Avery Cates 2 - The Digital Plague

by Jeff Somers

  Marko was already wandering the broken rubble at the river’s edge with his eyes glued to his screen. “Aside from the digital traffic, I’ve got one heat signature that’s in the right range for a human. I wouldn’t see any Monks that way, though.”

  “Fuck the Tin Men,” Happling growled, crumbling a cigarette in his hands and jamming the tobacco into his cheek. “The ones swam over here ain’t going to give us any problems. That’s why they’re still here, in the shithole of the universe.”

  Hense rocked on her heels, staring across the water. “No one knows we’re here. No one could be expecting us.”

  “Sure,” Happling drawled, spitting brown juice onto the ground. “Because smacking a hover into the ground just a few miles away wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone.”

  She cocked her head slightly back toward him but didn’t say anything. For a moment she just stared off into the distance, the sun hidden behind scummy clouds. “Wait for night.” She stood up and turned to face us, five feet and a hundred pounds, and I was pretty sure she’d make me hurt plenty if I ever tried to lay hands on her. “Mr. Marko, see what you can see, and find out what you can about that building. Nobody go more than a few feet from Mr. Cates.”

  Marko sat down where he’d been standing, staring at the screen and moving his slender fingers. “There’s nothing there, Colonel. A minor heat sig, all the air traffic we’ve been tracking between it and the nanos, and nothing else. No hot wire, no cavities—just old stone and empty air.” He snapped his little device shut and peered at us with squinty, screen-blinded eyes. “If there’s anything over there, Colonel, it’s one person.”

  I reached down and picked up a rock, chucking it into the water just to watch it be swallowed, the water like heavy oil, barely rippling. “All right,” I said, heart pounding. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Wait for night,” Hense said from behind me. I could picture the tight shake of her head.

  “No,” I said. “What, you think night’s going to make a difference? Anyone over there expecting us is expecting us. If Marko can’t see them, then either they can’t be seen or they aren’t there. Either way, waiting doesn’t accomplish anything.” I shrugged off my coat and started going through the pockets, transferring anything useful to my pants. “I’m diving in three minutes, Colonel. What are you going to do? Shoot me?”

  I dropped the coat to the ground and slid my gun securely into a front hip pocket. My arms were mottled blue and gray, but I felt better than I had in days, adrenaline coursing through me, the pain receding. I thought I might actually get to kill someone responsible for this, for Glee, for New York, and everyone else I’d just murdered without meaning to. I was almost cheerful as I picked my way to the water’s edge and started taking deep breaths, my cracked ribs poking me with each inhalation.

  “Fuck it,” Hense said from behind me. “Lead on, Cates.” She sounded amused.

  I wasn’t paying any attention anymore. I took three terrible, ragged breaths and then threw myself into the water. It was cold—surprisingly cold, a slap of freezing liquid against my body. My clothes soaked it up and got heavy, and after just a minute or so I was panting. Behind me, I heard them slip into the water, and pretty soon we were all making a lot of noise as we swam to the island. About halfway down the west side the retaining wall had been smashed up a little, and we were able to pull ourselves out of the evil river to stand dripping beside the massive building. I stood breathing hard and suppressing coughs, examining the structure. A grayish white, it was eerily preserved. I thought of the church in Newark and marveled at whatever ancient instinct people’d had to leave the fucking churches alone while they burned down the rest of the world.

  We took a moment to check weapons and equipment. Marko did another scan and nodded wordlessly. Happling and I crept along the wall toward the front, where the two towers thrust up above us. There was a big open square right outside the church, the city silent and crumbling in the near distance. We paused to study the three huge doorways, curvy triangles with doors missing, darkness spilling out of them and fading the air around us. I glanced down at a circular stone set into the ground with words printed on it: point zero des routes de france. I didn’t know what it meant, if it had ever meant anything.

  The doorways were empty, just black shadows. Happling pointed at the far one and I nodded, moving quickly to push myself against the wall and then creeping over toward it. We glanced at each other again and simultaneously stepped inside.

  I took a moment to let my eyes adjust. My lungs were still burning, and it felt like I’d pulled a whole new set of muscles, but I stayed still for half a minute, letting my eyes find the light.

