Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  Mason stepped back to one of the armored men. The bodies were slumped, fallen in a loose formation, no obvious marks on them. He reached out to one, wiping grime from the plates.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, standing, stepping back. The lattice shivered in sympathy.

  A falcon’s wing stared back at him from the armor.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  It was when he reached the bottom of the elevator shaft for the climb back up that they came for him. Bounding out of the dark, misshapen, hideous.

  He flicked his optics overlay, looping back the live feed. They were still there, not bodies of the dead, but humanoid, skulls lumpy and bulbous, wispy strands of hair still clinging in places. Their arms were thin, teeth crooked and extending outside their lips, and they were dressed in tattered rags and scraps of scavenged clothing.

  They howled and chittered at each other in the darkness.

  “Fellas,” said Mason. Were these… Jesus, were these people? “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to do this.”

  Eyes wide and black stared back at him. One turned to another, clawed parody of a hand slashing at the air, then they rushed Mason.

  Overtime fell in place, natural as breathing, and he pushed the lights from the suit up high. The white was blinding, the cascade of brilliance burning pure against the filth of the walls, the warped bodies of the lost men and women around him.

  Mason moved amongst them, spinning and turning against the rush, moving between them, striking hard and fast. The inductive tasers in the gauntlets fired, cycled, fired, again and again. One of the hunched people was thrown clear, Mason’s fist hitting it hard enough to knock it across the corridor. Another tangled with him, then convulsed and jerked as the reactive armor discharged into it.

  The blue of the reactor on his back burned bright.

  Two rushed him, and he slammed the edge of a hand into the neck of one, dropping it, the taser firing. The other grabbed at his face, Mason pushing it away, stepping back —

  The edge of his boot was against the black of the elevator shaft. He stood, panting, overtime pulling the color from the faces around him. He felt rather than heard more of them coming from above, and up from the shaft below.

  How many —

  They ran at him, pouring from the way he’d come, pushing him back and…

  Mason fell into the shaft, white and blue spinning against the shaft as he fell into the dark below. He fought as he fell, the tasers firing as he lashed out. He snagged an arm through the ladder at the side of the shaft, felt the jerk as the ancient metal sagged away from the wall. His boot slipped on a rung, and one of the creatures leapt from the wall to latch onto him. The reactive armor fired, the thing twitching, the smell of burnt flesh in the air.

  The ladder gave way, and Mason tumbled, lost, into the forgotten dark below.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “How the fuck long does it take to get cigarettes?” Sadie crumpled the empty packet of Treasurers, lighting the last one between black lips. She blew the smoke out into the rain. “This company man of yours. Know what he’s doing?”

  She felt Haraway step closer behind her. “Yes.”

  “That’s it? Just ‘yes?’” Sadie turned, the cigarette held out, palm up.

  Haraway shrugged. “He’s probably the best at what he does.”

  “What’s that?” Sadie took another pull, eyes flicking to Laia huddled in the corner. “Abducting women?”

  “No,” said Haraway. “He’s not really very good at that at all.”

  Sadie coughed out a laugh. “No, I guess not. Still,” she said, turning back to the rain and waving with the cigarette. “He knows how to show a lady a good time.”

  Haraway moved to stand beside her. “This isn’t… This isn’t really what his mission is supposed to be.”

  Sadie looked sideways at the other woman, then turned to look back at Laia. She kept turning, taking in the black rifle leaned against the wall, the Apsel falcon against the stock picked out in grey. These company types even have a design crew for a pleasing color palette on their weapons. “Haraway,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “What does a company man need with a BFG like that?” Sadie blew smoke out into the rain.

  “Don’t do that,” said Laia. “It doesn’t like it.”

  “What?” said Sadie.

  “The demon,” said Laia. “It knows you’re here when you do that. It’s trying to get in.”

  “The rain?” Sadie leaned forward, took a big draw on the cigarette, and blew more smoke into the torrent. Don’t like that, do you? “It’s been trying all day.”

  “No,” said Laia. “Not like this.”

  Sadie frowned. The rain howled outside, just for a moment, a squall walking sideways, just like a man —

  “Fucking fuck,” she said, grabbing at the rifle on the ground. Sadie pulled it to her shoulder, yanking at the mechanism on the side of it.

  “What?” said Haraway. “What is it?”

  “Fuck!” said Sadie, swigging the rifle out the door. She sighted through the scope, pulling the trigger. The weapon clicked, then lit a blue line down the barrel. She followed the line, flicking the safety off.

  “I thought you said you knew how to use that,” said Haraway.

  Sadie looked out into the rain through the scope. The company weapon felt heavy in her arms. Her guitar was heavier, but that felt alive, this felt —

  It’s for killing. That’s all it’s ever done.

  The shapes in the rain were gone. “I could have sworn…”

  “What? Freeman,” said Haraway. She grabbed Sadie’s shoulder. “What did you see?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” said Sadie. “Damn rain—”

  The thing swung in from outside the room, crashing into her, the rifle spinning away. It was on her chest, clawed hands reaching for her throat. Saliva stretched between its teeth as it gnashed in her face. She held it back, then brought a knee up into its groin. It went silent, curling up around its pain.

