Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  Pipes inside the wall rumbled, and after about ten seconds, a spurt of dark gray water splashed into the basin. He watched the water flow in motionless shock. Eventually, the water cleared. He cupped some up to his mouth. Not the best tasting, but in his thirst it was fine.

  First, he lowered Carroll’s feet to the floor and gently angled her body to rest her head on the side of the sink. Holding her up by squeezing his legs around her stomach, he cupped water in both hands and let it fall over her wound. Each dosing cleared some of the blood, weakening its thickness in her hair and loosening the glob on her scalp. The wound wasn’t deep. Mostly just a rough scratch.

  Carroll shook, looked up and shouted.

  “Easy. It’s me.” Memories of her shooting him in the face suggested he’d need more to calm her. “You healed me. I’m normal again.” Whatever that was. He wasn’t sure what had been wrong or what being infected meant.

  She slid to a seat on the floor, hands pressed to her wet head. “Ugh.”

  “I tried to clean your gunshot wound. Thankfully, it’s just a graze.”

  She slowly lowered her arm to reveal her eyes. When they met his, her body relaxed. Her head rested against the wall. “Did it work?”

  *

  Dixon’s eyes had returned to their normal brown. Paralyzing comfort washed through her. “Did it work?” She needed him to say yes. Her head ached like the middle of two struck rocks, but the fog was gone. Her body felt lighter, if also a little nauseous.

  “I think so. How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Been better.” She touched the wet hair around her wound, squinting at the soreness. “Is it bleeding badly?”

  “Not badly.” He opened the mirror and scanned the shelves inside. Carroll spotted the white roll just before he picked it up, along with a small box with a picture of Band-Aids. Old World supplies.

  He opened the box in front of her. It was nearly full. That would fetch one or two silver. The cabinet’s contents easily ten or fifteen.

  She remained sitting while he applied the patch bandage and wrapped the cloth around her forehead to keep it tight and in place.

  “What are we doing here, Dixon?” She meant it in more than the bathroom floor sense. His exhale and delayed response suggested he gathered that.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Carroll.”

  *

  Somewhere in the tattered remains of his memories of the last few months was the awareness that he’d tried to find a better life for them. “I met Warren in February. Sometime.” He fit the lid of the Band-Aid box and set it back on the shelf. “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not. He offered me a job with an upfront payment but didn’t tell me what it was.”

  “That sounds smart.” She gave him a sarcastic smile, then reached for his help to stand.

  He pulled her up and steadied her balance. The patch around her wound was still white, so hopefully the bleeding was near to done. “I know, but my winter finds weren’t as good as I led you to believe.”

  Carroll’s smile drifted into rebuke.

  “I took out a loan from Elliot…okay, a couple. Brigand territory has spread, and our reach has picked thin the resources between us and them. I met Warren at the end of a twenty kilometer sail. I keep trying to secure something good for both of us, and all that happens is I fall farther from it. And I’m dragging you down with me.”

  Carroll ran her hands around his back and pulled him in. She kissed him gently.

  He kissed her back. “I’m sorry.”

  She gave gracious smile and stroked his face. “It’s okay. Just don’t keep me in the dark like that again. We work best together.”

  He nodded. “You’re…” a strange sensation of not being alone washed through him. He turned around. The hall was empty save for the discarded visor. The visor. Warren. Did he have a beacon on it? Must have.

  Dixon took her hand and strode toward the doorway on the right. He gripped his DL and pulled it free of its holster. He wasn’t going to pick up the visor, but he did turn on his suit, unsure how it might help, but thinking it best to use all that he could against whatever stalked them from behind the walls ahead.

  “What is it?” Carroll whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “Can’t explain but think someone’s nearby.”

  The presence was closer. Faster. He planted his foot and sprung out of the doorway, into the hallway. He tugged Carroll behind him as he ran for the door at the end of the hall. It opened to a small kitchen with a fridge, a circle table in the corner, and another door across. The presence was behind them, moving quickly. Something thudded. He glanced back as Carroll looked behind her. He pulled her toward the next door. It opened to a room with two more circle tables. He walked in and his dive light parted shadow to reveal three corners blocked off by towers of cabinets and file folders. Dead end.

