The Last Good Man

by Linda Nagata

  She runs to secure him. Well, she hobbles really, as her right calf threatens to seize up, but she gets there. She kicks his pistol out of reach. He’s groaning, trying to push himself up, so she kicks him in the head. “Stay down and you won’t get hurt,” she tells him.

  She still has Shaw’s multitool. Its blade is sharp. She uses it to cut a tasseled rope from the nearest curtain.

  “Ian’s buddy is coming to check on him,” Colt says.

  “Fuck.” Another kick convinces Ian to be still while she secures his arms behind his back. While he’s still woozy, she ties his ankles together. Then she pats him down. The only interesting things she finds are a phone and an electronic car key. She takes them both, but powers down the phone.

  “Okay, where’s Farouk?” she asks Colt as she moves to the stairs.

  “He’s coming in through the passage. Alone.”

  She heads down as quickly and quietly as she can manage. “With or without the ARV?”

  “No ARV. He wants his man cred.”

  “Man cred,” she scoffs. “That’s your generation. He’s only coming in because it’s too hard to steer the ARV without the camera.”

  She stops on the second level, peering out from behind the wall that encloses the stairwell. The position allows her to see over the balcony and down the length of the courtyard to the small citrus trees and the fountain, the two chairs and the bench beyond. The overturned table.

  How long since Guiying first walked into the courtyard? Thirty minutes? Less?

  She turns her gaze to the passage. She can see its mouth, but she can’t see into it—and she can’t see Farouk. He’s probably in the courtyard, hidden beneath the balcony or at the bottom of the stairwell.

  Her MARC flashes a red highlight at the top of her visor. She looks up, targeting the highlight with her Triple-Y before recognition sparks: A sparrow. A mechanical sparrow descending from the roof terrace, dropping toward the courtyard in a swift spiral. Not her sparrow—the laser destroyed hers—but the same design.

  Lincoln?

  Her finger is still floating above the trigger when a shot goes off—it sounds like it’s right below her. The sparrow bursts apart as the shot reechoes off the walls.

  As the echoes fade, she hears Farouk. He’s running, bounding up the stairs. She gives him two seconds, long enough to finish the first half-flight. Then she pivots, aiming the Triple-Y down the stairwell as he comes into sight, his pistol in one hand. He gets off a shot. It cracks past her ear. But she’s already hammering him, five slugs to the chest.

  He drops like a dead man, sliding down with his back against the wall. She wonders if he is dead. It takes him a few seconds to decide—then he starts to wheeze.

  “Heads up, Ripley,” she says, “call Lincoln.”

  Rushing In Again

  Lincoln waits at the top of the street as True trots up the hill. He’s flanked by Rohan, Felice, and Miles.

  During her brief call, True warned them to stay out of the target street.

  “It’s over,” she reported, sounding worn and tired. “I couldn’t stop them. Shaw is gone. Rihab has him. And this is going to be a crime scene. You do not want to leave any DNA or risk your image being recorded here, so stay away.”

  He’d seen a photo of the corpse outside the front door so he didn’t argue. He told her, “Tamara flew a sparrow over the site.”

  “I saw it.”

  “The man on the roof, he’s your prisoner?”

  “The cops can have him. His partner is here in the stairwell. I’ve secured him too. They’re both Shaw’s men, Variant Forces soldiers, and they betrayed him.” Bitter disgust in her voice as she said this.

  “They came for you next?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  And she took them both down. If there was video of that confrontation, he wanted to see it. “Any idea if they’ve got backup on the way?”

  “I don’t think so. Those two were out for themselves.”

  “Tell me about the dismembered body out front. Did that woman betray Shaw too?”

  Three or four seconds of dead silence followed this question, then: “You could say that. But he didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Now, as True reaches the top of the hill, he can see her eyes past the screen of her MARC. The fever-bright gaze of a soldier fresh off the battlefront. Wired up tight on stress and adrenaline, and haggard. Her cheeks are gaunt, her skin shining with sweat and oil, her hair escaping from its usual neat braid. She’s got a Triple-Y slung over her shoulder, and he’s fairly sure there’s a pistol in the front pocket of her jacket.

