Archon's Queen

by Matthew S. Cox

  She lowered her gaze, catching sight of an orb bot with a red umbrella peeking out from behind a massive beige and brown vendomat. It cringed behind the thousand-pound purveyor of synthetic Black & Tan. She continued to watch the spot until the autocab arrived.

  As the car pulled away, the red umbrella appeared over the top of the vendomat, rising until the single lens eye came into view. Once it saw the car leave, it emerged and skimmed along the sidewalk above the crowd.

  Her whisper fogged the window. “Damn bloody thing’s after me…”

  For several blocks, the orb pursued. High enough not to hit or even be noticed by most pedestrians, it followed wherever the cab went.

  Someone’s hacked it. “Autocab, please stop here for a moment.”

  “Abort current trip?”

  “No. I need some air.”

  “Trip pause feature is an additional two credits. Do you accept?”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  The autocab came to rest along the edge of a circus in the shadow of an old statue. Other cars continued past as the AI in the taxi announced she had five minutes before it would assess another fee. The red umbrella zipped around the corner a few seconds later. She tracked it drifting, waiting and watching until it passed near a streetlamp.

  Anna’s arms shuddered as she lifted her palms upward and focused on the lamp. A jolt of power leapt skyward from the exploding fixture, wrapping over the orb and continuing into the clouds. Surrounded by flickering lightning, the small bot emitted a high-pitched squeal of distress as the umbrella caught fire and it wobbled out of control. People on the ground held cases and coats over their heads to shield themselves from falling droplets of molten plastisteel; the concussion of the detonating lamp sent many diving for cover.

  Its digital scream grew louder and the orb rocketed forward into a spiraling, flaming corkscrew that smashed into the road. A series of cars ran the fragments down, crushing the orb into progressively flatter and flatter bits. Anna glared at the smoldering junk in the street, watching the chaos no one connected back to her. She wondered if the little thing that showed concern for her had always been them watching her, or if the twinge of guilt at ‘murdering’ it was deserved. She slid back into the autocab, and pulled the hatch down.

  “Whoever you are, I hope that hurt.”

  Early in the afternoon, the main room of Bristol City stood quiet. It contained only Lawrence the bartender and shafts of dusty sunlight piercing cracks in the black-painted windows. The soft metal song of hanging cages creaking back and forth drifted through the air.

  Lawrence wagged his head at her. “Oi, we ain’t open yet. Come back after two.”

  Anna traced her fingertips across the round tables under each cage she passed, ignoring him.

  He came around the edge of the bar. “Hey, you deaf? I said we’re not open yet.”

  They met at the edge of a silver stage with three dancing poles. He got in her face, not yet ready to lay a hand on the small woman in the black coat.

  “Sod off, Larry. I got business with Blake.”

  “Pixie? Zat you?” He gasped, eyes roaming. “Crikey! You look so different… Oi wait a minnit, didn’t Sanjay give you the sack?”

  Two lights exploded in the rafters. She knew he meant fired, but all she saw in her mind was Blake’s naked paunch.

  Lawrence jumped away from the fall of glass and sparks. “Bloody ‘ell.”

  “Like I said, I got business with Blake.”

  He stared at the smoking electronics for a moment, raising his arm at her. “Look, Pix. You know as well as I do I can’t just let you walk in back. ‘Specially after you’ve been fired. Company policy and all, ex-employees might be up to no good.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely up to no good.” She flicked her eyes toward him. “Did you ‘appen to know of Blake’s video library?”

  “Video library?”

  Anna relaxed when Lawrence’s surface thoughts gave away his true ignorance of what Blake did to his girls. “He’s got a holo-recorder rig in his bedroom. He…”

  Lawrence slackened his aggressive posture at the sight of a tear on her face. He looked away, shaking his head. “I’ll beat that fucker to death myself.” He punched the bar.

  Anna put a hand on his shoulder. “No, Larry. It’s not your fault. I was smacked out. Too far gone to scream. I didn’t even know it happened until…”

  “If Old Bill asks, I never saw ya.” He touched her arm as she moved to walk away. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  “Aye. Safe as houses.”

