Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “Enough,” said Gairovald. “Carter?”

  “Sir.”

  “Where is Mason right now?”

  “Can’t say,” she said.

  “You can’t say?” Gairovald’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean? Has his link gone offline?”

  “It’s a fair question,” said Carter. “I want to be really clear, when I answer this, so there’s no doubt. What I mean is that you cunts can go fuck yourselves. I’m not telling you where Mason Floyd is.”

  Gairovald’s eyes went wide. His mouth hung open for a moment.

  “What?” said Zane.

  “You,” said Carter, “should have been killed off years ago. I reckon I have just the man for the job.” Her voice was large and loud in the room, the speakers pushing authority into the words. “You’re not a very nice man, Zane Aster.”

  “Carter?” said Gairovald. “Carter. Sublime, cluster—”

  He was cut off by a whining sound, then the speakers in the ceiling shorted, smoke bursting out.

  “Carter?” Gairovald looked around.

  “She’s cut us off,” said Zane. “She’s cut off comms.”

  Gairovald tried his link, but it was down. He moved to the door next to Zane, pulling it open. Nancy’s desk was right outside, and she’d already risen out of her chair. “You too?”

  “Sir,” said Nancy. “If you mean the link? Mine’s offline.”

  “Fine,” said Gairovald. He turned back to Zane. “Can you do it?”

  “Can I do it?” said Zane, a smile breaking out on his face. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

  “Very well,” said Gairovald. So much investment. Lost. So be it. “Take whatever you need. Whomever. Zane?”

  “Sir.”

  “Go take care of Carter.” Gairovald realized he was clenching his fists, and forced himself to relax. “Silence her. End her. I want her to be a distant memory.”

  Zane nodded, still smiling. “Any restrictions on the engagement?”

  Gairovald thought about the people who worked in the Federate, the floors of them between here and the basement. A sound broke his concentration, a growing roar, and his face was pulled to the window.

  A Federate gunship scudded past the window, turning through the air to face them. Gairovald caught a glimpse of the pilot canopy — empty, there’s no one flying it — before Zane grabbed him. They spun, Zane putting his back to the window as the gunship’s chain cannon opened fire. The bullets slammed into the side of the building, but the glass only popped and ticked as its armored surface took the rounds.

  The gunship peeled away from the window, pulling back, then the engines died and it fell from the sky. Asset denial, thought Gairovald. I wonder who taught her that?

  Zane straightened, tugging at his suit again, then let Gairovald go. “Sir? Any restrictions on the engagement?”

  Gairovald stepped towards the window, reaching out a hand to touch the glass. It was just a little warm. He turned his mind again to the people in the Federate tower, then thought of the creature in the basement, the monster he’d created. “No,” he said. “No restrictions. Get it done.”

  Zane’s smile died like a light going out, the dead eyes remaining. He nodded at Gairovald, then headed towards the stairwell.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Harry stood outside, the lawn still young around him. He was trying not to walk on it, but the metal feet of the chassis seemed to always be wider than he expected.

  “You’re standing on the lawn,” said Lace. “Again.”

  “Sorry,” said Harry.

  “I’m just saying that it’s hard for me to dig it up and plant it, what with the chair.”

  “I said I’m… Wait a second,” he said, swiveling. “I planted this damn thing—” He broke off, seeing the smirk on her face.

  “Too easy, Fuentes.” She leaned back into the chair, breathing out. Lace still had her gloves on, but had added a thin jacket, a relic of some hiking-wannabe store, the kind of place that had ads up that flicked against your overlay. A virile life in the Yukon, close to nature as you’d like, and you could drive right up to it in your SUV.

  Lace hadn’t been hiking. Not since the accident, not ever. He looked at her hands, the gloves resting around the stock of the rifle.

  “Where’d you get that anyway?”

  “I know a guy,” said Lace. “You like it?”

  “I think it’s a little small,” said Harry.

