Avery Cates 2 - The Digital Plague

by Jeff Somers

  “Avery, you were always persistent. Did you think I wouldn’t expect you here? I forgot, you think I’m stupid. Always have. He told me you were coming. When I woke in this fucking Monk costume, Ave, it hurt so bad, I just howled and howled and prayed. I fucking prayed, Avery. And then I heard His voice. In my head. He said He’d created me, and that I was His son, and told me what to do.” His creepy plastic face settled into a smile that made my skin crawl.

  It was still fascinating to watch a Monk talk—the fluid movement of its artificial face, the modulated, pleasant sound of its voice. If you paid attention it had a limited array of expressions, and it got boring—and creepy—when you’d seen them all. But it was still amazing.

  “I didn’t expect the two-pronged invasion, actually,” he continued. “You caught me a little off guard there.” His face split into a wide smile. “Do you remember, Avery, that time you needed me to help you with those fucking kids? The ones kept nicking your credit dongle from your pocket while you were mapping sightlines for the— the— whatever job you had. You sat there on that wall taking sightings to make sure you could hit everyone you’d been hired to do, and the fucking kids would sneak up on you and lift your dongle. They did it, what, like four times? You asked me to Push them a little.” The smile snapped off. “You didn’t ask. You pushed me around and ordered me to. You always pushed me around.”

  I remembered. I nailed four people in less than thirty seconds, earned one hundred and forty-five thousand yen. Took me five days to get the sightings mapped. When you worked out the hours, I got paid shit.

  The smile popped back. “It’s good to see you, Avery. I don’t have any friends.”

  Closing my eyes, I thought, Kev’s gone crackers. Sadly, this probably increased my chances of being killed within the next few minutes, a possibility I observed with clinical detachment. There had to be a way off the rail. There had to be. The universe could not be this fucking unfair. I felt weak. The only thing keeping my arm up and the gun jabbed into his gut was Kev’s Push. I opened my eyes with some effort, and Kev’s face had transformed again, glowering at me, a ridiculous mask of hatred.

  “Avery,” he said.

  I looked down and there was a gun in Kev’s white plastic hand. It was black and charred looking, original Monk issue. He turned it toward me, the barrel a black hole, like death itself. I stared at it and wondered if my calm was because I was such a hardcore bastard, or because of Kev’s Push. “He says your usefulness has passed.”

  The door to the room exploded inward, slamming against me with concussive force that knocked me onto my side. Two gunshots knocked Kev off his feet and he went sliding, face twisted into something that wasn’t even a coherent expression, pursued by a blurred figure. I saw Kev raise one hand, an old legacy gesture still stored in his rotting brain.

  “Stop,” he commanded.

  She didn’t stop. She leaped on top of the Monk, swinging her gun down in a wide, sloppy arc I attributed to excitement—the Colonel Hense I knew would never pull such a shitty, sloppy move out of her ass—which gave Kev plenty of time to shove her off with some force, spraying white coolant everywhere as he did so. Hense’s little body went flying, her shot barking into the ceiling, and before I could wonder why Kev’s Push wasn’t working on her, Happling roared into the room. I could have sworn he was grinning as he ran, pumping shells at Kev. The Monk flipped onto its feet and dodged, moving too fast to keep track of. Happling continued to chase Kev with his gun, emptying a clip while trying to catch him. Then Kev twisted around and made the same bizarre gesture.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  Happling froze, and the Monk immediately shot the big man twice in the chest, dead center. Happling tottered a second before crashing down. I was suddenly released, my arm going limp, my gun slipping from slack fingers. I remembered when he’d been human, Kev always had trouble with the Push, trouble having more than one person under his control or keeping people Pushed for long periods. Clarity of mind hadn’t broadened his range much, I supposed.

  More gunshots, and Hense rolled out of my view. Kev was a whirlwind, scampering up the walls and back onto the floor in a blur, then leaping into the air as Hense scrambled past me, dropping an empty clip. Before she could reload the Monk crashed into her, knocking her into the wall a foot or two away from me, the whole room shaking with the impact.

