Half an hour later, puffy-eyed but composed, she walked in to the stockade for the first time since she had been prisoner there. The place they called theDormitory had been cleaned up, sanitized, given a new coat of whitewash – but a prison is a prison is a prison, once it has been used for caging people. An oppressive spirit lingered there, echoes of beatings, rapes, and the casual abuse of power that no amount of paint could cover. She shivered, soulstruck.
“I need to see the prisoner I just brought in an hour ago. Goes by Bill,” she said to the guard.
“You’ll have to get a pass from the Commander,” the MP sergeant there said.
He was one of the new ones, probably a reservist called in as augmentation. Another one comes in late after the hard work is over, she sneered inside. “How’s this pass work?” She held out the piece of paper that usually rested near her heart, beneath the body armor inside a plastic cover.
The man looked at the printing and the signature, until his face went white. He tried to take it from her hand to examine it more closely.
“It’s real,” she said as she twitched it out of reach.
“All right,” he said with a nervous swallow. “But you’ll have to leave your firearms. Frank, bring that new one, William Lilly, to a visit room.”
Once inside the designated chamber, Repeth paced until the guards brought Bill in. When he sat down, he held up his cuffed hands. “Come on, is this really necessary?”
“Uncuff him,” Repeth ordered, “then get out.”
The guard looked askance at her but decided not to argue. Perhaps it was the blast marks and bullet rips that showed on her body armor. Perhaps it was the icy cold in her eyes. Or perhaps it was the way her fingerless-gloved hand kept flexing, unconsciously clenching and unclenching on an absent handgrip and trigger.
“They treating you okay?” she asked perfunctorily.
“Yeah, never been in a better prison. This place smells weird, though, like cheap whores. Stale perfume and sweat under the new paint. You got a cigarette?”
“Sorry no, but I’ll see what I can do. And you don’t want to know too much about that smell. No, maybe you do. Some of the buddies of the people you work for kept a rape house here. Sex slaves. They put me in here too. So you weren’t far off.” She didn’t bother telling him she had not been abused. Let him believe what was useful to her.
He paled. “Uh…sorry. I had nothing to do with that. And I’m out now, all right? So you take care of me like we agreed, and you can drain me dry. Come on, I’m an Eden, you know I won’t betray you.”
She laughed without humor, leaning in close and quiet. “You may have the virus but you’re no Eden. You’re a G–,” she choked off a blasphemy, “you’re a Psycho. I know. I’ve looked in your eyes. But I’m willing to ignore that if you spill your guts as we agreed. In return, I’ll make sure you get to the right people that will interrogate you with minimum suffering, and maybe they’ll even give you a job. Or maybe they’ll send you to Australia. But all I want right now is information on this Pax River place.”
He sat back, rubbing his face. “All right. I could really use that cigarette though.”
“Fair enough. Guard! Rustle me up some smokes and a lighter, will you? And a pad of paper and some pens.” Once they arrived and he lit up, she sat down across from him and started the debriefing.
***
Repeth tossed copies of Bill’s debriefing notes onto Colonel Muzik’s desk. “Intel has the originals, and I kept a copy too, but I thought you should have one. The short version is that Winthrop Jenkins – yes, one of that clan, Jervis’ brother – he was an Under-Triumvir in the last year or two before nukefall, and he ran a black program named Septagon Shadow. It was a competing effort with Tiny Fortress. He was afraid of a military coup from Tyler using nanocommandos, so he poured billions of black money into a cyber-wetware project. Laminated bones, rewired nervous systems, servomotor-assisted strength, bionic mods like claws and fangs and more.”
“How could the candidates survive?” Muzik asked. “I mean, they could use Edens but I don’t see them wanting commandos who will refuse to kill for them. They’d make great bodyguards but it’s the same old virtue effect.”
Repeth nodded. “Once I knew Bill was a Psycho, it all fell into place. I mean, what are the odds of a Psycho working there? They’re one in, what, a hundred thousand? He was hoping to become a Shadow. He still may be. Psychos are the ultimate survivors, willing to betray anyone. That’s what he did, and he will bide his time and make the best of things. That reminds me, we need to get him turned over to the intel folks and tell them how dangerous he is.”
