And of course there are cameras here in the expensive lobby, and I’m not the only one with access to them.
The shooting starts almost immediately, a handful of guns emptying into the bears and dogs Brian’s brought. The firearms squads are on the move, because Thompson will use Bioforms to do his dirty work, but he won’t trust them. As soon as he knows his servants have betrayed him, he’s all vengeance. And he’s after the systems, too. He – or the controlling he at the top of the pyramid – is more than happy to kill off hundreds of his own selves if he gets us. I’m abruptly fighting him for control of the air, the doors, all the vital systems that keep Hell City alive.
And I can’t fight him. I literally cannot unpick him from his victims one head at a time. I cannot run the revolution as a handcrafted cottage industry.
I devolve the fight for the systems to Brian, Judit and Mariah, telling them to stonewall Admin as long as they can. I suspect Bees has laid all manner of little quirks in the infrastructure for just this eventuality and I brush aside the uneasy thought that her plan might have been quite the opposite – attack rather than defence. For myself, I…
Have a plan.
“Get me into Admin. Get Jimmy into Admin. I need direct access.” There’s too much flying about to let me do what I need to. I need the sort of priority that proximity brings, to shoulder my pure signal into the system.
Even as they’re hustling forwards, as we’re hacking the airlock; even as Judit’s dragons and the rest of the posse take on the Bad News Bears to clear the way; even as there’s fighting over the lock itself, guns inside against the Bioforms outside. Even then I’m trying to find another way. I do not want to do this. I don’t know how it will turn out. It goes against my principles and if there’s one thing my relationship with Jimmy’s taught me it’s that my principles are not the iron-bound things I thought they were.
Then Greer’s weasels come up out of the ducts inside Admin and take out the gun squad there, bloodily enough, and we’re in, and it’s time.
And I do not want to. They’re all staring at me, and they don’t understand what they’re asking, or what the price is. Like Bees says, action always carries a price. I don’t want to pay it. And it won’t be just me. It might be everyone digging in their pockets for the fare. I feel that Bees, out there in her own Martian base, is watching me with cool amusement.
We’re in, all the Admin access I could want, as Thompson’s puppets scatter and flee. But not far, and he’s still all over, a single entity across thousands of bodies, organised in a rigid hierarchy like a fascist’s wet dream. He won’t ever work with someone else by choice, even if that someone else is him.
So in the end, I have my choice and my duty and I don’t want either of them, and I’d love to stop and savour the irony but there just isn’t time. And so I access Admin as Rufus and Greer and Marmalade and Sugar hold the airlock against all comers. I’m coming for Warner S. Thompson. This town isn’t big enough for the both of us.
25
JIMMY
So there we are, inside Admin. Me, Sugar and her two bear pals, plus Greer and a bunch of his pals and… And Rufus and his posse, if you can believe it. Right there, close enough to pull Albedo’s whiskers. ’Cos apparently sometimes Honey can talk the talk. Which is just as well ’cos, this time round, the head getting a bullet would have been mine, not hers.
And Honey. Honey’s with us, obviously. Can’t goddamn get rid of her.
There are some Admin staff inside who got thumped and cuffed. Not Danny Boyd or most of the senior guys, and I reckon they were already off enjoying fancy apartments from their lofty view at the top of the human pyramid. Probably they’re on their way back right now. Outside, we can see a lot of movement. The cameras show us a bunch of people, just regular Hell City people of all types and colours of overall, and a lot of them have got some serious guns.
“So they send those shooters over as data too,” Sugar drawls. “Or you maybe reckon they were always planning to pop a cap in some Bioform ass, Sheriff? I mean, maybe yours, say? You know they had those?”
Rufus eyes her sourly. “Course I knew. What, you think the moment some bear-form goes crazy I’m the only line of defence?”
“Honey?” I ask because, hate her all I want, she’s still all we’ve got right now. “This plan of yours?”
