by Corey Ostman
“Noodtoestand!” she shouted, running out the door.
In moments, Grace arrived at the lift. She drew Ronnie, fingering a tiny button to release the trigger guard. The lift door snapped shut, barely missing the nose of Martin, who had been sprinting down the hall from the opposite direction.
“Grace, wait!”
Grace pressed a few buttons ineffectually, then shrugged. A blind bang required her immediate action. Martin could either catch up or talk to her later.
Her ptenda displayed the destination. It offered to hail a transport, but Grace wanted flexibility. She tapped the screen and checked the fastest route by foot. Estimated arrival time was similar, but she’d have to book it.
Grace ran down Main Mall. She jutted and swerved through the tight gaps between pedestrians, imagining herself a wind-swept leaf. Hidden speakers along the walkway blurted out personal advertising messages as she hurried to the job site. She caught a word or two as she passed each one. The menagerie of disconnected and truncated blurps began to knit together into a unified message for Grace as it calculated her speed.
“Donner…suit…fun now… payments…personal agent…operations…Donner…ice…ops…Cantonese…reports and advises…trip…four confirmed armed terrorists at loc. Lead is in the pocket and the enemy is closing. T’s are semi-pro. Possible Aposti. South on Main Mall.”
Aposti. That surprised her. She had been expecting to hear of a steelback riot, given the current political climate. Aposti made no sense. Aposti were secretive, forming shadow brotherhoods dedicated to combat without weaponry. Some few had become protectors—Grace had known one Aposti in the academy—but to attack as terrorists? There was no grand terrorist-type of idea holding them together. Unless someone had hired them.
Corporations had that kind of money.
More facts flooded through the blurps. The protector summoning them had come under heavy fire. Lost communication. Communication up. Scooters moving down the mall. Scooters converging on Fourth and Sixth. Scooters denied: all were on foot. Perimeter established on the mall. Go left. Right. Grace stopped. The messages were breaking into pieces. She looked down to get her bearings on the ptenda, and then snapped her head up.
Something familiar. A face. Not a generic face, but a blank face. Pale, with staring eyes. It was gone, now, but she had just seen that face, two blocks back.
She tensed at the sound of a distant explosion and began running again. Faces didn’t matter—she had to get to the hot zone. Another explosion, closer. They were grenades. One, two—
A boot swung into her vision. It struck her on the neck, snapping her head back. She fell hard against the pavement.
Grace saw stars and her vision tunneled. She rolled right toward the street, choosing to take her chances with oncoming traffic. She needed room to stand and spot her assailant.
Movers swerved noisily. Grace wished they would stop trying to avoid her. She could account for them better if they stayed on a straight trajectory. And stopped blaring their horns.
It was the blank face again: white and gray, with staring eyes. Mechflesh? No, it was a holomask to conceal the bogey’s identity. Grace rapidly cataloged the rest: a black leather jacket and dark blue khaki pants. The jacket wasn’t mimic, but the pants were. Black hair poking out from the reach of the mask, and a long black ponytail. Nearly two meters tall. Male? Definitely trained.
Grace felt calm descending amidst the horns and screams and explosions. The bogey’s mission was not to kill. Else why engage her in pointless street combat? It was to delay, or maim. To keep her from meeting with the other protectors.
Grace decided on something her attacker did not expect. She ran. If the bogey wanted a piece of her, he would have to chase her down the middle of a large thoroughfare, against speeding traffic.
Grace sprinted down the road. There were no more explosions and no directives in her dermal, so she ran for the nearest cloud of smoke. The screeching transports on either side made her feel like she was in a mini grinder. No shots came from behind. She smiled.
Smoke was thick now, and traffic was thinner. She dodged a final taxi and found herself in an intersection, clear except for two movers. One of them was balancing on its side and another had smashed windows and smoke pouring out of the passenger compartment. A crater in the street testified to one of the explosions Grace had heard. Four bodies lay nearby. Bystanders gasped and cried.
She looked behind her for the bogey. Nothing.
Grace turned back to the bodies. All four were civilians, no weapons. Two were young men. They lay near the mover on its side. Another body lay on the sidewalk—an elderly woman who had died from shrapnel wounds.
