by Gary Ballard
“You still want peace, jefe? You still want to send your errand boy off to suck up to Nacho’s tit?”
Stonewall responded with a determined nod. “I do.”
Goyo struggled to his feet, his bloody face enflamed with rage. “How many of us do they have to kill before you give them what they deserve? How many deaths have to be on your head before you act like a man?” he screamed. Stonewall shoved him back to his seat angrily.
“You don’t think I’m going to see every one of these faces every time I close my eyes? You think I have any illusion that these deaths aren’t firmly on my head, brother? You better think again! I am drenched in their blood! And I’m not about to add to it! We need peace!”
Bridge interrupted. “For what it’s worth, he’s right.” Goyo’s fiery gaze told Bridge what his opinion was worth. “All this drama tonight, the police might have been able to ignore. But this? This is huge. They can see this shit from Griffith Park. Cops are going to want answers, and they will crack heads until they get it. They ain’t gonna care if it’s Diablo heads or Magos. You’re all subhuman to them anyway.”
“You really think we can have peace after this?” Cierra asked.
“Fuck no. I don’t think Nacho’s one bit interested. But you need time to prepare, and an olive branch will at least give you some breathing room.” Bridge shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet nervously, a deliberate stalling tactic. “But that ain’t what you got to worry about. You need to start asking yourself how they found the Barn. It’s never in the same place, right? No set schedule, never stops moving? So how did they find it?”
“Watch what you say, puto,” Cierra spat through gritted teeth. “You ain’t Family, and I got no qualms about gutting you.”
“Won’t change the equation,” Bridge replied. “Your network is compromised somehow. Until you figure that out, you’re better off splitting up.”
Stonewall gave the order. “He’s right. I want everyone to hole up somewhere. Don’t tell nobody where you’re going. Make sure you ain’t alone either, take somebody you can trust. C@L@C@ will coordinate communication. Bridge, you set up the meet with Nacho ASAP.”
“Probably be tomorrow before he’ll see me.”
Stonewall acknowledged the effort. “Do it before the pigs shut us all down.”
Within minutes of the explosion, another train had been sent up the line to collect the survivors. The Barn was abandoned, a smoldering wreck blocking the tracks. As the rescue train pulled away, Bridge could hear the distant sounds of sirens headed their way. Their delay was worrying. Even with the disdain and neglect Chronosoft had heaped on the subway system, such a public conflagration should have had the authorities reacting at least as quickly as the Families. Perhaps the word was out; a war was starting and CLED had been ordered to let the scum blow each other up.
Bridge tried to help with the cleanup as much as he could, but it quickly became apparent that the likes of Goyo did not want him anywhere near. After a hurried huddle with Stonewall over the plan moving forward, Bridge collected his bodyguards and grabbed a taxi a few blocks from the nearest station. Stonewall insisted on a Magos escort until the taxi showed up. Bridge had the taxi drop Aristotle off first, watching the big man carefully until he made it to the door. Though the excitement had likely completely sobered up the bodyguard by this time, Bridge still worried that he might not be as sharp as he should. Bridge would have to have a talk with him at some point soon, but he was avoiding it as long as possible. Every time Bridge looked in Aristotle’s eyes, he could see the accusations, the recriminations, the question Aristotle wanted to ask. ‘Why couldn’t you save my grandmother?’ It was in every glance, every word, every movement of the gentle giant’s body.
Since Bridge had “hired” Mu as a bodyguard from the technomancers, he had wanted to keep the young wizard close. To that end, he had gotten Mu an apartment in the same complex as himself and Angela. The technomancer was never more than five minutes away, and the two had set up a special GlobalNet connection similar to the one Bridge had used with Angela earlier in the evening. Bridge could tell that being constantly on call chafed the kid. Mu was eager to display his new powers, and even more eager to learn how to augment those powers. Bridge’s insistence on their subtle use was clearly frustrating.
