by Danie Ware
Leaving Ecko crouched at the bottommost edge of a nightmare cavern.
He’d been expecting the usual – some elaborate medical set-up. Computers, cryogenics, glass tubing, dry ice, some twisted lab assistant with genetics issues... The span of the entire building and four floors in height, this place had none of these things.
It looked more like a prison.
In the moment of confusion, he paused to check for security – just scanning the gloom as though nothing was wrong.
And then he realised what he’d found.
It left him breathless – staring above and around him in a choking swell of awe, fear and scorn – a rising, throat-closing claustrophobia that all but had him scrabbling at the door.
Down each long wall, stacked like crates and stretching into the gloom, there were chambers. The layout was utterly familiar – and terrifying in its banality. Now utilised by every major corporation to house its staff, these were bog standard, completely recognisable Human Resource Containers – commonplace city habitation, sold on by Pilgrim to the big corporations. They were marketed as “bolt-holes” to those that lived in them – known as “shit-holes” to those that managed not to. Each had a bed, a cupboard, a toilet, a fridge and a console loaded with The World of Anywhere-But-Here... Yeah, each one had everything the mindless worker drone needed.
Grey and Salva had purposefully vanished. Ecko didn’t care. Hunched under the weight of the room, he stared from door to door to door, his lungs filling with repulsion and horror. This was social perfection – pure order. This was what Pilgrim strived for, this was how they’d become the single most powerful corporation in the world. They’d delivered a quiescent, contented population, a totally peaceful and crime-free society.
Yeah right. What they’d delivered was fifty million little plastic bottles labelled “Mood Stabiliser”.
Instant contentment. Happiness in tablet form.
Yeah, it may as well have been fucking cryogenics, Ecko reckoned. At least the bastards shut in those didn’t have to work a nine-to-six.
The place stank like a week of backed-up shit. As Ecko remembered to breathe, the stink was a sharp punch in the nose. He found the room smelled of piss, unwashed skin, rotting food... It reeked like a bunch of junkies had been using it as crash space.
Ecko quelled his anger and checked again for the room’s security. Then, as wary as a black-eyed rodent, he moved to the door of the first shit-hole.
He’d had a horrible fucking idea he knew what was coming.
* * *
At last, Ecko reached the corner of the building.
Feeling the openness of the sky to his side, he hung there for a moment, willing himself to continue. His blood screamed louder than the wind in his ears.
As he eased precariously round the angle, the weather hit him like a train and he found himself scrabbling frantically for a foothold. From being plastered to his back, his cloak became a parachute, pulling at his throat, hips and elbows – its loose folds inflated and the wind shrilled through carefully seamed rents.
For an instant, it nearly ripped him clean off the side of the building.
The thing was a mass of folds and slits and loose ends of fabric... all now trying to pull him loose. Ecko twisted his back to the wind and the thing deflated like a dying animal.
His fingertips were slippery, leaving bloodstains; he could feel the palms of his hands oozing with stickiness. He didn’t dare release a hand to move onwards and the cloak was too complicated to release, so he hung, pain, fear and savage resolve all yammering for attention in his head.
Whatever you do, he told himself, don’t fucking look down.
Fucking Collator and his fucking odds, fucking Lugan and his fucking plans. You get in, you get the data stick, you get out... Yeah, right – more like, you get in, you get screwed, you end up target practise for a Takeshimi tin can that’s not even supposed to be here...
His feet slipped and skidded; his arms and fingers cramped like he’d never uncurl them. The cloak still tugged at him. He shook the cowl from his head and the wind slammed into his cheek.
The temperature was dropping – the rain was turning to sleet.
With an effort that nearly broke him, he swung his weight into motion once more – one hand then two, just a little further...
* * *
The first shit-hole wasn’t locked.
On the bed, the recumbent figure wasn’t restrained. As the door inched open, she turned her head to smile, although she didn’t sit up.
