Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “I—”

  “She doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Haraway. “It’s like she’s speaking English fine, but doesn’t know the right words.”

  Laia put a hand against the collar at her throat, then said, “Can you take this off?”

  Mason leaned forward, slow and cautious, looking at the collar. “Maybe,” he said. “I’ll need some tools.”

  “Hurry,” said Laia. “Hurry, or the demon will eat your soul.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Laia sat in the moving cage, watching the women around her. They were well fed, healthy. The one in black had been beaten, but it looked recent. And beaten didn’t feel right, not anymore. She had been fighting. Neither walked with a limp, didn’t carry a cane. Laia wanted to be able to speak with them, to hear how a woman could carry her head high. Could fight.

  Before the angel had put them in here, she’d seen him face down their master with burning blue eyes. Maybe the heavens were filled with warriors.

  Their master… wasn’t their master anymore.

  She wondered where Zacharies was. The angel had sent him away with another man, dressed impossibly fine, and they’d spoken words as if they’d known each other. Laia wondered what it would be like to know an angel, to speak with one. She’d been worried about Zacharies, but after thinking about it, she knew the angel wouldn’t have sent her brother off if there was danger.

  Would it? Laia had felt the thrill of fear when the cage had started to move. It had leapt forward, the speed of it pushing her down. But perhaps she wasn’t afraid of a moving cage. Who was she to think she could talk to angels?

  The prophecy said only that the angel would save them, but not how it would do that. So she’d sat on the floor, eyes wide, and watched the women talking. Speaking with the angel, talking in its language.

  The woman with the black hair and blacker lips showed no respect. That was surprising. Were angels so common here? Was this Heaven? Or Hell?

  It was possible. She’d seen so many strange things since coming here. Lights without fire. Men and women walking tall and free. Weapons of impossible power. And an angel.

  It was true.

  She remembered as he’d fallen, blazing a trail down from above them, crystals falling in with the rain. He was so fast, he could only be divine.

  Laia had forgotten her fear, remembering being led out through beautiful passages walled with the finest porcelain. Their surfaces had been smooth, perfect against her fingers as she’d trailed her hand along them, but it didn’t smell right. It smelled old, dead, rotten.

  Like the rain.

  At least that was familiar. So many strange things. Like the floor of the cage — soft, textured wool. Spun finer than anything she’d seen before, and she’d touched it with her fingers, almost in a trance. This must be Heaven, for all the marvels in it. And yet the stinking, vile rain poured around them.

  Whenever she tried speaking with them, they hadn’t understood. The one with no respect had given her something that smoked and tasted good but made her lungs burn, like the lamesh weed from the marshes.

  The cage had stopped, and the angel had brought something to them. Water, which the blonde-haired woman had mixed with a powder. Laia had drunk it all, the taste something marvelous. And so sweet! When she’d been offered a second a little while later, the cage moving swift and sure around them again, she’d drunk that all down too. It made her head feel heavy, something behind her eyes itching, but not in an unpleasant way.

  She’d slept, exhaustion snapping her away before she knew it. Laia didn’t know for how long, but light had started to seep in from the front of the cage. They were slowing down, and that was what had woken her.

  “I’m going to punch his lights out, that’s what,” said the woman with the black lips.

  They… I understand.

  The blonde one frowned at that. “I wouldn’t try that,” she said. “He’s not known for his tolerance.”

  “How many times have you been dragged from your home in the night?” Laia watched the woman’s black lips move, the anger making the edges curl.

  Tolerance. The word snagged at her, and the itching behind her eyes came back for a moment. She knew the word, but the meaning was… unfamiliar.

  “What does tolerance mean?” Laia said to the other two, sitting up as the cage moved and listed around them.

  “Now there’s a thing,” said the one with black lips. “She’s Spanish.”

  “She’s not Spanish,” said the blonde, tossing perfect hair. “Something else maybe. Her mouth isn’t used to making the sounds.”