  “Stop!” Kev screeched, his modulated voice distorted as the circuits tried to compensate for an emotion they’d never been programmed to run. Hense didn’t hesitate, smashing one fist into Gatz’s face hard enough to jerk his head around. For a second we were staring at each other. Then Kev looked back at the colonel and started to swing his gun on her. Hense reached up and grabbed his wrist in her tiny dark hand, and they sawed back and forth, the gun veering this way and that.

  Hense wasn’t sweating. I squinted at her to be sure. Then, feeling empty, I turned my head to focus on Ty Kieth. The Techie was right where he’d been left, tied down to the examination table, his gag slick with spittle and pushed partly off his mouth, his tongue working free. Our eyes met, and he froze.

  Taking a deep, agonizing breath, I hacked up bloody phlegm, spat it out onto the floor, and pushed myself back into a sitting position. Kieth continued to stare at me, eyes wide, nose still for what I imagined was the first time in his life. I got one foot under me and slowly climbed to my feet while the Techie watched, and stood there swaying while my vision swam again, everything going hazy and then gradually clarifying. I blinked as Hense went hurtling through the air in front of me, smashing into the far wall and leaving an impact crater in the drywall as she bounced back onto the floor. A second later she was up on her feet again, bounding behind Kieth as Kev splashed bullets after her. The colonel wasn’t even breathing hard as she hovered there with the Techie between her and the Monk, sliding a fresh clip into place while Kev considered how to shoot her without accidentally hitting his prized Techie. I stared dully, wondering how it was that Hense could go through this, could fight a Monk hand to hand and be bounced around the room like a fucking rag doll and just stand there looking as fresh as the day I’d met her. I knew System Pigs were hard-core, but this was ridiculous.

  As I stared at the colonel, Kev flashed through the air, coat fluttering behind him like the dirty tail of a comet. Hense ducked at the last moment, firing almost directly into the Monk as he sailed over her. A white hand snaked out and grabbed her shoulder with hydraulic strength, tearing the cop from the floor and dragging her with him as they crashed into a bank of medical instruments piled up against one wall.

  I put my eyes on Kieth, who’d succeeded in pushing his gag completely out of his mouth, but he continued to stare at me in silence, mouth open, chest heaving. He remained frozen until I was a step away; when I languidly racked a shell into the chamber of my gun, it was as if someone had pressed a button inside him.

  “Mr. Cates!” He hissed, forcing a squeamish smile. “Mr. Cates, Ty is glad to see you! Rescue at last!”

  Behind me, there was more gunfire, and I sensed movement, harried and desperate, but nothing was left inside me to produce alarm or urgency or fear. I stared down at Kieth with my gun held waist-high, almost forgotten, and felt only a tired sadness.

  Kieth licked his lips. “Rescue at last,” he repeated more quietly.

  My whole body tightened as I looked down at him, and I brought the gun up. His eyes flashed to it and he convulsed on the table, struggling madly against his bonds, whipping his head back and forth.

  “Ty had no choice, Mr. Cates! Ty had no choice! Please, please, Avery—Avery! You know me! You know me! Please!”

  I nodded. “I know you, Ty.”

  He nodded back eagerly. I felt like the world’s biggest asshole, making him squirm, making him beg. “Ty can work on this, Mr. Cates. We have some time. Ty designed this; Ty can hack it under control. Mr. Cates. Please.”

  I could feel the universe pushing against me like wind in a sail, pushing me inexorably, gent
ly toward its preordained destination—which was, unfortunately for Ty, a bullet in the Techie’s head, everyone linking arms and singing as we all got well again. Or some bullshit like that. My city gone, even if they repopulated the buildings. Glee gone. Everything gone.

  And I decided, Fuck the universe.

  Feeling weak, I jerked my arm and my blade snapped into place, the one thing left in the world that was still working properly. With a slash I cut through Ty’s bonds and then stood there wobbling a little. I let the blade slide back into its holster on its spring and brought the gun up, shuddering a breath into my ruined lungs.

  “Ty,” I said raggedly, fighting an epic coughing fit that was beating its way up from my chest. “I’m going to get you out of this building.”

  Fuck the universe. I was off the rail, and for the first time in a week felt normal again. I was probably going to die—it was a wonder I wasn’t dead yet—but for a while now I’d known I’d outlived my time. It felt all right. It felt natural. I was going to get Ty out of here, and he’d do his best.

