by Jay Kristoff
God, he’d been so brave….
She felt tears burning her eyes, pawed at them with her grubby sleeve.
“You want me to admit the world is a stupid and ugly place?” she asked. “Fine. I grew up in the thick of it, cloneboy. I know damn well how sick it gets out there. It’s septic and it’s defective and it’s broken almost all the way.”
“And BioMaas has discovered a better way,” the Directors said. “We live in harmony here, Lemonfresh. We do not fill the sky with pollutants, do not take without giving back. We have seized control of our evolutionary path. No randomness. No form without design. Each task is assigned to a pattern perfectly suited to accomplish it. We are one in the genome.”
Lemon blinked. “What the hell is that?”
The Directors waved in unison toward the BioMaas logo on the liquid screen, spinning and twisting endlessly.
“The genome is Mother and Father. Lock and key. The pathway toward infinite possibility, and the clay from which you, and all, were sculpted.”
Lem breathed deep and tried to keep hold of her patience. Half this talk sounded half insane, and the rest of it sounded insane all the way. But despite how angry she was at being snaffled, despite the burning grief she felt for Grimm, she was acutely aware that she was alone here. Surrounded on all sides in a city she didn’t come close to understanding, with no hope of rescue.
So maybe it was time to get smart, not mad.
“Look, honestly, what do you want from me?”
The closest Director to her produced a thick stack of documents, enclosed in a folio of black rubber. Lemon saw the words CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT: GENOME PROPRIETORSHIP and a ream of code embossed in the cover. Flicking through the folio, she saw wads of waxy paper covered in indecipherable CorpSpeak. At the back of the folio was a small ident marked PLACE THUMB HERE.
“CityHive wants permission to harvest her genetic material,” Director said.
Lemon frowned, looked from the contract to the crescent of identical faces around her. “I don’t get it. You people already took my blood on—”
“The sample taken aboard Nau’shi was for testing alone. And we require different genetic material for emulation.”
“…What kind of material?”
“Ovarian,” they replied.
Lemon’s eyes went wide, her hands slipped involuntarily to her belly. Her voice sounded small and distant in her ears, like it belonged to someone else.
“You want my…”
Four heads nodded. “Pluripotent stems offer the greatest opportunity for modification. Once the document is signed and the material harvested, Lemonfresh will be free to leave.”
“Just like that, huh?”
The Director nodded again. “The procedure is simple. Swift. Almost painless.”
She swallowed thickly. “…And if I say no?”
“Lemonfresh is the key to winning the struggle against Daedalus. Lemonfresh is the gateway to a better future. Lemonfresh is important.” All four leaned forward, four pairs of hands steepled at four chins, four pairs of dark eyes glowering. “We are hoping she will see the beauty in this city, and this way of life. We are hoping she will volunteer her material for the betterment of her species. We are hoping we will not need to resort to…unpleasantries.”
Silence descended on the room like a boot heel. Lemon sat in the stunted quiet for a long moment, staring at the stack of documents, the full weight of the Director’s request sinking in. It took her a long time to sort through the riot in her head, to ponder how she could possibly respond to a request like that. She was in danger here, true cert. Surrounded by gene-modded insanity, nobody to rescue her. She had to negotiate this properly, she had to dance it right, she had to play this smarter and cleaner and chiller than she’d ever played before.
And so, Lemon rolled her shoulders.
Breathed deep.
“Well, pardon me,” she said. “But you can all go fuck yourselves.”
Preacher hadn’t seen Megopolis in over seven years.
It was strange when he thought about it—he’d devoted his life to defending Daedalus Technologies but never spent much time in its capital. There just always seemed skulls that needed cracking. Folks that needed killing. But after his grift with that dim-witted snowflake Ezekiel played out so perfect, he figured it was time for a triumphant return. So, he’d dropped off his captives at the detention intake, logged his report and motored out into the city, happy as flies on a corpse.
