by Dan Wells
They followed him in, replacing the makeshift door behind them, and Marisa felt her uneasiness building, slowly but relentlessly. A tall man emerged from around the first corner of the tunnel, his arms replaced by bionic limbs so large they might have been taken off of pile drivers.
“Raña,” said the guard, “what the hell, man?”
“Chuy’s sister,” said Raña, and held up his Wi-Fi scanner. “They’re clean.”
The man grunted, and crossed his giant piston arms in grudging acceptance. “Fine,” he growled, and stepped to the side so they could pass. “Next time use the damn secret knock—why do we even have a secret knock if none of you blowholes ever use it?”
Raña led them past the guard, barely squeezing through the space between the wall and his bionic arms. Marisa came through last, and held her own prosthetic up in a fist of solidarity. He tapped it with his own fist, a metal monstrosity the size of a toaster oven, and the force of it reverberated through her entire skeleton.
It occurred to Marisa that they’d made her give up her djinni, but hadn’t even asked about her gun. They were more worried about a digital footprint than a bullet. The thought made her shiver.
The tunnel was short, and after just a few meters turned another curve and opened into a wide, sloped parking garage, lit by fluorescent tubes and filled with pipes and makeshift walls and so many more people than Marisa expected. It was an entire community, complete with homes and market stalls, with each room or home or store separated by rugs and blankets hanging from wires. She smelled grease frying, and saw a man with an old metal barrel set up on cinder blocks, with a bright blue flame burning below it; a hose snaked out from the burner to a propane tank, and the man stirred the barrel with a two-by-four.
“Fried rat?” asked Bao.
“Crickets,” said Raña.
“Just like home,” said Bao. But his home had never spooked Marisa the way this one did. An entire hidden community, closed off and secret.
“So no one here has a djinni?” she asked Raña. He led them down the ramp, and then circled to the left and went down another level.
“No one,” said Raña. “Or if they do, they have them turned off.”
“I’ve wondered about this,” said Bao. “Or this kind of thing, at least. It’s really the only way to keep a criminal organization secret.”
A group of children ran by, shouting and chasing a dirty gray ball.
“Criminals?” asked Marisa.
“You know what I mean.”
Raña led them to the very bottom of the parking garage, down where the ad hoc city gave way to an ad hoc arsenal: here they saw not the families of La Sesenta but the gangsters themselves, along with motorcycles and racks of guns and large wooden crates that contained things Marisa could only guess at. In the center of the last open space, someone had made a room of translucent plastic sheets, which glowed a pale blue from the powerful lights inside of it. Power cables snaked in under the makeshift walls, and vague silhouettes of people and equipment moved slowly inside.
“What’s that?” whispered Marisa.
“Surgery,” said Raña. “La Sesenta has their own private djinni extractor.”
“Marisa!” The shout echoed through the cement space, and Marisa recognized Chuy’s voice. She turned, trying to spot him in the gloom, and saw him waving from the far corner. A group of men sat behind him in mismatched chairs, watching her; none of them looked particularly pleased to see outsiders.
“Hombre Araña,” said another voice, and as they drew closer Marisa recognized the speaker as Calaca, one of the highest-ranking gangsters in the group, instantly recognizable as he was completely covered with tattoos—his entire face bore the image of a skull. He was short and powerful, not muscle-bound but twisted tight with brutal energy. He looked like a demon, which only made his calm and measured tone all the more threatening. He approached Raña until he was no more than a few centimeters from his face. “Am I to understand that you, in whatever passes for wisdom in whatever passes for your mind, saw fit to bring not one but two strangers into what I feel I must remind you is a secret hideout?”
“This is Chuy’s sister, güey.” Raña arrived at the circle and stepped in without hesitation, holding up his hand for Calaca to slap or embrace or otherwise acknowledge and welcome him. Calaca kept his arms at his sides, leaning against a folding metal table.
“You say that,” said Calaca, “as if it provided some form of explanation or excuse for your behavior.”