  Carroll squeezed his arm. “Dixon!”

  He turned around to see Quake standing in the kitchen, his left arm bent behind his head as though preparing to throw something at them.

  Dixon squeezed the trigger on his DL as he aimed it at Quake’s chest.

  Quake’s arm whipped forward as Dixon released his trigger and pushed Carroll. A metallic object fanned in its quick path toward Dixon’s center—too center and too fast to dodge. It should have planted below his neck but, instead, whipped up and over his shoulder, slicing his neck as it flew behind him.

  His shot hit Quake left of center, hard enough to spin him onto his knees. Dixon palmed the minor cut on his neck and aimed his next for Quake’s back.

  Quake spun. Dixon released his shot. Black rocks flew from Quake’s hand before his shoulder blew open from the DL blast.

  Dixon arched back to dodge, but they buried in his neck and face with stinging speed. He twisted toward Carroll and swatted what was stuck and burning in his skin. Her eyes were wide in terror at the wiggling source of fifty fires burning into his face. Where his hand touched it only transferred the pain to points across his fingers. He looked down as the black spots became specks, wiggling into his flesh. He looked up at Carroll, shielded his face from her with his arm, then spun back to Quake charging at him. “Carroll go!”

  He squatted and pushed up as Quake’s dive impacted with his shoulder and threw him off his feet. Dixon landed on top. The room went dark. Blind. A hard blow sent his face sideways. He lifted and squeezed his DL, tucking his elbow to turn the shot at Quake. Something grabbed his ribs from behind. Carroll? He fired. A low-voiced cough expelled a mist of spit onto his face. Carroll’s hands wrapped around his chest to pull him off. “No!” Resisting her would mean touching her with his infected left hand. Quake had his right thumb pulled back to weaken his hold on the DL. “Carroll, go!” he bumped his shoulder into her hard enough to knock her back. “I’m infected. Run!”

  He had no idea where would be safe, but they were in the epicenter of Not Safe so anywhere was better. Her grip freed from his bump and didn’t return. But neither did his sight.

  Quake put a second hand on his DL arm and leaned into his pressure on Dixon’s thumb, snapping off a pop and an explosion of pain at the base of his thumb.

  Dixon dropped his DL, but reached out with his left hand. He caught Quake by the hair and headbutted the bastard in the forehead. Sharp pain drove into his head and he swayed backward, dazed.

  “That’s enough!”

  Warren’s voice ripped open nerves. Embarrassment and fear awoke as one. The fight in his body bled away, leaving him too weak to resist. His head and upper body continued falling backward. He crashed onto his back, head on the floor, staring into perfect dark.

  Carroll didn’t help him up. Nor speak. Hopefully she was long gone, but he wished she was close enough to hold her hand.

  “Get up,” Warren said.

  Dixon obeyed, turning over to push onto his knee. His head swayed, his thumb throbbed, and it hurt to open his left eye. Vision faded in through his other eye. Carrol
l was gone. Quake slowly sat up. They were the only two in the room.

  “Put your visor back on,” Warren said. Nowhere to be seen, yet speaking as clearly as if he were leaning over Dixon’s back. “Take it off again,” he whispered, “and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  Dixon couldn’t stop muscles that pushed him toward obedience, into the kitchen and down the hallway.

  “Faster. She’s getting away.”

  Again, Dixon obeyed. His only freedom spilled through a tear shed for what he feared Warren would make him do when he caught her. He couldn’t even blink on command. Warren was going to make him watch while his body propelled him to his wicked command.