  Miles hangs back, but Felice and Rohan aren’t shy. “You asshat,” Felice says with a grin. And Rohan, his arms wide like he’s going to give her a hug. “Mama, what the fuck? You forgot you have friends?”

  She startles him by tossing him an electronic key, which he manages to catch in a desperate grab.

  “Maybe I did,” she admits. “But we got to move. Since you’ve left your truck behind, see if you can figure out what that belongs to. Maybe we can use it. But don’t get close until we check if it’s rigged.”

  Lincoln thought his anger had cooled, but it comes rushing in again as she turns to him. He says, “I’d have you up on charges if we were still in service.”

  She takes this in with a stonewall expression. “If we were still in service, you’d be right to do so. If you want to, you can still turn me in to the police. They’ll probably be here in about thirty seconds.”

  Felice rolls her eyes. Rohan, who is still standing there with the key in his hand and an uncertain look on his face, turns to Lincoln. “Hey. True fucked up, but we are not turning her over.”

  “Give me that key,” Lincoln says, taking it. He’s got no intention of involving the police if he can help it, and no desire to talk to their liaison officer, Nadim Zaman—which means True is right. They need to clear out of here now. He triggers the key. From around the corner, a car beeps in response. They go to find it—and that’s when True catches sight of a shot-up expeditionary SUV blocking the intersection. Traffic is moving on neighboring blocks, but not here.

  “Oh,” she says softly.

  There is blood on the inside of the bullet-riddled windshield. A line of heavier-caliber bullet holes stitches the roof. As they trot past, Lincoln glimpses two bodies inside.

  “Your work?” Rohan asks.

  She answers in a quiet voice. “It looks like the Arkinson strafed them, finished them off.”

  Lincoln clicks the key again. A parked SUV responds with flashing lights and a two-tone beep. It’s painted in desert camouflage. “Whose car?” he asks.

  “I got the key off one of the soldiers at the house. I don’t think Rihab had time to wire it, but I want to check anyway.”

  “No, I’ll check,” he says.

  “I’ve got a snake.” She pulls a little eight-inch serpent out of her pocket. Lincoln recognizes it as one of Tamara’s creations. She tosses it under the truck, saying, “Check it out, Dad.”

  Dad?

  She’s not using her data glove, she’s not controlling it, but the snake moves. It rears up to examine the undercarriage while she circles the truck, looking inside, studying the seams around the doors. He joins her. So do the others. A fifteen-second search for wires and taped explosives. “Looks clean on top,” he concludes. “Anything underneath?”

  She stoops to pick up the snake. “Nothing.”

  “Then get in. Everybody in.”

  Rohan, Felice, and Miles pile into the back. Lincoln slides into the driver’s seat. True is opening the front passenger door when he punches the ignition. She flinches, like she’s still worried it might blow.

  “We’re good,” he says as the dash lights come on and the air conditioning starts to flow. “Get in.”

  She dumps her daypack on the floor, but she’s still holding the snake and the Triple-Y as Lincoln puts the car into drive. “Who are you working with?” he asks her.r />
  “What?”

  “The snake. Who’s running the snake?”

  “Oh. Colt’s shadowing me. He’s linked into my MARC too.”

  In the backseat, Rohan snickers, and Felice sounds incredulous when she demands to know, “You’re working with your dad?” Lincoln is just as astonished. True has never been able to talk to Colt without butting heads with him. Hell, no one can.

  “Desperate times, desperate measures,” True says. She gets out her tablet and flips it open, adding, “He says to tell you all he’s not senile.”

  Lincoln says, “I’m going to assume that’s not an exact quote.”

  She shrugs, sliding on her reading glasses. Her fingers tap and glide across the face of the tablet. “I’ve got a mother’s helper planted on Shaw.”

  Lincoln’s scars tighten as this news draws a grudging smile. Rohan is more expressive. “Righteous move, Mama! That’s going to make this hunt easier.”

  And Chris on comms: “Tell True to log in to the QRF. I need that signal.”