  Sadie scrambled out from underneath it, then kicked it in the head. “Motherfucker!” She kicked it again, bringing a boot down on top of its face.

  “Sadie,” said Haraway. The other woman was tugging at one of the subs, trying to get the weapon to respond. “Sadie, how do you —“

  They boiled out of the rain, pouring through the gap in the wall. The gun in Haraway’s hand roared its defiance, the rounds tearing and chewing at bodies.

  The weapon stuttered dry, clicking over and over. Sadie placed a hand on top of the weapon, pushing it to the floor, Haraway’s eyes blank.

  Sadie walked slowly to Laia. “You ok?”

  “Yes,” said the girl, huddling into a blanket. “I told you. It knows you’re here when you do things like that.”

  Sadie picked up the rifle from the ground. “It knows, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok,” said Sadie. She moved back to the gap in the wall. “What’s it going to do next?”

  Before Laia could reply, something howled out in the rain.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The clean design of Reed Interactive stretched in front of him, the corridor empty and blank. It was a subtle off-white. A team had probably spent hours working out what the right color it shouldn’t be before they’d landed on this one. It was like the whole building readied itself for an imprint, a slice of synthetic reality.

  Julian smiled, adjusting the sunglasses on his face. That kind of thinking was a dead-end, for dreamers and people in R&D. He took the Camels out, pulling one free with his lips and lighting it. He leaned against the corridor wall. What’s the game plan today?

  He’d gone pretty hard on the man in the last session, using the pliers until there was nothing left of his mouth but blood and mucus. The tech would have put him back together by now. Julian took another pull on the cigarette, frowning. The man had been resistant, uncannily so.

  It was almost like he had nothing to tell. That was impossible, of cou
rse, because he could do things to people’s minds. That was clear. Reed would do anything to get its hands on that technology. Create reality for people? Sure, there was a business model in that, but to change people, to make them do what you wanted…

  Julian allowed himself another smile. The percentage in that would be unbelievable.

  He pushed himself off the wall. The corridor remained deserted, keeping the prisoner separate from the normals. Until they worked out how the tech worked, Julian had ordered only remotes into the same chamber with him.

  Julian allowed his feet to walk him to a blank door, unmarked, unlabeled. He used his link to authorize entry, the door lights blinking red, red, then green as they hissed open. The inside of the room was dark, a single bright lamp casting light against the chair.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Julian as he walked inside, “that we might not have—”

  The chair was empty.

  Walking quick and smooth, leather soles whispering across the tiled floor, he moved to the chair. The clamps were open, unlocked, no sign of force. The edges of the metal were tinted with red where the man had thrashed against them, cutting his own skin, but nothing else. The chair itself was unmarked, the black surface smooth and bare.

  “Shit!” He slammed over the small cart next to the table, scattering plates and —

  A cart. With plates.

  That wasn’t supposed to be here. Someone had brought the prisoner food, against Julian’s instruction. It was important that he build a bond with the man, be the source of pain and relief in equal measure.

  Think. Focus.

  That there was a cart here at all wasn’t the problem, was it? If a colossal fuck-up like this could happen, then it was likely that other instructions — very specific instructions — wouldn’t have been followed.

  Only remotes.

  Julian brought the lights in the room up, rendering the scene into stark contrast. Traces of blood and vomit on the floor. Bloodied tools, a set of pliers next to surgical shears at the front on a tray. An ashtray, the filter of a Camel ground out in it.

  He moved to the cart, righting it, tossing the pieces away. Standard Reed catering, hot and cold compartments, with a handle for a human operator. A human operator on a pay grade so low they’d never see a remote in a year of Christmases. A human operator so incompetent they’d spend the rest of their life in a cell, mind-wiped and empty eyed —

  Not yet. Where was the prisoner? Where had he gone?

  Julian brought up the CCTV feed from the room on his overlay, already walking to the door. It hissed open, and he switched his optics to thermal. The floor flipped into relief, and he brought the contrast up. Footsteps led away from the door, clearly showing the soles of bare feet stepping away. The imprints were faint, the heat easing away, but still only minutes old.

  He might still be able to catch the bastard.

  The footsteps lead away from the room, towards the elevator at the back of the building. It was an old service shaft, bringing supplies and heavy materials between floors. At this time of day, the elevator would be quiet, and Julian had to give it to the man: he’d chosen the right path for down and out.

  That shaft led deeper than the ground floor. It was sunk into the old rock at the floor of the city, parking levels below the Reed building, down to a sheltered facility. Bomb proof. Rain proof.

  Not idiot proof though. “Oh, holy Christ,” said Julian.

  He started to run to the elevator, sending out a region-wide call. “This is Julian Oldham, Specialist Services. I’m en route to sub basement level eight, in pursuit of a critical asset. The asset is to be considered extremely hostile. Lethal force is not authorized, repeat, shoot to incapacitate only. Asset is believed to be in control of Reed staff already. He’s on his way to the crypt.”

  No more than two seconds passed before his link was flooded with comms requests. He ignored them as he sprinted for the elevator, issuing a priority override on it. It was waiting, open and empty by the time he got there.

