by M. R. Forbes
The thought of Amos with kids of his own was a frightening one. "I take it things didn't go as planned?"
"They did for a while. Got married by a justice, moved in together. I got a job at Dunkin' Donuts instead. Sex was great, everything was perfect." He paused. "Course, you know that's when the bad shit happened. Come home late one night, door to the apartment is open. Dad was a cop, until he started ghosting, so I always carried a piece. I take it out. Calling her name. No answer. My heart is pounding like a stud on a bitch in heat.
"Go into the bedroom. Julie is there. Nothing on. Blood all over the sheets. Raped. Murdered. Should have taught her to shoot." He took a heavy breath out and slammed his fist on the steering wheel. "Used to believe in God. Used to follow His word. After that, I made two promises. Never let another woman die on my watch, and do everything in this fucking world I can to forget about the pain and the guilt. You know what?"
He waited for me to ask.
"What?"
"Dannie died on my watch, and I ain't never forgot the pain or the guilt no matter what I've done or who I fucked. Some shit you just can't control. Let it rip and hope for the best. Pain is life, and life is pain. If it didn't hurt, you didn't care, and if you didn't care, you're already dead, like one of your little soldiers. You want to be alive, then fucking be alive. Embrace it, use it, let it motivate you. Fuck feeling sorry for yourself because you got sick. Julie wasn't sick. She's still just as dead."
I looked over at him. He took a huge inward snort of air and heaved another sigh. I didn't really know what to say. He was right. It hurt to get a taste of what I'd lost, but only because I spent so much time dying instead of living.
I took a deep breath and put the mask inside one of the big inner pockets of the old coat. Let whatever fucked up spirit was hanging out in it use me to get its kicks. I wanted the power. I needed the power. Jin and Dannie were counting on me.
"Feel better now?"
"Amos, I'm sor-"
"Don't. Don't fucking apologize. I got to live with my pain, just like you got to live with yours. We do the best we can with the shit hands we're dealt. That's it. We find this Prithi chick, and then we find Tarakona. Stay focused. Worry about everything else after."
We rode in silence for a few minutes. I spent the time staring out the window, watching the other cars whiz by. We were moving fast.
"If we survive this... Do you think Mr. Black is going to have me killed? I've seen his face."
"No, you didn't. You saw who he wanted you to see. Anyways, he'll give you a pass this one time for Dannie. Cross him again..."
I knew what he meant. "What about Red?"
"Jin? Don't know. Way she is around you... Think she'd rather fuck you than kill you."
That statement made it harder to focus. "What?"
"You telling me you didn't notice?" He started laughing.
"You know I'm impotent, right? Comes with being half-dead." I remembered how she had acted in Secret Sushi, and waking up with her head on my chest.
"Don't matter. You're her knight in rusted armor. She totally wants you to-"
"Amos."
He shut himself up on the first try, for a minute anyway.
"Damn shame for you that you can't perform. She may be an elf and all, but man if I had a shot at that a-"
"Amos!"
"Yeah, anyways, she keeps giving you those big anime doe eyes. Course, you'd have to be an idiot to start anything with her. Miss Red and a fucking necro? Talk about nuclear winter."
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. The idea of spending more time with her was appealing on a lot of levels, and terrifying on a whole lot more. It didn't matter. It was impossible, and we both knew it.
"That doesn't mean she won't have me killed."
"Nope."
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
My name is mud.
Amos steered us off the highway, while I used the phone Black had given me to go online and pull up a satellite view of the address. It turned out to be a small industrial complex just outside of Acton, a more rural suburb that seemed like an odd place for there to be any kind of corporate infrastructure. According to the satellite, there were three large two story buildings and a couple of parking garages nestled between the trees and hills. Our target was the one on the left. According to Google, it was owned by Parity Limited.
What the fuck?
This whole thing was getting crazier by the minute. I knew the Houses had an interest in the Machine. I didn't know they had control of it. Did House Red own the Machine, or just the building? It couldn't be a coincidence. Tarakona had gotten to someone in House Red, someone with an awful lot of clout. Red's real negotiator, maybe? I wish I'd asked Jin who that was. Now it was too late.
"You got a plan?"
We were still a couple of miles out. It was early afternoon and gray.
"We need to get inside. I'm willing to bet that won't be as easy as walking in. They're going to have some kind of security."
"Machine server farm? They're gonna have users to back up the armed security. Think you can necro them all?"
"No. The dice will do six targets at once, max. We can't go in there guns blazing when we don't know what we're up against. I don't want to kill a bunch of innocent people."
"We can say we're here to see Prithi? Some kind of nerd business or something."
"Look at us. I don't think we can convince anyone we're into the corporate scene."
"Wait for her to get off work?"
"We don't know what she looks like. And you're assuming she's a girl because of the name. Anyway, we can't wait. Every minute that goes by raises the likelihood that Jin is dead. You may not need the money, but I still do."
"Shit. Okay, what then?"
I knew what. I just didn't like it at all. I wanted some other way, and couldn't think of anything. "We need to hope someone is leaving work early today."
