by Chris Hepler
"Look for mail and paper," I order. "Confirm it's the right place."
"Way ahead of you," she says, presenting a pill bottle. "Lorenz, Morgan R. has bugged out without his..." she pauses to pronounce it, "al-praz-olam?"
"Anxiety meds."
"You got the computers?"
"We'll bag them," I say, "but first, I need to take a look."
I run my hands over a keyboard that I assume is Lorenz's. There. I pull a fine brown hair from around two keys. "Go to the kitchen," I tell Infinity. "See if he has any yogurt or yeast." She frowns but goes without question. I now sweep the floor clear of clutter, with total disregard for Lorenz's possessions.
Infinity returns, arms filled with a bundle of blue Dannon containers and a half-gallon of milk, incongruously domestic considering she still has night vision goggles strapped to her head.
"Two packets of yeast, three quarts of yogurt, and last week's milk, which pretty much qualifies." She dumps the lot on an office chair. "Now, I think you'll tell me why you made the woman go to the kitchen in the middle of a vipe hunt."
Story time. "I need to create a ring of living qi. Usually, I use my fingers," I say, holding them up in an OK sign. "But my hands are shaking, and I need the function to be rock-solid stable. Think of it as a crutch, except it's a culture of living bacteria." She still looks quizzical. "That's basically what yogurt is."
"I got that. Just saying you lose points on style."
I paint a circle of yogurt on the carpet with a basting brush. Then, Infinity shakes the packets of yeast on top, like tiny brown sprinkles. It's strange, it's smelly, and when the cops eventually come to investigate this break-in, they will be extremely confused. It's living qi. Passive, sure, but alive.
I grasp the hair I found, with its tiny parcel of DNA at the root. With my other hand, I pull two tack needles from a pocket. One goes at the top of my head, and I slip one under the vest, just above my navel. Infinity looks peeved.
"Can we do this in the van? We are totally not secure if a neighbor calls cops."
"It makes it harder," I say, "and I'm zero for two right now."
She sits outside the circle; I'm inside. I start with the easiest work, casting a function within my own body. A dot of energy grows at my core, balancing yang within yin as if they were on a gently rotating disc. I calculate its strength and dial up the web's electric charge to expand it, feeling it weaken as it leaves my body until it hits the ring of passive qi around me.
The unseen energy stabilizes, and there I stop it, poised.
"What exactly are you doing?"
"If this is Lorenz's hair, his DNA will act as a focus for me to recognize his qi pattern."
"Like if you see him in the future?"
"No, right now." I prepare the search function. It's getting harder to talk as the yogurt-yeast paste begins to glow white. I'm fighting a wave of nausea: it's what you get when you build power in your gut, and your bacteria pay the price. Infinity sits up a little straighter. Though she's no doubt seen qi functions on TV, she probably hasn't been close enough to see them crackling in the air or smell the frying dust as everything gets hot.
"When my qi wave intersects him, it will map to his pattern and resonate. I should be able to sense where he is."
"How? With vipe blood, there's no range at all."
I really don't need these questions now, but I encourage knowledge on my team. "I'm not altering him. I'm altering my perception. His DNA is in contact with my skin so I know what to look for. This ring makes the function stable enough to expand. My web and my tech maintain my altered state so I can keep it up... hours, maybe."
Infinity frowns. Then, the pulse inside me crests. I push gently. This function doesn't respond well to heavy hands. It's as subtle as the feeling of standing in the sun versus the shade. I finally trigger the cybernetics, adding the jolt that spreads the circle of detection beyond the doubled ring and through the walls of the house.
The wave washes out in a blink. If one thing is clear, it is that Lorenz isn't in the house or environs. Nowhere near. The circle expands at the rate of quantum information, but there's only so much I can pay attention to at a time; therefore, my consciousness follows more slowly.
The search is not quite as simple as I put it to Infinity—the hair makes it possible for me to locate Lorenz, but it doesn't guarantee it. If I push too hard, I could mark a false positive and chase a stranger for days. If I don't push hard enough, Lorenz's pattern will slip through the net, and the function will be wasted. My skills have failed the other F-prots before, and every time, I have loathed it. I depend on them, and they depend on me. In my work, I give no charity or pity, and I want none in return.
