by Sean Platt
“My dad had a really fancy Respero dinner a while back,” said the voice. Kai found she was increasingly awake somewhere inside, now able to muster pity at the man’s statement. He said “Respero dinner” like it was a fond memory rather than state-mandated euthanasia. Funny how all it took was a generation of repetition to convince people that murder was honor.
“Well, this is the same deal. We’re just doing it sooner. And I say, let’s throw her in naked.”
The stronger of the two voices let her down, and Kai found her head leveling, her right hand and leg lying on some hard, cold surface underfoot. Now she could see the evaporator a few feet ahead, looming above them like a furnace in an ancient tract home. The door on the front was already open, but the furnace itself hadn’t yet been turned on. The inside was pristine, like a tiny sterile hospital room.
As the second man laid her down, Kai found that she could see both of the men who’d been carrying her. The strong voice was coming from a large man, probably over six feet tall and easily 230 pounds. The timid, hesitant voice belonged to a thin man wearing glasses. Both were in blue coveralls, like the Directorate janitors who stole jobs from hard-working cleaner bots.
Kai felt tiny inklings of strength returning to her limbs, but she breathed deeply, forcing her muscles to stay limp. A kind of electricity was running all through her body, lighting everything. She felt herself powering up like a machine, but the returning strength was a fraction of what she usually had. Whatever Kane had done to her had popped Kai like a bubble. As she lay on the floor like a dishrag, Kai estimated that if she were to stand right now, she might have the strength of a moderately ambulatory towel.
The big man began fumbling with her shirt as the other man continued to protest. He was having problems with her dead arms, which were nothing if not in his way.
Then all at once, she realized what had happened.
Kai carried herself like escorting was all wine and roses, but she wasn’t stupid; she knew she’d chosen a dangerous profession. When she added in her few murder-for-hire jobs and her habit of stockpiling secrets, Kai’s activities put her quite a bit nearer to peril on a daily basis than most people. Hence the defensive add-ons; hence the manipulative enhancements…and hence her installed ability to play possum. Kai had been shot twice, and the only reason she was still around today was because she’d been able to play both wounds as fatal. One of the men who’d shot her had run off, but the second had stayed to check her pulse. He’d found her heartbeat stilled, her breath ceased. But it got even better; if he’d stuck around, he’d soon have found her skin cool and her galvanic responses absent. Thanks to the possum enhancement, trauma sent Kai into hibernation, and coming out of that hibernation felt like a system reset. She realized she’d have a strong pulse now, and normal brainwaves. Best not to give the men any reason to check.
“These are nice,” said the first man, reaching under her shirt. “Let’s keep her.”
“What?” said the first man.
“Like a doll. A big, retarded doll.”
The first man both looked and sounded panicked. “You can’t do that! What the hell is wrong with you? You…Kane! Kane will kill you, Paul! I’ll…I’ll tell him!”
The first man, who’d mostly straddled Kai’s inert form, rolled his eyes. “Relax. Holy West. I was kidding. Nice to know whose side you’re on, though.”
Kai could tell the big man had actually only been half kidding, because as he sat on her chest, a stiffness in his crotch belied the fact that he was rather enjoying himself. It wasn’t a big deal to Kai; his fondlings were buying her time. So she used that time to move her mind beneath the veil of consciousness and assess herself. Her mind saw the possum program as a dashboard filled with lights. Right now, every meter on that dashboard was only lit a quarter of the way up. Enough to run, maybe, but not enough to outrun anyone.
Right now, Kai couldn’t be strong or fast. She’d have to figure out how to get the most out of what she had.
The thin man had turned, looking at the evaporator. Her hand was at his ankle. Kai wondered if she could trip him. But then what?
“Come on, Paul,” he said to the bigger man. “Let’s toss her in and be done.”
“So now you’re for killing?”
“If the alternative is this, yes.” He glanced at the big man, who was still straddling Kai.
Kai found a spot deep in her throat then made a shallow noise. Enough to be overlooked.
“Did you hear something?” said the man on Kai’s chest, cocking his head.
