The trooper flinched, though the movement could have been a mere shrug. “Whatever keeps you sane out here. I got a buddy that collects old coins. Can’t spend ’em, and they weigh him down. But you couldn’t pry those goddamn coins from his hands if he were dead.”
Taylor chased coin-clutching corpse images from his mind. “How did you even find him? Hammond, I mean.”
After a pause, the trooper said, “We got an anonymous tip.”
“The woman in Napis?”
“It was anonymous.”
They weren’t going to tell him any more than that, but Taylor would have lots of time to ponder over the missing details. “He said he wanted to go home, but he looped around and never found it.”
“It’s not my place to talk about stuff like that,” the trooper said with a slight droop of his head. Taylor wasn’t sure if it was a code of silence or merely ignorance. Then the trooper added, “I heard that sometimes they move the road. Bypass a town. Cut ’em off.”
Taylor thought about his map. When—if—he made a full loop of the world, what stops would disappear the second time around. He filed those thoughts away for future pondering. “Why didn’t you just take him at Napis?”
“We’re the Law of the Highway.” He seemed to leave it at that.
“Is he going to die?”
The trooper looked back reflexively. “No. The drug we gave you has a long-term and painful effect, but it’s temporary.”
“I put it in his food,” Taylor said, as if it mattered. When one driver was not driving, they prepared food for the other driver. “He’s wrong, you know. I didn’t do it because I wanted his truck all to myself.”
“You helped protect the highway, Mr. Taylor.”
“I broke my trust with another driver.”
“You broke trust with an untrustworthy individual. He killed his own captain. One less person like that on the highway and everyone else can continue to trust each other.”
“Right. Now we can all trust each other.”
Taylor heard the door close and watched as the cruiser pulled away and then sped into the distance, shrinking as it went until it became nothing but a drop at the end of the long, black needle that pierced the watery giant that dominated his vision.
* * *
Jason LaPier
Jason LaPier is a multigenre speculative fiction author. He is currently finishing the third book in a space opera trilogy published by HarperVoyager. He lives and drinks in Portland, OR, and can be found on Twitter @JasonWLaPier or Facebook, and his blog at jasonwlapier.com
WETWARE
Wilson Geiger
The scream of MOYA-E carries over the ripping sounds of flechette rounds, and the shrill cry catches me off-guard. I scan his readings as I call out to the rest of my team to move, knowing that we’re already too late to save Corporal Moya. I shut off his feed, forcing away the protective instincts that threaten to overwhelm me. I want to get him out of there, want to save him, but I know I can’t. I have a team to look after, and primary mission objectives to achieve. They are both worth more than one soldier.
I tell myself that Moya would understand. Every soldier understands, don’t they?A corrupted avatar lurches forward, tall and thin, nanites streaming over the construct. Dark, alien eyes stare at me, and the thing’s arm reaches out, crawling with infection, seeking me out. Weapons integrated with my hardware poke out from the armored shell of my R-HOST, and I only hesitate for an instant before I focus a stream of fire on central mass. Flechettes hammer at the avatar’s core, breaking down the outer surface before boiling away internal systems.
The eyes continue to stare at me, even as the former human avatar’s form crumbles. Infected nanites seek purchase on the glittering surface of the road, and I keep moving, eager to get a visual on my team.
The truth, if I admit it, is that I don’t like to watch them die, even if there’s no longer anything human in there. There used to be, and that’s enough.
I scan the group feed, avatars blinking in conditional codes. Still operational, but just. Two casualties along with Moya, and we still haven’t finished what we were sent out here to do. The group channel is a tangle of updates and directional targeting, soldiers highlighting targets of opportunity. The burp of Dissolver rounds, flechettes designed to penetrate and break targets down into their basic constituents, reverberates throughout the audio feed.
Switching to tactical, I bite back the curse on my lips. We’re spread out too thin, and I can see by the Purge’s movement, pinging flashes of amber dotted throughout the local map, that we can’t stop the massive data loss this district will suffer.
