BZRK Reloaded

by Michael Grant

  “Biot?” he asked.

  “Biot version four,” she said. “Fourth generation. What you use now is version three. Or threes with various upgrades.”

  “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Do you want to tell me?”

  “It’s faster. It can jump. It has an improved rack for add-on weaponry. The legs are stronger.”

  “Yes?” he asked, not nearly as cool as he wanted to sound.

  “And it has a rather interesting penetrating proboscis, hollow of course, with a bladder. Mosquito-derived.”

  “So it can suck blood?” He was puzzled.

  “It goes the other way. The bladder can be filled with any number of interesting agents—chemical, bacteriological, viral—and injected. No more carrying sacks of germs with you if you want to plant something deadly.”

  “We don’t do that,” Nijinsky said.

  “Ah. Of course. I forgot: you’re the good guys,” she mocked. “Not for you, planting a bit of flesh-eating bacteria in some enemy’s brain.”

  “There are limits,” he said.

  “Just like you don’t wire people.”

  He raised his head and looked at her. “Dr Violet, we will endeavor to remove any alterations made in your brain.”

  She swallowed in a suddenly dry throat.

  “We do things out of extreme necessity,” he went on, sounding sanctimonious even to himself. “Vincent wired you, as little as he could, just enough to—”

  “I’m in love with him,” she said, and now her voice was no longer tight and controlled. “And your solution is to take that away from me? And then what?”

  He looked quickly away, as if eye contact had become painful.

  Neither spoke. His knee no longer touched hers. She wondered if his biots were now making the slow, laborious climb up the length of her thigh on their way to her brain. No, not likely: he could have simply planted them on her face, no need for subterfuge.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “The visuals are better. It will make wiring easier and more accurate. The downside? You feel pain when it feels pain. And God himself only knows what effect it has if you lose one.”

  Nijinsky controlled his breathing, not wanting to signal his excitement. “Can you make them?” he asked.

  “Version four? Of course I can make them, they’ve been successfully tested,” she said. “Get me to the lab and I can grow one in a few hours.”

  Nijinsky nodded. Not an easy proposition. The McLure labs had been the scene of a bloody battle. A massacre. But Lear had been busy, and a backup existed.

  “What if it wasn’t your lab?” Nijinsky asked. “What if it was a place with all the same equipment, the same samples or most of them, essentially the same data files, even better computers, and so on?”

  That surprised her. “You have another lab in New York?”

  “Not in New York,” he said, and offered no further explanation. She ran down a list of equipment. To each item Nijinsky said, “Yes.”

  “Well, aren’t you clever little conspirators?” she asked sarcastically. “Yes, if everything is as you say, yes, I can do it. But why should I?”

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “So many things,” she said with a hard laugh.

  Silence again, as the truth seeped into her consciousness. The truth was a pain in her heart. “What do I want? Don’t. Don’t take him from me. Don’t send your bugs into me, and don’t cut the wires, and don’t find his last biot and take it from me.” Tears had already rolled down her cheeks. “It’s all I have of him.”

  SEVEN

  A short elevator ride for two billion dollars.

  “Sadie. It’s good to see you,” Stern said. He shook her hand firmly.

  Her hand was not empty. His eyes barely flickered as he palmed the

  note.

  “Same, Mr Stern,” she said. “This is my friend, Keats.” She stumbled over the word friend. They weren’t exactly friends, were they?

  They barely knew each other.

  “My friend,” she repeated, as if needing to emphasize it. Stern was head of McLure security. He’d sat by her bed when she

  was recovering from injuries following the assassination of her father

  and brother, and as far as Plath felt she could trust anyone, she trusted

  him. He gave Keats the same dubious, sizing-up look her father would

  have.

  The lawyer, Don Jellicoe, was an older man, tall, spare, with

  a hovering grin and an open collar. He rose to shake her hand as

  well.

  The office was a corner, with windows that looked out on the Empire State Building and, beyond it, at the Tulip—Armstrong cor

  porate headquarters.

