She walks into her wrecked apartment where Scott Karpel’s talking animatedly to two Carmine Cares crew as he strips and cleans their assault rifles – one more skill he learned out West. In the kitchen, Tim’s kneeling on a work surface, gouging a screwdriver into the shattered dry wall.
“Hey, sport, how’s it going?” says Cusack and Tim turns on Cusack as bright and bouncy and eager as a puppy.
“Cusack, my man! When you zipped those guys, you slugged this wall with loose change. What’s the story, dog?”
“I pack them myself,” beams Cusack. “Fifteen pennies rip up armor just as good as anything. I mix in particulated zirconium for all that flash.” He reaches into a thigh pocket and comes out with a handful of shotgun shells. “You carry a twelve gauge, don’t you, Tim? Here, I’ve got spares.” He hands them over and Tim looks like today’s the best day of his life.
Kirsty steps over sleeping Carmine Cares crew to where Slate and her rented Jericho pistol lie on the table. She picks up both, one in each hand, and curses them for the trouble she’s in. She thinks she’ll probably never have to pay the Reverend for his gun rental. Not now.
“I see you’re getting ready to move out again,” says Cusack brightly, slapping her shoulder hard enough to make her jump.
“You creep up on people, you know that?”
He shrugs. “Kind of a skill in my trade. So all this gang-related stuff tends to tail off in daylight. When the war dies out, where do you want to be?”
“I want to be in my bed, Cusack. I want all this to go away.”
“Seriously though. Bostov are paying me to cover you only so long as you proceed with your case…”
She sighs. “I pulled tissue samples from some corpses yesterday. They’ll need to go to a Fedlab for analysis. I just don’t fancy riding the Tramtrax through that out there.”
“No problem. Carmine owns a couple of armored utivans. I’ll call and get one here soon. No expense spared with Carmine Cares.”
Cusack hums contentedly to himself as he leaves to make the call. Tim eagerly loads specialty rounds into Grandmaster Flash, his pump action shotgun. Scott looks comfortable in the company of men and women with automatic weaponry and body armor. Even Mrs Dubochnik looks contented, wandering round Kirsty’s blown-up apartment with plates of sandwiches.
Kirsty feels sick and scared and guilty as she remembers Kareem grunting from the shot in the back that went clean through his armored jacket. She wonders if the Reverend made it through the night, if sweet little Judy Alexis even made it away from the Bowlerama. She decides she must be the only one with a guilty conscience. Why else would everyone else be enjoying this apart from her? No, she corrects herself, she’s not alone. There’s the old guy dead in the street, this is serious for him too. And there are the three corpses, shot up and burned up and mashed up in their splattered paper suits and slowly setting solid in her basement freezer. She figures they must have had better days too.
Thursday 13 March
02:29 pm
HEMBLEN SAW CHARLIE as he walked through the front lobby entrance but Charlie didn’t see him. Instinctively, he stepped behind pillar and watched her through the lobby’s rear glass doors. She yawned and smoothed her hair back and sloshed the livebike’s foodfuel tank by rocking it side to side. Abel had told him to pull back to back Charlie up, but why? She was handling being bored on her own just fine. He waited until she stretched and looked away then headed up the stairs instead.
He went up slowly, back against the outer wall, neck craned to peer up at the next flight. On the third floor, he stopped for a moment, thinking he could hear shouting in the street outside. He took a couple more steps and definitely heard a familiar sound. Part cough, part slap, coming from above. A gunshot. A suppressed gunshot.
He moved quicker and heard it again as he glanced each way along the fourth floor corridor. Empty, but the end door was slightly open. The corner apartment, the one with the slatted white blinds. Another shot and Abel’s voice. “Jesus, man. Just hit her.”
“You think this is easy?” Baker’s voice. Another shot. Hemblen crept along the hall. He gripped the door handle, careful not to move the door in case it creaked. He pushed his jacket back and rested his other hand on his holstered pistol.
Abel, a rising pitch in her voice. “Can’t you just zip the bitch?”