  48 - Carroll (5:29 am)

  Carroll ran out of the law office toward the stairwell, lifting her glow stick. Its yellow glow provided one or two feet of light in front of her fleeing steps. She had seconds before needing to decide if she’d go up or down, and if down, if she’d go all the way or find a floor and hide. The kids were down there. If Dixon had M-MANs, did he get them from Jeff? He’d been attacked and had been getting sicker the whole way here. Could be she was the only one not infected with M-MANs.

  She pushed open the door. Stairs up. Stairs down.

  Stairs up would be running into the head of the beast.

  Stairs down would be running from. She’d live longer, have more time to think about a plan.

  But she couldn’t help thinking the beast was on its heels. She could attack now while they had some momentum—surely it hadn’t anticipated her shooting Dixon and herself in the head, freeing them of the infection.

  The DL delivered electromagnetic charge, frying the electronically powered M-MANs. But she didn’t have the DL.

  No time, she thought, a rabbit with its tail on fire, waiting to move up or down. She looked up. That’s where she should go. Punch the beast in the nose while she still could. But how? With what?

  Fire and smoke rise, she remembered her father teaching her, as she looked up the stairwell.

  Footsteps pounded down the hall behind her.

  I’m not ready.

  She sprang for the railing leading down and stomped two stairs at a time toward the landing and around to the fifty-fourth floor. No idea yet what to do as the door approached.

  More than one way to the fifty-sixth floor. (Elevator and stairwell…outside in the sand, too, if she could get a working suit.)

  She reached for the door, turned the handle, pushed it open a couple inches, then turned and stomped back down another set of stairs.

  “Carroll, wait!”

  Dixon’s voice startled her, causing her to slip on a stair. She hit her back and rolled down a couple stairs to the next landing.

  She wanted to run back for him, make sure he was okay, but he’d said he was infected and she didn’t have anything that could save him.

  His footsteps drew closer.

  She pushed up, biting through the pain in her back, and rounded to the next flight of stairs.

  How had she been able to see their red eyes? She hadn’t when they’d been climbing. What had changed?

  If she was infected, why were they chasing her? If these things worked together, why was she able to rebel?

  She passed the doorway to the fifty-third floor and continued down.

  If she knew what was different about her body, she could use that, potentially. If I knew…

  How would she figure that out?

  I don’t know anything about M-MANs. I mean, I think they replicate—I’ve seen them—so they must replicate inside the body of their hosts. If they can perform tasks like transforming into a dog and attacking a directed target, there must be programming. She’d seen Dixon, Quake, and Marco at a computer. The M-MANs sent them there. It might be inside, issuing commands.

  I need to get to that computer and—

  Her foot slipped on a long slab of something that had been lying on the stairs. Her momentum flung the flat object and her feet up in the air. Something sharp struck the back of her head. Dizziness throbbed within her skull as she slid and banged down the stairs to the next landing. She gripped her sore head and rolled onto her side, catching her breath.

  Get up, fool. You’re going to waste your chance. They’ll capture you. Maybe that’s a good idea. If my M-MANs resisted, maybe all I need to do is…infect them with mine and maybe they’ll become resistant like me.

  Except I fried my M-MANs when I shot myself in the head.

  She rested her sweating hot face on her bare forearm, gritting her teeth against the throbbing.

  Footsteps banged on steps above.

  She lifted her head but her body wasn’t responsive enough to flee in time.

  Dixon appeared around the top of the stairs, partially hidden in darkness outside the light’s reach of her dropped glow stick.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  He looked right at her, visor over his eyes, and then down as he navigated the turn and stomped down the stairs toward her.

  She pushed up on her elbow, still not strong enough to stand.

  He slowed and bent over to examine the stairs near where she slipped.

  She found a ledge on the wall, a power cable harnessed inside a metal casing stuck to the concrete. From what her dad had showed her of power schematics, touching that, if it were live, would be lethal.

  Dixon lifted his gaze to the path she’d taken down the stairs on her back.

  He didn’t look her in the eye, or speak, or do anything else that would be instinctual of knowing he was close to her.

  She backed up the stairs, hugging the wall, watching him creep toward where she’d laid on the landing.

