Avery Cates 2 - The Digital Plague

by Jeff Somers

  “De Salvo,” the Stormer stuttered, dropping her own cigarette.

  “You know what’s happening in New York, trooper?” Hense demanded. She was perfectly calm and still, her eyes the only part of her that were animated.

  De Salvo blinked, her face slack. “Disease. A plague, or something.” She shifted in her seat. “It’s turned up in Philly, too.”

  “Baltimore,” one of the other Troopers rumbled.

  “Fuck, I got a sister in Baltimore,” someone else muttered. My mind tripped over that. I’d always assumed the System Cops were assembled somewhere, soldered together.

  “Forget that,” Hense snapped, raising her voice. Everyone went silent. “This is fucking treason. This is civil war, troopers. This is the Spooks setting shit on fire and making us chase our own tails. We’re not the only officers in hovers right now, being carted off on phony orders. They’re making their move against the SSF. If the SSF is pacified, who’s going to stand between them and the System? This is a coup, De Salvo. You know what a coup is, or did your education end with handjobs and yes, sir?”

  The whole cabin was silent. The Stormers, including Kiplinger, were all looking at Hense. Some were even nodding. My own heart was pounding, thrilled at the fantastic, huge lie Hense was spinning. It was a piece of goddamn art.

  “You have a choice, trooper,” Hense said, her voice going low, almost friendly. “You can be stupid and just go along with this bullshit, in which case you’re about as useless a fucking cop as there could be, or you can think for yourself and figure this shit out, and stand up for the Force.” She shrugged. “Your fucking choice. You’re all cops. Act like it.”

  Shit, even I was pulsing with patriotic fervor. A few moments of absolute stillness passed; I thought I could hear the cigarettes burning. Then Kiplinger stood up, dropped his cigarette on the cabin floor, and cocked his head to one side until his neck popped.

  “Fuck it,” he said, striding forward. He straightened one arm out with a sudden gesture, a blade sliding into his grip. The other Stormers just watched in silence as he stepped behind Hense. He was close enough for me to smell him, rancid sweat inside that smothering ObFu. He paused to look around at his patrolmates. “We’re cops,” he said, and sliced through Hense’s restraints, pausing to stare down at the round-faced trooper.

  She put a cigarette between her chapped lips and shrugged. “I spoke my piece,” she said, sending a cloud of heavy smoke into the air. “Y’all gonna take their orders, I’m not gonna be a bitch about it. And shit, maybe y’all are right. Even a blind hog can find an acorn once in a while.”

  Hense was up immediately. “Thank you, trooper,” she said. I blinked. It may have been the first time in history an officer had thanked someone. She rubbed her wrists as the Stormer cut Happling free, and then she nodded at me.

  “Him, too,” she said. “He’s in our custody, and he’s important. We can’t have him getting killed because he’s tied down.”

  The Stormer hesitated, but then nodded curtly and with a jerk I was free, my own wrists burning. Hense and I looked at each other. I was still throbbing with patriotic fervor, my heart racing, and I smiled at her. To my amazement she smiled back, and for a second or two looked young, like a kid. Then Happling, his hands curled into permanent fists, took up position behind her and on my right, glaring around, and she blinked.

  “All right,” Hense said in a low voice. The whole cabin went silent. “Form up. De Salvo, you’re on weapons detail for the captain and me. Trooper,” she said to Kiplinger as the rest of the squad stood and began pulling on their stifling ObFu face masks. “Give me the rundown: who besides the Spook is up front?”

  “Just Bendix, sir.” As Kiplinger started giving her a terse, professional briefing, I stood up and put my hand on Happling’s shoulder, grinning. When the big man turned to scowl at me, I winked.

  “Congratulations, Nathan,” I said. “You’re criminals, now.”

