Deprecated

by Michael Karr

  Her gun held up, finger on the trigger, she waited for the elevator doors to open. She couldn’t help but note that she was violating at least two of her grandfather’s rules for gun safety. Never point your gun at an unknown target. Finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. In general, good rules to follow. In this situation, she’d rather not worry about shooting an innocent Elect. They all deserved a bullet to the chest, anyway.

  Nobody greeted her on the other side of the elevator doors. Still, she remained alert, cautiously moving along a side wall of the elevator toward the opening. The elevator had opened directly to an open room, as big as the CA’s. Floor-to-ceiling windows made up the far wall, peering out into gray clouds. No sign of anyone.

  The elevator doors began to close. She cursed and darted through them, sweeping her muzzle to her right as she exited. Her world slowed as her PNU detected her burst of adrenaline and kicked in slow-motion mode, as she called it. Her muzzle followed her gaze as she scanned the room, taking in details that should have been impossible for her to process so quickly. A sofa and coffee table. A large oriental rug. A few crumbs on the polished hardwood floor. A lacquered table laid with a recently eaten meal. A bar and stools. A figure sitting on one of the stools.

  Immediately, her three-dot sights locked onto the figure. But her finger paused on the trigger. Startled green eyes stared back at her. Eyes she knew better than any others.

  It was Preston.

  He looked at her, mouth hung open as though he were seeing a ghost.

  “Ry?” he said, his voice echoing the shock on his face. “What are you…how did you get in here?”

  “Let’s talk about that another time,” she said. Preston still didn’t know about her new abilities. And this was certainly not the best moment to bring it up. “Isn’t there someone guarding you?”

  He jumped off the stool he’d been seated on, hurrying over to her. “No. There’s no point. The only way out is through that elevator.” He held his arm out to the elevator she’d just exited. “And it won’t let me call a car.”

  Rylee spun around to face the closed metallic doors.

  “Which means now we’re both trapped in here,” Preston said. His voice betrayed an emotion Rylee seldom witnessed from Preston. Defeat. Her own heart sank. Was that the trap all along? Lead her into a room she could never get out of. Why hadn’t she thought of blocking the doors from closing?

  “You’re certain there’s no other way in or out?” she said, knowing what the answer would be.

  “Not unless you brought a two-hundred foot rope.”

  In pure desperation, she strode over and rapidly punched at the buttons to call the elevator.

  “It’s useless,” Preston said. “I’ve tried them a hundred times, at least.”

  But then her PNU received a certificate request, just as always. A moment later, the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.

  “How in the…” Preston began.

  “Come on,” Rylee said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the elevator. Inside, she punched the button for the first floor, then the button to close the doors. As they slowly closed, her mind raced. Was there no trap, then? Did the CA want her to rescue Preston and not get caught?

  Get caught. Idiot! The Regulators. For a minute, she’d actually forgotten about them. The CA likely knew the Regulators would come. Maybe even sent them himself. They had to get off this elevator now. Seventeen. She punched the button for it. It was their best option.

  “What are you doing?” Preston cried.

  “The only place this elevator will take us is a Deprecation truck. We’ll have to find another way.”

  Ten seconds later, the doors opened again and the pair spilled out. Then Rylee had another idea. “Hold on.” Reentering the elevator, she pushed the button for the first floor again, deactivated her PNU, then ran out of the elevator before the doors could close. “That ought to confuse them for a little while.”

  “Confuse who?”

  “The Regulators,” she said, quickly taking in their surroundings. Another corridor. “Now come on.” She took off at a run. “We need to find a stairwell.”

  Unfortunately, she’d just disabled her PNU to prevent the Regulators from being able to track her. That meant she couldn’t rely on it to show her the location of a stairwell. It also meant, certain doors might not open for her. Every door might be locked to her, including the door to any possible stairwell.

  “Right,” Preston said. “I don’t suppose you have a gun for me.”

