by Rusty Coats
On the brain, it was like hacking God.
The subscreens disappeared and the autopsy room went dark, replaced by Cassady, droning about direct cellular retort. My mind lapped back to the dragon, just before Monk pulled me out of the Recaro. I could only remember bursts. Geometric shapes, color-coded strands, tickling curiosity – all surrounded by the screams of a boy and the smug insight of Cassady, who knew more than a good doctor should.
I wondered what McFee had seen. I wondered if he even knew he was dead.
Rita stared at the city’s central grid on the liquid-crystal screen beyond her platoon of Mensas. Avalon's half-wagonwheel pivoted as she curled her fingers around an invisible throttle. Her hands moved with a grace I hadn't seen since Construction.
I watched on the fedora visor. Cassady's tone suggested foreknowledge, and I wondered if the neural tapeworm was the desperate act of a man at war with plague or the result of twisted ambition. Either way, it put Cassady in bed with whoever tried to kill me, which meant I'd underestimated his lack of loyalty to the Echo Wharf gang.
"Open seven-two-four."
The grid was the map of Avalon, with a few twists. Most maps showed routes and obstacles. Avalon's grid did about the same, only the roads were datastreams and the obstacles were filters -- places where raw data passed through software, which translated binary into a sound, a sight, a lover’s kiss. This is how Merlin saw us, as cells passing through his bloodstream.
The grid pivoted as she highlighted three sectors. The cheaters pinched her nose and her voice became nasal as she tickled Merlin's underbelly. I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. Watching her, I couldn't believe she'd grown up in some agrarian podunk in Ohio, cut off from coding, from her art. It made me smile; Rita had run away from Shiloh not because she longed for opportunity, but because she was in love.
But now she was cursing. The three sectors she'd highlighted stared back like the pupils of a Ouija stylus. Finally she tossed the cheaters on the Mensa.
"Someone's playing a game here," she said, "and none of it makes any sense. At first, I thought it was some kind of Digerati feud, hostile takeovers, maybe extortion, the usual stuff. But this," she waved at the screen, "doesn't add up. There's no connection, no organization. The Palms, Sparta, Orphan Andy's. Levy and Jacarta and Benedikt. I don't get it." She exhaled through her teeth. "Plus, I think Merlin's cracking up, which doesn't make me happy. I'll tell you that for nothing."
I lit my last Cyn, dropped the empty metal case into my pocket and said: "Let's try that again. First of all, what am I looking at?"
Her arms tightened around her. "Sectors one, two and three, from the Plaza of Light to the Avenue of Peace. Those scars are the three spots burned out by the fusion bombs, or the flamethrowers, or whatever we're calling it. The Palms at the top, Sparta to the immediate right and Orphan Andy's in the lower right corner."
I inhaled, nodding. "Levy and Jacarta and Benedikt. You're right. None of those guys are connected." Levy kept his online real estate for its nostalgic value, Jacarta was a low-level punk who leased Sparta from Marrs, and Benedikt was a Digerati archangel. "But someone burned them all out, so there must be a hook."
"And I'm telling you there's not!"
I held up my hands. It was late. We'd been shot at by an angry African and now we were trapped in the hole with six ROMs of double cross. Not our best night.
"Let's start before that, then. Tell me how this bomb works." I told her about the ROM Van Meter had shown me, the one with the Viking. "Is it like that?"
"Sort of," she said, calmer now. "In all three, it originated with a carrier. The bomb is a parasite on their programming, so they tote it inside, not knowing they're dirty. I can't tell you exactly because when it goes off, it wastes everything, including itself."
"But the room remains."
"Sure, the building is still there. It doesn't burn sofas, for Christ's sake." She rolled her eyes. "It wastes tactile and visual. It makes the place inhospitable."
"Maybe that's the point. Maybe someone wants to burn them out and buy the property on the cheap."
"That's what everyone says. But who's got the flex to take on Roddy Benedikt? Levy, I can understand. He keeps his hand in because he still likes tinkering with Merlin. As for Jacarta, well, let’s face it. He's a pet."
"Last time I was here, you were talking about a doomsday clock and how the Digerati was braced for a land war. Why don't you think this is the first strike?"
