by Guy Haley
"Thanks. I'm trying shed some kilos."
"And springers aren't tracked."
Kolosev shrugged.
"Fine, Oleg, just tell me where he is."
Kolosev fished a phone from a pocket on his sleeve. "Money first."
Otto sent a coded transfer instruction out through his adjutant. Kolosev's phone binged, filled with the VIA's money. EuPol had given him unlimited funds for this expedition. Otto figured they'd find a way to claw it back later.
"Heh," Kolosev said, licking his lips. "You do need him. Why?"
"Where is he, Kolosev? I'm losing my patience," said Otto, and stepped nearer.
The fat man held up his hand. His eyes were screwed tight against the sun; he really didn't get outside much. "Relax, Klein, I tell you. What's the big deal? Let me guess — " a triumphant grin flickered across the Ukrainian's face "- k52's small adventure in the RealWorlds, yes? Am I close?"
The likes of Kolosev always dug out what others tried to hide. No harm in letting him know; if Otto didn't succeed, then everyone would know anyhow. Otto nodded.
"Damn fucking bastards! I am good, no, Klein? Huh? Huh? Every Class A gold hacker know about that. Me, I one of. We the future, you big mob, Klein. Fuck me!"
"Big talk, Oleg."
"You look at me, Klein, you see fat man. I look at you, I see an extinct species. You are needing Waldo to get you in, in past the security. Only he can do it, no?"
"You are a genuine genius, Oleg," said Otto flatly.
"Ah, now you flatter. Well — " the Ukrainian gave an extravagant shrug "- what if I tell you that it no matter? You no hear?"
"Where is he, Oleg?" growled Otto. He pulled his gun out again. "Or that money is coming right back out of your account, and I'll deposit a bullet in your face instead."
"I tell you! Calm, calm, big mob, you Germans so serious." Kolosev was giggling, he was still high. "He's in Sinosiberia, man, hiding out in an old Soviet army base from way back when."
Otto put his gun up. "That wasn't so hard."
"Yeah, won't do you no good. I'm working for some big fishes now, big fishes! They're not going to like you roughing me one bit, cyborg man." Kolosev laughed. "You want to get in to the Realms? You have no idea! I tried it 'cyborg' — " he hooked his fingers round the word, mocking it "- I try it and 'ffft'." He held his hand to his head like a gun, thumb falling like a hammer. "I no do it, so you no do it. I found him, my old buddy Waldo. I had so much I want to say to him, right before I smack him in the mouth. But you have no idea what's going on, big mob, you so…"
Kolosev's right temple exploded, taking most of his face with it. He slumped, last breath gurgling in his throat, and pitched over the railing into the teeth of the harvester.
For a second, the chaff blew red.
A bullet stung Otto's cheek, gouging flesh as it ricocheted off his reinforced skull, knocking his head round. It hurt like hell, but its momentum was too spent to do him real harm. Otto dropped, pressing himself as far as he could into the grill of the catwalk, making the most of the low lip running along its base. A further bullet thunked into the carbon body of the harvester a few centimetres from his head. No report from the weapon; the shooter was far off, the harvester too loud, his gun probably silenced. Otto crawled backward, trailing blood, seeking the shelter of the hopper humped up behind the harvester. By the time he was in its cover, his healthtech had staunched the blood. His wound itched as it healed.
Otto called up an aerial view. Grain silos to the west. The shooter had to be there. His adjutant reported a minor viral attack on his systems, easily fought off.
In the satellite view, Otto saw a bike rising into the air.
The silos were four kilometres away. Whoever had shot at him had been good, Ky-tech good.
An unused squad icon in his iHUD flickered briefly and guttered out.
"Kaplinski," growled Otto.
Otto ran back to the village, his face numb. He ordered Lehmann to keep watch from the office block, just in case.
"What happened to you?" said Chures. Valdaire looked up from her work at the desk and gave a small gasp.
"I got shot. We have to leave here, now. Kaplinski is here."
"How do you know?"
"I know," said Otto. "He's taken out Kolosev. Come on! We have to go. He probably won't chance a close approach with me and Lehmann here, but he is unpredictable, and he is not working alone."
