by Chris Hepler
I snatch at the control stick on the instrument and jerk it aside. The monster turns. One foot strikes a slab, and it trips, yawing forward and landing with a screech of steel on steel. It quests about with its limbs and rises to its feet in some kind of automatic response. I let go of the stick in surprise. The drone stops utterly.
I have no idea how to drive it, so I focus on shoving Yarborough out of the booth. His limp body falls to the floor, and I hurry down after it, holding back the slung weapons as I run to Roland.
I can smell everything now that I'm close. Rotting flesh in the biobags. Burning hair from the furnace. Blood from Roland. He lies on the last F-prot, fallen and ashen, as though he's taken a bullet to the heart. I roll Olsen over first and see her faceplate shattered. The face beneath is nothing but blood and bruises—in desperation, Roland hit her with pure yin qi. He's lying back, too, but I'm grateful to see him blink. He's alive. For how long, I don’t know.
65 - RANATH
By the time Infinity reaches me, I'm trying to get my hand underneath my coat and vest. The shot missed the trauma plate and pierced the area near my floating ribs on the left side.
"How bad is it? Did the vest stop it?" she asks.
"PDW," I say, shorthand for a modern gun designed to defeat body armor. "I'm bleeding. Don't know if it's through-and-through. I hope it is."
"Kind of a funny wish," she says, helping me to my feet.
My back burns, and I suppress the urge to sit down again. "Bullets drag clothing into the wound," I explain. "I can't heal completely with leather in me."
She examines my back. "I don't see anything."
I claw at the snaps of my coat, then dig at the Velcro holding on the ballistic vest. I slough both off and hike up my shirt. Warm blood runs down my kidney area. When I touch my lower back, everything feels numb until I touch something hard. Shocking pain makes me wince.
Infinity leans over. "Let me try," she says. "I think I can grab it."
"What's it look like?"
"Flattened. Must have been stopped by the vest on this side."
I bite back a cliché about later and never, then clench every muscle. Infinity's nails deftly remove the bullet. It stings, but like pulling a tooth, it's better once it's free. But I bleed more.
"You stopped her takedown pretty well for someone in your condition."
"And your… bedside manner… is excellent," I grunt out.
"Infinity?" calls a voice, and my hand goes to the quiet pistol. Infinity's hand stops me. It's the vipe she called Deborah and, behind her, Morgan. His hospital gown is smeared with blood, and he's stumbling forward, carrying a bundle in his arms. With dread, I recognize it.
"Oh, Lord," Infinity says, "what happened?"
Morgan drops to his knees and puts one hand on the floor to balance himself. "Security," he says. "They shot her. I took care of it, but we have to get her out of here." He wipes his face with his hand, leaving behind a scarlet trail.
"What is this place?" asks Deborah, obviously in shock as well.
Infinity ignores her. "Jess? Is she alive?"
"No," Morgan says. "But if we leave her here, they'll dissect her. You know they will."
While the vipes confer, I fumble with my stimweb, jabbing in tacks. Immediately, I know I'm in trouble. I'm used to my body's energy flow when the stimweb is dialed down and crackling with it when it's dialed up. Now, I can feel it skewed, like a bike tire that suddenly has some spokes shortened so the new shape will never roll.
The thought of Jessica on one of these slabs disgusts me, but I'm in little condition to help. I can walk—maybe—but like any good chess player, I have to plan several moves ahead.
I can probably run out of the building before feeling faint from blood loss, but a drive to some other hospital will leave me maybe twenty minutes in which I can pass out behind the wheel.
"I can't join you," I say. "I need to stop my bleeding."
"You can't stay," Deborah says. "Every city cop with a radio will be here."
"Come on," Infinity urges me. "Don't be an idiot and make me choose."
I shake my head. Trying to explain what's wrong in terms of meridians will just confuse them. I go for a more Western explanation. "I'm in hypovolemic shock," I say. "I can stop the bleeding, but I need to use qi now. Let me worry about how I'm getting out of here." I cover my entry and exit wounds with my hands.
