“Then Jacinto will be ready to extract you and any survivors in the Agincourt, of course.” Stadil spoke in an even tone. “Surely you’ve gotten used to sending people up ziplines at this point in your career.”
“I’d prefer to do it without injuring them,” Walken said with a smirk. “But yes, I think that I can manage if the situation requires it.”
Stadil nodded. “Good. You will receive all necessary information in a sealed data file for your consumption.”
Walken’s eyes narrowed. “You mean you’ll give me all the data that you have.”
“Of course.” The apparition didn’t blink. “In the meantime, do you have any questions?”
“As in, questions about this assignment, or in general?”
“Either.”
Walken nodded once. “Easy. Tell me why we’re doing all of this. I want to know why you’re here, Stadil. I want to know why you’re…what you are.”
Stadil gave him a smile that, while obviously meant to be assuring, seemed as plastic as anything else in the room. “You know that story already. I have told you.”
“Was it what you wanted?” Walken tried very hard not to allow the image of Stadil’s faceless, melted corpse into his mind. “Have you accomplished what you sought at the time?”
Stadil’s image merely shrugged.” I have become what is necessary to save the human race from destruction. That is the only thing that truly matters. Would you not agree?”
Walken did. “I see where you’re coming from.” In truth, it was anything but clear, but he had come to expect no less. No clarity save for what the ghost wanted. No reality but what it wove, if Walken allowed it. But he would not. “Give me the data. When do we begin the operation?”
“Immediately.” The white teeth gleamed, perfectly formed to the nanometer.
“Then let’s do it.” There was no point in making it any easier for anybody, after all, was there?
Two days later, Walken wound out the last hours of the insertion trip in the back of a container truck headed into San Angeles. He wore another sneak suit, much like the one he’d used in Korea. This time, without a tactical hood, just a plain black affair made of memory plastic with a set of lenses he could look through. The suit proved to be an even more advanced model. The differences between iterations of technology looked like something measured in geologic ages, not simple generations.
The truck had some nonstandard gear as well, an outlaw hauler with a smuggler’s pod and a dump hatch in the bottom of its container. Inside this coffin of sensor-proofed foam and alloy, Walken lay sandwiched, waiting for the signal to drop, alone with his thoughts as the miles rolled on. He spent time as he did before he had been loaded into the truck, consuming the data on his body sent by Kim and processing the conversation he had with Stadil’s ghost. It seemed clear to him that whatever Stadil had been—alien intelligence, human gangster, evil genius—what remained was the result of his attempt to slip the bonds of possession and certain madness. The crisis of impending death, he had said, provided the catalyst.
Had Walken not done the same? He had put a gun against his head and put a thermite slug through it, yet he had survived more or less intact. Brain damaged, yes, and with a half a new frontal lobe among other things, but the beast remained safely locked away. That alone made him different from Stadil, that and that he still possessed some semblance of flesh where Stadil now lived as a digital consciousness, the merest suggestion of whose vastness was a matter of dread concern.
No, he decided. The major difference between them was that Walken, for all his current handicaps, could still claim himself human. Isolated, an outsider, a random element perhaps, but still human somewhere inside the jigsaw puzzle that had been made of him. He felt parts of him that had never faded, parts that regretted what he had been, what he had become. Regret and self-loathing, extremely human things. If these were strongest of all emotion she could still feel, he had not gone over to the machine or the alien yet.
The truck trundled to a halt, and the floor of the coffin hissed open. Walken fell through the drop hatch, twisted in midair, and landed on all fours upon cracked California tarmac. By the time the truck buttoned up and drove away, he had already gotten the sewer access hatch beneath him open and proceeded down the ladder into the sulfurous dark.
Sewers were sewers. Like any other metropolitan complex, San Angeles had expanded its underlevels over the years into a vast, twisting warren that would make any horror author proud. The Los Angeles zone proved especially excitable in that respect. Down here, there lurked plenty of gangers, diseased poor, and ferals much like in the Old City. In many ways, it felt a lot like home. Walken proceeded through the vaults of moldering concrete, knee-deep in slime and invisible to cameras and watching eyes alike, his suit making him a creature of urban legend. He wondered how many people had done the same.
