The Liquidation Order

by Jett Lang

  “And then, once you were done watching it, what did you do?”

  The child didn’t respond. Subtle rise and fall of the shoulders that betrayed her stubbornness.

  “You went onto your word processor and you wrote how much you despised that teacher. Two pages of hatred, single-spaced. Once it was finished you felt such a profound level of satisfaction that you rewrote it in your diary. Then you gave that teacher her stupid report on that meaningless procedure, because you knew, even then, that this would be your life.”

  She chuckled, and sounded exhausted even to herself. She spoke slowly. Softly. “You knew the reports wouldn’t end, the idiot superiors wouldn’t go away, and your moments of happiness wouldn’t be shared with anyone, not even the people you cared about most. They’d try to know you, but you wouldn’t let them get close. No one. Not dad, not friends, not lovers, not a robot asking too many questions. Because you hate questions, deep down. You hate the people that ask them in case the answers bring you to some unhappy truth. All you’ll ever need is money, and that’s all you’ll get. It’s all that will ever last for you.”

  She closed her eyes. They stung worse than before and her throat felt tight. She swallowed her tears. A cheerful advertisement brightened the TV screen, and when she looked the sunshine colors were dancing over the child’s white hair. Queen snatch up the remote.

  “Are you listening to me, you sad, lonely little girl? Huh?”

  The remote splintered when it smashed against the corner wall. The child was gone, and the fractured slivers of black plastic were strewn atop the stool and over the linoleum. Queen sat up in bed, breathing heavily as she wrapped an arm around her chest. The advertisement music chirped on, and an ache throbbed behind her temples. Carefully, she climbed out of bed and padded to the TV. Stared the sunshine-with-a-smiley-face in the eye for a moment.

  Then she punched through the screen and ripped the wiring out. Cascade of blue and orange sparks.

  She was burned and bleeding along her fingers up to her wrist, but that happy fucking sunshine was gone, and that’s what mattered. Jack was gone, the useless little girl was gone, the racers were gone, and the robot, with all its questions, was gone.

  She went to the bathroom, stopped in front to the mirrored medicine cabinet. She plucked shards of plastic out of her hand, used a pair of tweezers for the smaller bits. Blood ran in slow rivers along the sink until it met the cold water from the faucet. It was a singularly horrific pain, one that had her gritting her teeth till the final plastic piece was tossed into the garbage can at her feet. The nanobots rooting about in her system were indisputably the cause.

  She doused her hand and fingers in half a bottle of iodine-saline, double-checked for any remaining shards, then dressed it. Once the first nurse or doctor came to visit her, they would properly bandage it for her. More questions would follow. Gee, how’d that happen? Why’s the television broken? Did you do that?

  She chuckled, splashed cold water over her face with her good hand. Yeah, I must have been sleepwalking. Don’t know what else could explain it. Those bots in me acting up. Yeah, might want to get the doc in here to have it looked at. It’s all part of getting better, right?

  No one would call her out on a television. Not with the money Syntheia had at her disposal. The staff would have another widescreen installed an hour after the broken one was discovered, and this incident wouldn’t reach her boss’ busied ears as anything more than gossip.

  She shut off the water. The bloodstains under her bandage didn’t swell to any worrying degree. The idea of enriching her blood to clot quicker crossed her mind briefly, but she cast it aside. Research and development needed to work the kinks out of that procedure, last she read. On the other hand, the warming subdermals Ellie mentioned might be worth a look. Already Prosperity’s winter was nettling her through the flimsy baby blue hospital gown.

  The nanobots in her seemed restless with her new injury, the tingle in her veins along her forearm and in her hand maddening. The little guys were hungry to go to work. Desperate for it.

  “I know the feeling,” she whispered.

  She closed the mirror cabinet, caught her reflection staring back at her. The paleness of her skin hid any sign of lost blood, and the “little guys” had covered everything else. No dark circles under her eyes, no signs of her long nights. There was a spark in her crimson irises, a hint of pinkish color on her cheekbones. She looked healthier than ever. Revitalized.

