The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy

by Mark D. Diehl

  11

  Outside the CBD

  Agent Daiss listened to the reports of Fiend movement. Zetas had been observing a huge suburban raid today. The Task Force rarely intervened in suburban matters, but it almost always knew where the New Union was striking and with how large a force.

  However, this was different from the typical situation. That was the term Zetas used when discussing the routine carnage that kept corporate entities—who were key sources of funding for the Zetas—terrified. This particular situation had escalated rapidly, and was now a development, the Zeta term for a threat to the task force itself. Unnamed were engaging an armed mob just outside the CBD. If the Unnamed were credited with effectively handling the situation, there could be backlash against all Federal Agents, and the Zetas specifically. It was time to prove Task Force Zeta was worth the investment.

  The clinic

  Wanda watched Porter stalking toward the clinic. In mourning for the One, the Saved had attempted to dye their clothes black, but their supply of dye had been limited and mostly makeshift. The sticky, greasy ink inside old ballpoint pens seemed to have been a major component. Now their garments were stained with random patterns of grayish black blotches, with spots and streaks of original color and globular smears of broken ballpoint all over them. The Saved mourning attire looked like camouflage military uniforms. Porter, ever the strategizer, had seemed particularly pleased by this fact. “Look at that,” she’d heard him say to a subordinate, as he gestured toward a cluster of Saved. “See how well they blend in against that wall? The Fiends aren’t the only ones who can disappear.”

  They had almost forced it upon the clinic workers, too, but Sula had pointed out that they needed to keep their clothes as clean as possible to prevent infection. Instead, the “girls” all wore faded outfits with pale splotches from acid washing, appearing as photonegatives of the mourning Saved. It was the only victory against Saved control the clinic had ever won.

  Sula was now the only clinic worker allowed to address the Saved leadership directly, without having been spoken to first. After the One had been killed, the Saved had tightened security. The streets were silent again, just as they’d been when the Horde was still in control. The clinic’s “Helpers” now blatantly ran the place, supervising the caregivers, requisitioning and allocating supplies, and ensuring that proper religious protocols of language and decorum were being observed.

  “Who do you serve, Sula?” Porter greeted her.

  “The One Who Arose, sir,” Sula answered.

  Porter passed by without acknowledging Wanda.

  A street above the tunnels

  There were no spare parts for people.

  The guns roared and screamed and screeched, boiling Ernesto’s mind and crushing his chest. He collapsed to the ground, hiding under his own arms as he knelt by Arrulfo, who was lying flat on the gravel. Ernesto screamed as loudly as he could, trying to block the noise, but it intruded deep into him just the same.

  The Underground Kingdom was a maze of tunnels, pipes, and subterranean rooms that had been forgotten by the world above. Its population rose and fell as existing Subjects died and new arrivals sought shelter with them beneath the streets. General Eadie was in charge of their army, but she had gone above ground with only twenty-three people who had signs instead of guns. Then people had started shooting, and the Subjects had emerged to fight for her.

  Arrulfo had led one thousand, three hundred thirteen Subjects above ground, and Ernesto was proud to have been one of them, following one step behind Arrulfo and slightly to the left, straight into the commotion and blood. Arrulfo had said how he knew Ernesto didn’t like fighting and noise, and how proud he was that Ernesto was so brave to come along.

  Now most of Arrulfo’s neck was gone. His eyes were open but one was more open than the other and they did not blink. There was a gray smear across his cheek and his shirt was sticky with blood. He was not moving.

  If Arrulfo got hurt in a fight so badly that he couldn’t move anymore, Ernesto had to run and run. That was what Ernesto had to do, now, he had to run and run, he had to stand up and then run and run away from here, like Arrulfo had said. He unwrapped his arms from his head but the din was too loud. He covered his ears with his palms but the sound was so loud it was shaking him all apart to bits. He squatted into a ball and then forced his legs to straighten, launching himself upward and then spreading his legs to keep his balance once he was standing again.