He walked for hours, without cease or discovery, cycling the thermoptic camo on the rare occasions he needed it. The city’s guts seemed to want him isolated, like an undesirable bacterium. He wondered when its immune system would kick in. Somewhere above, Kim was busy bringing people together. In a hotel suite, as it happened, doubtlessly comfortable and in a clean, sharp suit. A slight sting of envy shot through him. He wondered if he might find himself in a similar position at some point in the future, or if such things were forever beyond him. The gimp suit seemed to fit him better these days.
The map in his head told him he neared the hotel. It stood in the middle of a major urban sector, which suggested he should see a lot of unfortunates under the streets. However, he found the tunnels deserted like the wilder areas. Suspicion rose inside of him, but he did not trust it. This wasn’t his town, his pattern of existence. He functioned on Seattle time, where the only thing people used the underground for were subway trains. The Old City belonged to the crazies and the lost, not the sewer grid.
Finally, he came to the maintenance hatch beneath the hotel. He stood in the middle of an intersection of stained and filthy concrete. The lighting was as poor as anywhere else thus far, consisting of only a few bioluminescent tubes that glowed in their sockets with a faint blue light, no problem for Walken. His gaze scythed through the darkness easily, giving him a normalized, high-contrast view of stained concrete and filthy water where the feeble light did not fall. Overhead, surrounded by a grid of aging pipes, the hatch leading toward the surface and his goal awaited.
Walken leapt up easily and took hold of one of the pipes. He dangled there as he inspected the hatch. A magnetic lock kept it closed, a heavy-duty, tamperproof affair meant to keep out the creatures. He reached out with mental fingers to contact the lock, but was surprised to find no wireless input at all. How old was the thing? Fine, subtlety wasn’t going to work. It would be far easier for him to cut it out and break the circuit manually, than it would be to try and cut the power to the magnets some other way. Though a bit anxious of the possibility of igniting trapped gases, he flexed the fingers of his free hand and pointed one toward the heavy alloy case that clad the locking mechanism.
A wash of light filled the crossroads as the air around his hand ignited. Trapped between the fields, the plasma glittered blue and bright and terminated in a brilliant point past the end of his finger. He touched this white-hot point to the surface of the lock, drawing a shower of sparks as the old yellow paint vaporized and the metal soon followed suit. In the darkness, the strobing of the torch and the constant rain of sparks filled his field of vision. He squinted despite knowing the light would not hurt his eyes, steering the jet of plasma with surgical delicacy as he slowly gutted the lock. He had to be careful. If he fucked it u
p, the hatch would be irrevocably sealed and he’d have to either find another way around or get through the hatch itself, something he had zero desire to do. Seconds ticked by, falling into the water and sizzling with the sparks that carried them. Metal ran like wax.
He had gotten halfway around the casing when a sudden pressure locked around his ankle. In his surprise, his fingers twitched in apparent reflex, loosening his grip on the pipe enough not to be able to regain it when he was ripped free and hurled into the wall of the intersection. He felt no pain, of course, just the tremendous shock and the sensation of his limbs being whipped as great force drove him into the concrete. His vision was a stop-motion blur as his eyes hurried to track movement. The world in frames. Pipes growing smaller as he spun away. The stained gray wall smashing into him, the static snapping through his field of vision as the impact rattled his frame. He hit the wall and spun into the brackish water flowing through the tunnels, where he lay for half a moment before his mind recovered and he brought himself to standing with a rolling kip-up. A figure stood in the center of the intersection, massive enough that it seemed to fill up most of the passage.
“This road is closed,” came a flat chip voice from the mighty figure. “Find another.”