I note the defensive biophysical barriers around the White House and Capitol building a few kilometers away. The government's protective blanks cast long shadows throughout the D.C. aura-scape, but this function expands like a gas filling its container, seeping into the gaps.
Then, I feel it. Like a hair falling on my hand. I whisper Lorenz's name, and the search image locks. The prey, a dozen klicks off, will feel a momentary spark, as if they think someone just spoke to them when no one was in the room.
Back in Lorenz's house, Infinity meets my gaze, goggles off. "Looks like I'm out of a job," she says.
"Far from it." My own face must look wild—my goggles are pushed into my hair, which is crackling with static, and my blood flow has turned my face red. I let the function cool down until only the stimweb sustains the pulse in the nano-thin niobium wires beneath my skin. I breathe deeply and regularly, trying to cool off like those dinosaurs with sails on their backs.
"Why don't you just sit in your bedroom and find every vipe in the world?"
"First, I need the material link or anything beyond a few meters is blurry." I stand. "Then, there's the fact that vipe signatures are inherently tricky. When they feed, they link with the victim's qi.
"Until the physical symbol, the blood, is completely digested, the ratio of elements in the signature changes. Fire, wood, water, metal, earth... some swell, some shrink. It's like crossing a river to confuse a bloodhound." I step out of the circle, careful not to leave a shoe print in the yogurt. "We're lucky. Lorenz is in hiding, which means he hasn't fed in days. But he's getting hungry; I felt it. We'll lose him if we don't go tonight."
I stride for the door, still locked to Lorenz and wanting to finish it. Infinity hangs back.
"That's still, uh, pretty incredible." I stop to watch her. She has none of her saucy confidence from earlier. Instead, she looks small in the high-ceilinged room, lost, a little pale. "I heard stories that the home office had people like you."
There aren't any people like me. I arranged that pretty carefully. But when I meet her eyes, I don't feel cocky. I'm just grateful I haven't let her down. "Thank me when we've got him," I say. She gives me a thumbs-up, but her eyes are directed at the floor.
11 - INFINITY
August 13th
The van bumps along the pothole-ridden roads to somewhere called Stafford. Al-Ibrahim says that's what you get beachfront to the Chesapeake Bay: freezing winter rain and an underfunded county that can't even patch the roads by August. Maybe the low property values are how Morgan has traded up while fleeing—the new safe house is high up on what passes for a cliff here. The long but steep sloping lawn ends in gritty sand and surf.
The chatter doesn't distract us from the real topic: Lorenz knew we were coming. The F-prots have no idea how, but I can't be grateful when I'm afraid of what I've wrought. The team is snapping at each other, which is a really bad place to be when people have sidearms.
"This fucker will be lying in wait," says Yarborough. "He knows we're onto him."
"He doesn't know it's going to be tonight," counters Olsen. "And he doesn't know what we can do."
"People who bug out—"
"He's gonna think he's safe." Olsen seems hot on the idea.
"People who bug out stay twitchy for days," insists Yarboro
ugh. "I'm not saying we don't go after him. I'm saying we wait until he cools off."
"We can't wait. He's gonna feed, and Roland's gonna lose him. Right?"
"Yes," says Roland. He's sitting up front with al-Ibrahim, conferring over the van's GPS screen. He's looking for the nearest neighbors or something. He hasn't found any, which is great.
"But if we know where he is—"
"He could move again."
"Why would he? He thinks he's safe."
"Because we've got a leak," interrupts Breunig. "He will know. I don't know how, I don't know when, but until we plug it, we have nothing. And that's why I'm making the call. We do it tonight, before anyone knows we've got a bead on him, or we're never seeing this guy again. And that is not an option."
Yarborough seethes. Breunig doesn't take passive aggression. "You got an opinion. It's welcome. But it's got to be tonight."
To his credit, Yarborough stays focused. "I say we get the C-4."
I try not to gape. We don't have high explosives in the L.A. office. I infer that there aren't any in the van, but I wouldn't swear to it.
