Decimation Island

by Damien Boyes

  Good thing he’s unconscious, ’cause I have to grab him up under the arms and drag him, smearing a trail of blood behind us. I only get about ten meters before the air starts to quiver as the heavy drones arrive and drop three blue-and-white lawbots into the street. They hit with cushioned thuds, then rise, check their bearings, and launch forward on their powerful legs, shoulder lights flashing, headed for the building. They leap over the security gate, weapons out, and when met by shots, they return fire.

  A fourth bot drops behind us, unfazed by the back-and-forth shooting. “This area is not safe,” it says in a cool voice. “Please evacuate.”

  “He’s been shot,” I say, glancing down at the injured man. “He needs an EMT.”

  “First responders have been notified,” the bot responds. Then it bends and gathers the wounded man in its arms. “I will take him to safety. Please follow me.”

  The bot takes off, running smoothly while cradling the man in its arms. The ambulance is approaching from a side street. Red and white lights blink from the intersection just south.

  I turn to follow the bot but whip around at the sound of a big six-wheeled cargo truck crashing through the security fence and out of the parking lot with a lawbot pinned to the front grill. The truck skids out onto the road and revs silently up to full speed. The bot can’t hold on and falls under the truck’s wheels as the big vehicle swerves around abandoned cars, heading north toward the highway.

  One of the reszos must be driving, and another hangs from the handles on the rear doors, with a great big smile on her face like she’s enjoying herself. But Connie said there were three of them. Where’s the third?

  There’s only one lawbot left moving, and it’s in bad shape. It limps over the downed fence, still firing, but can’t keep up as it drags a ruined leg behind it, and that’s when the third reszo appears.

  He’s in the air, having leapt off something on the other side of the fence, and now he’s twisting to fire down at the lawbot with machine pistols in each hand as he passes overhead. Streams of bullets shred the bot’s armor and it collapses. The reszo tucks and rolls on the concrete and comes up running, vaults over an abandoned car, and sprints flat out until he catches up with the speeding truck. Then he effortlessly springs up onto the roof, spins, around and looks back at the wreckage.

  He notices me watching as they pull away, and he flips me a lazy salute as they wheel around the corner and out of sight.

  GAGE, FINSBURY

  21:58:52 // 3-JUL-2059

  My jaw hurts. I’ve been sitting grinding my teeth in frustration as the crime scene slowly evolved into an investigation. It feels like all I do lately is spend hours waiting around to talk to the cops after something goes to shit while I’m next door. I used to be part of this, and I was good at it, but now my head’s so messed up I can barely exist out in the world.

  At least tonight, after I give the constable my statement, instead of sweating my ass off on the curb she lets me chill in the back of the cruiser with the AC on until the detectives arrive. No one’s exactly sure what the attack was about, but they’re assuming it was a robbery. I checked in with Connie while I was waiting, and she told me the building is owned by CycloCode, a niche nanochip encoding company who does specialized work for a bunch of different customers all over the world. Nanochips are microscopic, usually smaller than a speck of dust, and are used in sensor swarms and security implants and consumer goods packaging and hundreds of other everyday things. They aren’t valuable, and as far as I can tell, hardly worth the effort to fence. The truck they stole was probably worth more than the barrels of chips it contained.

  The facility is mostly automated and no one inside was hurt, but the security bots were all blown to pieces. The robbers were systematic and took them all out, even ones they didn’t need to. From a robbery standpoint, it doesn’t make much sense. Seems more like they were in it for the kicks.

  I heard the guy who was shot will survive though. He’s in surgery now but is expected to pull through. The paramedics said I probably saved his life, though I’m not sure he’ll ever feel safe going for take-out again.

  It’s infuriating. This kind of thing is happening too much. In gaining immortality, reszos have lost their sense of consequences, of right and wrong. The woman on the back of the truck was smiling, and the guy waved at me on his way out. Like it was all a game. If this is the way the world is heading, maybe I shouldn’t be trying so hard to get back out here. I can find a nice virt to ride out the final years of civilization while the world kills itself.

  Ugh. I’m being dramatic, feeling sorry for myself. I was here, and a man is alive because of it. That’s something at least. I’ll have to take what I can get.

  I’ve been expecting a detective from the Psychorithm Crime Unit to arrive at any time but they’re taking forever. Reszos were involved in the heist, but it doesn’t seem like a Standards issue, so I expect the PCU will catch the case.

  Usually that means Detective Karin Yellowbird, though it could be anyone. I’ve been out of the loop long enough I don’t even know who’s working there anymore. Still, I hope it’s Yellowbird. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks, not since that thing with Winter.

  The detective arrives a few minutes later, and I’m shocked when, instead of Yellowbird, my old boss, Inspector Chaddah herself, arrives. She’s wearing a loose-fitting light purple suit, with her dark hair tucked under a darker purple-and-gold hijab. The constables snap to attention as she approaches for an update, but she must be already up to speed because her thick eyebrows remain impassive and the conversation doesn’t last long. Then she comes to see me.

  I get out of the cruiser and meet her and the air wraps around me like a hot, wet fist.

