“I don’t know how you stayed alive this long.”
“It wasn’t easy. It may be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Staying underground?”
“Staying sane.” He climbed up to the truck’s cabin and reached through the window. The hydraulic press in back opened like a mouth.
“I want to see Vanessa’s grave,” Raimey said.
Sabot shook his head. “No way. That puts us a few miles from an active military base.”
“No one will be there.”
“How do you know? You’ve been guarding rocks in Africa for the last twenty-five years. You don’t get what he is now.”
“He doesn’t have eyes everywhere.”
“No, but he’s got a lot of them, and he can predict these things, John. He created Nostradamus. Predictive algorithms are integrated into all he is. You don’t think other people have tried to stop him? Do you think the world just turned over on its belly when he took over? Most of the people who tried didn’t make it out of bed to put their boots on.”
“I need to know,” John said quietly. There was steam in his voice.
Sabot continued, hoping he’d get through. “There are other pieces to this puzzle that are already coming into place, and it’s highly likely—no, certain—that Evan will string these together. We’re up against a clock where our seconds are days to him.”
John pointed an arm-sized finger at Sabot. “Two days ago you told me that my daughter—who for the last twenty-five years I thought was dead—is alive. Take me to her fucking grave.”
Sabot let out a deep, worried sigh. He knew this was non-negotiable. They got in the truck and headed to the Derik Memorial.
Evan was a nostalgic beast. The Derik Memorial was acres of rolling hills and over five thousand graves of the fallen during the civil war. The grass was mowed in rows, with nary a weed in sight. The flowerbeds were luscious—without a wilted petal—and framed by plaques that timelined the war. It was open to the public, though no one went there (there was a virtual Derik Memorial program that was much more immersive). And on the surface, it seemed altruistic: Evan honoring the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
The civil war between MindCorp and the United States had become a bionic genocide. Once Cynthia understood the full breadth of Evan’s goals, she used a backdoor in the implant software to access the tens of thousands of Tank Minors that were in service and control them against their will. Screaming for help, unable to control their limbs, they tackled and tore apart Tank Majors, softy soldiers, anyone that fought for Evan. And after two weeks, the screams and cries for help had ceased. The bionics were biologically dead, either from wounds or starvation. So when the Northern Star came online and won the war, for these soldiers there was no coming home.
But the incongruities of the Derik Memorial didn’t add up. Over twenty thousand Tank Minors had died during the war. Half of them in Chicago. Where were they? The same held for the “softy soldiers,” the non-bionics. Twelve thousand of them had been shredded, grossly outmatched. There were no crosses for them, no monuments to their heroic ends.
No, this memorial had nothing to do with the war; it had to do with Evan. It was a Rorschach splat that reminded him of himself. The softy soldiers weren’t his children. The bionics were. He viewed them all as his.
Sabot parked the truck a quarter mile from the gate. He reached into the back seat and pulled out a custom made 4-gauge auto-loading shotgun with a thirty-shell drum magazine. The shotgun shells were massive and had enough buckshot to evaporate a Tank Minor’s chest at close range. Sabot held the gun with one arm as they walked toward the gate. A normal man could have barely carried it, much less fire it.
“Let’s be quick,” Sabot said nervously. This was an unnecessary detour. They were ten miles from Cynthia and relative safety, and if they were found, everything would be compromised. There was no “Plan B.” They needed to get to Cynthia undiscovered.
“I will,” Raimey said. He opened the gate and walked through. Sabot followed, his head on a swivel.
They walked through the field of crosses toward a tree that rose from a bluff. John had been here before: two and a half decades ago, before he shipped off to Africa to guard the mineral mines. They stood in front of her stone:
Vanessa Kate Raimey
Our blessed daughter comes home
2048—2069
“Evan told me he was sorry for my loss,” Raimey said gruffly. “He said he felt responsible.”
“The last part is true.” Sabot kept his eyes on the ground. He didn’t see the tear grow plump and spill down Raimey’s right cheek. But he turned in shock when Raimey’s giant right hand cleaved into the earth.
