Empyre

by Josh Conviser

“Because, Ryan, I knew Echelon might not succeed. There needed to be a backup plan. If humanity would not bend to my soft manipulation, it would to Krueger's hard will.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I shaped EMPYRE, Ryan. I manipulated Andrew Dillon and the others into forming it. I pushed Krueger into their midst. EMPYRE was a training ground for Krueger—an environment that would show him the power of fear. I always knew he was willing to use terror. With EMPYRE I sharpened that will into something useful.”

  The words crushed Ryan. Tears welled. He couldn't stop himself. For so long, he had missed this man. And now . . . “He took Sarah. Krueger spiked her.” It was all Ryan could think to say.

  Turing's hard eyes softened for an instant. “Ryan, I am sorry.”

  “How did he know? To come after me? To use Sarah as a lever?”

  Turing looked into Ryan's eyes, unable to speak.

  But Laing saw the truth. “You . . . told him,” Ryan said.

  “I did.” Turing let the words settle. “The real me created a set of conditions—Echelon's demise, world turmoil, et cetera—which, if met, triggered an info leak that would lead Krueger to you.”

  “You created a monster.”

  Turing's hard edge returned. “Some would say the same of my fostering you.” He looked away, off into the distant ripple of a desert mirage. “But maybe Krueger is what we need to survive.”

  “The cannibal . . .” The word trailed into silence.

  “People used to speak of humanity hitting a singularity—a point where technology had so changed our lives that we became unable to understand the future in terms of the past. With Echelon gone, we've hit that singularity. Yesterday gives the average man no clue about tomorrow. Nothing to count on. It's all flux. And that shift has led to the violence you see around you. People falling back to old faiths, national allegiances, anything to understand their world. They are terrified, Ryan, and they're ripping humanity apart.”

  “But it will calm. Technological advancement will slow. People will get used to the new reality.”

  Turing laughed. “Have you?”

  Ryan could only look away.

  “No, Ryan. There's no lag time, no pause in progress that will allow humanity to catch its breath. Our rate of acceleration has gone exponential. We have created an extended singularity that will tear us apart. Echelon kept us from this condition. Echelon is dead. I'm dead. It's Krueger's world now.”

  Ryan shook his head. He wanted to hate this, to push it away. But he felt the truth in Turing's words. Maybe he was right.

  “I've given you the choice, Laing.”

  “He has Sarah,” Ryan said, trying to stoke his hatred for Krueger. He couldn't let it slip.

  “You can give Krueger his memory—let him become his true measure. Or you can destroy that information.”

  “He has Sarah!” Ryan broke down.

  Turing seemed unable to fathom Ryan's emotion. “So, take that into account.”

  “I won't let her go. Not her too.”

  “Ryan. The option is yours. Give Krueger his memory, and the chaos will abate. There will be order, even if it comes at the point of a blade. Or, wipe the info and walk away.”

  “I don't want this decision. I didn't want it with Echelon. I don't want it now.”

  “I'm sorry.” Turing stared into Laing's eyes, cold and calculating. Ryan shuddered.

  “Why me?”

  “Because you are alone. I'm not sure you even see how isolated you are. I'm not sure you can.”

  “I have people.”

  “Of course you do. Me. Sarah. Maybe others. But each of us is tied to a worldview. Maybe it's a religion. Maybe it's allegiance to a country. Maybe an ideal. You don't have that. At center, I don't think you have anything. That makes you impartial. That makes you able to change paths. Who better to arbitrate humanity's future?”

  “Bullshit! I followed you like a puppy. Why do all this? Why put me through this? You could have just told me what to do. I would have done it!”

  “No, I don't think you would have. You are Krueger's final test. Is he calculating enough to beat you? And you're his final arbiter. You needed to know exactly what he is capable of to make your decision. You needed to know that he is a carnivore. A cannibal.”

  Ryan pulled from Christopher's gaze. He shook his head. “You're not the man I had thought.”

  “I know that, Ryan. I'm more. And much less.”

  Finally, Ryan turned back. Somehow, he knew that he would never again dream of Christopher Turing. Black loss pushed deep. Turing cared for him only as he cared for a treasured piece on his chessboard. Ryan's own emotions began to wither under such cold calculation.

