Ashes

by Russ Linton

  "I see you've reacquired your target."

  "Why the rush? You could get another highlight reel."

  "I've had enough of your games. Shall I—"

  Silence. Blessed silence. I wait for her to continue. Some employee probably got caught hacking a snack machine, and she had to respond. Or maybe a developer was playing Solitaire on a company machine. Out of control, those criminal masterminds at Nanomech. I've eaten up another fifty miles and conjured at least as many imaginary security threats more before I realize she still hasn't finished her thought.

  "Drake, open a connection to Nanomech."

  "Unable to comply."

  "Ummm, why?"

  "Frequency has been overloaded," Drake says, unnervingly happy.

  "And you didn't think to mention this because...?"

  "Remote operation is unnecessary. Pilot is present."

  If I never felt a proper bond with this magnificent yet homicidal machine, it absolutely solidifies in this moment. True, the damn thing feels transparent in the heat of a battle, but we've been through a lot together. The cold rationalization of why Xamse's hack is unnecessary feels like a validation.

  "Communications, remote access, all down?"

  "Affirmative."

  And he's right. I've hit a dead spot above a desolate place. Far below, Titan's red spot flares, his speed dropping. I watch as he takes a turn due north on a road oddly called Peace Pipe. I follow the path between jagged mountains rising like callouses from the desert floor, on through a tiny town I'm not sure anyone knows exists, and beyond, a flattened hellscape where the earth has been scooped out in giant shovelfuls.

  "Drake, what the hell is that?" His response isn't automatic.

  "Classified records show this is the Augment Proving Grounds."

  Nice. I've been set free of my chain and lured here. Wonder how this will go over with the boss. I'd bail, but I've been meaning to talk to her anyway.

  CHAPTER 30

  TITAN TAKES A WINDING drive while the sun tops the horizon. Blinding, the retina-searing globe is all business out here. No gradual, awe-inspiring displays, just straight to work as it burns through the residue of hangovers and all-nighters at smoke-filled card tables.

  Beyond the sleepy city of metal buildings and fenced perimeters, the road continues past a gated checkpoint. A few soldiers step out of a battered aluminum trailer which looks like a poorly wrapped burrito. Titan glides past on his bike without stopping.

  Five miles in, a forgotten couch and a massive wooden television cabinet mark the start of a long driveway. Titan transitions to the new road and trails a plume of dust. He's backed off the speed completely. He, or the lady he's working with, knows I'm intrigued enough to keep following.

  I scan the destination ahead. A single paved street runs through a sad collection of buildings. Parked at the center is a white SUV marked as property of the Department of Energy. I fire up the jets and leave Titan behind.

  Cantor and her driver stand beside the SUV. There's a mobile antenna perched on the vehicle's roof, the source of the signal jammer. The area surrounding them looks like a movie set mimicking an actual city.

  Naked foundations and piles of brick break up the dusty terrain. There's an upside-down house. Literally, the whole little bungalow on its roof, innards on display, almost as though done on a bet. A water tower shines like a sand-blasted mirror. A less fortunate metal warehouse displays a patina of rust and a host of scars. Peeled open and punched through, some of the holes are cartoonishly shaped like men. The only parking lot contains row after row of cars alternately melted, crushed, shattered like glass, or just rust stains where weathered, cracked tires remain. More experiments in destruction litter the grounds.

  It reminds me of Detroit.

  I don't want to be reminded of Detroit.

  Just beyond where Cantor has parked sits a corrugated metal hump with a door. A bunker. Home sweet home for Augment Force Zero. Behind the bunker is a metal plate largely obscured by the sand. Probably the remains of bay doors designed to open into a cavern below, like at Killcreek.

  I come in close for a landing, making sure to kick up a shit ton of dust in Cantor's face. She shields her eyes but resolutely doesn't move. Her driver cocks his head sideways and does his best to keep one eye on me, his hand resting inside his jacket where Drake helpfully outlines the bulge of a snub-nosed machine gun.

