Versim

by Curtis Hox

  He scanned the glossy cover: Bingo. On the cover a man leaned over a roulette table, maybe in a casino, or possibly on a boat. He scanned the articles, all of them about gambling.

  “That publication was generated inside,” Krista said. “That’s real knowledge, Hark, as real as anything on the outside. We’re collecting it, using it, benefiting from it. Would you destroy such an archive?”

  Gambling? So what?

  He rounded on her. “I have no choice.”

  She moved in close. “There’s always a choice. You need to see this.” She pushed aside the magazines, until she displayed one with a blank cover. “Ah, here it is.” She placed both hands on it. “I didn’t want to have to show you this, but even your friends have backstories now. Miesha’s co-opting them. I tried to keep them safe, but they’re in play beyond me.”

  “Friends?” He eyed the magazine, recognized it as an official dossier Krista had ferreted into the Rend-V. Doing it this way, as an actual object, instead of data meant she could hide it.

  She opened to the first page. He saw a picture of Frankie skate boarding down a street, smile on his face, wind in his hair. It looked like an expose piece on him. The text ran to four pages. Krista stopped on the last page. “You can read it, if you’d like. It’s all there. He’s a target too, now. I paid to have him constructed. And Garce is generating him, but since he’s just code, they wrote in a morbid history for him. Truly tasteless. He’s not mine anymore. He’s a techno-fetishist. They’ll mutate him when they get him.”

  “Damn. That’s on me.”

  “Yep.” She turned to a page with a picture of Frankie lying in a tub of machine parts, as if they were all his friends. “They know he’s your proxy. The embedded phone fits in with the backstory. The entire population of mutated hybrids are coming for him. Ervé has an army of them. All coming here to make him one of them.”

  She turned to a page with a black-and-white photo of Binda at a coffee shop with an espresso at her lips. “I fought to hide her, but they have Binda’s genoscript. And of course she’s being managed by them. At first, I just wanted her to keep you on track. But then when I learned Miesha was behind all this, I knew they’d get her. She’ll be offered a big role, Hark , and you may not like it.”

  “Keeping an eye on me, eh? That’s why you involved Binda?”

  “Direct access. Less risky than coercing our host.”

  “And who’s coming for Binda?”

  “They’ve done a number on her. Wrote in a sophisticated story about her and her mother.” Krista cast a glance at Celia, who was obviously being touted as Binda’s mother in-V. “She’s the last member of a group of sorceresses, but she’s the key to keeping the history alive.”

  “And they’re coming for revenge?” She nodded. “Ervé’s got that much agency?”

  “Miesha’s been working on this for years, apparently. They’ve inserted enough elements, the V’s going critical.”

  “Mutants and sorcerers. That’s two dominant horror-fantasy tropes. I’ve handled both of them before.” He saw the way she was looking at him, as if more bad news was to come. “Only two, right, Krista? That’s difficult enough. They have to have several hosts … more?” She nodded.

  “The other trope is for Celia. She’s a demon-queen.”

  “What?”

  The question had burst out too loud, and he moved in close. Binda looked over her shoulder, but she returned to helping Celia, who was in the kitchen, looking for her trigger.

  “A demon?”

  Krista turned the page. Hark saw a grotesque photo of someone who might have been Celia flying through the air, taloned hands splayed, black rage in her eyes. “Not just a demon. They’re blending all the cannibal tropes: ghoul, vampire, zombie. Her followers are undead bloodsuckers and braineaters. She a queen of the damned, Hark.”

  “Miesha’s pushing it. Too many archetypes emerging at the same time. That’s a bit of overkill, if you ask me.”

  Krista ran her finger over the horrific picture of Celia. “Three fundamental tropes of the horror genre: the Thing, the Werewolf, the Vampire/Zombie. Ervé is determined to stick it to you. He wants revenge and this is the best way to do it. My intel leads me to believe he wants you to die to one of his minions, trying to save the host. And Miesha wants the extravaganza of seeing you try to thwart her blurring the boundaries of the Rend-Vs. Hark, this all goes away if you use your parachute.”