“Okay.” Muzik made a note on a pad. “So these Shadows are cyber-augmented Psychos, you think?”
“Either that or they have healing nano. They have to have something to survive the procedures. The way he describes it they are stripped down and rebuilt from the inside out.”
Muzik tapped on his pad with a stylus, his brow furrowing. “Should we be worried, Jill?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“You hit them pretty hard there in Lorton. They have to believe there will be a follow-up operation to clean them out. In fact, off the record, there is. I asked Tyler to use his influence to get a cybercommando team out here ASAP and,” he looked at his watch, “they should be landing at AP Hill any time now. Tomorrow they lead an assault on the place, backed by armor and infantry to secure the perimeter.”
Repeth shook her head. “It will be too late. As soon as we got away I’m sure they were tearing the place down, sanitizing everything. They’re probably over in Pax River by now. I blew up Bill’s office and half the building, so I’m hoping they don’t know we got him.”
“Maybe. But if they suspect, do you think they will come after us here? Send some Shadows, try to break Bill out?” Muzik touched a key, then input a code into his computer.
“Hmm…anything’s possible, I suppose. You could put out an advisory, if you don’t mind letting the word on this get out.”
“It’s already out, and I already did. RUMINT is faster than flash traffic. And I had Bill moved as soon as you left the stockade, just in case. Did he say anything about Stone?”
“The Professor? No…”
“He’s a Psycho, remember.” Muzik stared at Repeth until the light bulb went on.
“He’s not a Shadow.”
“Not yet, maybe. But I bet he wants to be. That’s the connection. He’ll find his way to Pax River and sell his soul for that kind of power. And Jenkins will welcome him with open arms, because Psychos are few and far between. So when you find Stone, you find Rick, I bet. Assuming they’re using his skills.”
Repeth rubbed her neck, thinking. “How do you think they control the Shadows?”
“How would you do it?” Muzik responded.
“Punishment circuitry? I’d also put some kind of kill switch in them. A shutdown code for their cyberware that rendered them harmless, or even self-destructed them.”
“Sounds like science fiction.”
“We got there with Tiny Fortress and alien spaceships already, I think,” she said grimly. “I read enough sci-fi when I was younger. Gibson, Asher, Vaughn Heppner and B.V. Larson, guys like that. Cyberpunk and combat sci-fi. And it’s coming true.”
Muzik brooded, staring at his screen for a while before turning his gaze back to her. “How long before we’re obsolete?”
“Sir?” She seemed startled.
“How long before Edens become the new underclass? Against nanocommandos and Shadows with combat capabilities we can’t handle.”
Her eyes held his, gleaming, hot. She leaned over his desk, knuckles on its top. “Then I guess we get ourselves some upgrades.”
“Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing. I’ll ask Tyler if he knows of any combat nano that Edens can tolerate yet. I’m sure they’re developing it. In the meantime, I want you to work your contacts and see what you can acquire in the way of something to handle these
Shadows.”
“All right.” She leaned forward. “Sir…just a few hours ago you were waving me off. Now you’re acting like I’ll be in on it.”
Muzik poked the report copies with a thick finger. “This alters everything. You’re now the resident expert on this stuff, and your team has gotten the closest. So you’re now an advisor, at least. But Jill,” he went on, “I know how bad you want this. That’s what concerns me. I’ve watched you change over the past months, and I’m not sure I like it.”
She looked down at her hands, rubbing them together. “Understood, sir. It’s been frustrating, waiting weeks to be let off the leash while Rick is being…being…” She ground to a halt.
“I got it, Jill. But you won’t do him any good if you can’t maintain your objectivity. What did you tell that dog handler? Compartmentalize and get past it? We all have our demons. We can’t let them take control.”