Bridge trudged into his apartment feeling a hollwed-out shell. Something about the devastation he’d witnessed tonight had awakened a thought, a months-old memory he had been diligently repressed. The eyes of that soldier, the dying, frightened eyes of the soldier he had run over in the technomancer’s escape from Boulder haunted him. He had made elaborate stories in his head, creating multiple fantasy histories of this kid’s life before that moment, a torturous movie of ambitions, dreams and desires that Bridge had snuffed out with callous abandon.
Bridge didn’t do guilt. He prided himself on it, actually. Clients had come to him with the most atrocious desires, unspeakable needs that he would meet without regret. Ageplay avatars, weapons, drugs, exploitation, he trafficked in all the worst aspects of the human psyche and it never touched him. Perhaps he had fooled himself all these months that by being a conduit rather than a participant, he somehow was not responsible for the acts he enabled. This was different. This was a conscious, deliberate act. Though he liked to think he had tried to swerve, tried to avoid the killing contact, there had been no chance to do so, no time to act. He could distance himˀ distancself from the 30,000 deaths in the city of Boulder, from the deaths of the soldiers and Legios Rangers who had fought the army of car golems the technomancers had used to distract from their escape. That soldier’s death was all on him, however. It was the first man he had killed, and he was afraid it would not be the last.
“Are you all right, Artie?” sang out the sterilized voice of Angela’s hologram, standing in the hallway in the darkly alluring form of Baroness Eletheia, lich queen of Ars-Perthnia. “Why are you covered in ash?”
Bridge looked himself up and down. His clothes were smudged and stained with soot. Rips littered the dark fabric of his pants and jacket, and there were stains on the pants and sleeves that he knew were someone else’s blood. “Did you not see the rocket attack on the fucking train?”
A panic spread out across her face and she ran to him, unconsciously reaching ghostly hands through his shoulders. “I stopped watching when you got on the train. I had to go fix a continent cluster crash. Beezeos went down completely, trapped like fifty people in a warp storm. What happened?”
Bridge described the rocket attack as he poured himself a stiff straight whiskey and settled onto the couch. One long draught of the burning liquid made his head swim, and he leaned back into the couch, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “And you’re sure it was El Diablos?” she asked when the story was complete.
“If it ain’t, somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to pin it on them.”
“You think it’s a stitch up?”
Bridge shrugged. “Don’t know what to think. Diablos sure got plenty of beef with Magos and they’ve never been shy about letting everyone know. That whole survival of the fittest bullshit doesn’t exactly make them hesitant to pop a cap in a motherfucker.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s their whole schtick, dime-store Darwinian bullshit. They got this thing about being the toughest mofos on the planet, that only the strong will survive. So they are constantly challenging each other and everybody else to see who’s the baddest. It’s like a life-long dickwaving contest with them. The leader is constantly getting ganked. Shit, Nacho’s the third leader they’ve had in two years. You know how he got to be leader? The same way the guy before him did; he killed the last leader. Any other Family, that’d be a negative. Not Diablos. It’s a mark of pride. Somehow, he’s survived almost a year as leader.”
“So this is what, a power play in the Families?”
“Probably. Diablos is the smallest of the five. Maybe they are trying to expand. Terrible fu
cking time for it, though. Stonewall is convinced CLED’s just looking for an excuse to round up all the Families and put ‘em up against the wall. Stonewall wants me to broker a peace, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Bridge finished his drink and tossed the empty glass down on ˀlass dowthe barren coffee table, staring into and through it.
The silence was thick, a nervous tension descending on the room. Angela’s hologram had sat down on the couch, and she seemed unwilling to speak. Finally, Bridge broke the silence. “What?” he snapped.
“What’s wrong with you?” Angela asked flatly with the hint of annoyance in her voice. “You’ve been… distant since you got back from Boulder. You told me what happened but it’s like there’s something you aren’t telling me, and it’s like you don’t want to talk to me.”
Bridge felt the guilt of the truth in her words. “You’re always online, how the hell can I talk to you?”
“I’m right here, talking to you now,” she shot back. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’ve been mopey and you’re never mopey.”