“No.”
“I think she made a noise.”
“Maybe she wants you to get off her.”
The big man smiled an evil smile. “Maybe she likes it.”
Kai made the noise again, louder this time.
“What’s that, sweetheart?” said the big man, leaning in. He puckered his lips for a kiss. The thin man in glasses turned away.
Kai let the big man push his lips onto hers before she pushed back, then bit his nose with everything she had.
The man tried yanking his head away, but even a quarter-strength bite from Kai’s strong jaw was enough to embed her incisors and canines deep enough that he wasn’t able to easily shake free. He tried to stand, but the weight of Kai’s head (and, as he rose farther, her torso) stopped him. He lost his balance and tumbled forward. Kai’s knee was ready, catching the man in the balls.
The thin man spun. Kai might be able to reach his nuts too, but it would be a paltry strike, and she was betting it wouldn’t be necessary given the personality profile she’d worked up on him. So instead, her face smeared with the big man’s blood, Kai widened her eyes and snarled, “Run.”
After a moment of indecision, the man ran.
With only one assailant to contend with, Kai rated her chances at fifty-fifty. She’d taken the man off-guard, and he appeared closer to janitor than soldier. His struggles had sawed her teeth farther into his nose, and she felt herself press against something unyielding and rubbery. So she was down to the cartilage already? That was fast.
The big man was flopping all over, rolling and thrashing and spraying droplets of blood like rain from the sky. A great glut struck Kai’s own nose and lips before it ran down her neck, smelling like copper. She realized she would never be able roll him by force — especially clamped onto his nose and as weak as she was — so she growled “Roll over” around her gritted teeth and kneed him in the jewels again. This time, she struck them sidelong as if trying to carom one of his testicles off the other like a trick pool shot. He flinched away, and she rolled with him, now on top.
Despite his agony from both ends, the man was gaining his wits. His arms came up and found Kai’s neck, so she put one thumb into each of his eyes and pushed until she felt brain. Or at least, she imagined it was brain.
When Kai stood, covered in gore and weak at the knees, the man in blue had two bloody hands covering his face, howling.
“Hope my tits were worth it,” Kai said, spitting fragments of nose back into his face. Then, unable to stop herself, she added, “Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they are.”
She ran.
Sixty seconds earlier, the thin man had left through a door at the far end of the warehouse space, so Kai went the other way. It made sense that he’d run back to mommy — toward the center of whatever this building was — so the opposite direction should lead her to the nearest perimeter. She was right, and soon found herself facing a small lawn and an unimpressive eight-foot chain-link fence.
An alarm began screaming. She could already hear yelling and the tromping of feet. She assessed her chances. The fence was just a barrier and nothing more. It wasn’t intended to keep prisoners in because wherever she was looked more like a factory than a prison. There were no guard towers. But, maybe a hundred yards distant, she could see black-clad Beamers starting to swarm. They’d have slumberguns, probably even slamguns. And seeing as she was already supposed to be dead, they wouldn’t hesitate to use
the latter.
Kai looked at the fence and leapt.
But she’d forgotten how weak she was, and found she could barely leave the ground. Her legs extended; hyperextended; she came up on her toes; her face met the fence. She grabbed it and, feeling her limits and seeing the closing Beamers, began to feel her heart hammer in panic. She got one foot up, pushed, missed her toehold with the other. She pulled with her hands, now finding the fence’s top, feeling the tines of twisted wire there gouging long scratches into her arm as she pulled and missed. Then she was up and over, falling hard onto the ground and feeling her wind knocked from her.
There was no time to waste. The Beamers were close. They fired through the fence, and Kai felt the nano-driven pellets woosh around her head, trying to find her. She dove into a deep patch of foliage and clawed through the green, feeling it on her hands, face, and mouth. It was fucking poison ivy. She hoped her nanos were up to the task, because she would have a bitch of an itchy rash to clear. If she survived, that is.