  The elevator dropped into the depths of the Reed building, vibrating and shuddering at the speed of descent.

  “Oh, holy Christ,” he said again, rubbing a hand over his face. He reached into his jacket for his sidearm. What a fuck-up.

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  The first man he’d passed had been standing, jaw slack, drool coming out of his mouth. Julian’s overlay had clicked the light amp up, picking out a trickle of dark from the man’s ear. His white lab coat was spotted with it on the shoulder, blood almost black. Some kind of hemorrhage inside the man’s skull. He’d moved on, sidearm pointed out into the darkness of the floor.

  The woman he’d found next wasn’t still. She was slamming her forehead against a pillar, the white concrete stretching up into the darkness above. The front of her face was gone, a ruin of blood and bone, but she’d kept pounding her head against the concrete, a sticky red residue left against the cold stone.

  Julian’s overlay picked out more Reed staff in the dark around him, links still live even though their minds were gone. The room lights were unresponsive, the whole floor cast into shadows, the lights from server racks blinking in the dark.

  It was cold, tendrils of fog working across the floor. The crypt temperature was always low, some science nerd had tried to explain it to him before he’d been interred, something about circuits and superconducting in the brain. He hadn’t been listening, but it didn’t much matter — it wasn’t the ambient temperature of the crypt that made Julian shiver. Before he’d got here, his link had gone live with the screaming, people in pain —

  Agony. They were in agony.

  — burning their minds out over the network.

  There weren’t any words, and he’d moved from foot to foot in the elevator, wanting it to go faster, at the same time wanting it to slow down.

  But he had to go. If Julian were a gambler, he’d have bet he knew where the man was going.

  He stepped over the form of a man sobbing in the darkness, his eyes clawed out by his own hand. The man grabbed at Julian’s leg in the darkness. “What will you trade me?”

  Julian shook his leg free, tugging at the crease on his suit. “What?”

  The man held something up in his other hand. “For these pretty marbles. What will you trade me? White marbles are always worth the most.”

  The overlay picked out what was in the man’s hand, and the lattice bunched, pulling him away and down the corridor.

  My God.

  Still. Julian tugged at his collar, pulling the lattice under control. You couldn’t make progress without some investment. Sure, some of these people here wouldn’t ever be right again, but once Reed had the technology the prisoner was using, they could —

  Well. Take over the world, most like.

  He lifted his weapon. Julian had slid a set of tranqs into it, more than enough to take out a man. He wasn’t going to take chances. He watched the overlay, the live feed at the right of his vision showing the corridor to the main part of the crypt. The man hadn’t come that way, not yet, so there was still time.

  Someone screamed in the dark in front of him, and Julian broke into a jog. He caught a flash of movement, the overlay putting a wire frame around someone, and the sidearm barked. The body spun, tumbling, and Julian didn’t slow as he moved up to the —

  “Shit.” Julian nudged the tech with a foot. Not him.

  A voice spoke out of the darkness. “Julian Oldham.”

  Julian looked up. “Yeah?”

  “Julian Oldham, I’m so glad we have this time to talk, before the end.” It was the prisoner’s voice, the man sounding calm. In control.

  “Before the end?” said Julian, walking towards the crypt. Just down here, and then… “The end of what?”

  The man’s laugh sounded in the dark around him. “The end of you, of course. The end of all you hold dear. The end of what you love, what you strive for. Because, Julian Oldham, I made you a promise.”

  You will release me
or I will kill everyone you love.

  Julian frowned. “Yeah, about that,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s too late to bargain, Julian Oldham,” said the man’s voice.

  The man was using the PA system. His voice was filling the room, maybe the whole Reed building. “There’s just one problem,” said Julian.

  “What’s that?” said the man.

  “You’ve still got to get into the crypt,” said Julian. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll find you and punch your lights out before that happens.”

  “Really?” said the man. “Why do you think that?”

  “I know this place,” said Julian, steps taking him through the dark. “You don’t.”

  “No,” said the man, his voice agreeable. “Except — well. I’ve lifted what I need out of the minds of your servants. So many petty concerns in their heads. So much freedom of thought. You should run a tighter ship, Julian Oldham. It really has been too easy.”

  “So, you know this place. Big deal. You’ve still got to get into the crypt.” Julian had arrived at the door of the crypt, the white vaulted wall standing tall in front of him. The status light on the front blinked red.

  “No,” said the man again. “No, I don’t.”

  “What—” said Julian, but the door was already sliding open as he realized, red light, it was a goddamn red light —

  The crypt stretched in front of him, stasis coffins laid out in the dark. Lighting on each casket was dim, but Julian could already tell most of the status lights were red, a sea of dots blinking a silent scream at him.

  The man stood beside one of the coffins, the lid open, and Julian raised the sidearm. He paused, the link snapping and fluttering in his mind, and he stumbled.

  “You see,” said the man, and Julian heard his voice from two places. One, at the door, where he — a remote, solid, secure, stable — stood, and the other, in the coffin, where he — a body, weak, fragile, insecure — lay, cracking eyes against the brightness of the coffin’s lamps.