Upgrade

by Richard Parry

  “Keep going,” she said. “I’m buried deep. All our monsters are locked away.”

  Mason paused, frowning. What the hell? “Ok, fine. You’re getting morbid, you know that?”

  “They’re almost here, Mason. I don’t have much time.”

  He looked down at his gun, then further into the stairwell below him. Mason stepped over a body, white Apsel armor grey in the dark. “You kill this guy?”

  “Yeah. There’s four more on the next level.”

  “Right.” Mason moved to the next landing, found the bodies. They looked like they were sleeping. “How?”

  “Overloaded their link,” she said.

  “How—”

  “Finish the damn story already.”

  “Fine. Anyway, the samurai says to me, ‘Make it count. Save a life worth saving.’ And then he dies.”

  “You… You’re the thief? You’re telling me you stole a Tenko-Senshin? What happened?”

  “I shot those ass clowns dead. Guess there were six, seven guys, I don’t know. They were surprised as hell that this little kid opens up on them. The pile of bodies in that market square was epic. It was so loud, Carter, I remember the noise as the gun pulled me back and forth. It was really tearing a path.”

  “The Tenko-Senshin.”

  “The Tenko-Senshin.” Mason stopped in front of a door, checking around it. “That samurai was Tenko. I met Imaburi Tenko, and he died in front of me.”

  “Jesus, Mason. Tenko gave you his own gun?”

  “You believe the story?”

  “I believe you, Mason.” She coughed. “What… What did you do?”

  “For a while, I tried to do what he said. I was looking for a life to save. Me and the gun both. Got a job with the company. Worked my way up.” Mason stopped walking, standing still in the darkness of the stairwell. “I lost my way, Carter. I forgot why he let me take it. Why he gave it to me.”

  “You’ve remembered now?”

  “No. I didn’t do that on my own. You reminded me.”

  “I don’t think he gave you the gun, Mason. I think he gave you to the gun.” When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Imaburi wasn’t telling you to save a life worth saving. He’d already found that. He wanted his last creation — that gun you’ve got — to hold you steady, prop you up, keep you strong in the night. He gave you a guard.”

  “What?”

  “I know how he feels,” she said. “I saw it in you. At the beginning.”

  “What?” Mason had stopped. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s so few of you… There’s so few people who have a soul, Mason.” She stopped, and when she spoke again, Mason could hear tears in her voice. “I’m happy I got to know you, Mason Floyd. You made it all worthwhile. It’s almost over. You’re not going to make it to me. I’ve run the numbers. But I’d like to know. What’s in the case, Mason? We’re here at the end, you and I. I don’t have much time. I want to know.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The walls had been pulled out, tossed aside, leaving squares of carpet edging against tiles, no symmetry or order left. The wind pulled through the floor, tugging at her hair, tossing and teasing it. It was really two floors, she thought, they’d pulled out the ceiling — or floor — between two levels to make a big open area.

  Laia felt the touch of the demon, and felt fear. She stopped.

  Julian’s hand was on her arm. “Come on.”

  She swallowed, then kept walking. “What’s coming won’t be good.”

  “Good for who?” Julian was pulling her along now, and she stumbled. “It’s going to be great for my stock.”

  They approached a platform, the flat metal surface held up on the shoulders of men and women, white eyes staring without seeing. They were kneeling, naked bodies hunched under the weight. Behind the platform, a collection of machines, things of metal and energy chattering to each other.

  Her master looked down at her. “Oh, sweet Laia. It has been far too long.” She felt the touch of his mind, wet and pulsating.

  She pulled harder at Julian’s hand, then stopped. To the master’s right was a woman. “Ha… Haraway? Is that you?”

  The doctor’s eyes were glassy but not white. The master controlled her directly — she was no easy demons’ thrall. Her stare turned to Laia. “He’s given Marlene back to me.”