“Déjalo,” said a deep voice, and Marisa knew that this must be Memo—the leader of La Sesenta, and the brother of their former leader, Goyo. Memo wasn’t nearly as frightening as Goyo had been—and not as frightening as Calaca was now—but he had an obvious, easy authority, and the rest of the group was arrayed around him like a satellite dish. He had a stark white bandage on the back of his head, held on with fiber tape. He shook his head at Raña and finished his thought: “It’s like arguing with a cat.” Calaca frowned but stayed silent. Memo pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and handed it to Raña. “Gracias, carnal. Nos vemos en la próxima, eh?” Raña nodded and left, and Memo looked back at Marisa and Bao—and at Chuy, who stood beside them. “This is your sister?”
“The oldest one, yeah,” said Chuy. “She’s the one who helped us out with that Bluescreen thing.”
Memo fixed Marisa with a stare, and she felt like a cockroach pinned to a board.
“My brother died in that thing,” said Memo, and Marisa felt her heart leap into her throat. Memo stared at her a moment, letting the tension build, then nodded slowly. “Without you I think I would have died, too. A lot of us, maybe. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” said Marisa. She didn’t know what else to say, so she jerked a thumb toward Bao. “This is Bao.”
“I’m not important,” said Bao quickly. “Feel free to ignore me completely.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” said Chuy. “It’s dangerous, for you and for us.”
“That,” said Calaca, “is an impressive grasp of the truth, from which your sister would be wise to learn.”
“We’re here to warn you,” said Marisa, realizing in this moment that, in spite of her promise to Detective Hendel, she could not bring herself to betray her own brother. “The cops are looking for you.”
Calaca laughed. “They are? Then we should do something about that, like maybe . . . I don’t know, hiding ourselves in an underground bunker completely cut off from all digital signals. Dios en vivo, Chuy, I’m so glad your sister’s here to save us from our foolishness.”
“And I’m here to ask you—” said Marisa, though she immediately regretted it, and didn’t have the heart to finish her sentence with the full underworld leadership of La Sesenta staring at her.
“Ask us what?” said Chuy.
“I, um . . .” She paused, and looked back at the glowing plastic enclosure, finally understanding what it was. A surgery tent. She thought about the chop shop and her throat dried up completely.
A panel in the wall of the surgery tent moved, and a man emerged in a white apron stained red with blood. He walked toward them, carrying a bowl, and entered the circle of gangsters without any thought to what they had been talking about. He set the bowl on Calaca’s folding table; Marisa tried to see what was in it but could discern only the wet glint of bloody wires.
“That makes seven today,” said the doctor. “I can do one more with the resources I have here, maybe two, but I wouldn’t have enough anesthetic for either of them.”
“We’ll wait,” said Memo, reflexively touching the bandage on his own head. “Calaca, get a list of what he needs for next time, and we’ll put it together.”
Marisa couldn’t help but notice that the fetch order was given to Calaca; the doctor wasn’t part of La Sesenta, but he held a lot of power in the group.
“This is Dr. Jones,” said Chuy. “He’s helping us free ourselves.”
“From whom?”
“From ever
yone,” said Dr. Jones, looking at her with unsettling intensity. “From the vast web of software and commerce and propaganda that you have invited inside of your skull. I am disinviting it.” He looked at Memo. “New recruits?”
“Chuy’s sister,” said Memo, “and her boyfriend.” Marisa didn’t dare to correct him.
“Good,” said the doctor. “The fewer golems, the better.”
“Excuse me?” said Marisa. Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden fear that gripped her, and her leg started trembling, but her anger was hotter. She raised her metal arm, showing him the back of her hand and splaying her cybernetic fingers. “That’s not a very nice word.”
“Esa muchacha,” muttered one of the gangsters, but Marisa couldn’t tell if he was calling her out for bravery or stupidity. Or maybe both.
“And what,” said Dr. Jones slowly, “am I supposed to call a golem, other than a golem? Or is it not true? Is that a real human hand merely disguised as a borg hand? Some sort of sick joke?”
