Chromed- Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “Heaven is very complicated.” Zacharies sat, another empty plate in front of him. He’d eaten two lunches of something Mike called scrambled eggs and bacon. The bacon was crunchy and salty. Zacharies had never tasted anything quite so good. Mike had said everything was better with bacon. They were in the same cafeteria Zacharies ate the bagels in. He’d wanted to come back here, the memory of the food making his mouth water.

  “A little complicated, sure.” Mike tapped ash from his cigarette. They’d paused on the way to get a pack of cigarettes from a machine of metal and lights.

  “You have no slaves, and no masters.” Zacharies frowned at his plate. So perfectly made. “Yet you have masters, and slaves.”

  Mike tipped his hand back and forth in the air, maybe, the cigarette trailing smoke. “Sort of. Maybe the best way to describe it is to say you choose your master.”

  “What if you don’t want a master?” Zacharies’ flash of anger was hot and quick, his voice overloud. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay, kid.” Mike pulled on his cigarette. “Not many people run solo these days. A few on the edges. Illegals, mostly.”

  “Illegals?”

  “No link,” said Mike, tapping the back of his neck. “No trace. Off the grid. Illegal.”

  “What makes them illegal?” Zacharies turned the word over in his mind.

  Mike frowned. “You want another coffee?”

  “Yes please. May I … may I have cream again?”

  Mike laughed. “Sure. It’ll be here in a sec. You can order coffee too, if you like.”

  “How?”

  “The link lets you do things. Order coffee. Order a hooker. Whatever.” Mike looked away.

  “And … illegals can’t order coffee?”

  “Sure they can, but not from anywhere that doesn’t suck. You need cash, something close to the grid but not on it. Borderline living. Not my thing. Not my thing at all.”

  Illegal. The link chattered away, the meaning of the world falling into place in Zacharies’ mind. “What crime did they commit?”

  “Who?”

  “The illegals. What crime did they commit to be illegal?”

  “They’re not linked, kid.” Mike sighed. “Maybe it’s not technically illegal. Will be soon. There’s a new law coming.”

  Zacharies touched the back of his neck where a machine had kissed his skin. He couldn’t feel a mark there, but knew something was inside him, talking to him, helping him understand words in a language he didn’t speak. “What do you mean, it will be soon?”

  “It’s like this. It’s kind of … useful for syndicates to know where people are, what they buy, who they’re buying it from, and what relationships they have. Who they argue with, or the porn they download.”

  “Porn?”

  “Later,” said Mike. “So, we applied a little pressure on the civilian government.”

  “You are the masters of the Masters?”

  “No, we’re—”

  “You are making people do something they don’t want to do, are you not?”

  The coffee arrived, the waitress putting cups on the table. They both ignored her, silence a heavy thing between them. Mike spoke first. “It’s better this way. The possibilities—”

  “I don’t know, Mike. I think…” Zacharies trailed off.

  “What, kid?”

  “I don’t think Heaven is the place where people are made to do the things they don’t want to do. Heaven’s a place of possibility and freedom.” He stopped, the words having come out in a rush like they wanted to be free of him. It was something Laia would have said.

  “Freedom, huh?”

  “Yes,” said Zacharies. “It shouldn’t be illegal to make your own choices.”

  “Even if it’s better this way? Look at us. We’re talking because of the link.”

  “Even,” Zacharies leaned forward, “if it meant bacon every day.”

  Mike laughed, a clean and happy sound. His eyes sparkled as he looked at Zacharies as if seeing him anew. “Zach? I’m pretty sure we need you around here. Will you stay?”

  “Stay?” Zacharies looked at his coffee with cream. “I need to find Laia.”

  “Yes,” said Mike. “I promise we’ll find your sister.”

  “Because you want me to stay?”

  “No,” said Mike. “Well, yes, that too. But because that’s what friends are for.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sadie’s breath came hard as she steadied the rifle against her shoulder. The weapon cracked, bucking against her shoulder, and one of the misshapen, hungry things in the rain spun, falling. The weapon cycled, a soft whine rising above the level of her hearing. She spat, grit and bile hitting the ground.

