Abaddonian Dream

by M. K. Woollard

  Hearing a hiss, he peered out again to see the cat with her hackles up, standing between himself and the android. He felt a momentary surge of love for the brazen little creature as she dived in to savage the android’s foot. She didn’t do too much in the way of damage, but she did distract it for a few precious seconds before she was flicked away nonchalantly.

  Think, he thought as he dropped down again behind the sofa, hearing soft footfalls as the android advanced. Think, think, think. He couldn’t run and there was nothing much to hand to use as a weapon. He cursed the fact that he’d managed to fill his apartment with thousands of things, none of which were any use in a fight. If only he had the knife, he’d at least have a fighting chance. If I survive this, I’m going to kill Li. His eyes darted around, looking for something, anything and they landed on Toskan’s big black box. Maybe...

  The footsteps stopped as Eva 2.0 appeared at her news desk.

  “Command - orgy!” Hammell called out after jumping up to slap the sign-in box. There was a flash of white light which made Hammell blink and when his eyes adjusted the room was filled with people. Naked people. “Command - more people!” Hammell called out and the sexulator obliged, the black box humming now from the enormous amount of processing it was being forced to do. “Command - even more,” and a warning message appeared stating that the system may crash due to insufficient memory.

  Still not dead, Hammell crawled around the sofa to see what was happening. The assassin was confused; androids tended to have little understanding of this aspect of human behavior and were usually baffled by it. But this one was smart, quickly figuring out that all these newcomers were just soligrams. It learned to ignore them, even pushing over one particularly enthusiastic couple as it resumed the hunt.

  “Command - whatever everyone is doing,” Hammell called out as the assassin’s shadow loomed over him, “do it to the android!”

  Without waiting to see the effect, he bolted, slaloming his way through the crowd. A man beside him dropped suddenly, a geyser of blood gushing from his head, and Hammell marvelled momentarily at the level of detail. Toskan really bought a quality machine here. There was still a way to go to the open front door and he imagined he could feel the gun trained on his back, an uncomfortable feeling that made his spine contort involuntarily as he ran. Blood began to fly all around him and the soligrams finally woke up to what was happening. Suddenly there was pandemonium as some began to scream and a few tried to run, but everywhere now there were people moving.

  Hammell reached the front door unscathed and risked looking around. It was like the last days of Rome back there. His order was conflicting with the soligrams’ innate low-level intelligence, with surprising results. Some were running around like headless chickens, since they were confined to the apartment and had nowhere to run to. One woman was busy spinning on the spot, while another was sprinting repeatedly into a wall. A few were still trying to follow his order - a buxom woman was gamely attempting to straddle the android, even with a bullet hole in her chest, while a man in a bow tie and not much else was desperately trying to feed it chocolates. The assassin, for its part, was systematically executing everyone.

  Darting off down the stairs, Hammell was happy to see the cat emerge behind him; she nipped between his feet, nearly doing the android’s job for it. Thirty-four flights later, he was out of the building and into the relative safety of the streets. Sticking close to the buildings on his side of the road, in case the android was waiting to snipe him from the balcony, he ducked down one turn, then another. Seconds became a minute and his heart rate began to normalise.

  The more he began to think he would survive, the more he began to feel self-conscious; a largely alien emotion. But being out in the street in nothing but a pair of ancient boxer briefs was unusual even by his standards. Buying underwear had always seemed a low priority, something which was easy to put off - it was, after all, rare that anyone saw it. Today though he discovered that it had been a mistake not to have done so in the last five - possibly ten - years. He had never anticipated this particular circumstance and wished now that he was wearing something with fewer holes.

  Chapter 29

  There was technically no need to wear clothing in the city, he decided, attempting to convince himself that his appearance might just be normal. Even shoes were largely unnecessary when the pavements were so perfectly laid and there was no trace of broken glass or litter of any kind to step on. He was however grateful for once for the warmth and the concealing smog.