Nuclear explosions aside, it’d been a mighty good day. He’d monkey-wrenched the lifelikes’ plans to bust open their supercomputer and handed R & D not only two fully functional lifelikes (bullet holes aside), but also Nic Monrova’s last remaining child. And while, yeah, technically he’d failed to bring in his target—being that five-foot-nothin’ redheaded hellion capable of frying ’lectrics with her mind—technically speaking, Daedalus had sent him after the wrong target in the first place.
He’d brought ’em Evie Carpenter, just as ordered. And on top of that, he’d handed them the keys to Nicholas Monrova’s computerized kingdom.
That was worth a drink.
The city had changed in his absence. Far more logika about, for one thing. But the basic structure was the same. Megopolis was divided into two zones by a giant concrete barrier, which the Board had imaginatively dubbed “the Wall.” Inside the Wall was the Hub, home of Daedalus’s accredited citizens. Outside lay the Rim, a grimy settlement built in the Wall’s shadow, peopled by folks with one real goal in mind—getting accredited so they could go live in the Hub.
The skinbar was called Shady Slim’s. It was one of his favorite joints on the Rim, always crowded, music pounding. Soon as he walked in, a logika attendant offered him a pair of VR goggs, but he declined. Some folk opted to “augment” their experience in Slim’s by clothing the dancers in virtual skins—giving them blue flesh or furry tails or maybe even the face of a lost love or a much-hated boss. But Preacher could appreciate the real thing just fine.
Despite his triumphant return, he wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. He and Snowflake had been in such a rush, the repair job he’d got in Armada hadn’t been much more than a patch job. One leg was shorter than the other, half his augs were still offline. But logging in to the Corp network, he discovered one of his favorite botdocs—a five-star Daedalus tech named Araña_03—was still in biz. He shot her a down payment and specs, asked her to get started on the parts.
Soon enough, he’d be state-of-the-art again.
Preacher drank for hours, tipping back ethyl-4 shots with his red right hand. He lost count of his lap dances after six. Neon lights flickered as gloom settled over the last great city in the Yousay. He watched wageslaves trundling home after a hard day’s grind for their Citizen Points. Scam artists looking for a grift to get them beyond the Wall. Thieves and hustlers and killers. But he could see the poetry to it.
Talking true, he loved this city.
He loved this Corp.
He loved this day.
It wasn’t until he tried to pay his tab that it started to turn bad.
“Account denied, Padre.”
Preacher looked away from images of that explosion over the New Bethlehem desert on the newsfeed, down into Shady Slim’s gleaming cybernetic eyes.
“Wassat?”
The publican pointed to the beaten-up plastic CP reader, waggled Preacher’s official Daedalus account stik in one grubby hand. “You got declined.”
“Guttershit.” Preacher stuffed synth tobacco into his cheek. “Run it again.”
Slim complied, met with an angry beep and a flashing DENIED.
“Sorry, Padre. Got another account?”
Figuring maybe the stik had gotten busted during his recent hunt (he had almost gotten eaten by a radioactive toad, after all), Preacher reached into his leather coat, pul
led out his own personal stik. Shady Slim nodded as the Citizen Points read good. Tipping his hat to the dancers, Preacher was just stepping out into the crowded streets when his comms account beeped about an incoming call.
“Preacher,” came a voice down the line. “It’s Araña.”
“Howdy, darlin’,” he smiled. “I was just headin’ to yours. Parts ready?”
“Yeah, I got ’em. But I’m not running a charity here, vato.”
“…Wassat supposed to mean? Daedalus’ll pick up the tab, like always.”
“Daedalus denied your deposit. ‘Operative account suspended.’ ”
Preacher rumbled to a stop on the sidewalk. “Say again?”
“ ‘Operative account suspended,’ ” Araña repeated. “Daedalus is saying you don’t have a credit line with them.”
“Well, that’s crap and you know it. They’ve always footed my bills with you.”
“I dunno what to tell you,” Araña said. “You been gone awhile, maybe you forgot the Golden Rule. CP talks, charity walks, feel me? You sort it, hit me up.”