Without warning, Kai tipped forward. Quite by surprise, she’d found the edge of the ivy, the edge of the building’s property, and a steep, rocky downslope all at once. She went ass-over, rolling in an untidy somersault. Something snapped in her chest, and she yelled out, but her cry was drowned in the firing of slumbershots, slamshots, and the scrabble from a scree of rocks sliding beside her. She reached the bottom in a heap, feeling nearly dead and completely battered, then climbed behind a fallen log and waited. And waited. And waited. But above her, the ridge was clear. The Beamers hadn’t tried to climb the fence. Maybe they still would. Thanks to the fall, she’d regained her lead, but she had to keep moving.
Kai took one step, then another. She found her legs and ankles unbroken as she shambled into an unsteady run, soon slipping off her shoes and moving barefoot, stepping so she wouldn’t leave tracks. But after a few minutes she decided she’d probably been safe after she’d cleared the fence. Beamers didn’t do well in natural environments. Forests, rivers, and prairies weren’t artificial enough for them.
As she put more distance between herself and her pursuers (who may or may not be behind her, and who might also have sent hoverscouts), Kai felt her small impetus of energy beginning to deplete. She was tired, battered, and damaged. She kept thinking of what she’d felt on the Orion, and somehow the thought alone was enough to hobble her. Her legs moved slower, each step remembering the pain she’d felt before. She longed for sleep, or maybe death. Her body seemed ambivalent about which of the two came. Still, through will alone, she used everything she had to keep going for a bit longer. But after a while, she couldn’t even do that.
Curling herself into a ball behind a fallen log, Kai pulled the artificial fingernail from her right ring finger. She whispered to it, and it flew up and away, into the breeze, off to deliver a message to her only hope: the man who had taught her to kill without spilling blood.
Season 2
EPISODE 4
Nicolai woke, stalked half-awake into the shower, and let his apartment’s canvas do all the work. The canvas turned on the lights ahead of him; it started the shower at the perfect temperature (Nicolai liked the water piping hot); it turned on the surround dryer when he stepped out naked. Normally, Nicolai wanted to do things himself, feeling a very non-Directorate desire to not be taken care of, but today he craved coddling. If he didn’t have a Saturday brunch appointment with Isaac to get ready for, he’d go back to bed and let the apartment’s bots prepare him an elaborate breakfast and feed it to him in bed. He’d order in. He’d get a massage. Anything but working, or exerting effort.
Nicolai’s head pounded. He was much more tired than he should have been. He remembered a late Friday night and Isaac’s speech and too much political posturing. Being a stooge was, for Nicolai, like being a boxer with both hands tied behind his back. He always felt battered after having to circle a room with a dumb smile that said everything was under control. Yes, he made excellent money as Isaac’s speechwriter, but his job always seemed to extend far beyond being a speechwriter, far past even being a consultant or adviser or right-hand man. He was like a janitor for Isaac’s reputation, and he’d been cleaning up for Isaac for as long as he’d known him. It was as if their careers were braided: one career trajectory for two men. Isaac didn’t pay attention to details, so Nicolai had to unless he wanted both of them to end up looking like shit.
In fact, Isaac reminded Nicolai of Enzo, a boy he’d known back in Italy. Enzo’s family had been nearly as rich as Nicolai’s, but both of their parents had made them get jobs in the sailing club that both families belonged to. The idea was to instill a work ethic in the boys so they wouldn’t get too comfortable with getting everything for free. Nicolai accepted the lesson and did his job well. Enzo, on the other hand, knew it didn’t matter, so he didn’t even try. When they were told to stock shelves, Enzo threw things into place without regard to order or presentation. Nicolai, who knew Enzo’s work would reflect on him too, always stayed late to stack things nicely, to turn labels so they faced out. He cleaned up for Enzo so they’d both look good because the alternative was both of them looking bad. Today, working with Isaac felt very much the same.
