Zone War

by John Conroe

  “That’s very much different. I have tons and tons of steel surrounding me, plus my brothers and my father. And even then, I think our future trips will be short and sweet. Maybe drone cache recovery for a potential new client,” she said, smiling at me.

  “Well, that’s not a certainty.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if I do some schmoozing. Wine and dine the client. Think he could resist my charm?”

  “You? He’d probably give you his lunch money if you asked,” I said.

  “Oh, he already did. Whenever I ran short of funds in middle school, I knew I could count on him.”

  “That only happened like four or five times,” I said.

  “Six, and I owe him thirty-seven dollars and forty-two cents, including interest at three percent.”

  “You’d owe most of it to his mom. She gave him extra money after the first time just so you’d be covered if you forgot your own.”

  She pulled back and blinked. “Really?”

  “Absolutely. I told her… I mean he told her that your dad had forgotten to give you money and that he’d split his lunch with you. She insisted he always have a secret five dollar bill in his backpack for just such emergencies. Then she’d replace it if you needed it.”

  She swiped at her eyes but just managed to smear her tears all around.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” I asked, getting alarmed despite the soft fuzz of the pain medication.

  “It’s just that your whole family has always been there for me, and my family hasn’t been there for you.”

  “Well, we like you, irrespective of family. Plus, you’ve always been there for us. Look what you did for the twins with those shitty kids in their school. That was huge. To have a TV star show up? Big stuff. They’ll love you forever.”

  “What about you?”

  “Well, they’re my sisters so I think they love me on some level, but probably not as much as you.”

  “No, you idiot. How do you feel about me?”

  “Oh! I thought we already went over that?” I said. She just gave me a baffled look. “You know? The lunch money thing?”

  “That’s supposed to be some kind of declaration or something?” she asked, hands on hips.

  It was distracting, but I kept my eyes on hers.

  “Ah, hello? Teenage boy giving up food for teenage girl is maybe one of the biggest declarations possible!”

  She tapped a red lip with one finger, thinking it over. “In many cases, that’s just lust, but in this case I’ll allow that it was pretty special.” Then she leaned over, fast, and kissed me on the lips. The motion was fast, but the kiss was long. I tried to move her closer but my motion pulled on various wounds and I suddenly gasped in pain.

  “Not the reaction I was expecting,” she said, with a quick grin to let me know she was kidding. Then she frowned. “That’s enough for you, Mister Catches Flechettes With His Bare Skin. You need to heal up.”

  “What about the music guy?” I asked.

  She waved a hand. “That’s been over for days. You do know that it was set up by our publicists, right?”

  “Maybe to begin with, but I’m sure he’s devastated. Probably got too needy, right?”

  “No, his publicist got too needy. Wanted to find ways to include you in our photo ops.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Poor clueless sniper boy. You’re a hot ticket right now.”

  A bad thought occurred to me. She read my face before I could cover it up. “Don’t you dare say what you’re thinking. I’ll slap you so hard, your whole family will feel it. I would never do that to you.” Her arms were crossed again, so I’d fallen very far, very fast since the kiss.

  “No, I know. I just wonder sometimes why you’d ever want to hang out with me when the whole world wants you.”

  “You’ll find out how real that whole world thing is soon enough. They want the fiction they see on the screen. We both know how much reality is in reality shows, even if this one airs live.”

  “Well, I think my fame will be fleeting at best. After all, I’m out of the Zone business.”

  “I hope so, but I know you, AJ. It draws you like a bee to honey,” she said with a sad smile. She kissed my lips, quick like, then pushed my head backward till I fell back on the pillow. “Rest. We’ll be having that story from you in the very near future.”

  She stood up and walked to the door, turned, gave me a smile, and then clicked off the lights and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her.

  I lay back in the darkness, just the soft hum of Rikki charging and the burble of background voices from the living room, thinking about the sudden vast changes in my life. The family suddenly had more money than we had ever had before, not rich, but at least secure for now. Rikki was out of the Zone and safe, for now. And Astrid seemed as into me as I was her. I hoped it wasn’t just for now.

  “Shit, Gurung! Things are the best they’ve ever been. Can’t you stop worrying for a moment and just enjoy?” I asked myself in a whisper.

  “The implications of being at the top are that there is only down,” Rikki suddenly said, his volume as quiet as my whisper.

