“G, are you there?” Barbara contacted me on our infolink. S was trying to do the same, but I ignored her call.
“My name is Pablo, and I run artificial pets and taxidermy. Would you like a genuine artificial stuffed rabbit? How about an electric sheep? I won’t ask what you do with it, and you shouldn’t tell.”
“Ugh,” Barbara said. “I’m suddenly glad you were never involved in my life.”
“Most people who meet me feel the same,” I replied. “What’s the score?”
“Don’t go to the NaturalLife water plant,” Barbara said. “It’s under attack by Blackbriar troops.”
I blinked, then pulled my vehicle down behind one of the towers of an adjoining building. A satellite-generated rainstorm was occurring, drenching me as I walked out. I pulled on a pair of vid-binoculars that allowed me to pick up the feed from all the plant’s cameras. They fed it directly to my mind, and I saw a wholesale war going on inside. Blackbriar troopers were fighting Blackbriar troopers, killing each other. Neither side was taking prisoners.
Then I saw her. Marissa, leading the charge with a clear transparent steel helmet and a suit of power armor. The expensive kind. She executed one of the troopers on the ground and directed her own troopers to start searching from floor to floor. I tagged the number of troopers on both sides and determined there were at least a dozen left on Marissa’s side, while the remaining ones guarding the facility were evacuating.
“Well fuck,” I said, shaking my head. “Somehow, I don’t think Blackbriar is going to be around after today.”
“Blackbriar is a branch of HOPE,” Barbara said. “One of the ways Marissa invested her fortune. Presumably, the soldiers here were personally loyal to A rather than her.”
“And Zheng Wei had Blackbriar as his security,” I said, snorting. “Which is how they managed to get the information on nanotherapy in the first place. They had all the angles covered.”
“I don’t think so, since you’ve already screwed up their plans completely,” Barbara said. “The Black Dossier is in the hands of the Turing Society and Atlas now. The information will be valueless soon. Its power will last just long enough to get your new arcologies built. HOPE is being rebranded and you have eliminated A. There’s no way Marissa can pull a victory out of this.”
“She can capture Claire and turn her over to me in exchange for whatever she wants,” I said.
“Would you do that?” Barbara asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you have A’s memories about where Claire is located?”
“Yes,” Barbara said. “I can transfer you to it now. Shouldn’t you just leave it alone, though? Claire works for Marissa. There’s no reason you shouldn’t assume she’s going to happily join up with her and this is a rescue mission.”
“She needs to know she’s a machine,” I said.
“All right,” Barbara said. “I’m transferring the data now. You’ll have a couple of minutes at most if you go toward the spot. They aren’t there yet.”
“Thank you,” I said. I paused. “It was good knowing you. It’s… nice to have a daughter.”
“Don’t get killed,” Barbara said, cutting her feed off.
I wished I could promise her I wouldn’t. Instead, I focused on getting over to the water treatment plant, using a set of heavy pipes. I rappelled down a set of wires using my belt once I confirmed they could support my weight. The halls inside the facility were filled with bodies, and they’d missed the room where Claire was imprisoned only because the door was behind a stack of boxes.
The door had an electronic lock, but I didn’t have any problem prying it off. I’d seen inside the room earlier, the luxury accommodations where A had been keeping the woman he thought was Marissa. They’d been changed, however, with Claire suspended from a set of chains around her hands and a bucket underneath her. Her shirt had been sliced open, and there was white blood fluid spread all over the room, showing she’d been stabbed and allowed to bleed out.
She was still alive—cyborgs died hard—but barely. I ran up to her and immediately pulled the chains down, ripping them free from where they were screwed in. Laying her out on the ground, I cupped her head. “It’s okay, I’m going to get you out of here. We’ll get you a new Shell. Everything will be fine.”
“I’m not a person,” Claire muttered, her voice barely audible even to my enhanced hearing. “I’m a machine. Just another doll.”
“No more than I am,” I said.
“Did you know?” Claire asked.
“No,” I said, lifting her up. “I apologize for lying to you.”
“Did Marissa?” Claire said.
“Yes,” I said. “She commissioned you.”
Claire smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Give me a gun.”
“You know it’s my memories who formed her basis,” Marissa said. She was at the door, in full armor, and holding an FHT machine gun at me. “There was only so much they could do with the corpse of the woman they experimented on.”
“Step aside, Marissa,” I said, taking a deep breath. “It’s over.”
“You really are the viper to my farmer,” Marissa said, keeping the gun aimed at me. “After all we’ve been through, too.”
I couldn’t even begin to deconstruct what she said. “I’m not giving her back to you. She needs medical attention.”
“It’s my body; I want it back,” Marissa said softly. “You got the Black Dossier. You eliminated A. HOPE is gone. You’ve won. The fight still continues, though. Everything that’s gone can be rebuilt.”
“It’s over,” I said.
“I’m not your slave,” Claire said, managing to speak aloud as she reached into my jacket, running her hand over my shirt.
“I’ll need you,” Marissa said softly. “Both of you. The human race is on the verge of total destruction. The things I’ve seen would turn your hair white.”
“You’re not the savior,” I said, staring at her. “Step aside. Now.”
“No,” Marissa said. “I don’t want to use the codes I got from the Triumvirate, but I will.”
“Do it, Case,” Claire whispered.
I opened my mouth to speak, then I grabbed my fusion pistol and fired.
“I’m sorry,” I said, seeing the results of my actions.
Marissa lay on the ground, her helmet melted, and her brain case destroyed. There was a look of betrayal burned into her features. Claire was silent and passed away a few minutes later. She had a smile on her face. They’d been two children of the Old America identical in so many ways, but both warped by circumstance into weapons against the system. It was why I hadn’t been able to save them.
I killed every Blackbriar soldier in the building. It didn’t make me feel better. From that day forward, I had only the neon city and endless smog. I always managed to survive, it seemed, but everyone else around me died. Maybe that was my punishment for all the innocent lives I’d taken. To be the scourge of a world that consumed those who believed it could get better.
So be it.
Agent G: Assassin Page 23