Repeth looked sidelong from under raised eyebrows. “As usual, sir, you’re right. Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“We’ll get him back. And he’s tougher than you think. I know him better than you do in some ways, all that time we spent together in Colombia when he was growing up. He’d had to be strong to deal with the muscular dystrophy, and losing his dad, and leaving his country, living under threat for years. He’s still got that strength in him. He’ll survive, and he’ll be doing what he can to be ready when we get close to him. Have some faith, Jill.”
“God, sir, I want to believe that.” She stood up, rubbing her arms. “Thanks for the pep talk. We need to knock back a few beers together sometime soon.”
His smile was a sunrise. “Sounds good. Just as soon as things slow down.”
“Next decade then?” she asked lightly.
He laughed. “Get out of here, Jill. Get some sleep; see me first thing in the morning. Maybe we’ll have something.”
In the corridor outside Repeth saw Donovan leaning against the wall, bouncing his back against it with impatience. “What’s up, Corporal?” she asked.
“Uh, Top, kin I talk to you fer a minute?”
“Of course, Donovan. Let’s go in the dayroom.”
Once inside he shifted from foot to foot. “Ah hate to say this to you, Top, on account of ah really appreciate everything you done for me and all the times we been through, but ah jes’ don’t think ah kin work for you no more, beggin’ your pardon.”
Repeth’s jaw dropped for a moment, then she shut it with an audible snap. “All right…I don’t understand, but you gotta do what you gotta do. What’s eating you, Corp?”
“It’s jes’ all that killin’ we done, and…”
She nodded encouragement. “Go on, I won’t hold it against you.”
Donovan went on in a worried tone. “Well, the killin’…and you seemin’ to enjoy it. Ah jes’ cain’t abide it, Top. It ain’t in mah nature. It never was, really, and ever since you got me this here virus, ah’m even more sure. Ah was proud to go and look for Mister Johnstone with you and ah hope you find him and all, but if you can see a way clear, ah’d like to get that transfer we talked about. To Medical.”
Jill took a deep breath, then slapped the big man on the shoulder. “All right. I understand. If it’s any consolation – any help to you that is, I think that last mission gave me my fill of killing for a while. But I know that this is what you want, and thank you for sticking with me this long. Here, let’s go see Colonel Muzik. He’s a good man, he’ll listen and do what he can.”
And you know what, she said to herself as she brought Donovan into the Colonel’s office, it’s true. I found a lead, we have an objective, and we’re moving forward. I feel a lot better now.
But that doesn’t make it all right.
On her way back to her quarters she took a detour, to the field chapel set up in a small auditorium of the Mary Washington campus they occupied. Before the altar she knelt, pushed her PW10 behind her and began to pray.
She was there for a long while.
-9-
Rick came to feeling clearheaded for the first time in forever. He looked at his fingernails, felt his beard, but he’d been clipped and shaved; they told him nothing.
Rolling to his feet, he examined the place he was in, different from either of his former cells. This was a hospital room, clean, white, crisp, smelling of disinfectant. He wondered if that smell would ever be abolished, even with the Eden Plague making antibacterials moot.
There was a high thin window, too small for anyone but a child to get through even if the meshed glass was somehow removed. He stood on the chair to look, seeing familiar pastureland and trees. I’m still in the same place, he thought with something like relief.
Searching his door, he could find no way to open it, so he took to examining himself. There must have been some reason for his ordeal, the things they had put him through. He blushed with shame at what he remembered, and he felt an unwelcome stirring of desire. Forcing his thoughts away from Shari I want you he stripped off his clothing and turned the cold water in the shower up to full.
Shivering under the icy blast, he felt his heart race and his blood pound. Like a sonar ping, this pulsing sensation revealed things amiss in his own body. Reaching with his senses, he stepped dripping from the shower and stood in front of the mirror – a glass mirror this time – and looked at his own face.
One patch of oddness was in his right eye. He leaned in closer, probing at it with a fingertip. His Eden vision allowed him to move in closer and closer, focusing at a range of just inches, even to the point of seeing the end of his own nose in sharp clarity. More interestingly, he could see something within his right eyeball, a hexagonal matrix that hung behind his cornea like the wire mesh within his cell’s window.
