by Ren Warom
“Sort that fucking beast out,” she snaps.
Shock doesn’t move, or acknowledge her, but Shark quits battering the window. Amiga nods.
“Right. Get that octopus to hide you in the damn limo and get us the fuck to Shimli.”
I can’t hide him. He’s vibrating beyond a frequency the limo’s connection to Slip can cover.
The reply is musical, hums like electricity and static in her mind, making her blink, sit back hard in her seat. Was that Shock? She checks him. Out cold. Her eyes shift to the octopus. Find it watching her. A direct gaze filled with such life, such personality, Amiga all but recoils, because avis aren’t fucking real. They’re not anything. They’re imprints. Golden masks, if that.
I haven’t time to muscle past your prejudices, Octopus informs her acidly. We are currently fucked to a monumental degree.
Talking? It’s talking? What the…? Amiga blows out. Tries to speak. Fails. Tries again. You er… But… Shock’s out of commission… She feels crazy. Yeah, definitely crazy. Talking to an avi. Certifiable.
There’s a brief sputtering noise in her IM. Laughter? If we follow that logic, Octopus replies, then I could not possibly be functioning enough to drive a limo.
That’s a point and a half. As Shock said earlier: tou-fuckin’-che.
So you’re not Shock then?
We are both Shock and not Shock. We are three iterations of the same person acting as both individuals and a singular, united entity.
Is Emblem doing that?
No.
There’s that moment when you drop something when you know it’s going to smash into a million pieces all over the floor. You get this pinch in the intestines as you anticipate the noise, the mess, the hours of clean up. So it goes with Amiga’s preconceptions. In shattering they make a mess she imagines it will take years to clean up. She should have been braced for this, but even with everything she’s learnt over the past few days she’s still hanging on to whatever ignorance she can find. Stupid really, Amiga was never going to find her bliss. Not in this lifetime.
So you’re…
Alive. Yes.
Is Shark?
Yes, although he’s more… instinct than consciousness. He’s a tool, I am a gestalt, but we are both still beings. Okay with that? Ready to move on to the fuckage?
Wow, Puss is one acid-tongued, straight-talking SOB. Amiga can dig that.
Yup. Moving on. Fuckage. Go.
All activity at Yang’s current HQ mobilized in our direction as soon as the block broke.
Can we outrun them?
No.
Shit. ETA?
Even at top speed, they are currently due to intercept within minutes. Their vehicles are faster.
I have no guns. The ones she took are less than useless in this situation.
This vehicle is bullet proof, even the tyres will withstand barrage, but they will surround us. We are out of options.
Shark?
If Shark is damaged at this moment, Shock will die, he’s too weak to cope with the loss. That is why we have remained separate until now; we were maximizing our chances of surviving and therefore maximizing his.
Ah.
As I said, we are fucked to a monumental degree.
Note to self: Puss does not do exaggeration. Good to know. Amiga peers out the side window, spies the shit-ton of cars speeding into view, catching up too quickly. Within range for guns clearly not made with a printer, their windows slide down and they begin to fire. Experiencing that catastrophic elevator crash of the vitals as bullets begin to pepper the road around them, Amiga finds her mind capable of only one single thought: Exactly how long do bullet-proof tyres hold out?
Monumentally Fucked
As it happens, Amiga doesn’t get to answer her question. The bullets cease and four of the cars in pursuit manoeuvre to intimate positions on all sides, their windows gliding upward.
“Oh hell no!”
Amiga scoots back at double speed, hitting the belt button with her foot and taking firm grip of Shock. Just in time. The cars surrounding them move in concert, slamming metal elbows into their front, back and sides. Crunching the limo between them, a car compactor formed of cars. And the noise is excruciating, hits her body the way the sound of Shock’s drive agony hits her mind.
She hunkers low in the seat, enduring it all, cradling him her lap. It’s all she can do. It’s not enough. He’s bleeding again, not only from the heavy impacts shaking him around, but from the simple fact of her hands on his skin. She doesn’t know what else to do to help him. This has never happened before, this helplessness. Cleaners always have a back-up plan, a way out, that’s their job, that’s her job. Get it done, get away clean. Where’s her clean getaway?
