by Jeff Somers
Orel barked Mara’s rough laugh again as Hense cursed and began what looked like a very professional breakdown of her standard-issue sidearm.
“Naw, Av’ry, we ain’t partners. Janet hired me to do a little wet work for her not so long ago, and now I’m just hanging around waitin’ on her to tell me if we still have a current deal or not.”
“You give me Orel Prime, and you can walk out of here as Michaleen Garda and do as you please,” Hense said immediately, concentrating on her gun. I pictured the area of the basement we were in, the paths through the columns, the crowd of loitering Pushed who hovered around us like breathing speed bumps, giving myself low scores for grace and speed in my smothering rad suit, and decided a run for it was a suicide mission.
“Yer gonna need more than jus’ little ole you to take on that crazy asshole,” Orel said. “The old Monk units aren’t as classy as these newer avatar issues, lass, but he customized it a fair bit, and the bones are just as strong, just as fast. And then there’s the slug o’ wires buried in his brain, which you helped him get.”
Hense shook her head distractedly. “I’ve got another team on its way. They haven’t breached the main entrances yet, so they’re working their way back the way we came in.”
“She helped you get the God Augment,” I said, looking past Hense at the spot where Grisha and Marko were still struggling to right themselves.
“Payment,” he said. “I didna need any more fucking yen, so I went for something more exciting, follow? Besides, it was a big order. I told her rubbin’ out Marin wasna’ like walking up to some mope on the street and puttin’ one in his ear—Marin was the cloud. He was multithreaded. I tol’ her, you want Marin dead, I’ll have to figure outta way to drop a nuke on his head.” He made Mara’s face wink at me again. “An’ that costs.”
“You’re lucky I don’t drop a nuke on you,” Hense snapped, inspecting the barrel of her gun with one digital eye. “Because this bullshit is not what I expected.”
Mara’s face bloomed into amused horror. “Poor you. Not my fault you didn’t see the possibilities. Not my fault you didn’t know the protocols. You said y’wanted Marin gone; I made him gone. Y’said y’wanted to be director; well, you’re the motherfucking director, ain’t you, Janet? You didna know about the hardwired rules y’have ta follow now, Marin’s instructions set imprinted over your own, too fuckin’ bad.”
“I didn’t know I’d have to come back here to crawl up your ass for override codes to stop me and every other cop from going to sleep, Michaleen,” Hense snapped back. “You knew. You might have mentioned it.”
Orel shrugged. “Wasn’t part of the deal, lass. You wanted Marin—an entity the size of a city, as heavily defended as anything, requiring the resources o’ half the fucking System to be gone. I made him gone. The rest is up t’you.”
Hense nodded, snapping the gun back into one piece. As she racked the chamber, Marin suddenly began whispering to me.
Tell her you’re invoking Charter Rule 3, Subarticle 54, he said in my thoughts.
I blinked, and started to formulate a silent reply to the ghost in my brain, but Hense swung the automatic up at me, so I just opened my mouth: “I’m invoking Subarticle 54!” I said quickly. “Charter Rule 3, Subarticle 54.”
Hense went absolutely still. Two pounding, staggering heartbeats went by and she did absolutely nothing.
She’s bound by my instruction set, Marin whispered. It was programmed into the role of Director of Internal Affairs to make sure I couldn’t make any power plays. Took me years to engineer a few things to give me some leeway. She hasn’t had years.
Leeway. He’d forced me into assassinating Dennis Squalor and taking down the whole fucking Electric Church, starting the Monk Riots, and leading directly to the Plague that killed half the System, all for his eternal State of Emergency and fucking leeway.
“You’re claiming to be a protected SSF informant,” Hense said slowly, grinding out the words. She was shaking slightly, the gun held unerringly on my chest. “I-I-” she stuttered and then shook her head once. “I need a badge number.”
Can’t help you there, chum, Marin said. I haven’t been connected to the SSF databases in years. Wait—try 649-215208-40-293-38.
