‘It was an unsanctioned mission.’
Benedict turned to the Monk. His blue eyes looked wrong. They were somehow too expressive for his face, as if he was trying to fake warmth that just wasn’t there.
‘I did my penance. It did not include being repeatedly killed by that psycho until he actually manages to get a virus past our security and permanently scrambles my backups.’ The Monk didn’t say anything. Benedict concentrated for a moment. ‘I’m not still in the Cathedral, am I?’
‘No. I’m sorry – we had your body loaded aboard the Lazerene.’
Benedict used his thumb and forefinger to massage the bridge of his nose.
‘We’ve lost your father—’
‘Don’t call him that.’ It was a growl. The Monk would never admit it to Benedict, but she could see noticeable similarities in their mannerisms, despite the son only ever having met his father twice.
‘This is important or we wouldn’t ask. You’re our expert. You studied him when you were tracking him down.’
‘And I would have removed that information from my head if Churchman had let me.’ He turned back to face the wall. ‘Do you know, when the Church “found” me, Churchman was going to have me destroyed? He thought I was some kind of hereditary “bad seed”. He was almost right.’ The Monk knew this but chose to remain quiet. ‘I have no connection to that man beyond being the result of him impregnating my mother and then meat-hacking her to make sure I went full term. If you were to download all the information I have on him, you would know as much.’
‘Churchman doesn’t believe it.’
‘I know, but his belief in an intuitive connection is bordering on the superstitious.’
‘When the Consortium caught him, they recorded his personality in their Psycho Banks.’ The Psycho Banks were used to record significantly aberrant personalities for profiling purposes.
Benedict came up on one knee as he looked at her again. The Monk actually tensed slightly before she remembered the pointlessness of attacking someone in this particular immersion. There was emotion on his face now. Horror.
‘You don’t know what you’re suggesting. You’re talking about putting the mind of a heretical, recreational killer inside me and letting him run free?’
‘You’ll be in control, and under strict supervision.’
Benedict was on his feet and pacing now. ‘It’s all about will for him, will and control. If he has the will to do what the other guy won’t, he wins. Winning is only important in that he will have control, or, more importantly, that nobody has control over him. He has two ways to resolve problems. He will often take the most direct – and probably violent – route. He will court atrocity. He will tell himself he does this as a warning to others, but I think that’s the residual sickness no amount of psychosurgery could eat out of him. If he does not take that route, then he will try to come up with the most convoluted, unexpected plan. He will look to completely wrong-foot his opponents.’ There was desperation in his voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Monk told him, and meant it.
‘He’s not giving me any choice?’ Benedict asked, incredulously. The Monk just looked at him sympathetically. ‘It’ll be like a possession. Whatever you … he thinks, I’m not like him. I’m going to drown.’ Benedict was pleading now.
‘We’ll destroy you, utterly, and then clone you.’
‘He’s like a virus. He destroys everything he touches. You don’t want my help – you want a ritual sacrifice!’
‘So how are we committing suicide today?’ Vic asked as he walked into the medical area of the bizarre heretical cult’s asteroid habitat. Mindful of his audience, he was speaking in the pre-Loss language their captive understood.
‘I’m tired of your negative attitude,’ Scab said quietly. Vic could tell that the normally emotionless human was actually irritated, but he wasn’t sure it was with him.
‘You’ve got a death wish,’ Vic pointed out defensively.
‘Which I’m very positive about, and proactive in my pursuit thereof.’
‘I knew a lot of guys like you,’ Talia said from the smart-matter couch that had been designed to fit in with the general stone decor of the church. There was a tremor in her voice. She was trying to brazen through seeing a near-seven-feet-tall cybernetic insect, but the fear – bordering on terror – in her tone was difficult to disguise.
