by Ren Warom
“This is your home, lad,” Pentecost responds, holding his arms wide as if there’s no argument to the contrary, as if Petrie’s a fool for even thinking otherwise. “Waiting to welcome you with open arms, even after you deserted us. Even after all the good people you’ve put to death today.” He sighs, looking over the destruction of the Ark. Shakes his head, a mournful look falling over his face Petrie can’t help but respond to, his gut cramping. “See what you’ve done, Petrie? Killing children to save children. Which child is more worthy of life?”
Under Pentecost’s knowing eyes, Petrie withers. Of course he’s wrong. He was always wrong. Always making mistakes. His arms begin to droop, the gun loosening in his hands. Pentecost smiles then, and it hits Petrie like lightning. He remembers that smile. Remembers seeing it on Pentecost’s face as he beat Petrie until he could barely move. Barely see.
He looks at his hands. They’re so big now. He is. But when he lived on the Ark, he was tiny. A runt. What kind of man beats a skinny runt of a child until he can’t move? He looks up at Pentecost again, and it’s like seeing him for the first time. He’s so small. He begins to lift his gun.
Pentecost laughs.
“Best pull that trigger quick, son,” he says. “Got men on the way up. I let you waste time, standing there shivering, practically crapping your pants. The man is like the boy. Pathetic. Weak. Worthless. Do you think you can kill me now? You know I won’t kill you. I don’t need to. They’ll tear you apart as soon as they see you. I told them your name. Deserter. Betrayer. Coward.”
Fear is a knot, tying you up into yourself leaving no room for movement. Logically he sees how small Pentecost is now. He accepts that he doesn’t need to be afraid, and yet he still is. Petrie takes a few steps back as Pentecost’s men appear at the edge of the crow. The rappel clip line is still attached to his wrist.
He’s got one chance.
Running backward, he leaps, throws the clip at the wire, bouncing hard as the line takes his weight. Bullets zip past him, far too close. Rippling his clothes. Cutting through the edges of his torso, his thighs. He pays them no attention. Lifting his gun again, he aims carefully as he flies backward, swinging to and fro. Fires.
And Pentecost drops like a stone.
Rocks and Hard Bastards
Dizziness strikes on top of nausea as soon as his feet hit tarmac and Shock manages by luck alone to head for the lower end of Plaza, toward the piss-cheap plastic-box franchises with their gaudy 3D-printed furniture, prone to cracking, and tinny piped music.
Concentrating hard on the contact between feet and ground, still holding on to his stomach with both hands, he sticks close to the shop fronts. If he’s knocked down in this state, getting up is going to involve throwing up, and throwing up is where he draws the line.
Somewhere over the noise of rushing feet, the entertainments, the hum of lights, he hears Streeks hooting and slurs, “Fucking Monday.”
Academy classes finish at nine P.M. sharp today and Plaza hosts a dangerous game of “Avoid the Streeks” till podtime. Avoidance is all there is. No one here will stop to help if they catch you. Turning a blind eye has become a habit for the folk of Foon Gung.
Give them a few years and the ones that don’t end up Streek stats will be harmless. WAMOS. Separated and shacked up into whatever unhappy marriage of skill and labour their Psych Eval and test scores condemn them to; jacked in to everyday just like every other suit and sorry arse on the street. But there’ll always be Streeks to avoid. Mondays are never safe.
Shock glances back up Plaza, scoping out Streek colours. All he sees is some old fartster in a concrete booth, staring at him and grinning wide enough to break his face. Clearly he’s tripping harder than Shock is.
“Weirdo.”
He stumbles on, eyes skimming the signs for that demarcation between sort-of cheap and super cheap. Scanning for Wunda-cafes, four different franchises owned by different Corps but all selling the same dubious menu, advertised in plastic food scale models inside plasglass boxes. You might die of food poisoning but you can eat at Wundas for a whole week for under five flim.
He collapses into the first one he finds. Orders a long, cold green tea with caffeine shots and gets his arse in a seat before it falls out from under him. Taking massive swallows to counteract nausea, he accesses his IM to chime Sez the man-whore. When he’s done, this number is getting exorcized from his drive. Halle-fuckin-lujah.
