Raimey was incredibly durable. His armor was the strongest the world had ever known. But a direct shot from that cannon, and his physical body would turn to jam.
I’m going to die, Raimey thought. The concept surprised him. He thought about the losses in his life constantly, but it had been a long, long time since he had thought about his own mortality. He had begun to believe what others thought. That he was invincible.
“One move and I’ll fire,” a voice said through the tank’s PA system. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I’m John Raimey. Captain Liam Razal and I were deployed here to check out a mine outside the city and confirm whether Stafford and Lepai, two Tank Majors, were dead or alive. We were sent by the U.S. government.”
“Lepai is dead. Stafford is not,” the PA crackled. “Do you know what they were doing?”
“No, I don’t. We’ve brought the children and a lone survivor from the mine.”
“How can I trust you?”
“Are you Packard?” Raimey asked. He wondered if he could duck and get out of the line of fire of that empty muzzle.
“No. I am Juhavee,” the voice said. “If you make one false move, we will shoot you down. And we know we can, Giant. Follow us. It’s not safe here.”
“I need to get the others.”
“We have them.”
The tanks rumbled to life. The two other tanks led the way. Juhavee’s tank spun around and followed, but its cannon barrel didn’t waver from Raimey’s chest.
They traveled west. The personnel truck, with Razal and the children, joined them. The nomads that had passed them on the way had turned out not to be nomads at all, but soldiers; they had surprised Razal with thirty guns and taken him down. And with the children present, Razal hadn’t put up a fight.
It was clear the tank convoy was concerned with threats other than John. They stopped at intersections to roll their turrets back and forth, checking nearby alleys and buildings. Juhavee’s tank was undamaged, but the other two were warped and twisted. The lead tank had a cockeyed tread that fought the ground as it moved forward, as if it wanted to set out on its own. Raimey recognized the damage: a Tank Major had hit it.
They reached an open road that led away from the city, and a bridge took them over a small river to a military-fortified power plant, where men walked along tall walls with RPGs. A tank sat on either side of the gate. Their turrets followed Raimey. This must have been a Coalition base at some point.
The gate slowly opened and Raimey followed the caravan inside; the personnel truck brought up the rear. As he stepped inside, he saw a strange device mounted high on the corner wall. It was a modified anti-aircraft turret that now looked like a gigantic clay pigeon thrower. But instead of pigeons, landmines were stacked neatly on one another like candy wafers. A man immediately rotated the turret toward John. All of the men with RPGs were aiming at Raimey as well: thirty in all.
The first two Abram M1s circled out and away, their turrets never leaving John. The one that housed Juhavee continued forward underneath a protective underpass.
“Okay, stop,” Juhavee announced from his tank. Raimey heard the diesel turbine cycle down. The truck with the children was escorted out of sight. Raimey no longer saw Razal.
“Where’s the Minor?” Raimey asked.
“Don’t. Move.”
The hatch at the top of the tank flipped open, and a thin, dark man with glasses—he looked like a black Gandhi—popped out. His face held no joy. Another man, this one with a bandaged eye, came around the corner with Vana. Together they went over to the tank. She spoke to Juhavee in French. John couldn’t hear what she said, but her gestures were sharp and exaggerated. Juhavee’s eyes bounced from her to him. He questioned her quietly. He appeared to be a calm man, John thought.
At last Juhavee said something to the bandaged man, who waved another group of men over. John saw that they had Razal. They unbound him.
The turret pivoted away from Raimey and Juhavee stepped out of the hatch. His stern expression was replaced with one of relief. “Thank God you’re here. We have to save the children.”
Raimey and Razal were invited into the shade. Juhavee sat on the front of the tank with his legs dangling, like a child on a swing.
“Where are the kids?” Razal asked, looking around.
“They’re with the others, being fed. We’ve been doing our best to find them and bring them here. The nomads you saw, that was their cover. The Mort Vivant have taken thousands from around this region in just months.”