Vic had to admit the heretical sect that was sheltering them might have resources that looked rudimentary, but they’d regrown him just fine. Presumably Scab had arranged for the hard-tech augments. A lot of them had been salvaged from his last body, but there were new components, too, and even some upgrades. That was the problem with bounty killing – you always had to be upgrading, because if you didn’t, you could be sure the other guy would.
Vic studied the pale girl lying on the couch. He was fairly sure she was pretty by human standards. He even ran some image analysis to be certain. Studying her through the various visual spectrums he had access to, as well as passive scans from his antennae, she looked all wrong. She was just too natural. Even the farmed nats he’d encountered in the past tended to have some tweaked genetic component to help with longevity, or whatever purpose they’d been bred for. Scab was watching him.
‘She’s not what she appears,’ Scab said, seeming to read his thoughts. Scab moved to stand over her couch. The girl did her best not to cower away from him.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ the girl demanded. Scab ignored her and ’faced the results of the human female’s medical tests to the ’sect. Vic reviewed them quickly. His mandibles clattered together as he let off a complex mix of pheromones and wished he could do that whistling thing humans did when they were impressed by something. The girl was baseline human, clearly pre-Loss. Her body, however, was crawling with living Seeder bio-nano-tech.
Vic looked down at her. She was wearing a black lace dress with some kind of leather bodice and spike-heeled boots. He didn’t recognise the style, so she must have used the cult’s aging assembler to make it.
‘You seem nicer than him,’ she said warily.
‘He makes that very easy,’ Vic said.
‘For a big insect.’
Vic held out his lower-right hand. She shrank away from the powerful-looking three-digit mechanical appendage.
‘Hi. I’m Vic,’ he said as cheerfully as he could manage in the circumstances. Talia plucked up the courage to shake his hand.
‘So are you going to hurt me as well?’ she asked, swallowing hard.
Vic glanced at Scab. ‘What have you been telling her?’ he demanded.
‘That I can’t make any promises,’ Scab said, studying Talia. ‘It’s strange – say anything to her and she’ll look for the most negative possible outcome. She’s like you, in a way.’
‘I suspect you bring that out in people. I was pretty upbeat when I worked the T-Squads.’
‘T-Squads?’ Talia asked. Vic suspected it was as much because she was tired of people talking about her in front of her as because she actually wanted the information.
‘Thunder Squads, they were an elite army—’
‘They destroyed cities for their masters,’ Scab interrupted.
‘So you’re a killer, too?’
‘Most people are, we’re just better at it,’ Vic said, and then worried that he might have sounded a little absurd. She was just staring at him.
‘When are you planning to let me go?’ she asked.
‘Why would we do that?’ Scab asked absently.
‘We did go to rather a lot of trouble to get you,’ Vic told her, thinking it would make her feel better, but he saw her tear-up. ‘Where would you go, anyway? Without a debit rating you’d never get very far, and there are a lot of other bad people looking for you out there.’
‘Who?’ she asked through the tears.
�
��Well, the Ch—’ Vic started, but Scab held a hand up for quiet.
Talia looked between the two of them. ‘Those are the people you want to sell me to?’ she demanded.
Vic didn’t say anything. Some of the psychosurgery that had redesigned his insectile mind to be more like the humans he admired so much had left him with a feeling that he’d eventually identified as guilt. Most of the people he traded, or killed, were involved in the same world he was. Innocents were hard to find. Maybe some of the more sheltered Consortium children, but he doubted it – he’d met them on jobs and they seemed just as grasping and spiteful as everyone else. Talia, on the other hand, appeared to be as close as he was likely to find to an innocent. He found himself wanting to protect her.
‘I don’t want to be sold,’ she told them.
‘Who does?’ Scab asked.
‘It happens to us all in one way or another,’ Vic told her. ‘Look, you’re a valuable—’
‘Asset?’ she asked.
‘You’ll be well looked after wherever you end up.’
‘Or you’ll be vivisected,’ Scab pointed out.
Vic glanced at the human. ‘How does that help?’ the ’sect asked.
