Virology

by Ren Warom

  These guards are not going to give us an opening. Deuce is rocking an unusual amount of pissiness. It looks damn good on him. Crappy odds. I hate crappy odds.

  Full frontal? she suggests.

  Can’t hurt. Or at least, it can’t hurt more than any other type of attack. World of hurt either way.

  Pessimist.

  Realist. And really fed up with fighting people with guns.

  He’s speaking her truth so hard, all she can do is offer a high five before counting down to attack.

  Sprinting through the door, they hit the soldiers and guards the only way they can, another few Hornets garnering ugly flesh wounds in the rush. Wielding his pissiness like a weapon, a projectile missile, Deuce heads off one of the female guards, taking her to the ground and out with a punch to the face so hard her skin ripples back, unconsciousness settling in even before the violent bruises begin to form.

  He reaches down and tears her gun from her hand with a terse, “Mine.” Then he shoots her.

  Unsurprisingly, five other Hornets are armed in exactly the same way, the owners of their guns lying dead in their wake. In the past forty-eight or so hours Amiga’s come to rely on their efficiency and violence. Whilst they’re dealing with the soldiers and guard, she takes Shock to deal with opening the panic room doors. Getting in isn’t easy by any means, but does not require a fingerprint, and she tosses Dong’s hand aside as the thick door swings open. Four soldiers rush out. They work as a team, Shock dropping them in their tracks whilst she runs past to see to Gail.

  Gail’s tied up on the floor, another guard either side of him. She throws the knife at one, nailing him through the forehead, the other grabs Gail up to use as a shield. Her tactic. Thoroughly annoying when employed by somebody else. Not to mention employed using someone she’d very much like to keep alive.

  “Heads up!”

  Deuce runs in. Together, they barrel straight at the guard, who’s trying to shoot at them whilst trying not to let go of Gail, drooping heavily in his other arm. He swears once, a hard expulsion more of sound than word as they hit legs and shoulders, knocking him to the floor, making him lose his grip on Gail, who falls to one side. The soldier attempts to bring his gun up and around to fire at them, but Amiga plants her knee on the joint of his shoulder, grinding in hard enough to make him scream.

  “Oh no you don’t, sugar,” she snarls. “I think you need to say good night. Deuce?”

  “Good night,” Deuce says real pleasant and, tearing off the guard’s helmet, he slams doubled fists into the side of his head.

  They hang on in place for a second, waiting for movement, but he’s out, and Amiga climbs off to help Shock, who’s begun to check Gail, his eyes gold in blue. Scanning him over physically, she finds no bullet holes, which is the only plus considering he’s beat all to hell and rocking some nasty looking cuts he should probably get C-Gen on real damn soon if he doesn’t want to be in more serious trouble.

  “Gail,” she murmurs, “you might not know it right now, but this is your lucky day. Oi, Ravi, a hand here.”

  “You mean a whole me,” he says, eyeing Dong’s hand on the floor.

  “Yeah. And quickly.”

  Hoisting him up, they hustle Gail out to a cleared table, leaving Ravi to work his usual magic whilst they go to help the others with the required clean up. They have to get moving if they’re going to avoid any more trouble.

  When they’re done, it’s super late and the building’s eerily empty—the doors automatically locking when the last worker left. It amazes them no one heard the ruckus, but Dong kept well away from even her top Execs. Sometimes isolation is not a good thing. Deuce goes to the roof to collect the ropes and harnesses whilst Shock volunteers quietly to go down in the shoot to unlock the front doors for them so Tracker won’t have to. They follow him down as soon as they’re ready to go, carrying Gail, who’s conscious now but too groggy to function. The door is unlocked but Shock’s not there.

  He’s nowhere to be seen.

  They IM him. Get no response. Not signal death or signal dark. Signal silent. Beginning to panic, they search the ground floor. The place where they’ve parked their caterbikes. Nothing. No sign at all. That’s when Deuce and Tracker jack the building security and take a look at the footage. That’s when they see the Zeros coming up behind Shock. When Amiga sees what they do, she loses all capacity for reason.

