She opened the sixth door, and she gestured for March to step inside.
The room beyond was large, with a wall-sized glass window overlooking the illuminated towers of downtown Rykov City. Night definitely improved the city’s appearance. A long conference table ran the center of the room, and a small wet bar stood in the corner. Two hulking men who had the look of private security stood near the wet bar, eyes concealed beneath shades, their coats failing to mask the bulge of shoulder holsters. Dredger stood against the far wall, looking just as ominous, and Tolox sat at the table in front of him, her expression calm.
Bernard Casimir sat on the other side of the table, scowling.
If Maurice Deveraux was an Administrator who’d gone bad in the world of organized crime, Bernard Casimir looked a Citizen who had made good. He looked like he had lost a great deal of weight, and to judge from the sagging look of the skin on his face, he’d done it the old-fashioned way through diet and exercise, rather than resorting to surgery or genetic resequencing. He was as tough-looking as one of his bouncers, and his suit was a little too loose for him.
“Captain March,” said Tolox. “Join us, please.”
Casimir glared at March with flat, shark-like eyes. “You’re the freelancer Tolox hired to take care of our little problem.”
“So I’m told,” said March.
Casimir snorted. “I’m hiring freelancers, and Jacqueline here is hiring freelancers. You’d think that between the two of us we would be smart enough to pool the cost, but no. Everyone’s going behind everyone else’s back.” He lifted a glass of amber-colored liquid and took a swig. “But we got problems. Between the two of us, maybe our freelancers can help solve that problem.”
“What’s your problem, Mr. Casimir?” said March, stepping to stand near Dredger. Helen moved to wait near the bar. Axiom started wandering through the room, looking at everything with interest, the lights reflecting off her sunglasses. Neither Casimir nor his guards reacted. They must have been used to her eccentricities by now.
“Richard Venator,” said Casimir, leaning forward. “Or Simon Lorre, as you know him. I want him dead. Deveraux too, if you can manage it, but Venator has to die.”
“He has wronged you?” said March.
Casimir scoffed. “Let’s stop playing games, shall we? I smuggle liquor. If you wanted to play games, you should talk to Deveraux. He’s the asshole who fixes games. Richard Venator is a Machinist operative. Major one, too. Some of the senior Administrators in the Republic quietly let him onto Rustaril, but I have important friends too, and they told me what was going on.”
“With the subtle hint,” said March, “that Mr. Lorre should have a fatal accident.”
“You get it,” said Casimir. “Guy like him, no, the Final Consciousness doesn’t send him to do small shit. He’s up to something nasty, and he’s recruited Deveraux to his side. Deveraux owns a warehouse complex by the spaceport, and Venator’s working on something there.”
March shrugged. “Why do you care? I don’t think you’re doing this for free, but why tangle with a Machinist agent? These people are serious. There can’t be much profit in it.”
Casimir snorted. “And do you think there will be much profit in letting the Machinists conquer Rustaril?” He waved a thick hand. “People think I’m an idiot, but I’m not.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Bernard,” said Tolox. “If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“Heh,” said Casimir. “Compliments don’t suit you, Jacqueline.” Tolox laughed at that. “But I know what the Administrators think of the Citizens. That we’re all dumb cattle that need to be managed and herded and kept doped up on the Sugar. And maybe they’re right, yeah? That’s why I got off the Sugar and went into business for myself. Hard as hell, let me tell you, but I did it.” He shook his head and took another drink. “But that’s not the point. As bad as the Administrators are, the Machinists are worse. A lot of the Administrators think Rustaril would be better off as part of the Final Consciousness. I know Maurice Deveraux thinks that. Well, he’s an idiot, and so are the rest of them. If the Machinists take over the planet, Deveraux and his pals will be the first ones shot. I know what the Machinists have done to other planets they’ve conquered – the labor camps, the strip mining, the toxic heavy industries, the corpses rendered down for recycled protein. Rustaril is a shit planet, yeah, but it’s still my shit planet. And whatever Venator and Deveraux are working on is going to hand Rustaril over to the Final Consciousness.”
