Black Rain

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  She shook her head. “No idea.”

  Jack walked back and stood before the 3Dee of his dead wife. “What key?”

  “I have access to many things. If you have the right key.”

  “Access to what things?”

  “Not before the key.”

  “Where would I get the key?”

  “I cannot tell you that.”

  “But Dr. Reynolds told you to talk to me.”

  “He told me to do so only if you have the key. He was going to give you the key and then I would know if you were to be trusted.”

  Jack understood. Reynolds had planned to find Jack and to give him this key, whatever it was. But Reynolds was murdered. And the key was lost.

  “Reynolds planned to give me something,” Jack replied.

  “He already gave it to you,” Dolce said.

  Jack turned back toward her. “What?”

  “I see that you have already been given the key.”

  Jack shook his head. That was impossible.

  “Wait a minute,” Night Comfort said. “We’re thinking of locks and keys. But I think she’s talking about keys in music.”

  “A musical key? Where would that be hidden?”

  Night Comfort pulled something from Jack’s backpack. “Somewhere like this, maybe?” In her hand, she held Reynolds’s Guarneri Gesù violin they had taken from the museum. She held the violin up to Dolce’s 3Dee. “Is this the key?”

  “I cannot help you,” she said.

  “Fair enough,” Night Comfort replied. She bent down over the violin and began to inspect the antique instrument. It was constructed of a varnished wood, with the typical long neck and S-shaped body. She shook the instrument gently, hearing nothing rattle inside. Then she peered down through the F-hole near the bridge.

  “Can’t see anything inside,” she said. “But I’m not even sure what I’m looking for.”

  “What if the entire instrument is the key?”

  “No. She would have told us,” Night Comfort said. “It has to be something else.”

  “If it even has to do with musical keys.”

  Night Comfort frowned and ran her fingers over the peg box and scrollwork at the end of the neck. “Look at this peg. It looks different than the others. Newer.”

  The tuning pegs were constructed from rosewood. Three of them were uniform in color. The fourth was lighter, the edges more defined. Definitely newer. Night Comfort began slowly unscrewing the peg, which soon came free in her hand.

  The rounded wood straightened to a metal-colored key that had been concealed inside the peg box. She held the peg up to Dolce.

  “You have found the key,” Dolce said.

  Dolce flickered and then vanished. Then the entire room filled with light as a map of New York City formed in the center and slowly began to spin around them. The map was overlaid by a series of grid-like networks that crisscrossed the entire island.

  Dolce’s voice narrated as the map revolved around them. “This map shows a network of acid scrubbers that have been installed throughout the city. These scrubbers were funded and controlled by Genico following the acid rain waves of many years ago. All air is scrubbed with cleaning compounds, eliminating acid rain and synthesizing clean, breathable air.”

  “What does this have to do with us?” Jack asked.

  “The acid scrubbers are controlled by a single system accessible from the top floor of the Genico building. Any substance introduced into this system can be dispersed throughout the city.”

  Jack thought of something immediately. “Could a Samp be dispersed in this way?”

  The map flashed, vanished, and Dolce reappeared. “Yes. A Samp would be made airborne and spread like a mist throughout the entire city.”

  “How many people would be affected?”

  “Given infection rates of Genico-devised Samps, this system would cover ninety percent of the population. Over ten million.”

  Night Comfort turned toward Jack. “This was how Reynolds was going to spread the 6th Day Samp.”

  Something bothered him. There was something so familiar about this conversation. A thought that sat just on the edge of his consciousness that he couldn’t quite rein in.

  “Have the acid scrubbers ever been used before in this way?” Jack said.

  “Once. There was a test run to see if the system design would be capable of distributing an aerosol contaminate.”

  “And was it successful?”

  “It was successful. I believe it was referred to in the media as the Black Rain infection.”

  Of course. That made perfect sense. “You’re saying that Genico engineered the Black Rain attack? We were told it was from the Synthate rebels.”

  “Genico created an aerosol contaminate to allow them to track the efficacy of the acid scrubber system as a dispersal unit. They did not realize that the contaminate, or Black Rain, would cause such severe illnesses in people. The Synthate rebellion story was created as a diversion.”

  “Who programmed you to tell us all this?” Jack asked.

  “I have access to Dr. Reynolds’s journals and correspondence, and video archives of his research. His personal thoughts indicate that he felt a great deal of responsibility for having caused so much unintended pain to naturals and Synthates. He felt that the increasing commercialization of the genetic industry was to society’s detriment. In his later years, he became determined to allow more open access to the benefits of the genetic industry.”

  “That’s why he created the 6th Day Samp,” Night Comfort said. “So we would all be equal.”

  Jack was lost in thought, his eyes fixed on the 3Dee of Dolce. So eerily familiar. He realized that none of this really mattered to him. In the end, he just wanted revenge against those who had taken her from him. He turned to Night Comfort. “I have to see her.”

  “See who?” Night Comfort asked.

  “Dolce.” Jack pulled out his sync. “We know where she is. I have to see her.”