“I’ll require a little time to set up, after which ideally things will either succeed or fail on their own. For the setup time, I need to be here in Admin with uninterrupted access to the command systems. Or at least the further away I am, the more difficult the data transfer and the interactions will become. It’s the downside of your Cloud setup here, I’m afraid, because there’s way too much traffic flying back and forth now that everyone’s become a neuron in Thompson’s brain.”
“But you’re going to be able to save them, right?” Meaning the self-same everyone Honey just mentioned.
“That’s the plan.” Which isn’t ‘yes’ exactly.
Then the first shot comes in and blasts a big hole in the arm of one of Greer’s crew, knocking the weasel to the ground. Didn’t slow none for the wall it just went through and now we can all feel the denser atmosphere whooshing out into Hell City proper. Shame, I was enjoying some decent air in my lungs. But it’s what they built us all for, so it’s not going to kill us.
We’ve all scattered by then, and the posse turn over all the expensive office furniture and make barricades with it. Outside we see mobs of people moving in, quite a lot of them, and of course there must be hundreds converging from all over the city, from outside, from wherever Thompson had them. We’re priority, now.
“Honey…”
“Still working,” she tells me. “Hold them.” And then, because Rufus and company have their guns levelled, “Nobody kill them! Suppressive fire, keep their heads down. All we need is time, Those are innocent people.”
“I don’t think you realise—” Rufus starts, but Honey cuts him off.
“Soldier, I was carrying a gun before you came out of the factory.” And then, undercutting her own drill sergeant routine. “Admittedly these opponents are all effectively Collared so they may not show the usual desire for self-preservation. Depends on how Thompson’s yanking his own leash.”
“Bears!” Greer shouts, and for a moment I think we’ve lost Marmalade and Murder, but he means outside. I guess the individual Thompsons have enough leeway to send in the cannon fodder first.
There are about twenty Bad News Bears out there, which I reckon means all of them currently out of the freezer, and they’re coming in full tilt, charging on all fours at a pace that indicates no doubt whatsoever that they can get through the walls and at us.
“Can we kill them?” Rufus snarls.
For a moment I think Honey’s going to say no even to that, bears with bears and all, but then she says yes, however reluctantly, and the posse brace for impact. Then follows the scariest fifteen minutes in my life, bar none.
I mean, probably you’re after a blow by blow. Moving the pieces about the war table, telling you who duelled who like King goddamn Arthur against Abe Lincoln. But man, I was hiding. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. And I was doing my part by bringing Honey to the table. If something happened to me it’d be game over. So hiding was my bit, really. A real and solid contribution to the game plan.
I remember those Bad News Bears bounced from the Admin wall the first time, though dust came down from the ceiling and there were cracks. Then the Thompsons had some drilling kit, the sort we used to break up rocks outside, and that opened up a hell of a hole and filled the air with dust like a solid sheet. And the bears came through that.
Just moments after that… Moments from when I poked my head above the desk I was hiding behind. I remember Marmalade and one of the Bad News Brigade tearing each other up, with Murder hunched about her bandages and watching from right behind. I think Sugar jumped up on the Bad News Bear’s back and began stabbing it, but to be honest there was
too much dust after that. I remember Smaug going down under one bear, and Rufus hauling it off, gun to the poor damn animal’s head and unloading, great low-grav spray of blood and bone through the thick air. I remember Rufus’s dog deputy almost shooting Marmalade, because in all that shit one bear looks like another. There were people coming in then, on the Bad News’ heels, just shooting everywhere. But then there’s stuff going on outside and I know Brian and Judit have arrived with whoever they’ve recruited, and I hope they aren’t just straight up murdering people.
And Honey’s been quiet, all her focus on whatever her plan is rather than, say, stopping the Bad News Bears, and that plan better be a good one because we’re getting swamped here.
I remember a bullet went straight through the desk I was behind and came this close to me not being able to tell this to you.