"Steal their badge? What if they're using fingerprint? Anyways, the building is big but it's all servers. This ain't some massive corporate headquarters where you just blend right in. You'd have to-" He stopped talking. His face started to flush. "Look, I'm guilty of a lot of shit, but no."
"There's no other way."
"Fuck that, there has to be."
"There isn't. I've tried to think of one. Everything else is too much of a risk. Maybe I would have taken it before. There's no reason to now. One person, that's all. The building is owned by Parity, and it houses people who work the Machine. These aren't innocents. They signed up to do this job. They put themselves into the shit storm. They could have gone to work for Facebook or something."
"Trying to rationalize killing someone?"
"Someone in there got Dannie killed, and Tarakona has already wasted forty plus innocents in this little Jihad. All we need is one, and we can stop him from killing more."
Yeah, I was trying to rationalize. I had taken an oath once to do my best to save lives. The fact that I was suggesting taking one... it left a sick taste in my mouth. It showed me what I had become, and how far I would go.
Thanks, Grandma Sophie.
Amos covered another mile without a word. "This is on you. I'm waiting in the car. Only reason I don't turn around is because of Dannie. Gonna feel dirtier than lesbian mud wrestling for this."
"So am I. If you have a better idea, give it to me now."
He kept driving.
Of course, we had to pass through a manned gate to get into the industrial complex. It was a good thing Amos was an amazing straight faced liar. He convinced the guard that we were stopping by to check on the coolant systems for the center building, some place called Raven Microsystems. He went on and on about how he was the owner of the HVAC company and that he had gotten an emergency call and left the golf course to handle this himself. He then rattled off a half-dozen possible causes of the coolant leak before the guard waved him through, despite not being on the list of expected visitors.
Hell, I would have let him in.
"I'm standing in the corner of the ring, up to my ankles," he said, keeping with his mud wrestling analogy. "Chick on the other side is hot and athletic. Not a BBW like me."
"Are you sure you aren't okay with this, because you sound like you're enjoying yourself a little too much?" I pointed ahead. "Stay near the reserved spots. The assholes in the front are more likely to have better access."
He sighed and drove slowly towards the front of the garage. I could only hope we wouldn't have to wait too long for someone to bail early.
I could see the building once we reached the front of the garage. Nondescript would have been an exciting way to describe it. Two stories, simple white stone, with a pair of glass double-doors leading into a bland lobby and no windows anywhere else. The only indication it was owned by Parity was the butterfly and DNA logo etched onto the door.
"Those cameras are going to be a bit of a bitch." They were hanging from every support on the garage. The good news was that they were in a fixed position.
"Stay low," Amos replied. "I ain't gonna stop. Too suspicious. I think I heard the bell ring. Time to get messy."
I unlocked my door and took off my belt. He turned the front corner of the garage and slowed down a little. I pushed my door open enough to fall out, shoving it closed even as I hit the ground on my knees, scraping up my pants. I stayed on them, hiding from the cameras by positioning myself between the cars.
Amos kept driving, headed for the visitor's spots on the other end. If the guard had been watching the camera that picked up my move, I would know it in a few seconds.
Nobody came running, no alarms went off. I stayed crouched, pressing myself against the side of a Porsche and watching the front of the building. I started moving through my stretching routine, yodeling at a whisper and cracking my fingers.
For the first time, I felt stupid for doing it, not relaxed. I was about to kill someone. I stopped.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. It was getting hard to stay crouched, and I had gotten a couple of panics when two other cars had driven past and a couple of people had headed towards the other buildings. I was lucky they hadn't seen me.
Finally, a guy in a gray suit came out of the Parity building. He was an older man, with thick white hair and good skin. He picked up his phone while he headed towards the lot. A few steps later, the lights on the car two spots over flashed.
I checked to make sure no one was coming, and then moved slowly around the back of the Porsche, rolling across the space between vehicles, and getting myself into position. I found the dice in my pocket.
They were cold.
Shit.
I reached into the inner pocket and pulled out the mask, sticking it against my face. It wrapped around, leaving me feeling more secure with my identity concealed.
"A soul, a good soul," I whispered.
He is old and weak.
Damn it.
"I want him. You owe me."
It is not his time.
"What does that mean? You take them when you want. When we want."
Not before their time.
I was crouched behind a car in a parking lot, arguing with myself. The guy in the suit was getting closer. He would be able to hear me in a second.
"Give me a fucking break. How many souls have I fed you over the years? How many have I offered, and gotten nothing back in return."
Silence.
"Please. There has to be some kind of bargain." I didn't know any other way in. Prithi was our only lead.
One that I choose, for one that you choose.
I balked at that. It could choose anyone. Jin, me ... fuck. I didn't know what to do. He was getting closer. I could hear him talking.
"We've got her in one of the offices, just waiting for you to send someone to pick her up... I couldn't just kill her in front of all her co-workers... Yeah, she's kind of stupid, thinking she could do something like that and stay alive, she doesn't seem to know how these things work."
