Crack. Hit a sealed canister just right, and you can split it along a minute seam. Pierce another one with a lightning-quick jab, and you can have all sorts of fun.
Especially with warmbody restraint gel and unbuffered solachic acid.
I rolled aside, straining against gravity, exhaustion, time itself. Body failing, nanos in overdrive scraping at the last dregs of muscle reserves to get me away. Not so much from him, but from the flood of solachic splashing into the gel glugging out of its shattered container.
Even nanos have a limit. Arms failing, fingers slipping, Black Hat smashed into the widening orange stain behind me. It splashed and I let out a miserable cry of fear and agony mixed — burning droplets on my skin, a burst of foul smoke.
Yeah. You mix any kind of class B gel and solachic without a buffer, and you get big, ugly pool of nasty.
I fetched up against the second spiderchair, another stunning ringing inside my skull. Move! Move, you stupid bitch! Move now!
Couldn’t. Grayed out, nanos swarming to protect vital organs. He was coming for me, the mad head of the Collective beast, and I couldn’t lift a finger.
I swam in and out of consciousness for a short while, bursts of screaming static and a horrid wet bubbling filling my intake feeds in sporadic bursts. Slowly came online again, a soft familiar padding drawing closer.
“Abbymom?” A strangled sob. “Mommy?”
I’m here, I wanted to say. Couldn’t make my mouth work. Breathing rapidly, ambient temperature dropping as I grabbed every scrap of energy available around me — therms, whatever — and forced myself towards some kind, any kind, of capability.
The bubbling intensified. Something at my wrist — a tugging. Hot, frail fingers. “Don’t be dead,” he sobbed. “Don’t be dead Mommy. Don’t be dead.”
Come on. He needs you. Wake the fuck up.
I jolted up to a sitting position, letting out a short sharp cry that swallowed Geoff’s own scream. Visual intake switched to low panoptics, the world a play of color and shadow. I wasn’t fully passed-out or blinded, it was just dark.
Thumping and thundering underneath us. The Trapp core shuddering. All the lights were out, except a few emergency bars drenching us in crimson. My head snapped to the side, and I scanned the bubbling mess that was the remains of Black Hat.
Stupid, getting caught in chemicals even a primary-school baby knows never to mix. It would start exhaling toxic fumes as it ate the hyperalloy in his bones, and his nanos — if any were left undamaged — might be able to patch him up. But not for a long, long while. Bits of reinforced skeleton showed through the soupy mess flesh had turned into. His braincase flashed as the entire wreck shivered, and a tipping rack full of other biochem tubes hovered drunkenly over him.
Those silvery, catslit eyes were still fixed on me, though. There was no mistaking the hate in them, even with eyelids burned away and his thin-lipped face a skeletal ruin.
My scream shuddered to a halt. Geoff tumbled into my arms, and I held him in the dark for a few moments. Sobbing, he shook against me. He kept repeating the same thing.
“I knew you’d come. I knew you’d come. I knew it.”
I decided not to tell him how close it had been. Ever. Before we got out of here, I needed to pull that rack of tubes down on Black Hat.
It pays to be sure.
“I will always…” I had to cough. My nanos moved sluggishly. I needed fuel. “I will always come for you.”
* * *
I shoved at the hatch cover. So did Geoff, muscles straining and eyes bulging. It rose, bit by bit, and fresh air filtered through the crescent of free space.
Something was very wrong, below. The whole complex shuddered; several times we’d almost been thrown off a long ladder leading up a semi-choked pipe. Geoff’s arms and legs clenched around me each time, almost cutting off my oxygen, and I hung on grimly. Now, wedged on a narrow platform, I’d found the control pad for this hatch, but there was no emergency power.
It’s not going to budge. My flayed feet slipped, a red veil of overstrain closing over my optics as I strained. Geoff whimpered a little.
Amazingly, the hatch suddenly became lighter. I almost fell off the platform, caught Geoff’s wrist to keep him on our precarious perch, and pushed it up easily.
That’s not quite precise. It was lifted from the other side, too. I peered up, and for a moment I saw pale irises and every bit of adrenaline and cortisol my tired nano-patched glands could scrape together dumped into my bloodstream at once.
Sam leaned over the hatch opening, stretching out and disregarding any kind of defense. His hand cupped empty air. “I’ll pull you up.”
The familiar steam and sharp green pungency of the Vines poured past us. Below, a large creature growled uneasily.
I bent, Geoff scrambled onto my back again. I reached up, both hands locking around Sam’s wrist. His hand turned, caught my left wrist, he braced himself and pulled.
My feet hit rough bark-vines. My knees threatened to collapse, I swayed drunkenly, but managed to back up, Geoff clinging to me with his face buried under my hair, his breath a humid spot below my nape.
