Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “You seen this before?” Haraway turned at Mason, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” Mike paused. “No.”

  “Yes and no?” Mason looked at Sadie, mouthing hang on. He held a finger up. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to talk, then sank back in her seat.

  “It’s complicated.” Mike sounded uncertain.

  “Can you maybe uncomplicate it?” Haraway was looking back through the windscreen. “I’m counting, what, three or four hundred guys out there.”

  “Don’t forget the kids,” said Mike. “We had something like this in the city. Less people. They fought like they were insane. New drug. Same thing — whites of the eyes, freaky shit like that.”

  “What’s going on?” Sadie touched Mason’s shoulder.

  “Right,” said Mason out loud. “There’s four hundred people outside on the freeway. Mike says they’re drugged, and—”

  She pulled the release on her harness.

  “What are you doing?”

  She threw him a look that said, what does it look like I’m doing? “I’m going to take a look.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You just said,” said Sadie, her hand on the handle of the APC, “that there’s a legion of zombies outside. That’s some shit I have to see before I die.” And with that, she yanked on the handle, the APC opening with a hiss of air. The rain lashed in through the opening, and Sadie hopped out, her boots splashing on the tarmac.

  Mason tugged at his own harness, snagging a rifle from the wall of the APC as he jumped out.

  “What’s going on?” Mike’s voice cut over the link. “You’re getting out of the APC?”

  “Wait one,” said Mason. “We have our own crazy person.” He reached out a hand to Sadie, grabbing her by the shoulder. He raised his voice to a shout over the storm. “I said, are you crazy?”

  Sadie was looking at the people on the freeway, and they were… Just people. One woman had a Macys shopping bag tight in one hand. A small boy stood, the Pac-Man logo on his T dark with the rain. A man in a ten grand suit stood in the rain, mouth slack as the water washed down over him.

  Sadie stepped back a pace. “Uh, yeah. I might be—”

  One of the people in the crowd turned towards them. It opened it’s mouth, and a keening sound came out. The rest of the crowd — all of them, as near as Mason could tell with a quick glance — turned to face them.

  All their mouths opened, and the sound was huge.

  “Get back in the APC,” said Mason. He raised his rifle. “Get in the APC right fucking now.”

  “Yeah,” said Sadie, water making the scales of her armor vest slick and mirror-black. “Yeah. That might be a good—”

  Mason turned to catch a glimpse of something roaring past the front of their APC, a gunship with the rotor cowls sucking up the rain and blasting it out like a weapon itself. He caught the Reed eye logo on the underside of it before light lased out, the targeting system of the gunship mapping the APC in the blink of an eye.

  He sank into overtime, the rain slowing its fall around him. Mason could see the blades of the gunship’s rotors spinning, each one slicing the air, the rain drops slowing their fall in the bleached light. The puff of the rocket gave him warning, the lattice pulling at him, savage and hard, trying to throw him to the side.

  Mason fought it, and he grabbed Sadie, spinning her around. Her features moved slow in overtime, the shock just beginning to show on her face as he put himself between the APC and her. He held her close in a huddle with his free arm, the rocket hitting the APC, the fire and fury tossing them both away like pebbles.

  Sadie’s scream had just started as they spun through the air, and Mason let the lattice have control again. It tucked him as they fell, his back taking the landing, Sadie’s scream cutting short as the breath blew out of her.

  Mason pushed her aside, then put his hands behind his head and vaulted to his feet in a single motion, the kip smooth. He turned to her and held out a hand. His mouth felt slow and woolen in the overtime. “Are you ok?”

  Her response seemed to come from a long way away. “I’m—”

  “Are you hurt?” He wanted to massage his lips, he hated talking to normals through overtime. His overlay flicked to thermal, a quick map of Sadie showing nothing obvious, nothing immediate. The lattice tugged at him and he looked up, and saw —

  “Firing solution online,” said a woman’s voice over the link. It was the APC’s targeting computer. The APC still sat there, fire boiling off in the rain, and Mason took a step forward as the horde started to run at them. The sync request came over the link and he accepted it, his overlay filling with the targeting solution. The rifle in his hand snapped up as he held it against his shoulder.