  “No.” Rylee didn’t offer any excuses as to why. There wasn’t time to talk about it. She needed to concentrate. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, without her PNU she felt handicapped. Why hadn’t she thought to check for emergency exits before disabling her PNU?

  They came to an intersection of corridors. Rylee halted, quickly considering each direction.

  “Any suggestions?” she asked.

  “Use your earpiece? Serg’s on the line, right? He might be able to help.”

  Of course. She tapped the device in her ear. “Serg,” she said. “We need to find a stairwell or emergency exit in this building. Any ideas?”

  The line hissed before giving way to Serghei’s voice. “You’re the one with the PNU, and you’re asking me?”

  “I know,” Rylee growled impatiently. “It’s…not working right now.”

  “Interesting…Well, I don’t have a schematic of the building in my head. I’d try the corners of the buildings.”

  “That’s so helpful, Serg,” she said wryly.

  “Let’s try this way,” she said to Preston, motioning toward a corridor that looked the most promising, and took off running.

  “By the way,” Serghei added, “you do realize that the Regulators will be blocking all the exits, don’t you?”

  “I know,” she said, and tapped her earpiece to shut it off. Serghei wouldn’t be much use to them so long as they were inside this building.

  Their corridor ran into a wall, and they were forced to turn right or left. Rylee chose right. Vaguely, she realized she was leading. Even though Preston had always been the leader of the Elect Hunters. What had changed? She didn’t know that she wanted to lead. If they failed, it would be her fault.

  Ahead, she saw a large white door with a metal crossbar. She pointed toward it. Preston nodded. It was the first door that looked different from all the others. There was no exit sign above it, or sign of any kind. This building was seriously lacking maps and signs. Perhaps the CA had them removed so that people were forced to rely on their PNUs.

  They reached the door, and Rylee found herself actually praying that it would open for them. Miraculously, it did. Which was baffling. Then she realized that the stairwell door would probably lock behind them. Access to the floors was restricted, not the stairwell. If that proved true, they were trapped in this stairwell until they reached the bottom. If they even made it that far. Who knew how many Regulators were waiting down there for them.

  Together they dashed down the metal stairs, Preston leaping down five at a time. The sound of their bounding reverberated through the stairwell like there was an army storming through. Not the ideal way to keep from being detected. But at this point, she counted on speed more than stealth to be their ally.

  So far all her gambles had paid off. She just needed her luck to hang on a little longer.

  Fourteen read a painted red number above the last door they passed. They’d only descended three floors and already Rylee felt sweat collecting on her brow. Fourteen more floors to go. They would never make it.

  By the ninth floor, Rylee’s legs were dead and her lungs on fire. Still, there was no sign of the Regulators. Shoving aside the pain and fatigue, she kept sprinting down the endless stairs with Preston.

  Seventh floor. No Regulators.

  Fifth floor. No Regulators.

  Third floor. Still, no Regulators.

  Were they actually going to make it? Rylee’s hope swelled.


  By the second floor, she believed they might actually escape. Then shouts erupted from below, as Regulators, armed with assault rifles burst into the stairwell from the bottom floor. Immediately, both Rylee and Preston turned to retreat for cover. At that moment, more shouts erupted from above them. More Regulators. Preston yanked on the door to the second floor, but he might as well have tried to move an iron mountain. The door didn’t open.

  They were trapped with nowhere to run, and only one gun between them.

  FORTY-ONE

  The rat moved with impressive speed and dexterity. Especially considering its cybernetic hind quarter. Grayson watched it dart toward his father with admiration. This whole thing was quite entertaining, watching his father’s stone-carved guards scramble around like buffoons trying to capture it.

  Of course, Grayson wasn’t making their job any easier. And he had to concentrate hard to ensure that remained the case. So far, the first major test of his unverified code was going smoothly. Infected with his modified RARA virus, each of the bodyguards’ PNUs was secretly lending processing power to slightly alter their perception, so that the rat appeared approximately ten centimeters offset from its actual location. The result—for them—was a rat that seemed to move faster than should be possible.