She curled a strand of hair over her ear. "Because it's not organized. I've been down in the hole a long time, Jack. I've watched these guys manipulate each other. They're obvious, very anal. We're talking about the Sysops, remember? If Marrs wanted to burn Levy out of business, he'd draw a flowchart."
She finished her juice and immediately opened a second. "Besides, look who's involved. Levy and Benedikt, they're players. Jacarta rents from Marrs, who is also a player. Who does that leave with any muscle?"
"Van Meter."
She cocked her head. "You know him better than me."
I shook my head. "Nobody knows Jenny."
We chewed on that. Then I said, "What makes you think Merlin is cracking up?"
She curled her index finger. On-screen, a window opened, showing surges and peak usage hours, broken into three categories -- one for each club burnt by the bomb. The clubs showed high use and then a peak, where Merlin's flight monitors spiked. Then the graphs died to a stuttering fizzle.
"So?" I asked. "Big activity, bomb, no activity."
Her finger curled again and the secondary window scooted to the left, showing that usage surged again -- to near-peak numbers.
"That's what's wrong," she said. "You were in The Palms. It's burnt. It doesn't work any more. The tactile's fuzzy and the auditory regurgitates old conversations. Plus, it's boarded up, even to the highest access levels. It's a wall, a dead zone."
"But Merlin says people are there."
She shrugged. "He sees something there."
She pulled up a postcard view of Levy's place, just as I'd seen it -- colors slurred and noises blurting out of nowhere. "See?" She pointed to a spike on Merlin's grid. "Right now, Merlin says there's enough data moving through that room to make forty people. Do you see anybody?"
What I saw reminded me of Icarus. I said, "Maybe he's seeing ghosts."
"That's not funny. When Merlin starts hallucinating, that means he could crash." She swished the juice and swallowed. "Those bombs might have corrupted his higher functions. I've run diagnostics, taking him apart line by line. I can't find anything wrong, except the fact that he sees people where none exist. But I’ll fix him."
"Speaking of fixing," I said, "why haven't you repaired Levy's club?"
"We will," she said. "But we'll have to detour data in those areas. That takes work. All three bomb sites sit on high-traffic areas. If Avalon's data traveled in sewer pipes, these three buildings would be directly above major flow spouts. Look." She curled her fingers in the dataglove and the sector-two wedge expanded. "Sparta is the old Coliseum, right? You Construction folks built it next to Avalon's biggest entry valve, so the tourists could get there without any fuss. Point-to-point access. Under Sparta, if you dig into the matrix, you'll hack into a data pipe that leads to the rest of the world."
"But Wrecking Ball sealed that shut."
She was rolling her eyes again. "I've studied ancient history, convict. My point is that Sparta's directly on top of a big data pipe. One of the few. Ditto The Palms."
Once upon a time, I’d stashed code in the data T-pipe she was talking about, where the data ran thick and heavy, hoping to broker it to a bank in what was left of Zurich. It was like stashing a pearl inside a hailstorm. The bank never showed.
"The data flow in those sectors passes right under those clubs. If you shake somebody's hand in sector three, the data flows through the switching station under The Palms. The programming was built on Merlin's foundations, so to repair them, we have to take that grid
off-line. And that's no overnight job."
She arched her eyebrows. "Am I going slow enough?"
I scowled. "Levy's place sits on top of one of the main arteries of the city. So does Sparta. What about Benedikt's place? Anything major there?"
Her fingers curled, casting a spell. The lower-right wedge came forward, flipped to show sedimentary layers of code and then pulsed a red fist near the center.
"Drain spout," she said. "Exhaust valve for the city. That major enough?"
"You tell me. If I wanted to paralyze the city, would controlling the drain spout help me accomplish that?" Her eyes widened, calculations throbbing under her black pixie hair. I cocked a thumb at the wedges. "See, if I've already got control of two main arteries, that helps. I could cut the data flow to the whole sector. But this drain spout would be the final ace. You think Merlin would flinch if I plugged his pipes?"
She bit her lip hard. "If Merlin can't dump his buffers every six minutes, the backhaul of data will crash the system. The memory batch would spill over into real-time. Sounds would go silent. Vision would go dark. All compressed files would implode."