"Just a minute!" said Valdaire.
"We do not have a minute," said Otto, and he made to grab Valdaire.
"Lay off for a moment, Klein! Chloe, is there anyone here that should not be?" asked Valdaire.
"We're the only sentients for ten kilometres," chirruped Chloe. "Brainless things elsewise."
Chures stared at Otto, an open challenge. "Finish your data rip," he said. "We need this information."
Otto stared back, and shrugged. He went to the door and checked the yard right to left and back again. He seemed nervous, and that worried Valdaire.
Five seconds passed. "Download complete," said Chloe.
"Now we can go," said Valdaire. She picked Chloe up off the desk.
"Veronique," said Chloe. "I have access to Kolosev's network, including the other source of EM activity. There is something you should see there, in the office block. Six more humans."
"What are they doing?" asked Valdaire.
"They are inactive."
Otto looked out over the yard. No movement or noise, just corn crake and combines rattling over the plain. He tapped Lehmann's feed, looking out through his eyes, something he'd not done for many years, and it brought a rush of unwelcome memories. "OK, but we are leaving as soon as we can."
"You're lucky Kaplinski shot Kolosev first," said Chures.
"Luck has nothing to do with it. He killed Kolosev because Kolosev knew something. If Oleg had known nothing he would have shot me first. Kaplinski is insane, but he is not stupid," said Otto.
"What is his problem?" asked Valdaire.
"All of the Ky-tech had neurosurgery," said Chures. "One of the things done as routine was an empathetic damper. It was supposed to stop PTSD in Ky-tech soldiers. It didn't work so well."
"Because it turned you all into sociopaths?" said Valdaire to Otto.
"You were in the army too, you know what it is like," said Otto. "They wanted to stop us feeling guilty for performing our duty."
"I was behind a desk," said Valdaire.
"You still killed people," said Otto, "even if you only pushed buttons. You know what it means to end a life; the feeling is the same if you can see them die or not." He ushered her through a broken glass door into the office block. Wind gusted through empty steel window frames, concrete walls streaked with moisture, ancient linoleum tiles flaked to fragments. "The conditioning was reversible: flick a switch after the war, be back to normal, even scrub the bad memories away. But it went too far with Kaplinski."
"Turn left, up the stairs, first door on the left," sang Chloe.
Otto went on. "Kaplinski did not take to renormalisation. He never felt anything but the urge to fight ever again. He got out of the hospital, killed half the damn security. I was ordered to hunt him down."
"He got away," said Chures.
" Ja, he got away," agreed Otto. "And now he is trying to kill me."
No sign of him, said Lehmann over the MT. The air bike is im mobile, 50 kilometres away. I've called in the local EuPol.
He'll be gone when they get there, thought Otto back.
He's gone already, said Lehmann.
Did you check out the EM signature in this office?
Negative. No time.
"This is it," said Chloe. They stopped in front of a door.
Chures looked to Otto. He nodded. Both readied their guns.
Chures silently counted down on his fingers. On three, Otto kicked the door in, his augmented legs sending the ancient wood to pieces. Chures darted into the room, covering all angles.
"Holy…" said Valdaire.
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"Well, I did tell you," said Chloe smugly.
The room was weatherproofed, its one window foamed up and ceiling repaired. Inside were six functioning v-jack set-ups, each worth a fortune, each highly illicit: couches, medical gear, nutrient tanks and hook-up. On every couch was a body, face contorted with pain.
"They're all dead," said Chloe. "Bio-neural feedback."
Otto checked the corpses one at a time; cold, stomachs bloated, dead long enough for rigor mortis to have come and gone, but not dead long. With the September heat outside, probably 50–70 hours, as he counted it, though he was no expert. Then his adjutant consulted the Grid and came back with a similar figure. Anything more precise would need tests. All were emaciated.
The last was different. "This one's alive," said Otto.
"I'll get the v-jack off him," said Valdaire. "See if I can pull him back into the Real."
"It'll kill him," said Chures.
"He's dead already," said Otto. "Pulse is weak, ECG erratic — look at him. He might be able to tell us something useful before he goes."