  “I know how it works,” said the other one. “Christ, Haraway. I’m a musician, not a special needs case.”

  Haraway. A name, not a word. The blonde woman was Haraway.

  Laia leaned forward. “Where is the angel? Is he all right?”

  The other two looked at each other, and Black Lips tipped her head sideways. “Come again?”

  Laia gestured to the front of the van. “He was with us before, but there’s a barrier there now. I can’t see if he’s ok.”

  Black Lips looked at her for a few moments, then tipped her head back, an honest laugh breaking out, deep and loud. “Oh, honey. He’s no angel. He’s a fucking asshole.”

  “He’s just following orders, Sadie.” Haraway frowned. “My orders.”

  “Yeah? So who’s the asshole then?”

  Haraway kept frowning, but didn’t say anything else for a moment. Then she turned to Laia. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m…” Laia touched the side of her face. The other one is called Sadie. “I miss my brother. Will he be all right?”

  “Which… Which one was your brother?” said Haraway.

  Slaver. Master. Devil. “Not the… The other one with a collar,” said Laia, touching the metal at her neck.

  “Right,” said Haraway. “He’s probably ok.”

  Sadie snorted, but didn’t say anything. Haraway looked at the other woman for a moment, then turned back to Laia. “He’s… He’s with another syndicate.”

  Syndicate. Another word filled with meaning but no substance. Not something she knew. Laia scratched her head, then said, “I’m… I’m speaking… I’m not using my words, am I?”

  One of Haraway’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t know what a language pack is?”

  “Maybe she’s never wanted to have that shit in her brain,” said Sadie. “Some people would prefer to get next to the metal, you know? More predictable than a virus in their heads.”

  Laia was going to ask what she meant, but the cage stopped. Sadie kept talking. “You company people? You’re all the same. You—”

  The side of the cage slid open, the sound sudden, and she saw a dead city in the rain outside. Sadie said, “Sweet Jesus.”

  The rain was alive with the demon, and the angel was standing in it. Laia could see his face for the first time, the hard jaw, the blue eyes. Perfect. Beautiful. Terrible.

  She could see that the demon was already inside him.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  Laia looked into the fire, then across at the two women.

  Mason Floyd. The angel had a name, and… Laia took another bite of the stick of food she’d been handed. It was delicious, full of substance and strength. It smelled of nuts and… something called chocolate.

  This was definitely Heaven, to have chocolate.

  But it wasn’t a Heaven that she could understand. The angel — Mason — had served them. Laia had been prepared to forage for food before he’d come back with a box, handing out the sticks of food before walking back out into the burning rain.

  He didn’t flinch, tall and strong as he’d walked out into it.

  “What did you mean,” said Haraway, “when you said that he had—”

  “She said he had a demon in him,” said Sadie, taking a bite from her own food stick. “I figured it for some kind of hentai reference, you know?”

  Hentai. Another word of meaning with no
substance. “What is hentai?”

  Sadie swallowed, then said, “Nothing for you, that’s for sure.” She got up and walked to the edge of the room, standing in the gap of the crumbled wall. Something in her shoulders was wrong. She’s angry. Sadie was looking into the rain, after Mason, and she was angry.

  Haraway scooted forward on the floor. “Does the demon have something to do with the rain?”

  Laia looked at her. Has she been touched by the sun? Her thoughts have no strength. “The demon is the rain,” said Laia. “Every child knows that.”

  Haraway licked her lips. “Pretend I haven’t been born,” she said. “Pretend I’m not a child. Not yet.”

  Laia sighed. “The masters bring the rain. When the crops are needed, the rain comes, and the guilty are punished.”

  “How?” said Haraway. “How are the guilty punished?”

  “The rain,” said Laia, swallowing. She held a hand out in Sadie’s direction. “The demon is in the rain.”

  Haraway ran a hand through that perfect hair, then let a breath out. “Ok,” she said. “That… That’s what I’d call circular logic.”

