…but all Daddy did was make things worse. He drove Aunt Valentine away, and he almost let loose the Institute’s secret, and Rainbird could have made them all safe except that stupid Daddy didn’t want any cops killed.
You’re afraid Daddy will hate you, that older voice said. You’re afraid if you show him what a murderer you are, he won’t love you.
What about Mommy?
Mommy wants to kill you.
“Shut up!” Aliyah screamed, grabbing her Nintendo DS. She hated the Nintendo DS. It was a baby game, meant for stupid kids, yet she couldn’t do ’mancy without it.
She wasn’t a kid. She was a videogamemancer. She could hurt people. Lots of people.
Rainbird waited for her in the lobby. “Mr Payne has acquired a name.” He thrust a form into her hands, with a single name typed neatly: Lucas Cournoyer. “Find this man.”
Aliyah fired up her quest map – which was now CtOS, the map you used in Watch Dogs.
Aliyah didn’t like Watch Dogs much.
At first she had. Valentine’s game was like every Grand Theft Auto knock-off – you were a dude with a gun running around a city, jacking cars, running over all the pedestrians. She laughed. But then she realized Watch Dogs had one difference:
All the pedestrians had names.
You had to look the names up with CtOS, but there they were: Ethan Fitzimmons, Doris Shaftsbury, Helen Tomlinson, Luis Damilo. They each had little dollar signs telling you how much they made, so you could hack into their bank accounts, but…
…there were also little facts about them.
Not much. “HIV positive.” “Illegal immigrant.” “Illiterate.” Barely a sentence. Just enough for Aliyah to wonder who these people might be, if they didn’t exist for her to kill.
Because when she killed them, the names blanked out. You couldn’t know anything about a corpse, and now when Aliyah saw a body in Watch Dogs’ streets she wondered what she could have learned about that person.
Rainbird had been driving for an hour, tracking down the name on the paper with Aliyah’s help, before Aliyah finally asked. “Who is this?”
Rainbird sighed in a plume of superheated smoke. “That is Oscar Gargunza’s most well-supplied enemy. Mr Payne had to sort through many conflicting reports to find it.”
“Why?”
Rainbird removed his cigar from his mouth, the closest he came to expressing surprise. “Don’t question Mr Payne. I may explain things to you, but Mr Payne’s authority is not to be trifled with.”
“Duh. Now tell me.”
“A good soldier never fights someone head-on when he can enlist someone else to do the dying for him. We impress upon Mr Cournoyer that we can find his enemy for him, and he will do the work for us.”
“So Oscar goes away.”
“Yes.”
That was good. And bad. Oscar made Daddy do stupid things. And Mr Payne hated, hated, hated Oscar. Everything would be fine if it wasn’t for Oscar, at least as far as Mr Payne was concerned.
But someone would have to kill Oscar to make him go away. Aliyah knew that much. Oscar didn’t let things go. He was almost as obsessed as ’mancers.
“You are not to tell your father,” Rainbird snapped. “This is our secret. We are meeting to see if Mr Cournoyer is willing to serve as our executioner. Do you understand?”
Maybe you should talk to someone.
“Duh,” Aliyah repeated. That twist of guilt, floating in her stomach.
That guilt made her want to hit someone so bad.
They pulled up across the street from a compound. Aliyah knew the word “compound” because Rainbird had made her play violent military games. This place could have been pulled straight from a Call of Duty level; a barbed-wire fence surrounding a warehouse with all the windows blocked over, with guards walking around out front. They weren’t obvious guards, pretending to be guys having a smoke, but they watched Rainbird’s car roll up like they were ready to shoot.
“He’s checking his shipment’s quality control.” Rainbird pulled on his fiery mask, gave her one of Payne’s risk-control badges. “All his guards are here.”
Aliyah clasped the badge against her chest like Rainbird taught her, muttered thanks to Mr Payne. “What do you want me to do?”
“They’re NPCs.” Rainbird poked his cigar in their direction. The guards headed towards their car, reaching into their jackets. “Get violent.”
He wanted her to go nuts.
She liked going nuts.
