Scratch Monkey

by Charles Stross

  I start walking because it looks like I came down two kilometres off base and I've got to get there, avoiding patrols, before my reception party bugs out and goes to ground again. Maintaining signal silence all the way, in case the Stasi are listening. So I start walking along the rubble-strewn road, listening to the distant rumble of engines in the night, occasionally glancing up at the searchlights that pencil the clouds with a yellow glare. My boots clatter no matter how carefully I walk, and they pinch my toes – they're stitched animal-hide and wooden soles, laced halfway to my knees. Everything I wear is black, drab as the culture that made them; greatcoat, dress, hood. It's one of those neoprimitive colonies founded by lunatics with weird ideas, atavism trapped in an ideological feedback loop. Or maybe it's something to do with their eugenics program. I shiver and check bearings against my wisdom map, cached in the back of my head.

  I'm about half a kilometre away from the rendezvous when I hear footsteps behind me. Shit, I think, flexing my fingers around my knife. I glance at the buildings to either side, but they're dark and cold and vacant, like bones in an ancient catacomb. I shiver and increase my pace, hunch over slightly, try to thin myself to a shadow: like a little woman, afraid, knows she shouldn't be out like this, where's my ID card – cunningly forged – hope it's just militia out on patrol ... in this land of mist and shadow anything can happen, as long as it's unpleasant. The footsteps follow me and I know they're not echoes because they don't vary in speed. They're steady, purposeful – and there are too many of them. Shit! I risk a blip of EM from my knife, trying to get a lock. Yeah, there's somebody behind me. One or two people, radar's lousy at low-res – I see it on the back of my right eye.

  “Hey! Stop!” My guts freeze in an instant at the call. It takes everything I've got to force myself to stop, even though I figure I can't outrun them. I turn round, see them properly for the first time. Two men, taller than me, boots split at the sole, trousers filthy, coats half-open though the night is cold. Moustaches, stubbly beards, short hair, cold eyes. One of them smiles. “Where are you going at this time of night, lady? Isn't it a bit ... late?”

  I let my gaze slide past their faces as they approach, no direct challenge, my heart hammering at my ribs to be let out, the knife buzzing and clicking like an angry wasp in my left hand. They look like bums but who can tell? Deserters or police, anything is possible in this wartime anarchy. They may even be regular army or Stasis, in which case I'm in trouble. “I don't have far to go,” I say, pitching my voice low and even. “And I'm not looking for company.”

  “No?” says the one who's doing the talking: “but you never know who you might meet on a dark night! This is a lawless time, little one. You shouldn't be out like this, your man wouldn't like it if he found out, would he?”

  Now I stare at him. “Leave me alone or you'll be – “ sorry I mean to say, but his companion lunges forward and grabs me clumsily. He's big and I'm not expecting it so suddenly and he knocks the breath out of me: moments later we're rolling on the ground and the scumbag is on top of me with one knee as far between my legs as he can get it, pinning me down. Shit! My left arm is trapped. He rubs his mouth against me, gnawing at my jaw with a stink of sour saliva and beer and decaying meat on his breath, skin like sandpaper. I'm half stunned because my left arm is killing me and there's a brick behind my right ear that nearly brained me; but as the thug reaches down to yank up my skirt he lifts off my left side and I manage to get my hand free.

  “Easy, Pyotr! Be careful you big oaf, don't damage her!”

  It's his companion, coming close and leaning over as I feel a rough, hand grope up my legs, yank down my woollen tights – grabbing and pawing for my groin and I can smell his stale sweat and hatred and if he gets me disarmed I am going to be dog food by tomorrow ... I moan softly, feigning desperation, and he leans in over me.

  “What – “ he grunts.

  I bite his ear. I pull and pull, until it comes off. It tastes of stale sweat. A shower of metal-hot blood spatters all over my face and he howls like a dog. Everything goes red and my eyes burn. I bring my left hand up and open-palm him with the knife. It sits between my fingers and whines like a circular saw, dicing and spitting: my hand is suddenly slippery with gore, blood and splinters of bone. He convulses across me and his hand slides down between my thighs and I feel wet stickiness across my legs. “What's happening Pyotr? Hey!”