  Laia looked around. There was no one else in the room that she could see — unless this Marlene was under the platform. No. There is no Marlene. “Marlene’s dead, Haraway. I know what you see, I know you think it’s real—”

  “Yes,” said the master. “You know better than anyone. But it suffices, this small trick. I’ve reunited her with her dead sister, stolen by this very empire I stand on. Do you know what they did with her sister?”

  Laia stayed silent.

  “I want you to know, so you understand how this Heaven sees family. They made a… A deal,” said the master, his lips curling at the word. “I don’t understand their use of the word. This machine they’ve put in my head says it means one thing, but it’s not what they did. They lied. They took the girl, found her of no value, and recycled her into a product and a… Julian?”

  “A profit, master.” Julian hadn’t let go of her arm. “We made the unprofitable, profitable. It’s about the bottom line, the—”

  “Yes, yes,” said the master, his hand waving. Julian twitched, swallowed. “Do you know the most amazing thing? This woman here commands the stars. She has power over the universe, and all she wants is to see her sister.”

  “I want to see my brother,” said Laia.

  “And so you shall. I’ll need you both before we’re through.” The master looked out the windows, a frown touching his face. Something pulled in the air, and Laia felt the demon coil before rushing out through the glass. “Where was I? That’s right. She gave up her power, forgot how to use it, sold out her friends, lied to her empire, all to find a dead woman.”

  “Haraway… She what?” Laia looked at the other woman. “She… She wouldn’t.”

  “Tell her, my puppet,” said the master.

  Haraway spoke, her voice flat, almost empty. “I stole Apsel’s gate, and sold it to these people. It went wrong, so very wrong.” She swallowed. “So I made Mason come with me. By turning his handler into my slave. He trusts her so much.”

  Laia felt her stomach twist. “What did you do, Haraway? What did you do to him?”

  “I lied,” she said. “I made him do a thing for reasons that weren’t true. I took it all from him.”

  The master clapped his hands together, laughing. “This is why she still has her mind,” he said. “In a manner of speaking. A mind this desperate, this easy to chain, is a rare thing. She has been helping to build a new gate.” He gestured behind himself to the machines. “It’s almost ready, and then we will open the door back home.”

  “No,” said Laia. “No.”

  “Yes,” he said, the smile touching his eyes. “My brothers and sisters will come through to here, and we will rule two worlds.”

  Julian’s hand on her arm grew tight as she tried to step forward. “Why?” Laia felt her voice crack.

  “Because I can,” the master said. “Because it is written.”

  “It is not—”

  “It is written!” His voice hit at the same time as the pain, and she collapsed onto the ground, screaming. “Your pathetic prophecy of angels and demons. It means nothing. True power is here. These soft, mewling, weak people are easy to control, to contain, and they will know the touch of my regard before I am finished.”

  “How…” She spat out bile and vomit. “How long?”

  “Haraway is just finishing her calculations.” The master shrugged. “A minute. An hour. It matters not.”

  The explosion cracked the windows, long jagged lines running up as the building shook. The master stumbled, caught himself, the looked to Julian. “Go.”

  Julian let go of her arm, leaving the room at a run.

>   Laia forced a smile, wiping her mouth with an arm. “My prophecy is true,” she said. “He’s coming for you.”

  “He’s not coming,” said the master. “This is… This is something else. A distraction.”

  The lights in the room flickered then died. The machines behind the master coughed and went quiet. He turned to them, then to Haraway. “What is it?”

  “Power’s down,” said Haraway.

  Laia watched as the other woman’s eyes flickered, knew that the master was touching her mind. Then his face twisted into a snarl. “They dare to attack us? Here?”

  The floor cracked, a jagged line striking through the middle, dust and concrete spitting into the air. She stumbled, then fell backwards as the floor bucked and pulled under her. It was an earthquake, the ground throwing her into the air like a child’s toy. Her head knocked against the ground, and she was dazed for a moment. When she looked up, she saw —

  “Hey,” said Mike. “You need a hand?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  “That’s a lot of dudes,” said Harry.

