He knew there were others, more and more coming out of their pods. Their bodies had been vatting for months. Some of them looked just like him, exact clones. Most of them looked totally different. Some were experimental models, ones that he would try to implant memories into, to see whether they’d make good sleeper agents.
“Relax,” said the chief surgeon.
Venadrik could feel the masked surgeon standing over him. He hated that feeling, but he just lay there, getting control of himself.
“Relax,” he said again. “Polymorphic surgery is very disorienting at first. It’ll take some getting used to.”
“We’re patient,” said both hims at once, with smiles.
“Ha. See, you’re already getting it down.”
Venadrik took a deep breath. In a few days, he’d come back and kill all these people and take over the place for himself, but for now he could relax. The huge abandoned factory complex the clinic was in was perfect. He could make as many selves as he needed. Now he could be in all places at once. He could set everyone against each other.
Slowly he opened all his eyes in all the other rooms. And the voices were drifting in from all of his minds.
We Thought of Everything
2458 Orthodox Western Calendar
5156 Universal Chinese Calendar, Year of the Dragon
Sudden Victory Military Complex, Snowstorm Clan Roving Starship Settlement
Venadrik squatted down outside the Sudden Victory military compound at the edge of the city. A thick cloud of dark, insectoid drones hovered around the energy shields surrounding the complex. He zoomed in to the microscopic level and saw a storm of millions of hideous mites blanketing the air. This was military nano, ready to rip you apart from the inside. Venadrik could see a rigid hierarchy of bugs: skin surface fighters; bloodstream swimmers like dark squid; heavy assaulters that looked like Ebola viruses merged with crabs, their six razor-studded claws ready to rip apart cells and membranes; heavy carrier mites that broke open like wasp’s nests and spewed millions of microscopic monstrosities. He zoomed out.
He could feel the cling-skin armor against his body, hear his breath heavy in his mask. It was exhilarating, his whole body pulsing with anticipation for the assault. He looked behind him, but everyone was stealthed. Good.
He could hear his other selves in his mind, many of them spread out around the city, ready to bring everything crashing down. He could see through all their eyes at once, feel their hearts thundering, their thoughts like a chorus in his mind. Except that damn Sakura. He kept losing track of her. She’d managed to shut him out again.
You should have never made her.
That’s what I said.
Shut up. All of you. We’ll get her.
“We really doing this, Mandrake?” said a voice over the public com. It was Miles Leucand, the union biomachinist who’d helped crack open the tethered union synths so they would spit out weapons. “Maybe not such a good idea. Not sure we can get through this.”
“Then you just go home, you fuckin’ coward,” said another voice, a thick brawler and bioelectrician named Jared Cuttergul.
“All of you shut up,” said Venadrik. He was playing union leader Janson Mandrake today. Mandrake commanded their respect with his soaring speeches and lead-from-the-front attitude. “Ain’t no backing out now. We gots something to get done here. You wants these fascists to come knock on your door next? Huh? Takes you away? Your kids? You wants these rich bastards to come take whats you earned? I showed you the streams didn’t I? I showed you what that fucker Gilead said right? Close it all down. He sacrificed everyone in his company. All the little people. Starve ‘em out, he said. Break them unions. He didn’t care one thing about your family or none of us. They’s behind this all. They own the military. Ain’t nobody not know that. They tells the government what to do and they does it. They’s the ones that kept you out of work for the last year, eating slop from the public synths while they eats roast pheasant and duck. Why I even gotta say this? You said you was ready to do something, ready to make a real difference. Right? Now yous ready or not?”
No response.
“Well is ya?” said Venadrik.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready. I’m sorry. Just got weak there, is all. Let’s get her done,” said Leucand.
“Good,” said Venadrik, smiling inward. “We takes the drones first. I’ll handle the mites. Let’s move.”
***
At the same time, in another part of the city, another Venadrik alias, Michael Anwar, led a group of angry unemployed Deoists as they stormed into a wealthy restaurant complex called The Prado. He and six other armed thugs entered a posh restaurant called The Electric Eyes and barred the door.
“Hello everyone,” said Venadrik, “please stay in your seats. Enjoy your meals. Please, don’t worry or let us interrupt you. You’ve earned everything you’re enjoying right now, of course. You’ve earned it off the backs of everyone, but that’s all right. Go ahead. Eat. Enjoy yourselves while the rest of us starve. Feel good about it. All that matters is yourself and your needs.”
He wrenched a rich woman up from table. Her husband shot out of his chair to defend her and one of Venadrik’s men caved in his head with a thick metal bar. People screamed, tried to flee.
A tiny recording started playing, with one repeated phrase, in a dark, metallic voice, like the Multiface vocodings: “stop, there’s no way out, there’s no way out, there’s no way out…”
“Everyone, stay where you are. I insist. We’ve thought of everything. There is no way out, so just enjoy the show. We’ve prepared some wonderful entertainment for you tonight.”
The girl was whimpering. “Please let me go.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
Kill her. Beat her face. Lick it. Make her suffer.
“Look at me,” he said, softly.
She kept looking at the floor. She had silvery hair, done up with bright red animal figurines. Her dress was semi-translucent and filled with tiny beads of red light.