Hemblen opened the door quickly and stepped in but Abel immediately turned to face him, blocking his view of Baker with her body. Baker sat in the middle of the room, the slim case he’d been carrying open at his feet and empty, the rifle it had stored propped on one high-backed dining chairs with Baker sat on another. Abel stared at Hemblen, both hands behind her back.
“We’re leaving soon,” she said, as if this was just one more day at the office. “Is the rear access clear?” Baker fired and cursed and worked the bolt.
“Course it’s clear,” said Hemblen. “Baker, what the fuck, man?” Baker fired again, expanding gasses venting into the fat suppressor unit screwed into the barrel. “It’s just kids down there.”
“Orders,” grunted Baker, squeezing off another shot as return fire crackled down the street and shattered windows somewhere down the corridor.
“Orders? From who? For what?”
Abel took a step forwards, her hands still behind her back. “I thought I told you to wait downstairs.”
“This isn’t right,” Hemblen said. “Not right at all.”
“Don’t make me tell you again,” said Abel, her lips pressed tight, a tremble in her voice. Baker fired again and a shrill wail drifted from the far end of the street. Hemblen glared into Abel’s mirror shades and made his mind up.
“You know what Abel,” he said, “fuck you and fuck Baker too.” His pistol cleared the holster but Abel whipped her hands from behind and bent into a double-handed firing position. Arms bent, feet braced, her pistol was steady and level while his was barely drawn.
“Drop the gun!” she snarled, and he did. “Step back into the hall! Arms high!” Hemblen thought she looked menacing but only in a rehearsed sort of way. He slowly raised his hands to shoulder height but stood his ground. Baker fired again.
“Fucking move it!” Abel’s aim was unwavering but so was Hemblen. The moment he stepped back, she controlled him and he was a dead man.
“I said MOVE!” she shouted, poking the pistol at him to punctuate the threat. It was all he needed.
He grabbed the wrist of her gun hand with his left and the hand itself with his right. He stepped off to one side and twisted the gun inwards so that when she fired, it deafened him and spattered his face with burning propellant. He moved forwards, added force, maintained momentum. Abel’s gun swung pointed into her own face and kept moving until the wrist snapped.
Her knees buckled as the bones in her forearm parted. Abel shrieked and Baker turned as she hit the floor flapping and Hemblen fumbled to prise her numbed fingers off her gun.
Baker didn’t miss a beat. He dropped the rifle and spun as he stood up, reaching into his belt as the rifle toppled forwards and hit the ground silencer first. Hemblen clawed Abel’s pistol and swung to draw a bead as Baker’s blade came slicing towards his face.
Blue-steel rang cleanly on blue-steel as the knife clanged off the gun barrel. It was enough to save him, just. Baker stumbled forwards, over-committed by the force he’d put behind the blade. Hemblen brought his left arm over Baker’s extended right and tore Baker’s shoulder with an arm bar. As sort tissue tore, Baker grimaced and threw his head back in pain and Hemblen stabbed the barrel of Abel’s pistol into his throat then drove his knee into Baker’s stomach as the choking man dropped.
Hemblen took a step back, raised his knee high and brought his heel down on the back of Baker’s head. Once, Baker grunted. Twice, he jolted. Three times, the skull felt soft and yielding under his boot.
“Dead… You are s… s… so fucking dead.” Hemblen spun and aimed at Abel, a hateful stare visible now she’d lost her shades. She was pushing he
rself into a corner with both feet, scared and wounded as she cradled her messed up arm with the good one.
“Dead, you fucker.” She fumbled for the push switch on her collar. “Abel to Charlie…” Hemblen lunged at her, raising the pistol in the threat of a strike so that she shrieked and turned her face away. He ripped at her ear piece and throat mic and pulled the comms from her belt. He threw her face down, kneeling on her back while he frisked her for weapons and she screamed and screamed.
He stood, moved to the door and bobbed his head out, seeing whether Charlie was responding to Abel’s garbled transmission. The hall was empty.
“No one messes with us!” shrieked Abel, “Not anyone!” He kicked the rifle to the far side of the room and peered through the window blinds to the street beyond.
