Machine State

by Brad C Scott

  My gaze slides toward the hundreds of people surrounding the 11/15 Memorial, its thirty-foot length composed of steel scavenged from the former One Metropolitan Plaza. They seem in no rush to vacate, many still sitting in camp chairs amidst the pale trunks of the maples, only the kids showing any interest in moving. The upright projections of molded steel simulating the pre-war buildings of downtown gleam in the mist-laden air past their heads, the Memorial a fitting tribute to an old tragedy. And now, potentially, the focal point of a new one.

  “Sam!” I shout over the noise, vaulting the barricade into the street, “Are you saying there’s a bomb at the Memorial?” The street’s crowded still, forcing me to push my way through.

  “It’s just a guess, but if the secondary package is in play, it’s a likely spot.”

  “Then why are you moving toward it?”

  “I can disarm it.”

  “Negative!” I shout, elbowing somebody aside, “Leave that to the bomb squad!”

  I make it across the street into the park, the Memorial only fifty meters or so away. Pausing to look around, she’s nowhere to be seen among all the milling people. The area around the memorial remains crowded, the people there slow to disperse.

  “First Redeemer Adams to all units,” I send over the security channel, “be advised that a package may be located at the 11/15 Memorial. I repeat: a package may be located within the park at the Memorial. Concentrate evacuation proceedings there and dispatch EOD.”

  I see an immediate response from a pair of constables as they turn to make their way toward the Memorial. It will take a minute for the bomb squad to arrive.

  Malcolm, thoughtspeaks Patton, Gypsy and I are inbound to perform intensive localized scanning and jamming. You should evacuate the area immediately.

  Copy that, I reply. “Sam!” I shout, looking about. “Sam! Where are you?”

  “Malcolm!” comes her shout.

  Stopping, I turn and see her among a group of people beneath the trees, a device in her hands as she steps toward the Memorial. I breathe a sigh of relief and move in her direction.

  “Malcolm! I need to get –”

  A massive boom cuts her off and a hot wind launches me through the air. The world whirls around me in a prismatic blur and then I collide with an unyielding surface, bouncing and rolling and tumbling. A great roaring fills my ears, then only silence punctuated by a continuous sharp tone. Everything fades to black…

  Malcolm? First Redeemer, respond.

  … What? Who? Where am I? My face rests on… Grass? I open my eyes and raise my forehead. The slight movement makes my head reel, but I persist, drawing my arms in to lever myself onto my side. Either my eyes don’t work, or I’m in complete darkness. Wherever I am, it’s not only dark, but silent. No, not silent, just muffled. I hear screaming and shouting as if from a great distance. Then the pain hits me. Sharpest from the left arm, maybe broken. Gasping and groaning, I roll over onto my back. My head throbs, wet, gashed somehow. My entire body feels as if I’ve received a jailhouse beating.

  There was an explosion. Must have been a bomb. I’m in the park somewhere –

  Malcolm, please respond.

  Patton. I’m here. I’m hurt, but alive. Wait: the park? Sam was nearby.

  “Sam… Sam!” I shout, my own words muffled in my ears.

  It’s almost more than I can bear, but I manage to get my legs under me. No good – I fall to my knees, head reeling. Shaking it, I try to clear out the darkness. Slowly, ever so slowly, my eyes begin to work again.

  “Sam!” I shout.

  Malcolm, first responders are on the way.

  “Malcolm!” I hear from a distance. “Hawk, help me with the first redeemer!”

  “Sam!” I shout.

  Hands are on my shoulders as a face appears before me. It’s blurry, but I can make out Evans. “Malcolm!” she says, “Malcolm, can you hear me?”

  “Help me up!” I growl.

  With my right arm over her shoulder for support, she gets me to my feet.

  “We need to get you to –”

  “No!” I interrupt. “Later! Right now, you’re my eyes and ears. Help me find her.”

  “First Redeemer,” says Hawk, “what are your orders?”

