Avery Cates 2 - The Digital Plague

by Jeff Somers

  I waited another second and then nodded, springing back from Marko, who almost fell on his ass, staggering to regain his balance. He stood for a moment rubbing his chest, and Hense swept her gun toward the cube in invitation. “Try, Mr. Marko. People are dying.”

  “Get it open, Marko,” I said, “so we can kill him.”

  Ty swept his bugged eyes from me to Hense to Marko and back again, his mouth open. Even in the darkness, I could tell he was about to say something to me, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at Ty, even for Glee. I knew Ty. I’d killed people I’d known before, but I couldn’t look at him. Ty was fucking harmless. This wasn’t fair. This was against the rules. I was supposed to break the only rule everyone in my world respected: you don’t kill people who don’t deserve it. Most of the people I’d known stretched the definition of deserve until you could barely recognize it, but I didn’t. It was clear to me, and Ty simply didn’t deserve to die.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, Avery.”

  It wasn’t Ty’s voice, and it came from behind us. Both Hense and I whirled and crouched down, guns in our hands. I stared through the gloom and for a second I couldn’t move.

  Standing just inside the rear of the church, his nickel-plated Roons in each hand, was Wa Belling.

  XXI

  Day Eight:

  Old Murder Incorporated

  Himself

  None of us moved. “I heard you were dead,” I said slowly. I remembered the stupid, fat-sounding voice on the radio: He, too. He not here, the old man.

  Wa was growing a majestic silvery beard and mustache, but his eyes were as hard and flat as ever. “Hello to you, too, Avery. Did you shed a tear for me? Lower your weapons, please.”

  Wa Belling was possibly the best Gunner in the System—certainly the best in the room—and if I was going to be killed by maybe the last Dúnmharú left alive, I was going to go down with my gun in hand, giving what I got. I ticked my eyes over to Hense quickly and then back to Belling. The colonel just looked irritated.

  “Wallace Belling, sometimes styling himself Cainnic Orel,” she said. “I have to admit one piece-of-shit Gunner looks like another.”

  I opened my mouth to give Wa a smart response, but from behind us Ty started shouting.

  “You absolute cunt,” he shrilled, muted slightly by the thick bulletproof walls around him. “You threw me this job. You brought me into this. You shit, you piece of shit—”

  “Mr. Kieth,” Wa said, a cold, unhappy smile on his face. “Calm yourself. You wouldn’t want to pop a vessel after all the trouble you’ve gone to trying to extend your life.”

  “Wa,” I said, resisting the urge to look for Happling, who had to be skulking in the shadows somewhere, inching into position. “Why?”

  Belling didn’t shift or look at me; he kept his gaze wide. “Don’t be an asshole—they paid me. Are you going to pretend you’re here for some altruistic reason? Saving the fucking world? Saving the world, Avery?”

  I tightened my grip on my gun. “A lot of daylight between being a bad guy, Wa, and murdering the world. You did this for yen?” I was angry. I wanted to grab the old man and just beat my fists against him, make him yell. You killed Glee, I wanted to spit at him. She was fifteen.

  “Yen?” Belling said, pursing his lips disdainfully. “Not yen, Avery. You of all people know there’s more important things than yen. I’m an old man, and they made me an attractive offer. A funny thing happened while I worked with you in New York, Avery,” Belling said, raising an eyebrow. “I got old, and I got tired of killing cops for free. I mean, hell, I—”

  Belling spun, both guns burping at the shadows behind him as he moved toward the side aisle, seeming to glide into the darkness. I hadn’t heard anything, but I didn’t wait to figure it out; Hense and I had the same idea, fading backward and circling around, putting Ty Kieth’s cube between us and the rest of the church. Ty whirled and stared at us, sweat beading his head and soaking his clothes.

  “Mr. Cates! Ty reminds you of our past friendship!” he hissed.

  I leaned forward and put my forehead against the glass. “Tell you what, Ty. Get down on the floor and stay there, and I’ll consider it.”

  He stared at me until I motioned him down with my hand, and then he threw himself flat. Across from us, on the other side Marko stared at us with his mouth hanging open.

