It occurred to her that she could purge him and reboot, back into Dan-Dan mode. Daniel had, according to all accounts, died for real in the Hotel Riu, and there wouldn’t be any bringing him back a second time. The ruse was up, even if she and mech-Daniel did figure out how to prove their identities and gather the pieces of their pre-Guadalajara lives.
She didn’t need him to pretend to be an asshole anymore. And letting the Dan-Dan personality control the mech-clone again would make him so happy. She almost called him over right then to schedule the protocol.
But the morning was so cool, and the wind lulled, and Yoink slept. Angela’s limbs felt heavy, and all she really wanted to do was rest. Dan-Dan could hibernate or play sentinel or whatever he was doing for one more morning. They had time. They had all the time and more than she could stand.
“Psst. Hey, Angela.” Chloe sliced into her peace, just a voice in Angela’s in-ear com. Private, secret. Ignorable. “The Pentarc system is about to issue a push notification, separate from the daily cache. Important news. You’ll wanna be on top of this one.”
Chloe’s digital voice wasn’t as nuanced as a human one, especially when she was communicating subvocally, but her words sounded ominous.
Angela rolled to one side as if she were napping and replied subvocally, “Why? Did something happen?”
“Drone strikes are coming out of Texas again, only this time, the attacks aren’t limited to the Red River area. Simultaneous coordinated attacks: Akron, Seattle, Atlanta, all within eleven minutes of each other. Transits are down. Landjets have stopped running. The whole country is en fuego. Or wait, maybe that is not the correct context for the Spanish? Does en fuego mean ‘on fire’ or ‘bitchin’ cool’? Am I on a tangent?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Oh, hello, logic thread, there you are! Anyway, the president is using your death as a rallying cry. He’s saying you were the first casualty of this string of attacks. So things are getting a bit messy out there. I thought you ought to know.”
“Thanks, Chloe,” she mouthed, pushing just enough air through her mouth to engage her vocal cords. Her com would detect the organ movement and extrapolate sound on Chloe’s end. She hadn’t seen the nano-entity since that day up at the barn, but they chatted from time to time. It had been a long time since Angela had had a girlfriend, and Chloe, for all the Schrödinger-esque uncertainty of her existential personhood, was very girl.
“Oh wait. One more thing,” Chloe said. “The bombs are GBU-12s. Mari flagged that weapon in a search a little while ago. Does it mean anything to you?”
GBU-12s. Like the fucker that took out the Riu. And now oodles of them were pouring out of Texas? Honestly, it wasn’t as surprising a development as all that. Once again, all arrows pointed at Vallejo.
Kind of ironically, these renewed attacks would have been a clear excuse for war and her ticket to a cabinet appointment.
Damn you, Vallejo. You’re too late. Dead girls can’t hold office.
“Hey, Dan,” she called, waking him from his not-hibernation.
The mech-clone moved slightly at his post by the girder. He inclined his head. If she were closer, she could probably see the irises in his eyes shift into focus, coming online. “Yes, Ang?”
Shitty, shitty nickname. Made her sound like a citrus. She wished words were physical things, so she could catch this one out of the air and shove it back down his throat.
“I’m gonna go walk the cat. Might wander around some. Meet me back at our room in twenty.”
He didn’t confirm instructions for a long time. Angela’s implanted com vibrated, and she tapped it. She didn’t need to read the update. Chloe had told her all the juicy parts already. What she wanted to do more than anything right now was locate Kellen—for purely tactical purposes, right?—and discuss whether this evidence was irrefutable enough. Whether he and his team would support some move on Vallejo.
She wasn’t even sure how that would play, since she technically didn’t have any authority. Or any drones. Or access to her cloudcoin accounts. Basically, she was a refugee, just like most of the rest of the Pentarc. But that wasn’t going to stop her from kicking Vallejo in the ass when his back was turned. Even if she had to hoof it into Texas in her swoofy pink pillow shoes.