“Dead… you’re so dead…!”
He saw bodies everywhere. A girl with braided hair, lying on her back and holding her thigh with both hands to keep her shattered, dripping foot off the ground. A black kid mouthing obscenities as two of his buddies dragged him backwards into a side street. He capped off rounds randomly towards Hemblen.
“We know where you work, we know where you live…!”
He saw the big guy, the bodyguard, face-down in the street and a woman pinned underneath by his bulk. As she stood up, she seemed to stare directly at him. Then the woman he’d been tailing all morning turned sprinted furiously towards the safety of the nearest street corner.
“We’re gonna get you. We’re gonna kill you,” spat Abel and Hemblen turned to face her and felt dark and murderous and mean. He stepped over and knelt by her and choked Abel’s rants with a punch in the mouth, her words stoppered by blood and broken teeth. She slobbered and drooled as he pulled a ziptie from his jacket and wrenched her shattered arm as he bound her hands way too tightly.
He pocketed her pistol, picked his own off the floor and quickly checked the apartment over. The bedroom was empty, the bathroom, empty. The apartment’s owners were face down in the kitchen, hands tied and throats slashed left to right. He’d already seen the murder weapon up close.
Abel blubbed blood and mucus as Hemblen picked up the sniper rifle by its barrel and raised it high above his head. She sobbed as he brought it down across Baker’s knees. She turned away as the second stroke split white bone shards through his trousers. She’d descended into silent, heaving sobs long before Baker’s rifle started to break apart in Hemblen’s hands and Baker’s legs had come apart too.
He swept down the stairs pistol drawn, praying Charlie would run up so he could blow her away in anger. But she still was still outside, still sitting on the livebike, still looking bored. He grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall, pushing the lobby’s rear door aside and swinging the heavy metal cylinder in a single motion. Charlie turned to the sound of the door and Hemblen heard her teeth snap as the clanging impact flipped her backwards off the livebike. He pulled her comms, grabbed her sidearm and then he was free and clear, running down the street and leaving the whole twisted operation in whimpering piles on the floor.
Wednesday 12 March
01:41 pm
THE DAY AFTER Arclights, Bishop slept all day and most of the night, blissfully lolling on the cot bed in his office. The next day, he took a walk round the Citadel, happy in the knowledge that his admins were keeping things in order. But as darkness fell, he headed back. The night meant meeting mercenaries and militia extremists and agenda-fueled terrorists. The mercwar was over but Bishop still had to ensure that Bostov were going to be snowed under with a shit storm of problems up until Reboot’s launch.
He was stretching and yawning and getting ready to talk to people he neither liked nor trusted when Martha Bhaskar knocked lightly on his door and entered without being told to. She looked determined and was holding a Slate when she’d always been a pad and pen person up to now. “This you need to see,” she said.
She propped the Slate on his desk then stood behind him. “It was recorded in a Meat4 Power deadroom early this morning. The source was a covert minicam pinned to the interviewer’s lapel. He forgot to switch the image stabilization on. The picture’s bad but the audio’s clear.”
She reached over to press the screen when Bishop grabbed her hand. “Rewind, Martha. What’s this about?”
“It’s the Fed from the nightclub, sir.”
“The Fed? You mean that girl? Didn’t I tell you to leave that alone for a week?”
“Sir…” she hesitated, looked uncomfortable. “I said I didn’t like her attitude. And you really need to watch this.”
“What are you telling me? That you authorized this?”
Again, she paused. “You’re the one who told me never to admit to anything.”
“Don’t you start getting cute, Martha.” He stared up at her hard but she just stared right back. He sighed. “So roll it anyway…”
The image was as rocky but Bishop recognized the girl. She looked uncomfortable but Martha was right – she just oozed attitude.
“What made you do this, Martha? You must have known I’d be pissed?”
“It was after I spoke to the local facility manager. John Danford. You remember him?”
“Cry-baby little shit in a suit? Sure I remember.”
“When I called him back to talk through his response, he seemed on the verge of a breakdown,” said Martha. “You were sleeping, so I arranged and scripted this meeting.”