Inside, she’s screaming frustration. She wants weapons, some kind of fucking firepower, a way to fight back. There is none. Only the persistent thunder of collision. And blood. Way too much blood. Shock’s and hers.
Amiga. You have my Haunt. Why is he not in my possession?
Twist’s voice in her IM usually drops a shot of liquid ice into her guts, so Amiga’s surprised to find fury bubbling up, hot and ugly. How fucking dare he? She’s not some lackey, fulfilling a duty. Following orders won’t magically erase the epic shit mountain she’s straddling the peak of, enabling her to jolly along to Sendai and casually drop Shock into Twist’s lap. Like she would anyway. Even if handing over Emblem were not ninety-nine percent of the problem, she wouldn’t give Shock to Twist.
That pulls her up short.
She hasn’t had a moment since Breaker yanked her through her IM to contemplate why she made the choice to follow shrivelled principles and protect this boy. Didn’t consider where the choice came from, what insane impulse drove it. Because there’s nothing sensible about it. In her position what she’s doing is a surefire death sentence, more certain than cracking Twist’s vault ever was. But she’s set. At peace with the outcome. What’s changed to make her feel that way? She’s not suicidal. She wants to get out of this alive.
Amiga. You know how unwise it is to ignore me.
There’s that tone again. Oh and the anger to follow, sharp as indigestion. Closing her eyes, Amiga breathes through it, surprised by how much it hurts. She’s so full. There’s not one millimetre of her that this anger does not reside in. It’s as if by stepping outside of the path she chose, she’s opened herself wide to everything she ignored to stay on it, and she’s so fucking sick. Sick to death of Twist, of being his hands, of doing his dirty work and never, ever being clean. She’s wanted to erase him from her life for the longest time and never had the courage. Now she realizes it wasn’t courage she needed, but this anger. This sickening, all-consuming rage.
Deuce once showed Amiga how to burn an IM link out. That’s the thing about virtual links. You can eradicate them. They aren’t fucking real. Amiga sends the command Deuce taught her to Twist’s link. It’s probably going to hurt him. Hell, it’s probably going to hurt her, but it’s okay. It’s good. Funny thing about taking a stand that, it might hurt like hell but if it’s right, there’s no feeling better. She’s only just realized that, and now she knows she wants to do it every single day. If she lives to see another.
Twist shouts her name as the link fries. Twist never shouts. It makes her laugh, and she realizes that this is how she’s going to die. Laughing. The thought makes her laugh harder. Jeez but she’s clearly gone off the wrong side of crazy.
Drones incoming, Puss shouts in warning.
Laughter dying in her throat, Amiga checks the rearview. Dozens of drones bear down on them from between ’scrapers, silver glints in the sky swift and deadly as meteorites. Unexpected tears gather in her chest, hard and fast as gunfire. These could be other drones, of course they could, but her instinct screams otherwise. Tell her what she doesn’t want to know: these are the drones that hit Jong-Phu, and now they’re here. That means one thing only. Anger drops away, sudden as the ground in an earthquake, leaving her hollow. Light-heade
d.
She starts to tremble. At the centre of her chest pressure builds, a hard knot of it, burning and burning. Her lungs push in on either side of it, heaving for air. The Hornets. What the fuck has happened to her family? Is Deuce gone? Can she imagine that? No, it hurts too much. She just burnt her bridges with Twist, and now she’s an island, like it or not. She’d forgotten how painful it is to be alone. How it constricts every cell. She can’t fucking breathe, can’t stand it. For a moment all she wants is for it to end. For a bullet to breach the engine and burn her away. Every last aching cell.
Tyres screech at their rear, cutting sharply through the dull retort of constant gunfire. Wiping wet eyes on her shoulders, one after the other, Amiga tries to see what’s happening, but there are too many cars around them, blocking the view, shuffling together. Why are they doing that? A moment ago they were all focused on attacking the limo. How did she not notice they’d stopped? Her game is all over the place.
What’s happening? she asks Puss.