  Ty struggled upright, nose quivering, eyes damp and glassy. “Mr. Cates,” he said hoarsely, “Mr. Cates, Ty doesn’t know—”

  “Ty,” I said tiredly, waving my gun toward the exit, “you’re not going to kiss me or anything, are you? We don’t have time.”

  He smiled, convulsing into an unexpected laugh, radiating relief. As he opened his mouth to say something, the back of his head exploded, splattering a sticky mess of blood and bone onto the wall behind him. As if a supporting thread had been cut, Ty flopped back down onto the table.

  I whirled, a push of adrenaline giving me a last burst of energy. Belling stood in the doorway, sweating and pale, one gun still outstretched toward me. His eyes shifted to me, and I squeezed my own trigger, getting a dry click in response.

  Belling nodded, keeping his gun on me but not firing. “You never could go that last bit, could you, Avery?” he said, and in his mouth it was a curse. Wordlessly, he turned and strode away.

  There was no moment of salvation, no feeling of disease evaporating. I felt as shitty as I had a second before. Whatever damage the nanobots had done to me had been done, and whether that was enough to kill me remained to be seen. A molten, distorted scream filled the room, and I felt Kev’s Push, harder than I’d ever felt before, crashing into my head like a boulder, flattening everything that was me. Before I could blink I’d bent my arm up and put my gun against my own forehead and pulled the trigger. Another dry click sounded like thunder in my ear. Behind me, I heard a volley of gunshots, and Kev’s Push vanished as suddenly as it had hit me, my arm dropping, the gun slipping from shaking, numb fingers. My legs disappeared and I hit the floor softly, just sort of sagging down onto it, feeling like every nerve ending I had left had been pulled to the surface through my pores, screaming and raw.

  I heard a soft rustling behind me, and then Hense’s boots appeared near my head. She stood for a moment staring down at Ty, hands loose at her sides, one still gripping her automatic. Her hands were spotless: not a nick, cut, or bruise. I wondered if Colonel Hense was even human. I shifted my eyes and studied her upside-down face, and with a surge of adrenaline I remembered where I’d seen her before.

  Hanging upside down from the ancient fire escape, guns still clutched in her hands. I’d killed her. Years ago. She hadn’t been a lofty colonel back then, and she’d shown up moonlighting as bodyguard for one of my jobs. I hadn’t expected a bodyguard, and I remembered barely surviving the encounter.

  I never actually killed the target.

  Without a sound she turned and disappeared from view, and then those perfect tiny hands were sliding under my arms and pushing me into a sitting position with my back against the examination table. I looked up at her as she knelt before me. She stared at me. She wasn’t sweating. She wasn’t breathing hard. Why would she? She was a ghost. Her face was cocked at me like a bird or a cat examining prey, just like Dick Marin, and I thought, Fuck me, she’s a fucking avatar.

  If Marin had started making avatars out of the cops, we were all completely screwed. You’d never be able to stop someone who could just pull another body out of the fucking warehouse and return to kick you in the balls again and again.

  She put one of her small hands on my cheek and looked at me, her face almost soft, a slight smile in place. A tiny flare of hope sparked inside me. I liked Hense, cop or no cop. “I am a woman who keeps her word,” she said softly. “Mr. Kieth is dead, and in your way you brought us here. I could quibble about details, but I see no reason to kill you, Avery.”

  She wiped something off my face in a gentle, almost affectionate gesture. “Because the Monks will almost certainly do it for me,” she said quietly, patting my cheek and standing up. I watched her walk out of the room without another word as I struggled to suck air into my ruined lungs, too tired to even mind the pain.

  For a moment Marko regarded me from the doorway, hands clenching and unclenching in indecision, and then he whirled to follow.

  I heard the remnants of the cops pulling out, a few ragged shouts, Hense’s voice clear and unfatigued. A ghost. As they faded, silence crept in behind them, and for a while I just sat there, staring at Happling’s corpse. I thought of Gleason and tried to imagine what she’d say about this, what wise-ass remark, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then the distant sound of heavy boots running.