  She had been there, seen it from the inside. She had watched her

  wiring take effect on Benjamin Armstrong. She almost flinched,

  thinking they could see her now.

  She stared, probably too long, then looked with exaggerated and

  unconvincing calm around the room and turned her back on the

  Tulip and the memories.

  A younger lawyer sat discreetly in a corner. The remaining person in the room was Hannah Thrum. Thrum was middle-aged but

  looked younger, expensively but conservatively dressed. She had a full

  face and somewhat droopy eyes that seemed at odds with the wellcoiffed businesswoman look.

  Thrum was the interim chairman of the board of McLure Holdings, the parent corporation of McLure Labs.

  “Can I get anyone some coffee? Water? Tea? We have it all,” Jellicoe offered, very genial. Keats asked for coffee, Thrum ordered

  a sparkling water, and the younger lawyer raced off to get both.

  “So,” Jellicoe said. “We have copies for you, Sadie, and for you, Hannah.” He handed iPads to each and tapped his own to bring up the document. “We have the small matter of two billion dollars.” He grinned. “Give or take a dime.”

  That drew only tense stares. Jellicoe sighed, a little deflated. “As you can see, it’s quite a long document. But I wondered if we could dispense with a literal reading of every single word and you would allow me to summarize?”

  Keats surprised everyone by speaking up. “Of course Pl— Sadie would get a full copy?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jellicoe said, and seemed amused.

  “Go ahead, Don,” Thrum said. Like this was her meeting.

  “Well, the long and short of it is that Sadie is the sole surviving heir. She inherits the bulk of the estate. There are some bequests for some of Grey McLure’s friends, relations, employees, and charities. All told those bequests are quite substantial, amounting to something on the order of two hundred million dollars in McLure stock and cash.”

  Keats whistled, then apologized.

  “It’s worth whistling at,” Jellicoe allowed. “So is what’s left to Sadie.” He looked at Sadie, raised his Saruman eyebrows, and said, “You inherit the rest of your father and brother’s shares of McLure. Added to those you already own, you hold fifty-five percent of the company. At today’s prices, as I said, that’s just a hair under two billion dollars. Of course the share price has dropped quite a bit since your father and brother died so tragically. But if the company is well managed, the stock value will bounce back.”

  “And you won’t need to worry about that: managing the company is the responsibility of the board,” Thrum said with what she hoped was absolute finality.

  “The company belongs to its stockholders,” Plath said levelly. She had not come here to be bullied.

  “Yes, of course,” Thrum said. “And your shares will be voted by your executor.” She turned to Jellicoe, whose expression was unreadable.

  “Here it comes,” Keats said under his breath.

  “Executor?” Plath asked, already knowing the answer. It would be interesting to see how Thrum responded.

  Jellicoe sighed. “It is usual practice to assign an adult executor in the case of
a minor, a wise, trusted older friend or lawyer.”

  Keats made a wry face.

  “But in this case,” Jellicoe went on, “Grey McLure specifically declined to do so. In fact, he directed me to take such measures as would ensure that his daughter not only inherited his company, but, in the event of her brother’s death, should run it.”

  “That’s absurd,” Thrum snapped. “That can’t be legal.”

  “Ah, but it is,” Jellicoe said. “Grey emancipated his daughter. And with some effort—many, many billable hours, I’m pleased to admit—I was able to enact his wishes.” He dropped the grin. “I think Grey, who was my good friend for twenty years, expected to die, you see. I heard it in his voice. I saw it in his actions. He expected to die.”

  Plath felt a lead weight pressing down on her heart. Of course her father had expected to be killed. Of course. He had guessed what was coming.

  As she could guess at the terror that was coming for her. Will it be death? Or madness?

  She closed her eyes, not realizing she’d done so. Silence fell around her as she remembered her father, and that day. Images of the jet screaming down out of the sky …Not what she wanted to remember about her father and brother. Not the images she wanted to hold on to for the rest of her life.

  “Maybe he was mentally compromised,” Thrum suggested. “Not competent.”

  Plath opened her eyes, and her lips curled into a snarl.