I repeated the numbers as they appeared in my thoughts. I knew where the shredder was, the position it had landed in. I imagined myself diving to the floor for it, coming up with it dead-on Hense and toggling a burst. Then I imagined myself doing that wrapped up in heavy, damp burlaplike material. The endings of those two thoughts were different in grim, unhappy ways.
“You’re claiming to be Richard Marin’s protected informant under Rule 3, Subarticle 54,” Hense said slowly, biting off the words like her CPU cache was maxed out, passing data through a bottleneck. “We have a valid certificate of termination on server for Director Marin, so—”
Tell her she cannot invoke Rule 3 because she is in violation of Rule 3, Subarticle 1.
“You’re in violation of Rule 3, Subarticle 1,” I said quickly, before she could finish declaring Marin dead.
Again, she went still. I heard Orel rasping out one of Mara’s scratchy laughs, but I didn’t look at him. If he decided to knock me down, take a part in this, I was dead anyway.
“You are claiming I am not the ranking officer in the situation,” Hense said robotically, like she was forced to speak the words due to some deep magic programming in her avatar brain. “Identify the ranking officer.”
I didn’t need to wait for my ghost to speak again. “Director of Internal Affairs Richard Marin, badge number 649-215208-40-293-38,” I said.
Say: I am his duly appointed representative under provision 901 of the Charter.
We’re just stalling, I thought, repeating the words.
Feel free to invoke better ideas, Avery, Marin said easily. I’m fighting for my life, too, here, you know.
Hense shook herself again. “As it has been established that a valid Termination Certificate is on server for Director Marin—”
Try invoking Rule 234, Subarticle 43. When she asks, tell her your citizenship revocation statement exists only in physical form and must be authenticated before further action can be taken.
I said it, repeating the words as Marin whispered them, but when Hense once again locked up for a second or two, processing this new piece of gristly bullshit, I launc"0em">self forward, crashing into her and knocking us both to the floor, where I bounced, once, and rolled over onto my belly, taking hold of her hand with both of mine just as she squeezed the trigger. The shot sounded distant, like someone shooting in another room.
She was moving immediately, pushing me off fast and easy, like I weighed nothing. I held onto her gun with both fat, numb hands and she whipped me this way and that, trying to shake me off, and squeezed the trigger again either out of reflex or hoping to tear my rad suit open, let the invisible knives in to fuck with me. Then she whipped me back around again. I planted my feet, squeezed as hard as I could, and when she tried to pull me back, her hand slipped from the gun, leaving it awkwardly clenched in my gloved hands.
Before I could process this tiny victory—I was so fucking unused to victories, tiny or otherwise, that I goggled at them when they did arrive, like a tourist from misery—she crashed into me bodily, knocking me to the floor, the gun squirting from my hands like a living thing and arcing through the stuffy air to smack into the bleeding, sweating head of one of the Pushed. Then it disappeared onto the floor and their feet, and Hense had me by the helmet, raising me up off the floor, pulling my visor close to her face, which had darkened into a shade of crimson I’d never encountered before.
I put my fat hands on her tiny waist and tried to twist her off me, but she just ignored it and slammed my head down onto the ground as hard as she could. I didn’t feel the stone, but my head pinged back and forth, smacking into the hard metal interior, making my HUD light up bright and clear for a second and then start flickering, as if the augments in my brain had been knocke
d loose.
I reached up, going for her eyes, but she released my head and smacked my hands away. She was strong. I was breathing hard, sweat streaming down my face inside my wearable prison, and she looked like she could roll over and take a nap whenever we finished.
I feinted for her face again and then went for her belly. Her hands flashed up to block me, and I got a good shot in, knocking her backward. I surged up, something tearing in my belly, and finally got my hands on her throat, squeezing for all I was worth.