  On the surface, at least.

  She thumbed the lights off and returned to her bed. As soon as she hit the mattress, she was asleep.

  ※

  She might have treated Five-Nine better if she’d have known about the sweet-talking nurse she’d have to contend with, alone. Not long enough after she had injured herself, the petite redhead strolled into her room and woke her up. She replaced Queen’s sodden bandages and said she’d contact the maintenance crew to get the television repaired. She’d keep the ordeal between the two of them, she said, which Queen knew was an out and out lie.

  The nurse had a smug, rumor-mongering face that she could read from a mile away. The redhead’s blue eyes practically glittered at the sign of the disemboweled television. She’d be telling everyone about the TV-smashing albino until her face turned purple.

  “D’ya need anythin’ else, sweety?”

  Distinct West Talon drawl. Thicker than Jack’s had been, but it served as a painful reminder each time the woman spoke.

  Queen closed her eyes, locked her fingers in her lap. “No, thank you.”

  “Well, if ya change ya mind, just give me a lil’ buzz and I’ll be right over.”

  “You got it.”

  “And,” the nurse persisted, “doctor says yer readin’s look stable enough for ya to start walkin’ around yer room. Bit of exercise will do ya good seein’ as how ya’ve been restin’ on yer laurels till now.”

  Did they make this woman in a factory somewhere?

  “Gotcha.”

  “Okiedokie, sweety. I’m gonna get outta ya hair and let ya go about ya business. Doctor says to get outta bed every three hours or so for about fifteen minutes. Don’t forget, hunny.”

  Queen gave the nurse a thumbs-up. Sneakers squeaked across the linoleum. The door closed softly behind the unusually noisy shoes.

  The doctor was right. Though her muscles were mostly synthetic, that didn’t mean she could abandon exercise altogether. It might make her feel better. She was going to be out in a week – six days now – and she had no doubt Syntheia would have another assignment. Another test of loyalty.

  That was the impetus which saw her tear the thin blanket away and rise to the onerous task of movement. Measured exercise was better than blasting the TV again and reopening her wound. One step after another along the corners and edges of the white-walled cuboid. It was her world, now.

  The stool was still exactly where the robot had left it, and she dragged it back under the bed, continued her way about the room. There was an ache in her chest and stomach by the time she made her second circuit, and she had to take a breather on her bed. It was a foreign feeling, not drawing in as much air as she knew she could. Restricted by her own ribcage. Slouched and sweating, she clutched at her sides with the gentlest of touches, feeling for the manmade microscopics swimming within her, heating her belly. A side effect the doctor had conveniently forgotten to mention. She was in a borderland of food poisoning and flu, each unsure whether or not the other had jurisdiction over her stricken form. She pressed her palms to her forehead. Wiped the sweat away with clammy hands.

  “Fucking doctor.”

  Aches and pains and all the symptoms of a lubricated sickness, and yet she’d been unable to use the bathroom whenever she tried. The most maddening part of it all was how the severity flitted spontaneously high and low, so that she had no way to brace herself for moments of greater intensity. She supposed this was a good sign, that the “little guys” were hard at work repairing her, but it didn’t
make the process any less frustrating. It made her wish that the nurse would come back so she could complain to someone, get her sentiments transmitted to the bastard doctor who brought this illness upon her.

  She reached for a glass of water on the nightstand as the waves of nausea rolled and lapped. Sipped tentatively. She drank half the glass and topped it off from a decanter when she was done, ritualistically performed these actions until the decanter itself was emptied of half its contents. Then she returned the glass and decanter to the tarnished silver tray the nurse had brought; her lower lip had left a print on the upper portion of the glass.

  The water gradually settled her stomach, alleviated her headache to a dull pulse. She wiped the sleeve of her hospital gown across her neck, and it came away dark blue.