  Mike came in, calm over the link. “Ice those fools.”

  The top of the APC pulled back like a flower, fast even through overtime. A turret snapped out and up, chain cannons acquiring the gunship, and they screamed defiance into the storm. The gunship was pulled apart in the blink of an eye, a last rocket spiraling out and away, lost into the rain.

  “How the—” Mason looked at the APC, then back at the horde.

  “Mason,” said Mike, “we build weapons for the military. You think a little rocket from a porn company’s going to dampen our mood?” Mason could see that Mike had moved out of his own APC, the tactical map showing the Metatech troops deploying. The targeting solution filled up with firing lines.

  “Go, go, go!” said Mike, and Mason let his lattice take over, holding onto the APC’s firing solution as he squeezed the trigger of his rifle.

  The horde was like a wave surging towards them, but they faltered as the rounds started to hit. All three APCs were firing as well, chain cannons carving lines of red mist through the people on the freeway. Mason let the lattice pull the rifle between targets, each shot perfect and clean.

  He could almost feel it as Sadie was getting to her feet next to him, her movements the steady treacle of normals though the overtime. He heard her gasp, and swiveled on his feet.

  “They’re behind us too.” Mason’s rifle cracked four times, each shot lancing through a person climbing up and over the freeway verge behind them. “Need an exit.”

  “Copy,” said Mike. “Get back in the APCs.”

  Mason turned to Sadie, mouth open to speak, then he stopped. She was looking up, and he turned to follow her gaze. The sky was pulling open, the heat building in the air, a path of light pulling into focus from the sky.

  “Get out,” said Mason. “Get out of the APCs—”

  The sky opened above them, the beam from the orbital laser reaching down to touch the lead APC. The vehicle glowed incandescent for no longer than the blink of an eye before it was reduced to ash and molten metal. The shockwave picked Mason up, threw him into Sadie, and then tumbled them both down the verge of the freeway.

  Four blips died on his overlay, Metatech men from the APC gone as surely as if they’d never existed.

  “Mike?” Mason pushed himself up, wiping grime from his face. His rifle came back up, and he fired into the horde on the bank.

  “Mason,” said Mike.

  “The kids,” said Mason. “I’m too far away.”

  “On it,” said Mike. Mason tracked his blip to the other APC as the Metatech man sprinted across the freeway.

  The sky was heating again, the gentle caress of the light reaching down. Mason’s view was obscured by the bank, but he could imagine the coming of the terrible dawn.

  Mike’s blip was moving down and away from the APC. “We’re clear,” he said. “We’re—”

  The orbital laser fired again, the air catching and burning down the shaft of light from the sky. Rock and debris sprayed into the air, and Mason turned to cover Sadie as fragments shattered around them.

  “Haraway,” said Mason.

  “I’m out,” she said, “but I’m—”

  “Coming,” said Mason. He grabbed Sadie, pulling her up the embankment behind him, firing his rifle
with one hand. His overlay clicked to ten rounds left in the magazine as he topped the edge of the bank.

  One APC left. Two Metatech foot soldiers. He could see Haraway standing with one of the Metatech men front of the APC, the man covering her as he fired. She was firing a pistol but her upgrades weren’t combat spec. She may as well have been trying to score a teddy bear in a shooting gallery with a dollar pistol.

  Mike, Laia, and Zacharies came up the other side of the freeway.

  The sound of turbines rose, quick and loud from down the freeway. Two more gunships pushed themselves through the rain, blasting over the tops of the horde, pulling up and over. They hovered for a moment before a spray of small objects spat from them, canisters the size of soda cans cascading down like hard rain.

  The canisters tumbled all around them. Sadie’s voice came to Mason from far away, overtime making her words slow. “What are they? What are they doing?”