  Shit! The corpse is a dead weight on top of me; no, not dead, still thrashing ... something like a steel bar whacks me in the side and I completely lose my breath. There's a crunch – dead Pyotr took most of the blow – “ you bitch!” screeches his friend. He sounds like my uncle. He's dancing around in a frenzy of rage and frustration and kicking at me – I roll sideways, still unable to breathe for the crushing pain in my ribs, and the corpse takes the next blow. Then I'm out from under and crouched around my burning lungs – “ you're gonna die, bitch, and then I'm going to fuck holes in you – “ trying to get air in and track; blood in my eyes so as I straighten up I rub my brow and weep tears of red and see:

  Heatspoor. Footsteps echoing behind a wall. I can hear his livid breathing as he waits, the coward, waiting for me to make a move. So he can lob a half-brick at me, or a knife. My ribs are on fire, the inside of one leg is scratched, my tights are yanked halfway down to my ankles and my outer garments are torn. Shit. And I'm covered in blood: trouble ...

  I'm on the other side of the wall without blinking, without knowing how I got to be there. I guess he doesn't hear me because he's too used to listening to the sound of his own mouth to pay attention to the silence. Listen to the quiet woman. I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never learn. I'm angry as hell, now. I want to scream curses at the moon. I want to hold his severed head up in front of crowds. I want to have him on the rack and turn the wheels! I am so angry I stop breathing and wait, cold as any snake and twice as vicious, for him to stir –

  There's a rustle behind the wall. I drop to my knees as he stands up, a shadow looming over the top, carefully looking about, then down as I stand up and bring my right hand up into his face. He tries to block and flails at me and his fingers go straight into my left hand, which is ready and waiting. The knife buzzes softly and a spray of red blocks out his face as he howls. “ Owwooo – “ I swing my hand again, and the knife screeches as it hits his skull and lays him out.

  I blink, stand upright, and look at what's left of him lying across the top of the wall. Then I'm not standing up any more. Even though I haven't eaten for a day my stomach is trying to heave itself out through my mouth. I have just enough self-control to switch off my knife and wipe it on the back of his shirt before I stick it in my coat pocket. Then I turn round and begin to walk as fast as I can, pausing to yank up my clothes, then scuttle across the waste land, darting from shadow to shadow like a crazed madwoman. Fear and loathing boil in me like some kind of nauseating stew and I crank up on adrenalin and switch my limbic system to speed. It feels like my skull's going to explode; I'm walking through a forest inhabited by ghouls, zombie rapists lurking in every shadow – I've had bad times before but this is seriously evil, I know they're on my shadow and if I stop they'll rape me and once inside me they'll grow steel spikes and rip me apart piece by screaming piece. I am a killer; I am a refugee. They didn't even let me try to talk! Shit. You talk to them they're supposed to respond, not act like you're a lump of meat on legs. What kind of shit-hole is this? Blood on my dress, my face, my hair, my coat. It's pretty obvious what I am: I'd better find my own damned kind before dawn, or I'm in deep trouble. The Stasi have camps for females who they figure they can use. It's a kind of destructive labour I try not to think about. Those pigs tried to rape me. Yeah, and if I'd survived that, they'd have made sure I didn't live to tell anyone ...

  These people are mad. Kill 'em all ... the superbrights will sort them out! I'm so nuts with rage and humiliation and paranoia right now that if someone handed me the trigger of a nuke I'd throw the switch on the whole civilisation. I d
art through the night and mist with my left hand locked in a death-grip around a greasy, meat-splattered knife, gore all over me like a banshee. I see nothing but death on every side. Until finally I'm coming up on the RZ and there doesn't seem to be anyone there and I hit the ground, listen to the rumble of a distant freight locomotive shuddering through the soil: raise my head, feel a target pasted between my shoulder blades, and shit, if they've gone – I risk a brief pulse across the derelict cityscape.

  BING! Someone booms back. My senses are wound so tight I nearly levitate. “Who's there?” they call quietly.

  I steel myself to reply, find my teeth chattering and my tongue numb in my mouth: “free-lance,” I hiss at the darkness.

  “Shit! Over here. What happened?” A darting presence – I risk a peek – someone half-familiar, shrouded in greatcoat and hood – “Oshi!”

