by James Knapp
Both guns went off, and a bullet struck my chest. I grazed Ang’s shoulder as he fired again, punching through my right elbow. It triggered the mechanics in my forearm, causing it to split apart. The pistol flipped free from my hand and spun across the floor.
I ducked under the table as the final revivor picked up speed down a long corridor and into the main climate-control center. I swung the bayonet and slashed Ang’s hamstring. He screamed, and I heard his gun thump down onto the table above me.
I stood and saw him reel, hopping on one foot. He lunged for his weapon but stumbled and fell. I pulled the bayonet back, preparing to deliver the killing blow, when Samuel Fawkes appeared in the doorway.
Two soldiers followed him in. They aimed their rifles at me.
“Stop,” Fawkes said. His eyes glowed flatly in the dim light. Ang looked back, his face dark. A vein pulsed at his neck. Three more revivors filed in from behind Fawkes and took positions around him. They all had automatic rifles at the ready.
“Pick up your gun, Mr. Chen.”
He reached across the table, smearing blood, and recovered the weapon. He hopped back, and one of the revivors held him steady.
I felt Fawkes connect, and he began to scan my systems. He poked around, looking for a way in. His owl’s eyes didn’t change expression.
“Who is controlling you?” he asked.
“She’s running some kind of virtual command connections,” Ang said. “I tried to shut her down when someone blocked me, someone from inside. Someone besides MacReady is helping her.”
“Virtual command connections to where?”
“I wasn’t able to trace them before I got kicked off.”
In the feed, I saw a pair of hands place the tank on the concrete floor as the revivor scanned the room. A huge turbine of some kind took up most of the space there, surrounded by smaller blocks of machinery and rows of metal ductwork. The main pipe stood higher than a man. According to the building’s schematic, that was the main outflow pipe.
All nodes, report in. Fawkes’s eyes looked distant as the responses began to pour in. It would take time to process them all, but not much.
On the feed, the revivor grabbed the tank and approached the pipe. Using a cutter, it opened a hole large enough to squeeze through, leaving one corner attached. It peeled back the lid, and I could see its uniform begin to ripple madly as the air escaped. From far off, I heard a low whistle moan through the halls.
Fawkes looked back through the doorway.
“What is that?”
The revivor passed the tank through the hole, then climbed in after it. Inside the pipe it was dark, but its night vision allowed me to see the interior as it reached back through, grabbed the metal lid, and pulled it back. The whistle went up in pitch as the revivor held the metal in place, its fingers stuck through the seam.
Fawkes began issuing orders over the command spokes. In minutes, a squad of revivors would be down there, and he’d know.
Faye, I’m shutting down the circulation to T5. The message came not from Nico, but from Dulari. She’d been monitoring us. I tried to respond, to tell her that Fawkes was here with me, but the circuit was one-way, so it couldn’t be traced back.
A low thud came from somewhere in the building. The airflow to the room we were in stopped. Fawkes continued to watch me impassively as he ran a trace on the override circuit.
The revivor in the pipe gripped the tank between its legs, still holding the pipe lid shut with one hand. It used its free hand to open the tank, and icy mist began to drift from the mouth. It pushed the tank over with one foot and liquid gushed out, down the pipe. When it hit the air, it exploded in a cloud of gas. I caught a glimpse of the revivor’s arm and hand as they bubbled and dissolved away. I saw the mechanism that held the blade inside the forearm as the muscle and flesh melted; then the feed warped and went black.
It’s away, Dulari said. Critical saturation should occur within minutes.
Fawkes looked down at MacReady’s body, then back to me. “What did he tell you, Faye?”
“He said you’re going to destroy the city.”
“That’s bullshit,” Chen said. “She—”
“Take Mr. Chen to be treated, please.”
The revivor that was holding him up steered him toward the doorway and began half dragging him out. Over his shoulder, Chen glared at me, red-faced.
“What else did he say?” he asked.
“Just do it,” I said. “Kill me.” He stepped closer, and his soldiers crowded in behind him.
“Not until I’ve had a chance to look through your memory core,” he said. “Something’s going on here. What else did Mr. MacReady tell you?”
“He said you’d destroy the city no matter what anyone did.”
“If I wanted to destroy the city, then I’d do it. I have the capability to do it right now. I could issue one order and it would be done. I have no intention of destroying the entire city.”
Fawkes stopped short. Orange light glowed in the darks of his eyes.
“One of the gen-eight nodes just dropped off,” one of the soldiers said.
A message came in over the command network, instructing all revivors inside the missing unit’s patrol perimeter to report the location of the missing node. One by one the responses would be coming back.
“Faye, what did you do?”
Faye, Nico sent, get him out of there. He needs to be inside the dispersion area.
There wasn’t any other option. I opened a channel to Dulari and tried to warn her, even as Fawkes began tracing it.
Dulari, open the blowers to this room, I said, but she didn’t respond.
Fawkes came farther into the room. Through the open doorway I could see down the corridor to the other end, where two guards stood in the main corridor. He stepped past the body on the floor and stopped in front of me.
“You still belong to me.”
He finally broke through, then, and released the locks on my systems. He reestablished the command spoke and tapped into my nodes.