Haunt?
Man-whore.
Cute. Real cute. You done?
Done.
Where you want the flim?
Sending you a box now. Make sure it’s in opaque packaging and well secured.
Done.
Shock cuts off before Sez can. Draining his tea, he shoves the cup to the centre of the plastic table and makes to leave, aiming for sleep until he can get that flim and sort his drive, furious about the waste. This always happens with Mim. Always something going wrong. Always the shitty lining. His IM chimes just as he vacates his seat. He’s not expecting a call. Goes to cut it off dead, but it answers itself, and he hears a voice in the top five of his “never want to hear again” list: Twist Calhoun.
Well, well, look what I’ve caught.
If Shock could drop stone cold dead right now, even in some imitational fashion like a fucking mongoose, he’d be all over that shit. Won’t help though, because he knows he’s not going to need a drive clean after all.
You fucking toe tagged me? he yells, his virtual tone as high as if he’d never taken testosterone supps. What the fuck, man!
That I did.
Collapsing back into his seat, Shock’s incapable of controlling the shaking in his limbs. It rattles the metal legs against the plastic floor. Sounds like a mass of scuttling insects.
Didn’t think you’d waste that sort of flim on me.
Toe tags cost an eye-watering stack of flim to make. Once you’re tagged you’re a walking corpse to whoever paid, because they can always find you. But they’re not supposed to feel like this mass of tarry hell—they’re supposed to be all but untraceable in a drive, so you can be tagged and not know it until it’s too late. So what the hell kind of tag is this? He’d ask, but Twist might tell him.
Interesting assumption you’re making, Twist says, and his amusement is neither amusing nor reassuring. You might want to stop making those.
Okay. So here’s a thing I’m not assuming. Mim had a part in this, yeah? Was that even a job?
Fucking goddamn Mim. That girl has it in for him, plain and simple. Why could she not just be happy with napalming his heart?
She comes in useful. And yes, the job was legit. Two birds, one stone, etc.
Am I walking dead here?
Shock does not want to know this either, but he has to ask. Looks with a furtive eye for anyone in his vicinity who might be packing heat. Everyone looks suspicious. Oh, well done, Paranoia, that’s super helpful.
Twist laughs. You think I’d pay this much just to kill you? Seriously?
I assumed…
If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have woken up in Slip-matic. You know that. Your stupidity is embarrassing.
All right. Shock tries to think through the high of panic, the sickness, the liquid swilling of the tag. Finds only one plausible reason.
You need me.
Bravo. First glimmer of your usual perspicacity. I do indeed have use of you.
Use, not need. Nausea becomes a vessel of viscera, sinking toward his feet. He’s toe tagged, which means two things: one, he won’t be getting paid for this; two, he won’t be getting away from Twist any time soon. This could be slavery. It could be slavery then death. He could kill Mim right now.
Reminding the Harmonys he exists is one thing, like setting rabid dogs on your arse. Setting Twist on him though? So much worse. Fucking unforgivable. He’d feel hurt, but he’s way beyond that, way beyond rage. He doesn’t know what this feeling is, only that if he ever sees Mim again he won’t be able to prevent himself from punch
ing her. Which is not like him at all. Shock might think violent thoughts, but he’d never be violent. He knows too well how it feels.
What’s the job?
You’re going to fetch me something from Hive.
Shock hangs on to his dignity by a narrow margin, swallowing mouthfuls of foul-tasting bile, hot as fresh soup. He’s watched the Queens plough through corals like they were gossamer, their bulk filling the Slip from murky depths to fake-beamed heights. Horrifying even from a distance. He never wants to be closer. And entering Hive without their knowledge? Difficult as hell. Even for a Haunt.
Why me?
Twist chuckles. He seems genuinely amused. Why not?
Plenty of Haunts out there. Haunts who haven’t displeased you. Feng Ho, Base, Joon Bug, maybe even Aliss or Black. All of them are capable of cracking Hive. Not that they’d do it without this toe tag, which I presume is the point.
