“Stay down,” I roared as I snatched up the stick Ali had been holding, rose, whirled, and hurled it with all my strength. The stick struck one set of whirling knives and was instantly chopped to splinters. I ducked low under the blades, scooped up a handful of mud, and flung that next, striking the center of the rotor with a heavy, wet glop. The weight and force jerked the machine sideways and it wobbled in the air as its gyros fought to correct and balance it.
Behind me there was a sharp cry and a wet sound of impact. I whirled to see Jack land hard on the bank, his shirt turning dark red. Above him on the high rim of the bank, one of the masked men gripped a bloody knife in his big fist.
“You!” said one of them. He tore off his ski mask, and I recognized him as the Bridge Troll from Vee’s office. Goddammit. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
The second man also removed his mask, but he was a stranger. They grinned at me. I think I smiled back. Hard to say, because it wasn’t the right moment for smiles. Maybe that’s not what my mouth did. There was a hard twist of my lips and mouth that sent some kind of message to the big men on the slope. Their smiles dimmed.
Then a roar made me turn just as the drone came at me, blades whirling. I ducked and fell sideways into the water, grabbed a river rock, splashed up and hurled it underhand, grabbed another and hurled it overhand. The stones hit one-two, and the impact knocked the machine back again. I kept the barrage going, grabbing stones and throwing them, hitting each time because I was too close to miss, not daring to let up. And then something shot past me and I turned, expecting a second machine, and realized that Lefty stood knee-deep in the water, his arm extended at the end of his pitch. Ali was behind him, a rock in her hand, ready to throw.
I grinned—a real grin this time—turned, and threw. Lefty threw. So did Ali.
“Shit!” growled the Troll as he jumped down from the slope. The other guy hesitated, glancing off toward the woods, and I had the impression that this fight wasn’t part of their orders. It was a good guess that they were supposed to release the prisoners and then sic the drone on whoever came to claim them, but that something had gone wrong. Maybe the kids panicked. Maybe Uncle Jack tried to be a hero. Whatever it was, the safe release I’d been promised had all turned to shit. The fact that no one had pulled a gun, though, spoke to an attempt at keeping this all as quiet as possible. Sounds carry, even in the woods, and they probably thought I had people out here. I wish. But, any second now, these two morons were going to realize that a loud bullet in my head was a better risk than a situation that was already going south on them.
I flung one more stone, and Lefty threw at the exact moment. I think it was his rock that hit something real damn important on the drone’s undercarriage, because the machine canted abruptly sideways and then clumped down hard on the muddy bank. Kid had a hell of an arm. The force of the rotors tore the blades loose, snapping them and filling the air with razor-sharp splinters. Ali grabbed both kids and dragged them down into the water. One piece opened a bright line of heat across the outside of my right thigh, but I didn’t give much of a fuck. I was moving, slogging through the water as fast as I could to reach Bridge Troll.
He had a knife; I didn’t. I was soaked and hampered by water and mud; he wasn’t. He was on high ground, and I had to come up the bank at him. All the odds were on his side. All I had was the Killer in my soul and the fact that my family was still alive and the knowledge that they still needed me.
Bridge Troll took a long step down the bank toward me and tried to take me across the throat with the blade. I brought my left elbow up, tucked my head into the safety of my shoulder, and used my right arm to hit him in the groin. Hard. Savage hard. He tried to turn his hip, but his weight was committed to the step. I punched so hard that I felt the tissue collapse against his pubic bone. Then I drove my shoulder into him and slammed him against the slope, uncoiling my left arm to wrap around his, locking his elbow joint straight, and then giving my whole body a sharp clockwise turn. The adult male elbow, when locked straight, will break at about eight and a half pounds of pressure per square inch if you apply that force to the very base of the humerus. I’m pretty sure I used a couple of hundred pounds of desperate pressure. The arm broke badly and wet, and when I let him fall I saw a jagged white end of bone sticking out of the lower curve of his biceps. I kicked him in the knee and bent it sideways to do even more damage to that joint. He collapsed into a shrieking, keening ball of nothing in the mud.
And I almost died half a second later, as the second killer dropped down atop me. If he’d landed beside me and cut as he dropped, he’d have had me. But he tried to be Spider-Man and land on me. Dumb-ass.
I fell hard into the mud, but my feet slipped out and it sent me sliding down the bank, spilling him onto his side right next to the troll. I twisted away from a kick to the face and began clawing my way up to him as he tried to find the knife he’d lost in the fall. It was nowhere in sight, and he wasted almost a full second in a futile search.
That’s when he said fuck it and went for the gun he had in a shoulder holster under his unbuttoned shirt. The gun came loose when I was still four feet from him. Suddenly the killer jerked sideways as a big clump of mud and stones clopped him on the side of the face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack on his knees, arm extended at the end of a throw, as Lefty’s had been. He gave me a wild, almost manic grin, and then his eyes rolled up and he fell forward without trying to break his fall.
Jack had given me a second, though. He saved all of our lives in that second, because it drew the attacker’s focus long enough for me to climb on top of him. No knives or guns for either of us now. Just hands and feet, teeth and rage.