He knew the voice well, but he knew the face better. As he looked upon Gerald Exley, the ice that covered Walken’s emotional core gave a great wrench. From the cracks escaped a rage that boiled out like black steam, filling him with nothing but murder. Were it another man, he might have paused to question why he stood there, him of all people. And yet, he could not think – he could only see Brighton turned into so much guts and chili paste. The monstrousness of the hospital. Only these scenes, a red moire pulled over his eyes – not rage, but a message that filled his mind, a moral imperative of sorts: Destroy Gerald Exley. He did not reply, save to hurtle himself at the bigger man, fists clenched in an undeniable wish to plunge them into the other man’s heart.
Big and badass as Exley was, the mountain clearly did not expect Walken to throw down on him. The world slowed around Walken as he hurtled toward the possessed man in a diving punch that carried terrifying strength behind it, so fast that Exley should not be able to avoid it. The big man seemed to know it, too. As Walken closed, Exley ducked to intercept the blow and, with a sweep of one column-thick arm, smacked Walken out of the way.
Alarms went off inside Walken’s head as he felt his skin flash-harden beneath his suit and his forward motion halted. He caught himself, planting one foot hard on the ground, and bringing the other up in a snap kick that smashed squarely into Exley’s torso. The red smoke that filled Walken’s brain translated itself into force that would have snapped a normal man’s spine. But Exley took it in his swollen body with a grunt, staggering slightly as Walken prepped himself to deliver another blow.
“That…hurt,” Exley hissed from between gritted teeth.
Walken adored hearing that, for the rage filling him seemed interested only in the Yathi agent’s end. The faces of those who Exley had killed swam through his head as the synthetic muscles within him surged with power: Brighton, Hunt, countless others in the course of his duty, people who were shitty human beings but no less deserved to live. How many had been killed in the righteous course of his duty, and how many had been victims of Yathi policy?
Walken said nothing in response; he stood ready to strike again, suspended by the moment. Exley stared at him, his lips curled. He too prepared to strike, but did not. Instead, he stared at Walken, taking him in with new interest, and perhaps now some grudging appreciation.
“Who are you?” Exley asked, his eyes hard as he stared at Walken. “You aren’t human.”
“I am what I need to be,” Walken replied. “Just as you have become.”
“I don’t know you,” Exley said. “You don’t speak through the Seal. Who among our people do you serve?”
As Exley spoke, Walken had an idea. He leaped toward Exley, his hands full of cold fire and his heart full of death. The clash between the two cyborgs crashed like a stormy sea against a cliffside. Walken, fast and furious, hurled blows that would be lethal to normal human beings. His every stroke fluid and graceful despite his lack of real training. Where bright fury drove Walken, Exley was on the defense.
The man’s massive body was also boosted to a degree most would consider dangerous, but against his opponent, it only allowed him to dodge more strikes than he soaked up. Though Walken played out his role of superman brawler, the big Yathi agent surrendered ground, landing body-jarring punches when he could. They said nothing, made no noises of exertion. Only the sound of their blows landing filled the intersection, the meaty sound of Exley’s flesh answered by the peculiar, almost ceramic sound of Walken’s hide. The shattering and spalling of concrete rang where missed blows landed against the tight confines of the tunnel. They pounded each other for what seemed like several minutes, but had likely been less than one. Finally, Exley leapt back, holding out his hands. It took everything Walken had not to follow.
“Enough,” Exley bellowed, falling back some twelve feet away from where Walken coiled into a defensive posture beneath the sewer hatch. “Enough!” He spoke, Walken realized, in Yathi. The barbed syllables stabbed at his ears, easily understood but nonetheless unpleasant. “Who has sent you? Why are you interrupting this operation?” Without the chip-flat approximation of human tones, Exley’s alien voice betrayed real surprise. “I have sanction from the Mother of Systems herself to be here.”
He could see no outward signs of damage, but that didn’t mean that Exley wasn’t wounded. That he had stopped to parlay suggested that Walken had the upper hand. He could kill the Yathi here if he pressed forward, or engaged his cutters. But the hatred in him cooled as quickly as it had come, and he had other things to do. He had already betrayed himself enough, and showing off any more might clue Exley in on his real identity. Either way, he had already put Kim and the scientists at risk by being caught in the act.