Precisely. And yes, there were a number of you capable. Let’s just say this job is the result of significant trial and error, and you get to be the lucky Haunt to benefit from that.
A conversation he had weeks ago pops vaguely into Shock’s head. Was it weeks? Longer than one anyway. Feels like forever. Ducky Took waffling on about Haunts gone signal dead or some shit and he’d scoffed at it. Full on. Couldn’t wrap his tofu brain around any such concept. Fuck. How many Haunts has Twist burnt through exactly?
On the back of that comes a sneaking suspicion that this is the only reason he’s still alive. After all, Twist doesn’t call off his Cleaners, and that Amiga Tanaka nearly had him. By a freakin’ whisper. He’d convinced himself that his escape had been purely Haunt skills. Yeah. Of course it was.
How many did you use up?
All you need to know is that you’ll be the last. Rather ironic that you’re the only one no one will miss.
That hits Shock where he lives, but he doesn’t show it.
So. Hive.
Core, actually.
The floor seems to plummet away from beneath his feet. Hive is do-able, though it’s stupid to try: Core is impossible. Nothing gets in but Core drones. Nothing else can get in.
Core is not Hive, Twist.
No, it’s not. But as I said, you’re the lucky recipient of previous attempts. Feeling ill right now?
The crude oil?
That what it feels like?
Worse.
Good. You deserve that. The toe tag comes with a little extra, something not meant for a human. The signal given off by a Core drone.
You put virtware in my drive? Ho-lee hell. No wonder it’s fucking with his head. Virtware is code designed to exist amongst code. Nothing like this was ever made to enter a drive, to be inside a human mind. How the fuck did you get that?
I have my sources. But there’s a problem.
Problem? Like he needs more problems. He’s got nothing but.
The signal is loud enough to leak. You’re emitting.
People talk about being rendered speechless. What they mean is that no words are quite adequate to describe what they’ve witnessed, their emotional response to it. That’s where Shock is. Dumbstruck. If he’s emitting noise, then he’s visible. If he’s visible then he’s no longer a Haunt. Twist just took the single absolute in Shock’s world and tore it down like Jericho. Standing in the wreckage, Shock’s system experiences the aftermath of siege. The blood, the ruin, the rape and pillage.
You fucking what? His voice is so thin it sounds more like steam escaping through the cracks in a kettle lid.
Oh don’t you worry, Shock, you’re okay for now. I’ve got you blocked, all locked up tight. Unfortunately, the block will be obvious to the Tech-savvy people of my criminal peers, who are just a touch curious about my recent endeavours. Happen they’ll be interested in cracking it and tracking you down.
So why don’t you just grab me now until I have what I need to do the job?
Shock’s gone from ruin to rage, but underneath it? Terror. Nothing but. Rising and rising, electrifying his cells. His hands are frozen, his legs are numb, and his head is a bell, ringing out over and over. He finds himself tipping his head to one side to try to hear Twist’s response through the clamour.
I like the idea of you running against the clock. Besides, if you decide to be your usual craven self and try to slip my noose, I’ll stop the block and let them run you down; and when they’ve finished taking you apart, I’ll take what’s left and make you do it. With that toe tag there’s nowhere they could take you I couldn’t find you, even if they put a block on you themselves. You have to know how much that pleases me.
Shock’s chest shrinks to a tight point. Fucking Mim, shoving him into a dead-end and calling it a way out. When did he get so stupid? He rubs his eyes, trying to ignore how his knuckles come away damp.
Then I have no choice.
That’s right. And you are a lucky boy, because if you promise to be good, I’ll make an effort to keep protecting you.
An effort…?
I might not be able to save you in the long term, Shock, but I’ll keep you alive long enough to deliver.
Fine. Nope, not fine, but clear enough. Clear as a glass to the fucking face.
So what am I getting from Core?
Emblem.
Shock rests his face in shaking palms, suddenly exhausted. Yeah, if there’s one thing in Core a megalomaniac like Twist might want to get his greasy fingers on, and waste a fuckton of Haunts to do so, it’d be Emblem. That’s the pipe dream right there—control Emblem, control Slip, control everything. The fucking motherlode no one’s ever dared to try for because you’d have to be really stupid or really sure.
