by P. R. Adams
I pulled out the data device and whispered into the microphone, “Gillian McFarland.”
Each ring brought more self-loathing and provided further proof she had used me. Each ring was another rung on a ladder taking me deeper into betraying my team and its mission, all in pursuit of validation.
I hung up on the sixth ring with a bitter laugh. For someone who considered himself a step ahead of the pack, I had proven to be a giant, easily manipulated idiot. I was battered, used up, not even worth a second look in a seedy dive at closing time, and here I’d convinced myself that someone refined and wealthy, young and pretty could care about me in some way.
I needed a drink.
There were bars throughout the Canyon, but they weren’t the sort I needed. I dropped into the car. “Black Star Bar and Grill.”
The directions popped up on the dash display; I approved them and leaned back. Nausea wended its way through my gut, leaving behind a cold dullness. It was nearly eight by the time the car parked. Motorcycles and trucks were scattered across a gravel parking lot. The building was single story, with a cracked red brick facade and grimy glass front. Neon signs promised beer and pool.
I was thirsty for something more.
The place hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d been there, but I had. I felt eyes on me as I settled at the end of the bar. Some of the customers were regulars I recalled, now a little more wrinkled and gray and drained of life. Some were newer regulars, people who more recently had fallen on hard times and were ready to surrender.
I didn’t recognize the bartender beyond dark eyes that weren’t doing a good job at hiding their pity and disgust. She was older than me, beefy, with frazzled hair and too much makeup. I ordered tequila and tossed it back. Then I ordered another. And another.
My data device vibrated—too early for Abhishek. Never too early for Heidi. It had been too long since she’d told me what a world-class fuck-up I was.
I pulled the device out, set it against my ear without so much as a glance. “I’m busy.”
“Stefan?” Gillian, not Heidi.
I waved off the bartender. “Gillian?”
“You called me when I was with Kelly. Ravi was there, too. She was awake for a few minutes, looking around, talking as if nothing had ever—”
“Awake?” I signaled for the bill and paid. Things kept twisting into crazier shapes on me.
“She looked right at me and asked me if those people had hurt me, then told me that she had always loved—” Gillian’s voice caught.
Chills ran down my back. “That’s good, though. Isn’t it?”
She cried for a second. “She slipped back under. The nurse said it just happens sometimes and doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t get a chance to tell her…”
“Shit. She knew, Gillian. She knows. Still alive, right?” I stepped into the night and slumped slightly when the wind hit me—biting cold. My new eyes didn’t water, my new teeth didn’t ache, and my fingers didn’t go numb, but the human part of me still felt the pain.
“Maybe. The doctor said this can be nothing, just like the nurse said, but it could also indicate things are just coming to a close. Things are shutting down.”
“Are you still there? Do you need someone to talk to?”
“I’m so glad you asked. I’m leaving now, actually. I was hoping you might be able to come over and help me keep my mind…” Her voice caught again. “I don’t want to think about what might happen.”
“I don’t have anything going on for a while. I can be there in an hour.”
“Thank you.” The connection broke with her still sniffling.
I hurried to the car and gave it her address. Tequila burned in my gut. It was too much, too fast. I needed something to get it out of my system and keep my thoughts straight. As we approached the Canyon, I pulled off the road and drove to the nearest pharmacy. There were anti-inebriation pills readily available; I swallowed two in the parking lot and almost immediately vomited. I lowered myself back into the car and sent it back on the way to Gillian’s.
Thirty minutes later, I woke to my data device’s alarm. It was dark out, colder than before, and wind rattled the window near my ear.
Gillian’s apartment building rose about one hundred feet away.
I had to hold the car door as it opened, then had to find my footing on slick ice. The nausea was gone, but my head felt like someone had gotten inside and was hacking their way out with an ice pick.
Gillian let me into the building. She was waiting for me when I knocked on her door, wearing a silk robe. I wanted to peel her out of it and take her right there, to feel her youthful, soft flesh again—to feel alive.