  The interior of the church was a narrow hall, its rounded roof impossibly high over our heads. The rotted remains of what had once been benches littered the area directly in front of me, but far ahead the floor cleared and a raised platform sat under a row of empty, gaping window frames. I glanced right and spied Happling across from me. He looked around and shrugged. I didn’t see anything either. I nodded back and took a step forward; he faded back a step and lowered his shredder to cover me.

  I started walking, my feet making quiet, wet sounds. My heart rattled against my chest as if trying to break out, and everything inside me had turned to liquid, ready to spill out. My own breath sounded thunderous, wheezing in and out of my ruined nose, and sweat dripped into my good eye and every scratch on my body, setting me on fire. I kept my gun out in front of me, low, my finger alongside the trigger. I reminded myself that I had fourteen shots, I was exposed, and I was counting on a System Pig who hated me to provide cover.

  As I got closer, I saw that the raised platform wasn’t empty. It was made of polished stone with a checkerboard design, and it supported a large cube of clear material like glass. A man was sitting inside the cube, which was actually a small transparent room, complete with a small cot, a table and chair, and a bank of equipment hooked together by the usual black cables. The man was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his little cube, lazily waving at a Vid screen, the Vid’s light flashing on his bald head and impossibly long nose.

  I stopped, blinking. “Ty?”

  Ty Kieth looked up sharply, sheer terror passing over his familiar face. Then he smiled, a huge, damp grin that looked a lot like mingled relief and happiness.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said, his voice raspy, rough. “Oh fuck is Ty happy to see you, Mr. Cates.”

  XX

  Day Eight:

  Ty is Contemplating

  the End of the World

  All I could do for a moment was stare. Ty Kieth looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him years ago, when he’d left New York. As always he was bald—either something congenital or a procedure he’d had done, since I’d never seen him shave—and his ridiculous nose quivered in front of him, always a second or two in the future, waiting for Ty to catch up. He was wearing loose-fitting, colorless clothes that were obviously not tailored for him, and, of course, he was living inside a transparent cube.

  “Ty,” I said, feeling Happling behind me in the shadows, like an ember in the wind, “there’s a big cop back there who wants very much to shoot you. You’re going to have to give us a good reason not to, and fast.”

  Ty’s face was almost comical in the way it collapsed in on itself, folding up into a rictus of horror. “You mean you’re not here to rescue Ty?”

  “Well, fuck,” I said, frowning, my voice echoing off the soaring walls, “why in hell would I be here to rescue you?”

  “This is him, then?” Happling roared, stepping into the aisle behind me, shredder up and cords on his neck standing out like taut cables. “This is the fantastic genius Ty Kieth who created these goddamn bugs?”

  I turned to face him, keeping my gun down but at the ready. Happling wasn’t even looking at me. His bloody eyes were fixed on Kieth, as if trying to make the little man explode just with his mind. “It is,” I said, stepping sideways to block his path. “And I n
eed a moment to talk to him.”

  The big cop swung the shredder so it pointed directly at my chest and didn’t slow down. “Step aside, asshole.”

  I’d seen shredding rifles cut through cement walls. I’d seen shredding rifles turn dozens of men into cheese. I stepped aside and spun back to face Ty.

  “Told you,” I said. “Ty, I’m afraid Captain Happling here doesn’t respect my opinions. He might shoot you.”

  Ty reached up and rapped his knuckles against the glass. “Doesn’t matter, Mr. Cates. The cube is bulletproof.” He looked up again. “Did Ty hear you say bug, officer?” He turned his wide eyes on me. “You’re sick?”

  Happling had stepped up to the cube and was peering at it carefully, running fingers over its surface, judging the veracity of Kieth’s statement. I looked around. “No,” I said, concentrating to avoid the lisp my broken teeth tried to give me. “Apparently I’m radiating some sort of suppression field. That’s why we’re all still alive.”

  Kieth put his hands over his face. “Oh my god,” he moaned. “You’re the fucking originator?”

  Happling tapped the muzzle of the shredder against the wall of the cube. “Looks like he’s telling the truth. Hey, Little Man,” he shouted at Kieth. “How’d you even get in there?”

