He was stiff, but it didn’t matter. He could run forever.
Already the artificial sun was peering over the horizon, its golden light reaching out to lick New Diamond City on the birth of another new day. He could feel the light already, streaming into him. If he kept running, maybe it would blast right through him, burning out all the hatred and violence and stupidity of the ugly, awful, hideous world around him.
His apartment was already behind him, retreating into the distance. He was running much faster than usual. When he ran he usually saw no reason to hurry, but today he ran hard.
He ran down to the financial district, where absurdly tall starscrapers competed with each other for sheer audacity and power and prestige. Giant adverts played on their walls. The only things out now were drones and more drones, hustling from here to there, obsessed in a way only machines could be. He edged out of the district and towards the waterfronts.
He was the only thing real in the world.
A river ran next to the streets in a deep canal and Hoskin could hear the water rolling and he merged with it, running harder now, following nothing but the babbling of the river, letting it lead his gel-covered feet.
All around him the advertising sensed him coming and projected from the building walls: a burst of holographic butterflies that wanted to sell him better relife insurance; a ghostly bone-cycle bursting through him and speeding off down imaginary curves, with handling and speed that only an augmented posthuman could handle. He ran through it as if blind and eventually the adverts sensed his disinterest and slunk away, flattening back into the walls of the starscrapers.
It was all useless to him. It was all melting away, running down his skin with the rivers of sweat.
The waterfront gave way to the smaller iridescent buildings of the trendiest and most expensive shopping center in the city, the buildings curved and smooth and polished. Everywhere holographic ads of beautiful women and men strutted and posed and shimmied in clothes that took hours to put on with the help of at least three personal fashion attendants. One woman wore a dress composed entirely of a million tiny strings, where each needed individual attention. Another woman wore one constructed from forty or fifty pieces that needed lasers to weld it together. Bigger, better, more complicated, more and more and more. Nothing was ever enough. Everything fed on itself and got hungrier.
Some of the breakfast shops were open and he could smell the pastries and bacon and eggs and cornmeal spilling into the streets. The ancient, fatty foods that never went out of style clashed with the rich smell of blended fruits and organic pastes and a hundred kinds of edible grasses in all the colors of the rainbow. Lots of the stands were empty, the owners probably afraid to open even in this part of town. That’s how it started, he knew, the fear crept in slowly, changed things, kept building on itself.
The darkness shadowed him and his mind was filled with violence and sickness. Flashes of the poor nursing student and Sakura’s body flickered in through the shadows. He was breathing heavy now but he kept going, kept his legs pumping. One of his search spiders flashed results into his eyes. He’d set its flashes to auto answer and its message popped up translucent and faded on his innervision, out of the corner of his eyes, almost totally dimmed, enough to see it and hear it but not for it to draw focus. Hoskin tried not to look at it, not to listen, but it drew his attention anyway.
It showed a red robed Deos priest gesturing wildly to a crowd of upturned faces.
“—And they lie to us, all of them—”
Hoskin was furious. The priests lied too. They were putting people out of work, people who couldn’t afford it. The priests had a place to live. They had food. And everywhere they were telling people to strike and that the government was against them. Why was he trying to save any of these people?
Another flash popped into his mind: a Sentinel firing tear gas into a crowd.
The rich were no better. They’d sicced military machines on the little people. That would only make things worse. He didn’t understand why they couldn’t see that. Why was he the only one who could make sense of anything, the only who could see what was coming?
Another and then another and then another image stormed in, voices talking over each other.
“—Tax them all 75%, give their stolen credits back to the people. They don’t deserve it—”
“—city on fire—
“—Multiface—”
“—Godless city, Godless government—“
“—tear it all down and start over—“
More images and feeds streamed into his mind but he kept running, even harder now, out of breath but he didn’t care.
“—Is he a hero of the people?”
“—the death of the Titans brings—”
“—I say we kill them all. The rich bloodsuckers—”
“—and they put these Sentinels in my neighborhood, like it’s some kind of police state—”
The images flooded his mind, too many to see at once, too many voices. He was running on instinct now, unable to see the city around him. He could only feel it. If he could only run fast enough he could outrun the swarm of images that attacked him now like a storm of ravens.
A city runner’s drone swooped up to him with water and he hammered it down and kept going. He flashed an all-mute at the images but new ones muscled in to take their place, babbling.
He cut his link to everything and the image storm vanished. Nothing could get to him now. He was an isolated island. Even Quinlin couldn’t get to him. He was totally and completely shut off. And he ran.
Finally he broke out of the thicket of buildings and reached the park and sea at the edge of the city, the water incandescent in the morning light. Other joggers were out now, a few here and there. There were a few who still worked out the old fashioned way like him, who liked to salute the morning sun and see the water down by the docks.
He was talking out loud now, talking out to whatever God would listen. The other runners didn’t even look at him. He could have been talking to anybody.