  “I can’t.”

  “They won’t kill her if you jump out.” Krista gave him a hug. “I have to go. Think about it, before it’s too late.” She turned to walk out of the hall. “Do the right thing.”

  “Dammit,” he said as she left the suite. “What is she up to?”

  32

  Hark stood behind Celia as she stared at an open cupboard in the corner kitchenette. It held a variety of stainless steel crockery.

  “She has no idea where it is,” Binda said.

  “They don’t make it easy for a host,” Hark said. “I once spent a week with a host while the damn hackers laughed their asses off moving the parachute around. The V had no paying customers, and only a few constructs left. We were on a barren moon base. And we’d narrowed it down to a large hanger. Yeah, a week of watching the damn host wander around just like Celia. Maybe it’s here. Maybe it’s there. I have a feeling. I really do. Over here this time. It was a lug-nut in a barrel full of them.”

  Celia removed a frying pan. She stared at it as if it were inscribed with magic sigils. “I can sense it’s near.”

  “Yeah, he sounded just like that.” Hark moved Binda away. “You won’t reconsider?”

  She scowled at him, while still batting her eyes. “We have some time to kill.” She snaked a finger along his chest. “Why don’t we go relax—”

  He removed it. “Listen, this is serious.”

  “Harken Cole. How many dangerous Rend-Vs have you survived?”

  He stared at her as if a stern look would get him what he want. “Too many.”

  “I think I’ll make it out alive.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to say that she wasn’t on equal footing with the host. Binda wasn’t his primary concern. But she knew him well enough to know he’d do everything for her if she was here.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  He saw the slightest hint of concern in pursed lips and a raised eyebrow. “More?”

  “You’ve hit the big time, Binda.”

  “Backstory?” Her eyes actually glimmered, as if he’d told her she’d won a billion dollars. “They gave me one?”

  “Sure did.”

  She inhaled a deep breath, the cords of her neck standing out, her cheeks sucking in. She jumped into his arms, and hugged him. He’d have kissed her again, of course, but she had the discretion not to force herself on him in front of Celia.

  Celia saw the celebration and stopped. “Good news?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Binda said. “Keep looking.”

  33

  Ervé Wrighter stood outside the Mediaplex, the sun high in the sky, the heat backing off the ground. Ah, lunchtime, he thought, as three fast-movers pounced on a fat man struggling to hide in the back of a cab. The man tried to kick them off, but one bit into his leg. The screaming changed from vulgar cursing to a keening wail—a sound that sweetened his soul.

  Ervé stood atop the roof of a large SUV, surveying the scene.

  Traffic on Sixth Avenue had come to a stop. Most drivers had fled their vehicles. Many of them were still struggling for survival in the streets, some in pockets of two or three, others alone, dying out their last breaths. All around him he heard the sounds of torment, smelled cloying blood in the air, and saw his exquisite handwork in motion. Collides would be his new home, he’d been promised. A city turned on its head. And this time EA would love him for it, instead of imprisoning him.

  He jumped off the SUV and onto the top of a yellow cab providing a feast for three of his swift zombies as a metal-man hybrid bulldo
zed down the street. It was already mammoth size, a mishmash of parts that made Frankenstein look like a prom king. It stopped to rip the grill from a service truck. It dove its inhuman head inside the engine and dined to the sound of grinding metal. Not far away, he heard the last screams echoing from within the once large white tents of Bryant Park that were now splattered in crimson. The werethings that had erupted in rage managed to do the most damage. Only one of those beast-like creatures had ravaged fifty fashion industry types standing around an interrupted runaway show.

  Ervé stood like a maestro, smiling at his creation. Already, the city was forming its defenses: the police and a small National Guard unit at the armory were doing a fine job surviving. He wanted heroes to resist. It would make things all the more interesting.