"And your reasoning is?"
"I say we just bring the whole house down on him. Fuck walking into a trap. We don't let him touch us or shoot back or anything. We plant, and we go."
"That is the craziest thing I've ever heard," I blurt, and now everyone in the van is staring at me. I double down.
"I mean, shit, we just tossed a house. That's cool. That looks like a robbery. Shooting, we know that can be done 'cause no body, no case. But a bomb? That gets the FBI on your ass. They check the explosive residue for tags or whatever."
"Homemade," Yarborough says. "No taggants."
"Okay..." I allow. "I like homemade explosives even less."
"We've tested it. I know it works."
"No, I mean, if some lab like, compares residue from this bomb to all other bombs in the area, are they going to figure out who you are because you're the one guy with no tags? 'Cause unless there's a hundred other no-tag bombers, I gotta say, I have problems with that plan."
"She's right," says Olsen. "No American Jihad shit. Stick with what we know."
"This is FUBAR," Yarborough insists. "We don't have surprise. We don't have overwhelming force. We don't have a plan."
"You gonna stay in the van?" asks Olsen. "Let the new girl take the bullet?"
Yarborough is silent for a moment, obviously tempted to say yes and get it all over with. I try to figure out what's going through his head. Kern wants Morgan dead, and the order came from the top. It could very well be Yarborough's job at stake if he jumps ship entirely, which looks like what he wants to do.
Then, he comes back. "Your asses'd be bitey chow without me."
"On point!" Olsen says, bumping fists. "We got a real F-prot here."
"But I bet you a bottle of Jack that this guy is ready and fucking waiting."
"We're in business," Breunig announces. "Black Two, can we do a silent approach?"
"Yes," Roland says. He's been swigging Gatorade on the ride over and resting in the seat. I thought he'd be on the floor from keeping up his spell thing or whatever, but no such luck.
"Good," says Breunig. "I don't want to use the ram. The first bang anyone hears should drop a target. Understand?" We murmur assent. I check the battery charge on my night goggles—they don't do much for me, but the other F-prots don't need to know that—and wonder how the hell I ended up here.
We drive the last kilometer with the headlights off, slow as a driver's-ed student on his first day, and pray no one strays lanes. Al-Ibrahim is goggled up like the rest of us and cruises on the electric engine. We glide into place, as close as he dares to the long no-man's-land of the lawn. The side door slides open, and we descend, five bulky shadows in plate-and-fiber suits.
There is no way around it—a vipe's sensitive eyes can see us coming across the yard if they are waiting at a window. We can either do it in a bum rush or creep slowly on our stomachs, trying to cut down our silhouettes. We go with the second option. I scrabble in the wet grass after Roland, who leads from the front as we approach the house. Looking up to an unlit third-floor window, the biomancer nods and signals as he locks onto Lorenz's position.
We circle around for the beachside door, stacked three high as Breunig adjusts his skeleton key fob and presses it against the plate. The door clicks. Then, everything happens.
12 - RANATH
I feel Lorenz's presence, like a hot nail prodding my skin. I have to turn down the web to avoid the feedback distracting me, but the early signs are good. Lorenz's signal isn't moving as we enter the house—all that remains are a few flights of stairs. Breunig and I are up front, gliding back-against-the-wall whenever we can. Infinity and Yarborough cover the other direction, but we all stay in a clump for fear of friendly fire. Olsen takes up the rear. When the split comes, she follows Breunig. The first few rooms are all silence and patience. We slice the pie of angles around the second doorway and try not to stumble in the unfamiliar house. The goggles don't help. They have little in the way of peripheral vision, so we all frantically scan ahead and behind.
Then, Yar takes a door noisily. I can't fault him for it—he turns the handle and shoves, but the door is lighter than it looks, and it swings back into a hollow wooden closet loud enough to bring voices from upstairs.
We barely acknowledge the loss of stealth. We must go smooth and swift, and there is no time left to think.
We wash like a flood through the house, an endless clearing of rooms. We leapfrog and kick aside furniture as first one of us takes point, then another. We try to cover each other, but the house's layout isn't cooperating. Breunig and Yarborough each want to be the first ones through. Me, I run to stay even.