  Figuring that the only way to pull this off was to do it brazenly, he didn’t walk down the street, he strutted, nodding a confident greeting to whomever he passed. The strangest thing was that the creatures of the night didn’t notice; or if they did, they didn’t care. The cat even popped up again for a time to walk alongside him in her own cocky gait, pushing things from the strange into the surreal.

  As he began to get used to his state of undress, even to find it oddly liberating, he considered his options. The more he thought about it, the more it became clear that Eva’s suggestion was the only viable one, given that he couldn’t trust Providence and didn’t dare go to I.T.F. He knew he could go right now to the spaceport and get on the next shuttle, beginning the long journey to Abaddon that he’d dreamed of his whole life.

  And yet he didn’t. He kept walking.

  Closing his eyes to throw off anyone who might be watching over his iEye, he took a sudden turn to the left. As he walked away he noticed that Kitty hadn’t come with him. She’d continued straight on as if she hadn’t even noticed he’d gone. He watched her sauntering off, feeling strangely sad about it.

  He took another blind turn and then another and his mind returned to the assassin. He thought about all the other I.A.s who had gone before him. Had an android assassin come for them too? Was that how Dave Toskan had died? Would one come for-

  “Asha,” he said aloud.

  Flagging down a nat, he frantically called Hetty.

  “Hello?” the voice came back on his iPalm – a voice without an image, he noted. Hetty apparently didn’t want to be seen at this time of night; not by the likes of him anyway. On a whim, he allowed his own semi-naked image to be displayed, just for the shock value.

  “Don’t leave Asha alone!” he said as he jumped into the nat the moment it landed. “Whatever you do, stay with her!”

  “Hammell?” Hetty asked. “I’m at home now. What’s going on?”

  “Shit,” he cursed.

  “Are you naked in a public n-”

  He closed his hand as the nat shot up into the air.

  The public nat refused to land in the ambulance bay and, as a civilian, Hammell couldn’t force it to. Even as an I.A. he’d probably have struggled. It left him instead at the drop-off point on the roof. He didn’t wait for the lift, heading straight down the stairs, crashing his way through plastic sheet doors and sprinting down endless white corridors until he arrived, breathless and sweaty, on Asha’s ward.

  “Excuse me,” a nurse said but he ignored it, making a beeline straight for Asha’s room. Just before he reached it, the door opened and he watched in slow motion as an android emerged - a black one. Changing direction to avoid running headlong into it, Hammell checked his momentum against the wall. He turned to watch the assassin, desperately hoped it wouldn’t ping him - he was, after all, worthy of a second look, especially now the sweat had turned his underwear transparent - but the android merely slipped its silenced gun back into its arm as it calmly walked out through the still-swinging doors.

  Hammell turned to the nurses on duty, but they were all oblivious, as if gun-toting android assassins were a perfectly normal sight around here. Instead they were looking at him. “Visiting hours are over,” one said.

  “I won’t disturb her,” Hammell replied as he gently pushed the door open.

  Asha Ishi was lying on the bed, her cheeks full of colour now, a peaceful look on her face. The bullet hole through her forehead was no bigger t
han the tip of his pinkie. The pillow behind her head had been rearranged into a surprisingly decorative border of reddened feathers.

  The nurse appeared at his shoulder. “I am sorry, but you have to leave.”

  Hammell allowed the android to guide him back out and he slumped down on a plastic chair in the waiting area. He watched as Asha Ishi’s body was carted away, hidden beneath a thin white sheet. Forensics hadn’t seen her, had probably not even been called. Death by gunshot wound was apparently considered natural causes at St Mary’s.

  Chapter 30

  He kept his head down, avoiding looking at anything which might give away his location, turning down street after street, eyes to the glistening pavements. Keeping close to buildings, he passed beneath everything he could find which provided overhead cover, sometimes closing his eyes when he made turns and sometimes when he didn’t. How long can I possibly survive if they really can see everything I see? When he was sure nobody could have followed him, he ducked into an empty underground car park and found a corner he was certain wasn’t being monitored by a surveillor.