  She looks at me and her lips set in a thin purple line. “You have a startling tendency of appearing at my crime scenes,” she says, but continues before I can say anything. “You’ve been keeping well, Finsbury?”

  “Can’t complain, Inspector,” I answer. I don’t know what it is about her, but I always feel like I’m talking to a disappointed step-parent.

  “Glad to hear it,” she says, then the pleasantries are over. It’s all business now. She glances over her shoulder at the CycloCode building. Constables are still milling about, keeping the bystanders outside the line of showtape while the forensic techs and their drones are sniffing for evidence. “How’d you come to be involved in the incident here?”

  “I was across the street having dinner,” I tell her. “Then the shooting started and I came to see what was going on.”

  “You simply happened to be in the area?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t plan on getting in the middle of a robbery, if that’s what you mean.”

  The corner of her mouth twitches. “You heard shooting, and your first instinct was to run toward it?” she says. The cool detachment in her voice has eased.

  “It wasn’t my first instinct,” I confess.

  Her lips spread into a faint smile. “I understand you saved a man’s life.”

  “Just slowed the bleeding. The paramedics did the hard work while I stood around and let the bad guys get away.”

  For just a moment her eyes narrow, then she says, “His name is Wallace Adi, he is a husband and father of two. You risked your life for his, and for that you have my personal thanks. I’m sure his family shares my sentiment.”

  There’s a moment of quiet between us. We have history, Chaddah and I, and she knows more of it than I do.

  I still don’t remember everything about when I was Deacon, but there was a time that Inspector Chaddah and I had a decent relationship. She tried to help, and Deacon threw it back in her face.

  I know I’ve lost her trust, and I don’t blame her, but even though I was kicked off the force, I’ve never stopped feeling like a cop. Maybe that’s why I’m having such a problem returning to the world: I used to help people, used to have a purpose, but what good am I to anyone now?

  Though after helping Agent Wiser
hunt down that psycho Winter, and now tonight, maybe there’s a chance for me to regain some of what I lost.

  “An idea what all this was about?” I ask, hoping Chaddah won’t immediately shut me down.

  She seems to be wondering the same thing, because she considers a moment before saying, “The skyns were unregistered, black market, and well Past-Standard. Any hope of identifying the occupants is slim, and their motives are unknown.”

  “What about the nanochips they stole? They’re not valuable, why would anyone go to the trouble?”

  She shakes her head. “We have to assume the chips had some value other than monetary; otherwise, why risk their skyns?”

  “I don’t know how much risk there was,” I say, remembering how easily they took out the lawbots. “They were in and out like they’d done it a thousand times. The bots hardly slowed them down.”

  The frown returns to Chaddah’s face. “Indeed,” she says, noncommittal. There’s something she’s not telling me.

  “There’s more to this than souped-up skyns stealing tech, isn’t there?”

  Chaddah reaches up and smooths her eyebrows, then says, “You have connections on the street.” It isn’t a question. “Have you heard anything about a new shyft? They’re calling it Killr.”

  “No,” I say. “But I can ask around. What’s this one do?”

  “We’re still not one hundred percent certain, but it seems to impart weapons knowledge and enhanced combat abilities, enhances neural response times. Effectively turns anyone who uses it into a lethal weapon.”

  “Jesus …” I was generous thinking civilization still had a few years left, looks like we’ll all be dead way sooner than that. “So now any asshole in a rented skyn can take out an entire TAC Team?”

  “So it would seem.” Chaddah’s eyebrows press together. “My understanding, however, is that the shyft’s targeting algorithms select against noncombatant casualties. Perhaps Mr. Adi was more than an innocent bystander.”

  “Or maybe it mistook his umbrella for a gun.”

  Chaddah only sighs. Shit her job sucks, yet I still wish I was back here with her.

  “Do you have a source?” I ask after a second. “The shyfts have to be coming from somewhere.”

  “We don’t.”

  “Does Standards? They must be all over this. What’s Agent Wiser have to say?”

  She makes a frustrated noise in her throat. “Nothing. So far.”

  There’s a shyft in the wild that turns reszos into murder bots, and neither the cops or the feds know anything about it. Great. As if things weren’t bad enough.

  “So how can I help?” I ask.

  Chaddah turns her head away, scans the crime scene again as if confirming that everyone’s still where they’re supposed to be, then takes a heavy breath and looks me dead in the eyes.

  “The Service appreciates everything you’ve done since your last restoration, Finsbury,” Chaddah says. “I appreciate it. Terminating that superintelligence, aiding in the apprehension of a serial killer, and now with your efforts tonight, I see you possess the desire to do good, and certainly the propensity or bad luck for finding yourself with occasion to act on it.” She pauses, staring me down. “But you went bad once. I’m still not convinced you won’t follow that path again.”

  She’s right to be worried. It could happen, easier than she thinks. She doesn’t know the truth about Deacon, at least I don’t think she does, but I’m only standing here because of a convenient alibi. If she knew the truth, that it was Deacon and not a superintelligence who was responsible for all those terrible things—the mindjackings, the weapons charges, the lost time—she’d have my head in a stock and throw away the hash key. Crimes committed by a previous restoration aren’t wiped out just because that version dies. I’m still me, and whether I like it or not, so was Deacon, which makes me responsible. Doesn’t matter if I was there or not.