Her cupboard door stood ajar, spilling soullessly creased garments onto the carpet tiles. Her gaming console was on standby, the eyewear discarded. Beside her was a metal mug – as Ecko slipped around the door, he saw it contained puddles of white, furred mould.
Stink and revulsion flooding his system, he realised she hadn’t left the bed in days.
But – she wasn’t restrained. No one was forcing her to stay. She was lying there because... his heart cowered in his chest when the full depth of Grey’s achievement hit him... she was lying there because she wanted to.
She was happy.
Peace: a population that voluntarily incarcerated itself, that had no interest or need outside the workplace –
No passion, no fear, no desire. No anger. No frustration.
They didn’t even know to fight back; they no longer cared.
They wanted nothing. They were just content.
Stealth forgotten, Ecko stood in the centre of the little box, his blood congealed to fury. Around him, above him, across the room from him there were more boxes and more boxes...
How many people had Grey got in here – his control experiments, his gauges? Were they better than this? Were they worse?
The woman was – what – maybe thirty-five? Her well-cut suit was crumpled to a rag, her well-cut hair grown to an unruly tangle. She had clothes, food, entertainment – a door out of her box whenever she chose to take it...
But she was fine where she was.
Ecko found his face twisting round a sneer that felt like pity.
With a red flash of contempt, he wanted to make her react, to defy her own conditioning and stick one in Grey’s throat. He pulled the door from the cupboard, yanked out her garments, tore them to strips, kicked over her fridge... She followed him with her eyes, smiling at him.
He turned and snarled at her to move, to get the hell up, to say something, to cry, to curse, to fight, to beg him for help.
Her mouth moved, but it was only for a moment. She returned it to the smile.
With a short, sharp impact, he punched her in the face.
Her nose crunched, her lip split; blood splashed across her skin. She spluttered surprised red bubbles. Her hands half rose in an effort to cover her head against further blows.
But even that wasn’t enough. After a moment she fell back, arms tumbling slackly to her sides – like her fucking batteries had died.
Fight me, you fucking – !
With a surge of absolute savagery, hating the drone for being a victim, hating Grey for what he’d done, Ecko drew in a breath and exhaled.
He breathed pure fire.
It was Mom’s greatest trick, one he’d asked her to design for him. It was more a toy than a weapon – only lethal at very close range.
Like this.
The drone died without a sound, her face blackening, blistering and sloughing down into the pillow. Hell, she had to be better off. Beneath her, the unclean bedding coughed, spluttered flame and flared into life.
Ecko was just wondering if he had time to total the rest of them when he heard servo-motors, loud across the cavern’s quiet. His vision spun as he focused his telescopics in the direction Grey had taken – the other side of the room.
It was then, of course, that he’d seen the ’bot.
* * *
On the roof, the ’bot could no longer see him.
With a mouth full of terror and indignation pounding in his temples, Ecko pulled hims
elf upwards until his forearms and elbows rested along the top of the wall.
His shoulders sang relief. He didn’t dare look at his fingertips.
Here, the stone was unbroken; here, he was shielded from the arc of attack. For a moment, he paused, feeling the sleet on his skin, the blood on his hands, the cloak flapping like a dead thing round his legs.
So much for the fucking cavalry, Lugan. The thought was a bitter one, but there was a savage sense of righteousness in doing this by himself.
What had Lugan said, after his interview with the Boss? “You get this right, mate, an’ she’s promised she’ll have Eliza fix you up proper, d’you know what I mean? No expense spared.”
Ecko responded as he’d done that morning, “What’m I, your fuckin’ bike, now? You think can customise me any which way? You fuckin’ hypocrite! You leave my cyberware alone an’ you stay the hell outta my head.”
There was motion. A door, booted feet. A clipped, military voice.
Salva.
Holding his breath, he watched.
Salva was coldly efficient, covering the shattered remains of wall and roof garden. Ecko didn’t need oculars to clock the precision in the way she scanned the area, ducked back, paused, and moved to the next checkpoint.