“The Mort Vivant?” Raimey said.
“The walking dead,” Juhavee translated. “They’re mercenaries. Bionics. Led by a guy named Packard.” Juhavee shook his head. “They control the north end of the city, Matadi Bridge, and all of Boma. They’re sophisticated.” Juhavee hesitated for a moment. “And they have giants.”
“I know Stafford. We fought together in Israel,” Raimey said.
Juhavee sighed. “I thought I knew him. But there are others, too. They take the bodies of the ones they kill and reuse them.”
A soldier came up and handed Juhavee a bottle of water. He took a sip and poured the rest of it on his head. He said something in another language and the man ran off.
“Are you a general?” Raimey asked.
Juhavee laughed. “No. Not at all. I’m a linguist. I was appointed by the Coalition in 2063 to manage the ports and mines. Back then, the mines meant jobs, and people came from all over the region. It became a job where I managed population control.”
He pointed northeast. The tall walls guarding the power plant blocked the view from here, but Raimey had already seen it on the way in: nearly half the city was rubble.
“The mines were producing and there was money here, so the warlords came. We could fend them off—we have tanks, good weapons, and training—but the mines were affected. Caravans got ambushed. People died. Precious metals were taken. And so the Coalition reorganized and brought the giants in. They got things under control. “Fine” is a relative term, but I’d say things were fine. And then, three months ago, the Mort Vivant showed up and everything went to hell.”
He pointed to a nearby building. On the top was a satellite dish. “We’ve tried to contact the Coalition military, but it doesn’t work.”
“My comm doesn’t work either,” Razal said. “Blocked?”
Juhavee nodded. “Blocked. Walkie-talkies, short-range stuff, those kind of things still function, but that doesn’t help much.” He paused. “And the soldiers that are here, they’re a part of it.”
“Of what?” Raimey asked.
Juhavee shook his head, exhausted. “I have no idea. But they want the kids.”
= = =
A mirror showed him the progress as the seamstress sewed. Packard hissed. “Careful.” There was no pain, but he was a stickler for symmetry. Ever since he’d left Israel and his skin had begun to deteriorate without regular maintenance, he had hid behind scarfs and balaclavas, ashamed of his mutty appearance. But over time, he’d come to embrace it. By being free of a “look,” he could choose to look like anything. Skin was temporary, and there was plenty around.
He had killed a man today. A soldier had come back from the gallium mine. The soldier had told him about the giant, and Packard knew that this one wasn’t like Stafford or Lepai. He had seen this giant in the bloody rivers of Israel and he knew his name.
He killed the guard to make an example. He would die for his brothers, the others he had fought with and broken down with. But the softies must know their place. And bedding down with the Mort Vivant was no safer than curling up in a bear’s den. It just paid better.
When the woman was done, Packard examined himself in the mirror. Half of his face was white, half of it black. He couldn’t smell—his sensor had broken years ago—but flies buzzed around him, so he was sure the new skin was fresh. The seam ran down his forehead—the nose work was passable—through his lips, and down his chin. She had weaved the thread around his
head and tightened it to his neck. He moved his jaw, and the stitching made a tight sound.
“Do-re-mi!” he sang. Without cheeks he had sounded like a slurrying half-wit. But now he sort of sounded like himself. The woman waited, nervously. He put the mirror down.
“This is good. You did good. You can go.”
She left through a curtain without a word, and almost immediately a Minor without an arm walked in. He sniffed the air. His sensor worked.
“Geez, Jane, you should at least tan the leather,” Salt grumbled.
Packard and Salt had abandoned their country together—they were brothers without blood. Salt was the Mort Vivant’s mechanic, and the irony wasn’t lost on anyone: he was an early Level 2, and no parts were that backward compatible. He was in the worst shape of all of them.
Jane smacked his new lips. “The only thing on you that works is your nose.”
“Can you tear it out? You’d be doing me favor. The boat’s ready.”
