She Wolf and Cub

by lillith saintcrow

  They still weren’t bringing the shocktroopers out. The security troops — the half-dozen or so who had been out of the headquarters while I was there — didn’t look uneasy. They didn’t have a cordon set up.

  It was a puzzle.

  “You could thank me.” Sam moved just a little, cycling muscles to keep them ready. “Or say you’re happy to see me now.”

  Look at that. I’m well past my tadpole years and implemented to the max, and yet I still feel like rolling my eyes. The swarming died down. Nobody wants to stay near slag any longer than they can help it. What would it be like to live in it? Breathe it in?

  At least the desert was cleaner, somehow. Or maybe it just seemed that way.

  “Jess?”

  “Shut up,” I said, curt and soft. He had never been this chatty before. No wonder he was in facilitating, if he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I was beginning to wish we were in-City again.

  Not really.

  The warmbodies trickled away. I waited. It was a good thing I wasn’t too attached to this spincotton frock — what little of it was left after the past twelve hours would have to go in a furnace. Even chemshower won’t get slag out. At this point I was wearing more mud than fabric. The rain had slacked still further, and thin traceries of steam rose from my skin before the nanos readjusted camouflage mode.

  Just wait. Even though I could talk myself into going back down there and ripping up the floorboards, I stayed put. Enhanced healing — did they feel pain? If they did, sooner or later one of them would break and tell me everything I wanted to know.

  Torture’s unreliable, though. They might just tell you what they think you want to know.

  Often, the quickest way to what you want is just waiting. Even fully implemented agents sometimes fail to grasp that simple fact.

  Respiration slowing. Cycling through my own muscles, so softly, so patiently.

  Where is he? Are they feeding him? Will anyone kiss him goodnight? Listen to him breathing during the day? Is he all right? Little worry-mice running around inside my almost-invulnerable brain. Just because you can pop a subroutine over the autonomics doesn’t mean the feelings go away.

  Yet another thing I wished they would have told me before implementation. It wouldn’t have made any difference, but still.

  Dark smears, oozing free of the shack’s dim bulk. They didn’t move like warmbodies, or like agents. They slid along as if greased, silent as death.

  Only not quite. Three shadows, and an unsound. It didn’t register on intakes, it didn’t lend itself to a profile. It hit behind the ear, in the place where a tickle tells you it’s going to rain, or that a particular rooftop run or corporate war is about to get ugly.

  That’s how you hunt them, then. My autonomics clamped down, and the dark smears blurred up the slag-choked path towards the low punky glow that was Carsona. Moving in standard raid formation, you could see the corpsec training all over them.

  So what do you think they’re going to do?

  I thought about it, and looked at Sam. “They weren’t born like that.” Hushed, conspiratorial, five little audible words.

  He shook his head. The rain had plastered his hair down, darkened it. A wet gleam from his eyes, and a little heat bleeding off both of us now in steam-trails. “No. They weren’t.”

  We weren’t born like this, either. I ran over everything inside my head again. The eastern rim of the world would soon be on fire. A warmbody wouldn’t see dawn approaching, but I did.

  And so would they.

  “You’re a facilitator.” I stretched, a little gingerly, and stood up. Mud splatted free, the skywater more a mist with pretensions than an actual rain at this point.

  “I wasn’t always.” His throat moved as he swallowed, looking over my shoulder at the town’s nacreous glow.

  Are you sure? But maybe he could have meant he wasn’t always implemented. Maybe we’d both been thinking the same thing.

  “You’re going to tell me about them.” My hands loose, my subroutines all even. “Then I’m going to find my kid.”

  “We’re going to find your kid.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? You’re going to dump me somewhere else?”

  “That part,” I told him, “depends on what your fairytale wants with him.”

  * * *

  I stripped off the slag-steaming rags on the way; the chemshower was ancient and rickety but it worked just fine. There was no actual water, but it didn’t matter — slag sometimes burns if you add H2O, no reason to make the nanos repair that too. Especially since I hadn’t had a good solar charge in a few days, and expended serious effort on the shocktroopers.