Angela woke Yoink and helped her to the ground. Kitty could jump on her own, but Angela found herself treating Yoink as she always had, with extra care for an aging friend. It didn’t matter that this Yoink was some shiny new clone with enhanced kidneys and connective tissues. To her human, she’d always be fragile and precious.
Casually, mistress and cat strolled to the open doorway, headed in a general way for the stairs. As she passed mech-Dan, though, she held her breath. Couldn’t have said why.
But on that day, for once, her paranoia turned out to be right on target.
She was to the doorway but not through it when mech-Dan stepped in front of her, blocking her path. His gaze was locked on something in the far distance, over her shoulder, out in the desert.
Wrenching his attention to her, he half smiled, channeling Daniel so perfectly that for a moment, Angela forgot to breathe.
“Hey, girl,” he said, mimicking Daniel to within a micron of believability.
But only for a halved second.
A horrible shudder wobbled the full length of his body, a thunder sheet shaken. Something deep and mechanical caught, and he gasped. He turned his face toward her, and for one halted cosmic interval, Dan-Dan was there. Sweet puppy-dog eyes. Her loyal companion. Panicking.
“Angela,” he said through what were clearly uncooperative lips. “I need to…I cannot… Run.”
Chapter 9
Kellen watched, unable to stop a goddamn thing as Minneapolis took a hit. Fireball. Multiple buildings struck. Safe, sturdy Minneapolis. Refugees from all over the world had been flocking there for years, causing a population spike to near four million. And now, today, they’d been attacked. Four million people. Holy shit. That wasn’t the only target on fire, either. Information kept cascading in, and not a bit of it looked good. Hundreds of his tracked critters were no longer transmitting from the Twin Cities.
All nonmilitary continental transportation was halted. Martial law had been imposed in whole geographic areas. The UNAN was on its heels, paralyzed.
Heron was already deep in the data feeds, his mouth moving as he sent subvocal messages, probably to the family and to Mari. At the same time, he watched all the screens, all the horrors at once, soaking up more data than a human ought to be able to. Possibly more than a human could stand to.
“What do we have in the air?” Kellen asked.
“I took Garrett’s suggestion and had Chloe increase her dispersal parameters and fabricate an atmospheric mirage above us,” Heron said, unflappable as ever. “Her cover is not as comprehensive as the data holes—she needs more practice—but at least our enemy’s targeting satellites won’t be able to resolve a visual on us. We must assume that our location has been compromised.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Minneapolis wasn’t a random target,” said Heron, his voice threaded with something sharp and dark and scary as hell. “When things got hairy back in October, Mari sent her—”
“Boo.” The word came out instead on a ragged breath as Mari skidded into the Vault, the expression on her face echoing the sharp scary in Heron’s voice. “What’s going on with my aunt Boo?”
Her gaze found the live feed from Minneapolis just as Heron said, “Querida. That’s a live feed from Minneapolis. Where Princess Bubbles lives.”
Kellen didn’t mind a good, strong swear from time to time, but Mari said a few things right then that near curled his hair.
Heron opened his arms, and Mari folded herself into him. Curled against his body, she went completely still. Silent, too. Kellen couldn’t tell if it was grief or fury, but something rode
her hard.
Heron caught Kellen’s gaze above her dark head. “Aunt Boo went to stay with someone in Minneapolis when things went sideways a couple months ago. For safety. On face value, that would seem to be a coincidence, but…”
“Coincidences usually aren’t,” Kellen finished. “Vallejo would know about Aunt Boo’s friend, wouldn’t he? Would he be pissed enough to target her?”
“Is she in there?” Mari cut in. She didn’t raise her head, and her voice was muffled, but Kellen heard her words clearly. “Is she dead?”
“I’m retrieving data packets as we speak, querida,” Heron said into her hair. “We will know before anyone else. Kellen’s network has the best eyes and ears on the planet, better than drones even.”
Kellen was already on it, tapping a com message for Yoink: Need you in the Vault. Now.