“How many more do we need?”
“Three.”
Packard stood up. He was tall, about six-four. He wore green fatigues wrapped in a scarf made of various swatches of fabric. The scarf was sentimental to him: it was his necklace of ears. Adversaries, diplomats, mobsters, warlords, politicians, presidents, prime ministers, generals, whistleblowers . . . What had started off as a habit—cutting a piece of clothing off of every paid kill—had turned into a quilt. By now his head was nearly buried in it. “Why is it so hard?”
“They need to fit a profile.”
“I wasn’t really asking.”
The two men walked out of Packard’s quarters onto the metal grates of the factory. Before the Coalition, Boma had been a port town, but once the Coalition arrived, they had turned it into one giant factory with ports on the side.
“Should we try and retrieve the kids?” Salt asked. They made their way down a maze of steps. This factory manufactured circuit boards.
“They’ll come to us—they got nowhere else to go. Is the town ready?”
“I checked everything. It’s good.”
“The giants are out anyway. Maybe they’ll get him, or at least soften him up. We’re fine.”
Packard had never seen himself as a company man. He preferred the open sky and the chance for engagement over the next hill. But he now viewed himself as a CEO. He liked this work—it was interesting. And he liked working for his benefactor, who paid well and on time, and promised the sort of future in which Packard would excel. And if they succeeded, what Packard had been offered was above all these things.
He glanced over at his one-armed friend as they descended the steps. Their boss had promised new bodies, whatever their brains could handle. Maybe it was time to settle down . . .
They made it to the ground floor and out the door. There were dozens of Mort Vivant, thousands of workers and softy soldiers (if you could call anyone with an AK that, he thought). They all moved out of the way as Packard approached.
Packard wasn’t particularly mean. He hadn’t much of a temper. Some of these men had fled warlords who had killed indiscriminately. Many of the women had been forced into camps where rape was a matter of course. Packard did none of these things. His camp was safe. Unless you messed with his timeline. It was the only thing he cared about, because if he failed to meet his deadline, he would get nothing. Yesterday he’d still had a week to complete his mission, and he was ahead of schedule. Today, he got lousy news: his timeline had been cut to forty-eight hours, and now he was behind.
They walked by a field of tents behind a chain-link fence. A thousand children, ages eight to twelve, milled about. A few women took care of them.
“Are most of the warlords here?” Packard asked.
“About half.”
“We can’t wait. We’ll do the auction tomorrow.” Only three percent of the kids met the profile. They had to do something with the others, and Packard wasn’t a child-killer.
They got on the powerboat. Out at sea was a massive oil rig that no longer pumped oil. A dish half the size of a football field rose out of its top. Steam boiled from the sea below it. The Multiplier was functional, but it needed three more fuses. The boat crashed over the waves toward it. They had to check the fiber run.
Packard reconsidered. “I’m being stupid. We need those kids,” he yelled over the waves. He felt a stitch pop on his face.
“Tonight?”
“Once we’re back.”
= = =
The doctors told Alan Kove that after he became a Tank Major, the phantom limb pain that had plagued him since the culling would go away. That he would no longer feel the burning sensation of fingers and toes long gone, or the itch down the leg that had been incinerated in a biohazard bag a month before. They said the implant that connected his mind to his new body would eliminate these sensations, and that his brain and battle chassis would become as synchronous as the one that was flesh and blood. They were wrong. The ghosts of his arms and legs still haunted him. They itched and tingled. They burned and moved. Combined with the tactile movements of his giant new limbs, he felt like an octopus.
“You look like shit,” Chao said. Glass said nothing. They were in a truck on the way to MindCorp Headquarters.
“I’m itchy. It’s driving me nuts.”
“Is your phantom pussy itchy, too?”
Five other Minors were with them to guard the perimeter as they entered MindCorp. They were there to arrest Cynthia for the murder of President Austin and India’s President Nehru. Chao couldn’t contain his excitement. His bouncing knee shook the truck. They were two miles out.