“What are you doing?” Sabot grabbed the giant’s arm, but Raimey shrugged him off, and Sabot tumbled thirty feet down the hill, knocking over four tombstones before he got control.
Raimey dug with his left hand, his right, and his left again. Tears rolled down his face like hard rain. The smell of raw earth filled the air as the dirt pile grew.
“Where is she? Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?” Raimey bellowed. His fingers hit wood and his movements got more precise. He brushed away the dirt, found the edges, and pulled the coffin from the ground. He laid it next to the hole, then stood up and paused. His breath was heavy, and suddenly he was uncertain.
What was in the box?
“Don’t open it,” Sabot said. He was back, his hair disheveled, his eyes wild. They were so close to safety. They had to get to Cynthia.
“Why?” Raimey said, his voice distant as if he was in a dream. “Are you nervous that I’ll see my daughter’s bones?”
“There aren’t bones in there, John. She isn’t in there.”
“Then what does it matter?”
Sabot moved into John’s view. “I don’t know what’s in her place.”
Raimey looked to Sabot: what he’d said was clear. It was Evan who had done this, Evan who had orchestrated a global takeover with his guile. But this happened decades ago, John thought. Back when he was just a man. What he is is what he is, a voice cooed from the back of his mind.
The box wasn’t empty; Raimey registered that. His tears dried up. He was thinking. What’s in the coffin?
“Who would dig it up, John? Only you. And he sent you away.”
Raimey stared at the dirty box. What if it was bones, hair, and teeth? He pictured the skeleton of his daughter small, but that wasn’t true. She was an adult when she died. He reached down to open the coffin. Sabot shielded his face, expecting a bomb.
There will be no bomb, Raimey thought absently. It would do nothing to him but warm the air.
He lifted the lid.
Vanessa Raimey lay there, completely preserved. An adult. He had never seen her in person past the age of sixteen, but there she was, perfect. She wore a purple dress. Her eyes were closed, her caramel skin without a blemish. Her long black hair with its wavy curls, pulled back behind her head. Her arms were across her stomach, holding a bouquet. The bouquet was rotten and black, dust in the shape of flowers. It had laid against her bosom for twenty-five years.
Raimey’s head spun. His mind registered that what he saw was wrong, but not enough to provide motivation to his limbs. He was paralyzed. He couldn’t pull his eyes from her. Sabot was saying something in the background, but he sounded far away.
“WE HAVE TO GO NOW!” Sabot screamed. He pulled on Raimey, but it had as much effect as a man tugging on an oak tree. Raimey didn’t move. He was elsewhere, his brain on pause, the circuit breaker tripped.
Vanessa. Her name repeated over and over in his head. His mind compared the child to the adult. Back and forth. He saw Vanessa as a child in the casket, then back to her adult form. Then back to the child.
Her eyes opened. She turned her head slowly, but it caught for a second. She hadn’t moved in twenty-five years. She hadn’t moved ever.
“So you know,” Dr. Lindo said from his daughter’s mouth.
“Why?” John asked, his voice barely audible.
= = =
China Girl turned to Kove. They got the same message. The Derik Memorial.
= = =
“I had no choice, John,” she said. He said. “I would have lost the war.”
“You said you’d protect her,” Raimey said.
“Raimey, we have to go!” Sabot yelled.
“Sabot?” The Vanessa doll couldn’t see out of her crate. It sat up. “Cynthia is alive!”
Sabot raised his gun to the doll. Raimey blocked it with his hand.
Unbeknownst to John and Sabot, six feet down and all around, the soil was moving. The buried Minors, some just pieces, some nearly whole, were scratching and clawing through their caskets, tunneling up to the surface like worms.
“Where is she?” Raimey said to the doll.
Hands broke through the soil. The dead soldiers, now controlled by satellites three hundred miles up, struggled out of the ground.
“With me, John.”
“Let her go.”
The daughter doll laughed. “I can’t do that.”