The cold rage that grew in Walken’s mind only made him reckless. He enjoyed watching Exley confused, watching him twist with the possibility that one who shared his species may well be rebelling against him. “I have no need to talk to you. Or to the Mother. Neither of you mean anything to me.”
“Answer me.” Exley’s right arm drooped where it had taken several hits. The beast began to deflate before his very eyes. “Who sent you?”
Walken keyed the voice masker in his hood, and spoke serrated words in the Yathi tongue made even more savage and distorted to his ears through its speaker.
“The Mother of Systems has enemies all around her. Go, before I finish the job.”
He had anticipated some kind of surprise to register in Exley’s features, but the massive man only hardened. “The Mother will know of this. Do not think for an instant that this disloyalty will be tolerated. I’ll find out who your master is, and I will kill you both myself.”
“Hard to do with your body in that condition.” Walken stepped forward with one fist upraised. “Now go, or I will end you before you have a chance to tell her.”
It was a feint, of course, and one that may well go nowhere. Walken knew Exley was probably already relaying the news to the Mother of Systems even as he stood there. But with one last poisonous look, the creature he once knew as Agent Gerald Exley, Industrial Security Bureau, did a thing Walken would never have imagined: he turned and ran.
Walken watched him disappear into the darkness, down the tunnel through which he had come. He listened to the footfalls disappear as Exley moved with enhanced if inferior speed. Waited for sudden, violent reciprocity to come, but it did not.
He checked himself for damage, and to his great surprise found that Exley’s battle-ram strength had done nothing to his armored hide. The suit, on the other hand, had lost a number of holographic emitters. No invisibility for him, just the gimp suit and the anonymity the hood had granted him. Fine enough, he was ready to do things old school.
Free of further distract
ions, the lock gave after a moment more of cutting. He easily disabled the power feed to the magnetic seal. The heavy hatch swung down and open, and he slid upward into its dark confines, hauling himself upward through the darkness toward the waiting hotel.
His arms and legs extended, Walken scaled the access ladder like an oversized spider until he reached the top. Like the sewer hatch, this one had a lock, but a modern device that opened up easily upon command. Once in the basement, he got a comms signal again. He tried to contact Kim, but to no avail. In the wake of his fight with Exley, no emotion followed, not even the concern that had taken the place of fear, only the certainty of what must be done.
he new blood turned out to be pretty badass.
The core of brawlers that Janelle retained pretty much turned out as Bobbi had expected, as mean and savage as the monsters they had learned to fight. Many of them Bobbi recognized and had fought with in the past, but the majority were new. They looked at Violet with distrust as she went over them, but the sight of Janelle standing and talking with her seemed to take the edge off. Bobbi had been surprised at their clear lack of despair. They may have been camped out in an industrial park for six months with little vision for the future, but Janelle had kept morale up by making sure every one of them could operate, repair, and fight with the Bearcats using virtual training hardware stored at the vault.
Mulcahey’s Chicago outfit gave her the real surprise, however. Where Janelle’s people were ferocious, but largely of a civilian background, the former corporate officer had a cadre of strictly disciplined, well-trained troops, every one of them with military background. Most had been enlisted infantry who had turned into something more, but also a few talented specialists. One, a wily character from the old Red Cloud security company by the name of Zheng, was a demolitions op. It pleased Bobbi that with their commander’s acceptance, Mulcahey’s people dropped right into line. However, she knew none of them, and knowing their loyalty lay with Mulcahey first, made her uneasy. All that turned out to be for naught, however, because they soon happily made up plots together anyway. Within a month, they worked on engineering the assassination of Park Jae Hyung, a Korean energy executive Cagliostro identified as the host of a Yathi scientist whose name translated to The Sensation of an Oncoming Storm.
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 32