“These are the people I fight for?” said Hoskin to God. “Why’d you make us like this? You never give me any fucking answers. Where are you? Always hiding. Always leaving it to your soldiers to do the fighting. Well I don’t want this anymore. I won’t keep fighting when nobody else cares.”
Hoskin knew God because he wasn’t religious. No book, no interpretation of God molded his thoughts. He knew God from down in the muck, swimming in blood and slime, the unfiltered God. And when he found himself in a dark wood, astray, he would just say whatever was on his mind and trust that whatever was in charge heard him and maybe understood. Usually.
His feet hit the soft grass of the park and the sun was bright now in the early morning. Sea salt filled the warm air. He could hear only his breath and the clop, clop of his feet on the grass.
A garden sprang up before him, filled with an astonishing array of genesculpted flowers in vibrant colors, all of them hanging in the air on small invisible platforms, their roots elegantly coiled like origami. Gardenballs buzzed among them, like bees pollinating wild flowers. The intense smell of thousands of flowers swept into his nostrils and he wove through them, the gardenballs scattering.
“I’m done. I’m tired. I give and give and you just ask for more. And for what? Why? What difference does it make?”
Clop, clop. Clop, clop.
“Why won’t you say something? You never say nothin’, you silent bastard.”
Running and running. The sea licking the shore. The breeze soft and caressing, the city was awakening but he was away from it now.
“If I don’t do it, who you got left? Huh? I just wanna rest. I’m done. I don’t wanna be needed anymore.”
His mind was tired, but his body kept going. He burst from the edge of the garden. He’d pushed so far beyond tired that his body just capitulated. He was not going to stop and so it just gave in and let him run, the pain and fatigue
fading into the depths.
“If I don’t do it, who’s gonna?” he shouted. “Who else you got? If I don’t do it, who’s gonna? If I don’t—”
He stopped.
Suddenly, he could hear everything around him.
The sea salt filled his nose and he breathed deep. High above, he could see the seabirds circling lazily. Hoskin closed his eyes and thought back suddenly to his father, standing on the beach his family went to every year, a smoothly curved wooden pipe hanging from his mouth, the soft tendrils of smoke curling and rising. Looking closely, he could see the not-so-white of his father’s smile and the fierce radiance in his eyes.
He could smell the deep waves of salty surf tickling his nose, hear the laughter of children as they danced towards the frothy sea, watch with delight as seagulls circled in slow motion in the endless sky. He saw his mother under the cooling shade of a massive umbrella, unpacking sandwiches, a thin holobook, Leaves of Grass on the screen, the book on the blanket beside her. Crunching glowing sand between his toes, he felt the all-body warmth of the dazzling sun.
“There’s only one Dante Hoskin,” said his mother, “and that’s all there’ll ever be.”
The dark black curls of his father’s hair stood against an infinite sky that bowed and strained against the sea at the horizon line. In the distance, a tiny triangle of a boat drifted dreamily. The smell of barbequed meats on a nearby grill filled his nose.
He opened his eyes again. Wind chimes tinkled somewhere in the distance and he felt suddenly relaxed and clear again. Yeah, there was corruption and stupidity everywhere, but if you saw too much of it, it distorted everything. But it wasn’t everything. There were things worth fighting for too. With his hands hung loosely at his side, he stood and looked out into the sun-dappled sea and he didn’t need to run anymore. He didn’t need to do anything now. He could simply stand and watch and listen. A bird chirped. A child laughed. Runners rustled by. And he understood.
“If I don’t do it, who’s going to?”
He smiled.
Maybe someday he wouldn’t be needed. Maybe someday he wouldn’t have to keep going, keep fighting. But today he was still needed, even if he’d screwed up. Daniels wasn’t going to get this done. And Quinlin wouldn’t by himself. He was gonna have to keep at it and get back on the case, smooth talk the Captain or find another way, call the fucking Chief if he had to. Whatever it took. They needed him.
“Maybe someday you’ll let me rest,” he said.
But not today.
And miles to go before I sleep.
He lingered for another few minutes and watched the waves and the water dancing forever. He felt the warm sun on his face and turned toward it, flower like, to let it warm him.
A thought drifted into his mind: The cleansing fire.
He turned the phrase over in his mind.
You want to take everything down. I’m not gonna let you. This city may be falling apart, but it’s my city. And I won’t sit back and do nothing.
He took another deep breath and lingered, clearing his mind, letting his thoughts drift. And then he started walking. He kept walking, just thinking, trying to figure a way back in, not paying much attention to the world around him. The world would do what it did. He just needed to do his part.
The early morning had turned into late morning. He came out of his head and looked around. People were out now. He was well past the water and edging towards some of the older parts of the city.
He noticed lines already forming at the public food synths. He saw a mother clutching her golden haired little one close to her. The kid looked scared and tired. And hungry. Everyone looked hungry. He stopped and stood for a moment. An old man with sunken eyes and a dark wool cap pulled tight around his head leaned on a wobbling cane. A young man with brilliant eyes who should be just starting a good career was standing there, waiting with everyone else, looking around, embarrassed. These were the people the killer was hurting.
