“Then we have a deal?”
“Sure,” said Sadie. She flicked the radio off, then let her feet walk her out into the street beyond.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“They’re gonna unplug you and leave you outside in the rain to rust,” said Lace. “They don’t handle faulty intel well at all.”
“Sure,” said Harry, shifting from foot to foot in the mud. If he could just find a square of solid ground… If he kept moving, he was going to sink. That was the problem with the chassis — built for urban pacification. Damn engineers didn’t think about a day out in the woods. “The problem is, the intel’s fine. The source is faulty.”
“Don’t tell them that,” said Lace. “You sure Mason said 2pm? Here?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “That’s what he said.”
“At the Great Wheel?”
“Yeah, at the… I don’t think it’s called that anymore,” said Harry. “Since they moved it. How much you reckon that thing weighs?”
“Before it fell apart and the cars broke? More than you. I’m still going to call it the Great Wheel.”
“It doesn’t look great,” said Harry. “It looks unsafe.”
“Hey,” said a man to Harry’s right, as one of Harry’s legs shifted and a gout of muddy water shot sideways.
“Sorry,” said Harry over the PA. “Damn rain, right?”
“Right,” said the man brushing water off his leg, then moving to check his weapon — a long black energy rifle of Federate design. He said something else under his breath that sounded like, “Asshole.”
Harry shrugged, the chassis shifting. “Lace?”
“What?”
“It’s 1.55pm. What you got on the satellite?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” said Lace. “How much ammo did you bring?”
Harry froze, then turned the chassis around in a full 360, scanning the woods around them. He switched the overlay into thermal, the trees turning a stark cold blue, the metal of the giant wheel almost black. “Ah, Christ.”
“I don’t think JC’s your problem,” said Lace. “You’re a big boy. You can sort it out. It’s just people.”
Harry watched the tactical map fill up on his overlay, the positions of his team mapped out in yellow markers. Around the edges of the park, a mass of red dots were filled in as Lace fed information from the orbiting satellite.
“That’s a lot of dudes,” said Harry. “They’re all around the park. Circumference of what, about ten klicks?”
“More or less,” said Lace. “It looks like there’s a few gaps, but also some areas where they’re two or three deep. I give you maybe three or four thousand around the edge of the park.”
“Give me a tactical confirmation of weapons and armor,” said Harry. “Four thousand? You sure?”
“Numbers are still coming up,” said Lace. “Computer’s a bit slow.”
“It’s three thousand and seventy six,” said Carter, cutting in across the link. “Seventy seven. Seventy eight. Numbers are growing at the northern edge of the park, next to the metropolitan transit station.”
“You’re going to have to tell me how you do that,” said Lace. “It’s a secure line, for Christ’s sake.”
“Not that secure,” said Carter. “I can also tell you that many of them are armed, but aren’t holding their weapons.”
“What’s that mean?” said Harry.
“Were you made aware of a tactical operation conducted by the Metatech syndicate earlier today?” Carter paused. “Little Italy.”
“I’m not plugged into their inner circle,” said Harry. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” said Carter. “I only have CCTV. The images are… confusing.”
“Shit,” said Lace. “If super brain finds them confusing, we’re in trouble.”
Harry switched on the PA. “Pull Burke and Finnagen out of the trailer. We’re going to deploy our surprise a bit early.”
The man to his right looked up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll get Lace to update your tactical overlay with the current situation, but we’re going to need to evac.”
“Evac?” said the man. “What about Mason?”
“If he’s here, he’s well fucked,” said Harry. “Go on. Get Burke and Finnagen out.”
“Whatever,” said the man, walking off towards the trees.
“The problem,” said Carter, “seems to be the use of a new and experimental drug.”
“New?” said Lace. “Is it related to the guys at the edge of the park?”
“They’re not at the edge anymore,” said Carter. “They’re moving at a run to your location, Fuentes.”
“Crap,” said Lace. “Harry, get out of there.”
“And yeah,” said Carter. “The people at the edge of the park are probably linked to the drug.”
“Three thousand?” Lace paused. “What kind of drug is it?”
“It’s some kind of psychotic,” said Carter. “A crowd of people attacked a small Metatech squad earlier today.”
“Three thousand?” said Lace again. “Three thousand people have taken a new drug that drives them to psychosis?”
“No,” said Carter. “There’s a sympathetic reaction that I haven’t tracked down yet, but the effect seems to spread very much like a virus. Or parasite.”
“The weapons division are going to pitch a tent,” said Lace. “We going to get a sample?”
“I think you’re going to get all the samples you need in about two minutes,” said Carter. “Harry?”
“Yeah, Carter?”
“Don’t die, ok?”
“Thanks, Carter,” said Harry, but the click of the link said she was already gone.
“What was that about?” said Lace.
“I’ll tell you later,” said Harry. “Where’s my air support?”