“You’re a patriot, then,” said March. His opinion of Casimir had just gone up, assuming the speech was sincere.
“Ha,” said Casimir. “If you want to think of it that way, yeah, fine. Or if the Machinists conquer Rustaril, it’ll be a lot harder for me to sell liquor to idiots in the government.” He shrugged. “Think whatever you like.”
“This plan of Venator’s and Deveraux’s,” said March. “How do you know it threatens all of Rustaril? Spies are common as dirt. Maybe Venator’s just setting up an espionage branch in Rykov City.”
“If he was doing that,” said Casimir, leaning forward and waving his glass, “then how come he’s tampering with the Sugar?”
March felt a chill. “Go on.”
“That warehouse Deveraux has?” said Casimir. “He pays for it with a contract from the Republic. The government leases some Sugar distribution to him, and the Sugar canisters are stored there before final delivery. Deveraux’s been spending fortunes on other stuff, too – medical supplies and chemicals and drugs. He’s doing something to the Sugar.” He shrugged. “Hell, if you wanted to kill off the citizens of Rykov City, poisoned Sugar would be the way to do it.”
“Maybe it’s time, Captain March,” said Tolox, glancing his way, “to share some more information.”
March nodded. “A few weeks ago, a Citizen of Rykov City named Philip Reimer went berserk and killed several naval officers at a resort.”
Casimir snorted. “That’s plenty odd. Especially since the average Citizen would have a hard time standing up to kill a fly.”
“When he killed them,” said March, “he transformed into a new kind of Machinist drone. He didn’t seem aware of what was happening or what he was doing. I wound up having to kill him.” Axiom nodded with approval. “When I came here and searched his apartment, I found dozens of empty Sugar containers. One of the empty containers had a dried orange residue inside it.”
Casimir’s scowl deepened. “That’s not right. Sugar residue looks grayish-white, and it gets grayer the older it gets.”
“Yeah,” said March. “Let’s tally this up. We’ve got a Rustari Citizen who turned into a new kind of Machinist drone and killed a bunch of people. We’ve got an empty Sugar canister with an odd residue. We did some tests on it, and the residue turned out to have a lot of inertial storage fluid in it, the kind used for storing medical nanobots. And now you’re telling me that Deveraux controls a warehouse used for Sugar distribution and that he’s friends with a Machinist operative.”
Casimir gave a slow nod.
“Seems like a lot of coincidences, doesn’t it?” said March.
“Might be, might be,” said Casimir. He looked at Tolox. “What’s your interest in all this? You own vending machines. Though I suppose if the Machinists conquer Rustaril they’ll get rid of the vending machines along with all the liquor.”
“Maybe I’m a patriot like you, Bernard,” said Tolox with a shrug. “Organized crime’s one thing. Dealing with the Machinists is something else entirely. I started out as an Administrator, but I got chased out of the government. Despite all that, I don’t want to see the Final Consciousness conquer Rustaril. I hate the Republic, and I think the Sugar is a crime against the people of Rustaril. But I still don’t want the Machinists to take over the planet.”
“Fair enough,” said Casimir. He finished his drink, set down the glass, and leaned back in his chair. “Then what do we do about it? I tried to have Miss Axiom blow off Venator’s head
, but that didn’t work out. Suppose it wouldn’t matter. If I killed him, another agent would come along and take over the operation.”
“No,” said March. “We’re going to have to shut down Deveraux’s warehouse and his operation.” Though if possible, March was going to kill Lorre. The man had earned it after the near-disasters at Rustbelt Station and the Eschaton system and the destruction of the Covenant. God only knew how much more trouble the man would cause if he was not stopped.
“I am glad we are all in agreement,” said Casimir. He reached for his drink, glared at the empty glass, and lowered his hand. “Then how are we to do it? I have some armed assets, but direct confrontation would be risky. The Securitate permits both Deveraux and me some leeway, but that does not extend to street warfare. If I attack Deveraux’s warehouse, the Securitate will fall upon us like a Citizen down a flight of stairs.”