  “I was jumped on the way in. No follow-up. Help me – “ I stand up. The woman leans against me, supporting: she's got muscles like steel under all that clothing. I sag.

  “What happened?” she demands tensely. Eri, I realise.

  “Two men. Jumped me. Dead. I was too slow. Get me –”

  “This way.” And we're moving, and then there's a vehicle with canvas sides and I'm lying on the floor and it's shaking and rattling and everything is very confused because my endocrine boosters just shut down and I've been running on raw overload for hours. “Injured?” she asks.

  “No. Oh – shit.” She's holding my hand. A light gleams down at me. “ Holy fuck! Is that –”

  I try to smile but my face is frozen in a grimace. “Theirs,” I say. Then I close my eyes and drift away to a place where there are no mad rapists lurking in the rubble and everything is nice and friendly. Until morning.

  The debriefing; the inevitable humiliating offer. I'm staring at the wall like it's a firing squad, sitting with my hands in my lap and shaking. “Just say if you want us to aerovac you,” diMichaelis offers. (diMichaelis is the dispatcher, point officer at our field headquarters. A dangerous place to stay.) My teeth are chattering behind sealed lips. “You earned it. You won't be the first. But if you're not okay for action I don't want you holding us up, you got that? Only you can say, though, so if you want to go back up, just say ...”

  I nearly say yes there and then but something holds me back. I can smell some kind of acrid disinfectant around the house. We're in a basement; naked incandescent bulbs dangle on wires in front of a peeling paper map. They took my dress and burned it or something, I'm wearing an urban camouflage skinsuit and I sponged myself down, and if there was any hot water about I'd have had a bath. “I feel okay,” I say, letting my lips deal with the words automatically. “It's no big deal.” Oh yes it is. You've never killed anyone before, have you? Not for real. And you never thought that when it happened you'd enjoy letting the rats have it ... at least, not quite so much ... “I'll be okay. I'm just a bit shaken. Do we know who they were?”

  diMichaelis purses his lips and squints at the map. I can't figure why he doesn't use wisdom, like anyone else would. “They were here – “ he points. “That's a Revenant area. Yeah, I think you got bounced by zombies. Out for blood.”

  “Our allies ..?”

  I must look startled because he frowns and shakes his head. “They're not friendlies; we just have a common enemy. Don't forget that; you were lucky. Rev's don't rape; they like their meat warm.” His expression goes ugly. “Still and all, they're light compared to Stasi. It's their organisation that's the problem, or their lack of it. Which the Stasi make up for. Anyway. How're you feeling?”

  I stretch. My right temple throbs and my left arm feels strained. “Like shit, but I'll do. What's my case, then?”

  “Pushing ears. Your cell is Eris, Ivan and Ton Ang. Ivan is team leader. You won't see me any more ... term is four weeks clear, got that? You're going to have to pass for locals at a distance. We've got a concealed base setup in Dragulic. You've seen the heavy shit at a distance, now's your chance to get down and dirty. You pass for citizens, a Party couple and their body-servants. There's a town house we've set up and fortified for point-led ops. You get to set up the construction then wait it out until we're nice and ready, then come out and mop up to order. How's that?”

  Like shit warmed over for lunch. “Great.” Why am I doing this? Do I hate myself or something? I stand up. “Where are the others? I want to say hello.”

  diMichaelis grins. “They're upstairs. Hey, take it easy. You're going to have a week with nothing to do but look like a native ... you're not on your own any more.”

  “How many of us are there dirtside?” I blurt out, unable to stop myself.

  He looks at me oddly for a moment. “You don't need to know. If they catch you ...”

  “Ack. Sorry, shouldn't have asked –”

  diMichaelis stands up and walks over to the door, yanks it open. Wood scrapes a tearing protest against concrete. “Enough,” he says, still smiling. “Go find your team. You're moving out after lunch.”