"Bad case of constipation."
"It would require a complete re-boot," she said. "And when Merlin came back up, all current files of ownership would be wiped away."
I smiled. "Meaning that whoever gets there first --"
"Controls the entire city."
I lifted the Cyn and inhaled until my lungs crackled. The grid pulsed behind me.
"Van Meter," she said.
"The man who said he was no longer preoccupied with hierarchies," I said, smiling at Jenny's charade. "Unless someone has the stones to stop him."
Rita's hand flashed, pushing the three wedges aside and calling up the fourth and final slice. In its center glowed Avalon's hottest nightspot, a pleasuredome called Club Trocadero, Van Meter's crown jewel. Rita's hand curled into a fist and the image crinkled, as if she were wadding the sector into a ball to toss in the trash.
"So, sailor," she said. "Can I buy you a drink at the hottest spot in Avalon?"
I snubbed the Cyn. "As soon as I slip into something more comfortable."
AVALON XV: Mohican
On the way up the elevator, I called Monk and told him to expect company. Then I remembered Tommy Jacarta, waiting upstairs with the stun-gun and six generations of rage. His lazy eye had spared me once. I wouldn't bet on it happening twice.
I hit the Hold button and asked Rita if there was another exit. She said no. Safety reasons. Merlin's keepers were sworn to destroy the whole shaft if uninvited company got past the guards.
"We might not make it, Monk," I said. "Jacarta thinks I burned Sparta to the ground. So we're not exactly pals. My guess is he’s waiting for us, topside."
Monk shook his head, then said, “Let me see what I can do." And hung up.
The Hold button waited another five minutes, then the console overrode my request and we shot up the shaft. I told Monk I’d call back and scrapped the uplink.
I reached for the heater, reminded for the third time today how much I hated iron. Some people find courage in a gun; they just made me feel weak. Every time I held one, it was because I wasn't smart enough to keep myself out of trouble.
The elevator slowed, stopped. As the door flew open, six feral children rushed in, flashing daggers made of motherboards, their eyes predatory and sharp.
Jacarta was nowhere.
"Push the button, Jack," Rita whispered urgently. "Push it. NOW,"
They were in the car now, daggers poking Rita's dress and batting the buttons of my Tremayne. I thought I recognized one from the night Janak’s goons cornered me, but couldn't be sure. Leave any kid in the alley for six years and he starts blending in.
"Push the button!"
It was too late for that. So I banked on a hunch and slowly lowered the heater to the floor. Their daggers followed the stun until I dropped it, then stood back, as if relieved of formation, opening a path to Tommy Jacarta. He was on the floor, sputtering into a dirty gag, hands tied behind his back.
"Mmmph!" His eyes focused on my right ear. "Mmph!"
"Keee-cho!" a voice called, and the children fanned out to reveal Ferret, lounging on the extruded-aluminum counter and twirling a pair of Simeola cheaters. The scars on his chest stood out in the dado lights. His dreadlocks looked like strands of old burlap.
I tipped my hat and he mimicked the gesture, grinning.
"You know these animals?" Rita hissed.
"I'm beginning to think I'm related to these kids."
Ferret leaped off the goggle girl's counter, hoisted a backpack over his shoulder and walked toward us.
"You very busy, Denys," Ferret said, his hands on his hips -- a stance of control. "Very popular. Talk, talk. Chat, chat. EVERYbody want Denys."
I shoved back the fedora. "Misguided souls. Do I look like a bogeyman to you?"
He shrugged. "Street say you are, you are."
I glanced at his backpack and saw that he'd relieved Tommy's Place of some peculiar stock. Most folks would've stolen ROM footage to sell on the street -- like Moon's "canned heat" -- or high-dollar cheaters. But Ferret's bag held memory condensers and dioxide regulators -- the silicon trinkets inside our machinery.
Trinkets you'd need if you were a tailor.
I remembered the hole in Monk's storage vault, the one that fell away to an abyss. Rats, he'd said. Right.
"Nice stuff," I said. "Monk will appreciate that."
Ferret wore a rock face. The other children had been laughing, flipping discs off Jacarta's large midsection. But they went mum at the mention of Monk's name.
