BZRK Reloaded

by Michael Grant

  “If you don’t want him can I borrow him?”

  Plath was about to yell a heated “No!” But that would just egg Wilkes on. And anyway, it’s not as if Plath had the right to say no. And not as if Keats would ever say yes to Wilkes.

  “Don’t stay in there too long,” Wilkes said on her way out. “Scrub all you want: you can’t get them all.”

  Something you HAVE to see. That was the message Farid sent, using all-caps for HAVE, not his usual style, that. Farid Berbera was not a member of BZRK. Farid Berbera was a member—if you could even use that inaccurate term—of an older organization. Anonymous had been around since Farid was a kid. He was no longer a kid, although at seventeen he wasn’t quite a grown-up, either. Not in the eyes of his father, the acting Lebanese ambassador to the United States. Not in the eyes of his mother, the public relations assistant at that same Washington, DC, embassy.

  And truthfully, not in is own eyes, either.

  Farid Berbera, tall, thin, amazing black hair, unfortunate nose, and eyes like Sal Mineo—he’d had to look that up, Mineo was way before his time—was scared.

  Farid had once hacked the computers of the Food and Drug Administration because the FDA was stalling a pot-based therapeutic drug. That was not why he was scared.

  “Have to see?” ChickenSteak had written back. “If this is some dumb LOLcat . . .”

  Farid had hacked the computers of the American Cancer Society because they had supported the FDA decision. Also not terribly scary.

  He had hacked the computers of an online dating company that was selling confidential customer data, and the Randall–Georgia Institute for being anti-gay, and he’d hacked the system at Safeway’s corporate headquarters because …well, he forgot why, exactly.

  Safeway had not frightened him.

  But today, for the third time in as many days, he had hacked the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation. AFGC, best known for operating gift shops in airports. Also, however, known to be much more involved with weapons technology than with collectible figurines.

  He was intruding on AFGC because other hackers had made their way into the systems of the cult Nexus Humanus, and there had found a surprising number of connections—personnel and finances—between Nexus Humanus and AFGC.

  Why would a weird cult be so closely involved with a maker of snow globes slash missile guidance systems?

  Farid had expected AFGC’s system security to be tight. It was beyond tight. It was paranoid. It was not a surprise that no one had made it through before. Even drawing on the skills of half a dozen of the best hackers in the world, Farid had not made it past the bland public face of AFGC. Until he began looking at subsidiaries of AFGC.

  AmericaStrong, a division of AFGC, was a security company run by ex-CIA, ex-Special Forces types. It should have been the best-protected element in the system, and they were good, but they had grown a new problem: a link to a U.S. government agency, the Emerging Technologies Agency, ETA.

  And ETA? Well, they tried to safeguard their system, but U.S. government networks had been Anonymous’s doormats for a generation now.

  So it went like this: ETA to AmericaStrong, AmericaStrong to AFGC, and pow, kiss my ass, and he was in.

  And now Farid almost wished he wasn’t.

  He typed into the dialog box open on the left third of his screen.

  LeVnteen34: You guys seeing this?

  Of course they were seeing it. He knew they were seeing it. But did they know what it meant?

  86TheChickenSteak: That’s the SecState.

  They were seeing video. Remarkably bad video, distorted, gray scale with sudden flares of unnatural color. But that was indeed the secretary of state.

  JoeyBo316: That’s the Oval.

  86TheChickenSteak: Oval?

  LeVnteen34: The Oval Office.

  There was a pause at that before Chicken typed,

  86TheChickenSteak: Thefuckwhat?

  The video ended in static and jerky images. Farid opened a second video file. Papers on a desk. Some kind of briefing book, but the resolution was way too weak to make out individual words.

  A third video was from the point of view of someone standing at a podium speaking to a room full of people. The fourth seemed to be nothing but a blank wall.

  JoeyBo316: Like someone’s wearing a camera.

  Farid disagreed but didn’t want to embarrass Joey. The aspect ratio was all wrong for any kind of camera. But he didn’t want to prejudice their opinions, better to let them see what they saw, and react.