  Jellicoe cut in quickly. “He anticipated that line of …reasoning. Attached to the document are affidavits from three board-certified psychiatrists who each examined Grey within a month of his signing of the will.”

  Thrum at last exhibited frustration. She threw up one hand. Just one. And said nothing.

  Plath noticed Stern smiling, not at her but at some memory. He, too, had been with McLure for a long time, and Grey was a man who made friends for life.

  “I don’t want to run the company,” Plath said. “In fact, Ms Thrum, my father always said you were the smartest person on the board, and that if you hadn’t been a woman you’d have been put in charge of your own family’s company.”

  Thrum looked surprised, genuinely, this time. And she acknowledged that last point with a curt nod.

  “So,” Plath said, “I guess I’m appointing you as president. I’ll ask Mr Jellicoe to work out the financial terms: fair but not extravagant.”

  Plath had thought this next part out well in advance.

  “But I have certain things I do want,” Plath continued. “I want fifty million dollars—cash—in offshore banks. That’s mine to do with as I see fit.”

  Jellicoe and Thrum both nodded warily.

  “I want Mr Stern to be my contact with you, Ms Thrum. He was loyal and stayed by me when my family was murdered. Loyalty is important. Isn’t it?”

  Thrum, thrown off guard by the question, reddened and stammered, “Yes, I’m sure it is.”

  “Mr Stern gets paid twice what’s he’s making now, and although he informs you of all relevant security issues, he works for me.”

  That brought a frown to Thrum’s face, but only a frown.

  Ah, Plath thought, hiding her emotion, keeping her eyes steady, her mouth straight. Ah, you didn’t see that coming, did you?

  Plath stood up. Keats did so as well, a few seconds later.

  “Ms Thrum, Mr Jellicoe, Mr Stern. The day may come when I want to take a more active role in the company. I may want to choose additional board members. But right now what I want is for the three of you to treat me with respect, to do what I ask you to—and I don’t intend to ask much—and to take care of my father’s company. Each of you in turn, I’m going to ask that you remain loyal to my father, and to me. Mr Stern?”

  “I’m a McLure man,” he said. “Your man.”

  “Mr Jellicoe?”

  “I’m your lawyer,” he said, and smiled.

  “Ms Thrum?”

  “I’m in.”

  “Okay, then,” Plath said. “My father was a smart and good man, who chose his allies well. I’m not as smart. I’m also not as good. For example, I’m not as forgiving as he was; I hold grudges. I can be a bitch.” She softened that with a slight smile. “And I’m the bitch who owns the company.”

  That at last brought an honest smile from Thrum, who actually threw her head back and laughed.

  In the elevator on the way down Keats said, “That was absolutely amazing. I mean …you just bossed those people around. You’re no older than I am and you were like a captain of industry. A bloody capitalist.”

  Plath nodded. She was distracted and sad and worried. “I could have fired all three of them. They didn’t know what crazy thing I might pull. They were all three relieved.”

  “Yeah, but just to stand up there with that total-domination voice, like that.” He sighed. “Hot.”

  Plath said nothing. She just stared at Keats.

  “What?”

  “It was too easy,” she said. “At least one of them is a traitor.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said, but he was nervous, eyes flicking back to her, to the floor indicator, then back to her.

  Plath shook her head. “If they try to kill us on the way out, then they’re innocent. If not then it’s a setup. It’s Thrum,” she said. “She’s the traitor. Jellicoe could easily have lost the will and substituted another. Stern had plenty of opportunity to kill me off when I was recovering. So it’s Thrum: she’s working for the Twins.”

  “I’m pulling out of aneurysm work,” Keats said, buying in. “I can at least keep one eye out for nanobots.”

  “If they’re AFGC, they’ll know I’ll be checked at the nano level. This is old school: they’re going to track my money, see where I spend it.” She bit her lip. “I’m not important as a foot soldier for BZRK. I’m only important for what I can reveal. They want my father’s technology, and they want BZRK.”