“Now tell me: what did you do?” Data spilled by in front of me as he accessed everything. He found the packages Nico had installed. He found the virtual command network hidden inside his own. He identified the end nodes, and his eyes widened just a fraction.
Something clattered in the hall outside the room, and he turned suddenly. Through the doorway, I saw the guards sway on their feet as white smoke began to stream from their flesh. A crackling sound filled the air, and both figures collapsed inside their uniforms. Their remains splashed to the floor, dissolving away to nothing.
The guard closest to the door slammed it shut. Fawkes turned back to me and stared. It was one of the few times I saw anything resembling emotion in his eyes. He tried to shut down the virtual links and found that they wouldn’t respond.
“Kill her!” he barked. One of his guards took a step, then all at once they seized and fell to the floor. The Leichenesser hadn’t made its way into the room; someone had hijacked them and shut them down remotely.
“Dulari,” Fawkes hissed.
Faye, Nico sent. Get him out into that corridor. It’s the last chance you’ll have.
Orange light flickered in Fawkes’s eyes, and a moment later a thud drummed through the floor as the air circulators shut down. The others must have reached the control center.
Fawkes issued a broadcast and pulled a node count. Already it had dropped to a third of his original forces. He slammed one fist down on the table.
Faye, take him now. Fawkes stepped closer and looked into my eyes, like he was staring through a window at something, or someone else.
Wachalowski, he sent.
He grabbed my throat with one hand and squeezed.
Nico Wachalowski—Stillwell Corps Base
I was almost out of time. In the confusion I couldn’t see what happened to MacReady, but his link had dropped. I still had a connection to Faye, but she’d lost her weapon. On her feed I could see Fawkes. He had leaned close and was star
ing into her eyes, at me.
You’re too late, Agent.
“He’s not waiting for a full charge,” I heard Vaggot say. “He’s preparing to fire.”
Fawkes, don’t do this.
Orange light began to flicker behind the soft glow of his eyes. There was only one way left to stop him from issuing the command.
I sent Faye’s override code over the command spoke and her system tree appeared in front of me. In seconds, direct control of everything was switched over to me.
Nico, what—
Her message was cut short as the override completed. All she could do now was watch. Her targeting system called out the carotid arteries on either side of Fawkes’s neck and the nodes clustered at the base of his skull. I triggered the attack, and her POV feed lurched as she swung.
Fawkes was just fast enough; he got his own blade in the path of the strike, and the two crashed together an inch from his neck. The feed jerked again as he shoved her back.
An alert flashed in my own display. The Eye was almost ready. In minutes, we’d lose our window to sever the connection to it.
Fawkes, stop, goddamn it—
The screen in front of me flickered and Osterhagen’s face appeared.
“Agent Wachalowski, what is our status?” he asked.
Fawkes, they’re going to destroy the transmitter if you try to fire, I told him. Don’t do it—
Is that supposed to be a threat? Fawkes asked. If they don’t destroy it then, before this is over, I will.
“Agent Wachalowski,” Osterhagen said again, “what is our status?”
I threw Faye at Fawkes again. Her second blade deployed as she closed in on him again and thrust it toward the middle of his chest. He managed to deflect the strike, and instead it thudded into his shoulder. Black blood came out in a glut as she jerked out the blade.
Two guard revivors closed in, and in the chaos of movement I began to lose track of where they all were. Faye’s POV spun around as warnings began to spill past indicating trauma to her torso and right leg. Muzzle flashes lit up the room, and I saw sparks fly from a console in front of her.
“Wachalowski, answer me!”
One of the revivors appeared to Faye’s right, and I sent the bayonet flying. I caught a glimpse of a gray, waxy face tilting off at an unnatural angle as the edge of the blade chopped deep into the flesh of its neck. Several more figures scrambled past; then the computer isolated Fawkes ahead in the fray. I sent her after him again. Another body stepped in front of him. On the feed, I saw Fawkes duck back out the way he’d come in as the remaining guards mobbed Faye. I couldn’t get her past them.
“Damn it!”
Faye, did he move into the dispersion area?
The sublevels aren’t completely saturated. He’s still active. I can’t tell where he went.
I’m too late, I thought. Fawkes had escaped. Osterhagen was going to order the missile strike. We’d lost everything.
“General—” I started.
“Were you successful or not?” he asked.
On Faye’s feed, I saw a splash of black appear on the wall to her left. Through the struggling bodies in front of her, I saw someone appear in the doorway for just a second. A severe-looking, dark-skinned woman. It was Dulari Shaddrah. There was a gun in her hand.
I turned to answer the general, when the image on the screen warped. A second later, it went dark.
“Get him back on the line,” a voice said.
“There’s too much interference,” another voice answered. “Let me try—”
“Fire the missiles,” someone snapped.
“Not without authorization from the general,” Vaggot said.
“The general could be dead!”
“You don’t know that,” I said. The faces in the room turned to me. “Who here knows the name Motoko Ai?”
Most of them looked confused, including Vaggot. One woman on the team met my eye and signaled with one hand.