“Look at me,” he shouted and wrenched her face up.
She opened her eyes slowly.
“Tonight you pay back what you owe.”
He slammed her down and leapt on top of her, his hands crushing her neck, squeezing. Her eyes bulged, as she desperately tried to take in air. She clawed at his face, her feet kicking wildly, her sharp heels cutting the floor.
The Last Few Minutes
2458 Orthodox Western Calendar
5156 Universal Chinese Calendar, Year of the Dragon
The Farm, One Police Plaza, Snowstorm Clan Roving Starship Settlement
The glowing ball representing the sensory footage from the last few minutes of Quinlin’s life hung in the air. For a moment Hoskin didn’t know what to do. Maybe it wasn’t real? Then he realized a deadman’s script was exactly what Quinlin would do.
Hoskin took a deep breath and blinked it open. In a storm of light and sound he plunged into Quinlin’s mind and body, seeing from Quinlin’s eyes, hearing through Quinlin’s ears. Hoskin whited out, disappeared into the periphery like some waking dream.
The strong smell of jasmine filled Quinlin’s nostrils. The cool, mild air tickled the hairs on his necks and arms. It felt like outside, but it wasn’t. He was squatting inside some kind of building, looking up and feeling its internal climate system. A starscraper, thought Hoskin, the thoughts far away, alien. Must be. It seemed to run upwards forever, its central shaft hollow and surrounded by balconies.
Voices in his head. Strange thoughts and images filled his eyes: a dog eaten by maggots; a body; people naked in a room, talking strangely. Hoskin shook his head, but the voices and hallucinations were a recording, they wouldn’t go away. And then Quinlin was looking through someone else’s eyes for a moment and everything was swirling.
Hoskin paused the sense-feed and sat down. This was not what he was expecting.
What kind of drugs was Quinlin still on? It wa
s bad. Why didn’t you say something to me, goddammit? I said I could help. I could have helped.
He took a deep breath and turned the sense detail back on and plunged disoriented into a storm of visions and noise and light. He hung on, and slowly, slowly the visions died down.
Quinlin seemed to get a hold of himself and he pulled up some mite streams.
The first images and sounds came back: a crowd of people in a well-furnished room, a party. Half were dressed in simple black or white outfits and half were casually naked. Shelves lined every wall, illuminated by the gentle light of yellow glowglobes. Animated sculptures and softly glowing holobooks filled the shelves. The sculptures writhed and danced. Heavy, gold-framed paintings dotted the vibrantly colored walls, the paintings sharp contrasts, some of them brilliant yellows and greens, stunning landscapes and golden suns melting into the horizon, others dark and violent, demons gorging on the dead.
“Shut your mouths,” said multiple people simultaneously.
Men and women stood around or lounged on long red couches. Some ate. Others drank. Some did nothing except stare at the others.
“You don’t tell us what to do,” said a chorus of voices, all in sync.
The sound of multiple voices in Quinlin’s head was still there, like constant static.
“Our vote is final,” said the first chorus, mostly male.
“That’s not how it works.”
“We say how it works.”
“We? We? We are you. You don’t make decisions for all of us.”
“We can and do.”
Hoskin knew what he was looking at. He’d just seen it. Polymorphs. Quinlin had found the killer’s hideout.
Other streams showed similar conversations in other parts of the house. That’s when Quinlin saw a hallucination of Sakura that drowned out the mites’ streams. And then he was looking through her eyes and down to the approximate position where Quinlin was squatting downstairs before the hallucination disappeared.
Hoskin paused it again. He did not like where this was going.
He forced himself to flick it back on. He’d watch it until the end, no matter what.
Just then Quinlin realized he was behind a minute or so on the footage and he skipped back to realtime. The sense-footage stuttered ahead. Now he was watching something real, no denying it. That’s when Gideon Daniels showed up. The guy was supposed to be dead.
“You stupid whore,” Daniels shouted at Sakura. “You like him don’t you? You filthy, hideous slut.”
Seeing Sakura confirmed the awful truth in his mind. She was one of them, a part of the killer. Daniels too. The other Daniels that died was just another Morph, an exact clone. He thought of the matryoshka doll again. He already knew. She’d already told him the answer.
And there was something else too. Something he didn’t want to accept. Why were Quinlin’s hallucinations so specific? Why had he seen Sakura, before he even saw her on the mites’ streams? There was only one explanation. Quinlin was one of the Morphs as well. He just didn’t know it.
Daniels pinned Sakura against the wall by her neck, but let her go a few seconds later when she looked at him. A furious Daniels broke away and turned his back on her.
“I’m sick of seeing myself. Get out of here. You disgust me,” he shouted and whirled to look at her again.
Sakura’s eyes blazed. “You disgust me.”
“You’re all worthless. I should never have made us,” he screamed and punched her in the face.
That’s when Quinlin’s feed cut out in a burst of white light.
Hoskin sat, unable to move. He tried to get up, but his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He had to process all this, make sense of it.
