snapped.

  “To talk to my lawyer.”

  * * * *

  “M
r. Campbell. I trust things are going as well for you as can be allowed, under the circumstances. I’m afraid I don’t have any new news on your case. With events transpiring as they are, it might take a while to get you to trial.”

  I waved one hand at the screen, dismissing her words. My attorney was a slightly overweight forty-something white female, more handsome than beautiful, by the name of C. Anita Puckett. I’m not sure if it had been Silas or Hernandez who dug up Ms. Puckett, but she was smart, competent, and, I assumed, very expensive. One of the first things Francois Fortier had told me was that all of my accounts had been frozen—suspected ties to domestic terrorism—so I didn’t have money to pay for an attorney. Not that I could have afforded someone of Ms. Puckett’s caliber, anyway, but I think he was hoping I’d end up with a wet-behind-the-ears public defender who could be bullied by the prosecutor. I didn’t know who was footing the bill, maybe Al’awwal, but I was grateful.

  “That’s okay, Ms. Puckett,” I replied. “What I need has less to do with my case, and more to do with getting a message to a friend. This conversation is privileged, correct? And not monitored?”

  She frowned, causing a network of crow’s feet to crinkle around the corners of her eyes. “It’s a violation of state and federal law for these calls to be monitored, and if that law is violated, nothing obtained from the conversation can be used against you.” I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised one finger. “However, I must remind you that, while our conversations are covered by attorney-client privilege, I have an ethical and moral obligation to disclose any requests you make of me to facilitate illegal activity.”

  I put on my best smile. “Nothing like that,” I lied. “I just want my friends to know I’m okay. But given the…let’s say suspicion…around my activities, I don’t want any of them to be put into the investigative spotlight.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Campbell, I’ve kept Detective Hernandez up to date with the details. Well, those that don’t compromise privilege, anyway.”

  That answered the question of who had hired her. I winced a bit at the thought. I knew Hernandez couldn’t afford a high-priced defense attorney, not on a cop’s salary. I hoped she was just the front, a funnel for funds from somewhere else, and that she hadn’t put herself in jeopardy to hire me a lawyer. “Yeah, well, I’m looking for something more specific.” I racked my brain. What message could I give Hernandez to get the ball rolling? Would she even be able to find Silas and the others? “I need you to tell her to talk to the albino. To let him know that I was wrong, and maybe he should go forward with his plans.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t the subtlest of messages. But there was nothing overtly criminal about it. Still, Puckett eyed me for a long moment. “That sounds like the type of message a felon would send to other felons.”

  I shrugged. I needed her to deliver the message, but I suspected she wasn’t the type to respond to demands. Or to whining. I figured reason with a nod to honesty was about my only approach. “Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’m not sending it to a felon. I’m sending it to a cop. I’m not asking you to do anything illegal or immoral. Just to deliver a perfectly innocuous message to a Detective in the New Lyons Police Department.”

  For a long moment, Puckett just stared at me, and I thought I might have gone too far with “perfectly innocuous.” But she relented. “Fine, Mr. Campbell. I’ll deliver your message to the detective. Will you be expecting a reply?” Her icy tone suggested that she didn’t much care for the idea of playing carrier pigeon.

  The response I was expecting wasn’t the kind that my attorney could deliver on, so I just shook my head. “No. No, I won’t be expecting any replies.”

  “Very well.” She nodded brusquely as if glad to be done with that business. “I’m trying to get your court date as soon as possible. Any attempts to get you bail have been dismissed. The courts think you represent too great a danger to the community, though that’s a difficult position to sustain given what’s been going on these last few days.” I wanted to jump on that, to get more information on what the hell was happening outside, but I also didn’t want to push my luck. So instead I just nodded.

  “Is there anything else?”

  I thought about that. I could let her know about the “accidents” that kept happening to my screens, or about the attempt on my life. She could probably put pressure on the warden, or someone else in the system. Somehow, I didn’t think it would make a difference. If Woodruff was to be believed, I only had to worry about “honest” murderers, rather than ones hired by Walton Biogenics, at least in the near future. And if I snitched on the guards for breaking my toys, they’d just find something worse to do to me. I could live without the screen.

  “No. That just about covers it.”

  She nodded. “Goodbye, Mr. Campbell.” No frills, no attempt at comforting me. I could appreciate that. It wasn’t her job and I didn’t need it. Now, all I needed to do, all I could do, was wait.