  She looked down, doubtful. “I don’t know. It’ll put a hole in you.”

  “That what the guy who gave it to you said?”

  “Sold.”

  “What?”

  “Guy sold it to me,” she said. “Didn’t give it. Cost money.”

  “From a store?”

  “From a store.”

  “He lied,” said Harry. “That thing’s not bad. It’s not great either.”

  “You don’t think it’ll punch a hole right through you?” Lace hefted the rifle. It had a Metatech logo embossed on the stock, a single amber light glowing soft and low under the barrel.

  “Tell you what,” said Harry, stepping sideways to stand in front of her. “You give it your—”

  The shot rang hard against his chassis, impacting the back of it, the ricochet singing off and into the night.

  “What was—” said Lace, but Harry had already kicked overtime in, her voice slowing.

  He spun the chassis around, the overlay already mapping in the most likely source of the shot based on the impact strength and angle. Got you, motherfucker. His optics zoomed in on a building, an open window as clear an advertisement as any. He lifted an arm, the chain cannon giving a harsh clank before it spun up, a thousand rounds a minute roaring off across the city scape. Through the overtime, he could almost see the rounds, the light bright and white as they burned through the air.

  The face of the building crumbled, brick and mortar spraying into the air, falling like a hard rain onto the street below.

  Somewhere, Harry could hear screaming. The cannon slowed, stopping with another harsh clank, smoke rising from the barrel.

  It was Lace. She was screaming.

  “Lace?” It was easier to talk through overtime with the chassis. He wasn’t really speaking, not anymore.

  She looked up at him, her mouth open as she panted.

  “Lace? I’m going to need you to get inside now.” He looked at the rifle she carried. He tried to make his voice gentle. “You can’t help me here.”

  “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No,” she said. “I can help you here. I can—”

  The gunship came in right on the deck, he saw it before the sound hit as it came in supersonic. Harry snatched Lace out of her chair, grabbing the chair with another hand and tossing it up in the air. Then he was falling, pulling the arms and legs of the chassis into a ball around Lace.

  One of the rockets that was fired at them danced a jagged line through the air after the chair. The second rocket rained fire from the sky, tearing through the fence around her house, the newly planted garden ash in a second. He felt the impacts against the chassis, hunching tighter to keep the fire from her.

  He looked at her again, the smoke just starting to reach her, then — fuckit — he pushed the chassis off, the reactor coming on bright and fierce as he slammed through the side of her house. His free arm swung like a wrecking ball, smashing walls aside. He caught a glimpse of her life, a big television falling from the wall in her rumpus, a set of pictures in a line in the hallway before they were smashed aside. The kitchen, all white marble set low for the chair, before his feet tore through the ground, cracks walking like spiderwebs through the stone. It was pure escape, he was trying to get her away from the fire, the terrible flames that would —

  Harry cleared the house, his optics snapping targets up in quick succession. There, three on the roof across the street. Two more in the back yard, and that asshole had a rocket launcher. The gunship, still in the air, banking
around tight and hard — no human pilot could crank those Gs. The coilgun cleared its mounts on his back, ratcheting up as the targeting solution pulled it across and around, firing off five rounds as his hand holding Lace swung behind him.

  Five clouds of red mist held themselves in the air, the rocket launcher tumbling to the ground.

  The gunship started another run, and the coilgun spoke to the heavens, parts of the gunship tearing off and away as it burned and spun in the sky.

  Silence, or near enough, Lace’s harsh breathing — God, she’s alive — the only noise.

  Something else, some scrap of sound started him turning, and he caught a glimpse of the man as he leapt off what was left of Lace’s roof, landing with a thump on the top of his chassis. Harry reached a metal hand up, servos whining, but the man was fluid as oil. Something red and bright spat out, the cutting laser shearing through the arm holding Lace, and she crashed to the ground.

  The chassis lurched, off-balance for a second, and he crashed to one knee.