Heron was going on, moving his mouth in subvocal words, obviously doing his damndest to soothe. Kellen didn’t need to know what his friend was saying, but whatever it was, it seemed to be working. Still, Mari stayed coiled tight, like a flat-pressed spring. At any second, Kellen expected her to burst out of Heron’s arms, guns drawn, ready to blow something up. It was her way. Impulsive. Emotional. Loyal.
After a moment or two or a million, some of the tension eased from her spine. She made a small sound, accepting. Waiting.
Heron drew in a breath and found Kellen again. He raised his eyebrows.
“Yoink’s on her way,” Kellen said. “But already, we’re getting some data in from critters on the ground.”
“Can you put their data feeds up on the walls?”
This was easier when Yoink was around, but Kellen fiddled with the com and relayed data to the smartsurface walls. It wasn’t pretty, just charts and numbers, results of quick air-composition analysis and structural tension readings for the remaining building supports, though honestly, there wasn’t much left. Subsidence crater more than a mile wide. Damn. That thing had gone into the ground before it blew.
Heron swore, which was unusual enough a thing that Kellen instinctively asked, “What?”
“The munitions used in these attacks are identical to the bomb that hit Angela Neko’s hotel in Guadalajara.”
Coincidences again.
Kellen blew a breath out between tight lips. “If he found out she wasn’t dead, he might be looking to finish the job.”
“Maybe,” Heron said. “It’s hard to theorize motive when we don’t clearly know whom we’re dealing with.”
Mari shifted, still from her perch on Heron’s lap but getting her tough-girl armor on, figuratively speaking. “Oh, I got myself a guess.”
“What do you mean?” Kellen asked.
“I’ve been running searches on that particular kind of bomb for days now. It’s an old model, not in wide usage anymore, probably unstable as all get-out. UNAN sold most of their reserves ten, fifteen years back. Guess who not only bought those turkeys but made a big chunk of them to begin with?”
“Texas?”
Her eyes narrowed and shot daggers at the wall display. “Yeehaw.”
“So,” said Kellen, forcing himself to remain calm. “Vallejo’s on a tear, maybe trying to kill Angela. Again. Fine. We’ll just pay him a little visit. He was at Enchanted Rock not too long ago. Could still be there. Central Texas is his stomping grounds.”
Heron nodded, his gaze darting unnaturally fast between the displays. “I can’t send Chloe,” he said, “not while she’s dispersed, and it might not be a bad idea to organize a soft evacuation here at the Pentarc, just in case. I could use your help with that, but I understand if you prefer to do the other.”
“I’ll go with,” Mari said, already uncurling herself and rising to her feet. Cool calm fell over her like a shell. She had to be burning up with emotion inside, but she sure could get herself into a zone.
Heron reached out one long arm and brushed her hip. She stopped. Looked down at him.
“Please don’t,” he said. “I can’t endure sending you into his sphere of control again.”
Heron blinked like he was resetting something internally, then turned to face Kellen. “The last time she and her father faced off, he put a bullet in her. That won’t be happening again. So if you want to stop Vallejo, you’ll have to go get him yourself.”
Alone. Not Kellen’s favorite thing, but he’d do it. “I got no problem with that. Don’t you worry, Miss Mari.”
“Are you certain?” Heron asked slowly. “Running in headfirst and guns blazing isn’t your usual style.”
“Well, that don’t mean I can’t—”
Yoink blurred into the room, a comet of wild fur, screeching. She hooked her claws on Kellen’s jeans leg and literally climbed him. Hurt like the dickens, but he was way too startled to move. Also thought he probably shouldn’t. When she got her little face up in his, she stared him down hard. His com crackled. “Bad robot attacked my human. To the goats!”
In the space of one hot second, Heron smoothed the data from Minneapolis to the side and splashed visuals up for Northy and the skywalk. It took them maybe four heartbeats more to find Angela. She’d run clean out of her pillow shoes, and though it looked like she’d gotten some kind of head start, the mech-clone was faster.
Immediate questions like What the hell could have set it off? shifted to God, what will it do to her if it catches her?