  She needed a shower. She heaved herself up again and went to task.

  ※

  As Queen parted the shower screen, she had the distinct impression that she was no longer alone in the unit. She unsealed the waterproof cast cover from her injured arm and set it down near the sink, thankful for the fuzzy blue rug underfoot. It was with slow movements that she dried herself, listening through the thin, white wall: nurse sneakers, gurney wheels, and a speaker announcement directed at someone named Edgar Stevens. The bored voice over the intercom told Mr. Stevens that he was required to report immediately to his station on floor three. Announcement number two chimed in a moment afterward, telling a Danny Baker to follow Mr. Stevens along to the top floor.

  Three floors. That narrowed down the location of where she was in Prosperity significantly. Builders were obligated to maximize space, which made verticality the norm in the business and arena sections of the city. The rule didn’t apply to private domes surrounding those commercial areas, and you could build as far downward as you wanted as long as it didn’t interfere with the city’s infrastructure. Buying off a few government officials couldn’t hurt, either.

  Chamber’s report on Syntheia said she’d gone dark since her man met with an explosive conclusion, but Chamber and Syntheia had been in league with one another since the beginning, hadn’t they? It made the report meaningless. The resources, human or otherwise, at the heiress’ disposal didn’t tally in Queen’s head. Likelier story was that Syntheia and Wayne had maintained a close relationship. Syntheia knew where he was, and when Ellie had brought things to an end, Wayne didn’t even struggle. No surprise on his face, only candid approval. In some ways, it sickened her to think about a man with his influence and wealth succumbing so easily. So pitifully.

  “Going to be long?” Ellie on the other side of the bathroom door.

  Speak of the killer.

  “I need to dress,” Queen called back. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. Need to speak with you.”

  Queen opened the steam-moistened medicine cabinet and searched for an implement. Cotton balls, brown bottles of disinfectant, a couple iodine-saline containers. Bandages and baby aspirin. Nothing she could to use against a trained assassin. The staff must have cleared out anything potentially harmful before she got here; she was too conscious for them to take any risks.

  Was she actually this afraid of Ellie? Was trust beyond her scope now? Wasn’t she hoping to work with the woman, wouldn’t it make more sense to just leave her in the forest if Syntheia wanted her dead?

  She wasn’t going to take unnecessary chances on people. Couldn’t. That was foolish. She pushed aside a row of laminated cartons along the top-most shelf, leaned over the sink and dug around in the back.

  Ellie rapped on the door. “Queen?”

  “One sec.”

  Her hands were frantic. Plastic and cardboard rattled as she sped her fingers over the contents of the reflective shelves. She pulled her arm from the lowest shelf, empty-handed. She hadn’t missed anything; the staff had been thorough.

  “If you need any help in there–”

  “No, I’m good.” She looked down and saw the shadow of Ellie’s boots under the door. “Have to be careful, you know?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Queen closed the cabinet, gripped the edge of the sink, bent over, and snatched up her blue hospital gown. She slotted her arms through and knotted the strings firm behind her; quite the task with bandaged fingers. To her right, next to the toilet, was a plunger with a clear plastic handle. She considered it for a weapon, but dropped the idea after a second. She didn’t have the strength, neither did the plunger. It would break, Ellie would laugh, and she would die. Horribly.

  The bathroom door whined open. Ellie stood there in her patched leather jacket and dark jeans. Eyebrow raised.

  “Have to drag you out of here?”

  “Only if that’s your thing,” Queen said, smiling as she staggered past Ellie, who was quick to assist her toward the bed in the middle of the room.

  “Just have to ask next time,” Ellie said when Queen was laid out and beneath the covers. “Actually jumped in the shower like this?”

  “I wouldn’t say I jumped, but I needed to wash. I felt sick.”

  “OK now? You tell the nurses?”

  “I don’t like them.”

