One Man's War

by Steven Savile

  In territory like this, you’re never off-guard. Let your defenses drop, you die. I knew why Fate had picked it. It wasn’t just that it was remote, or that it was a wasteland, both strong factors in its favor, it was because of the by-blows. They provided an extra layer of protection. This way he didn’t run the risk of being ambushed by me or anyone else. They wouldn’t let us set up camp in their territory. There was no way to set up surveillance beyond a very grainy satellite image, and we could only manage that for as long as Mel Kamahi could get away with piggybacking a corporate feed, borrowing satellite time without being seen. It took time to recalibrate signals from the sky, too. The satellites needed to adjust their position and relay the signals back to earth. Meeting inside the city—any city—would have presented different challenges, but these dead zones were pretty much the last frontier in terms of the camera eye. They are watching you, make no mistake. Everywhere you go, every step you take, they’re watching. The corporations collect and collate endless data about your everyday lives. Things you would think are pointless data-points like what you ate for breakfast, how often you crap during a day, where you last fucked, and any and every addiction in between. These things all come together to help them predict the future, which is where they make their most money, by satisfying the needs you don’t know you’ve even got yet. It’s only a short leap to mind crimes and crap like that, where they know so much about you than can pinpoint intent before it’s even formed in your mind. Fate used to say that neither side was honest, but it was the lies of the sledgehammer that upset him, not the lies of the peanut. I always took that to mean he could deal with the lies of our corporate paymasters because that was just their nature, but he couldn’t cope with the lies we told one and other. There’s a bitter irony in that, no? It’s like saying how terrible the world is and just a small donation of ten dollars every month will make it a better place. If you’re a sucker, you reach for your wallet every time. I was done with being a sucker. It wasn’t my job to save the world.

  I could feel Fate watching. He was in here.

  They walked me through the shadows of the valley of death—a blisteringly hot expanse of wasteland in the center of The Labyrinth, so called because it was ground zero, the absolute nothing left behind by the bombs. This one had been a twofer, the first strike electromagnetic, the second with a thirty-two kiloton payload that cleared out a half-a-klick core. We walked into the epicenter of the bombs’ five ring radius effect. At the core, everything had died. Everything. You could still taste the frisson in the air, the half-lives unleashed here still decaying and far from neutered. The second ring was no less terminal for mortal man but was designed primarily to take out automated machinery, wiping stuff like the banking networks to bring on chaos, while the third took out rail signaling and ignition systems. Beyond that, the fourth canceled out radio and television receivers, computer systems and mobile phones, while the fifth and final circle was battlefield tech, all of the support systems.

  The dead drop was in one of the outer rings.

  It had been an amusement park once upon a time, now it was like something out of the worst children’s nightmare, with deformed clown-faces dripping down the front of derailed toy trains and the twisted bodies of legless unicorns on carousels. The centre of the carousel was an anchor-point of broken mirrors that offered up shards of the fun-fair in fractured horror where the silvering had blistered and left a pox of black spots on the glass that only served as a reminder of the melting flesh and screams that must have haunted this place on that last night of revelry as the nuclear wind burned the children and their parents to ash.

  I’m not a religious man. I’m not a holy man. I don’t believe in anything. Even so, I crossed myself as we walked through the rides toward what had been the old Tin Pan Alley with tin shooting galleries at the back.

  My two guides watched me, the hunchback nodded encouragingly as I moved toward the silent stalls. It wasn’t hard to imagine the barkers drumming up trade with promises of a prize every time and the metallic pling of the duck-shaped targets being shot down. I could almost smell the ghosts of cotton candy and saltwater taffy in the air.

  The drop itself was inside the doors of the ghost train.

  The faded faces of Dracula and Frankenstein looked out through curls of blistered paint whilst around them ghost hunters ran screaming from comical specters. None of the old carriages were on the rails. They lay overturned and wheelless on the wooden boards beside them.

  I pushed through the doors and stepped through into darkness.

  It was even hotter inside than it was outside.

  Claustrophobically so.

  The Day-Glo limbs of a plastic skeleton hanging by a rope were picked out momentarily as the sunlight streamed in through the double doors and vanished as they slammed closed again, leaving me alone in the dark. I could hear rats scratching around in the darkness. There’s nothing more unnerving than an abandoned fun-fair, I don’t care what anyone says, and I’ve been in some hellish places. But fun-fairs… they’re meant to be full of life, vitality, screams and giggles and excitement, not like this. When they are left to rot like this, it’s almost as though some emotional vampire had swooped down to suck all of the joy out of life, which, given Bela and Boris on the wall outside maybe wasn’t so far off.

  I stumbled forward, counting out eleven steps as I felt along the wall for the mechanism.

  I resisted the temptation to call out to Fate.

  My fingers found the switch. I pulled it. Somewhere deep inside the ghost train, old generators rumbled to life. I felt the vibrations through the old floorboards. There was a clank, and a clatter as the points on the metal rails shifted and the distant echo of one of the old cars rattling over them. I wasn’t waiting for the car to sweep me off to some hidden vault, I needed the rails to move, that was all. With the points shifted it gave access to a flat panel of a false wall that just needed to be popped with a soft push to open and reveal the dead drop.