  XXIV

  Day Nine:

  And You Can Go Quiet,

  Or You Can Go Hard

  I watched the Stormers form up outside the cockpit hatch, shredding rifles in their hands, straps wrapped securely around their wrists. There was a strange, thick silence smothering the air, the humming sound of twenty-five men and women working hard at not making any noise. None of them had their face masks on, so their heads appeared to float in the air whenever they stopped moving for any period of time, all of them greasy, sweaty heads, puffy and unkempt. Two of them knelt by the hatch, pressing your standard-issue blue putty explosive into the hinges while the rest were poised for the cockpit invasion. The rest occasionally muttered to each other, and two near me exploded into inappropriate, barking laughter, earning them a glare from Happling. They sobered up fast, but I’d learned that System Pigs did indeed laugh.

  Hense and Happling were back in charge as if nothing had happened. It was amazing what a few Stormers could do for an SSF officer’s self-image and what the gibbering fear of death made people do. So far we hadn’t had any indication that Bendix was aware of the mutiny—he was a telekinetic, after all, not a fucking Pusher. He could toss you around like a rag doll, but he wasn’t able to poke into your brain, see what was going on, make you do things you normally wouldn’t do.

  I paused, something tickling the back of my brain. I thought back to my previous interaction with a tele-K, with Shockley, trying to kick-start the feeling, but I couldn’t get hold of it, so I let it drift away.

  “Standard infiltration formation,” Hense snapped. “Captain, take Mr. Bendix seriously. Do not terminate. Incapacitate. Render him unconscious, Captain, and keep him that way.”

  Happling, sweating again and gripping his new shredder tightly as he tossed wide grins around the cabin, nodded once. “Incapacitate. Unconscious.” He slapped the back of the nearest Stormer. “Ready, kids? Let’s show this fucking politician what the System Security Force can do.”

  This with an enthusiasm I considered insane, but I kept my mouth shut. I’d conspicuously not been armed; I wasn’t being paid much attention, but Hense seemed to have changed her mind about the relative threat level I represented after our romp in the church. When the colonel turned away from the operation being organized up front and approached me, I pushed my tongue into the painful bloody gaps of missing teeth and kept my expression neutral.

  “All right, Cates,” she said, stopping in front of me with her tiny hands on her hips, looking fresh and clear. “What next?”

  I noted her rock-solid assumption that her new squad would be able to contain and control Bendix but said nothing; I’d been in a crashing hover with a government tele-K and wasn’t so sure. I also wasn’t sure anymore—at all—that my assumption that Ty Kieth was on board and wired in was going to prove out. It made sense, but I was living in a world where invisible robots were eating people, where System Pigs followed my suggestions and turned to me for direction, where just about everyone I’d known was dead or turned against me. I wasn’t counting on anything.

  If Kieth was hidden aboard and wired in, he obviously wasn’t trusting anyone. I had to proceed on the assumption that I was being spied on by the bald-headed little prick, so I couldn’t say anything to alarm him.

  “I suspect, Colonel,” I said slowly, “that once we have Mr. Bendix under wraps, a direction will present itself.”

  She narrowed her eyes and stared at me. Then she shrugged her eyebrows and looked away. “Since I can’t go more than a few feet away from you without dying, Mr. Cates, I am forced to consider your opinions on things while you’re ambulatory.” She looked back at me with a raised eyebrow. “Of course, if you weren’t ambulatory, I could strap you to my back and solve the problem.”

  I nodded. “But—”

  The putty on the cockpit hatch detonated, a muted explosion that seemed to suck all the air and sound out of the cabin for a second. Several of the Stormers slipped into the forward cabin silently, their little duckwalk smooth and creepy, low to the ground. Fo
r a few seconds there was no sound at all as the majority of the Stormers, Happling, Hense, and I just stood where we were, waiting. After a few seconds I looked back at Hense.

  “But—”

  Shouts erupted from the cockpit, overlapping voices melding in a cacophony impossible to dissect into individual words or phrases. A Stormer came hurtling through the still smoking hatchway, cutting through the air as if aerodynamic for a moment and then hitting the floor with a bone-cracking jolt, dissolving into arms and legs and grunts of pain. He rolled to a stop right at Hense’s feet, and the colonel glanced down, stared at him for a moment, and then kicked him lightly in the head.

  “Up,” she said fiercely. “You’re not hurt. Get the fuck up.”

  The Stormer moaned but slowly sat up and climbed to his feet, limping off to rejoin his mates, where Happling was issuing a flurry of hand signals as he shouted into the cockpit.