  His father’s men certainly believed the rat possessed a poison or PNU virus intended for their boss. That’s precisely what Grayson wanted them to believe. The rat, however, served only as a distraction. A distraction for this next part of the show. His grand performance.

  Was he really about to go through with this? At the graveside of his own mother, no less.

  Now came the true test of his maverick coding. For more than more one reason, he hoped it would be over quickly. Even with his modifications to the code, he still ran the risk of depleting his energy level. Already he’d spent more than he had originally calculated. PNU energy consumption predictions were notoriously tricky to get right. Too many variables were involved. Simulation modelers often took days to produce a semi-accurate power-consumption profile for any sizable chunk of PNU code.

  Preston steeled himself. It was now or never. Reaching into his pocket, he gripped the tiny pistol in his hands. Even though the temperature outside hovered below freezing, his hands were slick with perspiration. He’d never shot anyone before. Never even fired a gun, for that matter. If everything went according to his plans, he wouldn’t have to.

  Drawing out the weapon, he took a single step toward his father. Before he could raise the gun to his father’s chest, the bodyguards reacted, abandoning their chase of Serghei’s rat, and snapping their guns up before Grayson could blink.

  “Drop the gun, William,” Miles demanded at Grayson’s left. “Now!”

  Grayson didn’t lower his gun. The five guns were not pointed at his head, but his father’s. Neither his father nor his father’s bodyguards realized it. That was the deception that his PNU—in concert with those he’d hijacked—was working furiously to create. A false reality. One where Grayson and his father had swapped places. His father still saw the real Grayson. But Grayson’s virus was actively altering his father’s vision to see his bodyguards’ guns trained on Grayson instead of himself.

  It was a tremendously complex altered reality to create. With millions of calculations and decisions per microsecond. Predictive movement algorithms ran for nearly every major object in the scene. All to make five men believe a lie and shoot their own boss. His father’s PNU-enhanced reflexes might save him from Grayson’s bullets. But there was no way he could dodge five bullets fired simultaneously.

  “You can’t kill me, son,” his father said, neither his voice nor his face betraying a hint of fear. “You’re an engineer, not an assassin. Put the gun down.” It was his commanding tone. His, I’m-the-boss tone. The tone that got things done. The tone that had—more often than not—intimidated Grayson. Not today.

  Grayson began to squeeze the trigger. His PNU reflected that subtle movement in the counterfeit version of himself.

  “Drop the gun, Will!” warned Miles again. “I’ll put a bullet through your head before you get that bullet off.”

  That was probably true. Only it wouldn’t be his head the bullet would pierce. His finger stalled on the trigger. Was he really about to kill his own father?

  Yes. I have to. There’s no other way.

  “Drop it now, Will!”

  Forcing hot breath through his nose, Grayson tightened his finger, squeezing the trigger. He knew the bodyguards were doing the same. The trigger pull seemed to take a lifetime, moving a fraction of a millimeter at a time. Suddenly another strong breeze blew in from off the Puget Sound. And Grayson saw it, but too late. Too late to correct for it, to account for it. Too small for his algorithms to pick it up on their own. A piece of debris—a torn paper—caught on the wind. It sailed just over his father’s head.

  To the keen eyes of his father’s bodyguards, though, that debris had just gone through Grayson’s forehead. He was a good two inches taller than his father.

  “Hold fire! Hold fire! Hold fire!” Miles and the others started shouting in unison, as they detected the discrepancy.

  Grayson cursed, and pulled the trigger all the way. His father dodged. Grayson re-leveled the gun to fire again. Before his wrist could even recover from the recoil of the gun, a body that felt like a brick wall slammed into his side. Another of the bodyguards did the same for Grayson’s father. They didn’t know who was who, so they were pinning both of them. Grayson hit the ground with such force, the air was knocked from his lungs.