  Haraway was to her left, holding an SMG with a hand that shook with fatigue. Laia huddled behind them, eyes wide with fear.

  Fucking company man. Left us here to die.

  Haraway threw her a glance as if she heard Sadie’s thought, hefting her SMG. “This one’s almost empty.” They both looked at the second SMG where it lay on the ground, the weapon having run dry what seemed an age ago. “How’s the rifle?”

  “Hell if I know.” Sadie looked through the scope. “It’s not like we’ve been dating long. I guess he’s fine. First time out. Exciting evening. Didn’t go how either of us expected.”

  Haraway gave a tight little laugh. “Freeman—”

  Sadie pulled the rifle’s trigger, the shot tumbling a body in a whirl of too damn many arms and legs, the rain following the creature to earth. The whine cycled for the tenth time. Or was it the twentieth?

  Her head pounded. She wanted a drink, something warm and amber, a rock of ice the size of an asteroid dropped in the bottom of the glass. But no, it couldn’t be a simple night with a decent drink and good music — it had to be monsters. Sadie fired, missing, something cackling and screeching outside.

  “You’re a good shot,” said Haraway.

  “I missed,” said Sadie.

  “That time,” agreed Haraway. “I thought you said you were a singer.”

  “I sing.” Sadie pulled the trigger again. A crack, a whine. “I do other shit too.” She thought of her father, her lips settling into a flat line, and she shot something else in the rain.

  A crash against the brick beside Haraway. The woman spun, SMG hammering the wall. Ancient plaster shattered. An answering scream, half rage, half pain came from the other side. Laia whimpered.

  “Be the end soon,” said Haraway. “I didn’t figure it’d be like this.”

  “What, torn limb from limb in a town that’s not on a map, tossed under the bus by the company you work for?” Sadie snorted.

  “Yeah.” Haraway smiled. “I also figured it’d all work out.”

  “What would work out?” Sadie frowned.

  “Marlene.” Haraway looked like she wanted to say something else.

  “Who’s Marlene?”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” said Haraway. “Think they’ll rush us again?”

  “I would,” said Sadie. “They gotta be running out of dudes, though. One thing’s bothering me.”

  “Just the one?”

  “For now.” Sadie glanced around, making sure there weren’t more surprise assholes coming for them. “This place was deserted when we walked in. Where’d they all come from?”

  “The rain,” said Laia.

  “Sure,” said Sadie. “They fell from the sky.”

  “No,” said Laia. “The demon brought them.”

  “Sure,” said Sadie again. “But no. Someone’s pissed ‘em off.”

  “Who?” Laia’s voice was small, almost lost in the hiss of rain. “There are so many of them.”

  Sadie glanced at the girl. Chin up, kid. “There’s someone that springs to mind.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mason looked up the shaft, darkness looming above suit light’s reach. He steadied himself against the wall. His leg wasn’t working right. The lattice shifted under his s
kin as the overlay chatted in his vision, diagnostic routines indicating FRACTURE: FEMUR.

  It could wait.

  The bodies around him were … lumpy. There was no other word for it. Mason could see that under the suit’s lights. Their stark brightness made the shaft a haunted house scene, the shadows tall and sharp on the walls. He looked to the side, a tunnel running into the dark.

  The overlay said the reactor room lay that way. Down in the dark, things had made their home next to a cracked casing leaking rads. His vision frosted with static for a second, and he debated about whether he should go down the tunnel. After all, he’d find what was waiting.

  Fuck that noise. It was time to get the hell out of here. Mason set his hand on the ladder lining the shaft’s wall and climbed. Mason’s link turned off the pain in his leg, but it still wouldn’t hold his weight properly. His whole side was going to bruise. He remembered the fall.

  Tumbling in the dark, something screaming and clawing at his face. He hit the shaft wall, the impact tossing him in another direction, wind rushing past as he spun. The sound of the taser firing was almost constant until he slammed into the ground, something in his leg giving with a crack.