“Why create this body? Why make it in her image? You sick motherfucker.”
“It’s her grave. Who else would it look like? Africa was good for you, John. I wanted you to live; I sent you away to save you. But I knew that if you came back, you’d come back for her. That you’d have to see. And I’d have to know.”
Behind Raimey, Sabot fired. The giant turned to witness a nightmare before him. Two hundred decrepit Minors were pulling themselves out of the ground. Some were decimated, some were nearly whole, but they were all rags and rot, exposed skeletons and electric eyes, electrostatic tissue hanging like meat off the bone. They limped and dragged themselves up the hill, and the earth continued to pop as still more clawed their way to the surface.
Sabot fired on the ones closest to them, tearing them to shreds. John picked up the doll shaped like his daughter. It wasn’t her, no matter the similarity, no matter the precision. She was Lindo, his cunning, his twisted consciousness.
“GIVE ME MY DAUGHTER!” Raimey screamed.
The doll laughed.
“We have to get out of here, John!” Sabot said. The death dummies were in shambles, but their numbers continued to increase as more and more of them cored up from their graves. There was no exit except right through them.
Raimey raised the doll to his face. “I’m coming, Evan. And when I find her, I’ll find you.”
He crushed Vanessa Raimey in his hands. It was made in her image, but it wasn’t her.
Raimey turned to the hundreds of dead Minors. The drive chains around his waist roared to life. It was the sound of a rollercoaster barreling down the track.
“Let’s get to Cynthia,” Raimey said.
He charged through the decrepit battalion. Sabot followed in his wake, picking off any Minors that somehow avoided the giant’s crushing assault. Raimey ran over them like a horse over mice, trampling them beneath his feet, knocking them to the side, picking them up and throwing them hundreds of feet out of the way. In Africa, an elephant would flee rather than cross Raimey’s path. Lindo’s death dummies weren’t as wise.
To their right, Sabot saw headlights fast approaching. That’s why Lindo spoke—to keep us around. The corpses were a distraction.
“Ahead, John. Get to the truck.”
Sabot shot his way through the soldiers. But Raimey veered toward the oncoming vehicle.
= = =
China Girl and Kove came around the bend.
“There,” Kove said. He saw the intermittent flak of Sabot’s shotgun near the entrance, and along with each muzzle flash, a snapshot of the Lindos as they attacked.
Kove locked down his helmet. It was painted with a demon’s grin and a stream of red tears that rolled away from the eyeholes cut into the heavy metal. “I’ll disable the truck,” he said. It was ahead in their beams.
RAIMEY IS COMING FOR YOU. GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE, Lindo told them.
Where? China Girl asked, but it was too late. Their left headlight revealed a massive shoulder and then Raimey was on the road charging directly at them, ten yards and closing. China Girl knew Raimey’s specs, but she hadn’t realized how big he was. He was much larger than Kove, much larger than any standard Heavy. What ran at them with its shoulder ducked may as well have been a meteor careening down from the sky.
“SHI—” Kove started, and then the impact collapsed the front end. There was a gnashing sound as Raimey started to pummel right through the truck. The engine exploded and the fuel line went. The rear wheels lifted from the inertia, threatening to flip end over end.
Kove flew out the front, glancing off Raimey’s side as he pinwheeled into a gully. China Girl slammed against the windshield, the sudden stop creating massive g forces too great to move against. She saw Raimey’s face. Unlike Kove, he wasn’t wearing his helmet. She pulled out a small sidearm with her foreleg and aimed.
Raimey saw a freak of a soldier, a spidery crab-like creation, unholster a gun and point it at him. He heaved the truck onto its back and started scissor-punching down with his eight-hundred-pound fists.
China Girl was trapped. She tried to squirm to a window, but it transformed into a crushed slit with just one of the giant’s blows. She flipped onto her back and put all her limbs against the truck’s floor, trying to create space.
Kove rolled onto all fours, disoriented.
He’s going to kill me. Help, China Girl said.