“She’s headed for the barn,” Kellen said, interpreting Yoink-speak for the rest of them.
Good girl, going someplace you know. Just hang on, sweetheart.
Mari was already ahead of him through the door. “Then we’d best get there first.”
• • •
It had been nine plus years since Angela had been forced to run a twice-weekly “smile mile” in the desert. She’d kept up with her health in a general sort of way, but she so wasn’t conditioned for a run like this.
Like this. Nothing ever had been like this.
A death run over uneven flooring, stairs that cut out halfway, freezing winter wind gusts, and unexpected plunges into vast, bright nothing. Nightmares reached for her. She wished she’d learned the layout of this place, wished she’d spent time hardening and honing herself.
But she was an internationalist, a policy wonk, not a goddamn athlete. She didn’t run for a living. This was…
Thoughts came in sharp, panting bursts, flaying their way through her chest. The sun had risen fully, like it was trying to help, but winter roared through the concrete supports.
She knew how to get to the barn. She thought she might even know where the stairs were, if the elevators took too long.
She could make it there. She could.
Mech-Daniel’s heavy steps pounded behind her. He moved more smoothly than she did, faster, and he wouldn’t tire. He was like the goddamn Terminator. But when she’d ducked under his outstretched arm and run for the stairs, he hadn’t come after her right away. He had paused.
And there was that matter of the warning.
What if he was mostly Daniel now but also still Dan-Dan, deep in there somewhere? She knew how to talk down kidnappers and crazies. That had been part of her diplomatic training. Would he have enough logic containment to even listen if she stopped, if she tried to reason with him?
Ah, fuck. That question was about to be moot anyhow. Her legs hurt so much, it felt like they were about to seize into tight little balls of muscle-stuff. Couldn’t feel her feet at all. She no longer had complete control over where her footfalls landed. She tripped, skidded, got back up, kept running.
Across the skywalk, into West.
Wild, wild west, run west. Just keep going.
She didn’t want to think of what she’d do if Kellen wasn’t there. Who else could she run to? Where did the refugees live? Fanaida? Mari? Where were they right now? In the nightmarescape, she was the only person here, the last person i
n the world, and that thing made of titanium and evil was coming after her. She’d tried to com Chloe several times, but the nanite cloud wasn’t replying.
Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.
The elevator doors were closed in West, but she couldn’t wait for the carriage to arrive. No time. She pushed through to the emergency stairs and started climbing. Her thighs shuddered the last eight steps, bones turned to rubber, muscles clenched in spasm. She had to haul herself up with her hands. Gloveless now.
Skin scraped concrete. Broke. Bled.
And then she burst into the barn level, into the bright morning sun. Through the gate, calling his name.
“Kellen! Are you here? Please be here, please please please.” When had she started crying? Her voice was riddled with crags, breaking and slipping, unable to maintain register. Her heart hammered in her chest, on the edge of exploding. Her eyes stung.
Behind her, the elevator dinged.
Mech-Daniel stepped into the shadow of the elevator house.
“Ah, there you are. Come here, Ang. Let me get a good look at you.” So Daniel. So wrong. Hey-girl smile, planting ice seeds in her chest.
Couldn’t. Breathe.
He started toward her.
A shovel leaned against the fence, and Angela grabbed it, backing toward the animal pens. Her bare feet scuffed trenches in the ice-crackled grass. What the hell was a shovel going to do against a titanium frame that could hold up a goddamn building? But her fists would be even more ineffective. At least with shovel in hand, she could go down ugly.
Fighting it.
A couple of the goats wandered out of their barn, curious at the noise. Getting behind them, using them as shields, might buy her time. But it would also, ultimately, buy her a bunch of broken, bloody cattle. They weren’t offering themselves in her place, and she couldn’t sacrifice them. No consent. It wasn’t fair.
None of this was fair.
You weren’t fair, Daniel. You weren’t even in the small print of the deal they shoved down my throat. Fuck fuck fuck. I should never have. I should never.
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