Company.
Amiga looks around. Tries to see between cars struggling to spin in close quarters, their gunners still firing. She can’t tell the direction of the shots. Are they firing behind, or up? Are the drones after them? They certainly haven’t yet fired on the limo, which confirms Deuce’s assumption about the attack on Jong-Phu being a calculated move by the Queens. Amiga had assumed with Emblem in Shock’s head, the Queens would be trapped. Powerless. Stupid of her. How do people know what trapped means to things like them.
Finally she catches sight of the drones again, firing at something behind the limo and its accompanying vehicular swarm. But they’re also falling.
“What?”
She squints to focus. No she wasn’t imagining it. Stuttering and then slipping as though their strings have been severed, drones are falling mid-flight. The impacts as they begin to hit the ground reverberate in ripples, making the limo shudder. Even knowing it’s not an earthquake Amiga cries out, slams a shaking hand onto the dash, bracing for the worst. Some things are ingrained so deep in the DNA they become part of human nature.
Writhing as it loses power, one drone careens across the sky into another and straight into a ’scraper, taking a huge chunk of the wall, smashing windows as it tears a channel all the way to the sidewalk. There are bodies in there, caught in the collapse; she can see their limbs flailing in the falling rubble. Can she hear them screaming? Not over the traffic and gunfire, no, and yet she hears them loud and clear, instinctually adding voice to violence, knowing too well what it sounds like.
The cars collected about the limo’s flanks spin away, leaving huge gaps. She’s about to scream at Puss to get them the hell out of here when trucks roar through the chaos of vehicles, blocking them in again. She doesn’t know these trucks. Black, featureless, and bristling with gun ports. On two of them, pointing upward from the roof, sit makeshift EMP devices. Who has EMP devices? Twist does. Probably the Harmonys too.
Amiga closes her eyes for a second. There’s nothing like finding yourself in even deeper shit when you imagined you were in the deepest shit you could find. Still, she’s well beyond panic at this point. Her friends are dead. Shock is basically dead too, considering there’s no way she can get him to safety. And now she’s dead herself, something she expected to happen sooner rather than later even before this shit tsunami hit. The fact that she’s breathing makes no difference. It’s semantics. All she wishes for is a weapon. To give these bastards a little pain before they neutralize her. But her pack is in the footwell and her arms around Shock.
One of the trucks pulls alongside, its side door sliding open. Not one to face her end with anything like fear, Amiga turns with a snarl to take it head on, and there’s Deuce, grinning at her, a gun rested on his thighs. Next to him is Ravi, waving, his moustaches plastered back against his cheeks.
Amiga! He yells into her IM cheerfully. We know you can see us! Is there any way we can get the Haunt across here? Or should you and I swap places?
She’s got no words. None. They’re alive. They’re alive and they couldn’t even send a swift IM to let her know. She could simultaneously shoot and hug the lot of them. Struggling under a metric tonne of relief-rage she weighs up the outcomes, aware Shock’s time is all but run out. He can’t be moved, but she finds herself reluctant to let go of him. Seems when she picks a side her conscience takes it deadly serious.
She has a swift internal word. If she doesn’t let go and allow Ravi to take her place, Shock will die, and what difference will she have made then? What change? Murderer to murderer is not what she had in mind.
You take my place. He won’t survive being moved. She turns to Puss. I need you to hold him steady whilst I swap places with my friend. Can you do that and drive?
I’m a haptic hologram IRL. I can’t hold him at all.
But… you’re holding the wheel. Shark ate people.
No. I’m appearing to for your comfort. And Shark didn’t eat people, he mauled them. I am, however, not Shark. He can use nervous systems against people. I cannot. I am not built for offensive manoeuvres.
Fuck. So how do we do this?
Carefully, Puss replies. As if it’s obvious.
Amiga nudges the belt button to loose the harness, and moves Shock over between her and Puss. There’s no way to belt him in, so she opts for moving fast, shoving open the door and throwing herself at Deuce, hoping no bullets make it through the Hornet’s covering fire. Deuce grabs her out of the air. Her legs hit the side of the truck as he hauls her in and she bites back a scream. She’d all but forgotten her thigh. Ravi claps a hand on her shoulder.
