The hammers on the shotgun fell; Gantz felt the heat in the small of his back.
“No!” The needler began to whine, bouncing sparks off the telco rack.
Gantz heard Cyn cry out and fall. He squeezed his trigger in response, and the semi-automatic beat out a long string of staccato notes as bullet after bullet tore into Roberta. They shredded the white blouse she was wearing and coated the fabric in a mixture of synthetic blood and oil. Gaping holes appeared in her chest. Within them, metal mesh glimmered with each bullet fired, reflecting the muzzle flash as brilliant yellow on silver.
Feeling the end of the clip coming, Gantz raised his arm and dragged a line up Roberta’s neck. Her right eye exploded in a spray of gray flakes and shattered glass. As the gun clicked empty, Roberta went rigid, her face taking on a poor reproduction of shock.
She fell, revealing Sava Kessler behind her.
Gantz reached for his belt, but the needler was already turning in his direction. He was freeing the clip from its pouch when the first shard hit him, ripping away the cloth and flesh at his shoulder. The force turned him around as pinpricks danced along his back. Only after a few seconds did they turn to intense pain; he looked down to see exit wounds vomiting blood onto his shirt. Gantz collapsed forward into a chair, and then the desk beside it. The strength left his legs, bringing his face down hard on a plastic keyboard. Then he was on the floor, staring at the metal grates in the ceiling.
Silence filled the room, marked by angry groans coming from Cyn.
Gantz tried to look for her, but his head wouldn’t move. The edges of his vision blurred.
Bless me, Padre.
“It didn’t have to go down like this,” said Kessler, stepping into view. “We could have talked this out and saved the bloodshed. But you wanted to fight, you wanted to bankrupt the company. Now nothing will stand in Vinestead’s way. You did this.”
“No,” said Gantz. The needler swung in a small circle above his head.
Thy will be done.
Kessler smiled. “Your final act on this planet and it was for the ‘Stead, may they burn in hell.”
“Fuck you, Kessler.”
Her eyes widened for a moment. “Kessler?” She leaned in closer, lowered her voice. “Try Kaili, Kaili Zabora. The Butcher of Burbank. Veteran of the Reaping. And the last face you’ll ever see.”
Forgive me my trespasses.
The needler steadied.
Deliver me from evil.
“That’s right, Robert Gantz. Calle Cinco is in Perion City, right under your nose. If the shame doesn’t kill you…”
Amen.
Yates’ voice exploded from the back of the needler’s barrel.
“Welcome, my son.”
PART SIX
SAVANNAH KESSLER
52
“I guess we should have expected this.”
Javier Espinoza fiddled with the M4 carbine in his lap.
He had his feet propped up on the control board in the observation room atop Outpost Alpha, his head turned towards the north where the distant Spire bloomed like a taut spike of lightning. The rest of the city was dim, languid in its post-midnight haze. It could have been any normal night in Perion City, one in which its residents enjoyed a peaceful slumber. Engineers, artists, and even the middle of the road grunt workers all rested under the blanket of security provided by the sixty-strong team of guardians at Outpost Alpha.
Would they have slept so soundly had they known the number was only ten now?
Beside him, a dozing Kris Ferko had lowered his chair to its limit and was leaning back, trying to find a comfortable position. He knew there was a short but plush couch down in the scanning room, but the bowels of the outpost were so empty and quiet that fear had kept him awake, jumping at every sound in the dark. At least up in the observation room he had Javier to keep him company, to watch over him with a weapon that could cut down human and synthetic alike. That alone was worth the discomfort.
“I mean, you build these things to look like humans and you expect them to be human day in and day out, but you forget they’re just machines with programming. If they use the wrong words or if their inflection is off, we laugh at them like they’re children. But when they all drop their weapons and head north like a flock of birds… I don’t know. Even when you run them through training drills, you never see coordination like that. Whatever Perion did to call his children home must work at a primitive level. Right to the core.”
Ferko rubbed his neck and felt something free up in the space between his vertebrae.
“Anyway,” continued Javier, “I knew I was right to keep some real men on the team. They wanted me to enlist a fully synthetic squad, but I put my foot down.” His voice slipped into a drawl. “When the revolution come, ol’ Javier ain’t gonna get bushwhacked by a bunch of life-size G.I. Joes.”
“I don’t think it’s the synthetics you have to worry about,” said Ferko.
“You talking about the Terminus?” asked Javier, glancing at the three monitors to the right of his feet.
The center screen displayed a video feed from the iron gates that spanned the entirety of the Perion Expressway. The steel barriers were still up, sticking out of the evercrete foundations like pegs in a corkboard. Behind the gates, a dozen men stood in tight formation, rifles not pointed at the growing crowd but ready all the same. Javier had ordered the lights at Perion Terminus turned down in an attempt to disguise his diminished forces, but the media crews had brought their own van-mounted floodlights and they were all pointed into the city. Reporters stood by the gates and spoke into cameras while aggregators stood some distance away, whispering to their wrists.