= = =
A torrent of news reports overwhelmed cyberspace. The President of the United States had died from a “reverse data push” during a meeting with other Coalition leaders, and the transmission had originated at MindCorp Headquarters. In India, President Nehru had also been found dead from the same cause.
“The government has taken immediate action. Secretary of State Dr. Evan Lindo, with the Vice-President’s approval, has ordered the arrest of Cynthia Revo, who the government believes was instrumental in the murder of both presidents after an argument during a Coalition meeting.”
The phrase “reverse data push” was echoed by pundits across the globe. Video cropped up of a monkey wearing a Mindlink and dying at the push of a button. Professional Sleepers explained to the common man, via digital feeds, that yes, the Mindlink was not one-hundred-percent safe.
Another news feed. “A source that chooses to remain anonymous has stated that Cynthia Revo got into a heated debate with President Nehru during a meeting between MindCorp and Coalition leaders.”
Video of the meeting showed Cynthia, angry and defiant, screaming “YOU CAN’T HAVE IT.”
Another news feed. And another. Spanish. Dutch. Portuguese. Russian. Around the globe the bloggers and chat rooms speculated, and the news outlets interviewed experts with no first-hand knowledge.
A live news feed showed a military truck on its way to MindCorp.
Suddenly Cynthia was eye to eye with Sabot. He had pulled off her Mindlink.
Clink. Clink. He unhooked her limbs from the Impetus machine. The shock of the real world made her vomit.
“What are you doing?” she asked through the strings.
“They’re almost here. We’re leaving now.”
Cynthia had been rebuilding the MIME that Evan had destroyed, in an attempt to recover the data. So far she had reconstructed a visual of Evan with eyes in his mouth, and a few snippets of dialogue from the President, but it was incomplete. “Hive brain.” “Washington, D.C.” “Multipliers.” Horrifying terms surrounded by silence.
Past Sabot, Cynthia saw packed bags. The world spun. It normally took days to withdraw from cyberspace.
“We need to fight this,” she said.
“You can’t fight it from jail.”
“Then one more second on the Mindlink.” He put it back on her while he continued to release her from the Impetus mach
ine. Outside the room, he heard the Core shut down.
“Okay,” she said.
He didn’t bother changing her. He slung the bags over his shoulders, momentarily revealing two assault rifles hanging underneath his jacket, and carried her out of the room. “The car’s waiting.”
He ran through the rows of Sleepers and confused employees to a private elevator that only she and he could use.
The car was parked in a subterranean tunnel. Mosley held the door open. “I came as fast as I could,” he said. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair was a mess. His confusion was offset with concern. He had heard the news.
Sabot put Cynthia in the car. “You did good. Let’s go.”
They headed north. One mile out, the tunnel dumped onto a road that was still invisible from the sky—a rail track was overhead. A few miles more and they were on an empty road. Sabot sat with Cynthia in back of the low stretched car, rubbing her back as she shook from withdrawal. Without her wig to cover them, the metal diodes implanted in her skull flickered in the passing lights. She looked as if she had just escaped some medieval experiment.
“Is she okay?” Mosley asked.
“She’ll be fine. Is everything off?”
“Yeah,” Mosley replied casually. Sabot reached through the partition and squeezed Mosley’s shoulder.
“I’m serious! Your cell phone’s off? GPS is off? Everything’s off?”
“Yeah! I listened.”
Sabot stared at Mosley in the rearview mirror.
“This is serious, Mosley.”
Mosley’s eyes darted to the mirror. “I know.”
Sabot leaned back.
“Where are we going?” Cynthia asked.
“Lake Geneva. A runway has been prepared at a nearby airstrip if needed.”
“Aren’t we better off in the city?”
“No. Someone will see one of us eventually, and the military will mind-hunt for sightings.”
“That’s going to be tough for them.” She managed a smile. “I shut down cyberspace.”
The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 45