  "Well if it isn't my client," I say. Bringing my own hand up toward the top of the bulbous eyes, I gaze off down the dirt road. "And look, my target du jour inbound. What a coincidence."

  "Thank you for coming, Spencer. I didn't know if you could, so I made some arrangements."

  I stomp toward her driver who won't stop giving me the stink eye. "Your friend does know his MP7 is borderline useless."

  "Experimental ammo," he retorts. "Happy to give it a go."

  Today has not been my day for intimidation. First a gaggle of strippers stares me down and now this glorified chauffeur. Gaggle, is that even right?

  I give the gun scientist my back and face Cantor. "What do you call a group of exotic dancers?" I ask. "Are they just a crowd? Or is this a Raven and Crow thing like Kindness and Murder?"

  She doesn't appear thrown. She never does. "A troupe, perhaps," she answers. "But I'm here to talk about a different grouping."

  I let her slip into the extreme of the HUD and take a few steps toward the approaching cloud of dust. "Yeah, Augments, right? You want to see this one die for your experiments or whatever?"

  "Titan is here at my request. As your client, I'd like to rescind his mark as a target."

  I turn my head, and the HUD spins toward her, though the helmet stays stationary, tracking Titan. "What does Xamse have to say about that?"

  "Nothing," she replies.

  And here I am, lured out of radio contact right at the place she wanted to meet, a place I'm guessing Ayana and Xamse will quickly match up to my disappearance. As per their usual M.O., the spooks are trying to control me, use me for their agenda. I continue the speculation.

  "You want to fuck with my relationship with Nanomech. I get it. But I'm not playing your games." Knees bent, I get set to go vertical and feed her a helping of gritty wind.

  "Your father came here, Spencer. Stayed right over there." Frozen mid-crouch, I follow her pointing finger toward the bunker. "He wanted to help his country, that was all. He didn't have any agenda or ego, just a desire to serve."

  She's already sensed my hesitation. A skilled manipulator, she must know when the hook is in deep. Dad never spoke about his training or even his mission beyond what snippets happened to make the nightly news. When I saw those news reports, he was rarely there to answer questions.

  "They all did," she says. She strolls toward the squat bunker.

  I don't have a choice but to follow. When she reaches the door, she grasps a scaled knob which turns with a crunch. First a palm, then a shoulder, and she can't open the door. I plant the Battle Armor's hand above hers and give a light push.

  Dust cascades in a dense screen, alive in the growing light. Bunks line the walls cradling empty shells with rusted springs. A weird collection of scorpions and mice live out their own proving grounds amid the rubbish. No windows, no air. I'd say I can't imagine living here but I can. Dad and I might have even been close to the same age during our bunker banishings.

  "It's a shithole."

  She nods. "I hear the only time this place was tolerable was when Polaris was stationed here. He'd grow ice shelves around his bunk and trade similar accommodations for cigarettes and fresh fruit. The guy liked grapes, or so Hound told me."

  Hound. Follow your nose. Now I absolutely can't leave. Outside, Titan's crotch rocket whines into view.

  "Of course, men like your father stayed out of the heat." She points to another door on the back wall.

  The space beyond shouldn't be any bigger than a broom closet. I stride forward to investigate. In the closet, spiral stairs wind down deep under the desert.<
br />
  It's a tight fit, and the stairs look ready to crumple. Not that I wouldn't survive the fall. I'd love to see where he slept, where he worked. Explore those places which helped shape him into who he was. If he were here, he'd show me, I think. Give me the Benjamin Button tour as he stepped back through fucking relentless time.

  Cantor smiles and motions outside.

  Titan and the driver are both waiting beside the SUV. The Transporter dude has his gun on the hood, hands free. Titan leans against the SUV and waves a pudgy hand. Drenched in sweat, he looks like a cinnamon donut hole, round and dusted with a faint smear of grease. Dark slacks and a salmon colored shirt, he's got the collar splayed open to reveal a thick gold rope. Through the extra weight, I can kinda see the pre-Killcreek soldier with his high and tight cut and blocky face. His obvious toupee really throws me.