It’d be about sixty seconds before that checkpoint was slap-bang in his face. If he was gonna pull this off, he needed to move. Like, now.
He let the wind swing his body sideways, got one foot on the top of the wall. Not thinking about the drop below him – thinking about the ’bot, the ’bot – he rolled silently over the top and down onto the gravel.
The wind suddenly cut off as the stonework shielded him, his ears sang with cold. He stayed still, waiting, watching.
As Salva moved to cover the trashed remnants of the roof garden, Ecko realised that she was alone – her goons had not come with her.
At last, the Bogeyman’s luck was with him; he might just fucking do this after all.
Hope and adrenaline flooded his system.
Mom had built Ecko to be many things – stealther, spy, thief, tech – but her vision and genius had not stopped with reconnaissance and Bogeyman trickery. He had also been constructed to excel at something else.
Assassination.
Guilt, fear, compassion; these had little meaning against the adrenal boosting that supercharged his coordination and reflexes, against the ocular targeting that cross-haired the most elusive objective. His mottle-skin was spider-silk woven, lighter and tougher than Kevlar; biospheres in his bloodstream doubled his healing rate and fought infection. Increased capillarisation improved his body’s ability to transport and process oxygen. He was as strong, as tough, as fit as the characters he’d grown up with.
As Salva came closer, so Ecko went from joker to combat machine.
He had one shot at this.
The first kick hit her knee and snapped her leg. The same foot flashed again, connecting with the side of her head as she fell. Doctor Grey’s elite fighter never knew what’d hit her – she was dead before she hit the gravel.
Her rifle was in Ecko’s hands.
But the ’bot was moving.
He heard the high-pitched whine of the barrels, saw the thing turn into his field of vision. He raised the rifle butt to his shoulder; his targeters cross-haired the sensor array in its head. With a snarl of defiance, he squeezed the trigger to blow it away.
He missed.
His arms were shaking too badly. Overstrained, he wasn’t strong enough to hold the weapon and it climbed, rounds flying high and wide of his target.
In the split second he had before the tin can opened fire, Ecko knew he was screwed.
There was no cover up here; nowhere to go. Turbocharged or not, he wasn’t a fucking action-movie hero able to dodge short-range rifle suppression with no cover.
He did the only thing he could do. He went over the edge.
And fell down, down into the screaming and the dark.
3: THE WANDERER
THE WANDERER, ROVIARATH
Ecko drifted through layers of consciousness.
“...Why he even brought it inside.” The speaker was young, female. His head was clouded with fug; as the voice hazed into focus, he groped for a name. “We’ve got enough strays: new cook, new bar staff. Oh come on, mush, I’m never inhospitable...”
“The Bard said he knew what it was.” The second voice was male, clear and deep. Soft footsteps moved somewhere behind where Ecko lay.
Behind him...? Where...?
He couldn’t think. His limbs and head felt heavy: he’d been sleeping very deeply. The last thing he remembered...
The roof garden. Bloody handprints across the shattered wall. Insanity screaming in muscle and weather.
Falling.
Stupidly, his first solid thought was that Lugan never reached him in time.
They must’ve scraped him off the tarmac like so much roadkill. In the thick, sheltered blanket of awakening, he wondered: why was there no pain?
“Anyway, we can’t leave it up here.” The woman was brisk, authoritative. “I don’t even know what it is – we can’t have it running around, it’ll scare the customers.”
“This is Roviarath,” the man answered her. “Their only concern would be what they could trade it for.”
She giggled.
No pain... Ecko tried to focus on that realisation. No pain. Only his hands... Gradually, pushing back the smothering warmth, he allowed his awareness to expand. He wasn’t restrained, though his webbing and cloak had gone. His cheek rested upon something supple, cool to his skin. He had no injuries. A brief, subvisual check showed all systems normal, although the flamethrower tanks in his chest weren’t full. His memories were washing up slowly, garbage on the riverbank – Doctor Grey with his half a reefer, a scanner, blood red through the rain...