  XXXIX

  Day Ten:

  I Should Have Been

  Killing Monks

  Right, I thought, that’s goddamn fair. For a few moments I sat and stared blearily at the door, happy to not move. This was fitting. After all that, I was going to be torn to pieces by the last of Kev’s Monks, fifty or so still in the complex. We’d slipped past them and they’d arrived too late to save their boss, but here I was, the consolation prize.

  In a strange way, I thought it was only right that Kev have his revenge. I’d led him down into Westminster Abbey and he’d died sitting on a bare concrete floor, one of Dennis Squalor’s digital avatars grinning down at him. Now I was sitting on a cold floor, high up this time but close enough. I sat there immobile. My arms weighed a hundred pounds each, useless lengths of bone and flesh, and the thought of moving them made my head ache.

  Doors were being slammed open, glass shattering.

  My eyes found Happling. The big man was staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open, mouth drifting. Blood had pooled around him, black and shiny, like oil. His hands were still curled into loose fists—the motherfucker was pissed off even in death. I thought of Hense again, and wondered if Captain Happling would show up again someday, grinning and asking me if I felt fast.

  I wondered if all the cops I’d killed were going to come back one day.

  I could hear the Monks approaching. As I stared at Happling, my heart unexpectedly began to pound in terror. They were going to crowd into the room with their blank, white faces, put their plastic hands on me, and tear me apart in silence, in complete silence.

  Glancing at the door, I lunged forward and started dragging myself toward Happling. Sputtering bloody spit onto the floor, I slapped my hands onto him, pushing into his clothes and prying his Roon from his lifeless fingers. I flinched, with every movement expecting him to surge up and grab me, laughing and grinning blood. I found three extra clips in his front pocket, his body still warm beneath the clothes. I checked the chamber of the gun as I pushed myself as far back as I could get, opposite the door but on a slight angle, so when they came in I wouldn’t immediately be in their field of vision—though the Monks had heat vision and night vision and every fucking digital bell and whistle the tech of five years ago could offer, so I wasn’t sure how much my old tricks would help me. I’d never actually beaten a Monk in a fight, much less a squad of them. It didn’t matter. I racked the chamber and laid my extra clips in my lap and tried not to do the math that told me I didn’t have enough ammunition for fifty-four Monks. Trembling, I raised the gun and waited.

  Time had stopped.
I struggled to hold the gun up and stay ready while the echo of approaching steps seemed to get louder but never arrive. There was no talking, no shouting or other sounds. Just boots clicking on the hard floor, slowing as they got closer. I assumed they knew exactly where Kev was: his brain had been killed but his chassis still hummed with electronic life, sending out beacons, scanning frequencies. An immortality of deaf and dumb.

  Doors slammed in the distance, and then there was total silence. They were just feet away, creeping toward me, probably scanning my heat signature and suddenly getting cautious. You could put a brain into billions of yen of technology, but you couldn’t improve the brain—put an asshole into a Monk chassis and he was still an asshole. Still, these were the assholes who’d survived. Through their initial conversion, through months or years of involuntary servitude, screaming endlessly inside, and then through the Monk Riots and the SSF’s steady attempt to wipe them out, they’d managed to remain sane enough to function.

  I cleared my mind. I saw a line of trees at night, a dark wall of rustling leaves in the wind. I had no idea where I’d ever seen trees, but there they were. I felt everything drain away as I imagined it, just the soft sawing of the branches in the breeze, nothing else, no sound, no light, just me. My hands steadied, my breathing slowed, and my vision narrowed to the door, excluding Happling’s symmetric corpse and Gatz’s twisted form in a heap against the wall. Gatz’s white face was staring at me, and it took all my concentration to ignore it.

  When they came, they came fast, two at a time materializing from thin air and bursting through the door. I fired once on instinct and the first Monk’s face exploded in a spray of white coolant. It crumpled to the floor as if it had just remembered it was a fucking ton of alloys and plastic. The second one leaped over the first with a graceful, silent move that was almost beautiful. I tracked it upward with a small tick of my wrist and put two shells into its face while it was still in midair. The range was about six feet. You’d have to paralyze me for me to miss at six feet.