“And this is Danford interviewing?”
She grimaced. “I was supposed to have been Danford but he called off sick and assigned one of his staff. Considering the old man recording this only had an hour to prepare, I think he handled it pretty well.”
Bishop caught an angry spark in the Fed’s eyes as the nameless employee laid out the risks of provoking M4P’s wrath. He didn’t like her attitude, not one bit. “So did I do the right thing?” Martha asked the moment the screen image died.
“You should have run this past me,” he told her.
“But you were asleep. So… did I do the right thing?” He nodded reluctantly and she nodded smugly. “And you’re going to shut this Fed down…?”
“Martha Bhaskar…” despite his anger, he couldn’t help smiling. “What happened to the woman wanting a promotion to Pet Division?”
“She’s going to go ahead and investigate the nightclub, isn’t she?”
“We don’t know that.”
“She’s a threat.” Martha picked up the Slate and crossed her arms around it.
“Is she?” Bishop shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” nodded Martha.
Bishop sighed. “Look, since you’ve started this, keep going. Assemble and assign an RESC shadow squad. Nothing big, nothing obvious. But keep up the pressure and keep me informed. And don’t ever go behind my back again.”
Martha nodded and headed for the door. “But I did do the right thing, didn’t I?” she said, and ducked out before he could get the last word in.
Friday 14 March
09:55 am
THE GANG WAR fades away as the sun rises, just as Cusack said it would. Newsfeed airships sweep low to relay images of corpses in the streets, gutted utivans and burned-out buildings while tired Gs put down their sprayguns and head home to get a bowl of cereals and a clean t-shirt from their moms. District 45 wakes to the sound of glass and spent brass shell casings being swept off the sidewalks. Tim and Scott sprint out to pick up the old man lying dead in the street. Entire factory shifts stay at home and call in sick. For the first time Kirsty can remember, the Tramtrax doesn’t run.
Kirsty washes her face in cold water, stares at her own drawn expression in the mirror and reluctantly leaves the building at ten twenty, Cusack and his six strong team covering her with their bodies as the Carmine Cares utivan pulls right up to the curb. It looks like a regular utivan from the outside but is sparse and cramped on the inside, just bench seats running along each side. Cusack thumps a panel to show her how the rear door’s a foot thick and the glass i
s three inch multicore laminate. Kirsty says it looks expensive. Cusack says who cares – Bostov are hiring it from Carmine at a day rate only corporations can afford.
Two blocks later it earns that fee. They’re cruising down empty streets when they take sustained fire from an elevated position. Rounds star the windshield. Bullets thud into the roof and tumble randomly off into the mallsprawl. Kirsty flinches as the final volley bangs against the back door and Cusack laughs it off.
“Forget about it,” he says. “No one knows you’re on the move. That’s just Gs on that last overpass finishing off their ammunition.” Kirsty’s not so sure.
They’re at the Fedlab by eleven. It’s one District south of 45 and the forensic center for the whole North Western quarter of the Hub. Paint scrapes embedded in hit-and-run victims, flattened bullets requiring rifle groove match-ups, chopped organs recovered from ’jacked livedrives… fedtechs from all over drop them off and wait for due process.
Slate requires an unbroken chain of evidence, so Kirsty’s got to run her samples in personally. She dumps mushy bags into a steel tray – the wound debris plus swabs from the meat field corpses that spent the night in her apartment’s freezer.
“I’m fully in the shit with this one,” stresses Kirsty, logging her thumb print on the senior tech’s Slate. “I need you to run full diagnostics and I need you to do them right away.”
He looks her over and, being a forensic scientist, recognizes the dried red-brown stains on her grubby uniform for what they are. “I believe you,” he says, logging his thumb print on her Slate. “It’ll take me an hour. Seventy five minutes tops.”
“That’s too long to sit here,” says Cusack when she’s back in the utivan. “An hour’s time enough for anyone following us to bring up heavy weapons and toast the whole vehicle.”
“So get out and wait in the Fedlab then.”
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