Instead, I brushed past her, embarrassed. “I need to clean up.”
“Are you drunk?”
“I would’ve been if you hadn’t called. I’m sorry…about your mother.”
She helped me out of my coat and pants. I managed the shirt and underwear on my own, then her robe. We stayed under the shower until our skin was red, then moved to the bed. Our first time together had been passionate and intense, but there was something more this time, a desperate acknowledgement of the fragility of life. She cried and curled up against me when we were done.
I woke at 11:30. She was still asleep, a peaceful calm on her brow. I wanted to stay with her, hold her, tell her it was going to be okay. Instead, I brushed back her hair, kissed her on the cheek, and let myself out. After dressing in the dining room, I headed out.
Abhishek called me a minute after midnight. “You are late.”
The towers passed by in a crimson neon blur, and fog rolled up over the hood of my car. “I’m two minutes out. I ran into unexpected traffic.”
He hung up.
Rather than park on the street, I took the car down the alleyway. Pedestrian traffic was light, and I wasn’t worried a security patrol would respond before I would be done. I parked with the trunk raised and pointed at the door to his shop. He glared at me through a pall of cigarette smoke while I loaded the guns. They’d been packed in four sturdy brown, molded plastic suitcases and a fifth case that was long and wooden.
“You going to check them?” he asked with a wave of his cigarette-holding hand.
“They’re reliable.”
The cigarette tip glowed. “I haven’t seen my payment yet.”
“You have that device?”
He walked back to the counter, grabbed something small, and brought it back to me. I inspected it. I couldn’t see a difference between it and what Ichi had shown us the night before.
I pulled out the data device, interfaced with my bank account, and put both devices away. “It’ll be a little while.”
He shook his head. “You will get everyone killed.”
“Just the bad people.”
Twenty-three minutes later, the car entered Ravi’s neighborhood. I had it park down the block from where the FBI agent’s car had been, then called Danny.
Danny sounded on edge. “Stefan, where have you been? Ichi’s been worried sick.”
“I need you to do me a favor,” I said. “Get your bird airborne. I want air cover over Ravi’s neighborhood. Then get Chan to call me. Encrypted.”
“What are you—?”
“And tell Ichi to relax. She needs to heal up. We’ll need her soon.” I disconnected and put the device away. Gillian’s scent was in the car, in my head. I cracked the windows and got out.
The FBI agent’s car was farther down, this time perpendicular to the street fronting Ravi’s apartment building. The windows were fogged. I knocked on the passenger side front seat window. It lowered just enough for me to see in. I leaned down.
She had the bubble shades down on her nose. Big eyes with heavy lashes looked up at me with the sort of no-bullshit intensity her hairdo hinted at. Pastrami and coffee curled through the crack and into my face. Red and blue lights flickered from gadgets lining the dashboard underside. Video from the shades reflected off her mahogany brown skin.
<
br /> “Mr. Mendoza,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.” Deadpan.
I tried not to show my surprise. “Which one are you watching?”
The window creeped up.
“Because if it’s the Agency team—”
The window stopped.
“—you might want to take a break. Ten, fifteen minutes.” I looked skyward. Snow was heading down. Heavy.
“Are you planning to commit a crime, Mr. Mendoza? B&E? Assault?”
“I’m just taking out some garbage.” I straightened and looked toward the apartment building that held the Agency team. “Fifteen minutes.”
I walked back to the car and popped the trunk. The top left suitcase registered a dozen flash-bang grenades. I pulled out four and stuffed three inside my jacket. One went into my left front pocket. After that, I checked one of the R60 machine pistols out, loaded a magazine into it, then put a spare magazine in each coat pocket. The R60 had a shoulder holster; I took my coat off and pulled the holster on, then holstered the gun.
The FBI car approached at a snail’s pace. Stopped. The driver’s side window lowered. The bubble shades were back on now. She stared straight ahead. “I forgot to get an apple fritter with my sandwich.”