  Lincoln relays the message. She nods and murmurs, “Hey, Dad, I got to log out… Yeah, you too. Thanks, old man. I love you. And don’t call Alex. I’ll talk to him when this is done.”

  A few seconds later the screen of his MARC shows her logged-in to the unit. Shortly after that Chris says, “Okay, I’ve got the signal from the mother’s helper.”

  “Good,” Lincoln says. “Now tell Khalid to get that tracking device off our truck. And give me a route back to him. I want to dump this vehicle as soon as I can.”

  “On it. Keep going for now… okay, sending you a route.”

  A route map pops up on Lincoln’s AR display. He follows it onto an avenue with heavy traffic, but at least the traffic is moving. “All right,” he tells True. “Give us a sitrep. What are we facing?”

  She takes her visor off, rubs her eyes, then starts her report by asking, “Tamara, are you listening?”

  Chris answers this question from their command post on the other side of the world. “Tamara is here. She can hear you.”

  True’s gaze is fixed on the traffic ahead as she says, “The dismembered woman in the street. That was Li Guiying.”

  Lincoln grimaces while from the backseat Felice asks, “Who’s that?”

  Lincoln knows who it is. His prosthetic fingers tap the wheel. He knows enough about Li Guiying’s history, her associations, that he’s incredulous when he asks, “Was she working with Shaw?”

  “No. But she used to work for Kai Yun and they followed her here. That’s what we think happened. There’s no other explanation.”

  Kai Yun.

  The hairs on Lincoln’s arms and on the back of his neck stand on end. Kai Yun is no trivial enemy. “She came to see you?”

  “Yes. She came to confess.” In spare words True relates what happened in the Burmese forest, describing the swarm, and the surviving mech that followed along as Diego and Shaw were taken to the village of Nungsan.

  Lincoln is stunned by this story. Horrified. A fucked-up travesty begun because there was no human in the kill chain… not at first.

  “So what happened to her?” Felice asks from the backseat. “Because that was a weird fucking mess in the street.”

  True falls silent, long enough that Lincoln glances at her. She’s staring straight ahead, but he doesn’t think she sees the traffic when she says, “Guiying didn’t want anyone else to die. She thought she could stand in the way, persuade Kai Yun’s soldiers to stand down. Shaw knew better. He tried to stop her, get her back under cover.” She shakes her head. “They hit her with a laser. The beam clipped him. He’s in bad shape.”

  A laser? That’s what took out all the surveillance drones.

  It shocks him, the idea of a laser-armed UAV prowling over a peaceful city. He wonders how many there are around the world, masquerading as harmless surveillance platforms—and how often they’ve been used. A laser is clean and precise, a modern weapon, capable of eliminating a specific target with little to no collateral damage. When True goes on to describe the Arkinson stitching the street, it’s a picture of primitive destruction by comparison.

  Miles says, “How does it make sense that Kai Yun went after him like that? Their reputation is for subtlety. If they want you dead, you’re gone, with no evidence to track it back to them. So why a bolt out of the bright blue sky? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s like they panicked,” Rohan says.

  Lincoln has to agree. The essential problem with a cover up is that over the years the original offense can become an ever-expanding complex of crimes. As each potential witness is removed, there’s more reason to remove the next. As more evidence is erased, the incentive grows to suppress questions for fear it might all unravel.

  True says, “I think Kai Yun hired local talent for their ground troops. You saw what happened to them. The field’s been cleared and that gives us a window of opportunity to go after Rihab and recover Shaw.”

  Lincoln eases forward into traffic. “Convince me I don’t need to worry about Variant Forces stepping in.”

  “Shaw is Variant Forces. The company is vaporware without him. His men knew that. They resented it. They wanted to be on the inside. He said no. That’s why they turned.”

  Rohan says, “Yeah, but he’s got to have more people than those two soldiers you left back at the house.”

  True half turns to look at him. “Sure. But Rabat is not his base of operations.” She shifts her focus to Lincoln. “There’s no reason to think his crew is here. You got to understand. This mission was personal for him. He told me he didn’t want to bring his people in.”

  “He was quick to bring in that Arkinson,” Felice points out. “That something we need to worry about?”