We need to save what we can and get out.
“Tighten it up, soldiers. Defensive perimeter on this location.” Pinging the location on the tactical feed, I try to keep the hurried frustration out of my voice, but it seeps in anyway. Too many casualties. Too much to fight. Stay on task, Tackett. I tag the avatar marked FENTON-3F. “Fenton, get the retrieval units on those datastores now.”
“Roger that, sir.” Sergeant Fenton is a trooper, through and through. Her voice is calm and assured amid the chaos and firestorm that surrounds us. “Sharpe, on me.”
Fenton’s avatar moves on the tactical feed, followed by Corporal Sharpe, and I switch my attention to the rest of the team as they reform near the clustered bank of datastores. I send follow-up orders, tagging avatars with a flick of thought, ensuring we’ve got a secure cordon around the bank.
I round the corner of a fractured building, sprinting down the narrow street. The walls used to gleam like black ice, but now they are almost dull, faded like they have aged a thousand years. The infection has cracked the building’s infrastructure, and long splinters race down towards the base.
Past the disintegrating building another street runs to the west. I pause, checking my visuals for any signs of nearby infection, and move west, hurrying along the hollow of a vacant park. False trees shimmer under artificial light, and I catch sight of a corrupted form mirroring my movement. Nanites break free of trees, bark stripping from trunks to coalesce on the infected avatar.
My weapon systems swivel to face the threat, but flechettes shudder into the avatar from across the park. One of the avatar’s legs trembles as its structure bleeds out onto the fake grass. The infected form turns to face the source of the fire, and its head comes apart, another round of flechettes boring into it.
A private feed opens up, marked from HAYES-6A. “You okay, LT?”
I nod, forgetting for a moment that the soldier can’t see it. “Affirmative, Hayes. Thanks.”
“Anytime, sir.” The private feed blinks closed.
The tac-map surrounding me checks out clear, and I finally see my team as I round another corner. I can’t help the small tide of relief. The tactical feed shows me everything that I need to know, but not everything that I need to see. And a leader needs to see his troops.
Hayes is perched just past the corner, his R-HOST facing the open park behind me, weapons at the ready. Fenton is standing by a row of datastores near the center of the block, Sharpe providing cover and feed assist while Fenton works on the transfers. The five retrieval units we have left hover over their selected datastores, interfaces flashing as they dump their data. Williams is on the far side of the block, using the cover of a fallen terminal as he stands sentry.
Morris is stationed just to the east, her weapons converging on a target out of sight. Her R-HOST shifts, compensating as she lets loose a burst of flechettes and an arcing electrical discharge. “Target down,” she barks into the group feed, marking the contact on the tac map.
The rest of the unit is outside my visual range, so I link up with one of the hovering retrieval units, piggybacking on the unit’s automated video feed. Shen is on the south side, his R-HOST twitching as he fires on a mass of nanites that surge towards our location.
Rogers is feet away from him, coordinating his fire with Shen’s. His avatar pings an alarm in the group feed. He’
s low on ammo.
Hold on, I think to myself. Just a bit longer.
The Purge is growing, most of the district already lost, like most of the surface of this planet. I’m not positive what might be left to hold on to.
Archival superstructures used to tower over much of this district, home to banks upon banks of datastores. Mass storage systems housed the live data and archives of countless human streams. Now only a fraction remain, the infection sweeping through the district like a deadly plague. The Purge has taken hold, warping the systems, turning them against us. Entire banks erased, the practical components of the datastores being repurposed by whatever intelligence lurks behind the infection.
The district is a wasteland now. Generations of humanity wiped out. What will the Purge do with human consciousness? What can it do? Can it warp that, too, and transform a human stream, bend it to the infection’s purposes?
I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Moya’s screams, and those alien eyes, pretty much cover what I’m willing to accept.
“LT?” Sharpe’s voice cuts off the thought, and I let the question go. “We got company.”