  Asha Ishi’s enormous rucksack had always intrigued him. Now he’d stolen it from her hospital room he finally had a chance to discover its secrets. Feeling a twinge of guilt as he opened it, he reached in carefully, half expecting her to have booby-trapped it, and pulled out a remotely controllable love egg. He dropped it with a shriek and located a pack of wet wipes. Maybe that explains why she always tried to avoid facial expressions he thought as he continued rummaging, even more cautiously.

  Among a host of strange and sometimes unidentifiable items, he found a set of gloves and a spare jacket, which he his way squeezed into, tearing a glove and popping a button in the process. His movement was severely restricted, as was his blood flow, but it was better than nothing. He also discovered a spare set of underwear. His boxer briefs were still damp with sweat and still full of holes. Nevertheless he decided red lacey panties would be a step too far. He did however decide to utilize Asha’s make-up kit to throw off facial recognition software. Checking the results in a tiny mirror, he found that he looked like a clown who’d fallen on hard times and been forced to take up prostitution.

  Subtly altering his gait, he left the car park, setting off into the gloom. It would be a long walk, but he didn’t want to risk a nat unless in an emergency; the public ones would ping his ID the moment he got in, thereby revealing his presence to Providence. Hurrying off down the street, he found that he was lost, and would have to somehow relocate himself without the aid of a map, and ideally without looking at any road names, landmarks or anything otherwise identifiable. Sighing to himself, he realised that his long walk was going to be even longer than he’d thought.

  There was no movement of any kind on the street, which was more than a little eerie. The whole neighbourhood felt like a giant still photograph. Hammell hadn’t even seen any birds or stray cats, as if they knew they weren’t supposed to be here. He wondered if hoverbots kept them away and how they did it, an amusing vision popping into his head of flying robots farcically chasing after cats, before realising that the actual method they used would probably be far less entertaining. The entire area was a flawless version of suburbia, so ideal that it was bordering on sinister. He could imagine the residents walking around with fixed permanent smiles talking about how amazing everything was, dead behind the eyes.

  Scouting the cottage from the bushes in the garden, he found himself despising it most of all. It looked like an image from a chocolate box. Nothing was out of place anywhere he looked - no paint was cracked, no rose stems were bent, not a blade of grass was bent or overgrown. It was all a little too perfect, and he considered for a moment why perfection was automatically flawed to his eye. Surely that means the fault is in me.

  A shadowy movement against the curtains revealed that someone was home, and he tried calling again. He was reasonably sure it was the former Commissioner inside the house; few people could cast a shadow quite that size and shape. He closed his hand when there was no response. The one downside about iPalms, aside from the itchiness when they’re first installed, is that it’s painfully obvious when someone is ignoring your calls. Impatience finally got the better of him and he scurried up to the back door, knocking quietly. Catching sight of his reflection in the window, he dug out Asha’s wet wipes and quickly cleaned off the make-up; his story was crazy enough without looking like a circus hooker. When he was finished, he knocked again, harder, and the door swung open suddenly and a shotgun appeared in his face.

  “Hello,” Hammell said, startled.

  “You,” Yun said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Hammell gently guided the barrels away from his face with a finger. “Expecting trouble?”

  “Most people knock on the front door,” Yun said, lowering the gun.

  Hammell stood there awkwardly. “This is usually the part where I get invited in.”

  “Is it really?” Yun said, sounding dubious. He looked Hammell up and down. “Is that just something you do?” he continued, gesturing towards Hammell’s clothing. “I mean, it’s ok, if it makes you feel closer to women or something…”

  “It’s a disguise,” Hammell said flatly.

  “Ok,” Yun said, unconvinced. “You’ve had to disguise yourself a few times recently, eh?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it over a drink.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear all about it,” Yun said, but he moved aside finally, watching Hammell all the way in with his bug eyes.