  True turns one hand palm up as if to suggest that nothing is certain. “He called it up himself. Ran it fully autonomous, from what I could tell. He said it’s subcontracted through a local PMC, but there’s no reason to think they know we’re here, or what happened. So the field is clear for us to finish this.” She checks her tablet, its map displaying the location of the mother’s helper. “Rihab is on the belt highway. Moving fast.”

  “We’ll be on the highway soon,” Lincoln assures her.

  They stop to swap vehicles, rejoining Khalid. “I’m going to drive for now,” Lincoln tells him. He puts True into the front seat. The other four squeeze into the back and they get underway, following a route Tamara has plotted. With traffic in the city easing, they make steady progress.

  “What’s Rihab’s game?” Lincoln asks True. “Is he just driving Shaw out into the desert to shoot him?”

  To his surprise, it’s Khalid who answers. “Rihab’s supposed to be an artist, a filmmaker.”

  True hunches over, hugging the Triple-Y. “Yes. If Rihab was just going to shoot him, he would have done it back at the riad. They’ve got something else in mind. But they aren’t going to be able to take him far, because he won’t last.”

  Chris speaks over comms. “In other words, he could be dead before you get there.”

  “He could be,” True says fiercely. “He’s dying, if that’s what you want to know. I’d say he’s as bad off as Diego was when they put him on the cross.”

  Lincoln glances at her. “Don’t go there, True. This is not about Diego.”

  “It is to me. It’s starting to feel like Nungsan all over again. We make the assumption he’s already dead and we wash our hands.”

  “Come on,” Miles says. “It’s a fair question. Is it worth risking your lives to go after him?”

  True turns around to look at him. Lincoln takes his good hand off the wheel, reaching out to restrain her. But when she addresses Miles, it’s in a surprisingly gentle voice. “You hate him. I don’t blame you. You have every right. But he’s still one of ours. And you know what they’re going to do to him. You know it better than anyone. You’ve seen it done before. No one deserves to die like that.”

  A glance in the rearview shows Miles loo
king askance and uncomfortable. Time to put an end to this debate. “True is right. Shaw’s one of ours… one of mine. If there’s any chance he’s still alive, we need to get to him. But none of you need to go if you don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Rohan?”

  “I’m in,” he says like he thinks it’s a stupid question.

  “Felice?”

  “Yes, sir. We already discussed this. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “I’m in too,” Khalid says.

  Rohan tells him, “You should sit this one out, partner. Translator duties are over. We’re not going to be talking to these guys. And you’re not armed, you’re not allowed to carry a weapon.”

  “Terms of the warrant,” Khalid says. “I know that. I don’t need to be on point, but I can take over the driving, be the unit medic, deploy the robotics, whatever’s needed, whatever I can. I’m part of this outfit now and I’m going.”

  “I’m going too,” Miles says. “If he’s still alive, I want to see him. I want to know if he’s changed his mind.”

  We’ll Say We’re Sorry Later

  Every ten seconds the mother’s helper pings the cell network. The signal is routed and rerouted until it finds its way to True’s tablet, where the position of the mother’s helper is updated on a map. As long as the device goes undiscovered, it marks Shaw’s location—and with every update his location gets farther and farther away. It’s emotionally painful to watch while their pursuit is frustrated and delayed by the chaotic traffic on the outskirts of the city.

  True makes herself close the tablet. Chris and Tamara are watching the signal. She does not need to watch it too. The mission is not served by her obsessing over it. It doesn’t matter that she is afraid for Shaw. Worry won’t help him. It doesn’t matter that she’s tired. Any energy she has left needs to go toward preparation.

  As Lincoln eases their truck into the congestion on the belt highway, she turns to ask, “What kind of gear have we got?”

  “Limited. Particularly, firearms. The terms of the warrant were negotiated for us and they don’t allow much. One handgun each, for me, Felice, Rohan. No one else is supposed to be armed.” He shrugs, deeming this requirement irrelevant going forward. “We’ve got field uniforms—adaptive camouflage, mixed-use pattern. Extras for you. Rendition supplies—hoods, body wraps, handcuffs. Trauma kit.”