Not possible. Not like this.
The barrio's edge flashed by. Her thighs and stomach hit the railing hard. She tried for a grip, but momentum ripped her fingers from the girder and she fell free.
There was only space—open and silent.
It was over.
Laing zeroed in on his target over the burn of his forearms on the support beam. Sarah's flail stuttered for an instant. She had caught on something before ripping free and hitting free fall.
It'll be enough. Has to be enough.
Still sliding down the pole, Laing pushed out with his arms, extending into space while wrapping his legs tighter around his only connection to solid matter. He reached wide, locking on Sarah's flailing hand, focusing down until it was his whole world. Getting to that hand filled his entire existence.
Arching his back with a violent whip, he breached the space between them. Hand slapped hand. He gripped down, connection sliding from palm to fingers, to tips. He refused to release, clenching with everything in him.
Sarah's added weight slammed him into the pole. It also accelerated their descent. No way he could stop them, not with just his legs.
Pressure. Sharp and deep on his thigh. The pole had drawn closer to the main structure, the gap Ving in as they neared its epoxy seal with the level below. Laing gritted down, gripped tighter.
The abrupt halt slammed him into the barrio's metal-webbed exterior. The impact exploded through him; he could feel his back popping, his knee hyperextending. Then, silence—dead calm. Only the hulking gasps of breath pushing through clamped teeth.
Upside down, Laing's right boot had wedged between the pole and its epoxy seal. His left leg hung free. He dropped his head, looking down past his hand to Sarah. She hung below him, slack, head lolling. Laing threw his left arm down to meet his right, sharing the load of her weight. His foot sank deeper into the groove, locking down.
“Sarah!” He pushed the word out, trying not to look past her into the gaping maw below them.
“Sarah! Please . . .” He closed his eyes, muscles straining. He couldn't hold much longer.
Vertigo spun his perception. The structure continued to sway, wobbling out, adding to his burden, then crashing back to vertical. As he looked up, he gripped, even as his fingers began to straighten. He couldn't stop their slow release.
Sarah's reprieve would be short-lived.
Then—a clench on his numbing fingers. Sarah lurched, shaking free of oblivion. Her eyes snapped open. Taking in the dark space below her, she jerked reflexively, trying for safety, finding none and beginning to panic.
“Sarah! Don't move. I can't hold you!”
Through her daze, Sarah looked up. She caught Laing's eyes as her world resolved.
“Ryan?” A hoarse whisper sliced the space between them.
“I need your other hand, Sarah.”
She gazed up at him in dull confusion.
“Now, Sarah!” he grunted.
She raised her hand, found his and locked in.
Laing breathed straight relief. “That's good, Sarah. That's good.”
She gazed up at him, her features triggering an emotional release in him, if only for an instant. Pain, stress, and fear—gone. Her face entranced him, held him prisoner.
“It's going to be okay,” he whispered.
For a moment, he really believed it. Maybe she did too. Then her face locked into another expression he knew all too well—one that had no place for him.
“No,” she said. “Let me go.”
The skin over her cheeks pulsed psychedelic color. Through drone-jacked perception, Laing watched in horror. She began to struggle in his grasp.
“Sarah?!”
“Let me go, Ryan. Before it's too late.”
She lashed out with greater ferocity.
“I won't,” he growled through clenched teeth.
Then something in him lurched. His heart fluttered high and tight in his chest. His skin. It went to paper, ripping at the wrist, spilling blood down his hands and compromising his grip. He looked down in shock.
Sarah saw. Her tears tracked through the grime on her cheeks. He had spent too long being invulnerable. He couldn't fathom the shift.
“It's me, Ryan.”
The words cut into him. Only then did he realize what was happening. The retrovirus surged through him. Energy drained from his fingers as the drones went after the pathogen rocking his system.
“I don't understand,” Ryan gurgled, gray blood spilling from his lips, drenching Sarah.
“They used me. I'm sorry. Sorry for everything.”