  It was the fifth video, more desk, only this time something happened.

  JoeyBo316: Replay.

  Farid replayed. He did it more than once. There was no getting around it: they were watching someone put on glasses. Not from outside, but from inside.

  From inside the person putting on glasses.

  86TheChickenSteak: Jesustitty. We’re looking out someone’s eyeballs.

  It wasn’t until they had dredged through many, many more videos—walls, desks, something that was probably a pillow, lots and lots of images so jumbled and low-res they were indecipherable—that they reached one of the most recent videos, the one Farid had saved for the end.

  It showed the recognizable face of Monte Morales, the first gentleman.

  Recognizable at least until two hands, a woman’s hands, pushed that face under the water.

  FOUR

  They did not have Vincent in restraints. The sedatives they’d obtained were working for now, and Nijinsky couldn’t bear having Vincent tied up.

  Nijinsky stood looking down at Vincent as Vincent stared at the butcher-wrapped sandwich on the paper plate beside the snack pack of corn chips.

  “You have to eat something,” Nijinsky said. Vincent sat in a plastic chair. It was one of those molded things with spindly chrome legs. The chair was beside a bed in a narrow room that held little else unless you counted cockroaches.

  Not a place to rescue your sanity, Nijinsky thought. “Come on, Vincent, have a couple bites. The alternative is a feeding tube, and no one wants that.”

  Vincent stuck out one finger. He slid it into the gash formed by cutting the sandwich in half. He stuck his finger into that gap and seemed to be feeling the edges of the ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato. It was almost obscene.

  “Here, let me unwrap—” Nijinsky leaned forward to pull back the paper.

  The growl from Vincent was like something that might come from a leopard defending its kill.

  Nijinsky backed up.

  For a moment regret found a way to show itself in Vincent’s eyes. He had serious eyes, Vincent, deeply shadowed by a thoughtful brow. He wasn’t a large guy—Nijinsky was taller—but Vincent always seemed older than his twentysomething years, more serious, more impressive. Vincent was a young man who tried hard to blend into the background but never would.

  Nijinsky—his real name was Shane Hwang—was a completely different creature. He was Chinese American, elegant, manicured, model handsome —in fact, actually a successful model.

  Vincent lost focus, blinked, looked back at the sandwich.

  “Don’t go too far away,” Nijinsky said softly. “We need you. We are in trouble, Vincent. We need you. I sure as hell need you. Lear knows it;, they all know it. You’re you. I’m not. And, so, listen, just try to eat.”

  He didn’t say, but thought: And I don’t want to be you, Vincent.

  He let himself out of the room and winced at the sound of the key as he locked the door behind him.

  The others were waiting in the shabby, depressing common room that Nijinsky hated. They all looked up at him. Plath. Keats. Wilkes. All that was left for now of the New York cell of BZRK.

  Forty-eight hours had passed since the disaster at the UN. Just two days since Vincent lost his mind and Ophelia lost her legs and BZRK lost, period.

  Wilkes had gotten out with a concussion, one ear still ringing, and some superficial burns. She was an odd girl and wore her oddness defiantly. Her right eye bo
re a tattoo of dark flames pointed sharply down to reach the top of her cheek. A gauze bandage covered a vicious burn on one arm. With a red Sharpie she had written fuck yeah, it hurts on the bandage.

  On her other arm was a tattoo of a QR code. If you scanned it, you went to a web page where a similarly defiant message waited.

  Somewhere much more private was a second QR code. If you made it that far, you might learn more about Wilkes. About a high school where the football team had been accused of rape. Where the alleged victim had walked through the halls of that school one night tossing Molotov cocktails.

  Wilkes. The name was taken from a Stephen King novel.

  As for Plath and Keats, Nijinsky kept telling them they had behaved brilliantly, especially given their inexperience. But the question hung in the air, unspoken, unspeakable: Why hadn’t Plath killed the Armstrong Twins when she had the chance?

  For God’s sake, Plath who is really Sadie McClure, why didn’t you just do it?

  Too precious to kill, are you, little rich girl?

  Then what the hell are you doing in BZRK?