By then there’s so much dust you can’t see anything more than a metre away, and I have no idea how anyone’s still fighting or if they’ve all grown sonar like bats and it’s just me. Except of course the Thompson guys all kind of know where each other is, maybe, and in any event they’re still coming. They don’t know the plan any more than I know the plan, but they know we’re up to something.
And then there’s someone standing over the desk.
I look up, hopeful it’s Sugar, or maybe it’s Mariah. I’d even take Brian Dey right about now. Except it’s not. It’s a woman called Maybelline Strack who works the hydroponics most days. I know her mostly ’cos we share the same dealers and taste in pharmaceuticals. And I bet Thompson’s not been taking her pills but she’s been feeling all the kickback from that. Because it’s her face, of course, but not her behind the eyes. And she’s got a gun levelled at me. I feel a scattered attempt at contact from her: friend or foe, are you in the hierarchy? And I am not. Yours Truly is a rugged loner, not part of the greater nation of Thompson. Ergo, the enemy.
“Maybee,” I tell her, uselessly, but what else do you do, confronted with a face you know? “Come on.” But that punchable smile turns up on her face, that same smile that’s been walking around Hell City way too much, and she just about jams the gun in my face, wanting me to piss my britches before Thompson has her pull the trigger.
Thing about a gun, the kind of defining reason they’re so popular, is that they’re best used at range. That’s kind of their deal. You go jamming a gun right in someone’s face, that someone might go berserk and just grab it. And I am not saying I’m being some goddamn hero here. Not your man Jimmy. Except there’s a gun in my face, and there’s Honey’s talk about getting a gun to the eye herself as the last thing that eye ever saw, and something snaps. I’ve got a hand on the barrel and another on her trigger finger and we’re fighting for it. It goes off right by my ear, deafening – but the thin air means I don’t actually end up deaf. And we fight, and I find out Maybee Strack’s body, when used without due care and attention for wear and tear, is actually stronger than mine, so she gets a knee into my balls and then slams me back slantways across the desk, which hurts enough to take my mind off the first part. I’m still complicating the gun, so she does the slam again until I’m not. And I’m looking down the barrel again, a mess of pain and bruises, calling for help, trying to radio Rufus and Sugar and tell them I’m about to add to the general mist of blood that’s congealing dust out of the air and spattering every surface.
Maybee screams.
She drops the gun, which, thank you, lands right on my abused nuts. Even with that distraction I just watch her, because she screams and screams. She’s got her hands to her head, tearing at her hair, fingers leaving livid marks, nails gouging. And then I realise that she’s just the soloist to a whole chorus. There are screaming people everywhere. The fighting’s down to two remaining Bad News Bears that Rufus and posse are taking down brutally and efficiently. All the humans, this mob here, are screaming, writhing, out of control.
“Right,” Honey says in my head. “It’s on.”
Brian’s voice comes to us, from whatever foxhole he’s found for himself. “Bees say Mars gon’ dark, Honey. Nobody get in, nobody get out until this is sorted, understan’?”
“Understood.” Honey sounds… unhappy. The screaming is tailing off, though, one voice after another going quiet. Maybee is just standing there now, arms by her side. I wait for that horrible smile to come back, but she’s got a weird expression on her face instead, like… a real Uncanny Valley expression. Like she’s a mannequin put together by an AI that failed pattern recognition when it came to faces. The mouth is pulled wide, slightly down, and the eyes are too big. Like she was being a sad mime and got stuck that way.
I lever myself up. Everything hurts. The extractor fans are doing what they can with the dust, so I can see people as shadows, then start to recognise them. I see… bodies. At least a half dozen of the Thompsons that barrelled in got their hosts killed. I see Mariah, who looks like one of the Bad News Bears caught her. Smaug’s down. Greer’s down. I go over to him. Looks like he took a bullet front and centre, lips pulled back from his pointy teeth in a final snarl. I mean, he was one of my dealers. Seems weird to feel so cut up, but I am. And he came, actually came to save Hell City. I just kind of collapse beside him then, sit there, every part of me aching, put a hand on his cooling body. Want to cry but can’t because they sealed up my tear ducts and just gave me all these extra eyelids instead. Eventually Sugar comes over, her arm bloody, and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Honey,” she asks. “What’s going on.”