In the bottom corner of his field of vision, his digital time readout was jittery: he’d no clue how long he’d been out.
Even Grey wouldn’t’ve seen anything like Ecko before. Dimly he wondered: maybe they were gonna do experiments on him?
Humour flickered. Heh... would they be in for a surprise.
He remained still, his breathing unchanged. The air was clean – but there was no hum of purifiers. He could hear a party – but there was no music. More fragments floated belly-up to the surface – the woman, burning on the bed; Lugan saying, “You get in, you get out. No mess.”
Yeah, right. Whatcha gonna do about it now, biker-boy?
The female voice tutted. “Look, do you think it’s all right to leave it? I need you downstairs, we’re in the wrong part of the city here.” She walked round where Ecko lay, her footsteps soft, indicating carpets or rugs. “Roviarath can be difficult – c’mon, Sera.”
Ecko waited for a third voice but the man answered, “It seems quiet for the moment... yet it seems you are not giving me the choice.”
Sarah? A guy called “Sarah”, for chrissakes? Ecko tried to pull his concentration together. What was downstairs? And where was “Rovi-ar-ath”?
Were Grey’s goons talking like this when they’d passed him on the stairwell?
He heard a door open.
The sound was two, maybe three metres away. Though still unseen, the room took on shape and size. For a moment, the noise of the party became louder.
Then long, easy bootsteps crossed towards him.
A sudden, peculiar tension brought Ecko fully awake. He lay motionless, stilled by incomprehension. Who...?
The footsteps stopped; the newcomer was right over him.
Salva was dead; it had to be Grey. What was he carrying – pistol, hypo? Ecko’s targeters twitched although his eyes were still closed. Could he spark and flame before – ?
“Karine, Sera.”
The voice was male, warm, light and fine; it had a timbre and vibrancy so compelling that his questions braked to a screeching halt. It wasn’t Grey; the subtle accent was completely alien. And yet...
“It seems
the traditional brawl is brewing early.” Where had he heard it before? That hint of wry humour was familiar, so familiar...
...was this the deal – were they gonna talk him into submission?
Shit. He remembered that Lugan’d sent him on this fucking mission without a radio. He’d have no help getting out of here.
“They should be drinking, not fighting,” the woman said. There was a faint scuffle. “Go on, you dirty great bouncer, get your arse down there and sort them out. I don’t want the place trashed.”
“Will never happen.” “Sarah” headed for the door.
When he’d gone, there was a pause.
The long footsteps of the guy with the voice crossed to another point in the room. There was a shuffling of what sounded like paper – paper, for chrissakes? – and the woman said gently, “What’s up?”
Ecko heard the guy inhale, let his breath out again in a half-muffled sigh like he was rubbing a hand over his face.
“How I wish I understood,” he said. “This is so unexpected, and yet it brings me hope.” The voice held – what was that? Anticipation? Fear? “My dear Karine, you know the tales as well as anyone –”
“You’re a nutjob, looking for something that isn’t there.”
The man chuckled. “Perhaps.” His voice danced with irony as he added, “Perhaps I’m the only sane one.”
“You’re a nutjob – and an egomaniac.” She tapped fingernails. “Come on, Loremaster, we’ve got an alehouse to manage.”
“You’ve got an alehouse to manage.”
“Don’t even think it!” Her footsteps crossed the room.
He laughed. “All right, all right. Lace transitions are traumatic – our friend here won’t be conscious for a while.” Furniture moved. “And I may be insane but you are a bully.”
“Which is why you gave me the job, as I recall. Go on – out. I’m coming too.”
“Riddle me this –” the man was heading for the door as he spoke “– what’s pretty, aggressive and going to be my absolute undoing?”
“I’ll be your absolute undoing in a minute,” the woman said. “If you don’t get down those stairs, I’ll –”