  “Where is Mason?” said Laia. “Even an angel can’t stand in the rain.”

  Sadie snorted from where she stood by the wall. “I told you, kid. He’s no angel.”

  “I saw him fall,” said Laia. “From the sky. The air burned.”

  “Maybe it did,” said Sadie. “I wasn’t there.”

  “He saved me,” said Laia. “From my master. He saved you too.”

  Sadie turned, her head jerking around sharp and sudden. “What?”

  “From the man who hated you for how well you play,” said Laia. “With hair black like yours, but made dead and flat from the poisons he takes.”

  Sadie and Haraway looked at her, both silent, before Sadie said, “I don’t remember anything about that.”

  “About what?” said Mason, at the edge of the rain. It dripped down on him, and Laia could see that his face was grey. His eyes were too wide.

  Sadie spun back, taking a step away. “Jesus Christ, don’t sneak up like that.”

  Mason leaned close, his voice a whisper. “It’s the only way I can stay hidden from the dead. You know, out there.” He waved a hand at the street outside.

  Haraway stood up, walking towards Mason. She took the bag he’d been holding, putting it down beside the wall before looking into his eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  “What?” said Sadie.

  “He needs treatment,” said Haraway. “For the rain.”

  “I can do that,” said Laia. “If you can get the collar off.”

  “Shit,” said Sadie. “He’s the only one who knows anything about this place. We’re fucked without him.”

  “I know,” said Haraway. “He’s taken us off the grid.”

  “I can do it,” said Laia. “Help me take the collar off.”

  Mason was looking between the two of them, his teeth chattering. Laia moved towards the bag, trying to work the fastening. It was some kind of… A line? A row of tiny teeth, the metal ends interlinked like so many miniature fingers.

  “There’s nowhere off the grid,” said Sadie. “If there was, I’d have bought real estate there.”

  “Well,” said Haraway, “it’s here. Can’t get a signal. Can you?”

  Sadie tapped the back of her neck. “No link,” she said. “I don’t put that shit in my head.” She pulled out a small rectangle, thinner than the parchment they used to record tithes. “Phone’s got nothing.”

  Laia managed to get the bag open. She saw a big metal pair of scissors, the handles long, the cutting ends short and thick. She pulled it out of the bag, setting the thick end against the collar, and tried to work the handles. It was hard — they were long and she almost couldn’t hold them.

  “Well, you’ll just have to trust me,” said Haraway.

  “Not likely,” said Sadie, turning back to the rain. She tossed a glance at Mason. “He doesn’t look good, though.”

  The scissors cut the collar with a solid sound, the teeth snapping shut as the two ends of the collar spun away. The metal gave her a farewell kiss, the sharp end nicking a line in her jaw. Laia could feel the blood start to well, but ignored it, the feeling of the hand at her throat lifting, the world’s colors coming back. She stood, walking towards Mason.

  Haraway spared her a glance, then turned back to Sadie. “We need him.”

  “We?” said Sadie. “Or you? I’m used to getting along just fine without—”

  “What, like how well you were doing with your boyfriend back there?” Haraway snorted. “Please.”

  Sadie shrugged, reaching into a pocket in her black jacket. She pulled out a crumpled packet, silver edges peaking through her fingers, and lit one of the… cigarettes.

  Laia ignored it, taking Masons hands in hers. He flinched, trying to pull away, then squinted at her. “You’re… I remember you.”

  “Come inside,” said Laia. “Come out of the rain. It’s burning you.”

  “It’s… I’m scared,” he said. “They keep coming.”

  “Who?” said Laia. “Who keeps coming?” She pulled him inside, the water trickling down the white suit he wore, the fingers that she held hard and cold. Gloves. The word held itself in her head.

  “All of them,” said Mason. “All the people I’ve killed. I drowned them in my head, and they won’t stay dead.”

  The other two women had fallen silent, Laia pulling Mason close to the fire. He followed her, docile like a small child, and she pulled him down to kneel in front of her. She leaned next to him, whispering into his ear. “Close your eyes. There’s no one here.”