  I had the time and the place already written on a piece of paper. I left it on the wooden table beside a box of matches so Fate could burn it and leave no trace of our communication. There were several small piles of black ash inside the room, testament to many such lost communiqués. Secrets were precious in this game, and a little paranoia never hurt anyone.

  I checked the room for anything Fate might have left for me to find, but the place was bare. Was this where he’d sold us out? It was a chilling thought. More chilling was the fact that one of those piles of ash probably signified the death sentences passed on Martagan and Swann.

  Well, it would be over soon.

  I backed out of the room and killed the power to the rails. The sound of the junction dropping back into place echoed through the darkness. The light was only fifteen steps away, but it had never felt so far away.

  He was late.

  I began to think he wouldn’t show.

  And when that thought took root, it festered.

  The more it festered, the more I began to suspect I’d opened myself up to a world of hurt. There was no getting away from the fact he had proven himself a treacherous bastard. Yes, he’d let me pick the time and the place, but that didn’t mean much in the scheme of things. It certainly wasn’t a guarantee of safety. He’d had more than enough time since I’d left the message in the dead drop to set a trap if that’s what he intended, even if I’d tried to be clever in my choice of locations.

  I’d given him six hours to get in place. The meet was two hours from the dead drop. I hoped he appreciated my choice. Climbing the stairs to the top of the Wan Chai plaza super tower, eighty-six stories above Old Tokyo, surrounded on all sides by the familiar views of the city set against a backdrop of stars. The neon was a thing of beauty. It all bled together in streaks with the rain coming down.

  I walked out to the middle of the rooftop. It was a vast expanse. There was no way you’d accidentally stumble and tumble off the edge, given the edge was more than four hundred me
ters away from the roof access. Gant was across the plaza, hidden behind the stained glass of the Sky Church’s chapel. I knew he was watching through the scope of his Predator KVK. Called upon, he wouldn’t miss. Gant’s aim was dead-eye. Even with the combination of the wind, rain, and distance, I knew I could trust him. Of course, his bullets were just my back up. I had no intention of shooting first.

  But Fate was pissing me off big time.

  I’d gone out of my way to make him feel at home when I ruined what was left of his life, right down to the choice of location. He only needed to turn up. And that just meant riding the express elevator to the top of his own building and taking a couple of flights of stairs to the roof. It wasn’t like I’d asked him to trek across the Sahara. But he still wasn’t here, and the clock was ticking.

  “Do we have eyes on the mark?” I said, my voice picked up by the micro-transmitter woven into the fabric of my shirt collar.

  “Negative,” Mel Kamahi said. “Fate hasn’t entered the building.”

  We were all in place.

  The wind buffeted me while the rain plastered my hair flat to my scalp. I didn’t move. I didn’t turn my back from the view. The reason was the black speck I’d noticed on the horizon, moving low but fast across the rooftops. It was a Viper—an attack helo. We’re talking one seriously armed piece of kit, security forces grade, a mobile war machine. You didn’t see them over the cities unless there was a riot to quell. The streets were as peaceful as I’d ever seen them, which meant the Viper had another reason for being here, like, delivering Randall Fate to the rooftop meet. I followed the helo blades as they chopped through the deluge. Its high-intensity searchlight picked me out. It was blindingly bright. I still didn’t move.

  Down below, life went on oblivious.

  I raised my head to stare right into the blinding white lights without shielding my eyes. It was a dumb move. Bravado. I didn’t want Fate to think he had me at a disadvantage. I can be a prick like that, even when it costs me to do it.

  Bring it on, Fate, I thought grimly, waiting for the helo slowly circling the plaza.

  If he’d been smart Fate would have had the searchlight sweep the entire plaza, but he was intent on staring me down. I’m not sure if that meant he knew there was no threat to his life, or if he was absolutely preoccupied with me. I’d like to think it was the latter. Nothing wrong with having a bit of an ego in this game. After all, I was very much alive and well despite multiple attempts to put an end to that.

  Mel’s voice crackled into life in my ear. “He’s here.” I almost said, “No shit,” but realized the Viper wouldn’t be showing up on her screens, so Fate had walked in through the front door whilst I was staring up at the helo. I was beginning to work out how he thought. The presence of the Viper circling the plaza was no coincidence. Just like the black car before, it would be part of his exit strategy, but this time the short-hop teleport would be rigged to pluck him off the rooftop and put him squarely in the helo’s passenger seat so the pilot could make like a shepherd and get him the fuck out of there if things went south. It was a good plan save for one small thing Fate had overlooked.

  Tenebrae.

  She was my wild card.

  I heard the access door open.

  “You took your time,” I said, still not turning around. This was an important moment in my life. It’s pretty rare that you know you’re in the middle of an iconic moment at the time, but there was no doubting just how big this one was. We’re talking student and teacher facing each other one last time, the tables turning as the student finally becomes the master.

  “Things are a bit,” Fate seemed to struggle to find the word he wanted to use. He settled on, “complicated.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “I’m in trouble, Marco. I’ve made some mistakes. I don’t have anyone to turn to.”

  “I know how that feels.”