The line dropped, leaving Preacher alone with the rush and rumble of the Rim streets. A crowd of chemkids brushed past, looking sharp and surly. Methane vapor swirled about his shoulders, drenched in a rainbow of grubby neon light. He tapped the uplink implanted in his cyberarm, logged into the Daedalus network.
Username: Padre.
Password: Mary07 (his momma’s name and fave number).
Enter.
OPERATIVE ACCOUNT SUSPENDED.
He blinked at the angry red letters flashing up at him from his display.
Spat a mouthful of sticky brown onto the stickier pavement.
“Mmmf,” he grunted.
* * *
_______
Danael Drakos and Preacher went back a long way.
They’d first met eighteen years ago, during the helter-skelter days of the CorpState Wars. Preacher was a First Sergeant. Danael was already head of Frontline Research and Development, the genius who designed the second-gen Goliaths that took down Omnimax Incorporated. Preacher took a big hit in that battle—blown apart and left for dead. But some Good Samaritan had dragged his chunks back behind the line, and he woke up in a Daedalus medcenter a week later. When he opened his new eyes, the first face he saw was that of Danael Drakos.
The Lord saved his life that day, true cert.
But Dani Drakos supplied the parts.
Wasn’t like they were friends or nuthin’. Once Preacher joined Special Ops, Dani occasionally reached out when he needed finesse on a big job. But deep down, Preacher always knew Dani would be there for him. He’d given his best years to this company. His body. His everything. He knew that’d mean something.
But now?
OPERATIVE ACCOUNT SUSPENDED.
Preacher’s autocab pulled up outside Daedalus HQ—the looming spike of concrete and solar panels known as the Spire. He flashed his CorpStik on instinct, cursing as a red ACCOUNT DENIED flashed on the screen. The autocab remained locked, so he used his personal stik, then kicked the door open in growing fury.
He limped into a gleaming foyer, past young security bucks in their power armor, countless cameras. The security crews knew him by rep; a few even nodded greetings. But when he flashed his CorpCard to the Sec logika and an alarm sounded, they stood to attention, fingers shifting slow to their triggers.
“ACCESS DENIED,” the bot told him.
Preacher rumbled to a stop, eyeing the goons. Their leader, a blond-haired, blue-eyed lump, held out one power-gloved hand. A sinking feeling was swelling in Preacher’s belly as he handed over his credentials.
The kid shook his head. “Access denied.”
“I’m here to see Danael Drakos,” Preacher said.
“You’re not cleared for entry, Operative,” the kid replied.
Preacher spat a thin stream of tobacco juice into a nearby potted plastic plant. “I was running top-level wetwork for this Corp when you were still crapping in your hands and rubbing it on your face. Get outta my way, kid.”
“I can’t do that, Op. I don’t make the rules.”
Preacher made to walk forward; the kid stepped into his path. In the power armor, he loomed taller than Preacher, steelweave muscles hissing. The bounty hunter heard the other sec-boys bristling behind him, sensed all those fingers on all those triggers. He looked up at the closest camera cluster, glowering.
“Danael!” he shouted. “Lemme up!”
“Operative, I’m going to have to ask y—”
“Dani!” Preacher bellowed. “I know your surveillance teams clocked me soon as I entered the Hub. You had enough of this little game yet? Or you need me to bust a few of these kiddies’ heads open afore we chat?”
The sec-goons were aiming weapons at him now. He couldn’t fault them for it—these kids had their CP totals to think about. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared to crack a few skulls for the temerity of it.
Young’uns got no respect for their elders these days….
“Have it your way,” Preacher growled.
He tongued the implant in his upper right molar twice, and his combat augs kicked in, mainlining adrenaline into his heart, a mix of methaline and phencylamide into his muscles. His left hand had closed around the sec-leader’s throat before he could blink, the metal fingers on his red right hand speeding toward the kid’s widening eyes when a deep voice crackled over the foyer PA.
“That’s enough, Marcus.”
Preacher’s hand fell still a few centimeters short of the kid’s peepers. His heart pounded with the hammer-blow beat of the chems in his veins.
“You gonna let me up so we can talk this through?”