"Not for Monk," Ferret said. Every blood vessel in his face said differently. They were great scavengers. But they were poor liars. "This --"
"Everyone in this town is lying to me, kid," I said. "Don't join the club."
His hazel eyes glittered.
"You know about Monk and me. I'd rather do another tour at Jasper than hurt him. I got a feeling you're the same. It’s why he sent you, right?"
Ferret blinked.
"Right now I need a friend," I said. "I've got Digerati, datacops and Neuromantics looking for me, and I've got to get back to Campus. To Monk. Can you do that?"
He stared hard, then tossed his head toward Rita. "Her."
"She's jake," I said. "She --"
It was his turn to interrupt. "Not jake. Digerati."
The kids hissed and flashed hand-fashioned daggers. Their venom for the Digerati was more honest than I'd heard from even a Sons of David missionary.
Ferret went on: "Shiloh girl. Work for Baxter Levy. Live here. Down in the hole, all time. Three Mensas, fourteen links, all time talking Merlin. Sells out junkies to Cassady, all time." He shook his head. "Not jake."
Rita went rigid. The kid knew more than her diary. Monk had good taste in scavengers. These kids had tunnels throughout the city and an ear on every rail.
The kids were adamant; they weren't going to let Rita come along. And that wasn't going to fly with me. "Monk wants her, Ferret," I said. "It's not negotiable."
His eyes flicked between us. "Monk say -"
"He'll say we're wasting time." I couldn't believe I was talking about Monk as if he was a godfather, but there you are. "Later, if he says she's not jake, so be it."
Rita punched my kidney. I turned and winked. "He'll like you. Trust me."
Ferret flashed hand-signals to his second-in-command, a blond boy with a scar that ran from scalp to collarbone. The blonde discussed it with the group until a short Asian boy nodded and touched his dagger. Then the blonde signaled Ferret.
"OK," Ferret said. "We go."
"Good." Then I leaned close so only Ferret could hear me. "And if the little Asian moves on Rita before we get there, I'll snap your neck. Got me?"
Ferret bared his teeth, angry with himself for using such old code. "Got you."
"Good." I scooped up the heater. "Then let's go."
Tommy Jacarta humme
d a garbled goodbye and beat his head against the tile.
I'd underestimated the tunnels.
From St. Luke's we took an old fallout tunnel to an Army Corps of Engineers depot, into the basement of Johnson Bleach, through the crawlspace of a speakeasy called Marley's. Ferret led, waving a glowstick to steer us. Rita and I followed, holding hands, chasing children through the labyrinth. The walls were scratched with glyphs from a child's hand; crevices in the concrete exposed tattered blankets, scraps of food, a headless doll. Seeing them, Rita clutched at my Tremayne, shaken by the desperate humanity. I gritted my teeth, anger thumping in my veins -- anger at their hacker parents, the U.N, the Digerati. Anger at a world too busy hiding its mistakes to notice that its children were sleeping in sewers and playing with broken toys.
We four-legged it through the air ducts of the intracity system, then went straight up a hand-hewn ladder. And then we emerged in Monk's vault.
He stood on the stage, his prototype suit pulled off his shoulders. The control panel hummed, gearing down. Monk's face was creased from the goggles, bright lines shining on his dark skin. He squinted through the beaker, bothered by the parade coming out of his closet. He said, "You were gonna call first."
Ferret was the last one out. He scooped up a fourth-generation dataglove, a piece of steel-woven hardware about as heavy as an armored suit, and banged it on a broken Recaro as if playing the drums.
I turned to Monk and waved my hand. "Fizzle. I ran into some of your friends. They'd just turned Jacarta into a rodeo pig and were thinking of doing the same to Rita."
He squinted, hearing the hidden message. "Fizzle" was the trigger, "rodeo pig" was the fulcrum. Campus code from Echo Wharf.
He nodded at Ferret. "Don't talk nonsense. Rita's a good girl." He gave her a toothy grin. "Nice to meet ya."
The electricity sputtering from the children instantly went out, as if Monk had cut the cable. The Asian kid's hand came out of his pants, holding nothing.