Walken really couldn’t argue too much with that logic. “All right, then. Let’s just say that I’m not used to things working out so neatly.”
“Based on what I know,” said Kim, “you’re going to really treasure these moments where the world actually cooperates with you. Get that body out.”
While Kim peeled off his cleansuit, Walken did as he asked. Like the corpse, Kim was small, spare, and dark-haired, but unlike the copy, his face was completely empty of the peace of death. His gaze went everywhere, taking in every possible detail, eyes glittering like black jewels. Once he had the suit off, he kicked it over to Walken. Beneath it, he wore only a pair of boxer briefs.
“Get him in the suit as best you can,” Kim instructed. “And then lay him over the console there. On his knees, like he slumped unconscious.”
Walken gave Kim a squint as he compiled with his instructions. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Yes I have,” Kim said without hesitation.” So would you, if you were trying to secure the lives of your family. The moment they think I still live is the moment my wife and daughter are dead. Our ghost friend has promised to get them out.”
The limbs of the corpse were unwieldy, but whatever resistance they may have offered to a normal human being, Walken had little trouble tucking the dead clone into the suit.” You sound as if you don’t believe him.”
“It, sir,” Kim corrected. “It. I don’t believe for a moment that there’s any humanity in that construct. I do, however, believe that it wants to end the threat to other human beings. What its motivations might be to that end, well, I can’t say.” Kim took more tubing and connected it to one of the cylinders. He fished a length of wire, or perhaps semi-flexible twine, down the tubing toward the nest of connected tanks. “I’d rather get rid of aliens now and worry about an artificial intelligence later, wouldn’t you?”
Walken nodded. “True enough. I guess I’ll have to see what happens.”
“My people have a saying.” Kim stepped over to a cabinet and extracted what looked like a loose pair of scrubs, bright blue in color, which he put on. “‘Starting is half the task.’ If it needs to be done, and we can keep from getting ourselves murdered, you’ll see to it. You’ve already committed yourself. You’re its chosen hand in all of this, after all.”
Walken snorted. “That suit’s going to get you killed faster than I will.”
The scientist merely shrugged. “You’re pretty much bulletproof. Shield me.”
Well, he couldn’t argue that, at least. Walken set up the body the way Kim wanted—a task that took him very little time, indeed—while the scientist finished setting up his bomb. “How long do you think it will take for us to get out of here?”
“I’m not sure,” said Walken. “Assuming there aren’t any radiation shutters or the like blocking the place, we can go through the freight conveyor.”
Kim looked to the far end of the lab, where the conveyor gate was clamped shut, but its attached cage yawned open. “I’m glad I took after my father. And to think, I’ve always heard that short men would come to no good end.”
“I don’t know that we’re going to any improvement,” Walken said.
Kim grinned at him, wide and bright. It made him almost feel like doing the same. “You’re only saying that.” he pulled a small black satchel from out of the locker. “Because you aren’t paying attention. But I get the feeling that’s something that will change, soon enough.”
wo days had passed since Syme had bought it in Seattle. They took the tube down the coast to San Angeles six hours previously, set themselves up in the Hilton Astra Tower within quick escape distance to LAX, and prepared to meet with Janelle Green, who, it appeared, waved her own banner now.
Janelle used to run cleanup in the Old City, back when they hunted down and euthanized those Reclaimed too feral to live. She led squads to take apart combat units, which made her among the very toughest women Bobbi had ever known. Syme’s file had her running a sizable outfit based somewhere along the San Angeles stretch. Those same notes also suggested she’d be a good candidate for reunion. A hardass, maybe, but also practical. Give her a good case and she might join up, get the band close to back together again. Syme had hoped to put in a good word for Bobbi if things went okay between the two of them.
But of course, Syme was dead now, and she probably knew it.