Another thought crept into his mind, one he didn’t want to think about. The clones that attacked him, maybe they weren’t clones? Maybe he was a Morph too? No. No way. He tried to think back. He’d seen things, heard things too. Maybe not like Quinlin, but little fragments. It was not good. No. He knew himself. It wasn’t possible.
His head was ringing, but he almost didn’t hear it. The sound seemed to come in like he was under water. When he realized it was his innerphone, he pulled up the connection and saw it was anonymous.
“Yeah,” said Hoskin.
Sakura’s image blazed up on his innervision. Her eyes bulged like a cornered animal’s. She had dark bruises on her face and neck.
“I need you,” she said.
Hoskin looked at her in disbelief. Did she think he didn’t know?
“I’m in trouble,” she said. “I need your help. I know you know the truth. I admit it. I’m one of him. Please. I want to turn myself in, but they know where I am. I was trying to make it to the station, but they found me. They’re coming. I can’t hide for very long.”
She looked over her shoulder. A loud sound in the background ripped through the connection.
“The other Venadriks—other Daniels,” she said. “They know where I am now. I tried to cut myself off but they found me.”
Venadrik? The name of the hooker that died and her son. Questions later, after I grab her. Could be a trap. Almost certainly a trap. But the faster Hoskin got to her, the faster he got to Daniels.
“You killed my friend,” said Hoskin.
“I didn’t kill him. He did—I mean the others ones—look, please. We don’t have long. I’ll tell you everything.”
She looked over her shoulder again.
Hoskin stared into her eyes. She looked sincere, but she always did. She believed her own lies. One question would tell him everything he needed to know about her.
“Why did you save me?” he said.
“What? We don’t—I need your—”
“Why did you save me?” he shouted.
She looked at him and seemed to understand. “I—you pick up little parts of other personalities when you inhabit multiple bodies, multiple perspectives. I didn’t expect that. I started to think differently. You don’t have to believe me. I didn’t want your friend to die. There’s no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to. Please—help me. It’s gone too far. It has to stop.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside your apartment. They already know I’m here.”
“Get in my house. I’ve got a panic room. Flashing the AP to let you in now. Get in there. Stay down. I’m on my way.”
The call winked out.
An alarm went off in the police station. It pierced the air. He’d only heard it one other time, in training. It signaled a major alert. An emergency broadcast bubble popped up on his innervision.
Hoskin opened the glowing orb. The voice spoke with a synthetic perfection. “The President has declared martial law under article 12 of the Emergency Freedom and Security Act. All law enforcement personnel report to active duty. All citizens are to be in their homes immediately. Deadly force authorized.”
The bubble disappeared. The alarm died down to a low, pulsing throb. The lights in the Farm blinked every few seconds.
It was time to finish this. Hoskin grabbed his go-bag from the closet. It formed around his back like a cast, distributing its weight perfectly.
Hoskin saw officers rushing past his office, boots pounding the floor. They seemed to move in slow motion, with the lights flickering like an eerie strobe. They were headed for the “dungeon,” the Farm’s basement, grabbing weapons and armor. Hoskin headed for the roof, moving at his top augged speed, weaving around cops heading in the other direction. He thought about taking backup, but Quinlin was the only one he’d ever trusted to back him up. How could he trust anyone now? Anyone could be one of them.
He got in his Dynasty aircar, tossed in his go-bag, stealthed and took off. He wasn’t far from his apartment, but he didn’t have much time. His room could stand up to an augged attack, but not for long.
The car raced for his building. He flipped the bottom of the car translucent and saw people everywhere. A huge crowd surrounde
d the Farm. It was going to be a war just getting out of the building, much less trying to get everyone inside their homes.
He yanked up the newsstreams. A dozen stations were telling the same story: an attack on two military bases; attacks at a wealthy restaurant and in the clothing districts; people marching in the streets; coordinated Deos and union marches; gunfire erupting in scattered pockets throughout the city as citizens printed off guns from untethered synths and clashed with police and soldiers.
Hoskin pulled up a heat map of city hot spots. The map looked almost entirely red. The Edgelands Ghettos were practically on fire.
His car sped through the night, avoiding trouble. In a few minutes he landed on the roof of his building. The feeds went dead. The car turned quiet. He grabbed a holostealth cloak out of his bag and put it on. He looked out the window, scanning for any visual anomalies, for anyone else cloaked. Nothing. His gun hand pulsed with purple energy.
He grabbed a smaller satchel from his go-bag. It carried only offensive essentials. He twisted it and the satchel broke apart into smaller pieces, the pieces skittering up his arms and attaching themselves.
Slowly, he opened the door and stepped out, checking his angles. With his ears cranked up, he could hear shouting and movement down on the streets below. Sirens screeched in the distance. His breathing echoed in his ears. He crept towards the roof door and it unstitched. The stairs were dark and empty, lit by a lone glowglobe. He went down, gun hand raised. With his ears turned up this loud, his footsteps resounded like thunderclaps. He turned them down.
A shot ripped the night. His backbrain pinpointed it close to his floor, a map exploding up on his vision. The map wouldn’t focus. He ignored it and rushed down the stairs. When he got to his floor he pressed up against the wall. He could hear shouting and frantic movement.
The Scorpion Game Page 29