Grace recognized the roundness of the fourth body. It was the corpse of the Vice Minister of Patents, Rendilon Gobi. She knew his patterns. The vice minister shopped for fresh fruit and vegetables at the nearby market every Sunday.
His body lay separated from his balding head.
Where was his protector? A gene addict as paranoid as Gobi would always have a protector.
Grace looked up from Gobi’s body to see a man sprinting toward her. He was wearing heavy blast gear, his phasewave drawn. Her ptenda pinged recognition of another protector, but it wasn’t until he was two meters away that she recognized his face. Martin?
“Randgarten-8989-Gamma. Grace, be sharp!”
“Donner-0016-Alpha. What the hell?!”
Martin’s brief smile changed to shock as a phasewave blast caught him from behind, knocking him away from Grace. He tumbled to the pavement.
Grace tracked the blast back to its source. It was the bogey, and he was aiming at her.
Grace squeezed a shot from Ronnie as the bogey’s phasewave blast sent her flying through the air. She strained for consciousness, her insides tight and the wind in her lungs gone as she hit the pavement. She watched the bogey’s corpse fall to the street in a crimson and black heap.
Her vision blurred. She heard a voice say, “her alive,” and Grace wanted so badly to stay conscious. She remembered Instructor Pembril’s technique and with effort bit down hard on her tongue. The tangy taste of blood filled her mouth and she hoped for twenty more seconds of sentience. Her sight cleared: in a tunnel of vision she saw a woman’s face. Red hair. Her arm screamed as she aimed Ronnie. So close. One shot.
Maud smiled at Grace and kicked Ronnie from her quavering hand. The tunnel of her vision collapsed. Grace felt a tug as Jonnie was pulled from its holster.
“Say goodnight, Donner.”
Chapter 27
The first thing Grace felt was her tongue probing the crusty flakes of blood in the corners of her mouth. She opened her eyes, but couldn’t see. Was it wave blindness, or just a dark room?
Her legs and arms were weighted down. She exhaled hard through her nose. By the sound, she decided she was in a small space. When she arched her right shoulder, she felt a wall. Her knees also scraped a hard surface. Was it the same wall she bumped when she moved her head?
Grace remembered a hazing experience at Red Fox. She woke one morning to find herself locked in her footlocker. Flora suffered the same fate that night, and Grace remembered her panicked screams. She’d felt panic bubbling up too, but she had to keep calm for Flora. Perhaps even hazing had been training, Grace thought. All I need is someone to keep quiet for.
Maud. Had Grace seen correctly, at the end? The red hair? The satisfied smile on Maud’s face? She unwound the past week in her mind. Had Maud seen her plant the liquid computer? Didn’t matter. Maud had found out.
Raj? Tim? Were they okay?
Grace tensed, feeling her muscles strain against the container. So I still have some strength, she thought. She relaxed and decided to wait for her prison to open.
Then she would pounce.
• • •
Distant mechanical clicking. Grace blinked in the darkness of her coffin, wondering how long she had been sleeping. She strained to hear. Click, click. Grace caught the distinct odor of ozone and
the sound of an electrical arc. The clicking stopped.
Her body convulsed and slammed against the walls as waves of electrical energy swept through her. She shrieked in agony, shocked to find she no longer had control over her emotions. She wanted to break her hands free, but found them tightly constrained. Her wrists burned.
The current stopped and she fell back. Pain channeled directly to anger. Maud. I’ll find you and strap you in here.
Was Raj being tortured somewhere, too? Was Martin still alive? She had misjudged Martin. He wasn’t a hotel manager for ITB; he was a protector with better skills than she. He hid in the open and nobody knew.
Click. Grace involuntarily winced, preparing for another assault. Another click, followed by the low hum of plasma lights. It took a few seconds of blinking until her vision cleared. She lay in a transparent crystalline box, her limbs strapped with electrodes. She had full view of the room beyond. Equipment lined the walls. Some looked like the surgical gear Raj used. But she wasn’t in a hospital. It looked more like an industrial space. In the corner of the room, two technicians in lab coats spoke to a tall woman with red hair.