  Don’t you know it’s a war, Plath? Don’t you know this is a battle for the human soul?

  Why didn’t you kill, Plath?

  And did Plath have the answer? She was asking herself that same question. What was she, Gandhi? Who did she think she was? Jesus? Saint Sadie of Plath?

  “Vincent’s not coming out of it,” Nijinsky said. “Who’s got the bottle?”

  There was a bottle of vodka next to the sink in the grim little kitchenette. It was frosted. They kept it in the freezer, usually. Keats was closest to the sink. He leaned back in his chair, grabbed the bottle by its neck and snagged a glass of sketchy cleanliness and swept them over onto the coffee table.

  Nijinsky took the bottle, poured himself about three fingers’ worth. He drank most of it in a gulp followed by a gasp, then a second gulp, and put the glass down with too much force.

  Hair of the dog, as the saying went. A little drink in the a.m. to take the edge off the hangover you’d earned in the p.m.

  You’re the wrong person for the job. Become the right person.

  “My brother hasn’t got over it,” Keats said. “My brother’s still chained to a cot at The Brick.”

  “Kerouac lost three biots,” Wilkes said. “And he was already half nuts.”

  “Screw you,” Keats snapped. “My brother was as tough as any man alive.”

  “He was,” Nijinsky agreed, and shot a dirty look at Wilkes, who retreated, sulking. “Kerouac was …is …the real thing.” He poured another drink, shorter this time, held it up and said, “To Kerouac, who is a fucking god and still ended up screaming in the dark.” He tossed the drink back.

  There was violence in the hearts of those in the room. Nijinsky bitter and furious and insecure. Keats damaged, resentful and wary. Wilkes already a headcase who had now killed and seen killing and watched Ophelia’s legs burn like steak fat on a grill and was itching for a fight.

  Plath saw it all. And she heard the unspoken accusations: Why didn’t you kill the Twins?

  “Jin,” she said. Just that. And Nijinsky at the sound of his affectionate nickname sucked in a sobbing breath. He looked down at the glass and carefully set it down far from himself.

  “I love him,” Nijinsky said.

  Plath couldn’t help her automatic glance at Keats.

  “Stupid of me, caring about Vincent,” Nijinsky said. “Loving him. And no, I don’t mean like that. I mean, if I’d had a brother . . .” He looked at Keats, who did have a brother, and there were tears in Nijinsky’s eyes. “I mean if I’d had a brother, if I knew what that was like, that would be Vincent. I’d give my useless life for him. And I was too late.”

  In a flash Plath saw what she had missed. She wasn’t the only person in the room haunted by What if? and Why didn’t I?

  “Maybe we could rescue Ophelia from the FBI . . .” Wilkes started to say. “She could …No one’s a better spinner than Ophelia.” She was pleading for a life and knowing better, knowing that decision would have already been made.

  “You’re talking about a deep wire,” Nijinsky said, not meeting anyone’s eye.

  “Yeah, deep wire. The deepest. Take some time and get all the way down in Vincent’s brain.” Wilkes sat up. “Ophelia could—”

  “Damn it, Wilkes.” Nijinsky was pleading with her. Plath could see that he was on the ragged edge. He couldn’t think about Ophelia. “Ophelia was the best.”

  His use of past tense did not escape anyone’s notice.

  Wilkes’s face twisted. It was like someone had kicked her in the stomach. She jumped from her seat and walked on stiff legs to the sink. She turned on the faucet and drank straight from the tap. When she straightened up her head banged the cupboard door.

  “Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She banged the side of her fist against the cupboard door. And then harder. Then both fists and on and on until it seemed she would beat her hands bloody.

  Keats moved smoothly behind her, imprisoned her arms, and waited as she cursed him and struggled madly to get away.

  “Was it us?” Wilkes demanded. “Was it us? Was it Caligula? Did Lear order Ophelia killed? Jesus Christ!”

  After a while Wilkes said, “Okay, blue eyes, you can let me go.”

  He did. She smashed the cupboard one last time and headed for the door. Nijinsky’s arm shot out, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. She struggled for a minute but finally collapsed, sat on his lap, and let him put his arms around her.

