Discarded

by Mark A. Ciccone

  Stepping around the terminal, Greg peered down into the compartment – easy, given his height. Inside sat a single metal cylinder, set atop a two-pronged metal mount. Roughly the shape of a large beer can, its only distinguishing mark was a small aperture, set just below the seal at the top – about the size and shape of the end of a human finger. With infinite care, Greg reached both hands into the compartment, and lifted the cylinder free.

  A red light flashed on in the centre of the mount, followed by a low buzzing. ‘Dammit,’ Greg muttered. Gripping the cylinder in one hand, he trotted for the door, where Leah stood, knife at the ready. ‘Must’ve tripped a weight sensor, or a backup alarm.’ Leah nodded, as if she’d expected nothing else.

  They jogged up the hallway, taking the stairs three at a time. When they stepped through the double front doors, Leah froze, holding up one hand. She sniffed the cold March air once, twice, and cocked her head in several different directions, before nodding all clear. They broke into a dash. As they bounded across the empty parking lot, Greg chuckled, ‘I’ll never understand that. All the tech and skills we got from the start in the Project, and you still make like some old-school tracker out of one of the Doctor’s old movies.’

  ‘Hey, it worked a lot better than this, plenty of times,’ Leah retorted, gesturing to her clinger. They rounded the street corner without slowing, the air rushing around them. Their ride – a battered, twenty-year-old hybrid – lay a few blocks down, maybe a minute away. ‘Besides, I was trained with stealth in mind. Relying on tech all the time would’ve been a waste, and probably gotten us killed in less than a second.’

  They halted beside the car. With no trace of breathlessness, Greg answered, ‘Well, after tonight, we have the means to make sure none of us have to face that again.’ He held up the canister.

  Leah nodded, sombre now. ‘You’re sure there’s no self-destruct? Or something else to wreck the data if it’s removed?’

  ‘If there were, we’d have seen the results.’ He lifted the canister up to catch the light from a nearby streetlamp. Pointing to the aperture, he said. ‘This is the hard part, as of this moment. Getting the treasure was easy – now we have to convince the only person who’s bound to have the key.’

  ‘You think that’s gonna happen?’ Leah inquired. ‘Even if he’s still alive, there’s no guarantee he’s still where it looks like he landed. Or that our surprise arrival won’t make him react… unpleasantly.’

  ‘Don’t have a choice.’ Greg flipped the canister to his other hand and pressed it against his waist. Two thin membranes looped around the object, securing it. ‘We’ve been hunting for the truth about us since the Bomb: where we came from, and whom. This gives us some of it – but he’s the clincher. Short of the Doctor coming back from the dead, there’s no other way of convincing the world, and making sure we have a future.’

  Sighing, Leah opened the passenger door and climbed in. As Greg got behind the wheel on the other side, she touched a slight protrusion at the clinger’s throat. The edge of the section covering her face unsealed. She peeled back the entire mask, letting it fall behind her shoulders, where it slipped beneath her jacket and resealed against the back of the clinger.

  Her reflection stared at her from the windshield: strong, light-brown features, and black hair tied into a tight bun hanging partway down her neck. To any average observer, she was an average, young, lighter-skinned black or Hispanic woman in her early twenties. Until one saw the wrinkles around her vivid, glowing brown eyes, that is… and what lay behind the eyes themselves.

  Glancing to her left, she saw Greg removing his mask, too. He scratched at his dark reddish-blond buzz-cut, as he buckled in with his free hand. He didn’t even glance her way. She sighed. ‘Look… I’m sorry, about back there. I’m just… sick of all this, and I want it to be over, same as you.’

  Greg shifted in his seat, facing her. His pale, outwardly youthful face was set in grave lines. ‘I know,’ he murmured. He reached out a hand, laying it on hers. They stared at each other for a long moment. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  She squeezed his hand, tight. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. ‘Since Seattle.’

  The corners of his mouth quirked, in what might have been a smile. Turning forward again, he pressed the starter button. Quiet as a breeze, the car pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the ill-lit gloom.