He gazed down through a haze of red, unable to focus anymore. He had nothing left. The structure arced out with the buffeting wind. The pressure on his hands maxed. Blood-greased, his grip on Sarah slipped. They began to arc back into the wall.
She rezzed clear for an instant. Her eyes sparked fear. Not for herself. For him. She was not looking at him, but straight ahead—into the barrio. Grim determination set her lips.
She wriggled free of his grasp.
The yell caught in his throat. He saw her flail, smack against the scaffolding, spin on an exposed piece of rebar and smash into a gangplank. Sarah disappeared from sight as the structure snapped back to straight vertical, groaning and creaking with the effort.
Laing let it all go. Black tears fell into the gap. No one could live through that kind of impact. Sarah was gone. For a moment, the world stood still. He hung in space, utterly alone.
“Ryan.” The voice broke through his fever-churned grief.
Standing on the gangway just below him was a whip-thin man with dark hair and sharp blue eyes. Laing's focus slid over the man, who leaned on the railing in a feline melt.
“Who . . .” Ryan couldn't finish.
Inside his boot, the skin on his ankle ripped. Blood trickled down his leg, loosening the wedge. Laing groped for purchase and found none. His foot popped from the boot and he slipped free.
Before the fall could even begin, the man reached out, grabbed Laing's dangling arm and whipped Ryan over his back in a smooth arc. Laing landed on the gangway with barely a thump, so smooth was the man's action.
Laing wheezed, trying to find his bearings. His vision swam. The stranger loomed above, expressionless.
“Who are you?” Ryan forced out in a wheeze. His lungs felt brittle. They crackled with every breath. No air. He couldn't find enough air.
The man stooped down, hunkering over Ryan.
“I wondered if you had anything beyond the drones in you.” His words ran crisp, each syllable enunciated with cold precision.
Ryan rolled away from the man, lurching up to one knee.
The man chuckled. “I wondered if you would put up a fight.”
Laing coughed blood. Within, he sensed the drones working, fighting the pathogen. Dully, he realized that something powerful enough to do this much damage would have to be coded to his genome specifically.
“But it looks like you're done, friend. Without the drones, you're just a man—and a weak one at that.”
The man pulled a syringe from his jacket and loomed over Laing.
“Who—” Ryan sputtered.
“I am Zachary Taylor,” the man said with slow deliberation, as if trying to convince himself.
Then he plunged the needle down.
Ryan reeled in the pathogen's grip. The drones, battling the virus, had pulled from his consciousness, throwing Ryan's awareness into free fall. Without drone enhancement, his perception fuzzed. Laing skidded over delirium, trying to focus. The man before him: he was a threat. Through his crash, Laing couldn't come up with more.
He sensed the man's proximity and raised bloodshot eyes to see the syringe coming down. Seeing the aggression in those eyes, Ryan some-how found his will. He arched up, catching the syringe just before it pierced his shoulder. The man's eyes widened for a single instant—then settled back to impassivity.
Instead of attempting to force the syringe down, he whipped ri
ght, spinning free of Laing's grip in a fluid twist. He came at Ryan again, this time in a low, arcing slice to the sternum. Ryan shifted, blocking with his arm behind the bulk of his body. He grabbed for the syringe, but snagged only air.
Laing panted, still on his knees. The man was too fast. A thin smile spread over his face like a fungus. Then he struck.
Feinting left, the man threw Laing off balance and left him totally exposed. He punched forward in a straight shot to Laing's chest, syringe ready to fire. Laing bowed his head. Finished.
The flash-bang of gunfire lit the night. Laing's attacker was launched backward, his shoulder a pulp of blood and chewed flesh. The man's face registered pure surprise.
“Don't. Fuckin'. Move.” Frank Savakis stepped from the shadows behind Ryan, moving for a clean shot at the attacker.
Laing registered the change in his circumstances through a gauze of pain.