  "How'd the rug stay on for your ride?" I ask.

  He appears confused at first then sneers. Cantor reaches out to pull my arm toward the other side of this test tube town. We walk strangely arm in arm.

  "You realize I could pull your arm out of your socket." Not a threat but, hey, safety first.

  She shrugs, and the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes deepen. "Your Dad could too."

  That shuts me up. I'm lost in the past, trying to reconcile what I thought I knew and what I'd never been told. The urge to leave is still strong. I might have a chance to explain this to Ayana if I don't disappear off radar too long.

  We stop in front of the upside-down house. Piers where the house once rested protrude through a layer of sandy dirt like the battlements of a partly excavated ancient city. The house itself has settled into the soft sand as well. The shallow peak sags like the hull of a ship run aground. She's looking up at the base where the wooden frame has splintered in two matching divots.

  As I step forward, she falls back. Jets ignite with an easy hiss, and I rise to see the damage. My gauntleted hands reach out and fill the divots perfectly.

  "Was he pissed he couldn't stay in this house? Had to live in the hole, not a home?"

  "He made a bet," she answers.

  When was that point where Dad and I were just alike? Could we have gotten back there if we had only had enough time? I let one hand hang at my side.

  "Drake, release the right forearm."

  "Procedure not advised outside clean room conditions." The “are you sure” dialog given an annoying voice and terrible timing.

  "Just do it. Now."

  The gauntlet unlaces around my hand and drops. I settle bare fingers into the weathered wood. Bleached and ravaged by the heat, I want to believe I can feel the soft impressions where his fingers once were. I hold there, probably too long, the manipulator aware of my weakness.

  But who is using who here? Is she really using me if I get what I want? Vulkan, he needs to die, and only Hound has an idea of where he might be, and Cantor has to be the best path to Hound. Sure, my source is a hostile singularity, but as much as Chroma isn't playing with a full memory bank, she's always had a weird thing for me.

  A slow descent and I drop to one knee, intending to look as though I need to retrieve the glove, but I'm not sure I can stand upright even with the powered suit acting for my own muscle and bone. I heft the gauntlet into position, re-engage the lock, activate the seal.

  "Where's Hound?" I ask without rising.

  "That's one of the things I wanted to discuss with you," says Cantor. She moves up behind the armor and places her hand on my helmet. "He's working for me. I'd like it if you would, too."

  CHAPTER 31

  CANTOR GIVES ME SPACE as I stand, slowly, to make sure she's clear and that her driver doesn't feel the need to start something he can't finish. Titan, on the other hand, looks ready for round two. His shirt sleeve shredded on the arm where he dished out the bitch slap, I wonder exactly how big he can get. Big enough to shrug off a flesh wound from a thermal grenade?

  The target lock hasn't released, and the interference shouldn't affect guidance systems, just the comms. Any damage to the armor was light. The rear plates which took the impact were able to redirect most of the energy, and the nanos are stitching things up as I continue the threat assessment.

  "Weapons ready. Fire on your command," says Drake.

  His voice surprises me. It shouldn't. With fully integrated biological monitoring plus machine learning keyed to my every eye twitch and muscle synapse, Drake's built an extensive profile of his pilot. A systems status check with a locked target is as good as any other indicator I'm about to attack. That's what I've always done.

  "Weapons offline."

  "Affirmative."

  I move toward the SUV, and while I've personally decided to skip any unnecessary fights, Titan and the driver can't exactly read the body language of a guy in a bug suit. The driver casually retrieves his gun. For Titan, my onboard microphones pick up the creak of the seams of his clothes.

  "Seems you had a suit which could, umm, accommodate you back in the day," I say.

  "Government property," Titan replies. "They took it away, you know, Killcreek and all." He smiles, big, kinda creepy. "What? Worried you won't measure up?"