  Night Comfort turned toward him. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “You didn’t lose her. You don’t know what that’s like.”

  “I’ve lost almost everyone I’ve ever known. But the Dolce you knew is gone forever. Whoever is living out there now, the second Synthate in her production line, she’s not going to know who you are.”

  “Don’t say ‘production line’ like she’s some vidScreen. She was my wife.”

  “She was. And she was taken from you. And whether she was a Synthate or a natural, that pain will always be there.”

  “When I see her, she will know me. I feel it in my heart.”

  Night Comfort turned toward the 3Dee. “Synthate model 5300, is there a shared consciousness between two production models?”

  “I do not understand.”

  Night Comfort thought for a moment, and said, “Is there a way for one production model to know what the other production model is experiencing without direct communication?”

  “No. That is not possible.”

  Jack turned away. He wanted so desperately to believe.

  “Synthate model 5300, give us a moment,” Night Comfort said.

  “Of course.”

  The 3Dee vanished, leaving Jack and Night Comfort alone in the hall. She turned toward him. “We can find her. But she won’t know you.” She indicated a door at the end of the hall. “Through there we can get back to the Beach lab. If we’re successful, we can liberate an entire race. That way, Dolce will have died for something.”

  “We’re two people. What possible difference can we make?”

  “We’re not just two people. We are every Synthate ever produced. There are thousands of us. Trained. Battle hardened. Ready.”

  “You can get Synthates to fight?”

  “They’ve been waiting for someone like you to lead them. They’ve been waiting for someone half-natural half-Synthate to show up and speak out. They will follow us. They will fight. I promise you.”

  Jack t
hought for a long moment, then turned and began to walk back down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Night Comfort called after him.

  “You’re right,” Jack said. “We’re going to that lab. We’re going to free the Synthates.”

  “We’ll need help to do all that.”

  “Help from who?”

  “The naturals,” Night Comfort said.

  “Why would the naturals help us?”

  “They will when they find out who their true enemy is.”

  CHAPTER 49

  She would live. The doctor said there was no trace of the Black Rain illness inside Maggy’s body. She was cured and no one in the hospital could explain why. But Arden knew. His daughter was cured because of a choice that he had made. A choice to give up on the investigation into the Reynolds murder. A choice to turn away from the truth and betray Jack.

  One of Genico’s own had approached him first. A guy named Lieberman had synced Arden days before he and Jack had broken into the Genico building. Arden had been asked to drop the Reynolds investigation and turn in Jack. In return, Lieberman promised that Arden’s daughter would be cured. When it came to Maggy, he had no choice.

  And so he made the phone call when they reached the Genico building. And the crushers had come for Jack. And Arden had gotten his cure.

  Arden placed his hands on his lower back and stretched. He was in the waiting room of Bellevue Hospital, the plastic chairs around him filled with family members of patients. On the walls, plastic-coated posters warned of choking hazards and the first signs of Black Rain fever.

  Jack had escaped.

  Arden had watched him base jump away from the building, then vanish into the night. But they would still be looking for him. They would always be looking for him. As long as he was a Synthate. For Arden, the story had found an end. His daughter was cured and he was a natural. There was nothing to run from anymore. He lived in the safe world.

  “Is she better?”

  The familiar voice came from one of the plastic chairs behind him. Arden spun toward the chair as one hand reached beneath his jacket and touched the butt end of his service weapon.

  Night Comfort was dressed like a pleasure parlor girl. Her bioprint of dark clouds sailed across her shoulder. She stared at Arden. The detective kept his hand on his weapon. “She’ll be fine.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “You can take your hand off your pistol. I’m alone.”

  Slowly Arden removed his hand and slid it back out toward his side. “Does he know you’re here?”

  Night Comfort shook her head. “No. Jack doesn’t know I came. I know what happened between you two in Genico. He doesn’t blame you.”

  “I’m not asking his forgiveness. Nor yours,” Arden said. “So you’re with him now?”

  “I’m working with him, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “To make things right.”

  “I offered you a safe home.”

  “I don’t belong in your world. I don’t know why you can’t see that. I’m a Synthate. Not a natural. We cannot coexist now, no matter your feelings for me. I must find my own way.” She frowned and shook her head. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “To tell you the truth about Black Rain. Where it really came from.”

  “It was a Synthate attack.”

  “No. It wasn’t,” Night Comfort said. “Genico created it and released it.” She handed Arden a sync flash.

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To keep people sick.”

  “Then why not release the cure? Sell it on the open market, they would make a fortune.”

  “The business of healthcare isn’t to heal naturals. It’s to make them just sick enough that they’ll always need Genico. But not so sick that they die. That’s what Black Rain does. Think about your daughter’s treatment. How long it’s lasted. How much money it’s cost. That’s where fortunes are made, not in the healing, but in the treating.”

  He thought of the endless doctor’s visits he’d had with his little girl. All the Genico treatments barely keeping her alive, spending every dime he’d made just for a little more time with his daughter. Arden looked at the sync she’d handed him. “What’s this?”