  Mason lifted the rifle to his shoulder, pointing it at the gunships. His overlay mapped the vehicles. “Focus, target one,” he said.

  “Copy,” said Mike. They both fired their rifles, small arms fire impacting on the bubble of glass protecting the pilot of one of the gunships. The glass stuttered and shattered, a spray of red coming from inside the cockpit. The gunship’s engines rose into a whine, the machine pulling sideways through the air. It touched the Armco as it fell, the machine pirouetting across the ground as metal and parts shattered and splintered from it.

  With a sound like lead popcorn the ends of each canister opened. Gas hissed as it seeped out.

  “Shit,” said Mason.

  “What?” Sadie’s eyes were wide as the gas flowed out, unaffected by the falling rain. It was thick, like a fluid floating though the air.

  “Sadie?” Mason lowered his rifle.

  “What? What is it?” Sadie reached a hand down to touch the rising tide of gas. She pulled her hand back, smelling it, then glanced at the horde. The people had stopped, their white eyes sightless, staring in whichever direction they’d been facing. They were like puppets, their strings cut.

  “The good news,” he said, “is that we’re probably not going to die.”

  Sadie’s lips were parted, and she licked them. “What’s the bad news?”

  “We might still die,” said Mason.

  Energy cracked through the gas, the network of canisters around them discharging through the gas. Sadie went stiff as a post, then convulsed as she fell into the gas.

  Mason fell to one knee, dropping his rifle. He pulled the Tenko-Senshin from his belt, trying to raise the weapon.

  The cloud discharged again, energy cutting and arcing through the mist around them. His overlay stuttered and went dark, then came back on in a hiss of static. Overtime dropped away, broken like a worn cable, and he could taste chocolate and raisins. The link to Mike and the APCs guttered out. He saw the gunship settling down, the rotors pushing the standing water into a spray.

  The gas didn’t disperse at all.

  Light reached down from the sky a third time, pulling into focus. Mason looked up. He and Sadie were right next to the last APC. He looked back down into the mist, reaching until he found Sadie’s unconscious body. He picked up one of her hands. If he could just drag her clear —

  The link crackled. “Not this time,” said Carter. “I don’t think so. You can’t have him.”

  He could see it from the ground, the flare of energy in orbit as the Reed orbital laser was destroyed, a line of white reaching out to touch it from across the heavens.

  Mason raised his head as men in Reed uniforms disembarked from the gunship, standing at the edge of the shock cloud. “Carter?”

  The gas discharged again, and he convulsed, falling into the mist and darkness.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Gairovald looked out across his city.

  Of course it’s mine. There wouldn’t be a city without power, electricity driving industry, technology, people. Hell, even those perverted porn merchants needed power.

  He turned to face his office. He ignored the other man standing there for a moment. “Nancy?”

  “Sir,” she said. Her link had clicked online with only the barest whisper. Gairovald didn’t like the way crass, lower-level upgrades snapped online. Since Nancy worked so closely with him, he’d had her link updated years ago.

  It was one of their little things. He tugged at his cuffs. “Do we know why Reed’s chairman stood up my golf game yesterday?”

  “Sir.” Nancy paused for a moment. “He’s been standing everyone up. I can’t even get a line in to Jay.”

  His overlay spat up Jay’s details. Jay Montana, executive assistant for Harlem Smith. Smith was Reed’s executive chairman, and they’d been playing golf for more than six years now. Every other week, on a Tuesday.

  Not playing with Harlem was fine, really. The man’s slime. Gairovald moved his head from side to side, stretching out his neck. “I always feel unclean after a game of golf with that man.”

  “I know, sir. The thing is…”

  “Yes, Nancy?”

  “Jay and I… We’ve known each other a long time.”

  “I see,” said Gairovald.

  “It’s not like him to—”

  “I understand,” he said. “Any idea what’s going on over there?”

  “There’s a report that came up from TacOps. They’ve pushed a new drug on the market.”

  “What does it do?” Gairovald walked on leather soled shoes back to the window.

