The December Protocol

by Devin Hanson

  “AI,” Min whispered. “Activate privacy mode.”

  “As you wish.” The voice in Min’s ears was muffled, and sounded put out, as if the AI was insulted that he didn’t want the other people in the flat to hear it.

  “How many gunmen are there?”

  “Two,” the reply came back, throaty with excitement.

  “How did they get in?”

  “Through the door.”

  Min sighed. Residential AIs weren’t the brightest pieces of software. A male voice called something, and Min caught the clipped tones of a military-trained sweep-and-clear order. Min slid his issue pistol from his belt holster. He wished he had solid rounds to load it with. If the people shooting at him were wearing body armor, monomol rounds would be useless against them.

  On the other side of the wall, the bullet-ridden partition was smashed through. Heavy boots stepped into the workshop and Min heard debris grit under the treads as the gunman pivoted, searching the area.

  “Clear.”

  Min rolled out behind cover, pistol held in both hands and lined up with the gap in the partition. A tall gweilo in body armor was turning back to the kitchen, a shotgun held at ready across his chest. A much shorter woman in matching armor was just stepping through into the workshop and saw Min. Her eyes went wide and Min started pulling the trigger.

  His first couple rounds plowed into the back of the gweilo, knocking him sprawling into the woman. Monomol might not have the penetrating power to blow through the body armor, but the rounds still punched like getting kicked by a donkey. He put a few more rounds down range then rolled back behind cover.

  “AI, keep me appraised of the gunmen’s positions.”

  “Should I alert the authorities?”

  “Don’t bother.” By the time local police arrived, he would be dead. On the off chance that he lived through this, the last thing he wanted was to be detained for questioning. Always assuming the people trying to kill him were not, in fact, the police. That body armor had an official look to it. “Put a call through to Enrique Cande. Flag as urgent.”

  “Call is going out. The man with the shotgun is circling around the workshop through the den. Should I lock the doors?”

  Min scrambled across the hall to the bedroom and leveled his pistol at the partition coming from the den. “Let him come.”

  The partition eased open silently then the gweilo sprang through, his gun leveled at the place Min had been a few seconds earlier. Min’s flat had been designed for people of Min’s height. The ceilings were eight feet tall and the lintels were seven feet. The gweilo misjudged the height of the lintel and banged his helmet against it as he came through, knocking his balance off.

  Min shot him in the face as he came down from his leap slightly wrong-footed. The gweilo’s faceplate starred under the impact. Min dashed across the hall, firing as he ran. The gweilo had already twisted, protecting his face from the monomol rounds, and Min’s shooting did little but keep the man off balance.

  It was all Min needed. He reached the gweilo and kicked him in the back of the knee, collapsing the leg and knocking the man to his knees.

  “Hey Min, what’s up? You get locked out of your flat or something?”

  Min grunted as he wrapped one arm around the gweilo’s helmet and heaved, spinning the taller man around and throwing him to the floor. The man struggled briefly until Min locked his arm out and levered it back. Polyresin armor creaked under the strain and the man bit off a muffled curse.

  “Hold on, Enrique.” Min rasped. He jammed his pistol up under the rim of the gweilo’s helmet and dug the muzzle into the hollow at the base of his skull. “Stand up, fucker,” Min gritted out.

  “Min, the woman is moving through the workshop.”

  The gweilo clambered to his feet, his hands spread wide. Min spun him around so the gweilo was between him and the workshop.

  “What was that, Min? Who are you talking to?”

  “Take it easy,” the gweilo said. “You got me.”

  The woman kicked through the partition from the workshop into the hallway and jammed to a halt. She had her machinegun leveled.

  “No, wait!” the gweilo cried out.

  Min was already moving, spinning away from behind the man and crouching behind the concrete wall when the woman opened fire. The man’s armor turned away several bullets before the alloys cracked and blood sprayed.

  The man slumped to the ground and the gunfire cut out.