  This is how it ends. Goddamn monkey on my back.

  It was just a single shot, but red rain sprayed down over his optics, painting the world before his vision cleared a second later. The man on his back tumbled off, a marionette with its strings cut. Harry looked over at Lace, lying on the ground, her useless legs still tangled in the remains of his arm. She was holding that damn Metatech rifle, braced and steady.

  She lowered it. “I… I…”

  The chassis whined as he stood. Something was leaking out where his arm used to be, a white fluid as viscous as turned milk. He could hear a siren off somewhere, nowhere close enough to matter.

  “It’s ok,” he said.

  “It’s just…” She held onto the sob, turned it into a cough. “I—”

  “They won’t be back,” said Harry. “Not tonight.”

  “Good,” she said. “Harry?”

  “Yeah, Lace?”

  “If you hadn’t been here—”

  “If I hadn’t been here, you’d be fine,” he said. “If I’d just had the good sense to die a couple years ago, you’d be fine.”

  She looked around at her back yard, flames started to catch in her house, pushing back the night in fits and starts. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t be fine, Harry. I’d be a long way from fine.”

  He thought on that for a moment before speaking. He could taste almonds as the overtime faded and puddled around him. “Do you think we—”

  “I’ve never killed someone before, Harry,” she said. “I don’t really want to again, you know?”

  “I know,” he said. “It’s—”

  “Haven’t finished,” she said. “I figure though, you need to have a really good reason.”

  “Like saving your life?”

  “Like saving yours,” she said.

  “It’s weird,” said Harry.

  “What’s weird? I wouldn’t call killing people weird, Harry. It’s fucked up. It’s crazy. I’ve got dead guys on my lawn.”

  Harry clanked across the ground, leaning the chassis forward over one of the bodies. It was the guy who’d had the rocket launcher, or what was left of him. “This one. Same as the rest.”

  “Dead?”

  “Normal,” said Harry. “Or close to it. Only a few upgrades. He’s mostly meat. Smart weapon, fine, sure,” and here Harry used his remaining hand to push the body over, blood slicking the edges of the metal. “But he’s just a grunt.”

  “You sound disappointed.” Lace was trying to lever herself upright against Harry’s fallen arm.

  “Surprised, more like.”

  “You’re just one guy,” said Lace.

  “I used to be one guy,” said Harry. “I’m not a guy anymore, Lace. Look at me.” He stood, swiveling the chassis towards her. The night hid the finer details, but metal gleamed as he rose. He held a hand out in front, palm up. “Look.”

  “I see you,” she said. Her voice was uncertain.

  “I can tear the ass out of a tank. You don’t send a bunch of normals to take me on. You send the big guns. There’s no big guns here.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “Maybe I’ll shit snow tomorrow.”

  “Ok,” said Lace. “I was just saying.”

  “Sorry,” said Harry. “Point is, they’re not here.”

  “Who’s not here?”

  “The big guns,” said Harry. “I mean, seriously. What’s going on?”

  “Harry,” said Lace. “Are you complaining because… Because you survived?”

  Harry shrugged the chassis, servos whining. White sludge still trickled from his side. “No, I guess not.”

  “Good. Now pick me the hell up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re bleeding,” she said. “You got semen or motor oil or some shit coming out the side of you.”

  Harry reached for her, lifting Lace up to the height of his optics. “Where are we going?”

  “Get your arm fixed.”

  “It’s a bit past that,” said Harry.

  “Sure,” said Lace. “But I know a guy.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ve met him.”

  “Julio? The alcoholic?”

  Lace laughed, then coughed. “Gently, please.”

  “Sorry,” said Harry, easing up his grip. “It’s hard to tell. I don’t… I don’t normally handle precious cargo.”

  “He used to do work,” said Lace. “Long time ago.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Company work,” she said. She nodded at his arm. “Night work.”

  Harry swiveled around, optics picking out the details around him. “Which way?”