Maud Van Decker turned to Grace and smiled smugly above her crossed arms.
“Donner, Grace, by Cloister Compromise, you—” Grace found herself blurting out the words by rote but stopped as Maud shook her head.
“No, Donner,” Maud said, walking over to the crystalline coffin. “This is no sanctioned interrogation. You will not be appointed representation. After I have the information from you, you’ll disappear.” She grinned. “Just like Tannenbaum.”
Grace expected threats, and had even thought of comebacks, but…Tannenbaum? Grace searched Maud’s face. Did she really know something about Flora?
“How do you know Flora?” Grace asked. The words came out slowly. Her mouth felt dry.
Maud leaned on the surface of her prison. “Tannenbaum didn’t cut it. She cheated on a training run a week ago.”
Grace searched Maud’s face. No facial tick. No forced grin.
“There’s no way Flora would cheat on anything,” Grace said.
“You’re right. Maybe that’s how it looked.” Maud leaned back and snapped her fingers. “Watch me eat the rumors, Donner. Tannenbaum, Gobi, and you. I’m the only predator here.”
The reference to Gobi made her feel nauseous, and she didn’t try to hide her revulsion. She noted the commandant wasn’t included. Was Huber on the payroll?
“You’ve been expelled from ITB,” Maud said. “Blacklisted as a protector. After compstate saw your reckless negligence with Gobi—”
“No one who knows me will tie me with this mess!” Grace spat out a bloody tooth. “I’ve already read this book, Maud, so turn the page or impress me with your genius.”
The longer you talk, the odds go up for me. I want to get out of here alive, so by all means, continue, she thought.
“Like I told you Donner, this is no sanctioned interrogation. And I must say, I’m delighted by what you did. A free liquid computer sample in addition to identifying yourself as a friend of the inventor? Charming.” Maud touched a finger to a small control pad and Grace managed a short yelp before the electrical charge slammed her again.
While arching inside her crystal box, Grace’s mind wandered, thinking of the smokehouse at her ranch back home. The bright red smell of slaughtered cattle, cured slowly in the narrow dark.
• • •
“Are you all right, son?”
Martin Randgarten woke. He realized the old man had asked him the question several times. He rolled to one side, feeling dampness on the back of his head, shirt, and trousers. Phasewave pain throbbed slowly over sharper stings where he’d hit the street.
Martin looked around. He was in the gutter. Gobi’s body lay nearby, and the mover still burned, so he hadn’t been unconscious for long. His phasewave was a few meters away. No sign of Grace, other protectors, or terrorists. Terrorists—who was he kidding? This had ITB written all over it. He had picked a bad day to eavesdrop on coded blurp transmissions.
He staggered, getting to his feet. The old man braced him as he stood.
“It’s a good thing you took that blast in the back, Protector. Better armor there.” The old man gestured to an elderly woman nearby, probably his wife. She bent to retrieve Martin’s weapon. “Careful, that’s—”
“A phasewave P91,” she said. “Nice upgrade from the P86.”
The old man chuckled. “Davis-9463-Zeta-Tau. She’s Davis-9462-Eta-Rho. Retired.”
The woman walked up to Martin and held out his phasewave. He took it gratefully, noting the old blast scars on her wrist.
“Thank you. Did you see what happened here?” Martin asked. “There was another protector. A woman.”
“They took her,” the old man said. “Up and away. In a flyer. Unmarked.”
Martin, still groggy, looked in the direction the old man was pointing, and became dizzy for a moment. He knelt on one knee, fumbling for a medbind and strapping it onto his wrist. The old man, still holding Martin’s arm, knelt beside him.
“From one protector to another,” the old man said softly, “whatever the mess was, it wasn’t right. Those weren’t terrorists. It’s corporate.”
Martin nodded, feeling a surge of energy from the medbind. He looked down at his weapon. Damaged. It still held a charge, but was unable to fire an accurate shot.
“Great.”
“Weapon’s busted?”
“Yeah,” Martin rubbed his eyes. “Rushed here without a spare.”