“Bees has taken over central control of the satellites,” we’re told. “There will be no beaming of data out of Hell City. No escape. And there will be no re-infection. Comms down until we’ve patched this vulnerability.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She’s eyeing all the people who are just standing there, and I see that same disjointed expression on all their faces.
“Don’t worry about it,” Honey says, and they all start moving, all those people. They just go, as one, like they all came to the same decision.
“Honey.” I mean, dry-throated is a given, with the dust, but my voice is a deathly croak right then. “What did you do?”
“What I had to,” she says, all business, speaking too heartily to cover up that she knows she’s done something terrible. “I couldn’t just unpick each instance of Thompson from the outside. It took too long, as we found with Sugar. And so.”
“You had better fucking clarify that ‘And so’,” Sugar tells her.
“And so it’s quicker and easier to just play him at his own game given that this is one ladder he forgot to pull up after him. I’ve uploaded myself into these units of Thompson’s DisInt network, overwritten him. And now they’re going out into the rest of the city to bring the rest here, and to set up other download hubs. And I’ll be doing what I can remotely, although it’s a lot of data and he’s fighting me in the system. Easier to get them here where the connection is better.”
Sugar and I exchange looks, and I am reminded that she’s already in me. She can march me off to join the revolution right now. And she can take Sugar over just like that. We don’t know how to stop her.
“Honey…” I say, and she cuts me off.
“Just until it’s done, Jimmy. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. You want our side to win, right?”
And I do. Of course I do. Only I’m not sure it’s our side any more. What if it’s just Honey’s side?
“What do we do now?” Sugar asks.
“Everything is set in motion,” we’re told. In fact, she’s telling everyone. “Over the next, I estimate, four hours, the battle for control of Hell City will be decided. It would be best if you continue to occupy Admin because if Thompson got in here he could use the system access to complicate things. Other than that, you may as well go home. I’ve got it all in hand.” She sounds calm, really goddamn calm. The dancing bear that’s making everyone in the city dance to her tune. I feel sick. I pop some Stringer. It doesn’t help. I feel like it’s never go
ing to help again. I just keep thinking of how she took that away from me, because she thought it was better for me. And probably it was better for me, only she didn’t ask. She just knew better, and did. And I know how much we, the good folk of Hell City, are fuck-ups through and through. And now each of us is going to get some free Honey, the bear that knows best. And once she’s saved us from Thompson she’ll want to save us from ourselves.
The one fragile crust of good luck right now is that I figure that’s us out of the game. No more fighting for the likes of Sugar and Rufus and me. Not like we can do much when the war’s going on between digital gods, right? I say as much to Sugar and she and Marmalade just kind of stare at me. Murder would’ve done too, if she hadn’t been sleeping right then, packed full of drugs.
“What?” says I.
“‘Digital gods?’” Sugar echoes. “You just pop a poetry pill with the Stringer, Jimbles?”
So I tell her to go fuck herself and they have a good old laugh at my expense.
Rufus, who’s more the task-focused type, has been trying to work out what’s going on, and he leans on Brian until Bee’s best bud calls up a big old 3D wireframe map of Hell City and tries to show us where the fighting’s going on. Except it’s not fighting and it’s not going on anywhere you could show on a map. Hearts and minds, right? Only this time it really is a war for goddamn hearts and minds, going on without the consent of the original owners. I still can’t get it out of my head, how it was when that bear was pulling my strings. And now it’s everyone, turned into the weapons for Mars’ biggest man vs nature showdown. And we watch the gold stain that’s Honey spread out into the surrounding red that’s Thompson and I try to forget that every part of both stains is people.
Bear Head Page 30