  “Listen, Mr. Bendix,” the big man said in a reasonable tone of voice. “We are placing you under arrest. No one here wants to hurt you, just because you’re a soulless paper-pushing hack who likes to order cops into hot zones even though he’s never carried a weapon in his life. We are taking possession of this hover, Mr. Bendix,” Happling finished with a closed fist and a wide grin, “and you can go quiet, or you can go hard.”

  Through the clearing smoke, I made out a figure framed in the hatchway just as the Stormers wriggled into formation under Happling’s cheerful direction.

  “Ah, fuck,” I managed, and then my feet flew out from under me and I was being pulled through the air. The cops ducked and scattered like a single living thing, a body undulating, and as the narrow hatch rushed toward me I tried to tuck my head as close to my body as I could manage. My legs smacked into the wall as I was sucked through, something shattering deep inside with an oddly numb pain that filled my whole leg like jelly, insulating and smothering, squeezing its way up into the rest of my body.

  Once through the hatch I dropped to the floor hard, and before I could react fingers laced into my hair, yanking me up and tearing half my scalp off in the process.

  “Hense, I suggest you back the fuck off, unless you want to risk Mr. Cates and his little Helper Robots, and—”

  I was getting sick and tired of being everyone’s prisoner. I planted my good leg solidly on the floor, reached up over my shoulders, and in a smooth movement that tore my back to shreds I leaned forward, knelt down, and rolled Bendix off-balance and onto the floor.

  There were no rules for dealing with a telekinetic psionic, so I made up one on the spot: once you got him down, don’t let up. You had to keep him from getting his balance and sending you flying.

  I turned as fast as my lame leg would let me and dropped on top of him, letting gravity pull me down onto his chest hard enough to crack a rib or two. He howled, really getting his lungs into it, kicking his legs and trying to flail his arms. I lifted my heavy arm and brought my fist down onto his face, aiming for his half-healed scar. I was rewarded with another scream, so I did it again. It wasn’t fun; unlike some Gunners, I didn’t really enjoy kicking the shit out of people—I’d been on the receiving end of too many kicks. Every time I punched Bendix, my whole chest burned as if some bone spur in my rib cage were scraping and tearing at the pulp of my body, blood leaking inside me. I remembered Happling and his purple-suited pal tuning me up just a few days before.

  It was just business. Bendix was a psionic and would have me bouncing off the walls if I paused for breath, so I didn’t pause. I mashed my hand down onto his bloody face, and kept mashing as long as he kept moaning and wincing. When he stopped I paused, fist in the air, breath burning in the back of my throat, blood dripping from my damp hand.

  A second later Bendix dropped away from me as if the floor had given out beneath him, except it was gravity sucking my lungs out through my mouth, and I smacked into the top of the cockpit so hard my teeth clicked together, reigniting every broken or missing tooth and sending stars into my eyes. Something invisible and heavy pushed me up against the ceiling as Stormers swarmed him, four throwing themselves across his battered body as Happling strode in, veins on his neck and arms pulsing. The redhead glanced up at me as he unslung the shredder from his shoulder. With one well-aimed shot of the butt Bendix twitched and went still, and I dropped back to the floor as if gravity had just realized I was there. I landed on my bad leg and swallowed a shout so hard I didn’t breathe.

  “Sir,” Happling called back into the cabin. “The subject is unconscious and incapacitated, as ordered. He’s, uh, a little worse off than you envisioned, I guess. What do we do with him?”

  “Blindfold,” I managed to gurgle, lying back on the floor and just breathing for a bit. “If he can’t see you, he can’t toss you.” I wasn’t entirely sure this was the case, but I remembered Kev Gatz and his limitations as a Pusher. It made sense.

  I lay there aching while the cops bustled around me, barking orders and getting shit done. The ceiling of the hover was only sheet metal bolted onto the frame, and it looked beat-up, dented and with flecks of rust here and there. I wondered how long the hover had been in service. It felt good to not move, to not keep myself standing through willpower alone and just let gravity hold me down for a while. I had a fluttery, nervous feeling in my belly, as if I’d start shaking and laughing if I let myself.