“You look like shit,” Frank said to Ryan, the mask fuzzing his words.
“Good timing,” Laing replied.
Before Ryan could center himself, the structure lurched. Laing toppled. Behind him, the attacker staggered as well, crashing into the railing.
Frank surged past Ryan, locked on the stranger. “Hold right there!”
The man's surprise melted into an easy grin. He threw out his good arm and flipped over the railing's edge. Frank fired, then approached the edge, gazing out over the barrel of his gun.
The man was gone.
20
MANUFACTURING DISTRICT, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
They hunkered down on the lowest level of the structure. Frank had supported Laing all the way down, a royal bitch. Above them, the groan-crack of structural plastic shearing grew thunderous. They had seen no trace of the attacker who had nearly taken Laing's life.
Frank pulled his com-link up. “Flip, I want you to apprehend—repeat, apprehend—anyone attempting to flee.”
“Not a hell of a lot of action on that front. No one coming out. The virus burns fast.”
Frank looked over at Laing. “I'm coming out. With a survivor.”
A long pause over the trans. “I have orders to terminate anyone infected.”
Laing lay before him, blistered and panting. “He's not infected. Can't explain it. Just get a detox unit ready.”
Another long pause. “Yes, sir. Unit ready for two. I'd suggest you move it. Barrio's losing structural integrity.”
“No shit.”
Frank dropped the link and huddled over Laing. The building swayed around them. “Laing, you hear me?”
Laing lifted his head, groggy and far off.
“You need to pull out of this ASAP. Can the drones kill this thing?”
Laing's head wobbled. Frank couldn't tell if it was in the affirmative. He pulled Laing close, the man's breath fogging his face plate. “I got no time here. This fucker's coming down, Laing. I pull you out looking like this, and we'll be mowed down. The feds won't risk transmission.”
A low whine hummed over Frank's words, building to a high-pitched wail. Then another pop. The building lurched, torquing around them.
Frank played his last card. He didn't want to see Laing die. “Didn't see Sarah on the descent.”
“She's dead,” Laing croaked. “Has to be.”
“The fuck you know? We should have seen her body—and she's got some serious augments.”
Laing shook his head, eyes closed.
Frank pulled Laing close, locking eyes with him. “She might have gotten out.”
The words finally registered, air to a drowning man. Ryan's eyes snapped to alert. With slow determination, he got to his feet.
War raged in him. Laing's body cried for surrender, while the drones fought to correct the destruction wrought by the pathogen. Cell by cell, the virus drilled down. He wanted to sleep—to melt away. Let the battle go and just fucking die. Didn't matter. None of it mattered.
Frank's words broke through the fever and found purchase.
“Alive?” he said in a mucus-thick croak.
“That's right. No sign of her or the attacker. So either he grabbed her, or she made it out under her own power.”
Laing shook his head. He'd seen her fall.
“You that sure?”
Ryan looked up. Could he do that? Let it go? Die without really knowing?
With effort, he straightened up. With each breath his mind hardened, his will honed to a knife edge. He pushed the drones, forcing a cosmetic reconstruction. The war still raged within, but the outer shell would look clean enough.
Frank watched the transformation with a mixture of awe and horror. The blisters burst gray, then receded into pink flesh. The eyes swam, then turned clear. The pallor flushed out.
Above them, the wail grew deafening. The building torqued to fracture. This was it. Laing stood to his full height.
“Good enough,” Frank said. He threw Laing's arm over his shoulder and muscled though the detritus raining down on them.
They ran, bursting free of the barrio and out into open air. Behind them, the structure warped and began a slow crumple. Stanchions bowed and compression popped, sending man-sized splinters hurtling down. Frank didn't bother to dodge, leaving their path to fate.
In a final expulsion of energy, the barrio slammed down. A great plume of dust rose with the resounding impact.
Frank and Laing reached the front line of feds as the cloud hit them.
“Hold your fire!” Flip yelled.
Frank and Laing crashed through the troops, who were watching the implosion in awe.