As Nicolai stood in the dryer, he rolled his head back, feeling it ache. Why did his fucking head hurt so much? He rolled it around, feeling for damage. There was none, but it felt like maybe there had been, and that his body hadn’t yet gotten around to the deep tissue after handling the larger trauma. Maybe he’d been run over by a truck in his sleep. Maybe his muscles were bunched from tension. But what tension was there, beyond the normal irritation that came with being Isaac Ryan’s toady?
“Canvas,” said Nicolai.
A chirp answered him.
“I’d like a massage. Internal tissue.”
“Yes, Nicolai,” said a soothing female voice. “Would you like your diagnostic pad? It’s in the living room.”
His canvas could talk to his nanos, but Nicolai usually preferred to direct any necessary repairs manually by using a diagnostic pad that would also tell him which parts required attention. But today, getting the pad and directing repairs sounded like entirely too much work. The dryer’s hot air felt good, and Nicolai wanted to stand in it a while longer. He peeped at his bathroom mirror, saw the time displayed in its corner. He had time.
“No. Just direct massage here…” He touched the back of his neck. “And he…”
Nicolai stopped in the middle of the word “here” because he’d been about to direct his nanobots to massage his face. That was where it hurt most, but it wasn’t a place a person normally had muscular tension. Had he been drinking the night before? Nicolai didn’t think so, but falling onto his face was the only way to explain the throbbing. Unless he’d been punched, which he very much didn’t recall.
The canvas chirped, indicating it was still waiting for him to finish his command.
“Canvas, give me a verbal assessment. Internal tissue. What needs attention?”
The canvas indicated the areas Nicolai was already feeling discomfort — his neck, his face, and, strangely, his wrists. The system reported already-polished and burnished bruises that had been on his hips, right leg, and left arm, near the shoulder.
“Was I beaten up?” The question was rhetorical, and Nicolai asked it lightheartedly as if intending the canvas to laugh, but the canvas cut off its response as a mail message came through in the bathroom mirror, marked urgent. Twice, meaning that it was double-urgent. An Isaac move for sure.
Nicolai read the message and groaned, knowing full well that Isaac had sent the summons (a summons to his apartment instead of their Saturday brunch spot; what the hell?) so that he could deliver a tirade in person. Isaac didn’t want to waste his rage over a vid connection; he wanted to yell about whatever it was in person. What Nicolai had just gotten was essentially a note to meet him in the principal’s office. Another total Isaac move.
Nicolai told the canvas to direct his nanos, expediting repairs and init
iating internal massage, then got dressed and hired a hovercab at street level. Given a choice, Nicolai normally preferred non-hovertransport for personal reasons, but Isaac’s message had been marked double-urgent and sounded like a prelude to a hissy fit, so he shouldn’t dally. Unfortunately, enduring hissy fits was one part of what Nicolai was paid so well to do.
Ten minutes later, the cab docked onto the guest port of Isaac and Natasha’s penthouse. The port detected the cab as a non-Ryan vehicle and blacked out the glass, then turned the port itself into a kind of faux, Beam-generated foyer with art on the walls. The foyer-port even had piped-in elevator music — Isaac’s idea of clever.
“Good morning, Mr. Costa,” said the canvas. “Would you like me to alert the Ryans that you have arrived?”
“No, I’ll just hang out on the side of the building,” said Nicolai, looking out through the open wall and the precipitous plummet to the street.
The canvas chirped.
“I’m kidding,” said Nicolai. “Yes, please let them know.” He rolled his eyes. Of course Isaac kept his canvas stupid so he could feel superior. Such sarcasm would have killed at Nicolai’s.
“Of course, Mr. Costa.”
Nicolai waited, listening to the elevator music, recognizing the warbling voice of Samuel Bolton. There was a family who knew how to recycle. Bolton’s songs were all his great grandfather’s, written untold numbers of years ago. Each generation tweaked the songs then rolled around in the innumerable credits generated by the timeless classics.
After a moment of waiting, the foyer’s privacy walls dissolved back into the clear glass they’d been before the cab had approached. A door at the far end opened. Nicolai waited to see a familiar face greeting him, but given the glass’s transparency, it quickly became obvious that he was alone and presumably supposed to enter on his own.