Infinity meets my eyes for a few seconds, and I think I see pain in them. It might be from seeing her friend on the floor, but then again, it might not.
"Roland, if you get caught here, you're dead."
"Infinity," I say quietly, "I'm asking you to trust me. Have I earned that?"
Infinity doesn't answer, but Deborah steps forward. "I'll stay with him."
"What are you talking about?" Infinity says.
Deborah pulls a flat, little phone out of her pocket. "I'm saying if I can get five minutes in here uninterrupted, I can start an upload. And then, I can show this place to the entire world."
For a moment, none of us speaks. Then, I nod. "If radios are working, cells probably will."
Infinity looks skeptical. Deborah points at the phone. "One bar. See?"
Infinity turns away, and snakes an arm under Jessica. The part of my ego that wants to believe she needs rescuing takes another beating as she manhandles a sixty-kilo body, rifle slung. Blood drizzles on the floor, but even as she has Jess hoisted on her shoulders, she has less trouble walking than Morgan.
"Morgan," she says. "Door. Now."
I watch her vanish, running out of my life for the third time. You'd think I'd take the hint.
66 - INFINITY
I run.
I go as fast as I dare, terrified I'll twist an ankle or a knee under the strain, terrified I'll drop Jessica—even though nothing can hurt her now—and, most of all, terrified I will get caught.
Fini.
Morgan lopes along behind me. It's still a good pace. We reach a window, and I bust it with the chair again. When the laminate holds it, I snap open my knife and saw at the film. The glass cubes rain down, and my fingers get cut, but no one and nothing is going to keep me back this time. In moments, we can leap to the street. I stop looking back when we reach the entrance to the parking garage. Like a horse getting closer to home, I sprint. Cass's truck hums its electric whine. Ferrero jumps out of the driver's-side door to help relieve my burden.
You can't change, Fini.
"Where's Cass?" he asks.
You get yourself in trouble, and then you run.
"Front desk. He's got to be surrounded. Deborah's… staying."
"So this is… Jesus, this is it?" As Morgan catches up, the schoolteacher hugs him, then wrinkles his nose.
"Oh, man," he says. "They not give you toilet paper in there?"
"Hello to you, too."
"How bad are you hurt?"
"The blood, it's all Jess."
I pull down the truck's gate and slide Jessica's body onto it. By the time I'm done, Ferrero has gotten a blanket out.
"I'll do it," I say. "Morgan, get in the cab. There's clothes in the back."
Morgan climbs inside the running truck. Ferrero sees me hesitate with the blanket. He jumps in and tucks it under the body. It's soon wrapped.
"We need to look for a hospital," Ferrero says. "I'll drive."
"Listen to me very carefully," I say. "Get Morgan somewhere safe. Nothing else matters."
"She could be resuscitated. They have technology now—"
"Fer, no." I speak slowly and harshly. "Get Morgan somewhere safe."
The other vipe blinks first. "Then, we go," he says and leaps down.
The cab's rear window slides open. "Where's Ly?" asks Morgan.
He's dead already, Jess said once. I needed to believe it then.
I stare at my friend and silence all the explanations I want to say. I can run from Roland or I can run from Morgan. I owe them both. They both trust me. I eat regret for breakfast, but tomorrow mo
rning, I'll choke either way. I couldn't protect Ly. Cass. Jess. Deborah.
You look back. That's the traitor's look.
"I need to go inside," I say.
"So, get in."
"Inside the building."
Fear grips Ferrero's eyes, then anger. "No, we are leaving. You put me in charge of the escape, I decide. You are coming with us."
He clambers inside the cab, and the truck takes off. The jolt makes me sway, but my balance is hardly taken even when Fer slams the accelerator as hard as he can. I wait as the truck tears through the parking garage, then choose my moment.
"Morgan," I say to him through the glass, "I don't deserve you."
The truck slows down to turn, and I hop over the side.
I hit the pavement evenly. The truck doesn't slow. Ferrero must not have been looking in the mirrors. I beeline for a door, hand on my slung rifle to keep it from jouncing. I burn across the sidewalk and hear sirens, more and more because it has been just too damned long.