  Ervé saw the Spinner bleedover investigator, Krista Cole, leave the Mediaplex front entrance. She was a small woman, not much larger than a girl. Her intellect package, though, had to be top notch. He could feel the weight of her mind as she neared. Ervé reminded himself to be careful. He feared her more than anyone else in the V because, outside, she made the impossible happen.

  She strolled into the noon sunlight as if the day were one for shopping or dining. She looked about at the carnage, no more perturbed than if she’d seen a homeless man puke in the gutter across the street. She paused long enough to assess the situation. He saw her muttering her strange magic, the very phrases that could murder a Rend-V antag like him where he stood. She had blocked her mind from him somehow. She was in a well of darkness. He went rigid, as his gut flipped over on itself, knowing that she held in her mind a strange sort of power. Harken Cole would look him in the eye while taking his life. This one, his sister, would do it differently.

  She spotted Ervé and threaded her way through the abandoned cars. She sidestepped one victim, who’d fallen halfway out, even carefully avoiding the touch of an extended arm, as if to do so would otherwise be disrespectful.

  But you knew what I would do, Inspector, he thought, and you allowed it. In fact, you’re benefiting.

  “Any luck, Inspector?” Ervé asked.

  She climbed atop a pickup truck pushed up against Ervé’s cab. Butt first on the cabin, then with heels following, she deftly stood atop the vehicle’s cabin, eye-to-eye with him.

  “No luck at all.” She smoothed out her blouse, as if she had wrinkled it in the process. “Your little plan of … violence had me stumped. I admit.”

  Ervé grinned, happy to see her acknowledge his and Miesha’s brilliance. A genuine bleedover inspector and Spinner was tipping her hat at him. She had been played, and she knew it, but she, as expected, would come out splendidly.

  “Your assets are safe?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’ve made arrangements.”

  “And the host?”

  “She’ll be one of your … minions within the hour. I’ll take responsibility to protect Dauk and Preston. In exchange, you stay away from my library once the V flips.” She looked around. “Is all of this necessary?”

  “A good show, as they say.”

  “Hark is waiting, and he’ll make you pay if you go up there.”

  “You got it backwards: I’ll make him pay.”

  “Once he fulfills his promise, he’ll find you.”

  “Oh, he’ll find me all right.”

  The inspector looked at him as if she might cast one of her mysterious Spinner spells. She stared annoyance with those eyes, her lips remained glued for a few precious seconds. She opened her mouth, her teeth perfectly white. He felt his breath catch. He could sense she knew she shouldn’t be there with him, but she needed him to keep her brother from destroying this entire Rend-V.

  “A new wrinkle?” she asked.

  “The best kind. Just in case your … brother does something unexpected.”

  “So it’s true that you’re using the boy.”

  “We had to make sure.”

  “Is he safe?”

  “Safe enough.”

  “I can’t stay. I have to go. Don’t go up there.” She stared off into the middle distance, a sure sign her host was about to pull her. “Hark will have no mercy.”

  She disappeared.

  Ervé let his mind expand. In an instant every moving thing within a square mile snapshot in his brain, each detail in vivid color and texture: the movement of ants trailing the bloody neck of a car crash victim, the stamp of feet in a corridor, the roiling emotions of a lone woman hiding in a closet. Each one he knew intimately. One, a lieutenant on the brink of turning had remained human to await a command. This soldier stood in a deserted pharmacy, in front of a magazine rack, amidst a pile of overturned cereal boxes. He looked up from the magazine he was reading.

  Ervé sent him a single message:

  Get the boy.

  Then Ervé reached into all of his soldiers who could hear. Each one paused in its ceremony of violence. A thousand heads looked up, many with crimson chins, and dead eyes.

  It is time.

  They heard and, each one, began to move forward, heading for the Mediaplex.

  Ervé stepped off the car, happy his grand drama was finally about to begin. Harken Cole thought the end was near. No, just the beginning. He sent the image of Hark to all of his soldiers. A fine picture of the hero in all his glory. Find him for me. He felt them at once respond, a symphony of voices roaring in pleasure, each note ringing their submission. He felt their padded feet rushing down the street, felt their claws smashing through glass and stone. Ervé would have his revenge today, while all the world watched.