  Chapter 2

  Noon, the Following Day

  The corridor buzzed with activity. Four or five men and women in white lab tech smocks were running UV lights and other scanning devices over the vault door and interior, and doing likewise with the corridor floor and walls. Two men in blue overalls from ProShield’s IT branch were huddled over a tablet computer by the door, checking the schematics of the building’s wiring. Two other teams were combing the upper floors, looking for any other signs of the intruders.

  Standing by the main staircase, Hargrove took all this in peripherally. He smoothed the front of his shirt, and adjusted the lapels of his jacket. No one who saw him would see any sign of his anger or impatience in his eyes or posture. The muscles in his neck pulsed, as if in speech, though his mouth remained closed. Assessment?

  Several terse bits of text flashed across one lens of the silver-framed glasses he wore. Connections to backup generator severed at crucial junction in first floor wall. Shaped charge, punching through from outside. Initial blackout caused by intense, localised energy spike knocking out landline connections. EMP deviceofProject design likeliest cause. A short pause, then more words: Local techs have situation in hand. Instructions?

  Hargrove’s throat flexed. Concludeexaminations, and standby. Focusing his attention on the world around him again, he flexed his shoulders, and started back upstairs, to the main security office. None of the techs or guards paid him any notice.

  Two men were already in the office as he approached. One, in a ProShield guard’s uniform, was nursing his shoulder, and touching gingerly at a bloodstained bandage wound around his head. The other was older, in a dark suit and with silver hair similar to Hargrove’s own sandy-white. He was gesturing at the guard in a mix of scepticism and fury. His words reached Hargrove’s ears when he was near the top of the stairs. ‘—heard of anything like that, and I’ve been working with every kind of tech imaginable in the last twenty years.’ Hearing new footsteps, he turned, and caught sight of who was standing behind him. He stiffened. ‘Mr Hargrove! I wasn’t aware you—’

  ‘Never mind, Mr Rockford,’ Hargrove cut in. ‘I’m here to see how my property came through last night, and whether anything else is missing.’ He surveyed the guard’s injuries with a critical eye. ‘Seems you had a rougher night of it, Mr…’

  ‘Brant. Tony Brant.’ The guard started to stand straight, but winced, and rubbed at his temples. ‘It all started with the blackout. I went down to check the vault, as required, and these two huge bastards jumped me from nowhere. Don’t have a clue how they got in; heard from one of the techies that they sliced through a window one floor above, right after the motion sensors went down. There’s supposed to be a backup for the alerts built into the frames – guess the blackout took care of those, too.’ His brow furrowed, making him wince again. ‘They had some kind of weird tech with them – used it to crack the vault door in no time, and do the same with the hard drive, and whatever storage drawer they were looking for inside.’

  ‘None of which, like I was saying, is even possible,’ Kenneth Rockford cut in. The ProShield owner wiped a hand across his forehead. ‘All-over smart suits, advanced code-cloners – and this crap about self-mending injuries, from the one you tussled with?’ He glared at Brant. ‘You sure they didn’t deliver that hit a little harder?’

  ‘I know what I saw,’ Brant insisted. ‘I don’t how they had them, but they did. So you might wanna look into that before you start blaming the guy who’s just supposed to make the rounds, and ignore the shit worth stealing – like the boss says.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the vault. />
  Ken’s face reddened. Hargrove stepped in before he could respond. ‘I assure you, Mr Brant, no one blames you. From what I’ve seen at this point, you responded appropriately, and handled the situation as best you could.’ Brant looked relieved, pathetically so. Hargrove turned to Rockford. ‘The security systems look to have performed as expected, too, but my people’ll want to comb through the data themselves, make sure there’s nothing out of place that the intruders might’ve exploited.’