  “Let’s hope not, Rikki. Let’s hope not.”

  Chapter 39

  The thing about pain meds is that they wear off. This point was made abundantly clear when I rolled over sometime later and pulled hard on a stitch. Suddenly wide-awake and blinking in pain, I sat there in the dark for a few minutes, sucking in deep breaths. My motion alerted my AI, which helpfully projected the time onto the ceiling. Too soon for any more of the good stuff, which I probably wanted to avoid anyway. So ibuprofen was in order. None in my bedside table, but there’s always some tucked in the pockets of my stealth suit, or in this case, what was left of it. I got out of bed and rummaged through till I found some, also finding the little data chip that Dr. Wilks had handed me.

  Swallowing the pills, chased with lukewarm water from a glass that Mom must have left next to my bed, I contemplated the chip.

  “AI, please scan this chip,” I whispered, putting the chip on the reader/scanner surface.

  “Just one file. Labeled Play Me.”

  “Okay, play it, volume super low.”

  “Affirmative.”

  A video window appeared on my blank wall and opened to reveal Dr. Wilks staring into the camera.

  “Whoever you are, the fact that you’re watching this means that I am likely dead. My name is Dr. Theodora Wilks and I am the person responsible for programming the Spider CThrees that were released into Manhattan. I mean to say that I did not choose the direction of their programming, just that I was the one who upgraded their CPU capabilities and coded their neural nets. When their purchasers… I won’t say owners because nobody owns them now… gave them their initial instructions, I argued long and hard against it.

  “But ultimately, it wasn’t up to me and had I known what they would be used for, I would never have agreed to enhance them to the degree I did. But that’s all behind us now. I’m sure if there is an afterlife, then I am already atoning for my actions even as you watch this.

  “Here is the important part of this message. The Spiders that I finished were, at their time, the most advanced AI networks on the planet. That may sound like bragging, but it’s the simple truth. Today, there are more powerful chips and more sophisticated systems out there, but none have been running… growing… learning, as long as the Spiders have. You need to know this. Their instructions were open-ended. The people who released them into Manhattan programmed them with one simple order—kill humans. With no other restriction, the Spiders will do everything in their considerable power to complete that order. Kill humans… all humans… everywhere. You should under no circumstances believe that just because they are momentarily contained on the island that they aren’t actively pursuing their mission. They won’t stop, they’ll never stop, and my modifications will give them a viable lifespan far in excess of their original specifications.

  �
�They have to be stopped. Even contained on the island, they have access to the internet via optic lines running through the city. They are unmatched for hacking power and experience. They already control more around you than you could imagine. Should they succeed in escaping the island, they will spread out and seek to fulfill their mission. Eradicate humans—everywhere. They must be stopped. They must be killed. If you have this message, you need to pass it on. Without any sense of overdramatics, the fate of the human race depends on your actions. A list of the improvements made follows.”

  “End video,” I said.

  I looked at the clock. My retirement from the Zone lasted all of five and a half hours. Shit, Mom was gonna be pissed.

  Author’s notes:

  Thanks for reading Zone War. It’s a new direction for me, a bit different from the Demon Accords (which I will be writing for a long time). Ajaya, Astrid, Harper and Rikki will all be back in the second book of the Zone War series, Borough of Bones. You can expect to see that book in 2019.

  Before I thank the usual suspects, I would like to dedicate this book to my friend Gary Eggers, a true gentleman who loved the idea that a finance guy could also be a writer of fiction. I miss my weekly conversations with you, my friend.

  Susan Helene Gottfried has helped coach readable sentences from my grammar challenged drafts and Gareth Otton has once again come through with a cover that captures my mind’s eye.

  My family is always behind me, urging me on, bucking me up and ready to bring me back to Earth when my imagination takes me too far away. Thank you Emilee, Alli and, of course, my lovely Robin. You three are the world I orbit.

  I also want to thank Susmita Dhakal and Rohit Tha Shrestha for giving me words and insights into the Nepali culture (as well as Alli for introducing and sharing your wonderful friends with me). Any translation errors or misquotes are solely my own.

  Please follow me at www.johnconroe.com or on Facebook at the Demon Accords page. Now please excuse me while I get back to work. There’s so much more to write.