“It was that aggregator who brought them here,” said Ferko. “I told Kessler it was a bad idea letting a feeder into the city, but she said the order came right from the top. People weren’t ready to see what’s been happening here. And now that we’ve had one little hiccup, everyone’s running around like someone stomped on their ant hill.”
“And they won’t stop either.” Javier checked his sliver. “They’ll stand out there all night asking questions even though no one is answering. No idea why they do it.”
Ferko shrugged and rubbed his nose. “Content,” he replied. “People on the outside are always looking for content. Why do you think they install those whisperers? God forbid they go ten minutes without a status update.”
“That status update crap isn’t content,” said Javier. He motioned to the window. “You think I give a damn about what these guys do with their time off? Feed me something useful like military strategy or immobilization techniques. I don’t need to know you’re at the dentist.”
Ferko thought about the men down on the street hidden behind makeshift barricades. In the blackout, only their flashers were visible, tiny LEDs that let out quick bursts every sixty seconds. They hadn’t moved from their original positions since Ferko first came up.
“Alpha Three, zero one hundred sit-rep. No change.”
The radio on Javier’s chest crackled as the transmission cut off. He squeezed the transmit button. “Copy, Alpha Three. Let’s get a perimeter sweep north side.”
“Copy, Alpha.”
Ferko laughed to himself. Fatigue made everything seem funnier than it was. The way Javier spoke to his men, it sounded like he was invading China.
“I miss my bed,” said Ferko.
“We all miss a lot of things. Suck it up.”
“You always know just what to say, don’t you, Javi?”
“I know what people need to hear to get them through a situation,” he replied, turning his head to show Ferko his smile. “That’s one thing synthetics have going for them. You tell them to do something and they fucking do it. But us? We’re more complicated. We have to be convinced to go into battle, to sacrifice our lives so that others may live. You can’t march an army at gunpoint—the Soviets figured that one out—you have to change their minds with words.” He lifted his rifle. “Words are more powerfu
l than this thing, Ferko… when they’re used right.”
Ferko nodded, laughed to himself.
“Alpha Three, movement on the PE,” squawked the radio. “Reading twelve tangos. Strike that. Eighteen.”
Javier’s feet came down in an instant, knocking his water bottle to the floor. He picked up the binoculars and trained them on the road.
“RTB, Alpha Three,” said Javier. “Action stations, all personnel.”
Ferko sat up in his chair and tried to see over the control board. With a groan, he stood to get a better look.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“Twenty-two tangos,” said Alpha Three. “Thermal scan is reading below human thresholds.”
Javier growled. “Synnies. They’re back.” Then, to the radio, “Prepare to open fire. Hold for my order.”
“Twenty-nine tangos.”
“I’m coming down,” said Javier. He kicked the chair back with his leg and started towards the door. Pausing, he cast a look back at Ferko. “You stay here, yeah?”
Ferko nodded.
Javier pulled a revolver from his hip and held it out.
“I don’t think I could shoot anybody,” said Ferko. “Even a synthetic.”
“It’s not for them.” Javier smiled. “I’m fucking with you, Ferko. Just point and shoot. Don’t even think about it.”
Ferko took the gun; it was heavier than he expected.
Javier scurried down the circular staircase in the center of the room. Ferko moved closer to the window and watched the flashing LEDs rearrange themselves into two groups, one on each side of the road. A minute later, a new LED emerged from the motor pool, walking in a straight line between the flanks.
“Control room, this is Alpha Actual. Copy?”
Ferko followed the voice to the control board and located a speaker just above the north camera feed. He pressed the small button beside it.
“Roger dodger, Alpha Zulu,” he replied.
“Cut the shit, Ferko. On my signal, I want you to hit the highlights. Think you can manage that?”
“Wilco?”
“Good enough,” said Javier.
Ferko moved down two panels to the facilities vidscreen. It held a virtual control panel for all lighting in and around Outpost Alpha. Most entries, including the exterior floodlights, had glowing red icons next to them.
“Thirty-seven tangos.”
There was nothing in the space between Ferko and the Spire, just miles and miles of empty blackness, and yet one of the men claimed there were thirty-seven synthetics walking out of the gloom, thirty-seven potential killing machines with unknown intentions headed for the outpost, the PNR, and maybe even…
“Give me some light!”
Ferko ran his finger across the control panel, tripping the switches for the floodlights. The Perion Expressway lit up under the glare of Outpost Alpha’s high beams. LED pinpoints became dark hulks of crouched men, their rifles leveled over the barricades. Javier Espinoza stood alone in the center of the road, his rifle in one hand and a radio in the other.
Thirty yards in front of him, both lanes of the Perion Expressway were filled with uniformed synthetics. Ferko recognized them as former members of the outpost’s security detail; they were still dressed in the same black as the men pointing guns at them. And though they carried no weapons, Ferko felt his fingers tighten on the revolver. They were Scorpio-class synthetics with the programming to put a man down with their hands as easily as they could with a gun. Ten men against what looked like fifty Automated Guards.
Despite the unfavorable odds, Javier seemed undisturbed.
One of the synthetics approached, his face blank but his steps purposeful. He stopped when Javier put up his hand.
Ferko heard the conversation over the radio.