‘Help what? She’s a commodity, nothing more.’
Vic could tell that his human partner was starting to get exasperated again. The insect decided not to push it.
‘I want to be free,’ she told them. Insect and human just stared at her.
‘You can’t afford it,’ Vic said, surprising himself with the sadness he felt.
‘Your choice is you can be awake and aware, or we can drug you until we’re ready to dispose of you,’ Scab told her.
Vic watched her face crumple as more liquid leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
Scab looked confused. ‘She does this a lot,’ he told the insect.
Vic was busy looking up the meaning of certain human emotional states. After his internal liquid hardware had done some cross-referencing, he said, ‘Are you surprised, the way you speak to her?’ he demanded.
Scab turned to stare at the insect. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’
Vic searched through the available data again. ‘Cause and effect?’ he suggested.
‘But I don’t care if she cries, beyond the irritating noise, which I can filter out when I need to.’
‘You’re such a fucking bastard!’ Talia screamed at Scab.
Scab gave an exasperated sigh and walked out of the medical area.
‘Wait!’ Talia cried. ‘I’m sorry. You mentioned drugs?’
‘I meant sedating you,’ Scab said without looking at her.
‘I think some drugs might help, y’know? I’ll be calmer.’
Scab glanced at her. Vic was pretty sure Scab was at the end of what little patience he had. He reached into the breast pocket of his tatty brown pinstripe suit and pulled out a beaten-up metal case.
‘Do you know what to do with this?’ he asked. Talia looked at him, unsure. He walked over to the medical couch and opened the small case, which contained his works.
‘Surely we could just have the medical suite—’ Vic started.
‘Shut up,’ Scab told him quietly.
Talia stared at the works. Scab was watching her reaction. Vic saw Talia swallow hard. He wasn’t sure but he suspected that the stainless-steel syringe and the packet of brown powder were a bit more hard core than she’d expected.
‘Well?’ Scab asked.
‘What if it messes up, y’know, whatever it is that’s in her?’ Vic asked.
‘It won’t,’ Scab said quietly, still watching Talia.
Talia nodded nervously and picked up the works. Scab reached into his other breast pocket and took out his cigarette case. To Vic’s mind, the cigarettes were Scab’s other pointless retro vice. The human killer took one out and lit it.
‘Could I have one, please?’ Talia asked. He gave her a cigarette, and even lit it for her. She smiled up at him through her tears. Something about the smile made Vic angry. Scab left the medical area. Vic watched Talia as she gingerly examined Scab’s works, then followed his partner out.
‘Hey!’ Vic said. He watched Scab tense and pause in the vaulted corridor before turning around slowly. Vic stopped dead as he realised he might be pushing his luck. ‘You don’t have to be so nasty about everything.’ He suddenly felt foolish. Scab took a step towards the large insect. Vic resisted the urge to take a step back.
‘Did you see me being nasty in there?’ Scab asked.
Vic gave this some thought. ‘No,’ he finally admitted. ‘What’s getting to you? If she annoys you that much, why not just keep her sedated, lock her in an immersion, make her think she’s back wherever she came from?’
You had to know Scab pretty well to see it – emotions made little impact on his facial expressions – but Vic didn’t like the unease the question had caused his partner.
‘I’m looking for something.’ Scab finally answered.
‘From her? She’s about as sophisticated as some corp kid’s pet, those things you feed to the Scorpion. I don’t think she even has neunonics.’ Absurdly, Vic found himself feeling guilty again.
‘She doesn’t have neunonics,’ Scab said. ‘I need some insight.’
‘Into what?’
‘I don’t know what her S-tech does.’ Scab turned and started walking away.
Vic followed the much smaller, wiry human. ‘I thought it’s connected to bridge tech. That’s why everyone wants her. That was the whole fucking point, right? I mean, that’s why we’re going to spend the rest of what feels like eternity in some Church torture immersion, right?’
‘But how’s it connected?’