Bridge struggled internally, that soldier’s eyes appearing in his mind’s eye again. The words came unbidden. “I killed someone in Boulder. I don’t mean the people in Boulder. That was the techonmancers. I just covered that up. No, I KILLED somebody there, a soldier.” He retold the sequence of events that led to the soldier’s death. “I ain’t never killed anybody before. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
He shook his head. “No, I am sure how I feel about it. I feel fucking shitty. I don’t kill people. I could have had Paulie killed a hundred times, I know fifteen guys that work assassins, I coulda whacked anybody I wanted. I never do, I never go that way. I ain’t about that. I do everything I can not to have to go that way.”
“It doesn’t sound like you meant to,” Angela began. “That’s gotta count for something. He’d have shot you if he had the chance.”
“Paulie would have killed me, you, Aristotle, anybody,” Bridge stammered. “He wouldn’t have skipped a beat. He was serious about wanting to whack me for cutting his fingers off. I could have had him whacked easier than what I ended up with, but I didn’t because I know, I know, once you go that way, once you cross that line, you keep crossing that line. It’s easier, get it? That first time, that’s the hard one. You make that decision once, there’s nothing to stop you from doing it again. And I don’t want to be that guy.”
Angela stood silently. She had no words for him. All she could do was hug him, an ethereal hug that passed right through him. He coughed and stared down at his feet. He tripped over his words, barely choking back a timid sob. “Can… can you come out here, baby? I could use…”
Her eyes grew sad. “I can’t, baby, I’m way too deep to come out now. Besides, I been down two days, I probably smell like sour crotch. Get some sleep, I’ll make sure to get in bed with you once I’m done.” Bridge nodded ruefully. She blew him a kiss and disappeared. Bridge sat up for a few more minutes. Before he knew it, his chin had fallen to his chest and he slept with an uneven snore.
Chapter 5
March 7, 2029
8:32 a.m.
Bridge woke with a snorting start, his head snapping up off the couch. He spent a dozy moment getting his bearings before realizing he hadn’t even moved from the sitting position he’d had the previous evening. The television was playing with the sound turned off, its harsh light causing Bridge to blink with watery eyes. The place was dark, as usual, the blinds blocking the morning sun, all the lights off. He rubbed the stubble on his chin groggily, then set himself to his waking ritual. The burden of the day’s upcoming agenda weighed heavily on his shoulders. He would have to make contact with Diablos’ leadership, who were already openly hostile to him, and try to turn that hostility into a peaceful resolution. He put the odds somewhere between ‘what the fuck are you thinking’ and ‘sometime after the sun explodes and kills us all.’ Stonewall had a nasty habit of calling in markers at the worst times.
Once dressed and presentable, he strolled through the bedroom once more, searching in vain for Angela. The bed was unmade but cold. The lonely hum of her crèche confirmed his suspicion. She was still doing a deep run. He kissed his fingers and planted the kiss lightly on the crèche’s shiny black surface before striding out.
He sent out a wireless taxi call as he walked down to Mu’s apartment. He raised his hand to knock, but the door swung open with a creepy slowness before he could make contact. He had gotten used to the technomancer’s flair for the dramatic. Mu’s place was dark, the only light coming from a circle of candles on the barren floor. Mu sat in the lotus position, eyes closed, the only movement coming from his fingers which twinkled and danced. Bridge strode in with a cheeky grin and leaned against the wall. “OMMMMMMMM,” he intoned with a giggle.
Mu didn’t even flinch. “Very funny. This is actually quite comfortable. Helps me get up in my chi.”
“What’s with the wiggles?”
“Casting a spell. Trying to, anyway. It’s not working out that well.” His eyes snapped open and he stood with a fluid energetic bounce.
“What are you trying to do?”
“Learn to fly.”
“You guys can do that?” Bridge asked with mock incredulity. Of course, Bridge knew that some of the technomancers could fly. His memory flashed back to the image of Wong floating over the soccer fields at the university in Boulder, his hands manipulating his team of metallic golems with the invisible strings of the mana engine’s magic. But Bridge couldn’t reveal his snilent partnership with the technomancers’ Council of Five to an initiate like Mu.
“Some of us can,” Mu said and left it at that. “Time for work?”