March had not heard that metaphor before, but it was an unpleasant mental image.
“Maybe that’s the key,” said Tolox. “We arrange for an anonymous attack on Deveraux’s warehouse. When the Securitate arrives, they realize what he’s up to and shut him down.”
Casimir mulled it over. “No. Almost certainly Deveraux has protection from pro-Machinist Administrators. If the Securitate tries to shut him down, he’ll make a phone call to his friends.” He shook his head. “Either we have to break his plan so wide open that everyone on Rustaril knows about it…”
“Which would not be good for anyone in this room,” said Tolox.
“Or sabotage,” said March.
They all looked at him.
“We find a way to completely destroy Deveraux’s facility,” said March.
“We don’t know what he’s working on yet,” pointed out Tolox.
“No,” said March. “But if we scout his facility, we will likely find out. We would have to do it anyway to plan proper sabotage. If we destroy whatever Deveraux is building, that will likely convince the Machinists to abandon the plan.”
Axiom had been silent throughout the conversation, but now she walked to the window, her reflection in the glass.
“It sounds like we have the basis for agreement,” said Tolox. “Our organizations will work together to scout Deveraux’s warehouse and prepare a plan of untraceable sabotage.”
“Agreed,” said Casimir. “We can work out the details later.” He turned a longing eye towards the bar. “Meanwhile, let’s…”
Axiom took several quick steps back, yanking out a gun from beneath her coat. Casimir’s bodyguards reacted at once, drawing guns from beneath their jackets and holding them in Axiom’s general direction. Casimir surged to his feet, yanking out a pistol. March and Dredger both drew their weapons, and Tolox got to her feet and stepped back from the table.
“Axiom?” said Helen. “What’s wrong?”
“They are coming,” said Axiom, her gun pointed at the window. “I calculate this is a retaliatory strike for the attack at the Video Parlor.”
“What are you talking about?” said Casimir. “I…”
Something moved outside the window.
March just had time to shift his aim when the window exploded, and the thing outside leaped into the conference room. It landed on the table, four spider-like metal legs bracing its impact. The rest of the creature looked like a human man, the skin grayish, the veins turned black with nanotech.
It was another drone like Philip Reimer.
March started to aim, and the spidery drone exploded into motion.
Chapter 6: Calculated
March was fast, but Axiom was faster.
Her arms moved in a blur, both hands wrapped around the handle of her pistol. The weapon barked three times, and the drone’s head exploded backward in a flash of red blood and gray brains. The drone shuddered, its limbs of flesh jerking, and the metal legs jutting from its side hammered at the table, digging chips from the expensive wood.
“Jesus Christ!” said Casimir, his eyes wide in his ruddy face. “What the hell is that?”
“A ghost drone,” said Axiom. “The implants exist in a quantum state, and the host is unaware of them until they are activated, and the transformation begins…”
“The hive implant!” said March, jumping upon the table. “Get the hive implant!”
He had barely reached the corpse when the ghost drone came back to life, just as Reimer had.
The brain was dead, destroyed by Axiom’s bullets. But the hive implant at the base of the skull was still intact, as were the cybernetic augmentations along the spine. The implants took control of the body, and two metal legs whipped towards March’s face with enough force to crack bone. His left arm snapped up, blocking the legs, and he felt the shock of their impact down his entire body. It forced him back a step, and he lost his balance and fell, landing hard on two of the chairs.
Dredger, Casimir, and both of Casimir’s bodyguards opened up with their pistols, the bullets hammering into the gaunt torso of the ghost drone. The cyborg rocked from the impacts, though any bullets that struck the metal legs ricocheted off and buried themselves in the walls. None of it did any good. The drone would keep fighting until its hive implant was disabled or removed.
“Stop shooting!” said Axiom as March heaved himself to his feet. “Stop shooting!”
“Are you insane?” said Casimir, slapping another magazine into his smoking pistol.