  My eyes and ears get back on the job. The screaming resolves itself into the cries of the injured and the wailing of loved ones, the cacophony blending with the blaring of sirens and the shouting of first responders. All around us, indistinct human figures rush about through a haze of smoke. Other people lie or sit about, some hunched over the prone ones. My gaze comes to rest on a small group in the midst of hysterics, two women and a man huddled over someone or something. The man lifts something off the ground into his arms and clasps it to his chest, shoulders shaking. An arm flops out. His daughter?

  “Sitrep,” I croak.

  “An explosive device detonated from the area of the Memorial,” says Hawk. “There are at least two score dead, an unknown number of injured. There’ve been no indications of a secondary target or attacks.”

  Patton, I thoughtspeak, can you locate Samantha?

  Negative, he replies, the explosion damaged my sensor array and propulsion assemblies. Gypsy also sustained damage. We are both grounded pending repairs.

  “Hawk, take over,” I say. “Help Keeland organize a response. Priority is to help the wounded. Let the constables deal with restoring order. Go.”

  “Understood, First Redeemer.”

  As he strides off, I say to Evans, “Kari, help me find Samantha.”

  “All right, Malcolm.”

  We make our way among the trees and agitated people, stepping over or around the dead, the injured, and pieces of smoking debris. My hearing and eyesight have returned to normal, though my head still rings and my body hurts everywhere. Besides my left arm, definitely broken, I may have busted a rib or three as well. I can’t let on, though, not until I find her. Bloody hell, where are you, Sam?

  “Malcolm,” says Evans. “Over there.”

  I look in the direction she’s pointing. A body in black formal attire lies sprawled in a patch of ivy, a body with a head of coifed blonde hair. I push off of Evans and stumble over.

  “Sam! Sam!”

  I reach her and go to my knees, gently turning her over. It’s her, eyes closed, pale face scratched, blood on her forehead, clothes torn. A cruel, pitiless hand squeezes my heart, crushing it. I reach down and feel for a pulse with shaking fingers – it’s there, but faint.

  “Get help, Kari,” I say, not bothering to turn.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Malcolm –”

  “Now! Get medical help now! Use your sidearm if you have to, just do it!”

  Evans runs off.

  “Samantha,” I say, cradling her in my arms, unmindful of my own pains. I caress her cheek with bloody, trembling fingers.

  “Stay with me. It’s not time to go yet.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “You’re one tough SOB,” says Simmons around a mouth full of chew, thumbs tucked in his belt. “How’s the arm?”

  “Broken,” I reply, settling the left arm in its sling.

  “Wish more people had your luck.”

  No, you don’t. “I’m three days behind the curve, Chief. Fill me in.”

  “Mass murder.” He turns his head and spits. “The third episode in as many days.”

  Simmons doesn’t fuck around with hyperbole. Six people ended up dead in this bomb shelter, evidence flags and chalk showing where their bodies were scattered amidst the burnt and blasted furniture and equipment. Whether they died by the incendiary explosion that blackened the concrete walls remains to be determined. Five of the corpses are on their way to the coroner’s now. The one still here requires specialized equipment to extract.

  “Friend of yours?” I ask, pointing at it with the right arm.

  The scorched skeleton splays atop a surgery station installed in the room’s center, its torso region a congealed mass of organic matter fused with
plastic and glass from the former diagnostic sheath. One skeletal arm is stretched out, fingers crooked, misshapen with burnt remnants of tendon and flesh. From the thrown-back skull, faint trailers of smoke rise from the dead space between the wide-open jaws.

  “No ID in that one,” he says, brushing back his overcoat to put a hand on his hip.

  The headache throbs again and I do my best to ignore it, though it feels like my brain’s about to burst out of my temples. “Your message was this is tied to the memorial attack?”

  “S’right.” He leans forward to spit his chaw again and cuts his eyes around.

  We’re not alone, of course. A half-dozen of his crime scene personnel comb through the seared remnants for evidence, tripod-mounted floodlights casting their shadows in vain against the scorch-black walls. A pair of agents wearing FBI jackets converse in one corner, ignoring the rest of us. And a solitary figure lurks in another corner, a phantom in a dark trench coat that I might have missed save for the glowing cyan of an eyeblade. Seeing my silent appraisal, the figure approaches, eyeblade winking out.

