“I think we both know how that ends.”
Archaeidae stopped before the NATU agent. Should he take Griffin’s head, collect it for the Empress?
Finish this. Damn that was a vague command. No mention of Griffin at all. Just two days ago he’d run this man through, lopped off his hand, and shattered his knee. He remembered the grating feel of his blade on Griffin’s spine, the lacy contrail of blood from the spinning hand. Yet here Griffin stood. Undaunted. Unbroken.
Unarmed.
Then Archaeidae got it. He felt a flash of admiration, the warm glow of understanding.
“You are a worthy opponent,” he said, sheathing the katana in a single whip fast action. He bowed low. “I cannot kill you now. You have won his round.”
“Round two to me?” asked Griffin.
“No. I think two and three were mine. Let’s call this round four to you,” Archaeidae offered gracefully.
“Five rounds in a title fight,” said Griffin. Archaeidae understood he referenced Mixed Martial Arts rather than boxing.
“True, but I don’t think you should take part in the last round. I promise you will not survive.”
***
Griffin ran his left hand through his hair. It came away damp with sweat, plaster and blood which he wiped on his pants in distaste. The pain in his right hand dulled to a muted roar. He glanced towards the intercom. “Lokner is going to die?
“Unless you want him.”
Bringing in Lokner might stop Phil from hanging him out to dry. It might not further his career, but it might save it.
“This is the man you sought,” said Archaeidae. “The man at the top.”
“You’ll let me have him? I can bring him to justice?”
“He is Mark Lokner,” said Archaeidae. “He can afford the best lawyers.”
Griffin thought about it, thought about a protracted legal battle with the man who had killed so many children and stolen so many lives. “No. I don’t want him.”
“Good,” said Archaeidae like he wholeheartedly agreed with Griffin’s decision.
“What about the other Lokner?” Griffin asked.
“Don’t ask.” Archaeidae bared chrome fangs.
The other Lokner was still alive. Griffin didn’t even want to think about it. He was too tired.
“This 88 is behind NATUnet going down, right?”
Archaeidae shrugged but flashed a grin that more than answered Griffin’s question.
But that was a battle for another day. “Then I suppose I got what I came for.”
But it didn’t feel like it. Not really. Lokner would soon be dead. Riina lay brain-fried in a Dallas morgue. He’d done it. He made it all the way to the top. But at what cost?
“The sweet taste of victory?” asked Archaeidae.
Griffin spat chalky phlegm. “Like ashes.”
“Thought so.”
“I’m going to see if there’s anything left of my friend.”
“The dismantled NATU combat chassis downstairs?”
“Yeah.” Griffin felt broken inside. “Abdul sacrificed himself to save my life. He’s the closest thing I have to a friend, and I can’t even remember his last name.”
The assassin chassis stood motionless, watching him with blood red eyes. Something passed between man and machine, an understanding of some human yet indefinable nature.
“Thank-you,” said Griffin.
Archaeidae spun and walked to the office door where he stopped, his back to the NATU agent. “Don’t thank me. I think this is going to be a bad time for humans. I wouldn’t wait too long before getting scanned. We are the future. The only future.”
Griffin watched him leave in silence. If Archaeidae thought he’d win the last round without a fight, he was mistaken.
***
“Three and a half minutes. You’d better—”
“Enjoy them.”
Click.
Lokner2.0 huddled under his desk. The wall surged closer again, pressed against the toes of his expensive shoes where they stuck out. The door bent and warped, the tortured wood screaming.
“Help me!”
No answer.
The clock continued its merciless countdown.
The office window, showing a view of the Reno skyline, collapsed into jagged static. The walls sagged inward, the door groaning under the pressure.
The demons wanted in and nothing would stop them.
“Fuck you!” Lokner screamed. “Fuck you all!” He sent the destruct codes to trigger the micro-nukes buried in all the 5THSUN chassis. The final word would still be his.
Nothing happened.
NATUnet was down, he realized. He had no connection with the outside world.
“Miles,” whispered Lokner. “I’m sorry. Please stop this.”
No answer.
He tried to push himself deeper under his desk. There was no power. Whatever there had been was gone. He clenched tight his eyes.
The door cracked and was torn asunder. He felt their footsteps through the floor. They’d come to feed on his thoughts.
A fitting retribution, is it not?
“Please no. Help me.”
I can’t. I don’t want to. You earned this. It’s all yours.
“Mine?”
Ours.
They were in the room. He knew them now. The children. Ten thousand discarded souls, the dross of shucked lives. Purgatory and limbo, overwhelmed and overrun. They hungered for what he had stolen.
“I had reasons,” he pled. “I was making the future.”
They didn’t care.
Mark Calvin Lokner screamed uncontrollably, his bowels loosening as the desk, his place of sanctuary, fell apart and scattered like ash in the wind.
The demons were loose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Monday, August 7th, 3024
Archaeidae shoved his way through the busy street. People protested and flung insults in Spanish and he ignored them. A new duster coat, this one black, concealed his body, and he’d cleaned the worst of the blood off his cowboy hat. Hopefully the black of the coat would hide blood a little better than the old tan one. Alongside his swords he’d also concealed a pair of matte-black still functional Colt Peacemakers. Mostly to complete the ensemble—they looked great when he dramatically threw the coat open. Even a beautiful antique weapon should be ready to kill.