"Klein is correct," said Chloe. "The subject is undergoing total neural disassociation. He has minutes of life left."
"Who is he?" said Chures. He was checking the room carefully. He knocked some of the foam out off the window, allowing dusty sunlight into the room.
"Unknown. He has no Grid signature, no ID chip," said Chloe.
"Han Chinese," said Otto. He picked up a limp arm. His enhanced eyes picked out the traces of an erased judicial tattoo on his wrist. "Political exile." He let the arm drop.
Valdaire removed the v-jack from the Han. She studied the medical unit attached to the wall, then pressed a few buttons. There was a hiss and a mixing wheel spun round. A gasp of air escaped the man's lips. His eyelids fluttered.
He sighed something in Mandarin, so quietly Valdaire had to bend in to hear it.
He smiled, said something else, and went limp.
"What did he say?" said Chures.
Chloe spoke. "He said he dreamed of golden fields, that is what he said. Veev, it is."
Otto looked out the window at the corn. "That is to be expected."
"He's dead," said Valdaire.
"You said Kolosev knew something?" said Chures. "He's been trying to get into the Realms himself."
"Unsuccessfully," said Valdaire.
"He was looking for Waldo, and not on his own," said Otto. "This level of set-up is beyond Kolosev's means. Damn shame our only leads are dead."
"Chloe will tell us why," said Valdaire.
"You do not need to. Tell me, why has Kaplinski not destroyed this place with us in it?"
"He's looking for Waldo too," said Chures.
" Ja," said Otto. "And I would say that he paid for all this."
"Then we frag the lot, and stay one step ahead of him," said Chures. "We've got Kolosev's data."
"That could work," said Otto. "Or maybe Kaplinski couldn't get Kolosev to give the data up himself, and can not get at it remotely, and he is waiting for us to lead him right to Waldo instead."
CHAPTER 6
The Terror
Though the day promised rain, it held off. Soon Richards' human facsimile was sweating heavily and he was obliged to remove his macintosh. As his soreness receded, he began to take in the sensations his near-human form fed him, so much more entire than those he had experienced before. It was almost pleasant. Almost.
It was slow going with Geoff. "He's just not balanced right for it," said Bear. "Being three-legged is a disadvantage overcome with difficulty by giraffes." He shook his head as another frustrated squeak reached them from the wheat. "I fear he'll never master life as a tripod."
They rested awhile by a stone barn deep in the soughing corn. Bear leant against a huge chestnut tree and Richards sat with his back to a sundial. Geoff lay on the floor; it was easier for him.
They napped in the sun, each lost in his own thoughts. As they readied to leave, Geoff conveyed his wishes that the others go on, via a series of tremulous squeaks.
"We must stick together," said Bear.
Geoff would not be swayed. After a long and urgent conversation between the two animals, Bear came to Richards.
"Giraffes can be stubborn beasts, even those whose heads are full of wool," he said. "He's going to stay." Bear sniffed the air. "I'm sure he'll be fine. All I can smell down here is summer sleep and wheat." He yawned. Bear had a lot of teeth. "And look too," he said, gesturing upwards. "Look at the sky."
"Yes?" said Richards. The sky was blue and pretty.
"The sun!"
Richards shielded his eyes. "It's hardly moved," he said.
"I suspect night does not fall easily on these golden fields," said Bear.
"That's rather poetic," said Richards.
"I'm a poetic kind of bear," said Bear with a shrug.
The day wore on, and the sun did not move from its noon. They stopped for lunch by a rare brook. Richards took the opportunity to wash his stinking clothes as Bear ground some wheat and made flatbread on a rock heated by a fire of straw.
"My favourite," said Bear.
"Really," said Richards, annoyed at his need to eat. It tasted foul, and the grit in it hurt his teeth.
"It's free!" said Bear, grinning, though his smile was brittle.
Without night, time became meaningless. Richards' eyes blurred with endless gold, and he welcomed clouds, however fleeting. What had been a fine feeling turned sour, and his brain throbbed. When they slept, they did so in the shade of trees that broke the expanse of wheat, or underneath tumbledown walls that cut across the land, doggedly running to nowhere. The light shone through Richards' eyelids, turning his dreams pink.