Marisa bristled. “Dímelo otra vez, culo.”
“Easy,” said Memo. “We pay the doctor for his services, not his principles.”
“He has principles?” asked Marisa.
“Transhumanism is a plague,” said Dr. Jones calmly. “But as sins go it’s one of the easiest to repent of.”
“Stop talking,” snarled Marisa.
“Better damaged than corrupted,” said the doctor.
“Thank you for your services,” said Memo, ending the argument with a growl of authority. “We’ll have more supplies tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you out,” said one of the gangsters, and gestured respectfully for the doctor to precede him. Jones shot one last look at Marisa, then at Memo, then walked away. The gangster followed.
Marisa watched him go, then glanced at Chuy. He kept his eyes on the floor, not meeting her gaze.
“He’s from the Foundation,” said Marisa, guessing out loud. They were the most active anticybernetic group in LA. She turned back to Memo. “You’re working with a human supremacist from a terrorist organization.”
Memo answered calmly. “Freelance surgeons are hard to find.”
“He called me a golem,” Marisa snapped.
“And I’m sorry about that,” said Memo, and his hand moved again to the bandage on the back of his head. “Look: if we all still had djinnis, the cops would already be here—they’re useful, but they’ve become too much of a liability. Even people who still have them can’t ever turn them on, or they’d be zapped and tied by a police nuli before they got to the end of the block. Djinnis threaten our entire community here—all our families, which includes some of your family. We don’t agree with everything that zealot doctor spouts, and frankly I think he’s a madman, but he’s one of the few people I could find who has the skills that we need and the willingness to perform them, and he’s my guest here. Don’t forget that you’re a guest here, too.”
“Chuy?” said Marisa, but he didn’t answer.
“Chuy’s a bigger dog than he used to be,” said Calaca, “but he’s still a dog. And dogs have collars and leashes to keep them in line.” He planted himself in front of Marisa and spread his arms wide. “He works with us, and he lives with us, and out of respect for that loyalty we tolerate your presence here. Disrupt that loyalty and you are infringing on your own safety.”
Marisa held Calaca’s gaze just long enough to show she wasn’t afraid of him—though in truth she was terrified, and had to clench her jaw tightly closed to keep it from shaking—and then turned slowly to look at Chuy. “So I guess now there are two reasons why you aren’t answering my calls. You don’t have a djinni, and you have a new family anyway.”
“It’s not a replacement,” said Chuy. “La familia está sagrada.” He licked his lips nervously, his eyes darting over her shoulders toward Memo or Calaca and then back to her. “And I still have my djinni—for now. I haven’t turned it on because I haven’t left the complex since yesterday.”
“Not since you cut a woman’s hand off,” said Marisa, her fear turning to fury now that she was talking to someone she knew well. She regretted the words even as she said them, but it was too late to take them back.
“How much do you know?” asked Calaca.
Marisa shot him a quick glance; he was tense but no angrier than usual. “You were in a shootout with a chop shop in South Central. There’s camera footage. They found a severed hand at the scene, but there were no positive IDs. The cops can’t find you anywhere, which is why they questioned me.”
Calaca’s face clouded. “You’re talking to the cops?”
“That was literally the first thing she said when she came in here,” said Bao. “We’re here to warn you, not turn you in.” Marisa put a hand on his arm and squeezed it gratefully.
“What’s this about a hand?” asked Chuy. “We shot up some cabrones there, but we didn’t cut anyone, let alone cut something off.”
“It was a woman’s left hand,” said Marisa, calming herself with a deep breath. “And I know you didn’t do it, because they said it had been on ice.” She looked at Chuy, locking their gazes together. “The hand belonged to Zenaida de Maldonado.”
Chuy’s jaw fell open. “Eitale.”
“Relative of Don Francisco?” asked Memo.
“His wife,” said Chuy.
“His wife’s dead,” said Calaca.
“Maybe,” said Marisa. “But she was alive two days ago at the earliest.”
“Where’s she been for fifteen years?” asked Memo.
Bao shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“How she’d die?”