  He spoke past her spiky hair, his voice quiet, calm. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the news in the last hour,” he said.

  Heads shook in the negative.

  “The president’s husband is dead. Supposedly he slipped in the bathtub,” Nijinsky said. “I think that’s most likely bullshit.”

  “Why would anyone want him dead?” Plath asked.

  Wilkes was listening for the answer. For Keats it all meant very little: the American’s first gentleman was not on his radar.

  “I doubt anyone wanted MoMo dead,” Nijinsky said. “I think the other side screwed up. I think they’re having a very bad wire.”

  Plath was the first to grasp what he was saying. “You think she did it? The president?”

  “It has occurred to Lear,” Nijinsky said, pushing Wilkes off and standing up stiffly, “that controlling the puppeteer is almost as good as controlling the puppet.”

  “We’re going after Bug Man?” Wilkes said. Her incredulous expression hardened into a feral look, which in turn brought out an almost canine laugh.

  “If you can’t wire the target, wire the twitcher,” Nijinsky said.

  “When do we go?”

  “This is mostly on the Washington cell,” Nijinsky said. “But Lear wants us to be ready. In case they call for help.”

  “So we just sit on our butts?” Wilkes demanded.

  “No, we go. We go. As soon as Vincent can go with us,” Nijinsky said, and doubted the words even as he spoke them.

  The group broke up. Plath stayed behind just a moment to talk to Nijinsky. “Do you still want me to go to the reading of the will?”

  “You have no choice. It’s dangerous. But you have no choice. Caligula will have your back. You think the lawyer will co-operate?”

  “I know what my dad’s will said. But who knows? Who the hell knows anything in this world?”

  FIVE

  A rebel group: misfits, borderline personalities, freaks, and definitely geeks. Who signs up to fight when the choices are death or madness? No one joins a group calling itself BZRK expecting a country club. But among the far-flung cells of BZRK some were more conventional than others, and none was more stable, more normal seeming, than BZRK Washington.

  Their safe house was on Capitol Hill, the somewhat dubious residential neighborhood near the Capitol Building where the U.S. Congress convened.

  Fifth Street, Southeast, just off Independence Avenue. It was a narrow, two-story
row house painted a muddy maroon color, with dirty windows in cream-colored frames.

  But unlike their New York counterparts, BZRK Washington enjoyed a very pleasant interior environment. They had a gourmet kitchen. They had brand-new faux deco bathrooms. The plumbing worked. The heating worked. In summer even the air-conditioning worked.

  There were five bedrooms in all, each rather small, but all pleasantly if blandly furnished. The living room had become the common meeting room where the six members could lounge on comfortable couches or decamp to the formal dining room.

  There was a crystal chandelier in that dining room.

  The kitchen was small but very nicely appointed, with a sixburner restaurant-quality gas stove top, a double oven, and a massive Sub-Zero refrigerator that dwarfed the rest of the room.

  The kitchen was the domain of Yousef, who called himself Andronikus after the mad Byzantine emperor. He was …But it really doesn’t matter what Andronikus was, because as he stood stirring the couscous he had three minutes left to live.

  Four other members of the Washington cell of BZRK were also present. They were sipping teas and sodas—no booze or wine or beer: house rules—while waiting for the food.

  They had put in a long day narrowing down the possible locations of a certain Bug Man.

  Bug Man, they knew, would want to work within range of the White House and not be forced to rely on AFGC’s often-unreliable signal repeaters. That meant a half-mile radius for his base of action. Probably. No one knew for sure.

  But there would also be a separate abode of some sort. Living twenty-four hours a day in an office attracts attention from building management. So, two possible locations: an office near the White House and a hotel.

  They were running facial-recognition software on CCTV footage, but no one had a good picture of Bug Man. All they knew was that he was a male black teen. That would lead nowhere.

  But from Lear had come a solid lead. It seemed the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation had a long-standing corporate discount rate with Hyatt Hotels. If they had Bug Man living at a Hyatt, that narrowed it down to seven likely hotels.