  The coldness in her voice made him take a step back. He returned to the bar, muttering, calling himself an idiot for not noticing what his boss did.

  Double flap doors to the rear part of Bristol City opened without a noise at the urging of her hand. The air stank of desperation and sex, the grey carpet soaked in both. Crunching over flaked plaster, she stalked the corridor.

  Those doorways reminded her of being dragged by a fistful of hair. A dislodged tile in the drop ceiling made her remember where she had stumbled and been encouraged along by his police baton. The water cooler she had fallen into still lay on the floor in the corner; no one had bothered to clean it up.

  The women’s dressing room was open and empty. Blake had removed the door long before she had started there. The shower tubes, benches, and lockers sat idle; none of the girls would even be awake at this hour. Anna swallowed the nausea climbing the back of her throat, searching for the one thread of dignity Doctor Mardling had extended for her to grasp.

  A shriek came from behind Blake’s door. The gold plate bearing his name brought back the feeling of him using her face to open it. She clasped the knob, trying to sort out if the female screams sounded like participant or victim. The creak of the door drowned below the sounds of sex happening behind it.

  One of the new girls cried out in rhythmic squeaks with Blake’s motion. He held her by a black cord binding her wrists behind her back as well as a handful of candy-red hair. The girl’s surface thoughts did not contain the panic of an unwilling participant, though she prayed it ended sooner rather than later.

  Anna glanced at the amber threads spreading across the walls, wherever power ran behind the cheap veneer. She found six cameras; their connecting lines all led back to one device concealed in the nightstand.

  She flung her arms to the sides and the walls came alive with sparks creeping like great crackling azure spiders around the room. Wires flamed out of the fake wood panels, holo-cams burst into showers of orange flecks and debris, and the nightstand jumped back against the wall with a deep boom before black smoke belched through disjointed doors.

  In the aftermath, the only light came from a single beam of sun sneaking through a gap in heavy crimson curtains. The woman screamed as the electrical arcs scuttled around, trying to get her hands loose.

  Anna remained in the doorway, her voice cold and lifeless. “Still looking for that raise, Bree?”

  Blake shimmied backwards off the bed, turning on her with an angry glower. “What the fuck are you doing here, bitch? Your strung-out ass ain’t wanted. You got exactly three seconds to get out of my face before―”

  She did not move, or even look at him. “Before what, pig? You rape me again?”

  Bree nodded her hair off her face. “Pixie? Is that you?”

  “Get out of here, Bree. You don’t want to watch this.”

  Blake pointed at the redhead. “Sit still, whore. We ain’t done yet.”

  The sound of an explosion came through the ceiling as one of the air-handlers outside on the roof suffered for his words. Bree squirmed, staring at the stained drop ceiling above the bed.

  “This is gone pear shaped, Mister Blake. I wanna leave. Somethin’ ain’t right. Cut me loose.”

  He stared through the hazy smoke. The taste of scorched electronics settled on Anna’s tongue. She met his converging eyebrows without blinking.

  “I saw the holovid, shitsack. I know what you did to me.”r />
  “Holovid?” Bree grimaced as she fought harder to wring her wrists free. Arousal became mortification; she tried to cover herself with her leg. “You’re recording us?”

  Anna glanced at the charcoal lines on the walls, her gaze settled on a scorched hole where one of the cameras had been. “Not anymore.”

  The nineteen year old turned her back on him. “Mister Blake, please untie me.”

  He palmed her head and shoved her face-first into the pillows. “I said we ain’t finished yet. After I deal with this hag, you’re gonna finish up.”

  Blake snatched his police truncheon from the bureau. Bree tried to run when he leaned away, but he hauled her back onto the bed and brandished the weapon at her. The young woman lapsed into bawling. He whirled on Anna. When he raised the club over his head, lightning pooled around her shoulders, spiraling around her outstretched arm, and nailed him in the gut. He flew off his feet and landed on the bed, twitching and gurgling. Trapped under his girth, Bree screamed.