  Wandering naked through a corporation town at dawn gives you time to think. I checked my internal chrono, wincing at how much time had passed. Staying here was a fool’s game, but leaving meant I wouldn’t be able to watch who came scrambling to the table and deduce who’d taken Geoff.

  Collecting my gear was Sam’s job, and it was there when I got out of the chemshower. For a moment we were in-City again, the facilitator standing guard while the agent cleaned up, the mission moving into another phase or the prearranged break drawing closer.

  There wasn’t a bed in this sorry shack of a room, but at least it wasn’t slagged. Just a pressboard cube atop one of the smaller liveries, smelling of fourpad and a deeper, gassy, warmbody reek as well. The rain would have brought up whatever sewage wasn’t fully desiccated yet.

  I ran my fingers through my damp hair, tugging at tangles. I’d had this sleek bob for years, but I was wondering if I should grow it out a bit to match the majority of warmbody women in the Waste. “Start at the beginning.”

  “CoreTech’s scrambling. Their project’s gone sideways.”

  Again, I didn’t roll my eyes. I decided on a spincotton shift and pair of denims bought for hard credit in New Vega. I did give Sam a single eloquent glance.

  He must have felt it, even though he didn’t turn around. “Or psychotic, your choice. The second-gens have slipped their leash and gone hunting.”

  “Hunting Geoff?”

  “Oh, it’s Geoff now?” He sighed, peering out the window past a sunbleached rag of drapery. “Actually, I don’t think so. I think they’re just thirsty.”

  Thirsty. “My kid’s first-gen?”

  “No, the first gens died off. Something about anaphylactic shock and unfiltered sun-radiation. Your kid’s the zero. A metagenius built him, but a few days after decanting the builder was found with a hole in his head and a suicide note.”

  Interesting. A quick scan of my saddlebags. I wondered if I’d be able to pick up the fourpads again, especially the one who liked to eat my hair. He made an odd gurgle-snort sound when something surprised him, and his loping pace was easier than any other fourpad’s was likely to be.

  That’s the trouble with spending time with warmbody things for any length of time. You can try not to get attached, but it doesn’t work.

  “Who did the metagenius work for?” There were no little pops or pings in the saddlebags. Maybe Sam intended to keep me in visual range.

  Sam let out a soft breath, and there was a whine in a range I knew all too well. “Jess…”

  Uh-oh.

  I suppose it was only fair. After all, I’d rammed a lectricprobe through him, and later torn his head off. To his credit, though, it didn’t hurt. The statpistol, dialed up to max, stunned me for a few precious seconds, but that was enough for him to pop the sticky silico-stretchy numbpatch onto my bare arm. They’re counted and recounted, only signed out with two authorized Control representatives present, doled out grudgingly, and almost never allowed out into the field.

  It didn’t matter where he got it. The point was, I went down hard, everything in me shrieking as the nanos decoded the chemsignal — time to protect the host by shutting down consciousness, the same tingling and flood of warmth as sinking into the restraint tank for upgrades, fighting it, fighting it, no use.

  Blackness. Gon
e.

  Chapter Eight

  Agent Warfare

  Coming up from a numbpatch is always the same. Like dawn, a thin crack of gray at the very edge of the world, the nanos getting the signal to bring you back online. You don’t ever dream in that black bleakness. Still, sometimes, on the razor margin between chem-induced haze and the hurtful clarity of waking, a brief burst of REM gets through.

  * * *

  Sliding across gritty concrete on my knees, the knifeblade dulled so it didn’t flash under the assault of neon, drag against the blade as it parted flesh. Sudden hot reek of gutsplit as I dropped the fucker looking to dust me, a wave of projectile ammo overhead — Sixty Bill’s cadre were cleaning an avenue, and getting me caught in the crossfire was just a bonus. Which was why I’d picked this route across the top edge of the Sixty’s territory, if I went fast enough the flying bullets would stitch a line into the rooftop behind me.