His optics dropped a box around something running a ragged path through the undergrowth. Someone. Off to his left he heard the distinctive rising whine of a Federate energy weapon, the crump of the discharge sudden. One of the Federate soldiers screamed, “Contact!” before the chatter of a heavy weapon filled the air. Orange and yellow heat shapes moved through the trees. Ten people. Fifty. A hundred.
Harry took a couple of steps forward, the ratchet of machinery loud against his back as the coilgun locked in over his shoulder. The overlay spat up a targeting solution as the lazy haze of overtime dropped in around him.
He started firing, the hiss and crack of the coilgun repeating again and again. Somewhere behind him he could hear another conversion coming online — Burke — and the roar of a plasma weapon discharging. A tree in front of Harry exploded, fragments raining down, and bodies were tossed through the air.
“Lace,” said Harry, the words stretched and thin through overtime. “Air support?”
“Inbound,” she said. “You’ve got four minutes. Try not to die, ok?”
“On it,” he said.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
“Not bad,” said Lace. “You only lost the humans.”
“You,” said Harry, “sound a lot perkier today. I’m not sure I like it.” He swiveled the chassis about, scanning the perimeter. Smoke still rose from the middle of the blasted tree, a set of bodies scattered at its feet, the old roots holding them in death. His optics picked out a Federate uniform, a body with an arm missing, a child still holding a stuffed toy of some kind.
The Great Wheel had fallen over, crushing people and machines. He was pretty sure that had been Finnagen.
Burke clanked around behind him. “Fucking hell,” he said. “Fucking kids. I never shot no fucking kids before. Fucking hell.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Harry, the link hissing. “How… How did Mason do this?”
“Well,” said Lace, “it’s possible that he didn’t, you know.”
“He set up the meeting. The time. The place.”
“Right.” Lace cleared her throat. “Let’s work a hypothesis.”
“Where’s my ai
r support?” Harry watched as Finnagen stomped through the muck, reaching down metal fingers to touch the side of a woman’s face. She looked more peaceful than she had a minute earlier, the lower half of her body gone.
“Coming,” she said. “Still a minute out. Second wave of those freaks is massing out there. Stay with me.”
“I’m with you,” said Harry. “I’m always with you.”
There was a pause, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I know,” she said. There was a beat, two, then, “So, this hypothesis.”
“This yours, or Carter’s?”
“You can go off some people,” she said. “You know, really start to dislike them.”
“Ok, it’s yours,” said Harry. “Sorry. I was just asking.”
“Let’s say Mason wanted to meet with you.”
“With you so far.”
“Let’s say that there’s some kind of leak within the Federate.”
“Hm,” said Harry. “IA still crawling all over you?”
“It’s like we’ve got fleas,” she said. “Let’s say that the leak organized this.”
“Ok,” said Harry. “There’s a problem with your working theory.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ve still got to have someone make up some kind of psychotic drug that turns three thousand people into bloodthirsty killers. One that’ll affect kids and cause their parents to drag them into battle against a syndicate enforcement team.”
“Ok,” said Lace. “The theory still needs some work, I’ll admit it. But let’s say for argument’s sake that was a side effect.”
“Pretty big side effect.”
“Let’s say you wanted Reed and Apsel here.” Harry could imagine the frown on Lace’s face. “It just so happens that Reed brought three thousand blood thirsty killers. We brought a syndicate enforcement team.”
“You know what I think?” Harry watched Burke carrying a child’s body, cradling it in massive metal hands, and place it next to some others. He was working slow and steady, laying the children out together.
“No,” said Lace.
“Someone else is trying to get their hands on Mason.” Harry paused. Got to be careful what you say over the link. “And you know what that tells me?”
“What?”
“Fire a memo up to the boss. Let him know there are outside interests. Heavy outside interests.”
The drop ship roared over harsh and loud as the machine came scudding in over the trees. The pilot had it low and hard, right on the deck, and trees thrashed and bent as leaves scattered under the turbines.
“Ok,” said Lace. “I’ll send a memo up.”
“One more thing,” said Harry.
“Yeah?”
“See if you can get some time off for Burke and Finnagen. I don’t think they’ve had a good day.”
“You seem fine.”
“I’m not fine, Lace,” said Harry. “I just… Never mind. I’ll be ok.”
The link chattered for a moment. “You can tell me,” she said.
“I know,” said Harry. “And I will. Just… Later. Ok?”
“Sure,” she said, her voice distant. “Get on the plane already.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“You what?” said Haraway. “You did what?”
“I told Carter to send help,” said Mason, looking her in the eye. Man, she’s pissed. “Sort of.”
Haraway’s mouth opened and closed. Her face was pale, almost white. When she spoke, her voice was flat. “You told Carter — a core syndicate asset — where we are?”
“No,” said Mason. He pulled out one of the battered chairs and kicked himself back into it. “Grab a seat, Haraway.”
“I want you to—”
“Take,” said Mason, leaning forward, “a fucking chair, Jenni.”
He wasn’t sure if it was something in his voice, but she swallowed before grabbing an old stuffed chair and pulling it across the floor. It scraped against the pitted surface, flakes of old linoleum pulling away. She sat.