Bobbi wondered about that as they drove down the Santa Monica Freeway toward the beach, Violet at the wheel, Shaper behind them serving as lookout. One human, one former Yathi vessel, and Bobbi frowning in the back. South of San Francisco, the “silver slick” effect that spread year by year across the Pacific made the beaches not as popular as they had been in California’s past, which is why they’d be meeting Janelle and her group down where the beautiful people once played. The Yathi had been stepping up their efforts to change the planet. In addition to the atmospheric pollution that had produced the green-tinged canopy over much of Asia and eastern Europe, a vast, self-replicating nanomachine colloid converted seawater into additional mass. Back in the day, or at least how the Yathi reckoned it, the skin was the result of massive industrial pollution. They didn’t use water, after all, didn’t drink it or anything, so they just vented industrial waste right into the planet’s seas. But here? Nobody knew. Toxic, certainly, but not world-destroying. Yet. Just hungry, strange and beautiful, like in the fever-dream visions Cagliostro had shown her.
Violet pulled off the road, drove a moment more, and stopped. One by one, everyone filed out. They stood at the head of the beach, looking down the expanse of white sand, abandoned and littered with trash. The silver tide lapped at the shore, leaching it away to fuel its growth.
“Tumors on the water,” Bobbi muttered to herself. At least the sky was dark, instead of hung with luminous clouds. But they were working on that, too.
“I’m sorry?” Violet, who stood to one side of Bobbi while Shaper took the other, laid her hand on Bobbi’s arm. “Are you all right, my lady?”
“I’m fine,” Bobbi said. “Just hate that silver shit is all. Shaper, you see anything?”
“Got three thermal profiles about three hundred feet down the beach.” He wore a combat visor; the faint flickering of a barrel fire reflected in its single ‘eye.’” Down by the trash visor. One of them matches what we have in our records for Washington.” He turned to look at Bobbi. “Shall we?”
“Yeah. Remember, watch, but let’s be on our best behavior.”
“Trust but verify,” Violet said. “Of course.” Not that she sounded thrilled, but that was to be expected. Violet waited for someone else to try and dart them all.
“Good. Let’s get into character.” Bobbi led the three of them down the beach, hands in the pockets of plastic jeans, dressed in those and a loose, cheap cotton shirt with high-top sneakers, playing the role of beach trash.
They had closed to within fifty feet of Washington and her trio when one of them called out, “Slow down and put your hands up!”
Where Bobbi and company looked like natives, Washington’s group came dressed in full action gear: long bulletproof coats despite the heat, fatigue pants and full shirts, doubtless with body armor beneath. They wore breathing hoods to protect their identities, or perhaps to keep from sucking in the local pollution. The one who had called to them carried a massive battle rifle.
“Oi,” called Shaper down to the knot, “We’re unarmed, you know. Relax a bit, why don’t you?”
“Just come down here and let us look at you.” The dude with the rifle trained it on them. “Nice and slow.”
“Not exactly the warmest welcome I’ve ever seen,” Bobbi called as they approached, both expecting and dreading this kind of reaction. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand.”
“You’re full of shit either way, as far as I’ve been able to tell.” Three of the assembly looked like muscle, people Bobbi didn’t know. But she recognized the throaty voice coming from the figure who rounde
d the barrel as Janelle’s. “You people look like righteous trash.”
“Better than looking like something out of a post-apoc video.” Bobbi snorted, and grinned. She stopped ten feet from the lot of them, beaming bravado. “Besides, we thought it would be better to try and fit in. Take that thing off, Janelle, you know that you don’t need it.”
“Maybe not.” The helmet came off in Janelle’s hands, revealing the black woman’s scarred and shaven head. The sight of her gave Bobbi pause. Janelle was a handsome woman, and remained so, but a thick line of keloid ran the right side of her face from the ruin of a lost ear, puckered and livid pink like a mouth. The sneer she had when she spoke made Bobbi shudder. “I bet you wish I’d put it back on, though.”
The moment of repulsion evaporated, and Bobbi took a step forward. “Jesus, Janelle… Are you all right? What the hell happened to you?”
This concern made Janelle squint. She studied Bobbi for a moment.”…Bad shit. We were blowing up a drone processor when we ended up tangling with one of those badass combat units.”