It wasn’t just my exhaustion. The ground itself buckled, heaving like it had decided to pay us back for our tunneling, burrowing, scratching, poking, and slagging.
Sam dropped the hatch back with a hollow clang. I backed up even further. Vines swayed, tree-things whispering as their feet were jostled.
“Genny’s gonna blow,” Sam informed us. “We should get out of here.”
Oh, now it’s we? Fat fucking chance. I cleared my throat. “Bastard.”
He shrugged. The shocktrooper gear no longer creaked, he’d probably broken it in with some heavy combat, if the splatters of blood and other fluids on him were any indication. He hadn’t been topside for very long — there were only a few drops of sap dewing his dirty hair and broad shoulders.
He’s bulked out. Facilitators tend to be lean, but he was looking like a liquidator. Where had he found the calories to power that sort of change?
It was a relief to find out I didn’t care. Sort of.
He measured me. “Did you kill him?”
I stared at my handler. “You should have told me that was my job.”
“It wasn’t yours, Abby.”
“You. Do not ever. Call me that.” My throat was a desert. No spare therms here for me to draw on. I’d have to find something to eat, and soon. Even the leaves of the canopy sounded good at this point. My chrono took in the surroundings, decided it didn’t need recalibration, and told me it was just a couple hours until dawn.
Thinking of a flood of solar might have made my mouth water. Just a bit.
“All his altered warmbodies collapsed at once. It was pretty amazing.”
“And the second-gens?”
He nodded, as if I’d said something profound. “Regrouping. They’ll be attended to.”
“They were your support staff. They heard us in that slagshack, came in to rescue you from me, and thought you were double-crossing when I kicked the shit out of them. You’re playing the corps against the Agency, and both of them against Nikor — if he even exists.”
Another shrug, but a very faint smile. Where was the impenetrable handler I’d had? I might have missed him, except he’d turned into this.
Do we ever really know our handlers, though? Sam had been the voice of the Agency to me for years. Who knew what happened when he left a meet with me, or with another one of his agents? How many of them did he have?
It wasn’t likely that I’d get an answer, but I asked anyway. “Who really owns you?”
The earth shuddered again. It was pretty likely he’d found enough time to sneak around and flip a few switches near the Trapp core. If anything of Black Hat was still moving around inside that sludge, it would be caught in megatons of fused-together rubble. A fossil of technological hatred.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” His shoulders dropped. “Go on, Abby. I’ll b
e in touch.”
I hesitated. Why?
Geoff trembled against my back. He needed rest. Tired as I was, I could still probably catch a bit of wildlife for him to drain. We were both naked, and had no supplies. No transport. No watermaker.
We’ll make do.
“This is it,” I told Sam, quietly. I didn’t bother to add the threat. Next time, your head’s mine. ”Stay away from us.”
“Take care of that kid,” he called, just as softly, as I turned and began to jog away with Geoff clinging to my back.
Oh, I intend to.
* * *
Warmbody-slow, I stumbled through the Vines. By the time the Trapp core finally blew, we were safely away, and dawn was beginning to tint the falling drops of sap with gold. The Vines shuddered afresh, and Geoff let out a small sound, wiping his mouth as he backed away from the porcine I held by its back legs. I was considering tearing off mouthfuls of raw flesh, and blinked a bit as the force of the reaction groaned in the depths.
“Finish up.” I sounded deathly tired even to myself. “Then I’ll kiss you goodnight, and you can sleep for a bit.”
He nodded, just like the good little boy he was. That haunted look was back in his wide dark eyes.
What would he become?
When he finished drinking, sleepy-eyed and flushed, he nestled in my arms. “I dreamed about them. The silver eyes, and the bad man. They sang until they all fell down.”
“I’ll just bet they did.” I eyed the hulk of the dead porcine, checked the sky. Rapidly lightening. “Find a safe spot, kiddo. We’re far enough away that you shouldn’t get more than a slight rocking. I’m going to cycle in the sun.”
“He’ll come back, you know.”
No energy to put a subroutine over my autonomics. I didn’t bother, although it made my breath catch. “Who?”
“Sam.”
“Did you dream that?”
“Mh-hm.” A sleepy nod. He pointed at a huge tree, still shivering as the faraway explosion rumbled. There would be a hell of a crater there, but all we’d get here would be aftershocks. “Not for a while, though. When I’m grown.”
“Then let’s not worry about it now.” A fire racing through the Vines was the bigger worry, but not for him underground. At least, I hoped not. I pressed my chapped lips to his filthy forehead. “Okay, kiddo. Go to sleep.”
When the earth had sealed itself over my impossible child, I climbed the trunk, too exhausted to even worry about aftershocks or flame. The very last of my energy was spent anchoring on a branch high above, one that would catch several hours of misty but strong sunlight. My cheek against rough bark, my naked back a solarcatch panel alive with anticipation as the light strengthened, something occurred to me.