I rescan the tactical map, swearing at myself. Losing focus, even the tiniest blip, could cost soldiers. Could cost the mission. Past lives—and deaths—should have taught me better.
The infection has responded to our precision strike. Amber warnings that mark the corruption are flashing all over the local map. It is no longer coming at us in bits and pieces, but as a seething mass. We have mere seconds before it hits.
We can’t hold.
The tac map flashes as I shift the defensive perimeter, maximum coverage to the east, so Fenton can get the data out. “Morris, hold your point. Sharpe, Williams, move to marked coordinates. Fenton, get those damn boxes out of here and safe.
“Hayes, cover Fenton. Rogers, Shen, on me.” I try, but I’m not sure I can hide the resignation in my voice. “Anything moves, wax it. Fire until you can’t, and then kill out.”
We need to get this data off-grid, yes, but I can’t lose them all. We have already lost enough.
The pinging amber wave closes as I shepherd Hayes and Fenton out behind me. Hayes grumbles something in the channel, something about a death wish, but I let it go unanswered. I don’t want to die any more than the rest of my soldiers, but I’m not about to give myself a free pass.
Rogers and Shen appear in my visuals as I move forward. I link my targeting feed with theirs, so we can coordinate our fire for best effect, and prepare myself for the attack. It’s hard to prepare for what I see a second later.
A giant, thundering monster rushes towards our position, towering over the remaining structures. The Purge glitters under the false light, a faceless, writhing mass, and not for the first time, I wonder what is behind it.
Targeting alarms go off in the group feed, and our linked hardpoints open up as the infection comes in range. A stream of flechette fire pours from our hardpoints, boring into the viral mass. Morris and Sharpe’s linked fire opens a brief hole in the thing’s center, and the infection slows as it struggles to repair the wound.
The thing seems to vibrate, and I nearly step back as the Purge pulls matter from the area around it, swelling as it grows. Arms shoot out from its thick mass, swirling towards our defensive positions.
The infection roars, a raging storm of shifting, swelling nanites. A tendril slams into Morris, nanites swarming over her armored carapace. Her scream is drowned out by the virus, a screeching cacophony that fills my audio feed. Her icon blinks out on the tac map.
Flechette fire ripples into the invading mass, staccato bursts from Fenton and Sharpe, but it’s not enough. My armor shudders as I loose a torrent of crossfire. My flechettes tear across the massive thing’s flank, and a too-small cluster of the virus falls to the ground in a puddle as corrupted nanites dissolve. The low ammunition alarm flashes on my feed.
Not enough.
Hayes shouts something, but I can’t focus.
The infectious matter is like a sentient tidal wave. Long fingers made of glistening black reach out. One of them flicks towards Sharpe, and a stream of projectiles thump into his armor. His personal defenses kick in, an electrical arc dancing over his avatar, burning away most of the infection before it shorts out. He steps forward, deliberate and purposeful, pouring what’s left of his ammunition reserves into the infection.
A private feed flashes, marked SHARPE-55. I don’t need to open it up.
He was a good soldier.
“Kill!” I shout into the group feed, shifting to engage one of the infected tendrils as it swings towards me. I burn it down with a long burst. “Repeat, kill out!”
I don’t catch the infection that hits me. Personal defense hardpoints open up, but it’s too late. The corrupted limb punctures my armored hull, a sensation of ice spreading into my internals, and I flick the kill command with a panicked thought.
I hope Fenton got the data out. A fraction of a second later the system cuts the connection, and everything goes black.
*
CORE network not found… rerouting…
ALT network found… connection established.
TACKETT-6C ghost image found. Retrieving… Initiating upload… please hold.
10… 25… 57… 76… 100… upload complete
Interfaces online, registration complete.
TACKETT-6D persona assimilating… artifact regeneration… Images flash, there one millisecond, gone the next. Memory flickers, the haze over everything fading into a sullen, subdued confusion. I blink as one sticks.