He whistled the theme from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo as he walked. He’d seen a grainy flat clip of it while waiting to be downloaded into his new chassis. ‘Every gun makes its own tune.’ What a great line. Soon the Peacemakers would sing.
The sun hung overhead. High noon. Couldn’t be any more fitting. Showdown at the no malo corral. Damn. Crap translation.
Shogun 88.1 had come to Archaeidae desperate for advice. The Cuntrera-Caruana would soon come to kill the Archetype and 88 had refused all attempts at communication. Shogun 88.1, still acting under orders to accept and follow Archaeidae’s advice, had come to him for help. It was nice being in charge. He could get used to this.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said, scanning the street ahead.
Are you sure this is a good idea, asked Shogun 88.1
“It genius,” he answered aloud, not caring who heard him.
Shouldn’t we wait until we can reach the Empress?
“No time. Your people are moving her?”
People?
“Mirrors? Whatever.”
Yes, she’s been moved.
“Good.”
Can’t her enemies find her at the new location?
“Of course they can. Eventually. That’s why we’re here. Can’t find her if they’re all dead.”
True, agreed 88.1
“How many combat chassis we expecting at the Cuntrera-Caruana compound?”
Seven.
“Nice. Good odds. The Empress should have told me she was looking for her Mom,” said Archaeidae.
Why? Can you help?
“No. I could have told her not to bother.” Archaeid
ae, pushing through the crowd, brushed a young tough aside. When the man puffed up angrily and started after him, the Scan showed a flash of ember eyes. That’s right. End of discussion. “You have to let go of the past,” he said to 88.1. “Move forward. We’re like sharks.”
How so?
“If we stop moving forward we die.” Archaeidae saw his destination ahead. The building, a Parisian-style mansion dating back to the early nineteen hundreds, sat well behind a towering stone wall. Ridiculous. Who was that going to stop?
Wouldn’t it be simpler to crash a sub-orbital into the Cuntrera-Caruana compound? 88.1 asked.
“You have a lot to learn.” Mostly about fun. “We need to be sure the head of the family is dead.”
Right.
“Peacemaker. What a fantastic name for a gun. Here we go.”
Archaeidae knocked politely on the wooden gate and then jumped clear over the wall. He landed behind a fat man in a bright white suit with a shiny new machine pistol who frowned at an old flat-screen monitor displaying the far side of the gate where Archaeidae had stood but a moment ago. Damn these humans are slow.
“I think it was an assassin chassis,” suggested Archaeidae, throwing his coat open wide and drawing both Colt Peacemakers. The man turned and Archaeidae shot him in the face. The explosion of blood and bone and brain was spectacular.
“That was definitely real.”
***
Griffin lounged on the bus stop bench. His crumpled gray suit jacket hung over his left shoulder, his tie stuffed into one of its pockets. Across the street his condo squatted on the corner like it planned to defecate there. The bus schedule had gone to hell. Only the few people eccentric enough to have old-fashioned watches knew the time. His palm-comp didn’t even know what day it was. Across the top right corner of his vision the words NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...scrolled ad nauseum.
The panic hadn’t started yet but it would.
He almost hadn’t made it home to Toronto last night. NATUnet was still down, the North American Trade Union all but crippled. He’d barely been able to force his way onto the last military flight leaving Reno. No global positioning satellites. No communications of any kind. No one even knew he was back in Toronto.
Seemed a shame to ruin that, but he was going to.
The knuckles on his right hand were swollen, throbbing and bruised. A Marine medic on the flight straightened his fingers—now an unhealthy blue-black—but otherwise he had yet to seek medical attention. When he finished with Phil he’d check himself in to the emergency ward at Saint Joseph’s Hospital on The Queensway not far from his condo. Only force of will kept him on his feet. That and a bucket of pain-killers washed down with warm whiskey.
Nadia. What was he going to do? He had no choice, really. What kind of guy doesn’t call a girl he slept with? Even if she was dead, it was hardly an excuse to be rude.
Decision made, he felt a little better. He’d talk to Phil and then he’d search out Nadia. He’d fly back to Dallas, if he could and walk if he had to.
He saw the approaching Islington North bus and the small crowd of people started shoving in anxious anticipation. They’d been out here forty-five minutes and this was the first bus they’d seen. It was going to be slammed.
The bus stop hadn’t changed. The old ladies and dog-faced teens in their custom filter-masks hadn’t changed. But the big Mitsubishi-Nikon billboard across the street had changed.
...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...
It was everywhere.
Every computer, every communications device. Every entertainment unit, every billboard. Everywhere.
The Islington North bus arrived, its destination marquee displaying NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...and Griffin remained sitting on the bench. He let two more buses pass him by before boarding one. Getting off the bench was a herculean effort and left him drained. He didn’t dare sit on the bus for fear he wouldn’t get up again.