Don’t you ever want to burn it down? Black Hat asked again, and I thought it over.
Sure I did.
But I could wait until my kid was grown. By then, I might even have some sort of plan.
With a grateful sigh, I cycled down.
Chapter Thirteen
Coda
The wheat-haired man crouches in a clearing, his breath a tuneless whistle as he turns a few dials, points the antenna correctly. “Activate relay.” A crackling, the scan run through a code or two, time of day and latitude taken into consideration. The machinery picks up a signal, and he stops whistling.
“Code in, please.” An anonymous voice, crackling through the small tinny speaker.
“Eight six seven five three oh nine, Jess’s Boy, reporting in, foxtrot kilo Juliet, code three-eight.”
More crackling. A series of clicks. Then another voice, cold even through the layers of atmosphere and the ancient speaker. “There you are.”
Nobody scanned for this transmission range anymore. Sometimes, as the Big Man remarked, the old ways were best.
“Been busy.” The man cocks his head, listening intently, to leave no shade or clue unexamined. “CoreTech? The Collective?”
“Both foxed for now.” There are broken bodies all around him — rough wooden stakes thrust through the cardiac cavity, heads torn off. “Have already dropped bioscans of their pride and joys, so at least we get something out of this. Sendoza’s Collective process had some regrettable flaws, and the second-gens are no good at fighting crowds.” The lies roll easily from his tongue.
“Very good. What about the wolf and her cub?”
Sam doesn’t hesitate. “Casualties. Sendoza went nuts, that was always a risk.”
A laugh. “Crazy serves our purposes.”
“I’ve burned both CoreTech and the Agency now.”
“That also serves our purposes.”
So he’d just become expendable. That answered that. “Is there anything that doesn’t?”
“Pointless questions.”
“Heard and understood.”
If you only knew how much I did of both.
“Good. Continue checking in at scheduled intervals. We’ll have a use for you soon. Victory out.”
The connection is cut, with a small definite snap. Sam sighs. Looks at his blood-covered hands. The Alliance has eyes and ears in every township and City from here to the edge of the continent. Sooner or later someone was going to report Abby and her kid, and Nikor was going to put a couple things together and arrive at a very unpleasant conclusion.
“Not my problem just yet,” Sam mutters. It’s a relief to be out of the Cities, to let his face relax. The subroutines to keep him a blank-faced nonentity had become second nature. Which was the truth, the blankness or the flickers of feeling?
Did it matter?
Now was the time to get moving. He’d catch up to her, observe from a distance. When — not if — Nikor caught wind of them, the capture orders would come out. And Sam would get another chance to play knight in shining, and maybe earn a little… what?
Yes, Nikor was going to be surprised. That didn’t happen often, and the Big Man never forgave it, for all his cant about freedom and the future of humanity.
The Agency and corporations, fighting over a dying beast trapped in a waterhole. When the Cities finally broke down, whether under their own weight or as a result of the Alliance’s constant efforts at destabilization, Nikor was going to get a few more surprises. The vast mass of agents and corporate slaves weren’t going to be grateful for long, and some of them might even want the freeform nanos despite the cost. Lots of warmbodies didn’t mind being zombies.
Some of them even preferred it.
Also, Sam had destroyed the bioscans and the details of Sendoza’s Collective procedure — but not before memorizing them. Should Abby and that kid get into trouble, he could trade dribs and drabs of it to get them out.
“Who owns me now, AbbyJess?” He smiled, and straightened. Time to get the blood off his hands. “Who do you think?”
He made sure the bloated bodies would catch sunlight. The blast zone, here where the original Libera — once, long ago, an Alliance township, then one of Nikor’s experiments gone hideously wrong, now a steaming crater — once stood, was the perfect place to leave these little presents. As long as nobody took the stakes out, the second-gens would rot quietly.
Of course, if they didn’t, he had a plan for that too. So many to keep track of, crowding his active brain. A Facilitator couldn’t be caught unprepared.
With that done, he destroyed the relay. No more call-ins. His next one wasn’t due for a couple months, anyway.
“Who owns me now.” He kicked the relay’s useless hulk one more time for good measure. “I do, sweets. You’re a bad influence.”
Five minutes later, the clearing was empty.
Two hours after that, one of the scattered, headless bodies twitched once. Twice.
The Vines sighed. Aftershocks rippled through its roots. The sun rose higher.
And the headless body twitched again…
About the Author
Lilith Saintcrow is the author of several fantasy, science ction, romance, and Young Adult series. She lives in Vancouver, Washi
ngton, with two children, two dogs, three cats, a guinea pig, and various other assorted strays. Find out more at www.lilithsaintcrow.com.
Note to Readers
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