"This is a land better suited to plants than men," said Bear, his voice roughened by thirst. It was all he said for quite some time. Pollen choked them.
After what felt like several days, Bear stopped and pointed. "Look!" he said. "The sun has moved at last."
Richards raised his sunburnt face to the sky. His body itched and his skin was tight. He was tired and hungry and thirsty. Humanity had worn thin.
The sun was several degrees lower than it had been before.
"Hmmm," murmured Bear, "this is most peculiar. The sun is setting, but it does not seem dependent on our passage through time, but more on our traversal of distance."
"Right," said Richards. He badly wanted to lie down. "Well done."
Bear waggled a paw with a rattle of beans. "I'm a curious kind of bear."
They walked through sunset fields where the unripe wheat reached Richards' chest, then came to a place where a sooty twilight reigned, and the wheat stopped altogether.
"I was afraid of this," said Bear. "I've been able to smell it for some time."
Ahead of them lay an area of blackened land. Patches of stubble poked up through fine white ash. The air was acrid. Dust devils whirled, and the ground radiated a dangerous heat. The swollen sun melted away into tears of fire at the ruin of the world.
An eerie howl sounded across the plain.
"Hmm," said Bear. "Let's stop here."
Richards, more tired than he thought possible, sank to his knees and was asleep before he hit the ground.
Day came as day does, the normal order of things holding sway at the edge of the wheat, and they continued onwards.
Soon after, Richards and Bear found a village that had been sacked. A small place of twenty or so cottages whose blackened beams stood exposed to the sky, walls bowed, close to ruin or ruinous already, revealing tangles of bones inside. There was a broke-back church and a mill whose wheel lay smashed in the river. The crackle of dying fires and wisps of smoke still haunted the place.
"I smell trouble," said Bear, "and it is trouble of the worst kind. We best be careful, sunshine." He fell to all fours and slunk across the river, a scowl on his face. Richards followed, the water warm and stinking, his trousers clinging unwelcomely to his legs.
Bear crossed quickly, leaving Richar
ds to scramble up its far bank alone. At the top, he came across a body, a brightly hued rabbity thing the size of a five-year-old.
It couldn't have been killed more than a day ago, but it looked as if it had been dead for centuries. Its bright skin was a thin, dirt-lined parchment, eyes sunken in cavernous, glitterrimed sockets. Where Richards touched it, its flesh felt hard and brittle.
"YamaYama," said Bear, coming to Richards' side. "Had a quick scout, there's lots of 'em dead, all like that, poor little blighters."
"This is a YamaYama?" said Richards.
"Toy of the year, 2102," said Bear. "Fully interactive, cute little beggars, bit like rabbits, but more soppy."
Richards nodded. "I heard of them, although 2102 was a couple of years before I was born. I've had to interrogate one as a witness. Big learning capabilities, but then what doesn't possess heuristics in this day and age? There was a controversy: too close to true AI. Neukind rights people said they were alive, like me, or you. They were one of the examples the rights movement used."
"Yeah, well, that didn't stop them being trashed in their millions when they went out of fashion," said Bear. "And I complain about my box in the attic."
"Some of their minds got out onto the Grid and ended up here?" said Richards.
"Mm-huh," said Bear. "Their collective was already up and running when I got pulled in. It was all going so well for them, and now look at this." A paw swept round the devastation. "Shocking."
The YamaYama looked like he'd been sucked dry, his face an expression of agony that suggested he had been alive to suffer it.
"What did it?" asked Richards.
"Haemites," said Bear. "One of Penumbra's lot," and he shook his long head until his little helmet rattled.
"Who is this Penumbra?"
"I've said too much. Got to keep you fresh for the debrief. Forget it, if you're not shamming, that is." The bear squinted suspiciously. He wrinkled his nose. "Hey, can you hear that?"
"What?" said Richards.
"That."
There was a ring of metal, then another.
"Is that a swordfight?"
Bear shrugged. "Mebbe. I'm going to check it out. You can stay here if you want."