“We don’t know,” said Marisa. “We were hoping you could tell us.”
“We didn’t kill her,” said Chuy.
“One of the chop shop guys had a case,” said Calaca. “Like a cooler. Maybe he was carrying merchandise.”
“Just say body parts,” said Chuy. “It makes you sound less like a sociopath.”
Marisa kept her face solemn but marveled at the sudden jab. Chuy might have been subservient to Memo, but apparently he could stand up to Calaca when he felt like it.
Marisa summoned her courage and looked at Memo. “What happened between you and the chop shop?”
“It’s a turf war,” said Memo.
“It’s none of your business,” said Calaca, and glared at Memo. “Sister or not, she’s still an outsider.”
“Just tell me you’re not starting a chop shop of your own,” said Marisa. She looked at the medical tent, standing like a ghostly blue cube in the center of the dark cavern.
“Of course we’re not,” said Chuy, but he didn’t say any more, and Memo and Calaca didn’t appear to be offering any new info either.
“Look,” said Bao, breaking the silence. “Your affairs are your own. We don’t want to get in the way, and we’re definitely not going to talk to the police. But if you know anything about Zenaida de Maldonado and how her hand showed up at that scene—”
“She was killed and harvested by the chop shop,” said Calaca. “Surely that’s the only reasonable explanation.”
“We don’t know anything about her,” said Memo. “But it looks like our goals are aligned, at least for a little while. We need to find the leaders of that chop shop, and if you want to find out what happened to Zenaida, it looks like you do, too.”
“No,” said Marisa, “we definitely don’t want to find the chop shop.”
“I snagged a bunch of IDs at the shootout,” said Memo, ignoring her protest. “What I don’t have are the hacking skills to track them down.”
Chuy looked at Marisa. “You do.”
“Maybe,” said Marisa warily. “But I don’t know how comfortable I am with tracking down gente for you to murder.”
“They kidnap and dismember innocent people for money,” said Memo.
“Good point,” said Marisa. She nodded. “Okay.” She jerked her chin toward the bandage on Memo’s head. “If you don’t have a djinni, how do you
have the IDs?”
Memo smiled. “Oh, I have a djinni. It’s just not in my head at the moment. Chuy.”
Her brother walked to the edge of the circle, took something from a box just beyond the shadows, and handed it to Marisa. It was a sealed plastic container, like the kind you’d use for leftovers in the fridge, and a strip of tape on the lid read simply “Memo.” Inside was a pile of ceramic and circuits and wires, dripping with semi-congealed blood.
“Be careful with that,” said Memo. “It’s my brain.”
FIVE
Marisa grimaced. “I am not comfortable holding a gangster’s brain.”
“You’re not technically holding it,” said Fang. “You’re in virtual reality.”
Marisa stared at her across the planning table in the Cherry Dog lobby. “Ha. Ha.”
“You have to be super careful with it,” said Jaya.
“Hang on,” said Marisa, “I’m not done.” She looked back at Fang. “Ha.” She looked at Jaya. “Okay, I’m done now.”
Sahara gestured at the virtual model of the extracted djinni that sat on their table. Marisa hadn’t modeled the blood on it, so it was pristine and glittering, like a pale ceramic star. “I can’t believe you agreed to this. I should have gone with you.”
“He insisted,” said Marisa. “He said even if he had the skills to extract the data inside, he didn’t have the equipment to do it, or anything with an internet connection to put it to use.”
“They trusted you not to lose it?” asked Jaya.
“They threatened my entire family if I did,” said Marisa. “So yeah, I’m protecting the ever-loving hell out of it.”
“This is amazing,” said Anja. “A gang lord’s digital brain—I mean, the saved passwords to online accounts are one thing, but even just the photos have got to be amazing. The notepad. The GPS archive!”
“Don’t touch anything he doesn’t want you to touch,” said Sahara. “She literally just said he threatened her life.”
“It’s like a bomb,” said Marisa, staring at the delicate construct. “I don’t even want to touch it.”