Aliyah kicked the car door off its hinges, bowling the guards over. A handful dodged, unloading their guns at her – but Aliyah emerged as Kratos, the God of War himself, the bullets sparking off the Hell-forged chains wrapped around her wrists. She flicked her hand and the curved daggers lashed out, smashing them in the gut, knocking them back into the fence so hard the chain links crumpled around them.
Rainbird fought back.
These guys were tissue paper.
Aliyah ran up to the front gate, which was locked, and after a brief QuickTime event where buttons flashed into existence over her head, she yanked the gate off.
Rainbird trailed behind her, taking contented puffs on his cigar.
More guards rushed out, firing machine guns at her, but her ’mancy was strong and all the flux poured into Mr Payne’s badge, and it felt so good to see the men scared of her, running away as she bashed them again, and it was OK to hurt them because these weren’t people, they were NPCs.
The pathway led her to the target: Lucas Cournoyer, a pudgy French man in a fine suit, surrounded by three burly men. They huddled around a crate of fine white powder – that’s what cocaine looks like, Aliyah thought – and she flicked the bodyguards’ bullets away before punching them through the walls.
“Good work, Hotplate,” said Rainbird, picking his way along the twitching bodies.
“Who- Who are you?” said Lucas Cournoyer, peering out from behind a crate.
“I’m a friend,” Rainbird said jovially – though even Aliyah flinched when his burning-tree mask crackled open in a rough-knotted smile. “We have common enemies. Your enemies, however, have ’mancy. I’ve taken some photographs of Mr Gargunza to show you how easy it would be for us to remove your opponents for you… but we’d need something in exchange. Shall we talk?”
Mr Cournoyer was pretty slick, Aliyah thought; he nodded, once, then bowed to invite Rainbird back to his office for wine and negotiations. Aliyah followed, but Rainbird stopped her.
“These are private negotiations,” Rainbird told her. “What I discuss with Mr Cournoyer is between him and our leader.”
“But I–”
“You know this is how you keep a righteous man safe: by keeping him far away from unpleasant truths.” Rainbird looked around at the groaning guards. “Don’t fall to your father’s weakness; stay here and ensure no one causes trouble.”
Aliyah wanted to sneak-listen in on Rainbird. But Rainbird always knew when she was coming. And Daddy was in enough trouble with Payne.
That’s when she noticed all the blood.
In the games, the bodies vanished when you stopped paying attention to them. But the guards here – they coughed, bit back screams. The men she’d tossed through the walls lay limp on the other side, their limbs twisted into painful angles, the people well enough limping over to them to try to help. They struggled to breathe through broken ribs.
These are NPCs, Aliyah reminded herself, trying not to look them in the eye as the remaining guards dragged the unconscious ones away from her, as though she was some terrible, terrible thing.
She’d wanted to be a threat.
Why was being scary so awful?
There was one guard, a slim black man, whose chest hitched. She reached out, grasping the CToS from Watch Dogs to get more information on him:
* * *
Malik “Pee Wee” Reles:
• Got into gangbanging to pay for his Gramma’s nursing home bills
• Goes to night school in t
he hopes of getting out of the game
• Major: Accounting
• Survival Prognosis: 35%
Aliyah looked at the tiny man bleeding to death on the floor. He looked back at her, eyes wet with terror – terror of her, terror of dying, terror of what would happen to his Gramma without him.
“You’re an NPC.” Aliyah clapped her hands over her face. “You’re an NPC.”
Do you want to be the person who does that?
Maybe you should talk to someone.
Thirty-Nine
Deadly Loyalties
Paul woke, as he always did, to Aliyah curled up next to him.
She twitched in her sleep, whimpering; he held her against his chest to calm her down. After everything he’d done to her, he was still grateful his presence comforted her.
And she’d been clingy lately. She refused to go to sleep until he did, then slept far later than him. Which wasn’t what he thought of as “normal” when it came to eight year-old girls.
But what was normal? She was a ’mancer. She was a burn victim. She’d killed someone in self-defense. Payne’s therapists assured him Aliyah’s behavior was normal, and this clinginess was just a phase, but... how would they know? As far as Paul knew, Aliyah was unique in all the world.