He turned around and started back towards his apartment, picking up a slow jog again, taking a short cut through the Edgelands. He broke out onto Main Street and Westmoreland and something felt off. He slowed down to a fast walk and looked around, his senses suddenly tuned in, his cop sense telling him to stay sharp.
People were out everywhere. What was it? He didn’t know, but the air felt magnetized, pulling from a hundred directions at once. His jogging suit’s pores relaxed to let in some of the cool afternoon air.
He remembered that Westmoreland Ave was one of the first places he’d seen the Sentinel patrols on the killer’s stream.
He kept moving. The old buildings around him were tall and dark, breathing heavy. There was a street festival this morning, with people crowding around concession stands filled with delicious food and useless junk.
He passed a shop that sold sugar sculptures and another with praying mantises battling in tiny red cubes and another that sold light cages for pet birds so you could fly them the same way children of the old world had flown radio-controlled planes. Low-res holos hung over the stalls. The smells of sweetmeats and frying filled the air.
People were in the streets, moving with an eerie energy in the same direction. It felt like everyone moved together, in rhythm, like a river, sweeping past him, even though nobody stood particularly close together, nobody pushed or shoved. He felt like he could just stop walking and he would float with the crowd, surging on the river.
He noticed some kids standing on aircars, jumping and whooping, and he stopped and stared at a couple of them. It was hard to stay still. The energy of the crowd felt like a riptide under his feet, tugging him forwards, willing him to go with it.
“Hey, that your car?” he yelled to one of the kids.
“What do you care?” said the tallest kid.
It looked like the kid’s head was on fire. Blue and yellow holoflames flowed around his shaved skull, flickering.
“Get down” said Hoskin.
“Fuckin’ make me,” said the kid, his friends turning to look at Hoskin.
Hoskin didn’t have a badge anymore, so this could turn ugly but he just glared at the kid, saying nothing. The two locked eyes. No one moved or said anything. After a minute the kid thought better of his attitude and broke eye contact quickly.
“Hey—a—sorry,” he said and shuffled down off the car, his friends following, none of them looking back.
The energy of the surging crowd felt almost too strong now, like he had to plant himself to stand still. What was that feeling? The air felt liquid, like he could stir it.
A stunning boom tore apart the silence.
Hoskin ducked with a hundred people around him. His ears pinpointed the direction of the sound in a way no orthohuman ears could. It hadn’t been too close, his backbrain said, but it had come from down the street. He took off running in the direction of the blast, weaving around still-crouching people, but soon whole bunches were standing up and moving fast in the same direction, jostling and pushing and shoving. Hoskin tried to make space, shoving back. The crowd-river turned to rapids now. If he stopped, the crashing waves would drag him under and crush him.
The noise level erupted: cheering, shouting, screaming. Overhead, buzzing and swooping insects swept in from everywhere and scanned the crowd rapidly with beams of bright light.
Riot drones. That’s it.
What he’d felt was the power of a gathering riot.
He tried to get a sense of direction but couldn’t. He let loose a barrage of nano that blazed up into the sky to give him a better look. They started streaming back video instantly.
People were kicking in doors and windows, jumping on top of cars. His mites’ vidstreams formed a halo on his innervision. It looked like the drones were pouring from the gills of a tall building two blocks down, probably the Building Personality’s defenses. They couldn’t use lethal force, but already he saw some larger drones firing a spray of rubber bullets that slammed into the crowd.
People picked up things and started hurling them at the drones, even as the drones hammered them. Someone hit one with a heavy trash incinerator and it went down. Probably someone augged.
One of his mites found the center of the action, where the blast had gone off. It was a downed Sentinel, maybe from an improvised roadside bomb. People crammed around it, kicking and stamping.
It was hard to pay attention to the streams, because Hoskin had to keep moving, but he forced himself to watch while he fought to stay upright. Most of the attackers looked augged. The Sentinel struggled to get up. Half its torso was missing and its back legs were smashed. The blast looked chemical, some kind of acid, and it still burned away at the thing’s armor. Someone kicked the torso where the acid had hit and pulled away screaming, his foot melting.
Hoskin looked left and saw a store with its front windows smashed, people pouring in. He blinked his incandescence on and his skin spewed a brilliant white light that made people fall back, allowing him to cut a path to the store. He got to the shop, flicked off the spots and managed to get inside. He caught two rioters and knocked them out with light shocks from his fingertips, part of his personal weapons systems that the Farm hadn’t flicked off. He didn’t have much else. Now he wished he’d loaded Quinlin’s hacked weapons firmware.
A plasma blast went off. Then another. The shop owner had a scattergun. The blasts came out in wild arcs. A rioter’s head burst into bright pink mist. Most of the people started to run, pushing and fighting to get out, as more blasts ripped out.
Three men caught hold of the owner and knocked him down, his gun skittering away. Hoskin moved quick. They weren’t expecting him, and he took out two of them before the third one even realized what had happened.
The Scorpion Game Page 21