  Stunned and struggling to breathe, Grayson tried to keep his virus active. Maybe he could still…something was wrong. His PNU had lost contact with his virus targets. And his own PNU energy was barely sufficient to process the simplest of commands. Any second, his PNU would force itself to shut down.

  “Serghei,” he grunted, “I’m down.” I’ve failed.

  * * *

  Rylee’s mind raced. They had nowhere to run. Only up the stairs or down. With Regulators waiting at each end. Within moments, those Regulators would converge upon them. And then there would be no hope. Rylee couldn’t hold off an entire squadron of Regulators with a single pistol. Not without any cover. Not with gunfire coming from above and below. Not when the men were armed with assault rifles, tactical vests, and PNU-enhanced reflexes.

  Their only chance was to storm one group of Regulators before the two groups converged. She cursed herself for not trying harder to bring a gun for Preston. The human body could survive a gunshot wound…or two. Sometimes more. So long as something vital isn’t hit. There was no doubt in her mind one or both of them would get shot if they tried to fight. The only question was, could they overcome the physical and mental shock, and keep going?

  Preston looked at her, his green eyes surprisingly calm. In that brief moment, they shared the decision. They would fight, or die trying. Rylee nodded. This was as close to a suicide pact as anyone could get.

  Then Preston began tearing off his shoes, followed by his shirt.

  “What are you...” Rylee began, her voice trailing off as comprehension dawned. He planned to throw them at the Regulators. A distraction. A weak, desperate distraction, but it was something. She didn’t believe for a second it would truly help.

  “Rylee Day and Preston Hyde,” a voice boomed and echoed through the stairwell. “You are surrounded. Give yourselves up.”

  Right. Like that was going to happen. They were going to fight, not surrender themselves willingly to be Deprecated.

  If she tried, she couldn’t have found a worse place for a gunfight. With the steel staircase, and metal pipes everywhere, bullets were sure to ricochet like rubber balls in all kinds of wild directions. Maybe that would work to their advantage. Even with their PNUs, the Regulators wouldn’t be able to dodge a ricocheted bullet.

  If only she had her…

  Idiot! Her PNU! There was no reason to keep it deactivated now. Using the one command that worke
d when the PNU was disabled, she brought her brain-enhancing abomination back to life. Instantly, she received a flood of PNU data. There were four Regulators below them, and three above. She also now knew their names. Lovely.

  She whirled around and reached for the door latch, and pulled. Immediately, her PNU granted her access and the door clicked open. Not waiting for Preston to register what she’d just done, she pulled it open and dashed into the second-floor corridor.

  “Come on,” she shouted over her shoulder.

  Preston recovered quickly from his bewilderment and chased after her.

  “How did you—”

  “Later!” she shouted, cutting him off. She would explain later. If there was a later.

  She had her PNU now, no longer blind.

  Desolation! How did I become so dependent on this blasted thing?

  It would only take the Regulators a few seconds to understand what she had done. And these long empty corridors provided even less protection than the stairwell.

  Where to go?

  While getting away from the Regulators was critical, they still had to get out of the building. The stairwell was blocked. And the diagram of the building showed no other stairwells in a different sector of the building. The only other way up or down was the elevators. Those though…surely, they’d already been shut off.

  “Here!” she said, grabbing a door handle at a dead sprint. Preston nearly slammed into her.

  From their back, shouts burst out in a garble of sound as the stairwell door flew open.

  “Halt! We’ll shoot!” came a loud command.

  Rylee didn’t turn to look back, but pushed open the door, and ducked inside. A second later, Preston slammed the door shut behind them. Not that it would do much good. The Regulators would have access, wouldn’t they? They could always break down the door.

  Preston’s gaze cast around the room, evidently attempting to find some means of escape. They were in a small office, with a few chairs, desks, and equipment, which Rylee had no name for. It looked like something Serghei might salivate over.