  “Information. You might think differently about who you’re protecting. Lot of cops’ families got sick from Black Rain.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Night Comfort stood to leave. “You know, I shouldn’t be surprised that you turned on Jack. Naturals are all the same. They’ll always betray you in the end.”

  She turned and walked from the waiting room. Arden watched her leave, part of him wanting to go after her, but the rational side kept him in place. She was right; they did live in two different worlds. He had saved what was important, and if she wanted to go, there was nothing Arden could do. Nothing except learn to forget her.

  CHAPTER 50

  They came from all over the city. Night Comfort had spread the word through her network to Synthates of every class. And they all responded. The muscular, hardened Guards with the squat Domestics and Industrials standing side by side with the beautiful Socials. Thousands of them, filling the space beneath the Central Park dome. They stretched along the pond, figures visible between the trees. Behind them, the Midtown Synthate Zone continued to burn, black smoke rising from Rockefeller Center. A helisquall cut through the smoke, heading south toward the Gendustrial Zone.

  They had come from Midtown and Governors Island. They had walked out of factories and day cares and training centers and pleasure parlors and found their way to the Ramble beneath the camouflage canopy. Some of the Guard class had raided the Games armories on Bloomberg Island and arrived wearing a strange assortment of military uniforms. Synthates were now clad in gear that included the plate armor of the Middle Ages, the crimson uniforms of British Redcoats, the deep blue of Civil War Union soldiers, the horned helmets of samurai, and the green-and-brown camouflage of the modern military.

  They carried with them every manner of weapon ever devised—long swords and axes, blunderbusses and rifles, machine guns and barkers. The Domestics had long butcher knives; the Industrials carried giant wrenches and fire axes. Each class had armed itself as best it could. Even the Social classes carried brass knuckles and small derringers.

  They were here to fight and, if necessary, die.

  “Quite a sight,” Night Comfort said. She stood with Jack on a rocky outcropping at the crest of a hill that surveyed the entire crowd. “Must be thousands here.”

  “The naturals will be ready. Their city is shutting down without our help. They’ll know something is happening.”

  “They’ve grown weak from relying on us for years.”

  Jack shook his head. “They still have the crushers and the police.”

  “The cops won’t be a problem.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Many of them lost family in the Black Rain strike. They won’t risk their lives for Genico.”

  “I don’t want there to be bloodshed,” Jack said. “After this is done, we need to live together in peace.”

  “I can’t promise there won’t be blood.” She frowned. “I can’t promise we’ll even be able to do what’s necessary. I just know we can’t go on living like this.”

  Another helisquall appeared on the horizon, swooping low over Columbus Circle.

  “We don’t have much time,” Night Comfort said. “The crushers will be coming soon.”

  They would take the tunnels below ground, running along the length of the island, then surface near the Genico building. If they could take down the building, they could erase the Synthate records. They would become indistinguishable from the naturals.

  Jack looked out across the mass of expectant faces. He felt afraid. All these lives were looking at him to lead them. What if he led them to nothing but their deaths? Could he live with that?”

  “There’s no going back,” Night Comfort said. “W
e’re committed now. The crushers have made certain of that.”

  There was no going back. All that was left was to see the thing through.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 51

  He’ll be coming.

  Phillip sat in his father’s office and looked out across Lower Manhattan. Fully armed helisqualls circled the building, their blowers rocking the wind farms and rippling the air. Far below, hundreds of crushers surrounded the building.

  The elevator opened and Lieberman appeared. He looked flustered, his tie undone and hanging loose, his hair a wild mess. “The Synthates have gone underground. Completely off the grid.”

  “How many?”

  “We’re still trying to figure out. Looks like thousands.”

  Phillip felt a sudden rush of excitement. This was all coming to an end. Whatever happened, winners or losers, the world would never be the same after this. The revolution was here.

  “We’ve got crushers,” Lieberman said.

  “Not enough.”

  “What about the police?”

  Phillip shook his head, turned back toward the window. Across the city, lights were going out. Synthate Industrials had turned off the machines. Without them, the naturals had become almost helpless.

  “The police won’t be coming,” Phillip said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Genico created Black Rain. Because of us, thousands of naturals got sick. Little kids. Mothers. Grandmothers. And if Jack is smart, the naturals will find out about this,” Phillip said. “Would you help us?”

  “But we have the cure now. We can help them,” Lieberman said. “If the Synthates tear us down, they’ll lose everything.”

  “I think they’ll just be happy to watch us burn.”

  “There’s still time to leave,” Lieberman said.

  Phillip surveyed his father’s office. He had always lived in his brother’s shadow. And if he ran now, nothing would ever change. He shook his head. “I’ve been running all my life. I’ve been scared as far back as I can remember. Today that changes.”

  “They’re going to kill us all,” Lieberman said. “Jesus, I’ve been going to the Games for years. I’ve seen what they’re capable of.”