  “Holy shit! Is someone shooting at you?”

  “Enrique, do a search for me. See if there’s a warrant out on my flat.”

  “What? Why? What’s going on, Min?”

  “Just fucking do it!”

  Min stuck his arm around the corner and emptied his gun blindly down the hallway. He heard at least one round spang off an armor plate, and then his gun ran dry. Machinegun fire hammered in response, blasting craters into the concrete wall and obliterating the partition. Min threw aside his empty gun and waited it out, watching morosely as wild rounds destroyed his entertainment deck.

  He heard the machinegun click empty again and he sprang around the corner. The woman saw him coming and threw the gun aside, drawing a pair of long knives and dropping into a crouch. Min jammed to a halt. Even a mildly competent fighter with a pair of knives outmatched any hand-to-hand techniques Min knew. If she hadn’t been wearing armor, he might have risked it, though.

  The woman smiled and waggled a knife at him.

  “I didn’t find anything, Min,” Enrique came back. “Why are people shooting at you?”

  “Thanks. Just wanted to make sure this wasn’t an official misunderstanding. Hang on a moment.” Min put Enrique on hold.

  “Oh, it’s official,” the woman said. Her voice was hungry. “You’re officially a dead man, Min Yang.”

  “You know I’m a marshal, right?” Min tried for confidence in his voice. “You kill me, you’ll be compost inside the month. Whatever you’ve been promised, it isn’t worth a bounty on your head that every marshal on Mars will be itching to collect.”

  The woman sneered and darted forward, her knives feinting and jabbing. Min danced back, barely keeping ahead of the blades.

  “There won’t be any bounty, Marshal. You know why? Your own people sold you out.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What can I say, Marshal? You pissed off the wrong people.”

  She lunged forward again and Min pedaled backward. His heel caught on the dead gweilo and he tumbled back through the broken partition. The woman leapt at him, a snarl on her face. Min fell to the ground and rolled to avoid the stabbing knives. His shoulder smacked into something and he grabbed at it, desperate for anything to help fend off the woman.

  Min’s hand closed around the barrel of the gweilo’s shotgun and he whipped it around, slamming the stock into the woman’s shoulder. She fell back, shaking her head, and Min clambered to his feet. He pumped the shotgun and leveled it at the woman’s face. She snapped her head up, her eyes wide.

  “Who sent you?” Min asked. “You get once chance.”

  “Fuck you, you piece of–”

  Min dropped the barrel to aim at her leg and pulled the trigger. Armor plating shattered and the slug round ripped through her leg. She collapsed screaming.

  Min pumped the shotgun again. “That was your chance. Who sent you?”

  The woman huddled around her ruined leg, her hands reaching out to hold the shredded flesh and shattered bone together, but afraid to touch it, as if physical contact with the wound would make it real.

  “Answer the question!”

  “I can’t! Please, I can’t tell you.”

  “Why, because they’d kill you?” Min hefted the shotgun. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention. I have no problem ending you.”

  Blood was pooling on the ground under the woman, pumping steadily from the wreck of her thigh. Min lowered the shotgun. She was going to bleed out in a matter of seconds if he didn’t do something. He jogged back int
o the ruin of his workshop and grabbed the medical kit off the wall, thankfully intact. By the time he got back to the woman she was slumped sideways, her face grey.

  Min threw down the medical pack and ripped it open. He put a battlefield tourniquet strap around her thigh above the wound and popped the chemical activator. With a hiss, it tightened around her leg until the blood coming from the ragged wound slowed to a sporadic drip. Min grabbed the woman by the shoulder and rolled her over onto her stomach. The armor’s release catches were masked by blood, but he found them by feel and cleared them one at a time until the armor fell free.

  Now that he had access to the major veins on the insides of her arms, he set up a blood line and hooked the bag into a convenient bullet hole in the wall. Min checked her pulse with bloody fingers and was relieved to find a weak but steady heartbeat. With the woman stabilized, Min took Enrique off hold.