“Hell, Mr. Cates,” she said, sounding almost bored, “you can’t strangle me.” Almost casually, she broke my grip, taking each of my arms by the wrist and bending them back. I let out a screeching kind of noise, certain that tendons had snapped in my arms, red pain licking up into my chest. She flipped me off her and, with a kick that knocked the wind out of my lungs, sent me hurtling into the Pushed, who obligingly went down like pins, giving me a soft, near-vertical landing. I pushed myself back to my feet and spread my legs a little. Hense was still standing just a few feet away, her hair a little mussed but otherwise untouched. She took one step toward me, making me wince as I tensed up, and then she paused for one second and dropped to the floor in a loose heap.
Behind her and a little to my left, Orel did exactly the same thing.
I stood there, panting, my visor steaming up with my own exhalations, and slowly another plump rad suit waddled into my field of vision, holding a small electromagnetic pulse device in its gloved hands. Slowly, Mr. Marko turned to face me, and then actually waved.
“What,” I gasped, wincing, “took you… so fucking… long?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t stand up.”
XXXII
THE ONLY THING MISSING IS THE SOUND OF HIM LAUGHING AT ME
Legally, Marin whispered, that is to say—on the SSF servers—there are two people. One’s named Cainnic Orel and is one of the most wanted men in the System, accused of everything from theft to treason. The other is named Michaleen Garda, and aside from some minor offenses and a Hold Order issued on him a few years ago that landed him in Chengara—Hold Orders not requiring any actual evidence or even formal accusation as long as they’re issued by the director—he’s a legitimate citizen of the System. So Hense’s instruction set will allow her to let Garda walk away, but any entity she regards as Orel she’ll have to either arrest or destroy.
I don’t fucking care, I thought back, stepping over to Marko.
“Thanks, Zeke,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You just saved my fucking life.” I almost felt bad.
He nodded. “I did, didn’t I?”
I shifted my hand from his shoulder and gave him a light slap on the helmet. “The moment’s over.” I turned away, searching the crowded floor for my sidearm and my shredder. “How long will they stay out?” I said, looking from Hense’s avatar to Orel’s.
Grisha staggered into my field of vision, his rad suit covered in dust, holding his auto on Mehrak. “Standard warm reboot of core systems in ten, fifteen minutes,” he said, his voice faded and wrinkled by static.
I nodded, spying Janet’s gun on the floor. Shoving aside a group of docile, bleeding Pushed I reclaimed it, checked the chamber, and walked over to where Hense lay crumpled. I stared down at her for a moment; she looked like some girl off the street, tiny and frail, like someone had stolen up behind her and sandbagged her, taken her credit dongle, and run off. Her eyes were open and staring, her face slack. She looked dead.
I leaned down and put the gun about four inches from her face and squeezed the trigger three times, getting sprayed with the weird, warm mixture of fake blood and white coolant I’d come to expect from avatars. Then I put a shell in her chest and belly, too.
“We’ve got to move,” I said, turning away. “She’s got dozens of herself, and at least one is going to be heading down here with a backup team of digital gorillas to put us out of our misery.”
Somewhere, one of the Pushed let out a long moan. It went on and on, stretching out and slowly rising in pitch until it was a wet scream.
“Avery!” Grisha said, shouting and sounding breathless. “Think for a moment. Surely Orel—the primary—has heavy security. Your differences with Direct opnse aside, we will need the manpower she supplies.”
I turned to look at him. “My differences? She was going to execute me right here. Put me down like a dog—which she wanted to do weeks ago but couldn’t because of her fucking programming. And now that she’s found a loophole, you think we can trust her?”
The scream turned into a series of screams, and I realized it wasn’t alone—a few more of the Pushed had joined in, filling the room. They sounded like they were drowning in themselves.
Grisha didn’t move for a moment, and then he put one gloved hand on top of his helmet, rubbing as if he could feel his shaved scalp through the thick material. “I want a cigarette so badly I am close to removing this helmet, fuck the instant death,” he said. “You are right, of course.” Then he whirled. “What is with screaming?”