  How does he not see me?

  His gaze trailed up to her present location.

  She sidestepped. No choice but to make her move…now!

  Before he tracked her to the railing, she lunged forward. He reacted to movement but seemed to freeze in anticipation even as they faced each other. Her move lasted barely a second before she turned her head and planted a kiss firm on his lips. He bucked, pushing back on her shoulders. She wrapped an arm inside his and held the back of his head. Her lips regained contact with his. His resistance weakened. His mouth opened. Fight became pleasure as their tongues danced. She couldn’t remember the last time they shared this passion.

  She brought him down to the floor, caught the top of his suit’s zipper and began pulling it down past his chest.

  Footsteps stopped at the stairs six up from the landing. Carroll looked up to see Quake standing still, posture arched as though unsure if he should stop them or let them be. Why? What’re the M-MANs thinking?

  She let out a laugh. Dixon took the break in their kiss to pull her shirt over her head.

  No one interrupted them. But Carroll couldn’t say she felt alone, and that included Quake’s awkward non-interference. Something was in her head, speaking in broken syllables distorted by a weak frequency.

  But by the time Dixon finished, and surely when she had finished, the syllables lost their voice. She owned the frequency now.

  Quake’s posture shifted into action.

  As he leapt, Carroll pulled Dixon’s DL from his holster and fired a shot right into Quake’s open mouth. His jaw snapped shut, a tremor shot out from head to chest, and he fell like a bag of sand.

  Dixon planted a hand beside her and struck his heel into Quake’s stomach, halting his fall and dropping him onto his back on the first and second stair.

  Carroll crawled over, ran her finger over her tongue, peeled back Quake’s eyelid, and dabbed the wetness onto his eyeball.

  49 - Carroll (5:43 am)

  “I’m sorry, Carroll,” Dixon said behind her.

  She rose and let Quake’s eyelid shut, trusting her nanos to do their work even if she had little idea how. Something happened in the struggle she had with W—she’d won, but it felt like winning by throwing a grenade into an open window. She didn’t know what she had destroyed nor did she know where all the pieces l
ay afterward.

  Dixon’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  She turned to him. His eyes had returned from Hell-red to their original brown. Relief drained the stress from her shoulders. “I think so. For now.”

  Too many thoughts made her look off at the painted 52 beside the door behind him. One thought stuck out from the rest. W’s newest batch of recruits had arrived. In their mental standoff, she’d felt Marco, back to life, transferring M-MANs to the first two divers to see him. As the two women helped him up, he brushed the M-MANs onto their power buttons. Carroll felt their replication ignite as they touched the energy harnessed under the button.

  She’d also ridden W’s network to the souls far below. Cool and a man he called Dr. Hannu had traces of M-MANs in their blood. She’d reached for them. Tried to grasp them in her hand and squeeze them back to normal. Or as normal as this can be now.

  “What just happened?” he asked. “How am I free from W?”

  “I don’t know. You just are. I don’t get it, but it works, so let’s use it.”

  “Use what?”

  “Me. I have remnants in my body, in my saliva.” A warm flow of unity shared the space between her heart and Dixon’s living essence. The warmth slowly spread into Quake’s brain by her feet.

  “Remnants of W?” Dixon’s weight shifted to his heels. He looked at the floor. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have…”

  His fear stole precious strength from both of them. (In her new mind, her strength was their strength.) She clasped her hands on his face and lifted it to hers. “Enough. ‘Shouldn’t have’ has no place in our thoughts. Focus on how we’ll beat him. The divers have arrived. Sixteen, plus Marco makes seventeen new enemies we have to deal with. Plus, the infrastructure he’s been building since he got that computer running.”

  Dixon lifted his visor and looked up at Carroll, a silent question of permission and danger. She sensed W’s M-MANs crawling inside like an old pot festering with maggots. If there weren’t a battle needing fought, she’d have told him to pitch it and never look back. But there was, and she intended to fight it.