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “TacOps got it back to the lab. Coburn’s report says it doesn’t have an active agent.”

  Gairovald paused. “Nothing?”

  “Colored saline,” she said. The report ticked over on his overlay but he ignored it. “The thing is, it definitely does something.”

  “A new drug.” Gairovald frowned, considered pulling Zane into the link, then discarded the idea.

  “That’s what the report says,” said Nancy.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s not really my field,” she said.

  Gairovald allowed himself a small smile. “Nancy?”

  “Sir.”

  “Do you remember the time I asked you to pick out an anniversary present for my wife?”

  The link was silent for a moment, not even a hint of static. “I remember.”

  “Do you remember what you said to me?”

  “I said that you… I’m sorry sir.”

  “Say it,” he said.

  “I said that you shouldn’t buy a present for that two-timing backstabbing bitch. Sir.”

  “Do you remember what happened?” Gairovald looked at his desk, the black glass sucking up light. He didn’t have a picture frame there. Not anymore.

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “Yes, I do.”

  “I don’t have a wife anymore,” said Gairovald. “Do you know why?”

  “It’s—”

  “It’s because,” said Gairovald, “I trust you more than I trusted her. So please. Tell me what you think.”

  The link was silent for a second. “I think Coburn is maybe the best tech you’ve got in the lab. I think she knows what she’s talking about.”

  “There was something else in the report, wasn’t there?” Gairovald allowed his smile to return. “I knew it.”

  “I only said that she’s the best because she is,” said Nancy. “It’s going to sound a little crazy.”

  “I understand,” said Gairovald. “What was in the report?”

  “She called them ‘visually unspecific event horizons.’”

  “What?”

  “Ghosts,” said Nancy. “She said that they’ve observed an energy field operating within the bounds of the city. That it is carried within the drug. The drug itself is… It’s not just saline, it’s got some kind of energy attached to it.”

  “Ghosts,” said Gairovald.

  “She’s the best,” said Nancy.

  “I see,” said Gairovald. His smile had
vanished. “That’s what she put in the report?”

  “She’s the best,” said Nancy, again. “It’s just… It’s in the report.”

  “It’s ok, Nancy,” said Gairovald. “There are stranger things on Earth than you could know.”

  “Yes. Yes, sir.”

  Gairovald let the link drop, turning to the man in the room. The entire time, the man had been standing like a statue, back to the door. “You’ve made the arrangements?”

  “Yeah,” said the man, his dead eyes flicking to Gairovald, then back to staring into the middle distance.

  “When will it happen?”

  The other man shrugged.

  Gairovald shrugged. “Zane. This is not what you’re paid for. I expect precision.”

  Zane’s dead eyes moved back to Gairovald. “They went off-link. She left the Federate in her wheelchair, then went offline.”

  “Fine,” said Gairovald. He waved a hand. “I expect you’re taking the usual steps.”

  “Yeah,” said Zane. The man flexed one shoulder, then the other, as if his suit didn’t fit quite right. “Plausible deniability, though.”

  Gairovald nodded. “Indeed. I have one more name to add to the list.”

  Zane raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

  “Coburn. Sasha Coburn,” said Gairovald. “She’s learned too much.”

  “No problem,” said Zane.

  The speakers in Gairovald’s office clicked on. “There might be a small problem,” said Carter.

  Gairovald looked up at the ceiling. “This isn’t a good time, Carter.”

  “Sir?” Carter sounded uncertain. “You said—” and here the speakers eased out a perfect recording of Gairovald. “‘When you’re next in contact, I want you to report it to me straight away.’” Her voice returned. “That was your instruction.”

  Zane took a step forward, something flickering in his eyes for a minute. “Mason fucking Floyd,” he said.

  “Zane?” said Carter.

  “Yeah?”

  “This one’s a bit above your pay grade. Maybe your IQ grade, too.”

  “Bitch,” said Zane. “I’m going to—”

  “No,” said Carter. “I doubt that very much.”