  “Enrique, you still there?”

  “Are you okay? Do you need me to send a medic?”

  “I’m fine. Got one fatality and one for the hospital, assuming I let her live.”

  “Jesus. Okay. Listen! While you were, uh, busy, I did a little searching. There was a hit put out on you. Criminal, not an inside job.”

  “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t sanctioned.”

  “Granted, but you’re being paranoid.”

  “Whatever. Hold on, I’ll send you shots of their faces.” Min went around with his tablet and photographed the two intruders and sent them over to Enrique. “How long before you get anything back on these two?”

  “It’ll take me a few minutes. I’m on my station at home,” Enrique said peevishly.

  “Right. Well hurry up. Call me back when you get something.” Min hung up. The woman was starting to stir. Min picked up the shotgun again and leaned against the wall opposite the woman. Gradually she started coming to, then snapped awake with a scream.

  Min held up a syringe. “Painkillers. But I want your word first. Tell me everything you know.”

  The woman nodded frantically, her teeth clenched against the pain. Min set the shotgun down out of reach and injected the syringe into her hip. After a tense moment, the woman relaxed, panting, her face beaded with sweat.

  “What’s your name?” Min asked.

  “Marianne Lopez.”

  “Okay, Marianne. You answer my questions quickly and promptly, and I might let you live. If I think you’re holding something back, I’ll blow out your other leg. Do you understand?”

  Marianne let her head fall back against the wall again and closed her eyes. “Ask your questions.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Like I said, I can’t tell you. It was an anonymous contract.”

  Min frowned. “Who’s the dead guy?”

  “I don’t know. A bounty hunter that showed up at the same time I did.”

  “No honor among thieves, hey? What was your objective?”

  “Kill the man at the address.”

  “Did you know I was a marshal?”

  Marianne opened her eyes again and looked at him. “It was in the contract.”

  Min grunted. “You take contracts to kill marshals often?”

  She shook her head and winced. “No. Never.”

  “Why now?”

  “The size of the bounty,” she laughed. “I’ve never seen so many zeros on a head before.”

  “You said I was sold out. What makes you think that?”

  “It was in the contract. How do you think?”

  Min sighed. The woman knew nothing. It was possible the woman was lying, but he doubted it. It took a great deal of mental fortitude to have your leg nearly blown off and still have the composure to lie convincingly a few minutes later.

  “Min,” the AI said brightly, “I detected an emergency call placed referencing your location.”

  “Great.”

  “Don’t worry, miss,” the AI said reassuringly. “Help is on the way.”

  Marianne rolled her eyes up to Min’s. “Who programmed your AI? She’s dumb as a rock.”

  “Tell me about it. So, Marianne, what am I to do with you?”

  “I answered your questions,” she said, fear coming back to her eyes. “You could leave. I’ll say that guy over there shot me and I greased him in return.”

  “And you won’t be after me again in a few hours after the medics fix up your leg?”

  “For what?” she shook her head, flinging beads of sweat. “I’ve had enough of marshals to last a lifetime. I don’t care what the bounty is.”

  Min nodded. “Or I could shoot you and reinforce the message. Discourage future bounty hunters.”

  “You could,” Marianne said. “Or you could let me live and I’ll spread the word. Nobody will want to take that contract once I’ve had my say.”

  “You make a good case for yourself.” Min smiled a little and lowered the shotgun. “Alright, Marianne, we’ll do it your way. Just to be clear, I see your face, even in passing, and I’ll end you in a heartbeat.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said fervently. “Thanks.”

  “Stay where you are,” Min said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Min headed back to his workshop. The place was a shambles. He picked through the debris until he found the ablative armoring on the ground where it had fallen and filled a satchel with gear that he thought might come in handy then headed back out to the hallway. The bounty hunter was lying where he had left her, though she had propped herself up against the wall.