  Ernesto ran away from the guns and noise. His arm hurt so much he thought it could be on fire or torn off or maybe have a monster biting it. He looked as he ran. It was still there but the upper part was all torn up and blood was running down it and spraying all over.

  He ran and ran.

  One of the Zone’s entertainment areas

  Rus smiled to himself. It was so easy.

  “Back again, huh?”

  The salaryman didn’t acknowledge the question, or even raise his eyes from the sight of his own shifting feet.

  “One mon, I’ll give you what you’re after,” Rus said.

  It was Juice, of course. A tiny vial of the stuff now went for a full mon: ten thousand! He was the dealer for the most addictive substance on the planet, and his customers would pay anything he asked. Rus knew how Juice called to them, how it made them crave it deep inside their bones, but he was a Rounder in the New Union, forbidden from consuming it until it was time to kill on New Union business. These fucks didn’t know how good they had it, sucking down Juice and then playing video war games as they pounded sodje in these shitty bars. The high couldn’t be as great as an actual kill on Juice, but they could kill thousands virtually during a single Juice rush, without real bullets coming back at them.

  The man slipped a mon chip into his hand, immediately identifiable by its moving internal video as having come from the Castelo Macau, a casino two streets over. With a transaction of this size, though, he had to make absolutely sure it was real. Rus inserted the chip into a device that checked its internal serial registry against the casino’s own database. Casinos warned that the authentication was not guaranteed, but in his experience it had always worked just fine.

  The man gasped, apparently watching something through his EI.

  “Can you hurry, please?” the man asked.

  Rus slowly shifted his eyes away from the machine. “What?”

  “You know what it is,” he said. “It’s you. Your whole army, raiding right now. You Fiends have been killing all over the suburbs today, and now there’s a huge group of you headed for the Central Business Distrct. They’re running down the street, right at the CBD, and I don’t think it will be far from this area. Please just give me the stuff so I can go.”

  The chip checked out. Rus handed over the lanyard with its little attached vial. Top Dog insisted that the lanyard be part of every transaction, so that they learned to mentally connect the whole Juice package to the high they were experiencing. Eventually they would be so desperate for Juice that the mere sight of a lanyard around an Element’s neck would make them get all soapy in the pants. By the time Project Goldblood was done, Rus would have thousands of Golds begging to wear the lanyard and fight for the New Union.

  The salaryman ran away.

  A raid in the suburbs didn’t surprise Rus. He knew that the New Union had been planning something big. That made sense. But a raid on the CBD?

  He started walking in that direction, assembling the likely scenario, and the excuse for leaving his post, in his mind. A raid on the CBD would involve combat not only with Feds but also with CBD security and Unnamed. It was his duty to check it out and make sure the New Union was secure in such a huge endeavor, especially since Rus was the only one who could recognize and command the new corporate Juice junkies he’d created. Yes, there would also be the opportunity to finally consume Juice himself after watching these God-zombies suck it down in front of him over and over, but Rus believed he could justify leaving his sales post based on the priority of
the combat mission.

  If the Divinators disagreed and ended up torturing him to death, at least maybe he’d get to consume one last dose of Juice today.

  He ran with one hand on his own lanyard, already halfway to the CBD fence.

  Train car commandeered by McGuillian Unnamed

  IAi547 stood in front of the open train doors, inspecting each salaryman and salarywoman who tried to enter the car. The glasses recognized every McGuillian employee and flagged anyone else.

  A man, apparently an important executive with another company, tried to slip past 547 and got a palm in his face. The man sneered, accentuating the bloody lip 547 had given him, and looked around for his own Unnamed. Finding none, he scowled and slunk away down the tunnel.

  A group came down the ramp, some small corporation, with its own Unnamed herding it along. The glasses picked out a few recognizable faces and identified the company as Fong Randall, a minor house, not nearly as powerful as McGuillian. Still, there was no way to know how many Fong Unnamed were here in the CBD. Only a few Organization Unnamed had made it here in time.