  Anna stooped and picked up the baton. Glancing between the smoke wisping off the end and the undulating mass of flesh, she shook her head and threw it to the side.

  “Compensating much?”

  “Pixie, please don’t hurt me.” Bree thrashed trying to get out from under him. “Please, he said I had to sleep with him or they’d sack me.” She broke into uncontrollable sobs.

  No wonder Blake had it in for me. I told him to go fuck himself.

  “Bree?”

  “Yes?” she sniffled.

  Anna patted her on the head. “As soon as he’s off you, run and don’t look back. I’d appreciate it if you kept what’s happened here our little secret.”

  The younger girl nodded. Blake shook his head in a search for coherence as his eyes refocused. When he saw Anna, he roared and rolled to his feet. She had little difficulty avoiding him. His clumsy lunge embraced the desk; ripples undulated through his pounderous buttocks and back. Stacks upon stacks of holodisks in small clear cases fell to the ground in a waterfall of porn.

  Bree scrambled to her feet, running out of the room after bouncing off the doorjamb. Blake recovered, climbing the desk to get back to his feet. Memory chips and an errant holo-disk case adhered to his gut as he faced her. He heaved great breaths, staring as the stuff clinging to him unstuck and fell one at a time.

  “You cost us―”

  Another bolt of lightning launched the fat man against the wall; he bounced off the desk, bending it, and rolled to a halt on the rug with smoke peeling from his head.

  “I’m not going to allow you to even attempt to justify what you did.”

  Twitching hands clutched at the hair on his chest as he tried to move. Tiny sparks rippled along his face, arcing across the thread of drool between his lips. She jolted him again, causing a scream to bubble through thick fluid in his throat. He tried to say something but managed only a weak whimpering gasp.

  “I’d considered torturing you until you begged for your life, but I’m a bit pressed for time.”

  Lightning wound up her legs, threaded across her chest, and shot down both arms into Blake’s mountainous belly. She leaned into the effort, feeling fatigue crawl through her as she opened the floodgates of rage and sent it flowing out into the world. He clawed at the rug for only a second until his body flopped about in uncontrolled spasms. Self-generated power lent a metallic taste to the air, but was not enough to kill. She beckoned to the flow in the wall wiring, causing a great arc to burst through the paneling. It crackled over her twice, a great blinding whip. Anna pulled the electricity across her skin, forcing it down her arms and into the wretch before her in a long, sizzling discharge that melted a gash in his belly. Foam sprayed from his mouth, his eyes exploded, and the scent of burnt meat filled the air. A charred hole yawned from his chest.

  When the flickering blue ended, Anna slumped against the doorway. One droplet of sweat fell off the tip of her nose.

  “So, Blake? Was it good for you?”

  he countryside flashed by in waves of green and brown. On a real road, among the sparse traffic of the hour, she had taken the bike up to a hundred and ten without even thinking about it. She weaved around a handful of autocabs ferrying commuters out of the city as well as the occasional lorry packed with hydroponics and armed guards. Few people in London owned personal cars anymore. Anyone with a NetMini could call a ride within minutes, even out in the middle of nowhere.

  Anna dwelled on the image of fire licking at small round mirrors as it devoured the mound of holodisks. She had ignited the carpeting, destroying the recorded shame of countless damaged women. She did not much care if Larry was able to put it out before the whole club went up in flames; even if he did, it would look like the overburdened electrical system had finally called it quits.

  Every so often, she glanced at the display between the handlebars, watching her location update on the NavMap. The spot Mr. Orange had located drew ever closer. Fifteen minutes after turning off the main road, the silhouette of a giant farm complex slipped out from behind a hill against the reddening sky.

  The sun sent shimmering waves over the countryside as it sank into the horizon. She had so seldom been away from the decaying old city, the grass, trees, and fields glimmered like an alien landscape. When the magic wore off, she dismounted and leaned the bike against a tree.