  “I'm sorry,” Turing said again.

  “I am too. I'm sorry for what I did to you. And I ...I wish I hadn't seen you like this.” He picked up the disk and walked into the desert.

  Turing nodded, calling after him. “To walk your own path, you have to hate me—if only a little. You and Krueger are my two creations. Light and dark. I've taken from you both. Hurt you both. But that wasn't my desire. It was necessity. You owe me nothing, Ryan. The choice is yours.”

  Ryan kept walking. Slowly, the desert succumbed to its digital transience. It wobbled, then bleached to white. Ryan refused to turn.

  Finally, there was nothing left—only white and silence.

  .....

  As he rezzed back to his hospital bed, reality settled slowly. From the white, shapes resolved and found clarity. The hospital room. The tang of chemical cleaner not quite covering sick sweat. Madda sitting before him, shocked.

  And Frank Savakis, looming over Ryan, holding a lazknife to his temple.

  43

  THE MERCY, HOSPITAL AIRSHIP

  Ryan looked up from Frank's arm to eyes that held him with forced indifference. At Ryan's temple, the lazknife flickered, searing skin.

  “We saw everything, Laing,” Savakis said, nodding to the vid screen.

  “Frank—” Madda stammered as he reached for the laz-knife.

  Frank backhanded Madda across the face, sending the smaller man sprawling. His eyes stayed on Laing. “Can't let you leave here, Ryan.”

  “Frank?” Seeing Turing again had pushed Ryan to his limit. He couldn't take this further betrayal. Ryan looked up at a man he'd come to trust and saw only cold determination. One by one, each person connected to him was slipping free. Within each of them was something that would not yield—ideologies, compulsions that wouldn't be held by the bonds of friendship ...or love. With the lazknife buzzing at his temple, Laing knew he'd reached the end of the line with Frank.

  “Dissolving the partnership?” Laing said, his lip curling slightly.

  “This is bigger than us,” Frank replied, his stone gaze unwavering.

  Laing shook his head and looked out the window into the cloudscape beyond. The Mercy's soft sway gave an unreality to the action around him. His head spun. He locked it down, hunting for a plan. Desperate. To end here was unacceptable. But his will wavered. There was no one left. He was on his own.

  “Can't let you out of here with that virus. Can't let Krueger have it,” Frank said.

  “But, Sarah—” Laing managed.

  “Sarah would agree with me. The United States government should have that virus. Turing knew it. He hid it in Langley, for Christ's sake.”

  “And you're better than Krueger?”

  Frank didn't answer that question, his faith resolute. “I would die for my country, Laing. I have killed. And I will kill you if that's what it takes. Give me the disk. Give me the virus.”

  Laing hung his head. On the floor, Madda twitched.

  “There's nowhere to go. Mercy's hovering ten thousand meters in the air. Give me the virus. It will be in good hands. The right hands. And, I promise, we'll find Krueger. We'll get Sarah back.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Your options are running down. You don't want that clicker to hit zero.”

  “You wo
n't kill me,” Laing replied.

  Frank bent down, the soft hum of the lazknife unwavering. “I will.”

  “Et tu,” Ryan whispered.

  A curl of Frank's lip. Then his features locked solid. Ryan saw the resolve and knew it was unshakable. There was nothing more.

  Madda phased back into consciousness. Nausea flooded him. His head felt so heavy, his cheek saliva-stuck to the hospital floor. He tried to clear the daze, to get his body back under control. Limbs responded with reluctance.

  Pushing up, he caught Laing's gaze. Then he saw the lazknife at Ryan's temple and ran it back to Frank's hard-set hand. There was no waver in the man's eyes. No negotiation. In those eyes, Madda saw Sarah's lifeline fraying.

  He got to his feet, still woozy, the start of a world-class headache twitching at the back of his temples. Wrapped in their own war of wills, Frank and Ryan didn't notice his movement.

  The terrifying mystery of Krueger's virus touched Madda's thoughts. What clean-line perfection it must be. Seemed fitting that the flow killer, the hack to end all hacks, would come from a biologist, someone who understood a code far older than the ones and zeroes Madda dealt with. Part of him wanted to see that virus, to study it. The rest of him was too tired to learn one more goddamned thing.