Raimey’s back was to Kove as he pounded the truck into the ground. Kove stood up, shaken, trying to regain his balance. Double vision settled in. But he charged Raimey, his arm cocked back, the hydraulshock loaded and ready.
Raimey saw him. He grabbed the two tons of mangled truck by its axles and swung it down onto Kove, bludgeoning him into the earth.
Raimey was just about to finish the job when bright lights fell on him. Sabot pulled up in the truck. “Get in!”
Raimey hesitated. He didn’t leave loose ends, but he saw the army of Lindos approaching and knew that reinforcements were surely on their way. He climbed in the back.
“If you get in my way, I will kill you!” Raimey screamed as Sabot accelerated away.
= = =
One hundred Lindos approached the ball of mangled truck. Kove pushed it off himself and rolled to his knees. He felt like he might throw up. He took off his helmet and pulled off the prosthetic so he could breathe better. Sucking in the cool air, he waited for his head to settle. It rang like a kettledrum.
A death dummy approached him. “I expect more from you,” the Lindo said. In a flash, Kove reached out and crushed it in his hand. The other Lindos glared at him as they walked by, but they didn’t utter a peep. They flipped over the truck, and China Girl exploded out of it.
“Why would you make him that powerful?” Kove asked. He had never experienced something so much stronger than him.
It was necessary at the time. You’re faster.
“Big whoop.”
“Do you know where they are?” China Girl asked Evan.
“Yes, I’m following him by satellite,” the Lindos replied.
Kove stood up and walked over to China Girl. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. He is much stronger than I thought he’d be.”
He is the most powerful being on the planet, Evan said.
“Maybe you should have taken someone else’s daughter,” Kove replied.
The Lindos stared at Kove—not used to the insubordination—then turned around and walked back to their graves. Another vehicle is being sent from the base. I will let you know where they’re headed.
The mutilated horde gathered up the remains of their comrades who had been shot or maimed, then put them back in their graves. Then they slipped back into their own and went to sleep.
This time, forever.
= = =
Sabot tore down the street, pushing the truck to its limit. Raimey was behind him in the bed. A metal screen separa
ted the two.
“Where are we going?” Raimey asked.
“I don’t know. We can’t go directly back to Cynthia. Lindo’s watching us. I have to think.”
“There’s no backup plan?”
“I wasn’t expecting us to go to the fucking Derik Memorial, John!”
“I had to know for sure,” Raimey said quietly.
Sabot was in no mood to console. He drove into the city, contemplating how to shake the eyes that were now watching them from space. Underground somewhere. They had to go underground.
Three hundred miles above, Lindo’s eyes tracked them, scoured ahead, calculated their possible routes. The tracking duties were transferred seamlessly from satellite to satellite as the ring spun around the earth like a hula hoop.
The city was deep and difficult to sift through. It was built up, not out, a product of a world without oil, where the luxury of space was trumped by the need for efficiency. Most of the buildings were a hundred stories or more. They created deep abysses, mile-long shadows that hid those who didn’t want to be found. Lindo had eyes, but in these mega-cities, they did him little good.
Lindo lost track of Sabot a mile into the city when he turned down a street called Lower Wacker. That street hadn’t seen the sun in fifteen years.
“Where are we going?” Raimey asked.
“Around. I need to make sure we aren’t being followed.”
Sabot was still stewing about the Derik Memorial. He would have punched Raimey through the grate if it wouldn’t have resulted in his own dismemberment. Stupid. He turned down increasingly smaller streets until they were in an alley where lack of use had turned decades of trash into a compost mush. The truck’s tires left a trail as if they were driving through snow.
Sabot parked the truck. “We’re here.”
They got out. Sabot jogged ahead, checking angles and ushering Raimey forward. They were encased in dark, and the buildings surrounding them leaned over the road.
“Where are we?”
“We’re going to one of the first data nodes that Cynthia’s Minors defended during the civil war,” Sabot said. “The military ended up bombing it.”
The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition Page 78