There are two cops inside the door. One opens it for me, and it takes me an instant to figure out why: the uniform. While I'm alone, I can walk free.
I stride past them. "Olsen here," I say. "Going for the wounded."
And I'm not a traitor anymore.
67 - RANATH
I kneel on my coat among morgue tables, in the shadow of the gigantic drone. My hands cradle my wounds. Eyes closed. Lips pulled back as I push air past my teeth. Wounded people are supposed to lie down or stagger off if they can, but I can't think of myself in such mundane terms. To do so is to acknowledge that I am normal, and normal people in my situation have a very short time to live.
My first hypothesis is that my left kidney is holed. The drop in my water and yin qi is thorough. Without water qi, fire systems such as my heart will be unrestrained: it will beat like a triphammer and pump out blood until I lose consciousness. Western medicine would say it's adrenaline kicking my pulse into overdrive when I need it slow. Both are true simultaneously.
For an interminable time, I concentrate on losing my mind. My conscious thoughts will only get in the way, and no momentary impulses can worry me, or else I will be using the wrong tool for the job.
I did this.
The self, the ego and the I are weak little chisels compared to the hydraulic ram of the body's other organs, evolved over millions of years to survive, long before it needed to think about it afterwards.
"This is Deborah Shaw Hallet, beneath BRHI's Greenbriar Health in east D.C., and you can see here a number of vipe bodies."
Her voice is meek and far away, and I put it out of my mind. Your concentration is everything, a kung fu sifu told me once. If an elephant walks in the room, you change nothing. You do not think. You concentrate.
As I empty my mind, I feel my wound twinge with each heartbeat. The kidney's not hit. It's the renal artery, and the kidney is slowing its functions because it's starved of blood.
"I opened this body bag to show you the execution wounds. They're all like this. This is where they go, into the disposal. They have been disappeared, forgotten."
I register her words. Mistake.
Forced Protection was mine.
A yin organ is tricky to heal. Adding straight yin tends to weaken organs, and straight yang can overwhelm it. The solution is a yin-within-yang field that takes a half hour or more to apply, time I don't have. But an artery, that is possible.
They looked to me.
My hands hold back the red tide, and as power flows between them, the cells begin to change. First, the clots on either side of the artery, then a flush of the surrounding tissue in case the bullet punctured the intestine, which isn't that far away and can cause wicked infections.
I could die here, and it would be right.
The healing process starts to slip, my hands tingling as the energy meets resistance. But I don't make the mistake of tightening up and grasping at water.
Instead, I sink deeper, feeling for biofeedback that can guide me. I don't feel it but taste it—my saliva is foul and metallic. I amplify it, as much as I can stand.
I am the best magician left.
The qi between my hands lights up again, and some of the pain subsides. I don't know how long I heal. I know only that Deborah's phone vibrates, and she madly taps the screen.
I want to hear her voice.
"Did you get it?" I say quietly.
"Completely uploaded," she says. "Don't worry. I made sure you weren't in any shots. Least I could do, since you, uh…."
"I appreciate it," I say, with some effort. "You should run. I'll be here too long to be safe."
"Safe… is that a joke?"
"What I mean to say is you should try to catch up to Infinity."
"Okay," she says. "If we don't make it out… you were on the right side."
"That's kind," I say, and she disappears into the darkness. I don't watch her go, intent on the heat building in my body, fusing me together like layers of steel. I will be well enough soon, if only I can finish it before the cops' backup—
"Yar? Olsen?"
My eyes snap open, and I put a bloody hand on the pistol. As long as I can still bite, I will fight back. The emerald laser dot aims up at where I hear the noise and fixes itself on the centerline of a very familiar doctor.
68 - KERN
I freeze, clutching the cardboard-wrapped box. "Roland? What happened to you?"
"I get the feeling," Ranath says dryly, "that's not going to be your only question."