  Rockford glowered. ‘Nothing is, Mr Hargrove. We followed the specs laid out when your people and the city contracted with us. We can’t prepare for everything, but we were prepared for any of the most likely break-in methods.’ The ProShield boss let out a slow breath, bringing his temper down with a visible effort. ‘Obviously, though, this wasn’t one of them. If any errors resulting from poor procedures or precautions are found, I take full responsibility.’

  ‘No need for that, Mr Rockford,’ Hargrove said easily. ‘While I’m certainly not happy about last night, so far I haven’t seen any sign it was aided or made possible by negligence on your outfit’s part. All we can do now is determine exactly how it happened, and take the next steps.’

  Now both Rockford and Brant looked relieved. The anger flared in Hargrove’s mind, just for a moment. If he’d been allowed to choose security for the place, or even known some of the details – putting that thought aside for the moment, he excused himself, and stepped back out into the hallway, moving to another unoccupied office farther down. He shut the door behind him, and closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly. So close, and then this.

  He hadn’t been completely thrown to the wolves, after the Seattle Bomb and the end of the Project. The original prototypes remained under his control, and whoever sat in the White House – or, more importantly, in the offices at Langley – knew they needed him around to control them, and to make more if needed. Nevertheless, the new government, shorn of the people who’d so eagerly backed his programme alongside the Project, hadn’t come near him in the last five years. There were some benefits to this isolation: he was free to continue his work, with tacit approval and some support staff and equipment. And his reputation meant no one dared arrange an ‘accident’ for him. But he was still an outcast, kept at bay by the same people who’d benefited from his work, his success. Now, while he was just starting to earn a fragment of the power he had once held, this had happened – and those people would be on his back every step of the way, or trying to be.

  He glanced into space. Status? he inquired.

  The reply came in seconds, blinking across the lens. No newdevelopments. Standing by.

  Prep for return to HQ. He thought for a moment. Maintain visual alert cues at all means of egress from Capital area. Asset J-003 reassigned to Union Station; other assets to remain in ready mode at HQ upon arrival. He signed off without waiting for a reply and headed out the door. There was no need; his people would get the work done, without question.

  The moment he came out the main entrance, two men in brown coats appeared from either side, falling in half a step behind him. They were tall, slightly above Hargrove’s own height, but far from skinny; muscles strained at their sleeves, shoulders and plain khaki pants. Mottled red-white scars peeked out from beneath their shirt cuffs and collars. Their eyes stared into nothingness, through silver-framed glasses identical to his.

  Across the parking lot, two more men of similar appearance waited by the pair of plain black sedans that had brought Hargrove and his team to the site. At his nod, three of the guards moved to the rear car, still unspeaking. The vehicle’s struts creaked loudly as they got in. The fourth brown-coated man climbed behind the wheel of the first car. Hargrove climbed in the back, settling against the smooth leather.

  The engine started up with a low purr. Hargrove looked out through the tinted window, at the decrepit office building. Both hands started to close again. If he’d been told that anything from Golem was here, he’d have claimed it for himself, Agency be damned. Now it was gone… and they’d be coming to him in hand for help reclaiming what should have been his.

  He willed himself to relax. A little patience – that was all he needed. He’d been waiting for years already; what were a few more days or weeks? If he played his cards right, he might even get a hold of the canister before any Agency team was called in for the job. And once he had it –

  He watched the building recede behind them, merging into the surrounding mass of warehouses and offices. His throat began pulsing again, relaying new orders. Text began flashing up before his eyes. Wherever the damned thieves were, he would find them. Of that, he was dead certain.

  Chapter 3

  3:15pm

  A soft grunt of displeasure came from the bathroom of the dingy motel room. Seated by the front window, Greg looked up from his street vigil. Leah was standing before the mirror, studying her reflection with a critical eye. There was no scar from last night’s scuffle, and the broken jawbone and teeth had healed perfectly, as expected. Still…

  She stuck her head around the corner. ‘How’s it look?’ she asked.

  Even with the poor light, Greg had to fight hard against a smile. ‘Depends. You planning on sticking with it?’