  Fong’s Unnamed guided the mob straight toward IAi547’s car. He raised a palm at them but they kept coming. He pulled his gun, aiming, and they stopped. Fong’s Unnamed drew their own weapons.

  “What do you think you’re doing here, little man?” an older Fong U.E. asked.

  “Only beautiful people allowed on this car,” IAi547 said. Obviously Fong knew that those boarding were the Organization’s, just like he recognized Fong’s employees, but knowing and admitting were two different things. “You uglies stay the fuck out. More cars down that way.” He cocked his head without moving his eyes or gun. The Fong U.E. stood frozen a moment, communicating with each other via EI, just as 547 was doing with his teams.

  IAg226: Numbers at 547’s car?

  IAh015: 20 Unnamed flanking 100 office personnel.

  IAg226: Who has a bead without leaving cars?

  IAi547: IAi547

  IAh015: IAh015

  CAm741: CAm741

  IAi380: IAi380

  IAi547: They see they’re in a gauntlet.

  IAg226: If you can draw a bead, aim your weapon.

  CAm741: We can hit them from three directions.

  IAi547: Our office personnel are sheltered in the trains.

  IAi547: They see they can’t win.

  IAg226: Don’t count them as gone until they’re gone.

  IAi547: They’re turning away.

  IAh015: Might be a trick.

  CAm741: There they go.

  IAg226: Way to stand your ground, IAi547.

  New Union Headquarters, the Zone

  Top Dog laughed as one middle-aged suburbanite jumped up and down on the other’s ribcage like it was a trampoline. Making them carry all the loot from the suburbs had been a great idea, except that suburbanites whined and moaned, and they had apparently stumbled and dropped things all the way back. But this was by far the greatest way to celebrate after a successful raid: Drinking corporate cognac and even smoking a real leaf cigar, watching as his Elements dosed the suburbanites with Juice and forced them to fight to the death. All the Elements were betting on their favorite combatants, and now Top Dog himself had gotten in on that action.

  “Ooh! You might as well turn over your new brunette fucktoy right now, Turtle,” Top Dog said to his favorite Patrol Leader. “Your guy’s Golden ribs can’t take that for very—OH! What’d I tell you?”

  The loser’s chest had caved in, leaving the victor standing shin-deep in goo. Two Elements removed him from the mess and brought him to kneel at Top Dog’s feet. Top Dog stared into the man’s face, envying the ecstasy that only killing on Juice could bring. “You, good sir, are free to go. You have a one-day pass from Top Dog. Go home. Nobody will hurt you. And remember, you’ll get to feel like this again when we call upon you. Congratulations, champion!”

  “She’s all yours, Top Dog, sir,” Turtle said, acting more like a good sport than his face showed he felt. “You have a great eye for fighters, sir.”

  “Don’t I, though?” Top Dog took a drag off the cigar. A blinding flash left him dazed for a second. A boom a hundred times louder than any thunder he’d ever heard hit next, shaking the crumbling buildings enough that broken bricks and debris showered down. It was no thunderstorm. Top Dog looked at Turtle, who was apparently too stunned to speak.

  “Did someone just nuke the CBD?”

  Some tunnel leading away from the CBD

  Even though they were deep underground, the air was so metallic Rus couldn’t keep his eyes from watering as he watched Patrol Leader Coiner negotiate. Coiner kept on talking like he was a Golden salaryman, calmly working out some bargain with these skeletal tunnel people, as though a nuclear weapon hadn’t just been detonated in the CBD.

  A nuclear weapon in the CBD! Those Federal fucks were more afraid of the New Union than Rus had realized.

  Rus wasn’t used to working with Coiner, but now he could see why so many Elements respected the man. They’d moved from the flooding lower tubes only about fifteen minutes ago, and immediately upon reaching a safe spot Coiner had started requesting a meeting with the leader down here. Now that meeting was happening.