“Do whatever you have to do to contact her,” I told her. “Tell her Nico Wachalowski said not to fire those missiles. She’ll know who I am.”
She nodded.
“Don’t let anyone here initiate the launch until you’ve given her that message. Can you stop them from doing that?”
“I can.”
“Can you get me to Heinlein Industries?”
“Key monorail routes are being kept active to move military personnel only. The southern sector of the base is still secure. You can access the rail from there.”
“Do it. In the meantime, hold the base and wait.”
“And if Ai asks why we shouldn’t launch, what am I supposed to tell her?”
A route to the bases’ monorail platform appeared on my HUD as I pushed my way past the soldiers and toward the door.
“That her prediction was right,” I said. “Tell her I’m going to kill Fawkes.”
Calliope Flax—Avenida De Luz
Helicopters swarmed around the base far behind us when I saw a small light appear up in the sky behind the clouds. The way ahead was blocked by cars stuck on the main drag, and there were too many people moving in between them to just bash my way through. The light disappeared behind a building as I ducked down a narrow side road.
Tires and hydraulics squealed as I punched the brakes and slowed down, and people turned and scrambled to get out of the way. I took us over the sidewalk and squeezed down the strip, blaring the horn. Hands pawed at the truck. Bloody fingers pulled at the door and left greasy smears along the jagged edge of the missing window. Alerts had begun to pour in over the JZI as the clouds overhead started to move.
“What the hell is that?” Vika asked. The light in the sky had come back into view, and it was getting brighter.
Cal, this is Nico. The satellite is going to fire again. The target is the UTTC. How close are you?
I couldn’t see the tower from where I was, but it wasn’t more than ten blocks away.
Closer than I want to be, but out of the blast zone, I said. Where are you?
I’m headed toward Heinlein. Find a metro stop. The military has control of the railways. They’re shut down to civilians, but they’re moving military personnel. You need to get off the street.
Something thumped into the door on my side and I jumped. Bodies were shoving their way between the stuck vehicles as people scattered. One had reached the truck and had its hands on the edge of the open window.
“Goddamn it!”
I took aim and pulled the trigger. The jack stumbled back and went down on the ground. Another one crunched under the front wheel as I lurched forward, and I heard one climb up on top of the truck. I hit a parked car and set the alarm off while the revivor fell down onto the hood.
Two military helicopters blew by overhead. A second later, something exploded on the sidewalk off to our right, and the pavement shook underneath us. Glass and debris blew over the street and banged off the side of the truck. Something bashed through the back windshield of a parked car. I checked the mirrors and saw the shadows of the revivors fade behind us.
“We need to get off the street. Hang on.”
Something whistled overhead then and creamed the building to our right about twenty stories up. Light flared through the smoke, and everyone around us stopped and turned. A wall of warm air huffed down through the swirling snow and dust as a twisted fire escape crashed down from above.
A chunk of concrete pounded the road next to us. Another one flattened the roof of a cab; then what looked like part of a fucking gargoyle whipped past and bowled through the crowd, spraying blood across the driver’s-side window.
People dove out of the way as I jerked the wheel and took us down a side street. In the rearview mirror I saw something big fall through the smoke, and the impact made the ground buck underneath us.
I blew through a pile of trash bags on the corner at the end of the street and caught air for a second as the road dipped. The undercarriage scraped a speed bump, and we fishtailed on a patch of
ice. I spun the wheel and got us under control, then made a break for the subway stop at the end of the block as a cluster of broken bricks flew by in front of us, trailing smoke.
Other people had the same idea. A hundred yards away, the crowd got too thick to move the truck through. I killed the engine.
“Come on!” Vika held the rifle in a death grip as we opened the doors and got out. I shoved my way around the back and hauled the doors open.
The back of the truck was full of equipment. I climbed up the rear bumper and pulled the closest locker open; it was loaded with guns and ammo. I traded my pistol for a better one and grabbed a few clips and stuffed them in my pockets.
“What are you doing?” Vika called. I climbed out, then jumped back down onto the pavement.
“Stick close, no matter what!” I said. I dragged her toward the metro entrance and muscled our way into the flow. People pushed and shoved as we made our way down the stairs into the station.
Most people just wanted to get off the street and away from the worst of the crowd. I took us through, then down onto the nearest platform. The tracks were empty, but down the tunnel I saw the lights from a train that was parked there, not moving. In the other direction, the tunnel was clear. I sent our location back to Nico.
Back the way we came, there were screams. I looked back and saw that a group of revivors had come down after us. People tripped over each other as they tried to get away. Somebody got bitten and blood squirted from his neck. Another guy got dragged off the platform and into the dark.
Vika jerked her hand away and tried to run, but they’d reached us. I fired, and one of them fell, but the rest just went right over it.
“Vika, get behind me!”
I tried to block them, but an elbow thumped into my chest and I was knocked back as feet stomped the floor around my face.
“Vika!”
I flipped over, and a boot came down on my back. I slammed onto the concrete as two of them grabbed Vika by her shirt. She screamed and tried to get the rifle around, but she was pinned. I shot one in the knee and it fell, but more hands grabbed her. They pulled her away from me, down the tunnel.