  She snatched up the bottle of dye from the counter and hurled it at him. He caught it with a fast jerk of his hand and set it on the table in front of him. ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ he said, deadpan.

  ‘Definitely no.’ She stepped out of the bathroom. ‘It’ll do for today, though. Same in your case, for which the world would thank us.’

  Greg clutched his chest, mock-mortified. His humour faded as his fingers traced a section of raised, bumpy flesh on his left pectoral: a near-perfect circle surrounded by a splatter pattern of scar tissue. One souvenir from KarachiI could have done without. If I hadn’t been among the first ones picked to test out the clingers, those explosive rounds would’ve ended it, ARC or no. The compound was capable of healing almost any non-lethal wound, but every now and then it left marks behind, for who knew what reason. He preferred to see it as a warning, a caution against ever believing he was invulnerable. Although the first few missions rammed that home pretty good– and others, later on.

  From Leah’s solemn look, her thoughts marched with his. Turning away, she began packing up the last of the toiletries they’d bought at the block’s pharmacy earlier that day. ‘You’re sure about the time for our exit?’

  ‘Sure as I can be,’ Greg replied. Standing, he moved to check his duffel for a last time, one of the two on the double bed. He hefted the canister in one hand, then returned it to the duffel. ‘We should reach the station in ten minutes, barring any surprises, and be on the Limited in the same amount of time. Twenty minutes, and we’ll be en route to Chicago.’

  ‘Unless they stop us somewhere along the line – or in the station,’ Leah replied gravely. She came out of the bathroom, setting the toiletry bag by her duffel. ‘Either’d be easy to arrange nowadays. What then?’

  ‘They won’t,’ Greg replied. ‘Remember the set-up at the archives. We’ve got what we need, and they want it back, bad – but they won’t do anything that risks us, or the canister, coming to light. Push comes to shove, they might try the standard “terrorists with WMD” claim – it’s worked often enough before, especially the last ten years – but then they’d have all kinds of questions coming their way from higher-ups who weren’t ever told about us, and that’d be even worse than having the public breathing down their necks.’

  Leah considered this, then nodded. ‘Fine. Car’s taken care of?’

  ‘All prints wiped, and parked four blocks away. Somebody might get curious after a day or two and call the impound, but it’ll probably be stolen before then, which’ll just add to our cover.’

  He zipped his bag duffel shut again. Apart from the canister, all it held was two changes of clothes: additional camouflage for the clinger suits. The jackets and pants they’d laid out already would serve until they were well
out of D.C., at which point they would change, or ditch the outfits altogether, like they’d done from last night.

  Putting on his jacket, he looked up as Leah let her towel fall to the floor. Standing naked by the bed, she picked up the clinger with one hand and rummaged through her bag with the other. Greg turned to one side, trying not to seem obvious. From Leah’s mild chuckle, it wasn’t working. When he allowed himself to look her way again, she was zipping up the clinger, bringing it just shy of her neck. The amusement in her eyes dimmed a little. ‘Is it still weird, for you?’ she asked. ‘The reactions?’

  ‘A little.’ Greg picked up his own bag, slinging it over one arm. ‘The inhibitor withdrawals are supposed to be extreme, what with all the years we were given them, to keep our skills fresh. But it hasn’t been for me – so far, anyway. It’s more not knowing what to do when it’s done, that’s the problem. What with how the Doc and the others kept us isolated, even between assignments, I guess it was inevitable.’

  Leah nodded in perfect understanding. After pulling on her own outerwear, she slung the duffel strap over one shoulder. A tiny smirk came to her lips. ‘In that case… we’d better start learning the ropes, shouldn’t we?’

  Smiling back in the same semi-hesitant way, Greg extended his arm. She wrapped hers through the crook of his elbow, interlacing their fingers. They stepped out onto the second-floor balcony, and headed for the stairs after a careful glance in all directions. No point locking up – the keycard reader was busted, anyway, and they’d paid enough in new paper cash to shut the landlord up, at least for a few more hours.