  Tell her about Deacon.

  The words leap to my tongue but I bite down on them before they can escape. I’ve thought about it, long and hard. It eats at me. I know I should confess, tell her everything that happened. Deacon’s dangerous, I’ve seen it. I can feel it. Every second I’m out here I put people in danger.

  Do the right thing. Tell Chaddah now before something else terrible happens. Come clean, and if they have to wipe your Cortex to get rid of him, then fine, you’ve been dead before. It’s not so bad, it’s not anything—

  “It won’t,” I say. “I’m not him.”

  Coward.

  Chaddah smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m afraid that’s not good enough,” she says, then pauses, and suddenly this is an interrogation. The change is subtle, but I’ve run enough of them to sense it. Maybe she does know something after all. “I know you,” she says. “Even if you’re not the you I knew. He came to me angry, conflicted, and when it mattered he made the wrong decisions. Every time. He made the selfish decisions, until one of them got him killed. And then you came along.”

  My stomach clenches up and wants to argue, but I can’t. She’s right.

  “I can’t tell you what happened, I wasn’t around then, but the man you knew became a person I don’t understand. Whoever that other version of me was, I’m nothing like him.”

  At least that’s what I keep telling myself. It’s the only reason I haven’t turned myself in.

  “I’ve been watching you, Finsbury,” she says. “I keep your case file on instant access. How you managed to best a superintelligence is a thing of wonder. The details are almost unbelievable. If the story wasn’t so neat, so highly plausible based on the overwhelming physical and digital evidence, I’d find it difficult to believe.”

  I don’t say anything. There’s no point in arguing a question she hasn’t asked.

  “As I say, I’d like to believe you, Finsbury, but I’ve been over and over your file, and there’s one thing doesn’t sit well with me.”

  And there it is. I fight to keep my expression neutral. She’s got a bomb to throw, and she’s just lit the fuse. Maybe I won’t need to confess after all.

  “What’s that?” I ask, playing along.

  She pauses for effect, then studies my face as she says, “Doralai Wii.”

  Dora. I get a flash of her standing in my doorway, sweating, and then she’s in my arms—but it’s not me, not my memory.

  I push the image from Deacon’s life away, try to keep it from reaching my expression. Of all the people Deacon hurt, Dora got it the worst. First she and Deacon had an affair, then he hijacked her entire life to get to me, wore her body and assumed her identity for months while scheming to get back into my head. I’ve made amends with everyone else, everyone who’d let me anyway, but I still haven’t heard from Dora. As far as I know no one has. Of everything Deacon did, what he did to Dora is my single biggest regret.

  “Do you have something to tell me, Finsbury?” Chaddah asks.

  I must not have hidden my reaction as well as I’d hoped. She could even be running an interrogation shyft, analyzing my micro-expressions.

  “I’m just—have you talked to her?” I ask.

  “I haven’t,” Chaddah replies, eyes fixed on mine. “And I’ve made considerable effort. She gave a brief statement after her mind was returned to her, but disappeared before she could be properly questioned, and now she’s gone off-grid. Even SECNet can’t locate her. Which leads me to ask, Mr. Gage, do you know where Doralai Wii is?”

  Does she think I had something to do with her disappearing?

  “No,” I say, which is the one truth among all the lies. “I know she and the other version of me were involved and she was mindjacked because of it, and it makes me sick to think of what she went through. I’ve tried to reach out to her, but … I get why she wouldn’t want to talk to me. If I was her I wouldn’t want to talk to me either.”

  Chaddah’s nostrils flare, and I’m not sure which way this is going, but then she takes a breath, purses her lips, and says, “Okay, Finsbury. I’m go
ing to choose to believe you.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” I say, feeling like absolute shit for how I’m abusing her trust. “And I’ll ask around about that shyft. Someone has to know something.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she says, and turns to leave, but hesitates, catching my eye one last time. “Just so we’re clear. I’m still watching you.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Ma’am,” I say.

  She nods. “Be good, Fin,” she says, adjusts her scarf, and strides away across the pavement.

  AniK@

  00:43:33 // 92 Players Remain

  You end up leaving the Sand Hawk pretty well geared. You keep lucyFurr’s Trident and the fourteen rounds she had left and give LinkerJayyyy—your new squaddie—the automatic shotgun. Then, after you’ve spent twenty minutes weaving through the jungle ahead of him and he hasn’t tried to shoot you in the back, you give him the ammo for it.

  There are downsides to teaming, the most obvious being you can’t trust anyone out here, but there are other little balancing penalties too. Like if you’re grouped you can’t use heals on yourself—if you get shot, someone else in your squad has to administer the medpatch, and if your partner is pinned down or too far away, you could bleed out with the meds still in your pack—and safe-time is pooled and shared out automatically, so there’s no hoarding, but still everyone knows you’re better off running as a group than alone. Having someone to watch your back can be a literal lifesaver, and the safe-time clock runs out slower when you’re teamed. Plenty of games end with geared-up four-man squads hunting each other through the red while relying on their safe-time to keep the bots at bay.