  “You’re all class, Simmons,” says the newcomer, at first glance unremarkable with his slight build and thin, pale face. His hawkish eyes say otherwise, implying casual lethality.

  “Malcolm Adams, DRR,” says Simmons, “Bruce Henrikson, DOD.”

  Henrikson stretches out a hand. “First Redeemer Adams, it’s a pleasure. I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  I return a firm handshake. “You’re 1115’s handler.”

  “Guilty as charged, and for so much more.” His quick smile fades, leaving dull anger and pain behind his eyes. “We have a mutual friend, Samantha Mathis. How’s she doing?”

  Her face fills my mind, slack with unconsciousness, pale from three days of a sunless stay in the same hospital I just came from. When we were admitted after the bombing… I nearly lost her. Critical condition, internal bleeding, a severe concussion. I might have traded in my soul then and there if they hadn’t stabilized her. Bandages cover her forehead and left cheek now – minor lacerations, the nurse said. Tubes and wires keep her alive and always monitored. The doctor said the head trauma is serious but recoverable. She just needs rest. I asked when she’d wake up, but he couldn’t give me a straight answer. So maybe never.

  I manage to keep most of the pain and rage off my face, but my eyes cut toward Simmons of their own accord, and if looks could kill… But no, confronting the chief comes later, after he’s had his chance for confession. Even he gets that much. I lock eyes again with Henrikson. “They just moved her out of ICU.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to visit since this nightmare began,” he says, expression speculative but wisely choosing not to pry. “Between all the confabs with my people, the chief here, and the reps with DSS and FBI, I haven’t had a chance to get any real work done. The memorial attack has the whole anthill stirred up. And now this.” He peers at the surgery station, eyes narrowed, before pulling out a cigarette and lighting up. “Disaster upon disaster.”

  “You get that shuteye yet?” asks Simmons.

  “No, and neither did you,” replies Henrikson.

  “Does unconsciousness count?” I ask.

  “Since we’re comparing cock sizes,” says Henrikson, “you should know, I’ve been given the green light by my superiors. The assholes responsible for this are in my crosshairs.”

  “You’re jumping the gun, Bruce,” says Simmons.

  “Am I?” Henrikson asks, eyes unyielding as a runaway train. Simmons returns the look with unblinking equanimity. Comparing cock sizes, indeed.

  “How soon,” I say, “until the coroner reports are available?”

  “Eight, maybe nine hours,” says Simmons.

  “All right,” I say, checking my neural interface, “since it’s just after eight, that gives us until this evening to gather more intel before committing to a response.”

  Henrikson gestures at me with his lit cigarette. “For a man recovering from head trauma, you’re surprisingly reasonable.” He cuts his eyes between the chief and me. “All right. Have it your way. But know this: my boys and I will not be denied payback.”

  “How many?” I ask.

  “Two of my boys were KIA here.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your men.”

  Henrikson stares at me, eyes murderous, and drags deep on his cigarette.

  I turn to Simmons. “You were getting me up to speed?”

  “Six dead,” he says, “all too burned for visual ID or fingerprints. Melted their chips, too. This was no gas-can-and-lighter routine.” Simmons steps over to a gun safe against one wall, the sole survivor of whatever hit this place, its shelves stacked with containers marked by evidence tags. “Took us a while to get this open. Here,” he says, pulling an item out and handing it to me.

  I turn the piece of curved black metal over in my hand. Shit. “Detonation drone?”

  “That’s our working theory,” says Simmons.

  “Theory, my ass,” adds Henrikson. “There’s no question that came from a DD.”

  I scowl and close my fist over it – these bloody things again. “This can’t be coincidence.” Supposedly, only DOD has access to detonation drones for use on foreign targets. They’re next-to-impossible to get on the black market, but Krayge’s people don’t seem to have a problem getting them. Or using them. “I saw one of these in play in LA. Outside DC, too.”

  Henrikson points at me with his cigarette. “And you walked away both times. That kind of luck should really be bottled.”

  “Can we ID it, maybe pull a serial number off what’s left?”