  34

  Frankie felt his arm drop to his side, convinced he’d be as sore as hell sometime later. Every now and then it would launch the Blaster into the air, ramrod straight, and he’d stare ahead, waiting for something horrible to come at him.

  He wasn’t in control, and he liked that. The weapon knew how to aim itself.

  He felt invincible.

  Way.

  He wanted to sing at the top of his lungs, maybe that song the Marines always sang. Something about the halls of Monty Python to the shores of Triple-T. He couldn’t remember it.

  Instead, he began to hum a bastardized version of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He peppered the melody with lyrics about a big-breasted girl with red hair and dancer’s legs. He smiled while he sang, eyes straight ahead, waiting for the hell things to come.

  He couldn’t help the banana-grin, even though a part of him wondered if he’d ever leave this office alive.

  He easily pushed that thought aside. Being a proxy was about the most enjoyable task he could be given that didn’t involve someone like Binda or Celia. He didn’t care that if he did survive the night he was going to crash like last time and end up with a raging headache. It was worth it. Besides, the way Hark looked at him … Frankie would do just about anything for the man. Hark was the sort of guy you wanted on your side, and Frankie was on his side. No matter where it led.

  He heard something in the distance.

  His arm shot forward. The Blaster aimed for the stairwell.

  It sounded like a frenetic scratching. Iron on stone. Or claws on concrete.

  “Come on up,” Frankie heard himself say. “Mine eyes have seen the glory / of a red-head in the buff / she’s a beauty with a smile / she’s a …”

  35

  Hark stood behind Celia as she stared at the wall. He had smashed his fist into it six times, leaving six fist-sized holes in the drywall. He was prepared to take the entire place apart, if she needed him to. She stood before an untouched portion, nose a few inches away, as if she smelled something in there.

  “Again?” he asked.

  She shook her head, but continued to stare.

  He heard the whizzing retort of a rapid fire burst from his Blaster. Then another. And another.

  He launched himself through the air and across the suite. He entered the secretary’s office to the continued sound of Blaster fire, explosions of light and heat, and the sight of severa
l blistering bodies that had come down through the top of the shaft. One hung from a trap door in the ceiling of the elevator. They were regularly dressed people—one a jogger in running shorts and matching shirt, another a courier with his courier bag around his neck, and a another in what looked like a blue-uniformed parking cop—but they’d been transformed into prickly haired beasts with extended maws.

  His Blaster finally stopped.

  “I hear more coming,” Frankie said.

  Hark heard them too. Something scampering up the stairwell.

  He checked the read out on his Blaster. It was recharging itself but at this rate, it would deplete itself after another encounter.

  Then the elevator fell (or was pulled) down the shaft.

  It careened as it fell, smashing against the walls. The dry, scratching sound of something coming toward them followed. Not the elevator, but something in the shaft—a hard thing with edges that bit into concrete.

  “I got this,” Frankie said, smiling, even though he was still in drone mode.

  “I know you do.”

  Hark looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t leave Celia.

  He set the digital readout on the Blaster for a single powerful blast that would empty it with devastating fashion, then stepped back into the suite, Frankie with Blaster leveled at the shaft, Frankie ready to fight, and die.

  Hark shut the door.

  No need to lock it.

  He hurried back to Celia. She had placed her palm on a portion of the wall near where they’d been digging.

  “Here,” she said. She tapped it. “Right here.”

  Hark smashed his hand through the drywall and felt it brush something solid. He deftly moved his hand aside so as to not crush the object. He withdrew a simple ballpoint pen, the type made of transparent plastic around a straw with black ink. It even had a blue cap. He handed it to her.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  He led her to the couch, his enhanced hearing still picking up the approaching sound of some unholy machine thing in the elevator shaft. He set her down.