“Do as she says!” snapped Helen, looking at March. “Do as she says or we’re all dead!”
March jumped back on the table. The ghost drone reacted at once, two of the metal legs lashing at him like deadly whips. But this time he had anticipated the attack, and he dodged, the metal legs carving gouges from the table.
He leaped on the ghost drone’s back, his metal fingers grasping the dark metal of the hive implant, and he ripped with every bit of strength that his cybernetic arm could manage. The hive implant tore free of the dead man’s head with a wet tearing noise, translucent slime and thick black fluid dripping from it. March fell backward as the ghost drone went into a final jerking dance and then went still, the metal legs locked and holding the dead man in macabre suspension.
“What the hell was that thing?” said Casimir.
“Were you not listening?” said Axiom. “I explained it to you.”
“Ghost drone,” said March, staring at the dead thing as the pieces came together into his mind. It was a good name for this type of drone. “That’s what Lorre and Deveraux are doing. Sugar tainted with nanobots. The victims use the tainted Sugar, and the nanobots infect their bodies and start constructing cybernetic implants. The implants are in a quantum state and only activate when ordered. Like turning Citizens into bombs.”
“Hell,” said Casimir, rubbing his jaw.
“Maybe we can use the body as proof,” said Tolox. She had a pistol in her hand, and she stood next to Helen, who didn’t seem to have any weapons. “Get more of the Administrators on our side. The pro-Machinist Administrators might look the other way, but if we wave something like this in front of their faces…”
“They’ll come down hard on us,” said Casimir. “We…”
“Idiots,” said Axiom, shifting her aim back to the window. “Stop talking!”
March looked at the window just in time for the rest of the panes to explode.
Four ghost drones burst through the glass and rushed forward. All of them shared the emaciated, gaunt look of the previous two ghost drones March had encountered. Their skin had turned a sickly gray, and the veins had turned black from nanotech. Each man had four metal cyborg limbs sprouting from the sides of his torso, two from his left side and two from his right side.
This time, the ghost drones did not hesitate, but attacked at once, rushing forward in a tide of corpse-like flesh and dull gray metal limbs.
March and the others fought for their lives.
A hail of gunfire met the charging drones, and the kinetic impacts slowed the enemy. Two of the drones died in the first moment, bullets stabbing in
to their skulls. Death only made them pause for a few heartbeats as their hive implants took over. That was bad since the ghost drones seemed to fight better once their organic brains were dead. March doubted the average Rustari Citizen had much in the way of combat training.
One of Casimir’s bodyguards went down when a metal leg caved in his skull. March seized the drone’s moment of imbalance to wrench a hive implant free and fling it aside. The drone went into a spastic dance, a metal spider leg striking March’s chest and sending him stumbling back. Casimir’s second bodyguard figured out the drones’ weakness and stepped closer, emptying his pistol into the hive implant. Unfortunately for him, the hive implants were impervious to bullets, and the drone’s legs reached up and crushed his head.
A volley of gunfire tore into the drone as Axiom stitched shots up and down its torso, and the former Citizen staggered, black slime flying from the wounds.
“March!” shouted Axiom. “I shoot, you kill.”
He grasped her intent at once. With her uncanny aim, she could stun the ghost drones and knock them off their balance. Axiom emptied another magazine into the nearest drone, and March stepped closer and ripped out its hive implant. The drone collapsed, and as it did, March saw more of them climbing through the shattered windows. He realized that they must have the ability to crawl up walls like insects.
“If we stay here we’re dead!” said Tolox.
“Out!” roared Casimir. “Move, move, move!” He pushed Helen through the door, which was rather chivalrous of him, and then urged Tolox through. Axiom went next as the ghost drones gathered themselves for another charge, and then March and Casimir went through the door. Casimir swung the door shut and locked it behind them. It was a heavy metal door, an inch and a half of steel, and March’s gun wouldn’t have penetrated it. Even a plasma pistol might have taken a few bolts to burn through it.
Silent Order: Axiom Hand Page 11