  “Fucking hell,” Hense hissed. “Mr. Marko, get your flabby white ass back here.”

  Shots, then, from the shadows at the front of the church, six or seven all at once. Marko jumped and scampered around, tripping and skidding on his knees as he tried to make the turn. Hense whipped out one skinny arm and hauled the Techie in like he was made of paper, depositing him on the floor between us.

  “That really Wallace Belling?” Hense asked.

  I nodded. “Old Murder Incorporated himself.”

  “He have any tells?”

  I considered. I’d never actually gone against Belling; he’d made me look like a chump when we first met, but we’d never gotten wet against each other. Still, I’d run a dozen hits with him over the years. I’d seen him in action. “None. He’s fast, he’s quiet.” I saw Glee again, as I would forever, eaten up. “And he has no heart,” I said.

  As four more gunshots exploded, this time with muzzle flashes in the shadows, she said thoughtfully, “He’s goddamn ancient, though.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t fucking believe it. I’m old, Colonel. Wa Belling’s getting younger.”

  She went back to watching the area in front of us, guns in both hands, her legs bent slightly at the knees, ready for action. I was just inches from her, and with all her attention fixed away from me, I thought, Fuck, I could take her. Happling was preoccupied, Marko was no goddamn worry—I could very quickly be rid of two people who didn’t like me much and who kept me around mainly because I was some sort of magical monkey’s claw against their own horrible death. I didn’t need them, and my life might be considerably smoothed out if they disappeared.

  All my problems, I realized, could be ended with just a few more cold-blooded murders.

  I let my eyes linger on the smooth, dark skin of her neck, just below her hairline, where the elegant line of her ear was just beginning. Right there. It would take less than a second to move; I’d done it so often, in all weathers and all conditions. One hand across her body in case she tried to get her weapons up—the System Pigs were fast, and she was fast for a Pig—and the muzzle right under her ear, squeeze the trigger.

  Something danced at the edge of my thoughts, some memory. Déjà vu, gone as fast as it came, and I was still just standing there like a chump.

  Belling emerged from the front of the church at a run, vaulting over the remnants of a rotting bench with a smooth jump. As he landed, clips dropped from his guns, skittering across the smooth floor. Happling came tearing ass from the shadows, shredder slung around his chest, two coal-black guns in his hands.

  “Run, you skinny old fuck!” he whooped. “You think you got an edge on me?” As he ran he took two potshots at Belling, but the old man was weaving drunkenly, and then made a sharp turn for the edges of the church again.

  My moment had passed. Again, Hense and I moved as one. I liked her, the way she worked. For a System Pig, she reminded me of a Gunner; all business, and she just moved, just made it happen. There were none of the bullshit speeches most of the Pigs liked to make, one boot on your neck while they inspected their fingernails and rifled through your credit dongle. We each took a side, rolled out from behind Ty’s cube, and sent lead after Belling, both of us pouring it on. The old man threw himself down like he expected the floor to open up beneath him, hitting with a brain-mashing thud and rolling as our bullets tore up the stone behind him, little geysers of dust, and the old man kept rolling, and then was gone into the shadows around the perimeter. I took off after him, hustling horizontally. I saw Happling doing the same up the aisle from me—a nice trapping movement—the big man moving pretty
smoothly for a gorilla, and we hit the shadows at the same time.

  The darkness of the side aisle blinded me. I skidded to a halt and instinctively dropped to one knee as Belling sent two shots where my head would have been if I’d been born stupid, muzzle flashes like lightning burning off the gloom for a second at a time. Cursing, I rolled back out into the main area, just as a thunderous series of gunshots erupted, going on and on long after I didn’t think it was possible anymore, an unceasing cacophony that made you want to curl up and duck your head until it stopped. Those kinds of instincts were what got you killed. I’d learned early that whenever your underbrain wanted to hide, you had to do the exact opposite.