  “That’s what attacked us in Paris,” she says, and she hears the cold in her voice. The emotionless drone. It will worry Deuce but there’s nothing she can do about that. She’s gone. The only way to come back is to destroy the woman who did this to Shock. “Zen. Fucking Zenada. Fucking Zenada Lakatos. We’ve been played.”

  Understanding hits Deuce hard enough to make him flinch, and boy does she feel that. She empathizes. “We were supposed to go to her, weren’t we? All hellfire and brimstone and Mollie’s revenge in human form. Certified key delivery service.”

  “That’s the hundred-flim jackpot right there.”

  Help! Tracker, in their IMs. They’re in the shuttle they’re… His voice stops. Then, dull and low, he says one single word: Zen.

  Tracker! Amiga likes Tracker. She snarls. “Fucking bitch! We left a load of injured Hornets on there. Chances are they’re all fucking infected now. Trust that bitch to take our ride. Probably thinks it’s going to stop us.”

  The selfsame snarl on his face she can feel curling through her entire body, Deuce revs his caterbike. “Like hell. We need another shuttle.”

  Throwing herself on behind him as the other Hornets rev engines ready to go, Amiga says, “Get me to the bays and I’ll get us one. Gloves fucking off. I’m done sneaking; let them send every sec force they’ve got after us. Until I kill her, I’ll mow down everything in my fucking way.”

  We’re done sneaking, he IMs, implacable strength in his tone. We’ll mow down everything in our way. We’re in this together.

  Unexpectedly, this jolts emotion back into her, a small spark of warmth. She squeezes his midriff. Says quietly, I know.

  He grabs her hand, holding it against his chest as they race through the streets of Hong Kong to raid the bays for a spare shuttle, or any shuttle at all.

  Amiga’s really in no mood to be picky.

  Shanghai Blues

  Dusk gathers like a swarm of flies, too close and too loud, swirling semi-darkness and humidity around Vivid in thick swells she wants to wrestle her way out of. Shanghai is humid. Close-cut buildings act like huge generators, trapping air, superheating it until the only place to breathe, the only way you can, is high up on the ’scraper tops where the wind is too damn cold and nibbles the flesh sore. At this hour, roughly midnight, artificial wind razors over the rooftops, vicious as a rumour, carrying the stench of the city like an afterthought, like the bitterness on the back edge of thick, black coffee, staining the tongue.

  That aftertaste reminds her of the Gung, and Vivid sucks it in like gold dust, her lungs crying under the pressure, homesickness swelling behind her diaphragm. Nothing like it. Nothing like any of this. And when they reach the top she takes a moment to look over to the nearest clear horizon, through crenellations of rooftops, staggered like bad teeth, out to the place where hub and space melt together beyond thick glass into darkness. There’s nothing beautiful about any of this, and yet it aches within her like beauty. She wants to love the world, all of it: Hubs, land ships, the vast ocean and the suffocating scrap of land she calls home. Wants to find a way to exist within it without suffocating.

  Isn’t that what everyone wants?

  Vivid’s contrary. Always wanted what she can’t have until circumstances forced her to shoot for the lowest denominator, and boy was that a fun ass time of wrack and ruin, but a girl’s gotta keep a roof over her head and her belly full. Mind you, even though it’s been years since she chose a higher path, current circs have left her feeling like she can’t win either way. Damned for good choices as much as bad. The only way through is to remember why she’s up h
ere freezing. Steal back what was stolen. Do what no one else seems to want to.

  Still booming, even at this hour, the muted hum of Shanghai rises all around, comforting and yet somehow ominous. The ever-present rush of sound signifying furious activity, the mad beating heart of a city that cannot sleep, locked in cycles of sticky insomnia. Boy can Vivid relate to that shit. Lolled out in webbing stretched between lightning traps she and her team mainline iced tea and cheap dim sum from the steamer cubicle across the way, no more than a hole in the wall, rippling heat, manned by a young boy who looks so bored of the world he might throw himself in the boiling water just to get away.