  Dave's reality distilled to simple cause and effect: if Frank got the virus, Sarah would veg into flatline. She would forget him. Somehow, that even-tuality seemed most horrible. The possibility that she would lose him to the void wrenched Madda to action.

  He knew it was ridiculous to throw his life away on a crush. But it was all ridiculous. No point to any of it, as far as he could tell. And she cared for him. Maybe not in the hard-passion, fuck-you-to-bits way she obsessed over Ryan, but there was love. Once, Sarah had tried to save him. Now, he would do the same for her.

  He looked at Frank and Laing, so locked in their Caesarean moment that they didn't notice him. He was tired of being the lackey, the tech-man. For this single instant, he would take center stage.

  He had made so few decisions in the past years. Life had taken him on a ride. No longer. He covered the space between himself and Frank snap-fast, his atrophy lost to adrenaline.

  His hand flew, slapping the knife from Ryan's temple. The three of them watched the weapon arc from Frank's hand and clatter onto the floor where its laz edge sputtered and died. Then all eyes turned to Madda. Ryan looked at him in shock—Frank in burning rage.

  Madda lurched for the knife, scrambling over the tile to retrieve it. He got hold of it and rose to confront Savakis. He flicked the switch and the laz went hot. Madda held it before him, tip pointed at Frank. He moved forward hesitantly, unsure of what to do next.

  “Put the knife down, Dave,” Frank said in cold fury.

  “Just back away,” Madda's voice wavered, “I know how to use this.”

  “No.”

  “I was a fencer!”

  Frank's lip curled at that. His voice fell to a whisper. “Give me the knife.”

  “I won't let you hurt her . . .” Madda realized his slip, “. . . him.”

  “You don't have a choice.”

  The words burned into Madda. He did have a choice, and he made it. Ryan shouted at him to stop, but Madda was beyond listening.

  Dave lunged. At the moment the laz would have found Frank's ribs, the larger man sidestepped, coming chest to chest with Madda. Frank grabbed Madda by the collar and pulled his knee up in a crushing groin shot.

  Dave's air vanished. A sick pain radiated through him as he slumped into Frank's grip. “Probably didn't learn that one on the fencing mat.” Frank threw Madda to the floor and turned back to Laing.

  Crumpled and deep in sweaty pain, Madda heard Frank mocking him. “Hope you didn't expect Madda to be your white knight, Laing.”

  Fury rose in Madda. He had been dismissed for the last time. “No further,” he said to himself as he lurched to his feet and swung the knife in a wide arc. Frank's back was exposed. The knife came down and Madda readied himself for the resistance of flesh and bone.

  It wasn't to be. Frank shifted away from the knife even as he grabbed Madda's hand and forced the weapon to continue its arc.

  Madda's rage turned to shock. He knew it was over.

  The flesh of his stomach ripped wide. Dave's hands fell to his gut, his fingers curling into hot viscera. He tried to hold himself together. Pain lanced him, then faded to exhaustion. Madda couldn't help but sink into it. He dropped to the floor, red spreading over the hospital white.

  Before him, Frank's face had blanched in surprise. He had moved on instinct, only now realizing what he had done. “Son of a . . .” Frank whispered.

  That was before Laing's fist ended the sentence. Laing pulled free of the bed and kicked Frank with vicious abandon. Madda watched in dull comprehension.

  “Ryan,” he sputtered.

  The word pulled Laing from his attack. He turned and hunkered over Madda, holding his lolling head.

  “Dave,” Ryan said in a choking cough.

  “It's...it's okay, Ryan.”

  “No.”

  Over him, Laing seemed to deflate, his rage ebbing to blank loss. “Really. I've been dying for so long. Easing into it. This just caps the process.”

  Ryan shook his head, as if trying to dislodge the image before him.

  “I look that bad, huh?” Madda said with a smile.

  The high-pitched buzz of Laing's monitors, which had been ripped free, pierced the quiet. Sensor patches dangled on Laing's arms.

  “You've got to go. Before the techs show up.”

  “I won't abandon you.”