  “Yeah,” said Lace, her voice sounding real and close. She was in a harness slung to the back of the chassis, a portable deck nestled in with her. She had a set of Nikon binoculars held to her face with a hand, the tiny green light on the side winking in the darkness. Her voice was distracted. “Just remember, no forward rolls.”

  Harry swiveled the chassis, scanning the base of the Reed tower. There were hundreds of people — the overlay spitting up 2,173 ACTIVE TARGETS — bunched and crowded against the building. It was a sea of people, a mass of staring white eyes. “What I don’t get,” he said, “is why their eyes are white.” The overlay continued to map them out, spitting up names, addresses, details. He paused, looking at a kid near the front of the mass.

  “Creeps me out too,” she said. “The report said it’s to do with the drug.”

  “Report?”

  “Sasha Coburn’s report. Don’t tell me you didn’t read the memo.”

  “Now’s not a good time to be telling me about poor performance,” said Harry. He shrugged, then flexed the new steel stuck to the side of the chassis. It was the arm of an industrial digger, the crude lines of weld holding it in place dull and grey. “I just lost a limb.”

  “Stop being a pussy,” she said. “It wasn’t your arm. You lost that years ago.”

  “Seriously?” he said. “You’re a lot more sassy when you’re riding free and clear in a hammock.”

  “It’s hardly a hammock,” she said.

  “CliffsNotes version?”

  “Coburn said there’s a new drug out there. Carries some kind of demon inside it.”

  “Demon, huh. She trying to get busted down to Psych?”

  “Yeah, crazy, I know. But you drink the drug, you go to paradise, your eyes go white, you become a zombie.”

  “Right,” said Harry. “How’d that kid get it?”

  “Kid?”

  “Near the front,” said Harry. He lifted his metal arm, fingers clicking and whining as he pointed. “The one with the Spiderman lunch box.” He lowered his arm. “I don’t do a lot of profiling, you know? But I don’t get that a kid into superheroes, bundled up in corduroy overalls, is a heavy drug user.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Lace. “If my parents put me in corduroys I’d kill myself. Drugs are just an easier escape.”

  Harry let his sigh play over the PA. “Really?”

  “Ok,” she said, “fair point. Coburn’s report might have… There might be some holes in it.”

  “Holes?”

  “Angles to explore. Whatever.” Lace paused, then keyed something into the deck. “He’s… Jesus. He gets good grades. Or got.”

  “What’s he doing here?” said Harry. “I’m… I’m really not keen on cutting a path through a bunch of people to get inside, you know? I… I don’t think I want to kill a kid.”

  He heard the soft, quiet rasp as Lace put her hand on the top of the chassis. “I know, Harry. We need another way in.”

  “I got an idea,” said Harry.

  “Are we going to die?”

  “It’s quite likely.”

  “I’m not on board,” she said. “Talk me through the details.”

  Harry hefted the digger arm welded to his side, the chassis complaining about the balance differential through his overlay. The bright yellow of the machine part seemed comical, out of place here in the sea of doomed people. “I’m going to dig a hole.”

  “A what?”

  “A hole,” he said. “I’m going to punch through the concrete here, dig a hole into Reed’s basement, and then we’re going to come up into the tower. No need to kill a kid.”

  “Ok,” she said. “Where’s the part we’re going to die?”

  “Gas mains,” he said. “Electrical conduits. Oh, and I figure the roof might fall in.”

  “Got it,” Lace said. Harry heard the clicking of keys. “Hey, I can help with that.”

  “You got a shovel?”

  “Don’t be a dick,” she said. “These nails do not do heavy labor. No, I’m just going to tell you where to dig.”

  “How?”

  “City planning,” she said. “I just busted in. Their network’s firewall is made of shit. Like, actual shit. Feces. It’s—”

  “I get it.”

  “Hang on, I’ll give you a hard link.” Harry felt the connection as she snapped a fibre lead into the top of the chassis, plans downloading like holiday snaps into the overlay.