  Ty lifted his face from his hands. His eyes were puffy, like he was about to cry. “Ty was sealed in, officer. Ty was entombed.”

  There was noise behind us, and Happling and I froze for a moment, cocking our heads, and then both came to the conclusion that the immense noise coming from behind us was Marko, stomping into the church in a lab-bound Techie’s version of stealth. We both relaxed. Then there was movement at my elbow, and I turned and found Hense standing just inches from me. I started and tried to hide it with a shrug.

  “This him?” Hense said. “This Ty Kieth?”

  I nodded. Marko stampeded past us and walked right up to the cube. He stared at Ty’s crumpled form for a bit. “I’m a huge fan of your work, Mr. Kieth,” he said. “Although illegal, of course. But genius, nonetheless.”

  Kieth looked up with blank, red-rimmed eyes. “Ty doesn’t give a shit,” he said. “Ty is contemplating the end of the world.”

  I tucked my gun into my belt, carefully—SSF handguns did not come with a safety—and shouldered Marko out of the way. “Ty, are we safe here? Anyone coming to ambush us?”

  He shrugged, nose quivering. “Ty doesn’t know, Mr. Cates. Ty hasn’t seen anyone in some time, but Ty cannot be sure.”

  I looked around. “All right.”

  “Captain,” Hense said briskly, appearing at my side again. “Take up a defensive position and patrol our perimeter.”

  “Yes, sir,” Happling said, still staring at Kieth. After a moment’s hesitation he turned smartly and marched off.

  “Tell him not to go more than fifty feet or so for any extended period of time,” Kieth said quietly, staring down at the floor of his cube. “If Mr. Cates is the originator, that would be the approximate range of his signal.”

  “Ty,” I said, “why did you do this?”

  He looked up at me, eyes glassy. “Ty was forced, Mr. Cates. Ty was offered a job, very lucrative. Ty was betrayed. Imprisoned. Threatened. Ty is not a brave man, Mr. Cates, and Ty chose to peck out a few more months of existence rather than resist.” He raised one eyebrow and a faint ghost of a smile spread his face out a little. “But Ty is not stupid, Mr. Cates. That is why Ty is still here in front of you, preserved. Ty knew what he was designing, yes, and Ty built in a beacon system. An encrypted signal formed from a readout of Ty’s own vital signs. The nanobots do their job. They manufacture themselves and spread out in several vectors—airborne, fluid transfers—and attack at a cellular level, destroying. A mechanical cancer.”

  “It’s an amazing design,” Marko said quietly.

  Ty looked at him, frowning. “Ty thinks it may be the greatest work he has ever done, yes.” He looked back at me. “And this is only stage one. Stage two—but Ty knew he would be dead the moment the work was complete—the Droids were designed to be self-replicating, yes? So why need Ty once the plague has been released?” He smiled more fully and tapped his bald pate. “Ty built in the beacon. If Ty dies, or if Ty’s vital signs show any alarming changes, the Droids will shut down en masse and hibernate.” He nodded. “Ty is confident the encryption is unbreakable by any current means. So Ty is necessary, yes? Ty cannot be killed or harmed.”

  I cocked my head. “Until everyone else is dead, at least.”

  The smile vanished and he ducked his head. “Yes. Ty is not proud, Mr. Cates. Ty fears death.”

  “Why is Cates special?” Hense demanded. “Why are the nanobots in his system putting out a special signal? Once the nanobots are in the wild, they will spread on their own, yes?”

  Ty shook his head. “Ty does not know. Ty was given specific instructions, and they included an originator, a person to be initially infected, who would be the vector until the Droids inhabited the tipping point of subjects. The originator, it was specified, would not be affected by his own infection or anyone else’s. The suppression signal was a dirty hack, but in the time allowed it was the best Ty could do.” He looked at me. “Ty didn’t know it was going to be you, Mr. Cates, Ty swears.”

  I smiled, showing him my bloody, broken grin. “Would it have made any difference, Ty?”

  He looked down at the floor again. “No.” He looked up. “They were very angry when my little deception was discovered, Mr. Cates. But they could do nothing to me, you understand, except entomb me here. Fed, watered, and allowed to live. But imprisoned while the world died.”