  They’re throwing a late-nighter, waiting for the lights at Tsai Holdings to start flicking off. Down to a shocking small band of physically just about able and mentally still sort of willing Hornets, the only good plan was a hit in the small hours. A takeover, essentially. Grab the building and lock everyone out so they could jack and trash the systems at leisure. Great plan. Only problem is, half the staff don’t seem to be going fucking home.

  The Execs left at ten, most of the office staff left at eleven thirty or so, and about forty minutes ago an expensively dressed woman left in a private car, but no one else has followed since, despite a security changeover taking place. The work ethic is impressive, the impact on their brilliant plan less so.

  Dumping his basket to one side, KJ clutches his belly and groans. “Oh man, that was some good shit. Or else it was just shit and I’m too far gone to tell the diff.”

  “You’ll know if you’re still alive in the morning. Only way to tell,” Sim says, and KJ treats her to a horrified glare.

  “Hell no. I’ll eject this shit pronto if there’s a chance of it taking me out in my sleep. I go down awake or not at all.”

  “Cool it, KJ. Sim messes with you.”

  KJ yawns. “Whatever. Probably we’ll die anyway. Fucking Tsai Holdings won’t surrender a money tree like caged avis without a fight, and here we are, beaten up to fuck, no weapons and no back up. I predict a grisly end.”

  Vivid hunts for words to respond right, but when she finds them KJ is snoring gentle puffs of sound, head relaxed back against the webbing, mouth slightly open. He looks adorable, and knackered. Vivid feels guilty then for dragging them to yet another hub chase, for not taking time to regroup even though that luxury is not one they have access to. And therein lies the rub—the slap of objective reality snapping her out of pointless guilt.

  Their lives hang, precarious, in the balance, and they’re all tired of having to run, hide, stay one step ahead. Fighting is exhausting, sure, but not having control over the strings that would move you, as they are, is debilitating, drains you of every last resource, leaving nothing behind but empty skin and hollow bones.

  Tired but beyond the point of being able to sleep now, Vivid lies there staring up into space, tracking shooting stars and clouds. Staring at the moon and wondering if history will ever repeat and see humans set foot there again. Shuttles don’t fly that far and it seems humanity is happy to surf the atmosphere in glass prisons, happy to give up the whole universe in exchange for the illusion of safety.

  If the world never changed, never broke, what might Vivid have been in it? What might she be now?

  * * *

  The morning, or rather the nothing hours just before dawn, brings double jeopardy. What wakes them is word from Deuce that Shock’s been straight up snatched, which none of them can quite get their heads around, not after the crazy stunt he pulled at Shandong. They want to go help, but the avis need them too. And if they can free Puss, maybe she can help Shock. Therein lies the second part of double jeopardy.

  Three of the rooftop Hornets have hit consciousness too damned bruised to move, having slept and given their bodies a real chance to think about what’s happened to them. Sometimes rest is the cure, other times it’s more like a red buzzer, signalling the end of physical usefulness. It leaves the physically able Hornets struggling to feel positive about any kind of hit on Tsai Holdings. They can’t leave the avis in cages but with the numbers they have… things look bleak.

  Sandro wants to know why they can’t pull the same shit as they pulled on Tokyo Hub.

  “Because we have no connections here,” KJ snaps. “Not a one. Cupboard’s bare. We either go in guns blazing—only, no guns—or we find a way to sneak, and frankly we’re all out of useful equipment unless we steal and, for real, this place makes it hard.”

  When they peeked at Tsai Holdings, looking to establish their defences, they found it low on VA on the staff levels but packing VA that damn near gave Sandro a nose bleed on the most imperative levels to jack, namely the labs. Add to that a vast security staff patrolling every floor—lab floors and their immediate neighbours in particular—and it ends up a pretty damn chewy problem. They’ve dealt with similar, sure, but equipment and able bodies was not an issue then.

  Prism kicks at the edge of a cooling unit. “We have to think outside the box.”

  Vivid wasn’t sure about Prism joining them here, because if they lose her, they’re stuck, but she’s glad of her now—one more person in a bind is not to be sneezed at. They need everyone they’ve got.