  The farm complex no longer served as such; rows of hundred meter long hydroponic tanks, stacked six high, sat idle. The robotic arms that used to tend them had not moved in at least a decade. Orange’s data said the CSB had appropriated this facility eight years ago, using it as a prison for criminals with too much augmentation for standard jail. The only lucky break was that they seemed to staff it with regular army. Only a handful knew it was a CSB installation.

  Anna sat on the hillside; arms folded over her knees, she sulked. The House of Lords deemed forcible removal of cyberware unethical from individuals not officially declared insane or incompetent. They were so concerned about the rights of killers, but they would let the government put bombs in the heads of innocent psionics. Hardliners even advocated rounding them, and their families, up and shipping them off world.

  No wonder her father hated her; she could have gotten him killed. Anna shivered, trying to stop seeing his face the moment she’d electrocuted him. He had thought her power a mere annoyance. “I’m sorry, Dad. I couldn’t stop myself.”

  Her pity train screeched to a halt with the sound of Doctor Mardling’s voice. She imagined him chiding her for going down such a path, telling her a father should have shielded and protected his child from the government. No real father would have thrown her to the wolves, or punished her for her greatness.

  She smiled through tears, trying to forget the awful video. Thoughts of James pushed themselves over her mind, filling her with a sense of contentment. Her father’s horrified face morphed into James’s, smiling and surrounded by a faint golden aura. The horror melted away from her heart as she became distant from that memory, from the kitchen full of smoke and the smell of scorched flesh. James’s smile broadened. She felt like a real person.

  Shame crashed on her with the sound of Blake grunting. She fell to the ground as if his cheese-scented mass crushed her to the Comforgel pad. Anna mused about asking James to take that memory away from her. Her jaw tightened.

  I don’t want him to see me like that.

  Anna fought out from under the emotional burden, and clutched her wrist. Zoom would make the awful memory of that video go away. Seeing it from the outside would make it easy to think it was someone else, someone other than her. The Pixie was not her anymore; it could all be a nightmare.

  No. She spat and swallowed the urge to throw up. I’ll not be any good to Faye or Penny if I get high again. That meant dealing with pain, not running from it any more. She covered her face in her hands, breathing until she calmed down. All she thought about was how terrified Faye must be. Everything wrong with my life can wait.

  She took a tiny electron
ic bud from her pocket and snugged it into her ear. She winced at the insect-like sensation of the cold metal moving, adjusting its shape to fit without gaps. An electronic tingle spread over the side of her head with Mr. Orange’s voice as loud as if he stood inches away. It required no microphone, picking up the vibrations in her skull.

  “Signal’s good, Pixie.”

  “Call me Anna.”

  “Nathan.”

  “Hello, Nathan. Just sitting here until the sun goes down.”

  His voice carried a smile. “Understood, Anna.”

  While waiting for darkness, she observed a dozen men in grey uniforms and black-visored caps patrolling the outer perimeter. Most were on foot, but one had a six-wheeled rover bearing a mounted cannon. Aside from the men in military garb, the complex maintained an innocuous appearance that would cause anyone passing on the road to disregard it as yet another abandoned farm.

  By the time the sun went behind the western horizon, she had gotten a fair sense of their pattern. Her jog down the hill slowed as she felt something in the air.

  “I’m sensing a field at the outskirt.”

  “One moment…” His voice sounded different; grim and deep, it carried a hint of a Japanese accent.

  “What happened to your voice?”

  He laughed. “I’m in the net now; it’s my avatar modulation. Does it bother you?”

  “No. Caught me off guard is all.”

  “It’s a trigger field for explosive restraints. I bet the auggies have bombs around their necks or put inside them.”

  Anna advanced, chilled silent by the thought of it. Fifteen meters later, he told her to wait.

  “Okay, that’s got it. Just nixed the thermal sweep on this sector and replaced most of their security monitoring with a four-second loop of empty space. Go in 3…2…now.”

  She darted ahead, bounding through the grass down a long slope before she reached a metal fence.

  Electrified, cute.

  Anna leapt onto it without hesitation; her power guided the current across her skin without harm. By the time she leapt to the ground inside, the charge had made her feel as though she’d drank an entire pot of coffee.