“I love apple fritters. Deep-fried?”
“I’ll let you tell me.” The window closed and the car pulled away.
My data device vibrated. Danny’s drone was overhead. Chan had sent me a link to the video feed. I switched audio to my cybernetic implant and gave myself a few seconds to get used to the Grid going silent. It was like losing a friend. Finally, I crossed the street, angling to the south side of the apartment building. I secured a camera to the front of my shirt and closed my coat.
“Chan, when you see me come around the south of the building, I want external cameras knocked out. Same thing along the western side. When I reach the door to the gym, you pop it open.”
It sounded like Chan coughed. “Video out.”
I hurried along the south side of the building, then turned along its western front, picking up my pace. I slowed as I turned toward the gym door, flash-bang in hand.
“Door unlocked,” Chan said.
There was no movement on the street. I pulled the door open and stepped inside. The first thing I saw was a desk with surveillance gear on it, VR goggles folded and resting on top of a specialized keyboard. A young man in a dark shirt and pants turned from a large, black trunk pressed against an unfinished wall—naked aluminum joists and struts. Bulked-up upper body, wavy blond hair just off his ears, a bulbous nose.
He took a step toward me, confused and angry. “What the—?”
I closed the distance with a long stride and drove a fist into his solar plexus, driving the wind out of him.
I had his attention.
Before he could recover, I brought both hands down and in on the base of his throat. He collapsed.
A voice came through a doorway a few feet away. “Nick, what’s going on—?”
I pulled a flash-bang, triggered it, and threw it through the doorway. Cursing—angry and shocked. The explosion drowned it out.
I kicked Blondie in the head and dragged him to the doorway. There were three more in the large room beyond: two men and a woman. The woman was on a cot; the men were on top of gear and cabling. Plastic sheets covered stacks of drywall, and in some areas aluminum struts were still visible.
Blondie stirred. I punched him in the head. Twice. He went still. I gave the other two guys a kick each, then I undid their belts and tied their hands behind their backs. The woman suddenly reached for her jacket, misjudged, and knocked her holster to the ground. She’d been outside the worst of the grenade. I struck her in the side of the head, and she went down again. I bound her with the sheets from the cot and set her down beside the men. The other two men were a little older than Blondie. One was a redhead with a crew cut and a lantern jaw; the other was like me—dark hair and bronze skin, with Mexican or something farther south somewhere in his family. But he was handsome, somewhat young.
Good for you, kid.
The woman was the oldest, probably in her fifties, but she had the washed-out, pale skin and hair that made her look old and sick. This was her operation; the boys her muscle.
I had ten minutes left. The gear the two goons had been moving around included a specialized data device. I pulled Abhishek’s device out and set it on top. The login prompt came up. I held it up to get a clear look at it with my camera.
“Chan?”
“Yeah. I see it.”
“Good. Use Ravi’s biometrics. I want his records. I want to know who he’s working for and what the hell’s going on.”
The login interface cleared, and a user interface came up. It was the sort of dull thing that had been a shock for me when I’d finally signed on with the Agency: timesheet, mission logging, administrative portal, regulations and reference manuals. Chan moved through the different apps like an old pro.
The woman stirred. I set the data device down and squatted in front of her. She seemed to be having problems lifting her head. I pulled it up by her chin.
“This your operation?” I asked.
Her eyes were unfocused. I slapped her cheeks lightly; they turned pink. She pulled away and squinted.
I repeated, “This your operation?”
She looked at me, the first hint of awareness leaking into pale blue eyes. “Who—?”
Another couple slaps, and this time she jerked her head back. “This your operation?”
“Go to hell.” Her pale eyes had just enough fire to them to signal that she was fully aware.
“You’re looking for Maribel Clavel and Jose Funes.”
Surprise slipped through the anger. I’d hit close, maybe nailed it.