  Unfortunately, a couple runners thought they’d drop me en route and take the cargo. Pounds and pounds of sugar-vox weighing me down, ready to be turned into caprasan when I got to the dropoff. The caprasan would be sold in smidges for hard credit or untraceable bit, getting the corporate drones high as shit and letting them forget for a few minutes the drudgery of being owned.

  On my feet now, skipping sideways, two more runners closing in from my right and the pick-pock-pock of projectiles on my heels, and one of the runners had a shockstick. It sputtered in the gloaming, a bright stuttering-white flash, probably how Sixty’s crew were tracking us all, and I took the only way out — over the side of the building, freefall, tumbling and hoping the heavy-duty spincotton awning was still where it had been a day ago when I scoped the route.

  Hit hard, it gave resiliently, and my weak little warmbody curled around itself and pushed off, kinetic energy transferred, just enough force—

  Hit, hard, breaking glass and blood flying as I rolled, too high on adrenaline and motion to feel the sutures I’d need later. The fat payday at the end of my route had a slice taken off for medical — by the time I made it to the dropoff I’d lost a lot of blood — but it wasn’t bad at all.

  Still, it wasn’t quite enough. It never was.

  The lase-sutures were barely in before I realized what I had to do. They stung, but I turned down the expensive shot of torvane to block the pain and limped home. Had to face up to it: I was getting slow, and by the time I saved up enough, the growing flesh-anchor in my womb would be more expensive to get rid of than even the best runner in the City could afford.

  That night, my heart a clot in my throat and dried blood still crackling in my clothes, I started planning.

  * * *

  Smell of smoke — a campfire, not the carcinogen reek of civilization. I lay very still, scanning through systems, collating. Warmbodies can get hangovers from grain alcohol, agents get the aftermath of numbpatches. I tested fingers and toes, scanned for anything implanted while I was out. Everything the way it should be, organ functions tiptop, nanos buzzing about their business.

  Buffered heartbeat. An unfamiliar rasping. Charring — no, meat cooking. Fat dripping from flesh, spattering in open flames. A tuneless whistle, air pushed out through lips, occasionally following the track of a pop ditty or two popular in-City a few weeks ago.

  The consideration that I could lunge across the fire and damage him swam into view. I considered it, set it aside. Scanning revealed we were far away from anything even approximating a township. The water table had risen even more, and I could barely catch a thrumming of worms in the distance.

  He’d taken me out of Carsona. Great.

  Everything seemed to be functioning properly. I pushed myself up on my elbows. He must have taken the numbpatch off a good half-hour ago. It takes a while for it to flush out of your system when the nanos are groggy.

  How long was I out? Fortunately, numbpatches don’t interfere with chrono. Twelve hours, give or take. The rock here was still crumbling sandy stone, but it exhaled a bit of leftover moisture. The humidity had plummeted, barometric pressure was back to what it had been before the rain swept through, and the furnace glow of a bloody sunset was dying in the west. It wasn’t quite a cave, the ceiling only halfway covering a sandy floor scattered with chunks of fallen rock. Still, the remaining bits of it scanned solid enough.

  The urge to yawn rose up, was ruthlessly repressed. A stupid warmbody reflex, I had all the oxygen I needed.

  Sam crouched on the other side of a small fire, staring at the small skinned animal on a makeshift spit. His hair had bleached itself out under the fierce assault of sun, but his skin had darkened to drag in all the solar it could. Hunched down like that, he looked uncomfortably like Geoff. Males lack the hip width to really be comfortable in that position; they always look like incorrectly folded origami.

  “You’re probably furious,” he said, quietly.

  Gee, how could you guess? I pushed myself up to my feet. The nanos began system-flushing numbing-waste, tuning muscles and organs back into a well-ordered symphony instead of a dozing beast. Stretched my arms out, tested my legs. “Slip anything under my skin?”

  “It’s a facilitator’s job to care for the agent, and to keep the agent from going off the psychological rails.” Chapter and verse. He blinked, thermascanning the meat. “You need calories.”