  The big man ushered Hammell into the living room and then excused himself for a moment, allowing Hammell a bit of time to nose around. It wasn’t the kind of house he’d expected for the former Commissioner. It was homely, but dated. Hunting photographs adorned the walls, though no trophies. From the pictures, he could see that Yun hunted for food, not just sport; half of the images were of various critters roasting over open fires or barbecues. Even the grand old fireplace contained a variety of cooking apparatus - a spit, several racks of different sizes, a set of tongs, even a cast iron cauldron. He supposed a man didn’t get to the size of the former Commissioner without having an enjoyment of food. With its exposed beams and big comfortable armchairs, the cottage had the feel of a hunting lodge on a smaller scale.

  “These are from when I lost a bit of weight,” Yun said as he returned holding a small pile of clothing.

  Hammell nodded his thanks and took them gratefully. Picking out a shirt, he fought his way free of Asha’s coat, feeling glad now that he hadn’t gone for the lacey red underwear.

  “Oh, bèn dàn,” Yun said, averting his eyes. “You could have warned me you were naked under there. You know you can change in the bathroom, if you like?”

  “It’s ok,” Hammell said as he pulled his boxer briefs from where they had ridden up somewhere they shouldn’t, “I’m not shy.”

  It was more akin to climbing into a collapsed tent than putting on a shirt, but at least he could breathe freely now. Yun had to bring a pair of scissors to gouge a new hole in the belt to get the trousers to stay up, but the shoes turned out to be a decent fit. For all his immensity, Yun had disproportionately normal sized feet.

  “Well?” Hammell asked as he spun around. “What do you think?”

  Yun grunted. “It’s… better.”

  Hammell checked himself out in the mirror above the fire. “I look like a teenager who borrowed his dad’s suit for a job interview.”

  “I have some of Dawn’s clothes, if you’d prefer?” Yun said as he walked over to the minibar and took out two glasses, pouring whisky from a decanter.

  “These will do fine, thanks.”

  “So,” Yun said as he handed over a glass before sinking into an armchair in front of the fireplace, “do you want to tell me why came knocking on my back door dressed like… you were dressed? I’m assuming it wasn’t just to borrow from my skinny wardrobe.”

  “No,” Hammell said as he sat in the opposite chair, wondering wh
ere to begin, which words would convince the big man. He was very quick with that shotgun; he must suspect something. Digging around in his memory chips, Hammell cast footage from his iEye onto the skywall, the break in etiquette causing Yun to growl. Starting with his escape from the assassin in his apartment - a video requiring no small amount of explanation - Hammell laid it all out; from the weapons Eva had said were on the boat, to I.T.F.’s brutality on the docks. Holding nothing back, he divulged Asha Ishi’s theory about the coming war and his suspicions about his iEye and its role in her demise. He finished on the video of the assassin coming out of Asha Ishi’s hospital room, freezing on the image of her corpse. When he was done, the big man was quiet and pensive.

  “You should have brought this to me earlier,” Yun said as he rolled his tumbler around in his hand. “Back when I was in a position to do something about it.”

  “I tried,” Hammell shrugged. “I didn’t have evidence.”

  “I can’t refute your evidence,” Yun said. “But I don’t buy your interpretations of it.”

  “Asha’s interpretations,” Hammell corrected him. “I’m not here to convince you – I don’t even know that I’m convinced myself. I just came to warn you. They came for me. They came for Asha. They probably came for Toskan – and all the others. Maybe they’ll come for you.” He sank the whisky - a decent drop - and placed the glass down on the coffee table. He stood up to leave. “If she’s right, they’ll know I’m here.”

  “Sit down,” Yun said, with such quiet authority that Hammell’s body complied before he was aware of it. The big man got slowly to his feet and pressed a button on the wall to set a fake fire burning, and Hammell wondered why his former boss hadn’t integrated the fireplace into a system he could control through his implant. Hammell noticed then that there were buttons everywhere, for the lights and the blinds, even a small hand-held control for the skywall. It all seemed so... inconvenient. The fire burst into life, looking and even smelling like the real thing, but blessedly giving out no heat. In fact, it actually began emitting cool air.