Bridge nodded. “Yah. We got to go pick up Aristotle, then we get to the impossible task of creating peace between two mortal enemies.”
Mu crossed his arms, his hands disappearing into the loose black sleeves of the hooded silk shirt he wore. The gleam of tiny golden runes up the sleeves distracted Bridge momentarily. He recognized the runes as part of the language Lydia had been developing for the technomancers. She had begun to relish the theatrical nature of a guild of wizards. Bridge found it oddly humorous that a cadre of science-y geeks took to the fanciful mythology they had created so eagerly. “Why are you still working with that guy?” Mu asked with obvious irritation in his voice.
“What guy? Aristotle? Why shouldn’t I?”
“You got me, for one. For two, he’s mostly piss-drunk and late.”
“He’s been here longer than you, and saved my ass more times than I care to count.”
“But he’s just a human. He can’t do this.” Mu flashed a hand at Bridge, a gout of flame exploding momentarily from the palm.
“Maybe not, but there’s something to be said for brute force and intimidating physical presence. And he’s smarter than you and me combined.”
Mu gave up the argument with a shrug. “Whatever, man. It’s your money.”
By the time they’d reached the street, the taxi had arrived. Bridge was pleased to see that he knew the driver, a skinny Arab named Hasan. Hasan was also one of Bridge’s clients. The young driver had had a hankering for the forbidden pork. Rather than completely break his religion’s tenets, he had insisted Bridge find the man a halal butcher who was willing to slaughter and prepare pork despite Islam’s prohibition. Bridge knew a guy, Hasan got his blessed yet forbidden meat, and Bridge got a 50% discount on taxi rides when Hasan was available.
Bridge left Mu with the taxi idling. Knocking on Aristotle’s door was fruitless, so Bridge used his key. The door was unlocked, however. Bridge flattened himself against the wall, and peeked into the room slowly. Aristotle lay half-on half-off the couch snoring loudly. Bridge relaxed. He entered the living room and slammed the door with a bang, waking the bodyguard with a violent start.
“Goddamnit, Bridge,” he began, wincing and grabbing his head. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
“I did knock, brother. And your d
oor was unlocked.”
“Huh. Must have forgotten to lock it.”
“Bit dӀ000">“angerous what with everything that happened last night.” Bridge strode into the room and picked up the empty bottle of gin sitting on the coffee table. “You empty this last night?”
“I’ve had that bottle a week.”
Bridge grinned. “Cheap date.”
“My tolerance is most definitely not at your exorbitant level. I’ll catch up. Do I have time for a shower?”
“Taxi’s waiting, but yeah. Hasan’s at the wheel.”
Aristotle nodded and stood. He grabbed a new bottle of gin off the kitchen counter, cracked the seal and took a quick slug. “Hair of the dog, as the colloquialism goes.”
“You think you’re maybe hitting that stuff a bit too much lately?” Bridge hesitated to bring it up, and instantly regretted it the moment the words left his lips. Aristotle’s smoldering glare was answer enough.
“Look here, Bridge. I do not give you constant admonitions about your choice of clientele, despite the abominable services they ask you to procure for them. Ok, some, but still. It’s hardly appropriate for you to show mock concern for my well-being at this late stage in our relationship.”
“Fair enough, I’m a cocksucker. I’m also your boss. And your friend.” The last part barely made it out of Bridge’s mouth.
Aristotle picked absentmindedly at the bottle’s label. “Friend. Heh. How does the saying go? With friends like these…”
“All I’m saying is this drinking thing, however much or little you can handle, it’s affecting your work. You’re always late. You want to ruin your liver, that’s your call. But I need you on point, especially right now. No telling how many motherfuckers got a bead on my back and that shit last night added a whole bunch more, I’m sure. I don’t want to end up dead because you want to forget Boulder.”
The giant’s eyes flashed white-hot with a barely constrained anger. “Don’t you fucking dare talk to me about Boulder. You’re the one that wants to forget it, just gloss it over and never talk about it again. You’re the one trying to spackle over the deaths of 30,000 people.”