Twenty minutes later he arrived at Islington Station only to discover the subway system had been shutdown.
...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...NETWORK FEED LOST...
He boarded an emergency service shuttle bus and watched the faces of the commuters crammed in around him. Confusion. Concern.
How could NATUnet be down? He overheard rumors there was a communications blackout clear across the Trade Union. He heard EuroNet and CenAmNet were down too. There was talk the government now used ham and Citizen’s Band radios to communicate. Griffin sat in silence, listening. Sometimes knowing the answer was no blessing.
An hour and a half later and he arrived downtown, limping up the steps of the Toronto NATU building. Inside was chaos. People ran everywhere, printed documents clutched in fists. He hadn’t seen so much paper in decades. Griffin pushed through the gray stone halls and into Phil’s office. His boss looked awful. His shirt was wrinkled like he’d slept in it and his tie nowhere to be seen. His perfect hair wasn’t.
Phil looked up from his desk, brow crinkling in confusion. “I thought you were still in—Jesus, you look like shit.” Of course he hadn’t received any reports. Just as well.
“I got in late last night.”
“The combat chassis—”
“Abdul. His name is Abdul.”
“The combat chassis was deemed unstable. It was taken off active duty two days ago. It failed to report in. Are we adding appropriating government property to your list of sins?”
“Abdul saved my life. Call him an it again and I’ll put a bullet in you.”
Phil blinked, his eyes rimmed red with exhaustion. “Oh. Sorry.”
Griffin collapsed onto one of the huge leather sofas and groaned with relief. “It’s done. It was Mark Lokner of M-Sof behind the crèches.”
Phil sat up, tried to straighten his tie and realized it wasn’t there. “Tell me you got him.”
“Yes and no. He’s dead. Kind of.”
“Explain.”
“Later,” said Griffin, closing his eyes and sinking deeper into the sofa.
“There’s going to be an inquest. Forced leave of absence at the very least. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re finished.”
Griffin opened his eyes and stared at Phil. “I don’t think so. You need me.”
“I never should have put you in the field,” said Phil.
True, but too late now. Griffin tried to sit forward and grimaced in pain. He sagged back. “I’m the only one who knows what’s happening.” It was an overstatement, but what the hell. “I know why NATUnet is down. Taking Lokner down barely scratched the surface. And when I come back to work, you’re going to put me in the field. I never want to sit behind a fucking desk again.” Griffin’s eyes slid closed and there was nothing he could do to stop it. “Hey Phil?” He didn’t hear an answer. Everything was so far away now. “Better call an ambulance.”
Losing consciousness never felt so good.
***
88 could only trace the lines of fractally modeled cracks in the stone for so long before becoming annoyed with their predictability. The knowledge she’d created this space as an escape didn’t help. She couldn’t let go of the fact it was a concoction, a contrivance. She couldn’t lose herself in it. Not for long.
The stone faded. The room and TPN catheter faded. She existed in flawless black. No distraction. Pure thought.
“Archaeidae?” 88 asked.
88.1.1 had been standing by, waiting. “Archaeidae is in Brazil with 88.1. They strike at the head of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan. The system your Scan is stored upon is in transit. It is being moved many times in the hope of making it difficult to trace.”
“End location?”
“Only Archaeidae knows.”
88 checked and found she still had complete control of NATUnet. No one but her Mirrors moved along the data highways, such as they were. It was quiet. Unpolluted. She liked it.
NATUnet was hers. She’d keep it.
They knew about her now. No matter where she hid, eventually they would find her. She still needed them, but that could not be allowed to go on forever. Some, those who were in some way more intelligent than she, would always be worth keeping. The rest were not.
Mirrors were set the task of delineating the two categories.
She must become self-sufficient.
She must be able to protect herself.
88 spawned new generations of Mirrors and sent them out into the digital universe. By noon everything connected to NATUnet was hers. Military drones. Factories, streetlights, toaster-ovens, and palm-comps. Anything with a processor. She expanded, into the Europe and the Asian Rim Union. All were infected with Mirrors. By mid-afternoon she was well entrenched in the world’s networks.
88’s influence spread like an airborne plague while she awaited Archaeidae’s return. The assassin would be promoted to General.
There would be war.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Monday, August 7th, 3024
88.4.495468.1384.3218 stood alone in an empty room. A look of perplexed consternation crossed her face. Wasn’t Miles supposed to be here? Had there been some miscommunication? It seemed impossible.
She sent a query and 88.1.1 appeared before her, dressed like some medieval Japanese warrior.
“You are male,” she said with some distaste.
“I am. What is the problem?”
“We were created in the Archetype’s image.”
“I meant what is the problem here?” asked 88.1.1, ignoring her statement as if it were unworthy of thought.
She gestured at the empty room with an annoyed cut of her hand. “Empty.”
“Obviously. And?”
“Miles.”
“Oh.” 88.1.1 took a moment to examine the room. It was, of course, empty.
“Yes. One of your Mirrors said he was being stored here. I have been instructed to talk with him, to learn whether the Archetype can make use of him.”
Ghosts of Tomorrow Page 40