  “Negative,” says Henrikson. “They’re not made that way. I’ve already put in a search request for missing units or inventory discrepancies. It’ll be a dead end, though. Anyone who could get access to them would be savvy enough to cover the data trail.”

  I rub a hand over my head, as if that will make the pain stop. “New Dawn?”

  “This wasn’t them,” says Henrikson.

  “S’right,” says Simmons. “My informants say no, and no reason they’d hit this place.”

  “You know of,” I say. “Survivors of Jund Ansar Allah?”

  “He got them all,” says Simmons, eyes cutting at Henrikson, mouth twisting like he wants to spit again. “The last time a detonation drone was used hereabouts, DOD was in town. Two years ago, now, isn’t that right, Bruce?”

  Henrikson smirks. “No comment. We’ve recovered a few from the bearded assholes but never had them used on us. Thank Christ they don’t have the tech skills to hack them. Or,” he says with a wide grin, “it’s professional pride – never send a drone to do a man’s work.”

  Stepping up to the gun safe, I pull open the lid on an evidence container. A couple dozen microchips sheathed in plastic stare back at me, the kind used for neural interface devices. I run a hand through them, recognize various types of IDs. A few legacy models, but most are cutting-edge tech for cranial implants. The presence of the surgery station now makes sense.

  I turn and hold up a chip to Simmons. “Chop shop?”

  “One of eight we know operating in the city,” he replies.

  “What people will do,” says Henrikson, “to avoid the watchful eye of big brother.”

  Selling fake IDs is big business in the zones – criminal and terrorist networks can’t operate effectively without them. “Los Santos?” I ask.

  Henrikson field strips his cigarette and pockets the butt. “We got tipped: the shop’s owner is tight with Connor’s boys. Well, was. Isn’t that right, Chief?”

  “S’right.” Simmons squints at Henrikson, brushing back his overcoat to splay a hand on his hip. The move reveals his holstered sidearm, a bull-barreled .45 revolver. “Los Santos had a stake in this shop. We think three of the bodies are theirs.”

  “Whoever hit this place was after the cartel,” I say, pausing to look around at the fire-blackened walls, the near-total devastation. “A housecleaning. The group behind the memo
rial attack doesn’t want anyone left alive to finger them.”

  Henrikson speaks up, voice laden with accusation. “Seems the cartel is cozy with everyone hereabouts. Somehow, they got the updated security arrangements. Somehow, the bomb went undetected, even though St. Louis’ finest reported the location clean. Scanner malfunction? More like personnel malfunction, you ask me. Care to comment on that, Chief?”

  The bastard says nothing, just stares back at us, expressionless.

  In my mind, I step up to the chief, pull his pistol, press the barrel beneath his chin, and pull the trigger. My pulse races with the desire. Instead, I breathe deep and crack my neck. “Why can’t Los Santos be brought in for questioning?”

  “Their warehouse was hit two nights ago,” says Simmons, “before we had a chance to make any arrests. Five bodies cold on the ground, all cartel. CSI got nothing on their killers, not even a DNA trace. Whoever hit them knows how to cover a back trail.”

  “Well, nobody’s perfect,” says Henrikson, pulling out an object from his pocket, a steel shell casing. “An 8x57. Found two of them before your boys showed up, Chief. Somebody didn’t police their brass all the way.”

  Simmons takes the casing, peers at it with suspicious eyes. “Same as at the warehouse. The caliber is uncommon enough to grant a connection.”

  “You think?” mocks Henrikson.

  “Is anyone left?” I ask. “Is Connor Montoya still alive?”

  Henrikson directs a twisted smile at Simmons. “The chief claims the cartel’s number one man survived the hit and went into hiding with what’s left of his crew. Where is the question.”

  I lock eyes with Simmons, make sure he’s paying attention. “Do I have to ask?”

  Putting both hands on his hips, Simmons drops his eyes to the floor and keeps them there for some time. Seeing Henrikson open his mouth, I raise a hand to ward him off but keep my attention on the chief. It’s his shot, we’ll wait for it.

  “Malcolm…” Simmons sighs, raises his faded blue eyes to meet mine from beneath lowered brows. “I didn’t know.”