  The fall had been a long way, hadn’t it? Augmented bone and bionic augmentations had their breaking points.

  The ladder groaned, the old metal complaining under his glove. He saw it bend, the metal pulling away like taffy, before it gave way, dropping Mason to the bottom of the shaft again. He covered his head with his hands as pieces of metal rained down.

  Silence. Mason looked back up the shaft, the metal ladder gone from just above his head to a good three or four stories above him. He sighed, glancing at the tunnel running away from the shaft into the dark. To the reactor casing, and a family of monsters who’d made it their home.

  “This day just keeps getting better.” No one answered him. Mason squared his shoulders. The mission, Floyd. He still had a job to do.

  The tunnel was newer than the facility above. Things had clawed it from raw rock. It didn’t go very far before opening into an empty chamber. No reactor housing, no construction, just an empty room. The overlay hissed, his vision scattering as the lattice bunched and moved, looking for a way out.

  There’s a lot of rads in here, but where are they coming from? Mason looked up at the roof. The room stood out as he switched his optics to low light. It was clear there was no containment breach. Why? Because there wasn’t a reactor here anymore.

  Also, he was still alive. The protection in his skin was enough to keep the rads out, and no way he’d be able to stand next to a breached reactor. No tech Apsel had could do that. The overlay hissed again, his vision flickering and rolling.

  Mason walked to the middle of the chamber, turning. Now he was here, he could see the floor was curved. He looked at the walls carrying the same indentation. A sphere, pushed in here from somewhere, punching the raw rock aside. Wherever the portal opened to, well, they’d got a reactor in the face. The thing was just gone.

  Mason looked at the roof. There was something up there, a block of black metal wedged into the concrete. “I’d bet that’s giving off a lot of rads.” The darkness ate his words. Someone had left a radiation weapon here, to hide the fact they’d taken the real reactor away.

  That someone wore Federate armor. And they’d wiped all memory of the act away. They’d made a whole town vanish.

  Something hissed in the darkness. Mason brought the suit’s beams up brighter. A man, freakish and twisted, shielded his eyes against the light, hissing again. Ragged clothing whirled as he turned and ran, ducking into a tunnel.

  A tunnel that might lead out.

  Yeah. Good idea. It was time to leave, touch daylight again, and get away from the atomic weapon wedged in the roof.

  Away from the Apsel accident and its missing reactor. Away from the evidence of a sphere that shoved the walls of the containment chamber aside. Mason had seen a device that made spheres in the air. People had come through it. Made sense you could send things the other way, like a reactor. The sphere device was old. As old as Gairovald and his Apsel syndicate. Maybe even as old as Richland, a town torn from memory.

  Mason jogged into the tunnel, his gait lopsided with his broken leg. The lattice worked hard to keep him steady, the pain locked off in a corner of his mind.

  He didn’t have time for mysteries. That was someone else’s mission.

  Moving through the tunnel felt oppressive. Moisture seeped through the walls, like cold sweat. The suit’s lights pushed the shadows away, but his audio picked up movement ahead.

  And movement behind.

  Mason drew the Tenko-Senshin. The little weapon hard-linked through his glove, it’s tiny AI babbling. It sounded almost happy. He raised it as he jogged through the tunnel, the lattice making his footing sure even on the tunnel’s uneven surface. This one was hand-carved, just like the last.

  He saw a side branch ahead, his overlay adding it to the map in the corner of his vision. Mason slowed, looking down the tunnel. A monster leaped at him, clawed hands reaching. The Tenko-Senshin screamed, flechettes ripping through its body, the air sparking with the heat. Mason held the trigger down, a part of the thing’s body tearing away, flames peeling from flesh before it hit the ground.

  He stopped firing, silence held at bay by the hum of the reactor at his back. Mason coughed as the smoldering body smoked. He heard no other movement, the sounds behind him gone. Keep moving.

  Mason turned back to the main tunnel. He paused after a few meters. Mason could taste the change in the air. Mason switched off the suit’s lights. His optics picked out light from ahead, delicate, faint like morning mist. He broke into a jog, favoring his leg, and emerged into the rain.