  I go upstairs and it's peeling paper dripping off damp walls, plaster mouldering away from lathwork and bricks. No carpet, half the stairguards stripped for tinder long ago ... depressing. The RZ HQ is the shell of a mansion home, probably used as a billet some time after the revolution. Then it was ransacked and abandoned during the bombings. They only used conventional weapons, else there'd be nothing left. The electromagnetic pulse from nukes has funny effects on upload nanosystems; as this war is literally all about hearts and minds I guess that's why they refrained. I pass a man on the stairs in local drag and flinch until he smiles and points out a door on the landing above me: “you want Ivan and Eri, right? I heard about last night! Stay live.”

  I hurry past him to the door and I go in. It's bare, furnished with a yellowing air mattress and an assortment of compact lethals. Ivan rises to meet me, arms wide, and I fall against him, trying not to sob. “Missed you,” he whispers in my ear. “I was really pissed when I heard about what happened. Are you alright?” I nod. “We're all ready when you are. How about it?”

  I let go of him and step back, only to find Eri and Ton Ang hugging me. “Hey! What's up?” I ask.

  “You made it,” Ton says simply. “Some have no trouble, and some are never seen again. But you made it.” Eri just hugs me, closer than is strictly necessary.

  Ivan clears his throat. “We're moving after lunch. You want to crash out first – “ his gesture takes in the mattress. “Or check out the cache? It's all we get, apart from the main installation. The Bosses aren't allowing us to carry any real heavy shit around for fear the Stasis will figure out how to clone it.”

  “Fine.” They let go of me and I flop down in a squat on the bed. “What we got?”

  He points. “Bullet guns. caseless ammo, flechettes, grenades, smart sights. GP knives. Our camo suits. More microsensors than you can wave a stick at, but no heavy shit for now.” He shrugs. “Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Dunno about you, but I don't like the idea of going into a city we're meant to be reclaiming with a full war load. At least not until we've prepared it for mopping up.”

  I shiver. After last night ... “the animals deserve it,” I say. “Just show me the trigger!”

  “Exactly.” He looks at me oddly, just like diMichaelis did, and I chill out, uneasy, feeling distinctly strange. Like maybe he figures there's something wrong with me? Shit! Two crazed necrophiliacs tried to rape and murder me in no particular order and there's something wrong with me for getting angry? I smile sharply and he looks away. Maybe there is, I think.

  “What's our cover?” asks Ton Ang. He scratches behind one ear, idling too close to the window for comfort.

  “Um. Names are okay ... I've got ID's in the pipeline. You want me to dump wisdom to you?”

  “That would be great!” says Eri. Her eyes sparkle. She's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; nobody tried to kill her on her way to the RDV. I nod and wonder if she'll freeze when the crap hits the fan. Overt enthusiasm is not a noted s
urvival trait in this vocation.

  “Check. Dumping my wisdom –” A glissade of soundless light drifts down across my ears, behind my eyes, sheets and trails and flaring runes that tell me nothing until I try to make sense of it. “Oshi?”

  “I'm cool,” I say. Waving a hand, palm-down: “Right. So I'm ... your wife?” I blink at him. He looks pained. “So?”

  “What kind of thing is this? Chattel-slavery or something?”

  Eri glances up at the ceiling, pointedly whistles between her teeth. “Watcha, Oshi. You trying to spoof our cover or what?”

  “No. Why?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Their eugenics program is fucked, that's for starters. There are three men for every two women and the ratio would be worse if sex determination was legal instead of only a black market. This is the safest squad-sized cover story Intelligence could figure –”

  “Shit –”

  “– like we go in as a 'respectable' administrator, his chattel, and two indentured servants.”

  I stand up: “where does this shit come from? I demand to know!”

  Eri walks up behind me, puts her arms round my waist, and leans her chin on my shoulder. “What was it like where you grew up?” she asks quietly.

  “I don't know! I was a blind beggar – “ I stop. They're looking at me oddly. I can feel Eri's hips poking into my buttocks, closer than I'm comfortable with. Ivan looks miserable, Ton Ang looks as if he doesn't want to know. So I never got to worry about it, I don't bother finishing.

  “So it's a shitty situation,” I say, shrugging. “Tell me something new.”

  The atmosphere loosens up a little. “We dress up and move out in an hour. There's a freighter, then we take the train to Dragulic. Get a cab to the house, sweep for squealers, and hole up. Our outside exposure is about four hours total, got that? After which we do whatever comes naturally.”