He did know he had to calm an increasing number of nightmares. Even though she went to bed when he did, she slept in far later, sometimes until noon. And even then she stole Red Bulls from the vending machines to stay awake.
Was doing ’mancy with all the other hothouse ’mancers that draining?
He’d tracked her sleeping patterns, a suspicion he disliked in himself. He knew she sometimes snuck off to play videogames while he slept – that much he’d figured out from the night Valentine had woken them all. Doubtlessly Aliyah had stolen violent videogames from Valentine’s room, which was where she’d picked up that awful God of War skin.
Maybe that was where the nightmares came from. He’d looked through her games. He’d thrown all the bad ones out and lectured Aliyah, who remained stone-faced.
In her sleep, though, Aliyah’s face flickered between terror and deep concern.
Paul held her tighter. She seemed reluctant to be with him in public, refusing to hold his hand – who could blame her? He was the Institute’s pariah – yet in private, she drank up his embraces, never letting him go.
He pushed his nose into her tangled hair, smelling her little-girl scent.
His phone buzzed, reminding him the meeting with Mr Payne was in an hour, so Paul darted off to shave and put on a nice suit. But by the time he knotted his tie, Payne rapped upon his office door.
“All right, Paul,” Payne said, strangely jovial. “I’ve confirmed the hematite is in place. Your laboratory’s all set.” He handed Paul a typed-out sheet of directions and a faded map. “Get this done, and you’ll be back before dinner.”
Paul glanced back towards Aliyah. “Just another few moments, Mr Payne – I need to get Aliyah ready–”
Payne clucked his tongue. “Paul, Paul. I thought we’d decided not to bring your daughter to your immensely dangerous drug manufacturing sessions. Do you want to expose her to stray flux?”
“She gets upset when I leave her–”
“And you’re beholden to a child? Tell me, Paul, who is the authority figure here?” He thumped Paul’s breast pocket. “We’ve got professionals here to look over her. All our ’mancers are with her. I’ll be with her.”
“You, sir? I thought you’d be coming–”
“I have no need to relive past history. I brewed my legendary Flex there, back in the day – ‘clear as a pane,’ they said – but I serve no purpose putting myself near the danger of a drug brewing today. Why, you don’t need backup, do you, Paul?”
Paul felt the heat rushing to his face, his bruises throbbing. He remembered Rainbird pulling David off him, the humiliation of assistance that only a handicapped man could feel so thoroughly.
“No, sir. I can do this on my own.”
Though he felt a pang of loss; he’d never brewed drugs without Valentine.
“Good man,” Payne said. “The biggest danger you’ll face is boredom, I’m afraid. I drove to those foothills many a time, Paul, always a tedious sojourn; the mountains swallowed up the radio signals. Had to sing my own tunes on the way out.”
“Well, we have iPods now, sir.”
Payne’s cheeks flushed. “Quite right. Quite right. Pop off, get it done, and return with a batch of drugs to satisfy this Oscar fellow for a time. Come on, let’s get you to your car.”
“Just a moment, sir.” He tapped his artificial leg. “I have to get the car charger for this.”
Payne grimaced, as Paul thought he might; most people got embarrassed whenever Paul drew attention to his disability. “Oh. Yes. Go do what you need to.”
Paul went back inside, closing the door – and, more importantly, keeping Payne out of his bedroom. Payne’s trust in Paul these days was thin; Payne had arrived early to watch Paul’s preparations.
Doubtless Payne would have disapproved of indulging Aliyah’s fears.
Paul stroked his daughter’s hair. Aliyah relaxed, her nightmares passed. When she woke, maybe Payne’s professionals could treat the separation anxiety she’d express when she woke up to find her daddy gone.
But Payne be damned, he wanted Aliyah not to panic in the first place.
Paul tucked the map underneath her pillow, scribbling a note: “I’ll be right here. If I don’t answer your calls, it’s because there’s no cell phone reception out in the hills. Back by dinner. XXOO, Daddy.”
“You ready, Paul?”