  “So we have an agreement, then, King James?” Coiner said. “The Subjects will escort New Union troops through your Kingdom, and the New Union will supply food and medical supplies to the Subjects. Everybody wins.”

  “Everybody wins,” the scrawny little man repeated, sounding nervous and afraid. Rus supposed that anyone who struck a bargain with the New Union would feel that way.

  The clinic

  “Hi, sweetie,” Wanda said.

  The boy was only semiconscious. “Can you tell me your name?”

  Nothing.

  “What are you, maybe nine years old?”

  The boy had clearly been starved for a long time. Living under Saved rule was stifling, but at least they made sure every Saved kid had enough to eat. With resources so limited, that meant making sure the recipients were actually Saved, or at least useful to them, like Wanda was. Ordinarily the Helpers would have descended on him, prodding and questioning to be sure he was worthy of the clinic’s space, time, and supplies. There had just been a nuclear explosion in the CBD, however, so the professional paranoiacs had other things to worry about. Since the Saved had little reason to be anywhere near the bombsite, few had sustained any injuries, and Wanda was able to devote some time to the boy without much scrutiny from her overseers.

  The gunshot had torn most of the boy’s arm off. He was going to lose it.

  The boy opened his eyes, taking in Wanda and the clinic. He watched

  Chi Sun measure out a dose of medication for a patient, then he looked back at Wanda.

  “Doc!” he seemed to mutter.

  She smiled widely, hoping it looked encouraging. “Yes! I’m kind of like a doctor. I’m going to help you.”

  He said it again and closed his eyes.

  “What’s your name?” she asked again. He was out cold.

  Amelix Executive Quarters

  Zabeth Chelsea sat at her dining table, staring at the news program via her EI. Alin sat across from her, also staring into space, undoubtedly watching coverage of the same event. Neither had spoken since they’d arrived at home. In her mind, news commentators analyzed different views and camera angles as the Amelix building was vaporized over and over.

  Yet neither the nuclear explosion nor her narrow escape from it had been the most significant event of her day.

  Chelsea had released the Rat Gods.

  They were here with her now, the two females of G2, and the two males of G1 they had made her collect, nestled into the pockets of the lab coat she still wore. She was still subject to the Thrall, though she was free to think and even watch the news. Finally ready to tell Alin what had happened, she cleared her throat.

  Her jaw clamped shut so hard her eyes watered. Her tongue wedged against the roof of her mouth, widening and making he
r want to gag. Her chest became rigid and her lungs stopped expanding.

  All right! I won’t speak! I won’t!

  They did not release their hold on her. She could do nothing but sit frozen and breathless as her face flushed. From somewhere beneath her increasing desperation, the scientist in her noted that even the Rat Gods couldn’t control the involuntary shaking in her body from lack of oxygen. Her lips and cheeks went numb. It occurred to her that this might be the end, that the rats could simply decide never to allow her another breath.

  She woke on the floor. Alin had put a towel under her head and was gently stroking her forehead with a cool cloth. She sat up. Under her own power, she got her legs beneath her and stood. Alin was saying something about how she should rest or sit down, but she couldn’t pay attention to the words. She took off the lab coat, turning it over and balling it in her hands. The rats were gone from her pockets and nowhere in sight. Had they moved on?

  No.

  The Thrall took over again. Her arms rose to Alin’s head and scooped it toward her without using her thumbs to grab, pulling him close. Her mouth opened and she lunged toward him, pointing her incisors at his throat and gnawing at his flesh. Every so often she would bite his skin hard and twist her head, tearing it. Alin remained motionless.

  They’re holding him in Thrall, too.

  She directed her thoughts to the still unseen rats. If he dies this way there will be an investigation. I’m your best contact with this world and I’ll be locked away on a slab. If you let him live, you can stay in this place with me. I’ll divorce him. Just let us live. They stopped her and held her frozen with her mouth against his neck, her saliva and his blood dribbling out of her mouth and down his neck to pool on the floor.

  The rats released them both and they separated, dazed.