Some kind of camera, or sensor, he surmised. That’s how they knew what I was doing. They did it that first night when I smelled the pine scent of the gas. But what else did they do?
Another oddity resided in his chest cavity. He located the thinnest of scars, something that would soon go away as all scars did in Edens, but it proved they had done something there. He had no idea what, but his guesses included tracking devices or transmitters, deadman charges, even a bomb big enough to turn him into a suicide weapon.
His left wrist pulsed also, and he felt a kind of nodule barely beneath the paper-thin skin over his tendons and nerves there. Digging at it hard bloodlessly popped the living sheath of his epidermis, and revealed a fine retractable line with a universal plug on it.
What happens when I plug that in, he wondered. More from speculation than feeling, he ran his hands over his head and was surprised to find week-old stubble. His head had been shaved, he faintly remembered, and assuming it was done only once, now he had a general idea of how long he had been under Shari’s care.
More importantly, he found traces of scarring there, too. He could see them in the mirror. They had performed surgery on his skull. What had they put in there? A hard drive? There was no reason for it to be in his head. It could just as easily be in his chest. What needs connecting to the brain?
Suddenly he knew. Pain and pleasure. Direct neural stimulation. Why hurt the body when you can go direct to the seats of reward and punishment, the brain itself? That’s what they did – push a button and he was immediately in hell or heaven: instant fire or orgasm or seizure or opiate dreams.
Even then he felt the lure of the rewards, the fear of the punishments. Academically he knew he might someday be rescued, but part of him didn’t even want it. Part of him just wanted to go find Shari and bow before her and plead with her for more, and more, and more.
The other part was horrified and sickened at this very weakness and at the fear and nausea, terrified of the pain when he tried to disobey and contemplated rebellion. Even now his stomach cramped and his head filled with a low humming, and fire began to run through his body, recalling his first treatment in the Burn Room.
They altered me, rewired me, he realized. I’m a cyborg now, with bionic implants and
nerves I can’t shut off, that force me to feel everything they want me to feel. But why? What do they want me to do?
Shoving the wire back into his wrist he watched the skin scab over and heal within minutes. Very convenient for covert work, he thought. It must have something to do with what they want me to do. Steal information? Plant it? And you know what, I’ll do it. He shook his head and tears began running down his cheeks. I’ll do it, because I can’t take that kind of pain. No one could, because there’s no way to run, no way to hide, no way to end it. I’m afraid of the pain, and I’m afraid I’ll never have the pleasure again.
Oh Lord, I’m an addict. That’s what this is. I’m addicted. They got me three ways – addiction, pain, and, I presume, death. There has to be some kind of deader mechanism inside me, probably big enough to destroy all the cyberware. I bet there’s half a kilo or more of C4 in my chest. Dear God, what can I do?
Outside in the corridor he heard footsteps, and the lock turning. He pulled on the teal scrubs he had been wearing, his only clothing, and sat tensely on the chair.
Shari entered the room, not in her lab coat but wearing a body-hugging red dress that showed off all her curves, and it drove him to his knees. He simply couldn’t help himself; his body betrayed him. From the floor he looked up like a dog before his mistress and a groan bled from his lips. “Please…” He was not sure what he was pleading for.
“Oh, Rick,” Shari said, closing the door and stepping over to him. “I missed you.” She caressed his head and he pressed his face into her body, clinging to her like a child or a broken lover, hugging her from on his knees.
“Please,” he said again. “Please…help me.”
And she did. Reaching a hand into her cleavage she extracted a pendant and pressed her thumbprint to the tiny touchscreen on it.
Rick cried out in relief and fulfillment as he was suffused with a feeling of love and caring and warmth that rolled in like a wave. It subsided into the background, and he found himself led to sit on his bunk, leaning back against the wall, eyes dull as a lotus-eater. After a few moments the feeling drained away, leaving only its afterglow, an imitation of intimacy that nevertheless felt real.
The Orion Plague Page 6