  Madda smiled again. “You can't save everyone, Laing.” Sleep pushed in on him, soft and urgent. “But you can save her.” Madda choked—gasping for air in staggered breaths. His head fell to the side—Madda couldn't hold the weight. Laing knelt closer, his own forehead touching Madda's.

  “Go...” Madda whispered. “Save her.”

  The pressure of Ryan's head calmed him. His breathing eased. Then stopped. For an instant longer, Madda held on. Life's constants ceased—heartbeat, breath, the pump-rush of blood. There was only silence. In their absence, Madda's flailing thoughts, images from a lifetime, distilled to a single feeling. It subsumed the blur, wiping away his achievements and failures, his fears and friendships. From the mash of emotions that filled his life, there remained only one. Excitement. He was ready to see the other side. Above him, Ryan's image splintered. It went fractal, disintegrating into the flow of information that defined the universe. Madda wanted only to fade into that code.

  44

  THE MERCY, HOSPITAL AIRSHIP

  Sarah's thoughts echoed through Ryan as he kneeled over Frank.

  —Do it, Ryan. He killed Dave. You kill him.

  Wheezing through broken ribs, Frank lay faceup. With one hand, Ryan gripped a handful of the man's shirt, and pulled Savakis's head off the floor. Ryan ground his other palm into Frank's chin, forcing the man's neck back. Weak and disoriented, Frank struggled against the force. Ryan pushed harder.

  —Sarah.

  —In cold blood.

  The desire surged through him. He torqued Frank's neck to max. Just a little more to get the snap—and the end.

  —Do it, Ryan. Murder him.

  —It's not murder ...It's revenge.

  Below him, Frank's eyes watered, rivulets streaming over his temples.

  —He's helpless. He's no threat. Do it.

  Ryan looked to Madda. Dead. The image should have been enough to drive the issue. He wanted this so badly. His fingers touched Frank's lips, slick with saliva. And Laing knew he couldn't do it.

  —I can't.

  A long pause from Sarah. Ryan could almost touch her relief.

  —I know you can't, Ryan. If you could, I wouldn't love you.

  Laing eased the tension, dropping Frank back to the floor. Somewhere in Frank's dazed eyes, Laing saw recognition.

  —You love me, Sarah? Still?

  —You need to
run, Ryan. Now. Get here. Please.

  Ryan got to his feet and stumbled for the door. He felt wiped. The cycling rage and loss slowed his thoughts. And there was still so much left to do.

  —I'm coming.

  Doubt and confusion slipped away as Ryan shifted to flight. He pushed out of the hospital room and into the hall beyond. Med-techs crowded the hall, pushing for Laing's room. Ryan knocked through them. Then, rising around him, the emergency siren sounded.

  Laing bolted into the central hall. Curved, transparent panels revealed the cloud cover over which the Mercy floated. Med-techs mingled in the massive space. Laing slowed down, tried to blend, but his in-patient garb gave him away. People turned and stared, then got out of the way as security blasted into the hall behind him.

  Except for the med-techs, the Mercy was all mechy. No pilots, no staff, no mercs. Everything was taken care of by bots. This allowed the massive ship to deal with the worst outbreaks across the globe with minimal risk of infection spread. It was the perfect hot zone responder.

  The security bots—called raptors—were top-of-the-line, cream of the DOD's crop. They ran upright on flexing carbon bands. Their trunks housed the power supply. Arms held weaponry, both lethal and non. Stacked over the trunk was the sensor package. The raptors caught full-spectrum radiation. They saw in the dark and could lock on a heat signature and track it to the ends of the earth.

  Laing abandoned any attempt to blend in for raw speed. He burst through the hall, the raptors closing on him, cutting off his means of egress one by one. Brutally efficient, they ran military-grade pursuit protocols. Outthinking them was going to be a bitch.

  So Laing went random. The raptors knew the ship too well for Ryan to hide. His best chance was to pull the unexpected. Instead of evading, Laing turned fast and ran straight at the raptors. They stopped cold, their pack-hunt programming not having this reaction on roster. They quickly shifted to action, but their moment of indecision was enough.

  Laing crashed into the raptor before him, smashing it into the two behind it. He lashed a side kick out wide, aiming at the raptor's weak point—the rad sensor in the head zone. His heel found its mark, cracking the plexi sphere. The raptor bounced away, sightless.