  “Who, Mr. Kieth?” Hense wanted to know. “Who hired— forced you to do this?”

  Ty sighed. “The Monks.”

  A thrill went through me. “Monks?”

  Ty looked up. “Monks. I was offered employment and a hover was supplied to ferry me to my new employers for a meeting. It brought me here, to Paris, and I was met by a group of Monks. Only one spoke to me. He was . . . most persuasive.”

  I thought of the distorted voices in Newark—Newark, another Ghost City ruled by the last dregs of the Monk population that had survived the SSF purge during the Monk Riots. Monks.

  Hense looked at me. “Mr. Kieth,” she said, her dark, pupil-less eyes still on me. “Am I to understand that Monks of the former Electric Church forced you to do this? That they were coherent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Armed?”

  Ty nodded, his nose wagging up and down. “Oh, yes.”

  “Fuck,” Hense muttered, turning away and starting to pace.

  I squinted at Ty, my brain working furiously. “Wait a second. Wait a fucking second.” I stepped forward and pressed my face onto the glass. “Ty, are you telling me that if you die, the whole fucking plague shuts down?”

  Ty startled, staring back at me from an inch or two away. I could see the pores on his nose and the tiny, silky hairs growing out of it. “Yes, Mr. Cates.”

  We looked at each other through the glass for a moment. I’d never particularly liked Ty Kieth—he was irritating and had never taken orders well—but he was very good at what he did and had always done his job. As far as I knew he had never betrayed me. I brought the gun up near my cheek. “Then I’m sorry, Ty,” I said slowly, something unfamiliar forming in my belly, acidic and heavy. “But I think we’re going to have to kill you. Fucking immediately.”

  For a moment there was an almost perfect silence in the church as we all remained frozen, holding our breath. Inside me, the acid pellet burst and I felt tired and beaten. I didn’t want to kill Ty. Ty was harmless, under normal circumstances. The universe had made Ty a threat, and now I was supposed to just execute him? I was disgusted with everything—the cops, the world, even myself.

  Ty’s eyes widened, and he tried to scamper back from the cube wall, tripping over himself and falling onto his ass, his skinny arms and legs moving anyway. He crawled in place for a moment and finally got some
traction, pushing himself backward and knocking over some of his equipment. “Mr. Cates!” he sputtered. “Ty must protest!”

  I looked away, ashamed. “Marko,” I said quietly. “Think you can cut into that cube?”

  Marko blinked rapidly and turned to look at me. “Kill Ty Kieth? The man’s a genius. Are you, like, going to kill every genius you come across, Mr. Cates?”

  I grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him in close, buttons popping. He let out a pained little grunt as I slammed him into my body, yanking him up so I could stare directly into his face. I put my gun to his temple, which was probably overkill for someone like Marko but I was in an overkill mood. I saw Gleason breathing in invisible monsters that set to work tearing and slicing at every cell of her body. I saw her burning. “Avery Cates, Genius Killer doesn’t have much a ring, Mr. Marko,” I said. “Can you get into that cube or not? Because if not, I don’t have much use for you.”

  This time Marko’s eyes, buried in the midst of his hairy, sweaty face, went wide. I felt the breeze of Hense moving and spun and ducked in time to evade her hand. I moved Marko roughly around between the colonel and me. She still managed to get in close, her piece jabbed into my stomach.

  “Mr. Marko is SSF, Mr. Cates,” she said evenly. “Release him.”

  I didn’t move. If Ty’s death meant the end of the plague, I was suddenly no longer necessary to Colonel Hense, and that meant it was more than likely that Happling’s boots were going to be the last things I ever saw. “Colonel Hense, we have a deal, yes?”

  She stared back for a moment. I knew she was thinking through the implications just as I had. Finally, she nodded curtly. “We have a deal, Mr. Cates.” Her eyes shifted to Marko, who was vibrating in my arms, putting out sweat like someone was pumping water into him and it was coming out his pores. “Can you get into that cube?”

  “F-f-fucking hell,” Marko stuttered. “Maybe.”

  “Try.” Hense looked at me again. “Let him go, Mr. Cates.”