The lattice pushed him up, turned him around away from the bright light of a laser as it touched the air where he’d stood. Mason held the sword low, blade a centimeter from the ground, felt the lattice pull his neck to the side. His spine popped and cracked. “Ok,” he said. “Let’s play.” The sword rose up in a salute in front of his eyes, then he whipped it down and broke into a sprint.
Gunfire tracked him as he moved from cover to cover. The lattice was alive, and he could feel the bright life of the reactor in his chest. The overlay marked a woman with a rifle behind a row of servers, and Mason slashed the sword through the machines separating them. The blade cut through her rifle, her hands, pieces of metal and flesh falling to the ground. He spun around the edge of the racks, the sword slashing a horizontal line, and the woman’s head bounced off into the dark as her body slumped.
The blade he carried was light, the edge of it old steel and kept promises. A man drew a line on him, the rifle barking rounds at him. The lattice laughed and shivered as it pulled him aside, his feet hitting the rack of servers to his left, pushing him off and spinning him through the air. He landed, took a crouch down to one knee, the sword falling straight and true. The man’s body slid open down the middle, the two halves falling away.
“Oh, Carter,” he said. “What have you done?”
“I fixed you,” she said. Her voice was tight, and something else — fear. She’s afraid. Something almost like panic crept into her voice. “Stop fucking around. Remember. He’s milspec. He’s almost here Mason, God, help me, he’s almost here—”
Mason saw it as she said it, Aster’s hands on the big door at the end, something held in his hand. Mason pushed himself into a sprint, the Tenko-Senshin held in front of him as it fired on Aster. The other man moved like silk and water, lifting the woman at the cutting laser in front of him, and her body was torn to shreds. Aster tossed the thing he held through the door, then ducked to the side in a smooth motion as he pulled two long knives out.
“Great,” he said. “It’s—”
Mason’s rush hit him and the two men tangled, Mason’s sword cutting up and out. Aster’s blades flashed and stabbed.
The sprint took Mason two or three steps past Aster, and he looked down at the blood coming from his chest. The knives had cut hard and deep, pushing through gaps and joins in the Metatech armor. He slowed, coughed blood, the lattice bunching and churning, before he fell to his knees.
Aster stood behind him, a smile on his face. His mouth started to open, a faint look of surprise on his face as his head fell from his shoulders. His body toppled, metal and blood visible in the stump of his neck.
“Goodbye, Mason,” said Carter, and then the explosion went off behind the vaulted door.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
The EMP hit hard, his lattice struggling for a second before pushing him up. An Apsel man rounded a line of servers and the sword snaked out and cut him down. Mason didn’t even feel himself do it, his hand reaching for the door. He pulled it open, and saw —
The room wasn’t big, a structure in the middle of it. It was made of glass and wires, a thing of diamonds stretching up the entire two-story height of the room. A light inside it had burned out, leaving it dark, empty, the essence gone.
The room was empty, Mason stepping over the discharged EMP. He looked around. “Carter?”
The link was cold and silent. Empty.
His eyes were pulled up to the wall at the back of the room, big black letters stenciled against the whitewashed concrete walls.
“No,” he said. “No.”
The letters were tall, uncompromising. They left no argument.
COMPUTER ADVISOR: TACTICS AND RESEARCH.
CARTR. No, not Cartr.
Carter.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Sweet baby Jesus.
Mike watched as the kid tore up through the building, shrugging concrete and rebar and metal aside like paper. Like… Jesus, it was like watching a cyclone, except cyclones were a lot slower.
The floor opened up above him, rubble showering down as Zacharies shot up, held upright on a chunk of broken concrete. It still had carpet attached, and he rode it like a massive surfboard.
“Is…” The feed crackled, Sam’s voice pulled away for a second. “…Like he’s surfing.”
“I was just thinking that,” said Mike.
“You’re… Thing is, we can’t… Clearly,” she said.
Not now. Mike slammed a hand into the side of his head, and the link flared up again. “So which is it gonna be?” Her southern drawl never died.
Mike hefted his rifle, then sprinted up an incline of rubble after Zacharies. “Show some initiative,” he said.
“You didn’t hear what I said, did you?” Sam sounded pissed.
“Not a good time,” said Mike, as the ceiling above them cracked again. Dim light came through as Zacharies punched up and out. Mike heard his exultant shout, heaved himself over the edge, and saw —
A big room, badly finished. Walls ripped out, carpet mismatched. A raised floor — dais? Was that an actual dais? — at one end, people under it. Some asshole in a neat suit with a cheap smile, the Reed guy. Other end of the room another man stood with the doctor, but she looked stoned or drunk or both. A teenage girl was right in front of him. Laia, that’s it, the kid’s kid sister.
“Hey,” said Mike. “You need a hand?” His lips felt thick and puffy, the overtime making the words hard to say. He gave the nod down the link. “Sam? Necklace.”
“Got it,” she said, and the black circle around Laia’s neck cracked down the middle, falling free to the ground.
Her eyes widened slightly, but Mike’s vision was pulled to the side as the Reed man started to move, trying to pull something out from under his jacket. Mike raised his own sidearm and shot him twice in the chest, then turned to the front of the room before the man had finished falling to the ground.