  Mason swallowed, but shut his eyes, his hands still in hers. Laia reached out with her gift, going below the white suit, below the flesh, seeing the blood beating in his veins. Her mind touched it — the flow of a million million tiny living things, and the demon riding along on them.

  She closed her own eyes, then breathed out, pushing. The demon was surprised, struggling, and Mason gave a small cry.

  “Shhh,” said Laia. “I’ve almost got it.” She held the million pieces of the demon in her mind, then slammed down on it. She laughed with the joy of her gift as she pushed the demon out through his skin into the air.

  Mason coughed, shuddering, his eyes snapping open. He leapt to his feet, hand coming up in a fist above her face —

  Sadie’s hand was on his wrist. “No,” she said. “Look.”

  Mason turned his head to follow her gaze. A silhouette of mist was already fading away, the shape of his crouching form, as the air from outside picked it apart and pushed it away.

  “What—” He swallowed, then pulled his wrist free. He coughed, then moved to the break in the wall, throwing up into the street outside.

  Sadie took another pull on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out. “You know,” she said, “there’s something you don’t see everyday.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “How’s that?” said the man with perfect clothes.

  Zacharies rubbed the marks around his throat, the collar lying on the table between them. “It is…”

  “Better?”

  “Amazing,” said Zacharies. “Thank you, my friend.”

  The man smiled — perfect teeth! — And said, “It’s nothing. You must be worried about your sister.”

  “Yes,” said Zacharies. “How do we get her back?”

  “It’s tricky,” said the man. He looked at the room around them, people bustling from table to table. “My… colleague. From Apsel Federate.”

  “The angel?” said Zacharies. “I should have believed Laia. I was such a fool.”

  “Angel?” said the man, a hint of perfect teeth showing again. Then he laughed. “I get it.”

  “Something is funny?” Zacharies felt the words clumsy in his mouth. The man had explained that the metal seed they’d planted in his skull was letting him speak with their words, but the words felt different, alien.
/>   “A little,” said the man. “There’s nothing heavenly about him.”

  “But I saw—”

  “Armor,” said the man. “You saw urban assault armor. Or riot gear, maybe. I don’t know, it’s Federate tech, and there’s a fine line there anyway. A bit out of spec, but it got the job done.”

  Armor. Zacharies knew the word, but where he came from armor didn’t grant people the power of gods. “I know what I saw.”

  “Yeah, ok,” said the man. “An angel.”

  Zacharies spread his hands in front of him. “My sister, she’s younger than me. Idealistic.” He was trying the word on for size. “But she’s a believer. What she believes in always come true.”

  “Really,” said the man. He tugged at his shirt under his jacket, the stitching too fine to be seen with the eye. “Always?”

  “Yes,” said Zacharies. He gestured at the people around them, moving in chaotic symphony. “Not always clearly, but she sees. She wouldn’t have… Not this way.”

  “What do you mean?” said the man. “Not enough angels?”

  “Too many,” said Zacharies. “Look here.” He lifted one of the bagels sitting between them. Zacharies had eaten six of them, his mouth bursting with the wonderful saltiness. He bit into it, his seventh, and continued around his mouthful. “This food? It is exquisite.”

  “It’s just a bagel,” said the man. “Not a very good one. The cafe on this level’s just a bit average, you know? Apparently engineers don’t care.”

  A man in a white coat approached their table, gesturing at a spare chair. “This seat taken?”

  “Fuck off,” said the man with perfect clothes, adjusting his tie. The man in the white coat paled, turned and walked away.

  “It’s things like that,” said Zacharies, “that make me confused.”

  “He was an asshole,” said the man. “Works in Weapons Applications.”

  Weapons. Applications. “How do you… How do you not know how to apply a weapon?”

  “Exactly,” said the man. He made a fist, pointing with his index finger, bringing his thumb down. “You just point and shoot.”