The old man stood with the help of his wife. He opened his coat, revealing a Cloister Arms 6060 in a docker’s clutch. Beautiful little antique: a sleek, fourshot phasewave-cannon used by protectors in the old movies. He unholstered it, reverently, as Martin stood.
“I served compstate for fifty years, watched as the corporations grew. Never thought I’d see this happen. Go get her, son.”
• • •
Grace had walked this road before. The twisted, leafless trees stabbed the dark clouds above with their pale, naked limbs. A gale shrieked agony from the sky.
She stumbled forward, her knees and hands bleeding. The last sip of water had come from a little girl, long since gone. Grace had forgotten to say thank you. Her tongue stuck to the back of her teeth and she wished it would rain.
The crossroads lay ahead, splaying its spiky choices. She stood to walk again when suddenly, she was standing there, looking up at the sign. Angry that she had to make another choice. Feeling like she’d forgotten something.
Forgotten? The guns!
She looked down at her hips and they were gone. Holsters and all. She was naked.
“Where are my guns?” she asked, her voice rasping in the wind. It had been too long since her last drink. The girl with the ptenda had brought it. Grace hadn’t thanked her. She wished she had. Maybe the girl would have come back.
“Where are my babies?” she screamed, trapped as the heat clawed her wrists.
The gale quieted. Grace felt an odd wave of joy pass like a ghost through her soul.
“My babies are safe.” Her own voice. Softer now. She turned and saw Flora dressed in her academy blue-and-whites.
“The babies are safe, Flora,” said Grace. Beside her was a mirror like the one in her dorm room at Red Fox. In the mirror, Grace saw only Flora in her academy jumper, guns on her hips, red hair coiling like snakes.
“You’re not safe,” Flora’s reflection said.
“I’m not safe,” Grace repeated. “I’m not safe?”
“You are not safe, Donner,” another voice said. A cold voice.
Maud now stood in Flora’s place. Black armor, coifed red hair. Smiling.
“You’re not safe, Maud!” Grace roared as Maud began to fade. Her palms slapped her thighs in search of weapons, but Ronnie and Jonnie were no longer there. She hadn’t been without a weapon for over a decade.
Powerless, she realized.
Chapter 28
&nb
sp; Raj stopped in the alley and leaned against a wall. He let out several heavy, wheezing hacks and gulped air into his lungs. The fire in his chest burned and every breath afterwards stung a thousand pinpricks in his throat: a present from the sooty duct they had used to enter the last building. Their mimic clothes had kept them clean. Raj wished he could say the same for his lungs.
Four hours had passed since Raj’s implant blared noodtoestand. The blind bang. Like everyone else, he had turned to his fact agents and saw holomasked terrorists drag a portly, balding man out of his mover and execute him. No sign of Grace. And in searching for her in the newsfeeds, he hit upon what others in the grid community had already noticed. There had been a three minute delay in the only fact agent at the scene. It was a replay, not a live feed. The fact agent had been hacked.
The blind bang was over in less than an hour, but Grace didn’t contact him. The only message he’d gotten was brief, but terrifying: Grace’s ptenda had been removed and switched off.
Raj had narrowed down the search at home, based on the ptenda’s last position, but the remaining buildings had opaque datasets. He had no choice but to search in person. Raj had spoofed Grace’s blurp credentials while searching, but he heard no messages meant for the protector. Stranger still, no blurps from any ITB operatives. Shouldn’t they have been communicating with her? Or looking for her?
He glanced again at the telemetry. Grace last transmitted three hours ago, in this area. But without a constant stream of data, he could only guess she was still here. Five buildings searched; three left to go.
“Maybe the building on the right.” Tim whispered. “The one on the left has too many windows.”
Raj glared at the shadows and put a warning finger to his lips. They were searching well away from crowds, but he wished Tim wouldn’t speak in public, no matter how quietly.
Raj’s grafty told him the building on the right was the property of ITB, and was being leased to Holist Group, a medical technology company. Certainly a possibility. ITB had several semi-autonomous and dummy corporations to separate its less savory activities from the public eye. Tim had an old list, and among them were names associated with genetics and biochemistry. Med-tech wasn’t far off.