How in hell does Twist expect Shock to pull this off? Even with all these fancy extras it’s a job so complex it’s more like a kamikaze mission. He’ll be in Hive, vulnerable to the Queens, not just for seconds, but for full minutes’ worth of seconds, every ticking one of them a doorway through which disaster could erupt no matter how much he prepares, or how clever he is.
And what if the Queens manage to take Emblem from him? What could they do with it? What couldn’t they? The same goes for Emblem in Twist’s possession. Either scenario makes Shock’s gorge rise. He can’t do this. Cannot. Shock didn’t even know he had a line, but here it is.
What am I, a fucking wizard? A fucking idiot? You know what the Queens will do with that. What they’ll do to me.
Twist laughs at him again. Choice, Shock. Where’s yours precisely?
I won’t do it.
Then I’ll use Joon, and I’ll kill you in ways you can’t imagine. I’ll remake you a fucking girl before I do it. That how you want to die, Shock? I know it’s not how you wanted to live. What it comes down to is, one way or another, I’m getting Emblem. You can do it and stay alive, die clean with some fucking dignity. Or you can continue refusing.
Can he refuse? Shock looks down at himself. Tries to imagine what it will be like to have taken away what he worked so hard and suffered so long to make right and understands it will break him into tiny pieces, each one a symphony of pain. He should be brave enough to face that, to do the right thing, but Twist is right. He’s craven.
It’s not only that he’s suffered too much to cope with more, it’s that he doesn’t—can’t—care about anyone else. Numero uno is the only number he gives a shit about. If he doesn’t, who will? Besides, if he says no, Joon might say yes. What then? What would his attempted morality mean at that point? Nothing.
I’m going to need some things I can’t afford.
Twist doesn’t bother crowing. Why would he need to?
You’ll get a decent wedge of flim for whatever you need delivered to the same P.O. you gave to Sez. But that’s all you’re getting. Apart from maybe to live.
How long do I have? You said I’m on the clock here.
About forty-eight hours. If we’re lucky.
Forty-eight hours to get enough virtual gear together to crack Hive, sneak into Core and hook Emblem out from under Queen noses. It’s
not long. And if he survives that? Life sentence? Death? If he’d known he’d fuck up this hard, he’d have dropped out long ago, found any way at all to hang on where he felt happiest. Even sell his arse to whomever the fuck might want it.
At least he’d actually be there, instead of just dreaming about it. He still dreams of Sendai every night. Dreams his happiness is there, waiting for him after all these years, like a pound of diamonds in a security box. He’ll never know if he was right. The thought is bright, sudden pain, a burst of it, like raw chilli rubbed in a wound. He wants to curl around it, hold on, as if doing so can numb the agony. Instead, he takes his medicine.
Two days. Got it.
When you have Emblem you’ll be able to ditch the signal. It’ll degrade once used, so be careful about your entry and exit. Don’t want to accidentally alert anything Queen-like, do we now?
Where do I upload Emblem?
In my vault. Nowhere else. You fetch it, you bring it to me. Understood?
Understood.
And Twist’s gone, leaving a hole in Shock’s head big enough to lose the Gung in, aching and ringing like head trauma. He’s so fucking stupid. 0.5%? What exactly does it mean to be in that top half of a percent if he’s too dumb to see the obvious? Too idiotic to know when he’s being duped, even by the woman who made a hobby out of duping him.
Shock clutches his head. Oh hell but he needs sleep so very badly, needs a serious hit too, something strong. Pity he’s only got cheap shit. Pressing as many as he dares into his neck he drags himself off the stool. No time for sleep. Forty-eight hours is all he has and there are things he’ll need.
’Scrapers drooling around him in sticky S-driven coils, he staggers down the street, heading for his P.O. to fetch Twist’s flim. He feels alienated, the world something happening about a million miles away from him. But he can feel it zooming toward him, relentless, wearing an Oni mask with a saw-toothed grin big enough to gobble him up; and he walks faster and faster, hoping to outdistance it.