  It wasn’t a feeling I particularly enjoyed, the idea of not only being completely dependent upon my friends to get me out of my current predicament, but of them having to risk their own lives and freedom to do so. And that was made worse by the fact that I had no way of knowing when—or even if—they would be coming for me. Or how. Or any other goddamned thing. I ground my teeth in frustration as I waited for the guards to come retrieve me from the small privacy booth used to screen attorneys. The days ahead were going to be a grueling dance on a razor’s edge between boredom and violent, sudden action.

  * * * *

  In the end, it took three days.

  I had just finished my evening workout, mostly pushups, sit-ups, and burpees, things I could do in the confined space of the solitary cell. I’d stripped down to my boxers, not wanting to get my one set of clothing sweaty. I was staring distastefully at the orange coveralls draped on my bunk when the lights blinked out.

  For a moment, I didn’t put two and two together. I just stood there like an idiot, seeing nothing in the dark. Then I realized that my message must have gotten through. The electric grid had been hardened over the years, made all but impregnable to any sort of terrorist attack. Or so we’d been told. But I’d seen Silas and his fellow synthetic LaSorte at work, and I had no doubt they could take the prison offline. There should have been backup generators, of course, but everything was connected to something else these days, and if it talked to a computer, then Silas could hack it.

  My friends were coming for me.

  The thought brought a smile to my face, until I realized that if I didn’t hurry the fuck up, they’d find me standing sweaty in my skivvies grinning into the darkness. That wouldn’t exactly be my finest hour. I fumbled my way to the bunk—without windows or any sort of backup lighting, the place was darker than the inside of a shoebox. My grasping hands found the folds of cloth, and I pulled the coveralls on. Shoes were more challenging, and by the time I found them, the prison was starting to come alive.

  Life on the inside was all about routine, and when something, anything, happened to upset that routine, it was cause for excitement. When that thing was a total loss of power, things started to get rowdy. The halls were filling with laughter, curses, demands to know what the fuck was happening. After I finished tying my shoes and made my way to the tiny, heavily reinforced slit of a window set into the door, I could see bits of light bleeding from the slits on the other doors. My fellow inmates all had screens, which meant they could garner at least a bit of illumination, even with the power out.

  It was already starting to get warm—the air conditioning had died with the power—and I could feel the sweat starting to break out again. The heat? Or nerves? I was acutely aware of the risk my friends were taking, a risk made all the more dangerous by the fact that none of the synthetics, with the exception of Al’awwal, could so much as defend themselves if they faced resistance. Their thrice-damned conditioning would stop them from being able to so much as thr
ow a punch, much less pull a trigger.

  Which meant they were assaulting a fortress with plenty of armed guards, and their only edge was technological. I didn’t think Silas would have green lit the attempt if he thought it impossible, but my gut churned as I stood by the cell door, watched, and waited.

  About five minutes later, I heard a faint metallic bouncing sound over the calls and angry demands of the other inmates on my block. The sound triggered memories from long ago, and I was crouched in a corner, body curled tight, with my hands clapped over my ears and my mouth opened to lessen the shock before I realized I was moving. The inmates must have had similar reactions, though I guessed theirs hearkened back to tear gas grenades rather than the real thing, because the noise level in the cells dropped to almost nothing.

  Instead of the earsplitting explosion, I heard a pop, then a steady hiss. I took a gulp of air, fearing for a moment that it was tear gas after all. But I realized the futility of that. If the guards had come to gas the prisoners into submission, there was no way to stop it, no way to hold my breath long enough to stop the effects. I exhaled, inhaled. Caught a familiar scent. Not tear gas. Something that smelled almost like the aftermath of a fireworks show. Willie Pete? No. Thank God for that. White phosphorus was nasty stuff. Smoke grenades. Someone was popping smoke, and I didn’t think it was for an aerial pickup.

  I didn’t have much time to consider, because the high-pitched whine of a drill cutting into metal sounded, drowning out my thoughts. The isolation cell doors were solid—solid enough that even a big guy like me had no chance of breaking one down—but they weren’t vault doors. I made sure I was well clear of the door, and a few seconds later an inch-thick bit shredded the lock plate, showering the interior with a fountain of sparks.

  I stood from my crouch, and waited. There was a bang as something heavy slammed into the hinges of the door, then another. On the third hit, the door bounced in its frame, shivered wildly for a moment, and then fell backward. A high-intensity flashlight beam sliced across the darkness like a knife, and I averted my eyes, trying to preserve some semblance of night vision. It swept quickly over my face, and then dropped to the ground.