Frank grabbed Flip by the collar. “Lob the hot shot!”
“But—”
“Just do it!”
Flip punched at his arm console and behind them a small mortar round launched high. It landed in the center of the destruction and ignited white hot. In that flash instant, the barrio's remnants melted. The ball of flame overtook even the expanding dust cloud. It halted just meters from the feds, then receded on itself.
Frank felt the air pulled from his lungs and gasped for oxygen. The hot shot used it all. In another instant, the flame was gone. Air flushed into the void. He could breathe.
Frank got a single look at the smoldering wreck before he and Laing were thrown into the glare-white detox chamber. His ears popped as the seal locked. Steam-heated bioagents flooded the chamber. Frank pulled his suit off and flopped to the ground.
He felt the corrosive agents burn into him and breathed deeply. Ryan's shoulder brushed his own.
“Thank you,” Laing said.
Sarah slouched into the microbus's passenger seat, unable to look the driver in the eye. She flicked the atmo controls to recirculate internal air. Hopefully that would contain the pathogen, but there was no helping her companion. His fate was sealed. She locked her guilt, her anguish, down and concentrated on the road ahead. As she stared out, her crazed escape from the barrio blurred with the passing scenery.
Images of the fall cycled through her thoughts. Pulling free of Ryan's grip—the flashing panic in his eyes as she fell. Crashing hard into the barrio. Only the searing pain of her already-broken ribs had kept her conscious. She remembered scrambling to her feet, knowing she had to get as far from Ryan as possible.
Pitching down the barrio's latticework of stairways, she reached the bolt-hole that Black had told her about, a long-forgotten entrance to the sewer system that snaked under the port.
It was just high enough for her to squat, and she rolled up her jeans and hunch-walked a thousand meters in that tube, its stink and slopping rot suffusing her. She had vomited everything in her stomach, down to yellow bile, by the time she pushed up a manhole cover and emerged into the night.
Once out, she melted into the shadows of the nearest alley. Using water from a puddle, Sarah washed off as much of the sewage as possible. The reek faded to manageable. Squatting over the puddle, Sarah checked her murky reflection. She dropped the camouflage and returned to her normal coloring, holding pigment over her bare che
st to make it appear that she was wearing a skintight tee.
After her makeshift ablutions, she wandered through the dead streets, stewing in dull shock. She hit Canton Street. At the far end, prostitutes swarmed the slow-moving cars. Sarah turned away—afraid of further contamination.
Then the Bento microbus had pulled up, the driver's eyes roaming her body with nervous interest. In that moment, she had wanted to run, to save this man from the killer within her. But he might be her only means of escape. Did she have the right to decide his fate? Her pause, the quizzical look in her eye, the swath of dark just covering her breasts—it had entranced the man. He dropped his window and it was over.
Now the Bento cruised, deadlocked on the speed limit. A boxy chunk of plastic and steel with a shit-poor hydro-cell motor, the Bento microbus had become the transportation of choice for two very different sets of clientele. Suburbanites loved them for the interior space that shift-molded to the varying needs of a family: from a flow-jack for homework, to compartments for the kids' netball gear, to a cordoned-off, ventilated space for the family dog. Bentos blanketed the burbs, a must-have in any gated hood.
The other group favoring Bentos were hackers. In the back of a Bento, a hacker could chill, have a burrito, and slam through a little coding—all while tooling down the road.
This man is no hacker, Sarah thought. Better that way. While the flow-port would be flashier in a data rat's Bento, a soccer mom's car was less likely to be tagged.
“Like your bus,” Sarah said.
“Uh—yeah. I have a Harley—a real rocket. Just thought this would be better for . . .” The man stalled out.
“A quick fuck?” Sarah finished, her vitriol evident. She needed to hate this man—to not care that her escape meant his death.
The man's jaws slapped shut, his cheeks going red.
“You single?” Sarah asked, hoping against hope.
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