  Ellie looked around the room. Stared a moment at the wrecked TV, then back at Queen. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “The nurses?”

  “No. Five-Nine. Said you didn’t take to the ‘partner’ news well.” She pulled the stool out from under the bed, sat at Queen’s bedside. She put her elbows on her knees, laced her fingers. Brown eyes flat, mouth in a line. A long silence.

  Queen sighed. “You know what the problem is.”

  “Syntheia suggested a psychoanalyst.”

  “She thinks I’m crazy, huh?”

  “Thinks you’re unstable. Understandable.”

  She half laughed, looked the woman in the face. “I’m not unstable. The machine came in here and started needling me. I didn’t want to talk to it.”

  “He,” Ellie said. “Wants to be referred to as ‘he.’ Software update.”

  “Whatever. I wanted to be alone, and he-she-it didn’t want to go. Things got heated, he threw that stool, and then huffed out of here.”

  “I heard that.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Ellie cocked her head, considered Queen for a moment. “Can you work with Five-Nine?”

  “I can work with anyone.” And that was the truth. She almost prided herself on her capacity to grin and bear the vast stupidity of the world.

  “Good.” Ellie rocked back and forth on the stool, held her knees. Small, thin fingers.

  “Something else?”

  Ellie ceased rocking. “About Jack.”

  Gooseflesh covered her arms. Her stomach twisted. “You found him?”

  “Sent a team out. Tracking him shouldn’t be an issue.”

  Yet here she was, alluding to help.

  “I don’t have any answers.” Queen said. “He didn’t discuss his plans with me.”

  Ellie extended an index finger upward. “You need those brownie points with the boss lady upstairs.”

  She bit her lip. Reached for the water glass and swallowed a mouthful. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “You’re going to kill him.”

  “Thought you’d be good with that, considering.”

  “And how are you holding up after killing Wayne?” Queen snapped. Instantly regretted it.

  Ellie lowered her eyes to the sheets drooping off the bed.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  She shook her head. Then, after a long time, “Think about him a lot. Dead in his chair. Seen people in that position dozens of times, didn’t care about them. Not as much.”

  Queen swallowed, her eyes misted. “Jack’s not a danger. He’s nothing to you.”

  Though hadn’t he said otherwise? His threat to eliminate Syntheia brought her to this broken place. She didn’t know what else he was capable of on his own. He was an experienced killer, and he outstripped her. Outstri
pped all of them.

  “I don’t want him to die, Ellie.”

  “That why you called out, in the forest? Instead of taking him out when you could?”

  There was a sudden harshness in Ellie that shamed her. In softer tones, the woman continued.

  “Wanted Wayne to live, too. Don’t get what we want, Queen.” She kept her eyes on the bedsheets. “Corporate guns until we’re too old or tired. They bring in new hires, you sign a non-disclosure, they show you the exit. That’s our future, whether its five minutes or thirty years. Jack knew that. He’s fighting a system that’s existed for hundreds of years. It has eaten alive better people, nobler people.”

  “People trying to do the right thing,” Queen said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  “Whatever feelings you have for him will pass.” Ellie had recovered herself, was quietly confident once again. “People are plentiful, high-paying jobs are not.”

  “You sound like Five-Nine.” She sniffed, pushed the back of her hand over her cheeks. Ellie took a red microcloth from one of her jacket’s inner pockets and handed it to her.

  “Don’t ever let anyone see you like this.”

  Queen slid the absorbent material underneath her lashes. “I don’t know what Jack’s plans are.”

  She was angry at herself. It wasn’t all heartache or grief over his fate. She was a puppet dancing to his strings, singing his tune, even now. It was almost worse.

  “He’s eluded my crew.” Ellie’s tone was coldly factual and bereft of sympathy. Jack was only a problem to be handled as efficiently as possible now. An employee to be liquidated. “Commendable, but there are other methods. Underestimating Syntheia’s connections isn’t smart.”