The boom rattles my bones. I try to take a breath but choke instead, the air thrust from my lungs by the artillery blast. The staccato echoes of gunfire ring in my ears. Instinctively I reach for the rifle, but my hand brushes the empty reinforcement brace that runs along my arm. My gaze sweeps the pitted ground nearby. There. Five feet to the right lies my gun, the bracketing system that mounts the flechette rifle to the brace snapped in two.
I smell charred metal and almost vomit at the burning odor of… Trace error. Analyzing systems…
Purging trauma nodes…
I try to stand but can’t. There’s dirt in my mouth, grit and sand all over my face. Sweat trickling down my neck. Something worse running down my ribs, sticky and cloying.
Someone is shouting, barking orders. A face appears in front of me, pale skin streaked in grime. He fixes the strap on his helmet and leans over me. He cants his head to one side, his brow knotted, and runs a hand over my torso. Pain shoots through me as his fingers come back red. He opens his mouth but I can’t hear what he says.
I can’t hear him but I am afraid.
Assimilation complete.
TACKETT-6D online.
I blink the last of the fog away and try to scan the Core, swallowing the panic as the trace returns empty. The Core is unreachable. I’m on an isolated circuit, an internal network with limited access.
How? The Core is the central hub of the entire planetary infrastructure, the brains behind everything. Mountains of datastores, tiered streams of logistics and architecture planning. Like a hub with billions of micromanaging spokes, reaching out across the globe to ensure the patterns of life and constant movement would continue unabated.
The system flashes an alert in my visuals before I can begin a cycle of diagnostics, and I acknowledge the message. The code flashes into my internals, imprinting status and a set of new orders, and I remember.
The Purge. It started as a small flaw in one of the orbitals. Only it wasn’t a flaw at all, but purposeful, perfect design. It corrupted the planetary network, and like a seed the infection blossomed, surging over the outer layers of infrastructure. The AI warnings shifted into screeching, warbling shouts. Systems transformed, fed and directed by the virus. Defensive systems turned on their makers. Sub-orbital stations fell from the skies, power feeds overran human datastores, wiping out millions. Human consciousness streams, distorted beyond recognition.
The Core
’s countermeasures kicked in, shields insulating the central network, cutting off all outside access. Which is why I can’t reach it.
If the Core becomes infected, everything dies.
And that’s my mission. Defend the Core. Find a way to stop the Purge.
“Lieutenant Tackett?”
The voice registers as HAYES-6B, and I realize with a sense of relief that it’s not just my wetware in this circuit. It’s good to hear his voice. “Good to see you, Hayes. Mission imprint?”
I can almost feel the imperceptible nod.
“Yes sir, just now.” There is a subtle, but noticeable, pause. “I’d like to think we’ve faced worse, boss, but, um…”
I cut off the thought before it takes root in me, too. No time for it. “It’s what we do, Hayes.”
Two registrations are added automatically to my feed under Hayes as their avatars come on-line, icons blinking their names, SHEN-4B, and ROGERS-3F. Worry starts to crawl along my nerves, but I keep the question to myself.
Four is better than two, I suppose.
I loop them into a group feed. “Shen, Rogers, report.”
“Lieutenant. This is Shen, reporting. Imprint downloaded and verified.”
“Heya, LT, Rogers here,” the other avatar says, with a guttural twang that the imaging system could never quite eliminate. “Ready to save the world.”
I run diagnostics on the whole team while I scan over the new orders a second time. The Campo District is close to folding—or was, before the camera and reporting feeds stopped responding. The District leads to a largely unused corridor that ends in a quagmire of Old World habitats, long neglected and left to rot by the Core maintenance routines. But the intelligence behind the infection must have learned the corridor’s secret.
A hidden route into the Core, obscured by the habitats.
We lose the Core, we lose everything.
I call up the last of the video feed before it turned into a chaotic mess. The video, before the virus corrupts it, is galling. Avatars scramble down streets now overrun by nearly unrecognizable binder units. I feel sick as the units hover over the nanite constructions that make up the district, transforming structures and fleeing human avatars into gross caricatures of themselves.
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