We stumble into the stairwell, me first. Breunig uses me as a shield as we go up together, aiming at the narrow slit above where we can see railing as the stairs double back on themselves. Something moves, and we burst the air with our carbines. The rifle rounds can tear right through wood and plaster, possibly the whole house. If someone is in the way, so much the better.
But there is no thump of a body, or at least I can't hear one after Breunig's carbine goes off next to my ear. The first thing that comes back is dogs barking somewhere. Infinity's team comes up behind us, taking it slower, and I push out into the second-floor hallway.
The locator function is weaker now, changing directions. Lorenz is running, looking for an escape route. He's due west of me, but it would be folly to chase the signal and walk straight into someone else's sights. Instead, I lead Breunig toward the barking, seeing an indoor fence blocking the kitchen where a German shepherd and a pit bull mix are held in more by training than by plastic. They are making noise, irritating WAU WAU WAU barks that cover the sound of anyone sneaking up on me. Breunig pulls a trigger. The carbine spits three bullets into each, sending one down instantly. The other twists up with the bullets in its chest. This is no mercy mission.
I kick down the gate. Even without the barking, the house is a cacophony—yells and shots and falling furniture. I run on light feet across the kitchen and buttonhook to the right, near the sink. Breunig follows, then splits left, and I see him slip and fall as a shape appears in the archway to the hall, a gun with a man behind it. Everything narrows down to my finger, yanking away as the M12 keeps kicking. I have no clear shot at the head. I just keep shooting, riddling the vipe's body as the pistol in its hand fires away. When the silhouette in the hall finally collapses, I see a shell casing bounce on the floor. It isn't ours. We use caseless ammo to leave less evidence.
"I'm hit," says Breunig, trying to stand in dog shit—the dogs have actually shit all over the kitchen, either in excitement or death—and here he is, looking for the pistol round in his chest armor, hoping it hasn't snuck in behind the trauma plate. A lethal wound feels just like a punch to the ribs, and no one will be the wiser for the ten godawful minutes we need to catch our breath. The silk is good, it's stronger than Kevlar, but
plenty of guns can match it now.
"Stay." I signal to Olsen, who takes the lead and steps over to Breunig. Meanwhile, I'm by the fallen vipe, doing a burst to the skull. Olsen doesn't see an exit wound on Breunig and props him up by the kitchen counter. We don't need to say any more—Breunig waves us on. Triage, surgery, healing functions, everything must wait. We have to secure the area. We have to kill vipes.
13 - INFINITY
I go up the stairs two at a time, aiming high and kicking down the third-floor door. In that same motion, I take to the side, and so Yarborough runs ahead of me.
I hesitate, not freeze. All the training pays off. But I'm slow, and Yar wants contact, so he runs ahead. He turns a corner high, expecting me to back him up by going low, but just as I'm about to, he comes barreling back, stumbling over his feet as a vipe catches and tackles him. They collide with me but brush off as they fall, and I recognize the Irish cop as he lands on top of Yarborough. They struggle over Yar's carbine.
The vipe is stronger, but Yarborough clings for dear life. The vipe one-hands his grip and slugs Yar across the face. The sound is a pumpkin hit with a baseball bat. The F-prot goes limp.
Dangerous as the vipe is, he's violated the first rule of ground fighting: never try it when there are multiple opponents. Before I think about it too much, I step up behind him, put my rifle to his head and pull the trigger. Blood, brain, and bone exit the front of his face, and he collapses onto Yarborough.
He was going to kill him, I tell myself. I'm going to make this come out even somehow.
I check on Yar. His goggles are skewed on his face, and as far as I can tell, he's out cold. From what I know of mixed martial arts fights, knockouts don't last very long, unless they're very bad ones.
My chance is now. I can do this, while there are no eyes on me.
Think, girl. I can't call out to Morgan or his pals—the F-prots might hear. So, I pull the goggles off my face and hold them under my weapon. There aren't that many vipes in the house, are there? And they didn't see me do what I just did, right?