Maybe he was a good fighter. Maybe he was tough. I never found out. I tore into him and tore him apart, and ended him right then and there. Then, through the red rage that is the filter through which the Killer sees the world, I heard a small voice say my name.
“Uncle Joe…?”
I turned to see Lefty smile weakly at me. He was on his feet in the thrashing water. He looked at the horrors on the bank. Uncle Jack sprawled unmoving. The Bridge Troll with bones and blood everywhere. The man I’d just killed. Me.
Then Lefty’s eyes rolled up in his head and he pitched forward into the water. Blood turned the water around him to red and all I could hear through the roaring in my ears was the mingled screams of Emily and Ali.
INTERLUDE TWENTY-ONE
THE EDUCATION OF ZEPHYR BAIN
THE FLAMINGO HOTEL
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
WHEN ZEPHYR WAS THIRTY-TWO
There were thirty-seven of them. More than she expected but fewer than she hoped. Exactly the number John predicted. They sat at tables around the room, looking like awkward singles at a failed mixer. Except that instead of frustrated sexual tension the room was heavy with unease, doubt, guilt, a bit of shame, and lots of naked greed. All of which were useful to Zephyr.
There were guards at every door, and this entire floor of the hotel had been booked. Her best people had swept every inch of the place for active or passive bugs. It was clean. With the jammers in place, it was cleaner than clean.
The hotel was not her favorite. It was old, and there was a reason it was favored by Vegas low rollers whose luck had exceeded the sell-by date. Newer, better clubs were more her style, though Zephyr preferred to people-watch rather than gamble. She also liked rigging some of the games using one of the intrusion software systems that one of her employees had designed to mess with the built-in cheat systems many of the casinos used. That employee had made a lot of money on the side, but with Zephyr’s permission. She had since used the software to damage the stock of several casinos, so that she could buy shares during the drop. Something Uncle Hugo had taught her.
Shame he was dead, and that he was believed to be one of the worst traitors in American history. Shame the Seven Kings organization was going down in flames. John had made sure she stood well clear of it as soon as the Departme
nt of Military Sciences began sniffing around. He guided her through a very complex process of erasing all visible ties to anything associated with Hugo, in much the same way he had helped her disconnect from the Red Order and the Jakoby empire. They had all gone down in flames thanks to Mr. Church, Joe Ledger, and the DMS. Now Mother Night was gone, too. Killed by Ledger in Atlanta.
Mother Night was the last of Zephyr’s past connections who could have been used to track her and put her on the DMS radar. John had helped her clean it all up. That process was very expensive. Two billion in change for a coat of whitewash. A few extra million here and there for incidentals. But, to use one of Uncle Hugo’s expressions, she was clean as a Girl Scout in every possible way.
Which made it safe for her to take this next step.
The thirty-seven men and women in the hotel conference room were scientists. Very good ones. Some were exceptional, and one or two were world-class geniuses. As both John and Uncle Hugo had often told her, everyone has a secret. Know that secret and position yourself to exploit it, and you have a lever with which to move that person’s world. For some of these people, it was greed. Greed is nice and tidy. For others it was something in their past. An indiscretion, a theft, a little bit of corporate espionage for pay, or maybe the sale of national secrets for cash. For some it was a hunger. Sexual desire took all sorts of useful forms, from pedophilia to bestiality. Everyone wants to fuck something. Uncle Hugo told her about how his man, Rafael Santoro, turned dials on a top medical examiner who used to anally rape the cadavers sent to him from crime scenes. Zephyr, hardened as she had become, wanted to vomit. Hugo was indifferent to it, except that the doctor had been able to collect all sorts of important tissue samples for him, and also fudge the autopsies on key murder victims.
Leverage.
Zephyr had taken time to go through the files on each of these scientists. She knew exactly where to apply pressure, and that’s why each of them was here.
The ones who weren’t here would hear from her in a completely different way.
As she stepped up to the podium, the room went dead still. Every eye was on her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “thank you for coming.”
There were a few nervous smiles, a few nods. Most of them sat as still as statues, hands clutched into knots or clamped around their drink glasses. She could smell their sweat, their fear, their need.
“You have all had the wonderful opportunity to hear John the Revelator talk about the amazing potential of the technological singularity. About a curated cultural and intellectual evolution. If you are here, then you have expressed interest in seeing this become a reality. In truth, in practice, and in our time.”
Silence. But was there an energetic shift? Was there less fear and anxiety in their eyes? she wondered. A smidge. Maybe a smidge and a half.
“You are all experts in your fields,” she said. “If you paid attention to what John had to say, then you know that certain fields of science are critical to the success of the singularity event, just as they are crucial to the survival of those who make the global cut. If you’re here, then you will make the cut. If you are ready to work with me, your survival, your health, your happiness, and your prosperity are guaranteed.”
There was some restless noise. Not excitement, not yet. But engagement. People shifted in order to see better, to hear everything. A few turned to give one another looks. Of appraisal, perhaps of agreement. To acknowledge one another’s worth and be acknowledged in return.