  “Exactly,” KJ says, pointing with his chopsticks because, naturally, he’s eating again, even though he overdosed on dumplings barely five hours ago. “We have to go old-school Hornet. Way back in the day when we had no rep, just a bunch of fucking starving Fails with no equipment except our brains and a need to not die of hunger. Remember that, Viv?”

  “Do I ever. Not my fondest memories. I’d rather not delve in to be honest.”

  He rewards her only with scorn. “Viv, my doll, if we don’t wrap our tiny minds around those memories and embrace them, we’re on a sure-fire path to relive them.”

  And there’s nothing more to add to that. Truth is self-evident. This leaves her and KJ, being the oldest members present, to begin planning like they used to. Old Hornet tactics, rather than relying on brute force and equipment, came in at peculiar angles. Essentially, their entire MO was the exploitation of two things: weakness and expectations. The latter tends to feed the former. Corps and criminals plan for certain types of attack, for known eventualities, so if you have few resources the best way in is to do the unexpected.

  To figure out what will be unexpected here, they have to start with what they know about Tsai Holdings. The Corp has five buildings scattered across Shanghai Hub, all in high-end areas, though the name seems to be everywhere on everything. This building, the one they need to hit, is multi-function: offices, the secured labs, upper-level boardrooms and Exec suites and what seems to be a penthouse office.

  The Corp is clearly powerful. Perhaps too big to see the details. What details have they overlooked? At first glance, none. Tsai Holdings has one of the most comprehensive security networks they’ve ever seen. Obviously anticipating kickback for the avi theft.

  “What did we do faced with VA and sec like this?” Vivid asks KJ, still stuffing his face with dumplings.

  “Get creative.”

  “Viral bombs?”

  “Too yesterday.”

  “Robo drones?”

  “Too expensive.”

  “The classic workers’ incursion plan?”

  KJ rears back, aghast. “Dear shitting hell, if you think any of us could pass for anyone professional right now you’re literally tripping.”

  She rolls her eyes at him. “Shut the fuck up. I’m spitballing. We have to think of something. We can’t let them keep the avis, not when they blatantly stole them.”

  “And we’re not going to, Viv. But we need a plan that works. Especially with our current deficiencies.”

  “How about that?” Prism’s been looking out toward the main thoroughfares of Shanghai, the bright neon billboards and ads. She’s pointing at one advertising a circus of all things.

  “What on earth will that do?” KJ is genuinely bemused. “Apart from be rather entertaining.”

  “Contortionis
ts. Acrobats. High flyers. Sharp shooters. Strong folk, that’s men and women, by the way, fuckers. There’s even some folks who juggle chainsaws and swords. Could anything be more unexpected than a circus breaking in to your building? We could go in through the air con.”

  Vivid shakes her head. “They’re not going to help, Pris. This is their home.”

  “You’re still not seeing,” Prism says. She points to the billboard. “Wait for it.”

  They watch as the sign flips between star attractions, bright and loud and glittering, and then it appears, a whole screen dedicated to a portion of the show where the troop comes out to perform with their avis, golden forms perfectly lit and sparkling. From the imagery, the scraps of stream playing within it, these circus folk genuinely dug having their avis out, and treated them like family.

  This part of the ad has a huge “CANCELLED” sign plastered across it in kanji, English, and French of all things.

  “Oh,” KJ breathes. “Oh my fucking hell. We are in business.”

  Uncurling herself from the makeshift hammock, Vivid says, “Pack up, guys. We’re going to the circus.”

  Audience

  Shock! Wake up!

  .

  .

  .

  Shock!

  .

  .

  .

  Wake up!

  .

  .

  .

  Shock’s eyes snap open. Look direct into familiar square pupils lit by rage and terror.

  You’re an avatar here, she whips into his mind, hurting him with her pain. You almost ended up behind bars.

  He tries to speak but can’t, too choked with emotion, too upset at the sight of everything she is in such a narrow space. Confined. He slams a hand out, shimmering gold, to strike the bars of her cage. Gold, only gold, but resistant as iron, encoded to hold her unless he pays her way out. He can’t even reach between them to touch her, to reassure her.