I see blood smears on the floor near him and no Yarborough or Olsen. Can I still turn and run? No—Ranath is too good a shot, stupid new haircut and all.
"Can you, uh... can you put the gun down?"
"First, why don't you put down that box?"
I hesitate.
"I see," Ranath says. "It's valuable to you."
Shit. I've got to move the conversation away from me, or everything will spill out in a rush. "You... did you cause all these alarms? There was a voice on the PA—"
"And now, you've waited until the shooting stopped to come find an F-prot escort," Ranath interrupts. "Now, what could motivate you more than survival?"
Time to defuse him. He's always been rational. I can use that. "Ranath, I realize you may be angry. But you should consider the proper target of that anger. I tried to protect you—"
"Put it down," Ranath orders, and I do so. The rodents inside scrabble.
"Mice," says Ranath. "Of course. Transgenics with human DNA to... let us see…."
He's thinking, not shooting. I can delay him. The police have to be on their way. Even if he takes me hostage, chances are good that he'll negotiate. He can go to prison or disappear for all I care—as long as he doesn't endanger the plan.
Ranath homes in. "Money got you up in the morning, but it was never your passion. I think those mice have some kind of potential. But you already have a vaccine. Is this a cure?"
He knows better. "Hardly."
"Interesting. That rings true. Elaborate."
"Ranath, you're a very intelligent person, but—and don't take this the wrong way—" His stare is as cold as the gun barrel. "You have the business acumen of a fifth-grader."
"Explain."
"No, you should know a cure isn't possible or profitable. You can figure the rest out."
No sooner are the words out of my mouth than I instantly regret them. The green targeting dot speeds upward, and it's shining in my right eye. I flinch—lasers can burn out a retina in seconds—and flail with my hand as Ranath keeps his aim true.
"Cut that out!"
"Explain," Ranath says again, but I turn at the sound of boots. An F-prot in uniform is here, but no shooting starts. I don't understand until the figure snaps its face shield up.
"Roland, time to go," says a woman's voice, and my hopes sink. It's Infinity. I drove those two together, of course, but that doesn't matter now. I have to deflect attention away, to make up something to try and occupy them, and where are the d
amned F-prots?
"We will not get this opportunity again," Ranath says, and I realize I'm going to be here for a whole freaking interrogation. "Dr. Kern is going to explain why he would risk his life for mice with a knockout gene."
Start with the truth. "The mice are expensive."
"Not that expensive," Ranath counters. "They have VIHPS?"
"Of course, they have VIHPS." I seize on the explanation to stall. "We can monitor their degeneration, their lapse into a coma when they can't be fed. They sometimes bite other mice, but they still fall apart without human blood."
"As fascinating as that is—" says Infinity.
"You're lying," says Ranath. "Infinity, pick up the mice. We're taking them."
"Wait!" I say, before I can stop myself. I have to keep Ranath and Infinity here, and I must keep them talking. "What do you care if VIHPS is cured?"
"Long story," sighs Infinity, but who cares what she thinks?
"I fell in love," snaps Ranath. "Now, explain the function of the mice before my trigger finger gets tense." The laser dot tracks down my body to settle on my knee.
I'm not sure what to say, thrown off by Ranath's off-the-cuff revelation. The Ranath I know doesn't date, mostly socializes with other men, keeps his mind in the lab and on the prey. As for the vipe, she looks confused, a sure sign he—
A bullet shatters my shin. The gunshot, the zip of the bullet after it exits my flesh, they echo endlessly as I go down in a heap. The pain blazes through me, and I writhe on the floor as if I'm paper curling in the flames. I'm screaming. I hold the wound with my hands, and oh, God, I feel bone fragments.
"You seem to be under the impression that our friendship has bought you time," Ranath says. "I have no time, but you have one more shin."
"It's a virus, damn it!" I yell, trying to take control of something, anything. "It's like any fucking virus."
"That tells me nothing."
"Viruses can be edited!"
I roll onto my side, holding the holes in my shin and calf. In my twisted position, I barely see Ranath and Infinity look at each other. If I don't talk, things will be worse.