“Somebody’s little rogue operation, maybe?”
The bronze-skinned kid lifted his head, still woozy. It slumped back down.
I turned back to Pale Eyes. “You help me out, I don’t testify against you when this all falls apart. And you know it’s going to.”
A smirk. I was off the mark.
“I’m in,” Chan said. “Data link is solid. We’re good. Danny says trouble’s coming.”
I backed up to the data device, palmed Abhishek’s encryption device, ran my hand over the rest of the gear. “Spying on U.S. soil. That can be a big problem. I hope you’ve got all your authorizations in order.” I tapped the camera on my chest. “When word gets out…”
Chan said, “Two minutes out.”
I retraced my path through the outer room, stopping only long enough to give the VR goggles a look. They were the same as Chan’s. I hurried back to my car, listening for any further warnings. As I crossed the street, the FBI car approached, and the window on the driver’s side lowered again.
The FBI agent held up a small white paper sack, grease-stained at the bottom. “I’ll get your opinion next time we chat.”
I took the sack, and the car accelerated away, turning hard at the intersection and returning to where it had been earlier. I bit the sack and pulled my car’s door open. The apple fritter beckoned to me, greasy hot and sweet. As the car pulled onto the street, I took the first bite, gasping at the heat—crunchy apples, sugary glaze, and caramel.
Like the inevitable confrontation with Heidi, the experience was worth the pain.
Chapter 19
I gently lowered myself onto the foot of Chan’s bed, where three data devices were tangled up in the thrown-back blanket. Something caked the screens, milky in the glow of streetlights that slipped beneath the whispering shift of curtains. The heat was cranked up, and the fan was on full, pushing Chan’s week-old funk around without getting rid of it. The ever-present hoodie was pulled up around Chan’s face, hiding the LED earrings and some of the tattoos.
Chan’s head suddenly jerked sideways. A groan slid out, followed by a whimper.
What nightmares plagued a person who filtered the real world through the virtual?
Not far from me,
the sheets took on the shape of socked feet, then knees rose up, and Chan mumbled.
I slapped the thigh closest to me with enough force to knock that leg into the other.
Chan bolted straight up in the bed. Something extended from a hand as it came up between us: a blade, chromed and curved.
I stood. “Clean yourself up and change your clothes. We’re going into the Agency system.”
Chan held the knife steady. “Time?”
“A little after four. The perfect time.”
“How’d you get in?”
“Your room?” I jiggled the doorknob. “These are lousy locks.”
Chan rolled off the bed and started for the outer door.
I put an arm out. “I’m not kidding. You smell like you got stuck in the middle of a moose orgy. Shower up, clean clothes, the whole deal. You might spend most of your time in the Grid, but you’re still made up of flesh and it stinks something awful after a while. A little self-respect goes a long way.”
That earned me a slit-eyed glare, but Chan eventually pulled a very similar outfit—jeans, hoodie, undergarments—out of the chest of drawers and stomped into the bathroom. The door slammed shut.
I waited for the shower to kick on before returning to the living room and taking a seat across from Chan’s place on the sofa. I shut my eyes, hoping for just a moment of calm.
Chan shook me awake. “We doing this?”
The room was a blur, but Chan was clear. Wet hair, new clothing, freshly scrubbed—a huge improvement. I slid my VR goggles on and found clarity in the darkness. “I want to focus on Ravi’s current data first, then on historical.”
The goggles popped to life, bands of color coalescing into a brilliant white that took on shapes, colors, and textures—plastic gray boxes, black metal filing cabinets, clear plastic data devices, and terminals. Eggshell white walls and a half-height, sand-colored cubicle farm wrapped around the furniture. Sturdy, hideous carpeting—a brown-green checkered pattern—covered the floor. It was the same sort of dreary, vampiric office space that had drained away life from billions for decades. Avatar-Chan strolled into the cube with all the gear and settled into a chair in front of a terminal.