“You mean a shixaur.” A flash of monstrous shapes, masses of repurposed tissue plated in armor and given many wicked limbs. The thing that had ultimately doomed Redeye before she had torn out its heart, shixaur were like their weaker drone cousins, but Frankensteined, smart, and made many times more dangerous.
“Yeah, one of those things.” Janelle gestured to the scarred pit on the side of her head.” Held me down and pulled my ear off after taking a mag of thermite rounds. Was trying to take my head off. Would’ve succeeded, too, if one of my guys hadn’t taken its head off with an anti-tank rifle.”
Shaper whistled faintly. Janelle shot him a dirty look, then turned her attention back to Bobbi. “So what do you want with us after all this time? I thought you washed your hands of us.”
Bobbi blinked at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We didn’t hear any of this until we ran into Syme a few days ago.”
“Yeah, and what happened to him? He called me up, said he might come down and see me, bring you with him.” Janelle flicked a glance between Shaper and Violet, silent at Bobbi’s side. “Sure as shit didn’t say you’d be bringing company. Where is he, anyway?”
Bobbi prepared to speak, readying herself to face the shitstorm her next words were likely to bring down.
“He’s dead,” said Violet. “I figured you knew that, hence…” She nodded at the gun. The others held bulky guns under their coats.
Janelle’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll talk about that later.” She growled amid the soft slicking of safeties coming off around them. “No way we can stay here. Come with us, we’ll take you to where we’ve been camping out. We can talk there.”
“I got a lot of things to talk to you about if we’re gonna be friends,” Bobbi said. “Is that what’s happening here? We friends?”
“We’re friendly enough that I don’t wanna plug you straight away.” Janelle gestured for her guards to put their guns away. “Keep talking. We’ll see how the rest goes.”
Bobbi gave her a thin smile.” About the most that I should expect, I guess. Considering the situation.”
“Yeah, considering the situation.” Janelle turned away from them, looking out across the water.” This bullshit keeps coming.” She spat on the sand. “I don’t suppose you know what this is too, do you?”
From out of the corner of her eye, Bobbi caught Violet’s surprised expression. “I figure we need to share a lot of information. Even if we aren’t gonna have an axis here, lady, you got a lot of things you need to know. For everybody’s sake.”
The Pacific licked toward them, a tongue coated in poisoned silver.
“Yeah,” Janelle echoed softly. “For everybody’s sake. If you’re offering, I’ll hear you out.”
They had a lot to talk about on the drive down, mostly over encrypted link between their two cars as they drove. Bobbi filled Janelle in on some of the major discoveries since the big split, Janelle talking about what she and her group had been doing. They hadn’t been up to much, which both surprised Bobbi and annoyed Janelle more and more as she heard what Bobbi and her group had done. Janelle was a prideful girl, after all, and had been more committed to tearing down Yathi wherever they could find them. Not overzealous, but without any of the trepidation some of the other field squads had experienced. The more they talked, the less anything she said surprised her about the past operating under Scalli or the direction his brood had taken after pulling away. Brute force all over, the bombs and blasters brigade. A lot of it overseas, in fact, groups operating like terrorist cells as they blew shit up under cover of other organizations. After ditching Cagliostro, their operations became less and less identifiable from that of the more traditional brand of freedom fighters. They screwed up a lot more, too, and the casualties mounted. After the fracturing, Janelle had departed with fifty-seven men and women. Now she had around half that number.
Though they had met in the great neon forest of Los Angeles, Janelle and her people were based halfway between L. A. and San Diego in the industrial parks that stretched down the highway. Two hundred miles of post-California sprawl comprised the way between the cities, built on caliche and paved with the broken dreams of would-be entertainment stars. A misery machine reaching past the days of the conquistadores and the Tongva before them, who fled the angry sun only to water the land with their own tears. Where there weren’t urban zones, there were industrial complexes, far too numerous for even the Yathi to haunt completely if at all. Janelle was sure they had facilities somewhere down the San Angeles highway cordon, but she had yet to locate them.