I turned away, purposefully holstering my gun as I looked for the shredder. Grisha, I knew, wanted to be sure the override codes were secured, one way or another. The success of the mission was all that mattered, and I didn’t doubt that he’d sacrifice me in an instant if he thought he had better odds with Hense and her dwindling army of avatars. I didn’t want to put a bullet into Grisha, but I would if he made me. If I did, I’d lose Marko, too, I figured. Marko had hardened up a little, but I doubted I’d be able to shoot someone he regarded as a member of the team and still rely on him to help out.
I’d have to run with Grisha as far as he was willing to go, and then cut him loose.
As I studied the ground for my shredder, I kept Grisha in my peripheral vision as best I could with the fucking helmet in my way, with my own sweat condensing on my visor, my own fetid air congealing around me inside the rad suit. The noise was getting hard to think through, between Mehrak’s low groaning and the Pushed’s rising screech.
And then, right in front of me, one of them blinked his bloody eyes and looked right at me. He was a kid, sick-skinny and covered in bleeding sores, his arms still locked in position to carry a rifle he’d lost long before. His hair was white and black, falling out in clumps, and his eyes were like two dull coals, just red with a speck of blackness in their center.
Without warning, he sagged forward and grabbed onto my suit.
“Dita,” he whispered so quietly my augments and the suit’s microphone barely registered it. “Where is she?”
I staggered backward in surprise, bringing my auto up in shock, and he slid off me, hitting the floor and staying there. I looked around. Half the Pushed in the room were showing signs of life, of awareness. Orel’s Push was wearing off, and all these people had just graduated from Unluckiest Fucks in the World to Unluckiest Fucks in the Universe.
I spun and barreled my way toward Grisha, who turned instantly to put his gun on me.
“We’ve got to go,” I said, loud, but trying not to shout. I needed to be persuasive. I needed to be reassuring. “We’ve been fucked with.”
Grisha kept the gun up, but studied me through the muddy visor. I had faith in Grisha. Grisha was a thinker, and he would give me the seconds I needed. “Avery, we must proceed.”
I shook my head. “We’ve been fucked, Grish. Orel’s not here. He’s not fucking here.” I gestured in the air. “Look at these poor shits. They’re waking up. The Push is fading. He Pushed them and then he left—he wasn’t here when we dropped.” I curled my free hand into an involuntary fist. “He’s somewhere else.”
Grisha turned bodily to take in the room. “It may be,” he said slowly.
“His avatar sure seemed to know to expect us,” Marko put in. “It was sitting down here, waiting in the tunnel.”
“Fuck,” Grisha said in a flat, low voice. Around us, more and more of the Pushed were dropping to the floor. The ones with any strength left began screaming immediately; others ju
st writhed there, getting slower and slower, like fish plucked suddenly from water. “Fuck!” He turned again, fast, but kept the gun down by his hip this time. “How can we be sure? Avery, the future counts on us. How can we be sure?”
I holstered my gun and began fishing in my suit for the big hunting knife I’d brought along with me. “I’ve been on the dangling end of Orel’s pole before,” I said. “I know how it fucking feels. The only thing missing is the sound of him laughing at me.”
“Fuck!” Grisha shouted, lashing out a leg and kicking a body on the floor, then stumbling backward as his center of gravity went wonky in the heavy suit.
“It was too fucking easy,” Marko said, waving his arms. “I knew this felt too fucking easy!” I decided to let Marko rant. I didn’t have time to remind him that he didn’t rank high enough to have unsolicited opinions.
Abruptly, the explosions and shaking from above stopped.
Knife and gun in my hands, I stormed over to where Mehrak was lying on the floor. “Marko!” I snapped. “Help me!”
He jumped and then scurried over to me, slipping on the sweat and blood and crashing into me in a kneeling position. I steadied him with my gun on his shoulder as I pulled the knife from its hiding place with my free hand.
“Go over to Orel,” I shouted, putting my auto in Mehrak’s face. I fired twice, then pushed myself up and put two more shells into his chest and belly, making sure. Who the fuck knew where they might put a brain in these tin men. I dragged myself, breathing hard, over to where Marko stood over Mara’s avatar, hands hanging limply at his side.