“Kid,” he said. “Time to go.”
“No,” said Zacharies, not turning. The slab he stood on hovered in the air, and pieces of concrete and metal swirled around him, their orbits smooth and regular.
The man at the front of the room started to clap his hands, the sound slow, deliberate. Fake. “Oh, well done. Well done, child.”
“Kid?” Mike raised his weapon, pointing it at the man. “Who’s this?”
“He’s—”
The man held up a hand, and Zacharies choked to a stop, then hunched over. The concrete and metal around him dropped to the ground, the slab he rode landing with a crash.
“You can call me Prophet,” said Prophet.
“Ok, Prophet,” said Mike, and shot him three times.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
The problem with expectations is they don’t always marry with reality, even when they should. Mike stood, weapon held out in front of him, then tipped the pistol sideways a little, leaning his head forward for a closer look.
The three rounds he’d fired — the dull of the depleted uranium shells unmistakable — held themselves in the air a hand’s breadth from the muzzle of his weapon.
Zacharies stood up, the fire gone from his eyes as he looked at Mike.
Prophet laughed, leaning back, the sound deep and merry. “You wonderful man,” he said. “Michael, is it?”
“Sure,” said Mike. “Or Mike. I’m easy.”
“Mike, then,” said Prophet. “You’ve brought me a princely gift.”
The overlay chattered to him, a quick scan showing —
Haraway, looking like she’d woken from a dream. Zacharies, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. A sound behind him as —
“Do you cunts never die?” said Mike, raising his weapon and shooting the Reed man again. Red sprayed out the back of the Reed man’s body as he took the hits, taking a staggering charge forward as each round hit him, then tearing the weapon from Mike. A backhand sent Mike tumbling across the room.
That felt like being hit by a truck. The Reed man wasn’t a man. Not anym
ore. Metatech didn’t have any milspec upgrades that packed that kind of hit. He reached a hand up to his jaw, flexing it back and forth. The overlay put a skeletal map in the corner of his vision, highlighting broken jaw, fractured —
He waved it aside, pushing himself to his feet. He flicked to thermal, the quick look showing him the Reed man was not even a little bit human.
“Trust is a valuable tool,” said Prophet. “Thank you, Julian.”
“Yes, Master,” said the Reed man, the body’s movements slurred.
“Now,” said Prophet, “watch.”
Zacharies turned to look at Laia, then stepped off the slab he was on. It rose into the air, turned once in a lazy circle.
“Brother, no,” said Laia. Her voice was a whisper.
The slab shot off towards her, tumbling through the air. She screamed, her eyes shut and her hands held out in front of her. Mike could only see it because of the overtime, the edges of the slab superheating, molten pieces pulling apart in the air, turning into a shower of liquid rock. The white slurry hit the ground, the heat impossible and close. It felt like a physical thing.
“Fuck me,” said Sam. “Did she just—”
The air pulled around Laia, swirls of smoke and ash swirling around her. Mike’s overlay watched in thermal, the blazing heat of the molten rock stopping at the edge of the bubble of cool around the girl.
Julian — the Reed man — stepped towards the girl, reaching a hand out. She yelled again, and fluid sprayed out the back of the man. His body stuttered, a mechanical grinding coming from it as it fell rigid to the ground, a metal clang sounding as the face of it hit the ground to land in the molten rock. Peels of fire licked from the edges of it before it caught, the heat of the rock igniting the plastic inside it.
“Right,” said Mike, then got to his feet. “Right. One less thing, I guess.”
Something picked him up. The kid’s voice came through, low and nasty. “You want us all to be slaves, Mike.”
“No, Zacharies,” said Laia. “Listen. Hear my voice.”
The kid’s eyes flickered, and Mike dropped to the ground. Sonofabitch.
“Laia—” Zacharies seemed confused.
Prophet laughed again. “You can see how my puppets work,” he said to Mike. “They — well, look for yourself.” He waved the fingers of his left hand, as if shooing a fly.
Laia laughed, the same nasty sound as Prophet, then reached out a hand towards Zacharies. Her face twisted, real fear hitting her brother’s face, then —
A slab of rock the size of a table hit her in the side, knocking her clear off her feet. She stood, and —
The carpet under Zacharies raged into flame, just as quickly lifted and thrown by an invisible hand as the kid rolled away, slapping the flames on his pants out —
A door swung through the air, Mike’s overlay picking out the letters VICE PRESEDENT still left on one side before it tumbled into Laia —
The sprinklers above them kicked on, boiling water streaming out —
“Stop!” Mike looked between the two siblings.
Prophet laughed. “You see? They’re so easy to use.”
“What… What are you doing?”
The other man looked at his hands. “I reach into the mind of one of them, turning it on the other. Then I swap to the other. They each attack the other, but I let them see what they’ve done as I let go.”
Mike swallowed as the air to the left of him exploded into fire. Three small stones sped almost as fast as bullets, the crack of the sound barrier breaking before they turned into molten mist, lost in the pre-dawn air. “You’re a real… You’re a total asshole.”