  “I don’t think you do,” he said, full of self-pity. “I thought I saw a way out. Instead, I think I opened the door to hell.”

  “That’s a bit fucking melodramatic, man,” I said, enjoying the moment. “Do you have the drive?”

  I heard his wet footsteps as he moved across the rooftop toward me.

  “It’s safe,” he said.

  “But it’s not here,” I finished for him. “How did I know you’d try and dick me around at the last moment, Fate? You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. But that, of course, was exactly what it was like. We both knew it. He couldn’t resist trying to renegotiate the terms of our agreement. It was just the way he was, like the scorpion that stings the turtle, so the pair of them drown together. It’s just his nature. And that, of course, was what I’d been banking on.

  “So what is it like, my old friend,” I said, laying it on a bit thick, I’ll admit. “Tell me. I picked this place for privacy so we can talk openly without fear of being overheard. I assume you’ve swept the place to confirm that fact we’re alone?”

  “Of course,” Fate said. I believed him. He was just paranoid enough to think everyone was out to get him. Of course, the only person who was really gunning for him just happened to be the one person he had turned to for help. Now that, my friends, is ironic.

  “So this mistake? All I want is the drive you promised me, the rest is just crap I need to get through to get it, so don’t make me drag it out of you.”

  “I don’t want to talk to your back, Marco. I want to see your face.”

  I turned around slowly, tears of rain running down my scarred cheeks.

  “Talk to me.”

  “I made myself dispensable. It was a stupid thing to do. I thought it was a way out. A quick score. A way to get some cash and just disappear and be done with this life. I don’t have the heart for it anymore, Marco. I’m getting old. I want to have a yacht in the Bahamas and soak up the sun until I get skin cancer and shrivel up like Tutankhamen’s balls.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I sold them my brain.”

  “You did what?”

  “I let them pattern it. I don’t know how the fuck it works, you know me and technology, but they hooked me up to a machine in some fancy lab and dumped all of my memories and instincts onto a server. I didn’t realize who was behind it. I thought it was a good deal. Fuck, I didn’t actually think it’d work. But they can use what they downloaded to overwrite some poor slob’s brain and turn him into me. And not just once. You saw what Akachi were doing back there, we’re talking a fucking clone army.”

  “And for that, they want to kill you? Surely they’d want to kiss your feet?”

  “They don’t need me anymore,” Fate said.

  “Okay, so what’s this got to do with me?”

  “I need you to help me.”

  I let the plea hang between us for a second, drawing the silence out, before I said, “I don’t think so.”

  “You want that drive, you need to protect me, Marco. If I die, your chance of getting your hands on it dies with me. So you need to ask yourself how much do you want what’s on that drive?”

  Little did he know, of course. I was so tempted to tell him there and then I didn’t give a shit about the drive, but that would have defeated the whole point of the con. He’d bought the hurrah. I was in absolute control here. Time for the In-and-In, the glorious endgame. I could no more back out now than he could. This was when I had to throw my hand in with Fate. Of course, in this case, it wasn’t about cash. I needed to invest something different in the con. Me.

  “I want it,” I lied. I felt like an actress in some sleazy porno really, telling the lead just how badly she wanted him whilst staring up dumbly at the camera, wishing she was anywhere else but there.

  “Then help me disappear. I need a new life.”

  “Are you really sure they’re out to get you?” I said. I knew my voice was being picked up by the hidden mic and carrying to the rest of my crew. We’d agreed on an audio cue. All I had to say
was “I’m in.” And Tenebrae would make damn sure we sold just how ‘in’ I was to Fate.

  “I don’t know, Randall,” I said. “If things are as fucked as you say, they’ll know who I am, and going up against them will paint a big red target on my back. There’s no going back from that.”

  “I’ve got money,” Fate said. “I can make it worth your while.”

  “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here now.”

  “Fuck you, man. Don’t make me beg.”

  The Viper moved around behind the Super Tower, still circling, it’s searchlight still lighting every corner and angle of the rooftop.

  “Help me, and I’ll help you. You get what you want,” Fate pleaded. “You get the info that’ll bring the corp down. You get to be the idealist. You’ll be a fucking legend, my friend. Everything we’ve ever done, every sucker deal we’ve ever bled for, you’ll make it all worthwhile. You’ll own them. That’s the only language these corporations understand. You’ll have the power.”

  “Okay,” I said, making sure the next two words carried through the rain to where the assassin was ready to do her thing. “I’m in.”

  I heard a whistle, out of place in the buzz above the city. It cut through the drumming of the rain on the steel and glass structure. Fate heard it, too. He turned, following the sound with his gaze, in time to catch the rocket’s red glare the instant before the Type III shell from the M76 rocket launcher tore into the armored side of the helo. In the silence between heartbeats nothing happened, and then as another 70 ml of blood was pumped through our systems, the searchlight died, throwing us into momentary darkness before shell exploded, ripping the helo apart from the inside out. Twisted metal spun away, the core of the fireball blazing white-hot as it lit the sky, turning night briefly to day. The wreckage rained down on the unsuspecting pedestrians in Wan Chen plaza. We were too high to hear the screams.