  "Woah!" I say, hands up. "I shoot lasers. Keep that in mind for your bris." For now, I'll ignore the threat of being smothered by a giant naked dude and approach the SUV, my attention fixed on the antennae. "Maybe I don't need to work for you," I call out, directing the words toward Cantor. "I'll just take this frequency jammer thingy of yours and mount it on my back. I can fly solo, for once."

  She's motioned for her thugs to stand down and comes closer. "That might be more difficult than you think."

  The window rolls down.

  Systems hadn't detected another person. There weren't any extra heat signatures inside the SUV, just some electromagnetic readings which could be passed off for whatever equipment was doing the signal jamming. Honestly, I should've known a car battery, or even a trunk load of them, couldn't offer enough power to flood out Xamse's variable frequency signal. No, this required precision.

  "Doing a little offensive decryption, as you might call it," Polybius says. His taut cheeks and forehead meet in swept curves of flesh like tented fabric. Chrome glints in the early morning sun. He's got a laptop open, his fingers moving even as he focuses on me.

  Happiness. That's the first thing I feel, happy to see his perpetually smiling face. It feels good to think, even if for a second, I can reclaim those pieces of my past which had been so promising. Polybius is the one who helped me break Drake's encryption routines. The man who knew my father in his own version of another life.

  But Dad's dead. And Polybius here, he not only didn't stop it, he contributed. He turned his back on us after Dad's efforts rebuilt him, gave him purpose.

  "Weapons ready."

  Drake again. I don't ask him to drop them offline this time.

  "I should paint the inside of that vehicle with what's left of your gray matter," I say.

  Titan's pants split down the legs. The chauffeur raises his weapon with a questioning look toward Cantor. Her eyes are wide, mouth tight, but she shakes her head.

  Any joy Polybius had, fades. "I hope you can forgive me." He looks like he wants to say more, but his gaze flicks to the guys ready to try—try—to stop me. His tapping on the keys skips a beat before resuming a mechanical patter. Captain Viagra and Driving Mrs. Daisy here probably don't know my real identity. Polybius does though. That's all that matters. "But what you are doing. Your father wouldn't approve."

  I grip the window sill of the car, metal rending, interior plastic cracking. "And he would approve of you switching sides? Are you going to tell me you were just a double agent too, like Danger and Hound? That I just don't understand all your cloak and dagger bullshit?"

  "No, that would be a lie. I joined the Collective for the same reason I first told your father about my suspicions regarding the MANTIS program. I saw it as the most logical way to protect all of us. If we could only bring the world together, there woul
d no longer be a need to call us weapons of one country or another. We could live free to pursue our own lives. Jupiter, he—"

  I push the SUV and release, sending it into a violent shake before wheeling on Cantor. "This is what you brought me for? To listen to Che Guevara here in his tinfoil beret? Are you fucking kidding?"

  Titan has gone from dress slacks to capris pants, his shirt pulled tight, mouth-like gaps between each straining button. Gun aimed, the Driver's asking for permission to shoot. I want him to, I realize. Make a move, any move. Jupiter and Tomahawk, they knew the score. So did the rest. Polybius has nothing but empty dreams of a future which will never exist.

  His expression hardens. "Do you remember our conversation at Whispering Pines?"

  I do. He wanted me to understand Augments were people, too. That was before one killed my father, and another wrecked the world. How many more times can normal, squishy people like me survive an Augment tantrum? Even the ones I respected and admired were complicit in this disaster.

  "Whispering Pines is dead," I say.

  "It doesn't have to be," Polybius says, his eyes searching. "You don't need to forgive me, or Shortwave, or any of us. You need to forgive yourself. Your past cannot be erased, there is only your future to create."

  I draw back a clenched fist. Rage through the voice scrambler sounds even more unhinged. Titan has put on serious mass, and he's readied a tree trunk sized arm of his own. The driver's sweating, his finger tight on the trigger.

  Cantor's chest rises as she takes in a deep breath. It's the closest I've ever seen to her losing her composure. This doesn't stop her from approaching my power armored tantrum in her pantsuit.

  "Walk with me?" she says.