“Closer in,” he yells to whoever’s driving, and throws his bag across as they veer in toward the limo.
Perching on the edge, he times it perfectly, leaping across the gap. Catching his body on the door he pulls it shut behind him as he ducks inside, his attention already on Shock. If anyone can save that boy, Ravi can. The limo shakes violently under what must be an attempted Shark attack. Amiga’s horrified at herself.
“I forgot to warn him about the avis,” she gasps.
“He’ll be all right,” Deuce snaps, and she looks up, wondering what the heck bit his arse. Ah. He’s got his hands on her leg, undoing the blood-soaked rag of shirt she used as a tourniquet, his face a potent mixture of worry and rage. “Look at this fucking mess,” he says. “Jesus, Amiga, it’s gone right through. When were you going to let us know you’d been hit?”
“When were you going to let me know you were alive?” she snaps back.
He glares at her, as if there’s no comparison. Fuck that shit, and fuck him. He has no idea. She returns the glare, refusing to wince as he shoves in a foam gun and packs the wound on each side. He pushes her leg away from him.
“If you didn’t constantly underestimate us,” he says viciously, grabbing something from the bag behind him and half-throwing it into her lap, “you’d have known we’d be coming for you. No matter what.”
“Word, girl,” Vivid chimes in from one of the gun-slots. “What exactly do you think we are? Hobbyists? We’re J-Hacks, sweetie. Nothing about our lives is safe.”
Nothing to say to that. It’s truth. Amiga’s lived with these guys for over two years, but she’s not lived with them. Thanks to her involvement with Twist they’ve had to hold her out of most of what they do, for their own safety. Helping with the drone was one of the few times she’s been able to join in. It’s not like they didn’t give her the chance to choose who to work with right from the beginning. They did. Deuce did. She chose wrong, let her fear talk for her, let old habits prevail.
Thing is, she’s always been convinced that this couldn’t last, so she went out of her way to prove it. Probably too late to fix that now really, but having quite literally burnt her bridges with Twist, and happily so, it’s good to know the last thing she does will be alongside them. A fitting end. One she probably doesn’t deserve, which makes it all the more precious.
Amiga looks down at
her lap. The object Deuce threw is a compact silver oblong edged in black. Her new crossbow. Well holy hallelujah! It’s a beautiful thing. Lethal. Fires titanium bolts from tight-packed, 200-capacity clips; single, multiple, arrayed or targeted. There’s no clip in the bow, so she rifles in the bag, hoping to fuck Janosz remembered to include them. He does not disappoint. A quick count comes to thirty clips. That’s a fuckload of ammo.
Flipping the bow open with her thumb, she slams in one clip, shoves two in her belt and takes up position at an unmanned slot; finally able to scope the trouble brewing at their rear with intent and boy does it feel orgasmic. Part of her, the part that still sort of belongs to her life as a Cleaner, tries to use this. Tell her that killing is all she’s good for, all she is. Maybe for the first time ever, Amiga ignores it. Killing does not have to make you a killer. That’s a choice you make, and she’s been making the wrong one all along.
The gang troops behind are all muddled in together, an occurrence so rare she almost gives it a minute of silence. She recognizes members of Yang’s troops, the Grey Cartel, and the Dengway Mafia amongst the rabble. No more or less than she expected. None of Twist’s people are present, and none of the Harmonys’ either, which means they’re hanging back, waiting for the right moment to attack. She’d do the same for sure; use the competition as the front line. Let them take all the fire. Wait until ammo and energy is low, then hit hard and fast with everything you’ve got.
Taking her time, judging each shot, Amiga cherry-picks familiar faces, people she definitely doesn’t want at her back if they’re heading into yet more danger. Done dealing with them, she takes a moment to reach up and pull off the goggles, handing them to Deuce, glad to have gotten them back to him. That he’s alive to give them to. Her intention to keep them has evaporated under those things. Probably she’d never have kept them anyway. Probably.