  I got to my feet as quickly as my aching body would allow, gun in hand, and pushed myself back at the shadows. Happling and his two guns were putting the pressure on Belling, and maybe it was a chance to catch the old man occupied. Hense was at my side then, face blank, and as I looked at her she gestured toward the back of the church with a sweeping motion. I nodded, even though I had no fucking idea what she was getting at. I’d seen System Pigs have entire conversations using the complex hand signals beaten into them at Cop School, or whatever torture center they trained at after being tube-grown or snatched from their mothers by Stormers, but none of them had ever paused to explain the system to me. I didn’t have time to protest, though. She took off toward the back of the church and I put myself against one of the archways that led to the side aisle, held my breath, and listened for a clue.

  Fucking hell, I thought. He didn’t know Happling was there—we had the fucking drop on the old man, and we’re still chasing our tails. I put myself in that situation—surprised by a second System Cop I hadn’t expected—and the result was easy enough to predict: me dead, three or four big holes in my back.

  There was a noise behind me and I whirled, stopping myself just before I put a bullet in Happling’s huge forehead. The big cop was sweaty and flushed, his automatics like little black holes in his hands. We stared at each other, and his face crumpled into an expression of irritation.

  “Well, fuck,” he hissed, and dived back into the shadows. A second later he was back. “Where the fuck is that old bastard?”

  We were both scanning the church, trying to put our eyes everywhere. It was near dark; everything had gone a sort of blue-gray monotone. The empty windowpanes with their elaborate stonework were bizarre and alien; it was hard to believe human beings had built this. Such a fucking waste of time.

  A crash and two muffled shots from the rear of the church, and Happling was on the move, two steps past me before I even turned. He pointed forcefully to our left, a fucking signal I could comprehend, so I took off at my top speed—currently a shambling shuffle—for the left corner. Before I’d covered half the distance, however, Belling burst from the darker shadows of the side aisle into the slightly brighter open area. For a second or two I had a good view of him as he ran, looking calm and energetic like one of the old duffers on the Vids selling tanning pills and other bullshit no one in the System needed. I couldn’t believe my luck. It felt uncomfortable, like when you eat for the first time after starving for weeks and you get sick.

  I shut everything out of my mind, picturing grass in the evening wind, swaying. I took a sighting on the space just in front of Wa as he ran and relaxed every muscle in my arm, squeezing the trigger as if it were made of glass.

  The hammer dry-clicked.

  Belling swung around at the slight noise, guns coming up, but kept moving. He tossed three or four quick rounds my way as I dropped hard to the floor, and then he was back in the shadows.

  Cursing, I dropped the empty gun and took off, feet skidding on the smooth floor as I struggled to get traction. I had no weapon, but Wa didn’t know that, and if nothing else I might herd him back toward my new best friends the cops. As I tore up the middle aisle, I caught a glimpse of Belling as he flitted from the sides out the front. Body burning, I put everything I had into running.

  I knew better than to burst out into the night; I veered for the door on my far left and put my back against the wall between it and the middle door. Trying to control my breathing, I listened for clues, wondering what I was going to do if Belling surprised me. Insult him cruelly, I supposed.

  “Avery,” a new, strangely familiar voice called from outside. It sounded like someone was pushing molten metal through his voicebox instead of air. “Come on out, Avery. You’re not going anywhere.”

  After a moment, I linked the voice with the memory—me, on my knees, in Newark. Just—what, a week ago? A shiver went through me. Slowly, I inched for the doorway and angled my head around the edge, peering into the square outside the church. I stared for a long time, frozen. The square was full of Monks.

  XXII

  Day Eight:

  A Few More Inches

  to the Wilderness

  Dull rust spots were visible on the Monks’ faces, they were so close. The sound of a few dozen Monks being perfectly still in the midst of a dead city was complete silence. I remained hidden behind the doorway, peering carefully around its edge. I was shocked; I hadn’t seen this many Monks—this many fully operational Monks—in years. The ones you saw begging and stumping around Manhattan were sad, pathetic jalopies you didn’t think twice about shoving out of your way. These looked to be all original equipment, which maybe meant guns, but it also meant they were all a little rusted, a little banged up. I ran my eyes over them, counting the dents and tears in their white skin, the rips in their clothes. They all held themselves with that perfect, still confidence that hinted at hardwired reflexes and nuclear cores ticking away their half-lives, and they’d survived, but it obviously hadn’t been easy.