  I could have had solar if you hadn’t numbed me. Useless. A more thorough scan of the area turned up a few fourpads, tucked around a fold of stone and cropping at spiny succulents. My gear was in a neat pile, and the angle of the shadows gave me a rough idea of where Carsona would be. “See you.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Carsona.”

  “What the fuck for, Jess? I just got you out of there.”

  “Thanks.” I couldn’t have sounded any less grateful if I’d tried. “By the time I get back there the place will be crawling, which is just what I wanted. If you stay out of the way you might even learn something.”

  He was quick. Glanced up at me, bleached eyes narrowed slightly. “What did you do?”

  “Used their uplink to throw a few hack-bombs. Everyone who has an interest in my kid is going to rub elbows and confuse each other.”

  A thoughtful nod, then his chin sank as he worked through the strategy inside his own head. “Except whoever took him. Not your usual delicate touch, Jess.”

  When dealing with idiots, any blunt instrument will do. I swallowed the urge to tell him to go fuck himself, stretched a little more, and headed for my gear. He’d even taken my boots off. Sand gritted underfoot, still warm. Hotter, in fact, than a warmbody would find comfortable.

  “Will you stop? You need calories. Whoever took the kid is long gone. Let’s make sure you don’t join him.”

  “Touching.” Peeling aside canvas and leather flaps, I dug in the bags. At top speed, I could probably make Carsona before dawn. The whole place would probably be alive with dug-in hostiles.

  A whole transport-load of fun just waiting for me.

  Sam’s tone was losing its blandness. He was no longer just reporting the news. “Look, I got you involved in this. I’ll get you out, but you have to stop—”

  The look I gave him shut him up so quickly he probably almost lost a chunk of his self-healing tongue. “You have two choices, Sammy Facilitator. Help, or get gone. Both are dependent upon you getting rid of the idea that you’re in control of anything to do with me or my kid.”

  Maybe he decided discretion would get him further than fucking with me, because he studied the meat over the fire as if it had started twitching again. My weapons seemed fine, the holsters didn’t appear to have any telltales in them. Fully suited, I knocked my boots clean and tugged them on, took a deep breath, and began weighing the advisability of taking a fourpad.

  I could move faster, for longer, without.

  In the middle of that decision, an odd sound fuzzed through my aurals. Long and drawn-out, a high ululating cry a few klicks to the southwest.

  Another answered fr
om due north. I sniffed, cautiously, but the wind was wrong. At the very edge of scanrange, weird shadows made no sense until I realized Sam had brought me to the end of the desert. There were trees in the distance, or something so like them it made no difference.

  The cries rose and fell, a harmony too harsh for warmbody throats. The spikes and valleys separated into unique voices. Whatever they were, they were singing.

  “Do you know what that is?” He pulled the meat off the fire. “Can you guess?”

  Pebbles shifting, sand moving. I tensed, but it wasn’t Sam. I crouched, compressing myself, ready to spring. What the fuck is that? I hear movement, but nothing—

  More long trilling cries, long drawn-out cathedrals of rough melody that tried to raise the fine hairs all over me. Autonomic control tightened, and a picture flashed inside my head. Shaggy shoulders, long snouts, ivory teeth, and expressive eyes ringed with gold, reflecting oddly at night.

  Even in-City, we had dogs. They even howl. But everything outside the walls is stronger. Sharper. Unfiltered.

  More intense.

  “Wolves,” I breathed. I’m actually hearing wolves. Fairytales, myths, and fables were coming out of the walls.

  The stealthy sounds intensified, but I wasn’t ready for it. It resolved out of the leaping shadows at the edge of the firelight, and for a split second I thought it was one of them. A shaggy four-legged shape, bonecracking jaws and padded feet, long swaying fur — all the implementation in the world can’t erase an atavistic thrill when another hunter shows its teeth the first time.

  But it wasn’t a wolf. Dusk swirled away, the hard sharp diamond stars poking through the velvet holding up a strengthening bone-colored moon, and I thought the numbing had come back because all the strength ran out of my arms and legs. For the first time since I’d been dumped out of a restraint vat to try my new, incredibly strong, incredibly resilient limbs, I staggered.