‘What, are you a bridge-drive engineer now?’ Vic said. ‘Who gives a fuck? And frankly, if we knew anything about her, that’d just make us more of a target in the highly unlikely event that your cockamamie scheme works.’
‘Don’t worry about it – you’ll almost certainly be dead before it comes to that.’
‘That’s comforting.’
‘Cockamamie?’ Scab asked, glancing up at the big ’sect.
‘I heard it in an immersion.’
The pair of them went quiet as one of the red-clad monks walked by, accompanied by the AG-powered cylinder in its wood and brass housing. Vic’s shiver was a human affectation; the disapproving spray of pheromones brought on by the sight of the animated viscous black liquid in the tank was not.
‘When can we get out of here?’ Vic asked. Scab ignored the question. ‘I mean, do you trust these guys?’ Again, the human said nothing. They reached the docking arm. Scab ’faced the entry codes to the St Brendan’s Fire. ‘Are we going to clear out the dead?’ Vic asked, almost desperately, as he followed Scab into the dark metal corridors of the frigate.
‘As and when we need the space.’
Vic couldn’t shake the feeling that Scab liked the idea of captaining a ship of the dead.
‘Why are we trusting them?’ Vic tried again, meaning the monks.
‘We’re not and I don’t. Certain arrangements that aren’t your concern have been made. Either they’ll work or they won’t, same as anything else.’ It was clear they were heading towards Command and Control.
‘Were you like them? The monks, I mean, when you were a sect leader?’ Vic asked, largely for something to say.
Scab glanced up at him but kept walking. ‘Back on Cyst? No, I wanted to build a temple to myself out of bone. It was about apotheosis, or self-aggrandising, I’m not sure which. I was young.’
‘It’s nice to see you’ve grown as a person since then,’ Vic said wryly. They reached C&C and the armoured door slid open. Scab’s P-sat rose into the air, scanning them both as they entered. Vic noticed that it was in a heavy combat chassis. He tried not to look at the dolphin in the tank in the corner of C&C. Th
e brass-skinned S-tech terror that was the Scorpion had wrapped itself around the tortured creature.
‘Remind you of anyone?’ Scab asked.
Vic looked over at the pathetic cetacean, and then back to Scab. ‘The Alchemist? Only in as much as they’re both dolphins. Clearly I haven’t got to know our …’ Scab looked over at the ’sect. ‘I mean your victims,’ Vic corrected hastily.
‘I’ve been thinking about him recently.’
Vic was struggling to keep up with Scab’s train of thought. ‘What can you do? He was sent to Suburbia, wasn’t he?’
Scab didn’t bother answering. He was concentrating on something else. Vic checked and found that the ship was ’facing info to Scab. Vic requested and Scab granted access to the ’face. Vic saw an animatic of a worm-like dragon battling a knight wearing a white surcoat with a red cross on it, over mail. Vic amused himself by superimposing Scab’s face on the dragon in his own neunonic interpretation of the animatic. He knew that the knight was the St Brendan’s Fire’s AI. The worm was a sophisticated Pythian virus that Scab had unleashed on the AI in an attempt to make it more pliable, and thereby gain full control of the frigate.
‘Still giving you trouble?’ Vic asked. Scab ignored him again. The AI had lost the fight for almost all of the frigate’s systems including the bridge drive, but it had gone to ground in certain core processes, including the one Scab was most eager to use. He was after the process that would enable the ship to shift from planetary Real Space into planetary Red Space. It was the very capability the Church were desperately trying to conceal from everyone else. This was probably why the AI was being so difficult about it, Vic thought.
‘What’s the plan, Scab?’ Vic asked. ‘What are we doing here?’
‘Waiting.’
‘What are you going to do with her?’
Scab turned to look at Vic. ‘You didn’t take this well the last time.’
‘But I’m guessing I have to know at some point.’
‘An auction.’
‘That sounds just about psychotic enough for you. How’s that going to work?’
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