  I hated them on sight.

  Belling stood in front of them looking freshly pressed and relaxed, among friends, his arms at his side with gleaming Roons for hands.

  “I’d like you to meet my benefactors, Mr. Cates,” he said. He wasn’t smiling.

  A Monk stepped forward. This one looked so new I thought I could smell the fabric of its coat. In the darkness its face appeared to float above a faint outline of a body. For one horrible moment it smiled at me, a snapshot grin.

  “Avery,” it said. “You are as fucking slippery as ever. I never would have imagined I’d run into you here, although He told me it would happen. Come on out. We can see you perfectly well. Perhaps,” it continued in a louder voice, “the System Security Force officers and their pet Techie would like to come out as well?”

  I folded myself back against the wall, heart pounding. Fifty, sixty Monks. None of whom looked crazy. Digital sighting, laser guidance, reflexes by the fucking CPU clockspeed—and I had two unhappy System Pigs up my ass. And the one motherfucker I wanted to kill was locked inside a bulletproof cube. I thought I’d just stay pasted against the wall for a while, see what shook out. Let a few thousand more people die.

  And then a slow lassitude stole over me, creeping down from my head through my whole body, a peaceful, easy feeling. What the fuck, I thought. I wasn’t about to fight off sixty goddamn Monks—and Wa Belling, and what was the point, anyway?

  Feeling strangely happy—just letting everything slip away, as if I’d been hanging from a rope for days and finally just let go—I rolled right and stood in the doorway. The Monk gave me that bastard grin again.

  “Thank you, Avery. Ah, the police. Thank you, officers.”

  I was walking toward them, taking my time, all my worries distant memories. Turning my head, I was mildly surprised to see Happling and Hense emerging from the big middle doorway of the church. Hense was as tidy and tight-lipped as ever, guns held loosely by her side. Happling was soaked with sweat, his white shirt pasted against his huge chest, arms threatening to split the sleeves, the shredder still looped around him. His red hair looked black in the night, pasted against his forehead.

  The Monk cocked its head at us. “Where is your Technical Assistant?”

  Happling stumbled a little, a lopsided, stroked-
out grin forming on his face. “Gone.” He winked then, a slow-motion crumpling of one side of his face. “Yours, too, fucking freak.”

  The Monk stared, not moving, and for a moment anger swept through me, a flame of sulfur that singed me and was gone. It didn’t say anything, but five or six of the Monks silently broke away from the group, moving past us so close I could hear the heavy thud of their steps entering the church. One limped, with an off-center, rolling gait.

  The gleaming new Monk stepped forward and intercepted me, putting an arm around me. A million screaming jeebies broke out like sweat on my skin, but I just let it happen. Its arm was heavy on my shoulders.

  “Walk with me, Ave.”

  It steered me away from the group, off toward the water. “It’s a fucked-up world, Avery, right?” Its voice was exactly the voice I’d heard in Newark, the same melted tone. It looked factory fresh, but it sounded like shit. “You know what? When I was flesh and bone, I was a fucking mess. I never realized it. Could never focus on anything. Always depressed. And the headaches. And then I’m Monked, you know? And I know you think that’s a terrible thing, but for me, it clarified everything. I was a hundred percent better after that. And He has helped me stay in good condition, you know. To make sure I don’t backslide.”

  We were at the edge of the crumbling retaining wall, and we stopped. The feeling of complete, terrible calm was still with me, and I stared down at the muddy water, where a watery moon stared back at me.

  “I’d love to push you in, Avery,” it said, voice low and easy. “You’d fucking sink like a stone and be dead in minutes. That’s how fast things happen in this world. Minutes. Minutes. Do you know how long the brain stays alive after the body has died, Avery? A long goddamn time. A lot longer than you’d think. Long enough for a body to be retrieved and the brain extracted, placed in one of these Monks, at least. Minutes—it all comes down to minutes. Everything changes in just a few short minutes. How many people do you think you’ve left for dead, Avery? I don’t think you can even count how many people you’ve stepped over so Avery Cates the Great and Terrible could go on living a few more miserable fucking weeks.”