  Mason closed his eyes, breathing deep. Free. Safe. Outside. Water washed over him, not burning, pure and clean.

  He heard the crack of a weapon. Mason’s eyes snapped open. The town lay blurred by the rain, but there was no mistaking the Federate’s rifle he’d left with Sadie. His gut twisted with fear as he noticed the ground outside the tunnel was trampled, the mud churned by the passing of feet.

  A lot of feet.

  He ran back to the place he’d left them, the lattice shrieking and shuddering against the pain from his leg. Misshapen forms loped alongside him, visible through the rain. A huge creature roared, and he raised the Tenko-Senshin, but it vanished in a squall, lost as the rain howled.

  The mission.

  Mason pushed himself faster.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Rain cascaded against the monster, matting remnants of hair along the shiny, slick surface of its skull. It was huge, over two meters tall, and covered in rippling muscles. Sadie considered the signpost it carried, the monster holding it like it weighed no more than a flyswatter. Maybe it eats the other ones? It wasn’t spindly, roaring its rage into the storm.

  Sadie shouldered her rifle, pulling the trigger. The weapon clicked, then beeped three times, short and insistent. Empty.

  The creature bared teeth, rushing their small shelter. Haraway raised her SMG, firing wild, precious rounds lost in the uncaring rain.

  The thing slammed into the wall of their shelter. Old brick cracked, dust falling from the ceiling. Laia screamed. Sadie spun, trying to grab the girl in her panicked flight, but her fingers closed on empty air. “Laia!” The girl was gone, dashing past the monster as rain hammered earth.

  The monster ignored Laia, leering at Sadie. Rotted teeth lay like crooked tombstones in a mouth like wet clay. It reached for her, jagged nails at the end of a massive hand.

  Fuck this thing. Fuck this place and fuck these company assholes. Sadie tossed her rifle, catching the barrel. She swung it like a bat, the heavy stock hitting the monster’s hand. It roared, stepping back. Glaring, it crunched away, steps churning dirt into mud. Laia. It was following smaller, easier prey.

  Sadie glanced at Haraway, then to the rain. “We have to help her.”

  “Probably,” said Haraway.
“How?”

  “I play guitar. How the fuck should I know?” But Sadie’s feet seemed to know. She ran outside, the water drenching her in an instant. Sadie squinted, spotting something huge and shambling. She ran toward it. Only an imbecile runs toward monsters.

  Other, smaller creatures called to each other at the edge of her vision, pacing alongside, marking her progress. Sadie’s breath came ragged, chest heaving as panic rose, but she pushed it down. There. Through the rain she could see light bobbing toward her. It cast Laia’s small frame into contrast.

  It also cast the monster’s frame into stark relief. Its shoulders bunched as it roared defiance.

  The light slowed, steadying. Sadie realized she still held the empty rifle, dropping it to the muddy street to clatter at her feet. For just a moment, the rain stopped, the sky taking a great breath in. Sadie saw Mason push Laia behind him. His face looked pale in the light, his armor brilliant, challenging the rain to do more.

  The creature ahead of her hefted its pole like a club. It charged at Mason, lumbering strides closing the distance. Sadie watched, heart pounding. Mason was a company man, deserved everything that was coming for him, but he’d done something no company man she’d ever seen do.

  He put himself in harm’s way for someone else. It was an act with no percentage in it. Sadie was sure Mason could dodge the monster, but if he did, the creature would kill a child.

  Laia, run! But the girl didn’t move, frozen in fear, her eyes wide and staring.

  The club swung. Mason got under it, arm raised. Wood cracked, splintering shards flying to be lost in the rain. Mason fell to one knee, but he’d raised a small, black sidearm. Sound hit Sadie, a metallic roar like a thousand chainsaws. Light danced in the air as the rain hissed and coiled, steam billowing. The creature in front of Mason twitched and shuddered, and — impossible! — caught fire in the rain.

  It screamed as Mason’s weapon flensed flesh from bone. It fell.