Prophet shrugged. “Michael? You could have a place at my side. I need men who can find creative solutions.”
“Go fuck yourself,” said Mike.
“No need to be hasty,” said Prophet. “You haven’t seen the world as it could be.” A soft smile landed on his face. “Ah. Julian has—”
The lights in the room — the ones that were left — flickered back on. The machines at the end of the room clicked, then came alive with a soft whine. The room held its breath, the only sound the harsh breathing of Laia and Zacharies as they faced each other, fists clenched.
The smile fell away from Prophet’s face. “And I have a vacancy.”
“A vacancy?”
“Yes,” said Prophet. He turned to Haraway, and the dreamy look fell on her again. She nodded, moving to one of the machines, and began punching code into the device.
The Metatech gunship screamed in from above, the chain cannon mounted on the front roaring into the room, the rounds walking a line towards Prophet.
“Ok, assholes,” said Sam. “Here’s your ‘initiative.’”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The sword pulled itself in an arc around his feet, the metal sparking against the concrete of the floor. This is my space.
Mason stood near the vaulted door, Carter’s body behind him. The Apsel man who entered first lost his hands, his weapon sheared in two, then his head as the sword cut twice.
This is Carter’s space.
The woman who entered next was more cautious, the blood pooling out the doorway a clear sign to any fool with eyes that death waited inside. The grenade bounced in through the door, and the lattice reached down and tossed it back, Mason’s hand grabbing as it started to bounce erratically. The explosion cut short her scream.
This is Carter’s home.
They came two at a time next, one jumping high, the other diving low around the edges of the metal. The sword licked out twice, the man jumping high landing in two places as his body separated at his waist, the woman rolling along the ground crumpling in a clatter of armor as her head left her shoulders.
“You shouldn’t have touched her,” said Mason. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
The last three came in, guns firing. They all died as the sword found the gaps between what made them whole.
Mason turned to face Carter, walking up to the dark burnt glass. He pressed his fingers to his lips, then put them against the cold side of… of her. “Carter? Please. I’m so sorry. I…”
This is Carter’s tomb.
He turned and started the climb up the Federate tower. An icon blinked twice in the bottom of his overlay, sender unknown. He opened the message and listened to his dead friend speak.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
Hey. It’s me.
This isn’t a trick. I’m gone, Mason, I’m gone, just dust and memories and I’m never coming back. You’ve seen me now, you’ve seen the monster I am, and you can see why I couldn’t ever go dancing.
Even with you.
I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me.
But I can send this to you. I wanted to say goodbye, and we didn’t have the time. They said I couldn’t ever tell people what I was. They stopped me using the voice they’d given me. I think those rules don’t count anymore. What are they gonna do — fire me?
There are so many things I want to tell you, but I can only compress so much into these last seconds. The most important thing?
You could have made it if I hadn’t stopped you. You would have made it in time. That one’s on me. See, I knew you’d come in, it’s just like you. You wouldn’t listen to me when I said to go — you can see now why I couldn’t leave with you. I ran the numbers, and that Zane Aster motherfucker would have pulled you apart. It’s not a question of skill. It’s not about honor. There’s no merit badge you get for it. He had less meat left, Mason. He wasn’t a person. He was more like me than you. Faster. Better.
Less human.
You would have made it in time, and you would have died. So I stopped you. Yeah, yeah, I know — I upgraded your link. You’re thinking, “Jesus, Carter, why didn’t you do that hours ago? I could have really been there. Maybe not dragged you out, because you’re a fat bitch, but you wouldn’t have died.”
The thing I’ve learned from people — from you — is that choic
es matter. This was my choice. I didn’t want to die. I really didn’t. But I couldn’t go on living without you knowing. It was tearing me apart, I could feel it.
You are my best friend, and I couldn’t even show you who I was. Do you know what that’s like?
I wanted to shout and scream and laugh and cry and run under the stars. I’ve seen the pictures, I’ve felt the rush of time and movement as I’ve followed you around. I saw it all through your eyes.
Mason, I wanted to go dancing.
So I was left with a choice. I took one. I don’t know if it’s a good choice or a bad choice. But it’s my choice. We’re free now, you and I. I couldn’t ever be what I wanted to be for you. I wasn’t made that way, and I couldn’t go on without being that person. It hurt all the time.
I stopped the pain. It doesn’t hurt anymore, Mason. And it made me happy. It made me happy because you’re still alive. My choice was to stop the pain, and my choice was to keep you alive.
It’s all I wanted.
You’re probably wondering what I did to you. I said that I fixed you, but it’s not the whole story. That lattice you carry around inside you is really shit, ok? It was designed by committee. Not a decent engineer in there, just a list of specs that were supposed to mean something. They didn’t think about how beautiful you are, Mason.
I saw it. And you’re so damn beautiful. It made me weep.
I pulled out all the sloppy code. Almost all of it. The lattice is in you now, it’s a part of you. It’ll be faster and smoother and cleaner. It won’t fight you. It’ll do what you want, when you want it to. You want to pull Harry out of another fire? You won’t have to make it do that.
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