“I didn’t tell Carter where we are,” said Mason, leaning back. He watched her face, confusion chasing anger away for a second.
“You just said—”
“I said that I’d told Carter to send help,” said Mason. “We need supplies. Ammo. Something to eat other than chocolate-flavored protein. I don’t know about you, but I could use a stick of deodorant.”
Haraway looked down at her hands. “It’s just that—”
“Scratch that,” said Mason. “I do know about you. Yeah. You need a stick of deodorant too.”
She blinked at him again, then laughed, a short brittle sound. “You’re a piece of work, Floyd.”
Mason nodded, not sure if he was agreeing with her or not. “Still. You’re not spring fresh, you know?”
“How is she going to send help if you didn’t tell her where we are?” Haraway’s eyes searched his face, looking for… something.
“She’s not going to send help,” said Mason. “Besides, she already knows where we are. She sent us here.”
“But you said—” Mason watched as Haraway caught herself, stopped for a second. “You… You’re insane.”
“Sure,” said Mason. “Let’s go with that.”
“You’re asking for another syndicate to get involved?” Haraway stood, turning to face the windows. She walked over to them and looked out. “You’ve involved another syndicate to get a better breakfast cereal? You’re crazy in the coconut.”
Mason watched the set of her shoulders. “What’s the connection, Haraway?” He leaned further back into his chair. “I need to know.”
She turned to look over her shoulder. “Connection? What do you mean?”
“Don’t,” said Mason. “Just — don’t.”
“Ok,” she said, and turned back to the window. “She’s a good kid, you know.”
“I know,” said Mason.
“I wasn’t sure what it would do,” said Haraway. “They… There’s no instructions on the box, Floyd. It doesn’t come with a spec sheet.”
“She has a brother.”
Haraway ignored him. “I’m still not sure. There’s no science that shows how it’s possible.”
“And there was another guy,” said Mason. He looked up at the ceiling, remembering the pain. “Real asshole.”
“I… I wanted to broker a deal. Money, so I could keep looking,” said Haraway. She turned to face him. “Do you know what this has cost me?”
Mason caught the clenched fists, the set of her jaw. “I’ve got some idea.”
“No,” she said. “No, you don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter how much you paid,” said Mason. “It’s not going to matter if Apsel turns us to ash. It’s not going to matter at all.”
She spun away from him. “It was from my division. Deep research. Mothballed.”
“Atomics?”
She laughed, the sound sharp. “Did that hole in the world look like atomics to you?”
Mason sighed. He stood up and walked to the windows to stand next to her. He looked down into the street outside, saw Laia and Sadie out on the street below. Mason watched them talk, their words lost on the wind that was pacing the street below. “It looked like a doorway, Haraway. A big ol’ doorway to another planet.”
He felt her start next to him, but he didn’t turn when she spoke. “How did you work that—”
“Different sky, you see,” said Mason. “Through that hole in the air, there were two moons.”
“Two—”
“There were two moons in the sky,” said Mason. “It’s been bugging me. I don’t know much about stars, hell, I can barely get two blocks down without GPS. But I figure I’d have noticed if there was a second moon in the sky.”
“I didn’t notice that,” said Haraway, her voice quiet.
“So,” said Mason, “it’s why I asked. What’s the connection? I tracked the broker of stolen Federate tech to a bar, a bar which turns into a war zone. Same night, I find a
torched basement, an Apsel crate with your division’s name written big and black on the side. You know what they sent me there to track down?”
“No,” said Haraway.
“‘Unauthorized reactor signature,’” said Mason. “That’s what they called a basement full of dead men. With one of your boxes of toys in it.”
“It wasn’t my box,” said Haraway. “It was—”
“And then there’s the photo.”
Haraway swallowed. Didn’t ask any of the filler questions, like What photo? She just looked at him. Waiting.
“Where’d Marlene go?” Mason’s overlay flipped the photo of the girl with green hair up. He turned it on the overlay so he could see the writing on the back. Jenni — I’m free! See you soon.
“She was abused,” said Haraway.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“She was on a fast track. Smart kid,” said Haraway. “Smarter than me.”
“Clearly,” said Mason, “because she didn’t try to steal from the syndicate that pays her well.”
Haraway ran a nervous hand through her hair. “When did you know?”
“Just now,” said Mason. “I’ve suspected for a while. But it was your office.”
“My what?”
“Your office,” said Mason. “You had a photo. On your desk. This beautiful office, planned to the last centimeter, and then there’s this old tech photo on the desk. No one keeps photos. It’s all digital.”
“Maybe I’m nostalgic.”
“Maybe you’re concerned that our facial recognition software would trigger on a digital record of her. Maybe the only thing you can keep to remind you of her is something off the link.”
“Reed,” said Haraway. “She went to Reed. It cost me everything I had.”
“No it didn’t,” said Mason. “You still had a little something. Enough to sell us out. What was it? You figure that I had little dirt on my record, it’d be easy to drag me down with you?”
“You want the truth?”
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