  Hense’s face appeared over me.

  “Cates,” she said, raising one eyebrow. “You okay?”

  I blinked up at her. “You afraid I have internal injuries? That maybe I’m going to die and take you with me, all quiet and shit?”

  A faint smile imposed itself on her face. “Something like that.”

  I shook my head slowly. “Broken leg, I think. Broken ribs, but no punctured lung. Everything hurts, thanks to your gorilla boy over there, but nothing fatal.”

  She nodded. “Then get the fuck up. I need to know what the part B of your plan is.”

  “Plan?” I laughed, pushing myself into a sitting position and then pausing there, dazed. It seemed a nice compromise between the bullshit Hense was demanding and the more sensible plan of remaining on my back that I’d been entertaining. “Holy shit, are you confused,” I said with a laugh. As I suspected, once I started laughing, my whole body began to shake.

  “Cates,” Hense said, voice pissed off. Then she stopped and said nothing. It made me laugh harder, because she didn’t know what to do. She had nothing left to threaten me with.

  Finally, I swallowed some of the shivering and looked around. “Ty!” I shouted. “Mr. Kieth, I assume you’ve been monitoring our activities, right, you smart little fuck? It’s all right. I think it’s time for a parley, Ty, so we can come to an understanding. We’ve taken Mr. Bendix down and we’re in control of the hover.”

  Hense and I waited, staring around like morons. Happling and the Stormers were dragging Bendix back into the cabin. I was considering the effort involved in sucking in enough air to make another shout when there was a click and a blast of static, and then Kieth’s nasally voice in the air.

  “No, Mr. Cates,” he said. “You’re not. Ty is.”

  I smiled and slumped back down onto the floor. It felt fucking good to be right about something for a change.

  XXV

  Day Nine:

  Invisible Things Inside Me

  Starting to Swell and

  Turn Black

  Kieth spoke with confidence now that he was hidden. “Ty advises everyone to stay still. Ty has wired into the security systems on this hover and Ty will be overzealous about defending himself.”

  Shit, I didn’t blame Ty for not trusting anyone. The hover was crowded with cops and a known killer, all of whom would solve half of their current problems if Ty Kieth were dead. If I were Kieth, I’d stay hidden, too.

  I pushed myself up again, fighting against gravity that seemed to have become thicker and more insistent since last I checked. I looked around, trying to figure out where in hell Ty’d hidden himself. The hover was a big o
ne, capable of transporting thirty or so people plus their gear, but where could a Techie—even a skinny piece of shit like Kieth—hide himself and still have access to the hover’s systems?

  “Mr. Kieth,” Hense said loud and clear as she stood in the cockpit, looking at the bank of controls, “is Mr. Marko with you?”

  There was no response. I chuckled a little and she gave me a sour look. “Of course he won’t tell you,” I said. “Ty’s smart. The more information you have, the more likely you’ll figure out where he is.”

  “If I wanted to know where he is,” she snapped, “I’d order Captain Happling to tear this hover apart until he found him.”

  Happling nodded. “And I like taking shit apart.”

  Kiplinger, his face mask off again, was suddenly at my side, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He shook one out of his crumpled pack and I leaned forward to place it between my lips.

  “You really Avery Cates?” he asked, flicking his lighter on, the soft orange glow giving his sweaty face an unattractive gleam. He had a way of smiling without looking at you, like he was shy. “The Avery Cates?”

  I nodded, sucking in smoke. “The gweat and tewwible,” I advised.

  He studied his hands for a moment, then smiled a little as he bent to light my smoke. “I was on a raid once, we were supposed to scoop you up. Some Gold Badge had a hard-on for you something serious, marching up and down in the hover, telling us what he was going to do to us if we missed you.” He smiled again, shaking his head. “We missed you all right. Shit, I’ll never forget the look on that asshole’s face.”

  “Quit kissing his ass, trooper,” Happling bellowed from across the cockpit. “Last week that bastard would have shot you dead without hesitation.”

  Kiplinger nodded, grinning at the floor as he stood up. Then he paused and looked at me long enough to wink. “That’s okay, sir. I would have shot him, huh?”