“I need you all to listen very closely,” said Zephyr, dropping her voice the way Uncle Hugo had taught her. Speaking slower, putting little bits of emphasis on certain words, certain syllables. Inflection, body language, timbre, and pacing were as important as the drama of the pauses that created pulse beats between words. “We are not normal people. None of us. Not one person here has ever been normal. Not in this world. Not in this version of the world. It has always been impossible for us ever to be included in the concept of normalcy. And you know what? That’s good. That’s acceptable. That is, in fact, appropriate. It’s perfect. I will tell you why. It is because we are each extraordinary. Every single person here. Extraordinary. Above average in any way that matters. Above and beyond the norm, because the norm is based on numbers and not on intrinsic worth. There are billions who matter less than the thirty-seven of you. Billions. There are people who are much richer who are not worth your weight in dirt. There are people who are better-looking, better in bed, better at sports, better conversationalists, better at chitchat, better at making friends, better at all the trivialities by which the normal herd judges. There are so many, in fact, that they far outnumber us, which is why the word normal can be applied to them with mathematical and statistical precision. They are normal. We are not.”
More nods. More eyes meeting and agreeing. Even a fist bump in the back.
“The norms—that great mass of unproductive, corrupted, unsuitable people—have no place in the future, because there is no way in which such a place could possibly be earned. They are a species that has been selected for extinction because they are not the fittest. They are not part of the new paradigm of the meritocracy, the technocracy. They are the brute labor from an age when human muscle was the superior model for the production floor, but that time is about to pass. Machines can build the machines that build the machines that make the factories, and machines will build the machines that will be the labor force in the factory. A few, an exceptional few, will be able to run those factories without the need for members of the unenlightened herd. You know this. Some of you have designed those machines or written the software.”
A handful of heads nodded, but Zephyr could see that every software engineer in the room was part of that group. She had spoken like this to a dozen packed houses of computer and robotics people already. That part of the process had been running, and growing, for years.
“As for the rest of you—the virologists and the infectious-disease experts, the molecular biologists, the geneticists—you’re here because in order to guarantee the rise of the new and wonderful world there must be a change in the structure of the world as it is. In order to ensure that a curated evolutionary technological singularity will come to pass, in order to guarantee that the norms, the unwashed and unwanted masses, do not sabotage it, they need to be edited out of the equation.”
Now the room went silent again.
“Evolution is painful. It’s as violent a process as birth. It requires as sure and steady a hand as does any radical surgery that cuts away the gangrenous limb in order to save the rest of the body.” Zephyr paused and looked around, meeting eyes that wanted to fall away but didn’t. Did not. “I offer you a choice. Join with me and let us save the future of our world. Share your vision and your courage with me and prove that you belong, that you are the new normal, because it is only right that the élite should be the dominant species. Share this with me. Be nothing … or be everything.”
She did not know what to expect. She thought some might get up and walk out. Some might wait for the first opportunity to call the police or their handler at DARPA or the CDC or the FBI. She thought some might recoil in fear, in disgust, or in horror.
What she did not expect was applause.
But that is what she got.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
IN THE FOREST
ROBINWOOD, MARYLAND
MONDAY, MAY 1, 6:49 PM
There are a lot of different kinds of hell, and many of them are the hells a person can experience while still alive. Damnation and the horrors of the pit aren’t the exclusive property of either the dead or the damned.
Uncle Jack lay where he had fallen. I’d felt for a pulse, I’d yelled his name, I’d put my ear to his chest, but the good man whom I’d known and loved all my life wasn’t there anymore. I wanted to weep, cry out loud, do something. When someone this important in your life dies a heroic death, you feel an almost primal need to sit vigil with him, to let your whole
body stand as both sentry and monument. You want the entire world to pause and notice the bright light that had been unfairly and cruelly snuffed. To do less, you feel, is to allow that death to be incidental.
The two killers were down. One was dead and the other wasn’t going to go anywhere, not with that arm and leg. Maybe he’d bleed to death, maybe not, and who gave a fuck?
But Lefty…? Oh, God. He still had a pulse. Barely. It was too light, too fast. It fluttered like a trapped bird that was trying to escape and fly away. No. Please, no, I begged Lefty and I begged the world and I begged God. I prayed that there was still someone up there taking calls from the little ants down on this lump of rock. I picked Lefty up and I tried to outrun the angel of death. Ali grabbed Em and followed. We had to leave Uncle Jack behind.
Ali and I ran along the streambed to the apple grove and back to the road and all the way to the farm. Lefty was small, but his slack weight made him heavy. I couldn’t spare breath for yelling, but I yelled anyway. Shouting for Sean, for Rudy. For God to stop doing this to my family. For mercy. For some shred of luck.
Em was terrified and in shock. She wept and called her brother’s name in a weak and lost little voice. Ali had to use what breath she had to try and comfort her daughter while her mind must have been burning itself black wondering if I carried a living child or a corpse.
How Sean heard me from so far away is something I’ll never know, but I saw him come over the rise in the hill, running as if the whole world was burning behind him. The lurid glow painted him in shades of blood and fire. He tried to outrun his fear and run faster than his heart could break.
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