  “Hm,” he said. “Looks promising.” He highlighted a route that led under a low-slung block to the East. “There. We can punch down without people noticing.”

  “What about the people in that building?”

  He clicked through the map, spinning it on the overlay. “It’s a bar.”

  “It’s a biker bar.”

  “So?”

  “They hate company men.”

  “No problem,” said Harry. “I’m not a man. Not anymore.”

  ⚔ ⚛ ⚔

  “I guess what you need to be asking yourselves,” said Harry, his voice conversational over the PA, “is whether or not you feel lucky. Do you?”

  “Oh, Christ,” said Lace. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “What?” Harry swiveled the chain cannon in front of him, the overlay marking targets.

  “You couldn’t even quote the movie right, could you?”

  Harry paused. “What movie?”

  A man near the middle of the group stood up, then spat on the ground. His leather jacket was a little too glossy. “Hey. Fuck you, company man.”

  “Ernest?” Harry moved the chassis a step further into the room, the broken door creaking under his weight as he stepped on it. His overlay filled from Lace’s hard link, details filling up and around the faces of the people in front of him. “Can I call you Ernest?”

  “What?” The biker looked around. “You talking to me?”

  “Anyone else in here named Ernest?”

  “My name’s—”

  “Ernest Fortmeyer,” said Harry. “You’re 43 years old, which is about the right age for a life crisis. Your wife’s at home—”

  “Wife?” said a woman, dressed in all the wrong ways. She turned away from Harry to face Ernest, half standing. “What wife?”

  “It’s ok, Candy,” said Ernest. “Baby. It’s—”

  “Joane,” said Harry. “Her name’s Joane. Her sister calls her Jo. I dunno. Kind of a tomboy thing? I don’t understand women very well.”

  “How the—”

  “Who’s Jo?” said Candy, standing all the way. Harry’s optics picked out a run in her stockings, the mesh broken and fragmented up her left leg. “And who’s Ernest? You told me your name was Wotan.”

  “Wotan does sound kind of badass,” said Lace.

  “Baby,” said Ernest, “it’s not like that, it’s just—”

  “Shut it, Wotan,” said a huge man, standing behind the bar. “Or Ernest. Or whatever. Company man? G
et outa my bar.”

  “You, sir,” said Harry, “haven’t heard my proposition.”

  “I don’t need to hear shit,” said the huge man. He’d pulled a shotgun, an ancient old thing from behind the bar. Harry’s optics zoomed in, picking up the saw marks at the end barrel. “I will end you right now.”

  “With that?” said Harry. He pointed a metal hand at the gun. “That isn’t even going to piss me off. I won’t notice. It’s like… Hell. Give it a shot.”

  “Harry,” said Lace.

  “Not now,” said Harry.

  “Ok,” said the huge man. He clicked the breach open, checked the shells, then snapped the weapon closed in one smooth motion. Lifting it one handed, he pointed it at Harry. “Last chance.”

  “I’m good,” said Harry.

  “Harry,” said Lace.

  Overtime clicked into place, the light leaching colors from the edges of things. Harry’s overlay picked out the direction the huge man was pointing the shotgun, and he lifted the yellow digger arm, the bucket’s teeth pointing to the side. The gun went off, buckshot hitting the side of the bucket and spraying away into the bar.

  A man near Harry screamed, covering his face as red blossomed up from the pellets.

  “Shit,” said the huge man.

  “Do you want to hear my proposition?” said Harry.

  “Harry,” said Lace.

  “Seriously,” said Harry, “not now.”

  “No,” said the huge man. “See, we can’t hurt you, but that girlie on your back? I’m pretty sure we can murder her just fine.”

  “Harry,” said Lace, “that’s what I’ve been trying to say. I’m feeling a little exposed—”

  “What the fuck did you just say?” said Harry. The PA was turned up hot and loud, his voice sharp in the bar. He took a step towards the huge man, the chassis crunching across the floor as old wood lifted and splintered. The reactor on his back lit up, white pushing out around the edges of Lace’s sling.