  She wondered how Keats would react. Boys didn’t always like clever girls, and if he said something stupid now, well, at least then love would be off the table. She would never love a dull boy.

  Keats’s absurdly blue eyes narrowed. “If they think you don’t know …That’s an opportunity for us, then.”

  So, not stupid. Not that she’d really had any doubt.

  Damn.

  The elevator reached the lobby. The McLure security men were waiting. Caligula was nowhere in sight. The limo steamed at curbside.

  No TFDs.

  The limo driver had changed.

  “What happened to the driver?” Plath asked the back of Caligula’s head as they pulled away.

  “He had some vacation time coming.”

  “What happened to the TFDs?”

  Caligula shrugged. “One tried to put a tracking device on the car. It was an amateurish job. I resented it.”

  She saw his eyes in the mirror, as deep as desert ravines, creased with sunbaked lines.

  “It’s all a setup,” she said. “The TFDs looking tough when I got here? That was a show. If they really wanted to kill me there are buildings all around, windows with perfect sight lines for a sniper.”

  Caligula’s eyes wrinkled in merriment. “They gave you exactly what you wanted, didn’t they?”

  “Yep,” she said. “They lined up and rolled over like well-behaved puppies.”

  Caligula laughed, delighted. “I’ll pass that description along to Lear.”

  “Lear needs to contact me. Directly.”

  Caligula said nothing.

  “You tell him or her. Or them. Or whatever, that I’m going to keep financing BZRK, just as my father did. But not unless I know who I’m dealing with.”

  He did not answer. He neither nodded nor shook his head. It was getting on Plath’s nerves, which were already frayed.

  “Ophelia,” she said.

  Caligula nodded slightly, as though he was expecting it. “She’s gone.”

  “Was it …was it easy for her?”

  Caligula pulled the car over to the side of the street. H
e turned around and looked at her. She did not flinch. “It’s never easy. It’s death. And death is terrible and profound.”

  “And when it’s me or Keats you have to kill?” Plath demanded, shamed by the quiver in her voice.

  “Then that, too, will be terrible and profound,” Caligula said.

  Pia Valquist was forty-one years old. Her hair had always been blonde. First because her DNA had dictated that color, and now because her hairdresser made it so. Her tired eyes had luggage— dark bags. Her feet were a source of constant pain made worse by the snow that seemed to laugh at boasts of waterproofing for boots.

  A long time ago she had been tall and moderately pretty, with the kind of body you expect from a five-foot-eleven-inch Swedish girl.

  She was still tall.

  And she was a spy. A very cold spy as she tramped from the rented Saab she had reluctantly left parked at the gate. It was a long driveway, but no one had answered the call box, and well, she’d be damned if she was going to stop now. It was very dark, but then this time of the year, this far north, it was dark almost all day. The sun was nominally visible for a few hours on either side of noon, but today’s sun had been a distant, helpless light filtered through mist. It was long gone now.

  People know that all the great powers have intelligence services, the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, and of course the famous MI6 of James Bond fame.

  People do not expect that a small country, a small peaceable country like Sweden that had last fought a war in the nineteenth century, would have spies. They didn’t have many. The Militära underrättelseoch säkerhetstjänsten—the MUST—did not have a giant complex like the CIA. They didn’t have their own array of satellites. They didn’t blow people up with missiles fired from drones.

  The KSI—Kontoret för Särskild Inhämtning—MUST’s most secretive branch, had even fewer people, a relative handful. The advantage of small size and a lack of current war, or likelihood of war, meant that the KSI could tolerate individual strangeness to a degree that one of the tight-jawed, do-or-die, save-the-world spy agencies could not. It could, for example, allow Pia Valquist time to obsess over the Natal Incident.

  Three years earlier a very strange thing had occurred in the northern Brazilian city of Natal. A ship’s boat had come ashore there in the wake of a devastating hurricane. The ship’s boat belonged to a converted, repurposed amphibious assault ship purchased through shell corporations from the U.S. Navy. It was an older ship, Vietnam War–era. Originally, when it had been a U.S. Navy ship, it had been the U.S.S. Tiburon.