“Yes, Mr Payne,” said Paul, starting the long drive out to brew himself a big batch of magical drugs.
Forty
The First Thing That Goes Wrong For the King
K-Dash and Quaysean curled up in the hotel bed, hands on each other’s bare hips.
Their lovemaking had been predictably explosive. That was something they’d counted on ever since the first time they’d laid eyes on each other – seconds after they met, they both knew they were meant to fuck. Though it had taken a few months of sizing each other up before they allowed that to happen. Revealing yourself as gay in the gangs they ran in had a cost – more fistfights, more disrespect. So they both made sure they were on the same page.
And when they fucked, it had been carnal magic. Each worshipping the other’s hard muscular body, reveling in each other’s firm grips, propelling each other to pleasure.
But what neither had counted on was the tenderness.
They cuddled every night, stroking skin, taking pleasure in this gift of vulnerability. Other gangbangers in Oscar’s crew spent their earnings on huge televisions, flashy cars, chunky gold jewelry; K-Dash and Quaysean made secret reservations in the best hotels.
The hotels were their addiction, escaping the constant chest-bumping gang lifestyle to go places nobody expected you to throw down. They’d all but given up their apartment, letting their friends crash there rent-free, luxuriating in the freedom of waking each morning to a scrubbed bathtub and freshly laundered sheets.
Quaysean’s phone rang. Not his real phone; the burner phone Oscar contacted them on. Quaysean slapped K-Dash’s stomach to wake him up, then answered the call.
“Yeah?”
“Yo, man, you OK?”
Quaysean covered the phone and mouthed: Not Oscar. K-Dash leapt to his feet, threw his holster on.
“We’re fine,” Quaysean said. The worried phone-voice was Li’l Deets, Oscar’s probable second-in-command. Oscar’s hierarchy was nebulous at best, as he had found giving people explicit org charts encouraged internecine warfare – but Deets was high on the list. Deets resented having to check in with Quaysean and K-Dash, because Quaysean and K-Dash were the only people who Oscar had entrusted the ’mancy-fueled wing of his organization to. “Should we be fine?”
“You should be dead.”
Quaysean leapt to his feet. K-Dash toss
ed him his pistol. “That a threat, or a signal?”
“Your fuckin’ apartment burned down an hour ago, man. Oscar’s hotel burnt down, too. Oscar is ashes.”
“…dammit.” Quaysean swiped his index finger across his throat: Oscar. K-Dash raised his eyebrows and mouthed: Did Paul do it? Quaysean shook his head – not enough information.
“Maybe he’s not dead.” Little Deets sounded angry enough to pick a fight. “You tell me. I know nothin’ about ’mancy, but two buildings burnt down sounds the fuck like magic to me.”
“We’re rushing to no conclusions.”
“Rush? Oscar had all the connections! And you want to–”
“Here’s what you’re gonna do,” Quaysean told him. “You’re gonna check with your inside men with all our rivals: the Balaguers, the Cournoyers, the Ortiz contigent. You work your angles; we’ll work ours. Then, once we got all the info we can get, we’ll sort it out for you.”
“Motherfucker, I don’t know anything about magic! You share! This ain’t the time to keep your turf!”
“Fool, I didn’t ask you about ’mancy. Now do your fuckin’ job.”
Quaysean hung up. K-Dash packed their clothes in their suitcase, then they headed out for breakfast. Both knew if that psycho Rainbird was on the warpath, their best bet would be to stay in public.
K-Dash sipped his coffee, muttering: “It’s a hit.”
“A stupid one,” Quaysean agreed.
“Dude looked up our apartment address from our records, saw some Hispanic dudes curled on the bed, said ‘must be them’.”
“And burned it.”
They both frowned: That doesn’t sound like Paul.
They liked Paul. Paul hadn’t had to share his ’mancy with them, but he always let them watch. Paul gave them goofy grins whenever he caught them holding hands, encouraging their romance. Paul tried to get his daughter to warm up to them. Little things, stupid things maybe – but it was enough that K-Dash and Quaysean didn’t want to think him capable of a putting out a hit.
The Flux Page 27