“I’m very busy, Marcus,” came the reply.
“I’m not a stooge, Dani. I’ve bled for this Corp for eighteen goddamn years!”
Silence rang in the foyer, Preacher’s eyes locked on the cameras. He could feel the laser sights of the sec-team’s guns on his back, feel the adrenaline and combat chems crackling in the air. One twitch, one wrong word…
A sigh rang over the PA.
“Lieutenant, escort our visitor up to R & D. I’m in the Truelife suite.”
Preacher released the kid’s neck reeeal slow, his body still bristling with threat. The sec-boys stood down a touch, hands still on their weapons. The kid rolled his big shoulders, obviously upset that Preacher had laid a glove on him.
“Follow me, old man.”
Preacher looked him dead in the eye. “You call me old again, I’ma beat you like your daddy shoulda, son.”
The kid only grunted, turned and stomped off. Preacher stalked through another checkpoint to the elevator. Polished metal, glowing glass. The winged sun embossed on the temperfoam at his feet. He was marched through four security portals into R & D. Banks of top-tier gear, heavy cables snaking over the floors, a small army of tech bots around glowing screens. And finally, he found Danael Drakos, standing with a legion of flunkies in sharp suits.
It’d been four years since he caught face time, but Dani hadn’t aged a day. Preacher’s skin was leathered from years beneath that bastard sun. Danael’s was lightly tanned. Preacher’s body was mostly metal. Dani was ninety percent meat. Only his eyes told the story of his age, and that story was a long one—the CEO of Daedalus Technologies was Preacher’s senior by a good forty years.
Drakos was talking to three tech bots and looking over a data pad.
“Any improvement from the latest cycle?” he asked softly.
“YES SIR,” one of the bots replied. “THE LIFELIKE’S ARTIFICIAL MENTAL TOPOGRAPHY IS STILL PROVING TROUBLESOME, BUT WITH FURTHER MODIFICATION, THE TRUELIFE INTERFACE, COMBINED WITH DATA FROM THE MONROVA SUBJECT, SHOULD PRODUCE THE DESIRED RESULTS.”
“Excellent.” Drakos flicked through the data pad an
d nodded. “Yes, excellent.”
Preacher hooked his thumbs into his belt, looked about. The walls were dominated by screens, reams of indecipherable data. The minions clustered around Drakos were genuine humans, but the room was mostly filled with logika. He could see the cryo-tube he’d retrieved from New Bethlehem, Ana Monrova floating suspended in a bubble of frozen blue, a pair of fancy wetware ’trodes fixed to her temples. And slumped in a grav-chair, her blond fauxhawk soaked with sweat, eyes closed, was Evie Carpenter.
Looked like she was plugged into a high-end VR unit. She had the same ’trodes on her own temples, her vitals displayed in a 3-D topography on a screen above. They were spiking into the redline, like she was fighting for her very life. As he watched, the girl threw back her head and screamed.
“Hello, Marcus, how can I help you?”
Drakos’s voice dragged his attention away from his former quarry. The CEO was looking at him now, running one hand back over his widow’s peak.
“You can start by explaining what the hell’s going on, Danael.”
“There could be any number of answers to that question, Marcus. And as you can see, we’re rather busy. What, specifically, do you mean?”
“You cut me off.”
“Ah. I confess I thought it would take you longer to notice. Try to charge your bar tab to the Corporation account again, did you?”
“I just spent a week running all over the goddamn Yousay for this company,” Preacher growled. “I got shot, had my legs blown off by a blitzhund, my augs fried by a pint-sized, freckle-faced abnorm. I got thrown off a cliff, half eaten by an irradiated toad bigger than your penthouse and almost murdered by a posse of synthetics with a hate-chub for the entirety of humanity. And you’re gonna stand there in your twelve-thousand-CP suit and begrudge me a goddamn drink?”
“It’s funny you should mention that particular pint-sized deviate, Marcus,” Drakos mused. “Because I swear when I sent you out to get shot, blown up, cliffed and toaded, it was under direct orders to bring her back here alive.”