“That’s far enough, soldier,” said Javier. “State your name and business.”
“A707101498, Private Henry. Returning to duty, sir.”
“Where have you been all day, Private Henry?”
“The private does not know, sir.”
The other synthetics fell into place around him, organizing themselves into five rows of ten.
“So all of you decide to go AWOL and now you want to come back like nothing happened?” asked Javier.
“Sir, yes, sir,” answered the company.
Javier stood with his hands clasped behind his back while the rest of his human contingent formed up behind him, the scopes of their rifles glued to their eyes. Ferko tried not to blink, expecting to see the synthetics cut down in a hail of gunfire. Instead, Javier looked down for a moment and then stepped forward. He got in the lead synny’s face.
“You do this again, and it’ll be your ass. I will personally melt you down. You get me, private?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“Then back to your fucking stations,” said Javier. “This ain’t no goddamn block party.”
Fifty salutes flashed in the blinding light, and the synthetics dispersed into the building.
Ferko was still shaking his head when the hardline began to ring. He located the handset on the control board and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Espinoza?” asked a female voice.
“No, this is Ferko. Kris Ferko. I work in the scanning room.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Ferko. This is Sava Kessler. I need to speak to Captain Espinoza immediately. We have a situation.”
“We know,” said Ferko. “But it’s okay now. They’re back.”
“What?”
“Captain Espinoza is outside dealing with some synthetics who just showed up. He’s putting them back to work.”
There was silence on the line.
“Ms. Kessler?”
“Lock it down, Mr. Ferko. Tell the captain this comes from the very top. On the order of James Kirkland Perion, you shut down the Perion Expressway. No one comes in, and no one goes out. And do not let your synnies near the PNR. Quarantine them, keep them locked up.”
Ferko shook his head. “I… are you sure? They seem harmless.”
“This is not a fucking suggestion, Kris! You lock that shit down now or you will answer to the man himself. No one gets within a hundred yards of the outpost or you put them down. Is that clear?”
“Roger,” said Ferko. “I’ll let the captain know.”
“Do it now,” said Kessler.
The line went dead.
Ferko put the phone down and wandered over to the window again. A synthetic was pacing the road with Javier.
Both of them had rifles slung across their backs.
53
“The strange thing about humanity is that we are always giving it away.”
Sava Kessler had retreated to the imaginary construct in her mind as the elevator headed for the lobby. There, in the virtual dream world, the problems facing Kaili Zabora took physical shape, represented in wispy white forms dancing around her, fading in and out as their priorities changed or their solutions were found. Constant in this construct were two entities. One of them was her sister, Anela, looking proud and powerful in the tight red dress she had so often worn in the Net. Her avatar had been burned into Sava’s mind at the age of fifteen, the year Anela had met her end at the hands of a man named G and a woman named Natalie, two people who had gone so far off the grid even Calle Cinco couldn’t locate them.
It was Anela who spoke to her in the quiet times, offering advice or encouragement when necessary. Deep down, Sava knew it was her own voice coming from Anela’s avatar, but technicalities of that nature were easily overlooked when the situation was dire, as it was now.
“Anthropomorphism likely started with pets—animals already demonstrate human characteristics—but then it spread to inanimate objects, some even too large to grasp. The sea is a harsh mistress. Have you ever heard that saying, Kai? An entire body of water imagined as a living, breathing woman, capable of thoughts and emotions. Not that anyone truly believed the sea was a real person. These were simply me
taphors, harmless language nobody took seriously—until the day they went too far. Do you remember that day?”
In the construct, a diminutive Sava nodded at her older sister.
“January 23, 1988,” she replied, back in the real world.
“Yes, January of eighty-eight. The United States government ratifies full corporate personhood, allowing businesses like Vinestead International to have the same rights and protections as naturalized citizens. Political contributions, tax loopholes, privately funded military companies: these all become permissible and protected under federal law. And look where we are now.”
Sava turned to face the other entity in the construct. It loomed beyond the border, extending below the horizon as if it inhabited the true world and the construct were just a bubble floating within it. The entity took the shape of a titanic demon, outlined by red flames that graded to deep black. Two pinpoints of brilliant light shone where its eyes should have been, but Sava was often distracted by the horns above them, the blood-stained ivory reaching into the infinite ether, tips engulfed in blue fire. This shadowy creature had no true name, but Sava felt a word roll off her tongue every time she set eyes on it.
Vinestead.
May they burn in hell.
“It’s not all bad,” said Sava. “If Ferko is right, and the synnies are going back to work, then maybe the company can still be saved.”
“True,” replied Anela. “Just because they can leave does not mean they will. But we both know what will happen when Vinestead finds out they can take one out of the city.”
The construct shuddered as the demon came closer, perhaps trying to listen in on the conversation. To the right, a smoke-based Cyn took shape, pulsed twice, and dissolved.
“She screwed everything up,” said Sava.
Anela walked in a circle around Sava, her high heels clacking on the invisible floor. “It is a setback, as is the loss of Robert Gantz, but like you said, there is still hope. The company’s inventory remains intact. As long as you can keep it in the city, Perion Synthetics may continue to prosper.”
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