“And even if we did find them,” Janelle said as she led the lot of them through a mazeworks of warehouses to a massive concrete vault that once housed a corporate fabrication plant. “We can’t shit where we live, not unless it’s really, really important. We don’t have the numbers, and we’re not a commando outfit like yours.”
That’s us, the assassination factory.
The vault’s doors rumbled open, three feet thick and utterly proof against anything but sat-bombs or missiles. Would be damned hard for the beam weapons of the more obvious Yathi war machines to crack the steel doors, only less so the concrete walls. A good place, Bobbi had to admit. She thought of Redeye’s incinerator and the turrets dotting the field, wondered if Janelle had a similar setup. As they finished opening, however, her brain halted in surprise.
Arranged neatly on a number of hauler trailers sat a dozen armored vehicles. Gray-hulled and unpainted, they lined up in neat rows, strapped down to their beds, prepared for transport. A single, prong-shaped linear cannon jutted from a turret mounted on top of each one, slightly off center. Not quite tanks, more like heavily up-armed trucks fresh from the factory and left to sit while the war passed them by.
“Sweet Christ!” Shaper exclaimed, and whistled. “Where did you get all of these from, Janelle?”
“Horsch-Optima Bearcats,” Violet droned into Bobbi’s ear. “Postwar issue. Microtanks.”
Janelle grinned at them, her scars twisting the expression into a horrible leer.” We came on ‘em by accident. Turns out, this used to be the property of a PMC that got eaten up at the end of the war. When their shares evaporated and the assets got sold off, some holding company bought up a lot of these places. When you and Scalli split, he got some of the properties from those companies. They didn’t even look to see what was inside, man!” This, at least, Janelle could be proud of, something Bobbi and company didn’t have. “They’re older hardware, but these linear guns can still crack bunkers wide open at a thousand feet.”
“That’s impressive, Janelle.” Bobbi gave her a nod much more fulsome than she really felt. They were impressive, but this kind of gear wasn’t much use in a shadow war.
Bobbi tried to suppress such thoughts, but Janelle seemed to read the question in her face. “I know, I know, what are we going to do with them? I said the same thing to Scalli once we located these things. That’s wha
t he’s been all about, though, securing major arms to use against the Yathi at a future time. We have caches all over the world right now, just sitting there, loaded with this kind of thing. You haven’t gotten the memo, I know, but that’s what he had most of us up to before he vanished. Seemed to think that we’d need them eventually.”
“That’s him all over,” Violet said. “But that’s nothing you can use against the Yathi. They’re so deeply interconnected with the world and its military organizations that if everyone did rise at once against them…”
“They’d probably find an excuse to start dropping sat-bombs on us, or worse,” Shaper said. “But Scalli’s a smart man, lack of judgment where Bobbi’s concerned notwithstanding. Why would he want to invest in resources that would make the movement a big bloody target if they were ever used?”
Bobbi had no idea such resources were being moved around, or how Scalli would have access to them. But then she remembered what Pierre had said in Paris, about the hardware that they had discussed. “Janelle, how long has it been since Scalli disappeared?”
“About a year,” Janelle said. “After that shitfest in Shanghai. You heard about that, yeah?”
Bobbi nodded. “Yeah. Listen, what are you guys planning on doing here? I mean, these are real top shelf, but—I guess what I’m asking is, how are you wired with the rest of the groups?”
Janelle’s brows arched. “You mean, do I have connections to them? Do we work together?”
“Yeah.” Something in Janelle’s tone made Bobbi’s stomach shrink a little.
“We do.” Janelle walked into the storage building. “But that thing with Syme and his people probably killed off any chance you might have had to talk to them.”
“I thought you might say that,” Bobbi said. “I sure as shit wished it turned out differently. Everybody started shooting, though, and –”
“And you had to protect your people, yeah.” Janelle nodded. She stopped as they walked between the Bearcats, and turned to face Bobbi with a hardening expression. As she did, the turrets of the two on either side of her hissed to life. The motors made little noise as they kicked in, the brutal, square muzzles of their linear cannons lowering to track Bobbi and company.
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 25