He reached the door of his car, a Range Rover. I was crouched behind it. His conversation made my decision easier.
"Fine. Bargain made. I choose this asshole."
The bargain is made.
The dice grew warm in my hand. I rolled them under the Range Rover. They popped out at his feet.
"I'm on my way. Be there in thirty." He lowered the phone and looked down. "What's this?"
Fire, and Fire.
Was it random good luck, or had it given me exactly what I needed?
The man in the suit dropped in a paralyzed heap. The dark energy pulled its soul in, and I heard his screaming voice in my mind.
"Him," I said.
The power of a soul for the power of a soul.
I felt myself grow healthy again, though I could also feel the age of the man in my muscles and movements. I crept around the corner, took his keys from the ground next to him, and opened the back door to the car. I stood up, secure that I looked like him, and lifted his body up and in. Then I headed back towards the building like I forgot something.
He was talking about killing someone. It made my decision and action a lot easier to take. It allowed me not to feel sorry or guilty. What the hell had he been talking about?
I moved through the doors, into the lobby. A woman was sitting behind the reception desk. She was pretty, and she had a confident look about her. I was guessing she was a user. A uniformed guard stood next to her.
"Forgot my wallet." I heard the guy's voice come out.
"I can have Rose bring it to you, Mr. Campbell," the receptionist said.
"No, thank you, Claire." Her name was on a small placard on the desk. "I'll get it."
I kept walking, to a solid wood door with gold inlays. It had a retina scanner next to it. I leaned in, let the laser pass over my right eye, and smirked when the door clicked open.
I was in.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The greatest escape.
The place was nothing out of the ordinary. Lines of offices along the windows, cubicles in the center. There were maybe three dozen people inside, most sitting at their desks pounding away at keyboards, or watching data stream through monitors. I skirted the edge, looking for Mr. Campbell's office. My office.
On the way, I crossed a schematic of the building. It was constructed like an iceberg, with the small office topside, and multiple floors of servers buried underneath, using the cold ground and circulating the rainwater that fell into it to help keep the system cool. There had to be a dozen levels, thousands of servers. How much of the Machine did this one building actually represent?
I passed three people while I was walking. I was going to say hello, but by the way they cast their eyes down when I approached, I decided Mr. Campbell wasn't too friendly to the lower class. Instead, I moved past them, bumping their shoulders without an excuse me. I was feeling better about offing the guy by the second.
My office was next to the corner, which belonged to Desmond Carlyle, VP of Operations, Acton. The door to mine was open. The door to his, closed. I leaned over so I could see in the window. There was only one person in the room, and I doubted their name was Desmond.
She was eighteen, or twenty-two at most. She had long, shiny black hair that fell in a wave to her shoulders, dark skin, and a thin, delicate face with long eyelashes and deep eyes. She was wearing a colorful thin silk blouse buffered by a white tank and cropped cargos.
She was shivering, and crying.
Prithi Sharma, if I had to guess.
I reached for the door.
"Colin. I thought you were headed out?"
I turned around. Mr. Carlyle, I presumed. Another older guy in jeans and a polo shirt. He was holding a glass of water.
"They told me to bring her," I said, quietly enough that no one else would hear.
His smile faded, and he looked concerned. "I thought they were sending a patrol car, so we could avoid a scene."
Real police, or fake police?
"There's no time. Th
ere have been some complications."
I could see his tongue moving behind his lower lip. "That damn necromancer? Tarakona is going to have someone's ass."
"Tell me about it. I need to get her out of here and buried before that asshole can get to her. Can you cover for me?"
"I'll think of something. You think he'll be able to trace the lock back to this farm?"
"I would say no, but he's done a great job fucking things up so far. They don't want to take any chances, not when we're so close." To what, I didn't know. It sounded good.
"Okay. Go on in and grab her. Give me a few minutes to gather everyone up so I can make a speech about... something. I'll figure it out." He clapped me on the shoulder, and handed me the water.
"Thanks." I opened the door, and ducked inside, closing it behind me.
Prithi looked at me without saying anything. I took a breath in and tried not to get embarrassed. She had wet herself. This was the bitch who had screwed us?
"Mr. Campell, please, please, please don't do this. I only did what Mr. Carlyle asked. I did what he told me to do, that's all."
I knelt down in front of her, and handed her the water. "Have a drink."
She threw it in my face. "I'm not stupid. He went to get it. I know it's drugged. Mr. Campbell, he's setting me up. He's blaming me for altering the Machine. He made me do it."
I believed her. I needed to get her out of here, and then we could talk.
"I'm sorry, Prithi. Someone has to take the blame."
"No," she shouted. "Help-"
I put my hand over her mouth. We didn't have time for this. "Be quiet, damn it. I'm not fucking Campbell. You want to get out of this building alive, start pretending you drank that water." If I had to guess it would have been a sedative, to make her more cooperative.
"What?" she asked below my hand. I took it away.
"I said, I'm not Campbell. Those assholes took my boss, and killed my best friend. You're going to help me find them."