  “Down there.” Lace pointed. “Is that what you really think I am?”

  “What?” said Harry.

  “Precious cargo,” she said.

  She deserves more. She needs someone who’s not a… Not a machine. Harry stayed quiet against the night. He tried not to hear as she started crying.

  She sniffed. “They’ve taken everything from us, Harry.”

  “Not everything,” he said. “We’ve still got…” He trailed off.

  “We’ve still got each other,” she said. “Not that it’s a lot of good.”

  Harry felt his heart lift then drop. “What do you mean?”

  “Well… Look at you,” she said. “You’re…”

  “I know.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said. She waved her arms downwards. “What I meant was, look at me. Look at my legs. They’re just pieces of meat, sticks hanging off the bottom of me. They’re useless. We’re useless. They take and take and take, and there’s nothing left for us.”

  Harry lifted her up, swinging her around in front of him. “There’s a little bit left. But not for us.”

  The tears were leaving silver trails down a face turned bitter. “What do I care? If it’s not for us, who gives a shit?”

  “I give a shit,” he said. “I’ve been marking time for years now. I’ve got a debt I need to pay. I got to stop being such a pussy.”

  “You?” She laughed. “You don’t owe anyone anything.”

  “Yeah, yeah I do.” He hefted her. “Which way?”

  She sniffed again, then tipped her head. “That way.”

  “Ok.”

  “Ok,” she said, nodding. “Who’s it for?”

  “You. Mason. Carter. Everyone. Every one of us that’s been chewed up and spat out by that fucking company.” He kicked on the flood lamps, the night banished back with burning white. “Gotta do what we can.”

  “Ok,” she said, “but not for them.”

  “Then for who?”

  “I’ll do it for you,” she said. “Only for you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  “Mason.”

  His eyes snapped open, and he saw —

  Tarmac under his face, stretching out in a grey-black sheet. Someone’s boot, attached to a leg. Someone’s hand, stretched in front of him, the arm drap
ed down below his vision.

  Mason tried to get up. The overlay blinked once, twice, then spat a fuzz of static as he slipped back down again.

  “Mason, it’s me.”

  He knew the voice. A woman’s voice. Her words tickled the back of his mind. They were in his skull with him.

  “They used a hallucinogenic breach gas along with a discharge. You probably don’t remember me.” She sounded wistful. “I just—”

  Mason tried to work his mouth, feeling against his teeth with his tongue. He tasted dirt and fire. He tried to speak, and saw the hand flexing in front of his eyes.

  The overlay came back on hard and bright, the edges sharp and green against the tarmac.

  That’s my hand.

  “Carter?” Mason pushed himself up onto one elbow. “I feel—”

  “Thank God,” she said. “I didn’t know if—”

  “It’s ok, Carter,” he said. “I’m ok.”

  “It’s not that. I didn’t know if I’d get to say goodbye.”

  Mason took in the road, grey, hard. I shouldn’t be lying on a road. He saw a woman stretched out beside him, her name hazy. Black lipstick. She uses black lipstick. It was her boot that had been in front of him, dropped like a forgotten toy.

  “What’s your name?” Her voice dropped into his head again, through the… Through the…

  The link. It’s called a link.

  “I…” Mason held his hand up in front of his face, then let his eyes wander across the tarmac. There were bodies, some fallen like they’d dropped off asleep, some torn and twisted, just blood and meat. Canisters, metal things with their ends popped open, were tossed through it all.

  “Your name. Tell me your name.” There was something urgent in her words.

  “I just—” Mason thought for a moment. “Did you just call me Mason?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then I guess my name is Mason.”

  “You don’t know your name, but you know mine?”

  “I…” Mason levered himself up, one leg slipping out and making him tumble back down. He landed on something small and hard, heard a beep. He reached under himself and pulled out something metal.

  Tenko was a master weapon smith. He made smart weapons big as cities, small as pearls. This one is yours, and there is no other like it.