  “How’s the leg?” Min asked.

  “Fuck off.”

  Min grinned despite himself. He liked Marianne’s spunk. “Have fun with the police when they arrive. Remember to be convincing.”

  Marianne made an obscene gesture and Min left her. As an afterthought, he threw the shotgun back into the lounge where the other bounty hunter lay. It’d help sell Marianne’s story if the shotgun was found near the dead guy. She’d have to do some pretty fast talking to stay out of prison or the ice mines, but he had a feeling she’d manage somehow.

  With a last longing look at the autochef, Min swung his satchel onto his shoulder and left his flat, closing the door behind him. Even if Marianne was good to her word and spread the news that Min was off-limits, it would be many hours before she could start getting the word out.

  It was time to go to ground.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  The 22nd century brought one of the greatest ironies of human history. America, the most powerful nation in the world, was brought to its collective knees in less than two years. The open market that had made America into an economic powerhouse was ultimately its downfall. Nowhere on Earth were there more people wealthy enough to be treated with the Womack Process.

  With the declaration of the December Protocol, America shattered. Of all its most wealthy citizens, all the business owners, all the politicians, all the executives, lawyers, doctors, engineers, stock brokers and marketers, nearly ninety percent had received the treatment. And when the clinics were shut down, when the supply of eggs ran out, in their thousands, then in their tens of thousands, they died. The top twenty percent of wealthy people in America were wiped out in a matter of weeks.

  The chaos that followed the December Protocol in America can hardly be described. Germany, Britain and France fared little better. The Western world collapsed, almost overnight, nearly in its entirety.

  In the general chaos, islands of calm were maintained. Spain was perhaps the strongest of the Western nations, most able to send colonists to Mars. China, seeing the encroaching end of their millennia-old empire, burned itself out in the rush to get its wealthy and immortal citizens to Mars. After the last colony ship left Earth, the Chinese population retained one female in a thousand, and the majority of those had sold their ovaries.

  As for Dr. Everard and the Council of Matriarchs, they had predicted the December Protocol and the self-immolation of society that led up to it. When immortality treatments were finally banned, t
he last of the Matriarchs had already left Earth behind weeks before. The Helix centers were empty when the rioters burned them to the ground. It is a widely held belief that Dr. Everard left the secrets of the Helix Rebuild behind at every Helix center, knowing that the mindless hate of the mobs would destroy the technology and Earth’s last chance at peaceful immortality.

  Min woke with a start. His tablet was buzzing against his chest where he had dropped it when he had fallen asleep. Irritably he ignored the call and tried to get his wits about him. He didn’t recognize where he was. He sat up in the dark and cracked his head against the low ceiling.

  He cursed and rubbed the top of his head as memory flooded back. He checked his tablet. Thirteen calls had gone unanswered.

  Moving carefully this time, Min swung his legs off the hammock and lowered himself to the ground. Against his skin, the slick ablative armoring felt cool. He had slept in his clothes, and it took only a moment to retrieve his pistol from under his pillow and holster it. Min scrubbed a hand through his hair, gave up on trying to make it look presentable, and opened the door.

  The transient worker lodging in Olympus sold hammocks for the night, at two credits a bed. Min had bought all four hammocks in the cubicle, paying with a disposable credit chip. As Min stretched some of the kinks out of his neck, he joined the flow of menial workers filing out of the lodging.

  His tablet started buzzing again, and Min ignored it until he could slip into an alley and check the caller ID. With a sigh he accepted the call.

  “Good morning, Enrique.”

  “What the fuck, man!”

  Min held the tablet away from his ear, grimacing as Enrique shouted tinnily at him. When the man calmed down, he brought the tablet back to his ear. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t catch that.”

  “Do you know how many people are looking for you? Or for your corpse? I’ve been up all night, you wujin bastard!”

  “That was the whole point,” Min replied testily. “I needed to sleep, somewhere where nobody would find me.”